yourwon&only♡

Enhypen is, and will always be sevEN...

[hoonkitti]

very good girl ─ ˚₊‧꒰ა❤︎໒꒱ ‧₊

𓊆西村力 x fem reader𓊇 💌 scent kink, panty sniffing, riki jerks off to your scent and panties and bra, sunshine gf x grumpy bf troupe kinda, he's NASTY and disgusting

𓆩♡𓆪 i cannot resist it U guys. nishimura riki i fucking love u. ure so fun to write with and your girlfriend will always be the contrast of u. if u <3 it pls give it lots of love and feedbacks!!

“sooo… how do i look?”

your boyfriend was sitting on the edge of the bed, legs spread, wearing nothing but black sweatpants and a sleeveless white tee. his phone slipped from his hand the second he looked up. his eyes dragged slowly down your body, then back up.

“whoa… hot stuff,” he breathed, a lazy grin spreading across his face. “you’re looking way too good. c’mere,” 

you walked closer until you were standing between his knees. riki leaned back slightly on his hands, tilting his head as he took you in again.

“turn for me.”

you gave him a slow swirl. the second your back was to him, you heard him curse under his breath. 

“fuck. again. slower.”

you obeyed, turning even slower this time. when you faced him again, riki’s hands were already reaching out. he grabbed the side of your skirt and tugged you forward sharply, making you stumble into him with a small gasp and a giggle.

“damn,” he murmured, voice lower now. his gave went straight to your waist, nose brushing the fabric of your top before he inhaled deeply. “god… what is that perfume? you smell insane.”

you giggled, hands coming up to brush his blonde locks. “it’s very good girl, baby. you bought it for me, remember?”

riki let out a low groan, like the name itself turned him on.

yeah… you’re a very good girl. his very good girl. 

he tugged you forward, bringing you down to sit on his lap with your back pressed against his chest. the moment you were settled between his legs, his arms wrapped around your waist, pulling you flush against him. 

“yeah… fuck, i chose too well, didn’t i?” he whispered right against your ear.

you let out a bright, giggly laugh as his nose immediately buried into the side of your neck, inhaling deeply. the warm scent of your perfume (that he bought)—sweet, flirty, a little sinful for his sanity—drove him crazy.

he dragged his nose slowly along your skin, breathing you in.

“mmmhm,” he hummed, the sound vibrating against you. his hands started roaming—one sliding up your thigh under the hem of your skirt, the other resting possessively on your tummy, fingers stroking that sliver of bare skin.

you squirmed and chuckled, that contrasting sunshine energy bubbling through you. “ki, that tickles—”

but he only smiled against your neck and pressed a slow, open–mouthed kiss right under your ear. then another. and another. above the marks he left just a few days ago. his lips trailed lower, sucking softly on your pulse point while his hand squeezed your thigh.

“you smell so fucking addictive,” he muttered between kisses. he turned his head and kissed your other cheek, then nibbled softly on your earlobe, making you squeal with laughter.

“ki!” you whined, tilting your head away instinctively out of tickledness, but he just followed, chasing your skin.

“can’t help it. my girl smells too sweet.” his hands kept moving—one slipping under your top to caress your waist, the other stroking up and down your thigh like he was feeling you up. 

riki kissed along the curve of your neck, then moved up to your jaw, cheek, and back down again, leaving wet little marks everywhere. everytime you giggled and tried to wriggle away, he only tightened his arms around you and pulled you closer.

“you’re really gonna walk out smelling like this?” he mumbled between kisses, voice muffled against your skin. “gonna make other people lose their minds too?”

he sucked a little harder on one spot, trying to leave a more obvious boyfriend territory mark before you left later—if he even allowed you still. when you shivered, he smiled against your neck. 

“‘m gonna be late, kiiii,” you whined playfully, body leaning slightly forward. 

riki hooked one arm around your waist and pulled you right back against his chest, nose burying deeper into the crook of your neck as he inhaled again. his free hand slid up your thigh under your skirt, hiking the denim up while he pressed more kisses along the side of your throat.

“mmm… i don’t think i wanna let you go today,” he murmured, voice teasy against your ear. he gently nippled at your lobe before kissing the sensitive spot right underneath. “you look way too pretty—just stay with me?”

he hugged you tighter, lips never leaving your neck. 

you let out a soft “nooo,” dragging the word in that sweet, whiny way that always, always made his heart doing somersaults. 

your boyfriend laughed, the sound low vibrated against your lips. he gave up (for now) but he still kept his arms wrapped tightly around you, refusing to loosen his hold.

“fine, fine,” he chuckled, sucking the spot beneath your ear. “you can go… but, wait.”

he reached over to the bedside and grabbed his own bottle of perfume and with a playful grin, he held it up in front of you.

“let me spray you with mine real quick.”

you giggled and tilted your head up against his shoulder so  he could spray a light mist along the side of your neck and collarbone—and riki, being riki, sprayed a mist between your cleavage too. 

that pervert.

he leaned in instantly, nose brushing your freshly scented soft skin. 

“mm… yeah, that’s better.” he hummed happily, clearly satisfied. “now you smell like me too.”

——

fap. fap. fap. fap. fap. 

“shit…” he groaned, eyes rolling back. his fist started moving fast, slick and desperate from the precum already dripping down his length. he buried his nose deeper into the crotch of your panties, breathing you in while your bra rested against his cheek and mouth.

he could smell your everywhere. 

“fuck, you smell so good,” he moaned into the lace, voice muffled. his tongue darted out, licking the fabric where your pussy had been just this morning. the taste made his cock throb violently in his fist.

riki stroked harder, hips bucking up into his hand, messy and frantic. the wet clicky sounds filled the room as he pressed your panties tighter against his face, inhaling over and  over like he was trying to consume you.

he was completely lost in it…

these were the panties you’d worn all night long—slept in, curled up beside him. the ones that had been pressed against your pussy for hours while you were soft and warm. this was your most natural scent—sweet, intimate, you. the best fucking perfume in the world.

“so warm… fuck, you wore this all night, baby,” he groaned to himself, voice wrecked. “little pussy was rubbing against them for hours… so fucking good.”

he took another long, greedy inhale, nose buried deep in the crotch. his fist moved faster along his big, curvy cock, slick and noisy and annoying.

fap. fap. fap. fap. fap.

then, he grabbed your bra and wrapped the lace strap around his throbbing cock, right under the head, and squeezed. the feeling of your bra tightening around his length made him moan aloud.

“shit—fuck—”

he started stroking again, using the bra strap like a cock ring, the lace rubbing against his sensitive skin with every frantic pump. riki started sucking on your panties—smashed against his face, breathing you in.

he thrust up into his fist, hips stuttering, eyes rolling back as he moaned into the soaked lace. 

“gonna cum so fucking hard… because of you—fuck, baby—”

his strokes turned brutal, the wet clicky sounds getting louder and messier as precum dripped all over your strap. sucking on the fabric of your panties and inhaling deep—riki cums.

thick ropes of semen shot across his abs and chest, some of it landing on the cups of your bra. his whole body jerked hard with every pulse, hips still weakly fucking his fist while he kept your panties pressed to his nose, riding out the high on nothing but your scent.

even after he finished, he stayed like that for a long minute—chest heaving, your used panties still covering half of his face, your bra strap loosely around his throbbing cock.

“ugh… hurry home. i’m not done with you yet.”

© ⌞hoonkitti⌝ ⁞ all rights reservedㅤ please don't share, copy, or translate my work.

[hoonguin]

⠀ CONTRACTUALLY YOURS ❤︎ 박종성

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎written for the heart’s mailroom event ! ༊

‎‎ ‎‎‎​       ‎‎ ‎‎‎​           𝓦𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄𝐈𝐍⠀‎ ✶ ⠀‎ when park jongseong, campus heartthrob, resident rich kid, and future arranged marriage victim, offers you an absurd amount of money to be his fake girlfriend, saying yes should be easy. all you have to do is hold his hand, smile for his parents, survive the rumors, and pretend none of it is real. fake dating was never supposed to be difficult — so why does following the one rule feel impossible? don’t fall in love. simple enough, right?

𝟑𝟏𝟐𝟏𝟕  🗯️ ✽  ───  ⏾  𝘂𝗻𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝘀𝘁𝘂𝗱𝗲𝗻𝘁 park jongseong⠀‎x ⠀‎ 𝓯 ! rea        ´ ꒳ `        𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭 :        fake dating ˒ university au ˒ slow burn ˒ mutual pining ˒ class differences ˒ friends-to-lovers ˒ emotional hurt and comfort ˒ a dash of angst somewhere ˒ 

𝔀𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 :         explicit sexual content ⋮ 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗱 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗺𝗮𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝘂𝗱𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲𝘀, 𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗼𝗿𝘀 𝗱𝗼 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁    ✿   strong language ˒ emotional distress ˒ classism ˒ family conflict ˒ socioeconomic inequality ˒ mentions of financial struggles ˒ unprotected p in v ˒ first time sex ˒ dry humping ˒ fingering ˒ dirty talk ˒ creampie ˒ 

𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐥𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬⠀‎ ✶ ⠀‎ 𝐫𝐞𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭

🗝️ 。 ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ 𝐞𝐥’𝐬 𝐛𝐮𝐛𝐛𝐥𝐞  ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ one of my favorite event works so far !!! yes, i do pour my heart out whenever it comes to a jay fic <//3 a month later and here we are ˙𐃷˙ clearly got lazy in a bunch of parts so oops, let’s ignore that 

"Me? You? Us? Date? What the fuck are you on about?!"

Your voice rang out through the private library study space, bouncing off the cream-colored walls and the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves that lined them.

The sound was sharp enough to make Jay flinch, just barely, a subtle jerk of his shoulders, but he didn't step back. He stood right where he was, planted across from you on the other side of the narrow study table, both his palms pressed flat against the polished wood surface, fingers splayed wide like he was bracing himself. Beside his right hand, just brushing against his pinky, sat a brown envelope, ordinary, unremarkable, the kind you'd use to mail documents or store receipts. Except it wasn't ordinary at all, and you both knew it.

You had already opened it. A few moments ago, when Jay had first slid it across the table toward you with a quiet, "Just look inside first," you'd given him a skeptical look, the same look you gave people who tried to cut the line at the campus café, and undone the metal clasp with one finger. The moment you peeled back the flap, your brain short-circuited. The envelope was filled with money. Not a few folded bills, not some chump-change twenties — filled, stuffed to the point where the paper bulged outward like it was struggling to contain what was inside. Bill after bill after bill, crisp and pressed together so tightly you could barely pry them apart with your fingertips. Your mouth had gone dry. You couldn't even count it properly mentally, not when your eyes were still trying to process the sheer volume of it. Four hundred dollars? Nine hundred? Maybe even a thousand? Every time you tried to land on a rough estimate, the number climbed higher, your mind fumbling with digits the way your hands fumbled with the bills. It was the first time in your life you'd seen so much money in one sitting, let alone held it, let alone had it sitting in front of you on a scratched-up library table like it was nothing.

"Please, Y/N—I swear it'll just be a quick one-time thing. You have to help me out," Jay said, and the desperation in his tone was so raw, so unguarded, that it almost caught you off guard. His voice dropped on the last sentence, going low and almost brittle, like the words themselves were fragile and he was afraid of crushing them. His eyes, dark brown, normally so composed and easy, were wide and searching, locked on yours with an intensity that made the air between you feel heavier.

You already knew it was absolute bullshit. The whole setup, the way he'd walked over to your usual study spot in the library's east wing where you always sat, third floor, back corner, the table beside the window that overlooked the quad, and hovered awkwardly by the empty chair across from you until you looked up from your notes. The way he'd said he had an important question to ask about a subject both of you shared, some elective you'd both wound up in because it fit your schedules. You'd told him to just ask right then and there, leaning back in your chair with your arms crossed because something about the way he was shifting his weight from foot to foot told you this wasn't about academics at all. He insisted on taking you to one of the private study rooms, the kind that required cash to book, the kind with a door you could lock and walls thick enough that sound didn't travel. You said no. Flat out, no, you had studying to do, you didn't have time for whatever cryptic thing he needed to say. He insisted again, his voice dropping lower, his hand rubbing the back of his neck in that restless way people do when they're wound tight. You said no a second time. He insisted a third, and by then a few passersby had slowed their pace, eyes sliding over to the two of you with that particular brand of campus curiosity, the kind that would be a rumor by dinner. You noticed the girl with the ponytail lingering near the shelf a few feet away, pretending to browse a book she was holding upside down. You noticed the guy at the next table suddenly very interested in his phone, which was facedown on the desk. You exhaled through your nose, muttered a curse under your breath, grabbed your bag, and followed Jay down the hall because the last thing you needed was an audience.

Yup, Jay — as in the Park Jongseong. People referred to him as Jay, and you never really knew the full reason as to why, but apparently it was his English name, one he'd had since childhood, and he preferred to be called that around university. He'd introduced himself that way on the first day of freshman orientation, and obviously, the student body didn't hesitate to comply. Jay was and still is the sheer epitome of the typical picture-perfect guy, the kind that seemed like he was drafted in a lab by someone trying to engineer the ideal male specimen. He was intelligent, effortlessly so, the kind of smart that didn't need to announce itself because it showed in the way he spoke, the way he could break down a complex concept in class without breaking a sweat, the way professors seemed to light up whenever he raised his hand. He came from an incredibly wealthy background — old money, the kind that didn't need to be flashy because it simply was, the kind that came with family estates and business empires and the quiet assurance that you'd never have to worry about a single thing in your life. He was the president of the music club, the lead guitarist of the university's band, and as if all of that wasn't enough, the campus heartthrob, a title he hadn't asked for but couldn't seem to shake off.

Every single girl was head over heels for him. That wasn't an exaggeration, it was a documented, observable, almost scientific phenomenon. You could swear you'd overheard your block mate laugh about how during one Valentine's Day, he was hiding in the music room for a whole day because people wouldn't stop chasing after him, shoving gifts and confessions and handwritten letters through the door crack until the floor looked like a paper avalanche. Another girl in your dorm had a Pinterest board dedicated to him, screenshots from his Instagram, candid photos people had taken during his performances, even a blurry shot of him eating at the cafeteria that she treated like some kind of holy relic. It was unhinged. It was also, admittedly, understandable.

Which is why it came to you as a surprise — no, not a surprise, a shock, a full-body, brain-stalling, what-the-fuck-is-happening shock — that he'd dragged your ass to a secluded, cash-only private study room on one breezy Tuesday afternoon with an envelope filled to the brim with cash, set it on the table between you, and asked if you could fake-date him.

You? Jay? Date? It had never crossed your mind. Not once. Not even in some passing, idle thought, the kind your brain produces at two in the morning when you're half-asleep and thinking about nothing in particular. Sure, he's attractive, anyone with functioning eyes could see that, the sharp jawline, the dark hair that always looked effortlessly styled even when he'd just woken up, the way his whole face seemed to carry this natural, easy confidence like he'd never had to second-guess a single thing about himself. But he was way out of your league, and more than that, you both never really batted an eye at each other. You existed in the same spaces, the same lecture halls, the same campus walkways, the same cafeteria, but you moved in entirely different orbits. Just so happened that both of you had taken up the same course, and even then, your interactions had been limited to the occasional "can I borrow a pen" or "did you catch what the professor said about the deadline." Nothing more. Nothing less. Two people who happened to share a lecture room and nothing else.

"Come on, cut me some slack. The girl your parents are arranging for you to marry can't be that bad," you had said, leaning back in your chair, crossing your arms over your chest, trying to sound casual even though your heart was still doing something strange and irregular from the sheer absurdity of this conversation.

"She is!"

"Show me a picture."

