#riki nishimura x reader

[wonhyeonworld]

Warning: wet sounds, jerking off, whimper

Riki audio.(except it actually sounds like him).

Don’t like it? Scroll. Problem solved.

MDNI. (Had to put this in a warning cuz TikTok engenes are now discovering enhablr.)

[0210sjy]

࣪ ˖ 𖦹°⋆ nishimura riki “this is so fucked."

━━ HOMEWRECKER

𑣲⋆ ⌗ (🚬) You’re the kind of girl who gets peonies for breakfast, so Riki Nishimura would really like to know why you’re buying weed from him.

西村 力 riki nishimura x cheer captain! reader ˗ˏˋ riki as a plug, i promise its not as bad as it sounds, romcom, fluff, crack, profanity, homewrecking but not really, cheating (not really) but not on riki dw, explicit content, smut, oral sex, m receiving, porn with plot, unprotected sex, dom ni-ki, size kink lowk, weed, toxic, mdni ! wc: 20 766 p: d.a.m. - fetty wap ; homewrecker - sombr ; i get lonely - drake ; lowkey - niki (fcking hilarious)

Riki Nishimura was a conformist by all means possible, and even prides himself as a law-abiding citizen to the normalized standards. 

He does think some fractions of the government system can totally be tweaked, but he isn’t some reformist that would go out of his way — he actually really likes the stability of society and how it’s structured. He’s comfortable with the status quo.

That includes knowing who to follow on Instagram, who not to approach in the hallway, who to invite in group projects, and who to sit with in lunch. He goes by what makes sense and knows who the hell doesn’t belong in his circle, who rightfully has his phone number, and who can comment on his Instagram posts. 

Except when it comes to substances. He’s not a drug addict but he does enjoy good weed. 

He did listen during chemistry lectures, which basically means he knows a thing or two about pharmaceutics — at least the important parts like which produce larger surges of dopamine and intense euphoria. So while they get drug orientations every start of the school year and the addition of the entrepreneurial mindset of a businessman his father has passed down to him; Riki’s a fucking a jackpot. He simply believed every structure had blind spots, and if someone was smart enough to notice them, then maybe they deserved to profit a little. 

Maybe that made him a hypocrite. He knew that. Sometimes, in the middle of his own judgment, the thought would occur to him that he was not exactly living inside the moral boundaries he pretended to respect.

So with all of these in mind — weed-seller and social scale follower — imagine his surprise seeing a text from you.

You, an A-tier cheer captain with perfect grades and perfect friends and a perfect boyfriend and someone he doubts even has ever touched weed within a 10 feet radius because of how goody-two-shoes and slightly more socially-conformed you are, texted him: 

you: hi you sell right

The kind of surprise a priest might feel if the Virgin Mary asked to borrow a dildo.

Riki stared at his phone for a full thirty seconds. Not because he was shocked by the question itself — he’d gotten worse, far more incriminating messages from people with nothing to lose – but because of who it was from. Your name sat there, attached to a profile picture he never thought would sit on his chat log. Someone who followed the rules so well she barely seemed to touch the ground and practically flew up the school field with the school banner.

This was not how the structure worked. Nope.

He knew you didn’t look at people like him unless it was to borrow a pen or unwillingly get assigned to a lab partner. You definitely weren’t supposed to be asking him this. 

Riki leaned back in his chair and rethought the logistics. He wasn’t paranoid – paranoia implied irrationality. This was risk assessment, you’re high visibility, you’re a liability, you’re a cop in disguise, you’re a prig who’ll ruin his cloak and dagger, you’re holier-than-thou. You’re interesting.

riki: ???? is this a test loll

you: ? its a question

riki: u fr????

you: js tell me if its a no i have money

riki: 3pm behind the science building

you: ok thanks

But more than whatever you are, he knows this was stupid. This was the kind of deviation that got people caught and into the most flouting position he’ll ever be, therefore ruining his very wish to stay within a lawful system. It was, unequivocally, a very bad idea.

And yet he finds himself at the back of the building while he reevaluates the measures of bad-ness in the idea. If math really has been on his side along with his really athletic stature, he can run when you pull out as witness to his little dissenter mood. It halts when he sees you rounding the corner in your cheer uniform — ponytail perfect, knee tape slightly crooked, eyes darting like you weren’t sure you belonged back here — he realizes something his knees will give out before he can even try to walk away.

You stop a few feet away from him, awkward, out of place, glowing like a wrong answer circled in red. You stare at him with your arms crossed, hyperaware when his eyes follow the silhouette of your frame like he’s finding a covert surveillance device underneath your pleated skirt.

Riki talks calmly, like this wasn’t insane at all, like he hasn’t been in his head for the past hours: “So,” he starts, hands slipping into the pockets of his hoodie. “What do you need?”

The question should’ve been easy. You’d rehearsed it in your head on the walk here, timed it with your steps, told yourself not to sound like an idiot. But standing this near — near enough to notice the faint, clean smell of cologne and something green and earthy — you blank.

You shift your weight, arms tightening across your chest. “Um. Weed.”

Riki blinks once, and immediately he knows what this is. He studies you the way he did with lab results that didn’t line up with the predictions — or maybe it did exactly, and he can’t believe it was that easy.

“…Okay,” he said. “What kind?”

Your mouth opens. Then closes.

“What kind.” he repeats.

You felt heat crawl up your neck. “Just… normal?” you say, immediately hating yourself. “Like. The kind people use?”

A corner of his mouth twitches before he can stop it. Then he licks the inside of his cheek, shaking his head when he realizes that yeah, his guess is right. “You don’t know what you’re doing.” he says. 

You bristle. “So?”

“You don’t even know dosage. Or strain. Or why you want it.” His eyes flick up to yours. “Do you?”

Your confidence wobbles, the polished composure you wore so easily in hallways cracking just a little now. He pulls out a small, neatly labeled bag and holds it between his fingers instead of handing it to you. “This is low THC,” he explains. “Won’t make you freak out. But I need to know what you specifically need so you don’t… panic.”

This was supposed to be transactional, quick, something you could tuck away and forget about. Yet every risky glance you take, he doesn’t look like someone who’d hold anything against you.

Riki sighs, about to put the bag away. “Look, let’s just forget —“

“I just,” you start, then sigh because there’s no cool way to say it. “I don’t know. I had a bad week. I wanted to try something.”

When you finally look up, he’s watching you differently. Not like you’re stupid or embarrassing, though you feel plenty of that on your own. His brows have lifted slightly, the faint amusement in his mouth fading into something quieter as he takes you in properly: your tight grip on your own arms, the way your eyes keep darting away.

And it makes it worse.

You meet his eyes for half a second before looking away with a small huff, embarrassed by the sudden attention. 

He puckers his lips slightly, staring at the thing in his hand like he’s thinking. At first, you think he might be deciding if you’re worth the trouble, but then he nods once. “Okay,” he says. “So you’re not becoming a stoner. You’re just trying a new cuisine.”

You blink at him, then laugh under your breath before you can stop yourself.

His mouth twitches, but hides it. He steps closer, just enough that you can see the smoothness of his skin, like he owns expensive skincare. He’s very tall, in a way that surprises you maybe because you’d just never stood this close before.

Really, you never spent time looking at Riki Nishimura. You’ve known the name, because who can ever look past the opulent sound of it, but to know the man behind it didn’t matter. After texting him, you don’t know what you expected either, maybe someone grubbier and smelled like smoke, someone with dry lips from all the ash. You thought he’d smell like one of those hippie guys who sold sketchy shit while wearing the same beanie for three years. 

But no, he smells like a familiar perfume your father owns in his fragrance wardrobe.

And his clothes are annoyingly nice, like the hoodie is probably more expensive than it looks and the loose pants are intentional, not lazy. 

Also, he’s 6’1.

“This,” he taps the bag lightly, “will help you relax. Body high, mostly. You’ll still be functional. But since it’s your first time, better not fuck around too much.” 

He’s still standing in front of you, close enough for you to notice the way his lashes lower when he looks at the bag in his hand, and you feel deeply, horribly stupid for only realizing now that he looks like that. 

Your gaze lingers, and he catches it. Riki clears his throat, spine straightening a little. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” you say too fast.

He only hums. You tighten your arms across your chest. “Just give me the thing.”

He finally hands you the bag, and you eye it once you feel its weight in your palm; leafy and green and brown and not you — but it doesn’t look so bad right now. It looks enticing, even, which you won’t try to admit out loud.

“Twenty,” he says, not planning to converse himself with the sudden discount. 

You dig into your bag, finding for the vintage pink wallet that screams the contrast of cannabis in your palm right now. “You know,” you say, hesitant but honest, “I don’t know. It’s weird how we’ve never talked before.”

That gets him. He chuckles even if there’s nothing funny about what you said, but there is something humorous about the fact he remembers shit you obviously forgot. He’s quick to question the lack of indifference, because he remembers it well that this is definitely not the first time you two talked.

“We were partners in freshman year,” Riki says.

He watches your face blank in real time, and something about it makes his mouth lift again, but not kindly enough to be mean. More like he expected it and still finds it a little funny that you are proving him right.

“English lit,” he adds. “The mythology presentation.”

For a second, he looks at you like someone who’s always known you, and you look at him like you’re seeing him for the first time. He sees it flash in your eyes, that maybe you remember him more than just some guy who sells weed to irresponsible decision-makers.

“Oh,” you say.

Riki nods once, the corner of his mouth twitching. “Oh.”

Until your phone buzzes to drag you back from this little bubble you’re in – your boyfriend’s name lights up the screen and Riki notices it too.

“Oh,” you say again, clearly out of your own head. “I — sorry.”

Something shifts, like the structure rebuilds and reasserts itself back into proper footing. You pull the bills from your wallet and press them into his hand. “Thanks,” you say. “For, um. The stuff.”

He closes his fist around the money, nods once. “Yeah.”

You hesitate like you might say something else, so you just tuck the bag away and step back. “I’ll go,” you say.

You turn the corner first. Riki exhales only when you’re out of sight, and chews on his bottom lip before hitting the side of his fist against the wall without real effort. He turns the other corner, parting from the rendezvous kept between eng lit and discounts.

The thing is, Riki knows you before whatever you are now. Miss Perfect who buys weed from Mister Lowkey Weed Seller — it’s a whole tangle in his brain in which he can’t exactly comprehend, but while he smokes a joint and music blasts through the speakers from the house party he’s dragged into, your picture’s pinned with red strings. 

He’s known you since third grade. You’ve been part of the cheer team before puberty, and since then you’ve accumulated likable girls your age into your circle, then the guys from the football team after. It becomes a whole coupling session when the age came right, which Riki is convinced is just some orgy labeled friendship goals in curated Instagram. He thought you were mean mostly because that’s what someone like you would be — but he does know a thing or two about you, other than the assumption of character. You’ve been in the same group projects against your will, sometimes you’d stand next to each other by the queue lines in the cafeteria, sometimes you’d bump against him in the hallway when you’re chasing time.

Is it weird he kept tabs? Maybe.

He always noticed, obviously, why wouldn’t he? You are not exactly unnoticeable. You’re nicer than your friends, you say sorry when you accidentally bump into someone, you say thanks to the staff, you say good morning to strangers, you’re pretty, you’re talented, you’re smart, you laugh at his jokes, you bought weed from him, you’re pretty, you’re perfect, you’re funny, you’re ridiculously pretty —

Riki takes another puff, too fast and too harsh, earning a rough cough from his throat. Heeseung chuckles, giving him an aggressive pat on the back when he leans his elbows against his knees. “Geez, first time?”

Riki shoves his arm away with a laugh, unsure where this is coming from. Because on top of every other noticeable trait you have, you have a boyfriend. So. Yeah. He knows better than to think about you.

He sinks deeper into someone else’s couch — leather, cracked at the seams — while the bass rattles the walls and bodies blur together in the dim lights. Smoke hangs thick in the air, clinging to his clothes, his hair, his thoughts. He takes another drag, slower this time, lets it sit in his lungs until the noise dulls around the edges.

Across from him, someone’s laughing too loud, then a couple is making out like it’s an Olympic sport. Heeseung steals the joint from his fingers and flicks the ash into an empty cup.

“You look fucked,” Heeseung says.

“I’m not,” Riki replies automatically.

“Mhm.”

Riki pushes himself up from the couch, suddenly restless. He just wants a drink — something cold, something that doesn’t make his head spiral because even the thought of weed pulls him back to this cheerleader. So he goes to the kitchen, instinctively saying half-assed sorry’s to strangers without meaning them. 

Until he bumps into someone.

For half a second, he genuinely wonders if the side effects are finally catching up to him, because his head feels several feet away from his eyes and the kitchen lights look more hazy than they should.

But it’s you, he knows that because your kind voice apologizes; the way you always do, the way your friends don’t. Your shoulder knocks into his chest and you’re already stepping back, eyes wide a fraction of a second when you look up. Riki freezes too, unsure what to do with his hands or his feet or where to look without threading too close to the sternum your lowcut top exposes. Up close, under dim kitchen lights instead of school hallways, you look unreal — hair loose, lips parted like you’ve been laughing. 

“Riki,” you say, breathless, like his name slipped out before your brain could catch it.

His name on your mouth does something stupid to him. 

“Hey,” he says, too softly. He’s just thankful you don’t notice the slight roughness of it.

You smile, small and polite — but there’s something else underneath it now. Recognition that shouldn’t exist, not in the structure where you’re meant to forget that you know; one where he looks up at you from beneath your echelon, now he’s standing close enough that you have to tilt your chin to look up at him.

“I didn’t know you’d be here,” you say.

He huffs a quiet laugh. “I didn’t either.”

You glance past him, toward the other room, toward where your friends probably are — or your boyfriend. Then back at him, polite in a way he’s sure is because you’re you and not because he’s him.

“I don’t usually see you in… parties,” you say. 

He puts both hands in his pant pockets, shoulders loose, eyes on yours like the noise around you doesn’t have enough authority to interrupt.

“You don’t usually look,” he says.

It’s not said rudely, just calm, like he’s stating something obvious enough that both of you should stop pretending around it.

Your fingers tighten around your cup. “That’s not true.”

Riki tilts his head, eyes moving over your face. “Yeah?”

You hate how it sounds coming from him, low and slow and almost amused, like he knows you’re lying before you do. You scoff a quiet laugh, eyes looking away because you can’t keep looking at him. 

“I mean, I know you exist.” You look back up at him when you say it, bottom lip catching between your teeth before you can stop yourself.

His eyes drop for half a second, then he smirks and looks away, tongue pressing against the inside of his cheek like he’s trying not to say something.

When he looks back, his face is calmer. “Where’s your boyfriend?”

The question is casual enough that it almost sounds harmless. You glance elsewhere instinctively, like you’re going to find him close. “Somewhere.”

“Specific.”

“He’s with his friends.”

Riki just nods, doesn’t wanna push, even though he’s pretty sure you don’t actually know where he is. Leaving is the smarter and normal thing to do. The thing a girl with a boyfriend and a reputation and a phone full of unread messages from her friends would do.

Instead, you stay there. And Riki’s got that tabbed already.

You hesitate, fingers worrying at the rim of your cup. “I, um. I haven’t — used it yet.”

Riki blinks. “The stuff?”

You nod, cheeks warming. “I just… don’t really know how.” It’s weird being this honest with someone you barely know, yet your bones don’t buzz with the prompt demand to pause. It must be the slight slosh, it’s the only real thing to excuse why you’re not pulling away.

For a second, he just looks at you. Then his mouth curves, slow and amused. “You bought weed without knowing how to use it?”

Your face warms, but you try not to look embarrassed. “Okay, well.” You lift your cup a little, like that somehow helps your argument. “You can teach me.”

Riki grimaces immediately, playful but clear. “Sounds like a bad idea.”

You blink. “Wow. Rude." You huff, looking away, but you’re smiling a little because he doesn’t sound scared of you. Or impressed by you. Or desperate to keep you there. He just sounds like he already knows better and hates that he has to be the one saying it.

He sighs, looking away for a second. “Fuck, fine.” his jaw clenches. “But not here.”

You try not to smile and fail almost immediately. You take one step back, still looking at him. “I’ll text you. Maybe later?”

Someone calls your name from the other room and you exhale, dragging back through the fracture. The music spikes and someone bumps into you again, closer this time, and Riki’s hand lifts instinctively, hovering over your waist without touching. 

Your eyes flick down, then back up to his. “Nice seeing you,” you say finally, voice softer now. 

“Yeah,” he says. “You too.”

You step around him, brushing past just close enough that he catches your scent — which is bad, because now he’ll have to remember that too. When you disappear back into the crowd, Riki stays rooted in place for a beat too long.

He exhales, rubs a hand over his face, and laughs quietly to himself.

He really, really knows better.

Which somehow makes it worse.

Riki glances back to see you’re sitting on the couch now, legs tucked in, your boyfriend’s arm slung easily around your shoulders. He leans in and presses a quick kiss to your cheek, which makes you smile and ease back into him. Riki turns away to open the fridge and grabs the coldest beer he can find. He lifts it and downs it in one go, throat burning at the coldness and bitter taste.

He shouldn’t do this. He really shouldn’t.

Later, in that strange lull when the party has gotten worse and louder — you text him.

You: bathroom upstairs

The bathroom is cramped and clean but gross in concept: flickering light, foggy mirror, the smell of cheap air freshener. You’re perched on the edge of the sink when he slips inside and locks the door behind him, eyes bright, a little nervous, because being in a bathroom with you feels worse than any sketchy deal he’s made.

“Okay,” you whisper, like you’re conspiring. “So. Teach me.”

He winces, glancing around. “This is… not ideal.”

You just grin. He laughs despite himself and sets the weed down on the closed toilet lid, grimacing when he starts rolling paper against it. Once he’s done, he holds the roll up to your mouth and he tells you to lick it. You follow through, leaning down and sticking your tongue out to lick the side. He clears his throat, trying not to think about the way you looked doing that, trying not to imagine anything else.

He’s careful, not clinical or a lecture when he instructs, just calm and reassuring like he’s trying to keep you comfortable more than correct. When he hands the final roll to you, your fingers shake a little as you take it.

“Like this?” you ask.

“Yeah,” he says softly. “Slow.”

You cough immediately after trying, sharp and sudden, bending forward with a surprised laugh. “Oh my god — why does it — ”

“Hey,” he says, too fast, stepping closer, hand hovering at your back. “You okay?”

You wave him off, still laughing, eyes watering. “I’m fine, I’m fine.”

He watches you like you might disappear if he looks away. You’re laughing, which isn’t comforting Riki even in the slightest because the last thing he needs is to not be a conformist and end up in jail for accidentally supporting your homicide.

You try again, better this time. You still cough, laugh, cough again, but way more manageable as time goes by.

“Sorry,” you say, breathless.

“Don’t apologize,” he says. “You’re doing fine.”

You keep at it, stubborn in that way of yours, until the coughing eases and something in your shoulders loosens. You lean back against the wall, head tipping gently, eyes half-lidded.

“Oh,” you murmur. “That’s… actually really nice.”

Riki lets out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding, a nervous laugh slipping out. He leans back against the wall, hand through his bangs, exposing the skin of his forehead. “Jesus fucking Christ,”

You nod slowly, smiling to yourself. “My brain’s quiet.”

He watches you for a moment: relaxed, unguarded, glowing in this tiny bathroom because you don’t belong here at all, holding a joint Riki himself rolled for you. Really, you never belonged anywhere that tried to put you in a box, and he wasn’t going to make himself an exception to that opening.

He tries thinking about who you really are, beyond what most people would take you as. Though he knows not to fantasize a tale where he saves the damsel from her golden label. He takes you with memory and not assumption: cheer girl, disciplined afternoon drills, academically smart, socially competent, good. But tonight, while you lean against the cracked sink and stand diagonally across him, he sees a side he never thought he’d secretly behold.

Your eyes flick to him. “You’re a good teacher.”

He swallows. “You’re an easy student.”

Riki rolls another one for himself, hands steadier now that you’re settled, and lights it with a quiet flick. The bathroom fills with a softer haze this time, the kind that wraps instead of hits like a downer high school series. He takes a drag, exhales toward the ceiling, letting the room reek with shouldn’ts and endorphine boosters.

You smoke more confidently now, less harsh and rough when you let the smoke run down your throat. Your eyes are a little red, lashes heavier, the sharp edges of you blurred into something warmer and looser, less polished and picture perfect the way your boyfriend would like. Riki thinks — stupidly — that he’s never seen you look better.

You lean your head back against the wall again, staring at the ceiling like it’s just told you a secret. He doesn’t stare, actually. He keeps his eyes narrowed to the broken tile in front of him like he’ll discern the reason it’s cracked (maybe someone opened the door too hard, maybe someone once stood there trying to look normal while his heart acted stupid over a girl, which was especially humiliating when the whole point of being high was to feel less insane). Sometimes he’ll permit himself to glance, but even the very glimpse of your smudged lipstick makes him look away and inhale the fuck outta that weed.

Then, suddenly, with eyes still trained to the dim bathroom light — “I thought you were,” you start, then laugh, a little too loud before clapping a hand over your mouth. “Sorry. I thought you were, like… this weirdo.”

He snorts, shaking his head. “Wow. Honesty hour already?”

“No — ” you groan, waving the joint like you’re conducting an orchestra. “I mean it nicely. You always stayed away from everyone. I figured you were judging us.”

“Us?” he repeats, amused, cocking a brow when he glances at you.

“You know. People like me.” You squint at him, trying to focus. You gesture at yourself ineptly, clearly out of the ordinary intellectual capacity you clench tight, not when rickety makes up for your feet.

He quickly looks away, trying not to smile. 

“Loud. Annoying.” you clarify, hand gesturing around.

He tilts his head, considering. “Was I supposed to be friends with people like you?”

You blink, like you’re thinking about what he said and calculating the rationale behind his causes. It was a hit, one that steadies a thought in your brain.

“Is that so bad?”

The question knocks the breath out of him, especially when you look up at him like that, eyes bright and wide. He blinks, and then he laughs, coming out quieter this time, looking away because he can’t keep eye contact with you. “I didn’t think you’d want that.”

“Why not?”

Because there’s a system. Because there’s levels to this shit. Because you have a boyfriend. Because you’re untouchable. Because you’re perfect and he’s whatever this was. Because people like him didn’t get pulled into your orbit unless it was transactional. Like weed exchanges and favors on the toilet. 

For now, he shrugs. “Seemed like you already had your people.” 

You hum, nodding slowly, then smile. You tap the joint, watching some ash fall to the tiles. “They’re loud.”

He smiles back despite himself. “Yeah. They are.”

The bathroom feels like it’s floating away from the music that pumps loud through the pipes, a constant reminder that there’s more than the stinky bathroom you two share as a secret. It’s risky because it’s merely wood that separates the crypticity of Mary Jane from the Average Joe you two function in individually.

You glance at the joint, then at him. “You’re not weird, by the way.”

“Oh?” he says, eyebrow lifting. He even scoffs, because he (un-admittedly) finds you adorable. 

“You’re just… quiet. You keep to yourself, but that doesn’t make you… eccentric.” You grin lopsided, cheeks warm but you ignore that. “You’re nice.”

That one gets him, more than he’d ever admit to anyone. Riki looks over, and for half a second, his gaze slips lower before he forces it back to your face. You’re already looking at him, all soft eyes and honest mouth, like you have no idea what you’re doing to him.

He looks away first, rubbing the side of his jaw like that might help. “You’re high,” he says.

“Maybe,” you confess. “But I mean it.”

He’s been called quiet and nice all his life, but that was never the full truth. He just knew who deserved access to the rest of him, and most people didn’t. It wasn’t personal. He could talk when he wanted to, laugh when something was actually funny, keep a conversation going if he cared enough. He just didn’t feel the need to prove he had thoughts by saying all of them out loud.

Riki takes a drag, exhales slowly, looking over the tiles of the bathroom while he rethinks the decision he’s about to drop. He clears his throat before speaking, “You’re not mean either.”

Your eyes widen a little, gaze recklessly steady at his side profile. “You thought I was?”

“Everyone did,” he says honestly, smiling a little.

You make a face, frowning at him even though he refuses to look at you. “That’s rude.”

