Ninety Seconds
➺ pairing: hwang hyunjin x stylist!reader
➺ word count: ~3.2k words
➺ summary: as a core member of the wardrobe team for stray kids’ world tour, you are uniquely adapted to the suffocating adrenaline of a stadium show. but when you’re forced into a pitch-black, 4x4 canvas pop-up tent with hwang hyunjin for a 90-second quick change, the secret relationship you've been hiding for months finally boils over. the stage director is counting down the seconds, but right now, hyunjin absolutely refuses to let you do your job.
➺ content: intense physical proximity, mild restraint (pinning to a wall), heavy make-out, neck kissing/biting, mild dirty talk, incredibly high tension/adrenaline.
➺ warnings: heavily suggestive themes
➺ author's note: hyunjin has been on my mind a lot lately, he is aggressively climbing up my bias ranks, so i had to get this out of my system!
The air in the subterranean belly of the Tokyo Dome feels less like oxygen and more like a physical weight pressing against your lungs.
It’s an intoxicating cocktail of industrial smoke machines, the sharp metallic tang of ozone from the pyrotechnics, the chemical sweetness of extra-hold hairspray, and the palpable adrenaline of fifty thousand screaming fans just fifty feet above your head. As a core member of the styling and wardrobe team for Stray Kids’ world tour, you are uniquely adapted to this suffocating environment. You know how to navigate the labyrinth of concrete hallways, how to dodge frantic camera operators, and how to fix a broken zipper in under ten seconds with nothing but a safety pin and sheer willpower.
You know the rules. You know the boundaries. And for the past three months, you have been expertly, dangerously breaking every single one of them.
"Headset check," the stage director’s voice crackles harshly in your left ear, snapping your attention back to the present. "Wardrobe, we are T-minus twelve minutes to the 'Red Lights' quick change. Tent three is prepped?"
You press two fingers against the earpiece. "Tent three is prepped. Wardrobe is standing by."
You drop your hand, your fingers trembling slightly as you double-check the rolling rack tucked into the shadowy alcove just beneath the stage stairs. The outfit hanging there is a logistical nightmare, a blood-red silk shirt with a complicated array of asymmetrical buttons, paired with a structured leather corset belt that requires absolute precision to lace up.
It’s Hyunjin’s outfit.
Just the thought of his name sends a dangerous spark shooting straight down your spine.
What the two of you have been doing is insane. It is reckless, stupid, and entirely intoxicating. It started during the Seoul leg of the tour, a lingering touch while adjusting a collar, a look in a vanity mirror that held for three seconds too long, a whispered conversation in a deserted hotel hallway that ended with you pinned against a door, his mouth devouring yours in the dark. Since then, the tour has become a high-stakes game of cat and mouse. Stolen kisses in broom closets. His hand brushing the small of your back when the managers aren't looking. The agonizing, suffocating tension of having to pretend you are nothing but staff while knowing exactly what he sounds like when he's over you in your hotel room.
But tonight is different. The stakes are higher. This is the biggest venue of the tour, the schedule is tighter than ever, and the physical exhaustion is pushing everyone to their breaking point.
Including him.
You think back to three hours ago, during the final hair and makeup touch-ups in the dressing room. The room had been packed with staff, stylists shouting over the rumble of the soundcheck happening on stage. Hyunjin had been sitting in the makeup chair, his eyes closed as a makeup artist dusted setting powder over his cheekbones. You had been tasked with adjusting the heavy, silver-studded choker around his neck.
You had stepped between his spread knees to get the right angle, your thighs brushing against the rough denim of his stage jeans. The moment you invaded his space, his eyes had snapped open.
They were completely, utterly black.
He hadn't moved. He hadn't said a word. But the way he looked at you, with that heavy, starving intensity, tracing the line of your throat, dropping to your lips, and then locking onto your eyes, had made your breath hitch so violently you almost choked. You had reached around his neck to clasp the choker, your wrists inevitably brushing against the sensitive skin of his pulse point. His skin was burning hot. As you secured the clasp, he had inhaled deeply, his chest expanding, his nose brushing against the fabric of your shirt, breathing in your perfume.
“You smell like vanilla,” he had whispered, his voice so low, so rough, that it was completely drowned out by the chaos of the room to everyone except you.
