why jihoon is the perfect lowkey hang guy (according to the voices in my head).
WARNINGS: fem!reader (emphasis in a feminine presence in his life), kind of friends to hook up, smut, body fluids (cum), masturbation (f. & m.), fingering, blowjob, penetration, creampie, semi-public sex, spanking, vibrators, will make you rethink your standards, will ruin casual relationships for you. 4.4k words.
A/N: his is a drabble, not a fic btw, it’s messy, rushed, and honestly kinda poorly written, so, please lower your expectations 😭 i’m trying to come back slowly after a long hiatus. i’ve been working a lot lately n got married (that’s the reason i disappeared for so long). sorry for going quiet with no updates, truly, and thank you for sticking around anyway!! i missed y’all so fucking much, i swear. hope you still enjoy this little thing 🖤 THE BIG DICK IS BACK IN TOWN
jihoon is literally the perfect person to sneak around with in a big friend group or even at work/college, and it’s actually insane how nobody talks about it properly. like when you’ve got a whole damn crowd around you 24/7; people loud as fuck, always touching your stuff, always opening doors without knocking, always asking “where you going?” like they’re the damn FBI.
if you ever wanted something secret, something private, something that feels more intimate, you’d pick jihoon every single time, trust me, because he’s not messy with it. he’s not loud. he’s not showy. he’s not that annoying type that needs everyone to know he’s getting some pussy. he’s quiet, discreet, and the scariest part is he’s so naturally like that, it doesn’t even feel like he’s hiding. it just feels like he’s existing in his own world.
and it’s not even giving “i’m a bad boy, i’ll ruin your life bc im cold” either. i know people love forcing that “cold” vibe onto him, but it’s so fucking fake. if you’re already part of the group, if you’re not some random outsider trying to insert yourself, he’s not gonna treat you like a disposable secret. he’d treat you like a choice, like it’s not just convenience.
you should tell when someone’s just bored versus when someone actually wants you. and jihoon it’s the type that can look bored at everything in the world and still make you feel picked out like you’re the only thing in the room that makes sense.
it starts small, it’s you two sharing the same couch after everyone’s done screaming and laughing, the air smelling like ramen cups and energy drinks and that weird body spray someone keeps overusing. you’re tired, you’re scrolling on your phone pretending you’re not watching him from the corner of your eye. he’s got that calm face on, like nothing reaches him, like everything slides off.
but then you notice how he does notice things. the tiniest shit. you shifting your leg. you huffing because somebody left the window open and now it’s freezing. you rubbing your temple like you’ve got a headache. he doesn’t ask “are you okay?” just makes it better in the quietest way possible, like he’s patching you up without letting anyone catch him doing it.
and you’re sitting there thinking, god, this is exactly why he’d be perfect for secret anything. because he doesn’t make it a production. you could literally disappear with him for ten minutes and no one would realize it was a thing. it would just look like life happening. “oh, jihoon went to grab something.” “oh, y/n went to the bathroom.” nobody would connect the dots because jihoon doesn’t leave crumbs. he’s not that guy getting cocky and walking back into the room with that smug look on his face like “yeah i just did that.” noooooo absolutely not. he walks back in like he never left, like nothing happened, like he’s always been sitting there like he’s the safest liar you’ve ever met, except it doesn’t even feel like lying because he’s not doing it to hurt anyone.
and honestly, if you ever got into that kind of situation with him, some little after-hours slip, some “we should go somewhere quieter” moment, you wouldn’t even feel scared. not in a bad way. you’d feel that buzzy, stupid adrenaline like you’re in on a secret joke with the universe. the kind that makes your skin feel too tight, like you’re wearing your own body wrong,, you’d be walking behind him down a hallway that’s too bright, past a bunch of doors that all look the same, thinking about how ridiculous this is because you’re literally just walking and yet it feels filthy. it feels like you’re doing something you’re not supposed to, just because he’s the one leading the way and he’s not saying shit about it.
and you know what would absolutely fuck you outt? it wouldn’t be some big dramatic move. it’d be the quiet stuff, like him stopping in front of a door, checking behind him out of habit, and you realizing he’s doing it for you. like he’s making sure you’re safe before anything else. and you’d hate that you love it, because it’s way too intimate for something you’re pretending is casual, it’s way too boyfriend-coded for a situation that’s supposed to be nothing.
and i truly don’t think he’d have the courage to look you dead in the face and go “this is just sex, don’t catch feelings.” like… be so serious. jihoon? saying that out loud? absolutely not. he’d rather chew glass. he’d rather stare at the wall and quietly suffer. because if it’s you, if you’re already part of his everyday, already someone he trusts enough to be around when he’s tired and unfiltered, he’s not going to want to reduce you to nothing, do you get me?
he might try to act like it’s simple at first, like it’s contained, like it’s just a fun little secret you both keep tucked away. but he’s a romantic man, i’m sorry, i KNOW it in my bones. he’s the type that gets attached in the most inconvenient way possible, like a song getting stuck in your head. he won’t admit it until it’s already too late, until he’s already thinking about you when you’re not there, already noticing your absence like it’s a missing piece of his routine.
because you’re different in his life. you’re not one of the boys, and that matters, not in a weird gender-war way, but in a real, human way. there’s something about the way you exist that changes the air around him. you bring this female caring energy (without momming ofc), this vividness that doesn’t feel loud but feels warm, like a lamp turned on in a dark room. you notice when he’s quiet for too long. you offer him the last bite of something without making it a big deal. you ask him if he ate. you tease him in a way that doesn’t embarrass him. you look at him like he’s not just “jihoon from the group” but like he’s a whole person. and that kind of attention, that kind of softness, sticks to him, it worms its way into his life and makes a little nest there.
so yeah, if you start sneaking around with him, it wouldn’t be this explosive, messy, public thing. it’d be small, it’d look like nothing from the outside, but it would feel like everything when you’re inside it.
it’d be late, everyone half-asleep or distracted, some dumb movie playing in the background that nobody’s actually watching. and you’d catch him watching you instead, just for a second, just that quick flick of his eyes, and it would hit you like a punch; oh, maybe he wants me?? not like a random urge. like a choice he’s making over and over. and you’d feel your stomach drop because you’d realize you want him too, in that stupid, greedy way that isn’t just about seeex.
and the secret would become this thing you carry around all day like a little spark in your pocket. you’d be standing in the kitchen with the others, nodding along to some conversation you don’t care about, and you’d feel jihoon behind you, close enough that you can sense him without turning around. he wouldn’t touch you, obviously, he’s not reckless. but the suspense would be there anyway, humming under your skin, and it would be so fucking hot, honestly, because nothing’s happening and yet everything is happening. your brain would be screaming, your face would be neutral, and he’d be acting normal like he’s not the reason your thoughts are filthy as hell.
and then when you finally get a moment alone again ,just a sliver of privacy, it would feel like exhaling after holding your breath all day. like you can finally be real for five seconds. and he’d still be quiet and calm. but the second you’re close enough, it would be obvious; he’s been thinking about it too, he’s been holding it in too, he just does it better than anyone else!!
and that’s why he’s perfect for it. because he can keep a secret without making you feel like one.
he’d let you invade his routine in the softest ways, he’d make room for you like it’s accidental, like it’s nothing, but suddenly you’re always there, your charger plugged into his outlet, your hair tie on his wrist, your hoodie on his chair. and he wouldn’t say “stay.” he wouldn’t even ask tbh, he’d just keep leaving the door open for you, again and again, until you realize you’re not sneaking around anymore.
and since you know i'm not the best with fluffs, here's the SEX part you've been waiting for;
jihoon would never rush it, that’s the first thing you gotta understand. he’d take his sweet fucking time even when the clock’s ticking and the rest of the dorm could BARGE in any second. he’d have you backed up against the wall in some random empty bathroom while everyone enjoyed the airbnb your group of friend rented for the weekend, your back pressed to the cool tiles, legs already shaking before he even touches you properly.
he’d start slow, always. hand sliding up your thigh under your skirt, the tip of his fingers dragging lazy circles on the inside until you’re squirming. “stay still,” he’d mutter quietly, not even looking at your face yet, just watching his own hand disappear under the fabric. he’d hook your panties to the side, not bothering to take them off, because why waste time when he already knows exactly how wet you are for him.
and you would be dreeenched. he’d feel it the second his fingertips brush your folds, slick, hot, coating him immediately. he wouldn’t say anything about it at first, just let out this quiet, almost annoyed little breath like he can’t believe how easy you get for him. then he’d drag those two fingers up, collecting all that wetness, spreading it over your clit in the slowest, softest circles. not pressing hard, just gliding, teasing the hood, letting your own slick make everything slippery and obscene.
jihoon would watch your face the whole time, eyes half-lidded, lips parted just enough that you can see the tip of his tongue when he swallows. he’d notice every twitch, how your hips jerk when he circles just right, how your breath hitches when he drags the pad of his middle finger flat over the swollen little bud. and when your clit’s already hard, puffy, standing out like it’s begging, he would get mean in the gentlessst way possible.
he’d focus right on the tip. that tiny, hypersensitive peak. using just the lightest pressure, barely there, feather-soft, rubbing tiny, tight circles with the very tip of his finger, using your own wetness to make it glide smooth. no rough friction, no pinching.
you’d feel that hot agony that’s almost too much, the kind that makes your thighs clamp around his wrist even though you’re dying for him to keep going. he’d feel you clench around nothing, see your back arch off the wall, and he’d still keep that exact same rhythm, eventhough you are moving a lot. “breathe,” he’d whisper, free hand coming up to cradle the back of your neck, thumb stroking your jaw like he’s soothing you through the torture. but he doesn’t stop, actualyl he NEVER stops when you’re like this.
jihoon would lean in then, lips brushing your ear. “you’re dripping down my wrist, feel that?” he’d let his fingers slide inside, just enough to push it all back inside you, slow and a bit shallow, barely two knuckles deep, while his thumb stays glued to your clit, still working that tiny point in the same feather-light circles. the contrast would fit perfectly; the stretch of his fingers filling you up, the maddening tease on your clit.
your knees would buckle. you’d grab his shoulders, nails digging in, trying to push him away and pull him closer at the same time. that great, curling agony would hit, making your vision blur and your breath come in pathetic little gasps. he’d feel you start to flutter around his fingers, walls pulsing, and that’s when he’d finally press just a fraction harder on your clit, still light, but enough to tip you over.
“let it happen, hm?” he’d murmur, voice so fucking calm while you’re falling apart. “i’ve got you.” and he would. he’d keep rubbing through it, drawing it out until you’re shaking, whimpering into his neck, thighs trembling so bad he has to pin you against the wall with his body so you don’t slide down.
also,, jihoon would be the absolute fucking menace when you're stuck in those tight spots, like crammed in a van on a road trip with the whole crew, or holed up in some shitty hotel room where the walls are paper-thin and your friends are giggling in the next room over. he thrives on that shit, the risk of getting caught without actually blowing the cover. he'd wait until everyone's dozing off or distracted, maybe during a late-night drive when the music's low and the highway hums under the tires, or after lights out when the only sounds are snores and muffled whispers.
he'd start subtle, always. sliding his hand over your thigh under the blanket in the back seat, fingers inching higher while he stares out the window like he's lost in thought while he is feeling you tense up because you know exactly where this is going. “relax,” he'd whisper, lips brushing your ear as he leans in like he's just adjusting his seat. his fingers would dip under your shorts or skirt or pants or idk, no rush, just tracing the seam of your panties until you're shifting, trying not to make a sound.
and here's where he gets nasty as hell, he'd never hush those wet sounds. fuck no. he'd tease you on purpose, dragging his fingers through your folds, collecting that slick that's already building because let's be real, being this close to him in secret always gets you going. he'd circle your clit lightly at first, then dip inside, curling just enough to make you clench, and that's when it starts; that obscene, creamy schlk schlk schlk every time he pumps in and out. loud enough in the quiet space that your face burns, but he fucking loves it. his eyes would flick to yours.
if you try to clamp your thighs shut to muffle it, he'd pry them back open with his free hand, shaking his head slightly. “don't,” he'd mutter, holding your gaze so you can't look away. he'd keep that rhythm going, fingers fucking into you deeper, wetter, making sure every thrust pulls out that filthy, squelching noise, like your pussy's betraying you right there in front of everybody.
and if you're traveling solo with him, he'd amp it up. pull you into his lap in the hotel bed, sheets tangled, and fuck you slow and deep, no condom because why bother. he'd grind in balls-deep, stirring his cum inside you from the last round, turning it all creamy and messy, that schlk turning into a full-on sloppy symphony.
he'd hold his moans back, biting his lip until it's white, jaw clenched tight so only these quiet, guttural grunts slip out. but if you get too loud, gasping or whimpering, his hand would clamp over your mouth firm but gentle, fingers pressing just enough to remind you. “shh, y/n,” he'd breathe, eyes locked on where he's disappearing inside you, mesmerized by the way your wetness coats him, strings of it pulling every time he draws back. the wet smacks, the creamy churn, he'd never try to drown them out. he'd slow down on purpose sometimes, pulling almost all the way out just to slam back in and make it echo louder, like he's moaning through the noise itself, each one pulling a stifled groan from his throat.
if u get ashamed, he'd eat that up. he'd see it on your face, cheeks flushed, eyes squeezing shut like you can't handle how embarrassing it is, how your body's so loud and needy, and it'd turn him on more. “look at you,” he'd whisper, free hand tilting your chin so you have to watch too, “so fucking wet for me, can't even hide it.” he'd tease you mercilessly, thumb rubbing your clit in time with his thrusts to make you gush even more, if it's a creampie situation, he'd pull out halfway through your orgasm just to watch his cum mix with yours, then push back in slow, savoring the extra gush that comes with it, like he's painting you from the inside.
jihoon would never fake like he hates it.
another thing is that i think jihoon would lose his entire fucking mind the second you drop to your knees in his studio. door locked, purple light on, beats paused mid-loop because he can’t focus anymore with you looking up at him like that. he’d be slouched in his chair, legs spread just enough, sweatpants pushed down to mid-thigh, cock already hard and leaking because you’d been teasing him for the last hour with little touches and glances while he tried to work.
your hand wrapped around him, stroking lazy and firm, thumb swiping over the tip to spread the precum. but the real shit starts when you dip lower. when you cup his balls, rolling them gently in your palm, feeling how heavy and tight they are. jihoon would suck in a sharp breath through his teeth, head tipping back against the chair, eyes fluttering shut for a second like he’s trying not to come right then.
“fuck… yeah, right there,” he’d mutter, one hand sliding into your hair, fingers flexing like he needs something to ground himself. you’d lick a slow stripe up the underside of his cock, then take him in your mouth, hollowing your cheeks, but you’d keep playing with his balls the whole time, squeezing lightly, tugging just enough to make his hips twitch, massaging them in slow circles while you bob your head.
that gets him… inspired? not just the wet heat of your mouth, though that’s already killing him. it’s the attention to his balls, the way you cradle them like they’re just as important, the soft hum you make when you feel them draw up tighter. he’d start breathing harder, little choked-off sounds slipping out despite how hard he tries to stay quiet.
sometimes he wouldn’t even let you finish him with your mouth. he’d pull you off gently, hand replacing yours on his cock, jerking himself fast and sloppy while you keep fondling his balls, pressing your lips to the sensitive skin right above them, kissing and licking while he watches you with dark, blown-out eyes. the sight of you down there, devoted, shameless, worshipping that part of him, he’d come hard, spilling over his fist and your fingers, thighs shaking, a quiet, broken “fuck” punched out of him.
after, he’d just sit there panting, staring at you like you rewired his brain. he’d pull you up into his lap, kiss you messy and grateful, muttering against your mouth, “you have no idea what you just did to my next track.” because hes somehow already hearing it in his head, som slow, filthy bassline, heavy and pulsing, inspired by the way you made him feel completely fucking owned in the best way.
also, i think jihoon isn’t the type to walk around with a mile-long list of kinks and fetishes tattooed on his brain. he doesn’t need a whole playbook of crazy shit to get off. most days, just the sight of you with hair messy, lips swollen from kissing, thighs trembling because you’re already soaked just from grinding on his lap, is more than enough to make him hard and horny!!
but the second you whisper something you’re curious about, something that makes your cheeks burn when you say it out loud, he doesn’t even blink. no judgment, no “really? that’s your thing?” he just nods once, and goes, “okay. show me what you want.”
vibrators? he’d pull one out of the drawer like he’s had it waiting, lube already on the nightstand because he’s always prepared. he’d hold it against your clit while he fucks you slow and deep, watching your face the whole time, adjusting the speed until you’re arching and whining his name. spanking? he’d flip you over his knee without a word, palm warm and heavy, starting light and building until your ass is pink and stinging and you’re dripping down your thighs. he’d rub soothing circles after every few smacks, kissing the back of your neck.
he’d try anything once if it’s something you’re into; bondage, edging, roleplay, even the weirder stuff you’re too shy to google. he’d ask questions quietly beforehand: “how hard? how long? tell me if it’s too much.” and he’d stop the second you tap out, no questions, no guilt-tripping, just pull you into his chest and holding you until your breathing evens out.
and i just know his after care is the best of the best. he’s not performative about it, he doesn’t make a whole production. he’d reach for the wet wipes he keeps right there on the nightstand, warm ones because he thought ahead and popped them in the microwave for ten seconds. he’d clean you up so gently, wiping between your thighs, your stomach, anywhere that’s sticky, while you’re still boneless and floating. if you slump right after, too fucked out to move, he’d just tuck the blanket around you, kiss your forehead, and grab a bottle of water from the mini fridge. “drink a little, baby,” he’d say, voice soft, holding it to your lips until you take a few sips.
sometimes he’d even give up his own shit just to make sure you’re happy. like that one time you mentioned offhand that you hate sleeping in complete darkness because it makes you anxious; he started leaving the little desk lamp on low, even though he usually needs pitch black to crash after late nights. or when you said you get cold easy after sex, he’d pull out an extra hoodie, his favorite black one, and drape it over you before you even ask. he’d let you steal his pillow because you like the way it smells like him, even if it means he’s contorting himself around you all night.
he’d skip his usual post-sex shower if you’re clingy and just want to be held, staying sticky and sweaty with you curled against his chest. he’d even pause his music production for the night if you’re in the mood to talk or cuddle instead of him disappearing into the studio. “i can finish the track tomorrow,” he’d mumble into your hair, arms tight around you like letting go isn’t an option.
if things go riiight, jihoon would be so fucking exclusive the second he realizes he actually likes you, not just the surface-level, you’re hot and fun shit.
it wouldn’t be dramatic, no big declarations, no posting cryptic lyrics on his insta story. but hed realize with the way he stops replying to flirty dms overnight. the way his phone stays face-down when you’re around because he doesn’t want you thinking there’s anyone else pulling his attention. he’d delete dating apps without a word, not because he’s trying to prove something, but because the thought of even scrolling through them feels pointless when you’re right there.
sex with him would hit different because of that exclusivity. every time he touches you, it’s like he’s saying “this is only for you.” he’d look at you like you’re the only person in the world who’s ever made him feel this way, eyes soft but burning, hands mapping your body like he’s memorizing it for keeps. he’d whisper your name against your skin like it’s sacred, like saying it out loud is a privilege he doesn’t give anyone else. and when he’s inside you, slow and deep, holding eye contact, it’s sooo “i chose you and i’m not choosing anyone else” way.
you’d feel exclusive down to your bones. the way he remembers exactly how you like to be touched, the little spots that make you gasp, the rhythm that makes your toes curl. he’d never rush, never half-ass it, because to him, time with you is rare and precious! even if it’s quick and sneaky in the studio or the back of a car, he makes sure you come first, always, like it’s his personal mission.
and here’s the mature part that i absolutely LOVE about him; he wouldn’t pressure you for more. if you’re not ready to date date, if you just want this secret, steady thing that’s yours and his, he’d hold it for years without complaint. no guilt trips, no “what are we?” ultimatums. hed just keep showing up the same way he was from the very beginning, reliable, attentive, exclusive. texting you goodnight even if he’s halfway across the world on tour. sending you random voice notes of beats he made that remind him of you. slipping into your bed at 3am after a long day, wrapping around you without needing to talk about it. it’d be this unspoken agreement that you’re each other’s safe place, no labels required.
but if one day you decide you do want more? if you look at him across the room and think “fuck, i want this for real”? he’d try. god, he’d try so hard. he’d sit you down, quiet and serious, and say “i’ve been waiting for you to be ready. if you want this, i’m all in.” and it would be awesome. he’d be the boyfriend who plans lowkey dates that feel like home; late-night drives, studio sessions where you fall asleep on his couch, cooking together at 2am because neither of you can sleep. he’d hold your hand in public without hesitation, introduce you to his family like you’ve always been there, make space in his life like you were always meant to fit.
either way…whether it stays this beautiful, mature, exclusive secret for years, or turns into something official, he\d make you feel chosen. every. single. day.
prompt — “i’m so undeniably screwed for this woman.”
pairing — woozi x reader
genre — fluffy fluff, opposites attract, tiny bit of woozi’s inner turmoil but in a cute way
warnings — light swearing, mutual pining, woozi being emotionally constipated but adorable about it
word count — 600(?) i literally planned longer but my brain farted
note: nonchalant woozi + sunshine reader <3 thank you for this request hehe.
masterlist
he’s watching you again.
not in a weird way. not in a creepy way. probably.
it’s just—you’re laughing. again. and it’s the kind of laugh that bursts out of you like soda fizz, bright and sparkling, and it fills the whole studio. and he’s just—well...
“hyung,” seungkwan says, walking past with his laptop and a raised brow, “you’re staring again.” he sing-songs, rolling his eyes.
woozi blinks, caught.
“i’m not,” he replies, flatly.
“sure,” seungkwan sings, disappearing down the hall.
woozi sighs and sinks further into his chair. you’re sitting cross-legged on the studio couch, scrolling through your phone, earbuds in and completely oblivious to the absolute chokehold you’ve put him in.
and that’s the problem. you always are.
you’re warm, expressive, a walking serotonin shot. you light up every room you walk into and talk with your hands and cry over dog videos and compliment strangers’ outfits just because. you're the type of person who remembers birthdays, texts people good luck before big meetings, and bakes cookies on random tuesdays "just because you felt like it."
and woozi?
woozi is the guy who pretends not to hear compliments because he doesn’t know how to take them, he expresses love through perfectly mixed vocal tracks and buying your favorite snacks and pretending he’s not checking his phone every two minutes waiting for your reply.
and yet you’re here all the time.
you come by the studio even when he doesn’t ask. you bring coffee and snacks and once a tiny plush keychain because "it looked like you and i couldn't not buy it." you ask about his day like you really want to know. you hug him goodbye even though he never hugs back (not properly, anyway).
and sometimes you sit quietly beside him for hours, just vibing, while he works on music. humming under your breath. asking questions about things he thought no one ever noticed. like the way he softens the instrumental under the bridge to highlight the vocals. or how he layers harmonies to make the chorus sound fuller.
you notice everything—and it’s driving him insane.
because he’s not supposed to feel this soft. not when he barely knows what to do with his feelings half the time, not when you smile at him like you know something he doesn’t, like you’re waiting for him to catch up.
“you okay?” you ask suddenly, pulling out your earbuds and tilting your head at him. he startles slightly, coughing. “yeah.”
“you were spacing out,” you grin. “thinking hard, genius?”
he huffs a laugh, turns back to his screen. “something like that.”
you shuffle over and peer at his monitor, chin on his shoulder like it’s the most natural thing in the world. he doesn’t move. doesn’t breathe. you’re close enough that he can smell your shampoo. something citrusy. fresh. “is this the new demo?” you whisper, like it’s a secret.
he nods.
“can i hear it?”