Jay let out an exhale, long, heavy, the kind that seemed to carry the weight of several sleepless nights, before fishing his phone from the pocket of his jacket. He unlocked it, his thumb moving quickly across the screen, scrolling through what looked like his mom's messages, then his DMs, his brow furrowed in concentration as he searched for a specific photo. You watched his face as he scrolled, the tightness in his jaw, the slight downward pull of his lips, and for a moment, the campus heartthrob facade fell away entirely, and he just looked like a guy who was stressed out of his mind. Then he found it, turned the phone toward you, and held it there.

You looked. You leaned in. Your eyes traveled across the screen, the girl in the photo was striking, genuinely stunning, the kind of beautiful that made you do a double-take. She had this effortless elegance about her, dressed in something that probably cost more than your entire semester's textbook budget, standing in what appeared to be the foyer of a home that looked like it belonged in an architecture magazine. Flawless. Immaculate. The type of person who looked like she'd never had a bad day in her life.

"Ooooh, she's bad as hell," you smiled — and you meant it, because damn, she really was, and you weren't about to pretend otherwise just to make Jay feel better about his predicament.

A beat. Jay looked at you dead in the eyes, his expression utterly flat, a picture of pure, unamused disbelief. And you just smiled back at him, wide, toothy, completely genuine, the kind of smile that said I know this isn't helping but I'm being honest here.

"Alright, that's enough! That's not the point, my point is I don't want to get married—"

"Then just tell your parents you're not yet ready, as simple as that." You cut him off, waving your hand like you were swatting away a fly. "Sit them down, look them in the eye, say 'hey, I'm twenty-something, I'm not doing this right now,' and call it a day."

"Fuck, I've tried and tried and tried, but they won't budge on their decision." Jay's voice cracked on the last word, just barely, a hairline fracture in his composure that he quickly sealed shut by pressing his lips together and looking away for a second. When he looked back, his eyes were harder, more urgent. "I'm way too young to be marrying at this age. Sure, some people our age are married, but I'm not them and they're not me! I have things I want to do, things I actually want, and being tied down to someone I didn't even choose isn't one of them." His hands curled into fists on the table, knuckles going pale. "Please, Y/N, just—this one big favor. This and nothing more, I'm begging."

He was begging. Park Jongseong, the guy who had the entire campus at his feet, was standing across from you in a dimly lit study room practically pleading with you like his life depended on it. And the worst part, the part that made your chest tighten slightly, the part that made your arms uncross and fall to your sides, was that it was real. You could see it in every line of his body, hear it in every syllable he pushed out. He wasn't being dramatic. He wasn't putting on a show. He was genuinely, desperately, sincerely asking you for help, and the vulnerability of it was staggering.

You had to admit, with his level of desperation, you were starting to feel real bad. You'd never seen someone be this desperate — not around you, not in your presence, not directed at you. Even your ex hadn't been this desperate for you, and they'd had actual reasons to be. This was the campus heartthrob, a guy who could snap his fingers and have a line of volunteers stretching from the library to the campus gates, and here he was, choosing you, asking you, practically on his knees in front of you. It didn't make sense. None of this made sense.

"I'm sorry you have to go through this, but no is no. That's final on my end." You said it as firmly as you could, chin lifted, voice steady. You meant it, or at least, you wanted to mean it, you were trying to mean it, because the logical part of your brain was screaming at you that this was insane, that fake-dating Jay was a terrible idea, that nothing good could come from entangling yourself in the mess of someone else's life, no matter how much money was in that envelope.

"Oh my god, please, I'll do anything, I'll even add more money to the—"

Money? Money.

Yup, as in the brown envelope filled with money. The envelope that was still sitting on the table between you, its mouth open, its contents spilling slightly outward, bills catching the overhead light. The first time you'd seen it, when Jay had first pushed it toward you, you thought he was going to bribe his way through you to get a yes, just straight-up purchase your agreement like you were a transaction, like your consent was a commodity he could afford. The thought had made your stomach turn. But then he'd clarified, hastily, almost tripping over his own words in his rush to explain, he'd just taken some money out of his card, he said, and to see it as a thank-you if ever. A gesture. No strings. No pressure. Just — here, this is what I can offer, if you're willing.

What an arrogant bitch, using daddy's money to get what he wanted. The thought surfaced sharp and bitter, and you let it sit there for a second, let yourself feel the sting of it, the unfairness, the casual way he could just produce this kind of cash like it was pocket change, like it was nothing, like it was the equivalent of buying someone a coffee. Though, you knew, and this was the part that made the thought dissolve as quickly as it had come — you knew you couldn't resist that much money. You couldn't. You were physically, financially, realistically incapable of turning away from what that envelope represented.

Truth is, in this prestigious university filled with students who spent their weekends drinking on yachts and flying home for holidays like commuting was a personality trait, you're the elephant in the room. The odd one out. The one who didn't belong, not because you weren't smart enough, not because you hadn't earned your place, but because you existed in a world that operated on an entirely different currency than the one everyone else was spending. You came from a less fortunate background compared to everyone here, and that was putting it gently. Your hometown was the kind of place people drove through without stopping, the kind of place where the biggest employer was the gas station on the highway and the most exciting thing that happened all year was the county fair. For your whole life, all you could do was study. That was it. That was the one lane you had, the one road available to you, and you ran it like your life depended on it — because it did. Get amazing marks, get recognized enough to be able to get somewhere nice in life, somewhere better, somewhere that didn't feel like a dead end with a nice view of nothing. All that effort paid off in the end, because here you were — admitted to this prestigious university, the kind with the manicured lawns, the stone buildings, and the reputation that opened doors before you even knocked, far from home, with a full 100% scholarship. Every penny covered. Tuition, housing, the works.

You didn't even know this was possible. When the acceptance letter came, when you'd read the words “full scholarship” and felt the ground tilt beneath you, you'd sat on the floor of your bedroom for ten minutes just breathing, because your brain couldn't process anything beyond the fact that something had finally, finally gone right. You were beyond thankful. You still were. Every single day you woke up in that dorm room, you felt it, the gratitude, the disbelief, the quiet, stubborn resolve to not waste a single second of this opportunity.

But gratitude didn't pay for groceries. And a full scholarship didn't cover the things that fell through the cracks, the meals you skipped because the dining hall was closed and the nearest affordable option was a twenty-minute walk off campus, the school supplies that weren't included in the textbook package, the toiletries and the laundry detergent and the occasional cup of coffee that kept you awake during exam week. So now, with Jay offering you an insane amount of money, more than your parents could scrape up for months of careful, pinching saving, more than you'd earn in an entire semester of your part-time job, just to be his fake girlfriend? You couldn't possibly resist. You were already somewhat struggling to keep up, the kind of struggling that was invisible to everyone around you because you'd gotten so good at making it look effortless. You worked part-time as a lab instructor in another department of the university — setting up equipment, walking students through procedures, cleaning up after sessions — and while the pay was something, it wasn't enough to breathe easy. You saved up quite frequently, hoarding every extra cent like a dragon guarding its treasure, to the point where you'd forget to eat at times because the cafeteria line was long and the off-campus options cost money and you'd already convinced yourself that skipping one meal wasn't that big of a deal. You were literally living in the damn trenches, grinding yourself down to the bone in an environment where the person sitting next to you in lecture was complaining about their dad's yacht needing repairs.

He was still yapping about whatever, something about how his parents were persistent, how the arrangement had been in the works for months, how he'd tried every angle he could think of and this was the only option left, when you'd finally snapped back to reality, the sound of his voice dissolving into white noise as your brain latched onto the single, crystalline truth sitting in front of you: that envelope, that money, that lifeline.

"Deal." You said it with your face blank. No smile, no hesitation, no dramatic pause. Just the word, clean and final, dropped onto the table between you like a card laid face-up.

You saw Jay's face change instantly — like a switch had been flipped, like sunlight breaking through clouds. His eyes went wide, his mouth fell open, and then the most genuine smile you'd ever seen on another human being spread across his face, so bright and so unguarded that it almost looked out of place on someone you'd only ever seen looking composed and cool and collected.

"Oh my god really? Thank you, thank you so much, oh my god—" The words tumbled out of him in a rush, his voice climbing higher with each one, his hands coming off the table to gesture wildly in the air like he didn't know what to do with them. He looked, for a moment, like a kid who'd just been told he could have dessert before dinner, pure, unfiltered relief flooding every feature, softening every sharp edge you'd ever associated with him.

"Yeah, yeah, calm down before I change my mind." You retorted, but you were clearly amused at his enthusiasm, the corner of your mouth twitching despite your best effort to keep your expression neutral. There was something almost endearing about watching Jay, the campus heartthrob, the cool guy, the one everyone wanted, practically vibrate with gratitude right in front of you. It was humanizing in a way you hadn't expected.

"Yes, ma'am." He said it with a nod, still grinning, and there was something in the way he said it, the slight dip of his head, the warmth in his voice, that made your chest do that strange, irregular thing again.

So then there you and Jay were, officially "boyfriend and girlfriend." Just like that, in a dimly lit private study room that smelled like old paper and lemon-scented wood cleaner, with a brown envelope full of cash sitting between you and the campus heartthrob beaming at you like you'd just handed him the world. You never knew up until when the act would last, though — just be convincing for as long as possible, up to the point when Jay says it's over, he's free, and both of you could just go back to the way things were. Two people who happened to share a classroom and nothing else, the way it was always meant to be.

At least, that was the plan.

The first week of "dating" was surprisingly easy.

Though, at that point of the week, nothing significant had happened yet. You guys were still somewhat awkward about the whole ordeal, like two people who'd signed a contract to perform in a play but hadn't yet rehearsed their scenes. No crazy public interactions, no dramatic cafeteria entrances, no hand-holding across the courtyard for all to see. You guys never even texted, not really, not in the way actual couples texted, with that constant low hum of conversation that never really stopped. Maybe you'd send Jay a horrendous reel about some funny skit, the kind that made you snort quietly to yourself in your dorm room at midnight, and caption it with something like "this is how i saw you in that study space" and he'd either just react with a haha emoji or reply with a laugh or be sassy in return, firing back with a reel of his own that somehow managed to be even more unhinged than yours. Sometimes he'd message you about an assignment assigned to a shared class, dry, practical stuff, "did prof say apa or mla" or "is the thing due friday or saturday,” the kind of texts that could've been sent to anyone, that carried no weight, that left no residue once they were answered. Just that, nothing more. Simple day-to-day interactions, the bare minimum of communication required to maintain the illusion that two people were in any kind of relationship at all. Honestly, you guys only interacted when you'd remember, perhaps like once every two days, maybe even less, the rhythm of it irregular and loose, like a heartbeat that kept skipping. Ya'll didn't even acknowledge each other in public. Not a wave, not a nod, not so much as a glance across a lecture hall. You'd walk past each other between classes with the same neutral, unseeing expression you'd give a stranger on the sidewalk, and it was fine, it was easier that way, simpler, less to explain, less to perform. The fake in fake-dating had never felt so appropriate.

The second week was when things had gotten a bit strange.

It was a regular Thursday afternoon, the kind of Thursday that felt like it had been stretching on for about six business days already, the kind where the week's exhaustion had settled into your bones like damp cold and you could practically feel your brain running on fumes. You were in the lab, packing up your things because your shift had finally finished — the last student had left twenty minutes ago, the equipment was wiped down and stored, the logbook was updated, and the only thing left to do was zip your bag and drag yourself back to the dorm for whatever sad dinner awaited. You were slipping your charger into the front pocket of your bag when your phone lit up on the counter, the screen glowing with a message notification.

Jongseong [6:13 PM]: hi! :) are you free right now?

Yeah, your contact name for him was Jongseong. Not Jay. Not "bf 💕" or whatever the hell a real girlfriend would save her boyfriend's name as. Jongseong. His Korean name, the one he didn't go by, the one most people on campus didn't even know. He didn't know you'd saved him that way, and he definitely didn't need to know. It just served as a little reminder, a quiet, private, almost superstitious reminder, that this whole thing was meant to be some stupid thing, some arrangement, some transaction dressed up in the costume of a relationship. You didn't know how exactly it'd help, calling him by a name he didn't use, keeping that tiny sliver of distance preserved in your phone's contacts list, but that's what you told yourself, and that was enough.

You stared at the message for a bit, your thumb hovering over the keyboard. What the hell could he possibly want now? You thought, your brow furrowing slightly. It had been days since your last actual exchange, a reel about a cat falling off a counter, three days ago, to which he'd responded with a skull emoji. And now, out of nowhere, on a random Thursday evening, a cheerful "hi! :)" and a question about your availability like you were being summoned for a meeting. You typed back a while later, after you'd zipped your bag and slung it onto your shoulder.

You [6:15 PM]: why? i'm at the lab rn

He saw the text almost immediately, the read receipt appeared within seconds, which told you he'd been staring at his phone waiting for your reply, which was somehow both endearing and mildly concerning.

Jongseong [6:15 PM]: oooh okay

Jongseong [6:15 PM]: do you wanna head out to this

Jongseong [6:15 PM]: new retro themed diner that opened up? 😅 it's a bit far from the university though, but i can drive you back and forth

Diner? Eat out? Goodness, you couldn't even afford to buy dinner on some days, and he was asking you to go to some trendy new spot that probably charged eighteen dollars for a milkshake and had a waitlist longer than the financial aid office. The thought alone made your wallet ache in sympathy.

I mean, you did have money, the one Jay had given you in that envelope, the one that was currently tucked inside the zippered pocket of your bag, still as full as the day he'd handed it to you. But you couldn't bring yourself to spend it yet. Not even for something this small, not even for a meal that your growling stomach was practically begging for. You had more priorities, bigger ones, heavier ones, the kind that didn't go away just because you were hungry. Sending some money back to your parents, for one, you'd already calculated how much you could afford to send without destabilizing your own fragile ecosystem, and the number was pitifully small but it was something, it was the least you could do when your mom and dad were back home stretching every paycheck until it tore. Your needs, too, the things that kept you functional, the toothpaste and the laundry soap and the replacement headphones because your current pair was held together with electrical tape and prayer. All the works. Every dollar in that envelope was already earmarked for something, already spoken for in the mental ledger you maintained with the obsessive precision of an accountant during tax season.

You [6:16 PM]: dude

You [6:16 PM]: i'd love to but i have no money

Jongseong [6:16 PM]: the envelope?

You [6:17 PM]: can't bring myself to spend it yet jay 🥲 i have lots of things i need to prioritize rather than some dinner

Jongseong [6:17 PM]: i understand

Jongseong [6:17 PM]: dinner's on me ☺️ i'll pick you up from the lab in a bit

Jongseong [6:17 PM]: just gonna grab my keys

Oh my god, this guy. You stared at your phone screen, your mouth slightly open, that familiar mixture of disbelief and reluctant warmth spreading through your chest. He'd just — announced it. Like it was obvious, like it was already decided, like your financial situation was a minor obstacle he could simply breeze past with the casual ease of someone who'd never had to think about the price of anything in his entire life. And the smiley face. The little ☺️ at the end of the message, so completely without guile, like he genuinely didn't see the big deal about paying for your dinner. You didn't know whether to be grateful or annoyed, so you settled for a weird combination of both that manifested as you pressing your palm against your forehead and exhaling slowly.

You [6:17 PM]: wait wait ok but what are we even gonna do at the diner

Jongseong [6:17 PM]: eat?

You [6:17 PM]: yeah what else 🫠 no way you're just doing this without some explanation

Jongseong [6:17 PM]: i'm just being a nice boyfriend, no?

Jongseong [6:17 PM]: but yes lol i have something i want to talk to you about

Something he wanted to talk about. That was vaguely ominous, or maybe it wasn't, maybe it was exactly what he said it was, a conversation, a discussion, something practical and straightforward. But the phrase "something I want to talk to you about" had a certain weight to it, the way phrases that start with "we need to talk" or "can I tell you something" always carried more gravity than their individual words suggested.

You [6:17 PM]: can't we just… do this over the phone?

