Happy 1 week anniversary to the The Dream Show 3 in Manila ✨ Had a fair share of "BOYS AT SCHOOL NEVER LOOK AT ME" pov edition.
Still a LeleHyuck bias (Jeno's on my 3rd ranking now). Hope to see 7dream on TDS4 🙏
let's talk about Bridgerton tea, my ask is open

Love Begins
RMH
d e v o n
Mike Driver
art blog(derogatory)
wallacepolsom
cherry valley forever
Peter Solarz
Stranger Things
TVSTRANGERTHINGS
Keni
trying on a metaphor
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Jules of Nature

JBB: An Artblog!
DEAR READER
Lint Roller? I Barely Know Her
Acquired Stardust

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seen from South Korea

seen from T1
seen from Pakistan

seen from United States

seen from Mexico
seen from United States
seen from Germany

seen from Malaysia
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seen from United States

seen from Hong Kong SAR China
seen from United States
seen from T1

seen from United States

seen from Switzerland
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seen from Argentina
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seen from Malaysia

seen from South Korea
@sunkistlhc
Happy 1 week anniversary to the The Dream Show 3 in Manila ✨ Had a fair share of "BOYS AT SCHOOL NEVER LOOK AT ME" pov edition.
Still a LeleHyuck bias (Jeno's on my 3rd ranking now). Hope to see 7dream on TDS4 🙏
INSATIABLE ✶ jeong jaehyun
SYNOPSIS: "can't close my eyes when i'm with you — insatiable, the way i'm loving you."
after promising you eternity by his side, jaehyun suddenly disappears — leaving you behind, lost and alone. you wander around, spending centuries looking for him, fuelled by the love you carry for him, or maybe is it just for... revenge?
PAIRING: vampire!jaehyun x vampire!reader
GENRE: smut, angst, lovers to enemies!au, historical! & modern!au
WORD COUNT: 21.3k
FEATURING: nct 127, new jeans's minji
CONTAINS: afab reader, a bit of gore, mentions of tragedies and deaths, minor character deaths. orphan reader, mentions of wealth. pandemics and diseases, historical content combined with modern content, many flashback scenes. schumann's fantasie op 17 (which i highly recommend listening to), unprotected penetrative sex, nipple play, biting, bulge kink, feet, blood (trust the process!), dry humping, riding, creampie. some historical accuracies (dates), physical altercation. inspired by insatiable by darren hayes.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: i love this fic so much my heart literally hurts! also, listen — i know romantic things didn't go this way in the 1800's, but for the sake of the plot we'll have to overlook a bit of the inaccuracies <3 thank you to everyone who waited patiently for this fic to drop, i love all of you and i hope you enjoy reading it! <3
©️ KONGJJEN 2024 - 2025. all rights reserved. do not copy, translate or repost any of my works.
You’ll never forget the day you woke up in bed, your heart clenching in your chest without an apparent reason. You’ll never forget the way you walked your way out of your chambers with uncertain steps, curious yet fearful of finding out something you weren’t sure you wanted to find out.
You’ll never forget the way your stomach dropped the moment you checked Jaehyun’s chambers looking for him, and not finding him there. Because you felt like something was wrong, but you never thought Jaehyun would disappear like the earth split and swallowed him whole, leaving no trace of his existence up to that point.
You wanted to tell Jaehyun about the feeling you woke up with, looking for his loving reassurance that it was all in your head, or just one of your usual hunches you usually got even before you were given a reason to have one in the first place. It was like a premonition, a gut feeling so strong that you wondered what was going to happen during said day, — that you still had no idea about but you knew something was going to pop up.
And Jaehyun was nowhere to be found. With the curtains open, the gloomy light from outside bathed the room in greyness, no ray of sunshine in sight on the white sky, so concomitant with the turmoil inside your head, stomach, inside of every fibre of your being.
You looked around his chambers, trying to see if it was all in your head. But seeing how his stateroom trunk wasn’t in the far corner of the room, seeing how his shirts and leather shoes were missing, some of his books were nowhere to be found — you knew that it was not in your head.
Your feet were quick to take you downstairs before you could even register what you were doing. You were still in your night gown as you entered the kitchen, where you found your female maids preparing breakfast, and they all shuddered as your hurried entrance took them by surprise.
“Norma,” you called your senior maid, the most loyal woman in your service, “Did you see Master Jaehyun?” Your tone was fearful, worried, and it trembled with emotion.
You saw Norma straightening her posture, putting her wooden spoon down, “I haven’t, Mistress,”
You looked around the kitchen, not knowing what needed to be done next, or who you needed to talk to.
“But I can talk to Jeger, to see if he knows anything,” she offered, drying her hands on a cloth found around on the counters.
“Please do,” you instructed, leaving the kitchen to go back to your chambers upstairs.
How and when during the night did Jaehyun manage to get out of a house full of people? The servants in their respective chambers, the handyman’s own room downstairs by the foot of the stairs, the old wooden floors and stairs creaking even when the wind blew a bit more forcefully, so you wondered just how did he manage to walk around unnoticed. But most importantly, why did he leave?
You knew who Jaehyun was — most importantly, what he was, — and it took you months of convincing him to turn you into one as well. You remember how adamant he was at the time, so much that every time you insisted on it, it lead to a fight. “You’re too young,” and “You still need time to live,” were his excuses. Excuses that had you moaning at him and that ended with you picking up a fight with him every single time, of course.
“Tell me one good reason why not?” You barked at him, moving your hands around yourself, making your gown’s pliers shift with your gestures.
Jaehyun looked at you, and you could see you were exasperating him. With his jaw set, he took his sweet time to calm himself before he opened his mouth to give you an answer.
That’s how you knew he was trying to maintain his composure with you. He always took too long before answering every single time you asked him something that made him uncomfortable or that was pushing his buttons.
“You need to live, Y/n,” he explained, combing a hand through his hair. “To live more, that is,” he corrected himself, avoiding your gaze.
You scoffed, “What makes you think I won’t be living if you transform me?” You asked him, your voice not above a whisper.
“Please, Y/n,” he pleaded, closing his eyes. “I love you, I really do,” he started, like this should have been enough of an answer for you to drop it, “And you’ll live if I transform you, but you won’t be alive,” he tried to make you come to reason, “I need you to stop asking for this. If I ever feel like it’s a good idea, you will know it,” and with that, he exited the dining room, stairs creaking under his heavy steps.
Jaehyun was not one for confrontation. He liked peace, he liked silence. Maybe it was because of his overly sharp senses, but he knew everything going on, he heard whispers and rustling, he smelled a person from metres away, he smelled disease before people registered something was wrong.
He was lonely, he found his own peace by being in a luxurious manor house, with a few people around to help him with all the chores and matters around the property.
Norma, the most amazing and loyal woman you have ever met. She was loyal to Jaehyun at first, and consequently to you as well, once you moved in. She took care of the house, of every other woman in your service, disciplining and training them to accommodate with the requirements of her precious Master Jaehyun.
Jaehyun was a good person, he never denigrated anyone in his service, but he liked things a certain way, and Norma was the only person around the house to really understand Jaehyun without him having to tell her anything. A slouched back meant that Master Jaehyun’s muscles hurt, furrowed brows meant he needed time alone in his library, talkative Master Jaehyun meant he was at peace with a decision he had taken.
She was what Jaehyun already started to consider as family, he could lift a finger for her to notice and she would understand in a heartbeat what his message for her was, bring me my shoes, or get me a cup of tea, tell Jeger to get the horses ready. She loved Jaehyun as if he were her own child, she dedicated her life to be in his service, and she never imagined herself in any other household, for the only family she was going to service was Master Jaehyun’s, for as long as he was going to allow her.
Then there was Jeger, his handyman and the only other male around Jaehyun’s estate, he took care of all the handy work around the house and garden, on top of managing the horse stables outside. He was a calm man, he wouldn’t speak unless asked something, but in his silent state he knew everything going on around, he heard the gossip first, he knew what had happened around town way before word got to the very well trained ears of the ladies.
He reminded you of Jaehyun, with his peaceful and unbothered personality and you still remember how you closed the door to Jaehyun’s library after yourself, your back touching the cold wooden door as you looked at him setting his fountain pen down, looking at you with curious eyes in the dim lighting around the room. He smiled at you, like he knew you would ask him a silly question, one dimple on display as he nodded your way, and you relaxed a bit knowing he was paying attention to you.
“Is Jeger…” you started, and Jaehyun’s gaze didn’t give anything away, prompting you to go on, expression still as relaxed as before. You gulped, looking around the room, suddenly too aware of your surroundings, “Like you?” You whispered, and you remember thinking at that time, that Jaehyun had only been able to hear your question thanks to his sharp hearing.
He snorted, shaking his head, and you knew he had the ‘silly girl’ remark on the tip of his tongue. He usually called you this whenever your very rested mind came up with theories and all sorts of questions — which you pestered him with. He admired how driven you were, how interested you were about everything he was, everything surrounding him and his real self.
“No,” his answer was simple, curt, cut to the chase. His smile was warm, despite the shiver sent down your spine as you watched him leaning back, more comfortably in his chair.
He pushed his chair back and away from his desk, manspreading as he extended an arm towards you — and you knew he was inviting you into his embrace.
Your steps were calculated, careful, and you moved gracefully around his sitting figure, folding the pliers of your dress so you could take a comfortable seat on his lap.
“Why would you think that?” His tone was low, but still gentle, because that’s how Jaehyun was — a gentle soul with a darkness no one could ever find out about. Your gaze met his, his dark irises sparkling even in the dim lighting of the room, as he looked at you.
“He fits the criteria,” you whispered back, sliding your arms around his neck to embrace his figure better.
“The criteria?” He laughed, nose scrunching up as he shook with a silent laughter, and you felt silly once again.
“I don’t know, it’s just-” you started, looking around the dimly lit room, “Doesn’t really matter,” you changed your mind, not wanting to let him inside your mind — at least not right now.
Jaehyun could do a lot of things. He could smell someone very far away from him, he could tell health from disease, he could hear the steps of people walking outside the gates of his mansion — and their heartbeats, — he could hear the foxes laughing in the neighbouring mansion’s bushes. But he couldn’t read minds, or hear thoughts, and you were always grateful for this.
Because you knew that it would have driven him insane if he got a preview of your thoughts and the million questions lingering inside your mind every time you looked at him. And you also knew that it was for the best, because knowing that someone could be inside your head, uninvited? It made you shudder in horror.
Jaehyun’s cold touch lingered on your face, playing with a strand of your long hair.
“Are you cold?” He inquired, voice barely above a whisper, and he looked at your luscious locks between his fingers. “Go tell Jeger to take care of the fire in your chambers, you need to stay warm,” he instructed, and you did exactly as he said.
Jaehyun could never feel the cold, he let you know when you were freezing — teeth chattering and goosebumps all over your body, and he was absolutely fine. This was one of the downsides of being like this, he had to be very aware of everyone around himself, paying attention to their body language to see if they were cold or not — because otherwise he wasn’t able to really tell, and it could give him away, or at least it was going to raise some question marks.
And another thing you noticed before he turned you was that the room got cooler the moment he stepped in. Fires burning in almost all chambers, yet his presence was still making everyone shiver slightly, but only for a bit, their bodies accommodating to the feeling immediately, unsuspecting that their Master Jaehyun was some sort of dark creature many thought to be fictitious — or extinct.
Jaehyun could be sleeping close to a fire yet his flesh remained pale and freezing. His freezing touch woke you up every single time he caressed you when he spent the night in your chambers, but you learnt to live with it, especially after dropping the whole trying to convince him to turn you into a vampire as well.
Jaehyun didn’t need much sleep. Even when your exhausted self hit the comfortable bed, he would simply lay next to you, quiet as ever as he spent the entire nights watching over your sleeping figure. He usually slept on alternate days, making everyone around the house think that he was ill, with Norma taking extra care of him — and him nibbling on her food like usual. But you knew. You knew his nibbling wasn’t because he got sated easily, he craved something else, something to really calm his appetite down.
He watched you while you ate, and his heart felt content. He missed the way food felt inside his body, inside his stomach, — how the winters brought him an appetite for meat, yet fruits always tickled his tastebuds during summers. He craved it, he was yearning to be able to feel the joys of being alive at least once again, and looking at you doing all the things he couldn’t do anymore, it brought him joy. He was living through you.
And during that terrible morning, you were left suffocating as you stood at the foot of your canopy bed, your mind kept wandering to the past to try and find an answer to your unanswered questions — looking for anything, a hint that might have led up to this moment, up to Jaehyun leaving you behind like he tore your chest open and took your own being along with him.
Your night gown floated around your figure as you took rapid steps down the stairs once again, this time going to the only other chamber Jaehyun had ever claimed to be his sacred space, his library. Jaehyun might have relished into silence and unspoken words and agreements between the two of you, but you knew he had left something behind for you to find.
With Norma nowhere to be seen, somewhere outside with Jeger, you entered the library, and the first surface you checked out was his desk. Books scattered around, his favourite feather pens placed neatly next to each other on the side of the desk, exactly how he liked keeping them. No item was really misplaced, nothing that could be giving away a reason for his leaving.
Yet your eyes skipped to the small drawer under the desk, that was now ajar, and you pulled on it to have full access to its contents.
And like something was making your freezing body suddenly heat up, although impossible, your eyes landed on a piece of rag paper, on which Jaehyun’s pretty and neat handwriting was scribbled down. Your hands trembled as you reached for the letter, and your breath hitched in your throat as you read the first line.
“My dearest Y/n.
The fountain pen feels heavy in my hand, and the ink staining my skin burns through every fibre of my flesh as I write you this — only a minuscule part of all the unspoken words I have never told you, a minuscule part of what I would be dying to let you know, if that was physically possible. Although I cannot feel it, I am certain my heart feels heavy right now, and I would love to be able to feel this one more time, including the consuming love I carry for you. You, through whom I have lived for so long up until this point.” Your eyes were brimming with tears, yet you paid them no attention, and your patience started running thin — with every fibre of your being itching to latch onto every single word of his.
“My love for you cannot be sated, for you have always been my sole priority and desire, and being with you has always felt like the life that was once stolen away from me has returned back to me. Whenever you breathed, my lungs did too, whenever you slept next to me, my mind rested as well. The candy sweetness scent of you — it bathes my skin, I’m stained in you — for every time you showed me love, I felt alive once more, for sure. I am leaving you behind today, but not our love, for I am certain that we will find each other some day, again. With the hope of seeing your pulchritudinous eyes once more some day, I am leaving everything that is mine to you, as I am sure no amount of time apart can make us forget who we are and what we represent to each other. I shall wander for centuries looking for you, if it meant I would be once again feeling your ardent love, and we shall meet again if we are meant to be with each other until the end of times, the way I promised to you. I can barely close my eyes when I am with you — insatiable, the way I am loving you. And I shall not rest until we meet again.
Not sure how I will manage to be away from you for what already feels like might last an eternity, but please look for me, until we find each other again.
Forever and only yours, Master Jaehyun.”
Your lip quivered as you read his note once more, hoping to find something different, a different ending, different sentences laced with love and devotion but this time for it not to be a farewell.
You looked at his name, the detail and soft precision with which he signed his name down, and you grabbed the page, bringing it to your chest. You were short of breath, and you felt the room spinning, the words you just read finally sinking in.
A screeching shout escaped past your lips, and you fell to your knees, bending forward as you kept the page to your chest, forehead touching the wooden floor.
In the midst of all your crying and screaming, ears ringing, in the midst of all the suffering, in the midst of all your sorrow — you still heard hurried and heavy steps approaching the room you were in.
“Mistress!” You heard Norma’s voice, you acknowledged it, yet you didn’t move an inch. You heard the rustling of Norma’s skirts as she grabbed them with urgency, right before you heard a thud, someone plunging next to your aching body, and you knew Norma fell to her knees by your side.
Worried out of her mind, she grabbed you by the shoulders, lifting you up a bit, “Oh, dear heavens!” She exclaimed with horror, seeing your tears. She was making her way around the house looking for you, not knowing how to break the news to you — one of the carriages was missing and Jeger couldn’t find two horses. But judging by the room she found you in, and your state of despair, she knew you were aware of what was going on. Master Jaehyun had left.
She overlooked the red tears flowing down your pale cheeks — landing on your white night gown, staining it, — she overlooked your freezing body as she grabbed you and brought you to her chest.
“It’s okay, my child!” She consoled you, kissing your temple as you kept shaking in her arms, cries of despair still leaving you like a poor hurt animal.
And that’s exactly what you were, a creature that lost its maker, someone who you loved more than you thought was possible. You felt dead, despite who you really turned out to be thanks to Jaehyun, this was the first time you really felt death seeping through you.
Your head fell heavy on Norma’s chest, accepting her touch and love, because she had just become the only person you could rely on.
You first met Jaehyun at a soiree in your hometown, a town far away from his own.
He was dressed nicely, like a real gentleman. Dark hair on the longer side, combed through and styled with grace, he carried himself like he was the most impeccable person on earth and the most important person in that room. And he actually was.
Ladies whispered as he walked his way around, grinning and hiding their crass expressions behind expensive hand fans, — but you noticed their eyes, the vulgar way they looked at him, and then your gaze landed on him, noticing how unbothered he was, like they weren’t even there.
In all honestly, you wish you never went to that soiree. The youngest daughter of a nobleman was playing the piano in the corner, trying to show off her skills, only to have her fingers stumbling over themselves, messing the melody. You were mortified looking at her crimson cheeks while she tried to keep her calm, knowing that many pairs of eyes were on her like vultures on an agonising body right before becoming a corpse.
The sole heiress to the fortune your late parents left behind, you went to the soiree hoping to make new friends, perhaps meet the piano teacher many people talked about around town. Word travelled fast, and apparently there was a new piano teacher in town, of extremely advanced competences — fingers floated gracefully on top of the keyboards, seemingly barely touching them, sharp precision mesmerising anyone who heard the melody, and you wondered if there was truth to it — your interest was definitely piqued.
The day you lost your parents felt like a part of you died as well. You were their only child, they showered you with love, and while your mother raised you to be a great woman, your dad introduced you to the beauty of arts.
He paid the best teachers, and if the ones he found around town weren’t good enough in his eyes, he sent your household’s servants to the neighbouring towns as well, promising carriage rides and good pay to whomever satisfied his needs for a competent teacher for his daughter. Only the best teachers crossed the threshold of your house, and taught you literature, the art of painting, and music. Your talent for playing piano was described as being innate, your piano teachers quickly realised what they had on their hands, the pieces escalating quickly to the hardest ones.
You were your father’s pride and joy, and you were quite famous around town — known for your abilities in music. Piano meant the world to you, music carried you, inspired you, motivated you into hoping you would be tied to it in the future, that you would become someone whose whole being revolved around music and piano.
And when the world was ready to bow at your feet, as you had embarked on a new, staggering journey with an even more competent piano teacher, tragedy struck, ruining all your plans and your life all together.
By losing your parents, the great loves of your life at that time, you also lost your passion for music — you lost your identity, your love for the subject. Grief consumed you, and it made you give up on your talent. Burying two parents as a young woman made something shift inside of you, the cold shower of the reality of being an orphan washing over you like freezing water. You were supposed to make a name for yourself, albeit you knew it was going to be hard — but not impossible to do so; you were supposed to live life alongside your parents long enough to have your father decide whom you should have married. And it was all taken away from you.
A wrongly pressed piano key made you shudder with horror, but it was enough to take you out of your own thoughts. You found it very easy to lose yourself into the memories of the past, happier times — the ones in which your life was peaceful and orderly.
You looked around yourself, looking for the silhouette that had the whole ballroom exchanging glances, but he was nowhere to be found. Another wrongly pressed key made the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, and you knew you had to gracefully save the poor lady playing the piano.
Your steps were careful, your hand fan closed as you got closer to her silhouette in the corner of the ballroom, and you touched her back, making her jolt in her seat at the unexpected contact, interrupting her playing.
“Miss Y/L/N!” She exclaimed excited, standing to her feet. “Did you want to play?” She asked you, tone full of airy innocence as she pointed at the piano next to her.
Did you want to play? No, you actually wanted to save her from a future disastrous performance as she got deeper into the piece laid in front of her eyes.
A few people you knew well from around town started amassing around the two of you, their ears perking up at the mention of you playing the piano, but you kept your focus on the young woman in front of you.
You shook your head, smiling at her, “I actually wanted to compliment you for choosing this piece! It’s a hard one!” You complimented her, because you knew how hard the piece she chose could be for someone at her level, skills not fully developed yet. You really knew you were saving her from embarrassment, because the piece was going to become progressively more demanding, and she was already tired — yet you still hoped you didn’t come across as phoney for doing so.
“Thank you, Miss Y/L/N,” she blushed, smile slowly creeping on her face, “I aspire to be like you one day!” She whispered, averting her gaze, not knowing if the words that impulsively got past her lips were going to touch a nerve.
You smiled at her, somehow fluttered at her words. “Thank you, Lady Mirabella,” you grabbed her hands, giving them a quick squeeze as you took her shyness in.
“Miss Y/L/N!” Lady Mirabella’s father was the one calling your name, taking a few steps amidst the crowd surrounding you and his daughter, and he shook your hand in greeting. “Please play something for us! It would be an honour to have you playing Mirabella’s new piano, and it shall be auspicious to her learning!”
You looked around yourself, and then you looked at the piano. You nodded slightly, not being able to refuse the nobleman — a good friend of your father’s — and just the thought of him made you think of the piece you used to love the most.
It had been two years since your father perished, and two years since you didn’t even bother throwing a look at the piano sitting in the parlour of your mansion. You learned this piece for your father, because you knew it was a hard challenge for you to take onto, and you wanted to make him proud. You were glad that he got the chance to hear you play it a few times, at least.
You took a seat at the piano, careful with your beautiful rosy dress that complimented the pallor of your skin and the blushing of your cheeks.
Dead silence surrounded you, with everyone holding their breaths as they observed you — the town’s piano prodigy, making a comeback after years of not playing. Some were new in town, curious as ever to hear you play and see for themselves if the rumours were true, others knew what to expect safe for the piece you were going to play.
Closing your eyes and taking a big breath in, the gracious movements of your fingers lulled the melody around the room, reaching everyone’s ears and hearts.
Even as one of the hardest pieces to have been discovered in the last decade, you knew it by heart. No music sheet needed, your muscle memory was strong, and the melody transported you a few years back, imagining what life used to be like when you were at your peak with your talent — when your father sat in his armchair next to your piano in the parlour, listening to you.
The hairs on the back of your neck raised, and a freezing breeze ran through you, covering your skin in goosebumps, yet it was so brief that you blamed the emotional turmoil inside of you, caused by this melody.
You opened your eyes, gaze fixed on your working fingers, trying to remain inside your own bubble and focus on the moment. The tens of pairs of eyes that were fixing you didn’t matter, yet you felt someone’s gaze piercing your whole being.
You raised your gaze briefly, eyes pointed directly where you knew the keen pair of eyes following you with ardent curiosity were situated, and then you saw him. Jaehyun was looking at you, eyebrows slightly furrowed as he heard the melody that graced his hearing, intrigued by your technique.
But you didn’t pay attention to him any longer, your attention returning to the task at hand, and it didn’t take you much longer to know it was time to end the show. You appreciated having taken on the offer to play for a bit, but you couldn’t keep everyone busy for about half an hour to play the entire piece, and when you felt like it was a good moment to cut it off, you did.
You thanked everyone who complimented you, exchanging courtesies with everyone who approached you briefly, but you decided it was time to actually leave, sending word for your carriage to pick you up.
Wearing your matching paletot on your shoulders, you exited the hall, fingers still wrapped around your hand fan as you waited for your carriage to appear. And then you felt it again, the breeze seeping through your body for a brief moment before going away completely.
A silhouette appeared next to you, and a quick glance with the intention of greeting the gentleman next to you, and you realised he was the stranger from before, the sensational main attraction of the soiree, the very man who stared at your soul while you played.
“Are you perchance a pianist?” He asked, tone low but gentle, laced with curiosity and anticipation.
You gave him a sheepish smile, and you were sure blush was creeping up your features as you looked at the side of his face. His profile was mesmerising. Sharp jaw contouring his face, full lips tempted to let countless other questions past — and he turned his head, locking eyes with you, the pearly irises piercing into your curious ones.
“Am not,” you answered to him, turning your head to look in front of you at the empty and dark street.
“You must be,” he retorted with seriousness, yet the underlying softness in his voice made you look back at him, “That is the hardest piece of piano, not even the greatest pianists can play it fully just yet. But you seemed like you knew it perfectly,”
“I learned it a few years ago,” you explained, not sure why you were even doing so, “I have not played it in a long time,” your voice was soft, barely above a whisper, and you hated how you opened up to a complete stranger after not caring about socialising for the past few years, relishing into your loneliness.
“You are very modest for being one of the greatest pianists I have ever had the pleasure of listening to, Miss Y/L/N,” a soft smile stretched across his features, and dimples formed in the plush of his cheeks.
You threw him a look, suddenly realising just how many times the word ‘pianist’ had been thrown around in the span of a few minutes, and you remembered about the new pianist in town, and wondering who that might have been. You were sure you were laying your eyes on him in flash and bones, right that moment.
“Are you a pianist, perchance?” You were positively sure he was, but you asked out of courtesy nonetheless.
“I am, indeed,” he smiled your way, looking down at your curious self, holding his hands behind his back, “I will be Miss Mirabella’s teacher for the summer, thus I will be seeing you around,” he explained, and you found tonight’s act to be a horrifying orchestration against Mirabella. You were almost positive her father made her showcase her abilities in front of everyone just so the new piano teacher could assess her promising talent, not thinking about the difficulty of the piece or how disastrous it was going to end when his daughter was inevitably going to get tired and mess everything.
“It was a pleasure meeting you,” his words snatched you out of your own thoughts once again, as he heard a carriage approaching, and he knew it was yours.
He moved around your figure, reaching your right side as the carriage stopped in front of you, and he made a gesture to the footman, moving his hand to indicate he wasn’t needed. Jaehyun extended a hand towards the carriage’s door, opening it while extending his free hand to you, offering his assistance to get you safely inside the vehicle.
You looked down at his hand, and your warm hand touched his, but his touch almost made you retract your hand. It felt like touching ice, the contrast between your body temperatures astonishing and terrifying at the same time.
He smiled at you one last time before you departed, and you managed to thank him just in time, fearing he wasn’t going to hear you — but little did you know at that time, Jaehyun heard you loud and clear, your voice rang inside his ears for a few more moments as he watched the carriage going farther away from where he was standing.
That was the night you first met Jaehyun, and he made a great first impression on you.
Making your way around town, followed by your maidservants, you spotted Jaehyun a few more times before he started making conversation with you. Things started off slowly with questions about your passion for piano, and then he wanted to know a bit more about other pieces you knew.
Jaehyun managed to crawl under your skin, making you feel at ease even through all your solitude. As summer progressed, you convinced him to play the piano for you. You had given up on the practice long ago, and even if during that night at the soiree it was proven to you that you still had your talent and had kept all your abilities still, you didn’t feel comfortable playing again. Yet you would have loved to have someone playing for you, and Jaehyun took onto the opportunity, agreeing to your proposal as soon as the words left your mouth.
Little by little, you felt more and more comfortable around Jaehyun. Little by little, you opened up to him, talking to him about your past, about your love for the arts, for the piano, letting him know how much playing had always meant to you.
Jaehyun played the piano in your house’s parlour while you observed him, sitting in your father’s armchair. His movements were gentle, comforting, and looking at him brought you peace. Jaehyun played your favourite pieces for you to relish in, and he gave in so easily when you asked him about his own favourite pieces, that you knew he was dying to be asked about. His eyes sparkled while he explained what they meant to him, his dimples were on display every time a fond memory popped up in the middle of your conversations, and your heart took a leap every single time the calmness of his voice graced your hearing.
No amount of meet ups with him could prepare you for the freezing air you felt around yourself every single time he walked into your house, or a room. No amount of scorching summer days briefly interrupted by a fleeting cold shock through your body could explain the phenomenon to you. You remembered how you felt it that night at the soiree, as well as the moment when he came outside to keep you company while waiting for your carriage, and then every single time you met him, coincidentally or planned.
Yet you never raised a brow, you never questioned him about it. You couldn’t explain the phenomenon, and at some point you thought that it could mean you were falling in love. Maybe it was an effect of falling in love with Jaehyun? But then other circumstances weren’t matching up with this theory.
Jaehyun became a constant in your life, and you in his. Jaehyun felt more alive when he was with you than he had ever felt actually being alive one hundred years ago. With the body of a twenty-two year old man, and the soul nearing a centenary, all Jaehyun wanted was for you to accept him and be by his side for eternity.
Did he want to tell you what he was? Yes. Did he want to eventually turn you as well? Not really, at least not at first.
You were one of the strongest people he had ever met during his very long time roaming the earth, and he knew a few things about knowing people and relocating every twenty or thirty years as not to raise suspicions. He couldn’t take the joy of living away from you, for he knew that he would have wanted to have lived with you for as long as life itself allowed the two you to, but under normal circumstances. Instead, you were alive, literally the sun hanging in the sky, and he was a freezing pale creature that feasted on other humans, — something inside of him told him it was wrong to take the joy of living away from you.
Yet Jaehyun wanted to be selfish for once, and he decided he would eventually turn you if that was what you wanted. If he couldn’t have normality with you, he was going to have eternity by your side — one way or another.
And as the summer passed, the fleeting looks and lingering affectionate touches led to Jaehyun not being able to let go of you. By the time his time as Miss Mirabella’s teacher was up at the end of the summer, he took you away with him, back to his town.
Surprisingly to him, you didn’t need too much time to get talked into doing it, because he knew that for a young woman like you were, with the great wealth your parents left you, moving in with a man that wasn’t your husband wasn’t normal or socially accepted. But Jaehyun didn’t mind actually marrying you, for he was sure you were the only one for him, but you didn’t even let him finish telling you his plans for the future.
So you took your belongings, your wealth, you locked your house, and by the time the middle of autumn reached, you had already moved in with Jaehyun in his manor house.
The cold touches, the breeze you felt when he walked in a room, they all started to add up in your head. You noticed how he knew you were walking up to him from the highest floor of the house, down to his library on the ground floor, he knew if you faked sleeping, you swear he knew what the maidservants talked about in the other room.
But it didn’t actually click in your head until winter came, when you had to leave for a few days to go back to your family’s mansion, and you took Jeger, Norma, and the three other maidservants with you, leaving Jaehyun alone.
Coming back was horrific. Carrying venison and other foods your friends from back home gifted you, you and everyone else were exhausted from the long journey. With the weather outside being one typical to January, with strong and freezing winds, occasional blizzards and heavy cold rain, your body was begging for the warmth of your house.
Except the house was dark, the fire in every room was dead, and the air around was freezing, almost worse than it was outside. You expected to find Jaehyun frozen to death somewhere in the house, yet your quick steps took you upstairs to his chambers, only to find him sleeping peacefully in his bed, bare torso touching the silky sheets like the whole ordeal was all inside your head.
“I heard you coming home,” he smiled, moving his head to look at you. You didn’t know he was awake, but you also didn’t know how he managed to sleep in a house that made the point of your nose and your fingertips freeze.
“Where you… sleeping?” You gulped, closing your cloak up to your chin and squeezing your gloved hands together.
He hummed, showing you a lazy smile. It was time you two had the so long awaited conversation, it was time he let you know.
Jaehyun heard your voice as soon as the carriage came down the street, up to the gates. He knew you were coming home and you were going to find a freezing house, yet he didn’t bother getting up. It was too late to do anything, anyway. When you left, you said you were going to be away for a few days, up to a week, so he didn’t know when you were going to be home, and in his defense, Jaehyun really had the fires popping in every room of the house, as always. But Jaehyun had also spent the last three days sleeping, not differentiating days from nights, so the fires had died long before, without Jaehyun bothering keeping them alive. He didn’t feel the cold, anyway.
“How,” you gulped once again, this time taking your gloves off, “How did you manage to do so?”
Jaehyun extended his hand, calling for you to get closer to him, and with no self preservation instinct, you followed his instructions. Your head was filled with doubts, with worries, with theories that you thought about once in a while, but you shook them off every single time thinking you were being silly. But now the truth was laying bare in front of your eyes, and it looked tempting and like something between life and death.
“Promise me you’ll listen to me,” he pleaded, holding your hand as you sat down on his bed.
You gulped, breath hitching in your throat, yet you nodded, prompting him to start talking.
Jaehyun’s voice was laced with emotion and sincerity. At that time, you didn’t know if lying was one of his abilities, but the Jaehyun you grew to love would have never lied to you.
Every single moment of your life in the months up to that point, you had spent it with Jaehyun, like you couldn’t breathe if you didn’t have him around. Days passed faster with him by your side, nights were slower while he devoted every fibre of his being to you, and you only. You grew to know him very well, even if at that time you weren’t in possession of any of the abilities he, for one, had.
The image of the two of you discussing right in that moment was funny, you were sure. Jaehyun was naked on his bed, and you were wrapped inside layers of fur and warming fabrics, cloak buttoned up to your chin and every single inch of your body covered. The contrast was visible, and terribly shocking — for if it were for Norma walking in right that time, you were sure she was going to black out.
The more Jaehyun talked, the more he searched your eyes, looking for a sign of just how horrified and full of terror you were. But he found none. As his story progressed, your eyes became warmer, and because Jaehyun couldn’t read your mind, he didn’t know if you were on the brink of passing out, or if you were truly accepting him for what he was.
He heard your heart beating erratically as he explained to you the circumstances that allowed him to still roam the earth. He heard your heartbeat calming down, steadying itself the more he progressed into his story, and he heard it nearly stop the moment he confessed his deepest feelings to you. Because you knew he was fond of you, you knew he loved you, but he never explicitly said it to you, words waltzing off his tongue with grace, but the look in his eyes glinted with fear. Fear of you running away from him.
His story was complicated, long, but never dull.
The night he confessed to you, he admitted being almost one hundred years old. Youngest, and only son of a family of ten members, he lost his entire family during the 1780 plague that annihilated his hometown village — and when him and his aunt were the only ones to survive the family that had perished, she made him leave in hopes he found refuge somewhere over the steep hills, inside an abbey.
“I was twenty years old at that time, and she made me promise I would fight tooth and nail in order to survive. I was the only son to be born in my family after generations of daughters, so they always made it clear who their favourite was,” he explained as he walked naked around his chamber, putting a log into the fireplace so you could start getting warm again.
“Father was the first to die, and then two of my sisters followed. Mother tried quarantining us away, but she fell sick soon after, and her sister had to take me and my other sisters in,” he went on, helping you get off his bed, making you sit down on the armchair by the fireplace. “Then my sisters fell ill and perished two by two, but they had already infected my aunt’s family, and eventually it was just me and her left. She had this leather pouch she prepared for me, with two knives and a bit of bread and cheese to survive off of, and she made me promise I would find the abbey, and that I would lie to them about my origins,”
You nodded, understanding his aunt’s concerns, “They weren’t going to take you in if they knew your village had been infected,” your brows furrowed while looking at the fire.
Jaehyun smiled at you. You were so smart, and he loved you. “It took me a few days, and the hills were surprisingly steep,” his tone was dripping with amusement, nose scrunching while recalling his adventures from decades ago, “But I made it to the abbey, and they took me in,”
“And how did you…” you didn’t finish your sentence, but Jaehyun understood what you meant, nonetheless.
He let out a huff of laughter, “You’re so impatient, my love,” he caressed your cheek, eyes sparkling in the dim lighting of the room.
You puckered your lips out of embarrassment of being called out, but Jaehyun smiled fondly as an answer, and you relaxed into your seat. He was beautiful. The light coming from the fireplace made his features sharper, eyes darker, skin even paler, and you understood you overlooked the signs until that moment, because they were all in the open for you — and anyone else — to see, yet you chose to focus on the wrong suspicions, — like why were you always cold when he made his appearance into a room?
Jaehyun looked exactly like what he was, a vampire. Not that you had met any other up to that point, but the tales, the superstitious stories you had heard suddenly made a lot of sense.
Jaehyun’s cold touch on your warm cheek made you shudder, pulling you out of your thoughts.
“I lived inside the abbey for a few weeks, until the plague reached us there,” he explained, clearing his throat, and you knew it brought bad memories back. “One of the monks inside turned me when he realised the others were dying one by one. I don’t know how he managed to live there so long without anyone being suspicious, but when the plague wrecked havoc inside the abbey I was the only mortal still uninfected by the disease. Monk Noel did me a favour that time, and we burned the abbey down so they wouldn’t know the number of survivors,”
“Where is Monk Noel now?” You whispered, curiosity taking the best of you. You weren’t going to ask about him, but your mouth spoke on its own.
“I don’t know where he is right now, he’s a pretty old creature. If still alive, of course,” he mentioned, biting on his bottom lip. His eyebrows were furrowed, and he seemed like he was thinking about his past.
“You’re the only person I have opened up to, you’re the only person who knows me to the fullest, right this moment,” he rasped, and if you didn’t know who the man in front of you was, you would have been terrified of the look in his eyes. “Do you think you can accept me for what I am?” He inquired, because it was really eating at him.
Jaehyun opened up to you in hopes it would take a bit of the burden off his shoulders. He wanted to come clean to you ever since he met you, but you were a mortal and you deserved to be allowed to live your life, with no undead creatures interfering.
“Are you going to turn me into one, as well?” You asked him, and the question took him by surprise. But he didn’t let any turmoil of emotions betray him with the way he was looking at you.
“Do you want me to?” He rasped back to you, tone low but lacking any menacing undertones to it.
You nodded immediately, because you didn’t need another five years to know you would spend an eternity by Jaehyun’s side. “Yes,” your tone was curt, getting right to the point.
But Jaehyun didn’t like you answer at that time. How could you have been so sure you were really willing to give up your life, your title as a mortal, and a beating, blood-pumping heart? How could you give yourself up so easily?
And after that night, the subject was inapproachable. Jaehyun skived every time he heard your words, sometimes he only needed a good look at you approaching him in his library to know what you were going to talk to him about.
Jaehyun wanted to transform you, wanted to be with you and teach you everything there was to know, and he wanted to help you fit into a new world, but it had to happen on his terms. He wanted you to taste foods for a bit longer, he wanted you to sleep the nights and dance during the days, for a bit longer. He wanted you to feel the cold and the warmth for a bit longer.
He was selfish. He was going to let you enjoy mundane life until he decided you were ready to be transformed, not letting you advance too much into your life so your health couldn’t decline because of you nearing your thirties — which at that time meant you were already past the half of your lifespan — and he was going to have you to himself until the end of times.
He wasn’t giving into your pressuring, which drove you insane, yet at some point — you were not sure when — you dropped the incessant asking. Not because you didn’t want him to transform you, but because you realised there was no point in trying to convince him to do something he wasn’t sure he wanted to do.
You were dying to be let into his world, but you had no power over him and his decisions, so you went on with your normal and boring life.
Days were filled with you and Jaehyun reading to each other. He played the piano for you, squinting his eyes at you every time you made an observation about his technique, but then laughing it off. He kissed your hands every time you sewed his shirts, he kissed your ankles every time you allowed him to become one with you during restless nights.
He spent painfully long times with his head in the crook of your neck, cheek pressed to your collarbone as his nose was glued to the skin of your neck, smelling the sweet scent of your flesh and listening to the way your heart pumped blood.
With you knowing who — or what — he was made it easier for him to be around you, easier to roam the earth. Knowing about him made it easier for you to help him, to get on his side, to help and protect him. You made sure no accidents involving put out fires were going to happen again, not as long as you were there to take care of it. You made sure you found good excuses every time Jaehyun needed his daytime sleep, or maybe the occasional three days in a row locked in his chambers while resting. You found excuses for Norma not to worry about her precious Master Jaehyun, making her focus more on you and your needs — albeit you had never asked her before, but you needed to keep her busy and unsuspecting.
Little by little, your passion for music came back to you. You spent time looking over music sheets like you were reading some great pieces of literature, but it took you some time to get back to playing.
And when you did, the piece you chose was the one dearest and closest to your heart. Your fingers waltzed on the keys as you played your favourite Schumann piece, the one you played the night you met Jaehyun.
And there it was, the shiver down your spine and the goosebumps across your skin, not even two minutes into the piece. You smiled, eyes still closed as you enjoyed the melody, the memories of the past that were brought back to you.
Jaehyun couldn’t believe his eyes, couldn’t believe his ears — you were finally playing something, and it was the hardest piano piece you could have chosen. The one who held a special place in your heart.
He sat on the armchair facing the piano, the one he set up for you so you could stay with him every time he played, so that you could watch the way his fingers moved.
Your gaze finally met his, and he could hear your heartbeat picking up, “You’re playing again,” he muttered, but his whole being was so proud of you. He loved you.
“I miss my father a little bit more, today,” you whispered back, eyes back on the keys, not because you didn’t know where to touch, but because you were mesmerised by the way your muscles still remembered the motion.
Jaehyun felt anxiety pooling in the pit of his stomach. He knew your story, he knew the reason you had stopped playing. And the reason you gave him for playing once again made every fibre in his body hurt for you.
You were so beautiful, wearing your silky, ivory dress, rosy cheeks on display, lips pouting with concentration that were literally begging to be kissed by him. But he stayed silent, he observed you, he admired you from his seat, and then he spoke up, breaking the silence between the two of you.
“I want to learn this for you,” he wanted to learn the piece so he could lull you every time you felt down, nostalgic, melancholy taking over you at the thought of your loved ones that you found missing some days more than others, “Let me do this for you,”
Jaehyun spent a good part of his time on earth trying to learn piano. His rules for surviving his condition were simple — stay in a place for twenty years, then move away somewhere else, rebranding his life and career. Up to that point, Jaehyun had spent three separate lives rebranded as a piano teacher, in different states. He spent half his lifetime on this earth trying to learn as many languages as possible, trying to read as many books as he could. But his love for music was always consistent.
He never transformed anyone else up to that point, no one knew who he was. But no one else managed to have him bewitched, so foolishly in love, either. So Jaehyun’s chest tingled while still watching you, knowing that it was time.
And that night, spending time nuzzling your pulse line turned into lingering touches, cold fingertips making their way up your body — reaching your chest and, small and controlled pecks turned into hungry and possessive kisses.
Jaehyun’s cold body never bothered you, especially when it was touching your burning one. Your body felt on fire every time he moved his hips in between yours, your heartbeat picked up its rhythm every time you heard him grunting with pleasure, motions slow and calculated, deliberate. His cold touch felt like a blessing, there to remind you the lengths of the pleasure you felt, yet grounding you every time you felt like it was becoming too much to bear.
Jaehyun never felt the coldness or the warmth of a room, but he felt how your body was on fire under his. Sliding in and out of you was easy, and he took one of your legs, angling it up and supporting it with his shoulder. His cold hand reached down in between your bodies, tracing its way to your lower stomach, applying gentle pressure, and your whine filled his ears like that was the sweetest melody he had ever heard.
Looking down to where your bodies met, the way you were taking him so well and obedient — it had Jaehyun lost in his own thoughts. Calculated motions of hips became more forceful, more intense, and the hand pressing on your lower stomach gained possessiveness.
Jaehyun felt you squeezing around him, felt your warm inner pulse on himself like it was pumping blood into his own body. He felt the spots his length reached inside of you, the palm of his hand felt like it was burning while his shaft moved inside of you. And the feeling of it had Jaehyun nearly losing his mind. Your skin was coated with a thin layer of sweat, and the scent of you exploded around his sharp senses, driving him insane as he was getting lost into you.
He could hear, he could feel, he could smell the blood pumping through you, the pulse on your inner ankle right next to his head made his ears start ringing. Long strokes found it harder to move as your walls prepared Jaehyun to climax, but he knew he wasn’t ready to get there just yet.
Not with your ankle so enticing, so warm to the touch, smell so sweet that it flooded his nose. He wrapped his hand around your calf, moving your leg around so he could bring your foot to him — teeth grazing the skin of your sole, his plump lips caressed the softness up to your pulse line, and he playfully bit into it. It was going to be the last time Jaehyun had you like this — warm, pulsing, alive — and he couldn’t pass on the occasion of worshipping your body the right way.
He bent down to reach your lips, leg still on his shoulder, his hips finding a new angle inside of you that had you melting, pressure building up like fire into your lower stomach, — which Jaehyun made sure to keep his hand on.
You moaned into the kiss, and the way Jaehyun could feel you around himself made him snap with something animalistic, a primal need to see your sparkling eyes like a predator did to its prey. He broke the kiss, bringing the hand that was resting on your abdomen up to your lips, fingers tracing your lips that got swollen from his kisses, from his teeth pulling on them.
Jaehyun looked into your eyes, your breath was getting heavier, more desperate, small whines were leaving your lips as he was helping you reach your release — and he felt his skin tingling just thinking of the way you were going to feel around him, of the way you were about to wrap yourself around him so perfectly.
Your eyes were droopy, but Jaehyun could see his reflection into them when you looked up at him. They were warm, loving, so accepting of him, and Jaehyun let go of your leg, guiding it around his waist, the motion having both of you moaning as he kept moving in and out of you. His lips made their way up your neck, and the moment you felt his teeth — sharper — pressing on your skin, you moaned his name.
“You still want this, my love?” He asked, not slowing down when he felt the both of you so close.
You didn’t answer, moaning his name instead, the anticipation of something you had wanted for a long time making your walls squeeze around of him.
“I need an answer, love. Now,” his rasped, tone low and menacing, panting as he tried to maintain his composure a bit longer. He needed to hear you say it.
“Yes, Jaehyun,” your loins suddenly felt like burning as you felt yourself melting around his shaft, “Please,” you managed to mewl, and Jaehyun didn’t need any more words to come out of you.
With your blood pulsating in his mouth, and your cunt pulsing around his shaft, Jaehyun came exactly like he wanted. Inside of your warmth, feeling every last bit of life dripping out of you.
Adapting to the new life wasn’t easy, but Jaehyun was there for you, guiding you through it all. You were astonished when you realised temperatures didn’t matter anymore, finally understanding how Jaehyun managed to sleep and live absolutely unbothered by the climate or by the temperature in a room.
But the most shocking thing was waking up to a head full of voices, and the smell of Jaehyun’s skin flooding your senses like that was the only thing you were supposed to sense.
“Jaehyun,” you jumped off the bed, both hands on each side of your head, covering your ears. “I can hear them, all of them,” you whispered, but you knew you were panicking. You couldn’t even hear the thoughts inside your head because you heard Norma scolding someone around the house, loud and clear. “Make it stop!” You pleaded, bending over Jaehyun’s bed.
Jaehyun pitied you, because maybe he should have prepared you before effectively turning you. There was nothing he could do to help you or take all the new things away from you, but he could guide you to learn how to live with it.
“I can’t,” he let you know, looking to you from his spot on the bed.
“What?” You screeched, squinting your eyes. You thought you heard him through the many voices in your head, but you hoped you heard him wrong.
“Make it stop. I can’t make it stop, my love,” he explained calmly, unmoving.
Your bottom lip quivered, eyes quickly brimming with tears, and that’s when you saw Jaehyun jump off the bed, reaching you in a millisecond, grabbing your wrists to bring your attention on him.
“No, no my love! You can’t cry!" He seemed like he was panicking, and you looked up at him, eyes meeting his, “You will cry blood,” he explained, squeezing your wrists.
Your breath hitched in your throat and you gulped, yet you blinked the tears away, scared of the piece of information he had just dropped on you.
“What?” Your voice was barely above a whisper, and with the way your ears were ringing and head was full of other voices from servants around the house, you weren’t sure you even spoke up in the first place.
“If you cry, they’ll be stained tears. Never cry, at least not in front of others!” He definitely should have told you all the downsides of being a vampire before he turned you into one, out of impulse.
Why didn’t he tell you all this when you were begging him to transform you?
But you never regretted anything, you never regretted agreeing to become a vampire. Never.
Eventually, as the weeks passed, you learned to tune other voices down, and peace and quiet was back into your head and ears, only focusing on other people’s voices when you chose to.
Jaehyun taught you how to hunt, how to survive among mortals. How to fake your appetite for normal food, because albeit the fact that you could still eat food and feel its taste — although a little insipid and faded on your tastebuds, — there was nothing as delicious and nutritious as human blood. Animal blood was thicker, with undertones you weren’t particularly fond of, which left a weird aftertaste in your mouth — and it felt more like a snack, not like a proper meal.
Human blood, on the other hand, was sweet and tasty. You were surprised by the newly acquired sense of smell that allowed you to sense disease, to differentiate someone who was healthy from someone who was at the beginning of growing an infection inside of them, by a discreet sniff only.
Nights were the hardest, because neither you nor Jaehyun could really sleep, and you had to tiptoe around not to raise suspicions among your servitude. But at least you had one another, getting lost into each other because you were the only one who could understand Jaehyun’s condition, and vice versa.
You loved Jaehyun, and not once did you regret your new life by his side. Not even when you woke up like your body wasn’t yours anymore, — skin a bit paler, eyes and hair a bit darker, pulse nearly gone, with your heart only pumping blood one time per minute, — and certainly not when you realised how many things had changed in your life. You only needed blood, a safe space in which you could disguise your existence as being a normal one, and Jaehyun.
Yet Jaehyun still chose to leave you behind, despite the love he claimed he carried for you, he took off, abandoning you and making you live without him like you were exiled away from his love.
The letter he left behind for you to find didn’t explain why he left, but you suspected his need to rebrand and change from monotony, but that wasn’t a plausible explanation to you — for he had told you countless times that you were going to be spending eternity by each other’s side, and you were going to rebrand every single time he did, or vice versa.
You then suspected he got tired of you. He mentioned he was living through you when you were still a mortal, and then he turned you, only to then leave you behind when he made sure you could survive with your new condition and the burden of knowing you would have to go on with living for many centuries, lacking his presence.
One year after Jaehyun’s departure, you had to bury Jeger — who died of old age, already having reached fifty years of age. The servitude left one by one, others died from colds and others from lung disease, but Norma stayed with you.
You knew Norma was a mortal. At the beginning, when Jaehyun explained to you that you would eventually grow to understand from a sniff or cocked ear who was a living being, you were adamant, looking at him like he was messing with you. You could hear Norma’s heartbeat, you could hear the murmur of her heart as it was pumping blood throughout her body, you could hear the dulcet pulsing of her arteries — but never, not even once, were you tempted to take her life just to sate your appetite.
Norma was the closest to a mother figure you could get after your own mother perished. You found a great friend in her, nothing was taboo between the two of you, — which, during those times, it really showed how close you two were, — and it was only normal to be this way, as she was the only person left that you could trust entirely. Bonded together by the love both of you carried for Master Jaehyun, — yet of course, each of different nature, — Norma never spoke about him in front of you, not wanting to upset you or disrupt your peace.
Jaehyun was like a son to her, his kindness towards her, the gentleness he carried around himself, Norma loved taking care of him, cooking for him, she was devoted to him. And after he left, she remained devoted to his household, and consequently to you, because the day Jaehyun brought you home, you were so shy to become the new mistress of the house, often going up to Jaehyun to ask for things instead of going straight to the servitude. It was easier to ask the man you loved and with whom you were comfortable, because you didn’t want to bother anyone, and you knew Jaehyun did never bat an eyelash.
Being around the house with Norma felt like routine, you sewed together, you helped her out with whatever you could, because taking someone new as servitude was very risky, not knowing to what extents they could be trusted — and if they could be, in the first place.
“Mistress,” Norma tried one evening, approaching you in Jaehyun’s library, “May I speak to you about one of my concerns?” She asked, and you put the book down right that moment.
You were worried, because Norma had never expressed any concern for as long as you had known her. You nodded, prompting her to go on.
“I have a niece, a brother of mine has left this world, leaving her behind,” she started, and you had a faint idea of where this conversation was headed to, “Would it be possible to take her in, to help around the house? I shall do my best to instruct her accordingly,”
You could hear Norma’s heartbeat going crazy inside her chest. She wasn’t frightened, you would say she was more embarrassed than scared, facing you with such proposition. But you didn’t find her proposition to be a problem, knowing that help was indeed very much needed around the house, and with her being Norma’s niece, this girl was probably worth trusting.
Minji was nice, very shy at first, but the more you had her around yourself, the more comfortable you grew with each other. She helped Norma around, and with her being her niece, Norma guided her around like she was a sergeant and your house was training camp.
“I need you to be aware of everything that needs to be learned about Mistress and her household! One day I will be gone, and hopefully you will be allowed to remain,” You heard Norma whispering from downstairs, her tone condescending.
“What if she doesn’t want me around when you’re gone?” Her niece asked, and the thought of her being so untrusting saddened you.
“Mistress has a heart of gold, never forget that!” her tone seemed offended by Minji’s concerns, “Master Jaehyun loved her a lot, and that itself was the only sign anyone needed in order to see what an amazing woman she is,” Norma scolded her, her angry whisper scaring you — so you couldn’t imagine Minji’s reaction. Norma’s whispers were somehow too loud for you to hear anything else besides them.
“You will be taking care of her, and I know she will too,” Norma concluded, and you heard steps approaching your chambers, knowing their discussion was over.
And you tried showing Minji how grateful you were for her being around. Thanks to your behaviour, and you being more open to her whenever she was around, it helped the two of your getting closer.
But good things were never here to stay, at least not around your household, and tragedy struck again.
Norma fell ill one day, out of a sudden. No epidemics had been announced, you weren’t aware of any viruses going around, and Norma only ever left the house once a week with Minji, the two of them in charge of getting food for a whole week.
So when Minji came up to your chambers crying, panicking, you knew things were bad. Norma was barely breathing, sweaty, in pain. You heard her heart struggling to keep up with everything going on inside of her, the infection spread in her body. She was delirious, seeing and talking to every single person she had ever loved, seeing them around the room, Jaehyun included.
You panicked, thinking that he was back without you sensing him, but the corner of the room towards which Norma was looking at while barely able to speak — claiming she was speaking to her Master Jaehyun, — made you realise how bad it was. At that time, even a cold could take one person’s life, so Norma’s condition was serious, and it was rapidly taking her away from you.
“What should we do?” Minji sobbed, hands trembling, and every fibre of her being was panicking. Her heartbeat was going crazy, her pressure going through the roof after realising the situation at hand.
“Minji, listen to me,” your voice was stern, but you needed her to be calm for whenever Norma was going to huff her last breath. “You need to stay away from her, don’t cross the threshold of the door, I don’t want you to catch anything,” You instructed, pointing towards the door, but your eyes were on Norma, who seemed to have come back to her senses while on her deathbed, hallucinations gone and she was once again looking at you with her usual loving gaze.
“What if you catch something, Mistress? Please, let us go find the physician,” Minji rambled, eyes sparkling as she panicked while looking at Norma’s figure laying helplessly on her bed.
“Minji!” Your tone made her jolt, raising her glossy eyes to look at you, “I won’t catch anything from her,” your voice was suddenly heavy with emotion. Not once did you think of transforming Norma, not once did you think of opening up to her. You thought that if Jaehyun didn’t do it in the first place, why should you? What if Jaehyun had his reasons, and you were going to make a mistake?
Looking at her struggling and aching body made you realise it was too late, anyway. She was too sick to be transformed, and even if you bit into her flesh, her body couldn’t recover to have enough force to survive.
“Mistress…” Norma’s whisper surprised you, not thinking she was mentally there, with you and Minji. Her eyes were glossy, lost, sporting the same look they had when she was having hallucinations. “Do not cry,” she instructed, trying her best to sound authoritarian, but her soft spoken tone made your eyes brim with tears. One look at Minji let you know just how devastated the poor child was.
Norma raised one hand, painfully slow, and made a gesture for you to get closer to her. Minji kept her distance, but her puffy eyes were on her aunt, looking over her tormented figure.
“Mistress, I know,” she started, and you felt her heart slowing down a bit, “I know what Master Jaehyun was,” she whispered to you, and your breath hitched listening to her, “If you ever see him again, give him my love,” she cried, lip quivering, but her gaze became lost once again, and aimed at the ceiling, and that was where it remained.
“Norma?” You sobbed, eyes once again full of tears. But Norma was laying still, barely breathing, eyes now close, lost in all the agony she felt in that moment, “Norma!” You screamed, shaking her, because it wasn’t supposed to end like this, not when she admitted that she was aware of everything going on inside the house, with all the tears you had spilled in her presence when you had been left behind.
Norma wasn’t dead, she was unresponsive instead. Her body was warm, but her skin was covered in sweat, the stench of death slowly bubbling inside of her.
Climbing on her bed, you took her figure into your arms, exactly like she did countless of times when she picked you up from the ground, every time you suffered after Jaehyun’s departure. Not caring about the circumstances anymore, your tears started flowing, staining their trail down your cheeks, down your neck as you sobbed and lulled Norma’s body in your arms. Her heartbeat was slow, heart struggling to pull through whatever was going on inside of her body, struggling to give her a chance of survival.
A few hours later, Norma died in your arms, and you can still recall the time when her heart stopped beating in her chest. The 1881 cholera pandemic took the last person connecting you to your past, away from you, leaving you alone in this cruel, cold world, in which everything was unfair and everything moved too slowly for your liking.
Having to explain your bloody tears to Minji came easy, as you were already exhausted by the events in your life — and it seemed like Minji wasn’t surprised of what you confessed to her, having already picked up a few signs, and you imagine yourself a few years prior, finding excuses for all the signs that were laying up in the open for you to see, yet you were blinded by the love you carried for Jaehyun.
With the cholera pandemic taking away many lives on the daily, Minji trusted you enough to let you save her, from that one and from future pandemics and disasters alike.
With Minji’s turning into a vampire, with all the training she had to go through — just like it happened to you, — and with the virus spreading fast, you took your life into your own hands, and Minji’s too, as she was too scared to be in this world all by her new self.
And with your leaving Jaehyun’s mansion behind — with every possession of his as well as yours still inside, — you also left that part of your life behind, and all the memories the two of you had shared, locked in there.
Navigating your new life with Minji was fun, but difficult. Not because she was difficult to have around, on the contrary.
Minji looked up to you. You were her creator, and she was your only creation, for you had never had the desire to turn another mortal into what the two of you were. She looked at you like you held the truth to all mysteries of this world, and you did — to a certain extent. And not Minji’s presence, behaviour or decisions were the difficult part, but the events you had to go through in order to survive.
Using Jaehyun’s rebranding method, you effectively managed to keep both your and Minji’s identities hidden, infiltrating yourselves in communities, villages, rebranding every twenty years and changing your lives completely.
You moved across countries, states, towns, you lived your life to the fullest, meeting people and making friends — that you had to leave behind always, every time traces that could lead to you and your secret life needed to get lost.
You went from wearing crinolines and corsets, to wearing miniskirts, pearls and heels. You went from long hair, to rocking a very short bob, to having long hair once again, just like the trends dictated. You went through pandemics of all sorts, natural disasters, you survived wars and famine — albeit there never was famine in your case, only for the poor mortals.
You went from wearing fur, to waring jeans and sneakers, from writing letters to phones. You went from creaking wooden floors, to tiles and soundproof systems around your houses and windows.
You even went to university when it became popular, and you loved every single bit of it. It felt exciting, remembering the tough times during which you were born, and you still made it out to live through the modern times in which women made a name for themselves, and they slowly gained more freedom and the power of identifying themselves, attending schools and making a living by themselves. You went from being called ‘mistress’, to ‘miss’.
But you never married, you never dated, because your heart kept itself tormented and yearning after one man. One man that exiled you, discarded of you, and that was the hardest part of it all. Like you had never mattered to him. You roamed the earth for more than a century trying to find him, although not deliberately. Every place you moved to, you couldn’t help but wonder if he was around there as well. Decades spent in the same places yet you never heard from him, or sensed him in the air.
The love you carried for Jaehyun back in the day, was still alive, the flame of love barely there, but still burning in your heart nonetheless. And how could you ever think of loving someone else, when Jaehyun was the only man you yearned for? And with all this, with all your love and yearning for him, you couldn’t shake the sadness and the betrayal you felt every time you were reminded of him, rage flooding you and every fibre of your being like a hasty virus.
Maybe not finding him was for the best, because you weren’t sure how you would have reacted if you found him a few feet away from you. Were you going to kill him? What other options did you have, to make him hurt just as he did you?
Everything you became, your existence, you owed him every single minute spent on this earth, but you couldn’t help but wonder what life could have been like if he was by your side, had he never left you.
And then, it was February 1994.
Coming home from your job at the art gallery downtown, you took your heels off, swollen feet thanking you for finally freeing them. Newspaper folded under your arm as you carried unnecessary groceries back home, you threw everything you were carrying in your arms, on the kitchen table of your small apartment.
Out of all the decades you had lived in throughout all your life, the 90’s were your favourite thus far. The phones, the fashion, the busses and subway, the cabs, the music and the films. You could go to the movies every single night, if it weren’t for your job that you liked keeping, despite your and Jaehyun’s huge fortunes you still carried, hidden. You weren’t in need of a job, yet you loved having one — it was more like a hobby, especially if it involved the arts.
So you picked up your newspaper, your body tingling with excitement as you couldn’t wait to see what films were going to be out that week. Yet your eyes stopped on the headline for a few seconds, written in huge, bold letters. ‘LOVED BOYBAND, KILLED IN CAR CRASH LAST NIGHT, read more on page 36’, it read, but you didn’t really care.
You only wanted the local cinema’s schedule, but then curiosity really started eating at you. What boyband? What if it was one of your favourite artists?
So you turned to page thirty six, eyes scanning the page for all the information about the car crash. Nothing suspicious, it seemed like the manager, also the designated driver that night, fell asleep and everyone in the car perished because of his mistake.
Your eyes fell on the bottom of the page, where all the members had their individual portrait pictures sitting nicely, as a posthumous homage to their fame and glory.
And there he was. Jaehyun, pictured in all his glory. Sparkling eyes staring right back at you.
With the newspaper placed on the table just under your nose, your tea had run cold while you lost track of time thinking about his picture. Sure, it was still on page thirty six, plastered there like you were finally meant to find him.
But it had to be just a macabre coincidence, right? Seeing his face after decades, centuries, made your stomach drop and your heart felt heavy with the mix of emotions battling through you. You weren’t sure of what you were going to do — given you found him — thinking you were going to take your revenge on him, but the moment your eyes laid on his picture, and all the beautiful features you once loved, the emotions within you became unbearable. And so did the thoughts.
Had he always been out there giving hints of his existence for you to find, or was this just a consequence of a miscalculated rebranding plan, in which he never took into account the possibility of being outed to the public and, most importantly, to his lover that had been searching for him for centuries after being promised eternity by his side?
It had to be a sick little game of destiny or maybe real death, because you know Jaehyun never made mistakes.
“Mistress!” The familiar voice called you, heels clanking on the marbled floors of the Parisian-style café.
Minji. She still liked using the nickname she was so accustomed to, from all those years back, and she never tried to hide her excitement when using the title now turned nickname.
“You’re very pale,” Minji’s eyebrows furrowed while looking at you, “As if that’s possible,” she joked, eyes sparkling and she bit her lip trying not to laugh out loud at the obvious joke between the two of you. But your lack of sense of humour made her smile drop, and her eyebrows furrowed once more.
“What’s wrong?” She whispered, leaning in from her spot across the table.
You looked at her for a fleeting moment, and you sighed before raising your elbows and snatching the newspaper from underneath them.
You pushed the folded object towards Minji, who was confused but still intrigued, yet she kept her hands under the table waiting for you to instruct her.
“Go to page thirty six,” you brought one hand to your mouth, biting on the nail of your thumb. You see her making slow, calculated movements, like the ones you always do with absolutely no rush in order not to make any unwanted mistakes in this world that evolves at full speed, not wanting to give away the fact that your soul and being are more than one century old — which you learned from Jaehyun, so it was only normal to pass everything you knew down to the only person you transformed.
“Tell me what you see,” you instructed, looking at her features, and the way she was so carefully reading the headline and then how she inspected the page.
“Seven men?” She asked, not knowing if that was what you wanted to hear, “They were kinda handsome, though,” she joked, a tilted and barely contained smirk creeping in the corner of her mouth.
“Mhm,” you hummed, straightening your posture, anxiety making its way through your chest, “Now read the names. Carefully,”
She took a moment to look at you, sensing hesitation, fear, but also impatience?
She cleared her throat, looking at the names below the pictures. “Johnny Suh, drummer,” she made a pause before continuing the makeshift eulogy, “Lee Haechan, bass and voice. Mark Lee, guitarist. Nakamoto Yuta, guitarist. Kim Doyoung, synth and voice. Lee Taeyong, manager. And-” she suddenly stopped, head snapping back to look for your gaze, “And Jeong Jaehyun, vocalist?” She asked incredulously.
Your gaze bore into hers, and she was like a deer in headlights waiting for you to answer. It was either the most fucked up coincidence, or Master Jaehyun just outed himself.
“Is this… Master Jaehyun?” The whisper made your ears start ringing, and you averted your gaze. Minji never saw a picture of Jaehyun, because you remembered having one in his library, but it disappeared the moment he himself also did. “Why is he so handsome?” She seemed starstruck, but she snapped herself out of it as soon as she remembered the whole situation, “And why is he in a newspaper? Did he want you to find him?”
“I don’t know,” you sighed, closing your eyes trying to elucidate this mystery in the next thirty seconds. “I also don’t know if I want to really find him, you know?”
“What?” She slapped your arms playfully. “This can’t be a coincidence, Y/n. It’s either this or he’s just really stupid for believing he wouldn’t make it on the news if he got famous and died,” she stopped her rambling, her mind pausing on one thought, and she bit her lip before opening her mouth once again to talk to you, “Did he really die?”
You shook your head, but there was a lump in your throat nonetheless, “Don’t think so, this could be his rebranding with a good excuse to disappear and start a new life,” you voice was full of uncertainties, it trembled with unspoken fear as Minji’s words sank in, “But what if he really died?”
“What does your hunch say?” Minji pushed, knowing you were going to start crying blood tears at the thought that from that moment on, you were going to roam the earth with no purpose.
“This is the first time I don’t have a hunch,” you gulped, scratching your temples, “It’s logical to rebrand, but he’s not this stupid. He knew he would be on the news and that everyone could see his face,”
“Maybe he was just careless,” Minji didn’t want to use the term stupid on someone as handsome and important as Master Jaehyun.
“Minji,” you warned, your patience wearing thin, “Everything I taught you, I learned from him. There is absolutely no way he did this on purpose,” you poked the newspaper on the table, repeatedly with your index finger. “I think he’s gone. For good this time,” you nodded, your eyes flooding with tears, and you brought a tissue to your eyes to cover the bloody stains about to start rolling down your cheeks.
The heart barely beating in your chest felt like it was breaking, like the last grams of Jaehyun that you had been carrying inside of you since he left, were gone — and that half the heart he had left behind to beat for him, waiting to be reunited with its other half he’d successfully taken away, had finally been snatched away in that moment, the memory of him fading like his presence.
Thirty more years pass by, and you rebrand again. New city, new house, new profession.
You’re now a piano teacher, even if it’s hard to live all the memories of the past as soon as you touch a key when you teach the kids. Memories of all the moments you spent with Jaehyun, the image of your moving fingers on top of the keys fading with an hallucination of seeing his. Your fingers always move with fast precision, and you envision his fingers playing instead of yours, too many times to keep track of.
Up until today, you never made peace with the thought of not being able to see him ever again. In the past, you were fuelled by the anticipation of meeting him again, making him pay for leaving you behind, hurting him, loving him. But now, the thought that you won’t be able to be in the same room as him ever again, made you suffer like a poor dying animal.
In your head, it was just not possible to come to terms with the fact that you’re alone. You still only have Minji, who now lives one hour away from you and has a loving human boyfriend, but you miss him.
Thirty years went by with you devastated and trying to come to reason, thirty years went by with Minji having to keep you in check more times than you’d like to admit.
At some point you thought you should just keep looking for him, but you stopped about twenty years ago, realising it was driving you insane. You knew Jaehyun too well, and you knew that headline in the newspaper wasn’t him escaping his old life. Too many people were involved in that car crash for him to do this as part of his plan, and you knew he wasn’t cruel enough to take away lives of innocent people.
So instead, you’ve been spending time trying to numb all the heartbreak, all the flooding memories you finally managed to suppress — safe for the piano lessons, during which they all came back to you like cold waves to the burning shore.
Mourning the mortal times you lived is something you picked up on the way, because while you have to find new things to think about that are not directly linked to Jaehyun and his condition, it seems like all your existence is tied to his.
You’re only now regretting the decision, the vehement convincing you tried to do so many times on Jaehyun. Because if it weren’t for your decision and how much you loved him, you weren’t going to live much longer. Life expectancy was so short compared to the modern times, the current lifespan of a person being more than double of what it used to be in the nineteenth century, when you were born.
And maybe this is his punishment for you. You wanted this so much, against his advice and against your better judgement, that he gave in just to make you happy, yet at the same time damning you to roam the earth living like him, but without him. Like you wanted this so vehemently, and he gave it to you, but he punished you for wanting to become this way.
Because had he not transformed you, you were bound to remain a mortal, die soon of a disease like everyone else around you did, and you would have been spared the heartache of living your life without him by your side, damned to survive all humanity for centuries to come.
No amount of interactions, no amount of loving what you do, — still gifted and a piano prodigy, — can take away the lingering pain that follows you like a shadow.
Maybe you should have looked for him with more ardour when you had the chance, when you knew he was still around. Maybe you should have spent more time trying to trace him down, and even if you resented him, even if you wanted to hurt him, have him killed, to torture him, you should have acted on time. Because now it’s too late, your racing thoughts are in vain, the recurring pain is just a reminder of how wrong your life went.
You made your research, looking into the last known trace of Jaehyun’s existence on this earth. He was in a successful band, they made great music, and it was a shock to you seeing his decision of using his real name instead of a new one, unlike all the things he instructed you not to do.
And then the mini van he was in crashed and burned, and only burned bodies were found among the charred remains left behind after the fire was extinguished. And you know Minji wanted to ask you if you really think they’re dead, but you also know that she kept her mouth shut not to upset you — upset you even more, that is.
You know they are. Jaehyun, the man you loved, would never hurt others on purpose. He managed to survive in a fast evolving world as a creature characteristic to the undead category, so you just know — even if you lost your hunch about this matter long ago. It’s like the moment you realised he died, when your stomach and heart dropped, your hunch also did.
So for the first time ever, you live your life following a routine, you wake up, go tutor kids, skip your lunches because frankly you don’t need them anyway, then you call Minji on you way home, and you go hunting late at night when people are into the deepest of slumbers.
There’s so much beauty in this world, so much literature and music you can’t help but mourn how Jaehyun chose to run away from you, when you could have lived through all the changing times and decades, with him holding your hand through it all.
And you suppose your love for music needs to be fed as well, with you visiting record stores frequently, concerts, pubs, while also becoming slave to technology, like a dog on a leash for music apps. If anybody told you when you were a little girl, that times would come to change this much, you would have laughed and called them a lunatic. Times in which you bathed at candlelight were changed for times in which people panicked during a blackout. Winter’s cold that everybody used to keep food cold while preparing canned foods and jars during summers, thinking of the heavy winters that were ahead, were exchanged for fridges and freezers. Sometimes it’s hard for you to wrap your head around all the changes and evolution of the human race.
So like usual, you stop by the record store on your way home after your last tutoring session, this time stopping by an antique store to check some vinyls out, because they have always been your favourite, even if you traded them for cds or playlists on music apps to have everything more simplified for you.
The place is huge, and it smells like old paper, the type of store you know has sold the greatest and most authentic pieces known to man judging by the smell of the store alone. The air is cool, air conditioning blowing at full speed — and you can recognise the smell of it. While you can’t feel heat or cold physically on your body, you can sense the smell. And outside is a torrid, rotting smell of a heatwave that has you nauseous after passing mortals on the street.
“Hi, welcome!” A friendly voice rings like an echo around the empty store, covering Michael Jackson’s singing voice heard throughout the ceiling speakers. It’s high in pitch, but you can sense the kindness dripping off it, “I’m sorry, but we don’t allow beverages in here,” he gives you a remorseful little smile, “We don’t want unfortunate events involving our vinyls,” he goes on with the explaining, as if he’s apologising for the store’s policy.
“It’s okay, really,” you tell him, looking at the tall glass of iced americano in your hand, shaking it a bit, the ice cubes making noise as they hit each other. You only ever drink coffee because its strong taste overpowers the disgusting smell of humans sweating outside, skin overheated in the heatwave, “I totally understand! I wouldn’t want my stuff to get destroyed either,” you reassure him, walking towards the cashier desk where he’s standing, “Can I leave this here?” You shake it in front of his figure, before setting it on the desk.
“I’ll keep it safe,” he nods, and one first, very attentive look at him, and his gaze seems to be holding yours with prying attention.
His face is adorned in moles, pouty lips chapped as he runs his tongue on them out of reflex at your attentive eyes on his figure, feeling like a deer in highlight in front of you, and he seems familiar.
A face like his doesn’t go unnoticed, so you wonder the premises of a possible encounter you might have had in the past, a fleeting moment passing him by on the street — anything, really. Because you know you’ve never been inside this record store before.
You give him a small smile, already eyeing other corners of this store, not because he makes you feel uncomfortable, but because you don’t want to make him feel this way as you try to understand the reason he’s so familiar.
Your fingers are fast as you navigate all the amazing music they have. This is indeed the greatest store you’ve entered, and you wonder who curated the inventory.
“Isn’t it torrid outside?” The young man asks you, the only customer at this time in the afternoon, so you nod and hum, acknowledging him and his question, but your mind still blown by the fact that they’re selling a rare Queen vinyl for twenty bucks.
“I suppose,” you sigh, too lost into your own thoughts, and you freeze on the spot, your mind registering the words you just let out.
“You suppose?” He laughs, showing you a perfect row of white teeth. “You just came in a few minutes ago,” he pouts, pointing at the entrance door like you’re an idiot.
Maybe you are an idiot, because why did your mouth open without your consent? This man doesn’t need to know that you don’t feel temperatures.
“I meant that,” you pause, turning to look at him as he’s slouching over the cashier desk, “I moved here a few months ago and this is my first summer here, so I wouldn’t know how to compare it to last year’s,” you try to dodge the bullet, and he seems like he buys your bullshit excuse after mulling your words over.
You try focusing once again on the piles of vinyls sitting in front of your figure, but you feel his intent gaze on your figure, lingering on your pale skin to the point you feel paranoia seeping through your pale skin.
You try to remember why he seems so familiar. A traffic light in town? A student’s relative? Perhaps you threw him a fleeting look while walking down towards your table in a restaurant? You’ve been in this small town for about six months already, but you can’t seem to be able to allocate a place or occasion to his face.
You sharpen your hearing, trying to focus on him, and then it seems like your sharp senses fail you, even abandon you. You don’t hear a heartbeat, you don't hear insides churning after the lunch he’s had today, you don’t hear blood pumping through his arteries.
And then it hits you like a truck at full speed. The newspaper thirty years ago — his black and white picture was plastered there, just a bit above Jaehyun’s, and you can still remember the same sparkly eyes he had in that photo — with which he’s looking at you right now.
You approach the cashier where you left your drink, and you wrap a fearful hand around the tall glass. His gaze bores into yours, and then he smiles at you like a child would, like one of the kids you tutor would try to persuade you to dismiss him earlier.
“You’ve been eyeing me,” he accuses with a playful tone, “Have we met before?”
There’s an urge inside of you that makes your insides burn, like you’re ready to jump this man in front of you, and you wonder if he’s playing with you right now.
If you recognised him, you’re sure he understood what you are as well, hence the question about the heatwave taking over the small town yet you’re dry as a bone, no droplets of sweat clinging to your skin. But if you recognised him from that damned newspaper you still keep in the attic of the small house you bought, you’re sure he doesn’t know who you are. You can link him to Jaehyun, but he can’t do the same to you.
“I don’t think we have, no,” you whisper after a painfully long time, eyeing him like you’re ready to put a wooden stick through his chest if he blinks one more time. “Actually,” you squint your eyes a bit, tilting your head, “You seem oddly familiar,” you retort, taking a few steps back, but you don’t wait for his answer — yet your eyes never leave his.
You throw your coffee in the first bin you find on your way back to your car, and you pick up your phone.
If his band member, who was supposedly dead, is still alive and running a record store in the small town you’re now living in, that means Jaehyun is still out somewhere, and just the thought of him having fooled you makes you choke with betrayal.
You don’t return to the record store, thinking it’d be too dangerous to face that man again. Haechan, you checked his name as soon as you arrived home. He has the same sparkling eyes, the same hair colour, yet now it’s longer than what he sported in the 90’s.
You spend the entire summer looking around yourself like a anxious paranoid freak. You know it’s all in your head, because you would actually feel it if anyone followed you — by using your hearing or trying to smell who’s in your proximity, — but you can’t help but spare looks left and right as you come home everyday, as you go to work, as you welcome your students at the entrance of your studio.
But there’s no sign of Jaehyun, Haechan, or any of the band members you made sure to memorise all the facial features of by looking at their pictures. Thank god for the internet, because you could find all the archives of their activities as a band.
“Maybe you should visit the record store again,” Minji suggested on the phone one day, making you scoff.
“No, thank you,” you let a humourless laugh escape you, eyes squinting as you inspected a box of crackers at the supermarket. “Actually, Minji,” you start, throwing the box in your cart and proceeding to grab a pack of sweet bread, “I’m thinking of rebranding,” you mumble into the phone, aware of the fact that it will mess the timeline you established for both Minji and yourself.
“What?” She screeches into the phone, and your sharp hearing is too sensitive to the sound of her voice, “So soon? But Master Jaehyun is still alive, and possibly he’s somewhere around you,”
“That’s precisely the reason, Minji,” you explain, pushing your cart around, reaching the meat section, and suddenly you’re thirsty looking at the blood-dripping liver packages sitting in the display fridges, “He said we’ll find each other if we’re meant to be, and I feel like I’ve been looking for him yet he’s the one running away from me,”
And truth be told, besides being paranoid out of your mind, you spent time mulling some things over. Some things like the fact that Jaehyun hasn’t made one single effort to find you, or how he went to extreme lengths like faking his own death that he knew would make the headlines, given his status at that time. And then there’s the fact that that man, Haechan, knows you’re around, yet no one has ever reached out to you. So you came to the conclusion that Jaehyun doesn’t want to find you, because he could have done so until now, so many times.
It’s disappointing, realising that you spent eternity looking for him only to be met with an empty promise. And honestly you’ve reached a point where you really don’t want to meet him again. You’re fearful, you’re embarrassed after making a fool of yourself, but you know you did so because you loved him. And you’re sure you’ll go on loving him for a long time, but you’re the one who has to get away right now, the mere thought of having to face a man who made you suffer for absolutely no reason until now is making your insides churn with anger.
Centuries spent in misery only to realise you were playing his game all along. Plying a game of cat and mouse, if you will, — and you’re tired.
“Come live here,” Minji suggests, “Everyone knows I have a sister, so it will be easy for you to rebrand here,” she tells you, her sweet voice bringing you comfort. Because she’s all you have, and maybe you should have turned Norma into a vampire as well. You wouldn’t have been so lonely and miserable if you did.
“I’ll think about it,” you smiled into the phone, but this time you feel like you’ll have to go even farther away.
You’re snatched out of your thoughts the moment someone’s cart bumps into yours.
“Ah! Miss Queen News of the World Fortieth Anniversary edition! What a coincidence,” the same mellow voice greets your hearing, yet this time he’s not alone. You recognise the other man to be the drummer of the band, Johnny Suh.
Extremely tall, very well built, Johnny seems to be someone that came out of a picture. Muscles defined like someone draw him with the finest pencil, clothes sitting impeccably, hugging his perfect body just the right way.
But you’re not impressed, you’re actually upset he bumped into you.
“Haven’t seen you in a while! Someone bought your vinyl a while back,” Haechan’s voice interrupts your glaring towards Johnny’s direction, “Throwing a bbq party?” He laughs, pointing at your cart half full of red meat.
For some reason, you’re beyond pissed by his cockiness.
“Is there a reason for your bumping into me here?” You ask, elbows resting on your cart as you look at the two of them uninterested.
This is just another way to confirm your suspicions. Jaehyun knows you’re here, and you’re sure he didn’t spend centuries looking for you. Running away from you, on the other hand…
“Listen,” you start, pushing the cart away and walking towards the two, “You two act like internet archives aren’t a thing, like wikipedia isn’t a click away,” you sigh coming closer to the two, “One century from now and maybe, just maybe people will overlook the fact that you two look exactly like two rockstars who died in 1994,” you bark at them tiredly, not in the mood to beat around the bush when you know exactly what they are, and you’re sure they know what you are as well, “I thought your maker was smarter than this,”
But you don’t wait for their reply, leaving Haechan’s annoyingly radiant face behind, smugness now wiped away by your words.
And you don’t bother finishing your shopping, or driving home, or calling Minji to tell her of the unpleasant encounter you just had. You drive away, and with sleep not being a problem to you, you know exactly where you’re off to.
It takes you ten more hours to reach your destination, and you park your car in one of the designated parking spots.
You look at the mansion that had been your home for so many years, and even if you wanted to go to your childhood home instead, you’re keeping that option viable for your next rebranding, that you’ve decided will come sooner than previously anticipated.
Jaehyun’s mansion was unkept for a long time after you left town with Minji, and a few decades later, when you made sure no one remembered your faces, you made Minji buy it, not having the heart to lose it — and everything inside, — to complete strangers. After a few more decades, you made the purchase, for it to then be left unkept by the city hall, and then you bought it again at the beginning of your rebranding, a few years ago.
And now you feel like it’s finally over, like there’s no reason to keep it and go out of your way to buy it every few decades to make sure no one sees how suspiciously you act. Maybe you’ll fake your own death as well, and it all ends tonight with this mansion burning down to the ground alongside all the boxes inside.
Your pace is fast, feet moving rapidly inside and past the gates, and a gentle breeze blows, carrying a melody to your ears.
You stop in your tracks, looking at the old mansion and the unkept garden around it, the entrance where Jeger parked the carriage to wait for you, the fountain and its rim — the one you used to sit on while Jaehyun read to you during sunny summer afternoons.
And then you sharpen your hearing, thinking you hallucinated and heard the sound earlier, yet another breeze blows and the melody reaches your ears — this time louder and clearer.
Judging by the piece being played on a piano, the meaning behind it, and the importance it has to you, you know who’s the one playing. And your feet move on their own, your brain freezing while you take quick steps over to the entrance, and all around the ground floor of the mansion, all the way towards the parlour where you knew the piano was, and you stop in your tracks for the second time in the span of ten minutes, a lump forming in your throat.
You’re greeted by Jaehyun, looking exactly the same as he did the last time you saw him, hair black and on the longer side, like he’s been here the whole time, like he didn’t make an appearance in a newspaper thirty years ago, sporting short, platinum hair. And he’s playing that Schumann piece.
“I told you I’ll learn this for you,” he smiles, eyes still focusing on his moving fingers.
“What are you doing here?” You ask, and it sounds like you’re being strangled.
“Well, if the mountain will not come to Muhammad…” he trails off, like he’s mocking you in some sort of way.
“Then Muhammad will come to the mountain,” you complete the saying, still in disbelief of the personal attack he just launched on you. “Is this all you have to say?” You accuse, eyes squinting at his stupidly handsome face, “After all you’ve put me through, you choose these to be among the first words you tell me?” You bark at him, your voice dripping with hurt.
He halts his movements, the melody coming to an abrupt halt, and his beautiful sparkly eyes look into your raging ones.
“You let me roam the earth, alone and scared, just to show up in a place you knew I’d take refuge in?” You accuse him once again, and you feel like you’re losing your mind. Did this man ever love you like he claimed he did?
“I heard you were going to rebrand,” he explained, bringing his arms behind his figure, “You gave up,”
“I gave up?” You shout at him, tone full of anger and disbelief, “I’ve been looking for you since the day you left, and you still managed to run away farther, and farther each time!”
“But you didn’t find me,” he whispers, and you feel like you don’t recognise him. Centuries might have passed, but you never thought Jaehyun’s way of thinking would ever change.
“And you did?” You lurch towards his figure standing next to the piano, and you push at his chest, “Did you ever look for me, Jaehyun? You promised me eternity and then you left, asking me to look for you! And I did!” You push at his chest with every accusatory sentence that you let out, “ Yet you never looked for me!”
You start crying, not caring about the bloody tears, “And the moment you feel me giving up on you, you come exactly where you know you’ll find me? Like you never did before!” You punch his chest, and he allows you to do it, still keeping his arms behind his figure.
“You left me behind and I lost everyone and everything all by myself, when you promised you’d stay with me forever,” you sob, but your tone is full of venom as you spit accusations in his face.
He grabs your wrists, having enough of all your punches to his chest, “I love you! Never, not even for one second, believe I don’t love you, or that I didn’t in the past! I looked for you with no success, I moved countries and continents and you were nowhere to be found! So never, ever, accuse me again of running away from you!” He rasps, accentuating every single sentence. His eyes are dark, menacing, angry at your accusations, and while it should make you back down, it only fuels you more.
“And whose fault is that, Jaehyun?” You retort through your teeth, wrists still wrapped in his firm grip, “You ran away from me that day, leaving a letter behind like that was supposed to hold all the answers to my questions! I had to bury Norma, Jeger, everyone else, all by myself! And the only thing you kept telling me in that letter was how much you loved me and that if we’re meant to be together, we’ll find each other again! You said you loved me but you left me behind like a kicked puppy,”
“And I’ll regret that forever!” He spits, now angry. “I’ve been yearning to be reunited with you even as soon as I left, but I had to do it! The priest started getting suspicious of me and I wanted to protect you! Taking you with me and leaving the mansion behind meant we were on the run from all accusations that priest was going to bring upon us, and I thought it was going to be easier for you to call my supposed death and erasing traces of my existence in this town, instead of you running away with me, and us possibly becoming a subject for history books!”
“What?” You ask incredulously, the information too much for you right now.
“I never ran away from you except that one time, and I came back here looking for you every single time I rebranded in the vicinity of this zone, hoping you left clues behind, clues of where you could be! I spent centuries in agonising pain trying to finally find you,” his voice breaks, it thickens with emotion as he tries to gulp away the tears.
“I can’t believe you thought I was running away from you,” he seems in disbelief, and a look into his eyes and you can tell he’s hurt.
“Then how do you explain the obnoxious presence of your band members around the town I rebranded to?” Your tone still dripped with anger, adamant to believe him.
“Haechan recognised you because of this,” he pulls a locket out of his pocket, “I always kept you with me, all these years,” he opens it with long and slender fingers, showing you a now blurry picture of yourself from 1875, “He told me about you, and how it seemed like you recognised him as well, that one time at the record store. And I knew I could find you there, yet somehow it was like the earth swallowed you whole, like every time I was getting near, you disappeared into thin air,”
He gulps, trying to control his trembling voice, “Haechan heard you might rebrand, and I thought our house could be a place you would want to visit in the next few days, so I came here just to wait for you. And I started playing the piano the moment I sensed you parking outside the gates, hoping you’ll hear me,”
His hands are suddenly on both sides of your face, squishing your cheeks as he looks into your eyes for a sign that you believe him, or that you don’t, or maybe for a sign that you still love him. A sign of anything. Give him the smallest of signs and he’ll grip to it like a drowning man looking for someone to pull him up again.
“My love,” he starts, and your stomach flutters at the words that leave his mouth, having missed them, “I love you, and eternity by your side is all I’ve ever longed for,”
You grab his wrists, pushing yourself up to reach his lips, and the moment his lips touch yours it’s like you can feel temperatures once again. They’re burning as they move on top of yours like flaming hot honey, tasting just as sweet.
He moans into the kiss, his slender fingers now making their way up in your hair, one hand reaching the back of your neck to bring you closer to the armchair by the piano, the one you used to sit in every time he played for you. And he didn’t have to take you after him, because you would have chased his lips nonetheless.
Dragging you on top of him, he never breaks the kiss. Your hands make their way up in his hair, pulling at the dark strands to elicit something out of him, and he pleases your unspoken request with a rumbling groan coming from his chest, like he’s finally relaxing knowing he found the only thing that allows him to go on with living.
“You don’t know how long I’ve waited to have you like this again, how long I’ve waited to taste your sweetness again,” he mumbles against your lips, feeling your hands travelling down his abdomen to his belt.
His hands are all over your body, gripping at your thighs, pulling at your dress, squeezing the flesh of your arms and hips, travelling up on your abdomen to your breasts.
He’s insatiable for you, too desperate to make up for the lost time, too desperate to feel your lips on him, too desperate to be one with you once again.
His big hands wrap around your breast as your fingers travel south of his happy trail, impatience making both of you messy, teeth clashing and tongues swirling in an eager battle of dominance, — and he pulls back a bit, giving you the reins and surrendering to you. He lets you set the pace, and even if he still feels the need to devour your lips and kiss you the way he’s craved for, for such long time, he lets you guide him so it feels good for you.
His senses are flooded by your smell, the sweetness he’s daydreamed of so many times until now, and it doesn’t have to be a memory of the past. You’re right here, your bare chest touching his, and with your clothed cunt causing friction on his already hard bulge.
You bite his lip as a warning to keep it down, because you’ve never heard him so vocal and desperate for your touch. You guess this is what a century of yearning does to a man.
Feeling Jaehyun so eager for you gives you so much power, so much control, he’s at your mercy but his eyes are looking at you like he’s on the edge of snapping, like he’s putting all self control into supporting your weight on top of his clothed cock, trying not to pay too much mind to it or otherwise the friction alone might make him release on the spot.
You moan his name when the friction feels too delicious, making your clit burn with anticipation, “Tell me what you want,” you look down at him, half naked under you, with his eyes glinting the moment he hears the way his name rolls off your tongue so easily, so eager, “Just say it,”
“You,” he huffs trying not to focus on the way you keep moving on top of him, relentless, “Just you,” he breathes on your neck, hands keeping you in place on top of him, “Ride me, my love,” he pleads, and it doesn’t take you too much time to do as he says.
His fingers travel between your bodies, moving your panties to the side, to impatient to let you get off him to slide them down your legs, and as you sense his movements and understand his actions and what he means, you fingers move to his boxers, pulling the elastic band away from his abs, his cock slapping against his abdomen as soon as you free it from the uncomfortable tightness of the fabric.
You squeeze it in the palm of your hand, grip travelling to its tip, and Jaehyun sucks air through his teeth, “Don’t play,” he lets out a whimper when you give it one final squeeze, before your free hand pushes him away from your neck.
He rests on his back, as much as the armchair allows him to, and you keep him into place with your hand, the other one busy lining him at your entrance.
The moment you sink down on him, you both release a sigh. With your eyes closed, you fail to see the way Jaehyun is looking up at you, eyebrows furrowed and eyes glossy, — the way you’re squeezing and pulsating around him makes his breath halt into his throat, jaw setting while looking down between your bodies at the way you’re taking him in so easily, moving your hips in a sinful motion.
The sting of the stretching fuels the burning you feel in your lower abdomen, like you’re ready to snap anytime already. It prompts you to plant the soles of your feet flat on each side of Jaehyun’s hips, and the motion has him hitting a new angle inside of you, one that has you seeing stars and your cunt squeezes him hungrily as you move up and down his cock.
The obscene squelch of your cunt taking all of him with ease is arousing, and your hands travel on his chest for support, touching his nipples and getting a whimper out of Jaehyun, one that you’ve never heard. He’s sensitive, both south of his loins and on his chest, and he has to fight and set his jaw not to release into you.
“I’m close,” he warns, and the sounds you make are enough to make his dick twitch inside of you, “Won’t be able to last any longer, my love,”
“I don’t want you to,” you let out a breathy moan, your hand travelling between your folds to rub circles on your clit, giving yourself a helping hand, “Just let go,”
And the moment your release hits you, cunt squeezing around him like a vice — thanks to your motions on your fingers, — Jaehyun groans, spilling strings of his own release inside of you, melting in the way you keep pulsing around him, milking him for all he’s worth.
Keeping him inside of you, you fall on top of him, knees on each of his sides, and your face touches his shoulder, resting against it.
“You learned Schumann’s piece for me?” You ask, your question distorted by the way he’s still keeping you against his skin, cheek squished against his shoulder, and all Jaehyun wants is to kiss your pouting lips.
“That’s all you remember from the past half an hour?” He squints his eyes down at you, but his tone is playful.
You grab his chin, pushing yourself up to reach his lips, “Your technique is rusty, but you have some more centuries to learn it!” You giggle, hand falling back in the crook of his neck, and you let out a content sigh.
You’re exactly where you were always meant to be, both you and Jaehyun, sticking to each other, ready to navigate eternity hand in hand.
Spoiled
Summary: You impulsively adopt the cute hybrid that avoids all eye contact, but you end up accidentally spoiling him too much.
Pairing: Hybrid! Jisungx Rich! Female reader
Warnings: smut, smut, smut, fluff (he's too cute), mentions of drugs and SA (doesn't happen to ji nor y/n), mentions of hybrid abuse, some miscommunication at first, but it's solved quickly because they talk like adults (sort of). Also no proofreading! Sorry I got a bit lazy.
You examined the papers in front of you meticulously, looking for any abnormality. Every month, you visited the shelter to ensure your generous donations were used to improve the facilities and provide healthy meals for the hybrids that lived there. It had happened before that charity organizations received big sums of money from you, but it all went into the owner’s pocket. Whenever you discovered that was the case, you stopped your donations to the organization altogether, but this shelter had passed all your tests so far, offering you very detailed documents to prove that your money had been used the way it was intended to. Even if you showed up on a random Tuesday morning, the employees welcomed you calmly and showed you any document or room you asked to see.
The corridors were clean, besides the unavoidable remains of fur here and there. The rooms on each side of it were not luxurious, and the furniture was minimal, but they were large enough for 2 or 3 hybrids. When you were walking by the feline area, you stopped in front of the only room that had its door closed. All doors had a small, rounded window that allowed you to look inside, for security reasons, as the volunteer had explained during your first visit about a year ago.
Once you peeked inside, you saw a lone figure in the corner of the room.
“Where’s the other one?” you asked, after double-checking the room number. You remembered clearly that room 16 had an extra inhabitant.
The volunteer worker walking next to you stopped as well. “What?”
“The orange cat,” you clarified, remembering the sharp eyes of a cat hybrid glaring at you whenever you came too close to that room. “The one that hates people.”
“Chenle?” The volunteer seemed to know who you were talking about. “He doesn’t hate people! He’s just picky. Someone adopted him last week, actually,” she said with a sweet smile.
You raised your eyebrows in disbelief, thinking about that one time he tried to scratch a loving family that wanted to approach him.
“I know,” the volunteer laughed at your incredulous expression. “We were all surprised! There was this woman who came here looking for a hybrid to keep her company, and she made it very clear she wanted to adopt a dog, but Chenle clung onto her and, after a few visits, she ended up taking him home.”
“Ah…” you nodded awkwardly and glanced over at the lonely occupant of the room. His fluffy, dark ears were folded down, and his lips almost formed a pout as he sat on the floor, staring at the floor cheerlessly. “Is he sick?”
“Jisungie?” the volunteer asked, lowering her voice when she saw his ear twitch at the mention of his name. “He’s probably just sad,” she whispered. “It’s hard for him to get adopted. He’s not exactly what people expect of his breed…”
“Well, his ears are not as pointy, but other than that, he seems like a healthy cat hybrid to me…” You said, trying to defend him.
“Cat?” the volunteer echoed, surprised. “Oh… oh, no, Jisungie is a cricetulus barabensis.”
You stared back at her blankly before you finally admitted you had no idea what that was. “A what?”
“He’s a hamster hybrid,” she explained. “A Chinese striped hamster.”
“Then what is he doing in the feline zone?!”
“A few of our cats took a liking to him as soon as he arrived. They took care of him like he was their baby, so we let him stay here… but now that everyone in that group has been adopted, he’s been by himself. We tried to have him move to the rodent zone, but other rodents don’t get along with him…they find him…different.”
“...Why?”
“The same reason people don’t adopt him. When you think of a hamster, you picture someone small, chubby, and cuddly. He’s tall, awkward, and skittish. He’s not what hamster people are looking for, and neither does he match the description of an ideal companion for dog or cat people. Someone who came yesterday said he was not cute-”
“He’s cute!” you said without thinking. “Was that person blind? Were they even that pretty themselves? There’s nothing wrong with him! He’s adorable!” you ranted angrily. You were a softie inside. The type who watched compilations of people being nice to each other online and cried herself to sleep. Hearing about someone having their feelings hurt just because they didn’t fit the standard someone set for them made you want to either fight or sob uncontrollably. Maybe both.
“I agree with you,” the volunteer said. “But we can’t change what potential owners want…”
“They have to be dumb not to want him! Who in their right mind wouldn’t want this cutie?!”
“...Do you want him?” she asked cautiously.
“Me?!”
“We have known you for a while, so the background check would go smoothly and you could take him home in less than a week,” the excited volunteer explained.
“I’m not here to adopt. You know that,” you replied curtly.
“Right,” she hesitated. “I just thought… Well, if you change your mind–”
“I won’t. I do my part, donating more than enough for you all to keep this place afloat.”
“Hybrids need more than money…” she mumbled. “They need someone to care for them.”
“And you are great at it!” you assured her with a pat on her shoulder.
“It’s not the same,” she shook her head sadly. “They need undivided attention and companionship–”
“And I can’t offer that,” you declared. “Not with the lifestyle I have. I don’t want an extra responsibility taking up my time.”
The volunteer’s sad eyes looked away from you and at the hybrid. You followed her gaze and saw Jisung’s dark eyes boring into yours, before he quickly looked away. Then, he stood up slowly and dragged his feet towards his bed, where he lay on his side, with his back turned to you.
“I didn’t mean to pressure you,” the volunteer said, guiding you away from the feline zone. “I just thought you liked Jisungie.”
“It’s not that I don’t like him,” you said quickly. “I just don’t want to adopt him.”
“That’s understandable,” she said, trying not to show her disappointment.
It bothered you. You felt like she was trying to make you feel guilty because you didn’t want to adopt. Not wanting to own a hybrid didn’t make you a bad person. You were giving them money, weren’t you? That already made you better than those people who didn’t care at all.
Some people called you selfish for not wanting to form a family or have any type of companion. But was it really wrong to be selfish? You weren’t hurting anyone. You had worked really as an actress for years to build your current luxurious lifestyle. You wanted to enjoy it, have brunch with the girls, party until dawn with your friends, and take spontaneous trips to the beach. If you had a pet, you wouldn’t be able to do all that freely.
You cringed at your own thoughts. You tried to train yourself to treat hybrids as equals, but you found yourself, once again, referring to them as pets. Maybe you weren’t making donations because you were a good person, but because you wanted to feel better about yourself.
You remembered the hybrid’s sad eyes when he looked at you. You wondered how many times he had been rejected. Judging by his behavior, it had been too many to count.
You drank shot after shot and laughed at your friends' jokes at the club, but the image of the pitiful hybrid kept haunting you.
“I’m not a bad person!” you yelled drunkenly for the fifth time that night.
“Shh!” Seungkwan hissed. “Do you want another scandal?”
“The last one wasn’t even my fault!” you huffed.
“We know, we know,” Seungkwan said dismissively, switching your shot for a glass of water. “The director from your last movie was an asshole. But you still have to be careful with what you say in public.”
“Why are you so worked up, by the way?” Vernon asked. “You never let people’s words get to you like this.”
“I don’t care about what the volunteer said… But why did he look at me like I stabbed him in the heart?!” you insisted.
“The volunteer?”
“No. Jisung!” you exclaimed, frustrated at your confused friends.
“Who’s that?”
“The hybrid!”
“If it bothers you that much, go back and adopt him,” Vernon said, drinking your shot.
Seungkwan glared at him. “Are you crazy? Look at her! Do you think she can take care of somebody else?”
Now you glared at Seungkwan. “I totally can.”
There was an awkward silence.
“Drink your water, girl,” Seungkwan said, pressing the glass against your lips.
You gulped the liquid down and turned to Vernon. “I totally can, right?” you repeated.
Vernon shrugged. “I see no reason why not.”
Seungkwan shook his head. “You know you can’t get crazy drunk like this every week if this hybrid depends on you. What are you gonna do, leave him alone at home the entire time?”
“With food and TV,” you deadpanned, like it was enough.
“You’re just gonna keep him inside watching TV,” he paraphrased, unamused.
“He could party with us,” Vernon offered.
You nodded and looked at Seungkwan, looking for approval.
“You’ll adopt a hybrid and get him drunk so that you can feel better about yourself?”
“You’re making it sound like I would be a terrible owner,” you scoffed. You waited for him to contradict you, but he silently took a sip of his cocktail. “Seungkwan!”
“Y/N. A hybrid is a responsibility for life. And you are terrified of commitment.”
“I’m not terrified! I just don’t want to commit!”
“Then why are you talking about adopting a whole hybrid?!”
“I just want you to say I can do it!”
“You can’t!
“Vernon said I can!”
“Vernon!” Seungkwan scolded the handsome man who, once again, shrugged and stole a sip of his cocktail.
“I’m adopting him,” you declared, standing up, but the world immediately started spinning. Vernon caught you right before you fell, and with Seungkwan’s help, he carried you out of the club. “Gonna… gonna adopt Jisungie….,” you babbled.
“You won’t even remember this conversation tomorrow, Y/N,” Seungkwan sighed.
But Seungkwan was so wrong.
When you woke up after a few hours, your first thought was Jisung. You got up, wore something comfortable, took an aspirin, and got in your car with a clear destination: the hybrid shelter (with a short but necessary stop to get coffee).
Your heart was beating fast by the time you reached the shelter. You took a deep breath in and opened the door, quickly spotting the same volunteer you had talked to the day before.
“I want Jisung,” you declared.
The woman almost dropped the box she was carrying when she saw your disheveled appearance. She scanned you before putting the box down and approaching you slowly.
“A-are you okay?” she asked.
“You said there was no need for a background check, right?”
“Uh…I said it could be faster…”
“So I get to take him home today.”
“Today?!”
“Is he awake?” you asked agitatedly, walking towards the feline zone where you knew he was mistakenly staying.
The volunteer quickly caught up and stood in front of you, making you stop. “What are you doing?! You can’t just take him!”
Her outraged yelp worsened the sharp pain in your head, so you massaged your temple, irritated. “You wanted to give him to me yesterday,” you reminded her.
“And you refused!”
“I changed my mind,” you said simply, walking past the stressed woman, but you barely took a step before she grabbed your forearm. You turned around, feeling insulted by her behavior. “WHAT?!”
She glared at you defiantly. “If you take him, you can’t change your mind. You must treat Jisung like family, not a trophy to display your altruism.”
That stung. “I…I know that…”
“Then please go home and come back only when you’re absolutely sure you can do this,” she demanded firmly. “And make sure you’re sober.”
You sighed with relief when you got back home. Now that you were sobering up, the idea of adopting a hybrid seemed as ridiculous as Seungkwan pointed out. You dodged a bullet thanks to that annoying volunteer.
It was better to forget about Jisung.
And his fluffy ears.
…And his sad eyes.
…And the way he flinched when you said you didn’t want him.
But you just couldn’t stop thinking about him. After two weeks, you found yourself filling out the necessary paperwork to register him under your care. The annoying volunteer was being nice to you this time, which led you to think that previously she was being cautious to ensure the safety of the hybrids.
When Jisung came to the reception area, carrying only a backpack with his belongings, he had the look of a lost child. He stole glances at you before looking at the floor nervously, and his hands were visibly shaking.
He also kept looking at the volunteer to confirm that this was indeed happening, and when she gave him a thumbs up, his eyes widened a little before squinting to accompany his timid smile. He mentally repeated your name a few times when you officially introduced yourself to him, and then he nodded enthusiastically at everything you said.
You started to get nervous when you noticed he hadn’t said a single word while you went on about the room you had prepared for him, the phone you had bought him, and how you hoped you two would get along.
“He’s just overwhelmed,” the volunteer quickly assured, noticing your concern. ”Give him time and he’ll be yapping non-stop…” she trailed off when she caught sight of a familiar face entering the shelter. “Haechan, again?!”
A cat hybrid with beautiful caramel skin sighed and dropped his backpack on the floor. “Stop acting surprised. You keep giving me away to shitty people and then blame it on me when they send me back.”
“Where’s your owner? I’ll talk to her and maybe–” the stressed volunteer walked to the door to solve the problem.
“She’s not my owner anymore. Bitch kicked me out of the car and drove away. I’m not going back to her.”
She groaned. “Haechan… what do I do with you?”
“How about a welcome hug? Didn’t you miss me?” he pouted, opening his arms as an invitation.
“I did not,” she grumbled.
“Yeah… yeah, you did,” he affirmed with a sultry tone you doubted was appropriate for the workplace, and when his gaze lingered on her body for a little too long, you decided to clear your throat in an attempt to speed up Jisung’s adoption process.
Both the volunteer and Haechan jumped and looked at you. Haechan was the first to speak.
“No way! Our Jisungie finally got picked?” the cat hybrid asked cheerfully.
“Hi, I’m Y/N!” you introduced yourself, shaking his hand. “Are you Jisung’s friend?”
“Mhmm, you can call me Haechan. Hopefully, you won’t send him back like they did to me.”
“NO!” you exclaimed, scandalized. “I would never–”
“Yeah, you’re right…” he purred, patting the hamster hybrid’s back. “You won’t want to send him back when you see what he’s packing.”
Jisung’s eyes almost popped out of his head, and he clumsily covered his crotch with his hands despite being fully dressed.
“HAECHAN!” the poor volunteer shrieked, pushing the mischievous cat towards the feline area. “I’m so sorry about him. Just ignore him! You’re all set! A staff member will visit you after a few weeks for the first evaluation. Good luck!” she said, disappearing into the corridor with Haechan.
Jisung was silent on the ride home, and he remained quiet as you gave him a tour of the penthouse. When you finally heard his voice, it wasn’t what you expected.
“Master…” a deep voice suddenly called when you were leaving him to unpack his stuff in his room.
You turned around, speechless.
That was his voice?
“You haven’t told me the rules, master,” he pointed out. This time, you saw his lips move as the words left his mouth, which helped your brain accept that such a soothing voice came from this cute creature.
“T-the rules?” you echoed confusedly.
“Yes, master. Please tell me what I can and can’t do in your house.”
“Jisung, this is your house too. Just make yourself comfortable.”
He visibly malfunctioned. It felt like a trap, but he wouldn’t dare question your instructions.
“Okay. Thank you, master.”
“And don’t call me that,” you requested. “Just call me by my name.”
He nodded. “Master Y/N.”
“No…I mean– just call me Y/N.”
His mouth opened and closed, and then he shook his head.
“No?” you asked. “Does it make you uncomfortable?”
He bit his lip and looked at you nervously.
“Okay,” you sighed with defeat. “Just call me whatever is easier for you.”
“Thank you, master,” he whispered.
It may have been easier for him to call you by that title. But for you, it was mortifying when you took him shopping and he said it out loud in front of other people. Other than that, Jisung was an incredibly well-behaved hybrid. He always did as he was told, obediently accompanied you whenever you took him out to run errands, thankfully accepted every luxurious item you bought for him, and patiently waited for you at home when you went out by yourself.
And the best part was that you could continue living your life the way you liked. You still went out to parties until late at night, and Jisung didn’t seem to mind. He simply stayed at home, watching TV like you told him he could and asking you about your day as soon as you arrived. What you didn’t notice was his growing anxiety, the longer it took you to come back to him.
But how would you notice? He never said anything.
One night, you came back very late, taking off your shoes at the entrance and trying to find your way to your room in the darkness.
“Master,” his deep voice called out of nowhere, causing you to yelp in shock.
“Jesus–fuck, Jisung!” you exclaimed when you saw him standing in the corridor. “What are you doing awake?”
“I’m sorry– I…I have a question…” he mumbled.
“A question? This late?”
“Uh…I can wait until the morning…”
“No, no…” You sighed. “It’s fine. What is it?”
“I was uh…I was wondering if it would be okay for me to eat something…”
You stared at him, dumbfounded. “What?”
His stomach growled loudly, and he cleared his throat. “I didn’t want to grab anything without permission, so…”
That’s when you realized that in the couple of weeks Jisung had lived with you, you had always given him clear indications whenever it was time to eat.
‘Dinner’s in the microwave’, ‘Shall we have pizza?’, ‘Breakfast ready!’, ‘You can heat up some soup if you want’, among other verbal confirmations that it was okay for him to eat something, were always there, but he didn’t hear anything like that today. You had left early in the morning, spent the day outside, and returned past midnight.
“Jisung, have you eaten anything at all today?” you asked.
“I wasn’t sure what was okay–”
“Oh my god,” you groaned, grabbing his arm and dragging him to the kitchen. “I told you this is your house! You can use everything in it, and you can eat whatever you want!”
He mumbled a weak ‘Sorry’ as you took out a package of instant ramyun from the shelf and started preparing it.
“I want you to eat even if I’m not here. Understood?” you said once you were both at the table, and he started eating. “You can cook too, if you want. Do you know how to cook?”
He shook his head.
So you decided to buy more frozen meals that he could heat up when you’re not around.
Another week went by uneventfully. A staff member from the shelter showed up to check on Jisung and decided you were doing a good job since he was clean, well-fed, and had his own spacious room. Jisung tried his best not to cause any trouble. Even if that meant he didn’t do anything all day. But he felt uneasy…
Each passing day, he saw you less, and he was starting to think that maybe… you didn’t like him.
He tried waking up earlier in the morning to spend more time with you, but as soon as you got out of bed, you dressed up and left to who knows where. So he tried staying up until very late instead, but as soon as you arrived, you went to bed. He didn’t want to be ungrateful; after all, you had given him a home.
…But he felt even more lonely than when he was at the shelter.
“How are things with your human?” Chenle asked while videocalling.
“Uh… she’s nice,” he mumbled.
“Nice or… nice?” Chenle stressed the last word with a teasing smile.
Jisung’s face turned red. “It’s not like that…”
“Oh…” Chenle’s smirk dropped. “Haechan said she was your type…”
“WHA–?” Jisung cried out and then covered his mouth, looking around and then remembering he was–once again– alone. “What does he even know about my type?!”
“Jisung, we raised you,” Chenle deadpanned.
“We’re almost the same age!” he refuted, offended.
“But we’ve known you for a long time. He said he saw your ears twitch at the sound of her voice.”
“That’s…! I was just happy to be adopted…” he replied.
“Okay, maybe he got the wrong idea,” Chenle conceded. “Relationships between hybrids and humans aren’t all the same.”
That’s when Jisung got curious. “What about your owner?”
“Hm? What about her?” Chenle asked nonchalantly.
“Is she…nice like that?” he asked, lowering his voice at what he thought was a scandalous question.
But Chenle’s eyes lit up, and the corners of his lips curled. “She’s very nice.”
Jisung gasped.
“D-do you have that type of relationship with her?!”
“No, not yet,” Chenle sighed. “I’m working on it, but she acts more like a mouse than you… she gets all jumpy and shy when I get too close…” he added, chuckling.
“You’re going to scare her,” Jisung warned him.
“Nah, she just follows this dumb moral code that makes her think it would be wrong to let me fuck her stupid,” Chenle shrugged.
Jisung blushed, but not only because of his friend’s obscene choice of words. For some reason, his brain decided to create a visual representation of himself fucking you stupid. A tiny, surprised moan escaped his mouth, and Chenle heard it.
“Thinking about something naughty?” he teased.
“N-no!”
“Are you thinking about your owner?”
“I… our relationship is not like that!” he whined.
“But do you want it to be?”
“No– I just… want to be friends...”
“Okay…” Chenle said. “Then what’s the problem?”
“There is no problem.”
Chenle raised his eyebrows, unimpressed. “Jisung.”
“...Fine, I… I think she may not… like me very much…” the hamster hybrid finally admitted.
“Why would you think that?”
“We never do anything together… She’s never home, and when she is, she goes straight to bed… I don’t know, she may be avoiding me…”
Chenle hummed, processing this information. “I don’t think she’s avoiding you, Jisung. If she didn’t like you, she could just return you, like they did to Haechan.”
Jisung gulped. Going back to the shelter was the worst that could happen to an adopted hybrid. He felt bad for Haechan.
“Maybe she’s actually busy,” Chenle continued. “What does she do for a living?”
“Hm… she’s an actress… Have you heard about Y/N L/N?”
“WHAT? YOU WERE ADOPTED BY Y/N L/N?!”
“Uh…yeah…”
“First of all: wow. But secondly, and more importantly, that means she is busy, Jisung. Celebrities have a lot going on.”
Jisung shrugged. “I guess…”
“And I bet she’s tired when she gets home too. Why don’t you do something to help her relax when she gets home? Maybe that would help you two become closer.”
Jisung nodded slowly, but he couldn’t hide the confusion on his face. “...Like what?”
The cat hybrid stared back at him, blinking slowly. “That’s up to you. What would you like to do for her?”
Jisung thought hard about it all day until he eventually came up with something he thought was a good idea.
…And that’s how you came home to your kitchen being a mess, with your hybrid looking like he had committed a crime.
“Y-you’re home early…” he stuttered, avoiding your questioning eyes.
“Were you hungry?” you asked with a small laugh. “What were you trying to make?”
“Lasagna…” he replied, embarrassed. His sauce-covered clothes confirmed that cooking wasn’t one of his talents. “Saw it on tiktok.”
“You could have just ordered some, or text me to buy some for you on my way back,” you said, shaking your head and starting to clean the kitchen.
“I, uh… It was for you…” He said, barely above a whisper.
“Huh?” You looked at him, surprised. “For me?”
He shrugged, but then you noticed something weird. He kept one of his hands behind his back.
“What are you hiding?” you asked, teasingly.
“Nothing,” he said, but he took a step back.
“I promise I won’t laugh, Jisungie!” you said, thinking he was hiding the results of his cooking attempt. You took a few steps towards him until he was cornered against the counter. “Show me, come on!”
“It’s nothing!” he insisted, trying to escape, but you reached for his hidden hand, and he winced in pain.
“Jisung?” you asked worriedly, finally managing to take a look at his reddened hand. “What happened to your hand?”
He bit his lip, still looking anywhere except your eyes.
“Did you burn yourself?!” you insisted.
He shrugged, but his cheeks were red and his eyes were glossy. He wanted you to see he could be dependable, but he ended up making a fool of himself. Could things get any more embarrassing?
“Why didn’t you call me?! I gave you a phone for a reason!”
“It wasn’t an emergency,” he mumbled.
“What?!”
“You said to call you in case of an emergency.”
“Burning your hand is not an emergency to you?!” you asked.
“Sorry for the inconvenience,” he said, trying to pull his hand away with a humiliated sigh, but your grip remained strong.
“Inconve–What are you even talking about?” you asked. “Jisungie, I’m supposed to take care of you!”
“Yeah, since I’m just a useless pet…” he spat, breaking free from your grasp and walking away.
“What did you say?!” you asked incredulously.
“Nothing. Just leave me alone, ok?”
You saw red. This wasn’t like him at all. He had never talked like that before.
So you followed him.
“Don’t you walk away from me! Where is this attitude coming from?”
“I don’t get it,” he yelled back, ignoring your order and walking towards his room. “If you don’t like me, why did you adopt me?”
You gasped. “What’s gotten into you today? Of course I like you!”
He stopped right before his bedroom door, turning around and glaring at you. “Yeah? Is that why you’re never home since I started living here?”
“I’ve always been like that! Even before you got here! I have things to do!”
“And I have nothing to do!” he exclaimed. “I stay home all day, waiting for you like an idiot.”
“You can do anything you want, Jisung,” you repeated the words you had told him so many times before. “You don’t need me here to have fun.”
“I don’t want to be alone!” he finally admitted. “I–... I hate it,” he added softly.
Despite his quiet voice, the words landed like a dropped plate. Silence followed the unexpected confession.
And then, he sniffed.
It started as a small broken sound, but it soon escalated into sobs that let out the sour feeling he had been repressing for so long.
“Oh…” you mumbled, astonished. He always said everything was fine… This was the first time you heard him voice his feelings so strongly. “Jisung, I– I’m sorry…” You cooed, pulling him into a hesitant hug, praying it didn’t make him feel more uneasy. Thankfully, he welcomed your touch, and his arms immediately pulled you closer. You had no idea how much he needed physical touch right now. How much he craved being close to you, the person whom he had hoped would be his new family.
Still clinging to each other, you slowly sank to the floor, as he cried loudly on your shoulder.
“I w-wanted to do…something f-for you,” he managed to say between hiccups. “But y-you already have… you have everything you want and I– I’m j-just here… dumb and useless and u-ugly–”
“NO!” you refuted, pulling away and holding his face with your palms. “You are none of those things, Jisung. You are smart, loving, and beautiful. Do you hear me?
His reddened, sad eyes avoided yours. “You’re just saying that…”
“I’m not! I’m sorry I made you feel like this, Jisung. I’m just… too used to being alone. I… don’t know how to live with someone. But I like you. I really do.”
He sniffed, and his rounded ears twitched. “Really?”
God, he was adorable.
“Really,” you insisted, and before you could stop yourself, you kissed his forehead softly. “Now, let’s go to the hospital,” you said, smiling and pulling his arm to guide him to the front door.
Jisung thought going to the hospital was a great idea, but not because of his hand. His heart was doing weird flips in his chest, and he felt his face burning after your lips touched his skin. There was surely something wrong with him.
Time blurred since that moment. He followed you without hesitation and let you take him to the hospital. Then he heard you explain everything to the doctor before he could say a word. He looked at you in awe as you took care of all the paperwork, paid the bill, and drove him home. He then waited obediently for you to cook a meal for him, shaking his leg excitedly and replaying the memory of the loving kiss in his head again and again. It felt so tender, and he just knew you weren’t faking it.
‘She cares,’ he thought. ‘She likes me at least a little bit.’
“Is it good?” you asked as he devoured the stew.
For the first time, you heard him giggle. The gentle sound escaped his mouth before he cleared his throat. “Yes. Thank you,” he said, trying to act normal, but his eyes squinted slightly, the corners crinkling as he fought back a smile.
It was contagious. Seeing his efforts to keep a straight face made you break into a wide grin.
You reached out and ruffled his hair, laughing at how happy he looked despite his injured hand.
“What you said earlier…” You spoke carefully, trying not to ruin the moment. “About hating to be alone…”
His smile instantly dropped. “Sorry about that…I was just upset…”
“Did you mean it?”
“I know you like your independence.”
“But you don’t,” you guessed.
“I’ll get used to it,” he assured you quickly.
“But you don’t like it,” you insisted.
He licked his lips nervously and hesitated before nodding. “I don’t like it…”
“Good to know,” you sighed, much to his surprise. “I want to know these things. You never tell me what you like or don't like.”
“I didn’t want to impose,” he mumbled.
“You’re not imposing. It’s normal for two people living together to know things about each other. I have been waiting for you to open up.”
He blinked. “Open up?”
“Yeah, I want you to talk to me.”
His nose wrinkled, and he looked at you, completely lost as to what he could say.
“Let’s start with something simple. What do you do in your free time?”
“My free time?” he echoed blankly.
“Yeah, what do you do all day in this place?”
“I…I wait for you?” he replied.
“...And do what?”
“Uh…I watch TV.”
You resisted the urge to question whether that was really all he did or how he could watch TV all day. “Do you like watching TV?” you asked instead.
“Yeah, it’s…it’s okay…”
“But it could get boring,” you tried to reason. “Doing the same thing every day, I mean…”
He bit his lip. He wasn’t denying it.
“How about doing something outside? Do you like sports?” you offered.
“... I like soccer,” he admitted.
“Let’s find you a team to play with, then.”
“Really?” he asked with an unlikely high-pitched tone.
“Yeah! I’ll ask some friends if they could recommend–”
“Chenle–!” Jisung exclaimed excitedly, before regulating his voice to a calmer tone. “M-my friend from the shelter… he– he goes to this sports club and he said it’s fun and– and a lot of his teammates are hybrids and–” he rambled excitedly until a sudden thought crossed his mind and his ears flattened. “But he pays for a membership…”
“Yeah, all sports clubs require a membership,” you agreed. “I’ll pay for it.”
“Oh, no I– I don’t really need–” he stuttered, feeling guilty for suggesting something that would be a waste of your hard-earned money.
“But you want it.”
His body tensed, and his gaze lowered. “It’s fine.”
But you weren’t having any of that. “Ask your friend for the club’s name. You’re going next week.”
His jaw dropped, and then he forced it shut, shaking his head. “No, master, I–...” he sighed. “I’m–... you don’t have to spoil me like that…”
You snorted, finally understanding why he kept choosing the cheapest stuff at the store.
“Jisungie,” you called his name gently. “I’m rich. I have money. I want to spoil you,” you clarified.
He gulped. You wanted to spoil him? Fuck, that sounded so good coming out of your mouth.
“Yeah?” he asked, his voice accidentally sounding deeper, raspier.
Unaware of the sudden shift in the air, you kept talking, thinking you were still talking about money.
“Of course, Jisung! I want to give you the best life you could ever have. Just tell me what you want,” you offered, reaching for his unwounded hand across the table.
“What I want…” he echoed absentmindedly, observing the way your thumb caressed the back of his hand. His brain was picturing exactly what he wanted from you, and Chenle had been so right about it. Seems like he didn’t want to be just friends after all…
You nodded. “I’ll give you anything you want,” you confirmed.
He exhaled a shaky ‘Oh…’.
Now he was hyper-aware of your touch.
Stillness bloomed in the wake of his not-so-pure thoughts.
“Wanna try right now?” you asked suddenly.
“What?!” he shrieked.
“Come on!” you giggled. “Tell me one thing that you want.”
He looked from your touching hands to your curious face, mulling it over cautiously. If he told you what he wanted, it would change everything. So he didn’t say anything.
“We can start with something small,” you suggested, sensing his uncertainty.
Small?
For him, everything that came from you was a big deal.
A kiss…
One like the one you gave him earlier.
Or maybe he could give you one instead. A loving kiss on your temple, or your cheek…
Would you let him kiss your lips?
He pushed those thoughts away. The last thing he wanted was you sending him back to the shelter because he crossed the line.
“Y-you are an actress, right?” he asked instead.
“Yeah,” you confirmed. “I’ve been acting since I was 7.”
“Can we…” he trailed off nervously. “W-watch one of your movies, or something? I mean… a movie you’re in…”
You were expecting him to ask for something you could buy, but this was a good start if you wanted him to be comfortable asking you for things in the future.
“Sure!” you nodded, giving him a reassuring smile. “Do you wanna watch it right now?”
“Yes,” he said quickly, not wanting to say goodnight and part from you just yet.
You gently squeezed his hand before telling him to google a list of your movies and choose one while you made popcorn.
When the movie started, he sat in the opposite corner of the sofa, but as the story progressed and you both became more absorbed in the plot, he moved closer. He touched your arm clumsily, keeping the touch light enough to play it as an accident if you didn’t like it. Instead of questioning him or pushing him away, you opened your arms as an invitation to come even closer. He held his breath as he hesitantly scooted over, and he melted when one of your hands landed on his fluffy hair and scratched his ear carefully.
“Hmm…” he purred, leaning into your touch.
“Good?” you asked sleepily, with your eyes glued to the screen.
“Good,” he whispered, clinging onto you, resting his head on your shoulder, and letting out pleased little sounds.
“Should we do this every week?” you offered.
“Mhmm…”
That was the beginning of you and Jisung’s first routine as ‘roommates’, but more were soon to come. Now, having breakfast together was sacred; Jisung learned to make pancakes and other simple recipes, and he woke up excited to make something to eat together. You always found yourself waking up to the smell of coffee and the soothing view of your hybrid preparing breakfast and humming to little tunes.
He was also getting more comfortable asking for things… and bolder with his words.
‘Is it okay if I decorate my room?’
‘May I go with you?’
‘Would it be too much if I ask for a laptop?’
‘Can some friends come over?’
‘I want to take singing lessons.’
‘Can I sleep with you tonight?’
“What?” you asked while you stood at the doorframe of your bedroom.
“Uh…I asked if… I could sleep w-with you…” stuttered your hybrid, having knocked on your bedroom door late at night.
You looked from him to your king-sized bed, confused. “You want to sleep here?”
He barely nodded, losing his confidence at your hesitation. “T-the neighbors are having a party and… and I hear everything from my window so I c-can-t… It’s kinda hard to sleep…uh… sorry, I shouldn’t have woken you up, I… I’m gonna g-go…”
“Come in,” you murmured.
“What?”
Instead of replying, you opened the door wider as a silent invitation. Jisung’s pulse accelerated as he watched you walk towards your bed and lie down.
“You coming?” you asked when he didn’t move.
Your sleepy voice shouldn’t have made his heart jump like that. As he lay down on the opposite side of the bed, he began to question whether this had been a good idea. Your pillow smelled like your shampoo and he could feel the warmth emanating from your body. And to make things work, his anxiety decided to act up, making him tremble slightly.
“Are you cold, Jisungie?” you asked with a yawn.
“Y-yeah,” he lied. He wasn’t going to admit that the real reason he was shaking was that being in the same bed as you was making him spiral.
“Hmm… come here,” you mumbled, opening your arms just like you did to cuddle when you watched movies together.
Yes, this was no different than watching a movie with you. Just because now you were on a bed, he didn’t need to be this nervous, Jisung told himself as he moved closer. As usual, all tension left his body once he was hugging you. He let out something between a sigh and a moan.
“Thank you…” he breathed out, pulling you closer and impulsively kissing your cheek.
You froze, and you felt his face heat up through the fabric of your pajamas as he hid his face in your chest.
“G-good night!” he said quickly, wondering how believable it would be if he pretended to be snoring right at that moment.
But instead of being mad, you chuckled and kissed the top of his head. “Good night, Jisungie,” you murmured.
He fought the urge to kick his feet like a happy teenage girl with a crush and replayed the sweet interaction in his head until he fell asleep.
One thing about Jisung was that he was a fast learner, but that also meant that if you permitted him to do something once, he assumed it was okay to do it anytime. So he ended up sleeping in your bed so often it became the norm.
He was also more touchy. He caressed your hands and arms absentmindedly whenever you were hanging out, and he had developed the cute habit of kissing your cheek every night before going to sleep (although you could feel his lips trembling as they touched your skin).
You were so proud of how his timid requests became assertive. Now he sounded confident whenever he wanted something because he just knew you would always say yes.
The first time you regretted teaching him how to feel so empowered happened during one of your weekly movie nights.
“I look so dumb!” you whined, looking at yourself playing the role of a sexy spy.
“You look good! Stop saying that!” Jisung laughed, resting his head on your shoulder and hugging you tighter against his chest, between his sprawled legs. This was a cuddling position you naturally adopted when watching movies lately.
“I hated this movie! I never watched it after I finished filming it last year…”
“Why did you hate it so much?” he asked.
“Because it makes no sense! Why would I wear high heels and a tight dress to run and jump out of buildings?!”
He giggled. “But you look amazing,” he murmured sleepily.
You felt your skin warm up a little.
…And this wasn’t the first time.
Now that Jisung was more confident, he found it easier to compliment you when you least expected it. Each compliment made you feel a little hot and bothered, especially when he said them with that voice.
He had never done anything remotely sexual in your presence…
So why were you thinking about Jisung like that?
Was it because of that time he came out of his room shirtless, asking if you had seen his favorite hoodie, and you stared for too long?
Or maybe that one time you scratched his nape and he straight out moaned and asked for more, making you accidentally picture him in a totally different scenario?
Or any other time you kind of perceived him as attractive?
Jisung.
Attractive.
Oh god…
You were attracted to your hybrid.
You were still coming to terms with that realization when you heard a moan–your own moan–coming from the screen.
Oh, no…
No, no, no…
You completely forgot about that scene.
“Shit. Let’s watch something else–” you quickly suggested, trying to stand up to reach for the remote, but Jisung’s arms kept you in place. You looked back as much as you could with the limited movement he allowed you, and you saw his dark eyes looking past you, glued to the lewd scene on the screen. “Jisung, nooo! Don’t look!” you begged, trying to cover his eyes with your hands.
“Stop,” he replied curtly, grabbing your wrists and holding them against your chest with one big hand, while his other arm kept circling your waist. “You said we can watch whatever I want. I want to watch this one.”
A shiver ran down your spine.
His agitated breathing was hot next to your ear, while he kept you still with a gentle yet firm grip and watched you fake pleasure for the camera.
“Wow…” he whispered when your character stepped out of the ridiculously uncomfortable dress to reveal a set of black lingerie.
You had to look away when you saw yourself crawl on top of the middle-aged actor who played the detective. Jisung gulped.
You knew what was coming: An unnecessarily long scene full of close-ups of your tits bouncing with exaggerated screams to appeal to the male audience.
You let out a small whimper. “This is so embarrassing…” you mumbled, defeated.
“Shh. I told you you look good,” Jisung cooed, kissing your shoulder (something he had never done before) to comfort you. “Fuck…”
And that was the first time he ever cursed in front of you. He used to mind his actions and words around you, looking for your approval. But now, after months living together and you giving him everything he asked for and praising him all the time… he was letting loose.
“Oh…” he moaned quietly when you shifted awkwardly and something poked your lower back. He gulped before moving his own hips subtly, but too skillfully to be an accident.
“J-jisung!” you yelped when you finally snapped out of it and twisted your body around with difficulty to look at him. “Wait– No!”
“...No?” he repeated, the word sounding foreign coming from your lips. Since he first became part of your life, you had always told him there were no rules he needed to worry about. You never got mad at him when he accidentally broke something or made a mess in the kitchen. Neither did you deny him any of his requests. You had even gone as far as to promise him that you would give him anything he wanted.
Anything.
One time, he did some research on the most ridiculously costly PC equipment to exist and asked you to buy it for him. Hell, he didn’t even want it, but he wanted to see if you would follow through. You did. No questions asked. You just handed him your credit card and said ‘Sure’ like it was nothing.
And it wasn’t only about money. Whenever he had asked for other things, such as holding hands, cuddling, and napping together, you said yes every time.
Why would you say no to him now? You always let him do whatever he wanted, so what was wrong? He thought you two had a little something going on, even if none of you dared to say it. He had seen your ears turn red whenever he told you you were pretty. He knew you checked him out whenever he walked around with little clothes… that’s why he did it (Haechan’s idea).
He heard your voice crack when you told him to get dressed… and there was that time he was so sure you smelled aroused when he let you feel up the lean muscles he had been working out for.
Was he wrong?
Had he crossed the line?
His eyes went from lidded and dreamy to wide and panicked.
“I mean–” you tried to calm yourself and him down when you saw his expression. “Okay, hold on. Let’s clarify: what do you want exactly?”
He bit his lip and looked down, just like he did when he had first arrived at your home and didn’t trust you enough to speak up.
“I won’t be mad,” you assured him. “You know you can tell me anything, right? Have I ever been mad at you?”
He shook his head slowly.
“See? There’s nothing to be afraid of. Now tell me, what do you want?”
For a few seconds, he was quiet, letting the lewd sounds of the movie fill the room.
Then, he moved his hips only a little, just enough to chaff against your ass. Despite the lack of force, the gesture was clear.
“This,” he mumbled, thrusting again, this time a little harder, to make his point. “... No?” he asked again, like a kid who was being denied a cookie.
You opened your mouth in shock, but no words came out. What were you supposed to say when your cute hybrid, whom you had been secretly checking out, politely asked to hump you while watching a soft porno of you?
…To be fair, it was not his fault that he got hard. The movie was intended for a male audience, and Jisung was, after all, a man. It was your fault for letting him watch it.
If he was turned on because of you… It was only logical to help him feel better, right?
You were just taking responsibility for your mistake.
At least that’s what you told yourself.
It was easier than admitting you were doing it because you finally got some non-platonic physical touch from the man who had been making you feel flustered for weeks.
Instead of replying, you moved, pressing your ass against his hardened shaft and holding in a whimper at how hot it felt.
He gasped, looking down to see the point where thin layers of fabric stopped his cock from entering you.
“S-so… yes?” he asked hopefully. “Master, is that a yes?”
Of course. Your well-behaved hybrid always needed verbal confirmation to be sure.
“Yes,” you whispered. “But only this, ok?”
He sighed, and his hands reached for your hips. He looked back at the screen and kept rutting lazily. “T-thank you… Thank you, master…”
You pressed your thighs together and shut your eyes closed, embarrassed at the entire situation. His tiny gasps were making you so wet you worried you would leave a stain on the sofa. You took a deep breath in. All you had to do was stay still and wait for him to finish… by the way his hips stuttered, you knew it wouldn’t take him long.
“There’s one thing I find stupid about this movie,” he suddenly said, making your heart drop. You weren’t ready for him to tell you how ridiculous you looked now. Thankfully, he said: “That guy. He shouldn’t be part of the scene… he ruins the whole mood.”
You opened your eyes and stared at the still-going sex scene. There it was: a quick cut of your coworker grunting, covered in oil that was supposed to imitate sweat. You couldn’t help but laugh a little.
“How was I supposed to do that scene then?” you asked. “Should I have just bounced on an empty bed?”
He laughed too. It was the first time you two ever spoke about something like sex…and it was surprisingly chill, if you ignored his dick still humping your ass.
“Honestly? That would have been better,” he snickered, and then he groaned when the camera panned on the man again. “Gross, I don’t wanna see the sweaty dude. Can the camera go back to you?” he whined.
“Then don’t look?” you offered, suddenly feeling playful. “The actress is right here with you. You don’t have to watch the screen to see me.”
The sudden realization hit him.
“Yeah…” he sighed, and he finally stopped watching the dumb movie to rest his forehead on your shoulder. “You’re right here…”
Your warm body against his, and your shampoo-scented hair tickling his cheek, made him feel at home. You were his home.
If he could feel just a little bit more, it would be perfect, he told himself, pausing his movements.
“Jisung?” you asked, trying to control your ragged breathing. You were enjoying yourself a little too much and were disappointed that he stopped… but the disappointment was replaced with a surprised yelp when you felt skin against skin, hot, hard, and wet. His member slid under your shirt. “Oh my god…” you breathed out. “Is that…?”
He hummed, nosing your neck and placing a chaste kiss on it before resuming his swift movements, letting you feel his cock on the bare skin of your lower back. “Master… this is okay too, right? It f-feels amazing…”
How could you say no when he asked like that? When he told you it felt that good? When he was spreading precum on your skin? When he was moaning and calling you ‘master’ with that insanely raspy voice?
“It’s...okay,” you panted and a little moan escaped you, which didn’t go past him.
“I like that sound…” he admitted, his thrusts still slow but sensual. “Can I hear it again?”
“Jisung…” you whined instead, covering your face with your palms, mortified.
“Please, master…” he begged next to your ear. “Please,” he repeated, and then he nibbled on your earlobe, successfully making you release something between a gasp and a moan. He couldn’t stop himself; he let out a small “Ah…!” and spilled on your back, hugging you tightly as his cock twitched.
He sighed and his hands caressed your hips in soothing circles… and then wandered to the hem of your shorts. Your breath got caught in your throat…
And your phone rang.
You jumped up and ran to the shelf where you had left it.
“Hello?” you answered nervously.
“Hey, girl. You busy? Sorry, I just really need your help…” said Vernon’s tipsy voice.
“Uh…” you hesitated, looking back at the disheveled appearance of your hybrid, with rosy cheeks, unfocused eyes, legs spread wide open exposing his…“Nope. Not busy at all. What’s up?”
“Thank god. Hoshi’s wasted, like… dancing on top of the table type of wasted and we can’t convince him to leave with us. But maybe you could? You know how every time he sees you he goes ‘Is this famous actress Y/N L/N?’ and follows you around like a puppy?”
You snorted. “Let me get my keys and I’ll pick you guys up.”
“Oh, no, I was thinking you could just talk to him on the phone. I know you’re having roomie time with Jisung tonight…”
“NO! I mean… it’s totally fine, really. I’ll pick you up!” you insisted, and then turned to Jisung. “J-jisungie, I have to go out for a bit. You don’t need to wait up for me, okay?” you told him, using your acting skills to mask your awkwardness.
“Uh… okay…?” he replied, like he was just waking up from a dream.
You did not convince Hoshi to go home. You didn’t even try. Instead, you joined the party, much to Seungkwan’s frustration, and you tried to make it last as long as you could so that you didn’t have to face Jisung.
You felt guilty when you entered your room at 5 A. M. and saw him hugging your pillow.
“Master…?” He mumbled sleepily when he noticed you, his arms reaching out for you. “You’re back. Did you have fun?”
“Mhm,” you nodded nervously and let him cuddle you, hoping he couldn’t hear your heartbeat.
“Missed you,” he whispered.
“Me too…” You admitted.
That’s what you said, but then why did you start acting so distant after that? Jisung couldn’t understand: you had kissed his cheek, held his hand, cuddled and even let him hump you, but now you had started spending more time outside, coming home late (and sometimes not coming home at all), and sitting as far away from him as possible when you watched your weekly movie.
…Oh god…
Had he crossed the line that night??
You said it was okay.
You gave him permission.
You moaned.
What did he do wrong?
Was it because you didn’t cum or because he didn’t clean you up after he finished?
He was planning on taking care of those things, but you had left so fast–
“Jisungie?” your sweet voice made him jump.
“Y-yeah?”
“I was asking you what you wanted to eat this weekend. The chef is asking so they can prepare the ingredients in advance.”
“We… have a chef now?” he asked, confused. You had the money for a chef, but you preferred to cook your own food, so this was new.
“Uh… just for the weekend. I’m going on a trip, remember? I don’t want you eating more frozen food…”
“Ah… your trip…” he murmured, looking down at his now cold plate of pasta. “Tell them that anything is fine.”
“Are you sure?” you insisted. “You haven’t been eating much lately…”
Your worried tone made him cringe. You sounded like a pet owner again. Like when you first met and you weren’t close. It was almost condescending.
“I’m sure. Have fun,” he said curtly.
It stung. You knew he noticed your absence recently, and it broke your heart to pull away when he hadn’t done anything wrong. You were just awkward and didn’t know how to address… whatever that had been.
“Do you wanna come with me?” you asked before you could think about it.
“What?” he asked, looking up with surprised, wide eyes, but there was a tiny sparkle of hope in them.
“You could come with me. The hotel is fully booked, but my suite is big enough for both of us.”
For a second, he looked excited, but then his ears flattened. “No, it’s ok. I don’t want to bother you.”
No, no, no. You hated this. He was acting like when you first adopted him: nervous and distant.
“What, you wanna bring your girlfriends home while I’m not here? ”
His eyes widened. “NO! I don’t have–” he stopped when he saw you smirking.
“It’s fine,” you faked a sigh. “I guess you don’t wanna be seen with a smoking hot actress.”
He laughed. He finally laughed.
“I don’t know,” he joked, too, catching on. “What would my fans think?”
“I’ll help you prepare your statement for the press,” you shrugged. “I’ve been in all types of scandals.”
He pretended to mull it over. “Is there gonna be a jacuzzi?”
You nodded. “And an open bar.”
“Then I'd better start packing.”
Things were starting to go back to normal. You laughed and held hands during the flight, the awkwardness between you long forgotten. He wasn’t joking about wanting to use a jacuzzi; jumping in it was the first thing he did when you entered the suite, and, after some convincing (him giving you puppy eyes), you joined him.
There was no denying the closeness (and nakedness) brought your nerves back. You had chosen a one-piece swimsuit that didn’t cover as much as you had hoped, and Jisung was staring. You knew because your eyes kept meeting whenever you checked him out too, which was unavoidable when he was shirtless and wet and sitting so close to you. He looked like he belonged to this world, holding a glass of champagne and occasionally munching on some grapes that were on a tray next to the tub.
“So…” you joked, trying to break the ice. “How do you like traveling like the rich do?”
He smirked. “It’s alright. This room is decent. And the company is not too bad.”
“Not too bad?” you scoffed. “Should I be feeding you those grapes myself to be a worthy companion?”
He shrugged. “I wouldn’t say no to that.”
You laughed. “Okay then,” you said, sitting closer and reaching for a grape. “Here, eat this.”
“Ask nicely,” he said, with a fake arrogant tone.
You let out a gasp, playing along. “Jisung!”
He laughed, but the sound got stuck in his throat when you grabbed his jaw and forced him to look your way. You were hovering, almost sitting on his lap, looking into his eyes and pressing a single grape on his lips.
“Open your mouth,” you commanded.
He parted his lips slowly, allowing the fruit to slip into his mouth. He savored it and licked his lips, looking at you with dilated pupils.
“Want another one, your majesty?” you asked sarcastically, relaxing the hand on his jaw to then brush the wet hair out of his face.
He nodded.
“Use your words.”
“Yes, master,” he whispered.
You fed him another one, and he sighed in delight.
“I spoil you too much, Jisungie,” you said, still caressing his hair.
“Love it when you spoil me,” he confessed.
“Do you?” you asked, reaching for another grape.
“Hmm… yes…” he moaned when you scratched his ear.
“Then why are you being such a brat?”
He shook his head. “Never! I’m good–hmph!” he managed to say before another grape was shoved past his lips.
“Is that so? Are you my good boy?”
His eyes almost rolled back at the nickname. “Y-yes…” he said after he swallowed.
You chuckled, reaching for another grape, but he stopped you by gently grabbing your wrist and pulling you closer.
He was breathing heavily, and you could feel his quick pulse where your hand was pressed on his chest.
“W-what is it, Jisungie?” you asked, noticing your own pulse had accelerated too.
He just gulped and stared at your lips hungrily.
And then you were kissing him. It started with a soft peck, and then you pulled back expectantly to see his reaction. His mouth chased yours unconsciously, and he gave you an equally sweet peck. Then your lips fit together for a kiss that became desperate, between moans and teeth clashing. You caressed his chest, and he whined, hugging your waist to force you onto his lap. He gasps at the weight of your barely covered body on his crotch, and he has to rest his head on the edge of the bathtub because the pleasure mixed with the hot temperature of the water was making him dizzy.
“You okay, baby?” you asked, kissing his jaw.
‘Baby,’ he thought to himself, trying to regain some strength.’That’s me. She’s kissing me’.
“Haa… f-fuck…” he panted. “I’m… okay…”
You hesitated. He looked like he was about to pass out. “Are you sure–?”
Knock knock!
You jumped at the unexpected sound, but Jisung was too preoccupied mouthing your neck between gasps.
“Yes?” you yell towards the door.
“Y/N? Are you guys ready? We were supposed to meet at the lobby 20 minutes ago!” Seungkwan yelled back.
“Fuck,” you murmured. “Wait–hmph!”
Jisung’s lips were on yours again, and when you tried to push him away, he bit your lower lip with a groan.
“No,” he breathed out. “Let’s… stay… haa… here…” he said.
… And then his body went lax.
“Ji?” you called. “Jisung?” you insisted, slapping his cheek gently. “Shit… SEUNGKWAN!” you shrieked, stepping out of the jacuzzi clumsily.
“What?!” he asked from the other side of the door, panic evident in his voice.
You tried to pull Jisung out of the tub, but he was heavy, and he seemed too dazed to cooperate. So you ran to the door and opened it quickly.
“SEUNGKWAN!”
“WHAT. WHAT’S WRONG?” he screamed, holding your arms as soon as he could see you, checking your body for any injury.
“JISUNG!” was all you could say, leading your friend to the jacuzzi. “Help me!!”
You got to the tub right in time to see him sinking in the water. With a shriek, Seungkwan grabbed onto him and, together, you managed to drag him out.
“What’s wrong with him?”
“I don’t know!” you said honestly.
“Should I call an ambulance?”
“Master…?” Jisung whispered, blinking slowly.
“Oh, my god. Jisungie? I’m here, Jisungie,” you said, holding his hand.
“...Kiss me…more?” he managed to say, with a weak smile.
You blushed and slowly looked up to see your unimpressed friend glaring at you.
“You know what? I don’t wanna know. You have 10 minutes to get ready or I’m going for dinner without you,” he said with a huff before he stood up and left the room.
Jisung was too weak to go out, so you ended up leaving him in bed, with some water and a sports drink. He pouted, but you promised him you wouldn’t be back too late.
“Finally!” Vernon said when you showed up at the lobby. “I’m starving!”
“Sorry! I had to take care of something–”
“Sure you did,” Seungkwan murmured.
“I’m starving too!” you exclaimed with fake excitement. “What should we eat?”
“Thought you ate already,” Seungkwan said sassily.
You sighed. It was going to be an awkward dinner.
“So, you and Jisung are official?” Vernon asked while munching on his food after Seungkwan told him everything despite your pleas.
“Maybe…? I don’t know… We just kissed a little,” you said.
“You got him so worked up he fainted,” Seungkwan said.
“It was his first time in a jacuzzi,” you mumbled.
Vernon snorted. “Sorry, your boy’s cute, but lowkey a loser.”
You and Seungkwan couldn’t help but laugh too.
“He’s adorable,” Seungkwan admitted with a sigh. “He was so sweet, asking her for a kiss when he could barely move. I need to get myself a man like that.”
“I’m literally here?” Vernon ( his manager and boyfriend) countered.
“So you’re not mad at me anymore?” you asked Seungkwan.
“I wasn’t mad at you… you scared the shit out of me, that’s all…” Seungkwan took a sip of his margarita and then he added: “And, well… to be honest, I was afraid you were taking advantage of him…”
The color drained from your face “...What?” you croaked.
“Bro…” Vernon stopped eating and glared at his friend, apprehensively. “What are you even saying?”
“I know! I know she wouldn’t… But you know how things are with hybrids in most cases. Too many of our actor coworkers have adopted hybrids to get them high and use them as fuck toys. I overheard this bitch saying she had given a heat-inducing drug to her cat hybrid to get him to fuck her. The hybrid refused to touch her, so she beat him up and sent him back to the shelter.”
You remained silent and Seungkwan quickly tried to fix it.
“I trust you! We know Jisung too, so we know he’s been crazy about you for a while now. It’s obvious that you both like each other and that your relationship has developed healthily– I just… got startled when I saw him so lost and weak… I’ve seen hybrids looking like that before and it’s always for terrible reasons… How was I supposed to know he got overwhelmed by a kiss and being in a jacuzzi?! What I mean is… Sorry for doubting you, Y/N.”
You nodded slowly. “I get it. I know bad things happen to hybrids adopted by celebrities all the time…”
“Hey, Y/N,” Vernon said, reaching for your hand. “You are not like those people. Jisung is very happy with you, okay?”
Seungkwan nodded.
You smiled timidly. You knew what Jisung and you had was consensual. He was happy and he made you happy, so everything was okay.
“Weird question, does Jisung have heats?” Vernon asked casually.
You choked on your drink. “I don’t… know? I don’t think so…”
“Ok, cool. Just curious,” he shrugged, calling the waiter to order another round.
You got back to the hotel a little later than expected and Jisung was sleeping comfortably on the bed. You climbed on it quietly, not wanting to wake him up, but as soon as you lay down with your back towards him, he hugged your waist gently.
“Missed you,” he whispered, like he did every time you came back to him too late at night.
“Missed you too,” you replied. “...Hey, Ji… Can I ask you something?”
He hummed.
“Do you ever… go into heat?”
He tensed behind you.
“N-no… female hamsters do, though. Us males are sensitive to the females’ heat…”
“Oh…” you replied. Well, you weren’t a female hamster, so you probably had no effect–
“In your case…” he continued, folding under zero pressure. “I g-guess I’m a little sensitive to your uh…ovulation?”
“Oh,” you repeated dumbly. “...I’m ovulating now…”
“...I know…”
“How does it affect you?” you asked hoarsely.
“...Makes me wanna… do things…” he murmured.
“W-what things?”
For a few seconds he didn’t reply. Just when you were about to tell him to forget you asked and go to sleep, he pulled you closer.
“If I tell you… will you let me do those things?”
“...Yeah…”
He gulped before he stuttered. “W-wanna do that thing we did…”
“Kissing?”
You felt him shake his head. “ That too, but I mean—The thing we did… when we watched your movie…”
“Oh… Dry humping?” you asked, grazing his crotch with your ass. “Like this?”
“Hmm… y-yes,” he nodded. “B-but… can you turn around?” he asked nervously.
You swallowed a mortified groan. Yes, you were kissing with little clothes in the jacuzzi earlier, but that had been spontaneous. This was slower, which gave you more time to overthink what was happening.
“No?” he asked softly. “You don’t want to…?”
“I do!” you said quickly, not wanting him to get the wrong idea. “I’ll… I’ll turn around…” you mumbled, clumsily turning to face his expectant pretty face. You looked into each other’s eyes as he carefully placed his palm on the small of your back, moving his hips to meet yours. You gasped when his clothed member grazed your clit.
“Like this it feels good for you too, right?” He asked hopefully.
You nodded, moving your body experimentally to match his movements and he let out the tiniest moan.
“Can I kiss you?” he panted, dangerously close to your mouth, his question a mere fromallity. “You said… haa… I c-can…”
You couldn’t bring yourself to form a coherent answer so you fulfilled his wish and kissed him. He sighed shakily and kissed you back, snapping his hips against your crotch. Though the stimulation was more than gratifying, the position was a little awkward. At least that’s what you assumed went through Jisung’s mind when he grabbed your leg and pulled it over his waist, allowing for a better angle.
You let out a surprised moan and he halted his thrusts and kisses.
“S-sorry, I should have asked…” he swallowed and spoke with difficulty. “Can I…uh… touch your leg?” he asked, but is fingertinps were digging into your thigh, unconsciously refusing to let go. “I uh… understand if you wanna stop… though I really hope you don’t because I really like doing these things with you—” his incoherent explanation was cut short by his shocked gasp when you flipped both of you so he was on his back with you on top.
He looked like the perfect pray like that. His glossy eyes widened, his mouth slightly ajar letting out aroused little sounds, disheveled hair and ears perked up expectantly. His hands rested on each side of his head obediently, not daring to touch anything until you explicitly allowed it.
“Shh, Ji…” you breathed out, trying to regain some composure. “There’s nothing to be anxious about. Have I ever been mad at you?”
He shook his head quickly.
“Good boy,” you praised sweetly, feeling his clothed cock twitch under you. “Just enjoy this, okay?” you instructed.
He tried to nod, but as soon as you started gyrating your hips slowly he became a babbling mess again. “M-master… yes, master…”
You chuckled. “You keep calling me that, even in this situation?”
“Huh?” he asked dumbly.
“When are you gonna call me by my name?”
The red in his face became darker and he shook his head energetically. “I c-could never… disrespect you– ah! Like…that… haa…”
“Using me for pleasure is not disrespectful?” you teased.
He gasped, trying to sit up, but you pushed him back, placing your hands on his chest and rutting faster.
“AH! M-mast— so sorry… not using…haa.. I’m n-not using y- Oh!”
“Aren’t you?”
“No! Haa… haa… p-please, I– I respect you, I–Hmm… I love you so mu–Aaah!”
You almost lost your balance at the last sentence. You stopped moving and he whimpered.
“Master…” he sobbed, having his orgasm stolen from him. “I’ll b-be good, please don’t stop… don’t…”
You could think about his spontaneous confession later. First you really needed to see your beautiful hybrid cum. So you started moving again, this time grinding hard.
He arched his back. “Haa! Haa… Thank you… Master, thank y–Aah! Ah… haa… ah…”
The view was beautiful: His veiny hands held onto the wrinkled sheets, and tears threatened to escape his eyes as he trashed under you, overwhelmed by pleasure. Something seemed to switch in his brain in these circumstances, because the usually timid hybrid, couldn’t stop running his mouth.
“S-so good… master’s warmth feels… ooh… amazing…” he mumbled as he tried to focus his dazed eyes on where your crotches made contact. “Ooh… yes, yes… h-harder…”
“A-are you trying to tell me what to do?” you asked, making a poor atempt of a dominant tone.
“No! Sorry, sorry…” he yelped, panicking. “I d-didn’t mean too… I’m just… so close…”
“Yeah?” you gulped, ignoring the constant pulsing feeling on your clit. “Wanna cum?”
He nodded. “Please?”
You kissed him lovingly so he wouldn’t see you smiling like an simp, and then you bounced on him harder, like he wanted.
“Ah! Ah! Oh… Oooh you’re so good to me, m-aah… master… haa….” he managed to say in between fervent kisses. “Gonna cum… f-fuck… master, I’m gonna cum…”
You gasped when at the new wetness in your pajama pants as he came with a silent moan, his cock and whole body spasming with pleasure. You slowed down, riding him slowly to help him come down from his high, caressing his face and kissing the tears away.
“How are you feeling?” you asked when he calmed down a little.
“Did… did you cum?” he croaked, instead of answering your question.
You chuckled. “Don’t worry about it, Jisungie,” you said getting up.
“Wait!” he said, fighting the dizziness to sit up. “Let’s keep going.”
You looked at his trembling figure and couldn’t help but laugh a little. “Jisung… You can’t keep going. You’re still too weak from what happened in the jacuzzi.”
He whined. “Please, come back here.”
You ignored his request to go get him a wet towel and change of clothes. When you came back, he kissed your neck to get you in the mood again, but you pushed him away gently. “Ji.”
“I just wanna make you cum,” he pouted. “I can use my fingers. You like my fingers, right? You always stare at my hands.”
You cleared your throat. “You have nice hands,” you conceded. “But they are shaking. It’s not that I don’t want you Jisung, but you need to rest. We can try another time.”
“Tomorrow,” he suggested quickly.
“I have a busy day tomorrow,” you reminded him.
“Then when?”
“I… I don’t know. Next time.”
His pouty face was adorable, so you giggled and kissed his cheek. “Let’s get you cleaned up, ok?”
“I can do it myself,” he mumbled, grabbing the towel. “You’ve already done way more than I deserve tonight.”
“Don’t be dramatic, Ji,” you laughed, walking to the restroom to shower. “If it makes you feel better, I was really close.” you said before getting in and closing the door.
Jisung stared at the restroom door blankly and then he groaned. That actually had made him feel worse. So that night he went to bed with a plan: giving you the most mindblowing orgasm as soon as you woke up. Exept that next morning you woke up before he did, leaving him alone with a note and a tray with breakfast on the nightstand.
Immediately he reached for his phone and called you.
“Morning, Ji!” you answered cheerfully.
“M-morning. Where are you?”
“I had to meet with the director this morning.” you explained. “Now I’m having brunch with Vernon, waiting for Seungkwan to finish with his hair appointment.”
“Can I join?” he asked, starting to get out of bed.
“Oh, Jisungie… We have more meetings scheduled today. You know my new movie is coming up.”
“Oh… Yeah, I get it,” he murmured. “Then when can I see you?”
“I’ll drop by before the the event at night to change clothes! I’m so sorry I didn’t take you anywhere fun…”
“No,” he said quickly. “It’s ok. You’re here for work. I’m grateful enough you brought me along… and I got to try a jacuzzi, though it didn’t go as planned,” he joked. “I’ll see you later, then,” he added before he hung up.
He munched on his breakfast unenthusiastically as he came to terms with the fact that he wouldn’t get to spend time with you on this trip. He didn’t lie when he said he was grateful, but in the back of his brain there was a distant voice saying that maybe being a hybrid sucked. He huffed, pushing that thought away. He had no excuse to be bitter: last night you had literally made him cum so hard his fingertips kept tingling in the morning. So he would take what he could, and if that meant he had to stay in the room and watch a boring TV show while you were at some fancy event with handsome actors, then so be it.
But much to his surprise, there was a change of plans.
“Get up! You need to get ready,” you said energetically as soon as you walked in that evening.
“Huh? Ready for what?” he asked, turning the TV off.
“You’re coming to the event with me!” you exclaimed, showing him an expensive looking black suit.
He just looked at the suit, speechless.
“You don’t like it? I bought the black one because I wasn’t sure you would feel comfortable with other colors…”
“N-no! I mean, yes, it’s nice…” he said.
“But?” you asked apprehensively.
“Is it really okay for me to go? I thought it was only for actors…”
“Well…yes, but I asked the host and they said you could come… But if you feel uncomfortable, you don’t have to come. I just felt bad I didn’t get to spend much time with you, and we’re leaving tomorrow…”
“It doesn’t make me uncomfortable!” he assured you, though his voice cracked. The idea of attending such an event made him a little anxious, but that meant he would be with you. “I want to go with you.”
“Yaay!” you jumped a little and kissed his cheek, giving him his new clothes and rushing him into the restroom. “I’ll change clothes too. We need ot be ready by 8, okay?”
“Okay!” he yelled back from the restroom, trying to match your cheerful tone, but god was he getting nervous, but god was he getting nervous at the thought of spending the night surrounded by rich and successful men who could steal you away. Actually, now that he thought about it, that was a good reason to go with you: to ensure your safety and that no other man than him (and Seungkwan and Vernon, because he knew them. And maybe that Hoshi guy, because he saw the video of him drunk and he seemed like a decent guy) would approach you. That would be his mission…
Which he forgot all about when he stepped out to see you wearing a a long backless dress.
“You’re so beautiful…” he blurted out.
“Ji… Wow… You… Do you know how hot you look right now?” you replied.
“I… look hot?!” he asked, astonished. You had called him cute a thousand times, but never hot. Holy shit.
“Yeah… I don’t think I want other actresses to see you now,” you teased.
“Then we could stay here,” he suggested.
“Nice try,” you laughed. “Let’s go. The guys are waiting.”
“You brought Jisung?!” Seungkwan hissed when he saw you two at the lobby. “Are you insane?!”
“It was my idea,” Vernon said.
Seungkwan couldn’t believe his ears. “And you thought this idea of yours was… good?”
Jisung’s ears flattened. “Sorry, I can go back to my room…”
“No!” Seungkwan said quickly. “Nothing against you, Jisung. You look fantastic by the way. I just worry about your safety.”
“My safety?”
“He’ll be fine,” Vernon said, rolling his eyes. “What’s the worst that could happen?”
“Baby,” in spite of the nickname, there was no sweetness in Seungkwan’s voice. “This is like introducing a girl to a forum of incel gamers, or a child TO THE VATICAN CHURCH!”
“I’ll keep him safe!” you said quickly, hushing your friend. “And we’ll stay for an hour at most.”
Jisung liked that plan. He could do an hour at a boring event. If he was lucky, you wouldn’t be too sleepy and you two could continue what you had started the night before. But one hour felt like an eternity when everybody was looking at him. Jisung kind of understood… he was after all the only one with fluffy ears. It hadn’t crossed his mind that he would be the only hybrid, and even if it had, he wouldn’t have thought it was an issue, because you had never treated him differently for it. Everything was so natural with you, he forgot that not everyone saw him… as a person.
“Jisung?” you asked, snapping him out of his thoughts.
“Hm?”
“I asked if you would be okay if I left you alone for a minute. The director wants to introduce me to someone.”
“Oh, yeah. Sure. I’m fine,” he said, fighting the need to cling onto your arm and beg you not to leave him alone. The last thing he wanted was to be a burden while you were working.
You squeezed his hand and bit your lip. You knew him well enough to know he was not okay. “Wait here. I’ll go get one of the guys to stay with you, okay? Don’t move,” you instructed, walking away quickly to find your friends.
Jisung nodded and mentally thanked you. At least he would be with someone he knew. All he had to do was avoid strangers for 1 minute–
“What a cute little thing,”a sultry voice said behind him.
He jumped and turned around nervously. “Pardon me?”
“Your ears are adorable,” a woman in a red dress said, smiling at him.
He tensed. He wasn’t sure if she was complimenting him or laughing at him. But he had to behave.
“Thank you,” he said, hoping the conversation would end there.
“What are you?” the woman asked casually, taking a sip of his cocktail.
“...What?”
“What type of hybrid are you?” she clarified, scanning him, looking at his behind to look for, what he thought, was the small tail he was hiding under his clothes.
Jisung was sure what she was doing was considered rude. But again, he chose to be civile. “A cricetulus barabensis,” he said. “A hamster,” he paraphrased at the woman’s confused face.
“Oh! Delectable!” he exclaimed. “I’ve never tried one of those!”
“Uh…” Jisung looked around, looking for you or the guys, or anyone that wasn’t this lady really.
“Are you here with someone? Or did the host hire you?” she continued.
“Hire me?”
“Oh, you know,” she laughed. “For the after party,” she whispered into his ear. She either didn’t notice how uncomfortable he was or she didn’t care.
“No one hired me,” he said, taking a step back and trying to keep calm. “I’m here with my master.”
“Master? Oh, my!” she gasped and placed a hand on her chest. “I never got that bastard to call me that. You’re very well-behaved.”
Jisung didn’t know what to reply to that, so he gave her a short nod.
“I’m sure you keep your owner very satisfied,” she continued.
That got Jisung’s attention. He wasn’t loving the conversation, but he still felt bad about not making you cum the night before. “I…try to…” he said.
“Oh, sweetheart,” she cooed. “It’s hard to know how to please someone at first, isn’t it?”
Jisung wasn’t sure they were talking about the same topic. And if they did, then he wasn’t sure it was okay to discuss it in public so casually. Still, he nodded.
“If they return you, you could always come home with me,” she offered.
“Return me…?” he asked, barely above a whisper.
“Don’t feel too bad about it, sweetheart,” she said, grazing over his arm. “Some hybrids are not compatible with their owners. We acquire you because you have needs, and if those needs aren’t satisfied, then it’s for the best to end the agreement,” she explained.
Needs. Satisfied.
You had given Jisung everything for months, and he hadn’t made you cum once. He wanted to throw up.
“Oh, dear, you don’t look too well. Let me get you a drink–”
“Back off, Camilla. He’s taken,” Vernon’s voice said, standing between the two.
She laughed. “You and Boo got a new toy?”
Instead of engaging, Vernon grabbed Jisung and walked away. “You okay?” he asked.
Jisung shook his head, so Vernon took him outside to get some air.
“Did she do something to you?” he asked once the hybrids cheek recovered their natural color.
“No…”
“Did she say something, then?”
Jisung shook his head. “She was just…weird, I guess…”
“She’s batshit crazy, that one,” Vernon agreed. “She returned her last hybrid.”
Jisung gulped. Returned.
“Guys!” you called. Jisung’s ears perked up immediately and he almost smiled, but then he saw you accompanied by a muscular guy who was too close to his liking. The annoying voice in Jisung’s head told him that such a man could surely satisfy you and wouldn’t be returned… because humans don’t get returned. The man told you something and hugged you before going back inside, and you made your way to your friend and your hybrid.
“Jisungie, are you okay? Vernon texted me–”
“I wanna leave,” Jisung said curtly. “Please,” he added, because he didn’t mean to snap at you.
You stared at him in shock, and then looked at Vernon, who gave you a sympathetic smile.
“I’ll call us a taxi,” you said, dialing on your phone.
“Thank you,” Jisung said in spite of the rage he was feeling. Because he was your good hybrid. He was well-behaved.
The ride to the hotel was uncomfortably quiet. You could tell Jisung wansn’t ready to talk about it yet, so you didn’t ask him anything, giving him space to cool down. You sighed, relieved when he grabbed your hand once you got off the vehicle, but his touch wasn’t the usual gentle one. He was holding your hand firmly, almost posessively, as he dragged you to the suite.
What was even more out of character was that once you both were in the suite he was all over you, not in a sweet cuddly way, but in a feral way. He had you pinned on the door, kissing you, devouring you like he owned you.
“Ji…haa… w-what…?” you stuttered, bewildered at the sudden change.
“Gonna make you cum,” he declared, nibbling on your neck.
“Hold on…” you hesitated. Where was this coming from?
“Shh…”
“J-jisung… Are you drunk?” you whisper-shouted, trying to put some distance between you.
He scoffed. “I wish. If I was drunk I wouldn’t be so pissed.”
“Why are you angry with me?” you asked, nervously.
He took a deep breath and exhaled, reminding himself that you hadn’t done anything wrong. “I’m not angry with you. Okay?” he waited until you nodded to continue caressing your body, sucking on your collarbones like he was starving. But right when he slid his hand under your dress, you stopped him.
“W-wait. Let me take care of you,” you offered. You had good intentions. Something was clearly bothering him, so you thought he needed some relief. Naturally, you would be happy to help him get that relief, but you didn’t get the reaction you were expecting.
The hybrid who would normally fold and beg for your touch looked furious. He grabbed your wrists and pinned them over your head with one hand, while the other continued its way into your panties, immediately getting his fingers soaked.
“Jisung!” you moaned.
“Feels good?” he asked, collecting your wetness to rub on your clit.
Your legs shook and you bit your lip.
“Tell me, master. I need to know how to please you,” he commanded.
You nodded urgently.
“Use your words,” he spoke through gritted teeth, suddenly inserting his middle finger inside, while still caressing your clit with his thumb.
“F-fuh…fuck!” you sobbed. “Feels good…ah…Jisungie…”
“See? You could have been using me all this time.”
“Wha– AH!” You screamed when he slid two fingers inside of you.
“Turns out everyone’s been banging their hybrids like blow-up dolls except you, huh?” he muttered more to himself than to you, fingering you at a pace that was bringing you close to your climax embarrassingly fast. “First you let me cum on your back and then you treat me like a baby. What the fuck are we even doing?”
“I wanted… oh… wanted t-to take care of y-you…”
“Can’t I take care of you too?” he asked, rhetorically. More like a challenge. Not like you could reply when you could taste your orgasm.
“Jisungie…” you breathed out.
“Shit, that’s it… gonna cum?”
You moaned the most erotic ‘yeah’ he had ever heard, so he had to remind himself that he was trying to make you cum so that he wouldn’t release a load in his new pants.
“Let go,” he commanded, though he sounded out of breath. “Cum nice and hard on my fingers, yeah?”
You did. You even hit the back of your head with the door when you threw your head back because of the intensity of your orgasm. You kicked your legs and moaned pathetically as Jisung kept playing with your clit. He was dazzled feeling you squeeze his fingers like you couldn’t get enough. You really came while he was fingering you. He made you cum.
He let out a long, relieved breath, took his hand out of your panties carefully and let go of your wrists so he could hug you delicately.
“...Are you okay?” he asked, burying his face in the crook of your neck.
“I’m… okay…” you breathed out, hugging him back. “Are you okay?”
He shrugged. “Sorry I was mean…”
“You weren’t mean,” you assured him. “Just… different. But I need to know what happened.”
He didn’t want to talk about it, but he knew you deserved to know why he had gone full beast mode on you. “Heard someone saying hybrids got adopted for…sex… got a little nervous that I wans’t being really useful… and you would send me back….”
“WHAT?” you shrieked, pushing his shoulders just enough to see his face. “I did not adopt you to be my fuck toy.”
“I know,” he said simply. “I just needed some reassurance.”
“Oh, Ji,” you cooed, kissing him with utter devotion. “I would never send you back.”
“Promise me.”
“I promise,” you said, bringing him close again for a hug. After a minute of silence and you scratching his nape, he spoke again:
“Did you actually cum?”
You bursted out laughing. “Yes. I did. Thank you for that.”
He raised his head and looked at you with a barely contained smile.
“Can I see?” he asked.
“...See what?”
“What I did,” he replied naturally, letting his hands find the hem of your dress to lift it again.
“NO!” you yelled as a reflex.
He halted, looking at you in surprise. “...No?”
“I mean…” you laughed nervously. “Jisungie… Why do you wanna see that?”
He tilted his head. “Can’t I?”
“It’s just embarrassing…”
“Why? Didn’t I do that?”
“Well…yes, but–”
“Did you lie?” he asked. “You didn’t cum?”
“I’ve never lied to you, Ji. But even if you looked, you wouldn’t know if I came or not,” you pointed out, laughing at his ridiculous request. But he wasn’t laughing.
“So… no?” he asked, barely above a whisper.
Great, now you made him sad. He was happy just a second ago and you took that away because of your shyness.
“Fine,” you said. “Just a quick look, and don’t say anything embarrassing.”
He nodded and quickly dropped to his knees.
“Hold this, please,” he said, handing you the wrinkled fabric of your dress. You wanted to hide under a rock, but he looked so excited you obeyed.
“Don’t push them together, master,” he whined, pushing your thighs open. “How am I going to see?”
“Just hurry up,” you urged him.
“Wow…” he breathed out, tracing your panties with his fingertip. “These are ruined…”
“What did I say about saying embarrassing stuff– AH!”
Your legs almost gave out when he licked you over the thin wet fabric with a soft ‘Mmm’.
“J-jisungie… haa…” he seemed to be ignoring you, because he suddenly sucked on your clit through your panties. “JISUNG!” you shrieked, letting go of the dress to pull his hair and get him off you.
He looked at you innocently. “What?”
“You said you would only look,” you reminded him.
“So I can’t taste you?”
“I’m not saying you can’t… I’m saying now is not the time–”
“I told you I loved you last night,” he said out of the blue.
Your jaw dropped open. “Uh…that…” so he meant it? He wasn’t just pussy drunk?
“You didn’t say it back,” he added.
“I… I do love you, Jisung. I just didn’t find the right moment to say it.”
“You’re just saying that because you don’t want to hurt my feelings.
“No, of course not! I love you, Ji,” you insisted.
“Okay…” he murmured, though he didn’t sound convinced. “So… you won’t let me taste you?” he asked dejectedly.
It always broke you when he gave you those eyes. Hesitantly, you let go of his hair, and pulled your dress up again. “Just a little, okay?”
“Okay,” he said more enthusiastically, but when he was grazing your crotch he chuckled. Then he looked up at you with a smile. It was his usual sweet smile, but there was something else there. His eyes had a tiny spark of…mischief? “You’re right, master,” he said. “You spoil me too much,” he said before pulling your panties to the side and attaching his mouth to your pussy, lapping greedily.
“FUCK! Ji… aaah!” you gasp. He chuckled, sending waves of pleasure through your body.
Did he just… manipulate you?? He had never done that be– Oh… or had he? Come to think of it, the interaction seemed familiar. Whenever you were about to deny him something, he looked incredibly hurt and worded your denial in a way that made you sound like a monster. He started with small, insignificant things, and made use of your promise to give him anything he wanted, until he had you like this. Not that you didn’t want him like this, but… fuck, you really had turned him into a spoiled brat.
“Wait, Jisungie– Ngh! I’m still sensi…haa… sensitive… it hurts… gently, b-baby, please.”
He listened, licking around your clit instead of on it to give you the chance to catch your breath.
“Oh! That’s it, baby. That’s a good boy.”
He hummed and nodded, accidentally stimulating you too much again. You hissed.
“Gently,” you reminded him with a gasp and he whined, but obeyed, once again circling your clit slowly. And then he had an idea: he opened his mouth wide and his tongue lolled out lazily, then he grabbed the back of your thighs and pushed you forward, bumping your clit on his hot tongue.
“Jisungie,” you moan and he looks into your eyes, mouth still hanging open. He gave your thighs another push, giving you another wave of pleasure.
“Do you want me to move, Ji?” you asked breathlessly.
He nodded, tongue lolled out like a thirsty puppy, waiting patiently for you to fuck yourself on his mouth.
You moved carefully, and god did it feel good. You could apply the right amount of pressure to make it pleasurable and not painful. You sighed, moving your hips slowly and enjoying his soft tongue caressing your bundle of nerves.
“Fuck… a– ah!”
You felt it again. A new orgasm was approaching. Jisung must have known it too, because he grabbed onto your ass cheeks and pressed you firmly against his face, groaning and sucking, forgetting all previous instructions.
“Ji– Oh! AH! Slow– slowly, g-gently haa.. Haaa. JISUNG!” you tried to reason, ultimately letting go of the ruined dress to grab onto his hair.
That only spurred him on more, making him moan and move his head up and down. Eventually, you switched from hair pulling, to pushing his head closer, renouncing to all dignity as you humped his face desperately.
“Yeah, Jisungie… y-your tongue haa.. Ah… ah, yes, yes, yes– Oh!”
Your legs trembled and your body almost folded over him when you reached your climax. He moaned like he had been the one cumming, drinking up your release desperately until you had to gently push him away, sliding down the door and landing on the floor in front of him.
He looked absolutely sinful, with his face covered with your cum as he giggled. You slapped his arm weakly.
“What the fuck was that?” you croaked.
“You didn’t like it?” he asked, giving you his best puppy eyes. But it was hard to unsee what he was doing once you discovered the trick.
“You’re a menace,” you simply replied.
“But you love me,” he smiled, kissing you and allowing you to taste yourself. “And my fingers,” he added between pecks. “And especially my tongue.”
You couldn’t help but laugh. “Can’t wait to try your dick.”
“On it,” he said, standing up and helping you stand up too, too then picking you up effortlessly and carrying you to the bed. It was crazy how strong hybrids were. They could take over the world if they wanted… No, let’s not imagine revolutionary apocalyptic scenarios right now… More importantly:
“I was joking!” you yelped when you landed on the mattress. “I didn’t mean now!”
He climbed on top of you. “So… No?”
“Stop that!” you slapped his arm again. “You know I can’t say no to you!”
He laughed, undoing his belt. “You can,” he said, pulling his pants and underwear down to reveal a long, veiny, beautiful cock. “But you don’t want to.”
“And you’ve been using that to your advantage,” you teased.
“Yeah,” he smiles shamelessly. “I guess I have–Ngh!”
He tensed when your hand grabbed his cock.
“My pretty boy,” you cooed, giving him a few strokes. “Can I lick it?”
“S-shit, wait, master– No!” he exclaimed, quickly pushing your hand away.
You blinked.
“Ha! So now you are saying no to me?” you laughed.
“I’m sorry, master,” he whined. “I’m too close already…”
“I don’t mind…” you said, trying to touch him again, but he gently grabbed your hand again and intertwined your fingers.
“I do,” he murmured. “I was kinda thinking… I could uh… be inside you…”
You clenched around nothing. Just thinking about it was enough to have you ready to go again.
“W-would that be okay?” he asked, mistaking your silence for hesitation.
“I would love that, Jisungie,” you smiled at him, pecking his lips gently. “Lie down and let me take care of you, yeah?”
“...No.”
You scoffed.
“Jisung, how–?”
“I wanna be on top,” he said. It was supposed to sound assertive, but his voice trembled.
“Oh…” you gulped. “Are you sure?”
He nodded.
“Okay,” you breathed out, caressing his arms reassuringly. “But if you get tired…”
“I won’t,” he whined like a kid being embarrassed in front of his friends. “I can do this.”
You chuckled. “Okay then,” you said, spreading your legs and allowing him to position himself between them. “Whenever you’re ready.”
“I’m ready,” he said, holding his cock and placing it on your entrance.
You closed your eyes, bracing yourself, but it never went in.
“Ji?” you asked after what could have been an entire minute.
“Y-yeah?”
“Are you gonna put it in or…?”
“I… don’t think it will… fit…” he trailed off.
You burst out laughing, and he looked at you offendedly.
“Ok, you are big,” you admitted. “But you’re not that big.”
“But you look… small down there…” he said.
“It stretches,” you deadpanned.
“I know that!” he defended himself. “But what if I hurt you?”
“Jisung,” you sighed. “If you don’t put it in yourself, I’ll flip us over and fuck myself on it.”
He groaned, squeezing the base of his cock. “That would be so hot,” he said.
“Then let me do it?!” you suggested, running out of patience.
“No! I get to be on top!”
“Then fuck me–Ah!” you yelped when Jisung pushed in.
He hissed. “M-master… you need to relax. It hurts…”
“Easy f-for you to say,” you whined. “No one shoved a monster inside of you…”
He whined too. “You said I wasn’t that big!”
“No big deal… haaa… I c-can take you…” you insisted.
“... You sure?”
“Y-yeah…” you sighed, almost fully used to the girth.
“Can I push the rest in, then?” he asked with a pained voice.
“... The what?” you asked dumbly.
“The… rest?”
“The rest of what?”
“Of… me…?”
“You’re kidding,” you half sobbed, half laughed. “That’s not all of you?”
He gulped. “... No…”
“Holy shit…”
“I– I’ll pull out,” he said quickly. “No! Don’t you dare, Jisung!” you warned him, circling his hips with your legs. “Finish what you started.”
He gasped when the sudden movement accidentally made him shove himself fully inside of you. His forearms landed on each side of your face, caging you under him and he peppered your face with loving pecks as you sobbed.
“S-sorry, master… Aaah…” he tried his best to apologize, but it was hard to feel truly sorry when your walls squeezed him so deliciously. “Fuuuck, you–ah… You feel so good– please… haa… c-can I move?”
You took a deep breath in and exhaled as you calmed down. Finally, you nodded.
“G-go slowly…”
You sighed, relieved, and nodded, but contrary to what he had agreed on, he started fucking you at a brutal pace from the start.
A choked moan left your mouth. Your nails scratched his arms and back in an attempt to ground yourself as he fucked your brains out.
“Ji– Ah! Haa.. Jisung!” you gasped out when you finally found your voice. “Slowly. B-baby… go slow– Stop!”
He halted, breathless, his arms flexed as he held his weight while hovering over you. His wild eyes seemed to regain some of their original spark. He blinked and stared at you innocently.
“O-oh… yes, slow…” he nodded. “Sorry, I don’t know why–”
“It’s okay,” you said, quickly. “Let’s try again?”
He nodded, leaning in for a tender kiss. You kissed him back with a satisfied sigh, but it turned into a shocked gasp when he once again started to jackrabbit into you like his life depended on it.
“Haah! Ah! Ah! Ooh! Ji! Jisungie, s-stop!” you exclaimed.
He once again obeyed. He sat up and looked into your eyes with the same feral glint he had a moment ago. His eyebrows were furrowed in confusion at his own actions.
“I… I think I can’t?” he breathed out, sounding unsure.
“You can’t what?” you asked, out of breath too.
“Go slow… I can’t f-fuck you slow, master…” he said, fighting his hips' urge to snap into you again.
“...What do you mean you can’t?” you asked, astonished.
“I think it’s…” he gulped. “... A hybrid thing?”
You tilted your head. “I've never heard of hybrids having that problem…”
“It may be my breed…” he said, blushing. “Actually, I don’t know what it is… but even though I’m thinking about doing it slowly… my body just… doesn’t do it?”
“So…” you said, trying to process this information. “You’re saying… that you can only fuck me like a madman?”
He was as red as a tomato. “I’m sorry,” he whimpered. “You won’t make me stop, right?” he asked, like the idea was terrifying for him. “Master, please,” he begged, making you shiver as his hands went up and down your still-dressed torso, landing on your breasts and playing with them obsessively. “Don’t make me stop, hmm? I’ll be good,” he promised, toying with your hardening nipples. “Yeah? You’ll let me do this?” he asked, thrusting once, twice, and then quickly gaining a harsh pace again. “P-please, mast–aah!” he kept begging like he wasn’t already doing whatever he wanted. Like he didn’t know he could get away with anything.
“F-fuck, ah! You’re s—aaah! So spoiled,” you spoke through gritted teeth, biting back the moans he elicited from you.
He nodded with a dumb smile. He took it as a compliment, because he was this way because of you. “Mmyeah… haaa, ah, ah…”
“Poor baby j-just… haa— wants to… feel good, yeah?” you asked.
“F-feels good,” he moans, pushing you into the bed with each thrust. “You feel s-ooh!! So good, so good, so good,” he repeated like a mantra, welcoming the pleasurable feeling.
“Is t-that haa… why you’re using… mmm… me like a… toy?” you teased.
He shook his head with a gasp. “N-nooo,” he sobbed. “Not using you…Ngh! Wanna make y-you… cum too, please master…”
“Want m-me to cum?”
He nodded, digging his fingers into your hips to keep you in place to take him. “Please?”
You were so close he didn’t have to beg like that. Still, you decided to put on a little show for him, sucking onto two of your fingers to then slowly lower them until you reached your clit, rubbing it slowly under his hungry gaze.
With how good he was pressing all the right spots inside of you, and the added stimulation from your fingers, you came instantly. Your back arched, and you were sure you were crosseyed, but you felt too good to be embarrassed about it.
“Yes!” he gasped, crazed by desire. “Yes, yes, yes, yes, fuck—Aah!” he let out a weak moan. His entire body trembled when his orgasm hit him. All strength left his body, and he lay on top of you, hugging you and kissing your sweaty skin with a sob. “I love you so much…”
“I…haa… love you too…” you said. Your entire body was still tingling.
“That felt so good…” he whispered to himself in awe.
“Yeah…” you admitted. “Wow…”
“...Can you be on top now?” he suddenly asked.
“Now?!” you shrieked. “You wanna go again?”
“You… don’t want to?” he asked pitifully, looking at you with sad eyes. There it was again. He was going to be the death of you.
“I can’t feel my legs, Jisung,” you replied. “Next time.”
“Tomorrow,” he suggested immediately.
You sighed. You really had spoiled him too much.
Teach me to not love || L. HC (part 3)
𐙚 fuckboy!haechan x fem!reader (ft. best friend jaemin)
𐙚 Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 + bonus epilogue
𐙚 synopsis- Jaemin's out for revenge after Haechan slept with the girl he liked. You're just supposed to be a distraction, something pretty to keep Haechan's mind off of what Jaemin was doing. He's cute, addictive- you should stay away... you really should, but when he touches you like that how are you supposed to remember what's right?
𐙚 genre- college au, smut/ porn with plot (MDN/ 18+), angst, slight fluff, second chance.
𐙚 warnings- alcohol use, black out, mentions of throwing up, sexual activity under the influence, fingering, masturbation, dry humping, markings, arguing, heartbreak, betrayal.
𐙚 W/c- 15k
Now playing: Exit Music (For A Film) - Radiohead
a/n- here it is, the finale. I want to thank you all for the support and I hope you liked it— let me know what you thought. Luv y’all, mwah mwah 💋
tags- @dnylwoo @haeclips @millis-diary @bbhbungee @sooohey @captainchrisstan @chocojiji @imnotrosiee @meatballsub420
══════════════════════════
Wednesday, a few days after he appeared.
Your mind was still spiraling— just a bit less now. You hadn't called him even though he told you to, it didn't feel right. Well, that and the fact that you were buried in projects, trying to keep yourself distracted, productive, anything but still.
You were sitting there, a little too idle now, having wrapped up your milestone for the day. 8:49 PM. You stared at the time for a moment, chewing at your bottom lip. A few more minutes passed like that. Fuck it. What could really go more wrong at this point?
You picked up your phone and clicked on his contact. It rang long, long enough for you to start regretting it. You were just about to hang up when his voice came through the speaker.
"Hello."
Your brows lifted, eyes widening slightly in surprise. "Oh— hello?" You said, the shock in your voice unmissable.
"Yo, wassup." He replied casually, his tone unreadable.
"Nothing, I'm just bored, y'know."
"Yeah, I feel you." A second passed. "Listen, sorry but I'm really really busy right now so I'll just hit you back later or something."
"Oh. Oh, okay." Your voice softened.
He hesitated for a second. "Oh, um— party tomorrow. You coming?" His words were quick, like he forced them out before changing his mind.
"I'll think about it. Kinda have a lot to do." You said honestly.
"Cool. Bye."
And just like that, he hung up. Alright then. It was the first time he'd picked up your call ever, so there was that at least. You didn't let yourself overthink it, just let it be.
The next night came quicker than expected. You finished everything you needed to do earlier than planned, you actually hadn't been this productive in a while. So, with little left to distract yourself, you went to the party.
You arrived, same scene, same crowd. Scanning for familiar faces, one in particular.
You found him quickly— but your smile dropped. There he was, same cocky grin, same glint in his eye, but this time he was standing with a girl too close... way too close. His arm lazily slung around her, leaning in, sharing sips from her drink.
Your stomach sank, breath turned shallow. Your body froze and burned all at once. Your thoughts scattered, unsure what to do, but before you could process anything your feet were already moving toward him.
"Um, hey." You said carefully.
He looked over, eyes changing when he saw you, but smile dropping.
"Can we talk privately for a second?"
He exhaled dramatically, annoyed, but nodded. He followed you down the nearby hallway, away from the noise and attention.
"What are you doing?" You asked, your voice low but firm, eyes fixed on his.
"Chilling. Why are you being extra?" He snapped back.
"Why am I being extra?" Your voice lifted with disbelief. "You know what you're doing, you literally invited me. If this is still about what happened with your brother I told you I was sorry."
He scoffed. "First of all, I never invited you. I asked if you were coming and you said maybe. I didn't fucking beg you to show up tonight."
"Oh, but I'm 'always invited' right? That's what you said." Your voice cracked.
"Okay, Y/n." He said flatly.
"Okay? That's it?" You asked, hurt surfacing.
He sighed again and looked away briefly before turning back. "You know, honestly Y/n..." His tone shifted— colder. "I'm fucking bored with you, okay? I'm tired. I want something different tonight. Someone who doesn't make a big deal out of me not answering their calls. Someone who doesn't take everything so seriously and emotionally."
He paused. "Someone who doesn't make me wear protection for casual, regular, simple sex."
You blinked, stunned as his words sank in.
"This is only about sex to you?" You asked quietly.
"Literally, yes. That's all it was ever supposed to be. We're not dating, we're not anything special. So just get over it."
His words stung like a slap. You stood frozen, chest tightening, breath catching as your mind scrambled to make sense of it.
"Get over it?" You questioned, voice shaky. "I can't believe you."
"Seriously, why are you surprised? You knew what you were getting into, you knew what this was— who I was. So yeah, get over it."
And just like that, he turned and walked away quickly, unapologetic, like none of it mattered.
You just stood there. The sting of his words burned beneath your skin. Your mind replayed it all— his kisses that felt too careful, the way he used to listen when you rambled like he cared. It didn't feel casual, it never did. You thought it meant something.
You should've left then. Should've gone out to your car and cried it out alone, but instead, you ended up in the kitchen, grabbing the nearest bottle, the biggest one. One shot became two, then three, then you chugging half the bottle while strangers cheered like it was a show. You couldn't even hear them, everything blurred.
You stumbled back down the hallway for a break, sliding against the wall until you hit the floor, bottle still in hand. You closed your eyes, maybe to stop the spinning, maybe to hold back tears, maybe both.
"Y/n?"
Your eyes fluttered open. You turned slowly to the voice.
"Jaemin? What the fuck?" You said, standing a little wobbly.
He stepped closer, a cautious steadiness in his eyes. "Can we talk?"
"You're fucked up." You replied.
"You're fucked up too. If we can still speak, we can talk." His voice was gentle, not defensive.
You looked at him for a long second, trying to focus through the fog before nodding. "Alright, talk."
He ran a hand through his hair, pausing before speaking. "Listen... I'm seriously sorry about everything I said to you."
"That all?" You mumbled.
"No." He said quickly. "I haven't been the best friend. I just... I wanted to keep you away from a guy like him. I know I wasn't always nice about it, but you didn't deserve that. You didn't deserve anything I said to you and I'm sorry. I love you, Y/n. I always have."
You smiled faintly. "It's cool."
He looked like he wanted to say more, but someone else's voice interrupted.
"There you are."
You both turned. It was the Mark guy from last time.
"Do you know where Haechan is bro?" He asked Jaemin.
Jaemin shook his head, lips in a tight line. "Naw."
Mark rolled his eyes slightly before pausing, turning to you. "What about you— do you know where he is?"
"Why would I know?" You questioned, laughing a bit.
His brows furrowed slightly, confusion twisting his face. "You're like— his girl."
You paused for a second the word echoing in your mind 'his girl'. He didn't act like it, all that he said tonight and his friends are calling you his girl? Right.
"Last time I seen him he was with a girl— he's probably fucking her." You said, the words coming out your mouth too easy, too bitter.
"Naw." Mark said, staring at the ceiling like he was thinking. "He wasn't with a girl when I saw him a few minutes ago. I don't know, I checked in his room, the backyard, everywhere— nothing. His car is still here though."
He isn't with a girl? Since when. Your mind started racing again, trying to think as logically as you could in the state you were at right now.
"I'm getting kind of worried." You said without thinking, eyes glossy.
"I'm sure he just took a car somewhere or something." Jaemin pipped in.
Mark nodded in agreement, scratching his head, cursing slightly under his breath.
"What do you need with him?" You asked, curiousity taking the best of you.
"He has my blunt." Mark said in a sigh.
Jaemin chuckled lightly, honestly, more of a scoff. "Man, if you don't get the fuck on." He said, pushing Marks shoulder slightly.
"Shit, my bad. Didn't know it was that serious. Let me know if you see Haechan." Mark said, walking down the hallway, scratching the back of his head.
You stared at him as he left, zoned out for a second too long before turning back. Jaemin's eyes were already on you— focused, something glinting in them.
"Why the fuck are you looking at me like that?" You asked, your words slurring slightly.
"Like what?" He replied, inching closer to you with casual ease that felt far too practiced.
"Like... that." You motioned vaguely, a tired, crooked smile tugging at your lips.
"I don't know." He said, smirking. "I guess I just missed you. Missed seeing your face, your eyes, your—" His gaze flicked down."...lips."
You just giggled lazily, your head falling back slightly as your eyelids drooped.
"You didn't miss me just a little bit?" He pressed, now standing directly in front of you, his expression filled with something light, teasing.
"What am I gonna do with you?" You murmured, shaking your head, half amused, half dazed.
"I've got a few suggestions." His voice dropped lower, smoother.
You opened your mouth to say something back, but then suddenly the room spun.
Your smile fell.
Everything hit at once, shutting your eyes, hand instinctively reaching for Jaemin to stay grounded.
"You okay?" He muttered, steadying you quickly. "Fuck— can you make it upstairs?"
You just nodded weakly as he wrapped your arm over his shoulder, raising you up. He guided you through the crowd, shielding you from the curious glances.
"Hang in there, I got you." He said, his breath a little rushed. He led you straight into the bathroom, flipping the toilet lid up and helping you kneel in front of it just in time.
"There you go, let it out." He said gently, one hand holding your hair, the other rubbing slow, comforting circles on your back as everything poured out of you.
You didn't say anything, just coughed, groaning softly, trying to breathe through the burn.
"I'll be right back, okay? Gonna grab you some water." He stood, hesitating for a moment, watching you slump against the wall before disappearing.
You sat there for a second, catching your breath. Once the spinning calm downed, you forced yourself up on shaky legs. You splashed cold water on your face with a washcloth, numbing your flushed skin. Your eyes found the bottle of mouthwash under the sink, and you took a quick swig, trying to rinse away the taste of shame and alcohol.
When Jaemin returned, he handed you a red cup of water and closed the door softly behind him.
"Thanks." You mumbled, taking a sip. The cold relief hit your throat like glass.
"You feeling any better?"
"Yeah." You nodded, slowly. "I just... I think I need to rest. I'll be okay after that."
"You drove here?" He asked.
"Yeah." You nodded.
"Then let me take you home. You can grab your car tomorrow."
"No, that's too much. I'm not leaving my car here." You said, waving a hand lazily. "I'll crash here a bit. I'll leave when I'm sober."
He stared at you like you just confessed a felony. "Y/n, that's a fucking terrible idea."
"Jaemin, seriously." You said firmly, cutting him off. "I'm not doing this with you tonight. I really don't have the energy."
He sighed, lips pressed into a tight line before nodding. "Alright. Just... text me when you get home. I wanna make sure you're alright."
"Noted." You gave him a soft, exhausted smile. "Thank you."
He lingered a second longer, like he wanted to say something else, but didn't. Then he left.
You pulled out your phone and shot Haechan a quick message— told him you were sick, asked if there was a room you could rest in, promised you'd be gone by morning... no reply.
You rolled your eyes, of course.
You made your way to his room anyway, tugging off your shoes and the uncomfortable pants digging into your waist. You sank into the bed, eyes shutting before your head even hit the pillow.
About an hour and a half later, your eyes snapped open.
Your chest rose quickly as you sat up, heart beating fast. You rubbed at your face, trying to blink the haze away. Everything still felt off— your body heavy, your mind foggy. You weren't even sure if it was just the alcohol anymore. You turned toward the nightstand, eyes catching on an unopened can sitting there, no label, no clue what it was. You picked it up, squinted at it, turning it in your hands.
The door creaked open.
"Was throwing up the first time not enough?"
Your head snapped up. Haechan.
You scoffed quietly, setting the can back on the nightstand without a word.
"Oh, you're ignoring me now?" He said as he stepped in, closing the door behind him and locking it.
You didn't look at him. "Your friends are looking for you." You said quietly, your voice flat. "You disappeared."
"They found me." He replied. "Was with my sister. The stupid fucker had my location."
He walked toward your side of the bed. "I got you some water." He said, placing a red solo cup down next to you.
Then, like nothing had happened, he sat at the edge of the bed and pulled his shirt over his head.
"Why are you acting like nothing happened?" You asked suddenly, voice cracking under the weight of your restraint.
He paused, head tilted slightly. "Huh?"
"Everything you said earlier. All that shit. You just walked away like it didn't matter."
He paused, then bent down, taking his shoes off. "Oh, that?" He said with a shrug. "Yeah, I changed my mind."
Your eyebrows shot up. "You changed your mind?"
"Didn't even fuck her." He added carelessly, like that erased it.
"I don't believe you." You said, voice cold.
He stood and began tugging off his pants. "Did you believe what I said earlier?"
You hesitated, then shook your head. "Honestly... I think I'm sober enough now. I'll just go."
You swung your legs off the bed, but the moment your feet hit the floor your body caved under its own weight.
"Yeah." He said quickly, pulling the blanket aside. "You're not going anywhere."
He settled beside you again comfortably... too comfortable.
"Just drink some water and chill. You'll be fine."
You didn't answer, you just turned your back to him, facing the wall.
"Are you really that mad at me?" He murmured, breath warm on your skin.
You didn't answer him, just exhaled irritated, flipping over onto your side, your back facing him. You rolled your eyes when you felt the bed dip as he moved closer, his chest pressing up against your back.
He wrapped an arm around your waist, his breath warm against the back of your neck. "C'mon." He murmured, coaxing. "You know I didn't mean it."
You scoffed, unmoved. "You know, you're the most exhausting person in the entire world."
"Yeah?" He replied lowly. His lips ghosted the shell of your ear, then drifted down to your neck, the touch barely there.
"Yeah." You snapped, though your voice was softer now. "And you're... you're the worst person I've ever met."
"I know." He whispered again, a little grin in his tone, like he liked the way you hated him, like he wanted to see how far you'd go before breaking.
His hand slid lower, trailing slowly down your torso. His fingers dipped under the waistband of your underwear, grazing the skin there before slipping inside.
You inhaled sharply as his fingertips brushed against your slickness, teasing your folds slowly. He pressed a kiss to your neck, hotter now.
"Wow." He breathed, lips dragging over your skin. "So wet."
You swallowed back a moan, breath hitching. "You really think you deserve to be fucked right now?" You murmured, voice low and shaky, but still sharp.
"I don't." He admitted softly, the words brushing against your skin. "But you do."
He flattened his tongue against your neck, licking a slow line up to your ear before whispering, "Use me."
That made you stop.
You turned your head slowly, facing him now. His eyes met yours, darker and glossier than before. He meant it, you could see it in the way his mouth parted, in the way his breath caught when your eyes locked.
"What do you want me to do?" He asked, voice eager in a way it's never been before.
"Keep going." You said quietly.
He smiled, but it vanished the second he dipped his head, mouth devouring your neck again, lips, tongue, and teeth dragging across your skin. His fingers moved more now, rubbing slow circles over your clit before dipping down to tease your entrance, just barely pushing in.
"I'll do whatever you want." He whispered, fingers still working you open. "Just tell me."
His mouth stayed on your neck, trailing open mouthed kisses, tongue dragging across the skin like he was trying to taste every sound you made. But it was his fingers that kept you gasping, pushing deeper now, curling perfectly inside you while his thumb rolled slow circles over your clit.
You arched into his hand. He groaned lowly against your throat, the sound muffled, almost like he was trying to stay quiet, but couldn't help himself.
His fingers fucked into you harder, knuckles brushing slick heat with every movement. You were so wet, your arousal coating his hand and sliding down your thighs, the sound of it filling the room.
You cried out when he slipped a third finger in without warning, stretching you wider. Your hand shot out, gripping at the sheets trying to ground yourself.
Your body jerked when his thumb pressed harder, rolling faster circles right over the spot that made you twitch. He felt the way you clenched around his fingers, and he didn't let up.
He fucked you with his fingers like he knew you better than you knew yourself. Like he wanted to pull every sound out of you, every reaction, until there was nothing left of your pride— just need.
He buried his face in your neck, teeth grazing your skin, breath hot as he kept moving his fingers inside you.
Your thighs clenched around his hand, your body tensing, even then his fingers didn't stop. They kept driving into you, rough and fast, curling just right inside you. He had you locked in place, your back flush to his chest, his other arm wrapped firm around your waist, keeping you exactly where he wanted you.