“Hyunjin, don't,” you had breathed back, your fingers fumbling with the metal clasp, terrified someone would hear the sheer desperation in his tone.
“I’m not doing anything,” he had murmured, a slow, wicked smirk playing on his lips as his hands, resting innocently on the armrests of the chair, flexed, his long fingers twitching as if it was taking every ounce of his legendary self-control not to reach up, grab your waist, and pull you down onto his lap right in front of the entire management team. “But if you keep leaning over me like that, I might.”
A loud crack of thunder from the stage pyrotechnics snaps you out of the memory, sending a jolt of adrenaline straight into your bloodstream.
The floorboards above you are shaking violently. The heavy bass of "Venom" is echoing through the concrete underbelly of the stadium. This is it. The song is ending. The quick change is approaching.
You grab the red silk shirt and the heavy leather corset from the rack, draping them carefully over your arm. You practically sprint the twenty yards to the designated quick-change area.
It’s not a room. It’s a pop-up tent, essentially a 4x4 square of heavy, opaque black canvas erected directly beneath the stage trapdoors. It is designed for maximum speed and absolute privacy. There are no lights inside, only whatever ambient glow bleeds through the canvas from the frantic flashlights of the stage crew running around outside.
You duck through the overlapping flaps of the tent, stepping into the cramped, pitch-black space. It smells of fresh canvas and the lingering scent of dry ice. You hang the outfit on the single hook suspended from the metal frame, unbuttoning the silk shirt so it’s ready to be slipped on the second he arrives.
"Wardrobe, target is moving. ETA thirty seconds," the stage manager's voice barks in your ear.
You swallow hard, your mouth completely dry. You wipe your sweating palms on your jeans.
Above you, the final note of the song hits. The crowd lets out a deafening, hysterical roar that sounds like a physical wave of water crashing over the stadium. You hear the heavy, metallic thud of the trapdoor opening just a few feet away.
Footsteps. Heavy, fast, desperate footsteps hitting the concrete.
The flap of the canvas tent is violently ripped open.
Hyunjin practically throws himself inside, bringing a rush of stifling hot air, the smell of sweat, and the sharp scent of his cologne with him. He is panting heavily, his chest heaving with deep, ragged gasps. The dim light from the hallway catches on his face for a split second before the heavy canvas flap falls shut, sealing the two of you in absolute, suffocating darkness.
"Ninety seconds, Hyunjin! Go, go, go!" a stagehand yells from outside, their voice muffled by the thick fabric.
But inside the tent, the world has stopped.
You can't see him clearly in the pitch black, but you can feel him. He is radiating heat like a furnace. The adrenaline of the performance is pouring off him in thick, palpable waves, electrifying the tiny enclosed space until the air feels too thick to breathe.
"Jacket," you command, forcing your voice to stay steady, professional. Your hands reach out in the dark, finding the sweat-dampened fabric of his current stage outfit.
"I can't," he gasps out, his voice a broken, breathless rasp.
"Hyunjin, we have eighty seconds, take the jacket off–"
"I can't," he repeats, and before you can even process the words, you feel his large hands wrap around your wrists.
His grip is bruising. It isn't the gentle, teasing touch from the dressing room. It is desperate. It is feral. The performer on stage has been completely stripped away, leaving only a man who has been forced to look at you all day without being allowed to touch you.
He yanks your wrists downward, stepping directly into your space. The toe of his boot hits your sneaker. His chest, still heaving violently from the choreography, crashes flush against yours.
The shock of the impact knocks the breath completely out of your lungs.
"Hyunjin–" you manage to choke out, your heart exploding against your ribs as the reality of the confined space and his overwhelming physical presence hits you.
He doesn't let you finish. He releases your wrists, his hands immediately dropping to your waist. His long fingers dig into your hips with a possessive strength, and with one smooth, forceful motion, he walks you backward.
Your spine hits the back wall of the canvas tent. There is nowhere left to go. You are entirely pinned between the taut fabric of the tent and the solid, burning wall of his body.
"You," he breathes, his voice dropping to a guttural whisper that vibrates directly against your neck. "You have been driving me insane all day."
The darkness inside the canvas tent is absolute, broken only by the erratic flashes of strobe lights bleeding through the thick fabric from the arena above.
