synopsis: after appearing on a reality tv show where txt took care of a child for a hundred days, choi yeonjun starts wondering what it would be like to have his own.
› pairings & contents: choi yeonjun of txt x fem!reader
✧ warnings: smut with plot, both hard & soft dom yeonjun, HUGE breeding kink!!!! unprotected sex, creampie(s).
MORE ? | choi yeonjun as your husband.
FIRST EVER MUSIC CORE WIN.
• the "txt parenting diary" series was a trap. a cute, giggling, 15-month-old trap named yoojun. yeonjun walked in thinking it'd be wholesome content. he walked out filming all the episodes, a changed man.
• anyone who's watched the show could tell yeonjun LOVES yoojun. the way he learned to warm the bottle perfectly on his inner wrist. the way he whispered silly stories while feeding him. the absolute focus when trying to get his clothes on. the members had never seen him so soft, so domestic. well, except for maybe when he was drunk.
• txt's first win on music core nearly right yess after debut was nothing short of euphoric. but the real highlight for him? when the staff brought yoojun out for the encore stage. holding that baby in his arms, bouncing him gently to the celebratory music, seeing yoojun bow to the crowd, yeonjun's heart did something terrifying and permanent. he looked out at the sea of moas, felt the weight of the child in his arms, and thought: i want this. for real. with her.
• he doesn't say anything that evening. he's buzzing, but he hugs the members, thanks the staff, goes through the motions. but his eyes keep finding you in the crowd backstage, and there's a new, profound heat in his gaze.
TENSION SO THICK, YOU COULD CUT THROUGH IT.
• it starts subtle. i mean, he’s always been touchy, but now his hands linger on your hips, your lower back, with a different kind of purpose. when you’re cooking in his dorm, he’ll come up behind you, wrap his arms around your waist, and just rest his chin on your shoulder, his palms spread wide over your stomach. he doesn’t say a word. he just… holds. like he’s imagining it rounded with his child.
• he starts buying things. not baby things—that would be insane—but family things. a ridiculously soft, large blanket "for movie nights." two matching, sturdy coffee mugs. he looks at apartments with an extra room, "for an office or something."
• the dirty talk shifts. it used to be about how good you felt, how pretty you looked. now, it’s laced with something deeper, more primal. "you take me so well, fuck, you feel like home." "i could stay inside you forever." once, in a haze of pleasure, he groaned, "you'd be so beautiful pregnant," and immediately clammed up, as if he’d revealed a state secret.
• watching and taking care of yoojun for a hundred days unlocked a specific, visceral kink: breeding. he never expected himself to be into something like that. he thought of finishing inside you is a sacred, claiming act of creation. the risk, the potential, is the biggest turn-on of his life.
• he becomes obsessed with your cycle. he’d never ask, but he notices the subtle signs. he even downloaded a tracker app. when you’re tired and crampy, he’s unbearably tender, massaging your belly with a warm palm. when he suspects you’re ovulating, or the app tells him so, he’s a different being—possessive, insatiable, his touches loaded with a desperate, hungry intent.
• he stops pulling out. it happens the first time after the music core win. he holds you down through his climax, burying himself to the hilt with a guttural groan, and stays there, panting against your neck. the silence afterwards is thick with what he’s just done. the unspoken question hangs in the air: was that okay? the answer is in the way you cling to him, in the lack of protest.
IS THIS A DREAM?
• it’s a quiet night at his place. you’re curled up watching the parenting diary episode on his laptop. he’s pretending not to watch you watch it.
• on screen, he’s making yoojun laugh, tossing him gently in the air. you let out a soft, "aww, he’s so cute with you."
• that’s the trigger. he quietly takes the laptop, closes it, and sets it aside. his movements are deliberate. he turns to you, cups your face, and kisses you. it’s not hungry at first. it’s devastatingly sweet, full of the emotion he saw on screen.
• "i want that," he murmurs against your lips, his voice thick. "ours. i want to see you holding our baby after a win. i want to come home to you both."
the confession hangs there. it’s huge. it’s terrifying. it’s the hottest thing he’s ever said.
• the sex that follows is slow, deep, and unbearably intentional. every kiss, every touch, every thrust is infused with that yearning. he makes love to you with his eyes open, watching every flicker of emotion on your face.
• he guides your legs up over his shoulders, changing the angle, going deeper. "right here," he breathes, his rhythm becoming focused, potent. "this is where i’d put my baby in you."
• when he gets close, his composure cracks. the sweet, yearning boy is swallowed by the primal man. his thrusts become urgent, erratic. his fingers dig into your hips hard enough to bruise.
• "gonna put a baby in you," he chokes out, a ragged, desperate promise. "gonna see your belly swell with me. please. let me. i need to." it’s half plea, half vow.
• he comes with a broken sob, collapsing over you, his body trembling not just from release, but from the sheer magnitude of his want. he doesn’t move, keeping you pinned, filled, as if willing his desire into reality.
• later, wrapped around you in the dark, his hand splayed possessively over your lower stomach, he whispers the most vulnerable thing of all: "would you? someday? with me?" it’s no longer just a kink. it’s a dream, and he’s handing you his heart, hoping you’ll choose to build it with him.
💌 viv's note: literally nobody asked but here's a little something before i go back to writing anton and sunghoon again lol
★ synopsis
at their manager's wedding, choi yeonjun watches the joy of marriage unfold and feels an unexpected pull toward the future.
though he’s never believed in traditional superstitions or fate, the sight of lifelong commitment stirs something deep making him quietly imagine a wedding of his own.
★ pairing: idol boyfriend!yeonjun x idol fem!reader
★ genre: romance, fluff, established relationship, talks of marriage
★ status | word count: completed | 6.9k
★ ao3: On Your Wedding Day
note: been busy with school so this is honestly just a random thought inspired by txt recently attending their manager's wedding and that video of yeonjun suddenly carrying a baby there lmao
enjoy <3
The grand ballroom glowed under strings of soft golden lights, chandeliers casting warm prisms across the white linen tables and towering floral arches. Laughter and clinking glasses fill the air, the joyful chaos of a wedding where everyone truly belongs: family, lifelong friends, and the extended family forged through years of shared schedules and late nights.
You sit at the table near the front, the gentle warmth of the lights brushing your skin as you watch Soobin command the room as wedding emcee. He moves with effortless charm—warm, funny, never letting the energy falter.
Absent-mindedly, you lean toward Yeonjun and murmur, “Soobin’s doing so good up there. He’s really carrying the whole vibe.”
Yeonjun doesn’t answer right away.
You notice the way his fingers twist the edge of his napkin, the subtle bounce of his knee under the table. You tilt your head, studying him.
“Hey,” you tease lightly, bumping his shoulder with yours, “Why are you so nervous? People are gonna think you’re the one getting married.”
He lets out a small huff of a laugh and nudges you back, gentle but pointed. You giggle, and the sound finally coaxes the corner of his mouth upward before he heaves a long, quiet sigh, shoulders dropping as though he’d been carrying something heavy all night.
“I don’t even know,” he admits, voice low so only you can hear. “We’ve performed hundreds of times. Stages, festivals, stadiums… but today?” He shakes his head. “I’m shaking.”
You soften instantly. You reach up and cup his cheek, your thumb brushing lightly over the sharp line of his jaw.
“It’s because it’s Jisoo-nim,” you say gently. “You don’t want to mess anything up for him. He’s been there since the beginning with you guys. Every debut stage, every 3 a.m. practice, every time one of you wanted to quit. Of course you’re nervous. You love him.”
Yeonjun exhales through his nose, eyes falling closed for a moment under your touch. Then he leans in, pressing the softest kiss to your forehead, lingering there as though he was drawing calmness from you.
“Yeah,” he mumbled against your hair. “Probably.”
He pulls back just enough to meet your eyes, offering that small, crooked smile reserved only for quiet moments like this.
“I have to go dance with the boys now,” he says with a smile.
You nod, squeezing his hand once before letting go. “Go make Jisoo-nim cry again. You’re good at it.”
He chuckles under his breath, stands, and smooths a hand down the front of his shirt. As he walks toward the others, you watch the familiar set of his shoulders relax inch by inch. The closer he got to the dance floor, the more the nerves dissolve and the performer inside him surfaces.
The DJ drops the opening synths of “Love Language,” and the room erupts in delighted gasps and cheers. You smile to yourself, already knowing what’s coming.
Yeonjun steps forward, every line of his body loose and confident. He mouths the lyrics straight at Jisoo—“What’s your love language?”—playful and bold. When the manager flushes bright red but begins trying to follow along, Yeonjun’s grin turns blinding.
As the final chorus builds, the energy sharpens and the boys pull Jisoo into the center. Soobin reaches into his pocket without missing a beat and pulls out a pair of sleek black sunglasses, passing them over with a quick, knowing nod. Jisoo grins before bursting into another helpless laugh as he slips them on.
Jisoo straightened, rolled his shoulders once like he was stepping back into an old, familiar role, and suddenly he was moving with them. Not just following—dancing. Hips popping on the beat, arms slicing through the air with surprising precision, matching every sharp hit and fluid wave of the choreography they’d been rehearsing in secret for weeks.
They finished the last portion flawlessly, hitting the final sharp pose right as the song cut out and the room erupted. Jisoo’s bride jumped up and down in front of him, clapping furiously, tears of joy shining in her eyes as she shouted his name over the thunderous applause, her voice bright and proud.
When Jisoo ripped off the sunglasses, laughing so hard he had to bend at the waist for a second, he pulled his bride into a spinning hug while the boys piled on around them, a messy, joyful tangle of arms and congratulations.
You watch it all from your seat, heart full, the warmth of the moment settling deep in your chest as Yeonjun glances over at you through the crowd, catching your eye for just a second.
He winks and you roll your eyes with a laugh at his ridiculousness before he disappears back into the hug pile.
Later, when the night has quieted into dessert and soft conversations, Yeonjun slides back into the seat beside you, his arm draped along the back of your chair almost immediately, fingers tapping a lazy rhythm against your shoulder blade in time with the music.
You turn to say something teasing, but he’s already leaning in, lips brushing the shell of your ear as he whispers something absurd that makes you throw your head back laughing, hand flying up to cover your mouth.
When you twist to shoot back a reply, he dips his head and presses the softest, lingering kiss to the crown of your head. No performance, no camera needed—just the two of you, and the quiet comfort that has grown between you over years of shared glances and late-night talks.
You lean into it for a second, eyes fluttering closed, then nudge him with your elbow. He laughs low, the sound vibrating against you, and the two of you dissolve into shared giggles again, wrapped up in your own little world while the rest of the room hums around you.
Across the table, Beomgyu nudged Taehyun and nodded your way with raised brows. Taehyun smirked, lifting his glass in a mock toast. Soobin just smiled into his drink, soft and knowing. Kai snapped a quick polaroid of the table, smiling as he told them how their family “keeps growing”.They all laugh and you think, sitting there with Yeonjun’s arm warm around you and Jisoo’s happy laughter still echoing somewhere behind, that he’s right.
After the formal ceremony came the reception that already tipped into that golden, slightly hazy hour where champagne flutes are refilled without question and the dance floor pulses with a mix of generations swaying to everything from 90s ballads to the latest idol tracks.
The bouquet toss is announced with a flourish—Jisoo's bride, cheeks still flushed from earlier tears and laughter, turns her back to the gathered single women (and a few brave men who joined in for the chaos). You stand near the middle of the loose circle, not pushing forward but not retreating either, your dress catching the overhead lights.
The bouquet sails in a perfect arc, petals fluttering like confetti. Hands reach—some half-hearted, some determined—but it’s your fingers that close around the stems first. A surprised laugh bursts from you as you lift it triumphantly, the mix of white and pink roses trembling slightly in your grip.
The crowd erupts in cheers, whistles, and playful screams, and not two minutes later came the corsage toss.
Jisoo, grinning like he’d planned the whole thing, blindfolds himself dramatically before flinging it backward over his shoulder. The small cluster of white orchids and silver ribbon spins through the air.
Meanwhile Yeonjun, who’d been standing off to the side chatting with Soobin, instinctively raises a hand and unintentionally catches it one-handed, clean and effortless, like he’d been waiting for it his whole life.
The venue explodes, cameras flash, phones zoom in, and someone—probably Beomgyu—lets out a theatrical wolf whistle that cuts through the noise.
You turn, bouquet still clutched to your chest, and lock eyes with Yeonjun across the small divide. He holds up the corsage like a trophy, one eyebrow arched in mock challenge, lips curving into that signature half-smirk that always makes fans weak. You point at him, laughing so hard your shoulders shake, then mime putting the bouquet behind your back as if to hide it.
The tradition hits like lightning: girl catches bouquet, boy catches corsage—next wedding bells will ring for you two.
Jisoo, mic still in hand from his earlier thank-you speech, couldn’t resist. He steps forward, tux jacket now slung over one shoulder, hair slightly mussed from dancing, the spotlight finding him easily.
“Ah, ah—everyone, hold on,” he says, voice warm and teasing through the speakers. “Look at this. The girlfriend caught the bouquet... and the boyfriend snagged the corsage.” He pauses for dramatic effect as fresh laughter rolls through the room. “You know what that means, right? Tradition says you two are next.”
More cheers, louder this time. Someone in the back yelled "Get it, Yeonjun!" and got a round of applause for it, making Jisoo's grin widen, his eyes twinkling with the kind of fond mischief only a manager-turned-big-brother can pull off.
He leans toward the mic again, lowering his voice conspiratorially even though it booms everywhere. “And let me tell you—I’ve been with these boys since the very beginning. Back when Yeonjun was still... how do I say this politely?... pining. Pining hard. Sneaking glances during schedules, pretending he was ‘just checking lyrics’ when he was really looking at someone across the award ceremony venue.”
He shot a pointed look at Yeonjun, who had gone from cocky to tomato-red in approximately three seconds flat. "And now? Look at them. Standing here, bouquet and corsage in hand, making me feel old and sentimental at my own wedding."
The venue dissolved into warm laughter as you buried your face in the bouquet for a second, peeking over the flowers with sparkling eyes. Yeonjun rubbed the back of his neck, ears burning, but he couldn't hide the helpless, happy smile spreading across his face.
He catches your gaze again and mouths a quick “your fault” that makes you laugh harder and shrug playfully from a few feet away.
The other TXT members are losing it in the best way. Beomgyu has doubled over, clutching Taehyun’s arm for support. Huening Kai is filming the whole thing on his phone with zero shame, zooming in on Yeonjun’s flushed cheeks. Soobin simply stands there beaming like a proud brother, occasionally shaking his head as if to say, of course this happened.
Jisoo raises his glass.
“To the lovely couple over here—may your wedding be half as chaotic and twice as beautiful as mine. And… don’t make me wait too long. I’ve got a suit to match already.”
The toast was met with clinking glasses, more cheers, and spontaneous chants of “Marriage!” “Marriage!” that had both of you ducking your heads in delighted embarrassment.
The chant eventually dissolved into softer chatter and the gentle clatter of dessert plates being cleared. The reception settled into that late, haze where time feels elastic—people lingering at tables, slow-dancing in corners, stealing quiet moments before the inevitable goodbyes.
You slip away from the main crowd for a breath of air near one of the tall windows, the cool glass pressing against your palm, when you feel a familiar presence at your back.
Yeonjun appears beside you, but he isn’t alone.
In his arms is a tiny girl—barely two, cheeks round and flushed from the warmth of too many hugs, dark curls escaping the little bow clipped into her hair. She’s nestled against his chest, one small hand fisted on the side of his suit jacket, the other clutching the edge of his tie like it’s a lifeline.
Yeonjun holds her with the easy confidence of someone who’s done this before, one arm securely under her bottom, the other supporting her back while she drowsily blinks up at the twinkling lights above.
You blink, confusion flickering across your face. “Where did you even get a baby?”
Yeonjun’s grin is instant and blinding, the kind that makes his eyes disappear into crescents.
“One of the protocol team’s daughters,” he says, voice soft so he won’t startle the toddler. “Her dad got pulled into an emergency call with the venue staff, and the little one was getting fussy. I figured… why not? We’re basically uncles and aunts to half the company kids anyway.”
Your expression melts from bewilderment into something unbearably fond. You reach out instinctively, brushing a stray hair off the baby’s forehead. The little girl stirs at your touch, big eyes focusing on you before breaking into a gummy, sleepy smile.
“Hi, pretty girl,” you coo, voice dropping to that automatic gentle register people use with babies.
You then ended up on the floor near your table—out of the main traffic but still visible enough that a few guests smiled indulgently as they passed. You sit cross-legged in your dress, the silk pooling around you like spilled rosewater, and Yeonjun lowers the toddler carefully into your lap.
The little girl immediately latches onto your necklace, small fingers exploring the delicate chain with intense fascination.
