In a town where summers seem to stretch endlessly beneath golden sunsets and festival lights, familiar streets become the backdrop for stories waiting to be told. Old memories linger in the warm air, bringing unexpected reunions, unspoken feelings, and chances that once slipped away. Between quiet moments and unforgettable nights, hearts will find their way back to one another, discovering that love often arrives when it is least expected—and leaves a mark long after summer has come to an end.
author's note: each fic has a different reader.
🫧𓇼𓏲*ੈ✩‧₊˚🎐
SUMMER OF 1999
ALL THE WAYS WE LOSE
Genre: rivals to lovers, idiots in love, mutual pining, summer romance
Summary: For as long as Y/N can remember, summers in town have meant one thing: competing with Choi Yeonjun. Whether it's festival games, academic achievements, or something as ridiculous as who can finish their tteobokki first, neither is willing to back down. But as another summer begins, Y/N finds herself struggling to separate genuine frustration from something far more complicated.
choi yeonjun x fem! reader
SUMMER OF 2001
ONE SUMMER, OVERDUE
Genre: city boy!soobin, small town romance, book rental shop, slow burn
Summary: When Choi Soobin is dragged to his grandparents' small hometown for the summer before his final year of university, he's prepared for two months of boredom. Instead, a trip to return his grandmother's books leads him to Y/N and her family's book rental shop, where one summer slowly becomes something neither of them expected.
choi soobin x fem! reader
SUMMER OF 2002
LIKE WE MEAN IT
Genre: fake dating, wedding season, friends to lovers
Summary: Y/N's summer takes an unexpected turn when Kang Taehyun asks her for a favor: pretend to be his date for his cousin's wedding. It should be simple enough right? A few family dinners, a few wedding events, and a convincing performance. After all, it's only temporary.
kang taehyun x fem! reader
SUMMER OF 2005
THE CURE
Genre: yearning, mutual pining, i want you but I shouldn’t / starcrossed, angst
Summary: Everyone knows Y/N as the dependable one. Everyone knows Choi Beomgyu as trouble. When the annual summer festival throws them together, Y/N finds herself paying a little too much attention to the one person she's spent years trying not to think about.
choi beomgyu x fem! reader
SUMMER OF 2007
THE THINGS WE LEFT BEHIND
Genre: childhood friends to lovers, reunion, first love, right person wrong time
Summary: Eight years ago, Y/N left behind her hometown, her childhood memories, and Huening Kai. Returning for the summer feels like stepping back into a life she thought she'd outgrown—until old memories begin resurfacing, familiar feelings start looking different, and the boy she once called her best friend becomes impossible to see the same way again.
huening kai x fem! reader
permanent taglist @flytomyro0m @nanilis @fairfootedflekk @swangyu @frostymatcha @starlami
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— please do not reupload, copy, or translate any of my works!
erm... hello... i love choi yeonjun and this video fits my jjunie cravings... TT
warnings: mdni. yeonjun + fem!reader. tit sucking. yeonjun is a munch as always. video attached in the link <3.
As someone who loves to take charge, Yeonjun can't help but bring the same attitude to your shared bed.
He said that he had a long day, and what he really needed right now is the warmth of your body while cuddling nicely on your scented sheets. Yet, it doesn't take so long for his hands to wander on the plush of your mounds, caressing them gently with the reason that it was a stress ball.
And the moment you let him do what he wants, there is absolutely no way you could stop his nuances. A few minutes after you agreed to cuddle him, you found yourself bare naked with him hovering your unguarded body.
"Fuck, look at these," Yeonjun breathes out, mouth evidently watering at the sight of your chest all tender and perfect for him to devour. "I could suck on these every day."
Yeonjun's mouth instantly found your perked nipple, lips teasing the soft part of your breast before he gave your bud a gentle suck. A gentle whine left your lips, trying to stifle the sounds with the back of your hand.
"Jjunie..." His nickname came out sultry when the satisfying pleasure surged in your nerves. He was playing with your nipples in the best way you could think of, making your aching pussy crave more.
"Hmmm?" Your boyfriend hummed into your nipple, making another sweet whimper pass through your throat. The vibrations of his voice left a satisfying feeling in your system. His tongue began to slide on your fibble bud, making your back arch subtly.
"What is it?" He gently asked, the lewd sounds of his mouth sucking your nipple filling in the room's quiet atmosphere. Yeonjun has always been considerate when it comes to you, but today—he seems different. He demands your body to react to him and stimulates your mind into thinking that this is what you need after a long day.
Feeling the delicious slide of his wet muscle on your bud, your thoughts began to scatter everywhere. The drowning pleasure of his mouth made you incapable of replying to him, your hand even flying to grasp his arms to cope with the overwhelming sensation.
For which he caught instantly, a large palm pinning your hands into the bed before you could even scratch his skin. Yeonjun didn't even bat an eye at you, solely focused on toying with your breasts as if they were the most delectable dish he had ever tasted.
"Yeonjun, hah—" You gasped audibly when his teeth gradually tugged your nipple, the pain mixed with an undeniable luscious feeling drove your mind into ecstasy.
"Shhh," Yeonjun tightened his grip on your hand before he licked his tongue into frantic, up and down movements that made it more sensitive than before. The worst part is, he was only focused on one bud, leaving the other aching and begging for his attention. Your drenched pussy was no different to it, feeling uncomfortable with your slick dripping out to your inner thighs.
Your moan became high-pitched when his tongue toyed with your nipple, causing him to lowly chuckle at how beautiful you sounded to his ears. Yeonjun was merely gratified by your reactions, but he knew this was only the beginning.
A warm glob of his saliva covered your chest when he started to use his lips to suck on your nipples harder. Beyond caring if you are already whiny and twitching below him.
He got you under control. And the least you could do is accept what he wants to do to your body.
NAH WHATTT THAT IS NOT REAL #BIGDICKGYU CONFIRMED????😭 but seriously did he not wear any undies? Like his HUGE package was just swinging around 😭 With grey sweatpants too like we can see everything 😭
well, i thought i could resist you, but something in me just can’t help but insist to blur the lines just one last time
/// sleep token, dangerous
pairing: yeonjun x fem!reader
summary: sometimes love and hate exist on opposite ends of the map. other times, on separate floors of the same building.
genre: ex!yeonjun / enemies to lovers au / neighbour au
warnings: slow burn, baaaaad mutual pining & intense yearning, jealous!jjun, somewhat evil!tyun (he has good intentions though), strong language, suggestive themes, detailed descriptions of smoking, excessive drinking, helpless flirting, some angst to spice things up
words: 15k (rip)
[ ! ] this is a sequel to equilibrium
masterlist / read from the beginning
✦ • ─── AUGUST 29, 2026. 4 AM
Yeonjun couldn’t sleep. His head felt like a cutlery drawer, rattling every time he rolled onto his other side, steel scraping steel.
Did it hurt the knives, he wondered at around four in the morning, to brush against other knives?
By six, he must’ve drifted off for a good twenty minutes, until a faint rustling near the windows woke him again. He blinked blearily just in time to catch Violet’s silhouette slipping under the heavy black curtains.
She hopped onto the windowsill and sat down in front of the only window in the flat that actually opened. It didn’t even look it; the frame had been caked in thick layers of white paint. Only the latch gave it away – a tiny brass catch, half-hidden beneath the lower frame in the far left corner, noticeable only by the peeling paint around it.
He hadn’t realised what the latch was for until you pointed it out to him that day on the stairs. Apparently, Violet had watched him work it once and memorised it.
She settled on the sill, her backside shoving the curtains aside. A narrow slit opened—he suspected he might’ve hung the drapes upside down—and through it, Yeonjun could make out the sharp outline of her whiskers against the pale light outside.
He lay still and watched.
With the precision of a surgeon, Violet slipped a paw into the far corner. Her whiskers twitched.
Tap.
Tap tap tap.
Nothing happened for a while.
Yeonjun frowned into the darkness.
Surely, he thought, she didn’t have the strength to move the latch. The thing was stiff even for him some mornings. It might’ve meant that the window had been opening on its own every day, then, or—
The brass catch jerked sideways with a tiny click.
The window frame loosened immediately.
Yeonjun stared.
Violet rose onto her hind legs and pressed her front paws against the bottom of the window, leaning her full weight forward. She was small—plump and very round, yes, but so small. Even if she’d mastered the latch, she shouldn’t have been capable of pushing the window open.
The frame creaked an inch upwards.
“Violet,” Yeonjun warned.
The cat turned, shooting him a look of profound irritation, like a single mother of five on her third consecutive night shift: don’t start with me right now, boy. Then she turned back and kept pushing.
The window scraped open just enough for her to squeeze onto the fire escape. Her back paws scrabbled briefly against the sill before disappearing outside.
Yeonjun stared, unblinking, for another minute.
Honestly, he should’ve used Violet to fight crime. Or rob banks.
Instead, he listened to the faint rhythm of her paws on the metal stairs as she climbed the fire escape towards your flat.
Upstairs, you dreamt that you were driving Reina’s old Honda.
The steering wheel thrummed in your hands as you drove along a narrow, two-lane road. The car rattled at higher speeds, and something in the dashboard buzzed as though you’d trapped a bee behind there somewhere, but it remained reliable as always.
The asphalt glistened; it must’ve rained recently. Now that you thought of it, you could almost smell the moisture in the air.
A bright blue car sped past, overtaking you.
You barely registered it.
Then, a few minutes later, the same blue car appeared again, passing you from the opposite direction.
Sunlight flashed against the windscreen, obscuring the driver’s face. The car was unfamiliar, yet you felt strangely worried that this was the last time you’d see it. You hoped it wouldn’t be.
You lowered the sun visor. Ahead, the road curved sharply left, and the car groaned as you turned the wheel.
For a while, you drove alone.
Soon, you spotted the blue car again. It was parked on the side of the road near a lake to your right, the hazard lights blinking lazily in the sunlight.
You pulled onto the gravel beside it, relieved.
As you stepped out of the Honda, you realised you were suddenly standing in the woods; the roadside was surrounded by trees.
Chestnuts, you thought at first. Then you narrowed your eyes.
Oaks.
You approached the blue car. The driver’s door hung open, but there was no one inside.
As you walked closer to the shore, past the trees, you saw a man sitting on the rocks in the shallows, sleeves rolled to his elbows, staring across the lake. This was the driver, you knew. You had to check on him.
You crept towards him. Your feet—why weren’t you wearing shoes?—slipped on the wet stones. The trees around you vanished.
The man turned—and the sound of something creaking jolted you awake.
Your eyes snapped open to the darkness of your room. For a disorienting moment, the dream clung to you: you could still hear the commotion of Reina’s old car, still smell the rain.
Then you heard Violet squeezing through the narrow opening in the window, right on schedule. She landed silently on the floor and padded toward the living room, careful, as though trying not to wake you.
The bedroom door creaked when her hind leg brushed against it.
Violet froze.
You closed your eyes, not wanting to spook her.
Silence. Then, the quiet patter of her paws fading into the living room.
Sighing, you rolled over, the sheets tangling around your legs. You reached blindly for your phone on the cardboard boxes by the bed. The screen flared to maximum brightness. Groaning, you squeezed one eye shut and tried to enter your PIN; Face ID refused to recognise you in the dim light.
Then you opened both eyes again.
Yeonjun, you realised, had been the driver of the blue car in your dream.
How strange.
You needed to text him, but yesterday’s conversation still lingered somewhere at the back of your mind. Just thinking about talking to him again made you feel like you’d swallowed something dense.
You pushed yourself onto your elbows, inhaled once, and opened his contact.
YOU [6:59 AM]
violet’s here
she’s welcome to stay but ive got to leave at 4
You’d barely lowered the phone before it buzzed against your palm.
YEONJUN [7 AM]
thanks
i’ll pick her up before you leave
The cursor blinked at the bottom of the chat on your screen.
You stared at it for a second, then set your phone down beside the pillow and climbed out of bed. A draft blew through the open window. You pushed it shut and headed into the kitchen to refill Violet’s water bowl.
The moment you appeared through the doorway, Violet abandoned her position by the curtains and wound herself around your legs instead, searching for entertainment. Her tail got caught beneath the hem of your pyjama bottoms, hitching the fabric upwards.
You knelt to scratch under her chin. Her purr vibrated against your palm.
“Let’s see if we can get some light in here for you, yeah?” you said, standing again.
Still half-asleep, you filled the bowl and went to the window. The curtains dragged heavily along the rail when you pulled them open.
It was a dreary, overcast morning outside. The building across the street looked even more muted than usual under the grey clouds.
Violet approached the window. She poked it with her nose, puzzled by the lack of sunlight, then glanced back at you.
“S’the best I can do, little one,” you said. “Cloudy day today.”
She replied with a small, resigned meow and turned back towards the window. A moment later, the faint reflections dancing across the glass seem to win her over.
You left her nestled between your flowerpots and started your morning.
✦ • ─── AUGUST 29, 2026. 3:45 PM
Fifteen minutes before you needed to leave, you stood in front of the mirror by the bathroom door, holding your breath as you misted setting spray across your face. It smelled oddly of hairspray.
The dress you’d bought for tonight was sleeveless and blue. Beaded detail ran along the slit—it had already left glitter scattered across your thigh.
When you first saw the dress in the shop last week with Reina, it reminded you of the photograph your grandparents kept on the mantelpiece in their living room. In it, your mother was posing with her date before their school dance. She wore a dark blue dress—sleeveless—and had her hair braided half up. She was smiling.
It was your favourite picture of her.
You’d spent the morning thinking about it while you pinned the braided sections of your hair back. The curled ends now rested across your collarbones.
You leaned closer to inspect your mascara and caught the edge of a price tag peeking from the side seam of the dress.
“Shit—”
The doorbell rang.
Startled slightly by the sound, you tightened your fingers around the plastic of the tag and ripped it clean off the seam. The edge nipped your palm. Hissing, you shook your hand once and dropped the tag into the bin by the kitchen island.
Behind you, Violet sat primly on the back of the sofa, licking her paw, as though she, too, was getting ready for Reina and Soobin’s engagement party.
“Got a feeling that’s for you, baby,” you said, nodding towards the door. “Come on.”
Violet chirped and jumped down.
She discovered the hem of your dress just as you opened the door. Her claws snagged in the fabric, catching and releasing the blue material with increasing enthusiasm.
Yeonjun stood on the doorstep.
He opened his mouth—and closed it right after.
All he registered, initially, was the deep blue of your dress. Then the ruched fabric at the waist and the small cutouts on both sides of your midriff.
Then the rest of his thoughts abandoned him to seek employment elsewhere.
You bent down before Violet could shred the hem. She resisted your hands, twisting in place. When you gathered the ends of the dress, she leapt back and wiggled her behind ominously, her pupils blown wide.
“You like the dress, baby?” you murmured, scooping her up before she could launch herself at you. She looked mildly startled at being lifted, but not especially offended. “Come on, then.”