You choked on a moan, your head falling back against his shoulder as your hips bucked.
"Fuck." You whimpered out.
Your whole body jerked, clenching around his fingers as you came with a loud cry. Your thighs shook uncontrollably as your orgasm hit you hard.
He didn't slow down, even as you finished, he kept fucking you with his fingers, your nails were digging into the sheets.
Your body fell against him, boneless, twitching slightly as the aftershocks rolled through you.
Your breath was still shaky, body still twitching, but something shifted in you. You turned in his grip, and before he could process it you pushed him back, flipping him onto his back with force that even surprised him.
He hit the mattress with a grunt, eyes wide, caught between confusion and anticipation.
He reached for your underwear, fingers sliding to the waistband like he thought he was still in control.
"No." You said flatly, grabbing his wrists and pinning them down against the bed.
He blinked up at you, eyebrows raised. "Seriously?" He muttered, cocking his head. "You're gonna make me wait like that?"
You didn't answer. Instead, your grip tightening on his wrists. "Did I ask you to speak?"
His mouth opened slightly, but nothing came out. He stared up at you stunned. For once, he had nothing to say.
You released one wrist and tapped his cheek lightly. "Aw, look at that. You're doing good already, such a fast learner."
He didn't respond, just stared at you like he didn't recognize this version of you— and maybe he didn't. Maybe he never knew how far you could push him.
You slid your hips forward once, just enough for your soaked underwear to press against him— enough for him to feel how close you were, how warm you were, without giving him anything.
He gasped.
You froze immediately, smiling wider. "I barely even moved." You whispered, tilting your head. "And you're already gasping?"
His hands curled into fists against the sheets, his jaw flexing, trying to hold it in.
Too late.
You rolled your hips again slower, dragging yourself against him, the heat and friction driving him crazy. He let out a low groan, biting his lip, but the noise still slipped free.
You laughed softly. "That's pathetic." You said, voice silky. "Already whining like I've done something special."
He arched into you slightly, but you pressed your palm against his chest, holding him down.
You didn't give him time to recover.
Your hips started moving again, slow at first, rolling into him with that same cruel precision, but the moment you felt the way he twitched under you, the way his breath caught and his fingers tightened in the sheets, you picked up the pace, faster and rougher.
Your nails dug into his chest for balance as you rode him, hips snapping against his, your soaked underwear still pressed between you both, friction building unbearably fast. His eyes were locked on you now. His mouth parted in a soundless moan, like he couldn't even form words anymore.
You leaned in close, lips brushing his jaw without kissing him. "Feels good, doesn't it?" You whispered against his skin, your breath heavy. "Getting used like this."
He didn't answer, couldn't. He just whimpered and it only made you grind down harder, circling your hips once slowly before slamming down again.
You were close, too. You could feel it starting to burn low in your stomach, spreading fast. Your rhythm grew more erratic, desperate even, but you refused to lose control. You kept him pinned, your hand against his chest, pushing down hard.
He bucked his hips up, trying to match your movements, chasing it, gasping now. His hands flew up to grab at your waist like he needed something to hold onto.
His mouth was moving, voice cracking. "Fuck, please, I'm gonna—"
You slammed your hips down harder, cutting him off, and he cried out. You could feel him trembling under you, his whole body tightening.
"Please let me come, fuck. I need it, I can't... I'm so close, please—"
You smirked through your own breathing. "You're begging now?" You murmured. "Look at you..."
He nodded, barely able to breathe, a wreck beneath you.
You were right there too, your body shaking with restraint, trying not to come first— trying to hold on long enough to decide if you were going to let him finish at all.
You didn't slow down. Not when his moans got louder, not when his hands clawed at your hips, not even when his head tipped back and his mouth dropped open with a gasp that sounded more like a sob.
You felt it— his whole body tensing beneath you, a sharp cry coming from his throat as he came in his boxers, hot and messy between your bodies. His thighs jerked uncontrollably, his chest heaving, hands gripping you tightly, but you didn't stop, you didn't even pause.
You kept moving, dragging your soaked heat against him through the aftermath of his high, hips grinding harder.
"Look at you." You murmured with a soft laugh. "Didn't even last, came in your fucking boxers like some desperate boy."
He whimpered under you, blinking up at you like he couldn't believe you were still moving.
You rolled your hips again slowly, and his whole body shuddered violently.
"Fuck— fuck, please." He gasped, voice shaking, louder now, eyes wide. "I can't, it's too much."
You grabbed his jaw, forcing his face back towards yours. "Then take it."
"Please, I can't. I'll come again— please stop, please."
But you didn't.
You kept going, eyes locked on his, breathing heavy. His moans turned to gasps, then to whines, his body twitching violently with every pass of your hips.
Tears pricked at the corners of his eyes, his voice cracking.
Your hips moved faster, and the more he squirmed under you, the louder he got, the harder you rode him. His boxers were soaked now— warm and sticky.
"Fuck, I'm gonna cum." You said, head falling back as your movements became messier.
Your body tensed, a choked moan coming from your throat as you reached your climax, your thighs trembling. And under you he was still squirming, overstimulated, but you stayed on him, letting the last shocks of your orgasm pulse through both of you.
You finally slowed, thighs trembling slightly as you lifted yourself off of him.
He looked ruined— flushed, hair a mess, his boxers soaked and sticking to him in the most humiliating way. His chest was still rising and falling hard, but as you sat beside him, a smile broke across his face.
"Shit." He exhaled, glancing over at you with a dazed grin. "That was... fuck, so good. Round two? Can we— can we actually fuck now?" He said, with faint left over arrogance.
You didn't say anything right away. You just stared at him, eyebrows slightly raised, lips parting like you were considering it. Then you tilted your head and gave him a look so cold, so dry, it silenced him instantly.
"Honestly?" You said. "You can go fuck yourself."
His smile dropped. "W— what?"
"You heard me." You leaned back, propping yourself on your elbows. "You can go fuck yourself."
He blinked clearly confused. "Wait— like... actually?"
You gave him a dark smile. "Right here. With me watching."
He stared, completely stunned.
"Well?" You asked. "I'm waiting."
He swallowed hard, then his hand started to move, slowly slipping beneath the waistband of his ruined boxers, his eyes locked on yours the whole time.
You didn't blink, didn't look away, you just leaned back fully, legs still slightly spread, gaze sharp as you watched him obey.
He was flushed, chest still heaving from everything you'd already done to him, and now here he was... obeying you, shame blooming across his face as he started to stroke himself.
You tilted your head, eyes fixed on the motion, the slick sounds already starting to fill the quiet space between you.
"God." You exhaled, voice low and amused. "Look at you."
His eyes flicked up to yours, like he was searching for something, permission, praise, maybe relief? Whatever it was, you weren't going to give it to him.
"Didn't even last five minutes, and you're already hard again?" You taunted. "You're actually pathetic."
His pace faltering for just a second before picking up again— faster this time, more desperate.
"Don't slow down." You warned, shifting slightly to spread your legs wider, giving him a full view as you sat back, one hand dragging down your inner thigh casually.
He bit his lip, nodding quickly, his hand moving faster now, breathing turning shaky again. His eyes stayed locked on you, taking in the way you sat there, smug, but still a bit flushed from your own orgasm. Your presence alone had him falling apart again.
"You gonna come again just from your hand?" You whispered. "With me watching you like this?"
He let out a shaky gasp, his hips jerking upward slightly and you caught it instantly.
"Oh my god." You said, laughing softly. "You're gonna do it, aren't you? Finish like this all messy and pathetic with me just sitting here." You reached forward, dragging a single fingertip up the inside of his thigh, not touching him where he needed, just enough to make him twitch.
His whole body tensed again, a broken moan escaping his throat as his hand sped up, gasping, eyes locked on you like he needed your gaze just to fall apart.
"Fuck, I'm gonna—" He cried out, voice cracking.
You leaned in, lips nearly brushing his ear.
"Do it." You whispered.
His whole body tensed up, a loud whimper escaping his throat as he came for the second time.
You just watched, your legs spread lazily, one hand propping you up while the other dragged absentminded patterns against your inner thigh like you weren't even all that impressed, like he wasn't anything special.
"Aw. Was that hard for you?" You asked, voice filled with condescension.
He didn't answer, couldn't. His lips parted like he might try, but nothing came out. Just a shaky exhale as he turned his head to look at you, face red, chest flushed, hands twitching slightly like he didn't know where to put them now.
"Twice in one night." You said, dragging your finger up your thigh again. "Didn't even need to touch you the second time." You said, laughing under your breath.
You stayed still for a moment longer, watching him breathe, his chest still rising hard.
You tilted your head slightly. "Come here."
He didn't hesitate, just nodded, crawling forward slowly. His knees shifted across the mattress until he was right in front of you waiting, still caught in whatever trance you'd pulled him into.
You gave a soft sigh, pausing for a second, looking at him. "On second thought... I'm bored with you."
His face dropped slightly, eyes growing just a little wider, and his mouth opened like he didn't know if he'd heard you right.
"W— what?" He said, blinking fast. "No, no, wait, I can— I can make you not bored. Just tell me what to do, I'll do anything, really."
You raised an eyebrow, unimpressed. "You're really this desperate?" You said flatly. "For... casual, regular, simple sex?"
He paused, didn't answer right away. "I'm sorry." He said quickly, too quick. "I'm really sorry. I didn't mean— I mean I just.. please, I didn't mean to make it feel like that. I didn't mean to ruin it—"
"Stop talking." You cut in. "I'm done with you."
His mouth hung open, chest still moving, eyes searching yours for any sign of mercy.
"Now please..." You said, voice dropping colder than ever. "Go shower, you're fucking disgusting."
He froze, letting out a faint exhale.
And then absurdly, he smiled. Just a small twitch at the corner of his mouth, nodding. "Yeah, okay."
He stood up slowly, and left the room without another word. You laid back down, flipping onto your side again, the exact same position you'd been in before all of it started, your lips curved up just slightly in a satisfied smile.
══════════════════════════
You woke up to the soft light filtering through the blinds. For a moment, you didn't know where you were, but sheets smelled faintly like him— distinctly Haechan. You blinked the haze out of your eyes, gradually sitting up.
Next to you, Haechan sat propped against the headboard, absently scrolling through his phone like it was any normal morning. You turned slightly, watching him for a second. He looked relaxed, completely unbothered, like last night never even happened.
"Oh, you're awake." He said, glancing over at you.
You didn't respond right away, just swung your legs off the side of the bed, grounding yourself with your hands in your lap as you stared down at the floor. Your head still felt slightly heavy, the remnants of everything from the night before pressing down on your chest.
"Um, you hungry?" He added, his tone light.
"I'll probably just pick up something on the way home." You muttered, about to stand.
"Wait—" He said quickly, sitting up straighter. "I can... I can just cook us something."
You shook your head gently, already pushing yourself to your feet. "You're good, I swear—"
"And I have to talk to you about something." He added, cutting you off mid sentence.
You froze.
A long moment of silence stretched before you gave in with a quiet sigh and nod, slowly settling back on the edge of the bed.
"Okay." You said simply.
He offered a faint smile before hopping up and leaving the room. "Okay, I'll call you when it's done."
Twenty minutes passed before he called your name from downstairs. You took your time going down, still slightly dazed, still unsure what exactly he had to say.
When you got to the kitchen, the table was set. He was already sitting down, looking up as you walked in.
"Wow." You said with a small smirk. "Didn't know you knew how to cook."
"Surprise." He said with a casual shrug.
You took a bite of the food, eyebrows lifting slightly in approval.
"Good." You muttered, almost reluctantly.
"Oh, thank you, thank you." He grinned, but then: "Oh, what the fuck was that last night?"
You looked up, expecting to see his defenses up, ready to brush things off as a mistake. Instead, his face was lit up with amusement, a grin on his face, no shame.
You giggled, the corner of your mouth twitching. "What do you mean?"
"What do I mean?" He echoed dramatically, setting down his fork. "I mean, how you acted. I've never tried anything like that before."
You tilted your head. "Did you like it?"
"Did I like it? I loved it." He said without hesitation. "I've always wanted to try something like that out before, but I just didn't really trust anyone like that. It just turned me off with other girls, you know? But you—"
He was rambling now, his words flowing fast and unfiltered. "We definitely have to do it again, I mean— if you were into it?"
You smiled faintly, but there was a heaviness sitting behind your eyes. "Oh, so you're not bored anymore, huh?" The words left your mouth before you could pull them back.
The atmosphere immediately changed. He stilled, the brightness in his face dimming as the sound of your fork scraping the plate echoed like thunder in the silence.
"That's what I have to talk to you about, actually." He said, voice low.
You nodded, waiting, watching him gather himself, but then a loud knock suddenly hit the front door.
Both of your heads turned.
He frowned slightly, standing from his chair and walking over. You exhaled slowly, your lips tightening into a strained expression when the door opened.
It was her— the girl from last night.
"Hey, cutie. I think I left my bra here, can I come in?" She said brightly, smiling at him like you didn't exist.
"It's not here." Haechan said, his voice noticeably hushed, like he hoped you couldn't hear.
"No, I'm sure it's here." She said, taking a step forward. "C'mon, let me just take a quick look. Won't take me long— unless you want it to be long."
You didn't have to see him to know he looked exhausted. "Make it quick." He muttered.
She walked in, eyes scanning the place like she owned it. She made a dramatic turn toward the stairs.
"You know it's not up there, so cut it out." Haechan called out, annoyed.
She giggled. "Oh right, silly me. I just figured you would've put it away for me after I left it. Didn't think you'd seriously leave it in the bathroom for anyone to pick up."
Your jaw clenched.
She spun around again, searching the room, and then her gaze landed on you, her smile widening.
"Oh my goodness, this must be your sister? Hi! You're so pretty!"
You scoffed, an actual scoff, sharp and disbelieving as you turned toward Haechan. His eyes were already on you, guilt written all over them.
She disappeared around the corner and returned moments later, holding a black lace bra between her fingers like a trophy. "Found it!" She said, beaming.
"Good, now get out." Haechan snapped.
"Aww, okay." She said playfully, heading for the door. "See you later, cutie."
"Right." His voice was hollow as he shut the door behind her with a loud slam.
Silence.
Then you stood up slowly, pushing your chair back.
"Y/n, I swear—" He started, voice low and cautious.
"Yeah." You said softly, turning towards the stairs.
"Fuck. Y/n, wait—" He reached for your wrist.
You yanked it back. "Get the fuck off of me."
"Can you just let me explain?" He pleaded.
"Let you explain what? Every time you explain, the story changes. There's nothing to explain!" Your voice cracked at the edges, anger and betrayal spilling out in equal measure.
"Look, I know how it looks, but I swear I didn't fuck her."
"Oh?" You scoffed. "Her bra just teleported into your bathroom and now nobody knows what happened? You knew exactly where it was."
"Yeah I know, but we didn't do anything." He insisted.
"So what— she took her bra off for shits and giggles?"
"Yeah." He said, voice shaky.
You just shook your head. "You're a fucking joke."
You walked past him, storming back into his room to grab your pants. He followed you, desperate.
"We didn't fuck, we didn't even kiss— you've gotta believe me."
"Well, I don't. How can I fucking believe you?" You shouted, your voice breaking now as you shoved your shoes on. "You're nothing but a sex addicted, sorry excuse for a human being, and you think I'm seriously gonna believe you?"
He stood there quietly, his chest rising and falling, then something in him snapped.
"Oh, I'm a sorry excuse for a human being?" He shouted. "All that shit you did a year ago and you're talking about me? Take a look at yourself. You run back, don't you? You don't believe me, but you still let me touch you last night, right?"
You stopped dead in your tracks, your whole face twisting, rage bubbling up in your throat.
"Fuck you." You spat, venom in your voice.
"Fuck you." He shot back, almost automatic.
You stormed up to him, eyes burning, jabbing your finger into his chest. "I loved you. I gave you chance after fucking chance and you still fucked it up. People like you will always be lonely, no matter how many girls you fuck or how many you break. No one wants to deal with you."
He didn't speak. His mouth opened slightly, but the words didn't come as his eyes glistened.
"I really thought— God, I really thought that somewhere in there, you had love. That you actually cared about something more than yourself, but you're just a selfish fucking prick."
He opened his mouth again. "Oh, I'm a selfish prick?" His voice cracked now, raised but not loud— just hurt.
"Yeah." You said bitterly. "And I give up, I'm done with you."
You turned and headed for the stairs. He followed again, footsteps frantic behind you.
"Done with me?" He scoffed. "Leave then. I don't give a fuck."
You were already crying as you hit the bottom of the stairs, rushing toward the door. Tears streamed down your face, but you didn't care.
"You're nothing but a body to me. You really think I care?" He called after you, the words landing like a slap.
You stopped cold, hand on the doorknob. Then turned back to look at him one last time.
"Fuck you, Haechan." You whispered through your tears. Then you yanked the door open and slammed it shut behind you, storming to your car without looking back.
The drive home was chaotic, your mind spiraling the entire way. Your grip on the steering wheel was tight. Everything blurred together: Haechan's voice, the girl's face, the slam of the door behind you, it rang in your ears long after you pulled into your driveway.
The second you stepped through the door, you headed straight for the shower. You didn't bother to undress carefully— your clothes were on the floor within seconds. The water was scalding, but you barely noticed. You stood there, letting it rush over you like it could wash away the ache, the sting in your throat from screaming and crying. You scrubbed until your skin was aching, but no matter how hard you tried, the weight inside your chest stayed exactly where it was.
After drying off and pulling on a pair of shorts and an oversized shirt, you dropped into bed, damp hair soaking into the pillow. You sat there in silence, the room was still... too still.
You didn't want to be alone— not right now. Your roommates were out, like always. You stared at the ceiling for a moment before biting your lip, reaching for your phone. Your fingers hesitated over your screen, but then instinct took over.
You dialed Jaemin.
It rang once... twice.
Then his voice. "About time I hear from you."
"Jaemin." Your voice cracked around his name, tears you thought were gone welling again.
"What's wrong?" His tone changed immediately. You could picture the way his brows furrowed, his whole face shifting into concern.
"Can you come?" Your voice was so small.
"Yeah. Yeah, of course. I'll be there in... fifteen minutes." He paused, then sighed. "Thirty."
"Okay." You whispered.
Thirty five minutes later, a knock landed at your door.
You opened it slowly— and there he was standing with your favorite takeout in one hand and a small bouquet of flowers in the other. His expression was soft, warm, like he was showing up for someone he deeply cared about, and he was.
Your lips wobbled, a pout forming as you tried to keep it together, but your chest caved in again.
"Oh my gosh..." You mumbled.
"Aw, poor baby." He stepped inside immediately, shutting the door behind him before pulling you into his arms.
The moment you buried your face in his chest, you broke. Your tears poured out, soaking his shirt as your fingers clutched at him like you'd drown if you let go. You stayed like that for a while— no words, just his hands gently rubbing your back, his chin resting on your head.
When you finally pulled away, a large wet patch stained his shirt.
"Damn, girl." He said with a soft laugh, tugging at the fabric and inspecting it.
"Sorry." You sniffled, letting out a half laugh through your sorrow.
"It's okay. C'mon, let's go to your room."
His hand settled on your back, guiding you down the hall.
You sat on the edge of your bed, eyes still swollen, nose stuffy, while he placed the food down and peeled off his shirt. He paused, looking down.
"Through the tank top too." He laughed, pulling that off as well.
That's when your eyes landed on his skin— and the faint outline of hickeys scattered across his chest and collarbone.
"Wow." You blinked, eyes widening.
His brows furrowed at first before realization hit him and he chuckled. "I could say the same thing to you." He murmured, walking toward you. His fingers gently ran along the markings on your neck, ghosts from the night before.
You hummed, a quiet sound in your throat as you looked up at him with a small smile.
"Are you ready to tell me what happened now?" He asked gently.
You looked down for a second, then back up at him. "I don't wanna talk about it. Can you just... stay?"
"Yeah, of course." His smile was soft, understanding.
You both climbed into bed. His arm rested around your shoulder, his fingers tracing slow circles into your arm. Your legs brushed under the blanket, your body gradually settling into the quiet comfort of his presence.
After a while, you turned to him. "Why did it take you so long to reach back out?"
He didn't look away. "I just wanted to give you space. I didn't wanna overstep. I figured when you were ready, you'd talk to me, but I couldn't wait anymore so I took the initiative."
"Oh." You nodded slowly, then turned to face him fully. "You really thought I'd reach out first after everything you said?"
He looked at you, guilt flickering across his features. "I realized how stupid that was."
"Mmm." You hummed softly.
Silence followed again. You moved closer, wrapping your arms around his waist and laying your head against his bare chest. His skin was warm against your cheek, the steady beat of his heart grounding you.
That's when the thoughts came back, rising fast.
"Bro... I don't know." You whispered into his chest. "I really thought he loved me."
His voice was gentle. "Yeah?"
"He acted like he did— sometimes." You said, pulling your head back to look up at him, your eyes glassy again. "I don't know why I'm even still crying over him."
"I understand." He said quietly. "I told you he was trouble."
"I know." You sighed. "I should've listened. Ugh— I really thought I could change him."
That made Jaemin chuckle softly.
"It's not funny." You muttered, swatting his chest lightly.
"I know, I know." He smiled, brushing your tears away with his thumb.
"Listen, it's over now." He murmured, hand sliding down your cheek to cup it softly. "And everything's gonna be okay. You're gonna be okay, right?"
You groaned, turning your head away, but his fingers caught your chin and gently guided your face back to his.
"Okay?" He repeated.
You nodded, barely. "Okay."
The space between you changed. His eyes stayed on yours, soft but intense. His hand didn't leave your face and you didn't move either. You leaned in slightly, then stopped yourself.
"It's okay." He whispered, his voice low, his breath brushing against your lips. "Do it."
You hesitated again, but then he leaned in, pausing just an inch away. "Or I will." He added, before finally closing the space.
His lips met yours gently at first, then deeper. You didn't pull away, you melted into him instead— his mouth, his touch, the comfort you hadn't known you needed. His hand slid behind your neck, pulling you closer. The kiss intensified, growing heavier with each second. His tongue slid into your mouth, slow but sure, as his hands roamed across your body, searching and warm.
Your phone buzzed beside you.
Neither of you paid attention.
He pushed you gently onto your back, settling over you. His lips trailed from your mouth to your cheek, then down your jaw.
Your phone rang.
You glanced over, blinking— and froze.
Haechan lit up the screen.
You closed your eyes, heart twisting, fingers tangling into your hair as Jaemin's lips moved across your neck, leaving kisses— soft at first, then rougher.
His mouth found a sensitive spot, and you gasped, your body reacting before your mind could keep up.
The phone rang again.
Then again.
You tried to ignore it, tried to stay in the moment, but the name flashing on the screen was too loud.
Jaemin kissed you again, lower now, but your mind was somewhere else.
The phone rang once more.
"Wait— wait." You interrupted, breath catching as your eyes snapped open.
Jaemin pulled back immediately, eyes wide with concern as he sat up. "What's wrong? Are you okay?"
"Yeah." You replied quickly, trying to steady your breathing. "I'm just— my phone's blowing up, and I'm really distracted and like..." You paused, pressing your lips together before biting down on the bottom one. "Sorry, can we just... do this later?"
His expression softened, cheeks still a little flushed. "Of course." He said gently, offering a small smile. "You don't have to be sorry."
You exhaled slowly, sitting up further and grabbing for your phone. "Who's blowing up your phone?" Jaemin asked, shifting beside you, propping himself on an elbow.
You thumbed through the notifications, scanning them from the bottom. "Spam." You muttered, dismissing a message from an unknown number.
"And... Haechan." You added, your voice quieting. You turned your phone toward Jaemin. "Four missed calls, two voicemails."
Jaemin scoffed, his jaw tensing slightly. "When did he get so fucking desperate?"
You shrugged, trying not to let the knot in your chest twist tighter, but something poked at you— nagging and insistent. "I never asked." You said, turning to him with a squint. "But... how do you even know this guy?"
"Oh." He said, blinking like he hadn't expected the question. "I met him last year. We had a class together, I don't know how he was a junior and I was a freshman, but hey. I started hanging out with his friend group, got super close, and that's it."
"So you're close?" You asked, head tilting.
"Yeah, something like that." He said, casually shrugging.
"Mmm." You hummed in response, nodding slowly. Then your thumb hovered over the voicemails. "Do you wanna listen to the voicemails with me?"
You tried to play it off with a smile, but truthfully your heart was racing. You were going to listen to them anyway— you just didn't want to be alone when you did.
Jaemin leaned back, resting against the headboard. "Sure, sweetums. Whatever makes you happy."
You gave a faint laugh, then opened the phone app and turned your volume all the way up. The first voicemail clicked on.
For a second, there was only heavy breathing, then his voice burst through the speaker— shaky, broken.
"Now you can't answer the fucking phone, huh? I know you see my calls, Y/n."
Your mouth dropped open slightly as you and Jaemin froze, listening.
"I fucking loved you— I love you, and you're just gonna walk out on me like I'm nothing? You're nothing—"
His voice cracked, like he was barely holding back tears.
"I'm gonna kill him." Jaemin shook his head in disbelief.
"Shh." You cut in quickly, swatting at his arm, your eyes not moving from the phone.
"I— and you're probably with Jaemin right now, aren't you?" Haechan's voice rasped.
You glanced at Jaemin with a twitch of a smile, but it dropped instantly.
"Like he isn't the cause of all this— like he didn't set this whole thing up. Yeah, bet you didn't know that, did you? That little jealous, selfish fucker. Trying to take you away from everyone, but can't even love you himself. And you're there? With him? Pitiful."
The room dropped into silence, tension thick enough to choke on.
You turned to Jaemin slowly, your expression tight, unsettled. "What the fuck is he talking about, Jaemin?"
His eyes stayed on yours, but something darker lingered in his gaze now. "He's lying."
"He's lying?" You echoed, brows furrowing. "Yeah, well it doesn't sound like he's lying."
"He's fucking lying to you, Y/n." Jaemin said firmly.
You shook your head, struggling to breathe evenly. "Why would he— he wouldn't— why would he say that though? Of all things, why that? He has no reason to lie... not about you. He doesn't even know what you are to me, he doesn't know we're this close, he probably doesn't know we even know each other."
"You're really about to question me right now?" Jaemin asked, voice rising with disbelief.
"I just don't know why he would say that." You admitted, voice cracking, hands shaking slightly as you stared down at your phone.
Then, something sparked in the back of your mind— the unknown number from earlier. You'd thought it was spam, but the area code was local, and something about it gnawed at you now.
"He's lying to you. You're seriously gonna let him shake you up like this—"
"Just shut the fuck up for a second, Jaemin. Please." Your tone was urgent, as you unlocked your phone and opened the text.
Unknown [4:28 PM]:
"Hey girly. Sorry to text you like this, I'm the one who left her bra at Haechan's house and I'm sorry about that. I didn't know stuff was serious between you two or that I was wrecking anything. I was completely left in the dark... I would never purposely do that. I was told you were just one of his hookups. Me and him never even fucked— he rejected me and left. I left my bra there on purpose so I could come back, just in case you were there in the morning. I hope this clears everything up. I'm sorry for the mess we caused."
You stared at the message, heart thudding.
You [4:48 PM]:
"Who's "we"?"
She replied instantly.
Unknown [4:50 PM]:
"Jaemin. That asshole. He knew I liked him, and he told me to be all up on Haechan, to try to hook up. Told me to leave my shit there so I could come back if the girl (you?) was still there in the morning. He described your car, said to be as annoying as possible. Told me he'd get with me if I did and I was stupid and believed him. We met up earlier today, he got head and left. Said 'this was fun' but he had to go. So fucking sick of men lol. Sorry again girl, I hope you get everything sorted out."
Your entire body went cold. Your hands trembled as you read the message once... then again.
"Jaemin." Your voice was flat now as you turned to him slowly. "The girl just told me what you did."
He rolled his eyes. "Great, now he's got a bitch lying on me too."
"You really believe that?" He added. "You believe them over your best friend?"
"I don't know what to believe right now." You said, breath unsteady. "But all I know is that Haechan would not go this far to lie... about you."
"Right, okay." He scoffed, shaking his head. "This dude broke your heart a million times, fucked a girl, had her pop up outta nowhere with a literal bra as evidence, and you believe him over me? After everything? I've always had your back. Yeah, I fucked up once or twice, but I always looked out for you— and you're really gonna believe them?"
You opened your mouth to respond, to agree with him, honestly, but then something snapped into place.
Your eyes narrowed. "How the fuck did you know that?"
Jaemin blinked. "Know what?"
"How did you know that she left her bra?" You repeated, voice rising. "I never told you that. So how do you know?"
His silence was immediate.
"How do you know, Jaemin!?" You sat up in the bed, your voice cracked and full of betrayal.
He let out a sharp breath, a bitter laugh escaping his throat. "Shit."
Your eyes welled up, you couldn't believe this. "It's you." You whispered.
"Y/n—"
"It's been you." You said, more firmly now, shaking your head in disbelief.
"Will you just relax." He muttered, calm in a way that only made it worse.
You stared at him, stunned. "Relax? You tried sabotage my relationship."
"You weren't together. So I didn't do anything." He said flatly.
"I loved him." Your voice trembled as tears filled your eyes. "I actually loved him and you ruined us— you ruined me."
"I ruined you?" He said with wide eyes, voice incredulous. "That's not how I remember it. I remember saving you. Keeping you from drinking too much, from drugs, from dying, but I ruined you?"
"Yeah." You said, voice sharp through the sob in your throat. "You're the reason."
He scoffed again. "I protected you. I was knocking out obstacles. Look what happened with the last guy, you healed when you were with me. You didn't need him, and you don't need Haechan either. As long as I'm here, you'll be fine, you'll have someone who actually loves you."
"You rejected me." You said, your voice a whisper.
"Yeah?" He shrugged, unmoved. "But I want you now, so..."
You froze. A single tear slipped down your cheek and you wiped it away with shaking fingers.
"You... you want me now?" You said with a bitter laugh.
"Mhm." He nodded. "Not like you haven't chosen me before. Do it again. e can be together."
Your jaw clenched. "I don't want to be with you."
His expression dropped, his eyes finally showing emotion.
"I don't want to see you again." You said, standing up. "I don't even want to know you."
"Wow. After everything I've done for you?" He snapped.
"Get out." Your voice cracked through the air.
"Seriously?"
"Get your shit and leave— now." You pointed to the door.
He scoffed again, rolling his eyes. "Whatever. Let's see how long until you come crawling back."
You stood there, arms crossed, chest aching as you watched him gather his things, not saying another word, and when the door slammed shut behind him, you didn't cry. You just stood there in the silence, your thoughts racing like a storm you couldn't outrun, crashing into each other with no direction.
You paced around your room, feet dragging over the floor like they couldn't decide where to go next. Then your eyes landed on the flowers and takeout bag sitting on your dresser— Jaemin's "comfort gifts" a gesture that now felt so calculated.
Before you could stop yourself, you grabbed them both with trembling hands and marched to the trash can, shoving them inside like they were toxic. The flowers crumpled, petals breaking beneath your force. The food spilled open, untouched, as the bag collapsed into the bin. You stood over it, chest rising and falling, arms tense at your sides.
That's when you realized tears were falling now. They slipped quietly down your cheeks, and you didn't even feel them until they hit your lips. You wiped them away hastily with the back of your hand, sniffing hard as you made your way back to your room, sitting down slowly on your bed.
You grabbed your phone, thumb hesitating over the screen before you tapped back into the voicemail from earlier. You played it again, letting Haechan's broken voice echo through the room, analyzing every syllable, every pause, hoping— desperately hoping that you'd catch something off, something that would prove he was lying, that Jaemin hadn't been the villain after all.
But deep down, you knew.
You weren't looking for the truth, you were just looking for something to hold onto.
Your eyes drifted to the second voicemail— the one you hadn't played yet. It sat there like a wound you hadn't touched. You stared at it, your thumb hovering over the play button, part of you wanted to delete it, let it die in the silence, move on.
You needed to, you knew that. It was the healthy thing to do.
But your heart didn't want clean, it wanted closure, connection. Something... anything, to explain why this all hurt so much.
You took a deep shaky breath, then hit play. There was silence at first like the last, then his voice— rough and cracked, the sound of someone unraveling.
"Fuck, I'm sorry. I don't know what to do, Y/n. I really don't."
You blinked, heart already pulling tight.
"I didn't do anything— I didn't do anything with her. Can you just come back and I'll explain everything, I swear. Just please... come back. Fuck, please, I love you. I'm sorry, I do. Just come back."
A pause. You could hear the faint clatter of something in the background. Then... a breathless, broken sob.
"Come back."
The voicemail ended, but the silence afterward felt louder. You sat there for a long moment, your mind numb, your heart in your throat. You swung your legs off the bed, planting your feet on the ground, tapping one nervously against the floor as your hand curled into a fist. You bit down on your lip, hard, then stood. You didn't even grab a jacket, you just grabbed your keys and walked out the door.
The drive was a blur.
Your thoughts were spinning too fast to keep up. What were you doing? What were you expecting? Maybe he wasn't even home anymore, maybe he'd already moved on or maybe— maybe this was you being weak.
But still, you kept going.
When you got to his place, you knocked. Once... twice, then harder— nothing.
You waited another moment before pulling out your phone and dialing his number. No answer, your fingers hovered over the doorknob. You hesitated, then tried it and it was unlocked.
"Haechan?" You called softly, peeking your head inside.
No answer.
You were ready to walk away. You were so close, so close to leaving it all behind, but then your eyes landed on the full sized bottle sitting open on the counter, almost empty.
You stepped inside cautiously, shutting the door behind you. "Haechan?"
No response.
Your fingers tightened around the bottle as you picked it up, eyes narrowing in worry. Something didn't feel right. The air was still, too still. You moved through the kitchen, then slowly up the stairs, calling his name again, voice low but urgent.
You checked the bathroom, empty. Then you turned to his bedroom— and your heart stopped.
He was there, sprawled across his bed, deathly pale. One hand rested limply on his stomach, the other clutched his phone, your contact still lit up on the screen. On the nightstand beside him sat another half drained bottle of liquor.
"Shit." You whispered, rushing over.
You dropped to your knees beside the bed, pressing your hand to his cheek... ice cold.
Your panic surged, but you quickly placed two fingers against his neck. There it was, a pulse. Weak, but steady.
You exhaled, body trembling in relief. "Jesus." You muttered, rubbing your temples as you looked around the room. You reached for the trash can, dragging it beside the bed in case he threw up, turning his body to the side. Then you grabbed the bottle from the nightstand and carried it downstairs, pouring what was left into the sink.
You filled a glass with water, your hands shaking slightly as you brought it back upstairs and set it down beside him. You watched him for a second, debating. You should probably go, he wouldn't even remember this, but as you looked at him—his lashes resting softly on pale cheeks, his chest rising and falling slowly, the phone still gripped in his hand, your feet didn't move. You sat on the edge of his bed, scrolling through your phone, not even seeing the screen. You stayed there, just... watching him, listening for changes in his breathing, checking to make sure he didn't roll onto his back again or get sick.
Eventually, your body gave in to the weight of the night. You curled beside him, not too close, but close enough, eyes slowly beginning to drift shut.
Your eyes opened slowly, a low throb at your temples as you blinked through the dim room. It was dark, the soft hum of the ceiling fan above breaking the stillness. You glanced at your phone. 1:02 a.m.
You sighed, sitting up carefully. The air in the room was heavy and quiet, your body aching in a way that had nothing to do with sleep. You rubbed at your eyes, brushing away the fuzz, and glanced over at Haechan.
He was still knocked out, body sprawled carelessly across the bed. You noticed the empty water glass on the nightstand, then the trash can beside the bed— once empty, now not. You scrunched your nose at the smell, stepping past it and picking up the glass quietly.
You hadn't even heard him get sick.
Downstairs the faucet's low pressure fell into the cup. You stood in the kitchen in silence, the chilled water settling in the glass as you stared out the window. When you returned and placed the glass down beside him, his voice cut softly through the quiet: "Thank you."
You jumped, not expecting him to be awake.
He was lying there, eyes open now, watching you with a mixture of exhaustion and something else.
"Mmm." You hummed in response, brushing it off with a nod. You turned away without another word and headed for the door.
"Your stomach's been growling all night." He said behind you, voice low but casual.
You paused, half smiling bitterly. "Yeah." You murmured, then kept walking.
"You wanna get some food? We could go downtown or something."
You stopped again, letting out a slow, heavy breath. "Kinda far, I'll probably just hit a late night diner."
"Let me take you." He offered.
That was it. You turned, already irritated. "You really think I'm gonna let you drive me anywhere after the state I found you in tonight?" Before he could answer, your voice cut sharper. "That means no, you cannot take me."
He hesitated, eyes flickering down, before looking back up. "Can I come with you then?"
You stared at him, unblinking. "You just don't give up, do you?"
He shook his head, a faint smile tugging at his lips. "You wanna talk, don't you? Why else would you be here?"
"Not over food. So there's no reason for you to come."
He didn't respond, just gave you that look— soft.
You rolled your eyes and exhaled. "Fine, come on."
The car ride was dead silent. The glow of the streetlights washed over both of you, passing over your face like waves. You stared straight ahead, gripping the wheel, jaw tight. When you pulled into the diner parking lot, the familiarity hit like a punch to the chest. You didn't know why it stung— maybe because you'd sat here before with Jaemin, laughing, maybe because it used to feel warm. Now it just felt like a graveyard of memories.
You walked in, Haechan following behind. At the counter, the cashier's eyes flicked between the two of you.
"Is it separate or together?" She asked.
"Separate—" You started, but was cut off.
"Together." Haechan said quickly, pulling out his wallet without even glancing at you.
You looked at him coldly, then turned back. "Tenders and fries, please."
The cashier nodded. You walked away without waiting for him and slid into the booth by the window, arms crossing over your chest as you stared out into the parking lot. Your fingers fiddled with the napkin dispenser, anything to avoid thinking about the seat across from you— the one Jaemin had used to sit in.
Eventually, Haechan made his way over, setting two drinks down and sliding one across to you. You didn't look up, just took a sip.
"Look." He began, voice careful. "I know it's a lot right now, but—"
"You need help." You cut him off sharply. "I seriously thought you were dead."
He blinked, surprised at the force of your words. You looked up for the first time, and the look in your eyes stopped him mid thought.
"I didn't even drink that much." He said, trying to justify it.
"If I didn't come, you would've been gone." Your voice cracked slightly. "You were on your back when I found you, you could've choked on your own vomit."
His expression softened. "I'm sorry I worried you."
"Don't apologize to me. Get help."
He went quiet, then his brows furrowed slightly. "Are you sober?"
You shot him a warning look, eyes narrowing.
He swallowed hard, nodding. "I'm— I'm gonna go get the food." He slid out of the booth and walked away, his eyes lingering on you until the last second.
When he returned, he set the tray down gently. You didn't speak— you just picked up a tender and took a bite, the warmth immediately grounding you. Your shoulders relaxed slightly, the food didn't solve anything, but it filled the aching pit in your stomach you didn't realize had formed. You ate quickly, staring at the plate the whole time. When you looked up, Haechan was staring.
"What?" You asked.
"Nothing." He smiled. "You just... look like you feel better. You were definitely hangry."
You shook your head, almost laughing through your nose, he wasn't wrong. Hunger mixed with betrayal and heartbreak made a vile combo.
"I just can't believe this. Why is this happening to me?" You said softly. You paused, staring into your cup. "He was my best friend."
Haechan nodded. "Yeah, I understand."
You looked at him suspiciously. His words felt... rehearsed, familiar, like they weren't really his.
"Are you hiding anything from me?" You asked, eyes locked on him.
He avoided your gaze. "You said you didn't want to talk over food."
You nodded slowly... that was not a no.
Once the meal was over, you got back in the car.
"Can we make a stop? Please?" He asked before you pulled off.
"Haechan—"
"Please." He said again. "It's not far."
You sighed heavily and handed him your phone. He typed in the destination quietly.
The drive wasn't long, but the confusion in your chest grew stronger with every mile.
You pulled into a small, empty parking lot surrounded by nothing but open land. Before you could ask questions, he was already getting out of the car.
"C'mon." He said, walking around to your side.
You followed slowly, suspicious but curious. He took your hand gently, guiding you down a gravel path, and there it was.
A glowing rose garden, soft lights woven around the path like stars had melted into the earth and at the end sat a single bench facing the sea of red.
You froze, heart twisting. It should've been beautiful— romantic even, but all you felt was suspicion.
The flowers, the food, the timing. It was all too perfect... too planned.
"Why are we here?" You asked, voice low and guarded.
He turned to you. "You said red calms you down... so I thought it would be the best place for us to talk."
You swallowed hard, blinking back the heat in your eyes. You nodded once, quietly, and sat beside him. Your hands folded in your lap, your gaze locked on the roses.
"How much did he tell you— what did he tell you?" Haechan said, voice steady.
You didn't answer at first, you just turned your head toward him, eyes heavy with exhaustion— not just from the night, but from everything. The silence was answer enough.
He nodded slowly, inhaling through his nose. "Okay." He said, the word landing like a weight. "I'll just start from the very beginning."
You turned back toward the glowing field of red, letting the gentle sway of the roses distract your thoughts as you waited.
"I guess this whole thing started the third time you came to one of my parties— when he tried to get revenge on me through my sister."
You turned your head, surprised. "You knew about that?"
He gave a dry chuckle, his gaze lowered. "Yeah, I'm not stupid. I figured it out the second time, it didn't take much."
You just nodded, letting him continue.
"I confronted him about it, kind of threatened him, I guess, but I wasn't really worried about him and my sister. I was more worried about you. I was... interested, wanted to know more about you, but I didn't have your number and nobody seemed to know much, except Jaemin."
He shifted slightly beside you, hands in his lap.
"So I told him to bring you again. He got weird— defensive even. Kept saying it wasn't a good idea. Seemed like he was genuinely trying to protect you, but I didn't care. I told him it was gonna be a problem if he didn't, and next thing I knew, you showed up again." He shrugged faintly.
You blinked slowly, jaw clenched. A lot of the missing pieces were starting to surface now, things that once seemed random now had weight.
"That's when we started to get close and he started to distance himself from me. I figured he was still wrapped up in the whole thing with my sister. He probably thought I'd flip out or get hurt, but I didn't care. He thought I would... but I didn't." He gave a bitter laugh. "I knew my sister, I knew she'd never really fall for someone like him."
You stayed quiet, your arms folded tightly against yourself.
"Then that one night— where I was really fucked up and you were there... I don't remember much, but I remember waking up and holding you. And I panicked, I kicked you out because I didn't know how to process it, I've never felt that way before. So I sat on it for a while and ended up telling my friends, including Jaemin, that I liked you— that I thought I was ready for something real."
Your breath caught slightly in your chest. You turned to face him again, eyes wide and glassy. He liked you, he had wanted something real. You thought you would never hear those words from him. Your heart clenched as your gaze slowly fell away again, back to the roses.
"It took a lot of growth for me to get there." He continued. "I'd been through so much shit— things that made me feel like I wasn't capable of love. My friends knew that, they were happy for me. All of them, except Jaemin. He just... went cold, looked almost sad."
Haechan's voice lowered, like he was reliving it. "I asked him what was wrong. That's when he told me— told me that you were the one who hurt my brother badly. I didn't believe him at first, but then he showed me the picture."
Your jaw clenched instantly. Of course. Jaemin was the only one who had it, you should've questioned how Haechan ever got it, but you hadn't. You didn't think you needed to.
"I felt like everything shattered at once." He said quietly. "Everyone just stared at me. They knew how bad that whole situation with my brother had been, it broke me. So I panicked, I called you over to confront you. But I didn't know how to handle it— I was overwhelmed, scared you might hurt me the same way, so I lashed out. I hated myself for it right after. I felt ashamed, like I could never get things right. So I told you not to talk, not yet, because I needed to think."
He let out a long sigh. "I ended up talking to my brother. Told him about you, about how I felt. And you know what he said? He told me to do whatever felt right, that he didn't care about the past, that he wouldn't stand in the way just because of what happened before, that he wasn't gonna cockblock me over something that was done."
He chuckled softly, almost with disbelief. "God, I love him."
You swallowed the lump rising in your throat.
"After that, I started thinking again, really thinking, and then I realized something didn't sit right. Like... why didn't Jaemin tell me this before? He's known my brother so long, if he knew about what happened, why wait until now?"
You bit your lip, voice low. "He probably didn't think it mattered. Thought I wouldn't fall for you."
Haechan nodded slowly. "Yeah, exactly." He shook his head. "None of it added up. That's when I knew— I had to hear your side for real this time. So I texted you, I wasn't sure if you'd even reply. I could tell you were checking out, but you did and when I came over and you told me everything... it clicked." His voice softened.
"It was not you that was problem with my brother, at least not the after math, it was Jaemin. He took you when you were most vulnerable, and he manipulated you, he manipulated you and hurt my brother while doing so."
You stared ahead, the numbness seeping back in. A slow burning cold spread through your chest. He was right, that's all Jaemin ever did. Took what he needed when he needed it, made you feel like something valuable— until he didn't.
"I confronted him a few days later." Haechan went on, voice bitter now. "I was about to beat the shit out of him, honestly. My friends held me back. I told him straight up that I was going to be with you, and there was nothing he could do to stop me."
He paused, jaw clenched.
"That's when he threatened me. Said he had nudes of my sister, and he'd expose them if I didn't back off. I didn't know if it was true, but I was terrified. He already hurt one of my siblings— I wasn't about to risk another."
Your hand trembled slightly in your lap, but you said nothing.
"Then you called. Of course, perfect timing. He told me to answer, told me to invite you to the party. Said we were gonna make sure you left for good and made up some big plan— some twisted scenario where I'd hurt you, make it so bad you'd never come back. I told him you wouldn't come, but I think... deep down I knew you would. I prayed you wouldn't, but I knew you would."
His voice cracked slightly.
"I called my sister after, desperate for clarity, but she was on some trip with no data, I was alone in it. Then you walked in and everything fell apart. I couldn't stop anything, I didn't know what to do, there was nothing I could do. So I disappeared to the bathroom, that girl followed me, started undressing— I wasn't into it. And then finally my sister called back and came to pick me up so we could talk in person at her place. She said she had never sent Jaemin anything. He was bluffing, just buying time and I'd let him."
He ran a hand through his hair.
The memories from the night flooded in, seeing them together, Jaemin slipping in and apologizing out of nowhere, his friends looking for him and saying he wasn't with a girl.
"I was gonna confront him again. Do worse this time, but you texted me... you needed a place to crash and I realized, that was it. That was my chance, I needed to be there for you, not focus on him."
You swallowed hard.
"I wanted to tell you everything that night." He said. "But you were out of it, I just needed to keep you there till morning, and when I was finally about to explain... she showed up and it ruined everything. I knew it was Jaemin, but before I got the chance you started leaving and saying all that stuff to me. I panicked again, said things I didn't mean. I didn't even know why, I just wanted to hurt you before you could hurt me anymore."
"She came back later. " He continued. "Crying, saying Jaemin ghosted her. I gave her your number, told her to tell you what she told me. I didn't know if you'd believe it, I just... hoped. I started calling you, figured you were with him and the next thing I knew... I blacked out and that's it."
Silence.
You stared at the roses, their soft red glow blurring in your vision. You felt raw, carved out.
"You okay?" He asked, gently placing a hand on your thigh, rubbing it with slow comfort.
You didn't answer. Just sat in the silence, letting the hum of the wind and the ache of everything fill the space.
Then finally, you whispered: "Did you mean it?"
"Mean what?" He asked.
"When you said you love me."
He paused, looking away, then back again. "I think so." He said honestly. "I can't stop thinking about you, I only want you. That... feels like love to me."
You parted your lips, about to speak, but stopped. You sat with it, with everything.
"Haechan, I know most of this isn't your fault, but you've never really treated me well. You've made me feel like shit about myself. Like I deserved this, and I don't."
"You don't." He said quickly. "I know you don't. I just... I don't know how to do this, Y/n. I'm trying."
"I know." You whispered. "And I get that. But you're not a child, Haechan. I can't keep sitting here, waiting for you to figure it out while I bleed for it. I'm tired and I'm hurt."
His eyes glistened under the low lights, lips slightly parted.
"Yeah." He said, voice tight. "Okay, I get it."
Minutes passed in silence again. You took a deep breath. "I'm ready to go now."
He nodded slowly. "Okay."
Back in the car, the drive to his house was quiet again. He didn't get out right away. He looked at you, something fragile in his expression.
"I'm just gonna give you space, okay?" He said. "Tell me when you want to be near me again. Just come over... I'll be here. Waiting."
You nodded. "Okay."
He offered a small, sad smile, then got out and closed the door behind him. And you just sat there, still, the glow of the roses lingering in your mind like a memory you weren't sure was real.
When you got home that night, everything crashed down on you. The silence in your room was deafening, your thoughts tangled and felt heavy like they were weighing on your chest. Nothing felt real, and everything felt like too much. You sat on the edge of your bed, running your hands through your hair, heart pounding in your ears.
You needed out. Out of this town, out of yourself.
Without thinking twice, you grabbed your laptop and stayed up the entire night researching— flights, hotels, long stays, trains, trails, anywhere with space to breathe. By morning, your eyes were bloodshot and your screen was filled with confirmation emails. You were going, it was done.
══════════════════════════
One week passed. It was quiet, almost suspiciously so. You packed everything you needed into the back of your car— luggage tucked neatly, passport ready, playlist queued. There was only one stop left before the airport.
You pulled into the familiar street, parking in front of his house. It looked the same— quiet, still, like the world didn't know everything that had happened inside it. You stepped out, the air thick and warm, and walked up the steps. Your knuckles hesitated before they knocked softly.
He opened the door after a few seconds, hair tousled like he'd just woken up. His eyes widened slightly at the sight of you. There was surprise there, but not disbelief.
"Okay... I didn't expect it to be this soon." His voice was soft.
You let out a short laugh, shaking your head as you stepped inside, the faint scent of him still lingering in the air.
"I'm going abroad for a bit." You said it casually, looking around the space like it was already behind you.
"What's... 'a bit'?" He asked, his voice hesitant.
"A month, maybe two, possibly three." You turned to face him, eyes honest.
His brows lifted. "Wow, that's not 'a bit', that's a full on escape plan."
You chuckled softly. "It's short for me. Honestly, I wanted to leave for a year."
He paused, then nodded like he understood. "Yeah I get it, but... I'm gonna miss you." His eyes met yours. "You're not gonna ditch me completely, are you?"
"No." You said quickly, then hesitated. Your voice softened. "But I need you to not contact me, at all. I felt guilty blocking you, so... I just wanted to let you know before I go."
He pressed his lips together, nodding slowly. "Mmm." There was a flicker of hurt there, but he tried to mask it. "I'll try not to."
You gave him a look.
A small smile cracked across his face. "Okay, fine. I won't."
There was a pause, a quiet tension building in the stillness. You looked down at your watch. "Well, I should get going. Don't want to miss my flight."
"Right." He nodded, stepping forward as you turned to leave. His arms wrapped around you tightly, pulling you against him in a familiar, grounding way.
"Do you know exactly when you'll be back?" He asked, his voice muffled against your shoulder, like he didn't really want to know the answer.
"I'm not telling you." You laughed softly into the hug.
"So how am I supposed to know?"
"You'll feel it in the air." You teased. "Or... I don't know, just call me or something."
He leaned back to look at you, rolling his eyes. "Oh. I see what you did there." He sighed. "Whatever. Just... have fun, okay? Stay safe and let me know if you need anything, anything at all."
Your eyes locked with his— warm, sad, familiar. You reached up, gently cupping his cheek before leaning in to press your lips against his. The kiss was long and quiet, full of everything you couldn't bring yourself to say out loud.
When you finally pulled away, his eyes were glossy, searching yours like he wasn't ready to let go.
"I don't know... that felt like a goodbye forever." He said quietly.
You took a breath. "More like... I need some time alone to heal."
He nodded, eyes soft. "If I figure everything out before you get back... will you be ready?"
You paused, looking away for a moment before meeting his gaze again. "I don't know." You were honest.
"But you should try anyway." You added. "For yourself."
He nodded. "Okay, I will."
"Promise?" You asked, a faint smile tugging at your lips.
He held out his pinky. "Only if you promise to at least come check when you get back."
You shook your head with a soft laugh and linked your finger with his. "You better hold your end of the bargain, Haechan. I'm not playing."
"I will, I promise." His pinky curled tight around yours.
"Bye." You smiled.
"See you."
You walked out, the door clicking shut behind you and just like that, you left.
Not running, not escaping, but reclaiming something— space to breathe, space to think, space to heal.
A whole year's worth of chaos packed into a suitcase, and finally... you were letting it go.
══════════════════════════
Two months later, you finally landed in the city again. As the plane wheels slid across the ground, the familiar skyline greeted you like a memory— familiar, once suffocating, now softened around the edges. You had expected the ache in your chest to return the second you stepped back onto this soil, but it didn't, or maybe it did just a little less loudly this time.
You made it back to your apartment and set your bags down quietly, eyes scanning the room. Everything was exactly how you left it. The old memories echoed in the walls, but they didn't scream anymore, they just... lingered.
Your phone buzzed in your hand and you glanced at the time.
10:33 PM.
Thursday.
That day used to mean something else, something bittersweet, familiar, the quiet routine of wanting more but never asking. You stood there for a moment, torn. You made a promise, just to check, just to see.
You weren't sure what you expected— maybe to find he moved on, maybe to prove to yourself that you had. But hope, as annoying as it was, always knew how to sneak in.
You threw on something a little nicer— something that made you feel a bit like yourself again, and headed out. The house was alive with sound, music pulsing through the walls, laughter spilling. You wove your way through the crowd, faces both familiar and distant flashing past, but no Haechan.
You ended up in the kitchen, where a neat line of unopened bottles sat on the counter. You picked one up absentmindedly, turning it over in your hands, unsure if you even wanted to open it.
"You're drinking without me?"
You froze, smile appearing on your lips before you even turned around.
And there he was. Standing there with that same crooked smile, looking at you like you never left— like he'd been waiting.
"I'm sorry, who are you again?" You teased, eyebrow raised.
He laughed. "I knew you were back, I felt it in the air."
You rolled your eyes, but smiled. "I guess that's just the effect I have, huh?"
He took a step closer. "How have you been?"
You exhaled softly. "Good. Refreshed...happy."
His face broke into a genuine smile. "I'm really glad."
"And you?" You asked, studying his expression.
He shrugged, eyes still warm. "Been hanging in there."
You paused, tilting your head. "I came to check on you. I kept my end of the promise... did you?"
His grin turned sheepish, but he didn't answer. Instead, he gently took your hand and led you upstairs. The hallway felt familiar beneath your feet, but quieter now, less heavy.
When you entered his room, you noticed the small things first. A vase of fresh roses and sunflowers sat on his nightstand— alive and blooming, next to it a journal.
He picked it up and held it out like it was a metal.
"My therapist told me to start writing stuff down. My feelings, my thoughts, all of it. It was hard at first, like... really hard, but I did it and it helped— a lot." His smile was proud but a little shy.
"I'm so proud of you." You said, eyes soft. "Can I read it?"
He nearly choked. "Uh uh, absolutely not. Not yet."
You laughed, backing off with your hands raised. "Okay, okay, don't freak out."
He carefully placed it back on the nightstand, then turned to face you fully. "I'm trying, is that good enough for you?"
You stood there, caught in a quiet moment, eyes on him as your thoughts swirled. You missed him, that was undeniable, but there was still that voice— the one that warned you not to fall back into something that hurt.
You took a deep breath. "I— I don't know." You said honestly.
His face didn't fall, he just nodded patiently.
"I understand."
"But." You added, meeting his eyes again, "I'm willing to take things slow... something calm."
His face lit up instantly, hope returning to his eyes. "Really?"
"Really." You nodded. "But I swear— one wrong step, one moment that hurts me again, and you're done."
"Okay." He said quickly, almost too quickly. "Deal, a thousand percent."
You let him pull you into a hug, arms wrapping around you tightly like he wasn't quite convinced you were real yet. You didn't let go either, not for a long moment.
When he finally leaned back, his hand cupped your cheek, his thumb grazing your skin gently.
"Is this too fast?" He asked.
You blinked. "What?"
"If I kissed you, and didn't stop."
You stopped, a small grin on your face. "Yeah..." You said slowly. "But... I can make a few exceptions."
His grin deepened, and without another word, he closed the distance, pressing his lips to yours in a slow, lingering kiss. It wasn't rushed, or messy, or desperate.
It felt like relief, it felt like trying again.
For once you weren't chasing clarity in someone else— you had found it in herself. You've done the hard work, peeled back the layers, and realized that your healing didn't have to mean shutting everyone out. You could choose love and still choose yourself. You could stay, not because you needed to be saved, but because you wanted to give love a chance without losing who you were in the process. Maybe that was the difference this time— you weren't afraid to walk away, but you didn't have to.
══════════════════════════
Epilouge: Haechan’ s Journal.
══════════════════════════
back to friends | h.rj | (2)
“how can you look at me and pretend, i’m someone you’ve never met?”
📀now playing: back to friends by sombr
❯ summary: Renjun didn’t really do friends. He never needed to—he already had one, and that was more than enough. But then his boss went and hired a pretty summer temp. A girl who's all sunshine grins and jokes. His complete opposite. And suddenly Renjun thinks maybe he could do friends. Hopefully even more.
❯ pairings: virgin!renjun x fem!reader
❯ genre: grumpy x sunshine, college!au, workplace!au, smut, slowBURN
❯ words: 31.4k
❯ tags: 18+ minors dni!, angst, fluff, loss of virginity, hand job, breast worship, fingering, porn with plot, banter with a slice of world building, unprotected sex (don’t do this!), slight hurt, inexperienced renjun, mentions of therapy, protectiveness, swearing, mentions of food, difficult family dynamics, mentions of anxiety, literally just a slowburn angsty fic that’s also fluffy idk
(AN: i had to split this into two post because of blocking issues, and i didn’t want to format it any differently since the way i write—especially dialogue—is important.) PART 1
Renjun’s car isn’t quite what you imagined. Sleek. Black. (Okay, that part’s totally predictable) But then there’s the undeniable part: it’s definitely, unquestionably expensive. Almost like he can sense your hesitation hanging just outside the passenger door, he opens it for you, gestures you in, and says,
“My first big purchase from this job.”
You gape, your eyebrows slowly climbing. Before you can press him for more, he shuts your door with a gentle-but-firm click—like a full stop to the conversation. Which, of course, is a mistake.
Because you may be slightly upset. You may be discombobulated and, yes, may be having an emotional clusterfuck in your mind. But you’re still you. You’re still nosy.
“How long did it take you to save? Yuta pays in buttons.”
That earns you a warm laugh. “I thought you got special treatment. You know, being a nepo baby and all that.”
“You would think so, wouldn’t you?”
Another laugh, softer this time, before: “Seat belt.”
You click it into place.
“Seriously,” you persist. “How long did this take you?”
He checks his mirrors, glances over his shoulder, flicks on his blinker. “You’ll have to direct me. I don’t like sat nav—”
“Renjun! How long did this take you to afford? Or are you secretly rich?” You gasp then. “Don’t tell me you’ve been hiding the fact that you’re also secretly a nepo baby?”
“No,” he says, shaking his head with the faintest smile tugging at his mouth. “I just… I’ve worked at the theatre a long time. Six years, maybe.”
“No shit,” you say, genuinely impressed. “You’ve managed to stay loyal to the same high school job well into your college years?”
“I don’t like change,” he says simply.
“Clearly.” Your eyes sweep over the spotless interior—black leather, not a single crumb in sight. “I guess that’s a good thing, though. For a second there, I thought you’d been letting me sit in the nepotism guilt alone, and that would’ve made me very upset with you.”
“Phew,” he says, mock-relieved. “Because now that I know what you look like upset, I’m glad I don’t have to deal with your wrath.”
You sink deeper into the passenger seat, the leather molding around you. The laugh you’d just shared evaporates, replaced by the hollow weight that’s been trailing you all day.
Renjun catches it. Your change in mood. You don’t have to look at him to know—he’s gone quieter, his fingers flexing once against the steering wheel like he’s checking himself. For a second, you swear you can hear his internal monologue debating whether or not he’s just put his foot in it again.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asks.
“Want is the wrong word.” You rub at your temple. “Need? Probably. Take a left here.”
Renjun knows he should leave it alone. He knows exactly what it’s like to not want to talk about something. To need space. He’s built his entire adult coping mechanism around giving people the distance he craves for himself. But with you? He doesn’t want to.
He wants to know why his sunshine girl isn’t smiling, why you’re sinking into his expensive seats on the verge of tears, why the first time you’re in his car is out of necessity—because of some asshole ex—and not because you wanted to hang out with him.
Woah.
He wants you to want him.
Shit.
“I don’t want to go home,” you say quietly.
His eyes flick over to you, confusion tugging at his features—but also relief, because you just derailed the spiral he was about to launch himself into. “Okay…?”
“That’s where all my problems are. They’re never here. With you.”
Okay. Abort mission. That was not you giving him a pass to shelve the whole why do I want her to want me revelation. That was you flipping on a neon sign in his chest that reads ‘EXAMINE FEELINGS NOW’.
And he is not ready for that.
At some point—he’s not sure when—you’ve managed to fold yourself into the passenger seat, legs pulled to your chest.
[Feet on the seat, may he add. Something he yells at Hyuck for. But, because you look sad, he drops it. Only because of that.]
“Where do you want me to take you…?” He coughs then, jerks his gaze back to the road like you might catch him staring.
“Nooo…” you groan, letting your head drop against the window. “You pick. I always pick.”
“Y/N—I don’t like—”
“Anything? I know.” Your voice softens, but there’s a tiny smile in it. “You pretend not to be interesting, but you’re a liar. You’re so loyal—to Hyuck, to me, to Yuta, to your job. You like cars. Nobody who doesn’t care spends years of saved paychecks on something this expensive. You like to draw—I see you doodling when I’m studying. And you hum. A lot.”
“I do not hum.”
You roll your eyes.
“And despite being the most defensive person alive, you’re also the most thoughtful. You told me the bus wasn’t safe and made me get a ride. You put yourself between me and a guy double your size—twice. You bring me Skittles to work even though I know it personally offends you that I eat them…” You keep going, almost like you can’t help yourself.
“Your thing, Renjun, is caring. You notice. You’re thoughtful. It makes you happy—I know it does. So please…” Your voice dips quieter, something almost shy. “You pick. For me.”
Renjun feels like a goldfish—open-mouthed, slow-blinking—because you’ve just cracked him. Cracked the code Joy’s been working at since he was fourteen, in less than two months. Read him front to back despite the fact that the cover has been deliberately, stubbornly uninviting.
It shouldn’t matter. It really, really shouldn’t. But it does.
He keeps his eyes on the road—convinced that if he looks at you, you’ll see every emotion flickering through him clear as day. Not just the inferred parts.
His fingers tighten on the steering wheel. He swallows. He knows exactly where to take you.
The first thing you notice when Renjun pulls into a random parking lot is the painted pawprint on the sign—bright blue, with a slightly chipped edge. The second thing you notice is the sound: a muffled, overlapping chorus of barks and soft, impatient scratches from somewhere beyond the walls.
An animal shelter.
You turn to him slowly, your smile instant. “See? I told you. You’re such a thoughtful person. You knew I liked animals.”
Renjun doesn’t smile back—no, he does something worse: he nods, slides out of the car, rounds to your side, and opens the door. Then he helps you out.
(And he has the nerve to say he’s not thoughtful. You think otherwise.)
The bell above the shelter door chimes softly as you step inside. The air smells faintly antiseptic but still can’t mask the warm musk of fur.
“Hey, Junnie!”
A voice floats over from the front desk—a girl, maybe your age, maybe younger, ponytail bobbing.
Your skin prickles at the nickname. Junnie. The one he claims to hate. The one he swats away every time you try it on him. Your brain decides to spiral and ask the worst possible question: Did he just pretend to hate it? Or—worse—did he just not want you saying it?
You glance sideways at him, your pulse flickering.
“I see Hyuck’s been talking to you,” Renjun says dryly to the girl. “Told you all about my nickname, huh?”
“Seems only fair I get to know there’s a cringey nickname for you, dear cousin,” she fires back. “Considering you sent your sex-pest best friend into my shelter—my place of work—with, yes, the cutest stray kitty ever, but still.”
Cousin.
The prickling on your skin deflates like a popped balloon, replaced by something heavier and way more embarrassing to admit. Because it’s not like you have any claim on him. It’s not like you should care that a pretty girl uses the same nickname you use for him. You didn’t even invent it. You need to—seriously—get a grip.
“Hyuck has a crush on you,” Renjun states to the girl.
“Hyuck has a crush on everyone,” she says. “That doesn’t mean you send him into my happy place with a cute cat so he can try and—I don’t know—finesse me!”
You watch the girl ramble and flail helplessly, and suddenly you see the resemblance to Renjun. Same mannerisms. Same distant coldness. Same anxious state.
“No.” He continues, “Hyuck likes to mess around. He really likes you.”
“And I should be flattered?”
“I would say no,” Renjun replies, “but only because the idea of my cousin dating my best friend makes me want to bleach my brain. Hyuck is way too TMI—”
“What are you doing in my animal shelter so late?” she cuts in, eyes narrowing at him before darting to you.
Renjun turns toward you too.
“Oh…” she says, dragging it out.
Your brows knit. “What is ‘oh’?”
Her mouth curves into a mischievous smile. “Oh, nothing. Just that my dear cousin here had his friend Hyuck drop a cat off here a couple weeks ago. Hyuck mentioned that I had to take it because Renjun is absolutely besotted—”
“Watch it,” Renjun growls. “Remember who’s Grandma’s favourite.”
She rolls her eyes but lets it go, turning that smile on you instead. “I’m guessing he brought you here to see that cat?” She shoots Renjun a look for confirmation.
“Do you still have her?” he asks.
Her grin widens, and she leads you both down the hallway, taking a right into a quieter section. She stops in front of a crate, where a familiar ginger tabby sits like she owns the place.
The minute she sees you, she lets out a yowl. Your heart actually stumbles in your chest as you crouch down. “Oh my god!”
The cat doesn’t hesitate—presses herself into you, rubbing her cheek along your arm with the kind of possessive affection usually reserved for people who bring snacks. You stroke down her spine, fingers sinking into the plush warmth of her fur, and she purrs so hard you can feel it in your ribs.
From the doorway, Renjun’s cousin clears her throat. “So this is Kitty Girl.”
“I think I heard the bell on the door chime,” Renjun says through clenched teeth, glaring at her.
She sighs, unbothered. “You didn’t. But since I’m an excellent cousin, I’ll stop cockblocking you and pretend there’s a customer out front at almost nine p.m at night.”
“You’re not cockblock—”
She’s already gone, her footsteps fading down the hall.
Renjun turns back to you, looking down at where you’re crouched on the floor with the cat curled against your thigh. There’s the faintest smile tugging at his mouth—weak, almost reluctant, like he’s not sure he should be wearing it.
“Cousin, huh?” you ask.
“Did you think she was my sister? Most people do. They say we act the same, but I don’t see it.”
You laugh, shaking your head. “No, actually. I thought she was…”
The words choke off before they can betray you. Because what right do you have to sound even a fraction jealous? Zero. Less than zero, actually. But Renjun—observant to the point of irritation—waits.
“…Your girlfriend,” you finish.
“First of all, gross,” his face twists into a grimace. “Second of all, why would I bring you to meet my girlfriend when you asked me to pick a place for you?”
He’s got a point. Which is annoying.
“I don’t know,” you say with a shrug, feigning nonchalance you absolutely do not feel. “Why wouldn’t you? We’re friends. It’s important I meet the people who matter to you. You just met Jeno.”
His brows draw together. “Jeno the ex… is still important to you?”
Shit.
Fuck.
No.
This is exactly the conversational landmine you’ve been tiptoeing around all day, and now you’ve stepped right on it, stomped down with both feet, and waved a little flag to announce your location.
“No—that’s not—” You gently place the cat back in her crate and push to your full height, suddenly needing the armour of vertical distance. “Jeno’s like family… because of my brother”
Renjun’s jaw works once, twice, before he says, “Right.”
You can feel it. The mood has changed, and you’re pretty sure it’s your fault. You want to say something—anything—to pull it back, but your thoughts are tangled. Because the reason everything feels sour is because of the one thing you refuse to examine too closely.
[The way your ribcage felt like it was cracking open when you walked into the animal shelter and thought he had a girlfriend. The idea of him having someone smiling at him from across a coffee shop table. Someone else hearing that soft, reluctant laugh he hides from everyone but gives you.]
It’s absurd. You’re absurd. He’s your friend. He’s just your friend. And then, because apparently your self-control has been left at the movie theare, your mouth opens.
“I mean…I’m just being silly about all of it, really. It’s not like any of that really matters anyway.”
His brows pinch again. “What doesn’t matter?”
You wave a hand. “Oh, you know—like, girlfriends, boyfriends, important people in our circles… all that. Because we’re friends. Just work friends.”
The words come out fast, rushed, like ripping off a bandage. Except instead of relief, you get… a weird hollowness in your chest. He watches you, unreadable, which is somehow worse than if he’d laughed or argued or rolled his eyes.
“Okay,” he says finally. The same flat tone as before, but there’s something under it now. “Well then, I’m going to go help out front. Let you two reconnect.”
“Renjun—”
But he’s already turning toward the door, leaving you there with the ginger tabby and your swirling thoughts. The cat yowls, batting at something metal that clanks against the side of her crate. You glance down and see it: a small silver plaque.
Bonnie.
You press your fingers against it, guilt pooling in your stomach.
Renjun is suspiciously quiet when you get back to his car.
The rain has picked up again, smearing across the windshield. And because he’s too fucking nice for his own good, he slips the strap of his backpack off his shoulder and presses it into your hands, holding it over your head while you cross the short stretch of pavement. He still opens your door. Still waits until you’re tucked in, safe and mostly dry, before shutting it and making his way around to the driver’s side.
You don’t speak as he starts the engine. The rain thrums on the roof instead.
“Did… that make you feel better?” he asks at last.
And of course he asks. Because he still cares—is still thoughtful—even though you’re almost certain you’ve just made it awkward between you. Pretty sure you’ve hurt him. But equally, he doesn’t fucking communicate. He doesn’t tell you where he stands, doesn’t give you a single foothold in the terrain of his feelings.
Maybe if he did, you wouldn’t be sitting here—jealous, possessive, unraveling—over a man you have no official claim to. Over a work friend, for god’s sake.
Ugh!
You huff out a breath. “No. It didn’t.”
His frown is immediate, brows pulling together. “Is it because you can’t adopt Bonnie yet? Because I can call and reser—”
“No, Renjun, it’s not that!”
You don’t even understand why you’re snapping at him—why you’re snapping at all. If anything, seeing a sweet, soft ball of ginger fur should have been the perfect remedy after the day you’ve had. After the ambush of your brother and your ex (an ambush you’re almost certain your father orchestrated, because in your family nothing is ever accidental) you should feel lighter. Happier.
But you’re not.
You’re confused. And conflicted. And frustrated. And, you’re certain that none of it is really about the cat.
“Then… what is it?”
“It’s—!” The word is jagged, harsh. “I don’t know! Avoiding my problems doesn’t mean they go away. I know you think that. I know you’ve mastered that craft. But for me? Putting a plaster over a bullet wound doesn’t mean I’m not going to bleed out.”
“I don’t think that.”
“You do.”
“I don’t.”
“Yes, you—”
He sucks in a slow breath, loud enough to cut you off. “I know it looks that way. I know I definitely avoid my problems. But that doesn’t mean I think they go away,” he says. “The opposite, in fact. They… they exist in my head permanently.”
“They don’t have to, though,” you reply. “You have people who’ll listen. Me, Hyuck… you have friends.”
“I know.” His throat moves as he swallows. “I’m well aware of that now.”
Maybe it’s the way his voice dips on the last word, or the way his hands tighten on the steering wheel. But you hear it: the punch.
It shouldn’t matter. It shouldn’t sting. But it does—because it’s one thing to be put in the friends category by anyone else. With him, it feels… wrong. Is this how he felt when you—
You swallow the thought before it can fester into something messier. Instead, you hear yourself blurt, “Take me to the beach.”
He cuts his gaze to you.“It’s raining, Y/N.”
“I know.”
“You’re going to get a cold.”
“I’m not. It’s August.”
“It doesn’t work like—” He breaks off with a sharp exhale. “It’s late. Dark,” he tries instead.
“I know,” you say again, tilting your head toward him. “You’ll be there with me.”
His groan vibrates low in his chest. “I hate the beach.”
“Then don’t come.”
He scoffs, glancing at you like you’ve just suggested the stupidest thing. “Y/N, I’m not leaving you at the beach on your own. In the dark. In the rain.”
“I know.” You let the smallest curve of a smile slip onto your lips, because, well, you’ve clearly won. “So take me there.”
And he does.
Straight down narrow lanes until he pulls into a gravel lot, and the ocean comes into view. The tires crunch to a stop, and before the engine even winds down, you’re unbuckling your seatbelt and shoving the door open. Rain greets you instantly—cool, wet, soaking into your hair until it clings in damp strands against your bare neck.
You don’t think. You just run. The wet sand shifts beneath your feet as you cross it, your fingers tugging at the buttons of your polo until it’s loose enough to take off. Your shorts follow too, dropped in a pile without care.
“Y/N!” Renjun’s voice cuts through the rain all sharp and worried. “What the hell are you doing?”
You keep walking, toes sinking deeper into the packed sand until the foamy tide kisses your ankles, then your calves, then climbs to your thighs. Your bra strap slips against your damp shoulder as you ease in. When the water reaches your ribs, you dive forward, letting the ocean swallow you.
“Y/N, stop! This isn’t funny!” He’s closer now, voice practically shaking. “It’s dangerous—
You turn in the water, hair plastered to your cheeks, grinning at him. “Come in! What’s the worst that can happen? You’ll get wet?”
He shakes his head, a disbelieving huff escaping him. But you see it—you see the way his jaw works, the restless shift in his weight. Then his teeth catch on his lower lip, like he’s physically holding back, before he rips his own rain-soaked employee polo over his head.
The rain slides over the bare planes of his shoulders. The sight is enough to make your breath stutter—enough to make you nearly forget you’re supposed to be treading water.
“Unbelievable,” he mutters, flinging the shirt onto the sand. His pants follow in a similar motion, and you look away.
[You curse yourself for looking away!]
And then he’s in, moving through the water toward you. For half a second, you debate whether or not to goad him some more. Try swimming farther out, just to watch him lose his mind. Give him a heartattack, maybe. But you don’t get the chance. Because suddenly his arms are around you, hauling you into his bare chest.
Your brain flatlines.
It’s all too much, too fast. You two haven’t touched—not really. Maybe a brush of knuckles when you pass him a popcorn bucket, a graze of fingers when you exchange candy. But hugs? Full-body contact? Basically naked? Absolutely not.
“That wasn’t fucking funny!”
The shout snaps you back into your body, into the fact that he’s holding you like he might actually never let go.
“Do you have any idea how choppy the water gets when it rains—” He’s still talking, voice edged with panic, and your chest tightens. Because what was fun for you, a reckless little thrill, has clearly rattled him to the core.
He’s looking over your body now, and unlike you (who’d been very much appreciating his toned, unfairly pretty physique) he’s scanning for injuries. Checking that you’re breathing, steady, not bruised.
“I’m sorry,” you manage. “I didn’t think—”
“You never do!”
You haven’t seen this Renjun in a long time—the serious one, the methodical one, the stoic, unflinching one. You press your palms to his chest—not to push him away, but to get him to loosen up.
“Hey,” you say, softer now, “relax, okay? This was just… my way of showing you my band-aid on a bullet wound technique.”
“Endangering yourself!?”
“No,” You suck in a breath, shaking your head. “Impulse.”
That makes him pause. You can see the gears turning in his head. And then there’s this twinge of recognition, the quiet oh. Because he knows. He’s seen it before: you stepping in front of moving traffic to scoop up a stray cat; charging headfirst into arguments you should probably walk away from; refusing to back down against his coldness when most people would fold.
It’s then, for the first time everything registers for him—that he’s holding you, skin to skin. His cough is abrupt, like he’s choking on the realisation. A blush spills over his cheekbones as he clears his throat and looks sharply away. His hands fall from you, because they technically don’t belong there.
“You’re… um… fine. Sorry—” His voice stumbles, breaks a little. “I just—yeah.”
He starts edging back, putting water and air between you both, and you watch him do it—like he’s physically removing himself from the epicenter of… whatever this is. Then you splash him.
“Hey! What’re you—”
“I want to talk about it,” you say, letting the droplets fall off your fingertips “I’ve had a really shitty day.”
“Right now?” In the middle of the sea?”
“Yes, now. I told you—my problems don’t just go away. I believe if you never bleed, you never grow.”
“So… a band-aid is pointless then? Regardless of whether it’s going over a bullet wound or not?” he asks, a half-smile twitching at his mouth.
“Shut up,” you say, splashing him again.
He laughs. It’s short, almost a reluctant burst of air before he then relents, giving you the kind of space he’s infuriatingly good at giving.
You take a breath and start. “This is such a first-world problem, but… my dad’s forcing me to be tutored by Jeno or he’ll cut me off. And I don’t want to because—you know—he’s my ex. We ended fine, but that doesn’t mean I want the guy I thought I was going to marry one day in my space, you know?”
[Renjun does not know. He does not know what it feels like to have someone he thinks he might marry on this earth at all, actually. Well—not until—]
“You thought you were going to marry him?”
“It’s complicated,” you say quickly. “I told you my family has indirectly planned out everything for me—job, husband, probably my future kids’ names, so something ugly.” You snort. “But Jeno and I… we never clicked like that. I love him—like a brother, more than anything. But even then, I think it’s because he’s always been around. I hardly know life without him. Plus my family like him. He obviously likes them.”
“Makes sense.”
“I just feel…” you swallow hard. “Like when I’m with my family, I’m outside of my body. Like I’m watching this version of me—this good daughter they’ve designed—and I constantly have to try, try, try to be her. And I’m not. Naturally, I’m just… not. But I’ve let it spiral so far out of control that now they control everything now.”
You don’t even realise you’re crying until the salt on your lips tastes more like you than the sea. Or maybe it’s just the rain—either way, he notices. Renjun hesitates, like his mind is having a quiet fistfight with itself, before his hand lifts. And then—so gently, he wipes your cheek with his thumb.
You give him the smallest smile.
“You know…” you clear your throat, cough around the lump. “When they said they’d cut me off, I didn’t even flinch. I laughed. I had this job. I liked it. But then they reminded me—they control that too.”
“Hey—if Yuta tried to get rid of you, I’d vouch for you. Unfair dismissal.”
“It would only be you,” you laugh, soft. “Yushi still hates me for the Icee machine thing. Honestly, I should’ve been fired then. But I was happy to reap the benefits of nepotism then.”
“It was your first day—”
“You don’t have to defend me.” You smile again, this time no teeth. “I remember how pissed you were. Same day as the cat in Yuta’s office.”
There’s a pause, long enough that you almost expect him to stay in his lane, because he’s the listener. But then, almost like he’s testing the weight of the words before handing them to you, he says—
“I know what it feels like. To be outside of your body.”
You blink at him, but he’s looking past you.
“With my family,” he adds. “It’s like… they never tried to understand me. Not really. They just—” His mouth tightens. “Shoved me into therapy because my emotions were too much. Until I learned to do the thing. The good thing. Ignore it. Play the part.”
It’s strange, hearing him say it out loud. Not because you didn’t suspect, but because you’ve never heard him speak about himself this way—plainly, without the sarcasm. Like he’s finally bleeding to grow.
And suddenly he’s not just Renjun, your friend. He’s the one person who doesn’t make you feel like you’re watching yourself from third person. He’s here. With you. Looking past you, but seeing you.
You can hear your own breathing. It sounds foreign. You tell yourself not to do it. You do it anyway.
Your hand moves first. Slow and testing. Fingers brushing over his jaw—so warm, startlingly warm against the cool rain still clinging to your skin. He flinches just barely, eyes snapping to yours like you’ve just crossed a line. And maybe you have.
It would be so easy to move back. Not change this. But you don’t.
You stay there, inches from him. Watching the way his wet lashes lower. Watching the way his mouth parts. Your thumb grazes the defined edge of his cheekbone, that flush you’ve been thinking about for weeks finally beneath your fingertips.
Then you’re leaning in, until your mouth is on his. You wait for him to stop you, but he doesn’t. Instead, the kiss is hesitant at first—an almost-kiss, until it’s not. His breath hitches against your mouth, the faintest tremor in it, like he’s learning you in real time and scared to get it wrong. Like he’s letting you lead.
It’s messy, too close—rain in your hair, the sound of your heartbeat louder than the cars on the street. And when you pull back, you’re still close enough to feel the way he exhales, like he’d been holding it the whole time.
“You’re shivering,” you say when his eyes finally flicker open.
“Y-yeah. Cold.”
You laugh, and it pulls his eyes down to your mouth, again. He lingers there for a second too long before dragging his eyes back up, like he’s making sure you’re still here. Still real.
“You, uh…” He swallows, voice catching. “You taste like—”
“Don’t say rain,” you warn, the corner of your mouth tugging up.
He exhales something close to a laugh, quiet enough you feel it more than hear it. “Fine. Not rain. Skittles.”
You roll your eyes. “Romantic.”
“I’m not—” He stops himself, shakes his head once. “I’m not good at this.”
“I know.” It comes out softer than you intended, and you watch as his ears turn a warm, shade of pink.
You’re about to say something else when voices split through the quiet. Loud and slurred. A group of college guys stumble past on the opposite sidewalk, their laughter booming.
“Oi! Get a room!” one of them yells, followed by a chorus of cruder suggestions that knot your stomach.
The moment is gone.
It only dawns on you that night—sometime between brushing your teeth and wondering where you put your favourite pyjama bottoms—that despite spending every single working hour together over the summer (four, ten, twelve-hour shifts), you and Renjun have never exchanged numbers.
Not when he shielded your body from the street while you tugged your uniform back on on the beach. Not when he drove you home with one hand on the wheel and the other warm and heavy on your thigh. Not when he pressed the quickest, softest peck to your lips before watching you climb your porch steps.
You hate it. You wanted to talk to him that night. Debated it. Finally caved and looked him up on Instagram. Unsurprisingly—because he’s committed to living like a senior citizen—he isn’t on it.
So when your shift starts the next morning, 9 a.m. for you, you’re devastated to see his doesn’t start until 1 p.m. It feels like the universe is actively punishing you, depriving you of this boy who makes you feel like you can actually breathe. The boy whose presence got you through a lecture at the breakfast table from your parents, and a “talk” from your brother in the car on the way to work.
The theatre door creaks open, and your head snaps up.
Finally.
You don’t even check before you extend the packet of Skittles you’ve been methodically sorting for the past fifteen minutes. Only the yellow and green remain. Which—yes—you’ve been saving for last, because you are a generous, self-sacrificing human being and Renjun always eats them without complaint.
Except.
The hand that dips into the bag is not Renjun’s. It’s attached to an entirely different boy. One with teddy bear hair: Hyuck.
He tosses an unholy amount into his mouth in one go, crunching obnoxiously before grimacing like he’s been personally wronged. “Yuck! Offering Skittles when there’s only yellow left? You’re an evil woman, Y/N.”
“They weren’t for you.” You yank the packet back, clutching it to your chest. “I thought you were Renjun.”
Hyuck’s brows shoot up. “Oh? So you save the sour flavours for Renjun? Do you hate him? Did he hurt you?”
“No,” you laugh. “What are you even talking about? Renjun told me he likes the yellow ones.”
“Well, no,” Hyuck says, shrugging like you’re the one not making sense. “Honestly…I’m more flabbergasted that you got him regularly eating Skittles at all. He only lets me have them once a month during our movie nights—since we share—and when we do, he always eats the red first. Man fucks up anything strawberry flavoured.”
“But he said…for weeks he’s been—”
You blink, but your heart decides to do this dumb, stuttering skip like it just tripped over its own feet. Because you vididly remeber Renjun saying he does not like strawberries that much…and then it clicks.
Hyuck’s expression shifts into pure, unholy glee. “That little shit has been letting you eat the red first, hasn’t he?” He leans back, shaking his head. “And here I was thinking he had no game.”
Just then, Yuta storms out of his office. His eyes lock immediately on Hyuck—who’s got one hand elbow-deep in your Skittles despite having a visceral reaction to the flavours left—the other giving a cheerful, mocking wave.
Yuta rolls his eyes so hard you’re honestly worried they’ll never come back down. Then—oh God—his gaze snaps to you.
“Y/N, I need you to start clearing up the kids’ party that just took place in Screen Seven.”
You groan, deeply. “Can’t I just wait for Renjun to help me? His shift’s about to start any minute.”
“No,” Yuta says, with the exact amount of scorn that makes you want to hurl a popcorn bucket at his head. “Because the idiot said he’s cashing in on a favour. He’ll be a few minutes late. Something with this ‘Joy’ person he knows running over.”
He waves a hand like he couldn’t care less about this ‘Joy’ person. You wish you could say the same.
“I don’t know what you college kids do anymore,” he finishes.
College kids? As in… Renjun and Joy? Two college kids?
Joy, which sounds like a very female name. Your mind immediately starts running every possible, awful scenario: Renjun and some effortlessly gorgeous girl named Joy, who probably doesn’t stress him out or leave him with the yellow candies, who doesn’t annoy him or dump her life story on him.
You feel so stupid. Like, how did you let him kiss you? Is she his girlfriend? If so, what does that make you? An accomplice in whatever last night was? Oh God, no.
Almost like he can sense the million questions swirling in your head, Hyuck reaches across the box office counter and grabs your arm. “Y/N, hey—”
You shake him off.
This is Renjun’s best friend. He knows him better than anyone. He has to know if Renjun has a girlfriend. He’d cover for him. Right? God, Hyuck definitely has Renjun’s number. Renjun’s probably told him about the kiss already. And now Hyuck’s probably convinced you’re some filthy little homewrecker.
You press both hands to your lips, trying to steady yourself. “Tell Renjun to meet me in Screen Seven when he gets in. If you’re still here.”
“Y/N—” Hyuck insists, but you’re already pushing past him into the screening area, somewhere he has no right following unless he buys a ticket.
You lock Screen Seven behind you just in case.
You’re twenty minutes into cleaning the theatre room, filled with stray popcorn, empty candy wrappers, and what you’re pretty sure might be actual snot. (Seriously, Yuta needs to stop booking kids’ parties.) When the lock on Screen Seven jiggles, and he walks in.
At least, you assume it’s him—because you can’t imagine Yushi, the only other person on shift, abandoning the front desk to help you clean when he could be people-watching and eating popcorn instead. And Yuta? Yeah, he definitely wouldn’t help.
You keep your focus on the last stubborn popcorn kernels stuck in the carpet.
“I’m almost finished,” you say through tight teeth. “Basically did everything myself. You might as well go out front and help Yushi or something.”
Still not turning around, you bend down, crouching low to scrape. But then you hear footsteps coming up the stairs anyway.
“I don’t want to help Yushi.”
Now you have confirmation it’s him. That voice. Indisputable.
“Well,” you say, straightening up, trash bag in hand, peeling off your rubber gloves and blowing a quick breath upward to cool a trickle of sweat on your forehead, “unfortunately, this is a workplace, and you don’t get to slack off—”
“I know you know about Joy.”
Oh. So he’s just…ripping the bandage off? Typical Renjun. You don’t know why you’re surprised he’s being direct. He never offers you anything different, really. Though, in the beginning, he used to be shy about it.
“The real question is, does she know about me?” You ask.
Renjun swallows. “She does. And I know I probably should’ve spoken to you about everything first—”
“You think?”
“I know.” He runs a hand through his hair, frustration catching at his jaw. “She said I should work this out with you, not her—”
You scoff. “I don’t know about that. She clearly is a priority, since—you know—she’s your girlfriend!”
That actually startles him—like, physically jolts him back a fraction. Brows pulling in before they lift again, his mouth twitching in a way that makes you instantly want to kill him, because…is he going to smile, right now?
“Y/N, you think…You think Joy is my…girlfriend?”
You cross your arms, feeling protective and defensive of yourself all at once. It feels like your body might fold in around the tiny embarrassment blooming in your chest any second.
“I don’t know. Is she?”
“No,” he deadpans.
“Well, she’s clearly important to you if you’re skipping work to hang out with her.”
“We had a lot to talk about,” he shoves his hands into his pockets. “A lot happened yesterday.”
Okay, now he’s being an asshole. A weird, smug fuckboy asshole. You clomp down the steps toward him, setting the trash bag aside just so you can poke at his chest.
“You’re. A. Dick.”
His hands stay in his pockets as you land each hit, his body shifting back with the force but never resisting.
[It’s hot. You hate that.]
You go to storm past him on the stairs, aiming for the aisle, but his hand wraps around your wrist, pulling you just enough to turn back around. And now you’re regretting walking yourself down this way because now he has the higher ground. Now he’s looking down at you from above, under those lashes you remember being wet, framing pupils so dark they’d swallow the brown whenever they’d look at your mouth, your body—
“Joy’s my therapist,” he says.
You flounder, like a fish. “You’re what?”
“My therapist,” he says, voice soft. “I told you yesterday—my parents have had me in therapy forever because I feel too much. And with you... I guess I feel a lot.”
“Ren—”
“That was my first kiss,” he blurts out, like you’ve swapped brains. Him, suddenly vulnerable. You, quiet, listening. “Well, not first first. I mean, I’ve had pecks and stuff. But not like that. You know, with tongue and teeth and like…”
It hits you then. This is him bleeding—wanting to grow, to let you in.
“It was nice. I liked it. I didn’t know if you did, and I couldn’t ask. Didn’t know if it was appropriate, honestly. And then, because we were, you know... half-naked, I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable. Because I liked it. A lot.”
“Me too,” You whisper, and you swear you see your favourite colour bloom all over him—right down to his fingertips.
“Well, that’s what I was asking Joy about,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck, heat rising in his cheeks. “She said the only person who could give me answers was you. But I had to, like, psych myself up in her office because I’ve never done this before, and I think I’m rambling—”
Without thinking, you rush up the steps and press your lips to his. Your arms snake around his neck, pulling him close, letting you feel that flush of heat on his skin against yours—that burn.
Renjun freezes for a second, hesitating, like he’s trying to figure out if this is real or just something his brain is making up. Then, slow and careful and with a little prompt from you, his hands slide around your waist. It’s light, almost afraid, like he’s scared of grabbing too much, too little, too hard.
It makes you smile against his mouth.
The kiss isn’t smooth, not even close. It’s chaotic—teeth bumping, breaths stuttering, lips finding and losing each other before finding each other again. You taste the nerves on him, feel the subtle tremor in his fingers where they rest on your sides.
There’s a tight, raw ache in your chest. You want this. You want him. And when you pull back, you see it in his eyes too—the same wild softness, the same wanting, but wrapped in hesitation he’s not ready to voice.
You’ve never taken the lead before. But you’ve also never been so sure about anything in your life. Not like you are right now. Here. In this exact movie theatre—the one you swear sounds dramatic but has, somehow, changed your life.
He has changed your life.
You undo the buttons on your polo shirt, the same way you’ve done a thousand times before in front of him—carelessley, now you think about it. But his reaction? That deep, rattling swallow, that has his Adam’s apple bobbing just right against his skin? It’s been the same. Every. Damn. Time.
It’s like you’re moving in slow motion just to torture him, he thinks. He nods eagerly, keeping his eyes locked on you, silently begging for more. For faster. The last button slips free beneath your fingers then, and you peel the polo off your shoulders. Heat licks across your skin under his stare in just your bra.
He doesn’t pounce or rush to devour. He just looks. Because he never got to last night. Not with the water and the dark and the boundaries he was so scared to cross. But now, his gaze traces the elegant dip of your collarbone, lingers on the soft swell of your breasts beneath the fabric. Now, his gaze is greedy.
Eventually, his hands finally find you, they start at your waist, before sliding higher. Higher. Higher. Until palms spread warm against your back, fingertips drawing lazy, invisible circles. Then he moves to the front, cupping you, kneading you through the thin barrier of lace.
Your whimper cracks the stillness. His head dips needily, lips brushing your shoulder. He murmurs something low and unintelligible into your skin, causing a vibration that shivers down your spine. A sound of his own catches in his throat, a broken little whimper that melts against the slope of your very bare neck.
His hands keep kneading your tits as his mouth trails up, licking, and sucking, and teasing the column of your throat. You tip your head back, offering him everything, letting your eyes fall shut.
You want to let go—of thought, of control—and sink into the weight of his hands, his mouth, this intoxicating, fragile kind of tenderness.
But then you feel it. The subtle shifting of his hips, the slow, restrained rut against you. You notice the way his breath keeps stuttering, catching every time his body brushes yours. Lust floods low in your belly, but it’s chased by a different thought—you’re not ready for anything to be over.
[Not when he’s still fully dressed. Not when you haven’t had the chance to feel his naked skin under your palms.]
Your fingers slip to the hem of his shirt, curling in the fabric. You push it up enough to brush your fingertips against the ridges of his stomach, the twitch of muscle under your touch. His breath hitches again, this time sharper, like he’s holding back a groan.
“Off,” you whisper.
He moves instantly, pulling back to strip the shirt over his head. You’re already reaching behind you yourself, unclasping your bra. The straps fall down your arms, and that’s it—his eyes go dark, pupils swallowing the colour.
It’s like something takes over him, something primal and single-minded. One moment he’s staring, the next his mouth is on you—hot, desperate—sucking your nipple into his mouth like he’s been starving for it. His groan vibrates against you, low and guttural. And—
“Fuck!”
You fist your hands in his hair, holding him there, arching into the pull of his mouth. His tongue swirls, teeth scraping. His other hand cups your other breast, kneading with a roughness that makes you want, thumb brushing over your peaked nipple until your knees go weak.
When he finally pulls back, there’s a wet sheen on your nipple and a dazed look in his eyes.
“For someone so shy, you’re very eager,” you tease, breathlessly.
He swallows, still holding you, thumb brushing over the spot his mouth just left. “You have no idea.”
Your lips curl in a slow smile—until you feel it. The subtle press of his hips again moving forward, the insistent hard length of him straining against his jeans. The nervous way he immediately tries to pull back, like he’s worried about overstepping. Or moving too fast.
“Renjun,” you murmur, sliding your hand down, cupping his bulge through the denim. He gasps, eyes going wide.
“I don’t know if I made it clear but—I’ve… I’ve never…” His voice trails off, and you feel the tremor in his thighs.
You lean in, kissing the corner of his mouth. “I know. Let me take care of you.”
The button on his jeans pops open beneath your fingers, the zipper dragging down in a metallic hum. His flush deepens, colouring the delicate skin along his cheekbones, but he doesn’t stop you. When you slip your hand inside, over his boxers, the strangled sound he makes nearly undoes you.
“God, you’re so—” you start, but his mouth crashes into yours, cutting off the words as you free him. He’s hot and hard in your palm, and the way his breath hitches with every stroke is so fucking sexy.
Every so often, you feel him twitch—sharp little spasms that make him instinctively pull back. You hate that distance, but you recognise it for what it is: his overthinking, his mental brakes, his worry for cumming too quick.
That suspicion is confirmed when his hands shift to your shorts, fumbling for the buttons, clearly eager to please you too. Renjun’s hands are clumsy at first when he slides between your thighs, fingertips skimming over the thin cotton of your panties before pushing them aside. His touch is cautious until you guide him, curling his fingers inside you.
The groan that rips out of him when he feels how wet you are is almost pathetic.
“Is that—good for you?” he asks.
“Better than good,” you breathe, rocking into his touch.
The hesitancy bleeds out of him with every soft sound you make, every needy roll of your hips. Soon his fingers are moving to work, fast, unforgiving circles into your clit, giving way to a steady rhythm that has your body coiling tight.
You match his pace, stroking him faster, feeling him twitch in your grip. His forehead presses to yours like he’s holding on for dear life. “If you keep—God, I’m gonna—fuck!”
“Not yet,” you whisper, pulling your hand away.
The whine he lets out is immediate, raw. “Please?”
You shake your head, still close enough to press against his and whisper against his lips. “I want you inside me when you cum.”
His eyes go impossibly wide. “You—? But… I don’t have—”
“Don’t care. I’m clean. On birth control,” You cup his jaw, steadying him. “I want you. Just you.”
His hand curls tighter around yours, and before you can say anything else, you’re moving—half-stumbling, half-dragging him toward the closest empty row of seats. You push him into the far corner, the fabric creaking under his weight.
“Sit,” you order softly.
He obeys instantly, still wide-eyed as you climb into his lap, your knees bracketing his hips. His hands hover, trembling, until you take them and press them to your waist.
“Here,” you murmur, guiding him. “Hold me.”
The armrest bites into your thigh, the seat too narrow, but it doesn’t matter. You lean in, kiss him deep—slow and hungry—until his whole body loosens beneath you. Your hips rock, dragging over him where he’s already painfully hard.
“God…” His voice is almost nothing.
You shove your shorts down just far enough, then tug his jeans and boxers low in one clumsy motion. The dim light hits his face. He’s flushed, stunned, wanting you so badly he can barely look at you, but also can’t look away.
“You sure?” you ask, hovering over him, giving him the last chance to pull away.
He nods too quickly, almost frantically, you nearly laugh until—you sink down onto him. The laughter you feel is gone in an instant, replaced by the sharp, perfect stretch of him filling you. His head tips back hard against the seat, fingers digging into your hips like they’re the only thing keeping him tethered.
[They are.]
“Oh my—” His inhale cuts him off, shuddering and sharp.
You still, stroking your thumbs along his cheekbones as he adjust to the feel of your pussy, wet and warm, wrapped around him. “Breathe, Renjun.”
“I’m—” His voice is rough, wrecked, almost breaking. “I’m trying.”
You shift against him, rolling your hips again, and that’s all it takes to encourage—he starts moving. Short, shallow thrusts at first, like he’s afraid of hurting you. Each one makes his breath hitch, the sound shaky and almost boyish.
“That’s it,” you murmur, brushing your nose against his. “You can go deeper.”
His eyes flick up to yours—and he tries. The next thrust is clumsy, off rhythm. You let out a whimper.
“You like that?” he asks.
You smile, stroking the back of his neck. “I like you.”
Something in him melts at that. His hands slide up your back, holding you closer as if that will make him better at this. He wants to be better for you. He tries again—finding a slightly better angle, though he still stutters when your thighs tighten around his hips.
“You feel so… tight,” he says, brows knitting
“Focus, Renjun,” you tease, kissing the corner of his mouth.
“I am focusing!” It comes out as a breathless laugh, and you can feel him trembling beneath you.
You guide him with more small movements of your own, rolling your hips back and forth, coaxing him into something that almost feels like a pattern. But it never lasts—every time you clench around him, he falters, groaning low into your neck before having to start again.
“Gonna… I can’t—” His voice cracks, raw.
“It’s okay,” you whisper, threading your fingers into his hair. “Just let go. I’ve got you.”
He buries his face deeper into the curve of your neck, hips pushing up hard one last time before he cums—hot and deep inside you—with a soft, helpless sound that’s almost a whimper. His arms wrap tight around your body like he’s afraid to let go, even after his body stills.
You stay like that, bodies still joined, breaths uneven. Your fingertips draw slow, aimless shapes over his back, feeling the tremor in his muscles slowly fade. When he finally lifts his head, his hair is messy, his lips pink, and there’s a small, sheepish smile tugging at them.
“Sorry,” he murmurs. “That was… not very good.”
You cradle his face in your hands, brushing your thumb along the flush in his cheek. “That was perfect. You were perfect.”
His eyes soften and you kiss him until you’re both breathless. Then you stay, tucked against him, your ear over his heart, neither of you moving. You don’t know how long you sit there, both too afraid to break the moment, too careful not to disrupt the tenderness.
But what you do know is this: when you finally get dressed this time, you ask for his number before you part ways.
Renjun doesn’t think he’s ever had a summer this good.
Hyuck says that’s just what having regular good sex does to a person. Renjun rolls his eyes because it’s more than that. Yes, the girl and the sex are a fantastic new discovery this year, but it’s not just flushed cheeks and sneaky kisses on his lunch break that’s good. It’s the fact that he’s tanned—actually tanned—at the beach, gone camping, and finally said yes to Hyuck’s family’s annual lake trip instead of coming up with excuses.
He’s making memories.
[Joy thinks you’ve brought him out of his shell. He’d agree.]
But as the Sunday of the lake trip begins to fade into evening, there’s a faint sourness in the air that Renjun can’t name. He wants to call it a gut feeling. His therapist would probably call it his persistent hypervigilance creeping back that has him ready for something to go wrong. Still, he’s trying to be optimistic. That’s all anyone’s ever asked of him—right?
It’s only when Hyuck (Hyuck, who practically bleeds look on the bright side propaganda and “positive mental attitude), pulls him aside in the kitchen of the lakehouse that Renjun realises maybe he’s done too much healing and has been too optimistic.
“Don’t you think it’s weird she hasn’t called?”
“No…” he replies slowly, finishing the plate he’s drying. “We text every day.”
“I know that, buddy, it’s just—” Hyuck tosses a dish towel over his shoulder then. “You went from calling every night, sending pictures, making everyone nauseous with your lovesick crap… and now? Since the start of this trip? All you’re getting is one-word answers.”
Renjun feels the familiar twitch in his chest—the one that used to send him spiralling, but he’s better now. It’s probably nothing. People get busy, conversations slow down. It’s not a red flag; it’s a scheduling conflict. And just because Hyuck’s noticed, it doesn’t mean it’s time for him to panic.
“Maybe she’s just busy,” Renjun says, because that’s easier than thinking too hard. “College starts back next week, and you know she’s on that event planning committee. She’s probably swamped with welcoming freshmen.”
Hyuck just… looks at him until eventually, he exhales and turns back to the sink. He finishes drying one of his parent’s favourite mugs and sets it carefully on the counter. Then, without warning, his palm lands warm between Renjun’s shoulder blades.
“Yeah, you’re probably right, buddy,” Hyuck says, the corner of his mouth tugging up but not quite making it to a smile. “I just—worry about you.”
“I know,” Renjun says, meaning it. “But you don’t have to.”
“I know.” Hyuck tosses the dish towel onto the counter and heads for the doorway. “I’m gonna head to bed.”
Renjun wishes it was only that time at the lake he had to defend you to his best friend. Back then, he thought you were just busy. But when one-word texts turn into full-on ghosting three weeks into classes, he starts to notice the correlation between your withdrawal and the start of his senior year.
[Joy’s voice in his head then—optimism, be brave, be bold, don’t fear rejection.]
So he starts showing up in places he never had much reason to before. Sitting on the low brick wall in the campus quad at lunch, pretending to read while his eyes flick automatically to every passing figure. Lingering in the gym building, always—coincidentally—when volleyball practice is on. (Okay, that one was maybe a little weird. But he was desperate.)
It’s like you’ve disappeared off the face of the earth.
And he hates it—hates how much he hates it—which is so fucking ridiculous, because a couple of months ago he barely knew you. He knew of you. Could’ve picked you out of a line-up, sure.
But now he knows your favourite candy. And the order you eat it in. Your favourite colour. Your disdain for biology. The exact argument you make when someone tries to claim pink doesn’t belong in the rainbow. He knows your dream job. Your stupidest fear. The sport you love but swear you’re awful at. What you smell like. What you taste like. He knows you feel trapped, and lost, and like your family has a remote control with your name on it.
You’ve basically set up camp in his subconscious, rent-free, somewhere between the back of his mind and the pit of his stomach.
Which is maybe why—after three weeks of nothing from you, three weeks of surviving on scraps (memories of tangled limbs, stupid breathy jokes, and a bag of Skittles he still can’t bring himself to finish)—he ends up at the animal shelter.
[And no, he is not talking to Joy about this. Because Joy would point out the obvious: lines have been blurred, sex is involved, and that’s why he’s acting like a lovesick puppy. Which is wrong. Because Renjun is not clingy. He swears.]
He tells himself (lies to himself, really) that he’s only here to see Bonnie—the cat. Only because he’s worried about all sheltered animals, and he likes cats. Not because Bonnie feels like the only tangible proof that this summer actually happened. That you happened.
[That he heard from his cousin that you started volunteering there last week.]
The bell above the shelter door rattles faintly when he reaches for it. He’s already picturing Bonnie’s lopsided ears, the way she noses into his hands—when the door jerks open from the inside.
You come spilling out. Laughing. You’ve got a girl tucked under your arm in a close and familiar way that can only suggest friendship. Miyeon—he recognises her from the volleyball team.
Your laughter dies the second your eyes land on him. Like someone pressed pause. Or threw water over you. The curve of your smile flattens. Your arm doesn’t move from Miyeon’s shoulders, but Renjun sees the way it goes rigid.
Miyeon looks between you two. “Uh…?” she says lightly, almost a question, but neither of you answer.
Renjun feels stupidly aware of himself in this moment. He suddenly remembers he has hands and absolutely no idea what to do with them. His ears are hot. And all he can think about is the time you traced your fingertips along every flushed inch of his body.
God, he’s not good at this. He’s not good at girls. And he’s especially not good at girls who’ve made him cum, shared their secrets with him, made him feel like he might actually be fun to be around—and then vanished.
Still, it’s him who breaks the silence. Because someone has to. Because the alternative is drowning in it.
“Hi.”
Your mouth opens like you might say something, but no sound comes out. Miyeon’s eyes bounces between you two like she’s watching a very slow, very awkward tennis match. The air is thick. Heavy. Full. And all those things you told him this summer—about feeling trapped, about feeling controlled—they’re here, too.
Only now, they’re aimed straight at him.
“Hi,” you finally say back, but it’s short, clipped, already swallowed by the cold September chill. You fold your arms across your chest like you’re trying to keep him out.
Miyeon swoops in before he can respond. “Hi, I’m Miyeon. You are…?”
Renjun feels it—a tiny, precise sting right in the chest. You haven’t told your friends about him. Not only did he tell you about Hyuck, you also know about the whole Haechan thing. He clears his throat. Hands disappear into his pockets like maybe they can take the embarrassment with them.
“I’m Renjun.”
“Ohh, so this is theare guy?”
Miyeon’s eyes cut to you as she says it. Big, round, a little too knowing. And Renjun—suddenly very aware of how he’s standing, breathing, existing—feels an uncomfortable itch of self-consciousness. Because…theatre guy?
“All good things, I hope. Haha.”
He tries a joke. You like jokes. Your friends probably do too. He’s never chased likability a day in his life, but right now he wants it like oxygen.
Miyeon tips her chin, mouth pulling into a not-quite-smile. “Mhm. Right.”
Well… that response definitely doesn’t feel good. No, it feels like a slow-blooming bruise he already knows will ache later, when he’s lying in bed staring at the ceiling and poking at it just to see if it still hurts. (It will.)
You’re not looking at him. You’re not even looking near him. Somehow that’s worse than if you’d just be flat out cruel to him. Because this—this polite, indifferent cold—is so much worse.
He hates that his mind immediately drags him back to summer. To you in his car, knees pulled to your chest, hair damp from the the sea, telling him you felt like you were living in someone else’s life. That no one ever really listened. That you didn’t feel seen.
And god, he’d wanted to be the exception. He’d thought maybe he was.
Because you were his.
You turn to Miyeon. “Can you wait in the car? I’ll be done in a minute.”
She hesitates, glances between the two of you like she’s considering whether to refuse. Then she nods, tosses him one more unreadable look, and walks toward the car in the parking lot.
And then it’s just you. And him.
Except this version of just you and him feels… wrong. Different.
You’re not loose-limbed and bright-eyed like you used to be. You’re still folded in on yourself—arms crossed, chin tipped down, body angled as though his very proximity is violating your personal space.
He tells himself not to read into it.
[Which is hilarious, because that’s literally all he’s been doing for months.]
“You changed your hair,” he says finally, motioning to it.
“Yeah. It’s a new term.” Your voice is flat, almost bored.
He tries again—leans into what he thinks is your thing with him. “New haircut for a new term. Not a late-night existential crisis with scissors?”
You don’t laugh. You don’t even look at him. You just say: “No, Renjun.”
The way you say his name—measured, distant, blunt—makes him want to shake you until you remember the stupid, ridiculous Junnie nickname Hyuck told you about.
He swallows. And because apparently he enjoys punishment, he tries again.
“Okay, but you have to admit my suspicions were valid. New haircut, total radio silence—classic crisis stuff.”
Nothing. Not even the twitch of your mouth.
And it’s… baffling. Because the you he knew this summer would’ve played along, rolled your eyes and smiled, shoved his shoulder, told him to shut up. Now you’re looking at him like maybe you wish you’d never told him anything.
He can feel it—this yawning gap between the person he thought you were and the one standing in front of him. He keeps trying to throw a rope across it, and you keep letting it fall.
Jokes clearly aren’t working. He shifts tactics.
“How’ve you been?”
“Busy.” A shrug.
“I saw Yuta took you off the schedule…you didn’t want to stay on?”
“It was always going to be a summer temp job.”
He knows that. Knew it the moment you started. But some selfish, stupid part of him thought maybe you’d want to stay anyway. That you liked the job. That you liked… him.
“Right.” His shoe scuffs at the pavement. “So… busy?”
“Jeno started tutoring me.”
The name hits him square in the sternum like a brick. “…Your ex, Jeno?”
You shift then, eyes dropping to the floor, lips pressing into something that’s almost a pout. For a second—just a second—Renjun thinks you might step forward, might bridge the distance with a half-hearted apology for the cold shoulder, for disappearing.
But then you swallow.
“I’m trying not to fail my classes this year.”
“I get it,” he says, though he doesn’t, not really. “I just thought you were going to talk to your parents about… you know. The major thing.”
The last conversation plays in his head, happy and giddy in a way this one isn’t. You were leaning forward, voice quick with excitement telling him all about you wanting to switch to journalism. How your hands wouldn’t stay still when you told him your plan to finally tell your parents about it.
Something flickers in your eyes—longing, maybe—and then you cough, blink it out, shake your hair out of your face.
“I was, but… the more I thought about it, I figured I’ve already spent three years in my current major. A whirlwind summer and a dream isn’t enough to make me change my whole life plan.”
“Your whole life plan?”
You swat the air, dismissive. “You know what I mean.”
[He doesn’t. Last time you spoke, you were ready to take a match to any life plan involving biology and watch it burn.]
“Okay then…” He presses anyway. “What happened to not wanting to be in close proximity to an ex?”
“He’s not an ex.”
Renjun’s entire body feels like he’s on fire. The words land like a blow. It feels like you’ve slapped him. Like you’ve poured acid straight into his veins. Like you’ve driven a blade between his ribs and twisted—not for the kill, but to see what happens when he bleeds.
And maybe you can see it, the hurt on his face. Because your eyes lift—just barely—like you’re tempted to take it back.
“Well, he’s not—” you rush, tripping over the words. “We’re—It’s complicated.”
“Then uncomplicate it for me,” he says.
You stop dead. Like he just asked you to speak a language you don’t even know. Your gaze darts. Quick. Frantic. Stuck between a rock and a hard place. Between him and the life you still have to answer to.
You breathe out, and a small cloud of white drifts from your lips, dissolves into nothing.
“He was just—” You stall. “You know he’s close to my family.”
Renjun doesn’t blink. “So what? That gives him permanent immunity to flit in and out of your life?”
“That’s not what I said.”
“You didn’t have to.” His voice is quiet, almost calm, and somehow that’s worse. “Because what I’m hearing is: he’s in the inner circle, and I’m… what? Disposable?”
You shake your head. “No, that’s not—”
“Then what is it?”
“It’s just—it’s easier—”
His eyebrows lift. “Easier than me?”
“This isn’t a competition.”
“It feels like one.”
“This has nothing to do with you, Renjun.”
“Really?” He laughs, dry as dirt. “You going back to your ex after we’ve been fucking all summer has nothing to do with me?”
The words slice. You pretend they don’t. He stares at you, hard, like he’s trying to peel back your skin and see what’s underneath.
“That’s not fair,” you say.
“What’s not fair? The fact that you’re pretending I was just a way to kill time?”
“I’m not—”
“Yes, you are. You’re acting like this, us, was nothing.”
“I’m not acting. I’m telling you it wasn’t—” You break off, jaw tight. “We weren’t… whatever this is, it wasn’t serious.”
Ouch.
Renjun feels like you just reached in and gutted him. Ripped him open from sternum to navel and left his insides on display. Because nothing about you and him was ever casual. People who aren’t serious don’t talk about the things you talked about. They don’t tell each other the ugly stuff. They don’t hold you in the middle of the fucking sea, in the rain whilst you slur and sob.
So for you to stand there and say it wasn’t serious—it feels like you’re spitting on him.
He swallows it, though. The pain. Pretends it doesn’t hurt as much as it does. Pretends he isn’t thinking about every time you smiled or laughed or offered him candy
“Sorry,” he croaks, tasting the word, letting it burn his tongue.“I must have gotten confused because it sounded pretty serious when you gave me the cold shoulder because you thought I was dating my therapist.”
“Renjun—” You stop, your throat working.
“Do you remember the last conversation we had?”
Your face changes instantly when he asks. He sees it—the way the memory plays behind your eyes like a film reel. For a second, he swears your pupils blow wide, but that anxiety monster he’s been keeping on a leash lately yanks hard on the chain.
[Her pupils are not dilating because she’s thinking about you, idiot. Pupils don’t dilate over people who aren’t serious.]
When you nod, Renjun continues.
“You wanted to be a news reporter. You were so sure of it. We talked about it for hours. You were lit up about the whole thing—like nothing could touch you. Not your dad. Or your brothers. Or Yuta.”
Your throat works once before you answer. “Things change.”
He shakes his head. “Not that quickly.”
“You did!” You shoot back. “You went from this grumpy and shy guy to funny and playful and… nice. All in, what, two months?”
“I know,” he agrees without hesitation. “Because someone reminded me—a really pretty girl—that I’ve always been that way. I just didn’t let anyone see.”
“She sounds smart,” you say, small. It’s an attempt at a joke, but your voice barely lifts.
“She has her moments.” He smiles. “Mostly when she’s not letting her family dictate her career… her relationships—”
“Don’t.” You cut him off, voice sharp but trembling. Your eyes are glassy now. “Please don’t.”
“You don’t, Y/N. Don’t do this. We were close. We were friends””
“Were we?”
“What?” He blinks, caught off guard.
You swallow, eyes darting somewhere past him—like the chipped wall behind him is easier to look at than his face. “I think we were both just…lost? Craving connection?”
He stares. “Craving connection?”
“You know what I mean.”
“No,” he says, lower now, more dangerous. “I don’t think I do. Because as far as I remember, you were the one who wanted to be my friend. You were the one who pushed. You were the one who put a name on it. And now—” His voice falters, but only for a second. “Now you want to lie about how you feel, just because it’s… convenient?”
“It’s not just that—” you say quickly, then softer, almost to yourself, “You know it’s not.”
He almost laughs, pure bitter. “Do I?”
“Yes. My family—” You stop, breath catching. “They wouldn’t want… this. Us. They’ve already—” You bite your lip hard enough he thinks you might draw blood. “I can’t ignore them, Renjun.”
“Yes, you can.”
You shake your head. “You don’t get it. It’s not that simple. Everything I have—everything I am—it’s tied to them. My career. My… safety.”
“So you’re just going to let them choose for you?”
“I’m choosing to make it easy.”
“For them.”
“For me,” you insist.
He takes a step closer, and the air between you sharpens. “You can’t just erase what happened between us. You can’t convince me none of this was real.”
“I’m not trying to convince you.” Your hands curl into fists at your sides. “I’m telling you.”
Renjun’s jaw works like he wants to say something else, but he doesn’t. He just stands there, staring. And it feels like there’s this raw, invisible thread between you both—thin enough that if either one breathed too hard, it would snap.
The silence swells. Your throat burns. Like somehow the words you just threw at him have ricocheted and came back to hit you harder than they ever could’ve hit him.
You can’t stand it, so you move. Stepping around him, shoulder brushing his, and it’s the smallest thing—an accident—but it feels catastrophic. Because you used to lean into that touch. Seek it out without thinking. And now you can’t.
Because you made your decision.
And it wasn’t him.
And now you have to figure out how to navigate the rest of your college life pretending you don’t know what it’s like—what he’s like. To be held by this boy. To be seen by this boy. To laugh with this boy. To be loved… by this boy.
Instead, you’ll look at him like he’s nothing. Like he’s a stranger.
Like you never met him at all.
GIVE ME A MOMENT PLEASE.
DOUBLE KILL | L.MK, L,DH. | PART TWO
PAIRING: Mark Lee & Lee Donghyuck x female!reader
GENRE: smut, horror, thriller, college!au, frat!au, obviously inspired by the movie Scream.
SUMMARY: As the campus gets filled with a bunch of frat members dressed as Ghosface for a Halloween joke, you suddenly get dragged into your own scary movie when someone decides you’ll be the protagonist.
WARNINGS AND CONTENT: yandere vibes, explicit lenguage, reader gets anxious and scared, mentions and explicit descriptions of blood, murder and death, mind games, discussions about reader's sex life,
WORD COUNT: +10.k
AUTOR'S NOTE: i can't believe i finished this holy shit. Dreams do come true
READ PART ONE HERE
THE ATMOSPHERE IN THE ROOM CHANGED COMPLETELY. THE TENSION SLOWLY RAISED WITH ADRENALINE, THE TYPE YOU GET WHEN SOMETHING BAD IS ABOUT TO HAPPEN.
It was like the temperature dropped too, the cold curving inside you and taking space in your body like it was always a part of it. A strange but familiar sensation filled your stomach and made your heart beat heavily as you watched your lovers moving around. Fear.
Real, unfiltered, raw fear. And you weren’t the only one feeling it.
You could only watch as Mark and Donghyuck moved around the room, the last words spoken to processing, finally setting in your mind and making sense. Except it fucking not.
‘’What the hell is going on?’’ You asked, feeling a little nervous by their actions, voice unsure.
Donghyuck turned on his phone, still connected to the charger, tapping on the screen repeatedly as it would make it work faster. He cursed over and over as he made calls that apparently nobody was answering. Mark moved too, getting dressed first and throwing clothes to his friend, thankfully not the Ghostface costume, and then going for his phone too, fingers moving rapidly. Texting, calling. But no one was answering him either, making Mark frown deeply.
You signed loudly, standing up from the bed and going to who was closer, Mark. Your hand grabbed his wrist, trying to catch his eyes. A part of you was a little unsure of the situation, even if their reactions seemed genuine… they still played with you the whole month. You hated feeling paranoid and unbelieving, but you were tired and so done with everything, not knowing what was a game, what was a prank, what was reality. Annoyance creeped in your body.
‘’You seriously need to stop and tell me what’s going on!’’
Mark opened and closed his mouth, words stuck, like he was surprised to see you next to him. It was Donghyuck who left his phone and went towards you, his hands grabbing your waist as he studied you, like he was searching for something in your eyes. His touch wasn’t seductive and teasing like you were getting used to, now holding onto you like he was waiting for a strong gust of wind to knock both of you down at any moment. Like you were his anchor.
‘’Doyoung left for this specific weekend,’’ Donghyuck explained, rushed. You notice how his hands shook a little in you. ‘’He always does. There’s no way in hell he would be here on Halloween. That… what you saw, that wasn’t a joke, you understand?’’ He muttered, in the most serious voice you ever heard from him.
You looked at Mark and then at him again, a short and nervous laugh coming out of you. ‘’No way, he’s here! It was him, he was in the street when Ghostface— I saw them,’’ you said to him, grabbing his shoulders, a pleading look in your face. ‘’It has to be a joke, maybe not yours but— someone from the frat? How do you know it’s not?’’
Mark cursed again, watching his phone like it was a useless thing. He was listening to both of you even as he was sending texts and making calls, but it was no use. He moved again, a new course of action forming in his head, trying not to freak out in the meantime.
‘’He has a phobia of blood,’’ Mark said, turning off the lights and then going to the window to look outside carefully, but no one was outside, even if the backyard usually was full of people taking a break or smoking. He closed the curtains and turned to you, the faint lights of outside outlining his figure in the middle of the dark. ‘’He seriously can’t see blood, real or fake. There’s no way he would participate in something like that. Shit— he even passed out one time I got a nose bleeding.’’
‘’But— Chenle told me he had a joke planned or something, this must be it, right? For Johnny?’’ You looked at both of them in the dark, unable to see their full faces in the shadows all of you were engulfed in, but it was enough to see the look they shared.
You felt yourself paling, heartbeat going crazy. Your mind couldn't believe that what you saw earlier that night was real, a small part of you clinging still to the idea that it was all a horrible joke, a nightmare that was impossible to happen in real life.
But apparently, it was.
A tiny, fragile hope in your heart was still hoping for Mark and Doghyuck to start laughing, maybe Chenle will appear from somewhere too and they all would joke and tease you about falling into a horrible Halloween prank again. But that hope was broken by the force of reality, and you couldn't escape it, your mind was collapsing right into it.
You saw Doyoung getting murder for real.
A heavy knot formed in your stomach, feeling like the weight of the world was put on your shoulders. Everything that happened to you started flowing in your head like a movie: all the calls Mark and Donghyuck did, the last one, feeling and being watched, chased around campus by somebody with a knife. That was real. You didn’t really know how many times you were so close to getting hurt— who was each time? The killer or your lovers?
Somebody else was playing with you too. The thought made you pale even more, replaying all October in your mind, trying to get a clue, some familiar face, someone interested in you as well. When did everything really start? Have you seen this Ghostface before? Did you know him too? Was it someone from NCT?
Donghyuck was the one who broke the silence, eyeing you as you stood there, quiet and thinking hard, falling into shock without realizing it. ‘’Chenle said that to you?’’ He asked you, softly, even if his eyes had hardened.
‘’Chenle’s a prankster,’’ Mark said, gaze focused on Donghyuck, the warning clear in his tone. ‘’We don’t know what he meant. Or if he did this. C’mon, he’s our friend!’’
‘’Yeah, but he was also the driver that was supposed to take Doyoung to the airport,’’ Donghyuck responded, cursing under his breath. ‘’Ring any bells?’’
‘’Shut the fuck up, dude. I know what you’re trying to say,’’ Mark bited. ‘’So don’t fucking do it. Chenle wouldn't do something like this, are you crazy?’’
Donghyuck ignored that. ‘’She saw Doyoung get fucking stabbed and Chenle was the last person he was with? And had something planned for tonight? What a fucking coincidence.’’
Mark groaned, shaking his head. ‘’Maybe it is a coincidence, we don’t know! Do you really believe that?’’
‘’Well, for now is my goddamn principal suspect, so yes,’’ Donghyuck responded with a snort, his body tensed and, deep inside him, completely worried. ‘’I’m not trusting anyone outside this room.’’
You stopped listening to them, taking a step back, overwhelmed. They didn’t notice at first, too busy bickering words that they don’t make sense in your mind. Chenle? No way that the killer was your sweet, chaotic friend. Chenle would never hurt anybody, ever. And you could swear on that: you wanted to scream it, defend your best friend. But before you could open your mouth, something caught your attention and the boy’s as well, their discussion stopping.
It was a sound coming from outside, from the window, loud enough to sound above the muffed music from the party. It sounded again and you jumped a little when something small clashed against the glass of the window. And then, you realized what it was. A small rock.
Someone calling for attention. Someone from the backyard, throwing little rocks at the window.
Slow steps took you to the window, your trembling fingers barely moving aside the curtain, like if you touched suddenly it would burst into flames. It was a crazy feeling, losing your mind in a dark room with drowned, loud music coming from downstairs, like a bizarre, agitated nightmare.
Mark realized what was happening too, caughting on the noise and what it was. A weird, uneasy feeling filled him, an alarm of something’s wrong repeatedly going off in his brain. He tried to grab you and stop you, but you were already looking outside. ‘’No, no, wait—!’’
Kim Doyoung's pale, bloody face burned your mind once again.
Your first thought was that everyone was partying inside the frat house, unaware that somebody was hanging in the backyard, dead body balancing tied by the neck to a thick tree branch. A knife was buried in his chest.
Your scream didn’t come as you thought it would, loud and startled like other times. Instead, your hands covered your mouth harshly, a weak, low and terrifying sound leaving your lips in pure terror. It was like your voice gave up, squeezed in fear. You couldn't stop looking at the body moving slowly in the wind like a broken and abandoned doll, dripping blood until a small red pool formed on the ground below him. Doyoung’s blood.
Your body didn't register the arms turning you around and caging you, taking you away from the window as hysterical sobs started pouring out of you, barely listening to Mark or what he was saying as he held you into his chest. You didn’t see the expressions of any of them, missing the way their eyes filled with tears too, how they paled, how the fright mixed with sadness and pain seeing his friend like that. Like he was nothing but a show, some disgusted and weird exhibition.
‘’We gotta get the fuck out of here,’’ Mark said grimly, deep voice shaking a little has he watched out of the window, body tense. He closed the curtain and harshly cursed, brushing his hair back in an anxious way, his hands on you hardening their grab. ‘’Now.’’
‘’We have to call the police first,‘’ Donhyuck said, stepping back from the window too, turning and taking a deep breath. He turned around, facing the wall and squeezing his eyes shut. ‘’Fuck, this can’t be happening.’’
‘’The party’s still going, we have to tell them, it— the murderer could be here still,’’ Mark murmured, a flash of worry and desperation covered his eyes. You didn’t have to be a genius to know what was thinking, because it was the same as you. ‘’We have to stop the party, get everyone safe.’’
The people you knew, your friends— they all were coming to the party. Hanni, Renjun, Chenle, Sion, Yangyang, Taeyong, all the NCT members and so many other students. They were all out there, unknowing of the dead body outside, unknowing of a killer on the loose. The thought crushed your heart until it was something broken and anxious, but you refused to let your mind whorl in madness and fright. You had to calm down and think coldly.
You had to get your friends out of there, and you too.
‘’We already tried calling our friends! Nobody’s picking up,’’ Donghyuck muttered, tensing his jaw. He went back to his phone, the screen illuminating his face in the dark. ‘’They aren’t reading the group chat either.’’
‘’I haven’t— I didn’t call my friends,’’ you said, wiping your tears. ‘’I can try, I need my phone.’’
You hurriedly came out of Mark’s embrace, shakinly looking for your phone, lost and forgotten since entering the room earlier. You wiped more fresh, stressed tears and grabbed your phone, stilling when it started beeping with an upcoming call when you touched it. Your favorite song sounded so ridiculous in the middle of the situation, beeping loudly, like it was clowning you.
Unknown number.
‘’Don’t pick that shit up,’’ Donghyuck said suddenly, and none of you moved at all. You nodded your head, feeling in a fucking scene of a scary movie, your favorite one. Holding your phone felt as if you had a tiny, active bomb in your hands. The phone screen went dark and you held your breath, waiting. Please don’t ring again, you wished.
It lit up again with a new call almost immediately.
Unknown number. A second call taunting you, enlightening your stressed, teary face.
‘’I have to,’’ you whispered, closing your eyes with a sigh when your phone didn’t stop ringing with a third call. ‘’It won’t stop calling!’’
You swiped and put the phone in your ear, not trusting your voice, so you didn't talk. The line was in silence for a long second, making you think that maybe no one would say anything. Until an obscure chuckle from the other side broke it, making you close your eyes, a shiver traveling down your body. It wasn’t a normal voice, but that stupid voice modulator you started to despise distorting it.
‘’Did you like my scene? I wrote it with just you in my mind. Did I impress you, darling?’’
‘’W–who’s this?’’ You whispered, feeling your throat dry, voice breaking.
‘’Pf, that game is boring, don’t you think? I wanna play something else, something new,’’ the voice said, his tone distorted and harsh. ‘’Are you ready? Your big part is coming and I’m directing it, isn’t that great?’’
‘’You’re fucking crazy,’’ you muterred, trying to get your sobs at bay. You took a long, shaky breath, in an attempt to speak without your voice trembling, even if your tears were falling free. ‘’Why are you calling me?’’
‘’Don’t go ahead of the script, my perfect star,’’ the voice clicked his tongue, chucking in your ear. ‘’You can’t escape your next scene. And don’t be late, it’s gonna be real good.’’
The caller hung up the call, and you fought the tempting desire of throwing your phone against the wall, so done with those horrid games. Instead, you wiped your tears in an angry manner, cursing low.
Mark was the first to break up the silence, coming right in front of you. He took your hand, giving it a soft squeeze. ‘’What did it say?’’
‘’Something about scenes and a big part coming, he said he did this for me… I think’’ you responded, crossing your arms and nailing your fingers in your flesh, blinking rapidly to stop new tears from falling. ‘’I think he’s gonna k-kill again, whoever hurt Doyoung… it’s who’s calling too.’’
‘’You think… is the one who chased you the other day?’’ Donghyuck asked, looking at you as he stroked your back, trying to comfort you. He made a face when you whipped your head at him fast and gave him a serious and unimpressed look, caughting Mark's attention. ‘’Fuck. I guess you were right, love.’’
Mark looked at you confused first, then at his friend and his suspicions went up when he noticed Donghyuck’s body stilling immediately and more oddly, how his friend was silent and a little sheepish. ‘’What are you talking about?’’
‘’Someone chased me the other day with a knife,’’ you signed, rubbing your temples. ‘’I hid in a classroom and I ran into Donghyuck and told him and he said it was one of the guys and then…’’ you stopped talking, redding a little when you remembered what followed after. ‘’Um. That doesn’t matter.’’
Donghyuck cleared his throat and avoided Mark’s eyes on him. He just stared at Donghyuck, making a choked, unbelieving sound, big eyes full of incredulity. He took a deep breath. ‘’Hold on. Someone chase her with a knife and your first reaction was to fuck her in a classroom?’’
Donghyuck shaked his head, lifting his hands, defensive. ‘’Hey, I thought it was you chasing her, not a goddamn real killer! I thought you guided her there, it was the classroom I always study in!’’
Mark groaned, massaging the bridge of his nose, completely irritated and done with his friend. ‘’Dude. We agree we’ll give her a little thrill, not a fucking heart attack. Didn't it occur to you that it was too much? You see me chasing her with a knife?’’
‘’I thought you were free styling! We just agreed not to use the voice modulator on eachother, I didn’t think about another rule. Besides, I offered to go see but… we got distracted,’’ Hyuck said, giving you a side eye, making you blush even more. He cleared his throat again. ‘’A lot.’’
‘’So the killer has been playing with me too,’’ you said, nervously moving your eyes from one man to another. You frowned, confused and nervous. Since when? ‘’But why? What does he want from me?’’
‘’He has your number too,’’ Mark let out a heavy sigh. His hand squeezed yours. ‘’He must be the one who called you earlier. Fuck. I don’t like any of this.’’
Donghyuck tapped the bridge of his nose, thinking fast, disassembling everything that was happening. He had to think the whole thing logically, with a cold mind, and found the best solution. None of you could stay there all night or wait for the police, the killer could be out there and the frat house was full of possible victims, literally packed with people. Not to mention there was a dead body in the fucking backyard.
And what was worse, the killer already knew all three of you were in that room.
Mark and Donghyuck shared a look in the dark, both knowing damn well that they had another problem: the killer had an interest in you. He threw rocks at Donghyuck’s windows, so he must have known you were there with them. But how and why?
They both knew it was almost impossible to get hold of another member in a party like that, when everybody was drinking, smoking, dancing and even locked somewhere in the frat having sex. The last thing someone will do it’s check their phones. Time was running and they had to do something.
You cleaned the trait of tears off your face fast. ‘’Hyuck’s right, we have to call the police and let people know. We don’t even know what the killer has planned, we have to be fast.’’
Mark took a deep breath. ‘’Okay, we’ll go downstairs and stop the party, alright? Everyone must be drunk and God knows what else, maybe even half of the people here are high. So you stay here and—’’
‘’What? No! We can’t separate, we have to stick together,’’ you said, fists tightening at your side. ‘’Have you seen any horror movies? That’s when we’re the most vulnerable! It’s the most important rule.’’
‘’Sweetheart, this isn’t a horror movie,’’ Donghyuck muttered.
It isn’t?
‘’There’s no way you're going, it’s dangerous,’’ Mark said firmly, taking your arm and taking you to the bed to sit there. You pushed his hands, holding his gaze, defiant. ‘’If that fucker is still out there— I don’t want you to get hurt, you understand? You have to stay here, baby. This is the safest option.’’
His brown eyes softened and he cleared his throat, a rush of shyness crossing so fast his face you almost missed it, turning you shy too immediately. Donghyuck went to the small night table that was between his and Renjun’s bed, searching for something in the drawer while he looked at the both of you, trying not to chuckle at the moment and its tension, enjoying it.
Your posture softened because of his words, but you still speaked up your mind. ‘’Mark, that can’t be our plan. I can’t stay here and what? Wait for you or the killer to come find me?’’
‘’You can hide here, put one of the beds against the door. It’s the safest place right now, you wanna go out there? The killer could be anybody and be literally right down the corner,’’ Mark frowned, shaking his head. ‘’You’ll stay here, baby.’’
‘’I found it!’’ Donghyuck said suddenly, picking up something in his hand. He sat next to you, taking your hand and putting on the palm something small, made of steel, cold to the touch. You look curiously at the light swiss army knife you were holding, arching a brow towards Donghyuck and Mark.
‘’You can’t be serious.’’
‘’Oh, but I am. Listen, we obviously don’t have guns and our knives are fake,’’ Donghyuck started, pressing his lips together. His hands grabbed your shoulders, lowering his head a little so he could see more easily your eyes in the shadowy room. ‘’Except this one. If something happens,’’ he sighed loudly, like he was forcing those words, ‘’you have to be able to defend yourself, sweetheart.’’
You said nothing, tearing your eyes from him to watch Mark, who was pressing his tongue in his inner cheek, posture tense and arms crossed. Rubbing your face with one hand, you thought about everything. You just saw someone being murdered, but Mark and Donghyuck saw a friend, a big brother, hanging violently from a tree outside. People, your friends, you, were in danger.
Understanding filled you, why they wanted to do it their way, how they wanted to protect you. You didn't want to make things even more difficult than they already were, so you nodded tiredly, squeezing the swiss army knife one time and saving it inside the pocket of the hoodie you were wearing.
‘’For what you told us… I think this asshole wants something with you,’’ Mark said, kneeling in front of you. His hands caressed softly your thighs, taking the edge of the hoodie and slowly putting it down so it could cover you more. ‘’He called you, chased you and… made you look. You’re a target, baby. I don’t wanna scare you, but I don’t think you’re safe.’’
Your eyes filled with tears as you felt shivers down your body, his words making you tense. It was true and deep down you knew it. You were so close to getting caught by the killer, so many chances. But he didn’t take them when he could. Why that night? Why didn't it go after you another day, or kill you instead of Doyoung? What did it want from you?
You didn’t hear any people getting hurt on campus, let alone someone murdered. Why did the killer wait until Halloween? Why was Doyoung the first victim? How did he get your number?
The way he was calling you a star and talking about scenes, like he had everything planned. What was he about to do in the middle of a party? What did he wanted from you?
You kept your mouth shut and nodded your head again, tracing the form of the swiss army knife with your fingers.
‘’Good girl,’’ Donghyuck breathed, giving you a small kiss on your lips. He didn’t say it like before, laced with enticement and a promise of pleasure. It sounded more relieved and tender, fondness enveloping his voice. ‘’Don’t worry and stay here, we’ll be back quickly. Call campus security and they’ll call the police, we can’t keep losing time.’’
He let you go, taking a step back and moving towards the door, but before you could move Mark stopped you. He cladded your nape with one hand, face coming close to yours and lips kissing you softly, tasting the salty flavor of your tears in your mouth.
‘’Everything’s gonna be okay, baby. Lock the door and don’t go close to the window,’’ Mark said, eyeing your face. He gave you another quick kiss and he let you go, his expression twisting in something painful, anxious. ‘’Don’t go out and don’t let anybody in. Don’t— don’t hesitate on using that thing, alright?’’
‘’Okay,’’ you said, feeling the small knife in your pocket like it weighed thousands of bricks. ‘’Just—be careful, please.’’
He gave you a soft smile that didn’t reach his eyes and just like that both left, closing the door behind them. You locked the door quickly and stared at it, letting the numbness consume you for a moment.
Your fingers moved quickly, searching for campus security’s number in your phone, when something stopped you. It was the sudden silence that filled the house.
The music halted downstairs. No more beats rumbled in the walls, muffed but firm. The frat house was in silence for the first time in the night. You stayed there, looking at the door and trying to hear something, anything. You were frozen in place, ready to hear chaos and screams, surely some booing, so you waited with your heart beating heavily in your chest and anxiety running through your body. But no screams, no voices, no nothing. It was like everything just… stopped.
You pressed the number of campus security and waited for them to pick up, but the line was occupied. You tried again, but nobody answered, even trying a third. Fuck campus security, you thought as you ended typing 9-1-1, but before you could press call, a loud noise made you jump.
It came from downstairs, like something heavy fell, but you could distinct any voice following it. Curiosity burned inside you but you resisted the impulse to open the door, hand freezing on the handle, wondering what was happening downstairs. You were hoping so hard to hear Donghyuck and Mark voices, but silence reigned once again. With your heart racing, you flinched when your phone started ringing and quickly picked up, alarmed by how loud it was. Shit, shit, shit.
Unknown number.
‘’What?!’’ You whispered hard, tightening up your phone in your hand. ‘’What do you want?!’’
‘’Aw, is that a nice way to speak to me, bitch? I’m waiting for you, the camera’s are rolling. Where are you?’’
You bit your lip, swallowing the lump in your throat made of pure fear and exhaustion. ‘’Where are you? Are you still here?’’
‘’I knew you’d be difficult to work with. Come out and find me and in exchange I won’t take out your pretty friend’s guts, how about that? What a shame, really, but that’s what extras are for. I like her police outfit, but I think it lacks… some blood on it.’’
‘’Don’t even— don’t even dare touching her,’’ you sneered angrily, hands shaking, feeling like the room was spinning. ‘’Leave her alone!’’
‘’Come out or I’ll put it on speaker and you’ll hear all the cute noises she’ll make when she drowns in her own blood.’’
Before you knew it, you yanked the door open and ran the fastest your legs could take you through the hallway, thinking about Hanni the whole way. You didn’t even realize what you did until you got downstairs, panting and seeing everywhere like a maniac.
It was like you entered a goddamn desert zone in your nightmare, because no one was there. Nor the killer, not Hanni, nobody.
The place was empty.
It was like everyone had banished, but the party kept going. You walked slowly, your eyes catching bottles everywhere, colored lights still flickering, no music, nobody in sight, lights off. The small DJ booth was still there, connected and everything. But the frat house was in silence, an eerie feeling lingering in the air. Obviously, your paranoia and your fear were so familiar to you at that point that you were already on edge, thinking that at any moment something will jump in front of you and you had to be ready.
You wondered where Mark and Donghyuck were, but you didn't dare to shout their names, nor your friends, feeling like you were walking in a minefield. You didn’t know what time you’ll step on something and make your whole world explote. Or worse, when someone would come at you and stab you just like Doyoung.
The flash image of his dead body made you breath shakily, holding onto your phone like it was the last thing keeping you together. You walked to the kitchen, finding it empty as well, bottles and drinks abandoned everywhere. Your soul almost left your body when your phone rang again, but this time, you recognized the notification and quickly opened your group chat.
goat hanni: EVERYBODY REPORT !! goat hanni: seriously someone died in atz party evyrone is here im worried goat hanni: dont scare me are you guys okay?? pls respond junie: i know it was a friend of ning its fucking crazy junie: we’re ok we left right away im with yang too junie: nct nosy as fuck they all left the party teayong is freaking out
Your breath was punched out of your lungs as you read the messages over and over, hands shaking. Hanni wasn't in the NCT frat? Everyone just left? There was another murder in ATZ? You couldn't breathe or think, realizing the huge mistake you just made. It was a trap.
It was a trap and you were alone, out in the open. The killer wanted you out of the room and you just did it so easily, the regret sitting heavy in your chest and ready to suffocate you.
You were about to write what happened and ask for help, when a door closing loudly made you jump, but what was worse, someone came running from the aisle that connected it to the kitchen, tainting the floor with blood on his steps. A familiar voice shouted your name, freezing you on the stop as you looked at him horrified, his black costume waving with every step.
‘’Oh my God,’’ you whispered, feeling like your legs were about to give in at any moment. You saw the trace of blood Chenle left and the white mask he was holding, taking a step back and covering your mouth as you connected the dots.
Relieved filled Chenle’s face, even if his eyes showed fear. He kept coming close to you, lifting his arms like he was about to grab you.
‘’You’re here?! I can’t believe I found you! Holy fuck, listen! We have to get out of here, yeah? I—’’
You shook your head, putting distance between you and Chenle, his confused face breaking your heart. Who are you?
‘’Chenle, don’t come closer,’’ you eyed rapidly his frame, his Ghostface costume and bloody hands, your sobs making him even more baffled. ‘’Oh my God, it’s you!’’
The blood on him, on his steps, how he came from outside— he followed your eyes on him and started shaking his head, still coming towards you when he realized you were afraid, unaware it was him whom you were retreating to.
‘’No, no! Listen, this isn’t my blood! I just found Doy—’’
You choked, feeling a new wave of tears coming down your cheeks. ‘’Chenle, you— you did this? You k-killed Doyoung?’’
Chenle’s browns rose up and scowled at you, alarmed and disgusted, shaking his head. ‘’What?! No! I was in—’’
‘’Oh my God, they were right. You didn’t take him to the airport that day, didn’t you? Chenle, what the hell just do?!’’ You sobbed, walking backwards, your fright increasing when he kept following you. ‘’It was you this whole time?! This was your fucking prank?!’’
His face turned even more white as he noticed the state you were in, how you didn’t believe him, his eyes filled with confusion and hurt. He shouted your name, lifting his hands to his hair, brushing his blonde strands and staining them with blood, exasperated. ‘’What the fuck? Of course not! I didn’t do anything! I wasn't me who took Doyoung to the airport, it was—’’
You screamed completely startled when suddenly a dark figure came out from the pantry room in a flash and tackled Chenle’s body hard to the wall… with a knife deeply inserted in his stomach. Chenle’s pain screams mixed with your shocked ones and time froze as you saw horrified how his bloody mouth was moving, but you couldn't hear anything, your ears ringing like your head was under water.
You breathed, your body taking a step forward out of instinct but Chenle’s sudden clear voice stopped you, registering what he was shouting desperately at you, splashing blood from his mouth everywhere.
‘’RUN! JUST GO! RUN!’’
Ghostface lifted his head and faced you, making a show of slicing out his knife out of the body of your friend, who whined and coughed blood with a pool of the red liquid quickly surrounding the ground where his body slowly slided from the wall into a sitting position. The horrid sound of the knife leaving his body tore a disgusted, terrified whimper out of you as Chenle groaned in pain, his eyes clouded with tears, fluttering until they slowly closed. Ghostface cleaned the flesh blood out of his knife with his gloved hand and moved towards you fast, jumping Chenle’s unconscious body.
You ran.
You ran so fast and without direction, just letting your body guide you out of there, finally spiraling into deep hysteria. Adrenaline bumped into your body and fueled with energy and panic too, practically flying the stairs to the first floor. You weren’t really seeing, tears falling freely and desperately, realizing you were running through the stairs just when you reached the second floor, panting hard. You didn’t even look back, just kept going and trying every door that came in front of you in a frenzy, but no luck. All were closed.
‘’Fuck, fuck, please,’’ you cried silently, trying another door, pulling the handle with all your force, so overwhelmed with fear. You dared to look back, and took a shaky breath when no one was there. You stopped your movements and cleaned your tears, yelping when your phone started ringing again.
You looked at the hand that was holding it like it was something out of another world, shocked that you kept it the whole time and didn't drop it when everything went down. You eyed everywhere around you, trying to think. You needed to get out of there and your best bet was the window at the end of the aisle.
Your hands took the edge of the window and tried to lift it up, cursing under your breath as your phone kept ringing. You took it with an anguish groan, picking up the call. ‘’LEAVE ME ALONE!’’
The sound of clapping startled you, taking a whole second to realize it didn’t come from the call. You turned your head to see behind your shoulder, the figure of Ghostface down the hallway staring back at you. He lifted the voice modulator to the mouth of his mask, laughing as he saw how you were desperately trying to open the window, crying.
He started to walk towards you slowly, head tilted mockingly as he ran the tip of the knife against the wall as he came closer to you.
‘’You are really a star, aren't you? I knew you were perfect for this, I can’t believe I get to direct this! I can see the headlines already: Na Jaemin, genius director revives the genre.’’
Your movements stopped. What? You turned around one more time, shaking, seeing how Ghostface took off his mask and revealed his face. You could’t believe your fucking eyes. Na Jaemin stared right at you with a bright, big smile, his eyes shining but lacking any life in it. They were empty, black. Crazy.
He threw the voice modulator at your feet, laughing at your shocked expression.
‘’Surprise! Don’t you think this is the best joke ever? Fuck, this is gonna be everywhere. It was so fun tricking all of you.’’
‘’What the fuck did you do, Jaemin?’’ You whispered, blinking at the device on the floor. Your hands grabbed the window’s edge behind you, needing to hold onto something.
He took a step forward, looking at you curiously, studying you close. ‘’I just had to choose a costume and everyone followed. And what’s better than Ghostface, huh?’’
You tried to run past him but Jaemin tackled you to the nearest wall, body caging you. A wheeze left you when pain shot through your body, suddenly freezing when a sharp knife was pressed in your throat, right where your pulse was going crazy. The edge was still wet, dripping some blood, probably Chenle’s, and the through made you shiver, thinking about your friend.
For a moment you thought the wet feeling in your neck might be your blood as well because of how strongly Jaemin was resting the blade against your skin, only to realise it was your tears coming down your face.
Jaemin’s nose brushed against your cheeks, looking at you with a serious face. ‘’Don’t get me wrong. I don’t have anything against you, you know? You just came my way. I saw how much fun Mark and Donghyuck were having and well, if two can play, why not three?’’
‘’Jaemin… please, just… let me go, yes?’’ You whispered and breathed slowly, trying to stay calm even if you felt like you were about to faint. You sniffed a little, the movement making your skin brush against the edge of the knife. ‘’Please.’’
‘’You are such a perfect protagonist, really. You get so paranoid and scared. So dumb too,’’ his breath collided with yours when he chuckled. He smiled down at you, amused. ‘’But still there’s a small fire in you. I bet now you’re thinking which time it was me, isn't it? When was it Mark or Donghyuck? Who were you playing with each time? Or maybe… it was somebody else?’’
You tried to ignore him, but his words really sent you into a spiral. Even though you knew it was them calling you, you just had suspicions of who the caller was each time, small traces of their personalities coming to light. In the short time you had with them you didn’t confirm who it was every time.
Was your first call with Jaemin that same night? Or did you speak with him before? He was the one who chased you? Or like he said… somebody else?
Every time you saw a Ghostface on campus, every time you encountered him… you didn’t know who was underneath. Chills covered your body, thinking that maybe it was Jaemin all along? What time was Donghyuck or Mark watching you? He smiled even wider, seeing your doubtful expression and knowing that he planted that seed successfully.
You needed to gain time, making him talk. You swallowed and eyed him cautiously. ‘’Why did you kill Doyoung?’’
An annoyed, thoughtful look crossed Jaemin’s face. He huffed, maneuvering the knife so it pressed harder in your neck, making you whimper. ‘’You started to feel… predictable. Someone could call you or chase you around campus, and your reaction will be the same. You were getting used to it. Don’t take it personally, star, I enjoyed that day when I almost got you! But why end things there? That’s when I thought about what could make you more scared and unstable? A real slasher movie needs a murder, you know. C’mon, you gotta give me some credit.’’
More tears filled your eyes, thinking about Doyoung and Chenle. You imagined your innocent friend in the hallway, unmoving and bleeding. Dying. All alone, when he was trying to help you. You sobbed loudly, feeling a rush of anger and guilt burn in your chest.
‘’This is not a fucking game to begin with, Jaemin, you’re insane!’’ You sobbed, your hands trembling against your sides. ‘’This is not a movie, idiot! You killed real people— why!? How could you do this?! You know all of us!’’
‘’Thank you,’’ he breathed, laughing with his whole mouth open, porting that wild and big smile of his. ‘’I knew you could understand, I made quite the turn, huh? I layered everything carefully, a perfect script. Added a little disappearance here, some murder there. Your weird lovers aren’t guilty, not your precious Chenle. Poor him, it took nothing for all of you to lose the trust in him. That’s gotta be one awkward friendship break up…’’
‘’Shut up! Why are you doing this, Jaemin?’’ You whimpered, silently crying. ‘’Where’s Mark and Donghyuck?!’’
He ignored you, snorting. ‘’Darling, you don’t understand yet? I feel kinda insulted, after all you are a fan of the movies like me,’’ he tilted his head, frowning, ‘’you said it last year, remember? You sat next to me in the movie marathon. We talked about the whole franchise! So why don’t you like the movie I made? We’re the protagonists!’’
‘’H-how did you get Doyoung? Chenle was the one who had to take him to the airport and—’’
‘’Please, that was the easiest part, for fuck’s sake. I offered Chenle to exchange places. I would drive Doyoung to the airport and he would go with Jisung to buy more beer after I hid the stock in the basement,’’ he shaked his head, biting his lip, smiling like he was remembering that day. ‘’I just told him not to tell anybody, not Mark, not Taeyong, not Johnny so they wouldn't scold us. We take our voting really seriously, you know? That’s the column of the frat’s democracy.’’
‘’You’re a fucking psycho,’’ you sneered, clenching your teeth. ‘’You’re not getting away with this, Jaemin.’’
‘’But you like psychos, my pretty star. You think I don’t know you fucked them? You are a fucking fake fan, that’s what I know. You forgot about the rules! Only virgins survive,’’ he mocked you, smiling maniacally. He laughed when you gave him a dirty look, pressing your jaw so hard your teeth may break. ‘’I don’t see a timid virgin here, do you? That’s such a disappointment.’’
‘’Fuck you!’’
‘’That’s the fire I was talking about! And for the final scene… The pretty protagonist gets her throat sliced, how about that? Maybe get her body thrown out the second floor, or… maybe the third? No, wait, that would be too gory. The focus has to be the stabs and—’’
You weren’t listening anymore. Your hand was moving the whole time he was speaking, finally reaching the pocket in your hoodie, saying a silent prayer and hoping that what you were looking for hadn't fallen. Your fingers touched the Swiss army knife and you took it carefully, trying not to catch any attention with your movements or your face.
‘’Jaemin,’’ you interrupted him, looking him in the eyes. ‘’You’re forgetting something. The most important thing in slasher films.’’
Jaemin stopped talking, watching you a little puzzled, until his face morphed into fury and irritation, but still interested. He clearly didn’t like to be talked to like that. He licked his lips, arching a daring brow. ‘’Yeah? What is it?’’
‘’I’m not the non virgin who dies,’’ you whispered, hardening your hand on the knife you were holding. ‘’I’m a final girl.’’
You never hurt anybody in your whole life, neither considered yourself a violent or angry person and didn’t plan to become one too. But nothing in the whole universe, in all the years of your existence nor in your wildest dreams or nightmares, absolutely nothing could’ve prepared you for the exquisite pleasure and satisfaction that reached your soul for hurting Jaemin.
You stabbed the Swiss army knife into Jaemin’s groin with all the strength in your body, not stopping until you heard him screaming in pain and realised that you made it: the blade of the knife pierced the skin and the meat, sending a wave of nausea and disgust through you, but you pushed that feeling away. This was a low hit and you didn't stop until the blade was completely inserted in him, his blood dripping in your hand, and you twisted it even deeper, making him scream louder.
For a second you thought you’d get out of there without a scratch, but in the middle of the small chaos you created Jaemin’s knife did graze your neck a little, not cutting deep and deadly but enough to bleed.
You gasped, pushing him hard and Jaemin’s body gave up, completely weakened and falling into the ground with a loud bump, his hands grabbing his bleeding crotch, crying and cursing. His knife fell from his hand too and you didn’t waste a second on trying to pick it up before you ran again, except his leg kicked it right before you were about to touch it.
Your hands covered your bleeding neck trying to not panic, not having the time to think about it, adrenaline flooding your body so much you didn't even feel the pain of the cut. You had a chance and you took it, because you were completely lying on your flight mode at that moment, just thinking about getting out of there and getting help, no matter what it cost you. The killer was hurt and you were free.
You ran down the stairs again as fast as you could, like the devil was right behind you and about to steal your soul. You heard Jaemin’s groans of pain behind you and his attempts to stand out, but you didn’t look behind you not even once. You crossed the place straight to the kitchen, wanting to see Chenle and using the exit that you saw was open there, but you stopped right in your tracks when you didn't find him there.
There was just a pool of blood and a trace of it, like he was dragged on the ground.
You saw around you desperately, deciding to run down the hallway of the kitchen, to the door you saw Chenle use before. Freedom was so close to your fingers you could almost taste it, but of course destiny had other plans as a loud sound made you scream and cover your ears, having seen too many movies to realise that was a good damn gunshot. And it was too fucking close to you.
Another gunshot sounded even closer, stopping you right on your tracks. A hole was next to your head in the door frame.
You turned slowly with your heart jumping on your ribcage, out of breath and tired, seeing Jaemin at the end of the hallway with a gun pointing at you. He was slightly bending over, his effort to move was evident as he was bleeding pretty bad, swinging a little. You frowned when he made a show of showing you the Swiss army you stabbed with and threw behind him with a smug smile. Your stomach dropped to your feet. What scared you the most was his expression, wild and filled with hate.
He admired your bloody neck, eyes lazily traveling down your body. ‘’You look so good in red. It suits you, don’t you think?’’
‘’Jaemin, please,’’ you pleaded, pressing your hand harder on your neck, feeling a little dizzy. ‘’I’m sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you!’’ you lied, trying to convince him with teary eyes. Maybe acting like the poor virgin who didn’t want to die was a good idea. ‘’Just let me go, please.’’
He let out a heavy sigh, looking at you like you were the most disappointing thing in the world, face full of irritation and fury. You swallowed, knowing that you were cornered without an escape.
‘’I really didn’t want to use this, you know? It’s predictable and easy. Boring. And I hate that,’’ he sneered at you. He pointed the gun at you still, shaking his head with a buff. ‘’You can’t follow a script for shit, do you? You had to ruin my fucking creation. I cleared the whole set just for us and you didn’t give a fuck. You don’t act how I want you to.’’
You had to try another route, maybe gain some time. You didn't know Jaemin that well, just an acquaintance of yours, but he was friend’s with literally half the campus. That included the whole frat, as you knew he was good friends with Chenle, Mark and Doyoung, even Jeno was always attached to his hip. Jaemin to you was such a vibrant and social boy, handsome and popular too. How the hell did he end up like this?
You remembered his words, about how you sat next to him the year before during the movie marathon, how he looked so normal and calm. Both of you actually talked about various movies, especially Scream, but nothing he said or acted in that night striked you like the weird or violent type.
Jaemin smiled at you, falsely sweet. ‘’You ruining my fantasy, you know that?’’
You saw something moving behind Jaemin, approaching him slowly. You swallowed and tried to get your reactions at bay when you recognized who was, but still your eyes didn’t leave Jaemin, taking a deep breath and thinking of your next movement: distract him, play the role he wanted so bad.
‘’What do you mean?’’ You bitterly asked him, scoffing. ‘’You choose me and now you regret it?’’
Jaemin winced in pain but still didn’t lower his gun, gritting his teeth. His eyes were a little unfocused but still sharp, a glint of interest and pride on them. He smiled but it was full of venom, making another move with his gun, calling you over. You didn’t know if he was buying it or not, but you didn’t drop your act. You were gaining time for Donghyuck, who was still coming to Jaemin from behind silently.
‘’I chose you because there was no way you weren’t a prude virgin. Jeno tried to fuck for months and you never even looked his way,’’ he tilded his head to the side, giving you an annoyed look. ‘’I knew you were what my audience wanted, a perfect and pure girl, a tragic heroine. But you aren’t anything like that, are you? You have everyone fooled. You’re the slut that sees two stalkers and jumps into their beds like nothing!’’
‘’And that bothers you, Jaemin?’’ You barked, a rush of anger burning your veins.
‘’Yes! Nobody’s gonna cheer for you. You don’t follow the script, you don’t follow the patterns, you fucking stabbed me! You had to pay attention to me—’’
You laughed mockingly, surprising Jaemin. ‘’You love the rules, huh? But you’re the one who keeps forgetting them. You’re not important here, Jaemin. This is my movie, asshole.’’
Donghyuck launched himself from behind and tackled Jaemin, slamming him to the ground, the gun he was holding flying from his grasp. It was like seeing rabid dogs going at each other, both struggling as they landed hard and brutal punches on the other. Jaemin was saying something but honestly you couldn't understand, the groans and screams of pure fury coming from Donghyuck surprising you for a moment, the calm and smiley man you were used to seeing completely erased.
You immediately ran towards the gun on the ground and grabbed it, pointing at the two bodies moving on the ground frantically, trying to get a good point to shot Jaemin, but it was impossible. A whimper left you when Jaemin sent a rough punch in Donghyuck’s stomach, gaining the winning hand in the fight and pushing him off his body. Even wounded like he was, he managed to climb on Donghyuck and took out a knife hidden in his costume, aiming for his chest while screaming maniacally.
Your eyes followed the knife Jaemin was holding in slow motion.
Donghyuck was still under him and you knew right there that if you didn’t do something, that would be a lost battle. It was clear that Jaemin was about to kill him too, and you couldn't allow that. Surprisingly, your hand didn’t tremble when you lifted up the gun decisively and pointed to the perfect target, Jaemin’s back. He was completely exposed and so drunk in power and adrenaline that he didn’t see it coming, the way you stood up your ground and took a breath, pulling the trigger with no doubt.
Two loud shotguns landed on Jaemin's back and you inhaled shakily realizing you were the one who shot him. Jaemin received the force of the shots and shook him off his balance and for a moment he didn’t know what happened. Not until a burning pain filled his body and made him cry in pain, Donghyuck taking the opportunity and pushing him off him hard, sending Jaemin to fall sideways coughing blood and shivering in misery until his eyes fell shut slowly.
The room was in silence once again, the only noise being both of you and Donghyuck’s ragged breaths, taking in what the hell you just did. He seemed stunned for a second, unhurriedly sitting up and wincing as he grabbed his side, hissing with a grimace.
You were about to run towards him, but suddenly a hand landed on your shoulder from behind and you screamed loud and jumped, startling Donghyuck too and making him scream as well, shouting ‘’wait, wait!’’ when you turned around ready to shoot another threat, but stopped yourself when you encountered Mark, looking startled.
His clothes were stained with blood and some bruises started to form in his face, but you didn't care as you threw yourself at him hugging him tightly. Mark hugged you just as tight, his hands roaming your body as he signed with relief.
‘’Fuck, you’re okay. I got you, baby,’’ he whispered in your ear, brushing your hair back tenderly. ‘’You did so well, pretty girl. It’s over.’’
‘’Uh, hello? I’m still down here,’’ Donghyuck said with a snort, sending you and Mark a look that seemed like a warning of an upcoming temper tantrum. ‘’Right next to the fucking killer who tried to kill me, you know.’’
‘’Oh my God, are you okay?’’ You asked, going rapidly in his direction and wobbling a little in your step as another rush of dizziness hit you. Mark tried to grab you but you were already kneading on the floor, hugging Donghyuck tight but immediately letting him go when he whined in pain. ‘’Sorry!’’
‘’Just— I think he fucked up my ribs,’’ he groaned, his arm still surrounding you and pushing you to his body. He inhaled sharply, studying up close the wound on your neck. ‘’Sweetheart, fuck, you’re bleeding a lot.’’
‘’It’s okay,’’ you said, blinking at Jaemin not far away, still unmoving on the floor. ‘’We have to get out of here.’’
Donghyuck followed your stare and frowned. ‘’Shot him in the head,’’ he suggested.
‘’WHAT?!’’ You and Mark said at the same time, looking at him like he was insane for saying that.
‘’Dude, are you crazy? He-he’s Jaemin, our friend! We can’t kill him just like that,’’ Mark shouted, disturbed at the idea and shaking his head.
‘’Our friend?! I’m sorry, maybe I have a concussion but this isn’t the same Jaemin that been chasing us with a fucking knife?’’ Donghyuck shouted as well, grimacing once again as he holded the right side of his ribcage. ‘’The bastard tried to kill us all! He’d been on a good damn killing spree tonight! Pretty successfully, I may add.’’
‘’Mark’s right, we can’t kill him, let’s just— let’s call the police and wait for them. We don’t even know if he’s alive, we should… take his pulse, maybe,’’ you bit your lip anxiously, still looking at Jaemin’s body.
‘’Love, are you really a Scream fan?’’ Donghyuck rolled his eyes with a snort. ‘’I saw all the movies just because of you and I learned some rules, alright? You should know this, shot the killer in the head so he can’t come back.’’
Mark groaned, coming closer to both of you so he could help Donghyuck stand up. ‘’Haechan, fuck, this is real life, not a movie! Listen, I know that what happe—’’
Jaemin’s body shot up from the ground, screaming and lifting his knife again, making all of you screaming in surprise. You didn’t even think as you raised the gun that was still in your hand and unloaded all the rest of the bullets on Jaemin, shooting at him frantically. His body shook with each bullet entering his chest and stomach, making a mess of blood everywhere. He landed on his back, his pretty, big eyes wide open and fixed on the ceiling, completely still. Dead.
‘’Told you,’’ Donghyuck broke the tense silence, his hand gently taking the gun out of your hand. He laced his fingers with yours, eyeing how pale you and Mark looked.
It turned out that Jaemin played everyone, including his friends. When your lovers (boyfriends?) went downstairs, they found the frat house empty, interrupted with the horrifying news of somebody killed in ATZ and discovered in the middle of their party. The gossip spread around campus like a forest fire until it reached the NCT party, and of course everyone wanted to go there and see it for themselves.
Mark and Donghyuck encountered a frantic and teary Jaemin that told them about it, the bastard convincing them to come with him outside, where he assured them Taeyong and Johnny were, sending him to try and locate the pair. None of them thought that Jaemin was the killer, so when he took out a gun out of nowhere and threatened Mark to shoot Donghyuck in the head if none of them entered the little trap that he prepared before: the outside basement.
Jaemin took their phones and threw them in the pool of Doyoung’s blood not that far away after he locked them up in the basement, smiling at the way his plan was advancing, now with you all alone in the house. Maybe he could even incriminate them.
What Jaemin didn’t take into account was the desperation and anger Mark and Donghyuck had, so even if it took the whole night they'd get out of the dusty basement no matter what. It took various attempts to kick the door open, but to their surprise that wasn't the way they got out of there. Miraculously, a very worried Taeyong had come back to the frat house and heard the screams coming from the basement, and after what happened in ATZ that night something didn’t sit right with him, so of course he opened the door when recognized Mark and Donghyuck voices.
Mark sent Donghyuck and Taeyong for help and to call for the police after explaining everything rapidly, running inside the frat house fearing for the worst. His soul almost left his body when he saw Chenle laying down on the ground, bleeding and wounded, and he dragged out of there after checking his pulse.
Of course Donghyuck could’t listen and take directions well and regretted leaving Mark alone, so he came back immediately, sneaking from Taeyong. He had found a hysterical Mark doing CPR to an unresponsive Chenle in the backyard, pushing his hands on his chest desperately.
‘’So that’s when you find me?’’ You asked, looking at Donghyuck.
You were sitting in the middle of them, Donghyuck to your right and Mark on the left in an ambulance. The three of you were patched up, covered in dry blood but out of danger according to the paramedics, even if you were being taken to the hospital for blood loss and Donghyuck too for apparently some bones broken in his hand and ribcage.
Police filled the campus and the frat house, or what it became: a huge crime scene. A lot of curious students couldn't believe what happened that night, between that and the body found in ATZ. The police were enclosing the crime scene rapidly, dispelling curious and morbius students too that were watching Taeyong’s statement to an officer as they took out Doyoung and Jaemin’s bodies, sparking more rumours and gossip around campus. Everyone was shocked about their deaths, even if details weren’t revealed to the public yet, but people talked a lot, speculating.
Donghyuck nodded, smiling at you. ‘’I heard you and Jaemin by the backyard door, so I went around and entered by the west’s entrance. It’s we don’t use it but it’s never closed, he must forgotten to lock it.’’
‘’Please, next time let’s just do a normal date,’’ you said, sighed deeply with your eyes closed, so tired. ‘’No more thrill experiences or whatever.’’
‘’That’s a good idea,’’ Mark chuckled, his hand caressing your knee underneath the blanket you were wrapped in, grimacing when the minimal effort sent a shock of pain in his body. Jaemin had given Mark a strong punch that sent him flying into the basement with a hard fall, taking Donghyuck with him down the stairs as well.
‘’Now you have to pick another favorite movie,’’ Hyuck said, grimacing when chuckled too, taking your hand with his. Mark snorted next to you. ‘’One that won’t inspire an obsessed killer with you, love.’’
‘’Dude, I don’t wanna see another damn Ghostface mask ever again,’’ Mark said, closing his eyes, head falling back with a groan. He moved, resting his cheek on your shoulder carefully. ‘’I’m burning this costume tomorrow.’’
‘’Any recommendations?’’ You asked them, smiling faintly. The painkillers they gave you were really working, taking away the pain and the dizziness. Now you felt like floating, letting the shock setting in too, mind blank. ‘’I was thinking of a kids movie. Frozen?’’
‘’That’s a good option. Let’s check. You think someone could dress as Olaf and try to get us all killed with a frozen carrot?’’ Donghyuck asked you, and you laughed, hard, feeling so tired and actually fucking traumatized, but unable not to laugh. You had to.
You were alive, after all. You had seen so many horribly things that night, and you were forced to kill too. But you did it to save other lives. And that was something you didn’t regret. ‘’Maybe someone will try and suffocate us in snow,’’ you thought out loud, making Donghyuck laugh a little and then whine in pain.
‘’Hey, you two, stop it. This is over for good,’’ Mark said softly, taking your hand and giving it a soft squeeze. ‘’No more murder attempts, alright? Just us normal dating.’’
‘’We’ll have to wait and see. There’s always a sequel,’’ you joked.
(‘’You’re laughing. I’m crying because you almost died, Jaemin was a serial killer, Doyoung is dead and my friends had a threesome in my bed and you’re laughing.’’
‘’I’m so glad I didn’t die,’’ Chenle smiled, all giggly, possibly because of all the good shit they were giving him, making him feel cloudy and nice, ‘’because you’re missing the best part! Remember that expensive Swiss army knife you gifted Hyuck for his birthday? When he went through his weird phase of camping and shit.’’
‘’Yeah…?’’
‘’That thing ended up balls deep in, literally and ironically, Jaemin’s balls.’’
‘’I’m gonna kill you,’’ Renjun deadpanned.)
FAIRYTALE HELL ASTEROID. | LEE DONGHYUCK.
genre | fluff, angst, romance, slow burn au, collage au, strangers to friends to lovers au, implied rich kid au, implied opposite attraction
synopsis | having accepted your professor’s request to group with donghyuck for the final project, your unfiltered demeanor appeared to have piqued his interest. and through his impenetrable persistence, donghyuck slowly came to realize his liking for you was no longer just a personal challenge.
word count | 40.7k+
warning | mention of parental negligence, mention of domestic abuse + a brief scene of domestic abuse, mention of alcohol + alcohol addiction, argument between friends
note | if you have seen this story up on another blog before, no you haven’t (/ω\) anyway, see you 50 years later for part two!
parts | one, two, three
There was something weird about seeing your professor in real life after spending so long looking at her through your laptop screen. You knew they were the same person and, technically speaking, even with the alteration of room lighting and camera angles, her features should not change too much. But you still thought the resemblance to be uncanny when you first walked into the classroom of this (almost) strictly online class.
Your mind didn’t dwell too much on the matter. For sure, it was all you could debate about in your head during the start of the class when she was still giving time for the classroom to be filled: how come she looks exactly the same on screen? Her hair is braided the same way as her last lecture video, how weird.
Keep reading
AS THE SEASONS GO BY — LMK
PAIRING: mark x female reader SUMMARY: it takes a full cycle through the earth's seasons for you to come to terms with how you feel about mark lee. GENRE: friends to lovers! au, college! au, romance, humour, fluff, pining, some angst WARNINGS: swearing, alcohol consumption, sex jokes, stats jargon, ryujin x haechan, brief mark x lia, mark is kinda an asshole in the middle (sorry) WORD COUNT: 20.2k NOTE: jesus christ this took me forever to get out. since i started working on this i've moved out, graduated, started a new job twice, and picked up bouldering (quarter life crisis indicator). my writing has gotten pretty rusty since i finished thesis work, hence why this has been 11 months in the making. hope it doesn't disappoint too much :)
It was spring when you first made the acquaintance of Mark Lee.
Or, as you had known him then, the middle one in the second row trio.
Specifically, it was a Wednesday afternoon at the tail end of March, four weeks into the spring semester. Tutorials for most courses had started the previous week, and you found yourself sitting in front of the same computer as you had been last Wednesday, waiting for your tutor to arrive.
As luck would have it, the only time slot that fit your schedule had to be the one in the (supposedly) haunted computer lab, down in the basement of the data science building. The haunted part didn’t bother you as much as the basement part did — no windows, no natural light, and a faint musty smell that had to be an indicator of health-jeopardising mould.
Dear god, this building needed some renovations. What else were your student loans good for?
The centuries-old door to the room creaked open and you looked up, expecting to see the haggard face of your tutor. Not only did the room suck, but the post-grad statistics student assigned to this time slot wasn’t much help either. Last week, he flicked through the slides of the first tutorial pack like it was a Formula One race, and spent the rest of class silently typing away on his own laptop while the rest of you tried to make sense of the content he had whizzed through.
Your hopes for an engaging and informative second tutorial were not high.
However, it wasn’t the face of your tutor that peeked out from behind the ancient door.
It was a familiar face though. You had seen him at the lectures for this subject a few times since the start of the semester. Usually, you could find him at the front of the auditorium, sitting in the second row, and always sandwiched between two boys who you had come to refer to in your head as Moles and Teeth.
Thus, middle one in the second row trio.
You needed to come up with a shorter nickname.
“Hey, uh, is this the tute for—” he paused to glance at his phone “—DATA1002?”
He was met with a sad chorus of yeses and other affirmative sounds. It seemed everyone else in this time slot had also pulled the short end of the timetabling stick.
Middle one’s big brown eyes scanned the room and zeroed in on the only unoccupied computer left, which just so happened to be next to you.
“Hey,” he greeted, sliding into the seat beside you, all smiles and pearly teeth, as if you were good friends, and not two people acknowledging each other’s presence for the first time ever. “Did we get up to a lot last week? I had to miss the first tute.”
You were not used to seeing him without the bread pieces of his human sandwich. He looked like he was missing something, somehow.
“Not too much,” you replied after a beat, still trying to adjust to the friendliness that just seemed to exude off this guy. “We went through the tutorial slides. It was pretty much just revision of the lecture content. The pack’s on the Canvas tutorial page, if you haven’t found it yet.”
“Okay, cool. I looked through it already, so I should be good.” He reached down to pull his laptop out of his bag before flashing you another grin. “Thanks dude.”
You gave him a smile that said no problem, though with far less enthusiasm. The mould in this dungeon of a computer lab was getting to you already.
“Oh, I’m Mark, by the way. Mark Lee,” he added.
At least you had gotten the first letter right.
“Hi Mark,” you said, introducing yourself.
Your tutor chose that moment to make his entrance, impossibly even more exhausted than he had been last week. The life of an academic had to be dire if this was what they looked like.
In addition to the tutorial slides, he had brought along another friend — a stack of worksheets, which were passed around the room with the solemnity of a death sentence. Luckily, the slide pack was short, sparing you from having to read the screen at the speed of light.
The focus of today’s lesson was the worksheet, comprising a few problems using the statistical software mentioned in this week’s lectures. Standard stuff, thank god. There would be no need to ask the tutor for help in class today.
It was just as well, because you didn’t want to call him by the wrong name (you were about 80% sure his name was Kun, or something else starting with K), and he was not old enough for you to be addressing him by ‘sir’.
You made quick work of booting up the software on the campus computer, and following the steps listed on the worksheet to produce the required output. Just as you were filling out the table in question 5, there was a light tap on your shoulder.
“Hey.”
It was midd—Mark.
“You kinda look like you know what you’re doing,” he began, a sheepish smile on his face. This guy was always smiling. “Do you think you could help me out?”
You peered at his worksheet, where he had jotted down his name in the top right corner, and a few equations under question 1 that looked like they had been mistranslated from some ancient hieroglyphic text.
There was a moment where you considered passing him off to Kun, because wasn’t that what the tutor was supposed to be doing anyway? Helping students with their questions? A quick glance towards the front of the room afforded you the sight of the post-grad hunched over his own laptop, the frown on his face so deep you wondered if he was having a facial muscle spasm.
Better leave him be.
“Sure,” you finally agreed. It would do you some good to explain things to someone else anyway.
Mark flashed you a grateful smile and shifted his worksheet on the desk so that you could properly read what he had written.
“So this one here, you need to calculate standard deviation, so you’ll need to use the population mean, not the observed score.”
“Oh.” He paused, blinking a few times. “Are they different numbers?”
Oh boy.
By the time you reach the end of the first section, Kun (you were almost certain of his name now) was already packing up his laptop and turning off the projector.
You looked around the room, finding that most of the other students had left already. The next group of unfortunate souls to enter the lab were already waiting outside obediently, faces long and pinched at the thought of having to spend the following two hours in this dark and damp-smelling prison of a classroom.
“We should probably leave. The next class is here,” you said, logging off from the lab computer.
Mark’s head turned towards the door. “Oh shit, I didn’t realise class was over already.” He flicked a glance down at your worksheet, which had remained untouched ever since he tapped you on the shoulder. “Sorry I took up all your time.”
“It’s fine,” you replied off-handedly, sticking the papers into your tote. You could work on them later. Right now, your priority was getting the hell out of this lab and booking it across campus to your microeconomics lecture.
He was quick to follow, shoving his things into his bag with considerably less care and trailing after you as you made a hurried exit from the room.
“Can I get you a coffee or anything? Just as a thank you for today.”
This guy must have a ton of friends.
You stopped on the landing at the top of the stairs, looking down at him. He did have pretty eyes. From this angle, they were big, and round, and there was a kind of twinkle about them, though that could’ve just been a reflection of the fluorescent lights in this underground bunker.
“I’ve got class now, so maybe another time,” you said.
“Okay.” Mark smiled. Nothing ever seemed to faze him. “I’ll see you next week, then.”
“See you next week.” With that, you pushed open the door and stepped out into the spring sunlight.
Wonderful, mold-free, fresh air. You’d never take it for granted again.
True to his word, you did see Mark next week, though you didn’t have to wait until Wednesday.
Mark spotted you as you walked into the lecture hall the following Monday, at precisely 8:57am. (Yes, the lecture had a 9am start. DATA1002 was seriously the stuff of nightmares.)
Your friend and roommate Ryujin squinted at the front of the auditorium.
“What did you say his name was again? Michael?”
“Mark,” you corrected, returning his enthusiastic wave with a much smaller one of your own. He had way too much energy for a Monday morning.
Ryujin made a proud little noise. “Hey, at least we had the first letter right. What about the other two?”
“No idea. They’re still Moles and Teeth to me.”
Mark was beckoning you over now, drawing the attention of both Moles and Teeth, who turned around, eyes pointed in your direction.
“I think, maybe, he wants you to go sit with them,” Ryujin said. You could hear the shit-eating grin in her voice without even having to look at her.
There was no way you could pretend you hadn’t seen him, not when you had made eye contact and waved back to him already. You looped an arm around Ryujin’s and tugged her along as you made your way down the rows.
“You’re coming with me,” you said to her through your teeth, mouth fixed into a smile as you approached the front.
Thankfully, she didn’t put up much of a fight. As usual, Mark was in the middle, sandwiched between the two boys you didn’t know. To avoid sitting next to a stranger and speaking over them, you shuffled into the third row, situating yourself directly behind the trio.
“Hey, you’re here!” he greeted, his smile as radiant as ever.
You gave him one back, though yours only had half the voltage. “Well, it is class time.”
On his left, Moles choked down what sounded like a laugh.
“Oh, this is Haechan and Jaemin, by the way. My roommates.” No wonder they always came to class together. You and Ryujin introduced yourselves as you settled into your seats (by this point in the semester you were well-versed in the torturous exercise of self-introductions).
“My friend, from the Wednesday tutorial,” Mark explained, because apparently that was what you were now. “She basically saved my life last week. Pulled me out the deep end.”
Haechan (Moles) gave you an awe-filled look. “Do you have space for one more on your lifeboat?”
Thankfully, you were saved from answering by the arrival of Professor Oh. Today’s lecture was fairly straightforward, following on from last week’s content on population variance. Being an econometrics major, numbers and mathematical concepts came easily to you. An hour later, at the conclusion of the lecture, there was a remarkable absence of lines between your brows compared to the three boys in front of you.
“I’ll see you later. I’ve got my modelling lecture,” Ryujin said, giving you a quick side hug.
Haechan turned around and surveyed her with curiosity. “You’re a model?”
Ryujin flashed you a loaded look.
“Uh—“
“I think she means statistical modelling, genius,” Jaemin (Teeth) quipped.
Haechan leaned back in his seat and let out a strung-out whine. “Guys, I really think we picked the wrong subject.”
Ryujin received an enthusiastic string of ‘nice to meet you’s before she was off. Haechan mumbled something about being flogged by this week’s tute, to which Jaemin replied something along the lines of keeping his BDSM fantasies out of data analytics, and then both of them were gone too.
“Do you have class now?” Mark asked, startling you slightly. He had walked out of the lecture hall with you, and seemed to be in no rush to be anywhere else.
“No, actually, I was just about to get something to eat. Haven’t had breakfast yet, so…”
He perked up. “Me neither,” he said, as if the empty status of your stomach was the greatest news he had heard all morning. “My friend works at the cafe by the quad. We can go and see if he’s on today.”
You wondered if this friend fit closer to his definition of the word, or yours.
“Plus, I can make good on that coffee I promised you. Seriously dude, I would have been lost without you last week.”
One thing you were learning about Mark — he was insistent, but you had decided there was something endearing about it.
You followed him to The Milk Bar, a cosy little coffee shop tucked away in the corner of one of the buildings lining the quadrangle. The smell of fresh coffee grounds hit you hard and fast as he pushed the door open, and you felt the seedling of an incoming headache disappear almost immediately. Such were the healing powers of Arabica beans.
“Jungwoo, dude, good to see you,” Mark grinned at the boy manning the counter. The cafe was still relatively quiet for the mid-morning, with few other customers around to complain while the two boys gave each other the universal bro-handshake-greeting. You and Jungwoo exchanged yet another round of introductions (you had definitely said your own name too many times for one day).
“My friend from that data course I’m taking,” Mark added, gesturing at you.
The more he said it, the more you were starting to believe that you were, in fact, friends. Nevermind that your supposed friendship had only started 5 days ago, during the course of which you had spoken at Mark for an hour while he made confused faces that slowly turned into understanding faces.
“Hey, any friend of Mark’s is a friend of mine,” Jungwoo said, smiling at you kindly. “But dude, my manager found out I wasn’t charging you and I got chewed the fuck out,” he lamented.
Mark sucked in a breath. “Oh shit, dude, my bad. You didn’t have to do all that.” He paused to let out a chuckle. “And all this time I thought The Milk Bar just had the cheapest sandwiches on campus.”
The two of you found a table under the awnings by the quad, and just in time too. The cafe had begun to fill up in the time it had taken the two of you to order. You nibbled at the raspberry and white chocolate muffin that Mark had so kindly paid (full price) for, despite your insistence on covering your own. He happily munched away at a club sandwich, and you could’ve sworn he was humming to himself with each bite.
“How come you’re in the Wednesday tute? I thought you would’ve wanted to be with your friends,” you asked, sipping on the iced latte he had bought for you.
This place was good. You might even need to make the switch from your regular joint permanent.
“I forgot to put my timetabling preferences in on time,” he explained, pulling a face. “My schedule for this sem is seriously messed up. On Mondays I have class at 9, and then nothing until 4 in the afternoon. What am I supposed to do for the 6 hours in between?”
You couldn’t help but smile. Mark opened up to people like a well-oiled hinge. It came naturally to him in a way that you couldn’t quite fathom, but there was something comforting about how easily he could make you feel like a member of his private and inner world.
“You could study. Maybe. Just an idea.”
He shot you an unimpressed look, but it soon gave way to another smile.
“Thank you for helping me though, seriously. This is my first time taking one of these data courses, and like, numbers and equations just really aren’t my thing.”
“It’s no problem at all,” you waved him off. “I get that it’s not really intuitive if you’ve never done it before.”
“Yeah,” he agreed wistfully. “You really do seem to get it though. And your friend as well.”
“Ryujin and I are both econometrics, so it’s basically like a second language.”
“That makes sense,” he nodded, chewing thoughtfully. The slight pout he sported while he ate was kind of cute. “I’m a creative writing major, so this stuff is like a whole new world to me.”
You stared at him.
“You’re a creative writing major.”
He nodded.
“And you’re taking Foundations of Data Analytics.”
He nodded again.
“…Why?”
The bluntness of your question didn’t seem to bother him at all.
“I thought it could be interesting,” he shrugged. “And it seems like something I should probably know a little bit about. You know, in a world that’s becoming increasingly digitised everyday.” He paused to take a solemn sip of his americano. “Everything we do becomes a data point. And it takes all of those data points to tell a good story.”
“Okay, yeah, I’m hearing the creative writing come through,” you laughed. “What about your friends? Something tells me Haechan isn’t really a numbers guy either.”
“He’s a music major. And Jaemin’s physiology.”
You raised an eyebrow. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but it doesn’t sound like any of you really need to know what sample spread is.”
Mark stopped chewing, suddenly turning serious, and set the rest of his sandwich back down on the table.
“Don’t laugh,” he prefaced, but the mere warning itself was enough to have the corners of your mouth turning upwards. “We kind of have this bet going on.”
Ah, yes. The competitiveness of university-aged boys was not lost on you.
“Each semester, we agree on one elective that all three of us have to take, and then whoever scores the worst at the end of the sem has to carry out a punishment,” he explained. “This sem, the loser has to shave their head.”
“That certainly sounds… interesting.”
“Last sem we picked Intro to Psychology. Haechan lost by a mile and had to get a full body wax.”
“When you say full body…”
He nodded gravely. “Brazilian included.”
You pressed your lips into a thin line in an effort to keep the laugh locked away.
“Shaving your head sounds pretty tame in comparison, I have to admit,” you said, after making sure you weren’t at risk of any unwanted giggles escaping. It was really Mark’s fault for airing out his friend’s business with no warning.
He sighed. “You’re right. But I really don’t want it to be me this time.” He paused, carefully patting around his head. “Shaving my head will make it look even bigger than it already is.”
“Having a big head only means you have a big brain,” you grinned, watching as the slight frown on his face smoothed out at your words.
“I like the sound of that,” he said, cheeks raised in a happy smile. “But I mean, I’d rather just do well in this course, or at least better than both of them, and avoid having to shave my head altogether.” He flashed you a hopeful look.
You were quick to catch on to the pleading glint of his big, round eyes.
“And you want my help.”
He nodded sheepishly.
“Is this why you wanted to buy me coffee so badly? You’re trying to bribe me with iced lattes and raspberry white choc muffins so I’ll be your personal data tutor?” you accused, though you were smiling. The joking undercurrent to your voice rang out loud and clear.
“You got me,” he confessed, throwing his hands up in surrender. “Is it working though?”
You brought a hand up to your chin, pretending to think. “Maybe. Just a little.”
There was something inviting about Mark Lee, you decided. Perhaps it was the sincerity that just seemed to radiate off of him (you doubted he ever did anything half-assed). Perhaps it was the fragment of reflective wisdom underlying his friendly nature that you had only caught a glimpse of. Something about him had you thinking he’d be a good person to keep around.
“I’ll help you,” you said, biting back a smile at his celebratory fist pump, “but I have one condition.”
“Anything, dude.”
“Please never tell me about either of your roommates’ special parts ever again.”
Mark broke out into a fit of pitched giggles that echoed across the quad. It was a captivating noise. You’d never heard someone laugh with such conviction before.
“Deal.”
It was summer when you came to know the taste of Mark’s friendship.
And what a sweet taste it was.
Mark approached the world with an unadulterated curiosity. It was the kind of curiosity that many people lost as they gained a greater understanding of the world, yourself included, but Mark had never relinquished that child-like thirst for knowledge, the desire to learn and fill his life with new experiences.
He was clever, contrary to what he’d have you believe. Mark’s wisdom took a different form from yours. His empathy knew no bounds, and he had a way of tapping into the emotions that were so inherent to human nature.
Above all, he always strived to see the good — in things, in people, in the world.
What an incredible thing that was.
“Oh my god, dude, you’re a lifesaver,” was his exalting greeting as he pulled open the door.
“Me and Ryujin basically cleared the shelves at the convenience store on the corner,” you said, passing the bag into his waiting hands as you bent down to untie your shoes. “Asahis and Guinness in my bag.”
“Heinekens and extra Jinro in mine,” Ryujin added, handing her bag over as well. “Birthday boy will be spoiled for choice. He gets so whiny when he doesn’t have his beers.”
You and Mark exchanged a look. Then he ushered the both of you in, shutting the door with his foot, and disappeared into the kitchen to put the goods in the fridge.
The smell of greasy pizza and fried chicken was a welcome and familiar one to their shared apartment, judging by the handful of times you had been over to study with Mark. (You preferred the library — Haechan’s presence was too distracting.)
Bruno Mars was playing at a respectable volume from the speaker system — a surprisingly sophisticated piece of hi-fi furniture for an apartment inhabited by three university boys. Hopefully a noise complaint would not be on the agenda for today. Someone (you suspected Jaemin) had connected their laptop to the television, which was currently cycling through a slideshow of baby kittens, each transition more ridiculous than the last. You watched as one kitten bounced out of frame and another zoomed in, the image expanding as it spiralled in the centre of the screen.
Above everything hung a string of gold foil balloons that spelled out HBD NAHCEAH, and then in smaller balloons below, FUCK DATA1002.
The birthday boy spotted you and Ryujin and immediately bounded over. “Wassup wassup?” Haechan greeted. “The nerds have arrived!”
“The balloons were your idea?” you asked, begrudgingly taking the party hat he thrust into your hands.
“Of course,” he beamed, chest puffing with pride, though the smile quickly dropped. “Can you believe it’s the only subject I had to take an exam for this sem? Like seriously, fuck DATA1002.”
Ryujin snickered. “But does DATA1002 want to fuck you?”
“Shut up. No slandering the birthday boy on his birthday at his birthday party.”
“Your birthday was two weeks ago, dumbass,” she fired back.
“Yeah, it was, and you know why I couldn’t celebrate my birthday on my actual birthday? Because I was studying for that stupid exam. So it’s fuck DATA1002, now and forever.”
You slowly stepped away as the two of them continued to bicker, watching as Haechan nearly lost a hand in the process of forcibly trying to get the party hat over Ryujin’s head. Mark appeared at your side, handing you an ice cold Asahi that he had uncapped for you. You accepted with grateful hands and clinked the bottle against his awaiting one before taking a cold, refreshing sip.
“Do you see what I mean? There’s something more to their dynamic,” you deduced. “They get into it too easily.”
Mark made a contemplative noise. “I honestly think he likes it when she threatens him. He gets that weird look in his eyes.”
“That’s what I’m saying.”
“But then again, he makes that same face at me when I yell at him to do the dishes,” he added, sounding unconvinced. You both took another long sip and watched as Haechan was caught trying to tap Ryujin’s bottle with the bottom of his. She sent him away with a venomous glare that rivalled the bite of a cobra.
“Ten bucks says they hook up tonight.”
A bout of giggles rippled through him, and he had to throw an arm around your shoulders to stay upright. Mark never shied away from emotion, least of all amusement. Laughter was something he expressed with his entire body.
“Dude, you’re ridiculous,” he finally managed. “And you’re going to be ten bucks poorer by tomorrow morning.”
You were reminded of how nice it was to see real people again, after the two or so odd weeks you had spent with your eyes glued to your laptop screen in the typical fashion of finals prep. Summer infiltrated the post-exam season — you could feel it in the slight stickiness in the evening air, and hear it in the laughs that carried across the living room.
The best memories from university often had nothing to do with being in class. There had to be something ironic about that.
In between bites of hawaiian pizza and garlic soy chicken, you made the rounds, coaxing a dark-under-eyed Jaemin into joining you for a few soju shots to obliterate any malingering thoughts about his neuroscience final. You caught up with a few of Mark’s other friends too, eyes widening at the pictures on Renjun’s phone of his final assignment for his art class. Jungwoo strong-armed you and Ryujin into joining a round of the flip cup game they had started on the dining table. Ryujin carried, as to be expected, though you suspected Jungwoo was already on his way to an early night passed out on the couch before the game had even started.
As wide as Mark’s heart was, it wasn’t infinite, and neither was the introvert model of the social battery he ran off. It wasn’t long before you found yourself in the quiet of his room, back against the foot of his bed, sipping slowly from a can of pear juice. Mark had his limbs splayed out across the floorboards, staring up at the ceiling with eyes that were a little more glassy than usual.
“Are you going home for the break?” he asked, poking your knee through the rips in your jeans. It tickled, but not enough for you to shake him off. Plus, Mark was an affectionate drunk. Pushing him away would have been like taking a stuffed toy away from a child.
You shook your head lightly. “I signed up for summer intensives with Ryujin.”
“Why? You deserve a break too,” he fussed, playing with the frayed fabric.
“If I can get more credits in earlier, I can take less classes during fourth year and focus more on my internship,” you explained. “Assuming I’ll actually score an internship by then.”
“You will,” he reassured. “You’re so smart. And driven. And self-disciplined. You’re gonna be amazing at whatever you end up doing. I just know it. You’ll be so successful.”
Mark was an affectionate and emotional drunk.
You didn’t mind it though. His words and actions were unfiltered, but never in a way that would have people thinking he was rude or ill-mannered. Sometimes, your conversations would take a deep philosophical turn out of nowhere, like that one time you tried to explain economic scarcity to him (at his request), and at the end of it all, he had asked you if you thought there was more to the world than money.
(Of course you did. But it would be hard to pursue those things without some level of financial stability in the capitalistic world we lived in.
He had seemed pretty satisfied with that answer.)
Smiling fondly, you reached for the glass of water beside you and pressed it into his hand. “Drink up, Plato. Otherwise you’ll wake up to a raging headache.”
He sat up from the floor and took the glass, obediently gulping down half of it in one breath. Something about the droop of his shoulders and his big round eyes reminded you of a puppy. The thought brought another quiet smile to your face.
“Are you spending semester break at home?” you asked.
Mark nodded, breaking out into a grin. “Can’t wait to be home. I miss my mum’s cooking. She makes the best chicken, you’ll have to try it one day.” His eyes lit up. “I’ll bring some back for you when the semester starts.”
You were just about to thank him for the thought — you hadn’t had a home-cooked meal for months, and though the cafeteria meals were decent, you could tell they weren’t made with love — when there was a thud against the door, followed by some fumbling with the handle. The door swung open and two figures tumbled into Mark’s room.
Two figures who, by the looks of it, were seconds away from jumping each other’s bones, if the tight press of their bodies together was anything to go by.
“—finally putting that smart mouth of yours to good use?”
“I’ll show you exactly what this smart mouth can—wait.”
A pregnant pause.
“This isn’t my room.”
“What’s up, guys?” you asked cheerily.
Haechan detached his face from Ryujin’s with lightning speed, head whipping around to find you on the floor, struggling to hold back a triumphant laugh. Mark could only stare wordlessly, mouth hanging open and eyes wide as he took in the scene before him.
This would be an interesting talk for when you got back to your dorm.
“Uh—fuck, uh, we were just, um, t-trying to—”
“Sorry!” Ryujin interrupted, pulling Haechan out of the room and slamming the door shut with a loud bang.
A loaded silence followed. Mark was still frozen in place with his eyes on the door.
Had they sent him into medical shock?
“Yo, they were definitely about to fuck.”
The giggles escaped then, great big ones that bounced around the walls of his room. Mark slapped your leg as you doubled over, clutching your stomach with both hands.
“I do believe you now owe me ten bucks,” you finally managed once the laughter had died down.
Mark reached for his wallet on the nightstand, begrudgingly fishing out a ten dollar bill and placing it into your outstretched hand.
“Don’t spend it all in one place,” he teased.
“Try and stop me.” You tucked the bill into the back pocket of your jeans. “Okay, come on, let’s go back out there.”
Mark blinked up at you as you pushed yourself onto your feet. “Go? But I want to stay here with you,” he pouted.
“Isn’t Haechan’s room next to yours?”
He took a look at the wall separating the two of you from whatever unspeakable things were about to happen in the adjacent room, and got to his feet in an instant.
“I’m going. I’m gone. I was never even here.”
Three weeks later, during a study session with Ryujin at the uncharacteristically empty library, you finally received the call you had been waiting for.
“So? Am I gonna get to see you bald or not?”
“Not in this lifetime, if I can help it,” came Mark’s reply. You could hear the smile in his voice. “Dude, I got a distinction!”
“Mark, that’s amazing!” you exclaimed. “See? I knew you’d do well. You aced that midterm. And now you’ve aced the final as well.”
“Couldn’t have done it without you. Like seriously, you hard carried me through the semester.” Even through the phone, his sincerity was unmistakable.
Truthfully, you felt like you had done little in your post-class study sessions to warrant this level of gratitude from him. Mark just needed things explained a little differently, in a way that made more sense to his writing-wired brain. After that, he hadn’t needed all that much of your help, despite his insistence on attributing his success in DATA1002 to you.
“I’m buying you dinner at that samgyetang place off campus when I get back,” he promised, though it sounded more like a threat than a generous offer. “Don’t even try to weasel out of it. And don’t try to sneak off and pay the bill either.”
You let out a small chuckle. “Are you treating me or threatening me?”
“Whatever gets the message across.”
Against all odds, you found yourself missing Mark, having gone from seeing him almost everyday for three months to being sorely devoid of his presence for at least another few weeks. He kept you updated enough, bombarding you with pictures of his mum’s cooking in between random little voice notes about the stray cat he saw behind his building, or how much his school uniform had shrunk since he had last worn it.
You missed his company. For the first time in your university career, you found yourself impatient for the academic year to pick up again.
“Hang on, so who actually lost the bet?”
“Oh, it was Haechan,” Mark announced gleefully. “We all saw it coming. He’s home right now, but once we’re all back on campus, me and Jaemin are going to do the honours. You and Ryujin are more than welcome to come and watch. Or participate, if you want.”
Next semester genuinely could not come quickly enough.
You assured him you were doing fine, and that campus was actually kind of nice without the usual throngs of students crowding the hallways (how wonderful it was to have whole study tables to yourself), before he had to go.
“Catching up with some friends from high school. Everyone changes so much every time I’m back,” he said wistfully. “Anyways, miss you dude, I’ll talk to you later.”
Ryujin was still glumly poring over the textbook pages when you hung up. You tapped her on the arm with a smile on your face that was way too chipper for a mid-course review on financial markets.
She raised a quizzical eyebrow at you. “What is it?”
“Wanna shave Haechan’s head when he’s back?”
Autumn arrived, and like the leaves, your friendship with Mark began to change.
“Your head is really quite small.”
“Shut up,” Haechan glowered, tapping the controller keys with a little more force than before.
“I honestly think it looks fine,” you offered, trying to soothe the blow of Ryujin’s words. “They probably took too much off to start with, but it’s much better now. Your hair grows back fast.”
He turned around and flashed you a grateful smile. “You’re the only one who’s nice to me.”
“His hair grows back fast because he’s a pervert,” Ryujin responded under her breath.
Haechan threw his controller down on the couch. “Enough, woman,” he huffed, pushing her legs off his lap. Jaemin’s character scored a quick victory on the television, and the boy let out a cheer. “You could have prevented this, you know. Why didn’t you tutor me? I was literally on my knees begging for your help.”