Yeonjun drops down behind you, knees bracketing your hips as he settles in close. His arms come around your shoulders loosely, chin hooking over your collarbone so he can see the baby’s face too.
Together, you coo and make silly faces—you bounce the toddler gently on your knees, Yeonjun tickles her round tummy until she squeals in delight, tiny fist grabbing at his finger and refusing to let go.
For a stretch of minutes the rest of the reception fades to background noise. There’s only the soft baby giggles, the warmth of Yeonjun’s chest against your back, the way his fingers occasionally brush yours when you both reach to steady the little one.
The toddler’s energy slowly lowered as her eyelids grew heavy, head lolling against your shoulder before finally tipping sideways to rest against Yeonjun’s arm. Within moments she’s out, tiny mouth parted in sleep, lashes dark against flushed cheeks.
Yeonjun exhales a quiet laugh through his nose. “Mission accomplished.”
You tilt your head back just enough to meet his eyes. “You’re disgustingly good with kids, you know that?”
He shrugs one shoulder, careful not to jostle the sleeping baby. “I like kids even though I grew up without siblings. And maybe I’ve been thinking about it more lately.”
The words hung between you as your heart gives a small, unsteady thud but you don’t reply right away. Instead, you reach up and brush your fingertips along his cheek with a smile in silent acknowledgment.
Eventually Yeonjun stands, cradling the toddler with the same steady care, and carries her back across the room to where her father had just returned, looking grateful.
The man mouths a thousand thank-yous as he takes his daughter, pressing a quick kiss to the sleeping forehead before disappearing toward the exit with the rest of the staff.
When Yeonjun came back, the energy in the ballroom had shifted again. The lights had dimmed a fraction more, the DJ playing slower songs now, signaling the night was winding down. Guests began drifting toward the coat check, hugs and promises to meet again exchanged in clusters.
The night has softened into that quiet, reluctant winding-down where the energy of celebration finally gives way to yawns hidden behind polite smiles and the slow shuffle toward coat check and valet.
The ballroom lights have dimmed to a gentle amber, most of the tables cleared, leaving only scattered petals and forgotten champagne flutes catching the last glow. Outside, the February air bites sharper, but the group lingers at the entrance, reluctant to let the magic end.
Jisoo and his bride stand near the wide glass doors, wrapped in each other’s arms, still radiating the soft, dazed happiness of people who’ve just married the love of their life. TXT and you approach in a loose cluster, hugs and back-pats exchanged like currency earned over years.
Soobin goes first—tall, steady, pressing a careful hug to the bride and a firm handshake-turned-hug to Jisoo. “Hyung, seriously… Thank you for everything. We’re so happy for you.”
Taehyun follows, quieter but no less sincere, murmuring congratulations that make Jisoo’s eyes shine again. Kai practically launches himself at both of them, earning a laugh and a ruffle of his hair. Beomgyu is next, dramatic as always—bowing theatrically before pulling Jisoo into a bear hug that lifts the older man an inch off the ground.
And then Yeonjun.
Jisoo catches him before he can even open his mouth, one arm slung around his shoulders, the other hand gripping the back of his neck like he’s still sixteen and nervous for his first evaluation.
“You,” Jisoo says, voice low but carrying that familiar teasing edge, “better not make me wait another decade to see you in a tux like this again. I told you earlier that I’ve got the perfect suit picked out already—it matches your eyes when you’re being all lovesick.”
Yeonjun groans, ducking his head, but the blush is helpless and bright under the outdoor lights. “Hyung, come on—”
Jisoo only laughs, pulling him into a real hug this time, the kind that says more than words ever could. “I’m proud of you, kid. Always have been. Now go—don’t keep her waiting.”
He releases Yeonjun with a gentle shove toward you, bouquet still cradled in one of your arms, his jacket draped over your shoulders.
You step forward last. First the bride, giving her a warm, genuine hug as she whispered, “thank you for coming, it meant so much.” Then moved to Jisoo who immediately hugs you like family.
“You’ve been part of this circus since before it even had a name,” he says softly. “Don’t ever think you’re just Beomgyu’s friend. You’re ours too. And of course the girlfriend of that guy over there”
Your eyes shimmer as you nod with a laugh, throat too tight for words, and squeeze him once more before stepping back.
The members surround you then, a quick round of goodnights. Taehyun and Kai press quick kisses on your cheek, Soobin gives you a gentle side-hug. And Beomgyu—Beomgyu lingers.
He wraps both arms around you, chin resting on top of your head for a long moment, the way only childhood best friends can without it feeling strange. When he finally pulls back just enough, his voice drops to a whisper only you can hear.
“Take care, okay? Well, I know you’ll be alright since you’ll be with Yeonjun.” You nod against his shoulder before he leans back, eyes narrowing playfully as he flicks his gaze to Yeonjun who was pretending to check his phone but clearly watching every second.
Beomgyu points two fingers at his own eyes, then jabs them toward Yeonjun in the universal I’m watching you gesture.
“Don’t do anything stupid, Choi.”
Yeonjun rolls his eyes, but the corner of his mouth twitches upward. “Wouldn’t dream of it, Gyu.”
Beomgyu snorts, gives you one last squeeze before finally letting you go.
You part ways in the valet line—TXT piles into their designated van with promises to spam the group chat tomorrow, while you slide into the passenger seat of Yeonjun’s car. The engine purrs to life, and for a few minutes there’s only the soft hum of the heater and the distant city noise muffled by tinted windows.
You stare down at the bouquet in your lap, fingertips brushing the bruised petals.
“I still can’t believe Jisoo-nim invited me,” you murmur, almost to yourself. “I mean… it’s his wedding. I thought maybe I’d just get a text the next day or something.”
Yeonjun glances over from the driver’s seat, one hand on the wheel, the other reaching across the console without hesitation. He finds your free hand, threads your fingers together, and lifts it to his lips, pressing a slow, deliberate kiss to your knuckles.
“Of course he invited you,” he says quietly. “You’ve been there since before any of this was real. Back when you’d sneak into the practice room after school just to bring Gyu ramyeon and watch us butcher choreography. Before you even became an idol yourself, you were already part of it.”
You laugh under your breath, soft and a little watery. “If we weren’t dating, he probably still would’ve invited me. Just because I’m Beomgyu’s best friend.”
“Exactly.” Yeonjun’s thumb traces lazy circles over the back of your hand. “But we are dating. So it’s both.”
A comfortable quiet settles again, broken only by the occasional tick of the turn signal as he navigates the late-night streets. You lift the bouquet slightly, tilting it toward him.
“Do you… actually believe in stuff like this? The bouquet, the corsage, the whole ‘next wedding’ thing?”
He exhales through his nose, thoughtful. “Honestly? Not really. Never did. Thought it was just a cute superstition—something aunties say to make single people blush.” He pauses at a red light, turns to look at you fully, the glow from the light paints a soft red hue across your cheekbones.
“But now?” His voice drops, honest in a way that makes your breath catch. “When it’s about us? Yeah. I believe it.”
Your lips part in a surprised little laugh. He keeps going, words tumbling out like he’d been holding them all night.
“Think about it. Anyone could’ve caught that bouquet. Some random cousin, one of the staff-noonas, hell, even Kai if he’d jumped high enough. Same with the corsage. But it was us. Both of us. At the same damn time.”
He shakes his head, almost disbelieving. “And if Beomgyu had caught this stupid thing instead of me?” He taps the corsage still tucked in his pocket. “He’d never shut up about it. ‘Hyung, looks like I’m marrying her first—sorry!’ I’d have been so jealous I’d probably combust.”
You burst out laughing, head tipping back against the seat. “You would’ve sulked for weeks.”
“Months,” he corrects without missing a beat. “But we both caught them. So yeah—it means something. Fate, tradition, whatever you want to call it. I’m not letting anyone else rewrite that part.”
You turn toward him, eyes bright with mischief now. The light turns green; he eases forward, but your gaze stays locked on his profile.
“So…” you drawl, voice lilting with teasing sweetness, “you’re saying you want to marry me, huh?”
Yeonjun’s grip on the wheel tightens for a split second. Then he laughs—low, warm, caught but he doesn’t deny it. Instead, he lifts your joined hands again, kisses your wrist this time, right over your pulse.
“Caught me,” he murmurs against your skin. “Guess the flowers ratted me out.”
You giggle, leaning over the console just enough to rest your forehead against his shoulder as he drives. The bouquet sat between you like a quiet promise, roses still fragrant in the warm car air.
The city lights streak past in soft blurs, the Han River a dark ribbon on your left as Yeonjun navigates the familiar route home. The car is warm now as the heater continued to hum low. You shift closer during a red light, forehead resting against the edge of his shoulder, eyes half-closed in that soft, post-adrenaline haze that always follows big nights.
Yeonjun glances down at you for a second as he leans a fraction closer so you could be somewhat comfortable, eyes flicking back to the road almost immediately. His free hand moves without thought, fingers slide gently on your cheeks towards your hair, caressing slow circles against your scalp, thumb brushing the shell of your ear. The motion is automatic, practiced, the kind of touch that has become language between you long before words ever caught up.
“You tired, baby?” His voice comes out softer than he means, rough around the edges from laughing and singing along to old ballads all night.
You nod against him, the smallest movement, cheek brushing the fabric of his shirt. A contented little hum vibrates through you. He presses his lips to the crown of your head briefly, breathing you in for a heartbeat before straightening again.
His hand never stops moving, petting gently down the length of your hair, then back up, grounding you both. “Hang on a little bit longer, we’re almost home,” he murmurs.
Then, quieter, like the words are too big for the small space but he has to say them anyway.
“I love you. You know that right?”
You smile against his shoulder, eyes still closed as he continues to speak.
“I can’t wait for the day it’s going to be me in a tux and you in a wedding dress, walking towards me instead of catching someone else’s bouquet.”
Your giggle bubbles up immediately, bright and sleepy. You lift your head just enough to look at him, eyes sparkling under the passing streetlights.
“You don’t know what the future holds, Choi Yeonjun.”
But even as you tease, you turn your face into his hand—the one still stroking your hair—and press a slow, lingering kiss to the inside of his wrist, right over the faint blue veins. Then you sit up properly, settling back into the passenger seat with a dramatic little sigh, as if reclaiming your composure.
His hand follows without hesitation. Fingers seek yours across the console, lacing them together like they’ve never been apart. Palm to palm, thumb brushing over your knuckles in the same steady rhythm he used on your hair.
“Three years,” he says after a beat, eyes still on the road but voice thick with something fond and certain. “We’ve been dating almost three years. And I’ve been pining for you since… what, a decade ago? Give or take. I know what I want, baby. I’ve known for a long time.”
He squeezes your hand once, gently. “And it’s not just me being dramatic. Our families keep bringing it up every time we go to each other’s gatherings. Mom asks when she’s getting a daughter-in-law. Your dad corners me about ‘marrying his only daughter’. The future’s basically sealed at this point.”
You laugh again—head tipping back against the seat this time, the sound bright and unguarded in the quiet car.
“I never knew you’d liked me that long,” you say, turning to study his profile. “A decade?”
Yeonjun raises an eyebrow, glancing at you sidelong. “Mm. Is that really surprising? When did you start liking me, then?”
You pretend to think, tapping your chin with your free hand. “Probably… six years ago? Around the time we filmed that year-end special and you kept finding excuses to stand next to me during breaks.”
He gasps an actual, theatrical gasp, eyes widening as he stares at the windshield like it has personally betrayed him. “Six years? Why the hell did we only start dating three years ago then?”
You burst out laughing, shoulders shaking so hard your joined hands jostle. “Because we’re idols, you idiot.”
Yeonjun blinks. Once. Twice. Then he lets out a long, dramatic exhale, slumping back in the driver’s seat as if the realization has just hit him like a truck.
“Oh. Right.”
He drags a hand down his face, laughing under his breath. “I forgot that part. Completely slipped my mind.”
You nudge his arm with your elbow, still giggling. “You act like we could’ve just dated in the practice room between schedules when we were still new to the industry. As if you could have gone, ‘Hey, wanna be my girlfriend? Cool, let’s go tell the company right now.’”
“I would’ve,” he mutters, half-serious. “Still would.”
You laugh and roll your eyes as the car slows, tuning into the underground parking of Yeonjun’s apartment building. Lights flicker overhead, painting everything in pale white. He pulls into his spot, engine cutting to silence, but neither of you moves right away.
Yeonjun turns toward you fully, elbow resting on the center console, fingers still tangled with yours.
“Six years for you. Ten for me.” He shakes his head, smiling in that soft, helpless way that always makes your heart stutter. “We’re really bad at this timing thing.”
You lean in, resting your forehead against his again—this time deliberate, noses brushing. “Maybe. But we got here eventually.”
“Yeah.” His thumb traces the ring finger of your left hand, slow and thoughtful. “And I’m not letting the timing slip again.”
You kiss him then—soft, unhurried, tasting like champagne and promises. When you pull back, your eyes are bright, teasing gone soft around the edges.
“Come on, future husband,” you whisper, reaching for the bouquet with your free hand. “Let’s go inside before Beomgyu texts me asking if you’ve proposed in the parking lot yet.”
Yeonjun laughs, low and warm, and finally opens his door.“I can do that,” he says as he rounds the car to open yours. “I’ll get down on one knee right now” he says and you laugh, smacking him lightly with the bouquet you were holding making him chuckle.
The elevator doors slide open with a soft chime, spilling you into the hushed hallway of the apartment building, Yeonjun’s arm already around your waist as you walk—more carrying than guiding. Your feet padded quietly against the cool marble while his jacket still hung loose on your shoulders.
Inside, his apartment welcomes you with familiar dimness: floor lamps left on low, the faint glow from the city skyline filtering through half-drawn blinds. Yeonjun kicks the door shut behind you, toeing off his shoes without letting go of you. You sway the moment you reach the living room, a tiny, sleepy lurch forward that has you grabbing his sleeve for balance.
Yeonjun laughs fondly, the sound rumbling against your temple. “Falling asleep on your feet already?” He steadies you with both hands on your hips, turning you gently toward the wide sectional couch. “Come here, baby.”
You let him guide you down onto the cushions, bouquet set carefully on the coffee table like a fragile centerpiece. Yeonjun drops beside you, long legs stretching out, one arm slung along the back of the couch so you can curl into his side.
You do exactly that, gently placing your head on his chest, legs tucked under you. For a minute there’s only quiet—His heartbeat steady under your ear, the distant hum of traffic twenty floors below, your slow exhales evening out.
Then you shift as you fish your phone from the pocket of his jacket, thumb unlocking the screen with practiced ease. A soft laugh escapes you almost immediately.
“Look at this,” you murmur, tilting the phone so he can see. “The fans already found the video from earlier.”
Yeonjun leans in, chin resting on your shoulder. The clip is grainy but unmistakable, taken from one of the side tables during the reception. Both of you were sitting on the floor, cradling the toddler Yeonjun brought over earlier on your lap.
You coo at the screen, eyes softening. “God, she was so cute. Look at those cheeks.”
Yeonjun’s smirk is instant, wicked. He slides one hand down your back, fingers finding the delicate zipper at the nape of your dress and tugging it down an inch—just enough to tease.
“Yeah?” His voice drops, playful heat threading through it. “You want one? We can work on it right now. You can just stay put like this… let me do all the work.”
“Yeonjun!” You exclaim as you burst out laughing, twisting to punch his arm playfully.
He catches your wrist, kisses the inside of it, grinning against your skin. “What? Aside from the marriage, our parents also keep dropping hints about grandchildren every family dinner. Might as well give them what they want.”
You roll your eyes, but the smile stays. “You say that now. Wait ‘til there’s a tiny human running around your apartment at 5 a.m. while you’re trying to sleep off a twelve-hour schedule.”
He sighs dramatically, flopping back against the cushions and pulling you down with him until you’re half-sprawled across his chest. Arms wrapping around you fully, he presses a series of slow kisses along your hairline, mumbling against your scalp.
“Fine. I’ll settle for my current baby instead.”
You snort, burying your face in his neck to hide how wide your smile has gotten. “You’re so corny.”
He hums, not even caring about the complaint you just said as his fingers traced idle patterns on your spine.
“But seriously… we can’t get married yet. Can’t have a baby yet. All because we’re always so busy with schedules, practices, all that.” He sighs, “Can’t we at least live together here? Just you and me in this place?”
You lift your head, eyebrows raised. “You barely even live here, Yeonjun-ah. You’re always at the dorm with the boys. I’m at my group’s dorm more nights than not.”
He groans, long and theatrical, tipping his head back against the couch. “I know, I know. I bought this apartment because I wanted my own space. Privacy. A place to breathe. And then… I never did. Because coming home to the chaos of the dorm felt more like home than coming home to silence.”