Yeonjun thought he liked the dress.
Although, admittedly, he could’ve slept better if he hadn’t caught a glimpse of your thigh through the slit when you bent down. He suddenly felt as though he ought to sit down and have a bottle of water. Perhaps two bottles.
“Hi,” you said. “You alright?”
Your voice shifted slightly, and he realised that you weren’t speaking to the cat this time.
With all the grace and composure he could muster, he said, “I—uh—it would—I mean, yes. Yeah. I’ll be off, then.”
He pivoted sharply towards the stairwell.
You blinked after him, fingers still running down Violet’s spine.
“And Violet?” you called.
Yeonjun stopped dead.
“Yes!” he said, whirling around before he could fully register the heat climbing up the back of his neck. “Of course. I’ll be off with Violet. I—we will be off together.”
He gathered the cat, careful not to brush your hands in the process. At this point, he was convinced that any skin contact would finish him on the spot.
You stepped back.
He dared a glance at you.
You were looking down now, smoothing the fabric of your dress over your hips.
The sunflowers, he noted, were still on your kitchen island beside you, bright yellow and offensively alive. He stared at them, trying to work out who else could’ve got them for you.
It was still just this one bouquet in any case, as much as it irked him.
He’d got you fourteen.
You were surprised to find him still standing on your doorstep when you looked up.
“Later, then,” you said, a little awkward.
Yeonjun blinked, snapping back to awareness.
“Right,” he said. “Later.”
He escaped down the stairs.
Once the door of your flat clicked shut behind him, he let out a breath that seemed to rattle all the way through him.
Violet meowed in his arms. He could tell she knew he’d embarrassed himself.
“Don’t laugh at me,” he warned as soon as he unlocked his door. He tapped gently between her ears before scratching under her chin. “M’going to have a very, very long night tonight. I need your support.”
Violet, when properly motivated, offered excellent support.
Today, however, she felt strongly motivated to do three things exactly: use her litter box, demolish half a pouch of tuna in her bowl, and fall asleep directly on Yeonjun’s favourite pillow on his bed.
Yeonjun spent a solid hour trying to get her interest back; no luck.
Now he stood alone in his bathroom, staring at himself in the mirror under the bulb overhead. His hands shook as he attempted to tie his tie. The knot collapsed again.
It had been a long time since he’d needed to do this.
The last time, you’d stood in front of him. You’d been wearing blue too, though the colour had been lighter then. Your fingers had been warm against his throat as you fixed the tie for him, tightening the knot with one precise tug. He remembered the concentration on your face, the brush of your knuckles under his jaw.
He stared at his reflection for another moment.
Had that been the beginning of the end, then? Dinner with his parents, his crashed car. Had he given you even one happy memory in those last few days?
He yanked his tie off and threw it onto the counter beside the sink.
Fuck it, then.
He’d go without one.
What did it matter anyway?
He’d show up at the restaurant, congratulate Soobin and Reina, smile when appropriate. Then he’d drink until he couldn’t recognise himself in any mirror anymore.
✦ • ─── AUGUST 29, 2026. 7:30 PM
By the time Yeonjun arrived at the restaurant, everyone else was already there.
If he’d stopped to think about it, he might’ve found the sight endearing: the entire group of friends, formed years ago in university auditoriums and dormitories, still turning up for one another like this. Some of the other guests, he recognised, Soobin had known since kindergarten.
It was loud and very crowded here.
His mind was elsewhere.
He bumped into Soobin’s parents right by the door; his mother had earrings the size of small planets. They wanted to know how his family was doing.
“Fine, I expect,” he said, and walked off before they could ask what he meant. He hoped they’d assume he was drunk.
The restaurant had been decorated in excess, not unlike a royal wedding: white and gold everywhere, with balloons on the ceiling, on the walls, and stuck to the back of Kai’s head as Taehyun attempted to explain that hairspray was supposed to reduce static. There were enough flowers here that Yeonjun had heard Beomgyu sneezing from the street outside.
He saw you right away.
You stood near the main table in the centre of the room in your blue dress, one arm wrapped loosely around Reina’s shoulders. Nara stood opposite you, gesticulating wildly as she spoke, her bracelets flashing under the lights.
Then Soobin arrived and leaned over to murmur something into Reina’s ear. She laughed and pulled back from you with a quick wave.
Smiling softly, you turned to watch them go.
Yeonjun stared at that smile right up until he tripped over a loose ribbon trailing from the enormous banner stretched across the wall: REINA and SOOBIN 2027.
“Sorry,” he muttered to the approaching waiter, who bent to fix the ribbon.
On instinct, Yeonjun grabbed two champagne flutes from the tray in the waiter’s hands. Without hesitation, he downed the first one, dropped it back on the tray, and set off towards you and Nara with the second still in hand.
He figured he’d come up with something intelligent to say on the walk over.
Unfortunately, the walk was very short.
“Hi,” was the best he could do. “Where’re the betrothed?”
Nara, deducing the question wasn’t meant for her, took a sip of her champagne.
You turned towards him.
His hair was slicked back, but several dark strands had already escaped the gel and fallen over his forehead. He wore a black suit with a white shirt underneath. The buttons were golden.
Your gaze dropped, uninvited, to the exposed line of his neck. He wasn’t wearing a tie.
“Appetiser emergency,” you said, turning back ahead. “Something’s wrong with the salmon.”
“Ah,” Yeonjun said.
You were almost exactly his height in your heels. He became acutely aware of having a throat.
He wondered if he knew any fun facts about salmon. It wasn’t naturally pink; would that help the conversation? Also, was salmon the fish that could leap two meters out of water or was that—oh God, he was dying.
“W-wanted to apologise for being late,” he added, “but guess that’ll have to wait, then.”
“Hmm.” Nara smiled into her glass. “Bold of you to assume they even noticed you weren’t here.”
You snorted before you could stop yourself.
Yeonjun glanced at you and smiled despite the jab.
Good choice, then, not going with the salmon facts.
“Still,” he said, draining the rest of his champagne in one gulp. “S’rude of me. D’you need me to get you another drink?”
You didn’t immediately process the offer. Nara tilted her head meaningfully towards the empty flute in your hand, a knowing grin on her lips.
“Oh.” You rotated the stem of the glass between your fingers. “No. I’ve got it.”
You smiled at Nara and stepped away towards the bar.
It took Yeonjun a few seconds to realise you meant you’d go and get another drink right this instant, and not in a moment. He watched you walk away and tried to decide what a decent waiting time was before he could casually turn up next to you again.
Nara asked him something.
He didn’t hear a word and answered with a noncommittal grunt.
Guests crowded around him, and Nara, bored now, walked away to join them, momentarily blocking his view. He lost sight of you.
Just as something uneasy began to tighten in his stomach, he spotted your blue dress again near the bar by the far wall.
“You’re here!”
Yeonjun flinched at the clap on his shoulder and turned around.
Soobin and Reina stood behind him, both already flushed from champagne, their eyes sparkling. Reflections from the hanging lights flickered in Reina’s golden earrings every time she moved her head. Soobin, noticeably, couldn’t look away from her pink dress for more than two seconds at a time.
Just looking at them made Yeonjun remember how to smile.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said, giving them each a nod. “Congratulations, guys. The place looks beautiful.”
Over the last year, Reina had stopped looking at him like she might one day strangle him with her bare hands. For a while, she hadn’t looked at him at all.
Tonight, she smiled and lifted her glass slightly in acknowledgement.
“Thanks, man,” Soobin replied, smacking his shoulder again.
Yeonjun nodded awkwardly. He wanted to offer a more heartfelt sentiment for the occasion, but couldn’t stop thinking about salmon.
“You find the drinks alright?” Soobin asked.
Automatically, Yeonjun glanced towards the bar.
You were still there.
“Not yet,” he said, slipping the empty flute behind his back. “Thought I’d get one now, actually.”
“Of course,” Soobin said easily. The room was delightfully fuzzy around him. He loved champagne. “Enjoy yourself.”
Nodding again, Yeonjun disappeared back into the moving crowd.
Reina watched him leave, the corner of her mouth twitching.
She’d seen you by the bar.
✦ • ─── AUGUST 29, 2026. 8 PM
As the first round of appetisers began circulating through the restaurant—small, buttery things topped with salmon and herbs that you and Reina had taste-tested earlier that afternoon—people drifted back to their tables.
Conversations mellowed into an expectant hum; the instrumental music on the speakers quieted.
It was time for the toasts.
Naturally, this took ages.
Everyone here had known each other too long to tell a short story. Every memory required context, three unrelated anecdotes, and at least one interruption from another table.
Reina and Soobin’s parents being here tempered some of the wilder tales, although not by much. Reina’s father, already out of his jacket, cheeks rosy from champagne, laughed louder than anyone in the room whenever someone started implying things they probably shouldn’t have.
Your personal favourite remained Beomgyu’s passionate retelling of how Reina had, over time, replaced Soobin for him.
It had started innocently enough: he’d go over to Soobin and Yeonjun’s to use their PlayStation for a few hours. Soobin usually joined him. Then, one time, Reina appeared in the doorway of Soobin’s bedroom, wincing. She had better things to do than watch them play, but Soobin was getting demolished, and she thought it reflected poorly on her. She took over the controller and proceeded to beat Beomgyu three times in a row before she got bored and left again.
“That,” Beomgyu said, hand pressed to his chest, “deeply impressed me.”
His champagne flute became part of the story. He mimicked Soobin’s aim and sloshed the drink across the tablecloth. Gestured at Reina again and nearly sent the whole glass flying.
The more people laughed, the louder he spoke.
“I’ve decided,” he concluded finally, “that I prefer playing against Rei. Least she can make a jump without respawning ten times.”
Another wave of laughter drowned out Soobin’s indignant yelps of protest. Reina leaned against his shoulder, hiding her laughter in the crook of his neck.
Beomgyu raised his glass higher.
“Anyway,” he announced, “can’t wait for your wedding. Cheers!”
Glasses rose around the restaurant, followed by applause. Soobin reached instinctively for Reina’s hand. The smile on her face beside him was bright enough to light up the whole building.
The warmth from their table radiated through the restaurant, settling into conversations as the evening wore on and people splintered into smaller groups.
Reina’s mother eventually settled down beside Taehyun at his table—she seemed to have adopted him the moment he’d brought her a fresh glass of champagne; her third one tonight. Her husband had suggested a two-glass limit. She suggested it was time for her husband to go home.
Across the room, Yeonjun leaned back, one arm draped over the back of his chair, and observed your conversation with Beomgyu a few tables away—for about a minute. Then he counted to three, finished the rest of his champagne, and rose to his feet.
Beomgyu, meanwhile, had taken it upon himself to revisit Taehyun’s earlier statement about static and hairspray. He rubbed a white balloon vigorously against the back of his head while he explained the theory.
His hair was beginning to lift.
“I believe you,” you said, already smiling despite yourself. “But, uh—you’re not worried this will ruin your hairstyle?”
“No, no, look.” He rubbed harder, oblivious to the strands floating upward around his ears. “I’m saying hairspray creates resist—”
“All that electricity can’t be good for you.”
You felt Yeonjun sit down beside you before you turned your head. He held another champagne flute in his hand.
Something inside you relaxed at the sight of him. Then this instinctive reaction set your teeth on edge.
“Lightning’s going to get you,” Yeonjun added, nodding towards Beomgyu’s hair. “How’re you going to make it to Nara’s birthday party next week, then?”
Beomgyu lowered the balloon slowly.
“This has got nothing to do with lightning,” he said. Then, less confidently: “Has it?”
Distracted by his growing concern, he missed the look you gave Yeonjun.
“No,” you said, unable to stop yourself from playing along. “It’s not raining right now anyway.”
“It’s not—but when it rains?” Beomgyu smoothed one side of his hair back down. Perhaps, he thought, he hadn’t used enough hairspray.
“Then we’ll be able to use you,” Yeonjun said, “to tell if there’s going to be thunder.”
Beomgyu frowned and turned back to you again.
“’Cause your hair will stand up,” you explained, gesturing at his head, “like a lightning rod of sorts.”
Yeonjun snickered quietly into his drink.
Realisation dawned on Beomgyu’s face.
He fixed you both with his most practised glare, scoffed, and pushed himself up from his chair.
“You guys think I’m five years old,” he said, pointing at you, then at Yeonjun, “don’t you?”
Beomgyu hummed. Then, suspiciously solemn, he stepped around the table and leaned in before Yeonjun could react. Static crackled through the air as he rubbed the balloon against the back of Yeonjun’s head with ferocious enthusiasm.
“Oi! What—”
He ducked under Yeonjun’s outstretched hands, cackling, and darted into the crowd.
Grimacing, Yeonjun peeled the balloon away from his hair. A few strands remained standing upright.
“What a little shit,” he muttered.
When he looked up, you were already gone from your seat.
He pressed his lips together.
He sat there for a moment, balloon in hand, listening to the noises in the restaurant: the scrape of chairs, the laughter dissolving into the low rhythm of music. The balloons drifted by his feet whenever the kitchen doors swung open.
He didn’t know what to do with himself.
He couldn’t just sit here with this fucking balloon.
Near the main table, Soobin’s mother swayed to the music with both of Reina’s parents. The two women giggled loudly, clearly already tipsy. Soobin’s father joined them, balancing a tray of drinks in one hand.
Yeonjun watched them for a moment without really seeing them.
Then he spotted a passing waiter and stood. He traded his empty flute for a full one—then reconsidered his current circumstances and took the whole tray instead.
The champagne was dry and unremarkable, but it did the job. He guzzled half the glass and fell back into the crowd.
A few minutes later, he found you again.
This time, you were talking to Kai in the warm light near the kitchen doors.
A little tipsy and very conversational, Kai spoke with his entire body. Champagne kept sloshing dangerously close to the rim of his glass every time his hands flew up, the restaurant lights catching the bubbles.
Currently, he was filling you in on everything you’d missed at university while you were in New York.
“I thought he left because he got a better offer somewhere,” you said, raising one eyebrow.
“No.” Kai shook his head hard enough to splash champagne onto the cuff of his shirt. He didn’t notice. “No, no. He was sleeping with two undergrads at the same time, and they found out about each other.”
Your second eyebrow rose to join the first. “And then?”
“And then,” he continued, thrilled, “the undergrads teamed up and went straight to the Board together. Told them everything, brought screenshots. And now he’s fired.”
You chuckled, rotating the champagne flute in your hands.
“Nice,” you said. “Love it when women collaborate.”
“We should’ve seen it coming, honestly,” he said, sipping from his half-empty glass. “Something was always off with his classes. Serves him right for being such a rigid—”
“Serves whom right?”
By now, you’d half-expected Yeonjun. You didn’t bother turning around.
He stopped beside you anyway, close enough that you could feel the warmth of him against your arm. He tipped his head back and emptied the champagne in his glass in one swallow. He’d left the tray on the table behind him and glanced over his shoulder to make sure it was still there.
