#wonwoo scenarios

[memoiresofaneternaldreamer]

Co-Op Mode

Pairing: Game developer! Jeon Wonwoo x Game developer! F. Reader

Themes: Smut | Angst | Gamer AU | Workplace Rivals | Hidden Identity | Virtual Romance | Corporate Competition | Enemies to Lovers

Wordcount: 37.2K

Playlist: 'GAM3 BO1' - Seventeen | 'Tamagotchi' - TIMMS | 'Play Date' - Melanie Martinez | 'PS5' - salem ilese, TXT, Alan Walker | 'Ma Meilleure Ennemie' - Arcane, Strommae, Pomme

Smut Warnings: Explicit sexual acts - Phone Sex - Mutual Masturbation - Dom! Wonwoo - Brat! F. Reader - Biting - Choking - Hairpulling - Semi Public Sex - PIV - Unprotected intercourse

This story is intended for an adult audience only. Minors do not interact.

You are going to die here.

That’s the thought that keeps drifting through your head as you blink at the same line of dialogue for the twelfth time, the blue light from three mismatched monitors painting your apartment in shades of insomnia. Your eyes burn and your spine feels like it’s been replaced with poorly implemented ragdoll physics, but your fingers keep moving anyway, muscle memory dragging you forward.

Your desk is a war zone. Empty energy drink cans stand around your keyboard. Sticky notes cling to the edge of your monitor in neon layers, covered in half-legible scribbles about branching choices and emotional beats, little arrows connecting one colour to another as if you thought that would actually help at the time. There’s a cold slice of congealed pizza on a plate somewhere under a pile of printed scripts you swore you’d recycle three days ago. A hoodie you don’t remember taking off is half on your chair, half on the floor. Somewhere under it all, your phone vibrates and then gives up when you don’t bother to check.

You crack your knuckles, stretch your neck until it pops, and reread the dialogue you just typed. You grimace. Too melodramatic, not enough specificity. Too “late-night drama,” not enough “player agency.” You delete the line and start again, fingers clattering, a soft plastic storm in the quiet of your apartment. The clock in the corner of your screen informs you, very helpfully, that it’s 02:43.

You were supposed to send the final script for this indie client six hours ago. But they pushed new requirements yesterday – “a more emotionally resonant, cinematic ending, you know, like that huge AAA title but different enough that we don’t get sued” – and then attached a list of notes that made it clear they had no actual idea what they wanted. Typical.

You scroll through the feedback again, jaw tightening at the last line: We know you’re really good with feelings and stuff, so just sprinkle some of that magic on there. We’ll worry about the “real” game bits. You don’t need a mirror to know your expression right now could curdle milk.

Sure. Feelings. Sprinkle some on. Like parsley. Like you’re not the one who also mapped their entire progression path because they didn’t hire a systems designer and hoped you wouldn’t notice.

Your cursor blinks. You type, erase, retype. The story in your head is broader than what’s making it onto the screen; it always is. Your brain wants to build a whole trilogy, and your contract only pays for four endings and twelve unique dialogue paths. You keep catching yourself jotting down ideas that go way beyond scope, then crossing them out hard enough to rip the page.

You force yourself to focus. Deep breath. Okay. You can do this. One last pass. Then maybe, if you’re lucky, three hours of sleep and a shower that doesn’t involve you crying silently under the hot water. You promise yourself an actual breakfast, too, even though you already know that’s a lie.

Your inbox tab flashes with a new email.

You almost ignore it. Nothing good ever lands in your inbox after midnight. It’s either a passive-aggressive reminder, a bug report, or your mother sending you a link to yet another “stable career path in marketing or UX writing.” Still, the notification icon is glaring at you like a boss’ health bar at 2%. You sigh, swipe the cans aside enough to find your mouse, and click over. The sender field makes your brain stutter.

From: [email protected] Subject: Invitation to Discuss Potential Collaboration

The logo is crisp and tiny next to their domain, the stylised anvil-and-flame you’ve seen a thousand times on splash screens, posters, and awards shows. Titan Forge. The company that basically defined your teenage years, the one whose GDC talks you watch on YouTube when you need inspiration, the one that other studios name-drop in their “inspired by” decks. The name people drop into conversations with a certain reverence, like it’s a magic spell that can open doors. You click the email open with hands that suddenly don’t feel entirely attached to your body.

Dear, Titan Forge is exploring potential collaboration opportunities with select external developers for upcoming projects. Your previous work has come to our attention, and we would like to invite you to our offices to discuss a possible partnership. Please find attached a mutual NDA for review and signature, along with the proposed date for an in-person meeting at our studio. We look forward to speaking with you. Best regards, Titan Forge Talent & Partnerships

You reread it once. Twice. Five times. Your heart thumps so hard you can hear it in your ears. The words blur, then snap back into focus. Your previous work has come to our attention.

You glance around your apartment like someone might be standing in the corner with a camera, waiting to yell “Pranked!” But there’s only your dying plant, your dirty mug, and your mess of cables. The plant droops accusingly, like it knows you’re about to forget to water it for another three days.

You check the sender carefully. It’s a real Titan Forge domain. The signature block looks clean, not one of those obvious scams with Comic Sans and bad logos. There’s an NDA attached, and it’s long and boring and full of legalese about confidential information and non-disclosure, and no, you may not tweet anything. This is real.

You scroll back up, suddenly hyper-aware of the film of sweat on your palms. There are no details about the project. No indication of what “upcoming projects” means. Just “potential collaboration” and a date in three days’ time, in an office you’ve walked past more than once, telling yourself someday you’d get inside. You remember stopping across the street once just to stare at their lobby, watching badge-wearing employees scan in like it was nothing.

Doubt slinks in like a glitch through a wall. Maybe they sent this to the wrong person. Maybe they meant it for someone else, and your email got autocomplete’d by accident. Maybe they think you’re your own more impressive clone, the version of you who’s already shipped a breakout hit and has a hundred thousand followers on whatever platform is currently eating Twitter’s corpse.

You’re painfully familiar with being underestimated. Conferences where you’ve been asked if you’re “here with your boyfriend.” Panels where your questions get redirected to the guy next to you. Clients who praise your “soft skills” and then hand combat design to some dude whose portfolio is three jam entries and a YouTube channel. This… doesn’t feel like that. This feels like someone, somewhere, actually noticed. Like they played something you wrote and cared enough to remember your name. Which, obviously, means there’s probably a trap.

You scroll again to make sure you haven’t missed the part that says “participation unpaid, for exposure only.” There’s nothing. Just an address, a time, and the NDA. Your cursor hovers over the “Reply” button.

If you accept and it’s a mistake, you’ll die of embarrassment in their lobby while security escorts you out and some bored receptionist makes a note never to let you back in. You can already picture yourself walking home with your laptop bag feeling heavier than your entire body. If you don’t accept and it’s real, you will never forgive yourself.

You drag a hand over your face, pressing your fingers into your eyes until sparks dance behind your eyelids. Your pulse is jittery, too fast, like pre-boss-fight music when you haven’t found the health pickups yet. You open the NDA attachment again, scroll to the bottom, and type your name in the signature field. You attach the signed document, and before you can talk yourself out of it, you type a reply.

“Thank you for reaching out. I would be happy to visit the studio to discuss potential collaboration. The proposed date works for me.”

You hover over the send button. Your stomach swoops like you’re staring down a boss arena. You hit send.

The email flies out into the void. There’s no explosion, no confetti, no immediate follow-up saying “Sorry, wrong person.” Just the quiet hum of your PC and the soft, endless buzz of the fridge in the corner. You lean back in your chair, staring at the ceiling.

You’ve been here before. This is the part where your brain tries to speedrun every possible worst-case scenario. It’ll tell you the competition is all men in expensive hoodies with more followers than you; that they’re going to look at you and see someone who likes “feelings and stuff” but doesn’t know real game design. You’ve survived this industry long enough to recognise the voice in your head that doesn’t belong to you. The one that sounds suspiciously like a collection of panel mansplainers and Reddit threads.

You take a breath. You can panic later. After the deadline you’re about to miss. You spin your chair back to your script and drag the current scene to the side, opening your notes. The feedback doc sits there, smug and bullet-pointed.

You let your forehead drop gently onto your keyboard. The keys imprint little squares into your skin. You exhale into the plastic. “Okay,” you mutter to yourself, words coming out muffled against the spacebar, then lift your head. “Fine. One more pass, then I send this, then I freak out about Titan Forge in a controlled manner.”

Promise made, you rework the scene until your eyes sting. You adjust lines, trim redundancies, and add that one small choice that ties back to an earlier conversation and makes everything hurt more. By the time you hit send on the revised script and attach the build notes, the sky outside your window is shifting toward that pre-dawn grey that feels like a graphics engine with no lighting baked in.

You watch your sent email slide into the folder and sit there, accusing you. There will be more notes. There are always more notes. But for now, you are free. Free, and buzzing with too much adrenaline and too many energy drinks in your bloodstream to sleep. You check the time: 04:19.

Sleep would be the sensible choice. Like good posture, or actually leaving your apartment sometimes. You open your game launcher instead.

The Aetherion icon glows in the centre of your screen, your most-used app after your engine and your writing software. The familiar loading animation swirls, the orchestral theme swelling in a way that still hits you in the chest, even after hundreds of hours. You’ve written breakdowns of this intro just to figure out why it works so well; you still don’t know, not really.

The login screen fades in. You type your password by muscle memory, fingers moving faster than conscious thought. Your username materialises in the corner: MidnightNyx

You select your main.

Nyx appears in a burst of light — slim, dark armour etched with faintly glowing sigils, twin daggers strapped across her back, a hood shadowing her face. She stands in the middle of the Iridescent Wilds, crystalline trees rising around her, their branches tinkling softly as pixelated wind passes through. Wisps of colour drift like fireflies between the trunks.

For a second, you just breathe.

The tiny floating UI elements, the faint shimmer of particle effects, the distant silhouettes of other players moving like fireflies through the forest — it all feels like stepping into a version of reality that fits you better than the one with rent and deadlines and emails that may or may not change your entire career.

You move Nyx forward with the lightest touch on your keys, listening to the soft thud of her boots on glassy ground. Her cape sways; the gems in the trees refract light in shifting patterns. Somewhere overhead, a dragon’s silhouette cuts across a distant moon. Your chat box blinks with system messages. A friend request from someone you don’t remember grouping with; a guild recruitment spam; a global shout about some rare world event spawning in fifteen minutes.

Your guild status still reads [Solo]. You’ve been invited to join groups before, but there’s something comforting about logging in alone, slipping into the world without anyone expecting you to talk. No cameras, no commentary, no one asking you to justify your design decisions in real time. The raid finder icon pulses.

You roll your neck, stretching the knot at the base of your skull. The Titan Forge email sits behind all of this like another open window in your brain. You’re not going to be able to stop thinking about it. But you can redirect the energy. Screw sleep. You guide your cursor to the raid queue and hover over “Crystal Depths – Mythic.”

Probably a bad idea. Your reaction time is trash on this little sleep. But Crystal Depths is your favourite: a dungeon carved entirely out of luminous gemstone, mechanics built around light refraction and shadow phases. Elegant, punishing, beautiful. The kind of encounter you secretly wish you’d designed. You click the queue button. A small confirmation pops up. Enter matchmaking as: [DPS] [Healer] [Tank]

You smirk despite yourself and tap DPS. The queue timer starts ticking up, numbers creeping higher in the corner of your screen.

You tug your blanket off the back of your chair and wrap it around your shoulders like a cloak, pulling your knees up under you. The fabric smells like coffee and takeout and you. Under your breath, you murmur, half to Nyx, half to yourself, “No pressure, right?”

The words hang in the air, small and wry, and you can’t tell if you’re talking about the raid you just queued for or the meeting you just agreed to with a company that could rewrite your career. Probably both.

The timer ticks past 01:23. Somewhere in the world, other players are also hitting “Join.” Different screens, different lives, all funnelled into the same encounter, the same boss arena, the same glowing loot. You watch the spinning icon and let your heartbeat settle into a steadier rhythm.

Here, you know what you’re doing. Here, you’ve already proven yourself a hundred times, in clean pulls and perfect dodges and clutch saves. Here, nobody cares what you look like or whether your voice sounds like it belongs on a panel. They care if you can play.

The screen flickers. Match found. Joining raid…

You straighten automatically, fingers finding their place on the keys. For the next hour, you’ll transform into Nyx, shadow-stepping through the Crystal Depths, blades flashing, dancing on the edge of failure and victory with nine strangers.

The loading screen swirls into a new scene of glittering caverns, light bouncing off mirrored walls. The raid frames populate on the left side of your UI, names appearing one by one in a quick cascade of colour and guild tags. You barely glance at them. You’re already moving Nyx forward, ready to work, ready to fight, ready — for just a little while — to exist in a world where your enemies are clearly labelled, and your objectives are simple.

Kill the boss. Don’t die. Don’t let your team down. Everything else can wait.

Titan Forge’s lobby looks just as intimidating as the outside.

It’s all polished concrete and matte-black metal, warm wood accents, and big green plants that are somehow alive despite being indoors. Screens on the walls loop trailers and dev diaries on mute, flashes of monsters and magic and UI mock-ups reflecting across the gleaming floor. The company logo glows behind the reception desk: the stylised anvil-and-flame, bright enough to make your heart skip. You clutch your laptop against your chest like a shield.

The receptionist gives you a professional smile, scans your ID, and hands over a visitor badge on a lanyard. “You’re here for the partnerships meeting?” she asks. “Yeah,” you manage. Your voice sounds surprisingly normal. That’s something.

“Great. Take the elevator to the fifth floor. Someone will meet you at the door.” You clip the badge to your shirt and head toward the elevator bank. The doors slide open with a soft whoosh, swallowing you into a box of brushed metal and your own reflection. You stare at yourself in the mirrored panel: dark circles under your eyes, hair pinned back in a way you hope reads as competent instead of I did this in a rideshare. Your reflection adjusts her grip on the laptop. “You belong here,” you whisper to yourself, barely audible. “Act like it.”

The elevator dings, and the doors slide open onto a hallway that smells faintly of coffee and expensive hardware. A guy in a Titan Forge hoodie greets you, scans your badge with his phone, and leads you past rows of open-plan desks and glass-walled meeting rooms. Everywhere you look, people are in motion — standing meetings around whiteboards covered in diagrams, clusters of devs staring at screens, someone testing a game build on a massive TV with a controller, laughing when something clearly breaks. Snatches of conversation float past: fragments about shaders, telemetry, and patch notes. It’s like walking through a highlight reel of your dream job.

You’re so busy trying not to gape that you almost miss it when your guide stops and holds a hand out toward a door. “Here we are,” he says. “They’re just getting set up. You can go right in.” You adjust your grip on your laptop again and push the glass door open.

Five heads turn.

There’s a long table in the middle of the room with sleek chairs around it, a wall-mounted screen at one end, and floor-to-ceiling windows that pour light over everything. Four people are already seated, each with their own laptop, each looking like they could front a different marketing campaign for “diverse, talented developers.”

Your gaze skims across them on autopilot — sharp-bobbed woman with a blazer and glitter eyeliner, guy with blond hair and suspiciously perfect skin, dude in a designer jacket scrolling on his phone, woman with a messy ponytail and sharp eyes — and then snags on the fifth chair. On him. Jeon Wonwoo.

You’ve seen him on stage more times than you care to admit — accepting awards, giving talks about combat pacing and enemy AI. You’ve seen his name on leaderboards, on credits, on headlines in trade blogs. You’ve seen his face across convention hallways, in green rooms, on tiny Discord icons. You’ve argued with him on panels, quote-tweeted his threads, DM’d him memes, and fought with him about difficulty curves at three in the morning in a group chat full of other devs who should also have been asleep.

You know him. Unfortunately.

He looks up as the door clicks shut, eyes flicking over you. The bored expression shifts just enough to register recognition, like the game has finally loaded the correct asset. “Well, shit,” he says, voice low and dry. “They really are scraping the bottom of the barrel.”

It’s almost a greeting. Heat spikes in your chest. You arch a brow, forcing your feet to keep moving. “Funny,” you say. “I was just thinking they must have lost a bet if they invited you.”

The corner of his mouth twitches. Not quite a smile, but familiar.

“Pixie,” he says, and there it is. “Try not to set anything on fire before the coffee break, yeah?”

It’s absurd that one stupid nickname can make your spine straighten and your heartbeat pick up, but here you are. You’ve heard it from him before, of course. He started using it after he saw your avatar in some game’s credit reel and decided you looked “like trouble but also like you’d fit in a backpack.” You hated it then. You still do. Mostly.

You walk past him to an empty chair across the table, two seats down. You sit, set your laptop down, and busy yourself with the charger cable like that little exchange didn’t just light up every competitive synapse in your body. He goes back to spinning his pen like nothing happened. It infuriates you. The others introduce themselves in polite murmurs while you’re pretending to check your email.

“Mina Myoi. Freelance designer.”

“Lee Felix. Systems and combat.”

“Byun Baekhyun. Creative direction, mostly.”

“Kim Yoohyeon. Narrative and content design.”

When it’s your turn, you look up and give them your name, a quick summary of “freelance narrative, RPG focus, some systems overlap.” They nod, murmur “Nice to meet you,” and then, inevitably, all eyes slide toward the last man at the table. He doesn’t bother to look up from his laptop. “Jeon Wonwoo,” he says, like he’s reading his own name off a bug report. “Combat design. Freelance.” He glances up then, eyes catching yours for half a heartbeat.

It’s really not long enough to be meaningful, but the overall effect is the same as always: he’s not surprised you’re here with him. He’s not impressed by it either. You want to throw your laptop at his head.

The door opens again before you can consider how bad that would look on a Titan Forge security report.

David Lee walks in like he owns the building, which, to be fair, he kind of does. Not literally, but close enough. You recognise him from interviews and presentations — sharp suit, white sneakers, the kind of charisma that could probably sell microtransactions to people who hate microtransactions.

Behind him: a woman in a Titan Forge narrative hoodie you recognise instantly as Jisoo, a tall guy with warm brown skin and a lanyard full of enamel pins who must be Raj, and a neat, prim man carrying a tablet who can only be Kaito. David claps his hands once, loud enough to snap everyone’s attention to him, and grins. “Look at this table,” he says. “If a bus hits this meeting room, half the indie scene is screwed.”

There’s a ripple of laughter. You feel your shoulders loosen a fraction.

He moves to the head of the table but doesn’t sit, pacing slowly instead, remote in one hand. “You all know who we are,” he continues. “You’ve cursed our patch notes, you’ve argued about our balance passes, you’ve probably watched at least one of our trailers and thought, ‘I could do better than that.’” He winks. “Good. That’s why you’re here.”

The wall screen behind him flares to life with the Titan Forge logo, then shifts. Mythfall: Eclipse

The font is big and clean, the art behind it a swirl of dark sky and shattered constellations. You feel your stomach drop and your veins light up at the same time. David sees the reaction around the table and smiles like a wolf. “This,” he says, gesturing at the title, “is our next big mistake waiting to happen. Co-op action RPG, mythic collapse, gods dying, all that good cheerful stuff.”

He clicks, and a new slide appears: Five Trials

Vision

Versatility

Co-op

Fire

Fallout

You blink. “Cute naming scheme,” Felix mutters under his breath. David hears it and grins wider. “We’re not hiring an ‘idea person,’” he says. “We’re not hiring a code goblin who can’t talk to another human without breaking out in hives. We’re looking for someone who can lead. That means having a clear vision and the ego to defend it, but also the humility to throw it away when it’s wrong.” He ticks off the words on his fingers as he talks, energy crackling in the air.

“Trial One is vision. We give you a very thin prompt, and you tell us what the hell Mythfall: Eclipse actually is. Pillars, tone, the kind of player who’s gonna lose a hundred hours to it.” Click.

“Trial Two is versatility. You’re all specialists. We’re going to shove you out of your lane and see if you drown or learn to swim sideways.” Another click.

“Trial Three is co-op. You’ll be paired up to build a vertical slice together. We get to see how you share the wheel, who hogs it, who knows when to let go.” His gaze flicks meaningfully between you and Wonwoo for a second before moving on.

“Trial Four is fire. Live playtests, live feedback, live iteration. No hiding behind ‘we’ll fix it in post.’” Click.

“Trial Five is fallout. Long-term vision, live-service thinking, crisis rescoping. Because everything goes wrong eventually, and we want to see how interesting your solutions are when it does.”

The slide lingers behind him, the words stark against a dark background.

“You’ll be judged by people who actually ship this stuff,” David says, nodding toward the others. “Jisoo on narrative, Raj on combat, Kaito on production. They will not be nice to you. If they’re nice, it’s because they’re worried about HR.” Jisoo grins. Raj gives a little finger-wiggle wave. Kaito inclines his head, expression politely deadly.

“We’ll talk structure, expectations, and all the fun paperwork after this,” David adds. “But the short version is: over the next few weeks, we’re going to see what you do under pressure. We’re going to see how you handle failure and how you handle each other. At the end, we decide whether Mythfall gets one of you as a lead…” He pauses, letting the silence stretch. “…or whether we go back to the drawing board and pretend this never happened.”

Your chest tightens. You’re not used to people talking about your career like it’s a boss arena you can win or lose in one shot. It’s always been incremental for you — contract by contract, line by line, tiny gigs stacking into something that looks like a trajectory. This is not tiny.

David’s gaze sweeps the table. “You’re here because I watched your work,” he says. “Because people on my teams argued about your stuff in meetings. In a good way.”

Wonwoo shifts slightly in his chair, eyes never leaving the screen. Of course, he’s interested. This is basically a love letter to everything he’s good at — combat, pacing, spectacle. If anyone in this room is a natural fit, it’s him. If anyone is currently feeding your imposter syndrome like it’s a Tamagotchi, it’s also him.

David wraps up with a reminder about discretion, a joke about “no leaks unless you want to see our legal team level up,” and dismisses you with instructions to check the portal for your first brief after lunch.

Chairs scrape. Laptops snap shut. You shove your notebook and laptop into your bag with maybe a little more force than strictly necessary and follow the others out into the hallway, heart still racing. The corridor hums with office noise: distant chatter, the clack of keyboards, the faint soundtrack of some game test playing behind a closed door. You’re halfway to the elevators when a familiar voice drawls behind you.

“So,” he says, “if you try to speedrun your burnout any faster, you’ll glitch through the floor, Pixie.” You stop. You turn slowly.

Wonwoo is leaning against the wall by the water cooler, hands in his hoodie pocket, head tipped slightly back. He looks like he’s been standing there for hours, even though you know you just left the same room. His badge dangles against his chest, tilted sideways. You lift your chin.

“Bold of you to comment on my burnout when your sleep schedule is a cryptid,” you say. “Do they know you only log off Twitter when the servers catch fire?” He arches a brow, mouth twitching.

“At least I don’t subtweet the people who might sign my checks,” he says. “Interesting strategy, by the way.”

You snort. “If Titan Forge kicked out everyone I’ve subtweeted, you’d be giving this little lecture to an empty hallway,” you shoot back. “You’re not that special.”

The corner of his mouth curls into that infuriating half-smirk. “Afraid of the competition, Pixie?” Your pulse jumps at the nickname, annoyingly traitorous. “Afraid you’ll finally have to notice it,” you shoot back. Something flickers across his face — brief, almost too quick to catch — before his expression shutters back into lazy.

“Don’t worry,” he says. “If you do something worth noticing, I’ll let you know.” Your jaw tightens. “Wow,” you say lightly. “I forgot how charming you are in person.”

“That’s okay,” he says. “I’m sure the internet reminds you all the time.”

You want to hit him and high-five him at the same time. It’s deeply annoying that his insults land with the same precision as his combat balancing. “Enjoy your temporary head start,” you tell him, stepping past. “I’m sure it’ll make losing more dramatic.”

His low chuckle follows you down the hall, threading under the murmur of office noise. “We’ll see, Pixie.” You don’t look back.

You have the sudden, vivid memory of losing that one industry award to him — the way he accepted the trophy with quiet grace, the way the cameras lingered, the way your agent patted your back and said “Next time,” like that fixed anything. You remember starting the stream of his thank-you speech at home later, getting thirty seconds in, and closing the tab because it was easier to resent him than admit he was good.

Now you’re sharing a hallway. A project. A shot at something you’ve wanted since you first saw the Titan Forge logo on a much smaller screen. You ride the elevator down with your heart still hammering against your ribs, the weight of the badge on your chest suddenly heavier.

By the time you get home, your brain feels like it’s been run through a blender and poured back into your skull wrong.

You drop your bag by the door, toe off your shoes, and stand in the middle of your living room for a full thirty seconds, just… buffering. The Titan Forge badge is still clipped to your shirt. You unclip it carefully and set it on your desk. Then you flop into your chair and stare at nothing.

You scrub your hands over your face, then reach automatically for the one thing that always helps when your thoughts are too loud. Aetherion boots up with that same familiar swell of music. You log in on autopilot, fingers flying over the keys.

Nyx materialises in the centre of a bustling hub, other players darting past like bright, restless birds. You roll your shoulders, mirroring the way Nyx stretches when she loads in, and open the raid finder. You don’t even care which one. You just need something that isn’t your own brain.

The queue pops faster than you expect. Raid ready. Joining in 5… 4… 3…

The loading screen dissolves into a vast, gleaming arena — all massive stone platforms and swirling magic, a boss at the far end already roaring in place. Your raid frames fill up in a neat list on the side of your screen, health bars stacking. Most of the usernames blur together as you skim them, all variations on edgy nouns and misspelt Latin. One stands out: KadeLocke.

Your gaze catches on the little sword icon next to the name. Melee DPS. Greatsword type, if you remember the class symbol right. You move Nyx into position near the group, bouncing on her heels while the raid leader pings markers. Chat scrolls by with the usual chaos. A message pings in party chat.

[Party] KadeLocke: First time for anyone? Mechanics are simple, but I can call them out as we go.

You smile despite yourself at the calm confidence in that one line. Not cocky, not plz listen to me, just… sure, like he expects people to follow because that’s what happens when he talks. Someone types first time here with a crying emoji. Someone else sends same lol.

You hesitate for a second, then type. [Party] MidnightNyx: I’ve done it, but I won’t say no to free carry commentary.

[Party] KadeLocke: Not a carry. Just prefer killing things efficiently instead of watching everyone panic.

You huff a laugh, shoulders relaxing a little. Same, you think. The pull timer starts counting down. The boss fight erupts into motion. Magic flares. Health bars dip. The arena shakes under heavy footsteps and explosions. In the middle of it all, Kade moves like he’s playing a different game. His greatsword arcs through animations with ruthless precision. He doesn’t waste a step. He doesn’t flail. His positioning is textbook. More importantly, his callouts are good.

[Party] KadeLocke: Stack centre for slam. Don’t touch the glowing tiles.

[Party] KadeLocke: Nyx, you and I take left adds? You’ve got the burst.

You blink. Nobody ever singles you out like that in randoms unless it’s to yell about aggro. You flick your camera and see him — his avatar, at least — already pivoting toward the left flank, greatsword resting on his shoulder as he waits for the next wave. You dart after him, Nyx’s daggers flashing as you fall into rhythm without even meaning to.

He pulls, you erase. He knocks enemies into the air, you chain combo off the juggle. Twice, you see a stray hit coming for him and dive in to interrupt, your fingers moving before you consciously decide to. You don’t have to think about where to stand. He’s always half a second ahead, his movements almost telegraphing what he’s going to need from you. The boss drops to one knee. Final phase.

[Party] KadeLocke: Everyone on boss. Save big cooldowns. Nyx, go crazy.

You grin, feeling the rush of it — the permission, the trust from a stranger. You burn everything you’ve got, weaving in and out of danger, leaving the boss’s health bar in ragged chunks behind you. When the thing finally goes down in a burst of light and loot, the chat floods. You lean back, letting your pulse slow, a stupid little spark of pride warming you as the victory fanfare plays.

A private message pops up. Kade: Nice damage. You’ve got good instincts. You stare at it for a second, lips tugging up. Nyx: You’re welcome for my hard work.

There’s a long enough pause that you wonder if you were too sharp, if text doesn’t carry your grin. Then, Kade: Bratty. Bold choice for someone who almost stood in the death beam twice.

Your mouth falls open in a laugh. Nyx: Almost stood in. Keyword. That’s called “living on the edge.”

Kade: That’s called “giving your healer a heart attack.” You wiggle your mouse, making Nyx circle in place. Nyx: They lived. Boss died. Sounds like a win to me.

Kade: Can’t argue with results, I guess.

He adds, a beat later, Kade: Queue another? Could use someone who knows how to improvise without completely ignoring mechanics.

Warmth pricks at the edges of your tired brain. This is just random matchmaking. You don’t owe him anything. You should probably log off, drink water, and stare at your notes for the first trial tomorrow.

Instead, your fingers are already moving. Nyx: Sure. But if we wipe, I’m blaming you in global chat.

You imagine Kade on the other side of the screen, wherever he is, reading that and maybe smiling. Maybe rolling his eyes. Maybe, like you, relieved to just play with someone who gets it.

Kade: Deal. I’ll try not to ruin your reputation, Nyx.

You feel a tiny, stupid flicker of warmth at the way he uses your name — not player or rogue or some generic label, but the one you picked, the one that feels a little more like you than your real one does some days. It’s nothing. Just a stranger in a game being mildly charming. The loading screen swirls, and the world pulls you forward.

In one life, you’re preparing to go head-to-head with Jeon Wonwoo for the biggest opportunity of your career. In another, you’re running into battle beside a stranger with a greatsword and good instincts. You don’t yet know how these two lives will collide.

For now, you tighten your grip on your mouse, flex your fingers over your keys, and step into the next fight.

The email arrives at 06:12, which is frankly rude.

You wake up to your phone buzzing itself off the nightstand, grope for it, and squint at the screen through one half-open eye.

From: Titan Forge Portal Subject: Trial One – Brief & Deadline

You groan into your pillow. Sleep was not your friend last night. Every time you closed your eyes, your brain projected the Mythfall: Eclipse title card onto the back of your eyelids and ran a mental speedrun of Jeon Wonwoo being effortlessly competent in every possible scenario. You crack one eye fully open, tap the notification, and drag yourself upright against the headboard as the portal page loads.

TRIAL ONE – VISION Objective: Articulate a concise, compelling core vision for Mythfall: Eclipse. Deliverables (max 1 page total): – 3–5 clear game pillars – A short scenario synopsis (1 key story moment) – A high-level combat loop outline Deadline: 48 hours

You stare at the “max 1 page” line and make an offended noise. They want your entire brain in 500 words or less.

You swing your legs out of bed and immediately step on a sticky note. Of course. You peel it off your foot and squint at the scribble: “Player choices = emotional scars, not stats.” You have no memory of writing that, but past you was onto something. You decide: coffee first. Then vision.

Two hours later, your apartment looks like a crime scene where the victim is “scope control.” Your whiteboard is crammed with phrases in different colours, circled, underlined, connected by frantic arrows:

“All myths collapsing into one dying world.”

“Co-op = emotional co-dependency, not just DPS checks.”

“Players as unreliable narrators of their own legend?”

“Failing gods. Ordinary heroes. Shared consequences.”

You pace in a tight loop between the board and your desk, marker tapping against your palm, trying to distil everything into something clean enough to fit on one page without losing what makes it interesting. You can practically feel Raj threatening to fall asleep if you don’t mention anything with numbers, so you scribble in:

“Combat loop: read → react → retaliate. Fewer button mashes, more meaningful windows.”

“Synergy skills: co-op abilities that get stronger the more you ‘trust’ your party member.”

You add a quick note about positioning mattering, about telegraphed attacks that tell a story instead of just glowing red on the floor. You hate yourself a little for writing “visceral,” but it fits. You step back, chewing the end of the marker cap, and imagine Wonwoo in his apartment somewhere, sitting down with a notebook, pen in hand, completely unbothered. One neat, clean page. Probably annotated. Probably infuriatingly good. The thought lights up your competitiveness. No way, you think, turning back to the board. You are not letting him walk in with a cleaner pitch. You drag a line down the centre of the whiteboard and force yourself to pick. Three pillars. Just three. You write, slowly, in big letters:

Shared Fate, Shared Story – Co-op choices that bind players’ destinies together.

Myths in Freefall – Colliding pantheons, broken rules, consequences that reshape the map.

Every Fight Tells a Story – Combat as character expression, not just math.

Underneath, you sketch out one scenario: a boss fight where a dying god refuses to let go of power, and players have to decide whether to kill them outright or siphon what’s left to save a village. Either way, something breaks. Either way, the world remembers what they did.

You stare at it until the words swim, then force yourself to sit down and turn the chaos into a one-page doc. You trim, condense, murder your darlings. You cut a whole paragraph about mythological canon because nobody has time. You wrestle the combat loop into three sentences: anticipation, reaction, pay-off. You squeeze in one line about accessibility without making Kaito’s eye twitch from imagined budget creep. Every time you get stuck, your mind flashes a quick image of Wonwoo in that glass room — pen spinning, expression unreadable, sitting there like all of this is just another Tuesday. You type a little harder.

Titan Forge in the early morning feels like a level before enemies spawn.

The corridors are quieter, the lights a little softer. Most desks you pass are still half-empty, monitors waking up, a couple of early birds nursing coffee the size of your forearm. Somewhere, someone is yawning loud enough to echo. It’s almost peaceful.

You’re one of the first to reach the meeting room. The door is propped open. Inside, Jisoo is already there, leaning over the table with a notebook, pen moving in quick, looping strokes. Raj sits near the end with a massive mug, scrolling through something on his tablet with the kind of frown that usually precedes a refactor. Kaito has his laptop open, fingers flying over the keys, expression composed in that I’m already thinking three steps ahead of all of you way. You hover a second in the doorway, then step in. “You’re early,” Jisoo says, glancing up with a quick smile.

“Figured I’d get my panic out of the way before the others show up,” you reply, sliding into a chair near the middle of the table and setting your laptop down. Raj huffs into his coffee. “If you’re not panicking a little, you’re not respecting the process,” he says. You’re pretty sure that’s his version of encouragement.

People filter in over the next few minutes. Mina arrives with a neatly organised folder under her arm and a latte in a reusable cup. Felix stumbles in behind her, earphones around his neck, hair still damp like he showered in a hurry. Baekhyun saunters through the doorway, looking like he woke up directly into that outfit. Yoohyeon slips in quietly, tablet hugged to her chest, eyes already scanning some document. You watch them all take their spots, the party assembling.

Wonwoo is one of the last to appear. He walks in without hurry, hoodie thrown on over a plain T-shirt, badge clipped crookedly to the pocket. He’s got his notebook in one hand, pen in the other, as if he’s been taking notes on the way over. He takes in the room with one quick sweep, then his gaze lands on you. For a moment, his eyes soften — not enough that anyone else would notice, but you do. “Look at you,” he says, heading for the empty chair across and one over from you. “Almost human in daylight.”

You snort. “Careful. If you keep flirting with me in front of your future employers, people will talk.” He drops into his seat, flips the notebook open, and spins his pen between his fingers.

“Relax, Pixie,” he says. “I only flirt with people who can actually beat me.” You open your mouth, ready to bite back, when he adds, almost offhand, “But, you’re closer than most.”

It takes your brain a second to decide whether that was a dig or a compliment. By the time you land on both, David makes an entrance like the room has been waiting expressly for him. Probably because it was.

“All right, legends,” he says, grinning. “Trial One: Who actually knows what game they’re making?” He moves to the head of the table but doesn’t sit, pacing slowly instead, remote in one hand.

“Here’s the deal,” he says. “No slides, no mood boards, no thirty-page bibles. You get five minutes to convince us Mythfall: Eclipse is worth sinking the next several years of our lives into. Imagine I’ve just stepped into your Discord call and I’m one bad pitch away from cancelling the project and making a mobile idle clicker instead.” A reluctant chuckle moves around the table. Your palms are sweating.

“Keep it focused,” David adds. “Pillars, a moment that sells the fantasy, and how it plays. Make us feel it. We’ll ask questions. We’ll argue. If you’re lucky, Raj will try to break your combat loop. If you’re very unlucky, he’ll succeed.” Raj lifts his coffee cup in a little salute.

“Who’s going first?” David asks. Silence. You feel your hand lift before your brain fully catches up. “I’ll go,” you hear yourself say.

Wonwoo huffs a soft laugh under his breath, like, of course you will. You ignore him. You stand, unplug your laptop and move to the front of the room. The screen behind you is blank, your reflection faint in the glass. Five minutes. You breathe once, in and out, and begin.

“Mythfall: Eclipse,” you say, “is a co-op action RPG about what happens when the stories that shaped your world break… and you and your friends have to decide what replaces them.” That gets their attention.

Words fall into the space between you and the table. You talk about colliding pantheons and a sky full of dead constellations. About player characters who grew up praying to certain gods and now have to fight them. You anchor everything in co-op — not just as a feature, but as the heart of the experience. “Every big decision,” you say, “isn’t just ‘press A or B.’ It’s something you have to live with together. If you sacrifice a city to save a god, that’s not just a cutscene. That’s a thing your party remembers, brings up later, colours how NPCs talk to you.”

You outline your three pillars in plain language, watching their faces as you do. “Shared fate, shared story,” you say. “The game remembers what you and your friends did together, not just what you did alone.”

“Myths in freefall. The world is collapsing under the weight of all these pantheons smashing into each other. You’re not chosen ones so much as… the last ones who still care.”

“And every fight tells a story. Combat isn’t a separate thing from narrative; it’s where your character’s beliefs show up. A healer who’s lost faith in their god doesn’t cast the same way as one who’s still devout.”

You walk them through one key moment: a crumbling temple, a dying war deity chained to their own throne, a village on the edge of starvation outside. The choice: channel the last of the god’s power into the land to save the harvest, effectively killing the deity… or spare them, preserving a dangerous, wounded god whose followers will remember your mercy.

“Either way,” you say, “the map changes. The way enemies behave, the rumours you hear in taverns, the dreams your characters have — all of that shifts based on that choice. And because it’s co-op, there’s space for people to disagree. Maybe one of you wanted mercy and got outvoted. That friction is part of the story.” Then you ground it in play.

You outline the combat loop: learn, react, retaliate. Fewer inputs, more meaningful windows. You sketch how co-op skills could kick in — one player pinning an enemy in a beam of starlight while the other shatters it, the timing requiring communication, not just number crunching. You don’t look at your notes. You don’t look at Wonwoo. You look at Jisoo.

Her eyes have warmed, that faint, sharp smile tugging at her lips when you describe co-op dialogue that unlocks only if players have made certain choices together. You see little sparks of oh, I could write that lighting in her gaze. Raj’s expression is harder to read, but he leans forward when you talk about fights evolving based on past choices — enemies adapting to your party’s habits, not just their level. You make it clear you’re not pitching a bottomless pit of bespoke encounters; you’re pitching a framework. You wrap up just shy of five minutes.

“…Mythfall: Eclipse should feel like you and your friends carved your own constellation into a broken sky,” you finish. “And you’re the only ones who know what you sacrificed to make it shine.”

For a second, the room is quiet in a way that isn’t empty. Then Jisoo speaks. “I like the emphasis on shared memory,” she says. “A lot of co-op games are about sharing a space, but not a story. This would give us… teeth.” You blink. Your lungs remember how to work.

Raj taps his pen on the table. “If we start tying combat AI behaviour to narrative choices,” he says, “how many distinct states are you imagining?” There it is. You don’t pretend you have every answer, but you talk through modular behaviours, categories of outcomes instead of one-off snowflakes. You frame it as adjustable: test with a smaller matrix, expand if it works. Raj doesn’t smile, exactly, but he stops tapping.

Kaito’s questions are all about scope and pipeline. You acknowledge the risks, point to places the system can scale, and promise you’re not secretly trying to kill his schedule. David hasn’t looked away once. When you’re done, he tilts his head. “You’ve thought about this,” he says. “Good. I hate vague.” You sit down on legs that feel faintly like someone swapped your bones for jelly.

Wonwoo doesn’t say anything as you slide into your chair, but his pen stops spinning for a heartbeat. His gaze flicks over your face, then back to his notebook. The tiniest nod, like he’s marking down “respectable.”

One by one, the others present. Mina’s pitch leans into exploration and environmental storytelling — ruins that tell their own myths if you’re paying attention. Felix’s is systems-heavy, all elegant loops and progression paths. Yoohyeon’s is full of mood and texture, leaning into horror edges. Then it’s Wonwoo’s turn.

“Mythfall: Eclipse,” he says, “is a game about learning to read an enemy that doesn’t want you to.” He goes straight for the jugular: combat.

Not just numbers and cooldowns, but rhythm. He describes enemies as “conversations you have with violence.” Bosses who “remember” what you did last time and punish you if you try the same trick twice. Patrols whose route changes if you’ve been sloppy, mini-bosses that gain new abilities when their god dies or survives. If you talked about consequences on the macro level, he’s drilling into the moment-to-moment. “The core loop is simple,” he says. “See. Survive. Solve. First attempts are about staying alive long enough to understand what the hell this thing is doing. Once you’ve read it, you start rewriting the fight. That’s where mastery lives.” You watch Raj’s eyes brighten like someone plugged him in. To your surprise, Wonwoo doesn’t ignore narrative entirely. He frames it differently.

“The story is what explains why the enemies change,” he says. “If players killed a storm goddess in one region, storms everywhere get weirder. Enemies with lightning-based attacks behave differently. We tie myth states into the AI so the world’s response to what you’ve done isn’t just flavour text; it’s trying to kill you in new ways.”

There it is: the overlap. Where your pitch leaned into the emotional and social consequences of shared choices, his leans into the mechanical consequences. You’re talking about the same coin from opposite sides. You hate how satisfying that is.

From your angle, you can see his one-page document on the table — clean, dense handwriting, a little sketch of a boss arena with arrows showing attack patterns shifting over time. You clock phrases that echo your own thoughts: “player habits,” “party behaviour,” “myth-state driven modifiers.” You also notice what isn’t there: no mention of specific character arcs, no example of how two players might feel differently about the same fight based on their backstory. His story is the world. Yours is the people in it.

“So in your version,” David says when he’s done, “the gods die, the weather freaks out, and the world starts fighting back using your own habits against you.” Wonwoo lifts a shoulder. “Players get lazy if we let them,” he says. “We shouldn’t.” Raj looks openly delighted. “Punishing predictable play is my love language,” he says. “I like this. A lot.”

Jisoo’s expression is thoughtful. “It’s very strong on the ‘what you fight,’” she says. “I’d want to make sure we don’t end up with a technically brilliant game where players can’t remember a single character’s name.”

“We wouldn’t,” Wonwoo says easily. “As long as someone who cares about that is in the room.” His gaze flicks, briefly and unmistakably, toward you.

David sees it. Of course he does. “Interesting,” he says, clasping his hands. “We’ve got one pitch where story is the skeleton and combat is the muscle…” His attention moves to you. “…and one where combat is the skeleton and story is the connective tissue.” He looks back at Wonwoo. “If I locked the two of you in a room and told you to come out with a single vision, would we get a masterpiece or a murder trial?”

“Depends who gets the whiteboard,” you say before you can stop yourself. A couple of people laugh. Wonwoo’s mouth curves. “She can have the whiteboard,” he says. “I’ll take the controller.”

David’s smile says he got exactly what he wanted out of that. “Noted,” he says. “Either way, that was fun. Go eat. Check the portal this afternoon for Trial Two.”

By the time you get home, you feel like someone stretched your nerves out on a rack and then told you to “just relax.”

You drop your bag by the door, kick off your shoes, and slide bonelessly onto the couch while your brain replays the day on loop: your own voice pitching into the room, Jisoo’s interest, Raj’s questions, the way Wonwoo’s ideas slotted uncomfortably well next to yours without actually overlapping. Combat as conversation. Shared fate as story.

It should be validating that your instincts line up with his on the big picture: myths reacting, world state changing, co-op actually mattering. Instead, it makes your chest feel tight. You need to stop thinking. Or at least think about something that can’t email you back.

You get up, shuffle to your desk, and boot up Aetherion.

You log in, watch Nyx shimmer into existence in the middle of a crowded plaza, the usual swirl of players flitting past, and feel your shoulders loosen a notch. You don’t move her right away.

