You and your rival, Heeseung, are forced to sleep on the floor together after a late-night group project because all other spots are taken. What starts as annoyed bickering and reluctant closeness quickly turns into heavy sexual tension.
contents ; rivalxrival, ( 18+ ) minors dni ! enemies to complicated, semi public sx, unprotected sx ( not recommended ), swearing! , blowjob, m! receive, spooning sx .
listen to me while reading
You and Heeseung had been rivals since the moment you stepped into the academy. Sharp-tongued, competitive, and unwilling to yield even an inch to each other. That rivalry had only grown worse during this group project. For days now, the two of you had been clashing nonstop—especially tonight.
The living room was dimly lit by a single lamp. The rest of the group had already given up and passed out, one sprawled across the couch, another curled up on the floor with a blanket. It was well past midnight, and the argument between you and Heeseung had dragged on far too long.
You finally threw your hands up. “You know what? Forget it. I’m tired. I’m not wasting any more energy on this.”
You rolled your eyes, not even waiting for his reply. The only space left was a narrow strip on the edge of the floor. Great. Just great. You muttered under your breath, “Dang it…” and carefully stepped over the sleeping bodies, too exhausted to grab your blanket from your backpack. You collapsed onto the cold floor, lying on your side with your back facing the room.
A few minutes later, you heard footsteps. Heeseung stood there, scanning the room with a heavy sigh. Every decent spot was taken. The chairs were too uncomfortable for his back, and the only free space left… was right beside you.
He rubbed the back of his neck, clearly annoyed. For a second he hesitated, jaw tight. But exhaustion won. Without a word, he stepped over the others and lay down behind you, facing your back. The floor was barely wide enough for both of you. You could feel the faint warmth of his body just inches away, but you were too tired to turn around or care.
Until you shifted.
Your eyes fluttered open as your shoulder brushed against something solid. You turned your head slightly… and froze.
Heeseung was right there. Eyes closed, brows slightly furrowed even in sleep, his face mere inches from yours.
“What the fuck?!” you hissed under your breath, careful not to wake the others.
Heeseung’s eyes snapped open. For a split second, surprise flashed across his face, quickly replaced by that familiar look of irritation. He didn’t move away.
“Keep your voice down,” he whispered sharply, voice low and rough from tiredness. “You think I wanted this? There’s nowhere else, genius.”
You glared at him, heart beating faster than it should. “Then go sleep somewhere else. I’m not sharing space with you.”
“Yeah? And where exactly?” Heeseung shot back, voice barely above a whisper. His breath brushed against your cheek. “The couch is taken. The floor’s full. Unless you want me to sleep on top of you, this is it.”
Your face burned. You hated how close he was—close enough to catch the faint scent of his cologne mixed with the tiredness in his eyes. Close enough that every small movement made your shoulders touch.
“Move one inch closer and I swear I’ll push you into the wall,” you muttered, turning your back to him again.
Heeseung let out a quiet, bitter chuckle. “Trust me, I’d rather be anywhere but here too.”
But neither of you moved.
the silence stretched between you, the only sounds were the soft breathing of your sleeping groupmates and the faint ticking of the clock on the wall. You could feel the heat radiating from his body against your back, and no matter how much you told yourself it was just the rivalry making your pulse race… you knew the night had just gotten a lot more complicated.
A few minutes passed in heavy silence. You turned your face toward the wall, determined to ignore the boy behind you and force yourself to sleep.
But the floor was narrow and uncomfortable. One of your sleeping classmates behind Heeseung suddenly rolled over in his sleep and pushed against his back. The sudden force made Heeseung slide forward, pressing his chest flush against your back.
“Shit…” he mumbled, voice low and rough.
He quickly planted his hands on the floor, trying to keep some distance, but there was nowhere to go. The push had left almost no space between your bodies. You could feel the heat of him through your clothes, his breath brushing the back of your neck.
Your heart slammed in your chest. You turned your head slightly, only to find his face right there—barely a breath away. His dark eyes were open, staring directly at you. Your noses were nearly touching.
“What the hell are you doing?” you whispered sharply, cheeks burning.
“I’m not doing anything,” Heeseung hissed back, clearly frustrated. “That idiot behind me pushed me. You think I want to be this close to you?”
His voice was quieter than usual, strained. One of his hands was still braced on the floor beside your waist, caging you in without meaning to. Every small movement made your bodies press together even more. You could feel the steady thump of his heartbeat against your back.
You glared at him, but the anger felt different now—mixed with something nervous and warm that you refused to name.
“Well, move back,” you muttered.
“Where?” Heeseung shot back, eyebrows furrowed. His gaze dropped to your lips for half a second before snapping back up. “There’s literally no space. Unless you want me to climb over you.”
You swallowed hard. The tension between you was thicker than ever. The rivalry, the annoyance, the exhaustion… and now this forced, unbearable closeness.
Heeseung let out a slow, shaky breath. “Just… go back to sleep. Pretend I’m not here.”
But neither of you moved. And neither of you closed your eyes.
You tried to ignore it—that strange, fluttering warmth twisting low in your stomach. It wasn’t anger. You knew anger too well when it came to Heeseung. This was something else. Something softer, heavier, You brushed it off, blaming it on exhaustion, on the way his body heat was seeping through your shirt like it had no right to.
But your body wasn’t listening.
Every time you breathed, your back pressed a little more firmly against his chest. His heartbeat was steady but strong, and you could feel it syncing with yours in the quiet. His breath ghosted across the nape of your neck, warm and slightly uneven now.
“Stop moving,” Heeseung muttered, voice so low it vibrated against your skin.
“I’m not,” you whispered back, sharper than you meant to. But you had shifted—just a little—trying to create even an inch of space that didn’t exist. The movement only made your hips brush against his, and you both froze.
That flutter in your stomach dropped lower.
Heeseung’s hand, still braced on the floor near your waist, tightened slightly, fingers pressing into the hardwood like he was fighting the urge to grip something else. His forehead nearly touched the back of your head.
“Fuck,” he breathed, so quietly you almost missed it. “This is ridiculous.”
You didn’t answer. You couldn’t. Your throat felt tight, and that weird sensation was spreading—warmth crawling up your chest, heat pooling between your legs. You hated how aware you were of him. The faint scent of his skin, the way his thigh was almost slotted against yours, the solid line of his body curved behind you like it was made to fit there.
Another soft snore came from the guy behind him, and Heeseung got pushed forward again. This time there was no saving it—his hips pressed flush against your ass, and you felt the unmistakable hardness growing there.
Your eyes widened. Heat flooded your face.
“Heeseung—” you started, voice barely a whisper, mmhalf something else.
“Don’t,” he cut you off, strained. His lips were so close to your ear now. “Don’t say anything. It’s… it’s just biology, okay? I’m tired. You’re warm. That’s all.”
But he didn’t pull away.
And you didn’t shove him back.
Instead, you stayed perfectly still, heart hammering so hard you were sure he could feel it too. That flutter in your stomach had turned into a full ache now, low and insistent. Your thighs pressed together instinctively, and the small movement made you brush against him again.
Heeseung let out a shaky exhale through his nose, almost a hiss. His free hand twitched like he wanted to grab your hip but stopped himself halfway, fingers hovering just above your waist.
“You’re shaking,” he observed quietly. There was no smugness in his voice for once—just raw tension.
“I’m not,” you lied.
His dark chuckle was barely audible. “Liar.”
The silence stretched again, heavier this time. Charged. You could feel every inch of where your bodies touched—his chest to your back, his hips to your ass, his knees slightly bent behind yours. The rivalry that usually burned between you felt like it was melting into something else entirely.
You turned your head just enough to glance at him over your shoulder. His eyes were already on you, dark and intense, pupils blown wide. His lips were parted, breath coming a little faster.
For a second, neither of you spoke.
Then Heeseung’s gaze dropped to your mouth again, longer this time.
“…If you tell anyone about this,” he whispered, voice rough, “I’ll make your life hell.”
You swallowed. “Same goes for you.”
But neither of you moved away.
And when his fingers finally brushed—barely—against your waist, you didn’t push his hand off.
You squeezed your eyes shut tighter, trying desperately to force sleep to come.
One sheep… two sheep… three sheep…
It was useless. The counting only made you more aware of your own breathing, which was too shallow. Every inhale pressed your back more firmly against Heeseung’s chest. Every exhale made you feel the hard line of his body even more—especially the unmistakable heat and stiffness nestled against your ass.
Damn it. Damn it. Damn it.
The warm flutter in your stomach had turned into a deep, throbbing ache between your thighs. You pressed them together again, but that only made it worse, sending a small shiver up your spine. You felt Heeseung’s breath hitch against the back of your neck.
“Stop squirming,” he whispered, voice dangerously low and rough. His fingers, still hovering near your waist, finally settled—lightly, almost hesitantly—on your hip. Not gripping. Just… resting there. Like he couldn’t stop himself.
“I’m not squirming,” you hissed back, eyes still shut. “I’m trying to sleep. Shut up.”
But your voice came out breathier than you wanted. You bit your lip hard, counting again in your head. Four sheep... fifth sheep...
It didn’t work. All you could focus on was the way his cock twitched against you when you shifted, the way his chest rose and fell faster now, the way his breath was scorching the sensitive skin of your nape.
Heeseung let out a quiet, frustrated groan, barely audible. His forehead dropped forward until it rested against the back of your head.
“You’re killing me here,” he muttered, so close his lips brushed your hair. “Just… stop moving for five seconds.”
“I’m trying,” you snapped under your breath. Your hand clenched into a fist against the cold floor. “This stupid feeling won’t go away. Damn it…”
He went still.
“What feeling?” His voice had dropped even lower. dangerously curious.
You didn’t answer. You couldn’t. Admitting it out loud would make it too real.
But your silence said enough.
Heeseung’s fingers flexed on your hip, pressing just a fraction harder. Not pulling you back, but definitely not letting you escape either. His hips moved—barely—an involuntary little roll that pushed his hard length more firmly between your clothed cheeks.
You sucked in a sharp breath.
“Fuck…” he breathed, almost like a curse and a confession at the same time. “You feel it too, don’t you?”
You kept your eyes screwed shut, heart pounding wildly. The ache between your legs was getting unbearable, a slick warmth starting to gather in your panties. You hated how your body was betraying you, especially with him.
“I hate you,” you whispered, but it sounded weak even to your own ears.
Heeseung let out a soft, dark chuckle against your neck, the sound sending goosebumps racing down your arms.
“Yeah?” His lips ghosted over your skin as he spoke. “Then why are you so warm right now? Why is your breathing all messed up?”
His hand slid slowly, cautiously, from your hip to your stomach, stopping just under your ribs.
You didn’t push him away.
And when his thumb brushed in a small, soothing circle over your shirt, the sensation in your stomach flared hotter.
“Damn it, Heeseung…” you whispered again, half plea, half surrender. Your eyes stayed closed, but your body leaned back into him just the tiniest bit.
You hissed through gritted teeth, voice barely above a breath, “Stop moving, god damn it—stop moving.”
Your body was betraying you with every word. Even as you said it, your hips gave a tiny, involuntary push back against him, chasing the friction you were trying so hard to deny.
Heeseung’s breath stuttered hot against the back of your neck. His hand on your stomach tensed, fingers curling slightly into your shirt like he was anchoring himself.
“I’m not—” he started, but his voice cracked into a low, rough whisper. “Fuck, you’re the one who keeps shifting.”
He was lying. Sort of.
Because even while he spoke, his hips rolled forward again, almost imperceptible, but enough to drag his hard cock more firmly against your ass. The thin fabric of your clothes did nothing to hide how much he wanted this. How much he hated wanting this.
You clenched your jaw, eyes still squeezed shut, trying to fight the slick heat pooling between your thighs. “Then stay still,” you hissed again, sharper this time. “Or I swear I’ll elbow you in the ribs.”
Heeseung let out a quiet, breathless scoff that sounded more like a groan. His forehead pressed harder against the back of your head, his lips now dangerously close to your ear.
“You say that…” he murmured, voice dark and strained, “…but your body’s not listening.”
His hand slowly slid lower on your stomach, stopping right at the waistband of your pants. Not dipping inside. Just resting there. Tempting.
You could feel his heartbeat hammering against your back, fast and unsteady. His cock throbbed once against you, and the sensation made your stomach flip hard.
“Shit…” he cursed under his breath. “You have no idea how much I hate you right now.”
But he still didn’t pull away.
Instead, his nose brushed the shell of your ear as he whispered, so quietly it was almost sinful
“…And you have no idea how badly I want to flip you over and shut that pretty mouth up.”
Your breath hitched loudly in the dark.
The ache between your legs pulsed.
And neither of you moved an inch.
You hissed under your breath, voice trembling with both fury and something far more shameful, “You’re such a whore then—”
The words barely left your lips before Heeseung’s grip on your waist tightened, pulling your hips back against him with a slow, deliberate grind. His hard cock pressed firmly between your ass cheeks, throbbing even through the layers of fabric.
He let out a low, dangerous chuckle right against your ear, the sound rough and dripping with irritation and lust.
“Yeah?” he whispered hotly, lips brushing your skin. “I’m the whore? Then why the fuck are you so wet I can feel the heat through your clothes?”
Your face burned with humiliation. You wanted to snap back, to push him away, but your body was a traitor—your back arched slightly, pressing harder into his chest as another involuntary shiver ran through you. Your thighs squeezed together, but that only made the aching throb between your legs worse.
Heeseung’s hand slid lower, fingers teasing just beneath the hem of your shirt, brushing bare skin. His breath was ragged now.
“Say it again,” he taunted quietly, voice dark. “Call me a whore while your ass keeps rubbing against my dick like you’re begging for it.”
You bit your lip hard, trying to stay quiet as his hips rolled again, filthy, grinding into you with just enough pressure to make your head spin. The slickness between your thighs was undeniable now, your panties growing damp and sticky.
“I hate you,” you breathed, but it came out like a moan instead of an insult.
Heeseung smirked against your neck, teeth grazing your skin for a split second.
“Liar,” he murmured. His fingers dipped a little lower, tracing the waistband of your pants. “Your body’s telling the truth. So fucking honest right now…”
He pushed forward again, trapping you tighter between his body and the floor. The tension was suffocating.
Neither of you was sleeping tonight.
“I- I can’t take this anymore,” you hissed, eyes squeezed shut so tightly you saw sparks behind your lids.
Your voice cracked with frustration, shame, and something far needier. The ache between your legs had become unbearable—hot, slick, and pulsing with every tiny shift of his body against yours. You hated how desperate you sounded. You hated even more that it was true.
Heeseung’s breath hitched sharply against your neck. For a second he went completely still, as if your words had stunned him. Then his hand on your waist gripped harder, fingers digging into your skin through your shirt like he was barely holding himself back.
“Can’t take what?” he whispered, voice low, dark, and dangerously close to your ear. “Can’t take me being this hard against you? Or can’t take how badly you want it?”
He rolled his hips forward again, slower this time, more intentional. His clothed cock dragged firmly between your ass cheeks, pressing right against where you were throbbing the most. A quiet, broken sound escaped your throat before you could stop it.
Heeseung cursed under his breath.
“Fuck… you’re shaking,” he murmured, almost like he was in pain. His lips brushed the shell of your ear as he continued, “You’ve been grinding back on me for the last ten minutes, acting like you hate it. But we both know that’s bullshit.”
His hand slid lower, boldly slipping under the hem of your shirt until his palm was flat against your bare stomach. The heat of his touch made your muscles jump.
You kept your eyes closed, biting down hard on your lip. Your breathing was ragged now, chest rising and falling too fast.
“I hate you,” you whispered again, but it sounded wrecked
Heeseung let out a soft, mocking laugh that vibrated against your back.
“Yeah? Then tell me to stop,” he challenged quietly, his fingers slowly tracing circles on your skin, inching dangerously lower toward the waistband of your pants. “Tell me to get the fuck away from you right now… and I’ll try.”
His hips gave another lazy, teasing grind, pressing his hardness right against your ass as if to prove his point.
You didn’t say it.
You couldn’t.
Instead, your head tilted back slightly, unconsciously offering more of your neck as a broken exhale left your lips.
Heeseung’s voice dropped even lower, barely audible, rough with want.
“That’s what I thought.”
His fingers finally dipped just beneath the waistband of your pants, hovering there, waiting.
“Last chance,” he breathed against your skin, lips brushing the sensitive spot right below your ear. “Tell me to stop… or tell me what you really need.”
His hand stilled, but his cock kept throbbing insistently against you.
Your heart was hammering so loud you were scared it would wake the others.
“Shut up,” you hissed, voice shaking with frustration and raw need. “Just fucking start already.”
Before Heeseung could even respond, you pushed your ass back against him harder, grinding deliberately against the thick, hard length straining in his pants. At the same time, you grabbed his wrist and yanked his hand upward, shoving it under your shirt until his palm was cupping your breast.
Heeseung’s entire body jerked against you.
“Fuck—” he choked out in a strangled whisper, eyes widening in the dark.
You tugged your shirt higher yourself, bunching it up just below your collarbone, exposing your bare chest to his touch. No bra. His warm, rough hand immediately squeezed your breast, thumb brushing over your already hard nipple.
Heeseung let out a low, shaky groan right against your neck, hips rolling forward to meet your grinding. His cock twitched hard against your ass as he palmed your breast greedily, squeezing and kneading like he’d been dying to touch you.
“You’re actually insane,” he breathed, voice wrecked. “Pushing your tits into my hand while calling me a whore…”
He pinched your nipple between his fingers, rolling it slowly, sending a sharp spark of pleasure straight down between your legs. You bit your lip hard to keep quiet, but a tiny whimper still escaped.
Heeseung’s other arm slid under you, wrapping around your waist and pulling you even tighter against his body. His hips started moving in slow, filthy grinds—pressing his clothed cock between your cheeks like he was fucking you through the fabric.
“Keep doing that,” he whispered hotly against your ear, lips brushing your skin with every word. “Keep rubbing your ass on me like a needy little slut.”
His hand on your breast grew rougher, squeezing harder as his breathing turned ragged. He rolled your nipple again, then slid his hand to your other breast, giving it the same attention while his hips kept that slow, torturous rhythm against you.
You could feel how wet you were now—your panties soaked, the ache almost painful.
Heeseung pressed an open-mouthed kiss to the back of your neck, then lightly dragged his teeth there.
“Tell me how far you want this to go,” he murmured, voice dark and dangerous, “because if you keep pushing back on my dick like that… I’m not gonna be able to stop.”
His fingers pinched your nipple again, harder this time, as if daring you to moan loud enough for someone to wake up.
You leaned back closer into him, lips barely brushing his jaw as you whispered hotly against his skin,
“Don’t stop then… or are you scared? Show me how brave you are.”
The challenge had barely left your mouth before Heeseung snapped.
He didn’t hesitate. Not even for a second.
With a sharp, impatient tug, he yanked his sweatpants down just enough to free his cock. It sprang out, heavy and burning hot against your skin. In the same movement, his other hand roughly pulled your jogging pants and panties down in one swift motion, dragging them halfway down your thighs.
Cold air hit your bare ass and soaked pussy for only a moment before Heeseung pressed forward again. His thick, bare cock slid right between your thighs, gliding along your dripping folds.
“Fuck…” he growled low in your ear, voice trembling with restraint. “You’re soaked.”
He rocked his hips, letting his cock slide back and forth between your thighs, the head bumping teasingly against your swollen clit with every pass. One of his hands returned to your breast, squeezing hard, while the other gripped your hip, fingers digging into your skin as he held you in place.
“You talk so much shit,” he breathed, dragging his cock slowly along your slit again, coating himself in your wetness, “but look at you… pushing your bare pussy against me like a desperate whore.”
You bit down hard on your lip to stop yourself from moaning. The feeling of his hot, hard length sliding between your folds was driving you insane. Every slow thrust made the head of his cock nudge your entrance before sliding back up to rub your clit.
Heeseung leaned in, lips pressed right against your ear as he whispered darkly,
“You wanted brave?”
He pulled his hips back slightly, angled himself, and pushed forward.
The thick head of his cock pressed against your entrance, slowly stretching you open as he started sinking inside you from behind, inch by inch.
He groaned quietly into your hair, the sound rough.
“Shit… you’re so fucking tight.”
He didn’t stop. He kept pushing deeper, filling you up slowly but relentlessly, his hand tightening on your breast as he buried himself to the hilt inside you.
Both of you froze for a second, breathing hard, bodies locked together on the floor.
Then Heeseung’s hips started moving — slow, deep, filthy thrusts, careful not to make too much noise but hard enough that you felt every inch of him dragging inside you.
“Still think I’m scared?” he rasped against your neck, biting down lightly as he fucked you. “Tell me how brave I am now…”
“Fuck… fine,” you gasped, voice barely a whisper, trembling. “You’re brave… fuck, you’re brave—”
You turned your head just enough to glance back at him over your shoulder. Your eyes met in the dim lamplight, and you stared at him—lips parted, biting down hard on your lower lip to keep from moaning too loud.
Heeseung’s dark gaze burned into yours, pupils blown wide with lust. Sweat already clung to his forehead, his jaw clenched tight as he buried himself deep inside you with another slow, powerful thrust.