“Professor Johnson,” Kai told him. “He got fired.”
Yeonjun had absolutely no memory of a Professor Johnson.
Honestly, five glasses in, he was starting to have no memory of what he was even here for.
“No way,” he said. “What’d he do?”
Kai, buzzing at the opportunity to retell the story, started from the very beginning.
You listened for approximately two seconds, up until you had to duck away from Kai’s gestures. Then, lips pursed to fight back your laughter, you finished your champagne and left Yeonjun to endure the story alone.
And endure it he did, nodding at appropriate moments—more or less—while simultaneously scanning the restaurant for you. Kai’s hands grew increasingly more animated beside him.
There.
You’d joined a group of girls near the windows. Yeonjun didn’t recognise any of them, but you clearly did; laughter softened your features as you leaned towards one of them. The blue of your dress shimmered in the light every time you moved. The entire restaurant seemed to swim around it.
Kai noticed Yeonjun’s wandering attention mid-sentence.
He followed Yeonjun’s gaze across the restaurant, hand already reaching to drag him back into the conversation—until he spotted you near the windows and stopped.
Abandoning his efforts to resume the story, Kai walked off in search of more champagne before Yeonjun drained the place dry.
Yeonjun barely noticed him leave.
You were still laughing, which was good. He wanted you to keep doing that. Wanted the music on the speakers to quiet down, too, so he could hear you better. He also wanted—
Taehyun appeared beside you. He slipped smoothly into the conversation, apologised to the girls surrounding you, then leaned in to whisper something in your ear.
Yeonjun decided, immediately, that he needed something stronger than champagne.
By the time he crossed the restaurant towards you, a glass of whiskey in hand, Taehyun was already grinning.
Earlier in the evening, he’d been too busy charming Reina’s mother to pay much attention to anything else. Now, however, Reina’s parents were gathering their coats near the door, and Taehyun had redirected his energy into the next most exciting thing: tracking Yeonjun’s every move.
“It’s you again,” Taehyun said, raising his soju shot in greeting.
You glanced at Yeonjun. He met your gaze head-on and held it for an entire half-second.
“It’s me again,” he said.
“Have you had anything to eat?” Taehyun asked, eyeing the glass in Yeonjun’s hands. “Or just the drinks, then?”
“Just the drinks, then.”
“I see.”
Yeonjun swayed faintly where he stood. You turned your face so he wouldn’t see the smile threatening your lips.
“We were just talking about you, you know,” Taehyun added.
Yeonjun turned his whole body towards you. The golden light from the lamps carved dramatic shadows along his cheeks.
“Were you?” he asked.
“We were,” you said. “Noticed you’re very sociable tonight.”
The implication reached him about a second late. You watched him narrow his eyes, then take another sip.
“Guess I am, then,” he said.
“Any reason for that?”
He shrugged. Then shrugged again.
“My best friend’s engaged,” he said finally. “M’happy.”
You glanced at Taehyun just in time to catch the grin he was trying to hide by swallowing his soju. He placed the empty shot glass on the table next to him and turned back to Yeonjun.
He’d already noticed that every time you drifted into another conversation somewhere in the restaurant, Yeonjun reappeared minutes later with a fresh drink in his hand.
Naturally, Taehyun figured, this called for a small social experiment.
“Hm.” He stepped back to look you over with exaggerated consideration. “Have I told you you look stunning in that dress?”
Your eyebrows lifted.
Beside you, Yeonjun finished the rest of his whiskey in one alarming gulp. Ice knocked against the glass when he lowered it again.
“You haven’t,” you replied. “Thank you.”
Something in your dry tone amused Taehyun very much.
He decided to expand the scope of his experiment.
“Have you seen the photographer?” he asked, glancing around the restaurant. A few groups of people had started loose, tipsy dancing circles between the tables.
“I haven’t.”
You didn’t follow his gaze, which made Taehyun’s smile widen immediately.
Clueless, Yeonjun turned around. He had seen the photographer earlier—hard not to; the man had an aggressively white suit. Looked like a bishop in a game of human chess. Or the pope. Did popes wear white?
Salmon! Salmon was naturally white.
Before Yeonjun could point out the photographer with the salmon suit, Taehyun reached for your hand.
“We should take a picture together,” Taehyun announced, pulling you gently towards him.
You resisted instinctively, your heels dragging against the floor tiles. “Haven’t we already?”
“Not just the two of us.”
Your expression flattened immediately.
Taehyun, emboldened further, slid his free hand into the inside pocket of his jacket and withdrew his phone.
“Yeonjun,” he said pleasantly, holding it out. “Would you mind?”
A strange moment passed.
Yeonjun looked at the phone.
Then at Taehyun.
Then, finally, at Taehyun’s hand still wrapped loosely around your wrist.
The bustling restaurant seemed to fade around him. Someone dropped something near the kitchen; it sounded like a knife or a fork.
Slowly, Yeonjun accepted the phone.
Taehyun was surprised; he’d been convinced this would be enough. Back in grad school, Yeonjun would’ve combusted by now.
Alright, then.
Interesting.
Taehyun dropped his hand to your waist.
Yeonjun stared at the screen of Taehyun’s phone as though he’d never encountered such technology before. After a second, he set his empty glass down on the windowsill behind him.
Taehyun stepped beside you. Warmth pressed along your side as he nudged you even nearer.
“What are you doing?” you muttered under your breath.
“Trying to see something,” he whispered back. Up close, his breath smelled distinctly of soju, although it was hard to tell whether he was already drunk or still on the way.
Meanwhile, Yeonjun finally unlocked the phone. The screen tilted in his hand, the restaurant lights smearing across the glass until the apps blurred together.
He opened the email and stared, perplexed, at the writing on the screen. What the fuck was DHL and why—
This wasn’t right.
Finally, he found the camera.
He stepped back until the windowsill pressed against his hip and raised the phone, deliberately not looking at either of you.
Taehyun smiled at once. Pinned to his side by the weight of his arm around your waist, you managed something polite enough to pass for a smile, too.
Yeonjun took one picture.
Then another.
Then several more in quick succession, his thumb tapping faster each time.
You hadn’t realised how rigid you were until the muscles in your upper back started to burn. Taehyun, on the other hand, looked perfectly at ease beside you.
The moment he started snickering, unable to hold it in any longer, you stepped away and fixed him with a disapproving look.
You had long suspected that prolonged exposure to Beomgyu had caused permanent damage to his brain. The two of them rubbed off on each other in all the worst ways sometimes.
Taehyun’s smile didn’t so much as twitch as he took the phone back from Yeonjun. “Thanks!”
He swiped through the photos until he reached the first one with you in it and exhaled dramatically. He no longer worked at the theatre, but he’d clearly retained the flair for performance.
“Ah.” He sighed. “We look good together.”
Lips pursed, you glanced down at his phone.
The overhead lights glinted off the screen. You lifted a hand to block the glare, your shoulder brushing against his.
“Although,” Taehyun added just as you leaned in, “you do look a bit like a police sketch. I mean that respectfully.”
You snorted, pinching the screen to zoom in on your faces. Your eyes were completely lifeless in the picture.
“No, yeah,” you said, “I look like I’m wanted in twenty-five countr—”
“You look beautiful,” Yeonjun said.
Taehyun’s head shot up, victorious.
Slowly, you looked up, too.
Yeonjun still stood by the windows, one hand absently twisting the golden ribbon tied around the white curtain. The restaurant tables reflected on the glass behind him.
He was looking at you.
For a moment, you couldn’t seem to do anything but look back.
Taehyun grinned.
“Do you two want a picture together?” he asked, very pleased with himself.
You dropped your gaze first. “That won’t be—”
“Yes,” Yeonjun said.
Taehyun’s smile spread.
“Alright,” he said, stepping back and gesturing between the two of you with his phone. “Go on, then.”
You glanced at him, contemplated briefly what life in prison would be like, then turned to Yeonjun. He shifted to one side, making room for you next to him.
You didn’t move.
“Come on,” Taehyun urged. “Haven’t got all day.”
“No?” You cut him a look. “You can go, then.”
He plastered on a kind smile.
“I’d rather stay,” he said. “Go on now, come on. It’s just a picture. Or is something the matter?”
You pressed your lips together and turned away.
The dull sound of your platform heels against the tiles seemed unnaturally loud as you crossed the space towards Yeonjun. By the time you stopped next to him, your heart had climbed so high into your throat that you couldn’t swallow.
Taehyun raised his phone. On his screen, you and Yeonjun looked like you were two presidential candidates forced to stand next to each other before an important debate.
“Wow.” He tsked. “This is extremely awkward.”
You scoffed, your thoughts tripping over fifteen different retorts.
Yeonjun cleared his throat next to you.
“I, personally,” he said, one eye blinking slower than the other, “think s’nice.”
Taehyun openly beamed. He was having the time of his life here tonight. Soobin and Reina should get engaged every day.
“I like the sound of that,” he said, taking a step closer. “Just—here. Let me help.”
He caught Yeonjun by the elbow and nudged him closer to you with enough force to make him stumble half a step. Then, laughing under his breath, he pried your wrist from your resistance and placed your hand against Yeonjun’s chest.
You couldn’t breathe.
“There,” Taehyun said, stepping back to admire his work. “Much better. Now closer.”
You moved perhaps half an inch.
Taehyun shook his head.
“Closer,” he repeated. And then, closer, closer, closer—three more times, until you could feel Yeonjun’s heartbeat against your own.
His cologne curled around you, the same one, reminiscent of citrus and wood. Of cold air. Of late-night drives in the rain. Low-lit kitchens and quiet music on the speakers.
“Smile now,” Taehyun instructed.
You tried.
The shutter clicked—once, twice. Then twice more.
You were painfully aware of every point of contact between you and Yeonjun: the warmth beneath your hand, the sound of his breath, the thumping inside your chest and right against it.
Finally, Taehyun lowered his phone.
You took a step back, hands automatically reaching for the zipper of your dress just to have something solid to hold. Cold air prickled across your arms.
Taehyun had already started flicking through the photos, his head cocked to one side as he studied each one. You moved back to his side.
No one spoke for a minute.
The pictures were awful.
They looked like they’d been taken years ago, sometime in university, even, before the distance and the silence and all that came after. They looked like nothing had happened at all. You could not look away.
Beside you, Taehyun glanced up from the screen.
Up until now, this had all been a laugh: push Yeonjun’s buttons here, see how red his ears get there. But now Yeonjun was standing by the window, looking at you and not the pictures, and Taehyun realised there was something here that he hadn’t accounted for.
He glanced back down at the pictures. At the way Yeonjun had angled himself toward you in every frame. The way your fingers rested easily over the white line of his shirt.
For months, Taehyun remembered, every time he’d tried to bring Yeonjun up around you, you shut it down straight away.
I don’t know what you’re on about.
We were just joking.
Nothing really happened.
Right, then.
People who meant nothing to each other did not fall back together that easily.
“Great,” you said finally. The slit of your dress pulled slightly against your thigh as you took a step back. You glanced quickly towards the bar. “Um—great pictures.”
Taehyun looked up at you.
His experiment, he thought, could give you one more push.
“Yeah?” he said lightly. “‘Cause we can have a re-do.”
You turned back to him. “No. This is good.”
“Hm.” He swiped through the pictures again, smiling. “Are these your first photos together?”
Yeonjun quietly shook his head.
Taehyun didn’t notice and glanced back up at you, expectant.
You cleared your throat. “No.”
He nodded, scrolling further back to the earlier photos of you and him.
“Well,” he said. “I reckon ours turned out better anyway.”
Your expression relaxed just a little.
“We look natural,” he continued, zooming in. Your eyes, he noted, hadn’t looked this empty with Yeonjun. He continued anyway, “and comfortable. Like we actually enjoy spending time together.”
By the window, Yeonjun visibly stiffened.
You clicked your tongue. “M’not enjoying spending time with you right now.”
“No?” Taehyun’s tone remained innocent. “Would you prefer I left you two alone, then?”
“Actually—”
“Yeonjun?” Taehyun finished, turning his head towards him.
“Yes,” Yeonjun said. “I would.”
Aha, Taehyun thought.
Just a bit more now, he was sure.
“Oh,” he said, sliding his phone back into his pocket. “Don’t mind me, then.” He flashed you a grin, all teeth and vice and everything nice. “I was just having such a nice time catching up with you. We should do it more often.”
“We saw each other on Thursday,” you said.
“And yet I already suffer tremendously.” He reached for your hand again. “Maybe we should—”
“Excuse me.” Yeonjun stepped forward abruptly, forcing you and Taehyun apart. “I need to use the restroom.”
He lingered between you for a heartbeat, his thoughts spinning and tripping over one another. Then he kept walking.
Your perfume still swam around him. Your hand had been on his chest less than five minutes ago. The space between you and Taehyun—
He needed a minute before his nervous system gave up on him for good.
You watched him disappear through the restroom doors. Beside you, Taehyun made a strangled sound suspiciously close to a laugh.
You turned slowly towards him. “You little snake.”
Taehyun exploded with all the amusement he’d been holding back, one hand comically braced against his stomach. His shoulders shook hard enough that nearby people started glancing over.
“You should see your face,” he wheezed. “I nearly—”
“What’re you trying to do here?”
Still spluttering, he managed to straighten up.
“Nothing at all,” he said. “Just celebrating.”
Before you could question him further, he sighed happily and leaned in to press a quick kiss to your cheek—purely to annoy you one last time.
It worked.
“Taehyun.”
Laughing again, he sauntered towards the rest of your friends.
At some point during the evening, the floral centrepiece on the main table had been replaced by an unstable tower of jelly shots—Soobin, Reina, Nara, and Beomgyu were currently involved in a fiercely competitive game of jelly shot Jenga (JJ, as Beomgyu called it three rounds ago and now refused to call it anything else).
Judging by the alarming redness of Soobin’s cheeks, Reina was currently winning.
Taehyun arrived just in time to watch her slide another shot from the middle row. The structure held.
She threw both arms into the air so abruptly that she nearly sent Soobin tumbling into the table.
“Yes!” she shouted.
“I’m a little scared of you,” Nara said.
Laughing, Reina caught Soobin by the front of his jacket and pulled him into a kiss that he accepted with immediate enthusiasm.
He looked a little dazed when she pulled away, thrilled by her victory and their engagement and all their friends being here. He leaned back into the table dreamily.
“Bin—” Nara’s voice died in a high-pitched squeal as Soobin’s sleeve brushed the side of the middle row.
The tower collapsed at once, shot glasses staining the formerly white tablecloth in beautiful shades of the rainbow. Screeches rang around the table: Soobin—it wasn’t my fault—SOOBIN—I DIDN’T MEAN TO—
Beomgyu was doubled over with laughter as he tried to salvage the bottom row. Taehyun assisted him by dutifully swallowing every shot he was handed.