“it’s not done yet.”
“i don’t care.” you whisper, leaning in close to his ear.
and he sighs, already knowing that he’d lost to you with just one look. he hits play and pretends his heart isn’t doing backflips while you listen with that furrowed brow and soft smile. you always listen like this—like the song is a person you’re trying to understand.
when it ends, you turn to him, eyes wide. “woozi. that’s so good. it sounds like falling in love.”
he snorts, ducking his head. “that’s not what it’s about.”
“still feels like it,” you shrug.
he glances at you, a little helpless. you’re too close. too real. too much.
“you always say the dumbest stuff,” he mutters, but his voice is weirdly fond. you grin at this like you know you’ve won something. “you love it.”
and that’s the thing, isn’t it?
he does.
god help him, but he does. and his grumpy disposition falters as he rubs his palm into his eyes.
“i’m so undeniably screwed for this woman,” he mutters under his breath, almost too quiet to hear.
oh, but you hear it.
you blink, going still. lips part like you’re about to say something, but nothing comes out. instead, you stare at him with an amused look on your face.
his eyes widen slightly, and for the first time in a long time, he feels his composure crack.
“…shit,” he curses, throwing his head back. “did i say that out loud?”
you blink again. then smile, slow and warm and soft enough to melt him right there in the chair.
“yeah,” you say. “you did.”
a beat passes. he opens his mouth, closes it, and opens it again.
“…okay.” he pathetically mumbles,
and then you’re laughing. again. that same fizzy, unstoppable laugh, and you bump your shoulder into his and say, “about time.”
he stares at you, and you stare back. then you reach over and take his hand—gently, casually, like you’ve done it a hundred times—and squeeze.
“don’t worry,” you whisper. “seems like we’re both in trouble, then. you make me feel like i got a few screws loose, lee jihoon.”
and woozi, ever the calm, composed, nonchalant musical genius that he is—completely short-circuits.
join here!
if you liked this, i appreciate a reblog as well :3 it helps my works and writing spread to other ppl very effectively !!
you walk into the living room with what feels like the world on your shoulders. jihoon notices your presence, but keeps playing with his joystick because he knows you're gonna greet him - you always do.
but not tonight.
he hears you murmuring a poor 'hey' to him, walking straight down the hallway and into your shared bedroom. he pauses his game, sitting on the edge of the couch with the biggest question mark written all over his face. should he follow you? should he give you some space? what happened?
as soon as you start the shower though - and he hears it from the living room -, jihoon decides to wait. maybe you're just tired, maybe it was just a shitty day at work. let them have their own time, he thinks.
so he does. jihoon starts playing again, the sleeves of his black hoodie pulled to his elbows as he tries his best to succeed on that new level of the game. he slightly misses when you walk past him again, entering the kitchen and groaning.
“um?”, jihoon hums, pressing pause and turning to you.
“i don’t wanna cook but i’m starving”, you say. your voice is low enough for him to know that you're damn tired.
“i bought some chicken this afternoon, there’s some left in the fridge if you want”, he gives you a kind smile. “or we can order something”.
you deny, already opening the fridge and looking for the leftovers. jihoon watches you as you walk around the kitchen, every step followed by a sigh, until you put a plate of food in the microwave and then walk to the couch.
you take the seat beside jihoon, body melting against his. your head on his shoulder, torso all over him, knee bumping his knee. he could laugh at how cute you are.
“bad day?”
“bad week”, you answer.
jihoon doesn't waste a second after your reply. he wraps your shoulders with his arm, pulling you close to him and, hopefully, away from whatever is bugging you.
“you wanna talk?”, he offers but you decline with a firm shake of your head. “do you wanna play with me then? i’ll let you win.”
you decline again, pressing your body against jihoon's. you bury your face on his hoodie, smelling not soap or cologne, but his natural scent; that natural, warm and unique scent.
“can i stay here, though?”
“you mean ‘here’ as in my arms? using me as a pillow?”
you nod, with closed eyes and a small pout on your lips. suddenly, jihoon falls in love with you all over again.
“you don’t even have to ask.”
he then kisses the top of your head, grabbing his joystick with both hands - one arm still wrapped around you, holding you safely - and going back to play. neither of you hears when the microwave bips, the food long forgotten and jihoon's attention not too much on the game either.
all your senses are focused on each other’s presence, on how you have each other; on how you'll always have, no matter what happened, someone to go back to at the end of the day.
🤎 jihoon x f!reader
🤎 0.7k
🤎 playing with jihoon's hair
🤎 requested by @gent1es3xy <33 for my 100 followers event!
🤎 don't play with weights folks, it's not safe. reader is a menace. it's really just fluff tbh. jihoon is fluffy.
Jihoon's not done working out, but you'd really like to head home.
🤎
“Can we go now?” you whine quietly, pouting your best, but Jihoon shakes his head, tossing his hair out of his eyes.
“I still have half my routine left. Sorry. Go walk on the treadmill or something.” And he sets his water bottle down and walks away.
The nerve.
So you follow him across the gym.
Jihoon glances up from the weight rack as you lean against it. His brows furrow.
“What are you –”
“Just do your workout. Ignore me.” You smile. Jihoon side-eyes you, but picks up his weights.
He readies his stance, then starts his set of weighted lunges.
You wait.
Then, as he’s settling into the stretch, you lean over and ruffle his hair.
He loses his balance and almost topples over before he can catch himself. You bite your lip, holding back a smile as he shoots you a glare.
“What was that?”
“Nothing. I’m just waiting.”
Jihoon narrows his eyes. “Wait somewhere else.”
But he picks his weights back up and starts back into his lunges.
And again, you reach out and bury your fingers in his soft, fluffy hair.
This time the weights hit the ground, and he shoots to his feet, glaring again.
“Stop it.”
“Stop what?”
“Stop – touching my hair.”
He’s frowning, but there’s an adorable tinge of red creeping over his cheeks. You have to fight to keep your face neutral as he glances around the gym. There’s a few other people. Not too many.
You just blink, looking as innocent as you can, and Jihoon grunts and returns to his weights. His muscles really do look good, flexing as he adjusts his grip, and you consider grabbing his bicep this time, but you’ve already gone this far with the hair. And his hair is fluffy, and you do want to bury your hands in it.
And also head home. You would like to head home.
So you inch closer again and slip both your hands into his hair, scratching light circles against his scalp, and his breath hitches so hard he starts coughing.
“Stop!” he hisses between hacks, struggling to set the weights down and get his feet under him. People are looking now, curious glances darting through exercise machines, and Jihoon’s cheeks are flaming by the time he finally regulates his breathing again. He grabs the weights and doesn’t look at you as he nearly slams them back on the rack.
“What –” you start, but Jihoon shakes his head.
“We’re leaving. Come on.”
He stalks off towards your stuff in the corner, swiping both your bag and his into his arms. You hurry to catch up, reaching to take your bag off his hands, but he tugs it back and slings it over his shoulder.
“I’m sorry?” you say as he shoves his hip into the door to open it. He just jerks his chin out into the parking lot and waits until you step outside to let the door shut.
It’s not until you’re both in the car that he lets out a long groan and drops his head against the top of the wheel.
“You,” he mutters, “are going to be the death of me.”
You let out a small breath. The tension drops from your shoulders. He turns his head enough to shoot you an exasperated but undeniably fond look, and you smile sheepishly and shrug.
“I wanted to go home.”
“No kidding.”
Jihoon pauses then, scanning your face with something unreadable in his eyes. You look back for a moment, and then it’s too much, and your gaze drops to your lap.
“Hey.”
You look up to find him leaning in, his hand suddenly hot under your chin, and then he’s kissing you – rough at first, fingers gripping your jaw, but then it melts into something softer, his lips moving gently against yours in a way that has your mind reeling.
When he finally breaks away, it takes you a moment to open your eyes.
“There,” Jihoon says, satisfaction dripping from his voice.
He drops another smack on your lips, loud noise included, then sits back and starts the car. You blink, trying to wake up your brain. “So, do you wanna go home badly enough that picking up dinner isn’t an option?”
Oh. So he’s being normal now. Two can play at that game. “Ooh, no. I want Chick-fil-A.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
You smile as he pulls out of the parking lot, reaching up to curl your fingers around the back of his neck, and you spend the rest of the drive home with your hand in his hair.
it's just you both tonight, but when he brings you some tea and presses his lips against your forehead, you don't want this feeling to go away. you've been sick for days, but it’s the little things—like jihoon’s soft kisses—that make you feel like you can survive this. even when you're gross and sniffling, he won't leave your side.
🍵 PAIRING/WC :: lee jihoon × fem!reader ⋅ 1,597 words
🍵 CONTENTS :: soft boy jihoon, forehead kisses, mutual pining, taking care of a sick partner, domestic moments, co-actors in a fake relationship for public image. jihoon actually opening up a little
⚠️ WARNINGS :: mentions of fever/sickness, light physical weakness, a lot of touches (forehead kisses, hand holding). no explicit content. no heavy angst. not beta-ed. tahts all i think! but still lmk.
🍵 A/N :: happiest, happiest birthday to our uji 🥹🤍 the tiniest, cutest, most hard-working genius ever. i hope today you actually let yourself rest for once and let people spoil you because you deserve it more than anyone. pls come back to me jihoon, i’m literally on my knees. you military ppl, im watching you. spoil him today. anyway, lol. i actually finished writing this on 7th february this year and kept it on hold thinking it wasn’t good enough, and honestly i just procrastinated asking for second opinions. so this is still a second draft as i went over it yesterday and did some slight tweakings. couldn’t do much because i was cringing but i hope you guys will still like it. compared to what i wrote back in feb, this is wayyy better. i waited almost a year to post this, so pls give this lots of love heheh ς(>‿<.) tagging: #1 jihoon enthusiast @shinysobi
It’s just you both tonight.
Your shared apartment is quieter today as you pull the blanket tighter around yourself. Your nose is stuffed, your throat sore, and your head feels like it’s being squeezed in a vice. You’ve been sick for days and barely able to get out of bed, but the worst part isn’t the congestion or the fever, it’s the loneliness that settled the moment Jihoon stepped out earlier to run errands. It surprised you how empty the place felt without him. It has only been a week since he started staying over regularly, and you already feel strange whenever he’s not around.
You don’t know when things changed. You both agreed to a fake relationship with nothing more than a convenient solution to help with the pressure from the public, the fans, and even your families. Everyone loved the idea. Everything about it should’ve been simple. But somewhere along the way, it stopped feeling simple.
“Here.” Jihoon’s voice cuts through your drifting thoughts. You look up and see him standing at your bedroom door with a steaming mug of tea in his hands. His eyes melt when he sees the state you are in, and you find your heart beating fast. He steps in and sets the mug on the nightstand before sitting down beside you. “You need to drink this. It’ll help with your throat.” He nudges the mug toward you for you to take it.
You don’t have the strength to argue, so you nod and take a sip. The warmth soothes your throat, and just for some time, you forget about the cameras, the questions about what you two really are, and the arrangement that started all of this. Being here with him in this small room feels like a break from everything outside.
Jihoon watches you closely as you drink. His attention doesn’t drift from you for even a second. He adjusts the pillow behind your back and tucks the blanket around your shoulders, and checks if you’re comfortable or not. He always does these little things. You try to tell yourself it’s just part of the act, part of the deal, but you know better. Jihoon doesn’t pretend with things like this. He’s naturally careful with the people he cares about.
“Thank you,” you whisper. Your chest feels tight and you don’t question it with your sickness, and you don’t know if it’s from the tea or from something more sitting behind your ribs.
He shrugs. “You’re sick. It’s the least I can do.” But the least he can do feels like much more.
The silence between you isn’t awkward anymore. You’ve grown used to the gradual changes in his expression, his way of showing his worry without saying it. Little by little, he has let himself get close to you even if neither of you planned for that to happen.
You set the empty mug down just as Jihoon reaches out and brushes your forehead with the back of his hand. You don’t pull away. His touch feels so careful and a little shaky. You can’t remember the last time anyone touched you without wanting something in return. Jihoon stays for a moment, then leans forward and presses a kiss to your forehead. The gesture’s almost absentminded, yet it steals the breath from your lungs.
Your eyes flutter open slowly, and you find him watching you with an expression you can’t yet read. Before you can speak, he stands. “Get some rest. I’ll be in the living room if you need anything.”
You watch his back as he walks toward the door. You don’t want him to leave when his presence feels like the only thing holding everything in you together and making you feel better. “Stay,” you whisper.
Jihoon stops. For a second he doesn’t move and you worry he might pretend he didn’t hear you. But he turns, and his eyes soften with that low-key tiny smile on his lips. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Instead of you staying all day in the bedroom, you end up in the living room together with the TV playing in the background. Neither of you is really watching it. Jihoon keeps glancing at you and checks if you’re cold, if you’re breathing fine, if your fever looks worse than before, if you need some more tissues.
When the night grows late, he gets up and stretches. “Need anything else?”
You shake your head but then your stomach growls loudly. You feel your face heat up with embarrassment. “Maybe something light. I don’t think I can eat anything heavy.”
Jihoon nods and heads to the kitchen without a single complaint. He moves quickly as if he already had something in mind. When he returns with a small bowl of warm soup, you can feel your throat tightening again, but this time it’s from your overwhelming feelings for this man. He sets it in front of you and sits beside you. “Eat.”
You take a spoonful. The heat spreads through your mouth and chest, and the comfort is immediate. Jihoon’s eyes never leave you as he watches to make sure you finish it, not in a controlling way but in a more concerned way. You want to ask him why he’s being like this. Why is he doing more than what the arrangement requires. Why is he choosing to stay here when he doesn’t have to. But you keep eating instead.
When you finish, he stands to take the bowl away. Before he leaves, he leans down and presses another kiss to your forehead. This time his lips stay connected to your forehead a little longer than the last time. His thumb brushes your temple, and when he pulls back, he looks at you, “you know,” he says, “even if this wasn’t fake, I wouldn’t mind.”
It feels like you might as well suffocate right now… but in a good way. For so long, you have been convincing yourself this is just for convenience, and a performance for everyone else. But hearing him say that makes everything inside you roam around and change painfully. You don’t want this to end, and you most definitely don’t want to go back to being strangers who only speak for the sake of appearances as co-actors. Jihoon clears his throat and looks away. He seems unsure, which is rare. He doesn’t usually stumble like this. He seems like he wants to say more, but you can tell he’s holding himself back.
“Jihoon…” Your voice is trailing. “Stay. Just for a little longer.”
He hesitates at first, probably thinking about the work he has tomorrow or the fact that he has already stayed too late. But then he lets out a sigh and nods. “Yeah. Okay.”
He starts toward the other couch, but something inside you pushes you to reach out. You pat the space beside you. “Here. It’s more comfortable.”
Jihoon pauses on his way to sit down on the other couch. He looks at you like he’s trying to decide if this is a mistake. He’s careful, never crosses a line unless he knows it won’t hurt either of you.
After a moment, he sits. It’s not too close, but also close enough that you can feel him around you. The TV keeps playing behind you, but neither of you really pay attention to it. Your eyelids grow heavy from the rest settling inside you, and you’re happy to tell yourself that it’s not from the fever. Jihoon must sense it because he finally speaks.
“You scared me.”
“What?”
“When you got sick,” he eyes lowering to his hands. “You weren’t answering your phone. And when I got here, you could barely stand.” He goes quiet for some time. “I knew you weren’t in danger, but… I didn’t like not being here.”
Your throat tightens again. He isn’t someone who throws words around. If he’s saying this, it’s because he means it. “Why?”
He huffs a laugh, but there’s nothing funny in it. He looks more frustrated with himself than anything else. “I don’t know. I just didn’t like the idea of you being alone.”
That hits something in you that you haven’t let yourself acknowledge. Your fingers brush his hand slowly, and you feel him tense around your hand, then relax and turn his palm up to hold yours. His thumb rubs lightly against your skin. “I didn’t want to be alone,” you admit to him. “I thought I’d be fine with all of this. I thought it wouldn’t change anything.”
“You were wrong,” he says.
“Yeah.”
He stares at your joined hands for a long time. “If we stopped pretending… would that be so bad?”
Your heart literally thunders in your chest now. The answer’s very obvious to you. It has always been obvious. “It was never fake for me.”
Jihoon exhales and pulls you in a little closer to him. His voice drops to a breathy whisper. “If we’re not faking it… does that mean I get to keep you?”
Your breath catches, and you feel everything inside you fall into place. You squeeze his hand. “Only if you want to.”
His expression changes to relief and what you can describe it as, realization. He cups your cheek and leans in to press another kiss to your forehead. This one didn’t feel like it was for comfort. “I do,” he confesses. “I always have.”
For the first time tonight, the weird tightness in your chest eases. It doesn’t feel like comfort but like a beginning. And you don’t want it to end.
genre: domestic fluff, suggestive, married!, Just jihoon looking too damn hot with glasses
It was a regular Sunday, with you and JIhoon curled up on the couch, his fingers playing with your hair lazily and a variety show playing quietly on the TV. One of the guests got teased for being “hopeless at picking up on flirting.” You laughed. Maybe a little too loudly.
Jihoon’s head turned immediately. “What’s so funny?”
You smirked. “Just… I could totally see you missing it if someone was trying to flirt with you.”
His expression shifted — not offended, but sharp. “I wouldn’t miss it.”
“Oh, really?”
He leaned back, smirk curling at the edge of his mouth, eyes narrowing like he was weighing a challenge. “If someone was trying to seduce me, I’d notice.”
You tilted your head. “And…?”
“Depends,” he said smoothly, voice dropping low enough to curl in your stomach, “...on how good they are.”
You said nothing. Just let the quiet stretch as you tucked the thought away. By the time you were brushing your teeth that night, you had already decided: tomorrow, you’d put him to the test.
It started at breakfast.
You came downstairs wearing one of his old button-ups — soft cotton, sleeves rolled to your elbows — and absolutely nothing else but panties hidden underneath. The smell of coffee filled the kitchen as you poured his usual cup and slid it across the counter with a bright, innocent smile.
“Morning,” you chirped, leaning just far enough over the counter that you knew exactly where his eyes would go.
Jihoon glanced up from his tablet, expression maddeningly neutral. “Thanks, love,” he said simply, taking the mug without so much as a flicker of reaction.
That was it. No smirk, no double-take.
You narrowed your eyes. Oh, so that’s how today was going to be.
At mid-morning, you tried again. he was holed up in his home studio, hair messy, glasses perched low on his nose, forearms flexing as he clicked through files.You strolled in with a flimsy excuse — “Thought you might want a snack.”
He didn’t look up when you set the plate down, just hummed a distracted “Thanks baby,”
So you dropped your pen. Slowly. Bent at the waist, giving him an absolutely perfect view. And then, just to push, you glanced over your shoulder, lips curved in the smallest smirk.
Jihoon’s gaze flickered up for half a second — and then, infuriatingly, right back down to the screen. “Careful,” he murmured, deadpan. “Wouldn’t want you to pull something.”
You bit back a laugh and left before he could see you flush. Fine. Two could play this game.
You decided to up the ante.
When he came into the kitchen for a break, you were standing on tiptoe at the counter, reaching for the top shelf. “Yeobo~,” you called lightly, “Can you get this for me?”
He grabbed it easily, set it on the counter and then kissed the top of your head like nothing was happening.
You took it with a sweet smile. “Thanks baby.”
And then, because you couldn’t resist, you let your fingers graze his arm as you stepped past. “Such strong arms,” you whispered just loud enough.
He froze — only for a second — before letting out a quiet laugh. “You’re being… affectionate today,” he commented, the corner of his mouth twitching upward.
“And you’re being smug,” you shot back, breezing past him.
He knows, you realized. And he’s loving this.
He struck first in the afternoon.
You were folding laundry on the bed when he wandered in, fresh from the shower, towel slung low on his hips and hair still damp. He made no move to cover up, just sat on the edge of the bed beside you, scrolling casually through his phone.
“You’re dripping water everywhere,” you muttered, trying to keep your eyes on the shirt in your hands.
“Oh?” He reached over to pluck the shirt from your grip, his bare arm brushing your thigh in the process. “Guess I’ll need help drying off.”
Your head snapped up, but he was still scrolling like he hadn’t just said that. You wanted to throw the laundry at him — or maybe yourself into his lap — but instead, you smiled sweetly.
“Fine. Don’t catch a cold,” you said, standing. As you passed, you bent down just enough to whisper in his ear: “Shame you’re wasting that towel all alone.”
You didn’t need to look back to know he froze.
By dinner, the tension was a living thing between you.
He stood close while you cooked, far closer than necessary, his chest pressing against your back every time he reached for something. When you asked him to taste the sauce, he leaned in and licked the spoon — slowly — his gaze locked on yours as he hummed approval.
You nearly dropped the ladle.
“Good,” he said simply, turning away like nothing had happened.
After dinner, you walked over to sit down on his lap in the smallest shorts you own, hands clasped behind his neck. His hands naturally holding onto your waist and looking at you with a smug smile, like he knew exactly what you were doing but still pretended to be curious.
Finally, you leaned in, lips brushing his ear. “You’ve been ignoring me all day.”
His laptop shut with a soft click.
"Ignoring you?" he said, voice low as his hands slid down to your hips, gently squeezing, "No, love… I’ve just been waiting to see how far you’d go.”
Your breath hitched, “And?”
His thumb brushed the edge of your shorts with a satisfied smirk, “I think you’ve finally run out of patience.”
In one fluid motion, he took off his glasses and pulled you closer, his mouth claiming yours in a kiss that was slow, deep, and utterly consuming — the kind that made the entire day’s teasing feel like foreplay to this single, inevitable moment.
When you finally broke apart, breathless, you managed a shaky laugh. “Took you long enough.”
Jihoon’s lips curved against your jaw as he kissed it softly, murmuring, “Patience, love. I like making you work for it.”
Pairing: Woozi (Lee Jihoon) x Reader (Single Mom!Staff)
Warnings:
Mentions of exhaustion| past heartbreak {not with woozi} | workplace struggles | protective Woozi | fluff overload | slow burn | single parent struggle | petnames {zi, zizi, munchkin, sweetheart, baby} | NO PROOF READING WAS DONE.
Trope:
Secret Single Mom | Found Family | Slow Burn to Love
Word Count: 6268 words ; Reading Time: 23 mins-ish
Synopsis:
You’ve spent years keeping your biggest secret—your daughter—hidden from your work life. As a dedicated staff member for SEVENTEEN, exhaustion is second nature, but Woozi starts noticing. When he stumbles upon a picture of your daughter, everything clicks. He doesn’t ask, doesn’t pry—he just starts showing up. In quiet moments, in unspoken gestures, in the way your little girl calls him "Zizi" before you can even admit what’s happening.
Author’s Note:
This is a soft, slow-burn story about love that sneaks up on you, about finding a home in unexpected places, and about a tiny human who unknowingly sets everything into motion. Expect protective Woozi, adorable child moments, and fluff that will melt your heart.
Requests are open!!
The studio, usually a vibrant hub of creative energy, was shrouded in a hushed, almost reverent stillness. The digital displays on the mixing consoles cast faint, flickering lights, painting the room in a spectrum of soft blues and greens. The air, thick with the lingering scent of electronic equipment and late-night coffee, seemed to vibrate with a quiet intensity. You, however, were oblivious to the subtle symphony of the space, lost in the depths of a weariness that permeated your very bones.
The day had been a relentless marathon, a blur of back-to-back meetings, urgent phone calls, and the constant, gnawing pressure to maintain a semblance of order amidst the chaos of the entertainment industry. Each task, each demand, had chipped away at your reserves, leaving you feeling stretched thin and utterly drained. Yet, the thought of your daughter, her bright, innocent eyes and infectious laughter, had provided a fragile anchor, a reminder of the purpose that fueled your every move.