Your expression softens. You reach up, brushing his bangs off his forehead. “We do stay here sometimes. On breaks. Late nights after schedules. Those weekends when we steal a few hours.”
“Not enough,” he whines, voice pitching into that rare, vulnerable register he only uses with you. “I want to always stay here. Come home to you. Wake up to you hogging all the blankets. Fight over who gets the good side of the couch. I want that. Every day.”
You nuzzle closer, cheek pressed to his collarbone. “Soon, baby.”
The pet name hits him like warm honey—he melts instantly, arms tightening around you, a soft exhale escaping against your hair.You keep going, voice muffled against his shirt.
“Maybe we can ask when we renew contracts. TXT’s up next week, right?” you suggest.
His eyes light up, sparkling even in the low light. “Yeah. Next week.”
You laugh quietly. “But I still have two years before my renewal. You’d have to wait.”
Yeonjun’s face falls into an exaggerated pout, complete with a dramatic groan. He buries his nose in your hair, whining. “Two years is forever.”
You turn your head, pressing a kiss to whatever part of him you can reach—his jaw, the corner of his mouth. “Why are you so adamant about married life today, anyway?”
He goes still for a second, then sighs—honest, unguarded.
“Because I saw Jisoo-hyung tonight. Standing there, looking at his bride like she hung every star in Seoul. They’re happy. Really happy. And we’re older now—twenty-six, twenty-four. Not kids anymore. I want that too. I want us to have that.”
You shift so you can look at him properly, hands framing his face. “We’re still idols, though.”
“I know.” He leans into your touch, eyes searching yours. “And I still want to be one. I love the stage. The music. The boys. All of it. But I also want to come home to you. I want mornings that aren’t dictated by call times. I want… more. With you.”
You smile and cup his face gently like he’s the one who needs soothing.
“I’ll still be here. Even if we don’t get married tomorrow. Even if we don’t live together yet. Even if kids are years away. I’m not going anywhere.” Your thumb brushes his cheekbone. “At least we never had to worry about hiding because you literally announced we were dating the second it was official. No vague tweets, no denials. You just… said it. On Weverse. In front of everyone.”
Yeonjun huffs a laugh, remembering. “Yeah. ‘Hey MOA, Y/n and I are together. Please be kind to her.’ Short and sweet.”
“Very you,” you tease.
He catches your hand, kisses your palm. “I meant it. Still do. I just… tonight made me greedy. I want the rest of it too.”
You curl back into him, head on his chest again, listening to the steady thump of his heart. “We’ll get there, one stolen night here at a time. We’ve already waited this long. What’s a little more?”
He wraps both arms around you fully, chin resting on top of your head. “As long as it’s with you? I’ll wait forever.”
“You’re being corny again” You laugh.
“I know,” he says, kissing your head. “You love it though”
The apartment then settles into that deep, late-night stillness. Your breathing slows against Yeonjun’s chest, body growing heavier, limbs loosening in the way that means sleep is winning.
His fingers moved through your hair with slow, rhythmic strokes from crown to nape, then back up, twisting gentle curls around his index finger before letting them slip free again.
You sigh once, a tiny contented sound, and nuzzle closer, nose pressing into the hollow of his throat. Yeonjun smiles into the dark, lips brushing your temple.
“We should change,” he murmurs, voice barely above a whisper. “Sleep in the bedroom properly, yeah?”
You make a soft, sleepy hum as your fingers curl loosely into the front of his shirt like you’re anchoring yourself there.
He chuckles under his breath, the sound warm and low. “Okay, baby. I’ve got you. You don’t have to move.”
Without another word he shifts, sliding one arm under your knees and the other around your back. He lifts you in one smooth motion, cradling you against his chest like you weigh nothing.
You stir faintly, a small whine escaping as your head lolls against his shoulder.
“Shh,” he soothes instantly, lips grazing your forehead. “I’ve got you. Just stay like this.”
He carries you down the short hallway, bare feet silent on the hardwood. The bedroom door is already ajar as he nudges it open with his hip. Moonlight spills through the tall windows, silvering the white sheets and the faint outline of the bed you’ve made together last time you stole a night here.
He lowers you slowly, reverently, easing you onto the mattress so your head settles against the pillow. You sigh again, lashes fluttering but not quite opening, body instinctively curling toward the cool sheets.
Yeonjun kneels beside the bed for a second, brushing a stray strand from your cheek. “Gonna change you now, okay? Just relax.”
He moves with practiced gentleness—first slipping his jacket off your shoulders, then finding the half-undone zipper at the back of your dress. The silk smoothly slides as he eases it down, careful not to tug too hard. He peels the fabric away inch by inch, folding it over the foot of the bed like it’s something sacred. Underneath you wore simple lace-trimmed underwear.
He doesn’t linger, doesn’t tease—just reaches for one of his shirts from the drawer and threads your arms through the sleeves, guiding your limp hands, then tugs the hem down over your hips. The shirt swallows you the way his jacket had earlier, sleeves pooling past your elbows.
You hum again, pleased even in sleep, and burrow deeper into the pillow.
Next comes the makeup. He grabs the small pack of micellar water wipes he keeps on the nightstand specifically for nights like this, and kneels closer. One hand cups your jaw, thumb stroking your cheekbone.
“So beautiful,” he whispers, pressing the lightest kiss to your closed eyelid. “My pretty girl.”
He begins to wipe gently—first your eyes, careful around the delicate skin, then your cheeks, your lips—each pass slow and tender. Between strokes he kisses you: the bridge of your nose, the corner of your mouth, the faint freckle just under your left eye. Every touch accompanied by soft murmurs.
“You did so good tonight… danced, laughed, caught that bouquet like it was meant for you… I’m so lucky, you know that? So damn lucky.”
You don’t wake, but your lips curve into the tiniest smile, like some part of you hears him anyway. When your face is clean—skin soft and bare, lashes dark against pale cheeks—he leans down one more time, kissing you properly now: slow, lingering, barely a press of lips but full of everything he couldn’t say louder.
“Sleep, baby. I’m right here.”
Only then does he stand. He strips quickly out of his suit jacket, shirt, and trousers as he folded them over the chair, leaving him in just his boxers. A quick pass with a makeup wipe for himself, scrubbing away the remnants of lip stain and foundation until his face feels fresh again.
He doesn’t bother with a shirt as the room is warm enough, and he likes the way your body heat feels against his skin when you tangle together. He slid under the covers, pulling the duvet up over both of you.
You shift instinctively toward him, seeking warmth even in sleep. He gathers you close—your back to his chest. He draped one arm over your waist, hand splayed protectively over your stomach, the other tucked under your head like a pillow as his nose found the crook of your neck. He inhales the faint rose scent still clinging to your hair, mixed now with the clean smell of his own shampoo from the shirt.
“Love you, baby,” he whispers into your skin, so quiet it’s almost just breath.
You sigh in your sleep, fingers finding his wrist and holding on. Yeonjun presses one last kiss to the nape of your neck, then lets his eyes close.
The city lights keep flickering outside, the world keeps turning.
★ synopsis
yeonjun always drives with one hand—casual, confident, like the road belongs to him. but tonight, when jealousy burns hot after a late-night pickup and the passenger seat turns into something far more dangerous, that single hand on the wheel becomes his last thread of control.
★ pairing: jealous boyfriend!yeonjun x fem!reader
★ genre: smut (18+ mdni!) with a tiny bit of plot, established relationship
★ status | word count: completed | 4.2k
★ song reco: jealous - nick jonas
★ ao3: red lights
note: it seems a lot really liked the first yj post i did with this genre so i tried it out again using a different pov! thanks to everyone who read it and left hearts <33
this one is inspired by all the yeonjun driving clips ive seen especially that one vlog where he was driving using one hand with taehyun as his passenger princess lmao
enjoy <3
The building's underground parking lot was dim and quiet when Yeonjun pulled up, engine idling low.
You slid into the passenger seat still carrying the faint scent of stage makeup and hairspray, hoodie zipped halfway, legs already restless from too many hours of schedules.
He didn’t say anything at first—just reached over, buckled your seatbelt for you with that automatic tenderness he never quite shook, even when he was pissed. The silence stretched until you were out on the main road, city lights sliding across the blacked-out windows.
Then, Yeonjun spoke, voice tight, knuckles white on the steering wheel. “He knows you’re mine. Everyone fucking knows.” His jaw ticked. “The whole industry knows and yet he still stands there batting his lashes, calling you ‘baby girl’ like it’s a joke we’re all in on. Like I’m not the one who takes you home every night.”
You exhaled through your nose, staring at the passing taillights. “Chan's like that with literally everyone, Jun. You’ve seen him do it to half the female trainees, the makeup noonas, even Felix when he’s feeling extra dramatic. It’s just... Chan.”
Yeonjun’s laugh was short and bitter. “Yeah? He doesn’t look at them the way he looks at you.” He flicked the turn signal harder than necessary. “Doesn’t lean in that close. Doesn’t drop his voice like he’s telling you a secret meant only for your ears.”
You didn’t argue. Instead you reached over, caught his right hand where it rested on the gear shift, and lifted it to your mouth. The first slow drag of your tongue along the length of his middle finger made his breath hitch audibly. You sealed your lips around the tip, sucked lightly, then kissed the center of his palm—open-mouthed, taking all the time in the world.
His fingers twitched against your tongue. “Baby—”
You didn’t let him finish.
You guided his hand down, under the hem of your hoodie, over the soft cotton of your shirt until his palm cupped the swell of your breast. You pressed him there, letting him feel the stiff peak already pushing against the fabric. Then you dragged lower. Past the elastic of your sweatpants, under the damp lace of your panties. When his fingertips brushed bare, slick folds, he froze.
“Fuck,” he breathed, so low it was almost lost under the hum of the engine.
You tilted your hips, dragging yourself along his curled fingers. “Only you do this to me,” you whispered, voice husky. “Just listening to you get all possessive and jealous... that’s enough.”
Yeonjun’s gaze darted between the road and your lap. “I’m driving.”
“You always drive one-handed anyway.” You curled your fingers around his wrist and rocked forward, coating his hand in the evidence of how much his rant had affected you. “See?”
A car honked somewhere behind you because he apparently drifted half a lane. He cursed under his breath and jerked the wheel to correct. “Jesus—baby, stop. I can’t—”
You didn’t stop.
Instead you hooked your thumbs into the waistband of your sweatpants and shoved them down your thighs, bunched just above your knees.
You spread your legs as wide as the seat would allow, one foot braced on the edge of the dashboard, the other pressing against the center console—opening yourself completely to the dim glow filtering through the tinted glass.
The rich, distinct scent of your arousal immediately filled the car as Yeonjun inhaled sharply through his nose, nostrils flaring as his chest rose hard, making his pupils dilate further even as he kept his eyes glued to the dark stretch of road ahead.
“Fucking hell… thank god the windows are tinted,” he muttered, voice gruff and strained. “One wrong glance from the next car over and they’d see exactly how soaked you are for me right now.”
You moaned—soft, needy, the sound slipping out like liquid heat—when you finally guided his slack hand back in between your thighs.
You hooked his fingers on the damp lace of your panties before you pushed it to the side, the fabric catching briefly on your swollen folds before sliding away with a faint, wet drag. The moment his warm palm met bare skin again, you ground down hard against his knuckles.
The friction was devastating.
Rougher than your own fingers ever managed, scraping deliciously along your slick entrance, the heat of him seeping straight into your core. You could feel every ridge, every subtle flex of tendon as you rocked forward, coating his skin in a fresh, glossy layer of your arousal.
He tried to pull away once, forearm tensing under your grip.
“We’re gonna crash,” he gritted out, voice strained, almost pleading.
You clamped both hands around his wrist, nails digging into the soft skin just below his watch strap, and held him exactly where you wanted him.
Your hips rolled in slow, filthy circles—deliberate, obscene—dragging your clit along the prominent knuckle of his middle finger until sparks danced behind your closed lids.
“Then drive careful,” you breathed, the words dissolving into another low, trembling moan.
A red light flared ahead, bathing the dashboard in crimson. The car rolled to a smooth, reluctant stop.
For three long heartbeats, silence swallowed everything except the wet, rhythmic slide of your hips against his unmoving hand and the shallow rasp of his breathing.
Then, Yeonjun exhaled roughly through clenched teeth—a sound that was half curse, half surrender. He shifted in the driver’s seat, leather creaking under him, twisting his torso just enough to angle his wrist at a sharper, more devastating angle.
And finally—finally—he gave in.
Two fingers plunged inside you without warning, thick and unyielding, stretching your soaked walls in one smooth, ruthless glide.
The sudden fullness punched the air from your lungs; your back arched hard against the seatbelt, head thumping back against the headrest. He curled them immediately—deep, practiced hooks that dragged along the spongy front wall with brutal precision, fingertips pressing right against that spot that made your vision white out at the edges. His thumb found your clit at the same moment—already throbbing, slick, hypersensitive—and circled once. Hard.
Your head fell back against the seat with a choked moan. “Fuck—yes—Jun—"
He didn’t look at you.
One glance at your flushed face, your parted lips, the way your chest heaved under the shoved-up fabric, and he knew every last scrap of control would evaporate. So his eyes stayed locked on the red glow ahead, jaw clenched so hard the muscle in his cheek ticked visibly under the passing streetlights.
But his hand never faltered as he worked you ruthlessly—deep, steady pumps, thumb flicking faster every time your hips jerked.
You shoved your hoodie and shirt up in one frantic motion, exposing your breasts to the cool blast of the AC vents. The sudden chill pebbled your nipples instantly; they ached, stiff and begging. Your own hands flew to them—cupping the soft weight first, then pinching the peaks between thumb and forefinger, rolling them hard.
Sharp pleasure-pain shot straight to your core as your walls clenched violently around his invading fingers, vibrating in frantic little pulses that dragged a low, jarring groan from deep in Yeonjun’s chest. He stole the quickest glance—barely a second—eyes so dark the pupils had swallowed the irises entirely.
“Goddamn it,” he rasped, voice gravel-rough and fraying. “Look at you. Tits out, pinching yourself like that while I finger-fuck you in the middle of traffic. Can’t even wait till we get home, can you? So fucking desperate for it.”
The light turned green but he didn’t take his hand away.
He drove one-handed through the intersection, left palm steady on the wheel, right wrist angled awkwardly but never stopping. Every subtle shift of the steering—every small correction—ground the heel of his hand harder against your swollen clit.
Your moans turned breathy, ragged—high little keens that fogged the passenger window in uneven bursts. The car rocked faintly with the rhythm of your hips grinding down onto his hand; the seatbelt dug into your shoulder, a thin line of restraint against the chaos building low in your belly.
“Faster,” you begged, voice cracking. “Jun—please—harder—”
He swore again, thick and wrecked, and sped up—brutal now, wet sounds loud enough to drown out the low purr of the engine. Your thighs trembled, stomach clenching, breath coming in short, desperate pants.
When you came, it hit hard and sudden—back arching off the leather, a broken cry tearing out of your throat as you pulsed around his fingers, slick coating his palm, dripping down the inside of your thigh, through your uselessly soaked panties and onto the seat.
He kept moving through it, drawing it out until you were whimpering, oversensitive, thighs shaking. Only when your hand weakly pushed at his wrist did he finally ease out, fingers glistening.
You didn’t give him time to recover.
Still panting, chest heaving, skin fever-hot and slick with sweat—you flicked the seatbelt buckle open with a soft metallic click. You climbed over the center console in one clumsy, desperate scramble, knees digging into the edge of the passenger seat for leverage, thighs straddling his right leg. Your panties, soaked from your orgasm brushed the rough cotton of his sweatpants and left a dark, wet smear across his thigh.
“Baby—what the—”
You didn’t answer and just yanked at the drawstring of his sweatpants, tugged the waistband down enough to free him. He was already hard—painfully so—tip flushed dark and leaking. Your fingers wrapped around him, slick from your own release, and stroked once from base to tip.
Yeonjun’s head thudded back against the headrest. “Fuck—fuck—fuck—”
His voice cracked, half-warning, half-plea. The car gave the tiniest swerve; he corrected it instantly, jaw clenched so hard you could see the muscle jump under his skin.
You ignored him.
Fingers found the drawstring of his sweatpants, yanked it loose with a sharp tug. The elastic gave way easily; you shoved the waistband down just far enough. His cock sprang free—thick, flushed an angry dark pink at the head, already glistening with precum that beaded at the slit and slid slowly down the underside in a lazy, shining trail.
Your hand—still slick and warm from where you’d come all over his fingers—wrapped around him. Base to tip in one long, slow drag. Your palm glided over velvet skin stretched tight, veins pulsing under your grip. You twisted lightly at the head, thumb swiping through the slickness there, spreading it until every stroke made a soft, wet schlick sound that was louder than the tires on asphalt.