Your fingers hover over the keys as you stare at the minimap, debating. You could run a quick dungeon, do your dailies, mindlessly farm materials while your brain chews on David’s smug face and Raj’s questions. You could wander the fields alone and pull too many mobs just to feel something. Your friends list blips. KadeLocke is now online. Almost immediately, a whisper pops up. Kade: You look like someone standing in town and pretending they know what they’re planning to do.

You blink. You hadn’t moved. You hadn’t typed. The accuracy is unsettling.

Nyx: Wow, psychic. Or are you stalking the login feed now?

Kade: You log in at weird hours and then stand still for a full minute. I’m allowed to draw conclusions. A beat. You busy?

You glance at your very empty, very Mythfall-filled real-life calendar and snort softly. Nyx: Busy spiralling. Why?

Kade: Tower challenge unlocked for me today. Two-player run. Want in?

You pull up the dungeon list automatically. The Tower icon pulses at the edge of the map – high difficulty, recommended party size: 2–3. You’ve never clicked it before. Nyx: Never done it. Thought it was one of those “sweaty tryhard” things.

Kade: It is. I’m inviting you anyway. A party invite pops. You hesitate for half a heartbeat, then accept. The UI shifts to show just two frames: KadeLocke and MidnightNyx.

Kade: Ready?

Nyx: Define “ready.”

Kade: You know your buttons. I know the layout. I’ll tell you where to stand and what to stab. Try not to improvise too much on the first pull.

You roll your eyes even as you move toward the teleport glyph. You step into the portal. The world dissolves in a flare of light, then reforms as a high tower lined with glowing runes and platforms suspended in midair. Far below, mist swirls in a bottomless drop. Above, you can just make out the silhouette of something huge moving in the clouds. You tighten your grip on your mouse. Nyx spawns beside Kade’s avatar on a wide, circular platform. His greatsword rests casually against his shoulder; his cape flutters in some dramatic wind the engine insisted on rendering.

Nyx: Okay. Mildly terrifying.

Kade: It’s worse if you look down. Don’t look down. A pause. First rule: stay on my left unless I tell you otherwise. Second rule: if the floor glows, move. Third rule: if you’re not sure what to do, ask. Don’t guess. You bristle automatically. Nyx: You know I’ve played this game before, right?

Kade: I know you have good instincts and a bit of a chaos streak. I’m accommodating both.

You open your mouth to type something sharp and entirely unconvincing about not having a chaos streak, but the pull timer appears before you can. You exhale, shake your hands out, and ready your daggers.

The first wave hits like a test you didn’t study for: enemies blink into existence around the edge of the platform, beams of light sweep across the floor in predictable-but-not-obvious patterns, and runes start charging under your feet. You dart forward on reflex.

Kade: Left. Now. You jerk Nyx in the indicated direction just as a beam carves through the space you were about to occupy. A rune explodes where you had been standing, showering the area with crackling energy. Okay. Maybe letting him lead isn’t the worst idea. He moves with that same calm precision you remember from the raid — no wasted motion, no panic. He kites enemies into tidy clusters; you slip in and out of their blind spots, carving them down. Every time something new appears — floating orbs, tether mechanics, lines aiming at your feet — his text pops up a fraction of a second before your brain finishes parsing what’s happening.

Kade: Ignore orbs, they’re bait. Hit the casters. Platform’s going to tilt in 3… 2… jump on my ping.

You jump when he pings. The platform shifts on its axis like a seesaw. For a sick second, you’re sure you mistimed it, and you’re going to slide off into the void, but Kade’s avatar slams his sword into the stone at the edge, anchoring himself, and your character bumps into his collision box instead of gravity. You land in a heap against him, metaphorically speaking. Nyx: Did you just body-check physics for me?

Kade: You were about to meet the bottom of the tower. I need you alive for at least one phase.

Your cheeks heat even though there’s nobody here to see you. You push off him and keep going, adrenaline slowly shifting into something steadier. The higher you climb, platform by platform, the less you hesitate, and the more you anticipate where he’s going to be. He calls less; you move more. When he does call, you listen, even if you grumble about it in chat.

On one particularly nasty platform, lines of magic crisscross the floor like a laser grid while enemies fling projectiles from the far side. You start to dart through an opening that looks safe.

Kade: Stop. You halt Nyx mid-step. A beam slices through the space in front of you a heartbeat later. Nyx: You’re no fun.

Kade: Fun is surviving long enough to brag about this. Move when I move.

He waits. You wait with him. When he lunges forward, you follow, toes skimming the edge of danger, heart thudding. It works. It’s infuriating. By the time you reach the top platform, your palms are slick, and your pulse is high, and you kind of hate how much you… trust him?

The final boss materialises in a flare of light and thunder: some towering construct woven from broken runes and discarded god-armor, eyes burning bright. You swallow. Nyx: So what’s the fun surprise here?

Kade: Don’t die. And when it splits into three, take the one that mirrors you. Shadow twin. You’ll know it when you see it.

You want to argue that this is unhelpfully cryptic. Then the fight starts, and you don’t have time. The construct slams its fists down, platforms appear and vanish, the whole top of the tower becomes a dance floor for people with a death wish. Halfway through, the boss shatters into three smaller versions; one of them moves exactly like you do — same skills, same dash, a twisted echo of Nyx. You swear under your breath and go after it. Kade doesn’t micromanage. He tanks his own twin with grim efficiency and throws you the occasional text when something truly unfamiliar appears, but otherwise, he lets you figure it out. You make mistakes, you adjust, you get better fast. When the last shard of the boss explodes, and the Tower falls quiet, your hands are shaking a little.

Loot appears in a tidy chest at the centre. You exhale slowly, the adrenaline high morphing into something warm and fizzy. A private message pops. Kade: You handle vertical runs better than most. Didn’t even try to swan-dive off the top platform once.

You let Nyx idle, daggers sheathed, while you reply. Nyx: I like to keep my dramatic exits for when someone deserves it.

Kade: Good to know. I’ll make sure I’m never standing near the edge if I piss you off. You pause, then let your fingers wander a little closer to the line. Nyx: Bold of you to assume you’d see it coming. I’m sneaky, remember.

Kade: Then I guess I’ll just have to keep you where I can see you.

A flicker of heat runs through you at that, entirely disproportionate to a handful of text characters. You push it, just a bit. Nyx: That sounds suspiciously like you enjoy being in charge.

You hesitate, thumb hovering over Enter, then hit it anyway, heart ticking up a notch. If he gets weird about it, you can always blame it on sleep deprivation and never queue with him again. The reply comes faster than you expect. Kade: I enjoy it when people follow instructions. Everything else is a bonus. And you strike me as someone who needs very specific directions, or you’ll start trouble on purpose.

You stare at that, surprised laughter bubbling up in your chest. He’s… not wrong. Nyx: Are you calling me a handful?

Kade: I’m saying if I tell you “stand here, hit that, don’t lick the glowing floor,” you’ll do the first two and then ask what I’ll give you if you obey the third.

Your face heats. Okay, you walked into that one. Nyx: Depends. What are the rewards for good behaviour?

You send it before you can talk yourself out of it, suddenly very aware of how quiet your apartment is. There’s a longer pause. Long enough that you wonder if you pushed too far, if you’ve misread the tone and he’s going to bail. Then, Kade: Clean clears. No repair bills. Maybe I’ll even say “good job” without sarcasm. Another line appears before you can respond: Start with that. We can renegotiate your perks later if you behave.

Something tightens pleasantly under your ribs. It’s not explicit. It’s barely suggestive. But there’s a shape to the way he phrases things — steady, teasing, a little bossy — that hits a very particular switch in your brain you try not to examine too closely. You type with fingers that feel slightly less steady. Nyx: Wow. High praise. Guess I’ll have to earn it.

Kade: You’re doing fine so far. But don’t let it go to your head.

You open his profile without thinking about it this time, skimming raid stats and titles. Whoever he is, he’s good. Better than good. The kind of player you’d happily trust to lead you through something brutal. He sends another whisper before you can fall too deep into the numbers. Kade: You on around this time often? I’d rather stack the party with people who can take a joke and a mechanic.

You roll your eyes even as your chest warms. Nyx: I keep weird hours. Freelancer life. But yeah, I’ll probably be around. Why, miss me already? You wince the second you hit Enter. That was… bolder than you meant it to be. The answer comes back, cool and easy.

Kade: I miss not wanting to yeet half my raid into the sun. You make that easier. I’m being practical. A half-second later: But if your ego needs the other answer, you can have that too. Your mouth curves helplessly.

You glance at the clock in the corner of your screen. It’s later than you thought. Tomorrow’s brief will hit. Trial Two will start. David will smirk. Raj will poke holes. Wonwoo will be there, spinning his pen, acting like pressure is something that only happens to other people.

Right now, though, your world has shrunk to a little chat window and a name glowing quietly on your friends list. You tap out one last message. Nyx: Fine. Be practical. Just remember you asked for more time with me when I start “accidentally” pulling extra mobs.

Kade: If you do that, I’m putting you on callout duty so everyone knows exactly who to blame. Deal?

Nyx: Deal.

You sit there for another moment, watching the empty chat box, the way Nyx shifts her weight from foot to foot on the screen, Tower music still echoing faintly in your head. Then you log out. The game melts away into your desktop. Your room is quiet again, save for the soft whir of your PC fans.

You close the laptop with a soft click and let your head fall back, eyes slipping shut, the phantom sensation of standing on a narrow platform with nothing but open air below you lingering just long enough to make your stomach flip.

Raj is waiting for you when you walk into the meeting room the next morning, which is not a sentence you ever expected to think.

He’s usually glued to his seat beside Jisoo and Kaito, half a step removed from everyone, eyes sharp behind his glasses. Today, he’s leaning back in a chair at the far end of the table with a tablet in his lap and a coffee cup that says “I BREAK LOOPS FOR FUN” in chipped letters. He looks up as you come in. “Good timing,” he says. “Sit.” You obey mostly because your body is too tired to disobey this early.

“Did I miss an email?” you ask, dropping your bag and sliding into the chair next to him. “Portal update at six,” he says. “I thought I’d save you the joy of reading through production boilerplate and just give you the actual task.”

He hands you the tablet. On it, a document is open with a single bold title: TRIAL TWO – ROLE SWAP

FOCUS: COMBAT ENCOUNTER DESIGN Design a self-contained combat encounter for Mythfall: Eclipse. Deliverables (max 2 pages): – Encounter fantasy – Enemy types & abilities – Arena layout – Difficulty curve (phases, tuning goals) Narrative dressing is optional but not required. Encounter must stand on its own as a “fun fight” in test harness.

You reread “narrative dressing optional but not required” three times, like if you stare at it long enough, it will turn into “please write us a monologue.” It doesn’t.

“So,” you say slowly, “you want me to design a fight with no story.”

Raj shrugs. “You can hang some story on it if you want,” he says. “But if I strip all your flavour text out and drop this into a greybox test build, it should still be fun. That’s the assignment.”

It’s like asking you to write a symphony using only drums. You like drums. You respect drums. You just also like… melody. Lyrics. Feelings.

“And I assume Wonwoo is writing a heartwarming branching quest about a puppy,” you say before you can stop yourself. Raj’s mouth twitches, like he’s trying not to smile. “You said that, not me,” he replies. “But yeah. He’s on narrative. You’re on combat. I want to see you both out of your comfort zones.” That stings. Because he’s not wrong.

You scroll further down. At the bottom, in small text:

Evaluation focus: clarity of encounter vision, readability of mechanics, pacing, difficulty curve, player learning moments.

No mention of “did this make anyone cry in a good way.” No space for your usual metrics. “Duration?” you ask.

“Short,” Raj says. “Think single dungeon boss or a set-piece fight. Ten minutes tops for an average group. Ideally, less.” You nod, throat tight.

“You’ve got two days,” he adds, standing. “Ask questions if you need to. I mean about the doc. Not about your feelings.” You blink. “What if my feelings are about the doc?” He gives you a flat look that softens at the edges. “Then write a good fight,” he says. “It’ll help.”

Trial Two is like being handed someone else’s toolkit and told to build the same house.

Your next forty-eight hours are a blur of spreadsheets, dev wikis, and documents with titles like “Enemy AI Behaviour: Beginner-Friendly Patterns” and “Damage Per Second Tuning – Internal Guidelines (Do Not Share Externally).” You learn how Raj and his team talk about fights: openings, checks, punish windows, soft enrages. You learn there are words for things you’ve always felt when playing, but never had to label in quite this way. You also learn that half your instincts are illegal.

Your first draft has three enemy types, a shifting arena floor, and a mechanic where the boss “remembers” which player took which action in earlier phases and punishes patterns. You show it to Raj in a one-on-one review. He skims, eyebrows rising. “This is cool,” he says. “It’s also three encounters stapled together and a QA nightmare.”

“I like to aim high,” you mutter. He pushes the tablet back across the table. “Cut it in half,” he says. “Then cut it in half again. Think of it like writing — this is your first draft. You’re not killing the idea; you’re putting it on a diet.” You go back to your desk and put it on a diet. Reluctantly.

You strip out one mechanic, then another, until what’s left is a tight, focused fight: a fractured avatar of a god of echoes, a circular arena with shifting safe zones, a loop that teaches players to listen and watch before punishing them for flailing. You still sneak story in. You can’t help it. The boss’s abilities are named like lines of a poem. When it splits into mirrored copies, you note how they repeat players’ own moves back at them. Raj might not care, but it helps you care. You fall asleep on your keyboard once and wake up with ASDF imprinted on your forehead.

In between coffee refills, you hear whispers. Someone mentions in the kitchen that “Jeon’s questline wrecked Jisoo.” Someone else says, “I heard she had to leave the room for a second.” You pretend not to listen as you stir powdered creamer into your mug. Later, you pass Jisoo in the hall. Her eyes are a little pink. She’s smiling, though. Wonwoo walks behind her, one hand in his hoodie pocket, notebook tucked under his arm. He looks like he always does — composed, maybe a little tired, hair falling into his eyes.

“Nice work,” Jisoo says to him as they head toward a meeting room. “I’m stealing at least half of that, just so you know.” He huffs a quiet laugh. “As long as you make it better,” he replies. You walk by them with your mug, heart doing something unpleasant. He doesn’t look your way; you don’t give him the satisfaction of glancing over your shoulder. It doesn’t bother you. It absolutely, one hundred percent does.

Two days later, you present your combat encounter to Raj and a couple of designers he’s dragooned into a small review. You stand at the front of a smaller room this time, whiteboard behind you, your spec open on the screen. No David. No David-related theatrics. Just Raj, Jisoo, and one gameplay engineer with tired eyes.

“Echo Warden,” you say, and launch in.

You outline the fantasy first: a broken fragment of a god that repeats everything it hears, stuck in a loop of its own prayers. You emphasise the mechanics more than the lore. Phase one: teach players to follow safe zones. Phase two: punish them if they just chase the same pattern. The boss starts mimicking the party’s positioning, forcing them to break their habits. You talk tuning goals: a group that learns quickly clears in five minutes; a group that doesn’t dies in three. You talk about telegraphs that are readable but not clownishly obvious. You talk about giving melee and ranged different jobs so nobody feels useless. Raj interrupts with questions. You’re ready for most of them. The ones you’re not, you attack sideways, using examples from other games and the internal docs you memorised at three in the morning. At the end, he nods once, slowly.

“You overcomplicate things,” he says. “But you cut back. That’s good. The core loop is solid. Pacing might need adjustment — I’d want to see it in a prototype — but this is… yeah. This is real combat design.” A strange warmth spreads through your chest at that last sentence.

Jisoo chimes in. “I like how you’re already thinking about what the fight is saying about the god,” she says. “Even without story text, you’d still feel like this thing is… stuck. That’s useful for us later.” You exhale. Your shoulders drop half an inch. It’s not your natural habitat, but you didn’t drown.

By the time you drag yourself home that night, your brain is buzzing with numbers instead of feelings. Every time you close your eyes, you see telegraphs and phase transitions and Raj actually called it solid playing on repeat. You should sleep. You open Aetherion instead.

Nyx appears in a familiar city square. Before you can decide whether to do anything, your friends’ list pings. KadeLocke is now online. Right on cue, a whisper pops. Kade: You’re logging in later and later. Should I be worried you got abducted by “real life”?

You huff, but it comes out more like a sigh than a laugh. Nyx: Real life would have to pry my keyboard from my cold, carpal-tunnelled hands. Just… long day.

There’s a longer pause than usual before his next message. Kade: You sound tired even in text. That’s a talent.

Kade: Was gonna ask if you wanted to do something dumb and dangerous, but I’m downgrading that to “chill and mildly hazardous.”

Despite yourself, your lips twitch. Nyx: My brain is soup, but I could maybe manage “mildly hazardous.” Nothing too sweaty, or I’m just going to feed the floor.

Kade: Noted. Come somewhere quiet with me, then. Less chaos, more me telling you where to go while you complain about it.

You hesitate over the keys, then type, Nyx: Bossy and comforting. Multitasking, huh?

His reply comes almost immediately. Kade: Text is slow if you’re wiped. You wanna try voice in-game? I use a modulator. Keeps things less weird. You can just follow my lead and save your energy for being a menace.

You stare at the message. You’ve been running content together for days now — raids, dungeons, the occasional open-world nonsense when you both needed to switch your brains off. You’ve talked about sleep schedules (bad), vague “projects” (worse), favourite snacks (you argued for a solid ten minutes about the correct ratio of chocolate to cookie in ice cream).

You know his timing, his playstyle, the way he reacts when things go wrong. You know he’s steady, that he doesn’t tilt, that he doesn’t yell at people when they screw up. You do not know what his voice sounds like. Or where he lives. Or his real name. Sharing your voice feels… weirdly intimate. Like handing over a piece of yourself you can’t take back. You chew your lip, fingers hovering over the keyboard. He’s been respectful. Funny. Reliable. Never once pushed when you dodged personal questions. Never once got gross when you made a joke that could have gone sideways. If this goes weird, you can hang up. You can mute. You can block. You are not trapped. You take a breath.

Nyx: Sure. If you sound like a 12-year-old, I’m disconnecting.

Kade: Fair. Join party. I’ll drag you through something interesting while we test it. A party invite appears. You accept before you can overthink it.

The party UI slides into place; a little voice icon glows to indicate an open channel. Your pulse kicks up a notch. You drag your headset over your ears, thumb hovering over your mouse for a second, then click to join.

There’s a soft crackle, the faint hiss of open mic, and then his voice comes through — filtered by the modulator, a touch lower and smoother than it probably really is. You can hear the whisper of fabric, a chair creaking as he shifts. It still sounds like him somehow. Calm. Steady. Threaded with that quiet amusement you’ve already learned to recognise in his text. “Nyx?” he says.

“Yeah,” you answer, aiming for casual and landing somewhere near it. “Hey.” There’s a small pause, like he’s calibrating. “Okay,” he says. “Not twelve. Good start.” You huff a laugh, the knot between your shoulders loosening just a little.

“Neither are you,” you say. “You sound like… the voice of a very smug tutorial.” He laughs, low in your ear. The modulator doesn’t hide the warmth. “I’ll take ‘smug tutorial’ over ‘nasal gremlin,’” he says. “You sound more awake than your messages.”

“Lies,” you reply. “I’m eighty percent caffeine and bad decisions right now.”

“Then no raids,” he says, matter-of-fact. “Come outside the city gate. I’ll show you something low-effort and pretty. You can pretend it’s a walk and not a carry.”

“Wow,” you say. “Already planning to drag me around?”

“You said your brain’s soup,” he reminds you. “You point, mash a few buttons, I’ll do the heavy lifting. It’s called party synergy.”

You make an exaggerated little tsk noise. “Bossy,” you say. “Functional,” he counters, and you can hear the smile.

You guide Nyx out through the city archways, past the usual crowd of players advertising dungeon runs and trading items. A ping appears on your map, marking his position just outside the walls. He’s waiting on a small hill overlooking the road, his greatsword planted tip-down in the grass, his avatar leaning on the hilt like it’s a posing stick. When Nyx jogs up, he turns to face you, gives a short bow emote, and then starts running toward the far-off line of cliffs. You fall into step beside him. “So,” you say, eyes on the screen. “Where exactly are we going, oh mysterious guide?”

“There’s a glade most people ignore because it doesn’t drop gear,” he says. “Fireflies, skybox, zero pressure. You can stab a few things if it makes you feel better.”

“You say that like I have a problem,” you protest. “You logged in to hit things after a long day,” he points out. “It’s not exactly a mystery, Nyx.” You open your mouth to argue, then close it again.

Bits of countryside roll past as you run — ruined stone arches, wandering NPCs, the occasional player sprinting by on some oversized mount. Every so often, a stray enemy spawns too close; Kade lazily swings once and deletes it before you can even target it. “I could’ve handled that,” you say eventually. “I know,” he replies. “Tonight you don’t have to.”

The words land heavier than they have any right to. You clear your throat and nudge Nyx closer, hip-checking his avatar with yours. On screen, your character brushes his shoulder, the collision box making him shift a step. “Careful,” you say. “Keep shielding me like that, and I’ll get spoiled.”

“You already are,” he says mildly. “You just hide it behind all that ‘I can do it myself’ energy.”

You want to argue. You don’t. He leads you off the main road, through a narrow canyon that opens into a hidden hollow: a small lake ringed with luminous trees, their branches glowing softly in blues and purples. Fireflies drift in dense clouds over the water, reflecting like scattered stars. The in-game soundtrack shifts to something softer — strings, a lone flute. You stop Nyx at the edge of the lake. “Okay,” you admit. “This is… obnoxiously pretty.”

“Mm,” he says, and the sound through your headset is oddly pleased. “Sit.”

“Excuse me?”

“Hit the sit emote,” he clarifies, unbothered. “Before you decide to jump in and aggro the fish or something.”

You scoff. “I’m not that bad.”

“You pushed a cursed button just to see what would happen last time,” he reminds you. “I’m learning from experience.”

You roll your eyes, but Nyx drops into a sit at the water’s edge anyway, knees drawn up, daggers resting across her lap. Kade’s avatar sits beside her a heartbeat later, sword laid on the ground within arm’s reach. On screen, their shoulders almost touch. There’s a small, quiet space in your chest that you hadn’t realised was clenched until now. It eases, just a fraction. “So,” you say. “Do you bring all your exhausted carries here, or am I special?”

He hums thoughtfully. “You’re the first one who complains this much and still shows up for hard content,” he says. “Makes you… unique.”

“Wow,” you say. “Swoon.”

“Careful,” he replies. “Your standards are showing.”

A few low-level mobs wander near the tree line. When they stray too close, he stands, dispatches them with lazy efficiency, and sits back down without comment. “You know, you don’t have to nanny me,” you say, watching him.

“I’m not,” he says. “I’m optimising. You’re not at full capacity. No point wasting resources.”

“Reducing me to resource management. How romantic.”

“You want romantic, go stand under the virtual moon,” he says. “You want to log off less cranky than you logged on, listen to me.”

You feel your lips curve despite the words. “You realise you’re bossing me around while also telling me to relax,” you point out. “It’s a confusing brand.”

“You logged in sounding like you’d faceplant mid-raid,” he says calmly. “So I brought you somewhere you can sit down while I kill things. It’s not that complicated, Nyx.” There’s your name again, familiar now.

You watch the fireflies drift, tiny particles dancing across your monitor. After a while, you realise you’re just… sitting there. Not tabbing out to check your email, not mentally rehearsing how you’re going to defend your tuning decisions tomorrow. Just existing, with his voice a steady background presence as he talks about nothing and everything.

He tells you about some spectacular bug he saw that turned every enemy in a dungeon into spinning cubes. You rant about a client who decided you now care deeply about damage spreadsheets. You argue the merits of crunchy versus chewy cookies. You laugh more than you mean to. At one point, you yawn, the sound pulled out of you before you can smother it. He stops mid-sentence. “There it is,” he says. “That’s my cue.”

“I can keep going,” you protest automatically. “I’m—”

“Tired,” he cuts in, not unkindly. “You’re clipping the ends off your sentences. Your camera movements slowed down by, like, half a second. Go to bed.” You blink. “You were timing my camera moves?”

“I was watching my party member,” he says simply. “I don’t need a wipe to tell me when someone’s out of gas.” Something in your chest twists at the casual way he says “my party member,” like that’s a position with responsibilities attached. You try to deflect with a joke. “You’re very bossy for a stranger on the internet,” you say.

“You keep logging in at stupid o’clock and following me into content,” he replies. “At some point, that becomes my problem too.” You stare at Nyx and Kade sitting side by side on the bank, fireflies drifting lazily around them. Your cursor hovers over the disconnect button. You don’t click it.

“Hey, Kade?” you say. “Yeah?”

You hesitate, then lean in anyway. “You give surprisingly good directions,” you say. “For a control freak.” He laughs, the sound low and warm in your ears. “And you follow them better than you pretend to,” he answers. “For a menace.” You grin, too tired to hide how much that pleases you.

“Don’t get used to it,” you warn. “Too late,” he says.

You disconnect from voice before you can say something softer and more dangerous, then log out of the game entirely.

Your room is suddenly too quiet. No ambient lake sounds, no modulated baritone in your ears, no bright UI demanding decisions. You shut your laptop and stretch out, the day replaying in flickers: Raj calling your fight “real combat design” with that reluctant approval, Kade’s calm “Tonight you don’t have to,” when he helped you relax. You’re not sure which one is going to echo louder in your head as you finally, finally drift toward sleep.

David waits until everyone’s seated to drop it on you.

The room is smaller this time, with fewer chairs. The roster has already been whittled down; Mina and Felix are gone, casualties of Trial Two. Nobody says it out loud, but the absence sits heavy at the edges of the table. You, Wonwoo, Baekhyun, and Yoohyeon sit opposite Jisoo, Raj, and Kaito. David leans against the screen at the front like he’s about to introduce a new trailer instead of your impending breakdown.

“Trial Three,” he says, smile bright and sharp. “Vertical slice.”

The screen behind him flickers to life, showing a simple list:

TRIAL THREE – CO-OP VERTICAL SLICE Duration: 5 days Teams: 2 Deliverable: Playable slice + pitch

“We’ve seen what you can do in your own lanes,” David continues. “We’ve seen you swap lanes and not crash the car.” His gaze flicks over you, then Wonwoo. “Now we want to see if you can drive together without killing each other.” You do not like where this is going.

David lifts his tablet, scrolling. “Team one…” he says. “Baekhyun and Yoohyeon.” They exchange a quick look — a mix of nerves and determination.

“Team two…” David’s eyes find yours. “…our favourite civil war: Wonwoo and his Pixie.” For a heartbeat, the room feels too small.

You feel Wonwoo’s attention like a prickle on your skin. You turn your head; he’s already looking at you, expression unreadable, pen still in his hand. “You’re kidding,” you say before you can stop yourself.

David’s smile widens, all teeth. “If either of you wants to lead at Titan Forge,” he says, “you need to show you can co-lead. This is a co-op game. We’re not hiring a lone wolf and letting them dictate from a tower.”

Raj snorts quietly. Jisoo hides a smile behind her coffee cup.

“You’ll each get a war room,” David goes on, tapping his tablet to bring up a diagram. “Whiteboards, pinned builds, your own branch in our repo, access to a small strike team for support — programmers, artists, whatever you need within reason.” He slides a folder across the table toward you and Wonwoo.

“The slice is a single mission,” he says. “Fifteen, twenty minutes tops. We want to see combat, story, co-op mechanics, and how you onboard players to your weird ideas. Five days. Internal playtest at the end. Don’t embarrass us.”

You flip open the folder. There’s a loose prompt on the first page: “First contact with a failing god. Co-op decision. Mid-tier difficulty. Must support two players and scale to four.” You glance sideways at Wonwoo. His jaw is set. He taps his pen against the folder once, twice, then stops, catching you looking. “Don’t worry, Pixie,” he says under his breath. “I’ll use small words when we talk about frame data.”

You smile sweetly. “That’s cute,” you murmur back. “I was just wondering how I’m going to explain to you what feelings are.”

David claps his hands once. “Keys to the war rooms at the front,” he says. “Shared drives are already set up. Go figure out if you’re soulmates or mutually assured destruction.”

Your war room looks like a crime board from a detective show. By the end of the first day, anyway.

It starts clean: a long table, three whiteboards, a couple of monitors on rolling stands, a window that looks out over the city and the neighbouring rooftop gardens. Two chairs on opposite sides of the table, like you’re about to negotiate a hostage release. You dump your laptop bag on one chair. Wonwoo drops his notebook on the other. For a few seconds, you just… look at each other. “Ground rules?” you say finally.

He tilts his head. “Don’t waste time,” he says. “Don’t sand down anything interesting just to be polite.”

“I wasn’t planning to be polite,” you reply.

“Good,” he says mildly. “Then we’re aligned.”

You start by carving the prompt up into chunks. A god that’s failing. First contact. Co-op choice. You sketch a rough mission spine on the whiteboard: approach, first fight, narrative beat, second fight, choice, fallout. Wonwoo marks combat beats in red over your black storyline. That’s where the friction starts.

“Your cutscene here is too long,” he says, tapping the section you’ve labelled “confrontation.” “Players will be mashing skip.”

“It’s thirty seconds,” you say. “They can survive thirty seconds of emotional context before they go back to hitting things.”

“Thirty seconds before the boss, thirty seconds after the boss, a dialogue choice in the middle,” he says. “Pacing matters. They’ll feel the drag.”

You plant the marker on your hip. “Maybe if your boss fight had any emotional stakes,” you shoot back, “they’d want to see what they’re fighting about.”

His mouth tugs sideways. “It has stakes,” he says. “Failing god, collapsing arena, co-op mechanics that change based on who takes damage and when.”

“Mechanical stakes,” you counter. “I’m talking about something more than ‘health bar go down.’”

He watches you for a heartbeat, then sighs. “Okay,” he says. “Sell me.”

You blink. “What?”

“Sell me,” he repeats, leaning back against the table. “Why should I care about this cutscene when I’m the player? Don’t say ‘because narrative.’”

Fine. You pace once in front of the board, words lining up in your head.

“Because this is the first time the players see a god scared,” you say. “Up until now, gods are this untouchable environmental thing. Here, the god is cracked. Their voice glitches. They offer the players a deal — keep the worship flowing and they’ll keep the sky from falling over this region.”

You sketch with your marker as you talk, lines turning into rough silhouettes. “One player wants to take the deal. The other doesn’t,” you continue. “Or they both disagree with each other about how. That’s conflict before you start swinging. So when they do, it’s not just ‘we’re killing a thing.’ It’s ‘we’re killing something we might have needed.’ That makes the fight feel different.”

Wonwoo’s gaze tracks your motion, thoughtful. “What’s the co-op hook?” he asks. “Beyond ‘we voted differently.’”

You grin. “In the fight, the god only targets the player who argued against them,” you say. “The one who refused the deal takes more aggro, more direct hits. The other player gets all the buffs — damage, shields, healing. Narratively, the god is punishing the defiant one and rewarding the obedient one even as you’re killing them.”

He goes still. You see the exact moment it clicks in his head. “So if I was the one who told the god to fuck off, I’m the one getting smashed into the floor,” he says slowly. “And if my co-op partner told them ‘yes,’ they get to feel strong because I’m suffering.”

“Exactly,” you say, heart beating faster as the pieces line up. “It creates friction between players beyond ‘you didn’t dodge.’ They chose this dynamic.” He exhales once, sharply, like a laugh he doesn’t want to give you. “That’s… not bad,” he admits. He reaches past you, uncaps a red marker, and starts annotating the fight beats you’d sketched in black.

“If we do that,” he says, “we need to make sure the punished player isn’t just miserable. Give them tools. Let them redirect some of that damage back, or convert pain into a big finisher if their partner times something with them.”

You blink. “Hurt/comfort but make it gameplay,” you say.

The corner of his mouth twitches. “You would put it that way,” he says.

The rest of the day goes like that. Friction, then connection. You argue about enemy counts, about how much information to put in UI versus VO, about whether the god should recognise each player individually or just the party as a unit. He tells you your first draft of encounter callouts sounds too “pretty” and not enough “actionable.” You tell him his initial co-op mechanic reads like a spreadsheet and needs one emotional hook, or you’ll fall asleep. Underneath the barbs, you start to spot the pattern.

His arenas carve out little pockets of story space for you — choke points that feel like altars, environmental hazards that tie into the god’s mythology. Your characters give his systems purpose — lines of dialogue that make the co-op mechanics feel personal instead of arbitrary. At one point, you’re both standing in front of the monitor, watching a quick blockout build one of the level designers put together from your notes: rough geometry, grey textures, placeholder god model. The fight’s barebones, but the shape is there.

The god slams a hand down. The floor fractures. One player’s health spikes; the other’s buffs flare. Kaito’s borrowed QA guy moves both characters through the motions while you and Wonwoo talk over each other, calling changes. “That spike is too harsh, they won’t recover—” you say. “Make the tell on the second slam clearer, they’ll think it’s random—” he says at the same time. You both stop. You look at him. He looks at you.

It should feel like you’re clashing. Instead, weirdly, it feels like you’re harmonising. Different instruments, same song. You hate how satisfying that is.

By the end of the day, your war room smells like coffee and whiteboard marker. The walls are covered in diagrams and snippets of dialogue, sticky notes stuck at every angle. A shared drive full of docs and reference videos hums on the monitor. You should probably go home and sleep. You go home and log into Aetherion instead.

Nyx appears in the city square. Before you can move, your voice channel pings — Kade inviting you into a call as casually as if he’d nudged your elbow. You accept.

“Hey,” he says, modulated voice sliding into your ears as the game finishes loading. “You sound like ten percent less dead today.”

You flop back in your chair. “That’s because I’m currently powered by spite and a very unhealthy amount of validation,” you say. “How’s your evening?”

“About to improve,” he replies. “Queue up. There’s a new story chain. Co-op only. Figured I’d try it with my resident menace.”

You smirk. “Flatterer,” you say. “Lead the way, Tutorial.” He laughs, low and warm.

You follow his party ping to a quest giver on the edge of the map — an old NPC Hermit perched near a cliff, exclamation mark hovering over his head. Text scrolls about “shadows gathering” and “only those bound by trust may face what lies ahead.”

“Subtle,” you say. “Very understated writing.”

“Some narrative designer got paid by the metaphor,” Kade says. “Accept it. Let’s see how deep this rabbit hole goes.”

The quest chain takes you both through a series of short encounters — ambushes where you have to cover each other’s blind spots, puzzles that only trigger if you step on pressure plates at the same time. At the end, a prompt flashes: New Campfire Scene Unlocked: “Between Battles”. [Play now with your party member?]

“Ooh,” you murmur. “Fancy.”

“Hit yes,” Kade says. “If it’s boring, we can bail.” You both confirm.

The world fades out and reforms in a small, quiet clearing — a tucked-away grove beneath a massive tree, moonlight pouring through the branches. A campfire crackles at the centre, logs placed around it. Your UI melts away until only minimal prompts remain. Nyx and Kade stand a few feet apart, idle animations softer now, shoulders relaxed.

A prompt appears at the bottom of the screen: [Press X to sit]

You hit it. Nyx crosses the distance and drops onto one of the logs by the fire. Kade’s avatar moves a second later, taking the space beside her. Your characters’ knees almost touch. A dialogue choice pops, classic Aetherion style — three options on a radial wheel, each with a short line.

You read them out. “Option one: ‘Long day.’ Two: ‘Nice spot.’ Three: ‘Don’t get used to sitting this close.’” You say.

Kade huffs. “Three,” he says immediately.

“Of course you’d pick the one with attitude,” you reply. “Look who I’m sitting next to,” he says.

You select the third option. Nyx shifts, leaning back on her hands, eyes half-lidded as she glances sideways at Kade. Text scrolls at the bottom.

Nyx: Don’t get used to sitting this close. I might decide you need personal space. Kade: You say that like you didn’t pick this log when there were others.

You can’t help the small smile tugging at your mouth. “Wow,” you say. “They coded mutual calling-out. I feel seen.”

“You feel attacked,” Kade corrects. “Which, to be fair, is your baseline.”

Another set of options appears. You read them out again, more amused now. “Okay, new choices: ‘Is that your way of saying you like me here?’ / ‘Don’t read into it.’ / ‘Shut up and enjoy the fire.’”

You hesitate, thumb hovering over the wheel. The safest one is obvious. You don’t pick it. “First?” you suggest, feigning lightness. “Or is that too forward for you?”

“No,” he says, almost before you finish. “Hit it.” Surprise fizzes in your chest. You choose it. Nyx shifts a little closer, one shoulder bumping his.

Nyx: Is that your way of saying you like me here? Kade: If I didn’t, you’d be on the other side of the clearing.

The camera pans in slightly, framing their profiles, the glow of the fire casting warm light over armour and skin. Under your headset, your heartbeat ticks up. “Didn’t know this game had romance options in co-op,” you say, half joking, half not.

“Apparently, we unlocked the DLC,” Kade replies. His voice is lighter than usual, but there’s something under it — a note you haven’t heard before. “You complaining?”

Your mouth is suddenly dry. “No,” you say. Your voice comes out softer than you meant. “I’m not.” On-screen, another prompt fades in, different this time — a single, simple option on its own little button: [Lean closer]-[Change subject]

You stare at it. You could click away. Laugh. Make a bit out of it. Your finger moves almost of its own accord. You choose [Lean closer].

Nyx shifts, folding her legs under her, turning to face him more fully. Their shoulders press together now; the firelight makes the metal of his armour gleam where it brushes the leather of hers. The camera lingers. You can hear your own breathing in your headset. “Oh,” you say, eloquent as ever.

Another prompt: [Touch his hand] - [Nudge his shoulder]

“They really went all in, huh?” Kade says, a low thread of laughter in his voice. “What do you want to do, troublemaker?”

You swallow. “You choose,” you say. “You’re the one who dragged me out here. Take responsibility.” There’s a faint noise through the modulator — a small exhale. “All right,” he says. “Hit the hand.”

You select: [Touch his hand].

Nyx’s fingers slide over, resting lightly on the back of Kade’s gauntlet. His avatar turns his hand palm-up, their fingers slotting together for a brief, deliberate squeeze before they relax against each other.

It’s a ridiculously simple animation. No moaning violins, no sparkly hearts. Just two characters sitting too close by a fire, hands touching. Your heart is hammering like you’re about to present a pitch to David again.

And then, like the game has been waiting for this moment, the real option appears: [Kiss Kade] - [Stay like this]

You suck in a breath. “Oh,” you say again, even less eloquent. Kade chuckles softly. “Panicking?” he asks. “No,” you lie.

You stare at the screen. It’s pixels. Animation. A pre-written scene. This is not actually doing anything in the real world. But it feels like choosing something anyway. You drag the cursor to [Kiss Kade] and hover.

“If this is weird, we can back out,” Kade says gently. “Pick the other one, we’ll tease the game for being thirsty and move on.” The fact that he gives you the out makes something in your chest unclench. You think about the way he’s been with you in runs — never pushing when you joked around a boundary. The way his voice softened last time when he said, “I brought you somewhere you can sit down while I kill things.” The way he calls you menace like it’s a compliment.

“I’m not panicking,” you say, more certain now. “I’m… deciding.” A beat passes. “Decide faster,” he says quietly. “You’re killing me here.”

The words send heat curling low in your stomach. You click.

Nyx leans in first, which you appreciate on a spiritual level. She tilts her head, eyes fluttering half-shut, and presses her mouth to Kade’s in a slow, clearly animated kiss. He meets her halfway, hand lifting to rest at the back of her neck. The camera pulls in, then stops just shy of full close-up—enough to see it, not enough to make it awkward. The fire pops in the background. Fireflies drift lazily overhead. It’s all code. Your heart doesn’t seem to care.

The scene lingers for a few seconds, then eases them back into their seated positions, shoulders still pressed together, fingers still loosely linked. Text scrolls at the bottom.

Kade: You know this means I’m going to expect you to stick around after the next raid, too, right? Nyx: Guess you’ll just have to keep giving me reasons.

You let out a breath you didn’t realise you’d been holding. On the other end of the call, Kade clears his throat. “Well,” he says, tone light but a shade rougher. “That’s one way to test co-op features.”

You laugh, a little shaky. “Think we passed?” you ask.

“You tell me,” he replies. “How’s the pacing?”

“Honestly?” you say. “Pretty good.” You don’t add: and I kind of want to hit replay.

You sit there a moment longer, watching your avatars by the fire, heat still simmering under your skin for no good reason.

You just watched your character close the distance with someone whose voice you only just learned this week — someone who keeps catching you when you’re about to fall into traps, in-game and out, and acts like it’s just part of the job.

You’re not sure what this is yet. You are sure, when Kade quietly says, “Queue another campfire after the next raid?” That your answer comes a little too quickly. “Yeah,” you say, smiling at your monitor. “Yeah. I’d like that.”

Trial Three crunch is the kind that eats time. Five days sounds generous on paper. In practice, it’s a blink.

Morning to night, you live in the war room with Wonwoo. Whiteboards fill, empty, fill again. Builds go up, crash, and get patched. You mainline Titan Forge coffee and half-stale pastries, your brain flickering between dialogue and damage numbers.

Raj wants the boss to be tougher. “Phase two is a victory lap,” he says in one review, flicking through the combat log. “If they don’t feel like they might wipe, they’ll get bored.”

Jisoo wants the scene more grounded. “The god doesn’t need a monologue,” she says, brow furrowed. “A few sharper lines will hurt more. Right now they sound like they’re auditioning for ‘Tragic Deity of the Year.’”

Kaito wants it all yesterday. “You are stacking new systems on new systems,” he tells you both, expression pinched. “We cannot build an entire religion and its AI in five days. Pick the one thing you want to prove and cut the rest.” Every note is fair. That doesn’t make them hurt less.

By the evening of day four, you’re frayed down to the wire.

The internal playtest build judders on the big screen while David and the others watch, controllers in hand, QA driving. The fight plays. The cutscene hits. The fight plays again. When the lights come up, you’re already braced. The feedback comes in low blows and body shots.

“Telegraph on the second slam is still muddy.”

“I don’t buy the god switching on the player that fast emotionally.”

“If this were a real milestone, I’d be yelling about scope creep.”

You nod. You take notes. You feel each comment slot into your already-overloaded brain like another brick on a tottering Jenga tower. Then Kaito says, almost offhand, “Right now, it feels like we’re playing two different slices stapled together. It’s… disjointed.”

Something in you snaps. “Because we keep cutting connective tissue,” you say, sharper than you meant to. “Every time we add a mechanic, something has to give, and it’s never the numbers.”

Raj’s brows lift. You can feel Wonwoo go still beside you.

“We don’t need more connective tissue,” Wonwoo says coolly. “We need the fight to feel coherent. The narrative padding is what’s making it drag.”

You turn to him. “Padding.”

“You know what I mean,” he says, jaw tight. “If players are dying because they’re watching a god act instead of reading the floor, they’re gonna get pissed.”

Heat flares in your chest. “If players don’t care why they’re fighting, they won’t remember the encounter in a month,” you fire back. “But sure, let’s just make it another pretty arena to wipe in.”

“I’m the one making sure they don’t wipe in the first thirty seconds,” he snaps. “Yeah, and I’m the one making sure they don’t alt-tab during the cutscene.”

The room goes very quiet. You realise, too late, that you’re arguing in front of David and the leads like this is a Slack thread and not your entire future. Kaito clears his throat.

“Okay,” David says lightly, but there’s steel under it. “This is good. Passionate. I’d rather see you fight for the slice than shrug at it.” You can’t tell if he’s sincere. “Take the notes,” he continues. “Cut one thing each. Combat, narrative. Meet in the middle like grown-ups. You’ve got… twelve hours.” You swallow down the sting. The meeting breaks. Chairs scrape. People file out. You stay long enough to collect your laptop, keeping your eyes glued to the table. You can feel Wonwoo’s presence like static beside you. “Pixie—” he starts.

“Don’t,” you say, sharper than you intend. You sling your bag over your shoulder. “I have to go make my padding less offensive.” You don’t wait for an answer.

You don’t remember the commute home.

One minute, you’re in Titan Forge’s elevator, badge still clipped crookedly to your shirt. The next, you’re in your apartment, keys on the counter, shoes half-kicked off, the room dim except for the glow from your monitors. You don’t change. You don’t shower. You don’t even take your badge off. You sit. You boot Aetherion.

