A/N: We are upon the penultimate path into the blackhole. Enjoy!
“You're still young. There's plenty of time to try new things, so relax and enjoy the ride.”
That's what your mother used to say every time you talked to her about an overseas exchange program, a new hobby, and your first date. She said it with a soft smile, like youth was a long, gentle river you could float down without hurry.
But that was years ago.
And now? Now your mother's saying something entirely different.
“You’re not young anymore. Time to get attached. When am I going to get my grandchild?”
The words land like a quiet slap every time she calls. She doesn't say it meanly. She says it tiredly, worriedly, like she's watching sand slip through an hourglass she can't flip back over. You've always wanted to argue back and say that it was her who conditioned your mindset, but she's not wrong. Is it wrong to take things slow?
You still don’t know the answer.
There's no wrong in taking it easy and going with the flow. You're doing fine right now, in fact, you're much better off than you expected. A good job, stable life, a nice apartment that you own.
The only thing missing is a partner — and you’re in no rush to find one.
But tonight you're not thinking about your mother.
Tonight you're thinking about how you ended up here.
Your friends tricked you into this group blind date.
“Low pressure,” they said.
“Just come hang out. Free food. You might meet someone nice.”
They didn’t mention there would be eight people, half of them already half-drunk, and that “nice” apparently meant “loud.”
The restaurant is one of those trendy spots with neon signs and overpriced cocktails. The table is long and narrow, voices overlapping like the stack of messy papers on your office desk.
Your friends are in full playboy mode, leaning in, flashing grins, tossing flirty one-liners at the girls across from them.
The girls laugh in response, some genuine, some polite.
And you? You sit near the end quiet, sipping your water, nod when spoken to, answer in short sentences.
You’re not rude. You’re just… not performing.
Across from you is Liz. She’s the loudest one here, but not in an obnoxious way. She’s the one who ordered the spiciest ramen on the menu “because why not,” then immediately regrets it and downs three glasses of milk while laughing at herself.
“Okay okay okay,” she announces, slamming the empty milk glass down. “New game. Drink if it’s false. Never have I ever eaten instant ramen for breakfast.”
A common thing that everyone has done. Everyone on the table groans and drinks. You raise your glass of beer reluctantlyp.
“Losers! I win!” Liz laughs sniggers goofily, hands tapping on each other like an otter.
One of your friends, the loudest playboy, leans towards her with a smirk.
“Never have I ever kissed someone on the first date.”
Liz drinks dramatically, along with the rest that chugs their share down.
“Oh~ You've kissed before?” your friend asks with his eyebrows raised.
“Duh. Life’s too short.”
The table erupts in cheers and teasing, all nodding as they reminisce.
She grins, then glances at you.
“You didn’t drink,” she says, pointing. “First-date kiss virgin?”
You shrug. “Haven’t had the right first date yet.”
Her eyes light up.
“Ooh, mysterious. I like that. Have you even kissed before?”
You shake your head and shrug.
“He’s always like this,” your friend says. “Quiet guy. Girls love it until they realize he’s actually boring.”
Liz tilts her head at him.
“Or maybe he’s just waiting for someone interesting enough to talk to.”
Your friend blinks at the attention Liz is giving you and the table quiets for half a second.
Then Liz bursts out laughing.
“I’m kidding! Kidding! Don’t look so offended.”
But she’s still looking at you, longer this time. You almost feel as if she's boring a hole into your heart with her gaze.
The rest of dinner is chaos: more games, more drinks, more stories. Just the usual as to how a usual group blind date or any drinking party would go. Liz keeps pulling everyone in, making the shy girl next to her talk, challenging your friend to a chopstick-eating contest (he loses), telling a ridiculous story about the time she tried to “taste the rainbow” with illegal spicy candy and ended up in the ER.
Every now and then she glances at you again.
It's not a flirty glance. Just… curious.
When the bill comes and the group starts splitting up, she lingers.
Outside, the night air is cool. Neon glows from the restaurant spills onto the sidewalk. Your friends are already walking ahead, some exchanging numbers, others wobbling drunkenly. You spot your friend talking to Liz by the side, most likely asking for her number, but you see her shaking her head.
Rejected.
Your friend looks at you and smiles sheepishly, before walking away into the fading light.
Liz falls into step beside you as you head towards the train station.
“Hey,” she says. “You were pretty quiet in there.”
You shrug. “Not much of a talker.”
She grins unapologetically. “I noticed. It was kinda hot, actually.”
You blink.
She laughs at your expression — not mean, just delighted.
“Okay, fine. That sounded weird. But seriously. Everyone else was trying so hard to be funny or cool or whatever. You were just… cool. It was nice.”
She stops walking. So do you.
The street is noisy with cars, distant music, and salarymen spilling out of bars, but right here it feels like a bubble.
She rocks on her heels, looking at the ground before blurting: “Let’s go on a date.”
You open your mouth, then close it.
She rushes on before you can speak.
“I promise I won’t make you ride the scariest rollercoaster… maybe. Just one date. If it’s boring we never speak again. Deal?”
She sticks out her pinky.
You stare at it.
Now you're thinking about your mother.
Her voice echoes in your head — the new one, not the old one.
“You’re not young anymore. Time to get attached. When am I going to get my grandchild?”
You look at Liz. Her eyes are bright, cheeks a little pink from the cold, and alcohol (or maybe her nerves?), hair messy from all the laughing and exaggerated movements the entire night.
“Just to see,” you sigh, raising your pinky up.
Her face lights up and she squeals. “Yes!” She hooks her pinky around yours, shaking it vigorously. “Tomorrow! I already have an idea~”
She takes your phone which you graciously unlock to allow her to input her number, before bouncing once on her toes. She makes a small spin and runs to catch up with her friends, yelling over her shoulder with a wide smile.
“Don’t ghost me, mysterious quiet guy!”
You stand there for a second, pinky still outstretched, mind still dazed from the turn of events.
Then you smile.
You have a date.
***
<Liz 🌀, 08:17> GOOD MORNING MYSTERIOUS QUIET GUY!!
<Liz 🌀, 08:17> Ready for round 1? Meet me at 6 sharp. Wear comfy shoes and bring your brave faceeee~
You should have known better. Liz blasted you with messages the next morning… and somehow, you already feel the pull.
You stare at the messages for a whole minute and 28 seconds, thumb hovering. She's pretty, but she's lively, a bit too much in fact.
But your mother’s voice creeps in again.
Not young anymore… Grandchild… When…
You sigh and move your thumbs.
<You, 08:20> Okay
A simple, short and curt reply.
Her message comes immediately after.
<Liz 🌀, 08.20> What? That's it? Just an ‘Okay’?
<Liz 🌀, 08.20> Geez you're not even trying, but you're so god damn cool. Didn't even bother to ask where huh?
You panic a little at your blunder and try to send a reply, but it's a little too late. Right as you press send, her message comes in before yours.
<Liz 🌀, 08.20> Seoul Station, Exit 15
<You, 08:21> Where?
You rub your temple once, half-exasperated, half-amused.
<Liz 🌀, 08:21> Ahahahahaha
<Liz 🌀, 08:21> You're so slow lmao
<You, 08:21> …
<Liz 🌀, 08.21> Anyway, see you later~
You look at the messages and sigh. Your fingers move and tap into her contact that she saved. Thumbs dancing, she’s now known as: “Whirlwind 🌀”.
Bubbly, lively and energetic.
Nothing like you.
Nothing like how you imagined your first date to be.
But you're smiling.
The day passes by in a blur and once the work day is done, you're already on the way to the agreed upon meet up location.
You arrive at Seoul Station Exit 15 at 5.55 p.m. The crowd is thick with salarymen like you rushing home, students in uniforms, tourists with maps, but you spot her instantly.
Liz is leaning against a pillar, one foot propped up, scrolling her phone with one hand while the other waves a tiny red flag she definitely bought from a street vendor just for this moment. Does she even know what a red flag means? It's as though she's advertising herself as one. When she sees you she squeals, and it's an actual squeal, runs over, nearly tripping on her own shoelaces.
“You’re early!” she exclaims, eyes wide. “Like, actually early! I thought you’d be the type to show up at 6:01 just to be safe.”
You shrug. “I don’t like being late.”
“That's so responsible. I love it,” she beams at you. “Okay, come on!” she grabs your wrist (not your hand — your wrist, like she's leading a puppy on a walk) and starts pulling you toward the escalators.
“Where are we going?”
“Devil Tteokbokki Challenge!” she announces like it’s a national holiday. “It’s only two stops away. You ready to cry?”
You’re already regretting saying yes, but you don’t pull away.
The Devil Tteokbokki place is small and fluorescent-lit, but it’s packed with patrons. But these aren't the main things to worry about. What you’re worried about is the heavy smell of fire and regret that's choking the air.
There’s a giant red devil head on the wall with a speech bubble: “No time limit. If you finish Hell Level, free photo on the Wall of Victory! Otherwise, Wall of Shame!”
Liz signs the waiver without reading it.
You though, read it carefully.
She doesn't wait and orders Hell Level for both of you.
“You sure?” you ask again.
“We’re in this together,” she grins. “Teamwork makes the dream work!”
“...” you stare at her, before setting down the wavier. “Yea…”
The bowls arrive, and they're bright red and steaming, looking like the boiling pot of punishment in whatever level of hell that you can't remember — not that remembering it would save you.
Liz doesn't wait and takes one bite, eyes going wide then immediately starts fanning her mouth, mouthing breathy cavemen ooh ooh ahh ahh noises in an attempt to expel the hotness in her mouth.
“Sheesh, it burnt my tongue…” she wheezes, trying to cool it down in her mouth. “I forgot it was just out of the pot.”
You look at her antics, grinning a little.
“It's not that bad though?” you say, savouring the first piece. Sure, it's spicy, but it's well rounded and sweet at the start, followed by a nice umami in the middle, then—oh fuck.
cough cough cough
You're fucking choking from the sharp spiciness. Liz is in no better shape, choking on the lingering spiciness of the sauce.
cough cough cough
“Oh my god oh my god oh my god—” Liz cries, cheeks and nose red from the capsaicin invading her pain receptors.
You're already drinking your glass of milk, hoping that it will help with reducing the pain, but Liz has already downed hers, before obnoxiously snatching and drinking the remaining of yours.
Apparently the extra half glass of milk helped, and she's now laughing so hard at your plight that she almost falls off her chair. You look at her teary eyed, fire unextinguished in your mouth. You cough and try to reach for water, but your eyes water further.
“You’re crying! Oh my god, you’re crying again!”
You manage a weak glare through the tears.
She hands you her glass of warm water, still giggling.
“Here, hero. Warm water is more effective than cold water.”
You take it from her and drink. The burn fades ever so slowly.
She wipes her eyes, still smiling.
“You’re cute when you suffer.”
You roll your eyes at her, but you’re smiling too. Just a single bite and you’ve already drank two glasses of fluid. How many bites are there left? You wonder to yourself and count. 32. 32 more bites. And that means 64 glasses of fluid. How the hell are you going to finish the challenge?
Not to mention, the rules state that you have to finish every single drop of sauce as well. And that'll probably add another 64 glasses of fluid onto your belly. Assuming that each glass is 500 ml, then what, you’ll be filled with 64 litres of water. At this rate, you’ll be a walking watermelon by the end of the challenge.
“Earth to you!” Liz waves at your face, nudging you. “Eat!” she says, popping another piece hesitantly into her mouth, before downing another two glasses of water — no more milk, the milk ain't free. You try your best too, but ultimately, you both barely finish a third of the bowl before surrendering.
The owner takes a polaroid of you two, red-faced, teary, holding up the half-eaten bowls like trophies.
Liz insists on sticking it on the Wall of Shame herself.
“Team Whirlwind & Quiet Guy!” she declares, writing it in marker. You stand behind her, arms crossed, trying not to look proud, but damn, her handwriting is pretty. You get another two pieces of the polaroid photo, which the owner had kindly taken extra for you both as keepsake.
You take the photo and glance at it for a second, appreciating her goofy smile beside your forced one. You never did realise, but she has a dimple on her left cheek when she smiles, and it makes your heart skip a beat and the corner of your mouth curves slightly. Before she can catch any hint of it, you take out your wallet and keep it, making sure that none of the edges are folded when you slide it into the slot. And Liz? She clasps it behind her transparent phone case’s cover at the back of her phone.
How long do dates last? You have no clue. But it's definitely not an hour and twelve minutes because she is already dragging you to the next stop, a bar a few blocks away.
The challenge is simple — a standard dart game, but instead of the usual subtraction of numbers from 501 from every hit, it is a combined score of 520 times two, which is 1040. Because apparently 520 means ‘I love you’ in Chinese, and since it is a game meant for couples, it's double the intended target. You two have to take turns throwing a dart that looks like a swordfish (you have no idea why, perhaps an inspiration from some anime or sorts).
She lines up her first throw like a pro with her tongue out and eyes narrowed, then launches. The dart arcs beautifully… straight into the wall three feet above the board.
And of course you both lose spectacularly, despite her bragging about being a high school dart champion in her neighborhood. You swear that at least 20% of her throws ended up with fates that took a magnificent modest arc to land on either right on the ground or hit the high ceiling wall.
You make a mental note to never let Liz convince you to be a target on a knife throwing stunt — you doubt that it will happen, but who knows what will happen with her.
As losers again, yes again, you both end up in matching inflatable dinosaur costumes that are bright green and ridiculous, with tiny useless arms. How did T-rexes even earn their title of apex predators or King of the Dinosaurs?
The bartender takes the polaroid (does everyone own a polaroid nowadays?) and snaps a photo.
Liz poses dramatically with her arms up, roaring.
And of course you stand there, deadpan.
She laughs so hard she almost falls over.
“Losers Wall forever!” she cheers.
They hang the photo right next to the dart board prize neither of you won. And of course, courtesy of the bartender, you both get new pictures to add to your collection, to which you both slide into your wallet and behind her phone.
You're then dragged to the bar counter and Liz orders two cocktails — something bright blue and probably dangerous.
“Alcohol content?” you ask.
“18,” the bartender replies.
You pick your glass up and swirl it slightly, trying to get some of the volatile alcohol to evaporate, before sipping slowly.
She downs half of hers in one go. You cock your eyebrow, visibly impressed.
Then she leans across the table, eyes sparkling.
“Okay. Truth or dare.”
You raise an eyebrow. “Again?”
“Truth or dare,” she repeats, grinning.
You sigh.
“Truth.”
She thinks for a second.
“What’s your idea of a perfect date?”
You answer honestly.
“Quiet dinner. Walk after. Maybe a movie. No costumes. No challenges.”
She tilts her head.
“That sounds… nice.”
She drinks, not because she lost, but just because.
“My turn. Dare me.”
You hesitate.
She leans closer.
“Come on. Dare me.”
“Tell me your name,” you say quietly.
“Pshhh. Lame. Isn't Liz enough?”
“Name,” you say again curtly, insisting that she tells you.
“Fine. I’m Jiwon. Kim Jiwon, my mother’s daughter.” She murmurs, batting her eyelids at you coquettishly. “Liz isn't exactly my name name. My friends just call me that because there's a running joke that I look German, and so they gave me a name.”
“Oh?”
“Elizabeth Helga Muller. Hence Liz for short.”
You let out a small snort in amusement.
“Your turn! Truth or Dare! C'mon choose dare~” she bounces on the high chair slightly.
“Truth.”
“Ugh. You're such a coward,” she whines. “Fine. You know, yesterday when I asked about the kiss on a first date, is that true?”
“Yea. Do I look like someone who lies for a profession?”
“Maybe? Liars don't write that they're one on their foreheads.”
“Fair enough,” you mumble, taking in a deep breath before sighing. “This is my first date actually. So yes, I haven't kissed anyone on a first date before because I haven't had any dates before.”
“Wait, for real? So you're not a ‘first-date-kiss-virgin’, but a ‘0-date-virgin’? Geez~” she giggles, tapping her two middle fingers together with that same otter clap again. And god, she's so cute when she does that.
“So… does that mean I get to be your first first-date kiss?” she teases softly, eyes lingering on yours, face inching closer to you.
Your breath hitches in slight panic and you turn away, swirling your glass of cocktail again.
“Y-your turn! Truth or dare.”
“Dare.”
Her answer comes immediately.
You glance around — bar lights flashing, people laughing.
“Sing something,” you say quietly.
She blinks.
Then she grins.
“Here? In front of everyone?”
You shrug. “You wanted a dare.”
She laughs loudly and then stands up on the chair, clapping her hands to gather everyone's attention. The bar quiets a little.
“Ahem ahem,” she clears her throat, pointing to the band in the center. “Please play Love Wins All by IU.”
Once the guitarist starts strumming, she starts to sing. And you're mesmerised. Her voice is breathy and angelic, but it also carries a solid and strong base to it.
People cheer. Someone films it.
When the song ends, she bows dramatically, then jumps down and grabs your hand.
“Your turn.”
You shake your head.
“I’m good.”
“Fine. But you owe me,” she pouts, but her eyes are soft. “Truth or dare?”
“Truth.”
“Why do I even bother asking…” she mumbles, before pausing to think for a second.
“Do you think I’m too much?”
You pause.
She’s still smiling, but there’s something softer behind it as she waits patiently for your reply.
You shrug and answer honestly.
“You’re… a lot. But I don’t mind.”
Her smile widens and her dimple deepens.
“Good answer.”
Then she downs the rest of her drink.
“Dare me.”
You hesitate.
She leans closer.
“Come on. Dare me.”
You glance out into the night sky, glancing at the flashing arcade lights, people laughing, and the city glittering below.
“Kiss me,” you say quietly.
She blinks, then she grins again.
“Here? In front of everyone?”
You shrug. “You wanted a dare.”
“It’s alright if you don't want to—”
She chuckles then grabs your collar, pulling you across the table, and kisses you.
It’s messy.
It’s enthusiastic.
It tastes like blue cocktail and adrenaline.
People whoop and whistle.
You both stay there, lips locked onto each other for a long moment, before she pulls back, cheeks pink, eyes shining.
“Best dare ever.”
“Yeah.”
She grabs your hand again.
“Come on. One more stop.”
The last stop — you hope — is a tiny karaoke booth in a basement arcade. When the door swings open, the lights inside are dim with a fake leather couch sitting against a wall, and a small table with two half-empty water bottles from the previous group.
“So what are we singing?” you say, already reaching for the control panel to select songs.
Liz locks the door behind you, and dims the overhead light to a soft pink glow, then turns to you with a nervous-excited grin.
“You’re so dense,” she says, grinning at you. “No singing tonight. Just… this.”
She pushes you onto the couch and kisses you right there and then. Your mind freezes. She's clearly tipsy from the cocktail earlier but fuck, she's also clearly conscious about it.
That's two kisses on your first date. Now you won't lose any truth or dare challenges.
Liz cups your face and leans in even more, tongue digging in as she sucks on yours, like she's starving for you. You reciprocate and hold on to her hips, holding her tight, gently biting on her lower lips as you kiss her back needily.
The wet smacking of your lips against each other fills the room. Her hands slide under your shirt and her fingers trace your skin. She whimpers into your mouth as you go deeper and harder, robbing and stealing the oxygen from her until you pull back slightly.
“You okay?”
She nods, eyes glassy and drunk with your taste.
“I want… more.”
You hesitate, but she senses it.
“Please,” she whispers. “I want to try… everything. With you.”
You look at her. She’s flushed, breathing fast, and her hands are trembling slightly.
“Okay.”
She smiles in relief.
Then she drops to her knees and settles between your thighs, right here, in the karaoke booth. She looks up at you with wide and eager eyes.
“Can I…?”
You hesitate a little, worrying about the public state of events.
“I want to… try more. With you.”
Your heart slams against your ribs.
“You sure?”
She nods frantically. “I’ve never… done this before. Not to mention, we're in a public place.” Her voice drops even lower. “I’m scared I’ll mess it up. But I want to. Please?”
You swallow hard. “We can go slow,” you say quietly. “I’ll guide you. If it’s too much, we stop. Okay?”
“Okay.” She nods again, eyes shining with relief and excitement. The air in the booth is warm as she steadies herself against your thighs, the carpet rough under her shins, the booth’s fake leather creaking slightly.
Her hand flies to your belt, undoing it. Her fingers are clumsy from the alcohol, and she's giggling nervously from her fumble.
“Sorry… first time doing this in a karaoke booth.”
You smile despite the pounding in your chest, reaching down and stroking her cheek with your thumb.
“You’re okay. Take your time.”
She finally succeeds in freeing you and your already painfully hard cock.
Her eyes go wide.
“You’re… really big.”
She swallows visibly, nervousness flickering across her face.
“I’ve… never taken anything this big before. I don’t know if I can. None of my toys were this… big.”
She licks her lips across her upper lips in anticipation then leans in. Her tongue flicks the tip of your cock experimentally, tasting you with feather-light laps.
You hiss, hips twitching forward involuntarily.
“Like that?” she pulls back, eyes flicking up to you in satisfaction.
“Yeah,” you breathe. “Just like that. Slow… and swirl around the head.”
She follows your instruction, tongue circling the ridge slow and curious, tasting every inch. It’s messy and uncoordinated, but it feels god damn good. Saliva is already pooling at the corners of her mouth while her tongue moves, flowing in thin streams across the sides of her tongue onto your tip. Then she takes the head between her lips, making sure you stretch them wide, cheeks hollowing slightly as she sucks.
She tries to push further but gags almost immediately, throat fluttering. She pulls off with a wet pop and coughs once, eyes already starting to water.
“Sorry—still learning.”
You stroke her hair gently.
“You’re doing good. Breathe through your nose. Relax your throat.”
She nods, determined to do better, then goes back down. She goes deeper this time, taking you in inch by inch, lips stretched wide, tongue pressing flat against the underside. Her breathing is loud through her nose, sending hot little puffs against your skin.
She gags again, tears pricking her eyes, but she holds it there, throat working around you in tiny swallows. You feel her tongue explore around your shaft, sliding along the vein, circling the head when she pulls back halfway. Her hands grip your thighs, nails digging in slightly, anchoring herself as she tries to take you more.
She moans around you muffled, the vibration ripping up your spine, making you groan involuntarily.
“Am I’m good?” she pulls off and whispers, voice utterly wrecked.
“You’re so good,” you grunt. “So perfect. Look at you… taking me so well.”
Her eyes flutter from your praise and a soft whimper escapes her.
“More?”
You nod.
“More. Slow… just like that.”
She dives back in, bobbing now. It's clumsy but eager, and she tries to take more of you inside her each time. Her throat flutters and gags with tears spilling down her cheeks, but she doesn’t stop.
glk glk glk
She pulls off every few strokes, gasping for air, strings of spit hanging between her lips and your cock. “Look at me,” she pants. “Please… look at me while I do this.”
You can't even look away even if you tried. Her pupils are blown and her eyes are glassy, and her mascara is starting to run in short black tracks as she tears more and more.
She looks wrecked.
She looks beautiful.
She takes you deep again, nose almost brushing your pelvis this time, throat convulsing around you. You feel the coil tighten within you, and it's fast and almost painful.
She senses it and pulls off, stroking you fast and hard. Her slick hand glides over the spit and pre-cum around your cock. Each slide brings you closer and closer to the edge.
“Hey. Look at this.” She whispers and grins, showing you her signature dimple again. “This is your third kiss on your first date.” Right as she says that, she latches her lips onto your cockhead and smooches it, sucking hard while she pumps you with both of her hands. Her tongue swirls and flicks your head while her lips wrap around it, saliva flowing down to lubricate your cock while she pumps and milks you.
“Cum for me,” she whispers. “Please. I want to taste you. I want… all of it. Let me make you feel good.”
She looks up, eyes locked on yours, tears streaming, mascara running, but she doesn’t break contact.
“I’m yours,” she mumbles around you.
The words hit harder than the vibration.
You break. Groaning, your hips buck into her mouth, spilling hot and thick across her tongue. She swallows everything you're expelling greedily and messily, some leaking from the corners of her mouth. She keeps you in the entire time, tongue flicking the underside, milking every last pulse.
When you’re entirely spent, she pulls off slowly. Her lips are swollen and glossed, chin glistening with saliva, and her eyes are shining with tears and pride. She licks her lips to catch the stray drops with her tongue.
“You taste good,” she says softly.
Then she giggles in sudden nervousness, as if the embarrassment only appeared now.
“That was… intense,” you say, pulling her up onto the couch beside you. You tilt her chin and kiss her deeply, tasting yourself on her tongue. She melts into you, clinging onto you, arms tight around your neck. You hold her there, breathing hard, cock still out but spent, heart hammering against hers.
Later, back at your place — yes, she insisted on staying over at your place because she feels tipsy — she falls asleep curled against your chest.
You stare at the ceiling.
You think you're in love with her.
***
“Will that get me a pass on the ride?” you say, frowning in exasperation.
“You think?” she giggles, arm hooked into yours.
The week after the karaoke booth feels like the world tilted slightly off-axis. Jiwon doesn’t slow down. Instead, she speeds up even more. Yes, you're calling her Jiwon now. You insisted on it after the karaoke night despite her playful reluctance, because you wanted to mean something to her beyond the nickname. She rolled her eyes… but smiled the whole time.
On Monday afternoon she texts you a single photo with a roller coaster loop-de-loop at Lotte World, neon lights streaking behind it like comet tails.
<Jiwon 🌀, 2:14 p.m.> Don’t worry, I’ll hold your hand the whole time
You stare at the message for an hour. Okay, maybe not an hour. But your phone screen with that message on it remained on your desk while you worked, and your eyes kept flicking to it for an hour.
You’ve never been a roller coaster person, but you still reply with an “Okay”. No questions. No hesitation. You’re already learning that with Jiwon, hesitation just delays the inevitable.
You meet her at the entrance at 6:55 p.m. — five minutes early, because old habits die hard. She’s bouncing on her toes in the ticket line, wearing a cropped hoodie, denim shorts, and sneakers that look like they’ve seen a thousand adventures. When she spots you she squeals and runs over, nearly tripping on her own shoelaces.
“You’re early again!” she exclaims. “Responsible guy strikes once more!”
“Were all your dates always late? I don't like to keep people waiting, especially you.”
“That’s so… sweet,” her smile softens.
She grabs your wrist and pulls you toward the gate. “Come on! The line for Atlantis is already long!” Atlantis is the big one, the indoor/outdoor coaster with the massive loop and the drop into darkness. Rumour says, okay maybe not rumours, Naver says that as “one of the scariest rides at Lotte World, it features steep drops, sharp turns, and a 2,198-foot, 1.5-minute, 3.8 G-force experience”. Whatever that means, it means you're fucked.
The queue is a snake of teenagers and tourists. Jiwon chatters the whole time, bouncing from foot to foot, pointing at the track, telling you about the time she rode it with friends and “almost threw up but it was worth it.”
And you? You listen quietly, nodding occasionally. Half your mind is focused on her quirky talk, but the other half is focused on the shortening queue and your impending doom. She glances at you every few minutes, like she’s checking if your soul is still there.
When you finally reach the front she grips your hand tight.
“You ready?”
You look at her and her eyes are bright, cheeks pink from excitement, hair already messy from the wind machines in line.
“Yeah,” you say, sucking in a deep breath. “Let’s go.”
The ride starts slow, climbing the lift hill with the reminiscent click-click-click that you hear every time you watch Final Destination — why the fuck are you remembering that now.
Liz squeezes your hand harder. “I’m not scared,” she says, voice higher than usual. You don’t answer, because that's obviously a lie that she's telling herself, but you hope that line will give you both strength to overcome—
The drop comes mid thought. She screams loud and delighted, hand gripping your arm so hard her nails leave marks onto your skin. Well, it hurts, but at least the pain helps you focus and keeps your mind from reeling. The loop flips you upside down and your world inverts, and her scream turns into laughter.
When the ride ends she’s laughing breathlessly, hair wild from the wind.
“That was amazing! Your face was so calm the whole time. How are you not scared?”
“I-I trust the machine,” you lie blatantly.
She laughs harder, but she leans in to kiss your cheek.
“My brave quiet guy—hurk—bleagh—”
Jiwon bends to the side and starts to gag, the spinning from the rollercoaster ride finally starting to kick in. Her knees start to wobble and you lunge forward to catch her before she falls, supporting her as you help her to the side.
“You okay? Take it easy,” you pat on her back concerned, taking a grape flavoured sweet out from your pocket. Here, suck on this. It’ll help you feel slightly better.
“You… brought that for me?”
“Mhmm. I knew one of us would gag, and sweets will definitely help with calming your churning stomach.”
“Gee thanks~” she says, popping the sweet into her mouth. “You're so sweet, like this sweet,” she blushes.
“You sure you're okay?”
“I'm fine, it's not the first time I'm gagging anyway. Remember? I was just gagging on your cock last week.”