Before anyone could recruit you into helping rebuild the disaster, you turned away, walking towards the coat rack. You rummaged through your handbag until your fingers found your cigarettes; the cardboard pack was slightly crushed at one corner. You grabbed it, found your lighter, and slipped towards the back exit.
Outside, the evening air was cool against your bare arms.
The alley beside the restaurant smelled of damp brick and smoke. Headlights swept past the opening of the street. Somewhere further down the block, a group of teenage boys shouted loudly at one another.
You inhaled deeply and held the cold in your lungs for a moment. Then you opened the pack of Camels.
It was New York that had reminded you of the old habit.
Everyone there seemed to smoke socially: outside bars, museums, small European restaurants (the performative ones, with dreadful lighting and cocktails that nearly put you in debt, and the genuine ones, with great food and small windows).
You’d grown fond of standing outside with strangers, white smoke curling through the conversations, sharing lighters, borrowing cigarettes. It gave your hands something to do and, more importantly, it provided a great excuse to leave any room.
Yeonjun did not know about this habit.
When he finally left the restroom—after splashing cold water on his face and staring at himself in the mirror for a minute—his eyes automatically began searching the restaurant for blue.
Nothing.
He scanned the room again.
Still nothing.
Concern prickled through him as he grabbed another whiskey from the bar and started circling the restaurant in search of a familiar face. Someone had to have seen you.
Glittering dresses, glasses of champagne, and those endless fucking balloons all blurred past him.
Finally, he spotted Kai by the windows.
Unfortunately for Yeonjun, Kai had already been briefed on Taehyun’s ongoing social experiment and had decided, out of scientific curiosity, to become complicit.
“She left,” Kai said. “With Taehyun, I think.”
In reality, Kai knew, Taehyun was getting a new tray of jelly shots with Beomgyu, hoping to rebuild their tower.
Yeonjun, of course, did not know this.
“Yes,” Kai said in response to his gobsmacked expression. “Like two minutes ago, maybe.”
Yeonjun scanned the restaurant a third time, faster now.
You definitely weren’t here.
And neither was Taehyun.
Something heavy dropped straight through his stomach.
“Right,” he muttered. “I’ve got to go.”
Kai watched, fascinated, as Yeonjun abruptly turned and crossed the restaurant. Still clutching his whiskey glass, he barged past groups of people and disappeared through the back exit.
That was very interesting.
Taehyun, Kai thought, sipping his champagne, was going to enjoy hearing that the breaking point for Yeonjun had apparently been the mere possibility of you leaving the party with someone else.
✦ • ─── AUGUST 29, 2026. 10 PM
Yeonjun found you the moment he shoved through the steel door.
The metal slammed against the wall hard enough to make you jump. Your cigarette nearly slipped from your fingers, scattering ash across your hand and the wet concrete at your feet.
You looked up.
Yeonjun stood beneath the flickering exit sign. It tinted his face a sickly green. His chest rose and fell beneath the open collar of his shirt, a little too fast. His hair had started coming loose; several dark strands now hung over his forehead.
For a second, he simply stared at you. The frigid air had slapped some clarity back into him, though not enough to undo the whiskey.
This, he concluded, was the smoking area, then.
“Y-you’re not here with—” He stopped himself with a long exhale. “Okay.”
You stared back at him, completely thrown.
Slowly, Yeonjun reached back and pulled the door shut behind him. The noise from the restaurant dulled immediately, leaving only the hiss of tyres somewhere beyond the alley and the quiet electric buzz of the exit sign.
He moved away from the door and leaned his back against the wall opposite you. The whiskey glass in his hand trembled slightly, the ice tapping against the edge.
His gaze dropped to the cigarette between your fingers; your second one.
“Didn’t know you still smoked,” he said, patting distractedly at his chest until his fingers found the inside pocket of his jacket.
You chose not to question why he’d followed you out here.
“I don’t,” you replied, bringing the cigarette to your lips.
He smiled. “Yeah?”
You exhaled toward the alley. “Yeah.”
“Cool,” he said, pulling out the crumpled red package of Marlboro from his pocket. “I do.”
He planted a cigarette between his lips and nodded towards the lighter you were still clutching in your hand. He had his own, but he couldn’t care less for it right now.
You flicked the lighter open.
Yeonjun leaned forward and misjudged the distance completely. He stumbled half a step closer, ending up nearly shoulder-to-shoulder with you against the wall. Whiskey sloshed dangerously in his glass. You took a cautious step aside.
“Sorry,” he murmured around the cigarette. “You mind?”
You held the flame up to him.
This time, he leaned in carefully. The cigarette tip glowed orange in the dark, briefly illuminating the soft curve of his mouth. His cheeks hollowed as he took a drag.
You lowered the lighter and looked away.
“Smart idea,” you said, nodding towards the glass in his hand, “bringing your drink here.”
He followed your gaze downwards as if he’d forgotten he still had the whiskey with him.
“Yeah. Oh—” He glanced back at you. “You want some?”
You hesitated for only a second. “Dry throat.”
He held the glass out immediately.
You took a large swig. The whiskey burned harshly going down, but settled warm in your stomach.
“Thanks,” you said, handing the glass back.
His hand curled around it without looking, fingers grazing yours as he steadied the cigarette against the rim and took another drag. His lips brushed the edge of the glass.
Smoke drifted from his mouth in a thin silver stream, dissolving into the dark.
You only realised you’d been staring when your heart forgot its rhythm.
Turning away, you crossed one arm over your waist and lifted the cigarette again. Smoke filtered down into your lungs, calm and almost soothing.
“You should drink more,” Yeonjun said, staring absently into his glass.
“Yeah?” you said. “As much as you did tonight?”
A tired smirk pulled at the corner of his lips.
He wasn’t going to defend himself. He felt one prolonged blink away from falling asleep against the wall.
For a while, the two of you stood in silence while the smoke drifted upward between you before dissipating into the cold night air. The brick wall was rough and chilly against your shoulders, but you didn’t move.
You weren’t standing nearly as close to Yeonjun as you had in front of Taehyun’s camera, but this was somehow worse. As if without the proof of his heartbeat against yours, you couldn’t be sure he was actually here.
“Taehyun was being an idiot back there, you know,” you found yourself saying. “He didn’t mean anything.”
Yeonjun exhaled smoke slowly through his mouth.
“I know,” he said.
You glanced at him again, taking in the exhaustion on his face. The night seemed to hang off his shoulders.
“What’s going on with you, then?” you asked.
He huffed out a small laugh.
“Several things,” he said, turning his head towards you. “I’m a machine. Got loads of ongoing processes and—”
“Yeonjun.” Your voice softened. “Be real right now.”
The smile faded from his face. “I am real.”
“So, what’s the matter with you? What’s with inserting yourself into every conversation I’m having?”
He scoffed, his shoulders tightening against the wall.
“What?” he said. “I can’t talk to people now?”
“You can,” you said evenly. “Why’s it always the same people I’m talking to, though?”
He took another drag from his cigarette and tipped his head back against the wall. His gaze wandered towards the narrow strip of night sky visible above the alley as he exhaled the smoke. No stars tonight; too many streetlights drowned them out.
“Just happened that way,” he said. “The restaurant’s smaller than it looks.”
“Right.”
You turned away from him and brought the cigarette back to your lips. The paper crackled as it burned.
“Did your grandad get you those sunflowers?” Yeonjun asked.
You blew out the smoke. “What?”
“The sunflowers you’ve got at home.” His eyes stayed fixed on the sky. “Are they from your grandad?”
Your brows pulled together. “Where is this coming from?”
“Just—just answer the question.”
“You’re drunk.”
“Are they from your grandad?”
You exhaled through your nose, smoke trailing with your breath. You didn’t know when he’d noticed the sunflowers.
“They are,” you said.
He dropped his gaze back to the pavement. “Okay.”
You stared at his hands for a second. His fingers relaxed around the glass.
“So nothing’s going on with you, then,” you said, tapping ash onto the pavement. “Just acting crazy for no reason.”
He scoffed around the cigarette, teeth sinking briefly into the filter.
“Well, why should I tell you if something was going on?” he said. “You don’t want to talk to me.”
“That—” You watched his hand tighten around the glass again. “Is that the problem?”
“I don’t know,” he said. Ash fell from the end of his cigarette in grey flakes, dropping over the toes of his loafers. “I’ve got too many problems to keep track of them all.”
“What—”
“I’ve decided,” he cut in, pushing himself off the wall, “I’m going to go back to the party now.”
You watched him stub out the cigarette against the bricks behind him. It hissed faintly as it died.
This was starting to feel surreal.
“Okay,” you said slowly. “And do what?”
He tossed the filter into the bin by the door.
The smile on his face was crooked and a little mean when he looked back at you. You knew it well.
“Well,” he said, stopping in front of you, “that’s none of your business now, is it?”
“It wouldn’t be,” you said through a stream of smoke, “if you weren’t interrupting every conversation I tried to have tonight.”
“M’not interrupting,” he said. “Just joining. S’called mingling.”
You scoffed. “You’re not mingling.”
“Yeah, I am,” he said, and the whiskey finally showed its face in the sluggish click of his tongue against his teeth. “And you don’t get to have a problem with it, because you don’t want me.”
Your fingers froze around the cigarette.
Yeonjun leaned heavily back against the wall beside you, as if the effort of the words had drained whatever energy he had left. He lifted the whiskey and took a long sip. It was mostly melted ice now.
You turned to face him fully. “What—what does that even mean?”
“It means m’going to go,” he said, but didn’t budge. His eyes flicked briefly towards the door beside him before snapping back to you. “Oh—or would you rather I wait, so you can go back first? Just in case, yeah? Have to be safe.”
You pressed your lips together tightly enough that your teeth clicked.
“We’re doing this shit now?” you said.
He shrugged. “Guess we are.”
Slowly, you dropped your cigarette onto the pavement and crushed it beneath your heel before tossing the remains into the bin. You brushed your palms together.
“Okay.” You met his eyes. “You can go back first. Just don’t make tonight worse for yourself than it already is.”
“Oh, worse, yeah.” He shifted, shoulder resting against the wall, angled towards you. “How d’you reckon I could make it worse?”
You clicked your tongue and crossed your arms over your chest.
“If you have to ask that,” you said, “then you clearly already know.”
A flicker of satisfaction crossed his face. He knew you wouldn’t answer him properly.
He took another sip from his glass.
“No, actually,” he said. Everything inside him was burning. “S’the whole point of asking a question. It implies not knowing the answer.”
“Okay, wise-ass. How much have you had to drink tonight?”
He turned his head, grinning. “If you have to ask that, then you clearly already know.”
You rolled your eyes and turned away from him. “I see we’re still twelve.”
“Thirteen and a half now,” he replied. “Been over a year since we were last out together.”
The tightness in your chest spread lower, frigid along your spine.
“Has it?” you said.
He glanced at you without lifting his head from the wall. “I’m offended you wouldn’t remember.”
“Why would I remember a bet we had for two weeks?”
His gaze dropped to the whiskey glass hanging loosely from his hand. The green light from the exit sign shimmered weakly across the surface, catching on the half-melted ice cubes.
For a moment, he just watched them swirl.
Then, quieter:
“Was that all there was, then?”
The silence that followed landed like a weight on your shoulders. It took you a moment to realise there wasn’t anyone else around to answer him for you.
“You said so,” you replied, tightening your grip around yourself.
Yeonjun sniffled.
“I didn’t mean that,” he said—out loud, for the first time.
You scoffed so quickly, it nearly startled him.
“Yeah?” you said. “Did that only take you a year and a half to figure out, then?”
“No.” His voice dropped. “I knew I didn’t mean it the moment I said it.”
“Then why’d you say it?”
You asked the question, but your body was already preparing to leave. Your weight shifted, one knee bent slightly. Your eyes darted towards the door once, then once more.
Yeonjun wished he’d drunk more so he wouldn’t have noticed.
“Are you going to let me explain properly,” he asked, “or do you just want a quick answer so you can keep hating me?”
You watched him for a long moment after that: the darkness in his eyes, the tight set of his jaw, the mess of his hair. Your hands dropped to your sides.
He didn’t know, then, that there was very little he could say that would actually make you hate him.
You looked away towards the mouth of the alley and waited for a car to drive by so you could breathe again.
“I don’t hate you,” you said.
Yeonjun let out a slow breath. He wasn’t hearing you.
“Sure feels like you do,” he mumbled.
Above you, the exit sign seemed to buzz louder.
“I wish I did,” you said.
Yeonjun looked up.
The alcohol must’ve dissolved whatever sense he still possessed, because your words seemed to hit him hard enough to knock his heartbeat into a painfully familiar rhythm.
Now he heard you.
“W-what does that mean, then?” he asked.
You shook your head once. “Means you should go back in. Mingle.”
“No.”
He pushed himself off the wall too quickly and had to steady his balance before he lowered the whiskey glass carefully onto the pavement. Then he took a step closer.
“Explain,” he said. “You don’t hate me?”
You straightened instinctively against the wall, startled by the proximity.
“No,” you said.
“Why not?”
He suspected that might have been a stupid question. And still, his eyes moved slowly between yours, searching your face for the answer. There was nothing secretive left in him tonight; he’d drowned his restraint in the whiskey.
He wanted to know what he was to you now.
Wanted to be close to you.
Wanted you.
“Hating you,” you said, forcing yourself to hold his gaze, “would mean I care about you.”
Yeonjun felt his stomach twist.
He’d heard you say this before: in the dark of his wardrobe room, surrounded by hangers of his clothes and hardly able to take a breath.
“Right,” he murmured, and the darkness in his eyes seemed to grow. “You don’t care.”
The alley around you suddenly felt much too small.
“Right,” you echoed.
“Mm.” He nodded once, eyes still fixed on yours. “Still want to jump out of a window every time I open my mouth, yeah?”
Your breath caught at the question. You could almost feel the plywood backing of his wardrobe against your spine again. Could almost smell the old wood.
“Sometimes,” you said.
His lips twitched.
“Sometimes,” he repeated. A slow smile touched his lips. “That’s better. I like that you’re honest.”
“Mhmm. I’ve never lied to you.”
Surprise flashed in his eyes. You were handing his words back to him.
He remembered you calling him performative for saying that to you back then. Remembered the quiet night and the way you refused to look at him, no matter how much he’d wanted you to. Remembered how desperately he’d hoped you’d believe him then. How desperately he hoped for it now.
The whiskey churned in his stomach.
He moved half a step closer before he realised he was doing it.
“You’re lying to me right now,” he said quietly.
You could hear your pulse in your ears. “I’m not.”
“You are.” He was close enough for your vision to blur around him. “You do care.”
Shivers raced down your spine, so sudden that they almost hurt.
Yeonjun waited. He needed you to admit that you cared. Needed proof that what you said wasn’t true.
You needed it to be true.