Nyx materialises in a familiar forest — the crystalline one where you first really noticed Kade’s calm callouts. Fireflies bob between trees; particle-lit leaves sway in an endless digital breeze. The moment you load in, your voice channel pings. You accept on instinct.

“Hey,” he says, modulated voice sliding into your ears like you’ve been waiting for it. Then he goes quiet for a beat. “Rough day.”

It’s not a question. You let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding. “You have no idea,” you breathe.

“Try me.”

You move Nyx forward a few steps, then let her stop under a glowing tree. Your fingers hover uselessly over your keys. You don’t give details. You talk in vague, jagged shapes. “There’s this boss,” you say. “And he won’t stay dead the way I need him to.”

“Bad tuning?” Kade asks.

“Bad… everything,” you say. “Every time we fix one thing, something else breaks. And my co-lead—” you bite the word. “He’s brilliant and infuriating and somehow always exactly where the problem is, but he makes me feel like I’m just sprinkling glitter on top of his work.”

Silence, but not empty. Nyx idles on the screen, cloak fluttering. “Sounds like the boss isn’t the only thing that needs tuning,” Kade says eventually.

“He just… got under my skin today,” you admit. “We snapped at each other in front of everyone. I know better. I’m supposed to be… professional. Cool. Whatever.”

“You’re supposed to be human,” he says. “News flash, menace: humans lose it sometimes when they’re pushed.”

You swallow. “They’re only seeing the cracks,” you murmur. “Not the hundred things we did right. And he’ll be fine. He always is. I’m the one who looks… emotional.”

The word tastes sour. Kade exhales quietly.

“You’re carrying different things,” he says. “Both matter. One’s just easier to chart in a spreadsheet.” You blink back an unexpected burn in your eyes. “You’re very wise for someone who threatened to report me to floor safety,” you say. He laughs, low and warm. “I contain multitudes,” he says. “Come on. Walk with me.”

He pings a direction. You follow, letting Nyx fall in beside his avatar as he leads you off the usual path, deeper into the forest where the crystals grow taller and the ambient sound softens. He doesn’t try to fill every silence. He lets you vent in half-sentences and unfinished metaphors about bosses and deadlines and the way it feels to pour your whole heart into something and then watch people poke holes in it. When you crack a self-deprecating joke about “maybe I’m just not as good as I thought,” his voice cuts in, flat and sure.

“No,” he says. “That’s not it.”

You falter. “You don’t even know what I do,” you say.

“I know how you talk about it,” he replies. “I know how your brain works when we’re learning a fight. You look for angles other people miss. You see the story, not just the pattern. That doesn’t sound like ‘not good enough’ to me.”

Heat pricks behind your eyes. You tilt your head back in your chair, stare at the ceiling, and blink hard. “You’re very… soothing,” you say, trying to make it a tease so it doesn’t feel like a confession. “Don’t tell anyone,” he says. “They’ll expect me to start a support group.”

You laugh, real this time. The sharp edge in your chest shifts into something else. Softer. Sharper, too, in a different way. You’re aware of him in your ears, of the low rumble of his voice, of the way he keeps nudging you gently out of spirals and into smaller, safer topics — food, a bug he hit in another game, an NPC you both hate. The flirting that’s been threading through your conversations lately doesn’t disappear. It just evolves. When you grumble about your co-lead always being right in the most annoying way, Kade says, “Sounds like you need someone else to listen to you for a change.”

You shoot back, “Oh, so you’re volunteering for the job?” He doesn’t miss a beat. “Already doing it,” he says. “You’re just slow to accept my application.”

Later, when you call yourself “a disaster with a keyboard,” he says, “You’re not a disaster. You’re… high difficulty content.” You snort. “Is that your way of telling me I’m a pain in the ass?”

“It’s my way of telling you you’re worth the effort,” he says.

There’s a beat of quiet. Your heartbeat stutters. You find yourself wanting… more. More of that voice closer in your ear. More of his attention focused squarely on you and not filtered through a game lobby. More of this feeling of being guided and held together when you’re fraying apart. You don’t say it. You hover on the edge of it, teeth worrying your lower lip, fingers playing with your headset cord.

He gets there first. “Check your whispers,” Kade says suddenly.

You frown at your screen and open the chat. A private message blinks at the bottom. Kade: If I give you my number, you gonna use it?

Your pulse spikes. It’s reckless. It’s also the first thing you’ve wanted all week that feels like it’s just for you. Your fingers shake a little as you type. Nyx: Maybe. If you’re not a serial killer.

Kade: Too busy raiding to murder anyone.

You huff, breathless. You trade a few more lines — nothing identifying, just a string of digits and a “don’t be weird” from you, answered with a dry “no promises” from him.

When you finally log off, the forest dissolving into your desktop, the number is already in your contacts under: Kade. You stare at it for a long time.

Later, you lie in bed in the dark, in your T-shirt and panties, hair a little damp from the shower you barely remember taking. Your badge is on the nightstand, the screen of your phone the only light in the room as you scroll through nothing, thoughts chasing themselves in useless circles.

You flip to your contacts. Kade sits there like a dare. You should not. You really, really should not. Your phone vibrates in your hand.

Kade – Incoming call.

Your heart jumps so hard it almost hurts. You stare at the screen for two rings, three. You swipe to accept. “Hey,” you whisper, voice smaller in the dark than it ever is in daylight.

There’s a crackle, a breath, then his voice — softer than in-game, the modulation gone but worn down to a quiet rasp by the late hour and whatever he’s feeling. He’s whispering too, low enough that the edges of his words blur, like he’s sitting just out of sight instead of however many miles away. “Hey,” he says. “Couldn’t sleep either?”

You huff out a breath that isn’t quite a laugh. “Is it that obvious?”

“You still sounded wired when you logged off,” he says. “Figured you’d either be lying in the dark replaying everything, or doomscrolling. Thought I’d offer a third option.”

You shift onto your back, staring at the ceiling. “What option is that?” you ask. When he speaks again, his tone is different — lower, careful, edged with something you’ve only heard in brief flashes before.

“Let me get you out of your head for a while,” he says quietly. “If you want.” Heat curls low in your belly at the way he says it. Not pushy. Not coy. Just sure. You swallow. You could laugh it off. Make a joke. Change the subject. You don’t.

“And how exactly are you planning to do that, Tutorial?” you murmur, aiming for teasing and missing the mark, landing somewhere breathier.

You hear the faintest hitch in his breathing. “You trust me?” he asks.

The question hangs there, heavy and electric.

You think of how easily your body has learned to respond to his voice in-game — left, now, wait, with me — and how today, when everything else felt like it was slipping, that steadiness was the only thing that made you feel held together. You swallow. “Yeah,” you whisper. “I do.”

There’s a quiet exhale on his side of the line, like something in him unwinds. “Good,” he murmurs. “Then here’s what you’re going to do for me, Nyx.” Your name in that tone sends a shiver racing down your spine.

“Lie back,” he says softly. “All the way. Head on the pillow. I want you comfortable.” You obey, shifting until you’re sprawled on your back, phone resting against your ear, the cotton of your T-shirt whispering against your skin. “Done,” you say, a little breathless already.

“Close your eyes,” he murmurs. “No screens. No ceiling. Just your body and my voice. Okay?” You let your eyes slip shut. The darkness comes in, thick and soft. “Okay,” you whisper.

“Good,” he says. “Now breathe for me. In… and out.”

You inhale slowly, chest lifting, then exhale, letting it all out. He counts it out for you, low and steady. “Again,” he says. “In… hold… out… Good.”

You focus on his voice, on the rhythm he sets. Gradually, the edges of your thoughts blur, the endless loop of feedback and whiteboards and sharp looks fading to background static. When your breathing has evened out, his tone shifts again — still soft, but more deliberate.

“Put your hand on your throat,” he says quietly. “Not hard. Just… there.”

Your fingers lift, drifting up to rest lightly against the hollow at the base of your throat. You can feel your own pulse hammering under your touch.

“Feel that?” he asks. “That’s how wound up you are. You’ve been holding everything right there all day.” You swallow under your own hand.

“Slide down,” he murmurs. “Slow. Over your neck. Your collarbones.”

You obey, fingertips gliding down, following the line of your skin, over the small dip at the centre of your chest. The simple motion sends a shiver through you; you’re too keyed up for anything to feel casual. He hears the tiny intake of breath you make. “Yeah,” he says under his breath. “Just like that. Take your time.”

Your hand drifts lower, skating over the top of your chest. Even through your shirt, every brush feels magnified. You hesitate there, fingers resting, not quite squeezing. “You know what’s next,” he says, voice gone rougher. “Go ahead. Touch yourself how you like it. Over your shirt first.”

Your cheeks flame, alone in the dark, but you do it — carefully cupping your breast through the fabric, testing how sensitive you are. The answer is: very. Your back arches a little without your permission. A soft, involuntary sound slips out of you. He hears it.

You hear him react — a muffled curse, the kind you’ve only ever seen as text, now breathed into your ear. “Fuck,” he mutters, like he didn’t mean to say it out loud. Your stomach tightens. “You okay over there?” you whisper, voice shaky. There’s a rustle of fabric, the faint drag of something over skin. “Yeah,” he says, but the word comes out rough. “Just… appreciating the audio.”

You can picture him, suddenly, lying on his own bed somewhere, phone at his ear, hand not exactly idle. The thought sends another jolt of heat through you.

You roll your nipple gently between your fingers, breath catching, everything buzzing. “Spend a minute there,” he tells you. “You’ve been ignoring your own body. Make it up to yourself.”

You follow his lead, letting each slow touch build on the last until it’s almost too much. You’re panting softly now, the room feeling smaller, heavier.

“Lower,” he says at last, voice a little strained. “Hand down. Over your ribs. Your stomach.” Your palm drifts down, gliding over your torso, skin hot beneath the thin shirt, the muscles there jumping under your touch.

“Under the waistband,” he adds, quieter. “Don’t rush. Just get your hand where it wants to be.”

Your heart kicks hard against your ribs. You slip your fingers beneath the elastic, the contrast between air and warmth making you shiver. Just having your hand there, grazing lightly over your clit, pulls a soft, helpless sigh from you. “Yeah,” he breathes. “I can hear how badly you needed this.”

Your fingers start to circle on instinct, ready to chase what’s coiled so tight inside you, but his voice stops you. “Slow,” he says. “Start with just… exploring. Light pressure. See how sensitive you already are.”

You obey, fingers gliding in careful, teasing passes over the already sensitive nub. It’s not much, but it turns the volume up on everything; even the smallest stroke makes your thighs tense, your toes curl.

Your breath grows uneven, little gasps hitting the speaker.

On the other end, his breathing changes with yours. You hear the faint rhythm of movement, the slightest catch in his inhale now and then.

“You touching yourself too?” you ask, voice barely above a whisper.

There’s a pause. Then: “Yeah,” he says, honest and low. “I am.”

The admission sends a sharp pulse through you. You press down on your clit a bit harder, your hips giving a tiny jerk. He groans quietly, like the image in his head just shifted into focus. “Tell me what you’re doing,” he murmurs.

Your face burns, but you give him something — that your hand is moving in slow, careful circles over your clit, that every pass makes your breath stutter, that it’s not enough and somehow already too much.

It stays like that for a while.

You touch yourself the way he tells you to: small circles when you want to drag your hand, slow passes between your folds when your instinct is to grind down, the occasional shallow dip of your fingers into your heat that makes your whole body jump. Every time you try to speed up, he reins you back, murmuring “Not yet,” and you find yourself obeying even as you whine. The restraint makes everything sharper.

At one point, when the need to move harder is almost painful, he says, “Put me on speaker.”

You blink up at the ceiling. “What?”

“Speaker,” he repeats, steady. “Phone on the pillow. You’ll want both hands in a minute.”

Your pulse spikes again, but you do it — pull the phone slightly away, tap the screen until his voice fills the room instead of just your ear, set it on the pillow beside you. He sounds closer now, somehow bigger, every sound magnified. “Good,” he says. “Now you don’t have to hold back.”

You slide your other hand down to join the first. Where your left stays on your clit, the digits of your other hand move through your folds and over your entrance. The extra freedom makes your movements bolder, less restrained. Finally, you dip two of them inside, feeling the wetness and your tightening walls around them. When you curve them upwards, rubbing the spongey part on your upper wall, another sound escapes, something between a raw little gasp and a broken sigh.

“You hear yourself?” he asks, voice gone almost hoarse. “You have no idea what that’s doing to me.”

You do, actually. Because you can hear him now, too — the slick rhythm of his hand, the quiet curses slipping between his teeth, the way he has to stop talking for a second when you moan a little too loudly. “Tell me what you’re doing,” you manage, turning his earlier request back on him. “I want to know.”

He hesitates, then gives you just enough: “My hand’s around my cock,” he says, the vulgarity somehow making your whole body heat. “Palming the head, slowly. I’m trying to not let myself get ahead of you.”

The mental picture hits you like a punch. Your next moan comes out louder than you meant; you bite your lip, but it’s too late. He swears again, softly, like he’s the one being wrecked by the sound.

The tension builds and builds, each deliberate stroke of your fingers inside your hole dragging you closer. Your legs are trembling now, stomach tight, breath catching with every movement of your hands. You’re not even really thinking anymore; you’re just chasing what you need, guided by his voice.

“Kade,” you whisper, almost shocked at how wrecked you sound. “I’m… I’m close.” There’s a raw exhale from the speaker.

“Yeah?” he says, voice shredded around the edges. “Me too.”

You can hear it — the way his breathing has gone shallow, the way his rhythm has gone a little messy, like he’s barely holding on.

For a few seconds, neither of you talks. You just move, the room filled with the sounds of your shared urgency: your ragged breaths, his groans, the faint slide of skin on skin, the muffled wet squelch of your pussy.

You’re right on the edge, everything inside you drawn tight as a bowstring. He must hear the change in your breathing, because he finds his voice again, pushing the words out around his own impending end.

“All right,” he says, low and rough. “Now. Give it to yourself. Come for me.”

The command tips you over. You break apart with a soft, strangled cry, thigh muscles locking, back arching off the mattress as pleasure slams through you in sharp, blinding waves. Both hands stutter and then keep moving, drawn along by sheer momentum and his voice in your room saying, “That’s it. That’s it. I’ve got you.”

Somewhere in the middle of your own unravelling, you hear him let go. A rough, bitten-off groan, a rush of air, a muttered curse that blurs into a sound you’ve never heard from him before — not a word, just a noise dragged up from somewhere deep.

For a few long moments, all that exists is the echo of that peak and the sound of both of you trying to remember how to breathe. Slowly, your body loosens, muscles unwinding, hands falling still. You collapse back into the mattress, chest heaving, every inch of you feeling oddly light and heavy at the same time. His breathing is still coming hard through the speaker, a little ragged, but softening. You stare at the dark ceiling, fingers still twitching faintly, heartbeat pounding in your ears.

He’s the first to speak, voice softer now, edges sanded down.

“You back with me?” he asks.

You swallow, licking your lips. “Yeah,” you whisper. “I… yeah.”

You hear him smile “Good,” he says.

There’s a pause. Then, lightly: “On a scale from one to ‘still thinking about your boss,’ where are we?” You let out a breathless laugh that feels more like a sob turned sideways. “I have no idea what my boss looks like,” you admit. “Or my own name.” He chuckles, warm and smug and weirdly fond.

“Mission accomplished, then,” he says.

You lie there in the dark, sweat cooling on your skin, pulse slowly working its way back down. The knot between your shoulders feels looser. The buzzing panic in your chest has been swapped out for a warm, heavy ache. Guilt tries to poke its head in — about work, about lines you’ve blurred, about how you’re letting a stranger talk to you like this.

It doesn’t stick. Mostly, you feel… lighter.

“You okay?” he asks after a stretch of quiet. “Yeah,” you say, this time without hesitation. “Better than okay.”

“Good,” he says again, a little hum in the word. “Then you’re going to drink some water, maybe wash up, and then you’re going to sleep. That’s an order.”

“Bossy,” you murmur.

“Effective,” he counters, back in that dry, familiar cadence. “Can you do that for me, menace?” Your chest squeezes. “Yeah,” you say quietly. “I can do that.”

“Text me if your brain starts doing the spiral thing again,” he adds. “I can’t promise I’ll always pick up, but… I’ll try.”

Warmth blooms under your sternum. “Kade?” you say.

“Mm?”

“Thank you,” you murmur. “For… all of it.” You hear the smile in his reply. “Anytime,” he says. “Now hang up before I start liking you too much and say something embarrassing.” You laugh, soft and stunned. “Too late,” you say.

You end the call before you can hear his response.

You drag yourself up, drink water straight from a glass, stand under too-hot water until your skin prickles and your legs feel a little weak for more than one reason, then crawl back into bed, phone on the pillow beside you. As sleep starts to pull at you, you glance at the screen one last time.

One new message: Sleep, Nyx. You’ve got bosses to kill tomorrow.

You fall asleep with his words in your ear and the ghost of his voice still telling you what to do, for once not minding in the slightest.

The morning after, you’re wrecked and glowing in equal measure.

You wake up to your alarm feeling like someone unplugged your bones and put them back in slightly wrong, every muscle loose and heavy. Your body is tired; your brain is oddly quiet. Like somebody cleared the cache overnight.

You drag yourself through a shower and into vaguely clean clothes on autopilot, trying very hard not to think about how you got here — the way Kade’s voice had wrapped around your nerves, the way he’d pulled that earth-shattering orgasm out of you over the phone, like it was nothing.

You fail, obviously.

Every time you close your eyes too long in the elevator up to Titan Forge, you hear him again. “Give it to yourself. Come for me.” You almost miss your floor.

Wonwoo’s already in the war room when you walk in, standing by the whiteboard, one hand braced on the table, the other wrapped around a coffee like it’s the only thing anchoring him to this plane of existence.

He looks tired. Not his usual “up late thinking about enemy AI” tired. His hoodie is rumpled, hair messier than usual, dark circles under his eyes like he lost a fight with sleep and caffeine is only barely keeping him upright.

When you step inside, he glances up. Your gazes catch.

Something flickers across his face — a flash of something unreadable— before he looks away a fraction too quickly, taking a long swallow of coffee. You tell yourself the weird lurch in your chest is leftover vulnerability from last night, not anything to do with him.

“Morning,” you say, dumping your bag in your usual spot. “Barely,” he mutters, not quite meeting your eyes. You arch a brow. “Did the combat doc keep you up that late?” you ask.

He shrugs one shoulder. “Something like that,” he says, voice a shade rougher than usual. “You ready to make this god bleed for the playtest?” You grab a marker, capping it off with more force than necessary. “Born ready,” you say. “Let’s go break our own hearts before everyone else gets a turn.”

Between bug reports, tuning passes, and Jisoo poking her head in to ask for “just one more line” that will “totally make that cutscene land,” you barely have time to breathe. On your first coffee break, your phone buzzes in your pocket as you stand in the kitchen staring at the sad remains of a pastry tray. You fish it out.

Kade: “How’s your ‘colleague’ today?”

Your lips twitch. You glance at the doorway, half-expecting someone to be watching you. The kitchen is empty except for the hum of the fridge. You lean your hip against the counter and type back.

You: “Annoying. Smug. Infuriatingly good at his job.”. Kade: “Sounds like you want to strangle him or sit on his lap.”

Heat flashes under your skin so fast you almost drop your coffee. You bite your cheek, thumbs moving before your brain can meddle.

You: “Bold of you to assume it’s not both.” Kade: “There’s that bratty streak. Save some attitude for tonight.”

Your stomach does a slow, traitorous flip. You stare at the screen a second too long. A voice behind you makes you jump. “Coffee machine’s not a puzzle, you know.” You twist around.

Wonwoo’s standing in the doorway, mug in hand, watching you with that flat, unreadable look. Up close, the tiredness is even more obvious — the way his shoulders slump a little, the faint redness at the corner of his eyes, like he rubbed them too hard. You thumb your phone screen off and push the kettle button. “I was psyching myself up,” you say. “Trial Three, final day. Feels like a boss rush.”

He moves past you to the machine, sleeve brushing your arm. It shouldn’t register. Your skin registers it anyway. “At least on boss rushes you get loot,” he says. “If we survive this, I demand loot,” you reply. “Bare minimum: one nap and something with melted cheese.”

He huffs something that might resemble a laugh. “Aim high, Pixie,” he says. You don’t let your brain linger on how your nickname sounds in his sleep-rough voice.

The hours blur. You and Wonwoo fall into an uneasy, surprisingly efficient rhythm. He tweaks timings in the fight script; you adjust lines to match the new pacing. You suggest one more tiny reaction shot on the god when the choice lands; he grumbles about scope and then works the animation team to squeeze it in anyway. At one point, when Raj swings by to ask about the spike damage in phase two, you start to answer, and Wonwoo cuts in. “That tuning pass was mine,” he says before you can open your mouth. “If it feels unfair, blame me, not her.”

You blink at him. Raj squints, then shrugs. “It’s not unfair,” he says. “Just mean. I like it.”

He leaves. You glance sidelong at Wonwoo. “You didn’t have to do that,” you say. He keeps his eyes on his laptop. “You didn’t,” he says, “when they said the cutscene was too long. You argued it down to shaving five seconds instead of twenty. Call it even.”

You don’t have an answer to that, so you pretend to be very invested in your line spacing. You press your lips together, refusing to smile. It doesn’t work.

By midday, the war room looks like you detonated a design doc bomb.

Sticky notes bloom in clusters on every available surface. One whiteboard is entirely “CUT” and “KEEP” columns; another is scribbled with a half-dozen variations of one line of god dialogue.

You stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Wonwoo in front of the build monitor as the latest version of the fight plays back. The QA tester controlling the characters executes your “punished vs. rewarded” dynamic perfectly — one player glowing with buffs, the other staggering under repeated hits.

When the god finally falls, the cutscene triggers. The new, sharpened version hits harder than you expected.

The god looks directly at the defiant player and whispers the line you fought for — the one about “you’ll carry this choice even when my voice is gone.” The look they give each other just before the screen fades out punches you in the chest.

You glance sideways. Wonwoo’s lips press together in what might be grudging satisfaction. “It works,” he says.

“You sound surprised,” you say.

He shrugs, eyes still on the screen. “I’m surprised we got it to work in time,” he says. “Not that it works.”

You’re definitely too sleep-deprived, because your brain momentarily short-circuits at that. Before you can unpack it, your stomach growls loud enough to be embarrassing. He actually cracks a small smile at that.

“Go eat,” he says. “I’ll push this build to the playtest branch.”

You hesitate. “You should eat too,” you reply. “You look like you might ascend if someone breathes on you too hard.”

His mouth twitches. “If I ascend, you don’t get your cutscene,” he says. “Go.” You point two fingers at your eyes and then at him in a “this isn’t over” gesture, then back out of the room, phone already in your hand.

In the hallway, the fluorescent lights are a little too bright as you unlock your phone.

You: “We’re almost at presentation. I’m fifty percent adrenaline, fifty percent spite.” You: “If this goes badly, I’m blaming you retroactively.”

He doesn’t make you wait long.

Kade: “Bold, blaming your emotional support raid lead.” Kade: “How bad on a scale from ‘mildly annoying’ to ‘I need to set something on fire’?”

You glance down the hallway toward the war room and smile despite yourself.

You: “Hovering around ‘light arson.’” You: “But the project is finally behaving. The flow feels good. It might actually… be something.” Kade: “Of course it is. You touched it.”

Your breath catches. You stare at that for a second, feeling something warm and weird spread under your ribs. The dots keep bouncing.

Kade: “You pour yourself into things. It shows. Even from here.” Kade: “Worst case, if they don’t get it, they’re wrong.” You: “You’re dangerously close to being sappy.” You: “That’s my job.” Kade: “Relax, menace. I can be sappy and tell you what to do.” Kade: “Speaking of. Deep breath. Shoulders down. Drop your jaw.”

You roll your eyes but follow the instructions, exhaling slowly, unclenching muscles you didn’t even realise were clenched.

Kade: “Better?” You: “Hate that you’re effective from another timezone.” You: “But yeah. A little.”

The reply this time is slower, the dots lingering.

When it comes, the tone has shifted — lighter, teasing, the kind of playful edge that makes your pulse tick up.

Kade: “Good.” Kade: “Now go impress them so I can ruin your composure again later.”

You choke on nothing.

You: “You’re very confident.” Kade: “Last night says I’m allowed to be.”

Heat streaks through you at the reminder. You lock your phone before you can type something incriminating in the middle of Titan Forge’s hallway.

The internal playtest and presentation take place in the same big conference room where your earlier trials happened, but it feels different with a build you actually believe in. QA runs the slice while David, Raj, Jisoo, Kaito and a handful of other leads watch, controllers in their hands. You and Wonwoo stand side by side at the front, laptops open to your notes, pretending your hearts aren’t banging against your ribs in sync.

The fight plays. The mechanics land. There are wipes, but fair ones. The co-op dynamic between the “defiant” and “obedient” players sparks arguments and laughter in all the right places. The cutscene at the end hits; you see it in the way Jisoo goes very still, in the little “ohhh” murmured around the room when the god spits their last line.

Lights up. For a moment, nobody talks.

Then Raj lets out a breath that sounds suspiciously like he’s been holding it the whole time. “That phase two pattern is nasty,” he says. “In a good way.” He looks at Wonwoo. “I like how the punished player gets just enough tools that you want to be the one taking the hits.”

Wonwoo nods once. “Pain loop needed a reward,” he says.

Jisoo looks at you. “And the choice,” she says. “Tying the aggro mechanic to who argued with the god—that’s mean. I love it.”

You smile, shaky and a little relieved. “It felt right,” you say. “If they’re going to commit to defiance, the world should respond. Even if it’s inconvenient.” Kaito scrolls through notes on his tablet. “For a five-day slice,” he says slowly, “this is… ambitious. But it’s coherent. The systems and story are actually talking to each other.”

David has been quiet, watching you both instead of the screen. Now he straightens from where he’d been leaning against the table.

“It’s good,” he says. “Rough around the edges, sure, but the spine is strong. I can see the game in this.” Relief washes through you, sharp and dizzying. Then he smiles that sharp little smile that makes you nervous.

“Whose idea was the punished/rewarded co-op split?” he asks, eyes flicking between you and Wonwoo. “Combat or narrative?”

You open your mouth automatically. Wonwoo beats you to it. “Both,” he says. You blink at him. “She pitched the emotional hook,” he continues, nodding in your direction. “I built the numbers around it. You rip either side out, and it falls apart.” You catch up, mouth catching up to brain. “He’s the one who made it actually work,” you add. “If I’d tuned it alone, it would’ve been a story beat that accidentally killed everyone.”

David’s gaze moves back and forth between you like a metronome. “Cute,” he says. “You’ve discovered teamwork.” There’s a faint edge there you can’t quite parse. “If we had to ship this slice as-is,” he goes on, “I’d be yelling at you about scope, but I wouldn’t be ashamed of it. That’s… not nothing.”

Raj closes his notebook. “You two actually managed to make co-op feel like it matters,” he says. “That’s the thing I was most worried about when we started this project. I’m… impressed.”

You glance at Wonwoo. He’s looking straight ahead, jaw relaxed for the first time in days. When he notices you watching, he flicks a brief look your way. You share a small, tired smile. It feels oddly like a truce.

Later, after the room has emptied and the war room is in that strange limbo between “still yours” and “soon someone else’s mess,” you sit at the table with your laptop open, mostly for show. You know you should go home. Sleep. Eat real food.

Your phone buzzes. You don’t even pretend you’re not waiting for it.

Kade: “How’d it go?” You: “We didn’t crash and burn. Presentation played all the way through. People made noises, I think, that were good.” You: “Someone difficult even said he was impressed.” You: “I might frame that sentence.” Kade: “You should.” Kade: “Told you. You touch something, it turns into something good.”

Heat creeps up your neck.

You: “Careful. I’ll start believing you.” Kade: “Good.” Kade: “I want you thinking about what you did right today when I tell you what else I want you to do later.”

Your breath hitches. You glance reflexively at the door. Still empty.

You: “You’re very sure there’s going to be a ‘later.’” Kade: “I believe the odds are in my favour.” Kade: “Unless you regret it?”

You chew your lip and type.

You: “No.” You: “Definitely not.” You: “You?”

The answer comes fast.

Kade: “Not even a little.” Kade: “But if you ever do, we stop. No questions. That’s the deal.” You: “That’s very responsible of you, Tutorial.” Kade: “Don’t get used to it.” Kade: “I still plan on bossing you around mercilessly.”

You grin at your screen. Footsteps sound in the hallway. You lock your phone on reflex just before Wonwoo pushes the door open, a folder tucked under his arm, his phone in his hand. “Jisoo wants our notes for the presentation doc,” he says, crossing the room as he types something. “She’s doing a postmortem write-up.”

You nod, closing your laptop. Your phone buzzes again on the table, screen lighting up with Kade’s name for a second before going dark.

Wonwoo’s eyes flick to it, then away just as quickly, expression unreadable. “Big plans tonight?” he asks casually. You swallow, hoping your face isn’t doing anything incriminating.

“Sleep,” you say. “Maybe forgetting my own name for ten hours.”

His mouth twists like he’s suppressing a comment. “Try not to die before Trial Four,” he says instead. “I’d hate to have to steal your ideas posthumously.” You snort. “You’d miss me.”

He doesn’t look at you when he answers, putting his phone away instead. “Yeah,” he says softly. “I think I would.”

Before you can respond, he drops the folder on the table and leaves again, the door swinging shut behind him. Your phone buzzes one more time. You pick it up, a little faster than before.

Kade: “Tonight I want you on call, no game. Just you and me.” Kade: “Think you can be good for me twice in a row?”

You stare at the words, heat flooding your lower stomach. Between two fires, you think. One rival who makes you want to prove yourself every time he looks at you. One disembodied voice who sees right through you even without a name.

You: “No promises on being ‘good.’” You: “But I’ll pick up.”

You set your phone down, the war room spinning quietly around you, and realise that, for the first time in days, you’re not just surviving the crunch. You’re looking forward to something. Even if you have no idea how dangerously tangled those two parts of your life could get.

Trial Four comes and goes in a blur of pitch decks, leadership questionnaires, and David using phrases like “scalability of vision” until the words mean nothing.

By the time the dust settles, the roster has shrunk again. Baekhyun and Yoohyeon are cut post-Trial Three, with a quick “thank you for your time” and corporate smiles that don’t reach anyone’s eyes. Now it’s just you and Wonwoo. Two names on the board. Two badges in the war room. You thought it would feel triumphant. Mostly, it feels like the world is narrowing to a single point.

You notice it slowly at first — little shifts around the edges.

In one review, David circles your cutscene outline with a red pen. “We could trim here,” he says. “Skip straight from the god’s first line to the choice prompt. Keep the pacing tight. What do you think, Jeon?”

Wonwoo twirls his pen once between his fingers, eyes flicking from the page to the whiteboard where your emotional beats are mapped out. “If you cut that line,” he says, “the god’s turn comes out of nowhere. The player needs the hesitation to believe the threat.”

David lifts his brows. “We can show that in gameplay,” he says. “No need to over-explain.”

“We are showing it in gameplay,” Wonwoo replies, tone even. “That line lets them feel it before they see it. It’s doing work. I’d cut the second reaction shot instead.” David looks between you, clearly weighing how much blood he can squeeze from both stones.

“You okay with that, Pixie?” he asks you. You’re still stuck on the we in “we are showing it.”

“Yeah,” you say, clearing your throat. “We cut the second reaction shot, we keep the line.”

David’s mouth twists. “You two are getting very good at presenting a united front,” he says lightly. “Dangerous.”

Later, in a systems meeting, David tries again. He leans back in his chair, hands steepled. “If we were going to ship this,” he says, “I want to know whose name goes on the credits as lead. Narrative or combat. You can’t both be in charge.” He watches the words land, eyes bright like he’s waiting for sparks. You open your mouth, defences already snapping into place.

Wonwoo speaks first. “Pick whoever pisses you off less,” he says dryly. “It won’t change how we designed this. The slice is both of us.” You blink at him, caught flat-footed. David’s gaze sharpens. “You’re really okay with that?” he asks. “Even if the role lands on her?”

Wonwoo doesn’t flinch. “If she’s lead, I still get to build fights,” he says. “If I’m lead, she still gets to make people cry. Either way, you get a better game using both.”

You just stare at him. He feels it, finally glancing your way. “Don’t look so shocked, Pixie,” he says, shrugging one shoulder. “I’m not a complete villain.” Your mouth opens. Closes. You look back at your laptop because looking at him suddenly feels dangerously complicated.

The days grow stranger by degrees. You and Wonwoo still bicker, but the barbs land softer now, wrapped in a layer of something almost like fondness. He still pokes holes in your logic, still rolls his eyes when you get too poetic on a first pass, still mutters “scope” under his breath whenever you pitch something ambitious.

But when David tries to pin a problem on you alone, Wonwoo steps in with a steady “that one’s on me.” When someone suggests cutting a narrative beat you love, he backs you up with combat justification. When you’re too fried to translate Raj’s tuning complaints into story terms, he quietly rephrases them until they make sense. You keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. For him to pull away, to remind you this is still a competition, that only one of you walks away with Titan Forge on your CV. He doesn’t.

Meanwhile, your phone has become a second heartbeat. You don’t text Kade in the war room. Not when Wonwoo’s there. Not when anyone’s there. But the second you step away — into the hallway, into the stairwell, outside to gulp cold air on the rooftop — the buzz starts.

Kade: “Project update?” You: “Internal politics worse than external action. Send help.” Kade: “Kill them with charm. Or, failing that, numbers.” You: “Charm stat is low. Spite stat is maxed.” Kade: “Spite is a perfectly valid build.”

The sexting thread slithers between the jokes now, woven through the mundane.

Kade: “What are you wearing?” You: “Corporate casual and despair.” Kade: “Hot.” Kade: “Lose the despair later. Keep the rest on until I tell you.”

Your cheeks burn on the rooftop, wind biting at your ears. You type with your back to the door.

You: “You’re very sure I’ll do what you say.” Kade: “You say that every time, and then you do exactly what I tell you.” Kade: “Eventually.”

You hate how true that feels. You love how true that feels. You delete three responses that are essentially variations of “fuck you” and settle on:

You: “You’re lucky you’re good at this.” Kade: “I am. And so are you.”

You go back inside with your pulse racing for reasons that have nothing to do with the final trial brief sitting on your desk.

In Aetherion, the boundary between “game” and “something else” keeps dissolving.

You and Kade finished the main story content weeks ago, but the devs keep patching in co-op vignettes — little side scenes, optional story nodes that only trigger if two players have a high enough “bond” score. You’ve unlocked almost all of them.

Campfires under different skies. Quiet nights in hidden shrines. Short quests where your characters work together to fix small, almost domestic problems — an NPC’s broken cart, a haunted well, a lost kid who won’t talk to anyone but Nyx. Tonight, you’re tucked into your usual corner of the crystalline forest, Nyx and Kade sitting on a log, a new “Between Wars” scene flickering to life around them.

You’ve both set your controllers down. At some point, the active playing stops and the two of you default to just talking. The conversation drifts like it always does.

Music first — soundtracks you love, tracks you loop when you’re playing or working. Then favourite boss designs, the ones that made you swear out loud in the best way. “The first time I beat that fight,” Kade says, “I screamed so loud my neighbour knocked on the wall.”

“Did you apologise?” you ask. “No,” he replies. “I asked if they wanted the build.” You laugh until your sides hurt.

That slides into childhood games — cartridges and cracked CDs, memories of borrowed consoles and staying up too late, the first time you realised you could be in a story instead of just reading it. You describe playing an ancient fantasy RPG on a hand-me-down system with a broken save battery, having to keep it paused for hours because turning it off meant losing everything. “That explains so much about your personality,” Kade says. “Early exposure to high stakes.”

“Says the man who thinks floor traps are a fun learning tool,” you shoot back. “They are,” he insists. “Pain is an excellent teacher.”

His voice is warm, amused, threaded with that intimacy that comes from too many hours spent comfortingly in each other’s ears.

At some point, you realise you’re lying sideways on your couch, phone in one hand, controller barely touched in the other, just watching Nyx and Kade’s idle animations flicker by the campfire. The game has become scenery. He has become the main thing.

The thoughts that have been circling for days finally break the surface three nights later.

You stall for a bit — talk about a minor NPC, toss a few jokes out, let them fall. Then, before you can talk yourself out of it, you blurt: “There’s someone at work I can’t stand.”

You hear him go quiet, the soft crackle from his mic shifting as he settles more fully into listening mode. “The same one you mentioned before?” he asks. “The ‘annoyingly talented’ one?”

You exhale, long and uneven. “Yeah,” you say. “Him.”

You pick at a loose thread on the couch with your free hand.

“He drives me insane,” you continue. “He’s smug, and infuriating, and he always seems… collected. Even when I’m falling apart. He used to act like I wasn’t even a threat. Like I was just… there.”

“Used to?” Kade prompts gently.

You think of Wonwoo taking the blame in front of Raj. Of him backing your line against David. Of his quiet “If she’s lead, I still get to build fights” like your success doesn’t diminish his. Think of the way he said, “Yeah. I think I would,” when you joked he’d miss you.

“Lately he’s been… different,” you say slowly. “Backing me up in meetings. Deflecting shit that isn’t my fault. It’s like he decided not to be an ass overnight, and my brain hasn’t caught up.”

You swallow. The words feel like they’re scraping on the way out.

“And I think I might also…” You force yourself to say it, “…be kind of into him, which is very annoying.”

When Kade finally laughs in reply, it’s not cruel. It’s strained, like he’s trying very hard to keep something steady. “Enemies-to-lovers is a classic trope for a reason,” he says lightly. You groan, dropping your forearm over your eyes. “This isn’t a romance novel,” you protest. “He’s— I mean, we’re competing. For the same project. He’s my rival.”

“Rivals to lovers,” Kade corrects. “Also a classic.” You make an inarticulate noise of despair. “You’re not helping.”

There’s a soft exhale on the other end. When he speaks again, his voice has dropped — not into the commanding cadence he uses when he’s telling you where to stand, but into something lower, more careful. “You sure?” he asks.

“Sure about what?”

“That this isn’t a romance novel,” he says quietly. “Feels like it from over here.”

You want to argue. You also want to crawl into your own hoodie and never come out. “You’re romanticising this,” you grumble. “You don’t know him.”

“I know you,” he says. “You light up when you talk about work. Even when you’re pissed off. You wouldn’t waste this much energy on someone you didn’t… care about, on some level.”

You chew on that, on the word care, on the possibility that your anger has been hiding something else. It’s too much. So you dodge. “So what, I’m just supposed to confess my undying love in the next meeting?” you say. “Wear a shirt that says ‘I hate how attractive your brain is’?”

He laughs, the tension in his voice easing a fraction. “I mean, I’d pay to see that,” he says. “But no. I’m saying you don’t have to have it all sorted right now. You’re allowed to want to throttle someone and kiss them at the same time.” The worst part is that you’ve already told him that exact thing — about your colleague — in texts. You’ve practically written your own trope label. You sigh, scrubbing a hand over your face. “You’re infuriatingly reasonable,” you say.

“I contain multitudes,” he replies.

You can hear him smile, but there’s still something tight underneath, like holding this conversation is scraping against a nerve you can’t see.

On screen, Nyx shifts closer to Kade by the campfire, their idle animation nudging them nearly shoulder to shoulder. You watch them, heart thudding, as Kade says, almost too casually, “For what it’s worth?”

“Yeah?”

“Whoever he is,” Kade says, “he’s an idiot if he doesn’t see what he’s got in front of him.”

Your throat closes up for a second. You swallow around it. “Yeah, well,” you say, voice coming out softer than you like. “Good thing you’re not an idiot, then.” There’s a tiny, startled pause. Then he laughs, low and a little shaky. “Working on it,” he murmurs.

You log off hours later with your head spinning, your heart sore, and a growing suspicion that you’re in way over yours.

In one world, you’re gearing up for the final trial against the man who’s been an accidental measuring stick for your entire career, who has started quietly stepping into your corner when it counts.

In another, you’re falling asleep with your phone on the pillow beside you, waiting for a notification from the voice that can pull you apart and put you back together from miles away.

The lines between them blur a little more every day.

Trial Five doesn’t feel like a trial. It feels like a war of attrition.

You and Wonwoo are basically living at Titan Forge. Someone wheels a spare couch into your war room; it becomes a graveyard for hoodies and half-finished coffee cups. The blinds stay half-closed because the outside world is starting to feel like an optional DLC you didn’t purchase.

The brief is simple and cruel: “Pitch a three-year roadmap for Mythfall: Eclipse and then, in a live scenario, rescope that roadmap when we throw crises at you. Show us how you think, how you cut, how you lead.”

You’re not just designing a game anymore. You’re designing a future.

And David is done pretending he’s rooting for you both.

It starts with the one-on-ones. He frames them like standard check-ins.

“Just to make sure you’re both supported,” he says, smiling bright and harmless. “We don’t want you burning out before you even get the job.”

You go first.

David’s office is smaller than you thought it would be. Crammed with shelves, concept art pinned everywhere, a whiteboard full of half-erased scribbles. His desk is cleared, though — tablet, a little stack of sticky notes, your file. He leans back in his chair, fingers steepled. “You’ve done good work, Pixie,” he says. “Mythfall’s heartbeat? A lot of that is you.”

The compliment lands, then immediately feels suspicious. “Thanks,” you say carefully. He nods, like he expected the caution. “But you know how this works,” he goes on. “We can’t have two leads on one title. Someone has to own the final call. Someone has to be willing to say ‘no’ when everyone wants ‘yes.’”

“I can do that,” you say. “If that’s what you’re asking.”

“I’m asking if you’re willing to out-think Jeon,” David says, sharp now. “Because he’s very good at what he does and he’s talking about a solo vision in his meetings.” Your heart stutters. “Solo vision?” David shrugs, casual. “Not in those words,” he says. “But you know how combat people are. Systems-first. He’s got strong opinions about how this game should play and end. I need to know you’re not going to just… orbit him. That you can bring something equally sharp to the table.” You sit a little straighter, pulse beating in your ears. “I’m not orbiting anyone,” you say before you can soften it. “I have a vision. Our slice works because I fought for it. I can fight for the larger picture too.” His eyes warm. “Good,” he says. “Show me that tomorrow. Show me where you would push back if he gets stubborn. We need different perspectives. That’s the best-case scenario — not two versions of the same mind.” You leave feeling like you’ve swallowed a live wire.

You don’t see Wonwoo’s one-on-one. But you see him come out.

You’re walking past the row of glass offices with a printout in your hand when his door opens. He steps into the hallway, face set in that neutral, unreadable way you’re starting to recognise as his version of upset.

David’s voice carries through the cracked door, too loud to pretend you don’t hear. “—just don’t get blindsided, okay? She’s smart. She’s already talking about pitching a separate direction. I’d hate for you to assume you’re on the same page when you’re not.”

Heat floods your face. You don’t stop walking. You don’t look at either of them. You keep going until you’re around the corner, then press your back to the wall and stare at the printer paper in your hand without seeing it.

Separate direction. You replay the conversation in David’s office. The way he framed his concern. The way he twisted “I need you to be strong” into “he wants to lead alone.” The way he’s now telling Wonwoo you might split.

The next two days are a mess of splinters.

You and Wonwoo are still working together, but the soft goodwill that started to build after Trial Three now has hairline cracks running through it. When you push for a narrative-heavy arc in Year Two, you catch him hesitating before he backs you up. When he sketches a system for rotating co-op alliances in Year Three, you hear yourself ask, sharper than you meant, “And where exactly does that leave story continuity?”

You both apologise, quickly and awkwardly, but the apologies feel thin over the tension buzzing underneath. Tiny misunderstandings, yesterday’s nothing, turn into petty frustrations today. You find out, during a review, that he moved one set piece on your Year One roadmap to fit a boss he’s been dreaming up. He finds out, during a call, that you rewrote some flavour text for his combat trees without telling him because “it fit better tonally.” Each time, you both say “It’s fine,” and neither of you sounds like you mean it.

The blowup happens at 1:17 a.m.