“...”
She chuckles and wraps her arms around your neck.
The next thing you know, she's gagging on your cock in your car at the parking lot. You drove today because you didn't intend to drink. Well, that's the least of your concern, because right now, her mouth feels so god damn warm and wet around you.
“Car sex?” she whispered earlier when closing the car door, eyes sparkling. “It’s risky, it’s hot, it’s new!”
You hesitated and glanced around.
The lot is dark with few cars left, and the security cameras are probably too far to matter.
She senses your pause.
“Please?” she whined softly. “Just this once. With you.”
“Okay.”
glk glk glk glk
Jiwon’s taking your entire cock without restraint right now, body bent onto you as she sits right beside you. Her throat is stretching much more easily around you as compared to last week — you don't bother to ask why, but perhaps she has been practicing at home — and your cock is spearing her throat much deeper than before. Each bob of her head onto your cock makes you groan louder and harder, and you gather her hair into a bunch to the side to let her throat fuck you without restraint.
glk glk glk glk glk
“Bwah—” she lifts herself off your cock to catch a breath, before turning to smile at you. Her make up is slightly messed up and her lipstick is smudged, and gosh right now, she looks so fucking sexy.
“Your cock… it tastes so fucking good…”
She dives back down and bobs even harder and faster, desperate to claim every moan that comes out of your mouth, desperate to claim every drop of pre-cum leaking from your slit.
Each bob brings you closer and closer to the edge, and you don't know what it is, but her throat feels heavenly. Is that why she is so good at singing? Every thrust into her oral cavity has her throat muscles quivering and massaging your shaft, melting your mind into an euphoric pleasure.
“J-Jiwon—”
“Mhmm?” she pulls off, grinning at you. “I got better right?” She holds the base of your cock and lightly slaps it on her cheek, before giving your tip a few kitten licks. She then lets your cock go and climbs onto you, straddling you. Her hoodie is pushed up and her shorts are already shoved down to her ankles.
She’s needily rocking against your cock with her clothed pussy, whimpering. “Please… I need you inside… now…”
“Y-yea, condom—” you grunt, trying to take the packet that you’ve kept in your pocket since like forever — just in case you ever got laid on a date, which is apparently happening right now.
“No condom, please…” she begs.
“No Jiwon, I won't do it unless we use a condom,” you say firmly.
She looks into your eyes, desperate for your rawness, but your eyes tell a different story.
“Fine. One day I’ll get your raw cock in my pussy, and you’ll regret fucking me with one.”
You tear open the packet, hands steady despite the adrenaline still buzzing in your veins. She watches you with dark eyes, lips parted, then helps you roll it on, fingers trembling slightly.
She lifts her hips slightly and grabs your cock with one hand. With the other, she pulls her panties to the side, exposing her already dripping folds and lowers herself onto you, sliding you in slowly and carefully.
The heat of her swallows you whole.
She gasps at the fullness, head falling back against the headrest, hands braced on your shoulders. Her walls flutter around you instantly, slick and tight, still pulsing from the adrenaline high of the ride.
“Fuck—” she breathes. “So full… you’re so deep already…”
Your hands find her hips, fingers digging into soft flesh, steadying her as she starts to move.
She doesn’t ease into it.
She bounces.
Earnestly.
Desperately.
Every downward slam makes her breasts jiggle under the cropped hoodie, makes the car rock on its suspension, makes wet slapping sounds fill the small space between you. You thrust up to meet her, but it's controlled at first, matching her rhythm. And god forbid you, because you want to go faster.
She moans loudly and unrestrained, head thrown back so far that she's bumping lightly on the car’s ceiling with every rise.
“Yes—yes—fuck me like that—”
Her dirty talk spills out in broken gasps, voice still hoarse and wrecked from screaming on the coaster and now from this.
“Harder—please—make me feel it—make me feel you—”
You grip her hips tighter and pull her down harder on every bounce. The newfound angle lets you hit deep, deeper than the toys she’s used to and she keens every time your pelvis grinds against her clit. You slide both hands upwards from her hips, snaking under her hoodie, pushing the fabric up until her breasts spill free. You reach behind and unhook her bra, tugging it upwards to her wrists only to hook and tie them again.
Her wrists are now bound.
Back to her tits. They're soft and warm and stiff, dark nipples begging for attention. The size is perfect, resting right in your palms as you cup them both, rolling and kneading as she grinds and rocks her hips on you. You lean forward and take one into your mouth, tongue swirling round, lips sucking hard. Her back arches violently and a choked cry rips out of her.
“Oh god—yes—suck them—please—”
You switch to the other, teeth grazing lightly as your tongue flicks the peak. She rides you faster, hips snapping down, walls clenching every time you apply that soft, gentle suction.
The car is rocking harder now as its springs creak, windows completely fogged from your body heat and passion.
Her moans turn into high, frantic whimpers.
“I’m—close—fuck—I’m gonna—”
You thrust up harder, driving into her relentlessly on every downstroke. Jiwon shatters and cums with a scream, whole body seizing, walls clamping down so tight you almost lose it right there.
Warmth floods around the condom and she squirts onto you, a sudden gush that soaks your lap, the seat and her shorts.
She’s shaking from the sensation and her thighs are trembling, but she's already moving again. Tears streak down her cheeks from the intensity, but her hips snap down harder and faster more urgently, as if she's forcing herself onto you to chase the aftershocks of her first orgasm, while trying to pull you into one with her.
The car rocks violently now. The suspension springs are groaning under the force and the windows are completely fogged over, the outside world reduced to nothing but blurry neon smears. These are the least of your concerns, because right now, only Jiwon is in your eyes.
You thrust up to meet her drops, and they're no longer gentle, no longer measured.
Your hands move back and clamp onto her hips, fingers digging harder into her soft flesh, guiding her rhythm while also anchoring her so she can bounce even harder.
“Fuck—yes—right there—” she gasps.
Taking one hand off her hips, you reach upwards to grab her bound wrists, leaning forward to lick the sweat that’s beading off her collarbone. Peppering her neck with kisses, you move downwards and latch your mouth onto one nipple again, sucking hard and fast, making her arch violently.
“Suck harder—please—bite—fuck—”
Your teeth close around the peak as her hips smack wetly onto you, tongue flicking rapidly on her nipples. Your hand slides from her hips, between your bodies to find her swollen clit. Your thumb rubs in tight, fast circles, matching the brutal pace of her bouncing.
She’s riding you like she’s trying to break you, or break herself, hips slamming down so hard the sound of skin on skin is obscene, wet, echoing in the confined space.
The car smells like the sex of her thick and musky arousal, mixed with cherry lip gloss, your sweat, the faint rubber of the condom, and the lingering adrenaline from the coaster that's still clinging to both of you.
Her walls are fluttering again, and her orgasm is already climbing, clenching around you in erratic pulses.
“I’m—gonna—again—fuck—I can’t—”
You thrust up harder, driving deep on every bounce. She screams and her body seizes. The second orgasm hits her like a freight train and she squirts again, even harder this time. The hot gush soaks your lap, dripping down your balls.
She’s sobbing now, pleasure so sharp it looks like she's hurting.
But you don’t stop.
You can’t stop.
She's crying for you not to stop.
You’re chasing your own high now, hips snapping up, fucking into her through her spasms. Her walls are still fluttering, milking you and the overstimulation makes her voice break into high, keening whimpers.
“Too much—too much—oh god—don’t stop—don’t stop—”
You suck harder on her nipple, teeth closing as your thumb presses mercilessly on her clit.
Her third orgasm crashes almost immediately, sharper, shorter, and more violent than the last. Her back arches so sharply her head slams and hits against the roof, a choked sob ripping out of her. Her walls clamp down on you like a vise, pulling you over the edge.
You groan against her breast, hips bucking one last time as you unload hard into the condom.
Pulse after pulse of white, thick cum bursts out of your slit, heat flooding the latex. The sensation is so intense it makes your vision white out for a second.
Your grip on her wrists loosens and she collapses forward, chest heaving against yours, arms wrapped around your neck like she’ll never let go. Both of you are shaking and breathing in harsh, ragged gasps.
The car is a sauna. Windows opaque, air thick with the scent of sex, salt from both of your cum and sweat.
She trembles in your arms, shaking in aftershocks that's still running through her. She's crying with small, hiccupping sobs against your neck. You rub your hands in slow circles on her back gently, kissing her temple, her cheek, the corner of her eye where tears still cling.
“You okay?” you murmur.
She nods against your shoulder.
“Yeah… just… wow.”
You stay like that for a long minute, letting her calm down, breathing together. Eventually she lifts her head. Her eyes are still glassy from the waning pleasure pain, but she's still smiling.
“That was… a lot.”
“Yeah.”
She giggles weakly then nuzzles into your neck.
“Best second-date souvenir ever,” she whispers.
You smile into her hair and carry her to the front passenger seat, driving her home. She falls asleep in the passenger seat, hand still curled around yours above the gear stick.
You glance at her sleeping face when you stop at a traffic light. She's peacefully sleeping now and you feel that same tightness in your chest.
You love her joy.
You love her chaos.
But you’re starting to wonder how long she can keep running at this speed before she crashes, because you know that constantly surging ahead means an inevitable burnout.
You don’t say anything.
Not yet.
***
Every week is a new and fresh date. Just like a whirlwind that gets stronger during intense temperature increments, her passion and infatuation with you grows stronger.
The weekend after the roller coaster feels like the whirlwind is spinning faster.
Jiwon texts you on Friday night with a single photo of a creepy clown mask from Nightmare Valley Horror Park’s website. Its red lips are stretched in an evil grin with void black eyes.
<Jiwon 🌀, 9:37 p.m.> Tomorrow. 9 pm. Nightmare Valley. Bring your scream face again 🎃
<Jiwon 🌀, 9:37 p.m.> I’ll hide behind you the whole time (promise I won’t bite… maybe 😈)
You stare at the message and your mind begins to shake. You’ve never been to a horror park. God you hate horror stuff. Why would you pay to be scared? But you already know the answer.
<You, 9:45 p.m.> Okay. See you there.
<Jiwon 🌀, 9:46 p.m.> 👻 ❤️ Woooooooo~
<Jiwon 🌀, 9:46 p.m.> Eheheheheheh~
You sigh in defeat, but there’s a tiny smile tugging at your mouth. You’re getting used to this.
Saturday evening arrives humid and heavy with the kind of air that clings to your skin. You park your car and meet her at the entrance. She’s dressed for the occasion: a black mesh crop top with a large red glittery star emblazoned across the chest. Ripped black jeans hug her legs, ending in chunky sneakers, and her long blonde hair is pulled into high twin ponytails, each tied with a massive red ribbon that bounces with every excited step she takes.
“Wow, you… look like a doll,” you stammer, gawking at her cute yet chic outfit.
“Pretty right? I tried to take a little inspiration from Harley Quinn, but I didn't want to look so… weird, so I settled with something more toned down!”
“Really? Elizabeth Helga Muller, toned down?” you look at her, raising an eyebrow in doubt.
She chortles a laughter and throws her arms around your neck. “I thought you would chicken out, but here you are~ My reliable guy.”
She grabs your hand and laces her fingers around yours, dragging you through the ticket gate.
The park is already dark. She said she purposely chose this timing to avoid the crowd and queuing, but it only served to make the whole park quieter and spookier. Fog machines pump white clouds across the paths, red emergency lights pulse like heartbeats, and distant screams echo from the haunted house.
The ball of energy beside you bounces on her toes. “First the big one. Haunted Manor. Then the mirror maze. Ready?”
You nod.
She squeezes your hand tighter.
“I’m brave,” she says and nods, huffing out a short breath before puffing up her chest. “Totally brave.”
You don’t comment.
The Haunted Manor line short, just a few teenagers in front of you giggling nervously and a couple behind you whispering bets on who’ll scream first. Jiwon chatters the whole time while waiting for your turn, pointing at the fake blood on the walls, telling you about the time she watched a horror movie alone and slept with the lights on for a week.
You listen quietly, nodding occasionally.
She glances at you every few minutes, checking if you’re still there. “Don't tell me you're scared of ghosts?” she mocks.
“Uhhh… aren't you?”
“Duh? Obviously not?”
“Then why are you teasing me?”
“Because it's fun to see you flustered, expressionless man~”
You poke her dimple when she laughs.
When you finally reach the front she grips your hand so hard her knuckles go white.
“You ready?”
You look at her. Her cheeks are pink from excitement, but her hands are sweaty from nerves, hair already frizzing from the fog.
“Yeah,” you say. “Let’s go.”
The door opens and darkness swallows you both. Inside it’s pitch black with only strobe lights and red emergency strips. Actors lunge from corners. Zombies, clowns, bloody nurses. Jiwon screams loudly and hides behind you every time something jumps out. Her feet freezes every few steps and she clings on to your arm, giggling between shrieks.
“I’m not scared,” she insists, but her voice shakes in betrayal. “Totally not scared.”
A zombie actor lunges from the side this time and she yelps, burying her face in your back. You keep walking calmly, guiding her forward.
She peeks out from behind you then laughs.
“You’re so steady. How are you not screaming?”
“I trust the actors won’t actually eat us.”
She laughs harder, but clings tighter.
“But. You have no idea, but my ass is clenched so tightly right now,” you declare with a sharp breath drawn.
She laughs even harder, hand covering her mouth in amusement.
When you both finally reach the exit, she’s breathless with her hair wild from all the ducking and jumpscares, but her eyes are bright with relief.
“That was amazing! You were like a human shield.”
“Anytime,” you smile.
She gives you a quick peck on your cheek.
“My hero.”
The Haunted Manor exit spits you both back into the humid night air, still buzzing with leftover adrenaline and the faint smell of fake fog clinging to your clothes. Jiwon’s hand is still in yours, fingers laced tight, but her grip is a little looser now. After all, the haunted house is over. She glances at you sideways, eyes still bright, but there’s a tiny tremor in her smile.
“Mirror maze next?” she asks.
You nod. She takes it as her cue and pulls you towards the glowing neon sign that reads: Lost Forever – Enter at Your Own Risk.
The entrance is quieter than the manor, fewer people, no long queue. She pays for both tickets (she insisted) then turns to you with a mischievous grin.
“I’m gonna get lost on purpose,” she whispers. “You have to come find me. And when you do…”
She trails off, eyes flicking toward the dark mouth of the maze.
Your stomach flips.
She doesn’t wait for an answer and leads you inside. The moment the door closes behind you, the world shrinks into reflections and echoes.
The maze is a labyrinth of floor-to-ceiling mirrors with cold glass on every side, endless Jiwons and endless yous stretching into infinity in every direction. The lighting is low and shifting with blue and purple strobes that make the reflections flicker like multiple versions of you both are breathing at slightly different speeds.
Every step echoes with soft thuds and clicks on mirrored floor, the sound multiplied a hundred times over in accordance to the reflections.
All of a sudden, Jiwon lets go of your hand and surges away.
“Catch me~” she sing-songs, her voice bouncing off the glass in overlapping layers. She darts left and disappears, pigtails swinging, red ribbons flashing in the strobes of light.
You shake your head and follow calmly, turning corners, listening for her giggles. She’s fast, but not subtle. You hear her laugh, then a soft “oops” as she bumps into a mirror.
“Wrong way!”
Another giggle. She's closer now.
You turn right, then left, then another left.
The reflections make it disorienting. Every mirror shows a different Jiwon, one laughing, one biting her lip, one looking back over her shoulder with wide eyes. You swore you saw one where her face is laced with fear and panic.
You keep walking.
Eventually you find her.
She’s in a small dead-end nook with three mirrors boxing her in, infinite Jiwons staring back from every angle. She’s breathing fast and her cheeks are flushed, eyes bright with excitement and something darker. She sees you in the mirror first and smiles with her dimple flashing.
“Found me.”
You step into the nook, boots soft on the mirrored floor.
“Let's go,” you say, reaching your hand out to her. But she turns and presses her back against the cool glass, pulling you in by the front of your shirt. The mirror is cold against her spine, and you feel her shiver through the fabric.
“Kiss me,” she whispers.
You lean forward and taste the faint cherry gloss still on her lips, the salt of her skin, the adrenaline still buzzing through both of you from the haunted house. Her hands slide across your shirt, fingers tracing your sides, then higher, nails grazing your ribs.
She moans softly into your mouth, hips pressing forward, grinding against you through denim. The mirrors multiply every movement of the infinite Jiwons arching into infinite versions of you, infinite hands sliding across infinite shirts, infinite mouths opening in silent gasps.
You pull back just enough to speak.
“Here?”
She nods, lips parted, eyes dark with want.
“Here. In the mirrors. I want to watch myself… while you…” she trails off, but her hands are already tugging at the waistband of her pants. “Eat me.”
You glance around. The maze is quiet with distant laughter and screams from the other minimal visitors, and no footsteps are close.
You nod.
“Okay, but we have to be quick.”
She smiles and guides your hand between her legs. You push her pants down and slide her panties aside, fingers finding her already slick, swollen, pulsing with heat. She gasps into your touch, hips jerking forward, and the mirrors show it from every angle. Her mouth falls open, head tilting back against the glass, thighs parting wider, your hand disappearing between them.
You kneel and spread her legs wider. Jiwon's back arches against the mirror, hands tangling in your hair. You lean in and press your tongue flat on her wetness, tasting her.
She exhales with a loud broken moan, head falling back against the glass with a soft thud. The sound echoes and reverberates around the mirrors, multiplied by every reflection, each reflection moaning at slightly different delays.
“Look at me,” she whispers. “In the mirrors. Look at us.”
You glance up.
The reflections are endless. Jiwon multiplied forever, face flushed, mouth open, eyes glassy. Your head is nested between her thighs, her fingers tight in your hair, her breasts rising and falling under. Your senses are overwhelmed and going into overdrive from the infinite versions of her trembling, infinite versions of you licking.
Every mirror shows a different detail: one catches the way her thighs shake, another the way her back arches against the glass, a third the tears already forming at the corners of her eyes from the intensity, a fourth the way her lips part in a silent scream when your tongue circles her clit, a fifth the way her fingers tighten in your hair so hard her knuckles turn white, a sixth the way her hips buck forward involuntarily, chasing your tongue.
She watches herself moaning and trembling.
“Oh god… look at me… look at how I’m shaking… look at my face—oh fuck—I look so… desperate… so needy…”
You lick harder, tongue circling her clit, fingers sliding inside, curling up to find that spot that makes her gasp.
Her reflections react in waves. One Jiwon arches, another sobs, a third bites her lip so hard it turns white, a fourth’s hands tighten in your hair so hard her knuckles turn white, a fifth’s thighs tremble violently, a sixth’s back bows so sharply her shoulders slam against the glass.
The sensory overload makes her nerves go on overdrive and she cums fast, crying out as her walls flutter around your fingers. She shakes as a gush of wetness coats your tongue and chin, some sprinkling onto the mirror floor beneath.
Her reflection shows everything. Head thrown back, mouth open in a silent scream, tears streaming, thighs trembling violently around your head, infinite Jiwons cumming at once.
She looks wrecked.
She looks beautiful.
But she begs you not to stop.
“More,” she breathes. “Please… I want to see myself cum again.”
You add a second finger inside her, thrusting slowly, tongue flicking her clit in tight circles.
She watches the mirrors, eyes locked on her own reflection, moaning louder.
“Fuck—look at me—look at how I’m shaking—look at my face—oh god I’m so wet—look at my pussy taking your fingers—”
Her voice cracks with every pump, thighs clamping around your head. Her second orgasm hits harder and faster, her back bowing so sharply her shoulders slam against the glass, a choked sob ripping out.
She squirts and sends a fresh wave of hot liquid that coats your chin, dripping down your neck, pooling on the carpet.
The mirrors fog slightly from her heavy breathing, her reflections blurring at the edges, making the scene look dreamlike, surreal. She grabs on to your head tightly, holding you in place, refusing to let you go. She doesn't say anything other than a few whimpers, but you take it as her cue to not stop.
And so you lap and lick and finger and thrust into her, until her third orgasm crashes almost immediately. Her legs buckle from the weakness and you catch her hips, keeping her upright, licking her through it until she’s trembling, oversensitive, whimpering.
“Please… enough… I can’t—”
You finally pull back and kiss the inside of her thigh tenderly, then stand. She collapses against you, arms around your neck, breathing ragged.
“That was… intense.”
You kiss her slowly and let her taste herself on your tongue.
“Thank you.”
You rub slow circles on her back.
“Anytime.”
She giggle then nuzzles into your neck.
“I like watching myself with you.”
You smile into her hair.
“I like watching you too.”
On the way out she’s quiet, clinging to your arm, smiling.
But her smile looks forced.
***
“Jiwon…”
“I’m terrified,” she whispers.
“Then why are we here?” you whisper back.
“I’m scared shitless of heights but I wanna do it.”
“...”
“Puh-lease?”
You keep quiet and squeeze her hand harder.
The instructor straps her in, harness tight around her chest and thighs, ankle cuffs clipped to the cord.
She stands at the edge with her toes curled over the lip as the wind whips her ponytail. She peers down and looks at the river far below.
Her knees are visibly shaking.
She looks back at you with trembling eyes.
“I love you,” she says suddenly.
Your heart stutters.
“I love you too,” you say.
She smiles and then turns forward, arms wrapped tightly around you as you get strapped too.
“Can we opt out now?” you plead.
“No.”
“Pleas—”
“3… 2… 1… BUNGEE!”
She jumps and pulls you along with her.
Her scream rips through the air as you both fall together, body plummeting towards the water. You grip her so hard that your knuckles turn white.
When the cord stretches to the maximum, it bounces back upwards, not before recoiling and you both fall downwards again. The cycle repeats for a few more times until your screams turn into laughter, then sobs, then laughter then sobs again.
When they pull you both back up she’s crying and laughing at the same time, but she's shaking so hard her teeth’s chattering.
You hope that she'd enjoyed herself out there, but she collapses into your arms the second she’s unclipped, face buried in your chest, sobbing openly.
“I did it,” she whispers. “I did it.”
You hold her tight, hand stroking her back.
“I’m proud of you.”
You sigh and wonder when she’ll actually stop forcing herself, because the more you spend time with her, the more you know that she doesn't want to do any of this.
The rooftop bar gathering is later that evening. The same place as before, same group of friends.
The sun has already set with city lights glittering below, music pulsing softly.
Jiwon is quieter than usual, still flushed and recovering mentally from the jump, clinging to your arm more than normal.
Her friends are loud and drunk, talking about sex like it’s a competition. And by now, the news of you and Jiwon dating is already known by all.
“Vanilla is so mid,” one girl says, rolling her eyes. “You gotta level up or you’ll bore him.”
Another laughs. “My ex used handcuffs and it was insane. Try bondage — trust me.”
Jiwon laughs along, but her smile is tight. You sense the force in her laughter. She glances at you nervously then changes the subject.
“Anyway! Who wants another round?”
The conversation moves on.
But you notice.
Her hand on your arm is shaking slightly.
After the group leaves — hugging, promising to meet again soon — she leans against you on the rooftop edge. The wind is cooler now, city lights reflecting in her eyes.
She’s quiet. Unusually quiet.
You hold her hand tight.
She doesn’t speak for a long minute.
Then:
“I want to try something really intense next time.”
You look at her.
“Like what?”
She swallows, eyes flicking away.
“I want to see… how many times I can cum. Like… really push it.”
You feel the tightness in your chest again, sharper this time.
“You sure?”
She nods and smiles, but her smile doesn’t reach her eyes.
“Yeah. It’ll be fun.”
You don’t answer right away.
You just hold her hand tighter.
She yawns, and quickly tries to cover it, but you see the way her eyelids droop a little, the way her shoulders sag when she thinks you’re not looking.
***
The days after the rooftop bar feel like walking on cracking ice.
Jiwon keeps smiling and keeps texting and keeps planning, but the cracks are showing.
Her messages come slower and her emojis fewer. She yawns in the middle of voice notes and laughs too quickly to cover it.
You notice everything, but you say nothing.
Friday night she sends only one message:
<Jiwon 🌀, 8:14 p.m.> Tomorrow. My place. 8 pm.
<Jiwon 🌀, 8:14 p.m.> The thing I talked about on the roof. Really push it. Please?
There’s no emojis. No playful tone. Just quiet.
You stare at the screen until it goes dark from the automatic time out of five minutes.
You type back an “Okay”.
She replies almost instantly.
<Jiwon 🌀, 8:20 p.m.> Thank you. I love you.
The words feel heavier than ever.
You arrive at 7:52 p.m., eight minutes early.
She opens the door wearing only an oversized hoodie with no shorts, bare legs, bare feet. Her hair is loose and unbrushed, eyes shadowed with exhaustion she’s trying to hide behind a smile.
“You came,” she says softly.
“I said I would.”
She pulls you inside and locks the door, leaning against it for a long second like she’s reconsidering what is about to happen.
The living room is lit with only the main ceiling light on, dimmed into a soft dull glow. The coffee table has the familiar setup of soft pink bondage tape, the bullet vibrator, lube, and the Hitachi wand she didn't use the last time.
But there’s something new.
A full-length mirror propped against the wall — the one from her bedroom — angled so the couch is fully reflected.
She sees you staring.
“I thought… it would be hot. To watch.”
Her voice is small.
You nod.
She fidgets, fingers twisting the her shirt.
Wrists and ankles again. And… the vibrator. A lot of it.
She looks up, eyes searching yours.
“I want to see… how many times I can cum. Like… really push it. Until I can’t anymore.”
Your stomach drops. You’ve done light bondage before at her request, but this feels like walking into a storm you can already see coming.
You hesitate much longer than the previous time and she notices.
“If you don’t want to—”
“I’ll do it,” you say quietly. “But red means stop. Immediately. No hesitation. Promise me.”
She nods fast, too fast.
“Red. Yea. I promise.”
She sits on the couch.
You kneel between her legs, trembling slightly. You start with her wrists, pulling them to the side, wrapping the tape slowly and carefully around the arm rests, leaving it still loose enough so that she can slip free if she needs to.
“Is this okay?” you ask.
“Tighter.”
You adjust and pull the tape until she nods, breathing shallowly.
“Yeah… tight… but good.”
You move to her ankles, securing them to the couch legs, spreading her thighs just enough.
She tests the restraints and wiggles, trying to break free. She's fastened tight.
“Feels… safe. With you.” She smiles softly.
“Good girl.” You kiss her forehead.
She whimpers from it, already wet.
You shift the couch until the mirror directly is in her line of sight. She looks at her reflection: Kim Jiwon bound and waiting to be worked, and she shivers from the positive (?) anticipation.
“Turn the light up a little,” she whispers. “I want to see everything.”
The walk to the switch and turn the knob, adjusting the variable resistor until the room brightens to show her bounded body in full view. You start with your fingers, drawing slow circles on her clit before thrusting gently inside. She moans and rocks her hips, eyes locked on the mirror.
“Look at me,” she breathes. “Look how wet I am already…”
You add the small bullet vibrator, pressing it to her clit on low. She gasps immediately, back arching on the couch as she tries to reach for something, but her hands are bound tight.
“Oh god… that’s… so good…”
You keep it steady, watching her face in the mirror, watching her dissolve in pleasure. Her first orgasm comes fast, and she's shaking through it, crying out your name as her walls flutter around your fingers, sending a small gush that soaks your hand.
She pants as her orgasm dies down. “More… please… I can take more…”
You edge her next, bringing her close, not before pulling the vibrator away. She whines from the loss of sensation, hips chasing after you, but she can't move.
“Please… don’t stop… I need it… I’m not boring… I’m fun… right?”
Her voice cracks on the last word that's filled with desperate self-reassurance. You stay silent throughout and bring her close again, and again, and again, and again, edging her four times in total.
Each time she chants frantically.
“I can take it… I want it… keep going… tell me I’m good… please say I’m good…”
You press the vibrator back onto her pussy and turn it up one notch. She cums right there and then, walls clamping around the small bullet as she sends another gush of wetness that soaks the couch.
You don't stop.
You turn the vibrator up to the maximum, pressing it firmly. Her third orgasm builds quickly. She’s crying out loud right now as her body jerks on the couch, pussy squeezing and clenching with convulsions that rolls through her for nearly thirty seconds.
By the fourth, you have added the Hitachi to her clit, the intense vibrations sending her into a full minute of continuous spasms.
“M-more—I can take—it—”
The vibrators are all on maximum intensity at this point and they remain fixed onto her sensitive pussy.
Fifth orgasm. She’s sobbing now, pleasure turning sharp, body locking up for a duration you can't count. Her thighs quivering uncontrollably, mirrors showing every twitch multiplied.
“Please… more… I can take it… I’m not done… I’m fun… right? Tell me I’m fun…”
Sixth: she’s babbling “too much… too good… please… keep going… don’t let me be boring…”, orgasm dragging on for over two minutes with full-body convulsions, sweat pouring, skin blotching red from the panting.