Every time the light flashes, it illuminates the sharp, desperate angle of Hyunjin’s jaw, the sweat gleaming on his throat, and the pitch-black, starving intensity in his eyes. He has you pinned flush against the back wall of the tent, his body pressing so tightly against yours that you can feel the heavy thud of his heart hammering against his ribs.
"Hyunjin, we have seventy seconds," you gasp, your hands coming up to press flat against his chest. You try to push him back, to create even an inch of professional distance, but it’s like trying to move a concrete wall. The heavy leather and metal studs of his current stage jacket bite into the palms of your hands. "I have to change you."
"Change me," he challenges, his voice a low growl that scrapes directly down your spine. His grip on your hips tightens, his thumbs pressing deeply into the soft skin just above your waistband. "Do it."
Your hands are shaking violently. The adrenaline, the danger of being caught, and the overwhelming physical heat radiating off him are short-circuiting your brain. You slide your hands up to his collar, your fingers fumbling blindly with the heavy zipper of his jacket.
He doesn't make it easy. He doesn't step back to give you room. Instead, as you pull the zipper down, his hips surge forward, grinding flush against yours, pinning you even harder against the canvas.
A sharp, broken sound escapes your throat, half-gasp, half-moan.
"Sixty seconds!" the stage manager’s voice barks through your earpiece, so loud and sharp you flinch.
"Take it off," you breathe, your voice trembling as you push the heavy jacket off his broad shoulders. It falls to the floor of the tent with a muffled thud, leaving him in just a thin, sweat-soaked undershirt.
You reach blindly for the red silk shirt hanging on the hook beside your head. You find it, dragging it down, but before you can even attempt to guide his arms into the sleeves, Hyunjin’s hands move.
He slides his palms up from your waist, his long fingers mapping the curve of your ribs, sliding up until his hands bracket your face. His palms are incredibly warm, slightly damp with sweat, and rough against your cheeks. He tilts your head up, his thumbs tracing the line of your jaw.
"I need to taste you," he whispers, his breath hot and frantic against your lips. "I am losing my mind out there."
"You can't," you choke out, your chest rising and falling in desperate tandem with his. Your eyes flick to his mouth, his lips are stained with a dark, expensive cherry-red tint that the makeup artists spent ten minutes perfecting. "Your makeup. It'll smear. They'll know."
A low, frustrated groan rips from his throat. The realization that he can't actually kiss your lips seems to push him completely over the edge.
"Fine," he rasps.
His hands slide from your cheeks, tangling violently into your hair at the nape of your neck. He tilts your head sharply to the side, exposing the long, sensitive line of your throat.
Before you can even brace yourself, he buries his face in your neck.
His mouth is incredibly hot, wet, and entirely ruthless. He doesn't kiss you gently. He opens his mouth, pressing an open-mouthed, wet kiss directly over your wildly jumping pulse point. His lips slide over your sweat-dampened skin, his teeth scraping lightly against your collarbone.
Your knees instantly give out.
If he wasn't holding you up, pinning you with the solid weight of his body against the canvas wall, you would have collapsed to the concrete floor. Your hands fly up, bypassing the silk shirt entirely, your fingers tangling desperately into his damp hair. You pull him closer, your nails scraping lightly against his scalp.
"Forty-five seconds! Hyunjin, what is the hold up?!" the stagehand yells from just outside the tent flap, his voice practically vibrating through the canvas. You can hear the panic in his tone.
"Hyunjin," you whimper, trying to tug his hair to pull him back. "They're going to come in. You have to put the shirt on."
He ignores you. He sucks a harsh breath in against your neck, his lips trailing higher, right to the sensitive spot just below your ear. His tongue darts out, licking a hot, wet stripe up the column of your throat.
"Let them come in," he murmurs against your skin, his voice thick and slurred with desire. His hand drops between your bodies, his large palm wrapping around your thigh and hiking your leg up, hooking it firmly over his hip so you are pressed intimately, agonizingly close to his center. You can feel exactly how affected he is by the proximity, the hard, unforgiving lines of his body straining against his stage pants. "Let them see."
"You don't mean that," you gasp, your body completely betraying you as you instinctively arch into his touch, grinding your hips against his in the dark.