Yeonjun’s head thudded back against the headrest with a dull thump. A string of broken curses spilled from his lips.
“Fuck—shit—fuck—” each one rougher, more ragged than the last. His hips jerked up into your fist on instinct; the car lurched forward half a meter before he stamped the accelerator to steady it again.
You leaned in close, breasts brushing his chest through your thin hoodie, nipples hard and aching against the fabric. Your lips grazed the shell of his ear—hot breath fanning over the sensitive skin there.
“Keep driving,” you whispered, voice low and wrecked, lips catching on the tiny silver hoop in his lobe. “Don’t stop.”
He sucked in a sharp breath as you pumped him teasingly slow at first—then faster, matching the rhythm he’d used on you moments earlier. Every time he hissed or cursed you squeezed a little tighter, thumb swiping over the slit to spread the bead of precum there. A car passed on the left; Yeonjun’s grip on the wheel turned brutal.
“You're gonna make me wreck us,” he growled, but he didn’t push your hand away.
You smiled against his neck, teeth grazing skin. “Then pull over.”
He didn’t.
Not yet.
The city lights blurred past in streaks of red and gold, but Yeonjun’s focus had long since fractured and by the next red light—he used both hands as one tangled in your hair, yanking your mouth to his in a messy, desperate kiss while the other cupped your face roughly.
You kept stroking him through it—harder, faster—until his hips were stuttering, breath ragged against your lips, curses muffled against your tongue until you pulled back slowly, lips glistening and swollen as a thin, glistening thread of saliva stretched between your mouths before it snapped the moment the light turned green, Yeonjun panting as one of his hands returned to the wheel.
You continued to jerk him off with the same filthy rhythm he’d used to wreck you minutes earlier. Every upward stroke dragged a low hiss from between his teeth; every twist at the head made his hips jerk involuntarily against the seat. He was leaking steadily now, your palm gliding through it, making obscene wet sounds that mixed with the low growl of the engine.
“Baby—shit—slow the fuck down,” he rasped, voice splintering, barely audible over the blood pounding in your ears.
The plea was useless. You only squeezed harder at the base—firm, possessive—then dragged your thumb in slow, deliberate circles over the slit, spreading the glossy bead of precum until your entire palm glistened and slid with obscene ease.
Then, you shifted.
You leaned down, hair spilling over his thigh, breath hot against the sensitive skin just below the head. One teasing flick of your tongue—flat, slow, dragging from just below the ridge all the way up to collect that bead. The taste burst sharp and bitter-salty across your tastebuds; you hummed low in your throat at the flavor of him, letting the vibration rumble straight down his length.
Yeonjun’s entire body locked.
“Fuck—baby, don’t—” His voice cracked, frayed at the edges, barely louder than the blood roaring in your ears. “I’m still driving—fuck—don’t you dare—”
Too late.
You took him into your mouth in one slow, intentional slide. The heat, the wet suction, the way your tongue flattened along the underside and curled—it shattered whatever thread of restraint he’d been clinging to.
A throaty curse tore out of him, raw and broken as his free hand shot to the back of your head, gripping hard enough that you felt every tremor in his fingers.
“That’s it,” he rasped, voice wrecked. “That’s fucking it—I can’t—I can’t drive like this.”
The car swerved slightly as he jerked the wheel toward the shoulder of the road but you didn't stop. Your mouth stayed locked around him, cheeks hollowed, tongue pressing flat along the throbbing underside while you sucked harder, wetter, sloppier. Spit dripped down his shaft in warm rivulets, pooling at the base, soaking into the dark fabric bunched around his hips.
Tires bit gravel, the vehicle lurched once before he slammed on the brakes and killed the engine in one rough motion. The sudden silence was deafening—only your wet, sloppy sounds and his ragged breathing filling the dark interior.
He was shaking.
“Fuck, I tried,” he growled, fingers tightening in your hair until your scalp burned with sweet, stinging pleasure, tiny sparks dancing behind your eyelids. “I tried so fucking hard to be the responsible one tonight. Keep it together. Get us home. But you—” His voice cracked on a bitter, breathless laugh. “You just had to keep going, didn’t you? Had to push and push until I fucking snapped.”
He didn’t give you time to answer. Didn’t even give you the chance to pull off him completely.
Strong, calloused hands roughened from endless hours of training slid under your arms. He hauled you up in one brutal motion, forcibly dragging your mouth off his cock with a wet, obscene pop. A thick string of saliva and precum stretched between your swollen lips and the glistening head before it snapped, landing in a warm, sticky line across your chin.
You barely had time to gasp before he was dragging you fully into his lap, knees straddling his hips, chest pressed flush to his. Your sweatpants were already halfway down your calves but he didn’t bother pulling them off all the way. His hands went straight for the waistband of your ruined panties—black lace, once delicate, now dark and sodden, plastered obscenely to your swollen folds like a second skin.
He hooked two fingers under the front panel and paused—just long enough for you to feel the heat of his knuckles brushing your mound, the faint tremor in his grip.
Then he yanked upward.
Hard.
So hard that the thin strip of fabric dug into your slit like a cruel harness, the lace sawing roughly against your oversensitive clit. The sudden, sharp pressure made your hips jerk forward on instinct, a broken moan ripping from your throat as your nails dug into his shoulders.
Yeonjun’s eyes were black, pupils blown wide, watching every twitch of your face like he was memorizing it. “Yeah?” he muttered, voice low and dangerous. “You like that, huh? Like it when I make it hurt just a little?”
He tugged again—slower this time, deliberate—dragging the soaked lace up and down your slit in tight, punishing little pulls. Each upward yank rubbed the rough texture directly over your clit, forcing fresh slick to leak out and darken the fabric even more.
Your thighs trembled violently around his hips; your breath came in short, desperate pants. “Jun—please—”
“Please what, baby?” He twisted his wrist, making the lace bite deeper into your folds.
You couldn’t answer—could only whimper and rock forward, chasing the brutal friction.
He gave one last, vicious yank—hard enough that you felt the seams strain and then give with a soft, final rip. The panties tore away completely, leaving angry red marks etched across the crease of your thighs and the tender, swollen skin just above your clit.
Cool air hit your dripping cunt for half a second before his hand claimed it.
Two fingers spread you open roughly, exposing every slick, sensitive inch. Then without mercy, Yeonjun’s thumb and forefinger found your clit, already throbbing and engorged from the earlier torment. He pinched it firmly between them and squeezed.
Not a gentle roll. Not a teasing flick.
A hard, possessive squeeze that sent a white-hot jolt shooting straight up your spine. Your whole body seized as a strangled cry tore from your throat, hips bucking violently forward, trying to escape and chase the overwhelming sensation at the same time. Fresh slick gushed out around his fingers, coating his hand, dripping onto his lap.
“Fuck—listen to you,” he growled low, voice thick with dark satisfaction. “So sensitive already. Just from me squeezing this little clit like it belongs to me.”
He held the pressure for another heartbeat—long enough that your thighs trembled uncontrollably, walls clenching around nothing—before he finally released it with a slow, deliberate drag of his fingertips, letting the blood rush back in a dizzying pulse.
You were shaking, gasping, barely able to hold yourself up, forehead pressed to his shoulder as you tried to catch your breath.
Yeonjun’s lips brushed the shell of your ear, voice dropping to a rough, taunting whisper. “You wanted this, didn’t you?”
He didn’t wait for an answer—just tilted your chin up with two slick fingers so you had to meet his eyes.
“Admit it,” he murmured, thumb brushing your bottom lip, smearing your own arousal there. “All that teasing while we were on the fucking highway... sucking me off while I’m trying to drive... grinding on my hand like you couldn’t wait another second. You wanted me to lose it. Wanted me to snap and fuck you raw right here on the side of the road.”
He squeezed again—sharper this time—making your thighs quake and a broken sob escape you.
Your breath hitched, cheeks burning, but you couldn't deny it. Not when he was looking at you like that—like he already knew every filthy thought in your head.
“Say it,” he demanded, leaning in until his mouth brushed your ear, breath hot. “Tell me you wanted me to lose control like this.”
You could barely form words, but the answer spilled out anyway—shaky, desperate. “Y-yes... fuck, yes—I wanted it... Wanted you to snap. Wanted you to fuck me right here.”
His eyes flashed—satisfaction, hunger, triumph all at once.
“That’s my girl.”
He held the pinch for one final, agonizing heartbeat—long enough that your walls clenched around nothing, begging—before he released your clit with a slow, deliberate drag of his fingertips, letting the blood rush back in a dizzying, overwhelming pulse.
You were shaking, gasping, barely able to hold yourself up when he lined himself up—still slick from your mouth—and slammed in—deep, brutal, all the way to the hilt in one punishing thrust.
Your scream was muffled against his shoulder as your nails raked down the back of his neck. The stretch burned in the best way—thick, unrelenting, filling you so completely you could feel every vein, every angry twitch of him inside you.
“Fuck—still so tight,” he snarled against your throat, teeth sinking into skin hard enough to leave marks. “Even after coming all over my fingers. Greedy little thing.”
He didn’t give you time to adjust and clamped his hands around your hips—fingers digging in hard enough to bruise—and he started moving. Rough. Fast. No rhythm at first, just raw, possessive need, hips snapping up to meet yours on every brutal downward stroke, driving himself deeper until your cervix ached and you were crying out with every thrust, the car rocking violently with the force of it.
Your back hit the steering wheel once—twice—horn blaring for a split second before he yanked you forward again, crushing your chest to his so he could bury his face in your neck and bite down harder.
“Mine,” he growled against your pulse, hips pistoning relentlessly. “Say it.”
“Yours—shit—Yeonjun—”
“Louder.” he demanded.
“I'm—fuck—yours!” you practically screamed in between breaths.
He rewarded you with a particularly vicious grind, pubic bone dragging hard against your clit on every upward stroke. Your walls fluttered around him, already fluttering toward the edge again from the relentless pressure, the way he was fucking you like he needed to ruin you for anyone else.
One hand left your hip and shoved up under your hoodie, palming your breast roughly—pinching the nipple between thumb and forefinger until you arched and sobbed his name.
“Look at me,” he demanded. You forced your eyes open—tears clinging to your lashes—and met his gaze. Dark, possessive, and completely unraveled.
“Chan doesn’t get to have this,” he rasped, punctuating each word with a punishing thrust. “No one else gets this. Only me. Only fucking me.”
You shattered around him mid-sentence—walls clamping down hard, quivering wildly as your orgasm ripped through you. Your thighs locked around his hips; your cry was high and broken, echoing in the confined space but he didn’t stop. He kept thrusting you through it—harder, if anything—chasing his own release with short, erratic snaps of his hips.
“Gonna—fuck—gonna fill you up,” he warned, voice fraying at the edges. “Gonna mark you so deep you’ll feel me for days. Drip with me on every step tomorrow.”
You clenched around him on purpose—once, twice—and that was it.
Yeonjun came with a choked, guttural groan, burying himself to the hilt and pulsing hot inside you. His grip on your hips turned bruising as he ground up into you, riding out every shudder, spilling so much you could feel the excess leaking out around where he was still buried deep, streaking down your thighs and soaking into the leather beneath you.
He exhaled roughly, forehead pressed to yours, panting like he’d just run sprints. For a long minute the only sound was both of you breathing—harsh, uneven, the faint creak of the cooling engine, the quiet click of the turn signal he’d forgotten to cancel, and the thick scent of sex hanging heavy in the air.
Then Yeonjun laughed, rough and disbelieving, and dropped his head back against the seat again.
“Fucking hell, you are insane,” he muttered, voice wrecked. “Completely fucking insane.”
You smiled against his neck, still trembling, still very much full of him, walls vibrating weakly around his softening length. He huffed a low, wrecked laugh and pressed a surprisingly tender kiss to the fresh bite mark blooming on your neck.
“Next time,” he rasped against your skin, voice gravel-rough, “we’re taking the fucking van. Tinted windows all around, way more room in the back. I’m not doing this in a cramped drivers' seat on the side of the goddamn highway again."
He pressed a kiss to your temple. "Gonna spread you out properly, take my time, make you scream until your voice gives out.”
You clenched around him once more, just to feel him twitch inside you, and felt the way his breath hitched.
“Liar,” you whisper.
He groaned, low and defeated. “Right” he admitted, lips brushing your ear. “I’ll probably still fuck you anywhere you let me.”
You grinned. “Yeah,” you whispered. “You really will.”
He pulled you closer—if that was even possible—and kissed the top of your head like the possessive storm inside him had finally quieted.
★ synopsis
choi yeonjun teases his girlfriend for obsessing over his rare shirtless photocard when the real, breathing, very willing version is standing right in front of her.
★ pairing: idol!yeonjun x fem!oc
★ genre: smut (18+ mdni!) with a plot, established relationship
★ status | word count: completed | 5.6k
★ song reco: heavenly - cigarettes after sex
★ ao3: we keep this love in a photocard
note: this is a first from this genre so i hope it came out well T_T
also, just clearing it out that yoonseul is more of like a y/n placeholder rather than a whole oc! (basically yoonseul = y/n)
enjoy <3
The apartment living room was dim, lit mostly by the soft blue glow of phone screens and fairy lights strung haphazardly across the shelf.
It was well past midnight, only the low hum of the air conditioner and the occasional distant honk from the street below.
Yeonjun was sprawled across the couch in nothing but loose gray sweatpants, one leg dangling off the edge, the other bent so his bare foot rested flat against the cushion. His hair was still slightly damp from the shower, dark strands falling into his eyes as he frowned down at his phone.
Yoonseul sat cross-legged on the floor in front of him, back against the couch, wearing one of his black hoodies that swallowed her frame. She was scrolling too—faster, more purposefully—cheeks faintly flushed in the screen light. A small, indignant scoff broke the quiet.
“You can’t be serious” Yeonjun muttered, voice low and rough from exhaustion and something else. He craned his head to see her phone better and pointed at it like evidence. “You just added another photocard of me shirtless to your cart!”
Yoonseul didn’t even look up. Her thumb kept moving. “I have to compare the prices,” she said simply.
Yeonjun let his head fall back against the cushion with an exaggerated groan, long and theatrical. The sound vibrated through his chest. “I’m literally right here.”
He spread his arms out, palms up, like he was presenting himself as exhibit A. “Shirtless. Sweats hanging low. Fresh out of the shower smelling like that wood sage and sea salt scent you like. And you’re out here fawning over a piece of paper that costs eighty thousand won and probably has some stranger's thumbprint on it.”
Yoonseul finally glanced over her shoulder. Her eyes flicked down the length of his torso in a deliberately slow fashion before meeting his gaze again. A tiny smirk tugged at her mouth.
“The photocards are collectible,” she said, voice innocent. “They have that glossy finish. And the holo foil. It’s art.”
“Art,” he repeated flatly. He sat up suddenly, leaning forward so his face hovered just above hers, close enough that she could feel the warmth radiating off his skin.
“You can have the real thing anytime you want. Breathing. Warm. No plastic sleeve. No random selca version where they gave me the worst lighting on purpose.”
He reached down, caught her chin gently between his thumb and forefinger, and tilted her face up further. “You want me shirtless? Say the word. I’ll stand in the middle of this living room and do a full 360 for you. Hell, I’ll even hit the poses. Hand in hair, sultry stare, the whole fan-service package. Free shipping. No waiting for the album to drop.”
Yoonseul’s lips twitched, fighting a laugh. She raised one eyebrow. “You’d really do that?”
“In a heartbeat.”
“At three in the morning?”
“Mhm”
She studied him for a beat—his messy hair, the faint red line across his cheek from falling asleep on the couch seam earlier, the way his eyes were half-lidded and playful but also unmistakably serious underneath it all.
Then, she went back to her phone, tapped once more, and the screen lit up with another close-crop of his shirtless photocard.
“Still want the photocard,” she said, voice sweet and unbothered. Yeonjun let out a long, dramatic exhale through his nose and flopped back onto the couch like he’d been mortally wounded.
“You’re actually evil,” he muttered to the ceiling. “I’m out here offering premium, live, 4K, touchable content and you’re choosing mass-produced paper.”
Yoonseul twisted around fully this time, resting her forearms on his thighs so she could look up at him properly.
“Maybe I like the idea of having proof that you were this hot at twenty-six,” she said, quieter now, almost soft. “Something I can keep even when you’re on the other side of the world doing schedules and I’m stuck refreshing fancams at 4 a.m.”
Yeonjun’s expression faltered—just for a second—something tender and unguarded flickering across his face. He reached down, brushed a strand of hair behind her ear with surprising gentleness.
“Then keep the damn photocard,” he murmured. “But this—” he gestured between them, then tugged her hand lightly, pulling her a fraction closer “—this part’s not collectible. It’s not limited edition. It’s unlimited. 24/7. You don’t have to bid on it or fight fans for it in a group chat.”