Seventh: her thighs clamp around your hand, liquid flowing freely from her eyes and pussy right now. Her voice is hoarse and the reflections in the mirror shows her head thrashing side to side.
“We green?”
“Yes—yes—fuck don't you dare stop—I need to prove—fuck cumming—”
She's cumming for the eighth time. She's already limp on the couch, voice cracking into near-silent gasp, body jerking in slow, exhausted pulses.
On the ninth her voice breaks completely. “I can’t… I can’t… it hurts… but don’t stop… I’m not boring… please…” Her orgasm stretches past long minutes, and she's shaking with full-body tremors, tears soaking the couch, reflections blurring into a smeared chaos of flushed skin and black mascara rivers.
On the tenth, she’s barely coherent, shaking violently, tears and sweat soaking everything. She’s choking on her own whimpers, mirror magnifying every shudder infinitely.
Your hand is trembling, wondering if you should stop despite her not using the safe word. Your heart wants to stop, but you know that you should keep going, because she trusts you.
She’s right at the edge of the eleventh and her hips are thrashing, walls fluttering wildly, body locked in pre-orgasm tension. Her reflection in the mirror shows a final, fractured version of herself — mouth open in a silent scream, eyes wide with panic — and something in her gaze finally breaks.
“RED!”
The word rips out of her, shattering the room.
You stop instantly, pulling the vibrators off and throw them to the side, hands pressing gently on her face, thumb rubbing across her cheeks. You continue to untie her wrists and ankles quickly, but also carefully at the same time. Her entire body is trembling in microspasms, to the point that it feels like she's shivering from extreme cold.
Once done, you carry her into your arms and sit on the couch, holding her tight as she curls into you. Her tears flow freely as you shush her, body still spasming with leftover aftershocks. You rock her slowly, hands patting softly on her back.
“I’m sorry,” you whisper. “I’m so sorry. I should’ve stopped earlier.”
She shakes her head while her face is buried in your chest, sobbing uncontrollably.
“No… it’s not you. It’s me.”
She cries even harder, body shaking with the force of it. You stroke her hair slowly, whispering soft reassurances that everything is fine now. She clings onto you like she’s afraid to let go.
The room is quiet now, with only her hiccupping breaths and the faint hum of the vibrator forgotten on the floor.
You don’t move.
You just hold her, rubbing gently on her wrists.
Your heart breaks.
Her wrists are red from the tape faint lines where she pulled and struggled against, but she doesn’t seem to notice.
“I… I lied to myself,” she whispers. “I kept saying I wanted it. I kept saying it was fun. That I needed to… to keep up. To not be boring. To not regret anything when I’m older.”
Fresh tears spill at the confession.
“It’s nice when I do things together with you, but I never wanted any of it. Not really.”
She swallows.
“I was scared. Scared that if I slowed down… if I just wanted normal things… you’d get bored. Or I’d wake up one day and hate myself for wasting my youth. For not trying everything.”
You kiss and cup her face, thumbs wiping the unabating tear tracks.
“You’re not wasting anything.”
She shakes her head again.
“My mom… she never let me do anything. Said I was too young. Too unsafe. So I grew up thinking… if I didn’t grab every chance, I’d end up like her. Regretting everything.”
She sniffles in between the sobs.
“And my aunt… she did the opposite. Took every risk. Traveled everywhere. Started her business young. Now she’s a millionaire… but she’s alone. No family. No partner. She calls me sometimes and says ‘don’t waste your youth like I did by playing it safe’… but she’s miserable. She’s so fucking miserable.”
Jiwon’s shoulders shake.
“I didn’t want to end up like either of them. So I just… kept pushing. Kept saying yes. Kept thinking ‘one more thing, one more thing, then I’ll be okay’. But I’m not okay. I’m exhausted. I’m so fucking exhausted.”
She buries her face again, crying into your neck.
“I don’t want to try anymore. I just want… you. I want to wake up with you and not have to prove anything. I want to be boring with you. I want to be safe with you.”
You hold her tighter, heart aching painfully.
“I was doing it for you,” you say quietly. “All of it. The dom stuff. The roles. The pushing. I thought that’s what you needed. But I never wanted it either. I just wanted you. I love you exactly like this.”
“Look at me. You were drawn to me because I'm ‘boring and quiet’ right? So why don't you do the same for yourself and be yourself? If you can accept me for how and who I am, why don't you do the same and let people accept you for who you actually are and want to be?”
She lifts her head, searching yours.
“You mean that?”
“I mean it.”
Fresh tears spill again, but these are different.
They are tears of relief.
“I love you, Jiwon-ah. So you don't have to force yourself to do things that you don't want to.”
She nods shakily.
“I love you too.”
She lifts her head and kisses you, tasting salt and tears and cherry gloss.
You kiss her back gently, hands cradling her face.
“Make love to me,” she whispers. “No games. No restraints. Just us.”
“Okay.”
You carry her to the bed and set her down carefully, undressing her, pulling her oversized t-shirt off. You kiss every inch of her skin that's revealed. She reciprocates and undresses you as well, fingers tracing birth marks, moles, lines, memorising you like she's afraid she'll forget.
You stand in between her legs at first, sliding the latex on before laying down on top of her and sliding inside her. You push in slowly until you're embedded deep, eyes locked on hers throughout. She gasps softly, legs wrapping around you.
Her pussy is still quivering and sensitive from the overstimulation earlier, but she's smiling contentedly now.
No begging.
No commands.
Just feeling.
You move together slowly, hands clasped, foreheads touching. She moans with every movement, fingers digging into your back.
“You feel so good,” she whispers. “So right… so safe…”
You kiss her while you thrust, tongues sliding, breaths mingling.
“Can we… without anything?” she asks softly. “I trust you. I want to feel all of you. Just us.”
You hesitate, heart pounding against your ribs.
“You sure?”
She nods with certainty.
“I’m sure.”
You nod and unsheath briefly, pulling the latex off before sliding back in bare. The difference is immediate. It's hotter, closer, more intimate. She whimpers at the sensation, hips rocking up to meet you. You move slowly, feeling every flutter, every ripple. You feel every rib of her wall that you couldn't due to the thin rubber before, and now you feel like you're completing her; her completing you.
She doesn't last long, cumming first with soft, shuddering cries, walls fluttering around you in a quiet, trembling release that rolls through her like a wave.
But this time, she's not crying. She's not in pain. She's crying in pleasure.
The way she's melting under you sends you to the edge too. A few more thrusts and you follow, spilling inside her with a quiet groan as you kiss into her lips, sending pulse after pulse of warmth that fills her.
She clenches softly around you — not hard, not desperate — just holding you there, like she’s finally letting herself keep something instead of chasing the next thing.
She clings onto you tightly, tears on her cheeks.
But they’re happy tears.
You hold her after, arms wrapped around her, bodies tangled.
She falls asleep smiling, and she's peaceful, breathing soft and even for the first time in weeks. Her exhaustion is different this time round.
You stroke her hair.
This.
This is what you both needed.
Normalcy.
***
A few months later, the kitchen smells like garlic and soy sauce on a lazy Sunday evening.
Jiwon perches on the counter, legs swinging, stealing bites from the wok while you stir. She’s in your old t-shirt, hair in a loose bun with no makeup on.
You flip the vegetables; she watches quietly, chin in her hand.
Then, she asks softly:
“Am I boring?”
You don’t look away from the pan.
“Do you think this is boring?”
You gesture with the ladle in your hand at the steaming rice cooker, the open window, her bare feet dangling, the sauce smudge on your cheek that she hasn’t wiped off yet.
She follows your hand with her eyes, then looks back at you.
Her lips part to say a joke or two, but she stops.
Then she turns her head and really looks again.
At the chipped nail polish on her toes, the crooked apron she helped to tie, the ordinary Sunday unfolding around you both.
Her eyes soften.
The corner of her mouth curves.
That dimple appears.
She smiles.
She just smiles.
No words.
No need for any.
You lean in and kiss the dimple, then her lips, tasting her and the taste of home.
You lift off and turn back to the pan.
“Pass me the sesame oil, boring girl.”
She laughs and hops off the chair to hand it to you.
~24.6k words, syndicate boss's daughter Liz x vigilante reader, 'smut'
A/N: This is dedicated to my twin @kwilquib who loves Liz. Happy birthday! This is also my first x reader ... and first fic in second person ... so please be kind ...
=====REALITY #1123912172192=====
=====ENTRY #111131325233151811211251422323=====
Three bullets.
Bang. Pops the front right tire. Sends the Mercedes-Benz zigzagging down the street. Crashes into a fish stick stall.
Bang. Pops a dark red tunnel through the driver’s skull as he crawls out of the vehicle. His partner screams.
Bang. Now he doesn’t. Larynx blows into his esophagus. Only blood gets to spew out of his lips and all over his suit.
And you still have three-fourths of a round loaded into your Taurus TX22 pistol.
As the final passenger of the luxury car pushes out of their steaming ride, you shove your gun back into its holster. Instead, you unsheathe your hwando blade—the same blade your parents gifted you for your sixteenth birthday—and ready it at your side.
Your mark looks up at you through teary eyes. You don’t even register what they say.
Slick.
With one clean and deft motion, your mark’s eyes turn blood red in an instant. But no sign of remorse is etched on your face. Why? Did they show your family remorse when their Clan broke into your home? Did they show your parents remorse when they shook the living daylights out of them for their debt? Did they show you remorse when they murdered your parents right in front of you?
You still remember it. Every time you smell fresh blood in the air—you remember it.
The way your father begged and pleaded on his knees. He was never the type to bow down to anyone, but his forehead was right between their polished shoes. The sound of shattering dishes as your mother’s heart sank just as fast as the first few shots fired into her. The tightness in your chest as all the air left your lungs the moment you saw your parents turn into lifeless, unmoving bodies, bleeding out against the entryway of your family home.
It’s been eight years. Eight long, grueling years you have spent trying to avenge them—trying to get your revenge.
What was another three more bodies to your growing count?
You don’t care. They’re all just collateral. What you really want—who you really want—is Kim Jaehwi.
And you want him dead.
That was the plan. Until your recent mark started sending more grunts and goons out to hunt you—more than the usual at least.
On any other day, you’d flee the scene of the crime, head to your pathetic excuse for an apartment, clean your weapons and your clothes, and call it a day. But mere hours after you murdered everyone in that Mercedes-Benz, a manhunt for you was already in full swing.
Men in suits trudging up and down the streets. Goons with brass knuckles and similar hwando blades knocking on every house and business within ten kilometers of the incident. Police cars needing to stop at the blockades these thugs have set up themselves to initiate their own ‘investigation’.
You know the Devil Cat Clan is relentless. The moment they hear a man with a crow mask has reduced their member count even by just a bit, they chase after you. But today, you must have killed someone big. Because even the higher-ups want you gone now.
At least, that’s what you gathered when a spray of bullets disturbed your evening tea, shattering the flimsy walls of your two-hundred-thousand-won-per-month apartment. You don’t regret the loss of your favorite safehouse. You regret not salvaging the Samanco still sitting in your refrigerator.
You rush towards your other safehouses: the goshiwon in the Mapo district, the house out in the Gyeonggi-do suburbs, your college buddy’s place in Gangnam, the public safety shelter where you were brought to eight years ago back in Yongsan-gu.
But they have all been either broken into, torn apart inside-out, or heavily guarded by members of the Devil Cat Clan.
Well, shit.
You don’t even have enough time to worry about whether they’ve figured out who you are or not. Instead, you think of the last safe place you could seek refuge at.
The Requiem.
Before you even enter the underground bar, the bouncers on either side of the door give you nasty glances. You wonder if it’s because of your still in your usual tracksuit. They seem new—they aren’t used to you yet. As you push past them and head inside, you soon realize coming here is a bad idea when every criminal-in-hiding, vigilante, and underworld devil at the bar has their eyes on you like you don’t belong here.
Fuck them—you just want a goddamn drink and some room to breathe.
You slide over to the counter and signal for a drink from the bartender. He looks new too. He hesitates for a moment, but when you see your friend warn him with a glance, he immediately begins pouring you a glass of whiskey.
At least he knows better than to ask.
“Seems like someone’s had a rough few days,” Yujin teases, leaning forward on her elbows towards you. “You look like shit.”
“I have you to thank for that,” you say in between sips of your drink, feeling it burn down your throat. “Who the hell did you send me to kill? Ever since then, the Clan’s been on my ass non-stop.”
Yujin shrugs, pulling back to reach for one of the drawers, where a pile of keys were being kept. She picks one up and slides it over to the bald roughneck beside you. “Dunno. I’m just doing what you’ve told me to do: find members of the Devil Cat Clan causing trouble, ping their location, send them your way. Nothing more, nothing less.”
You scoff as you down the rest of your whiskey. “Whoever that was is causing more than just a pain in my neck. How big is this mess you got me in?” you ask, never really having the time to keep up with recent events.
As if on command, Yujin interrupts the ongoing football match on the TV and puts on the news—much to the dismay of several blokes.
You try to take it all in.
They’re covering it up. They made it out as an accident. Potential gang wars. No involvement from the Devil Cat Clan. They’re framing it as a tragedy. Collateral damage. Remnants of the ‘old school’ jopok ways—the old family style of mafia. But then the next few things catch your eye.
Whether it was further cover up, some sort of red herring, or something they actually had planned, the news comes as a surprise to you nonetheless.
Jaehwi has a daughter. And he’s marrying her off.
Something about strengthening the presence of the Devil Cat Clan. Something about metaphorically marrying their former jopok ways to more civilized and ‘clean’ endeavors. Whatever their explanations are, you don’t clock it. Partially because you could never believe that the Clan would ever want to come clean. Partially because there are four men with guns by the door threatening the bouncers to be allowed inside.
“Shit, they followed me all the way here,” you spit as you glance at Yujin for support. “Got anything for me?”
Without thinking twice, she pulls out a briefcase from underneath her and shoves it against your chest. “Bullets, clean set of clothes, burner phone. Get as far away from here as you can and sort this shit out before thinking of coming back again. Until then—don’t die.”
And as every last member of the Seoul underbelly at The Requiem pointed their guns towards the entrance of the bar, you take this as your chance to escape. Before darting out through the back entrance, you take one last look at the news showcasing Jaehwi’s revealed daughter.
Suddenly, an idea comes to you.
==
You thought it would be a good idea. You thought you could benefit off of the chaos going on in the background.
But the moment you walk through the gates of this traditional-style mansion at the very heart of the Devil Cat Clan’s scope of control, you begin to doubt your idea.
The plan was simple: act decent, present yourself naturally, and hope to get chosen as one of the potential aspirants for the hand of Jaehwi’s daughter. The rest? Well, the rest can follow. You have to worry about getting past screening first.
Which proved to be immediately difficult.
They ask for your identity and background, so you tell them the script Yujin prepared for you the moment you showed up at The Reqiuem searching for work as a new vigilante. They ask why you have weapons, and you tell them—who the hell doesn’t have weapons in this day and age? They ask you if you know what the Devil Cat Clan’s about, who the boss and his daughter are, and what your intentions for marriage would be. While you can’t tell them you’re here to get closer to Jaehwi and to end his miserable excuse for a life, you instead tell them, “I’m here because I see an opportunity to not just help the Clan with your endeavors, but to … pursue another endeavor of my own.”
They assume you meant getting with the boss’s daughter. You let it slide.
There are about ten other men of different ages and appearances at the waiting room. While they all form a colorful cast of potential husbands, what they had in common with each other (that you evidently didn’t have) was simple—affluence. Bespoke suits, watches that costed ten job’s worth of payouts, shoes that shined brighter than your future, gravitas that far exceeded what your dirty little lips could muster.
And yet, you still hold out hope.
By noon, that number reduces to seven. The first ones to go were the men pushing fifty—not much else to be said there.
By four, that number reduces further to five. The next ones to go were the men who had yet to make a name for themselves in their respective fields. This makes your legs tense and your breath hitch. You were getting closer and closer to the shaving point.
By nine, that number reduces to just two: you and this other guy in a white suit with a hairstyle that reminds you of Alex the Lion from Madagascar. He has the scars on his face to match the glint of the golden knuckles wrapped around his fists. You make the mistake of staring at him for too long, and when he catches your eye, he lets out some sort of growl as he cracks his fingers.
Well, this is just going swimmingly.
You’ve been a night owl all your life. Staying up past midnight is an easy feat. But the weight of the past few days being on the run is now slowly taking its toll on you. As the clock ticks further into the night, you find yourself losing the battle against sleep.
Until she walks in.
The first thing that rouses you from your slippery slope down into slumber is this fresh and powdery rose scent that’s elegant yet not overpowering. It thrills your nostrils. It captures your mind. The second thing that shakes you awake is the sound of her stilettos against the marble floor—gentle, light, unassuming. The final thing that makes you train your eyes on her was the way her floral dress clings to her slender frame, tracing up the length of her petite figure, and leads your gaze towards the neutral expression on her face.
She doesn’t belong here with the likes of Alex the Lion and you. She belongs somewhere between movie sets and luxury brand billboards.
She’s unreal.
And she’s looking right at you.
In fact, she’s not just looking—she’s pointing right at you. What did you do? Did you say something in your sleep? What the hell is going on? But the heat rushing to your face is overtaken by what her assistant says to you next. “Sirs, the decision by the young mistress has been made. You, in the back, please come with us.”
“Let’s get you acquainted with Lady Jiwon.”
Dinner.
They walk you along polished hallways dotted with traditional decor, through an luscious and well-maintained courtyard, and towards an imposing three-story building surrounded with Devil Cat Clan goons armed to the teeth—just for dinner.
You already regret your decision. But it’s too late to back out now.
As you enter the building, you’re brought towards the dining room that looks less like it belongs to an organized crime syndicate from the twenty-first century and more like it belonged to the owners of this house from six hundred years ago. A low dining table that looks a little larger than the usual soban frames the center of the room. Around it are several cushions atop a carpet with some sort of a mosaic design on it. Before you even contemplate hesitating, the man behind you presses up against you, reminding you of your situation with a shove. Eventually, you yield and join Jaehwi’s daughter at the table.
You have to hand it to the Devil Cat Clan—they are swift and efficient. Within moments, they begin setting the table. In mere moments, they pour you both tea, light some candles around the room, and set up different plates around Jaehwi’s daughter’s side of the table.
You say ‘they’ like there are multiple of them assembling all of this, when really, it’s just one woman in a traditional maid dress.
The assistant from earlier excuses himself and congratulates you for your first meal together. You’re not sure how to go about this, but you resolve to give it a try. Bowing next to you, the same maid from earlier gestures towards your empty side of the table. “Can I get you anything, young master? Our chefs are of the finest caliber, so I assure you—whatever cuisine your heart desires is no problem for us at all.”
You turn to the girl across you, still wearing her floral dress, staring at the food in front of her like she has seen this scene play out a thousand other times before. You return to the maid and say, “I’ll have what she’s having.”
You keep it simple. Nothing more than it should be. Dinner. Just dinner.
With that, the maid excuses herself with another bow and heads to the kitchen to relay your request.
You can hardly call it a meal—whatever she was given. It looks more like a batch of impulsively assembled side dishes that had a total calorie count equal to an average meal—less appetizing, more functional. You realize this girl wasn’t even asked what she wanted to eat. She was just served it.
Like she doesn’t have a choice.
The maid returns minutes later with a similar set of food. When you ask her about this peculiarity, she just smiles and says, “Lady Jiwon follows a strict diet as per the request of Master Jaehwi. She is quite used to it by now.”
Like hell she is, you think to yourself as you watch her barely touch anything laid out for her. You admit—it smells good. And these side dishes of hers even taste great. Better than any convenience store meal could offer at three in the morning. But she isn’t eating any of it. Instead, you file away those sentiments. You’re not here to give a damn about what Jaehwi’s daughter thinks about her ‘rich girl food’.
You’re here to find a chance to strike at her father. So, you start something you absolutely dread doing with your marks.
Small talk.
“So,” you begin, poking at the vegetables you saved for later. “Marriage. You and me. Why all of a sudden?”
No response from her.
Instead, the response comes from her maid, which you start to think is her personal maid, as she continues hovering just out of view. “Lady Jiwon has been of age for years now, young master. It was only a matter of time before her father offers her hand to suitors. Lady Jiwon is aware of this, and is prepared to take any actions necessary to preserve the dignity of the Devil Cat Clan as his eldest child.”
You roll your eyes. So much for getting more information out of this girl. But you try again.
“Ok then. What about you? I mean, you as a person. Tell me about yourself.”
Again, before the girl could even get anything past her lips, the maid in the back replies, “Lady Jiwon is a wonderful woman. She has grown so much since I’ve begun taking care of her as a child. She enjoys gardening, traditional arts, and fashion among many other things. I’m afraid I cannot disclose much about her as is forbidden by Master Jaehwi. I hope this much will suffice for you, young master.”
This maid is starting to get on your nerves. You’re never getting to Jaehwi at this rate.
Clearing your throat, you exhale briskly before putting down your chopsticks. This grabs the girl’s attention, and when she locks eyes with you for the first time since arriving here, you ask, “Are you ok with getting married like this? Like a transaction? I mean, there’s always divorce, but your first marriage has to at least mean something, right?”
On cue, the maid responds, “Lady Jiwon has—.”
“Lady Jiwon this, Lady Jiwon that—I’m not asking for what you think she wants to say. I’m asking the damn woman in front of me what she thinks herself. So stop interrupting her,” you growl, maintaining your gaze towards Jaehwi’s daughter. “Just tell me. Do you even want to get married?”
She remains speechless against your first act of defiance within her household—within the territory of the Devil Cat Clan. The girl trembles in a way that a stray cat would when approached by a stranger—or anyone else for that matter—for the very first time. She has this look like she wants to come up with something, like she wants to say something, but what’s stopping her isn’t that she wasn’t sure about it.
She wasn’t sure if she was allowed.
Once the moment has come to pass, the maid interjects once more. “Like I was saying, young master, Lady Jiwon—.”
“It’s ok … Areum-unnie …”
Her voice. It came out. And god forbid—if you weren’t sitting within the premises of the Clan that murdered your parents, you would have likely spared the thought that she sounds just like an angel would. “It’s ok … I’ll take it from here.”
She’s no longer hunched forward. She’s no longer eating—not like she was picking at her food much earlier anyway. Now, posture straight, hands on her lap, she bows her head in a polite manner before rising up to meet your defiance. “I don’t have a choice. It’s … what’s needed of me. The least I can do is try to enjoy this as much as I can. I suggest you do the same.”
“I’d be enjoying this more if you’d stop looking like you’d rather be anywhere else but here.”
Her face does a thing that’s not enough to be a smile but is certainly above neutrality. The corners of her lips twitch in a way that you ascertain is of her own volition. “Thank you for sharing a meal with me. I … I’m sorry I couldn’t offer much for our first meal together. But I hope we can look forward to more … fruitful interactions in the future.
You fight yourself from scoffing. Yeah right—like you’ll let this farce play out for any longer.
Before she is able to stand up and command her maid, you shoot up from your seat and clear your throat. “Your … your father. Is he … home?”
That was such a weird fucking question to ask her, and her expression reflects the same sense of surprise. But still, she replies, “No. Father is away again tonight. Like always.”
Like always. The words echo in your head a few times. “I see. Sorry if that was … a bit weird to ask. I just wanted to—.”
Areum interrupts you with a terribly hidden snicker. “Oh my, young master. How bold of you to be having such … thoughts already. You need not worry. Even if he was home, I imagine he wouldn’t mind his daughter’s suitor seeing her upstairs.”
“Seeing her upstairs?”
Areum nods, running a hand down her mistress’s back several times to smoothen out the creases of her dress. “You did wish to see her to her room, did you not? I don’t blame you—it would be wise to get acquainted sooner rather than later. You do remember that part of the provision for marriage, no? If Lady Jiwon deems you unfit for her hand in marriage, Master Jaehwi will have you killed.”
Well, shit. You should have read through those damn papers better.
Caught between your held breath and the next, you nod like someone who was just realizing what they had signed up for. “Yeah … I’d like to accompany her upstairs. Do you mind?”
Areum shakes her head, extending her hand in invitation. “Right this way, young master. The living room is on the second floor. Her bedroom is on the third. Lady Jiwon, I trust you will be in good hands. Consider this … a test of his prudence and fidelity.”
Prudence this, fidelity that. You just need a chance to escape. If you had known Jaehwi wasn’t going to be anywhere near his daughter, and if you had half a brain cell to even read that contract you signed earlier, you wouldn’t be here right now.
You wouldn’t have done this.
The girl glances over her shoulder without even fully turning around. She eyes you like you should already know what to do. Oh, how mistaken she is when you don’t even offer your arm out to her as you two ascended the stairs. Instead, you left her to cling to the wooden grooves of the railing.
You pause by the landing on the second floor, and she wonders what’s wrong. “Nothing, nothing. I just—can you give me a moment before I head up? This is new even for me, entering a woman’s bedroom and all. I just want to be … a bit more ready.”
While you might not be the best suitor, you are certainly a well-versed liar. She buys your deceit without a hint of doubt and continues upstairs to her room.
Now that you’re alone, your mind races. The plan is in fucking shambles.
You were here for Jaehwi—not for his daughter. But the bloody bloke isn’t even home. Defense mechanism or just poor parenting? You couldn’t care any less. You came here to strike from within the Devil Cat Clan while they were still scrambling outside to find you. You aren’t leaving without doing any significant damage to them at the very least.
When you feel the weight of your hands drift towards your legs, inching closer and closer to your holsters, you then unravel a certain line of thought.
What if you don’t kill Jaehwi?
A riveting idea, you have to admit. But, what if you didn’t kill him? Instead, what if you kill someone else?
What if you took the life of someone that mattered to him, just like how he took the only two people you have ever loved in your life from you?
So you wait an hour. Then two. And once you’re certain the girl isn’t peeking over the balcony anymore to see if you were still coming up after her, you don your crow mask once more and grip your hwando.
This is for your parents.
You ascend up the final flight of stairs, one step at a time, holding your breath.
This is for what they did to your family—this is what they did to you.
One hand on the handle of the sliding door, you carefully tug it open and reveal the dark bedroom with its owner sleeping on her bed, back towards you.
This … is for what he took from you—Jaehwi … Now, it’s your turn to take from him.
And as you hovered over the girl’s bed, blade in hand, the same weapon that you’ve used to take countless of Devil Cat Clan lives with, you slice downwards and split her neck wide open.
At least, you would have, if you didn’t hear her sob.
Pausing with the sharpened edge nearly pressing into the delicate exposed skin of her nape, you shudder and tighten your core.
She’s crying.
Once she shifts and turns towards the reason why there’s a depression next to her on the bed, you swiftly take off your mask and shove it behind you while also sheathing your blade in the same motion.
“It’s … you. You’re still here …?”
Sweating, shaking, body tensing like a strung bow, your neck produces the bare minimum motion for a nod. “Yeah, I … I guess I still am. I didn’t mean to disturb your sleep, really. I was just … I was just …”
You look across her face: at her reddened eyes, at the damp spots against her unblemished cheeks, at the hair that clung to her temples, and at her full lips that quivered with the slightest motions.
Then, you sigh. “Sorry if I woke you up. You were … crying, weren’t you?” you point out like an idiot, as if she didn’t already know that. “Is it because of what I asked you earlier?”
She doesn’t respond. She doesn’t even want to look you in the eye.
Instead of the awkward kneel and hover you’re doing above her laying figure, you instead convert to a sit on her mattress. It was only then that the girl fluffed her comforter up so you could apparently join her under the sheets.
You don’t question it. You just slip right in.
Hand on her waist above the comforter, she turns on her side once more. “I don’t want to get married. I … I never even dated anyone yet. Never really liked anyone before. But my father … he said it was time. Our Clan is losing influence. Many of our members are defecting and joining other families and gangs. He … he said there was no other way.”
You thought you hated Jaehwi enough already, but you learned you could hate him even more. “Your dad isn’t exactly the picture of parenthood, is he? Can’t you just say no? Can’t you just run away from all of this?”
She lets out a soft chuckle before shaking her head. You watch as the wavy ends of her hair dance underneath the moonlight. “All that I am … all that I have … is here. With my clan. I have nothing else. No one else. So I … I have no choice but to stay.”
She does something behind her back. She rests the back of her palm against her lower spine and splays her fingers open.
“Just for tonight … you can leave tomorrow and never come back … but for tonight, can you please—can you please just pretend to be mine and stay with me?”
You feel the weight of your blade against its sheathe. You feel the weight of each individual bullet in your pistol. You feel the weight of the pouring rain against your back on the night of your parents’ funeral.