Your fingers, calloused and weary from hours of typing and scribbling, lay still on the scattered papers before you. The tour schedules, the promotional plans, the endless stream of logistical details blurred into an indistinguishable mass, reflecting the fog that had settled over your mind. Your eyelids, heavy as lead, fluttered closed, and your head, aching with a dull, throbbing rhythm, finally succumbed to the irresistible pull of exhaustion. The cool, smooth surface of the desk offered a momentary respite, a fleeting sanctuary from the relentless demands of your life.
The silence of the studio was broken only by the low hum of the ventilation system and the distant, muffled sounds of the city, a symphony of urban life that usually went unnoticed. Tonight, however, the quiet hum became a soothing drone, a lullaby that gently coaxed you into a state of semi-consciousness.
Woozi, drawn back to the studio by the nagging feeling of an unfinished task, entered the room with his usual quiet precision. He expected to find you immersed in your work, a whirlwind of focused energy, your brow furrowed in concentration as you navigated the complexities of the group’s schedule. He had a half-formed, wry comment ready, a playful jab about your legendary work ethic.
But the scene that unfolded before him was a stark contrast to his expectations. He found you motionless, your head resting on the desk, your breath soft and steady. A flicker of concern, a rare and unfamiliar sensation, stirred within him. He approached with cautious steps, his movements as silent as the shadows that danced across the room.
He paused, his gaze lingering on your peaceful expression. There was a vulnerability in your stillness, a quiet fragility that he had never witnessed before. It was a stark reminder of the human beneath the ever-efficient professional. Then, the soft glow of your phone illuminated the darkness, pulling his attention to the image displayed on the lock screen.
The face of a young girl, her eyes wide with a curious innocence, stared back at him. The resemblance was undeniable, a striking echo of your own features. The same delicate curve of the cheek, the same determined set of the jaw, the same spark of intelligence in the eyes. A realization, sharp and sudden, pierced through his thoughts, illuminating a hidden dimension of your life.
He sank into the chair opposite you, his gaze fixed on the glowing screen, his mind reeling with the implications of this unexpected discovery. The pieces of the puzzle, the hurried exits, the late-night phone calls, the subtle weariness that clung to you like a shadow, finally fell into place. He remembered the faint, almost imperceptible tremor in your voice when you spoke of deadlines and responsibilities, the way your eyes held a depth of unspoken emotion.
He thought about the tiny jackets he had seen you quickly hide into a bag, and the small snacks that you had hidden in your desk drawer. He thought about the small drawings that sometimes were left on your desk, that he had thought were just random sketches.
His fingers hovered over your phone, a silent temptation to delve deeper into this hidden world. But a sense of respect, a quiet understanding of the boundaries you had erected, held him back. This was your story, your secret, a part of your life that you had chosen to keep private.
He sat there, in the quiet solitude of the studio, his gaze tracing the delicate features of your daughter’s face. A strange, unfamiliar warmth spread through his chest, a sense of protectiveness that he couldn’t quite comprehend. He felt a newfound respect for your strength, your resilience, the quiet determination that enabled you to navigate the demanding world of the entertainment industry while raising a child.
The silence of the room was heavy with unspoken emotions, with the weight of a secret revealed. Woozi, the master of carefully crafted words and calculated expressions, found himself speechless, his mind a whirlwind of conflicting thoughts and unfamiliar feelings. He was a composer of emotions, a weaver of melodies, but in this moment, he was lost in a symphony of his own making, a composition of newfound understanding and quiet admiration.
The studio, once a place solely defined by the rhythm of music and the demands of production, began to transform into a space imbued with a quiet, almost palpable sense of understanding. The day after Woozi's discovery was a delicate dance of unspoken acknowledgment, a subtle shift in the atmosphere that permeated every corner of the room. You were acutely aware of his presence, a gentle undercurrent that flowed beneath the surface of his usual focused demeanor. His gaze, usually sharp and analytical, now held a softer, more contemplative quality, lingering on you for fleeting moments before he'd quickly divert his attention back to his work.
You found yourself constantly questioning his newfound attentiveness, your mind swirling with a mix of gratitude and anxiety. Had he seen the lock screen? Did he judge your situation? Was this a temporary phase, a fleeting expression of sympathy that would eventually fade? The thought of your private life being exposed, the vulnerability it implied, sent a shiver down your spine. Yet, he remained silent, offering no explicit confirmation, no intrusive questions.
Instead, his actions spoke volumes. Small, almost imperceptible gestures began to accumulate, a quiet symphony of unspoken understanding. A bottle of chilled water, precisely the temperature you preferred, would appear beside your workspace, as if conjured by an unseen hand. A neatly packed lunchbox, filled with healthy and balanced ingredients, materialized during the lunch break, a subtle nudge towards self-care amidst the chaos of the day. And when the pressure from management threatened to overwhelm you, when their demands became unreasonable, Woozi would step in, his voice a calm, firm barrier between you and their frustration.
He did not raise his voice, nor did he offer platitudes. He simply presented logical counterarguments, calmly dismantling their unreasonable demands with his sharp intellect and unwavering composure. It was a subtle act of protection, a silent acknowledgment of the burdens you carried.
The unspoken communication between you became a delicate dance, a series of subtle cues and unspoken acknowledgments. You’d catch his eye across the room, a fleeting glance that held a depth of understanding, a silent reassurance that you weren’t alone. He’d leave small notes on your desk, scribbled on scrap paper, containing encouraging words or a simple drawing, a small token of support amidst the whirlwind of your day.
His presence, once a source of professional respect, now became a source of quiet comfort. He was still Woozi, the meticulous producer, the genius songwriter, but there was a newfound gentleness in his demeanor, a quiet understanding that made you feel seen, truly seen, beyond the roles you played within the studio.
One evening, as the recording session stretched into the late hours, your phone rang, its insistent chime cutting through the quiet hum of the studio equipment. The caller ID displayed the familiar number of your daughter’s daycare, and a wave of anxiety washed over you.
“I have to go,” you said, your voice tight with urgency. “There’s an emergency.”
Woozi’s gaze met yours, his expression calm and reassuring. He didn’t ask questions, didn’t demand explanations. He simply reached into his pocket and slid his car keys across the desk.
“Go,” he said, his voice soft but firm. “I’ll cover for you.”
The gesture, so simple yet so profound, took your breath away. It was a silent acknowledgment of your responsibilities, a quiet reassurance that he understood the delicate balance you maintained. You stared at the keys, your throat tightening with emotion, unable to articulate the gratitude that swelled within you.
“Thank you,” you whispered, your voice barely audible.
He nodded, a silent acknowledgment, and turned back to the mixing console, his focus unwavering. You grabbed the keys and rushed out, your mind a whirlwind of anxiety and gratitude.
The drive to the daycare was a blur, your hands gripping the steering wheel, your mind racing with worst-case scenarios. When you arrived, you found your daughter safe and sound, her feverish brow cooled by a damp cloth. The daycare staff explained that it was a brief spike in temperature, a common occurrence in young children.
Relief washed over you, a wave so intense that it left you weak. You held your daughter close, her small body warm against yours, and whispered reassurances into her hair, a silent promise to protect her from all harm.
As you drove home, your thoughts turned to Woozi. He had covered for you, without hesitation, without question. He had given you the time and space you needed, without expecting anything in return. It was a selfless act, a quiet demonstration of his understanding and support.
When you returned to the studio the next day, he was working as if nothing had happened. He didn’t mention the previous night, didn’t ask about your daughter. He simply continued with his work, his focus unwavering.
But you knew, deep down, that something had irrevocably changed. He had seen you, truly seen you, not just as a colleague, but as a person, a mother, a woman with a life beyond the studio walls. And in that quiet understanding, a connection began to form, a bond that was both fragile and profound.
The studio, once a place of work, began to feel like a sanctuary, a place where you were seen, understood, and supported. The unspoken communication between you and Woozi became a silent language, a symphony of understanding that resonated deeper than any words could convey. You began to look forward to seeing him, to hearing his voice, to feeling the quiet reassurance of his presence. And even though the fear of eventual change lingered, you allowed yourself to savor the peace, the quiet comfort, that he offered. You began to feel a warmth grow in your heart, a feeling you had long suppressed, a flicker of hope that perhaps, just perhaps, you weren’t alone after all.
The decision to invite Woozi into your home, into the sanctuary you’d built for yourself and your daughter, was a tightrope walk between hope and fear. It was a leap of faith, a fragile attempt to open a door that had been slammed shut years ago. The echoes of your past, the sharp sting of broken promises and abandoned dreams, still lingered, casting long shadows over your present.
You remembered the way he had looked at you when you told him about the ex-boyfriend, the man who had promised forever and then vanished like smoke in the wind. The way he’d gripped your hand, his own knuckles white, as you described the lonely nights, the silent tears that soaked your pillow, the crushing weight of single parenthood. He had listened without judgment, without pity, his eyes filled with a quiet understanding that resonated deep within you.
The wounds from that old betrayal had never fully healed. They were scars, invisible to the world, but deeply etched into your soul. You had built walls around your heart, brick by careful brick, protecting yourself and your daughter from further pain. The thought of trusting someone again, of letting them into your carefully constructed world, was both terrifying and exhilarating.
Yet, Woozi had chipped away at those walls, piece by piece, with his quiet kindness and unwavering support. He had seen your strength, your resilience, the quiet determination that enabled you to navigate the chaos of your life. He had offered a safe harbor, a quiet understanding that made you feel seen, truly seen, beyond the roles you played in the studio.
And so, you had invited him into your home, a tentative step towards allowing yourself to hope again. But the fear remained, a persistent whisper in the back of your mind, reminding you of the fragility of trust, the potential for heartbreak.
There he stood, in your doorway, a hesitant smile on his face. The scent of rain clung to his clothes, a reminder of the storm that had mirrored your emotional turmoil the night before. You ushered him inside, your heart pounding a frantic rhythm against your ribs, a mixture of anticipation and dread.
Your daughter, ever curious and fearless, peeked out from behind your legs, her big, expressive eyes fixed on the unfamiliar figure. She was your masterpiece, your reason for everything, a tiny echo of your own strength and determination. The thought of introducing her to someone new, of allowing another person to become a part of her world, filled you with a protective instinct so fierce it almost choked you.
Woozi, usually so composed and self-assured, seemed awkward, unsure of how to navigate this unexpected encounter. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, his hands clasped behind his back, a silent testament to his own vulnerability.
He knelt down, his gaze meeting your daughter’s, and held out a small plushie – a fluffy, pastel-colored sheep he’d impulsively grabbed from a nearby store. It was a gesture of peace, a silent offering to this tiny, unknown entity.
She frowned, her brow furrowed in suspicion, mirroring your own cautious approach to new relationships. “Mommy said don’t take things from strangers.” Her voice was small but firm, a testament to your consistent teachings, a reflection of the lessons you’d learned the hard way.
A laugh bubbled in your throat, a mixture of amusement and relief. You had raised a cautious and intelligent child. Before you could intervene, Woozi’s voice, usually so measured, softened, taking on a gentle, almost hesitant tone.
“I’m your mom’s friend,” he said, his eyes meeting yours for a brief, reassuring moment, a silent plea for your trust.
Your daughter’s gaze flickered between you and Woozi, seeking confirmation. You nodded, a small, encouraging smile on your face, a silent acknowledgment of the leap of faith you were taking.
Only then did she cautiously reach out and take the plushie, her small fingers gently brushing against his. “Thank you, Zizi,” she mumbled, her eyes still fixed on him, assessing him with the same careful scrutiny you had employed for years.
The nickname, so innocent and unexpected, broke the tension in the room, a gentle reminder of the simple, unadulterated trust of a child. A genuine smile spread across Woozi’s face, a warmth that reached his eyes, a silent promise to be worthy of that trust. In that moment, he was no longer Woozi, the renowned producer, the stoic songwriter. He was Zizi, a friend, a potential figure in this little girl’s world, a chance for you to rewrite the narrative of your past.
The studio, once a realm of pure musical creation, transformed into a covert operation, a fortress of affection guarded by the silent, watchful eyes of Lee Jihoon. He moved with a newfound purpose, a quiet determination that radiated from him like a subtle hum. He became a protector, a silent guardian, his actions driven by a fierce, almost primal instinct to shield you and your daughter from any harm.
He guarded your secret with a fervor that bordered on obsessive, his actions a testament to his growing affection. He didn’t just keep it; he fortified it, erecting an invisible barrier around your privacy. He deflected prying questions with a sharp wit, his eyes flashing a silent warning to anyone who dared to delve too deep. He became a master of misdirection, weaving elaborate tales of late-night studio sessions and urgent deadlines to explain his increasingly frequent absences.
He became a connoisseur of children’s snacks, a silent provider of tiny treasures. He’d surreptitiously slip fruit pouches and organic crackers into his bag, his expression a picture of studied nonchalance. He’d scour toy stores for the perfect plushie, the ideal coloring book, his usually focused gaze softening as he imagined your daughter’s delighted squeals.
But the members, ever perceptive, began to notice the subtle shifts in his behavior. Seungcheol, the leader, the ever-watchful patriarch of their chaotic family, observed Woozi’s increasingly erratic schedule with a furrowed brow. “Jihoon, you’re acting… strangely. You’re always disappearing, you’re hoarding children’s snacks, and you’re radiating an aura of… secretiveness,” he said, his voice laced with concern.
Mingyu, the group’s resident gossip and fashion enthusiast, held up a tiny, sequined jacket, his eyes wide with disbelief. “And this? This is clearly for a miniature diva. Who are you dressing, Jihoon? A tiny influencer?”
Jeonghan, the master of playful manipulation, the orchestrator of subtle chaos, raised an eyebrow, a mischievous glint in his eyes. “Lee Jihoon. Confess. Who is this tiny human who has captured your heart? And why are you so… protective?”
Cornered, Woozi sighed, a mixture of exasperation and affection in his eyes. He knew he couldn’t keep the secret forever, not from the men who knew him better than he knew himself. He gathered them in the studio’s lounge, the air thick with anticipation, and told them everything. He explained your situation, your struggles, the quiet strength that had captivated him, and the unexpected joy that had blossomed in your daughter’s presence.
Instead of the teasing and playful jabs he had braced himself for, he was met with a chorus of genuine support, a wave of warmth that surprised even him. Joshua, the romantic, the sentimental soul of the group, clutched his chest dramatically, his eyes wide with emotion. “This is… a masterpiece of human connection! You’re like a secret superhero dad!”
Mingyu, his usual boisterous energy amplified, was practically vibrating with excitement. “This is amazing! We need to throw a welcome party! We can get her tiny designer outfits! I know a guy who makes custom mini jackets!”
Seungcheol, his expression softening, placed a hand on Woozi’s shoulder, his voice filled with genuine affection. “Jihoon, this is your happiness. You’ve found something precious, and we’re all here for you, always. We will protect her, and you, with everything we have.”
The members’ reactions were a testament to their deep bond, their unwavering support for one another. They showered Woozi with questions, eager to learn every detail about your daughter, her personality, her favorite toys. They offered to help in any way they could, from babysitting to building elaborate play forts in the studio.
Woozi, usually so guarded, found himself opening up, sharing anecdotes and stories about your daughter’s infectious laughter, her boundless curiosity, and the way she had transformed his perception of the world. He spoke of your strength, your resilience, the quiet determination that had captivated him, and the way you had built a safe haven for your small family.
But beneath the surface of his newfound openness, a quiet conflict raged within him. He was still grappling with the unfamiliar emotions that had stirred within him, the sense of responsibility and protectiveness that had taken root in his heart. He was a composer of emotions, a weaver of melodies, but he was still learning to navigate the complexities of his own heart.
He was hopelessly, utterly, and completely whipped for you. He’d been harboring a crush for years, admiring your quiet strength and unwavering dedication. Now, seeing you as a mother, as a woman who had faced adversity and emerged stronger, had amplified his feelings tenfold. He found himself wanting to protect you, to cherish you, to erase the shadows of your past.
He loved your daughter, her innocent joy and unwavering trust. And he loved you, your quiet strength, the way you had built a world for yourself and your daughter. But the fear remained, a persistent whisper in the back of his mind, reminding him of the fragility of trust, the potential for heartbreak. He was still haunted by the idea of repeating the mistakes of the past, of causing you and your daughter pain.
He didn’t answer Seungcheol’s question, the question that hung in the air like a silent challenge. He simply smiled, a small, hesitant smile that held a mixture of hope and uncertainty. He knew that he cared deeply, but the idea of defining it, of labeling it, felt daunting.
The members’ support was a comfort, a reassurance that he wasn’t alone. But the final decision, the leap of faith, was his to take. He was standing on the precipice of a new chapter, a chapter filled with the potential for love and happiness, but also the potential for pain. He was a composer of emotions, but this was a symphony that he was still learning to orchestrate. He needed to find the courage to conduct his own heart, to embrace the love that was blossoming within him, and to trust that he could create a future filled with harmony and happiness.
The quiet rhythm of your evenings had shifted, infused with a new warmth and a sense of gentle companionship. Woozi, or "Zizi," as your daughter affectionately called him, had become a regular fixture in your little home, a comforting presence that filled the space with laughter and quiet understanding. He’d arrive after studio sessions, his eyes tired but his smile bright, ready to engage in elaborate tea parties, build towering block castles, or simply sit quietly, listening to your daughter’s endless stories.
One evening, as you were on a phone call, pacing the kitchen, trying to resolve a last-minute schedule change, Woozi sat on the couch, your daughter nestled beside him, her small fingers tracing the lines on his hand. She was fascinated by his large, capable hands, the hands that created beautiful music, the hands that also built the most impressive block towers.
Then, her small voice, clear and unwavering, broke the comfortable silence. “Zizi, why do you look at my mommy like that?”
Woozi froze, his gaze snapping to her, a blush creeping up his neck. He hadn’t realized his admiration was so transparent. “Like what?” he asked, his voice a little too high-pitched.
She tilted her head, her eyes wide and innocent, yet piercingly observant. “Like she’s your favorite person. Like she’s a star, and you’re watching her shine.”
His ears burned, a wave of heat washing over him. He was a master of words, a composer of emotions, but he was utterly unprepared for the unfiltered honesty of a five-year-old. “You ask too many questions,” he mumbled, trying to deflect her inquiry with a playful scowl.
But your daughter was undeterred. “Don’t hurt her,” she said, her voice suddenly serious, her small hand gripping his.
Woozi’s heart clenched. “Hurt her? What makes you say that?”
“She cries behind closed doors,” she whispered, her voice barely audible, her eyes filled with a wisdom beyond her years. “She thinks I don’t know. But I do.”
A wave of guilt washed over him, a sharp, painful pang. He had witnessed your strength, your resilience, but he hadn’t fully grasped the depth of your pain, the silent battles you fought behind closed doors. He had been so focused on his own feelings, his own fears, that he had overlooked the silent suffering that lingered beneath your brave facade.
He looked at your daughter, her small face etched with concern, and he felt a surge of protectiveness, a fierce determination to shield you both from any further harm. “I would never hurt her,” he said, his voice firm and unwavering.
“Then why do you look at her like that?” she repeated, her eyes searching his.
He sighed, a mixture of exasperation and tenderness in his eyes.
“It’s… complicated,” he began, trying to find words a child could understand.
“Is it like how you look at your guitar?” she asked, her curiosity piqued.
“No, not exactly,” he chuckled. “It’s… more special than that. It’s like… she’s the most beautiful song I’ve ever heard.”
“Does that mean you want to sing with her?”
“In a way, yes. I want to be a part of her song. I want to make her happy.”
“Does she make you happy?”
“She does. She makes me happier than anyone I know.”
“Then you should tell her that.”
He smiled, a genuine, heartfelt smile that reached his eyes. “I will. I promise.”
Your daughter nodded, her expression thoughtful. “Okay,” she said, her voice serious. “But if you make her sad, I’ll tell you off. And I’ll tell everyone.”
Woozi smiled, a genuine, heartfelt smile that reached his eyes. “Deal,” he said, his voice filled with sincerity.
He looked at your daughter, her small face filled with a quiet determination, and he felt a surge of affection, a deep appreciation for her unwavering loyalty. He knew that he had gained not just your trust, but also the trust of your fierce little protector. And he vowed, silently, to be worthy of that trust, to cherish and protect you both with all his heart.
Two years had woven a tapestry of shared moments, the quiet understanding between you and Woozi blossoming into a deep affection. However, the outside world wasn't always kind. The growing closeness between you, a single mother, and Woozi, a respected producer, drew unwanted attention.
Coworkers, fueled by envy and a lack of understanding, whispered behind your back, their words laced with venom. "She's just using him," one would sneer, their voice dripping with malice. "Single moms always have an agenda."
"It's disgusting," another would chime in, their tone laced with disgust. "She's practically throwing herself at him. And he's so blind."
"I heard she leaves her kid with anyone, just to be with him," a third would add, embellishing the lies with a cruel twist. "No wonder she gets so much time off, she's got him wrapped around her finger."
"She's probably just a gold digger," someone would say. "Trying to get a rich man to pay for everything."
"It's so unprofessional. And in the company, too! What a mess."
Woozi overheard these conversations, his usually calm demeanor shattering into icy rage. He heard the cruel remarks, the snide insinuations, and the blatant attempts to undermine your reputation. His eyes, usually warm and gentle, turned cold and hard, his jaw clenched. His voice, usually soft and melodic, became a low, dangerous growl, barely audible. He wanted to confront them, to unleash his fury, but he knew it would only escalate the situation and draw more unwanted attention to you, and fuel the fire they were trying to start. Instead, he acted in the shadows, his methods subtle but effective.
Late one night, an anonymous account on a popular social media platform posted a detailed account of workplace bullying at HYBE. The post described a dedicated employee, a single mother, being subjected to cruel gossip and unfair treatment. It didn’t name names, but the details were specific enough to raise alarm, without being easily traced back. "This employee is constantly being verbally attacked by other employees, who spread lies about her personal life, and her work ethics. They call her names, and make her feel like she is less than human. The company is doing nothing about it. This needs to stop."
The post went viral, sparking outrage and a wave of public support for the unnamed employee. HYBE, facing a potential PR disaster, launched an internal investigation. Within days, several employees were quietly dismissed, their actions deemed unacceptable.
The whispers and rumors ceased. The atmosphere in the studio shifted, replaced by a wary respect. You noticed the change, the sudden shift in the way your coworkers treated you, but you remained unaware of Woozi’s involvement.
One evening, as you and Woozi relaxed on your couch, you scrolled through the social media feed, your eyes wide with disbelief. “Can you believe this?” you exclaimed, showing him the viral post. “Someone actually stood up for this person. It’s amazing!”
Woozi smiled, a quiet, knowing smile that warmed his eyes. “It is,” he agreed, his voice soft.
“I’m so glad someone did this,” you continued, your voice filled with gratitude. “It gives me hope that people still care. And that companies will do something about it.”
Woozi’s smile widened, a flicker of pride in his eyes. He watched you, your face glowing with relief and appreciation, and he felt a surge of satisfaction. He had protected you, silenced your tormentors, and given you a sense of hope, all without you knowing his involvement. The secret made him happy, because he knew he was the reason for your peace, and he was the one that made your life better.
Two years. Two years of stolen glances, of soft touches, of lingering stares that held unspoken promises. Two years of Woozi’s unwavering support, his quiet strength a constant anchor in your life. Two years of him seamlessly weaving himself into your world, into the intricate tapestry of your family, his presence as natural and essential as the air you breathed.
On your birthday, he arrived, not with the usual studio-related gift, but with a bouquet of your favorite flowers, their delicate petals mirroring the fragile hope that bloomed in your heart. Your daughter, ever his tiny accomplice, clung to his leg, her eyes sparkling with excitement. He pulled you aside, his expression serious, his eyes holding a depth of emotion that made your breath catch in your throat.