The war room is lit only by two desk lamps and the blue glow of the big screen. Everyone else on your floor went home hours ago. Even the cleaning staff have passed through twice and left. There’s an empty pizza box on the table, three coffee cups, two energy drink cans, and one very frayed patience between you. You’d crashed on the couch for “ten minutes” and woken up forty minutes later, neck stiff, mouth dry. You push yourself up, scrub a hand over your face, and stagger toward your laptop. Wonwoo’s already there.

He’s standing at your side of the table, eyes on your screen, fingers moving over your keyboard. For a moment, your half-sleeping brain can’t parse it. Then your stomach drops. Your roadmap document is open. The Year Two narrative section — your section, the one you stayed up to write, the one about fractured pantheons and co-op betrayals — is on the screen.

Words have changed. Sentences shortened. Bullet points rearranged. One of your carefully built emotional beats has become a single bland phrase: “relationship fallout.” Something hot and ugly surges up your throat. “What are you doing?”

He looks up, startled. “Editing,” he says. “The wording was a little—”

“I didn’t ask you to touch that,” you snap, stepping closer. “That’s my section.” His brows draw together. “You were asleep on the couch,” he says. “The deck needs to go to Kaito by eight. I was trying to make sure it’s coherent.”

“By stripping all the specificity out of my pitch?” you demand. “Turning ‘the party has to live with the cost of sparing a god’ into ‘relationship fallout’?” You jab a finger at the screen. “Do you have any idea how hard I fought for that arc when Jisoo thought it was too dark?”

He sets his hands on the table, jaw tightening. “Yes,” he says. “I’m the one who backed you when she wanted to cut it.”

“And now you’re rewriting it while I’m unconscious,” you throw back. “So which is it, Jeon? Support or sabotage?” The air between you goes very still.

He straightens slowly. “You can’t be serious,” he says.

You laugh, harshly, too loud in the small room. “David told me you’ve been talking about your ‘solo vision,’” you say, the words spilling out before you can stop them. “That you need to know you can lead this game on your own.”

Something flickers across his face — genuine surprise, then anger. “And he told me you were considering pitching a separate direction so I shouldn’t get blindsided,” he says, voice cool. “So forgive me for wanting to make sure our names are attached to something that actually fits together.”

You stare at him. You’re too tired. Too raw. Too used to being made to feel like the emotional one, the one who can’t take criticism, the one whose work is “padding” until proven otherwise. All you see is your document on the screen under his hands.

“If you wanted to ‘make sure it fits,’ you could’ve woken me up,” you say, hurt sharpening every syllable. “Instead of quietly sanding down my work until it looks more like yours.”

His expression shutters. “If I’d known you were going to accuse me of sabotage every time I tried to help,” he says, voice flattening, “maybe I shouldn’t have started helping at all, Pixie.”

The nickname lands like a slap. You cross your arms over your chest, nails biting into your skin. “Nobody asked you to start,” you shoot back.

He flinches. It’s small. A tightening around his eyes, a tiny shift in his stance. If you weren’t staring at him, you might miss it.

For a second, neither of you says anything. The war room hums quietly around you — computer fans, the faint buzz of fluorescent lights, the ghost of someone’s laughter from three days ago stuck in the walls.

You break first. “I’m going home,” you say, snatching your laptop cord out of the wall. “You clearly have this under control.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he says, exasperation slipping into his tone. “We have a deadline. We don’t have time for—”

“For me to be upset about you rewriting my work?” you cut in. “No, of course we don’t. That would be inconvenient.”

You stuff your laptop into your bag, way rougher than necessary.

He runs a hand through his hair, visibly struggling for patience. “What do you want me to say?” he asks. “That I won’t touch anything that isn’t mine, even if the whole thing sinks because of it? Congratulations, you’re lead then. Alone.”

The worst part is that a piece of you hates how much that hurts. You yank your bag onto your shoulder. “Goodnight, Jeon.”

You’re halfway out the door when he says, quieter, “You know that’s not what I meant.” You don’t look back. If you do, you might crumble.

Your apartment feels foreign when you stumble in.

You drop your bag by the door, kick your shoes off hard enough that one skids under the table. Your Titan Forge badge lands on the counter with a clatter. You pace the length of your living room three times, pulse still hammering in your ears. You’re furious. You’re exhausted. You’re hurt.

That last one feels like betrayal.

You scrub a hand over your face, breathing hard. Your gaze lands on your PC. You know you should just go to bed, let the anger burn itself out, deal with the fallout tomorrow like a professional adult.

Instead, your fingers move on autopilot. You boot Aetherion.

Nyx materialises in the crystalline forest, same as always. The world is quiet, glowing, almost gentle. Your voice chat icon lights up almost immediately. You accept before you can reconsider.

“Hey,” Kade says. Usually, there’s a smile in his voice when he greets you. Tonight, there’s something else too — a thread of concern.

“You’re on late,” he adds. “Even for you.”

You don’t bother pretending otherwise. “Big surprise,” you say. “Work imploded.” You move Nyx without thinking, running her in circles under the trees, needing the motion.

“Walk or hit things?” he asks.

“Both,” you say. “At the same time.”

He chuckles softly. “Come on, then,” he says. “There’s a patrol route with some elites that deserve it.” He pings a spot. You follow, falling into the familiar pattern — Nyx at his flank, his greatsword a constant weight at the edge of your vision.

Your hands know what to do. Your brain does not. You take a hit you normally would’ve dodged. Miss an obvious telegraph. Overextend into a pack and eat a stun to the face. Kade notices.

“Nyx,” he says, after you faceplant into the same cone twice in a row. “You’re playing like someone swapped your dexterity for salt.”

“Maybe I did,” you mutter. He keeps his tone light, but there’s a hint of steel underneath now — the same edge he uses when a raid is one mistake away from a wipe.

“Talk to me,” he says. “What happened?”

You don’t want to talk. You also kind of want to scream. Instead, you give him the redacted version: the project, the roadmap, the one-on-ones that feel more like trap rooms, the late-night scene in the war room with your “colleague” at your laptop. You still can’t say Wonwoo’s name here. It doesn’t matter. You talk in silhouettes; Kade connects the lines.

“He rewrote my work while I was asleep,” you say, fingers tight on your mouse. “Then acted like I was overreacting for being pissed about it.”

On screen, Nyx lunges forward at the wrong moment. You notice too late; a phantom’s blade kisses her health bar. Kade swings in, intercepting, catching the enemy’s attention before it finishes the combo. “Of course you’re pissed,” he says. “Anyone would be. That’s your name on the doc.”

“David’s already trying to pit us against each other,” you push on, anger rising with your words. “I’m supposed to be his co-lead, and I feel like I’m constantly fighting for my own oxygen. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.”

You take another hit. Kade yanks the mob off you again, but his voice is less smooth now. “You know exactly what you’re doing,” he says. “You’ve been holding half the project together by force of will.”

“Hasn’t felt like it,” you say bitterly. “Feels like I’m either in the way or being used as decoration.” You rush into the next pack too early, ignoring the patrol path you usually follow. Three enemies turn at once, converging on you. Kade curses under his breath and dives in after you, sword flashing. “Nyx,” he says, firmer now. “Back up. You’re going to get yourself killed.”

“Maybe I don’t care,” you snap, dashing anyway. Your screen floods with damage numbers. He burns cooldowns to keep you from eating dirt. “I care,” he says. “Fall. Back.” Something in you bristles at the command.

You do it anyway, because your health bar is screaming and he’s clearly not about to let you die on his watch. You kite backward, breath too fast in your own ears. “You can’t keep charging red telegraphs and then get mad when you get hit,” he says tightly. “That’s not how this works.”

“Wow,” you say, the bitter laugh scraping out of your chest. “Thanks for the life lesson.”

“You wanted to hit things,” he reminds you. “I’m trying to make sure you don’t wipe in the process.”

The words land wrong tonight. You hear I’m trying to show you how to do it right. You hear you can’t handle this without me. You know that’s not what he said. It doesn’t matter.

“Maybe I’m just an idiot,” you say, fingers clenching around your mouse. “For talking to someone I don’t actually know. For letting some guy on the other end of a phone tell me what to do like he knows best.”

There’s a small, sharp silence. You hear his exhale, short and disbelieving. “Wow,” he says quietly. “Okay.”

You push on, because it’s easier than stopping. “You’re not the one who has to deal with the fallout if this blows up in my face,” you say. “You’re not the one with your real career on the line while you—” You cut yourself off before you say too much. The damage is done anyway. “Nyx,” he says, and there’s a warning in it now. “That’s not fair.”

You laugh, the sound sharp. “What part?” you demand. “The part where I rearrange my sleep to match your raid times? The part where you tell me how to breathe, how to touch myself, how to—” you choke on the memory, “—and I just… listen, because you’re so calm and sure and it’s easier than trusting my own judgment?”

Your vision blurs for a second. You blink hard. On screen, the last enemy dies. Loot explodes around you in a shimmer of colour. Neither of you moves to pick it up. His voice comes back, rougher. “You know me better than you think,” he says. “This isn’t just some game to me.”

You freeze. Something under your ribs twists. He keeps going, words tripping a little. “I’ve been here,” he says. “Every night you’ve wanted to scream. Every time you’ve doubted yourself. I know how you think about fights. I know how you talk when you’re stressed, when you’re happy, when you’re about to do something reckless. I know you.”

The hurt from the war room flares again, now tinged with something like panic. “Do I?” you ask, voice low and shaking. “Know you?”

You stare at Nyx and Kade on the screen — two avatars shoulder to shoulder, weapons sheathed, both idle animations breathing in sync. You realise, abruptly, that if he disappeared tomorrow, you don’t have a last name. You don’t have a face. You don’t have anything but a voice, a handle, and the mess he’s made of your heart. “Because from where I’m standing,” you say, “you’re just another guy who gets to be mysterious and in control and take what he wants and call it ‘help.’”

You can hear his breath on the line, sharp once, then pulled in. When he speaks, his voice is very, very controlled. “That’s what you think I’m doing?” he asks quietly. “Taking?”

You don’t answer. You don’t trust what will come out if you open your mouth. You hit escape. The menu fills your screen. You see his avatar turn toward you, as if he knows what you’re about to do even without mechanics for it. “Nyx,” he says, and there’s something in his tone you haven’t heard before — not command, not teasing, something brittle. “Don’t log off angry. Talk to me.”

Your cursor hovers over “Log Out.” Your eyes sting. You do it anyway. The world blinks out to the character select screen, then to desktop. His voice cuts off mid-breath.

Your room rushes in — the hum of your PC, the tick of your wall clock, the too-loud sound of your own heartbeat. You sit there in the dark, headset still on, fingers pressed white-knuckled into your thighs, breathing like you just wiped to a boss at one percent. You tell yourself you’re justified. That it’s good to remember you don’t really know him. That you’re protecting yourself. You tell yourself a lot of things. None of them makes your chest hurt less.

You rip the headset off and toss it onto the couch, then crawl into bed without showering, without brushing your teeth, without turning your phone face-up on the pillow like you usually do. You don’t want to see his name. You don’t want to see if it doesn’t appear.

In the dark, with your eyes burning and your throat tight, one thought echoes louder than the rest: In one world, you just accused your co-lead of trying to cut you out. In another, you just shoved away the only person who’s been holding you together when you felt like you were coming apart.

For the first time since this all started, it feels like you might have done real damage in both.

The next day, the whole building feels off-kilter.

The air in Titan Forge’s hallway is too dry, the fluorescents too bright, the hum of servers too loud. Every sound seems to scrape along your nerves. You step into the war room and feel it immediately: the shift.

Wonwoo’s already there, standing by the big screen, flipping through printouts. His hoodie is cleaner than yesterday’s, hair pulled back off his face, badge clipped straight. He looks composed. You do not feel composed. He glances up when you enter. For one suspended heartbeat, you meet each other’s eyes. There’s a flicker there—regret, maybe, or just the echo of yesterday’s fight—but he’s the one who looks away first, gaze dropping back to the paper in his hand. “Morning,” he says, neutral. “Sure,” you answer, just as flat. You take your seat at the table. He stays by the screen. You talk only when you have to.

“Slide eight needs numbers.” “Already added them.”

“We’re missing milestones for Year Two.” “Check the second tab.”

Voices clipped, eyes skimming past each other, never lingering. On paper, nothing is wrong. The deck is getting done. The roadmap is tightening. The final trial is tomorrow. Underneath, it’s all shattered.

Last night sits between you: you finding him over your document; his face when you accused him; your own words, sharp and ugly. The slam of the door when you walked out. You don’t know what to do with any of it.

You don’t know what to do with Kade, either. Your phone stayed face down on your nightstand, buzzing once, then silent. You didn’t look. You can’t now. Not with Wonwoo ten feet away. You dig your nails into your palm and focus on the work.

Today is “final prep day,” according to David. Polish. No surprises. Dot the i’s, cross the t’s, make sure the build and the deck and your brains all say the same thing. It feels less like polish and more like threading a needle during an earthquake.

You and Wonwoo spend the morning in the war room scrubbing the roadmap slides until they gleam. You tighten the wording on your emotional beats; he reworks a couple of graphs so they’re legible from the back row. You trim one story example; he trims two features and then adds a line to your slide so you can point to how story and systems saved scope together. In the afternoon, you move to the big conference room you’ll use tomorrow. Kaito’s assistant booked it for your “tech check and rehearsal.” It feels like walking onto a stage before the curtain.

You plug in the laptop. The title slide for your deck—Mythfall: Eclipse – Three-Year Vision—fills the big screen. You and Wonwoo take turns at the front, clicking through, talking to empty chairs. “Year One is about promises,” you say, gesturing to the map. “We teach players what this world honours and what it punishes.”

“Year Two is about consequences,” he adds, when the slide shifts. “We start cashing checks we wrote in Year One. Systemically and emotionally.”

You time yourselves. You tweak transitions. You add two backup slides for the live Q&A. You scribble a list of potential “crises” they might throw at you tomorrow and argue through how you’ll answer each one so you don’t contradict each other in front of the leads. Sometime around nine, David sticks his head in. “You two still here?” he asks, sounding more amused than surprised. You click out of slideshow mode; the fluorescent lights feel harsher when the screen isn’t filling your vision. “Just making sure nothing explodes when we hook it up tomorrow,” you say.

He glances at the screen, at the neatly ordered thumbnails in the sidebar, at the whiteboards with timelines still half-erased. “Looks thorough,” he says. “Get some rest. Don’t over-rehearse. I want your brains sharp tomorrow, not fried.” You fight the urge to snort.

“We’ll head out soon,” Wonwoo says instead. David gives you both a quick, bright smile that somehow still feels like a test. “Big day,” he says. “Try not to think about it.” Then he’s gone, door swinging shut, leaving you in the echo of his advice. You and Wonwoo run the deck one more time anyway. Just once more.

By the end of it, your throat is scratchy and your shoulders ache. The clock on the wall says 11:34 p.m. The rest of the floor is dark. You start packing up—closing your laptop, stacking your printouts into a neat pile that immediately slouches sideways, capping the last dry-erase marker. Chair scrapes as you push yours in. “See you tomorrow,” you say, without looking up. You don’t wait for an answer. You head for the door, letting it swing shut behind you, never checking whether his footsteps follow or if he stays behind in the empty room.

You make it all the way down the hallway before you realise something’s missing. You stop dead. Your phone. You remember setting it on the table beside your laptop before you started rehearsing. You remember telling yourself you’d deal with Kade’s existence later. You did not remember picking it back up. “Fuck,” you mutter under your breath. You pivot and head back.

The corridor is dark now, most of the floor already shut down for the night. Only the conference room door glows with light under the frame. You hesitate for half a second, then push it open. Your phone sits near the far end of the table, exactly where you left it. Right next to Wonwoo.

He’s in the chair you vacated, hunched over the table, elbows braced, face in his hands. His phone lies just off to the side, screen dark.

He jerks upright when the door opens. You both freeze. For a moment, you just look at each other, lit by the overheads and the flicker from the screensaver on the big monitor. You open your mouth to say something neutral—forgot my phone, or didn’t know you were still here—when you notice your screen is already lit. You cross the room automatically, reaching for it, then stop when you see what’s on the lock screen. A text preview, right there in familiar formatting.

Kade: “I’m sorry about last night, Pixie. I pushed too hard.”

You stare at the words, at the nickname. Pixie. You feel it like a physical impact: the word, the timing, the apologetic tone that matches the one you’ve come to know from his texts and calls. Your head snaps up. Wonwoo is watching you. You catch the movement as he slides his own phone into his back pocket, the guilty tension in his shoulders, the way his hand lingers there a second too long, like he’s just shoved something incriminating out of sight.

The puzzle pieces don’t fall into place so much as smash together.

The nickname. The way Kade has always understood your stress too well. The raid schedule that magically fit your crunch. The little phrases that echoed things Wonwoo said in person. The way he knew how fried you were before you even spoke some nights. Your stomach drops, molten and cold all at once. You reach for your phone with numb fingers, staring at the message, praying it might rearrange itself if you look hard enough. It doesn’t. Your voice, when it comes, sounds distant to your own ears. “It was you.”

You swallow, throat burning. “This whole time,” you whisper, “it was you.”

He flinches like you hit him. “Pixie—”

“Don’t,” you snap, the word cracking on the way out. “Do not call me that right now.” Silence slams down. You can hear your own heartbeat pounding in your ears. Somewhere, faintly, the elevator dings in the distance. Wonwoo stands slowly, palms flat on the table like he’s afraid to move too fast. “I was going to tell you,” he says, voice low. “I just—”

You laugh, short and ugly. “When?” you demand. “Before or after we fucked on the phone again? Before or after I cried about you to you?” His jaw tightens. “You didn’t use my name,” he says. “You never said it was me.”

“Because I didn’t know,” you spit. “Because I thought I was safe there. That Kade was—” You break off, biting the name in half. He winces.

“I figured it out after Trial Three,” he says quietly. “When I brought Jisoo’s file, and you left your phone on the table.”

Images slam into your mind: that evening in this same room, your phone lying next to your laptop, the soft buzz as a notification lit the screen; Kade’s name flashing for a heartbeat; the way you’d flipped it facedown a second too late as Wonwoo walked in with a folder under his arm. You grip your phone tighter, knuckles white.

“So you knew,” you say slowly, “for days, that I was Nyx.”

“Yeah,” he says. “And you didn’t say anything?”

He deflates a little, shoulders sagging. “You hated me,” he says simply. “Here.” He gestures around the room. “You barely tolerated me during Trial One. I thought if I told you I was Kade, you’d cut me off in both places. I… didn’t want to lose you.”

Something in your chest twists. “So you lied instead.”

“I never lied,” he says. “Not to you. I just… didn’t correct your assumptions.”

You stare at him. The distinction feels paper-thin. “You let me talk about you,” you say, voice shaking now. “You let me complain about my ‘colleague’ being dismissive and infuriating and… and you listened as if you were someone else. You didn’t even—” you swallow hard, “—you didn’t even try to defend yourself.”

He swallows, Adam’s apple bobbing. “I liked how you talk about me when you forget you’re supposed to hate me,” he says, so quietly you almost don’t hear it. “I liked hearing what I was getting wrong. I wanted to fix it.”

You shake your head, anger spiking through the hurt. “You wanted to have it both ways,” you snap. “You wanted me as your rival and your raid partner. You got to be the asshole who made me doubt myself and the voice who put me back together at night. Do you have any idea how messed up that is?” His expression breaks, just a little.

“Of course I do,” he says. “You think I haven’t been calling myself every name you just did? I thought I’d get a chance to explain before… this.”

He waves a hand between you, helpless. Your eyes burn. You take a step toward him before you realise you’re moving. “Explain, then,” you say, bitter. “Explain the part where you also decided to sext me for weeks without telling me who you were.”

Colour climbs his throat. He doesn’t look away. “I didn’t plan that,” he says hoarsely. “I wasn’t sitting here thinking, ‘how do I trick her into phone sex?’ I was already gone for you before I knew you were Nyx.”

You choke on a disbelieving sound. “Gone for me,” you repeat. He nods once.

“I’ve had a crush on you for years,” he says, words coming faster now like he’s afraid that if he stops, he won’t be able to start again. “Back when you were doing little indie visual novels, and everyone wrote you off as ‘the feelings girl.’ I watched you eat people alive with your writing. I watched you win awards I wanted and clapped for you from the back row.” Your heart lurches, confused. He keeps going, voice rough.

“And every time I tried to talk to you at a con, I said something stupid, and you looked at me like I was bored. So I did the only thing I know how to do when I don’t know what the fuck I’m feeling.”

He gives a humourless huff. “I acted like you weren’t a threat,” he says. “Like I barely noticed you. It was a shitty defence mechanism. I thought if I kept you at arm’s length, I’d stop thinking about you every time I opened a new brief.” You stare at him, chest heaving. Something cracks open under your ribs. “Spoiler,” he adds quietly. “It didn’t work.”

You let out a wild, half-hysterical laugh. “So instead,” you say, “you went with secret alt and made me fall for you there.”

“I didn’t think you’d…” he trails off, eyes closing briefly. “I just liked talking to you without the history. You liked me there. Or at least you didn’t hate me.” His gaze finds yours again, raw. “I meant every word I said to you as Kade,” he says. “Every apology, every compliment, every time I told you I was proud of you. That was me. I just… didn’t know how to be that guy with my own face.”

He looks wrecked—eyes too bright, shoulders hunched like he’s braced for impact. You feel like you’re going to fly apart. Anger, betrayal, want, old hurt, new hurt—it all churns inside you until you can’t tell one from the other. “You don’t get to do this,” you whisper. He frowns. “Do what?”

“Be both,” you say, gesturing wildly. “You don’t get to be the man who made me feel small for years and the man who held me together in my headphones and—” your voice cracks, “—and the man who made me come late at night with his voice and then text me like nothing happened. You don’t get to be all of that and expect me to just… slot it into one person and be fine.” You see his hands curl into fists at his sides, like he’s physically stopping himself from reaching for you.

“I don’t expect you to be fine,” he says, quiet and fierce. “I expected you to be furious. You should be. I deserve that.”

You close the distance between you without meaning to. You’re close enough now to see the faint stubble on his jaw, the way his pupils are blown wide, the tension in his neck. You want to hit him. You want to kiss him. You hate him. You want him. The contradictions tear at you, each one feeding the other. Your hand moves before your brain catches up. You shove at his chest. He rocks back a step, not because you’re strong enough to move him, but because he lets you.

“You made me feel crazy,” you say, shoving him again. “I thought I was losing my mind because I was falling for a guy I’d never seen while I couldn’t stop thinking about kissing my rival at work.” He catches your wrist before you can shove him a third time—not hard, just enough to halt the motion. “You’re not crazy,” he says. “You were falling for the same idiot twice.” That does it.

You surge forward, grabbing the front of his hoodie, and crash your mouth into his. The kiss lands messy, teeth clacking, too much force and no finesse. It feels less like affection and more like a collision. He makes a low sound in his throat, like he’s been waiting for this and is still somehow surprised. Then he’s kissing you back, just as rough. His free hand comes up to cup the back of your head, fingers threading into your hair. He yanks you closer, mouth moving over yours with an intensity that borders on feral. You bite his bottom lip, hard enough to make him gasp. He hisses between his teeth, grip in your hair tightening just shy of painful.

“Careful,” he murmurs against your mouth. “You keep that up, and I’m not going to be gentle.”

“Maybe I don’t want gentle,” you snap.

Something in his eyes darkens. He searches your face, breathing ragged. “You sure?” he asks, voice low. “You say ‘stop’, and we stop. I don’t care how pissed you are.”

Your whole body is buzzing, every nerve screaming. Logic tells you that this is a terrible idea—that you are too angry, too hurt, too everything. Your mouth doesn’t listen. “Don’t you dare stop,” you whisper.

Whatever thin leash he had on himself snaps. He backs you up until your hips bump the edge of the conference table, never breaking the kiss, hands all over you now—at your waist, your ribs, sliding up your sides like he’s trying to memorise every inch. You tug his hoodie down his shoulders, grabbing at cotton and heat, needing him closer, needing something to hold onto before you come apart. He obliges, stepping between your legs, his body slotting against yours like it was always meant to fit there. Your hands find his hair, sinking in, tugging hard. He groans, the sound vibrating against your mouth. “Brat,” he breathes. “Of course you are.”

He drags his mouth down your jaw to the spot under your ear that makes your knees threaten to give out. His teeth graze your skin; his lips soothe the sting. The conference room around you falls away. There’s only the harsh sound of your breathing, the scrape of his stubble against your neck, the solid weight of him pinning you to the table. One of his hands slides up, skimming your throat. He doesn’t squeeze. He just rests his fingers there, a firm, possessive circle that makes your pulse trip under his touch. You shudder. He feels it. “Okay?” he asks, voice suddenly very careful. You nod, too fast, words tangling. “Use your words,” he says, even now, even like this. You exhale shakily. “Yeah,” you manage. “I’m… good.”

His answering sound is halfway between relief and hunger. “That’s my girl,” he murmurs. Your insides twist. You grab his wrist, not to pull him away but to anchor yourself, nails digging into his skin as his other hand finds your hip, fingers biting in.

Clothes shift and tangle. Buttons fumble as both your pants come undone. There’s the thud of your back hitting the table, the drag of his hands over your newly bared skin, the rasp of his breath as he curses softly into your mouth.

At one point, you spin him, shoving him back against the table, palms flat on his chest. “You don’t get to be in charge of everything,” you pant. His mouth curves, even now. “You keep saying that,” he says, “and then you keep doing exactly what I tell you.” You answer by biting his shoulder. He laughs, short and breathless.

He pushes you back to the table anyway, rougher now, turning you, bending you forward until your palms hit the cool surface. Your heart rabbit-kicks against your ribs. He pauses. You feel his hand splay over your lower back, steady and warm, holding you in place without holding you down. “Last chance to tap out,” he says, voice wrecked. “Tell me if this is just anger and you’ll hate me for it tomorrow.” You look back over your shoulder, hair wild around your face, lips swollen, eyes blazing.

You’ve never wanted anything as much as you want him in this exact, terrible, perfect moment. “I already hate you,” you say, breath shaking. “Do something about it.” Something breaks in his demeanour. He bends over you, his chest warm at your back, his cock hard against your ass cheeks, breath ghosting over your ear as his hand slides from your spine down, around your hip. His fingers slip between your thighs, knuckles brushing your sensitive, aching core he’s already worked up. You jolt, a broken sound catching in your throat. “God—” He groans quietly, like the confirmation hurts him.

“You’re shaking,” he mutters, more to himself than to you. “Look at you.”

He starts to touch you there, fast and deliberate, drawing tight little circles on your clit that make your legs shake. It’s too much and not enough, heat building in dizzying waves. “Wonwoo,” you gasp, fingers clawing at the edge of the table. “I— I’m ready, just— please, I need—”

You don’t finish the sentence. You don’t have to. He stills instantly. “Yeah?” he asks, voice wrecked, checking one last time. “You sure?” You nod frantically, words tumbling. “Stop teasing,” you snap, desperate. “Now.”

He swears under his breath, the sound rough and reverent all at once. Then he presses forward, fitting his hard cock against your entrance in one slow, inexorable push that knocks the air from your lungs. The stretch, the pressure, the sheer presence of him hits you like a shockwave. You choke on a strangled moan, fingers white-knuckled on the table. He exhales a ragged curse.

For a second, he just holds there, buried deep inside your cunt, both of you shaking. “Fuck,” he breathes. “You feel—” He cuts himself off with a shaky laugh. “Of course you do. Of course you’re like this.”

You rock back on instinct, testing him. He gets the hint. The first thrusts inside you are measured, like he’s making himself count. Each snap of his hips drives you forward, your palms sliding on the smooth surface, the bite of the table’s edge at your thighs grounding you even as everything else spins. He’s not gentle. You didn’t ask him to be. He’s not careless, either.

Every time your breath stutters wrong, he eases up. Every time your fingers claw at the table like you’re slipping, he steadies you—one hand banded tight around your hip, guiding you back to meet him; the other roaming, finding your ribs, your stomach, the base of your throat, touch firm and anchoring. You push right back, refusing to just take what he gives you. You meet every thrust with your own, gasping curses into the tabletop, chasing your own pleasure as fiercely as he drives you toward it.

The room fills with it: the obscene slap of your bodies meeting, the creak of the table, the scrape of a chair knocked sideways, your broken little sounds spilling out despite your best effort to stay quiet, his low, filthy praise in your ear. “Look at you,” he grits out at one point when you turn your head enough to catch his eye over your shoulder. “Still arguing with me even when you’re about to fall apart.”

“Shut up,” you gasp, words punched out of you. He laughs, breathless, sweat-dark hair falling into his eyes. “Make me,” he says.

You try. You shove back harder, changing the angle, dragging a ragged groan out of him that sounds suspiciously like surrender. He adjusts his grip, and suddenly his hand is fisting in your hair again, not cruel, but firm enough to tip your head back. He uses the hold to pull you upright, peeling you off the table until your spine is flush to his chest, his mouth at your ear. The new angle punches a startled cry out of you. He swallows it with a groan, hips jolting. “That’s it,” he murmurs against your skin, voice shredded. “Take it. You’re doing so fucking well for me.”

The hand in your hair loosens, slides down, wraps back around your throat—fingers spread, thumb under your jaw, holding you there. Not choking, just owning, a perfect, unbearable collar. You whine, the sound high and broken. He feels it vibrate under his palm and shudders. “Okay?” he manages again, even now. You nod, too far gone to be anything but honest. “Harder,” you whisper. “Please.” You feel, more than hear, the way he swears at that, the way his control frays.

His free hand drags back down, over your chest, your ribs, your stomach, until he finds your clit again, fingers slipping down to work in ruthless counterpoint to his thrusts. You almost come right then. The pleasure spikes so sharply you have to grab his wrist, nails digging into his skin to keep yourself tethered. Your moans get louder, spilling out of you unchecked, echoing embarrassingly off the glass walls. Panic and arousal tangle. Without thinking, you grab his wrist where it’s banded around your throat and drag his hand upward, pressing his palm over your own mouth.

It muffles the next broken sound that tears out of you. It also gives you something to bite. You clamp down when the first wave of your orgasm hits—teeth sinking into the heel of his hand as your body seizes, vision sparking white at the edges. He groans, the noise punched out of him, hips stuttering. The combination—the way your walls clamp around him, the way your teeth mark his skin, the way you tremble against his chest—is what finally yanks him over the edge with you. He spills into you with a hoarse curse against your shoulder, thrusts stuttering, both of you shaking through it, riding out the aftershocks tangled together—your mouth still pressed to his palm, his chest a rough, solid drum against your back.

For a while, there’s nothing but the ringing in your ears, the burn in your lungs, and the heavy, shuddering weight of him braced around you as the storm you both started finally, finally breaks.

Slowly, the world comes back into focus. Your hands hurt from how hard you’ve been gripping the edge of the table. Your knees feel unreliable. Your clothes are a mess. You become acutely aware of exactly where you are: Titan Forge conference room, table still scattered with notes and printouts. Security cameras might be off at this hour. You don’t know and don’t particularly want to know.

Wonwoo eases back, gentle now, hands suddenly careful like he’s afraid you’ll shatter if he moves too fast. He helps you straighten, fingers automatically reaching to adjust your shirt, pull up your pants, smooth your hair, thumb barely brushing the marks he left on your throat. You flinch away from the touch like it burns. His hands fall. “Pixie,” he says softly.

You shake your head, staring at the table, at your phone lying there with that text still on the lock screen. Your body is humming, boneless, satisfied in a way that makes your brain want to crawl out of itself.

Your heart is a wreck. “Don’t,” you say, voice raw. “I can’t— I don’t know what any of this is, okay? I don’t know how to be around you when you’re… all of that at once.”

He looks at you like you’re the only thing in the room. “Then let’s figure it out,” he says. “Talk to me. Yell at me. Ask me anything. Just… don’t walk away without giving me a chance to be honest with you, for once.”

You want to. Some part of you wants to curl up on this stupid table, let him confess every stupid feeling, let yourself admit your own. The rest of you is too raw, too exposed, nerves stripped bare. If you stay, you’re going to say something you can’t take back. You scoop up your phone with shaking fingers and shove it into your pocket. You don’t look at Kade’s apology again. You don’t look at Wonwoo.

“I can’t do this right now,” you whisper. You grab your bag from the chair, sling it over your shoulder, and head for the door. He doesn’t try to stop you. He just stands there, chest heaving, watching you go with something like devastation in his eyes. “I’m not going anywhere,” he says quietly, just before you cross the threshold. “In either place.”

You don’t answer. You leave him in the conference room—hair mussed, hoodie askew, notes scattered, the ghost of you still on his skin—while you walk out into the empty hallway, legs unsteady, mouth still tasting like him and your heart a tangle of love and fury you’re not ready to name.

The elevator doors slide shut in front of you. Your phone buzzes in your pocket. You don’t look.

You last exactly three minutes in front of your bathroom mirror before you decide to quit.

The first thirty seconds are just an assessment. Your eyes are ringed with exhaustion. There are faint bruises on your hips where his fingers dug in; a scatter of marks along your throat that your collar can almost hide. Your lipstick from last night is long gone, but your mouth still looks swollen, like your body remembers what it was doing on that conference table.

Your brain insists on replaying it in high definition: Wonwoo’s hand in your hair. Kade’s voice in your ear. The same man, the same mouth, the same hands. Your rival. Your crush. Your online almost-boyfriend. All stacked into one very real, very complicated person.

You press the heels of your hands into your eyes until little sparks dance. This was supposed to be simple. Titan Forge was supposed to be simple: win the contract or don’t. Get the credit or move on. Instead, you’ve acquired:

One crushed childhood dream brand

One emotional disaster of a dual-identity situationship

One very vivid mental catalogue of Jeon Wonwoo’s dick

You stare yourself down in the mirror. “Fuck my career,” you tell your reflection. You mean it. You’re not doing this. You’re not going to chain yourself to a project where the director pits you against your partner, and your partner is also the person who knows exactly how you sound when you come apart for him. You’re going to go in, tell David he can keep his title, and walk. You throw on the first halfway-clean shirt that doesn’t show your throat, yank your hair up, and head out.

By the time you swipe into Titan Forge, your resolve is layered over with a thin film of nausea. The lobby is its usual sleek, intimidating self. The Mythfall: Eclipse key art looms on the big screen—your god, your pantheon, your systems and story, all rendered in glossy concept art that now makes your stomach twist. You ride the elevator up alone, rehearsing lines. “I’m withdrawing from consideration.”/ “I’m grateful for the opportunity, but this isn’t the right fit.”/ “No, I don’t want your NDA-locked ‘consultancy’ crumbs, thanks.” The doors slide open onto your floor.

Before you can head for the war room, your phone buzzes with a calendar notification. Mandatory check-in – 15 min. Of fucking course. You sigh, stuff the phone back into your pocket, and change course for the big conference room. If nothing else, you can quit with an audience.

Everyone’s already there when you arrive. David stands at the head of the table, tie loosened, hands clasped like a man who’s about to deliver Very Important News™. Raj sits halfway down, arms folded, expression wary. Jisoo has a notebook open, pen twirling in her fingers. Kaito’s tablet is on the table in front of him, screen dark for once. Wonwoo is at the far end, one elbow on the table, fingers pressed to his mouth. His eyes flick up when you walk in. For one suspended second, everything that happened last night flashes between you like a glitch—his hands on your hips, your teeth in his palm, the way you’d both been shaking after. The way you’d walked out anyway.He looks wrecked and put-together at the same time: freshly washed hair, clean hoodie, bruised half-moons under his eyes. You take the empty chair at the other end of the table. You don’t look at him again.

David clears his throat. “Thanks for coming in early,” he says. “I’ll keep this brief. I know you’ve both been burning hard.” You fold your hands in your lap to stop them from balling into fists. This is it, you think. You open your mouth. He beats you to it.

“First,” David says, “I want to thank you both for your incredible contributions over the past weeks. What you’ve built for Mythfall: Eclipse is—genuinely—some of the strongest design work I’ve seen at this studio in years.” Your heart doesn’t even have the decency to flutter at the compliment. It just waits.

“Unfortunately,” he continues, and there it is, “due to some… unexpected shifts in budget and restructuring at the executive level, we’re not going to be hiring an external lead for this title after all.” For a moment, you’re sure you misheard him. The words land, rearrange themselves, refuse to make sense. He keeps talking. “The board has decided we’ll be internalising direction for Mythfall,” he says. “We’ll fold the frameworks you’ve both developed into our existing leadership structure.” Internalising. What the fuck?

“That doesn’t mean your work isn’t valued,” David adds quickly. “Far from it. We’ll absolutely be discussing consultancy fees, maybe ongoing advisory roles as things progress. Your names will be in the ‘Special Thanks’ without question.”

Special Thanks. You hear your own heartbeat in your ears. Five trials. Weeks of unpaid crunch. Your systems. Your narrative. Your fights. Your god. No lead role. No credit that actually matters. Just a vague promise of “maybe” money and a scroll at the end of the credits where your names get a half-second of blur. You realise, very calmly, that he never planned to hire either of you. The trials weren’t auditions. They were an extraction.

You feel your chair scrape back before you realise you’ve pushed it. “So that’s it?” you ask, your voice eerily steady. “We put everything on the table for you and you just… internalise it?”

David’s smile tightens. “I understand this is disappointing,” he says. “But this is the reality of triple-A right now. We have to make hard calls. You’ll still have the prestige of having shaped a Titan Forge flagship title.”

“Without a title,” you say. He shrugs, palms up. “Titles are fluid,” he says. “Impact is what counts.” Your vision goes a little white around the edges.

Maybe this is where you flip the table. Maybe this is where you walk out without another word. You’re right on the verge of one or both when Wonwoo speaks. His chair doesn’t scrape. He doesn’t raise his voice. He just says, very calmly, “No, you won’t.” Every head turns. David blinks. “Excuse me?”

Wonwoo straightens, rolling his shoulders back, and for the first time since you met him, he looks like he’s stepped fully into a role that fits: not the aloof rival, not the bored genius, but someone who knows exactly what he has and exactly what he’s willing to do to protect it. He reaches into his bag and pulls out a thin folder, a sheaf of stapled printouts, and his phone. “I had a bad feeling about this,” he says, flipping the folder open. “So during Trial Three, I filed provisional patents on the co-op systems we built, and registered copyright for the narrative framework and key beats.” He slides one of the pages down the table toward David. Your name is on it. So is his.

You blink. “You what?” He doesn’t look at you yet. “Under both our names,” he says, still watching David. “As joint creators. As independent contractors, not employees. The NDA you had us sign is for evaluation, not work-for-hire.” David’s expression curdles. “That IP was developed on our premises, using our tools,” he says. “With our staff overseeing. It belongs to Titan Forge.”

Kaito shifts in his chair. “Not automatically,” he says mildly. “Not without a specific assignment clause, which isn’t in the documents you had Legal send them.” David throws him a look. “Kaito—”

“I read what I sign,” Kaito replies. “And what I ask others to sign.”

Wonwoo taps his phone, bringing up an email thread. You can see the subject line from here: Re: Provisional Filing – Cooperative Risk/Reward Narrative Loop. He angles the screen toward David.

“My lawyer timestamped the submissions and acknowledgements,” he says. “We filed on the underlying mechanics and the specific expression of the narrative—two-player punished/rewarded dynamic, pantheon collapse beats, branching co-op romance structure, the whole package.”

He finally glances your way. There’s apology in his eyes, but also something like pride. “Titan Forge can’t legally ship this game as pitched without us,” he says. “Not without paying through the nose and crediting us as co-creators.”

The floor tilts under your feet. You grab the back of your chair, knuckles whitening, brain scrambling to catch up. He did this. Quietly. During Trial Three. When you were still trying not to kill each other over cutscenes and boss patterns. And he put your name on everything.

You turn to David. Your anger sharpens into something clean. “You used us,” you say, and your voice doesn’t shake this time. “You dangled a title every developer in the city would kill for, made us jump through hoops, pitted us against each other, and you never intended to hire either of us.”

His jaw tightens. “That’s not—”

“You thought we’d be grateful for scraps,” you cut in. “For ‘Special Thanks’ and ‘maybe some consultancy fees’ while you shipped our work under someone else’s name.” You take a breath that feels like stepping off a ledge. “We’re not.”

A beat of silence. Then, unexpectedly, Raj speaks up. He leans forward, forearms on the table, gaze fixed on David. “I signed on for a tough evaluation,” he says. “Not for exploiting candidates’ work and cutting them out of leadership entirely. If we ship their design without them, I’m not putting my name on it.”

Jisoo’s pen, which has been motionless for the last few minutes, starts to move again. “And I’m not rewriting their story to make it just different enough to dodge the legal filings,” she says calmly. “You’d feel every compromise. The players would too.”

Kaito sighs, rubbing his temples. “We can’t afford this,” he says quietly. “If they walk and this goes public, the narrative becomes ‘Titan Forge runs unpaid lead design gauntlets and steals pitches.’ That’s a PR nightmare. Especially with the way hiring practices are under a microscope right now.” David looks between the three of them like he’s suddenly found himself outnumbered on a board he thought he controlled. “Nobody is talking about stealing,” he says, too quickly. “We were always going to compensate them—”

“With what, exactly?” you ask. “Because all I’ve heard is ‘maybe’ fees and ‘special thanks.’ No title. No real ownership. Just enough to shut us up.”

Wonwoo’s voice is quiet, but it carries. “If Titan Forge wants Mythfall: Eclipse as it exists now,” he says, “we talk proper contracts. Co-lead or co-director credits. Ownership percentages. Real money. Otherwise, we take our ideas somewhere else, and we call it something else.”

David snorts. “Good luck getting this scope off the ground without our resources,” he says. “You’ll be pitching for years.”

“Maybe,” you say. “Maybe not. But here’s the thing, David: we’d rather spend years pitching than hand you the keys to something you don’t respect enough to pay for.” You meet his gaze, steady.

“And if we do go somewhere else, we’ll have a hell of a story to tell about how this process went. About five ‘trials’ that were really free labour. I’m sure a few outlets would be very interested.” His face goes chalk-white, then mottled. “Are you threatening me?” he asks.

“We’re outlining consequences,” Wonwoo says before you can answer. “Which is what good designers do.” Silence stretches.

David looks at each of you. He sees no allies. Just a narrative lead, a combat lead, and a producer who don’t want their names on a theft; two designers who own the skeleton of the game he wants; and a potential scandal breathing down his neck. The fight goes out of his shoulders all at once. He exhales, long and disgusted. “Fine,” he grinds out. “We’ll revisit the roadmap internally. Shelve this version for now.” He flicks a tight look at you and Wonwoo. “Legal will be in touch about formalising whatever we used,” he adds. “If we use it.”

You know what that means. They’re not going to ship your blueprint. Not like this. They might try to rebuild something from scratch later, but it won’t be your pantheon, your punished-and-rewarded co-op dynamic, your particular mix of systems and story. They can’t, not without you. Good. “We’ll look forward to hearing from them,” Wonwoo says, polite and icy.

The meeting dissolves in slow motion. Raj gives you both a short, respectful nod on his way out. Jisoo squeezes your shoulder as she passes, eyes soft. Kaito mutters something about “coffee and a long talk later” and follows David out, tablet already in his hand, damage control mode engaged. Then it’s just you and Wonwoo and the ghost of a game that doesn’t belong to Titan Forge anymore. You stare at the empty doorway. You feel hollow. Furious. Relieved. Terrified. Weirdly, also free.

You’re ready to walk. You head for the door. He falls into step beside you without asking. The lobby is quieter on the way out than it was coming in. No one stops you. No one knows yet that a whole possible future just imploded on the top floor. You swipe your badge one last time. The reader beeps green. The turnstile clicks. You step through. So does he.

Outside, the city air is cool, cutting through the leftover heat in your skin. People move past on the sidewalk, oblivious. Cars hiss by on wet asphalt. The Titan Forge logo glows above you, massive and smug. You stare up at it. Then you flip it off. Wonwoo huffs out a laugh beside you.

“That’s mature,” he says. You lower your hand. “Thanks,” you say. “I work with what I’ve got.”