When you didn’t speak, he raised one hand. His fingers brushed the ends of your hair, cautious in case you’d shove him away. The touch was light enough that you barely felt it, yet every nerve ending inside you seemed to focus there anyway.
Gently, he swept your hair over your shoulder, exposing the side of your neck to the cool night air.
He really liked your hair tonight.
Really liked that the rest of the alleyway swirled around him, but you stayed completely still.
“S’why you’re out here now,” he murmured. “Asking me what’s the matter with me.” He pulled back just enough to look at your face again. “Because you care.”
“I care,” you replied, breathless, “about the way you’re making us look in front of everyone.”
He tilted his head slightly. “And how am I making us look?”
“Bad.”
“Mm.” He leaned closer again. The toes of his shoes nudged the platform of your heels. “Why?”
His fingertips brushed your face before you could answer, a little cold and feather-light against your skin. Your shoulders pressed harder against the wall behind you.
You didn’t speak.
“Why am I making us look bad, love?” he repeated softly.
Your lungs tightened around the next breath.
Then his palm settled fully against the side of your face, devastatingly familiar.
Your eyes closed before you meant them to.
His thumb brushed over your cheek.
You blinked your eyes open again.
“You’re making it look,” you whispered, “like there’s something here.”
“Hmm.” He was close enough now that the warmth of every word reached your skin before the meaning did. “And there’s nothing here, yeah?”
There was nothing here: every inhale brought his chest against yours. Every exhale brought his mouth closer.
You squeezed your eyes shut again and took a breath.
The alleyway wrapped around you. Cars drifted by on the street. The exit sign pulsed loudly overhead. His cologne clung to the smoke in the air.
It was cold here.
The bricks were rough against your spine.
Before your mind could catch up to you, you pushed yourself off the wall and kissed him.
Yeonjun exhaled against your mouth, nearly choking as he caught your lips between his. His hand tightened at your jaw, still soft, but firm enough to hold you there. To tell you, wordlessly and desperately, not to pull away too soon.
His lips were soft and faintly bitter with smoke.
It was new, this taste of him. You didn’t like not knowing it.
Your hands caught instinctively in the lapels of his jacket, fingers tightening in the fabric as his shoulders loosened under your touch. He sighed against your mouth, emptying his lungs completely so he could breathe you in instead.
Your gloss was still sweet, still tasting faintly of cherry.
He hoped it would haunt him forever.
He tilted your head back to deepen the kiss—so slowly that you felt every moment of it: the parting of his lips, the slight tremor when you pulled closer.
Your fingers found the back of his neck and slid upwards into the strands of his hair. He made a small sound when you tugged lightly.
It went straight through you.
His other hand slid down to your waist, pulling you away from the wall and into him until your balance disappeared into the kiss. Your grip on his jacket tightened; your breath sped up.
“D’you care about me?” he murmured against your lips.
Your response came as a muffled breath, fingers tightening in his hair.
“Tell me,” he whispered, the words barely coherent. “Tell me you care.”
“I care.”
The kiss changed at once; his mouth moved against yours faster, rough with want. It stole the breath straight from your lungs.
His grip tightened around you. He could feel the texture of your dress against his palm, could feel the heat of your skin when his fingers brushed the cutouts on the sides of your waist.
He broke the kiss with a sharp, helpless gasp.
He was so fucking drunk.
“Fuck,” he whispered. His forehead dropped against yours. His lungs felt hollow, but his chest—his chest was so full. “Fuck, fuck, fu—”
“I’m sorry—”
“No.” Both of his hands framed your face instantly. “Fuck, baby, no—” He pressed his lips to yours again. “No.” And again. “Not sorry.” And again. “Not sorry at all.”
Each kiss seemed to carry something different: regret and relief, questions he wanted to ask you, promises you wouldn’t let him make.
You were drowning in the warmth of his mouth, in the solid press of his chest against yours. In the unbearable ease with which your body remembered him.
The tension softened, but your mouths still lingered together in small, quiet touches.
One more kiss.
Another.
A pause that should’ve been the end of it.
Then one more kiss anyway.
And another—
When you finally pulled apart, neither of you could breathe properly.
Yeonjun stayed close enough for the taste of his whiskey to linger on your tongue. Close enough that, if you leaned forward even slightly, you could kiss him again.
“That—” You reached up to wipe your smudged gloss from the corner of his lips with your thumb. He wished you’d left it there. “T-that shouldn’t have happened.”
Something painful flickered in his eyes.
He smiled, but that only made him look sadder.
Slowly, he stepped back. His hands slid down your arms, fingers lingering on your skin for a moment longer before falling away.
“Of course,” he said.
“I mean it.”
“I know you do, love.”
He took another step back and turned away, dragging a hand across his face as he tried to pull himself back together. You watched the line of his shoulders for a minute, your lungs unconsciously syncing to the rhythm of his breathing.
Then you dropped your gaze to the pavement instead. There were cigarette burn stains across the concrete, dark little circles.
“I-I’m going to go,” you said. “And we—we shouldn’t talk again tonight.”
He didn’t move.
A car drove past the alley.
You swallowed hard. “I need verbal agreement from you.”
Yeonjun shut his eyes.
You’d always recovered faster than him. Always been better at drawing lines and standing behind them.
“We won’t talk again tonight,” he said at last, still facing away from you.
The alley felt unstable around him now. If he looked back, if he saw your face again, he knew he’d drag you against him and start this all over again.
“Okay.” You pushed yourself off the wall. “That’s good.”
You moved silently enough that he barely heard you cross to the door. The hinges creaked when you pulled it open.
“I missed this, though,” he said before he could stop himself.
The door stopped moving.
Yeonjun didn’t turn, but he felt you freeze behind him all the same.
He pictured you standing in the doorway, one hand still on the handle, eyes lowered, fighting the same expression you’d worn yesterday in the stairwell.
That would haunt him forever, too.
“Don’t,” you whispered. It was a plea. “I—I’m going.”
The door shut behind you.
Yeonjun took a long, shuddering breath. He dug his lighter from his back pocket. It was nearly empty.
He needed another two cigarettes before he could force himself to go back inside.
✦ • ─── AUGUST 29, 2026. 11:30 PM
Soon, people began to leave the party in small groups, lingering in the doorway of the restaurant with jackets slung over their arms, hugging each other goodbye three times before actually parting. Laughter kept spilling out onto the pavement. Every few minutes, someone suggested, ‘one more for the road, yeah?’
You and Yeonjun were both still here.
Since coming back inside, neither of you had looked directly at the other.
Yeonjun, who had technically honoured his promise not to speak to you again tonight, kept checking the time on his phone to see exactly when tonight would finally be over.
Most of the pleasant whiskey buzz had already started wearing off. Now he was left with a dull headache pressing at the back of his skull.
While Reina and Soobin stood near the entrance, thanking people for coming, you quietly began tidying the remnants of the evening so they’d have less to deal with later.
Before long, Taehyun and Nara showed up to help.
The three of you moved easily around each other through the half-empty restaurant, stacking scattered plates, gathering abandoned champagne flutes, rescuing forgotten handbags and suspicious flash drives from underneath tables.
Every now and then, one of you would laugh at something, and the other two would soon join in.
The sound irritated Yeonjun instantly.
He wanted to be part of it.
He stood near the back of the room with a half-empty whiskey glass and spent nearly a full minute debating whether helping you clean would count as breaking the agreement between you.
Eventually, he decided it wouldn’t, as long as he didn’t speak.
Twenty more minutes until midnight.
“We used to stay out until four in the morning at least,” Nara remarked as Yeonjun silently took a stack of empty plates from her hands. “Is this us getting old?”
“It’s not,” Soobin called from the doorway. He clapped one of his old school friends on the shoulder before turning back inside. “The restaurant has working hours, s’all.”
“And you didn’t think about the after-party?” Nara asked.
“I think they did,” Taehyun cut in before Soobin could answer. “We’re just not invited.”
Behind you, Reina succumbed to giggles, leaning against Soobin’s shoulder while he fought to suppress his grin. She swayed lightly in her heels.
Seventeen more minutes, Yeonjun thought. And he can make a comment, too.
Beomgyu and Kai returned from the restroom and were dispatched, at once, to stack chairs while the rest of you finished clearing the dishes.
Finally, after apologising to the exhausted staff for staying late, all eight of you stepped outside. A few of the guests were still here. Apparently, there weren’t enough taxis in the city for everyone.
Phones glowed across the pavement. Somewhere farther down the street, a man argued with an Uber driver in a language you didn’t recognise, but seemed to understand perfectly. His hands flailed wildly in the direction of the intersection up ahead.
Reina and Soobin had planned in advance and ordered a taxi half an hour ago.
It arrived first.
The two of them climbed into it to raucous applause and dramatic cheers from the pavement, as if they were off for their honeymoon rather than just heading home. Fully committing to the performance, Reina rolled down the window and gave everyone a graceful royal wave.
You laughed.
They looked radiant tonight. You couldn’t stop watching them.
A few steps away, Yeonjun couldn’t stop watching you.
Another five minutes later, an Uber rolled across the street, the headlights washing everyone’s jackets silver-white for a moment.
You checked the license plate against your phone and reached for the back door.
“Bye!” Taehyun called after you.
“Text me when you get home,” Nara added automatically. Despite all her complaints about the night ending, she sounded ready to curl up and fall asleep right there on the curb.
You gave them both a wave and ducked into the backseat.
The sight of your hand disappearing behind the edge of the door made something inside Yeonjun drop hard enough to leave him briefly weightless.
All he remembered was taking a breath.
“Hello,” you said to the driver, reaching back to pull the door shut—only for it to jerk backwards.
Yeonjun climbed into the backseat, nudging you to a side, and slammed the door shut.
You stared at him. “W-what the f—”
“105 Dove Road,” he told the driver. “Thank you.”
Then, as though none of this was remotely unhinged behaviour, he turned towards the window and gave someone outside the restaurant a lazy little wave. Nara was visibly staring.
The Uber driver watched Yeonjun through the rear-view mirror for a very long second.
“Miss,” he said cautiously, his eyes shifting towards you, “is that the right address?”
Your surprise doubled at his question. Not many men bothered to check in with a woman when another man answered for her.
You glanced sideways at Yeonjun’s expectant, utterly unashamed eyes.
Sighing, you scooched across the backseat towards the opposite window and gave the driver an apologetic nod. It wasn’t his fault Yeonjun was insane.
“Yes,” you said. “He’s my neighbour.”
“Okay.” The driver shrugged easily. “Just making sure.”
“Thank you. I really appreciate it.”
He nodded and carefully backed away from the curb, manoeuvring around another Uber that Nara was currently attempting to climb into while still laughing at something Bemgyu was saying through the open door. He was pointing directly at your car.
Behind them, Kai had his phone out and seemed to be taking pictures of you.
This was great.
For a moment, you considered blocking everyone in your contacts.
As the Uber slid into dwindling Saturday night traffic, Yeonjun closed his eyes and sank deeper into the seat, letting his head fall back against the headrest. You kept your eyes fixed on the window instead of him, watching the streets smear past in streaks of neon.
He hummed beside you. “Warm here.”
You gritted your teeth.
“What did I tell you we wouldn’t do again?” you asked, trying not to let your voice carry to the front of the car.
Yeonjun gathered his hands on his lap. “We wouldn’t talk tonight.”
“Right,” you said. “And what are we doing?”
He cracked one eye open.
Ignoring the slow spin of his surroundings, he dug his phone out of his pocket and heaved it as though it weighed several kilograms. The screen lit his face with a ghostly glow.
“It’s technically tomorrow,” he mumbled, holding the phone vaguely in your direction.
His lockscreen showed 12:12 AM.
His arm dropped again, head thunking softly against the seat. You stared at him for a second.
“I’m starting to think you really are unwell,” you informed him.
A faint smile appeared on the corner of his lips. “We live in the same building.”
“That is not why you got into my car.”
Yeonjun opened his eyes and slowly rolled his head towards you.
“No?” he said softly. “Tell me why, then.”
Clenching your jaw, you looked back out the window. Further away from the city centre, most of the shops had gone dark. A pair of drunk men stumbled past a deli with their arms slung around each other’s shoulders.
“You wanted everyone to see it.” Irritation sharpened your voice. You wished you’d drunk more tonight. “Wanted to send everyone some message. Like you’re marking your fucking territ—”
“No,” he said, eyes sliding shut again. “S’actually because you said we shouldn’t talk again tonight. And then we didn’t, even though you were right there, and now I feel a little bit like m’dying. S’all.”
A violent shiver snaked down your spine.
“That’s your future hangover,” you said.
“No.” His lips twitched slightly. “S’just you.”
He heard you draw a sharp breath and opened his eyes to find that you’d closed yours.
When you eventually looked back at him and found him already watching you, you still didn’t speak.
“I’m sorry,” he blurted. “I can’t—I shouldn’t be saying shit like this. S’not your fault we ended up here anyway. I’m the one who fucked up and—”
“Yeonjun.”
It didn’t sound like a demand for him to stop speaking.
He didn’t know what it sounded like.
“I—” He swallowed and dragged a hand roughly down his face. The tips of his fingers felt like ice against his cheeks. “Right now, I’m really drunk.”
He paused, then frowned.
That wasn’t right. He’d developed a solid alcohol tolerance over the last year, but he’d transcended even that tonight. He seemed to have acquired some sort of higher spiritual condition now, available only to those courageous enough to drink their weight in liquor.
His head felt detachable.
Oh—a bit like Eeyore’s tail, he remembered. He’d had a plushie as a kid. The Velcro on the tail had worn out, and he constantly worried he’d drop it in some shop and lose it forever.
A fresh wave of horror washed over him – what, then, if that happened to his head?
“You’ve been drunk the whole night,” you said when he didn’t add anything else.
He shook his head weakly against the headrest—it hadn’t detached yet, thank God—but didn’t say anything else.
Outside, the city darkened further. The pavements emptied street by street. The Uber passed cafés with shuttered windows, dark office buildings, and lonely bus stops bathed in the cold glow of streetlights.
Yeonjun watched your reflection in the glass of the window.
Even in this state, he could tell that the conversation was ending again, and there was no promise of it starting again tomorrow. Or the day after.
Actually, maybe the real conversation between you had ended a long time ago. Maybe it ended that day in grad school.
Everything since then had just been coincidence, like you said.
Just circumstances.
And Violet.
God, he missed Violet.
She was probably sprawled across the middle of his bed by now. She’d probably try to suffocate him in his sleep later for abandoning her all evening, and to be fair, he thought he deserved it.
“I…” He hesitated, swallowing the bitter taste in his mouth. “C-could you stay for a minute after we get back? I want to talk to you.”
The shadows across your face shifted in the passing streetlights.
“Think we’ve talked enough for one night,” you said.
“Please.”
You continued to watch the city rush past the window.
Quietly, you found yourself thinking of your dream again. Thinking of the way the blue car—was that Yeonjun’s dead Nissan?—had kept passing you on the road. How relieved you’d felt to see it again.