He didn't answer. You stood there for a minute, your phone held loosely in your hand, waiting for the three dots to appear, waiting for the typing indicator, waiting for anything. None. The screen stayed still, the conversation hanging on your last message like an unanswered question mark. So you just continued on with your business, packing the rest of your things, double-checking that nothing was still plugged into the electrical sockets, a habit you'd developed after nearly starting a small fire during your first week on the job, closing the lights off in some areas. Then your phone vibrated in your hand, a sharp little pulse against your palm.

Jongseong [6:23 PM]: look at the door

You did. And there he was.

The lab doors were those awkward ones, the ones with a rectangular window set into the middle of the door, like a porthole, the glass slightly frosted but not enough to obscure whoever was standing on the other side. And Jay was right there, visible through that window, his face backlit by the hallway's amber light. He was tapping on the glass with his knuckles, waving at you with his other hand, and wearing this boyish smile, this wide, slightly crooked, utterly disarming smile, that made him look about five years younger and infinitely less like the campus heartthrob and more like some eager puppy that had shown up at your door expecting a walk.

You let out an exhausted exhale, the one that came from deep in your lungs and carried with it every ounce of resistance you'd been trying to maintain. And you flipped him off, just raised your middle finger casually, without heat, the way you'd flip off a friend who was being annoying but not annoying enough to actually be mad at. He just smiled wider, his eyes crinkling at the corners, clearly unfazed, then reached for the door handle, pushed it open, and walked in.

"Still busy?" he asked, his voice easy, light, like he hadn't just driven across campus to show up unannounced at your workplace like some kind of determined golden retriever.

"No, I'm done with everything already. Just—checking up on some things." You said, gesturing vaguely around the lab, your tone carrying that tired-but-not-unfriendly edge that had become your default around him.

"I'll help you," he muttered, already moving past you into the lab, his eyes scanning the room with a quick efficiency that surprised you. "It's getting dark already. We should get going before some ghost clings onto my girlfriend."

The word "girlfriend" hit you like a small, unexpected electric shock, a quick jolt that started in your stomach and radiated outward, making your fingers tingle and your breath catch for just a fraction of a second. A knot twisted in your stomach, tight and warm and deeply confusing, the kind of physical reaction you had zero authority over and absolutely no interest in analyzing. It was the first time he'd said it out loud, at least to your face, in a context that wasn't part of some rehearsed pitch, just dropped it into conversation like it was natural. You didn't even have the time to argue with him, to protest, to say don't call me that, it's weird, because he'd already started venturing through the lab, checking the sinks, unplugging a device you'd missed, verifying that the gas valves were shut off, his movements quick and competent and entirely too helpful for someone who'd probably never set foot in a science lab before today. You had just watched him, watched the way he moved through the space with an easy confidence, the way his sleeves were pushed up to his forearms revealing the subtle curve of muscle and the glint of a watch that probably cost more than your entire semester's living expenses, the way he double-checked things without being asked, the way he just helped, simply and without fanfare. When he was finally done, he walked back over to you, reached out, and pulled you gently by your wrist — not grabbing, not yanking, just a warm, steady pressure around your wrist that guided you forward, his fingers fitting loosely around the bone like a bracelet. With his other hand, he scooped your shoulder bag off the table where it had been sitting, slinging it over his own shoulder without a word, and then he looked at you.

"Ready? Didn't leave anything?" he asked gently, and the softness in his voice. the genuine, unhurried concern in it, made something in your chest shift, a tiny tectonic movement, barely perceptible but undeniable.

You looked at the table, then around you at the dim lab, then at him — at his face, at the way the hallway light caught the slope of his nose and the dark of his eyes, at the way he was standing there with your bag on his shoulder. "Nope, didn't leave anything." You said, and your voice came out quieter than you intended.

A smile tugged at his lips, small, warm, barely there but unmistakable, before he walked you out of the lab, his hand dropping from your wrist but the ghost of his touch lingering on your skin like a fading warmth you couldn't quite shake.

The diner was incredibly cute, wait, cute wouldn't even be able to do it justice. It was charming in the way that places only existed in movies or in the carefully curated feeds of lifestyle influencers, the kind of spot that seemed almost aggressively aesthetic, like it had been designed in a boardroom by someone with a Pinterest board titled "i miss being a kid" and an unlimited budget. Red vinyl booths with chrome trim, black-and-white checkered floors, vintage neon signs spelling out words like "EATS" and "SHAKES" in glowing pink cursive along the walls, a jukebox in the corner that actually played real records, its arm moving mechanically from song to song while a warm, crackling version of some fifties doo-wop track drifted through the speakers. There were framed posters of old films, Breakfast at Tiffany's, Rebel Without a Cause, Grease, and the air smelled like frying batter, vanilla, and that particular, indescribable scent of a place that took its desserts seriously. It looked exactly like how those influencers would post about, all warm lighting and curated messiness, exactly like how the social media pages would market it, except somehow better.

He chose to sit beside you. Which was — okay, crazy, genuinely unhinged behavior, because you guys were seated at a dining booth. The classic kind, the one with two seats facing each other, a table in the middle, the configuration designed so that two people could sit across from each other and have a face-to-face conversation like normal human beings. But no. Jay wanted to sit beside you. On the same side of the booth. Like an actual couple. Like people who wanted to share the same view, the same space, the same pocket of air. You didn't argue, you couldn't, actually, because by the time your brain had processed the audacity of his choice, he'd already slid into the seat next to yours, settling in with an easy sigh and draping one arm along the back of the booth behind you, not quite touching your shoulders but close enough that you could feel the warmth radiating off his arm like a space heater you hadn't asked for. The proximity was ridiculous. Your knees were inches from his. You could smell his cologne, something clean and faintly expensive, the kind of scent that probably had a French name and a price tag with too many zeros. You stared straight ahead at the empty seat across from you, hyperaware of every inch of space between your body and his, which wasn't very many inches at all.

He had told you, repeatedly on the drive over, in between navigating the streets and fiddling with the radio and making small talk about the weird billboard they'd passed, that he'd be the one paying, so don't hesitate to order anything you wanted to eat. He'd said it casually, like he was reminding you about the weather, like dropping forty or fifty or a hundred dollars on dinner was the equivalent of swiping a metro card. But that was hard on its own, wasn't it? You were used to the idea that whenever someone chipped in some of their money to buy you stuff, a meal, a drink, a ticket, you'd purposely pick one of the cheapest options so it wouldn't break a hole in their wallet. It was instinct, deeply ingrained, the kind of reflex you'd developed over years of being the person who couldn't afford to be treated and didn't want to be a burden. You'd scan the menu from the bottom up, looking for the lowest number, and you'd convince yourself that the cheapest thing was the thing you wanted anyway. But Jay wasn't having it. He insisted you get something that you actually wanted to try and eat, anything, desserts and drinks too, and he clearly wasn't in the mood to tolerate your bullshit.

"Jay, wait, I'm deadass. This one is pretty okay for me already—" You pointed at one of the cheaper items on the menu, a simple chicken sandwich that was reasonably priced and wouldn't make you feel like you were eating someone's weekly grocery budget.

"Pretty okay? Not the one that's 'I'd love this?' Come on, don't worry about the money please, don't worry about my money, just pick something you want to eat—" His voice was earnest, almost pleading, and he leaned slightly closer, his shoulder brushing yours, the contact light and brief but enough to make your breath hiccup.

"That is okay!"

"Okay doesn't necessarily mean that's what you want!" He shot back, and there was a frustrated edge to his tone — not anger, not even close, but something softer, something that sounded like he genuinely cared about whether you were settling for something instead of choosing something, as if the distinction between okay and I want this mattered to him more than the money it cost.

You both had spent about five minutes going back and forth over the menu, a delicate, ridiculous tug-of-war that probably looked insane from the outside. The waiter sitting by the table even seemed amused, their pen hovering over their notepad, watching the two of you bicker like an old married couple over whether you were allowed to order the thing you actually wanted. You eventually just gave up, the exhaustion of arguing with someone who had infinite money and infinite stubbornness was too much for your tired, post-shift brain, and settled for this incredibly gigantic cheeseburger with wedges on the side and a vanilla milkshake because Jay had insisted, pointing at it on the menu and telling the waiter before you could protest one last time. You couldn't even catch wind of what he'd ordered for himself, he'd rattled it off so quickly and smoothly that by the time you registered he'd stopped talking, the waiter was already walking away with a knowing smile.

When all you guys had to do was wait for your order, you leaned back in the booth, as much as the vinyl seat would allow, which wasn't much, not when Jay's arm was still draped along the back of it behind you, and started to speak.

"So, what thing did you want to talk to me about?" You said, turning your head toward him, and the motion brought your face closer to his than you'd anticipated, close enough that you could see the faint freckle below his left eye, close enough that you could count his eyelashes if you were the kind of person who counted things like that, which you absolutely were not.

"Oh my god, right. So, I kind of—I wanted to talk about the boundaries we should establish for this whole fake relationship thing." He said, and his tone shifted, still casual, still easy, but there was a note of seriousness underneath it.

Boundaries? For this fake relationship? You thought it was pretty self-explanatory already — the basic don't-fall-in-love type shit, the obvious don't-catch-feelings clause that went without saying, the unspoken agreement that this was a transaction and not a romance. But he wanted more depth, more clarity, more than the envelope and the unspoken assumptions that had carried you through the first week.

You both then spent a long time talking about the do's and don'ts. Even after your food had arrived, the cheeseburger towering on the plate like a small architectural marvel, the wedges golden and steaming, the milkshake thick and cold in its metal cup with the extra in the mixing tin beside it, both of you were still at it, the conversation flowing around bites and sips and the occasional pause to chew.

"No weird couple shit." You insisted, pointing a wedge at him for emphasis, a golden spear of potato that served as your gavel.

"What do you mean no weird couple shit? It has to be convincing!" He argued, leaning forward, his eyebrows raised in that way that said he thought you were being ridiculous, and the motion brought his shoulder pressing lightly against yours again, the warmth of it seeping through the fabric of your jacket.

"Yeah—but there are certain things we can do to make it convincing that doesn't involve doing weird stuff!" You shot back, and you could hear how unconvincing your own argument sounded, the vagueness of "weird stuff" hanging in the air between you like a question mark.

He raised his brow, the corner of his mouth twitching upward in that particular way that meant he was about to challenge you and he was already enjoying it. "Define weird for me then."

You did. No matching anything, no matching outfits, no matching phone cases, no matching profile pictures like those couples who treated their social media accounts as a joint enterprise. No pet names — absolutely no "babe" or "baby" or "honey" or any of those saccharine, tooth-rotting terms of endearment that real couples used like breathing. No holding hands unnecessarily, no leaning into each other for photos, no excessive physical contact beyond what was strictly required to sell the illusion. The works. You laid it all out like a lawyer presenting terms, and that only earned you another argument from Jay, who countered every single point with the kind of rhetorical precision that made you suspect he'd been on the debate team in high school. No matching? Then how would people know we're together? No pet names? What do you want me to call you in public, "my esteemed colleague"? No hand-holding? Then what do we do when someone's watching, stand six feet apart like we're at a COVID checkpoint?

You must admit, arguing with Jay was funny. Not frustrating-funny, not the kind of funny that makes you want to throw something. Actually, genuinely funny, the kind that makes your cheeks hurt from trying not to smile. He simply wouldn't back down on his argument, even if you'd already found five different loopholes in his logic, he'd manage to find another loophole to swing past through, pivoting and redirecting with the nimbleness of someone who was used to getting his way but was having too much fun trying to get it to just give up. His eyes would light up when he thought he'd cornered you, and then they'd narrow playfully when you'd slip out of his trap, and the whole thing felt less like a negotiation and more like a game, a game where nobody was keeping score and the point wasn't winning but just the pleasure of playing. You don't even remember where the debate had ended, it just started with you taking a potato wedge, he took a bite from his eggs and bacon, and eventually you both just started eating, the arguments dissolving into the rhythm of the meal, forks and voices rising and falling in alternating turns until the conversation had drifted so far from its original shore that you couldn't even see the starting point anymore. It strayed off somewhere, from favorite childhood memories (his involved a summer in his grandparents' countryside home, catching dragonflies by the creek; yours involved the single year your town had a carnival and you'd won a goldfish that lived for three miraculous days) to a professor Jay absolutely despised (a man whose grading system seemed to operate on spite and a coin flip) to a weird urban legend that had been circulating in the university since its foundation (something about a ghost in the old humanities building who only appeared during finals week, which, honestly, made sense because who wouldn't be haunted by the ghost of failed exams). And through all of it, you were aware, vaguely, persistently, like a low hum in the background, of how close he was. The heat of his arm behind you. The way his knee would occasionally brush against yours under the table and neither of you moved away. The way he'd turn toward you when he laughed and his shoulder would press into yours and it felt like something you didn't have a name for, something you weren't supposed to be cataloguing.

You thought you were done. Both of you were done, your plates were empty, the milkshake was nothing but residue and melting ice, the conversation had reached that natural lull that signaled it was time to go, time to head back to the dorms, time to put this strange, unexpectedly pleasant evening to bed. You were reaching for your bag when an unusually large banana split arrived at the table, a towering monument of ice cream and fruit and whipped cream and chocolate sauce, served in one of those long, boat-shaped glass dishes that seemed designed to be shared. It came with two spoons, placed neatly on either side, a quiet invitation. Jay took one spoon for himself, offered the other one to you, handle-first, and told you to eat.

You opened your mouth to talk more, to say you were full, to say you couldn't possibly, to deploy any of the dozen polite refusals you kept on standby for moments like this. He said he couldn't finish it alone, which was probably true, the thing was obscene, a three-scoop sundae with enough toppings to feed a small party, and you argued you were full, which was also true, your stomach was at capacity and your cheeseburger was sitting like a contented stone in your abdomen. And he just — shut you up. Reached over, took the spoon right out of your hand, your fingers stuttering on the cold metal as he plucked it away, took a scoop of the vanilla ice cream drizzled with chocolate syrup and rainbow sprinkles, and shoved it in your mouth. Just like that. No warning, no ceremony, just the cold press of metal against your lips and then the sweetness flooding your tongue, vanilla and chocolate and the crunch of sprinkles, so sudden and so unexpected that you made a small sound of surprise, something between a yelp and a laugh, and your eyes went wide and Jay was grinning at you, grinning like he'd just won a prize, grinning like this was the most fun he'd had all week, and you couldn't be mad, you couldn't even pretend to be mad, because the ice cream was good and his smile was ridiculous and somehow, impossibly, this was your life now.

You both bickered even more after that, but this time, laughing and giggling, the kind of laughing that's hard to do with a mouth full of ice cream, the kind that makes you snort and almost choke and reach for a napkin while the other person just laughs harder at your suffering. The banana split was a mess within minutes, the neat architecture of scoops and toppings collapsing into a delicious, chaotic swirl as you both dug in from opposite ends, occasionally fighting over the same cherry, occasionally stealing the best bite from the other's side of the dish with zero remorse. The head chef, all the way from the kitchen, poked his head through the service window and was smiling at you both, this warm, knowing smile, the kind that said he'd seen a thousand couples share a banana split and knew exactly what he was looking at, even if you didn't.

Yet.

By the sixth week, that's when things got absolutely insane.

For the third week, you'd walk with Jay from one class to the other, not deliberately, not in some rehearsed couple-y way, just naturally, the way two people do when their schedules happen to overlap and the route to the next building is the same. Except it wasn't just the same route, because you'd find yourself slightly altering your path to match his, and he'd slow his pace without mentioning it, and somewhere between the science building and the humanities wing, your strides had synchronized without either of you acknowledging it. Totally not disappearing from your friends and the next time they'd see you was with Jay, walking beside him, your shoulder almost level with his, laughing at something he'd said about the professor's tie, while your friends stared from across the courtyard like you'd grown a second head.

Of course, some people caught wind of it and you'd heard some allegations being thrown at the both of you, whispers in the hallways, the kind that traveled fast and loose through a campus where everyone's business was everyone's entertainment. But since walking with someone from the opposite gender is completely normal, a lot of people brushed it off as the two of you being friends. Study buddies. Classmates who happened to share the same route. Nothing to write home about.