He laughs, really laughs this time, head tipping back. When he looks at you again, you’re smiling up at him like you’ve discovered something new and decided to keep it. For a moment, it feels like maybe there was always a version of this where you talked in bathrooms and shared smoke and didn’t belong where people expected you to.

You take another small drag, then suddenly straighten when you decide to take him in. He’s wearing a jacket over his hoodie, simple sweats loose around his hips. Only a few strands of his dark blonde hair graze over his forehead, leading down to the sharp features you only really notice now.

You never thought Riki Nishimura was ugly. Now, you can’t help but think that he’s… kinda hot.

You’re high, you’re just gone. That’s why. It also explains why you nudge closer than you have been before, letting your skirt brush slightly against his pants, thighs grazing slightly against his.

You’re both still smoking — slow now, like the room itself has decided to breathe with you. The bathroom feels even smaller than before, shrinking with every second the music downstairs gets louder but muffled through the wooden door keeping you a secret. Your head feels light, buoyant, like you’re floating a few inches above your body. Maybe it’s the weed. Maybe it’s the half-drinks you’d taken before this. Maybe it’s neither.

He stares at the tile beneath his boot like it holds the secrets of the universe, or like it had the equations for him to understand gravity’s intentions and how it led to him feeling your softness against him.

“Is there something on the floor?” you laugh.

He just huffs, shaking his head because that’s all he can do right now. You’re still leaning back and he’s still standing just a little too close. Your knee brushes his again, accidental but not corrected.

He looks down at you then. The red in your eyes, the crooked smile, the way you’re leaning just a little toward him like gravity’s doing something new. You lean closer because you’re completely zooted and smart-Riki who knows better, leans away and only lets his chest tighten. His eyes drop traitorously down to your lips, and he’s not fast enough to look back up. You notice, of course, which makes you both look away and straighten back on your feet instead of the wall. 

Riki clears his throat, smoking the last of his before he rids of it against the sink. “You gotta go?” he asks out of the blue, which makes you frown a little. It wasn’t exactly a statement, but you know when things are implied and telling, so you shove back the nerves and remember that he’s different from you.

You’re not his type of person. He probably likes more chill people who actually know how to roll this shit — not the sheltered ones who’s clueless with THC or terms alike it.

“Yeah. I guess.” you smooth out your clothes even though nothing’s wrong with them.

He realizes what he just did, especially now that you’re not even looking back at him. He tries correcting himself, to backtrack, but the moment you glance back up, he’s silenced. You put your unfinished joint in his hand. “See you.” You say just before unlocking the door, slipping through it, and accidentally slamming it too hard.

Riki reels in from the solitude of the silence, like he’s now just realizing the ruins he broke himself. He sighs in resignation, head falling forward in defeat. “Shit.”

He stares at the thing in his hand, unfinished and yours, half-burnt and still warm.

“Idiot,” he mutters to himself, dragging a hand down his face. He can still feel the ghost of your skirt brushing his leg, the way you didn’t look back because he gave you a reason not to.

But the bathroom still smells like you — sweet perfume tangled with smoke — and the joint is there, remaining as an accusation wrapped in paper. He turns it between his fingers, thumb brushing the spot where your lipstick smudged faintly against the edge.

Riki exhales, then lifts it.

He wraps his lips around it carefully, stupidly aware of the fact that yours were there first. The thought alone makes his chest tighten, heat creeping up his neck and pelvis as he takes a slow drag.

He closes his eyes as he exhales, leaning his head back against the wall, heart thudding too loud for a room this small. For a split second, he imagines you still there — tilted smile, red-rimmed eyes, saying his name like it belongs to you, all while your boyfriend waits in the living room.

He laughs shakily under his breath. It’s so wrong.

After that, you two haven’t really talked for weeks. 

That part isn’t weird. You both have lived the majority of your lives settling with the insouciance despite recognition, and one night in a bathroom, smoke and secrets and red eyes, isn’t enough to reroute that kind of muscle memory. Riki tells himself that over and over, like it’s a theorem he’s already proven.

He hasn’t been worried. He still goes to class, still shows up on time, still hands in assignments with some effort. The only difference — although barely worth mentioning — is that he’s been dipping into his stash more often than usual. A little before bed. A little after. 

Riki exhales slowly, staring at the ceiling, telling himself — again — that this doesn’t mean anything and it doesn’t have anything to do with the cheer girl he kinda had a moment with in the bathroom.

It’s so fucked, even if you don’t think being his friend is bad, because you’re not meant to be a part of this. He was simply curious that Miss Cheerleader bought weed from him and kinda trusted him way too fast and that wasn’t just some everyday occurrence — that’s the only best psychological explanation why you’re here even when you’re not.

You have a boyfriend. He’s not about to be a homewrecker. Yet it’s not helping.

No talking for weeks, reaching a month even. That says enough. He has to stop.

“Probably about Little Miss Perfect.”

Riki flinches like someone just snapped a rubber band against the back of his neck. He sits up, glaring at Heeseung. “What the fuck,” he blurts. “How do you know that?”

Jake slowly looks up from his laptop, eyes lighting up like he just unlocked a bonus level.

“Oh my god.” Sunghoon’s grin spreads and Heeseung laughs, clapping like he’s won because technically he did, at the mental betting at what keeps Riki Nishimura downing his marijuana greenhouse.

“Ohhh,” Heeseung says, taunting and annoying. “So it is about her.”

Riki blinks. “No.”

“That was the weakest no I’ve ever heard,” Jake says immediately, pointing a finger at Riki. “You’re a guilty man, aren’t you?”

Riki scoffs, scrambling, fingers rubbing against his temple in attempts to cool. “You’re literally insane. Why would it be about her?”

Heeseung shrugs, casual. “I saw you two talking at that party.”

Riki’s stomach drops. “You — what?”

“Relax,” Heeseung says, laughing. “I wasn’t spying. You two just kinda had a freeze frame by the kitchen. Wasn’t so hard to notice.”

Riki opens his mouth, just to close it. Then he runs a hand through his hair with the irritated slant of said illegality stamped in your name. “We were just talking. Nothing happened.” Riki snaps, defensive again, hands up like he’s caught. 

Jake squints at him. “Then why are you acting like that?”

Riki looks away. Usually, it’s enough answer to more teasing and mocking, but maybe not this time. Because now, it raises actual questions that regard his very bearing at this monumental association with you — a damn unicorn of a scene snatched out a comedy fantasy movie.

Heeseung asks carefully, “Are you, like, her boy toy or something?”

Riki whips around with the flush of unpredictability and utter shock. “What? No!”

Heeseung grins again, gentler this time. “Okay, not her boy toy. What now?”

Riki exhales, long and slow, falling back supine against the floor with the decency of a man with boundaries and the understanding of someone brilliant to keep himself away. “Nothing. She has a boyfriend. She lives in a different world.”

It’s realistic. He thinks he’ll drag the shit out of his stash to get his mind off this, because Riki Nishimura was a conformist by all means.

You’re where you’re supposed to be.

You laugh at the jokes while dawdling down the hallway with girls you actually consider your friends, your boyfriend’s arm heavy around your shoulders like it belongs there. You learned how to roll your own joints now, practiced with irritated little shrieks until it stopped being embarrassing, until they came out neat and perfect between your fingers. You don’t need him. You don’t need anyone, actually. Independence always looked good and natural on you.

Then Riki walks past with Heeseung and Jay.

Backpacks slung low, shoes dragging lazily against the floor, laughing about something stupid like someone’s terrible quiz score. Riki’s eyes stay forward like always, keeping his business private from everyone. Especially from you.

You don’t acknowledge each other beyond the bare minimum of peripheral awareness of two classmates that happen to be in the same class and two planets in the same orbit. Your boyfriend tightens his arm around you, leaning down to murmur something about lunch plans. You nod, glossed lips wrapped around a lollipop, sugar sweet and cherry-flavored on your tongue. You should be listening, you’re sure you are, until he passes.

Your eyes follow Riki — not openly, just enough to catch the back of his neck, the familiar slope of his shoulders, the same boy who leaned against a bathroom wall while you were high and laughing too much, knees brushing his because the room was small and neither of you moved away.

The lollipop slides down your tongue: all artificial sugar because the substance stays at home in the back of your secret drawer, while some of it just passed you down the hallway.

“I’ll catch up,” you say lightly, lifting your boyfriend’s arm off your shoulders. “I forgot something.”

You slip away before anyone can think too hard about it, weaving through the hallway with your lollipop still between your lips. You keep enough distance to make it look accidental, watching as Heeseung and Jay split off with quick fist bumps and loud voices. Riki keeps walking and pushes open the door to an empty lecture hall before disappearing inside.

You stop outside, remembering that this is probably the part where you’re supposed to turn around. Where the perfect, reasonable version of you remembers her boyfriend, her friends, her place in the hallway. Where the status quo reaches for your wrist and pulls you back into line.

Well, you push the door open.

Riki is near the front row, one hand still on the strap of his bag when he looks up from his seat, legs spread wide, thumbs midway to scroll through his phone. His eyes widen slightly, posture going still like he did not think you’d actually follow him.

For some reason, it thrills you. Because now he’s looking at you.

You pull the lollipop from your mouth, twirling the stick between your fingers as the door clicks shut behind you. “Hey.”

His eyes flick briefly to the door behind you. “You lost?”

This isn’t a bathroom of some random houseparty. There’s no smoke, no music, no excuse, just you, Riki, and an empty lecture hall in the middle of the school day — which means you came here on purpose.

“You should roll a joint for me again,” you say, like it’s so simple. “One of these nights.”

Riki blinks once. Then he huffs out a soft laugh, shaking his head. “What, you haven’t learned since last time?”

You step closer anyway, slow and unhurried, allowed to exist wherever you want. He leans back against his seat, still careful and invisibly (but truly) restless. “I did.” you answer, then you smile small and lazy. “You’re just better at it.”

That gets him (because you’ve been knowing what to say to get him). His eyes lift to you, amused now, something low and unreadable settling there which sets you on fire because you have no idea what he’s thinking, not even a little hint. 

“Flattery,” he says, then scoffs.

You hum and step closer, close enough that his knee is almost in front of your thigh. Riki leans back in his seat, one arm loose over the desk beside him, phone forgotten in his lap. 

“There’s another party this weekend,” you say. “At McKay’s. You and your friends should go.”

He tilts his head. “Should we?”

“I think so.” You shrug. “Good music, large pad, beer games.” 

He chuckles, eyes dropping briefly to the floor before meeting yours again. “And you’ll be there.”

“Probably.”

“And you’ll want me to roll one for you.”

You pull the lollipop from your mouth, tapping it lightly against your lower lip as you think. “If you’re offering.”

“I’m not,” he says, but his mouth twitches.

You lean back against the edge of the desk beside him, copying his ease like you have any right to be comfortable around him. From far away, it would look casual, just two classmates talking before class. Except there’s only you standing between him and the empty rows, him sitting back in his seat, looking up at you with that unreadable expression while you try not to smile too much.

He should probably feel insulted that you only do this when nobody can see — maybe he does, if he still believes in self-respect. It’s just hard to stay offended when you’re looking at him like that.

Riki nods once. “I’ll think about it.”

Satisfied, you push off the table and head for the door. “Cool.”

When the door shuts behind you, he thinks about red eyes and smoke, about how your usual crowd will be there, your boyfriend’s arm around you just before you sneak away to Riki’s. 

You’re trouble, which makes Riki smile. ‘Cause he knows damn well he’s going to that party.

-

McKay’s house is already vibrating when Riki gets there with Heeseung, Jake, and Sunghoon — bass rattling the windows, someone yelling about cups, someone else yelling back about something incomprehensible. Riki isn’t a frat boy at all, and he doesn’t really go to parties, but the perfume layered on top of alcohol is basically familiar territory.

“This place is a fire hazard,” Jake mutters, stepping over a discarded heel.

Riki scans the room pretending he doesn’t mean to, observing layouts and people, when really he’s actually looking for one specific designer wardrobe of a person.

He doesn’t see you, but he sees your usual crowd scattered around the room, posing with red cups they barely drink from and laughing a little too loud whenever someone points a camera at them. You’re not there, nor is your boyfriend, and that usually speaks for itself already.

Heeseung nudges him, already mischievous with the smile Riki can’t see. “Little Miss Perfect?”

“Fuck off,” Riki replies, flat.

Jake’s halfway to disbelief when he narrows his eyes at Riki. “You’re already staring.”

“She’s not even here,” the former hisses.

“Looking for her, though.” Sunghoon teases, practically grinning widely.

Riki pushes past them. “I’m getting a drink.”

He doesn’t get a drink. He goes through hallways and in between bodies that nudge abruptly into him, half-assed apologies going through one ear and out the other while he properly finds footing again and again. When he gets to the bathroom and finds it locked, he groans and leans back against the wall. For now, he flicks the light on his own joint and smokes away while he waits — for you, for the bathroom, for anything to make him think going here was worth it at all. 

Too many girls brush against him, too many of them apologizing with tilted heads and lashes batting. He has no interest in rewarding the performance, not tonight, not when the party is already crawling under his skin, all bass-heavy music, sticky floors, smoke in the air, perfume clinging to his throat, and people packed so tightly he can’t move without touching someone. It’s too much at once; too loud, too hot, too bright, too dark. Then he sees it, and everything in him goes still.

Your boyfriend has another girl pushed against the bedroom wall. 

Riki sees this through the crack of the door, just slightly opened enough for him to see how he moves his hand underneath her skirt really fucking aggressively. They’re kissing too, and it’s not at all sweet or even arousing; it’s just straight out gross. He chokes, coughing so rough and loud and forward he has to lunge himself off the wall and straight through the crowd because his first instinct is you.

Your boyfriend is cheating on you.

What the fuck is happening? Why’s your boyfriend fucking a girl like someone who knows nothing about clits? Now, Riki isn’t an expert about pleasing women but he’s watched porn enough to know that Exhibit A over there was straight-up persecution. 

He finally spots you near the kitchen, talking to one of your friends with a cup in your hand. He starts toward you, but someone shoves past from behind, and he bumps lightly into your shoulder. You turn, already halfway to apologizing until you see him, your face already changing before you can stop it.

“You came,” you say, eyes flicking around before coming back to him.

He’s kinda out of breath, from the smoke and from hurrying, but he smiles too. “Yeah.”

While you’re still smiling, Riki clears his throat. It’s casual like he’s asking for a lighter, not like he’s abput to derail your night, ‘cause truth be told, he’s not sure he knows how you’ll react to the information. To be honest, he thinks about how it’s only fair — maybe — because he doubts your boyfriend knows you sneak into bathrooms with another guy. And sure, his hand isn’t performing DJ on your pussy, but the shared secrecy of eye contact with loaded tension is much more intimate than whatever the hell that was.

“Uh,” he says, hand rubbing on his jeans. “Can we talk? Like. Somewhere quieter.”

You blink. Then you nod, already stepping closer so he has to lean down to hear you.

“Bathroom or outside?” you ask, half-teasing.

“Outside,” he says easily.

The night is cold enough to make everything feel quieter, like it’s only the two of you standing under someone’s porch light while music leaks through the walls behind you. It’s strange, because you’re not even friends, not really, but the little space between you feels private in a way Riki doesn’t know what to do with. He exhales slowly, like he’s been holding his breath since the second he walked into the house, then leans back against the railing and looks at you standing across from him.

He tries finding the words first, but the way you’re looking at him tightens his chest faster than his brain can work out. Is this karma for your cheating boyfriend? Is he the instrument God has given you to slam notes back to the guy you’re practically cheating on too? 

Then Riki clears his throat, casual as hell. “I saw something inside,” he continues, tone still chill but eyes a little sharper now. “Your boyfriend.”

Your smile falters. “What about him?”

“He’s, uh.” Riki taps ash off the joint. “He was fucking a girl. On a wall.”

You stare at him for a while, and he’s half-expecting you to lash out, on him, on the crowd, on your boyfriend, on something. 

Instead, you laugh this small, amused breath that slips out of you before you shrug, like he told you your boyfriend spilled punch on his shirt and not that he had just seen him with another girl.

What the fuck is happening?

It feels a lot like you don’t care and that surprises Riki leading him down a rabbit hole of introspection. He was already expecting you to cry and sob or scream in the party about how much of a dick he is, how you trusted him and gave him everything — all things they do when they find out their boyfriends are cheaters.

No, you just, “Wow.” then huff a laugh. “I’m sorry you had to see that.”

He blinks once, watching you carefully while you regather your thoughts as a woman who’s been said something paltry rather than an admission of an affair. To be honest, Riki doesn’t understand, so now he just stands there and looks stunned. And confused. Very confused, actually.

Riki squints at you like he’s trying to solve a trick question. “That’s it?” he asks. “That’s your reaction?”

You shrug, lifting your cup to your lips for a sip. “I mean. It’s been happening. “We’re just sorta together for our parents. They’re friends so… but that’s a story for another night.”

Oh. He never thought fake relationships were a thing.

That makes sense. How come Riki didn’t know? Was he so out of touch from school gossips hat he genuinely didn’t know that you’re actually not the perfect couple he thought you two were? Is that why Heeseung and Jake and Sunghoon didn’t react so badly? Has this been a thing? Oh my God, Riki’s ecstatic and he hasn’t even finished a joint yet.

He lets out a quick, unguarded sound. “Jesus.”

You lean back against the railing across from him, far too relaxed for a revelation that should have ruined someone’s eyeliner. Riki watches you for a second, waiting for the anger, the hurt, the sharp inhale before you turn and storm back inside. But you just stand there, cup in hand, looking more inconvenienced than heartbroken.

That’s when it hits him, slow and weirdly humiliating, that you might not care about the relationship at all.

“But,” you say lightly, “thanks for telling me.”

He blinks, then shakes his head a little. “Yeah.” His voice comes out slower than usual. “No worries.”

You glance at the joint between his fingers, your eyes lingering a second too long on the veins along his hand. “You always this heroic when you’re high?”

“No,” he says, deadpan. “It’s just who I am.”

You laugh, and despite everything, his mouth twitches. He looks back toward the door, half-expecting your boyfriend to come out and make the night complicated. When no one does, he relaxes, shoulders easing, but not completely.

Because this is new information.

Someone inside screams the chorus to a song, and the night’s way too cold for the silence that buzzes. Riki offers the joint without looking at you, just holds it out between two fingers like it’s nothing.

You hesitate for half a second. But you take it.

“You have a car?” you suddenly ask while you take a puff.

Riki blinks once, then lets out a quiet laugh, dragging his thumb along the bridge of his nose. Right, so this is his life now. He sells you weed one time, and somehow he’s standing outside a party while your boyfriend (?)  cheats inside and you look mildly bored about it.

It’s stupid. It’s also the most interesting thing that’s happened to him in months.

So he just sighs and slumps back a little. “Yeah. I do.”

“Let’s go,” you say, completely not a question, flicking the finished joint on the pavement and trampling it beneath your heel. “I wanna smoke.”

He lets you trail after him through the side yard like this is already something you do, like he isn’t silently praying no one sees you following him away from the party. Gravel crunches under your shoes, the bass growing duller behind you as you cross the street toward his Supra, parked sleek and dark under the streetlamp. Riki unlocks it without looking back, rounds the hood, and opens the passenger door for you like it’s nothing.

You notice. You just don’t say anything.

Inside, the car actually smells clean and like coffee, for someone you’ve assumed is mad about marijuana and sorts alike (well, again, he’s proven how neat he is just for smelling so fucking good). He slides into the driver’s seat and just sits there for a second before turning the engine on, heater clicking low. 

The silence settles, but it doesn’t feel awkward, which Riki finds suspicious. Maybe it’s because you’re not acting like the version of you he’s used to, all neat edges and perfect timing. Now your heels are on the floor of his car, your hair is loose around your face, and you’re curled into the passenger seat of a Supra you’ve never sat in before like your body decided to trust him before your brain could argue. He clears his throat, trying to get rid of the warmth at the back of his neck, but you only glance at him like you don’t notice. The hem of your skirt rides up consequently, and he tries his hardest not to look.

“Thanks. For caring.”

He shrugs, one hand resting loose on the steering wheel. “Didn’t feel right not to tell you.”

“You didn’t have to.”

“Yeah,” he says quietly. “I know.”

The radio flicks on — some pop song bleeding through the speakers. He then pulls out pre-rolled joints from his pockets, which he sheepishly apologizes for hygiene and, well, it’s a bit delated, although you just smile and take one. He lights yours up and you two stay there, settled in his warm seats, dissolving the chill with cannabis down your system like two people who doesn’t give a shit about the system and fucking power dynamics and popularity status.

Again, weird. Hanging out in his car like you’re old buddies who smoke in free time on the usual. 

If he told himself a month ago that he would be smoking weed with the team cheer captain, he would have laughed his ass off about inhaling too much narcotics that totally screwed mental frameworks. Yet now, he’s stealing a few glances at you beside him, getting high off his greens, and he doesn’t feel completely off-center about it. It’s the weed obviously, but he feels steady. It’s charged because you’re not talking but your thoughts are everywhere, and even if you protrude the profile of indifference — he knows you care. Then again, what does he know about you, right? You are the odd in the equation, the alternative hypothesis that proves the difference in variables, and talks about the impact on the situation.

Now, conformist Riki Nishimura, who has spent his whole life respecting the ladder, is starting to wonder what happens if he climbs high enough to stand beside someone like you.

He stares through the windshield the second before he speaks. “You’re not what people think you are.”

You blink, caught off guard as you turn to him. “Is that good or bad?”

He huffs. “Depends who’s thinking it.”

You smile a little, your eyes moving over him before you can pretend they didn’t. Riki isn’t brawny in that loud, gym-mirror way, but he’s taller than he should be, broader than he looks from a distance, and unfairly very put together. His throat moves when he breathes in, and you catch yourself watching it for one embarrassing second too long.

You chew on your bottom lip. “And what do you think?”

Riki shifts in his seat, hand fidgeting against the wheel like he’s weighing how honest he’s allowed to be. “I think you’re quieter than your reputation.” 

You study him now — the calm posture, the way he never overdoes anything, the way his voice stays even like he’s learned not to tip his hand. 

He glances at you, then back ahead. “Makes it easier.”

You look at him for a second too long. “Easier for who?”

“You tell me.”

The car feels smaller and the windows are fogged enough that the streetlamp outside is just a blur of light now, like you’ve been sealed off from everything else. Away from the reality that boxes you two into something that makes sense rather than accepts. 

You laugh once, but it comes out softer than planned. “You always psychoanalyze girls in your car?”

“No.”

“Just me?”

His mouth twitches. “You asked.”

You turn your head toward the window, trying to keep your face normal. “You don’t know me that well.”

“I know.”

Riki finally turns to you, one hand still resting loose on the steering wheel. His eyes are a little low, a little unreadable, but not careless — that might be the problem.

“I’m not saying I do,” he says. “I’m saying people don’t either.”

Your fingers fidget with the joint, rolling it carefully between them even though you’re barely paying attention to it anymore. The tip glows faintly, forgotten for a second, and Riki reaches over without thinking to tap the ash into the tray before it can fall on your skirt.

You look down at his hand, then back at him when he hands it to you.

“Don’t you think that’s weird?” you ask. “Like, what kind of girl is cheer captain and smokes weed? Who gets into a fake relationship because of her parents? Doesn’t that sound kind of fucked?”

He looks at you for a moment.

Then he leans back, eyes returning to the windshield. “I sell weed.”

He says it from the driver’s seat of a spotless car that smells like coffee and cologne. It’s stupidly funny, actually, the whole contrast of him that kinda looks like you.

You laugh before you can stop yourself. “That’s different.”

“How?” he snickers.

You open your mouth, then close it again because you don’t actually have a good answer. “I don’t know,” you admit, laughing a little. “It just is.”

He hums like he expected that. Then he glances at you before back through the windshield. “I don’t think you’re weird,” His eyes flick over your face. “I think you’re bored.”

Obviously, that makes you furrow your brows. Obviously, you let him continue speaking.

“Of your boyfriend. Your friends. Your parents already knowing what you’re going to do.” His mouth twitches faintly. “Probably bored at being good at the same shit every day.”

You should probably deny it. It surprises you that you don’t, even though you’ve sworn hatred towards men that think they can assume your personality because of one little circumstance.

“That’s why you’re here, right?” Riki’s eyes drop to your hand, then back to your face. 

Your throat tightens.

“With me,” he adds.