“You handed me a pack of Pepero with a sticky note stuck to it that said ‘pwease’. P-w-e-a-s-e,” she said flatly.
“Was that not a clear cry for help?”
“For literacy assistance because you don’t know how to spell? Maybe.”
“If you need help with academic writing, there’s free resources on the university portal,” Jaemin supplied. “I showed you where they are, remember?”
You choked down a laugh. Haechan put his head in his hands, fingers skipping across the close cropping of hair in search of something, anything to grab onto. He ultimately came up short.
Ryujin sighed, a fond yet exasperated noise. “Honestly, I kind of wanted to see what you’d look like,” she mused, lightly raking her nails over his scalp. “To see if I still liked you even if you were bald. Which it seems I do, unfortunately, so…”
Haechan looked up at that, eyes crinkling into a pleased smile. “Aww, babe,” he cooed, burying his face in between her neck and shoulder.
You and Jaemin shared a look over the top of their heads. Their dynamic was still puzzling.
“Do I even want to know what you have planned for this semester?” you asked, though you weren’t sure if you were prepared for the answer.
“We actually haven’t decided on the punishment yet,” Jaemin replied, queuing up another game and shoving the unmanned controller back into his friend’s hands. “Haechan wants something that doesn’t involve his body hair this time.”
“We need to go easy. I don’t think I can handle having my entire left eyebrow plucked off strand by strand if I lose again.”
“You could just, uh, not lose. Maybe,” Ryujin suggested.
You were saved from hearing Haechan’s following choice of (no doubt) colourful words by the door to the apartment swinging open. The reason why you had been waiting here in his apartment and enduring the whiplash-esque displays of affection on the couch in front of you had finally returned from class.
“Babies, I’m home!” Mark sing-songed, dropping his bag on one of the stools by the kitchen counter. “Whoa, crime scene on the couch.”
Jaemin eyed the couple beside him with a grotesque kind of astonishment. “I think they might actually be trying to kill each other.”
“RIP Haechan.” Ignoring the indignant noises coming from the almost-bald shape on the couch, Mark turned to you and flashed a smile. “Are you ready to go?”
He must have forgotten to put his contacts in today. The clear frames perched on the bridge of his nose were not an uncommon sight, but a surprising one just the same, and you had not been prepared for the little flip of your stomach in reaction to them.
Mark was gorgeous. You supposed you had always known, but it seemed the realisations dawned more frequently nowadays.
“Uh, yeah, ready,” you answered, standing up to smooth out any creases in your jeans. For a fleeting moment you wondered if your baby tee and cargo jeans were too casual.
Too casual for what? This was just a trip to the department store.
“Ready to go where?” came a whiny voice from the couch. “Without me?”
“Yes Haechan, without you. You hate shopping, remember?” Mark replied. “And you,” he turned to Jaemin, brows furrowing, “don’t you have lab?”
Jaemin stared at him. “I do?”
Mark stared back.
“I do,” Jaemin said slowly, mouth dropping open in realisation. “I do have lab, and it started ten minutes ago.”
He tossed the controller onto the couch without so much as a glance, grabbed his half-unzipped backpack and dashed out the door with his left shoe on backwards. If you looked closely enough, there was a wisp of smoke trailing after him.
There was never a boring day at the Lee-Na residence.
Mark took a quick look at the couch, where the two shapes seemed to have untangled themselves and were coexisting much more peacefully than they were thirty seconds ago.
“Let’s go, before we have to see them jump each other,” he urged under his breath.
“Or jump each other,” you agreed. With those two, you never knew whether they’d be at each other’s throats or on each other’s faces. The best course of action was often to just be away, and minimise the chance of becoming collateral damage.
Mark put his hands on your shoulders and ushered you out of his apartment with little resistance, though you still managed to catch bits of the conversation in the living room.
“See, if that was me, I just wouldn’t have gone to class at all,” said Haechan rather matter-of-factly.
“And that’s exactly why you have no hair right now.”
Thankfully, the door was shut before you could witness Act II of the lovers’ spat.
To be completely frank, shopping was not a pastime you enjoyed all that much either, least of all in department stores. Being followed around by commission-eager sales associates who were most definitely judging you behind the stiff smiles pasted on their faces wasn’t exactly your idea of a perfect afternoon. But when Mark had asked you to come with him to pick out a new suit for his cousin's upcoming wedding, you had agreed without a moment’s hesitation.
You had a hard time saying no to him.
Time with Mark was always time well spent. Even when he almost burnt down his apartment trying to make you scrambled eggs for breakfast.
(He had called it breakfast, but it was definitely afternoon by the time you had blinked yourself awake on his couch, courtesy of the 8 bottles of soju that your little dinner gathering had annihilated the night before.)
His little stunt in the kitchen had ended up in a ruined non-stick pan, the incessant blaring of the smoke alarm, and two hungover and homicidally-inclined roommates who had been woken up by said alarm. Though you ended up at the restaurant around the corner, faces steaming over bowls of hangover soup, it was the thought that counted.
Mark was always thoughtful, and most of all with you.
“Did he mention a dress code or anything? A colour palette?” you asked.
“Only that they’re having a pretty classic wedding, and to keep things simple.” Mark turned to flash you a sage smile. “Knowing Johnny though, he’s definitely planning on wearing something kinda out there. Something that’ll make him stand out.”
“Well, it is his wedding day, so I think he’s probably allowed to stand out just a little.”
Mark chuckled, eyes crinkling at the corners. You once thought his laugh was excessive, and wondered how that much noise could come from a single person. Now, the sound of it only brought a fond smile to your face.
“You two would get along so well. Johnny’s the only person who makes me laugh more than you do.”
“I think you’re just really weak to my jokes,” you replied, but the smile on your face widened nonetheless.
You followed Mark into what looked to be a promising store. The window front was lined with two spiffy mannequins, and the middle-aged sales assistant gave the two of you a warm smile as you entered. Mark perused the racks, picking out a few sets and some separates, pausing every so often to get your opinion on what would look nice.
(Thankfully, you were able to talk him out of a blazer with leopard print on the lapels.)
“What do you think?” Mark asked, giving you a twirl in front of the fitting room. The charcoal grey set he had on was well cut and classy, plus the fitted trousers faithfully cupped the substantial curve of his ass.
Jungwoo had once told you that every night, without fail, Mark did 50 squats before bed. But even then, you couldn’t seem to replicate the same volume or curvature on your own butt despite following the same routine for a month. Mark’s ass was a God-given asset.
“I think this one is the best,” you answered, before making a few less-than-polite gestures at the melons on his backside.
Hopefully the sales assistant, busy rehanging the previous try-ons, was none the wiser.
Mark almost broke out into a fit of giggles at your salacious expression following the compliment, but managed to catch himself. “How about the navy one from before?”
You hummed thoughtfully. “That one was nice too,” you agreed. “I feel like you’d get more wear out of this one though. It fits more occasions. Or am I just making that up?” You tossed a tentative glance at the sales assistant.
“Oh no, you’re absolutely right,” she reassured, smiling at you kindly, before turning to Mark. “The pinstripe on the navy suit from before tends to lend itself more to business settings. This one can be worn for business, but it’s also appropriate for a range of other formal settings as well — business, weddings, graduation, nice dinners. May I ask what occasion you’re shopping for?”
“A wedding,” Mark answered cheerfully. “My cousin’s wedding, actually.”
“Well in that case, I also think the charcoal grey would be the one to go for,” she concluded. “Do you have any ideas for ties and pocket squares? I can help match them to the colour of your date’s dress, or whatever outfit you have in mind.”
She turned to you expectantly.
You stared right back. The blank look on your face seemed to throw her off.
“Have you decided what you’ll be wearing?” she tried again.
Oh.
“Oh, I’m not his—uh, we’re not—”
Your hands gestured wildly between you and Mark. Your tongue flailed uselessly against the roof of your mouth. Your face felt hot all over.
Were you about to have a stroke?
“I actually don’t have a date yet,” Mark supplied, putting an end to the interpretive dance performance your hands were venturing into.
Yes, that was what you were trying to say.
The sales assistant nodded in understanding. “Ah, I see,” she said, not without flashing you a weighty glance that you couldn’t quite decipher.
Was she checking for signs of neurological dysfunction? Strokes usually started with numbness in the arm, or the face, but you felt physically fine. Mostly in control of your muscles.
“I do apologise, I didn’t mean to assume, or insinuate that—” she cut herself off, lightly shaking her head. “I mean, would you like to have a look at suit accessories today?”
Mark politely declined, since the suit was already skimming the top of his budget. As the sales assistant busied herself with putting away the rest of the pieces, he looked over at you with those big, brown eyes.
“Dude, are you okay? You look kind of flushed.”
“Yeah, I uh, I’m just a bit hot, I think,” you managed, tugging at the collar of your shirt. “The air conditioning in here is kind of strong.”
“Tell me about it. I was sweating like crazy getting everything on and off. Which reminds me, actually.” Mark paused, looking down at the grey fabric laid against his body. “I should probably take this suit off before I leave pit stains on it.”
After an hour or two of more wandering around the complex, during which you managed to snag a My Melody plush for half off from Artbox (an absolutely amazing deal), the two of you found your way to the food court. Two steaming bowls of udon sat before you, along with the deep fried sides you had picked out earlier. Mark had gone a bit overboard with the tempura flakes, and they amassed in a mountain atop the broth.
“So how did they meet? Your cousin and his fiancé.”
Mark slurped up a mouthful of chewy noodles. “Oh, they’ve known each other for years. Been friends since high school, or maybe even before that. Honestly, I don’t even know.”
Wordlessly, you exchanged one of your nitamago eggs with a piece of his karaage. The routine was a familiar one, developed over months of shared meals, and you watched as he carefully settled the chicken on your plate.
There was something nice about the domesticity of it all.
“How did they go from long-time friends to getting engaged? What changed?”
“Dude,” he started, gesturing between the two of you with vigour, “we’re always on the same wavelength. That’s exactly what I asked him.”
The glasses perched on his nose bridge fogged up as he dipped his head to take another bite. You bit back a smile.
Had he always been this endearing?
“He told me it just hit him. Like one day, it was like a switch had flipped, and then he couldn’t see her as just a friend anymore.” Mark looked up to lock eyes with you, a hint of disbelief colouring his smile. “It’s kind of crazy, right?”
Sure. Pretty crazy.
“Yeah,” you managed, trying to mirror his expression. “How can you flip a switch on your feelings?”
The sentiments of the heart were not a voltage circuit. The sentiments of the heart were not governed by any real logic, and certainly not anything as ubiquitous as Ohm’s Law. If that were the case, Jungwoo would never have spent 3 weeks pretending he lived on the other side of the city just so he could ride the bus home with this girl from his engineering dynamics class.
Unfortunately for him, Miyeon a) was already taken, and b) batted for the other team.
Jungwoo was still processing.
Of course, you had all reassured him it was nothing to do with him. Still, the forlorn droop of his eyes had yet to disappear.
“I don’t know, it doesn’t really make sense.” Mark took a bite of the egg you had given him and let out a content little hum. “But I kind of admire it. Sometimes I think it would be so nice to end up with someone you were friends with first. You wouldn’t have to go through the whole getting to know each other part of dating where you have to pretend you’re a good person.”
“You say that like you’re not a good person.”
“You know what I mean. The part where you have to be the best version of yourself to impress them.”
You kept a straight face. “So I’m guessing that means you don’t disclose your gas issues with a girl on the first date?”
Mark choked down an udon noodle along with a laugh. “Dude, come on, don’t do that — don’t ever use that against me. You know what yoghurt does to my stomach.”
“I do think you need to see a gastroenterologist about that. In all seriousness.”
The grin on your face was not serious at all.
“It could be lactose intolerance. Or even IBS.”
Mark flicked a piece of soggy tempura flake at you with his chopsticks.
“But see?” he continued, “You’re my friend, so you know all about my stomach problems already. Like how I know that you can’t remember birthdays or anniversaries to save your life—”
“Hey! I remembered your birthday!”
“—or like how I know Haechan always has his feet out because they get sweaty.”
You wrinkled your nose. “Okay, first off, gross. Second, it sounds to me like you should just tell Haechan how you feel. You never know, he might even feel the same way. You guys would make a cute couple.”
Mark’s answering eye roll and hand gesture gave you a pretty good indication of how he felt about your suggestion.
You chewed on your noodles, watching Mark swallow mouthfuls of his soggy tempura sludge with his words on your mind all the while. Perhaps you had already known he was somewhat of a romantic — the guy was a creative writing major, it wasn’t thermodynamics to connect those two dots — but something about hearing him talk about his ideals on love and relationships had unexpectedly struck you.
What would Mark be like as a boyfriend? Sweet, of course. And thoughtful. Maybe he’d write poems about her. Or maybe he’d treat her just like any of his other friends, like the way he treated Haechan, or Jaemin, or even you.
You wanted to know. The wave of curiosity that washed over you was oddly strong, and persistent. It lingered in your thoughts as you finished your meal, and stuck with you on the way back to his apartment. Days were getting shorter, and nights picked up breezes that toed the line between refreshing and just a tad too crisp. You commended yourself for bringing an overshirt. It was much needed for the walk back from the bus stop.
“By the way, you want to go see that new Robert Pattinson movie?” you asked, nudging him. “They have screenings at the boutique theatre off campus this Friday.”
“Hell yeah, let’s—wait, did you say this Friday?”
You gave him an enthusiastic nod back.
“Sorry dude, I can’t do this Friday.”
“It’s fine, I’ll have another look at the session times and we can go next week,” you waved off his apology. “Working on your film assignment?”
The three boys had decided on Cinematic Spectatorship to be the deciding course for this semester. Though it was only a few weeks into the course, based on what you had seen so far, Mark was in a pretty good position to avoid having to violate any of his own body parts this time around.
You still weren’t sure what punishment they had agreed to, but you trusted it would not be tame.
“No, actually,” he paused, a small smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. “It’s not a big deal—”
“Don’t tell me. You’re getting your third nipple lasered off. Wait, no. You need to hide a dead body.”
“I have a date.”
Oh.
You blinked up at him.
“You do? Would I know her?”
“I don’t think so,” he answered. A faint wash of colour tinged his cheeks. “Her name is Lia. We used to go to school together and now she’s a journalism major at Ewha. You know how I went home for the summer?”
A somewhat stiff nod was all you could manage.
“We kind of reconnected over the break. Went out a few times.”
Lia. Her name was pretty. She was probably pretty too, if Mark’s celebrity crushes were anything to judge by.
“You like her?” you asked, trying to sound less wooden.
“Yeah,” he admitted, the flush on his face deepening ever so slightly. “We have a lot in common, and she’s so easy to talk to.”
You hoped the stunted pause that it took for you to find some coherent words to say wasn’t as obvious to him as it felt to you. “Wow. Yeah, that’s—”
“And look, I’m sorry I didn’t say anything sooner. I wasn’t sure it was going to go anywhere when it first started and I didn’t want to make a whole thing out of nothing.” He paused, allowing himself a quiet smile. “But yeah, I think I do really like her.”
“Yeah. I mean—yeah. That’s great.” You swallowed. ”I’m happy for you.” You tried to give him an encouraging smile. “Now Haechan can quit giving you shit about being single.”
Mark flashed you a look. “You know that only means he’s gonna make fun of you even more.”
“And Jaemin.” “And Jaemin,” Mark agreed. His mouth puckered the way it did when he was thinking hard about something. “Maybe you and him should just get together.”
It was your turn to flash him a look.
“Or like, just pretend you’re together or something.”
“Right,” you sounded out slowly. “You’re actually just talking shit now.”
He only answered with a string of laughs, which you couldn’t help but join in on, even if the topic at hand didn’t feel all that funny anyway.
“Dude, don’t worry. You’re smart, and funny, and you always smell nice. The right person will come along, and he’s going to be an amazing guy.”
You looked up at him, reading the sincerity in his big brown doe eyes. Mark really was the sweetest.
“I think it’s snowing!”
You peered through the glass again, squinting to make out the pale flurry outside the window.
“Where? Let me see that.”
“Hey, don’t run with your hot choc—“
“Ow! Haechan what the fuck?”
Five pairs of feet traversed across the living room floorboards to join you by the windows of the holiday cabin. Specks of white were free-falling rapidly, blown in all directions by the wintry gusts of wind. They decorated the darkening night sky as picturesquely as a Christmas postcard, though the snowflakes were just short of sticking — the fire pit had only been put out after dinner about an hour ago and the ground was still warm.
“It’s like he’s never seen snow before,” Ryujin mused next to you, eyes fixed on her boyfriend.
Haechan gazed out of the window with an awestruck look on his face, following the path of the snowflakes as they made their way to the ground.
“Where is your joy?” he asked without turning. Your whimsy? Your childlike wonder? Can a man not just enjoy one of the beautiful feats of nature before his balls freeze off?”
“I did turn on the heating more than half an hour ago, so that sounds like a personal problem,” Jaemin replied.
It had been a week, and yet you still couldn’t quite get used to seeing his head covered in a mop of bright bubblegum pink. Na Jaemin could recite all the glands and tissues of the endocrine system in alphabetical order while blackout drunk on soju yakults, but he could not write a convincing visual analysis of a 2 minute clip from The Godfather.
At least not any better than his two roommates.
“Shut up, Lazy Town,” Haechan quipped back.
“Hey, she wears a wig and it looks chopped. My hair is all real and beautiful.”
Ryujin said something under her breath which you didn’t quite catch, and then Haechan was waxing poetic about the wonders of precipitation again, waving his mug around with much less care than you would’ve thought appropriate giving the steaming contents inside.
You turned to your left out of habit, expecting to meet Mark’s twinkly eyes and exchange an amused glance, or brace your ears for a round of his eruptive giggles — only to find he wasn’t next to you at all. You supposed you should have been used to it by now, but his absence always seemed to catch you by surprise.
Mark was by the other end of the window with Lia, his arms wrapped loosely around her shoulders. He had a lazy smile on his face, his eyes staring off through the glass, though you could tell his focus was elsewhere. Lia turned slightly to mumble something in his ear. The smile on his face widened just a tad, and he squeezed her forearm in response.
Lia’s arm wasn’t the only thing being squeezed. Although, you were pretty sure the invisible fist clenched around your heart was much less affectionate than Mark was.
“Okay,” Ryujin interjected, “have we got all the presents? Just pile them up on the coffee table. No peeking — hey babe? I’m talking to you. Don’t think I don’t know what you’re up to.”
You were beginning to think Johnny had the completely wrong metaphor. There was no switch. It didn’t just flip on and off. It crept up on you, like the way the cold slowly crept into December and laid its icy fingers across the roads. Before you knew it, the chill had settled in your bones.
Was it jealousy? Maybe. It was usually the culprit nowadays.
Whatever it was, it pinched at your insides as you watched Mark drape his arm on the loveseat behind his girlfriend’s back. Lia tucked her knees up to her chest, letting them lean lightly against his side. Mark leaned in to whisper something in her ear and you had to look away, catching Ryujin’s eye as you pretended to admire the furnishings in the living room of the cabin. She could only offer you a commiserate smile.
You liked Lia. Really.
She was kind, and sweet, and clever, and she got along with Ryujin like a house on fire. When you and Haechan had been dragged around by one too many club promoters on an ill-fated Saturday night — though in hindsight, it felt more like Haechan was the one who was dragging you from one bass-thumping venue to another — Lia had called and paid for the taxi back to his apartment. She was the one who got both of you through the door with all your limbs intact, which was no small feat considering Haechan turned into a car dealership inflatable after a mere drop of tequila.
There was nothing not to like about her.
And yet, the twist of your stomach whenever she was around never seemed to subside. Even if you desperately wanted it to. And you knew damn well why.
Haechan clapped decidedly. “Let’s start from me and go clockwise.”
“Why do we have to start from you?”
“And why are we going anti-clockwise?” Jaemin protested. “I’m right here.”
“Because. I want you to get your present last. Anyways. Who had me?”
Jaemin begrudgingly handed over a perfectly wrapped box which Haechan made short work of. From amidst the shredded paper, he pulled out his gift, and let out a squeal.
“Jaeminnie-poo, thank you,” he cooed, crushing the Crayon Shin-Chan plushie to his chest. Jaemin swatted away Haechan’s grabby hands of gratitude, but there was a definite smile on the younger boy’s face.
The Secret Santa reveal continued its way around the room. Ryujin was the lucky recipient of Haechan’s handmade massage vouchers, and in return, Haechan was the recipient of a round of boos from the rest of the living room.
(“What?” he had protested. “We only set an upper limit. Nobody said I couldn’t go as low as I wanted.”)
Lia unwrapped an embroidered tote bag that was both cute and practical, courtesy of Ryujin.
“Thank you, seriously, I actually really wanted a new bag for uni,” Lia beamed, admiring the dainty flowers sewn onto the canvas. Ryujin gave her a warm smile back, which soon soured once she looked down into her lap and saw her luxurious massage vouchers again.
(“Come on babe,” Haechan had coaxed, “they’re really not that bad. I’ll set it up nice with essential oils and use my massage gun.”
“You mean the massage gun you stole from my room?”
“No one asked you, Princess Bubblegum.”
“Princess Bubblegum? Hmm, I actually kind of like that one.”)
And then it was Mark’s turn.
His eyes were bright as he surveyed the remaining packages on the table. “Okay, I’m ready. Who had me?”
You cleared your throat. “Uh, that would be me.”
He looked at you expectantly. The pause after your words had been too long. Hastily, you reached out to grab the small rectangular package and thrust it into his lap without much grace.
“It’s um—I mean, you’ll see in like 5 seconds,” you added as you watched Mark undo the wrapping. His fingers brushed the cover of the book. You held your breath.
What was there to even be nervous about?
“The poetical works of Lord Byron,” he read, looking up at you with those twinkling eyes. “And it’s a fancy hardcover edition as well!”
“Thought you might like it,” was all you said.
It was a beautiful thing, bound in calf-grain leather with gilded edges and a finely-etched spine. On the day you bought it you almost walked straight by, mistaking it for shelf decoration in a quiet little vintage store some half hour away from campus. Mark had mentioned the previous week that he was trying to get more into poetry, partly because there was a poetry-related assignment in his literature history class, but also because it was something he hadn’t explored in depth before, aside from a few primitive discussions on Shakespeare in high school.
“A good writer must be a good reader too,” he had said rather mysteriously, throwing on his scarf before leaving for his date. The leaves were still red back then.
The vintage store owner, a soft-spoken guy in his late twenties, had seemed surprised when you asked for the price, not expecting anyone would buy a dusty old book that had been sitting there on that shelf for months. He was more than happy to let it go at a price that sounded reasonable to a fiscally responsible university student like yourself. You had held onto it ever since, waiting until the leaves on the trees had all fallen off — until Mark went from a daily sight to a weekly occurrence to an odd appearance every now and then.
You weren’t purposely avoiding him, but his days were suddenly filled with a new more-than-friend, and those days were always a little harder to get through when she was around.
This trip up to the holiday cabin was the first time you had properly spoken for the whole month of December.
“This is so great. Dude, really. Thank you,” Mark said earnestly. You gave him a small smile back.
He was still grinning as he stared down at the cover, admiring the intricate gold lettering while Haechan moved on to you.
“Okay, next! Well, it’s either Mark or Lia, so whoever it is, fess up,” Haechan said cheerily.
“You know this isn’t a criminal interrogation, right?”
“If this were a criminal interrogation, you’d be the lame and uncool bad cop who nobody wants to say anything to because he’s lame and uncool and takes the fun out of everything. They would call you Jaemin the joy-sucker.”
Jaemin’s face contorted into an expression that was equally bewildered as it was amused.
“Well, I guess there’s worse things to be sucking.”
“Whereas,” Haechan pushed on, clearly not finished with his explanation, “I would be the good cop who everyone loves because I am funny and easy to talk to. I’d bring them coffee, and then they’d spill all their secrets to me over a styrofoam cup.”
“This analogy has completely lost the plot,” Ryujin sighed quietly, sinking back into the couch.
Amidst the arguing (although, could you really call it arguing if all the arguments were one-sided and nobody was rebutting?) Mark picked up the visibly less nicely-wrapped present from the table and handed it to you with a sheepish grin.
“Sorry, I kind of forgot about this thing until like, the day before we drove up,” he said quietly.
You took it from him with a small smile anyway. It was rather flat and the edges were soft, with a decent weight to it.
Even though you told yourself not to expect much, and you honestly were not, there were still a few embers of hope somewhere, buried deep down. They flickered weakly as you undid the layers of wrapping paper.
Maybe it was the Totoro throw blanket from one of the campus market stalls. You had happily pointed it out to him on the way to The Milk Bar, excited to have something that could match with the new Totoro mug you had bought. Ultimately, you had decided against buying it since the fluffy grey one you owned was still doing a perfectly good job — until you spilled kimchi-jjigae all over it during mid-terms.
The massive orange stain was a shameful reminder of your actions every time you laid eyes on it. (Seriously though, you should’ve known better than to balance the takeout container on your knees while you had them up to your chest.)
Almost two months had passed since then, but the markets had been running until the last week of the semester, and maybe he remembered.
Mark was thoughtful, above all else.
Your fingers closed around something. It was soft. You lifted it out of the wrapping.
And blinked, twice.
If the cartoon reindeer was animate, it probably would have blinked back at you.
“Yikes.”
You were quick to look up at the voice, finding Haechan eyeing the t-shirt in your hands with visible distaste.
“You know we agreed on nice gifts, right?” he asked, question directed at Mark. “Not gag gifts?”
“Says the guy who gave his girlfriend his own massage vouchers,” Mark shot back.
“Hey, I went to the craft store and bought a shit ton of card making stuff so I could hand make them. Fucking glitter and all. Do you know how hard it was to get that out of the sofa cushions?”
You tuned the bickering out, unfolding the shirt so you could see it in all its glory — bright red, short-sleeved, and way too big for your frame. The goofy reindeer print on the front was obnoxiously large, with its eyes crossed and tongue lolling out of its mouth. A few loose threads dangled from the stitching below the left arm.
Clothes from the underground malls in the subway stations were probably better quality than what you currently held in your hands. You reached for the top of the shirt, bringing the neckline closer to examine the label.
XXL
65% polyester
35% cotton
“God, that’s massive,” Ryujin said carefully, catching your eye.
“I thought you could use them as pyjamas. Or something,” Mark offered.
Jaemin scoffed. “Who wears short sleeves to bed in the middle of winter?” he asked, tone largely joking, but there was a bite to it. You heard it.
Mark must have heard it too, judging by the way his face fell ever so slightly. “Dude, chill, what—”
“Thanks, Mark,” you cut in, pasting a shallow smile on your face. A small shake of your head to brush off Ryujin’s concerned glance, and a quick look at Jaemin that said, not here. You had no intention for them to sour the mood on your behalf. “That must mean Jaemin’s present is from you, right Lia?”
And just like that, you moved on.
With all the presents exchanged, the coffee table saw another 7 rounds of Jenga, Ryujin’s flawless and cutthroat Monopoly victory, and fell victim to Haechan’s spilled cocoa — which everyone had seen coming — before its services were no longer needed for the night. A warbled but fairly accurate rendition of Justin Bieber’s Mistletoe echoed down the hall. Haechan had a set of lungs on him. Shower performances were not a rare occurrence, especially when he had some alcohol in him.
In between yawns, you sat down at the vanity in your room, surveying the small collection of bottles and tubs laid out before you. Of course you had to forget something. You could even see the little lip mask tub in your head, sitting on the bathroom counter next to the sink, right where you had put it after reminding yourself to throw it in your bag after applying it the next morning.
(Which, spoiler alert, you didn’t even remember to do in your hurry to leave for the drive here.)
Cracked, crusty lips it was for the next few days. At least the rest of your face would be nice and hydrated.
You had just uncapped your moisturiser when there was a knock at the door.
It was Mark.
“Hey,” was all he said.
“Hey,” you repeated, half a beat late.
“Uh, can I come in?” he asked, standing by the open door. His hair was still half wet, thanks to the lack of hairdryers in the cabin, and there were a few wet patches around the collar of his plaid pyjamas. Black frames sat perched on his nose, a few droplets of water on the lenses too. You hadn’t seen him like this for a while.
“Yeah, sure, of course,” you replied, turning back to the mirror a little too quickly. “Did you need something? I think Jaemin managed to kick Haechan out of the shower, so he should be back in a little bit.”
“Oh, cool. I wasn’t looking for him. I wanted to talk to you.”
The fingers dotting cream across your face stuttered for a fraction of a second.
“To me?”
“Yeah,” Mark answered, settling himself on the twin bed closer to the vanity. On the bed that you had picked. “I feel like I haven’t seen you in ages.”
“I was at your apartment last Tuesday.” And you had seen him for a total of 7 seconds — he walked out of his room with his eyes glued to the phone, barely sparing you and Ryujin a glance, before he was out the door on his way to see Lia. You hadn’t even known he was home.
“Were you?” The surprise in his voice was unmistakable. “Dude, I don’t even remember that. But you know what I mean. We haven’t like, talked. Properly.”
You knew very well what he meant. But all you gave him was a “yeah” and an assenting hum. The direction of this conversation was difficult to chart, and you were far too tired to take the wheel.
Being in his vicinity while Lia was around was more exhausting than you cared to admit.
“Are you upset about the Secret Santa thing?”
Yes.
No.
“It just wasn’t what I was expecting,” you replied after a stilted pause, trying to be as truthful as possible. “I thought you’d get me something more—”
Personal. Thoughtful. Like you actually considered what I might like, what you know I like, for a fraction of a second, instead of grabbing the first thing you saw off the holiday clearance rack.
“—practical.”
But I guess you don’t spare much thought for me anymore.
“It could be like, summer pyjamas. If it’s too cold to wear in winter,” he suggested.
You could think of nothing worse than sweating through your sleep in dyed polyblend during the July heat waves. A deflated sigh begged to be released from your mouth, but you held it in.
“I’m sure I’ll find a use for it,” was what you said instead.
It was funny. You weren’t sure if you could ever remember a time when talking to Mark felt this stiff and unnatural. The ease that you had come to associate with him had slowly but surely dwindled these last few months — whether that was due to his new relationship status or the evolution in your feelings towards him. Having to filter yourself in front of him was foreign and disconcerting.
“Honestly, I’m pretty spent today, so I think I’m gonna go to bed soon,” you said, screwing the lid back on your moisturiser. Hoping he’d take the hint and head back to his own room. You’d be much better at putting on a brave and happy face after some shut-eye.
He hummed, but made no move to stand up. You snuck a glance at him through the mirror, noting the light groove between his eyebrows. For a moment you considered asking him what was on his mind, but then the moment passed, and you settled for reorganising your skincare on the vanity while waiting for him to leave.
Mark, however, had different plans.
“So, are you and Jaemin like a thing now?”
Your hands paused their movements as you turned to face him.
“What?”
His answering shrug was as casual as possible, but there was a challenging, almost accusatory edge to his eyes. Something about it made the blood feel heavy in your veins. You didn’t like it at all.
“No, we’re not,” you responded stiffly. “What makes you say that?”
“Just asking,” he shrugged again. “You guys just seem a lot closer than I remember.”
That was true. You had been spending more time with him in recent months, in Mark’s absence. Na Jaemin was objectively gorgeous, even a blind man would be inclined to agree, but there had never been any romantic undertones in your friendship with him. You were sure of that much.
“We’re just friends.”
“He gave you his coat at dinner.”
You scoffed, incredulous. “Because it was just lying there on the bench, and I specifically asked for it. And anyways, I distinctly remember you were the one who said that we should get together.”
“That was a joke, and you know it,” Mark countered. “Plus, you two are literally rooming together. I don’t think assuming there’s something going on between you is a crazy conclusion to jump to.”
“I don’t—” you began sharply, catching yourself to take a deep breath. It was a necessary interruption to keep your voice steady and low. This wasn’t a verbal exchange you wanted bouncing down the hallways.
“Might I remind you,” you tried again, a little quieter, “the only reason Jaem and I are sleeping in the same room is because you suddenly decided to invite Lia, weeks after everything was booked.”
“Maybe because she’s my girlfriend?” he fired back. “And I seem to remember everyone, including you, was cool about it when I asked. So if you have a problem with her, you better say it to my face. Right now.”
“That’s not what I—god—”
A frustrated noise ripped through you. This was not the way you had imagined the night would end, and it was certainly the last conversation you wanted to be having. Any further and you knew you would say something you’d regret. Even more than you already had.
“You’re right,” you finally said. “She’s your girlfriend, not me, so you should probably get back to her. It’s your first trip as a couple. You guys should enjoy it.”
Mark’s brow creased with confusion. “What do you mean—”
“Look, I’m really tired, and I don’t want to keep arguing with you.” You tugged at your eye rather roughly. “I think it’s best if you just go.”
“Wait, I don’t—”
A careful “hey” sounded from the door, slicing through whatever Mark was about to say.
Perfect timing. Your pink-haired and freshly showered friend hovered in the doorway, peering into the room with thinly-veiled concern. “Is everything okay in here?”
“Yep, everything’s fine,” you answered, straightening up. “Mark wanted some Q-tips.”
Jaemin shot you a dubious look. Q-tips? Really?
“He was just leaving. Have a good night, Mark,” you said without looking at him. This time, the dismissal in your voice was clear.
There was a second or two of silence before a small creak sounded from beside you, shortly followed by the noise of footsteps pattering out of the room and down the hallway. Mark seemed to have gotten the message.
Once you were sure he was gone, you collapsed face-up onto your bed with a defeated groan. Jaemin plopped down on his own bed next to you with decidedly less noise.
“How much of that did you hear?” you asked, rubbing a hand down the side of your face and no doubt smearing all the product that you had just applied.
“You want the honest answer or the answer that’ll make you feel better?”
Your right hand landed a satisfying slap on his calf.
“Ow!”
“Do you think anyone else heard?”
“Well, Lia’s room is on the other side of the cabin, so I doubt she caught any of it. And it’s not like it was anything the other two don’t already know.”
A long, drawn-out sigh escaped you. “Yeah.”
It seemed Mark Lee himself was the only one oblivious to your true feelings towards him.
“He’s a smart guy, but he can be so dense sometimes,” Jaemin mused.
You hummed lightly in response, if only to acknowledge that you had heard him. Maybe if you had told Mark about your changing feelings towards him, instead of fruitlessly waiting for those feelings to disappear on their own, being in his presence wouldn’t be as difficult as it was now. But the window for that had long expired. Your feelings could only be your own burden to bear.
The day had already caught up with you somewhere between the fourth and sixth Jenga game. Another long yawn slipped out, at which Jaemin chuckled quietly.
“Oh, by the way, do you have anything for your lips?” you asked. “I forgot my mask at home.”
“Pink bag, inner pouch,” he immediately rattled off the top of his head. “There’s Vaseline and like 3 Lanolips in there. Go crazy.”
“Na Jaemin, you are a godsend.”
Eight and a half hours of wonderfully restful sleep later — the cabin bed was a cloud compared to the brick back in your dorm room and Jaemin slept soundlessly like an angel — you awoke to thick and powdery whiteness outside the window. The fresh snowfall was gorgeous, turning the surroundings into a holiday postcard. Haechan’s self-declared whimsy and wonder for the miracles of mother nature was well-placed, and you were starting to share in it.
Ryujin popped by to check in on you and see if you were up for a trip down to the village Christmas markets with the rest of the group. Normally you’d be jumping at the chance to explore the stalls in search of new trinkets, but the lingering headache and slight tickle in the back of your throat didn’t seem like the best adventure companions.
You’d make sure to wear your own thick puffer coat out at dinner tonight.
Despite her offers to stay in and keep you company, you steered her out of your room. “Just bring me back some artisanal gingerbread or something. I’ll be fine, really,” you had reassured her.
There was something nice about having the cabin all to yourself. It was quiet, of course, and you were free to admire the snowy view while perched up on the windowsill seat which you did not have to fight anyone for. The mug of lemon ginger tea you had poured earlier in the morning had long gone cold. The Austen novel you had brought down from your room was open and balanced on your knees, but the pages had not been turned for a while. As intriguing as Emma’s matchmaking machinations in Hartfield were, they had sadly fallen short of their purpose in distracting your mind from revisiting the exchange with Mark last night.
You had been too defensive. That much you could admit. But Mark’s pointed tone and his insistence on the existence of something romantic between you and Jaemin had been unusually charged, and something about it had struck a nerve. If it had been anyone else probing into your friendship with the physiology major, you probably would have brushed them off with a light laugh. A dismissive wave of your hand, even.
And suppose there was something there. Perhaps Mark was entitled to know if two of his close friends were seeing each other. Though you weren’t sure if close friend was such a fitting description of you anymore.
All you could do for the time being was wait for your feelings to pass. The rest of winter break would be spent back home with your parents, who you always missed terribly when the temperatures dropped, which meant you wouldn’t be seeing Mark or any of the others for a while after this week. You could only hope that the time apart would speed up the process of getting over him. Even thinking it made you cringe. As if there was actually anything substantial for you to be getting over, other than a friendship drifting apart.
God forbid you bring the truly dismal vibes of an unrequited crush into the new year.
“Hey.”
Speak (or think) of the devil and he shall appear.
You turned around with a start, having grown used to the quiet of what you had believed was an empty cabin up until a second ago.
“Hey,” you greeted, slightly stunned. “Sorry, I thought you were out at the markets with the others.”
Mark stifled a yawn, arms lifting in a slow, languid stretch. The hem of his pyjama top started to rise, and you averted your eyes just as it brushed the waistband of his pants.
“Yeah, I thought it was a lot quieter than it should be. But no, I just woke up.” He ran a hand through his hair. Mark’s bedhead had always been quite severe. “How come you’re not out with them?”
“Oh, I just um, feel a bit under the weather, is all.”
“Right,” he hummed. “Well, have some hot tea and honey. Don’t want you getting sick.”
You nodded once in acknowledgement, unsure what else to say. It was too much to ask for a quiet morning alone. The scene from last night was still fresh on your mind, and clearly on Mark’s too, judging by the slight tension that hung thickly in the air. Your eyes flicked down to the mug of cold tea by your feet as you contemplated retreating to your room.
“There’s some breakfast in the kitchen, if you’re hungry,” you offered. “Haechan made fried rice with the leftover pork belly from dinner yesterday.”
“Oh, great, thanks.” Mark glanced in the direction of the kitchen, but made no move towards it.
Another few seconds of prickly silence passed, and you were ready to admit defeat.
Book in hand, you slid down from the windowsill and tugged the blanket around you a little tighter under your chin. The view from the window in your room was decidedly less nice, but at least you’d be safe from any more awkward conversations within its confines. You doubted Mark would follow you in.
With a tight smile, you brushed past him and headed for the stairs. Never mind if it was obvious you were only leaving because he was there. Your own peace of mind was more important than his ego right now.
But these days, Mark and you never seemed to be on the same page.
“Hey, uh, can we talk? About last night?”
You paused, hand on the railing and a foot up on the first step.
Just keep walking up the stairs. One by one, up the steps. Don’t turn around.
“Um, sure,” you said, turning around to face him.
Go on. Do the exact opposite of what the voice in your head tells you to. That’s fine too.
“Cool.” He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, looking down at the floorboards. “Listen, I just wanted to say sorry. For being so pushy with the Jaemin stuff. Even if you guys were together, it’s not really any of my business, so, yeah. Sorry.”
At least he started off with an apology. That had to count for something.
You gave him what you thought was a reassuring smile. “It’s okay,” you replied, “I probably could’ve been nicer about it.”
“But you’re really not together though, right?”
His answer came in the form of your raised brow. Was this guy seriously doing the same thing he had just apologised for?
“Sorry.” He smiled sheepishly. “But okay, that’s good then.”
Your raised brow quickly lowered into a creased frown.
“That’s good? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“As in, it’s kind of weird trying to picture the two of you together,” Mark explained, his own brows drawn, oblivious to the insult he had just hurled at your ego. “Something about it just doesn’t feel right.”
You chuckled. There was no humour in the sound.
“If that was your way of nicely saying Jaemin is way out of my league, you should probably work on it a little more.”
Nevermind that Jaemin was out of most people’s league, and that was just the truth of the matter. Hearing it implied by Mark of all people — how were you expected to stay civil and keep the edge out of your voice?
Mark balked, as if genuinely taken aback. “That is absolutely not what I was trying to say. Why would you even think—because it’s not true, first of all. I just mean that—”
He paused, eyes flitting down to the floorboards again, and inhaled slowly.
“I feel like I keep saying the wrong thing. And I can’t—I feel like I don’t know how to talk to you anymore. And I just want to go back to how we were before,” he said, looking back up at you. “I want us to be friends again.”
Your steely gaze softened at the pleading edge to his voice. Perhaps he was missing the summer, with its warm nights and compelling conversations about the most mundane of things, even more than you were.
“Mark, we are still friends,” you relented, letting out a sigh. “Of course we’re still friends. We’ve just drifted apart a little, that’s all. I think it’s one of those things that just happens.”
Maybe that wasn’t all of it, but at least you could say that much was true. Mark still looked unconvinced.
“Plus,” you added quietly after a moment’s pause, “I think some distance between us would be a good thing.”
It was his turn to mask his true feelings with a sarcastic scoff. You knew he was hurt. The quick inhale that was a little too sharp, the slight widening of his eyes — you could just tell. It was why you had hesitated to say the last bit, and now you were wishing you had held those words on a tighter rein and never let them out of your mouth.
Mark was never deliberate in hurting you.
“See, now I’m confused,” he said brusquely, nevermind that there was barely a trace of confusion in his expression. “You say we’re still friends, but it sounds to me like you don’t actually want to be.”
“That’s not what I—”
“Which one is it?” he pressed. “Because from where I’m standing, it looks like you don’t want anything to do with me. When I want to talk, you shut me out. You walk out as soon as I enter the room.”
You hadn’t expected him to notice. “That’s hardly fair,” you mumbled. He wasn’t wrong, but you were not explaining why you couldn’t be within his vicinity just to come to your own defense.
“I had to find out from Haechan that you’re moving out of the dorms next week. You don’t tell me anything anymore.”
Somewhere in your gut, you felt it. Something was going to change by the end of this conversation. And by the way it was progressing, the chances of your friendship with Mark surviving the fallout from whatever was still left to be said were not high.
“You’re right,” you said, voice small. “Maybe I don’t tell you everything.” Mark looked ready to agree, but before he could speak, you pushed on, voice growing a little firmer. “But don’t act like I know about anything that’s going on in your life either.”
He raked a rough hand through his hair. You had never seen him this worked up before. Sure, there were instances where he had been pissed off — more often than not at Haechan — but it was never that serious, and watching it unravel from the sidelines was always amusing.
Being on the receiving end of Mark’s frustration was a different experience entirely, and not amusing in the slightest.
“Look,” he sighed. “I know I haven’t really made the time to catch up with you recently, but I’m trying to do that now. I’m the one who’s trying to get us back to the way we were before.”
“And I’m telling you, I don’t think that’s a good idea now that you’re with Lia.”
“Lia?” he echoed. He looked suddenly lost, as if that was the last name he was expecting to enter the conversation. “What does she have to do with anything?”
You stared back at him in despair. “Mark, I don’t—I really can’t get into this—”
The words stuck like bile in your throat. Already, you had said too much, and here he was, asking you to spell everything out.
“I don’t want to be the girl best friend. I can’t,” you finally forced out. “I can’t do that to her. Or to you. I won’t.”
Please don’t make me say any more.
You swallowed once, thickly, hoping the rest of the truth would stay down. Mark always wanted to know, to get to the bottom of things. His determined curiosity was something you appreciated about him, but at this present moment, you had never wanted more for him to shut up and stop asking questions.
But he pressed on, stubborn as ever. “Why does that even matter?”
As you scrambled to spit out an explanation, his next words fell on your ears with the weight of steel bars.
“It’s not like I have feelings for you or anything,” he said.
Yeah.
The human mind was a funny thing. It had its great capacity for logic and reasoning, but those precious things were so easily overruled, with nothing more than the force of a light wind through the trees.
You could know something, and tell yourself over and over again that it was true. With reasoning, and some good self-persuasion, you could make peace with it. And yet, hearing that something said out loud could undo all of that work, and that coherence, and suddenly this was the first time you had ever needed to come to terms with something in your entire miserable life.
It was stupid. So stupid. Your eyes were stinging before you could help it. Hearing it come out of Mark’s own mouth was more wounding than you could ever have imagined.
And above it all, you were so unbelievably tired — of this conversation, of putting on a good face, of the chasm that you could feel splitting between the two of you.
“Yeah,” you breathed, giving in. Even to your own ears, your voice seemed far away. “You’re right. Forget it. I don’t know why I said that.”
Your free hand came up to press at your eyes, in part to make sure no moisture could escape them, but also to try and soothe the dull ache that was building behind them. Another dose of ibuprofen was due — the effects from the morning dose were wearing off already.
The safety of your room beckoned with urgency. You turned, ready to head back up and lock yourself within those walls until the others returned. You’d attach yourself to Ryujin or Jaemin for the rest of the trip, then go back home to see your parents, and hope that a belly full of home-cooked meals and nostalgia tinged with familial guilt could be enough to take your mind off the boy before you for good.
It was a good plan, and you had every intention of seeing it through.
The firm hand that wrapped itself around your forearm stopped you in your tracks.
“Don’t fucking do that shit,” Mark snapped. “Don’t fucking ice me out. I know there’s something you’re not telling me. Just talk to me.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you responded, your voice thin and monotone. “I need to go and lie down, I’m not feeling too well.”
Please just let it go, you begged silently. Before I say something I regret.
“What is your fucking problem?” he demanded.
You flinched at the bite to his tone. The grip around your arm tightened — not much, but enough for you to feel the imprint of each of his fingers through the wool sleeve.
“Why can’t you just talk to me?”
You wrenched yourself out of his grasp. Dear god, why couldn’t he just leave you alone? The word bile — it was rising again, forcing its way up your throat, and there was nothing left in you to stop it.
Defeated, you threw your hands in the air. “What do you want me to say, Mark? Huh?”
You could feel it. Everything was about to come spewing out.
“You want me to say I can’t stand being in the same room as you when you’re with her? That it genuinely makes my skin crawl? Or how about the fact that I would rather eat glass than watch you two be all touchy-feely in the corner?”
Yeah. You sounded like a downright fucking bitch, and you knew it. But this was what he wanted — the honest truth. Raw, unfiltered, and ugly.
He stared back at you, bewildered. “What the fuck? Why?”
Curiosity killed the cat. You brought this on yourself, Mark.
“Because I have feelings for you!”
There it went.
“That’s fucking why, Mark!”
There was no taking it back now.
In the silence that followed the bomb which you had just dropped on your friendship, you noticed two things.
One, you were trembling.
And two, your cheeks were wet.
You hadn’t meant to cry. Waterworks were so reductive. You thought you knew better than to dissolve into tears when things didn’t go your way and you were forced to do things you didn’t want to do. The throbbing between your temples had intensified with ferocity, and amidst the quiet, that dull ache had acuminated into a sharp one — you weren’t lying when you said you weren’t feeling well.
Too afraid to meet Mark’s eyes and see what he really thought of you written all across that handsome face, you turned away from him, squeezing your own eyes shut. A fat drop escaped your waterline and rolled down your cheek. You thought you felt him reach out for you again, those warm fingers brushing the back of your hand, but you couldn’t be sure.
“Wait,” he began, voice gentler than before, “what do you—”
Before he could finish whatever it was he wanted to say, there was the sound of keys jangling at the front door, which swung open a second later to reveal four merry, slightly red faces.
“Oh, she was definitely flirting with—”
Ryujin cut herself off mid-sentence, catching sight of you and Mark at the foot of the stairs. Hastily, you wiped at your face, hoping the wet tracks running down weren’t so obvious, though anyone with working retinas could probably tell from your bloodshot eyes that you had been crying. Her eyes flicked between you and Mark worriedly.
“Are you guys okay?” she asked, careful not to sound too concerned.
Lia was still stamping the snow off her boots on the doormat outside. At Ryujin’s voice, she looked up, just missing your quick half-step up the stairs and away from Mark.
“Yeah, um, I’m just going to go lie down,” you replied shakily, managing a weak smile. “Think I might be coming down with something.”
Without waiting for a response, you finally turned and left.
Head pounding and tears blurring your vision, you made your way back to your room and buried yourself under the covers, determined to avoid speaking to anyone else for the rest of the day. The guilt was already festering. Just the thought of facing Mark or Lia again brought on a wave of nausea.
So you did your best not to think.
Despite the churning of your stomach, sleep did come — uneasily at first, and then with the force of a freight train. The trembling had less to do with your feelings for Mark than they did with the body chills that preceded a fever. You slept through most of the remaining days at the cabin, enduring a 39 degree temperature, and only ever leaving your bed to use the bathroom down the hall. Jaemin and Ryujin — bless their poor souls, having to navigate the no doubt tense atmosphere for the rest of the trip — took turns to check in on you, bring up food and refill your water.
Even in your fever-stricken delirium, you promised yourself that you’d treat both of them to something nice when you were all back on campus again. Haechan too, for all the cooking.
Mark and you didn’t speak again for the rest of the winter break, aside from a feel better soon text you received the day you all left the cabin. You sent back a thanks just to be polite, and even though you saw the speech bubbles appear and disappear a few times, nothing else was said.
And that was the end of that.
“Club Aura this Friday. We’re all going.”
Renjun was stone-faced. “Oh, absolutely not.”
“Come on,” Haechan whined. “It’s the semester welcome back event. They’re doing 10 shots for the price of 5. Did you hear me? That’s 5 whole free shots. Absolutely unheard of in this economy.”
“You’d basically be losing money if you didn’t go,” Yangyang quipped helpfully.
“See? This guy gets it.” The two exchanged a hi-five over Renjun’s head just as he slumped down onto the wooden table.
It was a beautiful day to be out by the quad. Campus always felt the most alive in those first few weeks of the semester. You weren’t the only ones making the most of the sunshine — the quad was littered with students chatting, working, and even napping on the grass, soaking in the warm afternoon rays.
Since the new academic year started, you and Ryujin had been spending more time with Haechan’s friends from his classes than with his roommates — Jaemin’s pre-med workload was getting much heavier, and you were avoiding the third person for… obvious reasons.
Renjun you were already well-acquainted with — a much needed and appreciated (at least by you) voice of reason — but over the last few weeks, you had gotten to know Dejun, Haechan’s good friend and fellow music major, and Yangyang, a comp sci major who Haechan shared maybe one (?) class with in first year. The two of them just clicked immediately, and you could see why.
Those two were cut from the same, sassy, and chaotic cloth.
“I have to submit my assignment first, then we can go,” Ryujin said. “But if you keep distracting me like last time, I am not stepping foot out of the building.”
Haechan beamed. “Promise to be on my best behaviour.”
Now that you were out of the dorms and no longer had to worry about having points deducted for sneaking non-residents up to your room, your apartment with Ryujin was basically free reign for her boyfriend. Not that you minded too much — Haechan always seemed to liven up your living room, and getting to enjoy his cooking on the regular was certainly nothing to complain about.
You hoped he’d stick around. It would be a shame if you never tasted his doenjang-jjigae again.
“I’m down,” you added. Nights out with Haechan were always a good time, even if your head and bowels were inclined to disagree the next morning. Plus, the weeks you had spent back home with your parents had made you miss the feeling of being young and getting completely shit-faced to welcome the weekend.
Dejun caught your eye, his shapely brow raised and an inquisitive smile on his mouth. You only shrugged, though the corners of your lips did turn upwards ever so slightly.
“Count me in too, then,” he declared.
You did not miss Ryujin’s well-aimed kick underneath the table. While the boys hooted and hollered, trying their best to coerce Renjun into going, she shot you an all-knowing look. Ryujin was convinced Dejun had a thing for you, and you were starting to believe her.
Maybe you’d even entertain it. You certainly weren’t opposed to the idea. Dejun was sweet, stupidly handsome, funny when he chose to be (and wasn’t being made fun of by Yangyang), and he always laughed at your jokes, though never as much as M—
You shook your head, cutting off the train of thought. That was besides the point.
“Renjun, I will massage your feet for ten whole minutes.”
“You know you’re supposed to offer me things that I actually want.”
Yangyang was quick to counter. “Okay. Then you can massage my feet for ten minutes.”
“What the actual fuck is wrong with you.”
With an amused smile, you reached for your phone, wanting to check the rest of the schedule for today. You were pretty sure there was an economic forecasting lecture in your timetable that, given the gorgeous weather this afternoon, you were rather inclined to skip. The whole campus seemed to be out on the grass today, and you did not want to be one of the sad few stuck inside an auditorium reading overcrowded powerpoint slides.
Scrolling through your calendar with your head down and eyes focused on the screen, you didn’t notice the figure approaching your table until it spoke.
“Hey,” it said, in that voice you knew too well.
Your fingers froze.
God, you should’ve known better than to think of him.
“Mark!” Renjun greeted brightly. You didn’t look up, but you could hear shuffling down the bench across from you. “Wanna sit?”
“I’m good, thanks,” Mark replied. Casual. Easy-going. “Actually, um…”
You tried to sneak a glance at him, only to find he was already looking at you. The moment your eyes locked, you felt it — a little stutter in the rhythm of your heart.
“Do you have a minute?” he asked.
All the attention was on you. Renjun looked a little perplexed, obviously unaware of what had happened between you and Mark over the winter break, and you were thankful for it. Dejun surveyed you with curiosity. Ryujin tried to remain neutral, but it was clear to you she had been caught off-guard by his appearance too.
“Uh—”
Too fast. Your mouth opened before you knew what you were going to say. You didn’t think your throat had ever been drier in your whole life.
“—sure,” you finally croaked. The most normal and natural sounding sure to ever be said.
Sliding your tote bag over your shoulder, you awkwardly slid out from under the wooden table and followed Mark as he headed away from the group. When he approached an empty bench and sat down, you hesitated. Mark noticed — you knew he caught the slight stutter in your movements — and a flash of something passed across his eyes. But he said nothing, and you settled yourself on the same bench a few seconds later.
You weren’t really sure why you had agreed to talk. Of course, you didn’t want to make a scene by outright blowing him off in front of your friends, but if you were being honest with yourself, you had missed him. Mark had been your friend first, before anything else.
“How have you been?” he asked, so simply.
“Good,” you replied without looking at him, gaze fixed straight ahead. Not that it mattered whether your eyes were on him or not — you were aware of his every movement anyway. “Busy now that school’s started, but good. You?”
“Yeah, not bad,” was his answer. “Been better, but I’ve also been worse.”
You hummed lightly in acknowledgement. The two of you lapsed into another subdued silence. It wasn’t quite comfortable, but it was more bearable than you were expecting, and certainly much less tense than the last few you had shared.
Then Mark sighed, a deep and resigned sound. It was coming, whatever it was, whatever reason had made him come over and pull you aside to talk. Your fingers tightened around your tote bag, clinging to the canvas like it was a safety blanket, as if the rough fabric could protect you from the next words to come out of his mouth.
“I am sorry about how we left things. Over the winter break,” he said. Then he paused. Waiting to see if you’d close up and shut him out again at the broach of the topic.
But you only sighed too, shoulders relaxing slightly as you leaned back against the bench. Maybe you had subconsciously been expecting him to tell you what a horrible person he thought you were. The tension dissipated from you, little by little. Time had made you all the more forgiving, and you were grateful for it.
“Me too,” you replied.
You did want to keep Mark as a friend. He brought a certain colour to your life — one that made you appreciate the small but certain pockets of happiness that existed in the mundaneness of the everyday. For that, you were willing to put your own feelings aside.
Besides, you’d like to think you were making progress on that front anyway. Maybe the tight little skirt and matching halter top in the back of your closet would be making an appearance this Friday night, and catch the attention of a certain bold-browed music major.
Or at least one could hope.
You sighed, releasing the tote bag from your severe grip, and let your hands fall to your lap with a soft pat.
“How’s Lia?” you asked. There was a second unspoken question in there somewhere, if he cared to decipher it.
Does she know what happened? Does she think I’m a homewrecking little bitch?
“I don’t know if you heard, but we’re actually not together anymore.”
The “oh” that escaped your mouth like a reflex was so blunt and poorly timed that you had to wince. Evidently, you had not heard. Haechan was gracious and considerate enough to avoid bringing his roommate up in conversation when you were around, and it wasn’t like you were scrounging for updates either.
“I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” he reassured. “All things considered, it was a pretty good split. We kind of both agreed we were better off as just friends. She’s on exchange now in Copenhagen, and really enjoying it, last I heard.”
“That sounds nice,” you offered, not sure what else to say. “I hope she has a wonderful semester there.”
The silence returned. Out of the corner of your eye, you could see Mark wringing his hands in his lap. It was odd to see him struggle with what to say when words usually came to him so effortlessly. The Mark you knew could wax poetic about MBTI compatibility for hours on end if he felt so inclined, even though Renjun had explained to him it was all pseudoscience anyway.
“I’ve been thinking about… what you said,” he began, a little unsteadily. “After that day, things kind of—I don’t know, things just clicked, I guess? And started to make more sense.”
You inhaled sharply. “Look, I don’t—I shouldn’t have said all that. It was my mistake, and it—”
“No.” He was quiet, but firm. “I don’t think it was a mistake.”
You convinced yourself the shiver that ran through you was from the breeze, and nothing else.
“When Lia and I were together, it was good, don’t get me wrong, but it always felt like there was something missing. And I thought that it would just fill in and sort itself out over time. But it didn’t, and I couldn’t figure out why.”
Mark was looking at you now. You could feel his eyes on you, but you didn’t dare turn in his direction.
“Until I forced it out of you. And it was like someone finally turned the lights on in my brain.”
He wasn’t—he couldn’t be. Your fingers were working at the cotton of your bag again, clenching the fabric with unprecedented strength.
“Honestly, the past few weeks have just been… fucking unbearable. Without you. Without being able to just talk to you about whatever’s on my mind. Because with you, everything is easy, and everything feels right.”
He paused for a quiet laugh, though it was a bit shaky.
“I guess what I’m trying to say is, I have feelings for you,” he finally said.
Your fingers stopped their frantic dance. The breath you hadn’t even realised you were holding slipped out of your mouth without a sound.
“If you don’t feel the same as you did last winter, I’m not asking you to reciprocate,” he continued, voice wavering, “but you are an important person to me, and I still want you in my life. I would really like for us to be friends again.”
At last, you looked up to meet his eyes. Those big, beautiful brown eyes. They were earnest, and hopeful, and comfortingly familiar.
Despite yourself, a small smile broke out across your face. You really had missed him. He smiled back, a real, big one that lit up his whole face, and any resolve you had left to keep your heart safe from the boy in front of you was scattered away, like sand in the wind. There was nothing left to do but resign to your own fate.
“I’d like that too.”
“Guess who I saw sneaking out of my living room this morning?”
Mark dropped his bags by the couch and perched himself on the kitchen island, watching as you manoeuvred around the stove.
“I figured, she didn’t come home last night,” you replied. “Also, you’re early. I’m still making the sauce. And I still have to cook the noodles.”
“That’s okay, I can wait,” he reassured. “Is Ryujin at class?”
You shook your head. “She’s working today. We were so happy when she got the internship, but they’re seriously working her like a dog.” The poor thing was having to juggle that on top of a full time academic workload. No wonder she was scheduling late night rendezvous with a not-so-mystery man — she needed the stress relief.
“I just don’t get it,” Mark sighed, dropping his chin down to his hand. “Why go on a break if you’ll just act like you’re still in a relationship anyway? I mean, the only thing that’s really changed is we all have to pretend they’re not still sleeping together.”
“Who knows,” you mused, letting out a sigh of your own. “I do hope they figure it out. Ryujin misses him, I can tell.”
Mark scoffed. “And Haechan definitely fucking misses her. He’s always so sulky nowadays.”
You hummed in agreement. It was your sincere hope that they’d make it through this, whatever this was. Those two were clearly meant for each other. That, and you weren’t sure how much longer you could keep acting like you bought Ryujin’s excuses when she’d come home at 1am — after some very vigorous studying indeed, if studying could do that to her hair.
They’d work it out. You had hope.
The sauce was almost there, just needing another 15 minutes or so to simmer on the stove. You took out a pot and began filling it with water for the noodles. By no means did you consider yourself a great cook — you were just decent at best — but Mark genuinely revered your kitchen like it was a local hidden gem, a decades-old establishment that had been passed down through the generations.
Despite his confession, nothing that overstepped platonic boundaries had transpired since that day on the quad. Of course, you had restored your friendship — slowly at first, and then all at once it seemed — and things were almost completely back to the way they used to be. But Mark was more careful now. He hadn’t brought up the topic since, and despite things being good between you again, you could tell he was still giving you the space he thought you needed.
“So, how much longer is it going to take?”
You whirled around, accusingly brandishing your chopsticks at him. “You said you could wait!”
“Okay, you’re right,” he chuckled, pushing off the counter. “I promise I’ll—hang on,” he cut himself off, suspicion creeping into his voice. “Turn around again.”
“Seriously, do you want me to finish cooking or not?” Exasperated, you obliged, preparing to fix him with a withering look that said stop distracting me or I’ll be boiling you instead of the noodles.
But Mark’s eyes didn’t meet yours. Instead, they were zeroed in on your torso, and the incriminating print that covered it, and suddenly you remembered why you didn’t want Mark to be here when you were still hovering over the stove to tend to the sauce in case it splattered.
“Is that—”
“It’s not what it looks like,” you cut in nervously, backing away from the counter with your hands raised.
Mark rounded the corner slowly. “So you haven’t been using poor Rudolfo as an apron?”
“I mean—well, uh…no?”
“Right. So those big orange stains on his face — what are those about?”
Your eyes flitted around. That was between you and your favourite kimchi-jjigae place. “Um, you know, it’s a funny story actually…”
He was closing in. Your window of possible escape was only shrinking with each second that passed. The marble countertop that once stood between you could protect you no longer. There was only one thing left that you could do.
Flee.
“You massacred my boy!” Mark lamented, giving chase as you darted away from him towards the living room.
“He was fugly to begin with!” you shot back over your shoulder, a peal of laughter ringing out.
You skirted around the dining table and chairs with ease, but Mark was too quick, catching up to you the moment your hand brushed the edge of the couch. Strong arms locked themselves around your midsection, and then you were toppling over the armrest, hands latching onto the nearest thing you could find to try and anchor yourself.
It just so happened that the nearest thing was Mark.
The two of you landed with a thud loud enough to raise concern. One of your legs was half folded underneath itself, and a dull ache radiated from your hip where you had made contact with the furniture.
The more pressing matter at hand, however, was the presence of Mark’s face a mere breath away from your own. A gentle hand carefully cradled the back of your head, protecting it from hitting the opposite end of the couch. Mark was breathing hard, whether that was from your impromptu game of cat and mouse, or something else entirely.
“Sorry,” he murmured.
He was so close. He smelled like laundry detergent, with a hint of something herbal, like he always did — it was so very Mark. You could see yourself reflected in the dark, glassy pools of his pupils. He really did have the most gorgeous eyes. They flickered down to your mouth, for the briefest of seconds, and your breath caught in your throat.
Then he was moving, and the knee that had been wedged between your thighs was shifting, and he was pulling away, avoiding your eyes the whole time while he tried to extricate himself from you.
That was when you decided you had enough.
Your hands, which had latched onto his shoulders during your fall, tightened their grip, stopping him from any further movements.
“Mark,” you said. Voice low, but firm. He looked up slowly, finally locking eyes with you again.
Truth be told, you had made up your mind about Mark Lee weeks ago.
You supposed you always knew how things would turn out. You just hadn’t expected it to take this long. But you knew Mark was being careful this time around, respecting your space, never trying to make you uncomfortable or overstep a boundary in case you didn’t feel the same.
The ball was in your court now, just as it had been since he had made his feelings plain.
“Kiss me,” you said.
He paused, eyes searching yours to make sure he had heard you correctly, for one last sign of confirmation. A single, barely perceptible nod from you was all it took.
The brush of his mouth against yours was gentle, and slow at first. He was careful. You could feel the hesitancy in his movements. But then your hands moved, sliding up his shoulders to loop around his neck, and Mark abandoned all and any remaining caution he had left in him.
By the time you broke apart, you may as well have just ran a marathon with the way your heart was thundering in your chest.
“So,” he forced out through heaving breaths, resting his forehead on yours. “Does that mean you like me back?”
You pulled back just enough so you could flick his forehead, a teasing smile decorating your face despite the gasps of air you were taking in. “Okay mister. Did you forget that it was me who liked you first?”
“Well yeah, but I didn’t know if you still do, so…”
“Mark.” You clasped his face with both hands, forcing him to look at you. “In case my tongue wasn’t clear enough—”
“Aw, come on dude, don’t say it like that.”
“—I like you,” you finished. “A lot.”
Probably too much for my own good.
He grinned. A big one, where all his teeth were out on display, the shape of it so wide you wouldn’t be surprised if it was just a little painful. His eyes were so bright, you were sure the universe had misplaced a constellation within them.
“That makes me really happy.”
“Are you going to say it back? Or just leave me hanging?”
Mark laughed, lowering to place a quick kiss to the tip of your nose. “You already know I like you. Sometimes I think maybe too much.”
You smiled so hard you were sure your cheeks would split.
He looked down at the cursed shirt from last year’s Secret Santa wryly. “It was a pretty shit gift, hey?”
“Yeah,” you hummed thoughtfully, “but I don’t know. I’ve kind of grown attached to it now. Rudolfo has that sadness in his eyes that you only see in Eastern European gay porn.”
You were rewarded with a round of his giggles. Somewhere along the way, they had become your favourite sound.
“Dude, you are fucking ridiculous.”
It was spring when Mark Lee stumbled his way back into your life again.
Only this time, he was here to stay.
taglist: @fancypeacepersona
SECRET ADMIRER!
saturdays at your house are always loud, messy, and dramatic—mostly thanks to your brother and his dear friends. but when a love letter keeps arriving at exactly 7:37PM sharp, the noise turns suspicious. how do you deal with seven suspects, a nosy brother, and a mystery admirer that might be a little too close for comfort all in one night?
pairing 7dream, secret member x fem!reader feat. oh sion genre interactive written series, secret admirer au, fluff, comedy, mysteryish warnings not proofread, profanities, overdramatic & overprotective sion, suspiciously cute behaviour from 7dream chapter word count 1.3k notes everyone thinking its mark so far... smirks...
chapter one — CHAPTER TWO — chapter three
"okay, next!"
sion plants himself in the center of the living room like a prosecutor in front of a jury, the stack of letters following him, clutched tightly in his fist. his voice cuts clean through the chatter, instantly silencing the room.
"jeno lee. what were you doing at exactly 7:37PM this evening?"
heads swivel in unison towards jeno, who blinks from where he's half-slouched against a beanbag by the corner, controller still in his lap. he doesn't even flinch. "...playing mario kart? i was literally sitting right next to you this entire night."
the room hums with agreement—everyone remembers the blue shell incident that had sent haechan into a dramatic tailspin just minutes before. but then mark, of all people, pipes up.
"wait. didn't you go to the bathroom around that time?"
a ripple of ooohs erupts, and jeno sighs, tipping his head back against the beanbag like he's summoning patience from the ceiling. "for two minutes," he replies flatly. "if you think i managed to teleport, write a love letter, and slide it under yn's door in that time, be my guest."
sion narrows his eyes, pacing slowly, milking the moment. "two minutes is all it takes. you could've written the letter at home." he raises tonight's envelope high, the paper rustling in the sudden hush. "shall i refresh your memory?"
the way you always hold the door a little longer if someone's behind you, the way you make sure no one gets left carrying everything alone, the way you slow down whenever someone lags at the back. your kindness leads me to love.
the words hang heavy in the air and your stomach twists—heat crawls up the back of your neck. the letter paints a picture so vividly familiar it almost hurts—jeno jogging to catch up after you'd held the door open for him an extra beat after an impromptu convenience store run. jeno rushing to shift the bags from your hands without a word, making sure you were left carrying the light ones only, or none at all. jeno quietly falling into step beside you after class, steady as always, because you'd unconsciously slowed your pace down for renjun and jaemin's shorter strides.
you never thought anyone noticed those small, instinctive things you did—but the letter is proof that someone had.
jeno shifts, straightening slightly. his expression stays unreadable, but his gaze flickers—to you, then away. "that doesn't mean anything," he says evenly. "being polite doesn't equal secret admirer."
"polite?" sion echoes, incredulous. "polite? that's not politeness, that's devotion." he points the letter at jeno like a sword. "you, my friend, are guilty until proven innocent."
mark glances between you, jeno, and—occasionally—someone else in the corner, his knee still bouncing restlessly. jaemin mutters something under his breath, earning a shove from haechan, and chenle—chenle is watching with a grin too wide, his eyes glittering with something unspoken.
jeno finally leans forward, forearms braced on his knees. "you're reaching, sion. if i really liked yn, i wouldn't resort to cowardly letters."
the bluntness lands heavier than it should. you look away, biting the inside of your cheek, trying to ignore the flare of disappointment you can't quite name.
sion doesn't miss a beat. "bold claim. we'll circle back." he waves a hand dismissively, but his stare lingers on jeno a fraction too long before shuffling the letters in the shoebox again.
the next "suspect" doesn't even wait to be called.
"alright, alright, my turn!"
haechan bounces to his feet, throwing himself into the armchair with enough flair for two people. sprawling sideways, one leg dangling dramatically off the armrest, he grins like he's been waiting his whole life for this spotlight.
sion raises a brow. "bold move, lee donghyuck."
"c'mon, i know you've been dying to accuse me all night, so just get to it already."
the six laugh, and you roll your eyes because he's not exactly wrong. haechan flirts with you more than anyone else does—but always in the most unserious, over-the-top way, the kind that makes it easy to brush off as a joke. still, every now and then, your pulse skips and butterflies bloom when his teasing cuts too close.
sion rolls his eyes so hard it's a miracle they don't get stuck. he plucks another envelope from the stack, skimming briefly before reading aloud.
i hate how you always get under my skin. you push every button on purpose, and i swear i'm mad every time. but then you do it again, and i realise maybe i don't hate it as much as i say i do.
the room explodes again—jaemin collapsing dramatically onto the carpet in mock agony, jisung choking on his soda, and chenle letting out a cackle so sharp it rattles the air.
and its true—you've made an art out of driving specifically, haechan, crazy. stealing his controller right before he clears a tough level, switching the sugar in his coffee for salt just to watch him spit it out, humming the wrong lyrics to his favourite michael jackson song until he snaps and shoves a pillow in your face. it's a game you never tire of, because his reactions are always so loud, so dramatic, so uniquely haechan.
it's not one-sided either. he knows exactly how to crawl under your skin too—talking over your answers in charades, calling you embarrassing nicknames in front of strangers, eating the last cookie with a smug grin. half the time you're exasperated, the other half you're laughing so hard your stomach aches.
that's the thing about your relationship with haechan—you drive each other mad, but you'd both miss the chaos if it wasn't there.
haechan slaps the armrest with both hands, triumphant. "yup! that's me! yn annoys the fuck out of me, but what can i say? i'm a masochist."
sion's jaw tightens. "so you're admitting it?"
"of course i admit it," haechan shoots back smoothly, smirk widening. "we annoy each other because we care. who else has the guts to keep her humble?"
chenle wheezes, mumbling incoherently about how your dynamic actually sounds sweet, to which haechan immediately retorts, tossing a pillow across the room at him.
sion steps closer, circling the armchair like a predator closing in on its prey. "so all those times you've been glued to her side? the stupid nicknames? the endless teasing? that wasn't just for your own sick entertainment, was it?"
haechan gasps theatrically, hand to his chest. "your honour, objection! leading the witness."
"this isn't court!" sion snaps.
"sure feels like one." jeno mutters.
haechan lounges deeper into the chair, propping his chin on his palm with the kind of smirk that makes you want to a hurl a cushion at his face. "fine. you want my confession? here it is! yeah, she annoys me, and yeah, i annoy her back. but am i out here writing love letters like some tragic shakespeare character? nah. not really my style."
"convenient denial," sion mutters, narrowing his eyes.
"convenient truth," haechan counters, grinning wider. "besides—" his gaze flickers towards you, playful but softer for just a fraction of a second—"if i had something to say, i wouldn't need paper and ink. i'd make sure she heard it loud and clear, baby."
collective groans fill the room immediately, renjun smacking his forehead, while jisung mutters, "you're disgusting," under his breath.
sion pinches the bridge of his nose, visibly torn between throttling haechan and moving on. finally, he throws his hands up in defeat. "fine. whatever. you're still on the list, though. don't think you're in the clear just because you're able to gaslight your way out of my interrogation."
haechan laughs, shaking his head in amusement while sliding out of the armchair with a flourish, arms raised like he's just won a round. he flops back onto the couch, immediately yanking jaemin's blanket just to spite him, while sion groans into his palms.
you can't help it—you laugh, the tension splintering for just a second. because if there's one thing haechan will always do, it's fill the room with noise, leaving no space for silence or secrets to settle too long.
and maybe that's why, even as the letters loom larger, nobody really wants the game to end just yet.
💌 who's the secret admirer?
mark
renjun
jeno
haechan
jaemin
chenle
jisung
taglist ♡ @bluedbliss @httpsxnox @zuzu-the-simp @zhongzn @bamjjwi @stormy1408 @paripressin @chvngm1nz @tinyzen @i06hae
I THOUGHT IT WAS HAECHAN WTH
SO WHO IS IT?!
THE INVITATION | P.JS
PAIRING: Park Jisung x female!reader
GENRE: smut, college!au, halloween!au, thriller!au.
SUMMARY: Your crush on the introverted Jisung reaches its limit after several failed attempts to get his attention, so you use your last card and you invite him to a Halloween party without knowing what you've really gotten yourself into.
WARNINGS AND CONTENT: explicit smut, dirty talk, creampie, pussy eating, squirt, mask kink i guess?, unprotected sex, fingering, mentions of blood, murder and death, mentions of past bullying, reader is kinda obsessed, jisung big dick agenda.
WORD COUNT: +17k.
AUTOR'S NOTE: enjoy a halloween fic in august!! also shout out to the bat jisung this is for you baby
‘’Oh my God, not again,’’ Yeji snapped his fingers at you, huffing. ‘’Hellooo, are you even listening to me?’’
‘’Are you gonna actually study or just sit there and glare all day?’’ Seonyun added, bumping you with her knee under the table, making you jump.
You averted your eyes from the other table, from the boy that was receiving all your obsessive attention since you sat with your friends to study earlier. Park Jisung was just sitting there, looking hot and handsome, completely oblivious to the fact that you were losing your mind over him on the other side of the library.
‘’I wasn't glaring, I was… observing,’’ you defended yourself, smiling softly as you closed your notebook and started camping out your things, over with the study session. You were mildly irritated and tired. ‘’It's different.’’
‘’For fuck’s sake,’’ Yeji exasperated again, whining as she also started getting her stuff and gave you a side eye. A very judgemental side eye. ‘’Not you still crushing on that weirdo!’’
You wouldn't call yourself a desperate girl. You never needed or craved attention, because that just came naturally to you your whole life. You grew up being the cute, kind girl that everybody adored. Soft spoken but firm, a natural leader who invited everybody to her birthday parties and it was the event. Good at sports but never the captain, more like the glue that kept everybody together, often praised for being a good teammate who was the spirit of the group and went home with a medal for amazing sportsmanship.
Teachers talked good about you, you were super friendly to all of your classmates who had nothing to say about you but good things, your parents were smug and proud about your reputation and of course, your grades at school. It wasn’t about popularity, because that came and went, eventually. Everything would come to an end sooner or later. It was about being remembered. It was about being a presence in everybody's lives, positive and reassuring. A name that leaves a sweet taste, a girl who never hurt anybody.
You feared that everything would change after you moved to another city with your family for your father’s work, but luckily that didn’t happen. It was a new beginning for your family and you knew that being the new girl brought its benefits, like a new wave of people wanting to meet you, interested and curious, as your life was settling back in. But also it had its challenges for sure, you were flesh meat in a place you didn’t know a single face and high school felt like a jungle sometimes. Things could go south real fast. You had something to prove and worked hard for it: you studied a lot to catch up, you won your place into the fencing team, not without gaining some unfriendly glances from the competition. Your grades didn’t suffer nor did you in the end, and your social life started functioning again when a new group of friends gathered around you once you were approved. Things just escalated from there.
As time passed and you matured even more, you started noticing how you could play with people. Well, maybe play it’s a ugly word. More like you started noticing how people wanted to make you happy. Or at least make you smile, or gain your sympathy, hopefully waiting for you to wave at them in the hallway as you walk to your class.
It was easy, really, how you could make them do things. First, starting with just simple favors like boys holding your books, girls bringing you water after fencing practice or somebody telling you the best books for the upcoming exams. It didn’t come from malice, really, but it was so easy, they were happy to win a minute from you, even just a glance. A soft ‘’thank you’’.
Your teenage years came and so did your stable position in the reign at high school, even if you pretended it didn’t exist. The power was there, but you weren’t an evil, manipulative person. With years and experience you realized that it wasn't the route you preferred or worked in your favor, center in the middle of the spotlight, a pretty doll for everyone to whisper about and pull your parts until you broke. A sort of queen enemy to the public, a tyrant so pretty it caused distrust. No. You knew better than that. You knew what it worked and what not.
You weren’t hiding from the spotlight exactly, but you knew when and how to take a step back and let someone else bathe in the glory and the lights. To you, it was better to sit and observe, starting to collect strings and stories like an ambitious puppeteer.
You created and manipulated people’s trust and so the secrets started coming to you: who hooked up with who, how your best friend Yeji rigged the coronation of the spring princess into her favor, who bought the exam’s answers, how Mrs Kim was fucked in her office for a good grade and an even better recommendation letter, who paid the school to kept the bully case buried. You weren’t hunting for the information, it just came your way and of course, you were a tomb. You didn’t leak anything. You had tons of weapons but chose peace, just looking at your puppets and dusting them with a soft smile, giving them a moment of life.
You didn’t need the queen B title, to be honest. You didn’t care. Your power came from another source, as you realised when you grow up. Men's eyes lingered in you with interest and barely contained lust, girls looked at you up and down and smiled at you, friendly but cautious of your beauty. You were used to enter a room, a class, a coffee shop and the whole world would tilted to your favor; classmates saved you a seat and passed you notes, a kind stranger would pay for your order - hell, you were sure the cute barista from the place you always go was a free coffee away from making the company bankrupt.
But you weren’t a show off, nor all the attention went to inflate your head into an insane ego. You knew that wasn't the most intelligent thing to do and it would just deteriorate everything. You just lived your life, taking all the privileges that came your way silently with soft eyes and a kind smile. At least, until someone really dared to cross you. That was another story.
So, yeah, you wouldn't call yourself a desperate girl. Except you fucking were. And the culprit had no idea, so that was worse, lost in his head with those big headphones and his eyes devouring a book, acting like you weren’t making holes in his head with your eyes.
‘’What about it?’’ You said nonchalantly as you could, trying not to open your jaw and bite at her head. You stole another glance at Jisung. ‘’Weren’t you supposed to be my friend, Yeji? Support me without judgment and all that?’’
Both of your friends shared a look, but it was Yeji who dared to talk after a moment.
‘’Did you hit your head? This is not a judgement free zone, babe. Like at all,’’ she gave a small nod at Jisung’s direction with a frown. ‘’That guy is weird, always alone and has no social life. He’s just a ghost that goes to class and disappears. You think I want that for you?’’
‘’We don’t really know anything about him’’, Seonyun whispered, big eyes full of conspiracy and gossip, ‘’like, he doesn't go to parties, doesn't do any sport… He’s not in any team, not even in the loser's one! Like, he could be in the chess team or something at least.’’
You weren’t impressed. You shrugged with no effort to hide your boredom, lips pressed. ‘’So? Maybe he’s shy or introverted. Just because he’s not an alcoholic jock doesn’t mean he’s a freak,’’ you defend him, feeling protective. ‘’He’s just some guy, Seonyun.’’
Yeji rolled her eyes, giving Seonyun a look that screamed listen to this dumb bitch. ‘’Well, I was classmates in elementary and high school with him. So I do know things about him. Little Jisung was a freak then too. Quiet and always in the corner alone, no wonder nobody liked him.’’
That picked Seonyun's interest. ‘’But Yeji, if he went with you that means he’s rich, right?’’
‘’He was on a scholarship, Seonyun. And that ungrateful rat threw it away when he left in the middle of the year. Guess he couldn't take the pressure,’’ Yeji scoffed.
You were barely listening.
Your obsession started when you saw him at campus a few months ago. And holy fuck. Jisung, with his height, his deep voice, his perfect jaw and that mysterious aura turned you into a pervert. Really. You had your fantasies just like everybody and a normal sex life, but you weren’t a horny monster full of hormones. At least that was what you thought. You didn't believe it was that healthy to spend hours thinking about Jisung’s large and veiny hands on your neck while he railed you. Especially not in class, where you were literally disconnected from the world just to have your horny thoughts in peace. But there you were, your head completely full of images of him.
You tracked him down campus, gained information about his classes and what he was studying, and so you learned he was a future physical therapy doctor. Perfect. He would blend perfectly in your family of doctors. Maybe he could work in your father’s clinic after you two get married.
Since you two shared some classes you couldn't control the way your mind would float and fantasise about him in a series of different scenarios. Like him fingering you under the table in the middle of an exam or him fucking you in the farterst and darkest corner of the library. You were often planning your life together and wondering what his favourite colors were or if he would agree to have the walls of your shared house painted juniper green. And then fuck you against them.
But there was one problem. Park Jisung was completely unaware of your existence.
At first you thought that maybe he had a girlfriend or was another fuckboy who played hard, but you were completely shocked to know that he didn’t had a file of pretty girls waiting for a turn to fuck him. And that, to you, was completely ridiculous. He was just or even more handsome like other popular guys on campus. There were athletes, fuckboys and regular students that belonged in frats, but Park Jisung made them all look so… common. Boring.
And you were going insane.
You didn't get it. Anytime you would see him on campus he was alone. Sometimes he would talk with Zhong Chenle, the captain of the basketball team and a member of Neo Center Tech, but Jisung wasn’t a pledge there or in any other frat. So your only opportunities to see him were in class, at the library or maybe in the hallway, where you obviously gave him the flirting eyes with no success.
To make things worse (on the verge of being catastrophic), you couldn't just forget about him. Bury him in the back of your brain and continue with your life. You tried, of course, but you knew yourself and knew that it wouldn't work. Your sorority was sister to NCT, so big parties were common in your life and a pretty big part of it. Chaotic, funny, wild parties that were legendary on campus started to mean nothing to you. It was background noise that annoyed you. Not that you loved them before but now being surrounded by people, especially drunk people, just made you too agitated. Like there was something missing, or maybe you weren’t supposed to be there. You sat on these parties pouting and falling into a silent pity party for yourself just because Park Jisung, the ghost of the campus, didn't look in your direction? Yeah. A lot of times.
You weren’t discreet at all in your interest for him and of course, Yeji and Seonyun noticed with horror. You were one of the popular girls and Yeji was mortified that you just even thought about involving yourself with such a lame loser, as she called him. She called it an early life crisis and even considered you were on drugs too. One night your friends organized a very drunk attempt to play seven minutes in heaven in the middle of a party and pushed you and Na Jaemin into a closet, thinking that it was a natural solution.
That was when you remembered that inconvenience.
Jaemin had been chasing after you since high school. He was popular and wealthy, the kind of rich with so much power and influence that life to him was as easy as breathing. Things were just given to him. The perfect golden boy that was good at everything and controlled every corner of the world with his sharp smile, calculating eyes and a cruel brain. He was intelligent in a twisted way. He reminded you of yourself sometimes, except he was cold and his armor showed cracks, a fake smiling persona that enjoyed spreading fear on people. Everybody knew what he was capable of and kissed his ass anyways.
If you managed to get some puppets on stage he was the owner of the theatre. And that’s the thing with kings and queens and reigns and power: someone else could have a bigger army and more horses than you. And that meant that sometimes you had to bow.
So you entertained him. Gave him your firsts, kissed him so hard until he believed you were his and moaned his name everytime he was between your legs trying to sew himself into your soul with no success. You weren’t his girlfriend and Jaemin never asked, not even once, because he was smart enough to never put himself in a position of weakness and he was good at reading you too. It takes one to know another, right? He knew you weren’t the pretty and caring princess you painted yourself to be and he actually liked that. Jaemin liked the chase and honestly, that you gave him freedom. He knew that with the right amount of time and pressure you would bend, if you knew what was good for you and your family. He would call you a game, but you were more than that. He was keeping you out of your cage for the moment, but not forever. Nobody would dare to touch Na Jaemin’s girl anyways.
Jisung was still in your mind and it cost everything in you not to scream his name when Jaemin fucked you so hard in that closet you actually cried tears of pleasure.
‘’He’s always wearing black and don’t get me started on that annoying sad boy vibe. One time I had to sit next to him in class and he was listening to Radiohead,’’ Seonyun implored you with her eyes, whispering like it was a huge terrible discovery. ‘’You can’t find that hot.’’
‘’It’s giving serial killer,’’ Yeji joked and Seonyun agreed with a small laugh. ‘’He checks all the boxes, if you think about it. A solitary loser ignored by the world, he only needs a prom and then boom.’’
‘’I think you guys have seen too many slasher movies. Just because he’s not in a damn frat and listens to rock doesn't mean he’s weird,’’ you rolled your eyes, wishing for more patience. You were exhausted from having the same chat over and over for weeks. ‘’Or a serial killer.’’
‘’Alright, babe, whatever you say,’’ Yeji laughed, looking at you a little defiantly. Her pretty eyes sparkle condescendingly, like a mother dealing with a rebel child that will come to her senses. ‘’But you have to admit that he has totally that vibe.’’
‘’Listen, we get it. You like your men tall, all Michael Myers-ish and looking like a catatonic Victorian child. No judgement here,’’ Seonyun added, trying not to laugh but failing miserably when her eyes found Yeji’s and both started giggling making you eye twitch.
‘’Don’t come crying to us when he stabs you,’’ Yeji warned you.
You said nothing as you just stared at them blankly waiting for them to finish, except that they found that cute and more laughable, cooing at you and your annoyed expression.
‘’No judgment here!’’ Seonyun repeated, smiling. ‘’I mean, Yeji hooked up last week with Hendery so do we actually have a saying on who’s weird or not?’’
Yeji snapped her head at her, giving her a pinch in her arm and hissing as she looked around hoping that nobody listened to that. She huffed and looked at Seonyun between mortification and fury. All traces of mockery gone. ‘’Jesus fuck. Can you keep your fucking voice down? Nobody needs to know that.’’
‘’Especially not Jaehyun, right?’’ You asked Yeji, smiling down at her all fake. She tensed a little and reciprocated your smile, knowing that his boyfriend wouldn't find that threesome very funny. Poor Jung Jaehyun was one of the big fish on campus, a handsome lacrosse player with connections so good that Yeji actually had to work very hard for months to finally entangle him in her nets successfully.
She recomposed quickly, adjusting her long hair with a sigh, ready to change the subject. ‘’I just don’t get it. You have Jaemin behind you since we were like sixteen. Na Jaemin. Why the hell are you acting like a lovesick puppy for Park Jisung?’’
You didn't say anything, the tension slowly building up between two queens who didn’t fear each other. History with you was all the way back since being teens, both knowing everything from the other. You liked Yeji or at least liked that she didn’t feel like interfering in your life and annoyed you, but sometimes tense moments will arise when she encountered that you weren't the obedient right hand of hers. And that, sometimes, bothered her. Maybe Yeji felt threatened by you or envious of your situationship with Jaemin and maybe you didn't like that Yeji thought she called the shots. You could knock her down from her tower if you want it to.
Poor Seonyun was in the middle of it, a little uncomfortable but also knowing that these moments of crossed fire were pretty common. And her part was to cool things down as the good friend and peace maker she was, so Seonyun broke the tense silence with a cute laugh as she showed you both her phone in an attempt to distract the two dobermans in front of her from ripping their throats.
‘’Oh my God, Jeno just texted me! He’s asking about the Halloween party!’’ She squealed, writing a response fast. You didn’t say anything but the tension calmed a little, a crisis averted. ‘’I can’t wait, I wanna show him what I’m wearing so bad.’’
A moment of silence passed and Seonyun watched you both with a frozen smile, waiting for any of you to catch the bait. Expecting.
‘’Nana texted me earlier, he wanted to know what we’re gonna wear too. But we don't even know that, hmm? Are we going to the store tomorrow, right?’’ Yeji asked you, a picture of calmness and diplomacy. Calm enough to be the first to give an olive branch.
‘’Sure,’’ you said, turning your head to watch Jisung again and noticing he was packing his stuff too. ‘’Tomorrow.’’
You were tired of wanting and not having. He wasn't doing any move and you started plotting another plan, a plan he couldn't resist. You noticed that the last couple of weeks Jisung had started to look at you. Dead in the eyes. Something had shifted and you wouldn't let it pass. So you had to initiate the approach slowly but surely. First, you advanced some seats in class which wasn’t easy because you were a late student and most of the seats that Jisung used - the first rows - were obviously occupied.
Then, the little smiles and softs ‘’hi’’ started purring out of you and then questions about some paper or book or whatever, answers you didn’t listen to because you were busy staring at his cute mouth moving and his soft but deep voice that actually made you blush. Next part of the plan was your revealing but cute outfits to catch his attention. Nothing extreme or obvious, just enough to make your tits really good, short enough to show your soft legs and thighs. You would lean on your table and push your tits while you played with your pencil and kept your eyes on him.
Jisung realised and looked, as sometimes you felt and even caught his eyes eating you. And then, he would barely smirk in a knowing way and you would end completely disarmed by that. Waiting for him to make a move, but you kept waiting. You were getting frustrated, all horny and bothered. But no more.
You didn't say goodbye as you left your friends, following Jisung out of the library with decisive steps.
‘’Jisung!’’ You called after him, walking fast down the hallway to catch him. He wasn't wearing his headphones anymore and so when he heard his name being called, he turned around doubtfully.
Once he realized it was you, his soft eyes traveled up and down your body, focusing on your pretty top that showed a good amount of cleavage. You smiled at him feeling like the cat that was about to eat the mouse.
‘’Hi, Jisung,’’ you said, a little shy, blinking at him. He muttered something you didn’t quite catch under his breath, averting your eyes as he moved a little nervous. A soft pink colored his ears.
‘’H-hey. Do you need anything?’’ Jisung asked, clearing his throat. You could see his hand tightening in the strap of his bag, wary and tense.
‘’Well, actually, yes. I need your presence,’’ you explained to him, taking a step closer to him. You smiled at Jisung, thinking how cute he looked being a little startled. ‘’There’s a Halloween party this weekend and… wait, do you have any plans?’’
‘’Uh— I… Halloween?’’ He murmured, playing with the strap of his bag nervously. He looked like a tall deer lost in the middle of a fucking speed highway.
You giggled and took something out of your purse: it was a black envelope with a red wax stamp sealing it. You dared to take his hand and pushed into his palm the invitation to the party. ‘’Yeah, Halloween. I would love it if you come,’’ you whispered, staring deep into his eyes. ‘’To the party.’’
Jisung was a second from combusting from awkwardness or anxiety, you didn’t quite know. But, against all odds, Park Jisung finally studied the invitation with curiosity for a moment that felt close to eternity to you, until he nodded a little. Still, there was something unreadable in his eyes, maybe suspicion? It sparkled so fast it may be you just imagining it.
‘’It’s a costume party, so you’ll have to find me that night,’’ you bite your lip, trying not to smile too much and explode right there. ‘’I won’t tell you what I’m wearing.’’
‘’How I’ll know it’s you?’’ Jisung stared at the invitation in his hand scanning it and then at you again. He played with the envelope between his fingers, indecisive. Like he expected to explode at any second and burn him.
‘’That’s easy,’’ you chuckled, holding his gaze. ‘’I will be the one who doesn’t look away,’’ you whispered to him, slow and deliberate. Your words lingered in the space you two shared.
Jisung swallowed. ‘’Then how you’ll know it's me?’’
You blinked a little taken aback, but actually thought about it. Jisung wasn't flirting or teasing you. He was actually curious, waiting for your answer. You tilted your head and stepped into his space, smiling softly when you heard him inhaling sharply. You leaned in slightly, and he didn’t step back.
‘’I’ve been watching you, Jisung. I see you. I’ll know if it’s you.’’
Jisung stayed still, eyes fixed on you, like he was trying to find or resolve something. His expression wasn’t one you were used to. Intensity shined in his eyes and for a second, something dark crossed his face and left just as fast. A black shadow that made him look more like a wolf than a deer, but It didn’t scare you, it lured you. You wanted to see it again.
But then his posture sagged a little and took a step back, looking away from you.
‘’You don’t know me,’’ he muttered, a touch of defiance in his tone. ‘’How could you know?’’
You smiled up at him, no mask. Not pretending, not trying to grab at his strings and making him another pretty puppet to play with. A sincere smile that lights up your pretty face. Heart beating fast just from standing in front of him, dying to touch him. You looked at him like you were about to whisper a life secret, just for him to hear.
‘’I know exactly who you are,’’ you said, lifting your fingers to trace his cheek gently. ‘’And I know what you can become.’’
You felt him shudder a little under your touch, his eyes didn’t leave yours until the moment broke when more people came out of the library, students you didn’t know. You smiled at Jisung again, this time, more playful and flirty, taking a step back. The hallway was spinning from the rush you felt, heart jumping from excitement.
‘’Don’t get lost, yeah? I’d hate to go looking out for you,’’ you said softly, passing by Jisung to leave, your body brushing his like a whisper. A soft trace of your perfume engulfed him. ‘’Don’t make me wait.’’
You didn’t see him crumpling the card in his closed and shaking fist, staring at you until your figure disappeared with burning eyes and his jaw pressed tight.
In life, sacrifices had to be made. And you supposed one of them was shopping with your frenemy in a random, old costume shop. You liked the place and thought it had his charm, but some find it creepy. And well… it kinda was. Mr Lee’s Costumes and Mascots apparently froze sometime in the eighties as it was obvious from the decoration and the vibe, but time kept going outside the store so it turned into a weird combination of really old and very new items. It had a lot of racks of costumes spread throughout the store, going from classic and cute costumes for kids like clowns and skeletons to the most wild and modern, like a sexy Pokemon.
There were mascot costumes displayed too and even the first one ever from your high school behind glass, like the precious piece of history it was. The place was poorly lit and full of old stuff that no one ever buyed, mirrors and nostalgia buried in dust. Old mannequins wearing costumes full of spiderwebs and long hallways where the fittings rooms were. Shelves were full of masks, wigs and accessories that had seen better decades.
There were clowns everywhere too, and that was indeed creepy. Life size clown figures. You wondered what crossed in Mr Lee’s head to think that was a good decoration theme. Sometimes you thought maybe Mr Lee had cameras in their eyes from preventing stealing, because every time you moved you felt watched. You came close to one of the clown figures in the corner, staring at his face up close and studying his empty eyes, holding your breath. Waiting for something to happen.
‘’Shit,’’ you said, jumping startled when your phone made a loud noise. You took a step back and frowned at all the messages from the Devil accumulating.
dickhead na jaemin: are you trying on costumes without me? i'm hurt dickhead na jaemin: i’ll paid for it so let me pick. dickhead na jaemin: are you ignoring me now? dickhead na jaemin: do us both a favor and don’t wear anything innocent it doest fucking fit you anyway. dickhead na jaemin: im starting to think you like making me wait. you: jesus go bother somebody else dickhead na jaemin: i like bothering you. let me pick your costume. i’ll behave you: you’re disgusting and im busy dickhead na jaemin: and yet you still answer me. cute. dickhead na jaemin: busy doing what exactly?
You rolled your eyes and moved to the next rack of costumes, actually not knowing what to wear. Halloween was a special night to you and you wanted to use the best and most beautiful costume. What would Jisung like? Sexy? Classic? Bloody? You were scanning the options when your phone rang again, making you tighten your jaw.
dickhead na jaemin: im being dead serious. i don’t want anybody staring at you. don't dress like a whore.
you: i’ll dress to make whorever i want stare
dickhead na jaemin: let me fucking guess. Tall? quiet? freak?
You almost dropped your phone, staring at the screen with a shiver down your spine. The three dots on the screen moved and another text from Jaemin came. You could imagine him grinning triumphally, thinking he set a game and was about to win it.
dickhead na jaemin: ding ding ding! your little friend can't keep quiet, doesn't she?
Your eyes snapped to Yeji across the shop, where she was trying on a pink wig and taking photos in the most clean mirror that was.
you: i don't know what are you talking about but leave him out of this dickhead na jaemin: why? can’t take a joke? he never could either. you: leave me alone and stop texting me dickhead na jaemin: god you’re so dramatic and fun. enjoy your shopping princess.
The air around you felt colder, suffocating. You watched her looking at her photos and giggling, so unaware of the chaos and fury inside you brewing slowly. You stepped forward towards her, seeing red. Hands itching to hit her against the mirror and taint it with her betrayal until she cried bloody tears. You stood behind her, watching her silently in the mirror until she lifted her eyes and smiled at you.
‘’Did you find something slutty?’’
You ripped her pink wig and threw it at her face, seething.
‘’You told Jaemin about him,’’ you said, voice cold. Yeji's face didn’t fall, just keeping her smile in place and shrugging. She didn’t deny it. She rolled her eyes in the mirror and turned around, facing you smugly with zero intent of hiding it.
‘’Don’t act like it was a secret. You go around acting like a slut and you think your boyfriend won’t find out?’’
‘’I don’t have a boyfriend,’’ you reminded her, taking a step further into her space and pushing her against the mirror. ‘’Don’t try to spin this on me, Yeji. What’s your damn problem? Why do you care so much?’’
‘’Ohhhh, not the serious face,’’ Yeji purred, pushing your buttons when she wrapped her arms around your neck. She watched you get more furious with a satisfied smile, giggling. ‘’You should be grateful, you know? You have everything but of course you don’t play by the rules. Oh, no, you’re so different and good.’’
‘’Don’t push your luck, Yeji,’’ you said, smacking her arms out of you, voice dripping with venom and barely contained rage. ‘’You really fucked it up.’’
Yeji booed at you, laughing a little and then pouting mockingly. She tilted her head and dropped her smile, turning a little serious. ‘’Why? Because I don’t want you to fall from grace or because I warned Jaemin you’re a cheater slut?’’
‘’If you want Jaemin so much just fucking take him and leave me alone,’’ you snapped, fisting your hands. ‘’You’ll be making me a favor anyways.’’
‘’Please, I could have him if I wanted it, babe. Don’t need your permission. What I want is for you to stop acting like you’re better than us,’’ Yeji hissed, pushing her off the mirror to come close to your face. ‘’You’re as fucked up like me, but you love playing the good girl. And now what? You wanna get the nerd and pretend you’re above us?’’
You laughed bitterly, huffing. ‘’Oh my God, so that’s it? That’s what bothers you, Yeji? You can’t control something and you think you have a say in my life? You are really something.’’
‘’I do have a say in your pathetic life because I’m your friend and you’re being reckless.’’
You turned around and took a breath, trying to control yourself from strangling her. You didn’t want to do that in Mr Lee’s shop but things were getting difficult and your patience was thinner by the minute. You just didn’t get it, how she couldn't back off and leave you alone. You snorted and shook your head.
‘’I’m being reckless with what? My taste in men?’’
Yeji’s body came closer to your back, soft breasts against you. She moved your hair back and rested her chin on your shoulder, looking at you with those sharp, vixen eyes that softened just enough. She hugged you from behind and you didn’t move.
‘’Don’t want you to drag Park Jisung back into our lives,’’ she warned into your ear, venomously. ‘’He’s in the past and belongs there. This is your last warning. Don’t piss me off, babe.’’
You didn’t say anything as you stared in front of you, a slow smirk forming on your lips. With a short snort your body relaxed a little and you looked over your shoulder, your nose brushing hers. ‘’I think you’re really confused here, so let me be clear,’’ you said softly, staring at her eyes. ‘’Don’t get in my way, Yeji. I don’t wanna fight with you, just like I don’t wanna show Jaehyun’s family what you do in Professor Suh's office. Getting on your knees for a better grade…’’ you sighed, shaking your head, ‘’I don’t think Mrs Jung will appreciate that, Yeji. It’s a little vulgar.’’
Yeji’s face fell and she paled a little, but still maintained her composure. You could see how the wheels in her mind were speeding in panic and confusion, the way her body trembled with anger gave her away. Your smile got bigger, enjoying how her determined exterior was crumbling right in front of you like a house of cards hit with a strong wind. Your threat hung there, cold and mocking. ‘’How do you know that?’’
‘’Girls!’’
Mr Lee appeared from behind the counter with his coat on, looking in a hurry but wearing his characteristic kind smile anyways. He couldn't sense the tension between you and Yeji, both smiling at him like nothing, separating like a bomb wasn't about to go off just seconds ago and take the store down. He jogged a little to the door, watching you both with a frown.
‘’I have to go home, our cat climbed to the roof again and my wife is worried,’’ he explained with a sigh. ‘’I swear that animal wants to bet his nine lives and gave us a heart attack at the same time.’’
You smiled politely and Yeji did the same, but it was forced and stiff, like you both were hiding a mess behind your backs. Mr Lee pointed at you and Yeji with his keys and gave both a stern look, like a dad scolding his daughters.
‘’I’ll come back in ten minutes, max. Don’t burn the place down, no drama and boys while I’m gone, understood?’’
‘’Yes, Mr Lee,’’ both you and Yeji replied. Mr Lee stepped outside and left with the bell of the store ringing behind him, leaving the store in charge of two very mad girls.
Yeji picked up the pink wig from the floor and threw it on the counter as she passed by, making a bee line to the door, fuming and red.
‘’You’re leaving? You didn’t pick a costume,’’ you called her, standing in your place.
‘’I won’t waste my precious time dealing with you,’’ she huffed, not looking back. ‘’Jaehyun is waiting for me. Have fun finding something that fits your pathetic ass,’’ Yeji taunted you, sending you a flying kiss before closing the door with a loud bang that made the shop windows shake.
You stood there, alone, in the middle of the still and silent store. You enjoyed the loneliness of it for a while, shopping quietly and trying to dissipate the tension that seemed to follow you like a shadow, heavy at your shoulders. Luckily, no other customers entered the store but you could see through the big windows that people started filling the streets, buying and preparing for Halloween, stores giving free samples of new candy and coffee that tasted like pumpkins. A group of people dressed as Ghostface passed by the costume shop and they hit the glass with their plastic knives, running away afterwards they caught your attention like it was the most funny thing in the world.
You went deeper into the store, to the racks in the back where there were the long dresses. Some mannequins lined the hallway wearing antique costumes, dresses with masquerade masks and porcelain decorating their faces, like they froze dancing in the middle of a mysterious ball. A gown caught your attention and you took it, feeling how soft the black velvet was in your hands. It was vintage and kinda gothic, something created for a woman that wanted to torment her lover. The fabric cascaded to the floor, dark and dramatic, creating a smooth silhouette. You studied the dress with a smile forming on your face, imagining how it would look on you and how it fitted with Jisung style. You moved back into the store and to the change rooms, when the sound of the bell on the door stopped you before you could get far.
‘’Mr Lee? I was gonna try on this dress,’’ you called, walking again. The old man hadn't answered you and made you frown, a little worried. ‘’Mr Lee?’’
You stopped on your tracks.
A man was standing in the middle of the store. Tall and silent, wearing all black and a mask on his face— a clown mask. It wasn’t like the ones you saw in the store. This one seemed really old, a vintage mask, the kind that looked like it belonged to a circus maybe hundred of years ago and filled kid’s hearts with laughter back then. But now, in the present, it caused an unsettled feeling, uncanny and intriguing. It gave the impression that it didn’t belong there, in the present. It was both haunting and wrong.
The mask was broken with black cracks from use, maybe a little dirty too. Like it was just picked out from a forgotten box filled with dust and time. The clown wasn't smiling but not serious either, frozen in a strange expression, closer to nostalgia. To you, it almost looked sad, a lost Pierrot waiting for the last applause, like the end came too fast and was confused by it. A quiet rage.
So you were in an almost empty costume shop at night and a stranger was blocking your way. The realistic feeling was for sure to panic, or felt definitely in danger, but you weren’t someone who fell into fear like that. Instead you breathed in and out and kept your head cold, remembering how common it was for frat boys to run around scaring girls, luring people into their parties, doing mischief and pranks on everybody. This was just a customer and you were overreacting a little, startled by his disturbing, silent presence.
Still, your pulse was accelerating and your throat felt dry, feeling his eyes on you.
‘’Uh, are you… looking for a costume?’’ You asked, holding the gown onto your chest like it was armor. Your voice quivered enough to make it obvious that you were a little taken aback. ‘’Mr Lee isn't here.’’
The stranger moved his head. No. Silence filled the store and you didn’t dare to say something else. He started to walk slowly to you, moving through the racks and getting closer and closer, not rushing. But there wasn’t hesitation either, those black eyes from the mask fixed on you.
‘’Well, Mr Lee should be coming soon, so,’’ you vacillated a little, turning around quickly. ‘’Wait for him, I guess.’’
You went into the last fitting room, the one that was at the end of the aisle, far from the world. You catched a glance of you in the huge mirror that decorated the aisle and gave you a vision of the whole store, seeing not only yourself but the man with the mask not far behind you. He followed you. The velvet curtain shut behind you and you stared at it, waiting. But nothing happened or moved, the curtain still and the store silent. You started to undress slowly, skin tickling with anticipation, your heart pounding heavily.
You sensed his presence behind the curtain, slow steps taking the stranger there. A flash of fear stroked you, your senses sharpening with each second. The only sound was your breath and every rush of the clothes you were dropping to the floor, just standing in your white lingerie, lace innocent and angelic, delicate. You were pretending that the stranger wasn't right there. Waiting and listening. Breathing behind the mask.
Maybe it shouldn't be making you wet and you shouldn't rub your thighs together with a sigh. It was wrong to feel a little thrill when you should be shuddering with fear or screaming, but you didn’t care. You were listening to your body and not your mind, trying to imagine what the stranger was thinking outside. What did he wanna do to you? How would he touch you? Your questions were interrupted when you saw long fingers peeking from outside, like crawls trying not to scare a prey, moving the curtain aside unhurriedly, the dark figure stepping into your space not long after. He filled the small fitting room and towered over you.
Your eyes stared at him in the mirror, feeling his warm body glued to your back. You gasped when the stranger raised his hand suddenly and something shone on it, something sharp and dangerous, too fast to stop it. Not that you were quick enough to even try to stop him. Your body froze as the masked man traced the lines of your collarbones with the end of his knife, moving it slowly to your chest, like a lover’s caress. A sharp feather exploring your sensitive skin, kissing it with softness. You held your breath, biting on your lip to not make any sound, not that you trusted your voice. Or what you were capable of saying to him. You let him explore your body and your curves, his knife tracing your stomach and your belly button like he was testing the limits. How far would you let him go?
You pushed back your ass tentatively, testing the waters as you rubbed his cock slowly, feeling him hardening against you. A breathless moan left you when his hand closed around your throat and he moved his knife precisely, too easy for him. He cut the straps of your bra and exposed your tits, giving them a hard squeeze with his hand. With a firm push he cornered you against the mirror and pushed your face there, now rubbing himself more freely in your ass and making you moan while he played with your tits. He pinched and twisted your nipples until you whined and pushed against him, feeling how your pussy was dripping and throbbing.
The stranger tore off what was left of your broken bra roughly, like he was personally offended by the lace against your skin. With a firm movement of his hands he stretched the fabric and used it to cover your eyes, tying a tight knot at the top of your neck that sent you into darkness.
‘’W—what are you doing?’’ You whispered a little breathless, bringing one of your hands back to try to touch it, but the stranger slapped it off fast.
Both of his hands folded your arms behind your back and gave them a firm squeeze, and you understood immediately: don’t you dare move them. You heard him moving behind you but couldn't see anything from the position and the blindfold, heat pooling in your stomach. The man grabbed your ass cheeks and squeezed them roughly and possessively, giving you a hard spank that made you gasp loudly and the mask drowned his chuckle. You parted your legs and bended a little, offering yourself to him, letting him see the sticky mess between your thighs. His long fingers caressed your aching pussy over your panties, making you clench around nothing.
‘’Are you gonna do something or are you just keep haunting me?’’ You said mockingly, pushing onto his hand, whining. You swear you heard him saying something, but when he moved your panties aside and his fingers pushed deep into your dripping cunt, your mind went blank.
The stranger moved them in and out slowly, opening your hole with two fingers that reached deep, making you moan loudly. He curled them and stroked the point that made you tremble and curse, the stranger fucking your cunt more quickly and hard, making wet noises everytime he thrushted his fingers inside you, daring to add a third. He relentless his thrust, now taking his time to stretch your hole slowly. You were making a mess in his hand, dripping and moaning without a care, feeling a delicious pleasure fill your veins and mind. He took his fingers out and slapped your ass again, making you whine and jump when suddenly you felt something different— wet and soft against your warm core.
‘’Oh my God,’’ you gasped, his hands grabbing at your hips and pushing his face between your legs, mouth lapping at your folds like it was a dessert. ‘’Yes.’’
His tongue moved in circles around your clit, mouth slurping licking your sticky folds like he couldn't get enough. The stranger’s nose bumped into your hole every time he dived in and ate you like a starving animal, pushing his tongue and flattening it, recollecting your juices with it. You were dying to grab his hair and ride his face but you obeyed and didn’t move your arms, but that didn’t mean you didn't try it. He caught you fast and growled against your pussy, sending vibrations that weakened your legs, making you whine when he spanked you again in punishment. The stranger shoved his fingers inside you, ruthless and rapid, using his other hand to circle your clit at the same rhythm, making you shake from the pleasure and the pressure forming inside you.
Your cunt throbbed and wetter even more, letting the stranger push your limits when his tongue licked your ass. You jumped a little but melted quickly, pushing your ass to his face and whimpering, craving more and feeling how the stranger’s spit was leaking down your slit. His finger caught it and shoved it into your hole with his fingers, creating a damp mess from his saliva and your slick, making you combust on the spot with a breathless moan when it was too much.
You came hard as you grinded the stranger's face and rode his fingers, pushing your throbbing pussy against him, whimpering with need. He removed his fingers and replaced them with his mouth and his flattened tongue, using him to prolong your orgasm until it made you feel overwhelmed. He gave you soft and long licks, making figures with his tongue on your soaked folds and thighs, like he couldn't get enough of tasting you.
The stranger drove his fingers still wet from your slick past your lips, until you closed around his knuckles and sucked them. He moved his fingers on your mouth slowly and profoundly, making you taste yourself and gag a little when he pushed his veiny fingers too far up your throat. His other hand traveled down your body, barely rubbing your clit, your body twitching from the sensitiveness, moaning around his fingers.
‘’Girls, I’m back! Did you find something you like? I see the store still standing, so that’s good.’’
Mr Lee's voice ruined the dream you were floating and you whined a little in panic still sucking the masked man fingers. Holy shit. You stumbled a little when you straightened up in a hurry and tried to take the blindfold off, only to be stopped by a pair of firm hands. You both waited a moment, hearing Mr Lee was far away still and that’s when he let you go, pushing you softly against the mirror again and retrieving the knife forgotten on the wooden floor. You took off the blindfold just in time to see him leaving like nothing happened, mask on and walking out of the store without Mr Lee realizing as he was hanging his coat behind the counter. Just like a ghost unnoticed, taking advantage of the shadows of the night that engulfed the old store.
You stood in the fitting room, breath caught and body tingling with desire, aching for more.
If hell existed on Earth, for sure it was located exactly between Jaemin and Lee Donghyuck, drunk and annoying.
You sipped from your cup of coffee with too much sugar, not really in the mood for drinking in the middle of the week like your friend group. It was a pre party, something to give a taste of what’s coming for and pass the time. Meaning, a reason to get drunk in the middle of the week, not that the frat actually needed an excuse for it. Music pulsated loud, drowning conversations and smoke filled the room, but your mood didn’t fit the other’s, students coming with Halloween costumes, making out in the corners, playing beer pong with vodka.
Yeji’s techno house playlist was giving you a headache and the smell of liquor wasn’t doing any good either, nor the loud laughs that sounded like a bunch of crows. You were more silent than normal, maybe a little nostalgic, body still imagining the masked man tongue on you. Reviving it over and over like a dream, like if you concentrated enough you could feel his hands again on you. A wave of longing hit you and you sighed, which caught Jaemin’s attention next to you. You weren’t on talking terms with him or Yeji and it was for the best, not in the mood to be annoyed by them.
Even if he was pretty high the sharpness didn’t disappear from his eyes or his smile. You weren’t fooling anyone, but especially not him. You were the image of a statue, tense and looking more like you preferred to be anywhere but there, pretending to listen Donghyuck talking about the last girl he fucked at some party with blank eyes blinking at him. Maybe your body was reacting on its own, because you were sitting on the edge of the couch like you were about to run out of there at any minute.
‘’Are you bored?’’ He wondered, palm coming to rest on your tight and making you flinch slightly when he squeezed it. Jaemin took a sip of his beer without taking his eyes off you. He had his look on his face, slightly annoyed from being ignored for too long and a little playful, and that meant trouble. That meant he was about to start a game with you.
You forced yourself to relax more and shrugged a little. Still, you nodded and everted his gaze like it was nothing, taking another sip. ‘’Mmm, yeah, kinda,’’ you fake yawned, stretching your legs a little. ‘’It was a long week and I’m tired. I think I’m heading out.’’
Donghyuck stared at you frowning. ‘’Awww, what? It’s not even midnight,’’ he whined, shaking your arm. He looked around the room lazily, like some king choosing some interesting paws to entertain him and his friends. ‘’We should play a game!’’
‘’Let’s play questions!’’ Some girl squealed excitedly, coming to sit on the arm of the couch. You didn’t even remember her name. Soojin? Sooya? Your brain gave up and didn’t function enough to recall her name, easily forgotten in some dusty storage in your head.
The girl came to sit in the arm on the couch next to Donghyuck, giving him a flirty smile that he matched right away, stealing a glance at her pretty legs crossing.
‘’That's a good idea, baby,’’ Donghyuck smirked, putting his arm around your shoulders and giving you a little shake, like he was trying to wake up. ‘’C’mon, don’t be so boring. This is my party and you’re hurting my feelings.’’
‘’Don’t bother our girl, Hyuckie, she’s not in the mood these days,’’ Yeji warned him, joining the group, followed by her boyfriend. Her pretty dress sparkled when she moved to the other couch to sit there, next to Seonyun and Jeno. Jaehun stayed behind her, smirking and fixing his disheveled hair. ‘’You should know better than mess with her.’’
Donghyuck listened and tilted his head, moving his eyes to you more scrutinizing. ‘’What is it, pretty girl? You can tell me. This asshole isn't making you cum lately?’’ Hyuck sent a mocking sympathy look from above your head to Jaemin, who responded by simply pulling his hair until he yelped and twisted in his place trying to get away. ‘’Alright, man! Chill, I’m sorry, fuck, it was a joke!’’
‘’Wait, are you still with her, Jaemin?’’ The girl from before asked, looking at him with so much unhidden hunger. She played with the straw from her drink with her tongue flirty, completely ignoring that you were sitting right next to him. ‘’I thought you were single, you know.’’
‘’Oh my God, is that true?’’ Another girl squealed, eyes gleaming from the juicy gossip unraveling right in front of her. She looked at you with curiosity and a little glint of envy, eyes scanning the figure of Jaemin sitting on the couch like the king he was, legs parted. ‘’That’s like, crazy. You’re totally boyfriend material, Jaemin.’’
You resisted the urge to laugh at their faces and instead sipped from your coffee again, drowning your thoughts with the oversweet taste of cold brew. If they only knew.
‘’Hold on, you’re actually single?’’ Jeno asked Jaemin, settling on the edge of the sofa with his elbows on his knees, suddenly interested in the conversation. He raised his brows, smirking slowly. He barely glanced at you. ‘’So she’s fair game now?’’
Seonyun smacked his arm and her expression turned sour, trying to remind Jeno that she was still there, glued to his side. Trying to pretend that she wasn't bothered by his comment. ‘’That’s so dumb, everybody knows they’re together since always,’’ she insisted, sending a look your way. ‘’Right, honey?’’
Yeji snorted, laughing to herself a little too drunk to notice your murderous eyes on her when you heard her.
‘’How about we hear it from the bachelor himself?’’ Donghyuck proposed, opening another bottle of beer. He took his heart dramatically, looking at Jaemin with hooded eyes, completely drunk. ‘’Tell us, Romeo, is there true love there in your tiny heart?’’
‘’There is love, Hyuck. And it burns just for her,’’ Jaemin said, brushing some hair from your face, tricking your ear with a low chuckle when he came closer. ‘’But I’m heartbroken. She doesn’t want me.’’
The group gathered around went crazy. The girls giggled and screamed with delight, envious but enjoying the gossip. Jeno laid on his back lazily, tracing your body with his gaze like he was planning to put a bet on your head and get the prize. Donghyuck was hardly sober to catch quickly on the drama and looked at you like he expected to laugh it off and joke about it too, but you stayed there silent and fuming. Jaemin enjoyed the little chaos he caused, smiling like he was actually a sheepish little boy rejected by his first love. He loved your irritated face and wanted more.
‘’I know a lot of girls that would want you, Jaemin,’’ another girl chimed in, barely containing her excitement or intentions. ‘’I can take you to—’’
‘’I only want her,’’ Jaemin silenced her fast, tone sharp, smile tight. You recognized the anger and the mocking burning in his eyes, too familiar and calculating. Like he didn’t know if to play with you or cut your head first. ‘’But she has a crush on somebody else. I bet you can’t even imagine who he is,’’ he taunted, laughing. ‘’It’s so sad.’’
Another explosion of laughter and chaos erupted. Jeno and Donghyuck roared with laughter, completely entertained with the mess Jaemin was making. Yeji and Seonyun shared a somewhat worried look and then looked at you, the first shrugging a little like saying you know this was coming. They weren’t about to throw you a life jacket, that was for sure. Thinking that they were capable of defending you was ridiculous. You tried to stand up but Jaemin’s hand shot up too fast, yanking down with strength, so smooth that nobody noticed how his hand squeezed your wrist with warning. You said nothing as you kept your composure knowing that there was no exit, squeezed between Jaemin and Donghyuck.
‘’Who’s the lucky bastard?’’ Jeno asked. He was too interested, ignoring how Seonyun snuggled to his side.
Jaemin smiled slowly, showing all his perfect teeth. He basked in the atmosphere, delaying the drama and making himself a shot before answering all the attention on him. He sighed loudly while looking at you, then a Jeno. ‘’Fucking Park Jisung.’’
‘’Shut the fuck up,’’ Jeno wheezed, shocked. A loud laugh escaped him, staring at Jaemin like he couldn't believe it. ‘’Park? Dude… that’s the most crazy downgrade. You gotta be kidding.’’
Donghyuck frowned, too drunk to catch on the name. ‘’Uh? Who the fuck is Park Jisung?’’
‘’You know who he is, you dumbass,’’ Yeji rolled her eyes, laughing a little. ‘’He was our classmate, remember? That tall, pale kid, the one who always cried.’’
Recognition flashed through Donghyuck's face, like he suddenly put a face on that name. Jaemin said nothing but his silence did, making Donghyuck straight up laugh even harder, covering his mouth, still shocked. ‘’Oh, shit. No way. Pee Pants Park?’’
You straighten up a little, frowning at Donghyuck. What?
‘’Your girl left you for Pee Pants Park? This is the best fucking day of my life,’’ Donghyuck wheezed, clapping his hand on Jaemin’s shoulder like he was consoling him.
Everybody ignored you, but that comment made all the group laugh again, sharing knowing looks and grinning like they were replaying a shared joke in their heads. You tensed and waited, an odd feeling tightening your stomach, making you feel anxious. This little scene wasn’t over.
‘’Oh my God, I forgot about that one,’’ Yeji gasped, grinning. She baited her eyelashes to Jaehyun, who was close to her, listening. ‘’You gotta hear this, baby, it’s so funny.’’
‘’That shit wasn’t that funny,’’ Jeno said, getting himself a new cold beer. He smiled anyway, snorting. ‘’Okay, it kind of was.’’
‘’What are you talking about?’’ You asked suddenly, making everybody go silent for a second. Your sharp tone made everybody share some looks again, smiling behind their drinks and acting like you were out of their little sphere. It made you grind your teeth, irritated, knowing that they weren’t up to no good.
Jaemin was the one who finally spoke, his face a mask of mock sympathy. ‘’Oh, right, you weren’t here around that time,’’ he murmured, pretending like he realized that just in that moment. He clicked his tongue and shook his head, frowning. ‘’Ah, poor little Jisung. Someone thought it be funny to prank him, push him inside a gym locker and leave him there for the weekend.’’
‘’That’s too much,’’ Jeno said, pouting a little. He chuckled. ‘’And fucked up. I bet he cried a lot when he heard the lock closing.’’
‘’He begged like a little bitch,’’ Donghyuck cleaned fake tears, acting like he was sobbing. ‘’Nooo, don’t leave me here! Come back! It was so sad, guys.’’
A new chorus of laughter erupted around you, sick and maniac, crawling at your skin like millions of needles. The realisation hit you like a punch. They locked him up, they left him there for days. Confined, alone and scared in the darkness.
‘’He always cried, like, take a joke for fuck’s sake,’’ Yeji added, huffing. ‘’Have some sense of humour, you know. It’s not that deep.’’
Jaemin chuckled and nodded, moving his attention to you again. ‘’When the janitor found him, he was drenched. This loser actually pissed himself,’’ he laughed, unable to continue. He took a deep breath. ‘’He couldn't even speak! He broke or something.’’
‘’It’s not like he was the biggest talker in the world anyways,’’ Yeji snickered. ‘’Not a loss, if you ask me.’’
‘’Park didn’t show up the next day, or the next, or the next,’’ Jeno explained, ‘’just disappeared like that. He left a mark on the locker and left,’’ he joked.
‘’He lost the scholarship and everything,’’ Donghyuck whistled, faking pity. He clicked this tongue, taking a sip of his beer. ‘’Damn. Poor dude. It must suck being a little bitch,’’ he added. ‘’That couldn't be me.’’
‘’Don’t be so sure,’’ Jeno joked, laughing when Donghyuck gave him the middle finger and fake-threatened to throw his bottle at him.
Your knuckles were white from holding onto your skirt, barely listening to what they were saying. Disgust and sadness dripped down your body, engulfing you in a sea of something thick and cold that made your heart freeze and break. The repulsing feeling was too strong, filling your eyes with tears, not able to stay there no even a second longer.
‘’You’re all sick,’’ you started, standing and throwing what was left on your coffee on the table. Everybody went silent, one of the girls yelped when coffee splashed her a little. ‘’The most disgusting people I’ve ever met,’’ you snapped, voice steady even if your boy was shaking a little.
Donghyuck broke the silence with a wheeze of laughter and everybody followed him, staring at you like you were the most ridiculous thing in the world. Jeno couldn't even form a sentence, doubled over in laughter with Seonyun.
Nobody tried to stop you when you stormed to the door, seeing red and heartbroken, fists shaking with the desire to punch them and erase their horrible laughter. You didn't see Jaemin coming after you, nor did you expect him to throw you against the door and close it with a bang, preventing you from leaving and making you yelp with surprise and pain.
‘’Don’t fucking touch me!’’ You seethed, pushing him hard.
‘’Yah, are you mad for real? We were just telling a little story,’’ he smiled, holding you tightly. ‘’Just remembering our school days, princess. I didn’t think it would bother you like that.’’
You stared at his wide, fake innocent eyes, seeing how they shone with mockery and something darker and evil. You knew right there it was him the culprit, the one who was enjoying it even after so many years passed. ‘’How could you do something like that?’’ You whispered.
Jaemin frowned, tilting his head confused. ‘’Like what? It was just a joke. You’re overreacting,’’ he said, voice still tainted with amusement. ‘’Just like him.’’
‘’Don’t ever touch me again,’’ you spat, pushing him again until he finally let you go. ‘’Get your fucking head checked and leave me alone, Jaemin.’’
Jaemin's smile deepened, all unhinged and entertained. His jaw was tight, traces or anger in his eyes, not enjoying your challenging tone. ‘’Shit, you do like ruined stuff, don’t you? Maybe Yeji was right and you’re too pathetic for me.’’
‘’Fuck you,’’ you responded, staring face to face to him. ‘’And make your miserable head understand this— stay away from him too. Don’t even try it, Jaemin.’’
He chuckled, slamming his hand next to your head with force. He leaned in, smug but menacing. ‘’Or what? What are you gonna do, huh?’’
‘’Don’t think I won’t ruin you, Jaemin,’’ you warned him, low. ‘’I know too much shit.’’
‘’You think you can threaten me over him?’’ He laughed in your face, scoffing. Jaemin’s expression faltered slightly, enough to make any trace of fun disappear. ‘’You’re more lost than I thought. Don’t start something that will end you, princess. I don’t wanna play like that, you know what I’m capable of.’’
He came closer to you, brushing his lips in your clenched jaw, barely kissing. His other hand cupped your cheek and caressed it with his thumb, staring at you with more of a soft expression. Jaemin tried to kiss you and you shierked, pushing him and turning your face to the side, filled with disgust.
‘’I know exactly what you’re capable of, Jaemin,’’ you whispered, grabbing his wrist and moving away from his touch like it burned it. ‘’That doesn't scare me. The thing is, you don’t know what I’m capable of.’’
‘’We both know you can’t let me go, not for long,’’ he insisted, turning serious. Lighting flashed in his eyes, a storm that made him quieter but deadly. ‘’You always come back. You belong to me, not to a ghost. A freak with a pathetic past and no future.’’
You chuckled tired, opening the door. ‘’That freak is more human than all of you combined, Jaemin,’’ you muttered, not bothering to close the door when you stepped out.
He called your name but you didn’t turn back, steeping into the rain and walking fast, wanting to leave everything behind. Your body was shaking a little but the cold rain wasn't the culprit, something inside you was setting, heavy and icy. Tears fell on your face, blending with the rain, heart tormented thinking about what they did to Jisung, what other things you didn’t know? Why couldn't you have arrived earlier in the past and protected him, made things different for him? It hurt you knowing how alone he surely was back then, betrayed and pranked with cruelty.
You weren’t that naïve to believe that things ended with your exit, because you knew them all too well. Jaemin wasn’t someone to have as an enemy. Stepping out was just out of order, and sooner or later they will make sure to tighten your strap to learn your lesson. But when that happened, you would be prepared. Waiting.
Protecting.
The day before Halloween you were on a mission.
‘’Oh! I found you!’’ You smiled out of breath from the stairs, staring at the man sitting on the floor. ‘’Here you are, Ji.’’
He looked up from his book, brushing the bangs that fell into his vision. The black hoodie was too big for his body, hanging and drowning him. Jisung didn’t seem surprised, more like he was waiting for you to appear. He went back to his book, unimpressed. ‘’You followed me.’’
You fake gasped, stepping more into the book aisle. ‘’That’s a little rude,’’ you defended yourself while you studied some books, reading their titles one by one, humming low until you found something you liked. You grabbed Carrie and you flipped the yellow pages, barely reading some sentences. ‘’You make it sound like it’s bad.’’
Jisung was tucked away in a far corner of the library, too quiet and dusty. The place where people didn’t go and some whispered that it was haunted and others suggested it was the best point to make out. It was where the old books were sent to die of forgetfulness, close to the system ventilation that hummed nearby like a continuous low lullaby. The distant hum accompanied the rustle of old pages and distant conversations in the library, creating what to you seemed like a cozy corner, warm by the sundown that entered by the big window.
Sitting cross legged on the floor, Jisung watched you come closer until you settled down next to him. ‘’I don’t like people cornering me,’’ he said with a sigh, a little annoyed. But he didn’t tell you to leave, nor did he move away. He closed his book and leaned back, careful. ‘’What do you want?’’
Funny. ‘’Keep you company,’’ you simply responded, your arm brushing his. You peeked closer. ‘’What are you reading, Ji?’’
Jisung smothered his palm over the old cover that was barely holding on from the use and time, stitched everywhere with pieces of tape trying to keep it together. ‘’Why did you invite me to the party?’’ He blurted.
His expression turned unreadable, pressing his lips like he regretted asking that but couldn't control his curiosity. Jisung didn't look at you when scoffed quietly, opening his book again.
‘’Nevermind—’’
‘’Because I want you there,’’ you answered, trying to catch his eyes. You stretched your legs and smoothed down your perfect skirt with an unknown sensation that made you a little fidgety, needing to do something. Nervousism. ‘’I already told you, Ji. I wanna spend Halloween with you, is that so terrible?’’
‘’You should spend it with your friends,’’ Jisung disagreed, unable to disguise the bite in this tone. Like saying left a sour taste in his mouth. He huffed tiredly. ‘’I don’t know if they sent you or what—’’
Jisung stopped talking suddenly, a weird tension settled between you and him, his posture stiff and cautious, like a cat about to run away at the first movement. You released the remaining air in your lungs until you deflated against the wall. You bit your lip, thinking of the best way to express what weighed on the tip of your tongue, not quite sure how to face the fragile situation in your hands.
‘’Jisung, nobody sent me,’’ you said, looking at him. ‘’I know everything that happened, what they did to you—’’
‘’Stop.’’
‘’I heard it all and I’m sorry. They’re not my friends,’’ you reassured him, eyes begging for him to believe you. ‘’I wish there’s something I could—’’
‘’So that’s it? You pity me?’’ Jisung accused, jaw tight and closing the book with force. His ears were red from the growing anger, still he didn’t dare to look at you.
‘’What? No! Jisung— that’s not it. Just… I wish I could do the same to them. Make them pay.’’
That made him look. Really look. Jisung stared at you with too many emotions flashing on his face, fighting for dominion like his mind couldn't choose just one. Anger, surprise, vulnerability, relief, even pain. They break free from being caged away. Jisung’s gaze studied you, from your lips to your eyes, searching for something, maybe doubt or a lie. Relaxing a little when you didn't laugh cruelly or drove him to some kind of prank, but not trusting yet.
You covered his hand with yours carefully, sensing how cold it was. You stroke it gently, trying to warm it, outlining every vein and knuckle in silence. Just breathing with him, waiting. His hand twitched a little and you stopped the tremor holding his hand closer, moving it slowly to your thigh, fingers intertwined.
‘’They’re untouchable,’’ he whispered with spite, bitter and angry. ‘’They believe they can get away with it forever.’’
Some heartbeats passed until you spoke again. ‘’Then maybe it’s time for some payback,’’ you pointed out, giving him a squeeze and smiling a little when he didn’t remove his hand from your grip. ‘’Don’t you know that nothing last forever?’’
You didn't see it coming, the way he pushed you and leaned over your body, caging you with a firm push. A gasp faded in your throat, still and silent when you noticed Jisung was too close and your body reacted immediately, lax and surrendered to him, looking at him even playfully. Well, well, he was exactly where you fantasised so many times. Your hands reached for his face but Jisung grabbed both your wrists, pushing them down to the carpet floor.
‘’What are you playing? You think I’m the same kid they hit and bullied? The kid who cried and stayed silent? The one they pushed into lockers?’’ He asked you, low and with a calm that was too disturbing, dangerous. A mask with something dark hiding behind it, but still, you could see a small part of him wondering. Could he trust you? Asking for answers, begging for something or someone to believe him. To anchor him. ‘’You think you know everything about me?’’
You untangled yourself from his grip carefully and gently stroked his hair, brushing it back so you could see his black eyes staring back at you intensely. Jisung didn’t move, staring at you with a frown and a muscle in his cheek, like he was holding himself from snapping again.
‘’No,’’ you whispered, playing with the black strands softly. ‘’You’re different, a stronger version. And they should be scared of it,’’ you pushed his nape down, trying to kiss him.
‘’I told you I don’t need your sympathy,’’ Jisung sneered, brushing your lips with every word. ‘’You’re not my savior.’’
You chuckled amused and dragged him down roughly, heart fluttering with butterflies. ‘’I’m not here to save you, Jisung.’’
Jisung frowning a little, doubtful and hissing when you pushed up your hips, grinding slowly against him. You kissed and bitten along his jaw, holding him prisoner between your legs, trying to relax him, to make him understand. Your tongue circled his ear and sucked the earlobe, biting under it and making him suck a breath.
‘’I’m here to stay,’’ you continued, tracing his neck with more kisses and love bites, trying to mark his pale skin. A low sound left him and you smirked, dragging your nails down the nape of his neck and sending shivers down his spine. ‘’I’m here to hold you.’’
His mouth crashed into yours, hot and consuming, taking you by surprise. He wasn't gentle nor soft, just taking ownership of your lips with possessive kisses that took away your air. His tongue moved deeply, playing with yours as his hands roamed down your body, squeezing your waist and thighs, rubbing himself shamelessly against your clothed pussy. A small part of you, maybe a tiny piece of common sense reminded you that you were in the library still, open to whoever wanted to see you and him grinding in each other and kissing until your lips were swollen in a lost corner.
‘’Ji—’’ you moaned, silencing yourself when Jisung suddenly flipped your positions. You ended up sitting on top of him, a little breathless, with his hands slipping under your soft cotton shirt. You didn’t waste a second, kissing him again eagerly and holding onto his hoodie as you licked his mouth and tongue, desperate for more.
‘’You tempt me this whole time, acting like a pretty slut,’’ he mocked you, chuckling low. His hands were quick, unbuttoning your shirt until your pretty and pink lacy bra was in sight, making him groan by the view. Jisung pushed his face onto your chest, licking and biting your smooth skin, pushing your bra down with a harsh tug. ‘’Offering yourself to me like a needy girl.’’
You pressed your hips down, rubbing yourself on his cock, feeling his length under his pants. A whimper left you, too soaked and hot to care if somebody listened. You moved back and forth, grinding on the shape of his dick slowly and torturing.
Jisung’s mouth latched into one of your nipples and sucked hard, tongue wrapping around it. He made a low content sound and you pushed him closer, moaning just for him as he flipped his tongue and sucked over and over, fine lips closing around the bud. ‘’What would Jaemin think if he sees you like this? Dripping and desperate for another man?’’
‘’I don’t care,’’ you gasped, opening your legs even more to rub faster, but it wasn't enough, you needed more. You were glad from his sweatpants and how easily it was to slide your hand inside it, mouth watering at the feeling of his hard, warm cock in your hand. The slow strokes made Jisung moan, muffed by the way he was pressing his face on your chest, kissing and licking your tits until red marks appeared. ‘’I’m not his. I just want you, Ji, please—’’
‘’You’re just an easy slut, don’t you? So easy and desperate,’’ he clicked his tongue disapprovingly, hands reaching to grab your ass and give it a firm squeeze under your skirt. ‘’Dying for me to fuck you. Take my cock out,’’ he gave you a spank and you barely held your loud moan. ‘’Now. Don’t make me wait. Now you’re shy?’’
‘’Mmmh! Somebody could hear us,’’ you panned, looking behind you. The sundown had ended long ago and the library was plunged into darkness, with only a few traces of warm light from a few lamps on the tables downstairs. Even so, they didn't reach the corner where you and Jisung were, but you didn't know if anyone checked these places around closing time. That sent you a thrill and you stroked his cock faster, mouth watering for him. ‘’I’m not shy.’’
‘’Then keep quiet,’’ Jisung rasped, smirking. He leaned his head back and looked at you so boldly and confident it made your pussy throb, your grip on his cock strengthening. Your hand moved up and down more quickly, making him groan and moan, breath stuttering when you let a string of split fell on it. ‘’Fuck— that’s it. Keep touching me.’’
You pulled down his pants enough to free his cock, staring at it with big eyes, moaning softly. He was… huge. Long and thick, with a pink head and veins, one of the prettiest cocks you've ever seen, just for you. You lifted your gaze back to his face, pouting a little. ‘’I don’t know…,’’ you fake hesitated, rubbing your thumb on the tip delicately. ‘’You’re too bossy for somebody who acted like he didn’t want me.’’
He grabbed your arms and held them behind your back with a groan, making you arch for him. His mouth descended to your neck, sucking biting hard, not a trace of gentleness. ‘’And you’re too mouthy,’’ Jisung said, moving his free hand down. His fingers moved your panties and slid through your folds, soft and wet with your arousal. ‘’Dripping too much to pretend you don’t need my cock.’’
You bit your lip when he brushed his fingers on your clit, massaging it slowly, making circles. Jisung bit and licked your collarbones hearing your soft moans every time he applied just the right pressure, rubbing your clit faster until your thighs tightened around him.
‘’So soft and pretty,’’ he whispered, moving his touch and pushing his fingers inside you too easily, slow and deep, chuckling when you took a shaky breath. You tried to free your arms but it was impossible, Jisung could hold you down with just one strong hand.
Your eyes closed and your forehead touched his, inhaling. ‘’Mhm, Ji— feels so good.’’
‘’Let me open your little hole,’’ he whispered against your cheek, feeling how you coated his fingers with your slick. Your gummy walls clenched around his fingers moved faster, searching so deep it made you squeal a little. He kissed you and ate your moans, a war of tangues and spit, exploring and conquering. A dirty kiss between you too that made you crazy with need. Jisung sucked and played with your tongue as the wet noise your pussy made every time he shoved his fingers into your hole echoed around, too obscene, so loud. ‘’That’s it, let me in, just fucking gave it to me.’’
Jisung curled his fingers, so far inside you you could barely think. Your body was hot and burning, crying against his lips when he pushed too quickly, too deep, just right, making you chase that feeling. Your hips rolled, needing to push him even further, moaning as you fell into his chest, breathing in his neck. The pressure was building deliciously and heated, the pleasure mixing with the adrenaline of somebody hearing how you soaked Jisung’s fingers.
‘’You're gonna cum like a good girl, don’t you? Opening yourself to me, giving me this pretty pussy,’’ he muttered with a raspy voice, kissing your cheek and jaw, pumping his fingers fast and deep, making you moan again when he added another. The stretch was too good and your hips moved against his fingers, riding them urgently. ‘’That’s it, make a fucking mess. Keep going,’’ he demanded.
‘’Jisung— fuck, don’t stop,’’ you moaned, still chasing the pleasure. The tension inside you broke and you crushed under it, whimpering when your orgasm hit you and you clenched around his fingers, overwhelmed when he didn’t stop. Jisung made sure to prolong your orgasm, still bumping his fingers in and out lazily until you whined and tried to push him apart, making him chuckle.
‘’Don’t run from it,’’ he said as he fastened the pace, fucking your pussy again. He let you go off your arm and you didn’t doubt a second to hug him, shifting in his lap. You hold onto him whimpering but keeping your thighs apart, hole clenching and dripping, sensitive and pulsing. ‘’You’re gonna take it and make a mess on the carpet.’’
Your eyes widened and you shook your head. ‘’I can’t— Jisung, stop, I never done that—’’
His big palm pressed firmly against your mouth to quiet you. You never saw that look on him, so mean and hot, dominant, only able to blink a little surprised by it. You knew Jisung wasn’t what he was showing to the world, but this side was everything you could dream of and exactly who he was. Suddenly you were pushed on your back, spread on the carpet. Jisung towered over you and shoved his fingers inside you again while his other hand closed around your throat, keeping you down while he thrusted inside you ruthlessly.
‘’I didn’t ask you,’’ he taunted you, coming closer to your mouth and licking it. ‘’You're gonna squirt around my fingers until you drench the carpet,’’ Jisung shifted closer, staring at your eyes. ‘’And if you don’t, I’ll keep going until you do. Don’t make a sound, yeah? We don't want somebody finding you like this, skirt up and legs opened, letting some freak use your pussy like he wants.’’
His words made you moan his name, hole tightening when he loosened the grip on your throat, just to move it onto your lower stomach. He pushed his palm there, curving his fingers inside you until he reached the point that made you whine and go crazy, bumping it over and over. Overstimulation wasn’t enough to explain how your body felt, burning and clenching, a sensation accumulating inside you that you tried to control but failed when Jisung moved a fourth finger inside you, dilating your cunt with no mercy. It was too much, too deep and fast, your mouth opening with no sound and nowhere to run.
Your pussy pulsated and gushed, both of your hands pressed in your mouth to control your moans and whines when you cummed again. Jisung’s fingers were relentless, claiming you and leaving no other choice than to obey him, back arching and a wet feeling exploring inside you.
‘’Fuck, that’s it, let it go,’’ Jisung commanded you, smirking at the liquid bursting out of you. You were lax on the floor, breathing heavily and spent and too sensitive to respond. He licked his fingers looking down at you, an arrogant glint in his eyes when he hummed your name. ‘’You taste so good.’’
Your eyes were teary from the pleasure and bliss, blinking dumbly at him, so cute and used that made Jisung smile. Steps on the stairs made him pause and listen, straightening up enough to spy from the bookshelf hidden in the shadows. A student was there, leaving a book where it belonged and lingering in the aisle, searching for another title.
‘’Don’t make a sound,’’ he whispered in your mouth, kissing you as he pressed you to the carpet. He kneaded your tits and kept your legs apart, making you whimper softly. His touch was gentle but possessive, kissing you deep but soft, your body melting against his. ‘’We got company.’’
‘’Don’t care,’’ you responded, kissing him and rubbing your body against his. Your hands found his cock and you kept stroking it with swift moves, smiling when he shuddered and gripped you tightly. ‘’I need you’’, you complained. He hissed and he dropped his head on your shoulder, inhaling your smell and brushing your hair back to bite onto your neck. A low groan left Jisung when guided his cock to your pussy, rubbing it in your folds and slapping the tip on your clit. ‘’Please Ji. Just the tip?’’
Another voice joined in and Jisung groaned when another student joined the other, helping him looking for a book. Jisung sighed and held you close, driving his length onto your hole and covering your mouth with his hand as he slid the tip in. ‘’Fuck, your pussy didn’t loose, did it?’’
You were tight and warm, too inviting and tempting. You held a moan as he pushed a little more than just the tip, making your cunt stretch around him, barely taking it. ‘’It’s too big,’’ you whimpered, holding onto him. You loved the feeling and the burn, getting wetter because of his size, feeling small.
The two students turned their heads around, thinking that they heard something, maybe a whisper or a step. Totally unaware that you were being stretched out a few aisles back, trying to keep silent. They found the book that they needed and quickly left the place, hurrying to the stairs and hushing about how maybe those old aisles were indeed haunted.
‘’You can take me,’’ he whispered in your ear, hands cupping your tits and leaving kisses there, tongue circling your nipples. He squeezed them and kissed your neck next, letting you get used to his thickness before sliding in more, making you moan again. ‘’Fuck, you’re so tight, let me— I know you can take more.’’
Jisung pushed his cock further and way past the tip and your mind went blank, just feeling his cock opening you completely. He thrusted a little and you arched, body burning and drowning in the intense sensation, never felt this close to anyone. You creamed around him and clenched, too desperate to take it slow. ‘’Just fuck me. Put it all in, Ji.’’
He thrusted again, burying himself inch by inch until you whimpered and took him— too deep and big, overwhelming you. Your fingers circled your clit lazily, staring up at him with blurry eyes and lips swollen from kissing so hard.
‘’Mmh, fuck, Ji— you feel so good,’’ you moaned, sobbing when he pressed his cock deeply, thrusting slowly and eyes focused in the way your pussy was tightening around his lenght. ‘’Keep going baby, use my hole, use me.’’
Jisung groaned and slammed himself in, holding your tights up and opened, keeping his moves slow and profound. The sensation of being inside you was too much, so tight and warm and his, it made him lose his mind. It was impossible not to fuck you harder, no when you were so opened and begging for him, for his cock. You were moaning and babbling, eyes rolling back every time he hit that spot inside you fast and hard, your pussy dilatating and creaming. The sight destroyed Jisung, who was ramming into your pussy like a mad man, too gone to even care if someone listened to him fucking you raw and deep, balls slapping.
‘’Tightest fucking pussy in the world, you’re sucking me in,’’ he moaned, shoving his cock with no mercy onto you. ‘’This is what you wanted? Now take my cock like a good slut.’’
A new orgasm hit you and you sobbed, hearing the wet sound you were making and the way his balls hit your ass every time he shoved his cock onto your pussy. You clenched around him and made him groan, fastening his pace. The pleasure swirled in your body driving you insane, too full and opened, swearing you felt him in your lower stomach. Your wildest, filthiest dreams were coming true and you couldn't help the lazy smile that formed in your lips, an intense desire to mark him forever and made him yours. Knowing that he was just where he belonged and you planned on keeping him there with you.
‘’Cum inside me,’’ you whispered, holding his gaze with imploring eyes, lips searching for him. ‘’Please Ji, fill me up, I want your cum dripping from me,’’ you begged, too stimulated and mind cloudy from the pleasure. ‘’Please, please, please.’’
Jisung’s pace faltered a little and his thrust turned sloppy, ears red and sweaty, just as destroyed as you were. ‘’Yeah? You want me to fill you up? Make you mine?’’
You nodded with another moan when he pounded your pussy harder and fast, taking everything from you. ‘’Need your cum, baby,’’ you panned, ‘’fill me up until it flows.’’
He slammed his cock deep and his body jerked when he came, buried inside you with a low groan. His cock twitched and you whimpered at the sensation of being totally full, your pussy milking every drop of his cum eagerly. You never let anybody cum inside you and the warm, wet feeling made you moan. Just knowing that it was Jisung breeding you made everything better and you hold onto him with a smirk. He thrusted again, lazy and slow and you whimpered when you felt how some of his cum leaked from your hole, thick and warm.
You held his face and kissed him, caressing his back and shoulders as he enjoyed the aftershocks of his orgasm, caging you to the floor with his weight. ‘’Mmmm, don’t pull out, Ji. Don’t move, just stay like this.’’
‘’We’re in the middle of the library,’’ he replied, but obeyed nonetheless. He stayed buried deep, pulsing, making you feel filled and happy. Too tired to move, you kissed his jaw and lips, smiling softly as you both came back from the high, breathing together. A silence settled between you and Jisung, but it wasn’t awkward or tense. He stared back at you, moving a strand of your hair out of your face too gently. ‘’You’re really pretty,’’ he whispered.
You stole another kiss, soft and featherly. ‘’Does this mean you’re going to the party?’’
Jisung let out a quiet laugh, hiding his face on your neck, rubbing his mouth where your pulse beat quickly. ‘’I'll make time.’'
You were alone in your room doing your makeup too concentrated, listening to your favourite playlist, humming to the songs while you painted your face. You were buzzing with energy and excitement, eating way too much Halloween candy during the day to try to extinguish your nerves. Fucking with Jisung in the library didn’t mean that your crush on him calmed a little, it was more like throwing gasoline at an uncontrolled fire. Just because he rearranged your insides didn’t mean that you were calm about seeing tonight and you wanted to cause an impression on him and eat him up completely after, dress prettily and make him go crazy. You sighed and stared at your wall with stars in your eyes, studying the pictures decorating it like every time you felt a little anxious or sad. There were a lot of different pictures in different locations, like the campus, buildings, the library, even the coffee shop or him in his car. But your favorite was the one where Jisung was attacked by a blast of wind and his dark hair was everywhere, him frowning cutely with his nose scrunched and holding onto his coat. He was just so cute.
Maybe you should give some kind of late bonus to the photographer who followed and took all your precious photos of Jisung during the year. You were almost done with your makeup, studying yourself in the mirror, comparing it with a photo of Morticia Addams you downloaded to your phone looking for perfection. The foundation shade was way too much lighter, almost white. Your cheeks were contoured with a grey color and your lips painted a deep shade of red, eyes sharp with dark eyeliner and too much eyeshadow, looking theatrical and dramatic. The dress hugged on your body tightly, elegant and royal, a velvet dream created to seduce and kill.
You were ready and giving yourself the last touches, applying perfume and admiring your dress once again on you in the mirror with intern giggles when your phone ringered. Messages from Zhong Chenle were there, coming one after the other, new and urgent.
CXZ: you there?? yo i heard your friends after practice talking shit about jisung CXZ: jaemin was saying something about old school traditions? whatever that mean. i dont have a good feeling about this CXZ: theyre looking for an empty locker now CXZ: why im the only one panicking i see you reading my texts you: thank you. turn off the cameras please and go to the party x CXZ: 👍
You replied instantly, your fingers trembling as you hit send. A wave of silent fury surged through you, violent and hot, still your chest felt icy with a quiet rage that slowly took over you. Stay calm, breathe. They were really going to do it. They were going to touch him. After everything. After all the warnings. They had chosen to cross a line so deeply carved in you it might as well have been bone. Your ex friend group was dead set on testing you and daring to touch Jisung, and what was worse, you didn’t know where he was. A shaky breath left you like a sob, wondering all the possibilities, could they grab him before you? What if they already did? The thought cut deep, pure panic that sent you running through the door.
You did know where they were.
The campus was deserted, obviously, as it was a Saturday night and everybody was in parties all around town, costumes and cheap liquor and a promise for a good Halloween eve. No witness could see the way you were walking like you owned the place, stepping into the corridors with your wheels clicking loudly in the silence, the darkness swallowing your black figure like a veil. The cameras weren’t running thanks to Chenle, you didn’t want any trace or proof of you or Jisung there, making sure there were blind spots everywhere. You never went to the locker room before or the sports building, feeding your nerves when it took you some minutes to finally reach the place, now stalking the corridors like you were the one chasing them.
You stopped suddenly as if you had crashed into an invisible wall, shocked. Your eyes followed something on the floor, dark and gross, moving across the ground like a snake. It was a puddle coming from the girls' bathroom and extending down the hallway with a strong flow. Blood. You ran towards it, dodging the puddle of blood although the hem of your long dress caught some of it, heart threatening to leave your body. No, no, no. Please, they can’t hurt him.
The moment you pushed the bathroom’s door you thought you were actually about to die. The idea of seeing Jisung hurt like that, bloody and alone, was too much for your mind to handle, sending a chill down your spine. Tears filled your eyes, imploring whoever god was listening to you not to take Jisung away from you when you stepped into the bathroom.
A scream threatened to leave your throat when you saw somebody on the floor, broken and spread in an awkward position. Her long, red hair floated on the floor like a doll who fell from a shelf, waiting for someone to pick her up. Her witch costume was drenched in blood but untouched, covering her delicate and stiff figure. Her neck was slided open, clean, a wound you never saw before and it made you tremble. The worst part was her mouth, wide opened and empty, her tongue laying next to her head like a forgotten piece.
‘’Oh my God,’’ you whispered, taking a breath. Relief filled your body and you leaned on the wall, huffing. ‘’It’s just you.’’
The mirrors in the bathroom were all broken, some parts on the floor or fallen on the sinks. But one was intact, the one behind Yeji. You read what was written on it, red letters that were dripping with blood that didn’t dry yet. Fresh.
Silence suits you.
You went to the main corridor, determined in your search of Jisung. A part of you knew that he was there, somewhere, but you couldn't hear anybody. When you turned a corner you spotted the door gym, half closed, like it was inviting you. Your principal plan was to find Jisung and get the hell out, but curiosity was a strong attraction that you couldn't control. You weren’t so much in a hurry now, feeling more cautious as you walked there, knowing that it was obvious that you weren’t alone in the building. Jaemin and the others could still be there.
You entered the gym slowly, expecting something to jump out in front of you, but there was no noise or anyone. The place was too dark to see anyways. When you turned to leave a sudden noise stopped you in your tracks, a loud one. The scoreboard came to life out of nowhere like a game just began, music echoing the place and its red and green lights flashing the bodies of Donghyuck and Jeno hanging from the basketball hoops. Tied and beaten, blood pooling below each hoop, still wearing their hockey jerseys, now completely ruined and tainted.
Their eyes were opened and frozen forever, like they couldn't still believe what came to them. Donghyuck’s head was slumped to the side, showing a huge hole in his head, part of it missed it. Jeno was different, just as broken but his face was carved, ugly cuts everywhere like they were a last thought, ruining his beauty. Both of them hang slowly, balanced by their own weights like forgotten puppets.
You didn’t look back when you left, feeling the air grow cold and heavy, still not a trace from Jisung. You knew that the principal stage was what Jaemin most likely wanted to repeat and you went straight to it. The locker room wasn’t far from the gym, and surprisingly, it wasn’t immersed in darkness.
The fluorescent light bulbs were on, humming a little with their annoying buzzing sound. The place was what you expected, wood branches and trophies behind glass, the coach office closed, a faint smell of sweat and the floor scraped from being walked on so many times, missing some pieces of paint.
‘’Jisung? Are you here?’’ You called softly, stepping more into the room. Your voice was too calm to compare to what was going on inside you. Fear and anxiety filled your veins, making you fidgety and nervous. You hated playing hide and seek when you were little.
You started seeing the signs of what happened there. A branch was thrown, blood droplets started to become large stains that made a horrible trail towards a locker, like somebody was dragged there. The red, syrupy blood flowed like a river from the locker’s base, slow and haunting. Your whole body froze, heart stopping for a whole second when panic filled you so hard it gave you whiplash.
You reached out, trembling, not caring if your dress was caught in the pool of blood. You pulled at the locker trying to open the old metal, trying several times until the door gave way and suddenly opened.
You blinked your tears and sniffed when you encountered the body inside it or well, what was left of him. Jaemin was… ruined. Broken in a way so brutal and wild it was difficult to know what actually killed him. His body was twisted and pushed into the locker in an unnatural way, blood everywhere. His throat was opened with a deep slice, face blue and violet, cut from maybe hard punches and jaw too wide, like it was yawning. It fell too low, broken and out of place.
You swear, this little game was giving you a headache and a little heart attack every time you entered a room, stress and discomfort tugging at your body.
Inside the locker were scratches and hand-shaped bloody marks, like he was trying to escape even if there was no way out. You stared at Jaemin’s dead body, turning your head when you heard a door opening slowly.
Your breath was caught when you saw someone coming from the coach office, standing not far from you and just looking at you. He was wearing the same outfit from the costume store, but now the delicate and old mask was tainted with blood everywhere, ruined. It was a shame, really. You didn’t know what he was expecting, maybe for you to run and scream, still like a statue waiting for you to make the first move. It felt like an invisible clock was ticking, or maybe it was just your heart fluttering. The stranger’s hand was gripping a knife, low but firm, shaking a little.
Your eyes traced the killer’s figure slowly in silence, like a warm caress. A scoff left you and you shut the locker’s door, caging Jaemin there again.
‘’You’re lucky I like you, because this was expensive dress.’’
The masked man tilted his head, cautious and unsure. He was still grabbing the big knife, dripping blood from its edge, twirling it on his palm like it was still alive and hungry for more, for another victim. You came closer, calm and steady, trying to show him how open you were, reaching surely. Still, you doubted a little, remembering how he didn’t like to be cornered, trying to give him space and don’t come too fast to him. You dared to cover his fist with your hand and your thumb brushed the skin of his wrist, smiling up at him softly.
‘’If you kiss me right now, I might forgive you,’’ you whispered, your fingers tracing his mask and wiping away a red spot. ‘’I’m a little jealous, you know. You were chasing another girl while I was home getting pretty for you.’’
His chest trembled and you heard a little scoff, like he was laughing under his clown mask. He dropped the knife and grabbed at your waist with both hands, pressing you against him. It felt a little surprising, yet not quite doubtful, but his touch relaxed and turned more slow and deliberate. No hesitation, no doubt, touching you with a hint of possessiveness he dared to set free. His hands were warm against your bare back as he brushed his mask against your cheek, trying to catch your perfume.
‘’You were looking for me?’’ He asked, voice low and rasp, muffled by the mask he still was wearing.
You hummed. ‘’I’m always following you, Ji.’’
With a tentative move you lifted your hands, carefully taking off his mask and smiling when his bangs fell onto his eyes. The embrace was intimate, charged with tension and desire. You wrapped your arms around his neck, staring at him like he was your everything, so obsessively in love. Jisung smiled a little timid, pressing a kiss to your lips.
‘’Let’s go to the party,’’ you whispered against his lips, kissing him softly. ‘’'You can rip my dress this time.’'
back to friends — (m)
“𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐰𝐞 𝐠𝐨 𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐛𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐟𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐬 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐰𝐞 𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐚 𝐛𝐞𝐝?”
word count — 21k words
genre — smut, fluff, angst
pairing — best friend!mark lee x oc! reader
synopsis — after years of crossing lines and pretending you’re just friends, one reckless night destroys every boundary between you and mark. you fuck like you’re starving—filthy, desperate, angry—never able to stop wanting him, no matter how much it ruins you. now, tangled in a mess of jealousy, heartbreak, and possessive sex, you both spiral through hookups, fights, and raw confessions, knowing the truth is the one thing that could end you. this is a story about the addictive, ruinous pull between best friends who can’t stop breaking each other open, and the fear that you’ll never be able to go back to the way things were.
chapter warnings — explicit language, college au, mark and readers relationship dynamic may be confusing, explicit sexual content graphic descriptions of oral, vaginal, and a lot of smut in this, rough sex, spanking, slapping, spit play, choking, ass play, begging, face sitting, and overstimulation, car sex, party bathroom sex, possessiveness/jealousy kink, rough claiming, jealousy-fueled sex, use of degrading language, humiliation play, dirty talk/degradation, mutual masturbation & exhibitionism, fingering, oral in front of mirrors, riding in laps, emotional vulnerability & comfort sex, sex after distress, crying during/after sex, aftercare, unprotected sex alcohol use, smoking, references to partying
surprise drop, happy birthday markie 🫶<3!!
[fic playlist]
It’s four in the morning when you wake to find Mark asleep at the foot of your bed, arm slung over the comforter, cheek pressed against your shin. The light leaking from the cracked bathroom door pools along the floorboards, blurring the boundary between your space and his, as if even the shadows have given up trying to separate the two of you. There’s a mug half-spilled on your nightstand, the faded print smudged from the last time he stole it for his endless late-night coffees. You can smell his cologne even now, sharp and familiar, woven into the sheets you both pretend are only yours.
You’re so used to finding pieces of him everywhere, a shoe kicked under your desk, rings abandoned in the kitchen sink, half-folded t-shirts on your chair, that sometimes it feels like you’re borrowing your own life. There’s a comfort in it, the kind that breeds laziness, or maybe just a low-level hunger you’re never supposed to feed. He never bothers with an excuse. Mark slips into your bed the way he claims a seat beside you at the movies, or stretches out on your carpet with his head in your lap, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, like it’s always been his. None of you ever question it when he stays over after movie nights and you both drift off tangled together, limbs knotted and breaths slow. It’s just instinct, the way you end up side by side, sharing pillows and warmth, the quiet thrum of his heart pressed into your spine. There’s never a conversation, never a line drawn, never a need for reason, just the ease of knowing where he fits, how your bodies slot together, how you both sleep best when it’s like this, close and careless and unconcerned with how it looks to anyone else.
The lines between you and Mark have always been blurred, dragged out and rubbed raw by every touch that lingers too long, every look that burns a little too openly. There’s nothing innocent about the way his hands find your hips at parties, yanking you in to shut you up with his mouth against yours, tongue deep and desperate while the room spins and your friends just laugh, pretending they haven’t noticed you pressed up against a wall, his fingers tangled in your hair. You shower together when you’re hungover and lazy, but it’s never just about saving time, he stands behind you, soap slick on your skin, rinsing shampoo from your hair with a mouthful of filthy jokes, his hands sliding down your body until you’re shivering, thighs slick and parted under the spray, knowing he’ll only stop if you say so.
There are nights sprawled out half-naked on your bedroom floor, sharing half a bottle of vodka and a pack of cigarettes, his head in your lap as you dare each other into confessions that always spiral into touch: his fingers stroking your stomach, your hand curled around the waistband of his boxers, your breaths thick and uneven, hearts racing so hard you can hear them in your ears. Everyone assumes you’re fucking and you do fuck, in every way that counts except the last. You’ve never corrected anyone, never had the nerve to call it what it is. What would you even say? That he’s your best friend? That you want him in ways that ruin you, that you’d let him do anything if he only asked? That sometimes, when he leans in close and your lips brush, the whole world shrinks to the heat and hunger trembling in that half-inch between you, and you want to tear him open and swallow whatever’s left?
You fuck him more often than you’d ever admit, even to yourself. It happens on nights when you’re both pissed off from shitty dates or ghosted by people you barely cared about, nights you storm in with ruined mascara, rip off your clothes, and climb straight onto his cock while he’s half-asleep on the couch, riding him until you both forget your own names. It’s casual, matter-of-fact, so unashamed you could laugh; there’s no pretending at innocence, not after the hundredth time he’s bent you over the kitchen counter at two in the morning, tongue in your cunt, fingers in your mouth, holding you open so you can watch yourself fall apart in the black window glass. He’ll fuck you with his rings on, thick fingers pressing bruises into your thighs, palm around your throat while you whimper his name. Sometimes you tie him up with your own scarves and make him beg, make him writhe, make him lose all that easy confidence until he’s swearing and panting for you, so hard he can’t think.
Other nights he’ll pull your hair, spit in your mouth, fuck you so slow you go mad, pin your wrists over your head and keep you there until you’re crying, cock-drunk and shuddering, dripping all over his sheets. You both see other people, sometimes they call while he’s still inside you, and you answer on speaker just to hear him curse under his breath, teeth gritted as you squeeze him tighter. Sex is the language you both speak best, the only place you let yourselves be honest: no shame, no shyness, just bodies wrecked together, craving and needed and real. You never talk about what it means. You never call it love. But there’s a logic to it, a ritual, whenever you’re both frayed and desperate and lonely, it’s Mark you crawl to, Mark who splits you open, Mark who leaves you marked up and grinning, both of you spent and half-laughing in the aftermath, pretending it’s just how friends take care of each other. Sometimes you think your life together is one long, unsent message. Half-truths and borrowed comforts, spun out in the shape of routine, his name on your takeout order, your number as his emergency contact, a toothbrush in every drawer. You wonder if this is how it’ll always be: two bodies in orbit, never colliding, always trembling on the verge of disaster. Still, every morning he’s there, curled into the shape of something almost tender, and you let yourself believe you’re not alone. It’s easier that way. You both have your ways of pretending.
You haven’t spoken in days, just shouting, slamming doors, fucking each other stupid whenever the fight gets too hot to handle, the kind of angry sex that leaves you shaking after, mascara smeared down your cheeks, hickeys blooming across your collarbone where your dress won’t cover. Right now you’re in Mark’s car, the hem of your dress hitched up over your hips, slick already painting the inside of your thighs as he buries his face between your legs, tongue working circles around your clit, jaw flexing with every desperate whimper you give him. The car is bouncing with every sharp thrust of his fingers, back seat fogging up, streetlights flickering across the sheer straps of your dress, a strappy, skin-tight slip in cherry red, cut so high it barely covers your ass when you climb out, tits pushed up and mouth still painted, heels kicked off in the footwell. He drags you forward by the waist, hands rough and unrepentant, as if he’s trying to fuck the thought of Jay right out of you, eating you like he’s starving. You’re gasping, shoving at his hair, telling him, “Don’t—Mark, be soft, I can’t go in there covered in your cum—” but he just groans, tongue flicking, fingers curling, the taste of your skin making him growl.
The argument lingers between you, thick as sweat, Mark’s voice from earlier echoing in your head, snarling about Jay, about how he treats girls like shit, how he’s seen Jay ghost girls after fucking them at some shitty afterparty, how he’s rude, uses girls for ego, brags about every fuck. You spat it back, called Mark jealous, accused him of never letting you make your own choices, and he’d just stared at you, fists clenched, jaw tight, eyes dark and wild. “Maybe I am jealous,” he’d bitten out, “but I’m not gonna let you get wrecked by some dickhead who doesn’t know how to treat you.” Every time you argue like this, it ends with you on your back, it doesn't matter if it’s your bed, his car, or the hallway floor, Mark always needing to stake his claim, to leave his spit and cum where no one else can touch. Right now, as his mouth pushes you higher, you can’t think straight, whining for him to slow down, begging him to be gentle so you don’t walk into that restaurant with Jay’s name on your lips and Mark’s fingerprints all over your thighs. You look wrecked, hair tumbling wild around your face, lips swollen and parted, dress riding up so high you’re one deep breath from flashing half the parking lot, eyes glazed, skin flushed with want. Mark glances up at you, mouth glistening, smirks, and murmurs, “You want me to be soft? That’s not how you argued for it, princess.”
He’s brutal tonight, knuckles pressing into the slick heat of your thighs, tongue splitting you open with single-minded hunger, eyes locked on yours like he’s daring you to look away. You’re sprawled in the backseat, legs thrown over his shoulders, that tiny red dress bunched at your waist and the straps falling off your arms. He palms your hips hard enough to bruise, dragging you down the leather seat until your ass squeaks against it and you’re arching into his face, heels digging into his back. His breath is hot, tongue working relentless circles over your clit, sometimes slow, just the tip flicking, then deep and savage, mouthing at you like he wants to swallow every sound you make. Every time you whine, he growls low, the vibration making your thighs tremble. His hair is a mess where you’ve grabbed at it, yanking him closer, grinding against his mouth in frustration when he doesn’t give you what you want fast enough. The windows are fogged and dripping with condensation, every movement rocking the car, headlights sliding across your skin like a silent audience.
You’re panting, trying to claw your composure back, but the argument’s still clawing through your veins, thick and mean. Mark’s tongue is relentless, lips slick and jaw aching, but when you grind down harder and drag that taunt into the charged, cramped air, “Wonder if Jay would do it like this,”—he doesn’t let you finish. Your hips rock against his face, every muscle in his shoulders flexing under your thighs, but his eyes snap up to yours, black and burning, and he actually growls. The sound is feral, furious, vibrating straight through your cunt, teeth gritted as he pulls his mouth away just enough to rasp.
“Shut the fuck up about Jay.” His breath is hot against your skin, eyes still locked on yours, possessive and wild. “He wouldn’t even know where to start.” Then he dives back in, tongue punishing, sucking your clit so hard your vision blurs, fingers pressing bruises into your hips as if he’s daring you to even think about anyone else. Every flick and drag of his mouth now is a threat, a promise, all of it—watch me, remember this, you’re fucking mine.
Mark’s grip on your thighs tightens, nails biting in, and he sucks your clit hard, just to shut you up. You gasp, almost sob, your back arching off the seat. “Fuck—Mark, he’d probably cum in his pants just seeing me like this, wouldn’t he?” You say it just to see his jaw tense, just to watch the darkness bloom in his eyes as he licks up your slit, slow and punishing, then buries his face deeper, groaning into you as if he can drown out every other man’s name with the sound of you falling apart on his tongue.
You feel him grin, lips curled around your cunt, breath hot and furious. “Keep talking,” he rasps between licks, “see where it gets you.”
Your hands slip from his hair to his shoulders, nails scraping red lines down his back as his tongue fucks into you harder, relentless, filthy, he’s eating you out like it’s a fight he has to win, mouth slick and greedy, lips swollen and wet as he laps you up. You whimper, trying to twist away, but he just pins you down, forearm heavy across your stomach, fingers digging into your thigh so you can’t escape, forcing you to feel every brutal, beautiful drag of his mouth. You curse him, moan for him, tell him he’s being rough, that he’s going to ruin your dress, but you can’t stop rocking against his tongue, riding his face, cunt throbbing with every flick and press. “Yeah, ruin it,” he mutters, mouth hot and sticky against you, “let him see exactly who fucked you up.” The car smells like sweat and sex and leather, your mascara running, eyes glazed and lips bitten raw, legs trembling every time he sucks your clit between his teeth, tongue flicking so fast your vision whites out.
You start to break, hips shaking, chest heaving, voice cracking as you try to warn him you’re close, but he only doubles down, tongue and fingers working you open until you’re crying, sobbing his name, begging for him to slow down, to let you breathe. He doesn’t stop. His hands slip up your waist, pinning you in place, and he keeps licking, keeps sucking, chasing your orgasm like he needs to own it, to brand you from the inside out. You choke out his name, thighs squeezing his head, the whole car rocking with the force of your release, body wrung out and spent, pussy clenching around nothing as he laps up every drop, groaning like he’s drunk on you. Your hands fist in his hair, tears streaking down your cheeks, breath stuttering as you finally go limp, Mark’s mouth still hot and wet on your cunt, his voice nothing but a gravel whisper, “let him fucking wait, you’re mine first, always mine.”
Your body’s still shuddering, cunt still pulsing around nothing, when your phone buzzes with a message, telling you that he’s inside and waiting for you. You’re yanked back into the glare of the real world, heat flashing across your face as you gasp and push at Mark’s head. “Stop, Mark—fuck, he’s here,” you hiss, voice raw and breathless, hips jerking when he gives your clit one last, stubborn, filthy lick before finally letting you go. You’re left a mess: thighs sticky, dress rumpled up around your waist, hair wild from where he gripped it. You reach for the visor, yanking it down and frantically trying to tame your hair, fingers trembling as you swipe at your mascara, rub your mouth raw with your thumb until the smeared lipstick is half fixed. Mark just sits back in the seat, lips swollen and chin shining with you, watching with that unreadable look, chest still heaving, hands clenched tight on his knees as you smooth your dress back down over your thighs, cover up the marks he left in every place you’ll never forget.
You shoot him a look, equal parts exasperation and wrecked, cheeks burning as you stuff your heels back on, heart pounding against your ribs like it’s trying to break free. “Jay’s inside,” you mumble, barely trusting your voice not to shake. He just sighs, low and frustrated, the anger and want still burning underneath, too much left unsaid between you. For a second you think he might start another argument, might grab your wrist and pull you back in for more, but instead he just leans across the console, catches your chin, and presses the softest, most fucked-up kiss to your forehead. It’s the kind of touch that undoes you, gentle, dizzying, painfully close to love. “I’m only a call away,” he murmurs, voice barely holding together. You nod, swallowing hard, lips parted but no words coming, and the moment hangs there, long, slow, brutal, like you’re both waiting for something to give.
You force a laugh, breathless, still trembling as you open the car door and step out, your knees unsteady, dress clinging to your skin where he left you marked. “Bye, Mark,” you whisper, voice tiny, and you don’t look back as you walk toward the restaurant, clutching your phone like a lifeline, pulse still fluttering from his mouth. You can feel his eyes on you the whole way, your body still humming with him, every step echoing the ache of leaving him in that car, unfinished. Only when you’re finally inside, safe past the glass doors and lost in the low golden lights, do you dare to glance back, Mark’s car still parked there, headlights low, engine running. He’s watching, always watching, jaw tight, and only when you disappear from sight does he finally shake his head and pull away, leaving you there with every nerve raw and every line between you just that much more impossible to untangle.
The restaurant is loud and bright, all glass and chatter and laughter pressing in from every side, but none of it distracts you from the phantom ache still humming between your thighs, Mark’s touch lingering on your skin like a bruise that won’t fade. You try to focus on Jay, on the way he leans across the table with that easy, practiced confidence, but it’s all surface: compliments that sound like lines, eyes that never quite meet yours unless he’s checking out your cleavage, every conversation turning back to sex no matter how you try to steer it elsewhere. You laugh when you’re supposed to, sip your drink, play the game, but Mark’s words circle in your head—he doesn’t care about you, he just wants to get off, he’ll use you up and leave you feeling cheap—and for the first time, you start to wonder if he’s right.
Jay’s hand finds your knee under the table, fingers inching up your thigh with a confidence that feels wrong, too familiar, nothing like the heat and safety you’re used to. He whispers something in your ear about how good you look, how he couldn’t stop thinking about you all day, but there’s no warmth behind it, no care, just that greedy undertone that makes your stomach twist. You force yourself to flirt back, to play along, letting his hand go higher, laughing at jokes that don’t land, but you’re thinking about Mark, the taste of him, the burn in his eyes when you teased him, the way he made you feel like you were the only thing that mattered in the world. You wonder if Jay could ever make you feel like that. The answer settles low in your chest, heavy and cold.
Jay’s conversation grows sloppier as the night drags on, eyes glazing with every drink, stories getting more explicit, leaning into crude innuendos and little comments about what he wants to do to you. There’s no curiosity about your life, your dreams, your day, just hungry glances at your mouth, at your thighs, hands always wandering, lips always parted. You nod, smile, let him take your hand, but every touch feels wrong, like you’re playing at someone else’s fantasy, and Mark’s warning rings louder in your ears: guys like that don’t know how to take care of a girl like you. For a second, you think about texting Mark, about running back to his car and letting him take you home, but you swallow it down and keep smiling, keep pretending. It’s not until Jay licks his thumb and tries to wipe a streak of mascara from your cheek—clumsy and a little too rough, breath hot and sour from his last drink—that the ick crawls up your spine. You laugh it off, brushing his hand away, blaming it on too many cocktails. He leans in close, lips brushing your ear, and says, “Do you wanna go back to mine?” The question is blunt, expectation hanging heavy in the air. You force another bright smile, nodding, feeling the lie burn your tongue, and stand to follow him out, heart pounding, Mark’s shadow still clinging to your skin as you step into the night.
You know you’ve made a mistake as soon as Jay’s door clicks shut behind you. The apartment is colder than you expected, lights low, the air thick with last night’s booze and the stale, burnt edge of cheap weed. There’s a mess of trainers in the hallway, empty shot glasses on every windowsill, and the soundtrack of some club remix leaking from a speaker you can’t see. Jay doesn’t ask if you want a drink, doesn’t even bother making small talk, just hooks his fingers into the crook of your elbow and leads you straight down the hall, eyes already scanning your body like he’s checking off a list. His room’s the same: sheets tangled, two condoms already torn open on the nightstand, the air sharp with sweat and something sweet and sour, a girl’s bra slung over his desk chair like a souvenir.
Jay’s notorious, everyone knows it. His crew, Sunghoon and Heeseung and Jake, haunt campus bars and afterparties, all swagger and loud voices, a constant echo of hands on waists and crude bets. Mark and his lot, Jeno, Jaemin, Donghyuck, have never tried to blend, never tried to fake nice. Mark calls Jay’s friends walking red flags, says they don’t know the meaning of respect, and it’s easy to see why. Where Mark is careless with his heart but careful with your body, Jay’s got nothing but appetite—he doesn’t ask, doesn’t check, just takes. You can feel the difference in every touch, every glance, the way Mark would always pause to search your eyes, to brush your hair off your cheek, but Jay just grins, eyes heavy-lidded, hands already traveling up the slit of your dress as you fall back onto his bed. Jay and his group of friends afd the kind of boys who wear their conquests like a joke, whose group chats are full of body counts and grainy photos. Mark and his friends can’t stand them, never could. Mark talks shit about them in every room, calls them out for being trash, and even though he’s got a reputation of his own, you know how different he really is. Mark might fuck around, but he always asks, always cares, always checks if you’re okay before he goes any further. Jay’s just the opposite, entitlement, assumption, no patience for the word no.
It starts hot, at least in theory, his mouth hungry on yours, teeth and tongue, your dress shoved down your arms, tits spilling out while he grinds against your bare thigh, rutting like he’s been hard for hours. His fingers are rough, pinching your nipple, one hand sliding straight down to your cunt, pushing your panties aside without a word. You kiss him back, roll your hips into his palm, try to conjure up some version of wanting, but the smell of him and the pushy scrape of his knuckles just leaves you colder. Still, you let him maneuver you, let him hitch your leg up higher, cock slapping heavy against your cunt as he grinds in, but when he tries to shove inside you, barely any warning, no condom, no preamble, something in you freezes. You press a palm to his chest, breath ragged. “Just—wait,” you manage, and for a moment he just stares, blank and annoyed, as if you’re a glitch in his program.
His lip curls. “Wait? For what, princess? What do you think we’re here for?” His hand stays tight on your thigh, fingers digging in, but there’s no warmth, no coaxing, just expectation. “You think I dragged you out here for a chat? You know who you are, right? I’ve seen the way you look at Mark, shit, I’ve heard the stories. Everyone has. You ride him in the kitchen, suck him off in the locker room. Sunghoon said he walked in on you with his cock down your throat after a game, Jake said you let Mark fuck you in the shower after finals. Don’t pretend you’re shy now. My boys said not to bother with you, said you’re just his slut, but if he keeps coming back for more when he’s got every girl on campus lined up, must be a tight little pussy. You’re fit, I’ll give you that. Great tits, that mouth, that body—wouldn’t mind a turn. Now stop wasting my time and get on all fours.” His voice turns cruel, mouth close to your ear. “Let’s see if you’re as good as they say. Get on your knees. Or do you only do that for him?”
His words gut you, filthy, degrading, each syllable scraping something raw. For a second, you just stare, dress halfway down your hips, chest bare, breath stuck in your throat. Then the shame curdles to rage. You shove him hard, voice sharp and shaking. “Go fuck yourself,” you spit, scrambling off the bed, yanking your dress up over your chest, fumbling for your bag with shaking hands.
Jay laughs, cold and bored, already rolling over and grabbing his phone, muttering, “Fucking tease, you’re all the same,” as you stumble barefoot down his hallway. The door slams behind you, breath burning, heart racing, humiliation prickling over your skin. You don’t even think, just punch Mark’s name into your phone with trembling fingers, fighting tears as you hurry out into the cold, the need to hear his voice outweighing every other instinct.
Mark picks up on the first ring. His voice is gentle, low, softer than you’ve heard it in days, all the anger and tension stripped away in an instant. “Hey, I’ve got you, where are you?” he murmurs, like it’s a secret, like it’s just for you. You can’t even get the words out, just shaking and gasping, tears spilling down your cheeks, every breath ragged and broken. “It’s okay, baby, it’s okay,” he soothes, so much warmth in his tone you can feel it curl around you through the line. “Don’t talk, just stay there. I’ll be there in a few minutes. I already know where you are.” You hear the jingle of his keys, the sound of his door slamming, the familiar rush of him moving, every detail so achingly familiar, every detail safety itself. He never makes you say it, never asks for an explanation, never tells you what you should’ve done differently. He just moves.
Within minutes, headlights cut through the dark, his car pulling up wild, tires spinning. The passenger door’s thrown open before you can even wipe your cheeks, Mark’s already out, moving fast, finding you half-crumpled on the curb, he pulls off his jacket, shoving your arms through the sleeves before you can think to refuse. “Come here,” he says, voice thick, hands gentle, steady as he pulls you against his chest. You bury your face in his shoulder, sobbing, still trembling so hard your knees knock together, his warmth the only anchor in the spinning night. He holds you there, big hands running slowly, grounding circles up and down your back, pressing kisses into your hair, your forehead, the shell of your ear. “It’s okay,” he murmurs, voice low and trembling at your ear, breath hot where it fans your cheek, “I’ve got you, baby. Nobody touches you but me, yeah? You’re safe—only with me. Always.” The words are a secret, a promise, spoken with a hunger that shakes you, his arms winding tighter around your waist like he could fuse you to his chest. There’s a catch in his throat, something raw and desperate, as if he’d tear the world apart just to keep you right here, shivering in his jacket, head buried under his chin. You hear the way he clings to every syllable, turning your safety into a vow he’ll never break, no matter what.
He helps you into the car, steady hands guiding you by the waist, fingers slow, gentle, trembling just a little when they brush the bare skin above your hip. He buckles your seatbelt, the metal clicks loud in the silence, and when he leans in, his thumb strokes your jaw with a tenderness that makes your eyes sting all over again. His lips brush your forehead, warm, lingering, pressed a little too long, like he can’t bring himself to let go. He doesn’t move to his side. For a moment, he’s still, the cabin thick with the scent of him, the windows steaming up, engine humming low beneath you both. You watch as his jaw tightens, eyes burning, fists clenched so hard his knuckles pale. He glances back at Jay’s apartment door, a muscle jumping in his cheek, the promise of violence simmering just beneath his calm.
You groan, soft and hoarse, head falling back against the seat, every part of you already knowing—knowing—what he’s thinking. “Mark, not now,” you whisper, half pleading, too exhausted and raw to argue but too fragile to watch him break himself over this.
He doesn’t take his eyes off the door, doesn’t look at you, just squeezes your knee in his palm, thumb rubbing slow circles, grounding you. “Don’t worry,” he says, voice low, sweet but with a thread of steel you feel all the way in your bones. “I’ll take care of it.” It’s soft, but it’s a promise, and you can taste the fury in every word, like the act of hurting you has become something personal to him, a trespass that needs retribution.
Before you can protest, he’s gone, the door swinging open, closing behind him with a weight that says don’t follow. You watch him cross the pavement, each step heavier, more certain, his shoulders squared and head high. There’s a brutality to his focus, the set of his mouth, the way he raises his fist to the door and knocks, once, twice, hard enough to echo through the whole shitty house. The wait is barely a breath. Jay opens, half-dressed, eyes already rolling as he catches sight of Mark standing there, every inch of him radiating danger. “The fuck do you want?” Jay slurs, gaze flicking from Mark to where you’re curled in the car, nothing in his expression but contempt. “Come to pick up your little bitch? She was crying before she even got her panties off. Guess she only gets loud for you, huh? Sloppy seconds, Lee.”
Mark doesn’t hesitate. He grabs Jay by the collar, yanking him forward, slamming him into the doorframe. His fist meets Jay’s jaw, a brutal, ugly sound, and you see the shock in Jay’s face as Mark doesn’t let go, doesn’t back down, rage boiling over in every blow. “Don’t ever talk about her. Don’t even fucking think about her,” Mark snarls, voice ragged, every word punctuated by another hit.
Jay spits blood, muttering curses, still trying to wound. “You’re both pathetic, does she let anyone fuck her if you’re not around. Do you want her? Go ahead, man, she’s a fucking mess.”
Mark’s grip only tightens, knuckles bone-white, eyes burning holes through Jay’s skull. “I know exactly what you tried. I don’t need her to tell me—you’re done. Don’t look at her, don’t even breathe her name, or I’ll fucking end you.” The words land low, venomous, and he slams Jay back into the doorframe with a final shove that leaves Jay slumped, head lolling, split lip and swelling jaw already blossoming purple. Mark doesn’t give him another glance, just wipes his bloody knuckles on his jeans and stalks away, steps echoing off cracked pavement. Through the blur of your tears you catch a crooked smile tugging at your lips, sick with adrenaline and relief, crying and shaking but impossibly grateful that it’s always him. This isn’t the first time Mark’s thrown a punch for you, and it won’t be the last; you’ve lost count of the times he’s come back to you with bloody knuckles and bruised pride, just to make sure you’re safe, just to remind you that nobody gets to hurt you.
When he slides back into the driver’s seat, the anger still crackling through him, your chest hiccups with a sob, breath catching when he glances over at you—wild, messy, but his entire expression melting into that rare, unguarded tenderness that belongs only to you. He reaches for your hand and laces his fingers through yours, squeezing so tight you nearly gasp, but it’s the safest feeling in the world. “You good?” he murmurs, voice velvet-soft, thumb stroking slowly over your knuckles, and when you nod, tears streaking your cheeks, he just smiles—a real, aching smile that makes something inside you unclench. He starts the engine, one hand never leaving yours, and for the whole ride home, the anger drains out of him, replaced by this slow-burning intimacy, like the world’s shrunk to just the warmth of his palm and your breaths getting steadier by the second.
You’re still sniffling, cheeks wet, but every mile feels easier when he turns up your favorite song and quietly hums along, the notes vibrating through the space between you. He cracks dumb jokes under his breath, says your hair looks like a crime scene, and when you let out a watery laugh, he grins like it’s his life’s mission to make you smile. At a red light, he pulls your hand into his lap, turns his head, and kisses the inside of your wrist so softly it makes you whimper, heat pooling low in your stomach. “You were right about him, Mark,” you whisper, voice small, gratitude and exhaustion tangled together. He just hums, squeezing your hand again, his eyes all gentle pride and need. “You can say ‘I told you so,’ if you want,” you sigh, already melting into the sweetness of him.
Mark just leans closer, his voice a velvet drag in your ear, “Why would I waste time saying ‘I told you so’ when I’d rather show you how good you’ve got it right here?” His breath is warm, his words electric, and the way you gasp, shivering, makes him smile even wider because there’s nothing casual in the way he loves you, nothing in the world that could ever make you feel safer than his hands and that hungry, gentle devotion shining in his eyes.
The apartment feels softer in the dark, the hush only broken by the distant hum of the fridge and the weight of Mark’s footsteps beside you. He keeps your heels in his hand, swinging them absently, the other arm wrapped steady around your waist as you stumble inside. Your face is sticky with tears, mascara smudged to your jaw, every part of you heavy and tender, but Mark never lets you walk alone, not even for a step. He toes the door shut behind you and hangs your bag on the hook, then gently tugs the ruined shoes from your hand, leaving them by the entry like it’s a ritual he’s done a thousand times. You’re shivering, arms crossed, but he just moves closer, fingers brushing your cheek, knuckles soft as he tucks a stray lock of hair behind your ear. “Let’s get you out of this, yeah?” he murmurs, voice low and slow, every syllable dragging comfort through your bones.
He helps you undress, careful and patient, unzips your dress, eases it down your arms, unhooks your bra with deft hands, never rushing, never taking more than you offer. He keeps his eyes on your face, checking for every flinch, every wince, and when you’re left in nothing but his old hoodie, he pulls you into the bathroom and starts the shower, testing the water temperature with his wrist like he always does for you. The steam blooms around you both, warm and safe, and you let him guide you under the spray. Mark washes you slow, lathering your hair, massaging your scalp, fingers tracing the lines of your shoulders and back. His touch is reverent, never sexual, just the steady comfort of someone who’s seen you at your ugliest and loves you anyway. He lets you lean on his chest as he rinses the soap away, lips pressed to your temple, his hands soothing every place Jay’s gaze made you feel small. “You’re here, with me. That’s all that matters,” he whispers, over and over, and for a few long minutes, it’s almost enough to believe him.
When you’re clean, he wraps you in a towel and dries your hair with the old t-shirt he knows is your favorite. He kneels to pull warm socks onto your feet, his thumb lingering at your ankle, eyes never leaving yours. You both slip into bed, tangled together under the covers, the world shrinking to the soft cotton and the thump of his heartbeat pressed into your spine. Mark’s arms fold around you, one hand smoothing over your ribs, the other playing lazy patterns on your thigh. You talk about everything and nothing, favorite movies, the time he made you pancakes and burned every single one, how much you hated Jay’s cologne, how you wish things could be simple. His voice is always soft, never pushing, just inviting you to spill whatever needs to be let out. “You’re allowed to be mad. You’re allowed to be sad,” he says, “but you don’t have to do it alone.”
It’s only when the apartment is dark, Mark’s breathing steady at your back, that it all catches up to you, the way Jay looked at you, the way his words scraped through your skin, every sick stare and cruel sneer. The ache bursts out in great, shuddering sobs, your body curling tight, knees to your chest, shoulders shaking. Mark doesn’t say anything, just pulls you closer, sliding his arms around your waist, pressing his lips to the wet salt of your hair, holding you so close you almost believe nothing bad could ever touch you again. You let it all out, safe in the dark, safe in his arms, the ugliness of the world pressed back by the quiet, dogged strength of his love.
Mark shifts beside you, rolling his body over yours with the same slow, careful weight he’s used a hundred times before, but tonight every movement is reverent, almost aching. He nudges your knees apart, sliding between your thighs, the mattress dipping under his warmth, and you blink up at him through wet lashes. His palm cups your cheek, thumb gentle as it wipes away each fresh tear, tracing the curve of your jaw, lips brushing over the lines his own fingers made. His eyes are so open, so impossibly soft, brown glass catching every glimmer of you, searching your face for pain, for permission. “Look at me, baby,” he whispers, voice thick with devotion, “just let me take care of you, yeah? Nothing else matters right now. Just you and me.”
You reach for him, need cracking open and spilling between your bodies. Your hands clutch at the back of his neck, sliding into his hair, tugging him down until your mouths crash together, messy, gasping, hungry, all teeth and tongue and bruised want. Your lips part wide, tongue stroking deep into his mouth, swallowing the groan he lets out as you grind your hips up, the heat of him already heavy against your thigh. His hands bracket your face, fingertips tracing your temples, then trailing down to your throat, mapping every inch of you like he needs to relearn your body just to be sure you’re real and safe and his. You moan into him, arching up so your tits press flush to his chest, your cunt already slick and desperate, rubbing against the bulge in his boxers.
He groans, rough and low, hips rocking into yours, breath hot and broken against your mouth as his hands slide down, thumbs tracing the wet salt off your cheeks, curling under your jaw to tip your face up, his kiss deepening, claiming. You bite at his lip, grinning through the mess, and he growls, biting you back, his tongue tangling with yours, the kiss all hunger and healing and every secret you’ve never had the courage to say. You’re grinding up into him now, cunt slicking his thigh, moaning his name, dragging his hand down to cup your ass, desperate for him to fill you, fuck you, remind you that you’re his. “Let me make it better, baby,” he pants, voice shredded with want, hips pushing down until you can feel every hard inch of him pressed between your legs. “Let me make you forget all of it—just us, just this, just you.” You whimper, lips swollen, thighs falling open wider, and he groans again, mouth slanting over yours as he kisses you deeper, fucking you with his tongue, grinding his cock against your soaked pussy until neither of you can tell where comfort ends and hunger begins.
Your lips break from his, breath ragged, head pressed back into the pillow as you look up at him through blurred lashes, the ache spilling from your mouth before you can even think to stop it. “I feel fucking disgusting, Mark,” you whisper, voice raw and shaking, tears hot again as your hands fist in the sheets beneath you. “He looked at me like I was nothing. Like I was just, just a hole to use, something to brag about. I knew he was a dick, I knew it, but I just—I wanted to feel good for once, to feel wanted, and now I just—” Your voice cracks, sob catching on the edge of his name. “I feel stupid. I feel like I let him do it. Like I should’ve known better. Like everyone probably thinks I’m easy, or dirty, or pathetic, and I can’t get the way he talked about me out of my head.”
Your chest heaves, the pain relentless, every word dragging old wounds to the surface. “I’m so tired, Mark. I’m tired of pretending it doesn’t get to me, tired of letting people touch me like I don’t matter. I know I act tough but it hurts, it really fucking hurts, and I keep thinking maybe I deserve it, maybe if I was different, if I was stronger, if I wasn’t such a mess—” Your hands tremble as you clutch his wrist, needing the warmth of his skin, the certainty of his grip. “I hate how much it gets to me. I hate that he made me feel small. I hate that I let him get close at all. I just—I don’t want to be anyone’s dirty secret. I want someone to look at me like I’m worth something. I want someone to want me, all of me, even when I’m like this, even when I’m crying and ugly and ruined inside.” You choke on a sob, eyes searching for him, voice breaking on every syllable. “He kept saying things about us, about you—like I was just your slut, like I let you do anything. Like I’m just easy for you. And it’s not true, it’s never been true, I only ever wanted you to want me. I wanted to feel safe with you, wanted to matter to you. I just—I feel so empty. I’m so tired of letting people use me. I just want to feel something good that doesn’t turn ugly in the morning.”
Mark lowers his head, forehead pressing to yours, his breath shaky against your cheek as his hands cradle your face, thumbs brushing away the tears you can’t stop shedding. For a long moment he’s silent, jaw working, the air thick with all the things he’s never let himself say, everything raw and trembling behind his eyes. “I hate the way you talk about yourself,” he murmurs, voice so gentle it nearly breaks you, every word quivering with something desperate and unsaid. “You’re not dirty. You’re not easy. You’re the best thing I’ve ever touched. The only thing that ever felt fucking right.” His hands tighten, grounding you, his lips ghosting over your eyelids, your cheeks, every place that hurts. “You’re worth everything. You always have been. I wish you could see yourself the way I do—fucking hell, I wish I could make you believe it.”
He exhales, heavy, and you feel him fighting himself, holding so much back, voice low and ragged. “I know I act like I don’t care. I know I fuck around, and I say shit I don’t mean, and I let people think you’re just another girl in my bed. But you’re not. You never have been.” He pulls back just enough to look you dead in the eyes, every inch of him open, hurting. “You’re the only thing that scares me. You’re the only one who could ever fuck me up like this. I’d do anything to make you feel safe, to make you feel good. I’d burn the whole fucking world down for you, I swear. I just—” His voice cracks, softer than you’ve ever heard. “I’m fucked up too, you know? I want you so bad it hurts, and I’m so scared I’ll ruin you. But I never, ever want to see you hurt like this again. Not from him. Not from anyone. Not even me.”
You climb onto him, your knees bracketing his hips, every inch of your skin burning, your cheeks still streaked with tears. Mark is sprawled beneath you, hair wild against the pillow, chest rising and falling in harsh waves as you crawl over him, one trembling hand wrapping around the back of his neck. Your lips crash into his, tongues tangling, hungry, animal, slick—nothing soft about it. You grind your hips down, rolling your soaked pussy over his cock through thin cotton, the friction brutal and perfect, your clit catching on the ridge of his head until you’re whimpering, eyes fluttering, slick smearing all over him. The room fills with the wet slide of your cunt dragging over his cock, your sobs turning to gasps, every movement messy and raw.
You moan against his mouth, so desperate it’s embarrassing, “Need you to fuck me, Mark—need it, need you inside me, please—” The way your voice cracks on please has him growling, hands flying to your ass, squeezing hard, dragging you down over him until you can feel every twitch and throb through his boxers.
He’s still trying to slow you down, hands gentle even when you don’t want gentle, whispering, “Hey, baby, you’re still crying—fuck, slow down, let me—”
But you shake your head, breathless, hips rutting down, grinding your clit on the head of his cock, smearing slick through the fabric. “No, Mark, just—just let me, I want it, want you, want you to make me feel good, want to feel you stretch me, wanna come for you, wanna show you you’re the only one, always you—”
He lets out a broken laugh, one hand smoothing up your spine to fist in your hair, dragging you down for another kiss, tongue fucking into your mouth as his hips buck up into you, cock straining, leaking for you. “God, look at you, can’t get enough, can you? My fucking girl, riding me like you’re starved.” You whimper, biting at his lip, pressing your tits to his chest, nails raking down his sides as you finally tug his boxers down, your fist wrapping around the length of him, guiding him to your entrance. The head of his cock nudges your slit, and you’re both shaking, you from need, him from holding back. “You know I love you, right?” he pants, voice hoarse, eyes wild but clear. “I tell you every day, but right now, fuck, I need you to hear it—I love you, I love you, I love you—always have, always will. You’re mine.”
It isn’t a shock, not really, a thousand ‘I love you’s’ have already hung between you and Mark, braided through every part of your lives like a shared secret language. You say it when you’re laughing over burnt toast in the kitchen, when you steal each other’s fries, when you collapse together after an exam, when you find his socks in your laundry or your hairbands on his wrist. You say it every night, almost on autopilot, a soft “love you, idiot” as you roll over, or a muttered “love you too” when one of you leaves for class, or a quick “I love you more” lobbed across the hall like a dare. It’s part of the fabric of you, familiar and safe, a truth you both wear without thinking.
But this, this is different. There’s nothing casual or careless in the way he says it now, voice breaking, fingers digging into your hips as you ride him, sweat and salt and tears glimmering on your skin. There’s no armor, no routine, just the raw ache of it, the way your bodies slot together and all those words finally mean what they’re supposed to. It’s not a crazy thing to say “I love you” here because you both already know; it’s always been true. But when you’re desperate for him, bouncing in his lap, sobbing into his mouth, begging him to claim you with every thrust, it lands differently, stripped of every offhand joke and every safety net. You hear it in the way he gasps your name, in how his hands shake, in how you both cling tighter, desperate to make the words real in a way they’ve never been before. It’s the first time you’ve said it and needed it to hurt, to heal, to fill every crack left by the world outside this bed. Here, I love you isn’t a throwaway or a punchline; it’s a demand, a prayer, a promise you both bleed for and believe. Here, it sounds like home.
You sink down on him, body opening up inch by inch, the stretch perfect, obscene, your cunt swallowing him until you’re stuffed full, skin to skin, dizzy from the heat and fullness. You start to move, grinding down slow and deep, clenching around him, making filthy sounds in your throat as you ride him, hips snapping, fucking yourself stupid on his cock. Every thrust is a confession, every moan a worship, your mouth hungry on his throat, jaw, lips, biting and sucking, leaving him marked and breathless. “Say it again,” you beg, voice cracking as you bounce in his lap, thighs burning, tits bouncing with every movement, “say you love me, say it’s just me, please, Mark, need it—”
He grabs your hips, rocking up into you, his own voice cracking, “I love you, fuck, I love you, look at you—so perfect, all mine, nobody else gets you like this—” He can’t stop saying it, can’t stop touching you, every word poured into your mouth, your skin, your cunt, until you’re sobbing his name, coming hard on his cock, breaking open for him, every inch of you desperate and raw and safe, wrapped up in the kind of love that leaves you ruined, trembling, and whole all at once.