“Yeah?” he breathed hotly against your mouth, lips hovering just inches from yours. “Say it again while I’m balls-deep in you.”
He snapped his hips forward harder this time, burying his cock to the hilt. A broken whimper escaped you before you could stop it. The stretch was intense, the angle perfect, every thick inch dragging against your walls in the most filthy way.
Heeseung’s hand slid up from your breast to grip your jaw, turning your face further toward him so he could watch you while he fucked you. His thrusts stayed deep and steady — controlled, but getting rougher with every roll of his hips.
“Look at me,” he whispered roughly, eyes never leaving yours. “Look at me while you’re creaming all over my cock like you hate me.”
You bit your lip harder, eyes fluttering but refusing to close. The wet, quiet sound of skin meeting skin was barely masked by the heavy breathing between you. Every thrust pushed you forward slightly on the floor, his body completely molded to yours from behind.
“Fuck… you feel so good,” he groaned lowly, the confession slipping out like he hated admitting it. His grip on your jaw tightened as he leaned in and caught your lips in a messy, desperate kiss — all tongue and teeth, trying to swallow down both your moans.
He broke the kiss only to press his forehead against yours, panting.
“Still rivals?” he taunted in a husky whisper, slamming into you a little deeper, grinding his hips in small circles so his cock rubbed against that perfect spot inside you. “Or are you finally admitting you’ve been dying for me to fuck you stupid?”
His free hand slipped down between your legs, fingers finding your swollen clit and rubbing tight, slick circles as he kept thrusting.
Your whole body trembled. You stared back at him, eyes glassy with pleasure, lips still bitten red.
Heeseung smirked against your mouth, dark and satisfied.
“That’s what I thought.”
He kissed you again, harder this time, hips picking up pace as much as he dared without waking the others.
Heeseung kept thrusting into you with deep, measured strokes, each one dragging a silent gasp from your throat. The pleasure was overwhelming, making your mind hazy.
You reached forward, pressing your hand flat against the cold wall for leverage, trying to steady yourself as his hips rocked into you from behind.
Heeseung noticed immediately.
Without warning, he hooked one arm under your knee and yanked your leg up and wider, spreading you open even more. The new angle let him sink impossibly deeper, his cock hitting a spot that made your eyes roll back.
“Heeseung…” you whimpered breathlessly, the name slipping out like a broken plea.
“Fuck,” he groaned quietly against your neck, voice rough and strained. “Say my name like that again.”
He held your leg high, fingers digging into your thigh as he fucked you harder — still trying to stay quiet, but the wet sound of his cock sliding in and out of your soaked pussy was getting louder. His other hand stayed braced on the floor near your waist, caging you in while he drove into you with long, filthy strokes.
Every thrust pushed your chest harder against the floor, your shirt still bunched up, nipples rubbing against the fabric. Your hand on the wall curled into a fist as pleasure shot through you.
“Heeseung… ah—” you gasped again, biting your lip right after to muffle the sound.
He leaned over you, chest pressed flush to your back, lips right against your ear as he panted.
“Yeah? You like that?” he whispered, voice dark and mocking even while he was buried inside you. “Legs spread open for me on the fucking floor while our group is sleeping right next to us?”
He snapped his hips forward sharply, grinding deep, his cock rubbing perfectly against that sensitive spot inside you with every roll.
Your eyes fluttered, another soft “Heeseung…” escaping before you could stop it.
He smirked against your skin and bit down lightly on your shoulder, thrusting faster, deeper, chasing the pleasure he could no longer control.
“Keep saying my name like that,” he breathed, voice husky, “and I won’t be able to stop even if someone wakes up.”
His fingers on your thigh tightened, spreading you even wider as he fucked you relentlessly.
“I’m gonna cum… fuck— Heeseung,” you gasped, voice shaking and barely a whisper as your walls started clenching hard around his cock.
Heeseung’s breath hitched sharply. His eyes darkened instantly at your words.
“Shit— already?” he hissed against your ear, but there was clear satisfaction dripping from his tone. He yanked your leg even higher, spreading you obscenely wide as he fucked you deeper, faster, more desperately.
His hips snapped against your ass with wet, muffled slaps. He pressed his forehead hard against the back of your head, panting heavily.
“Then cum,” he growled lowly, voice rough and commanding. “Cum on my cock like the needy little slut you are. Right here. On the fucking floor.”
Heeseung’s hand left your thigh and slid down between your legs, rubbing tight, fast circles on your swollen clit while he kept pounding into you from behind.
Your hand on the wall trembled. Your whole body tensed, thighs shaking violently as the pressure built unbearably fast.
“Look at me,” he demanded in a harsh whisper.
You turned your head just enough. The second your eyes met his — dark, intense, and burning — your orgasm crashed into you.
You bit down hard on your own arm to muffle the moan that tried to rip out of you. Your pussy clenched and fluttered wildly around his thick cock, gushing slick heat as you came hard.
Heeseung groaned through gritted teeth, eyes locked on your face the entire time, watching you fall apart.
“Fuck— that’s it… good girl,” he rasped, still thrusting through your orgasm, drawing it out. “So fucking tight when you cum.”
Your body kept shaking, waves of pleasure rolling through you as he fucked you through it. Heeseung’s rhythm started to falter, his own breathing turning ragged and desperate.
He buried his face in your neck, biting down to stay quiet as his hips stuttered.
“I’m close—” he warned, voice strained, hips slamming into you a little harder. “Where do you want it?”
His cock throbbed violently inside you, clearly right on the edge.
“My mouth,” you whispered desperately, voice hoarse and trembling. “Cum in my mouth.”
Heeseung’s eyes flashed with raw hunger at your words. He let out a shaky, almost pained exhale.
“Fuck… you’re filthy,” he groaned quietly, but the way his cock twitched hard inside you told you how much he liked it.
Without wasting another second, he pulled out of you slowly, his thick length glistening with your juices. You quickly turned around on the floor, facing him. Heeseung sat up slightly, leaning back against the wall while you moved between his legs.
He gripped your hair tightly with one hand, guiding your head down as his other hand stroked his slick cock a few times.
You didn’t hesitate.
You wrapped your lips around his throbbing tip, tasting yourself on him as you took him into your warm, wet mouth. Heeseung’s head fell back, jaw clenched tight as he fought to stay quiet.
“Shit— just like that,” he whispered, voice wrecked. His hips bucked up gently, pushing more of his cock into your mouth. “Suck it… fuck, your mouth feels so good.”
You took him deeper, hollowing your cheeks, tongue swirling around the underside as you bobbed your head. Heeseung’s grip on your hair tightened, breathing fast and ragged.
“I’m so fucking close—” he warned, eyes locked on your lips stretched around him.
A few more strokes of your mouth and he broke.
With a choked, quiet groan, Heeseung came hard. Thick, hot spurts of cum filled your mouth as his cock pulsed against your tongue. He kept his hand in your hair, holding you there while he emptied himself, hips twitching.
You swallowed every drop, sucking him gently through the aftershocks until he was shuddering and oversensitive.
Finally, he pulled you off with a shaky breath, chest heaving. His dark eyes stared down at you, lips parted, sweat on his forehead.
For a moment, the two of you just looked at each other in the dim light — faces flushed, breathing heavy, the rivalry still burning underneath everything… but now mixed with something much more dangerous.
Heeseung wiped the corner of your lip with his thumb, then pushed it into your mouth so you could lick it clean.
“You’re going to be the death of me,” he whispered, voice low and rough.
He pulled you up and against his chest, both of you still half-naked on the floor, hearts still racing.
The next morning came too quickly.
You were already fully dressed, curled up on your side when a bright, cheerful voice echoed through the living room.
“Kids! Breakfast is ready~ Come eat before it gets cold!”
Your classmate’s mom clapped her hands a few times, her footsteps moving around the room as she gently shook the others awake. Groans and sleepy complaints filled the air as everyone started stirring.
You stretched your arms above your head with a soft groan, your back popping slightly. Your body felt sore in the best and worst ways — thighs aching, a faint throb between your legs, and the unmistakable reminder of last night with every small movement. You quickly sat up, fixing your messy hair and avoiding looking toward Heeseung.
But you could feel him.
Heeseung was already awake, sitting up a few feet away. His hair was tousled, eyes still heavy with sleep, and there was a faint red mark on his neck that definitely wasn’t there yesterday. He glanced at you the moment you moved, his gaze dark and unreadable.
For a split second, the memory hit you hard — his cock in your mouth, the way he groaned your name so quietly, the taste of him on your tongue.
Your cheeks burned.
“Morning everyone!” your classmate’s mom called again, smiling brightly. “There’s rice, eggs, and soup. Hurry up before the boys eat everything!”
The others slowly got up, yawning and stretching, completely oblivious. One of them even stepped over the exact spot where Heeseung had fucked you just hours ago.
You stood up and brushed off your clothes, pretending to be normal. But as you turned, Heeseung was suddenly right beside you, close enough that his arm brushed yours.
He leaned in slightly while everyone else was distracted, his voice low and rough against your ear.
“Sleep well?” he asked, the corner of his mouth twitching with a smug little smirk. “You were moving around a lot last night.”
Your stomach flipped.
You shot him a sharp glare, cheeks heating up again. “Shut up,” you hissed under your breath. “Not a single word.”
Heeseung’s smirk only grew. He looked far too satisfied for someone who was supposed to be your rival.
As you both walked toward the dining area with the group, he stayed annoyingly close. His fingers brushed against the back of your hand for half a second — not quite holding it, but definitely not accidental.
You elbowed him lightly in the ribs.
“Asshole,” you muttered.
“Needy little liar,” he whispered back, so quietly only you could hear.
You sat down at the table across from each other. Every time your eyes met, the tension crackled. Heeseung’s gaze kept dropping to your lips for a second too long, like he was remembering exactly how they looked wrapped around him.
You kicked his leg under the table.
He kicked back.
But neither of you could hide the faint flush on your cheeks… or the way your heart raced every time he looked at you.
The rivalry wasn’t gone.
It had just become something much more complicated.
synopsis: heeseung was always the freak, always the dominant one in sex. but when you saw his new playboy boxers peaking through his clothes? oh boy, you went absolutely feral.
warnings: smut, reader is kinda dominant (??), heeseung gets dominant later, blowjob, orgasm denial, riding, unprotected sex (don't do this!!), breast stimulation, heeseung eventually shoves his boxers into reader's mouth, just pure filth tbh. minors do not interact.
author's notes: I got this request all the way back to february, right after I posted about heeseung wearing the playboy underwear. and I put it aside for a while before march 10 and everything happened. I couldn't even look at the draft, I was running from it like it was the plague. but it's here now, and I hope you guys like it. kisses!
tonight was just a movie night. you and heeseung chilling in his apartment, watching a movie in his comfy couch, his arm around you as you both ate popcorn.
you were just laying your head on his shoulder, satisfied. you heard your phone buzz, on the left of the couch. sighing, you move to check the message.
"who is it, baby?" heeseung asks calmly, eyes still on the movie.
you turn your phone off. "just yunjin texting me about some guy she-"
you stop on your tracks when your eyes look down.
'playboy' with the logo beside it, peaking out of his sweatpants. new boxers, definitely. holy fucking shit.
heeseung frowned. "doll?" he looked at you, frowning even more when he saw your eyes stuck down somewhere. he looked down, about to ask if it was some kind of bug.
"hee... when did you buy these?" you ask lowly. slowly. your fingers ran on top of the edge gently.
he frowned even more before he realized you were talking about the boxers. "oh, I think last week. I read somewhere they were more comfortable, and they really are, so-"
you shut him up as you kissed him, going to his lap. the kiss was desperate, one of your hands still on his hip and the other on his neck now.
heeseung was caught off-guard, placing his hands on your hips as he kissed you back. "doll- doll, what-" you didn't let him speak, sucking on his tongue, getting a moan off him.
you pulled back to kiss down his neck, rubbing your hips against his. "d-doll... fuck- why are you so horny?" he asked, breathless as you marked his neck.
you left a hickey and pulled back to look at him. "these fucking boxers. gosh, you look so damn hot." you kissed him again, making him groan.
you could feel him getting hard as you kept rubbing. you pulled back from the kiss to pull his shirt off him, which he did without a second thought. you saw the edge of his boxers and almost moaned. fuck, he looked amazing.
you started to kiss on his collarbone, still moving your hips against his. he groaned again. "goddamn it- oh, baby... when did you get so freaky?" he smirked down at you.
you looked up. "the moment I saw you with these boxers." you kneeled down between his legs. oh, that was a sight he could never get tired of.
you slowly pulled his sweatpants down, only the boxers on him now. he was hard, a wet spot on the material where his tip is. you palmed him slowly, making a weak groan get out of him. "oh, doll... gosh-"
you just pulled his hard dick out of the boxers, not bothering to take them off yet. you fisted his dick slowly, letting the precum run through your hand, getting a low groan from heeseung. you licked his cock after, going from the base to the tip, teasing him. he only moaned, hands gripping the couch. "come on baby- just please, suck me already..." he muttered.
you smirked before shoving it all inside your mouth at once, the tip hitting your throat, making your vision blur. heeseung moaned, head leaning back against the couch, eyes closing.
his hand grabbed your hair as your head went up and down, mouth sucking his cock just the way he liked it. heeseung was in heaven, groaning at the feeling, your mouth driving him crazy.
you took it off your mouth to lick the tip and go back down, the sounds wet and nasty. he was loving it.
when heeseung tightened his grip on your hair, you knew he was close. you kept sucking him, spit and precum running down your chin. but just as he was about to get close, you pulled out, catching your breath.
he immediately opened his eyes to look down at you, his cock hard and red. "b-baby, I was about to-"
you smirked, wiping your chin with the back of your hand. "you will cum inside me when I ride you, understood?" you asked as you got up. heeseung immediately went silent, your tone making him almost explode just there.
you made it torturous, taking your shirt off first, slowly. the image of your boobs, just there, in front of him, it made heeseung want to just pull you down and suck on them. but he stayed put.
you slowly took your shorts after, your black panties covering the pussy he wanted oh so bad to see. it had enough sheerness for him to see, but not enough for him to see.
you chuckled before taking the panties off and sitting on his lap. "you look hungry." you teased.
he gripped your hips before running his hands up and down your thighs. "starving for you, mama. please... I need to cum." he looked up at you, those shiny eyes you couldn't say 'no' to.
you smirked. "since you asked nicely..." you positioned yourself before lowering down on him. heeseung moaned, grip tightening on your hips as he bottomed out inside you. you leaned your head back, moaning.
he felt you start to move your hips back and forth, making him lose his mind. he took your left boob on his mouth, sucking on it, bitting, kissing, licking. you held onto his hair, going up and down on his cock now.
"hee- fuck, oh my-" his big cock inside you felt so good.
he chuckled against your boob. "feel good, babydoll? yeah, bounce on that dick. it's yours baby." he said before sucking on your nipple. his hands went to your ass, squeezing as he helped your movements on his lap.
you knew he was close, the way he was thrusting up into you, his small groans. it took barely 5 minutes before he held your hips still, cumming deep into your pussy, moaning against your shoulder.
you barely registered the orgasm before he threw you on the couch, stomach up. he was breathing heavily, slightly sweaty, looking frustrated.
"you thought you could refuse me like that and not get out absolutely wrecked?" he asked lowly, taking his sweatpants off together with his playboy boxers, eyes burning with lust and danger.
he suddenly had an idea and took his boxers back up from the floor, eyes dark. "you like my boxers, huh? be a good girl and open that mouth for me." he commanded lowly. you opened your mouth without a single thought before he shoved his boxers into your mouth.
he climbed over you, settling between his legs before shoving his dick inside you again. you moaned, the sound muffled by his boxers. his pace already started fast, making you roll your eyes back to your head, nails digging into the skin of his shoulders. his grip on your hips was tight as he pounded into you, moaning as well.
heeseung leaned down, taking your right boob into his mouth, sucking hard on the nipple before swirling his tongue around it. you moaned louder around the boxers on your mouth, clenching around him. he chuckled against your tit and took his hand down between your legs, pressing his thumb to your clit and rubbing fast. you rolled your eyes in pure pleasure, mind going a little blurry. it all felt so good with him.
it barely registered before you came around him, moaning loud around the boxers, thighs shaking. heeseung moaned, satisfied, thumb leaving your clit so he could take hold of your hip again.
a few thrusts later, he came inside you again, both of you moaning. he took the boxers off your mouth, making you breath heavily. "is my babydoll okay?"
you nodded, breathless. "yeah..." you let out, staring up at him.
he smirked. "you really like my new boxers, huh?" he leaned down to press a kiss to your shoulder. you nodded a bit.
hesseung chuckled lowly against your skin. "good. wanna make sure I fuck you so hard tonight they'll be all you remember." he said and flipped you over, making you lay on your stomach, shoving his dick inside you again.
taglist: @sxno0 @ikeumiu @arelyvn @pussiifairy @supahintohoon @foreveronez @shinaerie @nishiirkz @supahintohoon @hyyhwriter (idk who else to tag guys I'm sorry im kinda sleep deprived lol)
—𝑶𝑹 𝑾𝑯𝑬𝑵 you walk into a tattoo shop drunk just to prove a point, and walk out with the best thing to ever happen to you. Except he’s hiding something. And between the secrets and your stalker classmate closing in, you get it twisted before you get it right.
playlist… hanging out to dry — florence road // vampire — dominic fike // addicted — lovelace // fallen star — the neighbourhood // real people — hozier // nothing’s gonna hurt you baby — cigarettes after sex
pepa speaks!! hii so this is my first time writing a fic and I’ve been working on this for like a longgg time and decided to post bc I’m a bit nervous LOL uhm so yeah there will be a part 2 btw and also my taglist is open! pls enjoy and I’d really appreciate likes and reblogs 🤭💐
The thing about a girls’ night with Ria was that it always ended somewhere it wasn’t supposed to. The club had been Hana’s idea. The fourth round of shots had been Soo’s.
The part where all four of you ended up on the pavement at eleven-forty-five, heels in hand, looking at a tattoo shop with a red light glowing in the window like it was personally inviting you in — that had been Ria. “We’re going in,” she said.
“We are not going in,” Soo said.
“It says open.” Ria pointed at the sign. Studio 13. Like that settled it.
“It’s almost midnight.”
“They put the sign out.”
“Ria—” But you were already looking at the door and thinking why not, which was the alcohol talking, and also you were cold and your feet hurt and the red light looked warm from out here on the pavement. “I want a piercing,” you said.
Ria grabbed your hand. “She wants a piercing.” Soo looked at the sky. Hana was already moving toward the door.
The club outfit had been Ria’s fault entirely. The top was small — that was the only word for it, small and black and doing everything a top could reasonably be asked to do. The skirt wasn’t much better. You’d spent the whole night at the club feeling like the main character, which was the intended effect, and the cold air outside had done nothing to make you feel less exposed.
You pushed the door open and the warmth hit you first. Then the smell — ink, clean soap, something faintly chemical underneath it. Black walls covered in flash art. Low red lighting that made the whole place feel like a deliberate secret. Something slow playing from speakers you couldn’t locate.
Two guys inside. One in the back with his head down over a drawing tablet. One at the front counter. The one at the front counter looked up.
He was tall even on the stool, long legs stretched out in front of him, forearms resting on the desk like he owned the surface and everything past it. Full sleeve on his left arm. Silver rings on most of his fingers. Dark hair pushed back slightly. One earring. The kind of face that got you in trouble if you looked at it for too long — sharp jaw, dark eyes, a mouth that was currently sitting in the very early stages of a smirk.
He took in all four of you in about two seconds. Then his eyes found you and the smirk finished forming. “We’re open,” he said. “Barely.”
Ria and Hana peeled off toward the flash wall immediately. Soo planted herself near the door with her arms folded. Which left you walking up to the front counter alone, bare legs, tiny skirt, heels clicking on the concrete floor.
You watched him watch you walk over. He didn’t pretend he wasn’t watching. Didn’t do the polite thing where you glance away and back. He just watched, easy and unhurried, the way someone looks at something they find genuinely worth looking at, and when you got to the counter and leaned on it his eyes moved — slowly, and with complete lack of apology — from your face down to your chest and back up again. Held eye contact like nothing had happened. You’d been looked at before. This was different. This was a man who had decided he wasn’t going to pretend. “Hi,” you said.
“Hi.” His voice was low. Even. The smirk hadn’t moved. “Can I help you?”
“I want a piercing.”
“Yeah?” He leaned back on the stool, arms folding across his chest, the sleeve shifting with the movement. His rings caught the red light. “What are you thinking?”
“Tragus.” You reached up and tapped the outer ridge of your ear, which meant your arm lifted and your top shifted and you watched his eyes drop again, briefly, before they came back to yours like he wasn’t the least bit embarrassed about it. “I’ve been putting it off. I’m in a decisive mood.”
“Decisive,” he said.
“Very.”
“I can see that.” He said it like it meant something else. Then: “How much have you had tonight?”
“Enough to be excellent company.”
He looked at you. Really looked — quiet and thorough, taking in your face, the flush across your chest, the way you were leaning on his counter in that top — and then his tongue pressed briefly against his cheek like he was trying not to smile properly. “Can’t pierce you with alcohol in your system, baby.”