For a moment, neither of you speaks. It’s just you and him, side by side on the pavement, not as candidate and rival, not as winner and loser, but as two people who just told one of the biggest studios in the industry to choke. Your pulse hasn’t quite settled. Your brain hasn’t picked a lane on him yet. He shifts his weight.

“So,” he says quietly. “Do you hate me?”

You let out a breath that’s almost a laugh, almost a sob. “I tried to,” you admit. “Really hard. For a long time.” You meet his eyes. “It’s not… working out.”

Something in his expression loosens. The corner of his mouth lifts, small and disbelieving. “Good,” he says. “Because I don’t think I can do this solo mode thing anymore.” You snort. “You’re not exactly built for it,” you say. “Mr. ‘let me tune the whole fight around my co-op partner.’”

He shrugs, a little helpless. “You’re not exactly built for it either,” he says. “Ms. ‘I accidentally wrote a love story into every mechanic.’” You roll your eyes, but your chest warms. “What do you want?” you ask, before you can overthink it. “With… all of this. The game. Us. Whatever we are.” He looks at you like he’s cataloguing every possible answer, then discarding all but the most honest one.

“I want to build something with you,” he says. “That nobody else gets to claim. Not a company, not a director, not some faceless board.” His gaze drops to your mouth, then back up. His voice goes quieter. “And I want to see where this goes,” he adds. “All of it. If you’ll let me.”

You think about all the versions of him you’ve known: the dismissive rival at cons; the bored genius in black hoodies; the stranger in a fantasy forest who told you where to stand and who to stab; the man who just stood up to his own dream job for you. You think about yourself, too, and how you’ve felt more seen in the last few weeks—by him as Kade, by him as Wonwoo—than you have in years.

“Professionally,” you say slowly, “we already have a game. We just can’t call it Mythfall: Eclipse.” He nods. “Different pantheon,” he says. “Numbers filed off. Better anyway.”

“Indie scale,” you add. “Smaller scope. Tighter focus. No trials where people try to steal it.” His mouth twitches. “Co-op studio,” he says. “Just us. Maybe a few other masochists.” The thought scares you. It also lights you up in a way Titan Forge never quite managed to, even at its brightest. You take a breath.

“Romantically,” you say, and the word feels huge in your mouth, “we’re a mess.” He winces, accepting it. “Accurate,” he says.

“You lied by omission,” you go on. “You hid behind an alt. You let me say things to you as Kade I never would’ve said to you as Wonwoo.” He nods, jaw tight. “I know,” he says. “And I’ll spend as long as it takes proving I can be the same person in both places.”

“You… also backed me in every meeting you didn’t have to,” you say quietly. “You filed IP under my name without telling me because you wanted to protect my work. You sat on calls with me at stupid o’clock and told me I wasn’t crazy when I felt like I was.” His eyes go soft, stunned, like he hadn’t expected you to list his good points out loud.

“You make me better at what I do,” you say. “You piss me off. You challenge me. You make me feel… big. Not small. I haven’t had that in a while.” His breath leaves him in a shaky exhale. “So,” you finish, heart hammering, “no, I don’t hate you. I just need you to be honest. No more masks. No more secret alts.” He nods immediately. “Deal,” he says. “Full co-op mode. No splitscreen bullshit.” You snort, a startled laugh bursting out of you. “You’re such a nerd,” you say.

“You knew that already,” he replies.

You stand there, facing each other in the shadow of the building that just rejected you and tried to rob you, and realise that for the first time since this whole thing started, you’re not waiting for someone else’s verdict.

You get to decide. “So,” you say, voice lighter now, “are you going to kiss me like my rival or my raid lead?” His grin flashes, small but real. “Both,” he says. “If you’ll let me.”

You don’t say yes. You step into him instead, fisting your hand in the front of his hoodie and tugging him down. He meets you halfway.

The kiss is nothing like the one in the conference room. It’s slower. Softer. Still a little messy—your noses bump, you both smile into it—but there’s no desperation in it this time. Just warmth, and the dizzying feeling of your two lives finally, properly slotting together. Rival and partner. Kade and Wonwoo. Nyx and you.

When you break apart, you’re breathing a little harder, but the world hasn’t tilted off its axis. It’s just bigger. More possible. He rests his forehead against yours. “We really did just tell Titan Forge to fuck off,” he murmurs.

“We did,” you say. “And we still have a game.”

“And a name,” he adds. “For the studio.” You pull back, brow arching. “Oh?”

“Co-Op Mode,” he says. “Seems on the nose.” You roll your eyes, but your smile is helpless. “We’ll workshop it,” you say. “We will,” he agrees. “Together.” You lace your fingers through his, turn your back on the giant Titan Forge logo, and start walking.

You might have lost the contract. But as you step into the future with him—equal, chosen, finally on the same side—you have a strong suspicion this is the biggest win of your career.

A/N: Thanks to 76% of the 130 votes on my last poll, I present you my latest fic. I was inspired after finishing Ali Hazelwood's 'Two Can Play' and thought this would be an easy write. Joke's on me because I had to restart it three times. Oh well, hope you like this version. 💟

Taglist: @igetcarriedawaywithyou - @amazinggraxia

Send me your thoughts - feedback/fangirling is always welcome. Want to be tagged in future works? Let me know.

(Collage created by me. Credits to owners of the pictures taken from Pinterest.)

[gyuswhore]

Honeymoon Avenue

Jeon Wonwoo x f!reader

word count: 8.7k

contains: newlyweds!reader and wonwoo, minor injuries, lots of fluff, multiple smut scenes (MINORS DNI), they're sick and in love its gross

synopsis: You and Wonwoo have said your I dos in front of the entire world, and now it's time to uphold them when it's just you and him.

[a/n]: thank you so much to @starlightkyeom for betaing and listening to me yap about this, I love u to the moon and back, and thank you to @shadowkoo for all the help on the banner, ly raven <333

ps: heads up that is isn't very plot heavy I tried something new this time and attempted to let it flow as it came out. hope it holds up!!

masterlist

You let out the deepest exhale of your life. 

Haphazardly strewn chairs, and you find the nearest one and plop yourself and your skewed reception dress on the padding. Your numb feet don’t have a chance to thank you immediately, but the tingly feeling means they aren’t entirely a lost cause. 

Slouching as far as your shoulders would go, you pan the nearly empty venue, one that now looks like you accidentally slipped a tornado an invitation. Your eyes land on where Wonwoo is saying goodbye to the last few guests who definitely did not pay heed to your request for temperance at the bar. The uncle grips his bicep like a vice, blubbering congratulations you could hear all the way where you sat. 

Wonwoo’s suit jacket and waistcoat are gone with the wind, hair tousled and spiking every which way—near inverse of the gelled, waxed and styled they sat earlier in the day; the first time you laid eyes on him standing at the altar with the sun in his eyes. The crisp of his shirt is now wrinkled from the dancing and the hugging and every other excessive movement he had to subject himself to today.  The final stragglers are your family, your sister already moving over to push you out of your chair. 

“I just sat down!” you whine, not caring for decorum with the absolute day you’ve had. 

“Go on with him, you have a flight to catch!” she stresses. “We’ll handle everything here.”

Wonwoo catches the last bit as he returns, hands in his pockets, sleeves rolled up to the elbows. Blatantly, you stare. “Handle what?”

“You guys should go ahead first,” she says. 

“We have some time till we need to start rushing,” he responds, twisting his arm to look at the watch on his wrist. The lights are back on, so you can see him significantly clearer without the disco lights and low spotlights. His forearm is practically in your face, and if you weren’t so exhausted you would’ve taken a dive at the divot, teeth first. 

But you don’t, because what stares you both in the face right now is a month long getaway of blue sky, green waters and lots and lots and lots of completely alone time. Since your sister is already so keen to get rid of you both, Wonwoo decides for you as he excuses himself to grab his strewn clothes. 

She turns to you in his absence, and you immediately know there’s a grenade smoking behind her goading grin. “Well…?”

Brows raised, you’re defiant in your decision to remain nonchalant. “Well what?”

“Are you excited?”

“Of course I am, I just got married.”

“I mean the honeymoon.”

“Who isn’t dying to go Seychelles?” 

She huffs and rolls her eyes. “You’re no fun.”

You shoot her an equally infuriating smile, “You can’t be mean to me today.”

“I already have,” she responds. 

You don’t have a chance to be annoyed because Wonwoo is back, clothes draped over his arm as you are suddenly ushered into saying your last goodbyes. Flats on and heels in hand, ready to peacefully stroll out of the building you got married in. 

You hook your arm around his as you cross the threshold out, the wind pleasant in the pitch black night. Walking to the car, the one you bought together, you feel like the threat of your dangerously full heart might finally erupt. 

All day has been a rushing incline of adrenaline, from the moment you woke up, sticky eyed with bridesmaids over your head, to getting into your dress, to standing behind the giant oak doors that led you to the altar of your future. To the moment you heard the love of your life say I do for everyone who mattered to hear. 

It’s late, and your flats crunch under gravel, pressuring every sore point in your foot. But you don’t care. One of Wonwoo’s arms is draped by his coat, and the other by you, a pressing silence falling over your pair. At peace. 

“I’m glad we didn’t have a grand exit,” Wonwoo speaks your thoughts. 

“Mhm,” you reply. “I like this better.” You look up at him as he halts his steps for a minute, and he leans down to kiss you for the nth time that night. All smiles. 

The finality of an Exit felt like a staggering halt to your special day. You already knew you’d never want it to end, opting to let the night trickle out, ending it with just you left on the floor. 

Something told you this would be more memorable anyway. 

Everything’s packed and ready when you get home, a service to present you from past you. You turn to Wonwoo, who’s toeing his shoes off, who also was a horrendous sport when it came to packing early. 

“Aren’t you glad we did this beforehand?” you taunt, waving your hands at the packed bags near the door. He only smirks, leaning in to grab your face and kiss you again. 

“Of course, wife’s always right,” he mumbles against your lips, and the giddy feeling that’s been simmering all day gushes once again. 

Wife. 

“Welcome to the rest of your life.”

The dim bathroom light seeps into the bedroom, where you scratch your skin with makeup wipes to get the first layer off your tired face. It’s easy to slouch, wanting nothing more than to lay back against the pillows and fall asleep, fully dressed. You’re aware of all the outside germs you’re transferring onto your pristine sheets, but also cannot find the strength to care.

The water shuts off, and you take it as your cue to slug off the bed and take off your dress. Reaching over, your fingers grapple for the hook with no avail, arms already showing the first inklings of a very sore weekend. The zipper isn’t even within your vicinity, fingers aiming for nothing but skin and fabric. 

You smell Wonwoo before you can register he’s out of the shower, the humidity carrying the scent of his body wash to where you stood on the other side of the room. It takes no time for you to feel both his hands on your waist, pulling you towards him before you can open your mouth to ask. 

Cold fingers brush the skin above the hook of your dress, and it takes an effort to not melt into the carpet entirely. The dress is unhooked, the zipper pulled down as you feel the fabric release you into the bedroom air. He helps you push it over your hips, letting it pool onto the floor. 

The sigh you release lingers in the air, prompting him to put his hands on your shoulders, squeezing your shoulders, thumbs digging into the back of your neck to release all the pent up tension. Then your upper arms, where he pulls you even closer, bare back hitting his damp chest. 

“Tired?” he mumbles, arms circling around you and squeezing you tight. 

Leaning back is the easiest thing you’ve ever done, only humming in response as you close your eyes, head against his shoulder. Droplets hit your skin in a cold cascade, his hair still wet. His hands roam around any expanse of skin he can find without releasing his pressure on your form, squeezing and massaging. The weight is welcomed, nearly falling asleep by the time he’s mouthing at your shoulder, breathing in the sweat of your skin.  

“Are you gonna need help in the shower?” he asks. You know he’s not being cheeky, and you consider saying yes seeing as you’re five seconds from falling asleep standing up. 

“I think I’ll be fine,” you mumble. “I’ll keep the door open in case I crack my skull on the tile.”

“Can’t have you dying on our wedding night,” he says.

“Enjoy the life insurance payout,” you crack one eye open, staring up at him.

“How many hours have we been married?” he muses. 

You want to kiss him, suddenly slammed with a tsunami’s force of affection for the man that holds your leaning body against him like an ever-present pillar. Married. 

He lets you go, but not before helping you pick out every last bobby pin in your hair, during which he remains in nothing but the damp towel around his waist. At one point you face him, forehead on his chest as he unravels your hair from the crown. 

“Your towel’s inside, I’ll grab your clothes,” he says when he releases you, letting you walk into the bathroom to wash off the day. 

Simply raising your arms to shampoo your hair is turning out to be a conquest despite the fumes of the scorching water invading your vision. The door is half open, and you can hear Wonwoo shuffling about in the bedroom, no doubt fixing the last bits before you have to leave for the airport. 

Immediately, you sigh, the thought of loading and unloading the uber, going through security, checking your bags and then the god-knows-how-many hours of flight time settling in your bones like an additional phantom ache. By the time you’re done, towel wrapped around your chest and droplets of water still cooling your skin after a half hearted attempt at drying yourself, you’re spent. 

Wonwoo is zipping up a bag when you emerge, unfortunately wearing clothes now. 

“You wanna sit in the towel while I dry your hair,” he asks, already pulling out the hair dryer from the drawer. 

“Are you done packing?” you ask, frowning. 

“Just your toothbrush left.” He plugs it into the outlet. “I’ll grab it while you change.” 

Forehead leaning on his tummy, he tousles the wet mop of your hair as the dryer fills the room with its white noise. That, paired with the bed where you sit, once again, is turning out to be a seductor of a lifetime. 

When he’s done, and brushing out the tangles in your hair, you find the strength to ask him. “Why aren’t you as tired as I am?” 

He chuckles, eyes focused on a knot that’s giving him a hard time. “For starters I slept for five extra hours. You know, considering my side of the party didn’t need to cake their faces.” 

“You didn’t like my makeup?” you jab in jest. 

“I loved it,” he responds, leaning down to kiss you on the forehead. “We’ll talk about it on the plane, considering you don’t fall asleep before we can even take off.”

“Or in the car. Or in the lounge.” You yawn openly. “Or right now.” 

When you stand up, you wrap your arms around his neck, wanting to touch him for a little bit before attempting to put on clothes. His lips find the crook of your neck immediately, hands gripping you through your towel. 

“I love you,” you mumble against his skin. 

“I love you more,” he responds. “I know I already said it a thousand times, but this is still the happiest I’ve ever been.” 

You have to bite back a snarky reply, but you feel the pool in your eyes anyway. Inexplicably, you hold on to him tighter. Worried if you opened your mouth you’d begin to sob—again. 

He does let go of you, but only when his eyes land on the time. You’re dressed by the time he’s called the Uber and grabbed your toothbrush, shoving it into the front pocket of one of the bags. You’re quite useless the entire time, but Wonwoo doesn’t mind as he loads your limited bags into the trunk. 

You manage to keep your eyes open on the ride to the airport, manage to not be a nuisance as you check in, and make it to the lounge with limited hassle. 

“We only need to wait like twenty minutes, we were pretty on time,” he mentions, handing you a to-go cup of coffee the approximate size of your face. “We get to board first anyway.”

Months ago, while you were thick in the trenches of wedding planning, you went back and forth for a very long time about flight tickets. Not your destination, but the decision between business and economy was a conversation that stretched over weeks. 

Today, with your jelly arms and mushy mind, you thank your heavenly stars through bites of fancy lounge sushi for making the collective decision to splurge. Wonwoo is taking it upon himself to let your friends and family know you’d checked in, while you lean wholly against his arm, dreaming about the flat, comforter clad surface of your plane seat, and the joy you’re going to have for the hours to come. 

Inhaling the amount of coffee that you did in the lounge meant the prior sleep in your eyes had decided to evacuate for the time being, getting tucked into your seat soon after take off. 

To be clear, you were more than happy with your decision on the seat, but you realise quickly that you and Wonwoo are blocked out by a divider between you, closing you off. You assume you were pouting at the realization, because you hear him ask. 

“Don’t like the seat?” 

“No, I do,” you say. “But you’re so far away.”

He smiles, close mouthed, the one where it looks like he might be smirking. An arm snakes over the console, elbow towards you as his forearm rests against it. Immediately, like this was nothing but a usual drive in your car, you lean your head against his arm, your own two arms wrapping around his. 

There’s nothing in the air except the whirring of the plane's engine, the quiet chatter of the cabin as the crew prepares for turndown service. 

A realisation befalls you, that this is the first time you’ve been able to sit down with Wonwoo today, without the constant buzzing in your brain about everything that has gone wrong and what could go wrong. It might be your defeated conscious talking, but it may have even been months. 

Shifting your head so you can look up at him, you speak, “We have to stay married. ‘Cause I don’t think I can plan an entire wedding again.”

“So no vow renewals?”

You raise your brows, surprised this was something he’d be interested in. “Maybe when we’re sixty.”

“Oh,” he frowns. “I was thinking more like every five years.”

“God.”

“I’m glad we decided to do this,” he says. 

“The seats?” you ask. 

He looks at you, and you raise your head from his arm. 

“Getting married.”

“That sounds like an afterthought.” 

“I was nervy,” he says. “It’s like coming out the other side of a roller coaster. Took guts but you’re glad you did it.”

“Glad our special day was a vomit inducing experience for you.”

“Didn’t you cry five times while getting ready?” he jabs. 

Scowling, you turn away. “Who told you that?”

“So you can throttle them in their sleep?”

It was no use, since you were both crying at the altar, but you have a bone to pick with your sister once you’re back home. 

“Go to sleep,” you grumble, removing yourself from his arm. He only laughs, grabbing your arm with a force that pulls you back in. 

He leans into your ear, familiar press of his lips against the skin. “You looked beautiful today.”

“So I’ve heard.”

Similar to this, with his lips pressed against your ear, hours ago on the dancefloor, he said the same thing. Over and over and over. 

“I’m gonna confess something,” he whispers. For a wild moment, your heart is in your throat. 

“What?” you ask sharply. 

“When I went home after our first date—”

“You noted my drink order?”

He nods against your head, “That. And I dreamt of you.”

“Was I pretty?” 

“Prettiest. Big smile like it was the happiest day of your life. In a white dress.”

It’s silent for a moment as neither of you move. The lump in your throat is ever present, breath quickening as you brace for the waterworks. 

“Dang,” is all you say in a watery voice, one that earns you a laugh from him. The absurdity is not lost on you. “What other secrets do you possess?”

“Just that,” he responds. “Didn’t wanna tell you before. Thought you’d freak out and run away.”

“Idiot,” you mumble against his hoodie, tears wetting your lashes. 

You don’t get to continue, because a flight attendant hovers over your joint seats, asking if you’d like to turn down for the night. 

Wonwoo answers for both you and your aching bones. Fatigue would make you gloss over many things about the aftermath of your wedding night for years to come, but you’ll always remember the first night asleep next to your husband over rocky terrain in the sky, with so much changed, yet nothing at all. 

Your first night in Seychelles was a blur, mostly because you both ate room service in expensive robes and watched The Pitt before falling asleep again. 

Eyes closed, you know it’s sunny with the exceeding warmth in the room and the light against your eyelids. Opening them takes a minute, no desire to move in the morning light. At least you think it’s morning. 

Shifting around, you realise you fell asleep in your robe, the tie unravelled, turning it into a loose shrug over your naked form. Through bleary eyes, your eyes meet the linen curtains and how they blow in the wind that pours through the open sliding doors. Blue skies and hanging branches of deep green trees are all you see, and your husband, standing over the railing overlooking your private pool. 

Maybe it was the haze of being half asleep, but for a second it feels like a dream. He’s in a white T-shirt, messy hair indicating he didn’t wake too long before you did, basking in the sunlit glow of the morning. His back is to you, but it’s enough. 

He hardly notices you get up and walk to the bathroom, the rustling of the trees masking most of your movements. When you’re done washing up, robe tightened around your waist, you emerge onto the makeshift porch of your hotel suite. 

Arms immediately make their way around his waist, alerting him of your presence. “Morning,” you mumble into his shirt. 

“Morning, baby,” he shifts so he can hold you too, leaning down to place a kiss on your forehead. “Sleep well.”

“As well as I could.” It was a frivolous question, considering he was well aware you could sleep well on pavement if he was next to you, presence inches away. 

“It’s so pretty in the day,” you comment. The private pool was one thing, but the way the trees and plants hovered over the open area, swaying in the breeze left the impression they’d situated the room in the middle of a jungle. 

“Mhm,” he responds, having had his fill of the view of the hotel, currently more interested in the bare expanse of your neck. His lips trail over the skin, leaving kisses and gentle nips, now caging you between him and the railing. “Pretty.”

Of course, the obvious connotations of a honeymoon hadn’t escaped you—in the weeks leading up to your wedding, there wasn’t a loved one who would let you. But it feels like a delayed reaction after the hectic 48 hours you’ve had, finally at peace in what feels like the most beautiful place in the world. 

You let him grope you over the fabric, let his mouth run over every sliver of skin he can find. Facing him, your hands find the back of his neck to pull him down towards you, mouth to mouth properly. 

You melt, sighing into his mouth as he moves impossibly closer, pressing you against the railing as your head moves further back. Mouthing at your jaw, he lets you push him back in through the open door. 

He understands when you’re being pushed right back into your unmade bed. Pulling at the mountain of comforters, he lets them drop to the floor. “God it’s been torture,” he groans, hands moving up your thighs, through the irregular folds of your robe, cool palms against your hot skin. 

“You wanted to leave right after the reception,” you tease. The robe remains tied, and you make no move to undo it yourself. 

“Didn’t realise I’d have to hold back for this long,” he says, hands reaching the knot. His mouth is back on yours as he undoes it, pulling agonizingly slow. 

Tucking his hands into the undone robe, he runs them over your naked body underneath, pulling the fabric away from your body. Migrating down your neck, his hot breath mixes with the wind coming through the outside, casting shivers down your spine. 

Mouth over your breast, his teeth graze over your skin as he sucks. His free hand gropes your other breast, fingers pinching and flicking over the erect nipple. Head thrown back, you can’t stop the way your hips gyrate on nothing, moving to feel friction of any sort. 

He only lets go when your hands grapple at his shirt, noises of frustration for every passing moment you couldn’t feel his skin on yours. Shirt thrown somewhere behind him, his shorts follow, before ripping the robe off you entirely, leaving you completely bare. 

Moving higher up against the bed, Wonwoo situates himself like he’s about to live there, hands pushing your thighs apart as wide as they could go. In the morning light, he stares his fill of the glistening swells of your core. Fingers grazing over the back of your thighs, he massages the skin closer and closer to where you need him most. 

“You’re gorgeous,” he mumbles, moving back up to kiss you one more time, deep and long. 

Distracted, his thumb pressing a stripe down your clit catches you by surprise, gasping into his mouth at the feeling. His thumb reaches your hole, catching the wetness at the entrance, dipping shallowly. Travelling back up, he presses into the centre of your clit beginning with tight circles around the area. 

Whining into his mouth, your hands travel to his shoulder, down his arms to grip the muscle. Your other hand grips the sheet as he presses harder into your clit, localising his torture to one tiny area, occasionally rubbing all over. 

“Wonwoo,” you moan into his mouth, hardly kissing anymore as you pant into his mouth. 

Two fingers push into your hole, the pads pushing up against your walls as his knuckles graze over them. He begins to pump in and out, scissoring his fingers to open you wider. The feeling has you throwing your head back, breathless. 

When he removes his fingers you nearly scream, but his hand is at the waistband of his boxers, just as desperate as you feel. The tent is obvious even as he pulls the fabric down, watching his painfully erect member slap against his stomach. Your hands wrap around his own that lay at the base, caressing past to pump him as he positions himself between you. 

It’s hypnotising, the redness of his tip, the way it leaks onto your fingers after just a few strokes. Wonwoo’s face is pained, and you realise he may have been serious about feeling tortured. 

Not that you were any less desperate, but the agony of needing to remain celibate for the weeks leading up to your wedding weren’t planned—you could hardly find time to eat and sleep. It flew over you, that it might've been a little tougher on him than it was on you, but when you pull him in closer, you make sure that changes. 

Knees bent, he pushes your thighs apart as he settles in. He sinks in slowly, “Oh this is gonna be quick.”

You don’t mind, because you’ve remained untouched long enough to not last very long either. “Right there with you,” you groan out, engulfed by the stretch. 

He’s slack jawed, hair falling over his eyes as he struggles to keep his eyes open. His fingers dig into the plump your thighs, gripping them like they were the only things keeping him tied down to earth. 

It’s bliss, even as he remains stationary for a moment, buried into you till the hilt. Slowly, he pulls out, rocking back in. He picks up the pace, folding your legs over as he watches the way he disappears into your wet pussy, milky white beginning to rim at the base of his cock, a mix of your slick wetness and his precum. He nearly cums at the sight. 

Your fingers play with your stiff nipples, head thrown back as you moan without a care of your volume or coherence, Wonwoo’s name on your lips like a mantra. His fingers find your clit, rubbing it in circles as you whine loudly at the feeling. 

“You feel so good,” he moans, hips snapping up to slap against the back of your thighs. “So good, you’re so good.”

Eyes blown open as he slams a hard one into you, his groaning and moaning ensuing another warm gush out of you. 

Wonwoo pauses for a moment, ducking closer to lay his forehead on yours, his spread legs keeping yours apart, hands coming up to cup the top of your head to protect you from the hard headboard. 

“I love you,” he whispers into your ear with effort. “I love you so much.”

“Fuck, I love you too,” half sobbing. 

“You’re amazing,” he blabs, words hardly coherent. “All mine. Mine forever. All of you.”

His words, paired with the hand that grazes over your tits, down to your swollen clit to rub it harsher than before, is enough to send you careening over the edge. 

“Won—oh my god, Wonwoo I’m cumming,” you moan so loud you’re sure it’s carrying over. But you don’t care, because you wonder how you went so long without clenching around his dick like this, gushing over him as he pounded into you like it was his last day on earth. 

He holds you steady as he rides you through it, the contracting of your walls pushing him into his own orgasm, shuddering in your hold as his thrusts become increasingly sloppy yet running with force. 

It’s euphoric, hot spurts of his cum painting your walls, leaving his traces where no one else could ever touch you. The thought sends him into overdrive, thrusting into you long past his release dripping out of you, pooling onto the pristine sheets, glazed over your gorgeous skin. 

Resting his head against your collarbone, he breathes in the salt of your sweat, mixed with the scent he calls home. 

It feels like an eternity, both of you silent as the wind blows into the room over your sweaty forms, laying there in each other’s arms. Wonwoo continues to keep his mouth on you, your shoulders, tummy, waist, worshipping every last inch of your being as you catch your breath intertwined in his heat. He’s at your knees where your legs fold, hand wrapped around your ankle as he caresses it with his thumb, leaving kisses above your knee. 

For a moment, he rests his head against your thigh, and the world becomes clearer. His silhouette against the light, the nature beyond your crystal windows. The weight of him now, the traces of his touch that persist, to lay here bare for your lover for life—a glimpse into the rest of time. 

The moment is ruined when you feel your stomach growl, and Wonwoo is close enough to hear the rumble. He shifts so he can look at you, “Shower time? I think I saw a restaurant downstairs.”

The shower went from quick to an extra thirty minutes, considering you’d hardly washed the shampoo off before he pushes you against the tiled wall to kiss you breathless, water going cold over you as he works you with his fingers again, the thudding of water hitting the shower floor paired with the squelching of his fingers dipping in and out of your already spent hole, and the pants and moans that fill your ears. 

He needs to help you into your clothes after that, which he chuckles through before pulling you to the hotel restaurant. Housing down everything in sight, Wonwoo remembers to keep your glass full in an attempt to keep you from choking on croissants of all things. 

“Do you wanna hit the beach after this?” you ask.

“I was thinking about a nap before that,” he says, belting out a burp that earns him a kick under the table. It shakes, earning you looks from the rest of the vacationers. He only laughs, “But I could nap on the beach.”

Wonwoo does not, in fact, nap on the beach and instead follows your example as you pack a book in your beach bag, realising very quickly he brought none of his own, choosing to snipe one of the many you brought for yourself. 

It’s you needing to turn your brain on this time, because the random book he’s grabbed has him so enraptured at the synopsis you have to pull him away from slamming directly into people and poles alike. There’s posters and notices as you walk through the connection that leads to the beach; cocktail classes, trivia nights, and tutorials on Seychellois cuisine. 

“Isn’t this that movie you watched on the plane?” he asks, reading the Crazy Rich Asians on the front cover. 

“Mhm, didn’t mean to pack that, I’m reading the sequel right now,” you hum as you look for the path that leads to the beach, hand in his. 

It’s a gamble as the view of the white sands and water come into view, visibly smiling as you see the near empty sands. It was the off season, which you expected to mean less of a crowd. 

Finding a double beach chair is easy, dumping your things as you make yourself comfortable. “Water’s nice.” Wonwoo comments, and you wonder if you did wrong with keeping your bathing suit away for today. 

Squeezing a generous amount of sunscreen onto your hands, you agree with him as you dot his face with sunblock. He lets you rub it in as he looks over the water, perfectly aware that he’d never willingly put sunscreen on his face if it were up to him. He’s done, and he settles in while you protect yourself. 

Leaning against Wonwoo’s arm, you’ve both grabbed your books under the giant parasol. The sun is out and warm just right, deep sounds of crashing waves, and the smell of salt—-you feel giddy. 

The beachside bar is seconds away from bringing you your cocktails when his hand finds your thigh, tracing his fingers over the skin, while his other holds open the book he’s reading, twisting the cover back like a heathen. 

It’s perfect. 

“These are good,” Wonwoo pauses to comment, brows furrowing at the flavour of your espresso martini and his cosmopolitan. 

“I think I saw something about a cocktail class at the hotel. We could try it later.”

“Oh yeah,” he agrees, sipping his drink again. 

You don’t know how long it’s been, but both your glasses are now empty and Wonwoo seems to be growing distracted after a few hours. It’s still late afternoon upon you as he announces he’s going to dip his feet in the water.

You think about it, and walk to the shallow end behind him, leaving your flip flops near the chairs. The sand is plush beneath your feet, cool between your toes despite the warm afternoon. Walking closer, the water is almost blinding with the way the sun dances on its crystal surface, waves breaking and sending pleasant sprays as you walk closer. 

You gasp audibly as the water touches you, turning to look at Wonwoo wide eyed and giddy. Colder than you’d expected, washing over your ankles and shins as you walk further into the water, pulling up the hems of your skirt to keep it from getting wet. 

Wonwoo leans down to touch the water, fingers dipping into the clear, coming up to splash you with a handful. It earns him a yelp from you as he laughs, but you soon recover and send another one right back. You don’t panic till you see both of his hands cup enough water to practically drown you. 

“Wonwoo, I didn’t bring extra clothes!” you yell, already running away. 

The irony doesn’t escape you, considering sprinting through the water has wet your clothes more than his splashes. But you're laughing harder than your breath can catch, and even more so when his wet hands grab you by the torso and pull you back in a lurch, suspended in the air for a moment. 

“Wonwoo!” 

It’s funny for a few minutes, still encased in a fit of giggles as you kick at the water. Until it isn’t.

Wonwoo separates from you for a moment, venturing a little deeper into the water, swearing he saw a ring of colourful fish swim past the shallow end. You’re in the middle of convincing yourself to follow him when you hear him suddenly splash at the water with shocking force. 

Stunned, you hardly register what’s just happened, thinking you’ve just heard him yell. He’s out of the water before you, hunched over and grabbing at his calf. By the time you reach him, you can see it. 

An ugly red slash across his calf, long and thin. It looks like a chemical burn. 

“What—”

“Shit,” he curses. An anomaly, considering you’ve only heard Wonwoo curse about five times in the years you’ve known him. 

“What is that?” you ask, immediately on your knees to get a closer look. It’s growing redder by the second, the swelling clear. 

Wonwoo stretches over to try to see, “That might’ve been a jellyfish.”

“You weren’t even in that deep!” 

“Deep enough I guess,” he winces. 

Bringing him to the shallow end, you try to pour more seawater on his reddened skin, hoping your memory is serving you right and you aren’t just making it worse. 

A few minutes later, a life guard is applying a topical cream on the area and giving you instructions to let the wound soak in warm water, assuring him he can get back in the pool in a couple days. 

Once the shock wears off, it’s almost a little funny. “That’s a story we’re gonna be telling forever,” you mumble as he gets up from the table in the tiny lifeguard tent. 

The man turns to you, “It happens sometimes, people usually just sleep on it and have a great rest of their vacation. Don’t worry about it too much.”

You thank him as you mutually decide to call it a day, moving back towards the hotel. Wonwoo seems alright, walking fine as he holds your hand talking about dinner plans. You suggest room service by the pool so he can keep off his leg, but insists he wants to try the traditional spot just outside the hotel. 

Heeding, you let him pull you back into the hotel room to clean up and rest. Except this time he’s serious about the nap. 

Wonwoo doesn’t fight you when you suggest staying off the beach today, choosing to occupy yourselves with the cocktail class instead. 

It’s in the hotel so you don’t have to leave the premises, the venue moderately full when you enter the room. The instructor introduces himself as Marcus, taking the time to make small talk with you both as you wait for everyone else to file in. His face lights up when Wonwoo tells him this was your honeymoon, very outwardly enthusiastic about having a couple in the class. 

So much so, that when the class eventually does begin, you hear a loud call for congratulations from the room for the only newlyweds (you). Mortified a little, you both fluster in your thank yous, attempting to move the attention back to the front where Marcus remains jovial as ever. 

“I think that’s too much ice,” you comment, attempting to compare the pile in your glass to Marcus’ up front. 

“No, it’s one scoop. It’s what he said,” Wonwoo says, but he’s beginning to look a little lost. 

“Doesn’t that look like a lot?” you ask, not convinced. But there isn’t much you can do about it, because you’re suddenly being asked to find one of the syrups on the counter, still rummaging while Marcus is already two steps ahead of you. 

It’s hard not to giggle, the energy from your station overwrought. But as you finally make your first drink after 20 whole minutes, you stand with straight shoulders. 

It’s another two hours of this, spilling precious spirits on the counter, floor and yourself, hands stained with syrups and fingers numb from picking up the giant spill of ice courtesy of your husband. You have to duck under the table for a moment, knowing your chortles would disrupt the class even more than you’ve done unintentionally already. 

Making cocktails meant drinking cocktails as you made even more cocktails. Marcus only seems to encourage the class to get day drunk, but that only resulted in added chaos. 

But even when you’re back in your hotel room, tipsy and giggly, you’re glad you did it. 

Wonwoo is spread eagle on the bed, still laughing about tripping over air in the hotel lobby. You join him, tucking yourself into his arm. Head lolling over to look at you, he dips his head down to kiss you, lips over your own in a close mouth peck. He doesn’t stop, lingering with every press to your mouth, still slightly smiling against your lips. 

“It’s been a day and this is already the best trip of my life,” he mutters against your lips. You’re very aware of it this time, a habit he’s had forever. 

You flashback for a moment, and suddenly you’re both a lot younger, alot less wise with constantly flushed cheeks in each other’s presence. It’s at the door of your old apartment, the same one where he would take you in more ways than one in the following months and years. 

But for now, it was your third date, and you were shifting your weight between your feet, trying not to feel disappointed as he bid you a goodnight with nothing but a smile and a wave. Mustering a smile of your own, you unlock the door and begin to walk in. 

Except instead of descending steps, there’s a pause. And Wonwoo was back before you could even cross the threshold. He didn’t ask when he cupped your face and planted one on you, mouth to mouth for the very first time, one hand over your door handle and the other on his wrist. 

“Sorry that took so long,” he mumbled against your mouth, the first time of many, sheepish smile on his face. 

But your heart felt like it was about to burst, so you went in for another one, opening your mouth to kiss him properly. And then the door had shut behind you both, and you’d dragged him inside. 

Tipsy haze and a little love drunk in your hotel room, on your honeymoon, you laugh against his mouth. “What,” he asks, laughing with you over nothing. 

“I’m glad you didn’t chicken out that night. After the drive in.” 

Wonwoo doesn’t need any more information, because the events of the day were ingrained into his mind like a brand. Not your first date, but your third, where he almost didn’t kiss you, where he almost never took the steps back up the stairs, where you almost slammed the door in his face. 

“I don’t think I would’ve wanted a fourth if you didn’t do it,” you say, eyes locked in on him. 

The thought scares him, that tiny mistake that never happened, how it would have altered the trajectory of his life. It’s terrifying, dread settling into his stomach. To this day he’s unsure why he’d hesitated as much as he did, especially considering he dreamt of your wedding the first night after he’d laid eyes on you. 

“You looked sad,” he says. “Disappointed. Just, not happy. I thought that meant you didn’t enjoy yourself, but…I was on the staircase when I realised I felt sad too.” 

He leans into you, lips planting kisses on the apples of your cheeks, to your fluttering eyelids, “Didn’t think much after that. Glad I didn’t, because I probably would have chickened out in the end.”

“We’re married,” you whisper like it’s a secret. “Can you believe that?”

“I can’t. Sometimes I still wake up and think I dreamt you up.”

“Are you calling me unreal?”

“Because you are,” he says. “I’m not sure how you exist.” 

That sticky feeling engulfs you again, and you know it’s because you’re a little drunk, but you’ve been teary enough to last you a lifetime just these past few days. Before you turn into a blubbering mess, you push yourself up. 

“Well,” you clear your throat. “I’m gonna go ahead and be unreal and not exist in the pool we are yet to use.”

He stares as you get up, walking to your open suitcase to rummage around for your stack of bathing suits. He remains on the bed, head propped up with his arm as he watches, content. 

You don’t bother with going to the bathroom, stripping off your shirt and shorts in the room. You fish out a green piece, only to hear a refute. 

“Where’s the yellow?” he asks, and you fish around to come out with the butter yellow two piece you didn’t realise he even knew you had. 

“Actually,” he slips off the bed, walking over to open the sliding doors that lead to the outside, glancing around. “Do you really need it?”

You only give him a look, proceeding to go to the bathroom to change out of your underwear anyway. He makes a noise of disapproval, but you respond with the loud sound of the door locking shut. 

When you emerge Wonwoo has soothed himself by taking a dip into the pool himself. You have to laugh, watching him paddle through the water with his swim goggles on. 

“Does it hurt? The sting?” you call out as you sit by the edge of the pool, dipping your feet in the water to start yourself off. 

He breaks the surface, hair flat over his head like a bowl. He spits out a mouthful of water before calling out, “No! I put the topical on this morning, I think it’s working.” 

If that were you, you’d probably be out of commission for the rest of the holiday, but as he dives back in to check how long he can hold his breath for, you want to applaud him. You jump in after a few minutes, finally getting yourself wet. 

Wonwoo comes over to you, letting you wrap your legs around him as you float as one. You do, however, rip the goggles right off his face. He doesn’t refute, letting them sink to the bottom of the pool. 

“Don’t you think I’m so strong?” he asks. 

“I’d say the water’s doing most of the work,” you note. 

“I meant my fatal injury.”

“Hardly fatal if you’re making jokes about it,” you snort. “Do you feel like a man?”

“Yeah.” He’s smiling a dumb smile, and you know he can hardly see a thing without his glasses. “Are you impressed?”

“So impressed,” you sigh, leaning in to kiss the tip of his nose. 

You let him go for a little bit, wanting to float by yourself for a while. As the sky breaks through branches of low hanging trees and giant green flats of leaves, you realise your not-soberness is probably contributing to how psychedelic the view looks. 

But you aren’t complaining, content with the weightless feeling. 

Wonwoo can’t help himself from meddling for too long, because suddenly you're being lifted off the surface just to be dunked under the water, flailing for a moment before breaking the surface. 

“Wonwoo!” you screech, but he’s already on the opposite end of the pool, laughing maniacally. You’re rethinking your stance on drunk Wonwoo, because you aren’t liking him too much. 

He’s unfortunately a faster swimmer, but you have him cornered in the pool. He makes to go below, escaping your wrath of you and your dripping wet hair, but instead you hear him yell. 

Through the water, you watch him grab his calf, face contorted like he banged the sting wound on the wall of the pool. Immediately, you move forward to check on him.

“Does it hurt?” you ask sharply, mind already racing to where the topical was inside the room.  

But you should’ve known, because as soon as you’re close enough for him to grab, you’re being snatched off guard and caged between him and the pool wall. 

You want to stay mad at him, but it’s difficult when you note how his shoulders are blocking the entire sun from view, casting you in a shadow shaped like your husband. 

“What was that for?”

He only shrugs, hands roaming the expanse of your skin in the water. “I missed you.” 

Rolling your eyes, you attempt to break free. He blocks you, whining as he buries his face into your neck. “I said I missed you.” 

Another thing about drunk Wonwoo—his sex drive shoots for the clouds. 

Even now as he’s mouthing the side of your neck, you can feel him through his swim trunks, pressing you against the pool wall, water spilling over the edge. His input on your choice of swimwear should’ve been your sign, but as he fiddles with the straps of your bottoms, you decide to resign into him. 

Water is Wonwoo’s biggest enemy as he finds out how difficult it is to create friction like this, the tent in his bottoms pressing against your stomach. You decide you’re going to be nice, palming him through his trunks. Your other hand is around his middle, roaming to his front as you let them wander over his skin. 

He groans contently into your neck, coming up to take your mouth. His tongue pushes in, and you let him lick and suck on your tongue, pulling away only to go right back in. It seems your hands aren’t enough, because he’s suddenly gripping you by the sides and pulling you out of the water, finding yourself sitting by the poolside. 

There’s water everywhere as you get a headstart, but he’s enthusiastic even while tipsy, lifting you off the ground at the steps. To your surprise, he doesn’t head for the bedroom, and instead places you on one of the beach chairs on the porch. 

“Wonwoo,” you begin, slightly scandalised. 

“It’s just us,” he says, nipping at the shell of your ear. 

It was sheltered enough, canopied but exposed enough to have you giggling through it. Wonwoo is an efficient man, not a second wasted as he rids you of your bottoms, his own swimming trunks coming off, landing somewhere on the floor with a wet thwack. 

He’s sinking into you within seconds, hovering over you as he mouths your cleavage spilling out of your bikini top, licking and dragging his tongue over your skin. You move to take it off, but he stops you. 

“No,” he says sharply, pinning your hands in front of you. “Stays on.”

So maybe you underestimated how much he liked it, but you can’t bother to think about it when he picks up his pace, slamming into you so hard the chair rattles and shakes beneath you. Your wrists remained tied with his hand, reaching out as far as you can to touch his stomach, needing to feel him somehow. 

The noises you're making are only fueling him, hand coming up to squeeze your breast through the wet fabric, slipping his fingers underneath to play with your nipple, erect from the cold. His knees are in place steadfast on either side of the beach chair, and you have to ask.

“Isn’t that–humph–burning?” you ask through pants. 

“Don’t,” he thrusts up hard, “care.”

Taking a moment, you look up at him, and he’s enamoured with the sight of your wet body in front of him, but all you can see is how he manages to encase you with his body alone, the flop his hair over his beautiful eyes, How pretty he looks in the partial shade. How in love he looks with you. 

His thrusts are getting sloppier, and you’re moaning so loud it’s beginning to hurt your throat. “Wonwoo, I think—”

“Me too, me too, me too,” he babbles as he feels the familiar clamp of your walls around him, the mesmerizing arch of your back, the way you rip your hands from his hold, only to seize his arms to ground yourself as you ride out your high. He doesn’t fail to abuse your clit, fingers pressing and rubbing just hard enough to send you to a place so far away from here. 

“Oh…Wonwoo, fuck, that’s so–so good.” It sounds like a sob, and maybe you are crying a little bit. 

He follows you on your descent, hips harried and face contorted like he’s forgotten how to hold himself back. He cums inside you, and you can’t help moaning at the feeling. 

He’s hardly brought himself down to Earth when you’re being yanked towards the side of the beach chair, legs over the edge. There’s a loud groan from the chair as it's yanked to the side so Wonwoo can sit on the floor in front of you. 

Legs thrown over his shoulder, he watches as the white of his cum leaks out of your raw hole, the sight nearly giving him another erection before he can even dry off. His mouth meets your cunt, lapping at the mix of his cum and your release off your thighs, your hole, spilled over your clit. 