“I have something to say,” he began, his voice low and deliberate, the words hanging in the air like a whispered secret.
You raised an eyebrow, a nervous laugh escaping your lips. “What, you secretly hate me?” you teased, trying to deflect the intensity of the moment with a touch of humor.
He scoffed, a soft smile playing on his lips. “No, idiot,” he retorted, his voice laced with affection.
Then, in one breath, he laid his heart bare, his words raw and sincere. “I love you.”
The world seemed to tilt on its axis, the sounds around you fading into a distant hum. Your heart pounded against your ribs, a frantic drumbeat echoing the unspoken feelings that had been simmering beneath the surface for so long. “Woozi…” you began, your voice barely a whisper, your mind reeling with the weight of his confession.
“I love your daughter too,” he added, his voice filled with a quiet certainty. “I think she loves me more than you do,” he teased, trying to lighten the heavy atmosphere, but his eyes held a sincerity that made your heart ache.
Before you could process the whirlwind of emotions swirling within you, a little voice, clear and unwavering, cut through the tension. “KISS MAMA, ZI!” your daughter yelled, her eyes sparkling with mischief.
Your cheeks flushed a deep crimson, a wave of embarrassment washing over you. You wanted the earth to swallow you whole, to erase the awkwardness of the moment. But then, warm fingers gently tilted your chin up, his touch sending a shiver down your spine.
Woozi’s eyes, usually sharp and focused, softened, their depths filled with a tenderness that made your breath catch in your throat. “I love you,” he whispered again, his voice thick with emotion, his gaze unwavering. “And I want you. Both of you. I want to be a part of your lives, to build a future with you, to cherish and protect you both.”
The vulnerability in his voice, the raw sincerity in his eyes, shattered the walls you had built around your heart. He wasn’t offering a fleeting romance, a casual fling. He was offering a forever, a commitment to you and your daughter, a promise to be a constant in your lives.
Then, finally, he closed the distance between you, his lips meeting yours in a kiss that was both tender and passionate. It was a kiss that spoke of unspoken feelings, of shared moments, of a love that had blossomed amidst the chaos of your lives.
Your daughter squealed, a mixture of delight and playful disgust. “EWWW.”
Woozi chuckled against your lips, his laughter warm and comforting. He pulled back slightly, his eyes meeting yours, his expression filled with a quiet joy.
And in that moment, amidst the chaos of your daughter’s playful protests and the lingering scent of your birthday flowers, you felt a sense of peace, a sense of belonging that you hadn’t felt in a long, long time. You felt home. You felt loved. And you knew, with a certainty that warmed you from the inside out, that this was the beginning of something beautiful, a love story written in the quiet moments of shared laughter and unwavering support.
A year later, the quiet rhythm of your little home was a symphony of love and laughter. The once empty spaces were now filled with the warmth of shared meals, the gentle hum of bedtime stories, and the soft glow of family movie nights. Woozi, no longer just "Zizi," but a cherished member of your little family, tucked Munchkin into bed, his large hands gently smoothing the soft blanket around her small frame.
She sleepily grabbed his hand, her eyelids fluttering closed, her voice a soft whisper. “Love you, Zizi.”
His heart melted, a warmth spreading through his chest like a gentle sunrise. He leaned down and pressed a soft kiss to her forehead, his voice thick with affection. “Love you too, Munchkin.”
He lingered for a moment, his gaze lingering on her peaceful face, a silent promise to protect her dreams, to chase away the shadows that lingered in the corners of her young mind. He adjusted the nightlight, ensuring its soft glow illuminated the room, a beacon of comfort in the darkness.
You leaned against the doorframe, a soft smile gracing your lips, your heart overflowing with a love so profound it made your eyes sting with unshed tears. The scene before you, the gentle tenderness between Woozi and your daughter, was a testament to the love you had built together, a love that had blossomed amidst the chaos of your lives.
When Woozi turned, his eyes met yours, a silent conversation passing between you. He walked towards you, his footsteps soft on the carpet, his gaze unwavering. You pressed a soft kiss to his cheek, your lips lingering for a moment, a silent expression of your gratitude, your affection, your unwavering love.
“Love you too,” you whispered, your voice barely audible, the words a gentle caress against his skin.
He pulled you both close, his arms wrapping around you in a warm embrace, his body a comforting presence against yours. The three of you stood there, a small, perfect circle of love, bathed in the soft glow of the nightlight.
In the quiet of your little home, the silence was filled with unspoken words, with the gentle rhythm of shared breaths, with the comforting weight of love. Woozi finally felt at peace, his heart overflowing with a contentment he had never known before. He had found his place, his family, his home.
He thought of the past, the lonely nights spent in the studio, the carefully constructed walls he had built around his heart. He thought of you, your strength, your resilience, the way you had built a world for yourself and your daughter, a world filled with love and laughter.
And he realized, with a certainty that warmed him from the inside out, that he had found more than just a love story. He had found a family, a haven, a place where he belonged. He had found a symphony of love, a melody that resonated deep within his soul, a song that he would cherish for the rest of his life. And as he held you both close, he knew that he was finally home.
—synopsis: she's been playing the game since she was four years old, which means she's been playing it for twenty-four years now. she's tired, but when chaos comes walking into her life, hand-in-hand with danger, it bears a name: lee jihoon. and for once in her wretched life, she feels a spark behind her ribcage.
—genres: strangers to lovers, woozi x reader
—warnings: minors do not interact, 18+, detailed descriptions of mental illness, violence, drinking/smoking, suicidal ideation, sexual themes and suggestive language. jihoon is a little shit so there's a bit of swearing or whatever.
—word count: 25k (haha) (part one)
—author's note: i texted alta about this fic one time and boom here it is after a month. is this my first fic after kinktober? maybe. probably. it was really fun writing this (if you count the hair i pulled out of despair) but this fic would not have been possible without the support and help of cel @mylovesstuffs, who has been invaluable to the writing process. big thank you to @haologram, who accidentally helped birth this story by entertaining my delusions. wrote this for u guys lol okay love u bye
tagging the peanut gallery: @jakedustry @nerdycheol @seungkw1
part of the 17 seconds 2 score collab!
In a game of Go, the white pieces are given an advantage.
She supposes it’s all because of the way the game is set up—to favour one over the other in the beginning. The white pieces are given an advantage momentarily, only to account for total neutrality of the board. The game doesn’t care about pieces and their stories. The game merely knows strategy.
She walks in the middle of the street, not really caring about the people she might run into. There are flashes of phone cameras all around her, but it doesn’t matter at all. Not to her. Not anymore.
I fucking hate this game.
“Miss, you’re going to hurt yourself,” a voice says, calm, almost soothing. Like through water. She looks at the source through her glasses, and it’s him. Lee Jihoon. As usual, he’s come to her rescue like she’s some sort of damsel in distress he needs to take care of and rescue before she’s struck down by lightning.
“You’re here,” she murmurs, looking faintly displeased, “I was planning to jump in front of a car.”
He sighs, heavy disappointment in his gaze. “Let’s not think about that right now, miss. You need to get back home.”
“Home?” she asks, even as he hauls her out of the streets and into a waiting car, his jacket wrapped around her shoulder. “Why would I go home?”
“You’re one of the most famous people in this country, miss,” Jihoon says, putting the car into gear. He doesn’t believe it, but he says it regardless, “You need to be more careful about how you present yourself in public.”
“Fuck that,” she groans, leaning back into the seat, “why the hell do I have to play this fucking game?”
He sighs, and the car swerves into a side street. “You have the Ing cup coming in a few months, miss, you need to concentrate on that one before you go around in the middle of the roads.”
“Go to hell,” she mutters, settling down into her seat, “you should quit being my manager if it bothers you so much.”
He rubs his temples, and even from behind, she can see the heavily put-upon expression he has right now, “miss, that’s not up to me. You need me by your side right now, if you want to be a part of that tournament.”
She sighs, looking out of the window. Jihoon is driving the car, looking straight ahead. He looks at nothing else other than the road, she realises, nothing else at all. She props herself up on her elbows, and stares. Long black hair, just like the polished slate stones of her favourite set. Smooth pale skin, like clamshell stones. Annoying. “What are you looking at?” He asks, self-conscious, “go to sleep, miss, we'll reach the house in about half an hour.”
“Looking at you,” she replies simply, turning her face away from him, “you look upset that you have to be my manager.”
“Anyone would be upset if they have to take care of a woman who can barely take care of themselves,” Jihoon grumbles, looking steadily ahead, “you drink more than an alcoholic, you smoke a whole pack a day, and you never go out unless it’s to pull stunts like these. Anyone would hate being your manager.”
“You wound me,” she sighs, watching the houses and the trees zoom past their car, “I would like to think I am a very considerate woman.”
“You are tolerable,” Jihoon replies, “I tolerate you. Not many others would.”
“Fair enough,” she says, absent-mindedly, “is Jeonghan coming?”
“Jeonghan always comes running when you call for him,” Jihoon replies, “God knows why he does. All you two do is play Go until the wee hours of the morning.”
“You don't get it, Lee Jihoon,” she says, “still, it's good that he's coming. I needed to play.”
The car stops at a red light, and Jihoon takes the opportunity to turn around, fixing his dark eyes on her, like slate black Go pieces, “that's one more thing I don't understand. You hate the game, and you still play it every day. Every fucking day, you're sitting at that board. If you hated the game, you wouldn't play it so much. You keep saying that you hate the game, and yet you play it.”
She stares at him. “You don’t get it, Lee Jihoon, you don't get it at all. And I like that about you. It's why I keep you around.”
He scoffs, “so you keep me around because I don’t care about the game. That’s funny.”
“Yes, it’s funny.” She mutters, steadily looking away. Jihoon doesn’t say anything, just turns back to the road and keeps his eyes firmly on it until they arrive at her home. She doesn’t say a word, just focuses on the foggy atmosphere of the world around her. She doesn’t want to think.
You’ll always return to us, you know.
Her eyes snap open when Jihoon parks the car with a noisy screech in front of the traditional-style house, throwing the door open for her. She’s not sure she can prove it, but he does this just to spite her. Don’t act out all the fucking time, you know. She sighs, stepping into the cold and looking up at the large, imposing facade of her house. She’d been bequeathed the house in her teacher's final will, the house that she had grown up and learnt how to play the game in. She had felt grateful then, grateful that her teacher had thought of her in such a way. That he had loved her till the end, that he, of all people, had not forsaken her. Now, all it reminds her of is the way everyone had looked at her when the will had been announced. People at the association had glared at her when the lawyer had said I leave the house and all my assets to my sole student, in the hopes that she might learn to love someone other than me. They always looked at her the same way, like she was a freak of nature. Hundreds of years of Go legacy, shattered in the hands of a young maverick who barely knew her manners. And she lives in the house of her master now, too. imagine the insolence.
She killed her teacher, and now she lives in his house, wears his watch on her wrist. Is she trying to become him? How audacious.
“We’re here, ma’am,” Jihoon says, opening the gates for her, and she steps into the courtyard, trying not to think about the events of the morning and the afternoon. She was supposed to prepare for the Ing Cup right now. The first match was in less than two months.
“Mr. Yoon Jeonghan will take some time to get here,” Jihoon says, half-deferential, as he closes the door behind him, “should I make you a cup of tea?”
“No, I want a drink,” she waves her hand, “or a smoke. Either is preferable.”
“You should not be drinking right now, ma’am.” He says, wrestling her hip flask away from her, “and where did you find that? I thought I got rid of them all.”
“I have my ways,” she shrugs, “and don’t try to fool me into thinking you actually care, Lee Jihoon. It’s better you remain the way I want you to.”
He raises an eyebrow, “And ignore you while you actively try to kill yourself? What the hell would that do for me?”
She sighs, laughing, “yeah, of course. I’m better alive to you than dead, right?”
“Please refrain from saying unnecessary things, ma’am.”
He remains stubborn in the face of opposition, so she makes the decision for him, laughing and twirling a lighter in her hands, “and I’m supposed to ignore the way you look at my money? You really do take me for a fool, huh?”
He remains silent, so she takes it a step further, walking into the living room and dropping down on a low sofa, “answer me, Lee Jihoon. You really think I’m an idiot, right?”
He refuses to meet her gaze, and instead busies himself with setting the ornaments on the mantlepiece right. She sighs. This is getting irritating. “Answer me, Jihoon,” she says, rolling her eyes and bending over to pull off her socks, “you need to talk to me for me to understand you better.”
At last, after what seems like an excruciating, long, minute, he opens his mouth, “I’ve never once thought about you as an idiot, ma’am.”
She laughs, standing up to stalk out of the living room, shedding her coat and outer jacket as she walks. Jihoon, ever the dutiful manager, picks them all up one after the other, gathering them in his arms as he follows her to the Go room.
Before she slides open the door to the Go room, she turns on her heel, looking straight into his eyes. Slate-black, like Go pieces. She turns away, “don’t think I am not aware of the accounts, Manager Lee.” She ignores the way he flinches at her use of his position, “you allotted more than a million won for the gardener.” she gestures to the gardens, which are bare and barren this time of year, “you seriously thought I would not notice?”
He hangs his head in what looks like shame, and she shakes her head, “I hate it when people lie, Lee Jihoon. Next time, just come to me for the money. Or just steal it outright.”
He stares at her then, which makes her turn her head away from him for the second time in the past five minutes, “what are you talking about?”
“Give us a cup of tea when Jeonghan comes to visit,” she turns away from him, “and make dinner before you leave for the night. I’m not going to ask you why you took that money, because frankly, I don’t give a shit.”
With that, she opens the sliding door, and walks into the Go room. Jihoon stands guard outside, and doesn’t say anything.
—
The Go room is the most traditional space in the house, still done in the fashion of the old Joseon masters, with paper screens lining it on three sides and looking over the garden on the other side. She hasn’t changed this room one bit since the time she’s moved in, to the point where it probably feels strange and unsettling to anyone who enters this space. This is for the old masters, not the young ones.
“Ahh, this is so bloody fucked up,” she mutters softly to herself, walking to the board and squatting down in front of it. This is a hostile space. I hate this fucking game so much, and yet, it’s got its claws so far deep into me that I can’t even shake it off and move on.
“Oi, what’d you call me here?” the doors open to reveal Yoon Jeonghan, 9-dan, clad in his usual half-open shirt and a jacket slung over his shoulders, “you want to play Go right now when you’ve been running around the city?”
She rolls her eyes, ignoring his words, “do you really want to talk to me like that when you’re half-dressed? It’s getting cold nowadays, make sure you don’t freeze to death.”
Jeonghan laughs, "still as icy as ever, huh? God knows how you managed to make a friend out of me with that icy demeanour of yours, yn.”
“I don’t remember asking you to be my friend ever, Jeonghan,” she grumbles, observing him with narrowed eyes as he takes the seat, folding his long legs into a cross-legged position and hunching over the board, “you’ve already begun?”
“Mmh. White gets four and a half points as komi. You can play now.” She mutters, “do you want byoyomi?”
“Nah, I’m fine. I can play like this anytime,” he laughs, long and low, and she pulls a face at the obvious flirtation, “even though the only person who asks me to play like this is you.”
“I’m the only one you play practice games with?” she narrows her eyes, “I find that very hard to believe. You’re 9-dan Yoon Jeonghan, I doubt you’re in dire need of partners to play a match with you. The people at the association must be tripping over their feet to get a chance to sit across the board from you.”
Jeonghan shrugs, “you’re 9-dan too, you know. And you don’t even show your face at the association.”
“I doubt the association would like me around.”
“One of the only female 9-dans in the country, and you still think the association hates you?” Jeonghan laughs, “they don’t hate you, you know. They’re mostly just scared of you.”
“Hah,” she huffs out a laugh, “that’s not what they say behind my back, you know. I know what they say behind my back.”
“Never took you for someone who would give such undue importance to the people of the association, yn,” Jeonghan laughs, adjusting his collar so she can see the sharp jut of his collarbone, all arranged in a blatant attempt to catch her attention that has her rolling her eyes, “but you should go to the association once in a while. Make your presence known. At least then they’re going to stop spreading rumors about you.”
“They spread rumors about me?” she arches an eyebrow, placing a stone to cancel out a point, “that’s very brave of them, I must say.”
“Well, when the master is out, the dogs will play,” Jeonghan shrugs, placing his stone, “which is why you should assert your presence. Help get the rumors under control.”
“And what do they say about me? Apart from the things they already do.”
“The most obvious one is about how you defeated your teacher, making him retire from the Go scene, and ultimately dying earlier than expected,’ Jeonghan stares at the board, “damn, you’re still as sharp as ever. How do you get so fast when I’m the only other player you play games with? Is there someone else I’m not aware of?”
She rolls her eyes at that. “Sometimes, when I’m bored, I go play at the local seniors’ association. The old men and women there are pretty sharp for septuagenarians.”
“That’s the secret, huh,” he laughs, “and here I was thinking you had got a student or something. Perhaps another fellow 9-dan I’m not aware of.”
“I’m not stupid enough to bring a student under my care when I can barely take care of myself,” she shrugs, “most days I can’t even get out of bed. There’s no reason for me to burden myself with another person to take care of when simple tasks are difficult for me.”
“Speaking of taking care,” Jeonghan opens his mouth to say something, most likely something outrageously flirtatious, when Jihoon slides open the door, holding a tray of tea in his hands. He says nothing, keeps his gaze focused firmly on the tray and on the floor, and places it in front of the two of them.
“I see you are still here, Lee Jihoon,” Jeonghan says smoothly, “is she giving you a lot of grief?”
She narrows her eyes, scowling, “don’t say such shit about me to my manager, for fuck’s sake, Jeonghan. You can grill him about me later.”
This is such an obvious bait. Jeonghan doesn’t like Jihoon at all, a fact that he’s made perfectly clear over the past few months he’s been in her employ. He’s been the same, throwing these snide remarks to him whenever he sees him. Whether in private or in public. And it’s the same from the other side. Jihoon doesn’t rise to the bait. He never does, as usual. Only keeps his head down, as he’s doing right now, and says the most generic sentence to avoid being discourteous. Even now, with Jeonghan’s disdain so blatant, he merely sighs, nodding his head. “There is no problem with taking care of ma’am. It is, after all, my duty.”
Jeonghan seems like he wants to say something more, but decides against it, and Jihoon walks out of the room, clutching the tray close to his chest and shutting the door behind him.
As soon as his footsteps are out of earshot, Jeonghan turns round on her, “why the hell is he still there?”
She doesn't take the bait. “And why would he not be? He is part of my household, after all.”
“Don’t say household like you’re in a fucking historical drama, yn, you know why I’m asking you this. Why the hell is he still there?”
She takes a sip of the tea. Fragrant, with a splash of milk, just how she likes it. Jihoon knows her preferences well, even if he makes it seem like he hates this job, “he takes good care of me, as you know. I don’t have to worry about anything else other than playing Go when he’s here.”
“And he’s also stealing your money, yn. You told me he stole a million won from you last month.”
She shrugs, “and? He’s not making any efforts to hide his embezzlement. Anyone else in his position would take multiple steps to hide the account, but he just took it under the pretext of paying it to the gardener. Laughable, really. It’s as if he had no desire to hide it at all. It’s refreshing.”
Jeonghan shakes his head, rubbing his forehead, “you confound me. The manager before last was fired because you refused to forgive his theft of ten million won, and yet, Lee Jihoon has stolen more than thirty million from you in the past three months. Why are you still keeping him around? I don’t like him.”
“You’re losing ground here, Jeonghan,” she deflects, hunching over the board instead, “you know, you just gave me an advantage here.”
“What?” He looks at the board, “ah fuck, you’re right. I’ve just managed to hand you this match. You’re just as cold-blooded as ever, huh? Taking a match from under my nose when I was busy berating the manager who’s stealing from you.”
“I do not remember asking you to stand up for my honor, Yoon Jeonghan,” she smiles, sipping her tea, “and you’re forgetting that I was the one who brought him in, which means I have final jurisdiction over his fate in my house. He takes care of me, I look the other way when he steals money. At least he’s being honest about his intentions.”
“You knew?”
She doesn’t say anything, but it’s an admission anyway.
—
“She’s insane!”
Jihoon walks into his apartment, only to find Joshua lounging on the sofa. He’s got a cigarette hanging between his lips, looking like he’s trying to decide between playing a vinyl record of Bach or Vivaldi. He’s got the two records in his hands, and inspecting them with the bored eye of a connoisseur, “are you even listening to me right now?”
“Not really, no, I’m trying to decide which Baroque composer to listen to tonight,” Joshua replies, unbothered by Jihoon’s crisis, “do you think it should be Bach’s Toccata and Fugue, or Vivaldi’s Winter?”
Jihoon groans, “either, I don’t particularly care. Anything is fine with me.”
“This is the problem with you, you see,” Joshua shakes the two records, as if making a point, “you don't give a shit about the finer points of life. You need to be able to make a distinction between which is the better composer for a night like this one. Is it Bach, with his melancholy, or Vivaldi, with his yearning for spring? Make a decision, Jihoon.”
He rolls his eyes, “you won’t shut up until I’ve made a decision, huh?”
“No, of course not,” Joshua grins. “You need to make a decision for me now.”
“The Vivaldi,” Jihoon points to the brightly-colored record in Joshua’s right hand, “he feels like the right choice.”
“I’m going to go with Bach, then,” Joshua shrugs, standing up to place the record in the player, “you look like you’re in dire need of melancholy.”
“I don’t need melancholy, Hong. I just need to have a normal boss for once in my life, someone who gives a shit about the working conditions they’re putting me in; I mean, if she knows I’m stealing money from her, then why keep me around? I’ve already taken thirty million from her, I can always take more.”
Joshua stares at him for a second, “careful, Jihoon. You told me you took this job because you wanted her money. It seems to me as though you somehow care about her financial well-being.”
“I don’t care, that’s the thing. I don’t care about her financial well-being, it’s that she keeps behaving in ways that don’t make any sense to me.”
“Isn’t that the best course of action? To have a boss who doesn’t give a shit about their money? You can steal from them, and even if they know, they’re not going to care?”
He sighs. Joshua makes a point, the sneaky bastard. He should not be caring about her money, nor should he care about how she lives. He’s just confused. He wants her money right now. He’s already got thirty million, the rest of the money should be just as easy to get.
“I’m going to go wash up,” he announces to Joshua, who gives him a little wave, busying himself with the sombre tones of Bach’s Toccata. His room is smaller than the bathroom in her house, and on the days he has to sleep here, it all feels slightly unfamiliar to him. His room feels unfamiliar, but so does her house. Jihoon feels like an astronaut on the Space Station, stuck in limbo, watching the Earth and its people go about their lives without his presence. He feels unsettled, unmoored. In limbo. And it is all because of her.
His phone rings, and he takes a second to check the caller ID before pressing to his ear, “yes, mom.”
His mother’s voice is soothing. Jihoon misses it, misses how she used to sing all through the house while doing her chores, misses how she used to sing for him every time he made a new song. He misses all of it, and he hates how he’s been reduced to being her gofer in order to pay his debt. Well, their debt. It’s a family thing.
“Jihoon,” his mom sounds tired over the phone, like she’s been working sixteen-hour days at the diner down the road, “how are you doing, baby?”
He sighs. His father works full-time in a construction zone, and his mother works at a diner, doing errands for people who don’t even give a shit about her plight. They’re working for their meagre wages, and he’s out here in Seoul, trying to get enough money to pay up for the principal.
“I’m fine, mom,” he lies, hoping it isn’t too blatant for her to catch on, “I’m doing fine, the work pays great, you know. I can give back the principal within the end of this year, trust me.”