You sink deeper onto his cock, the thick, perfect stretch making you moan so loud it’s almost a scream, thighs trembling as you take him to the root. Mark groans, the sound raw, filthy, hands flying to grip your hips so hard his fingers leave imprints. “Fuck—so fucking tight,” he grits, voice already shaking, eyes glued to the place where your cunt swallows him, wet and glistening, obscene in the dim light. You can feel him twitch inside you, your walls clenching around him, greedy for every inch, every throb, as you settle your hands on his chest for leverage. His head falls back, lips parted, jaw sharp with want, his chest already slick with sweat. “You love riding me, don’t you? Love showing me how this pussy was made for me.” The words are ragged, half challenge, half worship.
You start to move, slow at first, rolling your hips, grinding down in a circle, feeling every ridge and vein drag against your soaked walls. The friction is delicious, cruel, and you can’t help but tease, lifting yourself almost all the way off, just the tip buried inside, before slamming back down, making the head of his cock press against that sweet spot inside you. Mark hisses, hands flying up to cup your tits, rolling your nipples between his fingers until you arch your back, riding him harder, breath catching as he leans up and latches onto your nipple, sucking hard, teeth grazing, tongue swirling. You grind down, rutting your clit against his pelvis, making both of you gasp. “You want it rough, baby?” he pants, voice gravel, one hand sliding down to slap your ass, the sound sharp, skin stinging as you bounce faster. “Fucking take it. Show me who you belong to.”
“Yours,” you whimper, picking up the pace, ass slapping down onto his thighs, the wet smack filling the room, your tits bouncing in his face, hair wild around your shoulders. “All yours, Mark—fuck, only yours, nobody else gets me like this.” You lean forward, licking a stripe up his throat, biting at his jaw, your cunt milking him, fluttering around him with every thrust.
He growls, fingers digging into the meat of your ass, guiding you up and down, his voice low and sharp: “That’s right. Let them talk. Let the whole fucking building hear you scream for me.” He brings his thumb down to your clit, circles tight, ruthless, until you’re whining, legs starting to shake, tears welling again from the sheer intensity. “Look at you, bouncing like a fucking whore, taking everything I give you. You love being watched, don’t you? Love being my filthy girl.”
You nod, dizzy, drunk on him, on the slap of skin and the stretch of him splitting you open, on how you can feel every inch inside. “Want you to fill me up, want you to fuck me until I can’t walk,” you babble, riding him hard, hands braced on his chest, nails scraping red lines down his skin. “Want to make a mess all over you, want you to come inside me, want everyone to know you ruined me—”
Mark snarls, bucks up into you, fucking you from beneath, the bed frame rocking, his hips slamming up to meet yours. “Say it again,” he commands, thumb circling your clit faster, his cock hitting so deep you see stars. “Tell me who this pussy belongs to.”
“Yours, fuck, it’s yours—only yours, always yours, Mark, please, please, harder—” You’re sobbing, writhing, sweat slicking your thighs, bouncing faster, grinding down until your clit throbs, every muscle in your body burning with the need to come.
He slips two fingers into your mouth, groaning as you suck, tongue swirling, spit dripping down your chin as you stare into his eyes. “Good girl,” he growls, pulling his fingers free, sliding them down to press into your ass, stretching you, filling you, making you moan even louder. “So greedy, so fucking perfect, taking everything I give you.”
You feel yourself unraveling, body shaking as your orgasm builds, the filth of it making you dizzy. “Gonna come, Mark—need it, need you, fuck, please—” He’s ruthless now, hips pounding up into you, his cock hitting that spot over and over, thumb punishing your clit until you shatter, orgasm ripping through you, cunt squeezing him so tight he curses, gripping your hips, rutting up as he follows you over the edge. You come undone together, a mess of sweat, spit, and tears, his name a broken sob on your lips as he fills you, cock pulsing, warmth spilling inside you, leaking down your thighs as you keep grinding, milking every last drop.
When you finally collapse on top of him, shuddering, boneless, Mark wraps his arms around your back, pressing kisses into your hair, your cheek, your jaw. He’s whispering, desperate, needy, filthy: “You’re mine, fuck, you’re mine, look at this mess you made for me. I’ll eat you out right now, clean you up with my mouth—want you dripping with me, want everyone to see. Let me, baby, let me taste you, wanna eat my cum out of your pussy.” You whimper, exhausted but high, moaning as he pulls you up, drags you back down onto his face, tongue greedy and relentless, licking you clean, humming filth into your skin as you twitch and shake, overstimulated and glowing, marked up for him and only him.
Mark doesn’t let you go, even when you start to squirm, legs trembling, breath shuddering in your chest. He’s ravenous, tongue working through your folds, lapping up the mess he left inside you, groaning low like he’s starved for the taste of you. “Fuck, you’re leaking everywhere,” he murmurs, voice hoarse and sweet against your skin. “So fucking pretty when you’re full. All of it is mine.” His hands grip your ass, spreading you wider, holding you open so he can lick every drop that spills out, the filth of it making your head spin. Your thighs quake on either side of his head, body arching up, overstimulation prickling every nerve, but you can’t stop grinding down, needing more, needing him, needing to be ruined all over again.
He doesn’t stop, doesn’t pause, tongue flattening against your clit, sucking, swirling, fingers sliding back into your pussy, spreading you open, pressing deep, curling just right. “God, baby, you taste so fucking good—could eat you all night, fuck, never get enough of you,” he groans, the words vibrating right into your core. You’re sobbing, voice gone, hands fisted in his hair, hips jerking helplessly as he keeps you locked in place, tongue relentless, unrepentant, pushing you higher even as you whimper for a break. He kisses up your stomach, wet and hungry, lips dragging across every mark he’s left, then latches onto your nipple, sucking until you cry out, the sensation bright and sharp and aching.
“Can’t believe you let me wreck you like this,” he rasps, lips swollen, chin slick with you and him, eyes blown wide with hunger and something deeper, darker. “No one else gets this, no one else gets to see you fall apart. Just me, yeah? Just Mark.” You nod frantically, tears mixing with sweat, thighs squeezed tight around his face, cunt fluttering around his fingers as you chase another high. He fucks you slow, then fast, teasing, twisting, making you beg, making you sob for more. “Say it again, baby,” he commands, mouth hot at your ear as he pulls you down, grinding you onto his tongue, “tell me who’s pussy this is. Tell me what you want.”
“Yours, yours, yours, Mark—please, please, want you to fuck me, want your cock again, want you everywhere, fill me up, ruin me, make it hurt, please—” The words spill out in a litany, half-cry, half-moan, every one of them making him groan, making him fuck you deeper, his hands bruising your hips as you bounce, clit throbbing, every inch of you vibrating with the need to come again.
He grins up at you, filthy and proud, eyes shining. “Good girl. Want me to finger you while I eat you out? Want to come on my tongue while you look me in the eye?”
You barely manage a nod before he pushes two fingers in deep, curling them just right, tongue flicking your clit merciless, eyes locked to yours as you writhe above him, moaning, gasping, begging for release. The tension snaps, your body convulsing, cunt spasming around his fingers, soaking his face as you come hard, the orgasm ripping through you, leaving you trembling and weak. Mark moans, licking you clean, fucking you through every aftershock, refusing to let go, refusing to let the high end. “That’s it, that’s my girl—look how pretty you are, how wrecked you get for me. Let me taste all of it, let me drink it down.”
He finally lets you collapse against his chest, holding you close, one hand soothing up and down your spine, the other tangled in your hair. You’re both shaking, sweat and tears and cum slicking your thighs, breath mingling as you press kisses to his throat, jaw, lips—each one messier than the last. “You’re mine,” he whispers, voice choked, desperate, reverent. “Always mine. No one touches you like this, no one ever will.” You answer with your mouth, tongue plunging into his, your hips rolling against his thigh again, not able to stop yourself, not wanting to, addicted to the way he makes you feel.
Mark shifts beneath you, hard again, cock twitching, leaking pre-cum between your thighs. He grins, crooked, wild, pupils blown, all the softness twisted into hunger. “Greedy little thing, huh? Didn’t get enough the first time? Need more?” He grabs your hips, grinding you against him, making you feel every inch, every pulse. “You want to bounce for me again? Want to come on my cock until you’re begging me to stop?” You nod, breathless, ruined, ready for anything he gives. He pulls you up, positions you over him, the tip of his cock nudging your entrance, eyes holding yours, burning with love and lust and everything you’ll never need to ask for—because he’s already giving it, over and over, as many times as you want, as many times as you need.
When Mark guides you down, there’s no rush—just a quiet, shared breath as your hips sink into the cradle of his, his cock slipping inside you slow and steady, letting your bodies meet with all the patience neither of you ever get from the world. The stretch is familiar, not urgent; it’s a filling you’ve known a thousand times, but it never stops being new. His hands rest on your hips, not gripping, just warming your skin, thumbs painting lazy circles over bone and softness. He looks up at you like you’re the only thing in the universe worth seeing, eyes gentle, a little glassy, his mouth parted and waiting for you to come to him.
You settle over him, rolling your hips in a slow, searching rhythm, chasing sensation but never hurrying it. Every slide is accompanied by a sigh, a whispered “good, so good, you’re perfect” from Mark, and you shiver with tenderness, hands coming up to rest on his chest, fingers curling in the faded cotton of his t-shirt. You move together with the easy grace of muscle memory—like dancing, like breathing, like the oldest story you’ve ever written together. He strokes your back, your arms, your thighs, caressing you as if memorizing every inch, grounding you in touch, in safety. When you start to tremble, he hushes you, murmurs sweet, secret things into the hollow of your throat: “I’ve got you, always. You can let go here.”
You lean down to kiss him, lips soft and plush, noses bumping, both of you smiling into it even as you start to moan. His mouth opens for you, tongue sliding gentle against yours, no teeth, no rush—just warmth, just home. You taste tears, both yours and his, and neither of you flinch from the salt. When you break the kiss, you press your forehead to his, your bodies moving in slow, rolling waves. The room is quiet, just the wet sound of your bodies, the creak of the bed, the stutter of your breaths tangled together. He cups your cheek, brushes his thumb under your eye, wipes away the last remnants of tonight’s pain, replacing it with the weight of his love.
He whispers every truth you need to hear, voice ragged with feeling, velvet and breaking: “You’re my favorite. My best thing. I’ll never get tired of you, not ever. You’re the reason I believe in good things.” His hands wander—tucking your hair behind your ear, smoothing the arch of your back, resting over your heart to feel it thump. You’re moving slow, hips grinding down so his cock drags along every sweet spot inside you, your clit rubbing perfectly against his pelvis. There’s nothing rough here, just the shared ache to be close, to give and be given, to be seen, to be known. Every time you gasp his name, it sounds like a prayer.
Mark presses kisses to your collarbone, to your shoulder, up the long line of your neck, breathing you in like he needs it to survive. His hands never stop moving—down your sides, up your waist, tracing every old scar and new bruise with a reverence that almost makes you cry. “So beautiful,” he sighs, voice slurred with love, and you can feel him shaking beneath you, holding back, lost in the wonder of you. When you slow, grinding down with your walls fluttering, his arms wrap around your back, pulling you to his chest so you can bury your face in the crook of his neck, clinging to him, rocking together in small, slow motions that make the whole world disappear.
You start to unravel, pleasure building slow and deep, every little friction a spark, every whispered word a balm. “Come for me, sweetheart,” Mark urges softly, thumb stroking your cheek, kissing your closed eyelids as your hips start to stutter. “Let go, I’ve got you. I’ll hold you together.” The orgasm creeps up, gentle but overwhelming, warmth spreading through your belly, stealing your breath, making you gasp and cling tighter, crying out his name as your body pulses around him, every muscle melting. He follows, shuddering, breath stuttering against your shoulder, cock pulsing deep inside, holding you so close you could almost swear you hear his heartbeat inside your own chest. After, you don’t move. You stay wrapped around each other, skin pressed tight, limbs tangled, chests rising and falling in sync. Mark strokes your hair, kisses your jaw, rubs your back slow and patient, humming the song you love under his breath. The room is dark, safe, your bodies glowing with afterglow and the simple, fragile wonder of being wanted—of being chosen, every part of you, again and again, in the soft, golden hush where you both finally belong.
Mark doesn’t let you go, not even when your bodies start to settle and your breaths fall quiet, content to just exist in each other’s arms. His hand slides up your thigh, slow and steady, knuckles grazing soft skin, his eyes still fixed on your face like he’s trying to memorize you in the half-dark. He shifts you gently, turning your bodies with a practiced, loving patience, rolling you onto your back so he can drape himself over you, cocooning you beneath his weight. There’s nothing hurried—just the slow press of his chest against yours, the heat of his cock nestled between your thighs, the soft sound of his mouth brushing your cheek, your jaw, the bridge of your nose. He kisses you everywhere but your mouth, as if saving the best for last.
He enters you again, slow and careful, never breaking eye contact, his cock pushing deep inch by inch until you’re full, breath caught, eyes fluttering shut at the sensation. Mark hooks his arms under your knees, angling your hips just right, spreading you wide, but every movement is reverent, tender—his thumbs drawing slow circles on the backs of your thighs, his lips never far from your skin. He starts to move in long, lazy strokes, hips rolling against yours, cock dragging against every sensitive place inside you, making you gasp and arch and shiver beneath him. He whispers your name with every thrust, a mantra, a worship, something holy spun into the dark.
Between each movement he pauses, leaning in to press his forehead to yours, brushing your hair back, kissing your eyelids, breathing you in. His hands cradle your face, fingertips stroking your jaw, and he murmurs little confessions—how good you feel, how beautiful you look, how he wants to spend the rest of his life learning every secret your body holds. The room is filled with your soft noises: the hitch in your breath when he pushes deeper, the shaky “I love you” you whisper back, the shuddering moans you can’t hold in as his rhythm starts to stutter, each slow thrust drawing you closer and closer to unraveling. Mark’s hips never slam, never lose that soft rolling tempo—he’s making love to you like there’s all the time in the world, like you’re the only two people left alive.
You wrap your arms around his shoulders, fingers threading through his hair, heels digging into his lower back, grounding him to you. Your bodies rock together in the oldest rhythm, slow and deep, every inch of skin slick and warm, his mouth pressing open-mouthed kisses to your neck, your collarbone, your trembling lips. He tells you you’re perfect, that you’re safe, that there’s nowhere he’d rather be than right here, inside you, loving you soft and open and real. You whisper back, tell him he’s home, that he’s your favorite, your best thing, your only thing. Every time you moan his name, he answers with a kiss, with a squeeze, with another lazy, delicious thrust.
As the night bleeds on, he makes you come slow, again and again, never rushing, never letting the moment slip away. He draws it out—his cock dragging in and out, fingers finding your clit, his words spilling like honey in your ear, keeping you on the edge until you’re crying with the sweetness of it, the intimacy, the love that fills every space between your bones. When you fall apart for him, it’s soft and loud all at once, your whole body trembling as he holds you, murmurs “that’s it, let go, I’ve got you,” kissing away every tear, rocking you through every aftershock.
He doesn’t leave you empty. Mark stays inside, hips pressed tight to yours, chest heavy over your heart, mouth pressed to your hairline, humming your favorite song. You fall asleep that way—tangled up, him buried deep, his hands stroking your sides, your bodies sticky and spent and glowing in the hush. When you wake, it’s to the slow drag of his hips and the sweet, aching stretch of him moving inside you again, his voice low and thick with love, promising you a hundred more mornings just like this, a thousand more nights where it’s only you, only him, and the world outside fading into nothing at all.
Mark doesn’t let you go, not even when your bodies start to settle and your breaths fall quiet, content to just exist in each other’s arms. His hand slides up your thigh, slow and steady, knuckles grazing soft skin, his eyes still fixed on your face like he’s trying to memorize you in the half-dark. He shifts you gently, turning your bodies with a practiced, loving patience, rolling you onto your back so he can drape himself over you, cocooning you beneath his weight. There’s nothing hurried—just the slow press of his chest against yours, the heat of his cock nestled between your thighs, the soft sound of his mouth brushing your cheek, your jaw, the bridge of your nose. He kisses you everywhere but your mouth, as if saving the best for last.
He enters you again, slow and careful, never breaking eye contact, his cock pushing deep inch by inch until you’re full, breath caught, eyes fluttering shut at the sensation. Mark hooks his arms under your knees, angling your hips just right, spreading you wide, but every movement is reverent, tender—his thumbs drawing slow circles on the backs of your thighs, his lips never far from your skin. He starts to move in long, lazy strokes, hips rolling against yours, cock dragging against every sensitive place inside you, making you gasp and arch and shiver beneath him. He whispers your name with every thrust, a mantra, a worship, something holy spun into the dark.
Between each movement he pauses, leaning in to press his forehead to yours, brushing your hair back, kissing your eyelids, breathing you in. His hands cradle your face, fingertips stroking your jaw, and he murmurs little confessions—how good you feel, how beautiful you look, how he wants to spend the rest of his life learning every secret your body holds. The room is filled with your soft noises: the hitch in your breath when he pushes deeper, the shaky “I love you” you whisper back, the shuddering moans you can’t hold in as his rhythm starts to stutter, each slow thrust drawing you closer and closer to unraveling. Mark’s hips never slam, never lose that soft rolling tempo—he’s making love to you like there’s all the time in the world, like you’re the only two people left alive.
You wrap your arms around his shoulders, fingers threading through his hair, heels digging into his lower back, grounding him to you. Your bodies rock together in the oldest rhythm, slow and deep, every inch of skin slick and warm, his mouth pressing open-mouthed kisses to your neck, your collarbone, your trembling lips. He tells you you’re perfect, that you’re safe, that there’s nowhere he’d rather be than right here, inside you, loving you soft and open and real. You whisper back, tell him he’s home, that he’s your favorite, your best thing, your only thing. Every time you moan his name, he answers with a kiss, with a squeeze, with another lazy, delicious thrust.
As the night bleeds on, he makes you come slow, again and again, never rushing, never letting the moment slip away. He draws it out—his cock dragging in and out, fingers finding your clit, his words spilling like honey in your ear, keeping you on the edge until you’re crying with the sweetness of it, the intimacy, the love that fills every space between your bones. When you fall apart for him, it’s soft and loud all at once, your whole body trembling as he holds you, murmurs “that’s it, let go, I’ve got you,” kissing away every tear, rocking you through every aftershock.
Mark folds his body over yours, the shift slow and hushed, the mattress sighing beneath the new weight, and you feel every inch of him settle like warm silk against your skin, a curtain of safety drawn around the night, his lips meeting your brow in a kiss that tastes of rainwater and promises that never rust, and for a moment you swear the room has no walls at all, only the breath of his devotion circling you, holding back every sorrow the world once pressed into your shoulders. His palm glides from the hollow of your throat to the soft underside of your thigh, lifting until your bodies open to each other with the reverence of a blossom at dawn, and he sinks inside with a patience wide as the ocean, inch by inch, filling every empty space as if sculpting new constellations under your ribs. He stays buried deep, forehead resting to yours, hearts hammering together in a shared drum, and you feel the evening inhale through the open window, the curtain billowing like a tide, carrying away the last shadow of hurt that clung to you when the door closed behind Jay earlier. Two hearts beat, two lungs breathe, two mouths search, and the silence between pulses feels holy.
Each slow thrust turns into a tide rolling over sand, smoothing every sharp edge the day carved into you, and you rise to meet him with matching softness, hips canting in a rhythm stitched from memory and wonder, your fingers weaving through his hair where curls spring loose like vines reaching for light, and he murmurs your name with each glide deeper, voice velvet and raw, a psalm for two. The lamp on the dresser casts a warm ellipse across his shoulders, revealing the shadows of freckles and half-healed bruises left by earlier hunger, and you map them with your lips, sealing every dark mark with a kiss that promises gentleness, while his thumb sweeps the curve of your cheekbone as though outlining a secret script only his pulse can read. He whispers you are safe, you are wanted, you are cherished, repeating the words until they seep into marrow, and with every breath you offer him your trust the way petals offer dawn, aching wide for warmth and color. Your bodies sway together, slow arcs, until the hush inside the room grows louder than any storm you have known.
When he moves faster it feels like a sunrise cresting the horizon rather than a blaze, gold pouring through unseen cracks and pooling beneath your ribs, filling you with gentle light, and your tears return, only these carry sweetness instead of salt, glimmering against your temples before slipping to his lips where he kisses each one away, drinking them like sacred wine. You whisper you love him in a voice small yet steady, the phrase that once floated casually through shared breakfast air now rooted deep as an ancient oak, and his reply sounds like soil and seed and future in full bloom, I love you, more than any morning, more than any sky, and the words thread through your pulse while his hips keep that slow tender rhythm, coaxing wave after wave of warmth through your belly until pleasure swells gentle and immense, an unfurling banner of soft fire behind your eyelids. You cling to him, nails grazing shoulders in silent applause, thighs trembling around his waist, and when climax washes over both of you it arrives like a slow-rolling thunder, low and resonant, leaving the air vibrating with quiet awe, bodies fused in a glow that feels unbreakable.
Afterward he never pulls away, his weight a quiet shield over your heart, breaths mingling as his fingertips sketch lazy spirals along your spine, and the outside world retreats to a distant hush while inside these four joined limbs the universe remakes itself calmer and brighter. You trade soft kisses that taste of sleep and spun sugar, the covers tucked around your sides like gentle tides, and you let your eyes drift closed to the sound of his hum, a lullaby older than memory, until dreams drift onto the shore carrying lanterns lit with his name, and the last thing you feel before slipping under is his thumb tracing the arc of your hip, sealing the night with a promise made of silken light and quiet infinity.
He doesn’t leave you empty. Mark stays inside, hips pressed tight to yours, chest heavy over your heart, mouth pressed to your hairline, humming your favorite song. You fall asleep that way—tangled up, him buried deep, his hands stroking your sides, your bodies sticky and spent and glowing in the hush. When you wake, it’s to the slow drag of his hips and the sweet, aching stretch of him moving inside you again, his voice low and thick with love, promising you a hundred more mornings just like this, a thousand more nights where it’s only you, only him, and the world outside fading into nothing at all. You drift in the hush that follows, your head cradled against Mark’s chest, his heartbeat slow and steady under your cheek. His arms never loosen, even as your breathing evens out and your lashes grow heavy, the sweat drying on your skin where his body warms every shivering inch of you. He tucks the blankets up around your shoulders, fingers sliding through your hair, thumb smoothing across your brow with a tenderness that feels older than language. He kisses your temple, barely a whisper of contact, but it glows through you like a fuse catching light. You melt into the bed, boneless and warm, body marked inside and out with the memory of him.
The room is thick with quiet and heartbeats and the spent hush of night after a storm. Mark’s hand rests over your sternum, palm rising and falling with your breaths, as if anchoring you to the present, or to him. You find yourself tracing small circles on his ribs, the two of you still tangled, legs and arms and the faint press of his chest hair beneath your fingertips, and it feels too intimate to be anything less than forever—but neither of you speak, both hovering at the edge of a truth that feels too new and too old at once. Your eyes close, a soft sigh slipping from your lips, and the world contracts to the space between your heart and his. You don’t say anything about how different it feels, about the way every slow thrust, every whispered promise, every sobbed I love you has rewired something permanent between you. You don’t dare name it, not tonight, not yet. But as you fall asleep with his hand still holding your heart steady and his body molded to yours in the dark, you know with a certainty that burrows deep and quiet: nothing about you and Mark will ever be the same again. Tomorrow, the world will shift on its axis. But for now, in this quiet cocoon of tenderness and heat, you let yourself rest, not knowing what’s changed, only that everything has.
You wake alone, sunlight slicing across the tangled sheets, the faint warmth of where Mark’s body should be already fading from the mattress beside you. The apartment is too still, the air holding its breath, no gentle snore or lazy arm thrown over your waist, no sleep-drunk smile pressed into your shoulder. Your heart gives a slow, uncertain twist, this isn’t how it goes, not ever. Mark always stays until the last possible second, always needs to be woken with your fingers tracing his ribs or your lips against his jaw, always rolls over with a muttered “five more minutes, baby” and holds you tighter, refusing to let you go. Today, you only have cold sheets and a pillow that still smells like his cologne, a ghost of last night clinging to the fabric.
You shuffle out to the kitchen, still wearing his old shirt, bare legs chilly against the floor, hoping to find some sign that the intimacy of last night wasn’t just a fever dream. But Mark’s already dressed, standing at the counter in his hoodie, head bent over a mug he rinses with mechanical precision. His movements are sharp, practiced, every edge drawn tighter than usual, shoulders hunched like he’s bracing for impact. He doesn’t look at you when you enter, doesn’t call you “trouble,” doesn’t offer that lazy smile you love, just keeps his eyes on the swirl of black coffee in the press. “Morning,” he mutters, and that’s all. You hover, aching for him to turn, to pull you in by the waist and kiss your temple, to ask if you slept okay, but he just pours a cup for himself, leaves yours untouched on the shelf. There’s no note on the napkin, no inside joke, no warmth in the simple routines that have always been yours.
You cross your arms, leaning against the doorway, watching him as he stirs sugar into his coffee. He doesn’t say anything else, doesn’t ask about your plans, doesn’t tease you for your messy hair or the way his shirt hangs off your shoulder. The silence grows heavy, the kind that drowns conversation before it’s born, and when you finally risk a gentle, “Did you sleep okay?”
His response is little more than a shrug, eyes still glued to the mug. “Yeah. Fine. Hope you got some rest.” He glances at you once, fleeting and unreadable, before his gaze drops to his phone, thumb moving across the screen like you’re not even there. You want to reach for him, to close the distance, to say last night changed everything, but the words won’t come. It feels like talking to a stranger who wears your lover’s skin.
He sits at the table, scrolling through notifications, answering texts, never looking up, never reaching for your hand beneath the battered wood the way he always does. Every movement is careful, contained, like he’s built a wall in the night and you’re still outside, shivering. Even the sun seems sharper, more indifferent. When his alarm buzzes, he stands abruptly, drains the last of his coffee, and slings his bag over his shoulder. There’s a beat where you think he might stop—might cross the kitchen, gather you close, whisper something only for you—but he just slips on his shoes, fingers fumbling with the laces, his mouth a flat line. “Got class,” he says. “I’ll see you later.” No kiss, no “love you,” not even the habitual tug of your hair before he leaves.
The door clicks shut, the sound too soft, almost apologetic, and you’re left standing in the kitchen, clutching his shirt to your chest, every part of you ringing with the ache of what’s gone missing. Last night’s tenderness is still on your skin, the memory of his hands, his mouth, his whispered I love yous—now so distant you wonder if you dreamed it. The kitchen feels colder, the world newly unfamiliar. You sink into the nearest chair, press your fingertips to your lips as if you can hold in the shape of his kisses, and try to remember what it was like before everything changed. You stare at the closed door and realize you have no idea when—if—he’ll walk back through it the same as he was.
It’s been weeks. The seasons have changed, trees shedding gold at the curbs, but you and Mark have become strangers inside the apartment you once treated like your shared skin. He’s barely home—leaves early, comes back late, never brings you coffee, never collapses beside you with laughter still clinging to his collar. He’s always somewhere: the library, the courts, the party circuits, always with a different girl in tow. You’ve seen the stories on friends’ feeds, Mark pressed close to someone else, lips half-hidden by her hair, hands on hips, faces blurred in the strobe and sweat. You pretend it doesn’t cut, but it does. You both orbit the same social spaces, but where you used to gravitate together—tangled on some couch, legs thrown over his lap, the inside joke always ready—now there’s only the brittle clatter of small talk if you pass in the kitchen, the cold hush when he comes home and leaves again without looking up.
The silence is worst at night, when your room feels cavernous, sheets too smooth, the air carrying nothing but the faint echo of his laughter from down the hall. When you see him, he’s different—sharper, harder around the eyes, smirking too wide, flirting with anyone who’ll bite. You’ve tried to fill the space with other people: dates who feel more like distractions, long walks with boys who say the right things but touch you wrong, dinners that end in awkward hugs at your door. None of them fit. You lie to yourself, say it’s freedom, say you’re over it, but every time you open your phone and see his name, your chest knots up and the ache returns, raw and endless.
It all comes out over takeout one night, the carton half-empty in your lap, your face buried in Chaewon’s shoulder. She’s always been gossip central, the first to know who’s fucking who, who cheated, who got dumped, who’s lying about being over someone. Tonight she just lets you cry, stroking your hair, murmuring little comforts—“He’s an idiot, you’re better off, you deserve so much more, babe”—until the sobs fade to sniffles and you can finally talk. You tell her you miss him more than anything, that you feel like you’ve lost your best friend and your world at once, that you’d trade every kiss with every stranger just to get back the sound of his voice in the middle of the night.
After a while, Chaewon sighs, pulling you upright, pushing hair out of your eyes. “Listen,” she says, her tone shifting from gentle to sharp, “word on the street is that Mark admitted to Jeno he’s, like, actually in love with you. Not just in-love, like wrecked over you. Like, all his friends know it. Even Jeno told Haechan and now everyone’s side-eyeing him when he walks into a room. The thing is—” She twirls a chopstick between her fingers, lips twisting. “—that’s exactly why he’s keeping away. He told Jeno he doesn’t know how to act around you now, like he’s scared if he’s close he’ll fuck it up or make things worse. You know how he is—doesn’t trust himself, hates losing control, especially with you. So he’s…what do guys do? He’s running. He’s fucking around, acting like it’s nothing, because if he lets himself feel it, he thinks it’ll ruin everything you have left. That’s how his brain works. He thinks loving you means letting you go. Classic Mark Lee logic. Absolute idiot.”
Her words slice through the haze, and you realize this mess—this constant blur, this never-defining, never-settling—is the only way you’ve ever known each other. You think about every night you watched him slip out to hook up with someone else, every morning you curled up in his bed and pretended not to care, every time you both went on dates just to avoid the way you looked at each other in the dark. Maybe you thought this loose, confusing dance was freedom. Maybe it was just fear, the slow decay of not daring to say what you wanted, the thousand half-truths you told yourself because you couldn’t bear to break what little you had.
Chaewon watches you, waiting for it to sink in, then nudges your knee. “So. Here’s what I think: you need to stop waiting for him to figure it out. He’s an idiot but he loves you, and he’s scared shitless. But you’re both just as miserable now, so what’s the point in pretending? Just go to him. Tell him the truth. Make him listen. Don’t let fear decide what happens to you. If you want him, fight for it. Someone has to go first. Why not you?” She smiles, a little sad, a little wise. “Besides, babe, you’ve spent too long missing each other. It’s time you let yourselves have something real.”
It’s been weeks. The seasons have changed, trees shedding gold at the curbs, but you and Mark have become strangers inside the apartment you once treated like your shared skin. He’s barely home, leaves early, comes back late, never brings you coffee, never collapses beside you with laughter still clinging to his collar. He’s always somewhere: the library, the courts, the party circuits, always with a different girl in tow. You’ve seen the stories on friends’ feeds, Mark pressed close to someone else, lips half-hidden by her hair, hands on hips, faces blurred in the strobe and sweat. You pretend it doesn’t cut, but it does. You both orbit the same social spaces, but where you used to gravitate together, tangled on some couch, legs thrown over his lap, the inside joke always ready, now there’s only the brittle clatter of small talk if you pass in the kitchen, the cold hush when he comes home and leaves again without looking up.
The silence is worst at night, when your room feels cavernous, sheets too smooth, the air carrying nothing but the faint echo of his laughter from down the hall. When you see him, he’s different—sharper, harder around the eyes, smirking too wide, flirting with anyone who’ll bite. You’ve tried to fill the space with other people: dates who feel more like distractions, long walks with boys who say the right things but touch you wrong, dinners that end in awkward hugs at your door. None of them fit. You lie to yourself, say it’s freedom, say you’re over it, but every time you open your phone and see his name, your chest knots up and the ache returns, raw and endless.
It all comes out over takeout one night, the carton half-empty in your lap, your face buried in Chaewon’s shoulder. She’s always been gossip central, the first to know who’s fucking who, who cheated, who got dumped, who’s lying about being over someone. Tonight she just lets you cry, stroking your hair, murmuring little comforts—“He’s an idiot, you’re better off, you deserve so much more, babe”—until the sobs fade to sniffles and you can finally talk. You tell her you miss him more than anything, that you feel like you’ve lost your best friend and your world at once, that you’d trade every kiss with every stranger just to get back the sound of his voice in the middle of the night.
After a while, Chaewon sighs, pulling you upright, pushing hair out of your eyes. “Listen,” she says, her tone shifting from gentle to sharp, “word on the street is that Mark admitted to Jeno he’s, like, actually in love with you. Not just in-love, like wrecked over you. Like, all his friends know it. Even Jeno told Donnghyuck and now everyone’s side-eyeing him when he walks into a room. The thing is—” She twirls a chopstick between her fingers, lips twisting. “—that’s exactly why he’s keeping away. He told Jeno he doesn’t know how to act around you now, like he’s scared if he’s close he’ll fuck it up or make things worse. You know how he is, doesn’t trust himself, hates losing control, especially with you. So he’s…what do guys do? He’s running. He’s fucking around, acting like it’s nothing, because if he lets himself feel it, he thinks it’ll ruin everything you have left. That’s how his brain works. He thinks loving you means letting you go. Classic Mark Lee logic. Absolute idiot.”
Her words slice through the haze, and you realize this mess,this constant blur, this never-defining, never-settling, is the only way you’ve ever known each other. You think about every night you watched him slip out to hook up with someone else, every morning you curled up in his bed and pretended not to care, every time you both went on dates just to avoid the way you looked at each other in the dark. Maybe you thought this loose, confusing dance was freedom. Maybe it was just fear, the slow decay of not daring to say what you wanted, the thousand half-truths you told yourself because you couldn’t bear to break what little you had.
Chaewon watches you, waiting for it to sink in, then nudges your knee. “So. Here’s what I think: you need to stop waiting for him to figure it out. He’s an idiot but he loves you, and he’s scared shitless. But you’re both just as miserable now, so what’s the point in pretending? Just go to him. Tell him the truth. Make him listen. Don’t let fear decide what happens to you. If you want him, fight for it. Someone has to go first. Why not you?” She smiles, a little sad, a little wise. “Besides, babe, you’ve spent too long missing each other. It’s time you let yourselves have something real.”
You nod, still blinking away the sting of Chaewon’s advice, half terrified she’s right, half wishing it were that simple. But before the ache can settle too deep, she straightens, a wicked spark flickering in her eyes. “Okay, then. Time to put your money where your heartbreak is, babe. There’s a party at Jeno’s this weekend, he’s calling it, get this, ‘the Fall of the House of Lee’ because he thinks it’ll be so wild someone’s gonna end up crying on the roof or falling in love in the kitchen.” She cackles, nudging you again. “He said he’s even bought fairy lights, disposable cameras, and a fog machine. Full main character moment.”
You laugh, in spite of yourself, but she leans in, lowering her voice conspiratorially. “Listen, Winter’s already been telling everyone that Mark’s taking her, that it’s basically a done deal and they’re the new campus power couple. You really want her running her mouth all over group chat tomorrow? Babe, you’re gonna walk in with someone else, make him squirm. Make him remember exactly who he’s losing.” She taps her phone against her chin, eyebrows wiggling. “So. Prospects. Let’s see… Jaemin? No, too pretty—he’d steal your thunder and probably try to make out with Jeno by midnight. Renjun? Absolutely not, you’ll both end up psychoanalyzing each other in the bathroom by 10 p.m. Donghyuck? Hah! You’d end up co-hosting karaoke and spilling all your secrets, plus he’s still banned from Jeno’s after the glitter bomb incident. Chenle? Please. You’d have to sign a waiver and split the tequila bill.”
You start to laugh harder, and Chaewon grins, triumphant. “That leaves us with the obvious. Jeno. He’s hot, he’s safe, he’s never minded playing boyfriend for a night, and you know he’ll hype you up so good Winter will pop a blood vessel. Plus, Mark has always, always had a weird thing about you and Jeno. You know he’ll notice.” She squeezes your hand, the plan already taking shape. “So that’s it. You’re going to walk in on Jeno’s arm, all legs and lipstick, looking like you’re the one having the night of your life—and you’re going to let Mark see every second of it.” She leans in, eyes glinting with mischief and something close to hope. “Trust me, babe. Sometimes you have to start the fire yourself and watch who runs through it for you.”
When the weekend finally hits, the air’s electric—Chaewon’s already on your bed before sunset, a tornado of silk scarves and lip gloss and scattered jewelry. She raids your closet with merciless glee, tossing out anything even remotely demure, crowing with triumph when she unearths the slinky black dress you only ever wear when you want to feel like chaos bottled in velvet. “This one,” she declares, pressing it against your frame, the hem barely grazing your thighs, neckline plunging, every curve on unapologetic display. She drapes it over a chair and sets her sights on you—“Tonight’s for revenge, baby, not for comfort.”
She props you up on the stool, dusts shimmer along your cheekbones, blends gold into your eyelids until you look like you’re glowing from inside out. Her fingers work deftly, threading your hair into loose, glossy waves, letting a few strands tumble artfully around your shoulders. You watch her in the mirror, her reflection grinning back, eyes gleaming. “No bra. Trust me. If he’s gonna stare, give him a reason.” The fabric skims your skin, clings to your hips, the side slit flashing smooth thigh with every step. She drapes a delicate gold chain around your neck, slides thin bangles onto your wrist, fastens hoops through your ears, every detail curated to make you look expensive, dangerous, absolutely untouchable.
You tilt your head, studying the final result: lips lacquered in wine-dark red, hair soft and wild, bare skin gleaming under the low light. Your perfume is the last touch, spicy and heady, dabbed at your throat and wrists until you can feel the pulse of your own want. Chaewon stands back, hands on her hips, admiring her work. “He won’t know what hit him,” she says, voice wicked. “Nobody will.” You laugh, nerves twisted up with something giddy and mean. For the first time in weeks, you feel powerful—predatory, a little cruel, the kind of girl who walks into a room and rewrites the story. By the time you slip into your heels and zip your dress, you’re grinning at your reflection, ready to burn the night down and let everyone—especially Mark—watch you glow.
You arrive with her at your side, arm in arm, laughter bubbling nervously and wild. Jeno greets you at the door with his usual bear hug, swinging you off your feet. “If it isn’t heartbreak herself,” he teases, ruffling your hair, “and Chaewon, my second favorite bad influence. You two plan on breaking anyone’s heart tonight, or just each other’s records for shots?”
Jaemin’s there too, leaning against the kitchen counter, eyebrows waggling as he catches sight of you. “Who let you get this hot? Jeno, I told you to set a dress code, this is indecent—what if Mark’s delicate sensibilities can’t take it?”
Donghyuck snickers, tossing you a lemon wedge. “You could wear a trash bag and he’d still combust. Not that I’m complaining.
Everyone’s in rare form tonight, the kind of party where the air’s thick with heat and risk and everything feels spun just a little too tight. Jeno’s living room is a glowing maze of bodies, Jaemin has commandeered the kitchen counter, charming his way into someone’s phone, Donghyuck and Renjun have staged a mock rap battle on top of the coffee table, making the crowd shriek and howl with every savage rhyme. The karaoke mic keeps cutting in and out, but nobody cares, someone’s always belting into it, half the party on their feet, the rest pressed close in little clusters, limbs entwined, voices lost in the music and the press of skin.
Chaewon is a vision in silver, already holding court by the hallway mirror, arms tangled with friends new and old, but she never lets you stray too far. You catch her gaze across the room—she winks, raises her glass, and mouths, don’t you dare stop now. Jeno materialises at your side, all effortless charm and mischief, leaning in until his lips brush your ear. “Chaewon’s told me what the plan is gonna be. Tonight, we’re raising hell. Let’s make him beg.” His hand finds yours, fingers lacing tight, and you squeeze back, grinning as he spins you straight onto the dance floor.
The music thunders, heavy and sensual, lights flickering gold and scarlet, and you let Jeno pull you close, one hand at your hip, the other guiding your wrist, both of you moving slow at first, bodies pressed chest to chest. He dips you low, makes you laugh, spins you wild until you’re dizzy and sparkling, the world a blur except for his smile and your own reflection in his dark, dancing eyes. When the beat shifts, he pulls you in tight, your back to his chest, his hands splayed wide over your hips as you roll together, letting every curve and sway broadcast exactly how good it feels to be wanted, to be watched.
Drinks appear, cold and fizzing, and you clink glasses, laughing against his shoulder. You toss your head back, arch into him, letting his hands trace your sides, the dress riding high, your skin hot where his palms press possessive. Jeno’s voice is warm in your ear: “He’s watching, babe. He hasn’t looked away once.” Chaewon howls from the sofa, egging you on, and you drop into his lap, straddling him right there on the couch, hands sliding into his hair, lips finding his in a show-stopping kiss—hot, deep, slow, tongue tangled, your body moving against him in time with the bass, both of you unbothered by the roar of the party around you.
You break away, panting, one hand cupping his jaw, the other gripping his thigh. Jeno’s eyes are bright, laughter and adrenaline mixing as he squeezes your waist, grinding you down just enough to make your skirt ride even higher. You feel the eyes on you, the energy shifting, the music drowning out everything but the heat between you and the promise of chaos in every touch. For the first time all night, you let yourself feel wild, and alive, and absolutely untouchable, knowing full well that across the room, Mark’s hands have gone slack on Winter’s hips, and there’s fire in his eyes that’s only for you.
Mark and Winter are sprawled across the couch directly opposite, the two of them a tableau of manufactured ease, her dress hiked high over tanned thighs, one heel digging into the cushion, her body twisted half into his lap. She laughs too loud at something he hasn’t said, lipstick smeared messily across his jaw as she clings to him, running painted nails through his hair with the sort of entitlement that makes your skin crawl. But Mark’s only going through the motions, barely even touching her, his arm flung along the back of the couch, bottle dangling carelessly from his fingers. His face is angled toward Winter, but his gaze never stops roaming, drifting past her shoulder, sweeping the crowd until his eyes lock on you, over and over, never subtle, burning holes through the haze and noise.
You catch the heat of his stare as you lean in closer to Jeno, the two of you performing for the whole room, your laughter ringing out, nails tracing lazy circles on Jeno’s chest. Jeno plays along with relish, hand splayed wide on your thigh, voice dropping to a murmur meant for Mark’s ears as much as yours. “He’s dying over there, you know. Can’t take his fucking eyes off you.” You glance back, meeting Mark’s glare dead-on, lips parting just enough for him to see your tongue dart out, glossy and wet, before you press your mouth to Jeno’s jaw, letting him tug you fully onto his lap.
Winter, sensing the shift, winds herself tighter around Mark, grinding into him with an exaggerated roll of her hips, breathless and brazen, but it only makes him stiffer, his fingers digging so hard into the leather you wonder if he’ll snap it in half. Every time you giggle for Jeno, Mark’s grip tightens; when you grind down, his jaw clenches, something ugly and wild flickering behind his eyes. Even Winter starts to falter, her laughter brittle, eyes darting between the two of you, her voice growing shrill. She leans in, mouthing something hot and dirty in Mark’s ear, but he just nods, gaze trained over her shoulder, watching the way you arch for Jeno, how your thighs bracket his, your hand tugging Jeno’s shirt open at the collar, the whole thing a dance you both know is for him.
You stretch your legs across Jeno’s lap, arching your back, laughter rising as Jeno whispers something wicked, fingers skimming the bare skin above your knee. You don’t miss the way Mark’s nostrils flare, the way he shifts under Winter, his own hips jerking almost involuntarily. Jeno grins, voice hot in your ear: “If looks could kill, he’d be dragging me out by the throat right now. You want to really break him?” His hands slip to your waist, tugging you flush against his chest. “Just say the word.” The tension in the room builds—thick, stifling, sexual in a way that leaves every inch of you buzzing, the crowd around you oblivious to the storm brewing between your couch and his. Winter grabs Mark’s face, pulls him in for a messy, desperate kiss, smearing her lipstick in a line across his cheek, but he barely responds, his eyes wide open, locked on you, like he’s daring you to stop, to come claim him, to end the game before it spirals past the point of no return.
Chaewon catches your eye from across the room, nods once, all teeth and knowing wickedness. “Ready?” she mouths, and you hold Mark’s gaze, something like a challenge written in every line of your body, heart hammering in your chest as you nod back. The room spins, time hanging suspended on the cusp of something dangerous, and you know—whatever happens next, there’s no turning back. Not tonight. Not for either of you.
The music dips, bassline giving way to a slow, dirty beat—something older, heavier, the kind of song that seeps into your bones and makes everyone move closer. Sweat clings to your skin, your dress hitching higher as Jeno keeps you tight against him, hands gripping your thighs as you grind in his lap, the old sofa creaking beneath you. The lights have softened, gold and violet spilling across tangled limbs, the crowd thinning as people drift to the kitchen or the balcony for air, but you stay, refusing to break the spell, refusing to look away from Mark, who sits opposite with Winter splayed across him like a threat he never asked for.
Chaewon starts a truth-or-dare in the corner, cackling as Jaemin kisses someone upside-down, but you and Jeno spin in your own orbit, laughter and showy flirtation pulling a small audience. Mark’s knuckles have gone white, jaw clenched so tight you see the muscle ticking as he watches, not even bothering to hide it anymore. Every time you throw your head back and laugh at something Jeno says, Mark’s stare burns through you, fingers digging into the couch, his chest rising and falling too fast. Jeno leans up, warm breath against your ear, voice low and playful: “He’s dying, you know. If he doesn’t do something soon, I really am going to take you home.”
You grin, emboldened, and let your hand slide up Jeno’s thigh, close enough that Mark sees everything. You nuzzle into Jeno’s neck, mouth open against his skin, moaning just loud enough for the people nearby to catch, and Mark—across the room—looks seconds from snapping. Winter’s all over him, lips smearing fresh red over his jaw, but his body’s rigid, his hands just resting on her waist, the light in his eyes growing feral every time your laughter cracks the air. Finally, Mark grabs Winter’s wrist, gentle but firm, says something low and final, and she yanks away, glowering, stalking off through the crowd with her pride in tatters.
Now Mark is alone on the couch, eyes locked to yours, and the whole party seems to press in around the two of you. Jeno smirks, nudges you off his lap, and with a quick stretch, he disappears into the crowd, catching Chaewon’s eye and giving her a little wink. She lifts her drink in a silent toast, her grin wide and satisfied. You sit there, heart pounding, adrenaline washing through you, not sure if you’re the hunter or the hunted anymore. Mark stands slowly, draining his glass, the buzz of the room warping and dulling as he closes the space between you. Every step is careful, his expression unreadable, until he’s there—right in front of you, so close you can smell the whiskey and something sharp and familiar. He kneels down, hands landing on your knees, fingers tracing circles over your skin.
Mark leans in, crowd blurring into a wall of noise, every nerve in your body sharp and exposed under his stare. His hands rest on your knees, and for a second you think he’s going to pull you in, but there’s too much distance in his eyes—something shuttered and dark, lips pressed into a hard line. You wait for him to say something soft, to apologize, to laugh the way he always does when things get tense, but all you get is silence and the furious pulse of your own heart. “You done playing?” he says, voice low but brittle, barely holding steady. “You get what you wanted out of Jeno, or do you want another round?” His thumb skims your bare skin, but there’s nothing gentle in the touch; it’s an accusation, every word sharp enough to cut.
You blink, disbelief rolling through you, the whole party vanishing from your mind. “Are you serious right now?” you shoot back, trying to keep your voice steady, refusing to let him see you flinch. “You’ve barely looked at me for weeks. You’ve been an asshole, Mark. Don’t act like this is on me. You ghosted me. You made me feel like shit, like none of it meant anything. Don’t fucking turn this around.”
You let out a shaky breath, fingers twisting the hem of your dress, pulse thumping everywhere you wish you could be numb. You lean back, meeting his eyes, voice trembling but relentless. “You don’t get to act like this is nothing, Mark. You hurt me. You really fucking hurt me. You just—left. You shut me out, you pretended you didn’t care, you let everyone think we were just friends again, like nothing happened between us. You went and hooked up with other people, you let Winter and a million of other bozo’s hang all over you, you stopped talking to me and just expected me to pretend it was fine. Do you know what that felt like? I was your best friend, Mark. You made me feel like I didn’t matter at all. Like none of it mattered.”
Your voice cracks, heat behind your eyes, but you don’t stop. “You didn’t even say anything. You just disappeared. You let me sit there, wondering what I did wrong, wondering why I wasn’t enough, why you couldn’t just talk to me. I missed you so much it made me sick. I still miss you, even now, and it’s fucking killing me to sit here and pretend that I’m okay. I needed you and you weren’t there, not even a little. I tried to move on because I had to—because I couldn’t stand the idea that you didn’t want me anymore, or that maybe you never did. So don’t you dare look at me like I’m the one who broke us. And you left after we made love, Mark—just slipped out like it didn’t mean anything, like I was just another girl you fucked at some party, and I don’t think I’ve ever felt lonelier in my life. I lay there in your bed, still smelling you on my skin, trying to convince myself it didn’t hurt, but it did. I felt empty and stupid, ashamed for wanting more, for thinking maybe you wanted me back. I just kept thinking, if you really cared, you’d have stayed—you’d have looked at me in the morning and made me feel safe. Instead, I woke up alone.”
He swallows, eyes shining, mouth open but no words at first—just the frantic rise and fall of his chest, the way his hand hovers over your thigh, needing permission to touch. “I’m sorry,” he finally says, voice raw and unsteady. “I’m so fucking sorry, I know I was awful. I didn’t want to hurt you, I just—I was scared. I was losing it, feeling everything get so fucking big, and I didn’t know how to handle it. Every time I looked at you, I wanted more. I wanted everything. And that scared the shit out of me. I thought if I kept my distance, if I acted like I didn’t care, maybe it would go away, maybe I could handle it. But I can’t. I couldn’t. You’re everywhere. You’re in everything I do. I didn’t talk to you because I didn’t know how to say any of this. I kept thinking I’d ruin us, that you’d leave if you really knew how much you mean to me. That you’d see how fucked up I am about you and run.”
Mark’s hand tightens around yours, thumb tracing desperate circles, his voice rough and ragged. “What I felt after that night scared me more than anything,” he admits, searching your face, shame flickering behind every word. “Making love to you—it wasn’t just sex, it was everything, it was all the shit I’ve been trying not to feel for years. I woke up and realized I couldn’t go back. I didn’t want to ruin us—I thought if I stayed, if I let myself be close, I’d mess it up and lose you for good. I was terrified that I’d break what we had, that I’d be too much, that you’d wake up and see I was never enough for you. So I panicked. I thought maybe if I acted like it was nothing, if I kept my distance, we could keep our friendship, keep something, even if it meant losing the part of you I wanted most. I’m sorry I hurt you. I just—I didn’t know how to handle what I felt.”
Mark exhales, thumb brushing the tear tracks on your cheeks like he can erase them molecule by molecule, and when he speaks his voice trembles with the weight of every unsent text, every middle-of-the-night thought he tries to bury. “I woke up that morning, sunlight spilling over your back, and it hit me so hard I couldn’t breathe, how right it felt, how badly I wanted to wake up beside you a thousand more times. And I panicked, because you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me, the only thing I’ve never wanted to risk. I lay there counting all the ridiculous little ways you already owned me: the extra blanket you leave folded on the couch because you know I run cold, the way you steal my hoodies but always wash them with that lavender detergent so they still smell like home, the playlist you made for my 3-a.m. study nights and updated every semester without telling me. I thought about freshman year when you dragged me to the ER at 2 a.m. because I’d sliced my hand cooking ramen, and you sat on the hospital floor making stupid puns to keep me from passing out. I thought about sophomore winter when you lost your voice for a week and still showed up to my recital with a sign that said you’re doing amazing, Mark,’ shaking it like a lunatic. Every single memory said the same thing: I love you.”
“And that terrified me. All my life, people leave when I get too intense, when the fun slips and the real stuff shows. I kept thinking if I stayed in that bed, if I let the morning happen, coffee with you in my shirt, your laugh in my kitchen, my heart on my sleeve, you’d see how deep it goes and decide it’s too much. So I did the only cowardly thing I know: I ran. I tried to file the night away under ‘good memories,’ like it was a photo I could tuck in a drawer and visit when it hurt less. But then I saw you in the kitchen that first morning after, trying to pretend you were fine while I pretended I didn’t notice the way your hands shook around your mug, and it wrecked me. Ghosting you was never about not caring; it was about caring so violently I didn’t know how to hold it without crushing it—or you. I thought space would protect us. Instead it hollowed me out. Every song on the radio was you, every stupid campus rumor about who you were dating felt like a blade. I’d walk past the laundry room and see my hoodie missing, and I’d have to bite my tongue to keep from begging you to come home.
“I love you,” he repeats, the words fragile and fierce all at once, “because you’re the pulse under every quiet moment of my day. Because even when I tried to forget you, everything I did was a map back to you. I love you for the way you correct people’s pronouns without making it a spectacle, for the way you hum off-key in the grocery store, for the way you mouth ‘you’ve got this’ before every exam even when you’re the one who studied all night. I love you when you’re brave and when you’re scared, when you’re gentle and when you’re spitting mad. I love you because you make me want to write better songs, be a better friend, take better care of myself, just so I can be worthy of standing next to you.” He cups the back of your neck, forehead resting against yours, breath warm and trembling. “So yeah, I left that morning, but every step away from you felt wrong. I’m done running. If you’ll let me, I’ll spend every morning for the rest of my life proving I’m not going anywhere again.”
There’s a riot swelling behind you—Chaewon’s shriek, Jeno’s wolf-whistle, Jaemin’s howl, Donghyuck’s palms beating a slow, mocking clap that rolls through the room and ripples into a hundred shouts and laughter—but none of it touches you. You’re gone, lost in the heat and hunger of Mark’s mouth on yours, the taste of relief and apology and every unsaid word. His hands cradle your face, then drop to your hips, dragging you closer, crushing you into his chest until you feel your heart slamming against his, the world tilting on its axis. He kisses you like he’s starving, like he can’t believe you’re real, his lips bruising and soft, teeth biting, tongue sliding into your mouth and swallowing every protest. Your hands fist in his hair, pulling him down, grinding into his lap, letting yourself drown in the pressure of his hands, the way he groans when you roll your hips and press your body hard to his.
You’re half on his lap, breathless and dizzy, the room blurring into nothing but the urgent, frantic slide of mouths and hands. He breaks the kiss only long enough to rasp, “Come here,” and then he’s standing, hands gripping under your thighs, lifting you like you weigh nothing, carrying you through the crowd. The cheers fade, replaced by the thud of your pulse, your legs wrapped around his waist, fingers twisted tight in the collar of his shirt. Mark shoulders through the hallway, head bent to yours, lips never far from your skin. He finds the nearest empty bathroom, fumbles the lock behind you, and sets you down on the counter—his hands greedy, his eyes wild, the taste of you still on his lips. For the first time in weeks, you’re both exactly where you belong, nothing between you but heat and want and every promise you couldn’t say until now.
Mark’s hands don’t waste a second, skimming up your thighs, rough and sure, hiking your dress over your hips with a greed that makes your breath catch, his knuckles scraping your skin. He nudges your knees wider, dropping to his knees in front of you right there on the counter, the door barely locked, your body trembling from the rush. He palms your thighs, spreads you so wide the cool tile bites at your skin, and dips his head between your legs like he’s been starved for years, tongue flat and hot and immediate, licking a stripe up your slit, groaning at the taste. “Fuck, you’re already soaked for me,” he mutters, lips sliding against you, voice guttural and low, hands bruising your hips as he holds you in place, refusing to let you squirm away.
You arch into him, moaning loud, the sound ricocheting off the tiled walls, your hands flying to his hair, tugging hard, but he only groans, tongue pushing deeper, lapping at your clit, circles slow then fast, relentless and hungry. “Open up for me,” he growls, “Let me see how much you missed me.” Your legs shake, thighs clamping around his head, but he just grins against your cunt, hands splayed possessive on your stomach, holding you still as he devours you, tongue fucking you, nose bumping your clit until you’re a mess, already dripping down his chin. He spits on you, rubs it in with two fingers, tongue flicking vicious and quick, making you gasp, begging, “Please, Mark, please—don’t stop, fuck, don’t you dare stop.”
He eats you like he’s drowning, like you’re the only air in the world. “Taste so fucking good, baby,” he pants, pulling back just enough to watch your slick pool, then leans in again, sucking your clit into his mouth, humming deep in his chest until you’re nearly sobbing. You grip the edge of the counter, back arching, one heel slipping, toes curling as you grind against his face, chasing every filthy, wet sound, lost in the feel of his tongue, his lips, his teeth. He fucks two fingers into you, crooking them just right, curling deep, fucking you open, stretching you out for his cock. “That’s it, take it, all of it—let me ruin you, let me make you come for me.”
Your orgasm hits fast and mean, pleasure flooding your veins, your thighs clamped so tight around his head he groans, nose buried in your cunt as you cry out, body shaking. He rides it out, keeps licking, doesn’t let up until you’re twitching and oversensitive, begging for mercy, tears slipping down your cheeks from how much you need him, how badly you’ve missed him. He finally pulls back, mouth glistening, licking his lips, wiping his chin with the back of his hand, eyes blazing. “So fucking perfect, look at you, ruined just for me,” he whispers, voice raw, fingers still buried inside you, pressing against that spot until your whole body jerks with aftershocks.
He stands, kissing you hard, making you taste yourself on his tongue, groaning when you bite his lip, fingers fisted in his shirt. He grabs you by the waist, flips you around, bends you over the counter, your cheek pressed to the cool marble, ass bared to him, dress pushed up around your ribs. He drags his cock against your slick folds, teasing, rubbing the head through your mess, groaning at the heat, the slide. “Beg for it,” he murmurs, one hand gripping your hair, yanking your head up so you meet his eyes in the foggy mirror. “Tell me how much you want it.”
You whine, voice wrecked, desperate, “Please, Mark, I need you, fuck me, I need you inside me, want you to fill me up, want everyone to know I’m yours—please, don’t tease, just give it to me.”
He laughs, mean and soft, lining himself up and slamming into you in one hard, smooth thrust, filling you so deep you cry out, clawing at the counter for purchase. “That’s it, baby, take it, take every inch, fuck, you feel so good—so fucking tight, so fucking wet for me,” he growls, hips snapping, his cock drilling into you over and over, the slap of skin echoing through the bathroom, filth pouring from his mouth as he ruts into you, unrelenting, desperate.
He grabs your hips, pulling you back to meet every thrust, the pace brutal, your breath fogging the glass, your tits pressed flat to the marble, moans bouncing off the walls. “Look at yourself,” he pants, one hand gripping your throat, thumb pressed to your pulse, making you stare at the reflection—your eyes wild, mouth open, cheeks streaked with tears and pleasure. “See how pretty you look getting fucked stupid? See how much you love my cock?” He slaps your ass, watches the red bloom, then soothes the sting with his palm, bending over to mouth at your shoulder, biting down until you gasp, your body shuddering under him.
He slows just to torture you, rolling his hips, dragging his cock out until you whimper, then slamming back in, hard enough to make you scream. “Say it,” he demands, voice wrecked. “Say you’re mine. Say nobody else gets this, nobody else makes you come like this.”
You sob it out, voice raw: “I’m yours, only yours, fuck, nobody else, please, Mark, harder, I need it, need you, want you to fill me up—” He groans, hips stuttering, hand moving from your throat to your clit, rubbing furious circles, pushing you right to the edge. “Come for me again,” he pants, “Want to feel you squeeze me, want you to milk my cock while I fill you up.”
Your orgasm rips through you, every muscle locked, cunt spasming around him as you scream his name, stars bursting behind your eyes, whole body shaking. He follows, cock throbbing, slamming deep, hips jerking as he spills inside you, flooding you, holding you down so you can’t escape, both of you shaking, breathless, ruined. He stays buried in you, kissing your neck, murmuring every filthy, tender thing he never said, hands roaming your body, worshipping every inch like you’re the only prayer he’s ever known.
When he finally pulls out, your legs wobble, his cum dripping down your thighs, both of you grinning, wrecked and shining, skin sticky with sweat and spit and love. He pulls you upright, spins you around, kisses you slow, hands gentle now, holding your face, thumb brushing your jaw as he whispers, “Mine. Always.” He helps you fix your dress, smoothing your hair, still pressed close, foreheads touching, eyes locked, letting you breathe in the softness after the storm.
You stare at each other, hearts pounding, laughter bubbling up as you realize the party is still raging just outside, your world forever changed behind a locked door. He kisses you again, soft and slow, then grabs your hand, fingers lacing tight. “Let’s go make them all jealous,” he grins, wicked and soft, pulling you back into the night, your body humming, every inch of you branded by him. For once, there’s no question, no fear—just the wild, aching certainty that what’s yours will always find you, no matter how hard the world tries to tear it away.
author’s note
now, if you made it this far, i’d love it if you left me a comment, reblog, or even a like. i read every single one and they mean so much to me—it’s genuinely the best way to let me know what moved you, what you loved, or even what broke your heart. writing is a little lonely sometimes, it always takes me restless nights, and hearing from you makes it all feel worthwhile, like sharing a secret or lighting a candle for these characters. so don’t be shy! every little note is treasured and makes me want to keep going. thank you for reading, and for loving these messy, magical people with me. <3
taglist — @yukisroom97 @fancypeacepersona @jaeminnanaaa17 @shiningnono @junrenjun @honeybeehorizon @neotannies @noorabora @oppabochim @chenlesfeetpic @kynessa @awktwurtle @euphormiia @hi00000234527 @yvvnii @sunwoosberrie @ppeachyttae @dee-zennie @ballsackzz101 @neonaby @kukkurookkoo @antifrggile @dedandelion @fymine @zoesruby @yoonohswife @jessga @markerloi @ryuhannaworld @yasminetrappy @sunghoonsgfreal @jaemjeno @lovetaroandtaemin @yunhoswrldddd @dowoonwoodealer @enhalovie @jenzyoit @sunseteternal @dewyspace @markiesfatbooty @raysofpolaris @sunseteternal @oppabochim @markerloi @xiuriii @neocults26
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Thanks for the surprise drop! This is one of the best posts for Mark's birthday.
No one else better to help y/n make Mark jealous. Lee Jeno! That was so hot. They did so well torturing him 😅😅♥️
Also, the image of haechan and renjun doing rap battles on the table cracked me up 🤣🤣🤣
aww no problem, and you’re so sweet thank you 🫶🫶!! so happy you enjoyed it
i’ve written for mark a lot :) i have some one shots and an amazing series so please do check that out if you loved this! i promise it won’t disappoint <3
Say No (m)
★ PAIRING: Haechan x You x Jaemin
☆ WORD COUNT: 16k
★ GENRE(S): Smut, Drama
☆ SUMMARY: Haechan is your boyfriend but Jaemin wants to change that. When an old summer fling returns to town, your paths keep crossing in increasingly tempting and compromising ways. Jaemin won't stop until he has you.
★ ☆ WARNINGS: Toxic behaviors, cheating, drinking, edibles, same room sex?? (idk how to call it), brief mention of insecurity, drunk sex, unprotected sex, voyeurism, degradation, cunnilingus, throat fucking, choaking, anal sex, dubcon, rough sex, EXPLICIT, MDNI!. 18+
☆★ NOTES: I do not condone the actions in this fic i just enjoy toxic romances hehe. Yall…..it gets a lil crazy ok idk what to say idk what possessed me. If you enjoy you can tip me here
The room is dark, so dark you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face if you outstretched it. But oddly, it doesn’t scare you. The rustling bodies and quiet laughter in the darkness are quickly silenced by hurried shushes when footsteps approach from outside. You hold your breath, maybe everyone else does too, as the tension rises. You can feel it in the air, like a spring coiled tight, ready to snap. Outside, keys jingle, followed by muffled voices. Then the door swings open, and you hear shoes being kicked off, along with sighs of relief from someone’s lips. It’s almost time—just a little longer.
Suddenly, the lights turn on, flooding the room with brightness. Balloons and a banner that says “Happy Birthday” hang over the fold-out table where you’ve set up the gifts. Jeno jumps in surprise and clutches his heart as everyone suddenly pops out to scare him. You make a mental note to scold them later. They were supposed to shout a lighthearted “Happy Birthday,” not scream bloody murder when they saw him. Renjun walks up behind Jeno, pats him on the back with a smile, and tries to salvage the moment.
“Happy birthday,” he says, softly, hoping to make up for the chaos.
“Who’s idea was it to give me a heart attack on my birthday?”
Jisung shoves a gift into Jeno’s hand to help soothe him. “Sorry, man. Happy birthday.”
Despite the early death you all almost gave him, Jeno flashes a bright smile, thanking everyone for coming and for the surprise.
After things settle down and Jeno properly greets everyone, your group of friends gets comfortable and settles in the living room to watch him open presents. The couch is practically overflowing with bodies as everyone fights for a cushion. You sit peacefully on your boyfriend’s lap, playing with his freshly dyed hair. It’s definitely more of a reddish hue than brown, but he had insisted it was brown, so you let it go. Haechan is warm against you, one of his hands resting comfortably against your stomach beneath your shirt, while the other rests on your thigh.
Jeno was standing in the middle of the room, opening his gifts for everyone to see.
“Cinnamoroll underwear?” Jeno questions Chenle’s gift, raising an eyebrow. “Again?”
“Don’t be ungrateful, son,” Chenle replies with a grin.
“This is the third year in a row you’ve given me the same thing. It’s not even a good one,” Jeno says, a hint of amusement in his voice.
“Only because I know you keep regifting them to your sister!”
“I’m a grown man! And aren’t you rich? What’s up with this?”
“I think you’re missing the point, Jen. Ladies would go crazy if they pulled down your pants and found cinnamon roll,” Lily pointed out with a teasing grin.
“His name is Cinnamoroll!” Chenle interjects.
Jeno rolls his eyes and tosses the gift to Lily. “You have them then.”
A chorus of boos echoes through the room. “Give them to me! What the fuck?” you complain.
Haechan pats your thigh comfortingly. “I’ll buy you something prettier.”
Renjun gets up from the couch, announcing to everyone that he has one last surprise for Jeno. He checks his phone one last time before leaving the apartment with a huge grin.
The room settles into casual conversation and teasing until the door opens again, and Renjun walks back in with someone behind him.
“Happy birthday,” a voice calls out as a new body steps into the living room.
“Jaemin? I thought you weren’t coming back until next month,” Jeno says, his smile so bright it turns his eyes into crescents as he rushes over to pull Jaemin into a hug.
“No way, what? Dude!” Mark calls out happily as he gets up from the couch and makes his way over to dap Jaemin up.
Haechan taps your side twice, signaling for you to get up so he can go greet his friend, but you’re frozen there in shock. Honestly, you’re probably more surprised to see Jaemin than Jeno was. Haechan gently lifts you and places you on the empty couch cushion next to him, then jumps up to give his own greetings.
Your friend group originally consisted of Renjun, Jeno, Haechan, Jaemin, and Winter back in high school before you got split up. Renjun went to a college out of town but was still close enough for you to visit occasionally. He became friends with Mark during your first year of college, and you met Chenle and Jisung during your second year. Lily was Winter’s roommate, who you naturally became close with. As time passed Mark, Chenle, and Jisung slowly found their way into your group.
Winter, Jeno, and you went to a local college. Jaemin had left straight after high school to study abroad. He’s always been more outgoing and adventurous, so everyone was really excited for him when he told you he was going overseas.
Every summer, the gang would get together to catch up. Jaemin always made it a point to come home for the group hangouts. Until one summer, when everyone was busy with other obligations and responsibilities, leaving only you and Jaemin to hang out. Both of you were completely free, which led to the two of you growing closer than ever before. You had always considered him more of Jeno and Haechan’s friend than your own, but that summer changed everything.
You were doing a pretty shit job hiding your surprise, so you scrub your face and plaster on your best smile, trying not to look so awkward as you greet him from the couch. When your voice rings out, his eyes flick to you, and he greets you softly in return. He looks at you for a second too long before finally turning back to Jeno and presenting him with the gift he got for his birthday.
You need to get it together. As far as anyone else in the room knows, you and Jaemin don’t have any bad history. You try to lean into the lighthearted atmosphere and push aside thoughts of your past with him. He seems to be doing a pretty good job pretending it doesn’t exist, so you figure you should follow suit.
Whatever little hiccup you had is gone—you're back to your normal self, teasing Jisung and laughing like everything’s fine. But inside, your mind is racing, replaying all the events of the summer that led to this awkward new dynamic between you and Jaemin.
It was nothing, really. It should have been nothing. You had a brief fling that only lasted the summer vacation. It was fun and hot while it lasted before you both headed back to your respective lives. Yours was just down the road, but his was across the globe. It was exciting, but that was all it was—for you, at least.
Things got a little complicated near the end when you argued about the relationship. He wanted more, but you couldn’t commit to long-distance. The whole thing ended as quickly as it started. You promised to stay in touch and be friends, but once he boarded that plane—and you knew he landed safely—you went completely silent. You never told your friends about what happened, and you’re pretty sure he never did either, because no one ever brought it up to you. You felt a bit relieved to find out he wasn’t the type to kiss and tell.
Then you and Haechan started to really hit it off. After that, you hadn’t thought much about Jaemin at all.
The bed dips suddenly as Haechan playfully jumps into the sheets, jostling you so harshly that you almost drop your phone on your face. You feign annoyance and shove him away with your foot. “Cut it out,” you mutter,
Haechan ignores your protest and wraps his arms around you, snuggling into your side. He hums a gentle melody as he tangles his legs with yours. On instinct, you reach down to run your fingers through his hair, but then you pause. Haechan has a habit of humming the same tune, an almost subconscious ritual, before he drops some news that’s bound to piss you off.
“Out with it,” you groan, your voice low and warning. Haechan sits up with a playful grin, eyes twinkling.
“How did you know?” he asks, leaning in to kiss your cheek. You cut him a glare, but it only makes him grin wider. Sometimes you wonder if he just likes it when you get mad. “We’re going to dinner tonight.” he finally adds, a teasing lilt in his voice.
Dinner didn’t sound so bad, especially since it had been a while since you and Haechan had a night out together.
“Everyone’s going to that new restaurant that opened downtown,” Haechan chirped. “Chenle scored us a reservation.”
Honestly, you weren’t really in the mood to go out tonight, especially with friends. You’d already had a chaotic weekend celebrating Jeno’s birthday, and honestly, you felt like you needed to recharge your social battery. But you sighed a little in relief because it wasn’t as bad as you’d initially thought.
“Full party has to be seated by nine, or they’ll cancel the reservation,” Haechan added quickly before leaping off the bed.
It was 7 p.m.—that left you an hour to get ready, plus an hour for the commute. Finding parking downtown was always a nightmare, and then there was the fact that you were over at Haechan’s place, so your wardrobe was limited. You had no idea what you were going to wear, which only added to the stress.
“Are you out of your mind? Why would you wait so late to tell me?” you shout.
Haechan quickly apologizes, “I was playing League—I forgot!” he dodges the pillows you hurl at him. “We don’t have time to fight about it. It takes you forever to do your makeup. Just start getting ready.”
“Lee Donghyuck, you’re a dead man,” you say.
You end up having to finish your makeup in the car, hurriedly dabbing at your cheeks and lips. Donghyuck holds your hand to steady you when you step out so you can fasten the strap on your heels.
You guys make it in time and when you finally join the main table, Winter is the first to greet you. “You look amazing!”
You let out a relieved breath, grateful that the chaos of the last two hours didn’t show on your face. “Thanks, Winter,” you say with a genuine smile, finally catching your breath. “You look beautiful in that red.”
The restaurant was more upscale than where your rambunctious group usually ate, so it was nice to see everyone dressed to the nines. Jeno looked sharp in a sleek black suit, his hair perfectly styled. Renjun was in a neatly ironed dress shirt and black slacks, looking polished. Mark had his hair styled up and was dressed in Ralph Lauren from head to toe. Chenle and Jisung wore something chic, modern, and clean-cut, adding a touch of sophistication to the table. Haechan, in a style similar to Renjun's but without the tie, had the first few buttons undone and his sleeves rolled up to reveal the new watch he’d recently gotten.
Your eyes drifted toward Jaemin, and instinctively, you looked away. The brief glance was enough to see that he looked handsome enough to make your stomach twist in knots. He dressed more casually than the others, yet he radiated confidence and charm effortlessly.He wore a heavy leather jacket layered over a deep v-neck shirt. A shimmering silver necklace rested at the center of his chest, drawing attention to the defined muscles beneath. His jet-black hair was casually tousled, and a hint of eyeliner accentuated his eyes, giving him a look that's both alluring and a little dangerous.
A waiter approached and handed out the menus, breaking the tension only you were aware of. The group began chatting and joking while they all glanced over the menu.
“So, how did you manage to get this reservation anyway, Lele?” you asked from your seat next to Haechan.
“My dad went to school with the owner. He gave my dad a few special reservation tickets, and my dad told me I could invite whoever I wanted.”
“Golden spoon,” Haechan coughs under his breath and you stifle a snicker before shoving him with your knee.
“He means thanks for inviting us. It was very kind of you,” you say sincerely, smiling warmly.
“Yeah, this place is beautiful,” Winter adds, glancing around. “I can’t imagine how hard someone would have to fight to score a reservation here regularly.”
“You’re all welcome,” he says, then pauses, glancing at Haechan with a teasing smile. “And you,” he adds, “remember it was this golden spoon that bought you a gaming laptop for your birthday last year.”
Haechan cringes and shoots Chenle a sheepish smile. “I’m only kidding. Thank you,” he says, voice a little embarrassed but genuine.
After everyone has decided what to eat and placed their respective orders, you excuse yourself and head to the bathroom.
After using the bathroom and washing your hands, you add the finishing touches to your makeup and carefully apply your lipstick. When you're satisfied with your look, you take a moment to glance around the interior of the bathroom. It’s truly beautiful. Intricate, well-crafted designs are carved into the walls, and a massive floor-to-ceiling fish tank is embedded into the wall, filled with different colorful fish swimming lazily through the water.
Deciding to kill a little more time, you settle into the peaceful silence away from the lively restaurant. You study the fish in the tank, recognizing a few clownfish darting across the coral, and you smile softly at the sight of the blue tang, they were your favorite. Growing up, you loved the movie Finding Nemo, and now, here you are, meeting the stars of your childhood.
You lean in closer, examining every nook and cranny of the hidey holes and coral formations, making a game of finding all the clownfish. You crouch down, focused on your search, when suddenly, you notice an eye peering back at you from a hole in the coral. Your heart leaps into your throat. For a moment you think the other side of the tank is just a mirror reflecting your bathroom, until you realize it’s not. The figure on the other side isn’t your reflection.
The figure stands and your eyes widen in surprise as Jaemin’s shoulders shake with laughter, clearly reveling in the jumpscare he’s just given you. You watch him through the glass, almost like a silent movie. The fish swim back and forth across his face as he leans casually against the glass. You found yourself strangely captivated, watching him through the blue water of the tank. You try to push down the sudden, unwanted thought that forms in your mind. It was wrong to think about how incredibly attractive your boyfriend’s best friend is. But it’s too late, he’s already stolen your breath.
Jaemin tilts his head once he notices your stare and mouths, “Did I scare you?”
You just laugh, not because it was particularly funny, but more to brush it off. It’s an awkward attempt to hide the chaos he was stirring in your mind. Honestly, you’re not entirely sure how to handle yourself at this moment.
Jaemin seems to notice and presses his face closer to the glass, causing his features to distort into exaggerated, almost cartoonish proportions like a funhouse mirror. That’s what finally breaks your composure, and you let out a genuine laugh, clutching your stomach as he makes silly faces through the glass. The bathroom grows still and quiet after your laughter dies down. You realize you’re truly alone in the room, save for Jaemin, across the tank, separated only by the shimmering glass.
Jaemin nudged his head towards the door and turned to leave first. You followed silently, stepping out into the hallway. The space between you felt a little awkward again, but you fought through it. You took a deep breath and spoke first.
“How was France?” you asked softly, wrapping your arms around yourself.
“Beautiful,” he replied, but the way he said it, made it sound like he was referring to something else entirely.
Another awkward silence fell between the two of you, and you started to think that maybe it was only awkward for you. Jaemin was just watching you with a soft smile playing at his lips, his hands casually shoved in his pockets. The silence was driving you crazy; the unspoken tension, the lingering uncertainty. So, you decided to throw caution to the wind and rip off the bandaid.
“Look, Jaemin,” you began, voice a little shaky but firm. “I don’t want things to be awkward between us. I know we left off on shaky terms, but I want to put all that behind us. Let’s just pretend it never happened.”
He tilted his head slightly, a hint of amusement in his eyes. “Thought you were already doing that?” he responded, a small smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.
You heaved a sigh in exasperation, running a tired hand down your face. “I am. I just—” you paused, taking a breath. “I just want to make sure we’re on the same page. Are we good?”
Jaemin shrugged nonchalantly. “We’re good. I don’t want things to be awkward between us either.”
A wave of relief washed over you, and you offered him an authentic smile. “I’m going to head back now.”
It felt like a hundred pounds had been lifted from your shoulders. You made your way back to the table, and to your surprise, the food had already arrived during your little break.
“Haechan was waiting for you,” Mark says with a roll of his eyes. “He’d been dying to get you to taste the steak he ordered.”
Chenle might have been the “golden spoon” of the group, but Jeno was pretty well-off too. His parents were both doctors, so money was never an issue for him growing up. Honestly, you’d always been a little jealous of his lifestyle—especially back in high school. But it wasn't until one school night, when he invited you all over because his parents were busy and often neglectful, that you realized his life wasn’t as perfect as it seemed. Over the years, you grew closer to Jeno, and he became one of the most down-to-earth guys you’d ever met. Your jealousy transformed into admiration as the years passed.
That being said, he’d recently invited everyone to the lake house his family owned. This was the first summer the house was free, usually his other family members would hog it during the seasons.
The house was huge, with enough rooms for everyone to stay comfortably. When you and Haechan arrived, it was already pretty late. You were the last to get there, and it was Jisung who opened the door for you. In the background, a movie played quietly even though no one was really paying attention.
Inside, Lily and Mark were in the kitchen making an absolute mess, completely high out of their minds as they experimented with different snack combinations, trying to find the tastiest one.
“Strawberry and Takis… strakis,” Mark says, struggling to get the words out through giggles.
Renjun, sitting at the bar and sipping wine, watches with amused eyes. “Jisung brought some edibles he got from his trip to Colorado,” he explains, chuckling. “I’ve been watching them come up with names like this for the past hour.”
“You did this?” you ask, glancing over at Jisung, who jumps back onto the couch getting comfortable again.
“It’s really not even that strong,” Jisung shrugs, a mischievous grin on his face. “They just have a low tolerance. I’m fine.”
“Did you all take one?” Haechan asks, approaching the bar and swiping the glass of wine from Renjun before taking a sip himself. Renjun shoots him a sharp glare but lets him have it. “What brand is this?” Haechan asks, smacking his lips before wandering around the counter to find the bottle.
“I’d already started drinking when they took theirs,” Renjun says casually. “I didn’t want to get cross-faded.”
You lean your head on Renjun’s shoulder, wrapping your arms loosely around him as you both watch the chaos in the kitchen. The relaxed, carefree vibe of the house is infectious.
“Where’s Winter?” you ask, already scanning the house for your other friend.
“It's barely summer, what’s the rush?” Lily giggles, and Mark nudges her shoulder, laughing harder than usual at her lame joke.
“She greened out,” Jeno says, appearing at the bottom of the stairs just in time. “She’s already up in her room for the night.”
“And Chenle and Jaemin?” Haechan asks, turning toward Jeno.
“Chenle’s on the couch,” Jeno responds, prompting you to release Renjun and step closer to the sofa as he speaks. You look over the back of it and spot Chenle curled up like a cat, fast asleep on the cushions. “Jaemin went to the bathroom,” Jeno adds.
“Who’s got a marker?” Haechan asks mischievously, a sly grin spreading across his face.
“Leave it,” you command sternly, eyes narrowing. Chenle looked way too peaceful for Haechan to bother him right now. Maybe tomorrow night, you could get him.
Jeno chuckles and shakes his head. “You two are perfect for each other,” he says, amused.
Just then, Jaemin returns from the bathroom and catches your attention as he enters the living room. “Almost thought you two weren’t going to make it,” he says with a yawn.
Haechan moves over to dap him up, and mentions how long you took to get ready and the bad traffic. You don’t realize your staring when your eyes drift to Jaemin’s messy hair and the way his pajama pants hang low on his hips. He’s wearing a matching tank top that shows off his strong arms, and it’s only when he turns to look at you that you know you’ve been caught.
“You can’t speak?” he jokes, walking over into the kitchen to grab one of Mark and Lily’s snacks.
“Just figuring out how to steal that pink Hello Kitty Island Adventure PJ set you’re rocking, champ,” you reply.
“Gotta take it off me first,” he shoots back with a smirk, then tosses a grape into the air and catches it in his mouth, prompting Mark and Lily to let out a chorus of “Oos” as they rush to shoot grapes into each other's mouths.
“Hey! Enough of that,” Haechan calls out, appearing beside you within a flash step. “Have some shame. At least flirt when I’m not around.” He jokes.
Haechan isn’t the type to get jealous easily, at least not when it comes to his friends. He’s known everyone for years and trusts them enough to be around you. Still, you didn’t like the way this conversation was headed.
“Jeno, where’s our room? I’m ready to settle in and lay down,” you ask, looking for the quickest way out.
“Come on, I’ll show you,” Jeno laughs, leading the way as Haechan heads out to grab your bags.
You follow him down the long hallway, walking behind as he guides you toward your room. At the end of the hall, there’s only one other bedroom, so it’s easy to find.
“Your room’s on the right,” Jeno whispers. “Winter’s across from you, so try to keep it down.”
You nod and give him a thumbs-up before he leaves you alone in the room. Almost immediately, Haechan enters, setting everything down with a huff.
“This is everything,” he says, breathing hard.
After you two settle in and take a joint shower, your tired body collapses onto the mattress. Haechan crawls over you and presses a kiss into the crook of your neck. You hum softly as your muscles relax under his touch. His light kisses gradually deepen into gentle sucks and sharp nips as he settles between your legs.
“Hyuckie, come on, it’s late, and Winter’s asleep next door. We can’t,” you whisper, your voice barely audible as Haechan’s lips trail down your neck, his breath hot against your skin.
“I need you,” he mumbles, his voice thick with desperation. “I’ll be quick, I promise. You’ll be quiet.”
You let out a soft huff, trying to sound firm, but the way his lips press into your shoulder, the way his hands grip your hips, it’s already melting your resolve. “At least close the door all the way,” you say, though you know it’s a losing battle.
“It’s fine,” Haechan says, sitting up slightly to look at you, his eyes dark with need. “No one’s coming down this way anyway. Winter’s asleep.”
“You’re that impatient?” you laugh softly.
Haechan pauses, and the expression on his face surprises you. His eyes are almost desperate. “I really need you,” he says quietly, his voice almost pleading. “Please. I’ve been waiting all day.”
He was begging and you didn’t even have to ask, maybe he really was desperate. Thinking back, you can’t really blame him. He’d been practically begging since this morning, and now, with his hands on you, his breath hot against your skin, you were done fighting it. You had been too busy packing this morning to give in to his needs, and on the car ride here, he practically begged to eat you out in the backseat. But you had to rush, make sure someone was still awake at the lake house to let you in. And just now, in the shower, he was desperately making out with you, ready to turn you around and take you there. But suddenly, the water turned cold, and you both had to hurry and finish washing up.
You hesitate for a moment, but the way he’s looking at you, the way his hands are already moving, it’s impossible to say no. You reach up to pull your shirt over your head, but Haechan stops you, his hand gripping your wrist.
“Leave it,” he groans, his voice low and rough. “I can’t wait.” Without warning, he shoves you back into the sheets, his mouth crashing down on yours in a deep, hungry kiss.
He sits up slightly and his hands are everywhere, pushing his pajama pants down his hips and sliding your shorts and underwear to the side. His tip brushes against your slick folds, and you gasp, your hips rolling up to meet him. He looks down at you, eyes glassy and lips slightly swollen from where his teeth sunk into the flesh to keep himself quiet.
“Fuck, you’re so wet,” he muttered, his voice shaking as he ground against you. “You’ve been thinking about this all day too, haven’t you?”
Haechan pulls your shirt up past your chest, leaning down to kiss and lick at your nipples, causing a gasp to escape your lips. You roll your hips into him, craving more contact. The fabric from your shorts and panties slip from his grasp and snaps back against his dick. His hips jump at the sudden movement and he moans a little too loud for your liking,
“Hyuck, please be quiet,” you whispered, your eyes flicking to the crack in the door. Something felt off, like someone was watching, but you couldn’t see anything in the darkness.
You ignore the feeling and instead focus on the way Haechan’s cock felt against you. He was rutting shamelessly against you, he loved the way the fabric of your underwear strained against the tip of his dick when he prodded against it. He was stretching out the tight fabric of your panties as he continues to fucks himself against the sticky wet spot that was forming. You couldn’t take it, you weren’t sure if he was doing this to tease you or himself but you had enough.
“I thought you needed me? Don’t be selfish,” you say, tugging on the hem of his shirt. Haechan groans, his hand gripping the base of his cock as he slaps it against your clothed clit a few times. Your hips jerk up at the contact, and you bite your lip to keep from crying out.
Haechan pulls your panties to the side again with his thumb. “Make me wait all day and you can’t even wait a few minutes,” he whispers as he thrusts into this fist.
“I will go to sleep right here if you don’t hurry up,” you threaten, but Haechan just smirks, his eyes dark with desire.
“Go ahead. I’ve always wanted to try that,” he said, his voice low and teasing. You were done with his games. You lean up on your elbows and pull him into a slow, deep kiss. You love the way he moans into your mouth, the way his body presses deeper into yours. Then, with a quick move, you pull him down on top of you, wrapping your arms around his shoulders and your legs around his waist, trapping him.
You reach between your bodies, and guide his tip to your entrance. Haechan was taken aback when he suddenly felt your tight warm walls enveloping him, he wasn’t expecting you to get the upper hand so easily.
“Fuck, babe, oh—” Haechan stutters out, but you clap a hand over his mouth, giving him a stern look. You prayed that Winter was a heavy sleeper. Your eyes shoot to the door again, but all you could see was darkness. Just as you were about to turn away, the door opens just a little more, and your heart drops.
“Hyuck, wait—” you start, but your words are cut off by a moan as Haechan’s hips piston forward, his cock sliding into you in one smooth motion. The bed creaks under your weight, the sound of skin against skin muffled by your clothes. Haechan nuzzles into your neck, his chest pressed against yours as he fuckes you desperately.
You love the way Haechan feels inside you, the way his cock stretches you open, fills you up. He sits up slightly, pulling the hem of his shirt up into his mouth to keep it out of the way as he wraps his arms around your thighs. He uses your weight to pull you back against himself harder. You are completely enraptured by the sight of him, the way his stomach flexes, the way his eyebrows knit together when you clench around him.
“Fuck, I’m close,” Haechan moans out, the shirt slips from his lips and his hand reaches down to rub circles into your clit.
You were so far gone that you didn’t see the movement in the hallway or the light from a phone slightly illuminating the face of the person who was recording. You were so caught up in swallowing Haechans moans that you couldn’t hear the soft ones that tumbled out into the silence of the night just beyond the door.
You reach out and grab the collar of Haechans shirt and ball it up. You needed something to hold onto so you held it like a leash and used it to pull him closer. You were definitely going to hear his mouth about stretching out his favorite shirt later but right now you didn’t care.
You cover your mouth with your free hand as you shudder, your body tightening around him when you finally hit your peak. Haechan buries himself deep, his hips thrusting weakly a few more times as he cums inside you. The look on his face tells you he’s overstimulating himself, but he was far too greedy to stop. Finally, he pulls out and your shorts and panties slip back into place, sealing his release inside.
After catching your breath, you get up to use the restroom. When you reach the door, you remember the strange feeling you’d had earlier. You tug on the handle, and the door rattles.
It was closed.
The lake house was quiet when you opened your eyes the next morning. You run your hands through the sheets in a daze, searching for your phone. Haechan groans softly as you dig your palm under him to find it. He rolls over, still asleep, and you spot your phone under him. You breathe a silent laugh, but then glance at the time and suck in a breath in surprise.
It's already 2 p.m.
The others are probably up and at the lake already, enjoying their day while you sleep away your mini vacation. You toss your phone onto the bedside table and kick the covers off, welcoming the soft, cool breeze from the A/C. Your feet slap against the hardwood as you stand and quickly dig your bikini out of your duffle bag.
Haechan finally stirs at all the noise, cracking an eye open begrudgingly. “Why are you not keeping me warm?” he rasps, his morning voice rough.
“You deserve to be cold. It’s your fault I woke up late! I wanted to get up early and make popsicles with the girls to take in the cooler!” you whine.
Haechan doesn’t respond. He just closes his eyes, cuddles a pillow, and pulls the covers over himself even tighter.
“Wake up! If you wanted to sleep, you should have stayed home,” you say, tossing one of your bras at him. “I’m going to take a shower, and by the time I get out, you….” You stand up and march over to him, poking a finger into his forehead annoyingly. His face scrunches up cutely before he rolls away from you. “Better be awake and ready,” you finish.
“Okay, okay,” he yawns, sitting up on his elbows.
You smile triumphantly and hum a sweet tune as you make your way down the hall to the shower.
Once you're out, you head back into the room and notice it’s empty. You're relieved—you don’t have to wrestle him out of the sheets.Your already in your bathing suit, it's a tropical two-piece with a halter top and side-tie bikini bottoms. You feel good and prepared for the day as you organize your beach bag. You push your shades onto your head, then realize all that’s left is to apply some sunscreen. Soon, you’ll be heading out into the scorching sun, ready to enjoy the lake.
You walk through the halls, searching for Haechan, but he’s nowhere to be seen. You would’ve left by now, but you need him to put sunscreen on you. He’d throw a fit if you tried to do it yourself or ask someone else. He takes joy in massaging the cream into your skin, obvious reasons of course. You only let him have this because he always asks so nicely. Also because his hands tend to wander.
As you step into the kitchen, you see him bent over, rummaging through the fridge. “You didn’t hear me calling you?” you tease, pretending to be annoyed. “Hurry up and help me with the sunscreen so we can head out.” As you walk over, your words die in your throat and you stop in your tracks.
It’s Jaemin standing there, his head poking out from behind the fridge door, a popsicle hanging between his lips. You might’ve been a little annoyed that the girls made the popsicles without you if you weren’t so distracted by the bright red stain on Jaemin’s lips.
Jaemin bites into the popsicle, and you wince with a shiver—your teeth could never.
“I thought you were Hyuckie,” you say, voice smaller than you intended.
“I can help you,” he offers, shutting the fridge door and stepping closer to you.
Before you can protest, Jaemin has already taken the sunscreen from your hand. You try to speak, but he shakes his head gently, a small smile on his lips. His popsicle is back in his mouth, held against his lips as it melts slowly, making his lips look glossy and tempting. You force yourself to look away, focusing instead on his bare feet, trying to keep your composure.
He starts rubbing the sunscreen into your arm, his hands warm and steady. When he switches to your other arm, he makes a muffled sound that catches your attention. You look up, and he gives you a subtle nod, wiggling the popsicle in his mouth in an unspoken request.
Realization dawns, and you carefully grip the stick, gently pulling the cold treat from between his lips. You watch in awe as he licks his lips, eyes locked on yours.
“It was getting too cold,” he says softly. “Can you hold it?”
You nod quietly, too stunned to say anything.
He applies more sunscreen to his hands, and as they touch your waist, you flinch slightly. His hands move to rub the cream into your skin, gentle but firm. Then, carefully, he drags his hands lower, moving to your lower back, pulling you slightly closer—causing you to stumble a little, caught off guard.
“Hold still,” he says, raising an eyebrow at you.
His hands trail up your mid-back, rubbing the cream into your skin. You’re not looking directly at him, but you can feel his eyes on you, as if daring you to meet his gaze.
His hands return to your hips, then glide upward, smoothing over your stomach and just beneath your breasts.
“Y/N,” he whispers softly. Your heart pounds faster in your chest, and you swallow hard, trying to steady your breathing before you finally look up. His lips are still stained red, parted in a wide grin. “The ice cream, it’s melting,” he says, voice teasing.
You snap out of your daze as your eyes catch the melting ice cream in your hand, the syrup dripping down your fingers. “Ah, shit,” you swear softly.
Before you can move to clean up the mess, he gently grabs your wrist, holding your hand in place. He brings your fingers to his mouth, licking off the sticky syrup from the popsicle stick. His tongue traces a strip up the side of the treat, carefully preventing it from dripping further.
“I got it,” he whispers softly, his eyes meeting yours.
You remain frozen, rooted to the spot, eyes wide as you process what just happened. Your mind races, and your heart pounds in your chest. But Jaemin doesn’t give you a moment to catch your breath. He smoothly resumes applying the sunscreen, his hands steady and focused as if nothing unusual just occurred.
He places your free hand on his shoulder, then carefully lifts one of your legs. His hands grip your thigh a little harder as he applies the sunscreen. When his hands begin to trail up the back of your thigh, you realize you're slowly rising onto your tiptoes as he continues upward, and he chuckles softly at the change in your stance.
Jaemin’s eyes burn into you, drinking up the exposed skin of your thighs and stomach as he looks you up and down. It was all so intimate. It was too intimate with a loose Haechan somewhere around the house. Jaemins eyes catch on the hickeys that litter your neck and jaw.
You weren’t ashamed of the love bites. Haechan loved it when you showed them off and you think they are a cute trashy accessory, especially in a slutty little bathing suit. But now under jaemins gaze you didn’t know how to feel.
Just as Jaemin finishes rubbing the sunscreen into your other leg, footsteps approach the kitchen, and suddenly, his hands are off you in an instant. Like a shadow, he slips back across the room,quietly. Without a word, he resumes his earlier task—searching through the fridge for something to snack on.
Haechan jogs into the kitchen, his hair still damp from a shower. He spots you and breaks into a bright smile. “Are you ready?” he asks before leaning in to peck your lips in a quick, soft kiss. Almost immediately, his nose scrunches up. “You smell like sunscreen,” he complains, pouting. “You put it on without me? You know that’s my favorite part!” he whines, clearly disappointed.
Your mind races for something to say, anything to avoid suspicion, but the words catch in your throat. You're still trying to process what just happened, and honestly, you can't quite figure out how to explain it to Haechan without raising questions.
Jaemin walks over carrying a case of beer and shoves it into Haechan’s chest, effectively saving you from yourself. “Jen asked me to bring some beer for the cooler. Can you take these down?”
“You’re not coming?” Haechan asks, adjusting the case in his grip.
Jaemin shakes his head. “I’m going to start on the barbecue for dinner so we can eat once everyone gets back.”
Haechan cheers at the mention of barbecue, but then quirks an eyebrow as he turns toward you. “Babe, the ice cream’s melting,” he scolds softly.
Without waiting, he plucks the ice cream from your fingers and pops the last third of it into his mouth. Then, he gently tugs you along toward the door, ready to head outside.
Under no circumstance could you let yourself be alone with Jaemin again. He was too dangerous. It was like he was always toeing some invisible line when it came to you and you knew once he crossed it, things would get messy.
“Aw, come on. You’re really not going?” Winter whines, wearing a pretty baby blue polka-dot swimsuit with chunky wedge sandals. She holds up a clear tube float around her waist, looking disappointed. You head toward the front door as they start to leave—the entire gang heading back to the lake again.
“For real, don’t be lame,” Lily crosses her arms, dressed in a red swimsuit with a matching side-tie cover-up. Both of them looked amazing, and while you’d love to join and make the perfect trifecta, you just couldn’t. The others walk past you, heading out, and you watch from the doorway.
“Sorry, ladies, I already washed my hair. Can’t go through that nightmare again,” you call after them. You’d already rinsed the lake muck out of your hair the night before and had no desire to do it all over again today. Once everyone has piled out, you step outside, shielding your eyes from the sun. You’re only in shorts, a bikini top, and a loose off-the-shoulder crop top—perfect for lounging around the lake house in the summer heat.
“You guys have fun, though,” you add.
“Don’t forget you promised to wash my hair when I get back,” Haechan says, pecking your cheek before walking off to catch up with Jeno and the others. He’s swore up and down that your products worked better… and apparently, your hands too.
“You better be up for movie and make-up later, then,” Lily says, pointing a manicured finger at you before heading down to the lake with Winter.
The front door swings open behind you and Jaemin steps out moments later. He’s wearing a turtle floaty around his hips and has sunglasses pushed up into his hair. You laugh at how silly he looks.
“You look like a kid,” you tease. “Did you get that in the children's section?”
He pushes his sunglasses into his hair, his thick brows knitting together as he glares at you. “You think this is childish?” he challenges.
You smirk. “That’s what I said.”
“That's what she said,” Lily calls out from down the driveway, heading toward the lake but still close enough to hear. You glance past Jaemin, smiling at your friend’s retreating back, then turn back to Jaemin with a defiant grin.
“You should meet Jisung and Chenle,” he says, stepping closer.
Before you can react, Jaemin swings you over his shoulder, and you squeal in surprise. You watch as the house grows smaller behind you, the two of you walking toward the water and away from your quiet evening. He’s headed straight into the chaos—Jisung and Chenle’s water gun fight, which had already started a few yards away.
“Y/N needs help cooling down,” Jaemin announces with a grin. Almost immediately, Chenle and Jisung turn their water guns on you, spraying streams of cool water and tossing water balloons in your direction.
“Haechan!” you scream between fits of laughter.
“That’s not my name, baby,” Jaemin teases.
After the water fight, Chenle and Jisung dash off before Jaemin can set you down—knowing full well that the moment your feet touch the ground, they’re dead. Laughter dies down, and Jaemin gently sets you on your feet, his hands slipping over your hips as he does.
You're soaked through. At first, it was funny but now a tinge of frustration starts to creep in. Especially because you’d specifically planned to stay dry today. It would take ages to dry your thick hair, and you’d been looking forward to relaxing before you and Haechan head back early tomorrow.
You hear gravel crunching under someone’s footsteps approaching. “Damn, baby, what happened?” Haechan chuckles, but his smile quickly drops when he sees the look on your face. “Shit, did you do this?” he asks, turning to Jaemin. “You better fix this before she makes me punch you,” he adds, noticing how pissed you looked.
And Jaemin, standing there with that innocent look, knows he’s in trouble.
“Babe, don’t be mad. He’s going to fix it,” Haechan says softly, approaching you. He cups your face in his hands and kisses you gently on the lips. You relax a little in his hold, but beneath the surface, the frustration still bubbles up, threatening to spill over into tears.
Haechan notices and turns to Jaemin with livid eyes. “Fix it,” he commands sharply.
Haechan then walks back down to the lake, leaving Jaemin to walk with you toward the house. Silence hangs between you as you make your way inside. Jaemin’s apology is met with only your seething silence.
You’re fuming as you mentally calculate how long it will take to detangle, blow-dry, and restyle your hair. Jaemin pulls the stupid turtle floaty off his hips as you near the front door, entering behind you. You head straight to the bathroom on the same floor as your guest room. Jaemin follows silently, watching as you grab a wide-tooth comb to start detangling as you do your best to ignore him.
His eyes catch sight of your blow dryer on the counter, instinctively unwrapping and plugging it in. He comes up behind you and gently takes the comb from your hand.
He leans in and presses a soft kiss to your shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he whispers.
You don’t respond. You know you should be telling him off or pushing him away, and it makes you even more pissed that the feeling of his kiss on your skin doesn't disgust you. He kisses that spot over and over again, right over the hickey Haechan gave you, before finally pulling away. Carefully, he begins to detangle your hair in sections, gently working through the knots. Once satisfied, he flicks on the blow dryer and uses the comb attachment to dry and detangle your hair further.
It still takes some time, but by the end, your anger has cooled enough. You’re grateful you didn’t have to do it yourself. You braid your hair into two French braids and wrap them into a crown around your head. A sigh of relief escapes as you finish.
Jaemin sits silently on the counter, watching you work. Then he gently pinches your side prompting you to face him.
“Am I still in trouble?” he asks softly. Without even a word of thanks, you turn to leave, dead set on giving him the silent treatment. Jaemin jumps down from the countertop and follows you into your room. “Whoa, whoa—where are you going?”
You don’t reply so he grabs your arm and pulls you back to face him.
“Real mature. Who’s the childish one now?”
He’s met again with silence.
“Do you really wanna play this game?”
You were stubborn and Haechan wouldn’t have you any other way. But, Jaemin on the other hand, couldn’t stand it. You could see the way his jaw tightened and the way his eyes flickered in exasperation and amusement. You were acting like a brat, and you knew exactly how much that got under his skin.
He pushes you to sit on the edge of the bed. He looks down at you and you just now realize he's only his swim trunks.
He reaches forward and caresses your cheek before leaning in close to your face. You think he's going to kiss you but he whispers in your ear instead. “Tell me you don’t want me,” he murmurs before leaning back to look into your eyes, studying your expression.
You're not sure what he sees—what truths your eyes have revealed—but suddenly, he’s sitting beside you on the bed. Slowly, he takes your wrist in his hand, turning your palm face up, then softly presses his lips to it. His gaze burns into yours, intense and searching, before he closes his eyes briefly, as if savoring the moment.
You watch the way his pretty lashes fan across his cheeks delicately. When he opens them again, all you see is raw, unfiltered desire. Without a word, he trails a flurry of kisses up your wrist and over your shoulder, each one deliberate and slow, as if trying to communicate the words he's forbidden to speak.
He leans in, kissing your neck again but it’s less innocent this time. His kisses are wet, and when he reaches the fading hickey Haechan gave you, he nips and sucks at it, causing you to inhale sharply. Your mind races—this all feels wrong. Another man’s lips leaving marks where only your boyfriend should be allowed to touch you. And yet, here you are, caught in this moment, on the same bed where he fucked you just the night before.
One of Jaemin’s hands grips your knee as he continues to kiss up your neck. The higher his kisses go, the closer his hand drifts toward your thigh, resting just below the hem of your shorts. You are near breathless when Jaemin kisses your jaw, then your cheek, and finally the corner of your mouth.
“Tell me to stop,” he whispers, voice trembling.
He’s so close, you can feel his breath fanning over your lips. His hand, once still, now curls and rests between your thighs, his fingers hot against your skin. Your brow knits in a pathetic desire. Still, no words come.
“I'm going to kiss you if you don’t stop me now,” he murmurs in warning.
At first, you think it’s teasing, but then you realize he’s giving you every chance to change your mind—more than enough time to reconsider. Your mind is a whirlwind, only able to focus on the feeling of his fingers digging into your skin, the thick tension between you.
*BUZZ* * BUZZ*
Your phone vibrates in the back pocket of your shorts, jolting you from whatever spell Jaemin had cast. You hurriedly pull it out, giving yourself an excuse to look anywhere but at him.
Did Jaemin fix it, or do I really have to punch him? TT
Haechan's text message. Unlike the lighthearted laughter it was meant to evoke, it squeezes your heart tight. Haechan. Your boyfriend. Haechan, who loved you to the moon and back. Haechan, who would do anything for you.
Haechan was your boyfriend.
And here you were, sitting in the dimly lit room, Jaemin's hands between your legs, his kisses staining your skin.
"You have to go," you say, your voice barely a whisper.
And he does. Jaemin doesn't argue, because he knows. No matter how hard you try to hide it, Jaemin knows that deep down you want him just as much as he wants you.
“I don’t see why I had to come,” Renjun whines. “I already got his gift.”
“Because I don’t trust Jeno not to steal while I’m not looking,” you state plainly, crossing your arms.
“Don’t ask me to pocket anything else for you, then,” Jeno grumbles under his breath, shoving his hands deep into his pockets.
You roll your eyes and push open the glass doors to the mall, stepping inside. The sound of chatter and footsteps surrounds you as you gather everyone for the game plan.
“We split up and meet back here in two hours, got it?” you say, trying to suppress a cringe at how much you sound like your mother.
“Isn’t Jaemin supposed to be coming?” Jisung reminds you.
You groan. “Ugh, I forgot. Me and you can wait here while the others start shopping.”
You’d dragged half your friend group, those who still hadn’t gotten a gift for Haechan, to the mall to do some last-minute shopping and approve the presents. It may seem a little over the top, but Haechan had given strict instructions: no underwear or socks. You’d initially planned just for yourself, Jisung, Renjun, and Jeno to come but Jaemin got invited once he mentioned he hadn’t gotten his gift yet either.
You and Jisung settle on the fountain at the entrance, sitting on the cool stone edge as you wait for Jaemin. After about ten minutes he finally arrives, but he’s not alone. You’re surprised to see a girl hanging off his shoulder, her pretty face lit with a bright smile.
“Sorry we’re late, guys. I had to pick up Yeeun,” Jaemin rambles with a grin.
Jisung and you exchange confused glances—at least you’re not the only one clueless.
“I’m sorry, this is my girlfriend,” Jaemin adds casually.
The girl offers a bright smile. “It’s nice to meet you,” she says and Jisung quickly introduces himself.
“Jisung,” he replies.
She nods and then turns her gaze toward you. “Y/n,” you say politely.
“Thanks for letting me tag along,” she finishes softly.
She’s sweet, and you swallow down the flicker of jealousy that threatens to bubble up as you focus on the task at hand—finding Haechan’s gift.
The group disperses into different stores, and Jaemin and Yeeun walk a few steps behind you and Jisung. You try your hardest to pay attention to Jisung’s conspiracy theories, but your ears keep drifting back to Jaemin’s jokes and Yeeun’s laughter echoing from behind.
Soon, you step into one of the stores that sells an assortment of colognes and perfumes. Haechan had been building his collection, and you thought it would be cute to pick out one that complemented your signature scent. You end up using Jisung as a test subject, spraying different colognes onto his wrists to find the perfect one for Haechan. He whines when you spritz one with too strong a scent, tugging his wrists back, and you roll your eyes, ignoring his protests.
“Smell this one, Minnie,” Yeeun calls from the other side of the store.
Against your better judgment, your eyes slip over to their section. What you see is the opposite of you and Jisung. Jaemin sits patiently as Yeeun wafts different scented paper under his nose. He hums softly in response to the ones he likes and scrunches his nose at the ones he doesn’t.
“I like the third one—it suits you,” Jaemin says with a smile.
She pouts playfully. “Are you just saying that because you’re tired of being my smeller?”
Jaemin flashes his signature smile—the one that shows all 32 teeth—before responding sweetly, “I never get tired of you.”
Jisung groans. “Oww, that hurts,” he whines again.
You glance back at him and realize you’ve been squeezing his wrist too tightly.
“Oh my God, I’m sorry, Ji!” you say, rubbing at his wrist. “I think I found the one I want. Let’s go.”
After his insistent begging you let Jisung leech off your gift and you two end up going halves. Since it’s pretty expensive, you don’t mind.
You continue browsing other stores, helping Jaemin find his gift, but suddenly, Jisung’s cry of awe stops you in your tracks. His eyes are fixed on the middle of the corridor, where a crane game catches his attention.
You follow behind him and lean over, peering into the machine filled with tiny plush dolls. Jisung’s face lights up with excitement.
“Do not fall victim to these scams,” you sigh, already knowing what’s about to happen once he shoves his hand into his pocket.
When he pulls out a quarter, you instinctively turn to Jaemin and Yeeun for some backup, but Yeeun is already on the other side of the machine, her forehead pressed against the glass, eyes wide with excitement.
“You have to win the Sakura plush!” She cheers enthusiastically.
You give a resigned sigh as Jisung carefully maneuvers the crane, aiming for the plush. Your stomach tightens as you watch him gently lower the claw, only for it to slip at the last second, dropping the doll back into the pile.
“See told you now can we please—”
You hear the rattle of the machine as another coin drops in, and the arcade music kicks up again, signaling Jisung’s second attempt.
“He's not gonna give up. Let’s go ahead,” Jaemin says casually, watching him with an amused smile.
“Call me when you’re done getting pickpocketed,” you reply with a roll of your eyes, then blow into Jisung’s ear childishly. He jumps and drops the plush, with a groan.
“I was so close!” he protests.
You didn’t expect Yeeun to stay behind with Jisung, giving the crane a try herself, so now it’s just you and Jaemin. An awkward silence settles between you, and to fill it, you decide to say what’s been on your mind for the past few hours.
“Your girlfriend is pretty,” you say softly. You mean it—Yeeun had a charm that was starting to grow on you.
“Are you jealous?” Jaemin asks with a smirk.
You whip around and step directly in front of him, halting him in his tracks. Your glare sharpens.
“What? No! Why would I be?” you shoot back.
“Well that's too bad. If you’re not, then I’ll have to find someone who will. Someone prettier,” he says all too easily.
Your blood boils. He’s treating this like some game. He was so nonchalant. You barely know Yeeun, but the idea of Jaemin just using her and then tossing her aside doesn’t sit right with you.
“Is that what this is about? You brought her here to make me jealous?” you ask, voice tense but controlled.
You take a daring step closer, your gaze hardening.
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I have a boyfriend. And clearly, relationships don’t mean anything to you but that makes me off-limits,” you say firmly.
Jaemin’s smirk doesn’t fade. “I’m pretty open-minded. I don’t mind sharing,” he replies quietly, eyes glinting with mischief.
“Your….” you struggle to find the right word, but honestly, “crazy” doesn’t do him justice.
Jaemin stands there unfazed, watching you with his soft eyes and that pretty smile, as if you weren't about to bite his head off.
“Let’s just go,” you mutter, turning to walk ahead in defeat. Jaemin follows close behind, still wearing that goofy smile, clearly enjoying himself way too much.
Jaemin ends up grabbing a sleek black graphic tee for Haechan and you already know full well he’ll wear it into the ground. You also swing by a jeweler and pick out a cute bracelet for him. It’s a bit expensive, but since you went halves on the cologne with Jisung, you’re more than happy to splurge a little. You and Haechan never put a price limit on gifts.
On your way back, you unexpectedly run into Renjun and Jeno. You quickly appraise the gifts they’d gotten.
“Hmm, Jeno, receipt?” you ask suspiciously, eyeing him.
Jeno rolls his eyes. “I bought it,” he grumbles, reaching into his pocket and handing you the receipt.
“Good boy,” you coo with a smile, giving him a playful pat.
Renjun stretches his arms above his head with a yawn. “Where’s Jisung?”
You curse under your breath and dig your phone out of your back pocket. No missed calls. You furrow your brows, then suck your teeth in disbelief.
“He’s still at that stupid crane,” you mutter, dialing his number.
You lead the way back to where you and Jaemin left Jisung. When you arrive, you see him sitting near the crane, happily munching on ice cream with Yeeun. Sitting proudly in her lap is the Sakura plush she pointed out earlier.
“Whoa, when did Jisung bag a hottie?” Jeno chuckles, nudging Jaemin.
Jaemin punches Jeno lightly in the arm and gives him a tight smile. “That’s my hottie,” he says.
You snicker under your breath but can’t help but agree with Jeno. Yeeun and Jisung did look good together.
Yeeun notices your group approaching and quickly stands up, a little flustered. Her eyes widen as she hurriedly tries to explain herself.
“Jaemin, look! Jisung won me this, so I bought him ice cream. I hope that’s okay?” she asks, nervously fidgeting with the plush.
Jaemin pats Yeeun’s head gently and offers her a smile. “It’s fine. Jisung probably lost half his fortune anyway.”
Renjun yawns loudly, rubbing his eyes. “Can we finally leave? I’m tired.”
When you go your separate ways that night you can't help but think about what Jaemin had said.
Jaemin had meant what he said.
You realize that now as you sit in front of him and his girlfriend in the dimly lit karaoke room. Haechan flips through the song catalog, and the only source of light is the flickering glow of cheap disco lights that cast shifting shadows across the small, dark space. Haechan’s voice echoes out of the speaker as he tests the mic.
Earlier that day, he told you you’d be going on a double date with Jaemin and his girlfriend. Although you didn’t care to see Jaemin again so soon, Yeeun had really grown on you, and you were actually up for chatting with her all night. When you first arrived, Haechan didn’t understand why you looked so confused when Jaemin introduced his girlfriend.
The woman sitting across from you is not Yeeun.
She introduces herself as Haesoo, and she’s drop-dead gorgeous. Your eyes unconsciously roam her figure—she’s perfect. Jealousy didn’t even begin to cut it. You almost feel insecure next to her.
You reach forward and grab a shot glass from the round of drinks you ordered, cursing Jaemin silently in your mind. You hate this game he’s playing, hate how easily he gets into your head. You won’t let him win.
Determined, you down another shot for good luck, then grab the other mic and join in on whatever song Haechan is singing. You push aside the whirlwind of emotions and focus on the music, determined not to let him see how much his game is affecting you.
Later in the night, the food arrives, and everyone begins to eat and chat. You take the chance to quietly talk to Haesoo while Jaemin and Haechan ramble about game stats and strategies at the table.
“The keychain on your bag is cute. Are you into blind boxes?” you ask, recognizing the little green figure hanging off her bag.
“Jaemin got it for me,” she responds dryly, not bothering to hide her indifference.
You hum softly and smile, trying to keep the conversation flowing. “Do you have a favorite song you like to sing?” you ask, genuinely interested—music was always one of your favorite topics.
“Not really. I was just going to have Jaemin pick a song for me,” she replies casually.
“Ah, I see,” you nod, then turn your attention back to your plate. It’s clear she doesn’t talk about anything other than Jaemin, and you start to realize she was definitely not passing the Bechdel Test.
Finishing your food, you casually flip through the song catalog, hoping to pass the time by singing a song yourself. You settle on a slow, soulful piece, something to showcase your vocals. You stand and sing along, eyes glued to the lyrics on the screen. Behind you, you hear Haechan whooping loudly when you hit the higher notes, and somehow you manage to stay in key. You drag out the last note dramatically, finishing with a drunken laugh before giving a curtsey.
“Wow, I can’t believe I have my own angel,” Haechan says, pulling you into his lap and showering you with kisses. “Your voice is heaven sent.” You smile softly, adjusting yourself comfortably on his lap.
“I didn’t know you sang so well,” Jaemin comments.
Your cheeks warm from the mix of compliments and alcohol. You don’t even notice Haesoo glaring at you across the table. Suddenly, she cuts in, voice confident and a little tipsy.
“Jaemin, I want to sing you a song next,” she says directly, drawing attention to herself.
“Whatever you want, babe,” he replies, passing her the song catalog.
She picks a song, and the screen changes as her chosen track begins. Her voice is sultry, swaying her body to the beat as she sings into the mic, whispering the lyrics with passion. She’s not bad—her singing style seems deliberately breathy, maybe on purpose, to add a little seduction. But she’s clearly just as drunk as you are, and the whole performance comes off more as silly than sexy, especially as she passionately sings directly to Jaemin, who looks like he’d rather be anywhere else.
You feel Haechan’s shoulders shaking behind you, trying to hold back his laughter. Pinching his thigh gently, you try to get him to behave. You can only imagine how much he’s fighting down his amusement.
As she reaches the climax of her song, Haesoo climbs onto Jaemin’s lap, straddling his waist to finish the last verse. When she finishes, Haesoo sets the mic down on the table and wraps her arms around Jae-min’s shoulders. She presses her lips to his in a heated kiss, then pulls away with a confident smirk.
“How was I?” she asks expectantly, eyes glinting with satisfaction.
“You were good,” Jaemin replies with a small smile, rubbing her side soothingly.
“Just good? Was I better than her?” she shoots you a quick look over her shoulder, a challenge in her eyes.
Jaemin’s gaze meets yours from over her shoulder, but before he can answer, Haechan slurs loudly, interrupting.
“Y/n is the best,” he mumbles happily, “My girlfriend is number one.” He laughs, leaning in to place a sloppy kiss on your shoulder.
You shudder at the feeling of his lips and the way Jae-min’s piercing gaze lingers on you. The room feels suddenly heavy with unspoken tension.
Haesoo huffs, clearly annoyed that Haechan’s praise was solely for you. She turns back to Jaemin, voice a little sharper.
“I sounded better. Tell him!” she demands, her tone hinting at a mixture of jealousy and frustration.
Jaemin looks up at Haesoo, and a shadow seems to cloud his eyes as he smiles at her. “Show them how good you sound, baby,” he whispers softly as his hands grip her hips. A lazy smile plays on his lips as he grinds her down against his lap.
Your body tenses as you watch them, your heart pounding in your chest. You felt a pang of shame as your panties grew damp, your body responding to the sight of Haesoo grinding herself against Jaemin. Her moans fill the room, her head thrown back in ecstasy.
The four empty bottles of soju were the only explanation for how you'd ended up in this situation. Haechan's hands grip your hips, his hardness pressing against your ass as he ground himself against you. His breath tickled against your neck as he whispered in your ear, "Don't be shy, let them hear how pretty you sound for me." His hands roam your body, slipping under the front of your shirt to tease you over your bra.
You were soaked, your body aching for release. You wanted to moan out, to let Haechan know how good he was making you feel, but you were too embarrassed. Your eyes flicked over to Jaemin and Haesoo, watching as Jaemin pulled Haesoo's shirt over her head, his mouth finding her nipples as he sucked and bit them. They were unashamed as they pleasured each other. When jaemin releases her breasts with a pop, his eyes meet yours. His gaze was smoldering and he looked like he was ready to crawl across the table and devour you.
Haechan's hands slip lower, his fingers slipping under the waistband of your panties to find your wetness. You gasped as he touched you, your hips bucking against his hand as he teased your clit. "Fuck, you're so wet," he murmured, his voice low and husky.
Jaemin watches the way you squirm in haechans lap. His view was blocked by the table but he could only imagine the way Haechans fingers scissored you open underneath the table.
You whimper and try to hold back your moans but Haechan isn't having it. His fingers plunge deeper inside of you, curling viciously in a way he knows will have you unraveling in seconds. You felt yourself losing control, your body responding to Haechan's touch. You reached back, your hand finding his hardness as you began to stroke him through his jeans. He groaned, his hips thrusting against your palm as he continued to stretch you open on his fingers. You throw your head back against haechans shoulder and arch your back. The moan that escapes you is deafening and you're thankful for the sound proof walls.
Your hips move with a mind of their own, grinding against haechans palm wildly as you chase your release. Against your better judgment, your eyes wander to Jaemin again. His chin hooked over Haesoo’s shoulder, and they were pressed chest to chest as he thrust up into her with abandon. The table blocked most of the view, but the wet sounds of their fucking and Jaemin's almost pained moans left little to the imagination.
Your chest bounces as you ride Haechan’s fingers. Jaemin watches you, eyebrows knit in pleasure and mouth agape in a slight “O” shape. There is nothing but hunger in his gaze.
"Fuck baby, just like that," Jaemin moaned. You clench down hard against Haechan’s fingers, you knew his words were directed towards you. Jaemin closes his eyes for only a second to catch his breath before he opens them again, not daring to look away from you for too long. The long groan that he let out has you about ready to jump across the table.
Haechan breathes heavily behind you, hips desperately dry humping against your ass. He throws his head onto the back of the couch and you can tell he's close by the way soft whines start creeping up his throat.
With a desperate grip on Haechan's wrist, you pull his fingers out of you. Haechan catches on quickly and impatiently undoes his belt. He slips the fat head of his cock into you from behind and fills your aching pussy up in ways his fingers never could.
Haesoo’s moans ring out louder before she ultimately cums around Jaemin’s cock. She slumps against him with a shiver but Jaemins hips never slow. You could see waves of overstimulation rip through her as Jaemin wraps his arms around her and held her down as he continued to fuck into her. He wasn't done until you were.
Haechan grips your throat and his other arm wraps around your waist like a seatbelt before he presses your back against his chest, fucking you harder. Your fingers grip the edge of the table as you try to hold out for as long as possible. Everything felt too good—the alcohol swimming in your system relaxing your muscles, the eyes tracing the lines of your body, you were on cloud nine and you never wanted to get off.
You notice a slight change in Jaemin’s pace and you moan out once you realize he's matching the speed of Haechan's strokes. He was picturing that it was him inside of you. He uses Hae Soo as a cocksleeve, pretending it was your warm walls wrapped around him instead.
The wet sound your pussy makes is its own melody as Haechan drills you from behind. “So fucking nasty. You’re my dirty little slut?” Haechan asks, tightening the grip he has around your neck.
All you can do is nod your head and moan in response.
"That's right, you're my baby," he whispers, and a shiver runs down your spine. You feel caught, like he's not just talking to you anymore. "All mine."
“Fuck! Haechan.” You choke out.
You clench hard around Haechan’s cock before you cum. Jaemin moans across the table as he watches your face contorted in pleasure before he also follows you over the edge, finally spills into Haesoo and mouthing your name when he does. Not long after, Haechan is dropping his head into your shoulder, moaning as he cums with a shiver. He still manages a few extra weak thrusts as a few whines slip from his lips.
It's a little awkward now that everyone has sobered up, but from the look in everyone's eyes, no one regrets a moment of what just happened. You could all collectively agree that this after-sex buzz was even better than the feeling the alcohol gave you that led to all this in the first place.
When you get home, you and Haechan talk about it briefly. He wanted to make sure you were okay with everything that happened, and you appreciated he wasn’t being awkward about it.
“Hey,” he begins softly, reaching out to hold your hand. “Are you okay with everything that happened earlier?”
You nod, giving him a small smile. “Yeah, I’m fine. I just can’t believe that happened. Didn’t know you would be down to have someone watch us fuck.” You laugh softly.
Haechan shrugs, a small smile playing on his lips. “I like knowing that I’m the only one who can touch you like that. The whole world can watch, but only I get to have you.”
“Happy birthday!” Everyone cheers as Haechan blows out the candles.
You swipe some icing from the cake and smudge it on his cheek before licking it off. “Happy birthday, baby,” you coo, ignoring the groans and sounds of disgust coming from your friends gathered around the table.
You laugh them off as you take the cake from Haechan’s hands and set it down to start slicing off pieces.
Tonight was the most fun you’d had in weeks. You all gathered at Jeno’s family’s lake house again to celebrate Haechan’s birthday, and today couldn’t be more perfect. He had already opened his other gifts, and you couldn’t wait for him to unwrap your extra present later. It was a red lacy set you had stuffed deep in your duffle bag.
“One more round of shots,” Renjun slurred as he staggered over to the bar.
“Haven’t you guys had enough? I feel like I’m about to puke,” Yeeun called out.
Since the last time you saw her, she and Jisung had really hit it off after her and Jaemin broke up. The asshole had literally broken up with her on the ride home from the mall. When Jisung found out, he did his best to console her, believing it was his fault for winning the plushy. He hadn’t meant for it to look like a date, but he felt bad if it had come off that way to Jaemin. They still felt guilty—especially as they started gaining feelings for each other. Jaemin told him both that it had nothing to do with the mall and that he just rushed into a relationship before he was ready, which put their minds at ease to date openly and freely.
“Yeah, I think we’re done for the night,” Jisung says from his spot next to Yeeun on the couch.
Renjun rolls his eyes and pours himself a shot. “More for me,” he says with a grin.
Jeno strolls up to the bar and slips the bottle out of Renjun’s hands. “No more for you, actually.”
Hopefully everyone would start to wind down soon so you could sneak off with Haechan. You glance across the room, watching him chat with Jaemin. Your eyes drift from Haechan to Jaemin as you observe from your spot at the bar.
Jaemin had come alone today, and you were ashamed to say you were glad. You didn’t like the way your chest tightened when you saw him flirt with other girls. You didn’t like the way your fist clenched when he kissed someone else. You didn’t like it at all, and it was better that he was single so you didn’t have to confront those feelings again. It was a selfish thing to think but you couldn't deal with that right now.
“You know what would be fun?” Jeno proposes, catching a few eyes encouraging him to continue. “We should go drunk tubing!”
“Omg, I’ve always wanted to do that! I think I left mine here last time, too!” Lily pipes up from where she’s lying on the floor, having collapsed hours ago after too many shots and too much karaoke.
“No way, what if you idiots drown?” Winter counters.
“Yeah, please don’t die, guys. We just became friends,” Yeeun pouts.
“We aren’t going to drown because you,” Renjun points to Winter. “You’re a certified lifeguard, and we…” He motions to the group, but it's clear he’s too drunk to remember where he was going with that sentence. “...you’re a lifeguard.”
“Yea, fuck no,” Winter looks at Renjun is disbelief.
“What he means is that people do it all the time. We’ll be fine,” Chenle chimes in. “Plus, Mark is sober, so it’s not just on you. We’ll blame Mark if someone drowns.”
“Dude! That’s not funny,” Mark groans.
“Y/N, please back me up on this,” Winter begs.
Your eyes slide over to Haechan, and you hesitate. “I don’t know… It could be fun. You guys should go.”
Mark steps forward, arms crossed, a knowing look on his face. “And what about you?” he asks.
You offer a playful smile. “I’ve got something else I need to take care of,” you reply.
“Great, all she cares about is fucking,” Winter huffs. “Fine! But if any of you die, I’ll kill you,” she adds, starting to gather her things.
Everyone erupts in cheers and swarms Winter with hugs. You walk over to Haechan and intertwine your fingers with his. “Wait for me upstairs,” you whisper in a hushed tone.
Haechan pulls you closer and rests his forehead against yours. “Where are you going?”
“I want to freshen up a little bit.”
Haechan leans in and kisses you. “Hurry up. It won’t count as birthday sex in a few hours.”
The others disappear out the door, and Haechan heads upstairs. You make your way to Winter's room to find your duffel bag. You had hidden it there because you knew Haechan liked to steal your panties, and you wanted to keep your surprise a secret.
The house is quiet when you leave the bathroom, wearing only Haechan's shirt, with the red lace of your panties peeking out teasingly from underneath. As you walk down the first-floor hallway toward the staircase, suddenly a door opens, and Jaemin steps out.
You both freeze for a moment, appraising each other with a glance. Jaemin is only in his briefs, and you feel your cheeks flush as you notice his growing erection. His eyes briefly scan your legs and the curve of your ass, then settle on your lips, which are glossy from the lip gloss you applied earlier.
“I didn’t know anyone was—” you start to say, but Jaemin grips your arm and pulls you into his room.
He pins you against the door, his arms settling on either side of your head, and for a moment, there's a heavy silence between you. You stand frozen, your eyes searching his face as he closes his eyes, a look of conflicted emotion crossing his features.
“You smell so good,” he whispers softly but there's a tension in his words, almost like he's holding himself back.
"I'm going crazy," he admits softly, almost like it pains him to say it. "You're really messing with my head." His voice trembles. There is desperation in his eyes and in a moment, he drops to his knees
He reaches out and wraps his arms around the back of your thighs, pressing his cheek into your lower belly. “You smell so good,” he repeats again but in a voice that sounds so far away.
“Jaemin, what are you doing?” you whisper, tone sharp with panic.
He ignores you, all he could focus on was the supple skin of your thighs and your scent as he shoves his face between your thighs. A low moan escapes him as he inhales deeply, his breath hot the fabric of your panties.
Your cheeks burned with shame, but you couldn’t deny the way your body reacted. The sound of his moan, the way his breath ghosted over your most sensitive spot—it all sent a rush of heat pooling between your legs.
“Jaemin, get up now,” you hiss your voice trembling but he doesn’t listen.
“Just need to taste you,” he mumbles, his words muffling against the fabric of Haechan’s shirt. “Just a quick taste.” And before you could protest further, his tongue slips between your thighs, pressing against the damp fabric of your panties.
A gasp escapes you, your hands flying to cover your mouth as you try to stifle the sound. “Fuck, Jaemin—” you start, voice breaking. “Jaemin, Haechan is waiting for me. We can’t—”
“I’ll be quick,” he begs. “Please.”
You were tired of fighting it, tired of being strong. You were weak, and you weren't afraid to admit it anymore.
With a shaky breath, you lift your leg, resting it over his shoulder. He didn’t hesitate, his fingers deftly pulling your panties to the side before he shoved his tongue inside of you. Your head hits the back of the door with a soft thud, your hands clutch at the wood as you try to steady yourself. His tongue traces patterns against your clit before his lips part and suck on it gently. His tongue dips into you like your the sweetest dessert he's ever had, like he's been waiting his whole life to get a taste of you.
He had something to prove. He needed you to see it, to understand that he was all you would ever need. He could be whatever man you wanted him to be. He could take care of you, fulfill your every desire, every need. He wasn’t going to blow it.
“Fucking dripping down my chin, princess,” he moans. You feel his strong arm wrap around your thigh, pulling you closer to him. His tongue was slick and warm as it licked deeper into you. You could feel him flexing it when you start to ride his tongue. Your legs quiver, your back arching slightly as you clench down around him, desperate for more. He knew it too. Knew your greedy cunt wouldn’t be satisfied with just his tongue.
"Let me give you more," he rasps, sealing the words with a sloppy, wet kiss against your clit.
You looked down at him, your chest heaving, and saw the raw hunger in his eyes. The line wasn’t just blurred—it was crossed, burned to ash.
Screw it
"Fuck me," you whisper, surrendering to the lust that had been building since that fateful day at Jeno's birthday party.
Jaemin moves swiftly, tossing you onto his bed. He hovers over you, fingers hooked under your shirt's hem, but before he can lift the offending fabric over your head you stop him.
"No. This is Haechan's gift. Only he can unwrap it." You feel foolish for drawing this line now, yet you cling to it, loving and respecting Haechan still, despite the tangled mess you're in.
Jaemin's stare hardens, but he respects your boundaries. He retrieves a condom before undressing himself slowly, giving you a show you can't look away from. Your eyes trace the lines of his body as your heart pounds in your chest. He rolls on the condom and pulls your panties to the side before guiding himself into you. You slick enough for him to just slip right in.
He dips his head into the crook of your neck and whines. It's choppy and tense as he takes in the feeling of you finally wrapped tight around him. One of his hands fists the sheets as he tries to steady his breathing.
It wasn't fair that Haechan got to have you all to himself. It wasn't fair that he was the one making your eyes roll back yet it would be Haechan that you went back to. He was the one deep inside of you yet you're still thinking about haechan.
He hadn't hated haechan, but that was before he got a taste of heaven.
Jaemin’s hands find your hips and lifts your bottom half off the mattress to give him the leverage to press deeper. You suck in a sharp breath at the brutal, calculated snaps of his hips. He is determined to break you down inch by inch. Your back arches, hands try to find purchase anywhere as they scramble for something to hold onto. You squirm beneath him, nails scratching down his back.
"Say my name."
"Nana," you whimper, transported back to those summer nights. You'd forgotten how good he made you feel, how he'd fuck you for hours in the back of his car.
“That's right princess, did you miss Nana?” he whispers into your ear breathlessly. His arms flex as he uses his strength to keep you pinned exactly where he wanted you.
"I missed you, Nana," you cry, tears streaming down your cheeks in pleasure. He licks them up, moaning into your ear.
"I missed you too," he murmurs, capturing your mouth in a heated kiss. It was the first time he's felt your lips against his in years and he savors the taste of you as he sucks on your tongue.
“I’m going to cum, fuck it’s too much,” you murmur, voice shaky.
“It's ok baby, give it to me. Just like that. Fuck me,” he groans, guiding your hips. “I know you want it baby, take it. Come on, take it from me.”
Your thighs quiver, locking up, as your orgasm crashes over you. Jaemin doesn't give you a moment to rest. He pins your hips down against the mattress, fucking himself to his own release, covering your mouth to muffle your moans.
"Good girl," he pants as you take everything he gives you.
He pulls out with a deep groan and manhandles your knees to your chest. He takes the condom off and strokes himself over you before painting the backs of your thighs with his cum. He releases you with a sigh and watches as his seed drips down to your ass. You catch your breath and he slips out of bed to dispose of the condom. You were spent, body aching but still managed to push yourself out of his sheets. You swear under your breath at the mess he's made on you. You grab a shirt from the floor and wipe your legs with it.
“I’ve gotta go,” you whisper hoarsely, hesitating by his door. You pause for a moment, then glance back at him as he leans against the desk on the opposite side of the room. “Keep this between us,” you add softly.
Jaemin nods, his expression serious—there's no wicked smile, no teasing air. “I won’t tell anyone, I promise,” he says quietly.
You slip back into the hallway, silence greeting you. You're an idiot and a cheater, and now you have to cover your tracks. You head back to Winter's room and grab her perfume. You spritz your body with enough to cover the scent of sweat and sex. You grab a washcloth and wet it with warm water in the bathroom. Carefully, you scrub away any lingering trace of Jaemin.
You rush upstairs, and as you enter the room, Haechan is already waiting on the edge of the bed. His eyes roaming over your body just like Jaemin did when he first saw the red lace of your panties peeking out from under your shirt.
“What took you so long?” he asked. He's in boxers and a white t-shirt, and when he leans back, his shirt rides up, giving you a glimpse of his bulge and what you're about to have.
You're surprised by the ache between your legs. You didn't think you were this needy but the way your pussy clenches tells you everything you need to know about yourself.
You love haechan, crave him , need him, that is never going to change. But you can't deny the lingering hunger for Jaemin as well. You would face what you had done another day, tonight was about giving Haechan the best birthday sex ever.
"I was nervous about showing you what's under here," you tease, pulling your shirt over your head. The cool air against your skin is refreshing.
Haechan's eyes are dark with lust. He follows your lead, pulling his own shirt off. You straddle him, leaning down to kiss him softly. It starts slow but quickly deepens, becoming hungry and desperate. His hands grip your waist, pulling you closer.
"Fuck, you're already drenched," he chuckles.
"I need you to fuck me," you whisper against his lips.
"You don't have to ask, love," he replies, grinding you against his hard length.
“You don't understand, I want it rough tonight,” you say. You don't know why but you needed him to choke you, to make you hurt. Maybe it was the guilt that was eating away inside of you but you didn't deserve his love tonight, not after what you did. You needed him to punish you.
"You've been a bad girl, haven't you?" His voice is low, dangerous. He forces you to look at him, gripping your chin roughly. “You wanna play rough tonight, you sure?”
You nod with a whine and try to lean forward to kiss him but he holds you in place."If we're going to play rough, you need to listen baby. Safeword?"
"Cloudy," you mumble against his hold.
"That’s my girl," he praises, releasing your chin and patting your cheek roughly. "Now, tell me what you want."
“I just want to be yours. I want you to use me however you want,” you mumble playing with the hair at the back of his neck.
“Stand up. Let me see how pretty you look,” he says, rubbing soothing circles into the skin of your thighs.
You stand up on shaky legs and give him a 360 of the red lingerie set you were wearing. You bend over slowly for him to give him a view of your ass, before facing him again. You stand between his legs, taking his hand in yours, guiding his fingers over your breasts and the skin of your stomach. “Do you like it?”
His gaze is lustful as he watches you. You could almost see everything he wanted to do to you. “You look perfect,” he breathes out. His hand moves on its own, trailing up the side of your neck, fingers tangling in your hair at the nape before he pulls harshly. His eyes darken. "Get on your knees."
Your legs give out, and you kneel before him. You reach out to touch him, but he tugs your head back roughly. "I said if you wanted to play rough, you had to listen. Did I say you could touch me?"
Your body trembles as you shake your head no against his grip.
"Open your mouth," he commands.
You obey and you watch as he collects spit in his mouth before he lets it drip lazily down your throat. He groans at the sight and leans down to kiss you. It was sloppy and full of tongue as he explored your mouth. He pulls away, nipping at your bottom lip before forcing you to look up at him.
"Hands behind your back," he says coldly, freeing himself from his boxers. “And keep your mouth open.”
He guides you forward over his dick and slips down your throat. You struggle not to gag, your throat tightening as he moans, his hips bucking, driving himself deeper. "You got it, baby. You can do it," he encourages, fucking your throat selfishly. You cough, trying to pull back, but he holds you down, his pubic hair tickling your nose. He releases you after a few moments, and you glare up at him, tears in your eyes.
"This is what you wanted," he shrugs. "Again."
You take a deep breath and take him back into your throat. He wipes the saliva that trickles down your chin with his thumb, then presses his fingers firmly against the base of your throat. He wore the bracelet that you gifted him earlier that night. You could feel the cool metal bite your skin as he admired the gold on his wrist as he wrapped his hand around your throat. His lip twitches as he watches you, your spit-slicked lips and tear-stained cheeks. He wouldn't have you any other way.
He groans deep in his chest before he pulls you off again. “Get on the bed, on your hands and knees." Your knees dig into the sheets on the bed as you settle down in the middle."
“Now, spread yourself for me," he orders, his voice rough with desire. You hesitate for a moment, but then you comply, spreading your cheeks as heat rises up your neck.You felt vulnerable and exposed. He groans at the sight and runs a warm palm down your spine, pressing an arch into your back. "Good girl," he praises.
He leans down, his breath hot on your ear. "You want me to fuck you here, don't you?" he whispers teasingly, pressing a finger against your tight hole. You gasp, your body tensing. "Answer me," he demands.
"Yes," you whimper. "Please, Haechan. Fuck me."
He leans down and kisses your shoulder as his finger presses in slightly. "You're going to take me so well, aren't you?" he teases. His fingers work you open. "You're going to take every inch of my cock."
You nod, your body trembling with anticipation. He pulls his hand back, then spits into it. He rubs his saliva onto his cock, making it slick, before pressing the head against your asshole. You take a deep breath, trying to relax.
"Bite down," he instructs, and you do as he says, shoving your face into the nearest pillow as he presses into you. You gasp at the intense, unfamiliar feeling, your body clenching around him. He pauses and gives you time to adjust before pushing in deeper.
He fucks you slowly at first, letting you feel every inch of him, before picking up the pace. His hips slap against your ass, his grip on your hips bruising. You cry out, the sensation overwhelming, yet you can't help but push back against him, begging for more.
He leans down, his breath ragged. "You like that, don't you?" he growls. "You like taking my cock like this?"
"Yes," you moan. "Fuck, Haechan. I'm going to cum."
His movements become more brutal. "Not yet, you're not," he says. "You don't cum until I say you can." He reaches around, his fingers finding your clit, rubbing it in tight circles. "You're going to cum with me, understand?"
You nod, your body tensing, your moans growing louder. He can feel you clenching around him, your body close to the edge. "Now, baby," he groans. "Cum with me."
Your body convulses, your orgasm ripping through you as he finds his own release, filling you completely. He collapses onto your back, his body spent, before pulling out and rolling onto the bed beside you.
Your limbs were heavy and you knew you were going to be sore in the morning. The bruises beginning to darken on your hips and the hickeys adorning your neck would be impossible to hide from the prying eyes of your friends. Yet, you feel satisfied, more so than you had ever been in your entire life. You felt complete and whole and alive. The guilt and distress would come later, you couldn't run away from your actions forever. But what was done was done, you could only live in the now.
And right now? You would do it all again.
a/n: for those who want a part 2 I'm sorry lol
shouldn’t, couldn’t, wouldn’t —
⚡︎ .ᐟ boy-next-door!haechan x reader—where they weren't supposed to kiss. or call. or catch feelings. too bad they suck at rules.
⚡︎ .ᐟ inspired by NIKI's "shouldn't, couldn't, wouldn't"—i love her so much plz give the song a listen if you haven't yet!!
⚡︎ .ᐟ suggestive content, and waayyy too many late-night feelings. (11.2k)
· · ─ ─ · · · · ─ ─ · ·
moving day was a disaster waiting to happen, and surprise—it happened. three hours of sleep, zero caffeine, and enough bad decisions packed into one tote bag to make a reality show jealous.
all you had to do was survive moving day without collapsing, crying, or accidentally making eye contact with a neighbor you'd have to avoid forever.
spoiler alert: you would fail at all three.
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · · · · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
shouldn’t
moving day was already the worst.
you were sleep deprived, under caffeinated, and sweating through your tote bag. you had just barely managed to drag a heavy suitcase to your apartment door before realizing the key was on the very bottom of your backpack. beneath a book, a half-eaten granola bar, and your crippling regret.
he was sitting across from your new apartment, cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by half a bag of cheetos and the loudest facetime call in the world. from what you could hear, his friend was yelling something about a suspicious rash.
he looked up just in time to catch you drop your bag, trip over it, and slam your forehead lightly into your own door.
there was a long pause.
then he muted his call and clapped.
“10 out of 10 entrance,” he said, still chewing.
you stared at him from the floor, holding your dignity in both hands like a fragile egg.
“thanks,” you deadpanned. “been rehearsing that fall for weeks.”
he grinned like this was the highlight of his day.
and to make things worse, he was stupid hot. like—should not be allowed to have a face like that—hot. tousled brown hair, warm skin, golden chain resting against his collarbone. and of course, the stupid frog socks.
“you moving in?” he asked, like that wasn’t obvious from the five boxes labeled ‘sad kitchen stuff’ next to you.
“no,” you said. “i just like loitering in random hallways. adds spice to my week.”
he tilted his head. “you’re funny.”
“you’re nosy.”
“you’re in my way.”
“you’re still staring.”
you blinked. looked away so fast your neck almost cracked. he was still grinning, smug, stupid, and gorgeous.
“i’m haechan,” he offered, finally. “i live across from you. that makes us... hallway buddies.”
“gross,” you muttered. “do not say that ever again.”
he only winked. “you’ll love me in three to five business days.”
later that night, after successfully unpacking approximately one spoon and a broken desk lamp, you found a note slid under your door.
“welcome to the building. hallway buddies 4ever <3 - h”
you told yourself you rolled your eyes. you told yourself it didn’t make you smile.
you shouldn’t.
but the butterflies in your stomach said, good fucking luck with that.
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
your room is still half-boxes and unfamiliar shadows while you were on the phone with seol.
“oh, by the way, my cousin jaem invited me over to this pregame he’s having at his place. want to come with?”
you reply, “i think i’m just gonna stay in tonight, honestly.”
“too late! i’m already outside.”
you blink. then hear her knock.
jaemin’s apartment is loud. that’s the first thing you notice. not just music, but the sharp, overlapping noise of too many voices in a too-small space. you barely step inside when the second thing hits you.
and the thing was slouched on the couch in a leather jacket, head tilted back, laughing at something jeno just said. then he sees you.
his whole expression shifts, like a switch flipped.
“well, well, well,” he calls out with a lazy grin. “if it isn’t my hallway buddy.”
you groan. “don’t call me that in public.”
you slide into the empty seat next to him before your brain has the chance to vote. his knee brushes yours. neither of you mention it.
across the room, jaemin tosses you a drink without looking. “new apartment treating you okay?” he asks.
“yeah,” you say, then glance at haechan. “we actually live across from each other.”
seol’s head whips around. “wait—you two live across the hall?”
you nod slowly. haechan just shrugs, taking a sip like it’s nothing. “guess we’re neighbors and now party pals.”
jaemin points between the two of you. “and this never came up before?”
“didn’t exactly come up in the elevator,” you mutter.
the night spins faster after that. drinks. music. renjun attempting to dj in the kitchen using two phones and a bowl. someone breaks out a deck of cards. there’s a group effort to freestyle over a beat that no one can agree on. laughter bounces off the walls.
you lose track of time—until you somehow end up crammed into a corner during never have i ever. haechan’s shoulder presses into yours, his voice low near your ear.
“small world,” he says. “hallway, party, now, a fun little drink game territory”
you raise your cup. “should’ve stayed home.”
he clinks his drink lightly against yours. “you’d be bored without me.”
you don’t answer.
because he might be right.
“never have i ever hooked up with a neighbor,” jeno said, smirking.
haechan looked at you.
you glared at him.
“i haven’t!” you protested.
“yet,” he said under his breath.
you blinked.
your ears got hot.
you told yourself it was the tequila.
later, in the quiet chaos of 2 a.m., you were helping him find a spare charger in jaemin’s room. mostly because you didn’t trust him not to steal one if left unsupervised.
“you’re fun,” he said suddenly, watching you from the doorway.
“i’m also emotionally unavailable and extremely good at ghosting,” you replied, digging through drawers.
“perfect,” he said, grinning. “my type.”
you stood up. too close. his eyes dropped to your mouth for half a second too long.
i should step back, you thought.
but you didn’t.
he leaned in slightly. just enough to test a theory.
you stared at him.
then laughed—too loud, too fake, too “please don’t let this be real.”
you cleared your throat.
“we should go,” you said quickly.
he hesitated. then stepped back.
“yeah,” he said softly. “we should.”
once it was time to go home, he insisted on driving back to your place. the drive back home was quiet. and once you’ve arrived at the building, none of you chose to speak. you walked, in silence, with your shoulders brushing.
you didn’t say anything when he opened the door to your building for you. you didn’t say anything when he held the elevator.
“you ever think,” he said, not looking at you “that maybe we’re just avoiding something?”
you blinked. “like what?”
his lips twitched. “something we shouldn’t do.”
you didn’t answer.
you didn’t have to.
the silence said enough.
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
the texting started as a joke.
haechan had left a post-it on your door that said:
“you left your dignity in the hallway again. i’m holding it hostage. - h”
you: u have the worst handwriting in the world 😬
DNI!!: shut up >:( that’s not what u said when u saw my handwriting on ur heart
you had no response to that. not a good one anyway.
after that, the texts never really stopped.
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
DNI!!: hey, u up?
you: if this is a booty call, i hope u step on a lego
DNI!!: 💔
DNI!!: u’re no fun
you: ?? i am SO much fun
DNI!!: prove it. come out
you: is this another hallway hang
DNI!!: unless u’re scared.. 😮
you opened your door exactly sixty seconds later.
he was already leaning against his, hoodie up, a box of ice cream sandwiches in one hand and the smirk. the one that said he knew he was your worst idea—and your favorite one.
“ice cream truce,” he said. “for your wounded ego.”
“from what?”
“from not kissing me that night at jaemin’s.”
you blinked. he was too close again.
“what makes you think i wanted to?”
he raised a brow. “didn’t you?”
you looked away. “just give me the ice cream.”
you sat in the hallway. backs against the wall. knees brushing again.
“so,” he said between bites, “what’s your tragic backstory?”
you laughed. “you first.”
he grinned, lazy and warm. “gemini. commitment issues. abandonment issues.”
“wow. the holy trinity.”
“and you?”
you shrugged. “recovering situationship survivor.”
he winced. “yikes.”
“you?”
“commitmentphobe with a god complex.”
you scoffed at him. “wow.. you’re actually self-aware?”
“only after 2 a.m.,” he said. “and only with you.”
you told yourself it was a joke. you told yourself the way he was looking at you didn’t make your heart do something stupid.
“haechan…” you started.
“yeah?”
“we’re not doing this.”
he paused.
“doing what?”
you glared. “this. flirting. late-night ice cream. emotional trauma swap. whatever this is.”
he nodded slowly. then smiled again. “yeah. no. definitely not. hallway buddies only.”
you both laughed.
but the silence after wasn’t light. it was heavy. like something was being buried beneath the joke.
when you got up to leave, he didn’t stop you.
because this—whatever it was—was exactly what you both knew you shouldn’t be starting.
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
you had a face mask on, hair tied, brooklyn nine-nine playing, and had just settled into your comfort burrito blanket cocoon when your phone buzzed.
DNI!!: can’t sleep
DNI!!: door’s open
you stared at the screen. then stared at your reflection. you looked like someone who’d lost a bet.
you told yourself you wouldn’t don’t go.
then grabbed your hoodie and went anyway.
his lights were dimmed, just one lamp glowing in the corner. the tv was playing some terrible reality dating show—a girl was crying because her man of two days chose someone else during a “trust fall challenge.”
“wow,” you said, sitting on the edge of his couch. “art.”
“masterpiece,” he agreed. “shakespeare could never.”
you watched in silence for a bit. you felt him watching you.
“you didn’t knock,” he said softly.
“you said the door was open.”
he nodded, eyes still on you. “just saying. you used to knock.”
“you used to be less cryptic,” you muttered.
he smiled. “i’m still cryptic. you’re just getting better at reading me.”
you laughed nervously. then fell silent again.
on-screen, someone yelled, “he can’t even define the relationship!”
you scoffed. “DTR,” you said. “men fear it.”
“yeah,” haechan muttered. “i’ve always sucked at that part.”
you glanced at him. he was looking at the floor. “why?” you asked, before you could stop yourself.
he shrugged. “because... once you define it, you can’t pretend it’s not real.”
you didn’t know what to say to that. so you didn’t say anything.
the silence stretched. not awkward. just heavy.
he was sitting closer now. when had he moved?
your knees touched. neither of you pulled away.
you looked at him. he looked at you.
and in that one, too-long second—your whole body went still.
he leaned in. just enough. slowly. like he was giving you time to stop it. your heart felt like it was trying to escape your ribcage.
you knew this was the line.
you knew you shouldn’t.
and still—your hand moved on its own, resting lightly on his knee.
that’s when he froze.
“if we do this,” he said, voice low, “everything changes.”
you swallowed. “i know.”
another beat.
“so, are we—”
you exhaled sharply. stood up. paced toward the door.
“we’re not doing this. we can’t”
he stayed on the couch, silent.
you didn’t turn back.
you didn’t see the way his expression crumpled just slightly.
you didn’t see how he watched the door long after it closed.
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
you were just on your way back from seol’s, high on caffeine and gossip, with a paper bag full of banana bread and a playlist queued for the walk upstairs. you didn’t expect to find him standing in front of your apartment door.
hoodie again. hands in pockets. that same boyish look that screamed, “i swear i’m trouble, but you’ll like it.”
“you forget your key?” you asked, unlocking your door.
“no,” he said. “just forgot what it felt like to be around you.”
“what?” you said, laughing awkwardly.
“that sounded better in my head,” he admitted, rubbing the back of his neck.
you tilted your head. “why are you here, haechan?”
he didn’t answer right away.
just looked at you like he was trying to memorize your face before doing something stupid.
“i think i’ve been trying to find excuses to see you,” he said.
you went quiet.
he stepped a little closer.
“i think i’ve been trying to forget you, too,” you whispered.
he stopped.
“and how’s that going?”
“terribly.”
he smiled—not the usual cocky, smug one. this was smaller. sadder. almost hopeful.
“can i come in?” he asked.
you didn’t trust yourself to answer with words.
so you opened the door.
and he followed.
you didn’t even turn the lights on—just tossed your bag on the counter and leaned against it, heart hammering like it knew what was coming.
haechan stood in your kitchen like he’d done it a thousand times.
“you want tea?” you asked, trying to buy yourself time. sanity.
“only if you’re making it shirtless.”
“you’re unbelievable.”
“you say that like it’s new information.”
you rolled your eyes. “you want tea or not?”
“nah,” he said softly, walking up behind you. “right now, i only want… you.”
your breath caught.
you turned around slowly. he was too close. too warm. too everything.
his hand lifted—not to grab or pull or take—just to tuck a stray piece of hair behind your ear.
“if we do this,” you said, barely audible, “we can’t pretend anymore.”
he nodded. “i’m tired of pretending.”
“we said we shouldn’t.”
“we also said we wouldn’t.”
you paused. “but right now?”
“we couldn’t not.”
that was all it took.
your mouths met halfway. desperate. months of lingering glances and almost-kisses finally unraveling like thread. your hands tangled in his hoodie. his fingers dug into your waist like he’d die if he let go.
it wasn’t graceful. it wasn’t planned.
but it was real.
too real.
somewhere between the kisses and the way he whispered your name like it hurt, your brain screamed that this is a mistake.
but your body? your heart?
they didn’t care.
on your couch, beneath the dim kitchen light, you let him see the version of you you’d kept guarded. and in return, he gave you the one he never let anyone else hold.
when it was over—when your breathing slowed and the silence returned—he traced lazy circles on your bare shoulder and murmured,
“i don’t want to go back to pretending.”
you didn’t say anything.
you didn’t need to.
because you were already too far in.
and somewhere in the back of your mind, you knew.
this was the beginning of something you wouldn’t be able to walk away from.
couldn’t
“you couldn’t DTR, wouldn’t it be nice if we could stay friends?”
you woke up to the sound of the kettle whistling.
for a second, you thought you were dreaming. your place was never that quiet in the morning—usually it was just the hum of your phone alarm and the silent screaming of your soul.
but this time?
there was someone in your kitchen.
and he was humming.
you sat up slowly, hair a mess, shirt barely clinging to your shoulder. it smelled like him. which was unfair. because now you couldn’t even wear your own clothes without remembering last night.
you padded out to the kitchen, barefoot and sleepy-eyed, only to find haechan pouring hot water into two mugs.
he turned at the sound of your yawn, grinning.
“morning to you too,” he said, sliding one of the mugs across the counter. “tea. not made shirtless. sorry to disappoint.”
“wow, you made me tea?”
“i did,” he said. “don’t worry, i didn’t poison it. i only do that on the third hookup.”
you snorted, reluctantly smiling. “so this is a hookup?”
he paused.
the room felt too still.
“i mean,” he started, “unless you’d prefer we call it a… spiritual bonding ritual or something.”
you gave him a look.
“kidding,” he said quickly. “honestly? i don’t know. i just… i wanted to make you tea. that’s all.”
you sipped it. still warm. still slightly sweet.
“you’re weird,” you muttered.
he leaned against the counter, watching you.
“and you kissed me back.”
“well, you kissed me first.”
“you moaned.”
“you’re lucky i didn’t bite.”
“..you did bite.”
you choked on your tea.
he laughed.
god, why did he always laugh like that? like it came from somewhere deep in his chest. like he wasn’t scared of anything.
but you were.
scared of this. of him. of how this already felt like something you couldn’t name without ruining it.
“you’re still here,” you said quietly, setting your mug down.
he tilted his head.
“did you think i’d leave?”
you shrugged.
he didn’t say anything. just stepped forward, gently taking your hand in his.
“i meant it,” he said. “last night. i don’t wanna pretend anymore.”
you swallowed hard. “and what exactly are we doing?”
he didn’t answer right away.
instead, he pressed a kiss to the back of your hand.
then your wrist.
then your shoulder.
your breath hitched.
“i don’t know,” he whispered. “but i do know i’m not ready to stop.”
and neither were you.
so when he kissed you again—slow, soft, full of unspoken things—you kissed him back.
not because it was a good idea.
not because it would end well.
but because you couldn’t resist.
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
the second time it happened was thursday.
because, of course, it had to be thursday.
thursday was supposed to be uneventful. boring. uneventful-boring-thursday. but then he showed up at your door again, hoodie down, smile up, eyes bright like he knew you were going to let him in.
you didn’t even ask why. just stepped aside and said, “you know the drill. shoes off.”
he toed them off dramatically and flopped onto your couch like he paid rent.
“you’re lucky you’re cute,” he said.
“you’re lucky i’m lonely.”
he clutched his chest. “ouch. right in the fragile male ego.”
“you have an ego?”
“only when you’re around.”
he had a way of saying things that sounded like jokes but felt like truths. you hated how easily you blushed. how fast your heartbeat got when he looked at you like that.
“i brought chips,” he said, pulling out a bag from his hoodie like it was contraband. “and the ramen you like.”
you narrowed your eyes. “are you trying to seduce me with carbs?”
“is it working?”
“...yes.”
and just like that, thursday was ruined.
or maybe, saved.
because the next thing you knew, he was in your kitchen again—badly boiling noodles and dramatically sneezing from the spice, and you were sitting on the counter, swinging your legs like a teenager with a crush.
you weren’t dating.
but you weren’t just friends.
you were something in-between, something unnamed, something filled with stupid inside jokes and unsaid feelings and late-night cravings that weren’t just about ramen.
after dinner, he sat a little too close. your knees touched. your pinkies brushed. he let his hand rest on your thigh and didn’t move it.
he kissed you again—slow, teasing, like he had all the time in the world.
you didn’t talk much that night.
you didn’t have to.
you both lay there in your bed, barely under the covers, silence pressing between you like a second body.
“do you want to sleep over?” you asked, almost too quietly.
he blinked. “i mean… yeah. if that’s okay?”
you nodded.
and he stayed.
after that, it just became a thing.
he’d show up.
sometimes with food. sometimes with excuses. sometimes with neither.
you stopped asking why.
he’d tease you when you wore his shirt around the apartment, and you’d throw a pillow at him when he called you “cutie with commitment issues.”
“takes one to know one,” you always shot back.
“i’m not one for titles, in other words, terrified. that p*ssy kept my words out the door”
you didn’t talk about what you were doing. you didn’t make rules. but there were rules.
1. no sleepovers unless it “just happened.”
2. no texting first (but replying fast enough so it didn’t look like you cared too much).
3. no kissing in public.
4. no getting caught.
and the most important one: no feelings. ever. not even a little.
but feelings were slippery.
feelings showed up when you watched him fall asleep on your couch, curled up like a cat.
feelings showed up when he brought you cough drops and orange juice the second you said, “i feel kinda off today.”
feelings showed up when he danced with you in your tiny living room to a dumb commercial jingle and said, “see? we’d win ‘so you think you can dance: emotionally unavailable edition.’”
you laughed, but your heart skipped.
because deep down, you knew:
you weren’t emotionally unavailable.
you were just emotionally terrified.
you told yourself this was fine.
you weren’t one for titles, anyway.
but one night—a random wednesday—you caught yourself staring at him for too long.
watching him fold your laundry like it was normal. like he belonged here.
and it hit you.
you’d memorized him.
his dumb jokes.
his bad habits.
the way he’d shut down when he needed you the most.
you knew him better than you were supposed to.
and worse?
you didn’t want anyone else to.
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
one night, while he was getting dressed after—hoodie half on, hair messy, lips still swollen from kissing—he paused in your doorway.
“you ever think about what we’re doing?”
you blinked. “what do you mean?”
he shrugged. “i dunno. like… do you ever wish it was more?”
your chest tightened.
“haechan…”
“i’m not saying we should,” he said quickly, waving his hands. “i’m just saying… wouldn’t it be nice?”
your silence was the only answer he needed.
he left a few minutes later, same as always.
but something had shifted.
something you didn’t have the words for yet.
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
you shouldn’t have gone.
you knew it the second you stepped into the apartment.
because there he was. already wearing that stupid smug smile. already making himself way too comfortable on jaemin’s beanbag like he wasn’t half the reason your knees were still sore.
“look who decided to show up,” haechan said, raising his brows.
you kept your expression neutral. “someone had to make this room attractive.”
“and that someone’s obviously me,” he shot back.
jeno raised a brow. “you two flirting or fighting?”
you both answered at the same time.
“fighting.”
“flirting.”
everyone groaned.
“we get it,” renjun muttered. “sexual tension. unresolved. like literally every drama. can we watch the movie now?”
you sat as far away from him as possible. on the floor. next to seol, who immediately gave you a look.
“you good?” she whispered.
you nodded. liar.
she leaned closer. “you sure you’re not sleeping with him?”
you blinked innocently. “who?”
“don’t ‘who’ me. that look he gave you just now? that was either i’ve seen you naked or i plan to very soon.”
“seol, shut up,” you whispered, face heating.
across the room, haechan was very obviously not watching the movie. his eyes kept flickering to you.
he stretched lazily, arm brushing jeno’s shoulder.
“this movie’s mid,” he announced.
“you were the one who suggested it,” jaemin said.
“yeah, and now i regret it.”
you were trying so hard to focus on the screen. but you could feel him watching you. every glance burned. your fingers twitched.
seol’s eyes narrowed. “girl, your ears are turning red.”
“i’m fine,” you hissed.
haechan got up a few minutes later. “bathroom,” he muttered. but the second he passed behind you, his hand ghosted over your back. quick. featherlight. like he just had to touch you.
your breath caught.
seol glanced between you two.
“…nope. they’re definitely f—”
“back in a sec!” you blurted, hopping up and heading toward the hallway like your life depended on it.
it kind of did.
he was waiting.
not in the bathroom.
but leaning against the wall in the hallway, arms crossed, like he knew you’d follow.
“you know,” he said, voice low. “we could’ve just stayed home.”
“we’re being normal,” you said, avoiding his gaze.
he stepped closer.
“this isn’t normal,” he murmured.
“we’re trying to be.”
“trying isn’t succeeding.”
you were breathing too fast.
he moved again, backing you up against the wall.
“they’re literally in the other room,” you whispered.
“you think i care?” he said, smiling like the devil himself. “you looked at me like you wanted me to care.”
your eyes fluttered shut. “this is a bad idea.”
“so was the first time. and the second. and the fifth. but you keep kissing me anyway.”
you swallowed hard.
“you said we wouldn’t do this again.”
“you said that,” he said, closing the gap between you. “i never agreed.”
and then he kissed you.
like the world didn’t exist outside that hallway.
like every “we shouldn’t” was just foreplay for “we will anyway.”
his hands were under your hoodie. your fingers were tangled in his hair. the sound of the movie barely reached you—the real noise was the one in your chest, that loud, crashing ache of god, i want you, but god, i shouldn’t
his hand brushed against your hip, a deliberate, teasing touch that sent a shiver down your spine. you bit your lip, pulse quickening as you fought the urge to press yourself against him.
the sound of laughter from the living room seemed to fade into the background, drowned out by the pounding of your heart. you knew you were playing with fire, but the risk only added to the allure. you tilted your head, meeting his gaze.
"you know," you said, voice barely above a whisper,
"we're not exactly being subtle."
he smirked, his confidence unwavering.
"who said we need to be?" his fingers traced the edge of your hoodie, his touch light but deliberate. "they’re too busy with their own drama to notice us." his words were a challenge, a dare you couldn't resist.
your resolve wavered as his hand slid up your side, his thumb grazing the sensitive skin just below your ribcage. you leaned into him, body responding to his touch with a mind of its own.
"and if they do?" you teased, voice trembling slightly.
"then they'll see what they've been missing," he replied, his tone daring.
before you could respond, he cupped your jaw, pulling you closer. his lips brushed against yours, a fleeting touch that left you breathless. the kiss was soft, almost tentative, but it ignited a fire within you that you couldn't ignore.
you wrapped your arms around his neck, pressing yourself against him as the kiss deepened. his hands moved to your waist, pulling you tighter until there was no space between you.
the hallway seemed to shrink around you, the world narrowing to just the two of you and the heat of your desire. you moaned softly into his mouth, fingers tangling in his hair as you surrendered to the moment.
his hands moved lower, sliding over your hips and down to your thighs. he lifted you effortlessly, pressing you against the wall as he kissed you with a hunger that left no doubt about his intentions.
you wrapped your legs around his waist, your heart racing as you felt the hardness of his body against yours. the thrill of being so close to getting caught only heightened the sensation, the risk adding an edge to your passion.
then jeno’s voice rang down the hallway. “bro, what’s taking you so long? are you pooping or—”
you broke the kiss, breathing like you’d just run a marathon.
“back in a sec!” he yelled, way too cheerful.
you pulled away from him, fixed your hoodie, hair a mess, face hot, and mouth swollen.
he winked at you. “so… movie?”
you glared. “i hate you.”
he grinned. “you couldn’t.”
and you didn’t deny it.
“i could take more shots or i could take you off your blouse”
the party was already a mistake.
not because it was boring—but because the second you walked in and locked eyes with him from across the room, everything else just turned into background noise.
haechan was already leaning against the kitchen counter, red cup in hand, loose black shirt and smug grin fully deployed.
you hated how he looked at you like he had a secret.
you hated it more because you were the secret.
you didn’t approach him.
you did what any self-respecting person would do.
you mingled, you laughed at renjun’s sarcastic commentary, you complimented someone’s fake fur jacket. and you ignored the way your skin buzzed under his stare.
seol noticed first.
“he hasn’t stopped staring at you,” she muttered over the music, sipping something suspiciously green.
“he’s looking at the chips behind me.”
“right. and i’m looking at the dip.”
you rolled your eyes, but when you turned around, he was gone.
haechan had disappeared.
and somehow, that made it worse.
because now you were aware of him—like heat at your back, like footsteps you couldn’t hear yet. like a ghost you definitely had unfinished business with.
you wandered down the hall, claiming you were looking for the bathroom.
you weren’t.
you knew exactly where you were going.
and there he was.
in one of the empty rooms, door cracked open just enough for you to catch a glimpse of him sitting on the desk, legs swinging, cup still in hand.
he didn’t look surprised.
he just tilted his head.
“looking for something?” he asked.
you stepped in and closed the door behind you. and locked it.
“you left without saying hi.”
“well, you seemed occupied.. pretending not to know me,” he said, voice amused.
you crossed your arms. “we said no hooking up at parties.”
“we also said no feelings,” he replied. “and yet here we are.”
“this is different.”
“is it?” he slid off the desk, walking slowly toward you. “or are we just really bad at rules?”
your breath caught when he reached you.
“don’t look at me like that,” you whispered.
“like what?”
“like you’re gonna do something reckless.”
he leaned in. “define reckless.”
you didn’t answer.
your lips already did.
the kiss was hot and desperate, all the tension from earlier spilling over. his hands were on your waist, yours fisting in his shirt like you needed to anchor yourself.
he lifted you onto the desk like you weighed nothing. like he needed you closer. like he didn’t care who walked in.
“someone could come in,” you mumbled against his mouth.
“door’s locked.”
“people are literally outside.”
he grinned. “guess we’ll be quiet, then.”
your laugh was breathless. “you are never quiet.”
“watch me,” he whispered, and kissed you again.
it was fast. messy. intense. the kind of kiss that made your knees weak and your heart angry with you. because you knew better.
but you didn’t want to do better.
you hadn’t even had a drink.
you didn’t need one.
he was already intoxicating.
“this is so bad,” you moaned,
“the worst,” he agreed. “we’re going to hell.”
“we said we’d stop.”
“we say a lot of things.”
“and what are we gonna say after this?”
he met your eyes.
and for once, he didn’t joke.
“nothing,” he said. “we don’t have to say anything. we never do.”
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
you were at his place.
again.
for “homework.”
because apparently, two people who have the self-control of soggy toast thought they could survive a full hour of proximity without pouncing on each other.
“seriously,” you said, dropping your bag on his bed. “we’re gonna study. like, for real. no distractions.”
haechan raised both hands in fake surrender. “no distractions. i swear.”
you narrowed your eyes.
“no weird comments. no staring. no—”
“sexually suggestive jokes? i would never.”
“haechan.”
he smiled, all teeth. “fine. serious face. hit me with the notes.”
ten minutes in, he was already failing.
you were mid-sentence, reading off your notes, when you noticed it.
he was staring at your lips.
you didn’t look up. “stop it.”
“stop what?” he said, all fake innocence.
“you’re doing that thing where you pretend to listen but you’re actually thinking about making out with me.”
“no i’m not,” he said. “i’m thinking about undressing you with my teeth.”
you dropped your pen. “jesus christ—“
“what?” he laughed, leaning back against the wall. “you said no weird comments, not no honest ones.”
“you’re impossible.”
“and yet, here you are.”
you glared. “this is why we can’t do normal things. like sit. and study. and exist without humping.”
“not my fault you look hot when you’re focused.”
you turned to him, exasperated. “you promised.”
“i promised nothing. you said, ‘let’s study,’ and i nodded while imagining you in nothing but a t-shirt.”
you stood. “i’m going home.”
“no, you’re not.”
“watch me.”
“you say that every time, but then—” he stood too, walking toward you like you were prey and he was seconds from pouncing—“you remember how good we are at not studying.”
“we said we wouldn’t do this again.”
he paused in front of you. close. too close.
you hated that you were already leaning in.
“we shouldn’t do this again,” you corrected.
“yet, we couldn’t not,” he whispered, brushing his fingers down your arm.
you stared at him.
this was supposed to be simple.
but now, he was looking at you like you were the only thing in the world that made sense, and your heart was doing that thing again, that stupid, fluttery, traitorous thing—
you grabbed his face and kissed him.
and he laughed into it, breath hitching, like he’d known you’d give in.
like he’d always know.
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
you woke up tangled in his sheets.
his arm slung over your waist. his face buried in your neck. your phone buzzing somewhere beneath your discarded jeans with three missed calls from seol
seolace: u said “just homework”
seolace: be so serious rn
seolace: r u . still . at his place .
you threw your phone under the pillow and turned to face him.
he was awake.
“hi, baby” he mumbled, voice scratchy.
“we’re not doing this again.” you said—ignoring the tiny somersault your stomach just did
he smirked, eyes still closed. “totally.”
“i’m serious.”
“mhmm.”
you sighed, brushing a strand of hair off his face.
you both knew you were lying.
but for now?
you didn’t care.
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
you were up late, preparing for midterms, when your phone suddenly buzzed next to you.
DNI!!: hey, are u up?
DNI!!: not in a ‘come over’ way
DNI!!: okay. maybe in a ‘can i come over’ way
DNI!!: but also.. i brought food
you: if it’s just fries again i’m blocking u
DNI!!: c’monnn babee it’s fries AND ice cream
DNI!!: pleeaaasseee )): u know u love me
DNI!!: fries* 😊
you opened your door three minutes later in mismatched socks and a shirt that—may or may not—have been his.
he looked at you like you were ridiculous.
you rolled your eyes, tossing him a napkin. he didn’t sit on the floor this time—instead, he plopped onto your bed like he lived there. like it was normal. like this whole setup was normal.
“you look tired,” he said through a mouthful of fries.
“midterms,” you replied.
he frowned. “are you okay?”
you nodded. “just a little burnt out.”
he reached over, brushing his thumb across your cheek like it was nothing. like it was the most natural thing in the world.
“you should rest more,” he said, soft.
you blinked.
haechan wasn’t… sweet. not like this.
he was chaotic. loud. reckless. he made fun of you for having a notes app titled ‘reasons not to text him.’
he wasn't supposed to care.
you cleared your throat. “you’re being weird.. again.”
“no i’m not.” he looks at you confused.
“you’re being like… thoughtful.”
he rolled his eyes, shoving a donut in front of your mouth. “fine. next time i’ll throw fries at your face instead.”
you smiled, biting into the donut. “thank you.”
he shrugged. “don’t mention it.”
but he stayed. longer than he usually did.
you watched a dumb movie. you argued about which side of the blanket was yours. he dozed off halfway through with his head on your shoulder, arm slung across your stomach like it belonged there.
you didn’t move.
you just stared at the ceiling, heartbeat doing laps in your chest.
this wasn’t just casual anymore.
you both knew it.
and when he stirred in the early morning light, blinking up at you with sleep in his eyes and a softness in his voice that made your throat ache—
“do you want me to go?”
you almost said no.
but you smiled instead. like always.
“probably.”
he nodded.
but he didn’t move.
“it’s not anything you said, it’s everything you didn’t”
it was raining.
not the dramatic, movie-style kind—just a steady, quiet drizzle tapping against your window as the afternoon faded into blue.
you hadn’t planned to see him.
he hadn’t planned to show up.
but at some point in the day, you’d both ended up in your bed again, sharing your last bag of popcorn and making sarcastic commentary over a romcom neither of you were really watching.
you were lying on your stomach. he was on his back beside you, fingers lazily scrolling through his phone, feet nudging yours every few minutes like a bored child.
“how is it,” he said suddenly, “that you always smell like vanilla and bad decisions?”
you kicked his leg. “how is it that you always sound like a red flag wrapped in a hoodie?”
“it’s a gift.”
you laughed, eyes fluttering shut.
he was quiet for a moment.
“i like this.”
you peeked at him. “the movie?”
“no. this,” he said, waving vaguely at the space between you. “us. being here. it’s... nice.”
you tried to play it off. “don’t get sappy on me now. i will physically throw you out.”
he smiled, soft and slow. “i mean it.”
you looked away, heart thudding in your chest in a way that was not normal. definitely not casual. it was the kind of thud that reminded you that this whole thing—whatever it was—had gotten far out of hand.
“you’ve been acting unusual lately,” you said.
“you always say that when i’m not trying to get in your pants.”
“because… it freaks me out.”
“good. fear keeps things spicy.”
you scoffed.
then, silence.
not uncomfortable. just… full.
full of things neither of you were ready to say.
finally, you broke it.
“you ever think about how we shouldn’t have started this?”
he didn’t look at you.
but he nodded.
“yeah,” he said. “all the time.”
you turned to face him.
“do you regret it?”
he glanced at you then, eyes unreadable.
“no,” he said. “but sometimes i wish it didn’t feel like this.”
“like what?”
“like… if we keep going, one of us is gonna get hurt.”
you swallowed hard.
you knew he was right.
you also knew you weren’t ready to stop.
you reached over and touched his hand—just barely, just enough—and whispered, “stay. just for a bit.”
he did.
no touching. no kissing. no jokes.
just you, him, and the rain outside.
and all the things you still weren’t saying.
“you go and shut me out, figures, you gemini”
it had been one of those nights—the kind where the weight of the world seemed to settle on your shoulders, and the only remedy was to dull the edges with a bottle and a bad rom-com.
but just as you were about to surrender to sleep, the sharp buzz of the doorbell jolted you back to reality.
you groaned, setting the glass down with a thud. who the hell would be at your door at this hour? you weren’t expecting anyone, and the only person who ever showed up unannounced was him.
and the thought alone made your stomach twist. you hesitated, debating whether to ignore it, but curiosity—or maybe something more stubborn—got the better of you. you dragged yourself to the door, flipping on the hallway light as you went.
there he stood, leaning against the frame with that infuriating smirk plastered across his face. his hair was tousled, like he’d run his hands through it a dozen times, and his shirt was half-tucked, as if he’d thrown it on in a rush.
“forgot my charger,” he said, his voice low and casual, like this was the most normal thing in the world.
you crossed your arms, narrowing your eyes. “at midnight? really?”
he shrugged, that smirk widening. “figured you’d be up. you’re always up this late.”
you wanted to slam the door in his face. but instead, you stepped aside, gesturing for him to come in.
“it’s in the living room. take it and go.”
he didn’t move. just stood there, his gaze locking onto yours, and for a moment, the air between you crackled with something unspoken.
you knew you should’ve pushed him out, should’ve kept your distance, but before you could think, you were closing the gap between you, your lips crashing against his. it was reckless, impulsive, and entirely against your better judgment. but it was also familiar—too familiar.
he didn’t hesitate, his arms wrapping around you like he’d been waiting for this moment all along.
stumbling backward toward the bedroom, the world narrowing to just the two of you. clothes were discarded, excuses and self-control unraveling like cheap thread.
you didn’t want to think about why this was happening again, why you kept letting it happen. you just wanted to feel something—anything—other than the emptiness that had been gnawing at you all night.
“i hate you,” you whispered against his mouth, your breath hot and uneven.
he chuckled, his hands sliding under your shirt, tracing the curve of your waist. “you love me,” he murmured, his tone teasing but his touch anything but.
you didn’t correct him. you didn’t say anything. instead, you let yourself get lost in him again—in the way his lips moved against yours, in the way his hands seemed to know every inch of your body.
it was the kind of kiss that made your head spin, the kind of touch that felt like it was trying to memorize you. the kind of closeness that always made you forget how much this wasn’t supposed to matter.
but then—right in the middle of it, when your heart was pounding and your skin was flushed and your mind was a blur of want—he spoke.
his voice was low, almost a whisper, but it cut through the haze like a knife.
“god, i think i’m in love with you.”
you froze. just for a second. but it was enough.
he didn’t notice. or maybe he did. but he didn’t stop. his lips kept moving against yours, his hands kept roaming, like the words hadn’t just dropped between you like a grenade with the pin pulled.
you let him kiss you again. let him touch you like nothing had happened. like the words hadn’t changed everything.
but they had.
later, when it was quiet and you were lying there in the dark, your back to his chest and his arm around your waist, you whispered, "did you mean what you said?"
he was quiet.
too quiet.
"haechan?"
he let out a soft exhale.
"no," he said. too quickly. too carefully. "i didn’t mean it."
you nodded.
but you didn’t believe him.
he didn’t believe himself either.
but neither of you said anything else.
and in the silence that followed, you both realized something terrifying.
this thing you swore wasn’t real?
it was starting to feel like the only real thing either of you had.
“you wonder why suddenly i’m comin’ off indifferent. what you don’t seem to understand is..”
the next time you saw him, it was as if nothing had happened.
you opened the door, and he was standing there in his stupid hoodie, holding a bag of chips and some sour gummies like that could fix whatever this was.
“snack delivery,” he said, way too cheerful.
you raised an eyebrow. “you don’t even like sour gummies.”
he grinned. “you do, though.”
and just like that, the air shifted.
you stepped aside and let him in.
you sat beside each other on your bed—a little farther apart than usual. the movie played. the snacks sat between you. and the silence was louder than the speakers.
“so,” he said eventually, “you seen that tiktok where—”
“haechan,” you interrupted, voice quiet.
he looked at you.
you didn’t even know what you wanted to say. only that something was caught in your throat and it was killing you not to ask.
but instead of saying “you told me you loved me” or “did you mean it” or “what are we doing,” you just said, “why are you acting this way.”
he blinked. “you’re the one who’s acting.. strange.”
“no, you are.”
“i literally brought you snacks.”
“yeah, you’re being fake nice.”
he frowned, leaning back on his hands. “you’re being fake mean.”
“and you’re being fake fine.”
and there it was.
silence again. thick. awful.
you sighed, “can we not do this?”
“do what?”
“this thing where we pretend we’re mad at each other so we don’t have to talk about last time.”
he bit the inside of his cheek.
you were right.
and you were mad. just not at him. not really.
you were mad at yourself. for letting it get this far. for letting it matter.
but what were you supposed to say? that you heard him say he loved you, and then heard him take it back? that you wanted it to be real, even though it shouldn’t be?
he reached for the bag of gummies and started eating like it would fill the silence.
you let him.
but you didn’t move closer this time.
and he didn’t either.
“it’s not always peachy, look, love ain’t that easy”
you hadn’t seen him in a week.
not because he hadn’t tried.
he had—three calls, four texts, one passive-aggressive meme, and a “u left ur hoodie btw” that you knew was just an excuse.
you didn’t reply.
you couldn’t.
because it wasn’t just about the hookup anymore. it hadn’t been for a while.
you were catching feelings, and he was pretending not to. and the truth was—you couldn’t keep pretending too.
so when he showed up again—hands in his pockets, chewing gum like this wasn’t the first time he’d stood outside your door with something to say and no idea how to say it—you almost didn’t open.
almost.
you cracked the door open.
“i don’t want to do this anymore,” you said.
no hello. no smile. just the truth.
he blinked. “okay. wow.”
you nodded, bracing yourself.
he looked away, jaw tight. “you could’ve at least answered.”
“what was i supposed to say?” your voice was low. “we were hooking up, and then you said you were in love with me—and then you acted like it didn’t matter.”
“you asked if i meant it,” he said. “what was i supposed to do?”
“you could’ve told the truth.”
he was silent.
and that said everything.
you swallowed. “you know what hurt more than hearing you didn’t mean it?”
he looked at you, eyes suddenly soft. guarded.
“what?” he said, barely above a whisper.
“you didn’t even ask how i felt.”
he opened his mouth. closed it again.
and that pause—that silence—said more than anything he could’ve.
you stepped aside. you weren’t sure why. some part of you still hoping, still stupid.
he walked in slowly, looking around like the place had changed. like you had.
you followed him into the living room. it felt smaller with him in it. heavier.
he sat on the edge of the couch but didn’t speak. just looked at you.
you crossed your arms. “don’t say it again.”
his brows knit. “say what?”
“what you said last time.”
he leaned forward, elbows on knees, hands clasped like he didn’t trust them. “why not?”
you shook your head, voice flat. “because it doesn’t change anything. because we both know this—” you gestured between the two of you, the tension, the mess. “this isn’t real.”
he was quiet for a moment. then, with more force than before, he said, “feels pretty real to me.”
you stared at him. hard. “you always make it feel real. you say things like that, and you look at me like this is everything. and i let it get to me. i let myself believe it means something.”
“maybe it does,” he said, standing. “maybe i mean it.”
you searched his face, hoping for something steady, something solid. but there was only more uncertainty. more wanting.
“then why does it still feel like i’m the only one who’ll get hurt?” you asked.
he didn’t answer.
not right away.
and maybe that was the answer.
“you couldn’t define the relationship,” you said, voice low and shaking now. “you couldn’t say what you wanted.”
he took a step forward.
you took one back.
“don’t,” you whispered.
“y/n—”
“we shouldn’t have started this,” you said. “and now i couldn’t stop even if i wanted to.”
his face softened. “then don’t stop.”
you almost laughed. almost.
but instead, you stepped back toward the door.
“you need to go,” you said, quiet but clear.
he didn’t fight you. just nodded slowly.
“fine,” he said. “but we’re not done talking about this.”
you didn’t reply. just opened the door and waited.
he paused for a second. then walked out.
you didn’t slam the door.
you just closed it gently.
finally.
then you leaned against it, your chest tight, your mind loud. you knew you’d made the right decision. you knew it was the only way to protect yourself.
but still, his words lingered in the silence like smoke.
and something in you knew that nothing would be quite the same again.
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
renjun was telling some dumb story about how jaemin got kicked out of a 7/11 for trying to microwave his socks.
the group was cracking up. seol was doubled over. jeno had tears in his eyes. and haechan—haechan was laughing too, but his eyes kept flicking to you.
you didn’t laugh.
you smiled, sure. nodded. even chimed in once or twice. but your body was angled slightly away from him, arms crossed over your chest like a shield.
he noticed.
you noticed him noticing.
and seol definitely noticed both of you.
“what’s wrong with you two?” she asked suddenly, cutting through the noise like a knife.
you and haechan turned at the same time, startled. “what?”
“you’re acting weird,” she said, squinting. “like... not the funny, flirty weird. like actual weird.”
“we’re fine,” you said too quickly.
“yeah,” haechan added, forcing a laugh. “totally fine.”
the silence that followed was awkward enough to kill the entire room’s vibe.
jaemin blinked. “damn. now it’s weird for us, too.”
jeno cleared his throat. “anyone want more chips?”
you stood up. “i’ll help.”
haechan stood up too. “i got it.”
you both reached for the same bowl and your fingers brushed. it was nothing. a second. a spark. but it felt like being burned.
you flinched.
he did too.
and when your eyes met, it was like looking at a stranger wearing the face of someone you used to know too well.
“you good?” he asked quietly.
“mhm,” you lied.
he nodded like he believed you. like you were both pretending this didn’t hurt.
you took the chips and walked back to the others.
he stayed behind.
renjun watched him from the couch.
“not that deep, right?” renjun said casually, like a joke.
but it wasn’t.
and haechan didn’t answer.
because it was deep.
and it was drowning them.
“you don’t pick up when i call, unless i call you mine”
you don’t remember who called first.
it didn’t matter.
and then—quiet knocks. familiar eyes. the kind of silence that meant everything.
he stepped inside like he didn’t know what he was doing.
you let him in like you didn’t either.
no words. not at first.
you were both so tired of pretending. so tired of brushing shoulders in rooms full of people and pretending you didn’t notice how the distance hurt.
you kissed him.
and it wasn’t frantic this time.
it was careful.
like maybe, just maybe, if you kissed him gently enough, it wouldn’t break your heart.
his hands found your waist. yours tangled in his hair. the kind of kiss that tasted like forgiveness, or something dangerously close to it.
“you don’t have to say anything,” you whispered, breaking the kiss to breathe.
he shook his head slowly. “i want to.”
but he didn’t. not yet.
he touched you like it was the last time. like he wanted to remember everything. how your skin felt under his palms. how you sighed when he kissed down your jaw. how you looked at him when your guard finally dropped.
every movement was slow. like a secret unspoken. like you both knew this wasn’t just hooking up anymore, but neither of you wanted to say it out loud.
because saying it would make it real.
because if it was real, it could end.
he kissed every inch of you like he owed you an apology. like he wanted to say sorry for every moment you doubted him. for every night you stared at the ceiling, wondering what the hell you meant to him.
you looked up at him, breath catching. “haechan—”
“i meant it.”
your heart stopped.
“that night,” he said softly, pressing his forehead to yours. “when i said i was in love with you. i meant it.”
you blinked up at him, stunned. raw. silent.
“i just—” he exhaled. “i didn’t want it to be real. because if it was, then this... this thing we had? it couldn’t stay casual anymore.”
you swallowed. “and now?”
his voice cracked. “now it’s too real to ignore.”
you kissed him again. longer this time. deeper.
and when your bodies moved together, it was less about need and more about knowing.
knowing that this was never just lust.
that underneath the sneaking around, the laughs, the tension—there was always something more.
you both just tried so hard not to see it.
but now, in the dark, there was nothing to hide behind.
it wasn’t much, but it was enough. for now, it had to be.
the afternoon light spilled softly through the curtains, wrapping the room in a golden hush. you closed your eyes, breathing him in, letting the stillness wrap around you like a promise.
his heartbeat pulsed steady beneath your ear, a quiet rhythm that told you—he was here. this was real.
and yet, as the sun sank lower and shadows stretched long across the floor, a fragile ache bloomed in your chest. it felt too perfect, too fleeting.
his presence, his warmth, felt like something borrowed—something beautiful the world might decide you weren’t meant to keep. you wanted to ask him to stay. to whisper don’t go. but the words tangled behind your teeth.
so instead, you held him tighter. your fingers curled into the fabric of his shirt like they could root you to him, like you could stop time if you just loved him hard enough.
and he felt it—somehow, he always did. his hand found your cheek, tender and knowing, his thumb tracing soft, grounding circles on your skin.
“baby…” he said softly, the word brushing against your heart more than your ears. he tilted your chin up just enough for your eyes to meet his.
“it’s okay,” he whispered, voice thick with something unspoken. maybe he meant this moment. maybe he meant you. maybe he meant the both of you.
you didn’t know. but with his arms around you and the world held at bay, you wanted to believe it. even just for now.
it was quiet when it ended.
your head on his chest. his hand running slowly down your back. breaths slowly syncing. hearts still racing.
and for the first time, he didn’t leave.
and for the first time, you didn’t ask him to stay.
he just did.
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
the morning light came too fast.
you woke up before he did. you didn’t know what time it was. you didn’t care.
he was still beside you—breathing slow, chest rising and falling like nothing was wrong.
but something was.
something always had been.
you stared at the ceiling for a long time. longer than you meant to.
you wanted to stay like this—in the warmth of the sheets, in the comfort of his arm still lazily thrown across your waist, in the silence that hadn’t turned heavy yet.
but the second he blinked awake and looked at you… it hit you again.
this wasn’t yours.
not really.
he smiled, groggy and soft. “morning.”
you nodded. “hey.”
he leaned in to kiss you. and you let him.
but your hands didn’t reach for him the way they used to.
“you okay?” he asked, voice thick with sleep.
you hesitated. “yeah. just tired.”
you got up. slipped into your shirt. searched the floor for the rest of your clothes.
“you don’t have to rush out,” he said behind you. you paused. “i know.”
he sat up, rubbing his eyes. “did i.. say something wrong?”
you shook your head. “no. that’s the problem.” he frowned.
“you didn’t say anything,” you continued, still not facing him. “you didn’t say what this was. what we were. you didn’t ask what i wanted. or tell me what you wanted.”
“and i kept waiting,” you said softly. “for you to define it. for you to say something. anything. and you never did.”
“i didn’t know how,” he admitted, voice barely above a whisper.
you finally turned around, arms crossed, heart exposed. “i know. and that’s okay. but i can’t keep doing this if we’re just gonna keep pretending it’s not something real.”
he looked at you, eyes searching. “but last night—”
“last night was real,” you said. “this morning... this is real too.”
“we’re not always peachy,” you said, echoing the words you both used to laugh at. “love isn’t that easy. but it also shouldn’t be this hard.”
he didn’t argue. instead, he nodded slowly. “i know.”
you slipped on your jacket. picked up your phone. opened the door.
you hesitated—one foot out the door, heart still inside.
and just like that—the door closed.
this time, for good.
“i drank too much tonight, to not try to call you up. i mean, that’s what our phones are for”
you didn’t mean to pour the second glass. or the third.
but it was quiet in the apartment—too quiet—and the clink of ice in the glass felt like the only sound that wouldn’t make you flinch.
you sat on the kitchen floor, back against the cabinet, knees pulled in, sipping something too strong just to feel something soft. it burned going down. not enough to hurt, just enough to remind you you were still here.
the playlist was still playing. his playlist.
you hadn’t touched it in months. maybe you thought deleting it would be too final, too much like deleting him. so it stayed, buried somewhere in your phone. and tonight, it just… started. autoplay, maybe. or fate.
you weren’t sure which hurt more. you laughed once, sharp and bitter, as the first tear slid down. you didn’t wipe it. what was the point?
because this wasn’t about missing him anymore. this was grief. not over him exactly, but over the version of you who once believed love—real, chaotic, aching love—could fix things.
you were wrong.
and he… was quiet now. no more late-night texts. no more inside jokes. no more “u up?” that really meant i miss you.
and he was wrong too.
haechan sat on the steps, a half-empty bottle dangling from his fingers, the night wind brushing over him like a ghost. he didn’t know what time it was. didn’t care.
he hadn’t called. hadn’t texted.
not because he didn’t think about it—he did. every night. especially tonight.
but because he knew you meant it this time. you were done.
and for once, he didn’t fight that. he let the silence stretch. he let it break him.
he tipped the bottle back and swallowed hard. it didn’t make the ache go away, just blurred it at the edges.
your name sat heavy on his tongue. your laugh echoed somewhere between his ears and his ribs.
he remembered the way you used to pull away after, like you were protecting yourself from wanting too much. but your eyes always lingered. you always looked back.
he closed his eyes. and quietly, like confessing something to the dark, he said, “i’m sorry.”
no one answered. but maybe somewhere, over the hum of that old playlist and the clink of your glass hitting the tile, you heard it anyway.
wouldn’t
“so,” seol said gently, handing you a mug of tea, “you wanna tell me what happened now, or do i have to sit here pretending i haven’t been waiting weeks for you to say something?”
you stared down at the steam. then, slowly, “we ended things.” she didn’t flinch. didn’t gasp. didn’t say finally like most people would’ve. just nodded.
“it wasn’t supposed to happen, you know? like… we weren’t even friends. we were just messing around. and i knew—god, i knew it wasn’t a good idea. i knew we shouldn’t.”
she hummed, sipping her tea. “but?” “but we did,” you whispered, bitterly. “because we couldn’t not.” seol reached over and squeezed your wrist gently.
“and he told me he loved me,” you said, voice barely audible now. “and he took it back. like it was something to be ashamed of.”
“i don’t think he meant to hurt me. i think he’s just scared. i think he’s used to everything being temporary. and i let that be enough for a while. i let it be enough that he stayed.” your laugh was dry. empty.
“but it wasn’t. because i kept waiting for something—anything—to make me feel like i was actually his. and he never gave me that. he never said it. and it’s not even the words i needed, it’s the fact that he didn’t try.”
she looked at you. “what would’ve made you stay?” you smiled, a little sad. “if i had his heart. that’s it. if i really had it, it wouldn’t have been this hard.” she set her tea down and pulled you into a hug. you let yourself fall into it, finally soft, finally tired, finally allowing yourself to feel the weight of it all.
“i loved him, seol,” you whispered into her shoulder. “i really did.”
“i know,” she whispered back. “and i’m proud of you for walking away anyway.” you nodded, blinking up at the ceiling like maybe it’d have answers. it didn’t. but she was right.
you walked away. and that had to count for something.
“you know i was never good at this,” haechan said, toeing the leg of the coffee table with his socked foot.
they were at jaemin’s place, eating stale pizza and drinking flat soda, because of course haechan only decided to talk about it at 1 a.m.
jaemin leaned back against the couch. “so, are you gonna tell me what happened with y/n or am i supposed to guess from your playlist getting weirdly depressing lately?”
haechan looked away, his jaw clenching. “we haven’t talked since… since that morning.” “the morning she walked out?” “yeah.”
jaemin didn’t say anything, letting the silence settle.
haechan sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “i didn’t know how to tell her i loved her. i know that sounds stupid. i mean—i’ve said it before, to other people. but with her? it was different.”
“different how?”
haechan let out a low laugh. “like if i said it and she said it back, that meant i’d have to stop running from it. like it’d be real. and that scared the shit out of me.”
“but you did love her,” jaemin said. not a question. “yeah,” haechan said, eyes somewhere far. “like, all the little things. the way she acted like she didn’t care but would always bring an extra charger for me just in case. the way she’d make fun of me for being a gemini and still sleep in my shirt.”
jaemin snorted. “you are the most gemini person i’ve ever met.”
“don’t remind me.”
“so what happened?”
haechan leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “i didn’t give her what she needed. i kept making her guess. kept dodging the questions. like, every time she asked what are we, i answered with a joke or a kiss or a let’s not ruin this.”
he shook his head, voice quieter now. “she deserved more than that. she deserved more than… more than someone who couldn’t DTR.”
jaemin’s brows furrowed. “DTR?” “define the relationship.” jaemin blinked. “oh god, you really couldn’t even say it.”
haechan laughed, almost bitterly. “i know. and now she’s gone.” he fell silent again. the tv played something neither of them were watching.
“do you miss her?” jaemin asked after a while. “every day,” haechan said without hesitation. “but it wouldn’t be fair to go back. not if i still don’t know how to be what she needs.”
“so that’s it?” “yeah.” he looked up at jaemin with a soft, crooked smile. jaemin didn’t say anything. just leaned forward and nudged him lightly with his shoulder.
“you know,” jaemin said eventually, “you might not have said the right things. but you felt them. and that counts for something.” haechan swallowed hard. “yeah. just not enough.”
and for once, he didn’t try to joke it off. he just sat with it. with the ache of losing someone who had all of him—even the parts he never figured out how to give.
“wouldn’t it be nice if we could stay friends? but we shouldn’t.”
you were out on a tuesday.
one of those forgettable ones—no rain, no heartbreak, just a coffee run like any other.
until it wasn’t.
he looked the same. maybe a little older. hair longer. hoodie too familiar.
standing in line like he hadn’t once memorized your order.
like he hadn’t once whispered stupid jokes into your neck at 3 a.m.
he didn’t see you at first. too busy scrolling. you could’ve left. you almost did.
but something in you—that soft, reckless part—waited.
and then he looked up.
three people between you. two quiet months apart. his eyes widened, just barely.
fingers froze mid-scroll. and for a second, the silence between you felt louder than it ever had when you were together.
he didn’t smile. didn’t say hi. didn’t step forward. and neither did you.
and now, he just looked at you like a memory that still stung.
you were first to look away.
and when the bell above the coffee shop door chimed behind you, you knew—
you shouldn’t. you couldn’t. and now, you wouldn’t.
──── ☀︎ ──── ☀︎ ──── ☀︎ ────
💌: if you made it all the way here, thank you sooo much for taking the time to read this fic!! 🥹 i seriously can’t believe how much love my little stories have gotten so far—i mostly just write when a random idea smacks me in the face, so seeing people actually enjoy them?? unreal 💞
i wasn’t expecting to finish this one so quickly, but.. i may or may not have been thinking a lot—maybe too much—about a past relationship lately, i guessss that’s why this poured out of me so fast 😬
this is also the longest fic i’ve written yet! honestly, shouldn’t and wouldn’t were meant to be even longer, but guess who didn’t know tumblr has a 1000 text box limit 🫠 had to chop them down a lot ): still, i really really hope you had fun reading!!
p.s. please—don’t you dare settle for someone who won’t define the relationship. you deserve so much better 😤🫶
thanks again for all the support, and feel free to come scream about fic stuff or just say hi anytime 🧸 ‘til next time !! xx
the way almost all the fancams being recorded are of jisung😭 WE DO NOT PLAY ABOUT TTF JISUNG !!!!
heart to heart
word count - 44k words
genre - smut, fluff, angst, age gap (10 years)
pairing — surgeon!na jaemin x intern! mc
synopsis — your attending, dr. na jaemin, is all frost and control, never meeting your gaze, never letting your name pass his lips. but when his delicate, ballet-loving daughter, haeun, clings to you, calling you “mama” with heartbreaking certainty, you find yourself caught between aching shyness and a growing, dangerous desire. the tension between you and jaemin smolders, silent and electric, until tragedy cracks his careful world: a black swan dimming his ballerina dove. in the chaos, you gamble everything—career, reputation, even your heart—to keep haeun safe. and when the crisis passes, jaemin’s gratitude is anything but clinical: he teaches you things no textbook could, drawing out every trembling confession and every secret longing, until you’re begging to be ruined at his hands.
chapter warnings — explicit language, explicit sexual content(18+), explicit themes, greys anatomy (and early 2000s medical shows) inspired, early 2000s vibe, power play, dom jaemin/sub mc dynamics, rough sex, intimate sex, explicit language, rough attending-intern sex, ‘teach me’ bimbo kink, sir/bimbo dirty talk, throat grabbing, choking, forced eye contact, spit in mouth, spit as lube, face slapping, riding cock, begging for cock, loss of virginity, forced to beg, “be my fucktoy,” licking cum, cum on face, breast sucking, breast slapping, face fucking, legs spread, praise and degradation, crying while fucked, size kink, making a mess, throat fucking, being held open, orgasm control, daddy kink, grinding, public risk, denied release, “good girl” praise, ownership, dominant doctor, ruined for anyone else, crying after sex, body worship, being used, clean-up with tongue, possessive aftercare, this fic is deeply inspired by classic medical dramas—think grey’s anatomy—and if you know lexie grey, you’ll recognize the mc’s big heart, wild memory (photographic memory) and relentless optimism in a world that rarely offers comfort. please be warned: this is an adult story in every sense. it explores mental illness, physical illness, trauma, life and death. infant death is prevalent in this part, this chapter is set a year after part one, haeun is now two and she speaks, she’s adorable in this part, her dialogue might get some getting used to, i use hyperrealistic toddler speech, themes of found family, non-traditional parenting, single fatherhood, overwhelming child adoration, possessive child affection, haeun finds her mama this chapter🫶, oooh back to you lovers will love a very integral scene, important character cameos, domestic intimacy and loving, explicit depiction of medical caregiving (feeding, medication, inhalers, chest pain, child understanding illness), very innocent, naive, joyful two-year-old perspective (toddler-centric worldview), lots of ballerina scenes🩰, this chapter is the most traumatic thing i’ve ever written i’m warning you guys lol.
𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐃 𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝐎𝐍𝐄 𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄, 𝐅𝐈𝐂 𝐌𝐋
listen to 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐏𝐋𝐀𝐘𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓 whilst reading <3
Nana Haeun wasn’t born into safety, she was stitched into it, woven gently with every kiss pressed to her tiny forehead and each whispered promise murmured against the quiet rhythm of her heart. Her first breath was drawn in darkness, sharp and sterile beneath unforgiving fluorescent lights, every gasp met with the echo of her birth mother’s cruel promises, insisting that she, an innocent, harmless baby, was “a parasite,” she’d whispered into her swollen womb, vowing to end her before she ever saw the world. That voice, fractured by schizophrenia, tried to smother her life before it began, branding her existence an insolent wound that must be cut away. But in Jaemin’s arms, she discovered that breath could become a hymn, that lungs could fill not with fear but with sunrise. He’s her healer and her harbor, the quiet hands that steady her wildest turns, the steadfast voice that calls her home when her own heartbeat quivers. Once her world was measured in the soft taps of tiny ballerina feet, Haeun’s eager kicks pressing bright hopes against from the inside of her mother’s belly, it was answered by cruel blows, fists hammering those hopeful walls, and poisoned pills that seeped through her veins before she ever drew breath. Each kick, a yearning for warmth and welcome, was met with pain and whispered curses, branding her an unwanted burden long before she could see the sky.
She had lain on that rooftop once, an unforgiving stretch of gravel and broken glass, where her mother pressed her down like a discarded doll and vanished into the night, the city’s distant roar her only lullaby. Beneath a cold sky that offered no promise, the wind scraped across her tiny form, a cruel witness to a world so high and yet so achingly alone. Yet all of that has melted into memory now, replaced by sunlit mornings in Jaemin’s arms where the ache of old wounds dissolves beneath his gentle hands. He greets her first breath with a soft hymn of “Good morning, my baby girl,” pressing his palm over her scar as though sealing her fragile universe against every shadow. In that quiet communion, her heartbeat becomes more than survival—a lyric he has memorized, each beat a vow that darkness will never claim her again. With the tenderness of dawn itself, he lifts her onto his hip and carries her to the window, draping a pastel quilt across her shoulders like morning mist. She leans in, cheek brushing cool glass, eyes wide as she watches dust motes drift through golden beams. a private constellation just for her. Then, with a mischievous glint in her eye, she reaches upward and he lifts her higher so her arms spread wide. “Catch the sunshine,” he whispers, and she giggles, the light pooling in her laughter, weightless and free. His own laughter follows, a warm ripple through the hush and in that single, sunlit moment, their two hearts entwine, radiant against the pale promise of a brand-new day.
Now, when dawn slips beneath the curtains, it finds her spinning barefoot on hardwood floors, small feet tapping like raindrops, laughter tumbling free in a melody pure enough to make grief shrink back into shadows. The room blooms with her light, bathed in honey-yellow warmth, and he watches from a distance, he’s never too far, eyes soft as he tracks her tiny orbit. She’s his white-winged dove, dancing on shafts of dawn that he gently coaxes into being, every flutter of her tiny feet a silent ballet across the floor he holds steadfast beneath her. In his arms, she becomes a ballerina in a sky of gold, spinning free because he is the quiet tide beneath her, the gardener of her every blossom, the steady tide that carries her laughter like petals in the wind. His fingertips trace invisible barres along her spine, guiding each unsteady pirouette, catching her at the slightest tremor so she never knows the sting of a misstep. He’s both mirror and anchor: her reflection in his soft gaze and the sure shore to which her wildest leaps return. In that hushed intimacy, her breath warm against his chest, the soft coo of her coalescing joy, he finds his own rhythm, the echo of two hearts learning the same secret dance: that true safety is found not in unbroken floors, but in the embrace that steadies you when you dare to fly.
She is both blossom and sun—fragile yet radiant, always turning instinctively toward the calm certainty of his love. Like a sunflower rising and falling with each movement of the sky, her eyes seek his, brightening to match his smile, dimming gently into sleep beneath his patient whispers. Her joy pulls him like a tide, relentless and steady, and he submits willingly, the shore shaped entirely by her ebb and flow. Where once her body was fragile, uncertain beneath hospital wires and the cold hum of medical machines, now she blooms fiercely in soft cotton dresses, embroidered daisies stitched by patient hands, and bunny ears peeking shyly from rumpled blankets. Their home has become her garden, nurtured quietly by his tending: every small gesture a gardener’s touch, careful, attentive, coaxing growth from soil that once felt barren.
It isn’t the hospital monitors that kept her heart steady now, it's the way he folds her socks carefully in pairs, tiny and mismatched in colors that make her clap with delight; the way he pours her cereal gently into her favorite bunny bowl, letting her believe each scattered spill was perfect; the soft notes of lullabies he hums against the delicate curve of her back as she nestles into sleep, feeling at home in his arms. Her world is plastered in her art. endless sketches of Dada and Haeun hand in hand, ribboned hearts and sunbursts curling around their figures, each page a testament to the joy they share. On one especially proud morning, she unveiled a crayon masterpiece, letters wobbling with toddler earnestness: “Dada Nana Jaemin and Baby Nana Haeun.” She needed a little help lining up the words, so he steadied her hand with gentle fingers, whispering each name as she traced it into being. That single drawing, taped above the kitchen sink, sings of their shared promise: two names, two hearts, sketched side by side in bright, uneven strokes—forever echoing the laughter and love that fill every corner of their sunlit home. She had saved him long before he ever knew she was his; a tiny heartbeat pulsing through his darkest hours, a silent promise that the sun would rise again. Now every morning he wakes, breathes her name, and returns the favor.
Jaemin—the healer, the gardener, the tide; hands quiet yet strong enough to mend, soothe, and anchor. His love was not loud, but it is relentless, threading through their days with gentle insistence. He checks her pulse with instinctive care, fingertips soft against her small wrist, listening not for crisis but for reassurance, proof that she’s truly safe. And she—his bloom, his ballerina, his bright-eyed sunflower—moves freely because he keeps her grounded, the constant gravity beneath her dance. The miracle was never that she was cured; it was that she grew at all, wild and sure, petals unfurling season after season beneath his tender gaze.
He doesn’t raise her in silence but in careful, whispered symphonies: mornings bathed in golden sunlight filtering through curtains, tiny shoes lined crookedly by the door, one perpetually missing its partner; bunny dolls scattered across every room, worn and beloved, silent witnesses to the life she lives fiercely and loved. She has no memory of sterile rooms, harsh hands, cold stares, only the safety of her father’s arms, the rhythmic lull of his breath, the warmth of his lips against her scar, murmuring affirmations of bravery that make her chest swell with pride.
In every soft cradle of his hands, Jaemin tends the fragile promise of her life like a patient gardener coaxing a bud to unfold. His fingers trace the curve of her scar as tender as raindrops on new petals, and with each gentle touch, she unfurls a little more—cheeks rounding into blooms of laughter, limbs stretching toward tomorrow’s light. The wonder isn’t that she is cured—no surgeon’s stitch can grant that miracle—but that under his unwavering care she grows, season by season, into a fearless flower in a world that once sought to trample her. Haeun turns to him as a sunflower greets dawn, her whole being seeking the warmth of his steady gaze. She glows in his presence—bright as buttercup yellow against the grayest day—because he is the sun he promised to be, rising without fail at the edge of every morning. And he, in turn, lives for the orbit of her joy: her smile a beacon that draws him from exhaustion’s shadows and sets him splendidly alight, each day begun anew by the radiance of her trust.
She moves through their home like an untamed waltz, every step a wild arc of delight that defies her tender age and frail beginnings. Yet at the moment her pirouette falters, his hands—steady as mountain roots—reach out to catch her, guiding her spin with invisible strings of devotion. In that interplay of freedom and safety, her dance becomes their shared choreography, her wild heart carried safely on the tether of his unwavering love. Their pulses draw them together in a silent orbit, two small worlds bound by the invisible pull of love’s truest measure. Each thump of her mended heart echoes in his chest like a whispered vow, and every quiver of his own steady rhythm reassures her that she need never face the dark alone. They circle in perpetual motion—he circling her delight, she circling his steadfastness—until the space between them dissolves, and all that remains is the warm gravity of two hearts beating as one.
She never ponders the emptiness of a mother’s embrace, for in his arms she finds every warmth she could ever need—each bedtime story whispered against her crown like a sacred incantation, every strand of hair braided by fingers that tremble only with devotion, each “dada” breathed in reverence as though it were her lifeline. Her triumphs—the first unsteady totter across sunlit floors, the proud proclamation of her own name, the peals of laughter that follow the tickle of sea foam on her tiny toes—are his proof that miracles are born in the hush of ordinary moments. Jaemin hadn’t planned this destiny, yet the role of her father settled around him as naturally as skin: fierce in his protection, unwavering in his claim, magnetic in the way his gaze maps every contour of her joy. There was never a moment when he felt unprepared; “I’m her dad,” he always says with deliberate pride, voice rich and certain, and in that single declaration he binds himself to her unseen scars and brightest smiles—healer, guardian, and loving architect of her world—forever. In that moment his possessiveness becomes a shield around her heart—a healer’s oath, a guardian’s embrace—perfectly tailored to the role he was born to fill.
Their days are marked by tenderness so palpable it settles like golden dust on every surface, each sunbeam catching the soft hum of their routines. Sticky notes cling to the fridge—“milk, bunny snacks, new crayons”—while photographs crowd every shelf: sand speckling her curls at the edge of the tide, raincoat canaries splashing through puddles, the hush of afternoon naps with his stubble brushing her temple. Her laughter spills free and unmeasured by any heart monitor, gauged instead by the brilliant sparkle in her eyes, the rosy fullness of her cheeks, the fierce certainty with which she clings to warmth and wonder. They orbit one another like twin suns, each heartbeat a secret force pulling them ever closer into their shared daylight. Every morning arrives as a vow whispered in the hush of dawn, that shadows can be left behind, that healing arrives not only in medicine’s measured drops but in soft-spoken promises and gentle hands. She rises because his arms are unwavering; he breathes because her smile is unstoppable. In their perfect, private orbit, grief fades into legend, replaced by the glow of a sunrise they kindle together. And though she remains a fragile, still-sick infant—her world threaded through daily doses and careful checks—love endures as their truest balm, the most potent healer of all.
The night Jaemin carries her across the apartment threshold is thinner than paper, so quiet it seems the walls themselves hold their breath to keep from startling the life bundled against his chest. Only hours earlier fluorescent lights had carved harsh angles across the NICU, alarms blinking like erratic stars, but here the hush feels padded, a space softened purely for her. She doesn’t cry—not once. She only blinks up at him from the muslin blanket he’s swaddled her in, eyes wide and moon-bright, as though she already knows this is where her story begins again. He lays his cheek to her downy crown and murmurs, “This is home now, baby girl. No one ever leaves you again.” The promise tastes like salt on his lips; he sets her on the center of his bed because nothing else feels good enough, clicks on the night-light, and sinks to the hardwood beside her. For months after, he sleeps there on the floor, body curled toward hers, shadow learning to orbit her shape the way gravity bends to a star.
In a heartbeat his life reroots itself around her tiny pulse. The revolving door of late-night shifts, faceless bodies, and the anesthetic haze of barroom shots slams shut; liquor drains down the sink, pills flush away in a swirl, and the phone numbers that once cluttered his call log delete themselves like ghosts. He trades silk sheets for cotton crib sheets, echoing hallways for lullaby-soft rooms. He wakes to midnight squeaks instead of alarms, scribbles feeding times on Post-its in place of surgery times, and swaps designer cologne for the faint vanilla of baby lotion. Yet none of it feels like sacrifice—only relief, the ease of stepping into clothes he must’ve been born for.
The first dawn after brings a hush so luminous it almost hurts. He stands over her crib long before sunrise bronzes the blinds, tears pricking when he realizes the tiny rise and fall of her breathing belongs to him. When her eyes flutter open, he vows again—quiet, sure, irrevocable—to be healer, guardian, everything. Her fist curls around one of his fingers; for the first time since med-school cadavers and late-night code blues, his hands tremble. On the second night, Jaemin’s front lock clicks and in strides Lee Jeno, suitcase rolling behind him, expecting nothing more than a couch and catch-up beers. Jaemin opens the door with swollen, sleepless eyes and a tiny girl balanced on his arm, her face bright with a gummy grin. “She’s mine,” he chokes out, voice shredded by awe. Jeno’s breath stalls; shock drains the color from his knuckles where his grip tightens on the suitcase handle. Haeun—still so new, still so innocent—reaches out and seizes Jeno’s offered finger with startling strength. In that instant the apartment’s thin hush swells with something unnameable.
Jeno sinks to his knees, throat working around words that won’t come. “How…?” he starts, tears glassing his lashes as she coos at the stranger she’s already decided to adore. Jaemin folds to the floor beside him and spills the entire impossible litany. For a year he felt the silent tug of a child’s presence in his life, an invisible orbit he couldn’t name, only to learn later that the unseen pull had always been his own daughter’s. How he’d doubted whether he was even her father, but the moment the test came back positive, relief seeped into him like dawn breaking through night. How legal storms finally broke open, papers signed in midnight ink, how the cardiology files are thicker than her storybooks. He speaks of her heart’s zigzag scar, the medications timed like metronomes, the surgeries penciled in for seasons that haven’t arrived. Jeno listens, palm cupped protectively beneath her slipper-soft head, and when Haeun gurgles her approval his composure fractures: a wet laugh, a soft sob, the glaze of saline on her tiny brow where his tears fall.
Finally he whispers, voice hoarse, “Why does she look like my ex girlfriend?” The name, his lost love, his unopened letter, hangs brittle in the air. Jaemin’s shoulders cave; he tells of the mother whose mind ruptured into shadows, who called the child a parasite and tried to drown her future in pills and fists. He recounts a rooftop’s cracked tar where her newborn lungs first tasted sky, and the silent vow he made when he found her: never again.
The apartment stills around them, the hush broken only by Haeun’s shy coo. Jeno, gathering himself, extends a gentle hand. “May I hold her?” he asks, voice soft as apology.
At first she hesitates, little brows knitting as she peers up at Jaemin, as if seeking permission in his steady gaze. Then, with a tiny nod and an uncertain “Da?” she accepts. Jeno lifts her into his arms and she perches on his knee, curls brushing his collar, eyes wide as she studies the man who is now her “Uncle Nono.” Her laughter sparkles free when he tickles her ribs, a sudden bell of delight, and she babbles “Nono! Nono!” before leaning forward to bury her face in his shoulder.
Jaemin watches with a tender smile, then begins to introduce his daughter in the proud, loving way of a father who cannot contain his devotion. “This is Nana Haeun,” he says, voice rich with warmth. “She’s one year and one month old, already she stands steady on her own two feet, though she still totters when she’s very excited. She loves blueberries more than anything, they stain her lips purple, and she refuses peas every time, scrunching up her nose until you pick them off her plate. Her favorite toy is Bunny, the scruffy rabbit you see peeking from her sleeve, and she insists on bringing him everywhere, even to the kitchen for pancakes.”
He leans closer, brushing a lock of hair from her forehead. “She has a habit of humming to herself when she’s concentrating, on stacking blocks or turning pages in her books—and she’s fascinated by birds. Whenever one chirps outside the window, she freezes and whispers ‘tweet-tweet’ under her breath.” His eyes glisten as he adds, “Her laughter is like sunshine after rain, and she gives the best hugs, arms wrapped so tight you can’t help but feel she’ll never let go. She’s brave, even when her chest feels tired, and she’s already learned to tell me every time something hurts.
Jaemin’s voice softens to that fond, almost reverent register he reserves only for her. “She’s absolutely wild for yellow,” he begins, brushing a curl from her brow. “Sunflower dresses, rubber ducks, banana slices, the whole world has to glow for her. She points at anything canary-bright and says, ‘Yew-yow!’ like it’s the greatest revelation on earth.” Haeun nods solemnly, as though confirming the report, then twists so she can peek up at the kitchen wall where her crayon masterpiece glows in golden scribbles. “And she’s already a dancer,” Jaemin continues, pride blooming warm beneath his ribs. “Saturday mornings we go to a toddler ballet class, tiny barre, tinier tutus. She copies every plié, even if her knees wobble, and bows at the end like she’s on the grandest stage.” Haeun responds with a shy flourish of her free hand, then giggles when Jeno pretends to applaud, whispering, “Encore, princess.”
“Movie nights are sacred,” Jaemin adds, eyes crinkling. “Barbie and the 12 Dancing Princesses, Barbie Swan Lake, Barbie Princess Charm School, she chants the lines under her breath, claps when the credits roll, then begs, ‘Again, Dada!’ We make popcorn, though half of it ends up in her lap because she’s too busy reciting dialogue.”
Haeun nods vigorously, parroting, “Baw-bie!” before leaning into Jeno’s chest with a sleepy hum.
Jaemin’s tone grows gentle. “She loves cuddles, too—proper koala hugs that last forever. If I try to put her down before she’s finished, she does this wounded little gasp.” He demonstrates, drawing a hand to his chest and widening his eyes in mock heartbreak. Haeun copies the gesture with a tiny dramatic sigh, which makes Jeno erupt in quiet laughter. “She’s always been brave in water,” Jaemin goes on, “so I started teaching her to swim at the hospital hydro-therapy pool. She kicks like a tadpole, keeps her chin above the surface, and squeals ‘splash!’ until we’re both soaked.” He pauses, thumb smoothing the edge of her sleeve. “She sleeps through the night now, nine hours straight, can you believe it? But those first two months…” His gaze drifts, shadowed by memory. “She woke every two hours, gasping, chest aching. I used to sing until the pain eased, then dose her medicine and pace the room until dawn.”
Jaemin straightens, warmth returning to his expression. “Daily meds are still a must—digoxin in the morning, furosemide after lunch—but she takes them like a champ. We chase each dose with a sip of sunny-yellow mango juice; that part she adores.” He chuckles. “And she counts everything. Steps, stickers, kisses. Yesterday she gave me nine smooches and told me, ‘Ten tomowwow!’ as if love is just another milestone to tackle.”
It takes Haeun scarcely a breath to decide that Jeno belongs inside the small, sun-soaked circle of her heart—she gauges goodness by the steadiness of a voice, by the gentleness of arms that wrap without squeezing, and in him she feels only softness—so she scoots higher against his chest, cheek resting over the thunder of a stranger’s heartbeat that already sounds like home. Jeno eases one broad palm along her back, eyes bright as he introduces himself in a whisper thick with wonder. “I’m your Uncle Jeno, sweetheart. I'm your Daddy’s best friend since we were barely taller than your bunny. We used to race bikes till our knees turned to bruised peaches, we shared lockers, secrets, and every dream we own, and now my biggest dream is to watch you grow.” He vows to be the giant who slings her onto his shoulders at parades, the steady anchor beside her daddy during long hospital nights, the supplier of endless yellow crayons when hers wear to hopeful stubs, and the keeper of spare bunnies in case the original gets too loved to hop. He promises to be the shoulder she can nap on during long hospital waits, the giant who lifts her high enough to steal kisses from clouds. He tells her she is the greatest surprise a life can deliver, a gift wrapped in sunrise and ribboned with courage, and he vows, under his breath so only she can hear, that no shadow will ever touch her while he stands guard. When each pledge he tickles her ribs until soft hiccup-giggles bubble up; he counts them like free-throw swishes, grinning when she clamps his thumb in her tiny fist and coos at him.
“I travel a lot because I play basketball in the big, shiny NBA, but every flight will bring me back to you. I’ll send postcards from every city, teach you to dribble when your legs are ready, and cheer louder than anyone each time your brave heart beats another milestone.” He promises postcards splashed with city skylines, miniature jerseys stitched with her name, courtside tickets the moment she can sit still for four quarters (or at least two). “You’re the most precious, most beautiful girl ever, you know that? I’m going to love you so much it’ll make the stars jealous. Now, can you say ‘Uncle Jeno’ for me, princess?” She furrows her brow in fierce concentration, tongue poking the corner of her mouth, and after a heartbeat of determined silence declares, “Unca… Nono!!”—the mispronunciation is a triumphant bell that rings straight through his chest and seals the promise forever.
The moment Jeno settles on the couch, Haeun is already shimmying across his lap, tiny feet pattering like raindrops on soft carpet. She flings her arms around his neck and chirps, “Unca No-no!” in a voice so bright it feels like sunshine. He scoops her up and she giggles, “Hee-hee, No-no hug!”—words tumbling over each other as she buries her cheek in his stubbled jaw. Jeno’s laughter rumbles through her like a gentle drum, and she peers up at him with wide, trusting eyes.
“Do you like tickles, princess?” he teases, fingers poised.
She clasps her hands together, nodding twice, and coos, “No-no tickle me, pwetty pwease!” The plea is so earnest that he can’t resist. His fingertips dance over her ribs and she squeals, “I wuv you, No-no!” between bursts of laughter, then commands, “Kissy time, No-no, mwah!” pressing a sticky peck to his cheek.
He responds with a gentle smooch atop her head, murmuring, “I love you more, Haeun.” She stretches up to catch another kiss, then snuggles closer. “More cuddle, No-no!” she demands, snuggling into the crook of his arm as if she’s always belonged there. When he tries to shift away for a moment, she tugs his collar, giggling, “Again, No-no! Again!”—and he leans back into her pull with a soft sigh of delight.
Jaemin’s throat tightens and his eyes brim as he watches Haeun nestle against Jeno’s chest—her world blooming wider with every laugh they share. She senses the swell of his emotion and lifts Bunny, tapping her velveteen paw gently on Jaemin’s nose. “Dada happy,” she declares with baby certainty, bright eyes never leaving him. Then she turns and pokes Jeno’s cheek, cooing, “No-no happy!” Her smile deepens as she traces her finger over her own heart. “And Hae-hae happy!” she adds, voice ringing like tiny bells, and in that gilded moment both men exhale softly, hearts full to bursting.
Jaemin presses a gentle palm to Haeun’s back and murmurs into the hush, “She’s the most loving girl I’ve ever known, once she decides you’re hers, you hold her heart forever. She doesn’t waste a moment: she knows good people by their kindness, and her instincts are never wrong.” Haeun lifts her head, eyes bright as moonlit dew, and peers between the two men—Uncle Nono’s warm grin and Daddy’s steady gaze—then snuggles closer to Jeno, patting his chest with a solemn “Safe… safe.” Jeno’s fingers drift through her curls as he whispers, “You’re the sweetest little one, Haeun. You’re making me want to be a daddy now.”
Haeun’s eyelids droop as she nestles deeper into Jeno’s arms, the soft glow of the living room wrapping around them like a blanket. Above the coffee machine, a chart of medications stands guard; yellow sticky notes remind them to buy fresh crayons, and a stack of ballet shoes waits patiently by the door for tomorrow’s dance. She yawns, forming a perfect little “O,” then tucks her head beneath Jeno’s jaw and murmurs, “Night-night, No-no.”
He brushes a kiss across her forehead and whispers, “Good night, my princess,” voice warm as honey. He and Jaemin share a glance, Jeno’s eyes glisten in the fading light. “She’s perfect, you know,” he breathes.
Jaemin’s heart bruises with gratitude as he watches his best friend’s finger traced gently along the soft curve of her cheek, Jeno murmuring promises of beaches and birthday balloons while she blinks up, entranced. The three of them stay like that until moonlight curls through the window, Jeno rocking her with doctor-steady hands, Jaemin steadying Jeno with his own. Somewhere between those breaths, Haeun drifts into sleep, safe between healer and brother, the world outside shrinking to the quiet thunder of two men learning what it means to love a fragile universe more than themselves. Jaemin’s nod is quiet but resolute. “She’s more than perfect.” And in the soft stillness that follows, Haeun’s gentle, even breathing fills the room, a reminder that sometimes the greatest miracles curl up in your arms, small and fragrant as mango juice and sunrise, teaching you that love can rebuild worlds.
By the time Haeun turns two, Uncle Nono has settled into her world as surely as sunrise. When Daddy’s pager chirps at dawn or the weight of night shifts pulls Jaemin into the hospital’s hum, Jeno swoops in, cape optional, but always present, in a flurry of laughter and pastel balloons. He whisks her out on “dates” that feel as grand as any gala: trips to the corner bakery where she perches atop the counter stool, sugar-dusted cheeks pressed against the glass, declaring each pastry “just right” before he buys her a strawberry tart. They wander through the park on golden afternoons, Jeno’s giant hand cradling her small grip as she toddles over sunlit paths, stopping to examine every snail trail like it’s the world’s greatest wonder. On rainy days they build fortress cities on the living room floor, she barks commands in her baby-soldier voice, “no-no, we need more pillows!” while he salutes with a stuffed bunny and bows to her with theatrical flair. When Daddy finally breaks away from the hospital lights to join them, he finds Haeun perched in Jeno’s lap, curly head tipped back in gleeful abandon, eyes shining with the simple trust of a child who knows love has many arms.
She adores him without reservation, her second-favorite person only behind the strong rhythm of Jaemin’s heartbeat, and each reunion is an event. The moment she spies him through the front door, she squeaks “Unca Nono!” and launches herself into his open arms, tiny legs kicking as though she could fly. She plants a sticky kiss on his cheek, delivered with the solemnity of her own “hello, my boyfwen!”—and his laughter rumbles through her like a joyous promise. Jaemin watches with a mock glare that softens at the corners; this is the purest proof that her heart has room for more than one home. Even in the quiet of bedtime, she clutches Jeno’s hand as he tucks her in, babbling about tomorrow’s “bakey date” and “pawk walk,” and he strokes her brow while whispering, “Sleep now, my sunshine,” weaving a lullaby that carries her seamlessly between worlds. In every shared glance, in every crumb of cookie handed across the table, their bond deepens, a testament to how fiercely a child can love, and how joy multiplies when hearts open wide.
Fatherhood slips over Jaemin like a name he’s worn all his life. He never hesitates when paperwork asks for relation; he writes father in bold, black strokes, no trembling pen, no half-apology. During rounds he introduces himself with steady pride: “I’m Dr. Na, and this is my daughter, Haeun.” He offers no elaborate backstory when curious residents fish for gossip, just a soft shrug and, “She’s my miracle,” because what else could explain how perfectly the title fits? It glints on his tongue brighter than any academic honor, shields him fiercer than any white coat, and he carries it the way a lighthouse carries flame. steady, undeflected by wind or doubt.
Love remakes her daily: she isn’t cured but she gleams. Her cheeks are plump with color, lips a soft rose, eyes forever laughing as though every moment is worth celebrating twice. Each dawn he lifts her shirt and traces the silver scar across her chest, whispering, “Strong girl.” She squirms and giggles—“Tickles, Dada!”—but lets him finish the ritual because she knows it hurts him more to skip it than her to endure it. A milestone board beside the fridge testifies to their victories in bright marker: “I said Dada 10 times!” “I walked to the elevator by myself!” “I read Bunny Book!” Photographs crowd the walls, her curls salted with beach sand, the first crayon portrait labeled ‘me & dada,’ tiny paint-smeared footprints meandering across a canvas they forgot to hang. Home is a living scrapbook, and she is its radiant center.
Beyond the front door their adventures bloom. At the park she flings fistfuls of sand while he feigns outrage, chases her until she squeals, then kneels to kiss the “warrior boo-boos” on her knees. At the beach she rides his back through foamy shallows, buries his feet to the ankles, and squeals when he wiggles free to tickle her toes. Bedtime is a hush of lamp-light and heartbeat; she drapes herself across his chest, small fist tangled in his shirt, and he hums until her breaths lengthen and her lashes flutter shut. Rainy days bring matching yellow raincoats and the percussion of puddle-splash; she insists on holding the umbrella though it drifts sideways, leaving them both drenched and grinning. And on quiet nights they sprawl across the living-room floor, crayons scattered like stardust. She draws a lopsided heart wrapped in silver scribbles, two stick figures holding hands beneath it, and turns luminous eyes to him: “Dada, look! Is us, me and you fowever.”
Morning unfurls in honeyed ribbons exactly the way it always does, tracing the same sacred route through their apartment as if it, too, has learned the ritual. Light pauses first on the gallery of frames spilling off the bookshelf, yesterday’s fingerprints still smudging the glass, then glances across the rug where toys arrange themselves like familiar constellations, and finally lingers on the bunny-eared sippy cup forever half-tipped in its orbit, the sticky crescent of last night’s juice already part of the décor. Right on cue, Haeun streaks barefoot down the hallway, arms flared like a kite catching its favorite wind; Jaemin is already crouched, palms open, ready to receive the daily twirl that ends with her laughter filling the hollow beneath his collarbone. He breathes her delight, presses his nose to the downy spot behind her ear, and whispers the line that begins every day: “My ballerina.” Her answer—“Dada spin too!”—is the invocation, so he rises, hoisting her skyward, and the room seems built to revolve around that single orbit.
Their days unfurl as a living montage: at the park she flings sand that clings to her legs, shrieking when he chases her in slow-motion villainy; when she tumbles, he kisses “warrior boo-boos” and calls her the fiercest knight in the kingdom. At the beach she rides his back in the shallows, tiny arms locked around his neck, while he teaches her to spot shells and let the sea tickle her toes. Evenings drift into quiet story-time: she sprawls across his lap, head pillowed on his chest, fist tangled in his shirt while his voice threads through pages; before the final sentence her lashes still and her breathing steadies, proof that the safest harbor is still the rhythm of his heart. Later, when she toddles off to bed, he lingers over her lone baby shoe by the door, marveling that yesterday’s fragile infant is today’s fearless explorer, and that every “again, dada, again!” is a summons he is forever ready to answer.
From there the choreography never falters. At the table he balances her chart beside his coffee while she decorates his knee with green crayon dinosaurs; she hums the morning’s wordless anthem, and he threads gentle fingers through her curls, counting her pulse the way other people count blessings. Dressing is its own ceremony: she stands atop the bedspread, a benevolent monarch, while he presents two tiny shoes like precious offerings, “yellow or blue today, bug?” She slams her heel into the sun-bright pair, decree sealed, and he responds with the ritual kiss to her ankle, the same kiss reserved for future scrapes, sleepy fevers, midnight fears. Noon brings the kitchen rite: she “cooks” lunch, smearing yogurt across his nose, sending berries skittering underfoot, their shared laughter ringing like a bell that signals the hour. And when the light finally tilts toward afternoon, both of them are flushed and breathless, sipping water that tastes of contentment, secure in the rhythm of a day that never hurries, never stumbles, only repeats—perfect, familiar, unbreakable.
Haeun’s bedroom is a dawn-colored dream stitched from every shade she adores: cotton-candy pink dusts the walls in a watercolor wash, butter-yellow stripes climb toward a ceiling hung with tiny mirrored stars, and a tulle canopy as soft as spun sugar billows around her miniature four-poster bed. A ballet bar gleams beneath the window, its rose-gold bracket looping like ribbon, and pale wooden toy chests hide beneath scalloped skirts of fabric that whisper whenever morning breezes stray through the crack of the door. Plush ballerinas pirouette across framed prints, their tutus the exact blush of her favorite hair bows; even the night-light—shaped like a tiny moon in a field of tulips—glows the faintest peach at dawn, as if warming itself before she wakes. Here every detail is scaled to her wonder: the sun-splash rug that cushions bare feet, the low bookshelf where picture books stand with covers facing outward like pleased smiles, the cloud-shaped table forever dusted in rainbow crayons, and always Bunny, lounging royally beside her pillow, ears tagged with velvet bows that match today’s sunrise.
Across from her canopy, a low window seat brims with heart–shaped pillows, one yellow as buttercups, another pink as cotton candy, each embroidered with her name in looping toddler script. Tucked between them sits her grand, personalized music box. an opulent gift from Daddy after her first one shattered, its mother-of-pearl inlay and rose-gold filigree catching the dawn as she lifts the lid and lets her favorite lullaby spill out in tinkling waves. A row of glass jars lines the sill, each filled with colored sand she pinched from beach trips—emerald green, sunrise orange, blush pink—and she sometimes presses her fingers through the cork to feel the grains slip through her pudgy toes. Beneath the rose-gold ballet barre, her quilted patchwork bedspread slips across the daisied rug, each square stitched from Daddy’s old scrubs and the softest satin scraps, so every nap feels like a hug stitched by his hands. In one corner stands her play doctor’s kit, its tiny stethoscope coiled around a painted wooden heart. where she practices checking Bunny’s pulse as if she already knows that saving lives can begin with a single, careful ‘boom-boom.’
Behind the door, a measuring chart marks her height in cheerful scribbles beside a lock of hair from her very first birthday, a golden whisper of “grow strong, grow brave” that she tugs at on mornings when she needs a little reminder of just how far she’s come. Lastly, just beyond a scalloped archway stands her walk-in wardrobe, a pastel haven hung with tiny wooden hangers, where rows of frilly dresses, twirl-worthy tulle skirts, and her favorite sunflower-yellow pinafores sit ready for her day’s adventures. Each garment bears a story: polka-dot pockets for collecting dandelions, lace trims for moonlit tea parties, and pockets deep enough for Bunny to hide when he’s feeling shy. In this perfect little world, every morning’s first stretch and sunrise greeting becomes a celebration of the sweetest, bravest two-year-old ever to call it home.
She doesn’t always wake up here; most mornings find her toddling down the hall before daylight, curls bouncing as she seeks the comfort of Dada’s chest for their routine dawn cuddle. Today her dreams hold her still beneath the canopy. tiny fists curled, cheek pressed to Bunny’s velveteen ear, until a hush of motion lifts across the room. Jaemin eases the door wider, and pale golden light trickles in behind him; he pauses to drink in the lullaby hush, then draws the heavy curtains an inch or two, just enough for one slender blade of sunlight to slip across her quilt like a soft trumpet call. Dust motes swirl lazily, catching on the pink glow of the walls, and he stands there for a beat, letting the day breathe around her. When he finally crosses the rug, his footsteps are quieter than the flutter of her lashes. He kneels, gentle fingertips smoothing the damp ringlets at her hairline. then lowers his forehead to hers, warmth meeting warmth. “My princess,” he whispers, voice low as cello strings, “it’s morning time, baby, time to open your beautiful eyes.” The words slip into her dream like a soft feather.
She stirs beneath the tulle canopy, eyelashes brushing her cheeks like the softest butterfly wings before her eyes flicker open, revealing pools of dawn-gold that shimmer with last night’s dreams. Her lashes tremble against the gentle swell of rosy sleep, and her lips purse into the tiniest pout before blossoming into a giggly grin. cheeks dimpled, mouth curving like a tulip greeting the sun. One pudgy hand reaches up to sift her honeyed curls from her forehead, the other clutching Bunny’s velvet ear as if it were her morning anchor, and she lets out a sleepy yawn that sounds half sigh, half song. Then, with all the wonder of a new sunrise, she breathes, “Goo’ mo’nin’, Dada, my bwight, bwight Dada!” in a voice so sweet it tastes like vanilla on his skin. Her toes wiggle beneath the quilt, nudging the canopy’s ribbons into a lazy pirouette, and before he can answer she adds with bubbly excitement, “Kissy time!”—tiny arms shooting up to pull his face close. Jaemin can’t help but smile as he cups her soft cheeks and tilts her head, pressing a feather-light kiss to her rosy lips; she giggles against him, eyes crinkling with happiness, and buries her face in his chest, warm as sunshine, while the promise of another perfect morning dances between them.
Jaemin eases open the blackout curtains just enough for dawn to drip across the nursery like warm honey, then sinks to his knees beside her bed. He lifts her covers just enough for cool air to brush her ankles, and she squeaks at the tickle, clutching his sleeve in tiny fists, letting out a breathy “eek!” Sunlight slides along the curve of her cheek, gilding the soft down of baby hair that refuses to stay tucked; it glimmers on the faint line of her chest scar, the only thing in this pastel kingdom carved from something harder than cotton and delight. Jaemin, ever the morning healer, reaches for the stethoscope resting on her nightstand, its tubing coiled like a sleeping serpent, bell still chilled from night air, and, as he does each dawn, warms the metal between his palms first.
She watches, bright eyes wide, already anticipating the ritual which never fails to steal his breath. Without prompting she scoots up, presses Bunny to one side as if granting the plush a front-row seat, and lifts her pajama collar to reveal the quick crescendo of her heartbeat. He positions the diaphragm with reverence, and the room stills—brushing hair from her temple, he closes his eyes, letting that delicate boom-boom thread through the tubing and straight into his own chest. The second he listens feel like small eternities: the uneven cadence is still there, the gentle lilt he knows by ear, but it is stronger this morning—steady enough that he smiles before he even realizes it. She inhales sharply at the stethoscope’s gentle weight, then, in her earnest toddler tone, murmurs, “My heart owie a bit now, Dada,” and he feels a swell of both concern and pride that she’s learned so well to tell him whenever she feels unsure.
She sees the curve of his mouth and giggles, cheeks pink from pillow warmth. “Boom-boom good, Dada?” she asks, the words feather-soft at the edges yet crystal in their hope.
He taps her sternum once, warm as sunrise, and murmurs, “Best boom-boom in the whole wide world. But what do you do if I’m not with you but your boom-boom hurts and you feel an ouch?”
Haeun’s brow furrows in earnest thought, her chubby finger drifting to her lower lip as she emits a soft “Mmm…” that ripples through the golden hush. Her lashes flutter, eyes scrunching in concentration, and then she brightens as if a spark has flickered to life: she claps a hand over her heart and declares, “Tell big helper! Call Dada, come quick—‘Chest owwie! Dada come, Hae-hae need you! Pwease, my Dada! Huwwy up!’” Her triumphant gasp of memory echoes across the pink walls, and Jaemin’s smile blooms, pride and relief weaving through every beat of that precious little heart.
His answering laugh is half joy, half ache; he tickles the side of her ribs in reward, coaxing another ripple of bright sound from her throat as she claps Bunny’s paws together in delight. “Correct, my smart baby girl,” he murmurs, planting a kiss just below her eye where a sunbeam lands, and she claps again, curls bouncing like yellow ribbon.
Jaemin watches as Haeun lifts the cold bell of the stethoscope to her chin, tiny fingers tracing the spiral of tubing with rapt concentration before she presses it to her ear and murmurs “siss-topo?” in a wobbling toddler lilt, only to break into delighted giggles when the word tumbles out all wrong. Her lashes flutter in the morning light as she shrugs one rounded shoulder, then bats the earpieces against her collarbone, creating a soft, hollow clatter that sends another ripple of laughter through her cheeks. When her plump hand drifts to his jaw and tugs gently, her bottom lip pops into an urgent pout, those bright eyes pleading in wordless insistence and she coos, “Hae hae want ‘nother kiss!” in a sing-song voice that makes his chest ache with love. He leans forward, brushing the pads of his thumbs over her warm cheeks before planting kisses on the tip of her nose, the crown of her forehead, and finally, her smiling lips, each one a soft promise that he will always be her safe harbor. All the while, Haeun wraps her arms around his neck with gummy-toothed abandon, sighing contentedly against the gentle rhythm of his heartbeat as the tender hush that follows feels more alive than any lullaby.
Then, with all the solemn pride her two-year-old world can muster, she straightens, plumps her little chin, and begins her litany of morning truths: “Hae-hae so smart, bootiful, so smowt—like Dada says!” She pats the faint line of her scar with one hand and beams, “Hae-hae’s hea-heart is good and strong, boom-boom go boom-boom all day!” Her voice dips into a whisper as she cups her chest scar and adds, “Hae-hae’s owie on hea-heart is so bootiful, like a shiny staw,” then lifts Bunny for emphasis and chirrups, “Dada lubs me, Hae-hae lubs Dada! Hae-hae tell Dada when owwie come!” Each declaration tumbles out in toddler lilt—mispronounced, endearing, absolute—woven from every promise Jaemin has ever whispered in her ear.
Jaemin’s heart swells until he can barely keep his voice steady; he sweeps her into his arms and presses a kiss to her temple where the scar sleeps, murmuring into the golden hush, “The smartest, loveliest princess with the bravest heart, always remember that.” She giggles, arms tightening around his neck as he rocks her gently, and he presses another kiss to her forehead before tickling the soft curve of her ribs in reward. “My favourite girl,” he whispers, voice rich with wonder, and she responds with a triumphant clap, curls bobbing like petals in a breeze, while the morning light bathes them both in the promise of every boom-boom still to come.
Jaemin slips from the room’s pastel glow and crosses the hall to his study, where two amber bottles stand like sentinels of her survival, one brimming with furosemide syrup, her “water pill” to keep little feet from swelling, the other holding digoxin elixir, his violet-tinted “heart helper” for mornings she needs extra strength. He lifts each bottle in turn, the glass cooling against his palm, and draws two plastic oral syringes into his waiting fingers. Between his hands, he rolls them slowly until the plastic hums with warmth, a ritual honed from months of dawns when nothing mattered more than the gentle promise of medicine.
He returns to find Haeun in the midst of a royal medical inspection, Bunny seated on the daisied rug, one earpiece pressed against plush velvet as she declares, “Boop-boop, Bunny heart go boom-boom?” Her jaw parts in a breathy “ooh,” every gasp a secret shared with the golden morning light. Her lashes tremble, unveiling eyes round and bright as though she’s hearing sunrise for the very first time, while tiny fists fly up to her cheeks in sheer delight. Even from the other room, a babbly “Wah, Dada… I wuv Dada,” slips free, her whole face aglow in worship of his return.
He kneels among her court of bunnies and smooths a curl from her forehead. “Ready for your heart medicine, my brave girl?” he murmurs, voice soft as spun sugar. She pulls in a trembling breath and nods fiercely, tiny chin jutting with resolve as she presses her lips together in a determined line, all the while her nose wrinkles at the memory of the bitter tastes. In that moment he sees her courage, eyelashes brushing her cheeks as she summons every scrap of bravery she’s ever learned from his gentle whispers, yet her quivering shoulders betray how ‘yucky’ the medicine truly is. Still, she perches there, a perfect angel of composure, because she knows it’s important. She’s his good baby: never a fuss, never a tear, simply obedient and brave, understanding that every measured drop is a promise of more laughter, more play, more mornings just like this one.
Jaemin lifts her chin and guides the first drop of furosemide onto her tongue; she opens wide, trusting him like morning trusts the sun, then gulps it down, the bitter syrup sliding warm through her throat. She grimaces, a small gasp, a momentary shudder, before he follows with the digoxin elixir: psshh, psst—each drop counted on his breath so she can hear him: “One… two… three… all done.” She presses a hand to her chest and lets out a tiny gag; her nose wrinkles, but when he whispers, “In a few minutes, fruit and fluffy pancakes, I promise,” her eyes light up at the sweet reward, and the tension in her shoulders melts.
Moments later, she tilts her head back, curls bouncing, and beams with triumphant pride: “All done! Hae-hae strong!” Her small chest pulses beneath his palm, the ‘boom-boom’ steadier now, but still a reminder that this ritual will return at midday and again at dusk.
He brushes a kiss to her forehead and whispers, “Good girl, my strongest girl,” even as his own heart trembles with relief and the unspoken fear of days yet to come.
She taps the pale ribbon of skin, tiny brows knitting in earnest hope as her voice trembles through the sanctuary of dawn: “Owie gone? Dada, no more owie? I all better now?” Each word hovers between them like a fragile prayer, and Jaemin’s throat constricts, he gulps, tasting love and fear intertwined in that moment. He leans in, pressing a feather-light kiss to her questioning finger before she can slip it away, voice husky with devotion.
He answers, “No more owie, baby—you’re all better.” He brushes a fingertip beneath her chin. Even as relief blooms in her bright eyes, his heart clenches at the cost behind every promise. He wishes with all his being that a single drop of syrup could erase the truth of midday appointments, the ritual of three daily doses, the specter of future surgeries waiting in the wings. Yet here she sits—his angel of innocence—believing wholeheartedly that medicine’s measured drop can mend what life has carved for her with a surgeon’s blade. He marvels at her faith, at the simple purity of her thought: that love and elixir might stitch her heart whole. Drawing her close, he murmurs into the curve of her ear, “Daddy’s here, always.” And for her, that vow is as potent as any cure.
His tone turns serious, the playfulness falling away like petals at dusk. “But if your chest ever feels funny—burny, tight, or sore—you remember what to do, my love?” He asks this question every morning, every evening, and sometimes in the middle of the afternoon, because he knows all too well how a simple misstep in communication can become a child’s last mistake. As the chief of pediatrics, he’s watched young, innocent patients slip away when symptoms went unspoken, when a child’s whisper of “my chest hurts” was mistaken for a fleeting ache. He thinks of the burning chest pains that herald fluid overload, the fluttering tremor that signals an arrhythmia, the dull “owie” at the temples that might mean dehydration or a fever creeping in. With Haeun, it’s different: it’s his daughter he’s saving, and his attachment is woven from both his white-coat vigilance and a father’s fierce love. He needs her to know, deep in her little heart, that no pang is too small to voice—that every twinge is a signal he wants to catch before it becomes something bigger.
She watches him, eyelashes trembling like the wings of a butterfly, then nods so earnestly her curls bob in agreement. “If chest burn— I need tell someone fast, ’kay!” She repeats in her precious toddler lilt, her words halting but resolute. “If head owie, tell big helper,” she adds, recalling how he taught her that even a bump or a bruise must never go unspoken.
He cups her shoulders, voice gentle but unwavering, “Exactly, my brave girl. You tell me, always.” In that moment, the room seems to pulse with unspoken vows: that medicine, though measured in milliliters, is only half the remedy, and that her own voice, taught and cherished, is the truest safeguard of all.
He shifts in the glow of morning light, his fingertips drifting to the pale ribbon of scar tracing her sternum, and for a heartbeat he simply watches the gentle rise and fall beneath his touch—each subtle ridge a testament to every battle she’s already won. The world quiets to the soft brush of downy hair against his palm as he leans closer, his breath warm and steady, and places a feather-light kiss along the scar’s curve, savoring the smoothness of healed skin and the miracle it marks. Haeun’s eyelashes flutter at the contact, and she offers him a sleepy smile, the corners of her mouth tilting into the tender promise of another dawn. He murmurs into the hush, “I love every bit of you,” then trails his lips to her collarbone in a soft vow, his heart full of awe for the smallest, strongest girl he will ever know
His own pulse stumbles at every tiny hitch he hears but he lets her laughter braid through the quiet, slowly the anxious flutter in his chest begins to mimic her delight. When the novelty fades he draws the cloth aside, tracing the slender scar that runs beneath the neckline of her pajamas with a feather-soft fingertip. “This line,” he whispers, “is where Daddy helped fix your heart; it means you’re the strongest girl I know, it means you can run so fast and play so fast, too,” each word a prayer wrapped in the certainty she trusts first and he chooses to believe second.
She presses her tiny fists against her ribs, eyes lighting up with understanding as she whispers in her toddling lilt, “It also mean I can wuv Dada, my bunnies, Nana and Papa and Uncle Nono, it mean I no broken heart, I wuv wuv wuv!” Her voice tumbles over itself in a rush of declarations, each “wuv” a golden echo in the pastel hush.
Jaemin’s breath catches, warmth flooding his chest as he brushes a kiss across her temple. “Yes, my darling girl,” he murmurs, voice thick with awe, gathering her into his arms so her head rests against his heartbeat. “Because your heart is mended, it beats for all the people you love and they love you right back, more than all the stars in the sky.” He presses one last kiss to the scar line, then holds her close, marveling that in her innocent truth lies a magic greater than any medicine.
Jaemin scoops Haeun off the mattress, her limbs curling instinctively around his torso, and carries her through the soft hush of the hallway toward the dresser where a pale-yellow dress hangs like a patch of sunshine waiting to be worn; he lays her across his lap, slips the cotton over her head, and buttons the smocked bodice while she chatters to Bunny about the morning’s adventures, each syllable puffed with earnest authority as she instructs the plush rabbit to “sit nice, no wriggle.” She pats the hem with pleased little sighs, fingers the scalloped sleeve, then presses a spontaneous kiss to his cheek before toddling toward the play mat, bunny clutched under one arm and curls bouncing with every uneven step as she narrates her own movements in delighted bursts—“Hae hae run, bunny run, boing boing.” He turns to the stove, whisk working through batter scented with vanilla, and listens as her wooden blocks clack against the floor in a rhythm that matches the quick pulse of his heart.
A moment later she reappears at the kitchen threshold, toes jerking on the polished wood as if the ground might wobble beneath her, arms stretched high, voice lilting, “Up, up, Dada,” and Jaemin lifts her without hesitation, tucking her on his hip so her dress billows like a tiny primrose petal; she watches the skillet with wide eyes, breath puffing against his neck every time a chocolate chip pops and melts into a dark freckle on the golden surface. “Pankie, pankie,” she sings, trying out the word again with extra consonants. He slides the first pancake onto her plate, fork in hand, and she “nom-noms” it in two bites flat, cheeks stretching into gummy crescents as she declares, “Mm-mm, Dada make me so yum yum!” Her laughter rings against the sunlit tiles and she claps her hands, then asks sweetly for more from the stack, holding it aloft like a victory banner while Bunny dangles from her tiny fist.
The laughter tips suddenly into a soft wheeze, almost swallowed by the sizzle, but Jaemin’s ears are tuned to every tremor in her breath; he slides the skillet off the flame, winds the inhaler from the standby cup on the counter, and seats her against his chest, murmuring, “Slow, my love, fishy breaths, remember?” She nods, eyes round, as he lifts her spacer with both hands, and he guides the mask to her mouth, pressing the canister twice in steady pulses while counting with her fingers—one, two—then taps her back as she draws deep breaths like they’ve practiced beneath blanket forts and under playground trees. The wheeze eases, her shoulders settle, and he softens his voice into the sing-song rhyme she loves, words drifting with their shared exhales: “When my chest feels tight and I feel huffy, I tell a big person, I get my puffy.”
She repeats it around the mouthpiece, swapping consonants in that toddler tumble—“ches feel tite, I get my puffy”—then pulls the inhaler away and asks, “What’s ‘queeze’ mean, Dada?” He answers that it is the little ouch inside her chest, places her hand above her sternum so she can feel the last echo of quiver, and she nods with solemn comprehension, counting to five on chubby fingers before declaring, “Two puff, all done,” clapping once while Bunny receives imaginary medicine of his own. Her shoulders unfurl, the quick flutter in her ribs quiets, and she nuzzles Bunny against her cheek as he whispers, “All better, Dada.” She softens then, tipping her chin up and drawing it back just enough to make room. a tiny invitation shimmering in her eyes, so that when he leans in, his lips brush the apple of her cheek in a feather-light kiss, warm as sunrise on silken skin. A sigh flutters through her, breath gentle and full of comfort, and she turns her face toward him with a sleepy grin, thumb ghosting over his wrist as if to say, “Again.”
He brushes away the last smudge of chocolate from the corner of her lips with the pad of his thumb, tasting sweetness on his tongue as he leans in to press another gentle kiss across her cheek, soft enough to ripple the fine down of her hair, warm enough to press a smile beneath her lashes, her small brow lifting in sleepy invitation, he presses one more feather-light kiss before tucking a stray curl behind her ear. His voice is soft as velvet when he asks, “And if your chest still says ‘ouch,’ bubba, if Dada is in the hospital and you’re at preschool or with your babysitter, what will you do?”
She pauses, presses her plump fingers together in earnest calculation—one, two, three—then meets his gaze with all the solemn confidence her two-year-old world can hold: “Tell big helper! Call Dada! Say, ‘Chest hurt! Dada! Come quick! Hae hae need you, pwease!” He nods, heart swelling at the earnest tilt of her brow,
He nods, heart swelling at the earnest tilt of her brow, then reaches out and tickles her underarm just enough to spark another flutter of laughter. She squeals, ribs wobbling, and bats his fingers away in mock protest before throwing her hands into the air and clapping with delighted abandon. “Correct, my smart girl,” he praises, voice thick with pride, and she beams up at him, cheeks rosy and eyes shining, as if nothing could be more joyful than knowing Dada is always listening.
“Dada’s just getting your breakfast ready, beautiful—play for a few minutes, then I’ll come get you again, yeah?” He stoops one last time to press a soft kiss to her temple and gives her a reassuring smile before slipping away toward the kitchen. Left amid her plush toys and tumbling blocks, she watches him go, Bunny clasped to her chest, then claps her hands with giddy delight, “play time, Bunny!” She begins arranging a tiny tea party for her stuffed friends. The gentle thrum of the cooker drifts through the doorway, and she pauses in mid-stir of an imaginary cup, head tilting as if listening for Dada’s return. When his footsteps echo back down the hall, she straightens, rosy-cheeked and eager, ready for the next bit of breakfast magic he has waiting.
He lifts her from the play mat and carries her over to the little wooden chair at the breakfast nook, the one painted pale yellow where she sits each morning, legs too short to touch the floor but feet kicking with excitement as she spies the plate piled high with her favorite chocolate–chip pancakes, juicy strawberry quarters fanned beside them, and a small glass of frothy mango juice Daddy made just for her. The moment her toes brush the footrest, she lets out a delighted squeal, “pankies, berry! juice!” Before she even picks up her fork, she lunges forward, hands on either side of his face, and belts out in her sweetest toddler croon, “Tank you, my wuv!” pressing a sloppy kiss to his lips in perfect morning ritual. Jaemin’s heart melts as he brushes a stray smudge of chocolate from her chin, leans in to return her kiss, then picks up his own knife and fork so they can eat together, him cutting the pancakes into bite-sized clouds, her scooping them up with determined earnestness, humming between mouthfuls, “Yum-yum, dada!” until the table fills with the soft rhythms of shared breakfast and the quiet joy of two hearts in perfect sync.
She opens in a little O of excitement, chews with earnest concentration. His heart blossoms at the gleeful crunch of fruit and the sweet sigh she exhales between bites. He watches the rise and fall of her small chest, offering strawberries and pancake clouds until she leans back, pats her belly with a contented grin, and announces in a triumphant sing-song, “All done! I full!”
He grins, brushing a stray crumb from her chin, and murmurs, “That’s my clever girl,” before sweeping her into his arms and planting a kiss on her forehead.
Careful to keep breakfast magic alive, Jaemin gathers the dishes while Haeun toddles after him, wobbly legs determined, clutching her small plate like a treasure. She holds it out with a proud tilt of her brows and declares, “Here, Dada, bubba helper!”
He coos, “Thank you, my little helper,” and takes the plate to the sink. As he rinses each fork and spoon, he hears her padding back to the play mat, blocks clacking and Bunny perched in her lap. Through the doorway drifts her soft song. her pumps-and-heart rhyme woven into nursery cadences “when my chest feels tight… I get my puffy…”—and he presses his palm to his heart, the tender ache of fatherhood swelling in his chest as he smiles down at the shining morning, more alive than any sunrise he has ever known.
Jaemin drops to the rug beside Haeun, fingertips hovering at the tender arch of her ribs, and launches his giggle attack without warning—light, teasing tickles that trace invisible kitten whiskers across her cotton onesie until her back arches and a fountain of laughter spills from her lips. Her knees buckle as she ducks away, eyes squeezed shut against a grin so big it threatens to burst, and she gasps out, “Dada, no tickle!” in a breathless squeal that ripples through the sunlit room like a chorus of bells. He shifts, letting her scramble onto his lap, and she retaliates with her own tickles—chubby fingers jab at his sides, pronouncing, “Got-cha, Dada!”—before she flings herself backward into a sea of throw pillows, clutching Bunny to her chest and whooping with triumph.
Before he can recover, she scrambles up again, reaches for his face, and unleashes her kiss attack—rapid-fire smooches across his cheeks, chin, and nose, each one sweet and sticky with leftover syrup from breakfast. “Mwa—Dada kiss!” she commands, pressing her lips to his in a sloppy toddler peck, then giggling when he pretends to swoon.
His arms tighten around her as he leans in, returning each kiss with a gentle press of his lips, murmuring into the curve of her cheek, “Mine, all mine,” until her whole face glows pink and her curls brush against his stubbled jaw.
She launches straight into cuddle attack, curling her legs around his waist and burying her face in his collarbone like a sleepy koala, breath warm against his skin. He rocks her gently, one hand threading through her damp curls, the other cradling her back, and she sighs, “Dada safe,” as if that single phrase could still every storm in her heart. Her chest pulses against his shirt, a quick patter that tugs at his own ribs, so he brushes a finger to her temple and coaxes in a soft sing-song, “Big, slow breaths… fishy breathe… whoooosh,” guiding her through the rhythm that always calms her little boom-boom.
Whilst she’s playing, Jaemin kneels by Haeun’s pastel backpack, its canvas printed with tumbling ballerinas and embroidered with her name and begins their ritual. He gently opens the top compartment and lays in her folder of check-up forms, a folded change of pajamas in sunflower yellow, a pair of soft leggings in her favorite petal-pink, a sachet of clean diapers, wipes tucked into a little zip pouch, a thinner blanket stitched from Daddy’s own scrubs, and, of course, Bunny—all nestled like cherished guests awaiting departure. In the front pocket he clips the ‘Haeun Card,’ bright with rainbow trim and a smiling bunny sketch, laminated and punched with a hole: on one side her photo, age, and Daddy’s number; on the other, a tiny diagram and simple instructions on what to do if she goes breathless or finds herself unable to speak. Haeun toddles over, eyes wide as he smooths the card flat, and he asks with a flourish, “Who’s this, baby?”
She reaches up, fingers brushing the edge of the card, and beams, “Haeun card! Dat’s me—Dada number, bunny!”
Next comes the kit inspection. As she perches on the daisied rug, curls tumbling, Jaemin unzips the canvas pouch and she watches with rapt attention while he pulls out each essential: her pink-and-white inhaler, two oral syringes of furosemide and digoxin syrup, the silicone ID band snug around her wrist, a pouch of graham crackers, a small water bottle, and Bunny, whom she settles into her lap with a proud pat. “If Dada not here and you feel huffy or ouchy,” he prompts, voice soft as spun sugar, “what do you do?”
Haeun waves the card like a captain’s flag and declares, “Find helper! Show card! Say, ‘I need puffy!’”
He smiles, pride warming his chest. “Can you show Dada your puffy breath?” Without hesitation, she lifts the inhaler to her lips, inhales a big, noisy whoosh through the spacer, cheeks ballooning like tiny airbags and releases a triumphant grin. “Whoooosh!” she celebrates, clapping for herself even though she knows the taste is yucky.
“And if someone doesn’t know, baby, what do you say?” he asks gently.
She taps her bracelet, voice firm: “Help me! Heart owie. Call my Dada!”
Jaemin nods, voice warm with pride as he ruffles her curls, “Good girl—you’re the smartest baby ever.” He kneels by Haeun’s play mat, gathering her little backpack and chart for today’s routine check-up. He smooths a curl from her forehead and says, voice soft and sure, “Why don’t you go into your playroom, baby, and let me finish packing? Then we’ll head off to the hospital, okay?”
At the word “playroom,” her eyes sparkle like sunbeams on water, and she throws both arms wide, claps her pudgy hands, and squeals, “Yay! I wuv hosp’wal!”—so eager she nearly topples over her bunny-lined tower. Even as he clicks the last buckle on her bag. a tidy row of syringes, emergency card, spare socks, she pirouettes across the rug, humming their special tune.
Haeun’s playroom is a riot of color: teetering towers of rainbow blocks, plush bunnies lined up like devoted spectators, and a carousel of wooden animals spinning gently across the rug. Sunlight filters through the curtains, pooling in gold-white patches where she crouches, clutching her bright pink toy phone as if it were the world’s most precious treasure. Lips pursed in solemn concentration, she presses it to her ear and coos, “Ring-ring, Uncle Nono? Uncle Nono, I wuv you!” before blowing a shower of kisses across the carpet that drift like dandelion seeds on the breeze. Her laughter, a tinkling bell, fills the room—and in that moment, even the statuesque bunnies seem to lean forward to watch her joy.
Jaemin slips in behind her, the weight of the morning’s medical charts melting from his shoulders at the sight of her delight. He sets the papers aside and kneels on the soft rug, voice low as velvet. “Perfect timing, my little sunflower, how do we call Dada if your heart says ‘ouch’ and I’m not right here?” He offers her a real phone, polished and warm in his hand.
He offers her his own phone, gleaming in the morning light. Without glancing at the backpack’s laminated card, she grips the handset with fierce toddler resolve. Her stubby fingers flit over the numbered buttons she’s memorized from practice, she mutters each key under her breath. When the line connects, she takes a deep breath and announces with triumphant authority, “Dada! I Haeun! I sick, need help! Come get me, pwease!”
Jaemin answers in a playful whisper, “Hello—who is this brave little lady?”
She puffs her cheeks in mock offense and declares at the top of her voice, “Dada’s girl! Dada’s pwincess!”
Jaemin answers in a teasing whisper, “who am I lucky enough to be speaking with today?”
Her curls brush his hand as she corrects him, “I Haeun! Dada’s girl! Dada’s princess!” culminating in a delighted squeal that bounces off the walls.
He feigns surprise, voice laced with laughter: “I don’t know a sick princess—I only know my daisy queen!”
She squeaks. “Silly Dada, it’s me! I sick, need help, come get me, pwease!” She throws her free hand on her hip, little brow furrowing in adorable stubbornness as she demands into the phone, “I Haeun! I Dada’s girl! Dada’s pwincess!” Her jaw juts, curls bobbing, and she stamps one chubby foot for emphasis before continuing, “Dada’s wittle sunfwower, Dada’s ti-ny ballewina, dada’s bwave stah!” She punctuates each title with a triumphant squeal, cheeks pink with pride and pout, daring him to deny that perfect, toddler-born declaration of love.
He laughs, warmth flooding his chest, and murmurs, “That’s right—my Haeun. You’re my everything.” He brushes a kiss across her temple and adds, “Always call me if you need me, okay?”
She hands him back the phone with a proud nod, buries her face against his side, and whispers, “Dada know me.”
Jaemin gathers her into his arms, smoothing back a stray curl, and whispers into her ear, “Even if Dada isn’t here, I’ll come so fast to you, always. You are so safe, my baby girl.” At that moment, her packed bag by his side and her trust in his arms. Jaemin never makes it scary; every lesson is a promise that Haeun is never alone, that her small, mended heart is precious, and that—even when Daddy’s on rounds and can’t be in the room—she carries every tool, every rhyme, and every drop of his love to keep herself safe. Each practice round becomes an act of faith: her resilience meeting his devotion in a perfect, tender loop. The world feels safer not because her body is flawless, but because she understands its rhythms—and because her daddy believes in her, completely and forever.
The automatic doors slide open with a soft whoosh, and a breath of conditioned air lifts Haeun’s honeyed curls like petals caught in a breeze. She perches on Jaemin’s hip as always—warm and sure, her small body molded to his side as if that’s where she will always belong. One pudgy hand clasps the strap of his lanyard; the other clutches Bunny’s ear with white-knuckled conviction. He eases her toward the floor, expecting her usual burst of wild kitestring energy, but Haeun’s little legs stiffen and her arms clamp around his neck in a vice of need. “No, Dada,” she whispers, voice trembling as a quivering candle flame because in the quiet thrum of her chest she already tastes the tang of needles and machines hidden just beyond the next door. He pauses, heart tilting at her fear, and cups her face, thumb brushing the downy cheek beside her tense jaw. “We’ll be back home in a blink,” he promises, voice soft as dawn. Only then does she relax just enough to rest her head against his collar, tiny fists still clinging to his shirt, finding safety not in open corridors but in the steady warmth of his arms.
In Haeun’s eyes, the hospital looms like a glittering castle, its ceilings soaring toward the clouds and walls rippling in rainbow waves that shimmer beneath honeyed lights. Plush chairs line the corridors like soft, waiting clouds, and everywhere she glimpses, there’s murals of dancing whales and twinkling stars. Nurses in crisp white coats drift by like kindly giants, and on quiet afternoons she spies music rooms where pianos hum gentle lullabies and aquariums glow like jeweled oceans. Every door promises a new adventure, each one more wondrous than the last but none of it feels as vast or as warm as Dada’s arms. Nestled against his steady chest, the grand hallways shrink away until all that remains is Haeun and Dada, and suddenly she’s exactly where she belongs.
Jaemin’s arm trembles ever so slightly as he holds her against his chest, fully prepared for the inevitable toddler revolt and sure enough, after a beat of silent insistence, her voice pipes up again: “Down, Dada! Down!” She presses her palms to his shoulders and hops once, eyes wide in urgent command.
He can’t help but laugh, a low, rolling chuckle that vibrates through her belly. “All right, bubba,” he says, easing her down into her own two feet like a practiced pro. She wobbles for a moment, then breaks into a grin as if she’s just won the bedtime lottery. He shrugs to himself; with toddlers, indecision is the day’s greatest pastime, and with his own baby girl, he wouldn’t have it any other way.
Across the lobby, light dapples in honeyed pools, dancing from chandelier to check-in desk. When Jaemin nudges her forward, voice low, steady—“Go on, say hi,” she peels away from his leg in three small, hesitant steps. She leans from behind Bunny’s plush head and offers a shy “Hi! I Haeun!” to the receptionist, her cheeks blossoming pink, then retreats instantly, face tucked against Jaemin’s calf.
He rubs circles on her back, whispering, “My brave girl,” as though summoning courage from every syllable.
They slip into the echoing corridor, her ‘Echo Hall,’ she calls it, where every tiny footfall rings like raindrops on glass. At first she hesitates, toes skidding on the polished floor, but then she spots the cardiology wing logo, a cheerful duck in a heart and her face brightens. “Dada, look! Ducky!” she chirps, pressing her free hand into his palm as though drawing courage from his touch. Jaemin kneels beside her and lifts Bunny’s ear so it can “quack” at the logo, and the simple ritual sends her into a fit of delighted giggles. With her smile restored, she strides forward with newfound confidence, tiny trainers clicking in time, the echoing hall transforming from a space of nerves into a stage for her triumphant march.
Rounding the final corner, the world shifts into her kingdom: pastel murals swirl across the walls, shooting stars, angelic doves, dancing bears, color-dropped coral realms under the sea. Haeun bounces in his arms, squealing, “Look, the sharky still here!” as she’s spun toward her volunteer-made cubby: a tiny wooden locker painted with her name, inside which lives her pastel yellow blanket, a stash of Bunny stickers, and a water bottle printed with daisies. She tucks Bunny inside, locks the “door,” and claps her hands, delighted by the familiarity.
Nurses hail her from every station and she waves, flinging kisses like confetti. It’s become a habit here, every whisper and greeting calls her “Sunshine,” one her given name, the moment she steps into these halls. One nurse feigns a swoon, hands to her heart: “My word, she’s grown!”
Haeun, ever the performer, spins on one toe, announcing, “Dada, I twirl!” before skipping to the corner aquarium. Nose pressed to the glass, she watches a pale yellow fish glide through the water. “Fishy swim swim,” she declares, brow furrowed in expert concentration, and names her new friend “Chicken” with the solemnity of a queen bestowing knighthood. In every step, every glance, every gleeful squeal, the hospital, once a chamber of fear, has become the bright palace of her safety, where her daddy’s steady presence transforms every corridor into a path of promise.
The next corridor gleams in fresh paint, tiles laid in perfect yellow-blue alternation, each square echoing her favorite sunflower hue. Haeun steps only on the yellow, toes splaying as though she’s finding secret springs beneath each one. She spreads her arms like wings and dances across the floor, curls bouncing in golden loops, while Jaemin follows two paces behind, cradling her backpack and watching with a smile that could steady any faltering surgeon’s hand. A passing oncology resident pauses mid-chart and chuckles, “Training her for ballet or heart surgery?”
Jaemin shrugs, voice soft as dawn, “Maybe both.”
In the play alcove beyond the nurses’ station, she’s already a little celebrity. Children in wheelchairs wave when they see her, one older boy, his port catheter gleaming under fluorescent lights, shouts, “Sunshine, show me your dance!” She darts over, spins once in a fever of delight, then flings herself into his lap, hugging him like a baby bear reunited with its mother. From her bag she produces crayon-scrawled cards, bunnies with lop ears, hearts big as saucers, stick-figure doctors crowned with tufts of hair. She presses them into each child’s hand with solemn pride, her wide smile radiating promise.
Nurse Ahra greets her at the doorway like family, and they execute their secret handshake, tap-tap-clap-boop, before Ahra decorates her chart with glitter stickers, eyes dancing. “How’s my ballerina?” she asks, and Haeun, ever the performer, demonstrates a hopping “ballet move” before pinky-promising, “No hurt Bunny.”
Dr. Hwang Renjun rounds the corner just as Haeun finishes her parade, scrub cap still in hand from an early-morning case. He and Jaemin, old friends stitched together by a thousand shared surgeries, exchange a brief, silent nod, the kind of greeting forged under operating-room lights. Renjun had assumed Haeun’s cardiothoracic care the moment Jaemin became “Dad” instead of “Doctor,” and that single fact steadies Jaemin’s pulse more than any beta-blocker ever could: the country’s most gifted heart surgeon watches over his daughter’s patched-up pump.
Renjun crouches until he’s eye-level with her, stethoscope charms winking pink. “How’s my best girl today?” he asks, voice warm.
Haeun presses her cheek to the cool diaphragm and whispers, “Pump happy,” then adds a cautious little thumbs-up.
He grins, taps her bracelet, and says, “I’ll see you for your check-up in half an hour, okay, beautiful?”
“’Kay, Dr. Nunjun,” she lisps, gummy smile brave but wobbling at the edges.
Satisfied, Renjun rises, claps Jaemin lightly on the shoulder, and disappears toward imaging. Haeun turns to the security guard, slaps a high-five, and chirps, “Thank you for keepin’ my hospital safe, mister!” before burrowing back into Jaemin’s side, small fingers twined in his coat, gathering courage for the half hour yet to come.
This isn’t just a building. It’s the place where her heart was mended, where she first met her Daddy as more than a surgeon, where lullabies and soft hands carried her through the deepest shadows. For Jaemin, each return is a pilgrimage through hallowed halls of both memory and mercy. For Haeun, it remains a playground of miracles, a palace where her laughter rings louder than any alarm. Her joy does not erase the trials she’s endured—rather, it transmutes them, a golden alchemy wrought in every corridor she treads, every hand she holds, every heartbeat that calls her home.
At the far end of the nurses’ station, you’re hunched over a tower of post-op notes when a high-pitched squeal ricochets down the corridor like a fired confetti cannon. Heads snap up just in time to watch Haeun launch herself off the linoleum, bunny flapping behind like a medieval banner, and hurtle straight for you. She bonks her forehead against your knees on purpose, dissolves into hiccup-giggles, then wraps her arms around your calves with so much ferocity you’ll be wearing tiny-finger bruises tomorrow. “My bestest girl!” she crows, giggling so hard she hiccups bubbles of air. You scoop her up, notes forgotten, pager silent for once and she grabs your cheeks, eyes flickering with starshine. “Your eyes still shiny!” she declares, as if confirming the moon is still in orbit, then proudly offers a half-squished fruit snack: “For you!” She peppers your face with wet toddler kisses, left cheek, right cheek, nose, until the onlookers at the desk dissolve into open laughter. The weight of twelve-hour shifts and endless charting slides right off your shoulders; in this moment, the only patient in the world is the one beaming in your arms.
You cradle Haeun in one arm while she fumbles at her backpack with the other, then triumphantly produces a crumpled sheet of paper covered in wild loops of crayon. “For you,” she breathes, pressing it into your palm with reverent care. You unfold it to reveal three wobbling stick figures, one tall with a lopsided tie, one smaller with a bow, and the smallest with a spiraled scribble for hair, surrounded by suns and hearts. Her chubby finger darts across the page. “Dat’s Dada,” she announces, voice bright as morning, tapping the tallest figure. “Dis is me, Haeun,” she continues, pointing to the middle, “an’ you—you’re da shiny star!” She circles your little figure in yellow, then adds two enthusiastic hearts overhead. “We all together!” she declares, cheeks flushed with pride.
Your chest tightens with a sudden gulp, warmth flooding your throat as a question alights in your mind, why does she love you so much? You blink down at her earnest grin, behind you, Jaemin’s gaze slides over your shoulder, cool and distant, a coldness you’ve become accustomed to, his jaw taut as if he’s asking himself the same thing. For a heartbeat the corridor hushes, broken only by Haeun’s gentle hum of pride and the tiny echo of your own unspoken wonder. You press a kiss to her forehead, your world both shattered and made whole by that simple, crayon-drawn truth.
She giggles, head bobbing, “I wuv you… an’ dada!”—and in that scribbled snapshot you feel full despite being confused, the tender weight of a love impossibly large for such a tiny hand to hold.
Jaemin, leaning against the counter, watches the spectacle with a deadpan glare sharp enough to slice through gauze. “Can’t believe you’re still her favorite,” he mutters, voice glacier-cool.
Hyejin, rifling through lab slips, winks and calls, “So when’s the wedding?”
Haeun claps like a deranged metronome and shrieks, “Today!” gripping your collar to steer you down the corridor aisle while you fight a losing battle against laughter.
Jaemin moves behind you with deliberate calm, his posture rigid, gaze fixed on anything but you. His eyes skim the ceiling tiles, flit across ECG readouts, settle on the slow sweep of the clock’s second hand, each tick a silent refusal to meet your own. The air between you hums with unspoken tension, warmth rising at the back of your neck as you march on—child leading you—caught in the orbit of her joy and his cool, brittle distance.
Haeun chatters at warp speed, cheeks flushed pink: “We eat lunch later? With noodles? And juice? And stickers?”
You murmur, “Of course, sweetheart,” and Haeun’s whole face ignites. She squeals high and bright, knees bouncing, then flings herself into your arms as if gravity only holds for you. You sweep her up against your chest, her tiny legs wrapping around your waist and she presses her cheek into your collarbone, giggling breathlessly. Bunny’s ears flop against your shoulder and her curly hair tickles your jaw. Overcome with pure joy, she claps her hands against your scrubs and squeals, “Yay! Da best part of my day!” eyes shining like morning light. In that moment, nothing exists beyond the warmth of your embrace and her triumphant, happy sighs.
Haeun burrows deeper into your shoulder, voice tumbling out in a rushing stream of wants and needs: “Cuddle me, pwease? Braid my hair? Draw bunny doctor? Play blocks? Read ‘Bear’s Breakfast’? Kiss my owie? You stay wif me? You hold Haeunie? We kissy now?” She punctuates each demand with a chubby hand pressed to your cheek, eyes glittering with hopeful light. You cradle her more tightly, breath catching as wave after wave of her eager energy washes over you, you’re both buoyed and nearly capsized by the sheer intensity of her love.
“I… of course, sweetheart,” you manage between gentle smiles, heart thudding so loud it drowns out the hum of the corridor. Your fingers fumble at the hem of her dress as she tugs you onward, each little request a bright spark that ignites your chest with warmth and wonder. You feel yourself spinning in her orbit, overwhelmed by the sweetness, the breathless joy in her gaze, the way she seems to believe you can bend the entire world to grant her every wish. Your chest tightens with a rush of guilt and awe, a knot of unworthiness twisting beneath your ribs—how could you ever deserve the boundless glow of her love? What did you do to make her cherish you this much?
She laughs, a soft, triumphant bell, when you finally press your lips to her curls, murmuring, “Yes, my love, we’ll do it all,” even as your arms ache and your voice trembles with emotion. She bounces happily, little legs kicking, and nuzzles into your neck. The world narrows to her heartbeat against your chest, and you realize that no matter how flustered you feel, this whirlwind of toddler dreams is the most beautiful storm you’ve ever weathered. It’s unfamiliar, but somehow the warmth of her trust settles the constant racing of your own heart.
“Haeun,” Jaemin’s voice cuts through the corridor like a sharpened blade, each syllable clipped with cold impatience. His hand settles on her shoulder, firm and unyielding, the faint tremor of frustration coiling beneath his perfect composure—jaw clenched, eyes dark as storm clouds, commanding in a way that both unsettles and draws you in. “It’s time for your appointment, let’s go, come to me now.”
“No!” she snaps back, tiny fists flowering at her hips, her brows knitting into a fierce single line of defiance—something you’ve never seen in your gentle girl. “I not leave my best person!”
Jaemin’s jaw tightens into a rigid line. He won’t meet your eyes, instead, his gaze flickers to the scuffed floor tiles, to the dull drip of a distant IV pump, anything but you. Then, in a low rumble edged with ice, he hisses, “Maybe if you kept her calm, she wouldn’t turn my corridor into a circus.” The words land like thunder, and you feel the storm of his impatience crackle between you.
You swallow hard, cheeks burning, and your voice comes out in a panicked rush. “I—I’m sorry, Jae — Dr, Nana. I didn’t mean to, she just got so excited, and I thought if I let her—” You trail off, words tumbling over each other as you stumble forward, knot of guilt tightening in your chest. “I know she’s your daughter, and I should’ve kept her in line, but she, she just needed a hug, and I thought,” your hands flutter helplessly at your sides, “maybe I could, she’s so little, and I—” Haeun presses closer, dampening your scrubs with her tiny arms. You clear your throat, attempting to sound firmer: “It won’t happen again. I promise.” But the words feel hollow under Jaemin’s steely gaze and the weight of the empty corridor only amplifies the awkward tension crackling between you.
You gulp, chest tightening, and before you can smooth your frown, Haeun presses a feather-soft kiss to your lips—then whirls on Dada, her eyes storm-bright with fierce defiance. “Dada! You so rude! You be so rude to my love!” Her small, angry proclamation hangs in the air as you swallow, limbs suddenly too long for the cramped hallway. The two of you stand locked in a frozen tableau—her scowl directed at her daddy, your tense shoulders betraying the turmoil in your chest. Somewhere, a monitor bleeps; the corridor’s bright murals and pastel chairs blur around you.
Jaemin’s patience snaps like a twig underfoot. “Cut it out, Haeun. We’re done with games,” he snarls, voice low and tight.
Haeun squares her tiny shoulders and plants her hands on her hips. “Dada, you so rude!” she repeats, lips in a soft pout, eyes brimming with faux indignation. “You be so rude to my love!”
He rounds on her, breath sharp. “I’m not your playmate, sunshine. Behave, or we’ll miss your scan.”
She flashes you a triumphant grin, then back at Jaemin. “No! I not listen to rude dada!”
His jaw clenches. “Fine—see how well that goes for you.”
“Oh, dada mean!” she shrieks, tugging at your sleeve like a miniature diva staking her ground.
He exhales through clenched teeth. “Let’s go, Haeun—now.”
“I only go if my wuv”—she points both fingers at you—“walk me to my ‘point-ment woom.” She folds her arms, chin jutting, the embodiment of pint-sized mutiny.
A sigh hisses through Jaemin’s teeth, but he jerks his head. “Fine, escort duty. Let’s move.” He strides ahead, your distance buffer, while Haeun cuddles deeper into your shoulder, whispering top-secret toddler confidences. “Gonna be so bwave for Dada, no crying. Bunny gets sticker too.” She plants stealth kisses against your collarbone whenever Jaemin isn’t looking.
The walk takes all of two minutes, yet Haeun makes it feel like a royal parade, waving at young children, saluting nurses, announcing “Echo Hall!” whenever your shoes tap louder than usual. At the exam door you set her down gently; she clings once more, plants a decisive smack-kiss to your cheek, and scampers inside only when Jaemin murmurs a command in a soft yet stern voice. She turns to you, blows a dramatic parting kiss, “bye-bye, bestest girl! See you at lunch!” Then she disappears behind the door, bunny ears last to vanish.
Jaemin pivots, his expression a scalpel’s edge. “Those post-op notes won’t finish themselves,” he says, crisp, clinical, leaving no room for argument. Heat prickles your ears as you mumble agreement, suddenly aware of the stack waiting on your desk. He strides after his daughter without another glance, coat flaring like a banner of practiced authority, and you’re left in the corridor with fruit snack residue on your fingers, heartbeat fluttering between childish adoration and the chill of his professional distance. Outside the exam room, you swear you hear Haeun’s giggle echo—a small, stubborn sun lighting its corner of the vast, humming hospital.
Haeun plants one last sticky kiss on your cheek. “See you later!” she chirps, tiny fingers fluttering in an enthusiastic wave. There’s no tug at your sleeve, no watery plea for you to stay; she only beams up, trusting you’ll find her when work is done. With mature little dignity, she pivots, tucks Bunny beneath her arm, and trots off beside her daddy, leaving you smiling at the soft echo of her goodbye while you turn back toward the day’s long list of patients.
The exam room glows in quiet aquamarine, dimmed lights reflecting off a stainless cart of probes and pastel–animal murals that do their best to outshine the scent of antiseptic. Haeun hesitates on the threshold, tiny fingers locked around her bunny’s ear, but Dr. Hwang Renjun lowers himself to her height, strawberry-shaped earrings wobbling. “Morning, beautiful. Ready to show me how strong your heart is today?” She nods and shuffles forward, the velcro on her trainers crackling like distant thunder.
Jaemin lifts her onto the padded table, settles beside her like a human shield, and cups her cheek. “We’ve got this, baby.” His voice is velvet over steel; the monitors haven’t even switched on, yet his eyes are already tracking every stray beep in the room.
Sticky ECG leads find their places on her chest; the machine hums to life, neon digits dancing across the screen. Haeun flinches at the cold gel, tucks her face against Jaemin’s shoulder, and whispers, “Strong girl?”
He hums the opening bars of a Barbie ballad and answers, “Brave girl, you’re my whole heart.” The rhythm steadies, both hers and his, until the trace prints clean and even. Next comes the blood draw: she offers her arm but squeezes Jaemin’s finger white as the needle slides in. Tears bead, spill; Dr. Hwang catches them with a tissue and murmurs, “Warrior stuff, sweetheart.” When the vial clicks shut, Haeun gasps, and Jaemin kisses the crook of her elbow.
“You can pick any plaster,” the nurse offers. Without hesitation she chooses bright yellow, one for herself, one for Bunny and presses them on with solemn dignity.
The developmental team filters in: a speech pathologist, a physio, a giggling resident with a clipboard of milestone charts. Haeun demonstrates her latest hop-twirl combo, counts to ten (skipping four and seven with cheerful disregard), and recites half a line from “Bear’s Breakfast.” Applause ripples around the room. “She’s thriving,” the physio says, jotting notes, and Jaemin’s shoulders sink half an inch, relief loosening the set of his jaw. Dr. Hwang reviews the echo images projected on the wall, the truncus arteriosus repair holding steady, ventricular function strong, no leakage beyond trace. “Medication doses stay the same, labs look clean, lungs clear,” he recaps. “We’ll repeat imaging in three months.”
The glow of the monitor paints Jaemin’s face in ghostly light, his jaw set like hardened steel, eyes flicking over every waveform as if he can make a perfect readout by sheer force of will. He stands rigid, shoulders squared, a silent sentinel against the slightest hint of error, each beeping alarm echoing the tremor of a father’s terror. Yet the moment Haeun toddles up, skirts of her yellow dress swirling, and plants a chubby finger against his nose—“Boop!”—his fortress cracks. She giggles, bright and fearless, undeterred by his furrowed brow, and he bends to lift her into his arms, the same hands that scrutinize surgical scans now cradling her like treasure. In her laughter he finds release, the hypervigilant surgeon melting into a gentle teddy bear, and for the briefest heartbeat, his only concern is the warmth of her smile against his chest.
Jaemin’s gaze narrows on the echo images flickering across the screen, fingers tapping the console with controlled urgency. “Any trace of residual regurgitation at the truncal valve?” he asks, voice taut. “What’s her peak gradient across the right ventricular outflow tract? And how are her ventricular volumes, any sign of dilation?” Each question lands with surgical precision, his protective instinct sharpening every syllable.
Dr. Hwang Renjun chuckles softly, the sound warm and effortless. “Absolutely nil, Jaemin. No leaks, gradient steady at fifteen millimeters, ventricular function textbook, look at that ejection fraction,” he says, nudging the waveform. “She’s exactly where she should be. Go on, go and enjoy time with your baby girl. She has a healthy heart, it’s a miracle.”
Jaemin exhales, relief softening the hard line of his jaw. He reaches out, and Renjun clasps his forearm in the quiet camaraderie of surgeons bound by shared stakes and shared salvation. In that handshake lies a promise kept: Haeun’s heart is safe, and now Jaemin can return to the most important surgery of all—being her father.
Afterward, ritual returns. Haeun perches on the staff-kitchen counter, legs swinging while Jaemin feeds her yogurt with a tongue-depressor spoon. She hands a crayon drawing to every nurse who passes, bunnies, ballerinas, ‘me + Dada in stars’—and each recipient grins as though gifted gold. When the last spoonful disappears, she sighs, wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, and rests her head on Jaemin’s shoulder. “Haeun happy,” she confirms, voice feather-thin but certain. Jaemin presses his lips to her hair, inhales the faint scent of baby shampoo, and lets the racing in his own chest finally slow to match the gentle, even beat he’s sworn to protect.
The hallway towards the on-call room is hushed in that unsettling way midday corridors sometimes are, as though the entire pediatric wing has paused to inhale together: murmured conversations ripple far off at the nurses’ station, fluorescent fixtures hum with soft electrical patience, and a cartoon theme song drifts faintly from a waiting-room television, its tinny melody warped by distance. You move through the quiet with measured urgency, heart racing, but hands steady, clutching Sang-jun’s chart against your chest so tightly the corner leaves a crease in your scrub top. One squeak from your shoe betrays you just before you reach the door you have come to know too well, the door behind which Dr. Na often sequesters himself when the hours run too long or when Haeun needs quiet away from the ward’s constant beeping. You have paged him twice without answer, so there is nothing left but to push inside.
Cool air rushes out, conditioned, ventilator-clean, tinged faintly with antiseptic and the gentle sweetness of vanilla hand soap. The lighting is low, like the hush inside a chapel. Dr. Na stands by the open locker, torso bared, the planes of his back and shoulders sculpted by the overhead glow. The tension in his posture, muscles corded, spine drawn taut, suggests he has been pulled from a moment of fragile calm. On the small examination bed against the wall, Haeun sits cross-legged atop a thin blanket, Bunny cradled beneath her chin. She is mid-giggle, trading whispers with her father, until she spots you in the doorway. Instantly she squeals, a single, silver note that ricochets off metal cabinets and bounces on the mattress, heels drumming. “Yay! My girl! We eat now?” she chirps, blowing exaggerated kisses that flap Bunny’s ears like wings.
The intimacy of the scene stops you cold: the bare skin of his chest still rising from quiet laughter, the way Haeun’s small fingers cling possessively to one of his, the hush broken only by her delighted squeal. Heat blooms under your collar. “I— Hi—Sorry. No. Not now, Haeun.” you stammer, voice catching. She settles at once, though her lower lip juts in gentle protest, as if she has decided that disappointment is survivable so long as Bunny remains. You turn with seriousness in your tone. “Dr. Na, it’s—there’s something urgent. I didn’t mean to—”
Dr. Na’s head turns slightly, eyes flicking to you without truly landing, and already he is dragging the scrub top over his shoulders. “What is it?” The question is clipped, professional, the vowels sharpened by a blade of cold urgency. He doesn’t move with his usual surgical speed, though; some unguarded part of him delays, granting you a full second to watch the fabric slide over the curve of his abdomen.
The explanation you rehearsed all the way down the corridor catches like a stone in your throat, words dissolving the moment you’re confronted by the sharp, unguarded lines of Dr. Na’s half-naked body, suddenly every reason for being here feels impossibly small. He stands with his back to the low bed, chest bared and striking—broad, cut with the kind of muscle gained through consistent gym sessions, quick showers, and tension unwound only in the weight room. Each line is deeply sculpted, from the hollow above his collarbone to the ridges of his abs, his skin tinged with the cool blue light that slips through the half-closed blinds. His arms—thick with power, veins arching beneath the skin—look impossibly large beside the tiny figure sitting on the mattress. When he bends to help Haeun with her shoe, his forearm alone dwarfs her whole chest, the kind of paternal strength that could cradle or shield a world.
There’s a deep, instinctive magnetism in the size of him, how he moves around her with such gentleness, all that brute strength transformed into the most careful touch. The heat of his skin seems to fill the small room, the masculine line of his neck and shoulders making every glance feel like a slow, deliberate drag of silk over bare skin. It’s impossible to look at him and not feel the weight of the contrast: the man made of sinew and promise, every inch built for both battle and devotion, and the little girl orbiting that steady sun, her hand barely wrapping his thumb, her head barely clearing the crook of his elbow, yet utterly secure in his shadow. Even the fluorescent glow feels charged in here, the air vibrating with a tension spun from protection and an allure so physical it catches the breath in your chest, shrinking the world to the space between heartbeat and hush.
The realization that you are staring makes your heartbeat stutter. You thrust the open file toward him with clammy fingers, words tumbling out in an anxious rush. “It’s Sang-jun, room twelve, his saturations crashed for three minutes, came back up, but the new angiogram shows a bulge at the pulmonary trunk. It wasn’t there on the morning scan, aneurysmal expansion, maybe leaking. If we wait, he could rupture.”
Dr. Na’s eyes widen, an infinitesimal flare and he lifts a warning finger to his lips before nodding subtly toward Haeun. She’s young but five-year-old Sang-jun is her hallway friend, and he won’t let her hear the word rupture. You swallow and fall silent, hands suddenly purposeless, burning with the sense that any wrong movement might shatter the room. The scrape-scuff scrape of soft sneakers echoes as Haeun climbs down from the bed and patters across the linoleum, curls bobbing like golden springs with every determined step. She reaches you in three quick strides, one, two, squeak, and flings her arms around your calves, hugging so tightly you feel the press of every tiny fingertip. Tilting her face up, she puckers her lips into noisy kissy-fish shapes, giggling between smacks of air. “Now lunch time?” she asks, hope bright as a bell.
You exhale a gentle sigh, crouching until your knees meet the linoleum and your shoulders hunch over her small body. Haeun launches herself forward, clutching you with every ounce of her tiny strength, your arms wrapping protectively around her so that you nearly swallow her up. The size difference is comical—your arms, bigger than her whole torso, your frame a sturdy arch she burrows under, bunny squished between your chests. She nestles her curls into your shoulder, humming with delight, eyes squeezing shut as you smooth her hair with your palm. Her legs curl up and over yours, and she lets out an exaggerated “Ahhh,” as though you’re some magical comfort switch. For a moment you both cling so fiercely it’s impossible to tell whose heartbeat is whose, the world narrowed down to vanilla-scented scrubs, sun-warm curls, and the simple security of a hug that feels like home.
You sigh and finally respond to her. “Not yet, sweetheart,” you explain, voice low to keep the moment soft. “I have an important surgery with your Dada, saving another little bubba’s heart, so lunch has to wait. Let’s pinky promise, I promise that we’ll eat together later?”
You extend your pinky. She studies it with comic seriousness, then pivots toward the wall clock, narrowing her eyes in a mock-stern squint. In the pale glow of the on-call room’s single lamp, Haeun tilts her head, her eyelashes scrunched into soft crescents. She lifts a pudgy finger and taps the long silver minute hand, “big han!” Her other pudgy finger follows the shorter hour hand, and she babbles with gleeful effort, “little han!” Each mispronounced syllable hangs in the hush, the faint click of her tiny taps echoing like raindrops on glass. Her face brightens as she watches both hands meet at twelve, eyes shining with proud astonishment, and she throws back her head to squeal, “yay!”—a burst of pure, two-year-old wonder that seems to make even the sterile walls soften around her.
You realize in an instant why she insists. Just weeks ago, Dr. Na taught her how to read the clock, how the long hand marks minutes and the shorthand hours—and today her little brain leapt to the only logical conclusion: the hands meet at twelve, so it must be lunchtime. She remembers your promise but knows too that surgery—and what she calls “Dada’s magic healing wand”—takes far longer than a tick of the clock. So with earnest, two-year-old conviction she taps your cheek and chides, “My wuv, you so silly! Lunch time only at twelve.” Her correction, wise beyond her years, unspools the knot of guilt in your chest and draws a soft laugh from your lips.
“Smart girl,” you concede, hooking her small finger with yours. “All right, then we’ll eat later, but we’ll call it ‘not-lunch.’ Deal?”
“Deal,” she agrees, dimples flashing. She releases your leg and pats the pocket where you keep your pen as if sealing the contract in ink. Behind you, Dr. Na’s gaze remains sidelong and frosted, yet something in the curve of his mouth softens as he steps forward, scooping Haeun into the secure cage of his arms. He kisses the crown of her head, voice a hush meant only for her. “Daddy loves you, be brave for me.” She taps his cheek twice, one tap for courage, one for love, then whispers, “My hero, Dada,” before reaching over his shoulder to wiggle her pinky at you one more time, confirmation that promises, like hearts, must always keep beating.
She straightens her back and sucks in a breath, trying to look brave, but her tiny fingers knot into the fabric of his scrub top as she peers up at him with wide, anxious eyes. “You be okay? You come back?” she murmurs, voice trembling like a leaf in a breeze. He leans down, brushes her button nose with his lips, and murmurs reassurance into the curve of her cheek. “Daddy loves you,” he promises, voice warm as sunrise, “you’re always first. I’ll be back fast, I’ll always come back to you..” In that soft twilight of promises and parting, her small frame relaxes just enough, held safe between two hearts determined to return.
Jaemin turns to you, all softness gone. “Make sure OR Three is prepared, perfusion on standby, call Dr. Song from anesthesia, and page Dr. Huang. I’ll take her to Nurse Ahra.” His tone leaves no oxygen for argument. He strides out, scrub top half-fastened, Haeun’s arms looped around his neck, and for a fleeting breath you watch the two of them disappear, the echo of her whisper—“I wuv my hero dada!”—fading into the broader hush of the ward. Only then do you feel your own pulse surge, the chart still trembling in your hand, as you pivot toward the surgical suite and the boy whose heart may already be counting its final beats.
Nurse Yuha steps into the soft hallway light, arms open like a gentle harbor, and Haeun’s grip on Dada’s scrub top loosens as she turns with a flurry of golden curls. Perched on Yuha’s hip, she lifts a chubby hand and blows two sloppy kisses—one for you, one for her Dada—before burying her face in the nurse’s shoulder and erupting into delighted giggles that sound like windchimes. Yuha promises a colorful sticker chart and tiny cups of warm milk, a stack of storybooks waiting in the playroom just beyond the sliding doors, and assures her that Bunny will have his own special snack box. Haeun nods solemnly, eyes bright as stars, then tugs free to pat Yuha’s cheek and imitate the soft coo of a lullaby, her amazing little laugh echoing through the corridor like a promise that she’s safe—tucked into this circle of care until Dada returns.
The moment you and Dr. Na step into the corridor, silence rises like a tide between you; he still hasn’t met your eyes, and the hum of overhead fixtures feels suddenly thunderous around the rapid thud of your pulse. Dr. Huang Renjun intercepts you halfway to the lift, tablet already aglow with Sang-jun’s images. “Confirmed—rapid dilation at the pulmonary trunk,” he says, the words brisk but shadowed by worry. “He’s high risk, we’re running out of time.” You fall into step between them, heart rattling, unable to speak; only when you dare a glance up does Jaemin break the hush.
“You’ll assist,” he states, flat as slate. “Let’s see if your theory holds.” No praise—only a razor-thin invitation to prove you’re not wrong, an honor he has never granted another second-year.
Steam halos the scrub sinks, turning stainless steel into a mirror of shifting light. You press the foot pedal; warm water floods over your forearms in rhythmic waves while antiseptic soap lathers between your fingers, the citrus scent sharp enough to steady your pulse. Dr. Na steps up beside you, then inches behind, close enough that the heat of his chest radiates through the thin cotton of your scrubs. The fluorescent glare bleaches every color but brings his reflection into crystalline focus, eyes narrowed, expression unreadable.
“Walk me through it,” he says, voice pitched low, as though the tiled walls themselves shouldn’t overhear. “First move when you open the pericardium.”
You swallow. “Incise along the phrenic nerve’s reflection, shallow angle, avoid catching the right coronary.” The answer slips out half a note too breathless, so you force your shoulders back, rinse, and begin again with steadier cadence: “Retract superiorly to expose the ascending trunk, then place stay sutures before establishing the plane.”
His scrutiny never breaks. “Confident hands,” he corrects, tone razor-smooth. “Uncertain hands bleed. And after exposure?”
You meet his gaze in the mirror. “Assess for tension at the graft anastomosis, check distal flow, then proceed to the aneurysmal sac.” The tremor in your voice fades with each word.
Satisfied, he turns, handing you a towel, and together you move into the prep room where scans flicker on a wall-mounted monitor. He taps the angio image—the faint, ghost-white bulge you found. “Why does this matter?”
“It’s a false lumen,” you say, drawing a slow breath. “Pressure is pushing blood between layers, if it tears free, he bleeds out before we can clamp.”
Dr. Na inclines his head, acknowledgment and challenge in a single motion. “So, are you going to prove it?”
“Yes, Doctor,” you answer, the words anchoring your resolve like suture knots. He hands you the needle driver, practice skin already draped. You slip the point through synthetic tissue, feel his gloved knuckles brush yours as he steadies the bite for tension. For a heartbeat everything narrows to the slide of thread and the whisper of his breath at your temple.
“Stay with me,” he murmurs—command, promise, and impossible invitation—before he turns toward the doors, the gleam of the operating lights pooling across his shoulders like armor waiting to be tested.
Inside OR 3, antiseptic fumes mingle with the metallic tang of cautery, and every surface gleams beneath surgical lamps that burn as bright as judgment. Sang-jun, barely three, his eyelashes still feather-soft, lies motionless on the draped table, lips already paling to the color of paper snow. The scrub nurse counts instruments in a hushed litany, while the perfusionist adjusts flow rates, the hiss of oxygen punctuating each clipped exchange. You stand opposite Dr. Na, fingers half-numb inside powder-blue gloves, eyes fixed on the midline Dr. Na’s has inked from sternal notch to xiphoid: a single, merciless road.
“Scalpel,” he commands, and the blade settles into his palm as if forged for it. The first incision is a stroke of absolute certainty, skin parting in a clean crimson line, edges precise as cut crystal. “Identify subcutaneous fat… fascia… here.” His narration is cool as the operating lights; gone is the lullaby warmth he once used to guide you. Every layer becomes an oral exam: “Name the vessel, state the clamp position.” Your answers snap back, brittle and fast, because each pause tightens the invisible band of his scrutiny.
Rib spreader ratchets open with a groan, and the sternum yields. He leans in, voice low enough that only you catch the edge of it: “Pericardium next. What’s your angle?” You recite the protocol—thirty degrees, shallow bites—while your pulse drums in your ears.
He nods once, unsmiling. “Proceed.” Even the way he passes control is a test; your hands hover, then settle, and for three heartbeats the world steadies around the soft snip of Metzenbaums.
The moment splinters without warning. The arterial line alarms, a shrill, panicked note, and the monitor floodlights red across oxygen saturation: ninety-four, eighty, sixty-two. Vent pressures spike. “Aneurysm wall’s giving,” Renjun mutters, voice suddenly gravel. Then the sac ruptures, a dark surge that fills the field, blood climbing the drapes like ivy. “We’re losing him,” Renjun warns, an octave lower than before.
“Suction—now.” Dr. Na’s jaw snaps shut, pupils narrowing to flint. You thrust the Yankauer forward, your own breath snagging as crimson pools under the light. He works in blister-fast sweeps—clamp, suture, tie—but the tissue slips, friable as wet silk. Your brain stutters; hands hover useless for one terror-bright second before muscle memory drags you back: pass the pledget, call the vitals, check perfusion flow. Still, the rhythm between you falters, stitches pulled too tight, instruments hitting the tray a half-beat late.
“Epi, one milligram,” Renjun’s voice cuts through the chaos as he orders the first dose of epinephrine, the drug surging through the IV line without coaxing a single rebound in saturation. Without pause, a second dose follows, and hands move into rhythm. closed fists pressing into a tiny chest that rocks beneath their weight. Eleven minutes unfold like a taut wire stretched over an abyss, each second marked by the steady pulse of alarms and the wet slap of suction. At last, the monitors fall silent, the once-flickering waveform dissolving into an unbroken line of darkness.
Dr. Hwang Renjun’s voice cuts through the dim hush like a cracked bell: “Time of death, 15:42.” His words hang in the air, each syllable a hammer blow against the cathedral silence of OR 3. Dr. Na’s hand, still curled around the scalpel, trembles against his palm; only when you press a light fingertip to his sleeve does his grip finally loosen, the blade clattering onto the metal tray. His shoulders collapse as though the weight of every prayer, every sleepless vigil, has come crashing down, and he stands bowed beneath the invisible burden of a child’s unfulfilled tomorrow. The drapes rise again, forming a pale shroud over Sang-jun’s tiny form, arms folded as if in sleep, too small for the world they once embraced. A surgical lamp dims, its dying glow painting every face in slate-grey sorrow, and the remaining team drifts away in single file, the wet echo of suction and the relentless beep of monitors replaced by the hollow thrum of hearts breaking.
You remain rooted to the spot, breath gone, your mind a portrait of all that was lost: Sang-jun’s father, who scrambled second jobs through long nights to keep his son alive on a tide of medications; his mother, who sang lullabies in the hospital hallway, sleeper soft with hope; his little sister who waited at home for her brother’s bedtime stories, her small heart unaware that the story would end today. Jaemin stands opposite you, gaze fixed on the blood-darkened gauze, as if willing it to rewrite its own truth. When at last he turns, his eyes are hollow hurricanes of grief—controlled, implacable, yet cracking at the edges—and he steps back, leaving you alone with the echo of Renjun’s declaration, the memory of a child’s bright laughter now extinguished, and the terrible, echoing quiet of a life that could not be saved.
Outside the theatre, the world feels unsteady—corridor lights gleam off pooled droplets on the floor as Jaemin peels away his blood-slick gloves with sharp, uneven snaps. Your shoulders convulse with a sob you can’t hold back, but he doesn’t meet your eyes; instead, he stares at the gloved hands he’s just shed, the tremor of rage and grief rippling across his jaw. When he finally speaks, his voice is a rasped echo of steel. “Save it,” he spits, each word scraping the air. “You can’t attach to every outcome.”
Tears blur your vision, but you force the truth past quivering lips. “My theory was right—but I was too late.”
He inhales, a breath that sounds equal parts sorrow and ire, and for a bare heartbeat you glimpse the man unmasked: the surgeon who has carried every promise of countless parents, now shaken by one he could not keep. “No one else would’ve caught it,” he says at last, the praise so thin it cuts both ways. “At least we tried.” He turns as though to leave, shoulders hunched beneath the weight of every loss but then he pauses, pivots back toward you, gaze sharpening. Scrubs streaked with dried blood, arms folding into a stance of unyielding authority, Dr. Na fixes you with a stare that brooks no argument. His voice, low and steely, slices through the corridor’s fluorescent hum: “Do not tell her.”
You feel your throat constrict—a single, ragged gulp—before you exhale a shuddering sigh and lift your head in a trembling nod. Every fiber of you aches with empathy: this man, who rescued that child from death’s doorstep time and again since he was barely more than an infant, only to watch him slip away in the crucible of the OR. You know he stands on the edge of despair, raw from loss, and yet must pivot instantly back into the role of protector for the only life that matters more to him than his own—his own daughter. The weight of his double bind settles in your chest: surgeon and father, healer and mourner, forced to cradle one broken heart even as he shields another from the same cruel truths. You swallow again, steadying your voice, because you understand that his greatest battle now is not on any operating table, but in preserving innocence for the little girl who calls him “Dada.”
He glances past you to the family waiting room—where another set of parents has just been broken—jaw set so hard the muscle jumps, knuckles whitening against the wall as though it alone can steady him. This is a surgeon who loses children more often than sleep, yet each absence still bites bone-deep; you see it in the faint tremor of his shoulders, in the flash of fear that this loss, or the next, might one day be his own, his own baby girl. Guilt folds into dread, dread into a cold fury at a universe that lets tiny hearts bear such weight. He draws one ragged breath. “She’ll hear it from me. If she hears it from anyone else, especially when you’re still crying, it will break her. You know how she reads a room; you need to be steady. You promised her lunch, so you give her lunch. You act normal. She needs routine so be her anchor. Don’t let her feel it until I’m ready to give it words.” His tone sharpens the air like a scalpel, but when he pinches the bridge of his nose the veneer fractures long enough for raw panic to pulse through. “She’d cry herself to sleep if you didn’t show,” he finishes more softly, wiping at his own eyes. “So protect her joy until I’m forced to take it apart.”
Your throat burns, tears already haloing your lashes; still you square your shoulders, forcing calm into each syllable. “I understand, Doctor. I’ll keep it exactly as we promised—lunch, play, everything. She’ll only see smiles.” You swipe the last salt from your cheek, lift your chin. “I’ve got her, sir, until you’re ready.” A flicker of gratitude skims his gaze before the mask clicks back into place; he nods once, turns toward the grieving family’s room. You draw a breath deep enough to steady a quake, then pivot toward the nurses’ lounge, rehearsing your own fragile smile—because for the next few hours you will be a harbor, and grief, like the tide, must wait outside.
You shoulder the door into the pediatric nurses’ lounge, a quilt of sound and color unfurls around you: sunlight drapes itself over sunflower-yellow walls, bright murals of rocket ships and storybook castles chase one another across the ceiling, and every cabinet surface blooms with bunny stickers—pink, violet, holographic—like a garden planted by Haeun’s small hands. The air carries three distinct notes—citrus-sharp sanitizer, the waxy sweetness of half-peeled crayons, and a lingering ribbon of strawberry yogurt that makes you think of spring mornings and sidewalk chalk. Soft jazz hums from a tinny speaker, mingling with the laughter of half a dozen nurses perched on beanbags and stools, each offering a turn at being examined by the ward’s tiniest cardiologist.
At the room’s center, Haeun presides from Nurse Yuha’s lap, gold curls haloed in fluorescent light, cheeks aflame with delight, Bunny tucked like a royal scepter beneath one arm. She presses her plastic stethoscope, with its heart-shaped diaphragm, to Yuha’s chest and leans in with theatrical gravity. “Boom-boom good—lub-dub, lub-dub!” she pronounces, and the circle of nurses dissolves into applause as though she has just performed a miracle. Her eyes glide over the crowd, searching, always searching, until they catch on you standing in the doorway. In an instant she transforms from physician to comet: she wriggles free of Yuha, socks squeaking on linoleum, and launches down the aisle, Bunny flapping behind her like a pink pennant in the wind.
“My girl! My wuv! You so pwetty—I wuv you!” she shrieks, the words bright as thrown confetti. She collides with your legs at full tilt, arms latching around your calves; the jolt nearly topples you, and your hands dart to steady the curve of her small back. Hiccough-giggles sputter from her chest as she cranes upward, tiny palms capturing your cheeks, mouth puckered for a shower of kisses that taste faintly of yogurt and afternoon sun. “We lunch now? We lunch? We lunch?!” Each repetition is a sparkling plea, hope vibrating in her voice like the high string of a violin.
You crouch until your knees touch the warm floor, the mural dragons swooping just above your head, and gather her into the cradle of your arms. Her curls tickle your neck; her Bunny’s soft ear brushes your jaw; and all the grief that has carved hollows in your ribs seems, for a heartbeat, to fill with light. “Yes, baby,” you murmur, voice still raw but steady enough to hold her world intact. “Lunch now.” She releases a triumphant squeal, burrows tighter, and plants rapid-fire kisses across your chin while the nurses, smiling behind damp lashes, watch the two of you slip through the door, routine intact, promises upheld, the corridor ahead glowing with the fragile, stubborn brightness of a child who believes love is a meal that always arrives on time.
The interns’ lounge has never quite shaken its antiseptic tang, yet midday light makes the vinyl floor glow like warmed honey, and the laminate table, scarred by years of coffee rings and capped syringes, feels, for this hour, like the safest shore in the world. Two years ago you stood at an isolette instead of a table, four exhausted interns huddled around an incubator while a newborn fought for every breath. You remember unwrapping cafeteria sandwiches in silence, pretending the tiny figure under UV lamps could hear your soft jokes, believing laughter might stitch her more tightly to this side of living. In that era her lunch was a milliliter of fortified formula slipped into an NG tube, her blanket a nest of wires and warming pads. Today, in triumphant contrast, Haeun sits upright in a high chair you covered with a bunny-print cloth, bare feet drumming the metal rung, curls haloed in the fluorescent glow. She has appointed herself “big girl” of the kitchen, giggling whenever Jihoon exaggerates the clang of the juice machine, and you can’t help thinking that this ritual, weekday noon, same table, same constellation of friends, has become the arterial beat of her childhood: nourishment, safety, presence, family.
You lay out her lunch as though setting an altar. First her sandwich, cheese and strawberry jam, cut into four tidy hearts; next a pink bunny-themed juice box with the straw pierced but still sheathed so she can do the grand reveal; then a yogurt cup whose foil you peel only halfway, folding back the lid so it becomes a tiny tray; finally, strawberries shaved into flower shapes, the edges smoothed so no seed catches on her tongue. Only when every item is in its rightful place do you unpack your own food. Her eyes widen, starburst bright. “So pwetty!” she gasps, leaning to plant a sticky kiss on your cheek. “Thank you, my wuv!” She tugs your sleeve with urgent tenderness. “Sit! Sit wif me pwease? We eat togever!” She squeezes your hand as if sealing an oath. You settle beside her; she immediately scoots her plate an inch closer to yours, legs kicking until one heel bumps your thigh, a grounding contact she seems not to notice but you feel like a pulse.
Haeun is a pocket-sized burst of daylight amid the hush of hospital blues—a sunflower-yellow dress puffed around her like a petal spun from honey, butter-soft bow pinned above her fringe as though it decided to bloom there just for her. Against the cool wash of your light-blue scrubs she glows even brighter, cheeks lit with rose-petal pink, lashes fanning over half-moon eyes that crinkle each time her laughter curls up from somewhere deep and simple. Tiny fingers knead Bunny’s fleece while the other hand clutches your sleeve for balance, and every wobbling step makes the dotted fabric ripple like a field of marigolds in a secret breeze. Even the sterile corridor seems warmer for carrying her, this bright, giggling sunbeam whose whole body tilts toward love the way real blossoms lean into light.
Hyejin slides in on your left, Jihoon claims the seat across, and Dayoung, ever multitasking, balances a latte on one hip of the table. The teasing ignites instantly: “Bubba, you’re eating more than Jihoon!” Haeun’s laugh unfurls, spiraling up the tiled walls like a ribbon. Determined to keep pace with the adults, she straightens her back, folds her hands over the heart-shaped sandwich, and cocks her head in perfect imitation of your morning case-conference posture. When talk drifts to the ventricular-assist trial, her little brow furrows in exaggerated concentration; you lean close, whisper a pocket-sized definition, and she pops up, triumphant: “I know dat word—aneu… aneuwism!” The syllables tumble, endearing and earnest, but the room rewards her with applause as though she has just solved the Grand Rounds puzzle. She claps for herself, cheeks flushing rose-bright, then mimics Jihoon’s habit of jotting notes by pretending her spoon is a pen and the yogurt lid a chart. Jihoon sneaks her another strawberry; Hyejin catches a drip of yogurt with a napkin swipe; Dayoung tops off the juice box like a seasoned sommelier. It’s impossible to tell who cherishes whom more, the child radiating upward or the adults bending toward her light.
Without ever pausing to think, you move through a liturgy of tiny devotions that have, over two years, made you the fixed star in her small sky. The moment she squeals—“New sticker, wook!”—your fork is forgotten, your shoulders tipping forward as though Sotheby’s itself has begged for provenance. You cradle the glossy bunny decal between thumb and forefinger, tilt it toward the overhead light, and pronounce it a masterpiece; she preens, cheeks round with pride, as if your admiration has nudged the planet one click closer to perfect alignment. A dollop of yogurt escapes her spoon; you catch it with the pad of your thumb, swipe the smudge from her lip, and murmur, “There we go, my pretty girl,” in the same tone surgeons reserve for closing a flawless stitch. She beams, eyes crescenting, shoulders dropping in such visible relief that you feel the trust settle between you like a soft-weighted blanket.
Her legs, restless with happiness, begin to swing; before the rhythm can topple her chair, your palm finds the delicate length of her shin, a gentle ballast that slows the pendulum of toddler energy. Her doe-soft eyes blink up at you. wide, curious pools of wonder and she tilts her head, that shy furrow between her brows. Then, gathering courage in her tiny chest, she puckers her lips and blows you a hearty, breathy kiss that lands against your cheek like a soft promise. In that single fluttered moment, her whole world seems to expand and contract around you: her heart so full it feels heavy and intense, a secret she shares only with you and Daddy, a feeling she has never known with anyone else.
Conversation flows over her head in adult currents, dosage calculations, post-op schedules and each unfamiliar word makes her brows knit until you lean close, translate in a whisper, and watch her forefinger tap her temple as if she is pressing those syllables, tiny love letters, straight into memory. When her juice sloshes over the rim of its bunny box, she gasps, already apologizing, but you say only, “It’s all right, we’ll clean it up together.” Two paper napkins, four hands, and thirty seconds later the spill has become a triumph of teamwork, and she’s bright again, triumphant. Even Bunny is not forgotten: you fold a napkin into a nap-sized placemat and ladle an imaginary spoonful of soup toward his stitched mouth; her laughter, pure, effervescent, fizzes through the room and makes every fluorescent panel seem to glow warmer.
Midway through the meal, you wrap your fingers around hers, guiding the slippery yogurt spoon toward its target. Her entire hand goes slack inside your grasp, as if discovering a harbor she has sought all morning. She studies you then—long, unblinking—doe-soft eyes reflecting a devotion too large for so small a frame. In a voice hushed by awe she whispers, “You my home.” The sentence drifts across the space between your hearts like a feather, yet lands with the density of a falling star, cracking something tender wide open inside your chest.
You swallow against the sudden tide, steady the spoon, and manage, “You’re my home too, baby,” wondering whose world you have just rebuilt with those five words, hers or your own. She sighs, a tiny sound heavy with contentment, and nestles her head against your shoulder; curls brush your jaw, fine as butterfly wings, and you tilt your cheek into their touch. In that strawberry-scented stillness, the universe contracts to a child’s heartbeat and an adult’s breath, and for one miraculous beat you both believe that sharing lunch, side by side, is enough to keep the whole fragile world from breaking. For the length of a strawberry-scented breath, you believe everything is healed and possible.
The child-therapy room is small enough that your footsteps soften as soon as you cross the threshold, yet Haeun makes it feel cathedral-wide, lungs full of laughter, arms full of possibility. You arrange a miniature round table at the center, pastel yellow plastic legs, lace-printed top and guide a polite circle of stuffed animals into their seats: Bunny presiding in a polka-dot chair, a one-eyed panda to his right, a plush giraffe stretching above them all like a courteous maître d’. Jihoon folds himself onto a child-sized stool that creaks in protest; Dayoung kneels opposite, the skirt of her scrub jacket puddling on soft foam tiles. Haeun’s eyes widen at the sight of the thimble-china spread, cups no larger than a walnut, saucers brushed with tiny lavender sprigs and she claps twice, curls bouncing like miniature springs. “Bunny says mo’ shugah!” she announces with solemn authority, dipping an invisible cube into each cup and murmuring, “Sip sip, so good!” before tipping her head back to “drink” and letting out a delighted sigh.
She tucks one elbow on the table, chin cupped in her palm, and peers across at Jihoon in mock appraisal: “Do you want more, Mr. Panda? He nods, yes yes!” Then she turns to you, eyes dancing, and insists, “Chef, one mo’ pour for my wuv!”—cupping her pinky as she sips again, pink juice dribbling down her chin until you rescue her with a fingertip. When Dayoung pours “tea” into Bunny’s cup, Haeun giggles so hard she nearly tips backward, and shrieks, “Bunny say tickle time!” before tickling the plush until its ears flop. Every so often she leans close to your ear and whispers, “I wuv you lots, best tea friend, my pwetty wuv,” her breath warm and sprinkled with sweetness.
You pretend to pour, then tip an imaginary kettle toward Jihoon, who raises his pinkie and sighs, “Exquisite, Chef Haeun.” The room brightens a few watts when she beams. She sips air from her cup, eyes never straying far from you, as though every nod, every hum, is proof the sun is still in orbit. Twice, mid-giggle, she leans against your arm and whispers, “I so happy today,” the words small but weighty, settling inside your ribcage like a stone of light. You smile and smooth a curl from her cheek, yet a splinter of ache lodges under the moment: you know what waits in the afternoon, how this crystalline joy will fracture as soon as Dr. Na speaks the truth about Sangjun.
When attention drifts, you and Hyejin shift to the art corner. There’s a low wooden table scarred by decades of crayon zeal; between the grooves, fresh paper gleams. Haeun flattens a sheet, tongue peeking from the corner of her mouth, and sets to work with waxy fervor. Hyejin crouches behind, guiding her tiny fingers in backward, wobbling strokes until a proud name emerges: ‘HAEUN,’ letters marching like uneven soldiers beneath a yellow sun. “Dat’s my famiwy,” she announces, turning the page toward you. Three stick figures, her, Jaemin, you, hold hands beneath an orange orb that radiates crayon fire. Something inside you creaks open; you praise each line until her cheeks flush deeper than strawberry yogurt. A second drawing follows: two stick bodies, balloon strings sprouting from clenched fists. “Dis for Sangie,” she says. “When his boo-boo better, we hold hands fo’ever.” Hyejin catches your gaze; her smile trembles, wet at the corners. Your own chest pulses, raw, how do you cradle hope this fragile without crushing it? You tell her it’s beautiful, voice thick, and she nods, satisfied, slipping the masterpiece into a glitter-trimmed folder marked ‘FOR SANGJUN.’
Promise number three is the bubble bath. Hayoung has already run warm water in the therapy tub, clouds of citrus-scented foam rising like whipped cream peaks. Haeun squeals, stripping off her yellow dress, tiny limbs flashing gold in the fluorescent light. Dr. Na has finally come from updating the family, updating records and a much needed moment away for himself, he materializes at the doorway, shoulders squared yet eyes still rimmed red. Haeun squeaks “Dada!” and he crosses the room in three long strides, kneeling to press a kiss to her damp curls.
“Hi baby girl, I missed you,” he murmurs, voice thinned but tender. You feel the heat of him, broad chest under dark blue scrubs, sleeves clinging to biceps slicked by recent scrubbing and your pulse flickers with something embarrassingly electric before you turn back to the tub. He lingers by the wall, trusting you and Hayoung to steer the ritual, arms folded but gaze soft.
“Look, Dada, I swim!” Haeun cries, paddling in place; rubber duckies bob along the surface, Bunny (plastic-sleeved) officiates from a towel, and a leggy foam bunny hat perches atop her curls.
She holds the two ducklings aloft, one rotund, one pint-sized, then lowers them into the foam as if unveiling champions at a finish line. “Mama duck, baby duck,” she chants, voice bright with ceremony. But as the plastic birds begin their gentle parade, her small gaze drifts over your shoulder, landing shyly on the curve of your neck, the few stray droplets of water that catch in your hair. In that glance is a world of things she can’t yet name: gratitude for hands that cradle her soft curls without ever rushing, wonder at the quiet way you blend soap into each strand as if it were spun gold, and a tender question—do you see how much I love you? Her lashes flutter, cheeks warming, and her heart pulses a secret drumbeat of trust. Though she returns to cheering her ducklings, her eyes keep flicking back, tethered to you by a thread of devotion that feels both vast and fragile, a silent promise that she understands, in this warm, scented bubble bath, exactly how deeply you care. She ships, “Go, Mama! Go, Baby!” until the bath echoes with her triumphant laughter.
You crown her with a bubble tiara; she screams delighted protest, scoops fistfuls, and plops them onto your head in revenge. Hayoung catches the moment on her phone, your grin dripping foam, Haeun’s laugh arcing like a fountain and the image freezes every shadow of the day for one perfect instant. Routine is her gravity: after the splashes subside she asks, as always, “Braid hair, wight?” and you promise, guiding her out with a towel cloak, whispering a silly story about a ballet-dancing giraffe while you pat her dry. She hums along, eyes closing halfway, body lax with trust; she’s drifting toward a nap when Dr. Na re-enters, quiet as dusk.
He watches you braid her damp curls, one, two, three loops, then cups the back of her head, murmuring something low that makes her smile without opening her eyes. You feel a pang of wonder and dread: for this brilliant, laughing child the world has narrowed to two immutable anchors, Daddy and You, and in minutes one of those anchors will break the horizon with news that rends the simplest map of friendship she’s ever drawn. You tie the last ribbon, kiss the crown of her head, and hand her into her father’s arms, every promise kept for now, every shadow waiting just beyond the doorway.
Jaemin steps through again, eyes rubbed raw, jaw locked into a marble line, shadows still clinging to the hollows of his throat, yet every grief-crease has been ironed flat into authority. Conversation evaporates; Hyejin, Jihoon, and Dayoung murmur quick good-byes and slip past him, coats whispering along the wall. You move to follow, pulse skittering, but his voice, low, cooled to surgical steel, cuts across the hushed clatter of toys. “Stay.” A single hand closes around your elbow, just above the bend, heat searing through scrub fabric; the grip is brief, almost clinical, yet it pins you more surely than restraints. He never meets your eyes. gaze fixed somewhere over your shoulder, mouth a thin slash but the weight of his palm lingers long after he releases you, leaving your skin tingling, your breath shallow, as if the room has shrunk to the outline of his fingers and the unspoken order vibrating beneath your ribs. Then he coughs once, as if clearing ash from his throat, retracts his hand, and adds in a softer register, “Haeun will need you.” The words hang between you like fragile glass, and you inhale, trembling, knowing exactly what he means.
The door hushes closed behind the last intern, and Jaemin moves into the pool of warm light near the tub, shoulders squared, face drained to pale marble. His gaze drifts to Haeun, perched on a small chair in fresh sunflower-yellow pajamas, thumb slipping in and out of her mouth as her braids swing over her shoulders. She watches him with wide eyes, feeling giddy and shy, her braid ends sweeping her chest as she slips her thumb from her mouth. “Dada!” she chirps, hoisting herself into his lap. He gathers her close, one trembling hand smoothing her braid, the other cupping her back.
“I was Dada’s good girl today!” she announces, voice bright with pride. “I had lunch wif my tea party—Bunny say mo’ shugah! And I draw for Sangie, and we wash up in bubbles!” Her words tumble over each other, each achingly perfect detail of her day. Jaemin’s throat tightens, and he presses a gentle kiss to her temple. “And my wuv,” she chirrups, glancing shyly at you, “she set up my lunch, cut heart sammich just for me! She peel my yogurt and wipe my chin, and she pour Bunny’s tea too!” She giggles, pride tumbling off her tongue, then reaches one chubby hand toward you. “You my girl!” she adds, pressing a quick kiss to your scrub top before turning back to her father. “Dada, my wuv make me feel so happy!” Her small chest rises with the weight of her joy, and in that cascade of toddler praise, you and Dr. Na share a look of quiet wonder, two guardians wrapped in the purest love this little princess could ever know.
She wiggles until her small hand brushes against a sheet of paper on the table’s edge. “Look, Dada!” she whispers, eyes bright as dawn. She holds up her newest treasure, crayon strokes bold and happy. “I make dis for Sangie. I your ‘princess drawer,’ right?” Her head tilts up in hopeful question, soft curls brushing his chin, and for a moment the world narrows to her trusting gaze and the warm weight of her in his arms.
He lifts her chin with gentle fingers, eyes soft as dawn. “Oh, my precious angel,” he coos, voice trembling with warmth. “You’re so smart and so kind—you always listen to Dada and believe him, right?” She nods vigorously, curls brushing his lips, and he presses a feather-light kiss to her forehead. “Such a brave, clever girl,” he whispers, voice thick with love. “I’m so proud of you, my little sunshine.” He smooths a stray curl from her forehead, voice thick with emotion as he rasps, “You’re my brave, smart girl, Haeun. My whole heart.” He repeats. For a moment, his smile trembles, eyes flickering to shadows she can’t name but she feels it.
Haeun tilts her head, brow furrowing in toddler concern. “Why you sad, Dada? What happen?” she whispers, voice small. “You get boo-boo?” Before he can answer, she cranes forward, planting a chubby hand on his cheek. “Haeunie kiss it better for you!” She presses a soft, earnest kiss to the crease of his jaw, eyes wide with unwavering faith, and in that tender gesture he feels both heartbreak and healing, because in her innocence she believes love can mend even the deepest hurts. Beneath the praise lies something darker: the quiet dread that this fragile, wonderful life could be snatched away by the very heart that drives her laughter. He tastes salt on his lips, recalling every labored beat, every echo of monitors in sterile rooms, and the fear that one day those beeps will fall silent forever.
Like sunshine through shifting clouds, she flits away from sorrow, babies are like dandelion seeds, scattering hope wherever they drift. She fishes the crayon drawing from her dress pocket, balloons, big smiles, two stick figures and holds it up proudly. “Where Sangie? He sleeping soft now, right? When he wake up I give him dis!” Her hope is so bright it hurts to look at. Jaemin swallows.
He inhales slowly, gathering the fragile fragments of a sentence before he lets them fall. His thumbs brush her braid aside as he leans close, voice softening to a murmur meant for bedtime stories. “You know how Dada’s magic wand can make boo-boos go away?” he begins, and she nods, eyelashes quivering. He pauses, chest tightening with every memory of monitors and hurried footsteps, then continues gently, “Well, Sangjun’s heart was very, very tired. The doctors all did everything they could, they held their breath and tried to mend it but it wouldn’t beat the way it needed to.”
Her small brow scrunches in earnest confusion. She presses her thumb to her lips, voice trembling: “He got new boo-boo?”
Dr. Na’s hand finds hers, thumb tracing the ridge of her knuckles as he whispers, “No, baby. Sangjun went to Heaven.” He lets the word hang like a lullaby’s last note. “Heaven is a place where hearts never hurt and naps last forever. He’s safe there, but he won’t be able to come back.” The air stills around them, and in the hush he feels the weight of her world tilting, so he gathers her closer, whispering once more against her curls, “I’m here, love. I’ll stay with you.”
Confusion flickers, then stubborn disbelief. “Call him back, Dada. Tell him no nap, tell him Haeun miss him and need him. Maybe he come after sleep?”
The plea pierces the room, Dr. Na’s breath stutters. “I wish I could, sunshine, but Heaven is very far. Phones don’t reach that high.”
Her lower lip trembles. “He… no come back?” When Jaemin’s silent shake confirms it, the world tilts: she folds, sob breaking loose, tiny fists thumping helplessly at his chest. “Boo-boo! Sangie no come back! I need him come back!” Each syllable fragments into gasping hiccups.
Dr. Na gathers her tighter, rocking her against the steady drum of his own wounded heart. “Brave girl, my whole heart, I’ve got you. You’re safe.” He repeats it like a mantra, voice cracking, tears gleaming in his lashes. She clutches his scrub top, drawing it to her cheek as if fabric alone can anchor her to this new, brutal truth. You turn away, throat blazing, as her grieving wail, raw, animal, innocent, fills every corner of the therapy room, and for one interminable minute the only sounds are her sobs, his murmured reassurance, and the faint drip of water from the still-warm tub.
Hourglass tears have dwindled to silver rivulets when Haeun finally stills against Dr. Na’s chest, chubby fingers brushing at her damp cheeks in determined swipes. Her small hands, unsteady from grief yet resolute in purpose, reach for the drawing tucked into her pocket. “I still give dis to Sangie,” she declares, voice catching on each consonant as she pries the paper free. “I give it to his Mama and Dada and baby sissy.” Her bravery trembles in the carved space of her throat.
Dr. Na nods once, slow and profound, and presses a trembling kiss to her temple. Without a word, he gathers her up, arms folding around her like fortress walls. He rises, shoulders squared in that quiet command born of both surgeon’s discipline and a father’s fierce protectiveness, and starts toward the door, instinctive, unwavering, expecting you to follow without question. Outside the therapy room, the hallway lights feel harsh after the muted comfort within. He leads the way to the hospital gift shop, each step measured. You trail behind, breath thick with unshed tears. Inside, you find balloons bobbing against the ceiling: pastel blues declaring “Congratulations, It’s a Boy!” and bouquets of white lilies and daisies arranged in trembling perfection. Jaemin picks a simple hand-tied bunch, petals soft as a promise, while Haeun’s small hand clasps your fingers, guiding you through the haze of color.
Those pastel balloons, once buoyant heralds of fresh beginnings, now drift overhead like hollow specters, their helium whispers mocking the fragility of breath itself. Each “It’s a Boy!” ribbon curls in the fluorescent glare as though spelling out a requiem: the promise of new life transformed into eulogies in midair. The daisies in your bouquet, creamy and innocent, seem suddenly like fractured hopes, their petals drifting loose at the gentlest touch. You can almost feel time’s cruel slip, how a single heartbeat, unnoticed, can falter and fade, how the world can turn in a fraction of a second from celebration to grief. In this bright little shop, where crayons once sketched futures and tiny shoes clattered with first steps, you stand surrounded by objects meant to proclaim life’s arrival, now rendered absurdly hollow: reminders that even the strongest promises can unravel on a breath, and that joy and mourning are separated by the thinnest of membranes.
Dr. Na drapes the bouquet across the counter and lifts Haeun so she can place her drawing atop the flowers, careful fingers smoothing the paper as if tucking a child into bed. “For Sangie’s family,” he murmurs, voice tempered steel and sorrow, and she echoes, “For Sangie’s sissy.” In that moment, the three of you stand amid balloons and blossoms—life’s bright hurrahs ringing hollow beneath the weight of loss—and together you bear both the celebration and the mourning: a bouquet for a heart that will beat on, and a drawing for a boy who will sleep forever beyond the reach of words.
Dr. Na carries Haeun down the hushed corridor, his arms rigid with control yet trembling beneath the weight of her steady heartbeat; she curls against his chest whispering her private mantra, good girl, brave girl, strong girl, with each exhale, as though weaving armor from the words. Inside the Kim family’s room grief hangs thick as iodine: Sangjun’s mother folded into her husband’s arms, sobs breaking against his collar; the father rigid, white-knuckled, as if sheer will might keep the world from splitting anew. On a low couch the baby sister gurgles, blissfully detached, tiny fingers worrying the bunny charm that once brightened Sangjun’s IV pole. Haeun straightens in Jaemin’s hold, shoulders squaring with determined grace; he lowers her to the floor and she toddles forward, chin quivering but held high. “Dis for you,” she says, offering the crayon drawing, two stick figures beneath balloons, hands forever linked. “He my bestest fwend. I wuv him fo’ever.” Her bouquet follows, stems wobbling in her fist like green reeds in a storm. The mother receives the paper, and sound unravels from her throat, half thanks, half keening, while tears drop onto the bright wax sun Haeun had pressed so hopefully into existence.
Sang-jun’s baby sister, hardly more than a dimpled bundle in lilac pajamas, totters toward the towering hush of adults, wide eyes searching for the brother whose crib now stands empty. She lifts a fist still clutching the IV-pole bunny charm, its plastic ear squeaking in the quiet, and reaches for the nearest island of warmth: Haeun. Though only a year older, Haeun seems suddenly enormous beside her, sunflower-bright bow, toddler limbs already threaded with the gravity of loss. She crouches with careful knees, tiny heart ticking behind a scar no wider than her thumb, and presses a kiss into the baby’s silken hair. “Shhh, I p’otect you,” she vows, voice quivering yet sure. “You my sissy now, Haeun love you big-big.”
The younger girl leans in, uncertain, and Haeun wraps stubby arms around her, their little hands bunching fistfuls of each other’s pajamas. Two sets of translucent lashes flutter against damp cheeks; one child too young to speak grief, the other barely old enough to name it, yet already carrying the instinct to shield. Around them, grown hearts rupture in silence, mothers’ throats closing, fathers’ shoulders shaking but the room’s center is these two trembling suns, their hug a fragile knot that tries to hold the universe together. You step back, air burning in your lungs at the brutal sweetness of it: one girl whose heart has been rebuilt by surgeons, consoling another whose world has been cleaved in half. Haeun strokes tiny fingers down the baby’s arm and whispers, “No more boo-boo, I stay,” and in that soft promise, uttered by a child who knows hospitals better than playgrounds, the adults hear both a benediction and an indictment: love this small should never have to be so brave.
Outside the family suite, the hallway shrinks to a tunnel of harsh light and echoing footsteps, and the moment the door seals shut Haeun unravels in her Daddy’s arms. Her courage, stretched too thin, snaps; sobs burst out raw and unmetered, rattling her ribcage. Her fingers scrabble at his scrub collar, tiny knuckles whitening, as if fearing the world might pull her from him too. Cheeks blotched strawberry-red, eyelids puffed and glistening, she gulps air that won’t come fast enough. “Da-da… he m-my fwend… boo-boo,” she wails, voice breaking like glass; each syllable tremors through her small frame until her knees buckle. Hot tears sluice down, soaking the dark fabric over Dr. Na’s heart, and snot threads from her nose to his shoulder in shining ropes. “Haeu-nie sad too! So s-sad! My heart fweel… s-so boken, Dada!” She beats her fist once against her own chest, then clutches Bunny hard enough to bend the wire in its ears.
Dr. Na cinches her close, one hand sheltering the fragile knob of her spine, the other splaying across her heaving sternum as if to cage the pieces of her breaking heart. “I’ve got you, baby girl. Always, always—You’re safe,” he whispers, voice fissured, repeating the words until his breath falters. But Haeun only buries her swollen face deeper into the crook of his neck, sobs spilling unchecked, proof that some wounds, even in the smallest bodies, bleed louder than any monitor’s alarm.
You stand a step away, hand pressed flat to the glass pane beside the door; your own vision blurs until the hallway doubles. The job you’ve sworn to, the calling that owns your waking hours, has opened another seam in you: healer and witness, stitched together yet forever tearing. Behind the pane, you clock every excruciating detail, unable to stop cataloguing love and loss. The bunny charm Haeun clipped to Sang-jun’s IV three days ago now dangles from his baby sister’s fist, she gums the plastic ear with oblivious devotion, unaware it is a relic. Crayon drawings flutter on the family bulletin board: two stick figures beneath a blazing sun, names spelled in crooked capitals, proof that friendships can outlive pulses. A well-loved toy ambulance, Sang-jun’s constant companion, sits abandoned on a windowsill; its silent siren feels like an accusation. Down the hall, a pair of nurses stand shoulder to shoulder, one wiping mascara tracks from the other one's cheek. Another nurse edges close to Dr. Na, lays a gentle hand on his arm before stepping away, eyes shining.
Sang-jun’s father, stooped now with exhaustion even amid fresh grief, had taken every extra shift he could: overnight stocking shelves, delivering newspapers before dawn, scrubbing floors long after the hospital’s children fell asleep. He lived on coffee and borrowed hours, chasing every penny for treatments, only to have the little burst of life he’d fought so hard to sustain slip through his fingers. And Sang-jun’s mother, once a bright presence who curled her boy’s hair at bedtime, had watched him fade behind glass walls, her own hands trembling so fiercely she could barely hold a crayon for his drawings. The wedding band she never removed lay cold on her finger now, a silent witness to every promise broken, every hope snuffed out in the sterile hush of the ICU. In the hush between their sobs you feel the weight of their losing tilt the world off its axis, and you press your palm harder to the glass, as if you could shield them from all the lonely months of debt and sleepless nights that brought them to this moment of shattering.
Haeun’s sobs quiet to whimpers; she presses Bunny to her lips and whispers, “Bunny sad too but Haeun even sadder.” The toy absorbs her confession without protest. Jaemin strokes her braid in rhythmic passes, forehead resting on the crown of her head, as though anchoring them both to gravity. A few doors down a patient monitor beeps, ordinary and indifferent, reminding you that routine will restart long before innocence returns. In this suspended hush, nurses shifting charts whilst sobbing, lights buzzing overhead, the scent of antiseptic threading through your lungs, you realise the day has altered every heart in its orbit: the grieving parents inside, the surgeon shaking though he pretends not to, the tiny girl learning what forever means, and your own, cracked open in new and irrevocable ways.
Fatherhood, Jaemin has learned, isn’t the pastel promise stitched onto greeting cards but a night-shift of unrelenting vigilance, equal parts reverence and terror: it’s listening for the hitch in a toddler’s breathing at 3 a.m.; it’s memorising medication schedules the way other men recite box scores; it’s holding a child’s sweat-damp body through grief so fierce it feels volcanic, then rising for rounds with the mark of her tears still salt-tight on his collar. it’s packing Bunny’s spare bandages beside his own surgical loupes because anything less feels negligent; it’s steering past playgrounds where other fathers push carefree swings while he calculates oxygen saturation under summer heat; it’s smiling through cartoon theme songs while his mind replays the flatline of another little heart. And beneath the daily consolations—banana pancakes, crayon suns, whispered mantras of Dada’s here—lurks a colder arithmetic: the Kwon family’s latest custody motion waiting in his email like an unexploded shell, the memory of Haeun’s birth mother (all frenzy and fractured vows) haunting every unlocked doorway. Love, he realises, is not merely cradling what is fragile but building ramparts around it, bracing for the moment paperwork or madness tries again to rip his daughter from his arms.
Morning unfolds in slow gradients of peach and gold, spilling through half-tilted blinds and pooling at the kitchen table where Haeun sits barefoot in her sunflower-yellow nightdress, knees tucked beneath her booster seat. A month has passed since Sang-jun slipped away, yet grief still drifts through her days like intermittent cloud cover: some mornings bright, others overcast and raw. Today the light is kind; it glints in her curls as she bends over a sheet of craft paper, tongue caught between her teeth in fierce concentration. Crayons scatter like fallen petals, sky-blue beneath her elbow, grass-green near her toes but she chooses each colour with purpose: a broad golden arc for the sun, three stick figures with matching curls, crooked hearts floating overhead. Every so often she lifts the drawing, squints as though comparing it to the room, then adds another radiant stroke.
Jaemin hovers at the stove, flipping banana pancakes on the cast-iron griddle, each turn timed to the kettle’s soft hum. His phone vibrates across the cutting board; one glance at the caller ID and the warmth in his shoulders locks. He strides over and answers, voice pared to clean steel. “Dr Na speaking.” A pause—static, a distant male voice—tightens the room.
Haeun, oblivious, sings, “Sun go boom-boom happy!” while ring-lighting her drawn sun with bright yellow rays. Jaemin’s knuckles whiten around the handset.
“No,” he says, iron filling every syllable. “She’s not going anywhere. She is my daughter.” He ends the call before the reply can finish, screen dimming as if never lit. Only the silent grind of his molars betrays the tremor beneath his calm.
Across the counter his laptop pings, an email from the Kwon family’s attorney, subject line clipped and courteous: Request for discussion of legal guardianship. The preview alone is enough: references to visitation, lineage verification, a “neutral environment” for transition. Three pages of tidy strategy bloom in his mind, none of them speak of 3 a.m. fevers or the soft way Haeun curls her hand into his shirt while dreaming. He inhales once—slow, deliberate—then drags the message to Trash and watches it vanish, as if deletion could silence their claim.
The scent of caramelising batter tugs him back. Pancakes done, he stacks them on her pink bunny plate, dusts them with sugar, and crosses the floor. She’s too absorbed in her next detail, a lopsided rabbit with a crown, to notice him. “Look, Dada, Bunny got a hat!” she proclaims, scribbling a crooked triangle beside its ear. Jaemin sets the plate down, then scoops her up, syrup-warm cheek pressing to his collarbone. For an instant the legal wolves recede; there. only the anchor-weight of his child and the thud of both their hearts. “Daddy loves you,” he murmurs, vow and prayer entwined. “No one is taking you, bubba.”
She blinks, maple-sweet smile climbing her face. Soft, crayon-smudged fingers pat his cheeks as if smoothing invisible creases. “Dada silly,” she decides, then lifts her picture for inspection. “Dat’s us! Dada big, Haeun small. We happy.” Her voice wavers, grief still ghosts the edges but the certainty is there: they are together.
He kisses the crown of her head. Outside the kettle shrills; inside she claps in triumph, sugar snowing onto the paper. Jaemin sets her back in her seat and slides the first pancake close. “Eat up, artist,” he says, voice tender. She spears the fluffy circle, powdered constellations swirling in the sun-beam, and hums contentment.
Some nights unravel in fragments that feel longer than the hours allow. Haeun will pad into Jaemin’s room on bare, trembling feet, little fist rubbing her swollen eyes, and climb into his lap before he’s fully awake. There, grief detonates, soft at first, then spiraling into guttural sobs that quake her bird-small chest. Tears pool on his bare chest, her cheeks puffing crimson like bruised petals as she whispers the fear that gnaws her sleep to threads: “D-dada, my heart so hurty… Will Haeunie die too?” Each syllable is a plea he feels in the roots of his teeth. He rocks her through every tremor, pulse hammering with the terror he dare not voice, that one day the monitors will fall silent for her too. He strokes the scar beneath her pajama collar, presses a shaking kiss to her temple, and answers the only truth he allows himself: “Not today, love. Dada’s here, right here.” They stay tangled until dawn stains the blinds, her breathing finally smoothing against the drum of his own heart as he softly cries himself to sleep not to wake her, forgiveness laced with exhaustion.
Other nights she wanders the hospital hallways calling softly for you, your name a question, a lifeline, until she finds refuge in the crook of your shoulder. There she becomes velcro-clingy: demands that you braid and unbraid her curls three times, insists on the long version of every bedtime story, begs you to trace hearts on her back until your fingertips go numb. Your calm becomes the harbor she docks in when the world tilts: she molds herself to your frame, thumb tucked in her mouth, eyes glossy as moonlit ponds, murmuring, “Stay wif me. Read again. Sing again.” And you do, twice, three times because the tremor in her voice is a siren you can’t ignore. Even when she finally drifts off, she clutches your wrist like an anchor line, fingers twitching each time you try to slip away.
Some dawns she wakes soaked in night sweats, cheeks salt-striped, and calls for both of you at once, even though you’ve never stepped foot into her house. “Dada? My wuv?” As though naming you might knit the world back together faster. Healing, you’re learning, is not a straight road but an uneven coastline: grief gusts in, recedes, and arrives again without warning. So you keep taking turns without actively communicating it, one whispering lullabies, the other counting her pulse because love is a long tidal breath, rising and falling until the day her small heart decides it can beat without fear again.
You, too, feel the tear: medicine can suture flesh, but it can’t m always keep a child breathing. In off-hours you replay monitors, second-guess dosages, and weep behind locker-room doors. Yet every time Haeun sees you, she greets you with a wobble-smile and outstretched arms, proof that even grief can cradle grace. She presses Bunny’s worn paw to your heart and whispers, “Bunny sad too, but we okay,” and you believe her, because children speak in futures adults forget how to pronounce. So the routine endures: breakfast in toffee light, crayon suns on paper skies, Jaemin’s quiet sentry at the stove, your gentle translations of grown-up words, her small fingers tracing the scar on her chest while asking, “boom-boom strong today?” and you answer with soft certainty, “strong as the sun, baby.” Outside the blinds, the world lines up its battles, but inside this circle of light Jaemin inhales the scent of syrup and shampoo, you cradle a budding laugh, and Haeun, heart stitched yet beating, draws another crooked rainbow to prove the day is still hers.
Morning settles over the hospital drive in a hush of cloud-filtered light, and Haeun, swaddled inside her sunflower-yellow coat, curls tucked beneath a matching bow, clings to Jaemin’s shoulder as though the world were suddenly made of glass. Since Sang-jun’s passing these walls have lost their carnival shine; today she refuses every nurse’s greeting, buries her face deeper into the warm crook of her father’s neck, and lets only the faintest whimper escape. Jaemin feels the tremor run through her small frame, feels the way her fingers curl like question marks against his collar, and knows they can’t take another step until he hands her courage first. He lowers to a squat, setting her patent shoes upon the tile, and draws her gaze with the gentlest tilt of his chin. “Who’s Daddy’s girl?” he murmurs, voice gravel-soft, a secret offered between just the two of them.
At once her shyness detonates into a sunrise: “Haeunie!” she squeals, little knees wobbling. She claps so hard her entire body jiggles, stamps one pudgy foot for good measure, then slings her arms high and topples into his embrace, chanting “Dada, Dada!” until laughter shakes loose like coins in a jar. He kisses the tip of her scrunched nose, wipes a stray tear from her lash, and reminds her, in words warm as pocketed stones, that bravery lives in her smile, beauty in her heartbeat, hope in every step she takes.
Still, the hallway feels too loud, the ceiling too tall. He senses her breath hitch; at once he whispers, “Bubble breaths?”
She nods. Together they inhale, slow, deep, imaginarily filling pink soap spheres—then blow them out with pursed lips. “One… three… two… more bubble!” She counts, numbers tangled but earnest. On the final exhale she pats her chest and declares, “All calm, Dada,” and folds into a velvet-soft cuddle that steadies them both.
The routine appointment itself is a small miracle threaded through routine: Dr Renjun listens, probes, reviews the echo, and finally grins. “All clear, superstar,” he says, offering a palm. Haeun slaps it in triumph, then secures matching unicorn stickers, one for herself, one for Bunny, before skipping back into Jaemin’s arms. Confidence restored, Jaemin turns the hallway into a game: the big checkup begins right outside the exam room. Kneeling, he taps the crown of her head. “Show Daddy where you feel good today.” She taps back: “Head good!” Belly next—“Tum-tum happy!”—then her tiny fists thump her sternum, “Heart go boom-boom!” She adds cartoon sound effects, “boom-BOOM, boom-BOOM,” and collapses into giggles.
Phase Two: “Find the Pulse” unfolds like a secret ceremony. Jaemin cups Haeun’s small wrist in his rough surgeon’s palm, then guides her trembling fingers until they rest atop the gentle thrum beneath her skin. “Feel that?” he whispers, voice soft as dawn. “That’s your heart talking to your hand.”
Her eyelashes flutter against glossy cheeks as she leans in, brow furrowed in fierce concentration. A tiny gasp escapes her, followed by a triumphant grin that splits her face into sunshine. “Boop—boop!” she chirrups, eyes sparkling like dewdrops. “Dada, it say ‘hi!’” He offers his own wrist without hesitation, a silent promise that they are bound in this unbreakable rhythm. Haeun’s fingers drift across his pulse, and she lets out a delighted squeak: “Same team!”—her astonishment as pure as the first bloom of spring.
From that moment on, uncertainty finds no lodging. If a tremor of fear ever drifts across her face, Jaemin kneels beside her and murmurs, “Want to check your heart again?” She nods, brave as a tiny soldier, places two earnest fingers to her wrist, breathes in slowly and long, and declares with unshakable pride, “All good, Dada!” It’s more than a check, it’s her passport to safety, stamped in the quiet language of love.
Today, leaving Cardiology with stickers gleaming and Bunny tucked beneath one arm, she holds Jaemin’s hand a little tighter but walks on her own feet. The massive surprise—still hidden behind Pediatrics’ double doors—waits like sunlight behind clouds. For now she is still shy, yes, and still mending, but the hallway echoes with her small voice practicing numbers in hopeful disorder, and with Jaemin’s quiet hum of approval that fits around her like a shield. Somewhere overhead a ventilator whooshes, monitors chirp, but inside their shared bubble of breaths and boop-boops, father and daughter move forward, one brave step, one counted pulse at a time, toward whatever brightness the day is willing to offer.
Morning pours itself across the private wing in a slow, honey-thick spill, glazing pale-oak floors and pastel murals in molten gold. Here the hospital feels more like a quiet conservatory than a clinic: ceilings vault high enough for light to linger, leather couches crouch in patient semicircles, and the faint perfume of lilies mingles with citrus sanitizer and the expensive musk of designer handbags resting on side tables. Through the hush drifts a single, contained energy, something waiting behind the conference-room door. Jaemin walks that gold-striped corridor with Haeun perched on his hip, her sunflower dress a bright echo of the painted bears and moons on the wall. She’s spent the whole morning pressing small, worried questions into the hollow of his throat, all questions that are about you. “Dada, why my wuv busy long time? She fix big boo-boos? Where is she? I miss my wuv.” Each time he has stroked her spine and answered that once you finish saving other children you’ll come to play.
You haven’t been perched beside Haeun’s these past days because your pages of post-op notes and bleeps of vital alarms have kept you tethered to white-washed corridors far from her laughter. As a second-year intern on Dr. Na’s service, you’re the first to respond when a postoperative bleed bleeds into a code, the one juggling consults in ICU and drafting orders in the stroke ward, your hands never still for more than a heartbeat. While she’s chasing bubbles down therapy-room halls, you’ve been racing to the EKG station to verify a new arrhythmia or don your gown for an emergent bedside procedure, each duty pulling you farther from her sunflower-bright face. You’ve watched her cling to nurse Yuha’s lap through a one-way glass and felt your heart twist because your promise to her dances on the edge of pager beeps and chart reviews: Soon, bubba, soon. But today, at last, you hope to step out of the shadows of the hospital’s heartbeat and into the warmth of her arms, trading the clamorous urgency of your intern rounds for the soft certainty of being her “my wuv” once more.
What Haeun doesn’t know is that Jaemin has arranged another kind of rescue first: behind that door waits the tight constellation of friends who carried him through every life he lived before fatherhood. At the threshold he slides one steady hand up her back, feels her tiny ribs expand beneath his palm, and pushes the door. Light flares outward, catching six familiar faces that pivot toward her with unfiltered joy: Lee Jeno stands like a steadfast lighthouse, his calm eyes cradling every secret fear Jaemin ever harbored, and by his side, his fiance, her laughter a silk ribbon that once mended Jaemin’s shattered nights, which gave hope from every quiet corner. Jang Karina gleams at the far end, poised and sculpted like marble brought to life, the worldless obstacles she’s overcome traced in the elegant lines of her smile. Shin Ryujin and Osaki Shotaro lean together with the easy symmetry of a well-rehearsed pas de deux, twin flames of perseverance who have danced Jaemin through fear and celebration alike. And there, just beyond them, Donghyuck’s grin breaks like sunrise across a dark sky, the broadcaster’s voice still warm from telling impossible comebacks, he’s now here to herald Haeun’s own small victories. Each presence hums with stories of late-shift vigil, heartbreak soothed by shared laughter, and dreams kept alive by hands that refuse to let go. Together they form a living tapestry of strength and tenderness, a circle of light that will surround Haeun, her father’s past made whole, and her future made safe, long before she steals one shy glance their way.
Jeno steps forward first, voice warm as hearth fire, and sweeps Haeun into a playful dip, “Hi princess, my spark, I missed you,” he says, as if she were the flicker that keeps his own light alive.
Beside him, his fiancée kneels down, her laughter soft as petals, tucks a stray curl behind Haeun’s ear and murmurs, “My little moonbeam,” her eyes shining with the fierce pride of a mother.
Karina, all sleek confidence and couture poise, offers Haeun a single rose-shaped lollipop, “For the boldest blossom I know,” she smiles, already stitching this tiny flower’s future into every seam of her heart.
Ryujin and Shotaro exchange a conspiratorial glance before Ryujin lifts Haeun gently into a spin, Shotaro’s arms guiding her pirouette, “Our littlest prima ballerina,” they say in perfect unison, their movements echoing every lesson in perseverance they’ve ever taught.
Finally Donghyuck strides forward, his grin wide enough to fill a stadium, ruffles her curls like a playful breeze and exclaims, “Look at you, champ, breaking records in cuteness,” his voice carrying the electric thrill he brings to every live broadcast. Each greeting weaves another golden thread into the tapestry of her life, reminding Haeun that she is seen, celebrated and beloved by this constellation of hearts that will always orbit her light.
Her little victory crumbles like a sandcastle beneath a wave. For a heartbeat she stands amid their beaming faces, Jeno’s hearth-warm laughter, Karina’s soft smile, Ryujin and Shotaro’s graceful encouragement, Donghyuck’s booming cheer, all of it spinning too fast for her tiny chest. Suddenly her knees wobble, her courage evaporates, and she darts back into Jaemin’s arms, pressing into the hollow of his shoulder as if it were home’s doorstep. She shakes her head so fiercely her braids swing like pendulums, voice a trembling whisper. “Why dey all here? Dey so loud an’ annoyin’… an’ scary! I stay wif you, Dada?” His palm sweeps over her curls, a silent promise of patience, and the circle of aunties and uncles falls hushed and understanding, giving space to her shy heart to bloom again at its own pace.
Jaemin’s fingers brush a stray curl from Haeun’s temple as he tilts her chin gently, voice low and soothing. “They’re only your aunties and uncles, baby, you love them so much, you were telling me how much you missed them all month, so why are you so shy right now, Hm? They came just to see you,” he murmurs, eyes soft with reassurance.
She stamps her foot against his thigh, brow furrowing in stubborn determination. “I onwy wanna see my wuv… my pwettiest girl!” she insists, desperate to spend time with you, her voice quivering with fierce loyalty,
She lets out a soft sigh, breath warming the fabric of his scrub top, and peeks around his shoulder at the half-dozen faces that flood the room with light and noise. Each smile is one she knows and loves, Karina’s poised warmth, Ryujin’s gentle nod, Shotaro’s amused tilt of the head, Donghyuck’s booming beckon but together they loom too large for her small heart to hold. Her lashes flutter shut as she buries her cheek against Jaemin’s collar, only to steal another glance: there, standing a little apart, is Jeno. tall and steady, the first to discover her secret world and the one whose laughter sung through her earliest days. Something bright and daring overcomes her shyness; with a little gasp of delight she scrambles free, braids bobbing, and launches herself into his open arms, giggles spilling from her like bubbles. “Uncle No-no!” she coos, burying her face in the familiar cradle of his shoulder, as though in his embrace she can breathe again. In that instant, the swirl of surprise softens into safety. the world narrowing to the two of them, and her brave little heart steady once more.
Haeun’s gaze alights on Jeno’s fiancée as she steps forward, and in a burst of toddler bravado she scoots across the carpet. tiny feet pattering, until she can reach the curve of that waiting smile. With a series of breathy “mwah, mwah” kisses she peppered across the fiancée’s cheek, she then presses her own nose to hers, eyes shining with mischief and affection. Jeno’s fiancée laughs, cupping Haeun’s little face in her hands, and the two of them sway in wordless camaraderie. Above their heads, Jaemin notices Jeno slip a hand into his fiancée’s, the twin wedding bands catching the late-afternoon light. He allows himself a small, bittersweet smile: in a matter of weeks, their vows will intertwine Jeno and his love forever, and if all goes well a tiny cousin will join Haeun’s world. Unaware of adult whispers, Haeun’s pudgy fingers drift to the soft swell of the fiancée’s belly, an instinctive gesture of kinship without knowing the life that lies there, before she looks up at Jaemin with solemn pride.
He feels a sudden hollow ache beneath his ribs, as though his own heartbeat recoils at the thought of Haeun ever feeling alone. In that quiet moment, he lets himself dream—wish upon a star he scarcely believes in—that one day she might tumble through the world with a laughing sibling at her side. Yet even as the hope blossoms, he knows its petals are forged of glass: fragile, beautiful, and bound to shatter. By the time the next sunbeam spills across his palms, he accepts the truth with brittle grace: it will always be just the two of them, two hearts caught in each other’s gravity, carving their own constellation against the vast, uncharted night.
While Haeun basks in the tidal welcome, Jaemin’s thoughts slip down a quiet corridor of memory. For the first twelve months that he knew she was his daughter, he had vanished, letting only his parents and Jeno trace the fragile drum of her heartbeat. Terror made him selfish: he needed a world small enough to control, a sanctuary where fatherhood could bloom without interrogation. He remembers the night that sanctuary cracked, the isolette’s glow painting her healing scar silver as he rocked her through a feverish dusk. The door had creaked, and Karina’s voice, equal parts reprimand and reverence, had filled the room: “Jaemin, you bastard. I want to be mad at you, but your baby is so beautiful.” All he could manage was a fractured whisper, “you found us,” before the dam broke and those friends stepped inside, eyes shining with something fiercer than curiosity. They should have felt like intruders; instead, they became pillars holding the sky above his daughter’s crib. Fear still lived in him, fear of her faltering heart, fear of the mother who called her a parasite, fear of the law that might one day question custody but in that moment isolation yielded to a softer gravity. They entered his sanctuary that night, and they have never once let the walls close behind them.
Now, watching Haeun tuck her head beneath Jeno’s chin, Jaemin exhales a breath he doesn’t know he had been holding. He gathers the tilt of light, the perfume of lilies, the sound of her giggle echoing off high ceilings, and he lets the weight of earlier grief ease for a heartbeat. Behind him the conference door swings shut on gentle hinges, sealing nine beating hearts inside one gilded room, and for the first time since Sang-jun’s death he believes the day might finish in laughter instead of tears.
Haeun drifts between Jeno and his fiancée, already a radiant presence in her sunflower-yellow dress, her tiny hand reaching for the delicate lace of the gown. With solemn care, she presses her forehead to Jeno’s fiancée’s cheek in a toddler’s version of a curtsy and whispers, “My pwetty Auntie!” before offering a half-squashed fruit snack as tribute. Jeno’s fiancée laughs, sweeping Haeun into her arms and planting gentle kisses on each crayon-smudged finger, murmuring that she’s the sweetest gift anyone could ask for.
Moments later, Jeno stoops beside them, holding a small plate of mini-donuts. Haeun’s eyes widen at the sugary sight, and she seizes Jeno’s hand in both of hers. “Uncle No-no, one for me, one for Bunny?” she negotiates, her voice a determined trill. He obliges, slipping her a powdered treat, and she bites thoughtfully before beaming up at him: “Yum-yum, thank you!” Jeno ruffles her curls, marveling at how such a tiny person can carry so much joy.
Jeno’s fiancée reaches into her clutch and withdraws a miniature card, its cover a swirl of pale peony petals and gold filigree framing the words ‘Will You Be Our Flower Girl?’ in looping script. She offers it to Haeun with a conspiratorial smile, and the little girl’s eyes go wide as she gingerly takes the card, her thumb tracing the embossed blossoms. She turns it this way and that, brow furrowing in earnest concentration, before looking up at Jeno and attempting the grand, new phrase: “I be fwow… flower… and look like Dada’s pwetty girl?” Her voice wobbles with both question and pride, as though she’s discovered a secret role in the greatest story.
Jeno’s chest softens, he sweeps her into his arms and murmurs, “Exactly, beautiful. You’ll scatter petals and sparkle just like my shining star.” Haeun giggles, pressing the card to her cheek, already imagining herself in a frothy dress, petals dancing at her feet, the very picture of her father’s pride.
Her applause bursts from her like sunbeams—tiny palms striking in rapid rhythms, curls bouncing with every enthusiastic slap. “Flow-er giwl! Flow-er giwl!” she squeals, voice ringing bright as a bell, clutching the card to her chest as if it were the crown of a queen. She hops in Jeno’s arms, eyes wide with delight, and presses her forehead against the invitation, murmuring each gilded word as if tasting a secret. Then she straightens, looking up at his fiancée with solemn pride: “Haeun scatta petuls, make all pwetty!” Before anyone can answer, she spins on tiptoe, arms flung wide like she’s already scattering petals down an aisle of light, giggling so hard her laughter spills over—pure joy at understanding that soon, she will be the tiniest, most radiant flower girl in the world.
Haeun pads across the polished floor toward Karina, her sunflower dress swishing with each determined step, tugging gently at the hem of the designer’s silk skirt. Karina kneels to meet her, fingers already lifting a loose curl as if she can’t wait to braid Haeun’s hair into another artful pattern. “May I do your braids, darling?” she murmurs, voice warm as spun sugar.
Haeun shakes her head, solemn in her two-year-old resolve: “My wuv will do my hair later! Dada said she pwomised! Thank you, though, Auntie Rina. I wuv you so next time, you do my hair!” She beams, cheeks dimpled, and skips back to Jaemin’s side. Karina straightens, brow knitting in gentle confusion, then lifts her gaze to find Jaemin watching, his jaw clenched, lower lip caught between his teeth, eyes dark with something like desire and restraint. For a flicker of a heartbeat the air between them quivers: the heated pulse of mutual desire, a fierce, unspoken hunger to claim the only body that sets your blood ablaze and stills the rest of the world.
Haeun wobbles free of Jaemin’s arms and toddles across the polished floor toward Ryujin and Shotaro, who stand beneath a pastel mural of swans in ballet poses. Her braided pigtails sway like tiny metronomes and her cheeks glow with rose-pink excitement. Shotaro kneels first, offering a steady hand, while Ryujin’s eyes crinkle with mock reproach as she smooths the tulle of Haeun’s skirt. “Princess,” Ryujin coos, voice warm as honey, “why haven’t you been to class lately?”
Haeun pauses, little brow furrowing in earnest concentration, then places both chubby hands over her heart and whispers, “My hweart been hurting, Auntie, Dr Jun say it need quiet or I get a boo-boo.”
Jaemin sinks down behind her, warm hands cupping her ribcage as he brushes a loose curl from her forehead and tucks it behind her ear. The pale afternoon light pools at their feet; every granite concern of the hospital seems to ease away. “Dr. Huang said your heart needs a little rest, baby bird,” he murmurs, voice soft like a lullaby, “but you’re growing stronger each day. Pretty soon you’ll be ready for the Winter recital, you missed the last one, and you deserve a dance all your own.”
Haeun tilts her chin up, those big doe eyes glimmering with determination. She presses a pudgy fist to her chest, the scar beneath on her chest peeking like a secret badge of honor, and lets out a triumphant squeak: “I dance now, Dada! Haeun strong!” She tucks her head against his shoulder, curls tickling his collarbone, and adds in a tiny whisper, “Winter nice. Haeun show you spin, pwease?” His heart blooms, her bravery, her trust, the promise of every pirouette yet to come.
Shotaro steps forward, tall as a sentinel yet gentle as dawn, and slips his hand to Haeun’s elbow. The private wing’s silence hushes to a single heartbeat as he murmurs, “Point your toes like a baby dove stretching its wings, princess.” She inhales, the rib-cage flutter beneath her sunflower dress trembling against the gold ribbon tied at her waist, and—slowly, deliberately—extends her leg in a wavering tendu. The polished floor reflects her effort: a doll-sized dancer poised between fragility and flight. “Boop-boop,” she whispers to herself, as if encouraging her own heartbeat. Shotaro’s eyes shine with pride. “Beautiful, our girl’s a natural,” he breathes, as though that single word might carry her all the way to the stars.
Her cheeks ignite, and she throws her arms around his neck. “Again, Taro! Again!” she begs, giggles slipping through her teeth like a silverfish. He lifts her, spins once, and sets her down beside Ryujin, who echoes a ballerina’s curtsey. Jaemin watches from a pace away, arms folded as if to keep his lungs from spilling out. The sight of her, a living metronome of hope, pins something inside him painfully sweet; his heart squeezes the way it did the first time he felt her post-op pulse stutter and recover beneath his thumb.
Encouraged, she squares those cherub shoulders and lowers into a plié, the motion as solemn and deliberate as a swan’s bow. Ryujin’s supportive arm curves around her back, whispering, “Five more, darling, like the prima ballerinas you love.” Haeun’s fists tighten—one, two, three—each bend deeper than the last, each rise more determined, until on that final fifth plié she inhales sharply and tosses her curls back, triumphant as a fledgling bursting free of its shell. Ryujin gasps and sweeps her into a cradle of applause, and Haeun’s voice rings out above it all: “Again, again!” as if conducting an orchestra of sunbeams.
Donghyuck drifts closer, blazer gleaming under the panel lights, and drops into a theatrical bow. “Even the tiniest prima needs her intermission before an encore.”
Haeun claps, nose scrunching. “En-cow! En-cow!” she crows, mispronunciation bright as confetti. Shotaro’s brows lift—shall we?—and a conspiratorial hush ripples through the adults. He lowers himself to her height, traces an invisible ribbon in the air. “Time for your grand jeté, princess. Ready to chase sunlight?” She nods so hard her bow slips. Ryujin straightens it, kisses the crown of her head.
Haeun inhales as though the whole world smells of spun sugar, lashes trembling in anticipation, and for a suspended instant the room reshapes itself into a pastel proscenium built solely for her. She feels music that isn’t playing, wind-chime notes she keeps in her pocket and lets it vibrate along the ribbon of her spine until her shoulders float. The sunlight pouring through the high windows tilts gold across the floorboards, turning every scuff mark into a glittering stepping-stone; she imagines each one is a lily pad and that she’s a swanling ballerina skimming their glossy backs. Tiny hands cup the air the way doves cup thermals, elbows rounded in perfect first position exactly as Shotaro showed her, and she whispers a private count—“one-two, one-two”—the syllables feather-soft against the pink curve of her tongue. When she bursts into motion the world blurs at the edges: curls bounce like sunlit springs, her sunflower dress balloons behind her in a bright-winged sigh, and the pale bandage beneath her collarbone lifts and settles with each delighted gasp, a quiet reminder of the heart that beats overtime to keep up with her dreams.
The leap itself lasts no longer than a heartbeat, yet inside that sliver of time she’s certain she could sail clear through the ceiling and clip a piece of heaven for her pocket. Colors smear into one long brushstroke, gold, hazel, the lapis of Shotaro’s shirt, the orchid blush of Ryujin’s smile and the air wraps her in warmth, as if the hospital has exhaled just to hold her aloft. Then gravity folds its gentle hands around her waist, and she tumbles into Ryujin’s waiting embrace with a breathless “whooo.” The landing does nothing to dim the glow; she tips her head back, cheeks blazing, eyes wide and lucid as stars freshly rinsed by rain. “Again?” she pleads, voice tiny yet bursting with champagne bubbles of certainty that the universe will oblige. Laughter fountains around her, Donghyuck’s velvet chuckle, Karina’s tinkling applause, Jeno’s low whistle but it’s Jaemin’s soundless intake of breath that anchors the moment.
He steps forward, knees bending so his gaze aligns with hers, and for a heartbeat father and daughter are orbiting a private sun. In his eyes she glimpses the reflection of a tiny white dove mid-flight; in hers he sees the ghost-shadow of a black swan lurking far beyond the lamplight, waiting for an unwritten future. He reaches to sweep an errant curl from her damp forehead, fingertips lingering as though memorizing the pulse that flutters there. “My brave ballerina,” he murmurs, voice cracked open by awe. She leans in close enough that their noses almost touch, murmuring back, “Dada hear my boom-boom too?”—an offer to share her secret rhythm. He nods, lays two fingers gently over the scar beneath her dress bodice, and for a hush-soft second feels the thunderous, uneven percussion of her heart. The sound is imperfect, fragile, and immeasurably beautiful, like a lullaby played on a cracked music box and it tightens something fierce and protective inside him until he can scarcely breathe.
Barely two years old, and already Haeun moves as though her bones remember choreography etched in starlight: pliés that ripple like pond-rings, arms sweeping up in soft port-de-bras until she resembles a fledgling dove testing sunrise. “Like dis, Taro? Wing-wing!” she whispers, tiny feet kissing the floor in quick pas de chat, so light the dust motes scarcely stir. In every tilt of her wrist you glimpse a future prima, ribbons streaming, tutu feathering around her like spun milkweed. Yet beneath the snow-white grace hovers a darker prophecy: a velvet-feathered black swan lurking at the far end of the lake, eyes coal-bright, waiting to slice the water with murderous serenity. It stalks the periphery of every spotlight, daring her fragile heart to falter mid-leap. Still, Haeun’s laughter, clear as a bell tapped in heaven, keeps the monster at bay; each time she lands, curls flying, she quells the shadow with the simple triumph of breath.
With ritual seriousness she straightens, arms forming a shaky fifth position above her head. “I dance in winter,” she declares, imagination already unfurling snow-white tutus and silver spotlights, “and I catch the moon for you.” The adults exhale a collective sigh that feels halfway between worship and surrender, as though they have witnessed a supernova condensed into toddler form. Jaemin gathers her against his chest, her wings, his harbor and turns in a slow circle so she can wave at her audience. In that orbit he silently vows to stitch each beat of her wild little heart into eternity, to stand sentinel against every dark swan that dares cast a shadow over her stage. And Haeun, cradled high in the crook of his arm, tilts her head toward the light, sure beyond doubt that she was born to leap and that love itself is the space where wings remember how to soar.
You narrow your eyes as you lean your head against Hayoung’s shoulder, attempting to steal a brief moment of rest. It’s nearing the end of your internship now, and the workload is relentless. Sleep has become a luxury you can barely afford, moments of rest snatched between rounds and charts, your body craving the stillness you’re rarely granted. Your eyelids grow heavier, soothed by Hayoung’s steady presence, until the sudden influx of hurried footsteps, muted whispers, and a heightened security presence jolts you fully awake. Something feels undeniably off today, different from the usual hospital bustle. “What’s up with all of this?” you whisper groggily to Hayoung, shifting upright and rubbing your eyes.
She gasps softly, eyes sparkling with barely-contained excitement. “You haven’t heard? We have high-profile celebrities in the building.”
You furrow your brow, curiosity sharp and immediate as you glance toward the guards positioned sternly at strategic points along the corridor. “Celebrities? Here? Why would they wanna be here?”
Instead of explaining further, Hayoung grabs your wrist with practiced familiarity, pulling you swiftly behind her. You pass smoothly through a maze of hallways, dodging security checkpoints with her skilled, clever charm, her identification card opening doors you’ve never even noticed before. She leads you into a hidden, shadowy hallway, one you’ve always found eerie whenever you’ve needed to enter it. It’s an observation corridor, reserved for psychological evaluations and child assessments, clinical in its austerity, sterile walls devoid of decoration, heavy with secrecy and careful scrutiny.
Hayoung’s finger glides beneath a wall-mounted panel, and the dim corridor blooms with pale circuitry; the one-way glass floods to life. On the other side glows a room the color of candle-wax and sunrise, floor polished to a mirror, ceiling lamps diffused by linen shades so the light falls in feathery strata. At its center, Haeun turns like a music-box figurine coaxed awake. She’s all small crescents and curves: satin bow listing starboard in a crown of glossy curls, cheeks rosied from exertion, a mouth half-open in breathy delight. Her stubby toes stretch inside white ballet slippers, one heel lifted so high her calf trembles, the other foot fanning out for balance; each time she pivots the hem of her sunflower dress flares, peony-bright, then settles again around her knees. Laughter beads on her lips, silvery and quick; even through the thick glass you can sense the vibration of it, a hummingbird weightless in the air. She’s a miniature sun with gravity of her own, and every adult in the room tilts instinctively toward her orbit.
You drink her in, throat tightening. The feeling she yanks from you is equal parts ache and wonder, a low, resonant chord struck against the ribs. It’s the impossible wish to trade your heart for hers, beat for beat; the feral need to press your palms to her chest and promise the world will never bruise her again. You don’t understand how someone so small has threaded herself through every unstiched seam inside you, but there she is—needle, thread, and cure—binding your fatigue, your cynicism, your sleepless nights into something that almost resembles faith. Loving her is a secret muscle you never knew you owned, suddenly flexing, suddenly sore.
You didn’t realize love could feel maternal before it ever felt logical, but the proof thrums in the hollow beneath your sternum each time Haeun’s eyes search the room for you. hungry, certain, the way a fledgling hunts daylight. Even from behind the glass she keeps glancing toward the place she thinks you ought to be, chin tipping, lashes fluttering in miniature Morse code. Her curls arrest mid-pirouette, the ribbons at her ankles stilled by an intuition too old for language. Tiny brows pinch; she turns her face, slow, inquisitive, to the smoked glass, as if the pane itself were a stage curtain she might coax aside. Dark lashes flutter, and her lips sculpt an un-voiced plea you feel rather than hear. “Wheh’s my wuv?”
From your side of the glass the pull is tidal. Your spine straightens, palms press flat as though the barrier were a pane of ice you could warm open with devotion alone. A whisper, soundless, yet absolute, forms in your chest. “Right here, baby. I’m right here.” You hold the words the way a mother swan holds still water for cygnets to drink, steadying your breath so she can sense its rhythm across the gulf. On the other side she lingers, gaze sliding to every corner before returning to that single, invisible point where your silhouettes almost overlap. Her shoulders settle—barely—but enough that you see it: trust resettling its wings. Then, obedient to the music, she lifts her arms again and spins, the white-dove flare of her skirt a quiet vow that she will dance until the moment you’re allowed to catch her, and you will stand guard—moon to her tide—until the glass opens and orbit becomes embrace.
A soft elbow slides into your ribs. “Caught you swooning again,” Hayoung murmurs. “That’s like the… hundredth time this week.”
The corner of her mouth curls like she’s flipping a playing card. “I am not,” you whisper back, though the heat climbing your neck betrays you.
“Oh, please,” she laughs, eyes bright. “You look at Dr. Na like he hung the moon, and at Sunshine like she’s the only star left in the sky. It’s adorable, terminal, dangerous, but adorable.”
You open your mouth to object, something about professional distance, about just being fond of the kid yet the words clog somewhere behind your tongue. Hayoung’s grin widens; she’s nailed you and she knows it. “Thought so,” she whispers, and gives your scrubs a patronizing pat, as if to say good luck with that, doctor.
Only then do you finally drag your gaze from the little dancer and take in the constellation orbiting her. Recognition blooms in a slow, disbelieving flare. Lee Jeno stands nearest the mirrored wall, tower-tall, shoulders as broad as the arcs that once carried every championship dream; beside him, his fiancée glows like dusk on still water, serenity braided through the fingers twined with his. A step away, Lee Donghyuck’s stadium-honed grin softens to something private and lullaby-warm, prime-time thunder muted for a child’s delight. At the far end, Shotaro moves with liquid-spine grace, every gesture the promise of a lift, while Ryujin’s poise is raw silk pulled taut, her presence a metronome that steadies the room. And there, etched in runway sheen, stands Karina, Jang Karina, draped in a silhouette so exacting it feels purpose-built for her alone; her gaze is cool, calculating, yet her fingertips hover over Haeun’s hem, smoothing an imaginary wrinkle with surprising tenderness.
And then—inevitably—Dr. Nana Jaemin: midnight scrubs, forearms dusted with faint pink marks where glove elastic has bitten, jaw shadowed, hair askew from running thick fingers through it too many times. He bends, presses a kiss to Haeun’s cheek; she squeals, spins twice more, language abandoned for dance because motion is the truest dialect she knows. His palm hovers near her ribs, not holding, merely promising to, while his eyes track every wobble with a devotion so sharp it borders on worship. The tableau steals your breath: titans and auteurs, halos of achievement blazing around them—and in their core, a child with a mended heart who commands them all like a quiet sovereign. Somewhere inside you, wonder unfurls a fresh wing; somewhere deeper, envy curls shyly, hopeful that even constellations might have room for one more faint star. The realization punches through you: these are not simply visitors but legends, each one a tidal name in their own bright ocean—and every last one of them is here for the same small sun you just promised, through glass and gravity, never to let drift.
You gape as Lee Jeno leans down to press a soft kiss on Haeun’s temple, arms curled around her as she nestles against his broad chest. “Why is Lee Jeno, NBA legend, kissing her? Why are they cuddling? Why is he even here?” you blurt, heart thudding in your throat.
Hayoung’s hand snaps over her mouth, eyes widening. “Why wouldn’t he? Jeno’s literally Dr. Na’s best friend.”
You gape at her. “How long have they known each other?” you manage.
She leans in, voice low and amused. “Thirty years. They’ve been inseparable since they were one, brothers in everything but blood.”
Your mouth falls open. “I…I never knew that.”
Hayoung laughs, a light, teasing trill. “Internship frying your brain, huh?”
You bristle, crossing your arms. “How was I supposed to know? He never lets anyone into his world—he’d build a fortress around it if he could. I asked him about his parents once, just once, and he didn’t say a single word, just stared at me down like I’d insulted him. Since that day, I’ve never pried again.” You glance back through the glass at Dr. Na’s shadowed profile—Protector and Healer—and realize how much remains hidden behind those carefully guarded gazes.
You look again and see Haeun nestled between Lee Jeno and a breathtakingly stunning woman, an ‘APEX’ legend you’ve admired since medical school, cradled like the brightest star in their orbit. Your breath catches. “Oh my God. are they back together?” you whisper, turning to Hayoung.
She nods, eyes alight. “Yup. Only been a week, but they’re already getting married. It’s being billed as the wedding of the century and our sunshine girl’s the flower girl.”
You can’t help the smile that lifts your cheeks as you picture Haeun twirling down an aisle in a pale dress, tossing petals and laughter in equal measure. “I’m so glad Jeno and that bitch Kim Nahyun aren’t together anymore,” you murmur, relief threading your voice.
Hayoung giggles, leaning closer. “They did more than break up,” she whispers with delicious scandal. “Word is she tried to kill Jeno’s fiance, so now she’s been institutionalized, some fancy psychiatric clinic overseas.” You feel the room’s warmth shift, the hospital’s hush giving way to a thrill of whispered secrets and new beginnings.
Hayoung’s eyes glitter with mischievous delight as she leans closer, voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. She’s always been the resident sleuth, devouring every headline, every whisper in the intern’s lounge, cataloguing names and dates like precious specimens in a private menagerie. For her, uncovering the hidden ties that bind people is as satisfying as stitching new stories into a patchwork quilt. Tonight, she’s your guide through an exclusive gallery of Jaemin’s inner circle, each figure more beguiling than the last.
You draw in a shaky breath and edge nearer to the one‐way glass. Hayoung raises a slender finger toward the towering silhouette at the room’s center, a man whose presence feels as inevitable as gravity itself. His broad shoulders fill the crisp lines of his navy blazer, the fabric stretched ever so slightly across a sculpted chest, each inhale subtly flexing muscle beneath starched cotton. His trousers fall in a perfect, confidence-infused drape, hinting at powerful thighs honed by hours on hardwood courts. A tumble of dark curls grazes the nape of his neck, and when he turns, the faint arc of a smirk reveals a jaw so sharply carved it could slice through the hum of conversation. Even from here you catch the swirl of his cologne, something smoky, dark wood warmed by sunlight and feel the air shift around him. In that moment, Lee Jeno is less a man in a room and more a gravitational force: utterly magnetic, a living testament to strength and elegance entwined.
“That’s Lee Jeno, he doesn’t need an introduction. Everyone knows him, the most influential NBA player of his time.” She murmurs, voice hushed as if narrating a masterpiece. “See how he stands, shoulders squared like the corner of a backboard, every line of his tailored suit whispering discipline and power? He’s an NBA legend, record-breaker, triple-double maestro, the kind of athlete whose name is etched into every stat sheet and every fan’s heart. But more than that, he’s been Jaemin’s north star since they were toddlers dreaming of the same impossible things. He was the first to learn of Haeun’s little heartbeat, sneaking into the NICU at dawn to cradle the tiniest secret in his enormous hands. Off the court, he’s quietly philanthropic, rumor has it he quietly funds scholarships for underprivileged kids in his hometown, though he’d never brag. The media paints him as unflappable, the perfect poster boy for athletic excellence, but those who know him well call him fiercely loyal, the kind of man who shows up whether you’ve invited him or not.”
She lets that settle, then nods toward the woman at his side. “And that,” she continues, “is his fiancée, a vision of composure in couture. They met in college, drifted apart, then discovered that some bonds refuse to break. Their love story is whispered about in fashion circles and sports columns alike: soulful reunions, secret late-night text threads, wedding bells set to ring in just a few weeks. It’s the sort of romance you’d write a novel about—timeless, improbable, and entirely, irrepressibly theirs.”
Hayoung tells you that beyond the fairytale love story, she is every bit her own force of nature: the celebrated face of APEX, a powerhouse executive whose razor-sharp intellect and unflinching moral compass have steered global design initiatives and social impact campaigns for over a decade. In boardrooms she commands deference, in studio ateliers she inspires apprentices, and in every exhibition she curates she challenges viewers to see beauty as a catalyst for change. Each year, she and Jeno co-host the hospital’s signature gala, an evening of crystal chandeliers and whispered promises, where proceeds underwrite life-saving surgeries for families who simply can’t shoulder the cost. Hayoung recalls one gala night to you in particular. When little Haeun, clutching Bunny in one hand and a crayon-scrawled invitation in the other, was lifted onto the stage to present a check; the room hushed as the child’s earnest smile lit every heart, and tears of joy stained even the driest cheeks. It was a moment that crystallized their shared mission, to tether privilege to purpose, and to kindle hope in every young life they touch. Each December, they dispatch carefully curated gifts to every child in the ward—small treasures that, come Christmas morning, become lifelong keepsakes.
“Ryujin and Shotaro’s story is kind of a real-life fairy tale,” Hayoung begins, voice warm. “They met during college, he was mastering a contemporary routine, she was perfecting a lyrical piece and sparks flew over perfect pirouettes. Together they opened a tiny dance school in a repurposed loft, teaching six students and dreaming of bigger things. Now? Twelve studios later, they’ve trained hundreds of young dancers, from hopeful amateurs to budding professionals, and their outreach programs have given every child, no matter their background, a chance to feel the magic of movement. They’re always giggling when they talk about how their after-class water breaks turned into marathon brainstorming sessions. ‘What if we could heal with dance?’ and how every new studio opening felt like adding another heartbeat to the city’s rhythm.”
“And that dream brought them here,” she continues, tipping her voice conspiratorially. “Ryujin and Shotaro now co-design the hospital’s pediatric dance-therapy wing, turning sterile hallways into places where little feet learn strength and resilience. They’ve taught Haeun to pirouette past her fears, remember that time she insisted on ‘just one more spin’ even after her echo scan?—and they’ve choreographed holiday performances where she’s always the star. Their partnership isn’t just about fundraising or fancy recitals; it’s about showing every child that joy and healing can bloom side by side, and proving that sometimes the purest medicine comes in the form of music, movement, and a whole lot of love.”
“You see that hot guy by the window? That’s Lee Donghyuck, he’s a sports anchor whose name you can’t scroll past without wanting to know more. He’s the guy who turned a sideline gesture into a signature catchphrase, but off-camera he’s even more impressive: he spearheaded last year’s ‘Heart Run,’ a charity marathon that raised millions for the pediatric ward, and personally negotiated with sponsors so every dollar went straight to families in need. He’s brokered equipment donations, hosted fundraising luncheons in that very lounge, and somehow still remembers every child’s name who’s ever cross-checked him for an autograph. And don’t think he lets Haeun escape his radar. last month he rolled out a mini basketball hoop next to her play corner, just her size, and taught her how to drain a ‘baby three-pointer’ with a flourish. She squealed so loud you could hear it through the corridor, and he bent down afterward, ruffled her curls, and whispered, ‘You’re my MVP, princess.’ Even now she’s peeking at him, cheeks lighting up every time he offers a thumbs-up from across the room. With Donghyuck, it’s never just television bravado, it’s genuine joy in every high-five and every fundraiser he champions, a constant reminder that heroes come in many uniforms.”
She shifts her gaze to another figure: graceful, magnetic. “And finally, that’s Jang Karina. She doesn’t need any introduction, she’s a fashion powerhouse, her silhouette feels sculpted by intention. Karina began as a runway model whose charisma captivated editors and buyers alike; today she presides over a global design empire, her eponymous label celebrated for its architectural lines and daring palettes, while her beauty brand, praised for its clean formulas and bold pigments, has soared into the multimillion-dollar stratosphere. She pioneers mentorship programs for young designers, spearheads sustainable textile initiatives in collaboration with leading research labs, and curates charity auctions that funnel life-saving funds to children’s hospitals around the world. Every accolade she collects, Vogue cover shoots, Council of Fashion Designers awards, front-row appearances at the Met Gala, has been earned by a woman who learned to temper brilliance with empathy, who moved beyond the runway’s glare into the quiet confidence of a leader whose influence stretches from boardrooms to breaking bread with those she protects.”
“Karina and Dr. Na have a tenderness, a shared history written in soft confidences and midnight phone calls. They met during college before either dreamed of a spotlight, she, a striver fresh from design school; he, a busy surgical resident moonlighting to pay his rent. He didn’t like her in college, but they ran into each other in New York and started fucking intensely. Their first real date was over steaming bowls of bibimbap in a corner café, trading fears and ambitions until the staff nudged them out at closing time. Then life intervened—back-to-back seasons for her, grueling on-call marathons for him—and they drifted apart, each chasing dreams they’d once whispered to each other. They’re not really romantic but I’m sure they still fuck, I could bet on it, that’s how confident I am that I’m correct. They’re co-architects of Haeun’s world. She’s the first to arrive with balloons and homemade cookies on scan days, the one whose laugh draws Haeun from any shyness. Karina helps Dr. Na with Haeun a lot.”
Begrudgingly, you learn that they were lovers once, in that brief, incandescent season before parenthood reshaped his every horizon; the memory of their closeness still simmers behind Karina’s steady gaze. Now she arrives at the hospital not as a distant star but as a second mother to Haeun, smoothing stray curls with the gentlest touch and laughing through bedtime stories whispered in the playroom’s lamplight. When she bends to offer Haeun her lap, the little girl curls in as naturally as into her father’s arms, murmuring “My Rina” with the surety of a heart that instinctively knows where comfort lives. In every pivot of her poised stride and every warm look she casts at Dr. Na, you sense the unspoken vow: that this chosen family, wrought from loss and love, will hold its orbit against any darkness that dares encroach.
Her tone softens, eyes drifting back through the glass as if she can already see their silhouettes in the corridor. “They’re legends in their own right. Jeno, with championships and record-breaking buzzer-beaters that make arenas tremble; Karina, whose gowns have rewritten the language of fashion and whose makeup line is in every beauty editor’s kit; Ryujin and Shotaro, whose dance therapy programs have coaxed laughter and movement from children who’d forgotten how to feel joy; Donghyuck, whose voice carries stories of triumph on screens that millions tune in to each night. But none of that matters here. What binds them isn’t fame or fortune, it’s this hospital. This place saved Haeun when her own mother tried to end her life before she even drew a single breath, when she was left to die alone on the rooftop. Doctors patched her broken heart; nurses soothed her frightened sobs; researchers here keep rewriting the rules of what sick children can endure. Every gala Karina co-hosts, every scholarship Jeno underwrites, every dance-floor fund Shotaro and Ryujin open, all of it funnels back into this ward. They fund free surgeries for babies born blue-liped, they underwrite outreach clinics in forgotten towns, they sponsor scholarship nurses who stay to care for children no matter the cost. They do it all because of Haeun. Because she survived the darkness, they learned what true rescue means, and found a way to pay her back in light.”
Your heart twists in your chest as you watch Karina cradle Haeun at the edge of the room, tiny arms fluttering around Karina’s neck like fledgling wings seeking warmth. Karina’s hair tumbles over her shoulders in waves of midnight silk, each strand catching the light of the conference wing’s golden glow. Her posture is an unspoken manifesto of poise: spine straight as a ballet barre, shoulders soft but unyielding, gaze warm enough to melt the iciest boardroom. Haeun’s laughter resonates like a chime, and Karina responds with a low, musical hum, her fingers tracing idle patterns in Haeun’s curls. You step back, scrubs suddenly heavy on your skin, as though you’ve walked into a painting you were never meant to touch. The distance between you and this effortless grace stretches taut, and you wonder how you—ten years her junior, still mastering knotting sutures and bedside manner—could ever bridge the gap. You feel like a child intruding on a world you can’t touch: awkward in your youth, your intern’s scrubs swallowed by the hush of designer silks and tailored blazers.
Your cheeks burn when you realize how small you feel here: stripped of your usual confidence, every inch of your skin prickles with self-consciousness. You recall the times you braided Haeun’s hair, the soft “thank you, my wuv” she pressed against your palm, and you ache to belong in that gentle space again. But here, in the orbit of Karina’s radiance, you are merely a shadow, an earnest trainee whose greatest accolade is a passing nod from Dr. Na. While Karina, in the privacy of their past, has lost herself on his cock a million times, a fiery intimacy you ache to claim as your own. You tighten your grip on the edge of your clipboard, fingernails biting into the paper, and force your gaze back to the room. Yet even as you try to anchor yourself, your eyes betray you, drifting back to Karina’s measured smile, the easy way she curls a lock of Haeun’s hair behind her ear, the quiet assurance that you can never duplicate.
It’s not merely Karina’s beauty that stings, it’s her history, her accomplishments writ large in the world Jaemin inhabits. You think of the single-family flats you shared with overwhelmed roommates, long shifts of charting before dawn, the perpetual undercurrent of imposter syndrome that thrums beneath your every success. Karina, by contrast, has carved an empire from thread and vision, her name sewn onto the seats of fashion capitals from Paris to Tokyo. She is the creative force behind runway shows that have shaped decades of style; the philanthropist whose gala soirées have raised millions for pediatric research; the mentor whose apprentices now stand on stage in their own right. And here she is, bending gentle and unguarded over Haeun—an innocent whose life Karina helped to celebrate, whose future she pledged to support long before you ever learned your first surgical knot.
You flush all the way to your fingertips as you recall Hayoung’s hushed confession about Karina and Dr. Na’s secret trysts—how Karina’s satin lips once pressed against his throat in the moonlight, how she gasped his name as his fingers tangled in her platinum-blonde waves. Your pulse hammers when you imagine those heated nights, Karina draped over him like silk, whispering your name between breathless moans. You bite your lip, thighs trembling, picturing yourself in her place—skin slick, lips parted, arching beneath his touch as he buries himself deep inside you. Every polished step in these hospital halls suddenly feels charged with forbidden promise: could those same strong hands guide your body, curl you into whispered ecstasy until you’re nothing but warm, quivering mush in his arms? The thought sends a delicious shiver down your spine, and you press a hand to your chest, breathing unevenly, desperate for even a flicker of that raw, unfiltered passion Karina once claimed as her birthright.
Karina’s presence is almost mythic: hair that falls in glossy waves around a face sculpted by years of confidence, eyes that have both softened at a child’s smile and hardened at the cruelties of fashion backstage. She embodies refinement and resolve—each step a whisper of silk, each laugh a note of genuine warmth. Haeun clings to her as though born knowing Karina’s arms are safe harbors: tiny fingers threading through Karina’s familiarity, curls brushing Karina’s velvet collar. You watch that bond and ache—you’re not certain you could learn the art of such effortless love, not sure you could anchor Haeun’s heart as deeply, as naturally, as one who has guided her through every high-profile gala and quiet bedtime story alike. In that moment, you feel the full weight of your inexperience, the impossibility of matching a grace so honed, so intrinsic. The envy blossoms bitterly in your chest, and you wonder if you will ever find your own place in Haeun’s world beyond the shadow of these legends.
You turn your gaze inward, the harsh white of hospital walls receding as memory and desire entwine into a single, bitter bloom. You recall the early mornings when you and Haeun would share cereal in the NICU hallway, your voice the only anchor to her frightened world. You remember the fear that distilled your every thought when her tiny chest stuttered for breath, and the primal desire to be the guardian of her heart. Yet here, in the glow of polished floors and the gentle murmur of celebrities-turned-family, you feel neither hero nor protector. only an outsider whose worth is measured in clinical competence, not in the kind of love that sees without pretense. The ache in your ribs intensifies, a reminder that motherhood, in its many forms, is not won by credentials or passion alone but by the quiet alchemy of trust, time, and intimacy. You realize that Karina has woven herself into Haeun’s life with every shared story, every whispered promise, every dance lesson sponsored and every stolen cuddle. And you, still learning the rhythms of both scalpels and lullabies, are left yearning for a place in the soft tapestry they have created. You close your eyes for a moment, drawing a shaky breath, and resolve to carve out your own kind of sanctuary, a space in Haeun’s world defined by your devotion, your sleepless nights, your relentless hope that even the most fragile hearts can find new wings.
You’re still pressed against the cool one-way glass with Hayoung, watching Haeun’s little ballet of laughter from the hidden corridor, when your pager buzzes with unexpected urgency. Startled, you fumble for it, thumb swiping the belt clip to read Dr. Na’s terse instruction. “Consult room 2. Now.”
You glance at Hayoung, whose brow arches in silent “Oh.” he could’ve called you after the surprise, but he didn’t. You tap open the secure chart and see exactly why he summoned you: he’s asked you to reconcile the post-op medication orders on his high-risk pediatric patient, double-checking the weight-based furosemide syrup and digoxin elixir doses you prepared this morning, just as he instructed. But he doesn’t need you in person for that. Unofficially, you know this summons is far more than clinical; it’s a challenge laced with possessive intent, a test of whether you can hold your own in the center of his world, his daughter’s laughter echoing behind you, his dearest friends just beyond the glass, and the quiet ache of wanting to belong. Your heart hammers as you slip your pager back into place, you steel your breath, and follow Hayoung down the sterile corridor toward whatever he’s planned and whatever he’s waiting to see.
The pager’s staccato buzz still trembles in your palm when you open the door and you step into light so honey-rich it stains your scrubs. Dr. Na stands near the far window, loose-leaf chart in hand, but you sense at once that the summons is more trial than task. He could have flagged a resident to discuss the borderline lactate, could have met you later in PICU; instead he has dragged you into his private orbit, into a room already brimming with the people who know every version of him.
You find him already stationed outside the glass-paneled door, broad shoulders backlit by a corridor sconce, scrub top hugging the play of muscle beneath. For one absurd second you’re grateful for the buffer of the hallway, no celebrity onlookers, no tiny arms rocketing toward you, just Dr. Na and the low hum of the hospital’s night ventilators. His eyes lift as you approach, quartz-bright, assessing; the weight of that gaze steals the air from your lungs faster than any mask could. You open your mouth to explain the med-reconciliation draft you’ve flagged. dopamine taper, rising creatinine, the one unreadable scribble on the infusion sheet and what spills out instead is a stammer about “clarifying dosage windows” and “double-checking formulary overrides.” He listens, expression carved from intent, then steps forward until the antiseptic-clean scent of his skin eclipses the corridor.
“Good instincts,” he says, voice pitched low enough to bruise. “Run Labs again, adjust the heparin at 0-six-hundred, and page me the second that creatinine climbs past one-point-eight.” As he speaks he lifts the chart between you, ostensibly to point at an order line, but his knuckles brush the inside of your wrist, a graze of heat that turns every neuron to white noise. You manage a nod, pulse leaping; he lingers half a heartbeat longer, gaze tracking the flutter at your throat as though timing it against the beeps beyond the glass. Then a slow blink, a silent dismissal, yet when he pivots toward the door you catch the drag of his eyes down the slope of your shoulder, the smallest hitch in his breath, proof that the tension is not yours alone. You inhale the space he leaves behind, cheeks hot, chart trembling, and realize you’ve never been more eager—or more terrified—to meet a set of lab values in your life.
Just as you pivot to leave, a streak of yellow—bright as the first brush of dawn on snow—slips through the barely open door. It’s the color of lemon drops and daffodils and every lucky sunbeam you’ve ever bottled, trying to squeeze itself into the hallway. Then the streak becomes shape: one dimpled cheek pressed against the jamb, Bunny’s satin ear twitching, and huge brown eyes, wide as new moons, scanning until they find you. They light up like fireflies. “My wuv?” Haeun murmurs, her voice a tremor of delight. In a heartbeat the hinge gives a reluctant sigh, the gap yawns, and yellow explodes: her ruffled skirt swirling, ribboned curls bouncing, tiny feet pattering in rapid-fire gallops. She giggles—a tinkling chime—arms flung wide, cheeks flushed petal-pink, eyelashes trembling with joy. With a squeal of pure sunshine she hurtles toward you, Bunny tumbling behind like a faithful squire, and flings herself into your legs. Her face peeks up at you through a halo of curls, eyes brimming with adoration so fierce it feels like gravity. “I miss you! I wan’ you!” she gasps, giggling as she squeezes you tight, forehead nuzzling your scrubs. In that moment, every crack in your heart fills with light.