Baby. Like he’d been calling you that for years. Like it was already established. “That’s a rule?” you said.
“That’s the rule.”
You leaned further onto the counter, closing some of the distance between you. His eyes went exactly where you expected them to go and stayed there for a beat longer than was professional before dragging back up. His expression didn’t change. He was completely comfortable with being caught, which was — honestly — impressive. “What if I promised to be very good?” you said.
“I’m sure you would be.” His voice was smooth, unhurried. “Still no.”
“What if—”
“You can come back tomorrow,” he said. “Sober. I’ll pierce your tragus.” A pause, his eyes dropping once more, quick and deliberate, before landing back on yours. “Or whatever else you want.”
The air between you did something. “That sounds like more than a professional offer,” you said.
“I’m a professional.” The smirk was fully settled now. “The offer’s professional. What you do with it is up to you.”
You held his gaze. He held yours back without any effort at all, completely at ease, like this was just how Tuesday night went for him. It was annoying. It was also working. “I don’t know where this place is sober,” you said.
He was already reaching under the counter. He slid a card across the desk with two fingers — didn’t look down to do it, kept his eyes on you the whole time. STUDIO 13. NISHIMURA RIKI. PIERCING.
You picked it up. “Your personal card,” you said.
“Goes straight to me.”
“Bold.”
“Efficient,” he said.
You looked at the card. Then at him. “I’m Y/N.” His eyes went down again — unhurried, completely unapologetic, a slow look that started at your face and made its way south before coming back up — and then he said, “Y/N,” like he was just trying the name out. Like he’d be using it again. “You gonna remember that?” you said.
“Yeah,” he said simply. “I’m going to remember that.”
The way he said it made it about more than your name. Behind you, Ria made a noise she covered poorly with a fake cough. You didn’t turn around. “Come back sober,” Riki said. “I’ll take care of you.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because I’m going to do it.” He picked his phone back up, easy as anything, like the conversation was filed away now and he was done performing — except the smirk stayed. “Get home safe, Y/N.” Dismissed. Warmly, cockily, with complete confidence that you’d be back.
You picked up the card, slid it into your bag, and let Soo steer you to the door because your own legs had made a decision to co-operate with his energy and you weren’t going to give him the satisfaction.
Outside Ria grabbed your arm with both hands. “Y/N. The way he looked at you—”
“Ria.”
“He looked at your tits like—”
“Ria.” Hana was fanning herself. Even Soo was quiet, which was its own verdict. The Uber was three minutes away and you looked at your phone and felt your face doing something warm that you were crediting entirely to the alcohol.
Inside, Heeseung finally looked up from his drawing tablet. He’d watched the whole thing. Ten feet away. Nobody had noticed. He looked at Riki.
Riki had his phone in his hand but he was looking at the door — at the space where you’d just been standing in that top, leaning on his counter, letting him look — with an expression Heeseung couldn’t quite name. Something had landed and settled behind his eyes.
“Who was that?” Heeseung said.
Riki looked down at his phone. “Some hot girl.”
“Some hot girl,” Heeseung repeated.
“Wanted a tragus piercing.”
“Uh huh.” Heeseung looked at the counter. At the space where Riki’s personal card had been sitting ten minutes ago, now somewhere in your bag on the way home. “You give clients your personal card often?”
Riki said nothing. Heeseung looked back at his tablet. “Right,” he said quietly, and said nothing else.
Three weeks later you were standing outside Studio 13 again and this time you were completely, annoyingly sober. “I don’t know why I’m here,” you said.
“Because Riki said come back sober and you kept his card for three weeks,” Ria said, pushing the door open.
“I kept it by accident.”
“In your purse.”
“That’s where cards go.”
“You don’t keep any other cards in your purse, Y/N. I’ve seen your purse. It’s a graveyard of receipts and one lip liner.” You followed her inside because the alternative was standing on the pavement arguing with her and you’d already lost this argument six times on the way over.
Ria had a tattoo appointment. That was the reason you were here. You were just here for moral support. You were going to sit in a chair and look at your phone and not think about the guy who had looked at you like that and said I’ll take care of you with complete sincerity and a smirk that should have been annoying.
The door swung shut behind you. Same as before — black walls, flash art, red light, the slow dark playlist. A different energy in the daytime though, busier, more lived-in. Jay was at the side counter doing something with ink caps, talking loudly to no one in particular. Jake was sweeping near the back. Heeseung was visible through the half-open door of the back room, head down, working.
No one at the front desk. You relaxed slightly. Ria was already at the counter, checking in for her appointment, and you drifted toward the flash wall and started looking at the art because it was genuinely good and also because you needed something to do with your eyes.
You heard the door from the back open. Heard footsteps. Heard someone say, “Riki, someone’s here—” You turned around because you were a person with normal human reflexes and not because your body had already clocked the name.
Riki came through the back door with a pair of gloves half-on, looking down at the appointment book, and then he looked up.
He saw Ria first. Then his eyes moved — one smooth, unhurried slide — and found you standing by the flash wall in your jeans and your jacket looking like someone who was absolutely only here for moral support. “Hey,” he said.
“Hi,” you said. There was a pause that lasted slightly too long for two people who didn’t know each other.
“You came back,” he said.
“Ria has an appointment.”
“Right.” He looked at you. “And you’re just here for Ria.”
“Correct.”
“Nothing to do with the card.”
“I forgot I even had it.”
“Uh huh.” He pulled the second glove on, still looking at you, and the smirk had settled into something warmer now — less performance, more genuinely pleased. “How’s the tragus feeling? Still decisive?”
Ria made a sound from the counter that she turned into a cough. You didn’t look at her. “I’m considering my options,” you said.
“Good answer.” He turned to Ria, professional now, easy switch. “Ria, yeah? Heeseung’s got you, he’s just finishing up. Five minutes.”
“Perfect,” Ria said, and then immediately looked at you with an expression that meant she was storing everything and you would be debriefed extensively later.
Riki came around the counter. Didn’t go back to the desk — came and stood near the flash wall, close enough to talk, far enough to be plausibly looking at the art. “You look different,” he said.
“I’m sober.”
“That’s probably it.” His eyes did the thing — a brief, easy drop and return, taking in the jacket, the jeans, the way you were standing — and then he was looking at your face again like that was just how he operated. Open about it. Unbothered. “Still good though.”
“You’re very confident,” you said.
“I’m accurate,” he said. You looked at Riki. He looked back. This close you could see the bar through his tongue properly — silver, subtle when his mouth was closed, noticeable when he talked — and the ring in his ear and the way his rings shifted when he crossed his arms.
“So,” he said. “You actually want the piercing or did you come all the way here just to tell me you forgot my card existed?”
“I could still want the piercing.”
“You could.” He tilted his head slightly. “Do you?”
You held out for three more seconds. Then: “Yeah.”
His smile did the thing again — the slow, settled version, the one that looked like satisfaction and something warmer underneath it. “On the house,” he said.
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I know.” He was already moving back toward the piercing station, unhurried, like it was decided. “Come on.”
The piercing chair was in a partitioned section near the back — semi-private, its own mirror, a tray of tools laid out with the kind of precision that told you he took this seriously. He snapped a fresh pair of gloves on and gestured to the chair and you sat down and tried to look like you were not thinking about the last time you’d been in this general vicinity, considerably less sober, telling him he had criminally pretty eyes. You were thinking about it.
He adjusted the chair height without asking, tilted the light, and then stepped in close to look at your ear. His fingers were gentle when they touched the outer ridge — thumb pressing lightly to test the cartilage, professional and careful — and he was close enough that you could smell whatever he was wearing, something dark and clean. “Tragus is a good choice,” he said, still examining your ear. “Suits you.”
“You can tell that from my ear?”
“I can tell from your face.” He stepped back, reached for the marking pen. “You’ve got good bone structure. Something small here draws attention without being loud.” He met your eyes in the mirror. “You’re already loud enough.”
“I’m going to take that as a compliment.”
“It was one.” He marked the spot with the pen — quick, precise — and then held up a small mirror so you could check the placement. His hand was steady. Everything about him was steady, which was both reassuring and slightly irritating. “Good?” he said.
“Good.”
He put the mirror down. Reached for the needle. And then paused, looking at you in the main mirror with an expression that was more direct than the smirk — more level. “You nervous?” he said.
“No.”
“Your jaw is doing something.”
“My jaw is fine.”
“Y/N.”
“I’m a little nervous,” you said. “About the needle. Not about—” You stopped.
“Not about?” he said.
You looked at him in the mirror. He looked back. The smirk was quiet right now, just his face, just the question sitting there. “The needle,” you said. “I said what I said.”
He let it go. Looked back at your ear, positioned his hands. “Breathe in,” he said. You breathed in. “Out.”
You breathed out and he moved — quick and precise and over before you’d finished processing it. A sharp bite of pressure, brief, clean, and then his hands were already switching out the needle for the jewellery, smooth and practiced. “Done,” he said.
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.” He stepped back to let you see in the mirror. Small flat-back stud, exactly where the mark had been, sitting perfectly. “What do you think?”
You looked at it. Turned your head slightly. It was — actually exactly right, the placement, the size, the way it sat. “I think you’re good at your job,” you said.
“I know.” But he said it lightly, without the edge, and when you looked at him in the mirror he was looking at the piercing with something that read like quiet pride. Like he actually cared that it was right.
He peeled his gloves off. Started going through aftercare — saline spray, what to avoid, how long to leave it — and you listened and watched his hands and thought about how he’d looked at you when you walked in. That slow, settled smile. You came back. Like he’d known you would. “Any questions?” he said.
“No.”
“Good.” He handed you the small aftercare card. His fingers brushed yours when he passed it over and he didn’t move his hand immediately, just let the contact sit there for a second before stepping back. “You should come back in four weeks so I can check it.”
“Is that standard?”
“For you it is.”
You looked up at him. He was close still, leaning against the counter beside the chair, arms crossed, completely at ease with the proximity and what he was saying and the way he was looking at you. “That’s a very smooth way to make a follow-up appointment,” you said.
“I’m a smooth guy.”
“You’re a cocky guy.”
“Those aren’t mutually exclusive.” He smiled properly. “Four weeks, Y/N. I’ll be here.” From the main floor, very clearly, you heard Jay say to Jake in a voice that carried: “Twenty says she’s back in two.”
Heeseung appeared in the doorway of his room as you were walking back out to wait for Ria. He looked at you. Then at Riki, who was cleaning up the station behind you. He said nothing.
When you were out of earshot, he leaned in the doorway and looked at Riki with a level expression. Riki didn’t look up. “Don’t.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were going to.”
Heeseung was quiet for a moment. “She coming back?”
Riki stacked the packaged jewellery back in the tray. “Four weeks.”
Heeseung looked at the ceiling. Looked back down. “Right,” he said, and went back into his room.
Riki looked up once — just once — at where you’d gone back to sit with Ria, talking and laughing, your hand coming up to touch the new piercing gently like you were checking it was real. He looked back down at the tray. Picked up his phone. Set it down again. Four weeks was a long time.
You were back in two weeks. You told yourself you had a legitimate reason. The piercing felt slightly tender on one side and the aftercare card said to come back if anything felt off and this was a medical concern, essentially, and had nothing to do with anything else. Ria, when you told her this, said “uh huh” in the exact same tone Riki had used and you’d hung up on her.
You pushed the door to Studio 13 open at four on a Thursday afternoon.
Jay was at the front counter this time. He looked up, recognized you, and his whole face did something delighted. “Y/N,” he said, like you were a returning champion.
“Hey.” You unwound your scarf. “Is Riki—”
“In the back.” Jay was already leaning back in his chair, tilting toward the hallway. “Riki.”
“I could have just—”
“RIKI. Your girl’s here.”
From the back, a pause. Then footsteps. Riki appeared in the doorway with a black coffee in one hand and his phone in the other and when he saw you something moved across his face — quick, controlled — before it settled into the usual. “Two weeks,” he said.
“I know.”
“I said four.”
“The piercing felt off.”
He looked at you. You looked back. He took a slow sip of his coffee. “Come here,” he said. Back in the piercing section again. The chair, the mirror, the tray. He set his coffee down on the counter and snapped gloves on and tilted your chin to the side with two fingers, turning your head so the light hit the piercing properly.
He was quiet while he looked. Close, the way he’d been last time, close enough that you were aware of exactly how tall he was and exactly how little space existed between you. “Looks fine,” he said.
“It felt tender.”
“New cartilage piercing. It’s going to feel tender.” He turned your head a fraction more, examining the entry and exit points. “You sleeping on it?”
“Sometimes.”
“Don’t.” His thumb pressed gently just below the piercing, checking the tissue. “You’re not rotating it, are you?”
“The card said not to.”
“People do it anyway.”
“I follow instructions.” He made a sound that wasn’t quite a laugh. His fingers were still at your jaw, light but there, and in the mirror you could see him looking at the piercing with that focused, careful expression he got when he was working — like the rest of him went quiet and it was just this, just the task, just making sure it was right.
“It’s fine,” he said again, quieter this time. “A little irritated but nothing bad. You’re cleaning it?”
“Twice a day.”
“Good girl.” He said it the same way he said everything — even, unbothered — and went right back to examining the piercing like he hadn’t just said it, like it was nothing, like your entire nervous system hadn’t just done something embarrassing.
He stepped back. Pulled one glove off. In the mirror you watched him look at you — your face this time, not the piercing — and the focused work expression shifted back into something more personal. His eyes moved down briefly, back up. Unhurried. Unapologetic. “You didn’t just come for the piercing check,” he said.
It wasn’t a question. “I was in the area,” you said.
“Y/N.”
“I was.”
“Okay.” He pulled the second glove off, dropped them both in the bin. Leaned against the counter beside the chair with his arms crossed, looking at you with that steady, patient expression. Like he had all the time in the world and was fully prepared to wait you out.
The rings on his fingers caught the light. The bar through his tongue was visible when he spoke and sometimes when he didn’t, a small flash of silver that your eyes kept going back to without your permission. “Can I ask you something?” you said.
“Go ahead.”
You nodded toward his mouth. “Does it affect anything? The tongue piercing.”
The corner of his mouth pulled up. He knew exactly what you were asking and you both knew you both knew it. “Depends what you mean by anything,” he said.
“Talking,” you said. “Eating.”
“No,” he said. “It doesn’t affect talking or eating.”
The way he said it made the implication sit in the room like a third person. “And what about—” you started.
“Yes,” he said simply. You looked at him. He looked back at you, completely relaxed, the smirk at about thirty percent, like he was letting you sit in the answer rather than pushing it.
“That was going to be a different question…” you said.
“Was it?” It wasn’t.
You looked away first, which you were counting as a tactical retreat rather than losing, and he made that almost-laugh sound again and pushed off the counter. “Come out front,” he said. “I’ll get you the saline to take home.”
Jay was now pretending to organize a drawer he had clearly already organized when you came back out. Jake had appeared from somewhere and was leaning on the wall near the door with his phone out. The effort to look casual was extraordinary.
Riki went behind the counter, got the saline, slid it across to you.“Stop sleeping on it,” he said.
“I’ll try.”
“Don’t try. Just don’t do it.”
“You’re bossy,” you said.
“I’m thorough.” He leaned on the counter. His forearms were right there, the sleeve on full display this close — you’d been trying not to look at it properly but it was a lot of work. Intricate blackwork, something that looked botanical near his wrist, darker geometry climbing toward his elbow. “Like the sleeve?” he said.
You looked up. He’d caught you. “It’s good work,” you said.
“Heeseung did most of it.”
“Heeseung tattooed you?”
“First one when I started here.” Something shifted slightly in his face — not closed off, just more considered. “Kind of a thing between us.”
You wanted to ask what kind of thing. Something in how he’d said it made you not push. “You do your own piercings?” you said instead.
He tilted his head so you could see the earring. “This one.”
“Doesn’t that hurt more when it’s yourself?”
“Yeah.”
“And you did it anyway.”
“I do most things anyway,” he said. He said it lightly but there was something under it, something matter-of-fact about pain being a variable he’d simply accounted for. You looked at him for a second longer than you meant to. “Four weeks,” he said, quieter now, just to you. “Come back in four weeks and I’ll check it properly. And if you’re in the area before that—” he held your gaze — “you know where we are.”
“Very smooth,” you said.
“You keep saying that.”
“You keep proving it.” He smiled. The real one — not the smirk, not the performance, the actual smile that did something to his whole face. You’d only seen it once before, the night you came in drunk when he laughed at something Ria said, and it was worse up close and sober.
You picked up the saline. Shouldered your bag. “Thanks for checking it,” you said.
“Anytime.”
You were halfway to the door when Jay said, loudly, to no one: “Two weeks. Called it.”
“Jay,” Riki said, flat.
“I’m just saying—”
“Jay.” You pushed the door open and let it close on whatever Jay said next. On the pavement you breathed in cold air and stood there for a second. I do most things anyway. You thought about that the whole way home.
You texted Ria that night.
you: the piercing was fine btw. just irritated.
Ria: sure
you: it was a legitimate medical concern
Ria: how did he look
you: that’s not relevant
Ria: how did he LOOK
You stared at your phone. Put it face down. Picked it up again.
you: good. he looked good. go to sleep.
Ria: 😭😭😭 Y/N YOU ARE SO DOWN BAD
You put your phone on the charger and lay on your back in the dark and stared at the ceiling. The bar through his tongue caught the light when he talked. Yes, he’d said. Like it was nothing. Like he said it every day. You put a pillow over your face.
Across the city, Studio 13 was closing up. Heeseung was cashing out. Jake was wiping down surfaces. Jay was retelling the afternoon to Sunghoon, who had come in for his evening shift and was listening with the specific expression of someone enjoying information they could use later.
Riki was at the piercing station. Cleaning the tray. Doing the same task he’d done a hundred times. “She came back in two weeks,” Jay said.
“I heard,” Sunghoon said.
“I called it.”
“You did call it.”
“Riki,” Jay said. “You owe me twenty.”
“I don’t owe you anything,” Riki said. “We didn’t make a bet.”
“Spiritually we did.” Riki said nothing. Put the tray away.
“She’s coming back in four weeks,” Jay told Sunghoon.
“Or two,” Sunghoon said.
“Or two,” Jay agreed.
“Both of you,” Riki said, without heat, “can shut up.”
They did not shut up. He let them talk and went back to the tray and thought about the way you’d looked at his mouth when you asked about the piercing. The way your eyes had gone somewhere specific and come back and you’d tried to cover it with a different question.
He’d watched the answer land. Had watched you process it and look away and call it a tactical retreat when it wasn’t. He was good at reading people. He’d had to be, for a long time, for reasons that had nothing to do with tattoo shops or piercing chairs.
You were going to come back before four weeks. He put the tray away and picked up his coffee and didn’t say any of that out loud.
You were back in ten days. You didn’t have a reason this time. You’d run out of reasons. You showed up at three on a Wednesday with two coffees and the vague awareness that something had shifted from I’m in the area to something you didn’t have a word for yet. Jay opened the door before you reached it. “She’s got coffee,” he announced into the shop.
“Jay—”
“Is one of those for me?” He was already holding the door open, looking at the cups in your hand with genuine hope.
“No.”
“Y/N.”
“I brought two.”
“There are multiple people here who drink coffee.”
“There are two coffees,” you said. “Do the math.”
Jay looked wounded. You walked past him into the shop and he let the door close and called after you: “I’m telling Riki you were mean to me.”
“Please do.” Riki was at the front counter. Actually at the counter this time, not coming through from the back, sitting on the stool with his forearms on the desk and his phone in his hand. He looked up when you came in and his eyes went straight to the cups. Then to your face. Then he smiled — not the smirk, not the performance, just a real and immediate thing that he didn’t seem to think about first. “Hey,” he said.
“Hey.” You put one of the coffees on the counter in front of him. “I didn’t know how you take it.”
He looked at the cup. Looked at you. “Black is fine,” he said.
“Lucky guess.”
“Is it?” He picked it up. His fingers overlapped yours on the cup for a second before you let go — brief, probably accidental, neither of you addressed it. He took a sip. Put it down. “Ten days.”
“I know.”
“Getting closer to two weeks, not further.”
“I’ve been busy,” you said. “This was the first chance I had to—”
“Y/N.”
“What?”
“You don’t need a reason,” he said simply. You looked at him. He looked back, completely even, like he’d just said something neutral about the weather. “Sit down.”
That was how it started. Not with anything dramatic. Just you sitting on the other side of the counter on a Wednesday afternoon with a coffee while Riki worked through his admin, and the conversation that happened around it — easy and unhurried, drifting from one thing to another, the kind of talk that didn’t feel like it was going anywhere because it didn’t need to.
You learned things without asking for them. That he’d been at Studio 13 for two years. That he and Jay had met here. That he had opinions about piercing placement that were borderline philosophical and he’d share them unprompted if you let him.
He learned things back. That you were in your final year. That Ria had been your best friend since you were sixteen. That you had three other piercings already and had done two of them yourself, which made him look up from his phone with an expression that was equal parts impressed and horrified. “You did your own helix,” he said.
“With a kit.”
“A kit.”
“People do it.”