He doesn’t smile like he won, he just sits there with one hand loose on the wheel, like he already knows the answer and is kind enough not to make you say it.

The air between you feels worse, like the moment before a storm cracks open into his car, and electrocutes you with a spark you’ve never experienced in your life. Which is eccentric considering you’re not the type of girl who’d be in Riki’s car instead of a party dominated by your friends, getting high off shit that would make your parents pass out. 

You scoff and look away, shaking your head like the whole thing is ridiculous. “You talk like you know everything.”

“I just guessed one fucking thing.”

You roll the joint between your fingers again, slower now. “Maybe I just wanted to try something.”

“With me?”

Your eyes cut to him, and you see there’s a slight curve to his mouth, like he heard the shape of your answer before you even made it. 

You huff. “You’re so annoying.”

Neither of you moves. Just suspended there, breathing the same warm air, the song on the radio dissolving into background noise, the world narrowed down to inches and intent and maybe weak will and strong urges. The tension’s palpable, solid enough that you could feel it grow between your thighs.

You’re probably one more joint away from being zooted, and Riki knows this of course, which is why he keeps his eyes narrowed across him and not the woman who’s audibly shifting in her seat. 

He’s high too — faster than usual — and it makes the moment stretch in this you know kind because he’s thinking bad. He keeps his gaze trained somewhere between the fogged windshield and the blur of your reflection in it, like it’s the only thing keeping him at bay.

For the record — you’re both twenty, obviously adults, even if the world still insists on calling you kids. Which is also the very age people let you experience the paradox of being too grown and too immature for anything consistent, so the underestimation you endure as an adult, smart woman, cheerleader, and a kinda-child — wow you’re in deep detestation for that system.

So you take control of things you can handle.

You’re a conformist, no doubt. Except in areas you loathe men’s freedom in yet expect restraint for women. So… in diminutive ways, you indulge. Like weed. Like running council. Like wearing short skirts. Like Riki Nishimura.

You glance at him sideways, voice light, almost bored. Almost. “So,” you say, like you’re asking about his major or what song’s playing on the radio. “I will ask you something kind of personal.”

Riki exhales a quiet laugh. “You’re already in my car smoking my weed. I think the line’s gone.”

You smile, satisfied, then tilt your head back against the seat. 

“Are you a virgin?”

The question hangs there. Unembellished and very dangerous in its simplicity. Also, of course, bold, which makes Riki actually freeze — a half-second pause where even his breathing stutters. Then he scoffs, shaking his head like he can’t believe you just dropped that between the heater hum and the low bass leaking from the house.

He blames the weed, though part of him wishes it isn’t from that.

“You always ask things like that?”

“I’m curious,” you say easily. “And a little high.” you gesture with your thumb and forefinger.

He rubs the back of his neck, eyes flicking to you now despite himself. “Why?” he asks. “Does it change your opinion of me?”

You meet his gaze, unblinking. “I don’t know yet. That’s why I asked.”

He huffs a soft laugh. He admits to embarrassment, even if it doesn’t cover his entire skin with flush and heat, he’s never found himself in this position. But honestly, nothing from the past few weeks has ever been something he prepared for — which he has you to blame, of course.

“Yeah.” he licks the corner of his lips, refusing to meet your eyes while he taps the steering wheel. “I am.”

Your eyebrows lift, impressed but not shocked. “Huh.”

Riki looks over. “Huh?” he mocks.

You bite back a smile and turn toward the window, but the reflection gives you away. “I just didn’t expect that.”

He scoffs, looking back at the windshield. “Why?”

“I don’t know.” You shrug, still smiling a little. “You sell weed. And you drive this car.”

“And?”

“And you look like that.”

For one second, Riki’s fingers still on the steering wheel, and he learns to shut up. He lets out a quiet laugh after, but it sounds different this time, lower and almost embarrassed. “You’re so fucking high,”

That makes him quiet, makes him adjust on his seat. He’s touched a woman before, but no one’s ever sat on his dick, nor has he ever been in anyone. So maybe he’s half a virgin, maybe he’s just a sore loser. He watches you as you move, as you turn in the seat, knees pressing into the leather, facing him fully now. The space changes instantly, the air recalibrating around your movement and maybe even pushing you further toward him.

Riki stiffens — just suddenly very aware, and perhaps a little scared. “Uh,” he says, brows knitting. “What are you doing?”

You tilt your head, resting your hands casually on the seat, perfectly balanced. “Bored, like you said,” you say. “And my boyfriend’s cheating on me. Again.”

He swallows. His gaze drops, then snaps back up to your face, like he’s trying very hard to stay respectful and failing in slow motion because you’re especially gorgeous tonight. “That’s… not a great combo,” he says.

“Not really,” you agree.

You lean in just enough for him to feel it — not touch, not yet. Just close enough that he can smell your gloss, the faint sweetness still clinging to you, and the cannabis that if he warrants himself the scary concept, is his mark on you.

“At least you don’t think I’m boring.”

Riki exhales, a real one this time, like he’s surrendering to the moment instead of fighting it because what can a simple guy like him do, right? His eyes flick to your mouth again — longer now — and when he looks back up, there’s a decision there, from someone who’s tired of conforming.

You close the distance then, slow enough that he could pull away if he wanted to. When he doesn’t, your lips meet in a kiss that’s brief and soft at first. Riki’s hand lifts instinctively, stopping just short of your waist, hovering there like he’s giving you the choice.

When you kiss again, you’re pressing harder, with the very intent to steal the air from his lungs. So that is what happens, you inhale and climb over the console and close your knees around his waist and he’s breathing shakily against your mouth, fighting for the oxygen he’s willingly giving away. 

Your cunt presses against the zipper of his jeans, and when you roll, he pulls away like he’s burnt. 

“W-wait — this isn’t — we can’t do this.” He shakes his head insistently, looking down your joined thighs while he regains composure.

You frown. “Why not?”

He looks back up at you, eyes wide and glossy from the taste of your cherry gloss and his greens in your mouth. He looks like he can’t handle this. You’re high, he’s high, this isn’t a good idea. You’re perfect, he’s not, this isn’t a good idea. You’re pretty and he sells weed, this isn’t a good idea.

“Because you have a boyfriend.” he says weakly.

You smile, fingers brushing into the hair at his nape. “Not really.”

He stares at you before he laughs, quiet and disbelieving, like the whole situation is so stupid he has no choice but to let it be funny for half a second. You’re in his lap, his car is fogged, your party is across the street, and apparently your boyfriend is more of a family arrangement than an actual person you care about. 

“This is so fucked,” he mutters.

Still, he kisses you anyway. His hand finally settles at your waist, firm enough to make your breath catch. His fingers press into your flesh just before he pulls you closer and his hips thrusts up underneath you.

His bulge presses hard against your clothed cunt, and a small whimper slips out his mouth. Your thighs practically clench around him, your core tightening as you rub yourself on him. Beneath the jeans secured around his hips, the start of his v-line peeks, in which you softly graze with your thumb.

“F-fuck,” he whispers, resigned while he lets his head fall back against the headrest.

When you kiss him again this time, it’s slow and languid and licking into his mouth, and your hips start rolling against his while he unconsciously bucks into you. You gasp at the feeling of his growing erection despite the jeans, and you can’t help but feel rushed because it’s been way too long. 

His body’s hot and he doesn’t understand why he can’t even talk properly. “Are you okay?” you ask, kissing his cheek. He just nods.

“This is so wrong,” Riki says softly and raspy.

You just smile and kiss him again, feeling how sloppy he’s starting to become when your tongues meet. You set the pace, careful with how you bite and suck, more of a learning curve with what you like best rather than devouring. Riki realizes this and slows down too, relaxing underneath your thighs while his cock remains bulging against you. Your soft fingers slither at the back of his hair, tugging and caressing, while he finds the courage to sneak his tongue into your mouth.

When you pull to breathe, he’s practically panting. “You can touch me.” you whisper.

His gaze practically flicks up to look up at you, silently asking for clarification. You don’t use words, you instead take his wrists and start dragging his hands from your waist to underneath your shirt. His breath hitches at the feeling of your soft skin against his, watching intently as you guide his hands further beneath your cotton top, until his fingers slightly grazes the soft swell of the underside of your breasts.

“Shit.” Riki mutters, his breath unstable when you let go. He looks for your eyes, asking for instructions, except you just smile and lean in to kiss him again with your hands on his jaw. 

So he takes it upon himself to move by his own. His fingers grazes the soft skin, careful and learning, testing the underside swell by gently squeezing. After that, he gains confidence, hands going further up until they touch your nipples. 

You gasp, pulling away to breathe when he starts gently pinching them, rolling them against the pads of his fingertips. He plays with them for a little while, watching your reactions when you sigh heavy, when your eyes close, when you lean further against his touch. It’s so good, he doesn’t even notice how painfully hard he is when he can feel just how sensitive your nipples are, when he can feel the weight of your breast as he cups them.

After a while, he finally stops, hands gliding down your ribs instead, thumbs still grazing slightly at the curve. Your kissing eases, reduced to pecks and softness. At rest and caress, you giggle and he chuckles, finally reeling in from the moment at how high he feels.

From your taste, your softness, your clothed pussy still pressing against his hard-on.

“You’re good for a virgin.” you say.

At that, Riki huffs and leans his head back against the rest, caressing your waist while he watches your face. You’re very pretty, even when your lipsticks smudged and you’re clearly teasing him, not touching him at all. 

He doesn’t mind. He doesn’t think he’ll mind for a long time. “I’m trying to make decent decisions.”

You tilt your head. “And kissing me is one?”

His jaw tightens a little, but he smiles. “It’s a very bad decision.”

“Mm.” You lean closer, but you don’t kiss him this time. “You stopped.”

“Because I don’t want to be your rebound,” 

The teasing fades just a little. Your fingers, which had been lazily tracing the back of his neck, slow, and now you look at him too, at the way he’s looking at you like something cliche is about to happen now that he’s tasted something better than marijuana.

“You think I’d use you?” you ask.

He shrugs. “I don’t know.”

You study him for a moment. His nose and ears are still pink, which admittedly does something to you. It makes him look shyer somehow, less untouchable, like all that quiet control has slipped just enough for you to see he’s not as unaffected as he wants to seem.

He looks back at you, thumb moving once at your waist. “Let me take you out.”

You stare at him. “You’re asking me on a date right now? While I’m sitting on you?”

His mouth twitches despite himself. “Not my best timing.”

You laugh, soft and surprised, but he doesn’t laugh with you right away. You lean in again, slower and softer, just lips meeting and staying there, but his breath still hitches. You lets it last for a few seconds before you pull back, still close enough that your noses nearly brush.

“Ask me when we’re not high.”

Then he laughs once, quiet and disbelieving, his hand flexing at your waist. “Fine.”

Riki drives you home that night and you arrive at around 3 am, friends completely unaware of where you are or who you’re with — but you don’t care, even when your phone’s blown out of weird proportion. You laugh when he insists on walking you to your front porch, just to make sure you don’t slip and fall and he wouldn’t lose his favorite weed customer. 

“You’re ridiculous, Riki Nishimura.” you shove at his arm weakly.

“And you,” he leans down enough that his nose nudges yours. “are so pretty.”

You laugh harder, admittedly a little flustered the way you never have been before. He tells you to eat something real when you head in, and you mock him for it but he just smiles and nods,  agrees with the idea he is so, very stupid and funny for you.

Riki thinks the universe is testing him. Because ever since last night, every single thing reminds him of you. 

The cherry gloss taste still ghosting his mouth when he wakes up, the faint perfume lingering on his hoodie, even the stupid heater smell in the car feels different now, like the seats remember the way you climbed over the console and kissed him until his dick ached for you.

“Dude,” Jake says, throwing his duffel bag. “You look like shit.”

Riki drags a hand through his hair. “Thanks.”

Jake doesn’t push it, which Riki appreciates for about three seconds before he sees where the cheer team is practicing. On the other side of the gym court, you’re standing with your friends, ponytail tied high, hands on your hips while you go over counts as the captain. You’re not doing anything special, occasionally laughing at something one of the girls beside you says, but Riki still feels his attention pull toward you like it has no discipline left.

He looks away first.

PE is already starting by the time he reaches their side of the court. He pulls his sleeveless shirt down properly and rolls his shoulders once, mostly because he needs something to do with his body. His hair keeps falling near his eyes, and he can feel sweat gathering at the back of his neck before class has even properly started.

He tells himself not to look. But then he looks.

You’re already looking too.

It only lasts a second. Your eyes meet his, then drop briefly to his arms before you turn back to your friends like nothing happened. Riki presses his tongue against the inside of his cheek and looks at the ball in his hands, suddenly way too aware of himself.

Jake notices, but all he does is glance between the two of you. “Since when do you know her like that?”

Riki bounces the ball once. “I don’t.”

Jake gives him a look. Riki doesn’t look back. “Not like that.”

“Okay.”

The drill starts, and for a while, it’s just run, catch, dribble, pass, move. Riki focuses on the court, on the PE teacher’s whistle, on the ball against his palms. It works for half the time, until your voice cuts across the space, counting with the rest of the cheer team, and he misses a pass by half a second.

“Pay attention,” Jake says, not even laughing.

“I am.”

“You’re really not.”

Later, when the class breaks for water, Riki walks toward the drinking fountain and finds you there already, refilling your bottle. Your friends are a few steps away, talking among themselves, close enough to notice if either of you makes it obvious, far enough that neither of you has to pretend not to see each other.

He stands behind you to wait for his turn, and from afar, it doesn't look scandalous. You take your time refilling your bottle, eyes forward, one hand steadying the plastic under the stream. He keeps his gaze on the wall in front of you, jaw working once, because he knows exactly what you're doing when you lean a little farther than necessary and let the silence stretch.

Your skirt shifts when you bend, showing the backside of your thighs and the slight swell of your ass, and he sighs through his nose like he's deeply disappointed in both of you. Then he looks away completely.

You bite back a smile.

When the bottle finally fills, you straighten and cap it slowly, still not moving right away. He doesn't meet your eyes when you step aside, he just moves in, bends toward the fountain, and presses one hand against the edge for balance.

Then it's your turn to look away. But you don't, not even shamelessly. Because you’re the girl who got things her way and never got scared of the repercussions.

His sleeveless shirt pulls against his shoulders when he leans down, arm tense from holding himself there, the veins along his bicep showing under the gym lights. Water hits his mouth, and you watch the way his hair falls near his eyes, the way his throat moves when he swallows. It's stupid, actually, how normal he's being and how much worse that makes it.

Riki finishes drinking, straightens, and wipes the water from his chin with the back of his hand. Only then does he look at you.

You're still staring. And for a second, neither of you says anything.

His expression barely changes, but something in his eyes does, like he caught you and decided not to make it easy. "What?"

You blink, then lift your bottle a little. "You took forever."

He looks at you, calm, unreadable, except for the faint color rising at the tips of his ears and the slight lift on the corner of his mouth. "You're one to talk."

Your friends laugh at something behind you, and the sound snaps the moment thinner, not enough to break it, but enough to remind you both where you are. You glance over your shoulder, then back at him, only to find he's still watching you. Not obviously, just enough to show that he knows exactly what that night did to you, and worse, exactly what this day is doing too.

And that he’s enjoying the view.

You tuck your bottle against your chest and step back. "Try not to miss another pass."

His mouth curves. "Then don't distract me."

The second he says it, your smile gets bigger, like a shared inside joke between you two now. Then you turn back to your team, and he stays by the fountain for one extra second, pretending the afternoon heat is the reason he can't stop feeling warm. In the locker room, he pretends it’s celibacy that’s making his cock hard again, and not the picture of you bending in front of him, the fat of your ass presenting itself to him so adorably.

In the cafeteria, while pages turn and keyboards clack for an upcoming test for biology, you try your best to stay focused the way you can on the usual. Riki was right about you — you were smarter than what people thought, and the merit beside your name is shocking to a whole lot when it’s pasted on the board. 

You think you’re no longer smart. Not when you’re staring at the open reviewer in front of you, color coded with little sticky tabs but you’re still distracted.

You grab your coffee and drink, just to try if that could help with your lost concentration. Something about protein synthesis and cell division. Something about how Riki’s hands looked wrapped around the steering wheel that one night while he called you weird and interesting in the same breath.

This is so inconvenient.

“Babe.”

Your boyfriend slides into the empty chair beside you like he owns the furniture, sunglasses pushed up on his head even though the cafeteria lighting could barely offend a bitch. His hand settles automatically on your thigh beneath the table, casual and familiar, and you almost flinch.

“You disappeared last night,” he says casually.

You lean back in your chair. “I told you I left.”

“Yeah, but where?”

You think briefly about Riki’s car parked under the streetlamp — fogged windows, heated air, cherry gloss smeared on his mouth, plump lips smirking in restraint, hands squeezing you in the right place, keeping you in place.

“I just went home,” you reply smoothly.

Your boyfriend hums, clearly unconvinced, but also has about three seconds of emotional stamina left for the topic, so he lets it go and steals one of your fries instead. “My parents want dinner with you this weekend.” he says instead.

He continues talking about it but you’re staring at the flashcards and reviewers in front of you, imagining what your parents would say if Riki would’ve showed up to a family dinner instead. Maybe he’d appear in different clothes, a white button-up just to sit there and attempt to look polite in ways he isn’t with you — which makes your heart jump a little. 

Dinner drags on for three excruciating hours.

Three whole hours of crystal glasses and polished silverware and your boyfriend’s parents discussing investment portfolios. The restaurant is one of those stupidly expensive places where portions are microscopic and every waiter looks vaguely judgmental — you don’t complain, you’re rather very grateful for his parents (sometimes).

You sat there in a pretty dress your mother picked out. Your boyfriend talks over you twice when you try contributing to the conversation, his mother asks about your grades before asking how cheerleading is going, like academics and aesthetics are the only two things remotely interesting about you. At some point, your boyfriend likes another girl’s Instagram story right beside you at the table and everything about the night is just bad.

You just feel tired, especially on the way home. 

Tired in the way performances always leave you feeling like you’ve spent hours acting inside a role you got stuck with years ago — because it mostly worked in your favor, until that one time you decided to jump out of your comfort zone and try weed. It’s the worst thing you have done, but it’s the only thing that made you feel good.

Your heels click quietly against the marble floors when you enter your house and you make it halfway upstairs before the pressure behind your eyes finally cracks. Obviously, you don’t sob out of sadness, just frustrated tears slipping down your cheeks while you struggle with the zipper of your dress. “Fuck,” you mutter.

Your makeup’s ruined now; mascara faintly smudged beneath your eyes, lipstick mostly gone except for traces still staining your mouth. 

Before you can think too hard about it — which is kind of bad — you open Riki’s contact, and your fingers move faster than your dignity can intervene.

you: he actually sucks so bad like genuinely i think talking to drywall has more nuance

You exhale through your nose and laugh weakly at yourself because obviously Riki probably has better things to do than babysit you after 9PM, not when you’re just another weed customer and smoking buddy he had. You toss your phone onto the bed and sit in silence for a second, still in your dress, earrings discarded somewhere.

You try not to think about anything for the minutes you’ve spent staring at the ceiling: not about Riki, or your dumb boyfriend, or your (im)perfect life, or the way Riki kissed you, or the way he looked at you, or the way he thought about you. 

Because that's the part that bothers you most. Not the kiss itself, not even the fact that you wanted it, but the way he seemed to actually think about you before touching you. Like you weren't just pretty or convenient or someone people liked because you made sense beside them. Riki looked at you like he was trying to understand you, and somehow that felt more intimate than anything you've ever had.

And maybe that makes you painfully average.

Maybe you’re not special at all, maybe you’re just another girl in the long, embarrassing history of girls who developed feelings for the first boy who looked at them like they were a person. Congratulations, really. Very original and groundbreaking, for being part of the emotionally confused teenage girls.

You turn onto your side and press your face into your pillow, immediately hating yourself for how dramatic that feels.

Until something taps three times against your window.

Your brows furrow immediately because your bedroom is on the second floor and nobody normally knocks on windows like some suburban horror movie, you don’t even try to look because of what could be there. For a second, you genuinely think you’re hallucinating from emotional exhaustion and expensive restaurant food and maybe (you did not do prior research) the possibility of the long term hallucinations of marijuana.

Then it happens again. Three deliberate taps.

You sit up slowly from the edge of your bed, the strap of your dress slipping off one shoulder while your heels remain abandoned somewhere near the door. When you turn to the window, your heart practically falls from your chest when you see Riki standing outside like a fucking delinquent moron. He’s standing on the roof of the first floor near your window, hoodie sleeves pushed to his elbows, while one hand steadies himself against the frame. 

You burst out laughing while fumbling with the lock of your window. Riki’s entire expression softens the second he hears you laugh and that does something unhealthy to him.

Because he drove for twenty minutes thinking about you crying over some guy who doesn’t even look at you properly, wondering if climbing a house at this hour officially qualifies as insanity (he’s never done that before, and it doesn’t sound so conformist right now either). Riki’s usually good at self-restraint, at risk assessment, at understanding what makes sense and what doesn’t.

For the record, this doesn’t make sense. Yet here he is anyway.

 “Hi.”

You stare at him in disbelief once you finally open your window. “What the fuck are you doing?” you whisper-yell.

“You sounded sad.”

“Is that supposed to be an answer?”

“What?” he says defensively while climbing inside carefully. “You said your boyfriend sucks. That sounded shitty.”

The second he lands properly inside your room, he looks at you before anything else. He’s used to seeing you fixed with perfect hair, perfect smile, perfect posture, like you just stepped out of a university brochure about good conduct and that the school cheer spirit is something one definitely needs for personal development.

This version of you feels familiar, and traitorously and selfishly, he thinks it’s for him.

Your dress is wrinkled now, your jewelry sits slightly crooked against your skin, your makeup’s smudged enough to expose the eyebags underneath, and your hair’s started falling from whatever expensive style you wore to dinner.

Riki swallows once before he can stop himself. “You were crying?”

Immediately, you look away, a bit embarrassed when you realize what you look like. “Don’t make it weird.”

“I’m not making it weird,” he says quickly, hands lifting instinctively. “I just.”

He cuts himself off because he suddenly realizes he has no idea how to navigate this. Girls usually don’t text him while being miserable and summon him to their bedroom windows like some modern romance movie directed by a bad romcom enthusiast. Nothing is romcom-y about this.

So instead, awkwardly, he holds the backyard vegetation toward you.

“I got you these.”

Flowers. They aren’t roses and lilies, especially not the peonies your boyfriend orders because it looks better in pictures. They’re not anything arranged like the bouquets your boyfriend’s family sends during competitions and birthdays and events where impression matters. They usually screamed ‘I have money’ so I had my manager fix these for you.

Riki brought you wildflowers, which are tiny white, yellow, and purple ones bundled unevenly together like he picked them himself on the side of the road and decided, yeah, these ones are perfect. They’re crooked and asymmetrical and a little pathetic, and it weirdly looks a lot like you.

You take them carefully, looking down at the tiny flowers bundled together with what suspiciously resembles a broccoli rubber band.

“Oh my God,” you laugh quietly. “These are so ugly.”

He looks offended immediately. “Okay, first of all, fuck you.”

You laugh, open and loud. “They’re literally weeds.”

“I mean. Matches us, no?” he argues.

You’re still smiling when you bring them closer to inspect, and he notices your eyes when you admire them because he notices everything when it comes to you now, apparently.

“He made you cry?” he asks quieter this time.

You look up at him, flowers resting against your chest while you slump a little. “Not exactly.”

He raises his brows. “That means yes.”

You sigh, gaze dropping to the petals between your fingers. “He’s just…” You shake your head slowly. “I don’t know. I guess I’m really sick of it.”

Riki stays quiet — not because he doesn’t have thoughts, but because he has too many.

The thing is, he understands that social hierarchy is basically one giant theater production and he’s spent his entire life studying how to survive inside it correctly — he’s admitted to live in it quite comfortably. Which people to talk to, which ones to avoid, what behavior keeps life stable and uncomplicated, who not to sell weed to.

You were supposed to be part of that stable world, the part that he shouldn’t have had any associations with. Instead, you’re now standing barefoot in front of him holding ugly flowers with watery eyes while confiding in him like he’s become something safe. Now he’s giving a girl weeds for flowers, while his own cannabis has become untouched for quite a while now.