“Jihoon,” his mother whispers, as though talking is difficult for her, “you don’t need to worry about the principal, son. It’s our debt, not yours. You should not be paying for it.”
“You are my family, mom. It’s my debt too,” he’s been repeating this one statement for the past three years, “you don’t need to worry about me working to pay off the debt. It’s my debt as well. And I told you, I’ve already paid off part of the principal. We only need a little bit more, and the principal will be done. Then all that’s left is the interest.”
He doesn’t say that the interest is the worst part.
After ten more minutes, his mother finally hangs up, satisfied that her son is living a life mostly unburdened by his financial woes. Jihoon falls back onto his bed, thinking over the figures in his mind. Two hundred million won in debt, but the quantity of debt is different. He had once explained this to Joshua, and it had taken over an hour for the whole lecture. Jihoon’s pretty much not worried about the majority of the money, given that it’s with the bank, and they have already lost all their assets when his father’s company was declared bankrupt. It’s the final fifty million won he’s worried about. He had not known about it, otherwise he would have stopped his father from going to the loan sharks for the money. The fifty million won did nothing for their company, and all it did was add to their growing pile of debt along with a fearsome rate of interest that he doesn’t think they can continue paying.
How much money do I have to pay? He makes a mental note of the little money in his bank account, and the amount of money their family owes to the Busan gangs, and sighs. It’s going to take me at least a decade to repay that much money. He’s been told that he should get angry with his parents, angry about the fact that he’s stuck paying back so much money when it was not his debt in the first place, but Jihoon is not bothered by all of that. He’s a grown adult now, it’s fine. It’s his duty to take care of his family, in every way possible.
Which is why she makes him angry.
She has all the money she needs, perhaps more. She’s a homebody but she earns more money than he ever does in a year from appearance fees alone. There are books, lectures. Even though she goes through the motions, there is so much for her. And yet, she does all of this with a look on her face that tells him it doesn’t matter to her whether she has money or doesn’t.
Even the way he got the job was insane.
Three months ago, Jihoon had an acquaintance of his come into the bar where he worked, and offer two hundred thousand for a day’s work. He wasn’t sure why no one else had raised their hands, but it became clear to him soon—she was insane. The first three days of work had Jihoon bring in tea at specific intervals to the Go room, and she would leave the room after every six hours to take a piss. Hell, he didn’t even see her face properly until the day she offered him a proper contract. It seemed too good to be true, but he had taken it.
And now he’s stuck here.
—
The Ing Cup is in three months.
She wakes up at six in the morning. Oftentimes she falls asleep in the Go room, having gone over the manoeuvres of games all through the previous night. Jihoon doesn’t even wake her up first when he comes in to work, simply makes her breakfast and then proceeds to slide open the door to the Go room, planting the tray on the floor beside her. She wakes up to the smell of freshly-brewed tea and breakfast rolls wafting into her from half a foot away, and thinks she wants to die a little.
Jeonghan is part of the Ing Cup too, which means he has his own preparations to take care of, and he doesn't come by as much as he used to. His absence is fine. She doesn’t care about it that much. As long as she can play Go, there’s precious little in the world that bothers her very much.
“How long have I been playing today?” she asks one afternoon as Jihoon serves her her lunch, “I don’t think I left the Go room in the past—”
“You’ve been playing for the past five hours, ma’am,” he replies, smooth and deferential, “and you’ve not stepped out of the house in the past two weeks. You only go out of the Go room in order to relieve yourself and attend to your hygiene.”
“Call it what it is; I go out of the room to take a piss and to take a shower, sometimes at the same time, just one after the other,” she snorts, taking a sip of the soup he’s set out in front of her, “you’ve been cooking very light food nowadays, Lee Jihoon. Trying to make me lose more weight? All my hair is going to fall out at this rate.”
He raises an eyebrow, and she just sighs, “yes, I get it, I need to get out more. At least I’m not spending whole days stuck in that room.”
He looks mildly concerned, “did you do that?”
She shrugs, “when I was young, my teacher used to go over my games, and sometimes, we would be stuck in that room for twelve hours at a time. No piss breaks either.”
“And that was fine?”
“Well, both of us developed bladder problems later on.” She claps her hands, “thank you for the food, what else is on my schedule for today?”
“You have a meeting at the association and a lecture on Go game theories at Seoul National University, after which,” he replies with practised ease, “the rest of your day is free for you to do whatever you please.”
“Whatever I please?” she thinks over this statement for a while, “how long is the lecture supposed to run for?”
“An hour. You were invited by the game studies professor, and they’re marketing it as a special lecture by one of the biggest players in the country right now.”
She shakes her head, sighs, and walks off to change into proper clothes to go out. The association was one thing, but she couldn’t get out of the obligation with Seoul National University. She wants to get some time to herself, but she has her obligations to take care of.
“The association is important, right?” she asks, staring at her wardrobe full of clothes either half-crumpled or folded into neat stacks, “I haven’t been there for a long time, so I think it would be important to show my face there at least once.”
“Yes, you should, miss,” Jihoon replies, voice even, “Yoon Jeonghan called ahead and left a message for you. He says to come to the association without fail this afternoon, otherwise he’s going to be very angry with you.”
She snorts. Jeonghan will not be angry. He’s the last person who would be angry with her for playing hooky to get away from an association meeting, given the many instances of him sneaking out of meetings are still fresh in peoples’ minds. He’s not going to be angry with her, but his words from a few days ago give her pause. They rise almost unbidden to the forefront of her mind, when the master is out, the dogs will play. Which is why you should go back there, assert your control. You have earned your place in the association, don’t let your current state get in the way of you holding on to all that prestige and power for yourself.
In the end, she shakes her head, “do you think you can pick out some clothes for me?”
She’s wearing her sensible suit when they walk into the Go association, paired with her dress shoes that have been shined to an inch of its life, courtesy of Lee Jihoon. Outside, the sky is dark and unforgiving, and just as they step into the stone facade, it begins to rain. Early winter rain means the temperature drops instantly, and she can feel herself shivering even inside the considerably warmer lobby. Jihoon is at her side within a moment, pressing a thick woollen scarf into her hands. She refuses it, and walks off towards the direction of one of the many meeting rooms.
On a normal day, the association is filled with random people, mostly administrators, but it seems that someone (probably Jeonghan) has leaked the news of her arriving. And judging from the wide-eyed stares she had received from the guards at the gate, Jeonghan did not have to work very hard to get that information out to the public.
Hence, when she walks into the meeting room, she’s met with the stares of about twenty high-ranking players, all looking at her with a mix of fear, anxiety, and in the cases of some people, annoyance. She spots a few arrogant stares too, from people who have never played her at all. Mostly from them. There are only about three other female players, but none of them are in the room. Strange. Before she stopped coming to the association entirely, the few people who genuinely seemed to get excited to see her were the other female players, most of whom were simply amazed to be in the presence of a 9-dan player.
“Kim Myung-hee isn’t here?” She asks one of the assistants, who looks terrified to have her stare at him, “I thought she would be here.”
“Why would you be asking about Myung-hee?” Park Inho, one of the 9-dans, barks at her, “you show your face around here after so long, and you ask about Kim Myung-hee before even greeting all of us? Where the hell are your manners?”
She rolls her eyes, “I did wonder where the grating noise was coming from. Turns out it was you, sunbae. How have you been?”
Park Inho turns an impressive shade of purple, and she’s an asshole for this, but she takes no small degree of pleasure from it. He sputters, and after glaring at her for thirty seconds, gives up to stalk away from the room. As he leaves, she claps her hand at the people gathered, “yes? Is Kim Myung-hee 9-dan here or not?”
The door bangs open behind her, and Jeonghan rushes in, enveloping her in a hug, “Darling!” he croons in her ear, wearing a flimsy shirt that is open to his chest, “it’s such a pleasure to see you here, my love.”
“Don’t say that like you did not orchestrate this whole meeting,” she whispers back in his ear, trying not to scowl, “were you the one who told the entire association that I was coming to visit?”
He raises his hands, “despite what you think of me, princess, I did not tell anyone. Today is a meeting day, which means there’s going to be a lot of people hanging out here.”
She rolls her eyes, unentangling herself from the embrace, “a meeting day? Really? This is what they’re spending their free time on? Should they not be playing matches or something?”
At the sentence, there’s a slight disturbance amongst the players, who all look at each other and start whispering amongst themselves. She frowns, but Jeonghan seems unfazed by the whole thing. She wants to ask, but his expression makes her stop. He isn’t even looking at the people gathered in the room, he’s looking somewhere else.
“What the hell are you looking at?”
Jeonghan laughs, pointing at the people all around her, who look almost too excited to see her in action, “your manager is still here, I see. He looks almost concerned for you, which is a strange look on him, but I suppose he’s got to earn his keep somehow.”
When she follows Jeonghan’s line of sight, she can see Jihoon staring at the crowd of people, standing to the side and unconsciously backing himself into a corner. She thinks it’s bizarre for a moment before realising that this was the first time he’s accompanying her to the Association for anything at all, and he might be feeling just as much as a fish out of water as she is.
But before she can tell him to go and get a drink or to just sit in the car instead of the stuffy, humid air of the association, Cho Kyung-ho, 7-dan, walks up to her, shaking her hand, “we’d be honored to have you play with us, ma’am.”
She almost wrenches her hand away from his grip with pure instinct, but he’s staring at her with so much stupid hope in his eyes it’s almost pathetic, and instead of telling him a firm no, she shakes her head, attempting a gentle smile and says, “who here wants to play with me?”
“There were fifty people who wanted to play with me,” she groans an hour later, massaging her neck. Across from her at the cafeteria table sits Jihoon, holding two cups of tea in his hand, “how am I supposed to play them all? And they all looked at me like I was being a disrespectful ass when I kept telling them that I would play only against the highest-ranked players.”
Jihoon doesn’t say anything, as per usual. He just stares at her, unnerving, with those same dark eyes that she thinks runs almost black. Black, just like the stones in Go, and she hates how she can recognise everything about those eyes. There’s something very awful about being able to recognise eyes like that, she decides, to be able to look at someone and immediately be reminded of the game.
There has only ever been one game.
“Still, you played against them all,” he says after a minute of careful observation, probably choosing his words with great care in order to not trip her into a rage, “and you won against them all too. That was impressive.”
“I did not win against them all, I had to draw against Kim Myung-hee, 9-dan.” She grumbles, but secretly she’s very pleased with the outcome of the day, “do we have to make a run for the university after this?”
Jihoon checks his watch, “after we get the game record sheets, we can go to the university. We’ll be cutting it close, but we can get there within the set time.”
She narrows her eyes, “is it bad if I say that I don’t want to go?”
Jihoon sighs, “ma’am, you hated the idea of coming here to the association so much, I had to coerce you out of the house. And now you want to skip the lecture and stay on?”
She has no answer to that. She hates the association, hates the stuffy old people who haunt its corridors, making sure the young people toe the line that has been drawn in the sand over a hundred years ago, but she cannot deny the rush of playing Go.
“Fine, whatever,” she rolls her eyes, “I’m going to go to the university as soon as I get my game record sheets.”
“That would be prudent.”
After the coffee cups have been cleared away, she waits around for a few minutes, watching the people walk past the two of them in the lobby. It would have been nice if she could talk to Kim Myung-hee, but the woman seemed to have a lot on her plate. Everyone did, given that the Ing Cup was scheduled to begin in a couple months. Most of the people who showed up at the association today were probably just here because they had heard of her showing up unannounced, because no way in hell would these monsters be willing to sacrifice even a moment of their time not playing Go. Everyone except Jeonghan, of course. That man seemed like he had no concerns at all, spending hours of his time either at her house, or at the association. She’s heard of him frequenting the clubs at Itaewon too, which makes him even more annoying, if that could be a thing.
“Here you go, princess, here are the game records,” Jeonghan appears like the proverbial devil, holding a sheaf of papers in his hands, “you really gave the record-keepers a hard time today. They almost lost their minds trying to transcribe all the moves. What kind of player plays against ten ranked players at the same time?”
“A Go monster, that is who,” she grimaces, but takes the papers from him. Jihoon steps away from the two of them, ostensibly to give them some privacy, and Jeonghan’s fingers brush her hand. She scowls at the contact, “I don’t want to pretend to be ignorant of all the rumors about me.”
“Which is why you played ten people at the same time and won against nine, drawing against one,” Jeonghan drawls, “Kim Myung-hee looked very surprised to find out that she had been able to force a draw against you, and the rest of the people in the room wanted to either bludgeon you to death or examine your brain under a microscope.”
“They called me a monster of Go,” she shakes her head, trying not to smile at the memory of watching Park In-ho, 9-dan, hold his head in his hands at his defeat, “they’re going to get a monster if they want to call me one. Not very fun when the monster is fighting back, huh?”
“Don’t call yourself a monster, yn, you know you aren’t one,” Jeonghan seems like he wants to say something more, but stops just short, “Jihoon told me you have a lecture at Seoul National University, so I’m going to escort you back to the car.”
“Just that?” She raises an eyebrow, “and since when do you talk to Jihoon?”
“Since you hired the man as your manager,” Jeonghan rolls his eyes, “I swear to god, you’re very annoying sometimes.”
The rain has stopped, but the chill in the air remains, which is perhaps why she shivers when stepping out of the gates of the association, fully aware of the stares that follow the three of them as they walk to her car. Jeonghan opens the back door of the car for her, grinning, “you took my advice to heart, you know. I am very happy about that.”
“Your advice?” She narrows her eyes, “you mean that weird line you kept saying about asserting my dominance? And why the fuck would I even have to ‘assert my dominance’?”
“It is as I told you, when the master is out, the dogs will play,” he smiles, “today, the master came back, and they’re on edge now. Perhaps even more so than before.”
“You mean to say they were not on edge about me before?” She closes the door behind her, but he catches a hold of the door, which leaves her leaning out of the open window, “what did you do, Jeonghan?”
“Nothing, just lit a fire under their asses for the Ing Cup, using you,” he continues to smile as he closes the door firmly behind her, “they’re all going to go back to their homes and pore over the mistakes they made in the games today. They’re going to think about your playing style for the next twenty-four hours, at least. You’ve managed to destroy their well-crafted pretenses in a single afternoon, darling.”
“You play with me all the time,” she points an accusing finger at him, and it is all very ridiculous, having a conversation with her half-hanging out of the car window and Jeonghan standing on the sidewalk, “why are you not upset?”
“If I am upset, I just play with you, princess,” he gestures towards Jihoon to drive, “and there is little more that I can do apart from playing with you.”
She wants to talk to him some more, to try and understand what exactly he means by that last sentence, but Jihoon has already got his foot on the accelerator, and they’re driving off towards the general direction of Seoul National University. She sighs, slumping down against the backseat, and stares at the back of Jihoon’s neck. He’s got a haircut, she realises, looking at the neat line of hair and the starched white collar, “when did you get your hair cut?”
Jihoon pauses, looking at her through the rearview mirror for a split second, “my roommate did it for me last night, but how did you know about it?”
“I observe,” she says, non-committal, “it’s my job, after all.”
The lecture at Seoul National is what she had been expecting—a group of excited young adults all waiting to find out about the world of game mechanics through Go, and she’s there to answer all their questions, inane though they might be. She spends about an hour discussing Go game strategies with a group of statistics students, feeling mighty happy about herself, when Jihoon leans in to whisper in her ear, “if we stay here for any longer, we’re going to be late.”
“Late for what?” She asks, “we don’t even have an appointment after this.”
“Well, you have to go over all your game records from this afternoon, so I figured you might need some time to do that,” he shrugs, “you need at least five hours to review every game record sheet and then you need five more hours to perfect your strategies against them in a regular match.”
She can’t even argue with his logic, it’s that flawless. Frustrated, she stands up, making her goodbyes to the organisers, and follows him into the car, trailed by a gaggle of excited students. She signs a few papers, and says the necessary goodbyes, before stumbling into the backseat, “that was exhausting.”
“You seemed pretty comfortable back there,” he offers, putting the car into drive, “do you want to start reviewing the game sheets now, or do you want to do it back at home?”
“Right now,” she holds out her hand, and he stuffs the sheaf of papers in it, “I would rather start doing it now."
“Suit yourself, miss,” he says, non-committal, and turns his eyes back to the road ahead. She doesn’t want to think about it, but the simple act of him looking away gives her a lot of relief. His gaze is unnerving, and she hates how often he seems to train those flint-black eyes on her. As if he’s looking into her soul, and does not like what he’s found there.
“Don’t look at me,” she mutters as they pull into the driveway of the house, “I’d like to be alone for the evening.”
Jihoon complies, of course, and she’s alone in the Go room, as always, poring over her game record sheets.
Lee Jihoon had a happy childhood.
Contrary to what people might think of him now, he grew up as a happy boy in the middle of Busan, where his father ran a mid-level logistics business and his mother took care of the house. Jihoon grew up in a house where there was always enough sunshine, enough money, enough happiness. He had enough food in his stomach, and in school, everyone knew that Lee Jihoon was going to study music production at one of the largest universities in Seoul, probably Hankuk or Korea. They all knew he was on the path for greatness, just a matter of time.
And then, it all went to shit.
His father’s business suddenly went tits-up, owing to trade contracts being given to a multinational company, and Jihoon suddenly realised that his father had taken out loans in his name over the past months, just to give his business a last-minute push. Their household lost all their money, and even before he could wrap his head around the fact that they had about a hundred and fifty million won in loans from the bank, the creditors showed up at their house.
He had taken it all for granted like the fool that he was.
It turned out that his father had taken out a final fifty million won in a high-interest loan, from shady people who now came to collect. His mother blamed his father for the decision at first, but as time went on, she came around to it. Jihoon, still in high school, never really managed to do it. Even as he was giving up the admission to Korea University, he could not shake off the idea that he was suffering from a fate that he did not deserve at all.
It did not help that his father had done this all for him. Jihoon could not even get angry with him for this, he knew his father was only holding on to the business for so long because he wanted the best for him. His only son. His father took out the loans because he did not want his only son to suffer on his account. An admirable sentiment, but Jihoon was the one who was suffering now.
In a matter of days, the life that he had known for so long was effectively over, and Jihoon was now left with a burden of about two hundred million won that he had no idea how to pay back. He moved to Seoul, but not for university. His move to Seoul was not to chase his dream, nor was it to chase something else. It was to pay off his father’s debts. His parents did not want him to pay their debts, but he had to. It was his duty, after all.
“Don’t spend your entire life trying to pay for our mistakes, Jihoon,” his parents would insist, and he would wave them off. After all, he had always known he would have to take care of his parents, just had not known how he would have to do it. In a way, this was easier. He had a set goal instead of a vague dream that would have eventually led him back to the same place anyway. He just had to pay off the debt, and everything would be fine. And most of the debt was with the bank, which meant that they had enough time to pay up. After declaring bankruptcy, most of their assets were seized by the court in order to discharge their debts, which meant Jihoon and his family would only have to worry about the last fifty million won.
If he could go back in time, he would have implored his father to not get into debt with loan sharks, but it was too late now, apparently.
So much money, and I have no way to pay for it. He spent so much time working in shady bars, trying to find a way out of this mess. Bartending, working as a guard for the numerous clubs in Itaewon and Gangnam. He did not want to do it in the first place, but when he turned twenty-five, he found himself working as a porter, going back to the same industry that had ruined his father. He worked in logistics during the day, and at multiple bars at night. Over and over, the same routine. Even Joshua, who had found him after a particularly gruelling shift as a delivery boy, had commented on it once.
“You look like shit, Jihoon,” he had said, “don’t work too hard, it’s going to ruin your body.”
Jihoon had scoffed, but after so many years of working to the bone in order to send his measly earnings back to his parents who gave it back to the loan sharks, he was exhausted. He needed a way to make quick money, easy and fast. The only way he could do that was by getting involved in shady businesses.
It wasn’t as though he hadn’t tried. Jihoon had tried everything, just to pay off a sum of money that only seemed to grow larger and larger by the day. He was just about to start working as a courier for the drug traffickers in Seoul when it was Joshua who had stopped him. Joshua. With all his easy swagger and strange grace that made him look terribly out of place in Jihoon’s apartment, he had held on to Jihoon’s shoulder and shook his head no.
“You’re going to go down a very slippery slope if you take a step out of this apartment tonight, Jihoon,” he had warned, casually lighting a scented candle, “who asked you to deliver that?”
Jihoon had stood his ground, glaring at him, “none of your business, Hong. I'm trying to earn money, not be anointed as a saint.”
“Jihoonie,” Joshua had smiled, although it was unlike anything Jihoon had ever seen, “I like you, you know.”
Jihoon raised his eyebrows, “what does that have to do with anything?”
“Because I don’t want you to end up in prison, that’s why,” Joshua smiled, “I’m going to do this one thing for you right now, Jihoonie. Who asked you to make this delivery?”
Jihoon had thought for a moment. He was not really keen on making the delivery that night, but they had promised him far more money than what he would get after a whole night of working. His conflict must have shown on his face, because Joshua had sighed, “who was it, Jihoon? Who asked you to make the delivery tonight?”
Ah fuck, it’s not like he was going to be able to do anything, Jihoon had thought then, “well, it was Jinyoung. He offered me twice my daily wage to make this delivery.”
“Twice the rate?” Joshua’s eyebrows had risen, “and it was Jinyoung, huh.”
“Wait, what do you mean? You don’t know him, do you?” Jihoon had asked, even though he knew. Joshua was not the type of guy to give him any answers.
“It’s nothing,” Joshua had said instead, “I think I’ll need to have a conversation with Jinyoung soon, huh. Don’t go out tonight. They're going to throw you in jail if you do.”
And with that, he was gone.
Jihoon did not understand why Joshua, who never managed to rouse himself from the couch unless it was for a singing gig, left their apartment that night, neither did he know why Jinyoung apologised profusely to him the following week. All he knew was that he was about to get caught up into something dangerous, and Joshua was there to save him from it.
He’d stopped questioning the other man soon after that.
Joshua was a part of his life, annoying and eccentric, and Jihoon had learnt to live with him as much as he had learnt to live with his debt. Although sometimes he got the sneaking suspicion that Joshua was the reason why he was not beaten bloody in the back of an alleyway by Jinyoung after that night, but, Jihoon was wise enough to not say anything that would have him end up in worse trouble.
About three months ago, Jun, another one of the many bouncers that hung around Itaewon, walked into the bar, his friend Mingyu trailing behind him. Mingyu looked exhausted, and Jihoon could sympathise. There was word on the street that Mingyu was now working for a boss that made even the black corporations sound like heaven. Every time he walked into their bar, Mingyu looked like he had lost about ten pounds and five years off his life.
“There’s no way she won’t give you a day off, Mingyu, it’s your sister’s wedding,” Jun had said, “wait, there’s really no way she’s going to reconsider?”
“No, she said she needs me to be by her side,” Mingyu had groaned, “what is the point of all that money when I can’t even attend the wedding of my sister? What’s the fucking point, then?”
“You should ask someone to do a part-time job, since you want to quit anyway,” Jun had pressed on, “how much money does she pay?”
“She pays me five million a month, which comes out to sixty-seven thousand per day,” Mingyu had groaned, draining his whiskey in one go, “but it doesn’t matter. She’s insane. She’s a fucking insane woman, and I cannot believe I have to wait on her hand and foot.”
Jihoon had merely raised his eyebrows, because Mingyu always complained about his boss (with good reason), but just then, the other man stood up, brandishing his empty whiskey glass, “who wants to take on a part-time job next week? I’ll pay you two hundred thousand!”
The others, who were no strangers to Mingyu’s complaining, all remained quiet. Even the temptation of two hundred thousand is not too much, huh, Jihoon had thought, looking at Mingyu and Jun, desperately trying their best to recruit someone to take over Mingyu’s job for one day.