“People also do a lot of things I have to fix,” he said, and leaned across the counter to look at your ear without asking. His fingers found the helix piercing, examining it with the same careful focus he brought to everything, and you sat very still. “It’s crooked,” he said.
“I know.”
“I can fix it.”
“I know.”
He was still looking at your ear, close, his thumb light against the cartilage. “Why haven’t you?”
“I kept meaning to.” You paused. “And then I found Studio 13 and I figured I’d—”
You stopped. He pulled back just enough to look at your face. His expression said he’d heard the end of the sentence even though you hadn’t said it. “Figured you’d what?” he said.
“Come here eventually,” you said. “For things.”
The smirk appeared. “For things.”
“Piercings.”
“Right.” He stepped back, let you breathe, picked his coffee back up. “I’ll fix it whenever you want.”
“Add it to my tab.”
“You don’t have a tab. Everything I do to you is on the house.” He said it completely straight and then looked at his phone, leaving you to sit in the everything I do to you by yourself.
Jay appeared from the back at that exact moment, looked at you both, looked at the counter between you, and went directly back the way he came without saying anything, which was somehow more powerful than if he had.
Hana came with you the following Wednesday. She had been angling to see the shop since Ria had described it in approximately four hundred texts and the second she walked in she stopped in the middle of the floor and looked around with wide eyes. “Oh,” she said. “Oh this place is cool.”
Jake, who was at the side counter, looked up. Hana looked at Jake. Jake looked at Hana. You filed that away.
Riki was with a client in the piercing section — you could see him through the partition, gloved up, talking the client through something in that low steady voice. You hadn’t told him you were coming. You weren’t sure why, except that you’d wanted to know what it felt like to walk in and see him before he saw you. It felt like something, as it turned out.
He was focused on his client, head tilted, hands precise. He’d pushed his sleeves up and the full length of the tattoo was visible now — blackwork that climbed from his wrist to somewhere past his elbow, detailed and dark. He was saying something that made the client laugh. Patient and calm and completely in his element.
You stood there and looked at him for maybe four seconds too long.
“Y/N,” Hana said quietly beside you.
“What.”
“You’ve got a face on.”
“I don’t have a face.”
“You’ve got a very specific face.” She looked at Riki. Looked at you. “Oh you are done.”
“I’m looking at the flash art,” you said, and turned to look at the flash art.
Jay materialized at your shoulder. “She does this every time,” he told Hana, like you weren’t standing right there. “Comes in, looks at him, then looks at the wall.”
“I can hear you,” you said.
“I know.” Jay smiled. “Coffee?”
Riki’s client left at half past three. He came through from the partition still pulling his gloves off and stopped when he saw you and Hana at the counter with Jay. The gloves came off slower. “You didn’t text,” he said to you.
“Spontaneous visit.”
“Hm.” He dropped the gloves, came around to the main counter. His eyes moved to Hana briefly, assessing, friendly. “Friend?”
“Hana,” you said. “She wanted to see the shop.”
“Welcome.” He said it to Hana and then his attention came back to you in that way it always did — like you were the fixed point and everything else was peripheral. “How’s the piercing?”
“Fine. Good.”
“You sleeping on it?”
“Mostly not.”
“Y/N.”
“Mostly not. I’m a side sleeper, it’s a process.”
He leaned on the counter. His coffee was cold by now but he picked it up anyway. “I’ll fix the helix today if you want. While you’re here.”
“Yeah?”
“Chair’s free.” Hana’s elbow found your ribs with surgical precision. You ignored it.
“Okay,” you said.
The helix took ten minutes. Precise, careful, the same focused quiet he brought every time. Afterwards he checked the tragus — habit, he said, like that was a normal thing, like of course he was checking it — and you sat in the chair and let him and looked at his face in the mirror while he was looking at your ear.
Up close like this you could see things you couldn’t from the other side of a counter. The small scar through his left eyebrow, barely visible. The way his jaw set when he was concentrating. The rings on his fingers — he took them off for client work and put them back on after, and watching him slide them back on was a thing you were apparently noticing now.
He caught you in the mirror. Didn’t call you out. Just held your gaze for a second and then looked back at the piercing, and the corner of his mouth moved slightly. “Good,” he said. “Helix looks better. You’ll need to re-do the aftercare cycle.”
“I know.”
“You actually know or you’re saying you know?”
“Riki.”
“I’ll write it down.”
“I literally work a piercing counter in my memory called things Riki has told me,” you said.
He went still for a half second. Then: “Yeah?”
“You’re very thorough,” you said. “It sticks.”
He looked at you in the mirror. Steady, quiet, something behind his eyes that was more than the usual easy confidence — something that had weight to it. “Good,” he said, quieter.
He stepped back. Started cleaning up. Normal, routine, the way he always moved through the shop like everything was exactly where it was supposed to be. “Same time next week?” he said. It wasn’t really a question.
“Sure,” you said.
In the main shop, Hana was sitting on the counter watching Jake explain the difference between traditional and neo-traditional tattooing with the energy of someone who had found religion. Jay was watching this with profound satisfaction. When you came back out Hana looked at you and then at Riki behind you and then at you again. “We should go,” you said.
“Should we,” Hana said.
“Yes.”
“Jake was just explaining—”
“Hana.” She got up, reluctantly, and said goodbye to Jake in a way that suggested she was also going to be back before four weeks. Jake watched her go with an expression that Riki clocked and then looked away from like he hadn’t seen it.
At the door you turned back. Riki was at the counter, already on his phone, or pretending to be. “Thanks for the helix,” you said.
“Anytime.” He didn’t look up. “Wednesday?”
“Wednesday,” you said. Jay made a noise. Riki didn’t look at him. You pushed the door open and the cold air hit you and behind you you heard Jay say, quiet and satisfied to no one in particular: “Regular.”
The Wednesday visits became a thing. Not every week, sometimes every ten days, but consistent enough that Jay started having your coffee order ready. Consistent enough that Jake stopped looking surprised when you walked in. Consistent enough that Heeseung, who said little and noticed everything, started nodding at you when you arrived like you’d passed some quiet assessment he’d been running.
Riki never texted first. You did sometimes — nothing significant, a meme about piercings, a question about aftercare that you probably knew the answer to. He always replied. Never with much. But always.
The counter between you was becoming a problem. Not the physical one — the metaphorical one. The distance that was exactly the right size for this isn’t anything yet and felt increasingly inadequate for what was actually happening in the space between you every Wednesday afternoon. He looked at you like you were a decision he’d already made. You were starting to think you had too.
Daniel texted on a Thursday.
Daniel: hey, haven’t seen you around much. you ok?
You stared at it. You and Daniel had two seminars together and a loose group chat and approximately nothing else, and this was the third text this week.
you: yeah all good, just busy
Daniel: we should get coffee sometime
you: I’m pretty slammed rn, sorry
You thought nothing of it. You mentioned it to Riki the following Wednesday — offhand, in the middle of a conversation about something else, not thinking. “This guy in my seminar keeps texting,” you said. “It’s starting to get annoying.”
Riki was writing something on the appointment book. His pen slowed.“What guy?” he said.
“Daniel. We’re in the same module. He keeps asking for coffee.” Riki’s pen stopped. You looked up. His face was the same — neutral, easy — but something had shifted underneath it. Something had gone very still in the specific way of a thing that was actively being held still.
“You said no?” he said.
“Obviously. I’m not interested.”
A pause. He looked back at the appointment book. Wrote something. “Good,” he said.
Just that. Good. You looked at him for a second. “Riki.”
“Hm.”
“Are you—”
“Helix check,” he said, and stood up from the stool. You let him redirect you. Sat in the chair. Let him check the helix he’d fixed two weeks ago and didn’t need to check again. His hands were as steady as they always were. His voice was as even.
But when you looked at him in the mirror his jaw was set in a way it wasn’t usually and his eyes, when they met yours in the reflection, had something in them that was more than the usual warm certainty. Something that looked a lot like mine with nowhere to go yet. You looked away first. Neither of you said anything about it.
Daniel was waiting outside your seminar on Tuesday. Not accidentally. He was leaning on the wall opposite the door with his phone out, and when you came through he pushed off and fell into step beside you like it was coordinated, like he’d timed it. “Hey,” he said.
“Hey.” You kept walking.
“Good seminar?”
“It was fine.”
“I thought Professor Kim made a good point about the—”
“Daniel.” You stopped. Turned to face him. He was decent looking, objectively — tall, friendly face, the kind of guy who probably did well in situations where persistence read as flattering. “What’s going on?”
He smiled. Easy, practiced. “I was thinking we could grab that coffee.”
“I said I was slammed.”
“You’re not slammed right now.”
“I have somewhere to be.”
“Where?”
You looked at him. “That’s not really—”
“I’ll walk you,” he said. Like that was a reasonable response. Like the answer to I have somewhere to be was I’ll come.
“Daniel.” You kept your voice even. “I appreciate it but I’m not interested. Okay? Not trying to be harsh, just being clear.”
Something moved across his face — not anger, more like recalibration, like he was filing this away as a temporary obstacle. “Maybe just as friends,” he said.
“I’m good. Thanks though.” You walked away. Heard him say something behind you — see you Thursday — and didn’t respond. You texted Ria about it on the bus.
you: the Daniel thing is getting annoying
Ria: what happened?
you: he waited outside my seminar
Ria: ew
you: I told him straight I’m not interested
Ria: good. are you telling riki?
You stared at that.
you: why would I tell riki??
Ria: because you tell riki everything now??
you: I do not tell riki everything
Ria: you told him about your mum’s cat
you: that came up naturally and I’m not telling him, it’s not a big deal
You put your phone in your bag. You didn’t tell him.
Wednesday came and you sat at the counter with your coffee and talked about other things — Hana and Jake’s ongoing situation, which was developing at a glacial pace that was driving Ria insane. A new flash piece Heeseung had drawn that you’d been looking at for twenty minutes when you came in. Whether you should get a second tragus on the other ear. “Yes,” Riki said, without hesitation.
“That’s a very immediate answer.”
“It’s an obvious answer.” He looked at your ears, both sides, that assessing look. “Symmetrical double tragus. Come in next week.”
“Maybe I want to think about it.”
“You don’t need to think about it.”
“Riki.”
“You came in drunk wanting a tragus piercing,” he said. “You knew then. You know now.”
You looked at him. He looked back with the patience of someone who was completely certain and was willing to wait for you to catch up. “Fine,” you said.
He smiled. “Next week,” he said.
The following Tuesday Daniel was outside your seminar again. This time you saw him before he saw you and you changed direction, took the long way to the exit, added seven minutes to your walk. Small, manageable.
On Thursday he was in the coffee queue behind you. “Coincidence,” he said, and smiled at you, and you smiled back tightly and paid for your coffee and left.
On Friday he messaged. Again.
Daniel: hey saw you in the queue yesterday, why’d you leave so fast?
You didn’t reply. And he messaged again on Saturday.
Daniel: did I do something wrong?
You showed it to Ria over the phone that night. She was quiet for a second. “He’s not taking the hint,” she said.
“I didn’t hint. I said directly I wasn’t interested.”
“Then he’s not taking the direct statement.”
“Yeah.”
Another pause. “Tell Riki.”
“Ria—”
“Y/N I’m serious, tell—”
“It’s fine. I can handle it.”
“I know you can handle it, that’s not the—” She stopped. “Just tell him. You know you want to.” You didn’t answer that.
Wednesday came around, you’d been at the counter for forty minutes. Jay had come and gone twice. Jake had shown Hana something on his phone that made her laugh and Riki had looked at that for approximately one second before very deliberately looking elsewhere.
You were mid-sentence about something — your dissertation, probably, you’d been complaining about your dissertation — when the door opened.
Sunghoon came in from his afternoon off, still in his jacket, unwinding his scarf. He was unfairly attractive and moved through the shop like he knew it, dropping his bag behind the counter and immediately coming over to where you were sitting. “Y/N.” He leaned on the counter beside Riki’s stool, friendly, easy. “How’s the tragus?”
“Good.” You touched it briefly. “Riki’s doing the other side next week.”
“Nice. You should let me draw something for you. Little custom piece, just here—” he touched his own collarbone— “would suit you.”
“Yeah?”
“Hundred percent.” He looked at Riki. “Right?” Riki was looking at his phone. “Riki,” Sunghoon said.
“Hm.” He didn’t look up. Sunghoon looked at you with a small what’s his problem expression. You looked back with a I genuinely don’t know expression.
You talked to Sunghoon for twenty more minutes. He was easy to talk to — funny, straightforward, the kind of person who filled a room without trying. He showed you his portfolio on his phone, talked you through a couple of pieces, asked about your university course with actual interest.
Riki stayed on his stool. He wasn’t on his phone. You could tell because you kept looking over and the screen was dark. He was just sitting there in the specific stillness of something being actively held in place, forearms on the desk, jaw set. When Sunghoon went to the back to change into his work clothes you turned to Riki. “What’s wrong with you?” you said.
“Nothing.”
“You’ve said four words in the last twenty minutes.”
“I’ve been busy.”
You looked at the dark phone screen. Looked at him. “Riki.”
“I’m fine.” He finally looked at you. His face was even, controlled, the expression he wore when he was putting effort into the expression. “You want more coffee?”
“No.” You kept your voice low. Jay and Jake were across the room but still. “Talk to me.”
Something moved behind his eyes. For a second you thought he was going to — actually going to, drop whatever this was and say it. His jaw shifted. His eyes moved over your face and then away. “It’s nothing,” he said. “Forget it.”
You looked at him for a long moment. He looked at the counter. You picked up your bag. “I’m going to head,” you said.
He looked up then. Quick, like he hadn’t expected it. “You don’t have to—”
“I have stuff to do.” You stood up. Your voice was even, you’d made sure of it. “I’ll see you next week for the tragus.”
“Y/N—”
“Bye, Riki.” You said goodbye to Jay on the way out. Waved at Jake. Pushed the door open into the cold.
Behind you, through the glass, you heard Jay say something. Heard Riki’s voice, short and clipped. Didn’t hear the words. You walked to the bus stop and stared at the road and felt something hot and frustrated sitting in your chest that you didn’t have a clean name for.
He texted at nine that night.
Riki: I’m sorry about today
You stared at it.
Riki: I get like that sometimes. I don’t like it.
Another one, a minute later.
Riki: It wasn’t about Sunghoon. It wasn’t about you.
Riki: ok it was about Sunghoon.
You sat on your bed with your phone in your hand and read that three times.
you: do you want to tell me what “getting like that” means??
A pause. Longer than his usual response time.
Riki: Not over text. Wednesday?
you: yeah
you: Riki, Sunghoon was just being friendly
Riki: I know. I know that. It doesn’t always
The message cut off. Like he’d deleted the end of it and sent what was left.
Riki: Wednesday. I’ll explain.
Riki: night Y/N
You got there at three. Jay handed you your coffee without being asked and then found somewhere else to be, which meant Riki had said something to him beforehand, which meant he’d been thinking about this. Riki was at the counter. He looked up when you came in and the usual ease wasn’t fully there — not gone, just quieter, like he’d dialed something back. “Hey,” he said.
“Hey.” You sat down. Wrapped both hands around the coffee. “So.”
“So.” He exhaled. Looked at the counter for a second, then at you. “I get possessive.” He said it straight. No build up, no softening — just put it on the counter between you like something he’d decided you should see.
“Okay,” you said.
“I don’t like it,” he said. “It’s not — I’m not trying to make it your problem. I know Sunghoon wasn’t doing anything. I know you weren’t doing anything. It just—” He stopped. His jaw shifted. “It sits wrong. Someone else in your space. Being the thing making you laugh.”
You looked at him. His eyes were on the counter, which was unusual — Riki who held eye contact through everything. “Has it always been like that?” you said.
“Yeah.” Simple. “Better than it used to be.”
“What was it like before?”
He looked up. “Worse.” A pause. “I dealt with it badly. I’m not—” He stopped again. “I’m not like that anymore. I don’t act on it. But I feel it and sometimes it makes me go quiet and disappear into my own head and that’s not fair to you.”
You sat with that. “Why are you telling me this?” you said.
He held your gaze. “Because you asked.”
“People don’t always answer when you ask.”
“I know.” Something in his face. “You should know what you’re—” He stopped himself again, and you heard the end of that sentence clearly even without the words. What you’re getting into. What I am.
“Riki,” you said. “If Sunghoon had been doing something—” You held his eyes. “Or anyone. I’d handle it. That’s not— I’m not someone who needs protecting from other people’s attention.”
“I know that.”
“But I’m also not—” You paused. Chose the words. “I’m not interested in other people’s attention. Okay? That’s just—” You shrugged. “That’s just where I’m at.”
The silence that followed had weight to it. Riki looked at you. Really looked — the way he did sometimes, like he was reading something underneath the surface of what you’d said, like he was checking if you meant it.You meant it. “Okay,” he said quietly.
“Okay,” you said.
He exhaled. Something in his shoulders dropped slightly — barely visible, but there. “Tragus,” he said.
“Tragus,” you agreed. He stood up from the stool. And as he passed behind the counter his hand came down briefly on yours where it rested on the surface — just for a second, just his fingers over your knuckles, warm and solid — and then he was moving through to the piercing section and the moment was gone.
You sat there for a second. Then you followed him. Across the room Jay looked at Heeseung in the doorway of his office. Heeseung looked back. Neither of them said anything.
It happened on a Friday. Not a Wednesday. Not planned. You’d come in with Hana at five because she’d finally committed to a small piece on her ankle and wanted moral support, and by the time Jake was finishing up the linework the shop had emptied out — Sunghoon’s last client gone, Jay heading out with his jacket half on, Heeseung locking his office with his keys already in his hand. “You good to close?” Heeseung said to Riki.
“Yeah.” Riki was wiping down the front counter. “Go.” Heeseung looked at you. Brief, unreadable. Looked back at Riki. Said nothing and left. Jay pointed finger guns at you on his way out. You ignored him.
Jake finished Hana’s piece at half past six. She sat up and looked at it in the mirror with the expression of someone who had just made a very good decision, and then she looked at you and at Riki and made a different kind of decision entirely. “I’ll get a cab,” she said.
“I’ll come,” you said.
“You don’t have to.” Serene. Innocent. Absolutely deliberate. “I’m fine on my own.”
“Hana—”
“I’ll text you when I’m home.” She hugged you, said goodbye to Jake, said goodbye to Riki with a smile that communicated volumes, and then she was gone and Jake was heading out behind her and the door swung shut and the shop was quiet.
Just you and Riki. He was at the front counter. You were near the piercing section. The red light was low and the playlist had shifted to something slower, something with bass underneath it, and the flash art on the walls looked different when there was no one else here — more intimate, like the shop had exhaled. “You can head,” Riki said. He wasn’t looking at you. Wiping the counter, routine.
“I know,” you said.
You didn’t move. He stopped wiping. The silence lasted four seconds. You counted. Then he looked up. The expression on his face wasn’t the smirk. Wasn’t the work focus. It was something stripped back — something that had been running underneath everything for weeks and was apparently done waiting. “Y/N,” he said. Low.
“Yeah,” you said. Like you were answering a question he hadn’t asked yet.
He put the cloth down. He came around the counter and crossed the floor and he didn’t stop until he was right in front of you, close enough that you had to tilt your chin up slightly, and his hand came up to your jaw — not grabbing, just his fingers along the side of your face, tilting you toward him — and he looked at you for one more second like he was making absolutely sure.
Whatever he saw made his mind up. He kissed you and it was nothing like the slow build you’d been expecting — it was immediate, certain, his mouth on yours like he’d been thinking about it for weeks because he had been, and you got your hands into his shirt and kissed him back and the sound he made low in his throat did something catastrophic to your ability to think.
His hands moved — jaw, then your waist, pulling you in until there was no space left between you — and you felt the rings on his fingers through the fabric of your top and his body was solid and warm and there, fully there, nothing held back.
You bit his lower lip without planning to. He pulled back half an inch. His eyes were dark, his breathing had changed, and he looked at you with an expression that rearranged something in your chest. “Do that again,” he said quietly, “and we’re not stopping.”
“Good,” you said. And you did it again. He walked you back until your shoulders hit the wall beside the piercing partition — not rough, controlled, one hand flat against the wall beside your head and the other at your waist, and he kissed you deeper this time, slower, like he had you exactly where he wanted and wasn’t in any rush now that he did.
His tongue — god, his tongue, the bar was there and present and you felt it and made a sound into his mouth that you would have been embarrassed about if his hand hadn’t tightened on your waist the second you did it. “There it is,” he said against your mouth.
“Shut up,” you breathed.
“You’ve been thinking about it.” Not a question. His lips moved to your jaw, your neck, unhurried. “Since I told you.”
“Riki—”
“Yes,” he said, quoting you back to yourself, and you felt him smile against your throat.
“You’re so—”
“I know.” He pulled back to look at you. His hair was slightly wrecked, his eyes were very dark, and he looked at you with the kind of focus he usually reserved for his work — total, precise, like you were something he intended to get exactly right. “Tell me what you want.”
“I want you to stop talking,” you said.
“No you don’t.” He was right. You didn’t.
“I want—” You stopped. His thumb had found the hem of your top, tracing the skin at your waist, barely moving, just there. Your brain was doing something unhelpful. “I want you to keep going.”