You narrow your eyes up at him suddenly, a teasing smile on your lips. “You could’ve used the front door.”

“And say what?” he snorts. “‘Good evening, your daughter texted me so I’m here to comfort her?”

You laugh again and Jesus Christ, he thinks he’d probably climb ten more roofs if it meant hearing that sound a second time.

Which is not good at all.

He looks around your room now, and he finds that is not in the dramatic movie sense where he’s overwhelmed by femininity and candles or whatever bullshit directors think teenage girls do in bedrooms. It’s just your space and that feels undeniably you in a way he’s never gotten access to before — never thought he would, actually. There’s a stack of annotated reviewers on your desk beside skincare products, then a half-folded cheer uniform hangs over your chair. Your bookshelf is organized by color at first glance, but he notices that some books are stuffed sideways and doubled-up like gave up halfway through organizing.

You’re contradiction after contradiction. Which feels fitting considering Riki’s currently inside the bedroom of a girl he once categorized under absolutely not my problem.

This is exactly why social structures exist. To prevent situations like this where a guy who sells weed ends up standing in the bedroom of a girl who looks expensive enough to kill him.

You set the flowers carefully on your vanity like they’re not random plants held together by produce rubber. Riki watches how gentle your hands are, watches the way your dress slips slightly higher on your thigh when you move.

You step closer to him after, eyes peeking through your lashes, and he starts to feel drunk from your perfume.  “You really came all the way here because I was sad?” you ask softly.

Riki opens his mouth automatically with something sarcastic prepared because that’s safer, because joking is easier than admitting the truth. But then he looks at you looking at him like he’s become something important frighteningly fast.

Honesty slips out before he can stop it. “Yeah.”

Your eyes soften in a way that completely wrecks him, because nobody’s ever looked at him like this before — like he did something meaningful instead of useful.

You step even closer now until there’s barely space between you. “You’re really bad at being casual,” you murmur.

He huffs a laugh. “You climbed into my lap the first time we kissed.”

“That was different.”

“How?”

“I was high.”

“And what’s your excuse now?”

Your lips twitch and his gaze drops there instinctively.

Big mistake, because now he’s thinking about kissing you again and suddenly being in your bedroom at midnight feels significantly more dangerous than it did when he drove here. Riki clears his throat and looks away first. Usually he’s good at eye contact, good at keeping composure, good at staying levelheaded even when situations become complicated, because he knows emotional regulation keeps things orderly, predictable, and safe.

You are none of those things anymore.

Standing this close to you feels like someone slowly dismantling every sensible thought process he’s ever had and replacing it with bad decisions and pretty girls in wrinkled dresses. 

Riki swallows, eyes still not fully on yours. “Do you know what you’re gonna do?”

You sigh, shoulders dropping a little as you look away. “I don’t know.”

Riki nods, though he doesn’t look surprised. “Well,” he says quietly, “you aren’t happy.”

The honesty in his voice catches you off guard, because it isn’t dramatic or possessive or demanding — it’s actually the complete opposite. He says things carefully. Your boyfriend never talks to you carefully. 

You study Riki for a second — the slight flush across his cheeks, the hoodie sleeves pushed to his elbows, the fact he literally climbed your house because you sounded sad over text. 

Clearly, he’s lost the plot somewhere. He might find it in your room, but why would it be there?

You look at the boy who notices everything about you, who reads you better than anyone ever did. And maybe that’s pathetic, but after a long time of performance and image, you can’t quite find irrationality when something finally sees you so clearly. 

You don’t even realize you’re crying again until his expression changes. The tears just spill over quietly, slipping down your cheeks before you can catch them, and for a second, you don’t understand why his eyes drop there with so much concern because you aren’t sad, nor overwhelmingly happy.

His hand lifts and his fingers touch your cheek lightly and carefully. His thumb brushes beneath your eye, catching the tear before it reaches your jaw. Then the other hand comes up too, steadying your face with a gentleness that makes your throat tighten worse than the crying did. You stare up at him while he wipes your face like it’s something important, his hands warm, his touch steady even though his breathing isn’t. He just keeps his palms against your cheeks, thumbs soft under your eyes, focused on you.

Riki’s thumb slows beneath your eye, his gaze moving over your face with something almost pained. “You’re too pretty to cry over him,” he says quietly.

Your hand lifts before you can think better of it, fingers wrapping gently around his wrist to keep him there. His skin is warm beneath your palm, and for a second, his whole body seems to still when you touch him. You look up at him because he’s so tall this close, broad enough to block out half your room, and he’s holding your face like you might bruise if he moves wrong.

“I’m not crying over him,” you say, and your voice comes out quieter, “I think I’m crying because I want someone else.”

His hand stays against your cheek, but his thumb stops moving entirely. He has no immediate answer right now, no dry comment waiting in the back of his throat, no clever way to make the moment smaller than it feels. He just looks at you, like he heard you perfectly and still needs another second for it to reach the rest of him.

He shifts closer, but only slightly, careful enough that you notice the restraint. “Are you sure?”

You let out a tiny, breathless laugh. “Yes.” 

Then your gaze drops from his eyes, not because you’re embarrassed exactly, but because looking at him straight on feels like standing too close to something bright. Your eyes settle on his chest instead, on the front of his hoodie rising and falling with a breath he’s clearly trying to control. His hands move from your cheeks, careful and slow, until his palms settle just beneath your jaw while his fingers slip behind your ears, curling gently at the back of your neck. 

For a second, you think he’s going to kiss you.

Actually, you know he is. You can feel it in the way his breathing changes, in the way his eyes drop to your mouth and stay there this time, no pretending it was an accident. He’s close enough that you can smell his cologne and whatever terrible decision-making brought him to your window.

Then something in you panics — not because you don’t want him to.

That’s the problem. You want him so much it feels insulting to every sensible part of your life (even though you’ve made many irrational choices that have shamed them anyway). You want him in your room, in your space, in the middle of all the pretty, curated pieces of yourself nobody else gets to see messy. You want him, and it would be so easy to lean up and let that be the answer. But there is still one stupid, technical, irritating thing standing between you and that, so you pull back a little.

He freezes immediately, hands dropping like he thinks he did something wrong. “What?”

“I need to do something.”

His brows pull together. “Right now?”

You turn away before you can lose your nerve, moving toward your bed where your phone is half-buried in the sheets. Your hands are unsteady when you pick it up, which is annoying because you are not the kind of girl who fumbles — you are the kind of girl who answers essay questions with proper structure, corrects formations instinctively, and pretends she’s fine so convincingly that people believe it until it becomes inconvenient not to.

Calling your boyfriend while Riki Nishimura stands in your bedroom after midnight is, admittedly, not your most elegant moment, but there’s a kind of clarity to it too.

He stays behind you, quiet, watching as you scroll to the contact you have ignored for most of the night. His name on your screen looks strange now.

The call rings twice.

Riki moves closer, though not touching you yet, just behind your shoulder, close enough that you can feel the heat of him. It makes focusing much harder, which is extremely inconsiderate for someone who climbed into your room to be supportive.

Your boyfriend answers with your name, voice already irritated. “It’s late. I’m busy.”

You close your eyes for half a second. “I’m just letting you know. We’re done.”

There is a pause. “What?”

You swallow, your grip tightening around the phone. “I’m breaking up with you.”

Behind you, Riki goes very still. Your boyfriend lets out a humorless laugh. “Are you serious right now?”

“Yes.”

“After everything? After tonight, you’re just gonna call me and say that?”

You stare at the wall in front of you. It’s absurd, actually, how little the anger reaches you. Maybe you should be shaking or crying harder or preparing a speech that starts with all the ways he hurt you — instead, you feel strangely calm.

He starts talking again, louder this time, something about your parents, his parents, how you’re overreacting, how you both agreed, how you don’t get to act innocent either. Until Riki’s hand appears beside you, and he takes the phone from your hand.

Your eyes widen. “Riki.”

He looks at the screen, hears your boyfriend still talking, then tosses the phone onto the bed, where it lands face-up against the sheets, the call still running, your boyfriend’s voice now small and furious through the speaker.

“What are you doing?” you whisper.

His eyes stay on yours. “You already broke up with him.”

On the bed, your ex says your name again, sharp and confused, but neither of you are looking at the phone. 

Riki lifts one hand, not touching your face yet, just brushing his knuckles lightly near your jaw like he’s giving you one last chance to move away.

That is all he needs before he kisses you. It is not rushed, not messy from panic, just a little harsh from jealousy. But it’s slow enough to make your knees feel unreliable, steady enough that your whole body seems to understand before your brain does. You grab the front of his hoodie and he exhales against your mouth, the sound going straight through you. His hand settles at the side of your neck, thumb brushing under your jaw while his other hand finds your waist, careful but sure. 

The phone is still there, your boyfriend is still talking. It should ruin the moment, but it doesn’t. If anything, it makes the whole thing feel worse in the way your heart is pounding too hard, in the way Riki keeps kissing you like he’s trying not to prove a point and failing anyway, in the way you know this is a terrible way to end a relationship and still cannot bring yourself to care.

Riki pulls back just enough to breathe, forehead almost touching yours. “He talks a lot,” he says quietly.

You laugh before you can stop yourself, and he kisses you before you can even finish a thought he physically cannot hear another word about your boyfriend tonight, earning a gasp from your mouth. It’s soft at first, his mouth catching yours that makes you go still for half a second, surprised, and then your hand tightens around his wrist as you kiss him back. He exhales through his nose, quiet and shaky, and his fingers press a little more firmly into your nape, not pulling you in too hard, just holding you.

You make this soft startled sound against his lips and he swears it nearly kills him on impact. When he pulls back just enough to breathe, his forehead bumps lightly against yours. 

“I don’t wanna talk about him anymore,” he says quietly.

His voice comes out rougher than before. You stare at him for a second, and your lips twitch.

“Okay,” you whisper.

He kisses you again almost immediately, and this time you kiss him back just as fast, your chests pressing against one another until you can feel the rapid beat of his heart through his hoodie. His hands find your waist, the weight of them warm and steady through the thin fabric of your dress, like he’s grounding you and keeping himself grounded too.

You tilt your head up to meet him properly, rising slightly onto your toes without meaning to, and he bends down into you like the movement pulls something out of him. His fingers press carefully at your sides, thumbs shifting once against your waist. The kiss deepens then, your hand sliding up the front of his hoodie until you’re holding onto him too.

Riki exhales against your mouth, almost shaky, and his grip tightens for one second before he loosens it again, like he’s reminding himself to be careful.

Without so much as a few words, your gaze meets his. But that’s not enough for him, not when he needs to hear that you want this too. The zipper you struggled with earlier starts undoing when his hand finds the back, before he leans in just enough for his voice to drop between you. 

"Words, baby," he whispers.

He isn't teasing now. His voice is low, but careful, like he needs to hear you say it before he lets himself want anything more.

You swallow, fingers tightening lightly in his hoodie. "I want you."

Riki watches your face for a second, and when he sees the true genuineness and want in your eyes, he lets himself have it. He dips down to your height, capturing your lips in a kiss again, before fully pulling the zipper down to the small of your back. With barely any effort, the dress slides off your body and pools around your feet on the floor. 

Too busy getting drunk on his plump lips, you don’t even notice his hands roaming over your skin, his fingertips memorizing the arch of your spine, before gliding up to the curve of your ribcage. You don’t notice how close he really is until his fingers find the underside part of your breasts. You pull away with a gasp, seeing him smile coyly when you finally realize you’re naked in front of him, and how he’s massaging your mounds in his hands.

He lets his thumbs brush your hardened nipples, watching your face scrunch and melt with fluster. He holds you so well, heat rushing all over your skin with the way he studies your body, eyes carefully taking in every detail about you. He continues stroking your nipples and massaging your breasts when he bends down again, kissing the corner of your lips before trailing over to your jaw. He presses open mouthed kisses on your pulse next, sucking and biting to leave love bites there.

You moan, all breathy and heavy, and his cock twitches in his sweats. For a man that’s been so cautious with you, he can’t help but fight the urge to pound into you recklessly right now.

“On the bed,” he prompts softly, taking a step forward. 

You obey with no fight, pathetically stepping backward until you sit back on the soft mattress. You adjust a little to get on your knees, eyes finding his through your lashes again. He’s looking at you with half-open lids, hand already reaching up to the back of your head, fingers tangling with your hair. He likes you like this, on your knees and your face so fucking close to his bulge, he can practically see it.

And because he has been so kind to you, you want to recompense for all of it. Your fingers hook at the hem of his sweatpants, keeping your gaze steady on his face to watch the way he reacts when he realizes what you’re about to do. You drag his pants down, enough for it to slip down his legs. 

His cock bulges in his briefs, begging to be set free. You cup it gently and he lets out a low moan, deeper than his usual, and when you look up, he’s just watching you. You lean in, only to lick a stripe from the bottom to top — his grip on your hair tightens, and you feel him pull you closer. Since you both don’t hold any godly kind of willpower, you waste no time lowering the fabric.

Riki’s stupidly long cock springs forward once you remove his briefs, and everything about it just makes sense. It isn’t excessively thick in girth, but it’s length makes you wonder if it can even fit at all. It’s pale at the base and turns pink towards the tip, the slit lathered with pre all over the head, all for you.

You bite your lip, not being able to help the thrilled grin on your face, eyes bright at the sight of it. He clears his throat, caressing the back of your head gently. “You good?”

You snicker, reaching up to wrap your hand around the base. He chokes out a gasp, stilling completely yet his hips buck forward. He watches you handle him so delicately, even the way you start pumping his dick, watching the way pre-cum leaks out the tip. You lean forward, tongue flat against the head, tasting him. 

“O-oh, s-shit —” his breathing becomes heavy, arm flexing involuntarily as he keeps rubbing the back of your head.

You giggle, tilting your head a little to press soft pecks all over his length. “Watch me, sweet boy. Okay?” 

You’re a fucking tease. That’s all he manages to come up with before his brain completely blanks out when you tilt forward and let your mouth close around the head of his dick. You start to suckle on it, tongue playing with the slit a little. Then you push forward, enough the tip touches the back of your throat and your cheeks hollow around his length.

And he’s still too fucking long. 

You start choking a little, tears touching your waterline. You stroke the part you can’t reach, and he can’t help but smirk arrogantly.

Heavy breaths turns into deep groans, trying to keep his sounds to himself but the way you look as your head bobs on his dick, practically choking as you suck on it, and his hand flexing a tight grip on your hair — this has got to be better than any fucking narcotic ever. He bets morphine won’t ever feel this good. “Y-you’re fucking sublime, baby,”

You retract your mouth, going back to suckle on the tip, before taking him all back down your throat. His hips jerk forward, you can tell just how gentle he’s trying to be even when he’s losing all control. 

And it’s too good, because twenty years of chastity has started to reach him faster than the way you rub him. He feels his abdomen tighten, and fuck does his balls feel tense. So as any illogical, preposterous, unsound idiot ever, he pulls you away from his cock. He holds you by your hair, slowing you down as you stare up at him, eyes wide and confused, lips wet from your saliva and his fluids.

“What the fuck?” you mutter, catching your breaths. 

Riki licks his bottom lip, and you can see every restraint holding him back from breaking you. The tips of his ears are red, and his eyes, once so tender and meticulous, looks down at you like he just can’t wait to fuck you senseless. They’re sharper than they ever have been, and once since this night began, you’re scared.

“Easy,” he drawls, hand withdrawing from you completely. He takes a step back, just enough to admire the way you look, panting and on your knees, breasts exposed and perky. Then with a small smirk, he pinches the edge of his hoodie. “You always this impatient?”

He slides the hoodie over his arms, the cloth revealing flesh that practically glow from your vanity lights. His chest and shoulder width is broad and wide, flat in that boyish way you love, expanding to the chiseled arms. You can feel yourself salivating at the muscles, at his taut abs, delicate grooves that trace down to a sharp v-line. Even his obliques and traps are so defined.

“Get on your back.” he rasps, and you don’t let yourself react before lying down, head against your soft pillows. He kneels in between your legs, eyes trailing over your body. He hooks his fingers over the elastic of your panties, just before he slowly pulls them off you, slow enough to make you embarrassed.

“Riki,” you murmur sheepishly, but he ignores you, keeping his eyes narrowed to the way your cunt glistens, your own fluids leaking out of you. She’s perfect, and his already frustrated cock twitches. 

Blonde hair sticks to his forehead, and his eyes are dark when your gaze meets again. He hovers over you, caging you against the bed before he leans in, kissing you again. Your lips part for him, breaths mingling, getting hot and heavy as his hand finds your ass. He squeezes the fat there, fingers digging into your skin. “You’re making it hard to think, pretty girl.”

You manage a giggle, though it quickly turns to soft moans when he kisses your jaw and presses his cock against your cunt. 

“Riki, please,” you can see how swollen his cock has gotten.

“I don’t know if I can be gentle,” he breathes, his arms tensing as he keeps himself up. He strokes himself a bit, just before he aligns the tip with your aching hole.

Your brain has gone hazy, not being able to process anything other than the way he kisses your neck when the head of his cock pushes through your folds, and immediately your arms come to his back, nails digging into his muscles. He tenses too, giving a sharp exhale when his length slides past the tight muscle and rubs against your gummy walls.

“Fuck,” he groans, burying his face against your neck while your teeth bite down your bottom lip. “G-god, that’s so good,” 

His hips closes against your pelvis, while his tip brushes against your cervix so good he’s pretty sure you’re sucking him in. And you feel stuffed, more than you ever have been, by Riki’s long cock. “Good fucking pussy, shit —”

Your legs are open wide for him, pressing flat against the mattress. And that’s enough for him, just to see you so spread beneath him, cunt squeezing him so tight; enough for him to pull back and watch the way your fluids wrap slick around his cock. Your hips wiggle for him, and that’s all he takes before slamming his hips back into you.

Riki’s jaw hangs open, a low moan gushing out him, strained and heavy into your ears. 

“R-Riki — f-f-fuck —”

The sounds of squelching pussy and skin slapping echoes throughout your entire room, walls so tight around his cock as you gasp. The pace is set already, quick and fucking drilling into you even though you’ve known him for his care and caution — yet he pounds into you like he doesn’t give a fuck about anything but his pleasure.

“S-s-so good — ugh, Riki — fuck,” you scratch his back muscles, tensing underneath your nails. His pelvis and abs are tight, slamming himself so hard against your cunt like he can’t keep himself apart from you.

He continues groaning, his eyebrows furrowed, eyes half-lidded watching you, completely fucked out while he admires the way your tits bounce every time he rocks his dick deep into your cunt. His lips part to moan your name, and you love how he almost whimpers when you squeeze around him. 

Then he stills, though only fast enough before he slides an arm beneath your waist and gathers you closer, like he’s scooping you into him without fully lifting you. 

“W-what are you —” 

“On your stomach.” 

You can only blink and nod, before turning around, suddenly feeling empty when his dick slips from inside you. You settle on your hands and knees, then lie on your chest, face pressed to the soft pillow. “Fuck, my good girl.”

You can’t see him anymore, and you’re not sure with how you feel about it — not until you feel his warm body press against your back, his chest hovering slightly over you. He presses a hand on the back of your thigh, gently adjusting your knee higher, the position immediately spreading your folds more than you would have thought. 

“Lift your hips for me, baby,” he breathes, voice low and strained.

You obey, pussy clenching around nothing when he whispers quiet praises as your ass perks up and your folds glisten for him again, slick oozing out from you. You get on your hands a little, just enough to lift yourself and look over your shoulder. Without much of a warning, he pushes his cock back deep inside you again, walls welcoming him with a dirty squelch, your breath catches, then escapes in a quiet gasp.

“There, just like that —” Riki moans, his v-line pressed tight against your ass.

Then he continues, retracting his hips only to slap back inside you. The new positions doing fucking wonders to you, stretching you a whole lot more, his dick fucking you so raw that you can’t help the screams you let out. He presses his hands against your waist, fingers ingrained to lift your ass up and pound into you right after, grip so tight it’s already bruising.

You fuck yourself against him too, slapping back against his hips, cock choking in your tight walls. His eyes are almost rolling back, if not for how obsessed he is watching your ass shake and tits bounce every sloppy stroke, his hand sliding under you to grope your mound. He fondles with it, pinching your nipple and loving the weight of it against his palm. 

Sweat’s getting hot and the air’s smells too much of sex, he can feel it when his balls clench and how desperate he’s starting to get.

You look over your shoulder and he meets you halfway, leaning over to capture your lips in a passionate kiss. It’s full of saliva and it’s warm, messy in a way that tells how close you both are.

Then with so little strength (can’t compare to Riki Nishimura, really), your weight falls back to the pillow, face and chest pressed against the softness while your ass stays up. If not for his large hands keeping you up and still, you would’ve fallen over completely. 

Your abdomen clenches and pressure builds in there, and he continues rutting into you while you become a puddle of sweat and moans. “R-right there — fuck, Riki — !”

“I-I’m gonna fucking cum, s-shit – I’ll blow a fucking load in you —” his hips drive into your pussy with a new kind of intensity, faster and deeper somehow, his tip hitting your cervix that has you throbbing around him.

“Cum all over me, baby, please —” he whines, face pressed against your shoulder. 

You feel hot spurts of him fill you the same time your cunt clenches around him one final time, legs twitching while his hips come to a stutter. Cum settles in your hole, warm and full and sticky and practically seeping out of you. He collapses on top of you, unconsciously maybe, his heavier weight pressing over your body.

Your vision goes white for a bit, then it comes back, only for you to see hair all over your face, stuck with sweat and saliva. He’s still on top of you, but you can feel him carry himself a little, making sure not to crush you right after cumming in you.

Quiet beats stretch out the moment, and you don’t even notice his arm tucking underneath you to massage your tit, a tired laugh leaving your mouth when you do. When you both muster enough strength, he straightens just enough to lift himself off of you, while you manage to get on your hands. By the time you look over your shoulder, he’s already leaning in, his mouth finding yours again, a hand still fondling with your breast.

“Riki,” a small sheepish smile curves on your lips, all while he presses soft pecks against your mouth and jaw. 

“Hm?” he hums, tired and spent, clearly having nothing else to do but to kiss you. His breaths are still shallow, eyelids heavy before shutting completely.

You giggle, putting your hand over his on your breast. “Get off me,” you say with a playful grin. “You’re so heavy!”

WIth a quiet groan, he listens. He slides out of you, unplugging you to let your fluids out. Then he lies down, and he hasn’t realized how strained his muscles are until he sinks into the softness of your bed. He relaxes inevitably, while you stay up just to admire him for a bit.

Riki Nishimura is never going to be insecure about his looks, but the way you stare at him with dilated pupils that match his, especially post-sex, he can’t help but grow a bit bashful. 

He huffs out a laugh, one hand reaching out to squeeze your waist because you feel so far. "So do you have a no-cuddle policy, or," he murmurs.

You laugh before you can stop yourself because he's so stupidly funny for someone trying to sound serious. Instead of answering, you shake your head and lean more of your weight against one hand, the other resting against his chest as your fingers trace lazy, thoughtless shapes.

He watches you do it for a second, his expression going quiet in that way that makes your stomach turn. Then you glance up at him. "Can you roll one for me?"

He sighs so heavily it almost sounds personal. Before you can even react, his arm hooks around your waist and pulls you down against his chest, firm and immediate, like the idea alone offended him. Your hand lands against his abs to catch yourself, your cheek nearly brushing his shoulder as he keeps you there.

“Throw that shit away,” he says, voice low near your ear. “I swear to God.”

You blink, caught against him. “What?” His arm stays around you, warm and unmoving. “Why?”

Riki looks at you with half-lidded eyes, sleepy and a little strained, like even answering takes effort. “Because,” he murmurs, his grip softening at your waist, “after tonight, I think I found something better.”

Your jaw actually falls open. For one second, all you can do is stare at him, because there’s no way Riki Nishimura just said that to you while looking half-asleep and impossibly calm, like he didn’t just say something that made your entire stomach turn over and tighten all over again.

Then you smack his chest lightly. “Riki.”

He chuckles, low and tired, the sound vibrating against your palm. His arm stays around your waist, keeping you close even when you try to lean back enough to glare at him properly.

“What?” he murmurs, eyes barely opening more. “Use my dick instead, I won’t get mad.”

You smack his chest harder, earning a yelp from him. “Riki!”