Yoonseul’s smile finally broke free, small and real. “I know,” she whispered.
He cupped her face with both his hands before mumbling. “Then stop making me jealous of my own photocards”
Yoonseul laughed under her breath, moving her head to the side to press a quick kiss on his palm, then leaned back again—still holding her phone like a trophy.
“I think that's a you problem” she says before finally pressing the checkout button.
Yeonjun groaned louder this time, lying back on the couch as he threw an arm over his eyes while pretending to die of betrayal beside her.
The package arrived on a Thursday afternoon, casually dropped on the front door of their apartment with a dull thunk that Yeonjun heard all the way from the kitchen. He was mid-bite into a cold slice of convenience-store kimbap when the doorbell chimed—once, sharp, like it was personally judging his life choices.
Yoonseul beat him to the door by three seconds flat. She was already ripping the tape off the small brown parcel before he even made it to the doorframe, hoodie sleeves pushed up to her elbows, eyes bright with the kind of glee usually reserved for comeback stages or free dessert.
“Finally,” she breathed, peeling back the last layer of bubble wrap like she was unveiling fine art.
Yeonjun leaned against the kitchen counter, arms crossed, one eyebrow arched so high it nearly disappeared into his bangs.
“You look like you just won the lottery,” he said dryly. “It’s paper. Glossy paper. With my face on it.”
“Shhh.” She held up the thin photocard between two fingers like it was made of glass.
It was one of the photocards from his recent solo album, shadows carved sharp across his collarbones as his bare torso showed just under his red fur jacket, neck adorned with a chain necklace he pulled slightly. His head was tilted, tongue out while facing the camera with his blue-gray dyed hair styled in one of those brushed up looks he sported on his music video and the teasing edge of his waistband just out of frame.
Yoonseul let out a tiny, satisfied sigh as she plopped herself on the couch.
“Look at him,” she murmured, mostly to the card. “Look at this lighting. They actually gave you good lighting for once.”
Yeonjun pushed off the frame and sauntered over, plucking the photocard from her fingers with casual disrespect. He held it up next to his own face, tilting his head to mimic the exact angle.
“Uncanny,” he deadpanned. “The resemblance is striking. Except this version can’t talk back when you ignore him for three days straight because of schedules.”
She snatched it back immediately, cradling it against her chest. “Don’t bully my collectible.”
“Your collectible is literally standing in front of you. Alive. Warm. Currently contemplating whether jealousy is a valid emotion when the rival is yourself.”
Yoonseul finally looked up at him—really looked.
His hair was messy from running his hands through it all morning, the oversized white longsleeved shirt he was wearing slipping off one shoulder, exposing the sharp line of his collarbone that the photocard only hinted at. No makeup, no stylists, no camera-ready sheen. Just him.
She stood up and stepped closer, close enough that the toes of her socks brushed his bare feet.
“You’re prettier in person,” she said quietly, almost like a confession.
Yeonjun blinked. The teasing smirk faltered, replaced by something softer, unguarded.
“Yeah?” His voice dropped an octave without meaning to.
“Yeah.” She reached up, fingertips grazing the real collarbone, tracing the dip where shadow met skin. He caught her wrist gently, brought her palm flat against his chest so she could feel the steady thump beneath.
“Then why’d you spend actual money on the budget version?”
“I told you,” she said, lifting the photocard again so it hovered between their faces like a tiny shield, “when you’re gone for weeks doing Japan promotions or U.S. showcases or whatever cruel itinerary they give you next... I can pull this out at 2 a.m. and remember exactly how you looked when you were twenty-six and mine.”
Yeonjun exhaled through his nose, long and slow.“You’re gonna make me melt in the living room like some cliché male lead in a drama.”
“Good.” She slipped the photocard carefully into the clear sleeve of her phone case—right behind the transparent back, visible but protected. Then she wrapped both arms around his waist, pressing her cheek to his chest.
He rested his chin on top of her head, arms coming around her shoulders, tight enough that she felt the quiet laugh rumble through him.
“You’re keeping that thing in your phone case forever, aren’t you?”
“Obviously.”
“Even when we’re old and I’m complaining about my back and you’re yelling at me to stop buying nonsense shoes online?”
“Especially then.”
Yeonjun groaned, but it was fond—resigned in the best way. He pressed a kiss to her hairline, lingering. “Fine."
Yoonseul then tilted her head back, smirking up at him. “Now take off your shirt.”
He raised both brows. “What, right now?”
“You said unlimited access.” She tugged at the hem of his shirt, playful but pointed. “Prove it. The photocard can’t do this part.”
Yeonjun stared down at her for half a second—then broke into a slow, dangerous grin.
He stepped back just enough to yank the shirt over his head in one fluid motion, tossing it somewhere behind him without looking.
“Better?” he asked, voice low, teasing, but his eyes were soft. Yoonseul didn’t answer with words.
She just stepped forward again, hands sliding up his sides, and pulled him down into a kiss that tasted like the faint taste of their dinner lingering on his lips.
The kiss broke slow, reluctant, like neither of them really wanted to let the moment end. Yoonseul’s hands were still splayed across Yeonjun’s bare ribs, thumbs brushing the faint ridge of muscle that disappeared beneath the waistband of his black sweatpants. Her breathing was uneven, lips swollen and shiny, eyes half-lidded as she looked up at him.
Yeonjun’s grin was lazy, dangerous—the kind that promised trouble and delivered every time. He didn’t step back. Instead he leaned in closer, nose brushing hers, voice dropping to that low, velvet register he usually saved for late-night lives or lyrics he knew would make fans scream.
“You know...” he murmured, letting the words drag out, “the photocard stops at the waistband for a reason.”
Yoonseul’s brows lifted, playful challenge flickering in her gaze.“Oh?”
“Mhm.” One of his hands slid down her spine, slow and deliberate, until his fingers hooked loosely into the front pocket of his hoodie she was wearing. He tugged her forward another inch, bodies flush.
“They had to keep it PG. Company rules. But me?” He tilted his head, lips ghosting the shell of her ear. “I don’t have any rules right now.”
She let out a soft laugh that caught in her throat when his other hand found the drawstring of his own sweatpants and gave it a lazy tug—just enough to make the knot loosen audibly. His fingers toyed with the string, twisting it around his knuckle.
“Anything to say?”
Yoonseul’s hands slid lower, palms flat against the warm skin just above his hips, feeling the subtle flex of muscle as he shifted his weight. She tipped her chin up, meeting his eyes—dark, amused, and unmistakably hungry.
“You’re really gonna stand here and strip in the middle of the living room just to one-up a photocard?”
Yeonjun’s laugh was quiet, rough. He leaned down until their foreheads touched. “Not strip.” A beat. “Tease.” His hand dragging hers so she'd brush the edge of the waistband, dipping just beneath it—barely an inch, just enough to make her breath hitch. “Unless you say the word.”
The living room suddenly felt smaller, warmer. The distant hum of the fridge in the kitchen was the only sound besides their breathing.
Yoonseul’s fingers curled into the soft fabric at his hips, tugging experimentally. Not pulling down—just holding. Claiming. “You're diabolical, Choi Yeonjun.”
His eyes crinkled at the corners, smile turning wicked. “Baby, I don’t talk.” He leaned in, lips brushing hers without quite kissing. “I deliver.”
She pushed up onto her toes then, closing the last sliver of distance, kissing him hard enough that he made a low, surprised sound against her mouth. When she pulled back—just far enough to speak—her voice was steady despite the flush creeping down her neck.
“Then deliver,” she said, tugging the drawstring once more, deliberate. “Show me what the photocard can’t do.”
Yeonjun exhaled sharply through his nose, something between a laugh and a groan. His hands found her waist, lifting her effortlessly until her back met the nearest wall—not hard, but firm enough to pin her there.
“Careful what you ask for,” he warned, voice wrecked and fond all at once. “I might not stop at just teasing.”
Yoonseul’s arms looped around his neck, fingers threading into the damp hair at his nape.
“Good,” she whispered against his lips. “I wasn’t planning on letting you.”
Yeonjun smirked, scooped her up properly—legs around his waist, her surprised yelp muffled against his shoulder—and carried her toward the bedroom.
“Photocard can stay in the living room,” he muttered into her hair as he kicked his door shut behind them. “This part’s VIP only.”
The lock clicked and the glossy paperback version of him—frozen forever at twenty-six,—remained innocently at the back of her abandoned phone on the coffee table. Completely, gloriously outclassed.
Yeonjun kicked the door shut with his heel, the soft click of the lock sounding louder than it should in the sudden quiet of his room. What was left of the late afternoon sun slipped through the half-drawn curtains, painting thin golden stripes across the floor and over the rumpled sheets of their unmade bed.
He didn’t set her down right away. Instead he pressed her back against the door—gently, but with enough weight to make the wood creak under their combined pressure. Yoonseul’s legs were still locked around his waist, arms looped tight around his neck, fingers tangled in the longer strands at his nape as her heartbeat thumped against his chest like it was trying to climb inside.
He didn’t kiss her again.
Not yet.
He just held her there, letting the silence stretch, letting her feel every inch of where their bodies met. The hard plane of his stomach against her softer one, the slow rise and fall of his breathing, the heat of his bare skin bleeding through the fabric of her hoodie. His sweatpants—already dangerously low from her earlier tugging—slipped another fraction when he shifted his hips, the drawstring knot long since undone.
Yoonseul’s breath hitched audibly and Yeonjun felt it along with the tiny tremor that ran through her thighs where they gripped him. He tilted his head, lips hovering so close to hers she could taste the faint mint from his toothpaste.
“Still thinking about that photocard?” he murmured, voice gravel-rough, barely above a whisper. She tried to lean in—chase his mouth—but he pulled back just enough to keep the distance. Teasing. Torturous. “Answer me,” he said softly. No demand in it. Just quiet command.
Yoonseul swallowed nails digging lightly into the back of his neck. “...No.”
“Liar.” One corner of his mouth curled. He rocked forward—once, slow, deliberate—enough to drag the waistband of his sweats lower, enough to make her feel the sharp cut of his hipbone and the promise of everything else still hidden. The friction made her gasp, small and involuntary. His eyes darkened at the sound.
“Say it,” he whispered against the corner of her mouth. “Tell me you’re not thinking about glossy paper and bad cropping when I’m right here.”
She tried to arch into him, seeking more contact, but he pinned her hips with one hand—firm, unmoving. “Yeonjun—”
“Uh-uh.” He brushed his nose along her jaw, lips never quite touching skin. Hot breath fanned over her pulse point. “Not yet. You wanted the deluxe edition. You have to wait for it.”
Her laugh came out shaky, half-frustrated, half-desperate. “You’re evil.”
“You said diabolical earlier.” He nipped lightly at her earlobe—teeth grazing, not biting. “Pick a side.”
She retaliated by sliding one hand down his chest, nails dragging slow over skin until her fingertips hooked into the front of his sweatpants. She tugged—just enough to make the fabric slip another dangerous inch, exposing the deep V of muscle and the faintest trail of dark hair. Yeonjun sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth.
“Careful,” he warned, but his voice cracked on the word, betraying him. Yoonseul smiled against his cheek—small, victorious.
“Make me.”
For a second he went still. Completely still. Like the air itself had paused.
Then he moved.
In one fluid motion he spun them from the door to the bed and lowered her onto the mattress without ever breaking contact. He came down over her, knees bracketing her hips, hands planted on either side of her head, leaning in until their noses brushed.
“You want me to take them off?” His voice was wrecked now—low, hoarse, dangerous in how soft it stayed. “All the way?”
Yoonseul’s hands found his waist again, thumbs slipping beneath the elastic. She didn’t push. Just held. Waiting.
“Maybe,” she breathed.
“Maybe?” He laughed once, dark and quiet. Lowered himself until his chest pressed hers, until she could feel every shuddering inhale he took. His lips ghosted over hers—once, twice—never quite closing the distance. “That’s not an answer, baby.”
She arched up, chasing but he pulled back again, just out of reach. “Words,” he reminded her, lips curving against her cheek. “Use them.”
Her fingers tightened on his hips, nails pressing crescent moons into skin. “Take them off,” she whispered finally—voice small, raw, pleading. “Please.”
Yeonjun exhaled like the word had punched the air out of him. He stayed there another long second—forehead pressed to hers, breathing her in—then slowly, torturously slowly, he rocked back onto his knees. His hands went to the waistband, hooking his thumbs inside before pausing.
“Look at me,” he said quietly.
Her eyes snapped to his—wide, dark, glassy. He held her gaze as he dragged the fabric down—just an inch. Then another. The slow reveal deliberate, agonizing.
Yoonseul couldn’t decide where to look first: the slow flex of muscle in his abdomen as he breathed, the dark trail that led downward and disappeared into shadow, the heavy, flushed length of him resting against the inside of his sweatpants—hot, velvet-hard, twitching faintly every passing second.
He didn’t move yet. He just watched her watch him.
The silence stretched taut, electric. He leaned in as raising his hand from the waistband of his sweats, slow, deliberate—knuckles brushing the underside of her jaw, tilting her face until their eyes locked.
“Still sure you don’t want the photocard version? Safer. No mess. No... consequences.” he asked one last time, voice barely audible.
Her laugh came out fractured, needy. “Shut up.”
His thumb traced the seam of her lips—once, twice—then pressed just inside, letting her tongue flick against the pad before he withdrew. The wet sound of it was obscene in the quiet.
“Make me,” he echoed her earlier challenge, softer now, darker. He leaned closer until his mouth hovered a hair’s breadth from hers. Close enough she could taste him on every exhale, far enough she had to strain upward to close the gap.
And she did.
Only then did he finally—finally—give in. The sweatpants slid the rest of the way off in one smooth motion, kicked somewhere into the shadows as the room went quiet except for the sound of their breathing, ragged and matched.
The mattress dipped under their weight as Yeonjun settled fully naked between her thighs, the last barrier of fabric from his side now gone.
They kissed slow at first—almost careful—like they were both afraid of breaking whatever fragile thing was building between them. Lips sliding, tongues brushing tentative then hungry. Then he deepened it, tilting his head, licking into her mouth with a low, rumbling sound that made her hips jerk up involuntarily.
The friction—his bare length dragging hot and slick along the inside of her thigh—drew a broken moan from her throat.
Yeonjun swallowed it, drank it down, then pulled back just enough to speak against her swollen mouth.
“Feel that?” He rolled his hips once—slow, deliberate—letting her feel every thick inch slide against damp skin. “That’s not something you can buy online. That’s not edited. That’s all of me. Hard because you decided that the photocard version of myself was something I had to get fucking jealous of.”
Yoonseul chuckled as her nails raked down his back—hard enough to leave red lines he’d feel tomorrow under stage lights. He hissed, hips snapping forward on instinct, the blunt head of him nudging against the soaked cotton of her underwear. The contact made them both freeze.
“Fuck,” he breathed, forehead dropping to hers. His arms shook where they caged her in. “You’re so wet I can feel it through the fabric.”
She whimpered—small, helpless—hips raising up again, chasing more. He caught her wrists in one hand, pinned them above her head against the pillow. She arched her back, pushed her chest up toward him as the hoodie she still wore rode high, exposing the soft curve of her stomach, the black lace edge of her bra.
“Look at you,” he rasped, free hand sliding down her side—fingertips skimming ribs, dipping into the dip of her waist, then lower.
He hooked two fingers under the waistband of her underwear, tugged it taut so the fabric pulled tight against her clit. “Soaking through my favorite pair. Ruining them because I teased you too long.”
“Yeonjun—” Her voice cracked on his name. He tugged harder—once—sharp enough to make her gasp—then released, letting the elastic snap back against skin. The tiny sting bloomed into heat.
“Say it,” he ordered quietly. “Tell me what you want. No games this time.”
Her eyes fluttered open—glassy, pleading.“You,” she whispered. “Inside. Now. Please.”
Something raw flickered across his face—want so sharp it almost looked like pain. He released her wrists, both hands going to the hem of the hoodie as he dragged it up and over her head in one rough motion, tossing it aside. Then the bra—clasped, unhooked, gone letting the cool air hit her skin making her nipples tighten instantly.
Yeonjun made a low, reverent sound in his throat, lowering himself again—chest to chest, skin to skin—his mouth finding the hollow of her throat, then lower. Tongue flicking over one peaked nipple, then sucking hard enough to make her back bow off the mattress, his hand slipping between them as his fingers slid through slick folds—slow, exploratory—circling her clit once, twice, then dipping lower.
Two fingers pushed inside her without warning, curling on the first thrust. She cried out—sharp, startled pleasure—hips bucking into his hand.
“So tight,” he groaned against her breast. “Gonna feel so fucking good around me.”