Her dimpled brow furrows in adorable impatience. “Up, up, up!” she demands, stretching her arms skyward until you scoop her into a cradle against your shoulder. Bunny flutters behind her like a cheerful banner. She buries her face in your neck, laughter bubbling through ragged breaths. “Come on, my wuv, let’s go! Where you go today? I miss you so much!” One pudgy hand clamps your ID badge; the other paw-pops at your scrubs, trying to turn you toward the door and away from the seven stunned faces behind her. She giggles, a sweet bell-chime of joy, and squirms for your hand even as she nestles closer, torn between being held and dragging you off on adventure. “I wan’ go! Let’s go now!” she insists, her whole being radiating a love so fierce it hushes the room—and all she sees is you.
“Baby, I need to go,” you murmur, voice gentle but firm as you cradle her in one arm. “I’ve got some big boo-boo work to finish—charts to update, meds to double-check.” Jaemin’s reprimand still echoes behind you.
Haeun’s cheeks scrunch in that stubborn way you know so well. She shakes her head with such earnest determination her bow nearly flies off. “No later! Now! I show you auntie ’n uncos! Dey all gonna wuv you like I do!” she insists, tugging at your scrub top with both tiny fists. You try to slip free, but she won’t budge—her grip is iron even in those chubby, two-year-old hands.
Dr. Na’s voice cuts through the hubbub like a scalpel. He strides to the doorframe, silhouette rigid in the warm glow of the lounge lights. “Haeun-ah,” he intones, tone sharper than any drill, “mind your manners and stay with me.” His words carry the weight of every parent’s warning—stern, unyielding, yet laced with an undercurrent of fierce protectiveness. At his chiding, Haeun’s shoulders slump for a heartbeat before her stubborn spark reignites.
She stamps her foot against your side, arms crossed defiantly. “No! I show my wuv the aunties and uncos! Dey gonna wuv her too!”
He softens, though his tone stays firm. “I know you love her, baby, but you can’t just drag people away. You promised to stay with Daddy until we sorted things out.”
She shakes her head, tears brimming in those wide brown eyes. “But Dada, I need her now! I wait all day—no later!”
He sighs, fingers brushing a stray curl behind her ear. “Haeun, I’ll bring her here as soon as I’m done. I swear it. But right now—”
She interrupts with a single stubborn shake. “No! Now! My wuv!”
Dr. Na rolls his eyes, a half-smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “I can never win against you, can I, princess? You’ve got Daddy wrapped around your finger.”
Haeun’s grin splits her face as she nods vigorously, curls bouncing. “Yes! Dada! I win!” she declares, then tugs gently at his scrub top. “Now let’s go!”
He nods, eyes earnest. “Promise you’ll be my good girl first.”
She quirks a tiny grin, eyes sparkling with mischief. “I pwomise… afteh I show her all my aunties ’n uncos!”
With a squeal of triumph, she wiggles down, little ballet slippers padding across the linoleum, curls bouncing as she darts ahead to fling open the door. “Come on! Come on!” she calls back, breathless with excitement, then grabs your hand and tugs you into the room. You freeze on the threshold—Haeun’s world collapsing around you in a riot of unfamiliar faces—and watch her abandon all decorum to race toward the circle of aunties and uncles she adores. Her laughter, bright and unselfconscious, fills the space, and for a moment you realize that anyone who can make her this happy instantly becomes the most important person in the room.
Every breath catches in your throat the moment you step inside. Six renowned figures. each the cornerstone of their own orbit, pause mid-conversation, heads tilting as they take in the unexpected arrival. Karina offers a measured nod over lashes that gleam like onyx; Donghyuck’s easy smirk falters into something private and assessing; Ryujin’s graceful poise stills as if she’s found herself out of step. Even Jeno—towering, legendary—inclines his head, curiosity softening his usual gravity. You feel the hush settle around you like a silk shroud, an unspoken question: what does this inexperienced intern think she’s doing here?
And then tiny warmth blooms at your side. Haeun’s small hand finds yours, the familiar weight of her fingers curling around your palm and everything else blurs. She beams up at you, cheeks glowing with delight, and in her bright, trusting smile you feel safe, seen, and utterly whole. You bend to brush a stray curl from her forehead, and her soft, breathy giggle steadies the tremor in your chest. In that instant, impostor fears melt away: no matter how grand the company—or how uncertain you feel—she will never let go of your hand. And with her guidance, you find the courage to meet their eyes at last.
Only then does Haeun whirl on bare toes, her sunflower-yellow dress fanning out like a blossom in bloom, and seize your hand. With a triumphant trill she flings her free arm toward the glittering room and proclaims, “Look, look! I bring my wuv!” Her voice rings clearer than any brass fanfare, as though every face in that space has been summoned for this one exalted moment.
You settle onto the low leather corner beside her patchwork blanket. its fifty-six stitched symbols are a living map of every heart that holds her. Before you can even stretch out beside her, she vaults into your lap, knees tucked under her, arms winding tight around your neck so there’s no room left for anything but her. Her curls brush your cheek as she snuggles in, shyly peeking up at you with those doe-bright eyes and letting out a soft giggle that feels like sunshine. A dozen tiny kisses pepper your jaw, and her voice melts into a loving tumble: “My aunties and uncos—I come back! Haeunie come back! This is my wuv, dis my wuv! You my fav’rit person!” Every syllable spills with confidence and joy, and in that instant it’s clear: no chair, no circle of legends, could ever compete with the radiant gravity of her devotion.
Haeun straightens in your lap, takes a deep, determined breath, and begins as though she’s announcing the sun’s rising for the very first time. Her tiny hand presses to your name badge, and her voice rings out, bright, proud, utterly unwavering. “Dis is my WUV! She’s a doctor, my special doctor who fixes big boo-boos and makes sure heart go boom-boom happy. She writes charts every morning. She checks my scar and calls me ‘brave girl.’ When I’m scared, she hums my favorite song from the Barbie movie, and she always, always promises to play bunnies and braid my hair afterward. She’s the one who tucks me in and tells me ‘you’re safe, my whole heart.’ She’s more important to me than sippy juice or even Bunny! She’s my bestest friend, my helper, my sunshine fix-it lady, my WUV!”
With that solemn introduction, she lets go of you long enough to clap twice—once for emphasis, once to summon her uncle. “Uncle No-No!” she chirrups, tumbling free from your lap to race into Lee Jeno’s arms. “Dis is my Wuv! She came to see you! Uncle No-No, she plays tea party with me and never says no when I ask for extra sugar cubes. She helps me count daisies and always cheers when I spin round and round.” She squeezes Jeno with all her might, then bounces back to you to steal a quick hug before hauling off again to the next face.
“Auntie Karina!” she calls, toddling forward in chubby strides. “You do pretty lady that makes dresses that sparkle like magic. She’s a star, Auntie Karina, but my Wuv is my star too, she makes me feel pwetty, even when I’m just in jammies. My Wuv helps me draw bunnies that wear crowns, and she tells me my doodles are the best in the whole world!” Haeun reaches up to smooth a lock of Karina’s hair, then offers a solemn, toddler-sized bow before spinning on her heel.
“Uncle Shot-shot and Auntie Rye-Rye!” she trills, wobbling toward the dance duo. “Dis is my doctor who saves the day, she watches us twirl and leap! Uncle Shot-shot shows me how to point my toes, and Auntie Ryujin catches me every time I fall. But my Wuv…she holds me after I jump and whispers, ‘That was perfect, my angel.’” She pirouettes once, nearly toppling, then laughs and races back into your arms.
“Uncle Dongi!!” she announces last, planting her feet and pointing. “He talks on the TV and tells stories about games and big balls, but my Wuv tells stories about bunnies and princesses. And when I get juice in my nose,”—she giggles as she pretends to sneeze—“she wipes it away and calls me her brave girl.” She leans in to pat Donghyuck’s cheek, then beams at you as if to say, “See? She’s the best helper of all!”
At last she nestles fully into your lap, a contented sigh fluttering from her lips like a soft breeze through petals. Her cheeks glow petal-pink, curls brushing your collar as she turns in a slow, twirling circle so every auntie and uncle can marvel at her treasure. “Dis is my WUV,” she coos, voice trembling with delight. “She loves me more’n anyone—fixes my boo-boos, reads me stories, makes my heart go sing-sing.” A bubbly giggle bubbles up, and she leans in to press her tiny palms to your cheeks, her thumbs brushing away a stray tear as if soothing your heart. “I love her bestest, yes I do!” she declares, eyes shining so bright they could light the room. In that perfect, breath-held moment, every grown-up knows, no trophy, no gala, no legacy could ever outshine the fierce devotion flowering in the heart of this two-year-old ballerina.
She presses a sloppy kiss to the corner of your mouth, then pulls back to plant tiny, gleeful pecks on your cheek. once, twice, three times, each one punctuated by a soft “Hee-hee!” Her breath mingles with yours as she leans in, voice a secret ripple: “Dada so silly, look at my wuv!” You can’t help but laugh, the sound low and warm, and she giggles again, her curls brushing your collar.
In the hush that follows, you tuck an errant strand behind her ear and whisper back, only loud enough for her to hear, “I love you, bubba,” and she beams, pressing her forehead to yours as if sealing your promise. From across the circle of family, Dr. Na’s eyes linger on the two of you—equal parts relief and longing—before he finally turns away, letting your hushed laughter and tender whispers cloak you both in the only language that truly matters. There’s a sudden, tightening ache blossoming in his chest—this is the only time in days she’s ever chatted so freely, and it’s not for him but for you. All morning she’d been silent at his side, too shy or too sad to even sip her juice, but beside you she blossoms into a whirlwind of laughter and proud announcements. He remembers how she clung to his scrub collar when her scan reminded her of Sang-jun, but now, her tiny fists still clutching your badge, she’s incandescent with joy. For a moment his veneer cracks, and he wonders if he’s losing her to your gentle gravity, if the bond they share is being stretched by the warmth she finds only in your presence. But even as the uncertainty presses cold against his heart, he forces a soft smile, and in that quiet sacrifice, silently thanks you for giving her a reason to speak again.
Hours slip by like sunbeams drifting across the pale wood floors of the private wing, and you scarcely notice the passing time. One moment you’re sipping lukewarm tea handed to you by Ryujin, the next your cheeks ache from laughter at Shotaro’s playful critique of your improvised ballet twirl. Despite your shyness, every story you tumble out—about rare post-op complications, about how your internship is going, about Haeun’s latest vocabulary surprise—meets with gentle laughter and encouraging nods rather than terse corrections. These are legends of sport, fashion, and dance, yet here in this softly lit room their fame dissolves into genuine warmth. You feel, for the first time, not the outsider in scrubs, not just ten years his junior but simply a friend, drawn into a circle that rounds its edges into laughter and shared memories.
Eventually, Lee Jeno’s phone buzzes against his hip, a summons he cannot ignore. He rises quietly, apologizing in a voice too soft for the others to hear. His fiancée rises to press a gentle goodbye kiss to his lips. You watch, heart pin-prick sharp, as he scoops Haeun into trembling arms and presses a kiss to her curls. Then, with a quick glance your way, he offers you a polite smile, one that says thank you, we see you—and slips away into the corridor. In his absence, the room seems both emptier and unbearably full of his spirit: protective, loyal, a silent promise that family can be chosen as well as given.
Karina leans forward then, smoothing a stray lock of your hair with surprising ease. Her fingers, cool as marble, brush along your arm as she asks about your own journey—how you came to this hospital, how you bear the weight of so many fragile hearts. You find yourself telling her things you’ve never dared voice aloud: your late-night doubts, the fierce pride of holding Haeun close after a scan. She listens with striking focus, her dark eyes never winking with the slightest trace of impatience. When you pause, uncertain, she simply smiles and says, “Your care matters as much as any design on a runway,” and you realize that in this room, expertise wears many forms and yours is as vital as any.
Across the way, Ryujin and Shotaro exchange a glance before turning to you both. Ryujin’s laugh is a ribbon of warmth, and Shotaro’s hands, still marked with chalk from a morning class, offer you an imaginary plié alongside Haeun’s reluctant mimicry. They speak of last season’s recitals and the children who found new strength through dance therapy, weaving stories of sweaty studios and triumphant first steps. You comment on Haeun’s grace, how those fragile chords of muscle and hope hold her aloft and Ryujin’s eyes shine. “She’s our brave dove,” she says softly, “learning to outfly the darkest swan.” Somehow, that metaphor feels hopeful, and you tuck it away against the memory of Haeun’s fierce little leaps.
Lee Donghyuck sidles up with two juice boxes—one for you, one for Haeun—his grin as familiar as a favorite song. He tells you about the upcoming charity match he’s hosting, how the proceeds will go to underfunded pediatric wards. You marvel at the way he balances numbers and news scripts with genuine compassion: his shoulders relax as he speaks of butterfly stickers he once saw decorating a young patient’s chart, and his voice softens at “butterfly” as if the word itself were a healing incantation. You catch his eye when he mentions Haeun’s name, and he lifts his box in salute: “For our littlest warrior,” he says, and you taste the sweetness of belonging in that toast.
In your hand is a small, pink-striped juice box, Haeun’s favorite. You lift yours to your lips, and she mirrors you, tiny straw poised. He watches as you both sip: her with careful earnestness, you with a gentle hesitancy that speaks of inexperience. Your movements are unhurried, almost tentative, no greedy gulps, only soft draws that leave strawberry-tinted droplets at the corner of your mouth. Dr. Na’s gaze flickers from Haeun’s earnest sip to your slower, almost delicate rhythm, and he swallows as if tasting something far more intoxicating than juice. A stray drop rolls down your chin; you brush it away with your thumb, and Dr. Na’s eyes widen, an unconscious gulp betraying the rush of protectiveness and something deeper at the sight of your gentle care.
Through Dr. Na’s eyes, the moment becomes achingly intimate, a private study in soft vulnerability. He sees the way your lips part around the straw, the gentle tremor of your lower lip as you draw the juice, so careful and unpracticed that it feels like watching a dancer take their first plié. The curve of your tongue against the plastic, the shy tilt of your head, even the way your cheeks hollow just before the liquid pools—each detail presses against him like breath on glass. He catches the faint glisten on your lips, the hesitance in your swallow, and feels an almost physical pull in his chest: a fierce, protective desire to guide you, to steady those uncertain movements with his own hands. In that suspended heartbeat, he knows you are both utterly new and utterly captivating—your inexperience refracting the room’s warmth into something dangerously tender.
Then, his shoulders ease as he turns back to Haeun, soothed by the scene of his daughter and you, her “wuv,” sharing such simple sweetness. Haeun pulls her straw back, eyes blinking up at you with shy doe-like wonder. “My wuv?” she whispers, voice hushed. “I try yours, pwease?” Yours and hers have the same flavor, but you can’t refuse. You tilt your box toward hers, sharing the very same straw, and she beams before taking a delighted sip. The juice flows warm and familiar between you. One of her tiny hands comes to cup your cheek while the other clutches the box, and you nestle her palm against your lips, cooing softly: “There you go, sweetheart.” She giggles, lips sticky, and nuzzles into your shoulder as Dr. Na watches from across the room, his chest tight with a silent gratitude that this moment of innocent closeness will soothe you both, if only for a heartbeat.
The afternoon light wanes into honeyed dusk before you realize the sun has set. Conversation drifts from hospital gala plans to the simple pleasure of watching Haeun sketch crayon sunbursts on a napkin. You lean forward, pressing your brow to her crown, murmuring the same reassuring words you’ve whispered since her first breath: “You’re safe, baby.” In response, she clambers onto your lap, her arms tightening like soft vines, and you cradle her through another round of story snatches from Karina’s own childhood. Each rhyme and giggle threads you more deeply into this tapestry of chosen family, until you feel anchored in laughter and shared confidence.
The hours have thinned into late-afternoon honey when Haeun finally wriggles upright in your lap, bunny propped like a plush chaperone between her knees. She tips her chin back, lashes fluttering. “Bwaid pweaseee?” The request is hardly louder than her breath, yet every conversation in the lounge melts to a hush. You ease a comb through her curls, warm silk under your fingers and begin teasing three glossy strands apart. Each pass of your hands is a tempo all its own: smooth, divide, weave, kiss the crown, repeat. Haeun all but purrs, a soft hum vibrating against your thigh while
Shotaro murmurs from the sofa, “Look at her shoulders drop, pure muscle memory of safety.” Ryujin nods, cheeks dimpling; even Donghyuck’s running commentary stills, the sportscaster silenced by a child’s quiet miracle.
Halfway through the braid, Karina drifts closer, the subtle rustle of couture whispering authority. She tucks a stray curl behind Haeun’s ear and offers, lightly, “I can finish that for you if your Auntie’s hands are tired, sweetheart.”
Haeun tilts her face toward Karina’s immaculate profile, gaze thoughtful, then whirls back and burrows into your sternum with surprising force. “No tank you, Auntie Rina,” she trills, wrapping both arms around your forearm as though it were a lifeline. “She not my auntie, Aunfie Rina, she’s my Wuv. My do it the bestest.” Karina’s smile flickers, just for a breath, with a flash of annoyance before she smooths it back into place. Dr. Na huffs out a half-laugh, his jaw ticks once, then settles into that familiar mask of unreadable calm.
Donghyuck snaps the tension like a brittle thread. “Official verdict,” he declares, lifting an imaginary microphone. “Intern defeats Hollywood glam. Sunshine Girl crowns her new stylist of the century.” Laughter rebounds off pastel murals, Ryujin leans into Shotaro’s shoulder, grinning, while Jeno’s fiancée applauds with delicate fingertips, those same fingertips never leaving her stomach. You manage a shy smile, cheeks warming, until Haeun, still curled in your lap, shifts herself more snugly against you, her little legs wrapping securely around your waist and thighs so no one else can claim her. She reaches for not one but two brand-new juice boxes on the side table, pink-striped strawberry for you, sunshine-yellow mango for herself and holds them both like precious trophies.
She claps her hands when you produce two fresh juice boxes—one strawberry, one mango—each pastel-striped like a little promise of sweetness. With eyes bright as dawn, she presses her pinky into yours before lifting the straw to her lips. You realize she locks her pinky because, for her, it’s the smallest ring of trust. “Pwomise?” she whispered once, and ever since, a pinky promise means the world. Now she sips the strawberry first, cheeks dimpled as she chews on the flavor, “So yummy! Like bewwy kisses,” she declares, then offers you a sip. When you hand her the mango, she tilts her head, inhales the golden scent and sighs, “Mango like sunshine… warm in my belly!” She swivels in your lap to meet your gaze, her doe eyes searching yours alone and asks with a wobble of her bow, “Twy again?” Before you can answer, she’s already twisting your straw between her fingers, smiling so wide it makes her curls bob. “I wuv you,” she announces, voice soft but sure, “you my bestest, my sunshine.” And in that moment, as you share two little cartons of juice and one big, beating heart, you know there’s no place she’d rather be. Dr. Na exhales—soundless, ragged—and finally looks away only when her lashes droop, the sugar rush giving way to dusk-soft drowsiness. You catch his eye, and for a fleeting moment both of you stand witness to the fierce gravity of a little girl’s love and the quiet power it wields.
Haeun’s eyelids flutter in your arms like tired moth wings, lashes sweeping half-moons across flushed cheeks, but she refuses to surrender to sleep. Each time her head lolls, she forces it upright, blinking hard, small fingers kneading the neckline of your scrub top as though touch alone can anchor her in wakefulness. You reach for the knitted blanket folded over the arm of the sofa, a square of butter-soft merino that has accompanied every clinic visit, every late-night vigil and notice, with a sudden twist of surprise, that the newest edge remains bare white. Five dear friends sit only a few feet away, but none of their stories have yet found a thread on this fabric.
Clearing your throat, you turn so the blanket spills across your lap, the tiny girl still nestled against your chest. “I know it’s late,” you say, voice pitched to the hush of lamplight, “but I’d love to ask a favor.” Eyes lift from coffee cups and half-finished conversations. “Haeun’s had this blanket since her days in the NICU. I knit it when her skin was too fragile for hospital cotton. It took me so many restless nights, bamboo needles, the best quality hypoallergenic wool. Every person who’s helped her grow has added a symbol. Dr. Huang stitched a stethoscope in red silk when she came off the ventilator; Nurse Yuha sewed a tiny moon for the night she finally slept four hours straight. It’s becoming a map of everyone who loves her, of people who cherish and protect her. And tonight feels… important.”
You trace a fingertip along the rows of tiny emblems. mercury-bright thread here, beach-sand yellow there, letting the history breathe between stitches. “She doesn’t just wrap up to keep warm,” you add softly, “she wraps up to remember she’s not alone. A new row is waiting, and I thought maybe—if it isn’t too forward—you might each lend a piece of yourselves.” Your confession hangs in the hush, fragile and earnest. Across the circle, five smiles shift from polite to luminous approval, and you feel the moment settle like a quilt over all of you.
Jeno’s finance is the first to stand up. She chooses pearl-gray thread that glimmers under the lamp. “Haeun says I’m her ‘sparkle’ auntie,” she murmurs with a grin, and stitches a tiny five-petaled jasmine, a symbol of respect and love, then anchors it with two interlocking rings in the faintest blush-gold. “One for promise, one for peace,” she tells you, knotting the tail. “And every spring I’ll add a new petal as she grows.”
Lee Donghyuck leans an elbow on the table, drawing laughter as he pretends to deliver a live sports update on his progress. But the playfulness fades into reverence when he threads microphone-black silk through the needle. He shapes a small broadcasting mic hidden among radio waves that ripple outward like concentric hearts. “For her voice,” he says, throat tight. “May it always carry.”
Shotaro takes his turn next, dancer’s posture folding into a tidy cross-legged seat. He selects lilac floss and embroiders two tiny ballet slippers whose ribbons entwine midair, forming an infinity symbol. Ryujin kneels beside him, chooses sea-glass green, and adds a single eighth-note that curves around the slippers like wind under wings. They finish by knotting their threads together, the colors blending: movement and music fused for the girl who can’t dance as often as she dreams but never stops hearing the song.
Karina’s manicured fingers hover above the palette of threads before she chooses sunflower-yellow, Haeun’s signature hue. With decisive strokes she stitches a stylized sun rising behind a dress form. “For new mornings,” she murmurs, voice velvet-low, “and for every gown she’ll twirl in.” When she knots her thread, a fleeting shadow crosses her features, tenderness edged by something bittersweet.
At first you don’t even realise he’s moved, one moment Dr. Na is a silent pillar at the periphery, the next he’s standing over the hoop, the lamplight catching the faint tremor in his fingers. It’s only the second time he has ever added to the blanket; the first was a tiny sun the night you showed him this blanket. You hold your breath, half-afraid to break whatever fragile impulse drew him forward. He chooses the plainest floss in the basket, unbleached cotton, hospital-sheet white and works in absolute hush. With the same sure economy that guides a scalpel, he stitches a single heartbeat: rise, fall, pulse. When he reaches the apex of the rhythm, he pauses, thread gleaming like moonlight, and loops back to form an almost invisible letter nested inside the peak. A confession hidden in plain sight. No explanation follows, but something settles over the room—soft, electric, inarguable. The second thread from Haeun’s father lies beside the first, heartbeat to star, and now a new initial anchors the pattern: her life, his love, your name, all sharing the same measured pulse.
When the final knot is tied, you lift the blanket and tuck it around Haeun. She stirs, pinky still linked with yours, eyelids heavy but shimmering with trust. “So comfy,” she whispers, nuzzling the new stitches. Around you, conversation slowly resumes—softer, richer—while the blanket settles over her tiny body like a living constellation. You realize the hush from earlier has transformed: no longer velvet at the throat, but flannel on the skin, warm and utterly welcoming. She breathes, voice shrinking to a sugar-soft whisper meant for you alone. “Blankie feel like cloud.”
Haeun’s lashes flutter like the softest lullaby as she summons one last flicker of wakefulness. With trembling purpose, she leans forward and brushes her lips against yours. a whisper of a kiss, laden with every unspoken promise she’s ever known. She pulls back, her eyes shining with silent wonder, as though daring you to meet the question there. Your heart lurches in your chest, this fragile, fearless offering of trust. You cradle her cheek, cooing gentle nonsense. “My little moonbeam,” and trace a fingertip along the soft curve of her jaw. Her tiny hand grips your scrub pocket like a compass, anchoring her to the only world she needs. Around you, the corridor’s murmurs fade into a featherlight hush, leaving just her and you suspended in a private constellation of shared breath and beating hearts.
Her lashes flutter like moth wings as a hesitant courage fills her small frame, she’s never dared press her lips there before, the only exception being her Daddy, and the memory of that sacred, first kiss tightens her chest. Yet when you part your lips in a gentle, encouraging smile and murmur soft approval. “That’s my brave girl,” something in her unfurls. She tilts forward once more, brushing a second, bolder kiss to your mouth, then melts into your arms, cheeks blooming pink. Your coos tumble into the hush around, you swallow a surprised flutter and breathe out a gentle coo. “Oh, my soft thing,” you murmur, brushing your nose against the tip of hers. “That was a new kiss. Did it make the clouds softer?”
“Mmm-hmm,” she hums, the sound puffing like a kitten’s purr. “Cloud sooo soft. Wuv’s lips taste like stwa-bewwy juice.” She giggles at her own declaration, curls tickling your jaw.
You huff a quiet laugh, smoothing the blanket over her shoulders. “Strawberry-chin power, huh? Should we save another kiss for later?”
She considers it, a tiny teeth catching her lower lip. “Later… an’ later,” she decides, pinky tightening around yours to seal the pact. “But now cuddles.”
“Endless cuddles,” you promise, kissing the apple of her cheek. “Dream sweet, cuddle bug.”
Her lashes flutter like moth wings, but in the gathering dusk of the lounge she still finds her way. Without thought, her small hand drifts to the leaf you etched into the soft cotton, a delicate maple leaf, veins stitched with your own trembling thread and she pat-pat-pats it as though it were the heart of the world. Beside it glows the golden sun her Daddy wove, its rays forever warming her fingertip even when she isn’t seeking them. It is her North Star, a compass that tethers her to safety, and she follows its pull instinctively. Like a mama oak sheltering her sapling, you wrap her in the blanket’s embrace, your arms the forest that hushes every worry. “Dream sweet, my wuv,” she echoes, voice already sliding into slumber. In the hush that follows, only your shared breaths and the soft rustle of the blanket remain, two quiet notes in a room that has faded to velvet around you both.
Only Jeno is missing from the circle of stitches, every auntie and uncle has left their promise behind, every color of hope woven into Haeun’s blanket, save for his. You press a fingertip to the empty square where his thread should lie and murmur that you’ll catch him next time. What you don’t know is that dawn will break on a day when the black swan’s shadow falls across this bright world, when the parasite’s poison finally claims its victory and the last flutter of Haeun’s laughter will echo into silence. A night-winged shadow circles, eclipsing the pastel dawn you’ve counted on; one terrible morning it will swoop, black feathers blotting out every sunrise hue and the quiet toxin sown in Haeun’s fragile heart will claim its due. In that breath, her laughter—bright as glass bells—will shatter mid-ring and drift away like ash on a wind no one can catch. The day her heartbeat—the dove’s gentle rhythm beneath your palm—stills in your arms will be the day you and Dr. Na follow it into the long dark. When Jeno will at last return to weave his love into the fabric, heart heavier than any ball he ever shot, his hands tremble as he lifts a length of burnt-orange floss. He draws the curve of a basketball, but each stitch is a memorial more than a celebration. His shoulders shake with choked sobs, tears pooling on the wool like dew before a storm. One by one, the others press their own grief into the fabric—salty fingerprints that blot the brilliant colors of expectation. In that woven hush, every blessing and every heartbreak rests together, a testament to love’s frail, defiant endurance.
Jeno’s fiancée is the first to rise, smoothing her skirt as she approaches your corner of the room. Haeun lies nestled in your arms, lashes fluttering against her rose-petal cheeks. Gently, the fiancée leans forward and brushes a silk-soft kiss across Haeun’s forehead. The little one doesn’t stir; her breathing is the only melody in the hush. You press a grateful smile to the fiancée’s hand as she whispers, “Goodnight, my bright star,” before stepping back and slipping silently through the doorway. Lee Donghyuck follows, pausing long enough to crouch before you. He offers you a soft nod, voice a low murmur: “You’ve done wonders today.” He reaches out to tuck Haeun’s curls behind her ear, then places a single fingertip on her wrist to confirm the steady beat of her heart. “Sleep well, princess,” he breathes, and you watch him melt away into the corridor’s warm glow.
Shotaro steps forward first, his dancer’s grace still evident even in repose. He kneels beside you, brushes a gentle kiss to Haeun’s forehead, and murmurs, “You’re gonna be strong enough for the next recital, Princess, I know it. You’re gonna show everyone how you light up the stage.” His warm breath ruffles her curls before he straightens, leaving behind the echo of soft promise. Ryujin follows close behind, her presence a steadying rhythm. She cups Haeun’s cheek in one hand, presses a light kiss to her temple, and whispers, “Our little ballerina will soar higher than ever.” With one last tender glance, she smooths the blanket, offers you a reassuring nod, and slips away into the gentle glow of the corridor.
One by one the guests drift away—Jeno’s fiancée, Donghyuck, Shotaro, Ryujin—each pausing to offer a silent benediction before the door closes behind them. You remain kneeling by the loveseat, blanket wrapped tight, Haeun’s small warmth against your chest. Through the glass you catch Dr. Na among the departing friends, his broad shoulders slumping in a rare moment of quiet fatigue.
The lounge has hushed to after-party stillness: the others have slipped into the hallway with Dr. Na, their laughter receding down polished tile. Only soft lamplight, the tick-tick of a distant clock, and the weight of Haeun, warm, sleeping, blanket-cocooned, remain. You cradle her on the love-seat, feeling her breaths flutter against your collarbone like the wings of a nesting dove. Karina hasn't left yet. Instead, she glides closer, heels muted on the rug, and lowers herself onto the ottoman opposite you, close enough for her perfume to mingle with baby shampoo. The rise and fall of Haeun’s chest reflects in Karina’s eyes, and something unreadable flickers there: a fleeting tremor of envy or longing before she smooths it into poise.
She begins in a tone meant for midnight confidences. “He and I disliked each other in college, we weren’t alike, too stubborn, too proud,” she says, gaze drifting toward the doorway Jaemin just exited. “But New York changes people. He’d taken a fellowship; I was staging my first real show. One September thunderstorm stranded us beneath a scaffolding in SoHo. We shared a cab, two perfectionists exiled by the rain.” A smile ghosts across her mouth, but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “By the time the cab bumped over Brooklyn Bridge, he was murmuring cardiac protocols against my throat; by Midtown our fingers were mapping one another’s scar lines against bare skin, he really likes the scars along my ass. Before sunrise, the sheets in his SoHo walk-up had our pulses stitched into them—and the skyline was still glowing when he coaxed the last breathless ‘yes’ out of me.”
She smooths an imaginary wrinkle from her skirt, fingers lingering at her collarbone, as if replaying the memory on her skin. “Then he vanished into fatherhood.” Her gaze returns to the small bundle in your arms. “I thought I’d lost him to sleepless nights and neonatology wards. I told myself I was happy for him. But seeing her choose you—seeing this—” Her polished façade ripples, then knits itself back together. “She’s never clung to me that way, she loves me, I’m her ‘Auntie Rina’ but that’s all I am.”
A beat of silence. Then her lashes lift, sly and assessing. “So,” she drawls, “do you have a crush on our Doctor Na?”
“Wha—no, you’ve got it all wrong!” you blurt, shielding yourself with Haeun’s blanket as heat floods your cheeks. “I—I mean, of course I don’t have a crush on him, that would be wildly inappropriate! I’m his intern, ten years his junior, my hands are supposed to steady under his guidance, not flutter with some silly schoolgirl crush. He’s my attending, my mentor… my boss!” You press a trembling hand to your heart, breath hitching in your throat. “Honestly, the last thing I’d ever do is let personal feelings—heavens, of course I wouldn’t!”
You suck in a panicked breath and forge onward, words spilling like surgical tape unraveled. “But every time he leans in to correct my suture, or the way his voice softens when he talks to frightened parents, my chest does do this ridiculous flip-flop. I respect him—no, I deeply admire him. His calm in crisis, his razor-sharp precision under pressure, the kindness he shows Haeun… it’s inspiring, not romantic! I’m honored just to learn at his side, to help with his cases, to watch him work miracles. It’s pure professional gratitude. I swear it’s nothing more than that!” You swallow hard, cheeks still aflame, and force a breathless laugh. “I—I’m sorry, I’m rambling,” you finish, voice pitched with mortified relief. You crane your head away, eyes swimming with mortified relief, fully expecting the world—or at least Karina—to recoil. But the silence that follows only tightens the knot of your flushed confession, proof that honesty sometimes feels like a wound.
Karina’s lips curl into a slow, knowing smile, and she steps a fraction closer, hand sliding to your elbow in faux concern. “Oh, sweetheart,” she purrs, her voice silk over steel, “you’re positively incandescent. Don’t pretend those butterflies aren’t more than gratitude fluttering in your stomach. Honestly, watching you gush over his ‘miracles’—I’ve seen less passion over a first kiss.” She leans in closer, her tone light and conspiratorial but unmistakably direct, as if she’s letting you into a sacred secret. “Honestly, if you’re just grateful for his mentorship, good for you. But I’ll be real with you, I’ve been lucky enough to have him in ways you probably dream about. Even after he became Haeun’s dad, even as recent as a few days ago. We’d sneak away, just the two of us, in the past, sometimes more, and I’d lose myself riding him until neither of us could breathe. He’s incredible—knows exactly how to touch you, how to use his massive cock, how to keep you wanting more. If you ever get the chance, don’t waste it.” She gives you a sly wink, her smile edged with both mischief and something like pride. “Seriously, you’re missing out.”
You flush so hard your vision blurs, lips parting in stunned disbelief as Karina’s words hang in the air. You open your mouth—nothing, not even air comes out. For a second, your brain scrambles, fumbling for the right response, but it’s a useless mess of excuses and half-baked protests. Your mind replays what she said, graphic and unvarnished, the image of her and Dr. Na tangled together searing through your composure, and suddenly you’re blushing all the way to your collarbones. You try to gather yourself, try to insist that you’re just an intern, that he’s your attending, that you’d never blur those lines, but your thoughts keep snagging on the word “fucking,” on the memory of his hands guiding yours, the memory of how safe and seen he makes you feel. You can’t even look at her, so you focus on Haeun’s soft, sleeping cheek, the weight of her trust grounding you as you try to string together a sentence that might save your dignity. But there’s nothing—just the ridiculous thrum of your heart and the unspoken question of whether you’ll ever be more than a shadow in the presence of legends who know every inch of him in ways you can’t even admit to wanting.
The pediatric wing exhales into evening like a great whale gone still. IV pumps settle into soft metronomes, hallway sconces dim to a caramel glow, and the last echo of hurried footsteps gives way to the hush of chart pages turning. Down Respiratory, a nurse threads a neb mask over a toddler’s nose with lullaby gentleness; in Oncology, a fellow clicks through CT slices no louder than rain on glass. Even the fish tank, half moons of neon tetras, drifts without a wake. Haeun is folded across your thighs like a silk ribbon fallen from a tutu, bodice of her butter-yellow ballerina dress wrinkled from sleep, satin shoes kicked off in a pink heap beneath the sofa. She burrows higher, cheek pressing to the hollow of your throat, honey-sweet curls sliding over your collar while tiny fingers worry the edge of your ID badge. Two hours earlier, Dr. Na closed those fingers around yours. “Keep her with you; she won’t settle for anyone else until I’m done triaging the ferry casualties.” Then he disappeared towards Trauma, busy with consults after the mass casualty. You haven’t heard a pager chirp since; you’re happy that you’re technically supposed to be “studying” right now. After days of fluorescent frenzy, non stop pages and codes, this lull feels like wading out of storm surf onto sun-warmed sand. Haeun’s cling is molten: she tucks her knees to either side of your waist, inhales a shaky breath that seems to weld her heartbeat to yours, then whispers, “My wuv, stay.” Strawberry-mango juice lingers on her lips, and each time she sighs, the scent rises like a promise that the world, for one soft pocket of evening, has been reduced to just the two of you and the quiet ballet of breathing in unison.
When Haeun awoke from her nap, she was all soft sighs and especially clingy—her tiny body curled into you like a seashell pressed to your shore. She nestles into your lap—your orchestra pit, a warm cradle beneath her—sharing sips from twin strawberry-mango juice boxes as Barbie and the Twelve Dancing Princesses pirouettes on the screen. She’s extra needy for your attention, fingers looping through your scrub pocket, and she doesn’t even care that her aunties and uncles had slipped away whilst she was napping, her whole world narrows to you. Her big brown eyes light up at every swirl of tulle: “Dat one my color, my wuv—yellow like me!” she chirps, voice tinkling like wind-chimes. You tuck a golden curl behind her ear and she sighs her curtain-call sigh, lashes fluttering, then stubbornly rewinds the pas de deux so she can watch the pointe shoes sparkle once again.
She rises almost without effort, as if the air itself has beckoned her to move. Her tiny feet, arched like new moon crescents, press into the cool fabric of your scrubs, tracing a delicate line of a tendu that whispers of distant shorelines and the soft hush of retreating waves. Her arms lift in perfect first position, slender as swan’s necks, framing a face lit from within by an unspoken joy. Then, with a jubilant trill, she pirouettes, a featherweight ribbon spun to life, each revolution slowing the pulse of the world down to match her own gentle rhythm. In that silent ballet, her curls fan out like golden stardust, her pale yellow dress fluttering at her knees as though she were a dove born anew. When she settles, toes softly drawn back into parallel, she stands resolute yet serene—every heartbeat a soft encore—her eyes gleaming with the quiet confidence of a child who knows she has found her home in the music of your presence.
Mid-movie, she shimmies off your lap and presses her cheek into yours. “My wuv,” she murmurs, voice soft as windchimes, then pulls back just enough to press a rapid kiss to your temple. “I wuv you, I wuv you!” Her curls tickle your jaw as she darts to your other cheek: “So pwetty!”
You hum into her hair, voice gentle as a lullaby. “I love you too, angel. You’re my brightest star.”
She giggles, the sound a bubble-burst of sunshine, and returns, planting open-mouthed kisses along your chin. “More, more!” she insists, tiny fists anchoring in your scrubs.
“Easy, sweetheart,” you laugh, tipping her forehead with yours. “Save some for later.”
She pouts only briefly—those big doe eyes fluttering shut—before she grins and whispers, “No later! Now!” then spoons another kiss onto your eyelid.
“I can’t get enough of you,” you admit, voice hushed. “Your love is my favorite story.”
Her answer is a final kiss to your lips, feather-light and fearless. “My wuv,” she sighs, curling back into your embrace, “safe here.”
You guide her, your feather-weight ballerina ribbon, into the therapy tub, shedding stray curls and tiny satin slippers that lie abandoned on the pale linoleum like cast-off wings. As warm lavender water blooms around her ankles, she scoops handfuls of froth into the air, watching it scatter like moonlit foam across a midnight sea. Your palms, soft as river-smoothed pebbles, trace gentle counter-currents along her spine, coaxing hidden worries free in sudsy rivulets. You cup water in your hand and pour it over her curls, droplets glinting like stardust before they tumble to join the cloudbanks at her waist. She squeals—a tide pool of delight—each note a windchime in early spring, and tucks her plastic Bunny beneath her chin as you rinse her with tender precision.
When the tub’s surface stills, you lift her into a plush towel the color of dawn, wrapping her in a sunlit cocoon. She nuzzles your shoulder, lips brushing against your cheek in a soft, grateful kiss that sends a ripple through your shore-steady heart. As her damp skin gleams with promise, you press wads of hypoallergenic cream into the curve of her sternum scar, a hidden tidepool, fragile yet alive with every pulse. Your fingers paint feather-light strokes in concentric circles, each touch a silent vow: I will hold you, come what storms may. She closes her eyes against the caress, the faintest smile tipping her lips, and murmurs “soft hands, my wuv,” her voice a private encore only you deserve.
Swaddled now in lemon-blossom pajamas, the yellow a promise against any coming dusk, she returns to your lap, tiny legs curled like tendrils seeking the sun. You brush each damp braid into place, pressing a final kiss to the crown of her head, then kiss the scar once more, a gentle benediction over her fragile heart. She presses a palm to your cheek, dew-soft, and sighs a curtain-call breath. “I stay wif my wuv,” she whispers, voice brittle-bright as bubble-glass. In that hush, the world beyond the ward’s doors dissolves—no beeping pagers, no sterile alarms—only the golden arc of our shared twilight, where her tidepool heart and my steadfast shoreline meet in perfect, unbreakable embrace. You sweep the damp tendrils of hair gently through your fingers, unraveling tangles as if smoothing away all lingering troubles of the day.
Settling into the armchair, the quiet creak of leather mingling softly with the lullaby of raindrops tapping rhythmically against the glass, you nestle her into your lap, bunny cushioned lovingly between your heartbeats. In your hands is her favorite story, an aged copy of ‘The Velveteen Bunny,’ pages soft with use, edges tinged with pastel fingerprints. As the morning light slants through the curtains, you begin in a low, lilting voice: “Once, the Velveteen Bunny asked the Skin Horse, ‘What is real?’” Before you can continue, Haeun’s small hand presses against your forearm. “Real is…,” she breathes, eyelashes fluttering, “when you wuv somepin for a vee-ry long time, an’ den it’s ‘alweady real,’” You pause, startled by her knowing, and she grins shyly, burying her face against your chest as your fingers trace gentle circles on her back. Her head cushions against your collarbone, and you feel the warmth of her trust unfurl in your chest.
Turning the page, you read how the boy’s playroom walls echo with laughter and lonely shadows, when Haeun interrupts, “Why Bunny cry, my wuv?” Her doe eyes lift to yours, glistening with concern as though she fears any sorrow that might touch the book might seep into her own tender tidepool heart. You close the book for a heartbeat and smooth her curls away from her forehead, whispering, “Because sometimes love hurts, sweetheart, but it also makes us strong.”
She presses one soft finger to your lips, as if tasting the reassurance, then snuggles closer. “Strong like… Dada?” she asks, voice barely above a flutter.
You kiss the top of her braid and smile, murmuring, “Strong like Dada and as brave as you, my little dancer.”
By the final chapter, the bunny has been made Real by the little boy’s love, and moonlight shimmers across Haeun’s sleepy profile as she finishes the last sentence. “And so he was truly Real.” Her words trail into a soft sigh, and she nestles fully into your arms, legs curled against your sides. You close the book gently, laying it aside like a sacred relic, and fold her into the cradle of your embrace. She drifts with her palms against your chest, her breath warm and light, and murmurs, “My wuv make me real, too.”
Your heart aches with the exquisite weight of her confession, and you whisper back, “Yes, my love. You are real, and you are mine.” In the quiet aftermath, the only sound is the soft matching of your heartbeats, a private duet to cradle the fragile magic of two souls bound by love.
Her small hands flutter ceaselessly across your skin, fingertips delicate butterflies tracing secret patterns along your collarbone, her palm settling possessively above your heartbeat as if mapping the safe harbors of your devotion. Her voice, a melody soft and pure, fills the spaces between your own heartbeat, murmuring innocent delights as your hands gently plait her silken strands into neat, tender braids. “No one does it soft like you, my wuv,” she whispers earnestly, her declaration a gentle possession, a soft sovereignty reserved solely for you. Even when others, Auntie Karina or Auntie Ryujin, offer their hands, she declines with gentle but firm refusal. This ritual, intimate and sacred, remains exclusively yours, a covenant sealed in quiet whispers and soft laughter, binding hearts closer than the stitches of her beloved blanket.
Tonight, the love she carries eclipses even the brightest starlight; she pays no heed to missed goodbyes, her universe condensed entirely into your arms. Her soft mouth trails tiny kisses across your jaw, your eyelids, your brow—each touch igniting sparks beneath your skin, whispers of sunlight breaking through morning mists. You press a lingering kiss to her forehead, voice thick with love, naming her softly as your precious one, your sweet solace. She giggles shyly, a delicate blush blooming like dawn upon her cheeks, nuzzling deeper beneath the buttery-soft folds of the yellow blanket, contentment settling over her as surely as twilight blankets the sea.
You pause to call Dr. Na, at Haeun’s request, not wanting to sleep without saying a goodnight to her beloved Daddy. His voice is muffled by fatigue yet laced with unmistakable warmth when his daughter murmurs, “Goodnight, dada,” her voice sleepy, syrup-sweet. He promises to return soon, that he’ll take her home soon, you glimpse a flicker of longing and quiet comfort threading through his words, fragile as moonlight through storm clouds. Her voice softens further, drifting into drowsiness even as her lips curl gently, contentment humming through her small frame.
You clear your throat softly, fingers trembling around the cuff of her blanket, and lean in close, breath warm against her temple. The lamp casts gentle halos around her wispy hair, and you must steady yourself against the swell of your own longing. “Haeun,” you whisper, voice threaded with tentative hope, “can I ask you something very, very important?” Your heart hammers in your chest like a little drum.
For a moment the only sound is the hush of her breathing. Then her sleepy eyes open, glassy with trust, wide with wonder and she tilts her head as though the question itself is the sweetest gift. “Yes, my wuv?” she answers, voice clear and bright as wind-chimes in a summer breeze.
You swallow, words catching like pearls on your tongue, and your fingers brush the curve of her cheek, marveling at the softness of her skin. “You call everyone else ‘Auntie’—Auntie Karina, Auntie Ryujin, Auntie Hyejin but you never call me that,” you say, voice gentle as dusk settling over the city. Each syllable is a quiet confession of your own insecurities, the ache of wanting to belong in her world. You watch her small chest rise and fall with careful breaths, waiting for her answer as though it might reshape everything you thought you knew.
You’ve noticed it from the very beginning: in rooms full of laughter and chatter, she’s the one who darts straight to you, babbling ‘my wuv,’ ‘my girl,’ ‘my pwetty,’ as if those words weigh more than any formal title. The others share amused, fond smiles when she does it, exchanging glances but never questioning it because they know it’s already become your secret bond. And every time her tiny voice skips past “Auntie” and lands on something sweeter, your heart tightens with a warmth that’s equal parts gratitude, longing and confusion. It’s as if she’s chosen you, not by words on paper, but by the names she’s invented from pure love and no reaction from anyone else could ever match the gentle triumph you feel in that moment.
Her lashes flutter, each delicate blink a petal falling on the surface of your soul, and you feel the pull of her gaze, tender and knowing beyond her years. After a heartbeat that stretches into eternity, she blurts out with the fierce certainty of a child who speaks truths no adult would dare: “You not my auntie. You my wuv, my bestest girl, my always!” The words tumble free, shining with innocent conviction, and your throat tightens as you realize she’s given you something far deeper than any title.
You press your forehead to hers, the warmth of her sleepy sighs mingling with your own stunned relief. “But why?” you whisper, voice so soft it could be mistaken for the rustle of silk. “I braid your hair in princess loops, bring you strawberries with extra cream, hold your hand through the dark so aren’t I your auntie, too?” You trace the gentle arc of her eyebrow with your fingertip, memorizing every curve, every shade of her eyelashes against her skin.
Her tiny hand curls around yours, the bloom of her warmth seeping into your palm. She raises those chubby fingers to your cheek, brushing your skin with the gentlest press of insistence, and begins again, syllables tumbling out like precious beads. “You braid my hair when I sad, even when it’s too short so wind and my tears no get in. You sing the moon song at night, soft-soft like bunny fur, and then I’m not scared, I go night-night. And when the big beep-beep machines sing loud, you squeeze me tight and say, ‘I’m right here, baby,’ so I know you no go. You stay right here—right here with me.” Each confession lands like a kiss against your ribs, and you can almost feel the steady warmth of her trust radiating through your veins.
She wiggles closer, forehead pressed to your heart, and adds with toddler solemnity, “Auntie Karina gives me twirly dresses, Auntie Ryujin shows me dance steps, Auntie Hyejin draws me bunny pictures and I love them all but you’re extra special, you’re my best wuv. You hold my hand when they poke me and when I go ow-ow. You give me your pink yogurt when I hungry. And you pop-pop bubble wrap with me when I bored.” She giggles, buries her fingers in your scrubs, claiming you without a doubt. “You and Dada make me laugh, but you laugh louder when I squeak, and your eyes sparkle just for me.” Then she scoots even closer, pressing her little hand over your lips, eyes wide and shining. “I wuv you big—like Dada! Maybe even more, ’cause you my girl. My best girl. My always.” Her breath hitches with a proud, sleepy sigh, and as her chest rises against yours, you feel the whole world shrink to the soft space between your hearts, every tiny beat a promise: she picked you.
The pediatric lounge glows with the hush of midnight, walls tinted blue by the filtered light that seeps through half-closed blinds. In this liminal sanctuary, the world contracts to the warm, living weight of your child in your lap—her presence both anchor and lifeline. She is a delicate dove, her skin a porcelain canvas kissed by the faintest blush, her cheeks plump as angel-kissed rose petals, soft and luminous under the dim glow. Her hair, a cascade of midnight silk, frames her face in gentle waves, each strand a feather from an ethereal wing, while her eyes, wide and dewy like a celestial fawn’s, shimmer with an otherworldly innocence. Her tiny frame, swathed in a gossamer gown that clings to her like a halo’s whisper, exudes a fragile grace, her every breath a fluttering hymn from the heavens. Her heartbeat is a moonlit tide, ebbing and surging with a rhythm that mimics your own, her tiny chest rising and falling as if she’s learning the cadence of breath from your gravity’s pull. She is your fledgling dove, her soft, fine hair pressed to your collar, fingers twined through your drawstrings, a delicate bundle of trust and warmth. Her exhales are feathers stirring in the air, a gentle counterpoint to the soft tick of the wall clock and the distant hum of nurses at the desk.
You are her constellation map: a familiar atlas etched in the arcs of your jaw, the scent of your shirt, the softness of your cheek, the way your voice threads through the lull in the hospital’s pulse. When fatigue or fear threatens to capsize her, her small fingers chart these starry paths, mapping her safety in you. her unwavering north star. There are drawings of rainbows and cartoon hearts taped to the cabinet behind you, reminders of the other lives that have sought solace here, but tonight she claims you as wholly as the moon claims the tide. Her eyelids, velvet night curtains, drift down with the slow grace of a theater’s final act, but they flutter open at the softest murmur of your voice, as if sleep is a suitor she’s not quite ready to welcome. Half-drowsed, she lingers at the edge of dreams, body molten and pliant, molding to the curve of your arm. Her hand—fragile as a moth’s wing—brushes your cheek, a gesture so tender it feels like a benediction spun from gossamer.
“Goodnight, Mama,” she breathes, her voice as light and pure as wind chimes at the window. The words seem to hang in the air, shimmering with all the clarity of a child’s faith, and in that moment the lounge dissolves, the world is just her and you, suspended in a pocket of love untouched by alarm bells and fear. Then, softer, as if the words are woven from moonlight’s frayed edges, she whispers, “Me always your baby bird, your baby girl, all yours.” She mumbles, her voice a drowsy little hum, fading into the quiet. Her trust is a barefoot pirouette, spinning, fearless, certain you will always catch her, her love a bubble-glass orb: radiant, exquisite, so delicate you fear that even the air itself might shatter it.
Your mind stumbles, grasping for a response, any response, but finds none—only a hollow echo of disbelief reverberating through your bones. The room falls still, the quiet stretching taut like a drawn bowstring, broken only by the soft rhythm of her breathing. You study her face, luminous and serene, a cameo etched in moonlight, her lips parted in a gentle crescent, her features softened by sleep’s gentle embrace. She looks so peaceful, so utterly at rest, that the urge to wake her gnaws at you, a desperate longing to hear those words again, to confirm they were real and not a trick of your yearning heart. Yet to disturb her feels profane, a sacrilege against this sacred stillness, and so you hesitate, your hand hovering above her small shoulder, trembling with indecision.
Leaning closer, you break the silence with a whisper that rises louder than intended, a fervent plea slicing through the hush. “What did you say? What did you call me?” The words tremble on your lips, a fragile bridge between wakefulness and dream. She remains fast asleep, her chest rising and falling with the steady cadence of a moonlit tide, but a smile blooms across her face, soft, dream-drenched, radiant. In her slumber, she drifts into a vision: a meadow bathed in silver light, where she dances with a figure cloaked in stardust—your silhouette, guiding her with outstretched arms. Flowers bloom at her feet, petals unfurling like prayers, and the air hums with the laughter of unseen angels. From this ethereal landscape, a breathy “ma…” escapes her, a tender call that weaves through the dreamscape, tethering her to you even in sleep’s deepest folds.
The sound unravels you. A choked sob erupts from your chest, raw and unbidden, tears spilling hot and heavy down your cheeks as you bury your face in the crook of your arm, stifling the sound to shield her slumber. You don’t know how to feel, adrift in a tempest of awe and terror, your heart a fragile vessel tossed on waves you cannot navigate. How are you worthy of this? How has this perfect being, this angel-child, chosen you to be her harbor? The doubt gnaws at you, perhaps she’s merely mumbling incoherent fragments, words strung together by the whims of sleep. But Haeun, with her precise little tongue, never stumbles over her declarations; her words are deliberate, a wholehearted vow that she has chosen you forever, a bond etched in the marrow of her soul. This intimacy is a precious relic, a treasure so luminous it blinds you, yet it terrifies you too—the depth of your attachment, the way her trust coils around your heart like ivy, unbreakable and wild. Why does she cling to you so fiercely? What have you done to deserve this radiant devotion? Self-doubt creeps in, a shadow darker than the black swan’s wings, whispering that you are too young, too untested, a child yourself stumbling through the labyrinth of parenthood. You wonder if your inexperience will falter under her needs, if your own childish whims will fail to nurture the wisdom and strength she deserves. Are you enough to be her mama—the steady north star she seeks, the guardian against the storms she cannot yet name? The fear coils tighter: what if your laughter turns to tears, your guidance to missteps, your love to a fragile thread that snaps under the weight of her trust?
What if illness strikes, a silent thief in the night, stealing her vitality before you can shield her? What if the world’s cruelties, its sharp edges and unyielding judgments—scar her innocence, and you lack the armor to protect her? What if your own flaws, your impatience, your uncertainties, carve wounds she’ll carry into her future, blaming you for the cracks in her spirit? The thought of her growing, of her needing more than you can give—education, stability, a fortress of certainty—paralyzes you. You fear you’ll falter when she stumbles, that your hands, still trembling with youth, will fail to catch her when she falls. And deeper still, the dread of losing her loom, a sudden void where her laughter once rang, a silence where her voice called you “Mama,” with so much devotion. A loss so profound it threatens to unravel the very fabric of your being.
Tears cascade anew as you clutch her closer, the thought of losing her a blade twisting in your gut. The attachment binds you both, a silken thread that glows with sacred light, and the terror of its severance, of her slipping from your grasp, her dove-wings folding into silence, crushes you. You sob quietly, your breath hitching, your lips brushing her forehead as you vow silently to shield her from every phantom, every parasite, every shadow that dares threaten your fledgling angel. Her love, a windchime’s fleeting melody, her trust like a pirouette’s fearless spin, you’re her constellation map, and though doubt gnaws at your soul, you will guide her home through every night, forever her unwavering beacon.
A gasp claws its way from your throat, sharp and unbidden, as if the air has turned to thorns. Your chest swells, flushed and fevered, a crucible of emotion threatening to spill over. Dread slips in like a black swan, wings glossy and dark, eyes like polished jet, its shadow stretching long across the lounge’s fluorescent pools. This swan is a parasite, a malevolent specter poised to snatch your dove, to blot out her light and leave you clutching only echoes. You are adrift, a ballerina teetering on the edge of a shattered stage, your pirouette faltering in a sea of awe and terror, your identity as her mama fracturing under the weight of this dark ballet. Your hands tremble, hovering like restless specters above the frayed edge of her blanket, powerless against the tidal surge of your roiling emotions. The black swan lurks at the periphery of your mind, its shadow a cold, inescapable shroud, yet Haeun’s warmth. her delicate weight, her unyielding trust, rises as a fragile bulwark against the encroaching night. You press your lips to her brow, tasting the saline tang of her skin mingled with the saccharine essence of her existence, drawing her closer as if your embrace could forge an impenetrable fortress against every phantom, every parasitic fiend that dares to threaten your fledgling dove. Her love chimes like a windchime caught in a tempest’s fleeting lull, her trust a ballerina’s fearless spin across a crumbling stage, and you—her constellation map, a trembling north star—vow to guide her through this abyss, though the darkness presses ever nearer.
In her sleep, she giggles, a sound so pure it lacerates the gloom, a beacon of innocence blind to the cruel world lurking beyond her dreams. Within that silvered meadow of her mind, happiness ignites, a vivid, harrowing tableau where she, Haeun, watches you and Dada unite in a marriage beneath a canopy of stardust, now stained with the shadow of impending doom. Clad in a flower girl’s gown of ethereal petals, she claps with unrestrained delight, scattering blossoms like sacrificial offerings to a crumbling heaven, her laughter a melody that dances with the dying echoes of an unseen choir. You, her mama, stand radiant in white, Dada at your side, a union sealed with vows that reverberate through her dreamscape like a requiem. Yet, unbeknownst to her blissful ignorance, a black dove perches behind the altar, its wings unfurling like a widow’s veil, a silent predator poised to strike, its beak a guillotine sharpened to sever her from this fragile ecstasy. It waits, a specter of annihilation, ready to swallow her whole, its maw a void that promises to erase her light forever. The vision sears you, a thriller’s climax unfolding in her slumber, and you sob, choked, shuddering gasps that rack your frame with violent tremors, your hands shaking uncontrollably as you clutch her tighter, tears streaming like molten lava down your face, scorching your skin. The weight of her attachment, the terror of its annihilation, consumes you, leaving you a quivering wreck in the shadow of that unseen threat, her giggles a haunting, oblivious counterpoint to your unraveling despair as the black dove’s presence looms ever nearer, its strike inevitable.
Since that haunting night when Haeun’s drowsy whisper of “mama” slipped through the fragile veil of your fears and dreams, the word has woven itself into the fabric of your days, a relentless refrain that spills from her lips with the unshakable certainty of a child’s heart. It began in the quiet of her sleep, a tender crown bestowed upon you in the shadows, and since then, she has never faltered, never questioned. Now, the title tumbles from her in a cascade of toddler sweetness, each utterance a delicate thread stitching you deeper into her world. One sunlit morning, she climbed onto a wobbly stool, blinking up at you shyly, her tiny hands clutching a ribboned braid that’s slipping loose. “Mama, can you tie it tighta?” she pleads, her dark eyes sparkling with impatient delight, her little voice a melody of misspoken charm. Later, sprawled on the rug in the interns lounge with a snack bowl, she held up a sticky, puffed marshmallow, its edges glistening with her tiny fingerprints. “Mama, I saved you da biggest mash-mawwow!” she chirps, her grin a radiant beacon of unearned generosity, her words tripping over themselves in adorable haste. And one evening, as you sit together amid a scatter of craft supplies, she pats a lopsided paper hat adorned with glitter, her chubby fingers tracing its edges. “Mama, you can cry if you want! Daddy cry last week, an’ I maked him a hat!” she declares with solemn pride.
Each time, the word strikes you like a jolt of electricity, and you flinch, your breath catching in your throat as if it’s a dagger aimed at your fragile resolve. You kneel down, your knees pressing into the cool tile, and gently place your hands on her small shoulders, their warmth a stark contrast to the chill creeping up your spine. “I’m not your mama, sweetpea. I’m your auntie.” You murmur, your voice a soft cadence meant to soothe, though it trembles with an unspoken ache.
Haeun tilts her head, her brow furrowing in a confusion that lacks any trace of hurt, her innocence a shield against your denial. “But you do the mama things. So maybe you are,” she insists, her toddler lisp curling around the words like a melody. She pauses, her tiny mind whirring, then launches into a litany with the earnestness only a two-year-old can muster: “You give me ouchie kisses when I fall, an’ you make the yummy pancakes with the funny faces, an’ you sing the sleepy song when the dark scares me, an’ you hold me tight when Daddy’s loud, an’ you fix my blankie when it’s all twisty, an’ you say ‘good job’ when I color big, an’ you make the bath bubbles so high, an’ you tell the story ‘bout the moon lady, an’ you hug me when I cry, an’ you find my bunny when he’s lost, an’ you say ‘I love you’ lots an’ lots!” Her voice rises with each item, a catalog of your tender acts transformed into evidence, her dark eyes wide with conviction as if she’s presenting a case to the heavens themselves.
The days stretch on, a tapestry of exhaustion and quiet battles, and one cruel night after a grueling shift, after Jaemin’s voice cracked like thunder, his words a jagged blade slicing through your heart with an accusation you can’t unhear, you retreat to the call room. The air thick with the scent of antiseptic and stale coffee, the dim light casting long shadows across the narrow cot where you collapse. Your fingers fumble with the locker door, and there, tucked among the chaos of your scrubs, you find a drawing. A bold pink heart dominates the page, its edges uneven, paired with a badly drawn dragon, its scales a scribble of green and gold. Scrawled in wobbly crayon, the words leap out at you: “Mama, you are the best at doctor. Don’t forget. I didn’t. Love, baby dragon.” The paper trembles in your grasp as tears erupt, a deluge more violent than any you’ve known, your sobs echoing off the sterile walls. You clutch the drawing to your chest, the name “mama” searing into your skin like a brand, the only title that has ever truly fit, a mantle you can no longer shed.
From that moment, you cease your gentle corrections, the word settling into your soul like a secret vow. Yet, in the quiet spaces between, you become her mama in ways that remain a sacred pact, a bond forged in the shadows, known only to you and her. One evening, as rain lashes the windows, you sit cross-legged on the floor, stitching a tear in her favorite stuffed bunny with meticulous care, your fingers trembling as she watches with awe, whispering, “Mama fixes everything.” The intimacy of the act, the way her trust rests in your hands, binds you closer, a clandestine ritual of love. Another dawn finds you cradling her through a fevered evening, your voice a lullaby weaving tales of starlit skies as her small body presses against you, her sleepy “Mama, stay” a plea that seals your role in the dark. And on a quiet afternoon, you teach her to plant seeds in a tiny pot, your hands guiding hers through the soil, her delighted squeal of “Mama, we growed it!” a triumph you hoard like a treasure, a secret covenant between you—her mama—and her innocent heart, a bond you nurture in the hush, fearing the world’s judgment but cherishing the purity of her choice. You stand at the edge of this new identity, a ballerina poised on a tightrope of love and fear, your every step a dance of devotion as you embrace the role she’s bestowed upon you, a sacred secret trembling in the silence, known only to the two of you amidst the storm.
Later, the world shrinks to a watercolor hush, just you and Haeun in the corner of the hospital playroom, an island of light where the sun spills in through the windows and paints her curls gold. You’re helping her dress her plushies for their “night-night party,” chubby hands fumbling with mismatched pajamas, her bunny in a polka-dot shirt, her dragon in a tiny, stolen hospital sock. She leans against your shoulder as you tie a little ribbon around bunny’s neck, your cheek pressed to her hair, her scent all baby shampoo and warm bread, the kind of sweetness that aches in your chest.
She hums as she works, tongue poking from the side of her mouth, her focus total until, out of nowhere, she tilts her head and peers up at you, eyes wide and searching. “Mama?” Her voice is syrupy, feather-soft. “If bunny and dragon have night-night together, they have to be ‘get married’ and be mama and dada too, right?” She squints, working hard to line up her words, determined to make sense of this grown-up mystery. “Bunny said you should be my real mama with my dada. So, you do ‘get married’ and… and live in same house as me and Dad and you do kissies and you cook pancakes. Then we happy ever after.”
You freeze mid-tie, eyebrows knitting in surprise, her logic landing in your lap like a toy dropped from a great height. “No, bubba, what? Why would I marry your Dada?” you laugh, soft but incredulous, feeling a blush bloom as you meet her gaze.
Haeun’s lips twist in a grin too old for her face, sly and sparkling. She leans forward, whispering, “My wuv has a crush on my dada. Bunny heard it!”
You gasp, playing along, “No! I do not! You are such a little mischief!”
But Haeun only giggles, dropping her dragon to climb into your lap, her tiny knees pressing into your thighs, arms flung tight around your neck. “Yes, you do. Mama, you have a crush. Like me! I have crush on Uncle Nono. I wish he was my boyfwen.” Her eyes are huge and serious now, like she’s confessing a secret to the moon. “When you have crush, you wanna hold hands and kiss and share your jelly bears. You wanna sleep in same bed and watch cartoons. You wanna do happy faces, all the time.”
You bury your face in her hair, trying not to laugh and cry at the same time, breathing her in, the fragile joy of it tightening around your heart. “Oh, baby,” you sigh, brushing your nose against her temple, “I’m just your ‘wuv.’ That’s enough for me.” But Haeun isn’t satisfied; she pulls back, squishing your cheeks in her palms, searching your face for something she can’t quite name. “No, mama. I think you got crush. Dada makes you smile like pancakes. And you get shiny eyes and you so shy around him. And you always wanna fix his hair.” You sigh, helpless, as she presses a sloppy kiss to your cheek, wiping her own mouth with the back of her hand, grinning. “I wanna have crush like you. I wanna have pancakes and kissies and night-night with my best people.” You cradle her close, her bunny tucked between you, the rhythm of her breath matching yours, the two of you a knot of soft limbs and toy fluff, hearts beating against the storm that always seems just beyond the door.
You squeeze her tight, rocking gently, the light shifting across the floor, your worries melting in the bubble of her warmth. “You, my sunshine, are the best thing I ever got to love.” She beams, victorious, nestling deeper into your lap, and together you build a castle of blankets and hope, letting the world wait outside, just for tonight, just for this, just you and your sunshine girl, her dragon, her bunny, and the sweet, unbreakable promise of “mama.”
In the tender cradle of Haeun’s dreams, ballet unfurls as a boundless realm where her spirit soars free, a sanctuary woven from the threads of her heart’s deepest yearnings. Each night, as she nestles into her soft blankets, her mind dances into a shimmering world where the dance studio transforms into an enchanted forest, its pale wooden floors carpeted with velvet moss and its mirrors reflecting a sky ablaze with twilight hues. The piano’s melody swells into a symphony of wind chimes and bird songs, guiding her tiny feet as she twirls in her daisy-strewn tutu, its tulle fluttering like the wings of a fairy. She imagines herself as a princess-ballerina, her movements a graceful rebellion against the fragility that once tethered her, each pirouette a defiant spin that scatters the shadows of her past like fallen leaves. In this dreamscape, Ryujin and Shotaro join her, transformed into woodland sprites, Ryujin with lavender wings that glitter with dew, Shotaro with mint-green vines curling around his leotard, laughing as they leap and twirl in unison, their giggles echoing through the trees.
Her dreams are rich with vivid tableaux, each step a story of triumph. She envisions a grand stage where you, her mama, and Jaemin, her Dada, sit in the front row, their faces aglow with pride as she performs a solo, her tiny arms outstretched like a dove taking flight. The audience fades into a blur of clapping hands, but their applause is a lifeline, a chorus that drowns out the bad days she’s determined to dizzy away with her spins. Sometimes, she dreams of a moonlit meadow where she dances with a constellation of stars, each twinkle a memory of her healing, doctors’ smiles, check-up victories, the day she first stood on tiptoe again. She imagines herself growing taller, her tutu evolving into a doctor’s coat that swirls like a skirt, stitching hearts with her twirls, a fusion of her two greatest loves. “I be a docta who twirls!” she whispers in her sleep, her voice a soft chant, her heart believing it with every beat.
Yet, beneath this joy, her dreams carry a whisper of vulnerability, a thread of the black dove she’s too innocent to sense. She dreams of the wedding-day fantasy, you and Dada exchanging vows under a starlit canopy, her as the flower girl tossing petals with sticky hands, clapping with delight. But in the periphery, the black dove lurks, its obsidian wings a silent threat behind the altar, waiting to cast its shadow. Unaware, she spins faster, her laughter a shield, believing her dance can outpace any danger. In these dreams, ballet is her soul’s language, a place where she is loudest without words, where love—yours, Jaemin’s, Ryujin’s, Shotaro’s—converges into a circle of light. It’s her rebellion, her proof of strength, a canvas where she paints her healing with every step, each twirl a prayer that the bad days will fade, leaving only the sparkle of her pretty dancer’s heart.
For weeks, Haeun has been a whirlwind of pleading, her tiny voice a relentless melody begging to return to ballet. After months of recovery—painstaking milestones marked by cautious check-ups and the steady beat of her mending heart—her cardiologist finally relents, granting permission for a gentle beginner class, a cautious step back into the world she adores. Her excitement is a palpable force, a radiant energy that fills the house the night before. She insists on laying out her tutu, a frothy confection of pale pink tulle adorned with tiny embroidered daisies, carefully smoothing it over a chair as if it’s a royal garment. That morning, Jaemin, with his surgeon’s precision tempered by fatherly tenderness, braids her dark hair into a neat bun, his fingers deftly weaving each strand, the tip of his tongue peeking out in concentration. She twirls around the living room, her tutu flaring like a blooming flower, squealing with unbridled joy, “I gonna dance, Dada! I gonna fwy!” Her voice, a lisping trill of delight, dances through the air, her chubby cheeks flushed with excitement, her eyes sparkling like polished onyx.
She climbs onto his lap with a determined wiggle, her small hands framing his face as she leans in, planting a tender, sticky kiss on his lips, her breath warm and laced with the innocence of childhood. “I your pwetty dancer, Dada?” she asks, her voice a lilting melody, her dark eyes wide with hopeful adoration, a shy smile tugging at her chubby cheeks.
Jaemin’s stern facade melts, his lips curving into a gentle smile as he brushes a stray lock of hair from her forehead, his voice low and tender. “Yes, my sunshine, you’re the prettiest dancer Daddy could ever dream of,” he murmurs, pulling her close, his heart swelling with pride as her giggles fill the space, a fleeting moment of peace before the day unfolds.
Jaemin, though, carries a shadow of hesitation, his brow furrowed as he pores over every clearance document, every vital sign, his fingers tracing the lines of her medical chart with a surgeon’s scrutiny. At breakfast, he watches her like a hawk, his hand gently tapping her sternum as she giggles, the sound a bright chime against his quiet concern. “You’re strong, sunshine,” he whispers against her temple, his breath warm and steady, a lifeline in his voice. “Only if you feel tired, you tell me, okay? Then you stop.”
She beams up at him, her smile a crescent moon, and hooks her pinky with his. “Pinky pwomise, Dada! I be suuuuper stwong!” she chirps, her tiny finger locking with his in a solemn vow, her trust in him absolute.
They arrive at the studio hand in hand, Haeun’s steps a bouncy skip as she clutches her dance bag, its strap slipping down her small shoulder. Jaemin lingers behind the glass wall, his arms folded tight across his chest, a sentinel of hyper-vigilance, his dark eyes tracking her every move in silence. Inside, the room buzzes with life as other toddlers stretch and giggle, their leotards a pastel symphony. Haeun, with her daisy-strewn tutu and braided bun slightly askew, fits right in, her presence a burst of sunshine amid the group. She spots Ryujin, her beloved teacher, and waddles over, her tutu swishing. “Wook, Wyujin! I back to dance!” she exclaims, her words a cute jumble, and Ryujin grins, mimicking a twirl that Haeun copies with a clumsy, adorable flourish, her arms flailing like little wings.
Haeun, her daisy-strewn tutu flaring with every eager step, toddles toward a cluster of fellow ballerinas. She spots Chaewon first, a delicate girl with a lavender leotard and a shy smile, stretching her legs with the grace of a budding flower. Haeun plops down beside her, her chubby hands patting Chaewon’s knee with a gentle tap. “Chae-wonnie, you so pwetty when you stretch!” she exclaims, her voice a sugary lisp, her dark eyes wide with admiration. Chaewon giggles, her cheeks flushing pink, and they link pinkies, swaying side to side as if sharing a secret dance. Haeun leans in, her braid slightly askew, and whispers, “I miss dance sooo much! It my happy place!” Her words tumble out with a heartfelt sigh, and she pulls Chaewon into a wobbly hug, her tiny arms wrapping around her friend like a warm cocoon, a testament to the love she’s poured back into this world she’s longed for.
Next, Haeun’s gaze lands on Heejin, a spirited girl with a mint-green leotard, twirling with a ribbon in hand, her movements a blur of joy. Haeun waddles over, her tutu swishing, and claps her hands with delight. “Hee-jinnie, you like a fairy twirling! Can I twirl wif you?” she asks, her voice a sweet plea, her head tilting as she bounces on her toes. Heejin nods, handing her the ribbon, and they spin together, Haeun’s laughter ringing like tiny bells as she stumbles but catches herself, her love for ballet shining through every misstep. She stops, breathless, and tugs Heejin down to sit, their faces close as she traces a finger along Heejin’s ribbon. “I miss dis so much, Hee-jinnie. My heart was sad, but now it happy, I dancey again!” she confesses, her voice softening into a tender coo, and she rests her head against Heejin’s shoulder, a quiet moment of intimacy as they share the warmth of reunion, Haeun’s affection a gentle balm to her months of absence.
Then, Haeun notices Niki, a boy with a sky-blue leotard, practicing a wobbly plié with a serious frown, his small brow furrowed in concentration. She scurries over, her tutu fluttering, and plops down in front of him, mimicking his pose with an exaggerated pout. “Niki, you so stwong wike a big boy! I help you dance!” she chirps, her words a cute jumble, and she takes his hands, pulling him up for a clumsy twirl. Niki giggles, his shyness melting away, and they spin together, Haeun’s laughter a bright melody as she stumbles into him, wrapping her arms around his waist in a tight hug. “I miss you an’ dance so much, Niki! You my best dance fwiend!” she declares, her voice brimming with love, her eyes glistening with the joy of reconnection. They sit together, knees touching, as Haeun traces patterns on the floor with her finger, whispering, “Ballet make me feel wike I fly again,” her adoration for her friends and this art form pouring out in every tender gesture, a love rekindled after months of silence.
A gentle piano melody weaves through the space, its notes a tender lullaby that dances around the giggles of a small class of toddlers stretching in pastel leotards—pinks, lavenders, and mint greens fluttering like petals in a spring breeze. Shotaro, their dedicated teacher clad in a mint-green outfit, stands at the center, his presence a beacon of calm as he guides his young students through their first lesson of the day, the atmosphere a radiant beam of sunshine before an unseen storm. “Alright, my little stars, let’s stretch those arms like big, strong wings!” Shotaro calls out, his voice a soothing melody, kneeling to demonstrate with a wide, graceful sweep of his arms.
The class, a lively bunch of fifteen, responds with eager chatter. Chaewon, in her lavender leotard, stretches tentatively, her shy smile breaking into a giggle as she murmurs, “Wike a butterfly, Teach-w Shotawwo?” He nods, beaming,
“Exactly, Chaewon! Flutter those wings!”
Beside her, Heejin, in mint-green, bounces excitedly, twirling a ribbon. “I gonna fly high, Shotawwo!” she chirps, and
Shotaro laughs, “Yes, Heejin, fly high but soft, okay?”
Niki, in sky-blue, furrows his brow, mimicking a plié with a serious nod. “I stwong, Teacher!” he declares.
Shotaro crouches beside him, “You are, Niki! Keep those knees bent!” The room fills with their voices, a chorus of innocence, as Shotaro weaves play into discipline, turning each move into a story. “Imagine you’re trees growing tall!” he suggests, and the kids sway, their laughter a bright melody.
Haeun, her tutu flaring with every eager step, toddles to Shotaro’s side, her dark eyes fixed on him with unwavering trust. “Teach-w Shotawwo, I dance wif you, pwease?” she pleads, her voice a sweet coo, and he offers his hand with a warm smile.
“Of course, Haeun, let’s show them how it’s done!” They stumble through a wobbly plié together, and Haeun’s laughter rings out like golden bells as she balances on her tiptoes, her satin slippers gliding with surprising grace for her tiny frame. “I dance so I don’t disappear, wike magic!” she declares, her soul igniting with every step, a rebellion against the fragility she’s overcome.
Shotaro guides her gently, “Beautiful, Haeun! Now spin like a fairy!” and she twirls, her tutu flaring perfectly, her movements fluid and instinctive, a natural talent shining through. She catches Jaemin’s eye through the glass, beaming. “Dada, do bawwewinas cwy? Or do dey just spawkle wike fairy dust?” she calls, her head tilting with a pondering innocence, and Jaemin’s stern face softens, nodding with pride.
The class continues, a symphony of tiny triumphs. Chaewon shyly joins Haeun for a duet, whispering, “Haeun, you so pwetty when you spin!”
Haeun giggles, “You pwetty too, Chae-wonnie! Wet’s twirl togedder!” They spin, arms linked, their tutus a blur of color.
Heejin bounds over, ribbon in hand, “Haeun, wet’s fly wif dis!”
Haeun nods, “Yes, Hee-jinnie, we fairy sisters!” They twirl together, Haeun’s balance impeccable as she follows Shotaro’s cue to “reach for the stars!”
Niki, inspired, joins them, “Haeun, you teach me spin?” he asks, and she claps.
“Yes, Niki! You my dance knight!” They spin in a clumsy circle, Haeun leading with a natural rhythm, her laughter a beacon.
Shotaro praises her, “Haeun, you’re a natural! Keep those toes pointed!” and she beams, “I wuv dance, Shotawwo! It make me shine!” Her talent blossoms, each step a testament to her love, her body remembering ballet’s language with a grace that lights the room.
As they rest, Haeun flops beside Chaewon, panting, “My tutu’s tired. Can we nap togedder?”
Chaewon nods, “Yes, wike wittle kitties!” and they giggle, lying side by side.
Heejin and Niki join, forming a sleepy pile, and Haeun whispers to Niki, “If I spin fast ‘nuff, my heart go boom boom and then I get dizzy!”
She sits up and turns to the glass, clapping, “You’re da pwettiest when you clap for me, Dada!” and Jaemin’s applause thunders softly, his pride a quiet glow. “When I gwow up, I wanna be a docta like Dada! A docta who twirls wike a twirly-whirl!” she announces, and the kids cheer.
“Yes, Haeun!” Shotaro adds, “And I’ll be your glittery backup, okay?”
She giggles, “Only if you gwittew, Shotawwo!” For Haeun, ballet is her loudest voice, a rebellion against fragility, drawing her loves—Jaemin, Chaewon, Heejin, Niki, Shotaro—into a circle of light, her talent a radiant proof of healing, a sunshine beam before the storm.
The air thickens, a sudden suffocating shroud descending as the gentle rhythm shatters into a discordant wail, the deceptive calm ripped apart like torn silk. Haeun, brimming with pride, showcases her newfound strength to Chaewon, Heejin, and Niki, her daisy strewn tutu flaring as she aims for a daring, high fence leap, her tiny legs trembling with determination. “Wook, fwiends! I gonna jump wike a big bawwewina!” She chirps, her voice a fleeting melody slicing through the air, her eyes blazing with triumphant sparks that shimmer like newborn constellations. “I fly so high, wike a starry bird!” A giggle erupts, wild and reckless, as she spins, mimicking Ryujin’s elegant arabesque with a clumsy, joyous whirl. Sunshine pours from her laughter, a radiant flood of golden beams igniting the room like a dawn breaking over a tranquil sea, then silence. A heartbeat later, darkness crashes like a sledgehammer, a whiplash of unseen terror. Her body sways, lurches, staggers, twisted mid-leap like a sapling shredded by a howling gale. A choked gasp rasps from her throat, knees crumple with a bone-shattering crack, and she slams to the floor, her tutu collapsing like wilted petals around a broken doll. The light in her eyes flickers, gutters, a brilliant starfield collapsing into a dying ember, then extinguished by an invisible, icy breath, plunging the void into an abyssal blackness, a suffocating eclipse where life’s radiance once reigned supreme.
A scream pierces the air as Ryujin lunges forward, her cry a jagged blade slicing through the stunned hush, children scattering like frightened birds, their laughter dying into a hollow abyss. Shotaro slams the door open, his chest constricting into a vice of icy dread, the studio’s sterile scent morphing into a nauseating chokehold, a crypt’s breath. Jaemin, a panther unleashed by a primal, soul-shattering instinct, erupts forward in a blur—one stride, two—his knees slamming to the floor with a force that sends a jolt of agony through his trembling frame, his surgeon’s hands a frenzied tempest as they lunge to her pulse with a father’s desperation, claw at her airway with a lover’s tenderness, and probe her breath with a heart on the brink of collapse. “Haeun, my baby girl! Stay with me! Look at Daddy!” he bellows, his voice a lifeline fracturing into a raw, guttural sob that rips from his core, hot tears streaming down his contorted face as his ironclad yet quaking fingers, shaking with a father’s unbearable grief, fight to shield her from the encroaching void, his soul laid bare in the silent plea for her life. The studio’s amber glow withers, a sinister shroud slithering over the mirrors, reflecting a distorted nightmare where light once danced, his heart a cavern of anguish pounding with a visceral terror that threatens to drown him in its depths, every beat a cry against the darkness closing in on them.
Her skin drains to a deathly pallor, lips bluing like frostbitten petals, her pulse a faint, erratic flutter beneath Jaemin’s touch, a dying heartbeat in a silent tomb. Her soft eyes, once ablaze with joy, dim to a lifeless glaze, the spark extinguished, the luminescence fading like a star swallowed by a black hole’s maw. A sudden, violent cough wracks her frail frame, thin rivulets of blood trickling from her mouth, a stark crimson smear against her innocence, a macabre signature of doom. Panic erupts, a live wire igniting chaos as Jaemin snaps into surgeon mode, his barking a gunshot: “Ambulance, now! Every second counts!” His hands pound into CPR, compressions a desperate drumbeat against the void, his voice fracturing into a wail.
Shotaro, frozen in shock, jolts into action, cradling her limp hand, his mantra trembling: “You’re okay, sweetheart, we’re here…” But her stillness mocks the words, her giggles replaced by a chilling silence, the light draining like ink bleeding into darkness.
Between compressions, Jaemin leans in, whispering a broken prayer. “Breathe, sunshine. For Daddy, please breathe!” The room spirals into a nightmare, the piano’s melody a dirge fading into a spectral moan, the rupture swallowing the light, leaving only the frantic, hopeless pulse of love and despair in its wake. Haeun’s vibrance is gone, her soul a shadow, the studio a mausoleum where joy once pirouetted, now cloaked in a thriller’s gloom, the amber glow extinguished like a lantern snuffed in a storm-ravaged night.
A few blocks away, the afternoon drags with an unusual lethargy in the pit, the low thrum of monitors a deceptive lullaby humming through the sterile air, lulling you into a fragile calm. You lean against the counter, fingers absently breaking off pieces of a blueberry muffin, crumbs scattering across the surface as you sit beside Hyejin. Jihoon scrolls through patient lists across the desk, his brow furrowed, while Hayoung sips coffee nearby, the bitter aroma mingling with the faint antiseptic tang. Soft murmurs from the surrounding nurses drift like ghosts through the space, punctuated by the occasional distant page echoing down the halls, a rhythm you’ve grown accustomed to, a heartbeat of the hospital.
You’re mid bite, the muffin’s sweetness coating your tongue, when Dr. Lee Heeseung approaches, tall, his warm smile a beacon, confident yet unassuming. He scratches the back of his neck, glancing between you and Hyejin. “Hey. I, uh… hope this isn’t too forward,” he says, his voice hesitant but earnest. “Would you like to grab dinner sometime?”
Your eyes widen, a jolt of surprise catching you off guard. You swallow hard, the muffin lodging in your throat. “Oh. Uh… yeah. Yeah, sure,” you stammer, your cheeks flushing as his smile widens.
“Perfect. I’ll text you later?” he asks, and you nod, a nervous flutter igniting in your chest as he walks away.
Immediately, Hayoung leans in, grinning wickedly. “Word is, he’s got the hots for you.”
Jihoon smirks, nudging your shoulder. “He’s been trying to work up the nerve for weeks.” You laugh, a shaky sound, your stomach flipping with a mix of flattery and unease. It’s sweet, a distraction you crave after months entombed in these walls and shadows. But beneath your ribcage, a weight presses, a secret you guard. You’ve never had sex, a virgin not from shame but from a fragile, private hesitation. You’ve dated, kissed, explored a little, but always stopped short, fear and the search for the right person holding you back. Lately, it feels heavier, like you’ve outgrown your own rhythm, bypassed by time, the line uncrossed gnawing at you. Hayoung and Jihoon drift off to check a transport case, leaving you with Hyejin, picking at the muffin, staring at the half empty coffee cup as if it might confess the questions you dare not voice.
You sigh, the sound barely audible, your voice tentative as you turn to her. “Hyejin, I need to tell you something. It’s kind of big and confusing.”
She lifts her head, her gaze steady. “Yeah?”
Your heart knocks against your sternum, words teetering on the edge. “Haeun keeps calling me ‘mama.’” Her eyes widen, mouth parting to respond, but before she can—
Chaos ignites like a bomb detonating. Shouts erupt, a sudden tidal wave crashing through the corridor, doctors sprinting like hunted prey, nurses scattering in a frenzied exodus. A page blares overhead, its urgency a gunshot: “Trauma team to peds. Code rapid response. Code rapid response.” Your breath snags, a vise clamping your lungs, as Dr. Huang bursts through the double doors, barking orders like a war general. And then, Dr. Na sprints beside Haeun’s rolling stretcher, his hand a lifeline gripping hers, the other clutching an oxygen mask over her gasping face. Her tiny frame convulses against the rails, flushed a deep, unnatural red, her sobs clawing through the hallway like shards of shattered glass. “Dada! Dada! I scared!” she chokes, her voice cracking, wet gasps flecked with blood staining the mask, a crimson horror smeared across her innocence.
Dr. Na’s whisper is low, frantic, his voice splintering. “I’m here, sunshine. Keep breathing, baby. You’re okay. You’re okay.” Monitors shriek around them, a discordant symphony of beeps, the transport team’s pace a desperate gallop. Her legs kick weakly, tears streaking her face like rain on a broken window, the sight is a dagger twisting in your gut. The muffin's remnants scatter like ashes, your body lurching toward them as if drawn by a magnetic pull. Her once-cute ballerina outfit, daisy-strewn tutu and satin slippers, is now a drenched shroud of blood, the white dove of her innocence defeated in the black swan’s first ruthless, murderous strike, its ebony wings poised for further carnage, the predator not yet sated. The studio’s light, once her sanctuary, has been extinguished, replaced by this grim tableau of tragedy.
Dr. Huang’s voice cuts through the haze, spotting you instantly. “You! Scrub now!”
Simultaneously, Dr. Na’s voice shatters the air. “Get inside. I need you there. Now!” Your chest heaves, a storm of adrenaline and dread, but you nod, following orders as they wheel her into pre-op. Wires snake across her chest like venomous tendrils, nurses moving with mechanical precision around you. She’s still conscious, but her light is fading, her eyes fluttering like a moth trapped in a dying flame. Dr. Na kneels beside her stretcher as long as protocol allows, his forehead pressed to hers, his whisper a desperate lifeline. “I’m right here, baby bird. I’ll be right here when you wake up. You are so strong. Daddy’s right outside. You fight, okay?”
She sobs, her voice a fragile, quivering thread unraveling into the sterile air, each breath a labored plea that cuts deeper than any scalpel: “I jus wanna cuddle Dada, I wanna dance! I don’t wanna fix boo boo!” Her words tremble with a child’s despair, her tiny chest heaving as tears spill from her dimming eyes, streaking through the blood matting her damp, tangled hair. The weight of her heart’s betrayal presses down on her, a silent thief stealing her joy, and her voice cracks with a sorrow that echoes the months of confinement, endless hospital beds, the cold sting of needles, the endless refrain of “be careful” that chains her dreams. She buries her face into the stretcher, her sobs muffled but relentless, a heartbroken wail for the twirls she’s lost, the freedom ripped away by the “boo boo” she can’t escape, her spirit wilting under the shadow of a body that refuses to keep up.
Dr. Na’s lips quiver, a dam breaking as tears well up and spill over, tracing rivulets down his contorted face, his surgeon’s hands pausing mid-stroke on her blood-streaked hair. His anguished love is a palpable force, a father’s heart shattering as he whispers, “Oh, sunshine, I know. Daddy wants you to dance too.” His voice breaks, thick with grief, his fingers trembling as they brush her forehead, trying to soothe the unsoothable. He leans closer, his forehead nearly touching hers, his breath hitching. “We’ll fix this boo boo, I promise, and you’ll dance again, better than ever,” he lies, the words a desperate lifeline he clings to, though his eyes betray the fear that her heart might not hold. The mask of his professional calm slips, revealing a man undone, his tears falling onto her cheek as he chokes, “You’re my strong girl, you can do this…”
Her sobs intensify, a raw, keening sound that pierces the room, her small hand clutching his with a weakening grip. “No, Dada… boo boo too big! It hurty all da time.” Her voice rises, a crescendo of longing for the simple joys stolen by her condition, the playground slides she’s watched from a window, the moonlit stories you’ve whispered that now feel like cruel taunts, the ice cream treats she’s only tasted in fleeting moments. Her body shudders, tears mixing with blood, her despair a tangible weight as she whimpers, “I don’t wanna be sick no more… I jus wanna dance an’ be happy…” The words dissolve into a heartbroken sob, her spirit fraying as she mourns the life her heart denies her, each dream a dagger in her fading light.
Jaemin’s tears fall faster, his hand cupping her face as he fights to hold back a sob of his own, his voice a ragged whisper. “Sunshine, I’d give anything—anything—for you to play outside, to see the moon lady with you, to share that ice cream…” His words falter, his throat tightening as he strokes her hair, his love a flood threatening to drown him. “We’ll fight this boo boo together, okay? You’ll dance again, I swear it, and I’ll be there clapping every step.” His voice cracks, a father’s promise breaking under the strain, his eyes glistening with the unbearable truth that her heart might not withstand the battle. He presses his lips to her forehead, tasting the salt of her tears and the metallic tang of blood, his anguish a silent scream as he murmurs, “Don’t give up, baby bird… Daddy needs you to hold on…”
Her cries soften into a pitiful whimper, her energy draining like sand through an hourglass, her hand slipping in his grasp. “Dada… it too hard… I tired of boo boo… I wanna sing wif fwiends, I wanna draw pwetty pictures, I wanna hug Dada an’ never wet go…” Her voice fades, a thread of sorrow weaving through her words, each desire, singing with Chaewon and Heejin, coloring with Niki, clinging to you, a lost melody she fears she’ll never play. Her eyes, once bright with dreams, dull with resignation, her small body slumping as if surrendering to the weight of her illness. “I jus wanna be a wittle girl… not a sick one…” she whispers, her sob a final, heartbreaking note, her spirit crushed under the relentless burden of her failing heart.
Jaemin’s breath catches, a choked sob escaping as he pulls her closer, his tears soaking into her hair, his voice a broken hymn. “You are my little girl, sunshine, my perfect little girl… We’ll sing together, draw those pretty pictures, hug each other for as long as you want.!I’ll make it happen, I swear.” His words tremble, a father’s vow fracturing under the weight of her fading pulse, his hands shaking as he cradles her face. “Don’t let go, baby. Fight for those dances, those hugs, those songs… Daddy’s here, I’m not leaving you.” His love pours out, a torrent of grief and hope, but the shadow of her condition looms larger, her dreams slipping through his fingers like ash, his heart breaking with every labored breath she takes.
They call time to clear the room, the command slicing through the tense air like a guillotine’s fall, and Dr. Na’s hands cling to the stretcher’s side rails with a desperate, white-knuckled grip, refusing to let go until the last possible second. “You’re my strong girl, sunshine. I love you,” he whispers, his voice a raw, trembling vow that cracks under the weight of his fear, his tear-streaked face hovering close as he pours every ounce of his love into her fading gaze. She reaches for him as the doors begin to slide shut, her tiny fingers clawing at the empty air, her sobs a haunting, broken melody that echoes down the sterile corridor long after she’s wheeled beyond view, a sound that lingers like a ghost. He holds strong while her eyes can still find him, blowing desperate kisses with trembling lips and pressing his hands against the cold mirror of the door, a father’s shield until the final moment but the instant the doors seal with a hollow thud, his strength collapses. His knees buckle, his body slams back against the glass with a dull thud, silent sobs racking his frame as his head drops to his chest, shoulders heaving with the crushing weight of grief, the sterile silence amplifying his shattered heart.
Haeun’s frail voice trembles, a broken sob escaping as she clutches the stretcher’s rail, her blood-streaked face contorted with despair. “I wish Dada was here… I need Dada!” she cries, her words a piercing wail that reverberates off the sterile walls, her tiny chest heaving with each ragged breath. “Dada! Pwease, Dada, come back! I scared!” she screams, her voice rising into a desperate shriek, tears streaming down her cheeks as she thrashes weakly, her pleas a heartbreaking echo of a child lost in a nightmare, calling for the father who can no longer reach her, the sound slicing through the chaos like a blade.
You approach the opposite side, your hand trembling as you’ve been beside her this whole time, a silent sentinel through her torment, yet she’s been too overwhelmed, drowned in panic and pain, to notice your presence, her tear-blurred eyes fixed on the sealed doors where Dr. a vanished. But then, as her sobs falter, her gaze stumbles upon you, a flicker of recognition piercing the haze, and her cries quiet to a soft, shuddering whimper. “Mama…” she whispers, her voice a fragile thread, reaching for you with a blood-smeared hand, her eyes pleading for comfort. She leans toward you, craving your touch, her small body trembling as she sobs, “Hug me, Mama… pwease, hold me tight,” her grip on your hand weakening but desperate, seeking the warmth and solace only you can offer in this moment of fading light.
Dr. Huang’s sharp glance slices toward you, his voice a blade cutting through the charged air. “Mama?” he probes, his narrowed eyes boring into you with suspicion, a silent demand for explanation.
You meet his gaze, your tone steady despite the quake rattling your core. “She’s just had an acute decompensation, she doesn’t know what she’s saying,” you assert, the lie tasting bitter on your tongue as you shield the truth. He doesn’t press further, but his gaze lingers, a heavy question mark hanging in the antiseptic haze as nurses prep for intubation, their movements a grim dance around her fading form.
The operating theater pulses with a tense, electric hum as Dr. Huang’s voice cuts through the sterile air, sharp and unyielding. “She’s hypoxic and decompensating—acute left ventricular outflow tract obstruction with secondary pulmonary edema.” The words strike like thunderclaps, explaining the disoriented panic in Haeun’s earlier cries, her speech a muddled plea as oxygen starvation clawed at her brain. In a cruel twist, she developed a rapid, merciless progression of hypertrophic subaortic stenosis, a condition where her heart’s muscle thickened dangerously, triggered by residual scarring from past congenital repairs, abnormal tissue growth spiraling out of control. The outflow tract, the vital conduit from her heart to her body, has narrowed to a treacherous chokehold, strangling blood flow, while the strain has unleashed acute pulmonary edema, fluid flooding her lungs, the source of those blood-tinged coughs. Her fainting during that fateful ballet spin was a brutal betrayal, her heart’s output plummeting, unable to sustain her circulation under the exertion, plunging her into critical instability. The surgery must relieve this obstruction, or she teeters on the brink of long-term heart failure, a shadow looming over her fragile life.
The procedure, a modified septal myectomy, unfolds like a high-stakes drama under the harsh glare of surgical lights. Dr. Huang slices open her chest with a median sternotomy, the sternum cracking like brittle bone, revealing her tiny heart beating faintly, a valiant flicker against the odds. Dr. Huang’s skilled hands navigate the chaos, meticulously carving away the hypertrophied tissue from the subaortic region of her left ventricle, each cut a gamble with her life. He resects a portion of the ventricular septum, widening the outflow tract with grim precision, then stitches in a pericardial patch augmentation, a fragile shield to prevent re-narrowing as she grows. But the stakes are sky-high, her small heart’s delicate conduction pathways teeter on the edge of damage, risking deadly arrhythmias; the long bypass time stretches her fragile tissue to its limit; and blood pools heavily around the retractors, a crimson tide that the suction whines to combat, its shrill cry a constant underscore to the tension. You’re scrubbed in beside Dr. Huang, your gloved hands steady but your soul quaking, watching her heart pulse weakly beneath the lights. In the corner, the bunny she gripped as they wheeled her in, now a pitiful relic, sits on a tray, its once-soft body soaked with her blood, its ears drooping under the weight of tragedy. Your gaze locks on it, a lump rising in your throat as you fight to hold your composure, the symbol of her innocence drowning in the gore.
Dr. Huang’s voice slices through your distraction, tight but unwavering. “Get me more exposure to the septum. We’re cutting this closer than I’d like.” He pauses, his eyes flicking to you, reading the turmoil etched across your face. “You’re allowed to cry later, not now,” he says, a command laced with a rare flicker of empathy, urging you to steel yourself as the surgery teeters on a knife’s edge. The room throbs with the rhythm of her faltering heart, the blood-streaked scene a stark tableau of her fight, the bunny’s bloodied form a silent witness to the stakes.
In the hushed post-op room, as her vitals are stabilised with the ventilator’s mechanical breath, Dr. Huang peels off his gloves with a slow, deliberate motion, the sound a somber drumbeat. “She’s stable. We got what we needed,” he says softly, his tone blunt yet heavy, and you release a tight, shuddering breath, tears brimming but held at bay by sheer will. He watches you, his gaze softening with a cruel gentleness as he continues, “She won’t be able to dance for the next year and that’s me being generous, realistically, we’re looking at five years.” The words land like a sledgehammer, your throat burning with unshed tears as you nod quickly, blinking furiously while staring at Haeun under anesthesia. her tiny body still, her chest rising and falling with the ventilator’s rhythm, a mechanical mockery of life. Your eyes dart to the bunny again, its ear half-soaked, fabric wrinkled beneath surgical gauze, a symbol of everything fragile and beautiful in her world now stained with blood, a heartbreaking reflection of her shattered dreams. Dr. Huang adds quietly, almost kindly, “Don’t tell her yet.” His voice is a lifeline amidst the devastation, leaving you to grapple with the weight of her future in the sterile silence.
The on-call room envelops you in a dim, suffocating embrace hours after Haeun’s grueling surgery, the air heavy with the sharp bite of antiseptic and the lingering musk of sweat-soaked despair, a stark contrast to the sterile hope of the NICU where Dr. Na has been a steadfast sentinel, his hand wrapped around Haeun’s tiny fingers for hours since she emerged from the operating theater. Your pager buzzes with a sudden, jarring pulse—Dr. Na’s name glowing on the screen, a cryptic summons pulling you from the vigil at her bedside. You push open the door, and the sight slams into you like a physical blow: Dr. Na paces the barren room, shirtless, his chiseled chest slick with a sheen of perspiration that catches the faint light, his hands pressed to his face as if to stifle a primal scream clawing at his throat. His usual fortress of clinical composure lies in jagged ruins, his broad shoulders quaking with a raw, unguarded vulnerability that robs you of breath, the weight of the day etched into every tense line of his body. “Dr. Nana,” you whisper, your voice a tender balm against the oppressive silence, but he remains lost, eyes hidden behind trembling hands. “Dr. Nana,” you try again, the nickname slipping out with an intimate, almost instinctive warmth, “please…”
His hands drop, revealing eyes red-rimmed and wild, his breath hitching as he staggers toward you, a man unraveling. “I’m locked out,” he rasps, his voice a broken growl, thick with desperation. “The patient files, they’ve sealed them tight because of confidentiality rules, and Dr. Huang won’t breathe a word about the surgery. I have no idea what’s happened, damn it! I need to know if it’s my fault, if it’s something I should’ve seen. I need to know what they did to her, every cut, every risk. Please, tell me, you were there. You saw it. I’m begging you, don’t leave me in the dark.” His plea hangs heavy, a surgeon’s pride stripped bare, his hands clenched into fists as if he could force the truth from the void.
You step closer to Dr. Na, your voice steady but laced with the heavy echo of the operating theater’s chaos, meeting his piercing gaze. His eyes, raw with a father’s dread, demand answers, every line of his face etched with the need to know. “Dr. Na, I was there, every second of it,” you begin, your words deliberate, carrying the weight of the memory. “They started with a median sternotomy, Dr. Huang’s scalpel sliced through her chest, her sternum cracking like dry wood, a sharp, jarring sound that cut through the room’s sterile hum. Her tiny heart was exposed, beating faintly under the harsh surgical lights, struggling against the obstruction choking her blood flow.”
Dr. Na leans forward, his bare chest heaving, his voice a low, urgent rasp. “Who made the first cut? Huang himself? And what did he see when he opened her up? Tell me everything—every step, every hand on my baby girl.” His fingers grip the edge of the chair, knuckles white, his professional facade crumbling under the weight of his fear.
You nod, grounding yourself in the memory, the vivid horror of it. “Dr. Huang made the initial incision, his hands were steady. When he split her sternum, blood welled up fast, her small body was already under strain from the hypertrophic subaortic stenosis. The left ventricle’s muscle had thickened dangerously, narrowing the outflow tract to a sliver, blocking blood to her body. He saw the hypertrophy right away, the septum bulging, choking off the I held the retractors, keeping the field clear as blood pooled all over her, the suction screaming to keep up.”
“What about the resection?” Dr. Na presses, his voice sharp, almost frantic. “Who cut the muscle? How much did they take? Did they hesitate?” His eyes bore into yours, searching for any omitted detail, his breath uneven.
“Dr. Huang did the resection himself,” you continue, your voice steady despite the lump in your throat. “He carved away the hypertrophied tissue from the subaortic region of her left ventricle, his scalpel technique was meticulous but trembling slightly, each cut was a gamble, the tissue was so close to her heart’s conduction pathways. He removed just enough of the ventricular septum to widen the outflow tract, maybe two centimeters of muscle, but it felt like he was defusing a bomb. I monitored the depth, calling out measurements to ensure he didn’t cut too deep and trigger an arrhythmia. The risk was there, her heart’s electrical system was a hair’s breadth from disaster.”
Dr. Na’s face twists, a mix of relief and anguish. “And the patch? You said they sewed in a patch—what kind? Who placed it? Did it hold?” His questions come rapid-fire, his voice rising, a desperate edge to each word as if knowing every detail could somehow anchor him.
You swallow, the image of her fragile heart vivid in your mind. “Dr. Huang placed a pericardial patch augmentation, using tissue harvested from her own pericardium. He stitched it into the outflow tract with 6-0 prolene sutures. I held the patch in place, making sure it aligned perfectly to prevent re-narrowing as she grew. It held, her pressures stabilized slightly after, but the bypass time was long, almost two hours, stretching her delicate tissue to the limit.”
“Two hours?” Dr. Na’s voice cracks, his eyes wide with horror. “Why so long? What went wrong? And the bleeding—how bad was it? Did anyone panic?” He leans closer, his hands trembling now, the questions spilling out like a flood.
“The bleeding was heavy,” you admit, your voice softening, the memory of the crimson tide burning into you. “Her small vessels were fragile, and the strain from the pulmonary edema made it worse, blood-tinged fluid kept seeping from her lungs. I managed the suction, keeping the field clear, but it was a fight. The suction machine’s whine was relentless but no one panicked. The tension was electric, Dr. Huang snapped orders, he was on edge.”
Dr. Na’s gaze drops, his voice a rough whisper. “Where’s her bunny? Did you see it?” His question catches you off guard, a flicker of vulnerability breaking through his barrage of technical demands.
You hesitate, the image of that blood-soaked relic searing your mind. “She clutched it as they wheeled her in. It ended up on a tray, too close to the field, it got soaked in her blood, its ears drooping, stained red. I couldn’t look at it without feeling her fragility, her innocence drowning in that gore.”
He sways, his face crumpling, but he pushes forward, relentless. “The risks—arrhythmias. Did her heart falter? Did they shock her? Who was watching her vitals?” His voice is raw, a father’s terror clashing with his surgical mind.
“Her vitals were Dr. Park’s domain,” you say, meeting his gaze. “The anesthesiologist watched her like a hawk, tracking every dip in her rhythm. There was a moment—her heart fluttered into ventricular tachycardia when Huang cut near the conduction bundle. They didn’t shock her, but Dr. Park pushed lidocaine fast, and I adjusted the bypass to stabilize her. It was close, her heart was so weak, the pulmonary edema flooding her lungs didn’t help. They were fighting on two fronts: the obstruction and her failing circulation.”
Dr. Na’s breath hitches, his eyes glistening. “How close did we come to losing her? Be honest. And why didn’t anyone see this coming? The stenosis, how did it get so bad?” His voice breaks, the guilt he’s carried spilling over.
You step closer, your hand hovering near his arm, aching to ease his pain. “We were right on the edge, Dr. Na. The bleeding, the long bypass, the risk of cutting her conduction pathways—it was a knife’s edge. But they pulled her through. As for why—her hypertrophic stenosis spiraled fast, triggered by scar tissue from her old congenital repairs, worsened by the exertion of that ballet spin. No one could’ve predicted it; the growth was silent until it wasn’t. You’ve fought for her every day, given her every chance, this isn’t your fault.” Your voice trembles with urgency, pleading with him to let go of the guilt, your eyes locked on his, begging him to believe.
He stares at you, his chest rising and falling, his questions spent but the weight of them lingering. “Thank you” he murmurs. “I needed every detail, I would’ve gone insane without it.” The room feels heavy, the memory of her faltering heart and the bloodied bunny a stark tableau of the fight, his love for her etched into every desperate question. He sinks to his knees, a guttural sob tearing from his throat, his hands raking through his hair. “She was doing so well,” he chokes out, the words a lament for the daughter he’s poured his soul into.
You cross the room quietly, your footsteps a soft rhythm against the tension, your voice low but firm, a lifeline cast into his despair. “I know.”
Silence pulses between you, a heavy heartbeat, before you speak again, your tone a fervent prayer. “She’ll pull through. She’s strong because you made her strong.” Your words hang, a fragile hope in the dimness, and his head lifts, eyes glistening with unshed tears.
His voice shatters, a raw confession spilling forth. “I—I gave her that heart. I should’ve protected it.” The admission is a wound, his guilt a living thing twisting in his chest, his hands clenching as if to claw it out.
You reach out instinctively, your hand settling on his bare shoulder, the warmth of his skin anchoring you both, a silent vow thrumming in your touch. For a long moment, you just stay like that, your palm pressed to the tense line of his collarbone, thumb unconsciously tracing the salt-and-skin warmth, feeling the rapid stutter of his pulse beneath your fingertips, a rhythm you feel as if it’s your own. “You’ve protected her for every second since she was born,” you murmur, your voice almost reverent, your fingers lingering, mapping the knots in his muscles as if you could absorb some of his ache. It feels like the only way to cross the distance between your wounds.
Something shifts in the air, something too tender to name. The professional veneer slips, exposing all the rawness beneath: the man, not just the doctor. Your hand is still there, grounding him, bridging the unspoken grief you both carry. You hesitate, searching his face for a flicker of permission, then let the question slip, intimate, almost confessional. “Her mother… has she ever tried to reach out? Since that day?” The memory stings, the day she stormed through the ward, tearing Haeun’s blankets to shreds, snapping her music box in two, her voice wild and broken while Haeun shrank in your arms, trembling. Your voice is a hush, heavy with worry, curiosity, and a hunger to understand the story that still haunts your baby girl’s sleep.
His jaw flexes, a tremor flickering through his throat, eyes darting to yours, dark and restless, storm clouds gathering behind them. “No. Not once. After that night, she vanished.” The words land heavy between you, weighted with all that’s gone unsaid. He sinks into the chair, the strength bleeding from his shoulders, leaving him raw and spent. For a moment, he scrubs a hand across his face, then lets it fall, his knuckles white against the armrests as if he might splinter the wood. “I hear things,” he admits, voice shaking before he forces it steady, the mask of control slipping and reforming with every word. “She floats in and out of clinics, always unstable. Some say she’s in Thailand now, others whisper about debt, men, pills. I’ve tried to track her, only because I have to be ready. If she ever tries to come for Haeun, for custody, for anything. I can’t risk being blindsided.” His words simmer with quiet, helpless rage; his hands tremble where they grip the chair, knuckles blanching, the barely-contained violence of a father who’s had to become both shield and sword. The fear thrums beneath his voice, a need to be prepared for every shadow that might threaten the fragile world he’s built around Haeun.
“My biggest regret was ever touching her. But how do you regret the one thing that gave you your child?” His voice fractures, carrying the weight of a thousand sleepless nights. His eyes lock onto yours, haunted, searching, almost desperate for a kind of forgiveness he knows he doesn’t deserve. He breathes in sharply, shoulders shuddering beneath your touch, the barriers between you falling away one by one. He drags a trembling hand through his hair, jaw working, the words coming from some place deeper than shame. “Some nights,” he whispers, “I hate myself for ever letting Aseul close to me. I replay it, over and over, the nine months she carried my daughter without me knowing I had a baby, my sunflower, my whole fucking world, but she treated her like a problem, an inconvenience. I can’t forgive myself for giving Haeun to someone who only ever wanted to hurt her.” He shakes his head, tears bright in his lashes. “I’ll never know what happened in those months, what she went through, what she survived. All I know is she was born into neglect, left to die in the cold on a hospital rooftop, abandoned before she even had a chance to live. That tells me everything I need to know about her mother. Everything.”
He pauses, voice dropping lower, almost confessional. “And yet, this is the worst part, the part I can’t say out loud to anyone else—I’m still… glad it happened. I’m fucking grateful for that mistake. I hate myself for it, but if I hadn’t fucked her, I wouldn’t have my sunshine, my Haeun. She’s the reason I can breathe. She saved me before I ever even knew I needed saving. And that’s selfish, because she was brought into this world broken, with a heart that can barely beat, all because two adults were careless and cruel.” His confession hangs between you, raw and vulnerable, a truth he’s never voiced.
You don’t interrupt, you can’t. The gravity of his words pulls you closer, your hand tightening on his shoulder, feeling the tremors running through him. Your chest aches, a tangled knot of protectiveness, jealousy, and something quieter but more consuming. There’s a conviction lodged somewhere deep inside you, fragile and stubborn all at once: that blood may tie Haeun to Aseul, but she feels like yours, in all the ways that matter. She’s been shaped by your devotion, soothed by your hands, clinging to you when the world turns too dark. You know it, you feel it in every moment she reaches for you first, in the way she curls into your arms at night, in the whispered “mama” when she’s scared. Still, it’s not a truth you can claim out loud, not a certainty you dare to demand, only a hope that pulses in your heart, shy and unsteady, waiting for the day you’re strong enough to believe you’re truly hers.
“She’s alive,” you breathe, your voice the closest thing to grace you can offer, lips brushing his skin, “and you’ve given her a life she never would have had. You saved her. You still save her, every single day.” Your words are a gentle tether, anchoring him to the present, to hope, your thumb tracing slow circles into his skin—a silent promise that neither of you are alone in this grief, or in this love. You hesitate, voice trembling as you let the thought slip out—half confession, half plea. “Imagine if she’d stayed with Aseul. Would she even know how to smile like that? Would she have all this softness, all that light?” Your chest tightens as you picture it: Haeun growing up in a world stripped of lullabies and safe hands, never learning how to be gentle or brave or to love without fear. “She could have been just another lost little girl—neglected, alone, maybe left on the street, or worse. But now she’s our sunshine girl. She’s loved, really loved, and she gives it back with every inch of her body. Maybe that’s why she’s so bright, why she keeps fighting because she was always meant to find us.”
He’s silent for a moment, your hand still pressed into the tense warmth of his skin. Then his voice drops, as if admitting something even he doesn’t want to hear himself say. “I’ve never said this out loud before, but I’ve always had a gut feeling there’s more to Haeun’s condition than what’s on the surface. Doctors like to say babies are born this way by chance, that it’s just bad luck, but…” His fingers tighten around yours, a tremor running through him. “I don’t believe it's by chance. I’ve seen too much, prenatal scans, tiny anomalies that shouldn’t line up, defects that look less like a roll of the dice and more like a wound.”
He shakes his head, struggling for the right words. “Aseul was different when I first met her. On the outside, she looked healthy, bright, clever, normal, even. But underneath, there was something else. Something fraying. Leaving Haeun on that rooftop, coming back to the hospital and trying to hurt her, tearing her blankets, smashing her music box, that wasn’t her. Or at least, not the version of her I thought I knew.” His voice falters, low and raw. “I’m certain she has an underlying illness, maybe schizophrenia, maybe bipolar disorder, maybe something I’ve never even named. I’ll never know for sure. Sometimes I wonder if she used drugs, alcohol, or smoked when she was carrying my baby. There are signs, subtle withdrawal symptoms, tremors when she was born, the way her liver enzymes were off, the cardiac scarring that doesn’t fit the usual genetic pattern. I keep seeing traces in her labs and her scans, like her body’s been fighting since before she even took her first breath. I remember Aseul’s pills, the lies. I remember seeing bruises beneath her makeup, the nights she’d vanish and come back smelling of smoke and liquor. I wanted to believe she was clean, but I think I was just a fucking idiot.” His words crack open a wound, old but still bleeding.
He looks up at you, eyes glassy with pain and urgency. “There’s no way Haeun was born like this without cause. The world says it’s fate, but my gut tells me it’s the kind of pain that gets passed down, molecule by molecule. I need to know. I have to know every piece of her history if I’m going to protect her future.” His voice grows harder, edged with a cold clarity. “If that woman ever comes back, if she tries to claim Haeun, I need proof that she’s unfit. I’ll burn every bridge before I let her hurt my daughter again.” He exhales, still trembling, but now there’s a fire burning beneath the grief. “And it’s more than that. If I can prove her condition wasn’t just genetics, but abuse in the womb—if we have evidence—Haeun could be moved up in priority for medical trials. There are new surgeries, treatments, transplants. If she’s not just another unlucky statistic, if she’s a survivor of what happened to her, she has a better chance. She could actually get better.” He looks at you, voice fierce now, almost pleading for your understanding. “And I’m a surgeon. I can’t let things go unsolved, not when it’s my child. I need to know the truth. For her, for me, for whatever comes next. Because if we don’t, we’re always going to be looking over our shoulders, waiting for the past to come back.” He falls quiet, the confession hanging between you, frightening, galvanizing, and true. Your fingers slip down his arm, steadying him as best you can, feeling the weight of his conviction seep into your bones.
The conversation clings to you long after the hospital has quieted, lingering in your bones like fever. You lie awake in the on-call room, staring at the ceiling, replaying every word Dr. Na said—his suspicion, his guilt, the ache in his voice. It isn’t just worry anymore; it’s a compulsion, something sharp and hungry burrowing under your skin. Eventually, you give up on sleep altogether, sliding out of bed and making your way through the dim, humming hallways. Your badge clicks softly against your chest as you slip into the records room, the scent of paper and old toner grounding you, a solitary sentinel in the blue-lit dark. You start at the only place you can, Haeun’s chart, beginning with her first days of life. No prenatal records, no mother’s notes, nothing of her before she entered the world except what’s been written by strangers and nurses on call. You piece through birth admission sheets and neonatal assessments, fingers steady as you trace the pattern of her early days: the liver enzyme spikes, unexplained bouts of jaundice, nurses’ notes that paint a picture of a baby who never really settled. “Persistent tremors.” “Difficult to console at feeds.” “Sweats through onesies—monitor for withdrawal.” All these tiny red flags, scattered through the margins of her file, never enough to form a clear diagnosis, but together, they thrum with warning.
Your mind, sharp and relentless, begins to connect the dots. You flip through every growth chart, plot her weight against hospital admission dates, and notice the subtle dips after each discharge. You recall a paper you read in med school about neonatal opioid withdrawal, another about the correlation between alcohol use in pregnancy and certain types of congenital heart disease. You print out case studies in the hospital library and annotate them furiously, drawing links between her symptoms and the kind of fetal exposure no one wants to believe. You scan the pharmacy logs, what she was given, how her body responded. There are whispers in the margins: doses adjusted, withdrawal protocols started and stopped, lab values double-checked in the quiet of the night. You revisit every toxicology screen done at birth, combing through lab reports, emailing old contacts to double-check the chain of custody on the blood draws. When the answers don’t fit, you push harder, hunting through old messages, digging up vaccine records from her first pediatric clinic, pretending you’re confirming routine care when you’re really listening for anything odd: a note about a “guardian unknown,” a phone number that never answered, a check-up missed.
Memory becomes your greatest ally. You remember things others dismissed, a night nurse whispering, “She never stopped trembling,” or a resident remarking, “Her growth curve’s always behind.” In the quietest hours, you lay out her charts and trace the patterns with your finger, seeing what others missed: the steady decline, the way every new illness seemed to take more from her than it should, as if she was always working from a deficit. You lose yourself in textbooks, online journals, discussion boards where pediatric cardiologists debate the rarest risk factors. You send anonymous case descriptions to doctors across the world, crafting careful summaries to spark their theories. You absorb everything, clinical trials on in-utero stress, emerging research on environmental factors, interviews with specialists whose words echo in your head long after you close your laptop.
With every sleepless night, every carefully logged data point, the picture sharpens. Haeun’s symptoms become a grim mosaic: withdrawal-like signs, unexplained liver function, stunted growth, and the telltale scarring of her heart, a pattern matching what you’ve now read about fetal toxic exposure. You gather every fragment into a growing file, a secret dossier built from evidence and obsession, a tapestry that is both damning and undeniable. Your drive becomes a kind of prayer, a plea to the universe that if you can just prove this, maybe you can finally protect her. Maybe you can fight for a future where she isn’t just a diagnosis, or a tragedy, or a case to be forgotten. Each night you return to the records room, hunting for the next piece, every detail another thread in the web you’re spinning, because this is your daughter, and you will not let the world, or the past, or the ghosts of Aseul, write the end of her story.
By the time dawn stains the hospital windows, you’ve assembled a private dossier—every chart, lab report, discharge note, and half-forgotten observation, each page marked with your questions and emerging theories. You hold the growing file close, resisting the urge to share it too soon, unwilling to let hope or fear cloud your judgment. You know this isn’t just about gathering evidence; every detail must be cross-checked, every pattern proven beyond a shadow of doubt. So you guard it, meticulous and patient, determined to verify every piece before you bring it to Dr. Na—because when you finally lay these findings in his hands, you want the truth to be undeniable, a weapon and a shield for Haeun’s future.
Two months slip by in the fluorescent hush of the hospital, the outside world blurring to a distant hum beyond rain-streaked windows. Days bleed together in the soft blue hours between shift changes, punctuated only by the relentless beeping of monitors and the squeak of nurses’ shoes on polished linoleum. Haeun’s room, once temporary, becomes a fragile, makeshift kingdom, a fortress lined with sun-faded drawings, wilted carnations crowding the window ledge, and a growing menagerie of sticker charts taped to the wall. Each morning, she wakes in the same bed, tangled in blankets with cartoon bunnies, her bunny clutched tightly to her chest. The traces of home Jaemin has tried to bring her, her favorite yellow mug, her ballet slippers tucked in the corner, her name scrawled in marker on a faded hospital whiteboard, do little to ward off the sense of exile that clings to every surface. In the softest light, you catch glimpses of her old joy: a sleepy smile as you press a kiss to her forehead, the giggle she gives when a nurse stumbles over her “bubba bunny,” the way she tries to line up her stickers in a perfect row each morning, determined to fill the chart by herself. But even these bright moments feel delicate, borrowed, as if one wrong move might shatter the fragile world you’re trying to hold together.
At first, hope flutters in the quiet hours after surgery. Haeun’s cheeks regain color, her appetite flickers back, and she starts demanding stories again, climbing into your lap with a book, demanding you do the voices “like Dada does.” For a handful of days, you and Dr. Na dare to imagine normalcy, clinging to each small milestone: the first time she sits up in bed by herself, the first time she laughs at a cartoon, the first time she makes it through the night without needing oxygen. Nurses sneak her extra grapes and animal crackers; you stretch out on the foot of her bed, reading aloud while she braids your fingers around her bunny’s ears. She insists on showing every new nurse how to braid properly, demonstrating on bunny, serious as any surgeon in the room. Dr. Na is always there, charting quietly at her bedside, fixing her blanket, learning the rhythm of her medicine schedule by heart. Yet the reprieve is fragile. Hope becomes superstition: you’re afraid to speak it aloud, afraid that by acknowledging it, you’ll break the spell.
But then the news comes, a slow, creeping dread blooming in the silence between check-ups. It starts with an echo, a little turbulence the tech almost misses but flags for review. The next MRI is less forgiving, its grainy images revealing scarring at the edge of the aortic root, hints of tissue threatening to regrow. You overhear Dr. Huang’s hushed conversation with Dr. Na at the end of the hall, their voices serious and low, punctuated by the occasional silence that hangs heavy as thunder. Dr. Na’s back is rigid, his shoulders squared, every line of him drawn taut as a wire. Dr. Huang’s words are gentle but unyielding: “We’re catching it early, but she’ll need another surgery. More extensive this time. Patch augmentation, to keep it from returning.” Dr. Na doesn’t speak for a long time, just stands with his hands pressed flat to the wall, as if bracing himself against the weight of the world. You watch from down the corridor, helpless, as the reality settles in his posture, a quiet collapse, seen only by the fluorescent lights and the ghosts of every parent who’s stood in his place. Haeun doesn’t understand the details; all she wants to know is, “Can I bring bunny, Dada? Can bunny come too?” Her voice is so small that it cracks something open in both men.
Talk of complications circles in the background: conduction issues, the faint specter of arrhythmias—possibilities that loom larger at night, when the halls are quiet and your thoughts run wild. Hospital routine becomes your new orbit. You and Dr. Na haunt the nurses’ desk with silent questions, refilling coffee mugs, obsessing over charts and progress notes, always waiting for the next update. Nurses start to call you “the regulars,” their smiles both sympathetic and sad. You memorize the rhythm of vitals checks and medication rounds, know which techs are gentle with her IVs, which aides bring the best stories at bedtime. Dr. Na becomes a fixture, rarely leaving Haeun’s side for more than an hour; he paces her room like a sentinel, charting with one eye always on her, brushing hair from her forehead with trembling fingers when he thinks no one is watching.
Haeun, your little sun, is changed by the passing days. Even at two, her resilience starts to show its limits. She’s still stubborn—still insists on brushing her own teeth, on picking her own pajamas, on telling anyone who listens, “No more pokes! I don’t want any more!” But her fire dims; she tires more easily, loses her appetite, her hair thins from the strain. You see her standing at the window, hospital gown slipping off her shoulder, pressing her small hand against the glass to watch cars below, her leotard bunched up in her fist like a broken promise. She never asks about ballet anymore, but sometimes, when she thinks you’re not looking, you see her eyes linger on the recital poster taped to the wall. She traces the tiny shoes with her fingertip, her lips moving as if reciting lines from a story she can’t quite remember. “Maybe when I’m bigger, Dada. Maybe when my heart get better.” The words twist in your chest, as sharp and relentless as the ache in her eyes. Dr. Na kneels beside her, arms wrapped around her small frame, whispering promises he can’t be sure he can keep. “You’re my strong girl, sunshine. We’ll dance together again. I promise, I promise.” She leans into him, face buried in his shoulder, bunny clutched tight between them.
Nurses do everything they can—sticker charts, animal-shaped pancakes, bedside puppet shows, a parade of soft toys and coloring books. For a while, it helps. Haeun gives them polite smiles, musters giggles for the silly ones, lets them braid her hair and tie ribbons on bunny’s ears. But by nightfall she grows quiet, curling on her side around bunny, refusing the lullabies and stories that once soothed her. When you come in late, you find her staring at the ceiling, wide-eyed and silent, the weight of the day pressing her into the mattress. Sometimes, she sits up to watch the door, asking softly, “Mama, you stay, right? You don’t go home?” You promise her, every time, “I’m right here, baby. I always come back.” But some nights she wakes from dreams you can’t touch, reaching for you in the dark, her sobs muffled in the crook of your arm.
One night, long after the ward has settled, you wander past the playroom and pause in the doorway. Haeun is there, curled up in the corner beneath the fairy lights, bunny in her arms. She rocks gently, her voice a lullaby too old and too young at once: “Don’t be scared, bunny. Mama always comes back. Mama always comes back.” The sight shatters something in you—her small form dwarfed by the shadows, comforting her toy with the same words she needs for herself. You stand there, hands trembling, unable to move for fear the moment might dissolve if you step closer.
The weeks bleed together in a frenzy of secrecy and adrenaline, your life shrinking to the size of chart folders, text alerts, and the soft hiss of printers after midnight. Dr. Na is relentless, his obsession blazing through every professional barrier—locked out of the EMR, flagged as a conflict, barred from the operating theatre except as a grieving parent. He fights with Dr. Huang in the hallway, voices pitched low but seething, a storm of controlled rage. “She’s my daughter, not just another case,” he hisses.
Dr. Huang only shakes his head, jaw set, a wall of authority that brooks no argument. But Dr. Na refuses to yield; his obsession crackles through every line of his body. The day you’re officially assigned under Dr. Huang’s service for Haeun’s follow-up, he waits for you at the nurses’ station, eyes fever-bright with urgency and something you can’t quite name. His voice is low but commanding, pitched for your ears alone. “Get me everything. Every echo report, every post-op note, every cardiac cath, even the bad scans. Everything.” He leans in, the world shrinking to the space between you—his hand braced on the counter beside yours, so close you feel his knuckles brush your skin, the scent of his aftershave a pulse in the air. You hesitate, heart racing, the risk thrumming through you, but his desperation—raw and fierce—pulls you under. “And make sure Dr. Huang doesn’t catch you, or else we’re both in deep shit,” he adds, his breath hot at your ear, a warning and a promise in one. You nod, pulse hammering, and in that moment, the two of you step quietly into a world made of stolen time and whispered secrets, a labyrinth where danger feels like a dare.
You’re squeezed together in a storage closet later that night, shoulders pressed, your back flat against the cool metal shelves. He’s so close you can feel every shift of muscle beneath his scrubs, the heat radiating from his body as he leans over you, his chest brushing yours when he reaches up to snag a folder from the top shelf. The air is tight, oxygen sharp and thin, your breaths mixing as you whisper about chart numbers and scan results—your voices little more than shared tremors in the dark. Suddenly, a door rattles, footsteps halting just outside; his hand snaps over your mouth, palm hot and trembling, your lips trapped beneath his skin. You both go utterly still, breathes caught, his body pinning you back so hard you feel his heartbeat through your chest. Dr. Huang’s voice drifts just feet away, talking with a nurse—mundane words with the power to destroy everything.
Dr. Na’s body goes rigid, tension coiled so tight it nearly hurts. His lips graze your ear as he murmurs, “Don’t move.” The words spark down your spine, every nerve on fire as you nod minutely, held captive in the space between danger and want. When the footsteps fade, he doesn’t move—doesn’t even look away. His hand lingers at your mouth, his thumb tracing your jaw with slow, absent pressure. You stare at each other in the dark, the unspoken buzzing and swelling between you, something hungry and electric filling the air. Finally, his hand slips away, but his body stays close, breath mingling with yours as if neither of you wants to be the first to break the spell.
You start sneaking into file rooms late at night, your heart thrumming as you slip past custodians and after-hours staff. There’s always someone half-asleep at the charting desk, but you’ve learned their breaks, timing your missions for when the halls are deserted. You log into EMR terminals under the harsh blue glare of empty workstations, eyes gritty with exhaustion as you scroll through raw data, scanning for anomalies. Sometimes you print out ten, fifteen pages at a time, shoving them deep in your bag before anyone can see. There are nights when you duck into stairwells to catch your breath, phone buzzing with a cryptic text—“3rd floor stairwell. 7:15.” “North wing conference room. after rounds.” “Cardiology archives. now.” Each message is a command; you obey without thinking, adrenaline making your hands shake as you run through hallways, clutching manila folders to your chest like state secrets.
Some days the tension between you is a living thing, slinking through the corridors and trailing your shadows as you chase one another from lab to lounge, from copy room to cardiac bay. There’s a science to every risk—a handoff in a narrow supply closet, your bodies pressed too close for the sake of secrecy, his hips pinning you to the cold shelves as you pass him a folded sheaf of test results. Voices drift closer, a cluster of nurses laughing outside, and instead of pulling away he leans in, mouth by your ear, the heat of his chest searing through your scrubs as you both wait, hardly daring to breathe. Sometimes, you’re both giddy and careless, tripping over each other’s shoes on the stairs, giggling with adrenaline as he shoves you behind him when a nurse rounds the corner, his hand on your waist, his back shielding you as he smoothly pretends to help you search for a “missing form.” It’s protection, but it’s also a test: when your nerves fray and your words spill out in panicked whispers—“what if we missed something, what if someone sees?”—he clamps a hand around your wrist, pulling you flush against his side, so close your heart pounds into his shoulder.
Once, after a too-close call with a suspicious intern, you try to slip away, but he pins you with one hand against the door, his other palm splayed flat to your chest, holding you steady until your frantic breathing slows and matches his. There are softer moments, too, buried in the chaos: his fingers slide up to your throat, feeling for your pulse beneath your skin—an excuse to check if you’re calm, but really just needing to touch you, to feel you alive and real. In the locker room before surgery, you tie his mask for him, your fingers lingering at the nape of his neck, your touch too gentle, the air thick with everything unsaid. Sometimes, as you pore over labs together, he catches a stray lock of hair and tucks it behind your ear, his palm cupping your cheek, thumb tracing the corner of your mouth—his eyes dark and searching, lingering too long until a voice in the hall jolts you both and he drops his hand, too quick, leaving your skin tingling. It’s become a game of shared secrets played in plain sight: he murmurs instructions or warnings in your ear, lips grazing the shell, his breath making your skin burn and your stomach flip; across the nurses’ station, you mouth “later,” and he catches it instantly, grinning slow and wolfish, the kind of grin that promises you’ll find each other again, no matter who or what stands in your way.
You become a kind of codependent ecosystem, he tells you exactly what to ask for from Dr. Huang’s team, how to word emails to the lab so no one suspects. He’s a dictionary in motion, rattling off acronyms, medication doses, journal citations, his mind a whirlwind you struggle to keep pace with. You’ve spent entire nights with your knees pressed together under the small conference table, both of you squinting at the glow of your laptop, pages of scrawled notes between you, his knuckles grazing yours every time he points to a section in the file. The tension grows sharper, more intimate: sometimes you’re so close your breath fogs the same glass window, voices barely above a whisper, neither of you willing to move away. Once, he traces a finger over your hand where you’ve written a lab value in Sharpie, his touch fleeting but electric, a wordless thank you neither of you dares speak aloud.
The hospital itself becomes your maze. You learn every shortcut, every broken badge reader and out-of-service lift. You know which nurses gossip, which ones turn a blind eye, which aides will distract security just long enough for you to slip into the records room unnoticed. You run down hallways with files stuffed inside oversized hoodies, nearly colliding with gurneys, ducking into on-call rooms to catch your breath. There are nights when you laugh, exhausted and giddy, sliding papers across tables like you’re in a spy movie. You lean into OR windows, mouthing updates to Dr. Na as he scrubs out, fingers drawing invisible numbers in the fog. He raises an eyebrow, sometimes rolling his eyes, but always lingers just long enough to catch your meaning. The tension simmers between you, sometimes playful, sometimes so sharp you feel it in your teeth.
The hospital staff can’t help but notice. Nurses start to gossip, the pediatric unit thick with whispers—something about the way you and Dr. Na orbit each other, the late-night coffee runs, the way you seem to always know exactly where he’ll be. There are jokes about your cat-and-mouse game: “Careful, or she’ll steal your charts next!” “Watch out, Dr. Na’s shadow’s coming through.” Sometimes, you tease him under your breath, letting frustration slip into banter: “Anything else, Dr. Na? Want me to check her entire genome while I’m at it?” He smirks, eyes glinting with pride and something darker. “If you could, I’d ask you to.” Each exchange blurs the line further—professional boundaries dissolving, replaced by something messier and far more dangerous.
You both become reckless, addicted to the secrecy and adrenaline, more reliant on each other with every passing shift. You text at all hours—sometimes just a question about a lab value, sometimes a line of vented panic or a plea for reassurance. There’s a night when you collapse beside him in the supply closet, clutching your sides from laughing too hard after a close call with a suspicious nurse, your forehead pressed to his shoulder, the world spinning. Another day, he catches you after you nearly drop a folder in the stairwell, steadying you with both hands on your waist for a beat too long, the air charged and heavy.
Somehow, even with exhaustion, the game goes on. You hand him a coffee with a coded message scrawled under the sleeve—“Echo at 3pm, see me.” He returns the favor by sliding an extra set of scrubs into your locker, a folded note tucked inside: “Be careful. I need you to stay awake tonight.” Sometimes you trade reports in the parking lot at shift change, headlights flickering across your faces like a movie scene. You spend lunch breaks pretending to discuss patient cases when really you’re dissecting Haeun’s latest labs, heads bent together over your trays, speaking in a shorthand only you two understand.
All the while, the rest of your life narrows to the hospital’s pulse and Dr. Na’s orbit. Sleep becomes optional, meals an afterthought, your body humming with adrenaline and longing. You get better at hiding the bruises on your shins from late-night sprints, the ink stains on your wrists from frantic note-taking, the way your hands shake when the pressure gets too high. You find yourself thinking about him at odd hours, replaying the way his voice drops when he says “thank you,” the rare but devastating smile when something in the data gives him hope, the way he looks at you—full of pride, fear, gratitude, and something deeper you’re scared to name.
Then, just as your partnership verges on uncontainable, the world tilts. During morning rounds, Dr. Lee Heeseung, the same fellow who first asked you out when Haeun was admitted, joins you and Dr. Na at the computer pod, his smile soft, eyes bright with something almost shy. He waits until you’re discussing Haeun’s updated med list, then quietly, boldly, asks if you’d like to get dinner after shift. You agree, half out of genuine affection, half to prove to yourself you still have a life outside these walls, and maybe to distract yourself from the gravity well of Dr. Na’s presence. The nurses catch wind of it immediately, whispering and grinning behind their hands. Dr. Na says nothing as Heeseung walks away, but you catch the edge in his voice, the way his eyes flicker, a muscle jumping in his jaw.
The dates with Heeseung are nice, easy, unhurried, a welcome contrast to the tension of your secret world. You talk about everything but medicine: bad music, favorite foods, childhood games, the kinds of things you’ve forgotten how to share. There’s no pressure for anything physical, but you feel it building, an anxiety made sharper by the knowledge you’ve never crossed that line before. Still, it’s something to look forward to—a reminder that you’re more than just a vessel for someone else’s crisis. And yet, you’re never truly free of Dr. Na’s gravity. One night, he catches you and Heeseung laughing together near the vending machines, his eyes narrowing just for a moment, a flicker of something wild and possessive passing over his face. He smirks, rolling his eyes when you glance his way, and you know he’ll find a way to tease you for it later, some biting, quiet remark behind a closed door, a pointed joke at the nurses’ station, a challenge masked as a dare. Underneath all of it, the tension grows—sharper, needier, and just one secret away from shattering.
The fluorescent lights buzz low in the empty on-call room, shadows thrown sharp across the cluttered desk and half-unmade cot. It’s late, so late the halls outside have quieted to a hush, the world shrinking to the static in your ears and the sweat prickling down your spine. You’re tired, the kind of tired that makes your skin ache, but there’s adrenaline in your veins as you push the door open, file clutched so tightly the corners curl beneath your fingertips. The air is thick, heavy with secrets, and Dr. Na barely looks up from his notes as you step inside, his posture loose and easy, as if he’s been waiting for you all night.
You slam the folder onto the desk, the paper fanning out, and the sharp sound cuts the silence. Your hand lingers on top, knuckles white. “Here. Again.” Your voice is flat, bracing, but underneath it is an edge, resentment, exhaustion, need. The room smells of coffee and his cologne, something crisp and dark that sinks into your lungs and settles low in your belly. Dr. Na’s gaze drags slowly up your body, lazy and unapologetic, and when your eyes meet, there’s nothing gentle in his expression. Only hunger, calculation, and the faintest glint of amusement.
“You’re very efficient,” he drawls, not bothering to hide the smirk as he leans back in the chair, one leg crossed over the other, hands folded in his lap as if this is all a game he’s already won. He’s so close, too close—your bodies separated by a narrow slice of space, tension stretching thin and brittle between you. You swallow hard, every nerve alight. He’s always like this when you’re alone, no mask, no distance, just that dark and unflinching focus, as if he’s trying to see through you, right down to your bones.
“Don’t.” The word cracks out of you, sharper than you intended, your voice thick. “Don’t do that, don’t act like this is easy.” You push your hair out of your face with shaking fingers, anger blooming hot and electric. “I’ve been running around this damn hospital like your fucking assistant for weeks, and you haven’t thanked me once.” Your breath comes in quick, uneven bursts, cheeks flushed with frustration. His eyebrow arches, the hint of a smile curling his lips, and it only makes you angrier. “You just, expect me to drop everything, to risk my internship, to break every rule, every night, like it’s nothing.”
You draw yourself up, voice ringing against the sterile tile, finally unafraid of who hears. “I’ve nearly been caught by four nurses and two attendings, spent half my nights hiding in supply closets or lying through my teeth at the front desk just to cover for you. You pull me behind locked doors, call me at any hour, act like I exist only for your secrets, and I’ve gone along with every single fucking thing you asked because I—” You falter, breath shaking. “Because I care. Because your little girl needs me. But I’m not your secret. I’m not a shadow in your story. If you want me, you’re going to have to look me in the eye and admit it.”
He shrugs, almost insolent. “You’re being dramatic.” The words settle over your skin like a dare, his tone calm but sharpened by the flicker in his eyes, a challenge that makes you want to scream, or grab him by the collar and shake him, or maybe just let him touch you until you can’t remember why you were angry at all. When you don’t look away, he leans forward, gaze dark and steady, voice dropping just for you. “You know I thank you every single time,” he says quietly, his meaning twisting beneath the surface, “but that’s not the kind of thanks you want, is it?” He holds your stare, heat simmering between you, as if he already knows exactly what you’re begging for.
“I do not—” You choke on the words, emotion spilling out unchecked. “You have me sneaking files, forging signatures, making up lies to cover for both of us. I barely sleep. I miss meals. I hide from my friends. I’ve had to come up with more excuses than I ever thought possible. You make me feel like I’m the only one who can do this, the only one who can save her and you’re not wrong. The thing is, I do it—every time—I do it because I care about her, because I want her to be okay. Because I love her, and I would burn the whole world for her. But I also do it for you. For you, Dr. Na. Because there’s something in the way you look at me, the way you trust me with all this, that makes me want to prove myself, to be worthy of you.”
You don’t even realize you’re pacing, hands gesturing wildly, rambling now, voice rising with each word. “It’s not just the risk—it’s the pressure, the fear. The way my heart stops every time someone says your name too loud in the hallway, or I hear footsteps coming toward the supply closet. The way you text me at midnight, and I run, every single time. I drop everything, even when I know I shouldn’t. Even when I know it’s wrong. I keep doing it, because it feels like I’m part of something bigger, something important. But it’s also because it’s you. Because you make me feel alive. Like I’m not just surviving, like I’m needed, chosen, fucking seen.” You let out a shaky breath, chest heaving. Your voice breaks, softening into something fragile, honest. “And I know it’s stupid, I know I should say no, I know I should walk away but I don’t. I keep doing it. I can’t stop and I don’t know if that makes me loyal or pathetic, or just hopelessly in love with the feeling of being close to you.” There’s a beat of silence. You don’t look at him, afraid of what you’ll see.
He’s silent for a moment, just watching you with that unreadable, dark gaze—waiting, calculating, letting the air stretch tight and electric between you. Then his eyes shift, something deeper and darker flashing in them: hunger, authority, a warning that thrums all the way through you. His lips curl into the faintest, dangerous smile. “Careful,” he murmurs, his voice velvet-wrapped steel. “You know I don’t tolerate tantrums, sweetheart. If you want my attention, you’ll ask for it the right way.” He lets the words linger, letting you feel every inch of the control he’s claiming, every ounce of heat simmering beneath. “If you’re going to talk back to me, you’d better be ready to accept the consequences.” The challenge is unmistakable, sharp and commanding, darkly sexual, promising that if you push, he’ll make you feel it everywhere.
You stumble, realization crashing over you like a wave. Your shoulders curl inward, shrinking beneath his stare. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Dr. Na. I shouldn’t have—I’m sorry, sir.” The last word leaves your lips in a whimper, almost involuntary, and you hate yourself for how much it aches, how natural it feels to submit, to give him that power. The air in the room thickens, heavy with the gravity of everything unspoken. Silence coils tight, thick as smoke. For a moment, you wonder if he’ll dismiss you, if he’ll turn away. But instead, he stands, the movement slow, deliberate—a predator circling prey. He steps forward, the distance between you shrinking to nothing, and suddenly your back is pressed flush to the door, the cool wood biting through your shirt. His body boxes you in, his arms braced on either side of your head, hips anchoring you in place. The heat of him is overwhelming, a cage you don’t want to escape.
“You want me to thank you?” His voice drops, low and rough, vibrating straight through your bones. “Should I make it up to you, then?” The question isn’t innocent. It’s a taunt, a threat, a promise. You swallow, the air buzzing with anticipation, and his eyes drop to your mouth, lingering there as if he’s considering all the ways he could ruin you.
For a moment, the world is still, heavy with the things unsaid, your chest still tight from the words you spat at him, the sting of injustice and longing tangled up in your body. You’re braced for another argument, but something shifts in his face: a flicker of hunger, the slow drag of his gaze down your throat, the way his tongue flicks at the corner of his mouth, considering. He steps forward, not fast, just deliberate, each inch erasing the space between you until his presence is all you can feel. The air grows thick, shadows lengthening across the on-call room floor, the distant hum of hospital machinery fading until there’s only your heartbeat and the subtle creak of the door behind your back.
He reaches out, fingers brushing your jaw, soft, testing, almost gentle. His touch lingers, thumb stroking the corner of your mouth, tracing the line of your cheek, as if memorizing you. You don’t breathe. The room seems to tilt, the power shifting, all that anger melting into a deeper ache. “So dramatic tonight,” he murmurs, letting the words draw out, his voice teasing but his eyes unblinking, dark, searching for something raw beneath your bravado. “All that fire—makes me wonder what you’d do if I really gave you what you want.”
You can’t answer, not with his body crowding you, his heat bleeding through your clothes, his scent making your pulse flutter. He brings his hand to your throat, his palm broad, warm, controlling but not cruel—just a steady, possessive pressure, thumb brushing your pulse as if reading every secret, every surrender. You gasp, but the sound is small, caught between your teeth, your hands fisting in the fabric of your own scrubs for something to hold onto. His thigh presses between your legs, nudging you open, the contact slow but inevitable, grinding you back against the door until you have nowhere left to go.
He holds you there, eyes locked on yours, every muscle in his body tense but patient, letting you feel how easily he could take everything, but refusing to rush. His hand stays tight on your throat, thumb stroking slow circles, his other hand sliding down to grip your hip, fingers digging in, guiding you to rock forward, to grind against him, to feel how hard he already is beneath all that calm. “I want to hear you ask for it,” he murmurs, his voice dropping even lower, every word deliberate, “I want to hear you beg. You’ve been running for me, breaking every rule. You want to know what you get for that?” His breath is hot at your ear, lips just barely grazing your skin, every syllable a question and a dare.
He doesn’t move fast—he waits, letting the tension coil between your bodies, his hands holding you in place, making you feel how thoroughly you’ve lost control. When you finally look up at him, eyes blown wide, lips parted in anticipation, he smiles, slow and dangerous. “Tell me. What exactly do you want me to teach you tonight?” He doesn’t hesitate. He just locks the door behind you with a quick, commanding twist, no words, just a click that settles in your bones, then grabs your hips, grinding his thigh up between your legs, making you whimper without meaning to. The move is rough, pure instinct, his mouth already coming for yours, the space between you charged and wild. You barely have time to process, your body giving a desperate little jerk against him, his scent, his authority, his need overwhelming every protest in your mind. He tries to kiss you—hungry, searching, lips already parting—but you shove him back, breathless, chest heaving, your fingers fisted in his shirt. He freezes, eyes dark with surprise, confusion flaring. He blinks, something like doubt flickering in the pause—he thought this was what you wanted, thought you’d melt into his arms, thought you’d beg him to keep going. For a moment, the air is suspended, silent, his gaze flickering from your mouth to your eyes, trying to read you, trying to figure out what line he’s crossed.
But you’re the one who breaks it, not with anger, but with need, raw and sweet, a gasp trembling from your lips. “Teach me.” The words are a plea, a dare, the spark that sets the rest of you alight. Your voice drops, syrupy and high, nearly a whine. “Don’t just take—show me. Teach me how to be your good girl. Teach me how to ride cock, how to beg, how to suck you off until you forget your own name, teach me how to make you want me, how to be your best, your only, your fucking favorite. I want to be the best student you’ve ever had, Dr. Na. I want to learn every filthy thing you like, every way you want me. I want to make you proud, so you never, ever want anyone else. Please—teach me. I’ll be so good for you. I’ll do everything you say.”
You clutch at his wrist, chest arching as your body presses to his, already breathless from the weight of two months spent running for him, begging for more than he’d ever give in daylight. Your nerves spark with the adrenaline of confession. “I mean it,” you gasp, half-laughing, half-pleading, “I’m not here for surgical lessons. I want you to teach me all the other stuff, the things I actually need. Please—teach me how to ride cock, how to suck cock, how to beg for it, how to be on my knees and take you, how to make someone want me, how to make you lose your mind. I want to be good for you—I want to be so fucking good for Heeseung. I want you to show me everything, Dr. Na. I want to learn from the best.” Your voice is high, sweet and shameless, eyes wide, so eager for him you’re almost shaking.
He drags his hand up your throat, claiming you, gaze black with possession and hunger. “You want me to teach you how to be a good little slut, is that it? So you can run off and use it on Heeseung?” His words are a dark caress, biting and jealous, every line vibrating with heat. “You really think I’m going to show you how to ride my cock so you can bounce on someone else’s? You want me to teach you how to suck cock, beg, take it however I want to give it, just so you can be his perfect little thing?” He leans in, lips brushing your ear, voice almost cruel with need. “No, sweetheart. If I teach you how to fuck, it’ll be for me. You want to learn how to beg? You beg for me. You want to ride? You ride my cock. You want to learn how to take it on your knees? You start right here, with me. I’m not letting you give this to anyone else.”
Your lashes flutter, mouth parted, brain dizzy with want. “Please, Dr. Na—make me your dumb little fucktoy. I want you to teach me how to ride your cock so deep I can’t think, how to suck you off until you’re shaking, how to drool all over your cock and beg for more. I want to learn how to kneel for you, how to take your fingers, your tongue, your cock—anywhere, anytime, any way you want it. Teach me how to make a mess for you, how to choke on it, how to beg so sweet you have to cover my mouth just to shut me up. I want to be your favorite thing to use, your best slut, the only one you fuck, the only one you think about. Please—let me be your perfect girl, your little bimbo, your filthy student. I’ll do anything, I just want you to use me and make me yours, make me forget everything but how good you feel inside me. Please, tell me everything, make me beg, make me better for you—please, please, please—” Your words spill over themselves, needy and breathless, your hands gripping his arms, nails biting.
His eyes darken even further, the command and pride sharp as a blade. His hand tightens at your throat just enough to remind you who owns every gasp, every shiver. “You’re not leaving this room until you’ve been taught, sweetheart,” he murmurs, voice heavy with authority, but there’s a new glint—something indulgent, almost reverent. “But tonight? Tonight you’re getting your reward. You’ve been my perfect little accomplice, haven’t you? Two months running around this place for me. That deserves a thank you, doesn’t it, baby?” He leans in, lips brushing your jaw as his words turn to velvet, every syllable a promise. “Tonight, I’m going to make you fall apart on my mouth, just to show you what you’ve earned. After that, maybe I’ll let you beg to learn more.”
He drops to his knees right in front of you, his hands sliding up your thighs, hiking your scrubs and panties to your hips. You barely have time to brace yourself against the wall before he hooks one of your legs over his shoulder, prying you open for his tongue, his grip hard and unyielding as his mouth finds you, hot and greedy. His tongue is relentless. broad, wet, devouring you like you’re the only thing he’s ever needed. He licks and sucks, flicks and circles, moaning filth into your skin, lips curling as you whimper, trying to bite down your cries but failing miserably. Your hands fly to his hair, clutching tight as he pins you with the weight of his head, tongue working you open, face buried so deep you feel the scrape of his stubble every time you roll your hips.
You grind down, desperate, using his mouth, breath coming in frantic bursts as his nose nudges your clit, his hands gripping your ass hard enough to leave marks. Every time you moan his name, he hums louder, tongue fucking you deep, then swirling slow until you’re shaking and almost sobbing. He spreads you wider, holding you against the wall so the only thing keeping you upright is the tremor in your legs and his strong grip, until you’re teetering on the edge, dizzy, then stumbling as your knees buckle, the world blurring around the rush of his tongue and the obscene wetness of his mouth.
He laughs low against your cunt, voice rough with pride, and catches you before you hit the floor, easing you down until you’re straddling his chest, legs spread wide, knees digging into the thin carpet. He lays back, looking up at you with a wicked grin, eyes hungry, beard shining with you. “Go on, baby,” he growls, voice gone ragged, hands squeezing your ass and guiding you forward. “Show me how greedy you can be—fuck my mouth, just like that. I want to see you use me. Show me how much you need it.”
You obey without thought, letting him position you over his face, thighs trembling as you lower yourself, your pussy slick and swollen, his mouth already open for you. You rock against him, grinding and riding, hands in his hair, back arching as you take what you want, what he’s begged you to demand. His tongue is everywhere, hungry and relentless, and every time you try to slow down, his hands slap your ass, the sharp smack jolting you forward, making you cry out louder. He groans, buried in you, eyes glazed with need as he lets you rut and buck, taking you higher and higher.
He urges you on, voice muffled, hands never letting go, coaxing you with every filthy encouragement he can spit between licks. “That’s it, use me, make a mess, fuck yourself on my face—good girl, my favorite little slut, show me how bad you want it.” The praise makes you wild, hips moving harder, chasing the edge, your head thrown back as your cries echo in the cramped room, every shameful sound an offering just for him. You feel everything—his tongue, his teeth grazing, his grip, his hands spanking and squeezing and guiding, your cunt throbbing for him.
You come undone, shattering for him, his mouth working you through every wave, never letting up, drinking in every drop as you fall apart over his face, nails digging into his scalp, thighs squeezing tight around his head. He lets you ride it out, lets you grind until you’re sobbing, spent, nothing left but shivers and praise. He doesn’t let you up until you’re limp and boneless, legs shaking, heart beating too fast, your whole world collapsed into the shape of his mouth and hands. Only then does he let you slide down, cradling you, kissing your thigh as you fall into his arms, dizzy and glowing, still marked by every lesson he’s begun to teach you.
He stretches you out on the bed, the hospital sheets cold against your feverish skin, body pliant but trembling from the way he’s handled you. Your thighs fall open for him, heart thudding wild in your chest as he kneels between your legs, his sheer size eclipsing everything else—broad shoulders crowding the fluorescent haze, hands big enough to pin your hips with barely any effort. He grips you there, grounding you as he drags the blunt head of his cock through your slick, teasing your entrance with obscene, unhurried strokes, letting you feel every throbbing inch against your folds. “Open up for me, baby,” he says, voice thick with a mix of command and awe, his thumb flicking your clit until you shudder. “Gonna watch you split around me, let’s see how much this greedy little cunt can take.”
He lines himself up, nudging at your entrance, then just—waits, teasing, grinding the head in shallow circles. The anticipation is a pulse in your belly. He presses in, barely an inch, and you gasp at the stretch—he’s so thick, you feel yourself fight to open, the ache bordering on pain. Your hands scramble for his forearms, nails biting into his skin, needing something to anchor you. He smirks, cocky and cruel, rocking his hips forward just enough to make your breath catch. “Look at you already struggling, haven’t even given you half of me yet. Such a greedy little thing.” He leans down, mouth at your ear, heat fogging your thoughts. “Relax for me. Breathe. Let Daddy in.”
He’s patient but unrelenting, pressing in, then pausing, easing you open inch by inch. He spits in his hand, slicks himself up, then spits again directly on your cunt, working it in with two fingers, stretching you, coaxing you to take him deeper. Each time you tense, he stops, rubs circles on your clit until your muscles give, then pushes again. The burn is relentless, making your thighs tremble, your vision blur. You whimper, tears pricking your lashes, the fullness already overwhelming and he isn’t even halfway inside. “So fucking tight, so pure—fuck, have you done this before?” His voice is quieter, dangerous, a thread of possessiveness running through the filth.
You open your mouth to lie, pride trembling on your tongue, but the truth chokes you, your breath hitching, your voice cracking as you finally admit, “No. This is… my first time.” Your cheeks flush, eyes watering, shame and need tangled together, but you force yourself to nod, to let him see all of you.
His eyes go molten, mouth curling into a wicked grin. “My little virgin? That’s even better.” He draws his thumb over your lips, presses down until you part them, then spits in your mouth, claiming you, marking you. “You’re gonna remember this forever, baby. You’ll never forget the first time you got split open—never forget who made you his.”
He slows down even more, rolling his hips, working you open with patience laced with something wicked. “Such a good girl, letting Daddy ruin you like this. Two months of you teasing me, making me wait, watching you run around this hospital, pretending you were so innocent. All that time, you never told me you were saving yourself for this. For me.” He presses in, inching deeper, filling you until you feel him in your belly, the pressure blooming higher than you thought possible.
You arch, whimpering, your fingers clutching at his biceps, “Daddy—please, it’s so much, I can feel you everywhere, I can’t—”
He hushes you, eyes heavy with pride and hunger. “Yes you can, sunshine. You can take it. You’re made for this. Look how full you are—look at that little bulge, can you feel me in your tummy, baby? That’s all you. That’s how deep Daddy is inside his perfect girl.” He cradles your jaw, forces your eyes to his, one hand sliding to your lower belly, pressing down until you moan, dizzy from the mix of pain and pleasure and total surrender. “Keep looking at me. Don’t look away. I want to see your face when I ruin you.”
You’d always imagined your first time would be slow, maybe gentle, maybe awkward with someone who would say all the right things. But this is nothing like that—this is rough, filthy, unplanned, your mind coming undone at the edges as you let him take every ounce of control. It’s been building between you for months, all the tension, the late nights, the secret glances in sterile corridors, all culminating here, your body stretched open, exposed, trembling for someone who wants to own you, mark you, make you forget anyone else ever existed.
He rocks his hips again, working you deeper, each thrust shallow but insistent, holding you open until finally, finally, his hips meet yours. The pain crests and then morphs into something so bright you can barely breathe—your cunt clamping down, your mouth open on a silent gasp, body going hot and cold all at once. “Fuck, you’re squeezing me so tight, sunshine. You feel that? That’s how Daddy knows he owns you. No one else gets to fuck you like this, to break you in. You’re my best student. My only girl.”
He wipes a tear from your cheek, then slaps your face just hard enough to make you blink, to bring you back to him, to ground you in the feeling of his body buried deep in yours. “Don’t you dare look away. I want to watch you fall apart for me.” His hands press down on your belly again, cock pulsing inside you, your body forced to accommodate every inch. You whimper, but nod, holding his gaze, letting him see every shattered piece as you finally, completely let go.
He spits down at your mouth, watching it drip onto your tongue, his thumb smearing it across your lips. “Swallow it. Show me how much you love being messy for me.” You obey, cheeks hollowing around his thumb, tasting spit and salt and need. “That’s it—filthy little thing. Let’s see how much more you can take.” He starts to move, slow at first, letting you feel every drag, every catch, your cunt stretched tight, the friction wet and obscene. His other hand slides up to your throat, squeezing until your head goes light, every sense focused on the tight burn where he fills you.
He leans down, tongue tracing the tears on your cheeks, lips nipping your jaw. “Gonna make you cum so hard you forget your name. You want that? You want to be dumb and useless, just stuffed full of cock?” You nod frantically, your voice high and ruined, “Yes, Daddy—please, want it so bad, want to be your perfect dumb baby.” He hums approval, hips grinding deeper, the angle pressing him against your sweetest spot, making you keen and thrash beneath him.
He doesn’t let up—his hand still locked around your throat, his hips rolling slow, controlled, never giving you all of him at once. “Count for me,” he commands, punctuating every thrust with a slap to your tits, your ass, your thighs. “Every time I fuck you deeper, every time you take it for me, you count.” Your voice cracks as you obey, counting, sobbing, the numbers tumbling between moans and broken whimpers. “Good girl—taking it all, just for Daddy. Want you to remember this every time you even think about another cock.”
He pulls out suddenly, leaving you empty and desperate, and flips you onto your stomach. You gasp as he drags your hips up, ass in the air, face pressed into the pillow. He spits on your asshole, thumb circling, then leans down to lick you open, tongue hot and filthy, making you arch and shake. “This ass is mine too, baby. Everything you are—every hole, every inch, belongs to Daddy.” You sob, hips twitching as he fingers you open, one thick finger, then two, working in time with his tongue, your cunt fluttering, soaking the sheets.
He slides his cock back inside, slower this time, making you feel the push in both holes, the overwhelming fullness. You choke on your cries, his hand in your hair, forcing you to look back at him, eyes wild. “Look how dumb you get for me. Can’t even think straight, can you?” He pulls your hair, making you arch, then releases to spank your ass, watching your skin bloom red. “Say thank you, baby. Thank Daddy for ruining you.” You stammer it out, barely coherent, every word a plea.
He edges you, stops every time you get close, making you whimper and beg, your whole body quivering on the edge of release. “Not yet. Not until you beg for it, until you say you’re my fucktoy, my perfect dumb baby.” He slaps your ass again, rubs your clit until you’re shaking. You sob out the words, “Please, Daddy, let me cum, let me be your perfect little slut, I’ll do anything, I’ll be so good for you—” He finally gives in, hips snapping harder, deeper, the sound of skin on skin echoing through the room, the bed creaking beneath you. The world narrows to the relentless stretch, the heavy pulse of him buried deep, and the hot thrum in your belly that’s been building for what feels like hours. His hands clamp around your hips, holding you still as he grinds into that sweet spot inside you, his cock thick and insistent, every drag making you tremble and gasp, lost in the rhythm. Your fingers claw helplessly at his back, nails dragging red crescents down his skin, your whole body tightening, every muscle wound so tight you feel like you might snap.
He feels the shift, feels the way you tense and shudder around him, and he grins, voice thick with dark pride as he growls, “There you go, sunshine—let go for me, show lolly how good you are, how pretty you look when you cum for me.” His words push you right to the edge—your breath catches, your eyes rolling back, the pressure mounting and cresting, breaking all at once. The orgasm rips through you, sudden and blinding, a tidal wave crashing up from your toes, shaking through your legs, your stomach, your chest. You scream, high and broken, hips bucking, your cunt clamping down hard around him, pulsing in hot, desperate waves.
Your vision whites out, the world gone fuzzy and weightless, only sensation and sound and his voice in your ear, praising you, coaxing you to keep cumming, to milk his cock for everything he’s worth. “That’s it, let it out—fuck, you’re so tight, you’re squeezing me, baby, making a mess all over my cock. Such a good girl, look at you, losing it for me.” He doesn’t slow, doesn’t let up, hips grinding into you, stretching out the orgasm until you’re sobbing, body shaking uncontrollably, thighs quivering as aftershocks roll through you, each one sharper and more unbearable than the last.
You feel yourself gush around him, wet and messy, slick soaking his cock, leaking onto the sheets. Your cries turn to broken, breathless whimpers, voice gone hoarse from the force of it, body convulsing in his grip. He cups your face, forces your eyes to his, pride and hunger blazing in his gaze as he fucks you through every wave, making sure you feel every inch, every pulse, every last tremor. Your world collapses to nothing but the hot, desperate clutch of your cunt around his cock and the overwhelming rush of pleasure he wrings from your body, again and again, until you go limp, shattered, tears shining in your lashes, still twitching from the aftershocks of his possession.
He pushes you over, flipping you onto your back again with a grip that leaves you dizzy and exposed, the sheets bunched and sticky beneath your skin. He kneels up, cock flushed and leaking, and strokes himself over your face—his hand steady, gaze locked on yours, control radiating from every slow, possessive movement. You watch, breath caught in your throat, as he groans and comes for you, painting your lips, chin, throat, and bare chest with hot, messy streaks. “Lick it up. Don’t waste a drop,” Jaemin orders, voice rough and low, that dark pride flickering in his eyes. Your tongue darts out, obedient, tasting him, eyes fluttering closed as you drag it over your lips and down to your skin, collecting every drop and swallowing it, drool and cum running down your throat. He smears the mess over your mouth with his thumb, rubbing it in until you’re glossy, then presses his thumb down to your cunt, pushing it inside, making you feel just how used and claimed you are. “So fucking pretty like this—my mess, my ruin. You look perfect when you’re wrecked for me.”
He doesn’t let you rest; instead, Jaemin pulls you up with strong hands, muscles flexing beneath your grip, dragging you into his lap, straddling his hips, your body limp and heavy in his arms. His hands never leave you, guiding your sore, trembling body down onto his cock again, stretching you all over, making you whimper as you try to take him. You’re exhausted, barely able to hold yourself upright, but he supports you, his arms like iron bands around your waist, forcing you to ride him, bouncing on his cock even as your legs shake and threaten to give out. “You’re going to cum again for me, even if you have to cry for it,” Jaemin growls, pressing you down harder, making you whine and gasp. “That’s what good girls do, right? That’s what Daddy’s favorites do. Only Jaemin can make you this desperate, this hungry, this ruined.” You nod, broken, every movement pure surrender, cunt fluttering, swollen and sore, your voice a needy, pleading whimper as you rock and grind against him.
Jaemin’s hand comes up, fingers closing around your throat, just tight enough to remind you who owns every breath. His other hand anchors your waist, guiding you up and down, every inch of him stretching you open again and again. “Don’t stop,” he commands, the words a dark thrill in your ear. “Show me how much you want it. Show me how much you need to be filled, used, owned by Dady.” Your head rolls back, tears streaking your cheeks, words dissolving into a string of slurred, helpless cries. “So dumb for you, Daddy. Only ever want you—no one else could fuck me like this, no one else could ever make me cum like you.” Your words are high and delirious, your mind a haze of need and obedience.
He slides his thumb between your parted lips, watching you suck, drool spilling from your mouth, running down your chin and neck, messy and shameless just how he likes you. “Filthy thing—so needy, so pretty. Good girls take every inch. Good girls get every drop. Daddy wants to see you lose control.” He presses his thumb to your clit, pinching until you cry out, forcing another orgasm from you, your cunt pulsing and clenching so hard around his cock you see stars, your vision whiting out, the pleasure blurring into a kind of desperate, overwhelming pain.
He doesn’t stop, not even as your whole body gives out, going limp and boneless, moans dissolving into half-sobs and whimpers. His hips piston up, relentless, keeping you on his cock, using you just the way he wants. “Can’t stop now, baby. Daddy wants you fucked stupid, wants you to remember this for days. Let go for me, sunshine—let Daddy see you fall apart.” He slaps your tits, your ass, the marks blooming bright and beautiful, every bruise and bite a new place he’s claimed as his own.
Finally, you feel him break, hips jerking beneath you, cock pulsing deep inside your sore, fluttering cunt, filling you up with wave after wave of heat. Jaemin moans low and broken, arms crushing you to him as he spends himself inside you, not stopping until you’re leaking, the evidence of him dripping down your thighs. He pulls out with a wet, obscene sound, spreading your folds with two fingers just to watch his cum spill out, rubbing it into your sensitive, swollen skin, then pushing some back inside you, claiming every part of you all over again. “Don’t you dare clean up. I want you walking around this hospital knowing who you belong to—everyone should see Daddy’s mark on you.”
When you finally collapse, body shaking and spent, he’s right there, gentler now, cleaning you up with his tongue, soft and lingering, worshipping every bruise, every bite, every place he’s marked. His voice is softer, but still full of command as he kisses your shoulder, your collarbone, the corner of your mouth. “Thank me for ruining you, baby. Thank me for making you mine.” You whisper it through the last of your tears, your voice dreamy and grateful, blissed out and half gone. Jaemin helps you dress, tucks you against his chest, his hands slow and careful, pride and promise in every touch. And as you drift, marked and utterly claimed, you know in every trembling, satisfied bone that there’s no one else in the world who could ever fuck you like this—no one you’d ever want to learn from again, no one you’d ever want to let inside your body, your heart, your everything, but Jaemin.
It’s been two hours—two hours of you riding Jaemin’s cock, of his hands gripping your hips, his arms around your waist, his mouth everywhere: your mouth, your neck, your breasts. You can’t stop, neither of you can stop, both of you lost in the haze of heat and sweat and the messy, helpless way your bodies fit together, every inch sticky with the proof of all you’ve given each other. You’ve cum five times—five times in a single night, when you’d spent your whole life before him never even knowing what it was to fall apart. You’re boneless and burning, voice hoarse from crying out, but he keeps you bouncing, supporting your shaking thighs, his lips catching yours in a slow, dizzy kiss every time you start to fall forward. “So good for me, baby, so pretty when you break like this. I could keep you forever,” he whispers against your mouth, his breath warm and gentle, his chest pressed to yours as you rock and tremble, both of you high on the slow grind.
You ride him like it’s the only thing you know—clumsy, desperate, your hands in his hair, his mouth moving down to your breasts, sucking one nipple, then the other, tongue swirling, teeth grazing. You arch, moaning softly, sweat slipping down your back, his hands splayed wide across your ribs as if to hold you together. It’s so soft now—so stupidly, heartbreakingly intimate, his hands coaxing you, his voice low and thick, coaxing another orgasm out of you, your thighs trembling as you lose yourself again and again. You don’t even notice the world outside—the lights, the time, the way your bodies have blurred into something helpless and hungry and bright.
But somewhere, in the dark corners of your mind, something slithers, something black and greedy. In the fragile hush between kisses, you feel it: the edge of dread, the cold slip of a nightmare stalking the corridors outside. A black swan, sleek and sharp, circles your heart. Its wings spread wide, swallowing every ray of warmth you’ve built with him, casting shadow across your love—your baby, your sunshine girl, your whole heart. You press your face into Jaemin’s neck, trying to hold onto the light, but it’s there, always there, a parasite crouched at the foot of Haeun’s bed, waiting.
Neither of you hears the first shrill of your pagers, both of them muted, discarded in a tangle of clothes, the screens lighting up again and again. You’re mid-bounce, Jaemin’s mouth sealed over your nipple, sucking hard, his hands guiding your hips, both of you so lost in each other, so far from the hospital world you thought you knew. The pounding at the door barely registers—at first just another noise, part of the storm of sensation, until it becomes a violent, echoing bang. Dr. Huang’s voice is a blade through the fog: “Jaemin! Hurry the fuck out and get to Haeun’s bed, she’s crashing, man! She isn’t breathing!” His words slam into you, shattering everything, ripping you out of the warmth and color, dropping you straight into ice. Jaemin jolts beneath you, his hands suddenly cold, his eyes wide and lost. You freeze, your heart hammering against your ribs as the world comes back in terrible, strobing flashes, the sheets, the sweat, the door, the urgent terror in Dr. Huang’s voice.
Time folds and twists, the night rushing in black around you, the black swan spreading its wings wider, swallowing all the light, all the hope, devouring Haeun’s fragile sunbeam heart. You can almost see it, hovering above her bed, a parasite poised to snatch her from you both, its beak pressed to her tiny chest. You’re running before you know it, the taste of Jaemin still in your mouth, the echo of his hands still around your waist, but nothing in the world could stop the cold, bottomless dread that chases you down the hall—the certainty that, no matter how much you love, the night always wants more, and sometimes the dark comes to collect.
And all the warmth, all the sweetness, all the fevered tenderness you built in Jaemin’s arms is nothing—a single, trembling candle flame guttering in the draft—as the true darkness descends. Down the hall, at Haeun’s bedside, horror is no longer a distant specter but a living thing, hungry and sure. The black swan is no mere shadow now but a beast with oil-slick wings, its neck arched, eyes cold as midnight. It perches at the foot of her bed, talons curled into white sheets, beak gleaming, poised for the kill. Every machine in the room is screaming, alarms shrill and merciless, lines spiking red, numbers plummeting in freefall. There is no softness here, no sanctuary, just the relentless, predatory silence that follows the shriek of failing breath.
You run, barefoot and shivering, Jaemin’s name a gasp behind you, both of you sprinting straight into the jaws of it. You see the swan’s shadow unfurling along the walls, black wings blocking out every memory of light. A chill creeps up your spine: you know, with the certainty of a bullet shattering glass, that you are racing death itself. It’s already here. The parasite coils, slick and obscene, at Haeun’s throat, claws digging into the flutter of her pulse, the promise of her next breath slipping away, snuffed out as if she were nothing but a candle in a hurricane. There’s no mercy, no magic to bargain with. You arrive in time to see the color drained from her lips, her chest stuttering in fits and starts, wires snaking over fragile skin. The black swan rears, monstrous and inevitable, wingspan blocking out every plea, every desperate hope. This is the moment where love is useless, where prayers rot on the tongue, where you realize that sometimes death is not a visitor but the rightful heir, the shadow that always returns, no matter how you beg or bargain.
You reach for her, for Jaemin, but the room is already colder. The monster crouches at the edge of her small, ruined body, claiming what you can’t protect, greedy for every heartbeat she might have left. Somewhere, a nurse is crying, the code echoing like a gunshot, but the truth is plain as daylight: the night doesn’t care how much you love. The black swan has come, and its hunger is bottomless. And as you watch, helpless, everything you built—love, sweat, tenderness, hope—is nothing but a trail of feathers in its wake, scattered and trampled as the darkness swallows your sunshine whole.
author’s note
now, if you made it this far, i’d love it if you left me a comment, reblog, or even a like. i read every single one and they mean so much to me—it’s genuinely the best way to let me know what moved you, what you loved, or even what broke your heart. writing is a little lonely sometimes, it always takes me restless nights, and hearing from you makes it all feel worthwhile, like sharing a secret or lighting a candle for these characters. so don’t be shy! every little note is treasured and makes me want to keep going. thank you for reading, and for loving these messy, magical people with me. <3
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heart to heart
word count - 40k words
genre - smut, fluff, angst, age gap (10 years)
pairing — surgeon!na jaemin x intern! mc
synopsis — you, fumbling through your first day as an intern, are thrown into chaos the night a baby is left to die on the rooftop. dr. na, world-renowned chief resident and surgeon, is ten years older, impossibly mysterious, stoic and intimidating, his body all sharp muscle under blue scrubs, his face only ever softening when he bends over the tiny beds of his peds patients. you can’t help but be drawn to him, a gravitational pull of brilliance and something darker, desire threading through every glance, every clipped order, every midnight round where your heart stutters. together you orbit this miracle girl, each of you wounded and wanting in your own way; and as the days blur, your attachment to sunshine—and to him—grows fierce, tangled, undeniable. found family is built here in the hush of machines and sleepless nights: you, longing to be chosen; him, haunted and hiding; sunshine, the girl who remakes all your definitions of love. even in all this darkness, her yellow light breaks through, changing everything.
chapter warnings — explicit language, explicit sexual content(18+), explicit themes, early 2000s vibes, power play, dom jaemin/sub mc dynamics, rough sex, intimate sex, explicit language, this fic is deeply inspired by classic medical dramas—think grey’s anatomy—if you know lexie grey, you’ll recognize her in mc’s big heart, wild memory, and relentless optimism. this is an adult story, it explores mental illness, physical illness, trauma, life, death. at the center is a baby girl, fighting for her life with a grave congenital heart condition before she even turns one. the medical scenes are vivid, sometimes harrowing, and should be read with care if you’re sensitive to medical distress, illness, or the specter of child loss. expect medical jargon—lots of it. i don’t skim, i don’t sugarcoat, and while you don’t need to memorize every term, know that everything described is researched and, where possible, based on real knowledge and surgical realities. if you get lost in acronyms or anatomy, that’s okay: the emotional core will always pull you back to center. mc is shy, anxious, and deeply introverted, prone to nervous rambling, overthinking, and loving too much. she’s young, a mid-twenties intern thrown into the deep end, haunted by her need to do right, and defined by a photographic memory that sometimes feels more curse than gift. she attaches easily, cares too hard, and her inexperience is as much her shield as her wound. dr. na jaemin, on the other hand, is nothing like the version readers of back to you or love me back might know. he’s older—mid-thirties—cold, private, outright harsh, he’s not a friend or lover like he was in lmb and bty, he’s a boss, a world-renowned chief resident in pediatric surgery, cloaked in authority, control, and secrets. expect little familiar warmth: expect distance, mystery, and a slow, sometimes brutal thaw. this is a world away from lmb and bty, so it might feel unfamiliar at times but trust me, it will feel so good. crafting a new universe has been a blessing, and i haven’t even finished. also the baby is called ‘sunshine’ for the majority of this part, she won’t have a name … until something happens :)
a note about structure: the fic opens in third person for the first 8k words—deliberately, and for a reason that won’t be clear until you read it. trust the process. after that, you’ll move into second person (y/n), and the story’s true voice will bloom. this is a fic for those who love detail, emotional, medical, atmospheric. you’ll get immersive prose, complex imagery, and a tone that shifts from dreamy lyricism to clinical realism, then back again. this is a slow burn in every sense, with heavy angst and no easy comfort. be patient; everything unfurls in its own time. there’s a lot of world building balanced with action and time jumps. final warning: this fic contains adult relationships, sexual content, power imbalance, and references to trauma, abuse, and addiction. everything is handled with nuance and care, but please read responsibly and protect your peace. if you’re here for found family, desperate hope, messy healing, and the kind of love that feels impossible until it isn’t—welcome. i hope you find yourself in these pages.
𝐅𝐈𝐂 𝐌𝐋
this is part three in the ‘love and games universe’ but you don’t need to read lmb or bty to understand h2h, it can be read as a standalone, there’s just a lot of easter eggs and connections that readers familiar with all stories will make with will enrich reading experience
listen to 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐏𝐋𝐀𝐘𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓 whilst reading <3
A mirror the size of a doorway hangs above the cracked porcelain sink, its glass splintered into a thousand tiny panels—each one a fractured home searching for a face to keep. This is where the night begins: in a reflection she barely owns, lashes clumpy like wet feathers, mouth stained the color of bruised petals, eyes already drifting toward a place without pulse. Outside, bass crawls through drywall, slow, predatory, and the ruby blink of a vacancy sign turns the room into a faulty heart. Mildewed air tastes of chlorine and old perfume; last-hour glitter flakes from her thighs like gold dust abandoned on a factory floor. This is routine, climb, kneel, take, leave—so practiced her body moves before thought. A plastic wristband from tonight’s club still circles her arm; the barcode scans pleasure by the hour.
He enters in scrubs that smell faintly of antiseptic, pockets heavy with bills folded to hide serial numbers. When he steps between her knees, he breathes as though he’s trespassing in a sanctuary. His fingertips hover at her jaw, asking, apologising, maybe praying, before settling on her hips. That soft caution marks him as dangerous; everyone else grabs without thinking. She plants her palms on the faucet, metal biting crescents into her skin, while red light flickers like a faulty ECG and varnishes sweat across their bodies. The first sound is a swallowed moan—his, surprised, torn loose when her nails skim the nape of his neck. He tries to stifle the next, fails, presses harder. She feels him shake once, the tremor of someone desperate to pretend this is still anonymous. Her own breath stays measured, practiced, detached. The mirror becomes a shattered proscenium, staging a dance of undoing, her spine arcs like a question the world refuses to answer, his shoulders bending in something too desperate to be worship, two fever-bright shadows strobing in arterial neon. Beneath them, a lace thong curls on the chipped tile like a snakeskin left behind, proof that this body has already shed more names than it can remember.
She’s had him before—after the night spun in fairy-light ribbon and champagne froth, when everyone talked of forever and traded it for rings that felt like handcuffs. He had followed her past catering crates, offered double to stay silent, whispered vows into her hair that weren’t meant for her. Since then he finds her in service corridors, staff elevators, car back seats that still smell of pine freshener. Never a name. Never a future. Only the question in his grasp, the answer in her compliance. Tonight he’s rougher, breath hotter, as if trying to brand something he can’t articulate. She rolls latex down him with steady fingers; he gasps as though the gesture is affection. When release hits he folds over her, spine shuddering, mouth against her throat like penance. A hiss of satin against porcelain, a stifled cry—hers or his, neither knows. She watches it all in the glass: two people superimposed, one already slipping beyond the frame. Money—creased once—lands by the tap like a counterfeit blessing. He lingers, lips parted with words he won’t risk, then leaves. The door soft-latches; the room exhales.
She doesn’t feel the moment the bruise-bright sun beneath her sternum begins to die, only the hush: a slow eclipse unfurling petal by petal through marrow, shadow nibbling light in silent millimetres until a filament snaps somewhere behind her ribs—no siren, just the soft pop of glass blowing out—and at once the corridors of her skull swell with static, voices she’d padlocked in childhood grinding their teeth against splintered doorframes, chanting lullabies backward, offering warmth with forked tongues, so she lifts a sound to smother them, a tremoring hum that once belonged to playground afternoons, and the note tastes of sunflower syrup—bright, sticky, strangely metallic—sweet on the first pass then curdling across her palate like spoiled nectar, the colour of jaundiced petals blooming where light should be, and inside that syrupy hush a seed spins open, small and scorching, a future already feverish and yellow burning its shape into the dark.
He doesn’t know that in the corridor—heart knocking an off-rhythm lullaby against his ribs—he’s already tethered to a life still twinned and unsevered; the sigh he leaves behind drifts like the first hum of a song he will someday murmur beside fluttering monitors. To him this feels like lapse, closure, maybe penance; but in the quiet ledger where futures are inked, it is conception—anointing in a whisper-thin halo of pale, sunflower-soft light. Tonight, a healer of children has, without knowing, kindled the one small heart he will chase through ward after ward, across rooms and hours and cities scattered like bright beads on an endless string—whatever distance it takes to keep that gentle yellow glow alive.
She rinses in a gas-station sink, chlorinated water stinging raw skin, watching diluted red spool toward a rusted drain. Fluorescent tubes flicker like dying stars. Her reflection wavers, split down the middle by a crack she never noticed, and for an instant she’s certain someone else stares back—a stranger with her face but hollowed from the inside. Then the bass of another club swallows the thought, and routine reclaims her. She slips the folded bills into a garter, reapplies lip gloss, and steps into the night—unaware the universe has already separated: on one side, the girl walking away; on the other, a seed of jaundiced sunflower light growing in the dark, and the man orbiting them both without knowing why.
A week slips by before she buys the test, plastic and cheap, wrapped in greasy paper that reeks of salt and fryer oil. Fluorescents in the fast-food bathroom buzz like an angry hive; the floor is sticky, tiles cracked open like hungry mouths. She balances the cup on a toilet-tank lid, watches pale yellow trickle, then lays the strip across the lid of a metal bin. Two lines bloom. Pink. Certain. She laughs—short, sharp, the noise of glass spider-webbing. A woman in the next stall says, “You okay?” She almost answers, Star’s coming, but the words turn to fizz behind her teeth. She drops the test into the toilet bowl, flushes once, twice, listens as it rattles before vanishing.
That night neon fists the walls of the club. Strobes stutter, music slams, sweat hammers. She lets men tuck bills into sweat-damp lace, grinds until her knees bruise, breathes smoke the way other people breathe prayer. Outside on break she lights a cigarette, inhales so deep her lungs scald. Somewhere inside her chest, the beat of the music echoes, not in rhythm, but out of step, as if another heart has started to drum and refuses to find the tempo. When her shift ends, she tells herself the lines were a trick of cheap dye, that someone else flushed them into the city’s veins.
Days yawn into weeks, and her sense of self widens like a crack in plaster. When the voices murmur, she hums to drown them—same half-remembered lullaby, gentle at first, then louder, frantic, as though pitching sugar over rotting meat. On the bus she fingers a stolen pacifier, mint-green plastic in her pocket, soft yellow bulb like infant sunlight. She rolls it between thumb and forefinger, whispering, “For you, Star.” The man across the aisle shifts away, eyes on the floor. Later, in a crowded station, she fishes for the pacifier and finds only lint. Panic spears her throat—she tears through her purse, tips its contents onto the tiles, lipstick clattering, condoms skidding, coins spinning wobbly circles. She shrieks, “Give her back!” to nobody. Security drags her outside, where she folds onto the curb, belly tightening with a cramp she refuses to name.
Sometimes at dawn she is lucid. She pads to a discount store lit like a morgue, trailing aisle to aisle with a shaky tenderness—tiny sunflower-yellow socks cupped in her palms, a carton of formula cradled against her chest. She tells the cashier the socks are for a niece. The cashier calls her “sweetheart,” and for a thimble of time she is. Then the store lights flare too bright—white needles behind her eyes—and the voices return, reminding her that babies are parasites, that light loves rot, that yellow means sickness when it stains the whites of eyes. She leaves the basket under a rack of clearance towels, rushes out chewing the inside of her cheek until iron floods her mouth.
She steps through the stage-door of the club that night—the only place that pretends to miss her when she’s gone—and the air greets her like a familiar haunting: sour cheap perfume, stale beer, bass that burrows into cartilage. Here, she can almost believe she belongs, because the walls don’t ask for a past. Outside there’s nothing: no mother’s number, no emergency contact, just a town where orphan records get misfiled and rent is a curse that comes monthly. The voices started in childhood, small at first, like wind worrying a window, but after her first foster home turned her away, they rooted deeper, grew teeth. Doctors wrote paranoid-type schizophrenia on papers she never saw; caseworkers scribbled noncompliant when she vanished between check-ins.
The clubs didn’t care. They paid cash, and whispered that pretty girls with haunted eyes sell more drinks. So she learned to trade hours of her body for the roof over it, learned that men tip better when you laugh at jokes you don’t hear because static is fizzing in your skull. Every shift she pins on a sunflower-yellow badge that says Haneul—not her name, just a brightness someone thought would lure wallets—and pretends the colour means warmth, not jaundice. Some nights, after the lights die and the voices swell like orchestras beneath her skull, she dances until bone sparks against muscle, because motion is the last receipt that says she still owns this body, not just rents it; yet lately a muted yellow glimmer—sunflower bright and pulsing—flickers behind her sternum, prying at the seams of her mind, coaxing old selves to unpeel and whisper, so with every gyring beat, the seam between bone and spirit frays; the voices she once drowned in pills resurface, injecting the idea that the soft sunflower flare lodged beneath her ribs isn’t light at all but a bright, slow poison, a parasite sipping her hollow.
In the back room of the club, where the walls pulse with subwoofer tremors, she balances a benzodiazepine on her tongue and rolls it against the ridges of her molars, letting powder bleed bitter down her throat. The pill feels alive, a tiny white moon revolving under her teeth. She taps her belly, one-two, like knocking on a coffin lid—and whispers, “it’s for you, star.” In the flicker of the utility light the word star seems to hang in the air, an echo she can’t catch. She isn’t herself; she’s borrowed skin, watching from behind her own eyes while a stranger feeds the thing inside her. She imagines the pill dissolving through tissue, drifting into the amniotic dark where a damp heartbeat quivers, an uncut gemstone glimmering jaundice yellow. The voices croon that the heartbeat isn’t human at all; it’s a moth hammering its wings against the cage of her ribs, desperate to carve a way out with soft dust and frantic light.
Another night she stands barefoot on a fire escape, city steam curling around her ankles. She presses a cigarette ember to her stomach, not hard enough to scar, just enough to feel heat pass skin to the womb. “a little sunrise,” she tells the shape beneath the burn, voice syrup-sweet, eyes wide and glassy. She imagines the heartbeat as a swarm of bees caught in honey—soft buzzing, slow suffocation—and the ember is mercy, a flame to cauterize the hive before it splits her open. Somewhere below, sirens wail; she counts the pulses, hears them echo her own, then hears a third rhythm tucked between, the stubborn flutter she can’t outpace. She hums an off-key lullaby to drown it, each note sticky with nicotine, the sound curdling into a hiss when the wind rips it away.
On the late train she cradles a bottle of cough syrup like holy water, tilts it so the neon carriage lights refract in thick violet swirls. She unscrews the cap, dips a finger, smears a sticky cross over her navel. “for you,” she chants, “for the sun under my skin.” Her pupils blow wide; the carriage tilts. Every overhead bulb blooms a halo the color of sick daylight—sunflower petals gone rancid. Passengers retreat, eyes averted. In the reflection of the window she sees herself split: one half smiling serene, the other chewing her lip raw. For an instant the carriage is a tunnel of jaundiced sun. She feels the baby roll—a slow, deliberate bloom under her navel—and the voices rise in chorus, telling her it’s not a baby, it’s a wasp nest, it’s a tombstone, it’s light that will burn her hollow. She stands, claws at the emergency door, screams for air. A passenger pulls the alarm; the train bucks to a stop. She staggers onto the platform, shaking, palms slapped hard against her ears, humming until the noise buries the voices, until her throat sparks.
Hours before dawn, in a 24-hour laundromat that smells of bleach and burnt lint, she watches a tumble dryer spin someone else’s yellow bedsheets. The motion hypnotizes her—cyclical, inescapable. She palms two prenatal vitamins she lifted from a pharmacy display, grinds them to dust against the machine’s hot metal rim, and blows the powder into the whirring drum. The yellow sheets blur into a storm of pale gold, a miniature star collapsing inward. She presses her ear to the plexiglass door, listening for the heartbeat inside her to sync with the mechanical thud. For a breath it does—and the harmony terrifies her. She jerks away, stumbling, clutching her belly as if it might leap free. “you’re too bright,” she croaks, tears streaking mascara. “Too bright. you’ll burn me hollow.” The lights overhead flicker as if agreeing, and the hum of dryers becomes insect wings scraping bone. She bolts through the sliding doors before the cycle ends, leaving the sheets spinning into dawn, haloed in the dust she offered like ash.
Nights grow stranger. She wakes on city benches, coat draped over her lap, convinced there’s a bird trapped beneath her ribs. She digs fingernails into skin, mumbling, “get out, get out!” while commuters scuttle past. Other times she forgets she’s pregnant at all: dances too hard, drinks too much, flirts with a stranger in a parking lot until dizziness folds her knees. She vomits bile and half-chewed sunflower seeds, smells decay in her sweat, swears something crawls beneath her flesh. In the mirror of a gas-station restroom steam refuses to clear; her reflection swims, double-exposed—one face slack with exhaustion, the other grinning too wide. She slaps the glass. It grins back.
He sends her a dozen voicemails every single night—his gravelly apology strangled by static, each message more desperate than the last. Then the texts follow, pinging in the dark: Hey, call me. We need to talk. I miss you. He shows up outside the club where she’s taken refuge, shadowing her exit like a stray cat that refuses to leave, pressing a folded note into her hand that smells of cheap cologne and broken promises. He doesn’t see the tremor in her glove-clad fingers or the wild flicker in her eyes—only the once-familiar shape of her silhouette against the yellow street lamps. He stalks into the bar just after last call, the neon sign flickering overhead like a wounded heartbeat. His leather jacket is still stained with last night’s aftershave and regret. He threads through the tables—patrons half-drunk on whiskey and dance-floor haze—until he finds her behind the counter, slipping shots and checking IDs with the weary grace of someone born for this night. He slides onto a stool beside her and jangles his keys, leaning in apologetic. “Just one drink,” he rasps, eyes watering under bar lights. She stiffens, voice lost in the whirl of jazz and clinking glass. From her mitten’s edge, she watches the yellow glow of the overhead lamp pool across the scarred wood—reminding her of the night he scattered his stardust inside her, a single sperm igniting a constellation where a baby star now burns against the dark.
He traces the pendant at his throat before slipping it into her palm: a small silver wasp, its abdomen inked with a honey-gold stripe. She holds it for a breath, feeling the sting of every message echo in her gut. “This isn’t a trap,” he pleads, voice tight with something like fear.
She feels the brood he planted squirm and scratch, testing their prison, and in that moment, half-ghost, half-woman, she hisses, “Get out. You don’t belong here.” She slips off the stool and ducks past the neon-lit mirrors, the bar’s music warping in her ears. voices overlapping voices until she can’t tell which is real. Behind her, he shouts her name, but she’s already swaying in a back-alley shadow, wiping sweat and decay from her skin. Somewhere beneath her ribs a thousand tiny wings beat in rebellion, drowning out the shrill insistence of his apology. She presses her cheek to the brick wall, nodding, “I hear you,” though it’s the chorus in her mind, not his, that demands tribute. The wasp-pendant slips from her fingers, clattering to the grate beneath her boot, and she steps away—each footfall a promise that she will not let him harvest this life. Silence blooms around her like a bruise, and the bar’s warmth recedes, leaving only the hard knowledge that some parasites are born of regret, but she will be the one to claim survival.
He has no idea she’s pregnant. What he thought was a fleeting spark—a match struck for a moment’s warmth—has buried itself deep in the darkness of her womb and blossomed into a roaring inferno. In her mind, he is the unwitting invader, a host who unleashed a brood of mad whispers she once kept caged with pills and late-night study marathons. Before that night, her own voice was the only one in her head—steady, familiar, the sound of herself—no cacophony of demons shouting in technicolor. But now, hormones surge like a tidal wave, peeling back the barriers she built with antipsychotics and self-control, and the voices return after years caged away, ravenous and legion, circling her core self until she can’t locate the person she used to be. She presses trembling fingers to her abdomen, as if she could squeeze those voices back into oblivion, but they writhe louder with every recollection of his touch. every careless word, every unseen betrayal, gnawing at what remains of her fragile identity.
Back then, in the soft aftermath of their stolen nights, she was whole—no shadows at her back, no whispering phantoms tugging at her mind. The only voice she heard was her own laughter, clear as a bell. But now, with his child growing inside her, the old demons stir with purpose, swarming through her synapses like wasps defending a newly built hive, their buzzing command: “Kill the star.” He can’t see the half-empty pill vials she stashes under her makeup kit, nor the tremor in her fingertips as she counts each hour of darkness in her lonely apartment. All he remembers is the woman who used to belong only to him—bright, unbesieged, unbroken. Yet even unseen, he has become her fortress: a silent sentinel whose steady heartbeat in her dreams rings like a promise, whose arms form an iron rampart against the onslaught in her mind. In the pale light of every dawn, his protection gleams just beyond her sight—a shield forged of devotion and defiance, the only power strong enough to save the constellation he helped ignite.
Nine months blur past in jagged increments, calendar pages lost under ashtrays, shift rosters stained with lipstick prints, rent envelopes traded for nights she can’t remember. Seasons change in the size of tips, not in the swell of her abdomen; the body that should have rounded stays lean, hunger-tight, as if hiding the secret beneath knotted muscle and clenched silence. When mirrors flash her reflection backstage, she sees bruises she earned, glitter she didn’t, but never the curve of impending motherhood. The voices insist nothing grows there, tell her any flutter is indigestion, any tightness merely rent overdue.
Between shifts she drifts through the city like a cracked marionette, joints held together by habit and the thin wires of her routine—club, alley, pawnshop, club—while the voices keep up their low chant: emptiness can’t carry life, hunger can’t cradle hope, move along. Whenever a sudden flutter ripples beneath her ribs she presses two fingers to the spot and murmurs, “Hush, Star,” the name tasting half-sweet, half-suspicious, as though she’s christening a ghost. She tells herself it’s gas, or a muscle twitch, yet still pockets sunflower-yellow trinkets, a plastic ring from a vending machine, a price-slashed cotton ribbon, then throws them away before nightfall because the voices whine that yellow draws parasites. On stage she glides under amber spotlights that paint her skin with sick daylight, imagining a swarm of gnats trapped in her belly, hammering to escape; off stage she stuffs napkins in her bra to muffle the knocking, convincing herself that if she ignores the rhythm long enough it will fade, like rent notices slipped under the door and swept away by morning drafts.
Tonight a velvet booth swallows her and a customer together, red lamps painting halos that look like warnings. He smells of cologne and conquest, darts eager hands beneath her dress while murmuring fantasies she lets glide past. She climbs onto his lap, thighs bracketing him in the flicker of gold light, and rides his rhythm with the mechanical grace the job demands. He groans, tries to guide her hips, but midway she goes rigid. Deep inside, a sudden roll—sharp, deliberate—spider-webs across her gut. For a heartbeat she thinks an elbow has jabbed from the wrong side of her skin. The room tilts.
A second kick, harder, and everything cracks open: the bassline of the club drops away, replaced by insect wings thrumming behind her ribs. The man beneath her whispers praise; she hears him as though he’s speaking through running water. In panic she snatches the half-finished glass of house red, slings the wine across his face. Crimson arcs like arterial spray, beads along his nose, dripping from his tie. He yelps, hands flying up in shock. She strikes his chest with both palms—once, twice—babbling, “Get it out, get it out,” eyes wide enough to white-out the iris.
He scrambles backward, chair legs screeching, but she follows, fists small yet frantic, knuckles catching collarbone, babbling syllables that collapse into static. “Yellow, yellow,” she hisses, clawing at her own stomach now, nails leaving half-moons. “A wasp nest in me—sunlight rotting—buzz, buzz, can’t you hear?” He stammers apologies, thinks maybe she’s on something stronger than champagne. She drags in a ragged breath; the flutter inside twists, a fist of muscle and need, and she slaps her belly as if scolding a disobedient pet. For a fractured second the kicking stops. Her gaze clears, only to fog again when the next movement comes—softer, pleading, a heartbeat tapping SOS against her bones.
Patrons swivel to look; a bouncer lumbers forward. She backs toward the exit, eyes glassy, whispering to the shape she still believes isn’t there: “Stay quiet or we both burn.” Her palm presses tight to her abdomen, as though holding a door shut. The voices surge, hot static filling her skull, parasite, poison, sunflower-bright sickness, and she forces her way through velvet curtains, leaving confusion, a puddle of wine, and a man wiping crimson from his lashes while the echo of unseen wings rattles around the booth like trapped light.
The plate-glass door of the club shivers when she slams it behind her, and the city greets her with a gust that smells of refuse and rain, a breath as sour as a broken promise. Fluorescent bar signs leak along the puddles in arterial streaks, and somewhere a man’s shout ricochets between alley walls, a ricochet she swears spirals straight into her spine. Inside her bloodstream benzodiazepines drift like pale anemones, numbing thought even as the vodka she slugged between sets keeps her heart jack-hammering under skin gone clammy. She can’t remember why her abdomen drags with such leaden weight; she only knows the night is hunting, and she needs velocity. A sedan idles at the corner, door cracked as though the street itself has yawned—welcome or warning, she can’t tell. She slides behind the wheel, fingers slipping on the ignition key, breath fogging the glass in frantic bursts that bloom, then vanish, like spirits locked out of heaven.
Dashboard lights pulse sunflower-gold, hopeful and sickly at once, bathing her trembling knuckles in a color that feels like a lie. Tires shriek; alley grime spits behind her in a comet tail; a gull rises from a dumpster flap, white wings stark in headlight glare before darkness snaps them away. Sirens appear in the rear-view—blue, red, blue—then melt into spectral ribbons that might be behind her, might be ahead, time folding in on itself. One beat, a second, then a rogue tremor blooms beneath her sternum, bright as a buried sun-shard, drumming its own cadence against the dark. She clamps a palm over the spot, hissing for hush, but the radiance retaliates with a jolt, sunflower-strong, urgent, knocking her balance off its axis and flaring gold behind her eyes. For an instant the street fractures: white lane lines wriggle like earthworms; storefronts bulge and blur; every traffic light blossoms into a jaundiced sun and blinds her with its pity.