He laughs under his breath, but before you can pull your hand back, his fingers wrap around your wrist. His eyes open a little more as he looks at you, still tired, still amused, and then he tugs you. 

You land over him, knees sinking into the mattress on either side of his hips as his arm settles around your waist to steady you. For a second, neither of you moves. Your hand stays pressed to his chest, his heartbeat is faster than he's pretending. "Careful," he murmurs, like he wasn't the one who pulled you.

"You're so annoying," you whisper again, but it comes out softer this time, a quiet breath as you lean down to him. You're close enough now that your noses brush, close enough to feel his smile fade against your mouth.

Riki's gaze drops to your lips, then back to your eyes. Your fingers stay flat against the broad hardness of his chest while his hand stays warm at your waist, slowly smoothing over the curve of your ass.

“Ride me?” he whispers against your lips.

You sigh, rolling your eyes while your mouth curves to a grin, back straightening. You act like you think about it, only for your exposed cunt to start grinding against his cock — which, obviously, because he is a very simple man, erects again.

A simple man such as he, all he knows is that he is yours.

tl: @wobblymug @s1mp4jaeyun @gyuguys @woninlove

[matzism]

MAKE U CUM .ᐟ

product details: since your roommate saw you that night, nothing has been the same for him.

warnings labels. . . explicit content (mdni), friends to lovers, masturbation, mentions of pillow humping, oral (f!receiving), fingering, edging, unprotected sex, praise.

featured employees: roommate!niki x fem!reader

staff notes: consider this part two of peeping riki? also, to the person who sent the req , it’s nearly done — just wanted to get this out real quick ♡⸝⸝

niki felt like he was going insane.

ever since he saw you that night, the only thing that filled his mind was the sounds of your moans and the way his name sounded slipping from your mouth.

he’d zone out whenever you said his name, tense up if you sat too close to him on the couch, and practically lose it whenever you touched him—accident or not.

it had gotten so bad to the point he couldn’t even shower without fisting himself there. one hand resting on the cold tiles while the other wrapped around his dick as he pictured that night all over again.

and even now, when he should’ve been asleep or doing literally anything else, he was in bed, pillow folded around his dick, slamming his hips into it. wishing and needing it to be you instead.

“fuck…” he shuddered, lazily lifting his hips into the pillow, building that pressure again.

he was almost there, on the brink of cumming again when a knock sounded at his door.

“niki? you in there?”

fuck.

“yeah, shit, just give me a second!” he called out, tripping over his blanket while trying to pull his shorts up. “i’ll be right there.”

you weren’t supposed to be home. he was sure that he had the house to himself, that you were supposed to be out on some date.

niki grabbed one of the small air freshener cans he kept in his nightstand and sprayed the room—and himself for safe measures.

he opened the door, his chest heaving as sweat beaded on his forehead, hands slightly shaking. he had his body angled to cover the scene behind him.

“hey…” he ran his fingers through his hair. "everything alright?"

“yeah, wanna watch a movie?” you asked, eyes tracing him up and down as if you had a good idea of what he was just doing.

"yeah, sure," he smiled, slipping through the crack of the door and closing it behind him. "but weren't you going somewhere tonight?"

"oh. i got stood up," you said, like it meant nothing.

inside the living room, the tv was already paused on a random movie, while the dim red hue from the led lights—that desperately needed replacing—in the kitchen, filled the space.

niki sat down next to you, his arm slung over the back of the couch, fingertips brushing your arm. you leaned into his touch, settling in his arms.

the movie started and everything seemed to be going fine, at least on your end it was. for niki, it was slowly becoming hell, because the tent growing in his pants was noticeable.

he tried to shift away from you, sit up a little bit, just enough to cover up but you wouldn’t move. instead, you moved closer to him, sinking your body into the cushions. your thigh was pressed against his.

he was doing it to himself at this point. the fabric of his shorts were thin enough that he could feel the heat from your skin and it was driving him mad.

niki froze, his breath catching in his throat.

you suddenly froze, and he started wishing he could just hide. you felt him tense, your eyes darting from his lap up to his face.

"...niki, are you okay?" you whispered, your voice trailing off once you realized what was going on.

before you knew it, his lips were on yours, hands cupping your face as he pressed his body against yours. he waited damn near two weeks to do this. to kiss you, to have his hands all over you.

niki’s hands traveled down your body, one hand slipping under your shirt, the palm of his hand hot against your skin. “please,” he muttered against your lips.

you nodded, helping him lift your shirt. he pressed a kiss against the corner of your lips, down to your chest, lingering there before lowering himself between your legs. niki hooked his fingers into the waistband of your jeans. he didn’t waste a second, dragging them down your legs and carelessly tossing them onto the ground.

his hands were wrapped around your thighs, pushing them back to give himself a good view of your already flushed and soaked pussy.

“all this for me, baby?” he asked, dragging a finger down your folds before he leaned forward. his tongue traced slow along your folds, before inserting two fingers. his mouth worked skillfully, focusing on your clit, fingers curling just right.

“niki- wait.. fuck,” you breathed, moving your hand to cover your mouth as your head fell back against the armrest.

embarrassingly enough, you were about to cum already. your fingering treaded through his hair, grabbing a handful of his hair as your hips rolled against his tongue. before you could have that release, he pulled back his tongue and stilled his fingers.

you let out a whined, needy gasp, eyes snapping open to look down at him. "...why did you stop?"

he looked up at you, his gaze hungry and full of desire. "i need to feel you around me," he whispered, rising to his knees, the cushion dipping beneath him. he pushed down his shorts, his dick already hard and leaking.

his hands slid under your knees, pushing them back until they reached your chest. he pushed inside you slowly and started moving. it was slow at first like he was allowing you to adapt to him but that didn't last too long.

"fuck- you feel so good," he groaned, his hips snapping into yours. he leaned down, catching your lips in a kiss before pulling back again. "c'mon.. let me hear you, baby."

all you could do is moan, your walls clenching around him as your nails clutch at his shirt. niki placed his thumb in your mouth, pulling out until only the tip was inside before slamming his hips again. "let hear me that pretty voice like last time."

"niki... shit, i'm gonna-" you gasped, the pleasure pooling in your stomach, not even registering what he said. "don't," you choked out, voice trembling. "don't stop. please."

niki picked up his pace, using his thumb to circle your clit. "you sound so good like this... so fucking pretty," he took one deep thrust, burying himself as deep as he can inside you.

"cum for me, baby. i got you... let go," he breathed, pulling back before doing another deep thrust, then another and another one. until you let out a silent cry, trying to catch your breath.

it didn't take long for your orgasm to hit. it shot through you, leaving your legs shaking, clenching around niki. he started to slow down once his own orgasm hit, his chest heaving.

he leaned down one final time, burying himself in your shoulder and let out a shaky breath. still inside you on that cramped couch.

staff notes: “what’s your favorite curse word?” “probably fuck,” that video was all i could think abt while editing bro 💀🫩

# | store disclaimer: all work is fictional and is not a real depiction of our staff outside the store !

[enhavip]

WHAT ARE YOU SAYING?

// nishimurariki x !innocent reader, crack, fluff, use of baby and honey, nsfw texts, nsfw photo.

anon request!

taglist: @mandmilovehim @starjoongie @writtenbyyoongi @mystgene @acute4ngel @acelqvr @nikiunleashme

[n1shinik]

gentleman in the streets , freak in the sheets

synopsis : Riki always tried his hardest to keep up the perfect boyfriend image in front of your parents and it worked. They were completely charmed by him and the respect he has for you. But behind closed doors? He was the complete opposite. All facades dropped.

ⳇ  pairing ╸  dom!bf!ni-ki  x fem!reader

warning : MDNI; smut, explicit sexual content, rough sex, unprotected sex, fingerfucking, deepthroating, edging, overstimulation, power exchange, profanity, and strong language.

To your parents, Riki was a saint. He was the polite, well-spoken, and attentive boyfriend who always opened the car door for you, brought flowers for your mother, and spoke with a respectful tone that had them convinced you’d found the most refined gentleman of the century. He wore pressed shirts, kept his posture perfect, and treated you with a tenderness in public that felt almost cinematic.

But as the front door of your family home clicked shut and the lock turned, the mask didn't just slip—it shattered.

The second you were alone in the hallway, Riki didn’t even give you time to take off your coat. He slammed you against the wall with a force that knocked the breath out of you, his hand gripping your waist so tightly it would leave marks. The polite, soft-spoken boy was gone; in his place was a predator who had been starving for hours of playing "perfect."

"God, I thought they’d never stop talking," he growled, his voice dropping an octave, turning into a rough, gravelly rasp. He buried his face in the crook of your neck, inhaling your scent with a desperation that bordered on aggression. "Do you have any idea how hard it was to sit there and act like I didn't want to rip those clothes off you in front of your father?"

"Riki—" you gasped, your heart hammering against your ribs.

"Shut up," he commanded, his lips grazing your ear. "No more talking. Just be a good girl for me."

He didn't wait for an answer. His mouth crashed onto yours in a kiss that was less of a greeting and more of a claim. It was rough, hungry, and demanding, his tongue sweeping into your mouth with an intensity that left you dizzy. He tasted of mint and raw desire, his hands roaming your body with a possessive urgency.

He shifted his weight, hoisting your leg up around his waist, pinning you further against the wall. His hand slid down, bunching up your skirt and diving underneath your lace underwear. When his fingers found you, already damp and aching for him, he let out a low, guttural moan of satisfaction.

"Look at you," he whispered against your lips, his voice dripping with a dark sort of pride. "So worked up. Were you thinking about this the whole dinner? Thinking about how much you wanted your boyfriend to stop being a gentleman?"

He drove two fingers deep inside you without warning, causing you to cry out and arch your back. He didn't slow down; he worked you with a relentless, rhythmic precision, his thumb grinding against your clit with a pressure that pushed you dangerously close to the edge.

"Please... Riki, please," you whimpered, your fingers clutching at his shoulders, digging into the fabric of the shirt your parents loved so much.

"Please what, baby? Tell me exactly what you want," he teased, his pace increasing, edging you with a cruelty that was purely for his own pleasure. He could feel your walls pulsing around his fingers, your body trembling on the verge of a peak. Just as you were about to shatter, he abruptly pulled his fingers out.

The sudden void left you sobbing, your hips twitching in a desperate search for the friction.

"Not yet," he murmured, his eyes dark and blown out. He stepped back just enough to unzip his trousers, his gaze locking onto yours. "I want you to take care of me first. I've been playing the part of the 'perfect man' for three hours. I'm exhausted, gorgeous. Fix it."

He didn't have to tell you twice. You dropped to your knees on the hallway floor, the cold tile a sharp contrast to the heat radiating from him. You looked up at him—the sharp jawline, the predatory smirk—and realized that while the world saw a gentleman, you were the only one who got to see the freak.

You wrapped your lips around him, taking him in deep, wanting to feel every inch of him. Riki let out a sharp hiss, his hands finding their way into your hair, guiding you with a firm, controlling grip. He wasn't gentle; he pushed himself deeper, forcing you to take him, testing your limits until you were gagging slightly.

"That's it... take it all," he groaned, his hips stuttering. "Good girl. Such a fucking good girl."

The praise sent a jolt of electricity through you, making you work even harder. He didn't let you go for long, however. The need to be inside you outweighed everything else. He hauled you up by your arms, dragging you toward the bedroom, not bothering to make it to the bed.

He stripped you bare in seconds, clothes discarded in a chaotic trail across the floor. He didn't use a condom—he never did when he was in this mood, wanting to feel every single vibration of your body against his. He flipped you over, pressing your chest against the dresser, and entered you from behind in one heavy, devastating thrust.

You screamed into the wood of the dresser, your fingers clawing at the surface. He was relentless, his movements rough and punishing, hitting your sweet spot with every singular drive. He gripped your hips, leaving bruising fingerprints on your pale skin, claiming you over and over again.

"You're mine," he grunted, his voice strained with effort, his breath hot against your back. "Every single inch of you. Not your parents', not the world's... just mine."

He pushed you further and further, overstimulating you until your vision blurred and your muscles locked. When he finally hit his limit, he groaned your name like a prayer and a curse, filling you completely as he collapsed against your back, his heart drumming a wild rhythm against your spine.

For a few minutes, there was only the sound of heavy breathing and the ticking of the clock. Then, Riki kissed the back of your shoulder, his voice returning to that soft, polite tone—though with a lingering edge of mischief.

"I think I'll bring dessert next Sunday," he whispered. "Your mother will love it."

ೃ⁀➷ a/n : hope you guys enjoyed this little Riki smut I wrote. I wrote this so that you guys had something while i worked on the space between texts. reqs are open for ideas for the space between texts.

[hoonguin]

꒰﹕﹒ i lawb you ❀ nishimura riki

⌗ in which . . . you’re assigned to capture a notorious mafia leader, only to discover that he’s your former lover — nishimura riki

流星 ໑ . .  mafialeader!riki x femdetective!reader

⌗ includes . . . smut (18+), strong language, power imbalance, moral conflict, possessive behavior, professional conduct, unresolved feelings, ex-lovers to whatever that was, riki talks you through it 🤤 overstimulation, cockwarming, creampie, unprotected sex (wrap it before you tap it), oral sex (m. receiving), rough sex, multiple orgasms, power play, car sex, praise kink, light degradation, size kink, use of restraints ➜ mdni ! or do.. it's up to you ♡ purely a work of fiction, none of this is real | wc: 10.2k

♪ el’s bubble: president el just wanted to share with the class that this piece was made with a loooot of love (she had way too much time and too many ideas) 🙏 spent at least three days working through this but we made it out of the woods ! i genuinely couldn’t stop thinking about him in melbourne and this one specific clip of him i saw on tiktok so yeah . . this was a request by anon, so thanks a bunch anon 😛 please enjoy — likes, reblogs, and feedbacks are deeply appreciated on here ♡ requests are always open if you want to see me write something specific ۫ ׅ

໑ part 1 | part 2.1 | part 2.2

tags: @wonscapes @simsimluver @maishee @grdientlips @kristynaaah @psychicdazestrawberry | just ask if you want to be a part of my tag list ˙𐃷˙

now playing . . . often by the weeknd

"What the hell? This is the guy we have to somehow magically put in handcuffs?"

You groan out, frustration evident in your voice as your thumb and index finger press firmly against the bridge of your nose, massaging the tension that has been building there since the start of this meeting. 

Your chair creaks beneath you as you sink back into it, the leather cool against your back, though it does nothing to ease the knot forming in your stomach.

The room goes dead silent for a long, agonizing moment. 

The only sound that fills the space is the faint, rhythmic hum of the air conditioner, its steady drone doing little to calm the storm of thoughts racing through your mind. 

The cool toned lights above seem to buzz just a little louder in the quiet, and you can feel the weight of every pair of eyes in the room on you, waiting for you to say something else, to react, to do anything other than sit there in stunned disbelief.

"Well, he's sort of the ringleader of the mafia that's been terrorizing people on the other side of the city, so yes — that's the guy we have to catch," your coworker says, their tone far too casual for the gravity of what they've just dropped on your desk. 

They take another bite into their ube flavored macaron, the crumbs dusting the corner of their mouth as they chew, oblivious to the way your entire world has just tilted on its axis.

In front of you, sitting right there on your desk, is a photograph of a man — the same man you're supposed to somehow catch, apprehend, and put behind bars. 

The same man who, according to the file beneath the photo, has been orchestrating a web of crime so intricate that the department has been chasing ghosts for nearly three years.

You stare at the picture for a long, long time. Your eyes trace every detail, every line and shadow captured in the image, as if staring at it long enough might reveal some hidden truth, some sign that this is all just an elaborate mistake.

The man in the photograph seems to be around six feet tall, though it's hard to tell exact height from a picture alone. 

His hair is a striking mix of brown and blonde, though it leans closer to blond, the kind of hair that probably catches the sunlight in a way that makes people turn their heads without meaning to. 

He has a tall, elegant nose bridge, lips that are a pretty shade of pink, slightly curved in a way that suggests he might have been caught mid-thought, or perhaps mid-sentence. 

His eyes, oh, his eyes — his eyes are the same shape, the same dark brown, the same intensity that once made your heart race for entirely different reasons.

Nishimura Riki.

The name sits heavy on your tongue, bitter and sweet all at once. 

You remember how it used to feel to say it, whispered in quiet moments, laughed over shared jokes, cried into pillows when everything fell apart.

Fuck. 

Who would've ever thought your ex from back in the day, the same boy who used to trip over his own feet, who had the dorkiest laugh you'd ever heard, who held your hand like it was something precious, would become the most feared mafia leader in the city? 

That the same hands that once traced hearts on your skin would now be stained with the kind of darkness you've spent your entire career fighting against?

The thought of it alone felt incredibly absurd. 

After what felt like an entire millennium, each second stretching into an eternity as the photograph burned itself into your memory, you finally let out a long, breathy sigh. 

It escapes your lips slowly and deliberately. Your shoulders drop just slightly, the tension in your body shifting rather than just disappearing entirely.

"Okay, then," you say, your voice steadier than you feel. "So when do we plan to start our operations in catching this guy?"

Your fingers tap rapidly against your desk, a nervous habit you've never quite managed to shake. The rhythmic tap-tap-tap of your nails against the wood fills the silence between your words.

"If I were to suggest," your coworker begins, setting down what remains of their macaron and wiping the corner of their mouth with a napkin, "we could start this evening, maybe at around six? From the insights I've gathered from Mrs. Yoon's department, there's a high possibility they're just hanging around at the abandoned bread factory just a few turns away from the main highway. It's been one of their known spots for… well, gatherings."

You nod slowly, processing the information, already mentally mapping out the route in your head. You know that factory, or at least, you know of it. 

Everyone does. It's been decommissioned for years, a crumbling skeleton of what was once a thriving business, now reduced to nothing more than a ghost of the past.

"Then so be it, we'll start tonight. I'll come along—"

Your words hang in the air for barely a second before another voice cuts through, sharp and insistent.

"Wait, no, it's fine if you don't head out with us." One of the senior officers shifts in their seat, their expression a careful mask of concern disguised as professionalism. "We heard Mr. Nishimura is a very dangerous figure to be around. His reputation precedes him, and frankly, we don't know what we're walking into. It would be safer if—"

A beat.

The room falls silent again, the weight of unsaid words pressing down on everyone present. You can see the way your coworkers exchange glances, the subtle raise of eyebrows, the barely perceptible shake of heads. 

They know, or at least, they suspect, that there's more to your investment in this case than professional duty.

"I can manage," you say, cutting through their hesitation like a blade. Your voice is calm, measured, but there's an edge beneath the surface that wasn't there before. "I believe I've encountered people worse than him."

The lie slides off your tongue easily, smoothly. 

Have you encountered worse? 

Perhaps. 

But none of them wore the face of someone you once loved. None of them had hands that once wiped your tears, or a voice that once whispered promises of forever.

"But—"

"Nothing can change my mind. I will come along." You say it firmly this time, leaving no room for argument, your hand already reaching out for the mug of hot coffee sitting by your desk. 

The ceramic is warm against your palm and you take a slow sip, letting the bitterness coat your tongue as your coworkers exchange one final look.

After a moment, they nod, a reluctant acceptance of a battle they know they won't win. 

They've worked with you long enough to recognize the set of your jaw, the steel in your eyes. 

You're definitely not backing down.

After a quick exchange of additional reminders, meeting points, squad arrangements, who will take point, which vehicles to use, the chain of command, you wave off your coworkers, watching them gather their things and file toward the door of your office. 

Their footsteps echo against the linoleum, a steady march of duty and obligation, until the last of them disappears beyond the frame.

Then, complete silence.

After everyone has left, you still can't shrug it off. 

The feeling sits heavy in your chest, a heavy rock dragging you down into depths you thought you'd escaped years ago. 

Your college sweetheart, the boy who used to sneak you notes folded into tiny paper stars, who would wait by your dorm every morning with a smile that could melt glaciers, who held you when your world felt like it was crumbling, is now one of the most wanted criminals out there.

The irony isn't lost on you. The universe, it seems, just has a cruel sense of humor.

You take another sip of your coffee, staring down at the photograph still sitting on your desk. Riki's eyes seem to stare back at you, and for a moment, you swear you can see the ghost of the boy he used to be hiding somewhere in those depths.

God damn it, Nishimura Riki.

The cold wind of the evening hits you without warning, an invisible force that seems to have been lying in wait just for this moment. 

It whips across your face with a vengeance, sending strands of your hair flying directly into your eyes and mouth, effectively undoing the careful lip stain you had applied just moments ago in the car mirror. 

And frankly, it felt like the universe was already setting the tone for how the rest of this night was going to go.

You sputter, spitting out a strand of hair that had the audacity to stick to your freshly painted lips, and swipe at your face in frustration.

It was annoying, to say the least. 

The car driven by your colleague has run out of gas — a fact that became painfully obvious when the engine sputtered, coughed, and died an unceremonious death on the side of a road that felt far too deserted for comfort. 

In this economy, with inflation rates climbing higher than your patience has been dipping, you'd probably spend more trying to get a tow truck out here rather than just buying a few liters of gas and calling it a learning experience. 

In short, you and two more colleagues are stranded by the side of the road, surrounded by nothing but empty fields and the distant glow of city lights that feel impossibly far away.

Of course, your other workmates are aware of the situation, the department's group chat has been blowing up with a chaotic mixture of concern, directions, and at least three different people offering to bring gas. 

They're sending as much help as they can to get that car fueled up again, but with it being rush hour on a Friday evening, it'd take them a really, agonizingly long time. 

The traffic in this city is notorious, a living creature that swallows cars whole and spits them out whenever it damn well pleases.

"Why the fuck would you not fuel this bad boy up before heading out?" one of your colleagues asks, their tone caught somewhere between genuine frustration and barely suppressed amusement. 

They're trying so hard not to giggle at the absurdity of it all, a squad of trained professionals stranded on the side of the road like a bunch of teenagers on a road trip gone wrong.

"I didn't expect it to be that far," the driver shoots back, defensive, their hands gesturing wildly at the empty road ahead as if distance itself had personally betrayed them.

"You've been here multiple times," the first one counters, raising an eyebrow.

"My point still stands," the driver mutters, already pulling out their phone, navigating through the screen with practiced fingers until they find the flashlight switch. The bright beam cuts through the growing darkness, casting long shadows against the tall grass that lines either side of the road.

So what did you guys decide to do? 

After a brief, somewhat heated discussion that involved a lot of pointing at maps and debating the merits of waiting versus walking, the three of you decided to just walk to the factory. 

The idea being that it'd probably be better that way, because god knows what worse situations the car could get into aside from losing gasoline. A flat tire? Engine failure? Getting towed by some overzealous parking enforcement despite being very much parked legally on a public road? With your luck tonight, anything was possible.

A blessing in disguise, definitely. Or at least, that's what you keep telling yourself.

The factory is only an eight-minute walk away according to Google Maps, which your colleague optimistically announces while conveniently ignoring the "approximately" that usually means "longer than you think." 

To add more fuel to the fire, you guys are apparently going to be the first people to arrive there too. 

All of the other cars got separated back in the city due to the hectic traffic and busted stoplights that would flash red a few seconds too early, trapping cars in intersections and creating a domino effect of chaos that spread through every major street. 

By some cosmic joke, you three had to just be there first.

Perfect. So, so perfect. 

You could practically hear the universe laughing at you. 

The walk to the factory itself was pretty quick, maybe because you got stranded with your colleagues who were both awarded "Clown of the Year" during last year's Christmas party — a title they wore with immense pride. 

Their constant bickering, terrible jokes, and off-key humming made the eerily silent and dark walk to the factory an incredibly funny one, despite the circumstances. 

One of them kept making shadow puppets with their flashlight while the other narrated a dramatic nature documentary about "the wild detective in its natural habitat." 

It was stupid, childish even, but it kept the creeping anxiety at bay.

Finally, after about a while and two LANY songs later, one playing from someone's phone speaker, muffled by the wind but recognizable nonetheless, you arrive at the outside of the factory.

The structure looms ahead, a massive silhouette against the darkening sky. 

What was once a thriving bread factory now stands as a skeleton of industrial ambition, its windows either broken or boarded up, its walls covered in graffiti that you can barely make out in the fading light. 

But there's something else — something that makes you pause and crouch low, pulling your colleagues down with you.