"I mean it," he groans, biting down sharply on the tendon of your shoulder, causing a fresh shock of pleasure to shoot straight to your core. "I hate it. I hate looking at you in the crowd and knowing I can't touch you. I hate that I have to go back out there."
"Thirty seconds! Wardrobe, respond!" your earpiece screams.
The countdown is a bucket of ice water. The reality of the stadium, the fifty thousand people waiting above, and the career-ending scandal hovering inches away finally breaks through the haze of lust.
"Put your arms out," you command, your voice cracking completely. You shove at his shoulders with all your might.
He resists for one terrifying second, his grip tightening on your thigh. But then the performer in him, the idol who has spent his entire life trained to meet deadlines and hit his marks, takes over. He lets out a devastatingly ragged sigh, dropping your leg and taking half a step back.
He holds his arms out in the pitch black.
Your hands are shaking so badly you can barely hold the silk fabric. You guide his left arm in, then his right, pulling the red silk up over his broad shoulders.
"Buttons," you gasp, stepping back into his space.
You have twenty seconds. The shirt has eight small buttons.
You start at the bottom, your trembling fingers struggling blindly with the silk loops. The darkness is your worst enemy.
Hyunjin doesn't help. He stands there, his chest heaving violently, his head thrown back as he tries to catch his breath. But he isn't completely still. As you work your way up to the third button, right over his stomach, his hands come up.
He slides his hands under the hem of your t-shirt.
His large palms lay flat against the bare skin of your waist. You gasp, your fingers slipping off the fourth button completely.
"Hyunjin, stop, please," you beg, your voice a desperate whisper. "I can't do this if you touch me."
"Then don't button them all," he rasps, his thumbs stroking the soft skin of your sides, sending violently hot shivers radiating through your torso. He leans down again, not kissing you, but pressing his forehead against yours in the dark. You can feel the sweat dripping from his hair onto your skin. You can smell the scent of your own arousal mixed with his cologne. "Leave the top three undone. It fits the concept."
You are hyperventilating. You manage to slip the fifth button through the loop, leaving the top half of his chest completely exposed. The silk hangs open, framing the sharp, sculpted lines of his pectorals.
"The corset," you whisper, reaching for the heavy leather piece hanging on the hook.
"Fifteen seconds! Move!"
You wrap the heavy leather corset around his waist over the silk shirt. You don't have time to lace it properly; you just pull the thick, industrial velcro straps tight, securing it to his midsection. You have to lean in close to pull it tight, your face once again hovering inches from his chest.
As you secure the final strap, Hyunjin’s hands slide from your bare waist, tracing up your sides, before moving to cup your face one last time.
He doesn't say a word. He just strokes his thumbs over your cheekbones, a touch so incredibly tender and terrifyingly possessive it makes your heart ache. He leans in, pressing a hard, desperate kiss to your forehead.
"Tonight," he whispers, the word rough and jagged. "My hotel room. Don't make me wait."
"Ten seconds! Trapdoor is opening!"
Hyunjin steps back. The loss of his body heat is a physical blow, leaving you shivering in the dark space of the tent.
The canvas flap is ripped open from the outside. The harsh, blinding white light of the hallway floods the tiny space.
In a fraction of a second, the feral, desperate man who had just been burying his teeth into your neck vanishes. Hyunjin rolls his shoulders, his posture snapping into the perfect, commanding arrogance of Stray Kids' main dancer. He runs a hand through his damp hair, pushing it back off his forehead, his eyes dark and focused entirely on the trapdoor stairs leading back to the stage.
He doesn't look back at you. He doesn't even glance in your direction. He steps out of the tent, the heavy red silk billowing behind him, and breaks into a sprint toward the stairs just as the heavy, ominous intro beat of "Red Lights" begins to pound through the stadium.
You are left standing alone in the tiny, canvas box.
Your chest is heaving. Your knees are trembling so violently you have to reach out and grip the metal frame of the tent to keep from collapsing. Your hair is a mess, and the skin of your neck is burning, a stinging, vivid reminder of his mouth.
"Wardrobe complete," you manage to say into your earpiece, your voice sounding incredibly weak and breathy to your own ears.
You press your hand over your thundering heart, closing your eyes in the dark, already terrified of exactly what is going to happen when the concert is finally over.
©jistay. Do not repost or translate my works without permission.
permanent taglist: @thesirenqueen