“Keep going,” he repeated. Like he was logging it. “That’s not very specific.”
“Riki.”
“I want to hear you say it.” His voice had dropped, lower than usual, and there was something in it — not a demand exactly, more like an invitation with weight behind it, like he already knew and wanted you to catch up. “Tell me.”
You looked at him. He looked back, steady, patient, his thumb still tracing that small arc at your waist.
“I’ve wanted you for weeks,” you said. “You know that.”
“I know.” He leaned in, his mouth at your ear. “I wanted to hear you say it.” His hands moved — both of them, finding the hem of your top, sliding underneath to your bare waist, warm palms spreading across your skin — and you exhaled shakily and his mouth came back to yours and the patience dissolved.
Somewhere on the walk from the counter to the wall you got his shirt off and you put your hands on his chest and then his stomach and then lower and found the waistband of his jeans and his breath caught — actually caught, an involuntary thing, the first crack in the steady control — and you looked up at him.
His jaw was tight. His eyes were dark and fixed on your face. “Keep going,” he said. His own words back. Low and rough. You undid his jeans. Your hand found him and he was — there was a Jacob’s ladder — you stopped. He watched your face process it.
“Riki,” you said.
“Yeah.” His voice was rough now, the evenness wearing thin at the edges.
“When were you going to—”
“When it came up.”
“It’s come up.”
“It has,” he agreed, and something in his expression was almost amused except he was too far gone for amused, too focused, his hands gripping your waist with more pressure than before. “Still want to keep going?”
You looked at him. “Are you serious right now.”
He laughed — real, brief, surprised out of him — and then his forehead dropped to yours and you felt him exhale and then his mouth was on yours again and the laughing was done. Your jacket off your shoulders and it hit the floor and his mouth was on your throat before it landed — open, hot, his tongue against your pulse point and the piercing bar cool against your skin and you made a sound that echoed off the black walls. “Riki—”
“I know.” His hands were at the hem of your top, shoving it up, impatient in a way that cracked the usual control wide open. “Off.”
You got it off and his hands were on your tits and his mouth came back to yours.
He walked you back into the wall beside the piercing partition — not slow, not careful, just direct — and pinned you there with his body and his hands were everywhere and yours were too and it was nothing like the slow careful thing you’d half imagined. It was desperate. Both of you. Weeks of it.
“You have no idea,” he said against your jaw, your throat, lower, his mouth on your collarbone, “how long I’ve—” He stopped. His teeth grazed your skin. “Fuck.”
“Tell me,” you breathed.
“Since you walked in here in that dress,” he said into your skin. “Since you leaned on my counter and looked at me like that. I’ve been—” His hands found your jeans, the button, the zip. “Since then.” He shoved your jeans down your hips and you kicked them off and his hand pushed between your thighs and found your pussy through the thin fabric still there and pressed and your hips rolled forward hard.
“There,” he said. Low, rough, satisfied. “There you are.” His fingers moved — slow, deliberate, feeling the heat of you through the fabric — and he looked at your face while he did it. Watching. Taking everything. “Soaked already,” he said. “Were you like this the whole time?”
“Don’t—” you started.
“You were.” He pushed the fabric aside and his fingers touched your folds directly and you choked on a breath. The rings were cold, the contrast of it shocking and good and — “Riki—”
“Good girl,” he said quietly. Like it meant something. Like you’d done something right just by responding to him. His fingers moved through your folds and found your clit and you grabbed his shoulders and held on. “So wet. So fucking — look at you.”
“Please—”
“Please what.” His fingers kept moving, unhurried despite everything, despite the fact that you could feel how much he wanted this — felt it against your hip, hard, his own breathing gone ragged at the edges. “Say it.”
“I need—”
“Say it, Y/N.”
“I need you to fuck me,” you said. “Now, Riki, please—” He made a sound low in his throat and his fingers disappeared and he was shoving his own jeans down, just enough, barely, one hand braced on the wall beside your head — and then he looked at you, dark eyes and wrecked hair and jaw set hard.
“Here?” he said. Rough. “Right here?”
“Yes—”
His hand found your pussy again, two fingers pushing inside, testing, and you made an embarrassing sound and he groaned at the feel of you — “fuck you’re—” — and then his fingers were gone and he was there, the head of his cock at your entrance, and you hooked your leg over his hip. He pushed in. Both of you went still. His forehead dropped to yours. Your nails were in his shoulders. The Jacob’s ladder — you felt every single one and your mouth fell open and you heard him exhale shakily above you. “Riki—”
“I know.” His voice was barely there. “I know, just — fuck — just give me a second—”
“Don’t stop,” you said. “Don’t stop, keep—”
He moved. There was nothing controlled about it. That was the thing — Riki who was steady and certain and always in possession of himself — gone. Completely. He fucked you against the wall with his jeans half down and yours on the floor and his rings cold against your thigh where he’d hooked your leg higher and the bar of his tongue in his teeth when he looked at you and it was overwhelming, the closeness of it, the sound of it in the empty shop.
“Good,” he said, rough and low, his hips rolling into you, setting a pace that had your head dropping back against the wall. “Good girl, just like — yeah, just like that—”
“More—”
“Yeah?” He shifted his angle and you cried out and he did it again, deliberate, watching your face. “There?”
“Yes — yes, don’t stop—”
“I’ve got you.” His mouth found your throat. “I’ve got you, you’re doing so — fuck, Y/N, you feel—” He broke off. His rhythm stuttered and recovered. “You feel so good. So fucking good.”
The praise landed somewhere it had no business landing, warm and devastating, and your hips were moving to meet him and your clit was grinding against him with every thrust and you were already… “Riki I’m going to—”
“Do it,” he said immediately. “Cum for me. Come on.” His hand moved between you and his thumb found your clit and pressed and you shattered — your whole body going taut, his name in your mouth, your nails breaking skin on his shoulders — and he fucked you through it, relentless, not letting up—
“That’s it,” he said against your ear, rough and wrecked. “That’s it, good girl, god you’re—” He followed you over the edge not long after — his rhythm breaking, his breath gone, his forehead hard against the wall beside your head — and the sound he made when he came was low and helpless and you felt it everywhere.
There was silence that followed apart from the playlist over the shop speakers. The red light under the door still illuminated. Both of you still against the wall like butter of you planned to move soon, his weight partly on you and partly on his arm and neither of you in any hurry to fix that.
Your leg slid down from his hip. He pulled back enough to look at your face. His hair was completely wrecked. His mouth was slightly swollen. He looked at you with an expression that had nothing performed in it — just open, just him, something that hadn’t had a name all this time and still didn’t quite yet. “Hi,” he said.
You laughed. Surprised out of you, real. He smiled — the real one, the one that changed his whole face — and pressed it briefly into your hair.
You found the back room couch eventually. His shirt on your shoulders. The rings back on his fingers because he’d put them on out of habit and then looked at his own hands like he hadn’t noticed himself doing it. You lay on your back. He sat with his back against the couch, forearm on his knee, looking at the floor. “So,” you said.
“So,” he said.
“What happens now?” you said.
He was quiet for a moment. “What do you want?”
You thought about the card in your bag. The Wednesdays. The way he’d looked at you across the counter every single time like you were a decision he’d already made. “I don’t know yet,” you said. Honest.
“Okay,” he said. Easy. No pressure in it. His hand found yours in the dark. Didn’t make anything of it. Just held on. You stayed on the couch until the playlist rolled over twice. At some point the I don’t know yet became irrelevant because his mouth found your throat again and his hands were back under his shirt on your skin and the question got buried under something more immediate.
You left at nine. He walked you to the door. Held it open, leaned in the frame. The cold air hit you and you turned back. He looked wrecked and unbothered about it. Shirt on, jeans done up, rings on every finger. Hair a disaster. Looking at you with that expression — the settled one, the certain one. “Wednesday,” he said. You nodded.
Neither of you said anything about what it was. That was the agreement, unspoken, the way most things between you and Riki were unspoken. You came in on Wednesdays. Sometimes other days. Sometimes he texted at ten at night — nothing explicit, just you up or studio’s empty — and you went, and nobody named what that meant. It worked. Mostly.
The sex was — there wasn’t a word for it that didn’t sound inadequate. Compulsive was close. Inevitable was closer. Like once the wall had come down neither of you had any interest in rebuilding it, like your bodies had been having a conversation for months and were now just speaking plainly.
He learned you fast. Faster than anyone had. What made you gasp versus what made you come apart completely. The difference between what you asked for and what you actually wanted. He paid attention the way he paid attention to everything — totally, precisely — and used it with a focus that should have been illegal.
You learned him too. That the control was real but thin in the right circumstances. That his jaw set right before it cracked. That he made sounds he didn’t seem to know he was making. That he said your name differently when he was close — shorter, sharper, like he didn’t have room for the full shape of it. That he always, always pulled you back when you tried to move away after. Not possessive. Just — unwilling to let the warmth go yet. You were trying very hard not to think about what that meant.
Three weeks after the first time, on a Tuesday night, you were in the back room of Studio 13 with Riki’s shirt on the floor and your jeans somewhere near the door and his mouth on your throat and his hand between your thighs and the playlist coming through the walls and everything was fine, everything was exactly what it was, unnamed and manageable —
And then he said I’ve got you in that low rough voice right against your ear and something in your chest did a thing it wasn’t supposed to do. You filed it away. Dealt with it later. Later didn’t come because he did something with his tongue that made later completely irrelevant.
Wednesday afternoon. Counter. Coffee. Normal. Easy. The same as it had always been except for the part where it wasn’t because now you knew exactly what his hands felt like and what sounds he made and what his face looked like when the composure cracked and sitting on the other side of a counter from him in the middle of the afternoon was — a different experience than it used to be.
He was telling you something about a client — complicated custom piece, back and forth for weeks on the design — and you were listening and also watching his hands move when he talked, the rings catching the light, and thinking about those hands on your waist last night and… “Y/N.”
You looked up. He was looking at you with the quiet knowing expression. “I was listening,” you said.
“You weren’t.”
“I was. Custom piece. Back and forth on the design. Client keeps changing their mind.”
He tilted his head slightly. The corner of his mouth. “What were you thinking about?”
“The flash art.”
“Hm.” He leaned on the counter. His forearms right there, the sleeve on full display, and he looked at you with that unhurried certainty. “You were looking at my hands.”
“I was looking at your rings.”
“Y/N.”
“They’re interesting rings.”
He held your gaze for a long moment. Then he looked down at his hands, turned them over slowly, looked back up at you with an expression that was doing something to your ability to function. “Come back tonight,” he said.
“I was here last night.”
“I know.”
“And the night before.”
“I know.” He didn’t look remotely apologetic. “Come back tonight.”
You looked at him. “We should probably — this probably shouldn’t be—”
“Probably,” he agreed, like the word meant nothing.
“Riki.”
“Tonight, Y/N.”
You looked at your coffee. At him. At the rings on his hands that you had been thinking about and were now not admitting to thinking about. “Fine,” you said.
He picked up his own coffee. Satisfied. Like there had never been any other outcome. From across the shop Jay said nothing. He had learned, over the past three weeks, that saying things got him absolutely nowhere and had adapted accordingly. He simply made eye contact with Sunghoon across the room and they had an entire conversation without words.
That night after Studio 13 closed, which had become its own specific thing — the red light, the quiet, the shop breathing differently when it was empty. Riki had barely locked the front door before you were crossing the floor toward him and his expression when he turned around and saw you moving like that— “Hi,” he said.
“Hi.” You reached him. Your hands went to his chest, his jaw, pulling him down, and he came without resistance, his hands finding your waist immediately, already knowing where to go.
He kissed you slow this time. Deliberately slow, like he was making a point, like the urgency of the last few weeks had shifted into something that wanted to take its time. That was somehow worse. “Riki,” you said against his mouth.
“Hm.”
“Stop going slow.”
“No.” He kissed your jaw. Your throat. Slow and deliberate, his hands sliding under your top to your bare waist. “I spent all afternoon thinking about this.”
“So did I, that’s why—”
“That’s why we’re taking our time.” His mouth at your collarbone. “I want to—” A pause. His lips against your skin. “I want to take you apart properly. Not fast.”
Your hands tightened in his hair. “That’s not fair,” you said.
“No,” he agreed, and kept going. He got your top off and looked at you in the low light the way he always did — that slow, unapologetic assessment that moved over you like you were worth looking at carefully — and then his mouth found your tits and your head fell back.
His tongue. The bar of it, cool and present, circling your nipple, and you made a sound and his hands tightened on your waist. “Good girl,” he said against your skin. “Just like that.”
“Riki—”
“I’ve got you.” He moved to the other side, same slow attention, his hands holding your waist like you might float away. “I’ve got you, just — yeah, just feel it.” You were going to lose your mind. Your hands found his shirt and he let you get it off and then he was walking you back to the couch in the back room and laying you down and looking at you from above with dark eyes and that expression — the open one, the one that had no performance in it.
He got your jeans off slow. His hands running down your thighs as he pulled them, his mouth following, pressing to your hip, the inside of your knee, and by the time he got back up to your folds you were already soaked. “Riki, please—”
“Please what.” His breath against your inner thigh. Close, not close enough.
“Please—”
“Tell me what you want.” His lips brushed your folds, barely, just the suggestion of pressure. “Tell me.”
“Your mouth,” you said. “Please, your mouth—” He gave it to you. The bar of his tongue against your clit and you grabbed the back of the couch and held on. He ate your pussy like he had nowhere else to be — thorough, focused, the same attention he gave everything — and the sounds he made against you, low and hungry, like he was getting something from it—
“God—” your hips rolled and his hands held them down, firm, keep still, and the loss of control of that made it worse in the best way. “Riki I’m — don’t stop, don’t—”
“Not stopping,” he said against your clit. “Cum for me. Come on.”
You did. He worked you through it until you were pulling at his hair telling him too much, too much and he pressed one last kiss to your inner thigh and came back up your body and looked at your face with an expression that was — satisfied wasn’t the right word. Reverent was closer, which was a thing you were absolutely not processing right now. “Good girl,” he said quietly.
“Stop calling me that,” you said, breathless.
“No,” he said simply, and kissed you.
When he finally pushed inside you both exhaled like something had been solved. Slow, this time. Deep. His forehead against yours, his arms bracketing you, his rings cool against the side of your face where his hand was. “Okay?” he said.
“Yeah.” Your voice wasn’t working right. “Yeah, keep — please keep going.”
He moved. Slow, deep rolls of his hips that had you feeling every ridge of the ladder on every stroke and your mouth kept falling open and he watched it happen. “You feel it,” he said. Low, not a question.
“Yes—”
“Good.” His hips rolled deeper and you gasped. “That’s good, you’re so — fuck, Y/N—” His composure was fraying at the edges, the rhythm getting less controlled. “You take me so well. Every time. Like you were—” He stopped himself.
You looked up at him. His jaw was set, his eyes dark, something moving behind them that he’d just pulled back from saying. “Like I was what,” you said.
He looked at you. For a second — just a second — something was right there on his face, unguarded, something that went past the physical and landed somewhere neither of you had named yet. He kissed you instead of answering.
You let him. Filed it away. Pulled him closer and let the question dissolve into the drag and heat of him moving inside you and his mouth on yours and his hand sliding between you to find your clit— “Riki—”
“I know,” he said. “I know, come on, cum for me again, you can—”
“I can’t—”
“You can.” His thumb on your clit, his cock deep, his voice at your ear. “You can, good girl, come on, let me feel you—” You came with his name in your mouth and your whole body shaking and he followed you with his face pressed into your throat and the sound he made was low and broken and yours.
After his thumb moving slow at your hip. The ceiling. The playlist. You were thinking about like you were— and what came after it. You were thinking about I’ve got you and how he said it every time, always, like a reflex, like something that came from somewhere deeper than the moment.
You were thinking about the fact that you knew what his laugh sounded like — the real one, the surprised one — and that you’d been collecting these things without meaning to and the collection was getting heavy. “Riki,” you said.
“Hm.”
“What are we doing.”
Silence. His thumb stopped moving. Then, carefully: “What do you want to be doing.”
You stared at the ceiling. “I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking.”
He was quiet for a long moment. You could feel him thinking — that specific quality of his silences, weighted, considering. “I’m not good at this part,” he said.
“What part.”
“The—” A pause. “Saying things.”
“You say things to me all the time.”
“Not these things.”
You turned your head to look at him. He was looking at the ceiling, jaw slightly tight, the expression of someone navigating something carefully. “What things,” you said quietly.
He turned his head. Your faces close in the dim light. His eyes moved over yours. “I don’t want you going anywhere,” he said. Finally. Quietly. “That’s — that’s what I’ve got right now.”
It wasn’t everything. You both knew it wasn’t everything. But it was Riki, who didn’t say things, saying a thing, and it landed with the weight of something much larger behind it.“Okay,” you said.
“Okay,” he said. His thumb started moving again. You looked back at the ceiling. The unnamed thing stayed unnamed. But it was there, in the room with you, and you both knew it.
The thing about not naming something was that it didn’t stop it from being a thing. It just meant you had no language for it when it started to matter. Four weeks into whatever this was, Ria staged an intervention.
Not a dramatic one — she didn’t have people over or make a presentation, she just showed up at your flat on a Saturday morning with coffee and pastries and sat across from you at your kitchen table with the expression of someone who had been patient for a very long time and was cashing that in now. “Talk,” she said.
“About what.”
“Y/N.”
“I don’t know what you want me to say, Ria.”
“I want you to say what’s happening with Riki.”
You picked up your coffee. “We’re—”
“If you say friends I’m leaving and taking the pastries.”
You put your coffee down. “It’s complicated.”
“Is it? Or is it simple and you’re making it complicated because you’re scared?”
You looked at her. She looked back with the patience of someone who had known you for six years and had seen every version of your avoidance. “We haven’t put a name on it,” you said.
“Why not.”
“Because—” You stopped. Because he’d said I don’t want you going anywhere and you’d said okay and neither of you had pushed past that. Because every Wednesday and every late night felt like building something and neither of you would say what you were building. “It’s working the way it is.”
“Is it.”
“Yes.”
“You like him.”
“Obviously.”
“Like like him.”
“Ria—”
“Y/N.” She leaned forward. “You went back to that shop every week for two months before anything happened. You know his coffee order, his schedule, what makes him laugh. You’ve met his friends. He checks your piercings as an excuse to be close to you.” She paused. “That’s not complicated. That’s you being terrified.”
You stared at the table. “He’s not easy to read,” you said. Finally.
“He gave you his personal card the night he met you,” Ria said. “Heeseung told me he’d never done that before.”
“When did you talk to Heeseung?”
“Jake texts me sometimes.”
“Jake texts you.”
“That’s not the point.” She pushed a pastry toward you. “The point is that boy is absolutely gone for you and you both keep dancing around it and it’s making everyone at Studio 13 insane, apparently.”
“Everyone?”
“Jay’s exact words were if they don’t sort it out soon I’m locking them in the back room.”
You put your face in your hands. “I don’t know how to do this with him,” you said, muffled. “He doesn’t say things. I don’t push. We just—”
“So say something first,” Ria said simply. “You’re not someone who waits, Y/N. That’s not you. You’re doing it because you’re scared he won’t say it back.” You lifted your face. Said nothing. She was right and you both knew it.
You didn’t say anything that Wednesday. You came close — sitting at the counter, coffee in hand, Riki talking about something, his rings on the desk, his eyes finding yours every few sentences the way they always did — and the words were right there, and you looked at his face, and you thought about Ria’s voice saying terrified, and you said nothing. He looked at you at one point like he knew something was moving behind your eyes. “What,” he said.
“Nothing.” You smiled. “Keep going.” He held your gaze for a second. Let it go.
The following Saturday Sunghoon texted you. Not unusual — you’d exchanged numbers for shop-related things, flash piece ideas, scheduling. He was easy to talk to, straightforward, the kind of person whose texts read exactly like his voice.
Sunghoon: hey, you said you were thinking about a collarbone piece right
you: yeah still thinking
Sunghoon: I drew something. wanna see
He sent a photo. Small, delicate, blackwork — something botanical, two thin stems crossing, minimal and precise. It was exactly your taste and you had no idea how he’d known that.
you: sunghoon this is gorgeous
Sunghoon: right? come in monday, I’ll show you the full size version. riki’s off monday so it’ll be quiet
you: sounds good, see you then
You didn’t think anything of it. Sunghoon was your friend. He’d drawn something for you. You were going to look at it. You didn’t mention it to Riki because there was nothing to mention.
Monday the shop was quieter without Riki in it, which was a thing you noticed and filed away as information you didn’t love having. Sunghoon had the drawing laid out on the counter when you arrived — full size, done properly on transfer paper, and it was even better than the photo. You stood over it with him pointing out the details, his hand close to yours on the paper, talking through placement and sizing and whether to add a third stem.
Jay was pretending to do something at the other counter.bHeeseung was in his office with the door open. “Here,” Sunghoon said, and pressed the transfer paper lightly to your collarbone to show you the placement. His hand steadied it against your skin, professional, and you looked in the mirror and thought yes, that was exactly right. Your phone lit up on the counter.
Riki: you at the shop?