And then, you feel the weight of her open hand against your thigh.
And then, you take it.
“You have some nerve allowing me to stay here. I could be an assassin out for your family’s money or something,” you tease, sublimating the anxiety that’s beginning to build up in the back of your head. “Why did you even choose me in the first place? I’m sure the other guys who were waiting to marry you could do more for you than just … this.”
You thought it would take her longer than that to respond, but you are mistaken.
In a heartbeat, she squeezes your hand in hers and tells you, “You seemed like the least threatening one. It felt like I could be safe with you.”
Your blade clinks in its place as if to laugh at her response, but you keep it silent with a firm squeeze as you sigh.
“Let’s hope you’re right about that.”
==
That is not the only time you attempt to assassinate Jaehwi’s daughter. In fact, that is not the only time you fail to kill her.
Like that one time you tried to maul her with a crowbar you picked up from the armory across the courtyard. You were going to beat her skull in but you had to stop when she ducked down to pet a stray kitten that wandered into the compound.
You stopped for the kitten—not for her.
Or that one time you aimed at her from the living room window on the second floor as she made her way towards some of the Clan members. You could have easily pulled the trigger several times on her, but you held back when she kept bowing politely to each one of them. You had to stop because you couldn’t miss your shot—and the lord knows Yujin didn’t pack you enough bullets.
It didn’t help that she spotted you shortly after and waved at you.
How about that other time when you approached her with a garrote in hand, ready to strangle her from behind? She was too busy watering her flowers to notice that you had arrived. You couldn’t just let her choke to death and cough up blood all over her orchids, right?
Instead, you ended up watching her tend to her personal garden as the sun set quietly behind you both.
This isn’t working out at all. Every time you got close to Jaehwi’s daughter, something would always get in the way of you ending her life. It was meant to be swift. You planned to make it as painless and as clean as possible. But time and again, life had other plans.
At least, that’s what you told yourself.
Your window to visit her always opens at four in the afternoon. By the fifth day since the beginning of your arranged marriage, you were all out of ideas on how to take her out as you show up to the front gate of the mansion once more.
“I.D.?”
You look up at the burly guard in front of you, blocking your way. “What would I need an I.D. for?”
He grunts, leaning forward to cast his shadow over you, and repeats, “I said, I’m going to need an I.D. Before I let you in.”
Just when you were about to consider beating the hell out of this gorilla, a familiar face pokes her head through the door and smiles up at you. “Young master, I see you’re on time once again. Come, please head inside.”
You don’t appreciate her comment on being timely—you just had nowhere else to be. You couldn’t take any jobs from Yujin. Couldn’t even be anywhere near The Requiem or any of your safehouses. This was all you had now, so of course you showed up on time.
You give the gorilla-looking guard one final smirk before heading indoors.
Unlike the previous times that you’ve been here, Jiwon was nowhere to be found. Normally, you expect her to be sitting by the courtyard or reading a book in the living room. But today, she wasn’t home.
An idea strikes you.
You race up to her bedroom knowing full well that she wasn’t around, and with a quickened breath, you open her door and welcome yourself inside.
You start going through all of her things.
Her cabinets, drawers, that one compartment attached to her desk, the plastic crates underneath her bed, behind each ornament on her shelf, and even between the nooks and crannies that filled with dust—you leave no stone unturned in your desperate attempt to get any information that you can use on either her or Jaehwi.
But you found nothing.
The only thing you discover is that this girl was abundantly … mundane? There is no better way to put it.
When you pictured what the daughter of Kim Jaehwi would be like, you thought of anything but this.
You imagined a spoiled chaebol who hopped from country to country each week and only visited Korea whenever daddy wanted her back home. You imagined fancy hotels, spending sprees, parties with as much designer drugs as she had designer clothes, running from the law, and getting her father to bail her out with his ‘influence’ each time.
You certainly did not expect someone this … bland and quiet.
As you withdraw from the last of her wardrobe, coughing at the dust that spewed from the hangers of her untouched clothes, you wonder what use killing this girl would be in the grander scheme of things. It almost feels like Jaehwi doesn’t care about her enough to even let her become her own person. It almost feels like she doesn’t even matter to him.
But why do you care?
“What are you doing?”
Yeah, what were you doing? The words repeat in your head. But when you realize someone else said it to you, you hide your hands behind your back and turn to see Liz wrapped up in a pair of towels. “Why were you going through my stuff?”
Well, shit. What’s the lie this time?
You could tell her you saw a bug and couldn’t kill it before it snuck into her wardrobe. You could tell her Areum asked you to prepare some clothes for her—seeing that she’s buck naked beneath those towels. You could even just tell her that the wardrobe was open when you entered, and you were just closing it.
Instead, the truth slips from your lips.
“Look, there’s a reason for this …” you confess, unsure of where this was heading. But when you look at her confused and naive expression, you conscience won’t let you lie to someone like her again. “I just … I don’t know what I was hoping to do actually. I guess I was … I guess I was just trying to get to know you more. Somehow.”
Strangely true. That wasn’t even much of a lie. “Huh. Ok …”
“Ok,” you say in return, bouncing on your heels as you avoid making eye contact with her. But she bats her lashes twice as if she’s waiting for you to continue your alibi. “I uh, how do I put this? It’s weird just marrying you and into … all of this … without really knowing you much at all.”
“You think it’s unnatural,” she wonders, her tone bordering more on curiosity than concern.
“That’s one way to see this. Definitely.”
“So you want to … align stories?” she continues.
“Align stories? Right, right—align stories,” you nod, deciding to go with it. “I’m sure the other higher-ups of the Clan will want to know how I earned your respect. Or love. The media will have questions too when they publicize all of this. We should work on our cover story.”
You are so eager to delve deeper into this farce that you fail to realize Jiwon is waiting for you to stop running your tongue and give her a moment to change. “Right—after you change, of course. Would be difficult talking to you while you’re still naked.”
Her expression doesn’t change. So you shut yourself up, head out, and give her some time.
Once she’s ready, she calls you back in.
Her room smells of citrus shampoo, conditioner, and wet skin. You walk towards her and sit on the edge of her bed while she crosses her legs atop it.
“So, what ideas do you have for a cover story? I think the first few things we need to iron out are how we met, why we started dating, and what we love about each other. Sappy, I know, but it’s realistic at least.”
Jiwon purses her lips in thought, but it doesn’t amount to anything concrete.
“Ok, let’s try to break it down further. Maybe we can start with the first question: how did we meet? Where do you usually go? You know, for fun and stuff. Where do you hang out outside of home? Maybe we can use that—I can work with it. Better something you’re familiar with so you end up making less mistakes when you explain.”
But Jiwon isn’t able to give you a response. She just looks at you as if you might have the answers she’s looking for.
“Wait, do you … mostly just stay at home?”
The way she retreats underneath her comforter is enough of a response for you. “Huh. I can’t really say I met you at home. They’ll think I’m some kind of robber breaking and entering into your house. They’ll have me killed.”
“I … I used to go to school,” she offers up in an attempt to pitch something useful. “I had to stop after middle school because my father didn’t like how there weren’t any exclusive high schools for girls. Any good ones, at least.”
“You could have gone to Sookmyung or Sehwa. Those are really close to my old high school,” you ponder, drawing figures on her bedsheet as if you were mapping it out. “One time, me and my friends got—.”
You stop yourself. Why are you remembering this?
This is a memory from your past life—a life you chose to bury and leave behind. This is a memory attached to who you once were, to who you used to be, to the you that still managed to have a normal life—with his parents. But that’s over now. And you swore not to think about it—any of it—ever again.
So why are you bringing it up again? Why are you even telling her this?
When you pause, she reaches a hand out and tries to place it over yours, but she jerks it back towards her person and gets all shy about it. Despite that, she has this look on her that’s telling you to continue, to not hold back. She must be thinking you were conscious about oversharing. She’s blissfully unaware that you’re intentionally stopping yourself.
“I … This one time, we all tried to get ourselves a date for Valentine’s. Stupid, I know, but we thought we might have a chance asking outside of our high school. So half of us went to Sookmyung, and the other half—my half—we went to Sehwa. I told them to play it cool, but god, they were such dorks. They approached the first girls that walked out of the school entrance, hitting on them right away. I was so embarrassed because of them that I barely got to ask anyone out.”
“Glad you know that was very weird,” she notes. “If I studied there, I would have called the cops on you.”
“Yeah, admittedly I’m not the best at courting or dating anyone. Never really had a girlfriend either so … this is all pretty new to me too. Which is crazy … right? One day I’m … just another person on the street, and the next day I’m … I’m marrying someone like you.”
You two share a look of understanding but immediately glance away when you connect a little too deeply with the other.
“I don’t know why I brought that up, sorry. It just came to me,” you try to continue past the topic. “So you didn’t go to high school. That’s out of the question for our cover story. Did you go anywhere for fun? In your free time?”
You think of asking her when even was her free time because every day seemed like a free day to her. She doesn’t seem to be invested in any form of academics, business, or even hobbies for that matter. She was just … here. At home.
“I … I like to sing.”
You nod, leaning into that. “Yeah, Areum told us. I remember that. What do you usually sing? Karaoke?”
“I’ve only been to a karaoke place once before, actually … I was probably twelve at the time,” she recalls, lacing her fingers together atop her lap. “My father had to meet some people, and he wanted to bring me along to introduce me. I ended up sneaking out and into the empty room next door. I had a blast singing some of my favorite anime songs.”
“You watch anime?” you ask in disbelief like Jaehwi’s daughter having some semblance of a personality was earth-shattering to you. “What did you watch?”
She chuckles like she thinks it’s ridiculous. “Oh, nothing big. Just … Madoka Magica, Shinsekai Yori, San-Gatsu no Lion. Those shows …”
She buries her face into her palms and peaks out at you to see your reaction. You in fact have none. You’re too stunned by this to even think of a response. “So the daughter of a syndicate leader likes dark magical girls, dystopian fantasies, and human drama.”
“Is it … bad?”
You shake your head and laugh at such a question in disbelief. “Not at all, it’s actually very … endearing. By any chance, did you ever watch …?”
You talk about your favorite anime shows and movies. Of course, you can’t help but circle back to the topic of your favorite openings and endings. As a result of this, you talk about other similar things too: your favorite K-dramas, your favorite Western movies, favorite bands and musical artists, favorite genres of music. You even go as far as talking about the places around Korea that she’s visited—Jeju being the standout one. About her favorite types of food—whenever she is allowed a cheat day of sorts, at least. About her favorite pastimes even, which she explains is all she ever does now in her daily idyllic life.
Throughout this entire time, you get the feeling that she’s another person—that she’s another human being. Just like you. The label of being Jaehwi’s daughter is something you easily forget—just like your initial excuse of coming up with a cover story together. It feels refreshing hearing her answer out of her own volition, recount stories and memories without being prompted, and actually responding to you like she has a mind of her own.
It’s incredible watching Jaehwi’s daughter opening herself up like this to you.
When you ask her what kind of cake is her favorite—and you hope it’s oreo cheesecake too because that’s the only cake you will ever eat—she asks if this is for your wedding. “I never really thought about the flavor yet … it has to be fancy though, right? My father—.”
You click your teeth and swat at her. “My father this, my father that—I’m asking you what you want. Actually, screw the wedding. Let’s not … let’s not even think about that right now. If your dad wasn’t in the picture, what would you be doing right now? What would you want to do, huh? What would you try?”
You can see the years of being under control dance across her face as she thinks long and hard about the answers to your questions. It takes her a few minutes to decide on a response that’s satisfactory to her—a quirk of hers, you now learn—but she ends up saying, “I want to … play video games.”
Leaning forward, you stare at her with eyes as wide and as open as your jaw. “What? You’ve never played video games before?”
She crinkles her nose in an innocent way. “Don’t say it like that … I wasn’t allowed to play any games growing up. My father thought it was a waste of time, and he would always put me on some kind of tutor for the summer: piano, traditional dance, painting—you name it. It was only my mother … who … who …”
She begins to choke on her words, and you see her visually jerk and jolt in place as she’s struggling with more than just words now. “I-I … she …”
You don’t think twice: you hold her hands and squeeze them. “Rough topic? Sorry, if I had known—.”
But she shakes her head. “No … no it’s ok … Just being … yeah, don’t worry about that. I um, I never really got to play any video games. If I could use my money, I’d maybe … maybe buy a TV.”
“You do know that’s not how you play video games, right?”
She turns her head to the side like an owl would. “But I saw my sister playing on her TV. Isn’t that where most games are now?”
She has a sister? You file that away for later.
But your hand can’t resist slapping itself across your face. A groan shortly follows. “That’s … what we call consoles. Probably a console, yeah. This nifty little gadget you plug CDs into? The CDs have the games, and the console lets you play it. On the TV. The TV itself does nothing for you.”
“So you mean to say you need a console to allow you to play a game, and you need a TV to allow you to play a console? That … sounds very complicated,” she points out. And when you hear it said out loud by someone who has never known any of this, you realize that she’s got a point. “Are they expensive?”
“Are you kidding? You’re Kim Jaehwi’s daughter. You’re flooded to the chin with cash from—.”
You stop yourself when you start to remember the debt your parents owned Jaehwi’s lowlife loansharks. You stop before the memories can come surging back from when they would arrive weekly to try and shake what little cash your family had left to make your parents pay up. You can feel the blood boiling in your veins as you remember what got you here in the first place—what brought you your misery.
But when you look at Jaehwi’s daughter and see the soft of her nose twitch out of concern for you, slowly, your frustration begins to fade. “Sorry … yeah, you’ve got money on your side. I wouldn’t be worried about that.”
“What games can you play on one? Can you … can you play Minecraft?”
Your hand flies back to your face. The daughter of Kim Jaehwi, the leader of the top syndicate in all of Korea, wants to play fucking Minecraft? She could have asked for anything else—a weeklong vacation in the Maldives, her own private jet or yacht or limousine, or even a pet peacock if she was that freaky.
But Minecraft? That’s something commoners enjoy.
Something you enjoyed.
When you stand up, you almost don’t want to leave when she crawls across her bed to follow you, but you reassure her with a smile.
After half an hour of awkward conversation with her personal maid and sifting through dusty boxes in the storage room, you return to her bedroom with an old laptop, its charger, and an extension cord.
“That’s …”
“Borrowed it for a while. It was a pain convincing Areum to let me even have it, but she said it might still have your dad’s credit card credentials on it,” you happily announce, laying it all out on the bed and plugging the laptop to the nearby outlet. “We could get you Minecraft on this.”
“You don’t have to. My father would—.”
“Probably notice?” you finish her sentence as you enter the password Areum told you. “He wouldn’t mind losing a couple thousand won. What’s that against his daughter’s happiness?”
As you connect to the internet with the laptop—something you both are surprised by—you head over to the website, purchase the game, and wait for it to install. As you’re explaining to her the general gist of the mechanics within the game, you notice in your peripheral vision that her mouth is doing that thing again. It pulls up from the corners this time, towards her ears, ever-so-slightly.
She smiles.
Shaking your head, once the all-too-familiar loading screen comes into view, you place the laptop onto her lap. “Think you’ll be fine, or do you need me to backseat you?”
She bites her lip and says, “I think I’ll be fine. So I just … press ‘singleplayer’ right?”
She was definitely not fine.
She spent the first ten minutes marveling at her new game, it’s unique block design and layout, and the cute little baby pig that approached her from the forest. But once the first ten minutes are up and nighttime falls upon her, she is immediately racing towards the nearest pile of dirt to bury herself six blocks under.
She alternates between whimpers and screams with each zombie and skeleton that chases after her poor unarmored character, struggling to even collect wood or stone without the ever-present fear of a mob jumping at her. While you’re watching this girl play what is likely her very first video game, you can’t help but feel this tightness in your chest.
It isn’t happiness. It isn’t joy. You knew what those felt like once upon a time. This is something … different. You resolve not to give it a name. Instead, you decide to see her sob into her thighs as she gets blown up by a Creeper for the seventh time in a single night, her items scattering to the winds.
You don’t even realize that you fell asleep at some point. The last thing you remember was her rocking your thigh steadily while mining for some iron in an abandoned mineshaft.
The moment you wake up, the room is dark, and the moonlight from the window is faint. It must have been hours now since you passed out. The first thoughts in your mind are the laptop and Jaehwi’s daughter, worried about what else beyond Minecraft she must have gone on with it.
Your answers, conveniently enough are right next to you—tucked into bed, back against you, the device right next to her blanketed feet, sleeping soundly like one would after a whole evening of playing Minecraft.
You pick up the laptop and unlock it, wondering what she was up to while you were out cold.
There, on the corner of the screen, was a sticky note. Written on it were the words: Made a house, too scared to mine again.
You opened the game and saw her humble little shack cobbled together with different bits of stone, wood, and spare wool. The occasional leaf blocks throughout the design tell you how desperate she was to build somewhere to live.
Cracking your knuckles, you manage a smile as you equip yourself with her nearly-broken wooden sword. “Leave the rest to me then.”
You spend the entire night lighting up a large area around her house with torches, making a little mineshaft downwards from the side of her house, and clearing the nearby zones off of any hostile mobs. You put it the dirty work—the kind of work you enjoy more back when you used to play this game with friends—so that she doesn’t have to. You’re amazed you still remember the recipe for a shield, how to pick off mobs with a bow, or even how to abuse hunger mechanics.
By the time you leash a dog to one of her fences, your eyes begin to falter, and before you know it, the early morning rays of sun threaten to blind you from the window. But the call of sleep is too strong. You hope you’ve done enough for her today. Now, it was finally time to rest in the real world.
Little did you know that the girl beside you got to wake up with a wide grin on her face as she took her new pet along with her to explore the world once more.
==
Your days with Jaehwi’s daughter look a lot like that day.
You spend your mornings doing god-knows-what trying to get your life back together again despite what’s going on around you. After a few days blow over, the heat on your back drops and you manage to return to The Requiem to take more jobs from Yujin. You clean these jobs up like usual, but you take extra pre-caution to get to your mark before four in the afternoon.
Because that was when your time with her began.
Of course, you’re keeping up an act. It wouldn’t make sense to stop following through after just a few days. It would make the Clan suspicious. It would place heat on you again.
Of course, you tell yourself that, but in actuality, spending time with his daughter was oddly enough a pleasant treat.
Whenever you come over, she’s already in the living room, hunched over her laptop, eyes wide open as the lights from her game flash all across her face. It’s almost endearing how adorable she looks when she’s taken over by the childhood wonder she’s been withheld from for years.
It’s almost endearing—until you remember you still have to kill her.
And you still try. You still try to end her life. But you know how things go—life still gets in the way.
You try attaching your ol’ reliable silencer to your pistol and convince her to enter the Nether, so you could shoot her in the back while she’s distracted by armies of Piglins. But the moment the lack of gold on her character becomes a problem, she’s throwing herself at you as if a physical escape in the real world would equate to a similar escape in the game.
You end up just hugging her trembling form and reminding her it’s just a game. The Piglins can’t hurt her in real life.
You try stabbing her in her sleep again—just like you originally planned. But Jaehwi’s daughter is one hell of a light sleeper. The moment you open the door to her room, she’s already turning towards you like she’s been expecting you. She pats the side of her bed and invites you to sit next to her, telling you all about what she did in Minecraft that day, how annoying Phantoms are, and how she might make a boat out of cherry wood and sail across the large ocean to the east.
You end up smiling through her stories of being raided by Pillagers.
You even try poisoning her food. You offered to serve her some breakfast in bed to surprise her, and Areum is immediately taken by your ‘sweetness’, naive to the notion of you sprinkling her meal with an agent so strong it would only take one bite to kill any mark. Except she doesn’t even want to take a bite of her food. She was too eager to jump back into the game again the moment she wakes up, insisting you eat the food yourself so it wouldn’t go to waste.
You end up dumping her laced breakfast into the trash, but not before kicking the can in frustration.
You regret buying her that damned game. Who would have thought it would make things more difficult than it already was.
This was unreal.
“Yeong Kyungsam—thirty-three, married with no children, head of logistics at one of Jaehwi’s construction companies, one of their fronts for money laundering.”
Bang.
“Myo Seungri—fifty-five, unmarried, retired grunt who worked for Jaehwi’s father and helped kill students during the Gwangju Uprising back in the eighties.”
Bang bang.
“Jeong Sooyun—twenty-seven, unmarried, works as a loanshark—.”
Bang bang bang.
As the blood stopped spreading across Sooyun’s carpet, you kick her lifeless face to make sure that she’s dead dead. You kick her face again just for the hell of it. Once you confirm she’s gone, you stuff your pistol in your holster and check the time on your phone.
Three-thirty-five.
Leaning against the window, you part the curtains and stare outside, weighing your options. It would take approximately half an hour to get to the mansion, but it would only take fifteen minutes to go to the nearest Subway to get a sandwich.
You go with the sandwich.
You line up, get your order taken, get your order messed up, watch as the staff apologizes and redoes your order with her manager behind her, and then finally, you get the sandwich you’ve been craving for, and take a seat somewhere near the back.
But it tastes like shit.
This is your favorite order for a sandwich and it tastes like absolute ass. You’re not sure if it’s because you can’t stomach eating this alone or because you can taste the guilt of your actions with each bite. Whatever it is, it makes you check the time on your phone again.
Four-eleven.
You let out a sigh. Next to you, a high school student is eyeing you with a scared look on his face. You’re not sure if he’s scared because of your weapons or because you’ve been staring blankly at your half-eaten sandwich for minutes now. Either way, you offer him your half, and when he strangely enough accepts, you get up and begin jogging towards the Devil Cat Clan’s mansion.
“You’re late. But I still need your I.D.”
You grunt as you pretend to look for your non-existent I.D. through your different pockets. No way in hell are you giving this gorilla your actual I.D. “Can’t you let me in? I’ve been coming here for days now. Surely you recognize me.”
The guard doesn’t flinch. “You’re late, Tracksuit. She’s not happy with it.”
Those words stab into your chest. “I know, so could you just let me in?”
Before the gorilla can beat you to death, Areum pops her head out and assesses the ruckus before saying, “You’re here, young master. I thought you wouldn’t be coming today. You’re quite late.”
You exhale firmly through your nose. “I’m very aware of that. Could you help me get in?”
Sure enough, Areum waves down the guard and helps you enter the premises of the estate. She’s aware you know your way around by now, so she leaves you to confront the inevitable as she heads off to attend to some chores.
When you make it up to the third floor and open the bedroom door, a pillow smacks you right in the face before falling between your feet.
“You’re late,” she accuses you without looking up from the laptop. She’s just circling around the apps with the trackpad, pretending to be busy. “I thought you weren’t going to come.”
You shrug, picking up the pillow and placing it next to her. “I don’t have to come everyday, do I?”
That’s what makes her look away from her laptop. She clutches the pillow you picked up and hugs it tight against her chest. “I guess not …”
You glance away as you feel heat overtake your face for a brief moment. “Whatever. Is this what you’ve been up to again? You’re way too addicted to this. Maybe I should delete—.”
The pillow smacks your face again, and immediately, she recovers it with a pout. “Don’t you dare.”
“Oh I would, young lady. You’re cooping up here’s gotten worse since I bought you that game,” you point out, sitting on the bed now. “Honestly, I’m surprised you even managed to play all this time with just a trackpad. Doesn’t it hurt your fingers?”
She shakes her head. “I can manage. Want to see what I built while you were gone?”
You inch closer to her and she shows you what’s new. You give her a day, and she managed to build a simple doghouse for her pet. You give her three days, and she managed to dig streets into the ground, make her own pathways with a shovel, and connect the roads in a cute little pattern. You give her a week, and she’s managed to copy the layout of this mansion as similarly as she could with the limited blocks and materials she has access to.
“Not bad, not bad,” you’re saying over her shoulder as you watch her do donuts on her boat. “I bet by the time we get married you would have already built all of Seoul in your world.”
Her mouth does it again—she smiles. But this time, she’s chuckling along with it.
But that moment is short-lived when your noses touch and you both realize how close you are to each other.
Instead of pulling herself away, she lets you stay where you are, hovering above your shoulder. Instead of withdrawing yourself, you allow yourself to stay close to her, staying by her side.
The two of you don’t say anything for a good few minutes.
What breaks the ice is one of your fingers moving towards hers, which was by the trackpad. You wiggle it around, and the field of view in the game wiggles around as well. “Maybe we should get you a mouse.”
“A mouse?”
“Yeah, for your laptop. I think we can get you a nice Logitech one that’s bluetooth too. It will help you with your building—trust me,” you explain. “And you’ve been playing on mute still? No wonder you keep getting jumped by mobs. I turned on subtitles for you already, but it helps to hear where they’re coming from too.”
“Ah, I get conscious playing with volume, especially when everyone’s already asleep.”
You chuckle. “You know, you’re technically their boss. I’m sure they wouldn’t give a damn if they heard their boss screaming after being chased by Skeletons again.”
She punches your shoulder—not a soft one, but one that packs some strength behind it. “Ya! I know how to use a shield now, you know?”
She raised her voice. That was the first time she’s ever done that. Endearingly.
When you don’t speak, she hides her face against the pillow and looks up only to paddle back to her little dock area. “I guess some earphones would help.”
Leaning back on your hands, you ask her, “What else do you want to buy? I don’t just mean for your laptop or to feed your Minecraft addiction—I mean other things. In general, you know?”
“In general …?”
You nod, glancing around the bare room within her four walls. “Things you’ve always wanted but never got to have. Things you couldn’t buy for yourself. Things you wish Jae—your dad could have gifted you but didn’t. Because he’s an asshole.”
She punches you again, this time with less power as she seems a bit more conscious. “Not clothes then. He only ever buys me clothes. Sometimes they aren’t even the right size.”
You think about the wardrobe filled with dust. You think about the first dinner you shared together and how meek she was. And you think about how, right now, you’ve heard her speak ill of her father for the first time. “You’re sure daddy won’t be mad if he heard that?”
And then, for the first time as well, you see her smirk at you. “Daddy won’t mind if I spend money again. He hasn’t given me a gift for my birthday last year anyway. This is just … making up for it.”
“I believe the word you’re looking for is ‘revenge’,” you quip, yet the word never felt sourer in your mouth. “How about we go to the mall then?”
Immediately, her expression twists and tightens. “The mall …? You mean like … outside?”
You nod, weirded out by her question. “Where else would the mall be? I know a gaming store I used to … I used to go to when I was younger. If they’re still open, maybe we could buy your gaming gear there with a discount too. Then, we can go around and see if there’s anything else you want to buy. We could even get something to eat afterwards.”
It seems she doesn’t like what you’re telling her. The moment you run your mouth about the different things you could do together at the mall, she falls silent and returns to that wilted state you first saw her in.
Dropping the topic, you reach out to her. But you stop yourself before your hand could touch her skin.
Why were you doing this? Why were you offering to go to the mall with her?
She could ask someone like Areum to go with her and buy whatever it is you listed out. She could just order them online and have them delivered the next day without any problems. Why did she have to go to the mall? And why did she have to go with you?
You’re supposed to fucking kill her—not babysit her.
Not take her out on some date.
When she comes to once again, she pushes the laptop away along with the pillow she was previously hugging. She curls up into a ball and lays down with her back towards you.
Well, shit. What did you say this time?
Rubbing your temple, you lay down next to her, share a moment of silence first, and then speak to the ceiling. “Another sore spot? Sorry about that. I still need to get used to your … triggers.”
But she shook her head. “No, it’s just … I … I don’t want to disappoint you.”
“Disappoint me?” you say, and you fight the urge to look at her, knowing she would get too conscious—too ‘seen’. “Believe me, I’ve been called a disappointment more times than you can count. You’re the last thing I’ll think of when I think ‘disappointment’.”
Something in her springs to life. Something in her makes her sit up, and then get off the bed.
You follow her. You trail behind her like you’re her shadow. She glides out of her bedroom, down the stairs, into the courtyard, through the lavishly decorated hallways, past the Clan goons who all greet her politely, and when you’re both finally at the main entrance of the estate, she takes a deep breath and sighs.
She takes one step through the door and instantly, she’s shaking. Sweating. Like she’s sick. Like she’ll combust if she steps out into the light.
It’s only then that you recognize what was happening—a panic attack.
You lift her beneath her shoulders and bring her back inside, and without any hesitation, she’s clinging to you for dear life.
You hear her sobbing into your chest.
“I-I can’t … I can’t go out …” she whimpers, shaking her head, trying to dry her eyes against your jacket. “I-I-It feels like I need to … need to vomit. Head spinning, chest … chest hurting. I can’t … I’m sorry.”
Whatever happened to her—whoever did this to her—had a lot of explaining to do. But not her. She didn’t have to say another word. “You idiot … you didn’t have to do all this just to show me. Don’t worry about it. We’ll … we’ll find another way.”