He worked her open slowly—scissoring, curling, thumb pressing relentless circles over her clit until her thighs shook and her breathing turned ragged. When he finally withdrew his fingers, they glistened against the light as he brought them to his mouth and sucked them clean while holding her gaze.
“Still with me?” he murmured. The words were velvet-soft, but the gravel in his voice betrayed how close he already was to unraveling.
Yoonseul nodded—small, frantic—then pulled him closer to catch his mouth again, tasting herself on his tongue. The kiss was deeper this time, hungrier, tongues sliding slow and filthy in a rhythm that matched the lazy roll of his hips.
He shifted his weight, then reached between them again. This time it wasn’t fingers. He lined himself up with torturous patience, the blunt head of him nudging against her entrance—hot, slick, insistent as he held her gaze.
"Eyes on me,” he whispered.
She obeyed.
He pushed in—inch by agonizing inch—until he was fully inside, hips flush to hers, both of them trembling from the intensity of it. The stretch made her gasp, head tipping back into the pillow, mouth falling open on a silent cry. They both stilled for a heartbeat, breathing each other in, bodies trembling at the sudden overwhelming fullness before Yeonjun’s forehead dropped to hers, breath ragged, arms trembling with the effort of holding still long enough to let her adjust.
“Fuck,” he hissed through clenched teeth. “Tell me this is better than any photocard,” he rasped between breaths.
Yoonseul nodded wordlessly, moaning as her hands flew to his face—cupping his jaw, thumbs brushing the sharp line of his cheekbones.
“Move,” she pleaded and he did just that.
A slow, deep roll of his hips—pulling almost all the way out before sliding back in, deliberate, controlled, dragging against every sensitive place inside her. Yoonseul’s nails raked down his back hard leaving marks after marks. Her legs hooked higher around his waist, heels digging into the small of his back to pull him deeper.
He moved with punishing slowness at first—long, deliberate drags that let her feel every thick inch of him sliding out until only the flushed head remained, then sinking back in with a slow, rolling thrust that pressed the blunt pressure right against that spot deep inside her that made her toes curl and her vision blur at the edges. The friction was obscene: slick heat, velvet drag, the faint burn of stretch that bloomed into molten pleasure each time he filled her completely.
“Jun—” Her voice cracked on his name. He answered with a low groan, pace picking up just enough to make the headboard tap softly against the wall. The sound was obscene in the quiet room—skin against skin, wet and rhythmic, punctuated by their shared, stuttering breaths.
The air conditioner droned uselessly in the background, a low white noise drowned out by the wet, rhythmic sounds of their bodies meeting, by the sharp hitch of Yoonseul’s breath every time Yeonjun bottomed out inside her.
Sweat gathered in the hollow of his throat, a single bead tracing the sharp line of his collarbone before sliding down the center of his chest as it disappeared into the dark trail of hair below his navel.
Yoonseul’s tongue darted out instinctively—she wanted to chase it, taste the salt of him—but he was too far, too focused, hips rolling in that maddening rhythm that kept her teetering right on the edge without letting her fall.
The sheets beneath her back were already damp—cool cotton turned warm and clinging from their combined heat.
Every time he thrust forward, the fabric bunched and pulled against her shoulder blades, a soft rasp that contrasted the slick glide between her thighs. Her own arousal coated them both now; she could hear it—filthy, unmistakable—the wet schlick of him sliding in and out, the faint squelch when he ground deep and circled his hips, stirring her open even wider.
He shifted his angle—lifted one of her thighs higher over his shoulder—and drove in harder, deeper, hitting that spot that made stars burst behind her eyelids. She keened, high and helpless; he swallowed the sound with another bruising kiss.
“Like that?” he rasped against her mouth. “Right there?”
She could only nod, words gone, reduced to whimpers and the arch of her spine. He kept that angle, kept that rhythm—slow enough to savor every second, hard enough to make her shake. One hand slipped between them, thumb finding her clit in tight, slick circles.
Yeonjun’s breathing was ragged, uneven. Each exhale came punched out of him—hot, damp bursts against the side of her neck where he’d buried his face. His lips brushed skin as he spoke, words fractured and low.
“Fuck... listen to you,” he rasped, voice scraped raw. “So wet it’s dripping down my thighs. You feel that?”
He pulled his hand away from her clit as he shifted his angle again—just a fraction—and the next thrust dragged the thick ridge of him along her front wall. One of his hands slid up her side—calloused fingertips catching on the soft underside of her breast before cupping it fully, thumb circling the tight peak of her nipple in lazy, maddening swirls.
The contrast was devastating: rough pad against sensitive skin, the gentle pinch that made her arch, the way the motion tugged at something low in her belly and tightened her around him even more.
“God—so fucking... tight,” he hissed, hips stuttering for the first time. “Squeezing me like you’re trying to keep me inside forever.”
Every muscle clenched instinctively when he tried to pull out too far, greedy little flutters that dragged another broken curse from his throat.
“Eyes here,” he demanded again—voice wrecked, almost pleading now.
Her lashes fluttered open. His face hovered inches above hers—pupils blown wide, cheeks flushed high, lips parted and glistening. He slowed—agonizingly—until he was barely moving, just shallow rocks that kept him buried deep, grinding against her clit with every subtle shift of his pelvis.
The pressure built slow and relentless, a coiling heat that spread from her core outward until her thighs shook and her breath came in short, desperate pants.
“Yeonjun—” His name cracked on her tongue, half sob, half prayer.
“Yeah?” He brushed sweat-damp hair from her temple with surprising tenderness, thumb lingering to stroke the apple of her cheek. “Tell me. Tell me how it feels.”
“Too much,” she whimpered. “So full... so deep... I can feel you everywhere—”
He rewarded her with a harder thrust—once, twice—then went back to that torturous grind.
“Good girl,” he murmured against her mouth. “Taking all of me so perfect. Look how wet you are—look how you’re dripping down onto the sheets.”
She followed his gaze downward—saw the obscene shine coating his length every time he pulled back, saw the way her own arousal glistened on the inside of her thighs, dark against pale skin. The sight alone sent another pulse of heat through her, walls fluttering hard around him.
He felt it immediately, groaning low in his chest. “Fuck—do that again.”
She clenched on purpose this time—slow, deliberate—and watched his eyes roll back for a heartbeat, lashes fluttering, jaw going slack. When he opened his eyes again they were darker, hungrier.
He hooked one of her legs over his elbow—lifting, spreading her wider—and drove in deeper than before. The new angle punched the air from her lungs; she cried out, sharp and unrestrained, nails digging into his shoulders.
“That’s it,” he growled. “Let me hear you. Let the whole fucking building know who’s making you sound like this"
The pace built—faster, harder—skin slapping skin, bedframe creaking in protest, headboard hitting the wall in steady rhythm. Sweat dripped from his brow onto her chest; she arched to meet it, tongue flicking out to catch the salt before it rolled away. His hand slipped between them again—fingers finding her clit, rubbing tight, fast circles that matched the brutal snap of his hips.
Her body locked up almost immediately—thighs trembling, breath hitching in sharp little sobs. “Close,” she managed, voice wrecked. “So close—”
“Come for me,” he ordered, voice low and commanding even as it shook. “Come on my cock. Let me feel it. Let me feel you soak me.”
The command tipped her over as pleasure crashed through her—white-hot, blinding—muscles locking, thighs trembling, a broken moan tearing from her throat as she pulsed around him, wave after wave of slick heat coating them both. Her vision tunneled; all she could feel was him—thick, relentless and still moving inside her, drawing it out until tears pricked the corners of her eyes.
Yeonjun followed seconds later—hips slamming forward one last time, burying himself to the hilt as he came with a rough groan that vibrated through her chest. Heat flooded her in heavy pulses; she felt every twitch, every spurt, the way he throbbed deep inside while his fingers kept circling her clit through the aftershocks, milking every last tremor from her body.
They stayed locked together long after—sweat-slick, trembling, breathing in harsh tandem. He dropped his weight carefully, forehead pressed to hers, nose brushing nose.
“Still want the photocard?” he whispered, voice hoarse, teasing, wrecked.
Yoonseul laughed—shaky, breathless—fingers threading weakly through his damp hair.
“Not anymore,” she managed. “Not when the real thing just ruined me like that.”
"Good" He kissed her then—slow, deep, tasting like salt and satisfaction.
Then the quiet followed, bodies cooled, heartbeats slowed, and the faint scent of sex lingered in the air like smoke that no glossy paper could ever compare.
★ synopsis:
under the shadows of fame, idols hide a love that the world refuses to forgive.
when obsession turns violent and devotion becomes a weapon, yeonjun’s choice shatters everything—leaving only silence, secrets, and the quiet ache of what might have been saved… or lost forever.
★ pairing: idol!yeonjun x fem idol!oc & bestfriend!beomgyu
★ song reco: never let go - lngshot, seasons - wave to earth
★ status | word count: completed | 10.7k
★ao3: never let go
note: i was listening to lngshot’s never let go when i came up with the plot and seasons by wave to earth played while i was editing and i thought oh wow this song’s lyrics matches the vibe too.
yoonseul = y/n placeholder (to make it third person !)
this is my first attempt at angst so i hope it was conveyed well (everyone is bad at feelings for maximum angst; beomgyu as yearnatron3000)
this is also quite long and has an epilogue linked by the end so check it out if you're interested!
enjoy <3
The dim light of the practice room filtered through the half-drawn blinds, casting long shadows across the polished wooden floor. It was late—far past midnight—and the building was eerily silent, save for the distant hum of the city outside.
Yeonjun paced back and forth, his usually confident stride reduced to anxious, erratic steps.
His phone was a live grenade in his hand—each new notification another shard driven deeper into his ribs, hands trembling as he scrolled through his phone, the screen illuminating his face in a harsh glow as the headlines screamed at him.
"TOMORROW X TOGETHER's YEONJUN Confirmed Dating—Fans in Uproar."
“Fans demand breakup amid dating controversy involving TOMORROW X TOGETHER’s YEONJUN ”
“YEONJUN Dating Confirmation Leaves HYBE in Crisis—Fans Threaten Boycotts and Protests”
“YOONSEUL Slapped by ‘Fan’ at Fansign—Shocking Video Goes Viral”
He kept replaying the clip obsessively, even when the phone was dark. The way the girl—smiling sweetly just seconds earlier—had leaned in when Yoonseul bent forward to hear her “secret.”
The sudden flash of an open palm cracking across Yoonseul’s cheek with a sound like a gunshot in the hushed venue. The way her head had snapped sideways, hair whipping across her face, the shock freezing her expression into wide-eyed disbelief for one endless, humiliating second before she slowly straightened again.
The impact left her cheek instantly blazing an angry, spreading red welt that bloomed into deep crimson within minutes, the shape of four fingers faintly visible like a brand burned into her skin.
Her lip puffed up almost immediately, the skin stretched tight and shiny, throbbing with every heartbeat.
The venue exploded—gasps, screams, chairs scraping, security surging forward—but the girl was already being dragged backward, shrieking at the top of her lungs, voice cracking with manic fury.
“You don’t deserve him! Break up with Yeonjun! You’re ruining him! You’re nothing—nothing!”
Yoonseul had stayed seated.
Even as the heat of the slap radiated across her face like fire, even as her cheek swelled so fast it pulled at the corner of her eye, even as the sting brought involuntary tears to her lashes, she had lifted a trembling hand to the microphone and spoken in a voice so calm, so perfectly controlled, it sounded almost robotic.
“I’m so sorry for the inconvenience, everyone. Please don’t worry. Let’s continue.”
The words came out steady, practiced, idol-perfect. Only the tiniest tremor at the end betrayed her.
When her manager rushed over, face pale, whispering urgently that she could sit this one out, that no one would blame her, she had shaken her head once—small, stubborn, final. She stayed.
For the next forty minutes she smiled through the mounting pain, through the way every word she spoke made the swollen side of her face ache, through the way the lights overhead felt like spotlights exposing every second of her humiliation.
Yoonseul tilted her head just slightly to hide the worst of the swelling from the fans in the front row and laughed softly at their worried questions, brushing off their gasps with gentle “I’m really okay,” and kept signing albums, taking photos, letting them hold her hands—hands that were shaking so badly she had to press them flat against the table between turns.
She gave every single remaining fan the full experience they had gone there for. Only when the last lightstick dimmed and the final fan was escorted out did the mask finally crack.
In the van afterward, she hadn’t cried. She had simply stared out the tinted window, one hand cradling the ruined side of her face, breathing shallowly through the pain while the staff whispered furiously around her.
The photos were already spreading online—close-ups of the handprint, the unnatural puffiness, the way her smile looked painted on over something broken. The hashtags were already trending.
Now in the practice room, Yoonseul sat on the edge of the mirrored wall, her knees drawn up to her chest, arms wrapped around them as if holding herself together. Her dark hair fell in disheveled waves over her shoulders as she avoided his gaze, staring at the scuffed marks on the floor. The swelling had lessened but very few minutes a fresh wave of stinging heat would roll through the bruise, making her breath hitch.
She'd tried to downplay it all day, brushing off Yeonjun’s worried texts with forced emojis and assurances that she was fine.
But he knew better.
He could see the exhaustion etched into her features—the way her eyes, usually bright with mischief, were dulled by unshed tears and fear.
It wasn't just words anymore. Reports of harassment, vicious comments, and now... physical attacks. He'd seen the videos online—fans swarming Yoonseul outside a schedule, one of them lunging forward with a shove that sent her stumbling. His chest tightened like a vice.
"Yeonjun-ah," she finally whispered, her voice barely cutting through the tension. "Come sit. You're making me dizzy."
He stopped abruptly, turning to face her. His expression was a storm of emotions— guilt, anger, helplessness. The sight of her—small, folded, freshly bruised and bleeding from his name—ripped something vital out of him.
He crossed the room in three strides and dropped to his knees so violently his kneecaps cracked against the floor. He didn’t care.
"How can I sit? Have you seen this?" He thrust his phone toward her, though he knew she had. "They're not just talking anymore. They're hurting you in front of everyone.” He exhaled shakily. “She slapped you, Yoonseul! She slapped you because of me.”
His voice cracked on the last word, and he ran a hand through his hair, pulling at the strands in frustration.
Yoonseul swallowed hard, her fingers digging into her sleeves. "It's just... a few crazy people. It'll blow over. We knew this could happen when we went public."
"No." Yeonjun's tone was sharp, final. He knelt in front of her, his hands gently prying hers from her arms. "It won't blow over. Not like this. They're camping outside your dorm, throwing things at your van. And you—"
He paused, his eyes narrowing as he noticed the way she winced when he touched her shoulder. "What happened today? Tell me the truth."
She pulled away slightly, forcing a weak smile. "Nothing. I just bumped into something during practice."
Yeonjun wasn't buying it. His heart pounded as he reached out again, this time more insistently. His fingers brushed the collar of her shirt, and before she could stop him, he tugged it down just enough to reveal the ugly purple bruise blooming across her collarbone. It was fresh, outlined with red edges, the shape of a handprint was unmistakable.
Yoonseul gasped, yanking the fabric back up, but it was too late.
"Who did this?" Yeonjun's voice was a low growl, laced with fury. But beneath it, terror flickered in his eyes. "Was it at the fan signing too? Or outside the studio?"
"Yeonjun, please—" she started, her own voice trembling now.
“Who?” He repeated sternly, the word coming out mangled.
“Some girl… outside the van. Security pulled her off.” Yoonseul’s voice cracked like thin ice. “I didn’t even see her face.”
He pressed two fingers lightly to the edge of the bruise making her sucked in a sharp, pained breath through her teeth and his hand jerked back as if burned.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, over and over, the words dissolving into sobs. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
Then, the blade he’d been carrying in his throat for days finally fell.
"We have to break up." The words tumbled out of him like a confession, heavy and irrevocable, landing like a gunshot in the silent room.
Yeonjun stood up abruptly, turning away as if facing her would shatter him. "This... this is my fault. If we weren't together, they wouldn't target you like this. I can't watch you get hurt because of me."
Yoonseul's world tilted. She stared at his back, the broad shoulders that had always been her safe haven now hunched in defeat. Her mind raced back to their whispered promises in stolen moments—late-night conversations at 2am, cafe dates, the way he'd hold her after exhausting schedules and make her feel like the chaos of idol life was bearable.
"No," she said softly at first, then louder. "No, Yeonjun. I don't want to."
He didn't turn around. "Seul, you have to understand—"
"I said no!" Her voice rose, cracking with desperation. She stood up, crossing the room to grab his arm, forcing him to face her. Tears welled in her eyes, spilling over as she clutched his sleeve. "You said I'm the only one that you need. So why are you leaving me now?"
Yeonjun's face crumpled, his own eyes glistening. He cupped her cheek, thumb brushing away a tear, but his resolve wavered only for a moment.