You looked at it. Jay looked at it. Sunghoon didn’t see it.
you: yeah, sunghoon drew something for me. just looking at placement
The three dots appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again.
Riki: k
One letter.
Riki: looks good?
you: really good actually. he’s talented
The dots again. Then nothing. No reply. You put your phone down. Sunghoon was still talking about the third stem. You looked at the transfer in the mirror and tried to pay attention and felt something uneasy settle in your chest.
Riki was at the counter when you arrived Wednesday. You knew within ten seconds that something was wrong. Not visibly wrong — he looked the same, said hey the same, had your coffee ready the same. But his eyes when they met yours were flatter than usual. The warmth was there but dimmed, like something had been turned down. You sat. Picked up your coffee. “How was your day off?” you said.
“Fine.” He was looking at his phone.
“Did you do anything?”
“Not much.” Jay appeared from the back, clocked the atmosphere in approximately two seconds, and disappeared again.
You watched Riki scroll his phone. His jaw was set. Not dramatically — just tight, controlled, the way it got when he was holding something still. “Riki,” you said.
“Hm.”
“Look at me.” He looked up. The flat quality was more visible face to face. Something was moving behind his eyes that he was keeping on a very short leash. “What’s wrong?” you said.
“Nothing.”
“You’ve said twelve words since I got here.”
“I’ve been busy.”
You looked at him. He looked back, and you could see the effort of it — the effort of sitting in whatever this was and keeping it even. “Is this about Monday?” you said.
Something shifted in his jaw. “No.”
“Riki.”
“It’s not about Monday.”
“So it is about Monday.”
He put his phone down. Flat on the counter. He looked at you with an expression that was very controlled and also not controlled at all if you knew what to look for, and you knew what to look for now. “You went in on my day off,” he said.
“Sunghoon drew something for me. I told you.”
“I know what you told me.”
“Then what—”
“His hands were on you.” Quiet. Final. Like he’d been sitting on it for two days and it had compacted into something very small and very dense.
You stared at him. “He was showing me placement. For a tattoo. That’s his job.”
“I know that.”
“Then—”
“I know that, Y/N.” His voice was still even but something was pushing at the edges of it. “I know it doesn’t mean anything. I know Sunghoon wasn’t — I know.” He looked at the counter. “It doesn’t stop it feeling—” He stopped.
“Feeling what,” you said. He was quiet for a long moment.
“Wrong,” he said. “It feels wrong. Someone else’s hands on you feels wrong and I don’t know how to make that—” He stopped again. His thumb pressed against the counter. “I’m trying to be rational about it.”
“You went quiet for two days,” you said.
“I know.”
“That’s not — Riki, you can’t just go quiet every time something—”
“I know.” He looked up. His eyes were direct now, no flatness, just the real thing underneath — something frustrated and raw and tired of itself. “I know it’s not fair. I’m telling you I know that. I just—” A breath. “I don’t know how to feel it and not do that. I’m working on it.”
You looked at him for a long moment. “You went quiet instead of talking to me,” you said.
“Yes.”
“And you’re telling me now because I pushed.”
“Yes.” He held your gaze. “I would have told you. I just needed to — I needed it to be smaller before I could say it without it being—” He gestured vaguely. “A lot.”
“Is it smaller now?”
“Somewhat.”
You picked up your coffee. Looked at it. Put it down. “You know that there’s nothing—” you started.
“I know.” Immediately. “Y/N, I know. This isn’t about you. This isn’t about Sunghoon. It’s mine, it’s a me thing, and I’m not trying to make it your problem.”
“It becomes my problem when you disappear.”
“I know.” His jaw shifted. “I’m sorry.”
You looked at him. He looked back, steady, the thing behind his eyes open now in the way it only got when he’d pushed past the control on purpose — when he was giving you something deliberately. “Don’t disappear,” you said. “Whatever it is — just say it. To me. Not in your head for two days.”
“Okay,” he said. His hand moved across the counter and covered yours briefly — the rings cool, the weight of his palm familiar. “Okay, Y/N.”
The touch lasted a few seconds. He didn’t make anything of it. Just let it be there and then pulled back. From the back room, completely audibly, Jay said to someone: “finally.”
“Jay,” Riki said flatly.
“I’m just saying—”
“Jay.”
That night, late. He was in your flat, his idea — he’d texted at nine, not you up or studio’s empty but just your name, which was new. He was on your couch with his legs stretched out and his head back and his eyes on your ceiling and you were beside him close enough to feel the warmth of him and neither of you had moved toward the other yet. Just sitting. Existing in the same space. “Can I ask you something?” you said.
“Yeah.”
“The possessiveness.” You kept your voice even. “Where does it come from.”
A pause. He was quiet long enough that you thought he might not answer. “Control,” he said finally. “Or — fear of losing it. Things I care about.” His thumb moved against his own knee. “I spent a long time in situations where things got taken. People I — things I couldn’t protect.” He stopped. “I don’t talk about it.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I know.” A pause. “I want to. I just — not yet.”
Not yet. Not never. Not it’s not your business. Not yet meant there was a timeline. Meant he was thinking about it. Meant you were someone he was moving toward telling.
You leaned your head against his shoulder. He went still for a second — surprised, you thought, by the smallness of it, the casualness — and then his head dropped against yours and you felt him exhale. “The collarbone piece,” he said eventually. “Let me do it.”
You lifted your head. Looked at him. “You do tattoos?”
“Heeseung taught me. I’m not on the books for it but—” He met your eyes. “I want to do it. If you want.”
Sunghoon’s drawing. Riki’s hands. “Yeah,” you said. “Okay.”
Something settled in his face. Quiet and satisfied in a way that had nothing to do with the smirk. “Okay,” he said.
You put your head back on his shoulder. His arm moved — slow, like he was checking it was allowed — and settled around you. The unnamed thing pressed closer. Neither of you named it. But his arm tightened slightly and you let it, and that was something too.
The collarbone piece took two sessions. Riki had been clear about that upfront — small piece, delicate linework, he wanted to do it right and doing it right meant not rushing. You’d sat in the chair in the back room of Studio 13 on a quiet Tuesday morning with his hands on your collarbone and his face close and his full attention on the work and tried very hard to be normal about it. You were not normal about it. “Stop tensing,” he said, without looking up.
“I’m not tensing.”
“Your shoulder is up by your ear.” You lowered your shoulder. He glanced up briefly — dark eyes, the focus in them softening for just a second when they met yours — and then back down. “First line’s the worst,” he said. “Then you’ll settle.”
“I’ve been tattooed before.”
“Not by me.” He said it simply. Like it was just a fact. Which it was. But the way he said it landed like something more — like not by me was its own category, its own distinct experience, and he was right, as it turned out, because when the needle touched your collarbone the small shock of it dissolved almost immediately into the warmth of his hands steadying you and his voice saying good, just like that, breathe — and you settled.
You watched his face while he worked. This version of him — the work version, focused and quiet and completely present — was one of your favorites. All the usual energy went inward. The smirk was gone, the easy confidence was still there but different, channeled into precision. He moved the machine in small careful arcs and his free hand was always on you, always steadying, always aware of exactly how much pressure to use. “You’re staring,” he said.
“You said that to me once before.”
“You were staring then too.”
“Maybe I just have a specific staring problem.”
The corner of his mouth moved. He didn’t look up. “Maybe you do.”
He kissed you after the session. Not immediately — he’d finished, stepped back, examined the work with that quiet critical eye, declared it good. You’d looked in the mirror and felt something warm move through your chest at the sight of it — the two stems, thin and precise, sitting exactly right on your collarbone. “It’s perfect,” you said.
“I know.” He was already at the sink, washing his hands, and you could hear the smile in it even without seeing his face. You got up from the chair. Crossed the small space between you. And when he turned around you were right there and his expression shifted — from satisfied work-focus to something more personal, more immediate — and you put your hand on his jaw and kissed him.
He kissed you back with his damp hands at your waist, careful not to touch the fresh tattoo, and it was slow and unhurried and tasted like coffee and something that was just him and when you pulled back his eyes stayed closed for a second. Opened. Looked at you. “Hi,” he said quietly.
“Hi,” you said. His thumb moved at your waist. The rings. The warmth of his palms through your shirt.
“Come back Thursday for the second session,” he said.
“I know, you told me.”
“Just making sure.” He kissed you again before you could respond — quick, soft, his mouth on yours for just a moment — and then stepped back and handed you the aftercare sheet and was professional again, mostly, except for the way his eyes followed you to the door.
Thursday’s second session was longer. More detail, more shading on the stems, a small shadow that made the whole thing lift off the skin. You sat in the chair and he worked and you talked — properly talked, the way you did at the counter but quieter, more contained, just the two of you in the partitioned space.
He told you about growing up. Small things — not the things he kept locked, but around the edges of them. A younger brother. Moving schools twice. Being good at things with his hands from early on, carving things, taking things apart to see how they worked. “Is that why the piercing?” you said.
“Partly.” He shifted the machine slightly. “Partly because it’s — immediate. You do it right and you see it right away. No waiting to find out.”
“You like knowing things work.”
He glanced up. “Yeah.”
“Control thing.”
A pause. “Yeah,” he said again, quieter. You let that sit. Didn’t push.
“Tell me something else,” he said, after a moment. Deflecting but not — more like redirecting, like he wanted the conversation to keep going just in a different direction.
So you told him things. About your course, your family, the flat you’d moved into two years ago that still didn’t feel completely yours. The way Ria had been your anchor through everything since you were sixteen. How you’d wanted to study abroad and hadn’t and sometimes still thought about it. “Why didn’t you?” he said.
“Felt like running away from something.”
“Were you?”
You thought about it. “Probably.”
He looked up. His eyes on yours, level. “What were you running from.”
“Someone,” you said. “It doesn’t matter now.”
He held your gaze for a moment. You watched something move through his expression — something careful, something that might have been jealousy at its very distant edges but was mostly just — paying attention. Storing it. Like everything you gave him went somewhere it would be kept.
“Their loss,” he said. Simply. Looked back down. You looked at the top of his head and felt the unnamed thing press against your ribs from the inside.
He finished the piece in two hours. You both looked at it in the mirror — his chin near your shoulder, your reflection side by side — and neither of you said anything for a moment. “Well,” you said.
“Yeah,” he said. It was exactly right. Better than right. The kind of thing that looked like it had always been there, like your skin had been waiting for it.
You turned. He was right there, closer than you’d clocked, and you put both hands on his chest and looked up at him and he looked down at you and the moment expanded slightly. “Thank you,” you said.
“Don’t thank me.”
“Riki—”
“It was for me as much as you,” he said. Quiet. Direct. No smirk in it. “I wanted to put something on you. That’s—” He stopped. His jaw shifted. “That’s a me thing. Don’t thank me for it.”
You looked at him. He looked back, steady, and the naked quality of what he’d just said sat between you — I wanted to put something on you — and neither of you moved for a second.
Then you kissed him. Slow, deliberate, your hands spreading on his chest. He made a low sound and his arms came around you — gentle because of the fresh tattoo, careful, his hands at your back instead of your waist — and he kissed you back like he had time, like he wanted to use it.
When you broke apart he kept his forehead against yours. “Stay,” he said. Low. “Tonight. Just—” A pause. “Just stay.”
“Okay,” you said. You ate takeout on the floor of the back room because the couch was small and the floor had more space and Riki sat with his back against the couch and you sat between his legs with your back against his chest and it was so domestically comfortable that it was almost alarming.
He ate with one arm around you. His chin occasionally dropping to your shoulder to look at whatever you were showing him on your phone. His thumb making that small absent arc at your hip that he did when he wasn’t thinking about it.
“Ria thinks we need to define this,” you said, at some point. His arm didn’t tighten. Didn’t loosen. He was quiet for a moment.
“What do you think?” he said.
“I think Ria is right about most things.”
“Hm.” His thumb kept moving. “What would you define it as.”
You turned your head slightly. His face was close — close enough to see the detail of the scar through his eyebrow, the silver of his earring, the way he was looking at you with that careful open expression he only had when there was no one else around. “I don’t know,” you said. “What would you.”
“Mine,” he said. Quiet. Simple. Like it was the most obvious answer.
Your heart did something inconvenient. “That’s very you,” you said.
“Is it wrong?”
You turned back to face forward. His arm around you. The takeout. The red light. “No,” you said. “It’s not wrong.”
You felt him exhale against the back of your head. Slow, like something had released. His lips pressed briefly to your hair. Not a kiss exactly — too soft, too absent, more like a thing he did without deciding to.
You stayed on the floor until midnight. Talked about nothing important. Everything slightly important. He told you Jake was obviously falling for Hana and was handling it terribly, which you already knew, and you told him Ria had started texting Jake directly to speed the process along, which he did not know and which made him laugh — the real one, sudden, surprised. You stored it.
“I should go,” you said eventually. You had a nine AM seminar and the responsible thing—
“Yeah,” he said. Made no move to untangle himself from around you.
“Riki.”
“Five minutes.”
“You said that twenty minutes ago.”
“Five more minutes.” You leaned back into him and gave him the five minutes. He pressed his mouth to the side of your head again — that soft, absent thing, lips in your hair — and you closed your eyes and thought about mine and the way he’d said it like it was just the truth.
When you finally stood up he walked you to the door the way he always did. Unlocked it. Held it open. You turned back. He kissed you in the doorway — unhurried, thorough, one hand cupping your jaw and the other flat against the doorframe — and you kissed him back and it went on longer than a goodbye kiss needed to, longer than was practical, until he pulled back and looked at you with dark eyes and slightly wrecked composure.
“Wednesday,” he said. His thumb traced your jaw once before dropping.
“Wednesday,” you said. You made it to the end of the street. You looked back. He was still in the doorway, leaning on the frame, watching you go. When he saw you look he didn’t pretend he hadn’t been watching. Just held your gaze across the dark street. You turned back around and smiled at the pavement the whole way to the bus stop.
Heeseung had told everyone to come to his flat for dinner on Saturday — no occasion, just food, just all of them in the same place — and you’d arrived with Ria who had told you she’d been waiting for this invitation for weeks, which meant Jake had told her about it before Riki had told you, which meant something.
Heeseung’s flat was calm and dark-walled like the shop, art everywhere, music at a volume that allowed conversation. Jay was already there and immediately pulled Ria into an argument about something. Jake appeared from the kitchen and the way his face changed when he saw Ria was something you were going to tell Riki about later.
Riki was on the couch. He looked up when you came in and the smile that happened was immediate and unguarded — no performance, no build up, just his face doing the thing it did when you appeared, the thing you didn’t think he knew it did. He moved over without being asked. You sat beside him. Close. His arm went across the back of the couch behind you — not around you, but there, present, the rings near your shoulder.
Sunghoon arrived twenty minutes later and dropped onto the armchair across from you and looked at you both with an expression of great satisfaction. “You two sorted?” he said.
“Sunghoon,” Riki said.
“What? Last month you were—“ He stopped. “I’m just asking—”
“We’re sorted,” you said. Sunghoon grinned. Riki’s arm moved from the back of the couch to actually around your shoulders, like Sunghoon asking had given him permission to stop pretending he wasn’t doing it.
Dinner was loud and easy and everyone talked over everyone and Jay told a story about a client that got more elaborate every time he told it and Ria fit in like she’d always been there and Heeseung sat at the head of the table and said little and watched everything with quiet satisfaction.
After dinner you ended up back on the couch. Riki beside you, your legs across his, his hand resting on your ankle. The conversation had split across the room — Jay and Sunghoon, Ria and Jake in what looked like an increasingly interesting exchange, Heeseung in the kitchen. “You good?” Riki said quietly, just to you.
“Yeah.” You looked at the room. “This is nice.”
“They like you.”
“Jay likes everyone.”
“Heeseung doesn’t,” he said. Simple. “He likes you.”
You looked at him. “How can you tell?”
“He invited you.” He said it like it was obvious. “He doesn’t do this for everyone. He did it because—” A pause. His hand moved slightly on your ankle. “Because you’re—” He stopped.
“Because I’m what,” you said softly.
He looked at you. The room was noisy around you but it felt like it had contracted to just this, just his face and yours and the thing he was about to say. “Important,” he said. Quiet. “Because you’re important.”
Your heart did the inconvenient thing again, harder this time. “Riki,” you said.
“Yeah.”
“That word—”
“I know what word I used.” You looked at him. He looked back, steady, not taking it back, not softening it. Just — sitting in it, the way he sat in most things, patient and certain.
Across the room Jay said something loud and everyone laughed and the moment breathed. Riki’s hand moved from your ankle to your calf. Warm. Present. “Stay tonight,” he said. Low enough that it was only for you. “Not at the shop. Mine.”
His. His flat, which you hadn’t been to, which was a different thing than the back room couch. A different kind of staying. “Yeah,” you said.
He nodded. Looked back at the room. But his hand stayed on your leg and his shoulder was warm against yours and you sat in the important and let it settle into something that felt permanent.
Later, when most people had gone and Ria was helping Heeseung with something in the kitchen and it was just you and Riki by the door putting your jacket on he turned you by the shoulders. Kissed you slowly, his hands on your face, thumbs at your jaw. The kind of kiss that had no agenda, no direction, just wanted to exist. When he pulled back he looked at you for a long moment.
The word boyfriend was right there in the room. Neither of you said it. But his hand found yours and held it, and he didn’t let go the whole way to his flat, and somewhere in the space between mine and important and his fingers between yours on a dark street — the unnamed thing finally had a shape. You just hadn’t said it out loud yet.
His flat was on the third floor of a building that had seen better decades, the kind of place that was held together by good bones and someone who actually cared about the space inside it. You didn’t know what you’d expected.
More of the shop, maybe — dark walls, flash art, the deliberate aesthetic. And there was some of that. Dark furniture, a few framed pieces on the walls, one large canvas above the couch that was either very expensive or done by someone he knew and you suspected the latter. But it was also — lived in, in a specific way. Books stacked in an order that made sense only to him. A record player in the corner with a small collection beside it. The kitchen clean in the way of someone who cooked properly and cleaned as they went.
It was a home. Actually a home. That surprised you and you didn’t know why it surprised you and then you thought about what he’d said — I spent a long time in situations where things got taken — and understood it. He’d built this. Deliberately. Piece by piece. “Stop analyzing it,” he said from the kitchen.
“I’m not analyzing it.”
“You have your analyzing face on.”
“I don’t have an analyzing face.”
He appeared in the kitchen doorway with two glasses of water and looked at you standing in his living room in your jacket still on and raised an eyebrow. “Take your jacket off,” he said. “You’re staying.” You took your jacket off.
You fell asleep on his couch. Not intentionally — you’d been talking, the record player on low, and somewhere between one subject and the next the warmth of him beside you and the late hour pulled you under. You were aware of it happening distantly, the conversation getting slower, your eyes getting heavy, and you didn’t fight it.
You woke up in his bed. He’d moved you. At some point while you slept he’d carried you — or walked you, half-conscious — to the bed and put you in it and the duvet was pulled up and his pillow smelled like him and you lay there in the early grey morning and stared at the ceiling and felt something enormous and inconvenient sitting on your chest.
You heard him in the kitchen. The quiet sounds of someone who knew how to exist in the morning without disturbing anyone. You lay there and thought about mine and important and the collarbone tattoo and his hand in yours on the dark street and the back room couch and two months of Wednesdays and the card he’d slid across the counter the first night like he’d already decided.
You thought about Ria’s voice. You’re terrified. You were terrified.
He was at the kitchen counter with his back to you when you came in. Making coffee, unhurried, still in the clothes from last night minus the jacket. Rings on his hands already. You didn’t know if he’d slept. He turned when he heard you. Took in your expression with one look. “Hey,” he said carefully.
“Hey.” You stood in the kitchen doorway. Your heart was doing something loud. “You moved me.”
“You were asleep on my couch.”
“You could have woken me up.”
“You looked tired.” Simple. Like it was nothing. Like carrying you to his bed was just a practical thing he’d done without thinking. “Coffee?”
“Riki.” He looked at you. Really looked — reading whatever was on your face with that careful focus, taking it in.
“What’s going on,” he said.
“Nothing. I just—” You stopped. Started again. “I woke up in your bed and it—” You pressed your fingers to your mouth briefly. “It felt like something.” He was quiet. Waiting.
“I think this is something,” you said. “I think it’s been something for a while and we keep not saying it and I’m—” You exhaled. “I’m tired of not saying it.”
The kitchen was very quiet. Riki leaned back against the counter. Crossed his arms. His expression was the open one — no performance, no control layered over it, just his face and whatever was behind it. “Say it then,” he said quietly.
You looked at him. “I want this to be a thing. A real thing. I want—” You. “I want the name.”
He uncrossed his arms. Crossed the kitchen in three steps and he was right in front of you and his hands came up to your face — both of them, palms at your jaw, tilting your face up — and he looked at you for one long second. “It’s already a thing,” he said. “It’s been a thing.” His thumb moved at your cheekbone. “I’ve been waiting for you to catch up.”
“That’s very smug,” you said. Your voice wasn’t fully steady.
“I know.” He wasn’t smiling. His eyes were serious, dark, right there. “Y/N.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m not good at the words,” he said. “You know that. But this—” his thumbs traced your face, gentle and deliberate “—this is not nothing. This hasn’t been nothing since you walked into my shop.”