For the fourth week, a group of guys from the basketball team saw you and Jay studying together in the library. Of course, Jay wanted to get to know you more — more to the point he'd at least have something to say about you if someone asked, something beyond "she's in my class" or "we share a course," something that sounded like what a real boyfriend would know. Your favorite coffee order. The class you hated most. The way you tapped your pen against your notebook when you were thinking. He'd ask questions casually, sprinkled between textbook chapters, and you'd answer just as casually, and somewhere in the middle of explaining why you couldn't stand the smell of peppermint, you'd realize you'd been talking for an hour and neither of you had turned a page. You let him in, gradually, and he let you in too, small facts at first, then bigger ones, the kind of disclosures that built a portrait of a person stroke by stroke. Occasionally, he'd drag you back into the secluded study spaces if you mentioned, in passing, that the library was too noisy, "come on, I know a spot," he'd say, and you'd follow him down the familiar hallway to the same cash-only rooms where this whole thing started, except now the door stayed unlocked, the envelope nowhere in sight, and it just felt like two people who wanted to hear each other without the static of the world layered on top. The basketball guys obviously didn't care — one of them nodded at Jay on the way out, that was the extent of it. But the people at the tables nearby did, their heads turning as you disappeared behind a closed door. Both of you didn't really care.

For the fifth week, a professor that absolutely adored you both for being incredibly attentive in her class, she'd called you two her "favorite students" more than once, half-joking and half-completely serious, passed by the both of you when she was going to another professor's office to leave something, and both of you were heading back to the main space. As always, Jay picked you up from the lab, he was carrying your bag slung over one shoulder and a couple binders you'd also brought to the lab because you didn't have the time to run back to the dorms and leave them since your class from before had ended a little bit later. So you'd shown up to the lab with your bag, your binders, and your slightly breathless "I'm here, sorry," and Jay had shown up at 6:15 like clockwork and taken all of it from you without asking, the bag and the binders tucked against him like they weighed nothing, leaving you empty-handed and oddly weightless as you walked beside him through the corridor.

She saw you both, both of you saw her, both of you joyfully greeted her, a warm, simultaneous "hi, Professor!" that came out so in unison it was almost comedic, and she greeted you both back, her eyes flicking from you to Jay to your bag on his shoulder to the easy, close way you were walking, and she plastered a knowing smile on her lips, deliberate and impossibly smug, and said "both of you look good together" then walked off, her heels clicking down the hallway like a punctuation mark.

You laughed afterwards, short and bright and slightly too quick, because what else could you do? The knot in your stomach had pulled tighter and you didn't know what to do with that either.

By the sixth week, you were just eating lunch with your friends at the cafeteria. Yes, the public cafeteria filled with a bunch of people from different courses and different years, all mushed into one sprawling, echoing space — the kind of scene that felt like it belonged in a movie's wide shot, hundreds of bodies and trays and conversations layered into a wall of ambient noise. It wasn't cramped, it was huge even, but it was awkward with the amount of people present in the room, every table occupied, every seat filled, the kind of crowded that made you feel visible whether you wanted to be or not.

You were eating with your friends, mid-bite into your rice, explaining to them for the ninth time the step-by-step procedure for this one assignment, "no, you add the reagent after, not before, I swear I've said this eight times already,” when a hand just lightly tapped your shoulder. Just a tap, brief and warm, the kind of touch that was gentle enough to be a question rather than a demand.

You looked back, and oh my god, it was Jay. He was standing behind you with a bouquet of flowers, your favorite flowers rather — yellow and white lilies, the ones you'd mentioned once, just once, in passing, during one of those library study sessions weeks ago, a throwaway line about how your grandmother used to grow them in her garden and you'd always thought they were the most beautiful thing you'd ever seen. And he'd actually remembered, because here they were — yellow and white lilies, absolutely gorgeous, wrapped in craft paper and tied with a simple twine bow, the petals soft and slightly open. The whole function stopped what they were doing. You heard a fork drop in the distance, the clatter of metal on tile sharp and cartoonish. You heard a camera click from somewhere to your left. You heard the hushed murmurs of those nearby, a wave of whispers rippling outward from your table like the surface of a pond after a stone.

"What the hell is this?" you asked, but your voice came out steadier than your heart, which was doing backflips, literal backflips, acrobatics you didn't know it was capable of. This was the first time you'd ever received a bouquet of flowers from anyone, not from your ex, not from a friend, not from no one, let alone from the campus heartthrob himself, standing behind you in a crowded cafeteria on a regular weekday like this was something people just did.

"Who else would it be for aside from my absolutely lovely and gorgeous girlfriend?" he said, smiling, not smirking, not performing, just smiling, warm and bright and so unreasonably genuine that it made something behind your ribs stutter.

Fuck, even about a month later and the word "girlfriend" still made a knot in your stomach tighten, still sent that same small electric pulse through your system, still made you feel like the ground had shifted a fraction of an inch under your feet. He said it loud enough for everybody to hear it, loud enough for the tables nearby, for the camera that had clicked, for every pair of ears in this room that had been waiting for confirmation of whatever rumor they'd been spinning for weeks.

You accepted the bouquet, your fingers closing around the craft paper, the stems cool and slightly damp against your palm, and said thank you, and your voice was softer than you meant it to be, softer than the moment called for, because the lilies smelled like your grandmother's garden and you weren't prepared for that particular wave of nostalgia to crash into you in the middle of the cafeteria. He crouched down to meet you at eye-level, his face close to yours, close enough that you could see the way his eyes softened when he looked at you, and he whispered something to you, "you're doing great, by the way,” so quiet that only you could hear it, his breath warm against your ear, and then he pressed a feather-light kiss to your cheek. Just a brush, just a ghost of contact, his lips landing somewhere below your cheekbone and above your jaw, barely a second of touch, but it burned, a warm bloom spreading from the point of contact across your face, down your neck, and into your chest like a drop of red food coloring in a glass of water. You could feel yourself getting red, could feel the heat climbing your skin. After the whole ordeal, he just simply walked away — straightened up, gave you one last look, that same easy smile, and walked back toward the exit like he hadn't just detonated a small bomb in the middle of the lunch rush. You turned back to your friends like it was nothing, setting the bouquet down beside you on the bench, the lilies resting against your thigh.

Your friends were in absolute disbelief.

"Girl, what the fuck?! You have to fill us in! How did you pull the Park Jongseong?!" a friend asked, leaning across the table, her eyes wide, her voice climbing into a register that was part shriek and part interrogation.

"Even better, how did he pull you," another squealed in excitement, grabbing your arm, bouncing in her seat, the kind of giddy that was infectious even when you were trying very hard to be stoic.

None of them knew you were getting paid to do this though.

That same evening, in your dorm, the lights off except for the small lamp on your desk, you snapped a photo of the flowers, you'd found a cup large enough to hold them, filled it with water from the hallway fountain, and set them on your desk like a tiny, temporary garden. The photo came out warm, the lamplight catching the curve of the white petals, the yellow centers glowing like small suns. You sent it to Jay.

You [10:04 PM]: one image attached

You [10:04 PM]: thank you so much for the flowers wtf 🥹 i've never received a bouquet from anyone before

You [10:04 PM]: lilies are my absolute favorite oh my goodness

He replied almost instantly — the read receipt and the response arriving so close together it was like he'd been waiting.

Jongseong [10:04 PM]: you're always welcome ☺️

Jongseong [10:04 PM]: no thank you for the kiss?

Right, the kiss. The feather-light, cheek-grazing, face-reddening, cafeteria-witnessed kiss. The most physical you'd both agreed to was holding hands, or at least around that point, the boundary lines drawn during that diner conversation, the ones you'd insisted on, the ones he'd argued about, the ones you'd both silently been adjusting week by week without ever formally revising the contract. The kiss was uncalled for. The kiss was not part of the agreement.

You [10:04 PM]: dude hell no, we did not agree to that point 😹

Three dots. Appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again, like he was typing and deleting and typing and deleting, wrestling with the response like it was a decision that mattered.

Jongseong [10:05 PM]: mmmm

Jongseong [10:05 PM]: sure, but it did make us look convincing, right?

It definitely did. The whispers after he left, the stares, the camera click — convincing didn't even begin to cover it. The whole cafeteria had swallowed it whole, no questions asked.

Damn you, Park Jongseong.

The cafeteria occurrence didn't need a whole day for the entire university to figure it out.

By that evening, it was everywhere, the campus confessions page, the group chats, the study group threads, the comment sections of Jay's Instagram posts from three months ago that had nothing to do with you but suddenly had people tagging your handle underneath them. Literally everybody figured it out, and a lot of people were enthusiastic about the whole thing, the kind of enthusiastic that manifested as heart emojis in your DMs, strangers smiling at you in the hallway, and your lab students suddenly treating you with a reverence that had nothing to do with your teaching ability and everything to do with who you were allegedly sleeping with.

But of course, there were some who were incredibly salty about it. A few bad words directed to you here and there, muttered under breaths as you passed, the kind of venom that was just quiet enough to be deniable if you confronted it. Salty social media notes that were so painfully directed to you that it was almost comedic, the kind of anonymous posts that said things like "some people will do anything for attention" and "weird how the most popular guy on campus suddenly has a girlfriend nobody's ever heard of,” vague enough to maintain plausible deniability, specific enough that you could feel the crosshairs on your back. The whole package. But you couldn't care less. Imagine going crazy over a man who's "taken" but he's technically single? The irony wasn't lost on you. You were being paid to hold his hand, and people were tearing themselves apart over it. The absurdity of it was almost enough to make you laugh out loud in the middle of the hallway, but you didn't, because you had a reputation to maintain — however fabricated it was.

The word spread like wildfire, until it eventually reached Jay's parents. Yeah, he told you that personally, called you on a Wednesday night, his voice tense but not panicked, more like someone bracing for impact rather than already in the crash. Jay's parents were powerful people, powerful as in they had every single kind of connection to the school — administrators, board members, donors whose names were etched into the marble plaques on the walls of the newest buildings. The kind of people who could make a phone call and change a curriculum, who could lean on a dean's decision with nothing more than a raised eyebrow at a dinner function.

His mom had heard through the wife of a trustee, who'd heard through her daughter, who'd heard through the campus grapevine, which meant the news had traveled from students to parents in less than forty-eight hours. Jay had told them it was true, that he was seeing someone, that it was you, that it was serious. And they'd wanted to meet you. He'd managed to delay it somehow, told you not to worry about it yet, that he'd figure out the timing. You'd nodded, said okay, and pushed it to the back of your mind where it sat like a box you didn't want to open.

Those seconds turned into minutes, then minutes into days, then days to weeks, then weeks into months.

Then somewhere in the blur of all that time, somewhere between the walking, the studying, the cafeteria lunches, the quiet drives, and the late-night texts, you fell in love with him. Shit, you didn't even notice it happening. That was the thing. It wasn't a moment, wasn't a lightning strike, wasn't a cinematic realization set to swelling strings. It was slow, quiet, and insidious, the way morning light creeps across a room until you suddenly realize you can see everything clearly. It happened in the margins. In the spaces between the fake and the real, in the moments that weren't part of the performance, in the details that no contract could account for. By the time you recognized it for what it was, by the time you could put a name to the warmth that had taken up permanent residence in your chest, it was already too late, and you'd been living with it for so long that it felt less like a revelation and more like an admission of something you'd always known.

It was in the polaroid. The one in Jay's car. You'd noticed it one evening when he was driving you back from the diner, the second time you'd gone, or maybe the third, the visits had started blurring together into a single, warm continuum. The car had stopped at a red light, and you'd glanced at the dashboard, and there it was, tucked into the corner of the visor, held in place by the clip, a small polaroid photo of the two of you. You and Jay. In the photo, you were laughing, mouth open, eyes crinkled, mid-sentence or mid-laugh, caught in that unguarded space between expressions where you looked the most like yourself. And Jay was looking at you. Not at the camera, not smiling for the lens — looking at you, his head slightly tilted, a soft, almost wondering expression on his face, the kind of look that made your breath catch even through the distortion of polaroid film and faded light. When the hell did he even take this? No, when has someone taken this? You didn't remember a camera, didn't remember posing, didn't remember anything except the warmth of whatever moment it had captured.

"Is that us?" you'd asked, reaching for it.

Jay's hand had come up quickly, not roughly, but quickly, and gently guided your hand away, his fingers wrapping loosely around your wrist for just a second. "Don't touch, the lighting's perfect right there."

"You have a photo of us in your car," you said, and you were teasing but your voice came out strange, softer than you intended, with a wobble you couldn't quite control.

"Of course I do. What kind of boyfriend would I be if I didn't?" He'd said it lightly, easily, his eyes on the road, eventually the light turned green, and he drove off, the polaroid stayed where it was, and you spent the rest of the ride staring at it from the corner of your eye, this small, square proof that somewhere along the way, a moment between you had been important enough to preserve.

It was in the condominium. The first time Jay had suggested you study at his place instead of the library, you'd hesitated. His place, as in the off-campus condominium his parents had bought for him, the one you'd heard about in passing from people who talked about Jay's lifestyle the way people talked about celebrity real estate. But the dorms were unbearable that week — to your right, the person in the next room wouldn't stop watching anime at full volume, the theme songs bleeding through the wall in an endless, tinny loop of Japanese pop that drilled into your skull every time you tried to focus on a paragraph. To your left, someone was constantly jamming — guitar riffs, the same four chords over and over, the kind of repetitive, enthusiastic mediocrity that made you want to open your window and throw your textbook into the quad. You'd mentioned it to Jay offhandedly, just venting, the way you'd mention bad weather, "I can't focus, my neighbors are insane,” and he'd said, simply, "Come to mine. It's quiet." You'd said no, that's too much, and he'd said, "It's literally just a place to study, Y/N, I'm not inviting you to a masquerade ball," you'd laughed despite yourself, and an hour later you were standing in the lobby of his condominium complex, looking around like you'd walked into the wrong building.

Because it looked and felt exactly like a hotel. The lobby had high ceilings and polished marble floors and a front desk with someone who actually greeted you by name. The elevator had more buttons than your dorm had floors, and the hallway to his unit was lined with expensive wood paneling and soft ambient lighting and the kind of silence that felt like a luxury. His unit itself was definitely something. It was everything you weren't used to. Hardwood floors that gleamed. Floor-to-ceiling windows with a view of the city skyline. A kitchen with marble countertops and appliances that looked like they'd never been touched. Bookshelves made of dark, rich wood, actual wood, the kind that smelled like forests and money, stocked with novels, vinyl records, and a small collection of framed photos you didn't let yourself look at too closely. It was warm though, not sterile, not showroom-perfect, but lived-in in a way that surprised you. A throw blanket draped over the couch. A mug left on the counter from that morning's coffee. Sheet music scattered across the dining table, handwritten, his handwriting, notes and chords in pencil and pen. It smelled exactly like him, that same woody, clean cologne from the diner, but also coffee, detergent, and something underneath that was just so him, a scent you'd started associating with safety without realizing when.

You studied at his dining table. He studied on the couch. For the first hour, you worked in comfortable silence, the only sound was the scratch of your pen and the soft turn of his pages. Then he'd get up to refill his water, pause by your chair, lean down to read over your shoulder, and make some comment about your handwriting, "is that an 'a' or a tiny drawing of a fish?" and you'd swat at him and he'd dodge, grinning, and retreat back to the couch. This became the routine. You'd show up with your bag and your binders, he'd already have a drink waiting for you on the table, iced tea, the way you liked it, no sugar, extra ice, a detail he'd clocked without being told, and you'd study, and you'd bicker, and sometimes you'd order food and eat cross-legged on his living room floor with the TV on low, and sometimes he'd play something on his guitar. You'd listen from the table with your chin in your hand, your pen still, and your heart doing that thing it did whenever music came out of his hands, like the sound was traveling directly from the strings to your chest without bothering to go through your ears first.