"Look at yourself," he murmured, his voice breaking. With gentle insistence, he pulled down the collar again, exposing the bruise fully. The sight hit him like a punch—raw, undeniable evidence of the world's cruelty toward them. "This... this is what loving me does to you. I can't... I won't let it happen anymore."
A sob escaped him then, deep and rough, as if it had been building for days. He rested his forehead against hers as tears streamed down his cheeks, hot and unrelenting, his body shaking with the force of his grief.
"We need to break up," he repeated, the words a mantra of pain. "For you. To keep you safe."
Yoonseul shook her head vigorously, her hands framing his face, forcing him to meet her gaze. "No." She pleaded. "No, Yeonjun. I don't care about the bruises or the hate. I care about us." Her voice trembled, but there was a fierce determination in it, born from the depths of her love.
“They won’t stop. They’ll keep coming. Harder. Worse. I saw the comments—they’re saying next time they’ll—” His voice fractured. “They’ll do worse than bruise you. I can’t—I can’t watch that happen. I’d rather die.”
Yoonseul lunged forward. Her hands fisted in his hoodie, yanking him closer with surprising, desperate strength. “Then don’t watch. Stay. Fight with me.”
“I am fighting!” he shouted, the sound tearing out of him. “By ending this! By letting you go!”
Her nails dug into his chest hard enough to leave crescent marks through the fabric. “You promised.” Her voice splintered into something small and childlike. “You said forever. You said no matter what they threw at us. You promised.”
“I know.” His forehead dropped to hers, tears mixing on their cheeks. “I know. And I’m breaking it because I love you too much to let them break you.”
She made a wounded noise and slowly, as if the weight of the moment pulled her down, collapsed onto her knees in front of him. It was a gesture she never imagined herself making—not for anyone, especially not for a guy. Pride had always been her armor, but now it lay shattered at their feet.
“Get up,” he begged, reaching for her arms. “Seul, please get up.”
She wouldn’t.
Instead she crawled the last few inches and wrapped herself around his waist, face buried in his stomach, fingers clawing into the back of his shirt like she could anchor him to her through sheer force of will. Her whole body shook with the kind of sobs that hurt to hear
"Remember what I told you? I said I wouldn't beg if you ever wanted to leave. That I'd be strong and let you go gracefully. But... but I can't. Not now. Not ever. Please, don't do this."
Yeonjun's breath hitched as he watched her kneel there, the strong, vibrant woman he always knew reduced to pleading, and it tore him apart.
“Don’t do this,” she gasped into his hoodie. “Don’t leave me alone with this. I can’t—I can’t breathe when you’re not here. I can’t sleep. I can’t eat. I just keep seeing your face and I—” She choked, saliva and tears soaking through his shirt. “Please. I’ll be stronger. I’ll hide better. I’ll do anything. Just don’t go.”
Yeonjun’s legs gave out. He sank down to her level, pulling her into his lap, cradling her like something already dying. His arms locked around her so tightly it hurt them both. They rocked together—slow, helpless—while mirrors threw back image after image of two people drowning in each other.
She clasped his hands in hers, pressing them to her chest where her heart raced wildly. "Please," she begged, her voice a whisper choked with sobs. "Don't leave me. I love you. We've fought through so much already—the schedules, the articles, the doubt. Don't let them win. Don't let them take you from me."
"Please, don't—" He tried again but his words faltered as another wave of sobs wracked him, tears mingling with hers as they dripped onto their joined hands. He held her tightly against his chest, as if he could shield her from the world that way as her body shook with silent cries, her fingers digging into his back, clinging like a lifeline.
He squeezed his eyes shut until white spots burst behind his lids. “You don’t get it. If I stay, they won’t stop. Every hit you take is because of me. Every scar. Every nightmare. I become the weapon.”
Yoonseul lifted her head. Her face was swollen, unrecognizable—eyes bloodshot, cheeks blotchy, lips trembling. She grabbed his face with shaking hands, forcing him to look.
“Then be the weapon that protects me instead of destroys me,” she said, each word carved out of pain. “Stay. Please. I’m begging you. You know I’ve never begged anyone in my life. But I’m begging now.”
The room seemed to close in around them, the mirrors reflecting their broken forms in infinite echoes—two idols crumbling under the pressure of fame's dark underbelly. Yeonjun buried his face in her hair, inhaling the familiar scent of her shampoo. "I love you," he whispered hoarsely. “More than anything. That’s why I have to.”
Minutes stretched into what felt like hours as they sat there, entangled in each other's arms, the weight of their emotions crashing over them like relentless waves. The image of the bruise on her skin burned in his mind like a brand, a symbol of the toxicity their love had invited.
He pulled back just enough to look into her eyes, those wide, pleading pools of brown that had captivated him from the first stolen glance across a crowded award show.
"They’re hurting you so much because of me. Every comment, every shove—it's like they're tearing us apart piece by piece. I can't stand it, Seul. I can't be the reason you bleed." he murmured, his voice hoarse from the sobs that still echoed in his chest.
She shook her head furiously, strands of hair whipping across her tear-streaked face like dark lashes against the pale canvas of her skin. "No, no, no," she repeated, the word a mantra of denial, as if saying it over and over again could rewrite their reality.
Her fingers dug into the fabric of his shirt, knuckles whitening with the force of her grip. It was as if letting go would unravel her entirely, like she might dissolve into the cold air of the practice room without his warmth anchoring her.
"It's not your fault," she whispered, her voice breaking into fragments. "It's theirs. The world. We... we can go back to how it was before. Late nights calls or messages. Anything. Just don't say we can't."
Yeonjun's heart twisted, a physical ache that radiated through his chest. He wanted to believe her, to surrender to the pull of her touch and pretend the outside world didn't exist.
His hands trembled as they framed her face, thumbs tracing the paths of her tears, wiping them away only for more to follow. "You deserve better than hiding," he said, his words laced with self-loathing. "Better than bruises and threats. Look at what they've done to you already."
His gaze dropped to the hidden mark on her collarbone, imagining the fan's hand connecting with her skin, the pain she must have felt, and it fueled his resolve even as it shattered him. "If I stay, it'll only get worse. They'll escalate. I love you too much to watch you suffer like this."
Yoonseul's body quaked with silent sobs, her head still shaking in endless refusal, side to side like a pendulum marking the seconds of their crumbling world. She pressed closer, her forehead against his chest, listening to the erratic thump of his heartbeat that mirrored her own.
"Then suffer with me," she begged, her voice muffled and raw. "We've always been stronger together. Remember that time in Jeju? When the storm hit and we were stuck in that tiny cabin? We laughed through it. This... this is just another storm."
Though even as she spoke, doubt crept into her tone, a shadow that darkened her words. Deep down, she knew the fans' hatred wasn't a passing rain—it was a hurricane, relentless and destructive, fueled by possessiveness disguised as devotion. Time blurred in the dim room, minutes stretching into an eternity of whispered pleas and shared breaths. Yeonjun held her, rocking gently as if soothing a child, but his mind raced with visions of a future without her.
Empty waiting rooms
Stages that felt hollow.
Nights staring at his phone waiting for messages that wouldn't come.
The thought clawed at him, tempting him to cave, to pull her up and kiss away the pain. But the image of that bruise, the videos of crowds jeering her name, solidified his decision. If he didn't end it now, he'd never find the strength.
He kissed her then. Hard. Desperate. Teeth clashing, salt and blood and despair. It wasn’t romantic; it was survival. A last, violent attempt to fuse them together so the world couldn’t tear them apart.
But when they broke apart, gasping, he still whispered against her mouth,
"Yoonseul," he said finally, his voice steadier than he felt, "We have to let go."
Her grip tightened instinctively, nails biting into his back through the thin material of his shirt. "Never," she whimpered, shaking her head once more, the motion frantic now, desperate. "Please, Yeonjun"
He pushed her away as he placed his hands on her shoulders, the touch gentle at first, then firm. With enough force to create distance, his arms extended like barriers between them. Yoonseul stumbled back slightly on her knees, her eyes widening in shock and betrayal, fresh tears cascading down her cheeks.
"No!" she cried out, reaching for him again, but he held her at arm's length, his own face contorted in agony.
"I'm sorry," he choked out, standing up on unsteady legs. The room spun around him, the mirrors mocking him with reflections of a man breaking apart. "If I stay any longer... I won't be able to leave. And I have to. For you." He turned toward the door, each step feeling like wading through quicksand, his body screaming to turn back.
Yoonseul collapsed forward, her palms slapping against the floor as a wail tore from her throat—a raw sound that echoed off the walls. She clutched at the empty space where he'd been, her body curling in on itself as the emotional breakdown consumed her. Sobs wracked her frame, violent and unrelenting, her breath coming in gasps that bordered on hyperventilation.
"Please..." she gasped between heaves, but he was already at the door, his hand on the knob, pausing for one last, torturous moment.
"I love you, Yoonseul. So much." he whispered with finality, not daring to look back, knowing her crumpled form would destroy him. Then, with a finality that echoed like a slammed door in his soul, he stepped out into the hallway, leaving behind the woman who had been his everything, now shattered on the floor in a pool of their shared despair.
The door clicked shut softly, but to Yoonseul, it thundered like the end of the world, her cries filling the void he left behind.
The hallway stretched endlessly before Yeonjun, cold fluorescent lights buzzing overhead like a swarm of indifferent insects. Each step away from the practice room door felt like dragging lead weights attached to his ankles. His legs barely obeyed, moving on mechanical memory alone while the rest of him stayed behind, tethered to the sound leaking behind the door.
He could still hear Yoonseul’s sobs pouring out.
Broken, gasping sounds that clawed at the air and lodged themselves directly into his ribcage. They weren’t the quiet, restrained cries she sometimes let slip during late-night talks; these were harsh, animalistic, the kind that came from someone whose heart had been physically ripped out and left bleeding on the floor.
He stopped, fist clenched so hard his nails bit crescents into his palm. His forehead pressed against the wall, eyes squeezed shut as the sounds painted vivid pictures in his mind—her curled on the hardwood, hair sticking to wet cheeks, shoulders heaving with every wrenching breath.
Every instinct screamed at him to turn around.
To burst back in, drop to his knees, pull her into his chest and murmur every apology until the words lose meaning. To tell her he was sorry, that he was a coward, that he couldn’t do this, that he’d rather let the world burn them both than walk away and leave her drowning alone.
But he didn’t move.
Because going back meant staying.
And staying meant the next hand that struck her might not stop at a swollen cheek. Might not stop at bruises. Might not stop at all.
With a shuddering exhale, Yeonjun forced himself forward. His legs trembled. The elevator ride down felt like falling. He didn’t go home to their dorm. He couldn’t face the others—not yet.
Instead, he found himself outside Beomgyu’s studio on the opposite wing. The door was plain, unmarked, the same dull gray as every other door in the building. His knuckles hovered an inch from the wood for a long, agonizing second before he knocked.
Once.
Twice.
Soft, like he was afraid the sound would shatter something fragile inside himself.
The door opened almost immediately.
Beomgyu stood there in an oversized hoodie and sweatpants, hair mussed with sleep probably from a nap after one of his producing sessions. His eyes went wide the instant he registered Yeonjun’s face—puffy, tear-streaked, red-rimmed, lips bitten raw.
His playful expression vanished, replaced by something close to alarm. “Hyung...?”
Yeonjun couldn’t speak at first. His throat felt like a locked vault, every word trapped behind iron bars of guilt and grief. He just stared at Beomgyu, chest rising and falling too fast, like he’d sprinted here instead of walking.
Beomgyu stepped aside without another question, gesturing him in, but Yeonjun shook his head. He stayed in the hallway, one hand braced against the doorframe like it was the only thing keeping him upright.
“She’s in the practice room,” he finally rasped. The words tasted like glass. “Crying. She... she won’t stop.”
Beomgyu’s brows knit together. Confusion flickered, then understanding—slow, heavy, terrible understanding—settled over his features like a shroud. He knew. Of course he knew. He’d always known.
Yeonjun forced himself to keep going, voice cracking on every syllable. “I broke up with her. I had to. They’re hurting her, Gyu. They’re—” His breath hitched violently.
“They put their hands on her. Bruises. Slapped her so hard, her face—” Yeonjun couldn’t finish his sentence. “All because of me. I can’t... I can’t watch it anymore.”
Silence stretched between them, thick and suffocating as Beomgyu’s jaw tightened. His eyes—usually so bright, so teasing—darkened with something raw and ancient.
He’d loved her first, he thought.
Loved her since they were kids running barefoot through the same neighborhood, trading snacks and secrets under the old persimmon tree behind her house. He’d loved her quietly, fiercely, the way only someone who knows every version of you can.
And when she’d looked at Yeonjun with stars in her eyes, Beomgyu had stepped back. Smiled. Teased. Pretended it didn’t carve pieces out of him every time he saw them steal glances across the practice room. Because her happiness mattered more than his heart.
It always had.
And now Yeonjun was standing in front of him, handing her back like something broken he could no longer carry.
“You want me to go to her,” Beomgyu said.
It wasn’t a question.
Yeonjun nodded once, a jerky motion. Fresh tears slipped down his cheeks but he didn’t bother wiping them away. “I can’t go back there. If I do… I’ll take it all back. I’ll hold her and promise things I can’t keep. And she’ll get hurt worse next time.”
His voice fractured completely on the last word. “Please. She needs someone who can stay. Someone who won’t make her bleed just by existing next to her.”
Beomgyu stared at him for a long, agonizing heartbeat. Something flickered behind his eyes—anger, maybe. Pity. Grief. All of it tangled together until it was impossible to separate.
Then, quietly, almost too soft to hear, “You’re killing her, hyung.”
The sentence landed like a blade between Yeonjun’s ribs. He flinched, hard, like he’d been physically struck. His knees buckled but he caught himself against the wall, sliding down until he was half-crouched, forehead pressed to the cold surface.
“I know,” he whispered. “I know.”
Beomgyu exhaled through his nose, sharp and shaky. He looked away for a moment, blinking rapidly, throat working as he swallowed everything he wanted to say. Then he reached down, gripped Yeonjun’s shoulder—not hard, not gentle either. Just there.
“I’ll go to her,” he said. “But don’t think this fixes anything. Don’t think this makes it right.”
Yeonjun didn’t answer and just nodded again, tears dripping onto the floor between his shoes.
Beomgyu let go and walked out the door down the hallway toward the elevators without another word. The studio door clicked shut behind him as Yeonjun slid the rest of the way to the floor, back against the wall, knees drawn up, face buried in his arms.
The hallway lights flickered once, twice as Beomgyu passed through. Somewhere far away, the city hummed on, indifferent.
And in the practice room, Yoonseul’s cries continued—quieter now, exhausted, but no less devastating—waiting for someone else to pick up the pieces Yeonjun had just shattered beyond repair.
The elevator doors slid open with a soft chime that felt obscene in the heavy silence of the late-night building.
Beomgyu stepped out, sneakers squeaking faintly against the polished floor, each sound too loud in his own ears. His pulse thundered in his throat even though he hadn’t run. He forced himself to walk, but every step felt like betrayal— toward Yeonjun. Toward himself. Toward the girl who had once looked at him like he hung the moon, and had made him learn how to smile through the ache.
The practice room door loomed at the end of the corridor and even from afar he could hear it.The ragged, wet gasps, the kind that came after someone had screamed themselves hoarse and still couldn’t stop.
He pushed the door open slowly, as if sudden movement might shatter what little was left inside and there he saw her on the floor.
Not sitting.
Not kneeling.
But collapsed.
Face-down, arms curled uselessly around her own torso like she was trying to hold her ribcage together. Her shoulders jerked with every shallow, stuttering breath—barely breathing, really, more like drowning on dry land. Tears were pooling beneath her cheek on the hardwood, catching the dim overhead lights in tiny, trembling mirrors.
Strands of hair clung to her wet face, plastered across swollen eyelids and trembling lips. Her whole body trembled in violent, uneven waves, as though grief itself was trying to shake her apart.
Beomgyu’s heart didn’t just break. It detonated.
Quietly. Silently.
A silent implosion that left him hollowed out in the doorway, one hand still on the handle, the other clenched so hard at his side that his knuckles bleached white.
He had seen her cry before—childhood scraped knees, middle-school heartbreak over some stupid boy who didn’t deserve her, trainee days when the trainers tore her apart in front of everyone. He’d wiped her tears then. Held her. Told stupid jokes until she laughed through the snot and hiccups.
But this—this was something else.
This was the sound of someone who had been loved so completely that losing it felt like amputation without anesthesia.
Beomgyu’s knees gave out before he even registered moving. He dropped beside her, not touching yet—just close enough that she could feel the shift in the air, the sudden warmth of another body in the freezing void Yeonjun had left behind.
“Yoonseul-ah,” he whispered. His voice cracked on her name like thin ice.
She didn’t respond. Didn’t even lift her head.