Your hands found his wrists. Held on. “Okay,” you said.
“Okay,” he said. He kissed you. Soft, slow, his hands still on your face like he wanted to hold the moment still. You kissed him back and felt the unnamed thing finally, finally settle into something with a shape and a weight and a name you’d figure out the exact word for later.
When he pulled back he pressed his forehead to yours. “Boyfriend is a weird word,” he said.
You laughed. Surprised out of you, real. “It really is.”
“But yeah.” His mouth curved. “That.”
“That,” you agreed. He kissed you again, brief and warm, and then stepped back and handed you a coffee and the domesticity of it — his flat, his coffee, his hands, the morning — hit you somewhere soft.
“Sit down,” he said. “I’ll make breakfast.”
“You cook?”
“Don’t sound so surprised.”
“Riki I’ve known you for months and I’ve never seen you eat anything that wasn’t takeout or coffee.”
“That’s at the shop.” He was already at the fridge. “At home I cook.”
You sat at his kitchen counter on a stool and watched him move around his kitchen with the same ease he brought to everything — competent, unhurried, knowing where things were — and drank your coffee and felt the warmth of the morning settle around you. “What are you making?” you said.
“Eggs.”
“Just eggs?”
“Good eggs.” He glanced back. “Don’t underestimate eggs.”
They were good eggs. You ate at his kitchen counter side by side, your shoulder against his, and the conversation came easy the way it always did — drifting, unhurried, one thing opening into another. He told you about the record player, how he’d found it at a market two years ago and had to carry it up three flights on his own. You told him about the flat you’d wanted that you hadn’t got and ended up in your current one instead and how it had turned out better. “Things usually do,” he said.
“Philosopher.”
“Just paying attention.” His hand found yours on the counter between you. Covered it. Not making anything of it — just there, warm and present. You turned your hand over and his fingers slid between yours. You sat like that until the coffee was cold.
He walked you out two hours later. Down the three flights and out onto the morning street, quiet at this hour, pale winter sun doing its best. He had his jacket on, hands in his pockets, walking beside you in the direction of the bus stop. “You don’t have to walk me,” you said.
“I know.” He walked you anyway. His shoulder bumping yours occasionally. Not holding your hand now — just beside you, present, taking up the right amount of space. At the bus stop he turned to face you. “Wednesday,” he said.
“Wednesday,” you said. Then: “Actually I might come Tuesday. I need to talk to Heeseung about extending the collarbone piece.”
Something moved across his face. Quick, then gone. “You want to extend it?” he said.
“Just the stems, maybe. One more.” You looked at his expression. “What?”
“I’ll do it,” he said. Immediate.
“I know you’ll do it—”
“I mean — the extension. Let me do it.” His jaw was doing the thing. “Not Heeseung.”
You looked at him. Understood. “Okay,” you said.
“Okay.” The jaw relaxed. A short exhale.
You reached up and kissed him — he leaned down to meet you before you’d fully extended, like he’d been waiting for it — and it was brief and warm and tasted like coffee. “Tuesday,” you said against his mouth.
“Tuesday,” he said. The bus appeared at the end of the road. He stepped back. Hands back in his pockets. Watching you with that settled, certain expression. “Text me when you’re home,” he said. New. That was new.
“Yeah,” you said, smiling. “Okay.”
You texted Ria from the bus.
you: we sorted it
The reply was immediate. She’d been awake, waiting.
Ria: WHAT
you: it’s a thing. officially.
Ria: I KNEW IT I HAVE BEEN SAYING does he even know the word boyfriend???
you: he said it’s a weird word
Ria: oh my god he’s so him
you: he made me eggs
Ria: Y/N!!!
you: they were really good eggs
Ria: I am going to cry. IM SO HAPPY!
You put your phone in your pocket and looked out the bus window at the city going past and felt something settled and warm sitting in your chest where the unnamed thing used to be.
Daniel saw you get off the bus. You didn’t notice him. You were texting Riki — something small, a photo of a dog outside the coffee shop you were passing, the kind of thing you sent now because you could — and you walked past him without looking up.
He watched you go. Watched the way you were smiling at your phone. He knew about the tattoo shop. He’d heard you mention it. He’d put things together — the visits, the name that came up, the way you’d brushed him off every time since October.
He pulled out his own phone. Started looking. It didn’t take long. Public record. The charge, the conviction, the sentence. He read it twice. Read the name again. Looked up Studio 13. He sat with it for a long time. Then he texted Soo.
Daniel: hey, you’re friends with Y/N right. I need to tell you something about someone she’s seeing.
The thing about finally naming something was that it changed the texture of everything. Not dramatically. Not all at once. Just — small shifts, accumulating. The way he texted now, more often, nothing significant but there. The way he said my girlfriend to a client who asked about the collarbone piece, casual, not looking at you when he said it, and you’d had to look very hard at the flash wall for a moment. The way his hand found yours in public without him thinking about it first. Small things. Heavy things.
You were catastrophically gone for him and had been for a while and now there was nothing to hide it behind.
The first Tuesday after you came into Studio 13 at noon and Riki was with a client so Jay made you coffee and sat across from you at the counter with the expression of someone who had been waiting to say something. “So,” he said.
“Don’t,” you said.
“I just want to say—”
“Jay.”
“I called it.” He held up both hands. “First week you came in. I said to Sunghoon, I said that girl is going to wreck him, and I was right—”
“I didn’t wreck anyone—”
“In a good way.” He was grinning. “He’s different. He’s — I’ve known Riki for two years and he texted me last Sunday morning just to talk. Riki. Texting. On a Sunday. Because he was in a good mood and wanted to—”
“Jay.” Riki’s voice from the piercing section, flat. He’d finished with his client without you noticing.
“I’m just saying—”
“I heard what you were saying.” Riki came around the partition and looked at you and the expression on his face when it landed on you was the thing Jay had been describing without being able to name it — something unlocked, something that had been held tight for a long time and wasn’t anymore.
He came to the counter. Leaned down and kissed you hello like it was something he’d been doing for years. Brief, warm, his hand on your jaw for just a second. Jay made a noise. Riki sat on his stool without acknowledging him. Picked up his coffee. “How’s the collarbone?” he said.
“Good. I want to talk about an extension.”
“I know what I’ll doing with it.”
“I haven’t told you what I want yet.”
“I know what you want.” He met your eyes. Completely certain. “Trust me.”
You looked at him. Thought about the first piece — how right it had been, how it had looked like it had always been there. “Fine,” you said.
Jay, very quietly, said: “He’s so different.”
The extension happened the following Thursday. One more stem. Slightly longer than the others, curving toward your shoulder, a small bud at the end that he’d added without asking and that was so exactly right you hadn’t been able to speak for a moment when you saw it. “Riki,” you said.
“Hm.” He was examining the placement, focused.
“The bud.”
“Yeah.”
“I didn’t ask for that.”
“No.” He glanced up. Brief, the focus breaking for just a second. “Do you like it?”
You looked in the mirror. The three stems, the new one curving outward, the small closed bud at its tip. Something that looked like potential. Like something about to open. “Yeah,” you said. “I like it.”
He looked back down. Said nothing. But his free hand, steadying your shoulder, pressed slightly. Small. Deliberate.
Three weeks in and the shape of things had settled. Wednesdays at the shop. Tuesday evenings at his flat, which had become a specific thing — you’d bring food, he’d already have the record player going, and you’d eat on his couch or his kitchen floor and talk until one of you fell asleep. Some Fridays at yours, which he’d come to twice now and moved through with the particular attentiveness of someone learning a space they planned to know well.
His things had started appearing at your flat. A hoodie, first — left behind, not retrieved. Then a phone charger. Then a record he’d brought over to show you something and hadn’t taken back. You didn’t point any of this out. Neither did he.
You had a key to Studio 13. That had happened without discussion — Riki had taken it off his keyring one night when you’d arrived before him and handed it to you and gone back to what he was doing. You’d stared at it for a full ten seconds.
This was how he said things. Not in words. In the key. In the bud on the stem. In text me when you’re home and Sunday morning texts and the way he always, always knew when something was wrong before you’d said anything. You were learning his language. It was quieter than most people’s but it was fluent.
Four weeks in, on a Wednesday night after Studio 13 closed as usual. But tonight the energy was different from the second you’d locked the front door behind you — something in the way he’d looked at you across the shop all evening, something that had been building since you’d arrived and had nowhere to go while there were other people present.
He kissed you against the front counter the second the lock clicked. Not soft. Not the hello-kiss or the goodbye-kiss or the slow deliberate thing from his kitchen. This was four weeks of officially named wanting, his hands in your hair and your hands in his jacket and both of you breathing differently inside ten seconds. He pulled back. Looked at your face. “Hi,” you said.
“Hi.” His voice was rough already. His hands moved from your hair to your waist, sliding under your top to bare skin, and you felt his rings and exhaled. “Been thinking about you all day.”
“I was here all evening.”
“I know.” His mouth found your jaw, your throat. “Worse.”
“Riki—”
“I know.” He pulled your top up and off and looked at you in the low red light the way he always did — that slow, deliberate sweep that moved over you like you were something he was committing to memory. The collarbone piece. His hands on you. “God,” he said quietly. Not performing it. Just — reacting.
“Come here,” you said. He came. He got you onto the front counter. Which was new. Which was — you looked around the shop, the dark windows, the closed door, and then his hands were on your thighs spreading them and he was standing between them and the location became very irrelevant. “Here?” you said.
“Here.” He kissed you again, deep, his tongue against yours and the bar of it doing what it always did to your ability to think. His hands pushed your skirt up your thighs, found your underwear, pushed it aside — and his fingers were there, at your folds, and you grabbed the edge of the counter.
“Riki—”
“Already.” His fingers moved through your folds, slow, feeling you. “Fuck, Y/N, already—”
“Don’t be smug—”
“I’m not.” He pressed a kiss to your jaw, your throat. “I’m really not.” His fingers found your clit and circled and your hips rolled forward. “That’s it. That’s—” A breath. “You have no idea what you do to me.”
“Tell me,” you breathed.
He pushed two fingers inside you and your head fell back. “This,” he said, low, watching your face. “Every time. Every fucking time you walk in here I want—” His fingers curled and you gasped. “Yeah. That. I want that sound.”
“More—”
“More?” He kept the pace slow. Deliberate. His thumb finding your clit while his fingers moved and the combination was devastating. “You sure? We’re not in a rush.”
“Riki I swear to god—”
He laughed — low, warm, real — and his fingers moved deeper and his thumb pressed harder and you grabbed his shoulder and held on. “Good girl,” he said against your throat. “So good. So wet for me, every time, like you spend all day—”
“I do,” you said, breathless. “I do, okay, is that what you want to hear—”
“Yes,” he said simply, and meant it, and his fingers moved faster. You came with your face pressed into his neck and his name in your mouth, his fingers working you through it, not stopping until you pulled at his hair and told him too much, too much—
He pulled his hand back. Pressed his mouth to your temple. Your cheekbone. The corner of your mouth. “Good girl,” he said again, softer. “You’re so—”
“Don’t you dare say something nice right now,” you said. “I can’t handle it.” He pressed his smile into your hair.
You got his jeans open. Got your hand on his cock and felt him exhale sharply against your neck —that involuntary thing, the crack in the control — and stroked slowly and felt every bar of the ladder and heard him make a sound that was almost pained. “Y/N—”
“Yeah?”
“I need—” His hips pushed forward slightly. “Fuck, I need you to—”
“Need me to what.” You kept the pace slow. His own medicine.
His forehead dropped to your shoulder. “Please.” The please from Riki — rare, wrecked, genuine — landed somewhere it always landed and you let go of him and pulled him forward by his waistband and he understood, got his jeans down, stepped between your thighs.
He pushed inside in one slow stroke and you both went still. His hands braced on the counter either side of you. Your hands on his chest. The shop around you, the red light, the flash art on the walls watching everything. “Okay?” he said. Rough. Always asked.
“Move,” you said. “Please, Riki, move—” He moved.
The front counter was cold under your hands and he was warm everywhere else — his chest against yours, his mouth at your throat, his hips rolling into you in a rhythm that started slow and deliberate and got less controlled as it went. “You feel—” He broke off. His jaw set. “Every time. Like the first time, every—”
“Don’t stop talking,” you said. “I like it when you talk.”
He made a rough sound. “You like it.”
“Yes—”
“Good girl for telling me.” His pace shifted deeper and you choked on a breath. “Good girl for always — fuck — for always telling me what you want—”
“Riki—”
“I’ve got you.” His hand slid between you, found your clit, and you arched. “I’ve got you, come on, cum for me, you can—”
“I just—”
“I know.” His thumb circled. “Do it again. Come on. Let me feel you cum on my cock, Y/N—”
The degradation and the praise all tangled together and his thumb and the ladder on every stroke and his voice at your ear and you shattered again — harder this time, your whole body locking up, his name loud enough that it bounced off the dark walls—
He followed you. His rhythm breaking, his breath gone, his hands gripping the counter so hard you heard his rings knock against it — and the sound he made when he came was the broken one, the helpless one, the one you collected and kept.
After the both of you on the front counter, you sitting, him leaning against it beside you. Still not fully dressed. The playlist had long since ended and the shop was quiet except for both of you getting your breathing back. You looked at the flash art on the walls. “We just did that on the front counter,” you said.
“We did.”
“Where clients sit.”
“I’ll clean it.”
You looked at him. He looked back with the wrecked-and-unbothered expression, his hair completely destroyed, his rings catching the low light. “You’re not even slightly embarrassed,” you said.
“No.” Simple. His hand found your knee. “Are you?”
You thought about it. “No.” He smiled. The real one.
You leaned your head on his shoulder and he turned his face into your hair and you sat on the front counter of Studio 13 at midnight and the warmth of it — the us of it — felt like something you could live inside. “Stay,” he said. Into your hair.
“At yours?”
“Here. Couch in the back.” His hand moved at your knee. “Don’t want you to go yet.”
You lifted your head. Looked at his face. “Riki. I’m not going anywhere,” you said.
His eyes moved over yours. The thing behind them — the possessive, careful, quietly terrified thing that drove the jealousy and the silence and the hand always finding yours — settled. “I know,” he said. Like he was practicing believing it.
“I know you know.” You put your hand on his jaw. “I’m telling you anyway.” He turned his face into your palm. Brief. Eyes closing for just a second.
Then he stood up, pulled you off the counter, kept your hand in his. “Couch,” he said.
“Couch,” you agreed.
You were asleep within minutes with Riki’s jacket over you and his voice low in the background talking to someone on the phone — his brother, you thought, distantly, the conversation too quiet to hear properly — and the red light under the door and the smell of ink and his hoodie under your cheek.
You were asleep and warm and his and the storm was three weeks away. It felt like nothing could touch this.
Daniel texted your friend Soo on a Wednesday night. She didn’t tell you immediately. That was the first thing — she sat on it for four days, turning it over, looking at the record he’d sent her, reading it and rereading it. The charge. The conviction. The length of the sentence. Assault. Grievous bodily harm. Victim: female.
She read those words and thought about you and made a decision she believed was the right one. She texted you on a Sunday.
You were at Riki’s flat. Sunday morning, late, the good kind of late — his record player going, both of you in the kitchen, you on the counter watching him make coffee with the focused competence he brought to everything. His hair was wrecked. He had a bruise on his collarbone that was your fault and he’d looked at it in the mirror that morning with an expression of complete satisfaction that had made you throw a pillow at him. Your phone lit up on the counter beside you.
Soo: hey can we talk today. it’s important.
Soo: it’s about Riki.
You looked at the screen. “What,” Riki said. He’d clocked your face without turning around. He did that.
“Soo wants to talk.” You kept your voice neutral. “About you.”
He turned. Read your expression. His jaw did the thing — the subtle set — but his voice stayed even. “What about me?”
“She didn’t say.”
A pause. He looked at the coffee. Back at you. “When?”
“Today apparently.” He nodded. Said nothing. Turned back to the coffee and you watched his shoulders and thought about the tension in them and didn’t ask.
You met Soo at the coffee place near yours at two. She was already there when you arrived. She had her hands around her cup and her expression was the one she got when she was about to say something she’d rehearsed — careful, prepared, slightly guilty around the edges. You sat down. “Just tell me,” you said.
She put her phone on the table. Turned it to face you. A screenshot. A public record database. The name — Nishimura Riki — and below it the details, dry and legal and devastating in their simplicity. Charge: Assault occasioning grievous bodily harm. Victim: Female, 28. Sentence: 14 months. Probation: 12 months.
By the time your shift ended, Seoul had already turned blue with evening.
Not pretty blue, not the kind people wrote songs about, but the tired kind that sat between buildings after sunset and made every window look colder than it was. The air outside the café smelled like rain, roasted chestnuts from a street cart nearby, and the burnt sugar left on your sleeves after six hours of making drinks for people who ordered like the world would end if their iced americano had one wrong cube of ice.
You pushed through the back door with your bag hanging from one shoulder, your hair smelling faintly like coffee no matter how many times you tied it up, and your phone buzzing in your pocket before you even made it to the sidewalk.
Without even looking, you already knew who it was.
Mina: don't go home
Mina: come to hongdae
Mina: there's people dancing and it's actually good tonight
Mina: also i need moral support because i saw my ex with his new girl and i refuse to look lonely
You stopped walking, stared at the messages, and let out a laugh so tired it barely counted.
you: i just got off work
you: my feet hate me
you: and ur ex doesn't care, u shouldn't either
Her reply came fast.
Mina: he cares
Mina: he looked at my story yesterday
Mina: that's basically a "let's get back together"
You rolled your eyes and kept walking toward the bus stop as you typed.
you: seek help
Mina: seek me in hongdae
Mina: pls
Mina: i'll buy you tteokbokki
That was how you ended up on a bus to Hongdae with sore feet, a half-dead phone, and the kind of hunger that made you angry at everyone standing too close to you.
You told yourself you would only stay for thirty minutes. That was the usual lie people always told before Hongdae swallowed the rest of their night.
The streets were already crowded when you arrived, full of students, couples, buskers, tourists holding shopping bags, and groups of friends standing too close together while pretending they were not trying to be seen. Music came from every direction at once. A ballad from one corner, a rap song from another, someone's guitar near the subway exit, then the heavy beat of a dance track cutting through all of it from farther down the street.
Mina found you near a convenience store, waving both arms like she was directing an airplane.
"You look dead," she said as soon as you reached her, her eyes scanning your face like she had expected you to magically recover on the bus ride.
You adjusted your bag on your shoulder and gave her a flat look. "You said there would be food, so I came."
"There will be food," she said quickly, already reaching for your wrist before you could escape.
"You said tteokbokki."
"Yes, yes there will be tteokbokki."
"That doesn't sound honest."
Mina pressed one hand to her chest like you had offended her personally. "But it is honest."
You stared at her, but she grabbed your wrist before you could turn around. "Just come. They're doing dance covers over there, and I swear one group did BTS earlier."
You let her pull you into the crowd, mostly because arguing with Mina in public took more energy than walking.
The closer you got, the louder the music became, bass vibrating under your shoes, cheers rising whenever someone landed a cool move. People had formed a loose circle around the dancers, with their phones lifted in the air, and their faces lit by the screens.
You stayed near the back at first, but Mina, of course, pushed forward.
Still, you remained where you were, with your arms crossed, bag pressed against your side, watching a group of boys in black sweats and others in jeans practice formation before the song restarted. They looked a little nervous, laughing too much, and checking each other's positions. One of them fixed his cap, meanwhile another wiped his palms on his jeans.
Then the opening beat of "Boy In Luv" hit the speakers, and the crowd screamed.
You knew the song, even if you were not the kind of fan who memorized every little detail, but it was impossible not to know it by then. Your classmates played BTS videos during lunch, Mina had gone through a phase where she insisted she was "casually interested" while knowing every member's birthday, and the song had followed you through cafés, shops, buses, and every corner of Seoul until parts of it lived in your head against your will.
The dancers started, and they were actually very good. Not all perfect, but good in a way that made people stop walking. Their shoes scraped against the pavement, the movements making their jackets swing with every sharp turn. A few girls near the front screamed the lyrics. Mina turned around once just to mouth, See? at you like she had personally trained them.
You were about to make a face at her when your eyes caught on someone standing a little farther from the center of the crowd, but closer to where you stood by steps.
A boy stood near the trees lining the sidewalk, frozen in place in a way that made him noticeable even though he did not seem to be trying. He wore a long black coat that fell loosely around him, dark pants cuffed above shiny black shoes—the whole outfit simple, but strangely sharp under the Hongdae streetlights. His hair was dark and soft across his forehead, long enough to shadow his eyes whenever he looked down, and there was something quietly tired about his face that did not match the whole scenery around him.
Most people in the crowd were moving somehow, between lifting phones, whispering, cheering, leaning around each other to see.
But he did none of that, he just watched, and for some reason, that made you want to look at him longer than you meant to.
Maybe it was because he looked close to your age but carried himself like someone trying to keep all his thoughts in one place, or maybe it was because the lights from the shops caught the side of his face whenever he lifted his head, softening the line of his cheek and making him look like a boy who had wandered into Hongdae because he needed air, and at the same time, like someone who did not belong in this scene for some odd reason.