You could confirm that there are people here. Even hidden behind really tall grass that reaches well above your waist, you could see the view really well. 

Years of training have taught you how to observe without being observed, how to take in details while remaining invisible.

There are two bodyguards seated by the entrance, their postures relaxed but alert, cigarettes glowing orange in the darkness as they take drags in between conversation. 

They're dressed in dark clothing, nearly blending into the shadows if not for the faint light spilling from inside the factory.

"Jeez, who hired those two to be by the entrance," a colleague of yours whispers, a sheepish grin tugging at the corners of their mouth. 

You can see them gesturing toward the guards, clearly amused by something, their posture, their expressions, maybe just the concept of them hanging by an abandoned bread factory. 

They nudge your shoulder, and you immediately nudge them back, harder, your eyes narrowing in warning, indicating for them to keep their voices down.

The place was well-lit with what seemed to be newly bought light bulbs, their brightness almost harsh against the abandoned backdrop, and a couple of vintage-style lamps that cast warm pools of yellow across the cracked concrete. 

There were maybe around three black vans parked to the side, their windows tinted so dark they looked like voids. 

And two vehicles near the entrance, one white car and another black car, sleek and expensive-looking even from this distance.

You could see, faintly, that there was a person leaning against the white car. The figure was tall, arms crossed, illuminated just enough by the nearby lamps to reveal the outline of a silhouette.

You couldn't really make out the face, or anything distinguishing. 

Just a shape. 

A presence.

Just as you guys were about to head in, with all equipment ready, earpieces adjusted, weapons checked, positions assigned, you feel your phone vibrating in your pocket. 

The buzz is insistent, urgent, and it causes all of you to halt and press yourselves further into the tall grass.

You take it out and see that one of your senior officers is ringing you up. The name flashes on your screen, and you exchange a glance with your colleagues before swiping to answer.

To cut the story short, because the conversation involved a lot of unnecessary explaining and at least four instances of your senior officer crashing out over things that could have been an email, gasoline has arrived, along with a few minor problems you couldn't be bothered to deal with right now. 

Something about one of the other cars getting a flat, another team getting stuck behind a traffic accident, and someone needing backup for a completely unrelated situation.

You ask your coworkers to head back to the car to assist with the gasoline, and check the so-called "minor problems" your senior officer was spiraling over. They hesitate, looking at each other, then back at you.

"Are you sure—" one asks, their voice barely above a whisper.

"Wait, okay, but do you not want to come? It's dark already—" another voice follows, concern lacing their words.

You assure them you'll be fine. You've done solo reconnaissance before. You know how to stay hidden, how to observe without engaging. 

After a few more pointed assurances, a few hesitant nods, and one absolutely wonky handshake that one of them insists on doing "for good luck," they were off, their figures disappearing into the darkness of the tall grass, flashlights bobbing like fireflies in the distance.

Now, it was just you.

The silence feels heavier without their voices to fill it. 

The wind picks up again, rustling the grass around you, and somewhere in the distance, you can hear the faint sound of music coming from inside the factory.

The silence presses against you like a physical weight, and for a moment, all you can hear is the thud of your own heartbeat echoing in your ears. 

You crouch there in the tall grass, hidden from view, trying to gather the scattered pieces of your composure into something that resembles professionalism.

“You can do this,” you tell yourself, the words a familiar mantra that has gotten you through countless operations before this one. You're a trained professional. You've been preparing for this moment for months. Years, even. You know the protocols. You know the risks. You know what's at stake.

But another voice, smaller, quieter, buried somewhere deep in the recesses of your mind where you keep all the things you don't want to acknowledge, whispers back: You will never be prepared for him.

You shake your head, dispelling the thought like a fly you're trying to swat away. Now is not the time to get sentimental. 

Now is not the time to think about paper rings folded from notebook pages, or locker notes written in his messy scrawl, or lazy afternoons spent tangled together on the couch with your fingers tracing patterns on his biceps. 

Now is the time to do your job.

With a steadying breath that does nothing to calm the storm inside your chest, you decide to make your move.

Creeping forward through the grass, you keep your body low, your movements calculated and precise.

Years of training have taught you how to move like a ghost, how to become invisible even in broad daylight. 

The tall blades whisper against your clothing, a soft rustling that sounds impossibly loud in the quiet of the night. 

Every few steps, you pause, listening, watching, making sure you haven't been detected.

Miraculously, and you're not sure whether to be relieved or suspicious, the bodyguards aren't at their posts anymore. The entrance stands unguarded, a gaping mouth of light spilling out onto the cracked concrete. 

Either they've moved inside, or something has drawn their attention elsewhere. 

Either way, it's an opportunity. A gift, perhaps, from whatever higher power has been toying with your fate tonight.

You consider making your way inside. The logical part of your brain, the part trained for tactical assessment, urges you forward. But something holds you back. The interior looks vast, open, with too many corners and shadows where someone could be hiding, too many blind spots where you could be cornered. 

For someone with your smaller frame, it's a risk, you've learned the hard way that being underestimated works both ways. 

It can be an advantage, yes, but it can also make you vulnerable.

Not yet, you decide, your mind already mapping out contingencies. 

Gather intel first. Know the terrain. Count your exits.

Instead, you redirect your attention to the vehicles parked outside.

Moving with purpose, you make your way toward the three black vans first. 

They're utilitarian, unremarkable, the kind of vehicles that could belong to any delivery company or construction crew. 

You note their positions, their license plates, the fact that one of them has a small dent on the rear bumper. Details that might mean nothing, or everything.

Then you move toward the two cars, the black one and the white one parked closer to the entrance. 

The black car is sleek, expensive, the kind of vehicle that screams money and power. The white one is equally impressive, though slightly more understated in its elegance, its paint catching the moonlight in a way that almost makes it glow.

You're cataloging these details in your mind, positions, makes, models, potential for pursuit or escape, when a voice cuts through the night like a blade through silk.

"Hey, sexy."

You freeze.

It's not the word that stops you cold, though you'd be lying if you said it didn't catch you off guard. 

No, it's the voice itself, the timber, the slight lilt at the end that turns what should be a cringeworthy pickup line into something almost fond. Something that sounds dangerously like the past echoing into the present, like a melody you thought you'd forgotten how to play.

Your heart slams against your ribs, once, twice, three times, as you slowly, carefully, turn around.

And there he is.

Riki stands before you, illuminated by the dim glow of the nearby lamps, looking nothing like the monster the department has painted him to be and everything like the boy who once held your heart in his hands. 

He's wearing beige cargo pants that are definitely a few sizes larger than his usual fit, hanging low on his hips in a way that speaks of comfort rather than style. A black belt cinches them at the waist, a grey shirt stretches across his chest, and a black jacket hangs open over it all.

You wouldn't expect to see that from someone who's been labeled as one of the most dangerous mafia leaders in the city. 

He looks so dang normal. 

Casual. 

He could be any other guy you passed on the street, someone you wouldn't look twice at.

Except you would. You'd look at him a thousand times over. You'd memorize every angle of his face, every shadow and highlight, every detail you thought you'd forgotten but had only buried away in the deepest corners of your memory.

He's looking at you the same way.

"What the fuck are you doing out here, Riki?"

The words spill out before you can stop them, familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. 

You've said his name a thousand times before, but saying it now, in this context, feels like crossing a line you can't uncross.

But you can't take it back. 

You don't want to.

Riki's lips curl into a smile, and it's the same smile that used to make your heart do somersaults back in college. 

The same smile that greeted you every morning by your locker with a cup of your favorite hot cocoa with extra marshmallows. The same smile that broke your heart when everything fell apart. 

There's something else there now, something softer, more vulnerable, that he's trying and failing to hide behind his casual demeanor.

"One of my goons informed us that law enforcement would possibly come out and get our asses tonight," he says, his voice carrying that familiar playful edge even as his eyes remain fixed on your face, drinking you in like you're the first drop of water he's seen in a desert. "Presented a whole list of the officers that may be involved too. Saw your name at the top of the list, and thought..."

He pauses, and for a moment, the mask slips. 

You see it, the way his breath hitches almost imperceptibly, the way his fingers twitch at his sides like he's fighting the urge to reach for you.

"I wanted to see you for myself," he finishes, quieter now. "Needed to. Even if it was just from a distance. Even if you'd never know I was there."

Your breath catches in your throat, a small hitch that sounds deafening in the quiet night. 

You don't really know what to say to that, to the implication that he's been keeping track of you, that your name on a list was enough to make him drop everything. 

That he needed to see you the same way you've been needing to see him, even if you couldn't admit it until this very moment.

And god, he's so handsome. 

Even more handsome than your Riki back in college, if that's even possible. 

The years have sharpened his features, turned the softness of youth into something more defined, more striking. His jaw is sharper, his shoulders broader, his presence more commanding. 

But beneath all that, beneath the new edges and unfamiliar angles, he's still him. Still the boy who used to buy a ton of pencils and lose them all within a day. Still the boy who used to press kisses to your cheek whenever you were feeling down.

Riki reaches up and pulls off his black shades, revealing the same pair of deep brown eyes you fell in love with all those years ago. 

They're the same, and yet different — there's something harder in them now, something that speaks of experiences you can only imagine, of choices and consequences that have shaped him into someone new.

Underneath all the hardness, beneath the walls he's clearly built around himself, you can still see it: the warmth. The tenderness. The way he's looking at you like you're the only real thing in a world full of shadows.

The realization hits you like a physical force: He's still in love with you.

"Are you not here with anyone?" he asks, and there's genuine concern in his voice, a protectiveness that makes your chest ache with the weight of everything unsaid between you. 

His brow furrows slightly, creating a small crease between his eyebrows that you remember used to appear whenever he was worried about something. "Why are you alone? That's dangerous. You shouldn't be out here by yourself."

A few problems, you want to say. Just sent them back a bit to check on things.

The words get stuck somewhere between your brain and your mouth, because he's stepping closer now, closing the distance you didn't realize you'd been maintaining. 

His scent washes over you, something warm and woody with notes of vanilla underneath, different from what he used to wear but somehow still very him, and you feel your resolve crumbling like sand in a rising tide.

"A few problems," you finally manage, your voice coming out steadier than you feel. "Just sent them back a bit to check on things."

Without even realizing it, you feel yourself lowering your guard. It's instinctive, unconscious, something about being in his presence makes you forget, just for a moment, that you're supposed to be enemies. 

That he's supposed to be your target. 

That the department is probably already on their way, and when they arrive, they'll expect you to have him in handcuffs.

But right now, handcuffs are the last thing on your mind.

He looks at you, really looks at you, and there's something in his gaze that makes your skin prickle with awareness. 

His eyes travel over your face like he's trying to memorize you all over again, cataloging every change, every detail he might have missed.

"You cut your hair," he murmurs, almost to himself. "It looks good. Really good."

The observation catches you off guard, that he cared enough to store that detail away. 

Your hand unconsciously moves to touch the ends of your hair, a nervous habit you've never been able to break.

"You remember how it used to be," you say, and it comes out almost accusatory, like you're angry at him for holding onto memories you've been trying to forget.

"I remember everything," he says quietly. "Every single thing."

The weight of those words settles between you like a physical presence, heavy with all the things neither of you is saying.

Then his expression shifts, and there's a glint in his eye that you recognize all too well, the same stupid mischievous sparkle that used to precede every terrible joke, every playful tease, every moment that made you fall harder than you ever thought possible.

"Aw," he says, his voice dripping with that familiar teasing lilt. "So you stayed back to see me personally?"

"Definitely not," you shoot back, the denial automatic, instantaneous, a reflex developed over years of pretending you didn't care.

But the words taste like a lie on your tongue, and judging by the knowing look in his eyes, he can taste it too.

"You're a terrible liar," he says softly. "You always have been. Your nose does this little scrunch thing when you're not being honest."

Your hand flies to your nose instinctively, and he laughs, actually laughs, the sound warm and genuine and so achingly familiar that it makes your heart physically hurt.

"There it is," he says, his smile softening into something almost tender. "God, I missed that."

The admission hangs in the air between you, raw and honest in a way that neither of you expected.

Riki runs a hand through his hair, a gesture so achingly familiar that it makes your chest constrict. 

The movement causes his grey shirt to ride up just slightly, revealing a strip of skin and the waistband of red boxers underneath his low-hanging cargo pants.

You couldn't help but look.

It's involuntary, a flicker of your eyes that lasts barely a second, but it's enough. Heat creeps up your neck, spreading across your cheeks, and you quickly avert your gaze, pretending you were focused on something, anything, else. 

The ground. The sky. The distant lights of the factory. Literally anything.

But when you look back at him, there's a knowing look in his eyes, a darkness that has nothing to do with the night around you. 

He caught exactly what you were doing, and more importantly — he liked it.

"See something you like?" he asks, his voice lower now, rougher around the edges.

"I—what, no, that's not —" you stammer, and you hate how flustered you sound, how easily he can unravel you with just a few words.

He doesn't push it further. 

Instead, he steps closer, and this time, there's no mistaking the intention in his movement. 

Every step is deliberate, measured, closing the distance between you like he's approaching something precious and terrifying all at once.

Your body tenses, every instinct screaming at you to step back, to maintain the distance that keeps you safe.

You stay rooted in place, caught in the gravity of his presence like a planet unable to escape its sun. 

You don't want to move. 

You don't want to run.

You want him closer.

Riki stops when he's close enough that you can count the individual lashes framing those deep brown eyes. 

Close enough that you can see the slight part of his lips, the way his breathing has gone shallow, the way his composure is cracking just as much as yours.

"You know, you have absolutely no idea," he murmurs, his voice barely above a whisper, "how many times I've thought about this moment. How many nights I've lain awake wondering what I'd say if I ever saw you again."

"And what did you come up with?" you ask, your voice equally quiet, equally raw.

He shakes his head slowly, a rueful smile playing at his lips. "Nothing. Actually, every word I practiced just immediately disappears when you're actually in front of me."

The confession sends a shiver down your spine, and you realize with sudden clarity that you're not the only one who's been holding onto this. 

You're not the only one who's been haunted by what-ifs and might-have-beens.

He's been just as affected. Just as unable to let go.

Without a word, he reaches out and wraps his hand around your wrist.

His touch is warm, firm, but not tight enough to hurt. It's a gesture of connection rather than restraint, and the feeling of his skin against yours, even just this small point of contact, sends electricity racing through your veins. 

Your pulse jumps beneath his fingers, and you know he can feel it. You know he knows exactly what he's doing to you.

"Riki, what the hell are you doing—" Your voice comes out breathier than intended, more plea than protest. "Let go."

Even as the words leave your mouth, you know you don't mean them. 

You don't want him to let go. 

You want him to hold on tighter.

Judging by the way his grip shifts, adjusting, his thumb brushing across the sensitive skin of your inner wrist, he knows it too.

"No," he says simply, and there's no command in it, no force. Just honesty, just want, laid bare between you. "I've spent years letting you go. I'm done with that."

Your heart stutters in your chest. "Riki..."

"Come on," he interrupts softly, tilting his head toward the white car behind him. "Let's get in my car. Let's have a quick little catch up about life after college."

The suggestion hangs in the air, weighted with implications that none of you want to say.

Catch up could mean a lot of things. 

Conversation. Confession. Something more.

Your mind screams that this is wrong, that you're crossing every line you've ever drawn for yourself, that you're betraying your career, your morals, everything you've worked for. 

He's a criminal. 

A target. 

Someone you're supposed to bring to justice, not follow into the backseat of an expensive car.

But he's also Riki. 

Your Riki. 

The boy who loved you first, and loved you hardest, and maybe, just maybe, never stopped loving you at all.

Your silence stretches too long, and something flickers in his eyes. Uncertainty. Vulnerability. The fear that maybe he's reading this wrong, that maybe you've moved on in ways he hasn't.

"We don't have to," he says quickly, his voice rough. "If you don't want to. I'm not—I would never force you into anything. You know that, right? I just..."

He trails off, and for the first time since he appeared, he looks young. 

Uncertain. 

Like the boy you remember, hiding behind bravado because he never learned how to ask for what he wanted without making it a joke.

He's scared, you realize. He's scared you’ll say no. He's scared this is just a fantasy he's built up in his head, and you’re about to shatter it.

The realization breaks something inside you, whatever walls you'd been holding onto, whatever professional distance you'd been trying to maintain. If he's still scared of losing you after all these years, after everything that's happened...

Then maybe you're not the only one who never moved on.

"Riki," you say, and his name comes out softer than you intend. Your free hand reaches up, almost of its own accord, and brushes a strand of hair from his forehead. 

His eyes flutter closed at the contact, just for a second, like he's been starved for your touch.

When he opens them again, there's something raw and desperate in his gaze.

"I'm not saying no," you whisper.

The words are barely out of your mouth before he's moving, pulling you gently but urgently toward the white car. 

His hand slides from your wrist to intertwine with your fingers, and the intimacy of it, the casual rightness of your hands fitting together like they were made for each other, makes your throat tight.

He opens the back door with his free hand, the other still holding yours like he's afraid you'll disappear if he lets go. 

The interior is dark, plush, expensive leather gleaming faintly in the moonlight.

"After you," he murmurs, and there's a hint of his old playfulness in his voice, tempered by something darker, something hungry.

You hesitate for just a moment, one last moment of rationality, one last chance to turn back.

Then you slide into the backseat, pulling him in after you, and the door closes behind you with a soft, definitive click.

The leather is cool beneath you, soft in a way that only expensive things can be. 

For a moment, neither of you moves. The air between you is thick, charged with years of silence finally breaking.

"So," Riki breathes, and you watch his throat work as he swallows. "How have you been?"

The question is so absurdly normal, that a surprised laugh escapes your lips. "Are you serious right now? You're asking me how I've been?"

"What? I want to know." His lips curve into that familiar crooked smile, the one that used to make you agree to every stupid idea he ever had. "It's been what, six years? Seven? I think I'm allowed to ask."

You roll your eyes, but there's no real annoyance behind it. "I've been… pretty good. Very busy. Became a detective, obviously. Got my own office. A plant I keep forgetting to water."

"A plant," he repeats, and there's something warm in his voice. "You? Forgetting to take care of something?"

"Shut it."

"Never." He shifts closer to the driver's seat, his shoulder brushing yours. 

The contact sends warmth spreading through your body. "What about you? Any relationships? Marriage? Kids?"

Your heart stumbles over itself. 

It’s like he's asking if you're available. 

He's asking if you've ever moved on.

"No," you say quietly. "None of that. You?"

The relief that flashes across his face is instantaneous and impossible to miss. "No. Never found anyone who..." He trails off, shaking his head. "No. Just work. Building an empire, I guess." His voice dips lower. "Waiting, mostly."

Waiting for you. 

The unspoken words hang between you.

Before you can respond, the engine purrs to life. Riki leans forward, pressing a button on the dashboard.

"Boss?" a voice crackles through the intercom — one of his men.

"Just heading out for a quick night ride," Riki says smoothly, his eyes never leaving yours. "I need to clear my head. Inform me ASAP when the law enforcement people arrive. I'll be back before then."

"Understood, sir."

The car eases forward, gliding away from the factory and onto the dark road.

You should probably care that your colleagues will arrive to find you missing. 

You should probably worry about the operation, your career, everything you're risking.

But Riki's hand finds yours in the darkness, his thumb tracing patterns on your skin, and suddenly none of that matters.

The road stretches ahead, empty and endless, and you let yourself sink into the warmth beside you.

"So," he murmurs, his voice dropping. "Tell me more about this plant."

The drive is quiet, but not uncomfortable. Streetlights occasionally light up the car, casting golden stripes across Riki's features before plunging you both back into shadow.

"What about your family?" you ask, breaking the silence. "Your sister, the youngest one — what was her name?"

"Sora," he answers, and there's a gentleness in his voice that only ever appears when he speaks about her. "She's good. Graduated top of her class. It makes me look like the family disappointment, honestly."

"I sincerely doubt that."

He chuckles, the sound low and warm, and shifts to face you more fully. The movement brings him closer, his arm stretching along the back of the seat behind you. "You'd be surprised. She's the good one. I'm just, well..."

"The feared mafia leader?" you supply, raising an eyebrow.

"I was going to say 'the hot one,' but sure." His grin is infectious, and you hate how easily he can still make you smile. "Does it bother you? What did I do?"

The question catches you off guard. 

Does it bother you? It definitely should. 

Everything about this should bother you. 

But looking at him now, you don't see a criminal. 

You see Riki. 

Just Riki.

"I don't know," you admit honestly. "Ask me again later."

"I'll hold you to that."

The road curves, and the car takes it smoothly. In the movement, your body sways with the momentum, and suddenly your chest brushes against his extended arm.

The contact is brief, barely a second, but the sharp intake of breath from him is unmistakable. 

Your nipples tighten beneath the thin fabric of your shirt and bra, and you know, with mortifying certainty, that he felt it. 

Surely.

The car suddenly feels too small.

A bit too small for your liking. 

"I’m so, so sorry," you murmur, your voice coming out breathless.

"Don't be." His voice has dropped an interval, rougher now. "I told you, didn't I? I'm done pretending I don't want you."

Your pulse thuds in your veins as his arm shifts behind you, his fingers lightly grazing your shoulder. The touch is feather-light, deliberate, testing.

"Riki..."

"Tell me to stop," he murmurs, his face inches from yours. "Tell me you don't want this, and I'll back off. I'll take you back to your colleagues, and we'll pretend this never happened. But you have to say it."

Your lips part, the words sitting on the tip of your tongue, the responsible words, the professional words.

But they won't come.

Instead, your hand reaches up, your fingers curling into the fabric of his jacket.

"Don't stop," you whisper.

Before you can finish your sentence, Riki's lips crash into yours.

The kiss is desperate, starving, years of longing poured into a single moment. 

His tongue sweeps into your mouth without hesitation, claiming you, tasting you, devouring you like you're oxygen and he's been drowning. 

You melt into him with a whimper, your fingers tangling in his hair and pulling hard enough to make him groan into your mouth.

"Fuck," he growls against your lips, "I've been dreaming about this mouth for years."

He pulls away with a wet sound, breathless, his chest heaving. His eyes are dark, blown wide with want, and when he speaks, his voice is wrecked.

"Back seat now, okay? I need to touch you properly, princess."

Before you can respond, he's already climbing over the console with fluid grace, maneuvering into the spacious back area. 

The car isn't just a regular vehicle — it's something between a luxury sedan and a limousine, with extended seating and room enough for someone his size to move without restriction.

As he settles beside you, his cargo pants ride dangerously low on his hips, and you catch another glimpse of those red boxers peeking above the waistband. 

An unfamiliar heat pools low in your stomach, throbbing and insistent, and you squeeze your thighs together trying to relieve some of the pressure.

Riki notices. 

Of course he does.

"Ah-ah," he tuts, his hand coming to rest on your knee, pushing your legs apart. "Don't hide from me, princess. Let me see how wet you are."

His words send a fresh wave of arousal flooding through you, and you feel your underwear sticking to your core, ruined.

"That's it," he murmurs, satisfied. "Such a good girl for me."

He guides you both to the far back, where plush cushioned seats stretch along the rear like a leather couch. 

He settles first, then pulls you onto his lap in one fluid motion. Your knees bracket his hips as his mouth finds yours again, hungrier this time, filthier, his teeth scraping against your bottom lip before soothing it with his tongue.

"Fuck," he growls into your mouth, "I've thought about this—about you—every single fucking day. Do you know how many times I've had to fuck my own fist thinking about you? Thinking about this pretty mouth, this body, the sounds you make when you come?"

You whine, high and desperate, your hips rolling instinctively, grinding down against the growing hardness beneath you. 

The friction is maddening — not enough, but too much at the same time.

"Ki, please—"

"Please what, baby?" His hands slide under your shirt, splaying across your bare back, leaving trails of fire in their wake. "Use your words. Tell me what you need."

"You, ugh, I need you—"

"Need me to what?" He's teasing now, cruel, his lips trailing down your jaw to your neck. He finds that spot, the one that makes your knees weak, and bites down before sucking hard enough to leave a mark. 

"Need me to touch you? To fuck you? To make you scream my name until you forget everything but me?"

"Fuck—yes, all of it, please—"

His hands slide up your ribs to cup your breasts through your bra, thumbs brushing over your nipples until they peak and ache beneath his touch.