She just kept gasping, tiny, desperate inhales that sounded like they hurt more than they helped. Her fingers scraped weakly at the floor, nails dragging faint, helpless little lines, as though she could dig her way back to the moment before everything ended.
Beomgyu’s chest burned.
He wanted to scream at the ceiling. Wanted to go back to Yeonjun and shake him until he understood exactly what he’d done. Wanted to rewind time to the exact second she first looked at Yeonjun like he was the answer to every question, and drag her away before the damage began.
He didn’t do any of that but instead he reached out—slowly, so slowly—and rested his palm between her shoulder blades.
The moment he touched her, she flinched. A full-body jerk, like she’d been burned. Then, almost immediately, she curled tighter, as though bracing for more pain.
“It’s me,” he said, voice low and wrecked. “It’s just me, Seul. It’s Gyu.”
A fresh sob tore out of her—ugly, shredded, the sound of something vital snapping inside. She turned her face toward him just enough that he could see one eye, bloodshot and glassy, pupils blown wide with grief.
“He left,” she rasped. The words came out cracked and small, barely audible. “He... he pushed me away. He said... he said he had to. Said it was… it was for me”
Beomgyu’s throat closed. He swallowed against the ache, against the scream clawing up from his gut. “I know,” he managed. “I know.”
She shook her head once—weak, defeated—then pressed her forehead back to the floor like she wanted to disappear into it.
Beomgyu slid closer. He didn’t ask permission.
He just gathered her up carefully, like she might fracture if he moved too fast, and pulled her against his chest. She resisted for half a second, body rigid with leftover panic, then collapsed into him like every bone in her had disintegrated.
Her fingers twisted into his hoodie immediately, clutching so hard the fabric bunched and stretched. She buried her face against his chest, right over his hammering heart, and the sobs came harder, faster, soaking through to his skin.
“I can’t—” she choked out between gasps. “It hurts, Gyu. It hurts. It hurts so much.”
“I know,” he repeated, uselessly, helplessly. One hand cradled the back of her head, fingers threading through damp hair. The other wrapped around her back, holding her so tightly he could feel every shudder, every failed inhale. “I’ve got you. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”
He rocked her gently, the way he used to when they were kids and nightmares woke her screaming. Except this wasn’t a nightmare she could wake up from. This was real. This was permanent.
Tears slipped down Beomgyu’s own cheeks now. Silent, burning tracks he didn’t bother to hide as he pressed his lips to the crown of her head, not a kiss, but just contact. Proof he was still here when the person she wanted most had walked away.
Minutes bled into one another and her cries eventually quieted—not because the pain had eased, but because her body simply ran out of strength to keep making sound. She clung to him, trembling, breath still hitching every few seconds like aftershocks.
Beomgyu stared at the far wall, at their distorted reflections in the practice mirrors—two broken silhouettes tangled together on the floor—and felt something ancient and fierce rise up inside him.
He had stepped back once. For her happiness. For her choice.
But now? Now she was shattered on the ground because of that choice, and the boy who made it had left her here to bleed out alone. He tightened his hold. He wasn’t going anywhere. Not tonight. Not ever again. Not unless she told him to. And even then—he still wasn’t sure he would listen.
Yoonseul didn't speak for a while. Just clung as her fingers twisted so tightly in his hoodie that the fabric strained at the seams, as if releasing him would mean releasing the last tether to sanity.
Beomgyu's own heart hammered a brutal rhythm, each beat echoing the silent vow he'd made years ago to be there, always, no matter how much it cost him. He stroked her back in slow, deliberate circles, his touch feather-light, afraid that anything more might break her further.
Finally, between those stuttering breaths, her voice emerged—whisper-thin, laced with the kind of exhaustion that came from battling a storm alone.
"I... I begged him, Gyu," she murmured, the words muffled against his collarbone, hot and damp with the tears. Her body shuddered as she forced another inhale, her chest rising and falling unevenly, like a bird with broken wings trying to take flight.
"Me. Begging. I've never... never begged anyone in my whole life. Not my parents when they refused that I train to be an idol. Not the managers when they cut my lines. Not even when I thought I wouldn't make the cut."
She paused, a fresh sob bubbling up, choking her for a moment before she swallowed it down. Her head tilted back just enough to meet his eyes, hers red-rimmed and swollen, glistening with unshed agony. "But him... I got on my knees. Literally. Told him I'd endure it all—the hate, the bruises, the screams outside my window. That I was okay.”
She laughed a small, bitter gasp. “I told him I could handle anything. Anything except him walking away.” Her voice fractured. “Turns out that was the one thing I couldn’t survive.”
Beomgyu's jaw clenched, a muscle ticking under the skin as he listened. His arms tightened around her instinctively, a protective cage against the words that sliced through him like dull knives. He could picture it too vividly— His bestfriend, reduced to pleading on the cold floor. The image burned behind his eyelids, stirring a cocktail of fury and helplessness that made his stomach churn.
"Seul..." he whispered back, his voice thick, barely holding together. But he didn't interrupt. He let her pour it out, knowing that sometimes words were the only way to bleed out the poison.She shook her head weakly against him, her hair brushing his neck like a ghost's touch.
Her whispers grew softer, more fragmented, as if speaking them aloud made the pain sharper. "I told him... I'm fine. Really. The fans? They can throw whatever they want—words, fists, hate. I can take it. Others have been through worse in this industry."
A bitter, broken laugh escaped her, more a gasp than anything joyful, and it twisted Beomgyu's insides. "But him leaving? Walking out that door? That... that hurts more than all of it combined. More than the bruise on my shoulder. More than the death threats in my DMs. It's like... like he took my lungs with him. I can't breathe, Gyu. I can't."
Her voice cracked on the last word, dissolving into another wave of quiet sobs that wracked her frame. She pressed her face harder into his chest, as if she could hide from the truth there, her tears soaking through to warm his skin—a cruel reminder that this comfort was secondhand, borrowed from the wreckage of her first choice.
Beomgyu closed his eyes, his own tears slipping free to trail down his cheeks and drip into her hair.
He wanted to rage—against the fans, against the industry that turned love into a battlefield, against Yeonjun for being the one she chose and then the one who broke her. But mostly against himself, for the traitorous flicker of hope that sparked in his chest even now, when she was crumbling in his arms.
"You're not fine," he murmured finally, his voice raw and low, laced with the anguish he'd buried for so long. "And you don't have to be. Not with me." He rocked her gently, his hand cradling her head, thumb brushing away the damp strands from her temple.
The silence that followed Yoonseul’s last broken whisper was heavier than any scream.
Beomgyu didn’t speak.
He couldn’t trust his voice not to crack and spill everything he’d kept locked behind his ribs for years. Instead he tightened his hold by the smallest degree—just enough that she could feel the difference between being held and being cradled like something irreplaceable.
Yoonseul's breathing had slowed, no longer the frantic gasps of earlier, but still shallow, still trembling at the edges like she was afraid to take a full breath and discover the pain was still there.
It was.
It always would be, at least for a while.
He rested his cheek against the top of her head, eyes open, staring at nothing. The practice room lights had dimmed automatically to save power, leaving only the soft emergency strips along the walls. In that half-light everything looked bruised.
Beomgyu had spent so many nights imagining this exact position. Not the tears. Not the devastation. Never that. Just... this. Yoonseul in his arms, choosing him because she wanted to, because she saw him the way he’d always seen her.
In those secret daydreams he’d been brave enough to confess. Brave enough to risk the friendship. Brave enough to hear whatever answer she gave, even if it was no.
Reality, it turned out, was crueler than any rejection. Because here she was, exactly where he’d always wanted her, and it was only because someone else had torn her open first.
The thought tasted like rust but he swallowed it down and instead, focused on the small things. The way her fingers had finally loosened their death grip on his hoodie, now resting flat against his chest like she was checking if his heart was still beating. The slow, uneven rhythm of her lashes brushing his collarbone every time she blinked away fresh tears.
He wanted to tell her she didn’t have to be strong right now. That she could fall apart for as long as she needed and he would stay right here, holding the pieces.
He wanted to tell her that he’d been holding pieces of her heart in his hands since they were younger, long before Yeonjun ever touched them.
But those were selfish words.
They would only add weight to someone already sinking. So, he said the only thing that felt safe. The only thing that had ever been true between them, even when everything else changed.
“You’re allowed to hurt this much,” he murmured against her hair. His voice came out rough, scraped raw from holding back his own sobs. “You’re allowed to hate him a little. Hate me a little. Hate the whole damn world. Just... don’t hate yourself, okay? None of this is your fault.”
Yoonseul made a small, wounded sound. “I keep thinking if I’d just stayed quiet,” she whispered. “If we’d never gone public. If I’d been... smaller. Careful. Maybe he wouldn’t have had to choose.”
Beomgyu’s arms flexed involuntarily. The idea of her making herself smaller for anyone made something furious rise in his throat.
“No,” he said, sharper than he intended. He softened it immediately, turning the word into something gentler. “No, Seul. You don’t get to shrink yourself so someone else feels comfortable loving you. That’s not love. That’s... that’s suffocation.”
She went very still against him. Then, in the tiniest voice, “Then why does it still feel like I’m the one who can’t breathe?”
Because the person you love most just carved his name out of your lungs, Beomgyu thought.
Because I’m holding you right now and I still don’t know if you’ll ever see me the way you saw him.
Because I’ve spent years practicing how to love you without asking for anything back, and I’m terrified that’s the only way you’ll ever let me.
But aloud he only said, “Because your heart is bigger than the hole he left. It’s trying to fill it with air and it doesn’t know how yet.”
A long pause. Then, in her smallest voice, barely audible, “Will it learn?”
Beomgyu closed his eyes.“I don’t know,” he answered honestly. “But I’ll sit here with you every night until it does. Or until it doesn’t. However long it takes.”
She didn’t reply with words. Instead she turned her face more fully into his chest, pressing her ear right over his heartbeat like she wanted to memorize the rhythm. Like she was trying to replace one missing sound with another.
Beomgyu let her. He would let her take whatever she needed—his warmth, his silence, his patience, his pulse—until there was nothing left of him to give. And even then, he suspected he’d find more to give.
The minutes blurred in the dim glow of the practice room, where time seemed to stretch and warp under the weight of unspoken burdens.
Beomgyu continued to hold Yoonseul, his arms a steady anchor amid the storm that had destroyed her. He murmured soft reassurances into the crown of her head—fragments of childhood stories, silly anecdotes from their trainee days, anything to fill the void left by her fading whispers.
Her responses had grown fainter over time, trailing off into quiet hums and the occasional hitch in her breath, but he hadn't registered the shift immediately. His mind was too tangled in its own web with the quiet roar of his love, and the fierce protectiveness that made him want to barricade the door against the world.
It wasn't until the silence deepened, unbroken by even the softest murmur, that he noticed.
Yoonseul's weight had settled more fully against him, her body going limp as she let herself surrender to sleep. Her fingers, once clutching his hoodie with desperate fervor, now lay slack across his chest, rising and falling with the slow rhythm of his own breaths.
He lifted his head slightly, careful not to jostle her, and glanced down. Her eyes were closed, lashes clumped with dried tears, casting faint shadows on her pale cheeks. Her lips parted just enough for shallow, even exhales, the exhaustion finally claiming her like a merciful thief in the night.
The sobs that had overwhelmed her for what felt like hours had subsided, leaving behind only the faint tremors of residual shudders, like aftershocks from an earthquake that had leveled her world.
Beomgyu's heart stuttered in his chest, a painful stagger that echoed through his veins. He hadn't expected this—hadn't anticipated the vulnerability of watching her sleep in his arms, her face softened by fatigue into something almost childlike, reminiscent of those long-ago afternoons when they'd collapse on his family's couch after playing all day, her head lolling onto his shoulder without a second thought.
Back then, it had been innocent. Easy.
Now, it was laced with layers of complexity he could barely unravel. The joy of being her safe harbor, the agony of knowing why she needed one, the unspoken love that thrummed beneath his skin like a live wire, threatening to spark at any moment.
He shifted ever so slightly, easing them both into a more comfortable position against the mirrored wall, his back protesting at the hard surface but his mind was too preoccupied to care.
One hand remained cradled at the nape of her neck, fingers absently tracing the soft strands of her hair, while the other stayed wrapped around her waist, holding her close as if she might slip away in her dreams.
He blinked back the sting in his eyes, refusing to let more tears fall—not while she needed him steady. His unspoken love, that quiet root system he'd nurtured in the shadows, twisted deeper now, feeding on this moment of intimacy even as it poisoned him with guilt.
How many times had he imagined holding her like this?
Not as the best friend consoling her after a heartbreak, but as the one she turned to first, the one whose name she whispered in vulnerability. It was ironic how here she was, asleep in his embrace, trusting him implicitly, and yet it was all built on the ruins of her love for someone else.
He wondered if she'd ever know—if he'd ever find the courage to voice the words that had simmered for years, or if they'd remain buried, growing wild and unchecked until they choked him from the inside.
The room's silence amplified the distant hum of the building's ventilation, the faint creak of settling floors, the steady thump of his heartbeat that she might hear even in sleep, lulling her like a forgotten lullaby.
Beomgyu didn't dare move aside from brushing a stray lock from her forehead with the lightest touch. He watched her face, memorizing the peaceful lines that grief had temporarily erased, and felt a profound, aching tenderness swell in his chest.
This was love, he thought bitterly.
Not the grand gestures or stolen kisses, but the quiet in the aftermath, the willingness to sit in the dark with someone's pain and not flinch away.
As the minutes ticked onward, the weight of the night pressed heavier. Beomgyu's own exhaustion tugged at him, but he resisted, eyes heavy-lidded but resolute. He'd stay awake for both of them—guarding her sleep, warding off the demons that might creep back in. And in that quiet, his unspoken love whispered its eternal promise.
I'll be here when you wake.
Even if you never see me the way I see you.
Even if it breaks me.
The mirrors reflected them back in infinite loops, a boy and a girl entwined in quiet repose, the heaviness of the evening looming over their fragile peace.
Meanwhile, across the building back in Beomgyu's studio, Yeonjun still sat slumped against the wall, knees to chest, forehead pressed hard enough to his arms that the skin was turning white.
He heard nothing now—no sobs, no whispers. Just silence.
He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes until stars burst behind his lids before shakily standing, and started pacing the room for what felt like hours despite the clock insisting that it was mere minutes. His mind was a whirlwind of regrets and what-ifs and the sobs he'd heard through the door haunted him, echoing in his skull like accusations.
He couldn't leave knowing his last memory was of her looking like that.
So he circled back, drawn like a moth to the flame he knew would burn him alive but he didn't go inside.
Instead, he hovered in the hallway shadows, just close enough to peer through the narrow crack where the door hadn't latched fully—Beomgyu's hurried entrance must have left it ajar.
The sight hit him like a freight train, Yoonseul wrapped in Beomgyu's arms, her body molded to his as if seeking solace in the familiar curve of his embrace. Beomgyu's head bowed over hers, his lips moving in whispers Yeonjun couldn't hear, one hand stroking her back with a tenderness that spoke of years unspoken.
Yeonjun's heart didn't just break—it pulverized, shards embedding deep into his chest until every breath was agony. He leaned against the wall and tears streamed unchecked, hot and silent, as the scene played out before him like a cruel movie scene.
She looked so small there, so protected in arms that weren't his. Arms that had always been waiting, patient and selfless, while Yeonjun had claimed her heart and then shattered it. The jealousy that flared was immediate and vicious, a green-eyed monster twisting in his gut—but it was drowned out by the overwhelming tide of self-loathing.
But this was all on him. He'd pushed her away. He'd sent Beomgyu to her. He'd created this void that someone else was now filling.
A choked sob escaped him, muffled into his palms, as he watched her cling to Beomgyu, her whispers carrying faintly on the air—words of begging, of endurance, of a pain he'd inflicted that eclipsed everything else.
Yeonjun's body shook with the force of his regret, fingers digging into his scalp as if he could pull the images out of his mind. He wanted to burst in, to rip her from those arms and beg forgiveness on his own knees.
But he stayed frozen in silence, a spectator to his own destruction, knowing that this was the price of his choice. The fans' hatred had bruised her body, but he'd bruised her heart—and watching her seek comfort elsewhere was the deepest wound of all, self-inflicted and bleeding out in the dim hallway light.
There he understood, with a clarity that felt like drowning, that the girl he’d loved enough to destroy was being put back together by someone who had loved her enough to wait.
Minutes passed before he finally decided to leave. Not because he wanted to. But because staying would have been the cruelest thing he could do to either of them.
The hallway lights flickered once as he passed beneath them, then steadied. Somewhere behind him in a room full of mirrors, two people sat wrapped in each other, breathing the same small, careful breaths.
Three hearts were in three different kinds of ruin.