You thought you knew better than to believe in dreams.
Carefully, you turned your gaze to the floor of the car. You could see Yeonjun in your peripheral vision, leaning back against the seat. He was still watching you.
“Fine,” you said at last.
You didn’t know if you knew better.
✦ • ─── AUGUST 30, 2026. 12:45 AM
When the driver finally stopped outside your building, you made sure to leave a significantly larger tip than you’d planned—partly because he’d treated you like an actual human being, but mostly because he’d been forced to listen to two people spiral for about half an hour, and no one deserved that on a Saturday night.
Yeonjun climbed out first.
You followed more slowly, smoothing your dress once your heels hit the pavement. The night air was damp against your skin, cool enough to sting where your pulse still raced. You were very tired.
For a moment after the door shut, the two of you stood beneath the streetlights and watched the Uber disappear down the street.
The silence that followed felt old.
It reminded you of grad school again. Of the long nights outside your building with Yeonjun standing near the entrance, his hands buried in his pockets, while neither of you looked for a reason to say goodbye.
You remembered not wanting to disturb Reina by bringing him upstairs. Remembered how, even then, wanting him that much had felt unsafe.
You wondered whether one day you’d stop remembering.
“Look,” Yeonjun started with a ragged sigh. “Maybe I did get into that car with you to send a message.”
Your gaze flicked to him.
“But not to them,” he added. “To you.”
Wind moved through the empty street, stirring the birch trees lining the pavement. Their leaves whispered overhead.
You knew you shouldn’t ask the next question.
You’d spent over a year closing those doors inside you, stacking anger against them. Pride against them. Grief. Anything to keep them from opening again.
But some exhausted part of you seemed to have quietly resigned itself to the fact that this was going to hurt regardless of whether they opened or not.
“What message?” you asked.
Yeonjun stared at the cracks in the pavement under his loafers. There was still some ash on the left one.
“I don’t want to not talk to you anymore,” he said, digging his nails into his palm to force the street to steady around him. “Or only run into you in the lobby sometimes. Or just—just be a neighbour to you. I c—I can’t do that with you.”
You felt heat flare under your skin: at the back of your neck and on the side of your face and across your lips. Everywhere he’d touched you tonight, as though he’d left invisible marks that he could trigger just with his voice.
They burned at the thought that you wouldn’t talk anymore.
That you would only run into each other sometimes.
That you would only be neighbours.
“I can’t do that with you, either,” you said, turning your gaze towards the dark building across the street. Only a few windows still glowed.
Yeonjun watched you, holding his breath.
Hope was a very dangerous thing to hand him; he didn’t know how to hold it.
“So what does that mean?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” you admitted, fingers clutching the fabric of your dress. “Maybe it means we shouldn’t talk at all anymore.”
He shook his head, stubborn even drunk. The street tilted around him and bent backwards. He stumbled slightly and caught himself against the nearest lamppost, his shoes clattering against the metal.
“No,” he said. “That—that can’t be what it means.”
He looked pale under the feeble yellow of the streetlight. Looked like he’d stay here until he became part of the lamppost.
“Why not?” you said.
He steadied himself against the pole, fingers tightening around the freezing metal. “Because it’s you and me.”
“So?”
“So we’ve always been talking.”
Your gaze drifted down to the base of the lamppost. “Much good it’s done us.”
Horribly, he realised that was true.
He had nothing concrete to offer you to prove that talking to him was worth the effort.
He’d failed to prove to you he was a good boyfriend back in grad school. Failed to tell you what mattered when it mattered. Failed at everything he’d tried.
And he’d never taken himself for much of an optimist, yet, despite all of that, he still stood here, in the cold, with tired eyes and whiskey for blood, his shoulders slumped beneath his suit jacket, looking at you like he still intended to get everything right this time.
It was you.
It had always been you.
He knew he’d carry that around with him for the rest of his life, whether you wanted him to or not.
“That can—everything can change,” he said.
He couldn’t tell whether the nausea twisting his guts came from the alcohol or the look in your eyes. Maybe both.
“It shouldn’t,” you said.
“Why not?”
“Because it—” You stopped yourself with a sharp exhale and looked down at the stubborn grass forcing its way through the cracks in the pavement. When you spoke again, your voice had gone quieter. “We can’t do this again, I told you. I’m sorry about what happened toni—”
“No.” The force of his interruption snapped your gaze back to him. “Don’t apologise for anything that happened tonight.”
You held his gaze for a second before looking away again. “I shouldn’t have kissed you.”
“I wanted you to.”
The more he spoke, the less you seemed to move.
He let go of the lamppost, but didn’t dare step closer.
“That doesn’t make it better,” you said.
“Why not?”
You shook your head. The pins in your hair had started digging into your scalp, and every tiny movement hurt. You didn’t have many more why nots left in you.
“We can’t do that again,” you said.
“But we—we’re not doing that again,” he argued. “It’s different now.”
“It’s not, though. It’s still us. Nothing’s different.”
“But you won’t even let me talk to you.” Agitation sharpened his words now; he’d stopped trying to soften them. “So how can you know that?”
Your fingers pressed into fists. “We’ve talked enou—”
“No, we haven’t! We never talked about what we were—what we were doin—”
“Well, whose fault is that, then?” Your voice cracked through the empty street. You looked at him with eyes bright enough to burn. “I wanted to talk to you! I fucking—I tried to talk to you. Back in grad school, I tried. Twice. Both times, you walked away without explaining shit. ‘Things were happening.’” You scoffed. “Fuck that. Now you want to talk? Now, over a year later, you want to fucking talk?”
“I want to explain why it took so long,” he said quickly. “I—”
“No,” you cut through him. “No, we’re not doing that. You think it—think I’m fine, yeah? Said I’d forget about you. Why wouldn’t I? I’ve never been bothered by people leaving, right? Like water off my back, every single time.” Your chest shuddered as you tried to take a breath. “We—no. No, that’s it. I—I’m not doing that again with you. I can’t.”
You turned away from him.
Yeonjun stared at the back of your dress in silence. The vivid blue looked lighter beneath the streetlights. He watched the fabric shift with each wild breath you tried to tame.
He hadn’t been thinking about your mother when he’d walked away in grad school. He’d been thinking about his own.
And it hit him, finally, that you had cared about him far more deeply than he’d ever allowed himself to believe. And he had hurt you far worse than he’d understood.
He should’ve known.
He should’ve fucking known.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
A muscle jumped faintly beneath your shoulder blades. “Go home, Jun.”
The nickname knocked against him with frightening force.
“It’s cold,” you added. “You need to sleep this off.”
Yeonjun closed his eyes. He’d already got used to the dizziness and the nausea. The real problem now was the sharp pressure around his heart.
Maybe he’d drunk enough to damage something important. Or maybe it was the broken pieces, finding new ways to break again.
“I’m—I really am sorry,” he whispered.
“I know.”
You still didn’t turn around.
He didn’t move.
“Go inside, Yeonjun,” you said again. “S’cold.”
There was a slight shudder in your voice that seemed to trail down your whole body.
Swallowing, Yeonjun shrugged out of his jacket. The cold hit him instantly through the thin white shirt beneath, but he barely reacted.
He walked towards you, keeping his gaze ahead to ignore the dizzying sway of the pavement beneath him. Taking a deep breath, he lowered the jacket over your shoulders, the fabric still warm from the heat of his body.
Your breath caught in your throat all over again.
His hands rested on your shoulders for a second. Then he stepped back.
Immediately, you were swathed in him again: smoke, whiskey, the bergamot of his cologne, even traces of your own perfume. You gathered the collar of the jacket tightly in your hand and finally turned towards the building.
The doors groaned as you pulled them open. You glanced back at him, waiting.
Yeonjun lowered his gaze and gave a small nod before following you into the lobby.
I think it's time for me to not gatekeep this anymore LIKE WHO SAID BEOMGYU CANT MANSPREAD
oh he sure can, but for some reason he just won’t.
maybe because beomgyu likes his dominance subtle, hidden in lingering touches and shared glances that last a little too long.
behind closed doors, you always end up between his legs, his hand resting lazily on your thigh while he looks at you like he already knows exactly what you’ll do for him. he never needs to be loud about it, never needs to force anything— he just looks at you and you fold so easily for him.
no one else gets to see it, and that’s what makes it feel so intimate. it’s rare, but it’s there, always has been.
this clip is the cherry on top to ur ask, darling!!!! omg i might write a longer version after my exams but for now give me ur prayers hahah
dilf 최연준 𝓍 fem reader ˖ ꯭𓂋 smut, sugar relationship, vacation ༢ pretty heavy on the age gap, 16 year gap, dilf yeonjun, smut, size diff kink, spit, choking, brat taming, he gets off on spoiling, he also gets off on scent and perfume, fingering and mirror sex, dirty talk, lots of pet names, he’s 36, a bit of jealousy from both, a trip to hawaii, (barely) underage drinking, happy trail mention, unprotected sex, reader rlly is spoiled, financial domination
ash⦂ i rlly just have been in a dilf kick in my soul lately so i hope everybody’s on the same page or else that would be reaaaaal awkward… anyway, this is so fun and tropical and i hope everyone is ready for some summer!! this is a leftover from last year’s summer event so thankfully it’s with us finally >_<
Choi Yeonjun is a man. In a broad pair of shoulders, the sharp coffee and black pepper that clings to his skin in lingering at the warm pulse points when you press your face there, and how he keeps himself put together in clothes without the wrinkles of a twice-worn wrinkled thing off the carpet like the guys your age, who you could ask if they do exactly that and they would shrug and tell you that they did. Not Yeonjun, though. None of that was what truly set him apart, or put that stamp of ratified man on his integrity.
That was in the opening doors for you. He insists on it. He doesn't want your hands on any car door handles, only wants to hear the click of the heels bought on his dime hitting the ground when you step out after him. And he wasn't afraid to tell you it, either. It was in how he took the burden of ordering for you at the diners he took you, with the warm crystal lights that hung low over your table as he'd thumb the back of your hand. In how that card of his was yours, too.
You were sitting in bed after a thorough, all brand new, skincare routine, when he proposed the flight to Hawaii. A face mask seeped into your skin as you gawked into the glow of the screen. If he had only see your face. He tells you it's the best part.
11:00pm [Yeonjun]: We have a suite booked in O'ahu for this weekend. Do you need anything for it, baby?
11:00pm [Yeonjun]: Pack light, you'll be coming home with more than you came.
11:01pm [Yeonjun]: How does that sound?
It was that part that made your stomach twist up like it was in there jump-roping. It always is the way he talks to you; because, what kind of question is that? He knew exactly how it sounded. His texting mannerisms scream older, succinct with an air of a man who knows exactly how off-guard this all still leaves you. He is so cruel, in the most savory way. It has long since been decided that men age like wine. They sit on a shelf and mature, until they're more rich and deep. Or at least until they've had their fun, their money, and are left with an itch to funnel it all into making something bloom pretty at his attention and spoiling.
Honolulu is so much alike the post cards, and in the same vein, so much different. It's a bustling metropolis with buildings that scrape the turquoise sky. The beach is within walking distance from your hotel, and that is just as peppered with tourists in cover-ups they probably bought right from the ABC store along the strip.
"Waikiki looks nothing like I thought it did," you say. A piña colada daiquiri sweats in your hand under the thick sun. It's hot here. Not like the bone dry heat of summer back at home, but instead it's thick on your skin like a layer of salt off the breeze. You fiddle with the tropical ribbons of your bikini bottoms at the swell of your hip. Lazy and pampered, and nobody could deny it. You wouldn't.
With his arms tucked behind his head on a tanning chair adjacent to yours, he grins. "What did you think it was?" He runs his finger around the rim of his own drink. He'd made you sip off it and found the wrinkle of your nose at the burn humorous.
Not full on city with the same beeping cars and traffic as home, perhaps. Your shoulders have long since turned pink. Your cheeks, a radiant burn to match. It tugs every time your face moves like the skin's just a bit too tight. "Like… When you think of Hawaii, the first thing you think of. That." It's about time you roast your other side. Or else you'll be glowing red on your front and springtime pale at the back. The cheeky bottoms of your bikini's ridden up with all your lounging, the soft spot where your ass meets thigh turned up this way around. Yeonjun doesn't look away when you catch him getting an eyeful. "That guy didn't even ID me." The spot where your nose presses to your pillow of crossed arms smells like sweat and coconutty sunscreen.
"He's not gonna ask you while I'm there," Yeonjun says. He holds one hand up like a visor over his eyes, looking at you under it. The shirt he'd changed into as soon as you hit the room There's a healthy glow set deep in his skin that leads you to suspect that, even if this is the first time he's taken you on a pretty penny vacation, it's not his first. It's a deep, bronze that speaks of a tan that's built on. You're not his first sugar baby. That's something you've come to terms with. It gets a little easier with a swipe of the card.
"Why…?"
Thumbing the crease of your bottom, he supplies his answer with a hum. "It's his job to sell it. This whole city loves a dollar bill." Lifting his own glass, he adds, "And that kid's not trying to offend me by asking."
That kid. A guy somewhere near your age, give or take. It's always those little things that send a furious, brilliant storm of butterflies through your belly. The little ways he reminds you exactly what he is. They never come in grand gestures. More in the way he just moves through the world, and how it bends around his shape to meet him. He didn't ask the associates in the luxury stores he takes you shopping in to perk up and run to serve him, knowing he'll buy. They just do it.
A handful of girls three rows down laugh with one another over the holistic sound of the resort pools. Lifeguards, kids here on vacation with parents glad they're cannon-balling into the pools and bothering the group of twenty-somethings with palms over the mouth of their tumbler glasses to save themselves the misery of discovering how teal, chlorine water mixed with margarita. Sweat has glued your cheek to where it squishes against your upper arm. You keep your head oriented to watch him. "But can't they get in trouble for that?" Talking comes difficult. The heat makes you too lazy. You can hardly even summon the words.
Smiling at that, he answers, "If they get caught, yeah." The muscles dormant in his biceps ripple as he crosses his arms about his chest. He didn't hit the gym; not that you knew of. But he maintains that like he does. Another thing that seems to just come with the whole matured, better, older man package.
That felt topically ironic. Especially considering that you never do intend to be caught. You dread the thought so hard that you've learned to banish it the moment it springs up. It's easier this way. And way more fun. It's not like you never thought about it; toeing the line in the sand without ever really letting the tide rush in on you. "This stuff is so sweet. Should I have another one?"
That gets a kick out of him. "Yeah? You like it?" Yeonjun says. There's a languor dripping off the way he does, sticky like the air. "That's because it's rum, babygirl. All sugar."
Your throat goes all tight. Fumbling after words, you quickly say, "It taste like a smoothie."