“But that’s the thing—I don’t want to stay like this forever.”
As she trails off, back indoors, back down the first few hallways, and as you follow shortly behind her, she humors you some. “I didn’t always used to be like this. Just … just happened recently. I just … I just wish I wasn’t this helpless.”
“I just wish I wasn’t this weak.”
You know that feeling. You’re terribly familiar with it.
Feeling helpless. Feeling hopeless. Feeling weak. The world doesn’t stop for anyone or anything. It doesn’t stop for unpaid debt. It doesn’t stop for murdered parents. And it certainly doesn’t stop either for the traumatized children of syndicate leaders.
So you do the sensible thing and place your hand on the small of her back, rubbing it in arcs, before you whisper to the wind. “One step at a time, ok? Take it easy. I’ll … I’ll help you.”
You tell yourself this is part of the plan. You want to help get her out of the house so you can kidnap her, take her somewhere more isolated, and shoot her there.
Instead, you’re doing anything but that.
Because you have to deal with with two things.
First, the goons. They’re everywhere.
When you start visiting Jaehwi’s daughter earlier than four in the afternoon, you see for the first time what happens in the first half of her days.
The different thugs and lowlifes under the employ of her father visit her for some reason. They greet her, make small talk with her, ask her for ‘her blessing’ before they go around and do god-knows-what. Nothing untoward. Nothing slimy. They treat her more like an idol to be worshipped than a dainty daughter they needs to be taken care of. They tell her about their exploits, about their ventures, hoping she would support them with a few kind words. But she isn’t much for words. She just nods and thanks them for stopping by.
You worry some of them would recognize you—because oh boy, do you recognize a good amount of them. Like Eyepatch, who came to her bragging about the new businesses he contracted into the Clan’s protection scheme—you’re pretty sure you’re the reason he’s only got one eye now. Or Mohawk, who showed her the brand new watch he bought with the money he made through Clan work—you could have sworn that was a fake; you broke the real one two months ago when you broke his wrist too.
Instead of worrying, you try not to think too deeply into it and let them pass.
Second, her trauma. Or whatever this is that she’s experiencing.
You think it might be some adverse reaction to disobeying her dad’s command to stay at home. But when you hear Areum actively supporting and encouraging you to help her, you begin to wonder if it’s something else.
You start by getting her used to standing by the open door. That seems easy enough to do. But even then, she’s already clinging to the hem of your track pants every time like she’d seen a ghost.
Once she’s pinching your clothes a little less, you accompany her in taking her first few steps outside. Just on the sidewalk. She’s trembling like she’s about to collapse, but you stay by her side the entire time, reassuring her, letting her know you were right there. If she could clear Woodland Mansions by herself, surely standing on the sidewalk was no challenge for her.
Then she’s able to cross the street. Then she’s able to head down to the other end of the road. Then she’s able to head towards the bus station, and down into the subway.
One step at a time, you managed to help her conquer her fear. And she insists she is only able to do so because you held her hand the entire time. You don’t even notice you were doing that, but hey—if it helps, then it helps.
Nothing more to it than that.
Come the day you both agreed on to go to the mall together, you arrive at the estate on time this time around. But the gorilla at the gate stops you once again.
“Really? How many times are we going to do this?” you ask, stuffing your hands into your pockets. “Just let me in. I have a d—I have somewhere to be with her.”
He raises a brow at your change in tone. “Like always—I.D.. No I.D.? No entry.”
“You’re impossible.”
Half hoping Areum would show up again, you give it a few minutes. Sure enough, a head pokes out of the door to greet you.
But it isn’t Areum’s.
“H-Hi …” she meekly greets, taking one shy step after the other as she meets you outside the gate. “Sorry, I was … already waiting for you here. Do I look ok? For the mall?”
Your eyes don’t even hesitate to look her up and down. She’s wearing a lovely little frilly dress with ruffles that flowed downwards to her knees and a trench coat over it to keep her warm. You look away to avoid the eagerness in her eyes as you nod. “It looks fine. Yeah. Good enough.”
She pouts and rubs her nape. “Maybe I overdressed—.”
“No. You um, you look great. You really do,” you push out of your lips, feeling the heat rising from your chest. It didn’t help that the gorilla was eyeing you very carefully. “Although I think you should put a disguise on. Or something.”
“A disguise?” she asks, covering her lower face with one hand. “Who am I hiding from? My father?”
“No, it’s just … do you even follow the news? Your face was everywhere just two weeks ago. Even if you aren’t the talk of the town anymore, someone’s bound to recognize you,” you lie to her. You know damn well why you’re telling her to put on a ‘disguise’.
You don’t want anyone else to fawn over how beautiful she looks right now.
Pursing her lips, she looks like she wants to refute you, but caves to your request anyway. She asks Areum to give her a face mask and a cap to wear. “How about now? Is this better?”
It’s not. It’s worse. Way worse. For you, at least.
Because now that half her face was covered, all you can focus on are her eyes, on how soft and elegant they are—like a cat’s. A cat who knows how to crush your ribs and squeeze the air from your lungs with just one look. With every look. Now, they’re all you can see when you look at her, and it’s getting harder to think of anything but her damn eyes.
“Um, so …?”
It was the gorilla who answered on your behalf with a chuckle. “You look beautiful, young lady. Don’t let this dumbass tell you otherwise.”
You roll your eyes and take her hand. “Let’s go.”
To be clear, this is not a date. You’re just taking the syndicate leader’s daughter to the mall to buy gaming gear. That’s it. That’s all it has to be.
To whom you needed to clarify that with, you aren’t so sure. But it’s good to keep in mind as the day goes on.
She’s never taken the train, so you teach her everything she needs to know. You get her a card and tell her to keep it for future use. You show her how to use it, how to squeeze into a packed train, how to know when it’s your stop.
But you get the idea she’s not really paying attention because her eyes are glued on you the entire time.
You do your best to keep her from bumping into the other passengers, positioning her next to the doors, but as the train continues to fill, you’re left with no choice but to encroach on her personal space.
One arm above her head, your face hovering above hers, you wince every time some idiot bumps into your back, making you press up closer to her. But she doesn’t look away.
All she looks at is you.
When you reach your stop, you show her the directions to get to the mall from here. You hope she was at least paying attention this time, so she could get here by herself in the future. But her eyes would not meet anyone’s. She keeps her head down, hand tightly squeezing yours, as the two of you walked down the bustling city streets to get to the mall.
Once you’re there, she lightens up a little bit.
Her doe eyes widen in amusement as she’s exposed to the different sights within a mall: the different stores, the scattered stalls, the occasional advertiser, the free samples, the nonstop escalators, the oddly placed water fountain, the annoying kids—all of it. She takes it all in with a sense of wanderlust.
And you can’t help but smile.
You take her to the gaming store you used to frequent years ago. You hardly recognize the staff, so a discount was out of the question, but you do find what you promised to buy her. You’re set to pay for the black Logitech mouse and matching black earphones with your own money—the money you scrounged up after yesterday’s marks. But she’s holding this pink Hello Kitty designed mouse close to her chest, and then she’s looking at you with those eyes, and before you knew it, you’re returning what you had picked out and instead slid her pink mouse and pink earphones towards the cashier. You are not safe from a mechanical keyboard either, and when you try to reason with her saying her laptop already has a keyboard, her eyes droop just the slightest bit and it was all over for you once again.
You curse underneath your breath, but she’s next to you, holding your arm as she watches her new gear get bagged. And for some reason, seeing all that was more than enough to make it up to you.
She wasn’t sure what else she wanted to buy because she wasn’t sure what else existed in the mall. So you take her around.
She has no reason to be shoulder-to-shoulder next to you. She has no reason to lean into you whenever she was avoiding passers-by. She has no reason to still be holding your hand either since you had no intent of leaving her behind. But you let her. You let it happen. You both continue to play the role of the soon-to-be-married couple.
Because damn it, it was starting to feel … nice.
If being a couple meant you could get away with hearing her whimper and throw a tantrum whenever she loses against you at the arcade, if it meant getting an excuse to wipe the crepe filling from the corner of her lips, if it meant allowing you to press your cheek against hers at the photobooth, or sitting her on your lap when all the benches are full, or even fixing her hair when it gets messy underneath her cap, then damn it—who the hell wouldn’t cash in on this experience?
The least you can do with your predicament is enjoy it.
Once her stomach is filled, and her legs are tired, and you’re carrying more paper bags than either of you would have expected, she gives you a certain smile with her eyes that signals that she’s satisfied now, and that she’s ready to go home.
“Thank goodness we’re done. I don’t know how much I can still carry,” you tease, lifting up one hand, showing how each finger was connected to a separate bag. “You went wild with my money, didn’t you? Shopping always feels better when you’re not the one paying for it.”
She chuckles and leans into you, nuzzling her head. “You’re always going to be paying for me when I go shopping.”
“There’s going to be a next time?” you genuinely ask. A part of you dreads it, but a greater part of you is somehow looking forward to it.
“Of course. When we get married, we’re doing this every week.”
“Every week?” you repeat, letting out an exaggerated sigh. “I’m filing for a divorce before our first anniversary then.”
She leans in to punch you, but her attention is caught by something else.
It’s about half an hour to closing time, and as you both circle around the atrium to get to your exit, you notice some sort of event ongoing.
The circular central area has been converted into a makeshift dance floor. Scattered around it, couples are locked in a slow dance, swaying to the beat of the songs that the mall speakers were playing.
You want to say something funny about their masquerade theme, but her eyes are heavily trained on the dancing couples that glided across the improvised dance floor. She watches as they pull apart, come together, twirl around, and bow before one another—all while remaining connected the entire time.
When she returns to you, her eyes fall between her feet. So you stop in your tracks.
“Let me guess—you want to dance?”
“I … I was just …”
You smile and lift her chin up. “You want to dance, don’t you? Go, I’ll hold our things.”
But she pouts and shakes her head. “I can’t dance alone. Dancing like that is for two people.”
You’re confident you can list the different ways someone could dance alone, many of which would probably end up with you sounding stupid. But as she holds your hands and tugs you towards the music and dancing, you take a deep breath and reluctantly nod.
“Ok, I guess we can dance for a song or two.”
You grew up with two left feet. Dancing was the last item on your bucket list of things to learn when growing up. You imagine she’s got no experience with it either.
But damn, does she make it feel easy.
She puts on her face mask again to try and keep to the theme. You know it’s probably a bad idea, but you pull out the crow mask you always keep tucked away behind you and put it on. She stares at you and can’t help but laugh. “You look stupid. Where were you hiding that?”
“I … let’s just say I always want to be ready to join a masquerade ball.”
Her hands move when yours can’t. They slide up your elbows, towards your shoulders, and find purchase around your nape. Clinging to you, she smiles with her eyes and pulls you closer. Meanwhile, your hands are awkwardly resting by her hips, bags swaying with every motion, fingers afraid to dig too deep into her skin.
And you dance. The two of you, in your own little spot on the dance floor, swaying each other to the rhythm of the songs. It isn’t complicated. It isn’t intense. You both just allow yourselves to feel the rhythm against your combined bodies, and hold each other as you dance.
“I had fun today,” she mutters through her mask, looking into your eyes. You can almost see the crow mask looking back at you through the reflection on her irises. “I … I always seem to have fun when I’m with you.”
“And here I thought I was the only one enjoying this arranged marriage situation of ours,” you fire back, and it earns a soft giggle from her.
“You know, it made me … it made me think,” she continues with a whisper, pulling you even closer, so that now, the tip of your crow mask was dancing around her own protected nose. “If we met under different … circumstances, would we … would we still be like this?”
Your fingers twitch against her waist. “What do you mean? Would we still be getting married?”
“Would we have really fallen in love?”
You never considered this—whatever you two were doing, whatever you two had—as love.
In fact, you have never thought about love for the past eight years. You thought every last notion of such a feeling left you the moment your parents died. Since then, nothing’s really been the same anyway. And between chasing after goons with bullets or avoiding being hunted yourself, there was never really a pause—a space—where you can breathe and think about anything other than surviving, other than revenge.
But right now, confronted by such a question, you allow yourself the space to think about it.
“I … don’t know. If I didn’t sign up to be your husband, I don’t think I would have ever done … any of this—any of what we did—with someone else. I don’t think I’d make a good partner, really. If … if only you knew …”
She reaches towards your face with one hand and plucks your mask off you, holding it by the tip of its nose. “Then show me the real you. Not the you that’s trying to just … make me happy with our situation. I want to see who you really are, and … I want to see if I can fall in love with that. Please?”
You bite your tongue and try to control your breathing. Your physique isn’t this terrible—you’re not supposed be left sweating and out of breath by just a few circles around a dance floor. But somehow, you are. You’re utterly weakened by her words, and you’re absolutely ensnared by her eyes.
Just like how she pried your mask off of you, you dig your fingers between the strings of her face mask and pull it off her too. “Then I want to see the real you too. The you you want to become outside of your dad’s shadow. The you that’s beyond the Devil Cat Clan. The you that’s been there all along, waiting to come out.”
And just like that, she blushes like a flower learning to blossom for the first time, reddening like a tomato in a heartbeat.
There are two pistols hidden inside the length of your pants, each with about sixteen bullets loaded in. You have your hwando strappedagainst your chest, underneath your jacket, waiting to be unsheathed. And you have two separate garrotes hidden inside the heels of your shoes.
But despite all that, you don’t even think about killing her—or her father—for even a second. No. All you can think about is how you can keep sharing moments like this with her.
Because god damnit—it feels great.
It feels unreal.
==
Yeah, it’s safe to say the plan has fucking changed right about now.
You’re on the third week towards your upcoming marriage with Jiwon and you have made zero progress on your little revenge plan. If you aren’t going to do anything soon, you might find yourself married instead to the very organization you swore to burn to the ground.
But somehow, that idea doesn’t bother you anymore.
Your days with Jiwon begin to change. Since your vow to each other that night at the mall, your lives start to bleed into one another.
Jiwon asks you about the your track suit get up, your crow mask, and the weapons you always bring around with you. You just tell her it’s for safety purposes, but she’s not buying it. She begs you to stop bringing them around with you. And if she hadn’t asked you of it, you never would have. So you stopped packing them—for her sake. But the track suit agenda persisted.
Jiwon introduces you to her garden. This is the first time she formally does so. She tells you each of their names, recalls which years she started taking care of them, how much to water each of them, and what songs she likes singing to them on the daily. You tell her you want to hear one of her songs, and at first, she’s rather meek about. But when she realizes you spent five hours of your day just hearing her yap adorably about her beloved plants, she believes a song wouldn’t hurt—and oh boy, does she have such an angelic voice. You’re almost envious of the plants for hearing her sing every day.
Jiwon requests you to tell her about your life outside of her, about what you do for a living, about what you do for fun. You can’t exactly tell her you kill people for money. Instead, you tell her about the distant past. About how you used to study finance in college. About the sleepovers and all-nighters you used to pull with friends. About the times you would just jog early in the morning to help clear your head. And even about the times you crushed on certain girls around campus. And she listened. Jiwon listened to every last story of yours like they’re tales about another world. For you, they very well might have been given how long ago they were now, but you found some comfort in sharing your past with her.
You eat dinners together now. You spend hours at night laying next to her in bed talking about the silliest things. You greet her ‘good morning’ and ‘good night’ each day. You get her little gifts and trinkets whenever you can. You even count the time left until you have to go, and the time remaining until you can see her again.
Is this what it means to be really dating? You’re not quite sure. But the things that are bouncing around in your head, making your chest feel all sorts of different things—they feel very real to you.
“Im Kyung-Mi—forty-six, married, one of Jaehwi’s hoobae’s from his short time in university, now handles several laundering fronts for the Clan.”
“Bo Hana—twenty-nine, unmarried, operates phishing scams in six different online chatrooms, blackmails and extorts victims daily.”
“Mun Youngjae—thirty-one, married, moved from insurance fraud to loansharking, opened up a new lending business in preparation for his firstborn due in four months.”
But you let them all slide. You let those marks go for today like you have been doing for the past few days—much to Yujin’s surprise and dismay.
Why? Simply because you didn’t want to be late for your time with Jiwon.
Promising Jiwon not to bring guns around anymore changed the way you saw daily life again. For once, you don’t have to be always on your guard. For once, you don’t have to be in hiding. For once, you’re not living day to day between one chase to another. You can actually look forward to things. You can actually plan things farther than just a day at a time.
You can actually live.
So as you hand the paper bills towards the florist who helped assemble a lovely and fragrant bouquet for you, purchasing flowers for the very first time, you believe this was a better way to spend your money—better than a new pistol or a shiny new blade.
You hold the bouquet close to your chest with a smile. You feel stupid. You guess you look stupid. But right now, it hardly matters.
Because you are about to go on your very first date with Jiwon.
The two of you felt that it was only right that you both should properly have a date before getting married. So, you ended up scheduling a date today. As you walked towards the entrance of the estate with the flowers in hand, you briefly think about your impending deadline. Your impending need to resolve the shit you have in the background. But once the thought passes, you file it away and try not to think about it for now.
Everything’s going well. Why ruin that?
Before you can even greet the gorilla, and before he can even ask for your I.D. again, Jiwon’s head pokes out of the door and she greets you with the widest smile. “You’re here! You’re early.”
“And you’re already dressed,” you note, immediately noticing the black mini-dress she has on. It showcases her bare shoulders, her slender legs, and her collarbone draped with a small silver necklace. “You look amazing.”
The gorilla scoffed and turned away. “Kids these days. Just go on your bloody date already.”
Jiwon blushes and peeks inside. “Could you wait for a moment? I have company right now, but I’ll be ready to go in a few.”
“Not at all. Take your time,” you say as you follow her indoors.
She rushes away from you, and you wonder why she’s in a hurry. It’s only when you arrive at the courtyard and you see another beautiful young lady exiting Jiwon’s home that you realize what she meant.
This girl didn’t resemble Jiwon at all: jet-black hair, oval face, sharper eyes, flirty smirk, cropped top, concerningly short skirt.
Yeah, she was nothing like Jiwon.
This new girl approaches you with a grin that says she already knows what is going on. She eyes the flowers, then you, then chuckles behind a raised hand. “So you’re the man unnie’s getting married to.”
Unnie? Is this her sister?
“Yeah. Well, I guess this is me,” you raise, extending both hands to the sides. “It’s not much, but I guess it works.”
“It really does. For her,” she teases, smirking wider. “You’re all she ever talks about these days, you know? I had to come here and see for myself what you were all about. I think I can see where she’s coming from.”
You park that thought as you get all flustered holding your flowers for Jiwon. “I …”
The girl chuckles one final time before winking at you. “Take care of her, oppa. Don’t break her heart. She’s the only sister I have, so … make her happy.”
“You don’t have to tell me twice,” you proudly announce, lifting your chin. Finally, you regain some of your confidence back.
As the girl disappears into the hallways behind you, you trudge up to Jiwon to ask what that was about.
You catch her in the middle of touching up her lipstick. She wears lipstick now, apparently. When she sees you, she immediately closes her hand mirror and hides both behind her back. “I-I … I told you to wait for me.”
You crinkle your nose, and doing so almost makes you want to die. “You look pretty enough as you are. Who was that, by the way?”
“That’s Hyunseo. She’s my half-sister. She’s … the closest sibling I have among many others,” she explains, putting her makeup all into one bag before walking towards you. “And those?”
You extend your hand forward. “These are for you. It’s normal to give girls flowers on dates, right? I uh, I wasn’t sure if this was overboard.”
She leans into you to smell the flowers, letting out a blissful exhale. “Their lovely. Thank you. I’ll have Areum-unnie place them in a nice vase for me.”
Finally, you pop the question. “So um, are you … are you ready? For our first date?”
Jiwon bites her plump and freshly reddened lips and nods. “Yeah … yeah I’m ready.”
So you extend an arm out towards her, and she takes it, and you’re both giggling like teenagers over how silly you two are at your age over a simple stupid date.
The date was anything but—simple, maybe; stupid, not at all.
Going to the mall again felt derivative, and Jiwon isn’t sure if she can handle going to a crowded place again this soon. So you had the brilliant idea to take here somewhere you have always wanted to take a date to.
A cafe.
It had an interesting name. An alliteration of sorts. But what caught your eye was the ambience.
As the bell chimed when you open the door, you’re greeted by the barista at the cashier. You hold Jiwon’s hand as you both approached him and start to order.
“New couple?” he asks, trying to make small talk as he keys in things on the monitor.
Neither you nor Jiwon can respond right away, refusing to look at each other or the barista. The man chuckles and shakes his head. “Sorry if I got that wrong. I just see a lot of couples come by around this time of the day. Although … someone as cute as you, miss, would surely have no trouble finding a date around town—.”
Your hands moves before you can even think. You wrap an arm around Jiwon’s slender waist and pull her closer to you. “She’s mine. She’s my girlfriend. We’re getting married next week.”
You don’t know if the blush is from your cheeks or hers, but Jiwon leans into you and rests the back of her head against your collarbone. “Yeah … he’s my boyfriend. We’re on a date … n-not our first though! We’ve dated many times before um, before now. For sure …”
The barista swaps between looking touched to looking confused. “Ok miss … I was just teasing.”
A female barista elbows him as if to tell him off. “Don’t tease the customers like that! Sorry about him, he can get a little carried away sometimes. Drinks are on me.”
“For real?” you ask, and before the male barista can protest, the female one takes control of the situation with a nod. “Yes sir, please enjoy your stay!”
With that, you take your free drinks and sit yourselves towards the back. Jiwon looks like she wants to sit next to you instead of across from you, so you indulge her and drag your heavy chair towards her side of the table.
“Ahh~ Free drinks taste better than paid ones,” she hums between sips, knees bumping together.
“You never had to pay for any of your drinks before, what are you talking about?” you retort, taking a long sip of your iced americano.
You banter a bit before talking about other things. About her Minecraft world. About her sister. About your refusal to wear anything but tracksuits. And about makeup brands.
And it’s perfect. This is perfect. She’s perfect.
You once dreamed of something like this. You don’t remember the exact details, but the feelings are warmer. The sensation is cozier. And the girl across you is more beautiful than you ever imagined—even when she has coffee shooting out of her nostrils after you make her laugh.
She’s unreal.
And then the topic goes to marriage. Your marriage. Next weekend.
The atmosphere surrounding you both tightens to a standstill. No one wants to make the first move towards that discussion. But somehow, one of you needs to speak up.
“So it’s next week,” you raise, taking one for the team as you set your cup back onto the ring it formed on the table. “How do you feel about it?”
She hesitates for a moment, pondering her words, but when she finds the right thing to tell you, it comes out without hesitation. “I still don’t like our arrangement, but … I can still like you, right?”
Damn she is really knocking you out of the park with every little thing she says. “That … I don’t think that’s a problem at all.”
She smiles, and so do you. But it fades away the moment she sees something behind you. “Oh no … oh no that’s …”
You turn around and see a flock of six men in suits and shades entering one after the other into the cafe. They don’t give the bell a break, ringing it continuously. They don’t stop for the greetings of the baristas either. Instead, they head right for you and Jiwon.
Once they surround you like a wall, they bow to their waists. One of them speaks up and says, “Lady Jiwon, the Master has requested your presence. He wants you and your fiancé to meet him right now. He’s already at the restaurant.”
You can visibly see Jiwon’s muscles tighten and lock in place upon hearing this. “My … my father? Why now of all times? I-I’m in the middle of—.”
“It’s his request, my lady. We’re just the messengers,” he explains as if in apology. “Please don’t delay this any father. You know how Master Jaehwi can get when he’s … kept waiting. We already have a car prepared for you.”
She glances towards the henchmen, then to you, then to her unfinished drink. Standing up carefully, she nods and holds out a hand shyly towards you. “Then I don’t have a choice … Please, lead the way.”
You take her hand and walk with her towards the parking lot, where a sleek black Mercedes-Benz awaits you.
The ride to the restaurant is a short one, but the silence throughout it made it feel like forever. Jiwon says nothing to you—in explanation, in apology, in request—almost like she’s already assented to the situation. You recall how docile she was previously with Areum and the other staff. You can only imagine how pious she is towards her father.
You’re brought to a large Chinese restaurant. The signboard, carpets, and staff uniforms were all a blinding shade of red. You were never one for Chinese cuisine, but you can tell this restaurant was different—more refined, more elite, more extravagant.
You are proven right almost immediately when you are lead towards a private room on the second floor, where an all-too-familiar figure was seated at the opposite end of the round table surrounded with dishes and meals.
Kim Jaehwi.
Your hand clenches so hard around Jiwon’s hand that she winces from the pain. But you can’t help yourself. You curse your better senses for coming here without any weapons on you. Had you known you would have been in the same room with Jaehwi this afternoon, you would have ditched the pleasantries and snuck at least a small knife in with you.
He’s there. He’s just over there. And you haven’t got a single way to kill him.
So you choose to instead bow to him submissively, feeling your stomach curdle at the thought of showing deference to this wretch. Jiwon does the same but lower than yours. Once you both stand upright once more and are allowed to take a seat, you stiffly sit on the edge of your chair and keep your back straight the entire time.
Jaehwi sips from his tea cup and sighs. “So. Jiwon, this is the man you’ve chosen to marry?”
His voice is coarse. His words are grating and repulsive like a fork scratching against a chalkboard in your head. His gaze is the worst. Those yellowing eyes scan your figure as if to evaluate you, as if to judge you, and you can’t help but feel sick at the thought of allowing this man to appraise you like another business opportunity. “He seems decent. Good-looking. Well-off? That I do not understand. Why marry someone without a notable background? Is it for love? You’re not making it any easier for yourself if you don’t start thinking about what’s best for you and your future.”
Jiwon makes no attempt to tell her father otherwise.
Sighing, he uses his chopsticks to pluck up a pair of chicken feet, slurping on it like you two weren’t there. Jiwon doesn’t motion to get anything, so you hold yourself back from eating as well. Besides, you lost your appetite the moment you saw his pathetic face.
“The marriage is next week, so I want to make sure everything is in order. Including your readiness,” Jaehwi raises, gesturing to Jiwon with his chopsticks. “Are you sure about this? I do not want to deal with the aftermath of your indecision on the day of your marriage.”
He doesn’t sound like a father ensuring his daughter wouldn’t be making a mistake. He sounds more like a syndicate leader gauging whether his biological investment has finally matured—has finally been secured.
You turn to Jiwon, only able to offer your hand in support. You aren’t completely sure yourself either—especially not after seeing this bastard’s face again. But for now, an answer to placate him will do.
But Jiwon doesn’t say a thing even in the face of such a life-changing decision.
Her father shrugs once more and continues stuffing his bowl of fried rice with more steamed fish. “If you’re not going to say anything to me, then at least enjoy the food. And the wine. Help me finish it, you two. It was very expensive.”
The food is fresh and well-cooked. It’s incredibly rich and flavorful—your opinion of Chinese cuisine has changed. But the wine is too strong for your taste. Just one sip and you know you’re going to regret drinking more than one glass of this. Unfortunately, you’re made to help finish the whole bottle along with Jiwon, who already reddens at the face with just a few sips.
By the time your dinner with Jaehwi is over, you are one dead body, one decent plan, and one responsive fiancée short. As much as you curl your fingers into the arms of your chair at the sight of Kim Jaehwi fleeing your presence still alive after weeks, months, and years of striving to get to him, the only one you can think of right now is the girl next to you.
Once the door closes behind you two, Jiwon lets out an audible gasp like she’s been holding her breath like she’s held her tongue against him this entire time. “Thank god he’s gone … I don’t think I can drink wine anymore either …”
You lean to rest your forehead against hers in an act of comfort. You’re pretty buzzed yourself, so you’re not sure why you thought physical intimacy like this is a good idea. But you roll with it. “Are you ok? You weren’t saying anything the entire time. I was worried.”
Jiwon nods, rubbing her temple against yours. “That’s just … that’s just how I am with my father. I can’t say anything against him … to him … He just does what he wants to anyway.”
“Don’t think about him” you say. Whether thats to Jiwon or to yourself, you’re not entirely sure. “Let’s get you back home. You look redder than I’ve ever seen you before.”
She turns to you and giggles in an uncharacteristic manner. You chalk it up to the alcohol in your systems. “Really~? I feel … light. But also … numb? Is that a thing?”
She flicks your nose and chuckles again. “Are you going to carry me? I don’t think I can walk like this.”
As if to prove her point, Jiwon stands up and immediately loses her balance, swaying unsteadily as her hands come flying around her. You catch her by the waist and ground her before lifting her into your arms and carrying her.
She gasps and clings to your neck as you bring her down the stairs towards the car that’s been waiting for you both.
When you’re both dropped off at the estate, it’s already well past midnight. Jiwon’s humming different melodies to herself as she’s in your arms once again. It’s only when you lay her down in her bed that she calms down from her alcoholic high and turns to face you with more sincerity on her face.