You’re overstimulated, but you only prop yourself on your forearms to watch him suck on your clit like he was starved, tongue flat on the muscle as he rubs against your folds. His finger pushes through your entrance, the sound downright sinful as he pumps his cum in and out of your hole. The second orgasm hits you like a truck, shaking like you’d lost yourself on the chair as you finish hard. Seeing stars in daylight, painting the blue sky. 

When Wonwoo emerges, eyes dazed and a slight smirk on his face, he’s panting, leaning against your thighs. He places one last open mouthed kiss against your thigh before dealing with your jellied form, slumping against the chair as you attempt to relearn how to breathe. 

“You–” you pant. “We need to get drunk more often.”

He only grins at your suggestion to turn into alcoholics for the sake of mind blowing sex.

“I love you,” he says as he scoops you up into his arms, and you want to ask what ounce of superhuman strength he even had left to pull you into a sitting position, seeing as your own muscles are of no help whatsoever. 

Your legs are swung across his thighs as you sit on his lap till you can recover. His mouth is covered in your bodily fluids, but you’re reminded what love feels like when you let him kiss you all over regardless. 

“I love you too,” you say. “And I’ll keep loving you if you keep eating me out like that.”

“What happened to unconditional love?” he laughs. 

You push back the wet mop of his hair, letting his face come into full view. 

“Still unconditional,” you respond. “Always unconditional.”

He leans in to kiss you, and you immediately taste the salt on his tongue, but all you want is to move deeper. 

“Unconditional,” he mumbles into your mouth, and you're immediately smiling. 

He pulls away for a moment, staring at you for a moment. “I think you’ve recovered.”

“Hm?” you question. 

You know the answer when you’re suddenly being yanked by the hand back inside. “Wonwoo,” you scream as he gives you no room to prepare, pulling you indoors while the sliding door slams shut behind you. 

Yeah. You like how forever is turning out. 

[wonwunss]

–ᝰ.ᐟ✮ In which Wonwoo ends up being Joshua's daughter unspoken favourite uncle because she fell asleep on him once.

pairing: uncle!wonwoo x joshua's daughter (3 y/o)

genre: fluff, awkward uncle turned softest uncle, quiet affection, doe eyes & toy cars

word count: 2.7k

a/n: can you tell im digging into the seventeen being dads and uncles era? anywayss wonu gives off awkward uncle with kids just because he rarely interacts with kids. but then turns most comfortable and warm uncle,, he gives off warm hugs energy that lulls kids to sleep in his arms

The house is full today.

Music plays low in the background. Voices echo through the hallway—laughter, overlapping conversations, the sound of clinking glasses and chopsticks tapping against bowls. It’s one of their usual group get-togethers, the kind that feels like a reunion, a birthday, and a full-blown family party all at once.

Joshua’s daughter is here too, of course.

She always is, when they gather. Just three years old, she’s become something like the group’s shared baby—their collective sunshine. She bounces from uncle to uncle with no hesitation, fully confident that each one will drop whatever they’re doing to hold her or play with her or answer her questions about her imaginary friends.

Well. Most of them.

Wonwoo’s around, sure. Always is. But he’s not one of the main players in her orbit. Not like Seungkwan who brings her snacks and mimics cartoon voices. Not like Mingyu who hoists her onto his shoulders and pretends she’s flying. Not like DK who lets her paint his nails with glitter polish and says it’s fashion.

Wonwoo is… there. A background constant. He knows her, of course. Says hello. Lets her offer him a bite of her animal crackers now and then. But they’ve never really had a moment. And he’s not sure he’d know what to do if they did.

Which is exactly why he blinks, slightly alarmed, when he finds himself in her playroom... alone with her.

It happens like this.

He’s sitting cross-legged on the floor, talking with Mingyu and DK while Chan plays on the carpet with her, little blocks and figurines scattered in colorful chaos.

Then Hoshi leaves for the kitchen—“I haven’t eaten anything yet, I swear I’m gonna pass out, you guys”—and a few minutes later, DK and Mingyu are summoned out to “help Joshua un-ruin” a dish he was apparently too confident about.

“Back in five,” Mingyu promises as he follows DK out.

But they don’t come back.

And Chan?

Chan’s lying on his side now, motionless. His arm is draped over a plushie and his mouth is slightly open. Asleep.

So it’s just her and Wonwoo.

She doesn’t seem to mind. She's still playing, humming to herself, stacking blocks and mumbling a little storyline under her breath that involves a fairy, a pancake, and a dinosaur wearing glasses.

Wonwoo stays where he is. On the floor. Glued to his phone. Not scared of her—just… uncertain. She seems to be fine. Kids are good at playing by themselves, right?

He tries to scroll through his feed like he’s totally unbothered. Like the room isn’t too quiet now. Like he doesn’t feel her eyes flick over to him now and then, curious.

She doesn’t say anything.

He doesn’t either.

Until—

bump.

Something taps against his knee.

He lowers his phone.

A tiny toy car rests against his leg, pushed there deliberately by a small hand.

He looks up.

She’s watching him, eyes wide, almost shy—but not quite afraid. Her bunny is clutched under one arm. Her other hand is still resting on the car, fingers curled around the back of it like she’s waiting to see what he’ll do.

It’s the look that gets him.

Those same round, gentle eyes that Joshua has. The soft silent question in them. Not a demand, not a whine, just… an ask.

Wonwoo blinks.

Then clears his throat.

“…Was that on purpose?” he says, voice quiet.

She tilts her head.

“I think it wants to play,” she says simply.

He exhales a laugh before he even realizes he’s smiling. “The car wants to play?”

She nods. “But he’s shy. So I helped him.”

“I see.”

A beat passes.

Then Wonwoo reaches out and gently nudges the toy car back in her direction. It rolls lazily across the rug and bumps against her slippered foot.

She gasps like it’s the most delightful thing in the world.

And suddenly, just like that, the air shifts.

—

They end up playing a game. Nothing complicated—he pushes the car to her, she pushes it back. But every time it bumps into one of them, she giggles like it’s brand new.

After a while, she starts giving the car a voice. A little high-pitched squeak: “Oh noooo, I crashed! Someone call the firetruck!”

Wonwoo, unexpectedly, obliges.

He picks up a nearby red block and mimics a siren with zero skill.

She squeals. “That’s silly! Try again!”

So he does.

He ends up making car noises. Dinosaur noises. At one point, he’s holding a sparkly wand and she tells him it’s his “magic booster stick” and he just… goes with it.

He doesn’t even realize how much time has passed until Mingyu pokes his head back in.

“Oh my god,” Mingyu whispers, eyes wide. “You’re… playing.”

Wonwoo scowls. “Shut up.”

But the toddler beside him just beams. “Uncle Woo’s fun.”

Wonwoo pauses.

And then, quietly, almost under his breath: “Yeah?”

She nods. Then, without warning, crawls into his lap with her bunny and settles there like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

He freezes for a second—hands in the air like she’s fragile.

But when she rests her head on his chest, still clutching her toy, he finally lets his hands settle gently around her back.

“…You’re warm,” she murmurs, drowsy.

“Yeah,” he says, heart suddenly full in a way he can’t explain. “You too.”

Joshua’s been walking around the house for five minutes now with a tiny pink sippy cup in hand, humming softly as he peeks into each room.

“Sunshine?” he calls out, quiet enough not to disturb the conversations going on around him. “It’s milk time. Nap time too. Where’d you wander off to, huh?”

She usually comes running when she hears “milk time.” But the house is full today, and sometimes she gets so distracted by her uncles that she forgets to keep track of her own rituals.

Joshua tries the kitchen first. No sign. Then the hallway. The guest bedroom. He finally ends up outside her playroom door, hearing nothing from within.

Strange. Usually it’s a cacophony of squealing laughter and full-grown men arguing over imaginary tea party etiquette.

He pushes the door open slowly—

And freezes.

There, in the middle of the colorful, toy-strewn room, is Jeon Wonwoo.

Sitting cross-legged on the floor. Completely still. Cradling his daughter in his arms.

She’s sound asleep.

Her cheek is smushed against his chest, arms tucked between them. Her bunny is dangling from one loose hand, and her lips are slightly parted in the peaceful rhythm of deep, drooly toddler sleep. And Wonwoo?

Wonwoo looks like a man who hasn’t moved in twenty minutes because he’s afraid of waking the tiny creature sleeping on him.

His back is straight. His phone is face down beside him. His hands are carefully braced around her like she’s made of glass.

Joshua’s heart squeezes.

But also—

He slowly, silently, pulls his phone out.

click.

Wonwoo’s head jerks up instantly at the sound. He blinks, wide-eyed, like he’s been caught red-handed.

“Hyung—!”

Joshua grins, lowering his phone with a hand over his heart. “Oh, don’t move. This is the most precious thing I’ve ever seen.”

“I—she fell asleep,” Wonwoo whispers, like he’s explaining himself to a judge.

“I can see that,” Joshua says, trying not to burst out laughing. “On you. Mr. ‘I don’t know how to play with kids.’ Mr. ‘She doesn’t even talk to me much.’ Now she’s taking full-body naps on you like you’re her favorite pillow.”

Wonwoo scowls, looking mildly panicked. “I didn’t do anything. We were playing. She said I was warm. Next thing I knew, she just—” he gestures vaguely to the sleeping toddler in his lap, “—did this.”

Joshua tiptoes closer, looking down at them with a softness in his eyes.

“You must’ve done something right,” he says gently, crouching down beside them. “She doesn’t fall asleep on people she doesn’t trust.”

Wonwoo’s eyes flick to his daughter, her little nose smushed against his shirt, breathing slow and even. His arms tighten slightly around her before he can stop himself.

“…She’s heavier than she looks,” he mutters.

Joshua grins. “That’s all the cookies DK feeds her.”

There’s a quiet beat.

Then Joshua nudges his shoulder, eyes twinkling.

“Hey. Thank you.”

Wonwoo looks up.

“For what?”

“For… letting her choose you,” Joshua says, smiling. “I know you didn’t expect to be left alone with her today. But… I’ve never seen her this comfortable with you before. I think she really likes you.”

Wonwoo’s ears flush pink.

“…She’s not bad,” he says after a pause.

Joshua lets out a laugh. “She’s a three-year-old, not a new brand of earbuds.”

Still, he’s beaming. Because he knows what a big moment this is—for both of them.

And he’s definitely saving that photo.

Forever.

Joshua carefully scoops her up from Wonwoo’s lap, one hand supporting her head, the other wrapped around her little back.

She stirs slightly, mumbling something unintelligible, before sighing and snuggling closer to her father’s chest.

Wonwoo watches, suddenly aware of how warm his arms feel now that they’re empty.

“She’s due for a nap anyway,” Joshua says quietly, brushing her hair back. “I’ll put her in my room—it’s the furthest from all the noise.”

Wonwoo nods once. Still quiet.

As Joshua heads out, he pauses at the door and glances back at him.

“She really liked you, you know.”

Wonwoo shifts a little, ears still pink. “...She’s alright.”

Joshua smiles and disappears down the hall.

It’s sometime after dinner prep and before the food hits the table when she wakes.

The living room is still lively, voices overlapping—Hoshi is yelling something about rice texture, DK is explaining a dramatic dream, and Seungkwan is lecturing Vernon about hydration.

None of them notice the small figure slowly padding in from the hallway.

Her eyes are still heavy with sleep, one hand rubbing at her lashes, the other dragging her bunny behind her.

She pauses just inside the room.

Tiny. Barefoot. Blinking around blearily.

Looking for one person.

Joshua’s not there.

He’s still in the kitchen, checking on the final dish.

And like most toddlers—still slightly disoriented from sleep, still tucked inside the softness of her nap-brain—she defaults to the first face she feels safest with.

The one she remembers from before she fell asleep.

The one she chose.

She walks past the group.

The members notice her and immediately light up.

“Hey, sleepyhead,” DK coos, reaching out a hand.

“You want to sit with me?” Seungkwan asks, already making space on the couch.

But she keeps walking.

Right past all of them.

The entire room goes quiet as her tiny footsteps carry her, slowly and silently, across the carpet.

Until she reaches the end of the couch.

Where Wonwoo is.

Still quiet. Still observing from the edge of the chaos.

She doesn’t say anything. Just stands in front of him, blinking up at him.

Wonwoo lowers his phone.

And she lifts her arms.

Not in a dramatic way. Just a simple, sleepy toddler gesture—two hands raised wordlessly, like she knows what she wants and doesn’t need to explain it.

Wonwoo hesitates.

Then leans forward and scoops her up gently, settling her into his lap like he’s been doing it for years.

She exhales, small and content, and rests her head against his chest again—same exact spot as before. As if she remembers. As if she meant to return.

No one says anything for a full five seconds.

Then—

“What just happened,” Vernon whispers.

“She passed all of us,” DK breathes, scandalized.

Hoshi stares. “Even me.”

Joshua walks in from the kitchen then, wiping his hands on a towel. “Oh,” he says, pausing at the sight. “Right. She’s fully attached now.”

Wonwoo looks up from the little girl snoozing against him.

“…She’s yours now, bro,” Joshua says with a grin. “Congratulations.”

Dinner is finally ready.

Joshua sets out the plates and calls everyone over.

“Let’s go!” he says. “Food’s hot—grab your spots!”

She’s already sitting at the table, perched on the booster seat beside him, pressed up against his arm. Her cheek is still flushed from sleep, bunny dangling off her lap.

Hoshi makes his way over and gestures to the chair beside her.

“Can I sit here?”

Before Joshua can even answer, his daughter immediately shakes her head and plants her little hand on the chair.

Hoshi freezes. “Oh?”

She doesn’t say a word. Just guards the seat like a tiny security guard.

Then she turns her head, scanning the room.

Eyes locked on one person.

“Uncle Woo.”

Everyone turns.

Wonwoo, who had been hanging back near the couch, blinks.

She pats the seat beside her. Once. Then again, more insistently.

With the softest voice, she says, “Here.”

Wonwoo blinks again. “You want me to sit there?”

She nods.

And Hoshi dramatically clutches his chest. “Betrayal.”

Wonwoo awkwardly walks over and sits down, and the moment he does, her hand grabs his sleeve like a tether.

All through dinner, she eats slowly but steadily, one hand always on him. Sometimes she rests her head against his arm. Sometimes she just holds his pinky while chewing a bite of rice.

No one lets it go.

“Hyung,” Minghao says around a bite of kimchi, “you’ve been chosen.”

“She’s imprinted on you like a baby duck,” Seungkwan says.

Joshua just laughs. “She used to follow me around all the time. Now I guess I’ve been replaced.”

Wonwoo glares at him. “This is your daughter.”

“Not anymore, apparently.”

Later that night, when most of the guests have started packing up, she’s still glued to his side.

As Joshua walks around tidying up—clearing plates, refolding blankets—he keeps glancing over his shoulder.

Every time, he sees her clinging to Wonwoo’s hand. Tiny fingers wrapped tightly around his. Following him from the dining table to the couch. From the couch to the hallway. Like a shadow.

And Wonwoo?

He doesn’t even seem to notice anymore.

He just lets her follow.

At one point, when she yawns and stumbles a little, he picks her up automatically and adjusts her against his side, one hand braced under her thighs, the other gently patting her back.

Joshua watches them from the hallway, arms crossed and a smirk tugging at his lips.

“She's yours now, bro,” he says again.

Wonwoo rolls his eyes but doesn’t let go.

It’s one of those easy Sunday afternoons again.

Seungcheol's house, same familiar chaos. Someone’s already brought fried chicken, Mingyu’s brought wine “for the aesthetic,” and Chan is setting up a game on the TV like they won’t get distracted halfway through.

Joshua arrives a few minutes later, hand-in-hand with his daughter and her ever-present bunny.

Everyone lights up at the sight of her.

“Ayyyyy, it’s the princess!”

“Come here, baby, come give Uncle DK a hug—!”

“You missed me the most, right?”

She blinks up at the room full of extended family.

Pauses. Scans. And then?

She lets go of her dad’s hand and runs.

Not to DK.

Not to Seungkwan.

Not to Mingyu, who’s already kneeling with arms out dramatically like he’s waiting for a K-drama reunion hug.

No.

She runs straight across the room—like, full toddler zoom mode—toward the quiet figure standing near the edge of the kitchen counter.

Wonwoo blinks.

“…Oh,” he says.

Before he can say anything else, she barrels into him with all the force of a three-year-old tornado and wraps her arms around his legs.

“Uncle Woo!!”

Wonwoo freezes for a half-second.

Then slowly leans down and picks her up like it’s second nature.

“Hey, you,” he murmurs.

She tucks her head under his chin, bunny hanging by the ear in one hand. “I missed you.”

Behind them, the entire room explodes.

“WHAT?!”

“No way!”

“She didn’t even look at me!!!”

“YOU DIDN’T EVEN DO ANYTHING!!”

“WONWOO HYUNG, TEACH ME!!”

Joshua is wheezing by the front door. He hasn’t even taken off his shoes yet.

“She picked him, guys,” he says proudly, clapping Mingyu on the back. “It’s over. You all lost.”

“She ran past me,” DK says in shock. “Like past. Like I didn’t even exist.”

Wonwoo, still holding her, looks slightly overwhelmed but not unhappy. She’s babbling something about the cereal she had this morning and a sticker she wants to give him later.

Joshua saunters over with a smug little grin. “Feels nice being someone’s favorite, huh?”

“She’s not—”

“Don’t even lie,” Joshua cuts him off. “She chose you and now you’re stuck. You’re gonna have to come to every hangout now or she’ll riot.”

Wonwoo glances down at her. She’s playing with the string on his hoodie, half-listening to the room’s chaos.

“…Yeah,” he says quietly. “Guess I’m hers now.”

And she? She just leans her cheek against his shoulder, completely content.

Because to her, it’s simple: She chose him. And she always will.

[gentleisa]

pulling you loose - j.ww

pairing: wonwoo x fem reader rating: R, 18+, MINORS DO NOT INTERACT wc: 4.9K warnings: angst about a breakup, smut: kind of public sex (it happens in a room but it's technically in a public space), dirty talk, slightly possesssive, reader likes wonu's hands, thumb sucking, unprotected sex, he cums on her stomach, fucking from behind synopsis: : heartbreak means tying yourself back up in the hopes that someone will kindly unravel you again. you don't expect your unraveling to come in the form of the grandson of the lady who runs your local film developing studio. a/n: this is for the candy hearts collab hosted by @svthub this is for @lovelylonelinesssvt who was my lovely valentine for this collab! hi ella! surprise it's me your valentine. i sincerely hope you enjoy reading this as much as i had fun writing this <3 i hope you had a lovely valentine's day (sorry i'm a lil late!)

You feel the ache in your body as you wake up from another cry-induced nap on your couch. The feeling of your dried tears cracking across your cheeks. You look to your left and see that there's a mug with a sticky note attached to it on your magazine covered coffee table. A groan comes from you as you're leaning over to grab it.

"Drink this and stop thinking about him xx"

You smile at the kind gesture of your best friend. Sending her a quick thank you text, you stand up and peer into the mug. The smell of your favorite warm drink hits your nose and you're filled with a sense of comfort.

After letting the steaming mug wake you up, you decide to take her advice. You shouldn't think about your ex anymore. You remind yourself that sometimes things just don't work out. Surveying the state of your studio apartment, you wrinkle your nose at the result. Walking into the kitchen, you grab a sticky note and write the things that need to be done:

throw trash away

put clothes away

vacuum

Crouching down under the sink, you pull out two garbage bags. You replace the bin that's sitting in your kitchen and take the other empty bag to walk around your studio. There are empty candy wrappers and popcorn bags that litter the side of your couch, a reminder of your coping skills from the night before. Once you've filled it, you tie it up and set the two bags by the door. You strike a line through the first task.

You set out to tackle the second task: putting away the mountain of clothes that have accumulated. Deciding that you didn't want to work in silence, you pick a vinyl off the shelf to play. You've been a fan of analog media for most of your life, you don't remember what exactly started it but the fascination followed you into adulthood. The soft melodies of the first track flow through your speakers and you plop yourself at the foot of your bed to start sorting. You begin arranging the clothes in piles and fall into a rhythm: clothes being donated fell into a pile on your right and the ones you were keeping were being folded neatly into a stack. As you get to the end, a navy blue cardigan catches your attention. Gingerly you pick it up and fold it into your lap. This was the cardigan you wore the first time you confessed your feelings to Seungcheol.

You hold up one of the sleeves and see that the red star you'd stitched into the sleeve had a loose thread. You'd stitched the shape into the cardigan after Seungcheol noticed it when you were holding hands. In a cruel twist of fate, it was the also the same one you wore when he broke your heart. That was six months ago.

A laugh bubbles out of your throat at the timing the universe has. There's a small ache that knocks in your chest as you fold the sleeves in and you're confronted with the choice of keep or donate.

Before the ache can consume you, a loud thud outside your apartment breaks you out of your thoughts. The first thought in your brain is that the sweet old lady from across the way must have dropped something heavy. Your eyes flit to the trash bags by your door and figure you can inspect the source of the noise on your way out to the dumpster. You make your way outside with the bags of trash hooked onto your left arm.

What's outside your door is not the usual nice elderly woman that you're accustomed to, instead a man, an incredibly cute one, who is silently cursing himself. There's also a mess of groceries that have spilled out into hallway. The two of you make eye contact and he apologizes for the mess, you shrug and step around the mess to head downstairs and throw your trash out. Your mouth moves before your brain does and you tell him that you'll be back to help. There's a slight skip in your step as you bounce back up the stairs. You round the corner and find the stranger on his knees, carefully placing the groceries back into the brown paper bag. Rushing over, you grab the rest of the items and hand them to him. He takes them gratefully and offers you a smile that warms you on the inside.

"Thanks again, you didn't have to," he says sheepishly. The baritone in his voice taking you a bit by surprise.

"Oh, no worries!" You shoot back a smile.

The two of you stand up at the same time, but there's barely any space between the two of you. You pick up the scent of cherries and something musky that makes you melt. You wish him a good day and head back inside. There's a smile on your face as you press your back against your door. Shaking your head, you pad over to your bed to finish the second task on your list. Picking up the pile of folded clothes, you swing open your closet door with the back of your heel. You place things in their designated spaces until you're finished. Padding over to the kitchen you cross off the task as you're pulling out a bin for the pile of clothes you've decided to donate. You leave it right by the door, so you don't forget it the next time you're out.

There is one last task left and you head back to your closet to dig out the vacuum. You make sure that most of the larger things on the floor are picked up and out of the way. You also take a second to pause the record that's playing since you won't be able to hear it over the roar of the vacuum. Thankful that you had a cordless vacuum, you begin the final task on your list.

As you're moving around, you hit your coffee table and some of the magazines on it fall to the floor. Switching off the vacuum, you kneel down to stack the magazines together. One of them slid a bit under your couch, so you reach in to swipe it back out. As you're reaching in, you feel a small plastic cylinder at the edge of the magazine. Wrapping your fingers around it, you pull your arm back to find a film canister. The label on it is pretty much smudged off so you have no clue how dated this thing is. You place the newly found item on your coffee table and finish vacuuming.

When you finally finish, you find yourself quite hungry. Opening your fridge, you are pleasantly surprised when you find a tupperware filled with your favorite food. The glass container decorated with another sticky note, which you can only assume is from your best friend. You take the container out, peel the note off and pop the food into the microwave. While waiting for your food, you take a look at the note she left behind.

"Because sometimes, we just need our favorites to cheer us up xx"

You smile and send her yet another thank you text. She responds by calling you. Your phone rings at the same time that your microwave beeps — you quickly put her on speakerphone, grab the food, and ask about her day. As you let her ramble about her job and the incompetence of her coworkers, you're shoving food into your mouth. The heat of it burning your tongue and you're quick to shout a curse. You hear her giggle on the other end and pout at the fact that she's laughing at your pain. She turns the conversation on you and asks what you did with your day. You run through the task list— talked about the cute guy who spilled his groceries in front your door, the fact that your navy blue cardigan was part of TWO emotional heights in your relationships, and the random film canister you found. You even ask her if the canister was hers. She replies that she doesn't remember leaving a canister at yours and suggests that you take it over to Carat Lab. Hitting your kitchen countertop, you squeal at her good idea, bringing up that you'd been meaning to get over there to get your camera looked at. The two of you wrap up your conversation after making plans to see each other.

It's the following morning and you decide, that it was time to get your camera checked out. On your last trip, it had slipped out of your hands and since then the shutter has been acting wonky. You take a quick shower and get dressed.

You walk into Carat Lab expecting to find the small old lady that usually runs the counter (who also happens to be your neighbor) but instead you find the incredibly cute stranger from yesterday. He has a film camera taken apart and he's tinkering with it. Immediately you notice his hands and how gentle they are while he's holding the camera. What really pulls your attention, is the vein that runs along his thumb when he has to apply a bit of force to close the camera. You don't even notice yourself biting your lip until you feel the pain of your tooth digging into your skin. Surveying the shop, you find that no one else is working the counter so you're stuck walking up. The stranger with the nice hands doesn't notice you immediately, so you lightly knock on the glass display. He looks up with a slightly shocked look on his face, that forms into recognition.

"Stalking me now, are we?" He says with a smirk perched on his face. Shooting back a look of disbelief, you immediately launch into your story to dispel any notion that you had followed him. Opening up your purse you fish out your camera, making sure to be careful, and place it on the glass.

"See? I have a perfectly good, non-creepy reason to be here. If anything I should be asking you that question!" You huff at him, questioning where the grandma who usually works the store is. Chuckling to himself, he gestures at a framed picture behind him on the wall.

"Who? Her? That's my grandmother," while he explains his relationship to her, he continues to work on the camera from earlier. Your eyes move back to his hands and you're mesmerized by the meticulousness and gentleness he has. While you're watching him, you recollect that Mrs. Jeon had talked about her grandchildren before. She'd shown you pictures, but they were all from when the kids were younger, so you didn't really know what they looked like.

Until now. And god, did this grandkid age well.

Pulling yourself out of your thoughts, he introduces himself with a hand extended to you.

"I'm Wonwoo, and you are?" Taking his hand, you shake it and give him your name. You don't miss the small bit of heat that settles at the bottom of your stomach when your hands touch.

"Well, for the record, if you were stalking me, I wouldn't have minded." He says as he gives you a wink. The tips of your ears go red. Finishing up with the camera he'd been working on, he asks you to hand yours over. Gently, you slide it to him. He picks it up, giving you a compliment on the model you own.

"I don't see this one too often, she's an oldie." He smiles and it's blinding. After placing the camera on a mat, he turns and grabs a small toolbox from behind him. Popping it open, he plucks a small screwdriver to open the body of your camera. Once he has it open, he bends down to take a look at the camera. After a few moments, he picks up some other tools and starts to perform what looks like surgery on your camera.

"Your shutter is definitely broken. I can fix it but I'll need to order a specific part to replace the spring mechanism. It'll take me a bit of time…" He continues telling you that since your camera is quite niche, finding spare parts can be difficult. You nod and reply that you don't mind waiting. He puts your camera back together and places it on a working table behind him. He asks if there's anything else that he can do for you and you fish out the film canister in your left pocket.

"I found this the other day and I honestly have no clue what's on it so I'd love to get it developed," you offer him a kind smile and the plastic. He takes it with a nod and informs you that both your camera and this roll of film will be ready in between one and a half to two weeks. Pulling out a form from a shelf behind him, he slides it to you.

"It's just so we can call you once your things are ready. Don't worry, totally professional," he jokes with a wink. Smiling as you take the form, you quickly fill it out. After you slide back the piece of paper, he tells you that he'll see you soon and you reply with a quick nod. You begin to make your way out of the shop, but call out to him just before you exit.

"For the record, if you decided to be unprofessional, I wouldn't mind," you say with a wink that mirrored his from earlier.

A few hours after you leave the shop you hear a ping from your phone. You roll over from your bed and see a text from an unknown number.

Is asking you to dinner tonight also unprofessional?

There is a cheesy grin on your face as you reply to him.

Maybe. But like I said I don't mind ;)

The rest of your day is spent flirting through text messages with Wonwoo. Eventually you settle on the details. You calculate that you have about two hours to get ready. You thank the stars that you'd washed your hair that morning. You pull out a black dress that you know makes you look incredible. You lay it on your bed and continue to get ready. As the clock nears six, you're doing one last check in the mirror.

A knock interrupts you. Sauntering over to your front door and the sight that greets you is delectable. Your date is dressed in a black long sleeve button up and black pinstripe pants. His sleeves are rolled up to his elbows, showing off the hands that you've become enamored with. You begin to feel a bit of shame that you're checking him out with the same energy of a starved bear and a piece of meat, but then you notice he's doing the same to you. His eyes are dark as they rake up and down your figure. The feeling of heat between your thighs making itself known again.

"You look… Wow." He admits. Flashing a confident smile you share the same sentiment. Distracted by his gaze, you grab a random cardigan off the back of your door and make your way outside. As you walk down the stairs, you swear you can feel the heat of his gaze.

Dinner is filled with pleasant conversations with an underlying tension so hot and heavy that you have to excuse yourself to the restroom.

When you return back to your table, you find that not only has Wonwoo ordered the two of you a dessert, he's also paid the bill. You chastise him and he retorts back that his grandmother would never let him hear the end of it, if he let you pay a cent. You oblige him by accepting this gesture on the condition you pay for the next date.

"A second date? Consider me lucky," he muses as you're taking a bite of the chocolate cake he ordered. You chuckle as this happens and this leaves a bit of frosting on the corner of your mouth that you don't notice.

He does.

"Oh you've got-" he points to his face. Mortified you try and wipe at the spot. By the look on his face, it doesn't seem like you've gotten all of it.

"Here, let me." Scooting closer to you, he brings his had to your face and his thumb swiped at the spot you missed. It grazes your lip and the tension in the room comes to a head when you suddenly take his thumb into your mouth. You swipe at the frosting with your tongue, and you meet his eyes as you do. Taking note of Wonwoo, you see him just as flushed, but his eyes are dark.

Releasing his thumb with a slight pop, you flash him a smirk. "Thanks."

He nods, taking a small breath. There's a split second of frenzy before the two of you are rushing to his car. Wonwoo guides you in front of him, his large hand warm and possessive on the small of your back. Still a gentleman, he opens the car door for you and you slide in. The entire drive, his hand is on your thigh, gradually rising higher.

Giggles are shared as you race up the stairs to your studio. As you fumble with the key, Wonwoo is pressing into you from behind, nipping at your ear and clawing your cardigan off. He gets it halfway off when you get your key into the door and unlock it. You move forward but find yourself pulling on something heavy. Looking down you notice that your cardigan is caught on his belt. Giving it a slight tug, you hear the sure snap of the thread. The ruined cardigan was tomorrow's problem.

It had been six days since your dinner date and it had been radio silence from Wonwoo. Pondering what could've gone wrong, you recount the night.

Dinner was great.

The sex was even better.

The morning after was pleasant as you shared a cup of coffee. Hell you even walked him to his car after he said he had to go back to the photo lab.

You frown as you toss your phone on your bed, as you've refreshed your notification center another time with no new messages. Flopping back on your bed, you land with a soft thud and a small exhale. Six seconds later, there's a ping to break the silence. If anyone else was around, you would be embarrassed at how fast your hand shoots out for your phone.

Hi this is Wonwoo from Carat Lab

The smile doesn't last long once you read the rest of the message.

Your items are ready for pick-up. We'll send another reminder in 3 days. Thank for you choosing us for your photo needs!

You scoff at the message and get dressed to go collect your items. As your walking out you almost slip on a cardigan that was lying on the floor. Picking it up, you inspect the fabric and there's a confused look on your face when you see the navy blue cardigan on your floor.

The one that you'd been thinking about getting rid of. The one that Seungcheol broke your heart in.

As you fold the cardigan, you look at the sleeve and see that the heart you'd stitched was pretty much pulled loose. For what feels like the hundredth time your brows scrunch up in confusion. You don't remember how it could've gotten this way.

Then the memory hits you. The sound of the snap from the night with Wonwoo rings clear in your ears. You laugh to yourself but it's cut short when you remember that the other half of your tango has been ignoring you for some reason.

Pushing the door open, you expect to see Wonwoo but you're greeted with an empty shop. You reason that he's likely developing film in the back. As you come up to the register you notice a sign that says "Press this button if no one's at the front". Before you're able to push the button, Mrs. Jeon greets you.

"Hi honey! You here to pick up your film? I thought I saw your name on a receipt earlier!" She coos at you while opening a binder. As she flips through, she asks how you've been and what you'd been up to. While you're updating her, you look for any sign of Wonwoo being around. Your shoulders slightly slump when you come up empty.

"Hmmm, I don't see your film but your camera is definitely ready. I'm about to head out for the day, but one of my grandkids is probably in the back working. Give me a second dear." She smiles at you sweetly and yells something towards the back.

You hear the unmistakable baritone of Wonwoo's voice, yelling back, the sound getting louder as he appears. The two of them speak in Korean, you don't understand much of what they're saying, but based off the tuts of her tongue and the way he pleads with her you can tell he's not exactly happy to see you.

"I'm heading out dear, but Wonwoo here will help you," she shoves him towards the register. She gives your hand a light squeeze as she leaves.

The anger must be radiating off you because he speaks with caution.

"Your film is taking a bit to develop, but your camera's ready if you wanted to pick it up now. Or you can come back later-"

Not wanting to dance around each other, you jump the gun.

"What happened? Didn't peg you to be a hit and quit it kind of guy." Your tone is cold and your arms are crossed.

Instead of answering, he backs up and opens the door to the developing lab. Your interest is piqued so you follow him in. The room is pretty dark, save for the red light that helps the film develop. Following Wonwoo, your jaw drops when you make out the image of the hanging negatives. Strung along the room are pictures of you and Seungcheol. Your heart sinks when you realize that these were from last summer, when the two of you took a trip to a small beach town nearby to celebrate your anniversary. The tears begin to pool at the corners of your eyes.

"I can explain," you whisper softly, trying to hide the shakiness in your voice.

"Oh this I've got to hear," you flinch at the his tone. But it doesn't stop you from telling him the truth.

"I swear I didn't know what was on that roll. I wouldn't do something like that." You admit as you finish explaining. You're sniffling by now and swaying on the balls of your feet. When he doesn't immediately respond, you take it as rejection.

Dejected, you start to turn around to find the exit, but you feel his hand cup your cheek. He leans his forehead against yours, the red light reflecting off his glasses, and softly mutters.

"Well, now I feel like a capital A asshole."

You silently giggle and it forces the tears out from your eyes, which he immediately swipes away with his thumb.

"I'm sorry," he whispers. You squeeze the arm that's cupping your cheek in acknowledgement.

"For what it's worth, I do still like you. Honestly seeing these made me jealous that someone else had your heart," he confesses. You couldn't see, but you could tell he was blushing. Remembering the other pictures you'd taken on that trip, it was your turn to blush.

"Have you finished developing all the pictures on the roll?" You ask timidly. You could hear the smirk on his face. Dropping his hand from your face, he takes your hand and leads you to the sink where they held the stop bath. Hanging from a string, fully illuminated by the red light, is a picture of you from behind in a dark colored bikini. At this angle, you looked like Venus herself.

"I gotta say," Wonwoo says from behind you, breath hot against your neck, "this one is my favorite."

"Not mad about this one huh?" You tease, pressing your ass against him. His hands fly to your hips and squeeze. Your pulse quickens and you feel your heartbeat thrum at your core. His hand snakes along your front and grazes your lip, without even asking, you take it into your mouth and suck. You twist around and run your hands along his front, squeezing him through his jeans and he lets out a groan that sounds like music to your ears.

He pulls away from you for just a second and in that second everything stands still.

"You sure about this?"

Grabbing his belt you pull him towards you and kiss him. Everything happens in a frenzy. Your hands fighting to take off each other's clothes. When he wins, he growls at the sight of you wearing nothing underneath. He takes your boobs in his large hands and squeezes, eliciting a moan from you.

"Fuck these look so good in my hands pretty." You whine for him.

The sound conveying a simple message: I need you now.

He gets the hint and flips you around. Pushing you against the counter, he wraps his arm around your waist and pulls you flush against him. Slipping his free hand down your back, he spreads your legs and plays with your wet pussy. He groans at the sensation, which only furthers your desire. You whine once more and start to voice your frustration but then he slams himself to the hilt. The stretch burns deliciously and you find yourself squeezing around him.

"Taking it so good pretty girl, this what you wanted," he taunts and your only response is a high pitched moan. Your sounds spur him on and he pulls you even closer, forcing you to arch even more for him.

You grip the counter for balance with your left hand and the force of Wonwoo makes the pictures along the wall shake. Your right hand is gripping the hand that's splayed across your belly. The angle at which he's pistoning into you, makes white spots dance across your vision.

"Fuck, fuck Wonwoo!" You moan and feel the band in your belly start to tighten up. One of the pictures falls off the wall and it's a picture of you and Seungcheol. Wonwoo crumples it and throws it in a random direction. Somehow this random accident, sets something off in him. Nipping at your ear, he waxes poetic about fucking you so good that you can't think about anything but him and his dick. You thought it was impossible but you get even wetter at his words.

He pulls out of you and you whine at the loss of contact. You felt like he was defying time with how quick he spins you around and hoists you onto the counter. Slipping back in with ease, he continues to ram into you. He grips your thighs so forcefully, that you're sure they'll leave marks and this brings you to a higher plane of pleasure. You throw your head back and scream his name.

He grips your neck and angles your head down, forcing you to look at him. In red shadows, you see the raised lines of his veins bulging from the way he's holding you and you can't help but drool. Your pussy gushes and flutters around him. He eggs you on, lacing praise in between kisses. Cocking his head back towards the pictures and utters a line that gets the band in your belly to snap.

"I can't wait to take you there and fuck you so good that you'll never think about anyone else but me at that beach." He says in a register so low and sinister that you can't help but cum around him. As you're riding through your orgasm, you clamp down on him and he lets out a deep guttural groan. Arching into him, you tell him to chase after his own high. By the sounds coming from him, you can tell he's close.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck, I'm gonna cum," he moans into your neck. You tell him to cum on your stomach and he pulls out just in time to spill on your tummy. Your breaths are heavy and your chests are heaving. Pulling out of you with a slick sound, he brings over a tissue to clean you up. The two of you get dressed, giggling as Wonwoo peppers your cheek and neck with kisses.

The reality of your location dawns over the two you at the same time and you break out into laughter. The two of you slip out of the darkroom to see the "OPEN" sign on the door flipped and a note on the counter.

"Closed up for you. Hope you were safe ;) - Grandma"

A squeal comes from you as Wonwoo hangs his head in embarrassment.

"Your camera is actually ready. Did you want to take it home?" He asks sheepishly. You giggle and give him a peck on the cheek.

"Bring it by mine later? I have some pictures I wanna take," you say with a wink as you walk around the counter to leave. Pushing the glass door open, you turn and call out to him.

"Bring my developed film too?" You tease. As you close the door, you hear him yell that you weren't funny. You shake your head and laugh as you make your way home, excited for what else the night could bring the two of you.

taglist: @livmarauder @mellowamour @lunaxgyu @cherrymayz @choco-scoups @luvrung @chogiwaw special thanks to: liv and may for beta reading for me, @hopecutie and liv for helping with my banner!

[sevsevteen]

12 boys who saw you as one of them, and the 1 who didn’t (in the best way possible)

-- ᯓ★ˎˊ˗

1. The Blanket

“Hurry up!” Dino called out, already bouncing on the couch in his sweats, gesturing for you to join in the game. You dropped down between him and Mingyu without a second thought, baggy hoodie swallowing your frame, legs sprawled out just like the others.

Nobody blinked - because that’s how it always was. You laughed with them, shoved shoulders, yelled at the screen, and half the time the members forgot you weren’t just another one of the guys.

But one of them never did.

Out of the corner of your eye, you noticed Wonwoo rise from the floor, a soft gray blanket in his hands. Without saying anything, he draped it over your lap. It startled you enough that you blinked up at him, your game character getting killed off on screen.

“Your shorts,” he said simply, eyes flicking towards your legs where the hem had ridden up.

“Oh…thanks,”

His only response was a soft, “Mm,” before sitting back down with his controller. But the warmth lingered more than the blanket did.

.

2. The Heels

Your stylist clapped her hands in excitement. “Oh, you look great in these heels! We should start putting you in them more.”

You smiled, grateful.

You didn’t protest - never did. But once you slipped them on, the wobble was immediate.

The members teased lightly, laughing at your misery. “Come on, you look fine!” Seungkwan grinned.

You only rolled your eyes, biting back the urge to punch him in the gut. With brows furrowed as you spread your arms wide, you tried pretending your ankles weren’t screaming in pain; that you weren’t terrified of tripping on stage.

And then a steady figure found its way before you.

Wonwoo - legs spread apart to get down to your level - only leaned close with arms crossed across his chest.

His voice was small enough that only you could hear.

“Don’t force it. Go slow.”

His gaze was firm, grounding, when he gently pulled one of your arms in - your hand finding a spot on his shoulder. “If it’s too much, say it.”

Your throat tightened.

.

3. The Convenience Store

Tip-toeing out your room, you were careful not to wake the sleeping members in the living room.

Your stomach had been bothering you for the most part of the night, begging for your cravings of convenience store hotdogs and and warm cup of ramyeon.

So, as any normal person would, you slipped on the first hoodie you could find and made your way out. But just as your hand reached the doorknob, a voice spooked you from behind,

“Where are you going?”

You turned.

Wonwoo stood at the end of the hallway - hair messy, voice low, eyes only half-open from sleep.

“Emart? I’m craving ramyeon...”

“It’s nearly midnight,” he said evenly, yet the edge in his tone made it clear he had more to say.

You rolled your eyes, half-laughing. “Yeah, it’s just down the street. I’ll be five minutes. You guys always go.”

“Yeah, us,” he corrected. “Not you.”

You tilted your head, a bit thrown off. “What’s that supposed to mean? I can handle myself.”

Wonwoo’s gaze softened then, muttering a soft “Wait for me,” before disappearing into his room for a few seconds - emerging again with a cap in hand. “I know you can. But you’re still a girl. And I don’t care how baggy your clothes are or how long you’ve been living with us - you’re not walking around alone this late.”

“Then where are you going?” Your brows quirked up, watching as he moved past you to slide on his shoes.

“Emart. You said you were hungry, didn’t you?”

.

4. The Yoghurt

“Please, it’s just a stupid cup of yoghurt. What’s the big deal?”

“What– Hoshi, I’ve been looking forward to that ‘stupid cup of yoghurt’ since yesterday! You can’t just eat it without asking!” you huffed, arms crossed as you stood across from him in the living room.

He only pressed his lips together, gaze shifting away like the whole situation was more of an inconvenience to him than anything else.

Jeonghan, sensing the tension, tried stepping in. “Guys, let’s not—”

“Forget it. I’ll just buy you another one tomorrow, alright?” Hoshi cut in carelessly, brushing it off. His tone was casual, dismissive - like it was nothing.

But what stung was the line that came next:

“Seriously…since when did you get this sensitive?”

That snapped all the patience you had left in you.

Without another word, you turned and walked out, brushing past a very confused Jun and Minghao who’d just returned from the convenience store.

It was Wonwoo who found you twenty minutes later, hunched on the playground swings; tear stains streaking your face, nose red and raw.

He didn’t ask questions - didn’t scold or tease.

He simply crouched in front of you, steady and warm as his eyes found yours.

You turned away, muttering, almost to yourself, “Maybe I should’ve just toughened up. Be less…sensitive. You guys always handle this better.”

“Hey,” he said, meeting your eyes with that unshakable calm of his. “You’re not them. You don’t have to harden yourself just because we did. You’re allowed to feel however you feel. It doesn’t make you weak. It doesn’t make you less strong.”

For a moment, the air stilled, quiet except for the faint creak of the swings. Your lips parted, but no words came out - his words had lodged somewhere deeper, pressing against the ache in your chest.

Because while the world only saw you as the girl in a boy’s group, and the boys often treated you like just another one of them—

Wonwoo simply saw you.