“I’ll do it,” he had said before he could stop himself, “the part-time job. I'll do it, so you can pay me.”
—
Jihoon remembers the feelings he had when looking at her house for the first time. He was in an upscale neighbourhood of Seoul, staring up at the traditional-style house where his employer was living. Mingyu had served her his two-weeks notice the previous day, and had told her that his replacement was going to come instead of him. Jihoon was not very happy with that, but he also did not have any other recourse. Which had brought him here, in one of the upscale neighbourhoods in Seoul with traditional houses, the kinds that got featured in magazines. The kind of houses that people like Jihoon could never even dream of entering, let alone owning.
He pushed open the gate, which was wide open at six in the morning. Wide open, like the owner of the house was waiting for him to appear, and had thrown the gates open in anticipation, like a red carpet to welcome him.
That should have been the first red flag.
“Anyone home?” he had called out, still hesitant, as he stepped inside the compound, staring at the overgrowth that was supposedly the garden, “I’m here for the part-time job.”
He had walked around the garden, chucking off his shoes at the veranda, but before he could open the first door available, one had opened for him.
What a strange woman.
The first thing he had registered was the strong smell of tobacco and alcohol wafting from her body, so strong it would have triggered a gag reflex in most other people. He powered through it, staring at the woman he’s supposed to take care of for the day. Mingyu had told him next to nothing about the gig, just that he was going to wait on this woman hand and foot for the day.
But—what the fuck was wrong with her?
She was wearing a jacket that looked like it had seen better days, with hair that resembled a rat's nest, a sickly pallor over her skin that made Jihoon think she was some sort of invalid, or at the very least a very sick woman. She leaned half out of the door, lying on the wooden floor, and stared straight at him, gaze muddy and disoriented. Jihoon wanted to throw up. This is the woman I have to take care of?
“Who the fuck are you? You’re not Mingyu.”
She had asked him in a voice that seemed rough with disuse, and Jihoon had stared even more. Was she not aware of my coming?
“I’m Lee Jihoon, your substitute—caretaker for the day. Kim Mingyu was unavailable for the day, so he sent me in his stead.”
“Mingyu sent you?” she had asked, eyebrows raised, “and why the fuck would he send someone like you?”
Jihoon could feel himself getting more irritated by the moment. Sure, he was not Mingyu, but there was a better way to say that, not barking orders at him. “I am aware that I am not Mingyu,” he had replied, trying his best to remain even-tempered, “my name is Lee Jihoon.”
“I don’t really care,” she replied, sitting up. She was hidden from his view, and Jihoon had taken a step forward, trying to take another look at her. Maybe if I see her properly, I would be less inclined to throw away this job and go back to the bar. She was sitting with her legs tucked in seiza on a hard straw floor, and in front of her was a board with white and black circular stones, scattered all over it. Baduk? Jihoon was familiar with the game, but that was the first time he had seen someone actually play it.
“Don’t stare, it’s rude,” she said after a moment, placing a black stone on the board, “I suppose Mingyu giving me his notice was in regard to this.”
“Probably,” Jihoon shrugs, “he’s at his sister's wedding.”
“Good for him, I suppose,” she had replied, not really sounding like she cared, “do you know what you have to do?”
“He’s given me some instructions, but not more than that,” Jihoon said, feeling very inadequate, “I don’t really know what to do.”
“Fine, whatever,” she sighed, standing up and groaning lightly, long-suffering, “remind me to buy some cushions for the Go room.”
The Go room? Jihoon wanted to ask her about it, but kept his mouth shut. He was just here for the day. No need for him to get so involved in her affairs. After he left, she could sort her business out on her own. There was no need for him to get so involved. No need at all.
“What skills do you have?” she asked, opening the main door for him, “I need someone to cook me my meals, and clean the house while they’re at it. I don’t have the time to do anything on my own.”
He narrowed his eyes, “and Mingyu was doing all this for you?”
“He was, not anymore,” she had said, with unnecessary venom, “why the fuck would he leave me, I don’t know.”
Jihoon rolls his eyes, stepping into the house behind her, and is temporarily struck dumb. Who the fuck was Mingyu working for? A chaebol? Everywhere he could see, the spaces were occupied by something expensive, more often on the ridiculous side; a scroll painting from the mid-Joseon era, Ming Dynasty pottery, everywhere he could see, Jihoon only saw more money than he could ever wish to earn in a lifetime. One of them would be enough to wipe out his entire debt in a moment.
So much money, and nothing for him.
“What the fuck are you looking at?”
Jihoon whips his head so fast it gives him an ache in the neck. “What?”
“I’m asking you what the fuck you were looking at,” she growls, “do you want to stay here or not?”
He trips over his words, “you have a lot of expensive things in here.”
She stares at him for a second. Jihoon stares back. Her eyes are surprisingly clear now, staring at him like she’s trying to figure out what exactly was wrong with him. She’s not wearing glasses, but she’s squinting faintly, which means she’s used to wearing glasses. She stares at him for a good minute, which makes him uncomfortable. Her gaze gets underneath his skin with an efficiency that scares him.
And then she laughs.
Unlike her voice, which is rough and scratchy and sounds like she’s been smoking cigarettes until recently, her laughter is silent, but she doubles up over a nearby table and laughs until she’s out of breath. Jihoon stands still for the entire time she laughs, and with every passing moment, he feels as though he should run out and go back to the bar. What would Joshua say about this? He’d probably laugh at me and make a big deal out of it.
“I like you, Lee Jihoon,” she says once she’s caught her breath, panting faintly, “you’re hired.”
He blinks. “Hired?”
“You’re my new manager,” she says, pointing at him, “I like you. The starting salary is five million won monthly. Report here tomorrow morning at nine a.m.”
—
That was three months ago, and since then, he has stolen thirty million won from her.
It began with small amounts, spare change that he skimmed off the top of accounts. Money that was supposed to be used for groceries, money that was supposed to be used for small repairs around the house. Whatever he asked for, she gave, usually not caring about how much money that was being spent. While it made things exponentially easier for him, it also made things difficult. Jihoon felt shitty taking her money, but he also had nothing else he could do. He needed money, and he needed it fast. Taking it from her was the only plausible course of action. Still, it did not stop him from feeling terrible about it.
That all goes away the moment she starts demanding things from him.
His duties are never-ending, from the moment he enters the house, he’s expected to take care of her every need. And there are so many. Jihoon has to cook for her, something he should not be doing as her manager, but he does it anyway. After all, the first time he had entered her house, he had found only alcohol in the fridge, along with bottles of expensive-looking water, but nothing else. No groceries, no cooked food. Not even banchan, something even a poor bastard like him had more than enough of. All she seemed to have were expensive things, clothes and artworks on the walls, but expensive artworks don’t fill your stomach. Jihoon cooks for her, washes her clothes, even takes her out for drives when she wants to have a change of air. Most of the time these trips are to the senior centre to play hours of Go, but he doesn’t mind all that.
What he does mind is her lack of self-preservation. And of course, there is the presence of Yoon Jeonghan.
Jeonghan is her colleague, and he does not like him. Jihoon is aware of this fact. Jeonghan had made it clear from the first moment he laid eyes on Jihoon, and he’s fine with it, truly. He’s slightly irritated by the negative emotions, but he can learn to live with it. Jihoon’s life is far worse.
But when he sees her walking out of the house barefoot, no care for the biting cold, or of people’s judgemental gazes accosting her, he finds it difficult to hold on to his emotions. Her biggest purchases are cigarettes and alcohol. Her blood is probably seventy percent alcohol by now, Jihoon thinks, and she’s about half a year from contracting lung cancer. At least she doesn’t smoke in front of him.
“She’s going to kill herself, you know,” he says to Joshua one evening, sitting at their shared kitchen table, watching the other man get ready for his performance, “she smokes like a chimney, drinks at all times of the day, refuses to eat real food, and doesn’t even go out of the house unless it’s to gallivant across the town barefoot with season-inappropriate clothing. She weighs less than a model with an eating disorder, and is paler than a homebody. Who the fuck does that?”
Joshua laughs, staring at his reflection in the mirror, “sounds like you’re worrying a bit too much about her. Aren’t you supposed to take her money and serve her your two-week notice? What happened to that resolve?”
“I know, but it would be inconvenient for me, if she popped her clogs on my watch,” he groans, “I don’t understand how she has so much money. She plays Go, for fuck’s sake. Playing that game is not a very lucrative profession.”
Joshua turns around, staring at him, “what’s her name?”
Jihoon raises an eyebrow, but says it, “and why is her name that important?”
Joshua laughs, “You realise, you’ve been working under one of the greatest Go players this country has ever seen?”
“I don’t give a fuck about that,” Jihoon replies, turning away from Joshua. He really does not. She can go drink herself into a stupor and smoke her lungs into charred shreds for all he cares.
—
Ing Cup, day one.
The first round of the Ing Cup was held online, but they’re here in Shanghai, China, waiting for the second round to be held. She was a finalist the last time, which means she automatically advanced to the round of sixteen. All that is left is to win, which means she’s going to get a prize money of about four hundred thousand dollars.
Jihoon had been spooked massively the day they had arrived, with five cameras shoved into his face. She feels a slight twinge of putty for the guy, who’s probably being accosted by cameras for the first time in his life. It could not be helped, of course, the Ing Cup was a massive event in China, and they were all here to boost the national image of Korea. Mishaps like these were part of the game. Collateral, in a way.
“I still don’t know why you had to come here days before you were actually supposed to play,” Jihoon complains, sitting on the ridiculously soft hotel bed, “are we going to sightsee today?”
“That’s strange,” she stares at him from where she’s sitting, perched on a chair with a board in front of her, “you are not this sensitive, at least not normally.”
“It’s been a week of being in Shanghai, and all we have seen is the inside of the hotel rooms.” Jihoon replies, feeling very petty all of a sudden, “all you do here is look at the performance records of the other players, and play them against yourself. Have you even eaten street food once?”
“I can’t eat street food, it gives me indigestion,” she replies, turning back to her board, “you can go out and explore if you want, I’m staying inside. I need to figure out how Ryoki managed to defeat Guangli in the round of eight. He was in a very tight spot. No one below eight-dan would have gotten out of that situation that fast, and he’s only seven-dan.”
Jihoon sighs. He can’t leave her here, but he wants to go out and explore Shanghai on his own, without the looming threats of unpaid bills and loans waiting for him. When he’d told Joshua about the trip, Joshua had laughed and told him to have fun for a few days. Even Mingyu had told him to ‘lighten the fuck up and get some’ in Shanghai. Jihoon figures that Mingyu must have been thinking about something else, but he’s not interested in that.
He just needs to let loose one time. Just this once.
It’s the finals.
It’s the finals, and this is the first time that Jihoon has had such a long vacation. He’s spent the last week and a half running around Shanghai, eating street food and drinking cheap Chinese alcohol, only returning to his hotel room in the dead of the night. Sometimes he sees the light in her room still on, sometimes it’s turned off. Jihoon doesn’t really care. Why spend so much time poring over a board game?
On the morning of the finals, he wakes up at six in the morning, his alarm blaring loud enough to wake up the entire floor. Jihoon turns over in his bed to turn the alarm off, but sleep seems to be hard to come by. He sits up, washes his face and cleans his teeth, and ambles out of the room to go out in search of the free hotel breakfast. It’s cold, very cold, so he dresses himself in a warm coat and trousers, picking them up from the chair and slipping them on.
Just outside of his room, he finds one of the organisers pacing the floor, knocking loudly on her door. He frowns, then raises his hand in greeting, “morning, Mr Cheon.”
Mr Cheon looks gratified to see him, “Mr Lee, nice to see you here. Could you wake up Athlete y/n for her final match? There are people waiting for her outside the hotel.”
“People waiting?” Jihoon raises his eyebrows, “I did not realise that. I shall wake her up immediately.”
“Of course, of course,” Mr Cheon’s smile turns oily and unpleasant, “having her stay at this hotel has been a great boon for business. There are many people who are waiting for her presence.”
“I suppose,” Jihoon replies, not sure of what to tell him, so he settles for a smile instead. It’s hopefully noncommittal enough that Mr Cheon does not understand that he’s entirely unaware of his ignorance in this matter.
Just at this moment, the door to her room opens, and she steps out. “Oh, you’re here already, Mr Cheon. Shall we?”
Jihoon stares. He’s been out of the hotel for every match she’s played so far, so he’s been utterly unaware of all the mechanics of a ranked Go game, but she looks—different. She’s wearing proper clothes, for once; sleek black ceremonial suit over a plain white shirt that would not have looked out of place at a funeral, her trademark large glasses perched on the bridge of her nose. He doesn’t understand the intricacies of haute couture, but even an idiot like him could realise that the clothes she’s wearing are both designer and ludicrously expensive. She slips on a black overcoat that looks like a cross between a dopo and a regular coat, and hands off a leather bag to Mr Cheon, who stares at her. It’s only then that she notices him, standing off in a corner.
“Oh, you’re here, Jihoon,” she says, half a dismissal, which irritates him even further. I’m supposed to be your manager, he thinks, even if he has been running all over town the past few days. She keeps calling him as her manager, but makes no effort to actually hold on to him. It’s all very fucking annoying.
“I’ll take that, ma’am,” he says, slightly offended, and takes the bag from Mr Cheon, who looks slightly surprised at this action, but keeps his mouth shut. She says nothing, just shakes her head. Jihoon finds himself staring at her. She looks very different, he thinks again, looking at her surprisingly clear gaze on this cold morning, she looks very different.
“Shall we go?” Mr Cheon says, breaking his reverie, “we’re getting late.”
Jihoon walks behind the two of them, staring at her back as she moves through the corridors with her shoulders straight, and the back of her neck stiff. Before coming to Shanghai, he’d taken her to a salon for a haircut, sitting on a sofa for over an hour waiting for the hairdresser to be done with her haircut. He hadn’t really liked the haircut on her, but now he thinks it suits her face, a short pixie cut that disarms people into thinking she’s far younger than she actually is. The back of her head has been combed smoothly, with no flyaways. Suddenly, he feels wholly inadequate to be standing beside her, or even behind her. It’s not important. She’s probably not even thinking about me right now.
“My manager is entirely unprepared for the chaos,” she says, loud enough for Mr Cheon to hear, “I hope there is an alternative entrance we could use?”
The man shakes his head no, “I’m sorry, ma’am,” he replies, although his tone doesn’t convey his contrition at all, “the Korean Go Association wanted the final match to be heavily publicised. Hence the public entrance and exit.”
“Fucking hell,” she swears under her breath, but Jihoon catches it, “do you want to kill him or something?”
How bad is a single Go game?
The moment they walk out of the large double doors, it is chaos.
There are reporters everywhere, shoving cameras into her face, and even Jihoon bears the brunt of their interest, having to push some cameras out of his space, but the people are relentless, shoving and pushing. She raises her hand, and the sleeve slips down to reveal an old watch face. This gets the reporters more excited, somehow, and the flashes get more intense. She shields her eye, and Jihoon thinks he might be blinded.
“Miss y/n, what do you think about your opponents comments about your playing style?”
“Miss y/n, do you really think Korean Go is about to make a comeback?”
“Miss y/n, are you confident that you can win?”
Jihoon wants to look away, but he can’t. She has cameras flashing all around her, like she’s a celebrity or an idol or an actress. She’s never faced cameras like this in Seoul, not even when she went out barefoot on the streets or went without a coat in the cold. She’s being accosted by cameras at this point. He reaches out to pull her away from their ring, and Mr Cheon stops him, hand on his shoulder.
“She’s the sole representative of Korea left in this tournament,” he says, stopping Jihoon in his tracks, “Yoon Jeonghan resigned from his match two days ago. She’s the last one left.”
She’s the last one left. Jihoon doesn’t like the way he says it, but he stares at her, face blank and expressionless even in the face of blinding lights. She doesn’t answer any question, just nods her head and walks straight into the awaiting car. Jihoon follows, sliding the car door close with a thump. Even as the doors close, he can feel the eyes of multiple people on him, on her, on their car.
As soon as the car starts, he turns to look at her, but she’s leaning her head back onto the seat, with her eyes closed. What the hell?
“She’s in good form right now,” Mr Cheon explains, the car speeding across the roads, “the final is no doubt nerve-wracking, but she looks like she’s in high spirits.”
Jihoon just stares. What the fuck is going on?
Fortunately, at the venue, there is a separate entrance for the players, and their car gets there with minimal camera flashes. Mr Cheon ushers them both right ahead, saying things like “we’re already late”, but Jihoon maintains an iron grip on her bag, focused on following her as closely as he can.
“The members from the Go Association are here,” she mutters, the distaste clear enough for Jihoon to notice, “they’re going to have me in their grip for the next twelve hours. Get something to eat and sit in the observation room.”
“The observation room?” Jihoon asks, but Mr Cheon has his grip on him, “come, sir. We’re going to go to the observation room.”
He’s never really thought of Go as a popular game. Sure, old people played it, and some people made their living from it, but it never really registered in his mind as a popular game, not at the level of basketball or baseball. Still, looking at the number of people crammed into the large hall they were using as an observation room, he thinks that he needs to reconsider his notion about the game. There were people dressed in obscene luxury; reporters and people from Go associations all over East Asia, along with famous players that he has never even heard the names of, who all shake his hand and smile at him warmly and thank him for taking such good care of her.
Her. everything is about her.
She sits at a table, facing a man who looks slightly nervous to be opposite her. Who would not be, being faced with that expressionless mask? In between the two of them, there’s a Go board, stones scattered all over them, white and black. While there are no cameras that get right up in her face, Jihoon thinks it must be uncomfortable to have your every move tracked by a camera five feet from you. She’s placing a stone with the confidence of someone who has studied their opponent for months beforehand, he responds with a move that speaks more of his experience than his confidence.
“Incredible,” someone whispers, “she’s taken control of the game from the very beginning. Ryoki stands no chance against her.”
“Even with the komi, the difference in their skillsets is huge,” another says, voice low, but loud enough for Jihoon to hear, “how is Ryoki failing? Everyone and their mothers have studied her playing style by now.”
“The thing about her is that you cannot tie her down with her playing style,” the voice of Yoon Jeonghan interrupts them, loud and clear. He’s wearing proper clothes today, Jihoon notices, with no little distaste, “she’s probably thought about how he’s read her style, too.”
“Yeah,” someone agrees, “y/n has always been pretty strategic in her playing, but today she seems especially ruthless.”
Jihoon doesn’t understand what the fuck they’re talking about. She looks lonely, sitting in front of a man who, despite his nervousness, looks like he’s much more comfortable in his situation than she is. She looks ill at ease, her back stiff and unyielding, and her left hand is balled up into a fist beside her. Jihoon doesn’t know anything about the game, but he knows her, and she’s stressed out.
After what seems like an eternity, the man raises his hands, a white stone in between his fingers, and places it on the corner of the board. She reaches out for a handshake, nodding solemnly. The room breaks out in applause, and Jihoon turns around to seek out Mr Cheon, who is clapping enthusiastically, his face red with happiness.
“She won!” Mr Cheon grasps Jihoon’s hand, shaking it emphatically, “Miss y/n won! Such a masterful play, you must be so proud.”
He doesn't know what to say.
“It doesn’t matter how I play, the game is the thing in itself.”
They had been received at the Gimpo airport with more camera flashes, and she had stood in front of reporters and said a single sentence, which was quoted and written over and over by hundreds of publications before they even made the trip back home. Jihoon carries her bags to her bedroom, carefully depositing them at the foot of her giant bed, and she follows him inside, looking haggard and spent.
“I’ll cook some lunch for you.”
“No need, I’ll order something,” she waves a hand, “go back home, Lee Jihoon. You have had an equally tiring trip as me.”
Easily dismissed, Jihoon walks out of the house, which has been fortunately spared from the onslaught of journalists, walking to the taxi stand to hail a cab. The past week has been something of a dream, a vacation that he had neither thought he could get, nor did he think he deserved it, a time spent entirely on roaming around the streets of Shanghai and eating spicy street food. Is this how young people live? He has spent most of his youth trying to earn money, while people like her flew first class to China just to play a few games and earn a frankly ridiculous amount of money.
It all was terribly unfair.
His phone chimes, your bank account XXXX-XXXX has been credited with ₩5,000,000.
And underneath that, a text; show me the pictures you took of Shanghai.
He tries not to think about the five million won sitting in his bank account at that moment, and chooses to reply to her message, I’m sure you’ve seen better sights in Shanghai, ma’am.
The reply comes almost instantly. I don’t know. I’ve never really seen Shanghai.
It’s been two weeks since the Ing Cup. In that time, all that she has managed to do is drag herself out of the house on a single day, and smoke ten packs of cigarettes. Jihoon stares at her with distaste every time he looks at her, like he’s been faced with a particularly tough mathematics problem, one that he has no hope of solving. Jeonghan’s been staying away for a while too, perhaps busy with his newest fling or whatever catches his fancy.
Every time she closes her eyes, she sees the board. That one damn board, with black and white forming a pattern. Graceful, yet suffocating. She understands this pattern, she’s seen it enough times for her to remember it by heart now. This is the same pattern that Ryoki Miyajima employed in the semifinal match of the Ing Cup, the pattern that forced Yoon Jeonghan to retire. She knew this pattern, because this is Ryoki Miyajima’s signature move. To use his formation, he would have had to take control of the board from the first move itself. Jeonghan had not expected this, and he’d lost as a result. It was humiliating, the way Jeonghan had lost.
“Never let him take control of the game, even once.” Jeonghan had whispered into her ear when she had encountered him in the hallways after the game. He’d looked haggard, his shoulders slumped in defeat. It’s the first and only time she’s seen him so—broken down.
“What do you mean?”
“The moment you give him an inch, he’ll take a mile,” Jeonghan had said, shaking his head, “he plays ruthless, so I had prepared for it, but this was beyond what I had prepared for. Make sure you never give him a single stone or a single point.”
With that he’d handed her his game record sheet, and walked off into his room. Ryoki Miyajima was a ruthless player, and everyone expected her to employ her usual style and tactic; waiting until the opponent slipped up, and then moving in with precise stones that called for an elegant game. But Miyajima was a ruthless player, and had always been one, and it was plain to her from the game records, that he planned to be even more ruthless in the finals.
She’d spent the two nights before the game poring over his past matches and playing styles, looking up past game records. They had opposing styles, which would make for an interesting match if she decided to go that way. Miyajima must also be preparing, poring over her records in the same manner as her. Smooth as water, the Asahi Shimbun had reported during her first Japan-Korea Tengen, y/n, 8-dan, with her playing style that resembles the flowing of silk over water, defeated her opponent 4-1 in a tournament that seemed to be on her side from the beginning. She had not made particular changes to her playing style, but for this one, she might just have to go all out from the beginning. Ryoki Miyajima had not expected her to fight aggressively from the start, and she took no small pleasure in seeing his face go from confused to surprised to anger, and finally, acceptance, as he resigned. She bowed to him, turned on her heel, and returned to the hotel room. Fighting hard from the beginning.
How does it feel, to live life like that?
She turns to lie on her side, staring at the photos Jihoon had sent of Shanghai. He had no talent in photography, but his pictures still managed to be honest and captivating. The sights of Shanghai were blurring in front of her face, which probably meant that she had been rotting in there for far too long.
She had expected Jihoon to be bored and sensitive in Shanghai, much like everyone else. His job as her manager was to wait in the hotel room along with her. No one would like to sit in silence with a woman who just had eyes for the board in front of her. Anyone else would have been angry with him for leaving his position and going sightseeing, but she found herself not really caring. At least one of us has to enjoy this trip.