Tapping the free space on the bed, she invites you to join her. You waste no time tucking yourself into bed with her again. Like you always do.
She stares up at the ceiling, and so do you. You think you might stay like this for a while until both of you fall asleep. But it’s when Jiwon asks you a question that you realize she’s not in the mood for sleep just yet.
“Can I ask you something? And I want you to be honest with me,” she starts, still talking to the ceiling. “Why are you still doing this? Why are you still … trying to get married to me?”
You shrug. “The food here’s pretty good. I get free car rides once in a while. Get to relax some and fool around. But most of all? I get to see a pretty woman each time I visit. I think that’s the real kicker to this arrangement, honestly.”
She rolls her eyes. You can tell from your peripheral. “You always call it that. An arrangement. Our predicament. Our situation. Is this all it will ever be to you?”
You never really thought of it deeper than that before.
What were you two?
Outside the upcoming marriage. Outside the awkward beginning. In between the stolen moments here and the genuine instances there. What exactly were you and Jiwon?
You don’t know at this point. You don’t fucking know at all.
“I could ask you the same thing. Why are you still tolerating me—?”
“I’m not tolerating you. I never was,” she replies sharply, turning to face you now on her side. “You’re … you’re not what I expected.”
“What exactly were you expecting from someone who’s supposed to be your future husband?”
“I … I don’t know. Someone weird? Desperate? Just … not this. Not this at all.”
You smirk, nodding at her. “I’ll take that as a compliment then. But you’re asking all the questions—let me ask you some too.”
“Sure. What do you want to know?”
“Why did you choose me?”
The question catches her off-guard as you see her staring past you in thought. “Why did you choose me that day? Your dad, Jaehwi—he had a point earlier. Why me? You could have picked someone richer or more influential to help you run this syndicate better. You could have chosen someone smarter or more capable than me to support you in the future and give you a stable life. But me? I’m … I’m just a no one. I’ve got nothing going for myself or to my name. All I can give you … all I can do for you … is this.”
You lift your hand in an arc across the air. With just that motion, you point at all the things that have been added to Jiwon’s room over the weeks that you’ve been together.
But Jiwon shakes her head in defiance to your self-deprecation. “Do you remember what I told you the last time you asked me that?”
“Sort of. Something about not being threatening enough. Something about feeling safe,” you recount, hoping it was right.
Smiling, she wiggled her way towards you and pressed her face into your chest. She waits for you to wrap an arm around her, and when you finally do, she whispers, “I chose you because you had this look in your eyes. Like you were just as lost and … broken … as I was. And it just … it just sort of clicked in my head.”
Jiwon looks up at you and asks, “Tell me … do you think broken people can ever be fixed again? Do you think … do you think we can still feel complete?”
You take a long and deep breath, let the air fill your lungs, and watch as your chest rises and falls with the exhale, before attempting to even answer that question.
“I … I used to think some of us are broken beyond repair. Some things … some people … they ruin us. Immensely. Like we’re distorted beyond recognition. Like we’re … warped beyond the point of return. And it’s not our fault. Life’s cruel like that. But lately? Lately I’ve been thinking that maybe … just maybe … we only believe we’re broken beyond repair because we can’t see the whole picture. Something or someone might walk into our lives and … remind us of who we once were. What we can still be.”
You don’t notice you’re embracing her tighter now. You can feel her struggling to catch her breath beneath you, so you loosen up a bit. But even then, she chases after your touch and nuzzles against your chest. “That was beautiful. I’ve never heard you say something almost … poetic like that.”
You chuckle, pushing away the stray strands of her hair. “Just speaking what comes to mind. Just speaking my truth.”
After sharing a few more moments together like this, Jiwon pulls away and moves towards the edge of the bed, sitting up. This scares you for a moment, and it occurs to you that you don’t like the feeling of seeing her leave like that. Instead, she takes several deep breaths before finally doing what she meant to do.
She saunters over towards the foot of her bed, kneels down, and withdraws something deep underneath the bedframe. Once she pulls out what appears to be a small wooden box, she trembles as she walks over to your side.
You sit up and join her, placing a hand on her thigh. “I … I wasn’t always like this. The me you see right now? It’s … it’s broken. It’s missing. Not that I’m lying to you or anything, but … I’ve just felt incomplete since … since my mother died.”
The weight of her words presses against your chest. “Your mom? You never talked about her.”
She nods, acknowledging it, but not without the first few tears escaping from her eyes as she recalls what she must have been keeping locked up for so long now. “My mother … my eomma, she … she was the person I loved most in the world. She used to live with me here, you know? We did everything together. She taught me everything I know—how to take care of plants, how to sing, how to … how to carry myself in front of my father. It was just … me and her. Me and her against the world. That was until … until she died.”
Jiwon opens the box on her lap and takes out a necklace that sat on top of the other trinkets inside. She holds it up towards her collarbone, and you see how it forms a matching set with the necklace still wrapped around her neck.
“This was my mother’s … We wore it together whenever w-we went out,” she pushed out between sobs. “You … You reminded me of her. She would always be the one guiding me, showing me around, taking me places … It wasn’t too often, a-and I never really paid attention, but … to me, those moments were what I treasured the most.”
Then she hunches forward and lets out a sharp whine as she takes out the remaining contents of the box. They’re pictures—pictures of a young Jiwon with her mother. Some were in full color while others still had that nostalgic paint of aged film. “These … these are all that I have left of her because … because … she died. Just … just last month.”
You feel a heavy chill drag across your spine as you stare at the woman in her photos.
“They said she was killed on the way home from the airport b-by … by an unknown attacker.”
You think back to the three bullets. The skidding car. The blood on the ground.
“She was gone for months … abroad … and I was so excited to see her come back a-a-and tell me about her trip, but … but …”
Then you think back to your final mark as they exited the vehicle, crawling, pleading, begging for mercy.
“Now … she’s dead … And I’ll never get to talk to her again …”
Like a moment frozen in time, you remember now what that woman said to you as you pressed your blade into her neck.
“Please … mer … -cy … I have a daughter … a child … let me see her again first …”
And you remember what you told her in reply.
“I had parents once too. And your godforsaken clan never gave me the chance to save them. So why should I spare you?”
Before she could even sob, your blade had already done its work.
How cruel is the world?
How cruel is fate to have made your path intertwine with Jiwon only to end up with this scathing realization? You couldn’t even think about the marriage. You couldn’t even think about comforting her in your arms. Because all you could think about right now was how wrong you had been.
How wrong you have been this entire time.
For the past eight years, you’ve been bitterly chasing after your revenge. You believed that each kill, each murder, each slaughter, was another step closer to avenge your dead parents. Did it never occur to you that these people had hopes and dreams too? That these people had families too? That these people might have also been like you—victims of the system, other cogs affixed into this bloody, relentless machine?
Did it ever occur to you that, with each life you took, you were possibly ruining another’s?
And what did you hope to gain after each kill? What did you hope to achieve after murdering every last member of the Devil Cat Clan—even Kim Jaehwi himself? Would that have made you happy?
The emptiness inside you says otherwise.
Jiwon collapses into the crook of your neck, sobbing into your shoulder, but you remove herself from you and gently push her away. She stops for a moment and glances at you. “Wh-what …?”
You shouldn’t. You know you goddamn shouldn’t. But you go against your better senses and cave towards your conscience that’s screaming blasphemies into your mind.
You should have kept quiet. You should have just let the moment pass. But you feel sick to your very core, and you can’t in good faith continue on with this—whatever this is—with Jiwon any further.
Not without telling her the truth.
“You asked about the guns … and the blade … and the weapons,” you start, staring between your feet, unable to look her in the eye anymore. “You asked me what I did outside of you … what I did in my free time … what I did for work. Jiwon, I-I … I’m a vigilante. I put justice into my own hands because the system has failed me before. I kill people for money, Jiwon … I-I-I kill people because I want my revenge. On your father. On your clan. Because they killed my parents eight years ago and left me broken like this …”
You pinch the bridge of your nose and begin to weep. “She was … just another mark to me. I didn’t care—I never cared for them. I just … wanted them gone. Wanted them all gone. Jiwon, I … I’m … I’m sorry. I’m the one who killed your mother that day.”
Silence. Nothing but silence.
Then it comes one at a time.
First came the slamming of knees to the ground. Then the shattering of a wooden box against the wall. Then hair being tugged accompanied by screams and wails of pain. Then, you hear crying. Endless, volatile, heavy crying. As Kim Jiwon comes completely undone on the floor.
You look away. But you can’t. You force yourself to look at her—at the mess you made.
At the life you ruined.
“Get … get out …”
You hold your breath and reach a hand towards her. “Jiwon, I—.”
“I said … get … OUT! GET OUT OF HERE!”
Like a ghost dragged out from your dead carcass, you float past her and through her door without a heft of weight to you. Behind you, her door slams shut as her wailing and shrieking continue to echo into the night.
Like Jiwon, you fall to your knees, slam your forehead against the floor, and continue bashing your head against the cold hard surface.
Over, and over, and over again. Not until the darkness takes you.
Not until the crying stops bleeding into your ears. Not until you have punished yourself enough.
At some point in the night, you are roused from your sleep. Whether you passed out from the fatigue or the pain, you find yourself stirred awake now and into a sit.
It was Jiwon.
You rub your eyes and blink rapidly in surprise and confusion. “Look … please, just let me—.”
She interrupts you by pushing a glass of water towards your lips. “Drink. We just had alcohol in our systems … that’s all. Nothing … nothing happened, ok? Just forget it.”
Not wanting to argue, you drink the water slowly down to the very last drop. You notice Jiwon has already drunken hers—her glass settled off to the side. As you finish your drink, you can’t help but feel an odd sense of warmth engulfing you, swallowing you, smothering you.
It’s only then that Jiwon gives you a defeated smile.
“It’s fast acting isn’t it—the poison?” she states calmly, body swaying from side to side like she’s still intoxicated. “Who knew that the kiss of death could feel this … warm?”
You start to choke and gag on instinct, feeling your veins start to swell and your lungs start to burn. “What … what did you do to me? What did you put in our drinks?”
But Jiwon shakes her head, not even bothering to wipe the tears from her eyes anymore. “We’re both broken … You thought we could still be fixed … You thought we could fix each other, but … all we did was break one another all the more … My family hurt yours, so you hurt mine … Let’s end this cycle of hatred right here.”
She reaches forward to caress your face one final time, and all you can see as your vision grew hazy is her scared and tired eyes looking back up at you. “Thank you for trying … but it’s ok now. This is it for us, so … just let it happen. Let it take you.”
You wait a minute. Then five. Then ten. But when you expect to die, you instead grow warmer by the moment. “What … what exactly did you mix into our drinks?”
Jiwon, who is completely flustered and beginning to sweat, replies, “I-I … I found a bottle in my father’s bathroom while you were asleep. I thought … I thought it was some kind of poison. It was labelled ‘aphrodisiac’—”
Your eyebrows twitch. “Jiwon that’s … that’s not a poison … that’s …”
You don’t even get the chance to laugh at her mistake. The warmth and the pressure that’s been building up from the aphrodisiac now spread downwards and made your nether region throb with need. “That’s for arousal …”
Jiwon eyes your growing need that’s straining within your pants. She can feel that growing need inside her too—you can tell from the way her breaths grow more ragged and intermittent. “I-I … I didn’t know … God, I-I-I can’t even kill myself properly … I’m such a failure …”
But her tone spoke nothing of regret. Her eyes indicate nothing of remorse. Instead, her quivering lips, and the way her tongue dances across them as she eyes you, spoke of another sensation altogether.
Desire.
She’s on you now, climbing your laying body on all fours. You try to push her away, but you knew better than to hurt her any further. Once she’s straddling your hips, unknowingly grinding circles against your crotch, she leans forward and whispers into your ear. “Let me just make one more mistake … please …”
And just like that, you’re both a maelstrom of lust and unbridled desire.
Her hands tear through your clothes, stripping you off your last remaining ounces of dignity. She stares at the chest and abdominals you’ve been hiding underneath your stupid jacket, traces your scars with a finger, then immediately, she’s running her hands all over them.
You can’t resist her yourself either. Hands flying towards her minidress to pluck the strings off her tight figure one by one. Once she’s sliding out of it, you peel her underwear off her like you’re plucking petals from a flower. When you’re both aligned in the right way, you waste no time turning into a mess of bouncing, licking, and thrusting as you consume one another.
Neither of you have been this hungry before. Neither of you would feel sated until you had gone the whole way.
And so you see it through. All. Night. Long.
Come the morning, you find yourselves naked on Jiwon’s mattress. Somehow, at some point in the night, you both managed to make it here. Both pillows were now on the floor along with the comforter that usually came above your bodies. She’s laying on her stomach next to you, eyes struggling to stay open.
You get one last glance of her bare form—not an inch of her left uncovered—before she screams at the top of her lungs.
Screaming that you had soiled her in her sleep.
==
“Chwe Yeonseok—.”
Bang.
“Han Yongjin—.”
Bang.
“Tang Jisu—.”
Bang.
“Lee Min-ah—.”
Bang.
“Chae Woojin—.”
Bang. Bang. Bang.
As you drop the bloody insignias on the bar counter and shove it towards Yujin, you expect the payment for hitting your marks. That’s thrice your daily usual—just like the previous days this week. But when the wads of cash arrive, you simply flit through each bill with a soulless gaze before stuffing it into your pockets.
You should have been fine.
The Devil Cat Clan kicked you out of their property as soon as Jiwon cried wolf. It was a miracle they didn’t beat you to death then and there. The proof was undeniable with how both of you were naked. The aphrodisiac turned out to be useful somehow.
Jaehwi said nothing about your alleged assault of his daughter. He let you keep your head, so you used it to keep going and going and going.
You’re back at The Requiem again. You’re taking jobs left and right. Murdering without question. Killing without doubt. Earning paycheck after paycheck. No longer worried about goons on your back—at least, goons from the Devil Cat Clan. You told Yujin no more of those marks—not for now, at least. You no longer have to contemplate an arranged marriage either. You were finally free.
But something was missing. And Yujin points this out as she offers you another glass of whiskey.
“Rough week? What the hell happened this time? Shouldn’t you be happy you made an entire month’s checkout in just a few days?” she prods, polishing a glass she just rinsed. “What’s up with you? You haven’t been yourself lately.”
“When have I ever been myself since I showed up at your place, An Yujin,” you sigh after your chug your drink, smudging the back of your hand against your dried lips. “Just let me make my money in peace.”
“But what are you doing it for?”
The question comes out of the blue, and you could have sworn you heard another voice asking you that. But when your gaze returns to Yujin, who’s now bent over the counter, she continues, “What is it even all for? I took you in here eight years ago thinking you would have sorted out your life by now if you found your purpose. But what is your purpose?”
You shrug, demanding another drink. But Yujin refuses.
“Do you know why you’re the oldest hitman here?” Yujin raises, staring at the several other lowlives gathered at The Requiem alongside you two. “That’s because everyone else who’s come before you already found their shit in life. They made peace with their inner demons. They’ve moved on. So when will you?”
Her words burn your throat more than the whiskey does.
Before you can think of a reply, you hear something on the TV. “—duled this weekend. It will be held—.”
You snatch the remote from the spectacled bloke next to you and struggle to return the channel back to the news station.
It’s a segment about Jiwon. She’s still getting married this weekend. Although, right next to her now is a picture of a familiar lion-looking fellow in a tight white suit.
“You know that guy?” Yujin asks, gesturing towards Alex. “Have you bumped into him before?”
“Could say that,” you slur, feeling the alcohol get to your head. “Met him once.”
“You’re insane. You’re absolutely insane,” she lauds, shaking her head. “That’s the son of the Golden Dragon Gang’s boss. He’s larger than you think. And now, he’s going to marry the legitimate child of the Devil Cat Clan. That smells like trouble.”
You raise a brow. “Why? Won’t that mean our marks get easier to find now that they’re merged?”
But Yujin shakes her head. “The Golden Devil Gang’s a bunch of menaces. If they merge with the Devil Cat Clan, they’ll have more goons under their control to do their dirty work. Even if the Clan’s done some terrible shit in the past, they don’t resort to violence first. But the Gang does.”
The man you stole the remote from whistles. “Bummer. Feel bad for the old man—Jaehwi? Once his daughter gets married, she’ll likely take control of the Clan. But since she’s marrying into the Gang, the Gang will likely take control on her behalf. Reshuffle staff and personnel. Relocate their bases. Might even force Jaehwi to fully retire.”
You think back to how Jiwon fits into all of this. You think of how she’ll lose the only people in her life because of this merger—because of this marriage.
You think back to her crying face. To how she punches you whenever you tease her. To the way she curls up in her sleep.
You think of all the time you spent together. Those numbered days counted against less weeks than you have fingers. You think about how you once look forward to meeting her at four in the afternoon each day—everyday. And you think about how disappointed you felt every time you had to leave.
You think of her beautiful eyes, of the scent of roses and elegance, and of her warm gentle smile.
And you watched it all vanish from view.
But then, you hear her voice in your head.
“Tell me … do you think broken people can ever be fixed again? Do you think … do you think we can ever feel complete?”
And then it hits you.
What was your life for?
That’s something you have thought a lot about now that you were alone once again. You thought it was the quiet moments when you could sleep with a comfortable mattress beneath you and a cozy blanket around you each night. You thought it was the unspoken moments when you can blast into criminals with your pistols or slice them up into bits and pieces with your hwando. You thought it was about chasing after your revenge, letting violence lead the way, until you’ve spilled every last drop of their blood against your feet, until you’ve squeezed every last ounce of your sorrow from your shallow little heart.
But that’s the problem, isn’t it? You clung to this path of yours like a vice. It rid you of your misgivings, but did it fill the emptiness that remained within you?
No. It left you empty still.
So what filled your life?
It was the color. The color she brought into your world.
Through the recollections of your past, through the little moments you shared, through the warmth of her cheek, through the tightness of her fingers against yours, through the echo of her laughter in your mind, and through the tightness in your chest when you are away—Kim Jiwon has not only brought glorious technicolor into your life once more.
She’s taught you how to live again. She’s taught you how to love again.
To love each day. To love yourself. And most importantly, to love her.
So when you realize all this, and you stand up to finally tell Yujin your answer, you realize what you have to do. She has given you your life back, and now, it was time for you to give back hers. “Yujin, give me rolls of hand wraps, pepper spray, a taser, and your finest suit. I’m … I’m going to need it.”
She doesn’t even question your request. She just smiles at whatever you’ve come to realize and nods. “I thought you’d never ask. I have just the right suit for you.”
And so you do it—you go chase after your purpose.
You chase after her.
Tugging on your tightened tie, dressed from head to toe in this sleek secondhand suit Yujin lent you—which she claims was from some renowned assassin, John Something-or-Other—you beat your wrapped up fists together to bolster yourself before you crossed the road and head towards La Luce Wedding Hall at Myeongdeong.
The entrance is crawling with goons from both the Devil Cat Clan and the Golden Dragon Gang alike. But you don’t care. You’re not here for them. You’re not here for any of them at all. You’re only here for one person and one person alone.
Kim Jiwon.
No bullets. No lethal weapons. Just carrying enough with you to get past some trouble.
You take a deep breath, put the crow mask back on, and charge right in.
Of course you’re stopped before you even get to the front steps.
The Clan henchmen are the first to recognize you. They wouldn’t miss your mask even with their eyes closed. They chase after you, pin you down, and start beating you up, eager to grab a piece of you as they threaten to rip you apart.
But you resist. You break free from their grasp and start sacking them in their pathetic faces. Throwing punches left and right with your wrapped up fists. Knocking them out cold but not dead.
This strategy of yours quickly falls apart the moment the Gang goons join in to stop you. So you whip out your pepper spray and taser and go ham on them. Leaving behind an ocean of tearing and paralyzed fully-grown men in your wake.
By the time you pushed into the lobby, you were out of spray and charges, so the moment the goons with blades and brass knuckles lounging around on standby spot your intrusion, you begin to panic.
Well, shit. This could get bloody. Now you’re starting to wish you had your pistols with you.
Boom.
Like a stampede that cascades past your vision, you see a hulking figure tackle all of them out of the way, clearing your path forward. This same burly figure sacks some of the Gang goons and grapples some of the resistant Clan thugs who are looking at him in shock.
You’re in shock yourself too when you realize who this is.
“Gorilla,” you mutter as you see the familiar bodyguard wrestle a dozen other Clan and Gang lackeys, keeping them in place. “You—.”
“Enough about me! I won’t ask for your goddamn I.D. again,” he quips even while his face is being beaten in. “You came. So do what you have to do. Go to her!”
You nod and waste no time taking advantage of this opportunity.
You check each and every function room just to make sure, but after crashing more than a handful of parties and celebrations with a roundhouse kick to the door each time, you’re certain that the wedding you’re looking for was down the corridor—at the grand hall.
You should have known from the way the guards stationed outside of the hall were holding guns this time.
One of them presses a finger into his earpiece and receives some sort of missive. When he sees you, he beckons to his comrades and they take aim towards you.
Well, shit. This isn’t good.
But just before your life could flash before your eyes, a circular object imposes itself before you, interposing between you and certain death.
“Young master, so you really did return,” Areum grunts, smiling down at you as she holds up her tray like she’s Captain fucking America, deflecting their bullets and holding them at bay. “Lady Jiwon is just up ahead. The ceremony is already under way but you still have time. Don’t waste it!”
When the rain of bullets stops and the men begin to reload, you give Areum a solid nod before darting towards them.
They try to reach for you with their empty weapons, trying to tackle you, trying to pin you down or smack you with their guns, but you’re too fast for them. You’re zigzagging through the traffic until you manage to burst through the doors of the grand hall.
You’re a mess.
Your mask is askew on your face. Your bandages are bloody and tattered. Your suit is anything but straightened. But here you were. You finally made it.
And immediately knives are being thrown your way.
You duck behind guests, shamelessly using them as meat shields, but they’re smart and immediately flee your vicinity. You curse under your breath as you have to kick over tables and chairs to protect yourself from the mixture of blades and bullets. You’re left wondering if this was the end of the line. If this is as far as you’ll get.
It isn’t until you see a princess in a lilac dress duck next to you behind your table that you see a spark of hope. “Hyunseo?”
“You promised to take care of my sister, didn’t you?” she recalls, loading up the gun she’s holding before shoving it towards you. “Then prove it. Don’t let that bloody Golden Dragon Gang’s son take my unnie away. Aim for the ones in white!”
You nod, and when you hear the clicks and clacks of reloading guns, you grab the opportunity to get back up and start firing at them one by one.
Bang. Between the shoulder and clavicle.
Bang. Right to the solar plexus.
Bang. Against the ankle.
You fired your gun only at the members of the Golden Dragon Gang who were dressed in white—and you didn’t shoot to kill. The moment the Devil Cat Clan noticed this, they ceased their assault towards you and watched as you cleaned up the last of the Gang men with weapons, rendering them all immobile.
And now, it was finally time.
Unaware of where the ceremony’s already at, you come bursting onto the aisle and lean forward on your knees to catch your breath. When you glance back up, you see Jiwon holding hands with Alex the Lion, wearing the most beautiful pure-white dress you have ever seen, her veil already pulled back to reveal her face.
You came just in time to stop the kiss.
Guests on either side of the aisle stand up in a mix of awe, surprise, and condemnation. Some try to boo you away from getting any further. Others murmur and gasp at your insolence for intruding. But you don’t worry about them. They’re either potbellied pigs who have fattened themselves up from crime money or senile veterans who showed up just for the ceremony of it all. They weren’t capable of harming you at all.
Towards the front, you see Kim Jaehwi standing now, watching you, not interfering whatsoever. You see Alex the Lion staring you down like a predator would another who dared to interrupt his hunt. Then, you see Jiwon glancing at you with those eyes that you’ve seen before—the look she has on her when she’s asking you to buy something or to get her something or to take her somewhere.
This is it. Everything has lead to this moment.
You undo your bandages and reveal your swelling fists. You take your hwando blade from behind your back and unsheathe it, making the blade shine underneath the yellow hall light. Tossing the casing aside, you do the unthinkable before the crowd.
You kneel before Kim Jaehwi—your sworn goddamn enemy—press your forehead between his polished shoes, and offer up your own weapon towards him.
“What is the meaning of this? What the fuck are you doing in MY WEDDING?” Alex growled from the altar, threatening you with nothing but words. “If you want to make a fool out of yourself, do it else—.”
“Ceremonial eviction.”
With those two words alone, you command the entire room in an instant as the grand hall falls silent to listen to you. “Ceremonial eviction. I read about it—about your Clan. When someone decides to quit without any good reason or is forced to leave due to misconduct, you perform a ceremonial eviction. You cut off a finger. Or a toe. Sometimes you even cut off an ear if it’s that bad. To make up for their insolence. To leave a mark on their bodies—a mark they can never forget.”
You raise your blade up higher. “I’ve used this weapon to kill hundreds … thousands of your Clan. I used this same weapon to … to kill your main wife, So Gowon. So I offer it to you, Kim Jaehwi. Use it to end my life, but just … just promise me that in exchange for doing so—for getting rid of the largest thorn in your side—you set her free. You let Jiwon go and allow her to live a proper life outside of this syndicate bullshit. That’s all I ask.”
You can’t see Jaehwi properly, but you don’t need to to envision the face he makes as he picks up your hwando. “You have the guts to murder my men, my people, and even my own wife … you even pretended to be interested in my daughter, then assault her, and then now … you have the gall to come waltzing back in here begging for her freedom? You sure make a lot of demands for a pathetic little wretch.”
With a deep breath, Jaehwi wastes no time. “Die. Die knowing your sacrifice will mean nothing in the end.”
Slink.
When you expect the blade to sink and tear through the skin of your neck, you instead feel the tickle of cloth and lace against your cheek along with the smell of roses.
You glance up and see Jiwon kneeling in front of you, interposing between you and her father—arms stretching out to the side, face drowning in tears, trembling in body but unwavering in spirit. “Stop, father … please don’t hurt him … If you want to let your frustrations out on someone, then … then let it be me. But not him. Not him. He’s already gone through so much in his life … more than I could ever hope to bear alone. He just … he just wanted to get revenge on the people who hurt him … on us … like you want revenge on the person who killed eomma … on him … Let me—let me take his punishment instead …”
Jaehwi spends a moment to take it all in, to take in the sight of his eldest daughter willingly throwing his life over a nobody like you instead of being wed to someone as well-off as Alex the Lion.
With a chuckle, he stabs the blade into the wooden pew and crashes back onto it. “Who the fuck are you, huh? Who the fuck are you to my daughter that she comes bursting out of her shell to confront me just for you? You … you’re one lucky man—having such a fine young woman stand up for you so boldly like this,” he says, turning to his daughter now. “And you—I asked you once before, and I’ll ask you again: are you sure about this man?”
Jiwon helps you up to your feet and holds your wrists tightly. She doesn’t look anywhere else but right into your eyes as she asks you, “Did you … did you mean what you said to me that night? After we got drunk and got home? You said … you said broken people like us could still be fixed—could still feel whole—with other people. In other people. Because … because, god—I’ve had this hole inside of me ever since I could remember. Even before my mother. Even before her death … So please, tell me, did you mean it? Do you really mean it? Because … because you’ve managed to fill this aching hole of mine bit by bit ever since I met you, and now, I don’t know what else to fill it with—who else to fill it with—other than you.”
You take a step forward, and then another, and then a final one before you press your forehead against Jiwon’s and nuzzle into her. “Kim Jiwon, I meant every single word I said to you that night because you do the same for me. You made me … think of a future. You made me look forward to waking up again. And … you helped me find a purpose. Even if it meant just protecting you. Even if it just meant being with you and keeping you safe. Even if it just meant making a beautiful woman like you happy for the rest of her days. It brought me joy—a joy so overwhelming it’s filled more than just the hole in my heart.”
“Kim Jiwon, you gave me my life back … and I can’t thank you enough for it. With you, I feel complete. I feel whole. I feel … like me again. So please … let me help give you your life back too.”
Jaehwi seems satisfied with this. He takes out his pistol from his pocket and aims at Alex. “Get out of there, boy. This wedding’s continuing, but not with you.”
Flabbergasted, he strokes his mane back in place and glares at the old man. “Oh no, that isn’t happening, Jaehwi. My father and I struck a deal with you—.”
Bang. Jaehwi shoots him right in the knee, sending him crumpling forward and howling in pain. “I don’t give a rat’s ass about that now. Someone get him off the bloody altar.”
In mere moments, a mix of Clan and Gang thugs help escort Alex off the altar and into the front pews to lay him down and stop his knee from bleeding out.