--

[livmarauder]

DO HATE THE PLAYER | j.ww

⋆˚✿ A LOVE LETTER TO @jakedustry

EVERYONE KNOWS WONWOO as the most nonchalant member of the notable e-sports team — "GAM3BO1", however, they also know that Wonwoo only loses his cool with a particular hotshot member of the e-sports team, 'ST4RL1GHT'. You. When a variety game show brings the two teams together and expects you two to work together, there may be more to this rivalry that meets the normal viewer's eye.

PAIRING: rival e-sports player!wonwoo x rival e-sports player! fem! reader GENRE: Rivals to ???, Angst, Rivalry, Fluff AU: E-Sports AU TOTAL WC: 5.7K WARNINGS: swearing, some mean comments thrown here and there, their teams are lowkey (read: highkey) done with their shit PLAYLIST: for icy, you're good i guess ~ wonwoo

LIV'S NOTES... hi! this is my first fic for the love letter collab that @orbitondgtl and i are doing for 200 followers! thank you to my wifey kay for beta-reading this and doing this fun collab with me! i hope you all enjoy this fic hehe and also a happy late birthday to wonwoo <3 i miss him so much and i know a lot of others do too so i hope this helps to ease the longing a little bit! he will be back soon <3

for my izzy... honestly a fic for you has been long overdue! i love you so much and i'm so thankful that we got to meet through the blockbuster collab in march! these last couple of months of just getting to know you and be your friend have been amazing! to many more years of writing and fangirling about our boys as well as freaking out over them together <3 i love you loads and i hope you love this fic that is undoubtedly, dedicated to you and our love for horror games <3

LOVE LETTER EVENT M.LIST | MAIN MASTERLIST | NAVI

THE INSTANT LOVE AND HATE

Wonwoo likes and dislikes things at a gradual pace.

Like the first video game that made an impact on his life.

Spyro, the game about the little dragon who goes on many different adventures. He didn't know what it was about it but he only liked it when he first played it. However, by the end of the game series, he loved it. It was a gradual change. He found himself talking about it more and more with his family whenever his mother had asked him what he was up to, then he talked about it more with his friends at school and then to anyone that he had met in his IT club.

His first dislike was also gradual. There were some guys in his class that were into some games that required a lot of hours and a lot of grinding. He found it annoying at first but the more he tried to play them — in a fear of not fitting in with his classmates — the more annoyed he felt by it. Hence, he stopped after three weeks and never sought out grindy games again.

However, there are two instances in Wonwoo's life where he distinctively remembers loving or hating something.

The instant love? When he was introduced to League of Legends through a friends birthday at a gaming cafe. The minute Wonwoo's fingers touched that keyboard, he knew this game would be one that he would be playing forever. He instantly loved it. He loved how fast-paced it was, how much strategy it required and what he loved most of all? He was fucking incredible at it.

It was as if he had been playing this game for years, even the friend that had introduced it to him, commended him on it and jokingly told Wonwoo that if there was a way to make a career out of this, Wonwoo should instantly go for it.

Wonwoo had laughed it off that day and shoved his friend but when he went home that day, he couldn't stop thinking about it. Could he really make a career out of this?

He tossed and turned in bed, unable to shake that feeling in his chest before he gave in and searched it up. After an immense amount of research, he found himself staring at the entryway to GOSE HQ, a company that not only developed fast paced strategy games, but also had open auditions for an e-sports team that they were trying to put together.

Wonwoo's parents thought he was crazy. Hell, even Wonwoo thought he was crazy but the second his fingers that keyboard, all his doubts instantly cleared from his mind. It was as if he had blacked out because the next moment, 'VICTORY' had shown up on his screen in giant letters.

He blinked at the screen for a few moments before he clicked next and saw his username there, top of the leaderboard.

Safe to say, life was never the same for Wonwoo after that. He joined the GAM3BOIs with seven others who had made it through the audition and had instantly clicked with all of them upon the first meeting.

It was a fun filled decade after that, they went on to win competition after competition and Wonwoo swore that his life couldn't get better than that.

Well, there is one thing that could make it better.

"You gotta be fucking kidding."

Jeonghan, the vice captain, gives a tight smile at Wonwoo's dry outburst before the latter turns to Seungcheol, his nonchalant look cracking when he meets Seungcheol's serious face. "He's kidding right, Cheol?"

Seungcheol heaves out a heavy sigh at Wonwoo's words, pinching the bridge of his nose as he shakes his head, feeling a migraine coming on.

"Does it look like he's kidding, Wonwoo?" He asks, a tired edge to his words as he leans against the console behind him.

Wonwoo resists the urge to say an instant 'yes' when he sees his teammates looking at him with a knowing look on their faces.

"We can't be going onto the same program show as the ST4RL1GHTs." Wonwoo repeats, in slight disbelief. "Aren't they on some promotional tour for their new game that's coming out?"

The two captains share a look. "They are." Jeonghan starts, a small smile on his face as he crosses his arms. "But this promotional program is in two weeks. It was a request from the host of the program so both our management and their management thought it was a good idea and good publicity for the top two teams to be seen together. Hence," Jeonghan casts a quick glance towards Seungcheol as he gnaws on his bottom lip before continuing. "They rearranged our schedule with the ST4RL1GHTs so that we can all make the program on the same day."

Wonwoo feels dread crawling through his veins. "Is there any way for us to skip the program?" He finds himself asking.

Jeonghan tongues his cheek before sending Seungcheol a look. Seungcheol, however, fixes Wonwoo with an unreadable look as he scans him, as if calculating what to say next.

"And why." Seungcheol asks, his eyebrows raising. "Would you need to know that, Jeon?"

A little fear surges through Wonwoo's veins at Seungcheol's use of his last name.

Wonwoo should have taken that as a cue to say, 'just wondering' and let the rest of the promotional content meeting continue but his mind is plagued by the amount of dread in his veins.

"I refuse to be on the same program as her." Wonwoo says bluntly, crossing his arms as he stares at the team captain. The room becomes eerily quiet as the tension rises slightly. Wonwoo feels his teammates eyes burning at the back of his head but he didn't care. There is no way that he can be civil with you in the same room.

Soonyoung — codename: Hoshi, lets out an awkward laugh as he senses the tension in the room. He reaches over to sling an arm around Wonwoo's shoulders making the man grunt as he pats him, a little too happily.

"Wonwoo~" Soonyoung coos, trying to ease the tension. "It's just a few hours, besides they might not make the two of you interact! You can be on the other side of the room and—"

Wonwoo lets out a stubborn scoff before shaking his head. "No." He interrupts. "I can't and won't be in the same room as Icy. I refuse."

"Wonwoo—" Soonyoung tries again before Seungcheol cuts him off by clearing his throat and waving the younger man off. Soonyoung looks between the two before he sighs and removes his arm away from Wonwoo. He purses his lips and rolls his chair back.

Seungcheol lets out a slow exhale before pushing himself off of the console behind him in favour of leaning against the table.

"I think that's more of a 'you' issue, Jeon." The team captain says sternly, his eyes filled with a stubborn fire. "I know the two of you can't get along but this program means something to all of us." Seungcheol gestures to the rest of the team members. "So, I need you to put this stupid rivalry with Icy away for just three to four hours while we record the program and the two of you can go back to hating each other's guts right after. If not," Seungcheol stares Wonwoo down as his voice lowers by two octaves. "I will make sure that you're benched for the season."

Wonwoo's eyes widen upon hearing Seungcheol's words. "You can't—"

Seungcheol cuts him off. "I can and I will if you screw up this opportunity for the team, Jeon. This is one of the biggest programs that we've been invited— requested to be on. It will bring a lot of publicity for the team and frankly, I think this rivalry between you and Icy has gone a little too far behind just the screen."

Wonwoo bites the inside of his cheek before he looks down, feeling a slight bit of rage in his veins. Seungcheol lets out a sigh before massaging his temple, unsure if he took it too far. He lowers his leader persona, running a hand through his hair before levelling Wonwoo wth another gaze that's softer than before.

"I know you can be better than this, Wonwoo." The older man softly says, watching Wonwoo's unreadable expression. "You've also been wanting to go onto this program so please. It's just for three hours."

Silence envelops the room after Seungcheol breathes out the last few words. The team members exchange looks with each other.

Wonwoo lets his eyes move from Seungcheol's genuine expression to Jeonghan's cautious one before he takes a quick glance at his team members.

He lets out a ragged sigh. "Fine." He softly says, the disdain in his voice a little evident. He sees Seungcheol's shoulders slump a little in relief before standing up.

"I need some air." He says, not bothering to look up from the floor. "I'll find out the rest of the promotional calendar after this."

Wonwoo speeds out of the room without so much as another word as the glass door violently swings close behind him. The rest of the team collectively heave out a breath as they relax more into their chairs, the tension easing.

"Well!" Soonyoung chirps. "That could've gone worse!"

Jihoon — codename: Woozi — scoffs at the blonde's statement. "It could've also gone a lot better." He says without an ounce of remorse. "It was like we were killing him slowly."

"We might as well have been." Minghao — codename: The8 — mutters, swaying in his chair.

Seungcheol lets out a sigh as he pushes himself off of the table. "He'll get over it."

"You sure?" Jeonghan asks, raising an eyebrow as he crosses his arms. "We basically just told him that if he doesn't 'behave', we're benching him for the first half of the season." He tilts his head to the side. "Are you going to actually follow through with that if he screws up the program?"

Seungcheol internally curses himself, he knows he needs to set an example for his teammates. They may be a close knit group but they also had a job to do and Seungcheol's the team leader. The responsibility of leading this group to be the best they can be, depends on him.

"He won't." Seungcheol answers easily, his voice wavering a little that lets the rest of his team members know that he isn't quite sure of the answer himself. "Let's just get back to the rest of the promotional calendar."

The rest of the team share a look with each other as Seungcheol spares a quick glance towards where Wonwoo had exited from before he sighs, he really hopes his words will be true.

Because the one thing that Wonwoo had instantly hated, was you.

TABOO WORDS

You shuffle uncomfortably in your makeup chair as your stylist fixes a few strands of your hair. You know you shouldn't be nervous. You've done promotional reality content shows with the rest of your team before and being the witty and sarcastic person you were, you're the perfect guest for these kind of shows.

Not to mention that you've actually been dreaming on appearing on this particular reality show for the longest time. However, all you can think about is the annoyingly handsome guy that you need to be civil with for the next few hours.

You didn't know what sparked this rivalry between the two of you, but the hate was instant. It was probably the way he always had this cocky aura around him and he was not as nonchalant as he wanted to be. It was just a little insufferable.

You probably wouldn't have been so pressed about it if he was just a good sport. It was one of the first few matches of the season, a friendly tournament that didn't affect your placing for the overall season, just something to get the players warmed up.

You were bright-eyed and new and ecstatic to be playing against some of the players you watched during your free time. You've always been good at League, multiple of your friends trying to encourage you to get into the e-sports world but you were always scared to do so and it irked your friends till the end of time.

Hence, they made you attend an open audition without your knowledge and the next thing you knew, you were one of the newest recruits for ST4RL1GHT.

So, during that first friendly competition, you were actually excited to meet the stellar players, especially said handsome guy in glasses. However, you were also really good at League and when you had beat that star-studded player, you had heard him mutter 'beginners luck' under his breath and that made your heart instantly drop into your throat.

I guess it was true that you should never meet your heroes.

"Ready?" Jihyo, your team captain asks which jolts you out of your thoughts. You sit up straighter and send her a smile through the mirror as she stands behind you.

"Yeah." You mutter out, dusting off your leather outfit that the stylist has put you in. "I think so at least."

Jihyo sends you an empathetic smile as she helps you off the high chair. "Well, just remember what we all told you in the hotel room the other day. Just don't make eye contact with him, only interact with him when you need to and smile as if seeing him doesn't make you want to jump out of the building."

You let out a snort at her words. "I'll do my best." You reply dryly, your eyebrows furrowing at the thought of having to be nice to the guy who basically said your win was luck based.

You think you would rather go into a League game blindfolded.

Jihyo sends you one last smile before she rounds up the rest of the girls on the team. You smile as they all assemble in a line, Yunjin immediately taking the spot next to you as she hooks her arm through yours. Chaewon, Kazuha, Eun Chae and Sakura all stand facing Jihyo as well as the vice captain, Tzuyu, awaiting the quick briefing before the eight of you get called for standby.

"Alright, we aren't sure what the program is for today but knowing the history of this show, they will most likely make us play a few games with the GAM3BOIs, it will be a competitive time but," Jihyo sends you all a look of unwavering confidence. "I'm sure we will be able to beat them."

A few murmurs of agreements rise from the rest of you.

"And the whole line-up is here today?" Yunjin asks, flashing you a quick glance. Jihyo's eyes flit to you for a moment before nodding.

"Yeah." Jihyo easily answers. "Seungcheol, Jeonghan, Soonyoung, Jihoon, Vernon, Minghao, Jun and…" Her tongue wets her lips. "Wonwoo."

His name immediately makes your expression sour and everyone's gaze falls onto you, as if his name was some taboo word that sets you off immediately. Instead, you shrug, silently willing for this day to be over.

"I'm fine." You mutter, trying your best to assure them as you give them a smile that doesn't quite reach your eyes. "What's the worse that could happen?"

THE CONFESSION

You want to curse whatever possessed you to say those words an hour ago.

It started off civil, you managed to avoid him till you had to force a smile onto your face as you greeted him and the rest of his members, the handshake that the two of you exchanged as stiff as it could've been. But it was fine.

The hosts asked the two of you questions, there was a little bit of teasing here and there but it was fine.

Until they announced the games that you and the rest would be playing.

"Next up!" The male host announces, making you sit up straighter. "After the break, we're moving onto our game section for the day which is the 'Horror Lineup'!"

At his words, you feel your heart drop in your stomach and your face pale.

Yunjin also freezes beside you after she hears the words and shoots you a small glance. You try to keep your expression neutral, an easy smile on your face but internally, you think you regret your words a little bit.

The hosts turn to you and the rest with a tantalizing smile on their faces. "However, this event comes with a twist!" The male host looks towards your team, eyeing you specifically. "We will be pairing you up with members on the other team so!" He looks back towards the cameras with a shifty expression and a big smirk, "Let's see the pairings!"

You feel your blood run cold at his words as the female host starts exaggeratedly clapping at his words. You feel Yunjin's eyes on you but you couldn't bring yourself to look at her as your eyes lock with the man across the room.

Yeah, you seriously regret uttering those words.

"This can't be happening." You think aloud as you collapse onto the couch in the dressing room. "A horror game and he's my fucking partner?!" You want to run a hand down your face in distress. "The world has got to be against me."

Your teammates stare at you, unsure of how to comfort you when Eun Chae speaks up.

"Maybe he will be civil this time!" She supplies, a little nervously.

"Maybe over my dead body." You bluntly mutter, sinking in deeper into the couch.

"How about one of us request to switch partners?" Tzuyu offers. Jihyo, however, shakes her head as she silently paces while Yunjin takes a seat beside you.

"I don't think they'd agree to it." Jihyo says softly. "They know all about the famous rivalry between Jeon and Icy. They might just want to do it more if we protest it or suggest the member switch." She shakes her head. "It's probably been their goal from the start when they wanted all of us to be on this show."

"Those assholes." Yunjin mutters, her fists clenching a little. If it was any other scenario, you would've barked out a laugh at her swearing, however all you can do is stare upwards at the ceiling and let your thoughts run wild.

The room falls suffocatingly silent as you feel your nerves spike, your heart hammering fast in the confinements of your chest as you feel your member's eyes on you. Your restlessness gets the better of you making you shoot out of your seat which makes a few of your members jump in surprise.

You shoot them an apologetic look before excusing yourself. "I need some air."

With that, you take off. You push the dressing room door, speedwalking down the hallway. You aren't sure where you're going but you just knew you needed to get out of there before the walls completely swallow you whole.

Your prayers are answered as you push open a firm white door which leads you to the roof of the building. You take a deep inhale, filling your lungs with fresh air as you feel the weight on your shoulders start to lift. You eye the skyline as you watch the sun start to dip below the horizon, feeling your worries start to dissipate from inside your veins as you walk closer to the railing. You lean against it as a gust of wind washes over you, increasing the serenity of the scenery.

"Enjoying the scenery?"

You jolt, jumping a little before you whip your head to see Wonwoo stood behind you, leaning against a wall with his arms crossed.

"Are you the fucking devil, Jeon?!" You ask, your hand on your chest as you will your heart to calm down. "You're going to give someone a heart attack if you make yourself known like that."

You see a ghost of a smirk tug at the corners of Wonwoo's mouth. "Didn't answer my question, Icy."

You roll your eyes as you cross your own arms. "I enjoyed it a lot more before you made yourself known to me."

Wonwoo barks out a bitter laugh as he pushes himself off of the wall. He takes a few steps towards you, "Have a problem with horror games, Icy?"

You blink in surprise at his question before quickly schooling your expression. "What's it to you?"

He shrugs. "You just looked like you were going to pass out when they mentioned it." A snarky smirk appears on his face as he fixes you with a mocking pout and a condescending head tilt. "Do you need me to hold your hand later so that the scary monsters don't get you?"

Your jaw clenches as you resist the urge to slap the annoying expression off of his face. "You're such an asshole." You bite out, your tone laced with venom as you glare at the taller man. "What is your problem with me?"

Wonwoo's eyebrows furrow as his expression does a 180 and he's glaring at you. "I should be asking you that." He mutters lowly, taking another step towards you. "You're the one walking into every room glaring at me with the power of a thousand suns. I was willing to let it go the first few times but when you suddenly started making it your personal mission to get me out first in all the League games, that's where I draw the line."

You feel your blood boil more. "Are you saying that this fucking rivalry is my fault?"

"If the shoe fits!"

A sarcastic laugh escapes you as you shake your head. "You're such an asshole, Jeon." You mutter out, trying to push past the man.

"No." Wonwoo sternly says, blocking your path. "You started this. Tell me what your fucking problem with me is."

Your jaw clenches more. "Jeon—"

"No, we're settling this here and now because if I have to play nice later in-front of everyone. I have to at least know what I did for you to act as if I took a shit in your goddamn cheerios."

If you weren't so pissed off with the man standing in-front of you, you would have found that joke funny but all you see is red as you jab a finger into Wonwoo's chest.

"You wanna know what my goddamn problem with you is?!" You hiss, nudging him hard with your finger. "Fine! It's the fact that you always think you're the fucking smartest in the room and God forbid a rookie tries to beat you at your own stupid game because you're such a sore ass loser — and the rookie actually fucking looked up to you by the way. And don't even get me started on—"

"What?" Wonwoo says, interrupting you before you can continue your ramble, his eyebrows scrunching. "What the fuck was that?"

"What the fuck was what?"

"That rookie example that you used."

You feel your heart stop as you realize what you had just told this godforsaken man.

"Was that you?" He asks, his voice dropping a few decibels, barely above the breath of a whisper.

"No." You quickly reply as you refuse the meet the man's gaze.

"Oh my god. It was you." Wonwoo says softly, taking a step backwards to fully see your expression.

"No—"

"Icy."

You feel a little vulnerable in-front of the man, knowing that you just exposed something that you should've taken to your grave.

"Drop it, Jeon." You mutter out, unsure of what to do now that your adrenaline of your ramble had died. "You called me lucky during my debut match when all I did was look up to you." You chuckle lowly. "Maybe that was a petty ass reason to kinda hate your guts but that match meant everything to me and I worked hard to get to where I was. And for you to just say that it was fucking luck…" You cut yourself off with a soft scoff as you fix your eyes on his shoes. "That fucking sucked."

Wonwoo is silent for the first time, your words rendering him absolutely speechless which makes you shift uncomfortably.

"I'll see you later, Jeon." You mutter, pushing past the man. You stop in-front of the door that leads back inside. "I promise I won't be too much of a bother later. So just…" You hesitate, chewing nervously on the inside of your cheek. "Just fucking forget whatever I said."

With that, you pull the door open and leave Wonwoo standing there with his thoughts.

DO YOU HATE THE PLAYER?

"Wow!" The host announces, wiping a stray tear from his eye from how much he was laughing. "That was a fantastic combination of wit and whimsy from our two team captains!" Seungcheol helps Jihyo step off the platform before giving her a smile which she returns with ease as they walk back to their seats. "They really show their stellar leadership skills in switching between being team players and leaders through this game show."

The female host flashes a smile as she nods at the male host's words. "You said it!" She turns back to the cameras, her eyes glinting. "Now, for our final pair. The feistiest set of rivals in all of E-Sport history. Wonwoo and Icy!"

You slide out of your chair, a fake smile plastered on your lips as you 'confidently' walk up to the steps of the platform. You refuse to look at Wonwoo as he settles beside you, even though you can feel his eyes on you.

"Now," The male host says, turning to the two of you. "As said before, one of you would need to put on the VR headset and go through one of the two rooms of your choice. The other will be guiding you through the maze that is set in that room but beware of the dangers lurking in between the turns." He eyes the two of you with a mischievous grin. "Got it?"

You nod as Wonwoo grunts in acknowledgement.

The host turns to you, a glint in his eyes that makes your skin crawl as he holds out the headset to you. "Seeing as you're known as the most confident member in ST4RL1GHT, I assume you would be taking the headset and doing the maze!"

The action stuns you, rendering you a little dumbfounded as you stare at the white headset in his hands. For the rest of the pairs, they just left the headset on the pedestal in-front and let the pair discuss who would be taking the challenge.

You open your mouth, about to accept your fate and take the headset when Wonwoo stops you.

"I'll do it." He answers, making you blink in surprise as he glances at you. "I've seen Icy's comms and I think she would do a better job of guiding me through the maze than I would. I also know that my navigational skills are pretty good so I will be able to follow her instructions."

The male host falters slightly as he stares at Wonwoo's outstretched hand. "Really?" The guy hesitantly says. "I feel that Icy might be better at going through the maze because—"

"Because you planned this around the fact that you heard that she hated horror games and wanted to personally humiliate her on the show?" Wonwoo finishes, raising an eyebrow.

At those words, the host pales as his jaw drops open. "H-how—"

Wonwoo shrugs. "The hallways are pretty echoey, don't you think." He bluntly states. "I just so happened to be in the hallway where you were laughing at what a misfortune it would be when the Ice Queen of ST4RL1GHT falters and screams at this pathetic horror game."

You jolt a little feeling a hand linking with yours making you peer to your side to see Jihyo standing there with her leader face on. "I think it's time for us to take our leave." She says, plastering on a fake but serious smile. "I don't think we will be coming back to this show but we thank you for inviting us."

You feel a few other people line up beside you making you look to your left and right to see the rest of the girls stepping into line with you and Jihyo. Their faces are filled with unamused expressions as Yunjin takes a glance at you, giving you a warm smile before squeezing your shoulder in a firm reassurance that says 'We got you.'

"I think it's the same for us as well." You hear Seungcheol say as you see the GAM3BOIs stand up as well, moving towards the front. "Thank you for having us as well but," he locks eyes with you, sending you a small reassuring smile before it disappears as he turns back to the hosts. "We can't be on a show where the hosts have a secret vendetta against their guests and want to humiliate them."

With that, the sixteen of you leave the room, leaving the hosts blinking owlishly at all of you, unsure of what to do. You giggle at their reaction as you hear the producers start to chastise the two of them, wondering how their ratings were going to do. In any other situation, you probably would've felt bad for how badly they were getting told off but you can't bring yourself to care after they tried to use one of your biggest weaknesses against you.

You hear a soft breath of your name being called making you stop in your tracks and turn to face the individual. There stands a nervous Wonwoo who looks almost as if he was silently cursing himself for calling your name.

Jihyo looks between you and the man before detaching herself from you. "We'll see you inside." She whispers to you, giving your shoulder a quick squeeze before pushing the rest of the girls towards the dressing room.

"You think he's going to confess to her—"

"Shut up Eun Chae!" Chaewon hisses. "He's right there!"

"But—"

You shake your head as their voice trail off down the hallway, leaving you with a very awkward Wonwoo.

"What can I do for you, Jeon?" You ask, an attempt to break the ice when it becomes clear that the man was not going to do it himself.

The man shuffles uncomfortably in place before he opens his mouth. "I wanted to apologize for being an asshole when we first met." He softly says, fiddling with his hands. "I'm also sorry that it took you telling me to realize what I had done wrong and I have no excuse for saying that it was luck based." He clicks his tongue before he continues his ramble. "I actually remember that first friendly match. I was upset with something one of my teammates did and I took it out on you by calling you lucky because I wasn't thinking clearly that day. I know it's not a good excuse but for what it's worth, I thought you were one of the best players I saw that day. You made quite the impression."

His apology and words make a warmth spread through your chest. You clear your throat as you cross your arms in-front of your chest.

"Thank you." You softly say. "For the apology and also for doing what you did just now."

Wonwoo shakes his head. "Small matter." He mutters. "Someone needed to put those assholes in their place."

His words make a small smile tug at the corner of your mouth.

"They really were assholes, huh." You say as you watch a ghost of a grin appear on Wonwoo's face. He lets out a low chuckle as he scratches the back of his nape.

"Yeah, they were." He assures you, his voice rumbles making a shiver run down your spine. "Kinda upsetting to be honest." He admits, chewing the inside of his cheek. "I'm actually a really big fan of their content."

Your eyes widen at his confession. "So am I."

Wonwoo looks at you with a surprised look before a devastating smile appears on his face. "Looks like we might have more in common than we thought."

You feel your heart start to race as a flush erupts up your neck. "Yeah." You honestly say. "We might."

You feel a comfortable silence envelope the two of you before you hear loud noises down the hallway, recognizing them as Wonwoo's teammates. You see him realize it as well as his eyes flit from you to the hallway behind you.

"You should go." You say, taking a step to the side. "I probably need to get going too."

Wonwoo hesitates for a second, glancing between you and the hallway before nodding. He starts to take a few steps towards the hallway behind you before he turns and faces you.

"Does this mean we're friends now?" He asks making you blink at him.

You raise an eyebrow at the man before feigning a ponder when you realize how nervous he's being. "I don't know." You softly tease. "Might need a rematch of that friendly so that I can make you eat those words."

Wonwoo blinks before he lets out a soft breath of a laugh, shaking his head before he looks back up at you. "Deal." He says, holding out his hand for you to shake. "Till the rematch then."

You bite back a smile as you shake his hand. "Till the rematch." You repeat. You feel him tilt both your hands so that his is on top before he slips something into your hand. You quizzically look at him as he pulls his hand out of your grasps before closing your knuckles around the object in your hand.

All he does is give you another devastating smile before he takes off down the hallway without another word.

You glance at your hand, unclenching it slowly to see a folded piece of paper. Your eyebrows furrow as you open it before a small smile appears on your face as you read the words on it.

xxx-xxx-xxxx, hope I can continue to make it up to you.

©livmarauder2026 Thank you guys so much for reading the fic!! I do hope you guys truly enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it! <3 More fics to come!! Like my work? Join my Permanent Taglist! All my fics are 18+, which means blogs without age or age indicator will not be tagged! If you like this, please consider reblogging or liking! It really makes my day! <3 I hope you all enjoyed e-sports wonwoo <333

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Back For More | J.WW

+ summary: while adjusting to your new life in college, you couldn't help but attract the attention of wonwoo, someone you happen to share a history with. + pairing: badboy!wonwoo x fem!reader + genre(s): fluff, smut, romance, childhood acquaintances to lovers (?) + word count: 12.5k + content: mature language, teasing, smut, frat party, alcohol drinking… yeah [MDNI]

HC | Prologue | Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV

[ᝰ.ᐟ] hey so i lied. i know i teased at part four a long time ago but with all of the collabs i had signed up for... my ass had to prioritize a few things. please don’t hate me y’all. but it’s out now! yayyyy!!! y’all can thank @cherry-zip for bullying me to no end and having to deal with my lazy ass hehe. i made sure to make this as long as possible so it could yk… make up for the super long wait. also, special thanks to @orbitondgtl and @luvrung for beta-reading this and making sure it didn’t sound like complete garbage. i have one final chapter i want to post until i’m completely done with this series ☹️ but thank you all for your support and again, i’m sorry it took so long for this to come out! anyways… please enjoy!!! <3333

You didn’t know exactly how long you’ve been laying in bed and staring at the ceiling for, but it was enough for you to notice the weird imperfections decorating it… like, who knew you had that many cracks near your ceiling fan?

Was it a little concerning? Maybe, but it seemed like your mind was taken up by more pressing matters. Like… last night.

Wonwoo.

God, all you could think about was Wonwoo.

The night before played on a loop behind your closed eyes, it was as if you had your own private screening of the events that took place yesterday. Seeing Wonwoo drenched in rainwater, looking like a sad, pathetic cat you couldn't help but let inside. You still felt the ghost of that first desperate kiss on the couch or the way his hands had been freezing until they weren't. Or the way he had looked at you from between your legs, pulling noises out of you that you almost didn't recognize as your own.

And while… you technically didn’t go the full mile with him, boundaries were still crossed. That was the scariest part of it all. The confrontation. Okay, confrontation might be too heavy but the acknowledgment of it?

Horrifying.

The silence of the room was heavy. It didn't help that his scent had found a way of latching itself onto your pillows and blankets. He was everywhere.

You shifted under the duvet, the fabric of your sleep shirt—the only thing that you were wearing at the moment—brushing against your skin. You felt a flush of heat crawl up your neck as you remembered exactly how you ended up in this state.

You reached out to your phone again, only to see the sticky note Wonwoo had left behind for you right next to it.

‘Had an early shift today. See you on Sunday :)’

You groaned, setting the phone down as you dragged a pillow over your face. What were you going to do?

But as if almost on cue, your phone vibrated.

[www.onwoo sent you a photo.]

Life had a funny way with timing, didn't it?

Your eyes practically bulged out of your head as soon as the picture loaded on the screen. It was a dimly lit selfie that was more focused on his neck than his face. His fingers were hooked onto his collar, effectively tugging it down to reveal what you had done to his neck the night before.

www.onwoo: you had a little too much fun last night… didn’t you? ;)

Oh my god.

The phone slipped from your hand, landing with a dull thud on your chest. You stared back at the ceiling, hoping for something or someone to put you out of your misery.

You didn't even have enough time to process the message before your door was shoved wide open.

“I know you're awake you little hussy!” Sohee sang out as she nearly launched herself onto your bed.

She scrambled over to you like an overly energetic puppy, tugging at your shoulder. You could feel her practically vibrating right next to you on the bed. She lifted her head up to look at you. “Tell me everything!”

You felt your stomach drop. “Tell you about what?”

“Oh, don’t play dumb with me! I literally walked your boyfriend out this morning.” She said as she rolled her eyes at you, dropping her head on your shoulder in disbelief.

“What—first of all, he’s not my boyfriend,” you tried to clarify, sitting up almost instantly, “and second of all, it’s none of your business!”

Sohee just cackled, completely undeterred by your weak protest. “None of my business? Honey, when a guy who looks like that sneaks out of your room at the ass crack of dawn, it becomes my business. Our business actually.” She propped herself up on her elbow, her eyes gleaming with mischief. “So, now spill. Who initiated it? Was it him? I bet—”

“Get out!” You shoved at her shoulder, your face heating up with every passing second. You were grateful you were still covered by your blanket, because you knew you had nothing but a t-shirt on.

Just then, Yubin’s head popped into the doorway, her eyebrow raising at the commotion. “I’m assuming this is about Wonwoo, right?”

“See! Even Yubin wants to know about it!” Sohee squealed, her figure squirming on your bed.

“I never said that,” Yubin said as she stepped into the room. She leaned against your dresser, looking unimpressed by your weak attempt to hide under the covers. “Although… I’m glad y’all did that while we were away. I would have killed myself if I had been home when you... you know,” she vaguely gestured at you and the bed.

You felt your face heat up again at the implication. God, this was so embarrassing.

Yubin smirked, checking her watch. Her expression shifted as she realized the time. “Actually, as much as I want to bully you right now… I have to go. I’m going to be late for my shift.”

She walked over to your bed, reaching over to grab Sohee by the back of her hoodie and hauling her off your bed. “Come on, gossip girl. You’re taking me to work today, since you have so much energy.”

“Wait! No—I didn’t even get any juicy details!” Sohee wailed, her fingers clawing at your duvet as she was dragged toward the door.

“We’ll get our details later today, don’t you worry!” Yubin sang out, her voice getting further and further away with every step she took.

The click of the front door shutting was the sweetest sound you’d ever heard. Silence—beautiful silence. You flopped back onto your pillows, the mattress groaning in protest, and grabbed your phone one more time.

Wonwoo’s selfie was still open, his collar showing how carried away you got the night before. Though, you couldn’t deny that it was a nice sight to see—the evidence of your own hunger written on his skin. Your phone vibrated from another message.

www.onwoo: i’m still thinking about the sounds you made birdy.

Oh, for fuck’s sake.

You stared at the screen, your thumb hovering over the keyboard while your heart pounded in your ears. Part of you wanted to throw the phone across the room and bury yourself under the covers for the rest of eternity. The other part—the one that always fought back—wanted to wipe that smug look off his face. Because you knew very well that Wonwoo was feeling cocky from last night’s events.

you: i bet. although… isn’t it too early to be getting this worked up? i thought you were supposed to be at work…

The typing bubbles appeared almost instantly. He was definitely slacking off… or maybe he was on break? Doesn’t matter.

www.onwoo: i am but… i enjoy pissing you off even more <3 and what better way to spend my shift than bothering you? :D

You rolled your eyes, but your fingers were already flying across the screen before you could stop them.

you: ugh, go away.

www.onwoo: you’re cute. save some of that energy for sunday. i’m looking forward to our “study” date.

Sunday. 

Right. 

You’d almost forgotten about the study date in the wake of… everything else. But before you could worry about Sunday, you had to survive tomorrow night. You’re not even sure which day you were afraid of more… a frat party filled with strangers or being alone with Wonwoo for a whole afternoon. Shivers ran down your spine at the mere thought of it.

You didn’t reply to his last message. You couldn’t. Instead, you set your phone on your nightstand and stared back up at the ceiling.

Oh, what were you going to do?

It was 8:47pm and you were still in your sweatpants, sitting on the floor of your closet and contemplating whether you could just feign a sudden, violent illness. Food poisoning wouldn’t be too far of a reach… right?

The party was going to start soon but you took zero initiative to get ready and besides, who comes to a party on time?

Your phone buzzed on your dresser. You scrambled for it, stomach already twisting from the anxiety. It was Wonwoo. Again.

www.onwoo: thinking of you

And another message right after:

www.onwoo: my roommates are gonna be out for the night. place is empty yk… in case you wanted to get ahead on our project…

A shiver ran its way down your spine. It was a blatant invitation. An offer to continue where you left off, maybe even go further than last time. It was so, so tempting. 

Your thumbs hovered over the keyboard, ready to type ‘be there in ten’ when another notification slid onto your screen, effectively killing the mood.

hyunwoo: i’m sorry, but something came up and i can’t walk over with you. just meet me at the party? i’ll make sure to save you a drink ;)

You stared at your phone, mind torn by the messages.

On one hand, you had Wonwoo—the man who had spent the last twenty-four hours haunting your thoughts—essentially offering you a repeat of what you now considered the best night of your life. “Get ahead on our project” was the most blatant lie you’d ever heard, and yet, part of you wanted to believe it just so you had an excuse to go.

On the other hand, there was Hyunwoo. He was nice and all, but there wasn’t anything interesting about him aside from his looks. Though, his text felt like a cold splash of water. Meet me at the party? The idea of walking into a house full of sweaty, shouting strangers by yourself was enough to make you want to crawl deeper into your closet and never come out. That was a bit dramatic but you aren’t completely lying either, anything would be better than going to some frat party.

“Of course,” you muttered, leaning your head against your knees. “Of course he’s not coming with me.”

You looked back at Wonwoo’s messages. Oddly enough, they felt like a warm hand on the small of your back. It was intoxicating in a way. If you went to his place, you wouldn’t have to worry about the loud music or having to talk to strangers you would probably never see again. You’d just have him. Him and his very empty apartment.

You weren’t a flake. You had promised Hyunwoo you’d go, and if you bailed now to go “hang out” with Wonwoo, what would that make you?

A heavy sigh escaped you as you started to type.

you: as tempting as that sounds… i unfortunately have plans tonight :( nice try though

The bubbles appeared instantly. He had been waiting on your response.

www.onwoo: oh right. i forgot you had plans with… what’s his name?

you: hyunwoo.

www.onwoo: right. have fun with that. offer still stands though for when you get bored of him, because i know you will.

Your jaw dropped at the last message. A new wave of anxiety—or maybe excitement—ran through you. 

What the actual fuck.

You didn’t want to leave him hanging so you made one final reply before you actually started getting ready for the party.

you: i’ll think about it. don’t get your hopes up though.

You didn’t wait for his reply, opting to put your phone back on the dresser. After a beat of pure silence, you finally stood up and looked at what clothes to wear for the night. Wearing something casual should be acceptable right? It’s not like you’re going there to impress anybody either…

Yeah, casual is definitely the way to go. Maybe put on a little bit of makeup and call it a day—or night, in this instance. Easy enough.

You pulled out a simple but cute outfit and tossed it onto your bed before checking the time.

8:54 pm.

Let’s just get this over with.

As you walked closer to the frat house, you noticed just how loud it was. The windows glowed with the colorful lights as music pulsed from the inside. You hesitated on the sidewalk, already feeling out of place.

On second thought…

No.

You should at least text Hyunwoo that you’re here before ditching so it looks like you put in some effort in trying to meet up with him. That shouldn’t be too hard.

you: i’m here. where are you?

A minute or so passed by before he answered with a short, “inside”. 

Amazing. 

Thankfully, the entrance was open enough for you to just squeeze right through, but now you were lost. The first floor was crowded to the point where you didn’t even know if the house could legally hold this many people all at once. This had to be some kind of fire hazard.

You wandered around the party like a ghost—spectating the rest of the party goers and seeing how much fun they were having. 

Must be nice.

Another five minutes passed by and not a single text from Hyunwoo. What an asshole. And here you felt bad for having thought about ditching him for Wonwoo. 

At least you had a good reason to leave now. It’s not like there was anything or anyone waiting for you here anyway.

The air inside the house felt thick and suffocating. Bodies brushed past you as you tried to push through the crowd. You could see why some people liked going to these parties though; it was a good way of distracting yourself for the time being, plus you know it would be more fun with friends.

As you made your way back to the front door, you felt a firm hand tug and pull you back into something hard. Startled, you turned around, irritated and ready to pull away—until your eyes landed on the familiar figure standing in front of you.

“Oh,” you stared at him, blinking once in surprise.

Wonwoo cocked his head toward you, a lopsided smirk tugging at the corners of his mouth. Of all people.

Your stomach twisted and your first instinct was to pull away, but his grip tightened—firm but not forceful. Just enough to stop you from running away. And also to stop you from crashing into the couple passing next to you.

“Leaving already?” His voice cut through the noise, steady despite the volume of the party. But his eyes… there was something unreadable about them. Something that made you nervous.

You shook your head, still reeling. “Yes—but what are you doing here?”

His brow lifted in amusement, like he’d just found a hidden treasure in a pile of junk. “I could ask you the same thing, Birdy.”

He took a small swig of his drink, eyes looking you up and down. 

“I take it that these were your big plans with Hyunwoo?” He mused, voice low and playful. “You really chose a party over my empty apartment? I’m hurt, Birdy.”

You rolled your eyes, but you couldn’t help the small smile tugging at your lips. The guilt was there, but the confusion was stronger.

“Wait, hold on,” you started, narrowing your eyes at him. You had to step closer to him, your chest practically brushing his bicep, just to be heard over the music. “You didn’t answer my question, why are you here? Last I remember, you said you were going to be home alone and yet… you’re here.”

Wonwoo let out a low huff. He finally let go of your wrist, slightly raising both hands in mock surrender, as he mouthed out a small ‘oops’.

“Well, since you insist,” he said, leaning down until his lips were mere inches away from your ear. The proximity made your stomach do a slow, dizzying roll, his cologne invading your senses. “Those were the original plans, yes, but the guys forced me to come out last minute. Apparently, they don’t trust me to stay awake on driver duty anymore.”

He pulled back just enough to look you in the eye, his smirk widening. “I might have a small history of falling asleep while waiting for them. Mingyu and Seokmin had to walk back home once because I didn’t hear their calls. They won’t let me live it down.”

Your brain stalled, the names giving you whiplash. “Wait… Mingyu and Seokmin? You guys live together?” You nearly gasped, a surge of genuine excitement bubbling up—partly because you missed your old friends, and partly because you wanted to distract yourself from how good Wonwoo smelled.

“Yeah,” he murmured, his eyes searching yours with a sudden, sharp intensity. “Why do you sound so excited about them, hm?”

“Ugh, it’s not like that you freak!” You said while giggling, reaching out to shove his chest. “I just haven’t seen them in so long, that’s all…”

Wonwoo’s tongue poked against the inside of his cheek. “Sure… if that’s what you’re choosing to go with.”

You rolled your eyes at his teasing.

He leaned away just a bit, getting a better look of your face. “Could’ve sworn you were just fine with me though.” His voice was smooth, but there was a slight edge to it, something annoyingly smug.

You wanted to say something back, anything, until you felt a few taps on your shoulder. You turned your head, ready to tell whoever it was that they had the wrong person, until you were met with two very familiar eyes looking back at you.

“I knew it was you!” Seokmin’s voice practically roared over the music. He looked a little broader than the last time you had seen him, but he still carried that boyish charm you loved him for. “What are you doing here? And when did you transfer? Because I knew you were at that college back home—”

“—Guys, do not drink from the blue punch bowl,” Mingyu’s voice rang out all of a sudden. “I swear I saw hair in it.” He stopped dead in tracks as soon as his gaze landed on you. “What are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” you laughed, your voice straining to compete with the bass. Before you could say another word, Seokmin was pulling you into a massive, rib-crushing hug, lifting you clean off the floor.

“I told you!” Seokmin shrieked into your ear, ignoring Wonwoo’s wince. “I told Mingyu that I saw someone who looked exactly like you on the sidewalk, but he said I was imagining things because of how many shots I took earlier!”

Mingyu rolled his eyes as he quickly pulled you into another hug the moment Seokmin set you down. He looked over your shoulder at Wonwoo, his grin turning wicked. “So… what’s going between you two?”

You were quick to respond. “Nothing! We were just catching up, that’s all.”

Wonwoo hummed in agreement, smug at the way you had just lied to everyone's face.

Mingyu did one final look-over at you and Wonwoo, unconvinced by your quick response, though he wasn’t going to push. “…Sure.”

“Anyway!” Seokmin barked, clasping his hands together to break the weird air around the group. “Since we’re all together… why not get fucked up?”

He continued, practically vibrating with excitement. “We’re friends with the president so sometimes we have access to some of the better alcohol that they got here.”

“Dude, yes!” Mingyu cheered, grabbing your arm. “It’s been forever since we’ve hung out properly. We’re not letting you out of our sight tonight.” Seokmin joined in, linking his other arm through yours as they started to happily lead you towards the kitchen.

As the night went on, you continued drinking, laughing along with the guys—and Soonyoung, who had joined midway through a chaotic round of shots. The room buzzed with warmth and energy, your limbs feeling lighter with every sip of the spiked punch. You were midway through a messy round of beer pong, leaning over the table as you tried to get the perfect shot. Fortunately, you had been blessed with Mingyu being your teammate because you knew that out of the two of you—he was definitely carrying the team.

Somewhere between Soonyoung in dramatically reenacting a fight he definitely did not win and Seokmin insisting he could do a backflip—he absolutely could not—you felt a familiar presence settle beside you.

Wonwoo had been watching.

Even through the haze of alcohol, you could feel the weight of his gaze. Every time you stepped up to throw the plastic ball, his eyes lingered on the line of your back, the flush of your neck, and the way your hand was starting to shake a little more than normal.

While you pretended not to notice, your heart betrayed you by kicking up its pace every time you caught him staring, causing you to miss your shot entirely. Damn your heart for betraying you like this.

As you reached for the penalty cup, you felt a firm, cool hand close around yours.

“I think that’s enough for tonight.”

You blinked up at Wonwoo, your buzzed mind taking a second to process his words. “What?”

He gently pried the cup from your grasp, setting it back down on the table. He’d seen the way you had difficulty swallowing the last drink, your hand flying over to your mouth to suppress a gag as the burn of the alcohol hit you.