“You have been lying in bed for the past week straight, ma’am,” the man in question walks into the room, nose wrinkled at the look of her in bed, hair tangled, eyes bloodshot, “you’re not even getting any sleep. What are you doing?”
“None of your business, Jihoon,” she mutters, looking away from him, “go away.”
“I wish I could, but I still have to get my salary for this month,” he replies, throwing open the drapes, “it’s almost afternoon. At least try to wash up today.”
She regards him with one eye open. He has an apron tied around his waist, looking supremely annoyed with her, “and what if I don’t want to?”
He raises his eyebrows, “do you want me to give you a bath? I can arrange that for you, ma’am.”
“Never mind.”
Jeonghan appears as she’s getting dressed for the day, and she finds him lounging on a sofa, staring at his painted nails, “thought you would still be in bed.”
“Then why are you here right now?” she asks, walking towards the Go room, “did it take you this long to lick your wounds?”
“Lick my wounds?” he laughs, “I was pursuing—something with someone. That’s why it took me so long.”
“Maybe don’t talk about fucking when I’m opening the Go room for you,” she wrinkles her nose in anger and distaste, “don’t disrespect the fucking Go Room, you ass.”
“And if I say I have had people in the Go room who were definitely not supposed to be there?” he smirks, waiting for her reaction, “what then, y/n?”
She sighs, walking into the dusty room, opening the door to the garden, “Libertine.”
“You like it.”
“Doesn’t matter,” she rolls her eyes, producing the game record of Ryoki Miyajima and her final match from her pockets, “we need to play this match.”
Jeonghan looks at the piece of paper, surprised, “why do you still have that?”
“He beat you,” she replies, “it was quite humiliating, and I hated it. He should not have been able to beat you. But he did. So I need you to know how to beat him later on.”
“But you beat him in the final,” Jeonghan laughs, “although I am very touched by this display of solidarity, you don’t need to do all that for me. You already took revenge for me by beating his ass in the finals.”
“Just that isn’t enough,” she shakes her head, “you need to be able to beat him by yourself later on. Relying on me is not the way to go.”
“They called your win the ‘Restoration of National Pride’,” he says, settling across from her on the floor anyway, “what do you have to say about that?”
“I think it’s stupid that they’re coined that term, and it’s stupider that you’re using that term,” she counters, “I’ll play black. No byoyomi, eight komi.”
“Oof, you wounded me,” Jeonghan grins, hand on his chest, “well, shall we begin?”
Six hours later, Jihoon walks into the Go room, carrying a tray of evening tea and light refreshments. He’s had to deep-clean her bedroom while she played Go, but he’s not too annoyed by it. Rolex watch, lying unattended in a far corner of the dresser, clearly never worn. Sure, it’s second-hand, but it’s an Oyster Perpetual, which means it’s going to fetch him a cool 15 million on the market.
He whistles to himself while he prepares their tea and snacks, and hopes that he gets more opportunities to enter her bedroom in the future.
Yoon Jeonghan has been here for the past five—no, six hours, and they’ve been holed up in the Go room for almost all of that time. Jihoon’s passed by the room at least ten times, and he’s not seen either of them emerging from the space. He does not trust Jeonghan at all, but he knows her. She treats the Go room as a sacred space, and she would not do anything to jeopardise the sanctity of said space. Jihoon might not like the idea of leaving Jeonghan alone with her, but he knows her.
When he slides open the door with the tray in his hand, he’s not prepared at all for the sight that greets him.
She sits across from the Go board with a lit cigarette in her hand, looking at the board like it’s done her a personal affront. Across the board, Yoon Jeonghan is lying on the floor, staring up at the ceiling like it holds the secret to the mysteries of his life.
“Tea for the two of you, ma’am,” he says, setting the tray down. “Should I take my leave now?”
She waves her hand, “yes, of course. Come again tomorrow.”
He’s about to stand up and leave the room, when Jeonghan sits up, saying, “why the hell are you telling me this right now, y/n? It would be better if you kept the knowledge about his playing to yourself. You have the Challenger Cup coming up next, you need to prepare for it. You’re so close to a Grand Slam year, y/n, why the hell are you wasting your time doing all this for me?”
She takes a deep breath, taking a drag and letting out a puff of smoke. Jihoon stares at her.
When he was young, he had accompanied his parents to an art museum once. He was too young to understand what the paintings meant, so he had busied himself with looking at the ceilings, the way the sunlight filtered through the windows, and his mother’s light conversation as she talked to her friends. It was an idyllic moment, a rare weekend when his mother was free and could take him out for a moment. Young Jihoon had spent much of his time lazing about, but there was one print that had caught his eye. It was of a skeleton, with a burning cigarette held between its jawbones. He had not understood the meaning of the picture, but now, looking at her, smoking a cigarette and staring at the Go board, he thinks he might have an idea.
“It doesn’t matter if you win or if I win,” she replies, not even looking up from the board, “I cannot bear to see a puzzle being left unsolved, no matter who’s on the opposite side of the board. It’s not about the match, never has been. It’s about the game, and if you leave beating Ryoki up to chance or up to other people, then you’re letting the game down.”
“You and your game,” Jeonghan scoffs, “why play the game if you hate it so much?”
“None of your business, Jeonghan,” she picks up a cup of tea from the tray, drinking it in one go, “now get going. I need to have some time to myself.”
“Don’t bother with showing me out, I know the way,” Jeonghan shrugs, standing up, “but what are you going to think about?”
She stares at him, eyes cloudy again. “Things.”
Jeonghan leaves, and Jihoon turns to get back to his work as well, but she stops him just as he is about to step out of the doors, “wait, Lee Jihoon.”
He turns, frowning, “what’s wrong?”
Her eyes are cloudy again. She stares at him, but he doesn’t know if she’s staring at him or if she’s staring beyond him, just somewhere else, “do you know how to play Go?”
Three months to the LG Cup.
The chill in the air is getting worse. She spends most of her free time under the covers, staring up at the walls for hours at a time. She’s not doing anything, just breathing.
Everything is so difficult. Every time she opens her eyes, there is a damn board in front of her, taunting, mocking. It stares at her, mocking, even as she tries to turn away from it, closing her eyes to it. Nothing works, the board still stares at her. All she can do is think about the damn game. Over and over again, the same game. Go.
On the seventh day of her self-imposed exile, Jihoon returns to her house.
“It’s been a week since you showered,” Jihoon says, walking into her bedroom, “why the hell are you still in the same clothes after a week?”
“Didn’t feel like changing,” she mutters, “you would have to wash them all anyway.”
“While I am touched by your concern for the laundry, I don’t particularly care,” Jihoon replies, “but you’re still in those filthy clothes. Good fucking god.”
“Shut up, Lee Jihoon,” she says, half-heartedly, “it’s none of your business.”
“I keep the house in order here, so it kind of is my business,” he says, “and you need to take a shower.”
“I said it’s none of your business!” she snaps at him, still lying down, and when their eyes meet, her gaze clears a bit. Jihoon doesn’t understand Go, and he’s probably the only one in her periphery who does not. It’s just that his eyes are still the same, slate-black, like Go pieces.
The board hovers in front of her, airborne, and slowly everything else fades to black. The board remains, still and unyielding.
“Miss!” Jihoon’s voice, loud, defiant, snaps her out of her trance, “you need to take a shower, Miss. or a bath. You need a full-body bath, actually.”
“Don’t feel like it,” she mutters, looking away and closing her eyes. Who cares? I can play Go. That's all they want. He wants the same, and I’m here, like an idiot, giving him what he wants.
He’s the one who had taken the old rolex from her cabinet, she’s pretty sure. She doesn’t hold any affection for the old watch, but still, it would have been better if he had told her that he was taking it. She would not have spared it another thought.
Really? He basically made it clear he did not have any other desire to work here than the money.
“Still, you need to take a shower, you know,” Jihoon says, stripping the covers off of her, ignoring her look of betrayal, “I’ve run you a bath. Do you want to take it, or should I carry you to the bathroom myself?”
“Shut the fuck up, Jihoon,” she groans, standing up from her bed, “I just don’t want to take a shower or a bath right now.”
She doesn’t say anything else, and it’s not important, really—she can think whatever the fuck she wants, and he’s welcome to do whatever he wants, but this—this is proving to be difficult.
“It’s too cold, I don’t really want to take a bath. I can just wash myself quickly under a shower. Or a half-body bath. I can do one of those.”
Jihoon stares at her for a second, and takes a step forward, his palms outstretched. Instead of being rooted in the spot where she had been standing, she takes a step back, her instincts screaming at her, “what the hell are you trying to do?”
“Making you take a bath,” he says simply, depositing a change of clothes on the bed and turning around, “you need to wash your hair. It stinks."
“Whatever,” she rolls her eyes, but grabs the change of clothes anyway, making her way to the bathroom, where as promised, a tub of warm bathwater awaited her, a bottle of shampoo and liquid soap next to it. She wasn’t even sure she owned them anymore. Where did he even get those?
“I went out and bought them yesterday,” he offers as an explanation, as though already understanding what she wanted to ask, “do you even know what groceries and household items you need?”
“You’ve been here long enough to understand that I just do not care,” she replies, taking off her shirt and pajamas, before stepping into the water half naked. Jihoon averts his eyes, but bends down to pick up the clothes, arranging them in a neat pile. She wants to roll her eyes, but looks away instead. Let him do whatever he wants, she thinks, it’s not bothering me.
After about three minutes of soaking in the bath, she hears him walking up to her. Jihoon takes a seat on a plastic stool, squirts out a few dollops of shampoo on his hands, and begins working it into her hair. It’s all so shocking she doesn’t know how to respond to it, genuinely confused.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Washing your hair,” he replies, “you smell atrocious. Gotta get some of that cleaned up.”
He hands her the body wash, and while she lathers it all over herself, Jihoon slowly works the shampoo into her scalp, scrubbing it into her skin with a single-minded concentration that seems funny to her, at least now.
It’s been a long time since someone has done that for me.
“Are you feeling guilty about it?” she asks, while he’s rubbing the ends of her hair, “don’t be sorry.”
“What do you mean?”
So he’s going to be weird about it.
“Never mind,” she replies, busying herself with the water, staring at the surface until it makes her go slightly sleepy. She’s not trying to sleep, not with Jihoon sitting right behind her, but she’s feeling like it. If she closes her eyes, she’s going to fall asleep right in the middle of this tub.
“You can sleep, you know,” he says, voice lower than necessary. It makes her even more confused, “you’ve been staying awake for the past week and a half.”
“Not that you noticed,” she grouses, closing her eyes, “why the hell are you washing my hair anyway? I can do it by myself.”
“I don’t know, either.”
He’s been feeling guilty ever since that day. He’d sent the money to his parents, keeping some for himself and later loan repayments, but he keeps thinking back to that hiding spot, tucked safely behind all her clothes. He could have sold her clothes, but the watch seemed like a better bet.
Was it given to her by someone important? A family member? Her parents? A lover?
While she doesn’t seem like the kind of person who would hold on to the keepsakes of a former lover, Jihoon doesn’t really know her at all. He knows she’s rich, he knows she has far too much money from playing a game he doesn’t care about. Other than that, he doesn’t know anything. The watch looked like it had been given to her by someone important. No one gives someone a Rolex watch just like that. It’s not the most usual of gifts.
He thinks of a scenario, of her being given the watch by someone she had loved, a nameless, faceless, shadow of a person, their hand slipping into hers with the comfort and familiarity that is borne only out of a romantic relationship. It makes him slightly confused. She doesn’t seem like the kind of person who would entertain a romantic relationship, much less actively seeks someone out. If that had been the case, she would have been entangled with Yoon Jeonghan by now. He surely came around the house to play with her more often than necessary.
Was it him? Yoon Jeonghan?
Jihoon shakes his head, trying to rid himself of his thoughts, dreaming of a scenario in which Jeonghan beats him bloody for daring to sell his keepsake, and pulls on his trousers. He’s not visited her for almost a week now.
What he sees is a mess. He’d last visited her a week ago, and it seemed to him that she had not even bothered to clean her house during that time. Had she even taken a shower? Was she just looking vacantly at the ceiling all hours of the day? What the hell? Did she just—exist and play Go?
Before he had walked into her bedroom to inspect the extent of the damage, he’d taken a look at the refrigerator. Nothing. Even the side dishes that he had left for her were untouched. Did she go without food all this while?
In the trash he finds candy wrappers, bottles of water, all in various stages of decay, coupled with an empty container of kimchi that makes him wrinkle his nose in distaste. Cleaning can wait until later. I need to see how she’s been doing all this while.
In her bedroom, it’s an even bigger mess. She’s dressed in the same clothes he’d last seen her in, unwashed, hair unkempt. A foul smell emerges from the bedsheets, sweat and saliva and the sweet scent of chocolate all mixed into one, and in the middle of it all, she lies, eyes trained onto the ceiling, mumbling faintly, eyes unmoving. Her chest rises and falls, which means she is not dead yet, but she might as well be, given how much she behaves like one.
He doesn’t know why he had the desire to wash her hair. He has other things to do, more important things, better things, really. But he sits on a cheap plastic stool, lathers the soap and shampoo in his hands, and massages it into her hair.
“I don’t know either.” He’s being honest—he does not know why he’s here. He should be cleaning the house, he should be doing anything else, but he’s in here, washing her hair like her mother did for her, no doubt.
“The Rolex was not a gift,” she says, after a beat. He pauses, staring at the back of her head. How the hell did she know?
“The Rolex was more like a bribe,” she repeats, sinking further into the warm water. Jihoon takes the handheld shower, starts washing her hair gently. “I don’t wear it anymore. Never did. I hated what it stood for, so I never did.”
He doesn’t say anything. Her eyes droop close, almost in deep sleep, and she opens her mouth again, “you should have taken it. I don’t wear it. I don’t want to even have the possibility of wearing it.”
Jihoon says nothing, washing her hair. Why is she saying all this? Anyone else in her position would have had him thrown out of their employ in the first month itself, but he’s already figured out that she’s perhaps a bit more eccentric than most, but this seems new, even for her behaviour.
“Was it a pretty watch?” he asks, trying to keep his voice even and hide the surprise in it, “the Rolex, I mean.”
“You would know.” She tries to laugh, but fails, “you took it, didn’t you?”
“I did not.” The lie is unconvincing to him, but he swallows it down, tries not to look at the back of her neck, and opens his mouth again, “I don’t understand what you want to talk to me about.”
“I don’t even use that watch,” she shrugs, “you know the watch on my bedside table? I use that instead of the Rolex.”
“That one?” he’s seen it, it’s an old watch model, the strap’s leather disintegrating, “you wear that?”
“I do,” she replies, closing her eyes, “go away, Lee Jihoon.”
There’s a man at the gates. Jihoon has been staring at him for the past fifteen minutes. He is wearing a coat in the same style that she had worn during the Ing cup final, a mix of hanbok and modern haute couture tailoring, something that looks far better on him than it had on her. Is this the man who makes her clothing?
“Are you the manager?” the man asks, clearly surprised to see him there, “I mean, I had heard from the association that she had a new manager now, but that’s you?”
Jihoon doesn’t answer, merely nods. He’s been asked this question enough times for him to be used to it. He doesn’t look the part, far too thug-like to be considered for the ‘manager of a Go player’ image. The people at the bar are wearing off on me.
“This is my card,” the man holds out a card towards him, “I’m the one of the principal designers at XMH.”
Principal designer at XMH? Jihoon inspects the card to discover if it’s a forgery, his eyes catch nothing, if it is a forgery, it is a very clever one. He takes a sneaky look at the man’s car, which seems to hold a large suitcase, suspiciously full. But what is one of the principal designers of one of East Asia’s biggest fashion houses doing here? At her house?
“Do you want me to ask if she can receive visitors?” he asks, taking note of the way his face lights up, “you should wait here.”
“I’m going to wait, so go and ask her, please.”
He walks back into the house, finding her seated seiza-style in the Go room. Even before Jihoon can open his mouth, she raises a hand, shutting him up, “get him to leave.”
“Get him to leave?” Jihoon raises his eyebrows, “he’s one of the principal designers of XMH.”
“I don’t care if he’s the reanimated corpse of Yves Saint Laurent himself, I don’t want to see him here.”
Jihoon shakes his head. There’s no arguing with her when she gets obstinate like this. She’s never going to listen to him, so why bother? Still, he presses on, “the man has been standing here for a long time. He seems like he has some things to give to you.”
She sighs, holding her head in her hands. “You can do whatever the fuck you want with his gifts. I don’t care. Sell them for a high profit on the thrift scene.”
Jihoon raises his eyebrows, but walks out of the room either way, going back to the front gate. The man is still standing there, with a pathetic hopeful look in his eyes that makes him think twice about turning him away. Should I just say fuck it and let him in? She’s not going to remain angry for very long, is she?
But then he remembers the haunted, caged look in her eyes, and steels himself. Never mind. “Sorry,” he says, loud enough for his voice to be carried to the interior of the house, “she’s not taking any visitors.”
“No visitors, or just me?”
Jihoon shrugs, and the man’s eyes start to water. What the hell? Is this man really that interested in meeting her? He briefly entertains the idea that he might be a stalker, but dismisses that outright. If there had been news of a stalker, she would have told him. Or at the very least, there would have been more cases like these in the past months than just this one. Still he can’t disregard the possibility that she’s got a high-class admirer, and so, narrows his eyes even further, standing at the gate with his arms crossed, “no, sir. No entry.”
“Fine, then.” the man sighs, looking like he’s lost a war with himself, “at least give these to her. I know she’s probably going to throw them away, but you have to—well, just take it.”
In his hands, is the suitcase that Jihoon had seen earlier, and he offered it to him, looking expectantly. Jihoon should decline politely, but when he looks at the suitcase, it seems like it is bursting to the seams with clothes. And if it’s clothes from one of the principal designers of XMH, he could get at least two million won from those clothes alone.
“You can leave that here,” he says, trying his best to look nonchalant, “I can give them to her later on. When she’s not as angry as she is right now.”
“Yeah, right.” the man shakes his head, and then starts walking towards his car. Jihoon had not noticed it before, but the man drove a model that looked far more expensive than the car he drove her around in, which was one of those expensive foreign models that cost more than a hundred thousand dollars a pop. What kind of money does she have?
“If I may ask,” he says, and the man stops, “why do you even want to talk to her this badly? She’s not really the best conversationalist, you know.”
“She’s unbearably rude,” the man says, smiling, and Jihoon thinks he might have unwittingly accepted gifts from a stalker. “She’s rude, but she has a right to be that way.”
“A right to be that way?” Jihoon scoffs, “what, now you’re going to tell me her life has been ruined?”
To his surprise, the man nods, sadness marring his every feature, and in the golden, late afternoon sunlight, Jihoon realises he’s the spitting image of the woman sitting inside the house. Wait, they’re related? The logical solution would be that they were brother and sister, but what kind of sister would turn her brother away at the gates? It made no sense to him.
“Her life was ruined, you know,” the man says, smiling sadly, “and I ruined it for her. Nothing I will ever do will make up for that fact.”
And with that final line, he’s gone, driving off into the sunset. Jihoon stands outside the house with the fucking suitcase full of clothes for a long time, thinking that he’s made a terrible fucking mistake.
The LG Cup.
They hold the LG Cup in an auditorium sponsored by the LG Group, which usually hosts the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra once every year. Jihoon stares at it while he drives the car to the auditorium, sneaking surreptitious looks at the woman sitting in the backseat. Behind her glasses, her eyes are closed, which usually means that she’s thinking of a hundred different match outcomes in her mind, but what interests her is not that. It’s the clothes that she’s wearing.
It’s one of the suits that her brother had dropped off the previous day, black hanbok-inspired suit with flowing pants and an embroidered dragon on the back in black thread that seemed to glitter in the light. He knows why she’s dressed to the nines for today. It’s the finals.
The final match, against Yoon Jeonghan of all people.
They had been semi-finalists the previous year, but he had been knocked out of the running by a Chinese player. She had won in the finals against the Chinese player that had defeated Jeonghan, which meant that the tabloids had run amok with the story of ‘Go Lovers’ that seemingly played to defend the other’s honour. Jihoon had read some of the articles of the previous years while he waited around this past week, and he had come to the express conclusion that it was all bullshit. Jeonghan, even though I hate him, has never once made an advance towards her, despite flirting outrageously. In fact, he thinks she accepts that Jeonghan is a big flirt; he says things without meaning any of them, does things without attaching any meaning to them, and disarms people quickly while keeping his own guard up.
She shifts, eyes still closed, and the black dragon shimmers in the reflected morning light. Jihoon turns his gaze back to the road. Let's not stare at her. There's no reason for me to do that.
When he parks the car in front of the gates, there are about fifty photographers, all waiting to see a glimpse of the famed Go player, Yoon Jeonghan’s best friend, also his enemy for today. Jihoon’s not surprised to see them anymore, having gotten his fill over the past six months, and merely opens the door for her, muscling a photographer—his tag says Chosun Ilbo—out of the way. She steps out, glasses fixed on her nose, eyes focused and clear, and the reporter from Chosun Ilbo decided to loudly shout his questions.
“What do you think of the controversy regarding your match with Yoon Jeonghan? Do you think you can win?”
Jihoon opens his mouth to say “no comments” but another reporter, this time from Joongang Ilbo, who yells, right into her face, “this is the first time a man and a woman have competed against each other in the finals of the LG Cup, do you consider this a battle of the sexes?”
She stops. Her eyes narrow behind her glasses, and Jihoon braces himself. If she starts cursing, I need to pick her up and just make a run for it. But he knows it’s futile. The question is so stupid and so loaded, no matter what she says, they're going to construe it as something inflammatory and controversial. And it had to be one of the reporters from Chojoongdong, too. God knows how they’re going to spin this one.
“When I play baduk, each day is like a year, who could know that winning and losing are such fun?” she says instead, smiling calmly, “no matter who wins, I aim to have a challenging and wonderful game with one of my closest compatriots in the Go scene.”
Before she sweeps away, Jihoon in tow, he overhears one of the journalists talking to his friends, “Yoon Jeonghan said the same thing. Guess they really seem to be good friends, huh. Not a peep out of either of them, and he’s usually a bit more forthcoming with the dramatic media interviews.”
When they enter her waiting room, she turns to him, “call one of the organisers.”
“The organisers?” Jihoon doesn’t want to do her stupid tasks, he wants to ask her important questions like how did she manage to keep her cool? And why the fuck was she quoting Yi Saek?
“Someone from the association.”
“The organisers cannot come right now,” Jihoon reasons, “they’re busy. They told me to keep you here for the time being.”
“I’m not a caged wild animal, for fuck’s sake,” she groans, “and the next time anyone from the fucking Chojoongdong comes to ask me bizarre questions that they use against me to paint me as a rabid man-hater, I will punch them in the face.”
“You hate most men, though.”
“I don’t want to be doxxed and trolled by randoms on the internet,” she sighs, sitting down in a chair. "Haven't they asked for a post-match interview?”
“They have. In fact, all three of them have, ma’am.”
“Anyone else?”
“Well,” Jihoon checks his phone, “Hankuk Ilbo and Hankyoreh have both asked for an interview.”
“The usual fare would be to have a press conference with multiple newspapers and online outlets,” she muses, “but you know what, we gotta lean into the man-hater thing. If they think I am a rabid, feral, man-hating feminist, they’re gonna get one.”
“What?” Jihoon asks, “I’m getting a bit scared, now.”
“No press conference, even if I win,” she shakes her head, “only one interview at Hankyoreh.”
“You’re making an enemy out of the Chojoongdong.”
“Like I care.”
By this point, Jihoon is used to the whole song and dance. He’s led away from the main playing room by one of the organisers, and all that is left to do is wait for the match to be over, while the two of them are observed by match referees and at least five cameras, tracking their every move. He counted at least three in the observation room itself.