"That's why you don't need another one." He laughs. "It hits you faster than you think it will. Especially with the heat." Then, picking up the drink, he drinks down what you hadn't gotten to you. Those expressive brows twist. "Shit, that's sweet."
You only smile and watch him cross his arms back. They look fit to throw you any which way, or even to carry all the bags he would snatch from you before you even got to try and carry yourself. "Okay, it's not that sweet."
Not in any hurry, never in any hurry, he gets that look on his face that you've come to know to mean that he's guiding the conversation a different way. He corrals you so easily that you tend to not even notice that you're on the next topic. He takes control of any conversation with such ease. On your first date, you had been a shaking, shy thing sat across from him. It didn't matter much. With a little steering you and a handsome smile as he listened to you answer his questions, the burden of even carrying conversations was off your shoulders. That was his job, he'd told you later on when you told him how terrified you were.
"I was thinking about heading back to the suite," he starts. The sharp lines of his eyes linger on you like he's plotting it all out in real time, and there's a prospective smoothness to his voice. As if he'd already playing it all out in his head, and he knows exactly what he has in store for you. "Getting dressed. No need to rush, we have all night. We're here to enjoy ourselves. And then head down to the beach walk, shop around, get you some things to try on for me." He doesn't even smirk. Nothing to justify the way your stomach swoops quick. "And I put a reservation in at this nice, low-key grill for us after. If we need to come back real quick to drop off your stuff, we can." Taking one last drink off his glass, he says, "Sound good, baby?"
Sound good? How could you have any objections? You blink at him for a moment. Up until yesterday, you'd never even flown overseas. Vacations meant twelve hour drives and scrapping with your siblings and the blankets and luggage for space in the car, just to end up squished against the door anyway. You were half lead to believe that things like this happened only on T.V. or for faceless people in a tax bracket you knew you'd never touch. And yet…
"What? Do you have something else in mind?" His lips do quirk now, perhaps because he knows exactly what. "We can do whatever your sweet heart wants. No need to be shy with me. We're here for you. Me and Hawaii are good friends."
You rush to correct yourself. "No, that's, like, perfect." Pressing up to your elbows, still baking your backside, you say, "I've just never done this before."
He's heard that before, that first time you were intimate with him. You never imagined your first to be a man with sixteen years on you, who was not your boyfriend but instead something suspended in an awkward space between that and something else. Something that makes your blood rise to your ears and lie to everybody you know. A year ago, two, you would've turned your nose up at another girl for sitting in Hawaii on a man's money. After all, down to its core, it's only a trade, isn't it? The sugar in sugar daddy is the tan in your skin and the necklace at your throat studded, in the shape of a 'Y', in true diamonds. And in sugar baby, it was something much more coveted. Well, you couldn't sneer at yourself now; couldn't have known that it could come like him, and not in a sixty year old man who had to pay for sex because he wouldn't get it otherwise.
"Good." He leans back into his low pool chair, the perfect image of the leisure that is company to what he is. But he's got an airy, soft thing going on with his mouth as the sun rushes back over it. "Maybe we'll go out on a boat tomorrow, too."
He doesn't even have to ask to know the answer.
When Yeonjun means get whatever you want, he means that. Not metaphorically. Not loosely, not a ceiling that you might accidentally brush if you got overeager. There wasn't a budget. Not on you. You have your questions concerning where, exactly, he might have all this money. His Seeking profile didn't even tell. And when you asked, he kissed you and said, "I'm old enough to know that you don't really care about my job. You'd get bored to hell of it eventually. So let's not open that door anyway."
Whatever that meant. You gleaned enough from the dress shirts and ironed slacks that it wasn't anything too mystifying. It was, maybe, a bit overdramatic in the way he said it. Or maybe it was your own head that did the work of imagining some big secret.
Bushes with a deep, waxy green up against pink and white Plumerias with yellow blooming at their centers, stand opposite to the glowing warm storefronts which stud the sidewalk. Your hotel is right in the heart of it all. You step out, and you're right there in downtown Honolulu. Clearly, you two had the same idea as everybody else did. It must be the season back home. The streets are packed. Groups of girls walk with their elbows linked with Leis around their necks, probably coming from a restaurant where they were handed out, couples with kids and couples here hoping to get away from theirs, they all have the same essence about them as you feel in your chest. You feel like you're just gawking at stupid things with stars in your eyes like you've never seen a bush, or a lit-up tourist trap. But how did you even get here? Here, where something sweet hangs and makes the air even heaver. Maybe those flowers. Or the street vendors boasting cups of million-dollar pineapple chunks with the rinds still on and passion fruit stuffed in with papayas, and the way it overlaps with the salt from the water. The shoreline is close enough from here than you can watch the black water rush up and disturb the sand.
"You look beautiful," Yeonjun had told you when you stepped out of the bathroom. He didn't need any flowery enhancers to sound like he meant it. He told you in the simplicity that he was unafraid to use, and even more potently, in the lingering inventory he takes of the dress. His hands had flexed where they were shoved into his pockets in patiently waiting. Because he know more than any man, maybe, that patience paid sweeter. He didn't just enjoy the silhouette the sundress made, though you know he definitely did enjoy that. You're still suffering the echoes in your knees that the smolder in his eyes had made shake. But he made sure to enjoy the golden bangles that made feminine, sparkling sounds as you slipped into your heels. How they complimented the sunset pinks and oranges of the tropical floral fabric, and made the sanguine flush to your cheeks speak.
He had stopped, especially, at your neck. Traced the shape of that 'Y' as it glittered. And if anybody were to ask, you were certain that his throat had bobbed.
Now, he keeps one steady hand at your back and the other in his pants. He is an impossibly handsome man, in the most literal sense of the word. But night makes him something else. It cuts the lines of his face which had an angle to them that you could only attribute to aging. His eyes were slow and pleased and all over you and the view your push-up bra makes. "Do you want one?" he asks when your eyes linger on a stand selling Hibiscus flowers. The ones the grew well and didn't get too beat up by the elements, which tourists like to pluck off the bush anyway.
"I mean… They're, like, fifteen dollars." That was a good meal's worth, as far as you were concerned. You could go without. "That's crazy. People just pick them anyway."
"Fifteen dollars to look beautiful on you," he says, "is nothing. Do you know how expensive you look right now, sweetheart?" Passing the person running the stand a bill, he takes your chin with his thumb and tucks a yellow one behind your ear. It's huge, flirting with your eyes and brushing against your temples. Approval flashes over his gaze. "There we go. Now you look like you're in Hawaii."
God. Nothing about that should make your head go so dumb.
You make your way down the street doing pretty much the same. You dip in and out of stores, racking up bags in his free hand. He has no complaints to give. It's something chemical to him. Like foreplay, watching your eyes light up and your mouth go shy with every yes. Yes, yes, yes. That's his favorite word.
Of course you drag him into Sephora. The black-and-white storefront pulls you in with gravity amidst the high-end stores and the shops with the shot glasses and tees plastered with Waikiki beach regalia. He lets you browse and drop things into the shopping basket. You giggle when you catch sight of him, there in his fine muslin button down pushed to his elbows, veins peeking out with the strain, classy sunglasses pushing his hair off his forehead, balancing the damage you'd already done in one hand and the carnage that will ensue at checkout here in the other. With a playing smile on his face, he says, "Don't you want to do something you can't do at home?"
"I can't shop at Sephora in Hawaii at home." You take your lip into your teeth to fight a coquettish grin. A toasty lip liner lands in the cart with a plastic sound of the packaging. "I'm like a thousand percent sure they have stuff here that we just don't have at home." The one by your place is half the size, and even less stocked. You'd probably had a hand in that.
"You've gotten spoiled," Yeonjun says, and you think it sounds like lust. "I've made you into a little money monster. You used to be so shy."
You gasp with affront, coloring your words precisely spoiled. "Me? Not even close. You have to beg me to spend money on myself!" You did, in fact, used to be much more shy with him. It took a few dates to be able to look him in the eyes. It's that contrast between you that is so intoxicating. How you get all dressed up in girly outfits and ramble at him, and he has the answers for it all.
He nudges you around and aisle into the next. The cart is slowly filling up. When he had said you'd be leaving with more than you came, he'd meant it. "I do," he rasps. "I've never taken another girl somewhere who loved shopping more. You're a blushing, pretty hole in my wallet."
A throaty imitation of a laugh if all you can muster in response to that. It's not like you didn't know he had other sugar babies before yourself. Had probably taken them to Hawaii, too. The thought spirals out of control before you can stamp it out. Brushing the buttery petals of the flower at your ear, you consider if he's done exactly this, all of it, with another girl, too. He has the means to. And then you get to thinking what he could've done with those girls. Did he tell them how pretty they sounded like he loved so much to tell you? "You're mean," you say, empty banter. "I'm go back in the bowl and find a sugar daddy that doesn't bully me."
The harsh overhead lights cut his features and catch the way his jaw ticks. "Is that it?" His eyes flicker down the the basket you're filling. You don't know if it's pointed or him doing the math. "They couldn't afford you."
The next step you take is a bit more wobbly, a knot pulling tight deep in your belly and making your coordination all loose. He watches watches you flounder. Realistically, you are very aware you are outmatched. It doesn't stop you doubling down. Your low heels click against the tile floors as you shuffle toward a perfume display. Heavy glass with powdery vanillas and sharp, full black pepper and night blooming jasmine, you are a self-fulfilling prophecy and gravitate toward only the luxe stuff. Maybe that's what ruffles you. That he's right. You take a greenish bottle and spritz it into the sensitive insides of your wrists.
"How about this one?" you say, prim, and offer it up to him. "Is it pretty…?"
Taking the offer up, his nose feathers against the skin. You suppress the thrill it gives you. A moment, a beat in the air exists in intimate tranquility, before you what you're about to say. He looks up at you through his brows as the scent profile hits him. Creamy banana leaf and flirty, fruity coconut that embodied everything that you were right now. His eyes drop to your mouth only long enough for you to see that he does it. "Buy it." He surrenders to one more drag of how it melts into the heat of your skin before straightening back up. You only ever remember that you have to look up at him when he does that. "I want you to wear that when we meet."
You've always known Yeonjun was more attuned to scents than other men. It was often the first thing he'd bring up when he entered a space, but it was also something he'd whisper into your ears, voice scraping, while he was behind you. So you know what you're doing when you pout your mouth and say, "Do you think the new sugar daddy will like it, too? Should I wear it for him?"
Whatever you thought he'd do, he doesn't. A scoff, or maybe a brisk, annoyed dismissal, you'd expected. Or maybe even he'd say something. But Yeonjun just pauses. Goes blank, with no playful retort to volley back. All you know is that his dark eyes, which had been so content on an indulgent walk down downtown and a nice dinner after, go severe. Darker with no trick of the light.
He only says, "Right."
That leaves you with nothing to say. You cap the tester bottle and take a real box of the perfume. Because now, you might really need that in your favor if the way he had been drinking it down was anything to go off of. Maybe it'll soften him. Your little makeup and perfume detour ends with a whimper, not a bang, as you stand beside him in line and then watch him pull out that wallet despite it. Two bags sit on the counter waiting for you to reclaim them. Full bags. But when he thumbs his credit card and runs it, a sleek, black, metal thing with weight that speaks for itself, it goes through with a ding. You toy with the frills of your little dress to expel the mortification somewhere, or even anywhere, that isn't a rambunctious ball in your chest. You open your mouth to smooth things over a few times, but decide against it. You can't claim to have not know that it would bother him, but it's too late for that.
A weird thrill shoots down your spine at the view. His shoulders rigid and sharp from the back, holding all the things in his head right now that you can only guess at.
The final act takes place in a shop, with him leaned up against a wall that separates the changing rooms from the rest of the place into its own little dim hallway. Obnoxious lights oppress the clothing racks and shoppers from a high, warehouse-like ceiling. A pop station closes in from a speaker in the corner of your dressing room. The clothes you'd rummaged through racks for hang on a gold hook on the wall, waiting for you to stop holding your breath. Even when you finally make yourself move to drop your clothes on the glossy floor below, you're elsewhere. The way his faced dropped? Not just that, but the fact that it wasn't even anger. You don't know what it was; maybe something new that the two of you had created yourselves, or something unique to the reality of what you were to each other.
Yeonjun's knock against the door pauses you. You can almost see it, how he'd rap the backside of his knuckles, head down. His mannerisms are so vivid and branded into your psyche that you could step out right now and you're certain that it's exactly how you'd find him. "Need help?"
The center of your shoulder blades burn because you'd been contorting yourself for the past few minutes to reach the strings behind you. You take your lip into your teeth and take a look of yourself in the mirror. You look expensive. You look like all the things that Choi Yeonjun touches: taken care of. "Uhhh." A part of you wants to deny him. To play the cards that you hold in this long game. He never fails to remind you how much power you hold over him and this arrangement. Why not test the boundaries? But you know what would be sweeter than that. Wordlessly, you pull the latch with a loudness that all dressing room locks seem to have.
Then there he is. His arms are crossed, the muscles there loose but still something that you have to take your mind off, or else you might start to think how they would feel under your teeth. You rove over the slanted height of him and how he still looks tall, even when he leans his head and shoulder into the frame. His eyes rove over you, too. Not a flicker. Not a quick assessment. No. God, no. Not with him.
The latch snaps shut behind him with a barely-there gesture. Your whole stomach drops to the floor and shatters.
It's a little showy. You'll give him that. And maybe you'll also admit that you grabbed this exact dress for this exact reason. A corner of your lip wants to twitch with satisfaction, but you have a plan to see through, and it starts and ends with him groveling for you. What a sight that would be. Even just imagining it and turning the imagery of it in your head, when he's the reason you can even live this life that you do, makes you a rapt little tease. Boys your age can't do this. They couldn't be him if they tried. You're beginning to think that he was a different species of man completely.
A beat passes, and then he runs the pads of his fingertips along the hem of your dress. It ends so, so dangerously; right about where your ass folds over at the sanguine softness of your thighs. The skittering brush of contact is straight electricity, and it's the littlest touch. His eyes meet yours through the mirror. Dark. Smoldering like pure wood smoke, erupting slow like the mountains on these islands that move slow enough to watch their molten greed come, but know that you can do nothing to stop it. It's no fair how he looks at you. Your knees go just completely useless.
Yeonjun completely disregards even pretending he was going to lace that skimpy back up for you. You swallow cotton. "Is it cute?" you ask, because you have a pretty good idea of what the answer is already.
The breathy gasp when he takes the soft fat of your hips into his hands with a greed that says he'd been thinking about them since you walked into this store and while he waited patiently on the other side of the door for this. Or before even that. He tugs your bottom to the front of his jeans and says, with his voice smooth like the scotch he sips, "Of course it's beautiful, baby. Do you want it?"
"Yes," you choke out around a thick knot of anticipation. Your own face meets you, palms braced on either side of the ornate gold mirror and your reflection giving you a show of how ditzy and pathetic he makes you. "But I don't know if I should." The syllables waver toward the end and belie your coquettish act.