It was in the jacket. During Jay's shows with his band, the university events, the seasonal showcases, the occasional gig at a bar off-campus that served overpriced drinks and undercooked nachos, you started showing up. Not every time, not at first, but enough that the people in the crowd began to recognize you as that girl, the one standing near the side of the stage with her hands in her pockets, watching the lead guitarist with an expression she couldn't quite control. And you wore his jacket. It started because the venue was cold, that was the practical reason, the one you told yourself, the bar had aggressive air conditioning and you'd worn a thin shirt and Jay had shrugged off his jacket without asking and draped it over your shoulders mid-conversation, the leather still warm from his body, the lining soft against the back of your neck. But then you kept wearing it. To every show. It was oversized on you, the sleeves falling past your wrists, the collar swallowing your shoulders, and it smelled like him. When you wrapped yourself in it, standing in the crowd with the bass vibrating through your ribs and the stage lights washing everything in amber and blue, you felt like you were wearing an embrace. Every single time he'd find you in the crowd mid-song, his eyes scanning the faces until they landed on yours, and he'd smile. Not the performance smile, not the heartthrob smile, not the smile he used for the audience. A different one, just for you.

It was in the food. Jay showing up to your dorm with takeout bags in his hands became so regular that your roommate stopped asking questions and started just setting an extra place at the desk. He'd knock, two quick taps, your rhythm, and you'd open the door, and he'd hold up the bag like a trophy and say something like "you skipped lunch again, didn't you" or "don't argue, I already bought it" or, once, memorably, "I got the spicy one because you lied last time about being able to handle mild." He'd sit on your bed, your narrow, creaky dorm bed that was approximately one-third the size of his king at the condo, and you'd sit cross-legged across from him, and you'd eat and talk and laugh. He'd tell you about band practice or something his mom texted or a song he was trying to learn, and you'd tell him about your shift or a grade you were stressed about or the weird noise the pipes in the hallway were making at 2 AM, then the food would get cold because you'd forget to eat while you were talking, and then he'd notice and say "eat your food" and you'd say "you eat your food" and he'd pick up a piece of whatever and hold it in front of your mouth until you took it, you'd both laugh, then the knot in your stomach would tighten, and you'd think: this isn't fake. This can't be fake. Nothing about this feels fake.

And it was in the words. Those two damn words. Whenever you were in public, walking across campus, leaving a building, saying goodbye at the car, parting ways at the cafeteria, Jay would look at you with that easy, warm expression and say, "Love you." Not "I love you." Just "love you." Two words, dropped casually, breezily, like they weighed nothing. But there was never an "I." Never the subject, never the declaration, never the full sentence that would turn it from a fragment into a statement. Just "love you,” light, effortless, and always accompanied by a smile or a wave or the brush of his hand against yours, and every time he said it, you felt the words land somewhere deep in your chest and settle there — warm, confusing, and impossible to parse. You told yourself it was part of the act. Convincing. Consistent. A boyfriend thing to say. But the absence of the "I" nagged at you, not because you needed it, but because its absence felt deliberate, like he was holding something back. "Love you" was a door he could walk through and close behind him and "I love you" was a door that didn't have a handle on the other side. You didn't ask about it. You were afraid of the answer. You were more afraid that there was no answer at all, that it was just habit, just performance, just two words that meant exactly as much as the envelope of cash they were attached to.

Months. Eleven months. You'd been fake-dating Jay for almost a year, and somewhere along the way, the fake had started flaking off like old paint, and what was underneath was something you didn't have the courage to name, something that felt too big for the arrangement you'd made, something that made you lie awake at night staring at the glow-in-the-dark stars your roommate had stuck on the ceiling freshman year and thinking fuck, fuck, fuck in a quiet, desperate loop. Because you knew that this had an expiration date, that one day Jay would sit you down and say it's over, he was free, his parents had backed off, and both of you could go back to the way things were. Two people who happened to share a classroom and nothing else. And you'd say yes, of course, sure, sounds good, and you'd smile.

You'd take whatever was left of the envelope money and you'd go back to your life and he'd go back to his. The polaroid would stay in his car, the jacket would go back in his closet, the lilies would wilt on your desk, the word "girlfriend" would stop making your stomach twist, and you'd be fine. You'd be fine. You'd absolutely, definitely, completely be fine.

You were at the convenience store near campus — the one that stayed open past midnight, sold rice balls and instant ramen, and the kind of cheap coffee that tasted a lot like regret but kept you awake during exam week. It was a Thursday, or maybe a Friday, the days had started running together, your brain fuzzy from a long shift at the lab and a longer afternoon of studying and the kind of bone-deep tiredness that made the lights of the store feel both too bright and strangely soothing. You were standing in the snack aisle, holding two different brands of shrimp chips and trying to decide which one was less of a mistake, when your phone buzzed in your pocket.

You pulled it out. The screen glowed.

Jongseong [11:47 PM]: come home with me next weekend

Jongseong [11:47 PM]: i'll introduce you to my parents :)

You stared at the screen. The shrimp chips hung limp in your other hand. The words on your phone sat there, stark and undeniable, and the knot in your stomach, the one that had been tightening for eleven months, the one you'd been pretending wasn't there, the one that felt exactly like love, pulled so tight you thought it might snap.

Jongseong [11:47 PM]: sound good?

You didn't type back. Not yet.

Shit, you were so, so damn screwed.

The drive was forty-five minutes of your heart attempting to exit your body through your throat. Jay's car hummed along the highway, city lights smearing past the windows, and you sat in the passenger seat with your hands folded in your lap and your pulse visible in your wrists.

You'd spent the entire morning getting ready, not for them, you told yourself, for you, because if you were going to walk into the Park family estate, you were going to walk in looking the part. Black kitten heels that clicked when you walked. A black satin maxi skirt that moved like water around your ankles. A white turtleneck top, it was baggy, the sleeves wide and draped, ending just below the elbow, the kind of silhouette that managed to look effortless and intentional at the same time. Gold jewelry, because your grandmother always said gold warmed the skin and you believed her. A gold bangle on your right wrist that caught the light every time you moved. Your favorite necklace, a gold chain with a heart locket, and inside that locket, a photograph of your grandmother, the one who'd gifted it to you when you were fourteen, her smile small, proud, and permanent behind the glass, and beside her photo, an empty space where a second picture could go, a blank rectangle of possibility you'd never filled. Gold teardrop earrings that swayed when you turned your head. Your hair was done out, wavy at the ends, falling over your shoulders the way you'd spent forty minutes and two YouTube tutorials perfecting.

When Jay had arrived at your dorm to pick you up, he'd knocked his usual two taps, and you'd opened the door, and he'd — stopped. His hand was still raised from the knock, his mouth slightly open, his eyes traveling from your hair to your earrings to the locket resting against your collarbone to the drape of the top to the sweep of the skirt to the kitten heels, and then back up again, slowly, the way someone reads a letter they weren't expecting. He didn't say anything. He just looked at you, and the silence stretched, and it wasn't the comfortable kind, it was the kind that had weight, the kind that pressed against your skin and made you acutely, almost painfully aware of every inch of yourself.

"Jay?" you said. "Do I have something on my face? Is my foundation cakey? Did I smudge my—" You touched your cheek, your hand moving instinctively, your confidence deflating by the second under the intensity of his stare.

He blinked. Then he swallowed. Then he said, quietly, almost to himself, "You look—" and stopped again, the word lodged somewhere in his throat, and he exhaled a small breath and ran his hand through his hair and tried again, his voice steadier but still carrying that undercurrent of something stunned and unguarded: "You look really beautiful, Y/N."

The knot in your stomach, yup, the same damn one you'd been ignoring for months, pulled tight enough to hurt.

Now you were here, walking through the front door of the Park family home, and the word home didn't even begin to cover it. The foyer was the size of your entire dorm floor. Dark hardwood, polished to a mirror shine. A double staircase curving upward. A chandelier that probably cost more than your parents' house. Fresh flowers on a console table, lilies, white ones, and you tried not to read into it but your hand drifted to your locket anyway. The house smelled like gardenias, furniture polish, and the kind of quiet that only enormous, expensive spaces could produce.

Dinner was served in a dining room that could have seated twenty and was currently set for four. Candles. Crystal glasses. Plates that probably had a heritage. You sat across from Mrs. Park and beside Jay, and the food was extraordinary and your appetite was nonexistent, but you ate, because that was what you did — you ate what was in front of you and you were grateful for it, because once upon a time there hadn't always been something on the plate.

"So, Y/N," Mr. Park began, his voice deep and measured, carrying the practiced warmth of a man who was accustomed to making people feel comfortable before he decided whether they deserved to stay that way. "Jongseong tells us you're on a full scholarship. That's quite impressive."

"Thank you, sir! It took a lot of work, but I'm grateful every day for the opportunity." You kept your voice steady, your posture straighter than it had ever been, your hands folded in your lap under the table where they wouldn't give you away.

"And what are you studying?"

You told him. He nodded. The conversation moved through the expected checkpoints, your coursework, your lab work, your plans after graduation, and you answered each question cleanly, precisely, the way you answered exam prompts, and Jay beside you was a quiet, steady presence, his hand occasionally brushing your knee under the table in a gesture that was either reassurance or reflex or both.

"She's the top of her class, actually," Jay said, and there was pride in his voice, real pride, not performance, the kind that couldn't be faked, or at least the kind that you chose to believe couldn't be. "She works as a lab instructor on top of her full course load. She's—she's really remarkable."

Mrs. Park smiled. It was a beautiful smile, technically. All the right muscles, all the right timing. But it didn't reach her eyes, which remained cool and assessing, two dark stones set in an otherwise immaculate face. "How lovely," she said. "You must be very dedicated."

"I try to be," you said.

"And your family—where are they based?" Mrs. Park asked, and the question landed softly, the way sharp things do when they're wrapped in silk.

You told her. The small town. The modest background. The distance. You didn't apologize for it, you wouldn't, but you felt the temperature of the room shift, felt it the way you feel a window crack open in winter: a thin, precise draft that changes everything without disturbing a single thing.

"How quaint," Mrs. Park said, and lifted her wine glass to her lips.

The rest of dinner passed in a rhythm that felt like walking across a frozen lake, each step measured, each sound checked for the groan of something giving way beneath you. Mr. Park asked about your interests, your hobbies, your opinions on a recent news story, and you answered, and he nodded. He seemed pleased, genuinely, which was more than you could say for the woman sitting across from you, whose silence had developed its own vocabulary. Every time you spoke, her gaze would drift, just slightly, to the locket at your collarbone, or the modest cut of your top, or the way you held your fork, cataloguing, calculating, placing each observation into a mental file labeled Not Enough.

After dinner, Mr. Park retreated to his study with a cordial "it was wonderful to meet you, Y/N," and Jay went to use the restroom, and Mrs. Park excused herself with a gracious smile and a hand on your shoulder that lingered one beat too long, and you were left standing in the hallway with the echo of crystal and the ghost of gardenias, unsure of what to do with your hands or your body or the evening that still stretched ahead of you.

So you wandered. Not with intention, just with the aimless, curious impulse of someone who'd never been in a house this size and couldn't quite fathom its dimensions. You found the kitchen. Or rather, the kitchen found you, you turned a corner and there it was, vast, gleaming, and staffed by two women in uniform who were clearing the dinner dishes with the quiet efficiency of people who had done this a thousand times and would do it a thousand more.

"Can I help?" you asked, and they looked at you the way you'd been looked at all evening, with surprise, though this time it was a different kind.

"Oh, no, miss, we've got it," the older one said, her hands already moving, stacking plates.

"Please, I insist. I'm not a guest who sits around," you said, and you were already reaching for a dish towel, and something in your voice or your hands or the way you said guest, like it was a costume you were wearing rather than a role you inhabited, made them pause, and then relent, and then smile, and before long you were standing beside them at the counter, wiping down plates and making small talk about the weather, the commute, and how long they'd worked here. It was easy, the easiest you'd felt all night, because you knew this rhythm, this work, this language of hands, tasks, and the quiet solidarity of people who kept things running while other people sat at tables and made decisions about their lives.

You helped sweep the kitchen floor, the broom familiar in your hands, the motion automatic — you'd done this before, after all. Not in a house like this, but in houses, other people's houses, back when you were young and your mom would clean for families in the next town over. You'd go with her on weekends because she couldn't afford a sitter, and you'd help because that was what you did, because your hands were small but they could hold a rag, because every extra pair of hands meant finishing earlier and going home sooner, and because the women who employed your mother sometimes slipped you a few bills at the end of the day. You'd hand them over and your mom would kiss your forehead and say “that's my girl.” The money would then disappear into the jar on top of the refrigerator that was saving for something you never quite reached.

"You're very kind," the younger maid said, watching you work. "Most of Mr. and Mrs. Park's guests don't—they don't really notice us."

"I notice you," you said simply, because you did, because you always had, because you'd been on the other side of that not-noticed wall your whole life and you'd promised yourself that if you ever ended up on this side, you wouldn't be the person who walked past.

After a while, you needed paper towels, you'd spilled a bit of water on the counter and the dish towel was already damp. The younger maid pointed you toward the supply closet down the hall, and you walked, your heels quiet on the hardwood, the hallway long and lit by sconces that cast amber pools on the walls, and you were rounding the corner when you heard your name.

Not your first name. Your full name. Spoken by a voice that was smooth, unhurried, and utterly without malice — which made the words it was producing all the more devastating.

"She's a sweet girl," Mrs. Park was saying, and her voice carried through the gap of a door that wasn't fully closed, a sliver of warm light falling across the hallway floor. "She's pretty, she's smart, she's polite. But she's poor, Jongseong, and we do not want that reputation clinging onto our family."

Your hand stopped on the wall. Your heels stopped on the floor. Your lungs stopped in your chest.

"I don't want other people figuring out that my son married a peasant."

Peasant. The word hit you like a slap — not sharp, not sudden, but deep, a bruise that formed instantly and throbbed with a pain that radiated outward into your jaw, your shoulders, your fingertips. Peasant. As if your grandmother's hands that raised you were dirt. As if your mother's back that bent over other people's floors was a stain. As if the scholarship you'd bled for was a charity case instead of a testimony. Peasant. You pressed your back against the hallway wall and the locket was cool against your collarbone, your grandmother's face was pressed against the glass inside it. You wanted to scream but your throat was made of stone.

"Mom, that's—" Jay's voice, strained, tight, a wire pulled to its limit.

"Jongseong, honey." Mrs. Park again, and her tone shifted — still smooth, still gentle, but with an edge underneath, the edge of someone who believed with absolute certainty that they were doing you a favor by telling you the truth. "I know what's best for you, and Y/N isn't what's best for you."

"Isn't it better that she comes from less?" Jay said, and you could hear him struggling, hear the syllables catching and tumbling, hear the way he was reaching for arguments and coming up with handfuls of air. "She's hard-working, she's independent, she's earned everything she has—like, she didn't just inherit it, she built it. Built it. Isn't that—isn't that worth something?"

"Of course it's worth something, dear. Worth something to her," Mrs. Park said, and the distinction was precisely devastating. "Worth something to the life she comes from. But this family has a legacy, and that legacy requires a partner who can stand beside you at a charity gala and talk to the governor's wife about the yacht club without looking out of place. It requires someone who understands the world you're going to inherit."

"I understand the world I'm going to inherit," Jay said, but his voice was smaller now, less certain, and you realized with a slow, sickening clarity what was happening, he wasn't failing to defend you. He was drowning in something else entirely, something that was rising in him at the same time his mother was tearing you apart, and the two forces were colliding inside his chest and neither one was winning and you could hear it, you could hear the exact moment when the boy who'd handed you an envelope full of cash, begged you to save him realized that you'd saved him in a way money couldn't buy, and he couldn't speak because love, real, involuntary, and irreversible love, doesn't come with talking points.