“What do you think about the odds of her winning tonight?” someone asks loudly, their eyes trained on the screen, “she won the LG Cup last year, but Yoon Jeonghan seems determined to rectify his own mistakes from his matches in the previous year's tournament.”
“What is the record of them playing together?” another man asks, perhaps a journalist, and Jihoon cranes his neck to see the name Hankyoreh on their press badge. “Yoon Jeonghan has played many tournament matches with her, has he not?”
“Their match records are pretty much equal,” one of the people he recognises as the female 9-dan that she requested to have a match with, Kim Myung-hee, points out, “but she’s got a higher match win record in tournament matches, while he plays better in exhibition matches. If you remove those metrics, their records are pretty similar overall, I think.”
“This is a tournament,” another person points out, helpfully, gesticulating excitedly at the board, “wait, did Jeonghan get a head start?”
The others peer at the screen, and Jihoon leans in too, interested, “who would have thought, huh. He’s playing with white, and she’s playing black. And he just got a point lead.”
“No hold on, she’s making a comeback," Myung-hee shakes her head, “it’s too early in the match to say anything."
While the two of them play on, Jihoon continues to stare at her, captivated. In the last match, she had looked uncomfortable, even as she was winning. But in this one, she doesn’t look uncomfortable at all. Even as she loses ground rapidly to Jeonghan, she sits up properly, relaxed and a faint smile on the corner of her mouth. She stares at Jeonghan as the man purses his lips in order to think about his next move, and Jihoon can see the smile now, wide enough that even he can’t ignore it and say it’s something else. She’s smiling, looking at him. Yoon Jeonghan.
It’s the first time I’ve seen her smile like that. It’s not awkward, she’s not diffusing a situation or running away. She’s smiling. And it’s at fucking Yoon Jeonghan.
The flash of jealousy passes by as quickly as it comes, but Jihoon is reeling, crumbling under the weight of this realisation. Why do I care, anyway? She’s just my boss.
She’s just his boss, and he’s just her manager. Hell, she doesn’t even need a fucking manager, does she? She just keeps him around as a housekeeper. He’s there to cook and clean for her, and steal her money every month. Last month, he stole a Rolex watch and she had said nothing. Even treated it like it was a mere infraction, not like Jihoon had stolen a watch worth five thousand dollars and immediately sold it off to fencers the following day. She just said, I wear a different watch.
He had not paid attention to the watch before, but now he sees it, peeking from under her cuff, the weathered, old leather band, the silver of the watch face catching the light when she turns her wrists. Jihoon leans, and whispers into the ear of a random organiser, “what’s the watch she’s wearing?”
“The watch?” The man, perplexed, stares at him for about a second, and it’s then that Jihoon realises that their conversation is a bit too loud for the room, it’s caught the attention of several other people, including some journalists from conservative outlets, who all look eagerly at the accessory. Their gazes are all the same, resembling that of a predator, and suddenly, Jihoon feels very anxious for her. What the fuck is she wearing on her wrists?
“She’s still wearing that, huh,” one person comments, loud enough for him to turn and recognise the man as the one who was there at the association that day. What was his name? Park? Park Inho, that’s right. “She couldn’t be satisfied with killing her teacher, now she has to go wear his watch on her hand?”
This earns a few shocking gasps, whispers running throughout the room, and another person replies, “to add insult to injury, she even stays at his house. Talk about paying respect to one’s teacher, huh?”
“The Chinese had the right thought when they called her eni,” Park Inho muses (shouts into the ears of some random journalist) “but I do think they should have used the Japanese word instead.”
“Japanese word?”
“Oni.”
Jihoon rolls his eyes, even if he can’t understand what the fuck is going on, because he realises that at the end of the day, they’re all jealous and acting out towards her. They never seem to have any words of reproach towards Yoon Jeonghan, he’s seen.
Yoon Jeonghan, at whom she’s smiling right now, even though she’s down by three points. The game is about to end and she’s smiling at Jeonghan, the man who has just dealt her a defeat by three points, and she’s bloody smiling at him. She’s never smiled at him like that, like she’s finally discovered upon a great finding, like she’s finally having fun. He’s the one who’s had to take care of her dirty laundry and he’s the one who’s had to wash and bathe her so that she would behave and look like a functional human being. And she’s never even looked at him that way.
She tolerates the stealing.
She tolerates the stealing, so I should not care, Jihoon repeats to himself as he sees her lay down two stones on the edge of the board, grinning wildly, like some sort of a crazed animal, grinning and shaking Jeonghan’s hand and clapping his back and fucking smiling for the camera. She’s doing all of that, and he feels like shit, but he should not think anything of it because she turns the other way. He can steal all her money and she would probably shrug and go about her day like nothing mattered at all.
Still, Jihoon cannot make any sense of his feelings.
“I would like to congratulate my dear friend Yoon Jeonghan on his win at the LG Cup,” she grins maniacally to the gathered reporters, “no more comments, please.”
When he drives her back to the house, Jihoon can see the glint of the watch on her left wrist, glittering in the faint afternoon light.
“Play another round with me.”
She demands, hands rolled into fists, staring at the man sitting next to her. Jeonghan looks perplexed, “you want me to play against you?”
“I need to figure out how you managed to do that.”
“Do what?”
“Use my tactics against me. That’s the first time it’s happened, you know.”
“You’re being a child, y/n,” Jeonghan shakes his head, “you know I just won on a fluke.”
“And it should not have happened!” she clenches her fists, “you knew all my openings, and you prepared accordingly. That has never happened before.”
“You do realise, I’ve played against you for years now?” Jeonghan smiles, but clears the board anyway, “it was bound to happen sooner or later. Someone would have figured out how you play. Might as well be me.”
“Yeah, that’s fine,” she mutters, eyes trained on the board, laying out the opening positions, the one where he got the initial advantage, “still no idea how you managed to slip past my opening positions.”
“The bigger question is, how did you manage to reinvent your tactic over these past years?” Jeonghan leans back, thinking, “you’ve been playing since you were four, which means you’ve been playing for at least twenty-five years. With only a handful of defeats.”
“Still, it’s sort of poetic that my first defeat in the finals of a major competition is at your hands.” she smiles, “let’s go.”
Five minutes into playing, she realises that Jeonghan had merely mapped out all her possible openings, and planned accordingly. I should not have leaned into my usual joseki. Half an hour into playing, Jeonghan leans back and grins, “you were flustered, for the first time in a while, huh?”
“Flustered?” she thinks back to the game, “you did force me into a korigatachi, you asshole. Halfway through, when I started playing defensive, you forced me into an unwitting korigatachi. Imagine my surprise when I looked down and realised I’d lost half the match already.”
“It was funny, you know,” Jeonghan looks at her, “not the korigatachi. I’m talking about your manager.”
“Jihoon? What the hell are you talking about?”
Jeonghan raises his eyebrows, “you mean to tell me you’ve not seen the daggers he was glaring at me? I think he took your defeat to heart.”
“He’s probably just annoyed that I lost,” she shrugs, “I doubt he cares too deeply about my games, or wins and losses. He’s probably just upset. He had to chauffeur me around for weeks and I lost at the end.”
“Suit yourself, girl,” Jeonghan grins, easy and flirtatious, “he’s just a man. I know how men look when they’re jealous.”
Jihoon stares at the massive pile of laundry that is left for him to do, and at the woman who has curled up under the covers with no intention of getting out. At least this time she’s taken a shower.
More like I had to give her a bath. Jihoon had never realised that his job, while cushy for a high school graduate, would involve him bathing a woman of his age, someone who pays his salary. He’s been giving her baths every two days, and when Joshua found out, he had looked at him strangely, and asked, “do you get hard when you do that?”
“Hard?”
“I mean, you’re bathing a woman. She’s fine, attractive, even, and you’re seeing her naked every other day. Do you get an erection when you give her a bath?”
“Sorry, I usually spend my time tacking her dandruff rather than caressing her breasts, you ass,’ Jihoon had thrown a dishcloth at him, and that was that.
But the thought had been planted in his mind. Am I even attracted to her? His reaction during the LG Cup had probably meant that he had some sort of feelings towards her, but Jihoon was not sure what the hell it was that he was feeling. He doesn’t even get aroused when he bathes her, just mildly concerned about the amount of neglect done to her body. There’s nothing even remotely sexual about his actions, nothing at all.
“You need to take a bath, for heaven’s sake," he announces, only to be greeted with a disgruntled raise of an eyebrow, “don’t look at me like that. It’s been two days since you’ve been holed up in your bed, and I doubt you have been taking regular baths in that time.”
“Are you my mother?” She grumbles, but gets out of the bed anyway, walking out to the bathroom and undressing, “you’ve already drawn a bath? Who asked you to do that?”
“No one, but since I take enough money from you, I figured I might start pulling my weight around here,” he replies, averting his eyes as she steps into the tub.
He has a routine. A fixed routine, one that involves him bathing her and washing her hair and nothing more. He needs to be in control of his actions.
Yoon Jeonghan had stared at him for a minute after the LG Cup final, when he was staring daggers at the man. Jihoon had not liked the look in his eyes, as though he knew too much about him and his knowledge could bring Jihoon to heel. He should not have stared, but Jeonghan’s presence was grating. He had no reason to hug her in front of the cameras like that, but he did anyway, knowing that Jihoon was there, and that Jihoon, despite his apparent closeness to her, could never do that.
But why is that bothering me?
He’s fine with it, fine with standing far away from her on podiums, far away from the lights and the attention and the adoration. She’s never going to hold his hand or hug him in public or smile at him like she did at Jeonghan, and Jihoon is fine with it. He is fine.
Jihoon takes a seat on the plastic stool and lathers up the shampoo, focusing, as usual, on her dandruff and on her hair. It’s brittle, even after so many washes. She’s never really taken care of it, and the state of her hair makes him wonder what exactly Mingyu did when she was in a state like this one. She’s clearly in need of help, but Mingyu probably had no idea what to do. Well, neither does Jihoon, apparently.
Her neck is visible. He averts his eyes.
But averting eyes while bathing someone is impossible, and he turns to look at her again, trying not to listen to the sounds of her moaning in happiness as the warm water laps at her skin. She’s attractive, even in this state, she’s attractive. Maybe it is just a bodily reaction, but Jihoon starts imagining how her skin would look, if she allowed him to stare. Her skin is flushed pink from the heat of the bath, smooth; he imagines how he would take hours to map it and make it his own. He’s not a pervert, but Jihoon wants to hear her make those pretty sounds even more, just for him.
If he slipped his hands just a little, he could feel her—
That’s sexual harassment, dude.
Jihoon sits up, all of his previous arousal gone entirely. He feels like a creep, thinking all these thoughts when she’s clearly in distress and in need of professional and proper help, and instead of giving it to her, he’s out here ogling her like a pervert.
For the rest of the bath, he refuses to even look at her skin.
For the rest of the week and the next, he avoids her. It’s easier, now that she’s started to take baths on her own, but Jihoon doesn’t want anyone to know what exactly he had been thinking when giving her a bath. He’s going to keep those thoughts to himself and take them to the grave with himself.
Which is why, when a week later, he chances upon Joshua, chewing on dry muesli in their shared living room, cup of coffee on the table in front of him, Jihoon doesn’t look him in the eye when responding to the question, “why aren’t you at work right now?”
“Took a day off,” he mumbles, staring at the clock instead. That’s a lie. He had left her a message in the morning, too sick. Might have to take a day off. He’s not particularly willing to look at her face while all he can think about is how uncomfortably tight his pants felt after he gave her that bath, and how he had to shamefully remind himself of his duties as her manager in order to calm himself down.
Jihoon rolls his eyes. He’s not going to give any more ammunition to Joshua Hong, not right now. “Nothing.”
“Still hung up over her?” Joshua shrugs, “you know, you need to get laid. If you want to get over her, that is. If you don’t, be my guest.”
“Why do I have to get over her?” Jihoon scowls, “it’s not like I was under her any time before.”
Joshua laughs, “you’re really fucking funny, you know, Jihoonie. That’s why I like you.”
“Shut up, man,” Jihoon takes a seat on the sofa, “why do you want to ask about her? You don’t know her that well, do you?”
Joshua shrugs again, “I know some things about her, you know. She’s very famous.”
“Like Won Bin?”
“Like the President asks her to come play Go with him on official occasions,” Joshua searches on his phone, and brings up an old photo of her playing Go with the previous President of the country, blank and expressionless as usual. They’re at an official luncheon, and she’s dressed in one of her ceremonial suits, staring intently at the board while the President laughs sheepishly.
“So, she’s famous,” he hands the phone back, “that explains nothing.”
Joshua sighs, “you have no idea about the Go scene in Korea, do you?”
Jihoon stares at him, “and you mean to tell me you do?”
Joshua smiles, picking up his cup of coffee, “you never know. I could.”
“The only game I have seen you play is Kingdom Hearts on your old Playstation,” Jihoon replies.
“Fair enough,” Joshua concedes, “my father is a fan. Has been following her career since before she went pro, which means I know her life story better than most people.”
Jihoon raises his eyebrows, “you knew her career trajectory? And you never mentioned it to me?”
“You never asked,” Joshua busies himself with the muesli and coffee, “do you really want to know?”
Jihoon doesn’t say anything. He didn’t want to, but she intrigues him. She’s like one of those riddles in the Sunday newspaper, the ones that he pored over for hours as a child, and it’s stupid, but just like his young self, Jihoon wants to figure her out. He wants to know. But the moment he asks anything about her, Joshua will know. And he will never be able to live it down.
Instead, he settles for asking, “Is she a chaebol?”
Joshua laughs, falling over himself for a whole minute, before gathering his wits, “no, she isn’t in fact, her parents are pretty middle class, you know. Both government workers, stable jobs, guaranteed pensions, pretty much solid middle-class shit. They had two children, just before the IMF Crisis.”
“So she had a pretty normal childhood,” Jihoon interrupts, “what do you mean to say?”
“I mean to say,” Joshua replies, smiling like he has a secret, “aren’t you curious? Why is she like this, even though she’s had a pretty normal childhood.”
“Maybe.”
“Her brother wanted to learn how to play Go, not her,” he says, leaning back into the sofa, “she just tagged along for the first few lessons, and learnt how to play with him. He was the one who was supposed to be the star.”
“And let me guess, she started beating him out in competitions?”
“Well, as they say, you can hide a flame all you want, but it’ll make itself known, even within the ashes. She won a competition in her elementary school, and everyone started talking about how good of a go player she was.”
“I assume her brother did not like this.”
“He hated it, actually. No one likes it when your sibling beats you out in something you were doing before them, huh?”
Jihoon nods. He does not understand, not at all, but he keeps quiet.
“Anyway, her parents found out, and boom—they had a genius on their hands. The allure of being a stage parent is not easy to turn away from, you know.”
Joshua sighs, “anyway, she’s been playing the game since she turned four years old, which means that she has been playing for the past twenty-four years. Imagine all that time, alone, away from your family, with only the Go board for company. You’re bound to go insane. Anyone else would.”
“Alone?”
“Her brother hated the sight of her and her trophies while growing up. He hated that their parents gave her more attention, took her to her competitions, even though no one had asked her if this was something she wanted to do. And why would a child give up on something that allowed them a fun day out with their parents?”
Jihoon nods his head. He can understand why she turned her brother away at the gates, and why he said that he had ruined her life. In another time, they could have probably had a better relationship, without the constant reminder of her career and his failures hanging over them.
“Why do you know so much?”
Joshua ignores his question, “well, they could have repaired it, really, but she took the pro exam at fifteen and qualified it, which made her the second youngest person to achieve that honour. Her brother lost it entirely, from what I’ve heard. He made a scene and told her he never wanted to see her face in their house ever again. That kind of fucked her up, if you know.”
Jihoon doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t have siblings, he doesn’t understand the amount of built-up pain and resentment it would have taken for a brother to say that to his sister, and the hurt it would cause to the girl who heard it. How old was she then? Fifteen? At fifteen, Jihoon still harbored delusions of becoming a music producer in Seoul, living a blissful existence with his family, who doted on him. He cannot fathom parents who would use their daughter’s talent and genius to earn money.
Then he has a thought. “Did they take money from her? Her parents?”
Joshua stares at him. “How did you know? They took all her earnings until she turned eighteen, and asked her for more money even after that, just because they had ‘raised her’ or some bullshit. She gave the money to them too, millions and millions of won until she put her foot down one day and refused. They stopped contacting her after that.”
“Her brother?”
“He came to his senses in college, realised that he had been a massive dick to his sister for no fault of their own, and that their parents were the ones at fault, but by then, too much water had flown under the bridge. He works for XMH now.”
“He tries to make amends, you know,” Jihoon says, thinking back to the sad man at the gates, lugging a suitcase full of clothes and looking at the house his sister had cloistered herself in with eyes that seemed full of heartbreak, “he brings clothes from time to time.”
“I know, he tries doing that once in a while,” Joshua grins, “he’s not a bad guy, just fucked up.”
“She turned him away at the gates.”
“And she’s allowed to do that, too.”
Jihoon shakes his head, “but you know, she always wears the clothes he makes to her matches. All her ceremonial suits are made by him.”
“That’s her way of making amends,” Joshua reasons, “they might not be able to tolerate seeing each other’s faces, but they make space for the other in their lives, in their own way. Her clothes are made by XMH, and he gets to see his little sister wearing his clothes on the world stage.”
Jihoon sits with this information for a while. He still doesn’t understand how the other man got this much information, nor does he really want to know. He keeps thinking about the woman in the house, locking herself in just to play a game that had caused her so much pain, still going back to it every morning. So much time and effort, devoted to something that never truly understood her.
“None of that explains why the people at LG Cup were calling her eni,” Jihoon says after a while, “I did not understand, but it did not seem like something nice. They kept pointing at her watch and calling her that name.”
Joshua sighs, “Jihoon, you really should do some background reading on her.”
“I don’t need to.”
“She’s one of the undisputed greats of the Korean Go scene, and you—never mind,” Joshua huffs, “her teacher was Lee Hyun-dok, one of the great old masters. He took her in when she was nine and started teaching her how to play Go.”
“And why is that important?”
Joshua rolls his eyes, “Go players don’t go to high school like normies, you idiot. They don’t have a normal life. When they’re training, they spend their waking hours playing the game, analysing their faults and mistakes, and training again when they wake up. Sometimes they see the board in their dreams. The only people they interact with on a daily basis are their teacher. And the teacher’s family, if they have one.”
“Sounds like a boring life.”
“Sounds like solitary confinement is what it does,” Joshua groans, “I remember Lee Hyun-dok. He kept telling all the newspapers about her being a genius, and by all means, he was a great teacher. She was the only student he’s ever taken on, you know.”
“So, what happened?”
“She beat him in the finals of the MLily Cup,” Joshua sighs, “he was happy because his pupil surpassed him, but he died of old age soon after that.”
“And people blamed her?” Jihoon makes a face. He doesn’t know Lee Hyun-dok, but the man seemed like he had been one of the few people to genuinely take care of her, “they blamed her for her teacher’s death?”
“They had a good relationship until he died,” Joshua sighs, “she would at least look somewhat animated when he was alive.”
Jihoon doesn’t believe it. The only time he’s seen her with any emotion that’s not annoyance or anger or sadness, in the past months, is when she was playing Jeonghan in the finals. And that was another matter entirely. Still, he looks up Lee Hyun-dok on the internet, and one of the first results is that of the cursed MLily Cup final in China. The old man sits across from a much younger her in the photo, both of them hunched over a board. The man wears a hanbok, she wears a plain suit. Nothing ceremonial, nothing fashionable. The man looked confused, his white hair disheveled like he had been running his hands through it.
She looks—radiant.
There’s no other word for it. She looks radiant, a bright smile even as she stares at the board, and he knows it’s for her teacher. He’s never seen her smile like that, not even for Jeonghan, bright and peaceful and happy all at once. He thinks of the woman in the house, sad and angry and emaciated, and looks at this woman, youthful and vibrant. Jihoon cannot take his eyes off of her face.
“She looks gorgeous here, huh?” Joshua peeks over his shoulder, “anyway, they started calling her eni after that.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
Joshua stares at him, “did you fail your ethics classes in high school? It’s one of the ten cardinal sins of the Ming Code; eni signifies the killing of your teacher, and is punishable by death.”
“I see.” Jihoon stares at the photo, the young woman smiling, captured forever in celluloid, and then at the man sitting opposite her. Her teacher. How sad would he have been, to find out they all blamed the girl he raised and taught lovingly all those years? How hurt would he have been?
He stares at the corner of the photo, looking at the watch the man is wearing, “wait, the watch they all got angry about, that she was wearing. That was his?”
Joshua nods. “I think something withered and died inside of her when he passed away. She was bequeathed the house in his will, and I don’t think she changed anything. Everything, from the paintings on the walls to the relics on the mantlepieces, everything belonged to her teacher at some point. That house is a mausoleum.”
Jihoon doesn’t say anything. And I almost stole and sold off a scroll painting last month. The painting had belonged to one of the old Joseon masters, and it would have been enough to clear his debt and the interest, but he didn’t, too afraid of the increased police scrutiny on the underground resale market. Instead, he had taken the fucking Rolex.
Would she have thrown him out, if he had taken the painting?
The thought is sobering, and somehow, it makes him sad. He doesn’t want to be thrown out of the house, the stupid cold house with its drafty doors and papered walls that need reinforcement every other month. Why did she not change anything? Even the bedroom is old-fashioned. Everything in there belongs to someone else, most of all the Go room.
The Go room is the mausoleum. She lives, eats, and sleeps inside of a tomb.
Jihoon had not realised that he had been spacing out for a minute, until Joshua pokes him, “thinking about her?”
“Yeah,” he admits, honesty coming easily after this revelation, “I don’t know how I feel about her.”
Joshua laughs, “you were staring daggers at Yoon Jeonghan in every photo they took after the LG Cup final. I think your feelings about her are perfectly clear by now.”
Jihoon groans, head in hands, “whatever. It’s just a passing attraction. I’m not going to do anything about it, not really.”
“Besides, you have your debt to worry about,” Joshua points out.
“Yeah, the debt.” Jihoon shuts up. He wants to think about a time without the debt, a time where he could have approached her with no ulterior motives. Would I have had these feelings towards her? Would she have reciprocated? Even more pressing: would she reciprocate now?
He wants to say something, but then he’s reminded of the red in his chequebook, the debt he has to clear, and the loan sharks who keep showing up at his parents’ house every other week. It doesn’t matter. He’ll get over this silly little attraction, he has to.
When there is no certainty of life, there is no space for indulgence. He cannot afford to lose sight of his goal. It doesn’t matter if he has to steal a painting of fucking Hwajae and sell it on the black market. What matters the most to him right now, is money. The rest is immaterial.
Still, he can’t help but be curious about one little thing. He had tried his best to shut it down, but it had to come out eventually, “wait, how do you know so much about her?”
Joshua stares at him for a second, “didn’t I tell you? I know her brother.”
“How?”
The man shrugs, “we dated in college for a while.”
Jihoon gasps, “what?”
“Well, it was before I started dating my fiancee, but not that long ago either,” Joshua says casually, as if he was not just confessing his bisexuality to Jihoon on a random Monday morning while drinking coffee, “He could have been a good boyfriend, if he was not so hung up on his past mistakes.”
He stands up, “okay, see you, Jihoon. I have a date with my fiancee in an hour.” and disappears into his bedroom. Jihoon sits there, reeling under the mountain of revelations he’s just stumbled into, all on a random weekday morning. Underneath all this, there remains a small question, what do I do about this attraction?
He doesn’t want to imagine her being hurt once again.
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a/n pt 2: comments and reblogs are wholly appreciated, thank you very much!!