You arch into him, desperate for more pressure, more friction, more everything.

"These tits," he groans, squeezing gently. "I've thought about them so much. How they'd feel in my hands, in my mouth. You have no idea how crazy you drove me, walking around in those tight shirts whenever your little squad was in the middle of an operation, you didn't know exactly what you were doing to me when I saw those pictures taken by my men."

"I wasn't—I didn't—"

"Liars go to hell, baby." His thumb flicks over your nipple, hard, and you gasp. "But you're already there, aren't you? Wet and desperate on my lap, grinding on my cock like the needy little slut you are."

His dirty words should embarrass you, but instead they just make you wetter, needier. 

Your hips grind down harder, chasing the friction you crave, and he lets out a dark chuckle.

"Look at you. So fucking desperate. You'd let me do anything to you right now, wouldn't you?"

"Yes—anything, please, just fuck me—"

"Anything?" His voice drops lower, dangerous. "Would you let me bend you over and fuck you until you can't walk? Let me use that pretty mouth until you're crying? Let me mark you up so everyone knows who you belong to?"

The words hit you like a physical force, and you shudder, nodding frantically.

"Yes, god, yes—yours, Ki—I'm yours—"

"Damn right you are." He captures your lips again, swallowing your whimpers. "You've always been mine. Even when we were apart. Even when you hated me. Mine."

His hands tighten on you, possessive and reverent all at once. Your own fingers card through his hair, tugging hard, and the sound that escapes him is downright sinful.

"Shit, princess, do that again—"

You pull harder, and he groans, his hips bucking up into you.

"God, baby, I've missed you so much — you don't even know," he murmurs against your jaw, his lips trailing hot and wet down to your neck. 

Beneath you, you can feel him getting harder, straining against the confines of his pants, and it makes you ache with want.

He's so, so big. 

You can feel every inch of him through the layers of fabric, thick and hard and pressing right against where you need him most.

"Feel that, princess?" He rolls his hips up, grinding against you. "That's what you do to me. Have been half-hard since I saw you in that grass, looking all professional and sexy, thinking you could actually catch me."

"I could have," you manage, though your voice comes out breathy and unconvincing.

He laughs, dark and low. "You didn't want to catch me, baby. You wanted me to catch you."

Before you can respond, an idea sparks in your mind.

You pull back slightly, reaching for your bag on the floor. His eyes follow your movements, curiosity flickering across his features, until you pull out the handcuffs.

His entire body goes still.

For a moment, genuine wariness flashes in his eyes. His jaw tightens, and you see his brain working — calculating, assessing. He doesn't know if this is a scheme, if you're still playing the detective, if this is all an elaborate trap to bring him in. 

The tension is palpable, his muscles coiling like he's ready to spring.

"Baby," he says carefully, "what are you doing?"

You see the uncertainty in his expression and smile, slow and wicked.

"Relax, cutie," you purr, trailing your free hand down his chest. "You're under arrest."

His brow arches, skepticism warring with arousal. "Under arrest for what?"

The raw hunger in his gaze belies his casual tone, and you lean in close, your lips brushing the shell of his ear.

"For being way too hot."

Something shifts in his expression, relief flooding in, followed immediately by dark, burning want. 

He holds out his wrists without protest, a smirk playing at his lips.

"Well then, officer. I surrender. Do with me what you will."

You click the handcuffs into place, securing his wrists together. The metal is cool against his skin, a stark contrast to the heat radiating from his body.

"Fuck," he breathes, testing the restraints. "You look so hot like this. All commanding and in control. Who knew my girl had an authority kink?"

"Shut up."

"Make me."

You shove him back against the seat, climbing over him, and capture his mouth in a bruising kiss. 

He responds immediately, straining against the handcuffs, desperate to touch you but unable to.

"Having trouble there, baby?" you tease against his lips.

"You're going to pay for this," he growls, but there's no real threat in his voice — just a promise.

"Looking forward to it."

Slowly, deliberately, you trace your fingers down his chest, over the hard planes of his stomach, following the trail of hair disappearing beneath his waistband. 

His breath hitches, muscles tensing and jumping beneath your touch.

"Your hands," he rasps. "Been dreaming about your hands on me for so fucking long."

Your fingers find his belt, unbuckling it with agonizing slowness. You take your time with the button, then the zipper, letting the anticipation build until he's practically vibrating beneath you.

"You're such a tease," he groans. "Always were. Fucking torture."

"Patience, you hunk."

The nickname catches him off guard, you've never called him that before, and his eyes darken impossibly further.

"Call me that again."

"Make me."

You hook your fingers into his pants and pull them down his thighs, leaving him in just those red boxers, his erection straining against the thin fabric. 

A wet spot has already formed at the tip, and you run your thumb over it, spreading the moisture.

"Shit, baby—" he chokes out, his head falling back against the seat. "Your fingers, they’re so—fuck—"

You lean down, your breath ghosting over him through the fabric, and he lets out a sound that's half-moan, half-whimper.

"Please, baby, don't tease me—"

"Where's that famous composure, Ki?" you murmur, pressing a kiss to his tip through the cotton. "The big bad mafia leader, falling apart from just this?"

"I'll show you falling apart," he threatens, but his voice cracks on the words. "Just wait until I get my hands on you."

"Maybe I don't want you to."

"Liar."

You grip the waistband of his boxers with your teeth, and his whole body jerks.

"Holy shit, you're—shit, so sexy, fuck—"

You drag the fabric down slowly, torturously, inch by inch, revealing the sharp cut of his hip bones and the base of his cock. 

His abdominal muscles are trembling, tensing and releasing with every shaky breath.

When you finally pull the fabric down enough for him to spring free, he's flushed and leaking, hard enough that it looks almost painful. 

He's thick and long, bigger than you could’ve ever imagined, veins running along the underside that you want to trace with your tongue.

"God, Ki," you breathe, taking him in. "You're so fucking thick. How am I supposed to take all of this?"

"Trust me, baby," he groans, his voice wrecked. "You'll take it. You'll take every fucking inch because you're my good girl, and good girls take what they're given."

The filth spilling from his mouth makes you clench around nothing, arousal dripping from you.

You wrap your hand around the base of him, feeling him pulse in your grip. He's hot, hard, velvet over steel. 

You lean in and kitten-lick the tip, gathering the precum beading there.

The sound that tears from his throat is obscene, a broken moan that echoes through the car.

"That's it," he rasps, straining against the handcuffs. "Fuck, your tongue—so good, mmgh, just like that—"

You take him deeper, hollowing your cheeks, letting your saliva coat his length. The weight of him on your tongue is intoxicating, and you moan around him, the vibration making him buck up involuntarily.

"Shit, I’m sorry, can't—" He's losing control, his hips twitching, trying so hard to stay still but failing. "Your mouth, princess, you have no idea what you do to me—"

You pull back to breathe, a string of saliva connecting your lips to his cock. The sight makes him curse under his breath.

"Look at you," he growls. "So pretty with your lips wrapped around my cock. Such a good little thing for me."

You take him again, deeper this time, relaxing your throat. 

But he's too big, you can't fit all of him, so you stroke what you can't reach, twisting your wrist on the upstroke, rubbing your thumb over the sensitive spot beneath the head.

"Oh fuck, oh fuck, baby—" His voice is cracking, his thighs trembling violently against the leather seats. "You're—you're gonna make me—"

The handcuffs clink against the seat as he strains, desperate to touch you, to grab your hair, to control the pace. 

But he can't. 

He's completely at your mercy, and it's driving him insane.

"Just like that, baby, princess, you're doing so well—taking me so good—" His words are punctuated by groans and gasps, his chest heaving. "Missed you, missed this, missed your mouth—your hands—everything—"

You hum around him, and he almost sobs.

"I'm, fuck—wait, princess, I'm gonna—"

You don't stop. If anything, you move faster, sucking harder, determined to push him over the edge. Your hand works in tandem with your mouth, slick and fast and relentless.

"Shit, you're—you're gonna make me come, baby, wait, want to come inside you—"

It's too darn late. 

With a broken cry, he spills into your mouth, hot and thick and so much of it. You swallow what you can, some of it spilling from the corners of your mouth, dripping down your chin.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck—"

He comes down slowly, his body going boneless against the seat, his chest heaving. His eyes are glassy, distant, completely fucked out.

When you finally pull off him with a wet pop, he stares at you with something between awe and obsession.

"Come here," he rasps.

You climb up his body, and he captures your mouth in a messy kiss, tasting himself on your tongue. He groans into it, filthy and unashamed.

"You're such a greedy little slut," he murmurs against your lips, but there's nothing but reverence in his voice. "Taking everything I gave you. So perfect. So fucking perfect."

You reach up and unlock the handcuffs, freeing his wrists. The moment his hands are free, he's on you, flipping your positions until you're beneath him on the leather seat, his eyes dark with renewed hunger.

"My turn," he growls.

His hands find your pants, undoing them and yanking them down your legs along with your underwear in one impatient motion. 

The cool air hits your soaked core, and you shiver.

"Look at you," he breathes, staring at your glistening folds. "So wet. Did sucking me off turn you on that much, baby? Got yourself all messy just from having my cock in your mouth?"

"Yes, god—" you admit, shameless.

"Filthy girl." But he sounds pleased. "Let me clean you up."

He starts to lower his head, but you stop him with a hand on his chest.

"Wait, I need you, right now, please—"

"But baby, I need to taste you—"

"Later, fuck me first, please, Ki—"

The desperation in your voice must get to him, because he curses and nods.

"Okay, princess. Okay. I've got you."

He lifts you effortlessly, settling you onto his lap, your core pressing against his already-hardening length. You're so wet that you slide against him easily, coating him in your arousal.

"Already hard again?" you tease, though your voice is breathless.

"For you? Always." He grips himself, positioning at your entrance. "You have no idea what you do to me. Could stay hard for you forever."

He starts to push in, and you both groan at the contact. Just the tip, but you already feel impossibly full.

"That's it," he soothes, his hands gripping your hips to steady you. "Just the tip, baby. You're doing so good."

He pushes in further, inch by agonizing inch, and you feel yourself stretching around him. It's overwhelming, the burn, the fullness, the intimacy.

"Fuck, you're so tight, so wet…" His voice is strained, his control hanging by a thread. "Relax for me, princess. Shit, let me in."

You try, forcing your muscles to unclench, and he slides in deeper.

"That's it, such a good girl, baby, you're taking me so well—"

Finally, after what feels like an eternity, he's fully seated inside you. You stay there for a moment, trembling, trying to adjust to the impossible stretch.

"You okay?" he asks, his voice softer now, genuine concern bleeding through.

"Y-yeah. Just—you're so, so big, Riki. I feel so full."

He groans, his head dropping to your shoulder. "You can't say shit like that. I'm trying so hard to be gentle."

"Don't be gentle."

His head snaps up, his eyes dark. "Baby—"

"I can take it. I want it. Fuck me, Ki. Make me feel it."

Something in him snaps.

He lifts you up and slams you back down, and you scream. It's too much, it's perfect, it's everything.

"That's it, scream for me, let me hear how good I make you feel—"

He sets a brutal pace, bouncing you on his cock, using you like you're nothing more than a toy. The sound of skin slapping against skin fills the car, obscene and wet.

"Shit, Ki, please—"

"Please what, princess? Use your words."

"Harder, I need it harder—"

He flips you onto your back, hiking your legs over his shoulders, and drives into you so deep you see stars.

"Like this? Is this what you needed, baby? Needed me to split you open on my cock?"

"Yes, god, yes—"

His hand finds your clit, rubbing tight circles, and you feel your orgasm building already.

"Come for me, baby. Come on my cock like a good girl."

You shatter, screaming his name, clenching around him so hard he hisses. But he doesn't stop — he fucks you through it, chasing his own release.

"One more, give me one more—"

"I can't, it's way too much—"

"You can. You will. Be a good girl and come for me again."

He angles his hips, hitting that spot inside you that makes your vision white out, and you come again with a broken sob, squirting around him.

"That's it, fuck, such a good girl, making a mess on my dick like the needy slut you are—"

His thrusts grow erratic, his breathing ragged.

"Where do you want it, baby? Inside? On your face? Tell me —"

"Inside, come inside me, please—"

He buries himself deep and comes with a groan, filling you with warmth. You can feel him pulsing inside you, pumping you full, and it's so dirty and perfect that you nearly come again from the sensation.

He stays inside you for a moment, catching his breath, before slowly pulling out. You feel his release trickling out of you, and he groans at the sight.

"Look at that," he murmurs. "So pretty with my cum dripping out of you."

He reaches down, gathering some on his fingers and pushing it back inside. You whimper, oversensitive.

"Can't let any go to waste, baby. This is mine. You're mine."

He pulls you into his arms, pressing a kiss to your sweaty forehead. You're both a mess, covered in sweat and come and saliva, but neither of you cares.

"I love you," he whispers against your hair. "I still love you so, so much. I have so much love to give you."

You cling to him, overwhelmed, your heart pounding against your ribs.

"I love you too," you murmur. "But Ki... how? Our jobs — we're on opposite sides—"

He pulls back slightly, cupping your face in his hands. His eyes are soft, earnest, the same eyes you fell in love with all those years ago.

"We'll find a way," he says firmly. "Because love knows no bounds. It's you. It'll always be you, no matter what."

He presses a final kiss to your forehead, then gently brushes the tangled hair from your face, wiping away the sweat and the remnants of your shared passion. 

His touch is so gentle, so tender, a stark contrast to the filth that was spilling from his mouth minutes ago.

"I love you," he says again, softer this time. "Let me love you. Let me figure this out."

You lean into his touch, your eyes fluttering closed.

"Okay," you whisper. "Okay."

⭐️ ⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

[sunnycombshome]

˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗—𝑾𝒉𝒂𝒕'𝒔 𝒂 𝒈𝒊𝒓𝒍 𝒕𝒐 𝒅𝒐? {𝑹. 𝑵𝒊𝒔𝒉𝒊𝒎𝒖𝒓𝒂 𝒙 𝑹𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒆𝒓}

˚₊· When her best friend finds out she’s an anal slut…

ೀ⋆｡˚ CW—: NSFW, no genuinely please be careful reading this because I wrote this in rebellion to the lack of non vanilla Enhypen smut, fem!reader, mentions of drinking and alcohol, ur both in college, non!idol au, best friends to lovers, cursing, tension, bickering, teasing, kissing, smut, refers to ur p✩ssy as ‘she’ and ‘her’, f♪ngering, hair pulling, an✩l, spanking, p✩ssy spanking, dirty talk, praise, degradation, teaspoon of humiliation, drooling, this entire thing gets wet and messy tbh, begging, dom! leaning Riki, he’s a cheeky asshat about it though, biting, an✿l play, hick♪es, making out, he’s kinda feral, but it’s not his fault he’s just a bit obsessed, hand k♪nk, finger sucking, thigh-job, dirty talk seriously😭, he respects women you two are just freaked out, with that being said— cl♪t bullying, he literally fucks the lashes off you, possible size ki♪nk, multiple ✿rgasms, squ♪rting, one of which happens an✿lly, u like butt stuff and he likes ur butt, petnames, Heeseung dada cameo, hand kisses, cuddling and casual confessions, aftercare, FLUFF at the end

₊·—̳͟͞͞ ꒰ঌᰔᩚ໒꒱— Pairings— A Chrome Hearts boy and his high maintenance best friend that looks like the song “Love Potions”.

˚ ༘ ೀ⋆｡˚wc. 6.7k (sorry)

˚ ༘ ೀ⋆｡˚ A/N>>> Please read the tags carefully. English is not my first language. So sorry if this is bad and if there’s any mistakes. Also, this was HELL to edit so any hate and ur fav will be next 😾

A/N.pt2– I wasn’t gonna say anything but it’s getting a bit— if ur gonna reblog, say something comment or something😭like I’m alr embarrassed😭💔

“Bullshit! You’re lying!” You gasp, leaning up off Riki just enough to smack his arm, your lips parted in a buzzed smile.

“Swear on Jay’s life I’m not! And any guy that tells you otherwise is lying!”

After hell week of classes, this is just what you needed. Fruity drinks, ridiculous conversation, and much missed downtime as music plays loudly in the background while your other friends drift about just as (if not more) plastered than you.

It wasn’t necessarily rare for you to be at parties but it was for Riki as he was always the more introverted one in your friendship. Not like anyone would be able to point that out as fact right now if they payed attention to you two tucked away on the couch as he passionately pleads his case.

Usually instead of drinking out, he’d rather drink in. It was simpler that way. Nobody trying too hard, nobody misconstruing everything and anything he’d say— just you, his interests and his peace. How you managed to drag him out with you tonight is a mystery that will remain unsolved.

The smell of his cologne and one too many shots permeates the warm air and the faith you have in your dress is nothing short of astounding as you fold one of your legs under you, the other resting on top of Riki’s foot while he finishes your drink for you— scrunching his nose before smacking his lips.

“Too sweet.” You stick your tongue out at him before swiping his drink— downing the bitter liquid out of spite.

To others, you both probably come off as more than what you are because of how close you are. Touchy enough to raise more than a few eyebrows. You aren’t though and you two never have been , it’s just how things have always been— it’s the way you’ve always been.

Close.

You both learned to ignore the stupid questions and side eyes from a society that just didn’t understand. Assumptions that because you’re both hot and tall and are basically always together that you must be fooling around.

You weren’t.

Comfort plus proximity shouldn’t be demanded to equal sex.

Cutting Riki off with a dramatic groan, you stand by your own argument.

“I’m saying guys who don’t have one exist! And that style is completely valid.” Scoffing, he doesn’t say anything for a few beats, content with massaging your leg hes pulled into his lap. Your head starts to swim as you lean back against the couch.

You’re not giving a second thought to the warm rings on his fingers wrapped around your calf, Riki’s thumb stroking your ankle absentmindedly. So used to his touch that you don’t even flinch. He’s never given you reason to. Just when you think you should’ve ate more before drinking so much, he asks— low voice full of curiosity and something that could be dangerous; plump lips tilted in a lazy grin.

“Then do you have one?”

“Huh?”

Riki laughs, jerking his chin up at you. “You heard me. Do you have one? A thing.”

In the long course of your friendship, you’ve talked about everything. Anything. Even the nothing in between but this was uncharted territory. It was also fun. The sudden intensity has your nerves going haywire— making you almost giddy as another drunken giggle spills out of you.

“Why do you wanna know?” Riki shrugs.

“Following your logic so humor me.” You roll your eyes as if contemplating before shaking your head at him, barely holding back a smile at the way he honest to god pouts.

“Come on! Pleaaasee? I’ll be your best friend?” You snort at that and the sound widens the grin on Riki’s lips, hands moving more incessantly as he whines and whines until you give in.

Motioning him closer with pretty nails that he paid for, he comes. Breathing in the sugar of your perfume as blown eyes stare into his lidded ones. The sound of partying around you has you dropping your voice to a conspiring whisper against his parted lips with how close to you he is.

He’s pretty. You think not for the first time but anyone with eyes can tell that Riki Nishimura is objectively gorgeous.

“Promise not to tell anyone?”

Still, nothing more than platonic interest as he nods, face flushed from the alcohol, Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat as he whispers back,

“Yeah. ‘S our secret.”

Taking a deep breath that’s more his air than your own, you tell him.

“I’ve always thought anal was hot.”

Your smile is way too bright for what just came out of your mouth and more importantly, you two shouldn’t even be having this conversation as hammered as you are and yet—

Riki chokes, brows raising higher by the second. Jaw dropped like he can’t believe it once what you said truly registers. Looking you over one more time and he realizes he definitely can. “You ever done it before?” You shake your head no as the playful atmosphere shifts.

Heated but not quite on fire.

“Then what do you like so much about it if you’ve never done it?” His focus is completely zeroed in on you and it’s intense. Shifting to feign some sort of normalcy, you reach up to play with his hair.

“I mean I’ve done— have toys and stuff but I guess I just like the completely taken-ness of it? Of someone fucking both of my holes because they own both of my holes and—“,

“Because you’re a slut and you’d let them?” The low rasp is whispered directly in your mouth and the sharpness of the jab short circuits you. Riki’s called you names before and you never minded but the way he was doing it now made you want.

Earliers warmth begins to simmer low in your stomach, temperature rising. Still, you beam back at him, shameless as ever as you bat pretty lashes.

“Exactly. You know me so well.” Burying his face into your neck, he growls in your ear— rough and primal and you gasp; holding his shirt that much tighter. Moving to look into your eyes again, this time it’s there.

Neither of you say anything.

Riki’s head is still reeling from inebriation and the image of you fucking your asshole with toys you bought and never told him about while you’re fighting unconsciousness with wet panties and a content smile when—

“Yo, Niki!”

Turning his head, his friend James walks in the room. He notices the position you’re in but doesn’t say anything because he’s long since come to terms with the fact that you two aren’t like that. To him it’s unbelievable because if he had a pretty girl best friend with great style and an even better ass, he’d be all over that but to each their own.

“We’re about to go get into a couple rounds of flip over, wanna be on my team?”

Riki breaks into a grin. “I’m there, hold on”, he turns to you; kissing both your cheeks until you whine in tired irritation, pushing his face away.

“There she is— where’s your phone?” You’re ready to pass out or pee but you’re nice enough to reach inside your dress and hand him your cell before you do. Typing in your password, he sends a quick text to your other close friend Esther telling her to come pick you up because you’re clearly done for the night.

Meanwhile, his other friend Heeseung has also come to see what the hold up is as Riki helps you to your feet.

“Hey— I’m gonna go play a few games with the guys but Esther is on her way to come pick you up. Be good, okay baby?” You pout, clearly displeased by the very one sided choices made.

“I’m leaving?” Riki puffs out an amused laugh.

“Yes, I’d take you home but I’ve been drinking too so it’s not safe.” Another huff, this time you push your hair back too, lashes fluttering sweetly as you whine out,

“But I haven’t even been fucked yet.” James head snaps up, jaw dropped at the same time Riki’s eyes widen but Heeseung is quicker than the both of them, moving to you with his lips curved in an entirely too tempting smile.

“I could definitely do that for you if you’d like baby—“,

“Hmm! And that’s enough”, Riki cuts in and has you over his shoulder in record time. Sending a look to Heeseung that says ‘don’t push it’.

“Life already has her covered in that department— slow music and everything but thanks.” Walking out of the room, you wave bye to Heeseung. Wasted, tits threatening to come out any second and missing an earring while your dress has ridden up to the point where your bare ass cheek is on Riki’s jaw and Heeseung?

He waves back.

A couple minutes later Esther is there to get you, you go home while Riki stays and your earlier moment is forgotten as a fireball induced episode.

Weeks go by.

You two still hang out, you still go shopping, Esther still tells you you can ditch him at any time to bump coochies eternally with her but Riki still hasn’t forgotten what you told him that night you were so drunk that you swore you were 30 feet tall. The way you looked, the way you smelled— glossy lips parted in a devastating smile as you whispered,

“I’ve always thought anal was hot.”

Sends blood to his dick every time. It’s like your voice haunts him along with that short strapless dress and the soft plumpness of your ass when you were hoisted over his shoulder. Hes reluctant to admit that he did not like Heeseung or anyone hitting on you for that matter. Which is strange because you’ve told him about your hookups before and he’s mentioned a few of his own but he’s never seen you in that way so why?

He thinks he’s subtle trying to figure it out but he’s not.

In other words, you notice.

Riki has always had a staring problem but these days it’s become a chronic condition of his. Not just the staring but the touching.

He’s always touched you, but now he touches you like he’s looking for something, large hands constantly feeling over you. Palming your thighs, waist, neck, shoulders, hips and even your ass before smoothing up your back.

Stepping back a bit so you can look at him, the silent pressure baring down on you from the weight of his stare is unnerving.

“Niki”, you swallow down your nerves, “Is everything okay?”

You two just got back to his place from the mall, there was a new drop he wanted to get and you needed a place to show off your newest heart-shaped heels. And it had been nice but something just felt stilted.

You don’t know it but looking into your eyes, all he can picture is you on all fours playing with both your holes as you writhe dazed and needy trying to cum.