“No more drinks for you tonight,” he murmured, his voice low enough to stay between the two of you.

You pouted, tugging on his sleeve. “But I was having fun! We’re winning! Tell him, Mingyu!”

Mingyu, who was busy lining up his own shot, just laughed. “Actually… we’re down by four, and you just threw a shot straight at the floor. I think it might be time you call it a night.”

Soonyoung let out a dramatic gasp. “He’s cutting you off? That’s crazy. I’d never let a man control me like that.”

Seokmin nodded in agreement. “For real.”

You turned back to look at Wonwoo. “C’mon,” you slurred out, “I’m doing fine…”

Seokmin just snorted, waving a dismissive hand. “Girl, just let your boyfriend take care of your ass.” 

You gasped. “He’s not my—”

Before you could find a comeback, Wonwoo’s hand was tugging at yours. His head nodded in the direction toward the front door.

Mingyu wiggled his eyebrows. “Oh~” He sang. “Alone time?”

Wonwoo rolled his eyes but didn’t bother responding. Instead, he wrapped his arm around your waist and led you out of the kitchen, your steps slightly faltering as you followed him.

“Have fun you lovebirds~” Soonyoung cooed out from a distance. 

You barely noticed the cold air hitting your skin when he finally brought you outside. The music was muffled now, the party still raging on without you.

Wonwoo glanced at you. “Better?”

You hummed, stretching your arms out before immediately wrapping them around his neck. “Much better.”

He scoffed but didn’t pull away. Instead, he let you cling to him, his grip on your waist tightening for just a second before loosening again.

“You’re clingy tonight,” he muttered.

You nuzzled into his chest, voice soft. “And you’re nice.”

Wonwoo froze. 

“…Nice?”

You nodded. “You’re taking care of me when you technically don’t have to.”

For a moment, he said nothing, choosing to only hum in response. Then, his hand brushed over your lower back—he was warm.

You swayed slightly, clinging onto Wonwoo as the cool night air wrapped around you. The quiet outside was a stark contrast to the chaos inside, but you found that you didn’t mind—it was nice like this. Just you and him.

Your stomach fluttered, and for a moment, you thought it was from the way Wonwoo had been looking at you all night. Or how his hands steadied against your waist whenever you stumbled. But then, the sensation twisted, turning unpleasant, and you realized with panic that those weren’t butterflies.

You quickly let go of Wonwoo as your vision tilted slightly.

Wonwoo frowned. “You okay?”

You swallowed thickly, nodding way too fast. “Yeah. I just—” You opened your mouth to continue, but the moment you did, the nausea slammed into you full force.

Your eyes widened. “Oh no.”

He tensed at that.

Without saying another word, you yanked yourself from his hold and lunged toward the bushes nearby, emptying the contents of your stomach.

Wonwoo was at your side in an instant, pulling your hair back as he crouched next to you. “God, I told you that was enough,” he muttered, but there was no real bite to his words. His hand rubbed soothing circles on your back as you heaved, whispering soft reassurances. “Just let it all out. You’ll feel better.”

You groaned, resting your forehead against your arm when you finally finished. “I want to die.”

Wonwoo snorted but didn’t stop his soothing motions. “You’ll be fine,” he murmured, voice softer now.

You weren’t sure how long you sat there, hunched over the bushes with Wonwoo’s steady hand rubbing slow, soothing circles along your back. The worst of the nausea had finally passed, leaving you drained and a little too aware of the fact that Wonwoo had just witnessed you at your absolute lowest.

You wiped your mouth before shooting him a weak glare. “Don’t look at me.”

“I literally just watched you throw up, I think the damage is already done, Birdy.” His smirk was downright smug as he tucked a strand of hair behind your ear.

You shoved your face into your hands. “I’m never drinking again.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he mused, patting your back. “You and everyone else who’s ever thrown up at a party.”

You groaned again, this time in embarrassment rather than nausea. “I hate this.”

Wonwoo hummed, lightly patting your back. “Could be worse.”

You turned your head just enough to glare at him. “How?”

He smirked, leaning a little closer. “Could’ve thrown up on me.”

Despite your current state, a laugh bubbled up from your chest. “Don’t jinx it.”

Wonwoo let you rest against him for a little while, his hand warm and steady on your knee. Eventually he sighed, shifting slightly. “Alright, come on,” he murmured. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

You groaned, but didn’t resist as he helped you up, his hands firm on your waist to steady you. The ground felt a little uneven beneath your feet, but Wonwoo was there, keeping you upright.

“Ugh,” you whined as you wiped at your mouth again. “I feel disgusting.”

“You look the part, too,” he deadpanned, but the teasing glint in his eyes softened the jab.

You smacked his arm weakly, pouting. “I take back what I said, you’re not nice.”

The moment you stepped inside, the heat and noise of the party hit you full force again. The contrast was disorienting, and you clutched at Wonwoo’s arm instinctively. He glanced down at you, a little amused, but didn’t say anything as he led you through the crowd.

“Bathroom,” you mumbled, blinking up at him. “Where..?”

“I got it,” he assured, steering you toward the hallway. You were grateful he seemed to know his way around, because the last thing you wanted was to stumble around like a lost idiot in front of a bunch of drunk strangers.

Once you reached the bathroom, Wonwoo knocked once before opening the door and peeking inside. “All clear,” he said, holding it open for you.

You let out a relieved sigh and stepped in. “Give me like, two minutes.”

He leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed. “Take your time.”

You shot him a suspicious look. “You’re waiting?”

Wonwoo shrugged. “Yeah, just in case you pass out and drown in the sink.”

You squinted at him, holding onto the bathroom door for stability. “…I don’t know if that’s sweet or offensive.”

He smirked. “A little bit of both.”

Rolling your eyes, you shut the door and turned to the dirty mirror in front of you, groaning at your reflection. You looked as bad as you felt—your lipstick smudged, your hair slightly out of place, and your skin a little too flushed. You did your best to clean up, wiping areas where your makeup had smudged as well as rinsing your mouth out.

When you finally stepped back outside, Wonwoo was still waiting, just as he said he would. His eyes scanned you briefly before he nodded in approval. “Better.”

“I was going to say thanks,” you grumbled, weakly shoving at his chest, “but now I’m rethinking it.”

He caught your wrist before you could fully pull away, his thumb brushing against your pulse point. He didn’t let go, instead stepping into your space to shield you from the rest of the party-goers. “You should say it,” he murmured, his voice dropping an octave. “Seeing as I’m the only reason you didn’t end up face-down in the grass.”

Your breath hitched, heart stuttering in your chest. Damn him, because he knew what he was doing—knew how easily he could get under your skin.

Instead of giving him the satisfaction, you huffed, yanking your wrist free. “Let’s go find the guys before I decide to ditch you.”

Wonwoo sighed, but his gaze softened as he watched you sway. “Actually… I think you should wait outside. Staying in here with this heat and the bass is only going to make you feel worse. I’ll grab the guys so we can finally get out of here.”

You gave a sleepy, miserable nod. After hurling your guts out, the idea of going back outside didn’t sound so bad. “Okay,” you murmured, already turning toward the exit.

The night breeze was a blessing. You found a sturdy tree-swing a few yards away from the porch, the thick rope creaking softly as you sat down. You had seen it when you first came to the house, you were just happy to find a place to sit while you waited on Wonwoo. You closed your eyes, leaning your head against the rope, letting the cool breeze settle your nausea just a bit. For a brief moment, it was peaceful—until you heard the crunch of gravel behind you.

“I’ve been looking everywhere for you!”

You didn’t even have to turn your head to know who’s voice it was. When you finally did, you saw him standing there with a solo cup and a weak, unsettling smile.

“Sorry I didn’t reply to your texts,” he said, his tone dripping with fake sincerity. “I got caught up in something… really important. I hope you understand.”

Even through the hazy, alcohol-induced fog clouding your brain, his condescending tone was crystal clear. You looked up at him, at the stupid apologetic expression on his face, and something inside you snapped.

“Important, huh?” You huffed, a surge of cold irritation cutting through your nausea. “Save it, Hyunwoo. Honestly, just fuck off already. I shouldn’t have bothered coming here in the first place, you wasted my time by making me wait for you.”

Hyunwoo’s face hardened instantly. “Fuck off? That’s rich coming from you.” He stepped closer, his shadow looming over you. “Looks like you still found a way to have a good time without me, didn’t you? I saw you with that group of guys inside. You seemed pretty cozy for someone who was ‘waiting’ for me.”

“What was I supposed to do? Stand at the door like a dog?” you snapped, your grip tightening on the swing rope. “Plus, I don’t owe you any explanation after you ditched me.”

“Oh, please,” Hyunwoo scoffed, stepping dangerously close. “Don’t act all high and mighty. Not everything revolves around you, okay? I’m allowed to do whatever the fuck I want.”

“Then why the hell would you invite someone to a party just to ditch them?” you challenged, trying to stand up, but the swing wobbled unreliably. “Just back off, Hyunwoo. I mean it.”

He didn’t move away. Instead, he stepped closer. His hand reached out to grab the swing’s rope to keep you in place. A cold spike of panic flared in your chest. The two of you were alone outside, and you were in no condition to defend yourself if things got nasty.

A hand clamped onto Hyunwoo’s shoulder, and with one sharp, controlled burst of strength, Wonwoo shaved him back. Hyunwoo stumbled over his own feet, nearly hitting the dirt before he regained his balance.

“What the fuck?” Hyunwoo barked out, irritation running through his face.

He straightened up a bit, face painted with a kind of red that only embarrassment can bring. “What the hell is your problem—”

His voice cut off the moment he looked past Wonwoo. Standing right behind him were Mingyu, Seokmin, and Soonyoung. They weren’t making a scene, but their presence alone was a wall of witnesses he wouldn’t be able to ignore. Hyunwoo glanced back over to where you were sitting, and realized that there was no way he was going to win this.

With an unhappy, bitter sigh, he muttered a curse and headed back toward the house.

The silence that followed was heavy until Seokmin stepped forward. His voice was gentle, a tone he reserved for more serious situations. “Hey… you okay? He didn’t touch you, did he?” He asked as he held his hand out to you, letting you use him to get off the swing.

“I’m fine,” you whispered, finally letting out the breath you’d been holding. “Just… ready to go home now.”

The walk to the car was a blur. Wonwoo kept his hand on the small of your back the entire time, guiding you towards the car. He pulled the front passenger door open for you, helping you settle into the seat.

‘Wai—Hey!” Mingyu whined as he climbed into the back, mushed between Seokmin and Soonyoung. “Why am I being put in the back of my own car? This isn’t fair—”

“Stop whining,” Wonwoo muttered as he situated himself in the driver’s seat. “I’m not putting her in the back with you idiots, so just deal with it.”

The others just laughed, already half-asleep or distracted by their phones, while Mingyu continued to grumble about how “cramped” it was in the back.

You looked over at Wonwoo, whose attention was on the road. You could tell he was still bothered by the confrontation from earlier and despite how shitty you felt at the moment, you managed to mutter a small ‘thank you’ to him before succumbing to the exhaustion from the night.

You weren’t sure when your eyes fully closed. Only when you opened them again, everything was different.

The muffled bass of the party was gone, replaced by the distant hum of a car engine. Street lights flickered past, casting faint glows through the window. You stirred slightly, feeling the seatbelt strap pressing against your chest and the steady warmth of a hand on your thigh.

How the hell did you get here?

You blinked sluggishly, trying to piece together how you got here, but your thoughts were too foggy to hold onto. The only thing that registered was the low voice beside you.

“Almost home,” the familiar voice muttered.

Your lips parted, but no words came out. The smooth vibration from the car almost effectively lulling you back to sleep.

Well, that was… until the car suddenly stopped.

It felt like mere seconds later when you heard the faint click of the doors unlocking, the abrupt noise pulling you further away from the haze of sleep.The guys all sluggishly slipped out of the backseat one by one. Mingyu even managed to bump his head as he slid out of the car, only for it to be followed with an almost silent cry.

And without much thought, you followed along. Well, at least tried to.

“Where are you going?” Wonwoo caught your hand before you were able to fully unbuckle yourself from the passenger’s seat.

“…Inside?” You lazily gestured towards the direction the guys were heading to.

Wonwoo looked at you skeptically. “You don’t want me to drop you off at your place?”

You shook your head.

“Are you sure?”

You scoffed at his apprehension. It was cute, but you needed to crawl into a bed right now. It didn’t matter whose bed it was.

“Wonwoo,” you sighed out, “I’m completely sure, I mean we even slept—”

“—Okay, I get it.” He muttered as he shut the car off, grumbling to you about staying in your seat.

A moment later you felt a huge gust of cold air rush right past you as soon as Wonwoo opened your door. 

“Wow, you’re such a gentleman, Woo,” You annoyingly batted your eyelashes at him.

He only rolled his eyes at your teasing, and yet, he still held his hand out for you. And when you interlaced your fingers with his—they were warm and stable.

The walk to his place was rather short but, with the way your head was still reeling from tonight’s decisions… yeah, you needed to lie down like right now.

By the time you reached his unit, a giggle escaped you—Mingyu, Seokmin, and Soonyoung were slouched against the door like a group of wasted zombies who’d completely forgotten how to function. Wonwoo let out a long, tired sigh beside you—one that very clearly said “I cannot believe these idiots couldn’t open the door.”

“Finally,” Seokmin groaned at the sight of Wonwoo, “we thought we were going to be out here all night!”

The moment Wonwoo pushed the door open, Mingyu, Seokmin, and Soonyoung shoved past him like they had just escaped a war zone. Shoes were kicked off haphazardly, jackets flung over furniture, and Seokmin collapsed face-first onto the couch with another dramatic groan.

You followed much slower, still groggy but steadily sobering up with each passing second. The cool night air had cleared some of the fog in your mind, and now, as you stepped inside, you took in your surroundings with some clarity. The apartment was surprisingly clean for three guys living together. Warm lighting softened the space, posters lined the walls, and the open layout of the living room and kitchen made it feel cozy.

But what caught your attention wasn’t the apartment itself.

It was the sleek black cat perched on top of the couch, staring at you with piercing green eyes.

“Oh,” you mumbled, blinking at the pretty kitty. “Who has a cat?”

Wonwoo barely had time to answer before the cat gracefully hopped down and strutted toward you. She sniffed at your leg, tail flicking, before rubbing against you as if claiming you as her own.

Your mind sharpened a little more as you crouched down, fingers threading through her sleek fur.

“Looks like Gigi likes you,” Wonwoo observed, sounding mildly impressed.

You grinned, crouching down to scratch behind her ears. “She’s so pretty.”

“She’s evil,” Seokmin muttered from the couch. “Don’t let her fool you.”

“She’s just selective,” Wonwoo defended, watching as you scratched under his cat’s chin.

You glanced up at him with a tired, playful smile. “So, does this mean I’m special?”

Wonwoo met your gaze, the corner of his mouth lifting ever so slightly. “Maybe.”

Gigi curled around your legs, tail flicking against your calf as you stroked her sleek fur, her purring loud despite the lingering noise from the rest of the apartment. 

The guys had mostly settled in by now—Mingyu had disappeared into his room without a word, Seokmin was sprawled across the couch as if someone had thrown him on there, and Soonyoung was rummaging through the kitchen cabinets, mumbling something about needing a “midnight recovery snack.”

You were still feeling a little groggy, the weight of exhaustion clinging to you like a thick blanket, but you were awake enough now to register the warmth of the apartment.

The scent of something warm and herbal caught your attention. You turned your head to see Wonwoo setting a mug on the kitchen counter, the steam curling up into the air.

“Why did you make tea?” you asked, blinking in mild disbelief.

Wonwoo scoffed, barely sparing you a glance as he leaned against the counter. “You literally threw up earlier.”

Seokmin mumbled something incoherent, face half-buried into the couch cushion. Then, with a sleepy grin, he added, “what a simp.”

Wonwoo narrowed his eyes. “Shut up.”

But Seokmin wasn’t done. “Nah, for real, if this were any of us, he would’ve let us rot.”

“It’s true,” Soonyoung chimed in from the fridge, voice muffled as he dug around for god-knows-what. “Where was this energy when I had food poisoning, huh?”

“You got food poisoning because you ate gas station sushi,” Wonwoo said flatly.

“And yet, I still deserved some love and compassion!” Soonyoung shot back before popping a random grape into his mouth.

You snorted, turning your attention back to the tea.

The mug was warm in your hands as you lifted it to your lips, letting the honeyed sweetness settle on your tongue.

“Good?” Wonwoo asked, watching you carefully.

You hummed in approval after taking a sip of the tea, then smirked as an idea popped into your head. “Wonwoo… are you actually taking care of me, or are you trying to get me into your bed faster?”

A beat passed.

One of the guys groaned in disgust.

Wonwoo exhaled sharply. Instead of arguing, he simply turned on his heel and walked toward his room, mumbling something about getting changed as he disappeared inside. 

You grinned at his retreating figure, taking another slow sip of your tea. This was fun.

A few minutes later, when he reemerged from his room, you nearly choked on your tea.

Gone was the slightly rumpled party outfit. Now, Wonwoo stood in the doorway wearing a t-shirt and loose gray sweatpants that hung low on his hips. 

But it wasn’t just that. 

It was the glasses perched on the bridge of his nose, the way his hair fell slightly messier than usual, giving him an effortlessly good look that had no business being this hot.

You weren’t sure why, but something about it made your stomach flip—in a good way this time.

Wonwoo barely spared you a glance as he walked over, dropping a small bundle of clothes directly over your lap. “Here.”

You blinked.

“Wow,” you muttered, staring down at the clothes on your lap. “Romance really is alive.”

Wonwoo ignored your sarcasm, reaching out to tug at your free hand. “Come on.”

You frowned in exaggerated confusion, refusing to budge. “Where are we going?”

“To my room.” He deadpanned.

“Oh?” You grinned, cocking your head.

His grip tightened slightly before he rolled his eyes, the tips of his ears noticeably pink. “You’re annoying.”

You cackled as he pulled you along, barely giving you a chance to set your almost-empty mug down before he dragged you into his room, shutting the door behind you.

The second you stepped into Wonwoo’s room you took a moment to glance around the space, taking in the surprisingly neat setup.

A sleek desk sat against the far wall, cluttered with books, a gaming setup and what looked like a few scattered notes from class. His bed had dark satin sheets that looked way too inviting after the night you had. Small posters of old movies and bands were pinned up, giving the space a bit of personality.

Your gaze flicked back to him, standing near his dresser, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

“You have a nice room,” you mused, stepping further inside, tossing the clothes he had given to you on his bed. “Kind of expected it to be messier, though.”

Wonwoo scoffed. “Sorry to disappoint.”

You took one last glance around his room, eyes lingering on him just a second longer than necessary, before lifting your shirt up over your chest.

You didn’t really bother asking.

The shirt finally slipped over your head, followed by the rest of your clothes. You changed right in front of Wonwoo, your movements uncoordinated and sluggish—his eyes practically widened at the sight.

“…Seriously?” he muttered, ears already burning.

“Relax,” you said with ease, “I think we’re a bit past that point, don’t you think?”

You stepped into the sweatpants, lightly swaying as you attempted to straighten your legs out, one hand bracing against his bed.

And despite the exasperation in his voice, you knew that he wasn’t actually bothered by any of it, especially when his hand instinctively reached out to hold you steady as you changed.

Wonwoo only shook his head, a small smile tugging on his lips as he watched you finally stand still. Dealing with you while you were drunk was definitely a hassle, but as he watched your eyelids start to droop again with that same sleepy expression from the car ride, he knew he didn’t really mind taking care of you.

Despite the sleep pulling at you, a different need started to surface. You’d thrown up earlier at the party, a fact you were trying very hard to forget already, but the way your makeup was sitting on your face was suddenly unbearable. “Woo,” you mumbled, voice thick with sleep.

He hummed in response behind you, hands still holding onto your wavering figure.

“I need to… stuff,” you said, gesturing vaguely at your face. “Do you have a spare toothbrush or something? I feel so gross.”

He sighed, but there was no real annoyance behind it. “I’ll see what we have in the closet. Try not to fall.”

He disappeared out the door, leaving you to sit on the edge of his mattress fighting the urge to lay down and burrow yourself into his sheets. He was back a minute later, holding up a spare toothbrush still in its packaging and a small packet of makeup wipes.

You raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Wow, Wonwoo. Prepared for any late-night guests, are we?”

He rolled his eyes, tossing the items onto the bed next to you. “Don’t get any ideas. They’re probably from one of Seokmin or Mingyu’s… visits. I’m not the only one who lives here, you know.”

“Right… right…” you grinned, grabbing the stuff and hauling yourself from the bed. “Blame it on the roommates.”

When you returned from the bathroom, face clean and teeth brushed,Wonwoo was already in bed, propped up against the headboard. He looked devastatingly hot, especially with the way his glasses slid down the bridge of his nose. The soft glow of the tv illuminated the room, playing some old cartoon from when you were kids. He turned the volume down low.

“Background noise,” he explained when you finally slid into the covers. “Helps me sleep.”

You hummed in response, snuggling into his side. The warmth of his body, the low drone of the tv, the comfort of the bed, it was perfect.

Though, the alcohol that still remained in your system had other ideas. You shifted closer to him than necessary, pressing a small kiss to the side of his neck, your hand trailing down his chest.

“You know,” you whispered, voice low and suggestive, “I know what we can do to sleep real good tonight.”

Wonwoo let out a long, tired groan, catching your wandering hand before it could go any further. “Nope,” he said, voice firm but gentle. “You’re drunk. Go to sleep.”

You pouted, pulling your hand back with a huff. “You’re no fun.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he said, wrapping an arm around you anyway, pulling you closer. “Now sleep.”

You grumbled but still settled against him, the rise and fall of his chest effectively lulling you into a deep sleep.

You woke up a few hours later. The room was still cast in the flickering light of the tv. Some late-night infomercial was playing, though you couldn’t really hear much of what was being said. A glance at your phone on the nightstand told you it was a little after three.

And you desperately had to pee.

This was horrible. The bed was a perfect cocoon of warmth, Wonwoo practically turned into your personal human radiator by this point. Leaving seemed like an impossible task, but you had to go. With a quiet sigh, you started to carefully extract yourself from his limbs.

The moment you moved, he stirred. His arms tightened around your waist, pulling you back against him. “No,” he mumbled, his voice thick with sleep. “Stay.”

“I have to pee,” you whispered, trying to wiggle free from his grasp.

“Don’t go,” he whined, burying his face in your hair. “It’s gonna be so cold without you.”

You couldn’t help but smile at his clinginess. “I’ll be right back. Two minutes, I promise.”

He grumbled in protest but finally loosened his grip enough for you to slip away. True to your word, you were back in under two minutes, slipping into the now cold spot beside him.

He immediately wrapped himself around you again. “Took you forever,” he complained into your shoulder. “I almost froze to death.”

“Oh, you’re such a big baby,” you teased, turning in his arms to face him. You leaned in and placed a soft kiss on his lips. “Better now?”

He hummed in approval, his eyes still closed. But the kiss… combined with the close proximity reignited the heat from earlier. The sleepy haze in your mind lifted just enough for that familiar, throbbing ache to return. 

“I can think of an even better way to get warm…” you murmured against his mouth, pressing your hips against his.

Wonwoo’s eyes flew open once he sensed where this was going, letting out a pained groan in the process. “Are you serious? Go back to sleep you fiend.”

You giggled at his reaction. 

Eventually, you both dozed off once again.

The next time you woke up, the pale gray light of the early morning was beginning to filter through the curtains. The tv was off this time, leaving the room in a heavy, ringing silence. You squinted, a dull, rhythmic throb behind your eyes reminding you of how much you drank the night before.

Wonwoo had spent a good portion of the night making sure you stayed somewhat hydrated and alive, but the hangover was still there which was annoying but deserved.

You glanced over at your phone for the time, it was seven in the morning. But that wasn’t what had gotten your attention originally. 

It was the way something hard was pressing up against your ass.

A slow, wicked grin spread across your face, momentarily distracting you from the headache. Wonwoo was still fast asleep, his breathing deep and even. You shifted back ever so slightly, experimentally pressing your hips against him. He stirred in his sleep, a soft sigh escaping his lips as his arm around your waist instinctively pulled you closer to him.

This was just too good to ignore.

You began to move again, a slow, deliberate grind against his length. You kept the movements small and subtle, just enough to provide a delicious amount of friction. He started to stir more, hips beginning to move unconsciously, meeting your slow rhythm. A low groan rumbled from his chest. This went on for a few blissful minutes until, with a sharp inhale, he woke up completely.

His hand stopped your hips from moving any further. “You’re actually evil,” he muttered, voice rough with sleep and arousal.

You rolled over to face him, a triumphant smirk on your face. “Morning to you, too. Seems like someone’s happy to see me.”

He glared at you, but there was no real heat behind it.”You’ve been like this all night. Aren’t you tired?”

“Nope,” you lied, emphasizing the ‘p’. You trailed your finger down his chest, leaning in close to his ear. “Though… I do think I’m sober enough for you to fuck me now.”

A shiver ran through him, and he closed his eyes for a good second, as if gathering up all his strength. “You’re so annoying.”

“Hey, that’s my line,” you shot back, leaning in to kiss him this time. He kissed you back, a deep, hungry kiss.

When you finally broke apart, you were both breathing heavily. “I’m not kidding,” you said impatiently. “I’ve been wanting this ever since I saw you in those stupid glasses.”

“Fuck,” he sighed, running a hand through his messy hair. “I know. But I’m not going to rush this just because you’re being impatient.” He pushed you gently onto your back, hovering over you now. The shift in position made your head throb once, but the way his weight was settling between your thighs seemed to distract you from the discomfort. “I’m gonna take my sweet time with you, Birdy.”

You whined, wrapping your legs around his waist. “But I’m ready, Woo, please…”

He chuckled. “Oh, I know you think you are,” he murmured, fingers hooking into the waistband of your sweatpants. “But first, I want another taste.”

He didn’t wait for a response, slowly tugging the fabric down your legs and tossing them on the floor. He settled between your now bare thighs, his gaze dark and hungry.

He pushed your thighs further apart, settled between them, and then his mouth was on you. He started off strong, his tongue flat and firm against your clit, licking a broad, devastating stripe that made your back arch off the bed. You gasped, your hands flying straight to his hair. He wasn’t gentle; he was savoring you, his movements precise and punishing. It was exactly what you deserved for not shutting up all night.

He brought one hand up, pressing it firmly on your lower abdomen, holding you down against the bed. The pressure was intoxicating, grounding the floaty, hungover feeling in your head and concentrating everything right where he wanted it. You could feel your release building up, tight and hot.

His speed picked up, his tongue flicking rapidly against your most sensitive spot. Your legs started to shake, your thighs trying to close around his head from the overwhelming stimulation. He grunted in frustration, using his free hand to forcefully pry your legs open, holding them wide open.

In the middle of it all, right when you felt like you were on the edge of seeing stars, he reached up to where your hands were and laced his fingers with yours. It was such an intimate gesture, a stark contrast to the overwhelming pleasure he was making you feel.

“Wonwoo… I’m… I’m gonna…” you gasped, your fingers tightening around his.

And then… he stopped.

He pulled his mouth away completely, lifting his head. The sudden absence of stimulation was a physical shock, a cold wave crashing over you. Your eyes flew open, and you stared down at him in disbelief. “What…?” you breathed, your body still humming with pleasure that now had nowhere to go.

He just looked up at you, a dark, knowing smirk on his glistening lips. He said nothing. He just watched you as your orgasm receded, leaving behind a hollow, desperate ache.

A frustrated whimper escaped your throat, and to your utter mortification, your eyes started to sting. “You… you can’t be serious,” you choked out, a tear slipping from the corner of your eye and tracing a path down your temple. “Why would you do that?”

He finally moved, but not to resume. He shifted up, his fingers replacing his tongue as he slowly, deliberately pushed one inside you. Your body clenched around the intrusion, a desperate attempt to find friction. “Because,” he murmured, his voice low and rough as he began to slowly pump his finger, “you spent all night teasing me. I feel like it’s only fair that you go through what I felt all night.”

You rolled your eyes in irritation, dropping your head back onto the pillow. “It’s not the same! I at—”

He cut you off, shifting up your body in one swift motion and pressing his lips against yours. The kiss was demanding, his way of telling you to shut up without needing to actually say anything. You could taste yourself on his tongue, a heady reminder of where he had just been. He kissed you until your frustration melted away into a desperate, pliant need, only then did he pull back and move back between your legs.

He added a second finger, stretching you further, scissoring them inside you. The stretch was a dull, pleasant ache, but it wasn’t enough. It was a cruel parody of what you actually needed. “Please, Wonwoo,” you whined, grinding your hips down onto his hand. “Please, let me cum.”

“Not yet,” he said simply, adding a third finger. The stretch was now significant, a burning sensation that mingled with the desperate need. He was opening you up, preparing you, and the thought of what he was preparing you for made you even wetter. He leaned back down, and you thought he was finally going to let you have it, but instead, he just blew a cool stream of air over your clit, making you jolt.

He went back to work, a devastating combination of his fingers curling inside you, pressing against that spot that made you see white, and his tongue returning to your clit with maddeningly light flicks. It was a relentless, calculated assault. The tension built again, even stronger this time. You were so close, the pleasure so sharp it was almost painful. You tried to stay quiet, remembering his roommates, but a choked moan escaped your lips. You grabbed a pillow from beside you and pressed it over your face, muffling the cries you couldn’t hold back.

In a flash, Wonwoo’s free hand ripped the pillow away. “No,” he asserted, his voice firm. “I want to hear you. I want to hear you cry for me.”

The vulnerability of being so completely exposed, of having no choice but to let him hear every sound he pulled from you, sent you spiraling. The pressure inside you peaked, your vision going white, your body tensing as you finally, finally hurtled towards the edge.

And he stopped again.

He pulled his fingers out and lifted his head, leaving you empty and trembling. A sob of pure frustration tore from your throat. This time, you couldn’t stop the tears. They flowed freely now, hot tracks of desperation on your face.

“You’re an asshole,” you cried, your voice cracking.

He laughed, a low, dark chuckle that vibrated through you. He hovered over you, wiping a tear from your cheek with his thumb. “I told you. Payback.” He leaned down, his lips brushing against your ear. “How does it feel, Birdy? To be so desperate but not be able to do anything about it?”

That was it. That was the breaking point. The playful teasing, the edging, the frustration—it all fused into a single, burning need. You were done playing games.

You used every ounce of strength you had to shove him, surprising him enough that he rolled onto his back. You scrambled over him, straddling his waist, hair a wild mess around your face.

“I’m done,” you panted, hands fumbling with the waistband of his sweatpants. “I’m done with your stupid torture. I need you inside me. Now.”

You yanked his sweatpants and boxers down in one rough motion, and his cock sprang free, thick and hard against his stomach. He was leaking precum, the tip flushed a deep, angry red. He was so ready for you, and it only fueled your desperation.

You started to sink down onto him, but his hands shot out, gripping your hips and stopping you. “Wait,” he breathed, his eyes wide. “Raw? Are you sure?”

“I don’t care,” you said instantly, your voice ragged. “Are you clean?”

He stared up at you, his chest heaving, his eyes searching yours. He saw the raw, unfiltered need there, and something in him snapped. “Yes,” he rasped. “I’m clean.”

“Then shut up,” you ordered, and you sank down onto him.

The stretch burned in the most exquisite way, a deep, full pressure that stole your breath. He was bigger than you anticipated, and the feeling of him filling you so completely was overwhelming. You took it slow, your body adjusting inch by inch until he was fully seated inside you. You collapsed forward, your forehead resting on his chest, your body trembling.

“You okay?” he asked, his voice strained, his hands stroking your back soothingly.

You took a deep breath, then pushed yourself up, a slow, wicked grin spreading across your face. You smacked his chest, right over his heart.

“You’re so big,” you said with awe.

You looked down between your bodies, where you were joined, and saw the mess of pre-cum on his stomach. “And look at you,” you teased, rocking your hips experimentally. “You’re all worked up from just eating me out…”

He groaned, his head falling back against the pillows. “Fuck, can you please move?”

You hummed while you pretended to think about his request. “Only if you take your shirt off.”

Wonwoo sighed in annoyance, briskly shifting his torso upward to pull his shirt over his head in one fluid motion before reaching out to tug firmly on the hem of yours. You huffed in amusement before pulling the fabric over your head. Wonwoo’s gaze immediately zeroed in on your chest, muttering out a low ‘fuck’ at the sight in front of him.

Pleased with his obedience, you started to move. It was slow at first, a deliberate roll of your hips that had you both gasping. You found a rhythm, increasing your speed, your hands braced on his chest. The feeling was heavenly, the drag of him inside you hitting all the right spots. Wonwoo’s hands were everywhere, roaming up your back, tangling in your hair, cupping your breasts, his thumbs brushing over your sensitive nipples and making you cry out.

He was getting vocal, low groans and curses spilling from his lips as you bounced on his cock. He was completely gone, lost in the pleasure, his eyes half-lidded and hazy. He looked utterly fucked out.

The sight sent a jolt through you, making your pussy gripped his cock tighter. His eyes rolled to the back of his head as he lifted his hips up to meet each one of your vile bounces. But the relentless pace was starting to take its toll on your energy—your thighs were burning, your movements were becoming sloppy.

Wonwoo sensed it immediately.

In one smooth, powerful motion, he sat up, wrapping his arms around you in a tight bear hug—pulling you flush against his chest. Your movements faltered as you collapsed against him, panting. He held you for a split second, face buried in your neck, and then he planted his feet firmly on the bed.

He started fucking up into you with a force you’ve never experienced before. The new angle was devastating. He was hitting deeper, harder, his hips snapping up with a brutal rhythm. All you could do was hold on, your arms wrapping around his neck as your body was completely overwhelmed by his.

The headboard slammed against the wall with a rhythmic, damning thud. The sound of skin slapping against skin filled the room, mingling with your combined moans and groans. There was no way the others couldn’t hear you but Wonwoo didn’t seem to care. He’d heard Mingyu and Seokmin enough times. It was his turn if anything.

One of his hands left your waist, sliding up your back to tangle in your hair, tugging just enough to make you gasp. His other hand roamed lower, gripping your ass possessively before he delivered a sharp, stinging smack. The sound echoed in the room, and the jolt of pain turned pleasure that shot through you made your pussy clench around him.

“Fuck,” he groaned. Wonwoo did it again, harder this time, leaving a warm, tingling imprint on your skin. “You like that, don’t you, Birdy?”

You could only moan in response, your mind going blank as he shifted his grip. His hand moved from your ass to your chest, groping your breast, his thumb and forefinger rolling your nipple between them. He pinched hard, sending a sharp jolt straight to your clit. He leaned down, his mouth finding the sensitive area between your neck and shoulder—not kissing—but biting you. He was leaving his claim all over your body, and the possessiveness of it all sent you spiraling.

You were completely at his mercy, he held you tight in his embrace as he chased your high. The coil in your stomach tightened to an impossible degree, the pleasure so sharp and intense it was almost blinding. “Won— I’m—” you choked out, nails digging into his shoulders.

Wonwoo could only grunt in response, as he continued to buck up into your heat. Your orgasm crashed over you like a tidal wave. Your entire body convulsed, your pussy clamping down around his cock as waves of pleasure wash over you. Despite your overstimulated cries, he continued to fuck you through your orgasm—hips never faltering.

He followed you over the edge a moment later with a guttural groan, burying himself deep inside you as he came, his warmth flooding all of your senses. He stilled, his body a heavy, comforting weight against yours as you both struggled to catch your breath.

“You okay?” He asked as he stroked your arm in soothing circles. You could only nod in response, your mind was still reeling from all the pleasure.

For a moment, you just stayed like that, a tangled, sweaty heap. But it didn’t last long before he was moving again, his energy seemingly endless. In one fluid motion, he pulled out and flipped you over with surprising strength. He grabbed your hips, pulling your ass up until you were on your knees, face down into his pillows.

You barely had a second to process the new position before he was slamming back into you, the new position hitting a devastating angle.

He just chuckled. “What’s wrong, Birdy?” he taunted, his hips starting a new rhythm. “You were so desperate for me earlier, begging me to fuck you. Are you gonna tap out on me after just one round?”

You wanted to snap back, tell him to go to hell, but you couldn’t form a single coherent though. All you could do was feel the way he was filling you up again.

He set a harsh pace, his grip on your hips tight enough to leave bruises. It wasn’t long before you both reached the edge again, bodies still feeling the effects of the last round. He reached over, his fingers finding your clit and rubbing tight, fast circles. That was all you needed. Your orgasm crashed over you again, a blinding all-consuming release that had you crying out his name. Your walls clenched around him, and he groaned, his thrusts becoming erratic as he chased his own end.

He came with a raspy groan as he buried himself deep inside you. You felt the hot spurts of his release and you instinctively pushed back against him—milking him of what was left. After a beat or so, Wonwoo let himself fall on top of you, the sensitivity finally hitting him.

For a long moment, you just lay there, feeling the pleasant, bone-deep ache in your muscles and the comforting weight of him still inside you. You could feel his heartbeat, a wild thrum against your back, slowly beginning to calm.

He started to shift, preparing to pull out, but you panicked, your hand shooting back to grab his hip, holding him in place. “No,” you breathed, the word muffled by the pillow. “Don’t. Not yet.”

He stilled, his lips pressing a soft kiss to your shoulder blade. “Okay,” he murmured, his voice a low, raspy vibration against your skin. “I won’t.”

You weren’t ready for it to be over. For the connection to be broken. The thought of him leaving you empty now was unbearable. You needed a minute, just one more minute, to memorize the feeling of being this full, this connected.

But as your breathing evened out and the post-orgasmic haze settled, a new awareness crept in. The sticky mess between your thighs, the sweat cooling on your skin, the lingering taste of him in your mouth. It was glorious, but it was also gross.

“We need a shower,” you mumbled into the pillow.

Wonwoo let out a weak, breathy laugh. “Yeah,” he agreed, but he made no move to get up. “In a minute.”

That minute stretched into two, then five. You were drifting in a state of blissful exhaustion, halfway to sleep, when you felt it. A slow, deliberate roll of Wonwoo’s hips against your ass. He was still inside you, and he was getting hard again.

Your eyes fluttered open. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” you whispered, a disbelieving laugh escaping you.

He chuckled, his lips tracing the line of your spine. “Why are you surprised?" he murmured, his voice already thick with renewed desire. “You’re the one that asked me to stay inside of you.”

He rolled his hips again, a slow, deep grind that had you gasping. It was a lazy, possessive movement, a stark contrast to the frantic pace from before.

“Again?” you asked, your voice laced with awe and a burgeoning excitement. You were sore but your body was already responding to his lazy thrusts, a familiar heat blooming low in your belly.

“Just one more time,” he promised, his voice a low rumble. He slowly, carefully pulled out, and you whimpered at the sudden emptiness. He flipped you over onto your back, his eyes roaming over your body—your flushed skin, the marks he’d left on your neck and chest, the mess between your legs. He looked hungry, like a predator admiring his kill.

He settled between your thighs, not entering you yet, just resting his cock against your slick folds. He leaned down, capturing your lips in a slow, deep kiss. It wasn’t frantic or demanding; it was lazy, thorough, a kiss that was meant to be savored. He was tasting you, claiming you all over again.

“Your greed sickens me,” you quipped against his mouth, your hands tangling in his messy hair.

“You started it,” he countered, but he was smiling. He propped himself up on his elbows, looking down at you. “This time, though… we’re going slow.”

He reached down, lining himself up with your entrance, and then he pushed inside, excruciatingly slowly. You were already so sensitive, so thoroughly used, that every inch was a potent, overwhelming sensation. You felt every ridge, every vein of him as he filled you. He watched your face intently, his gaze dark and focused, as if memorizing your every reaction.

When he was finally fully seated, he paused, letting you adjust. “Okay?” he asked softly.

You could only nod, your throat too tight to form words.

He started to move, a slow, languid rhythm that was somehow more intense than the brutal pace from before. Every thrust was deep, deliberate, grinding against your A-spot in a way that made your toes curl. There was no urgency now. This wasn’t about chasing a quick release; this was about drawing out the pleasure, about savoring every single second.

His hands roamed your body, caressing your breasts, stroking your sides, gripping your hips to pull you deeper onto his cock. He was everywhere. He leaned down to kiss you again, his tongue lazily exploring your mouth, matching the rhythm of his hips.

You were completely lost in it, in him. The room, the apartment, the world outside—it all faded away. There was only Wonwoo, the weight of his body on yours, the slow, deep drag of his cock inside you, and the low, encouraging sounds he made in your ear.

“You feel so good,” he murmured, his voice thick with awe. “So perfect, taking me so well.”

His praise sent a fresh wave of arousal through you. You wrapped your legs around his waist, crossing your ankles at the small of his back, urging him deeper. He groaned, burying his face in your neck, his thrusts becoming a little harder, a little faster.

The slow burn was building again, but this time it was different. It wasn't a sharp, explosive peak waiting to happen; it was a slow, creeping tide, rising gradually, threatening to drown you in pleasure. You could feel it in your trembling limbs, in the way your breath hitched, in the desperate, needy sounds you couldn’t stop making.

“Wonwoo,” you gasped, your nails digging into his shoulders. “I… I can’t…”

“I know,” he grunted, his own rhythm starting to falter. “Let go for me, baby.”

He reached down between your bodies, his thumb finding your clit. He didn’t rub it frantically; he just pressed down, applying slow, and firm flicks as he continued to thrust into you. The slow tide peaked and your orgasm washed over you, a long, rolling wave of pleasure that seemed to go on forever. You cried out his name, your body arching against his as you clenched around him, pulling him deeper.

He groaned your name like a prayer, his hips stuttering as he followed you over the edge, his own release pulsing deep inside you. He collapsed on top of you, his body trembling with the force of his orgasm, and you held him tight, your arms wrapped around his back, your hearts beating in tandem.

You lay there for what felt like an eternity, basking in the afterglow. The sun was higher now, casting a bright, golden glow around the room. The sounds of the apartment were starting to stir—distant cupboard doors closing, the low rumble of a voice in the living room. That’s going to be a problem for later.

Finally, Wonwoo lifted his head, his eyes soft and sated. “Okay,” he said, pressing a gentle kiss to your lips. “Now we really need to shower.”

You hummed in agreement, though you didn’t feel like moving yet. The adrenaline was draining out of you as each second passed and with that, your limbs began to feel like lead.

Wonwoo let out a weak, breathy laugh, but he didn’t argue. He shifted, slowly and carefully pulling out of you. You whimpered at the sudden emptiness, a feeling you were already starting to hate. He grabbed a few tissues from the nightstand, gently cleaning you up before tossing them in the trash. He pulled the blanket over your tangled bodies, settling back onto his side, propping his head up on his hand to look at you.

“Five minutes,” he echoed softly, leaning down to press a kiss to your forehead.

You felt the gentle weight of his arm drape over your waist, pulling you just a little closer. The sounds of the apartment faded away, replaced by the steady rhythm of his breathing and his heartbeat.

Five minutes was all you needed before facing the world.

Or maybe ten.

[wonwootattoo]

the nerd and the unsatisfied TEASER | jeon wonwoo | MDNI 18+

📖 pairing: nerd!wonwoo x coolgirl!fem!reader 📖 genre/content: casual hooking up, suggestive language 📖 warnings: choking in this teaser, the full story will be worse LOL 📖 summary: you're unsatisfied with the sex you've been having lately but can't seem to find someone who can meet your needs. 📖 prequel to the biker and the cat!

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You take in the man standing in front of you. 

Long black hair, black-framed glasses, a lanky build, ratty hoodie, baggy jeans. A total loser. And definitely not what you were looking for.

“Sorry, but I need someone more…,” you pause to look him up and down- an obvious skeptical look written all over your face- “manly.”

With a wink, you turn to walk away.

Before you can even take a step, a hand reaches out and grips the entirety of your throat. In the blink of an eye, you are spun around and thrusted against the wall. 

Your eyes shoot up to Wonwoo, looking so different from just mere moments ago. Towering over you, he suddenly makes you feel small. Overpowered. Completely and utterly dominated. 

Wonwoo has a glint in his eye. One that you know all too well. 

He leans in close, still gripping your neck. 

“Is this manly enough for you?”