Jaehwi turns to the both of you now, smiling. “Go, sweetheart. Get married to him like you were supposed to. And, son—don’t fuck it up this time.”
So you hold Jiwon’s hand, and she holds yours. You walk her down what little stretch of aisle is left until the altar. You both giggle when you realize that’s what father’s do with their daughters—not what future husbands do for their future wives.
You pull her veil down, only to pull it back up. When your eyes meet again for the first time in what feels like ages, you can’t help but get lost in them. The priest, who is absolutely still in shock over everything that just happened, asks you. “Do you accept this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?”
You think back to the time you two danced slowly, holding each other, masks off, just staring genuinely into each other’s eyes.
“Yes. I-I mean, I do. I do.”
As Jiwon chuckles, she gets asked the same thing. “And do you, in turn, accept this man to be your lawfully wedded husband from this day forward, to have and to hold, in good times and bad, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health; will you love, honor, and cherish him for as long as you both shall live?”
“Even if I have to die all over again and be reborn the next day, even if I have to find him through different biomes and different versions of reality—I will find him. And I will love him. I do. I really do.”
“Hey, wait, did you just make a Minecraft—.”
Before the priest can tell you to kiss the bride, your bride kisses you first. She drags you in with a need that’s more than passion or lust, and you respond in kind by pressing her lips against hers and holding her oh-so-close.
And as the organ begins to play the song of victory, and as the guests gathered here today cheer nonetheless for a successful wedding—some way, somehow—you dip Jiwon forward as you continue to kiss each other. Only when you break away to chuckle and nuzzle your noses together does that thought ever come to you.
“After all that’s happened to me, after all that we’ve been through, I still … can not believe that this is happening right now. This is absolutely unreal.”
Jiwon chuckles into your lips as she steals another kiss from you. “You know, we’re supposed to have our first kiss before we have sex for the first time. You got the order all wrong.”
You just shake your head against the teasing girl. “You’re unreal.”
But Jiwon shakes her head in reply as well. “No—we’re real now, my love.”
"So fucking deep," I moaned, getting penetrated in a missionary position.
My baby brother had a particular predilection for my voluptuous tits; he was sucking on them with passion as he was fucking me with a wild hunger. He was a virgin until just now. He was in the throes of passion, having finally popped his cherry, and I could sense the urgency in his thrusts as he pounded into me relentlessly. His innocent eyes, now clouded with lust, gazed up at me as he buried himself to the hilt inside me. I felt his cock pulsing with need, and I knew he was close to his breaking point.
"Oh, fuck, Yujin! "I'm gonna cum!" he cried out, his hips bucking wildly as he lost control.
I knew what was about to happen, and I quickly wrapped my legs around him, pulling him deeper inside me. My pussy clenched around his throbbing cock, milking him with every thrust as I felt his hot seed begin to fill me. His eyes widened in shock and pleasure as he came, his body shuddering with the force of his orgasm.
As his seed spilt deep inside me, I couldn't help but feel my climax making me tremble. Seeing me shake, he hugged me as if he wanted to protect me. I buried my face in the crook of his neck, and my lips sucked on his tender flesh.
"You made me cum, baby," I informed him.
He lifted my face and kissed me on my lips. We stayed in the position for a while until he finally pulled his cock from me.
All of that had made me more aroused than I was before; I rolled on my stomach and raised on my elbows.
"Honey, I need more," I purred.
He looked at me hesitantly; I wiggled my ass and raised it high, presenting it to him.
"You know what to do, baby."
He licked his lips and nodded. He positioned himself behind me, his cock rubbing against my ass, and with a swift movement, he pushed inside of me, bottoming out. My eyes rolled back as I felt him deep within me, his thrusts hitting me in all the right places. He groaned, and I moaned as our bodies moved together in perfect sync.
"I love your cock inside me," I whimpered.
"God, you feel so fucking good," he growled, his hands gripping my hips tightly.
He pounded into me, the force of his thrusts pushing me forward, but he held me in place, not letting me get away. The sound of our bodies slapping together filled the room, and I couldn't help but let out a series of moans.
"Fuck me harder, baby. "Use my pussy to cum," I begged, my voice breathless.
He didn't need any further encouragement. He slammed into me with renewed vigour, his hips pistoning in and out of me at a breakneck pace. I was lost in the pleasure, my body trembling with each thrust he gave me.
"Honey, put your finger on my clit and rub it," I told him.
"What?" he asked.
I reached around and grabbed his right hand and put his fingers on my clit.
"Rub it," I urged him.
He nodded and rubbed my clit as he fucked me.
"Yes! Just like that, baby. Don't stop," I encouraged him.
He groaned as he felt my pussy walls tighten around his cock.
"You are strangling my shaft," he whined but kept delivering with powerful thrusts.
"Keep going; you are making me cum," I pleaded, my voice laced with desperation.
He leaned forward on my back, his breath fanned my neck, and his hands kneaded my tits to his liking.
"C-cum for me," he stammered, moaning into my ear. I giggled while my pussy decided to make me squirt like a fountain.
He fucked me relentlessly, and I came hard on his cock, my legs shaking with the force of my climax. As I came down from my high, I felt him stiffen behind me, his grip on my hips tightening.
I pushed myself up; we were basically standing on our knees. My arms reached behind his neck, pulling him closer to me. Our skin was sticky and slippery with sweat, and our bodies pressed together as he continued to fuck me, my moans echoing in the room. He buried his face in my shoulder, his teeth biting into my skin as he groaned deeply. I moved my face backwards and pulled him into a passionate make-out session.
"Sweetie, you can fill me up whenever you want," I purred. "I am extremely proud of you."
He bit on my lips, making me moan. His pace got wilder, almost brutal. I arched my back, and my body convulsed around him as I came again, my pussy clamping down on his cock. He gasped into my mouth, his thrusts becoming erratic as he chased his own release.
"Yujin," he whined. "I am cumming."
"Yes. Yes. Yes." I pushed back against him. "Come for me."
He thrust twice and then bottomed out. I felt him emptying his balls inside of me; he filled me up until he couldn't anymore, and then he pulled out. His cock was covered in white; it looked so beautiful. I pushed him to lie on the bed; he panted heavily while I got between his thighs and took his cock into my mouth. He yelped; his dick was so sensitive that he couldn't even handle my tongue.
"Yes, baby," I purred with a mischievous smirk on my face. "I want you to cum again for me."
I swallowed his cock again and bobbed my head. I moved my head up and down on his cock, my tongue swirling around the head, teasing and tasting the salty fluid that was still leaking out. I felt him hardening in my mouth again, his hips moving restlessly as I took him deeper, my throat relaxing to accommodate his length. He groaned, his hands fisting the sheets as I continued to work him over with my mouth.
"Y-yujin," he stuttered. "Fuck, that feels so good."
I moaned around his cock, the vibrations sending tremors through his body. He was getting close; I could tell by the way his muscles tensed, and his breathing became laboured. I sucked him harder, my lips tight around his shaft as I moved up and down, my pace quickening. He cried out, his hands flying to my head as he held me in place. I felt him stiffen, his cock pulsing in my mouth as he came again. I swallowed every drop, my throat working to take it all in. When he was finally spent, I pulled away, a string of saliva and cum connecting my lips to his cock.
I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, a satisfied smile on my face as I looked down at him. He was breathing heavily, his chest rising and falling rapidly as he tried to catch his breath. I crawled up his body, straddling his waist as I leaned down to kiss him deeply.
"You were amazing, baby," I praised. "You made me so proud."
He wrapped his arms around me, pulling me close as he nuzzled his face into my neck. We lay there for a moment, basking in the afterglow of our passionate encounter. Then, I slowly got up, my legs shaky as I made my way to the bathroom. I cleaned myself up, washing away the evidence of our lovemaking. When I came back, he was with his arms open like he was waiting for me, so I leaned into his embrace, snuggling up to his chest.
"I love you so much," he murmured, his lips brushing against my forehead.
"I love you too, honey," I replied, my hand tracing lazy patterns on his chest. "So much."
"Can I sleep here, or do you have any other plans?" He yawned.
"No, you can stay here." I kissed his chin.
He smiled at me before he closed his eyes; I grabbed the blanket and pulled it up on our bodies.
"Noona, I'm cold," he whined adorably.
"I'm going to be your personal heater, I promise."
He smiled and buried his face in the crook of my neck. I hugged him back, and we slept peacefully.
The morning came with a headache. I groaned in pain. I felt the warm body next to me move, and then I felt a warm kiss on my shoulder.
"Good morning," he whispered in my ear.
"What do you want?" I asked grumpily.
He giggled and began to kiss from my shoulder to my collarbone, to my neck, and to my jaw until he finally reached my lips.
"Good morning, noona," he purred, kissing me deeply.
I melted in his arms; I forgot all about my headache. His kiss was like magic. His tongue invaded my mouth like he wanted to conquer my heart; our tongues danced in perfect harmony. His lips were soft and warm, and they moved against mine with a gentle yet passionate intensity that left me breathless. I felt his hand caress my cheek, his fingers tracing the outline of my jaw before sliding down to my neck. He pulled me closer, deepening the kiss as his other hand moved down to my waist, gripping me possessively. I moaned into his mouth, my own hands reaching up to tangle in his hair as I surrendered to the pleasure of his kiss.
When we finally broke apart, I was gasping for air, my heart pounding in my chest. I looked up at him, our breaths mingling as we savoured the afterglow of that incredible kiss.
"I could get used to this," I murmured, my voice barely above a whisper.
"You deserve the moon and the stars," he replied, making me melt.
His body shifted slightly; his raging bone poked me.
"Oh," I giggled. "Someone is ready for morning fun."
He blushed vividly, his shyness making him hide his face between my tits.
"Honey," I called his attention. "If we fuck now, it will have some consequences for both of us."
He lifted his head and nodded.
"I'm telling you that if you put your dick inside of me now, you have to take responsibility. Are you sure you can handle me?"
"Noona, I can just promise you that I will do my best not to let you down," he answered sincerely.
I grabbed his member and gave it a few pumps.
"I can be a brat at times, sometimes demanding princess treatment or whatever," I confessed. "And you will have to bear with all I will throw at you."
He smiled and pushed his shaft forward, showing his determination to keep going. I smiled back, and I kissed him softly on the lips.
"Alright then, claim me," I moaned when his dick stretched me.
He bottomed inside out, and I wrapped my arms around his neck, bringing his face closer to mine.
"Kiss me," I whispered.
He obeyed and kissed me softly. His shaft was throbbing inside of me, and he started to move. I moaned into the kiss, and he swallowed my moans.
"Yujin, damn it, you are so good," he complimented me.
I bit my lips, and he thrust hard, making me yelp.
"Harder," I urged him.
He was fucking me so good and so hard; my tits were bouncing back and forth, he bit his lips, and his eyes focused on my chest. He stopped kissing me and moved back so he could have a better view of our bodies moving together. He grabbed my waist and pulled me even closer. He pushed back in me, making me mewl like a little kitten.
I was so close, but I wanted to cum together with him. I reached out to his balls and massaged them softly.
"My boy has to be ready to cum whenever I demand so, doesn't he?" I asked with a laboured breath.
"Yes," he hissed.
"Then do it; fill me up," I begged him.
He growled low in his throat, his hips picking up speed as he pounded into me with renewed vigour. I moaned, my hands clutching at his shoulders as I held on for the ride. He was relentless, his cock hitting all the right spots as he drove me closer to another climax. I felt it building inside of me, a tight coil of pleasure that was ready to snap at any moment. My breath came in short gasps, my body tensing as I teetered on the edge.
"Yes, yes, yes," I chanted, my voice rising in pitch as the pleasure intensified.
He grunted, his grip on me tightening as he fucked me with all he had. I screamed as I came again, my body shaking with the force of it. My pussy clamped down on him, milking his cock as he continued to thrust into me. He groaned, his thrusts becoming erratic, and I knew he wasn't going to last much longer.
"Come here," I claimed his lips down on mine.
He complied and kissed me with fervent energy. His hands roamed over my body, touching me everywhere he could reach. I writhed underneath him, lost in the sensation of his touch and the feeling of his cock inside of me. He broke the kiss, his breathing heavy as he looked into my eyes.
"I'm going to cum," he growled.
I bit my lips; he moved my hair behind my shoulder and kissed my neck.
"I want to feel you," he moaned. "Bite me."
I nodded and bit his neck with all my force.
He cried out, and I sucked on his neck as he bottomed out inside of me, his seed flooding my pussy and overflowing out of it, making a mess between our legs. His body shuddered, and he collapsed on top of me, his weight pushing me into the mattress. We lay there, tangled in each other's embrace, our bodies slick with sweat and cum. I could feel his heart racing against my chest, and I knew mine was doing the same.
"I love you," I whispered.
"I love you too," he replied, his voice soft.
I wrapped my arms around him, holding him close as we caught our breath. After a moment, he slowly pulled out of me, and we both winced at the feeling. I looked down between my legs and saw the mess we had made.
"Wow," I laughed. "We made quite a mess, didn't we?"
He chuckled, his hand reaching down to touch my cum-covered pussy.
"Yeah, we did," he agreed.
I pushed him on his back and straddled his face, lowering my pussy on his lips.
"Eat it clean," I demanded.
He stuck his tongue out and licked my folds. His tongue moved inside of me, then out, swirling around my clit.
"Oh yes," I moaned while riding his face.
"Delicious," he muttered, getting me close to my orgasm.
"You deserve the moon and the stars," he replied, making me melt.
His body shifted slightly; his raging bone poked me.
"Oh," I giggled. "Someone is ready for morning fun."
He blushed vividly, his shyness making him hide his face between my tits.
"Honey," I called his attention. "If we fuck now, it will have some consequences for both of us."
He lifted his head and nodded.
"I'm telling you that if you put your dick inside of me now, you have to take responsibility. Are you sure you can handle me?"
"Noona, I can just promise you that I will do my best not to let you down," he answered sincerely.
I grabbed his member and gave it a few pumps.
"I can be a brat at times, sometimes demanding princess treatment or whatever," I confessed. "And you will have to bear with all I will throw at you."
He smiled and pushed his shaft forward, showing his determination to keep going. I smiled back, and I kissed him softly on the lips.
"Alright then, claim me," I moaned when his dick stretched me.
He bottomed inside out, and I wrapped my arms around his neck, bringing his face closer to mine.
"Kiss me," I whispered.
He obeyed and kissed me softly. His shaft was throbbing inside of me, and he started to move. I moaned into the kiss, and he swallowed my moans.
"Yujin, damn it, you are so good," he complimented me.
I bit my lips, and he thrust hard, making me yelp.
"Harder," I urged him.
He was fucking me so good and so hard; my tits were bouncing back and forth, he bit his lips, and his eyes focused on my chest. He stopped kissing me and moved back so he could have a better view of our bodies moving together. He grabbed my waist and pulled me even closer. He pushed back in me, making me mewl like a little kitten.
I was so close, but I wanted to cum together with him. I reached out to his balls and massaged them softly.
"My boy has to be ready to cum whenever I demand so, doesn't he?" I asked with a laboured breath.
"Yes," he hissed.
"Then do it; fill me up," I begged him.
He growled low in his throat, his hips picking up speed as he pounded into me with renewed vigour. I moaned, my hands clutching at his shoulders as I held on for the ride. He was relentless, his cock hitting all the right spots as he drove me closer to another climax. I felt it building inside of me, a tight coil of pleasure that was ready to snap at any moment. My breath came in short gasps, my body tensing as I teetered on the edge.
"Yes, yes, yes," I chanted, my voice rising in pitch as the pleasure intensified.
He grunted, his grip on me tightening as he fucked me with all he had. I screamed as I came again, my body shaking with the force of it. My pussy clamped down on him, milking his cock as he continued to thrust into me. He groaned, his thrusts becoming erratic, and I knew he wasn't going to last much longer.
With a contorted expression on his face, he gave another minute in Pound Town before filling me up again. He moaned like it was his first time. He fell on the bed beside me; he was breathing so heavily.
We lay there in silence for a while, catching our breath. Then, he turned to look at me, a smile on his face.
"You are perfect," he said, his voice filled with adoration.
I blushed, feeling a warmth spread through my chest at his words. No one has ever looked at me the way he did, with such raw emotion and honesty.
"You are not so bad yourself," I teased, poking him in the ribs.
He laughed, his eyes crinkling at the corners. I couldn't help but bring him into a loving hug; he kissed my shoulder and wrapped his arms around my waist.
"What do you think if tonight we go out for dinner?" He enquired.
"Are you asking me out on a date?" I teased him.
"I want to spend some quality time with you; call it a date or whatever you fancy," he replied, blushing.
I kissed him deeply and smiled. He returned my smile; he moved some of my hair behind my ear. I chuckled and looked at him; he raised an eyebrow at me.
"Nothing, I just feel blessed to have you in my life. I feel that I can be myself with you," I affirmed.
"Yujin," he kissed my temple. "I don't think that you could understand the magnitude of my feelings for you. I love you so fucking much. I would give my life for you."
"You are such a cornball; I adore you." I kissed him.
At the restaurant, several waitresses and customers stared at me in my silver mini dress. My wavy hair cascaded down my back, and my bright red lips drew attention. I walked with a confident stride, knowing I turned heads.
"Yujin, you are getting us attention," my baby brother whispered in my ear, making me shiver.
“Honey, don't worry. You are the only one I have eyes for,” I assured him.
We were seated, and the waitress came to take our orders. Before the food arrived, our phones chimed in simultaneously. Liz, our sister, was one year younger than I was. She looked quite like me, even if she was a bit shorter.
She had spent her last year studying abroad and was coming back home. In fact, in the message, she asked us to fetch her at the airport.
"What a burden," I muttered, scoffing. He was looking at the phone, flabbergasted.
"My princess is coming home," he affirmed enthusiastically.
When we arrived, Liz was already waiting for us. She had grown taller since we last saw her, her features were sharper, and her new fringe gave her a more sophisticated look.
In the moment she saw us, in the middle of the crowd of the arrivals terminal, she sprinted towards us, dragging her luggage with her. When she reached us, she jumped into his arms, making him fall back.
"My baby, I missed you so much," Liz purred, wrapping herself around him like a koala.
"Likewise." He kissed her on her lips.
I felt a pang of jealousy; they had always been close. I didn't want to ruin their reunion, but I couldn't help feeling a bit bitter. He noticed that I was looking the other way, and he looked at me, smiling at me.
“Yujin!” Liz squealed, jumping up, when she noticed me. She pulled me into a hug, almost suffocating me in the process.
“I missed you too,” I laughed, hugging her back.
She pulled away, her eyes sparkling with excitement. She looked between us, a mischievous grin spreading across her face.
“You two seem closer than before I left,” she commented, raising an eyebrow at us.
I looked away, a blush creeping up my cheeks. He looked at me nervously, not sure how to respond.
“Liz, let's not pry into our business,” he opined, wrapping his arm around my waist. "It's not the place to discuss something personal."
“I wasn’t prying,” Liz said, a playful tone in her voice. “I was just making an observation."
"I will tell you everything once we are in the car," he countered, leading her towards the exit, leaving me to carry her two heavy bags.
"You can be so inconsiderate at times," I scoffed, but they didn't hear me.
In the car, Liz sat in the back seat with him. She bombarded him with questions about his life, his studies, his friends, and me.
"Yujin, would you be so kind as to tell me what happened?" Liz asked while I was driving.
From the rearview mirror, I saw that she had climbed onto his lap, stretching her bare legs on the other seats. His arms were encircling her waist, and his face was buried in her neck.
“Since you went studying abroad, we had got closer, way closer," I claimed. "I can call him mine."
Liz smirked mischievously. She licked her lips and looked down at him. He was already panting heavily, his face buried on her neck, his eyes closed.
“Do you think that I can still be yours?" she asked, her voice a whisper.
I glanced at them through the rearview mirror. He was breathing heavily, his hands gripping her waist tightly. She was grinding on his lap, making him groan.
"Stop teasing him, Liz," I warned.
She stuck her tongue out at me and continued to tease him. I looked away, focusing on the road.
“God, you’re so wet,” he moaned, his voice strained.
“You like that, baby?” she purred, her hips moving in a circular motion.
“You’re going to be the death of me,” he groaned, his head falling back against the seat.
She giggled, a playful sound that filled the car. She leaned down, her lips brushing against his ear. He shivered, his hands moving to her hips, guiding her movements. She moaned softly, her breath hot on his neck. He turned his head, capturing her lips in a passionate kiss. She moaned into his mouth, her hands tangling in his hair as they made out.
"I reckon," he panted, breaking the kiss after a minute of silence. "That we could make it work out, the three of us."
Liz squealed with excitement and clapped her hands. He smiled at her, his eyes filled with affection.
“But, we need to set some rules,” I added, a serious tone in my voice. "For the good of the relationship."
They nodded, their eyes filled with excitement. I smiled, feeling a sense of relief. I was glad that we could come to an understanding.
“Alright then,” I said, turning back to the road. “Let’s go home and discuss the details.”
I pulled into the driveway of our house. As soon as the car stopped, Liz jumped out, running towards the front door. My baby brother laughed, shaking his head at her antics. He got out of the car, a smile on his lips.
“You coming?” he asked, his eyes shining with love.
“Yes,” I replied, getting out of the car. I smiled, my heart filled with joy.
He grabbed Liz’s luggage from the boot, and I glanced at him.
"Those are too heavy for you," I affirmed.
"I can do it," he claimed.
“No, you will hurt yourself,” I said sternly.
“I’ll help you,” Liz offered, running back to the car.
“I can do it myself,” he said, struggling to carry the bags.
I rolled my eyes. He was such a stubborn idiot. He could barely walk with the bags. Liz took one bag from him, and he was able to walk more easily. We walked towards the house, Liz and I carrying the bags. He was looking at us, a fond smile on his face. We entered the house, and he followed us, closing the door behind him.
"Before anything," Liz spoke up. "I need to feel him inside of me, to get what you already got, Yujin."
She walked past me and grabbed our brother by his hand.
"Follow me," she exclaimed in a sultry voice.
They made their way into the living room, and she pushed him onto the couch. She straddled him, her hands gripping his shoulders. He looked up at her, his eyes wide with lust and love. She smiled down at him, her fingers tracing his jawline. He reached up, his hands grabbing her waist.
“I need you,” she whispered, her lips brushing against his.
He nodded, his eyes closing as he kissed her. She moaned into the kiss, her hips grinding against his. He groaned, his hands sliding down to her ass, squeezing it firmly. She gasped, breaking the kiss. She sat back, her hands moving to her shirt. She pulled it off, revealing her braless chest. His eyes widened, his gaze fixed on her breasts.
“Fuck,” he muttered, his hands reaching up to grab them.
She smiled, her hands moving behind her back. She unclasped her bra, letting it fall to the floor. His eyes darkened with desire, his hands kneading her breasts. She moaned, her head falling back as he played with her nipples. He leaned forward, his lips closing around one of her nipples. She cried out, her hands tangling in her hair.
“Oh god,” she panted, her hips moving restlessly. “That feels so good.”
He sucked and licked her nipples, his hands massaging her breasts. She writhed on top of him, her body trembling with pleasure. He growled against her skin, his teeth grazing her nipple.
“Hurry up and take off your trousers,” she begged, her voice breathless.
He pulled away, his eyes dark with lust. Liz got up and let him peel off his clothes; meanwhile, she beckoned me to come closer.
“Yujin, come here,” she commanded.
I obeyed, making my way to them.
"Undress yourself," she ordered me again.
I did what she asked; I stripped myself until I was naked.
“Good girl,” she purred, kissing me deeply.
My baby brother watched us in awe, his chest heaving with desire. She pushed me onto the floor, making me lie down on the rug. Then she climbed onto the sofa, straddling his lap.
“Fuck me,” she moaned, grabbing his cock and rubbing it against her pussy.
I got on all fours and crawled between his legs. I took his cock from her hands and swallowed it, making him cry out in pleasure. His cock throbbed on my tongue as I took it as deep as I could.
“Fuck, Yujin,” he moaned, his hips moving restlessly.
I bobbed my head up and down, my tongue swirling around his tip. I sucked him hard, my lips tight around his shaft as I worked him over. He was panting hard, his hands tangled in Liz’s hair as he lost control. His hips moved in time with my movements, his cock hitting the back of my throat.
“I’m going to cum,” he cried out, his body tensing.
I sucked him harder, my hand moving to his balls, massaging them gently. Liz was riding his legs, rubbing her wet pussy against him. He grunted, his hands gripping her hips tightly.
“Please, let me cum inside of you,” he begged her.
She nodded, her hands guiding his cock to her entrance. I pulled away, watching as she sank down onto him, taking him to the hilt. She moaned loudly, her eyes rolling back in pleasure.
“You feel so good,” she whimpered, her hips moving up and down.
He groaned, his hands gripping her ass as she rode him. I moved closer, my hand reaching out to play with her clit. She cried out, her hips moving faster as I rubbed her clit.
“Yes,” she chanted, her voice rising in pitch. “Just like that.”
I continued to rub her clit as she rode him, my fingers moving in a circular motion. He was groaning, his hands gripping her tightly as he thrust up into her. She was panting heavily, her breasts bouncing with each movement. Her moans filled the room, her body trembling as she approached her climax.
“I’m going to cum,” she cried out, her voice filled with pleasure.
I rubbed her clit faster, my eyes locked on her face as she came. Her body shook violently, her pussy clamping down on his cock as she came hard. He grunted, his hips bucking up into her as she rode out her orgasm.
“Yes,” he hissed, his eyes locked on her. “Come for me.”
She screamed, her body shaking as she came again. I continued to rub her clit, my eyes locked with him, and a hint of raw desire beamed in him.
He flipped her onto her back and began to pound into her relentlessly. She was screaming, her legs wrapped around his waist as he took her. His cock was hitting her G-spot with each thrust, making her eyes roll back in pleasure. She was panting heavily, unable to form coherent words as he fucked her hard.
“God, you feel so fucking good,” he growled, his eyes wild with lust.
“Yes,” she whimpered, her nails digging into his back. “Fuck me harder.”
He obeyed, his hips slapping against hers as he took her. She was crying out with each thrust, her body trembling as he pounded into her.
“Please,” she begged, her eyes pleading with him. “Make me cum again.”
He grunted, his hand moving down to her clit. He rubbed it hard, his fingers moving in a circular motion as he fucked her. She screamed, her body arching off the couch as she came again. Her pussy clamped down on his cock, making him growl with pleasure.
“Fuck,” he hissed, his thrusts becoming more erratic. “You’re so fucking tight.”
He continued to fuck her, his cock hitting her g-spot with each powerful thrust. She was moaning with no sign of stopping; her back was arched to the max. Her breasts were bouncing with each thrust; her nails were digging into his back so hard that I was sure that she was going to draw blood.
“Come for me,” he demanded, his voice husky with lust.
“Yes,” Liz moaned, her eyes rolling back as she came hard.
He continued to pound into her, his hips slapping against her ass with each powerful thrust. His cock was throbbing inside of her, and she knew he was close.
“Are you going to cum for me?” She asked breathlessly.
“Yes,” he groaned, his eyes locked on hers.
“Good,” she purred, her hand moving down to play with her clit as he fucked her.
She rubbed her clit, her eyes locked on his as he took her. He was grunting, his hips moving faster as he chased his release.
“I’m close,” he panted, his thrusts becoming erratic.
“Yes,” she moaned, her pussy clamping around his cock. “Come for me, baby.”
He cried out, his hips bucking wildly; he looked over me for consent, and I nodded.
He kissed her savagely, biting on her lips, making her yelp. He kept thrusting inside of her until he was completely spent. His head fell onto her shoulder, his breathing heavy as he came down from his high. She wrapped her arms around him, holding him close as they caught their breaths.
"Let me have him now!!!" I exclaimed.
Liz darted me with a mischievous glance; a sly smile played on her lips.
"You will have him when he wants to," she countered.
The baby boy looked at me with pleading eyes, his lower lip quivering slightly.
"She has been away for such a long time," he stated, his voice low. "And I want to keep going."
Liz squealed for the victory; I sighed. He got off of her and helped her up. Her legs were still shaking; her eyes were still hazy with desire.
He pinned her against the wall, his mouth ravaging hers. She moaned into his kiss, her arms wrapping around his neck as he deepened the kiss. Her nipples were still hard, rubbing against his chest; her pussy was still throbbing, dripping with their cum. He grabbed her thighs, lifting her up as he pinned her against the wall.
“You’re insatiable,” she muttered against his lips. “You can’t get enough of me, can you?”
He grunted in agreement, his hips pressing into hers. She could feel his hard cock against her thigh, and it sent a shiver down her spine. He was still hungry for her, and she loved it. She felt wanted, needed, desired, like I did.