The concrete divider rears up from the asphalt with the awful certainty of a guillotine. Steel screams. Metal folds. Her chest slams the wheel so hard she tastes iron as the horn howls and then dies. No airbag blooms to cradle her; glass pebbles shower her lap; the windshield paint-brushes a web of fractured constellations, sky replaced by a cathedral ceiling of broken starlight. Somewhere inside that cathedral a voice she hasn’t heard since childhood whispers her name before dissolving into static. She pushes the bent door with both hands, bone rasping on bone, and spills onto the asphalt barefoot, thigh dripping a thin ribbon that steams in the cold. Engines whine in distant lanes, yet the world feels paused, as if God held down the clutch and forgot to shift.
Hands and knees rasp across the gravel; she plants a palm to her belly for leverage, but the flesh rises again—then again—each thud a fierce, sunflower-bright hammer, pounding in quick succession as though a small fist is trying to tunnel straight through bone. The blows come so relentlessly her skin jumps beneath her fingers, rhythm wild and unyielding, an insurgent heartbeat refusing to be stilled. She mutters that it’s a parasite gnawing her marrow; she calls it a sunbeam set to scorch her hollow. A horn blasts somewhere beyond the divider; headlights sweep past, and for a moment her shadow looms against the barrier, grotesque and pregnant with something she refuses to name. The shadow bends. Collapses. Darkness swallows the outline entirely.
When awareness lurches back she is bathed in strobing neon that leaks through dusty curtains— a motel room whose wallpaper peels like dead petals. In the doorway stands the colleague who lives in the unit directly below, the one who shares her shifts and cigarettes, forearms inked with flowers curling toward decay. She cradles a half-empty bottle against her ribs, and her gaze pools with equal parts dread and awed disbelief. “You screamed for six hours,” she says, voice raw as a rusted hinge. “Cut the cord with kitchen scissors, and you bled all over my towels.” On the carpet by the bed lies a bundle no larger than a grocery loaf, wrapped in a thin towel gone gray at the edges, the fabric already blotched yellow where bile and amniotic fluid soak through. Tiny limbs twitch like pale moth wings; lips bruise toward blue. Her own sunflower sock, pilfered weeks earlier during a momentary bloom of maternal fantasy, lies beside the bundle, its cheerful dye dulled to the color of old parchment.
The girl from downstairs crosses the threadbare carpet, bottle set aside, inked lilies flexing over her forearms as she kneels by the towel-swaddled bundle. “She’s still breathing,” she whispers, voice wobbling on the edge of a prayer. With a gentleness that startles them both, she slides trembling hands beneath the baby’s head and rump, lifting the weightless form as though hoisting a moth from puddled moonlight. “Here—take her, just for a second.” The words fall like petals. Reluctance knots the mother’s shoulders, yet something cracks open; she extends her arms and the infant settles against her chest, a tremor of warmth no bigger than her own heartbeat.
For three fragile breaths the room tilts toward something almost tender. She strokes one paper-thin shoulder, murmuring, “Star—little Star,” the name tasting like honey spiked with rust. Beneath the towel the child is nearly spectral: ribs countable, knees knobbed, skin a translucent frost that shades to dusk around lips and fingernails. Each inhale is a shallow rattle, each exhale a question the lungs barely answer. Yet when the mother’s thumb brushes the hollow of that bluish collarbone, one eyelid flickers, halogen gold iris under dust. and a faint pulse flutters against her palm. The sight stings her eyes, stirring an ache so bright it almost feels like love.
But the voices are never far. They snake through cracked wallpaper and hiss inside her skull: parasite, mistake, devil grub drinking you hollow. Pain sears down her spine, withdrawal clawing marrow, benzo ghosts demanding tithes, and her arms begin to quake. She hears them judge the infant’s silence, insisting those twitching moth-wings should have stilled hours ago. “We craved her death—pleaded for that innocent scrap to stiffen cold and silent—and still you ignored the warning. We begged for her to stiffen into milk-white stillness, prayed for the hush of grave dust over lungs still tasting first air—you were warned.” The chorus rises, sour and metallic, until her ribs ache and bile licks the back of her throat. She clamps her eyes shut, but even the dark blooms sunflower yellow, too bright, too accusing, spreading across her vision like a bruise blossoming in reverse.
The other girl reaches to steady the baby before she slips. Tiny fingers, waxy and trembling, curl around a lock of the mother’s hair, and that fragile grip sparks one last flicker of mercy. She tucks the towel tighter, rasps, “Stay warm, Star,” though her voice sounds borrowed, hollow. Somewhere in the night a soft conviction glows—pale, stubborn, sun-bright—that this child still breathes because she is already loved by hands not yet here, a heartbeat bound to meet another heartbeat on a ward of humming machines. And even as the voices snarl that the light will scorch them all, the infant’s pulse answers with its own faint drum, insisting on survival, promising that yellow dawn is waiting, somewhere beyond the pain, beyond the noise, where a father’s arms will learn the rhythm that keeps her alive.
She stares, waiting for panic, wonder, anything to flicker, yet all she feels is the drugged hush of distance. Sirens hum somewhere beyond the parking lot, a lullaby tuned for someone else. She presses the heel of her hand against her temple, as though by crushing her skull she might quiet the two uneven drums. The neon sign outside flickers SUN and then stutters the next letters into oblivion, leaving only the raw promise of warmth it cannot keep. Shadows tilt; voices swell at the edges of the room, urging her to flee, to silence the moth-wing breaths before the light gulps her dry. She drags herself upright, blood streaking calf to ankle, and the towel-swaddled bundle lets out a thin, warbling cry that sounds like metal bending under too much snow.
Somewhere inside her chest a filament snaps again—another inch of eclipse closing over what little remains—yet for one impossible heartbeat she feels the faintest tug of gravity, as if that sunflower glow tries to anchor her to the earth. The moment flickers, vanishes. She tastes copper and cough syrup on her tongue. The older girl lifts the bottle, offers, “Painkillers?” She shakes her head. Pain is the one proof she has that she still exists. Curtains billow like lungs behind her as she turns toward the door, the bundle’s cry segueing into the room’s leaking toilet hiss, indistinguishable, fading. Somewhere down the corridor fluorescence pulses, and the world tilts anew, every light a jaundiced crown, every shadow a mouth waiting to chew her into nothing. She takes one step forward, then another, feet sticky on linoleum, heart dragging a constellation of bruises behind it—and the night swallows the hotel, the older girl, the crying infant, and all that sunflower light the way a storm swallows a match.
She staggers back through the motel door just before dawn, arms cradling a mess of half-stolen, half-begged supplies: a dented tin of evaporated milk, two diapers plucked from an open hospital laundry cart, a bottle meant for kittens, and a motel ice bucket crammed with crushed sunflower-printed napkins she thought might pass for burp cloths. The older girl helps her spread the haul on the bedspread—eyeing the kitten bottle, the wrong-sized diapers, the can without a proper nipple—and sighs. “It’s something,” she murmurs, though they both see it isn’t enough.
They prop the infant—Star—against a towel rolled like a tiny lifeboat. When the mother tries to guide the bottle to the bluish lips, the rubber tip is too wide; formula dribbles down the baby’s chin, pooling in the hollow of her collarbone like watered paint. Star’s gums work, confused. The mother strips off her own shirt and offers a breast; milk comes thin, tinged almost gray. The baby latches for a breath, coughs, sputters, and wails. a brittle, papery cry that cracks the silence like a match.
The older girl wipes the milk with a napkin, whispers, “She needs a hospital.” The mother flinches at the word hospital; inside her head a scraping chorus answers— they’ll tape your bones hollow, harvest the sunflower glow beating inside you, she shakes her head, humming the lullaby again, but the tune falters, replaced by the hiss: Poison. You’re feeding her poison. She’s already poisoning you.
When the neighbor’s footsteps fade down the stairwell, the room shrinks to two heartbeats and a flickering strip of neon. Determined, she sets to work like it’s a test she might still pass. She warms water in the rust-stained sink, stirs powdered formula with a stolen coffee stir stick, then dribbles a drop on her wrist the way she saw mothers do in soap commercials. Too hot—she blows until her skin prickles. She lines a shoebox with newspaper and the sunflower sock, thinking a makeshift cradle will feel less cruel than towels on nicotine carpet. She even tears off a strip of her favorite stage dress. sequins glittering like trapped daylight, and knots it into a headband, hoping a flash of beauty might coax the baby to feed.
Star will not take the bottle. Her tiny lips purse, shiver, turn away as though rejecting the scent of her skin. Panic flares; she loosens the cap, tries again. Milk dribbles, pools in the notch of a bird-thin collarbone. She pats the baby’s back, gentle, gentler, remembering videos on a stranger’s phone: pat to burp the air out. Nothing but a croak, the color of the mouth deepening from bruise to dusk. She rubs circles harder—too hard—before catching herself, whispering sorrys that skid into gasps.
“See?” she murmurs, voice bright but cracked. “Trying. Trying so hard.” She rummages through the scavenged pile: diaper too big, safety pin bent, washcloth stiff with someone else’s soap. She wipes the baby’s lips; the washcloth smells like bleach and last year’s rain. A whimper rises from the bundle, thin as thread, and the voices rush in to meet it—She tastes the poison on you, she feels you draining her light.
Her thoughts spiral back to solutions: room needs warmth. She positions the shoebox next to the radiator, but the unit only rattles cold air. She lights a half-used match, flicks it out before the scent can sting the newborn lungs, then lays the spent stick beside the baby as if warmth might linger in the char. She hums the fragment of a lullaby. three notes bright as sunflower petals. yet the tune warps halfway, twisting into a minor key as the chorus in her skull counters: Not meant for you. Not your hymn to sing.
Star’s cries stretch thinner, rasp out, fade. The mother bundles the infant against her own chest, rocking on her knees, tracing circles upon the skeletal back—circles that become frantic scribbles when no steady breathing answers. “Want to want you,” she whispers, forehead touching a crown of damp hair that already smells a little like loss. “Want to keep you. See, Star? I found a ribbon for you, I found a box, I—” But the pulse beneath her fingers skips then slows, and the voices rise louder than any lullaby: Give it up. Let the sunflower glow flicker out. Parasite. Ravenous. It will eat the rest of you next. Pain knifes through her abdomen—withdrawal, hunger, grief—making her fold in half. Napkins drift from the upturned ice bucket, snowing over mother and child in frail, white petals that can’t muffle the raw, scraping cries.
Star’s fist opens once, grasping at nothing, and in that gesture the mother glimpses all the things she cannot offer: steady heat, clean sheets, milk that nourishes, silence in her skull. Her tears drop onto the sunflower sock, darkening the yellow to a muddy bruise. She clutches the bundle tighter, but the baby’s head lolls, turning instinctively toward the doorway. as though she aches for a guardian whose heartbeat matches the stubborn rhythm still ticking in her frail chest.
A streetlight beyond the curtains flickers, pouring ragged beams across peeling wallpaper. In their tremor she sees the shadows twist into gaping mouths, waiting. Exhaustion and voices braid together until she can no longer tell which urge rises from her or from the dark. Her arms stiffen, rocking slows, and a hush swallows the room so completely it feels like a held breath—one that might end with mercy, or with something far colder. Only the faintest sunflower glimmer lingers at the edge of her vision, and even that seems to be dimming, pleading for rescue from hands not yet arrived. End her hunger. End the noise. The words scuttle against her skull like beetles. Star hiccups a final time and goes ominously still, breath on pause, skin washing toward porcelain. It jolts the mother upright—fear, fury, instinct tangling—but the voices lunge faster: Do it yourself or she’ll drag you both into the dark.
Her eyes prowl the dim room, cataloguing ordinary objects as if each were a hush waiting to be used: the pillow slumped against stained headboard, its cotton belly promising silence; the dank bath towel hanging from a nail, long enough to cinch daylight shut; the cracked bathroom door revealing the faint gleam of tap water cold and deep. Even the radiator’s rust-grated vent seems to exhale a lull: this could be quick, this could be kind. Jaundiced streetlight paints the windowpane an ugly halo, the siren outside droning like a funeral hymn already half-sung. The lullaby in her throat withers to a threadbare hum. Gravity tilts the floorboards, funnels every thought to a single, brutal mercy. She draws the bundle closer—arms stiff, not tender—glass-eyed, jaw locking tight, while the chorus in her skull hisses that the surest way to dim the sunflower glow is to snuff it before dawn remembers to rise.
The bundle in her arms weighs less than the guilt rotting her ribs—swaddled in a fraying bath-towel the color of bruised butter, its faded sunflower print glaring up like sallow eyes that judge her every breath. “You’re a lie,” she croaks, throat salted with old screams. “I never carried you.” The denial loops and frays, half-curse, half-confession, while her gaze, fever-bright, hungry, clutches the infant the way a drowning woman grips a stone. Wallpaper droops behind her in strips like wilted wreaths; she studies it once, committing the decay to memory, then slips barefoot into the predawn hush, blood drying in rusty trails down her shin. Neon gutters overhead, casting sick lemon halos. She skirts each puddle of light as though stepped in radiance might brand her skin with proof of the small trespasser pressed to her heart.
The towel slips, and a miniature hand—frost-blue at the fingertips, soft as a flower petal—flutters into view. The motion is heartbreakingly gentle, more plea than protest, and she jerks as if a moth has shattered the pane of her certainty. A breathless “sorry, sorry,” tumbles out; she tucks the tiny limb back beneath worn cotton and knots the sunflower towel tighter, as though she can bind light itself. In her head the voices sneer that this glow is a bright parasite, a wasp hive of yellow wings nibbling her from the inside. but the hand had curled in trust, not threat, and some ancient, trembling instinct draws the bundle closer against her sternum while she slips into streets that taste of rain-rot and exhaust.
She chooses the church first, the same stone nave she used to slip into as a child, clutching stolen hymn sheets and praying she wouldn’t be noticed. Even then she’d felt the architecture disapprove of her, its gothic ribs crowding overhead like a chest too tight for breath. Tonight—or what’s left of night—she pushes through the wooden doors and stands at the threshold, the baby in her arms and a wet trail of blood on her calf. For a moment she simply listens: damp silence, a single organ chord testing the air, the faint stir of a rehearsal choir tucked somewhere behind the chancel. Stepping inside, she watches her footsteps stain the aisle—rust-brown prints that mark her route through a life she was never meant to lead. The nave stretches before her like an unlit furnace: pews in strict rows, votive candles trembling along the walls, and high above, Christ in stained glass. His ruby wounds seem painfully fresh, the blues of His robe so dark they look bruised rather than holy. Even the sunflower yellows in the window, meant to promise mercy, glows too much like the weak pulse fluttering against her collarbone. The echo of that resemblance makes her want to turn away; it feels obscene, as if the window accuses her of dragging corruption into sacred light.
She pauses at the baptismal font, water black as scrying glass. A reflection rises—her own face, pale and frantic, and the towel-swaddled shape clutched high on her shoulder. In her fractured vision the infant’s outline flickers: one moment a baby, next a bundle of writhing larvae haloed in harsh light. She jerks back, sloshing holy water over the marble lip. It spatters the tile, and for a heartbeat she swears the droplets hiss like oil on flame. Somewhere behind her the choir holds a long, piercing note; it scales her spine like talons.
A priest emerges from the side aisle, cassock flaring with each stride. His voice, meant to soothe, falls on her like gravel: “Child, are you in need?” The title detonates shame—child, child—as if she is the one swaddled in desperate cloth. She steps deeper into shadow, tightening the towel until the baby’s cough sputters against her collarbone. The priest approaches anyway, palms raised in benediction; candlelight stains his fingertips crimson. Her eyes latch onto that color, and the voices howl—Blood on his hands, he loves to bleed lambs dry. She recoils, whispering nonsense benedictions of her own, clashing syllables that taste like rusted metal.
“Let me bless the little one,” the priest offers. The phrase sets her teeth on edge. Bless sounds too close to claim, to keep. She pictures the infant laid on the altar, white linen soaking through, parishioners kneeling while the baby’s sunflower glow dims under incense smoke. A low growl coils in her throat. “Not yours,” she manages, a feral liturgy. At that, the priest glimpses the livid bruise blooming down her calf, the bare feet, the fever glossing her eyes. Compassion flickers across his face, but compassion looks like pity, and pity has always snapped her nerves.
She backs toward a row of votive stands, flame tips warping in her periphery. Each candle seems to sprout horns of light, twin licks curving like goat horns—tiny devils dancing on wax. One sputters, guttering into a molten stub; the hiss matches the whisper in her head—Snuff it. Snuff her. Cold is kinder. The baby wheezes, a rattled gasp that carries too far. A boy soprano turns mid-hymn, his mouth a perfect O of alarm. Behind him, glass saints shift: eyes melt, halos sag into barbed crowns, mouths stretch in silent, molten howls.
The air contracts; she tastes ozone and candle soot. The priest steps forward again, and the voices shriek—He’ll bind her with holy ropes, drown the light in sanctified water. Terror snaps her muscles into motion. She pivots, slippering on wax drips, nearly dropping the towel-wrapped child. A lit candle tumbles from its holder, rolling across the flagstones like a glowing eye. She flings open the brass-shod door—hinges wail like trumpets of judgment—and stumbles into rainfall so cold it scalds. The choir’s last chord splits behind her, crashing into dissonance as the door slams shut, booming like stone over a crypt.
Outside, dawn is a bruised limb on the horizon. She presses the bundle closer, panting mist. The hiss in her skull has not subsided, but one phrase edges louder than the rest: Keep moving or lose her. Whether the warning comes from fear or love, she can’t discern; both feel like claws around her throat. She spares the spire a final glance—the cross now skewed against pregnant clouds—and then she runs, barefoot over slick pavement, carrying the fragile sunflower ember away from stained glass angels that watched her with bleeding eyes.
Bare soles slap wet pavement—slap-slap, a frantic metronome—until she stumbles into a pocket of furnace-warm air. The brick façade before her throbs under floodlights, every mortar line glowing ember-red as though the building itself is holding its breath between blazes. Diesel fumes curl in lazy veils, mixing with the metallic tang of scorched steel; somewhere an exhaust vent exhales smoke that dims the dawn beams into rancid butter-yellow streaks. She stands on the concrete apron, baby tight to her chest, towel damp and dark where the infant’s laboured breaths fog the cloth.
For half a heartbeat the fire station seems perfect: cement floor smooth enough to cradle a body, hulking engines like guardians in crimson armour—strong, decisive, nothing like her. She imagines laying the bundle at the threshold, stepping back into the shadows, letting men built of rescue and discipline find the child and decide her fate. A strange mercy flickers. Then klaxons flare. Overhead strobes ignite—red-white-red—branding after-images across her vision. Garage doors rattle upward; an engine yawns forward, headlamps searing like judgment. Sirens coil into the morning air, shredding every thought to ribbons. A firefighter jogs closer, calling out, but the words warp into bestial howls beneath the siren’s pitch. The voices inside her skull answer in kind: Too bright. Too hot. They’ll burn the last glimmer she hoards.
She staggers backward into the glare of the emergency lights. The towel loosens, and a bluish-tipped fist slips out, trembling. The sight forces a ragged breath from her lungs, but no sound follows. Diesel smoke billows from the idling engine and curls around her bare ankles like hot breath. Beside her lies a length of fire-hose, its open end gaping like an iron throat. The thought occurs—thread the baby inside, let the darkness hush the fragile heartbeat. A second, crueler impulse flashes: set the bundle behind a truck tire and walk away, let thirty tons of heroism finish what misery began. But the heat, the roar, the blinking lights, too many watching eyes, drive her back. Tires screech as the truck engines into the street, the whole bay yawning like a furnace door. She lurches sideways, nearly dropping the bundle, the chorus in her head shrilling that she’s seconds from being stripped of the only control she has left. Cradling the child tight, she bolts into a side alley, smoke still clinging to her hair, lungs searing as though she’s inhaled a lit match.
A single street lamp guards the mouth of the alley, its bulb burning a smoky, sulfur-yellow—the color of nursery sunbeams gone bad. Each time the filament flares, it hisses like a match in wind; each time it falters, darkness rushes back, swallowing the walls and her resolve. Three bright flickers, a pause, then three again: a broken heartbeat tattooed in light. She stands beneath the strobe, heart hammering funeral drums, soot-grit rain steaming off the pavement like breath from a dying furnace. The towel in her arms feels heavier now, as though the baby inside has turned to coal. Against her collarbone the infant’s breaths come thin and fading, each one a paper-thin puff of warmth that barely survives the night air. Smoke from the distant firehouse exhaust drifts into the alley, curling around them, staining the last scrap of sunflower glow that lingers in the bundle. She tightens her grip, slipping deeper between the buildings—beyond the reach of sirens, beyond the reach of light—determined to choose, in her own ruinous way, the place where that faltering little sunbeam will gutter out for good.
She walks now—she has no energy for running—each step numbing her soles. The towel dampens; the infant’s breathing rasps, then pauses, then resumes in ragged sips. She mutters fragments of lullaby, lyrics rearranged by the chorus inside her head. A nurse smoking behind the emergency entrance glances up. “Ma’am, do you—” She ducks her gaze, darts past. She can’t let fluorescent corridors swallow her; fluorescent light shows everything. So she loops around to the service stairs, climbs flight after flight until the city wind greets her with exhaust and wet iron. The rooftop garden greets them with threadbare reminders of daylight, sun-starved sunflowers tilt in cracked terracotta, their heads ragged yet defiantly tracking the pale arc of dawn; brittle dandelion clocks tremble on hollow stems, scattering freckles of light with each icy gust; and a strip of calendula flares richest gold, petals tight around their centers as if bracing for frost yet refusing to surrender their flame.
First light edges over the city skyline, and those yellow petals catch it like small mirrors, throwing soft halos across the concrete. She kneels among the planters, bruising her knees on gravelly cement, and unwraps the towel. In that newborn splash of sunlight the baby’s waxen skin glows faintly, ribs etched like the veins of a fragile leaf. A breath quivers in, out. The baby’s eyelids flutter and open just a crack. In that sliver of light, her eyes grab the gleam from the yellow flowers—two tiny suns fighting through clouds. For one sweet moment the rooftop feels soft and warm, as if morning itself has wrapped her up. Her chest lifts, small but stubborn, drawing the light inside like a seed hungry for spring. The wind slips in, shaking the stems and stealing the heat, and the glow around her dims. Still, the little chest rises again—quick, brave, bright—an ember refusing to go out, trying with every breath to grow back into sunshine.
For the first time she truly looks: the delicate fists, the paper nails, the faint tremor that shakes like a caught bird fighting for a sky it hasn’t seen. Something in her splits—not the cruel fissure of voices, but a filament of yearning. “Little Star,” she whispers, stroking a brow no wider than her thumb. “Bright thing.” For a heartbeat she feels a warm surface—thin, risky, real. With clumsy care, she lays the baby down in the midst of the only living patch in the garden—a tangled bed of yellow blooms, sunflowers and marigolds stubbornly shining against the cold. The petals press close, curling around the baby’s towel like a chorus of small suns. Nestled beside the flowers is an old music box left behind by another grieving soul, its painted lid chipped and golden. She opens it and sets the infant atop the faded music sheets tucked inside, their notes ghosted with the memory of lullabies. She turns the key. The music stumbles, notes splintered and off-key, but the melody limps out—a broken cradle song threading through dawn and dew. The baby, surrounded by gold and music, gives a fluttering gasp, chest lifting as if to follow the sun, then falls quiet, lulled by the thready tune. Her own heart stings with the violence of leaving, but exhaustion drags needles through her skull and the chorus returns, acidic: Not yours to save, finish her, dim her light. The baby’s chest stutters; a pause lingers too long; a weak gasp answers. She stares a moment longer as the wind tugs the baby’s towel, scattering marigold petals over her face, and as the tune dies into silence, the girl rises—empty, shivering, stepping back from her brightest, most broken offering, in a bed of yellow meant to hold light until the truest arms arrive.
She forces herself to step back, and the voices surge—snapping, mocking, clawing. “Shut up, shut up!” she screams, palms clamped over her ears. The noise doesn’t fade, so she slams the heel of her hand against her temple—once, twice—hard enough to spark white stars in her vision. “Quiet, it’s me, it’s me,” she gasps, as if she’s talking herself into control. Blood hums behind her eyes; the metal railing bites her spine. She turns to the bundle, breathing ragged. “I won’t hurt you, not here.” Leaning in, she kisses the baby’s cheek, then presses her forehead to the tiny one, squeezing her eyes shut. “Good-bye, little Star,” she whispers, voice breaking. “Find the sun without me.” She straightens, shoulders shaking, and stumbles toward the rooftop door, fists still knotted in her hair as she fights to drag the screaming voices with her and leave the child in fragile peace.
Wind snaps her hair as she reaches the stairwell door, and the voices lunge—End it. One push, one drop, one quiet hush. For an awful second she pivots back, palm hovering over the baby’s mouth, fingers ready to pinch the last breath closed. The lavender bends toward her like witnesses, their purple heads trembling. Do it, the chorus hisses, snuff the false sun before it burns you again. She lifts her hand—then, with a ragged roar, turns the violence on herself. Fist meets forehead, once, twice, three times, until skin splits and warm red runs down her temple. The jolt clears the haze; pain floods louder than the voices. She staggers, blood speckling the concrete like fallen petals, and spits through her teeth, “Not today.” Another blow to her own skull, and the chorus recoils, fading to a static whine. She backs away, forearm smeared crimson, breaths knife-sharp, and forces her body through the stairwell door. Metal slams shut, swallowing her silhouette for good—no footsteps, no farewell, only the faint scent of iron fading down the stairwell.
Dawn spills over the roof in ribbons the color of warmed honey, turning the battered garden into a patchwork of soft gold and bruised lilac. Wind brushes the lavender first, coaxing its tired stalks into a hush that sounds like lullaby, then drifts across a ragged row of sunflowers, heads bowed, but still fierce, their petals bright as candle flames that refuse the night’s final breath. In their midst, calendula flares like pocket-sized suns, petals cupped tight against the cold as if guarding what little heat remains in the world. The baby, no heavier than a sigh, rests where those blossoms converge, towel cinched around her like a faded chrysalis. Dew settles on her lashes in perfect beads, tiny crystal lanterns catching each new beam of light. With every fragile inhale, her ribs lift just enough to cast the faintest shadow; with every exhale, a plume of warmth spirals into the crisp morning air and dissolves. One fist escapes the towel and uncurls toward a drooping sunflower petal, brushing its edge as though asking the bloom to stay awake a moment longer.
Above her, the sky blushes from pewter to lemon, then to a soft, translucent yellow, the same tender hue pulsing at her throat where the heartbeat flickers on. She is ringed by guardians no human assigned: the lavender’s scent drapes over her like a quilt; the calendula glare at the wind, daring frost to try; the sunflowers lean inward, forming a ragged crown whose shadows fall upon her brow in broken spokes of warm light. For an instant their shapes merge, and it looks as though the flowers themselves have knitted a cradle of living gold around her, as if they’re praying her towards survival. Somewhere far below, the city lifts into its weekday hum—buses sighing awake, traffic lights snapping through colors, coffee pots hissing behind diner glass—yet none of that commotion breaches this high garden. Here, the only rhythm is her own: a stubborn, staccato thrum that weds itself to the rustle of petals and the slow turning of the sun.
She lies waiting, half-dreaming, as if she already knows another set of arms is stretching across the morning to claim her—arms that will match her pulse, learn its falter and rise, memorize its starlight cadence. Until then, the rooftop holds its breath, the flowers keep watch, and the newborn light pools around her like liquid gold, seeping into the towel’s frayed weave, painting her skin with the promise of all the mornings still to come. She blinks at the world through dew and daylight, as if somewhere deep inside she senses the truest warmth is still on its way. The biggest sunbeam has not yet touched her—the wide, sure shelter that will lift her from these petals, arms bright enough to make her feel safe for the first time, arms that will fit around her like the strongest flower of all. Until then, she curls deeper into the yellow hush, baby fists tangled with marigold stems, her heartbeat counting down to the moment when real sunshine finds her and calls her home.
He arrives before dawn, the hospital’s glass towers still dark slivers against the sky, and the only sound is the hiss of his boots on concrete. His toolbox is strapped tight to his back—rusted latch, a photograph of his son tucked inside the lid, grin bright as a hospital sunrise. He breathes deep, tasting frost and winter air, then taps the scaffold frame twice, a ritual he’s kept since the day his wife slipped away. Every bolt he tightens today carries her memory, and the promise he made to their boy, Haknyeon, that he would keep working, keep breathing, keep building something beautiful out of loss.
He steps off the service elevator into the sterile glare of ‘Hwarang’s’ central atrium and is met by a chorus of voices—“Mr. Cho!”—ringing from every nursing station. He’s the hospital’s go-to handyman, the familiar face they call the moment a boiler cracks or a syringe pump stutters, and in his month-long absence every department noticed. Today he’s back on the rooftop, summoned to recalibrate the solar array that powers the NICU’s incubators—the quiet lifeline under fluorescent skies. Doctors pause in their rounds to lift a grateful nod; nurses press steaming mugs of coffee into his hands without asking. He smiles, the steady pivot of this hospital’s heartbeat, and tucks his tool bag under one arm, ready to bring warmth and light back to its smallest patients.
He climbs the fire escape, heartbeat steady as the elevator’s hum below. On the rooftop, machinery waits: solar panels that will warm NICU incubators, a spray of cables like silver arteries. He tests each connection with the precision of a surgeon, his gloved fingers finding purchase on metal I-beams he knows will hold. A chill snakes up his spine, not from wind but from absence—a loneliness he brushes off with a flick of his collar. He tells himself it’s just morning cold, nothing more. He stops for a moment at the garden’s edge, where frost-bitten dandelions shiver beneath the guardrail. He remembers the day he planted daisies here, before his world fractured. He had imagined Haknyeon running between the blooms, giggling. Now he simply tightens one more bolt, listens to the hiss of compressed air, and resumes. “For you, buddy,” he whispers, wiping sweat that isn’t supposed to form in such cold. He steps back to admire his work—panels aligned, cables secure, the promise of light for tiny bodies stretched below.
He tests the final switch. A soft click, then the low hum of power flowing through the wires—an electric heartbeat for the ward he’s never seen awake. He packs away his tools, shoulder aching, and pauses in the pale half-light. Today feels different, though he can’t name why. His breath clouds before him, each one of his exhales a question he can’t answer. He slings his pack, turns to the fire escape, and that’s when he sees it: a flash of yellow tangled in the weeds, a shape he assumes at first is lost cloth from a patient’s gown. At first he thinks it’s a doll abandoned in the cold. Then the towel shifts. He sees pale skin, hears the faint rasp of breath that shouldn’t belong to stone.
Curiosity propels him forward. He kneels, heart tensing as he parts the crumpled towel to reveal the smallest face he’s ever seen, eyelashes tipped with dew. The baby lies coiled in a shallow nest of crushed calendula and frost-bitten dandelions, the only yellow flowers brave enough to survive winter. She’s nestled into a small music box, its gears clicking out the last fragments of a lullaby into the chill, each broken note caught and scattered by a restless wind like a heartbeat slipping off its rhythm. Dew clings to her lashes like sunlight frozen mid-blink, and her tiny fists twitch against her chest as if in search of a mother’s pulse that has gone strangely still. Under the rising sun, her body seems to glow—not with warmth, but because the flowers around her believe she deserves one last trace of light. She is swaddled in a yellow towel, soft from age and frayed at the seams like an old promise; it smells faintly of smoke and holds her like a memory already slipping away.
The world tilts—his son’s laugh, his wife’s lullaby, their last promise—all converging in a single, ragged breath. He lifts the bundle with trembling reverence, surprised at its weight and warmth, the soft gasp that cracks through the cold. In the silent shimmer of yellow petals and broken lullaby, he understands: today, he will do more than mend wires—today, he’ll dare to hold a life back from the edge of forever, today is the day he will save a life, one he never knew he carried into this world. He lifts her, surprised at how feather-light she is, how fragile and nearly lifeless. He presses the baby’s head gently against his chest, each fragile breath a plea for life he refuses to ignore. Clutching her like a flickering candle shielded from the wind, he bolts down the first flight of stairs, determination burning behind his eyes. Four flights become a blur of concrete and railing as he races toward the lobby, a single thought driving him: keep her alive.
Panic detonates in his chest before he even reaches the lobby doors—a wildfire of fear that ignites every nerve beneath his skin. He crashes through the glass double-doors, boots scraping tile as he staggers into the fluorescent glare of the atrium. His breath comes in ragged shards, each exhale sending little clouds over the marble floor, the yellow towel-wrapped bundle held out like a desperate offering. “Someone—please—help her!” he roars, voice cracking the silence like a thunderclap, echoing down corridors meant for hushed footfalls and measured whispers. He clamps a trembling hand to his side, as if to staunch the fracture in his ribs, but it only pulses harder, a frantic alarm that won’t be silenced.
He sees the pallor of her skin, the faint flutter of her nostrils, and his voice breaks, raw with pleading: “Please, please, she’s just a baby. She’s just a baby, I don’t know what else to do.” Over and over he repeats the prayer, each time louder, each time more helpless, until the lobby teems with startled staff rushing forward—an outpouring of hands and murmured urgency to cradle the fragile spark he clutches like hope itself.
Immediately, the hospital convulses. A nurse’s stethoscope tumbles from her neck with a clatter; a doctor vaults off a stool, coat flaring in his wake. Phones spring to life in a chorus of ring—ring—ring—as receptionists snatch them up, muffled voices crackling orders into headsets. The night security guard snaps his flashlight on, its beam darting over white coats and stray charts, carving the chaos into sharp relief. Monitors in the hallway flicker awake, their beeps staccato like a premature heartbeat demanding attention. A cart laden with supplies screeches to a halt, its wheels protesting against the sudden uproar. Every eye snaps to the intruder and the fragile cargo in his arms, and for the smallest fraction of time, the hospital holds its breath.
“Someone take her and help me! Don’t just fucking stare at me!” The builder’s voice cracks the sterile air like a detonator. He thrusts the yellow bundle toward a nearby nurse, panic flooding every word. The towel’s sunflower hue is grim with smoke and old blood, its edges ragged as if it might tear itself apart. The nurse snaps her eyes to the stretcher she’s just set up, hands already clipping on oxygen tubing and flicking through pages on her tablet. Without missing a beat she shakes her head. “I’m prepping the warmer and paging the on-call peds resident,” she says, voice taut with urgency. She glances over your way, scanning the lobby’s swirl of white coats and badge-clad silhouettes. “Give the baby to her—she’s the only doctor here.”
You stand rooted to the spot, scrubs the soft blue of a dawn sky still half-lost in night, badge dangling like a distant star you can’t quite reach. Your heart thunders in your ears, an eclipse of nerves darkening every thought. You’ve never felt time stretch this thin—no coffee yet, no chart opened, not even a chance to sober your hands. This is your first day and now a baby rests in your arms, a living flicker against your chest, and your limbs betray you with tremors you can’t quite silence. When the towel slides into your grasp, you realize you don’t even know how to hold a child, but your arms fold around her anyway. She weighs nothing, yet feels too alive: a cradle of warmth that threatens to melt your knuckles. You lean in, breath hitching at the sharp scent of smoke and the faint trace of antiseptic that lingers on her skin. You can almost taste the promise of sunrise in her every shallow breath, as if she carries her own constellation within.
Your mind scrambles for protocols—airway, breathing, circulation—but the moment her cheek brushes your scrub top, a galaxy of instinct blossoms in your chest. The yellow towel’s threadbare softness presses against your sternum like a dying sunbeam desperate to flare back to life. Your hands remember lullabies you’ve never sung, memories whispered from every mother you’ve ever met, echoing beneath ribs that ache to protect. All around you, the lobby erupts into motion. A crash of metal carts, the hiss of regulators, nurses lunging for blankets, techs dashing for monitors. Lights flicker overhead like warning flares. The baby wheezes—a single cracked note that twists itself into your bones. You swallow against the tide of panic, arms tightening as if to shield her from the storm.
The infant in your arms is icily still—her breath a ghost you can’t catch, her fragile body wrapped in a yellow towel that feels too small for her sorrow. All you hear is your own blood roaring in your ears like a siren, drowning out the sterile hum of the corridor lights and the distant echoes of life beyond these walls. You want to cry out for help, to shatter the hush with a plea for mercy, but terror has locked your tongue. Time stretches thin around you, and in that frozen moment, you realize you’re holding hope itself on the brink of snuffing out.
That moment catapults you into your true arc with poetic brutality. You arrived here chasing ivory-tower dreams of perfect diagnoses and tidy case studies, only to have the universe fling its most abandoned bloom—an angel wrapped in a rooftop’s yellow towel—into the soil of your life. She is a wounded sunflower, petals scorched by midnight winds, a silent ballerina whose first pirouette was a gasp for breath. Cradling her fragile form feels like holding sunlight in your palms just as it threatens to flicker out. Your chest tightens at the tremor of her heartbeat, a single petal trembling against the taut wire of life.
At your side, the nurse’s voice cuts through the haze like a scalpel: “Warm her—now! Why are you just staring at her? You think staring will save a life?” Your chest jams with ice, and for a heartbeat you can’t move. Your scrubs are as light-blue as first breath, a hue born of dawn’s quiet promise and the soft hush of wings folded against night. Under the hospital’s relentless neon, they gleam like a sacred pledge, an unspoken pact of care drawn across your shoulders. And pressed against your chest, the yellow towel, threadbare as heirloom lace, hovers between you and the infant, its frayed strands whispering of bloodlines and lullabies, a golden umbilicus tying you to a family you have yet to meet.
Your legs tremble as the nurse’s voice cracks like a whip: “Doctor, move! We need to get her onto the warmer now!” Another shouts, “Get the oxygen hooked up—why are you just standing there?” Their commands ricochet off the blue-tiled walls, each syllable a jolt demanding action. But you’re frozen, caught between the light-blue promise of your scrubs, soft as a dawn-tinted sky, and the fierce gold of the towel wrapped around the child’s ribs. Your breath hitches, and for a moment the world narrows to the glint in the infant’s dew-beaded lashes. You feel every thread of that yellow cloth pressing questions against your own heart: Can you save her? Do you know what life demands? The corridor pulses with urgency, nurses and doctors rushing past, stethoscopes flying to necks, hands outstretched, but you can’t step forward. Your feet are anchors, your mind a haze of protocols you’ve only ever practiced on oranges.
You’re poised to step forward, gloves half-donned, mind racing through every textbook procedure you’ve memorized: neonatal resuscitation, airway management, thermoregulation protocols but before you can move, he crashes into the bay, steps forward like a storm, coat tails flicking as he towers over the incubator’s glow. His jaw is set, collar undone just enough to reveal the pale hollow of his throat, and when he raises one sculpted eyebrow, the fluorescent light catches the gold flecks in his gaze. burning impatience and a fierce focus only the smallest patients ever earn. The air crackles as he murmurs to her, soft, urgent, entirely separate from the iron edge in his voice when he turns to you: “Move.” His command is a heated blade through the tension, and you feel every molecule of the room shift toward his magnetic intensity. Without a word, he strips the yellow towel from your trembling arms and transfers the baby to his sternum, his fingers deft as a pianist’s.
He snaps on the thermal mattress, its surface hissing to life, then clips pulse-ox probes to each tiny fingertip as if tuning a fragile instrument. With a surgeon’s precision, he pinches an oral airway into place, then leans in close to flick open the ventilator’s valve and watch her chest lift under warm, measured breaths. “Warm fluids, two hundred milliliters—now!” he bellows, voice sharp enough to carve through your hesitation. He slaps a saline lock into the vein at her wrist, the line flooding with gold-tinted fluid, and slams the lab orders: blood cultures, ABG, CBC, lactate—stat. All the while, his gaze flicks back to you, disbelief curling in the corners of his mouth. “You just stood there,” he hisses, “frozen, while she was on the edge of nothing. Do you have any idea what you almost lost?” His every movement is a masterclass in emergency care, each command a reminder of how life-and-death hinges on action, not hesitation.
He leans in as he murmurs his running critique—pathetic, frozen, useless—and you feel the heat of his presence, a charged current between you. Your heart staggers; the monitors bleat in protest at her mounting fragility. You see the doubt in his eyes and taste it on the antiseptic breeze. All at once you remember the long nights you spent mastering intubations on mannequins, the surgical workshops, the dean’s list, the scholarships won. But none of that keeps your feet from quaking. In the hush that follows his scorn, you realize you’re not just fighting for her life—you’re fighting to prove you deserve this place at all.
𝐅𝐈𝐕𝐄 𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐑𝐒 𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐄𝐑
You wake in the half-blue hush before dawn, the world beyond your window still folded in sleep, yet your heart pounds like a tiny drum in your chest. There is no blaring alarm, your body rises at precisely 5:00 AM because it knows this hour is sacred. Your feet click on the hardwood floor, each step deliberate, as though you’re crossing an invisible threshold from starlight into purpose. In this fragile pre-dawn light, the air tastes cool and new, and every breath you take feels like an invitation to honor the dream you’ve carried since infancy.
Light seeps along the edge of your bed, illuminating the corner where your immaculate white lab coat hangs on a smooth wooden hanger. Your hospital ID is already clipped to the belt of your rolling bag, standing ready before you are. On the counter, a single nutrition bar rests beside the kettle—m, fuel portioned and packed, its wrapper folded with mathematical precision. On the fridge door, a checklist in three bands of ink, black for logistics, blue for gear, red for “don’t forget to breathe”—serves as your guiding star. Your handwriting is small and precise; the final red box gleams like a tiny victory, the last promise you’ll keep today.
You tap your phone and the first notes of soft piano drift through the room, not to soothe, but to sharpen. This exact soundtrack carried you through pediatric finals, each arpeggio anchoring your frayed nerves to one clear thought: remember how to save them. As the chords weave through the air, without thinking, you recite the entire abstract of last month’s ‘Pediatric Critical Care Review,’ every statistic on neonatal hypothermia, every margin note you penciled at 2 AM when the world was dark and your desk lamp burned like a beacon. You can still see the graph of glucose curves etched on page 37 as clearly as the sunrise outside your window. Your fingers trace the invisible text in midair, recalling exact phrasing—“Maintain core temperature above 36.5 °C to reduce morbidity”—while you pack your bag. Each line you’ve studied in the early mornings, each protocol you’ve annotated in the margins, lives in your mind like a living document, ready to be summoned the instant a monitor alarms.
Finally, you don your scrubs, buttoning the left sleeve first, always left, then right, as though you’re donning armor. The pale-blue fabric settles over your shoulders like second skin, echoing the dawn’s first light. You smooth each crease with the careful touch of someone who understands that precision matters. When you clip your badge over your heart, the weight of every life you’ve vowed to protect settles on your chest. Today, you step into the hospital not as a student, but as a doctor, every movement calibrated, every breath an affirmation: I am ready.
You lace up your shoes and whisper the names of children you’ve yet to meet, each syllable a vow. Even in this quiet moment, you imagine their fragile pulses, their tiny chests quivering with first breaths. Every child who crosses these hospital thresholds becomes your responsibility before you even set foot in the lobby, your mind already dancing through protocols for hypothermia, IV access, neonatal resuscitation. Your bag waits by the door like a silent partner in your promise. You pack trauma shears with the precision of a surgeon sizing scalpels, stash glucose tablets for the hypoglycaemic shocks you know will come, and tuck in two pens—black and blue—because you’ve learned the hard way that someone will always “borrow” a pen and never return it. Beneath these practical tools lies an old Polaroid: you as a toddler swaddled in a hospital blanket, your aunt in pink scrubs cradling you. You trace her smiling face, remembering the warmth of those arms, the first promise of healing you ever felt.
Your own story begins under fluorescent warmth and humming machines. You came screaming into the world six weeks before your time, so tiny that the nurses whispered you might not make it, and for six long weeks your body lived inside an incubator’s glass cradle while your mother teetered on the edge of death. That first fight for breath isn’t just a story you tell, it’s a drumbeat in your blood, a reminder that survival is your inheritance. You tell people you chose medicine, but late at night, when your hands tremble from fatigue and the memory of that incubator’s hum floods your mind, you wonder if medicine chose you, whether your destiny was written in those first fragile gasps you fought so fiercely to draw.
You grew up above a corner pharmacy, where your father’s night-shift rotas overlapped with your mother’s frantic mornings. She braided your hair with strips of medical tape when she ran late, and the apartment smelled of iodine and printer paper, lingering behind everything else. Vitamin chews clinked in your lunchbox alongside your carefully folded anatomy flashcards. That was your world: a tapestry of care, urgency, and the quiet hum of possibility. At six, you sat in the back of Sunday school and taught yourself the names of every bone in the human body. By nine, you’d copied your aunt’s anatomy textbook in gel pens, color-coded and margin-annotated. At thirteen, you watched a friend’s brother die because the ambulance arrived too late, his small body still as broken glass. You vowed then you’d never freeze in the face of panic. That memory sits behind your eyes whenever you hear a code pink.
High school found you in the library stacks, head buried in journals on pediatric trauma, your fingers tracing graphs of survival rates. In undergrad, you lived in labs, pipetting DNA sequences and charting cell cultures. In medical school, you balanced on the razor’s edge between obsession and burnout, refusing to quit, refusing to lose. You weren’t the top scorer, but you were the most relentless: the kind who redid an entire cardiac physiology paper at 3 AM because you spotted a miscalculation in your own footnote. Now, standing in your apartment’s pale dawn, you feel the weight of every textbook you’ve memorized, every protocol you’ve rehearsed until muscle memory turns to instinct. You carry the echo of incubator alarms in your marrow and a photographic library of neonatal charts in your mind. You know the curve of a glucose tolerance graph as intimately as the back of your own hand.
You moved through the med school like a specter in lecture halls, your pen a metronome across slides of metabolic pathways and embryonic layers. While classmates whispered study tips, you traced the Krebs cycle in the margins of your notebook until you could recite each enzyme without a second’s hesitation. Professors nicknamed you “the shadow” because you spoke only when your insight upended a diagnosis, like noting that a “benign” rash matched the pattern of early neonatal lupus, yet your silence held the heft of every nuance you’d catalogued. In the simulation lab, you learned to wield theory as a scalpel. Mannequins exhaled preprogrammed distress, and your fingers danced through ACLS algorithms: airway first, then breathing, then circulation. You navigated high-fidelity code blues so many times that the crash cart felt like home. When you finally watched a real thoracotomy—your first true encounter with surgery’s raw geometry—your vision swam and the cool scrub sink rushed up to meet you. You fainted against the porcelain witness. You cried. By sunrise, you were back, describing every step of the posterolateral approach in flawless detail, your attending’s praise was a quiet redemption of last night’s tremor.
On clinical rotations, you discovered that medicine lives between theory and human connection. You found yourself leaning close to frail patients—your palm a bridge between stethoscope and story—learning that it isn’t a perfect chart or a flawless procedure they remember, but the way you met their gaze when fear trembled in their eyes. You practiced explaining CPAP pressure settings in plain language, watching relief bloom on anxious faces more vividly than any pharmacologic promise. In your pediatric clerkship, the line between textbook and tragedy blurred irrevocably. You watched a fragile preemie slip away despite surfactant, fluids, and dopamine—the resident’s hands moving faster than your heart could catch up. You didn’t perform the procedures, but you felt each failure as though you’d held the ambu bag yourself. For an entire week you spoke only in data points, until you scrawled his name on a tiny Post-it in your phone: Lin, 28 weeks. Not punishment, but a covenant: every protocol memorized, every simulation repeated, every sunrise you’d welcomed would be in his honor—and in honor of every life you refused to let slip through the seam of preparedness and compassion.
The ride into the city feels shorter than it should—five stops of the elevated train, steel wheels screeching like a tuning fork whose pitch only your nerves can hear. You step onto the platform just as sunrise ignites the skyline, and there it is: Hwarang Medical Center, a cascade of glass and brushed titanium that gleams like a freshly autoclaved scalpel. You’ve dreamed of this façade since childhood, since evenings when your aunt returned from night duty still smelling faintly of isopropyl and lavender hand soap, telling stories about miracle codes and impossible saves. Even then, you memorized the hospital’s silhouette the way other children memorize constellations, certain that one day you would trace those lines from the inside.
Crossing the plaza, you step past a bank of security turnstiles, your badge swiping against the scanner’s soft green glow before a quiet click grants you passage. Uniformed officers stand sentinel in glassed alcoves. shoulders squared, eyes flicking between screens that cascade live feeds from cameras tucked into every corner. Doors hum shut behind you, their magnetic seals snapping like vault gates, and you realize every corridor is a secured zone, every elevator ride tracked by log-ins and time stamps. It feels less like a hospital and more like a citadel of care, where the most precious cargo, human life, moves under watchful guard, shielded from chaos by this silent network of vigilance.
The main entrance rises in tiers of transparent panels, each etched with microscopic text. quotes from pioneers of medicine in six languages, so that morning light fractures into prismatic lines across the marble. A brass plaque by the revolving door lists accolades like battle honors: Ranked #1 in trauma outcomes eight consecutive years; first in the nation to perform whole-organ 3-D–printed tracheal transplants; Level-I pediatric burn center with a ninety-eight percent survival rate. Your pulse skitters in your throat. This is the arena that minted Huang Renjun, the cardiothoracic prodigy whose single-incision valve repairs rewrote surgical textbooks. It’s the same place your aunt once led RRTs as charge nurse, her quiet efficiency now woven into the corridors’ muscle memory. It’s also home to Kim Jungwoo, director of neurovascular surgery, whose fingertip-precise bypasses rescued strokes once deemed untreatable; Sim Jaeyun, head of pediatric oncology, who pioneered immunotherapy protocols that turned childhood leukemias from death sentences into chronic manageable diseases; and Park Sunghoon, the trauma bay’s iron-nerved architect, whose mastery of damage-control surgery has pushed survival rates in multi-system trauma beyond anything the country thought possible. Each name is a legend here, each specialty a testament to the brilliance you’re about to join.
Inside, the lobby dwarfs every lecture hall you’ve ever occupied. Twin atria vault six stories high, latticed with sky bridges that float like glass arteries, moving white coats in continuous circulation. Beneath your shoes, Italian travertine gleams warm and bone-smooth, inlaid with brass lines that guide patient flow the way conduction fibers guide an impulse through the myocardium. Ahead, a cylindrical elevator bank rises like a transparent column of light, capsules zipping up to specialized wings: Burn & Reconstructive (5), Transplant ICU (6), Neurointervention Suites (7), Robotic OR Theater (9-11), and the crown—SkyGarden Pediatric Pavilion (roof), where therapy dogs and botanists coax children toward photosynthesis.
You pause near an interactive directory whose screen blossoms at your approach, offering a topographic map of the hospital’s sixteen clinical floors. There is an entire wing devoted to hybrid endovascular labs; another to regenerative medicine where scaffold bioprinters hum day and night. The trauma bay boasts negative-pressure resus rooms lined with high-speed CT gantries; the helipad above is floodlit with amber LEDs, capable of receiving rotorcraft in zero-visibility snow. A scrolling sidebar lists more than a dozen Centers of Excellence, from the Hwarang Fetal Surgery Institute to the Comprehensive Craniofacial Program, each a citadel of expertise you once outlined on index cards now yellowed with time.
A security badge check later, you enter the staff concourse: vaulted ceiling, acoustic panels shaped like DNA helices, and a living moss wall irrigated by recycled condensate. The smell hits you—clean vinyl, hand sanitizer sharp as gin, and something faintly floral that the environmental services team diffuses to keep visitor cortisol low. Every few steps, touchscreens bloom with patient metrics, lab values updating in real time like stock tickers, and digital wayfinding arrows shift to account for foot-traffic density. You glimpse a cluster of white coats around a stainless-steel coffee kiosk; at its center stands Dr. Huang himself, unmistakable even from behind: spine ruler-straight, silver-lined temples, discussing mitral valve chordae as casually as weekend weather.
You find the bank of elevators reserved for trainees, color-coded blue the shade of pre-dawn scrubs. and scan your provisional badge. As the doors close, you catch your reflection: wide eyes, pulse bobbing at your throat, yet posture squared by years of 3 AM anatomy sessions and cadaver labs that smelled of formalin and determination. You recall how, during med school, professors called you quiet but with good instincts, first to flag a silent anastomotic leak during rounds. Those same nights you’d fallen asleep propped against library stacks, cardiology atlases open like wings. All of that has brought you here, into a lift that hums like a tuning fork, carrying you toward the intern locker room on ‘Level 3 Graduate Medical Flood.’
The doors part onto a corridor paneled in light-oak veneer. Digital plaques list each residency track: Surgery, Trauma & Critical Care, Neuroscience and Pediatric Surgery—yours. Your palms prickle with sweat that smells faintly of latex gloves, and you think of your aunt again, her mantra echoing: Chart with your ears, treat with your heart, cut with your mind. You run through your mental library: neonatal sepsis pathways, pediatric burn fluid formulas, the Parkland equation singing in the back of your skull. Each fact unspools in perfect order, ready to bear the weight of real blood, real time limits. Before you push open the locker-room door, you glance through a side window at the main corridor. Nurses glide in teal uniforms, residents in jewel-toned caps flash past, and a transport team wheels a bassinet with an ECMO pump rhythmic as a lullaby. Your breath catches: this is the heartbeat you have followed since childhood, siphoned through bedtime stories of miracle codes. Today, at last, you aren’t an eavesdropper outside the ICU glass—you’re part of the rhythm. You square your shoulders, tug the strap of your bag, and let the door swing wide into the noise of possibility.
The operating room feels charged, as if every light, every tray of polished instruments, is holding its breath in anticipation. Beneath the constellation of overhead lamps, you and twenty of your new colleagues, six of you women, stand in a rough semicircle around the steel altar. You were chosen from over half a million hopefuls; the plan was to take twenty, but the board, including Dr. Baekhyun himself, couldn’t resist adding one more exceptional applicant. Today, you carry not only your own hopes but the gratitude of every life that might depend on your hands. Dr. Byun Baekhyun enters without fanfare, his crisp coat billowing behind him like a banner. He pauses in the center, scanning each face with eyes that have borne witness to miracles and heartbreak in equal measure. The click of his shoes on tile is steady as a metronome, measuring out the seconds before he speaks.
Dr. Byun Baekhyun, the undisputed titan of Hwarang Medical Center’s surgical wing, needs no introduction—yet here it is. A general surgeon by training, he spearheaded the first single-incision pancreaticoduodenectomy in the country, slashing average recovery times in half and rewriting textbooks in the process. He holds dual fellowships in trauma and transplant surgery, has published over two hundred peer-reviewed articles, and lectures annually at the World Surgical Congress. Twice awarded the National Medal for Clinical Innovation, he’s saved lives on every continent, from disaster zones in Southeast Asia to conflict hospitals in Eastern Europe. His name is spoken in reverent tones by nurses and whispered with awe by residents. “Each of you comes here hopeful,” he begins, voice measured but carrying to the furthest corner of the room. “A month ago, you were med students—learning how to suture, how to soothe, how to stand in the wings.” He lifts a scalpel, letting the blade catch the light. “Today, you are the surgeons. You’re here because, from over five hundred thousand applicants, only twenty-one were deemed worthy. You carry the board’s vote of confidence, an extra slot granted only because one of you simply couldn’t be left behind.”
He paces slowly, gloved fingertips brushing retractors as if greeting old friends. “This hospital is not a place for comfort,” he continues, “but it is a place for transformation. We are a teaching hospital—where even the greatest among us learned to bend and break before we found our edge. You will be pushed beyond anything you’ve imagined: through fatigue, through fear, through days when you wonder if you can take another step. But you will not walk these corridors alone.” He stops, gaze locking on each of you in turn. “Look to your left, then to your right. These are your surgical family. Eight of you will switch to easier specialties, five of you will crack under the pressure, two of you will be asked to leave. And the rest—if you endure—will become the doctors who save lives, who teach others in turn, who carry forward the legacy of this place.”
He lowers the scalpel and folds his arms. “Patients don’t remember your fatigue. Families don’t remember your doubts. They remember results—and they remember how you met their gaze when their world was falling apart. Your job is to learn—quietly, precisely, relentlessly. When you are the ones bleeding in the OR, your team will be the reason you stand.” His voice softens just enough to hint at the kinship he expects you to forge. “This is your crucible, yes, but also your community. Here, brilliance meets humanity. Here, mentors carve champions from raw potential. Here, you will laugh when relief arrives, and you will weep beside one another when it does not.” He steps back, the fluorescent glow catching the fine lines at the corners of his eyes. “This is day one of the best—and worst—seven years of your life. This is your arena. How well you play is up to you. Dismissed.” In the sudden stillness that follows, you feel every fiber of the room resonate with possibility, and with the unspoken promise that you will carry each other through whatever comes next.
Dr. Byun lowers his gaze, sweeping the circle of interns one last time. The humming lights catch the silver in his eyes as he delivers the final decree: “All interns, report to the Commons on Level 3. Wait there until your resident calls your name, don’t wander off.” His voice, cool and unwavering, hangs in the antiseptic air like a benediction. And with that, the surgical cathedral falls silent, your directive sealed beneath that final, unyielding command.
You step through the swinging doors into a gentle hush, the polished floors and sheer glass walls dissolving the world behind you until it feels bathed in quiet light—like crossing into a sanctuary built of careful hands and whispered prayers. Yet before you’ve fully taken in the brightness, something stirs at the edge of your awareness: the soft glide of a nurse passing by, her hair coiled into a halo of midnight, and for a moment you’re elsewhere—in your aunt’s old ward, where fluorescent lamps hummed lullabies and your small hand curled around her scrub pocket for a hidden peppermint. The faint tang of antiseptic lingers in the air, edged with lemon and memory, and without conscious thought your feet drift toward that phantom corridor you haven’t walked in years, drawn by the echo of every step you once took under kinder lights.
You inhale that scent like a prayer, letting it carry you back to afternoons when you dawdled behind your aunt in those very halls—her laughter soft and knowing as she steered you away from the bleak corners, her fingers brushing yours to steady you when the overhead lights felt too bright. You remember her voice, calm as warm broth, reading your scraped knee like it was the most important case in the world. You remember how she’d press a cool gauze pad to your tears, whispering, “Bravery doesn’t mean you don’t cry; it means you keep going.”
In your mind’s eye, she stands at the nurses’ station, sleeves rolled up, her badge catching the fluorescent gleam. You’d perch on a stool beside her, entranced by the rhythm of her rounds—the soft shush of charts, the rustle of stock orders, the gentle hum of equipment—each sound a note in the melody that taught you medicine was both precision and grace. She’d show you how to fold bandages into neat little packets, how to say “hello” to a frightened child so they might believe the hospital was a place of healing, not harm.
You drift, chest tightening with that curious ache of wonder you’ve always carried. In childhood, large supermarkets were your secret palaces, aisles echoing with the music of overhead piped-in pianos and rows of oranges glowing like miniature suns. Back then, you’d weave between carts, fingertips grazing fruit, unafraid and marveling at unexpected miracles tucked into every corner. Now, that same instinct pulls you away from the clustered interns, drawing you toward the soft murmur of a distant HVAC grate, toward the invisible pulse of this hospital’s heart. You press your palm flat against the cool wall because you have to listen, you have to feel. The concrete hums beneath your fingertips, a private lullaby of ventilators and IV pumps, each beat a reminder that you belong to something far larger than the rigid schedules and locked-down protocols.
By the time you blink free of the memory, the Commons is empty. The high-backed stools stand forlorn around the central table. Dr. Byun’s voice has faded to a distant echo, replaced by the slow drip of a broken faucet somewhere down the hall and the soft whirr of an unattended air vent. Panic flares across your collarbones. You spin on the balls of your feet: no fellow interns to guide you back, no whisper of a displaced co-worker. You are entirely, achingly alone in the labyrinth. Your heart hammers as you realize your error, but there’s no shame in the twitch of relief when you catch a sliver of yellow light from the emergency wing ahead, a hint of what pulled you here in the first place. You step toward it, each footfall echoing down the corridor like footsteps in an empty cathedral. And though the Commons called your name for orientation, this pulse — this luminous thrum beneath your palm, this radiant promise of small life waiting in the shadows — has claimed you instead.
You straighten your spine and breathe deep, tasting the hospital’s electric charge on your tongue. It’s not lostness; it’s a summons. Every nerve in your body hums with the recognition that this is where you’re meant to be — even if it means straying from the path you thought was laid for you. As the yellow beacon ahead shifts into view, you realize you’ve already begun your true orientation. Welcome to the pulse of Hwarang.
You stand beneath the fluorescent hum as thunder mutters through the hospital’s steel spine, a low rumble that shakes the windows like distant drums. Outside, rain lashes the glass façade in staccato sheets, each droplet a metallic tattoo against the building’s skin. Inside, the air tastes of sharpened antiseptic and cooling vents, tremoring in your chest like the hush before the tide breaks. A flicker of the lights ripples overhead—once, twice—casting the corridor into momentary darkness before they blaze back to life, revealing walls that gleam like pillars in a storm-forged cathedral. Your hand tightens on your badge, its weight suddenly thunderous against your palm, and you breathe in the electric charge that threads between the lights. Somewhere beyond these doors, a wave of chaos gathers—an unseen tide of alarms and footsteps soon to crash through this quiet. For a heartbeat, you stand poised at the eye of it all, every nerve alive with the anticipation of disaster, every breath a promise that you’ll meet the coming storm.
The peace fractures in an instant. A heavy thud echoes from beyond the frosted doors—a single, urgent heartbeat in the corridor’s quiet. You pivot, heart hammering, as the light ahead shivers and warps, a yellow beacon bending into a warning. In the slit of vision beneath the door, a figure bursts through: a construction worker, rain still pooling on his shoulders, face creased with desperation. Clutched to his chest is something small, so still that for a moment you think it’s a kit of instruments. Then the yellow towel shifts, and your breath stutters.
“Please—someone help her! Don’t just stand there!” His voice splinters the air, raw and ragged as a wounded bird’s cry. You step forward, adrenaline uncoiling in your veins, but your feet lock as the hallway snaps into hyperdrive. Monitors scream to life in adjacent rooms, a metal cart screeches around the corner, and the crisp click of a stethoscope being snatched by a nurse falls like thunder. She’s already two steps ahead, gloved fingers tracing the baby’s lines, prepping the portable warmer with an efficiency born of countless nights just like this. You watch her rhythm—warm fluid, oxygen mask, suction device—each motion precise as a surgeon’s, each breath a direction in a frantic ballet.
“Prepare the portable warmer. Page pediatrics—now!” Her voice is tight, a taut wire cutting through panic. You feel her rigor lock the chaos into a grid of purpose. Then she fixes you with a glare sharper than any scalpel. “Give her to the doctor!” she commands, pointing at you with a force that leaves no room for doubt. The world tilts; you’re the only one in doctor scrubs, you’re barely sixty minutes into your first shift, but every eye snaps to you as though your very name is written across your chest.
In that breath-held instant, her chest lifts—a tremor so slight it could be mistaken for a ghost’s whisper—yet to you it blazes like the heart of a lone sunflower straining up through midnight soil, petals of life unfurling against the weight of oblivion. You feel her fragile warmth press into your sternum, a single ray of molten gold caught in human form, and every fiber of your being fractures between awe and terror. Your arms tremble as though they hold the last sliver of sunrise, every heartbeat in her tiny wrist echoing your own, begging you not to drop that sliver into darkness. Protocol screams in your mind—call for help, clamp the line, secure the airway—but your bones remember a simpler truth, older than manuals: hold her close, shield her from the dying light. And so you stand frozen, soul caught between the dying day and the promise of dawn, cradling a single spark that refuses to be snuffed.
Behind you, the nurse’s steps recede as she rounds up the team, residents, orderlies, respiratory techs, while you stand at the epicenter of this trembling moment, heart echoing in your ears like a cymbal crash. You glance down at her, at the tiny curve of her hairline, the faint crease where the towel presses, the drop of condensation on her eyelash shimmering gold in the glare. “You’re okay,” you murmur, voice trembling with awe and fear, “you’re okay.” And in that whisper, the corridor holds its breath, the hospital’s pulse slows to match yours, and you realize you’ve just become the keeper of her light.
Time dilates around you, the corridor’s fluorescent hum stretching into a low, relentless drone as the baby’s feeble heartbeat flickers against the soft yellow blanket in your arms like a dying neon sign in a rainstorm. You clutch her closer, weight and warmth fused into a single, trembling beam of light. sunflower-gold in your memory, yet you cannot move. Your muscles have locked into a statue’s stillness, every command you ever learned buried beneath the tidal pulse of terror that surges through your veins. Somewhere behind you, distant alarms begin to pound like warning drums, but you remain motionless, locked in the gravity of her need. It’s only when a voice splits the haze—sharp as a scalpel’s edge—that the moment fractures and you remember how to breathe.
You stand rooted to the spot, breath lodged in your throat, as if the world has tilted on its axis and left you dangling between heartbeat and collapse. The baby in your arms murmurs a single, tentative sigh, a sunflower seed cracking open in winter, and you realize you’ve been holding her too tightly, as though you could squeeze life back into her. Your mind races through every neonatal protocol you’ve memorized, but your body remains a statue of shock and awe. “Give her to me! Why are you just standing there?” The command cuts through the corridor’s drone like a thunderbolt. You flinch, clutching the yellow blanket as though it might shield you from both his rage and the hospital lights. It takes a moment—two, maybe three heartbeats—before your limbs remember their purpose. You step back, paling, and hold out the baby like an offering.
When his hands close around her, it’s not the fierce snap of authority you expect but a gentle cradle, as if her fragility has carved tenderness into his fingertips. You glance up, and there he is: Dr. Na Jaemin, the name you’ve only ever seen etched in journal mastheads, now carved in living flesh before you. His hair is streaked with silver at the temples, as though lightning once struck a single promise into him; his cheekbones catch the harsh lights in angled planes of shadow and steel. His gaze, storm-wracked and luminous, sweeps you once, the flicker of recognition in his eyes softening them for a heartbeat, before it contracts back into the command of a man who has known hunger, fear, and hope in equal measure. You watch, breath returning in uneven gusts, as he settles the baby onto your shared station: a counter of stainless steel that glints like a mirror catching sunbeams. He checks her pulse, two fingers pressed to the curve of her wrist, reading the rhythm as if it were a sunlit sonnet carved in Morse code. He leans in, eyes narrowing, and you see the faintest tremor in his jaw—something you’ve never seen in journals or at conferences—a tether of vulnerability when a life so delicate demands his full attention.
“Clear trauma bay,” he mutters under his breath, not loud enough for staff outside the sliding doors to hear, but as precise as any vital sign. “Get me warm NS at forty.” The nurse scurries at his side, syringe and tubing in perfect sync. Yet even in the ballet of urgency, he pauses, fingers brushing back a stray curl from the infant’s forehead in a movement as reverent as a benediction. It is a gesture you will replay in your mind for nights to come, a single sunbeam in a sky of surgical steel.
As monitors begin their urgent chorus, you take a trembling step back, hands still empty of her weight but full of tremulous relief. The baby’s chest rises again, a single petal unfolding in dawn’s first light. He catches your eye then, just for a flicker, and you are no longer the rookie who froze—you are the keeper of her spark. In that moment, amid the rush of alarms and whispered hierarchies, you understand the gravity of trust: he needed those long, pale arms to move. And though neither of you knows it yet, that shared heartbeat beneath the hum of fluorescent halo will bind you in ways no protocol ever could.
“If you’d hung like that for another second, she would’ve died.” His words strike like shards of ice, and you lift your gaze to him—his presence at once promise and warning, every line of his face etched by battles with life and death. Dr. Na Jaemin, renowned chief resident and pediatric surgeon, stands before you, his reputation whispered in reverent tones through every corridor. His features are a map of obsession and precision—high cheekbones angled like razor blades, eyes the color of storm-wracked skies, mouth set in a vow of steel. He moves with the fluid economy of someone who has saved lives by the count of hundreds, yet tonight he is two steps away, stretching out long-fingered hands that seem designed to cradle rather than cut. You’d read his CV: summa cum laude, fellowship in neonatal cardiac surgery, inaugural surgeon in the country to repair a hypoplastic heart via a single thoracotomy. You’d only ever seen him in blurred action shots on medical journals, an apparition in half-glove and surgical cap. And now, here he is—real, urgent, scolding you for a hesitation that almost cost her everything.
His voice is still a blade of authority: “Move her to the warmer. Now.” You stumble, cheeks flushing under stark lights that feel too bright, too public. As he works—tenting her fragile chest with warm hands, unleashing catheters and cameras, barking precise numerical orders, you shrink into yourself, remembering every cautious step you took to become a doctor, only to freeze at the moment that mattered most. Yet even as embarrassment chokes you, you’re vaguely aware of relief stirring: he’s here, the best healer of little babies in the entire country, and under the arc of his command, this tiny life might endure. In that pulse of shared focus—his surgical calm meeting your frantic need to atone—you glimpse the first shaky thread of a bond that will bind you together in ways you cannot yet imagine.
“Scrub in with me, now,” he snaps, voice sharp as steel. “There’s no one else around, and I don’t have time to wait for doctors to answer their pagers.” Your feet move before your mind can protest, carrying you into the storm at his heels as the corridor dissolves into a blur of urgency and light. The fluorescent world contracts into a narrow, lightning-bright path straight to the OR. He doesn’t wait to see if you follow. His focus fixes on the bundle cradled against his chest, on the frail clockwork pulse beating a countdown beneath the yellow towel. You catch only a glimpse of his profile—jaw set like carved steel, eyes narrowed into twin coals of urgency—and then you’re running, soles slapping vinyl, breath tearing raw lines down your throat.
Nurse Yuha arrives at your side with the precision of a metronome, her silver braid swinging against her scrub collar. She doesn’t pause for explanation. “Hold that door,” she instructs, keying the release on the magnetic latch. “We’ll transfer her under a blanket only. skip the overhead warmer, she can’t tolerate the heat spike. Set oxygen at twenty-five percent on the T-piece and have a self-inflating bag ready in case her saturation dips below eighty-five.” In the span of a heartbeat, she has armed an entire crash cart with suction tubing, endotracheal tubes, and emergency epinephrine, her every motion a lesson in crisis-born certainty, while your own hands still tremble with textbook promise.
The corridor transfigures into a warpath. Cabinets unlatch with a clatter as orderlies fling open drawers, metal carts thunder to life behind you, and overhead lights strobe in urgent crescendos. A voice crackles from the intercom: “Surgical team, egress to OR three—code neonatal!” Red-badged technicians materialize at your flanks, guiding backstanders out of the way with brisk nods. Jaemin runs, the corridor’s neon haze stretching before him, but his gaze stays welded to the fragile sunbeam cradled against his chest—a living shard of dawn he refuses to let slip away. His legs pump like pistons, heart thrumming in time with the baby’s faint pulse, every muscle coiled to shield that trembling light from the encroaching dark. In that instant, he becomes her living eclipse, channeling all his brilliance and fury into a single vow: he will save her, and he will keep her flame alive.
Inside the scrub bay, time dilates and pressure coagulates. You step before the sink—stainless steel reflecting your pale reflection—and bring your hands beneath the surgical soap, feeling the antiseptic burn like absolution. Mint-scented foam catches under your nails as you count your scrubs’ layered lather, each rotation a vow to shade fear with action. The dryer bellows above, gusting sterile warmth over your wrists until they still. Never again, you promise your trembling palms. Never again will you let hesitation eclipse a life. When your gloves snap on, Yuha stands sentinel at the door. Her gaze softens with hard-won kindness as she checks your doubled knots and tucked cap. “This is your first neonatal crunch,” she says quietly, voice steady as a mother’s heartbeat. “Don’t blink, breathe with her rhythm, ensure your reactions are quick. I’ll scrub in behind you.” She steps back into the blur of the corridor’s chaos, leaving only the echo of her calm to guide you.
The OR door slides open on a pneumatic sigh, white light flooding the threshold like judgement and mercy entwined. There, at the center of that brilliant glare, stands Dr. Na, silhouetted against the beam, clothed in the conviction of someone who has cut open sorrow and stitched it back together. In his arms, the sleeping infant trembles beneath the yellow blanket, her fragile life balanced on the precipice of steel and skill. As you cross into that cathedral of urgency, your heartbeat finds its counterpoint in the monitor’s beeps, and you feel the vow in your blood answer the call: you will not let her light extinguish tonight.
The overhead lights flicker to life, folding the operating room into a blinding cathedral of white. Instruments gleam on a stainless-steel tray like mirrors catching sunbeams—cold, clinical, and unforgiving. Dr. Na lays the infant on the warm drape of the surgical table with hands gentler than a prayer but firmer than any lullaby, positioning her as though she is the axis upon which the world must turn. You stand at the edge of the table, scrub-clad and heart pounding, watching the fragile curve of her ribs under the thin blanket, the ghost of a bruise pressed into her lip, and knowing this is the moment her story will be rewritten.
His voice cracks the hush: “Vitals.” You see the anesthetist lean in, listening to the faint flutter of her heartbeat, fingers poised on the pulse oximeter. Jaemin’s tone drops to a razor’s edge: “Clamp ready.” He doesn’t wait for confirmation, only the soft click of clamps sliding into position. “Suction prepped.” The scrub nurse moves with preternatural calm, her hands tracing the tubing like a practiced ballet. Then Dr. Na turns to you with a single, precise question: “Tell me what we know.”
Nurse Yuha’s voice comes steady, factual as a ledger: “Jane Doe. Newborn, female. Estimated three to four days old. No identifying tags, no maternal notation. Found by construction personnel in the rooftop garden less than an hour ago. Social Services is on line two.” The words hang in the air like thunder before the storm, each syllable a testament to abandonment and desperation.
Dr. Na pauses, his eyes sweeping the infant’s pale skin as if reading a secret map. Her chest barely moves, each inhalation a battle. He dips two fingers to her ribs, pressing gently, and murmurs, almost to himself, “Miracle she’s still breathing.” His lips quirk in a shadow of bitter irony. “What kind of person leaves a child to die like this?”
A nurse offers a soft counterpoint: “Perhaps they thought it was mercy.” He doesn’t answer; a single tic flickers at the corner of his jaw, and then, almost tenderly, he brushes a stray lock of hair from the baby’s forehead as though shielding a single sunbeam from the void.
Your voice quivers but holds as you begin the presentation, your eyes fixed on the bundle of yellow cloth and cyanotic skin. “Jane Doe, estimated three to four days old,” you recite, fighting to keep your tone clinical. “Presentation: cyanosis of lips and fingers, tachypnea at sixty breaths per minute, core temperature thirty-four point six, systolic pressure in the forties. Weight one point eight kilograms. Uneven tone, intermittent tremors, possible neonatal abstinence. Priority is resuscitation, then stabilization.”
Dr. Na nods once, expression carved from granite sorrow. He stands at the head of the table, gloved hands already spanning the infant’s skull and shoulders with impossible tenderness. A bead of sweat slips past his temple and vanishes into his mask. You continue, flipping the stat sheet with trembling fingers. “Labs on arrival: glucose twenty, oxygen saturation sixty-eight, arterial pH seven-point-one, severe acidosis. Heart rate two-ten and erratic. No record, no APGAR, no prenatal history—she’s a Jane Doe on the edge.”
Dr. Na’s jaw flexes; his eyes never leave the baby. “She hasn’t even cried yet,” he murmurs, more invocation than complaint. He settles the stethoscope dome against her chest, listening to the ragged symphony within. He moves with a gentle savagery: two fingers beneath her jaw, assessing airway; thumb stroking her sternum, measuring rise and fall. “We’re treating for exposure, possible sepsis, maybe pneumothorax,” he summarizes, voice low but certain. “If the tamponade's hiding under that cyanosis, we’ll see it on the first pass—scalpel.”
Nurse Yuha presses the instrument into his waiting hand, her touch light but unerring. Jaemin leans in close—so close you can see the soft tremor in his breath against her ear—his voice a low incantation of warmth. “Hold on, sunshine,” he murmurs, the words sliding through the air like silk, carrying an unfathomable gentleness that seems reserved for the smallest, most vulnerable among us. “It’s not your turn to leave.” In that moment, the quiet insistence of dawn coaxes petals open after the longest night. You watch as his calloused fingertips, so steady over a surgeon’s steel, curl protectively around her hooded form, and you understand how a man who wields a scalpel with unyielding resolve can also weave tenderness with a single whispered vow.
His blade splits her skin in a deliberate arc, an act of violence meant purely for rescue. Blood wells, dark and sluggish, and a hush falls over the room, as though everyone is praying in languages they’ve forgotten. You count her pulse aloud, one-one-five, one-one-seven, while Jaemin parts tissue to reveal a single, malformed vessel thrumming beneath. You feel the ground shift beneath your feet.
“Truncus,” he breathes, voice cracking as though the word itself tastes of sorrow. He pauses, hand hovering over her pale chest, and exhales a shuddering sigh that rattles the sterile air like distant thunder. His shoulders slump, and for a heartbeat, he carries the weight of every choice he’s made—every life he’s saved and every one he couldn’t—in the storm-gray hollows beneath his eyes. Then he straightens, resolve coiling through him like steel tempered in grief. “That’s why you’re blue.” His tone is softer now, braided with pity and fierce determination. He turns on his heel. “Page Cardiology. She needs a conduit, stat.” The room snaps back to action, but he remains a moment longer, chest heaving, as if he’s inhaled her pain into his own ribs. When no one moves fast enough, he snaps again, sharper, colder: “Conduit kit, ten-French Dacron—now!”
You fetch it with numbed speed, hands no longer trembling because the work consumes the fear. Jaemin fashions the graft in silence, each precise motion a note in a lullaby only he can sing. When the new conduit seats against the miniature heart and oxygen saturation climbs past eighty-five, the monitor trills a fragile, hopeful melody. Jaemin closes his eyes. For the first time, you see his shoulders relax—just an inch—as if absorbing the weight he’s kept at bay.
The minute the graft slips into place and the conduit’s synthetic fibers align with her trembling myocardium, the monitor’s pitch, once a dirge, arcs up into a fragile aria of hope. Jaemin exhales, a sound as heavy as night rain, and for a heartbeat you see his shoulders uncoil, the storm-gray hollows around his eyes softening just enough to reveal the toll this life has taken. But relief is a fickle thing in this room; he steadies himself against the rail, voice low and urgent.
“Get me blood cultures, stat,” he commands, gloved fist knocking rhythm against the stainless bench. “And draw a full panel — CBC, CMP, toxicology screen. I want an echo in ninety minutes, and MRI when she’s strong enough.” He pauses, turning to you with eyes that still burn with purpose. “Tell me what her pressures were pre-op,” he asks, tapping his pen against her chart as though scratching out every second of her suffering.
You glance at the scrawled numbers: systolic pressure in the forties, diastolic near the teens, acidosis marked at pH 7.1. Your voice catches before you offer, “Systolic forty-five, diastolic twelve. Her lactate was seven-point-four.”
Dr. Na nods once, the rhythm of his approval as precise as sutures tightened to a single millimeter. “Good,” he says, softer now, but still carrying the weight of night. “You’re steady. Keep it that way.”
He crouches beside the table, fingers tracing the lines of her tiny sternum as though reading a map of every life she might lead. “This conduit is only stage one,” he breathes, voice almost a whisper, as if confessing a secret. “She’ll need a full repair once she’s six kilos, we’ll patch the VSD, replace this with a long-term conduit but she’s not there yet. Tonight, all we’ve done is give her tomorrow.”
Nurse Yuha steps in, laying down a fresh blanket of gauze. Dr. Na straightens, leaning into your ear with a gentleness that surprises your racing heart. “I’ll need you on sutures,” he murmurs. “This row, hand me the eight-zero Vicryl. I want perfect spacing, no tension.” You fetch the suture tray with hands now firm and sure, sliding the fine, violet thread into his palm. Each knot he ties is a promise, each snip of scissors a vow to keep her star burning. He sutures the incision shut, voice a frayed whisper. “She’s alive. Let’s keep it that way.” You nod, unable to speak past the burn in your throat. As he lifts her into the warmer for transfer, you see his thumb brush the soft rise of her cheek, a gesture so tender it hurts to witness. The room smells of iodine and newborn sweat, of danger deferred. She still hasn’t cried, but her tiny chest rises with steadier intent, and Jaemin’s quiet mantra follows her down the corridor like a prayer.
You wheel the transport isolette out of OR 3 just as dawn stains Hwarang’s eastern windows a hesitant pink. The corridor feels far too large for a life so fragile, every overhead lamp an unblinking witness. Your gloved hand steadies the acrylic shell while Nurse Yuha guides the ventilator cart, its hiss-and-click a metallic lullaby. Jaemin walks ahead, one fingertip pressed to the arterial line as though her pulse might vanish if he lets go. You watch the tentative rise of her chest and whisper the facts you never want to forget.
Cyanosis was the first map of her suffering—lips and fingertips bruised to twilight violet. Tachypnea followed, sixty breaths each minute, small desperate sips of air. Hypothermia curled around her limbs; the probe read thirty-four-point-six. Blood pressure languished at forty over fifteen. All of it explained beneath unforgiving lights when Jaemin opened her chest and found a single arterial trunk—truncus arteriosus—forcing oxygen-rich and oxygen-poor blood into lethal communion. He fixed what he could. Clamp, isolate, conduit: a Dacron lifeline sewn between heart and lung root. A small patch to redirect the river of dark blood. Dopamine coaxing her pressure upward, bicarbonate buffering the acid, epinephrine in sharp, life-snatching pulses. You intubated, set positive pressure, listened to her stiff lungs surrender to the machine’s rhythm.
Now, as you slip into the hush of the NICU, Dr. Na eases the isolette beneath the radiant warmer. He speaks to her in a voice you’ve only heard in operating rooms—quiet, unwavering, the sound of a man who knows how thin the veil can be. “It’s not your turn to leave,” he murmurs while adjusting ventilator settings with deft fingers. The words settle over you like sunrise shifting through stained glass. He brushes the downy fuzz on her scalp—no gloves now, just skin to skin—and you see how this case has already built a home inside his sternum. “You want to stay, don’t you, Sunshine?” he whispers. She can’t yet cry, but her O₂ holds steady beneath the warmer’s halo.
You breathe in the sterile scent of warmed plastic and antiseptic and understand what you’ve learned: abandonment can be rewritten; a single artery can be bridged by silk thread and devotion; a surgeon’s fury can soften into a lullaby. You step back as the night-shift nurse clips new leads to tiny limbs, and the first full beam of morning spills across the tile—golden, trembling, alive. It pools on her blanket like a promise: borrowed tomorrow, delivered today.
You stand in the hush of the NICU, watching Jaemin’s hand glide across the baby’s cheek as her pulse steadies under his touch. The machines’ soft beeps blend with the hush of your own breath. Across the room, Nurse Yuha presses the social worker for answers, shoulders tense. You catch fragments of her voice: “She has no family, no one will claim her, she doesn’t even have a name. We can’t release her to foster care—she simply won’t survive outside our walls.” Your chest twists with heartbreak at the thought of her alone.
You slip toward the door, certain your presence is no longer needed, certain you’ve lost hours in the glow of that tiny life. Just as your scrubs brush the frame, a throat clears behind you—a tut, a cough, an “ahem” that freezes you in place. Your eyes narrow as you turn to see a stern figure framed by the doorway, arms folded beneath a crisp white coat, those storm-cloud eyes daring you to respond. You glance at her name badge and realize, with a jolt, that she’s your resident: Dr. Park Siyeon, the razor-sharp sentinel of these halls, whose very presence makes hospital protocols tremble. “Really,” she begins, voice measured but carrying the weight of thunder, “I’m impressed. Scrubbing into emergency surgery on day one, but missing your own orientation.” Her glare slices through you. “Do you think hospital rules don’t apply to you?”
Your mouth opens, then closes. You stammer, “I—I’m so sorry, Dr. Siyeon. I lost track of time, I didn’t even realise—”
She cuts you off with a lifted hand. “Save it. Eight hours of lectures, eight hours of simulation, and you skip all of it to play hero?” Her voice rises. “There are five rules to survive here. Do not assume your title makes you special.” She excludes no one as she turns to three figures behind her. You sweep your gaze across the trio, committing each face to memory in the split second before they do the same to you. To your left stands a woman with arms crossed and hair wound into a tight braid, lips pressed so thin they might slice wind, the name badge reads Kim Hyejin, intern; her eyes flick to you once, cool and assessing, like a hawk sizing up its prey. Beside her, another figure offers a softer contrast: Han Hayoung, cheeks faintly flushed, lip balm glinting under the harsh lights as she clutches a stack of color-coded notecards; her gentle smile blooms and retreats in equal measure, the sort of kindness that makes patients cling to her hand. And at the end, leaning casually against the lockers, is Kim Jihoon, three pens wobbling behind his ear as though daring gravity to interfere; he gives you a crooked, conspiratorial grin, brows lifting in an unspoken apology for the chaos you’re walking into. In that instant, you realize these are not just passing faces—they are your cohort, and for better or worse, your newfound family.
Siyeon points to the group. “You all heard me. We are a team, and today one of you decided to improvise.” Her tone softens just enough to cut deeper. “I didn’t name these rules for fun. I want you to repeat them back to me.”
Jihoon shuffles forward first, face coloring. “Never—never skip orientation?”
Siyeon raises an eyebrow. “That was rule one?”
Hyejin steps up next: “Answer every page at a run. That’s rule two.”
Hayoung swallows. “When you’re sleeping, don’t wake you up, unless the patient is dying… rule three.”
Siyeon nods. “Correct. Rule four?”
Your voice cracks as you speak: “Run labs, write orders, be on call every night until we drop.” A flicker of surprise ripples through the group, no one expected you to recite the rule verbatim but you swallow hard and meet their eyes, knowing you memorized Dr. Park Siyeon’s expectations in the hours before orientation. You were determined to be prepared, even as you got swept away by the emergent surgery. The hallway seems to hold its breath at your confession, and for the first time, you feel the weight of both your mistake and your resolve.
“Five,” Siyeon snaps. “When I move, you move.” Silence wraps around you all like a reprimand. Before you can respond, a sudden cry from the incubator draws Siyeon’s attention—and yours. The baby stirs, whiskers of light across her face as she wakes. You realize Jaemin has been standing in the doorway, arms folded, listening. At her whimper, he steps forward, voice low but firm: “Keep the shouting far from the NICU, there’s babies here.” Siyeon stiffens, then bows back into her stormy composure. She turns on her heel and strides away. Hyejin, Hayoung, Jihoon—and you—trail behind her, each footstep a promise to never wander so far from the path again. As the doors slide shut behind you, you feel a new responsibility settle in your bones: you belong here, with the rules, with the wonder, with the fight to keep this little sunbeam alive.
You slip into the wide intern corridor just as the frenzy of evening rounds softens into a gentle murmur. Along one wall, four examination beds have been commandeered as an impromptu lunch nook, mattresses folded back, brightly colored blankets thrown over the footrests, and pillows propped against the sterile vinyl for back support. Without ceremony, you all haul your trays onto the pale blue sheets and settle in a loose semicircle beneath the warm glow of the sconce lights. Instinct pulls you straight to the bed draped in that sunflower-yellow blanket. You tuck yourself beneath its folds, the fabric rising against your chest like a shield of warmth, and inhale its familiar softness until your heart un-tangles. Across from you, Hyejin unfolds her lunch with surgical precision, each triangular rice ball arranged like evidence on a tray, her fingers performing the same exact movements she’s practiced on cadavers, sheath of discipline around her calm intensity.
At the next bed, Hayoung lifts a pastel binder and fans through her notes with the grace of a lullaby, her voice low and soothing as she recites patient protocols under her breath, tiny blossoms of care in every careful whisper. And Jihoon sprawls on his borrowed mattress, elbow propped on a stack of neon post-its, regaling them with half-improvised quizzes and goofy mnemonics that scatter laughter like confetti, each bright pen behind his ear a playful war trophy in this battlefield of medicine. Here, under the muted glow of the sconces, you breathe in relief as the yellow blanket’s warmth seeps into your bones, and for a moment, you let yourself believe you’re safe enough to rest, wrapped in sunshine, held by strangers turned kindred, ready to face whatever comes next.
Hayoung nudges you with an elbow, soft as a pillow. “Okay,” she says in her gentle voice, “we want every detail. How did ‘Sunshine’ end up in our arms?” Her eyes gleam with concern and excitement.
Hyejin nudges her rice ball with a chopstick, eyebrows raised. “So what actually happened? Was there dramatic wind? Slow-motion hair flip? Because the nurses are all whispering that Dr. Na swooped in and saved a life.”
Jihoon leans forward, pen in hand, ready to annotate. “We were stuck in a four hour presentation whilst you scrubbed in with the Dr. Na, so don’t spare us the heroics.”
You take a breath, unwrap your sandwich, and begin: “It was just after dawn. A builder burst through with her wrapped in a yellow towel, almost pale as sun-bleached grass, crying one moment, still the next. I didn’t even realise she was a baby, I’ve never held something so small yet lifeless in my arms. I froze completely, I didn’t know what to do. Then Dr. Na appeared, he immediately got to work and ordered me to scrub in. We ran to OR 3, every second ticking off her life like a bomb.” You pause, spoon hovering. Hayoung gives you a gentle smile. “Keep going.”
You describe the incision that revealed a single arterial trunk, a heart born with one artery instead of two, and how Dr. Na, with that gentle fury he reserves for tiny patients, stitched in a Dacron conduit to split her blood streams. You recall the monitor’s alarms softening into hopeful chirps, that first soft tremor of relief in the room. Hyejin’s brows knit as she imagines the sacrifice it took. Jihoon whistled low, “Damn, that’s the work of legends.”
Nurse Yuha’s voice echoes in your memory: “She’s updating her own records now.” You smile, remembering how Yuha once teased you for devouring charts like they were candy.
Hayoung sighs. “I’m so proud of you,” she murmurs, cheeks pink.
Jihoon pats your shoulder. “You didn’t freeze, not where it counted.”
Hyejin leans back, expression softening for the first time that day. “You were born for this.”
You realize the corridor lights have dimmed as the sun sets outside. Four interns, four beds, one shared miracle. And in the hush of that makeshift lunchroom, you all carry a little more warmth than you did before—proof that even in a hospital’s cold corridors, sunlight can bloom in the shape of hope.
You sink into the folded yellow blanket, its sunflower-gold warmth spreading slowly from your shoulders down to your fingertips, and something inside you shifts. You glance around the makeshift lunch nook—Hayoung’s gentle smile as she tucks a stray lock behind her ear, Jihoon’s easy grin as he teases you about your first-day heroics, Hyejin’s rare, half-smile of approval—and realize these faces, once strangers, now feel as familiar as the soft grooves of your own palms. You don’t truly know them, yet you already sense this corridor, these borrowed beds, will be your home. You remember your aunt’s words echoing in your mind: “In hospitals, we bury our grief and plant our courage. The family you find here will choose you back.”
Flash forward a month, and you’re piling suitcases into an apartment just off the hospital grounds, peeling open takeout containers on a wobbly coffee table. The living room walls are too bright, the furniture a mismatched tapestry of thrift-store finds, but it’s yours—yours and theirs. Hayoung hangs fairy lights above the couch and brews ginger tea whenever you stumble in with exhaustion. Jihoon claims the smallest bedroom, swapping trading stories and piping hot ramen at two a.m., his laughter echoing off the walls until your chest aches with relief. Hyejin sets up a whiteboard in the kitchen for shared schedules and pearls of surgical wisdom, her fierce eyes lighting up whenever you solve a med–surg puzzle she’d posed.
Over steaming bowls and battered textbooks, you all learn each other’s rhythms: Hayoung’s gentle way of humming through your mistakes, Jihoon’s uncanny ability to know when you need a joke more than a coffee, Hyejin’s precise nod of encouragement when you’re on the brink of giving up. You fall into the pattern of belonging: mismatched mugs lined up on a shelf, leftover lecture notes plastered to the fridge, the soft thrum of an IV pump reminding you that life and love here are intertwined. In the hush between shifts, while the hospital hums beyond your windows, you realize this is where you belong—a constellation stitched together by shared purpose, laughter, and the unspoken vow to protect one another, just as you protect her—the little sunbeam who first brought you all together.
It’s been forty-eight hours since your shift began, forty-eight hours of adrenaline and trembling hope, but in this hush, all that’s left is you and that tiny form under the warmer’s glow. You haven’t slept more than two hours, and every muscle aches, but you can’t leave without this one pilgrimage. You push through the NICU doors, each step a quiet confession against your own fatigue. Your heels press into the vinyl floor like weights chaining you to the moment you first froze, arms cradling a life you weren’t sure you could save. She lies so small you almost think she might vanish if you breathe too hard. Her cheek is paper-thin beneath your finger, a petal wilting under the hush of the night. You trace the curve of her jaw, so fragile it seems a mere whisper might crack the fragile arc of her bone. Beneath the soft hum of machines, her chest rises and falls in a tremulous whisper, a lullaby of survival you’ve committed to memory: frets of numbers flickering above her isolette, oxygen saturations like fleeting stars. You lean closer, pressing your palm to the glass, as if your warmth could seep through and steady her flickering pulse.
Guilt, sharp as a surgeon’s blade, cleaves your chest. You remember how your hands shook the first time they placed her in your arms, the terrible weight of potential loss. You should’ve been braver than, but you were buried in shock. The world outside this room spins on, but here, time slows to the beat of her tiny heart. You murmur, voice hushed, “I should’ve been braver. You were.” A single tear escapes, sliding down your temple before you catch it. You swallow the catch in your throat and press a knuckle to your lips, hiding your shame in the dim glow. Tonight, you are both witness and guardian—no longer frozen, but forging a promise with every whispered vow and every careful tracing of her fragile skin. As you stand and tuck a stray lock of hair behind your ear, you feel the gravity of this child’s fight bind you tighter to her fate. Tomorrow, you will return. Tonight, you will believe.
You step away from the isolette alcove, each footfall dragging the weight of two sleepless nights deeper into your bones. Ahead, a lone figure stands beneath the corridor’s pale wash, his jacket still speckled with job-site dust, fingers nervously twisting a singed cigarette butt. He hasn’t moved since he handed you that fragile bundle, choosing vigil over rest because no one else claimed her. In the slope of his shoulders you sense a silent history of loss: a hushed house once full of laughter, a child grown too quickly, an absence he cannot fill.
You pause, and he nods toward the isolette as if seeking permission to speak. His voice is rough with the rasp of concrete and early dawn. “I know it’s foolish,” he says, thumb turning the cigarette ash between his fingers, “but she has no one. No mother, no father—or at least, no one who would come. I couldn’t let her wake up and find the world just as empty as when I found her.” His confession hangs in the sterile air, a quiet anthem to abandonment and hope intertwined, and you realize that in this impossible place, compassion can be the bravest act of all. She arrived breathless and alone, a lone star cast into a sky of strangers—and yet here he remains, a steadfast witness to her first fight. His vigil won’t rewrite her beginning, but it stakes a claim on her tomorrow: someone stood guard when the world turned away. In that pledge lies a fragile promise that, even in the vast loneliness of her first breath, she was never truly abandoned.
You halt and offer the quiet reassurance you’ve repeated like a mantra. “She’s stable,” you murmur, voice gentle enough to cradle hope itself. Gratitude flickers across his face, mingled with relief and buried sorrow, as the last ember of smoke drifts upward like a whispered prayer. He inclines his head in solemn thanks, a wordless pact between two strangers bound by a tiny life fighting its first battles. In the lantern-quiet room, his shadow lingers at the periphery, steadfast as a lighthouse beacon, an unvoiced vow that each fragile pulse of hers will be cradled in unwavering warmth, until she unfurls like a dawn flower against the darkness.
You walk to the nurses’ station hushes to its late-night hum, paper crisp beneath your shaking hands. Post-op note, final vitals, incision clean, no drainage, the pen moves by reflex until you reach the blank labeled Name. Your eyes sting before you even feel the wet. Ink blurs where a tear falls, a dark blot over the vacant line that still reads Jane Doe—a designation colder than any scalpel. You swipe your sleeve across the page, remember the name Jihoon had said earlier which warmed your insides. You smear saline and ink, then steady the pen once more. Sunshine.
The letters spread like dawn across the form, soft, certain, impossibly bright. You know it isn’t the name she will carry forever; she deserves a syllable chosen by loving voices, a sound stitched from lineage and dream. But for now, this fits like the first warm day after winter. She is the infant who outlived rooftop frost and surgical steel, who greets every monitor beep with a fearless conviction, who learned to weave light from the smallest crack in the NICU blinds. Under the radiant warmer’s soft amber glow, the IV tubing arcs like spun gold around her isolette; the monitor’s gentle yellow ring pulses in time with her tiny heartbeat; and the single sunburst sticker on her ID bracelet seems to hover above her wrist—every flicker of light drawn irresistibly toward the new centre of its universe.
Sunshine: because her pulse feels like midsummer on a wrist that once knew only cold clamps. Because her hair flickers copper in the glow of warming lamps, a miniature sunrise cresting fragile bone. Because when she opens her eyes, the greys of this hospital back away, walls repainting themselves in honey and marigold and every bright hue that promises survive. Until the day new parents cradle her and press a chosen name against her temple, you’ll keep calling her this small constellation of light—Sunshine—and even Dr. Na, whose voice rarely softens for anyone, lets the word settle like a blessing each time he bends over her crib. You cap the pen, whisper the name once more to the quiet chart—Sunshine, Sunshine—and feel the ward brighten by a fraction, as if the very syllables have pulled another sliver of yellow into this long night, promising her that she has always been more than the darkness that almost kept her.
You stumble out of orientation into your first week of rotations with your chest thrumming. The halls blur into a conveyor belt of chart reviews, lab draws, and never-ending pages. Hyejin strides past you with the precision of a metronome, already deep into her first cardiac consult, while Hayoung flits between rooms with sympathetic smiles and candy wrappers for anyone who admits they’re hungry. Jihoon appears with two coffees in hand—one for you, one for himself—his grin wide but weary as he jokes about how the pajamas in the call room feel softer than his own bed. You find yourself leaning on the reception desk at 2 a.m., replaying protocols in your mind, trying to reconcile your textbook confidence with the hollow ache of every alarm you answered wrong. Energy flickers like a dying bulb, only to be reignited by the adrenaline of every emergency you’ve barely survived.
Nights become a series of half-dreams and grunt-filled awakenings. You curl into the scratchy vinyl of the call room, blanket tangled at your waist, as the fluorescent light above hums an unsteady rhythm. Your phone buzzes with pages you can’t ignore, and you haul yourself upright on trembling knees to run corridors you barely remember navigating in daylight. The caffeine wears off at dawn, leaving you breathless and hollow, but the moment a patient’s vital stabilizes, a rush of triumph surges through you, sharper than any sleep could have been. By the end of the week, exhaustion has carved lines into your face, but so has resolve—each stumble through the ward forging you into someone who doesn’t just watch the clock, but owns every second it hands you.
You’re standing beside Hayoung, nursing a bruised Styrofoam cup of vending-machine coffee, when Siyeon strides into the corridor. Clipboard in hand, her white coat snapped shut like armor, hair twisted into a bun that could take a bullet and shrug it off. The hallway stills beneath her gaze as though it recognizes prey before a hawk. “Today I’m assigning your rotations,” she announces, voice flat and unyielding. “You will spend one week on each service, beginning immediately after rounds. Do not grow attached to your patients. Do not embarrass me.”
“Hyejin—cardio. You like control. Now prove it.”
“Hayoung—OB/GYN. Hope you don’t faint at the first placenta.”
Before Siyeon can finish her list, Jihoon folds his hands in front of his chest and whispers a fervent, “Please let it be neuro…” as if he’s beseeching a higher power. Siyeon glances his way, unimpressed, then continues without missing a beat. “Jihoon—orthopedics.”
Jihoon exhales a dramatic sigh, cheeks flushing, and mutters under his breath, “Of course,” before slumping into line with the rest of you. His fist shoots into the air. “Bone-saw baby,” he mutters under his breath, and you stifle a laugh—until her voice cuts through the corridor like a scalpel.
“You, pediatrics.” She pauses, letting the words linger. Then, almost quietly: “Since you’ve already made quite the impression.” A twitch at the corner of her mouth, half-smirk, half-sneer, says she means every mocking syllable.
Hayoung slides a hand to your arm, warm and steady. Hyejin lifts a single brow, amusement glinting in her eyes. Jihoon whistles low. “Damn, already chosen? Teach me your ways.” You force a nod, but your heart isn’t in the applause. In its place flashes the memory of a girl no bigger than your palm, taped to life-support machines like whispered prayers. You haven’t seen her, or Dr. Na, in a week, every waking thought still tethered to that rooftop rescue. When the group disperses, your legs carry you forward on autopilot. Your ID badge winks in the fluorescent glare as you turn toward the pediatric wing. Around you, the buzz of morning rounds fades to a hum; your world condenses to one locked door ahead. The pediatric ward beckons—sunshine and sorrow waiting just beyond its threshold.
You pad down the deserted corridor before dawn, each step a soft patter on pale linoleum that echoes like a newborn meal’s first, uncertain cry. The hospital exhales behind you, its night shift’s pulse still thrumming in empty waiting rooms and silent alcoves. With every corridor you cross, your ID badge swings gently, a little seed bobbing on a slender stalk, marking the slow growth of your resolve. The scrubs you donned this morning feel too crisp, too untouched—like a swaddling cloth that has yet to cradle any life—and you realize turning back is no longer an option. A fresh day waits just beyond these doors, and inside them, a babe teetering between breath and stillness has already claimed you.
You haven’t had a reason to cross these doors since that first desperate night, but your feet carry you in hurried unison, as though your heart has been tugging on your ankles all week, aching and desperate for this moment. The pediatric wing stretches before you, its pastel walls humming with echoes of lullabies and soft sobs. You feel every craving it holds: to cradle small lives, to answer silent pleas, to stand guard at the edge of breath. The air grows thick, almost viscous, as if the very walls are holding their breath. You pause at the sliding doors of the NICU, tracing the faint scuff where you first crossed this threshold. How your scrubs were wet with someone else’s terror then, how your heart ached like it had been grafted into another body.
You press the sensor and the doors part with a soft sigh, revealing a silent army of innocence suspended between life and machine. Rows of incubators line the dim corridor, each one cradling a baby no older than a prayer—skin ghostly, limbs bundled in tubes that pulse with borrowed breath. The air tastes of antiseptic and sorrow, weighted by the soft hiss of ventilators and the rhythmic whoosh of warmers fighting to stave off the cold. You catch glimpses of tiny chests rising against impossible odds, IV lines snaking like vines through ghostly forests of whipped-up sheets, and every face you meet is etched with the fragility of a spark that should never have been left to gutter.
Somewhere ahead, a nurse’s shoe squeaks, a soft interruption in the hush. You step forward, heart tightening, as the pale glow of each warming lamp bathes the incubators in a sickly yellow haze, light attempting to stitch warmth into envelopes of translucent skin. Each bed feels like its own graveyard vigil, each monitor’s alarm a tolling bell for lives that might slip away before morning. You realize you’re holding your breath, as though any exhale might extinguish one of these flickering miracles.
Dr. Na settles into the faded green feeding chair, the one he claimed after two sleepless nights. His coat sleeves are rolled to the elbow, revealing forearms taut with lean muscle, and the overhead lights scatter prisms across his dark hair. You pause, heart tightening, as you watch him cradle the nameless newborn, still called “Jane Doe” by official records, in the crook of one arm. His other hand tilts the bottle with a surgeon’s precision, the milk creeping toward her lips in a forgiving arc. She opens her eyes for the first time. rims of dusk around tiny iris pools, and you almost catch the tremor of recognition in her gaze. The soft slur of her suckling is gentle but hungry, a whispered plea that reverberates through your chest.
He leans in, the crease of his jaw softening, and murmurs something so low it is swallowed by the hum of ventilators and the slow hiss of humidifiers. Each word is a caress, though you can’t make out the syllables; it’s the way his voice cups her pain with velvet warmth, like lullaby light behind closed eyes. Her slurps falter into a hiccup of tears—pain lancing through her, honest and raw—but he never pulls away. Instead, his fingertips brush away the tears, tender as if guiding a lost bird back to its nest. In that moment, you see the full measure of his devotion: a doctor whose hands can cut through flesh with cold certainty, yet cradle this tiny life with a gentle gravity that feels nothing like professionalism and everything like love. The air between you fills with something new—an unspoken promise that this small, wounded soul will know care at first touch, and that Jaemin’s vigilance, once so distant, now burns bright beside her.
Your breath catches—not from surprise at finding him here, nor from the sight of her cheeks flushed rosier than before, but because together they look whole, a constellation formed from two solitary stars. You hesitate at the threshold, the sanitizer dispenser gurgles as you wash your hands, each drop of soap a ritual to clear the ghosts of last week. Your heart thuds, synchronized to the soft pulse of her monitor. You clear your throat. “I’m in pediatrics this week,” you say, voice steadier than you feel, offering your name and intention like a key.
Jaemin straightens, gaze still fixed on her pale brow. His ears tune to your words without turning. Then, crisp as a scalpel’s blade: “You’re late. Close the door behind you.”
You cross the threshold and stop, catching your breath at how much she’s grown, her limbs still the length of your palm but carrying the promise of tomorrow’s strength. Yet as you lean closer, your heart skips: she still can’t breathe on her own. Her tiny chest heaves only when the ventilator urges it, each mechanical sigh a reminder of how close she still hovers to darkness. Tubes and wires cling to her like crystalline vines—feeding lines, oxygen cannulas, IV catheters—all converging on the brightest constellation in this quiet galaxy. You notice the gentle rise of her brow as if she’s dreaming of sunlight, her fists unclenching around the soft edge of her swaddle, but the truth sits heavy in your chest: no matter how much color blooms back into her cheeks, she remains tethered to machines that whisper the fragility of her fight. And in that suspended moment, you understand the depths of what you’ve joined—this isn’t just another rotation; it’s your vigil beside the edge of life, and every breath she borrows is a vow you silently renew.
He straightens, shoulders coiling into armor. “We have a long day ahead,” he says, voice clipped and precise as a scalpel’s edge. “I’m scheduled for four back-to-back cases: an emergent appendectomy in OR2, a cricothyroidotomy for that car-accident trauma in OR5, a laparotomy on a perforated ulcer in OR1, and then Sunshine Girl’s second-stage repair.” His gaze flicks to your badge, marking the ten-year gap in your ages, your rookie enthusiasm against his decade of hard-earned scars. You feel the distance between you tighten, yet the air hums with something charged and raw beneath his cool command. He folds his arms—one sleeve pushed above the elbow, veins tracing silver paths—and adds without warmth, “We leave for rounds in five minutes. You’ll also be presenting all the pre-op status’, and then we handle the cascade of post-op care for all four of those cases. Do not be late.” His words hang in the humming corridor, a vow not of comfort but of unyielding expectation. In the silent space between life and blade, you are both servant and sentinel—and there is no room for anything less than perfection.
You slip through the doors, the world outside still hushed in dawn’s half-light. Dr. Na Jaemin leads the way, stride long and unhurried, slipping between isolettes and warmers without so much as a backward glance. You trail a step behind, notebook open, pens at the ready, but there’s no coffee in your hand, no pause for camaraderie or small talk. His gait is purposeful; every door he passes clicks shut like a verdict. You hurry to keep pace, heart thundering like a code alarm in your chest, as he moves through the post-op charts with brisk efficiency.
At the first sign of hesitation in your voice—when you attempt to clarify a knot in a ventilator setting—your words tumble over his brisk instructions. He stops mid-step, the fluorescent glare catching the steel of his loupes, and turns slowly. “If you already know everything,” he says, his gaze as flat as an unblinking monitor, “present the rest of the list.” The ward seems to hush around you; Nurse Yuha stifles a chuckle behind her hand. You swallow, cheeks burning, but press on—reciting your notes with trembling precision. He doesn’t reply, only nods and marches on, leaving you to sink back into the rhythm of charting.
Fifteen minutes later, you’re lost in the glow of the electronic record when he slips in beside you, silent as a scalpel. His finger hovers over a misplaced decimal—a heart rate entry off by a hundredfold—and he leans in so close you feel his breath. “If you’d charted that,” he murmurs, eyes cold with precision, “she’d be paralyzed in seconds.” His voice is velvet over steel. You freeze, then your fingers fly, erasing and re-entering the correct value with trembling haste. After ten seconds of paralysis, you rise and track him down, offering the corrected version on a slim clipboard. He takes it, eyes still fixed on the baby’s chest rise and fall. “Good,” he says, the single word almost tender but you hear the unspoken “thank you” buried beneath its clinical edge.
By eight, you’re scrubbed into your first case: a neonate’s hernia repair. The baby boy is six days old and still frail from premature lungs. You hover with the suction line, breathing in the sterile heat, ready to clear droplets as soon as they appear. When you adjust his vitals just before the incision, Nurse Yuha gives you a discreet nod of approval. Jaemin’s silhouette leans over the tiny patient; he allows you to suction but corrects your grip with a fingertip nudge. You flinch, as though struck, but he offers no comfort—only that half-second of his gaze that lingers like a question you need to answer.
At 11:30, you’re back in the scrubs, this time for a teenage trauma patient’s bowel resection. The field is deeper, the stakes higher, and the flash of blood sends your pulse skittering. You note the transfusion threshold just before the anesthesiologist blurts it out, and Jaemin’s eyebrow arches, an almost-imperceptible salute. Steam ghosts off the stainless faucets, clouding the mirrors as you scrub chlorhexidine from beneath your nails. Your pulse is still racing the clock you just outran in OR-2; the bowel resection’s last suture feels stitched into your own heartbeat. Jaemin stands at the next sink, sleeves shoved to his elbows, water sluicing down forearms etched with long night-shift veins. He never rushes this ritual—thirty strokes, flip, thirty strokes—scrubbing as if absolution can be earned by arithmetic. You glimpse the surgical lamp’s reflection glimmer across the edge of his jaw, and suddenly every fact you’ve ever memorized vibrates for release.
“The inferior mesenteric,” you blurt, voice too quick, “branches at L-3 before it supplies the proximal rectum—so if we’d taken the margins any farther distal—” You hazard a glance. He’s drying his hands, gaze fixed on the floor, the ghost of an eyebrow lifted. Heat flares up your neck, but the words keep falling, dominoes you can’t stop tipping: motility patterns, parasympathetic innervation, rare post-op fistula rates. You talk faster, trying to fill the hush, trying to prove you’ve earned the scrub soap flaking off your wrists, until the echo of your own breathless lecture startles you into silence.
Jaemin folds his towel with surgical precision, tucks it into a bin, and faces you at last. His eyes are the tempered gray of an instrument tray, unreadable but razor-bright. “If you’re going to ramble,” he says, voice smooth enough to slice, “then make it useful. Otherwise, silence is preferable, you’re giving me a headache.” The sting lands clean; you feel it bloom behind your ribs. But then he reaches forward, just two fingers, and adjusts the angle of your mask loop where it’s digging into your ear. “You caught the bleed in there,” he adds, softer, almost an afterthought. “Good.” His hand falls away before you can answer.
You hustle into OR-3 still replaying his “Silence is preferable” in the back of your skull, determined to redeem every breath. The room smells of cautery and cold metal; overhead lights pool like noon-bright moons on a field of blue. Dr. Hwang Renjun, Chief of Cardiothoracic. a legend you once dissected journal articles about, is already gown-gloved, guiding a vascular clamp with the poise of someone who has rerouted more blood than most hearts will ever pump. His profile is thoughtful, serene even, but every gesture is a verdict: precise, unhurried, unforgiving. Jaemin steps in beside him without a word, and you fall into position at suction, pulse thrumming against the tubing. The two men work in a choreography so tight it feels illicit, Renjun’s steady murmurs of “Clamp… tie… next,” Jaemin’s sutures flashing like silver lightning under templed brows. You barely breathe, hyper-aware of the heat of Jaemin’s shoulder a hand-span from yours, of how the raw focus radiating off him makes the sterile drapes feel suddenly too thin.
Forty minutes in, just as the graft seats clean, Jaemin’s pager erupts with a shrill insistence that slices the quiet. He barely glances but you see the infinitesimal widening of his eyes, a flash of storm before the composure slams shut. Nurse Yuha’s voice crackles through the intercom, breathless: “NICU, Code Lavender, Baby Sunshine just required full resus, sats unstable, we need cardio-peds in OR-2 ASAP.” The scalpel seems to pause mid-air; even the vent sputters like it forgot its rhythm. Jaemin draws one measured breath, so calm it’s terrifying, and continues the anastomosis, hands steady while an artery the width of thread pulses between his forceps. Renjun tracks the tension immediately; his gaze flicks from the field to Jaemin’s clenched jaw, and something like recognition softens his brow.
“Go, Na,” Renjun says, voice low but carrying. “I’ll close. She’s your case.” It’s not a suggestion, it’s an absolution. Jaemin knots the final stitch with a snap, meets the older surgeon’s eyes in silent gratitude, and turns to you. “With me,” he commands, already stripping his gloves. There’s no time to marvel at how fast adrenaline atomizes fatigue; you’re yanking off your gown, letting it puddle, chasing his back through the corridor before the automatic doors can finish their sigh. Your sneakers slap linoleum, your breath saws icy against your mask, and still he outruns you, white coat a blur, like he’s tethered to the infant heart blinking red on some distant monitor.
Every hallway monitor seems to echo the same alarm tone, the hospital’s vascular system convulsing. You think of the way Sunshine’s fingers curled around his in the isolette this morning, of the bottle angled just so, of the unfathomable tenderness hidden beneath all that clinical frost. He doesn’t slow, but he speaks, more to himself than to you. “She was stable, her vitals climbed overnight, her surgery wasn’t scheduled until later, this isn’t fair.” His voice is a scalpel now: honed, dangerous, meant for cutting truth away from panic. You pump harder, matching his stride, replaying medication lists in your mind for anything you might have missed.
You and Jaemin lunge through, baby in his arms, the yellow towel damp with sweat and blood. Monitors behind him scream their alarm into the corridor as he barrels forward, feet slipping on tile, heartbeat drumming in your ears louder than the chaos. Nurses scatter, keys clatter, and someone shouts for suction. He doesn’t hesitate, he holds the child as if she’s the only thing keeping him upright, arms locked around her frail body, every muscle coiled. You sprint beside him, scrubs flapping, adrenaline slicing through marrow, and catch the next elevator down. The doors close on a blur of motion and neon.
In the OR’s harsh glare, Jaemin lays her on the steel table with the tenderness of a prayer. His white coat flutters like a banner in a storm, and he doesn’t wait for gloves—he clamps an oxygen mask to her mouth, voice low and urgent: “Breathe, baby. Breathe for me.” You move into position, hands steady despite the tremor in your chest, primed to suction, to stabilize, to fight. Under the interrogation light, her skin is the color of bruised infancy, breaths ragged against the mask. Jaemin’s eyes lock onto yours for a heartbeat—flint and promise—and in that instant you know: no one else matters in this room but her survival. Then, with soft precision, he begins.
The old conduit lies buried beneath layers of scar and sterility as Jaemin’s scalpel carves along the faded thoracotomy line. The skin parts readily under the iodine’s harsh glow, paper-thin and fragile, revealing the dark ribbon of graft beneath. Instantly, maroon rivulets of clot spill from the synthetic tube, each bead a ticking second lost. With measured urgency, you sweep the pooled blood aside, fingers sure despite the tremor in your belly, while Nurse Yuha slides a six-millimeter bovine graft across your field of vision. Jaemin’s movements are economical, he trims the new conduit to length, positions it with uncanny precision, and threads the suture through living tissue and graft alike. Every stitch is a promise: one tightens the lifeline, another seals the vow. As he flushes heparin through the lumen, the first flash of bright effluent appears in your suction tip, a promise of redemption in a swirl of liquid white.
Across the sterile expanse of OR-2, the monitors begin their hesitant climb: oxygen saturations flicker from 68 to 78, mean arterial pressures lift from a whisper to a breathable hum. You hold the suction catheter steady as Dr. Na draws the final knot tight, his forehead slick with sweat, jaw set like chiseled stone. “Come on, baby,” he exhales, voice low and intimate beneath the harsh lights. With deft fingers he closes the incision in imperceptible layers of six-zero Prolene—each pass of the needle as fine as spider’s silk, each knot a quiet exhalation of relief. When the last stitch is buried, he steps back, shoulders finally loosening just enough to admit a fraction of release. “We bought time,” he states, tone flat yet threaded with something fierce—gratitude, exhaustion, relentless hope. And as you sponge away the remnants of battle from his brow, you understand that in this cathedral of conflict, every heartbeat saved is a small victory against the darkness.
Even as the final suture vanishes beneath his gloved thumb, Dr. Na doesn’t turn away. He leans closer, voice soft as a lullaby amid the aftershocks of adrenaline. “You’re so fierce, little fighter,” he murmurs, fingertips brushing her cheek as though the slightest touch might rekindle her spark. “You’ve carried more pain than most people ever will, and you don’t even have a name or a family to call your own. But you belong to the light, there’s a sacred corner of it reserved just for you.” His words flutter through the hush—each one a salve, each one a vow of protection. “You’re stronger than anyone deserves to be—I believe in you, little warrior. I swear I’ll carry you through the rest. Now rest, grow stronger…we still need your fire.”
You choke back a breath as you watch him lean over that isolette, but it isn’t just this moment that catches you—it’s the pattern of tenderness woven through every encounter you’ve witnessed today. This morning, you saw him crouch at eye-level with a trembling three-year-old whose leg brace chafed raw; without a word, he drew a wobbly dinosaur in the dust of the cast and nudged her fingers to follow each curve, her giggles bursting through the ward like warm sunlight. At lunch, he sat cross-legged on the floor beside an intubated neonate, coaxing the baby’s fingers to wrap around his own thumb as he hummed a gentle, off-key lullaby he’d clearly invented right then and there, the tiny hand tightening with trust. Later, he paused mid-stride in the corridor, reached out to catch a knot unraveling on a premature infant’s incubator ribbon, and retied it with surgeon’s precision, transforming the harsh plastic into a cradle trussed in hope.
Everywhere he goes, little eyes light up at the sight of him: toddlers clutch his scrub sleeve in shy delight, babies swivel toward his voice as if it were the promise of home, and from the far corner of the ward, a rough-voiced janitor once paused his rounds to watch the way that a child’s face unfurled into a toothless grin when Jaemin pressed a fingertip gently to her cheek. You remember how he leaned into that moment—softening his shadowed features until even his stern jaw seemed to melt—and offered a high-five that turned into a little dance, the floor echoing with tiny feet gliding in time. Each gesture is another verse in his unspoken hymn to the vulnerable: a stethoscope warmed in his palm before he presses it to a baby’s rib cage, a fingertip brushing a frightened parent’s knuckles as he whispers, “She’s strong, we’ll see her through,” or the simple gift of a handcrafted origami crane handed to a tearful sibling to remind them that even in these antiseptic halls, wonder still exists. In every crease of his coat, in every soft word he murmurs, every careful touch, you see how his healing hands build sanctuaries out of sterile steel and how, for the smallest lives, he becomes both refuge and light.
He is at once tempest and hearth—shattering disease with the precision of a lightning strike, then gathering the fractured pieces of hope and wrapping them in the quiet glow of his compassion. You’ve seen him summon a tremor-soothing smile for one child’s first sip of milk, later catch a frightened toddler’s gaze across the ward and answer it with a nod so steady it might well have been a silent pledge: “I am here. I will not let go.” In these fragments of care—each small miracle of connection—you realize that his fierce competence in the OR is matched only by a fiercer tenderness reserved for those who can barely speak. And now, as he murmurs your name with that same calm fire, you understand that every life he saves is a petal pressed into the pages of his own legend: a healer whose warmth shines brightest where the light is weakest.
In the first four months of Sunshine’s life, her tiny heart beats a desperate rhythm beneath surgical lights and humming monitors, each pulse a fragile echo of hope. Twice she’s reborn on Dr. Na’s table. first when he threads a synthetic conduit through her marrow-soft chest, then again when midnight alarms yank him back to carve out a clot that stole her breath. You hover at his side, suction in hand and courage blooming where fear once froze you, learning to read her tremors like secret messages and to cradle her as if you could hold dawn itself. Between operations, morphine drips slow and sure, you chart every flicker of withdrawal and every quiet victory in her eyes, and Jaemin—stern sentinel by day, gentle guardian by night—whispers fractured lullabies at her bedside. Together, surgeon, intern and nameless newborn weave a bond forged in white-glove precision and whispered promises, proving that life’s most radiant bloom can spring from the sharpest edges of despair.
Each week in those first four months unfolds like a delicate stanza in a dirge-turned-prayer. Under the pallid glow of surgical lights, Dr. Na carves hope from her chest. first by threading a synthetic conduit through the fractured channels of her heart, then by cracking open her dawn-black body again when her tiny river of life stutters into code. At each juncture, you stand sentinel, suctioning froth from her lungs, watching the wavering digits of her oxygen saturation climb and fall like a gull caught in a storm. Your fingers, once trembling at the mere thought of her fragility, grow steady with purpose, tying off lines and titrating morphine drips whose weaning you chart in meticulous crimson ink.
Between those lifesaving crucibles, she clings to life’s thinnest tether—her feeding tube—her fists wrapping around it as though it might sprout wings and lift her from this battleground. Sleepless tremors mark her nights, each shudder a negotiation between the withdrawal gnawing at her marrow and the nascent fight refracted through her blood. Though she cannot yet speak her name, her dark, urgent gaze finds you in every lull, offering a trust so unearned it humbles you: a silent plea that outshines every monitor’s flicker. Her body, smaller than a prayer, carries a weight of suffering no infant should bear: a heart mapped by truncated arteries, limbs restless with withdrawal’s ghost, a liver crying out in enzyme whispers. Yet in every labored breath, every anxious twitch, you and Jaemin see a defiant spark—an ember of life that refuses to extinguish. And so you stitch, you chart, you hold vigil through the soft-bleating lullaby of alarms, tethering yourselves to her survival with each weary, unwavering heartbeat.
She emerges from her second surgery like a wounded bird pieced together with silk threads, her frail body barely casting a shadow beneath the harsh glow of fluorescent tubes that hum above like restless ghosts. Around her, incubators bloom with pastel balloons, handwritten cards and soft toys—tangible prayers from families who refuse to let go—yet her own isolette holds only sterile cotton, a half-full bottle of morphine standing sentinel, and the steady beeping of machines as her lone lullaby. Social workers’ clipped whispers drift through the corridor, tangled in question marks on her chart, and you feel the weight of every unanswered name pressing against your chest. In this vast, antiseptic hall, she is both a miracle and whisper of loss, a solitary heartbeat leaking into the emptiness that should have been filled with arms and lullabies. Fluorescent lights hum low in the vast NICU corridor as you slip past the double doors, your white coat whispering against the floor. Social workers have been hovering at a safe distance for weeks, they’re only doing their job but their clipped concerns drift through the air like unwelcome specters. You ignore their murmurs, focusing instead on the tiny rise and fall of her chest, steady and miraculous against every odds.
Dr. Na leans in close to her incubator, exhaustion etched into the creases around his eyes yet reverence guiding his every movement. He brushes a stray eyelash from her porcelain brow before smoothing the pale, stiff swaddle with the ritual precision of someone invoking an ancient vow. His voice drops into a hushed confession, only reserved for the terrified and the hopeful as he tucks the pale and stiff blanket a fraction tighter and murmurs “I’ll be back soon, Sunshine, hold the fort, I’m so sorry I always have to leave you when you’re like this, I promise I’ll return, I always promise that,” Before the echo of his words can fade, her chest convulses in a storm of raw grief. Tiny sobs tear through her, each shuddering breath a testament to the loneliness she already knows too well. Nurses gather swiftly, their gentle hands pressing warmth against the cool glass, murmuring soft lullabies that weave through the beeps and hums of the machines. One rocks the isolette in a practiced rhythm while another cups her quivering back, whispering encouragement into the sterile air.
Dr. Na remains at the glass, fingertips hovering above her blanket, eyes glistening with a sorrow that no medicine can ease and chest tightening with the weight of her tiny sobs echoing across the sterile corridor, each shuddered breath a testament to the abandonment she was born into and the silent pleas for someone, anyone, to stay. Her tears carve crystalline tracks down her porcelain cheeks, rivulets of despair that speak of betrayals she cannot yet name. Her small fists press against the glass as if begging for a single hand to hold her so she will never again learn the cost of leaving, and his whispered promise hangs between them, louder than the fluorescent hum, binding him to her fragile heartbeat. It’s as if her wide, wet eyes already know the hollow ache of abandonment that should be kept at bay by loving arms. His whispered vow hovers between them—“I promise I’ll be back”—an unspoken plea to outrun the sorrow she wears like a second skin.
You stand beyond the glass, pretending to chart on your tablet, but your heart pounds too loudly for the typing to cover. Every moment free from rounds, you find yourself drawn back here, watching him care for the child you first held with trembling fingers. He gives her more attention than the other babies receive in a week, and she has nothing but sterile cotton and that half-empty syringe to mark her presence. The incubators around twirl like hopeful promises, cards flutter like whispered prayers, and plush toys stand guard in clusters, comforts she’s never known. She gazes up at the fluorescent lights with wide, unblinking eyes, already too familiar with abandonment, as though she can taste the cost of every step her caregivers have to take away from her. She has only an ID number and a scratchy white hat that she rips off in furious grips, as if even the hospital wants her kept at arm’s length.
Beside you, Jihoon’s shoulders heave in silent sobs, and you glance over with raised eyebrows even as a fresh tear slides down your cheek. He tries to swallow it back, throat bobbing like a bird caught in a storm, until he finally chokes out, voice cracking: “It’s so sad, so sad, she’s just a baby!” You squeeze his arm, and Jihoon hiccups another sob that rips through the hush. “I mean,” he chokes, voice thick, “who leaves a baby like this? It’s—” He breaks off, stares at the isolette as though expecting it to explode into confetti so the loneliness would vanish. “—it’s just criminal. Criminal!” He snorts, tears spilling again. “I didn’t sign up for this.” He waves a hand as if batting away his own grief. “I didn’t sign up for heartfelt emotional breakdowns in the pantry. I thought I’d be throwing scalpels around, saving lives like a badass doctor, not dissolving into a puddle over a tiny human with no parents!”
The doors swing open before you can blink, and Dr. Na strides out of the NICU, coat tails swishing. His gaze snaps to you. icy, exacting, yet beneath it a spark of something raw and vivid that makes your cheeks warm. His jaw is set, eyes narrowed into slits of polished steel, and for a heartbeat the world narrows to the cool, sensual cut of his anger slicing through the dim corridor. You freeze, breath hitching, the echo of baby sobs still lingering behind the glass. Behind you, Jihoon hiccups another sob, shoulders shaking in silent protest. You turn to him, tears still glistening on his lashes, and suddenly your chest lifts with a burst of mischief. Your eyes find him bright and urgent. you have an idea. A slow smile tugs at your lips as you lean in, whispering, “What if we give her something no one can take away from her?” Jihoon blinks through his tears, sniffles once, then nods fiercely, determination and grief mingling in his gaze and just like that, you know exactly what you’ll do.
You slip into the empty nurses’ station the next day, carrying your bag of charts and a secret hope. Nurse Chaeyoung looks up from her paperwork, surprise flickering in her eyes. your notebooks already bulge with hand-written protocols but she doesn’t question you when you clear your throat and whisper, “Could you please teach me how to knit?”
Chaeyoung blinks. She knows you’re already drowning in notes, but she studies your face, sees the resolve trembling there, then slides her paperwork aside. “All right,” she says, voice a soft acquiescence. She presses two slender bamboo needles into your hands and unfurls a skein of yarn in the hue of sunlit yellow. The alpaca-silk blend. soft as dawn’s first light, was a splurge after your last thirty-hour shift, chosen for its gentle warmth against skin as delicate as petals. Your first stitches are clumsy: loops too tight, tension askew, needles clacking like restless birds. You jab your thumb, hiss, bite the inside of your cheek. Chaeyoung guides your fingers, her own movements certain and slow, but she never scolds when you drop a loop; she just lifts it back onto the needle as if rescuing something sacred. “Keep going,” she murmurs. “Babies don’t judge crooked lines.”
You pretend indifference, say you’re bored, say you need a hobby, but everyone within earshot knows the truth: you’ve fallen for a three-pound girl in Isolette Three, and you’re desperate to give her something no chart can record. Night after night you return to the on-call room, lamp dimmed so the shadows won’t wake the residents snoring on plastic mattresses. Tutorials flicker soundlessly on your tablet; you’ve watched the same row unpicked a dozen times. The yarn whispers over your knuckles, smelling faintly of lanolin and lavender from the sachet you tucked into your bag, the same scent you dab behind your mask before each visit to her crib so your presence will mean comfort, not chemicals. Tiny blood-bright dots blossom on your fingertips where needles have slipped; you wear them like vows. You unravel rows when the corners curl, knit them again until the fabric lies smooth, until each imperfect loop feels like a heartbeat finding rhythm.
One evening, during a lull between rounds the four of you spill onto the scarred wooden bench outside the NICU, take-out cartons steaming in your laps, stethoscopes still draped like question marks around your necks and though each insists they’re “not as invested” as you, every conversation arc bends inevitably toward the girl in Isolette Three, the way sunflowers tilt to whatever light they can find; Hayoung, tongue stained orange from spicy tteokbokki, admits she swings by just to borrow the courage in Sunshine’s clenched fists, and when you pass her the bamboo needle she blushes, threading rose-silk and coaxing a cherry blossom into life because “fragile petals survive storms by being soft and stubborn at once.” Jihoon snorts, denying his tears whenever asked, wiping soy sauce from his chin, yet his hands tremble as he anchors a pearlescent seashell—“so she’ll hear an ocean in the hum of those machines, and know the world is wider than this glass.” Hyejin, quiet as a chapel at dawn, selects gold thread, her star stitched with astronomer’s precision; she murmurs that every child deserves a northern light when hospital nights go power-out. Last, you guide moss-green silk through the fringe, tucking a leaf beneath their symbols—your covenant that life can unfurl even in fluorescent soil. The blanket ripples unevenly across your knees, tension wobbling where laughter shook the yarn, yet in its crooked constellation of blossom, shell, star, and leaf, you feel an entire afternoon distilled into a portable sky she can wear—proof that four imperfect hearts chose to stay.
You’ve been awake since yesterday’s twilight, eyes grainy from a marathon of dropped stitches and midnight caffeine, and the blanket, freshly bound off at 4:17 a.m., still radiates the ghost-warmth of your desk lamp and the lavender sachet you kept tucked beneath the skein to calm your nerves. All morning you hovered at the NICU doors, blanket clutched like a shield. Whenever a rare minute of freedom finally opened, you’d hurry toward Isolette Three, only to find Dr. Na already stationed there—scrub cap discarded on a rolling stool, loupes still dangling from his collar, spending every stolen breath of his break in the hush between his whisper and her fragile inhale. You spot his silhouette again, shoulders bowed, hand cupped over glass and nerves spark hot under your skin. Your feet stall, then inch forward, every step a stitched-together prayer: this is it, no more stalling, don’t drop the blanket, don’t trip, don’t start reciting fiber statistics the second he looks up. You tighten your grip on the pastel-yellow blanket, swallow hard, and force one foot in front of the other, determined to place dawn itself inside her isolette before courage unravels like a loosened stitch.
Dr. Na straightens, still cradling Sunshine against the crook of his elbow, the tiny bottle angled with a surgeon’s precision so a ribbon of milk flows down to the last perfect bubble; her fingers clutch his scrub top like drowsy starfish, a sight so tender you lock in place—heart thudding, blanket clutched to your chest, words snarled somewhere behind your tongue. He senses you before you can retreat, and his gaze flicks first to the yellow bundle in your arms, then skims up to your face—razor-sharp, faintly amused, as if he’s caught you scribbling secrets on the walls. “What’s that?” he murmurs, voice low enough to set your pulse strobing in your ears. “Another failed anatomy diagram?” The smirk curves like scalpel steel, and heat scorches up your neck; you fumble a half step forward, nearly knock your clipboard into the IV pole, then grip the blanket tighter, praying the pastel wool can muffle the thunder of your nerves.
“It’s… it’s for her,” you blurt, eyes fixed on the floor tiles because meeting his stare feels like stepping into open-heart surgery without gloves. “I—I knitted it last night. Well, technically it’s an alpaca-silk blend, nineteen‐micron fibers, I triple-checked, so it’s hypoallergenic and it drapes really softly, not too thick, not too flimsy. I swear I triple-checked—because, look, I know it sounds ridiculously decadent, and yes, it cost almost three times what I usually spend on take-out, but Sunshine’s file notes her skin barrier is compromised, there’s a high likelihood of allergic reactions, even eczema under those incubator lights, so I couldn’t risk a cheap acrylic scratch-monster, you know?” You launch into a flurry of justifications, cheeks flaming. “The alpaca makes it soft enough that you could press your ear to it and hear quiet breaths, and the silk adds strength without weight, and I hand-washed every row in hypoallergenic soap the nurses recommended, then air-dried it on a rack, no dryer heat, because that shrinks wool and roughs up the fibers. I didn’t want any microscopic wool barbs tickling her already-fragile skin.” Your words tangle, spilling faster than you can corral them.
“I stabbed myself, um, seventeen times, eighteen if you count the thumb but I figured a little blood loss is worth it because she needs something gentle, something that’s actually hers and not stamped ‘Property of Pediatrics.’” You inhale, cheeks blazing, then plunge on before courage unravels. “I stitched in these tiny symbols, too, there’s a leaf in one corner because, you know, life keeps trying even when conditions are terrible, and a cherry blossom from Hayoung because fragile things can still be ridiculously strong, and Jihoon wanted a seashell so she’ll always have a bit of the ocean humming near her, and Hyejin’s star is for, uh, portable navigation when the lights flicker at 3 a.m.” You finally risk a glance up, pulse thundering. “I know the tension is uneven and one edge looks like it’s sighing, but it’s warm and it’s soft and it’s hers, and I just—” Your voice cracks into a whisper. “—I just really wanted her to have something that says she isn’t alone.”
He straightens in one fluid motion, still cradling Sunshine in the crook of his elbow, the tiny bottle poised at her lips as she drinks with surprising vigor, an intimate task that makes you gasp. His gaze snaps to the pastel bundle against your chest before flicking up to your face, cool and curious. “Did you make one for me too, or just the baby?” he asks, voice low enough to ripple through your ribcage like warm blood.
Your cheeks flame, and you swallow hard, words tumbling out jagged and too-fast. “You? No. I mean, you never occurred to me.” Your heart hammers so loudly you can almost hear its echo in the hum of the incubators. “It’s just, there was this article in the ‘Journal of Neonatal Textile Therapy, Volume 12, 2023,’ ‘Fiber Diameter and Thermoregulatory Benefits in Preterm Infants.’ It said infants swaddled in sub-20-micron fibers show a forty-two percent increase in weight gain and a thirty-one percent drop in cortisol spikes.” You bite your lip, eyelids flicking to his collarbone as if memorizing its contour. “My brain filed it under ‘useless trivia,’ but when I saw that alpaca-silk blend, nineteen microns, moisture-wicking, thermally neutral, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I saw it on a specialist auction listing, and—I swear—ended up bidding through the night. Four hours of non-stop laptop glances, heart pounding every time I hit refresh, until I won it. Sunshine’s chart notes compromised skin integrity and high allergy risk so I didn’t want some acrylic nightmare scratching her still-healing dermis.” Your voice quavers, and you tuck a strand of hair behind your ear, suddenly aware of every stitch of your scrubs clinging to your skin. “I—well, I got carried away. I just wanted her to have the absolute best chance. All the other babies have cards and soft toys; she arrived with nothing but a blanket that’s now gone yellow, and I couldn’t bear it, I needed to give her a small measure of kindness.”
His eyes trace the ridges of the pastel yellow as though mapping a new continent, then snap up to you with a spark that makes your breath catch. His smirk flickers faster now, teasing and sharp: “You nearly turned my ICU into a lecture hall. Next time, publish the paper first so I can bring popcorn.” The low timbre of his voice vibrates in your chest, and you gasp, an accidental inhale that sounds conspicuously like awe, your cheeks flaming brighter than the incubator lights. You tuck a strand of hair behind your ear, heart hammering in staccato, suddenly acutely aware of every word you’ve ever tripped over and every flutter in your stomach that you’ll never admit aloud.
Before you can sputter another ramble, Sunshine coos, a clear, bright note like tiny bells, and Dr. Na’s gaze softens in an instant. He tilts her head against his shoulder and, with a surgeon’s gentleness, traces a fingertip along her spine, coaxing a series of sleepy kicks. She kicks again, and he presses the tiny foot into his palm, tilting his mouth to make a soft raspberry that leaves her gurgling with delight. You catch the slack in his shoulders, the careful steadiness of his hands, the way his eyes drift closed for a brief, reverent moment, it all reads like fatherhood in high definition. You swallow hard, lips parting in an unsteady whimper that you cloak in a cough, rubbing the back of your neck as though you’ve just stepped into a gale of feelings you’re not sure how to name. Yet even as warmth blooms in your chest, your brow knots with a sudden ache: he is not her father, she has no family, and in this glowing cocoon of devotion, she remains utterly alone.
Your heart thunders so fiercely you half-expect the monitors to pick it up, but you force yourself closer, blanket folded against your chest like stolen sunlight. Your cheeks burn—they’ve been burning all morning—but you step into his space anyway, breath catching as you press the soft wool into his hands. “I—um, would you mind… could you cover her with this?” you whisper, voice trembling between hope and embarrassment, each word a tiny act of bravado masked by your shy, downcast gaze.
Dr. Na’s fingers hover for the barest instant, then he lifts the blanket and, with a surgeon’s precision softened by reverence, tucks it around Sunshine’s shoulders so the pastel yellow settles over her like first light. In the month you’ve known her, you’ve never seen her so still: her tiny fists unwind from the tubes, her knuckles uncurling as though they trust the world for the first time. A delicate coo drifts from her lips—so soft it sounds like a sigh—and her eyelids flutter half-closed, painting sleepy crescents against porcelain skin. Her mouth parts in a gentle yawn, and a flush of rose warms her cheeks as she buries her forehead into the embroidered leaf you placed at her chest, exhaling a slow, contented breath. She nestles deeper into his arm, limbs going lax, her whole body folding into that sliver of warmth, and for one aching, beautiful moment you realize she feels at home.
He straightens with the ease of someone born to this—ever so gently rocking Sunshine in the cradle of his arm, the golden thread work of the blanket slipping into place like a secret promise. His gaze flickers down to her, pupils melting into warmth as he brushes a stray curl of her hair back with the pad of his thumb, eyes dark with tender focus. “There you go, little one. Comfy?” he murmurs, voice husky with quiet devotion, each word a soft caress in the white glare of the NICU. You watch, breath catching at the steady line of his throat, the way his tailored scrubs hug broad shoulders and taper to the subtle swell of muscle at his forearms, and heat floods your cheeks until you’re certain your skin glows brighter than the incubator light. Sunshine answers him with a tiny coo so sweet it feels like a bell inside your chest. her mouth quirks into a sleepy bubble, a gurgle that ripples through her like laughter in slow motion. She flexes her fingers around his finger, tiny translucent nails barely grazing his skin, and a soft sigh drifts from her lips as she nestles closer into the pastel folds.
Dr. Na’s thumb follows the embroidered leaf at her collarbone, tracing your stitch with a reverence that leaves you breathless. He glances up at you—just for a moment—and you flush harder, eyes darting down to the blanket’s edge, wishing you could melt into the warmth of that shared glance. Meanwhile, Sunshine lets out a contented hiccup, her brows lifting as though surprised by comfort, and you swear you can see the faintest dimple at the corner of her mouth. In that hush, full of soft sighs, coos, and the underswell of your own racing pulse, you realize you’ve never witnessed anything so achingly vulnerable, so quietly triumphant, as a tiny life finally feeling at home.
You clear your throat, the thread trembling in your grasp as warmth floods your cheeks all the way to your ears. You can’t help yourself, you have to go deeper. “I—actually,” you begin, voice catching like a hiccup, “I have this extra spool of thread, it’s the same yellow family, but a shade deeper, richer—like sunset gold. I thought, maybe, if you stitched a little crescent moon beside the leaf, or even a tiny halo above it, it would mean more to her, a secret promise shimmering in the corner. I know it’s silly, but I just… I couldn’t resist.” You glance up, eyes wide and earnest, sheepish hope dancing in your gaze, every syllable spilling out because once you start, you always have to ask just one more thing.
Dr. Na lifts his gaze from the isolette just long enough to catch your outstretched hand and, without a word, slides the extra spool of thread from your trembling fingers. Then he leans in and, with that same deliberate care he showed Sunshine’s first feed, he scoops her up, tiny limbs curling against his chest, and places her softly into your arms. Your heart seizes as her warm weight settles against your collarbone, her breath a whisper in your ear. She blinks once, then clasps her fingers around her own thumb and draws it to her mouth, sucking in blissful little gulps that echo like lullabies through the sterilized air.
When Dr. Na peels the blanket back, Sunshine’s face crumples in the most heartbreaking pout, a single hiccup-cry so small and urgent it tugs at your chest, her lips quivering like a wilted flower begging for sun. Even her tears glisten like morning dew on porcelain. You press her closer, brushing a kiss to her forehead as she hiccups again, cheeks rosy and soft under the pastel wool. Dr. Na’s scalpel-steady fingers slip the blanket back into place. He parts the pastel wool with the same reverence he shows her fragile chest, then lifts your extra spool of golden thread and threads it through the eye of the needle as though drawing first light into being. He pauses, hands poised above your embroidered leaf, and for a breath it feels as though time itself holds its pulse. Then, stitch by stitch, he draws a tiny sun beside the leaf—each loop a delicate arc of dawn breaking over shadowed valleys. The thread gleams like honeyed sunrise, the rays curling outward in promise: here is warmth, here is light, here is a vow that she will never face the dark alone.
Sunshine watches it all, eyes widening in the incubator’s glow. A high, breathy coo escapes her lips—so soft it sounds like a secret whispered between friends—and she lifts one nub of a hand to brush at the new golden sun, tiny fingers batting at the yarn with curious delight. Her cheeks bloom rosy, as if she understands that this little orb was made for her, and she presses her forehead into the wool, sighing a contented sigh that ripples through her like a lullaby. She sucks her thumb in blissful rhythm, eyelashes fluttering against porcelain skin, and a single hiccup-cry bubbles up—so dainty it’s almost like applause.
Dr. Na leans in close, voice hushed. “You see that, little one?” he murmurs, tracing the sun’s rays with his fingertip. “That’s your light. Always there.” His gaze lifts to you—warm, intimate—and for a moment you share a smile that needs no words. In the hush of beeping monitors and the soft murmur of the NICU night, baby and doctors alike are bound by the quiet power of that golden sun and the promise it holds.A hiccup of relief escapes you, and Sunshine coos again, her little hand fluttering as if in applause. You swallow hard, blinking back the last of your nerves, as the three of you stand in the pale glow of the NICU—bound by wool, wonder, and the promise that none of you will ever leave her alone.
You clear your throat in a soft, practiced cough. your agreed signal and the door to the NICU slides open a crack. Jihoon slips in, arms laden with plush bunnies, two extra pastel-yellow blankets, a stack of onesies embroidered with tiny suns, and a handful of handmade cards scrawled with “you’ve got this” and “sunshine princess” in mismatched inks. You and him share a relieved smile as he sets down helium balloons that bob gently against the ceiling and a small music box that plays a lullaby too sweet for words. Jihoon grins, as earlier today, you both hosted every bit of warmth from the downstairs gift shop for this one beautiful girl.
Dr Na’s eyes lift from Sunshine’s chest as you lower your voice. “Would it be all right if we… decorated her crib?” you ask, voice sheepish and earnest. “All the other incubators look like birthday parties, and hers feels so bare.” He blinks once, expression clipped, and then gives the faintest nod, as though granting permission to break a hospital rule you didn’t know existed. You exhale a breath you didn’t realize you were holding.
Jihoon peels a sheet of baby-safe stickers from its backing and hands you the first one—a golden sun that catches the NICU light like a promise. Together you press “fighter,” “sunshine baby,” and, in your own trembling handwriting, “belongs here” onto the plastic wall of her incubator, each word blooming like wildflowers in a barren field. You drape two plush bunnies, one snowy white, one butter-yellow, over the edge, their soft fur whispering comfort against the sterile rails. A pink pacifier with a glitter heart bobs on its clip, and you tuck an extra pastel-yellow blanket around the foot of the isolette so it spills over like the first rays of dawn.
Next, you and Jihoon suspend a sunshine mobile overhead, its tiny golden stars spinning in a lullaby waltz. You clip a miniature music box to the side rail, the tin tune coiling through the hum of machines, delicate as a mother’s hum in a silent church. All the while, Sunshine stirs beneath the glow: one tiny hand uncurls, fingertips brushing against the soft ear of a bunny, and she coos, a breathy, bell-bright note that makes your heart catch. She yawns, her lips parting in an unhurried arc as if savoring each moment, then nuzzles into the curve of the blanket, eyelashes fluttering in sleepy contentment.
“Delivery for Miss Golden Cheeks,” Jihoon announces with mock formality, setting down a small stack of handmade cards scrawled with love and a pair of knitted booties you couldn’t resist. He grins at you, nudges the bunnies upright, then quips, “Dr. Na, I’d offer you a pacifier too, but I think you’re already suckin’ the life out of Doctor Y/N.” The words tumble into a hush of shared laughter, and in that intimate glow of balloons, blankets, and baby coos, you feel as if the world beyond these walls has paused, just long enough for Sunshine to know she is, at last, home.
As you stand back to survey your handiwork—balloons drifting, bunnies perched like sentinels, blankets folded in sunlit layers. Doctor Na clears his throat—sharp as a scalpel’s edge—and with a single, precise motion he lifts Sunshine from your arms, cradling her against his chest as though she weighs nothing more than a sigh. His voice drops into the clipped, authoritative timbre of a chief resident on rounds. “Don’t you both have rounds to attend to?”
You and Jihoon exchange sheepish glances, cheeks still warm from pride and embarrassment. Without another word, you hustle toward the door, balloons bobbing at your heels, bunnies and blankets forgotten for the moment. Behind you, the door slides shut, and in the soft glow of the NICU morning light, Sunshine nestles deeper into Dr. Na’s arm. Her tiny hand drifts up to rest against his stethoscope, as if grounding herself in his steady heartbeat, and his fingers curl around hers, two fragile promises bound by dawn’s first light.
The night after, you slip into the NICU on tiptoe, the corridor bathed in a soft, bluish glow that turns every surface to silver. You pause as you reach Isolette Three and realize Dr. Na has dozed off, perched on the small stool beside the crib. His elbow rests on the incubator’s edge, scrub sleeve gently crumpled where he has propped his arm to keep her close and even in sleep his stance is vigilant, as though his body itself could shield her from the dark. Each rise and fall of his shoulders is paced like a metronome, matching the steady beeps of the monitors and reminding you that two lives here balance on his quiet watchfulness.
Inside the incubator, Sunshine Girl lies swaddled in her pastel-yellow blanket, the crooked stitched sun resting just beneath her cheek like a silent benediction. Her eyelashes, fine as gossamer threads, fan across her high, rounded cheeks. cheeks so perfect and full they seem to glow against the sterile white light. Her tiny fist has curled itself around Dr. Na’s finger, knuckles rising and falling with each gentle breath as though she’s discovered an anchor in the darkness. Now and then, the soft rasp of her breathing shifts into a coo so delicate it could be mistaken for a lullaby carried on a breeze. You watch the way her lips part in sleep, the faintest quiver of a sigh escaping her, and you feel a fierce protective surge as if you’d defend this moment with every remaining ounce of courage.
Your breath catches at the sight: the two of them in perfect stillness, man and baby bound by a single golden thread of care. You raise a hand and press your palm to the outside of the incubator glass, where dribbles of warmth linger like fingerprints, proof that she’s no longer just a patient but a presence, a life that matters to you more than just machines. Your hands tremble, not from fear, but from the weight of all the promises you’ve stitched into her blanket and all the vigils you’ve yet to keep. Here, in this suspended hush, you realize she’s still here—and she’s not alone. Below the soft glow of the overhead lamp, the bond between doctor, baby, and the memories of every late-night stitch pulses like a whispered vow: she will always have someone to come back to.
You pause, heart tightening, as the baby stirs—her shoulders quiver in a slow, sleepy tremor like petals trembling at dawn. Instinct propels you forward. You press a fingertip to the blanket’s edge and tuck it more snugly around her shivering shoulders, smoothing the wool in long, careful strokes. She gives a faint whimper, soft enough to be mistaken for a sigh, but her hand flutters free and curls around the folds of fabric as if seeking refuge. You lean closer, voice low and warm: “It’s okay, little one,” you murmur, feeling warmth bloom behind your sternum. The bunnies on either side seem to lean in, their stitched eyes fixed on her, and in that moment you realize your hands know exactly how to comfort her, more tenderly than you ever imagined you could care.
As her tremors fade, Sunshine Girl’s lashes flutter, and she emits a faint coo that resonates like a lullaby in the stillness. You brush a fingertip across her forehead, light as a benediction and step back, heart thundering with a new, fierce protectiveness. The bunnies stand guard, the blanket’s golden sun glows softly, and Dr. Na remains asleep, unaware of the small miracle you’ve woven here: a baby finally finding peace in a world that once felt too cold. You press your palm once more to the glass, breathing in the hush, and carry this tender image with you—the quiet power of love wrapped in yarn and vigilant hearts.
It’s been exactly one week since you slipped that uneven, golden-hued blanket beneath Sunshine’s fragile shoulders for the first time, and every night since, tucking her in has become both ritual and refuge. You arrive before midnight, the corridor’s fluorescent hum receding behind you as if yielding to the warmth you carry in your arms. Kneeling beside the isolette, you spread the blanket like dawn unfurling across her body, each imperfect stitch a vow you’ve already kept ten thousand times in your heart. You lean in close, brush a fingertip along her cheek, and murmur the nonsense lullabies you’ve invented, soft rhythms meant only for her ears, until her breath steadies and her fist relaxes around the plush edge. The nurses know you by that glowing silhouette, the way you coo her name under your breath, and you wouldn’t trade this private hour for any other. In that golden glow, you feel her confidence bloom: the blanket is no longer just yarn and yarn, it is your promise that she will never wake alone.
Morning always arrives with a flurry of vital signs and lab reports, the turning pages of her chart as familiar as a heartbeat. Her oxygen saturations hover in the high nineties, her weight inching upward by grams, and cranial ultrasounds show no new bleeds, small mercies that keep you tethered to hope. Yet the specter of future procedures lingers in every echo and blood gas: there will be more surgeries, more anesthetic dawns, more nights you’ll pace these linoleum corridors with your heart in your throat. Today’s brief reads stable but cautious: minimal ventilator support, tolerating feeds at fifteen milliliters per hour, no fevers, no new murmurs. It’s hardly triumph, and not quite warning, but enough to remind you that her life is a tightrope walk above uncertainty. Still, for now, she is holding on—and so you hold your pen steady, charting her rises and falls as if mapping the constellations of her survival.
You’ve been by Dr. Na’s side for the entire month, your rotations intertwined like threads in a single tapestry and yet your care extends far beyond Sunshine. Each morning you slip into the NICU and then down the pediatric corridors without fanfare: he sees you waiting by the doors, ready to plunge into the lives of every fragile infant and child whose charts bear your name. He delegates with clipped efficiency, “I want your numbers on her intake by 0800,” or “Prep the line-change in Room 4, then meet me for the pre-op huddle”—and you glide into action, moving from Sunshine’s isolette to the ventilator-dependent preemie in isolette two, to the toddler in PICU recovering from congenital heart repair, to the school-age child with diabetic ketoacidosis in room 12.
Fellow interns whisper that he values your precision and rapid surgical aptitude alike: you recall every baby’s perfect foot-warmer setting, deftly threading a central line into the tiniest vein without a tremor, anticipate the toddler’s restless kicks and distract her with a finger puppet, and spin quiet bedtime stories for the eight-year-old as she drifts toward anesthesia. In just days you’ve mastered ultrasound-guided catheter placements and flawless surgical knots—skills that typically take months to acquire—yet you never forget to memorize each patient’s personal quirks. He never praises outright, but when you hand him the latest blood gas for that cyanotic newborn and the drip-check sheet for the septic one before he even asks, his nod is enough: he trusts your competence with every life in this ward in a way he never has with anyone else.
Though sponge baths technically fall under the nurses’ domain, today two RNs have been pulled into a respiratory emergency across the ward, and the charge nurse’s clipboard is bulging with admissions. You know that no one else can give Sunshine that quiet hour of warmth that she deserves, a sacred pause in her battle, so when the nurse asks, “You sure you’re not busy elsewhere?” you and Hayoung exchange a look and slip past her gentle protest.
Steam drifts like silver ribbon through the alcove when you wheel Sunshine’s isolette against the tile, and the world narrows to a lit basin of water, clear as blown glass, trembling with heat that halos upward in soft wavering columns. The overhead lamp pools amber on the surface, turning each ripple into a molten sunbeam, and somewhere behind the hiss of warm taps and the distant ventilator beeps, you catch your own heartbeat counting off the measurements you memorized at dawn: thirty-eight degrees Celsius, just shy of skin; saline flush at the ready; cloth folded four times into a square small enough for her sternum. Hayoung steadies Sunshine’s neck with a gentleness that reminds you of a bird handler coaxing a sparrow to trust her palm, and you slide your arms beneath the baby’s fragile spine, feeling the flutter of hidden wings in the muscle of her back. For an instant she dangles between air and water—caught in the hush of a tide about to turn—and the blanket you peel away from her feels suddenly enormous against the threadbare hush of her soft cry.
The moment her heel touches the water, she startles—tiny mouth pulling into an O, lungs expanding like the opening of a stormcloud—and she loosens into a half-sob, wet and breathy, that ricochets off the tile. The basin shivers as her fists jerk, droplets flinging outward like startled minnows; her pulse skitters, monitors chiming in uneasy counterpoint. You press the warm cloth against the swell of her ribs, whispering the numbers in rhythm, one, two, three, lift; one, two, three, glide, while your thumb strokes the tremor that quakes at her collarbone. “Shhh, little current,” you murmur, letting the invented pet name ride on the hum that spills from your throat—a low, wordless vibrato that seems to braid itself with the water’s soft slosh. Hayoung’s breath catches when Sunshine jerks again, but you flatten your palm across the fluttering cage of her heart, and the warmth seeps into bone like sunlight into river-ice. Slowly, her sob tapers to a whimper, then to a hiccup that bubbles and fades; her fists uncurl, fingers splay like tiny sea stars against the surface, and she surrenders to the lap-lap of cloth gliding over her knees, her cheeks, the fragile sutures at her sternum. Each pass of the linen feels sacramental—an ocean washing grief from stone—until her eyelids droop, lashes beading with little diamonds of water that catch the lamp and scatter it across her cheeks like dawn-lit salt.
As the water settles and the two palm-sized rubber duckies drift like yellow planets at the basin’s edge, Sunshine finally melts into the warmth, her legs loosening, toes flexing under the surface until she gives a sudden, delighted kick that arcs a crescent of droplets across your scrub top; the duckies bob and wobble in her wake, far too large for her starfish hands to seize, yet she sends them spinning with each rhythmic flick of her ankles. You grin, angling the cloth in slow circles over her knees, and murmur, “Easy there, little ballerina, save your grand jetés for Auren Hall,” letting the joke float atop the steam. Hayoung huffs a watery laugh, and even Sunshine rewards the line with a burbly sigh, half-coo, half-giggle, as though she understands that choreography is simply another way to say I’m alive, watch me dance.
When the bath is finished, you lift her free in a cradle of toweling warmth, and the basin stills behind you, glassy as a tidepool after storm. Sunshine sighs—an almost inaudible reed-whistle—and burrows into the crook of your elbow, skin flushed rose where the water kissed her, eyelids drifting like soft curtains in a breeze. Hayoung drapes the pastel-yellow blanket around her crown; you fold the corners beneath her chin so the crooked sun Dr. Na stitched sits just at her throat, a makeshift medallion of dawn. In that moment she is a tiny comet wrapped in gold, and even the machines seem to hush, their lights dimming in reverence. Jaemin’s silhouette appears at the threshold, arms crossed, unreadable eyes catching on the way your hands settle her deeper into the blanket’s glow. He watches as Sunshine releases a drowsy coo—more exhale than word—and then, impossibly, a gurgle of something close to laughter flares in her throat before dissolving into a dream-heavy sigh. The steam around you disperses like a curtain parting, and the room, water-warm, antiseptic-bright, feels for one breathless instant like the safest harbor on earth.
You and Hayoung lift Sunshine onto the heated changing pad, the steam curling around you like a promise as you peel back the damp towel. She trembles, tiny shoulders shivering in the cooler air and unleashes a fresh cry, thin and urgent, as Hayoung slips a soft cotton onesie over her feet. You pause, heart tightening, and the wet strands of her hair plaster against your fingers. Without thinking, you begin to hum, a gentle, wordless lullaby that drifts from your lips like warm breath. The melody curves around the alcove, threading itself into the hiss of the warmer and the distant hum of ventilators. Hayoung freezes, roots her hands in the folds of the sleeper, and watches as Sunshine’s wails falter. The baby’s eyes flutter shut, a quaver of relief softening her lips, and she settles against your forearm, body folding into the soft cotton as if the song were a soft landing.
You straighten and whisper encouragement—“Almost there, sunshine”—then lower your voice so only she can hear. Hayoung fastens the little snaps at your coaxing, hooking the final one beneath Sunshine’s chin. Your lullaby falters, and you realize with startled wonder that you didn’t even notice the tune rising and falling; it simply poured from you. For a heartbeat, Hayoung’s eyes brim with unshed tears, and you blink away your own as you step back, hands trembling with the residue of that unbidden song.
From the far corner of the alcove, Dr. Na watches in silence, arms folded over his scrub top, gaze narrowed but not unkind. “Intern.” The single word drops into the steam like a stone. “Keep singing.”
Heat floods your cheeks. You swallow, stripes of red blossoming across your neck, but you lift your chin and offer the melody again—soft, steadfast—this time for him as much as for her. Sunshine breathes in time with the hum, tiny chest rising and falling beneath her sleeper, and you feel the quiet power of voice meeting flesh, of song meeting skin. In that charged hush, the world narrows to three hearts, baby, doctor, intern, bound by the simple grace of a lullaby in a room that knows too much sorrow.
Back at the isolette, you fasten the pulse-ox sensor, the one with the tiny bunny print, around her heel. You remember, almost without thinking, to switch to the smaller warmer pad; you’ve memorized her chart’s foot-sensitive notes. Jaemin leans in close as you whisper her vitals into the tablet. “You always remember the heel warmers,” he murmurs, voice quieter than the ventilator’s hum. It’s the first time you hear “thank you” from him, and your fingers falter on the clamp. He watches you, gaze unreadable, and you realize he’s catalogued every small devotion you’ve shown this child.
You settle beside Sunshine’s isolette and Dr. Na’s hand drops on your shoulder—warm, firm—a silent prompt to begin. You peel the corner of the gauze dressing at her sternotomy site and, in your haste, pull too sharply. The adhesive rips away from her porcelain skin in a rough tear, and she jolts awake with a high-pitched wail, her fists clenching at her chest. Guilt ricochets through your chest as you freeze, thumb hovering over the damp gauze. The room tilts: her tears, the twitch of her lip, your trembling hand.
Jaemin bends over the isolette, voice pitched to a velvet command. “Easy, Sunshine.” He cups her crown with one broad palm, thumb stroking the downy hair at her fontanel, and she settles in seconds—tiny breath catching, then sighing back into half-sleep. The dominance in his posture is palpable: shoulders squared over her like a sentry; eyes flicking to you, unreadable, expectant. Heat flushes up your neck. You reach for the second strip, but hesitation glues your fingers. They shake.
“Here.” He slides behind you, torso grazing the curve of your spine, gloved hand enveloping your own. The contact is clinical, rubber on skin, yet the weight of him is molten, breath grazing the shell of your ear. “You anchor first,” he murmurs, guiding your thumb to brace the intact skin just beyond the adhesive. “Counter-traction. Minimizes dermal shear.” His other hand closes over your wrist, applying the gentlest backward tension: slow peel, adhesive rolling on itself instead of tearing free. Sunshine barely stirs, lips parting in a drowsy sigh. Your own breath hitches, trapped between the porcelain warmth of the baby’s skin and the incandescent press of Jaemin’s sternum at your shoulder blades.
Together you irrigate the incision line, he steadies the sterile saline ampoule while you direct the flow, each droplet catching amber light before sliding over the neat column of sutures. He guides your swab in small concentric circles: “Center out. One pass per pad. Pressure just enough to blanch, not bruise.” The tone is steady, assured; you feel your pulse ease into his cadence. Sunshine’s eyelids flutter at the cool flush but remain closed, trusting.
When the gauze dries, he lowers a fresh transparent dressing into your palm. “Lay the center first,” he instructs, fingertips brushing the inside of your wrist—a static spark that travels up your arm and settles in your spine. You suspend the film over the wound; his thumb nudges your angle by a hair. Film kisses skin, adhesive sealing with a soft hush. Jaemin’s fingers linger to smooth the edges, tracing the perimeter with measured reverence. Sunshine releases a breathy coo—small, silvered joy—and the corners of her mouth tremble upward. It’s barely a smile, but the room seems to tilt toward it. You step back, the metronome of monitors syncing to your heartbeat. Jaemin straightens, gaze cutting from the dressing to your face. Steel meets softness; a quiet flare of approval smolders in the dark of his eyes, but no compliment escapes. Only a clipped “Good,” vibrating somewhere between benediction and command.
Morning dilutes the hallway’s night-blue hush into ivory light, and you arrive at Sunshine’s isolette before rounds, breath clouding the glass like a secret. She’s already awake—eyes the color of bruised plums, lids still puffy from last night’s tears—yet there’s a new alertness firing in the tiny flick of her lashes. Her cheeks glow lamb-pink, mottled where the cannula tape presses, and the slope of her nose is dotted with pinprick milia that look like spilled sugar on porcelain. She’s still a thicket of tubing: nasal prongs feeding warmed oxygen, an OG tube taped at the corner of her mouth, a pulse-ox lead hugging her bunny-print foot. But her legs, those impossibly frail sticks, keep kicking against the boundaries of her blanket, testing gravity as though she’s just discovered it can be pushed back. Yesterday she scarcely flexed a toe; this morning each kick seems to announce, I’m here, I’m here, in a rhythm brighter than any monitor’s green glow.
You ease the isolette door open, and she startles—first with a gasp, then with a high, breathy “ah,” like the piano note at the very top of a scale. She flails, fists grazing the ventilator tubing, and in that flurry of motion her blanket slips, exposing the little sun Dr. Na stitched beside the leaf. The sight steadies you: vows sewn into cloth, still guarding her sternum. You tuck the blanket around her knees, thumb brushing the soft fuzz at her shin. She grips your latex-gloved fingertip—translucent nails against sterile blue—then promptly loses interest and kicks again, as if auditioning for some celestial swim team. It’s ridiculous, it’s beautiful, and it squeezes something aching and incandescent behind your ribs.
Dr. Na strides in with the rest of early rounds—clipboard in his left hand, stethoscope slung like a silver lariat over his shoulder, but the room seems to shrink to the triangle of you, him, and the baby. Her eyes flick toward him as though she recognizes his scent in the air. “Vitals?” he asks without looking up from the chart, but you’re already reciting them, heart rate 146, sats 95 on two-litre flow, urine output steady, no residuals on the last feed. He grunts an acknowledgment and flicks the diaphragm of his stethoscope against his palm to warm it.
Jaemin lifts the blanket’s corner, and cool air slips beneath the pastel folds. The stethoscope disk finds the soft swell of her belly, silver circle gleaming against moon-pale skin. He gives a gentle tap—just enough for the tiniest vibration to ripple through her, a secret knock at the door of her heartbeat. Sunshine’s eyes flare open, lashes quivering like wet petals; her mouth forms an astonished O, and then—out of the fragile hush—rises a gurgling laugh, round and effervescent, bubbling up as if a pearl had broken free from seawater. Her limbs answer first: feet kick slow, delighted arcs; fingers uncurl, brushing air the way a dreamer reaches for light. He taps again, softer, and the laugh returns—lighter now, half-hiccup, half-song—spilling down her tongue in tiny, shimmering crescendos. Tubes quiver against her cheeks with each sound; the cannula trembles, catching a droplet of breath. Beneath the transparent film at her sternum, the stitches rise and fall, but above them, life pours forth fearless and bright. The little sun embroidered on her blanket glints beneath her chin as she wiggles, laughter beating inside the isolette like a hummingbird’s wings—proof that even stitched skin and plastic lines cannot cage joy when it decides to bloom.
The silver disk skims lower, grazing the faint curve of her ribs, and Sunshine’s whole body anticipates the touch, knees drawing up, toes flexing, lips already quivering at the corners. Jaemin whispers another invisible boo into the hollow of her belly, and the laugh bursts out brighter, a liquid trill that sends her pacifier bobbing on its clip. Her eyes ribbon into crescents; the soft down of her brows lifts as though wonder itself is tickling her from the inside. A flush blooms across her cheeks, staining the skin just beneath the tape a rosy dawn, and she kicks hard enough that one bunny-printed footie blurs in the isolette’s light. Jaemin’s mouth tilts a fraction—more exhale than smile—but he taps once more, gentler than breath, coaxing another ripple of giggles that flutter through her like tiny wings.
You feel the sound land in the hollow of your chest—warm and aching—while your hand hovers inches from hers, ready should she reach, though you don’t interrupt. Her laughter drains into soft hiccups, lashes fluttering open to track the stethoscope’s gleam, as if she’s discovered a private moon. Jaemin finally lifts the disk away, but keeps his palm braced near her flank, steadying the residual tremors of joy. His eyes flick to yours—dark, bright, a quiet astonishment neither of you name—and in that exchange you taste salt behind your teeth, the sweetness nearly too much to bear. Sunshine sighs, lashes sweeping down, and nestles her face into the blanket’s sun, breathing tiny haloed clouds against the wool, her whole body soft as dusk. The room feels newly spun, tender and humming, each of you held in the fragile orbit of a baby’s laugh.
Jaemin, still staring at the impossible joy that just erupted from six pounds of scar tissue and willpower, murmurs, “Guess she thinks I’m funny.” The monitors carry on, oblivious, but every clinician in the alcove stands suspended in that shimmer of pure, unfiltered triumph. Her giggle hardens into legend over the next hour; Jihoon practically sprints to noon conference so he can announce, between panting breaths, “Sunshine likes dad jokes confirmed,” and no one bothers hiding their grin.
Later, as rounds wind down, you watch her burn through her newfound energy: a flurry of kicks, then a sleepy whine, then a thumb sucked loud enough to fog the cannula. Jaemin adjusts her feed angle, his knuckles grazing yours, and though the contact is gloved and fleeting, it sears a path of heat up your forearm. He murmurs a dosage adjustment under his breath, you nod, and together you settle the isolette lid. She sighs through her tube, lashes trembling shut, pacified by your lullaby-quiet breathing. She’s still sick—lines in, surgeries ahead—but today her laugh is proof that healing is not only measured in milliliters and milligrams; sometimes it bursts forth unscripted, a silver bell in a sterile room, and everyone present re-learns what hope sounds like.
You chart her milestone with trembling fingers—First audible laugh, 05:47, elicited by Dr. Na J.—and as the entry saves, you realize your cheeks ache from smiling. Sunshine sleeps, one foot kicking in dreams, blanket sun brimming beneath her chin; Jaemin steps behind you, voice low, neither praise nor reprimand—only, “Keep her this warm, her laugh is beautiful,” before he’s gone. But the day hums brighter for every soul that walks past that isolette and pauses, just long enough to see a tiny mouth quirk, as if she might laugh again, and let the dawn break twice in one morning.
Leaning into the isolette’s porthole, you let your voice dip into the hush between monitor beeps, forehead almost touching the clear plastic. Sunshine’s lashes flutter at the brush of your breath, and you trace a finger along the curve of her swaddle where the feeding line meets her shoulder. “You hungry, beautiful?” you murmur, letting the words tumble out like warm milk themselves—soft vowels, slow consonants. Her lips purse, working around the pacifier in a tiny suck-pause-suck rhythm, and one fist rises sleepily in answer, knuckles brushing the blanket’s sun as if she’s reaching for the idea of nourishment before the syringe even clicks into place.
The scare begins so quietly you almost miss it. Sunshine has been tolerating her afternoon gavage feeds, twenty milliliters of fortified milk sliding through the orange NG tube at a careful drip, but today she fusses halfway through, tiny brow knitting, fists tightening under the blanket. You stroke her foot, waiting for the wriggle to settle. Then, in a blink, everything splinters: her eyes fly wide, pupils blown with panic, and a wet gurgle rattles up her throat. Milk refluxes through the tube and pools at her lips. The pulse-ox monitor shrieks, oxygen plunging from 94 to 70, while the overhead alarm flashes a strobe of angry red.
Your hands freeze above her chest, mind fractured by the cacophony. You see the numbers falling—68, 63—but your fingers won’t move. Dr. Na materialises from the med cart like a shadow called by instinct. In one motion he flicks off the feeding pump, palms her sternum with two fingertips, and tilts her sideways. “Suction,” he commands, voice calm enough to still the room. The nurse snaps the catheter into his hand; he threads it past the tube in a single practiced glide, clearing the frothy milk and thin strings of mucus while his thumb taps gentle compressions along her back. The monitor bleeps up—72, 83—yet he doesn’t exhale until it climbs past 90. Sunshine’s chest heaves, then settles; her colour tints from ashen lilac to mottled pink. Only then does he nod once, clamps the NG line, and reattaches the nasal prongs.
Hours later, after the charting and the machine resets, you retreat to the metal stairwell that smells of bleach and burnt coffee. Your knees draw to your chest; your scrub top is damp where the milk splashed. The adrenaline drains, leaving a hollow tremor in its wake. You stare at your palms and wonder how hands that know every stitch of her blanket could turn to stone when she needed them. Footsteps echo. Dr. Na descends, pausing three steps up so you have to tilt your head to meet his eyes. He doesn’t scold. He simply extends the pink pacifier you’d left on the procedure tray. The glitter heart catches the stairwell light. “You forgot this.” His voice is quiet enough to slip under your guard. “You’re better when you’re not scared of losing,” he adds, tone neither harsh nor gentle—just true. “She needs you to be sure.” You wrap shaking fingers around the pacifier, and he rests his hand on the railing beside your head—close, not touching—until your breathing matches the slow cadence of his own. Only then does he climb back up, leaving the smell of scrub soap and peppermint lingering like a vow.
In the days that follow, Sunshine stitches together a quilt of tiny victories that remap the ward’s heartbeat. Hayoung slips the white plush bunny into the isolette one dawn, and the instant the velvety ear brushes Sunshine’s cheek, she releases a pleased coo—three rising notes that sound like a miniature skylark greeting morning. Later, during chart checks, Jihoon parks himself beside her crib and recites her medication list in a hammy Shakespearean baritone—“Two milliliters of caffeine citrate, thou noble babe!”—and she answers with an enormous yawn, jaw unhinging to the ceiling, pink tongue curling like a comma at the end of a sentence. The whole bay chuckles; she looks faintly pleased with herself.
Her strength blooms in whispers: one afternoon you lift her onto the wedge for physiotherapy, and she pushes up, drowsy but determined, head floating a full half-inch off the mattress. Those five seconds steal the air from your lungs; you duck into the supply closet and cry against a stack of diapers, the smell of powder and plastic cocooning your joy. By week’s end she’s strong enough to lock onto your lanyard—tiny fist snagging the ID badge and yanking with startling ferocity until the clip pops loose. Dr. Na smirks, reattaches it, and remarks under his breath, “Recruiting her early, are you?” She hiccups in reply, cheeks blooming sunset pink.
None of these moments rewrite her prognosis—she’s still tethered to half a dozen lines, still facing more surgery—but they redraw the map of what is possible: bunny coos, Shakespeare yawns, half-inch head lifts, lanyard captures. Each demands new space in the margin of her chart, written in the same ink as vitals and vent settings, because here, joy is as measurable as any lab value. And every night, long after rounds, you slip that yellow blanket up to her chin, whisper the day’s new victory into her ear, and wait for the soft exhale that means she believes you: I’m here, I’m here.
You don’t realize how narrow your orbit has become until Chief Resident Siyeon plants both palms on the on-call room table and says, very evenly, “You’re not a pediatric intern, and you’re not her mother, you shouldn’t be this attached.” The fluorescent light picks out every crease in her brow; the words sting harder because they’re true. Since the night Sunshine emerged into your arms, you’ve lived along a single corridor, drifted from isolette to OR to isolette again, stitched tightly to Dr. Na’s service as though the rest of the hospital were merely background noise. No one bothered paging you for adult trauma consults anymore; your colleagues joked that if anyone needed you they should try the NICU first. At morning sign-out other interns swapped war stories about bowel resections and emergent craniotomies; you traded tips on heel warmers, cannula sizes, and pacifier flow rates. Somewhere in the haze of feeds, line changes, and Dr. Na’s clipped requests, you forgot that the internship program expects breadth, not devotion.
It started innocently: an extra set of competent hands during a midnight PDA ligation, the way you anticipated retractors without being asked. Dr. Na liked predictable, silent efficiency, and you showed up every shift with the chart colour-coded and the OR prepped to his exact preference: curved Metzenbaums at ten o’clock, stat drain at one, suction tubing primed, arterial line transduced to the decimal. When preemies bradyed, you nudged the FiO₂ up before he spoke; when sutures needed tying, your knots lay flat and surrendered at the precise tug pressure he favoured. Word spread that he “doesn’t use interns—he uses her,” but no one challenged it because beds were turning over faster than staff could learn names. And yes, Sunshine cooed for you and settled for your lullaby, but the truth was every neonate under his care benefited: the baby post-gastroschisis closure who only took feeds when you paced the bolus; the ex-24-weeker who desatted less when you calibrated the pulse-ox clip just north of the knee. Other interns documented vitals; you documented patterns and presented them before dawn rounds like tiny weather reports of each child’s storm.
That’s the context Siyeon slaps onto the table when she orders your transfer. “Dr. Na can like you all he wants, but you are not a single-service intern.” She hands you a temporary badge for Cardiac Surgery, Surgical Hearts Unit, Dr. Hwang. The name alone is legend: minimally invasive valve wizard, five papers in JTCVS this year. You nod, throat paper-dry, and turn toward the elevator bank feeling like someone has untethered your gravity. Dr. Hwang’s OR is an icebox of precision, temperature down for myocardial protection, sarcasm dialed up for survival. He watches you scrub, notes your clumsy opposite-hand brush technique, and corrects it with a quick bark. Yet once the chest is cracked and the aorta cross-clamped, he sees how your hands move: quick, economical, no wasted rotation of the wrist. “Good vessel control,” he mutters as you snare the right coronary ostium. Later, in debrief, he studies the suture line on the explanted valve ring. “Soft hands,” he says, which in his dialect counts as euphoria, but follows with, “You second-guess too much. Stop waiting for permission, just take it.” The compliment lands like grit; you pocket it anyway. But the scent of chlorhexidine in Peds still clings to your scrubs, and each time the unit phone rings across the OR, your pulse spikes, waiting for a code you’ll no longer answer.
By the end of the second day, the NICU corridor carries your absence in every echo. Hayoung’s text arrives like a cautious ripple: “Sunshine’s residuals are up. I tried your slow-drip angle—it didn’t settle.” Beneath the bright fluorescents, the incubators stand like empty pews, waiting for someone who knows their hymns. Hyejin’s message reads: Day 3: she misses you. How do I make her stop crying? The accompanying photo shows Sunshine’s lashes stuck together with tears, cheeks mottled pink, eyes too big for her face. You send back instructions, tuck the blanket corner just so under her chin, pacifier rotated to the magic angle, a humming note in F-sharp to match her resting heart rate but the reply is a cascade of crying-face emojis. Down the hall, whispers say Dr. Na prowls the bay like a storm’s eye; when a resident delivers an NG tube two millimeters too large, Dr. Na’s low “Take it back” cuts sharper than any reprimand you’ve ever heard him offer.
He’s accustomed to your rhythm: the exact moment you’d read a drop in sats and cradle her head, the way you’d coax a stubborn feed track into her gut as if it were your solemn vow. He never voices it—prefers to let the ward’s heartbeat betray his preference—but when Hyejin steps forward to lower the FiO₂ by protocol, he slides his gloved thumb to tweak the dial up just enough to see that familiar flicker of calm return to Sunshine’s face. When she gags on her line and Hyejin hesitates, Dr. Na’s hand drifts to your old stool’s empty space, his gaze lingering on the scratches your penlight made on its leg. And though he never summons your name aloud, every order he issues, every shift he schedules, bends toward the unspoken certainty: you’re the one who can speak her language, who knows by heart the fragile grammar of her survival.
And you—torn from the little miracles of midday rounds and the soft triumph of a warmed towel—feel the ward’s pulse in empty spaces. You miss the steady click of the pump when she takes a full feed, the hush that falls when babies like her hold still under your touch, the sharp comfort of a successful central line placement. You miss the shuffle sneakers as you arrive to pre-rounds, the low hum of drip alarms and the chorus of tiny sighs that greet sunrise. Most of all, you miss the small hand that once sought your lanyard and the confident tug that felt like a promise. In the quiet hours between Cardiac’s sterile walls, you close your eyes and hear again the soft gasp of a little fighter beneath the sun-woven blanket, and you know that every stitch you ever made—and every stitch you’ll ever make—exists only because her breath still needs you.
Day Five dawns beneath a vault of piercing lights in Dr. Hwang’s operating theater, where the stainless steel and polished glass gleam with an almost reverent intensity. You stand beside the patient—a silent promise of new life etched into the pale curve of her chest—fingers gloved and poised on the prosthetic valve’s silken cuff. The heart-lung machine hums at your side, its steady pulse echoing the very organ you’re about to replace, and the room smells of antiseptic and opportunity, as if salvation has a scent. Monitors blink in unison, their green and yellow digits sliding across the screen like a countdown to rebirth, while Dr. Hwang’s measured voice issues commands that you, reflexively, transform into precise action: clamp here, suture there, a swirl of motion so practiced it feels like breathing.
Then the doors melt open, and Dr. Na steps in as though summoned by fate itself, mask hanging slack beneath his chin, eyes obsidian pools reflecting the perfusion lights. His presence shifts the air: confidence sharpened to a blade’s edge. He crosses the threshold with the soft authority of someone accustomed to victory, and without hesitation says, “I need her for a consult.” His tone carries no question. Dr. Hwang pauses mid-incision, glancing at the perfusionist as if the entire divine hierarchy has realigned; a single, meaning-laden sigh escapes him. He turns to you, eyebrows arched, and with the quiet grace of a conductor acknowledging another soloist, he nods. In that moment, gowns and gloves become vestments cast aside. You slip out of your apron without ceremony, hand off your instruments, and follow Dr. Na through the antiseptic corridor, the soft click of your boot soles a promise of return—return to the row of incubators where dozens of tiny lives still tremble, each one waiting for the careful hands that know its name.
He says nothing down the hallway, but his pace is clipped; you lengthen your stride to keep up. In the NICU procedure room a 34-weeker lies blue-mottled; a pleural drain has occluded. He snaps on gloves, hands you curved hemostats, and you fall into rhythm—no speech needed. You angle the trocar, he rides the guidewire, and together you chase the trapped air until the pleura sighs and the baby pinks up like dawn over snow. Fifteen minutes, one silent ballet. When the lid is sealed, he nods once. That’s it. You half-expect dismissal, but he holds the door as you wheel the bassinet back, and the air between you feels warmer for the first time in days.
Just before the hospital clocks flick past midnight, the electronic roster shifts without fanfare—your badge ID vanishes from Cardiac Surgery and reappears beneath Pediatrics, as if carried on a silent breeze. No emails, no explanations: one moment you’re scrubbed in for valve repairs; the next, you’re back amid the soft hum of incubators and the diffuse glow of night-shift lamps. In the NICU’s gentle glow, Sunshine lies swaddled in her yellow blanket. Beneath her cheek, the tiny sun Dr. Na stitched gleams like first light, its golden rays a silent promise. She breathes in slow, trusting rhythms—feed residuals minimal, heart steady—and then stirs. A single fist drops free to curl around the loop of your lanyard, tugging once as if greeting an old friend, before her lashes flutter closed again. You press your palm to the glass, feeling the warmth of her tiny victory in every exhale, and in that hush you know you’re exactly where you belong.
Six months have passed since that first fragile sunrise in the NICU, and outside, winter’s breath has begun to frost the glass. Dawn arrives later now, silver light seeping through drawn blinds into the hushed corridor. You pause by Sunshine’s isolette every morning, noting how the steam from her heater mingles with wisps of chill air. The world beyond these walls has shifted from spring’s tentative green to winter’s crystalline stillness, but inside, her incubator glows like a private hearth. Nurses pad past in wool socks, carefully closing doors behind them to guard her microclimate, and you feel the weight of time’s passage every time you see how much she’s grown.
Once a three-pound ember fighting to stay alight, Sunshine now tips the scales at nearly five kilos, her limbs plump with promise. Her cheeks, once translucent as porcelain, bloom a petal-pink when she’s warmed; her tiny shoulders undulate with breaths that no longer rattle but rise in lazy, confident arcs. She no longer needs invasive ventilation, only a gentle nasal cannula that nestles beneath her button nose like a protective halo. Ultrasound echoes show stable shunts, steady cardiac function; every lab value whispers of a body learning to thrive. And within that expanding vessel of flesh and resolve, a personality unfurls: when the mobile swings, her fist bats at dangling stars; when your voice drifts near, her lips curve in an emerging smile that brightens the monitors more than any reading ever could.
Her daily check-ups have become routine rituals rather than alarms. At 0800, the neonatologist traces her growth chart, notes her weight gain, and listens to her lungs with that same stethoscope that once coaxed the first giggle from her belly. No new murmurs surface; no fresh bleeds stain the scans. Feed tolerance climbs to full oral volumes—thirty milliliters every three hours—and the NG tube only remains in place for emergencies. With the stability earned after half a year of vigil, Sunshine now joins a select few for “winter walks”: nurses tuck her into a thermal blanket burrito, pop the isolette into a stroller, and glide her along the ward’s sunlit atrium. Her eyes widen at the soft crunch of gravel in the courtyard below, and for those precious moments of fresh air and gentle landscape, she’s more than a patient—she is a child tasting the world.
And oh, how she explores it. Head held high against her pillow, she tracks faces with that arresting stare that once only prompted solemn charts; now she beams, coos, and squeals like a tiny songbird. Her fingers, once too feeble to clasp, now curl around a nurse’s pinky with surprising strength. She reaches for the music-box ballerina atop her isolette, a tentative grasp followed by delighted gurgles. Rolling from back to side—a milestone she practiced under the soft lamplight—Sunshine declares her presence in the room. Hayoung laughs when she sees the crooked sun on her blanket peeking from beneath her chin, and you sigh against the glass, heart full. In every twitch of an eyelash, every breath drawn in the cold winter air, you witness a living miracle becoming herself: lovely, stubborn, and utterly impossible to imagine ever leaving this world without leaving a piece of herself inside every soul she’s touched.
Midday in the NICU has become its own quiet tradition: the hum of monitors and soft whir of ventilators fade into the background, replaced by the gentle clatter of paper cups and the low murmur of stolen lunches beside Sunshine’s isolette. It's become tradition for interns, nurses, and the occasional resident to gather around Sunshine’s incubator for lunch. It began as whispered guilt: how hollow the bay felt when she sat alone under those fluorescent beams, tray tables untouched, her tiny chest rising and falling without anyone to witness. Now you come armed with fold-out chairs and paper cups of Jihoon’s miso soup, steam curling like a benediction, and the corridor hums with rustling wrappers and soft laughter. Hyejin sits at Sunshine’s head, knitting yet another pastel hat whose stitches count the days of warmth you’ve given her. Hayoung perches on the foot of the isolette with her sketchbook, capturing the curve of a cheek, the slope of a newborn nose in quick graphite strokes. You slip a single marshmallow beneath Sunshine’s blanket for “protection,” tucking it into the fold so that, if luck were candy, she’d have enough sugar to share. When Dr. Na strides by, brow furrowed beneath his cap, you and Hayoung exchange a conspiratorial glance before nodding as if bathing babies at lunch were the most natural thing in the world. Hayoung sighs, strides out, and returns with matcha buns—plastic bags crackling like applause—urging, “Eat up,” because Sunshine’s feast is the only one speeding up the universe.
Over weeks, the bay has become a small, sacred ecosystem of devotion. The isolette’s walls gleam with new stickers every shift—“fighter,” “sunshine,” “baby astronomer”—each one a talisman pressed against the plastic. You’ve knitted half a dozen more blankets: a sky-blue shawl dotted with ivory clouds, a rose-tinted wrap flecked with golden stars, and a mustard-yellow square embroidered with Grandpa’s initials. Plush bunnies multiply beside her chest—one wears a tiny bow tie in forest green, another a lace collar—while a rotating mobile of silver moons arcs above, each rotation a silent benediction. Behind the incubator you keep a little leather notebook, its pages blossoming with scrawled notes: She smiled when I hummed last night, Coos when the thermometer clicks, Fist-bites the NG tube, tiny rebel. That diary is your secret sanctuary, where every flutter of her growth is chronicled like a miracle in bullet points and half-drawn hearts.
But not every story here blooms. One afternoon, you’re mid-round when the resident calls a code on Baby R—a tiny preemie only days older than Sunshine. You rush in, hands steady but heart pounding, to help with chest compressions on a body so small you can’t believe you’re pressing down at all. The machines whine, the alarms pierce, and despite every intervention, he slips away. His isolette stands empty afterward, the space beside his cradle ghostly. You swallow against the lump in your throat, taste bitter fear on your tongue, and slip out to the stairwell, each step echoing your loss. The world narrows to the sound of your tears soaking your scrub sleeve, shoulders shaking like you’ve forgotten how to stand. Jihoon finds you there, eyes soft with shared grief. He doesn’t say a word, he never needs to. He presses a sticker into your palm, bright yellow and crowned with the words World’s Best Intern, and steps forward until you’re wrapped in his arms. His chest rises beneath yours, solid and warm, and you let yourself dissolve, head falling against his shoulder as he hums a single note of comfort. “I’d lose myself,” you manage between ragged breaths, “if anything happened to her.” He holds you closer, the hum resonating through his ribs, a promise that in this bay of fragility, hope still breathes
You slip into the bay at noon, still carrying the weight of yesterday’s loss like a stone in your chest. The grief of Baby R’s passing, so close in size and age, has shadowed every breath you draw, and you find yourself flinching at the thrum of alarms, haunted by the echo of compressed chests. Jihoon watched you disappear into the stairwell, shoulders heaving, tears soaking your sleeve, and he vowed to carve out a moment of light. So today he’s assembled six plush bunnies around Sunshine’s incubator, not as mere toys, but as symbols of hope. Each one was chosen for the way its fur recalls a memory of comfort: mint-green for morning baths, sky-blue for gentle ventilator hums, buttercream for every feed you coaxed her through, and three more in pastel hues you’ve yet to name. He wants you to see that life still blooms here, that joy can return even after we’ve been scorched by sorrow.
The air in the NICU feels charged with something tender, anticipation, maybe, or the quiet insistence that life endures. Jihoon bursts in mid-afternoon with two new plush arrivals cradled in his arms: one snow-white bunny with button eyes like polished pearls, the other golden-furred and soft as spun dawn. “All the bunnies need names,” he declares, setting them on the edge of Sunshine’s incubator as though presenting royal guests. Sunshine, swaddled in her lavender blanket dotted with silver stars, stares at them with wide, unblinking eyes, the first clear focus you’ve seen all day. Her tiny hands seem constantly curious, reaching forwards with delighted determination. She babbles, her little mouth forming consonants as if eager to speak. A gummy smile spreads, occasionally accompanied by a drool that traces her chin. Her eyes, when she focuses, are impossibly wide, full of wonder as she reacts to the world around her. Her small belly rolls gently as she wriggles, her movements soft and innocent, evoking a tender, near-aching affection.
Jihoon clears his throat, voice low and ceremonious, and you feel the weight of every eye in the bay resting on the scene. “Friends,” he begins, tilting his head toward the golden-furred bunny, “I present Egg Yolk.” His tone is playful but firm, as though he’s performing a rite older than any you’ve witnessed in these walls. Sunshine’s big plump cheeks flush a soft sunrise pink at the sight of her new companion, and you watch her lower lip tremble in an exquisite, heart-touching moment when the world seems to hold its breath just for her.
You step closer, cradling Sunshine’s head in your gloved hand, the gentle warmth of her fine downy hair brushing your palm. “Egg Yolk,” you murmur into her ear, letting the name roll off your tongue like a lullaby. Her tiny fists uncurl from the folds of her blanket and she reaches out, fingertips brushing the honeyed fur of the golden bunny with a tenderness that feels too profound for her six months of life. As her hand closes around the soft ear, a delighted gurgle escapes her—an unexpected sparkle in the sterile air. You half-laugh, half-sigh, unable to stop the emotion threading through your chest. “Yes,” you whisper, voice thick, “Egg Yolk, because you’re the first light of our mornings.” Jihoon watches her, eyes softening, and Hayoung’s pencil flutters over the paper as she captures the upward tilt of Sunshine’s lashes. In that suspended second, as the golden bunny nestles against Sunshine’s cheek, you sense the full weight of what naming can mean: belonging, protection, the promise that she will never wander these corridors alone.
Now it falls to Cloud—the pristine, snow-white rabbit—to claim her place beside Sunshine. Jihoon shifts beside you, pressing a gentle finger into Sunshine’s open palm as though guiding the choice. You lean in, voice hushed: “And this friend, what shall we call her? Do you like the name Cloud?” Jihoon smiles, a rare soft curve to his lips, and replies, “Because even on stormy nights, she’ll carry you to peaceful skies.” As he speaks, you watch Sunshine’s eyes brighten, that familiar glint of recognition flickering like a celestial spark. She extends both chubby hands, batting at Cloud’s perky ears with surprising purpose, then presses the bunny’s belly against her own in a sleepy, contented sigh. Her small body shivers with a half-giggle, a wet, breathy coo that seems to ripple through her like sunshine breaking through winter clouds.
Hyejin pauses her knitting to offer a quiet “Yes,” and the nurses lingering nearby press their palms to the glass, sharing in the warmth of the moment.
You lean forward again, voice soft as snow: “Cloud and Egg Yolk, official guardians of our Sunshine.” The words hang between you, a tapestry of devotion woven in syllables, and as Sunshine nestles her head into the curve of Cloud’s back, you know she has, in naming these companions, chosen her own small constellation of love.
Jihoon arranges the six plush bunnies around Sunshine’s incubator with precise reverence: two stand guard at her head, two flank her feet like dutiful escorts, and two rest at her sides as loyal companions. Sunshine’s cheeks bloom with a gentle flush as she lifts her head to regard her new court, bright eyes alight with curiosity—an imperious little monarch surveying her circle of soft, devoted attendants. Her tiny hands emerge from the folds of her lavender blanket, plump fingers brushing the ears of the nearest bunny in a delicately deliberate salute. A soft gurgle of delight escapes her lips, and she gives a tentative tug on the silk bow around the bunny’s neck, as if testing the bonds of loyalty she helped forge. You and Hayoung exchange triumphant smiles: the original naming ceremony may have christened Cloud and Egg Yolk, but here, in this moment, every stuffed friend feels newly honored. Jihoon steps back, hands on hips, eyes shining with the quiet satisfaction of a guardian who knows his charge is surrounded by love. In the hush that follows, Sunshine coos again, her coo rippling through the bunnies like a royal decree, and you realize that her laughter has become the anthem of this makeshift court, binding each of you ever closer to her bright, unfolding world.
Then, as if deciding they’re trustworthy, she reaches out one pudgy hand. Her fingers are plump crescents tipped in milky-white nails, each one flexing with surprising purpose, and she wraps them around Egg Yolk’s silky ear. A single droplet of clear drool pools at the corner of her mouth, catching the light like a dew-kissed petal. You nearly gasp at how perfectly it glows against her rose-tinted cheek. She gives a gentle tug and the golden bunny wobbles—but doesn’t fall—and she emits a soft, breathy squeal: a tender half-coo, half-laugh that reverberates through the incubator like a blessing. Encouraged, she shifts in her swaddle, exposing the tiny dimples on her knees as her legs kick in joyous arcs. Each kick sends a ripple through the blanket, and you swear she’s dancing—six months old, still tiny enough to fit in the crook of your shoulder, yet bold enough to claim space in your heart. Her lips part in a gummy grin, and you glimpse the faintest hint of tooth buds just beneath her gums, two pearly pledges of the milestones still to come. Then, between another series of kicks, she coos again, clear, resonant, an unmistakable “ma-ma” that echoes off the glass. Your breath catches. It’s the first time you’ve heard her attempt a consonant, and the sound feels like sunrise breaking through winter’s longest night.
As she settles her hands on Cloud’s plush belly, she breathes out in a sigh so contented it feels like a lullaby in itself. Her eyelids flutter into soft crescents; the bunnies rock gently with the sway of her body. Even the monitors quiet, their beeps retreating into the hush. In that intimate pause, you and Jihoon exchange a glance—no words needed—because you both know: this tiny miracle, this bubbling sprite of light and laughter, has grown not just in size, but into her own radiant self, full of purpose, promise, and the tender power to bind all of you to her orbit forever.
You catch Jihoon’s eye and he offers you a soft, conspiratorial smile, an unspoken assurance that this was for you, that even in grief you can find reasons to rejoice. You lift Sunshine from her incubator, cradling her against your chest as though she might drift away otherwise. “Who’s my wittle princess?” you coo, voice low and tremulous with delight. Her eyes open wide at the sound of your tone, those bruised-plum irises fixing you in a gaze so knowing it feels like a touch. She answers with a stream of warm gurgles, tiny lungs humming under your scrub top. You lean down, pressing a sweet, gentle kiss to her forehead. “Yes, you are, my shining star, my Sunny-Bunny,” you murmur, each pet name tumbling out in a river of soft vowels.
Around you, the interns fall silent, chairs scraping the linoleum in hushed awe. Hayoung’s pencil stills mid-sketch; Hyejin’s needles pause in mid-click; even Jihoon stops the rustle of wrappers in his hands. The nurses drift to the doorway, glancing in with tender smiles, whispering among themselves, “Look how perfectly she fits in her arms,” and “She’s so at home with her.” Sunshine coils her fingers into the fabric of your gown as though anchoring herself to your heartbeat, then releases a series of coos and squeals, each one a miniature conversation, as if she’s replying in her own newborn dialect to your stream of endearments. You sway in the soft overhead glow, lost in the rhythm of her breath, the hush of the bay folding around you like a benediction.
At the threshold, Dr. Na stands with his back to the corridor, shoulders tense, mask lowered like armor. He watches you and Sunshine entwined in that private orbit, and a knot tightens in his chest, equal parts longing and reverence. He doesn’t step forward; he doesn’t speak. There’s a tender ache he can’t describe and an emptiness in his chest that no monitor can measure. The world beyond these walls blurs into quiet insignificance, and all that remains is the soft chorus of your coos and Sunshine’s trusting squeals—a duet heard only within the hush of this sacred bay.
The night after, the NICU hums under low evening light, monitors pulsing like distant constellations, and Sunshine lies nestled amid her newly christened court of bunnies—Cloud curled beneath her chin, Egg Yolk tucked at her hip, Marshmallow posted like a sentinel at her feet. At six months she still fits in the crook of your arm, yet her movements have gained intention: a careful palm patting Cloud’s velvety ear, a gummy kiss pressed to Egg Yolk’s honey-colored nose. She studies each plush friend with solemn concentration, blinking wide lavender-grey eyes as though she can read history in their stitched smiles. When she coos, the sound carries a whisper of ownership, an almost musical lilt that claims these soft companions as part of her story. Even her breathing seems gentler tonight, as if the bunnies have absorbed the sharp edges of the day and handed back only quiet.
Jihoon hovers at the bedside, arms folded, watching her explore this miniature kingdom. “Look at her,” he murmurs, voice half-reverent. “Treats them like glass heirlooms.” Sunshine answers with a gleeful squeak, patting his offered knuckle with sticky fingers. The gesture snags a sigh from his chest, one of those involuntary releases that happen when hope outweighs fear. You lean closer, adjusting her cannula prongs with feather-light precision; she hardly notices, too busy stroking Marshmallow’s ribbon, the frayed satin catching on her still-dimpled knuckle. The nurses slow their steps near the isolette, drawn by the hush that settles whenever Sunshine enters this state of concentrated gentleness, as though she knows tenderness is a power, and powers should be wielded carefully.