He’s touching you again, standing so close he can count the glitters scattered on your skin from your perfume. Wordlessly, he pulls you back into the hug, face buried in your throat. You shiver when he inhales, warm breath tickling you as you cautiously return the embrace. He’s touchy but he’s normally not so…clingy. Maybe something happened that he’s not ready to talk about? Or maybe it’s just been a rough wee—

“I like this top.” He mumbles, fingers brushing the hem of your arguably indecent shirt. That was just your style though. Where he was baggy, you were skimpy.

“Thanks—“,

“Like the skirt too. Where’d we get it?”

“Ed Hardy.”

“Mmm…”

Now, you’re worried.

“Okay— what’s up?” Moving back again, you’re quick to put out your hand to keep the distance when he tries to move in again.

“What are you talking about?” He’s immediately defensive. You huff.

“I mean what’s with you?” Riki stays quiet so you persist. “You’ve been so… I don’t know— weird lately. Like there’s something you’re holding back and I know”, you keep going but louder when he opens his mouth to speak, “I know I’m a lot of things but I am not dumb.”

He calls your name but you’re so fed up you’re shaking. You know that he knows how much you hate being purposefully kept in the dark.

“What is it you aren’t telling me?” Your faces crumples when he stays silent, shaking his head.

“Do you not want to be friends with me anym—“,

“No!” You jump at his sudden volume, some of the hurt easing off your face and you let him pull you in again, dropping his head on your shoulder. Overly aware of the way he can’t seem to keep off of you.

He breathes out something like a tired laugh, low and raw with hunger.

“Baby.”

Your breath hitches.

“Do you really not remember?” Goosebumps break out along your arms when you feel him nose up your jaw to your ear, kissing it with all the slow heat of a starved hellhound finally allowed to eat. Your voice comes out shaky, nothing like yourself as your heart pounds wildly.

“R-remember wh—“,

“Exactly.” What little bit of your bearings you were trying to gather scatter again when you feel tongue, sloppy and hot lapping at your throat before plump lips suck at your jaw.

“And here it’s all I’ve been able to think about.”

It’s like being struck by lightning, how fast arousal burns through you. Igniting every nerve with a wicked heat. You squirm, trying to fight the way you’re actively melting against your best friend of all people. Riki groans when you say his name. A breathy, confused little thing that has him chubbing up in his pants.

“That night”, he pauses to breathe you in again. Moving like he’s drunk— he’s all over you, “At Suihiro’s party”, you admittedly remember close to nothing about that night but wait for him to continue.

“You told me you like getting your ass fucked.”

Your central system drops. Malfunctions more like.

“I— t-that’s—“, words scramble and fall apart on your tongue. So much was happening. This is your best friend. Why does he know about one of your more taboo fantasies? You’ve talked about sex but for the most part kept it brief.

This shouldn’t be happening but it is.

You shouldn’t be letting it but you are.

Nothing’s changed right?

He’s the same best friend that’s seen you wax your stomach and free-bleed when you were at the end of your rope during your period. You’ve seen him snot cry over his first kiss accidentally being a guy instead of the girl he was nuts about when you were in 8th grade.

You were the first to defend him in anything. The first to include him when he was excluded and the only to stand by him when he’d get exiled as the quiet weird kid until he developed and got hot. Then suddenly all his imperfections were chic.

You were there for each other through it all.

“It’s okay”, he purrs, hands greedily kneading your waist before smoothing up your sides, thumbs caressing just below your breasts.

“I’m not making fun of you— I think it’s hot too.”

More wet kisses rain down on any skin he can reach, mouth open and ravenous when he slots it against yours. It’s filthy, your tongues sliding and curling around each other while you hang onto him like your life depends on him.

Riki’s lips feel so good on yours it leaves you breathless. Ridiculously plush lips pull and suck at yours and the pleading moan you sigh into his mouth drives him off the edge of reason. He needs to have you.

One hand leaves your waist to grab the hair at the back of your head, holding you harder to his mouth as he moves his head to deepen the kiss, sucking on your tongue until you feel it in your clit and distantly it dawns on you.

You’re wet.

“Niki…”, you breathe. Barely more than a whimper but the pure need in it has him sliding off your lips with a harsh suck.

Panting against his mouth, he rests his forehead against yours, swallowing your taste as he breathes in another lungful of you. The fingers wound in your hair tighten, making you bare your throat and the even the sting feels good.

“Fuck, don’t say my name like that”, starving eyes take in the picture you make. Eyeliner starting to smudge because of your teary eyes, lip color smudged to all hell on your kiss-swollen lips, stiff nipples poking through your shirt.

“You’re so fuckin’ sexy”, surging to your mouth again, Riki kisses you until the breath you inhale— he exhales. He kisses you with the encompassing desperation of the voice screaming in his head mine, mine, mine.

“Thought about you for weeks”, he confesses. “Please,”, kissing his way back down your throat, teeth grazing your pulse, holding his tongue flush to it long enough to feel every quickened beat. He’s never been this out of his mind and he can’t seem to stop and what’s worse?

You don’t want him to.

“I want to sooo bad— but only if you want to-“, you cup his face to slow him down a little, ground him even though yes, you do want to but it’s affection. Affection from you. Don’t you know what that does to him? Picking you up, your legs instinctively wrap around his waist.

Your eyes widen when you feel how hard he is but Riki doesn’t pay it any mind, too busy sucking countless bruises into your neck. Moaning high and needy when his full lips brush over that spot that makes you shiver.

“Niki…” you start but in all honesty you don’t know where to. You can’t believe you missed the budding attraction between you two. How one little spark could turn into a house fire.

“Yeah, pretty? M’here.”

And he wasn’t making things easier for you.

“You’re— hard…”, voice trailing off almost shyly but to him it’s cute. You’re normally so bold, cheeky and now? Raising his head level to yours he smiles like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

“Of course I’m hard— been hard for weeks. Ever since you told me that you like to fuck yourself, toys and all in—“, another slot of heat slams through you so strongly it makes you gasp, slapping a palm over his mouth before he can finish.

“Riki Nishimura!”

The smug look doesn’t go away as you slowly move your hand, silently daring him to run his mouth one more time. He doesn’t have to, you do it for him when that last bit catches up.

“Wait, I told you about the toys?” He shouldn’t revel in your obvious embarrassment so much but your reactions were so, so good. Instead, he simply nods, going back to smooching slow, heated kisses up your jaw.

“And the worst part is you don’t even need ‘em”,

“I’ll fuck you wherever you want, baby.” His voice is coated with honey, sweet enough to make you dissolve into him like a sugar cube in tea. Shifting you in his hold, he grinds against your pussy. The wet fabric clings deliciously to your clit, a perfect friction that has you keening needily into his mouth.

“Jus’ gotta let me…”, Riki drags your bottom lip out with his teeth before letting go, kissing it when it pops back into place and blood roars in your ears. Then, you’re nodding. Handing over your willing and eager consent to the one person you thought you’d never get with.

Faster than you can keep track of, you’re thrown over a shoulder and then on top of a bed.

Riki moves fast.

Clothes fly.

First his, then yours. You can’t help the way you stare— from his pretty face down the toned contours of his body and the tattoo he wound up getting of your lips one night when a friend of yours asked if you two were dating.

“She’s my best friend, no we’re not a couple.” When he got asked why not, you simply bent down, lifted Riki’s shirt and pressed your lips tight against the flat of his pelvis. Winking at him when you were done, you pranced off with the next dummy that wouldn’t last a week with you.

His friend was stunned but Riki was all too used to it.

“Too busy being a sex symbol.” Shooting him a sleazy grin, he points to your fresh lipstick. “See?”

Your eyes trail lower to the concerningly large bulge; whining low in your throat when you imagine it inside you. Pulling Riki to your lips he’s practically falling over to kiss you. Lips move firm against each other, fruity smelling breath coasts across his mouth in hot puffs making him groan.

He’s so hard.

The low sound rouses something inside you as you lick across the seam of his mouth, taking his bottom lip in your own mouth; sucking before pulling away with a wet moan— looking up at the remnants of Riki’s sanity with hazy ‘fuck me’ eyes.

Oh it’s like that?

Wordlessly, Riki flips you onto your stomach, ignoring your indignant huffs as he arches your back nice and high— ass perfectly displayed. The sight makes him groan, brows furrowed in restraint. Your cunt looks good enough to eat, darkened fabric hugging your pussy lips because of how soaked you are.

“Damn, look at her— so sloppy f’me…”

Your breath stutters so hard you choke, cunt clenching around nothing when you feel him drag your underwear down your trembling thighs. Partially because of nerves and because you know any moment now, he’ll see it. And he does.

Right when he deepens your arch, hips tilting when he catches a glimpse of it.

There, above your sopping wet pussy is your other hole and snug inside is a crystal clear plug. Your hole is stretched around it, giving your asshole the prettiest fucking gape but what really gets him is the sound you make when he tugs it juuust a little.

Riki freezes, cock twitching almost violently.

Slick drips steadily out of you now, making a mess on his sheets when he does it again, feeling the way your hole grips the intrusion.

“You really are a little anal slut”, squeezing your eyes shut, you shake your head no against the pillows but the proof is right in front of him.

Cooing, Riki cracks a heavy hand down on your ass and you jerk— bleating out a sharp cry as he does it again to your opposite cheek. The pain feels so good. Your watery eyes glaze over while your swollen pussy leaks.

“No? Then why is she so wet, baby?” You don’t have an answer and you both know why.

“Has this been in the entire time?” It’s too embarrassing to say. Makes you feel called out, exposed— like a pervert but you don’t wanna stop.

Riki keeps you spread and arched for him as he brings his hand lower, flicking your clit with a sudden brutal kind of precision as you scream. You know what you have to do if you want him to ease up but you stay silent until the flicks turn into slaps— sharp, direct and punishing on your poor nub.

The sounds are disgusting.

Sloppy and vulgar and everything that’s been consuming him as he watches you smear your makeup drooling into his pillow. Heat flashes inside you in waves, smashing your sense onto the shores of shameful desperation.

More slaps hail down on your puffy folds when you don’t respond, strings of your wet slick stick to his hand every time he brings it down on you. On one particularly harsh hit, his warm ring catches on your clit nearly sending you into convulsions as you break— voice wrecked and pathetic.

“Mmmph— y-yesss! Fuck me, yess-! s’ been in the whole time”, your voice cracks in a way that sounds nothing like you as you beg. “Please— Niki!”

The hand between your thighs goes from punishing to rewarding, swirling your clit in nasty circles. You’re so wet it’s obscene, audible. Riki presses himself flush to your back, biting the mark he left over your pulse hard enough to make you writhe while your pussy cries all over his hand.

You spread your legs wider when he backs up a bit just to look at you. Asshole stuffed, folds swollen and enflamed after being spanked raw, slick dripping in rivulets because your cunt is still empty as you present yourself for him so prettily.

“Look at you”, his timbre pours over you like warm velvet. “She’s drooling so much— s’like she’s starving.”

His other hand smooths up the soft curve of your ass, tracing the base of your toy before tugging— the first flared ball pops from your rim and the result is instantaneous.

He watches your pussy convulse, spasming tight around nothing at the same time your clit throbs against his fingers as he strums the overstimulated nub faster. The cry that comes out of you is visceral, hardly passable as cute to your own ears but you’re so lost in the depravity of pleasure that how it all looks doesn’t matter.

“Such a messy little slut.”

And shoves it right back in, the force of pressure felt through that gooey spot near your bellybutton and for a second you think he’s killed you.

Your entire body locks before exploding. Eyes rolling back, drool pooling beneath your cheek as white-hot pleasure overtakes you. A wet noise between a moan and a scream belts from your chest before ending in a sob of his name seconds before your pussy starts to gush and he moans with you. Biting his lip at the absolute scene you make.

“Thaaats my good fuckin’ girl…”, he hisses through clenched teeth. “Pissing cum all over me, just what we needed, yeah baby?” Jesus fuck.

You wail. Riki doesn’t stop.

So you keep cumming. Harder than you ever have— hard enough to make your head begin to hurt, legs shaking as you begin to cry in earnest, fat tears streaking your once perfect makeup. Every wracked sob is met with a burning heavy spank. When you try to get away, move up the bed to catch some type of break, large fingers wind around your neck to hold you in place.

“C—“, your voice cracks. “Came already! M’ done!”

Riki hums, as if contemplating the validity of your statement before fucking two fingers in your empty hole with a damningly loud squelch. She immediately tightens, sucking his fingers like it’s exactly what she was crying so much for and he can feel it.

The way she clenches in greedy pulses.

Scoffing out a condescending laugh through his nose, he grinds the heel of his palm on your still throbbing clit.

“No you’re not, not even close but you’re gonna be good for me until I say you are. Okay?”

And you nod. Because you’d let him do whatever he wanted to you and he knows that.

You’d always let him.

Times when you were out together with your friends and you’d get overwhelmed and ask to be alone and when they’d leave he’d stay because he knew you’d let him. The constant in your life.

The constant exception.

You’ve loved him since day one.

You gasp when he twists his fingers inside your sappy walls and his name escapes your lips needy and unbidden. Draping himself over you, he’s there— leaning over to meet you in another wet kiss. Shudders wrack your body as he licks into your mouth, tongue undulating against yours in the nastiest movements and more heat washes over you making you twitch around him as you get wetter.

There’s 3 fingers now, stretching you out something utterly sick. Chest heaving, there’s no time to catch your breath when his thumb is back on your clit— strumming in mean, heady swipes.

You lose it.

Thick, wet trills shred your throat— pressure building until you can’t take it. Riki watches you fall apart again for him, hypnotized by the way your cunt swallows his fingers. His entire hand is covered in you as your breath quickens. Your raw, teary sobs has his cock aching as they take on another pitch entirely. “You— fuck-! ‘S always you!”

Something darker than possessiveness rolls over him at your confession, pupils widening with a frightening kind of hunger when he curls his fingers— knuckling into that gooey spot that turns you to static as you drool.

You were so lovely like this—sweaty and overwhelmed. All for him; pretty face contorted in agonizing bliss as you cum with spread legs in his lap— drenching you both in your juices. Dipping his head, he takes your mouth in another melty kiss, grinding his leaky erection against your ass, groaning when he feels your slick walls pulsate.

“Gonna cum again, sweetness?” Riki purrs lowly against your lips, lapping a hot swipe across the seam of your open mouth.

Stars dance in your eyes as you nod, letting out a weak hiccuping sob of what you hope sounds like confirmation. Heat coils tight and thick in your center— consuming you in its raw bliss. “Words baby, the ones you love mouthing off t’me with.”

Immediately, indignation sears across your face as you shake your head to deny it. Pointless because it’s true. You have a smart mouth— always had a smart smooth and because he’s always around you, he usually catches the worst of it. Riki hums, brow raising in mock belief.

“No? That couldn’t have been you”, he concedes, really fucking into your g-spot now as he fucks your sopping cunt with a vicious precision. “Not when all it takes to get you so sweet and obedient is a stuffed asshole and someone touching your crybaby pussy right?”

Oh god. He’s trying to kill you.

“You’re a good girl as long as you get these greedy holes fucked, yeah?”

“Y-yeah.. ‘m your good girl.”

A clear slot of arousal soaked in satisfaction, settles in his gut before pooling out, leaving him scorching from the inside out.

Thrusting harder, he switches from the heel of his hand to thumb— treating your clit like a fidget toy; moving the plug in tandem, your puffy rim squeezing and stretching. It’s entirely too much, your skin practically vibrating when he starts to batter that spot that has your teary eyes rolling all the way back.

Squirming, your swiftly approaching end is so piercing you don’t know what to do with yourself. Watery babbles pour from your swollen, spit-soaked lips, trying so hard to listen.

Riki hisses as you tighten like a vice, creamy squelching from your pulpy cunt echo in a spine tingling harmony with your moans.

You’re on cloud nine, body one raw nerve from the pleasure but he doesn’t stop. If anything, he goes harder; veiny forearms bulging as he works you stupid. “Just like that, pretty. We needed this sooo bad..” He breathes out, voracious want in his voice and you push out a hoarse cry.

“I know,” his low voice cooes— your toes point and relax as your body is submerged in wave after wave of numbing euphoria; your best friend watching you go brainless in real time.

“Can’t believe you thought I didn’t wanna be friends anymore…”

The idea of him ever leaving you before was ridiculous but especially now. Enamored with the lewd way your stuffed hole stretches around his fingers, clit fat with arousal, the next heavy strums are personal. “I wanna be everything, pretty girl”, you can hardly breathe anymore, mouth open in a choked wail as his thick digits pummel you.

“And you, gorgeous”, leaning over you again, he kisses you feverishly— filling your mouth with tongue as you suck on the wet muscle. Riki growls, letting you get your fill until he pulls away with a wet slop.

“You’re gonna cum for me.”

He slams your plug in to the hilt so he can hold you still; broad hand snapping around your windpipe to hold you to the bed— make you take it while he talks you right off the edge.

Truth is you couldn’t hold it if you tried. The first wave has your stomach caving. Ecstasy— brighter than you’ve ever known it burns a hole straight through your gut as you spin the fuck out.

Convulsing, grunting— the simmering heat boils over you and you cum so hard the sounds coming from you aren’t even human. Raw. Unfiltered. Ugly—as Riki fucks you through it making your empty head spin at the effortless way he holds you down.

“Yeahhh baby”, he husks lowly, “Let her make her slutty mess f’me..”

It’s hell at this point.

Every nerve seems to grow teeth, you feel like you’ve been dunked in lava as he crooks his fingers juuust right into that melty nook; your jaw drops in a silent scream— mind blank as he chokes you out with his thick fingers so deep you erupt.

The sound of your gushing pussy sets his blood alight so wickedly it borders on sickening. You’re too gone to notice as you squirt all over him. Letting go of your throat to bully your clit, the headrush intensifies your sensitivity. Utterly torn wails stream from your mouth when Riki strums the flat of his fingers fast over your pulsating bundle of nerves. “Keep cumming, gorgeous— squirt yourself to a headache f’me.”

You’re shaking, incoherent— countless orgasms bleeding into another as you burst. It’s unending. It’s hedonistic.

He doesn’t care and you don’t either.

He’s suffered wanting you and now he knows you want him too. You don’t know how long of a time you’re in for.

Fingers spread you out as he thrusts away, other hand beating your clit with light spanks. You don’t know if you’re dying or going crazy but it’s addictive— Riki. Your Niki. Indulging you and owning you until you break.

The sobs and cries turn positively shrill when he snatches your plug all the way out. Cursing loud when he watches how your asshole stays open like something’s in it even though she’s empty— used rim twitching as she gapes deliciously.

You’re nothing but a hoarse, broken down sob as you cum again from the continued stimulation— miserably soaking you both in your release as you gush deliriously, finally collapsing boneless on his sheets.

Panting, you try to catch your breath when wet fingers tap your lip. On autopilot, you suck them into your mouth, tongue curling around each one under Riki’s molten gaze.

“That’s it, clean yourself off my fingers like a good fucktoy.”

His rasped words send another twinge to your overstimulated pussy.

You’ve pretty much lost your voice at this point but he still hears when you ask,

“Gonna fuck me now?”

Slow kisses follow down your sweat slick spine, his fat tongue following the sheen and he hums at the taste of you. Before he can answer your hands are on your ass, spreading yourself and letting him get a good look at your sloppy, abused holes.

Riki’s mind goes blank.

You keep talking. Any lingering shyness having left sometime when he had you coming in rotation.

“Y-You,” you choke out, breath coming in short pants, “Every time I’d sit in your lap I-I wondered—what it would be like.” You look into Riki’s eyes, pretty eye makeup ruined, black streaks down your cheeks— even your falsies had come off but damn it all, you’ve never looked lovelier.

“You’re so big, Ki.”

And for the second time since he’s known you, Riki’s mind goes completely blank.

Raising your hips, he eyes the way you clench your thighs. Suddenly remembering something unfortunately important, he holds you still against him— sliding his flushed cock through the tiny hole at the apex of your thighs. Riki drops his head to your shoulder with a pained groan feeling syrupy wetness coat his length. Along with your clit throbbing against him and you whine when he doesn’t move.

“Inside”, you plead but it kills him to tell you—

“I don’t have any condoms on me, baby”.

The way you look back at him, like the waterworks are about to start any moment because you’re not getting the rest of what you want is as endearing as it is heartbreaking.

Rushing to console you, he adds,

“I know we’re both clean but you’re not on the pill either, sweetheart.” Fuck he’s right.

Shoving your face into the pillow with your lashes on it, you scream out a frustrated cry. Still, his hands roam all over your heated body, trying to think through the arousal deepening the red of his very blood to come up with a safe, suitable alternative but he can’t resist.

Rocking his hips through the tight space between your thighs. The hot friction against your clit is heavenly with the soft fat of your warm thighs squeezing his cock— your shaky sigh makes his ears perk up. Running his fingers down your back to your perfect ass, thrusting faster as she slobbers more each time his fat head catches on your engorged clit.

Taking your hand fisting the sheets, he raises it to his lips— kissing the back of it so reverently it makes your heart stutter. He leans down after and kisses you like he loves you because he does. Bossy, shameless and critical, easy when the mood struck you and more understanding than people would ever give you credit for but his. Difficult and teasing in short clothes— but his.

And you were close.

You’re getting close, this time with him. You were already so sensitive and he’s pent up with weeks of you running through his mind naked in every position imaginable. You writhe against him restlessly when he presses his pelvis flush to your ass, glancing below to look at his pretty dick— glistening with pre and you.

Riki goes faster as you throb against each other. Drenched, filthy and wrecked.

“Next time”, he rasps- voice ragged with promise. “I’m gonna fucking ruin you.”

Fingers brush the entrance of your pussy to your ass, circling more wetness along the rim— Riki moaning at the way you jolt, begging hole winking at him.

You’re a lunatic. You must be. That’s the only excuse you can think of when you use the one good deep breath you’ve been able to catch to say—

“I-I can’t wait”, you swallow. “Want you to ruin both your holes.” He already was going to but you just pushed up the deadline.

“You have no idea, baby. Gonna fuck you so stupid, just how you like.”

Your breath catches in that whiny bleat it does when you’re at your limit— it makes his balls ache when suddenly you’re creaming. The milky white painting his cock like gloss and it fucks him up so badly that he’s cumming right after.

Teeth sinking into your neck, molten cum spurts out in fat chords, thick and heavy and so much— frothy streams that just don’t stop, pumping in sopping grinds that nuzzle your slippery folds and the sensation makes you purr.

“Fuckin’ milking me— damn…”

The aftermath is hot. The lean muscle of Riki’s body, covered in each others release— his big hands steady on your waist to help you fuck yourself through it. The rush of adrenaline leaves your head dizzy, falling flat on your stomach with Riki on top of you.

You don’t mind the weight, in fact you welcome it. Humming with a delighted, thoroughly exhausted sigh. Closing your eyes, you feel him pepper kisses along your shoulders, kissing your cheek with a tenderness you rarely get to witness so earnestly. He was sweet like that.

“I like you. Let me be your boyfriend.”

And demanding.

Sleepily, you shrug— not even trying to hide your grin.

“Sure, I’d love to.” You peek an eye open at the stunned expression on his face.

“Don’t look so surprised, you know I love you.” For someone who was saying the raunchiest shit to your face only minutes ago with no shame whatsoever, now blushing because you just told him you love him back is—

“I know, I love you too just—“, you cut him off with a dramatic gasp.

“Then why’d you say you only like me?”

“I was trying to be nonchalant!” It’s so ridiculously him that you can’t help but beam, flipping over to hug him properly and he holds you just as tight; burying his face in your naked chest.

“Whatever, you’re my girlfriend now— no take backs.” A bubbly laugh shoots out of you as he scoops you up, heading to the bathroom so you can clean up— sighing contently in his arms while you agree.

“No take backs.”

a little something while you wait…

for part two<3

The Spin-off: What’s a boy to do?

[jaypetals]

GET IT TWISTED nm.r

—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.

nishimura riki x female reader 22460k

part one | part two

WARNINGS! smut, fingering, penetrative sex, cum, praise kink, light degradation, tongue piercing, genital piercing (Jacob’s Ladder), nipple play, nipple piercing, semi-public sex, stalking/harassment, jealousy, possessive behaviour, angst, mentions of violence, criminal history, past domestic abuse, miscommunication, actions over words, past trauma, healing arc (for riki)

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.”

“Riki—”

“Forget it, Y/N.” Quiet. Final. Not angry — worse, flat. Decided.

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.

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