"Your father agrees with me," Mrs. Park continued, and you heard Mr. Park's voice then, low and conciliatory, the voice of a man who'd already made his decision and was now merely softening its edges: "Jongseong, your mother and I only want what's best for you. You're the sole heir to the company. Everything we've built—the business, the reputation, the standing—all of it goes to you. And the person standing beside you determines how the world sees that legacy. It isn't about Y/N as a person, okay? It's about suitability."

Sole heir. The words registered somewhere beneath the devastation, filed away in the part of your brain that was still functioning, but they landed on numb ground. Of course he was. Of course the only son of this house, this dynasty, this gleaming empire of hardwood and chandeliers. Of course he was the one who'd carry it all. And of course they wanted someone suitable. Someone who knew what a yacht club was. Someone who didn't learn which fork to use by watching other people eat. Someone who wasn't you.

"Y/N is suitable," Jay said, and his voice cracked on the word suitable, cracked the way his voice had cracked in that study room ages ago when he'd said I'm begging, except this time the desperation wasn't about freedom from an arrangement. It was about you, specifically you, and the crack in his voice said everything his sentences couldn't: he loved you, that he'd been too late realizing it, that the realization was so big and so sudden and so consuming that it had stolen the language right out of his mouth, and his mother was still talking and he couldn't find the words to stop her because every word he reached for felt too small for what he was trying to say.

"Jongseong." Mrs. Park's voice again, patient, immovable, the voice of a woman who had been winning arguments in this house since before her son was born. "I'm not saying she's a bad person. I'm saying she's not our person. There's a difference, and you know it. You've known it your whole life."

Silence. The worst kind — the kind that isn't absence of sound but absence of response, the kind that means someone has opened their mouth and found nothing there, the kind that means the person you needed to fight for you is fighting something inside themselves instead and losing.

You pressed your palm flat against the hallway wall. The wallpaper was silk, you noticed. Actual silk. You noticed because noticing small, irrelevant things is what the body does when the large, relevant things are too heavy to carry. Your grandmother's face was warm against your collarbone. The empty space in the locket beside her was cold.

"Y/N, dear? The paper towels?" A voice from behind you, gentle, concerned, the younger maid, standing at the end of the hallway with a questioning tilt of her head, her eyes scanning your face and finding something there that made her expression shift from curiosity to caution. "Are you okay?"

You straightened. You smoothed the front of your skirt. You touched the locket once, quick, reflexive, like pressing a hand to a wound, and you smiled. A small smile. A functional one. The kind that holds a person together long enough to get to the bathroom where they can fall apart in private.

"Yup, coming!" you said, and your voice didn't crack, not even once, and that was the bravest thing you'd ever done.

An hour later, you still felt so sick to your stomach that you were genuinely surprised you hadn't thrown up.

The nausea sat low and persistent, a churning, acidic thing that had nothing to do with the food and everything to do with the word peasant reverberating through your skull on an endless loop, each repetition carving it a little deeper, making it a little more permanent, turning it from something someone had said into something you might always hear. Both of you had left the Park residence about ten minutes ago, you in the passenger seat, Jay behind the wheel, the glow of the dashboard illuminating his jaw, his hands, the side profile you'd memorized without meaning to. And his mother — his mother had the audacity, the sheer, staggering audacity, to pull you into a hug before you left. Right there in the foyer, in front of the gardenias and the chandelier, she'd wrapped her arms around you and pressed her cheek to yours and said, "It was so lovely to meet you, dear," and her perfume was expensive and her embrace was warm and every cell in your body was screaming you called me a peasant, you called me a peasant, you called me a peasant while your arms hung at your sides and your mouth said, "Thank you for having me, Mrs. Park," and you smiled, and she smiled, and the hug lasted exactly the right number of seconds for a woman who meant absolutely none of it. Absolutely disgusting.

You were upset for the whole ride, and you knew it was visible, you could feel it in the weight of your own silence, in the way your answers came out a half-beat too slow, in the faint, persistent tremor in your hands that you hid by keeping them folded in your lap. You were still talking to Jay, still responding to his questions, still maintaining the basic architecture of a conversation, but there was a layer of sadness underneath everything, thin and translucent but unmistakable, the way frost on a window doesn't block the view but changes the color of everything behind it. He'd asked if you had fun. You said yes. He'd asked if you thought dinner went well. You said it went fine. He'd asked if his mom was nice to you. You said she was very hospitable. Each answer was technically true and emotionally hollow, and the hollowness rang like a bell in the space between you.

Of course, Jay noticed. He noticed within the first three minutes, because Jay noticed everything about you, had been noticing for months, cataloguing your habits and your silences and the specific way your voice changed when you were trying very hard not to feel something, and this voice — this flat, careful, polite voice — was the one you used when you were hurting and refusing to admit it. He tried pushing you to answer why you were upset. Gently at first, "Hey, are you okay? You seem quiet,” and then with more intention, "Seriously, Y/N, talk to me. What's wrong?" and you wouldn't budge. You shook your head, you said nothing, you said you were just tired, you said it'd been a long evening, you said you were fine, and every "I'm fine" was a door you were closing in his face. He kept knocking, you kept closing, and the rhythm of it was making the air in the car thicker, heavier, and harder to breathe.

A few pushes later, rain started pouring. Somewhat heavy rain, the kind that arrived all at once, as if someone had turned a faucet, the sky splitting open and dumping sheets of water across the windshield so thick that the world outside became a blur of headlights, dark asphalt, and the ghostly shapes of trees bending under the weight of it. Predictable, you thought. You'd checked your weather app earlier, back at the dorms when you were still getting ready, and it had said it was going to rain around this hour. You'd even packed a small umbrella in your bag. Funny how the universe couldn't even be original about the timing. Eventually, that was all the conversation in the car was about while it was raining, Jay kept pushing and you just wouldn't give, the back-and-forth wearing down into something jagged and raw, his persistence meeting your silence like water against stone except the stone was starting to crack and the water kept coming and neither of you knew how to stop.

"Y/N, come on, you've been off since we left, just tell me—"

"I'm fine, Jay."

"You're not fine, you haven't been fine all night—"

"I said I'm fine."

"Would you stop saying that? You're clearly not—"

"There's nothing to talk about."

And then, finally the thread snapped. Jay's hands gripped the steering wheel tighter, his jaw clenched, and something broke loose in his chest, something that had been building for miles, and the words came out sharp, frustrated, and louder than he meant them to be, loud enough to cut through the rain drumming against the roof of the car, loud enough to make you flinch:

"Fuck, Y/N, you're acting like we're an actual couple!"

The car went quiet. Even the rain seemed to recede for a second, pulling back just enough to let the silence rush in and fill the space where the sound had been. Then your eyes burned. Just like that, without warning, without permission, the heat surged upward from somewhere deep in your chest, hit the backs of your eyes, your vision blurred, and the dashboard lights smeared into streaks of amber and white, and you couldn't even hold it anymore, couldn't keep the door closed, couldn't pretend the frost on the window wasn't there, and the tears came. Not the quiet, dignified kind. The kind that take everything with them. Your mascara and your eyeliner, the eyeliner you'd spent twenty minutes perfecting, the mascara that was supposed to be waterproof but clearly had not been road-tested against the specific devastation of hearing the boy you love tell you that your feelings were out of bounds, streamed down your cheeks in dark, inky rivers, tracing lines along your jaw, dripping off your chin onto the satin skirt you'd chosen so carefully, and you couldn't stop it, you couldn't even slow it down, you could only sit there in the passenger seat and sob silently, your shoulders barely moving, your mouth pressed shut, the only sound the wet, ragged catch of your breath trying to hold itself together and failing.

Jay just thought you'd gone radio silent, another refusal, another door, another round of the same fight. He glanced over once, briefly, saw you facing the window, and returned his eyes to the road, his jaw still tight, his hands still gripping the wheel, the frustration still hot in his veins. Then he glanced at the rearview mirror. And he saw you. Not the back of your head, your face, reflected in the glass, and the reflection showed mascara-streaked cheeks and red-rimmed eyes and a mouth trembling with the effort of not making a sound, and you were sobbing, silently, completely, the kind of crying that meant the person had decided long ago that their pain wasn't worth hearing and was holding it underwater with both hands. His heart broke. It broke the way glass breaks, suddenly, completely, into a thousand pieces that couldn't be reassembled, that could only be swept up and carried. He pulled over. No warning, no signal, just the car jerking to the right, the tires splashing through the puddle at the edge of the road, the vehicle settling onto the gravel shoulder of some neighborhood street, the houses dark, the streetlights haloed in rain, the world reduced to the sound of water and the ghost of your breathing.

"Y/N—" he started, and he reached over, his hand extending across the center console toward your shoulder, toward your arm, toward any part of you he could hold, because he couldn't think straight while driving and he couldn't think straight now and the only thing his body knew how to do was reach for you. But the moment his fingertips brushed the fabric of your sleeve, you moved, you unbuckled your seatbelt with a sharp click, yanked the door handle, and you were out, the door swinging open and the rain pouring in and you stepping out of the car and into the downpour like it was the only direction left.

You ran. Not far, not fast, your kitten heels slipped on the wet asphalt and you kicked them off without breaking stride, bare feet slapping against the puddles, the rain hitting your shoulders, your hair, your face, mixing with the tears until you couldn't tell which was falling from the sky and which was falling from you. You didn't know where you were going — just away, just forward, just anywhere that wasn't the passenger seat of that car where you'd heard those words.

You're acting like we're an actual couple.

Jay followed. He was out of the car before the door had fully closed behind you, his own door left open, the interior light on, and he was running, actually running, his shoes hitting the pavement, his shirt already soaked through, the rain flattening his hair against his forehead, and he was following you because one time, months ago, when you'd stepped out of your dorm without an umbrella on a cloudy day, your roommate had absentmindedly told him, told Jay, who'd been waiting in the hallway with takeout, that you were prone to sickness. Like, one raindrop and it was absolutely over. One drop and you were congested for a week. One chill and you were bedridden for three days. She'd said it casually, dismissively, the way people mention things that are just facts of life, and Jay had filed it away in the same mental cabinet where he stored your coffee order and your favorite flower and the sound of your laugh, and now you were standing in a downpour in with nothing but your dogs out and he was not about to let you catch your death on some stranger's sidewalk.

"Y/N, stop—please, just stop—"

You didn't stop. You walked faster, arms wrapped around yourself, the rain hammering your back, your skirt heavy with water and clinging to your legs, the gold earrings cold against your neck, the locket pressed to your chest like a shield that wasn't working. He caught up to you anyway, longer legs, less stubbornness, more desperation, and fell into step beside you, and you kept walking, and he kept pace, and the two of you moved down the wet sidewalk like two people who'd lost the map and couldn't agree on which way was home.

"Y/N—"

"I'm fine, Jay."

"You're not fine, you're standing in the rain without shoes—"

"I said I'm fine!"

And then you stopped. Not because you wanted to — because your legs gave out, not from weakness but from the sheer, crushing exhaustion of holding months of love inside a body that wasn't built to contain it. You stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, rain streaming down your face, your bare feet in a puddle, your mascara ruined and your hair ruined and your heart absolutely, irreparably ruined, and you turned to face him, and the dam broke.

"I feel so stupid," you said, and your voice cracked on stupid, cracked wide open, the word splitting into fragments that the rain carried away. "I feel so—god, I'm so stupid, Jay, because I—I heard what your mother and father said about me. I heard it. I was looking for paper towels and the door was open and I—I heard everything." A sob tore through your chest and you pressed your hand over your mouth and it did nothing, the sound still came, muffled and wet and broken. "They called me a peasant. Your mother called me a—she said peasant, Jay, and your dad—suitability, he said it's about—about suitability, and I—"

You were breaking down. Visibly, audibly, completely. The stoic, composed girl who'd walked into the Park residence was gone, and what was left was someone younger, someone rawer, someone who'd been holding herself together with thread, spit, and willpower, had finally run out of all three. Your sentences were stuttering, fragmenting, words tumbling over each other like people trying to escape a burning room.

"And I know—I know this is just—I know we're just—I know it's fake, I know that, I was the one who said no, I was the one who—who said no falling in love shit, I was the one who said no weird couple stuff, I drew the lines, I made the rules, and—" Your breath hitched, a sharp, involuntary gasp that bent you slightly forward, and the rain ran down your face, your shoulders shook, you were crying so hard you could barely form words but you kept going because it was all coming out now, all of it, everything you'd swallowed, buried, and denied for months, and it was messy, ugly, and exactly what the truth always sounds like when it finally gets permission to speak. "But fuck you, Jay! Bullshit—I actually love you. I love you so much it hurts, and I—I don't even recall when it started feeling less like some mutual agreement and more like—more like—"

You couldn't finish. The sob swallowed the rest of the sentence and you stood there, drenched and trembling, your hands balled into fists at your sides, your mascara in ruins, your grandmother's locket pressed cold and heavy against your sternum, and you'd said it, you'd finally said it, and the relief and the terror of it were indistinguishable, two rivers merging into the same flood.

Jay stared at you. Through the rain, through the dark, through the curtain of water that blurred the edges of everything, he stared at you, and the expression on his face was something you'd never seen before, not shock, not pity, not the practiced composure of the campus heartthrob, but something stripped and raw, a boy standing in the rain watching the girl he loved say the words he hadn't been able to find in his parents' study, the words that had been sitting in his throat for weeks, months, maybe since that first evening in the diner when she'd smiled at him with ice cream on her lips and he'd thought oh no.

He stepped closer. One step. Two. Three. Close enough that you could see the rain caught in his eyelashes, close enough that you could see his chest rising and falling with breaths that were faster than they should've been, close enough that you could see his hands shaking. He reached out and pulled you into a hug from behind, his arms wrapping around your shoulders, his chest pressing against your back, his chin dropping to the top of your wet, wavy hair, and the embrace was so sudden, so warm, and so tight that it knocked the remaining breath out of your lungs and a fresh sob out of your throat. You could feel his heart through his soaked shirt, hammering against your spine, and it was racing, racing the way yours was, the same tempo, the same desperation, two drums beating in the same storm.

Then he turned you. Gently, his hands on your shoulders, guiding you until you were facing him, and the rain was between you, on you, and everywhere. Your eyes were red, your face was a mess, and he looked at you the way he'd looked at you in that polaroid in his car, not at the camera, not at the performance, at you, just you, and there was nothing guarded in it, nothing held back, nothing fake.

"And even after all that," he said, his voice low and rough and thick with something that sounded like it had been drowning for months and had finally broken the surface, "you still feel like you're the one who broke the agreement?"

And then he kissed you.

Not a feather-light press. Not a convincing-for-the-crowd peck. Not a contractual obligation on a cafeteria cheek. He kissed you in the rain, on a sidewalk in a neighborhood neither of you knew, with your mascara running, his shirt soaked, your bare feet in a puddle, and his hands cupping your face like you were something precious and terrifyingly impossible to let go of. It was long — longer than any kiss you'd imagined, longer than any kiss in any movie, long enough that the rain had time to trace paths down both your faces and pool where your lips met, and the cold became irrelevant because his mouth was warm and his hands were warm and the whole world was cold and wet and none of it mattered, none of it existed. Nothing existed except the pressure of his lips, the steadiness of his grip, and the way your hands found the front of his shirt and held on the way you'd been wanting to hold on for months, fingers twisting into the wet fabric, pulling him closer, closer, because if this was the only real thing then you were going to make it as real as possible, you were going to press every ounce of everything you'd been carrying into the space between your mouths and hope it was enough.

When you broke apart, slowly, reluctantly, the way people separate when the air they share is more necessary than the air around them, he didn't go far. His forehead rested against yours, his breath warm and uneven on your rain-cold skin, his thumbs brushing the remnants of mascara from your cheeks with a gentleness that made your chest ache in a completely different way than it had been aching all night. Then he pressed a quick kiss to your forehead — a seal, a promise, a full stop on a sentence that had been running for months. Then he took your hand, raised it to his lips, and pressed a soft kiss to your palm, the kind of kiss that wasn't about passion but about tenderness, about treating a part of you that had swept floors, held rags, carried groceries, and typed lab reports as though it was worthy of being kissed.