When the overhead clock clicks past twenty-two hundred, you begin the bedtime ritual you’ve refined over months of sleepless vigils. First, Egg Yolk is positioned under her elbow for warmth; then Cloud is tucked beside her cheek to catch stray dreams; finally, you unfold her blanket edged with moon-white yarn and lay it over her lap, smoothing each ripple until it mirrors still water. Sunshine watches with grave attention, lower lip caught between soft gums, as if memorizing every fold for the nights you might not be here. You bend to kiss the center of her forehead, skin warm, faint antiseptic scent in her baby curls, whispering, “Goodnight, precious baby,” and her eyelids drift down while a rose-petal sigh escapes her.
Jihoon breaks the hush with a mock ceremonial bow, sweeping his arm across the bunnies. “Sleep tight, Her Royal Brightness,” he says, conjuring a smile that lifts the weight from his shoulders, and Sunshine rewards him with a half-giggle that bubbles like tonic water. He taps the isolette glass twice—an unspoken seal to the ritual—before stepping back, cheeks pink with quiet pride. The hallway lights dim to their midnight setting, and for a breath you think the night is wrapped, but rain begins to tap against the tall windows: soft, insistent percussion that turns the bay’s reflective surfaces into shifting rivers of light.
“Rain,” Jihoon whispers, eyes widening. “She’s never seen it.” Before the monitors can mark another heartbeat, you both nod with an unspoken agreement. He’s already rummaging through the supply cart for colored paper. You fish a sheet of translucent raindrop stickers from your binder, left over from a discharge poster, and begin to press them onto the isolette’s clear canopy, one after another, until a cascade of sapphire droplets drips across her field of view. Sunshine stirs, pupils tracking the new shapes with awed fascination. Jihoon brandishes a quick-cut paper umbrella, blue handle crooked just right, and tapes it above her head like a comic-strip sky. You dim the overheads, swipe open a cloud-slow video on your phone, and angle the screen so shifting cumulus reflections ripple across the blanket. In that gentle gloom, the isolette transforms: raindrops trickle down acrylic walls; a paper sky shelters her; distant thunder murmurs through tinny speakers. Sunshine’s mouth forms a perfect O, lashes fluttering as she reaches into the hologrammed air, fingers curling around visible nothing. A single delighted squeal escapes her, and she kicks both feet, the bunnies wobbling around her like cheerful life preservers.
The bay doors hiss. Dr. Na steps in, rain-speckled scrubs, gravity in his shoulders. He pauses, absorbing the tableau: you crouched in semi-dark with a phone-lit cloudscape, Jihoon holding a construction-paper umbrella over an isolette cloaked in blanket and bunny guards. One eyebrow arcs. “Do I even want to ask?” he mutters, voice low, though the faint crease at the corner of his mouth betrays intrigue. The rain-track melody answers for you, soft tambour strokes tapping the silence.
“She’ll walk in the rain one day,” you reply, adjusting a droplet sticker. “Tonight’s just rehearsal.” Sunshine echoes with a breathy sigh, gaze flicking from the projected clouds to Dr. Na’s silhouetted frame, as though acknowledging every player in her private storm. The moment hangs, thick with quiet prophecy. Outside, real water traces erratic paths down the windows; inside, paper rain and sticker droplets fall in perfect choreography. In the lamplight Dr. Na’s eyes soften—not joy, not sorrow, but something suspended between: a tender ache, a promise of mornings yet to come. The storm flickers across Sunshine’s blanket, and for one breathless span the metaphor aligns: her body—a world of fragile weather; the umbrella—your steadfast team; every droplet—a survival flagged and named. When the projector’s clouds drift away, she’s already asleep, one tiny fist curled around Cloud’s ear, face lit by the smallest smile, a child who has weathered so much, cradled by the quiet certainty that she never storms alone.
Your first six months at the hospital are lived between breaths held too long and exhaled too quickly. You enter the sterile glow of surgery with textbooks still imprinted behind your eyelids, yet you discover swiftly that anatomy in ink is nothing compared to anatomy beneath your fingertips. Under the stark, humming lights, you learn that a steady hand means nothing without a steadier heart; that the body, when opened, yields not only bone and sinew but stories—fragile and whispered, stark and unforgettable. You learn the mathematics of precision, how the smallest measurement can mean life or loss, and that vulnerability is something your textbooks leave untouched.
But it’s not just technical skill you find scrubbed beneath your nails. Within each procedure—every suture, every exact clamp of a bleeder—you uncover layers of yourself. Hesitation transforms into quiet decisiveness; the tremor in your fingertips steadies into confident grace. You discover your instinct isn’t caution—it’s compassion, and it blooms fiercely. Your capacity to carry pain surprises you: each loss presses its fingerprint into your chest, each success becomes a quiet celebration in the curve of your palms. You become the kind of surgeon whose strength is drawn from empathy rather than distance, whose courage flourishes quietly in the silence after loss.
Around you, the other interns are not just colleagues but family forged by late nights and whispered anxieties over lukewarm vending-machine coffee. Jihoon’s steady humor shines like a sunlit corridor; Hayoung’s soft intensity sketches itself into every careful note she scribbles; Hyejin’s resilience threads gently through the wool she knits during each midnight shift. They fill your days with a companionship as essential as breath. Within hospital walls, among antiseptic scents and fluorescent hums, you find a home that nestles deep into your bones, a place where your fears are shared, your hopes held gently, and your dreams tended by hands as careful as those that wield the scalpel.
Yet of all your teachers, the most profound is the smallest. Sunshine arrived wrapped in quiet tragedy, a newborn miracle cradled by incubator walls, fragile limbs mapped in veins delicate as lace. She teaches you bravery with every rise of her tiny chest, every fluttering blink beneath eyelashes like silver threads. Because of her, you learn that courage means staying—through fevers and midnight alarms, through terrifying silences and small victories that feel monumental. Your hands grow steadier for her, your voice softer, your heart larger. Without conscious thought, you revolve around her axis, her survival a silent religion you practice every day with quiet reverence.
And orbiting alongside you, always at the edge of your awareness, is Dr. Na. He teaches without speaking, his presence quiet yet colossal, a surgeon whose clipped voice hides oceans of care. You mirror him unconsciously, your movements syncing into unspoken choreography, your fingertips tracing paths he first outlines. But the closer you grow to Sunshine’s small, resilient heart, the more his shadow blurs with your own. In the intensity of your shared vigil, your pulse sometimes flutters not from exhaustion or anxiety, but from something deeper—something you will only recognize later, once it has already taken root within your chest.
At the center of it all remains Sunshine, cradled in the quiet pulse of your shared gravity, a delicate bloom facing resolutely toward whatever faint warmth your fingertips and voices offer. She’s a sunflower turning instinctively toward your muted glow, her face open and trusting as petals unfurled beneath the sterile glare. Yet even in her perfect softness, beneath the porcelain silk of her skin and the ink-black lashes that sweep shadows down her cheeks, lingers the hushed tremor of something stolen—innocence pilfered by a mother who slipped away, leaving only fragmented echoes and silence thick as velvet curtains falling closed after the final act.
She holds a secret behind eyes luminous as nebulae, quietly reflecting galaxies you have not yet learned to navigate. Each tiny breath she draws into lungs once too frail for air whispers promises she cannot yet fulfill—promises of survival, yes, but also promises steeped in shadows that creep just beyond your sight. She becomes the axis of your private universe, a small sun around whom your and Dr. Na’s lives revolve unknowingly, pulled into an orbit that masks something darker, more precarious, beneath the incandescent sweetness of her smile. Behind every quiet coo lies the faintest echo of the puppeteer’s strings, threads you cannot see but sometimes feel—tugging softly at your heart, leading you gently, inevitably, toward a deeper ache. You begin to sense, in the hush between her breaths and in the silence that settles when your lullaby fades, that the purity of her existence has always held both light and dark, two sides of the same celestial coin spinning silently through the void.
And Dr. Na, whose guarded eyes flicker briefly behind surgical masks, whose carefully composed expressions hide oceans vast and turbulent, orbits beside you unaware—pulled into the dance, suspended in the strange, cosmic ballet of her gravity. He is a planet eclipsed by shadows of feeling he does not yet recognize, wearing masks like armor against truths he dares not face, truths that quietly, relentlessly press closer, inevitable as tides pulled by distant moons. Yet you are blind to the fracture lines spreading quietly beneath the surface, hairline cracks that trace futures still shrouded in darkness. You hum lullabies, tracing gentle patterns over her skin, believing you hold storms at bay, not realizing those storms swirl already within, readying themselves behind the fragile sky of her chest. She is both the star you chase and the thief who will quietly steal your heart—who already has—leaving behind a void in which you will wander, searching desperately for light that flickers faintly just beyond reach.
You fall irrevocably into love with her luminous presence, her sunflower face turned faithfully toward your warmth, not yet understanding that her survival will demand a cost, a darkness heavy and waiting like curtains poised at the edges of your vision. Her tiny fist grips your finger, impossibly soft and yet strong enough to hold galaxies captive. In that small touch, you sense dimly the ache you are running toward—a heart cracked open beneath fluorescent lights, a surgeon’s quiet devastation, a mask slipping just enough to reveal the raw humanity hidden behind practiced precision. You don’t yet realize she is guiding you toward the storm, her tiny breaths quietly drawing you forward, each gentle sigh a promise and a warning intertwined—telling you that love, like innocence, comes cloaked in both brilliance and shadow, a sweetness stolen quietly, inevitably, beneath your very fingertips.
Sunshine is eleven months old now, a living testament etched delicately into the hushed miracle of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. Her third surgery, a meticulous Fontan procedure to reroute the path of blood through her tiny heart, has been deemed an unequivocal success. Every intricate suture, every precise alignment of vessels was stitched by hands steadier than prayer, leaving behind a gentle scar—a silver whisper beneath her sternum. Though there have been nights thickened by uncertainty, days blurred by fevers and episodes of hypoxia that rippled briefly across the screen of her monitor, she’s emerged stronger, brighter. Good nights now outweigh bad, her chest rising and falling in perfect synchrony beneath the pastel blankets, and the soft hum of machinery around her crib has gradually become a song of reassurance rather than caution.
This NICU, a place once stark and foreign, has gradually melted around her like wax warmed by a gentle flame. She’s grown familiar with its rhythms: the lull of distant monitors, the faint rustle of charts in early morning rounds, even the whispered shifts of nurses’ feet over linoleum floors. She no longer startles at every click and beep; instead, her wide eyes trace patterns in the ceiling tiles, curious and calm, each gaze a tiny explorer charting constellations out of sterile hospital lights. The once-alien scents of antiseptic and sterile plastic tubing now mingle seamlessly with softer notes of lotion and freshly laundered cotton, forming an atmosphere of delicate comfort.
Her small, sacred corner in the NICU is a universe unto itself, draped lovingly in soft hues of soft yellow, cream, and gold—her blankets adorned with tiny embroidered stars, stitched meticulously by your hands in quiet midnight hours. The walls of her isolette gleam gently, decorated meticulously with baby-safe stickers—raindrops, clouds, suns, and stars, each one placed with whispered hopes. The mobile suspended above her head spins slowly, turning stars and moons into a gentle orbit that dances across her field of vision, lulling her into peaceful dreams. Beneath these softly swaying shapes, plush bunnies guard her bedside, their velvet noses gently worn from her kisses, ears curled lovingly from her tiny fists that clutch and stroke them as though even at eleven months she understands the fragility of comfort.
Sunshine has warmed not just to the hospital itself, but to the hearts beating softly within its walls. She coos whenever Nurse Chaeyoung smooths lotion into her tiny palms, giggling softly when the nurse playfully taps her fingertips against Sunshine’s button nose. Nurse Yejin, known for her melodious voice, always hums softly while changing Sunshine’s IV lines, each gentle note met with a delighted gurgle from the little girl nestled in the crib. Nurses Mingyu and Sora often linger longer by her bedside during the quieter shifts, telling her gentle, nonsensical stories about brave princesses in faraway kingdoms, their voices wrapping around her softly, like lullabies spoken rather than sung.
And then there are the interns, her beloved companions. Hayoung sketches softly by her isolette, tracing Sunshine’s perfect bow-shaped lips and impossibly delicate eyelashes into her journal, each pencil stroke like a gentle caress. Jihoon arrives bearing miso soup and matcha buns, crumbs dusting the corners of his mouth as he insists Sunshine will eat buns one day soon, his confident assurances earning a delighted wave of her little arms. Hyejin knits steadily, her needles clicking rhythmically, creating soft hats and socks that adorn Sunshine’s tiny feet and head, each knitted row a pledge of devotion. But it’s you, above all, whose presence is now woven intricately into the very fibers of her day. You’re there every night, murmuring softly as you tuck her blanket beneath her chin, smiling as her small fingers curl around your thumb with tender insistence, as though she’s found her anchor in the world. She recognizes your scent, your voice, your heartbeat—your presence a certainty etched deeply into her small, fragile bones.
She shares this delicate space with other tiny souls, her roommates in this fragile kingdom of wires and whispered hopes. She smiles softly at Minho, a bubbly nine-month-old with wild tufts of hair, who waves clumsily from the isolette beside her, both babies exchanging soft gurgles and wide-eyed looks of gentle curiosity. She coos in gentle delight at baby Yuna’s tiny yawns, each yawn contagious enough to prompt Sunshine to mimic the gesture herself, stretching her little arms and releasing an exaggerated sigh, bringing soft laughter from the nurses nearby.
But her favourite presence—undeniably, unmistakably—is Dr. Na. He walks into the NICU quietly each morning, the click of his shoes a familiar rhythm that sparks a luminous change across her cherubic face. Sunshine knows him by the subtle hints—the crisp lines of his scrubs, the deliberate movements of his hands, the soft shift of his shoulders beneath his white coat. Her eyes brighten instantly upon catching sight of him, widening in recognition, sparkling with quiet, adoring expectation. It is not just his appearance, though she studies the sharp line of his jaw and the familiar pattern of his scrub cap—it’s the essence of him, a quiet gravity she orbits instinctively, a healer whose very presence seems to imbue her small universe with warmth.
The moment he nears, Sunshine’s whole tiny body transforms: her little feet kick excitedly, the rhythmic tapping against the mattress a small drumbeat of welcome. Her arms stretch upward, reaching for him with such hopeful insistence it’s as if she believes she can grasp his gentle aura in her tiny palms. Her lips form soft, exploratory syllables, “daa,” “naaa,” little sounds so tenderly formed they tug at the hearts of anyone listening. But when Dr. Na bends low, murmuring softly, asking her about her night or teasing gently about her bunnies, her babbles grow more intentional, more emphatic—as if she’s holding conversations only they can understand.
She is mesmerized by him, entranced not just by the warmth of his voice, but by the scent of him that she recognizes instinctively, vanilla and spice lingering softly on the fabric of his coat. Each time he leans over her crib, she lifts her head eagerly, nose crinkling delicately as she breathes him in, a gesture of recognition so clear that nurses glance away with quiet smiles. When his fingers brush her cheek, she tilts into his touch, eyelids fluttering in quiet, perfect trust. This tiny, luminous child transforms in his presence—calmer, softer, happier, as if she knows he is both her guardian and her greatest comfort.
He checks her diligently each day, changing her ointments himself, his fingers infinitely careful as they glide over her silvery scar, his voice murmuring words as soothing as his touch. Sunshine doesn’t flinch beneath his hands, her tiny fists uncurling, the muscles in her small frame easing into complete tranquility. Even during auscultation, she settles instantly under the gentle press of his stethoscope, her breaths slowing in a measured rhythm matched perfectly to his heartbeat, as though her tiny body recognizes its safest haven.
In these moments, the world narrows down to just them—doctor and patient, guardian and child, healer and healed. Each visit Dr. Na makes is another gentle petal unfolding within Sunshine’s small world, brightening her eyes and softening her heart. Nurses and interns alike whisper quietly of their connection, shaking their heads fondly at how unmistakably she has chosen him. Jihoon teases him about being her favourite, earning only quiet smiles in response, but no denial—because they all see the truth woven between every interaction, delicate and profound.
In this fragile corner of the NICU, lit softly by gentle fluorescents, surrounded by plush bunnies and embroidered stars, Sunshine blooms gently beneath Dr. Na’s care, a sunflower following the quiet warmth of his presence. He is her healer, her gravity, the silent core around which her small universe rotates, unknowingly tethered to him by a bond so sacred it makes everyone pause—watching in awe at the tenderness that flows silently between them, invisible yet palpable, as steady as the quiet heartbeat thrumming beneath his gentle fingertips.
Sunshine’s world narrows each time Jaemin crouches beside her cot, the smooth metal disk of his stethoscope cradled gently, almost reverently, in the careful curve of his palm. It’s the kind of quiet that shouldn’t exist after surgery, the fragile, crystalline stillness woven from shared breaths and whispers of comfort. Every other approach draws discomfort from her tiny frame; nurses’ gentle touches or other doctors’ cautious movements send her squirming, arching, tiny fists clenched tight in helpless protest. But with him, she quiets instantly, a silent blossoming of trust, the trembling petals of anxiety folding inward to shield the precious calm blooming beneath his hands. Her lashes dip low, casting delicate shadows over her flushed, cherubic cheeks, and her breath eases into a gentle tide of recognition, rhythmic and peaceful, as if her body remembers the first time Jaemin listened and chose, unwaveringly, to stay.
There is a sacredness, a secret language their bodies speak as Jaemin threads a central line into her fragile vein. Sedation should erase awareness, yet somehow her hand drifts instinctively toward him, fingers curling around his gloved digit in a grip surprisingly strong and heartbreakingly tender. Nurses pause in quiet reverence, their glances lingering on the silent tether of her tiny palm wrapped around his finger. Jihoon’s voice breaks the hush, soft and teasing: “She knows who her person is.” Jaemin doesn’t speak, the silence deepening as his thumb strokes soothing circles against her hand, holding on longer than clinical protocol requires—longer, perhaps, than he fully comprehends himself.
Sunshine’s vitals become poetry when Jaemin nears. It’s almost mystical, the way her oxygen saturation rises subtly, the tense line on her monitor smoothing the moment he steps through the doorway. On difficult mornings, when alarms pulse frantic signals, he appears like quiet deliverance, his silhouette framed sharply against the pale hospital walls, a still point of certainty amidst uncertainty. Her gaze lifts through the clouded haze of discomfort, finding him with the instinctive precision of sunflower petals tracking the sun, her small body recalibrating gently, her breath easing, heart synchronizing quietly to the measured rhythm of his voice. Jihoon insists it’s mere coincidence, but you see more: you see her cells remembering the timbre of his comfort, his steady presence like gravity pulling her back from the brink.
Post-operatively, Jaemin insists on performing her ointment changes himself, though it defies hospital rotation schedules and clinical practicality. Each time, his movements are carefully deliberate, each tape peeled from her scar with infinite tenderness, as though unwrapping delicate lace. His voice murmurs quiet reassurances, syllables stitched gently into her healing tissue, smoothing the sting of antiseptic, blunting the tug of gauze. Sunshine never flinches, never withdraws—not from him. Her tiny feet wiggle, her head turning slowly to the gentle timbre of his voice, her gaze fastening to the shape of his mouth behind the surgical mask, trusting implicitly the quiet story he whispers into the skin over her heart, letting him retell it until pain fades softly into comfort.
Chart updates become gentle conversations. Jaemin narrates softly as his pen traces careful lines of ink across her records—each measurement a chapter in the quiet narrative of her survival. “Thirty grams today,” he whispers, a faint smile curving beneath his mask, pride softening his eyes. “Someone’s been working very hard.” Sunshine’s feet kick happily, delicate limbs stretching in playful affirmation, and small coos tumble from her lips, punctuating his reports with innocent delight. Jihoon jokes she’s gunning for his job, but Jaemin only taps her name band gently, fingers lingering, communicating devotion rather than mere documentation. Sunshine watches him, eyes wide and luminous, responding as if every softly uttered word knits another stitch into the fabric of her healing.
Even masked, Jaemin’s subtle cologne—notes of vanilla, spice, musk—envelopes Sunshine in gentle familiarity, a fragrance of quiet constancy in her shifting world. Her tiny nose crinkles adorably, lips curling upward into a delighted little sigh—hehh!—each time he leans close, his scent triggering recognition deep within her. Her head turns instinctively, even in sleep, toward the warmth radiating from his skin, her body drawing comfort from the memory woven into his presence. Nurses watch fondly from a respectful distance, softly murmuring, “It’s him. She knows it’s him,” their quiet awe amplifying the tender reverence of the moment. Jaemin remains silent, allowing her delicate senses to confirm what they all know but never speak aloud.
When Sunshine emerges from sedation, Jaemin’s voice is always the first anchor drawing her back from anesthesia’s gentle twilight. He leans close, murmuring softly: “Sunshine,” the syllables a quiet incantation of return, a gentle tug pulling her consciousness through the haze. Her tiny fingers twitch, limbs stretching lazily, mouth parting in gummy yawns filled with sleepy relief. She babbles softly, syllables blurred and slurred yet unmistakably addressed to him—nonsense threaded with love. Her eyes flutter open, finding him first, as if his voice alone carries the magic needed to coax her spirit back from the gentle brink of sleep.
Even off-schedule, Jaemin’s quiet nightly visits leave clear signatures of care. The warmer always dims precisely to the gentle hue she sleeps best under, her favorite bunny—softly worn at the ears—is always tucked exactly at her left side, within easy reach. Her blankets fold crisply at perfect angles, corners symmetrical, edges smoothed with meticulous tenderness. Nurses and interns exchange knowing glances, their quiet smiles a silent hymn to his unspoken devotion. Jaemin never acknowledges their whispers; he merely leaves these quiet gestures behind like fingerprints of tenderness, helping her dreams settle more peacefully each time his shadow passes gently over her sleeping form.
Around eleven months, Sunshine’s babbles sharpen into syllables bearing faint, intentional shapes. Each time Jaemin steps into the NICU bay, she lights up, arms reaching eagerly, her little mouth forming ecstatic sounds: “daa!” Sometimes “nmm,” and once, astonishingly clear—“na.” Jihoon’s startled gaze meets yours in silent astonishment as Sunshine stretches her fingers, desperate to pull Jaemin’s presence nearer, her lips smacking softly as she tastes the shape of his name. Jaemin freezes in gentle awe, caught off-guard by the sacred clarity of her tiny voice calling softly to him, a prayer spoken softly from innocence, puncturing the sterile silence with breathtaking purity.
Sunshine grows fiercely protective of her plush companions—her bunnies become tiny charges entrusted to her loving care. When Jaemin draws near, she lifts them protectively, small hands patting their heads gently, brows furrowing with comical seriousness. She tucks them tenderly beneath her chin, eyes lifting expectantly, as though weighing Jaemin’s approach with serious, infantile judgement. Your whisper, “Egg Yolk, you’re being evaluated,” draws an affectionate chuckle from him as he leans in solemnly, whispering, “I come in peace.” Sunshine giggles uncontrollably, joyful laughter bubbling from her chest, soft and sweet as summer rain, echoing delicately against sterile walls.
Night after night, even on difficult post-operative evenings, Sunshine watches the NICU doors with quiet anticipation. Each soft hiss of automatic doors draws her eyes, hopeful and searching, toward the illuminated entrance. When unfamiliar footsteps pass, she deflates gently, eyes drifting closed in quiet resignation. But when Jaemin’s familiar silhouette appears—steady, quiet, filling the doorway like gentle gravity—her small body relaxes instantly, a delicate sigh of relief parting her lips, her lashes fluttering softly against rosy cheeks. Her tiny chest lifts gently, as if the air itself settles back into harmony, comforted by the quiet certainty of his return.
These threads of tenderness, the careful stitches woven by daily devotion, create a tapestry binding Sunshine irrevocably to Jaemin. Beneath fluorescent lights and sterile walls, their quiet dance unfolds—small gestures, whispered lullabies, careful caresses forming a silent language only they speak fluently. Sunshine’s universe rotates softly around the quiet orbit of Jaemin’s presence, his shadow casting gentle patterns over her healing days, his voice threading through her dreams, his touch tracing invisible paths of comfort across her skin. In the quiet pulse of their shared moments, an unspoken truth blooms silently: Sunshine has chosen him, her tiny heart tethered gently yet irrevocably to the quiet devotion woven within Jaemin’s every gesture. Nurses and interns watch, humbled by the gentle miracle of connection—a fragile child and her quiet healer, bound softly by threads of trust and silent adoration. As Sunshine’s tiny fingers reach instinctively for Jaemin’s steadying presence, her heart beating in quiet synchrony with his quiet breaths, the NICU holds its breath gently, witnessing the delicate, unbreakable bond growing silently, profoundly, between them.
Even though Sunshine’s favorite presence in the universe is unmistakably Dr. Na—her sunflower head swiveling whenever his silhouette enters the bay—night still wedges itself between them like a restless tide. Since her third heart surgery, her sleep has unraveled: low-grade fevers drift in after dusk, her pulse-ox trace stutters, and every lullaby you cradle in your cracked voice frays before it settles. Hayoung tries warm compresses that cool too soon; Jihoon fusses with the fan filter and humidifier settings; you hover for hours, tension climbing your shoulders like vines, while Sunshine claws at sleep, eyes luminous and wet, tiny fist welded to your pinkie as though that fragile link might anchor her to rest.
The air in the NICU grows stiff with exhaustion, monitors ticking, nurses trading looks edged with worry, yet Dr. Na lingers a heartbeat longer at the chart, studying the erratic peaks of her circadian graph, thumb ghosting over the page as if he can smooth the data flat. No one says it aloud, but you sense him rereading her logs after hours, searching for the rhythm that will let her sink peacefully into darkness again. Dawn filters through frosted windows, and a new object sits beside her isolette: a pale-pink device, all rounded edges and soft-mesh speakers, silver accents gleaming like moonlit water. Bunny stickers parade in a ring around its base, and below them, a single gold sun in a tutu, labeled in his precise handwriting—Sunshine, Unit B2. Dr. Na is conspicuously absent, tenderness tucked out of sight.
Hyejin arches a brow, fishing her phone from her pocket. “Let me see that,” she murmurs, thumbs flying over the screen as she Googles “neonatal lullaby machine price.” Her eyes skim the results. “Wow…” she says, voice low, scrolling. “These start at three thousand dollars.”
Jihoon leans in, pressing his ear to the grille. “It even pulls in audio via Bluetooth,” he says with a smirk. “So you can stream wind chimes or whale songs.”
Hayoung’s whisper follows: “He’s pretending it’s hospital-issued.” Yet no one believes it.
You situate the machine just outside the isolette’s acrylic wall. It’s a neonatal-calibrated lullaby generator, imported, whisper-quiet: a minute hum floats across the crib like a feather. You toggle through the settings, heartbeat thrum, distant rain, until you reach one titled ‘Twilight Symphony.’ Soft piano enters, joined by silk-thread orchestral strings, a melody that feels less like a song and more like arms opening. At once Sunshine’s frantic kicks slow. Her eyelids drift, hover, fight, then blink in drowsy wonder; your finger brushes her brow, smoothing the fine down of stray hairs. “Dr Na knows just how to make you happy, doesn’t he?” She exhales a brief, underwater bubble of sound. a barely audible pbbtt—and the ward hushes at last. Nurses pause mid-note in their charts, monitors seem to soften their beeps, until nothing remains but music and the sigh of a child surrendering to sleep.
Her cheeks flush with a deeper rose beneath the isolette’s gauzy glow, as if the very warmth of the lullaby has settled into her skin. The music rises gently, a tinkling cascade of piano notes embroidered with whisper-soft strings, each delicate motif spinning like ballet slippers twirling across a mirrored stage. In that delicate hush, every electrical hum and distant footstep recedes until only the princess melody remains, wrapping her in a silken cocoon of sound. She tugs once at your pinkie, an anchoring ritual, and then unfurls those tiny fingers like petals peeled apart by morning light, settling fully into the rhythm’s tender embrace. Her chest lifts and falls in perfect synchrony with the heartbeat pulses of the machine, a duet of flesh and circuitry that hushes her restless stirring into a tranquil dream. Around her, the sticker trail gleams—gold suns, moonlit clouds, ballerina footprints—each tokens of a jeweled vow in the court of Unit B2, proclaiming her gentle royalty even as she drifts toward sleep.
This melody, though born of transistors and clinical precision, feels holy here, an unbidden heirloom forged from circuitry rather than cradle songs. It breathes warmth into the antiseptic air, weaving threads of calm where fever once frayed her nights. The lullaby’s crystalline notes shimmer against the curved walls of her incubator, pooling into silent eddies that wash over sensors and tubes until they too seem to pause in awe. In this sacred moment, love arrives not on the wings of ancestral memory but in an engineered hymn, humming through imported speakers, slipping beneath her fragile brow, and stitching rest back into the fragile seams of her small, brave heart.
Close to midnight, you hear the soft click of the door before you see him. You’re crouched beside the isolette, fingertips gently brushing the speaker grille as the lullaby drifts on, and your heart leaps at the sound of his boots on linoleum. He steps in. scrubs rumpled, mask lowered at the chin. eyes immediately flicking to the pale-pink device. You clear your throat, cheeks flaring so fiercely you’re certain the glow of the isolette will betray you.
“I—thank you,” you babble, voice thick with relief. “It’s… it’s perfect, really. I mean, the decibels, the pulse settings, how did you even find something with a ‘twilight symphony’ mode?” You reach to tuck a stray curl behind your ear, throat tight, all your practiced confidence slipping into shy stutters. “I mean, who even stocks lullaby machines with heartbeat pulses and twilight modes? I looked online just now—these cost thousands. It’s ridiculous how… thoughtful you are, to bring something like this in. I didn’t expect it, and she—” You break off, flushed, because Sunshine’s eyes flutter open and she manages a small, drowsy coo of recognition as if she agrees. She tugs your sleeve once, a gentle insistence that she hears every note. You lean closer and murmur, “See? You love it, don’t you baby?” Her lashes drift shut in contentment, curls brushing your palm in soft reassurance. You look up, cheeks still warm.
He watches you with that inscrutable gaze, jaw working like he’s chewing on something unsayable. Finally he says, low and clipped, “Monitor her closely.” His fingertips linger by the speaker for a heartbeat too long—an imprint of warmth you wish you could bottle—then he turns, already halfway to the shadows of the nurses’ station. You stand rooted, throat echoing with unspoken gratitude, watching the slight stoop of his shoulders as though every step away pulls at a silent thread between you.
Later in the week, Sunshine babbles toward the machine when its song begins, round vowels that tumble like new planets searching for orbit. Jihoon, mischievous, records his own voice over track three: “Uncle Jihoon loves you, go to sleep!” Sunshine giggles so hard the pulse-ox blips; you shake your head, half scold, half smile. By month’s end the device graduates with her to a crib beyond the isolette. On tough nights she reaches for its soft glow, fingers brushing the bunny stickers until the Twilight Symphony swells again, catching her before she drifts too far from the quiet gravity anchoring her to dreams.
Sunshine is eleven months and five days old—a lullaby’s worth of heartbeats shy of her first birthday—and she remains a pocket-sized cosmos, galaxies tucked into threadbare cotton that never fully dries between hurried wash cycles, forever smelling of bleach instead of backyard sunshine. She has never tasted the metallic tang of playground swings or felt grass bite her knees, never known the delirious, ordinary freedom of toddling from living-room carpet to a parent’s open arms; her calendar holds only the choreography of dawn rounds and lab draws, breakfast bottles served beneath the blue glow of a pulse-ox clip, and lullabies that must compete with the metronome of a vitals monitor. Sometimes you catch yourself wondering—does she sense the absence? Does she know that beyond these walls most children grow giddy on kitchen aromas, drowsy under ceiling fans, lulled to sleep by the reassuring duet of Mommy’s and Daddy’s voices instead of by the whir of air pumps and the rustle of isolation gowns?
Each season that should have shaped her growing body—spring pollen icing her lashes, summer sweat curling her hair, autumn smoke curling through a cracked window—has collapsed into the one sour-sweet smell of antiseptic and plasticized tubing, a scent so constant it has become her weather, her climate, her private atmosphere. The fluorescent bars overhead, too bright to permit shadows anywhere else, carve hollows beneath her lids that whisper of sleepless decades rather than sleepless nights; their hum is the cradle song the hospital can’t turn off. She shares her days with a chorus of other incubators, fragile planets orbiting the same fluorescent sun, each crib holding a story that feels both twin and alien to her own; some babies are swaddled in the soft murmur of visiting parents, others lie in an ache of silence broken only by machines, and you can’t help but ache at the uneven distribution of kisses and bedtime stories. When the elevator doors groan open down the hall, Sunshine lifts her head as if to greet an incoming sunrise, but the light that reaches her is only the elevator’s pitiless glare reflecting off burnished linoleum, and you find yourself choking on the question: does she already understand that the world outside these walls is vast and green and full of laughter she hasn’t heard, or is she still innocent enough to think that childhood begins and ends beneath this unblinking, clinical sky?
Night after night a nurse whispers, “time to go,” and the scrub-green doors swallow Sunshine for “small” procedures that always steal another piece of her tiny future. While other babies learn to crawl across living-room rugs, she crosses thresholds into operating theatres, trading milestones for scalpel lines. Every squeak of the gurney splits your world in two: you are stuck outside, clock-watching; her inside, drifting under anesthesia instead of lullabies. She should be weighing finger-paint messes, not intubation risks, yet each trip robs her of strength she hasn’t even had time to earn. You kiss the soft dip between her brows, promising survival you’re not sure you can deliver, then stand in a corridor that freezes your breath and counts your heart beats like overdue debts. In that cold hush you do desperate math—heartbeats × minutes ÷ prayers—but the sums never add up to a normal childhood. Meanwhile, the notebook in your pocket fills with names of other infants wheeled past you and returned, proof that luck exists but is rationed; you pray her name isn’t the one the universe overlooks.
However, Sunshine rejects the hospital’s careful calculus. She sits now like a monarch on a plastic-cushioned throne, her spine trembling but unwilling to bow, her head bobbing in rhythms that belong to a future dance she intends to master outside these walls. She reaches for her bottle with the conviction of a child who has lived through too many hands doing things for her; the first time she threaded her fingers through its curved handle, the room erupted into an impromptu celebration, nurses cheering, monitors screaming in alarm at their sudden movement, you crying soundlessly because a plastic bottle had become an act of revolution. Those same fingers, once filaments so translucent the veins looked like morning-glory vines, now curl into something purposeful: today they tug at her nasal cannula with mischievous intent, tomorrow they will, you dare believe, lace your own hand on the way to the park. When she grips her threadbare bunny, a pale-yellow relic whose stuffing has migrated into lopsided bulges, the toy transforms under the fluorescent glare: it’s a shield, a pennant, a declaration that she will name her own allies even in a ward filled with sterile strangers. And each time she drags that bunny across the sheets, tiny sparks of static crackle, bright and fleeting, as if the universe is applauding her stubborn will to generate light where none is offered.
Her eyes—vast, dark nebulae rimmed with lashes that tremble like comet tails—search the doorway every time footsteps reverberate down the waxed corridor. In those glassy pupils you glimpse all the worlds waiting beyond the ward: the first-day-of-school chalk dust she hasn’t yet sneezed, the firefly lanterns she hasn’t yet chased, the bruised-orange sunset that will one day wash her cheeks in color more honest than overhead LEDs. One nurse tucks a paper snowflake above her bed; Sunshine reaches, convinced she could catch winter in her fist if given one inch more slack on her IV line. Another nurse wheels in a potted basil plant from the staff lounge; Sunshine leans, nostrils flaring to claim a scent her lungs still struggle to decipher. Loving her hurts precisely because every triumphant milestone—the spontaneous giggle, the first syllable of a babble—carries the echo of something stolen, a cost paid in childhood moments the hospital devours like a voracious clock. You applaud her victories and mourn their context in the same breath: clapping when she tolerates seven uninterrupted minutes of oxygen, grieving that those seven minutes happen inside a room with no window that opens.
Still, beneath the layered clamor of alarms and the rhythmic hiss of the ventilator, there is a quieter percussion—an irreverent, clutch-fisted hope that evades every monitor’s graph. It drums each time she blinks against the fluorescent glare as though rehearsing for sunlight, each time her fingers trace the edge of the crib’s steel rail like a cartographer mapping the perimeter of tomorrow. You imagine a day when her name is called not by overworked residents but by friends across a playground; the only beeping then will be the triumphant countdown of the ice-cream truck reversing out of the cul-de-sac. Until that hour arrives, you measure life not in months or hospital billing cycles but in lungs that continue to rise and fall, in the warmth of her fist closing around your thumb during night checks, in the way her gummy smile unspools the knots in your chest. You mend your frayed courage by threading it through the buttonholes of her stuffed bunny, repurposing fear into silent lullabies, letting the improbable glow of her existence thaw the metallic chill of another fluorescent night—one more night you survive together, chasing dawn through the slats of the venetian blinds.
Today is significant. You and Dr. Na turn the corridor in step, your rubber soles squeaking, his quiet authority announcing itself in the click of his clipboard against his thigh and the hush of after-midnight pediatrics feels almost reverent compared to the perpetual storm of the NICU. Sunshine’s cubicle door stands ajar, its paper nameplate still reading NICU 3-B, but the first thing you see is her face: wide awake, as if she was waiting for you, moon-pale cheeks flushed with anticipation, eyes sparking like two held-back giggles. The instant she spots her favorite silhouettes, your lopsided ponytail and Dr. Na’s tall, muscly shadow, she unleashes a flurry of almost-acrobatic joy: arms pinwheeling, fingers opening and shutting in applause, little bottom trying to levitate off the mattress as if propelled by pure delight. She heaves herself to a wobbly sit, triumph written in that determined pout, only to topple sideways onto her stuffed bunny; she rebounds with an indignant squeak, kicks both feet so hard her ankle-ID band flashes, then tries again. The music box clipped to her crib detects the motion and chirps its tinny lullaby, which only spurs her on. She flaps, she coos, she squeals a syllable that might be “ba!”—or might be the universe giving itself a pep-talk.
Dr. Na leans over the railing and says, “Good morning, Sunshine.” She giggles like she outranks him, and even the IV pump chooses that moment to hush its alarm, surrendering the night’s command to Sunshine’s joyous racket. You and Dr. Na work around her orbit, he releases monitor leads, you gather dangling fluid lines like a bouquet of translucent vines, while Sunshine, now on her knees, throws a one-woman parade inside the crib. Whenever the gurney wheels creak forward, she slaps the mattress in applause, convinced field trips are her personal invention. You baby-talk instructions she doesn’t need: “Hold tight, sweet pea, we’re going for a ride!” She answers with earnest babble, eyebrows vaulted in concentration, as if spelling out coordinates for your journey to the next galaxy. Nurses lean from their stations to wave; Sunshine responds with exaggerated waves of her own, palm splayed, wrist flicking wildly.
You catch yourself staring at him as he wheels Sunshine’s isolette down the corridor—Dr. Na’s strong forearms tensing beneath his scrubs, the line of his chest defined even through hospital blues, the way his back muscles shift when he steadies the crib like it’s carved from holy glass. He glances over one shoulder, mouth twitching upward in that half-scowl you’ve come to recognize as both rebuke and invitation. “Stop staring at me,” he mutters without turning fully. But you can’t help it. You watch the soft thaw in his gaze as he guides the incubator through the doorway, one hand firm on the rail, the other adjusting the speed with surgeon’s precision. Sunlight shards, from the monitor glow and the dawn bruising the horizon outside the dimmed windows, play across his strong jaw and the curve of his throat. Sunshine’s triumphant kicks set her hospital socks spinning into a blur, and somewhere between the elevator’s hum and Pediatrics East she discovers echo: every delighted squeal bounces off tile and ceiling panels, returning to her doubled, and she shrieks with pleased disbelief. You pass that bank of windows together; outside, a pale dawn bleeds into the sky, and her reflection—fuzzy hair haloed by plastic and light—claps right along with her, as if the glass itself knows how to cheer.
Her new room waits with impossible quiet: soft-yellow paint, a rocking chair you wheeled in at the last minute, and—miracle of miracles—a real crib, not an incubator, its wooden rails wrapped in star-patterned bumpers you and Jihoon stitched last week. Dr. Na positions the isolette beside it like an old shell she’s finally outgrown; gently, you lift Sunshine into her “big-kid bed.” She sits, legs splayed, diaper rustling under a lavender romper printed with cartoon bees, grasping for her bottle with one hand and her threadbare bunny with the other, uncertain which treasure counts as more essential. You settle the pink music box on the headboard; instantly she reaches up, presses the cracked yellow button, and beams when the first notes chime. The room feels enchanted: no constant compressor thrum, no crowd of blinking LEDs, just the faint hiss of oxygen tubing and the soft woof of the rocking chair nudged by Dr. Na’s knee as he adjusts the pulse-ox sensor. Your heart pinches sharp: this is the cozy tableau you always pictured for her, yet it’s only temporary. Paperwork waits in Dr Na’s tote, forms that will place Sunshine with the Kwon family, a couple two counties over in a white-clapboard farmhouse, who own a therapy-dog mutt and three acres of orchard and ran out of tears the day they learned they could not carry a child to term. Wealthy, kind, background-checked to perfection, people who can give her something more enduring than your night-shift affection and Dr. Na’s guarded optimism. Still, you fold the forms shut each time Sunshine’s fingers brush yours; the contact feels like a stay of execution against the inevitable signing-over.
When the last monitor is silenced and the corridor lights dim to peach, Sunshine leans back against her bunny, cheeks sticky from drool and victory, and gazes up at you both as though expecting an explanation. Does she know her universe is changing again? That beyond these walls two strangers are trying to choose a name for her legal name, which isn’t “Sunshine” at all—and discussing paint swatches for a nursery she’s never seen? Will they keep the nickname or replace it with something delicate and store-bought, something that matches the lace on christening gowns and monogrammed blankets? Watching her blink under the unfamiliar hush of her new room, you ache with the knowledge that identity is another thing she’s never been allowed to own: first the hospital bracelet decided who she was, and soon a courthouse stamp will decide who she’ll become. She babbles a soft “da-da?” to no one in particular, maybe you, maybe the empty space above her head and Dr. Na clears his throat, turns away, fusses with the IV pole that no longer needs fussing.
You tuck Mr. Bunny right against her tiny chest, snuggle him under her chin, and breathe, “There you go, sunshine-peach, your snuggly friend is right here.” She reaches up, those small, star-bright fingers threading into your hair and tugging with surprising conviction, as if her whole soul is saying, stay. You laugh softly, tilt your head so she can fist a thicker lock, and let your thumb smooth the worried little line between her brows. “It’s okay, sweetheart, I’m not going far. You’re my brightest girl, no matter what they scribble on those big scary forms.” She answers with a half-tooth, half-gummy grin that melts you clear through, eyes crinkling like crescent moons. Somewhere out there, a nursery lamp is already glowing warm, practicing the light it will spill across her first real bedroom—but for now it’s just you, her, and the soft hush of this hallway, her tiny hand still tangled in your hair, holding you right where she needs you.
Dr. Na lingers at the foot of Sunshine’s crib, ostensibly tightening the line on an IV pole that hasn’t needed adjusting all morning. His gloved fingers move with practiced calm, but they’re slower than usual, deliberate, stalling. The soft overhead glow paints the cut of his jaw in quiet gold, and every so often, when he thinks you aren’t looking, his gaze slips past the drip chamber to the curve of your shoulder, to where Sunshine’s fist remains tangled in your hair. You feel the weight of his attention before you meet it—an almost-static hum that prickles down your spine. You turn, half-smiling, and catch him mid-sweep of the monitor screen, as if he’s reading vitals that haven’t changed in hours. He clears his throat, murmurs something about “baseline stability,” but the words float, unanchored; there’s no clinical urgency here, only the hush of a man reluctant to leave a scene he finds quietly sacred.
Sunshine gurgles at the sound of his voice, and his eyes—dark, steady—soften. He shifts closer, one palm settling on the crib rail with a surgeon’s controlled grace, knuckles brushing yours as you adjust the bunny under her chin. For a heartbeat, neither of you moves: skin buzzing where it almost, almost touches; the warm exhale of his breath stirring a strand of hair at your cheek. It’s nothing overt, just a current, a subtle pulse of something that sits between professionalism and confession. Then he straightens, a mask of composure sliding back into place, though a faint flush lingers low on his neck. “Call me if she needs anything,” he says, voice low, steady, but as he turns away you see the corners of his mouth fight a smile he doesn’t let surface, and his hand hovers on the doorframe a second too long, as if memorizing the light around you before he slips into the corridor’s cool hush.
Lunch rolls around, feeling like a farewell party no one is brave enough to name. Dayoung corrals an extra-wide rolling tray and drapes it with a disposable linen, as though a linen could ever make vending-machine cuisine look refined. Jihoon arrives last, eyes red-rimmed, balancing a foil pan of strawberry shortcake that lists dangerously to one side. cream sliding, sugared crumbs scattering like confetti across Sunshine’s blanket. “Last lunch with our princess,” he warbles, already tearing up again. Hyejin opens her sketchbook to a fresh page, determined to capture every gummy grin, every curl of downy hair, every droplet of formula on Sunshine’s chin. You prop Sunshine against a fortress of knitted pillows, tucking Cloud Bunny under one arm and Butterscotch Bunny under the other. She laughs—an unfiltered, chiming sound—and pats the checkered napkin as though christening her own banquet table. “Mmmm!” she declares, a command for more food or perhaps more adoration; you oblige with a heart-soft “Yes, my bright girl, banquet time!” and guide her hands around the bottle she insists on holding alone. She gulps, pauses to babble at Butterscotch, then smacks a strawberry chunk with unsteady delight.
Jihoon’s tears don’t stop; they glimmer on his lashes like doomed dew. “This is it,” he sniffles, spoon hovering over soup he’s forgotten to taste. “Tomorrow she’s gone.”
You reach a calming hand to his shoulder. “Not gone,” you say, though your own voice trembles. “She’ll be back for monthly check-ups, remember? She won’t leave us fully, plus she’s going to an actual home, we should be happy for her, this will be her first chance to experience a normal childhood.” But as Sunshine’s tiny fist locks onto the sleeve of your scrub top, fingers curling, tugging like she can fasten you in place, heat pricks your eyes. Hyejin chooses that moment to sketch you both, pencils fluttering; Dayoung hums quiet encouragement while wiping strawberry residue from Sunshine’s chin. The music box Sunshine adores so much sits on the tray’s edge, its baby pink speaker humming a delicate harp-and-wind-chime melody. With each accidental press of her thumb the tune restarts, and Sunshine squeals in triumph, a maestro rediscovering her orchestra. The lullaby drifts over plastic rails and swinging doors, turning this ordinary corridor into a soft palace echoed by baby giggles and Jihoon’s sniffly sighs.
Sunshine sits in her brand-new crib, her little fists clutching the rails as she waits for her new parents to arrive. She looks up at you with wide, trusting eyes—an echo of hope in her gaze and you press both hands over your face, “peek-a-boo!” You giggle and her laughter erupts, tiny bells in an empty cathedral. She grabs both your hands with fierce determination and promptly stuffs three of your knuckles into her gummy mouth. Drool glitters on her chin like glass beads; you smooth it away with the back of your wrist, murmuring, “Oh, hungry baby girl.” When you offer her bottle she latches instantly, cheeks hollowing, eyelids fluttering in bliss. Milk beads at the corner of her lips; you wipe it with a napkin no bigger than a postage stamp, then trace the silk-fine wisps at her hairline. Her skin is soft as the inside of a magnolia petal, still almost translucent: veins like faint blue rivers beneath sunrise-pink ponds.
Jihoon’s sniffles fade into gentle background static. Hyejin sketches, Dayoung hums, and the lullaby box loops its filigree melody, harp, distant chimes, the faint click of a ballerina twirling in paradise under the speaker grille. The room feels suspended in warm syrup, each of you orbiting gently around the bright nucleus of one small girl. A faint clang—metal against tile—breaks the syrup’s surface. You pause mid-stroke, thumb still resting on Sunshine’s brow. It’s the kind of sound that doesn’t belong in a ward softened for babies: sharp, arrhythmic, like someone dropping a tray in an echo chamber. Then another clash, closer, as if a faulty heartbeat is advancing down the corridor. Sunshine’s eyes flick to the doorway, bottle still clutched between her fists but forgotten; a single drop of milk rolls down her chin, slow as a comet.
The hallway hushes, a ripple of tension moving through the nurses’ station. You feel it before you see it, an obstruction in the air, a cold draft sweeping ahead of something that has no place near a cradle. She appears in the doorway as though prised from a nightmare’s seam. Bare feet slap the linoleum with slippery, crimson smears, blood painting her soles like ruined lipstick. Her hospital gown hangs askew, neckline torn, one sleeve ripped clean away. She cradles a pacifier on a fraying shoelace to her breast the way Sunshine cradles Butterscotch, knuckles white, wrists webbed with old needle bruises that bloom like nightshade. Hair once intended to be platinum tumbles in split, muddy streaks; every violent turn of her head fans it like a shattered halo. Layers of foundation crack along her jaw, peeling where sweat beads beneath, and her pupils are so dilated they look like collapsing stars.
She staggers forward alone, each unsteady step echoing in the hollow corridor. Her gaze slides past you, never lingering, scanning walls and ceiling lights as though searching for hidden exits. “Glass garden… she lives in the stars… my baby,” she murmurs, voice ragged and hollow, as if the words themselves have been clawed from her throat. The air around her flickers with tension, each breath carrying a metallic tang of fear and old sorrow. Her mismatched bracelets chime softly, hospital tags, a faded club band, a velvet choker once inscribed with ‘Daddy’s Girl’ now threadbare and broken. Foundation cracks along her cheekbones like dried riverbeds, and sweat beads, trembling, at her temples. In that fractured light, she seems to teeter between worlds, an unmoored spirit dragging grief behind her, unseeing eyes cast outward yet never truly meeting yours.
You tighten both arms around Sunshine. She squeaks, startled, but presses closer, her cheek hot against your collarbone, the lullaby still chiming its delicate lie behind her. Jihoon’s spoon clatters to the tray. Hyejin’s pencil stalls mid-line. Dayoung’s humming dies. In that instant, the corridor splits: on one side, a woman crumbling under the weight of ghosts; on the other, a baby wrapped in yarn and hope, eyes wide, breathing clouds onto your skin. And between those worlds, no sound except the soft click of the ballerina turning, turning, turning, unwilling to face what’s coming.
Instinctively, Hyejin, who’ll never admit how deeply she’s grown to love Sunshine—steps in front of you both, her body a trembling shield between the stranger’s pain and the two of you. Hyejin steps forward on instinct, voice gentle but firm. “Ma’am? Are you hurt? Do you need a doctor?”
The woman’s jaw works in a silent scream before words tumble out, jagged and surreal. “Stars, the parasite star, it burrowed through my ribs, I swear—swallowed me whole, then spat me out on the glass garden roof… my baby, my beating star parasite, you stole the glow from inside me.” She clutches the cracked pacifier to her chest, eyes rolling back as though she’s listening to voices no one else can hear. “They fed her my blood but she doesn’t bleed like me—she blooms in the dark, a black sunflower, he made her here, a god trapped in skin…”
Her limbs jerk as though pulled by invisible strings. “Open your eyes—can’t you see? The stars are crawling down the corridor, carving parasites into the walls…”
The woman’s body convulses once more—and then she lunges forward, arms flailing as though reaching for a phantom constellation. Her eyes remain unfocused, tracking nothing and everything at once. Sunshine, enthralled by the sudden movement, lets out a delighted giggle and coos, patting at the air as though playing her own game of peek-a-boo. You press her tighter into your chest, heart hammering, folding her arms across her little torso so she can’t slip—no matter how she squirms in innocent delight. With your free hand, you slide a finger over the silent alarm button at the crib’s foot rail, a discreet plea for reinforcements that only you know you’ve sent. As the soft chime rings down the hall, you rock Sunshine gently, whispering into her hair, “It’s okay, my love. I’ve got you.”
The alarm’s soft chime curls down the hall like a silver thread, too gentle to belong to the dread it heralds, yet the woman hears it as a summons. Her body, until now a marionette of spasms, falls eerily still, head tilting as though to receive a secret frequency. When her eyes slide to Sunshine they widen, black-marble and awful, not with mother-love but with recognition warped into prophecy. It’s as if she’s staring at a cosmic crime scene: a god in a diaper, an executioner sucking on a bottle.
“It’s her,” she breathes, reverence and ruin in the same syllable. “She came out of me. She crawled out of me.”
The corridor hushes so completely you feel reality falter, like a stage whose scenery might peel away at any moment. Her gaze darts to the lullaby machine perched beside Sunshine’s crib, the gentle box whose underwater-princess melody has cocooned the ward for months. She moves with predatory velocity: one lunge, one rip, and the device slams to the tile. Plastic fractures with a scream of its own; wiring spills across the floor like snapped veins, sparks guttering out in forlorn pops. Sunshine’s eyes balloon with confusion. She doesn’t cry—she laughs, a bright, bubbling trill, blinking up at the silence as though the smashed lullaby were playing peek-a-boo and would spring to life again any second. To her, all of this is only a new round of the game, a world still full of wonder, untouched by the shadows collapsing around her.
“That sound kept her from me,” the woman snarls, voice grinding like gravel set aflame. “That’s what made her forget.” Now her pupils hook on the butter-soft blankets you spent nights knitting, sun-colored yarn, crooked stitches that spell half a name. She tears them free, shredding the pastel fabric with clawed fingers. “They dressed her in false skin so I wouldn’t know my own,” she hisses. “But I see her now.” The unraveling strands puddle to the floor like peeled flesh. Sunshine’s tiny mouth quivers, a tremor before the quake.
Then the woman’s fury ricochets into a brutal kick, once, twice, against the crib’s frame. Metal rings out, a bell tolling doom. “They told me she died inside of me!” she shrieks. “They lied. They cut her out. They cut me open and they took her!” She paces, pacing the trauma into physical space, calling the blanket's skin, calling the lullaby box the machine that fed her lies. She smears blood from a split knuckle across the pristine wall. “This is what they fed her,” she mutters, drawing a crude constellation that drips like dying stars. An overturned sharps bin scatters needles, tiny silver stingers glinting beneath fluorescent glare. She claws at the vitals monitor, ranting that it “maps her mind.”
“Born of stars, fed on parasites!” she sobs, delirious. “She was born screaming, clawing through my ribs like a god that wanted out. Now she giggles, plays—who taught her that?!” The scent of antiseptic mingles with burnt sugar and copper, burning your nostrils. Sunshine begins to wail, an animal-raw cry you’ve never heard, worse than post-op nights, worse than chest tubes or morphine wearing off. Her bunnies lie gutted on the linoleum; her blankets hang in ribbons. She sobs so hard her whole body quakes, and something inside you tears.
The woman wheels back, eyes blazing, and lunges straight towards you, straight for the child. Instinct detonates. You clutch Sunshine tighter to your chest, spin, and thrust your shoulder against the advancing figure. The impact knocks the breath from both of you; she staggers but doesn’t fall, hissing curses about glass gardens and stolen gods. Sunshine’s scream ratchets higher, a siren of pure grief, tiny fists pounding your clavicle.
“You don’t touch her,” you rasp, voice shaking with rage you didn’t know you possessed. The woman’s reply is a babble of star-parasite nonsense, a warning drenched in madness, yet you register none of it. All you feel is the hot weight of Sunshine’s terror, her soaked cheeks sliding against your scrubs, your own heartbeat drumming a single vow: no one reaches her whilst she’s in your arms.
“Let her go, nurse-girl—she’ll hollow you like she hollowed me. She drinks marrow, she drinks dreams, she’ll burrow into your ribs and light her little suns until you burn from the inside.” She steps closer; the overhead fluorescents flicker across the sweat on her brow. “You think she’s laughing? That’s not laughter, that’s the parasite singing. She sang inside me, carved constellations in my blood. When she’s done with you, she’ll crawl back into the stars and leave your body empty as glass.”
Sunshine’s sobs knife through the air, high, desperate, breaking like waves against your sternum. You tighten your hold, rock her, whisper hushes, but the woman only climbs in volume, her threats turning razor-thin: “Give her to me or I’ll crack your shell open myself. I’ll peel the doll-skin they wrapped her in and show you the god underneath, show everyone how she burns. Do you want to watch her set this place on fire? Do you?” She spreads her fingers, nails splintered and slick. “She set my lungs alight, she’ll feast on yours next. Hand her over, little puppet, and maybe the parasite won’t learn your name.” A fresh wail bursts from Sunshine—raw, scraping, furious—while you plant your feet, pulse thundering against her trembling back, and wait for security’s footsteps to thunder down the hall.
Finally, security barrels down the hall in a tangle of radios and clattering batons but Dr. Na is faster, a silent blur in surgical blue. His gaze goes first, instinctively, to Sunshine: your arms locked around her trembling form, her face botched crimson from crying. The moment he sees her alive—safe—his chest loosens, a breath sucked through clenched teeth. He reaches, fingertips hovering to soothe the tears streaking her cheeks but then he looks past you.
The woman. She might as well be an eclipse dragging its own gravity, every fluorescent bulb dims the instant her outline collides with his vision. His breath stops; not held, stolen. It’s as if a long-sealed incision in memory rips open and bleeds across the hall, staining the air between them. Her face is warped, paint cracked, eyes raw but beneath the ruin he maps a familiar constellation: the tilt of a cheekbone once kissed by nightclub neon, the mouth that once shaped his name like smoke. A thousand unspoken midnights flicker behind his irises: velvet couches, chemical laughter, a wrist pressed to his pulse where a hospital tag now dangles like a noose.
His clipboard slips; gravity forgets him for a beat. Sunshine’s sobs thud against your collarbone, but he hears only the subterranean echo of that past life, the throb of bass, a stranger’s perfume, a promise made too casually to ever stay buried. She stares back with pupils blown wide, a mirror reflecting everything that was abandoned and left: desire, recklessness, a single misstep that grew teeth and learned to howl. And in the wobbling fluorescence he sees the equation complete—child, mother, surgeon—three bodies locked in an orbit he wrote in careless ink and can’t now erase.
His pupils blow wide, shock shattering the practiced calm you’ve watched him wear like armor for a year, this is the only time it’s ever slipped. Horror floods the space between them—dark, electric, cataclysmic. “Jaemin,” she croons, voice a cracked lullaby as the guards wrestle her flailing limbs, “they were the men in white coats, they carved her out, your star-seed, she has your blood, not mine. You injected her into me, remember? Your little god. Your parasite.” Her laugh rasps like a saw through bone. “You promised to save her. You promised—” Words crumble into babble: glass garden, burning galaxy, ribs torn open like creaking doors.
Dr. Na staggers one half-step, mouth slack. “Aseul?” His voice fissures, equal parts disbelief and dread. “Aseul, what the fuck happened to you?”
She lunges, spitting accusations at the guards—“You stole my baby, white-coat thieves!”—then swings her gaze back to him, eyes glittering obsidian. “Your baby never needed me. She only ever needed you.” For one split second, as the guards drag her backward, her face rearranges itself, painted ruin collapsing into something heartbreakingly familiar. The mascara runs, the mouth trembles open not as a snarl but as a child’s plea, and the madness seems to peel away like wet wallpaper. You glimpse the woman she once was, young, startled, fragile as unfired clay, and her eyes, suddenly lucid, spear Dr. Na with a grief too naked to bear. “Save your child,” she sobs, voice shredding on every word, “save her from the parasite, save her from the voices that live in me!” Security tightens their grip; she reaches anyway, fingers splayed, as if trying to tear open her own chest to show the demons gnawing there. “They want her dead, the shadows in my blood, they’ll crawl out of me and swallow her light!” Her wail ricochets off the polished walls, a strangled hymn of terror and love, before the sedative syringe bites her arm and the doors swallow her whole, leaving only the echo of that desperate command: save her.
The scream dies, hollowing out the air around him until Jaemin hears nothing at all, no heartbeats, no whispers, no soft hum of machinery, only the echo of a voice from a past he thought that he buried deeply. His limbs lock as if crystallized, every muscle freezing as the fragments rain down. The floor feels unsteady, unreal, as the walls ripple like water disturbed by a stone. Your face blurs through his vision, tears glittering down your cheeks, your hands trembling where they clutch Sunshine tightly, her sob piercing him like shattered glass. He’s heard her whimper through morphine fog, felt her shudder when chest tubes were pulled, watched silent tears leak beneath anesthesia tape but this cry is different. It rips out of Sunshine like something torn from the root, a howl so old it sounds ancestral. Her world has been razed in seconds: the lullaby box she learned to command with a single push now lies gutted on the floor, gears exposed like a small mechanical heart that will never beat again; the butter-soft blankets you knitted through night shift after night shift hang in shredded pennants from the crib rail, their pastel threads unraveling across tile like intestines; her court of bunnies, Cloud listing on one torn ear, Butterscotch caved at the belly, Egg Yolk beheaded, sprawl in mute carnage where they used to stand sentry. In Unit B2 the other babies still drift in cotton cocoons, flanked by balloons and family hands and lullabies sung off-key; Sunshine only had these talismans you made her, and now even those have been desecrated.
The memory detonates without warning, blooming behind Jaemin’s eyes in smoky chiaroscuro: a spring wedding at an expansive villa where string lights trembled like distant galaxies and champagne tasted of polite disappointment. He had arrived draped in designer complacency, hand in the delicate grasp of a woman whose hair fell in liquid silk down her spine, her gown stitched with the kind of haute geometry that photographs well but never warms a body. Old friends toasted reunions; old sorrows skimmed beneath the laughter. Something hollow yawned inside him all evening, a vacancy that no vintage could drown. Later—hours, glasses, and smiles too tight—he let himself be pulled to a bachelor party in a velvet-walled lounge pulsing low with bass and sorrow. That’s where he saw her: Aseul, the familiar dancer his best friend had once used as morphine for a broken heart. Glitter dusted her cheekbones like meteor fallout, and her eyes held the bright, panicked shimmer of a creature running too fast to stop. Their gazes locked, a collision of hungers, and something reckless flared alive in his chest. The designer girl with silk hair vanished from his periphery, replaced by red lights and the scent of cheap vanilla and smoke.
Hours later, glossy black hair pooled like ink across pristine sheets while Aseul straddled him, hips rolling with decadent slowness; perfume and sweat mingled into a narcotic fog. Her laughter rang sharp as shattered crystal as she arched over him, fingers clawing his scalp, vodka-sweet breath branding his skin. A cascade of black hair poured like silk over Jaemin’s face, strands tickling his mouth whilst he’d been smothered beneath thighs that tasted of jasmine and salt, her hips grinding slow and deliberate against his tongue. The woman above, elegant, obsidian, rides his mouth with a designer’s entitlement, her hands tangling in his hair, tugging until his jaw aches. Her laughter falls in cool ribbons, scattered through the dark. Below, Aseul arched back on his cock, body a honey-gold vessel painted in sweat and wild streaks of glitter. She bounced on him shamelessly, reckless and ruined, her pulse thundering as she leaned forward, mouth latching hungrily onto the other woman’s ass, tongue slick with need. It was a tangled symphony, Aseul’s moans sharpened by the slick friction of flesh, the other woman’s gasps fracturing through Jaemin’s mouth, hands, hips, everywhere. Perfume and vodka saturate the sheets, breaths threading into the ether—grief and hunger made holy, made obscene, made temporary sanctuary.
He tasted desperation at the seam of her thighs, felt the fever under her painted flesh, sensed the fault lines trembling beneath every whispered dare but he chased oblivion anyway, swallowed her broken starlight like it might fill the void gnawing his ribs. In that darkness he was young and ravenous, willing to drink any ecstasy that promised to drown the ache he refused to name. And even then—between the smoke and her shaking laughter—he knew something inside her was fracturing, a dangerous pulse flickering beneath the glitter. He took it into himself regardless, letting her body become the vessel for every unanswered hunger he carried but never once imagining the night would echo back to him in the form of a crying child cradled in his arms nearly two years later.
And now that ache returns, tenfold and roaring, burning into his ribs, demanding recognition. Sunshine’s wail pierces him, sharper than any scalpel he’s ever held, shattering the veil between past and present. His gaze snaps down to where Sunshine struggles violently in your arms, her tiny limbs desperate and flailing, fingers grasping toward him through a torrent of tears. He moves without conscious thought, propelled by a force deeper than blood, surer than bone. The second his arms close around her trembling form, she clings to him fiercely, little hands gripping his ear like it’s the only anchor she has left in a world that has turned hostile. And in that moment, feeling her sobs vibrate against his chest, feeling her small body mold itself so perfectly to the hollow beneath his collarbones, Jaemin’s entire universe aligns.
It clicks into place with an undeniable, quiet finality, a truth so stark it aches like a bruise deep in his marrow, yet Jaemin feels no luxury of paralysis. Weakness is a currency he can no longer spend, not when the small, shaking body in his arms has nothing left to cling to but the cadence of his heartbeat. He steadies his breath, corralling the tremor in his hands, forcing every muscle to remember what duty feels like. Regret can howl later; right now responsibility climbs his spine like armor, locking each vertebra in resolve. Sunshine’s sobs hitch into hiccups against his collar, and he realizes the equation of his life has changed forever: her safety before his comfort, her future before his penance, her heartbeat before his own. The debris of shattered lullabies and gutted bunnies litters the floor around them, but he gathers her closer, standing taller, spine ironed straight by purpose. There is no room to freeze—only to move forward, to build a fortress of flesh and certainty around the child who has chosen him. In the fluorescent hush, he plants his feet, recalibrates his pulse, and vows—silently, fiercely—that from this breath onward, every beat of his heart will circle hers like a shield. He whispers into the dark silk of her hair, voice breaking, raw and vulnerable, “You’re mine. You’re mine, baby. I’m going to protect you.”
Around them the ward still crackles with echoes of madness—glass garden, parasite, cut from me—but Jaemin lets the words drain into static. All he hears is Sunshine’s grief: a heartbreaking wail from a child discovering too soon that even handmade miracles can be smashed. He seals his mouth to the damp crown of her head as if heat and skin could solder the fractures in her sense of safety, swearing—bone-deep, marrow-deep—that she will never feel this hollow again. Nurses tiptoe through wreckage, sweeping up the shattered lullaby box like it’s a fallen organ; bunnies are gathered with the tenderness reserved for battlefield dead. Jaemin tightens his arms until her sobs gutter to exhausted hiccups, until the only heartbeat she can find is his—steady, claiming, unbreakable.
She keens again, high, forlorn, as though her tiny body intuits loss before it understands language. The sound needles through his ribs and something inside him crystallizes into ruthless clarity: she is his, and he has failed her already. He draws her closer, her fingers locking around the shell of his ear, last unbroken talisman, and her lungs convulse like sparrows against a cage. Each hiccup shudders through both of them, and he feels the sum of her ruins: the music that once promised sleep, the yarn that once promised warmth, the silly fabric animals that once promised she’d never be alone. He rocks her in slow, tidal circles, voice splintering as he whispers, “Shh, mine, mine—Daddy’s got you,” tasting salt where her tears meet his own.
Facts blur under the roar of devotion. The timeline fits, but bloodlines remain a gamble, Aseul’s life was a revolving door of lovers and long nights. Biologically, Sunshine could belong to anyone. He doesn’t care; chromosomes aren’t the measure of fatherhood. In this luminous, brutal instant he decides: love will outrank DNA, intention will outrank accident. Whether fate drew her from his body or destiny simply laid her in his hands, she is his. He will sign forms, fight courts, rewrite the origin story if he must, because the fierce rush in his chest tells him family is forged in crisis as much as in blood. Found, not given. Chosen, not owed.
He bends to her ear, voice hushed and velvety—words woven more for comfort than comprehension, yet spoken in full, steady sentences. “Sweet girl, I’ll write you new lullabies, notes gentle enough to cradle your dreams. I’ll knit blankets thick with warmth and patience, stitch enough bunnies to stand watch along every edge of your night. No shadow will reach you while my arms are near. If the world bares its teeth, I’ll meet it first and break its bite. Your work is to breathe and bloom. My work is to keep the path clear. Sunshine whimpers, then sighs against him, loved, trusting, the wet heat of her cheek cooling on his collar. Jaemin presses a final kiss to her temple, feeling the place where fear has welded into resolve, and thinks: If lineage is questioned, let them test me. They can measure genes and alleles; they cannot measure this.
His heart, previously fractured and scattered, now holds her with the reverence of myth, a truth written in fate, etched in the cosmos. A slow, sorrowful symphony settles over him, grief mingling seamlessly with revelation, each breath drawn feeling like the first genuine inhale he’s taken in a lifetime. It doesn’t matter how many times Aseul screamed deliriously about parasites and stars, blood and betrayal, beneath the madness and horror lies a single stark thread of truth that Jaemin can’t shake. He doesn’t need tangible proof, doesn’t need lab results or paternity tests, not yet, because the connection thrumming through him now, skin against skin, heart to heart, surpasses anything that cold science could offer. He knows because he feels it—in her trembles, in her heartbeat synchronizing perfectly with his own, in the way she settles into the cradle of his arms like she’s always belonged there, even before he knew she existed, that she was his.
The woman dragged away moments ago was a shadow, twisted and broken beyond recognition, yet undeniably woven through his history. He knew her once, intimately, carelessly, and she planted within him the seed that now blossoms with devastating clarity. All this time, Sunshine—this tiny miracle he’d held first when she emerged broken from that rooftop, beneath dying stars and impossible odds—had been his own flesh and blood. Sunshine, who first opened her eyes to his face as if she knew him, who hushed instantly in his arms as though recognizing the heartbeat that once pulsed beside her in the womb. The thought is too overwhelming to voice aloud. Instead, Jaemin stands rooted in place, chest heaving silently beneath his scrubs, cradling Sunshine as though she’s not just made of fragile, healing flesh but spun from something sacred and luminous, threads of starlight and resilience intertwined into a tiny girl who survived against every conceivable horror.
He shifts slightly, angling himself instinctively between you both and the retreating chaos, and something ancient stirs within him, fiercely protective, dangerously possessive. This child chose him first, before either of them knew who they were to each other, before he recognized the invisible, golden cord of fate looping endlessly around their lives. It’s the sort of mysticism he’d always scoffed at, scorned in favor of clinical rationality. But here, in the sterile halls stained with violence and grief, holding Sunshine close as she buries her tear-streaked face deeper into his chest, all his skepticism fractures into dust. His world realigns around this tiny creature, this impossible child, whose arrival was heralded by loss and tragedy and whose existence now reshapes his entire soul.
Somewhere deep within his chest, beneath layers of ache and realization, Jaemin already knows what comes next: confirmation, bureaucracy, paternity tests, guardianship battles—legalities that cannot be avoided. But those concerns pale in this instant, eclipsed by the profound weight of his newfound truth, a revelation stronger than any evidence could hope to be. He glances down, meeting Sunshine’s eyes, those eyes that always felt familiar but never more so than now, and whispers once more, voice thick and cracking softly, “You’re mine. You’ve always been mine, I’m always gonna fight for you.” She nestles closer, whimpering softly as her sobs fade into hiccuping breaths, small fingers threading through his hair as if claiming him back. And there, beneath the sterile fluorescence and the watchful eyes of nurses, interns, and security still lingering, he cradles his daughter for the first time knowingly, heart breaking open with a love so fierce it threatens to destroy him as it rebuilds him, piece by piece.
Jaemin holds Sunshine tighter than he’s ever held anything, his pulse hammering against his skin in an anxious rhythm. He believes in his bones that she belongs with him—her tiny fingers fit perfectly around his thumb, her soft babbles seem to respond to his voice in a language no one else understands. Every instinct screams at him that this is his daughter, that fate had conspired to place her in his arms, from the first moment he calmed her cries in the NICU to the nights he stayed awake beside her isolette. He’s memorized everything: the delicate curl of her eyelashes, the precise way she smiles when he whispers her name, how she settles only for him when the world overwhelms her. Yet the fear curls deep, stubborn and bitter, because the only way to bring her home is through a paternity test. He hates the thought that genetics could betray what his heart already knows. But one detail anchors his hope: the way her eyes mirror his own, a soft almond shape, dark and knowing. It’s something no one noticed until whispers began that they might be father and daughter.
The gossip spreads like wildfire through the hospital corridors, nurses and interns hiding smiles behind clipboards, whispering in delighted awe whenever Jaemin passes by with Sunshine nestled protectively in his strong arms. He towers over everyone, muscles defined beneath the fitted scrubs, a silent, vigilant bodyguard beside the tiny girl who clings to his shoulders like he’s her personal jungle gym. It’s adorable, the contrast, the strength of him against the fragility of her and the hospital staff melts each time he patiently fixes the little bow in her hair, wipes drool from her chin with his sleeve, or gently rubs her back until she sighs into sleep against his chest. It seems, to everyone who watches, like Sunshine has always known exactly who he is—Daddy—her little hands grabbing at his ear, her excited squeals when he appears in the doorway, her sleepy murmurs in response to his whispered reassurances.
You watch him closely now, cheeks flushed with a heat you try to blame on embarrassment or nerves, but your pulse quickens whenever Jaemin cradles Sunshine in the crook of his arm, whenever he leans down to kiss her forehead, voice dropping into soft baby talk that makes your heart flip dangerously. You flush deeper when he catches your eye, a subtle, knowing smile curling his lips, the silent exchange charged with a tension neither of you have the courage yet to name aloud. Especially the day you take their blood samples for the paternity test, your hands trembling slightly as Jaemin distracts Sunshine with gentle tickles and kisses, giggling and playing until she’s blissfully unaware of the needle prick, cooing softly as he murmurs, “You’re okay, Daddy’s got you,” into her hair.
In the following weeks, Jaemin’s days blur into a whirlwind of meetings with lawyers, detailed discussions about custody and parental rights. Each time he attends these stressful consultations, Sunshine sits contentedly on his knee, oblivious to the tension thickening in the air, absorbed completely in her ever-growing collection of brand new plush bunnies. She babbles softly, reaching out to pat his cheek whenever his voice tightens, as though reminding him why he’s fighting so fiercely. His heart clenches when her little fingers stroke his jaw, a gentle anchor amidst harsh words and cold legal jargon. He knows the road ahead is complicated, but whenever she giggles into his neck or squeals in delight as he bounces her gently on his knee, he’s reassured. He’ll fight endlessly for her if he has to.
He would wade through courtrooms like minefields, baring every secret scar if the blast meant she could sleep unafraid. He would duel bureaucracy with scalpel-sharp patience, carve loopholes in statutes the way he once carved infection from bone. He would mortgage time, reputation, even the marrow of his own certainty, trading away sleep and solace until the ledger of her safety showed nothing but black ink. If the law raised walls, he would scale them hand-over-hand; if another family laid claim, he would stand between, a living bulwark of muscle and vow. Every breath he owns is already pledged, each one a brick in the fortress he’ll build so her heartbeat never has to echo in a room without him.
Finally, the day arrives. Jaemin sits rigidly across from the lawyer, Sunshine curled sleepily into his chest, unaware that the next few minutes will decide her entire future. His stomach twists with nausea as he contemplates every possible scenario: if the test denies their connection, he knows he’ll wage war anyway. He’ll petition, appeal, fight relentlessly to make sure Sunshine never has to endure another moment feeling abandoned or unloved. He’ll use every resource, every argument, because despite biology, he feels in every fiber of his being that this little girl is his daughter. But even as he braces for disappointment, prepares himself for an endless battle, the lawyer looks up from the document and meets Jaemin’s eyes, voice calm but firm as he finally utters the words Jaemin didn’t realize he was holding his breath for: “Dr. Na, this baby girl is yours.”
Relief crashes through him so hard his knees nearly give. He sinks into the cotton-soft crown of her hair, breath catching on the scent of talc and warm milk and lets the tremor in his voice glide against her ear. “You’re mine, baby girl,” he murmurs, lips brushing her temple like a vow sealed in skin. “Daddy’s here—Daddy’s not going anywhere now.”
Sunshine slumbers against his chest, small lips parted in the gentlest O, lashes trembling each time his breathing shakes. In the hush he presses reverent kisses along her downy crown, one to the soft spot still pulsing with life, one to each curve of her cheeks, another to the bow of her chin. Between kisses he pours out promises in a whisper meant for her dreams. “You have a room waiting, sweetheart,” he murmurs, voice thick and wet with tears. “Walls the color of first light, clouds stenciled across the ceiling so you never feel trapped under a roof. Your crib, dressed in the softest cotton, picked it three times until it felt right and there’s a chair beside it where I’ll sit whenever you stir.” He grazes her button nose with his lips. “There’s a shelf already sagging under storybooks. I’ll read you every single one, even the silly rhymes, until you choose your own.”
He kisses the shell of her ear next. “Outside, a park with swings that squeak like laughter. I’ll run behind you, promise I won’t let go until you beg me to. Saturday mornings we’ll wander the farmers’ stalls, let you taste strawberries warm from the sun. On Sunday evenings we’ll buy flowers for the house: tulips in spring, dahlias in September, white camellias in winter so you always have color. I’ll always buy you flowers, my beautiful girl.”
Another kiss finds the soft pulse in her neck. “Baths that smell of lavender bubbles,” he breathes, letting each promise glide over her skin like warm water. “Pajamas that are softer than moonlight, so even your dreams feel soft. A night-light shaped like a lighthouse, turning its little beam until morning because even in the dark you should know there’s a door left open for you.” Tears slip from his lashes and vanish into her hair. He doesn’t pause; the vows keep spilling, a steady litany of devotion threaded through gentle breaths. “I swear you’ll grow up knowing seasons by their scents: spring lilac on the breeze, cinnamon in autumn air, the sharp bite of pine at Christmas. I’ll learn lullabies in every key until I find the one that makes you sigh deepest. I’ll hide love notes under every fitted sheet, I’ll play with you until my arms tire.”
His voice wavers, but the words keep coming. “My life is yours now—every breath, every heartbeat, every call shift, every dawn that pries my eyelids open. If you need marrow, I’ll offer bone; if you need shelter, I’ll become stone. You owe me nothing, just open your eyes each morning and let me be the first thing they reflect. Let me stand guard when fevers climb, when nightmares knock, when the world grows loud enough to shake the windows. I’ll meet every thunderclap before it reaches you. I’ll carry umbrellas the size of constellations, learn storms by name so I can spell them into silence. And when you fall—because all children fall—I’ll kneel first, so my hands become the ground that finds you.”
He presses another kiss, this time to the delicate curl of her ear. “You have the most beautiful birthday parties, whatever theme you want, parades for your lost teeth, I’ll teach you the innocence in believing in the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus. I’ll create galleries for your finger-paint masterpieces. I’ll show you how river water feels against bare feet, how fireworks braid color into night, how forests speak if you hush long enough to listen. I’ll buy you every flavor of ice cream—yes, even the strange ones—because discovery should taste like delight. One day we’ll walk to the ocean’s edge, and I’ll show you how to let the waves lift you like a lullaby. When you doubt yourself, I will list every brave thing your heartbeat has ever done. When you soar, I will cheer loud enough to lift the sky.” His tears blot the sun-yellow dress, tiny blossoms blooming where salt meets cotton and still he whispers, softer, fiercer: “You never owe me a thing, my girl. Just exist. Breathe. Grow at your own impossible pace. Let me love you in the space between each heartbeat you borrow from the stars.”
She stirs at last. A tiny coo flutters from her chest as she nudges herself higher beneath his jaw, clenches a fistful of his collar, settles with a sigh that sounds suspiciously like trust. Jaemin breaks, silent tears tracking down his cheeks, throat squeezed shut by gratitude and fear. He thinks of the nursery he and Jeno built: the pale-wood crib assembled at 2 a.m. to the soundtrack of whispered jokes; the mountain of pastel dresses, today she wears the yellow one embroidered with sunflower hearts, bought a week ago on a blind, impossible hope; rows of tiny socks rolled like white peonies; jars of organic purées labeled for flavors she hasn’t met; a plush zoo occupying half the floor. Every object back home feels, in this heartbeat, like proof that he has already been living for her long before the test confirmed what his heart decided. He kisses her brow once more, softer than a prayer, and breathes against her skin, “I love you. I love you. I love you,” until the words melt into her warmth and steady both their hearts.
Yet outside the glowing sanctuary of his newfound fatherhood, shadows creep along the edges, a storm brewing in the distance. Across town, the Kwon family nursery, painted pastel and adorned with meticulous care, now echoes with raw, wrenching sobs. Eunbi clutches a tiny blanket to her chest, the fabric slipping helplessly from her fingers as Jiyoung slams a hammer repeatedly into the delicate crib they spent weeks lovingly assembling, wooden slats splintering and cracking with each violent strike. Their dream lies shattered around them, the empty crib symbolic of a loss so profound it tears relentlessly at their hearts, leaving them hollow, bitter, and ready to fight.
At the hospital, Jaemin cradles Sunshine proudly, peppering her small face with kisses as he announces the joyful news, the staff clapping and cheering softly, hearts warmed by the happy ending they’ve all secretly hoped for. His victory curdles in an instant. A lawyer with a black suit, expression bloodless, slides into the room like a shadow with edges, a thick envelope held out as if it carries contagion. Behind him stand the would-have-been parents, a woman hollowed by sleepless grief and a man tight-jawed with silent rage; both watch Jaemin with eyes that shine like broken glass, all fight layered over a sediment of despair. He breaks the seal; the letters on the page slash upward, custody petition, emergency injunction, expedited hearing, each phrase a blade replacing the air in his lungs with iron shavings. The room’s warm fluorescence recoils, bleaching into grayscale; even the nurses’ soft smiles seem to ossify, like flowers flash-frozen mid-bloom. Jaemin feels the sunlight drain from the moment, replaced by a howl of cold wind he alone can hear, and the envelope in his hand suddenly weighs as much as fate itself.
Jaemin glances down at his baby girl, blissfully unaware as she plays happily in your arms, wrapped in the soft, lovingly knitted blankets that now carry twenty-one brand new, carefully stitched symbols and images, one for every staff member who loves her deeply, twenty-one and counting. Sunshine giggles, tiny fingers tracing embroidered motifs, her world safe and warm, unaware that her newfound family, the home she’s supposed to sleep in tonight, now hangs precariously in the balance.
She’s no longer the abandoned baby left on a rooftop, no longer the lost child waiting endlessly in sterile rooms; now she is the child two worlds are reaching for, cradled in one set of arms while another claws desperately to claim her. Tonight was supposed to be her first night at home, her first night tucked securely beside Daddy. But as Jaemin clutches the harsh legal notice tighter, feeling the cold bite of paper against his palm, he knows the fight has only just begun. Another family, heartbroken and grieving, is coming for the daughter he’s only just found, and Sunshine—unaware and innocent—remains caught blissfully in the crossfire, her future once again uncertain beneath looming clouds.
The night-shift hush thins toward dawn as Jaemin climbs the final stair with Sunshine curled against him, warm and weighty as a sleepy kitten. This is the very rooftop where she was first found, then a fist-sized miracle wrapped in hospital linen, the stars above her as indifferent as broken glass. Now the early light rinses the garden boxes in brushed silver; calendula buds yawn wide, their orange petals blinking awake like tiny suns relieved to keep watch for her. Jaemin settles on the low parapet, tucking her into the hollow of his chest. She’s dressed for the occasion in a butter-yellow pinafore sprinkled with white polka dots, cream tights bunched adorably at her knees, and toy-silk ballet shoes that barely brush his ribs when she kicks. One dimpled hand pats the zipper of his scrub jacket, the other reaches toward the horizon, and she releases a delighted chain of vowels—“ah, da, ya-ya”—as though she’s announcing herself to the sky she’s only now allowed to claim.
He studies her face in the newborn light. Those eyes, dark, fathomless, unmistakably his, catch the sunrise first, twin mirrors pooling liquid gold. Otherwise she shares none of his features; her cheeks are plump crescents dusted rose, her nose a perfect button, her hair a soft corona of honey-brown curls that refuse to part neatly. Yet the eyes are enough: windows where his own childhood stares back at him, equal parts wonder and will. She coos again, puckering her lips into a tiny “o,” and he can’t resist, he presses a kiss to each cheek, feeling their satin coolness give beneath his lips. “Morning, princess,” he whispers, letting the pet name glide like a feather over her ear. She squeals, tiny fists tightening in his jacket, and for an instant the whole hospital below seems to hold its breath just to listen to her joy.
She turns those mirror-dark eyes onto him, pupils blown wide in trust, and he feels the universe tilt: her world is eleven months old, and he is the gravity that keeps it steady. Swallowing a rush of tenderness so fierce it borders on pain, he begins to speak—soft, steady, a father’s dawn-lit monologue. He tells her the calendulas opened just for her, that the city beyond the rooftop is full of parks where pigeons will scatter like confetti for her laughter, that there are bookstores with carpets plush enough for story-hour nests, and a tiny bistro on the corner that already keeps a highchair waiting. “We’ll walk there after your next surgery,” he promises, brushing a curl from her forehead. “No scalpels for Daddy anymore, I’ll just be holding your hand while we count down from ten. I’ll be right there when you wake up, ready to cuddle you and sing silly songs to cheer you up. That’s my job now.”
Sunshine answers with another babble—higher, brighter—as if the syllables themselves are bloom-tips of happiness. Her yellow dress catches the breeze, fluttering against his forearm like a flag of new territory claimed. He rocks her gently, heart thrumming under her ear, and the rooftop feels transformed: no longer a place of abandonment, but a balcony of beginnings, the first true morning of a life he is determined to fill with warmth, color, and every tenderness he once thought was beyond his reach.
He marvels at how much space she now occupies in his arms—only a year ago she was scarcely heavier than a stethoscope, lungs fluttering like moth wings against his palm, and he held her without guessing the blood-thread knotting them together. Since then she has stretched into herself with stubborn grace: thighs no longer matchsticks but soft rolls snug beneath her cotton tights; fingers once wrapped around a single ridge of his thumb now span two, intent and insistent as they explore his buttons and penlight. Even tethered to surgeries, she has learned to sit unassisted, to fling both arms skyward when she wants lifting, to trumpet her opinions in vowel choirs that echo clear down the ward. Every gram she’s gained feels stolen from the jaws of statistics, a living proof that mercy sometimes chooses the smallest vessels. Looking down at her now—cheeks flushed peach, hair riffled by dawn breeze—Jaemin feels the weight of that improbable growth settle in his chest like a second heart: she is a miracle he once cradled by duty and now embraces by destiny, his bubba, his living affirmation that love can rewrite biology’s bleakest footnotes.
He speaks in a voice barely above the breeze, describing every fragile marvel in her new kingdom. “That yellow flower is called marigolds, baby, it smells like pepper and sunlight. Those are wisteria vines, they’ll drip purple in spring. See that little red light on the horizon? That’s a plane; people inside are chasing morning across the ocean, planes take you from one place to another but in the sky.” She squeals, kicking her star-patterned socks, and he laughs quietly before adding promises: ‘I can’t wait to show you oceans up close one day. I’ll stand behind you on the swing so the world feels safe. When surgeries come, I won’t hold the scalpel—daddies don’t—but I’ll hold your hand until the room stops echoing. You have a family now, and waiting is what families do.”
She gnaws experimentally on the collar of his scrub top, eyes shining wet in the half-light. He brushes a thumb over her cheek. “You hear that heartbeat?” He presses her hand to his chest. “It’s your metronome. Any time you’re scared, sync to it.” Her eyelids dip, a slow blink of trust, and the rooftop seems to inhale around them, old loss exhaling at last into something tender and new.
Footsteps scrape at the service-door landing, and you pause, sudden, breathless, an uninvited guest at a private sunrise. For a moment you only watch: Jaemin’s broad shoulders curved protectively, Sunshine half-dozing against the steady rise and fall of his ribs. The picture is so raw with devotion you almost retreat, but the idea burning your tongue refuses to be swallowed back. You clear your throat; the sound flutters like a nervous bird. Jaemin looks over, one eyebrow lifted. “Why are you up here?” His tone is neutral, but the hand on Sunshine’s back tightens, territorial.
“I—well—sorry,” you start, words tangling. You look ridiculous, an inner voice hisses, but you soldier on. “I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking about the name we keep calling her, the name on her chart. Sunshine is a lovely name, truly, but maybe not her forever, and it suddenly felt important to me that she has a real name, something chosen, not inherited from circumstance.” Your pulse thrums; Sunshine peers at you, thumb halfway to her mouth. You inhale. “So I made a list, actually several lists. I looked up meanings, syllables, and cultural roots. I wanted something gentle but strong, something that carries light the way she does.” Still no interruption so you forge ahead.
Second paragraph of ramble: “I narrowed it down to names that mean grace, or dawn, or salvation because that’s what she is, isn’t she? Grace for all of us, dawn after the ugliest night, proof that survival can be soft. I kept circling one in particular: Haeun— hae for sun, eun for grace. It feels like brightness but also depth.” Your voice wobbles; you clutch the notebook you’d carried like evidence. “And it sounds musical when you whisper it—try it, the vowel slides like a lullaby. I don’t want to overstep and I made an entire list so you can see if you like any more, because, well, you should decide, obviously, but I wanted to offer it before the paperwork finalizes.”
“I know Sunshine isn’t wrong, she’ll always be sunshine but children grow and maybe one day she’ll want a name that fits on school forms and passports, something that still holds the light but also lets her be whoever she chooses beyond this rooftop story. Haeun does that. And if you like, Sunshine could stay her nickname, a secret code between all of us who knew her first.” You exhale, cheeks burning, gaze fixed on the note pad rather than his unreadable eyes. Silence stretches; only the whir of rooftop vents and the faint click of IV tubing sway. Then Jaemin lowers his chin, looks down at the baby blinking up at him as if awaiting her own verdict. He whispers the syllables once—“Ha-eun”—testing shape and sound. Sunshine coos, a pleased gurgle, and pats his chest like a seal of approval. Something eases in his shoulders; he kisses her hairline. “Na Haeun,” he says again, fuller this time, letting the consonants anchor against his surname. A soft, incredulous smile cracks through the fatigue. “I like it.”
He gathers her under his chin, bunching the sunflower blanket until its yarn presses a soft sunflower seam between them, and shifts so that dawn’s first blade of gold slices over the horizon and crowns them in trembling light. The rooftop inhales, petals quiver, air tastes of tin and morning dew and suddenly the hum of generators, the drone of distant traffic, the courtroom thunder that waits below all fall away. Only three pulses remain: his, heavy as cathedral bells; hers, quick as sparrow wings; yours, somewhere between, stitching the moment closed.
He lowers his forehead to hers, skin to skin, sunrise to sunrise and lets her name float out on a breath like pollen: Haeun. The sound drifts upward, latching to the breeze, a firefly syllable that makes even concrete feel fertile. Calendula heads turn as though summoned; shadow pulls back from the parapet like a curtain, and the city beyond seems to pause, leaning in to eavesdrop on the vow wound inside that single word. There will be gavels and ink, families fractured into legal shards, nights when fear scratches at the door louder than lullabies. But none of that exists in this sliver of honey-lit stillness. Here, a father plants his heartbeat in a child’s ear. Here, a baby tucks her fist into the fabric of his collar as if anchoring dawn itself. Here, a witness stands one pace away, feeling the earth tilt just enough for hope to spill forward like warm milk. As long as the horizon keeps leaking gold, you hold your place in an impossible orbit: Haeun, newborn sun, pulsing warm against your collar; Jaemin, once a planet of stone, now lit from the inside by her fire; and you, the steady moon that keeps their tides from tearing loose. Together you rise above the waking city like a brand-new constellation—three bright points soldered by miracle—burning the night’s leftover ghosts into pliant, honey-soft clay, ready to be shaped into whatever tomorrow you dare to build.
comment to be added to the tag list. two more parts coming.
author’s note
surprise !!! to my back to you lovers—did you catch that name reveal at the end? and what did you think of haeun’s tragic, tangled backstory? she’s always been more than just a hospital legend or a little miracle in a yellow dress—she’s got her own storm, her own origin, and her own kind of magic. i hope this chapter made you ache for her even more, because she needs all the love you can give her. she’s our sunshine, our ballerina, our little magic bubba. :((( just so you know—this isn’t the end. not even close. the fic will have at least three parts (possibly more if you all yell loud enough), and yes, i promise the slow burn between mc and jaemin is about to catch fire. if you felt the ache and the longing in this part, buckle in: it’s only going to get more intense from here. their story is just starting, and i can’t wait to share it with you. it was wrong if i made mc or jaemin fuck in this chapter considering the main events, plus she may be a virgin so !!!! yeah next chapters about to be very interesting
now, if you made it this far, i’d love it if you left me a comment, reblog, or even a like. i read every single one and they mean so much to me—it’s genuinely the best way to let me know what moved you, what you loved, or even what broke your heart. writing is a little lonely sometimes, it always takes me restless nights, and hearing from you makes it all feel worthwhile, like sharing a secret or lighting a candle for these characters. so don’t be shy! every little note is treasured and makes me want to keep going. thank you for reading, and for loving these messy, magical people with me. <3
taglist — @yukisroom97 @fancypeacepersona @jaeminnanaaa17 @shiningnono @junrenjun @honeybeehorizon @neotannies @noorabora @oppabochim @chenlesfeetpic @kynessa @awktwurtle @euphormiia @hi00000234527 @yvvnii @sunwoosberrie @ppeachyttae @dee-zennie @ballsackzz101 @neonaby @kukkurookkoo @antifrggile @dedandelion @fymine @zoesruby @yoonohswife @jessga @markerloi @ryuhannaworld @yasminetrappy @sunghoonsgfreal @jaemjeno @lovetaroandtaemin @yunhoswrldddd @dowoonwoodealer @enhalovie @jenzyoit @sunseteternal @dewyspace @markiesfatbooty @raysofpolaris @sunseteternal @oppabochim @markerloi @xiuriii
pairings: Brother Best Friend Haechan x Virgin Reader (hints of Jeno x reader and Sungchan x reader)
summary: When you sets out to finally lose your virginity, your mission is simple—until your older brother’s best friend steps in, vowing to be your personal chastity belt. After a fight he makes it his mission to get his revenge... by blocking every hookup attempt you makes. But the more he interferes, the more complicated things get and suddenly, the line between rivalry and something more starts to blur.
content warning: It's okay to be a virgin this was just for the plot (im literally still a virgin), drinking, talks of cheating but no actual cheating, heavy make-outs, grinding, jealousy, haechan cockblocking twice, virgin reader, experienced haechan, reader being a brat, condom mentioned (shout out! wrap it up), cunninglingus, use of the words 'heat' 'breast', overall fluffy vanilla smut.
word count: 20.4k (im sorry-)
authors note: posting this before my 21st birthday tm! (3rd) <3
Mark had finally done it, he graduated college. You felt a mix of pride and relief. Watching him walk across that stage was huge for your family, but part of you couldn’t help but feel...free. The constant hovering, the big brother act—it was over. At least for now.
You weren’t just Mark’s little sister anymore. It was your turn to live.
Sophomore year was your fresh start. No more rules, no more curfews. You could go out, stay out, party, drink—and maybe even lose your virginity. You weren’t rushing, but it felt like the right time to start making memories that were actually yours and not just stuff you’ve read in fanfics.
When Mark decided to travel after graduation, his apartment opened up. He offered his room to you to help with rent. At first, you weren’t sure—but it made sense. More freedom than a dorm, and you already knew the guys that frequently hang out there: Renjun, Chenle, and Jisung. Mark’s best friends. Your honorary older brothers. They always made you feel welcome, even if they were just as protective as Mark.
Haechan, Mark’s roommate, was the best one to live with out of the his friend group—party guy, always out, kept the shared space clean. As long as your noise canceling headphones worked, living with him didn’t seem like a bad deal.
Before leaving, Mark said, “If you need anything, my friends are around. They’ve got your back.”
You rolled your eyes. You didn’t need a babysitter. But you knew it came from a good place. They all cared, whether Mark said it or not.
So, you moved in. The apartment was way better than your old dorm. Spacious, cozy, and most importantly yours. Your room had a big window—that you could actually open, unlike the school “anti suicide” protection ones—
Those first few weeks of settling in were exactly what you’d hoped for. Late nights, new people, freedom. No one checking in, no one to tiptoe around. Just you, your own schedule, and finally, a life that felt like it belonged to you.
It was everything you hoped for!
You’d been out with friends, as usual—drinks, dancing, laughing—but when you came home, something felt off. You walked into the apartment, expecting it to be quiet, but there was a light on in the living room. Haechan was sitting on the couch, his face serious as he looked up when you entered.
“Y/n,” he said, his voice calm but with a weight to it.
“We need to talk.”
You froze for a moment, feeling a wave of irritation wash over you. You were tired and your head hurt, already exhausted with how much socializing you just did.
“What’s up?” you asked, your tone already on edge. You could tell this wasn’t going to be a casual conversation.
Haechan patted the seat next to him, his expression serious. “Sit down. This is important.”
You reluctantly dropped your bag by the door and plopped onto the couch, crossing your arms.
“You’ve changed,” Haechan said bluntly, looking at you with narrowed eyes. “You used to be so quiet, so reserved. You liked staying in, reading, gaming, and just hanging out with a small set of friends. But now? You’re out every night, partying, getting home at God knows what hour. I don’t even recognize you anymore.”
You felt a jolt of anger rise in your chest at his words. You hadn’t expected this. Sure, you’d been out a lot lately, but was it really that big of a deal? You weren’t doing anything wrong.
“I’m just living my life, Haechan. What’s your problem with that?”
Haechan didn’t back down. He leaned forward, his gaze never leaving yours. “It’s not about you living your life. It’s that you’re changing into someone you’re not. I’m just worried you’re losing yourself. You used to be so different, and now you’re pushing yourself into a life you don’t even seem to want. You’re not the same Y/n I used to know.”
Frustration bubbled up inside you. You weren’t a little girl anymore. Yeah, you were more introverted than most people. You liked staying in and finding different hobbies like reading, cross-stitching, knitting, and playing board games. But you don’t see a problem with trying to branch out and make some experiences. You haven’t even kissed someone in years!
“I’m not changing, Haechan,” you shot back, your voice getting louder. “I’m just doing what I want for once. I’m in college now. I can go out and have fun. I’m not hurting anyone or myself, so why does it matter?”
“It matters because you’re pushing yourself into this wild party girl persona that isn’t you,” he argued, his voice soft but earnest. “You don’t need to change who you are to have fun. You don’t have to lose yourself to experience college. You’re better than this.”
His words stung. Was he right? You don’t even care, who is he to tell you who you are! You felt the anger bubble up higher in your chest, and before you knew it, you were standing up, pacing the small space in front of the couch.
“You think you know me so well, don’t you? You think just because I’m going out and having fun, that means I’m ‘losing myself’?” You shot a pointed glance at him. “Maybe I’m just finally doing what I want to do. Mark or you don’t get to decide who I am or who I should be!”
Haechan stood up too, frustration flashing in his eyes. “That’s not what I’m saying! I just don’t want you to regret this, Y/n. I’m not trying to control you. I’m trying to make sure you don’t throw away everything that made you... well, you.”
You could feel your pulse racing, your heart pounding in your chest. He was trying to tell you what you should be doing with your life, and you weren’t about to let him dictate that.
“You don’t get it! I’m not ‘throwing away’ anything. Maybe I’ve just been stuck in the same box for too long. Maybe I just want to have some damn fun for once without everyone treating me like a baby!”
There was a tense silence between you two, the air thick. Haechan’s face softened a little, but you could see the hurt in his eyes. “I’m not judging you, Y/n. I’m just trying to look out for you. I’m your friend, okay? I care about you. But I can’t just watch you spiral into something I don’t recognize.”
You shook your head, feeling a tight knot form in your throat. You didn’t want to hear this. “You’re Mark’s friend not mine!” You snapped, your voice almost a shout.
You stood there, staring at him. You could feel your heart racing, the adrenaline still rushing through your veins. But as Haechan’s expression faltered, something in you twisted—something unfamiliar, something you didn’t want to deal with right now.
His eyes widened, lips parted like he wanted to say something, but the words just wouldn’t come out. The silence between you two felt loud, thick, and uncomfortable, making the air around you heavy.
You stood there, your hands clenched by your sides, unwilling to back down. You had said what you needed to say, hadn’t you? Haechan was just your brother’s friend, right? That’s all he was, no matter how much he tried to play the protective older brother role. You didn’t need him to look out for you. You didn’t need anyone but yourself.
But then you saw it, something you hadn’t expected. The hurt that flashed in his eyes. The quick, sharp breath he took, like he was trying to process your words, like you’d just physically hurt him. It made something inside you twist painfully.
You wanted to take it back. You wanted to apologize, to say that wasn’t what you meant. But the pride in you wouldn't let it happen. Instead, you just stood there, the anger still lingering inside of you.
Haechan opened his mouth again, his voice quieter now, as if unsure of what to say. “Y/n, I—” But he stopped, his words dying before he could get them out.
You didn’t say anything back. There was nothing left to say. You had made it clear where you stood, and now, there was a silence between you both, almost unbearable.
He swallowed, his jaw clenched tightly as his eyes dropped to the floor. You could see the frustration in his body language and the way he folded his arms across his chest like he was trying to protect himself from the words you had thrown at him. And yet, there was still this undeniable hurt that lingered in his expression.
Haechan took a slow, steadying breath before looking up at you one last time. His eyes were distant now, but the hurt was still there. His lips pressed into a thin line, and without another word, he turned away, walking toward the hallway, his footsteps heavy against the floor.
You stood frozen, the knot in your throat tightening again as you watched him leave. Your heart felt like it had been split in two—one part of you was still angry but the other part of you, the quieter part, regretted what you had just said. Knowing deep down he was right.
But Haechan didn’t turn back. He didn’t say anything else. He just left, disappearing into his room without a single glance in your direction.
You remained standing in the living room, the weight of the silence pressing down on you. You couldn’t bring yourself to move, not yet, because you knew if you did, you’d have to face what you’d just done.
And right now, you weren’t ready to do that. So you stayed there, alone in the quiet, wondering if you’d ever be able to fix this.
Weeks turned into a month, and with each passing day, the tension between you and Haechan only seemed to grow. You avoided him, doing everything you could to sidestep those awkward, silent moments when you’d inevitably cross paths. Which was a lot, you two live together!
But you didn’t know how to fix things, didn’t know how to admit you were wrong. The pride that had kept you from apologizing in the first place now felt like a heavy weight on your chest, crushing you.
It wasn’t like you hadn’t tried to talk to the others. You’d still spent time with Renjun, Chenle, and Jisung—though it was different now. They could all sense it. The moment you and Haechan were in the same room, the air would go thick, filled with an undeniable awkwardness. Everyone seemed to feel it, and no one ever quite knew what to say.
Things had taken a turn after Haechan finally told the guys about the fight. You had noticed it right away. They had become distant too. Maybe they were angry at you, maybe they were just upset because they were caught in the middle of it. Either way, they didn’t talk to you like they used to. They didn’t look at you like they used to. And that made you feel even more isolated.
But the worst part? The worst part was Haechan. You barely saw him anymore.
He either wasn’t home—probably at some party getting drunk. Or he spent his time locked away in his room, just like you did. You’d occasionally hear him laughing or talking with the other people, but it wasn’t the same. It wasn’t normal anymore. And every time you heard that, you felt like something inside you was breaking—like you were losing your friends.
The apartment had felt weird lately...too quiet, too still. You hadn’t realized just how lonely you’d been until the familiar sound of laughter echoed through the hallway, followed by a knock at your door.
Lisa burst in first, tossing her bag on the couch like she owned the place. Jaemin trailed behind, grinning as he scanned the room.
“Okay, so this is your version of living your best life?” Lisa raised a brow, glancing around at your cozy setup. “I expected a little more....”
You laughed, the sound feeling strange in your own space. “Sorry to disappoint.”
Jaemin dropped onto the couch beside you, arms stretched wide as he let out a relaxed sigh. “I’ll take it. Better than Lisa’s place, where everything’s freakishly neat. Move one thing and she goes full psycho.”
Lisa rolled her eyes and chucked a pillow at him. “You love it.”
Their banter filled the room with a warmth you hadn’t felt in weeks. The air felt lighter, and for the first time in a while, you didn’t feel so weighed down.
Lisa, always too observant for her own good, shot you a sideways glance. “So... sleepover. And since we’re here, you’re gonna spill. What’s really going on with you? You’ve been sulking and dodging us for weeks.”
Jaemin nodded. “Yeah, we’ve noticed. You’ve been off.”
You swallowed the knot that had been sitting in your chest for days. “It’s... Haechan. We got into a fight. Things have been tense ever since.”
Lisa’s curiosity sparked. “Weird how?”
You hesitated. “We argued... and I said some things I didn’t mean. He made some comment about me changing, and I just snapped. I told him he wasn’t my friend—just Mark’s.”
Jaemin winced. “Damn. That’s cold.”
Lisa raised an eyebrow. “Oof, that’s a low blow. But, seriously, you both probably said some dumb stuff in the heat of the moment.”
You nodded, your shoulders slumping as you stared at the ground. “Yeah, I regret it. I didn’t mean it. But I just... I was so frustrated. And then, after that, we just avoided each other. It’s been like walking on eggshells around him, and honestly, this was supposed to be my year.”
Jaemin frowned, glancing at Lisa, who was now looking at you with a mixture of concern and something else—something playful.
“Okay, okay,” Lisa said, leaning in with a mischievous grin. “Maybe I’m just gonna throw this out there, because you know I have no filter—which you love—but what if the real reason you exploded like that is because you’re so pent up?”
You blinked at her, confused. “Pent up?”
She grinned, eyes gleaming. “Yeah. You know... because you’ve been holding onto your... frustrations for so long. Maybe it’s all this repressed energy that made you lash out. Like... you've been a little too focused on being the ‘good girl,’ and now you’re overcompensating.”
Jaemin chuckled, clearly intrigued by where this was going, and leaned back in his seat, raising an eyebrow.
“Oh, I see where this is going. So, you’re telling me that you’ve been, what stressed because of the whole ‘virginity thing’?”
You shot Lisa a disbelieving look. “What? That’s ridiculous. That’s not the problem.”
Lisa laughed and waved her hand dismissively. “I mean, it’s not just that, but come on. You’re in college now. You’re out partying, meeting people, and you’ve got all this new freedom. Maybe you’re just... figuring some things out. But hey, I’m not saying that’s the only reason.”
You snorted, a small laugh escaping despite yourself. “So, you’re saying I lashed out at Haechan because I haven’t gotten laid yet?”
Lisa shrugged, still grinning. “Look, I’m just saying, maybe there’s a little frustration there, building up, and Haechan just happened to be the unlucky target.”
Jaemin, always the more level-headed one, cut in, “I think Lisa’s just trying to make you laugh, Y/n. But seriously, maybe she’s onto something. You’ve been putting so much pressure on yourself to be perfect, to do everything right. Maybe you just need to let go a little. Not everything has to feel like a Rom-Com”
You nodded, “Maybe you're right, I just need to hurry up and lose my virginity! It’s not a big deal anyways.”
“I mean mine was awful but it got rid of my nerves with the next girl,” Jaemin nodded along.
You couldn’t help but laugh at the way they were talking about it so casually. Jaemin’s bluntness always had a way of making even awkward topics sound less serious.
"Wait, your first time was awful?" you asked, raising an eyebrow.
“I was Sixteen. Clueless. Awful,” he said flatly. “But it’s like a rite of passage, right?”
Lisa snorted. “College is the perfect time to get your awkward phase out of the way.”
You nodded slowly. “You know what? You’re right. 2025 is the year I lose my virginity.”
Jaemin burst out laughing. Lisa threw her hands up in mock celebration. “Yes! New Year’s resolution: lose the V-card!”
“Just don’t treat it like a movie or a book,” Jaemin added. “It’s probably gonna be weird. But hey, at least it’ll be real.”
You groaned. “Ugh, you’re ruining the fantasy. Can’t I just pretend it’s gonna be magical?”
Lisa slapped your leg. “Oh, come on. You’ve read enough fanfiction to know better.”
You grabbed a pillow and smacked her with it. “Do not bring up the kind of smut I read!”
Lisa howled with laughter. “You’re blushing!”
“Shut up,” you muttered, hiding your face. But you were smiling.
Jaemin smirked. “With how much smut you read, you might as well go out and live it.”
You threw him a look, but your cheeks were burning. “You two are the worst.”
Lisa leaned in, eyes gleaming. “Tell us one thing. Do you still have that folder labeled ‘study material’?”
You groaned. “Can we not talk about my smut collection?”
Jaemin laughed. “I mean the amount of smut you read, you might as well be a slut…”
You shot Jaemin a playful glare, but the heat rising in your cheeks betrayed you. "Oh my god, seriously? You two are horrible," you muttered, covering your face with your hands to hide your embarrassment.
Lisa smirked, clearly loving every second of teasing you. "Come on, don’t be shy. We know you're into the good stuff, Y/n." She wiggled her eyebrows dramatically.
You flopped back on the couch. “Conversation over.”
Lisa grinned. “What? You used to read us your favorite fics, remember?”
You buried your face in the pillow. “That was when we weren’t in my apartment. It’s different here!”
“Is your roommate here?” Jaemin asked, glancing around.
You nodded. “Exactly. Haechan’s down the hall. Can you imagine if he heard all this? I’d die.”
The three of you burst into laughter, the kind that filled the apartment and pushed the heaviness away for a while. The sleepover didn’t last long—they both wanted to sleep in their own beds—but in those few hours, you felt a little less alone.
The next morning, your phone buzzed on the coffee table, waking you up. Sunlight came through the blinds, warming the room. You stretched on the couch, your neck sore from sleeping there, and reached for your phone. A message from Lisa was waiting.
Lisa Pookie: You passed out on us. We didn’t want to wake you, so we headed home. Hope you survived the night after all our teasing. See you soon.”
You smiled to yourself, the loneliness that had been sitting so heavy in your chest no longer there. But there was still something missing that you didn’t want to admit.
With a sigh, you checked the time—it was almost noon. The apartment was quiet, not surprising. Haechan probably was still sleeping.
You made your way into the kitchen to start making some coffee, still replaying the events of last night in your mind. The conversation with Lisa and Jaemin had made you realize just how stressed out you'd been, how much you’d been holding in. It felt like a release, but now, the weight of what had happened with Haechan was still lingering in the back of your mind. You knew you had to face him, but you had no idea how or when that would happen.
Just as you were about to pour the coffee into your mug, you heard footsteps behind you.
“Morning,” Haechan’s voice came, surprisingly calm.
You froze, your heart skipping a beat. Your first instinct was to turn around and walk away, but you held yourself steady, trying to keep your composure. “Oh… hey, Haechan,” you said, your voice much less casual than you intended.
You hadn't expected him to speak to you after everything that happened. The argument, the cold silence… you assumed you’d both continue to tiptoe around each other. So why was he suddenly talking to you again?
He leaned against the kitchen counter, arms crossed, his usual laid-back expression replaced with something softer. “Lisa and Jaemin left already?”
“Yeah, they left yesterday night. They were… just here to hang out.” You fiddled with the coffee filter, unsure how to act around him.
A brief silence stretched between you two. You felt the awkwardness from the night before still hanging in the air, thick and heavy. You didn't know how to break it.
Haechan cleared his throat, looking at the coffee machine like he was trying to figure out what to say next. “Listen, I... I know things have been weird between us lately, and I’m not great at talking about stuff like this. But, I wanted to clear the air.”
Your eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Wait, what?” you said, still facing the coffee machine, avoiding eye contact. “I don’t… I don’t really know what you’re trying to say.”
Haechan's voice softened, and you finally glanced over at him, noticing how his usual cocky demeanor had shifted to something more sincere. “I know I messed up too,” he admitted. “I shouldn’t have pushed you like I did. But I was worried. I guess I was trying to look out for you... I’ve just been caught up in my own head too.”
You stared at him, taken aback by his words. For so long, you assumed he was angry with you, that he’d shut you out because of everything that happened. But this… this was different. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you,” you murmured, your own guilt creeping in. “I was mad, and I didn’t know how to… deal with all the stuff that was going on in my head. I guess I just… took it out on you.”
Haechan gave a slight nod, his eyes softening. “I get it,” he said quietly. “You’ve been under a lot of pressure. I shouldn’t have made it worse by trying to control you. I just wanted to make sure you didn’t get hurt or… change in ways you didn’t want to.”
You felt a pang in your chest at his words, realizing that despite how hard you’d pushed him away, Haechan was still looking out for you. He wasn’t trying to control you, but protect you. It wasn’t easy to admit, but you could see that now.
“I’m sorry, Haechan,” you whispered, the knot in your chest loosening just a little. “I didn’t mean to push you away like that.”
Haechan’s lips curved into a small, understanding smile. “It’s okay. We both said things we didn’t mean. It happens.”
The tension between you two seemed to finally ease a bit. There was still an unspoken understanding of what had been said and done, but the air felt a little lighter, less suffocating. You grabbed your mug, finally turning toward him fully.
“Do you want some coffee?” you offered, unsure if it would be weird, but it felt like a small step toward rebuilding things.
Haechan nodded, his smile widening. “Sure. I could use some.”
As you handed Haechan his cup of coffee, you couldn’t help but notice the way he seemed more at ease now, his usual playful attitude returning bit by bit. He took a sip of the coffee, nodding in approval before setting the mug down on the counter.
“So,” Haechan began, leaning casually against the counter again. “Since we are on good terms again, how about we invite the others over for a game night tonight?” Haechan grinned, tapping his fingers on the counter as if he was already mentally planning the evening.
“It’s been a while since we all hung out together. We could order some takeout, play a few games—maybe a couple rounds of Mario Kart, Monopoly, or something.” His eyes sparkled with excitement that you hadn’t seen in a while.
You hesitated for a moment, considering the idea. It would be nice to have everyone over. You missed those nights when you all just kicked back and had fun together, no pressure, no awkwardness. But then you remembered the last few weeks—the tension that had built up between you and Haechan. Would it be weird, to bring them over and act like everything was normal again?
Haechan must’ve sensed your hesitation because he quickly added, “It’ll be fun. I promise it won’t be awkward.”
You hesitated for another second, but the idea of good food and the mess of game night started to sound more and more appealing. After everything that had happened recently, you realized that maybe this was exactly what you needed—an evening with your friends to reset everything.
“Okay,” you agreed, finally giving in with a small smile. “That sounds good. We haven’t had a game night in forever.”
Haechan grinned, his smile contagious. “Great! I’ll text them. Don’t worry, I’ll take care of the details. You just get ready to lose badly to me in Mario Kart.”
You rolled your eyes, chuckling softly. “We’ll see about that. I’m pretty sure I’m the one who’s going to beat you.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he laughed, nudging your shoulder playfully. “I’ll text the guys now. I’ll let you know when they’re on their way.”
He pulled out his phone while you took a sip of coffee, feeling a bit better. Maybe it was the thought of seeing your friends, or just how relaxed Haechan made things feel, but it seemed like everything might be okay again.
A few hours later, the sound of footsteps and the doorbell echoed through the apartment.
“Game night!” Chenle grinned, holding up a bag of snacks like a prize. “I brought chips, popcorn, and like, fifty sodas.”
Renjun held up a board game with a sly smile. “I brought Monopoly,” he said, wiggling his fingers like it was some kind of secret weapon.
“You brought Monopoly?” you asked, raising an eyebrow. “You want us to fight?”
Jisung walked in last, looking the most unsure—like he’d just sat down with two divorced parents. “Maybe we shouldn’t play that…”
You and Haechan shared an amused glance as everyone settled in, setting out snacks and games. For the first time in a while, the tension between you and Haechan was gone. The usual noise of friends joking, arguing over what to play, and debating pizza toppings filled the room.
“Alright,” Haechan said with a grin. “Let’s make this interesting. Loser cleans up. Deal?”
You leaned back on the couch, smiling. “You’re on. Just don’t cry when you lose.”
“Oh, it’s on,” he said, crossing his arms with a smirk.
Everyone burst out laughing, and for the first time in weeks, things felt normal. Whatever happened before didn’t matter tonight. You were with your friends and everything felt right.
After a night where you finally felt like yourself again, it was time to step back into your college life. Sitting on your bed, journal in hand, your phone buzzed beside you. Lisa’s name lit up the screen, and you quickly answered.
“Y/n! How have you been?” Lisa’s voice rang with excitement.
You smiled, lying back on your bed as you relaxed into the call. “Honestly? Amazing. I finally made up with Haechan. It's no longer awkward… thank God. I don’t think I could’ve handled one more day of him looking all sad and mopey.”
“I knew you two would fix it!” Lisa cheered. “I’ve missed you guys being friends. Everything’s more fun when no one’s beefing. I can stop pretending I don’t see him on campus.”
You laughed. “Yeah, and I don’t have to constantly stress that I ruined half my friendships.”
There was a brief pause, then Lisa’s tone turned playful. “Sooo… now that the drama’s over, it’s time to celebrate. You, me, and Jaemin TONIGHT. There’s a frat party, and you know it’s gonna be crazy.”
You raised an eyebrow, already grinning. “A frat party? I haven’t been to one of those in forever. Not since me and Haechan had our fallout.”
“Exactly!” Lisa laughed. “It’s the perfect excuse to let loose. And the perfect place to do all the things we’ve been talking about. Sooo?”
You hesitated for half a second but then shrugged. “Why not? I’m in.”
“YES!” Lisa squealed. “Jaemin and I will pick you up at nine. Oh and please dress slutty!”
You burst out laughing. “Okay, okay! I’ll see you then.”
Ending the call, you sigh and head to your closet, Lisa’s words echoing in your mind. Something slutty… You pause. Do you even own anything she’d call slutty?
You dig through your clothes—everything feels too plain or safe. Then your hand stops on a dress you borrowed from her a while ago. She never asked for it back: a very short black dress with lace details.
Taking a deep breath, you slip it on. It fits snugly, hugging every curve, the hem high enough to make you tug it down without thinking. You turn to the mirror and pause. You look...Sexy. It's different but in a good way.
You grab a pair of dusty heels from the back of your closet to complete the look. Standing in front of the mirror, you adjust the dress one last time. A nervous excitement builds in your chest. In this dress? Yeah—you’re definitely getting laid tonight.
You were about to check Jaemin’s location when a knock sounded at your door. You looked up, surprised. Opening it, you found Haechan standing there.
His eyes scanned your outfit, eyebrows raised. “You look nice. Where are you going?”
You leaned against the doorframe, smiling. “Me and a couple friends are hitting up a frat party.”
Haechan grinned, clearly amused. “A frat party, huh? Sounds fun. Mind if I tag along? I could use a night out.”
You blinked. “You want to come with us?”
He shrugged casually. “Why not? Unless… you don’t want me there?”
You hesitated—not because you didn’t want him to come, but because the question caught you off guard. His casual tone made it hard to tell if he was joking.
You laughed, trying to keep things light. “I mean, it’s not that I don’t want you there. I just didn’t think frat parties were your thing, thought you preferred bars and clubs.”
“Why wouldn’t they be? I get to show up with a bunch of ladies,” he teased.
“Two ladies and Jaemin,” you corrected.
“Still counts. And I’d love to see how you are at a frat party.” There was a glint in his eye you might have missed if you weren’t already paying attention.
You shook your head, smiling. “Okay, fine. You can come. But don’t make it weird.”
He placed a hand over his heart, mock offended. “Weird? Me? Never.”
You both laughed. For the first time in a while, it felt like the old Haechan was really back.
“So,” he said after a pause, “I’ll go get ready.”
You nodded. “Yeah Yeah, just finishing up.”
“Cool. I’ll be quick.” He shot you a grin before walking off down the hall.
You took a deep breath. You slipped on your shoes, checked your reflection one last time, and grabbed your phone. A new message from Lisa lit up the screen.
“Can’t wait to see how sexy you are! I’m on my way. Get ready to partyyy!!!”
You smiled at Lisa’s message and quickly replied: “Already dressed ;) Haechan’s coming too, by the way.”
Her response came almost instantly: “No way! That’s perfect. This is going to be so much fun. See you soon!”
You grabbed your jacket and headed for the door, only to bump into Haechan again—this time dressed casually, but still effortlessly hot.
“All set?” he asked, giving you an approving once-over.
“Yup. Lisa should be here any minute,” you said with a small smile.
He stepped aside, motioning for you to lead the way, and the two of you headed downstairs. Just as you reached the front door, you heard the sound of Jaemin’s car pulling up.
Outside, the cool night air brushed your skin as you walked toward the car. Lisa was already in the front seat, and her eyes lit up the moment she saw you.
“Ooh, look at you two!” she said, grinning. “You clean up nice.”
You rolled your eyes, though a grin tugged at your lips. “Don’t start.”
Haechan just laughed, casually shrugging. “What can I say? I’m naturally this good-looking.”
Lisa laughed. “I’m glad you decided to come, Haechan. Now let’s go before they drink all the alcohol!”
You slid into the backseat, and Haechan followed, settling in beside you.
“All buckled up?” Jaemin asked, catching your eye in the rearview mirror with a playful wink.
“Buckled!” you said, the car pulling away as the night officially began.
The moment you stepped into the party, the energy hit you. The house was buzzing—people laughing, dancing, and talking over the loud music that vibrated through the walls. Dim lighting cast shadows and color across the room.
Near the entrance, you spotted Hendery, one of the frat guys, chatting with friends. His eyes lit up when he saw your group.
“Hey! You guys made it!” he said, flashing a wide grin that instantly made you feel welcome.
“Of course,” Lisa replied, giving him a quick side hug as she nudged past Jaemin. “Your frat always throws the best parties.”
“You’re too sweet. Let me know if you need anything!” Hendery replied before disappearing into the crowd to greet others.
You smiled softly and scanned the room. Haechan grinned beside you, casually slinging an arm behind Jaemin and Lisa.
“You guys don’t mind if I steal Y/n for a bit, do you?” he asked. His tone was light, but the way his eyes locked onto yours felt anything but casual—like a challenge.
Jaemin and Lisa raised their eyebrows and exchanged a look before giving nods of approval. With that, Haechan gently guided you into the crowd.
Your stomach flipped, though you weren’t sure why.
The music shifted into something bass-heavy, and soon you found yourself moving to the beat in the middle of the living room, Haechan never far from your side. He kept the mood light, joking and saying random things that made you laugh. You couldn’t deny how comfortable he made you feel—yet part of you started to notice how present he was. Every time you turned, he was there. Close. Watching.
Too close.
After a while, it became a bit much. You needed space, and more than that, you needed Lisa.
You nudged her side. “Come on, let’s go outside for a minute. I need some air.”
Lisa gave you a knowing look and smirked. “Yeah, same. Let’s go.”
The two of you slipped out into the hallway and stepped onto the small back porch. The cool night air hit your skin, refreshing after the heat and noise inside. The backyard was quiet, the music now just a low thump through the walls.
You let out a deep breath and turned to Lisa.
“Okay… I need to tell you something,” you said, fiddling with your jacket sleeve. “It’s about Haechan.”
Lisa raised an eyebrow, leaning against the porch railing. “Spill it.”
You let out a breath, feeling a little overwhelmed. “I don’t know what’s going on, but he hasn’t left my side all night. Every time I turn around, there he is—hovering like he’s guarding me or something. It’s driving me nuts, Lis. I can’t even breathe with him so close.”
Lisa’s expression softened with understanding, then shifted into a knowing smirk. “What if he’s into you? I mean… you do look sexy as hell right now.”
You scoffed. “Ew, no. And I’m pretty sure Mark already gave him the big brother talk. Sisters are off-limits, remember?”
Before Lisa could answer, Haechan’s voice cut through the night air.
“So… what’s all the whispering about?” he asked, suddenly leaning against the doorframe with a mischievous grin. “Did you sneak out here to hide from me?”
You turned to him with an exasperated look. “Haechan, seriously. We were just talking.”
“Talking, huh?” He raised a brow, clearly unfazed.
“Mind if I join? Or is this a no boys allowed kind of thing?”
Without waiting for an answer, he stepped closer, closing the space between you. You could practically feel the smirk radiating off him.
You rolled your eyes. “Haechan, I swear…”
Lisa glanced between you two, biting back a laugh.
You sighed dramatically, but you couldn’t help the faint smile tugging at your lips. “He’s impossible,” you muttered under your breath as you turned to head back inside.
And, of course, Haechan was right behind you—still grinning, still too close.
The party was in full swing now—the kind people would regret in the morning. Bodies moved recklessly to the beat (more like off the beat), drinks spilling from red cups, and laughter bouncing off the walls. You tried to disappear into the crowd, to lose yourself in the music, but it was impossible to ignore the weight of Haechan’s eyes on you from across the room.
Enough was enough.
You spotted Lisa laughing with a group nearby and tugged her sleeve. “Come with me to the bathroom,” you said quietly. “I need to get away from him for a few minutes.”
Lisa gave you a look—half amused, half knowing—but didn’t argue. “Gotcha. Let’s go.”
You followed her down the hallway, slipping into the bathroom. The moment the door shut behind you, you locked it and leaned against the counter with a frustrated sigh.
“I swear, I’m going to lose my mind,” you muttered. “How am I supposed to get laid tonight if my brother’s best friend is shadowing me like some overprotective bodyguard?”
Lisa laughed under her breath, but her expression turned sympathetic. “Yeah, I get it. That’s gotta be frustrating.”
You crossed your arms, feeling cornered. “I need some space, Lis. A little freedom to actually enjoy myself. I’m still convinced he’s doing this for Mark.”
Lisa raised an eyebrow, a mischievous look forming. “Well, lucky for you, I’ve got an idea.” She leaned closer, lowering her voice like she was letting you in on a secret. “There’s a guy over by the drinks table who’s been staring at you for the past few minutes.”
You blinked. “Wait—seriously? Staring how?”
Lisa grinned. "Like is undressing you with his eyes staring! And before you ask—yes, he’s hot.”
You straightened a bit, curiosity replacing your annoyance. “How hot are we talking?”
“Tall, dark hair slicked back, white shirt. Brooding. Definitely your type.”
You cracked a smile—your first genuine one of the night. “Damn. Okay. I owe you.”
Lisa winked. “Just promise me one thing.”
“What?”
“Go talk to him. I’ll handle Haechan. Just keep walking, don’t look back.”
You took a deep breath, trying to calm the nerves buzzing under your skin. A distraction sounded perfect right now. A hot, mysterious distraction? Even better.
“Alright, alright, I’ll go,” you muttered, working up the courage.
Lisa gave you a playful shove and a small smack on your ass. “That’s my girl. Now go work your magic.”
You laughed softly, a mix of nerves and excitement twisting in your stomach as you opened the door.
Stepping back into the party, the music hit you again but your eyes scanned the crowd. And there he was. Just as Lisa said: white shirt, black slicked-back hair, standing by the drinks table.
And he was looking directly at you.
Your heart skipped a beat as you made your way through the crowd toward him. His gaze never wavered, and when you finally reached him, he offered a small, welcoming smile.
“Hey,” you said, aiming for casual, though your voice betrayed a hint of nervousness. “You’ve been eyeing me all night, haven’t you?”
His smile widened as he let out a soft laugh. “I could say the same about you.” He stepped a little closer. “I’m Jeno, by the way.”
“Y/n,” you replied, your nerves giving way to a flicker of excitement. His easy confidence was contagious.
“Y/n,” he repeated, almost like he was trying it on. His eyes swept over you with clear appreciation. “You look amazing tonight.”
You let out a small laugh, your boldness growing in the absence of Haechan’s constant hovering. “Thanks. I was just... wondering if you wanted to grab a drink with me?”
Jeno didn’t hesitate. “I was hoping you’d ask.”
As the two of you turned toward the drinks table, you glanced over your shoulder—half-expecting to find Haechan’s gaze following you—but to your relief, he was nowhere in sight.
Jeno leaned in slightly, his voice low and teasing. “So, what’s a beautiful girl like you doing at a party like this? Looking to get drunk, or just letting loose?”
You smiled, playing along. “A little bit of both, honestly. It’s been a long night, and I needed a change of pace.”
He raised his cup in a mock toast. “Then I’m glad I could be your change of pace.”
Whatever tension you’d been carrying melted away as you kept talking. Jeno was warm, funny, easy to be around. Before long, your banter turned flirtier—light touches on your arm, lingering eye contact, small smiles exchanged between sips.
But across the room, Haechan had noticed.
He’d seen you at the drinks table, watched as you laughed at something Jeno said. Despite his usual teasing, playful attitude, an uncomfortable pang settled in his chest. He didn’t know why, but the sight of you getting so close to someone else made something inside him twist.
He tried to shake it off, turning back to the conversation with Lisa and the others, but his mind wasn’t in it.
At one point, Jaemin leaned toward him, raising an eyebrow. “You good, Haechan? You’re staring a little too hard at Y/n right now.”
Haechan blinked, pulled from his thoughts. He waved Jaemin off, trying to mask the unease tightening in his chest. “I’m fine,” he muttered. “Just… watching out for her. For Mark.”
Jaemin gave him a long, skeptical look. “She’s not a kid, man. She doesn’t need a babysitter. She’s allowed to have fun—same as you.”
Haechan opened his mouth to argue, then stopped. He didn’t have a good comeback. Just a growing knot in his stomach and the uncomfortable realization that he cared a lot more than he probably should.
Back at the drink table, you and Jeno were getting even more touchy with each other. Both of his hands are on your hips, one of them dangerously close to your ass. While your hands were around his neck, playing with the hair on his neck as he was talking into your ear.
“Why don’t we go and find a better place to talk.”
You tilted your head back slightly to meet Jeno’s intense gaze, your lips curling into a small smirk. “A better place to talk, huh? And where exactly did you have in mind?” you asked teasingly, though the butterflies in your stomach betrayed how nervous you were.
Jeno smirked, his fingers lightly touching your waist as he leaned in. “Let’s go somewhere quiet. Maybe a bedroom? Away from all this noise.”
The idea of some alone time with him was very tempting. The night had already taken a surprising turn, and you figured there was no harm in seeing where it would lead. “Alright,” you said, your voice softer now as you stepped back, giving him a playful tug on his hand. “Lead the way.”
As Jeno guided you through the crowded room, you were starting to get nervous. Was this finally happening? And with a hot guy like Jeno too? The music and energy of the party seemed to fade into the background as you both stepped into a room that was unlocked.
Jeno shut the door and turned back to you. “I've been dying to kiss you all night.”
“Then what are you waiting for?” You teased back.
Without another word, Jeno closed the distance between you, his hands finding your waist as he pulled you in for a kiss. His lips were warm and soft against yours.
His touch was hot, every brush of his fingers against your skin sent shivers through you, and you found yourself getting lost in the moment with him.
He backed up so he could sit on the bed with your lips still chasing his. As the kiss deepened, Jeno’s hands began to explore your body. Pulling you onto his lap and running his fingers up your back to push you further into him.
Your body started to tense up, never getting this far with anyone before but you were so turned on. Jeno seemed to sense it too, his kisses growing more urgent as he trailed them down your neck, sending a shiver down your spine.
Suddenly, the door burst open, and you froze in place. Your heart leaped into your throat as you quickly pulled away from Jeno, your breath hitching. The startled look you exchanged with him was all too telling.
Haechan stood in the doorway, arms crossed and face unreadable. His eyes moved between you and Jeno, and for a moment, the room felt smaller.
Scrambling off Jeno’s lap, you felt a rush of heat rise to your cheeks. The embarrassment of being caught in such a compromising position burned in your chest. “Haechan, what—” you stammered, struggling to find the right words.
He didn’t let you finish. With a sharp motion, he raised a hand, his voice low and cutting. “Stop.”
His attention shifted to Jeno, his jaw tight as his eyes narrowed. The weight of his stare seemed to pin Jeno in place. After an intense moment of silence, Haechan spoke again, his voice controlled but icy. “Leave.”
Jeno blinked, clearly misunderstanding what was happening. His face changed as he realized something—like he thought your boyfriend had caught him. Without saying anything, he stood up, avoided Haechan’s glare, and quickly left. The door clicked shut behind him, leaving a heavy silence.
You turned to Haechan, your pulse still racing, only to find him... smiling? No, grinning. The amusement in his eyes was unmistakable as he leaned casually against the doorframe.
“Wow,” he laughed. “Can’t believe how fast he ran off. I said just one word!” His laughter got louder. “Okay, two words but still!” He held his side like it was the funniest thing he’d ever seen.
You stared at him, completely confused. “What the hell is going on?” you asked, your face full of disbelief. Your mind raced to keep up with how weird things had gotten.
Haechan straightened up, still chuckling, and said with a smug smile, “Relax, I’m just getting back at you.”
“Getting back at me?” you repeated, even more confused.
“For what?”
“There’s no way I’m letting you lose your virginity while you’re living under my roof,” he said with a proud smirk, like he’d just won something.
You blinked, shocked. “What?”
“I heard you guys at your little sleepover,” Haechan said, his grin growing wider as he saw your reaction. “So here’s the deal: I’m watching you like a hawk. No chance of losing your virginity this year. Not on my watch.”
You stared, speechless, trying to wrap your head around how bold he was. “Are you crazy?”
“Maybe,” he said casually, shrugging. “But you said I’m just Mark’s friend. Pretty sure he wouldn’t want his little sister making mistakes.”
You stared at him, dumbfounded, the weight of his words sinking in. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” you finally said, shaking your head in disbelief. Haechan just grinned, the smugness in his expression making your blood boil. “Nope. Dead serious. Consider me your personal chastity belt.”
Your hands curled into fists at your sides. “Oh my god, you are insufferable.”
He just shrugged, stepping further into the room. “Protecting your purity, looking out for my best friend’s baby sister.”
Your jaw clenched at the title. “I am not a baby! You don’t need to protect me!.”
“Yeah?” He tilted his head, eyes gleaming with something unreadable. “Then why are you acting like one? Running off with some random dude at a party? What if he was a creep?”
“He wasn’t,” you snapped. “And for the record, I decide who I hook up with, not you.”
Haechan let out a dramatic sigh, placing a hand over his heart. “And yet, here we are. That guy is gone, and you’re still a virgin.”
“I hate you.”
“No, you don’t.” His smirk softened just a fraction, but it was enough to make you hesitate. “If you did, you wouldn’t be blushing so hard right now.”
You let out an aggravated groan, shoving past him toward the door. “Whatever, I’m going back to the party.”
But before you could yank it open, Haechan’s hand shot out, pressing it shut. The sudden closeness sent an unexpected shiver down your spine.
“Careful, princess,” he murmured, his voice lower now. Not teasing—just something else. Something quieter. “If you’re not careful, I might have to tell on you.”
Your breath hitched, just for a second. Then you forced yourself to scoff, pushing his hand away. “You wouldn't.”
He chuckled, stepping back with his hands raised in mock surrender. “You don’t know me.”
Rolling your eyes, you yanked the door open and walked out, trying to ignore the way your pulse was racing.
This wasn’t over. Not by a long shot.
You stormed back into the party, your mind racing with frustration. The nerve of that guy. Haechan had always been a little shit, but this? This was a new level of infuriating. The way he had looked at you just now. It stirred something hot in your chest, but you didn’t have the time or patience to deal with it right now.
You needed a distraction.
Lisa spotted you instantly, slipping through the crowd to meet you with a smug smile. “So?” she asked, arms crossed. “That was fast, how was it?”
You groaned, rubbing your temples. “It was fine until he showed up.”
Lisa blinked. “Wait. Who?”
You shot her a pointed look. “Haechan.”
Her eyes widened before a slow smirk curled her lips.
“No way. What happened?”
“Oh, you know, just the usual: he ruined my night, embarrassed the hell out of me, and declared himself my personal guardian of celibacy,” you said, irritated. “Apparently, I’m not allowed to hook up while he’s around.”
Lisa let out a loud laugh, covering her mouth. “No. No way.”
“Oh, it gets worse,” you muttered, grabbing her drink and taking a long sip. “He admitted he heard us at that sleepover and now he’s made it his life mission to keep me from getting laid for an entire year, until Mark is back.”
Lisa practically doubled over laughing. “Oh my god. That’s fucking funny.”
You groaned. “This is hell.”
“Or…” Lisa tilted her head, her eyes sparkling with mischief. “It’s a challenge.”
You frowned. “A challenge?”
Lisa shrugged, leaning in closer. “You really gonna let Haechan win?”
You opened your mouth to argue but faltered. The way he had looked at you tonight, the way he had inserted himself into your business like he had any claim over what you did—it had pissed you off. But even worse? It had gotten to you.
Lisa was right.
Haechan thought he had control over this little sick game. That he could mess with your head, keep you from doing what you wanted.
But if there was one thing you hated more than anything, it was losing.
Your fingers tightened around the small red solo cup as a slow smirk pulled at your lips. “You know what?” you said, turning to Lisa. “You’re right.”
Lisa gasped. “Oh, I love where this is going.”
You glanced back toward the party, scanning the room for a certain cocky idiot. It didn’t take long to find him. He was lounging on the couch with a couple of people you didn’t know, a drink in hand, completely at ease. Like he hadn’t just ruined your night and enjoyed every second of it.
Fine.
If he wanted to play games, you’d play back.
Squaring your shoulders, you downed the rest of your drink and set it aside. “I’m gonna make his life miserable. ”Lisa clapped her hands. “Oh, this is gonna be so fun.”
For the rest of the night, you made sure Haechan saw everything.
You danced—a lot—letting your body move to the music, making sure he had a front-row seat. You laughed a little louder, leaned a little closer to guys when they spoke to you, let them put their hands on your waist, touch your hair.
And Haechan?
Oh, he noticed.
You caught his gaze more times than you could count. His eyes followed your every move, his relaxed demeanor slowly shifting into something else. He wasn’t smiling anymore. He wasn’t teasing you. He was just watching.
And when you caught him staring, you made sure to smirk. To let him know you knew he was watching.
But the real moment of victory came when you leaned in close to some guy—you didn’t even know his name—and whispered something in his ear, leaving a small kiss just below on his neck. It was harmless flirting, really. But to Haechan?
It was you declaring war.
The moment you glanced back toward him, you saw it happen—his jaw tightened, his grip on his drink flexed, and then, just like that, he was up and walking straight toward you.
You barely had a second to react before he was across the room and his hand wrapped around your wrist, tugging you away from your nameless toy.
“What the—Haechan!” you hissed, stumbling after him as he led you out of the crowded room.
Haechan didn’t stop.
Not when you tugged at his grip, not when you shot him a glare, not even when you dug your heels into the floor, forcing him to yank you forward with more force. The people around you barely noticed—too caught up in their own drunken world.
But this? This was personal.
“What the hell is your problem?” you snapped, struggling against his hold.
Haechan ignored you.
Instead, with a sigh so annoyed it made your blood boil, he let go—only to grab you by the waist and throw you over his shoulder like you weighed nothing.
Your breath caught as the room tilted and suddenly, you weren’t on solid ground anymore.
“What the—Haechan! Put me down!” You kicked your legs, smacking your fists against his back, but he didn’t even flinch.
“If you’re gonna act like a damn kid, I’ll treat you like one,” he muttered, adjusting his grip on the back of your thighs as he walked toward the front door.
“Haechan, I swear to—”
Before you could finish your threat, you felt a sudden shift—a cool rush of air against your thighs, a telltale sign of your dress riding up dangerously high from the way he was carrying you.
Your breath hitched.
Just as panic settled in, Haechan’s hand was there—gripping the hem of your dress, tugging it back down firmly, his fingers brushing over the bare skin of your thigh in a way that made your stomach flip.
The worst part? It was so effortless. Like it was second nature to him.
You froze.
Not because you were embarrassed—no, you had no shame when you drink. But because for a split second, just a brief moment, you had felt safe in his hands.
And that? That was dangerous.
The cold night air hit your skin as he stepped outside, finally setting you back on your feet near the front porch.
You barely had time to regain your balance before you were jabbing a finger into his chest. “You’re fucking crazy!! What the hell is wrong with you?!”
Haechan let out a dry laugh, completely unfazed. “Oh, I’m the problem?”
“Yes, you!” You threw your hands up. “You just manhandled me out of a party like I’m some—some misbehaving child!”
Haechan crossed his arms, tilting his head. “If it walks like a brat and talks like a brat—”
You shoved him. Hard. “You so annoying—”
“Me?” He scoffed, stepping closer, closing the space between you. “You’ve been acting like a damn brat all night. You think I didn’t see what you were doing?”
You narrowed your eyes. “Oh? And what exactly was I doing?”
Haechan’s lips curled into a smirk, but it didn’t reach his eyes.
“You were testing me.”
Your breath caught.
Because he was right.
You forced a laugh, crossing your arms to hide the way your hands trembled. “Don’t flatter yourself, Haechan. I was having fun.”
He huffed out a laugh, shaking his head. “Yeah? Well, so was I.”
The way he said it—low, amused, a little too smug—sent heat rushing up your spine.
Because suddenly, you weren’t so sure if you were still in control of this game.
Your professor dismissed the class and you quickly packed up your things, your mind already racing ahead to what you had to do next. You were relieved the lecture was over—today was dragging on longer than you'd hoped. Still feeling sick from the party over the weekend. But as you were gathering your notes, you noticed someone walking toward you from across the lecture hall.
It was Jeno.
He had that easy smile on his face, and you couldn’t help but notice how effortlessly confident he looked, despite the fact that you’d only met him the night before at the party. You weren’t sure what to expect.
"Hey, uh Y/n?” Jeno said as he reached your desk. "Do you mind if I sit for a second?"
"Uh, sure," you replied, a little caught off guard but trying to act casual. You gestured to the empty chair beside you. "What’s up?"
Jeno sat down, the energy around him just as laid-back as you remembered from the party. He looked like he could easily make a conversation with anyone, but something in the way he smiled at you made you feel like this was a bit different.
"So, I’ve been thinking," he began, his gaze focused on you, making you shift a little in your seat. "I never really got the chance to talk to you about the party, but I was wondering if you wanted to grab lunch sometime?"
You blinked, surprised. You hadn’t expected this so soon. “Uh, sure, sounds good.” You immediately cursed yourself internally for sounding so awkward.
Then, without missing a beat, you added, “But just to be clear, I wasn’t… you know, trying to lead you on or anything last night.”
Jeno raised an eyebrow, clearly confused. "What do you mean?"
"Well," you hesitated, running a hand through your hair. "About last night—I just want you to know that Haechan is not my boyfriend."
The words felt a little odd coming out of your mouth, but you knew you had to clarify things. With everything that had happened, you didn’t want Jeno to get the wrong impression.
Jeno’s expression softened, and he gave a small, reassuring smile. “Oh, I wasn’t thinking that he was. I mean, I could tell you two are close, but I didn’t assume he was anything more than that."
"Good," you said, feeling some relief wash over you. “He’s more like a big brother to me, honestly.”
“Aha, I see.” Jeno nodded, his expression lightening. “So, no need to worry about me stepping into some complicated territory, huh?”
You let out a small laugh. “Exactly. Haechan is just protective, and I figured I should clear that up so there’s no confusion.”
Just protective, god you wish. Would be easier than whatever this game you to are playing…
Jeno chuckled, leaning back slightly in his chair. “Yeah, I was starting to wonder if I was doing something wrong." He grinned. "But now that we’ve got that all sorted out, lunch sounds perfect."
“I’m glad we’re on the same page,” you said, smiling back at him. “So, where were you thinking?”
“Well, there’s this little café nearby that I’ve been wanting to try. You up for it?”
You nodded, feeling surprisingly at ease now. "Sounds good. Lead the way."
Jeno stood up, his easygoing energy still radiating, and offered his hand to help you gather your things.
"Alright, let's go."
The café Jeno picked was tucked on a quiet street, filled with the scent of fresh bread and soft chatter. Sunlight poured through big windows, casting a warm glow over the cozy wooden tables.
You and Jeno had settled into a corner booth, the conversation flowing effortlessly as you both exchanged stories and talked about class. It felt different, in a good way, than anything you’d ever experienced.
The awkwardness that usually came with first dates or getting-to-know-each-other moments was nowhere to be found. Instead, there was a natural ease between you two—like you had known each other much longer than a single night.
"So, you’re telling me," Jeno said with a raised eyebrow, his lips curled into an amused smile, "that you got in trouble for sneaking out of your house when you were younger because your brother caught you trying to climb out of the window?"
You laughed, feeling a sense of familiarity that made the conversation feel comfortable. "It’s true! My brother is the worst. He’s such a stickler for the rules, always catching me when I tried to sneak out."
Jeno shook his head in disbelief. “Man, I don’t know whether to feel bad for you or your brother. You must’ve given him so much stress growing up.”
You smiled, shrugging lightly. “It wasn’t all bad. He’s just... protective. A little too protective sometimes.”
Jeno leaned in, his tone softening as he met your eyes. “I get it. Siblings are always like that, especially when you’re the younger one, right?”
Your smile faltered just a little as your mind briefly wandered back to Haechan’s overbearing presence at the party last night. You didn’t want to bring it up, but you found it hard to ignore the parallel. "Yeah," you agreed quietly, "a little too protective sometimes."
You were relieved when the conversation shifted again, back to lighter topics. It felt nice to be able to focus on Jeno, his presence reassuring in a way you didn’t fully understand yet.
“So, tell me more about you,” you said, trying to steer the conversation in a different direction. “What’s your deal? What do you do when you’re not out at parties or flirting with random girls?”
Jeno grinned, clearly pleased with the shift in focus. “Oh, you know. I’m a professional at avoiding work,” he teased. “I’m actually pretty into cars, though. I spend a lot of time fixing up the car my dad bought when he was younger.”
You raised your eyebrows. “Cars? That’s pretty cool.”
He shrugged modestly. “It’s a hobby for now, but maybe one day it’ll be more than that.”
You could see the passion in his eyes as he talked about it, and for a brief moment, you were reminded of how nice it was to talk to someone who wasn’t caught up in your complicated family dynamics. Jeno made it feel easy, like you could be yourself without worrying about the world closing in.
But of course, just as you were starting to relax fully, the door to the café jingled, and you heard a voice you knew all too well.
“Y/n?”
Your blood went cold as you looked up, and there he was—Haechan. He stood in the doorway, his eyes immediately locking on to you, and his gaze was sharp, like a hawk spotting its prey. He looked... annoyed.
You swallowed hard, already feeling the shift in the energy of the room. Jeno didn’t seem to notice at first, but as Haechan made his way toward your table, his expression changed.
“Haechan,” you said, trying to keep your voice steady, but it came out more like a question.
Haechan’s eyes flicked from you to Jeno, his lips curling into a tight, unreadable smile. "What’s this? Lunch?" His tone was casual, but there was something in his voice that made you tense. "Hope I’m not interrupting anything."
You could feel the heat rising in your cheeks, embarrassment mingling with frustration. "What are you doing here?"
Haechan didn’t answer right away. Instead, he took a seat across from you without waiting for an invitation, eyeing Jeno with an almost unsettling calm look. "I was just walking by when I saw you two in the window." His gaze flicked back to you. "What? Did I miss something?"
Jeno shifted slightly, clearly picking up on the tension in the air. "No, nothing. Just talking," he said with a forced smile. "We were actually having a pretty good conversation."
Haechan’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly, his attention focused entirely on Jeno now. “I see. A ‘good’ conversation, huh?” His voice was smooth, but there was an edge to it now. “Well, hopefully not the fun I like to have...Don’t want to have to call Mark.”
The tension in the air hung like a thick cloud as Haechan’s words lingered, leaving you unsure how to respond. The playful edge to his tone was hard to ignore, but it felt like there was more to it. You could feel Jeno’s shift in energy, his smile faltering just slightly as he turned his attention back to Haechan.
Jeno tilted his head, as if processing something. "Wait," he said, his eyes narrowing just a little as he looked at you. "Mark... Lee?" he asked cautiously. "Is that your brother?"
You blinked, momentarily thrown off guard by the question. "Yeah, that's him. Mark Lee," you confirmed, trying to keep things light, even though your insides were swirling.
Jeno’s expression seemed to soften for a moment, a look of recognition crossing his face. "No way," he said with a small laugh. "I didn’t put it together until now. I know Mark. We play basketball together."
Your eyes widened, and you looked between Jeno and Haechan, who was still watching with an unreadable expression. "You do?" you asked, trying to process the sudden turn of events.
Jeno nodded, his grin returning. "Yeah, we’ve played a few times. He’s pretty good." His gaze flicked back to Haechan, who was still eyeing him closely. "Never knew he had a sister at college, though."
Haechan gave a low chuckle. "You really didn’t, huh?" he said, his voice dipping into something a little more guarded. "Well, that changes things, doesn't it?"
Jeno shifted uncomfortably in his seat, his smile now gone, replaced by a more serious expression. "I didn’t mean to step on any toes," he said, meeting Haechan’s eyes briefly before turning back to you. "But I think... maybe I should just make this clear now." He hesitated, as though considering his words carefully. "I don’t think it’s a good idea to continue this."
Your heart sank, confusion rising in your chest. "What do you mean?" you asked, your voice a little quieter than usual.
Jeno looked at you, his gaze apologetic. "I can’t do that to Mark," he said softly. "I’ve got a lot of respect for him, and I don’t want to get involved in any of that. I wasn’t thinking about it like that last night, but now that I know he’s your brother... it just feels off."
The words hit you harder than expected, and for a second, you didn’t know what to say. You tried to keep your emotions in check, but something in you shifted. You nodded slowly, though there was a sharp sting in your chest. "I get it," you managed to say, forcing a small smile despite the disappointment creeping in.
"No worries, Jeno. I completely understand."
Jeno gave a small, regretful smile. "I didn’t want to make things weird, honestly. You seem like a great person, Y/n. But... yeah, I think it’s better we leave it at that."
Haechan, who had been silently watching the exchange, finally spoke up, his tone light but sharp. "Well, it looks like you two have it figured out," he said, leaning back in his chair with a smirk. "Guess I’ll let you guys finish up now."
You could feel the weight of the moment, but you didn’t know what else to say. The conversation had shifted again, and though discomfort lingered, the air lightened as Jeno stood and gave you a small nod.
“Take care, Y/n. Maybe I’ll see you around.”
As Jeno walked away, the silence that settled felt suffocating. His words still stung in your chest, but something sharper quickly took hold. You glanced over at Haechan, lounging back with that smug, knowing look that only made your irritation grow.
Breaking the silence, Haechan’s voice was casual, almost playful. “Mark sure had a lot of friends here,” he said with a smirk, clearly enjoying the moment.
You exhaled sharply, trying to keep your cool even as frustration bubbled up. “Don’t act like you know everything, Haechan,” you snapped. You do things your way, sure—but don’t think you can just sit here and act like you’ve got it all planned out.”
His smirk didn’t falter. “Oh? Getting worked up already?”
Crossing your arms, you took a deep breath, steadying yourself. “Worked up?” you scoffed. “You think you’re going to win this? News flash you can’t be around me all the time. I’ll be alone at one point and I do not care who it’s with anymore.”
Haechan’s eyes flickered with playful challenge as he leaned forward, clearly loving how riled you were. “So, what then? Are you gonna storm off in a huff, or actually do something about it this time?”
You met his gaze, determination hardening in your voice. “You think you’ve got me all figured out, don’t you?” you said, leaning forward slightly. “Well, here’s the thing, Haechan—you’re wrong. I don’t need your permission or your approval to make my own choices. I’ll do what I want, when I want, and if you think you can control that, you’re in for a surprise.”
Haechan’s smirk wavered for a moment, his eyes narrowing, clearly processing your words. But instead of backing off, he leaned in, sensing the challenge in your stance. “You really think you can?”
You didn’t hesitate. “Oh I know I can.”
The words hung in the air between you two, the tension thickening with every passing second. Haechan’s smirk was gone now, replaced by a look that bordered on both surprise and respect.
Haechan was silent for a moment, his expression unreadable, but the challenge had been thrown down. He wasn’t used to people pushing back like this. Especially not you.
Finally, with a small sigh, he stood up, stretching casually. “Alright, Y/n. You’ve got some fight. Let’s see if you can actually win it.”
You didn’t give him the satisfaction of a reply. You weren’t about to let Haechan walk all over you. This was your game now.
There’s a beat of silence before Lisa practically screams into the phone.
“Wait, what? Are you serious?”
“Yeah,” you mumble, glancing toward your door as Haechan’s voice rises. “I just… need to get out of here. Haechan has been driving me crazy all day.”
Lisa laughs, the kind of laugh that says finally. “Oh my god, yes! I can’t believe you’re actually doing this. You better not bail on me.”
“I won’t. Just… pick me up before I change my mind.
“Done,” Lisa says, practically buzzing with excitement. “You’re gonna regret this—in the best way possible.”
You hang up just as Haechan’s voice explodes with curses at his monitor.
Yeah, you definitely made the right call.
You tiptoe around your room, careful to be as quiet as possible. Haechan’s door is cracked just enough for the rapid clicking of his controller and the occasional muttered curse to seep out. Perfect—he’s too focused to notice.
You slide the closet door open slowly and wince when the hinge creaks. You freeze, holding your breath. Nothing — just button mashing and Haechan’s frustrated shout, “Bro, you’re absolutely dogshit at this game!” from his room.
Satisfied, you carefully pull out your outfit, laying it on your bed. You skip the heels— no way you’re risking the sound of those clicking on the floor— and pick boots instead. Quietly, you slip into your clothes.
Your makeup bag is another challenge. Every zipper and brush feels like it sounds too loud, but you manage to get ready with only one small eyeshadow palette dropping to the floor. You freeze again, heart racing— but all you hear is Haechan yelling at his game.
“Dude, I carried the whole team, what are you even doing?”
Rolling your eyes, you grab your purse and phone, slipping toward the door like a shadow. Just as you reach for the handle, you hear Haechan’s voice rise again.
“WHERE ARE YOU GOING?”
Panic flashes through you as you freeze.
“YOU’RE GOING THE WRONG WAY, GO RIGHT ARE YOU FUCKING STUPID?!”
You smirk, shaking your head as you slip out the door. Safe.
The club is packed, the music blasts through the walls, lights flash quickly, and people move to the beat, lost in the moment. You take a sip of your drink, scanning the room with a purpose. Tonight isn’t about dancing with Lisa or drowning in overpriced cocktails. Tonight, you have one goal— to find someone, anyone, to take your mind off everything. Off your week, off your annoying roommate, off him.
Lisa leans in close, grinning like she already knows. “So,” she teases, “are you searching for someone to take your virginity?”
You laugh, but you don’t deny it. “That’s the plan.”
Lisa practically squeals, grabbing your arm and pulling you toward the dance floor. “Come on! I’ll help you find someone.”
It doesn’t take long. A few songs in, you spot him — tall, dark hair that falls just right, and a lazy smile that says he knows exactly what he’s doing. He’s been watching you too, and when you meet his eyes, he doesn’t look away.
“Go!” Lisa urges, practically shoving you forward.
You make your way over, moving through the crowd until you’re close enough to feel the heat radiating off him.
“Hey,” he says, voice low and smooth. “I’m Sungchan.”
“Y/n,” you reply, giving him your best smile.
“You wanna dance?” he asks, but his hand is already sliding to your waist like he knows your answer.
“Sure,” you say, stepping in closer.
The music pulses through you, but it’s hard to focus on anything except the way his hands linger on your hips, fingers pressing just a little tighter each time you move. He leans in, lips brushing your ear.
“Can I buy you a drink?”
You nod, following him toward the bar. He keeps his hand on you the whole way, light but firm. Like he’s making sure you don’t change your mind.
When he hands you the drink, you take a slow sip, eyes meeting him over the rim of the glass.
“So,” Sungchan says, his voice low enough that you have to lean closer to hear him. “Your place or mine?”
You laugh softly, setting your drink down. “Straight to the point.”
He smirks, leaning in a little closer. “I don’t like wasting time,” he says, his gaze lingering on your lips before meeting your eyes again.
You raise an eyebrow, surprised at his forwardness, but it’s exactly what you wanted tonight. You give a small shrug, leaning back against the bar. “I like that.”
Sungchan’s hand slides to your lower back, his fingers just brushing the edge of your skin. You can feel the tension in the air, eager. “So, what’s it gonna be?” he asks, his tone playful but with an edge of anticipation.
You glance over at Lisa, who’s still dancing on the floor, lost in her own world. She doesn’t seem to notice you slipping away with him.
“Let’s go to yours,” you say, your voice calm, cool, and collected—like you’ve done this a hundred times before. Even though inside, your heart’s racing.
His grin widens as he takes your hand. “I like the way you think.”
The two of you weave through the crowd and out into the night, the air outside cooler and quieter than you expected. The buzz of the club fades with each step, replaced by the hum of the city and your own nervous thoughts. The car ride to his place is filled with easy conversation and stolen glances, your legs brushing just enough to keep your heart fluttering. You tell yourself to relax, to go with it. And for once, you do.
Now, tangled on his couch with his lips on yours, things are heating up fast… until your phone buzzes. You both ignore it.
Then it rings again.
You groan, pulling back slightly. “Sorry. It’s probably nothing.”
Sungchan smiled at first, brushing it off, but when the screen lit up for the third time, his expression shifted from playful to slightly annoyed.
“You should just answer it,” he said, trying to sound casual, though you could hear the edge in his voice. “Might be important.”
You sighed and glanced at the screen—FaceTime from Haechan.
“Ugh, it’s just my roommate,” you muttered, answering reluctantly. “What, Haechan?”
On the screen, Haechan’s face filled the frame, eyes narrowed. “Where the hell are you??”
You rolled your eyes. “I’m fine. I’m just out.”
Before you could say anything else, Sungchan leaned over to peek at the screen. The second Haechan saw his face, he froze.
“Wait… is that Sungchan?”
Sungchan chuckled. “Oh hey man! What’s up?”
“WHAT?!” Haechan practically shouted, his face going red. “NO. NOPE. Absolutely not. Y/N is off limits! Bro code!”
You blinked, shocked. “Wait, what? You two know each other?”
“We game together,” they both said at the same time.
“Bro. Code.” Haechan repeated, glaring through the screen like he was ready to jump out of it.
You quickly hung up, face burning, trying to laugh it off. “That was... awkward. Let’s just, where were we” You leaned in to kiss him again.
But Sungchan pulled back slightly, looking torn. “I mean… he’s got a point. Bro code’s kind of sacred.”
You stared at him. “Seriously?”
He gave a sheepish smile. “I mean that’s my bro...you know”
You flopped back against the couch with a groan. “Unbelievable.”
“Lisa, I’m telling you—he’s the absolute worst!” you groan, slamming your drink on the table. “I’ve almost gotten laid twice and both times he just shows up out of nowhere and ruins it!”
Lisa tries to hide her laugh but fails miserably, snorting into her cup.
“This isn’t funny! This was your idea!”
“It was also Jaemin’s idea!” she says, still grinning.
“What was my idea?” Jaemin asks, sliding into the seat across from you with a tray of food.
“Y/N losing her virginity this year,” Lisa says bluntly.
“Shh!” you hiss, covering your face with your hands.“Can we not announce it to the whole dining hall?”
Jaemin blinks. “Okay… someone needs to catch me up.”
“Y/N can’t get laid because Haechan has apparently taken some kind of sacred vow to block it from ever happening or just until Mark gets back,” Lisa explains. “He’s ruined every opportunity so far.”
Jaemin pauses, then shrugs. “Damn. That’s wild.”
You glare at him. “Wow. Thank you, Jaemin. Your emotional support is overwhelming.”
“Wait, wait,” he says, raising a hand. “There’s actually a clear answer to all of this.”
“And what is it?”
“Haechan’s cockblocking you? Then just sleep with him.”
You stare at Jaemin. “First of all—ew. Second, he’d never sleep with me.”
Lisa raises an eyebrow and interjects. “He’s a man. Of course he would.”
You scoff, tossing a grape at Lisa’s forehead. “He sees me as, like… a sibling. Not a possible sexual option at all.”
Lisa dodges the grape with a smirk. I saw the way he looked at you at the party, definitely not like a sibling.”
Jaemin,who started this whole thing, finally chimes in. “Honestly, it would make things way easier. He can’t block when he’s the target.”
You lift your head to glare at him. “My virginity shouldn’t be a game, Jaemin.”
“Didn’t say it was. But I am saying if you throw him a little something, he might back off.”
Lisa nods, eyes gleaming. “Exactly! Reverse psychology. Be so into him, he won’t know what to do.”
You blink. “You guys seriously think seducing Haechan is the solution to him cockblocking me?”
Both of them say, in perfect sync: “Yes.”
You lean back in your chair, staring up at the ceiling like it might give you an answer. “This is the worst plan I’ve ever heard.”
Jaemin grins. “That means it’s probably gonna work.”
Just then, your phone buzzes. Speak of the devil.
The Devil (Haechan): Where are you? You didn’t come home last night but I texted Sungchan and you left his house???
You hold up your phone to show them. “He tracks my every move. He probably has my location synced to his watch.”
Lisa leans in. “Good. Now you’ve got the upper hand.”
You narrow your eyes. “Okay. Let’s say I do this. I flirt. I play the game. What’s the end goal?”
Jaemin shrugs. “You win. He gets flustered. Maybe he finally stops acting like your personal chastity belt.”
Lisa grins. “And hey, if it leads to something more...”
You sigh, staring at Haechan’s name on your screen. “This is either going to work… or be a complete humiliation.”
Jaemin raises his drink. “To plan seduction.”
Lisa clinks hers with his. “To plan seduction.”
You groan but lift yours anyway. “God help me.”
You take one last look in the mirror, tousling your hair just enough to look effortless, even though you’ve spent ten minutes perfecting the effect. Oversized hoodie, but nothing underneath except a pair of black shorts— that make your ass look great— barely visible beneath the hem, lips glossed, Legs bare and freshly shaved.
You weren’t going to say anything. But if he noticed? Good. That was the point.
You stroll into the living room where Haechans glued to the screen, headset on, barking orders at his teammates.
“Bro—no, do not peek mid—oh my god, why am I the only good one on this team?!”
You drop onto the couch beside him, slow and smooth, letting your bare thigh brush his for just a second too long. He doesn’t even flinch.
You reach for his chips, eyes on the screen. “You sound stressed.”
He doesn’t look at you. “Because I’m carrying this squad. What are you doing out here?”
“Couldn’t sleep,” you murmur, your voice a little lower than usual. “Thought I’d come... unwind.”
He grunts in response, attention locked on the game. Typical.
You shift, pulling one leg up onto the couch, the hem of your hoodie riding just a little higher. Out of the corner of your eye, you watch him.
Nothing.
You lean back, arching slightly as you stretch your arms above your head. “Ugh. Today was exhausting.”
Still nothing.
You glance over, pouting a little. “Are you seriously not gonna pay attention to me?”
He finally spares you a glance. “You want attention?”
You meet his eyes and let your voice drop just a notch. “Maybe.”
There’s a pause. A tiny flicker in his gaze as it drops—briefly—to your bare legs, then back up. But then he just shrugs.
“I’m in the middle of a match.”
You lean in closer, lips inches from his ear, and whisper, “Your game will still be there in five minutes.”
He stiffens slightly, clearing his throat, but refuses to take the bait. “You’re acting weird.”
You smile, slow and deliberate. “No I’m not.”
He looks at you again, brows furrowed, suspicious—but not quite catching on. “You... eat something weird?”
You snort, flopping back against the cushions. “Unbelievable.”
“What?”
“Nothing,” you mutter, grabbing the throw blanket and tossing it over your lap. “Forget it.”
He focuses back on the game, but his movements are stiffer now. Less focused.
You smirk to yourself, biting your lip.
One step at a time.
You stretch out under the blanket, legs brushing against him again—this time not by accident. Haechan stiffens for half a second, then adjusts slightly, pretending not to notice.
Pretending badly.
You glance over and catch the way his jaw tightens. He’s losing focus. Good.
“You always this fun playing video games?” you ask, voice soft, with a hint of a tease. “All grumpy and bossy?”
He scoffs, eyes on the screen. “I’m not grumpy. I’m competitive.”
“Hmm.” You trail a finger along the seam of the blanket between you, slow and idle. “I think it’s kinda hot.”
This time, his head snaps toward you.
“What?”
You blink innocently. “What?”
He narrows his eyes, studying you. “What are you doing?”
You tilt your head, lips parted in a mock pout. “Talking. Sitting. Breathing. Why?”
“You’re being weird again.”
You smirk. “You said that already. Maybe you’re just reading into things.”
He looks at you, skeptical… then clearly decides not to push it. Instead, he returns to his game, but now he’s quieter. Shifting more in his seat. His hands are on the controller, but his head’s somewhere else—and you know exactly where.
You take your chance.
Slowly, you slide the blanket off your legs, exposing smooth skin and shorts that might as well not be there at all. You pretend not to notice the way his eyes flick over, quickly, like he didn’t mean to.
But you saw it.
You lean in again, resting your arm on the back of the couch behind him, lips dangerously close to his ear.
“You’re blushing.”
“I’m not,” he says quickly, voice just a little too sharp. Defensive.
You grin. “You totally are.”
“Why are you even out here right now?”
“I told you. Couldn’t sleep.” You pause, letting the next words hang. “Thought maybe you’d help tire me out.”
He finally pauses the game. The room goes quiet.
His gaze slowly moves to yours—finally, fully focused. There’s something unreadable in his expression, like he’s trying to piece together a puzzle and doesn’t like how much of it he’s already solved.
“You’re messing with me,” he says, almost accusingly.
You let out a soft, amused breath. “Why would I do that?”
“I don’t know,” he says. “Because Lisa dared you to? Because Jaemin put money on it? Or maybe you’re just bored.”
You lean back slightly, holding his stare. “Or maybe I’m just tired of waiting for someone else to make a move.”
His mouth opens slightly—then shuts again. No comeback this time.
You move to stand, stretching slowly. “Anyway, if you’re not interested…”
You turn to walk away—just a few steps—before you hear the soft clatter of his controller hitting the coffee table.
“Y/N.”
You stop. Look over your shoulder. “Hmm?”
His voice is low. Measured. Barely above a whisper.
“You can stay here”
“But you're no fun.” You smile—slow and victorious—and continue to head to your room.
Game on.
The next night, you decide to take things further.
It’s not like you’re trying to seduce him just to win a bet—though Lisa and Jaemin smug faces definitely motivate you—but Haechan started this war. And you? You’re finishing it.
Your outfit is technically sleepwear. Technically. A cropped baby tee that clings just right, and lace-trimmed boy-shorts that look more like underwear than shorts. You throw on one of Haechan’s hoodies for effect, letting it slip off one shoulder like it just happened to fall that way. You check yourself in the mirror. Hot. But casual. Chill. Sexy… but not desperate.
Okay, maybe a little desperate.
When you pad into the kitchen, it’s late. Lights are dim, just the microwave clock glowing blue, and Haechan at the counter in a pair of sweats, pouring cereal into a bowl. You lean against the fridge. “Midnight snack?”
He glances at you. Freezes. Eyes drop to your legs, up to his hoodie falling off your shoulder, then dart away like he didn’t see anything. “Uh—yeah.”
You cross the kitchen slowly, deliberately, hips swaying just a little too much. “You always eat Frosted Flakes like it’s a full-course meal?”
He stirs the cereal. “I was hungry.”
“Mmm. Me too.” You step beside him, reaching up into the cabinet for a glass even though you don’t need one, his hoodie rising just enough to expose the edge of your lace shorts. You know he notices—his spoon pauses mid-stir.
“You’re not wearing pants,” he says flatly, eyes fixed on his bowl.
You grin. “So observant. That’s new.”
“I’m not blind,” he mutters.
You grab a glass and fill it slowly at the sink, the silence heavy. Then you turn around and lean against the counter, sipping water like it’s wine, letting your gaze travel over him.
“You’re acting weird again,” he says without looking at you.
You tilt your head. “You always say that when you’re flustered.”
He finally looks up, squinting at you. “I’m not flustered.”
You take a step closer. “No?”
“Just… confused.”
Another step. “By what?”
He doesn’t back away, but his grip on the spoon tightens. “By you. One second you're swearing I’m the worst person in your life, and the next you’re—” His eyes flick over you again. “—doing whatever this is.”
You pretend to think, lips twitching. “You mean standing in my kitchen? Wearing my hoodie.”
He squints. Brow furrows.
You pause, watching the shift behind his eyes as it clicks.
“Wait.” He leans in a fraction, eyes narrowing at the fabric hanging off your shoulder. “Is that—?”
You smile sweetly. “—your hoodie? Yeah. looks better on me, doesn’t it?”
He blinks like he’s been hit. “Why are you wearing that?”
You take a step forward, chest brushing his arm, voice soft and teasing. “It was cold. And It smelled nice.”
“Y/N.”
You grin wider. “Yes?”
He exhales hard through his nose, looking at the hoodie again like it personally betrayed him. “You seriously just put on my clothes and strutted out here like nothing?”
“Would it have worked better if I crawled?”
He stares at you, completely thrown off now—spoon forgotten, cereal soggy in the bowl, brain short-circuiting. “You’re actually insane.”
“Funny,” you murmur, tracing a line down his chest with your finger, “you haven’t exactly told me to take it off.”
“Because I don’t know what’s happening,” he mutters.
You tilt your head, stepping in again, lips inches from his jaw. “Want me to spell it out for you?”
He swallows hard.
You smile, slow and dangerous. “I’m wearing your hoodie, Haechan. In your kitchen. At midnight. No pants. Do the math.”
And the look he gives you?
Yeah, he’s definitely doing the math now. But he still doesn't say anything.
“You’re so stupid sometimes” You trail a finger down the middle of his chest, right where the hoodie hangs loose. “But unfortunately, you’re also hot. Which is really inconvenient.”
His throat bobs as he swallows hard. “Y/n…”
You reach up, tugging gently at the collar of his hoodie like it’s a leash. “You always show up when I’m about to hook up with someone else. But when it’s you? Suddenly you’re acting like I’m a bomb about to go off.”
He leans back slightly against the counter, unsure whether to stay or run. “Because you’re not serious.”
You blink at him. “Who says I’m not?”
He stares at you like he’s trying to x-ray through your intentions. You let the silence stretch.
Then you slowly push up on your toes, your lips brushing his jaw—not kissing, just close enough to make his breath catch.
“You gonna stop me?” you whisper.
He exhales sharply. “Maybe I should.”
You smile against his skin. “But you haven’t.”
And just like that, snap, something shifts.
His hand shoots up, gripping your waist—not hard, but firm. Controlling. Like he’s done pretending this isn’t happening. You gasp, just a little, your hands finding the fabric of his shirt as he pulls you flush against him.
“This is a bad idea,” he whispers but he doesn’t move away.
You grin, lips inches from his. “Maybe it is but I don’t care.”
His mouth crashes into yours. It’s not gentle. It’s not careful. It’s the kind of kiss that comes after too much tension and not enough logic, all heat and frustration and barely restrained want. You curl your fingers in his hoodie, tugging him closer.
Then suddenly, he breaks it. Pulls back. Breathing hard. “Shit.”
You blink, dazed. “What?”
He runs a hand through his hair, pacing a step away. “This is…You’re not thinking clearly.”
“Oh my god,” you groan. “You kissed me back and now I’m the one not thinking clearly?”
“You said I’m your brother’s best friend.”
“I also said you’re hot.”
He stares at you like he’s at war with himself. “Mark would literally kill me.”
You walk forward, reaching for him again. “He’s not here.”
“I still have to live with myself,” he says, his voice wavering.
You lean in one last time, kissing the corner of his mouth, soft and slow. “Then live with this.”
And with that, you walk out of the kitchen, hips swinging, leaving him breathless and speechless in the glow of the microwave light.
You don’t look back but you know he’s watching.
Game on. And this time? You’re definitely winning.
The next few days?
Weird.
You don’t see Haechan around the apartment much. Which is wild, considering you live with him. When he is there, he’s conveniently in his room, headphones on, or mysteriously "out" right before you get home. He even bailed on movie night, claiming “Renjun said something came up,” but you know Renjun sitting two couches away from you eating popcorn.
It’s like he’s allergic to eye contact now.
And the worst part?
He’s perfectly normal around everyone else.
With Chenle and Jisung, he’s his usual chaotic, shit-talking self. Laughing, shouting at video games, raiding the fridge like nothing happened. But the second you walk in the room, he tenses. Quiet. Distant.
Awkward.
It’s driving you insane.
“I think he’s avoiding me,” you grumble, dragging a fry through your milkshake before flinging it into your mouth.
Lisa raises an eyebrow, sipping her iced coffee. “You think?”
“Okay, fine, I know he is. He’s literally hiding. Like a losing coward.”
Jaemin leans back in the booth, arms spread across the backrest, casually smug. “Should’ve crawled.”
You glare. “Do not start.”
“I’m just saying,” he shrugs, “You did the whole ‘I’m not seducing you unless you want me to’ bit. And now he’s spiraling. Mission accomplished?”
“Except now he won’t even look at me,” you huff. “What’s the point if he won’t face me?”
Lisa drums her nails on the table. “Okay. We need a new plan.”
“Oh no,” Jaemin mutters, already bracing himself.
Lisa sits up straighter, eyes gleaming. “This time, he is avoiding you so he won’t even notice while your gone and you can find another hot ass stranger to go home with—”
Jaemin suddenly starts laughing.
Like full-on laughing, shoulders shaking, hand over his mouth like he’s trying to keep it together but failing miserably.
You and Lisa both blink at him.
“What the hell is so funny?” you ask, unimpressed.
He wipes a fake tear from the corner of his eye, snickering. “You. Both of you.”
Lisa frowns. “Excuse me?”
“A stranger, Lisa lets be real here, she doesn't want to have sex with a random stranger anymore...”
You narrow your eyes. “And what does that mean?”
Jaemin looks at you, all too smug. “Y/N… are you catching feelings for Haechan?”
Your brain stalls.
Lisa chokes on her drink.
“What?!” you sputter, nearly knocking over your shake. “No. No, no. This is just—revenge flirting. Remember.”
“Uh-huh,” Jaemin says, raising an eyebrow.
Lisa coughs. “Actually… that would explain the spiral.”
You whip your head toward her. “Whose side are you on?”
“I’m just saying,” she says, holding up her hands, “if you’re this mad that he’s avoiding you? Might not be just about this little game you got going on anymore.”
You slump in your seat, covering your face. “Ugh. This is the worst.”
Jaemin grins, annoyingly pleased. “Told you this was gonna be fun.”
Lisa leans across the table, eyes sharp. “Okay. New plan.”
You groan. “Please stop saying that.”
She ignores you. “If he’s avoiding you, we make it impossible to avoid you.
You peek between your fingers. “Why do I have a bad feeling about this?”
“Because you should,” Lisa says brightly.
Jaemin raises his drink like a toast. “To yet another plan.”
Lisa clinks her cup with his. “And this one will work.”
You roll your eyes but lift your cup anyway.
“We gotta stop doing these stupid toasts…”
The next night, you're sprawled on your bed in nothing but an oversized T-shirt. The sheets are rumpled in just the right way, your lip gloss is freshly applied, and Jaemin’s voice is echoing through your phone speaker like he’s the creative director of a Vogue shoot.
“Okay, chin down a little. Not that much girl, you're not sad, you’re seducing.”
Lisa’s face pops up next to his on the group FaceTime, holding a glass of wine and looking entirely too amused. “Tilt your head. Hair over one shoulder. A little pout, like you just woke up from a wet dream.”
“I hate both of you,” you mutter, adjusting the camera angle again while balancing on one arm. “And why do I have to be on call with you two while doing this?”
“Because you want to win,” Jaemin says, completely unbothered. “Now arch your back just a little more. You’re giving ‘bored in bed,’ not ‘come fuck me.’”
Lisa snorts. “Yeah, you want him to see this and question everything. Like, should I even be looking at these? Should I send some back?”
You snap another photo—lips parted, one hand brushing your thigh, eyes soft but lethal.
Jaemin gasps. “That one. That’s the one.”
“I’m wearing a T-shirt,” you remind him.
Lisa shrugs. “You look hot. That’s what matters. Leave some room for his imagination”
You stare at the collection of photos in your camera roll—cute ones, sexy ones, one where you’re laughing mid-shot but somehow still hot. And one where you’re biting your lip, gaze aimed right at the lens like you’re in some kind of porno.
“Okay,” you whisper, heart thudding. “Now what?”
Lisa smirks. “Now you send it.”
Jaemin grins. “Accidentally.”
You pause. “You guys really think this’ll work?”
“Oh, sweetie,” Jaemin says, sipping his drink like this is theater, “the boy lost all motor function when you wore his hoodie. This’ll kill him.”
Lisa nods, an evil glint in her eye. “We’re not trying to flirt anymore.”
You exhale, hover over the message box, attach the photo—the photo—and type:
meant to send this to Lisa lol ignore 😳🙈
And then…
Send.
Silence.
Lisa covers her mouth. “Oh my god.”
Jaemin wheezes. “He’s either hard or praying.”
You drop back onto your bed, phone clutched to your chest, heart racing. “What do I do now?!”
Lisa grins. “Now we wait.”
You stare at the screen, the message still marked read.
No reply.
Not yet.
But you know he saw it.
Your pulse is thudding in your ears, phone still warm in your hand. Next to you, Lisa is holding her wine like she’s watching a murder mystery unfold in real time.
“He read it two minutes ago,” she whispers, eyes glued to her screen. “Why hasn’t he replied yet??.”
Jaemin leans closer to the camera, eyes wide. “He’s either in shock... or dead.”
“Maybe he dropped his phone,” you say, trying to convince yourself. “Like, physically dropped it from how hot I looked.”
Lisa smirks. “Or maybe he’s pacing around his room right now, fighting demons.”
You bite your lip, the silence growing heavier by the second. Your fingers twitch.
“Should I send something else?” you ask, panicked.
“No!” Lisa and Jaemin say in unison.
Jaemin sits up straighter. “Do not double-text. That gives him the power.”
“But what if he thinks I did it on purpose?” you groan, burying your face in your pillow.
Lisa snorts. “You did do it on purpose.”
“Yeah, but he’s not supposed to know that!”
Another minute passes.
Still nothing.
“Okay,” you mumble, rolling over and staring up at the ceiling. “What if he’s like… genuinely mad or uncomfortable?”
“Y/N,” Jaemin says, tone suddenly more serious, “there is no straight man alive who gets a photo like that from a girl he likes and gets mad.”
You freeze. “Wait. You think he likes me?”
Lisa blinks. “Babe.”
Jaemin throws up his hands. “You wore his hoodie half naked and he hasn’t made eye contact with you since. He kissed you and then ran away like his soul left his body. And now you’ve sent him a ‘mistake’ thirst trap and he’s gone silent.”
Lisa finishes for him. “That man is probably jerking off.”
You don’t get a chance to respond.
Because right then—your phone buzzes.
You nearly drop it, heart leaping into your throat.
Haechan [1:07 a.m.]: lol definitely wasn’t meant for lisa
You sit straight up.
“What?!” Lisa screeches. “Read it out loud. Read it out loud.”
You do.
Jaemin lets out an unholy laugh. “Oh, he’s trying to play it cool. That means he’s LOSING it.”
Another text bubble appears before you can even respond.
The Devil (Haechan): you always look like that in bed or was that just for me?
Your jaw drops. “Oh my god.”
Lisa clutches her imaginary pearls. “Scandalous.”
Jaemin looks like he’s been waiting his entire life for this moment. “HE TOOK THE BAIT.”
Then—another one.
The Devil (Haechan): …not that I’m complaining. just curious.
You stare at the screen, completely stunned, heart racing like you just ran a marathon.
“What do I say?!” you whisper-shout. “What do I even do?!”
Lisa raises her wine like a toast. “You say: ‘depends. want to come see?’”
“Lisa!” you gasp.
You blink at them, brain buzzing, fingers hovering over the keyboard.
Y/N: wouldn’t you like to know.
Three dots appear instantly. Then disappear. Then come back again.
You smirk—perfect—until you hear it.
Footsteps.
In the hallway. Getting closer.
Your smirk drops fast.
Lisa’s voice cuts through the speaker, amused. “Wait... is someone coming?”
You sit bolt upright, the bed sheets rustling. “Oh my god. You guys—shut up.”
Jaemin leans into the screen. “Is that—is that Haechan?!”
The footsteps stop. Right outside your door.
Your entire soul leaves your body.
“SHITSHITSHIT,” you whisper, scrambling to throw a blanket over your bare legs, grabbing your phone like it’s evidence in a federal crime. “WHAT DO I DO?!”
Jaemin is laughing way too hard. “Oh no. It’s over for you. You’re cooked.”
A soft knock.
“Y/N?” Haechan’s voice. Muffled. Low.
You freeze.
Lisa mouths say something, but your brain has completely shut down.
You’re still staring at the door like it might disappear if you concentrate hard enough, mouth slightly open, frozen in place. Lisa is frantically whispering, “Say something!” while Jaemin holding his hands over his mouth.
Then—the doorknob turns.
You gasp, diving to grab your blanket tighter, like that’s going to save you.
The door opens slowly. And there he is.
Haechan. Loose black t-shirt hanging off his frame.Gray sweatpants slung low on his hips. Hair tousled like he just rolled out of bed—or maybe like he’s been running his hands through it since you sent that photo.
He steps into the room, quiet, calm, and annoyingly unreadable.
His eyes flick to your phone, still on FaceTime, where Lisa’s mouth is open in silent panic and Jaemin is making a dramatic “RIP” gesture across his neck.
Then he looks back at you.
And says, voice low, steady, and dangerous:
“Let’s hang up the phone… and see if you’re this confident without them.”
You don’t move.
Your heart is in your throat. Your stomach is in hell.
Lisa lets out a strangled squeak.
Jaemin straight up falls off-screen, you hear a loud thud, and maybe some screaming.
Your fingers are shaking as you scramble to end the call. You don’t even say goodbye—just one swipe and the screen goes black.
Silence.
Then—footsteps.
Haechan crosses the room, slow and deliberate, until he’s standing at the edge of your bed, looking down at you like he’s trying to decide if he should kiss you or arrest you.
“You really thought I wasn’t gonna say anything?” he murmurs.
You try to form a sentence. A word. A syllable. But all that comes out is a breathless, “Maybe.”
He tilts his head. “You sent me that picture on purpose.”
You open your mouth. Close it again. Then admit, softly: “...Yeah.”
His gaze drops, just for a second, to the oversized T-shirt hanging off your shoulder—the same one from the photo—and he exhales slowly through his nose, like he’s trying really hard not to let something slip.
“You looked like that…” he mutters, half to himself, “and thought I wouldn’t show up?”
You tug the blanket a little higher, heart hammering. “You’ve been avoiding me.”
“And you’ve been taunting me,” he fires back, voice husky now.
You go quiet.
Because he’s right.
He leans in just a little just enough to crowd your space, eyes on yours. “You still think it’s a game, Y/N?”
You shake your head slowly. “Not anymore.”
Something flashes in his eyes—something hot and sharp and final.
“Good,” he whispers.
Then he reaches down and pulls the blanket away.
Your breath catches, sharp and immediate, heart thundering in your chest as cool air hits your bare legs. The oversized T-shirt rides dangerously high on your thighs, the very image he saw in the photo now real, right in front of him.
His eyes drag over you slowly, from your curled toes to the hem of the shirt barely covering anything. When his gaze finally meets yours again, it’s darker. Hungrier.
“Did you think I've been avoiding you because I don’t want you?” he asks.
You swallow hard, shaking your head.
“I was trying not to ruin everything,” he mutters, stepping closer to the bed. “Trying to be the good guy. For my friend. For you.”
You blink up at him, breathless. “And now?”
He exhales through his nose, gaze burning. “Now I don’t care.”
The mattress dips slightly as he leans in, one hand braced beside your hip, the other gently brushing your jaw, tilting your chin up until you’re looking straight at him.
“I don’t care that you’re my best friend’s sister,” he whispers, thumb tracing your bottom lip. “I don’t care that this is probably a bad idea.”
You barely get the words out. “Then what do you care about?”
His mouth twitches like he might smile but doesn’t.
“I care that you keep looking at me like that,” he says. “Like you want me to do something.”
Your lips part. “Maybe I do.”
He leans closer, so close his nose brushes yours, and you feel his breath against your lips.
“Tell me to stop.”
You shake your head instantly. “Please don’t.”
And just like that he’s on you.
The kiss is fire. Raw. Messy. The kind that doesn’t ask for permission because it already knows the answer. His hands slide under the hem of the shirt, fingers splaying across your hips like he’s staking a claim.
You arch into him, fingers in his hair, tugging just enough to make him growl softly into your mouth.
He pulls back for just a second, forehead resting against yours.
“This isn’t just about the picture,” he says, voice ragged. “Or the game. This is me wanting you. Every time you walked into a room. Every time you laughed at something stupid. Every time you bent over in those shorts you wear around the house. Every time you licked your lips or touched your hair or did any of those little things that drive me crazy.”
His confession sends a shiver down your spine. You’d never realized he’d been watching so closely—that every glance, every careless touch, or laughed a little too loud, he was memorizing it. Storing it. The thought makes your heart stutter. Because for the first time, you don’t just feel wanted—you feel seen. Completely.
You reach up, cupping his face in your hands. “I want you too, Haechan,” you whisper.
He closes his eyes briefly, like your words are a relief. Then he’s kissing you again, deeper this time, his body pressing against yours. You can feel his heartbeat, steady and strong, against your chest. Your hands roam over his back, feeling the muscles shift and flex as he moves.
He pushes you gently back onto your bed as his hands start to explore, tracing the curves of your body. You can feel the heat of his touch through the thin fabric of your shirt, his fingers leaving trails of heat in their place. You gasp into his mouth as he shifts, his body settling between your legs.
He breaks the kiss, his lips moving to your jaw, your neck, his breath hot against your skin. You tilt your head back, giving him better access, your hands gripping his shoulders. He presses a kiss to your collarbone, then moves lower, his hands pushing up the hem of your shirt to expose more skin.
You lift your arms, allowing him to pull the shirt off completely. He tosses it aside, his eyes roaming over you appreciatively. You feel a flush spread across your cheeks, but you don't look away.
“Are you sure about this? I know you’ve never done this before.” His voice is gentle, but his eyes are intense, searching your face for any sign of doubt. But there’s none.
“I’ve never been more sure of anything,” you echo, your voice steady and clear. You reach up, tracing the line of his jaw. “I want this. I want you.”
He lets out a soft breath, leaning down to capture your lips in another hot kiss. This time, it’s slower, more deliberate, as if he’s savoring every moment. You wrap your arms around his neck, pulling him closer, feeling the weight of his body against yours.
His hands slide down to your waist, gripping gently as he grinds against you, the friction sending sparks through your body. You gasp, breaking the kiss to arch your neck, and he takes the opportunity to trail kisses down your throat. Your fingers tangle in his hair, holding him close as his mouth explores your collarbone, then lower, until he’s kissing the swell of your breasts.
You feel his hand at your back, unclasping your bra with a flick, and then it’s gone, tossed aside with your shirt. He pulls back just enough to look at you, his eyes dark with desire. “You’re so beautiful, Y/N,” he murmurs, his voice husky with need.
You reach for him, pulling him back down to you, your mouths crashing together in a hungry kiss. His hand cups your breasts. His thumb brushes against your nipple, sending a jolt of pleasure through you. You gasp into his mouth, arching into his touch. He takes his time, exploring every inch of your skin with his hands and his lips, like he's worshipping you. Like you're the most precious thing he's ever touched.
You tug at his shirt, wanting to feel his skin against yours. He breaks away just long enough to pull it off, then he's back, his bare chest pressing against yours. You can feel his heart racing, matching the rhythm of your own. His hands are everywhere, touching, teasing, driving you wild. You can feel the length of him, hard and ready, pressing against your thigh.
You slip your hands down to the waistband of his sweatpants, pushing them down. He kicks them off, never breaking the kiss. His body is hot and firm against yours, and you can feel the urgency in his movements as he presses against you, only the thin fabric of your shorts and his boxers separating you.
You roll your hips upward to meet his, causing a groan to escape his lips. “Please I need you”
“You’re not ready yet.” He pulls back slightly, his breath ragged. "Not yet," he murmurs.. You're about to protest, but his hand slips between your legs, his fingers tracing the edge of your shorts. Your breath hitches as he slowly pulls them down, his eyes never leaving yours.
He discards the fabric, you feel a flush spread across your skin but you don't look away. His hand slides up your thigh, his touch firm.
"You're trembling," he whispers, his thumb circling your inner thigh.
"Because I want you," you admit, your voice barely above a whisper.
A slow smile spreads across his face, and he leans down, his lips brushing against your stomach, then lower
Then he hooks your thighs over his shoulders, and you gasp as his breath hits the most sensitive part of you. He looks up at you, eyes dark with desire and something softer, more intimate. Like he’s seeing you, really seeing you, for the first time.
“Haechan,” you whisper, your voice shaking slightly. He smiles, slow and reassuring, before lowering his head. The first touch of his tongue is electric, sending a shockwave through your body. You arch off the bed, a gasp escaping your lips. He takes his time, exploring every inch of you with a patience and skill that leaves you breathless.
Each flick of his tongue sends waves of pleasure crashing through you. You tangle your fingers in his hair, holding him close as he brings you higher and higher. Your breath comes in short gasps, your heart pounding in your chest. The sensation builds and builds until it he suddenly pulls away.
“Not yet baby, I have to stretch you out first.”
He moves back up your body, his lips finding yours in a kiss. You can taste yourself on him, and it sends a new wave of heat through you. His hand slips between your legs again, but this time, he gently eases a finger inside you, his thumb circling your clit. You gasp into his mouth, your body tensing slightly.
"Relax," he murmurs against your lips. "I've got you."
You force yourself to breathe, to relax into his touch. He takes his time, stretching you slowly, adding another finger when he feels you're ready. It's intense, almost overwhelming, but his touch is so sure, so gentle, that you can't help but trust him.
His mouth moves to your neck, his kisses are soft and reassuring. You wrap your arms around his shoulders, holding him close as his fingers curl inside you, stroking a spot that makes your breath hitch and your toes curl. Your hips lift to meet his hand, your body craving more of his touch. He responds with a low groan, his eyes darkening as he watches you writhe beneath him.
His fingers curve inside you, pressing against a spot that makes you see stars. You cry out, digging your nails into his back, and he lets out a low chuckle.
"There it is," he murmurs, his voice laced with satisfaction. He continues to work you open, "You're so responsive. You were made for me.”
His thumb circles your clit faster, harder, and you can feel the tension building again, coiling tighter and tighter in your stomach.
"Haechan," you gasp, your nails digging into his shoulders. "I need—I need—"
"shh I know baby, I know what you need," he whispers hot against your ear. You’re doing so good for me.”
He pulls back slightly, his eyes meeting yours. There's a question in his gaze, a silent check-in to make sure you're still with him, still wanting this. You nod, biting your lip, urging him on. He smiles, a soft, genuine smile that makes your heart flutter, and then he's moving again, his body aligning with yours.
He reaches down, grabbing his wallet from his discarded sweatpants and pulls out a condom. You watch as he tears open the packet and rolls it on, your heart pounding. He sees you watching and smiles softly, leaning down to kiss you again, slow and reassuring.
"You're sure?" he whispers against your lips.
"Yes," you breathe out, your voice steady and sure. "I want this, Haechan. I want you."
He nods, pressing his forehead against yours for a moment before pulling back to look into your eyes. He positions himself at your entrance, his breath hitching slightly as he feels your heat. You wrap your arms around his neck, pulling him close, your eyes locked onto his.
He pushes in slowly, inch by inch, giving you time to adjust. You gasp, your nails digging into his skin as you feel him filling you. It's intense, almost overwhelming, but the look in his eyes—so tender and so focused all at once—keeps you grounded.
"You okay?" he murmurs, his voice strained with restraint.
You nod, lifting your hips to meet his. "Don't stop," you whisper.
He lets out a low groan, his forehead dropping to your neck as he begins to move. Slowly at first, then with more urgency as your body responds to his. You wrap your legs around his waists, your hips lifting to meet each thrust. The sensation is overwhelming, a mix of pleasure and pain that leaves you gasping.
He takes his time, his rhythm steady and controlled, even as you can feel the tension in his body, the restraint it takes to hold back.
"You feel so good, Y/N," he murmurs into your neck, his breath hot against your skin. "So fucking good baby,"
You cling to him, your body moving in sync with his, your breath coming in short gasps. The room is filled with the sounds of your skin connecting, the soft moans and whispered words that pass between you. You can feel the pressure building again, the coil of tension in your stomach tightening with each thrust.
He leans back slightly, changing the angle, and you cry out as he hits that spot again, the one that makes you see stars. He grins.
“There it is again,” he murmurs, his voice laced with satisfaction. He leans down, capturing your lips in a hot, messy kiss as he hits that spot over and over, his body moving against yours in a rhythm that leaves you breathless.
You can feel the sweat on his skin, the tension in his muscles as he holds back, waiting for you. Your body responds to his, your hips meeting each thrust, your breath coming in sync with his. The room is filled with the sounds of your skin connecting, the soft moans and whispered words that pass between you.
He pulls back slightly, his eyes meeting yours his eyes are dark, pupils blown wide. You can see the question in his eyes, the silent check-in to ensure you're still with him, still wanting this. You nod, biting your lip, urging him on.
“Fuckk I’m gonna—” Your body shakes, “Mmm gonna cum.”
He lets out a low groan, his hips moving faster. "Me too, baby. Fuck me too."
Your breath hitches, your body tensing as the wave of pleasure crashes over you. You cry out, your nails gripping the sheets, your body convulsing around him. He buries his face in your neck, his body shaking with his own release as he follows you over the edge.
The room is filled with the sound of your ragged breaths, your bodies slick with sweat as you cling to each other. He stays there, buried inside you, his heart pounding against yours as you both come down from the high.
He lifts his head, his eyes meeting yours. There's a softness in his gaze, a vulnerability that takes your breath away. He leans down, pressing a soft kiss to your lips, so gentle and so tender that it makes your heart ache. You wrap your arms around his neck, pulling him closer, deepening the kiss. He responds instantly, his body relaxing into yours, his hands gently stroking your sides. It's a stark contrast to the urgency of moments before, but it feels just as right, just as perfect.
As the kiss slows, he pulls back slightly, his forehead resting against yours. "You okay?" he murmurs, his voice soft and gentle.
You nod, a small smile playing on your lips. "More than okay."
He grins, rolling off you gently and disposing of the condom before pulling you into his arms. You rest your head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat as it slows to a steady rhythm. His fingers trace lazy patterns on your back, sending shivers down your spine.
.
.
.
You’re lying tangled in sheets, breath still uneven, heart still racing, a ridiculous smile tugging at your lips.
“So like,” you murmur, turning to him with a smug little smirk, “I totally won.”
Haechan lets out a low laugh beside you, one arm slung over his eyes like he’s exhausted—but still amused. “You think you won?”
You prop yourself up on your elbow, hair a mess and eyes gleaming. “Uh, yeah. I was the one who wanted to lose my virginity. I did. Game over. I win.”
He turns his head toward you, a lazy, teasing grin spreading across his face. “Interesting logic.”
“It’s not logic, it’s fact,” you shoot back, poking his chest. “I reached my goal. Mission accomplished. Trophy secured.”
Haechan hums thoughtfully, eyes scanning your face. “Except… I’m the one who had the key to your little chastity belt the whole time.”
You stare at him for a moment—then snort. “Oh my god. You did not just say that.”
“I did,” he says proudly, hand sliding over your hip. “So really… if you think about it I won...”
You roll your eyes, trying not to laugh. “You’re insufferable, that doesn't even make sense.”
“And yet,” he says, tugging you closer with a smirk, “you still lost. To me, this definitely feels like a win.”
You huff dramatically, curling into him anyway. “Whatever. It was a mutual win.”
He kisses the top of your head. “Fine. Shared victory.”
“…But if we really think about it I won,” you add, grinning.
He groans. “God, help me.”
Dream/General Taglist: @haechansbbg @johnnysuhbmarine @lostinneocity @talkingsaxy @naqkja @anaisalive @chenlesfeetpic @vampgege @jaeminnanaaa17 @wookiebearz @zen00016 @haolovre
Interacted with preview: @sundamariis @nah140508 @luverboyhyuck @lovelyannoyingcher @yuthabitz @httpsxnox @markiesfatbooty @nineooooo @gomdoleemyson @smwhrinthehaze @ambi01 @zhapire @ncitysblog @grimlinshere @sunflowerhae @ohmysion @spacejip @bookiebears-stuff @next-read-please @caaally @jaeminnanaaa17