He laughs like a scoff while he pushes the skirt of the dress up the swell of your hips, then past it until he can devour the bend of your arch. He taught you that form. And it looks like he has no notes on your technique, either. The pressure of him testing it makes your head go dumb. "When have I ever told you no?" he rasps. "You have no idea how expensive you are, baby. No idea. Your little shopping trip would've maxed out any other man's card."
There. That's the spot. You pout your mouth at him and catch him eating it up in his reflection. "I'm expensive? Am I too expensive for you, then?"
Of course not. Look at you. Look at where you are. His card is yours and you think that it's near bottomless at this point. You don't even have to ask. Yeonjun's tongue presses against the inside of his cheek.
Your panties hit the floor in one tug. The walls of the changing room become infinitely smaller as he wraps your hair up in his fist. The ache in your scalp brings a prickle to your eyes. "Is that what you think?" he says, that polished quality wipes completely raw. He tries to sound like he's not losing his mind, but it's there if you look past the lilt. "Do I need to buy you the island? The world?" It sounds like he would. Like he will. Instead of reaching for himself, he tests between your thighs for what he knows he'll find there, because of course you're soaked. You've been soaked since Sephora.
"Uh-huh," you say, because he's flicking your clit in little tests and every time he hits the sensitive underside of it, the nerves there send your heels clattering on the marble and your legs trying to find purchase. And because, what's dignity with a man sixteen years older than you who puts money in your bank account and fucks you in high-end boutique dressing rooms?
He likes that. But he doesn't give you anything real, doesn't reward the behavior you've been prancing around him with. His palm wraps around your waist to press into your belly and steady your scrambling legs like it goes without saying. The way his fingers stretch over the soft, doughy place there, how it eats up the expanse of your waist, makes you swallow hard. "God help the next kid that gets you. What's he gonna do with you? How are you gonna manage pizzeria dates and a one-bedroom apartment when you know what you have? What I've given you?"
You can't answer. His fingers curl into you, and he wastes no time finding the spot that he knows like muscle memory. The delicate anatomy of a woman's sweet spot seems like something that just came with the package of him. He doesn't have to search, and he probably never did. Sparks explode behind your eyelids like the fireworks they had been setting off on the beach in brilliant golds and teals. If he hadn't steadied you with the strength of his palm, you'd probably be crumpling down to the floor right about now.
"Hmm?" You can hear the condescending purr on his mouth, because you don't have the strength to pry your eyes open to see it.
You mewl a sorry imitation for the word, "Yes," and go back to trying to wiggle your ass into the incessant curling of his fingers. The sounds of him fingering you makes your ears and chest flush, each inappropriate, sloppy wet noise proving how easy you are for him. "Right—right there, please." Your head drops as the first word breaks in the air. It's really a sorry excuse for words.
He listens so well. The angle of his two middle fingers, the width of them just enough to make you crazy and the finesse of how he uses them like weapons even worse so, twitches just up. It's as though he feels it himself somewhere inside of you that he's found it, because he finds it and you know you're royally fucked from that moment on. "Good," he says. "That way I know I get to keep you. Because you'll go and you'll try other men,"—his forearm strains with how he forgets the soreness in it to fuck you on his fingers right—"and you'll be right back here. In my bed. On my money. My spoiled little mess."
The thought that maybe, beyond the pleasure he gets out of knowing he could give you anything, buy you anything, dressing you up in him, he likes you this way because it means nothing else would ever fill the spot he carved doesn't occur to you. Currently because your thighs spasm and shake and it takes every working synapse in your brain firing off to digest how he fucks you so good that it's a leash in and of itself. Hopefully you'll be here when he starts going salt and pepper, because what would sex be if not this?
Your choked, scraped whimpers get too loud for him. His palm over your mouth finally has your eyes fluttering open, and the sight that greets you back is potent enough to send the same molasses through your veins as the heel of his palm grinding down on your swollen clit. "Shh, baby." He grinds harder, because he's mean. "So goddamn whiny. What a princess you are; can't take what you were begging for all night. Why act up if you're gonna tell the whole store how I'm being mean to you?"
He gets your answer in a gone, strangled sob against his palm. Your own damp breaths where it seals over your mouth makes the air thinner. Each roll of his palm forward is met with a helpless push of your ass back on him. His wrist is practically pinned between the bulge in his jeans, because of course he's affected even if he'd like to pretend otherwise, and your bottom. It doesn't stop him one bit. The private sounds that his silencing makes is better than any reckless moaning. It's almost dirtier, almost wronger.
"Gonna cum?" he rasps, watching the trashy mess your face makes in the mirror like a god exacting justice. The weeping mascara lines pooling where his hand meets your face and the drooping eyes that want to roll back into your skull, the high pink of your cheeks and how he can watch himself give you this like he give you everything fucking else. You were close, but just the question winds you up tight enough to snap. That face of his goes patronizing with a furrow of his brows. Slick rolls in hot rivulets down the insides of your trembling thighs. "That's right. There we go. You need to grind that pussy on my hand? Grind it. Go ahead and see if I'm gonna give you what you're asking for."
You try to say something. You really do. To tell him that you'll do anything for it, that he's melting your brain like butter, or god, just anything. The backs of your eyes and your throat and the pit of your stomach all prickle and go tight at once. He probably hears something unflattering come out from behind his palm, something strangled and a fie on the decorum that a place like this deserves. That mirror that you'd been depending on to keep you at least somewhat planted where he's had you bent in half goes clattering against the wall behind it because you're grasping at it like it can help you.
He stops. Just completely, unfairly, cruelly stops. His fingers come out of you a mess and you have to pretend they weren't just in you as he straightens up, swipes a thumb through your blackened cheeks, and then he doesn't touch you again. You're left gaping at yourself in the mirror and wondering with a naked dissonance, like when something heavy hits metal and leaves it ringing, what the hell you're supposed to do with the knot in your lower belly now. You almost think to just rub one out after he steps out.
Tugging his collar looser around his throat, he works his jaw and lets you change back. It all feels too tight; the frills and the way you clatter uselessly out when you've finished and the neglected pangs of throbbing, so hard that you can feel the pounding of your heartbeat all the way up in your ears. You avoid eye contact when he pays for the dress up at the register. If the flushed face and the smearing of mascara that would give you away no matter how hard you tried to wipe at your cheeks and jaw didn't give you away, maybe the buzzing in your eyes would. He makes small talk with her and takes the bag and receipt as if he wasn't just knuckle deep in you. It's the antithesis of all things fair. You have to breathe with intention as he leads the way back out onto the streets. The air is thick and salty enough to swim through. It's no help up against clammy, salty skin itself. The only thing that keeps you kinda grounded as you stumble by his shoulder, because even now he's steepled your fingers together, is the sweet scent of the palm leaves touching the sky above you. Otherwise you're swimming through the honking and the weaving between bodies and the pulse of what he did to you.
You want to dig your heels in and demand he wraps his fingers around your throat and fix it. Or make a scene so big he has to. But you just blink dumbly the whole way back to the room, because you are nowhere near as gutsy as that, and half as coherent at the moment.
The door clicks closed behind you again in a pantomime of that stuffy, unreal scene you just left behind. You kick your heels off and wait. Wait to see what he does, to see if he'll pounce on you the way you ran over a generous hundred times on the way here. Yeonjun just steps out of his own shoes, drops the new dress off on a seat, and works his watch off by the night stand. The lamp there, a low warm ambience, lights the angles of him. The way his shirt stretches over his shoulders, and how he tapers out to something thin at the waist that lingers in your mind after you fuck—how the stretch below his navel and the dusting of hair there gives way to the V, and how that gives way to his cock. When you first had seen it, he didn't even laugh, though he could've. You'd just stared like you were torn between running away from it and testing if it was as hard and warm as it looked. No; he held your face as he told you that it was okay, that he wanted you to become so familiar with it that you could feel the exact shape and curve of it in your haziest dreams. You press your thighs together as you struggle with the strap of your heel.
A metallic sound works, and then he sets the silver-faced watch down. Then his eyes finally, for the first time since he stepped into that dressing room, meet yours. Not through any mirrors. The weight of that is entirely different.
"Bend over the bed," he says. "C'mon, baby girl. I've been going insane over this all day."
The hinges of your jaw ache. "Why?" You're stumbling over to do just that, because you're more talk than you are brazen. "So you can just stop again? I have fingers, you know. I don't need you."
And then his belt makes a noise that tells you he intends to see it through this time. Your stomach does three full flips, ass in the air like the obedient lap dog that you'd be for him a hundred times over. Because if he groomed you and petted you and you were his one, favorite girl for it? What else could you possibly need?
"Huh." The belt comes loose in a rasp, somewhere behind you now. He'd circled the bed completely. "I could. We could sit here and do that all night, if we wanted. But where would be the fun in that?" he says, and then he bends over your back and speaks into the shell of your ear, "I have about a thousand other, more creative things I'm gonna do to you, sweetheart. And trust me; I've had a lot of time to think them."
The shudder he tears from you is so visceral, it's like he'd wrapped a hand around your throat. You choke your swallow down dry and say, "Please do it, do whatever you want. I can take it."
He presses a wet, biting kiss into that spot where your pulse meets jawline. And then another that lingers against the back of your shoulder, and then he kisses his way down and straightens back up to make a mess of your outfit all over again. "I know you can," he rasps, his own voice scraped down to something needy that reflects exactly what's burning between your legs right now. You can't tell if it should feel like a good thing, but it just raises a chill on your skin. Because if the same blistering things that's inside you is inside of him right now, then you don't know what you've signed yourself up for.
"You're still on the pill?" he says, and then when you hesitate to answer he takes a handful of ass. "Sweetheart. Please."
You nod. He takes that and forgets the condom in his wallet to let a line of spit fall down over your cunt from the back. As if you weren't wet enough. You don't know if you've ever been so slick in your life, so wiggly that you whine at him to, "Hurrrrry." The glob lands at the top of yout slit and follows gravity to your clit, and he goes quiet to watch it find its place on you. He takes his proud length and strokes it once or twice to feel it twitch, to give himself a pathetic teaser for what was to come.
Then he's pounding into you until stars shoot behind your eyelids, until you're making noises that would embarrass you if they were ever caught on tape. The come from your throat, and they practically stay there, bouncing with each collision of his groin against your ass and the backs of your thighs. You eat straight comforter as he braces one arm beside your hips to cant his hips up, right into the place he had fun with teasing earlier. It's probably pretty obvious to the poor neighbors what the grinding of the headboard against the wall might be, but you're too busy getting your brains fucked away to be a considerate neighbor.
"Mfh!" you tell the bedsheets. The laugh that he pants into your shoulder blades is pure, undiluted dirtiness and heat.
"So mouthy," he croons, though he's no better off than you. Each time you flutter tight around him, his fingers dig deeper divots into your hip. "And so pretty when you're split on my cock and can't talk. Isn't that right, baby?" He bends completely over your back, and you're forced to remember through the scattered thoughts of how he looked behind you in that mirror. His body ate yours up. It didn't matter if you were taller, if you were any other way. He'd make you look tiny anyway, just like how his fingers stretch over the small of your back and how he handles you with it. "Tell me what you need. I wanna hear that mouth go."
Breathing is a thing of the past. You shove your face to one side so at least you aren't suffocating in the sheets, face such a mess that you can feel it more than the twist of your brows and the pout on your mouth. Sweat beads at your temples and hair sticks there over your flaming cheeks. "Choke me, choke me," you say. It's the dumbified words of somebody who has about five words in their current arsenal and was using all their brain power for each. You choke and sob and bite whines into the air and meet every single one of his thrusts.
He's not gonna let you ask twice. The precision of his fingers is food for your brain, thinning your windpipe just enough to twist every nudge of his tip to your cervix into something more potent and overwhelming. Your nails bite into his wrist at your neck, skull digging back into his shoulder and hips being ground into the edge of the mattress every time he strokes with mindless, carnal rhythm. "Choke you?" he almost laughs, like his hand wasn't around your throat right now. "You're full of surprises, you know that? How's that for that sweet brain, baby girl? Huh?"
Your face twists up. "Uh—uh-huh!" You can't breathe, can't think, in the best way. Lips wobbling, you pant, "I like it!"
That has his hips coming down on you in a different way. He falls over your back and drags in the scent at your neck like he's huffing something stronger than the sweet scent of sex on your skin. But it does something electric to him. His abs tighten against your spine, grinding his cock into you like he could be any deeper than this. It feels like he's up in your stomach, you brain, dressing that up just like he does to the rest of you. "Fuck." His voice crumbles into tatters. "You smell so fucking good. Like candy." He kisses at the spot that you, even in this state, recall with a jerk to be where you had sprayed that perfume. It had melted into the warm pulse there, faded down into the base notes. The kiss isn't enough. He presses his tall nose right into it and grabs at you so hard that it aches. "I'm not gonna last long, baby. God, you're getting more of this stuff. I'll buy you more before we—" His wet forehead falls into the soft spot between your shoulders and where your nape begins, every rolling thrust like he's staving off an orgasm coming just from the olfactory sweetness of you.
You've long since raked red-hot lines down his taut forearm, but a particular tightening of his fingers at your throat and a wet slide that hits just the right spot without you having to ask sends you over like a house of cards. The arch in the very angle of your back bows back against him. The suite falls away, all of Hawaii and your agreement follows, until you're just a girl under a man who knows exactly how to play you. "I'm cumming!" you say, all but stumbling over the warning. "Help!"
You don't know what the hell you're saying, and he's off the deep end too. He throws you up the bed and digs his knees in to gain purchase and something in that scent he caught, in the thoughts that had been festering in his head all night, comes alive. He rails you right into the sheets and takes what he needs as you claw at the pillows and sheets through yours. Because with him, you're gonna cum first if he has to grit his teeth and pull out just to make sure he doesn't first.
"That's it," he growls. "That's my spoiled girl." Then his own hips stop and each stutter of them as he fucks it into you, each pant and breath into your shoulders and kiss to the back of your head, tells you that he's followed you down. As his weight smothers you into the pillows, grounding you and suffocating you until you can come down and breathe again, he makes your hair into a loose ponytail to reach the soft parts of your neck that the tangle of it hid.
His heartbeat at your back reverberates into your chest. Speaking into your face as he takes the softness of your cheeks and watches them squish under his fingers, he says, "How's that for leaving you wanting?" There's a lazy, pleased light in his eyes. What else could a man need, more than a pretty girl glowing with post-orgasmic bliss under him, in a bed he put her in, in a frilly, rumpled dress that only he could afford? Nothing. He was living the life that other men loathed him for. He nips the turn of your shoulder and says, "You were put on this Earth to test old bastards like me, huh?"
You can hardly give him an enthusiastic smile. Probably.
ash⦂ #needthat like i finished this in a haze at 4am before a shift so if that tells you anything about how i was feeling…
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