"Let's head back now to the car," he said quietly, his voice still rough, still raw, but steadier now, anchored.

You looked down at yourself, drenched, barefoot, skirt heavy with water, hair plastered to your neck, and then at him, equally soaked, shirt clinging, shoes squelching, the both of you looking like you'd climbed out of a lake, and you let out a small, watery, almost-laugh. "We're both soaking wet, Jay."

He looked at you, and the corner of his mouth lifted, that same easy, warm, real smile, the one that was only yours, and he said, "It's okay. You're acting like I can't handle some wet ass car seat. It's all good."

You laughed. An actual laugh, small, broken, wet, and still trembling with the aftershocks of everything, but real, and he smiled wider, and he kept your hand in his as he walked you back to the car through the rain, and the car seat did get wet, but it didn't matter at all.

Jay drove you back to his condominium unit. He didn't ask, he just told you. The car was still humming with the aftershocks of everything that had just happened on that sidewalk, the rain still hammering the windshield, your bare feet still cold and your skirt still heavy and the taste of him still faint and electric on your lips, when he glanced at you and said, simply, "You're staying at mine tonight." Not a question. Not an offer. A statement, delivered with the same quiet certainty he used when he told you to order what you actually wanted at the diner, the same certainty he used when he picked up your bag without asking, the same certainty that had been steadily, silently eroding every wall you'd built since the day you'd said deal in that study room.

"Jay, I—"

"You're wet. You're barefoot. Your roommate went home for the weekend, right?" He already knew the answer, you'd mentioned it earlier in the week, in passing, one of those small facts that Jay collected and stored and retrieved at exactly the moment they became relevant. "I'm not letting you walk back to an empty dorm soaking wet in the rain. You'll get sick. End of discussion."

You wanted to argue. Some part of you, the stubborn, self-sufficient part that had raised itself on the principle that you didn't need anyone to take care of you, wanted to say I'm fine, I can handle it, I've handled worse. But that part was small and tired and waterlogged, and the part of you that had just said I love you out loud for the first time was larger and louder and didn't have the energy to pretend anymore. So you nodded, a small, quiet nod, and you pulled your knees up onto the seat, looking out the window and you let him drive you home.

His home. The word didn't feel as foreign as it should have.

The journey up to his unit was funny, in the way that things are funny when they're happening to you and you're too exhausted to feel embarrassed about them yet. The lobby of his condominium was quiet at this hour, late enough that the ambient music had been turned down to a whisper and the marble floors reflected only the warm glow of the recessed lighting and the silence had that particular, hushed quality of spaces that were usually full but were currently holding their breath. You walked in behind Jay, your bare feet leaving wet prints on the polished floor, your ruined satin skirt dripping a small trail behind you like a sad, glamorous snail, your mascara still smeared under your eyes in a way that made you look vaguely like a raccoon who'd had a very bad night. Jay was no better, his shirt was plastered to his torso, his hair was flattened against his forehead in dark, wet spikes, and his shoes made a squelching sound with every step that echoed through the lobby like someone repeatedly stepping on a sponge.

The woman behind the front desk, the same one who'd greeted you with "Welcome back, Mr. Park, and guest" all those months ago, looked up as you both passed. Her eyes traveled from Jay's soaked shirt to your bare feet to the dark mascara tracks on your cheeks to the way Jay's hand was resting on the small of your back, and her expression underwent a very specific, very readable journey: first confusion, then assessment, then a slow, knowing crinkle at the corners of her eyes, and finally a smile, warm, private, the kind of smile people reserve for things they find genuinely endearing. She didn't say anything to you, but as you passed the desk, you heard her mutter under her breath, quiet enough that she probably thought you couldn't hear but you could, you absolutely could: "Lovebirds, how cute." And then a small, fond exhale, the way someone sighs at a movie scene that hits a little too close to home.

Jay didn't hear it. He was already guiding you toward the elevator, his hand still warm against your back even through the wet fabric. But you heard it, and something about it, the casual certainty of it, the way this stranger looked at the two of you, dripping, ruined, and walking through a lobby at midnight, and saw love before she saw mess, made your throat tighten in a way that had nothing to do with the cold.

You showered first. Jay handed you a towel and pointed you toward the bathroom and said "take your time, the water pressure's ridiculous" and you stood under the shower for longer than you needed to, letting the hot water undo what the cold rain had done, watching the mascara swirl down the drain in grey and black ribbons, pressing your forehead against the tile and breathing and breathing and breathing. When you turned the water off and reached for the towel, you realized the problem. Your undergarments. Your bra, your underwear, the ones you'd worn under, the ones you'd chosen specifically because they didn't show lines, were wet. Soaking, thoroughly, irreversibly wet, the rain having penetrated every layer you'd been wearing, and you hadn't brought a change of clothes because you'd come to Jay’s house to have dinner with his parents, not to sleep over, not to plan for a rain-soaked confession and a kiss on a stranger's sidewalk and a night that had gone so far off-script that the script was now a distant memory. You wrapped the towel around yourself and cracked the bathroom door open and called out, "Jay?"

He appeared a moment later, still damp, having changed into dry sweats and a t-shirt, his hair sticking up in that way it did when he'd toweled it off without looking in a mirror. "Yeah?"

"I, um. I don't have—my undergarments are wet. Everything's wet. I didn't exactly pack an overnight bag."

He stared at you for a second, then his face did something, a quick flicker of oh followed by that familiar, faint flush that crept along his cheekbones whenever the conversation veered into territory that reminded him you were, in fact, a person with a body, and that that body currently existed on the other side of a towel. He cleared his throat. "Right. Yeah. Of course. Hold on."

He disappeared and came back with his arms full, an oversized grey hoodie, soft and worn from many washes, the kind of hoodie that had lived in his closet long enough to carry the shape of his shoulders; a pair of red plaid boxers, clean, folded, the fabric soft and slightly faded; a pair of thick socks, the kind meant for hardwood floors in winter; and a pair of slippers he handed you with a slightly sheepish expression. "These are a little big. I never really wear them—they were a gift, my aunt bought them thinking I'd use them around the unit but they don't fit right and I keep forgetting to throw them out. They're clean, though. I promise."

You took the pile from him, and the hoodie was warm from being in a drawer near the heating vent, and it smelled like his laundry detergent, that same clean, woody scent that his whole condominium carried, the scent that meant safe before your brain had consciously decided it meant anything at all. You closed the bathroom door, dropped the towel, and put everything on. The hoodie hung past your hips, the sleeves falling well beyond your wrists, the neckline wide enough that it slipped slightly off one shoulder. The boxers sat loose around your waist, the plaid pattern absurd and comfortable. The socks were thick and warm and the slippers were, as promised, a little big, your feet sliding slightly when you walked, and you looked at yourself in the bathroom mirror, mascara-free, hair wet, drowning in a grey hoodie and red plaid boxers that belonged to the boy you loved, who loved you back, and you thought: this is the most myself I've ever looked.

When you opened the bathroom door, the steam followed you out into the hallway. Jay was standing right there, waiting, a towel draped over his shoulder and a smaller one in his hand, the hair towel, you realized, when he gestured for you to come closer.

"Come here," he said, and you did, walking toward him in your oversized slippers, and he guided you to sit on the edge of the couch, and then he stood behind you and began drying your hair with the smaller towel, his hands working the fabric through your damp strands with a gentleness that made your eyes prickle. You'd never had anyone dry your hair before. It was such a small thing, a nothing thing, a functional thing, and yet the intimacy of it was staggering, the careful way his fingers moved through the wet, the way he'd occasionally pause to squeeze a section between the towel and his palm, the way he'd brush a strand away from your neck and his fingertips would graze your skin and send a small, involuntary shiver down your spine that had nothing to do with the cold.

"My eyes still hurt," you whined, pressing the heels of your palms against your closed eyelids, and the whine came out small and childish and genuinely pitiful because they did hurt, you'd cried so hard on that sidewalk that your eyelids were swollen and raw and every blink felt like sandpaper. "They're all puffy and gross."

Jay giggled, a bright, surprised sound, the kind that escaped him before he could catch it, and you could hear the smile in it, the unguarded warmth of it, and you wanted to be annoyed that he was laughing at your suffering but the sound was so genuinely, infectiously happy that you couldn't even muster the indignation.

"They're not gross," he said, still working the towel through your hair, his voice soft with amusement. "You're just having a reaction to being dramatically beautiful in the rain for ten minutes. It's a known side effect."

"Dramatically beautiful?" You lifted your head slightly. "I looked like a swamp creature."

"Mm, a very pretty swamp creature," he corrected, and you could hear the grin, and you groaned and slumped back against his abdomen and he laughed again, and the sound of it traveled through his chest and into your spine and settled there, warm and constant, and you thought: I could live in this sound.

He finished drying your hair after a few more minutes, the dampness reduced to a soft, manageable weight that would air-dry the rest of the way. He gave your shoulder a gentle squeeze. "I'm gonna go wash up. Make yourself comfortable, there's water in the fridge, extra blankets in the closet, and the TV remote is—somewhere under the couch cushions, I always lose it."

You nodded, and he disappeared down the hallway toward the bathroom, and you heard the shower turn on, and then you were alone. The condominium was quiet, that rich, expensive quiet that big spaces produced, the kind that felt like being wrapped in something soft. You sat on the couch for a moment, your knees pulled up to your chest inside the oversized hoodie, the slippers half-off your feet, the towel still draped over your shoulders.

Then you got up. You didn't mean to go looking for him, you were just restless, your body still humming with the residual electricity of the evening, your skin still remembering the rain, the kiss, and his hands on your face, and walking felt like the only thing to do with all that leftover voltage. You padded down the hallway in your too-big slippers, past the kitchen, past the closet with the extra blankets, past the bathroom where the shower was still running, and you found his bedroom.

The door was open. The room was dim, just the lamp on the nightstand, a warm amber glow that made the bed and the bookshelf and the guitar propped in the corner look like they belonged in a painting rather than a real person's life. And there was Jay, seated in the comfortable lounge chair in the corner, the one with the deep cushion and the angled back that faced the window, the one you'd seen him sit in before when he was reading or thinking or absentmindedly strumming chords on his guitar without plugging it in. He was still in his sweats and t-shirt, his own hair damp and finger-combed back, his legs stretched out, his phone abandoned on the armrest, and he looked up when you appeared in the doorway, and the look on his face, open, warm, a little tired, completely yours, made your breath catch.

You walked in. Your slippers made a soft, shuffling sound on the hardwood. You didn't say anything, you didn't know what to say, your voice having apparently used up its entire vocabulary on that sidewalk and now sitting empty and quiet in your throat. You just walked toward him, slowly, your hands finding the front pocket of the hoodie and burying themselves inside it, and you stopped a few feet from the chair, and you looked at him, and he looked at you, and the air in the room felt thick and warm and charged with something neither of you had named yet but both of you could feel pressing against your skin.

Then, without warning, without a word, without a question, without anything except the quiet, certain movement of his hands, Jay reached out and pulled you onto his lap.

It was smooth, the kind of movement that looked effortless but required a specific kind of confidence, a specific kind of certainty that the person being pulled wanted to be there. His hands found your waist inside the hoodie, his fingers closing around the fabric and the warmth underneath, and he drew you forward and down until you were settled across his thighs, your knees on either side of his hips, the hoodie riding up slightly where his hands gripped it, the red plaid boxers hidden beneath the grey fabric. Your hands landed on his shoulders, the only place they could go, and you were close, closer than ever before because this was a different kind of closeness, the kind that wasn't born from desperation or confession but from choice, from the simple, deliberate act of being exactly where you wanted to be.

His hands stayed on your waist. His eyes stayed on yours. The lamp cast shadows across his face, highlighting the slope of his nose and the sharpness of his jaw and the way his pupils had darkened, blown wide, the amber glow reflected in them like small fires. Neither of you spoke. The room was quiet except for the sound of your breathing and his breathing and the distant, low hum of the city beyond the window, and the silence wasn't awkward, heavy, or uncertain — it was full, the way silence is full when it's holding something that words would only diminish.

You sat there, on his lap, in his hoodie, in his boxers, in his slippers that had fallen off your feet somewhere between the doorway and the chair, and his hands were warm through the fabric, and his heart was beating fast against your chest, and the night was still raining outside, and you were exactly where you were supposed to be.

"If there's something horrendous on my face you should tell me and stop staring like that."

The words came out softer than you intended, barely more than a whisper, because the way Jay was looking at you right now made it difficult to breathe properly, let alone speak at full volume. His eyes were dark, not the warm amber-brown they'd been over dinner or the soft, fond shade they'd taken on while drying your hair, but something deeper, something hungrier, the color of burnt honey held over a flame, and they were fixed on you with an intensity that made your pulse stutter and your thighs press instinctively tighter around his hips.

He didn't answer right away. His thumbs, which had been resting idle against your waist, began to move — slow, deliberate strokes along the curve of your hips through the hoodie, his fingers pressing into the fabric just hard enough that you could feel the warmth of each individual fingertip through the worn cotton, and every point of contact lit up like a switch being flipped somewhere beneath your skin.

"There's nothing horrendous on your face," he said finally, and his voice had dropped, lower than you'd ever heard it, a rough, quiet thing that seemed to vibrate through the pads of his fingers and into your bones. "I'm staring because you're in my clothes and it's making me lose my mind."

A startled laugh escaped you, breathy and nervous. "It's just a hoodie—"

"It's not just a hoodie." His grip tightened fractionally, his fingers curling into the fabric at your hips, and the slight, possessive pressure of it sent a sharp thrill skating down your spine. "You're sitting on my lap in my clothes, smelling like me, looking like that, and you're asking me why I'm staring?" He exhaled, a short, almost-laugh that was more breath than sound. "You're killing me."

The laugh that had been building in your throat dissolved into something else, something warmer and less certain, and you became acutely aware of how close his face was to yours, close enough that you could see the faint water droplets still clinging to the ends of his hair, close enough that you could feel the warmth of his exhale ghosting across your chin, close enough that the distance between his mouth and yours had become a question that neither of you had asked yet but both of you were waiting to answer.

You answered it.

It wasn't planned. It wasn't a decision made by the rational, thinking part of your brain. It was gravity, pure and simple, the same force that had pulled you into his lap and pulled you to this condominium and pulled those three words out of your mouth on a rain-soaked sidewalk, your body leaning forward, your fingers tightening on his shoulders, and your mouth finding his with a certainty that surprised you both.

Jay made a sound against your lips, a low, sharp inhale through his nose, and then his hands were sliding from your waist to the small of your back, pressing you forward, pressing you closer, and he was kissing you back with a fervor that made the kiss on the sidewalk feel like a prelude, a rough draft, a sketch compared to this, the final, full-color rendering, all the detail and depth and texture filled in at once. His mouth was warm, sure, and unhurried despite the urgency thrumming beneath it, his lips moving against yours with a precision that suggested he'd been thinking about this exact thing for longer than he'd ever admit, mapping out the pressure, the angle, and the way his lower lip fit between yours, and the deliberateness of it, the care of it, was so fundamentally him that it made something in your chest crack open and spill warmth through your entire body.

Your fingers climbed from his shoulders into his hair, threading through the damp strands, and the sound he made in response, a muted, rough “fuck” breathed against your mouth, sent a jolt of electricity straight down your center. You tugged lightly, experimentally, and his head tilted back. His breath stuttered and his fingers dug into your back through the hoodie hard enough that you knew his fingerprints would be embedded onto your skin, and the thought of that, of wearing his fingerprints beneath his hoodie, made you press into him harder, made the kiss deeper, made your tongue slide against his with a desperation that surprised you.