You looked away before he could catch you staring at him like a creep.
Mina shoved herself back to your side a minute later, breathless and dramatic, with one hand clutching your sleeve while the other pointed toward the dancers. "They're super good, right?"
You tilted your head, pretending to think about it longer than necessary. "They're okay."
Her mouth fell open. "You're so annoying."
"You’re the one that asked," you said, shrugging.
"They're literally dancing in public. Have respect." Mina nudged your shoulder, still half-watching the performance like she was scared to miss one second.
"I respect them for it, they’re good. But I'm just not gonna scream like someone is proposing to me."
Mina leaned closer, lowering her voice suddenly. "Okay, don't freak out." That immediately made you suspicious, quite the opposite of what she had just told you.
You turned your head slowly toward her. "Why would I freak out?"
"Because I think that's Jungkook."
You blinked. "Who?"
She gave you a look so offended it almost made you laugh, her hand tightening on your sleeve. "BTS Jungkook."
Your eyes moved before you could stop them.
The boy in the black coat was still standing a few steps away, still watching the dancers, but now that Mina had said it, your brain started putting pieces together too quickly. The big-round eyes, the hair falling over his forehead, the young, but soft-looking face you had seen before on your friends' phone screens. The way people around him were slowly beginning to notice him, one by one, like the news were now spreading through the crowd before anyone really said it out loud.
"I don't know," you said, even though you clearly had caught on.
Mina gripped your sleeve harder, leaning so close her whisper brushed your ear. "I'm telling you, that's him."
"Then don't stare, he's going to think we are stalking him."
"I'm not staring," she said, while absolutely staring.
"You're staring with your whole face."
"I'm observing him. You rarely see BTS in the streets."
"You look insane right now."
Before Mina could answer, two girls near the front turned around at the same time. One of them froze, and the other's eyes widened, a hand flying to her friend's arm. You saw the moment where recognition passed between both of them like electricity, and definitely the boy saw it too, because his body changed instantly like instinctively he tensed a little.
Obviously not enough for everyone in the crowd to notice it, but enough for you to see it from where you stood. His shoulders straightened slightly, and his gaze dropped for half a second before he looked back up with a polite smile, as if he had already accepted that the quiet moment he came for was clearly over.
The girls whispered to each other, excited but unsure still. Meanwhile, the dancers kept on going, despite all of this, and for a few seconds, nobody really do anything about the fact that Jeon Jungkook was standing casually there.
Until, one of the girls approached him carefully, phone held against her chest instead of pointed at his face. You could not hear everything over the music, but you saw the way she bowed a little, and the way he leaned down slightly to listen, then he lifted one hand in a small gesture that seemed almost apologetic.
Mina whispered, "Oh my god, it is him."
You looked at her quickly. "Don't even start"
She lifted both of her hands a little, offended. "I didn't say I was going to do anything."
"I know what you were thinking."
"I wasn't even thinking."
The song ended, and the crowd exploded into cheers. Jungkook clapped too, quietly, hands meeting only a few times before he lowered them again. There was something almost careful about it, like he did not want to take attention away from the people performing, but he was Jeon Jungkook, so attention found him anyway.
A few fans gathered around him, not too many yet. He smiled politely, a little shyly, while people tried not to shake too much beside him. He leaned in for photos without making it awkward, his dark hair falling close to one eye, his face bare and soft under the streetlights.
He looked younger than you expected, not like an idol though, just young in a way that made all the noise around him feel slightly too much for someone his age.
At least from your perspective you wouldn't be able to handle it.
Mina whispered, "He's taking pictures," her voice suddenly softer, like saying it too loudly would jinx the moment.
"I can see that," you said, though your eyes had not exactly moved away either.
"He's so nice."
You glanced at her and noticed the way she was holding her phone against her chest like she was physically restraining herself from approaching him too or tearing up in excitement. "You're about to cry."
"I'm not."
"You look like it."
"No I don't, I'm just happy to see him." Mina shot you a glare, but she was too busy staring to make it convincing.
You should have kept watching like everyone else, but instead, you noticed a coffee cup in Jungkook's hand.
It looked nearly empty considering how he was holding it, the cardboard sleeve crushed slightly between his fingers. Then, someone bumped him from behind while trying to get closer, and the last bit of liquid inside splashed over his hand.
He flinched and because your body had been trained by too many café shifts to react to spilled drinks like a trigger, you reached into your bag without thinking and pulled out the napkins you always stole from work just in case something like this happened. In your head though, typically, it was Mina who spilled liquids not Jeon Jungkook.
"Here," you said, stepping forward and holding them out before you could talk yourself out of it.
The girl beside him looked at you first looking a bit confused and annoyed, then he did.For one second, Jungkook only stared at your hand, then at your face then back at the napkins. "Thank you," he said, taking them carefully. His voice was surprisingly softer and quieter than you had expected.
Up close, he looked even more tired, not ugly tired, or bored tired, but the kind of tired that sat behind someone's eyes after too many days of being pulled from one place to another.
Despite the situation, he smiled at you, polite and small, like thanking a stranger for napkins was somehow important enough for someone like him to do properly.
"Jeez, you’re bleeding attention everywhere," you said before you could stop yourself earning a strangled sound from Mina behind you.
Jungkook blinked, napkin still pressed loosely between his fingers. "What?"
You nodded toward the growing group of fans pretending not to gather around him while absolutely gathering around him.
"You came here to watch people dance, no? Not become the performance." For a moment, you thought you had said too much, or sounded too rude.
Then his eyes curved, and the smile that appeared on his face was small, surprised, and almost helpless.
"I didn't mean to," he said, looking down at the coffee on his fingers as if that might hide the smile.
"Ah yes, famous people never do."
His fingers paused around the napkin, making you instantly regret saying that, not because it was mean, at least not to you, but because his face changed in a way you could not read. Then he looked at you again. "I'm not that famous."
Mina coughed behind you awkwardly, but you ignored her. "You're famous enough for her to forget how to breathe," you said, pointing vaguely at Mina without turning around.
"I'm breathing," Mina hissed, her voice sharp with embarrassment.
"You're coughing like you’re choking."
Jungkook laughed, real enough that it changed his whole face. The tiredness around his eyes loosened for a second, and suddenly he looked exactly like what he was: a young boy in a long black coat, standing under Hongdae lights, possibly just trying to organize his thoughts and feelings that the world had already started making too heavy for him.
A fan nearby looked like she might collapse from witnessing it and Mina grabbed the back of your jacket in warning, probably trying to communicate with her fingers that you needed to stop speaking to him like he was some random guy blocking the sidewalk.
But that was the thing, he did look like a random guy. A very tired, young, and famous one. A boy standing in Hongdae with coffee on his hand, watching strangers dance to a song that belonged partly to him and partly to everyone screaming it back.
He looked at the dancers again as another group began setting up, his gaze following the boys as they checked their formation. "They're so good," he said with a small smile.
"They are," you answered, glancing back at the dancers too.
"They work hard."
You glanced at him, noticing the serious way he said it, like he could see every hour of practice behind each move. "You sound like a teacher."
His eyes moved back to you, amused. "Do I now?"
"A little."
"That's bad?" he asked, one eyebrow lifting slightly.
You shook your head before thinking. "Nah. It's cute." The word slipped out too casually for you to catch it.
Jungkook went silent, and even Mina went silent at that too. Then, slowly, his ears turned pink.
You looked away first, pretending to watch the dancers because suddenly the pavement was very interesting and your mouth had become your worst enemy.
"I didn't mean cute like that," you said, clearing your throat.
He was smiling now. You could hear it before you saw it. "Oh. How did you mean it?"
"Like..." You searched for an excuse and found nothing useful, your eyes darting between the dancers, Mina, and literally anything that was not his face. "Like an old man."
His smile widened. "You think I'm cute like an old man?"
"No," you said quickly, turning back to him with a frown. "I think you sound like one."
"That's way worse, oh God."
"It's honest."
He laughed again, and this time you understood why the fans around him looked so helpless about it. Because it changed his whole face in a way that made him seem less far away than he probably should have been. For half a second, the noise around you softened. The crowd, the music, Mina's fingers still digging into your jacket, the people whispering his name, all of it moved somewhere behind you.
Then someone asked him for another photo. The moment closed, and he turned back to them with an easy politeness that looked practiced but not fake, leaning slightly so he could fit into the frame. You stepped back, suddenly aware that you had been standing too close to someone people were waiting to reach. Mina quickly dragged you away by the sleeve.
"Are you crazy?" she whispered, her eyes wide as she pulled you back into the thicker part of the crowd.
"What?" you asked, even though you already knew what she meant.
"You just called Jungkook cute like an old man."
"I panicked, okay?"
"You?" Mina pointed at you like you were on trial. "Panicked? You basically bullied him."
"I gave him napkins though."
"You told him he was bleeding attention."
"Because he is."
Mina stared at you like she was trying to decide whether to be horrified or proud. Behind you, the crowd cheered again, you turned your head once.
Jungkook was still there, but he was looking past the fans for a second, eyes moving over the people around him until they found you, it was brief. So brief you could have pretended it did not happen.
But then he lifted the napkins slightly, like a small thank you from across the crowd, and you, because you were tired and hungry and apparently committed to making questionable choices that night, lifted your hand back.
Not a full on-wave, it was barely on. Mina saw it and gasped like you had accepted a marriage proposal. "Shut up," you said immediately, turning away from the crowd before she could start.
"I didn't say anything."
"You are dramatic as hell."
"I have a right."
"You have a weird disease."
"Yeah," Mina said, falling into step beside you with a grin too pleased for your comfort, "and it's called witnessing destiny."
You groaned and started walking toward the food stalls before she could make it worse.
You thought about tteokbokki, your sore feet, the homework waiting for you at home, and the fact that tomorrow morning you would still have to wake up early like your life had not brushed against someone else's for five strange minutes in the middle of Hongdae.
Still, when you reached the end of the street, you looked back once, and there he was, watching the dancers again.
Long black coat, his dark hair over his eyes, and the spilled coffee cup still in one hand. The crowd still aware of him, but not yet impossible.
Mina bought you tteokbokki after that. You made sure she did, since you were literally starving.
The two of you ended up standing near a street stall with paper cups in your hands, steam rising between your faces while the sauce burned your tongue badly enough to make your eyes water. You kept eating anyway, shoulders slightly hunched against the evening air, because your stomach cared more about being full than being comfortable.
Mina, unfortunately, had not stopped looking at you. You felt her stare from the side before you even turned your head. "What?" you asked, poking at a rice cake with your toothpick while trying to sound more annoyed than tired.
Mina narrowed her eyes, her own cup held close to her chest like she had completely forgotten she was supposed to be eating from it. "You're acting too normal."
"Well, yes. It’s called eating," you said, lifting the rice cake toward your mouth like that explained everything.
"You just talked to Jeon Jungkook." Mina leaned closer as she said his name, lowering her voice even though the street was too loud for anyone to care.
"I gave him napkins." You chewed carefully, keeping your eyes on the food instead of her face.
"You called him cute."
"Like an old man." You pointed your toothpick at her, because somehow that felt like an important detail to defend.
"That makes it worse." Mina's mouth fell open a little, and she looked genuinely stressed on his behalf. "Why would you say that to him?"
You looked down at your tteokbokki, stirring the sauce around like the answer might be hiding in it. "I told you already, that I panicked."
"You did not panic." Mina let out a short laugh, shaking her head. "You looked him in the face and bullied him."
"I helped him first." You lifted your eyebrows at her. "That should cancel out the bullying."
"It doesn't." She took a bite, still watching you while she chewed, her eyes bright with the kind of excitement that made you want to walk away before she built a whole story from nothing.
You sighed and shifted your weight from one sore foot to the other. "It was five minutes, Mina."
"Five minutes is enough for a first impression," she said, pointing her toothpick at you like she was making a serious argument.
"It was not a first impression." You wiped a little sauce from the edge of your cup with your thumb, frowning at how sticky it had gotten. "It was me handing napkins to someone who spilled coffee."
"And making him laugh."
"People laugh when things are awkward."
Mina tilted her head, studying you more closely. "So you admit it was awkward."
"It was obviously awkward." You looked at her then, unable to stop yourself from sounding defensive. "A crowd was staring, you were wheezing behind me, and I accidentally called a famous person cute like an old man."
"I was not wheezing," Mina muttered, but she looked away too quickly for it to be convincing.
"You were basically losing air like a balloon."
"I was trying my best."
"You were embarrassing."
"You're the embarrassing one." She nudged your shoulder with hers, but her grin came back a second later, too pleased to be offended for long. "but still, he laughed."
You rolled your eyes and took another bite, mostly so you would not have to keep responding to that.
The truth was, it had been strange. Not in whatever Mina was probably already naming it in her head, just strange.
It was strange to see someone you had only ever seen through phone screens standing under streetlights like any other boy your age. Strange to watch people recognize him slowly, one by one, until the air around him changed. Strange to hear him say he was not that famous while a small crowd gathered close enough to prove him wrong. But strange did not mean important, at least, not to you.
Mina kept talking while you finished your food, her words tumbling out between bites.
"He looked tired though," she said after a moment, her voice softer this time as she glanced back toward the direction you had come from.
"You think?" you asked, following her gaze only briefly before looking back at your cup.
"Of course. Poor boy, so young and has been working since the age of fourteen." Mina's expression shifted, the excitement dimming into something more thoughtful. "He smiled and everything, but yeah. He looked tired."
You nodded once, because that part was hard to argue with. "He's working," you said, pushing a rice cake around the bottom of your cup. "People look tired when they work."
Mina looked at you with a small frown. "You say that like you're fifty."
"I do feel fifty." You straightened your back a little, wincing when your feet reminded you how long you had been standing all day.
"You're eighteen, Y/N."
"My feet make me feel like I'm fifty."
That made Mina laugh again, louder this time, and the conversation finally loosened away from him. She started complaining about her ex, then about her classes, then about how the tteokbokki was too spicy even though she was the one who chose the stall. You listened with half your attention, answering when you needed to, letting the city noise fill the spaces between you.
By the time you left Hongdae, your phone was nearly dead, your jacket smelled like smoke from the grill, and your bag felt twice as heavy as it had when you arrived.
Mina walked with you to the bus stop, still too awake for someone who had spent the whole night being dramatic.
"Text me when you get home," she said, stopping beside the bus sign and pulling her cardigan tighter around herself.
You glanced at her. "Don't start sending me edits of him at three in the morning."
"I wasn't going to." Mina looked offended for exactly one second before her face betrayed her.
"You were."
"I might send if Instagram blesses me with some."
"You're sick, no."
"I'm supportive of him."
"You're unemployed in the head." You stepped closer to the curb when your bus appeared down the road, headlights turning the wet pavement pale.
Mina gasped softly, pressing a hand to her chest. "You're so rude and mean after being fed."
"I'm mean because I'm so tired."
When the bus finally pulled up, you climbed on and found a seat near the window. Mina stood outside with both hands wrapped around the strap of her bag, still smiling like she had seen something much bigger happen than what had actually happened.
"Don't dream about Jungkook," you called through the glass once the door shut, knowing she probably could not hear you clearly anyway.
Mina cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted something back. You could not hear it over the engine, but from the shape of her mouth, you were pretty sure it had the words old man in it.
You rolled your eyes, but you were smiling a little when the bus pulled away, and after that, the ride home was quiet.
Seoul looked different from the bus window after Hongdae. The bright streets slowly thinned into quieter roads, convenience stores glowing on corners, apartment windows lit in scattered squares, and people walking home alone with their shoulders curled inward against the cold. You leaned your head against the glass, your body was finally realizing how exhausted it was.
For most of the ride, you thought about practical things.
- Whether your phone would survive long enough for you to text Mina.
- Whether you have enough money on your transit card for tomorrow.
- Whether your uniform shirt would smell too much like coffee if you wore it one more time before washing it.
- Whether the landlord would notice if the rent came two days late.
- Whether anyone back in Daegu had tried calling while your phone was silenced.
Hongdae already felt far away by the time your stop came. Folded into the kind of night you knew you would be telling as a funny story later and Mina would make it bigger every time she repeated it, and you would correct her every time because that was how the two of you worked.
Your building was quiet when you reached it. It was the kind of place people passed without looking twice, narrow and plain, with old stairs that made too much noise no matter how carefully you climbed them. The hallway always smelled faintly like detergent, dust, and someone's instant noodles from behind a closed door.
You unlocked your door as quietly as possible, slipped off your shoes, and stepped inside. No one had left the light on, no one had cooked for you, and no one called from another room to ask why you were late.
Your place was exactly how you had left it that morning: a small bed pushed against the wall, a folding table covered in textbooks and receipts, a half-dry uniform shirt hanging near the window, and a cup of convenience-store instant rice sitting beside two unopened packs of seaweed.
Independent sounded better when people said it from the outside, but inside, it mostly meant you ate dinner alone and learned how to stretch money until it felt personal.
You dropped your bag beside the bed, plugged in your phone, and sat on the floor while the screen struggled back to life. For a second, you just stared at the black screen, waiting.
Part of you expected missed calls, but the other part of you hoped there were none. And when your phone finally lit up, there were no calls from home, just Mina. A lot of Mina, actually.
Mina: I FOUND PICS
Mina: HE REALLY WAS THERE
Mina: THE NAPKINS ARE HISTORICAL NOW
Mina: wait
Mina: omg
Mina: I THINK UR HAND IS IN ONE OF THEM
You stared at the screen, too tired to react properly.
Then you opened the photo she sent.
It was blurry, taken from somewhere behind the crowd, but there he was under the Hongdae lights, long black coat, dark hair falling over his forehead, head slightly lowered as he accepted napkins from someone just outside the frame.
You could not see your face, only your hand, your sleeve, and the edge of your bag. Nothing important enough for anyone to notice.
you: that could be anyone
Mina replied before you could even put the phone down.
Mina: but it's not anyone
Mina: it's napkin girl aka u
You stared at the nickname for a second, then made a face at your screen.
you: never call me that again
Mina: too late
Mina: history with an idol named u
You locked your phone and tossed it onto the bed.
For a while, you sat there in the quiet room, listening to the distant sound of traffic outside your window and the faint hum of the mini fridge near your desk. Your room always sounded bigger at night, which was funny because it was barely big enough for you and your bad decisions.
On the folding table, your textbooks sat open beside a receipt you had been avoiding since morning.
Behind them was a small photo you had brought from Daegu, half-hidden under a notebook because looking at it too often made you feel too many things at once. So, you did not pick it up, you didn't need to. You knew the faces in it better than anything in Seoul.
You’d told yourself leaving home would make breathing easier. Sometimes it did. Sometimes it just made the silence louder—and, to be quite frank, it was sad too.
Martin would complain instantly the second your teeth sink into his cheek.
“Heeey, that actually hurt!”
You start laughing against his shoulder and he narrows his eyes at you dramatically, rubbing his cheek like you seriously wounded him.
“So this is how you treat your boyfriend now?”
Before you can answer, his hands are already moving to your sides. The second he starts tickling you, you immediately try to push him away, laughing harder.
“Martin stop—”
“Nope. Too late.”
He grins while you squirm around in his arms, fully enjoying your suffering.
“You bite me, I fight back.”
Juhoon would completely freeze after it happens.
You bite his cheek during cuddling and he slowly pulls back, staring at you with the most shocked expression ever.
“…Did you just bite me?”
The way he says it makes you burst out laughing immediately. He keeps staring at you like he genuinely cannot believe what just happened.
“You’re insane.”
He touches his cheek, still looking offended.
“You actually used your teeth.”
You laugh even harder and he ends up laughing too, shaking his head before pulling you back against him.
“You’re lucky you’re cute.”
James would lift his head from your neck the second you bite his cheek, eyes narrowing slightly.
“…Really?”
You try to act innocent but he’s already looking at you like he’s planning something. Then suddenly he leans down and bites lightly at your neck in return.
“James!”
You shove his shoulder, laughing. “It was a joke, perv.”
A small smirk appears on his face as he settles back against you like nothing happened.
“Oh, so when you do it it’s funny?”
His hand slides around your waist again, pulling you closer.
“Good to know.”
Keonho would gasp dramatically the second you bite his cheek.
“Ow! That hurts!”
You immediately start laughing and he takes it even further, hiding his face into your neck while fake sniffling.
“I can’t believe you’d do this to me…”
His voice is so dramatic it just makes you laugh harder. He keeps pretending to cry against your shoulder for a few more seconds before lifting his head again with the biggest grin.
“You’re evil.”
Then he leans in and presses a soft kiss against your cheek like he forgave you instantly anyway.
Seonghyeon would blink in surprise when you bite his cheek, then a quiet giggle slips out before he can stop it.
“Did you just bite me?”
You laugh into his chest and he smiles immediately, amused more than anything. His fingers tap lightly against your waist while he looks down at you.
“You’re getting aggressive now?”
There’s a teasing tone in his voice as he squishes your cheeks gently between his fingers.
“Should I be scared of you?”
You try to bite his hand this time and he laughs properly, pulling it away fast.
“See? There you go again.”
He keeps giggling under his breath while pulling you closer, clearly finding the whole thing way too cute.