He carried her to her room, still ravaging her with kisses; he put her on the bed, and I followed them. I crawled over the bed to reach them. My hand moved on her skin, my lips sucked on her lips, and he was eating her neck. My lips moved to her nipples, and I began to suck on them; my hand reached down to finger her pussy. She was wet, and it dripped down her thighs. I fingered her, my eyes looking into hers as I worked her pussy. He was sucking on her neck, leaving marks all over it. His hands were groping her breasts; his mouth was devouring her, like a starving animal. She was lost in the pleasure, her body writhing on the bed as we took her. He moved down, his mouth moving to her tits, sucking and biting them. I fingered her faster, my thumb rubbing her clit. She was panting, her moans filling the room. I moved up, capturing her lips with mine. He bit down on her nipple, making her scream.
He moved down, his hands gripping her thighs as he lifted them up. His mouth moved to her pussy, his tongue licking her slit. She gasped, her hands tangling in my hair as he began to eat her out. His tongue moved in and out of her pussy, tasting her juices. He sucked on her clit, his tongue swirling around it. Her hips were bucking, her body trembling as I made her cum again.
He got up, his cock hard and throbbing. He grabbed a pillow, lifting her hips up, placing it under her. He positioned himself between her legs, his cock rubbing against her entrance.
“Please,” she whispered, looking into his eyes. “Fuck me.”
He pushed inside of her slowly, his cock stretching her pussy as he filled her up. She moaned, her eyes closing as she took him in. He was panting, his hands gripping her hips as he thrust into her. He began to move, his hips snapping against hers as he fucked her. Her moans were filling the room, her body writhing beneath him as he took her.
“Yes,” she gasped, her eyes opening to look into his. “Fuck me just like that.”
He grunted, his hips moving faster. His cock was hitting her deep, making her eyes roll back with pleasure. I got beside them, and began to play with her boobs, kissing her neck and shoulders, she was squirming under me, enjoying my touch.
"Noona, sit on her face," he suggested to me.
I did, making her groan at the new sensation. Her tongue licked my pussy, and I moaned, my head falling back in pleasure. He grabbed my boobs, squeezing them hard. My nipples were hard, and I could feel them rubbing against Liz's skin as he pounded into me. He was relentless, his hips slamming against me with each thrust.
“God,” I moaned, my voice filled with pleasure. “You feel so good.”
“Yes,” Liz panted, her tongue licking my clit. “Fuck her harder.”
He obeyed her, his hips moving faster and faster. My body was trembling, my moans filling the room as he took me. Liz's tongue was swirling around my clit, sending waves of pleasure through my body. I could feel myself getting close, my body tensing as I teetered on the edge.
“Yes,” I cried out, my hands gripping the headboard as I held on. “I’m going to cum.”
He grunted, his thrusts becoming wild. Liz's tongue was moving faster, her moans vibrating against my pussy. I was panting heavily, my body shaking as I came hard. My pussy clenched around her tongue, my juices flooding her mouth. She moaned, licking and sucking me clean. He didn't stop pounding into her; his pace got wilder.
"Liz, I'm so close," he panted. "Please, come with me."
She moaned, her hips moving in time with his thrusts. Her eyes were locked on mine, her gaze filled with love and desire. He was fucking her hard, his cock hitting her g-spot over and over again. My body was still trembling from my orgasm, but I couldn't stop. I couldn't resist the pleasure that he was giving us.
“Come for us,” I begged, my voice breathless.
“Yes,” she cried out, her body tensing. “God, I’m cumming.”
He groaned, his hips bucking against hers as he came hard, filling her up with his cum. His body was shaking, his cock pulsing as he emptied himself inside of her. Liz was panting, her body trembling as they came together. When he pulled out of her, his cum spilt out of her pussy and onto the bed. She was breathing heavily, her eyes hazy with lust as she looked up at us. We smiled at her, our bodies spent but sated.
He pulled me into a kiss, his lips moving softly against mine. I could taste her deliciousness on him, and it made me moan. She got up and joined our kiss, her lips brushing against ours. We broke the kiss, our eyes locking as we smiled.
“I love you both,” he whispered, his voice filled with emotion.
“We love you too,” we replied in unison, our eyes shining with love and adoration.
Once we composed ourselves, we discussed the basic rules of our ménage à trois. He claimed to desire us and only us; without any objection, Liz and I agreed to share him and not involve anyone else. They were already quite daunting to manage for me.
Beneath the watchful, jagged peaks of the Alps, the Free State of Bavaria unfolds like a living fairy tale, where the air often carries the faint scent of pine needles and woodsmoke. To the south, the mountains rise in dramatic, snow-capped walls, casting long shadows over crystalline lakes like the Eibsee, which sits still and emerald-green at the foot of the Zugspitze. As the land rolls northward, the rugged heights soften into a rhythmic sea of alpine meadows and dense, ancient forests. Here, the landscape is punctuated by the impossibly slender spires of village churches and the cream-colored walls of farmhouses, their wooden balconies overflowing with vibrant red geraniums even as the mist clings to the valleys.
Elizabeth exhaled slowly, her warm breath blooming into soft clouds of steam as snow whistled past her cheeks. The winter wind nipped insistently at her skin, and though her long fur-lined coat and thick knitted gloves shielded her as best they could, the cold still found its way in. German winters had been especially unforgiving this year, sharp, relentless, and unapologetic.
Her boots crunched against the frost-covered path until she finally reached the familiar sight of a medium-sized house nestled quietly among bare trees. The moment she stepped inside, warmth wrapped around her like an embrace. Heated air brushed against her flushed face, and a visible sigh of relief slipped past her lips as she shrugged off her coat and hung it neatly by the door.
For a brief moment, she simply stood there, letting her fingers thaw and her shoulders relax.
“Liz, did you pack your baggage yet?”
The voice came from upstairs. Its deep, steady, and unmistakably her father’s. His thick German accent carried easily through the house, comforting in its familiarity.
Elizabeth tilted her head upward and nodded instinctively, even though he couldn’t see her.
“I did,” she called back, her own German accent soft but present.
“I just bought some Haribo gummies nearby for the trip, Papa.”
There was a pause, followed by the faintest hint of amusement drifting down the staircase. Elizabeth smiled to herself, fingers curling slightly around the small plastic bag in her pocket, sweet, familiar flavors for a journey that would soon take her far from home.
The journey to her other hometown was bound to be emotional, perhaps even troublesome in ways Elizabeth hadn’t fully prepared herself for.
On paper, the reason for her travel was simple and practical: she would be studying English proficiency, specifically A2-level English, a stepping stone toward a future she was carefully building for herself. New classrooms, unfamiliar accents, moments of embarrassment and quiet triumph, all of that already weighed on her mind.
But beneath the academic purpose lay something far heavier.
She was going to see her mother again.
Or rather… she was going to see her mother for the first time.
The only memory Liz possessed of her Korean mother wasn’t truly a memory at all, but a grainy photograph. Edges curled with age. In it, her father stood stiffly, arm wrapped protectively around a woman with gentle eyes, both of them holding a bundled infant between them. That infant was her. That was all she had.
She knew a little Korean now, mostly thanks to late nights spent tapping through Duolingo lessons, repeating syllables under her breath and smiling when she finally got a sentence right. It wasn’t much but it felt like a fragile bridge she was trying to build across a very wide gap.
As she grew older, her father began to tell her the truth, piece by careful piece.
Back then, he said, marrying a foreigner in Korea was seen almost like a disease, something shameful, something to be erased. Her mother’s family hadn’t accepted the marriage. They had threatened to take Elizabeth away from both of them while she was still a newborn, insisting she be raised “properly,” without him.
Fear had followed them everywhere after that.
Her parents lived quietly, almost invisibly, hiding from her mother’s side of the family while her father worked long, honest days in construction, hands cracked, back aching, but never once complaining. Eventually, the danger became too real. It didn’t take long before he had to return to Germany with Liz for her safety.
It had been her mother’s wish, he said.
For Liz to live. To grow up safely. Even if it meant growing up without her.
That was the story Liz had lived with her entire life.
But now, at twenty-two, no longer a child, no longer protected by ignorance. She knew that stories always had more than one side. Like a coin, each truth depended on where you stood.
And if she was brave enough to cross oceans to learn a new language, then surely she was brave enough to hear her mother’s side too.
No matter how much it might hurt.
“Be careful in Korea, will you? You’ll be gone for about five months.”
Her father’s voice was gentle but firm as Liz snapped her suitcase shut. She let out a small chuckle, her unmistakably German laugh echoing through the pink-colored room she had grown up in the same walls that had witnessed her childhood tantrums, late-night talks, and quiet dreams.
“Papa, I’ll be fine,” Liz said, grinning. “I’ve got that German blood in me, yah?”
Her father laughed, and for a moment, the years of shared memories wrapped around them like a warm blanket. Love, patience, and countless sacrifices had woven their bond into something unbreakable.
Liz stepped forward and hugged him tightly. She held on just a second longer than usual, knowing, feeling that this would be the last hug for a long while.
The drive to the airport passed in comfortable silence, broken only by the hum of the engine and the weight of everything unspoken. Once there, her father pulled her into another embrace. His voice cracked, just barely but Liz caught it immediately.
She laughed softly and hugged him again.
“Papa, don’t cry. You didn’t even cry when you told me that story about you wrestling a bear when I was a kid.”
Her father burst into laughter and ruffled her hair. Liz squirmed, letting out a sound that only she could make.
“Ya loud mouth,” he said fondly. “Be careful out there.”
“You’ve said that twice now, ya old man,” Liz teased back, their thick German accents clinging to every word.
He only shrugged, a smile tugging at his lips as he watched her walk toward the terminal.
Liz turned around and waved, smiling brightly then quickly turned away so he wouldn’t see her face crumple. The sob caught in her throat as she walked inside, heart aching with every step. She didn’t want to leave him. Not even for this.
Worries flooded her mind uninvited.
What if he forgets his medicine again?
What if something happens and I’m not there?
The thoughts followed her all the way onto the plane.
Even as she settled into her seat, Liz sobbed softly, hugging her arms around herself. This was her home, the taste of sweet German beer, the cold winters, the laughter, the memories that shaped her. Leaving it felt like tearing away a piece of herself.
It was overwhelming.
But it was also necessary.
She needed closure with her mother, with her past. And she needed English, a language that represented the future she was chasing, even if it scared her.
So Liz wiped her tears, took a shaky breath, and stared out the window as the plane prepared for takeoff carrying her away from everything she loved, and toward everything she needed.
Meanwhile, in Korea, you were busy printing out stacks of English proficiency lessons for yet another incoming batch of students. Whether it even counted as a proper semester was debatable five months for an A2 level, after all. Short, intense, and exhausting in its own way.
Most of the students enrolled were foreigners, sprinkled with a handful of Koreans who dreamed of working abroad, America, the UK, anywhere English was the dominant language. You’d been teaching English for two years now, having graduated just a few years back, and somehow landed a job that paid surprisingly well.
But honestly?
You weren’t here for the money.
You were here because you believed English wasn’t just a language it was a bridge. A way to understand people. To listen before judging. To look past accents, appearances, and first impressions. Cliché? Maybe. But that was just how you were wired.
You didn’t become a teacher to earn a paycheck.
You became one to teach lessons that could quietly change how someone viewed the world, to soften it, even just a little.
“Yow, Mr. Y/N Yoo. The head is looking for you.”
You groaned.
Not because your coffee had gone cold, no, that was already a lost cause but because whenever the head called for you, it usually meant one thing: problematic students, special cases, or classes the other teachers didn’t want to touch.
And honestly?
Fuck those guys. If you were going to pick and choose students based on difficulty, you had no business being a teacher.
Inside the office, the head didn’t waste time.
“Y/N, I’ll make it quick, since your coffee’s already cold. You’ll be teaching this Russian—”
“German girl,” you interrupted. “I checked earlier.”
“Right. German,” he corrected himself with a sigh. “Anyway, you know how it is.”
“Yeah,” you replied flatly. “Bullshit the other teachers don’t want.”
He chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck.
“Honestly, man, can’t blame you. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure your recommendation letter is amazing. Besides, this is your last teaching job at this school anyway.”
“Yeah, yeah. Whatever,” you muttered. “You owe me a beer.”
“Make it double. On me.”
What most people didn’t know was that Felix Lee, the so-called intimidating head of the department, was actually your high school buddy. Back then, he had this loud, chaotic friend group called Stray Kids, and somehow, you became the honorary extra member who just… never left.
Which was exactly why, behind closed doors, professionalism went out the window. No titles. No fake politeness. Just two tired adults who survived school together and somehow ended up running it.
You grabbed the student file from his desk, flipping it open casually unaware that this “German girl” was about to change your quiet teaching routine in ways you hadn’t prepared for.
Liz had settled quietly in Seoul over the past two days. Her Korean, though limited, was enough to surprise locals. Many hadn’t expected her to speak it at all. What surprised her even more was their reaction: warm smiles, excited greetings, and genuine curiosity. They seemed delighted by the fact that she was half-Korean.
For a moment, Liz’s heart lifted. She had expected stares of judgment, whispers of disdain, maybe even disgust just like the stories her father had once told her. But instead, she felt… acceptance. Perhaps time had moved on, and old traditions or social stigmas had softened with it.
It gave her hope. Maybe, just maybe, she could one day meet her mother’s family without fear. But for now, she had no leads, no clues, no real plan. So she decided to focus on her first day at school.
Her classroom was a vibrant mix of students from all over the world, diverse faces, diverse accents, united by the same goal: learning English. Liz carefully chose a seat in the corner on the left, tucked near a stack of books. To her right sat a bright-eyed Japanese girl, who smiled warmly at her.
“Hi! I’m Rei Naoi. Nice to meet you.”
Rei extended her hand confidently and Liz froze. Fluent German. A Japanese student speaking perfect German? Whats next? An Italian who can speak japanese? Liz barely had time to register the thought before Rei’s next words broke her out of her surprise.
“I heard the teacher is hot.”
Liz let out a small laugh.
“I prefer a nice personality,” she replied.
“With a big dic—”
The classroom doors swung open, and every noise instantly died down. You walked in, laptop in one hand, notebook in the other. Rei’s eyes sparkled in excitement and you couldn’t blame her. Even by professional standards, you had presence.
“Alright, everyone. I’m Y/N Yoo, and I’ll be your teacher for the next five months. My goal is not just to teach you English but to teach you how to use it properly, respectfully, and effectively. Since I’ve introduced myself, let’s start with introductions. Just say your name and age. Simple, easy, no pressure.”
As students began introducing themselves, Liz felt a flutter of nervousness. She had always been shy, and being far from Bavaria, surrounded by strangers, made it even more daunting. But your kind, encouraging tone helped ease her anxiety. Small comments like your praise of Nagoya chocolates brought gentle laughter and eased the tension, setting the class atmosphere into a friendly, no-judgment zone.
Finally, it was her turn.
“I’m Elizabeth Helga Müller, 22 years old.”
You gave a light-hearted grin. “You already beat me in drinking alcohol… age 8, right?”
Liz laughed. Not at the joke itself, but at your delivery. Warm, teasing, and somehow comforting.
The class ran from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., but the hours didn’t feel long. The lesson wasn’t a traditional lecture, it felt more like a group of friends hanging out. You didn’t really teach grammar or drills on the first day. Instead, you asked the students to talk about their favorite foods in Korea, guiding them gently to describe each dish in English. The exercise was fun, interactive, and unintimidating, a perfect icebreaker.
By the end of the day, Liz felt a soft warmth in her chest. The fear and nerves she’d carried melted into something lighter: curiosity, excitement, and maybe a little belonging.
For the first time since arriving in Seoul, Liz thought, maybe this adventure wouldn’t be so scary after all.
The classes had ended, but Liz wasn’t ready to leave just yet. She had brought a book with her, determined to practice English on her own. Not just reading quietly, no, she said every word out loud, correcting her own grammar as she went. She was so absorbed that the world around her faded completely.
When she finally glanced at her phone, her heart skipped. 7:32 p.m.
Panic set in. She scrambled out of the school building, nerves prickling as darkness surrounded her. Seoul at night was unfamiliar, and every shadow felt like a possible threat. Heads turned to look at her as she hurried along the streets, and you couldn’t really blame them, Liz’s European looks were striking, almost otherworldly.
Her chest tightened. What if someone… someone tried to grab her? What if she couldn’t do anything? Fear clutched her like icy fingers, and she picked up her pace, eyes darting around.
Then, a familiar voice broke through the haze.
“Liz?”
Her head snapped up and there you were, casually strolling down the street with a bag slung over your shoulder, munching happily on a fish stick. Relief flooded her chest, and she ran toward you like a light cutting through darkness.
“Mr. Yoo!” she called.
“Mmmgh?”
You spoke with your cheeks puffed full of fish sticks, looking ridiculously adorable in the process. Liz couldn’t help but giggle, it reminded her of the squirrels back in Germany, hurrying to store nuts for winter, mouths impossibly stuffed.
“You look… full, Mr. Yoo,” she managed between laughs.
“Please,” you said with a grin, swallowing quickly, “just call me Y/N. We’re not in school anymore anyway.”
Liz nodded, but her eyes had already wandered to the food in your hand. You caught her stare, and with a playful shrug, offered her some.
“You want some?”
“Ah, no I—”
Before either of you could react, her stomach growled loudly, echoing in the quiet street. Liz froze. And then, in a mix of embarrassment and disbelief, she sank to her knees, curling up and burying her face in her hands, her cheeks burning bright tomato red.
She wished, desperately, that the ground would just swallow her whole.
You crouched beside her, chuckling softly. “Hey, it’s okay. Happens to everyone. Here, try it.” You offered the fish stick gently.
Liz peeked through her fingers, hesitant, but a tiny smile tugged at her lips despite the blush. Even in the middle of her mortifying moment, something about this felt… safe.
The vendor handed Liz a fish stick, skewered together with a few golden-brown squid balls. Her eyes went wide in awe as she examined the food, completely captivated.
You blinked. That didn’t look like a regular fish stick. It looked… special. Was this old lady vendor giving her special treatment? You raised an eyebrow, curious but staying silent.
“Oh wow,” Liz murmured, taking a careful bite. Her face lit up instantly. “This… this tastes so good. Very good.”
“Huh,” you teased, crossing your arms, “you speak fluent English when your stomach’s fed, huh?”
Liz giggled, shaking her head. “Food is food. And this… this is really good. How about you, Y/N? You live nearby?”
“Ah, yeah,” you said, nodding toward a familiar street. “My apartment’s just this way.”
Her eyes went wide. “No way! That’s… my direction too!”
Yep. You already knew where this was going. You’d seen enough K-dramas and Korean manhwa to know exactly how these things usually played out.
“I… if you want, I can leave and find a new apartment—” you started, bracing yourself.
“NO!” Liz exclaimed so loudly that the vendor jumped. She clutched her chest, cheeks burning red as if she’d just survived a mini heart attack. She quickly waved her hands apologetically. “I… I’m sorry!”
She took a deep breath and looked at you, eyes wide but earnest. “What I mean is… I don’t mind, Y/N. You don’t have to adjust your life for me.”
“I wasn’t—” you began, but she cut you off.
“You’re such a good person, Y/N.”
“I didn’t—”
“Let’s go.”
She started walking ahead, tugging her bag over her shoulder, cheeks still tinged pink. You watched her for a moment, a small smile tugging at your lips, before paying for her meal and shrugging. Following her wasn’t a burden, it felt natural, somehow.
The walk to the apartment was surprisingly easy. Conversation flowed naturally from light questions about English to more personal topics.
You learned that Liz was quietly searching for her mother, a woman she had barely met. Her tone held a mixture of curiosity and longing, and you felt a gentle tug in your chest, wanting to reassure her somehow.
Liz, in turn, learned more about you. That you hadn’t wanted to be a teacher at first, that it was only when you discovered the joy of seeing students succeed, the small celebrations of their victories, and the way you could inspire them to be the “new hope of the future,” that you found your calling.
“You have a soft heart for kids,” Liz cooed softly, and you could feel her lowkey admiration in the way she said it. You couldn’t help but smile, it was a subtle compliment, and you recognized that spark of interest in her.
She also found out that you were only a year older than her, which surprised her. Your calm, confident aura gave the impression of someone in their UNC years or maybe older but not someone just a year her senior.
And then… destiny decided to play a hand. Not only did she live in the same apartment building, but she was also your next-door neighbor.
Liz giggled as she saw your face go pale. You froze, caught somewhere between panic, disbelief, and something you didn’t quite want to admit, excitement. She’s your student. Your student! The situation was straight out of a K-drama, and you weren’t sure whether to be furious, worried, or… well, intrigued.
“Well, good night, Y/N Oppa! Hehe.”
She chuckled lightly, the sound drifting from behind her apartment door. Then came the soft click of the lock.
You groaned, collapsing backward onto your bed with a thud, letting your hands cover your face.
“I’m… cooked,” you muttered to yourself, half in frustration, half in disbelief.
The universe had just thrown you into a full-on rom-com scenario, and there was no escape.
As the weeks passed, you and Liz slowly fell into a routine one that neither of you questioned anymore.
By her request, you started arriving at school together. Liz said it helped her familiarize herself with the streets of Seoul, learning landmarks and shortcuts while walking safely beside you. She even waited for you after class, lingering around until you clocked out. You didn’t mind at all, after all, you were neighbors. It felt… natural.
You helped her with her English lessons in her apartment, sitting across from her at the small table as she practiced pronunciation, brows furrowed in concentration. At the same time, you helped her search for her mother, scrolling through forums, visiting old neighborhoods, asking questions with nothing but a grainy photograph to guide you.
You circled nearly all of Seoul together.
The crowds didn’t help. There were simply too many people, too many faces. Still, you stayed by her side. Something about Liz’s determination inspired you, the way she chased someone she barely knew, fueled by nothing but hope and courage.
And no matter how exhausting the day became, there was always one constant.
The fish-stick vendor.
That small stand had become your place. After class. After searching. After long, emotionally draining days. Liz had grown especially fond of fish sticks, only when eaten with you, she insisted. Standing shoulder to shoulder, laughing, teasing each other, arguing over stupid things like whether squid balls counted as fish sticks, it felt easy. Comfortable.
Dangerously comfortable.
Because people started to notice.
Your fellow teachers raised eyebrows. Some of them, too many of them, lowkey tried flirting with Liz during breaks or whenever she studied in the library. Liz would smile politely, excuse herself, and immediately look for you instead.
Which only made things worse.
You and Liz were practically glued together, from morning walks to late-night study sessions. And your colleagues hated it. They hated you. And eventually… they’d had enough.
Morning sunlight spilled gently into the classroom. Students chatted quietly as they waited for you to arrive.
Liz stood by the door, bag hugged close to her chest. She’d wanted to walk with you that morning, but you were gone. No knock. No text. Just silence. She later found out it was because of a sudden meeting.
It was the first time in weeks she hadn’t walked with you.
She pouted the entire morning.
When the classroom doors finally opened, Liz lit up, only for her smile to disappear instantly.
It wasn’t you.
It was Felix.
“Guys,” he said calmly, hands tucked into his pockets, “I’ll be your new teacher starting today. Mr. Yoo is resigning.”
The words hit like a punch to the chest.
Liz’s entire world crumbled.
There was no way.
You still had two months left in the five-month program.
The classroom erupted. Voices overlapped, chairs scraped against the floor, students protested loudly. They hated the idea of losing you—their teacher, their friend, the one who made learning feel human.
Liz sat frozen.
Gone?
Just like that?
Her fingers trembled as she clenched them into fists, heart pounding painfully in her chest.
No.
You wouldn’t leave her like this.
Not without saying goodbye.
Liz didn’t even hear the rest of Felix’s words.
The moment his voice registered, she grabbed her bag and bolted, zooming past the classroom door and out of the school. Her legs carried her forward on pure instinct, sprinting through the streets of Seoul as dark clouds gathered overhead, thunder rumbling its warning. She didn’t hear it. She didn’t feel anything but panic.
She ran.
And ran.
And ran—
Until she reached your apartment.
She didn’t bother knocking. German strength and desperation burst the door open as she stumbled inside, only to be met with silence.
The apartment was empty.
Cold.
Still.
Lifeless.
The space where she had shared hotpot with you just last week, laughing, arguing over ingredients, feeling at home now felt hollow. It was the complete opposite of everything she associated with you.
You were full.
Warm.
Happy.
And now… gone.
Tears spilled freely down her cheeks.
“Not again,” she whispered brokenly.
She had already lost her mama once. Now this too? Liz begged the universe to wake her up, to let this be nothing more than a cruel dream. For once, just once, she had believed she found hope in the middle of her struggles.
But life was unfair.
You already separated me from my mother, she thought shakily.
Why do you have to take him too?
The tears wouldn’t stop.
Outside, rain began to drizzle, soft at first, then heavier. Liz walked out into it without caring, clutching the grainy photograph of her mother tightly against her chest. What was the point of finishing the class if the person who made it meaningful was gone?
The rain soaked through her clothes, her hair, her skin but she felt nothing.
Her mind shut down.
Until suddenly… the rain stopped.
Confused, Liz slowly looked up.
Standing before her was the same warm old lady who always sold fish sticks, now holding an umbrella over her, shielding her from the rain.
“Aigoo,” the woman scolded gently, voice soft and familiar. “Are you Superman? You’ll get sick if you get soaked like that.”
Her warmth was overwhelming. Too warm.
The woman’s eyes drifted to the photo in Liz’s trembling hands. She reached out carefully, almost reverently, and took it. her lips curling into a soft smile.
“My… how young was I when this was taken.”
Liz’s breath hitched.
Her eyes widened as life rushed back into them all at once.
Could it be?
“M-Mama?” she whispered, barely daring to say the word.
The woman smiled fully now, eyes shining.
“Aigoo,” she said fondly, her German accent slipping through like a long-lost melody. “You grew up to be such a pretty lady, my kleine Prinzessin.”
Liz shattered.
She threw herself into the woman’s arms, sobbing uncontrollably as she hugged her tightly. After twenty-two years—twenty-two years—she had finally found her.
That accent.
That warmth.
This was her mother.
Her mama.
“MAMA!!” Liz cried.
The woman laughed softly, hugging her back just as tightly.
“Aigoo… still a crybaby, huh?”
And for the first time in her life, Liz cried, not from loss, but from finally being found.
Her mother held her quietly, stroking her back as the rain softened into a distant memory. After a while, Liz pulled away, smiling despite her tear-streaked cheeks.
“Mama… I want to talk to you about so many things,” Liz said softly, then hesitated. “But I want to—”
“Look for Y/N?” her mother finished gently.
Liz froze.
“He’s at the stall,” her mother continued with a knowing smile. “I made sure he works there for a bit, to clear his head.”
Liz gasped. There was no way her mother already knew—
“Go,” her mother said, nudging her lightly. “I saw how he cared for you these past months. He’s always been a good soul. Too good for his own heart.” Her eyes twinkled. “Remind him why you never make a German girl cry.”
Liz laughed through her tears and didn’t waste another second. She bolted toward the fish-stick stand, hope burning bright once more.
Her mother watched her go, shaking her head fondly.
“She really got her father’s spirit,” she murmured.
Meanwhile, you stood behind the stall, mindlessly flipping fish sticks, eyes dull and unfocused.
Felix’s voice echoed in your head, how he couldn’t even defend you during the meeting. The accusations. Exploiting a student. Inappropriate. You tried to explain that circumstances happened, that nothing crossed a line, but no one listened.
So you quit.
You were planning to leave anyway… but it still hurt.
What hurt more was knowing you wouldn’t see Liz again.
You’d started falling for her, slowly, quietly. And leaving without a word? That would haunt you.
Lost in thought, you barely noticed the sudden thud against your shoulder.
“Ow—!”
“That,” a familiar voice snapped, “was for scaring me.”
You turned, stunned.
Liz stood there, soaked, eyes blazing, breath uneven. Fire lived in her gaze.
You swallowed.
You really did forget how strong German women were.
“Liz, I—”
She didn’t let you finish.
She grabbed your collar and pulled you in, kissing you with everything she’d been holding back, a kiss worth a million explanations, apologies, and promises.
You froze for half a second… then decided it was safer to go with it than risk being suplexed.
When she pulled away, she laughed softly and wrapped her arms around you.
“Don’t leave me like that,” she said, voice trembling but sure. “Ever again. Okay?”
You hugged her back just as tightly.
“Okay,” you whispered. “I promise I won’t run away again.”
“Good,” she said with a grin. “Because I need a homeschool teacher now. Hehe.”
You both laughed, warmth settling between you, real, earned, and steady.
This moment would stay with you both.
Because in life, love doesn’t have to be loud or dramatic. It doesn’t have to be just physical or just emotional. Love can be patience. Choice. Staying.
Even with barriers between worlds, love always finds a way.