He responded instantly. One hand left your back and came up to cup the side of your face, his thumb tracing the line of your jaw, tilting your head just slightly, and the new angle made everything sharper, more intense, the slide of his tongue against yours sending sparks skittering down your nerve endings like lit matches dropped on dry kindling. His other hand stayed pressed into the small of your back, keeping you flush against him, and you could feel his heart hammering against your chest, or maybe that was yours, or maybe it was both of them beating in tandem like they'd been doing it forever and were only now acknowledging the rhythm.

You shifted on his lap, adjusting your weight, your knees tightening against the outside of his thighs, and the movement pressed your hips down against his in a way that made you both freeze. The sound that escaped you was small and involuntary, a half-swallowed whimper that vibrated against his lips, and the sound he made was worse, or better, depending on perspective — a low, guttural groan that seemed to come from somewhere deep in his chest and traveled through his body into yours like a seismic event.

"Don't—" His voice was fractured, barely coherent, his forehead dropping against yours, his breath coming ragged and hot against your swollen lips. "Don't move like that if you're not—fuck—if you're not planning to follow through, because I—"

You moved again. Deliberately this time, not an adjustment but a choice, your hips rolling forward in a slow, deliberate grind that pressed the heat between your thighs against the unmistakable hardness that had developed beneath the fabric of his sweats. The friction, the pressure, the feeling of him solid and insistent against you even through layers of clothing, pulled a moan from your throat that you didn't recognize as your own voice.

"Shit—" Jay's head fell back against the chair, his neck corded, his jaw clenched, his eyes squeezed shut for a single, trembling moment before they opened again and fixed on you with a look so raw, so unguarded, so full of want that it made your stomach clench and your breath come short. His hands slid down from your back to your hips, fingers spread wide, and he held you there, held you against him, and he didn't stop you when you moved again.

The dry grinding started slowly, almost tentatively, your hips finding a rhythm against his that was more instinct than experience, more feeling than technique. The seam of the boxers you were wearing, his boxers, dragged against you in a way that sent sharp, stuttering pulses of pleasure through your core with every movement, and the angle of it, the way his body was positioned beneath you, meant that every roll of your hips pressed you directly against the length of him, hard, thick, and impossible to ignore through the thin cotton of his sweats. You could feel the shape of him, the heat of him, and the knowledge that you were doing that, that you were the reason the campus heartthrob was hard, breathless, and gripping your hips like you were the only solid thing in a spinning room, sent a fresh wave of arousal pooling between your thighs so quickly it almost embarrassed you.

"Jay—" His name came out broken, half-moaned, and you didn't even know what you were asking for, only that the friction wasn't enough anymore, only that the fabric between you was a barrier that your body was increasingly desperate to dissolve.

"I know," he breathed, and his hands flexed on your hips, guiding you, easing you into a slower, deeper grind that made you both gasp. "I know, baby, I know."

Baby. The word hit you like a physical thing, warm and weighted, and the way he said it, rough and reverent, like it had been sitting on his tongue for weeks waiting for permission to come out, made your hips stutter and your fingers tighten in the fabric of his t-shirt and a small, needy sound escape your lips that you couldn't have stopped if you'd tried.

"You feel so good," you whispered, and the admission came easier than it should have, your inhibitions eroded by the haze of sensation and the certainty that the boy beneath you was someone who would catch every vulnerable thing you dropped. "Mmgh, Jay, you feel—god, you feel so big."

A strangled sound escaped him, half-laugh, half-groan, and his hands slid from your hips to your ass, palms covering the curve of you through the hoodie, fingers pressing into the plush softness with a grip that made your breath hitch and your spine arch. "You can't just—fuck—you can't just say things like that to me—"

"It's true," you breathed, rolling your hips again, slower, feeling every inch of him against you, and the words tumbled out without permission, fueled by the way his fingers were kneading your ass through the fabric with a desperation that matched your own. "You're so hard, Jay, I can feel all of you and you're so—"

He kissed you to shut you up, or maybe because he couldn't not kiss you, his mouth crashing into yours with a hunger that made the previous kisses feel like polite suggestions, his tongue sliding against yours with a slick, dirty insistence that made your toes curl and your hips grind down harder and your thoughts dissolve into a warm, wanting blur. His hands were everywhere on your lower half, squeezing, gripping, pulling you against him with each roll of your hips, and the wet sounds of your kissing and the muted creak of the chair beneath you and the broken, shared breathing filled the quiet room like a symphony composed in the key of desperation.

When he pulled back, just enough to breathe, his lips were swollen and wet. His eyes were nearly black, the amber swallowed entirely by the blown-wide pupils, his chest was rising and falling with a heaviness that made you feel powerful and wrecked in equal measure. His right hand stayed on your ass, fingers digging into the flesh hard enough to dimple the fabric, but his left hand moved, traveled from your hip to the front of the hoodie, fingertips tracing up your stomach through the soft cotton, leaving a trail of goosebumps in their wake, until his hand reached the hem of the hoodie where it bunched at your waist, and his fingers slipped beneath it.

The first touch of his bare fingers against the skin of your stomach made you shiver violently, a full-body tremor that had nothing to do with cold and everything to do with the way his hand was warm, moving downward with a slowness that was almost cruel. His fingertips traced the line of your waistband, his waistband, the plaid boxers, the fabric you were wearing because everything you owned was soaked through, ruined, and the only thing standing between his hand and the place you needed it most was a thin, faded layer of cotton that he'd bought at a store months ago and never thought would be worn by anyone but himself.

"Can I?" His voice was barely a whisper, rough and low, his forehead pressed against yours, his breath mixing with yours in the small space between your faces. His hand had stilled just above the hem of the boxers, his fingertips resting against the bare skin of your lower belly, and the question was so gentle, so Jay, even now, even with his other hand still gripping your ass, his hardness still pressing against you, and his breathing still ragged with want, he was still asking, still making sure, still putting your comfort above his own desperation, and the tenderness of it made your eyes sting, your heart clench, and your hips can’t forward into his palm in an answer that was more honest than words could ever be.

"Yes," you breathed. "Please, yes."

His hand slipped beneath the waistband.

The first brush of his fingers against you made a sharp, keening sound rip from your throat that you'd never made before, a sound that seemed to come from somewhere deeper than your lungs, somewhere primal and wanting and utterly unguarded. Jay groaned in response, a low, broken sound, and his fingers pressed more firmly against the damp fabric, feeling the wetness that had nothing to do with rain, and the heel of his palm ground against you and fuck—

"You're so wet," he breathed against your mouth, and the words were reverent and ragged and almost disbelieving, like he couldn't quite comprehend that he was the cause of this, that the girl on his lap was this affected by him, by his hands and his mouth and the sound of his voice saying baby like it was the only word that mattered. "God, you're so wet for me already and I've barely touched you."

"You've been touching me," you managed, and your voice was unsteady, cracked down the middle by the slow, deliberate circles his fingers were drawing against you through the thin cotton. "You've been—ah—touching me this whole time, your hands on my—on my hips, on my ass, you've been—"

"Been driving you crazy?" he finished, and there was a smile in his voice, that same quiet, knowing confidence that made you want to kiss him and kill him in equal measure, and his fingers chose that moment to hook around the elastic of your underwear and tug it aside, the first touch of his bare fingers against your bare skin made every thought in your head evaporate like mist.

He explored you slowly at first, which was somehow worse than if he'd just plunged in and gotten to it, because his fingertips traced along the slick, swollen edges of you with a meticulous attention that felt like study, like he was memorizing you, learning you, cataloging every fold and every flutter and every place that made your breath catch or your hips jerk or your fingers dig harder into his shoulders. His middle finger slid through your wetness, gathering it, spreading it, and the obscene, slick sound of it combined with the feeling of his finger moving so close to where you needed it most and yet not quite there, not quite inside, was a form of torture so exquisite you almost sobbed.

"Jay, please—"

"Please what?" His voice was silk and gravel, his finger still drawing lazy, maddening patterns along your entrance, dipping just barely inside before retreating, a cruel, tantalizing hint of what was to come. "Use that pretty mouth for me, baby."

"I want—I want your fingers inside me, please, I need—"

He gave you what you wanted.

One finger slid inside, slow and deep and deliberate, and the stretch of it, the intrusion, the feeling of him entering you for the first time in any capacity, made your mouth fall open, your eyes squeeze shut, and a sound escape your throat that was somewhere between a moan and a cry. He was inside you, his finger, just one, but the girth of it, the length, the way it curled slightly as it pressed to the hilt, was enough to make your walls clench around him reflexively and your hips grind down against his hand seeking more, more, because one wasn't enough, not when you could feel how much more he had to give.

"Mmgh, that's it, baby," he groaned against your jaw, his lips brushing the skin there, his breath hot and unsteady. "Clench around me like the good girl you are."

The phrase hit you like a freight train. Good girl. Two words, spoken in that low, rough voice, with his finger inside you and his other hand still gripping your ass like he owned it, and you felt a fresh pulse of wetness coat his finger and your walls clamp down around him so hard that he hissed through his teeth and his own hips bucked up involuntarily beneath you.

"You like that," he observed, and it wasn't a question, and the quiet certainty in his voice, the way he'd clocked exactly what those words did to you and filed it away for future use, made you whine high and needy in the back of your throat. "You like when I tell you how good you're being for me."

"I like—I like everything you do," you gasped, and it was the most honest thing you'd ever said, because his finger was moving inside you now, curling and pressing and finding a spot that made your vision white out at the edges, your thighs tremble against his, and his thumb had found your clit and was drawing tight, devastating circles around it that made coherent thought impossible. "I like—oh god—I like you, I like your hands, I like—"

"Mm, like my fingers inside you?" His voice was filth, pure filth, spoken against the shell of your ear, and the warmth of his breath, the obscenity of the words, and the feeling of a second finger joining the first made your whole body seize and arch and press into his hand with a desperation that bordered on mindless.

Two fingers. The stretch was significant now, the girth of two of his fingers pressing into you, spreading you open, and the fullness of it, the pressure, the way his fingers moved in tandem, curling, thrusting, grinding against the spot inside you that made stars scatter behind your eyelids, was so overwhelmingly good that the sounds you were making weren't even words anymore, just a stream of whimpers and moans and broken syllables that spilled from your lips without your permission or your awareness. Your tongue was out, just slightly, your mouth open, your breathing ragged and wet and audible, and you were riding his hand now, your hips moving of their own accord, grinding down against his fingers, chasing the pleasure, and every roll of your hips pressed your ass into the grip of his other hand, which was squeezing and pulling you apart with a fervor that made you feel desired in a way you'd never felt before, like you were something precious, filthy, and his.

"You're so wet and so tight," he groaned, his fingers pumping into you with a steadiness that contradicted the tremor in his voice, the crack in his composure. "Squeeze me tight, baby, just like that—fuck—just like that, you're doing so good, you feel so fucking good—"

"I feel—you feel—" You couldn't finish the sentence, your brain unable to string together enough words to express the overwhelming, consuming, devastating pleasure of his fingers inside you, his thumb on your clit, his other hand on your ass, and his voice in your ear saying things that would make your past self combust with embarrassment and your present self drip with more arousal onto his already-soaked fingers. "Jay—ugh—Jay, please, I need—I need more, I need you, I need—"

"You need me?" His fingers slowed, just slightly, and his forehead pressed against yours, his eyes finding yours, and the look in them was so intense, so burning, so full of love and lust and something fierce and protective that it stole the air from your lungs. "You need me where, baby? Tell me."

"Inside me," you whispered, and the words came out trembling and true and stripped of every layer of pretense you'd ever worn. "Not your fingers. I need—I need your cock inside me. Please."

Something in Jay's expression fractured. You watched it happen, watched the last thread of his restraint snap like a guitar string pulled too tight, watched his jaw clench and his nostrils flare and his eyes darken to something feral and desperate, and then his fingers withdrew from you, dragging through your wetness, leaving you empty and aching. Both hands came to your hips, gripping hard, steadying you, and he stood up from the chair in one fluid motion, lifting you with him, your legs wrapping around his waist, your arms locking around his neck, and he carried you the four steps to the bed and laid you down on the mattress with a gentleness that was almost incongruous with the hunger in his eyes.

He stood over you for a moment, just looking, his chest heaving, his hair falling across his forehead in damp, messy strands, his sweats tented obscenely, and the visual of him, this boy, this man, who you'd watched from across lecture halls and sat beside in study rooms and fake-dated for months, looking down at you like you were the only thing in the world worth seeing, made you reach for him with both hands, your fingers closing around the hem of his t-shirt and tugging.

"Come here," you said, and your voice was wrecked and breathless.

He came. He stripped his t-shirt over his head in one swift motion and dropped it somewhere — floor, chair, another dimension, you didn't care, couldn't care, because his chest was bare, his abdomen was lean and toned, his skin was glowing warm in the lamplight, and then he was climbing over you, his knees bracketing your hips, his hands on either side of your head, and he was kissing you again, deep and dirty and consuming, his bare chest pressing against the hoodie, and you could feel his heart pounding against yours, or yours against his, or both, both, both.

"Wait," he said against your mouth, and he pulled back just enough to look down at you, at the hoodie, at his hoodie stretched across your body, the fabric that carried his scent and his shape and now you inside of it, and something in his expression went soft and hungry and utterly undone. "You have no idea what you look like right now."

"I look like I'm wearing your clothes—"

"You look like you're mine," he said, and the word came out rough and low and proprietary in a way that should have made your feminist sensibilities bristle but instead made lava flood through your veins and pool molten and insistent between your legs. "You look like you belong to me, and I've never—god—I've never been so horny for anyone the way I am for you right now. The way I've been for you this whole time. Every time you wore my jacket, every time you pulled it around yourself and it swallowed you whole and you looked at me from inside it like you were safe there—I wanted to put you on every flat surface I could find and—"

"Then do it," you interrupted, breathless, bold, your hands sliding down his bare chest, feeling the heat and the firmness and the slight tremor of his muscles beneath your palms. "Stop telling me and show me."

His breath hitched. His eyes searched yours for a single, electric second, and then he was kissing you again, and his hands were on the hoodie, pushing it up, his fingers sliding beneath the fabric and finding your bare waist and climbing higher, higher, until his palms covered your breasts, the feeling of his warm, slightly rough hands cupping you, squeezing gently, his thumbs tracing the swell of you above the cups, made you arch into his touch with a whine that vibrated against his lips.

"Off," he said against your mouth, and it took you a confused moment to realize he was talking about the hoodie, and then his hands were gripping the hem and pulling it up, and you lifted your arms and let him peel it off you, the soft grey fabric sliding over your head and your arms and joining his t-shirt on the floor, and the cool air of the room hit your bare skin for exactly one second before his mouth was on you, his lips pressing to your collarbone, your chest, your breasts, and his hands were everywhere, warm and big and eager, kneading and caressing and exploring the territory they'd been denied for months with a thoroughness that left you gasping and trembling and threading your fingers through his hair and holding on.

"Loved you in the hoodie," he murmured against your sternum, his breath hot and damp, his lips dragging across your skin between words. "Love you out of it, too. Love you every way you come. I want you every way you'll let me have you."

"Have me," you breathed. "All of me. Every—ah—every way."

His hands were on your bare breasts, palming them, cupping them, his thumbs dragging across your nipples with a slow, firm pressure that sent lightning bolts of pleasure shooting straight down your body to the place where you were wet and swollen and desperate and aching, and you were making sounds again. You couldn't stop making sounds, couldn't stop the whimpers and the moans and the small, keening ah, ah, ahs that fell from your lips every time his thumbs circled or his fingers squeezed or his mouth dipped down to press hot, open-mouthed kisses to the curve of your breast. Your back was arched, your hips were grinding against nothing, seeking friction, seeking him, and the desperation of it, the mindlessness of it, would have embarrassed you if you had any capacity for embarrassment left, but you didn't, you'd left it on that sidewalk in the rain along with every wall you'd ever built.

"Jay, please," you gasped, your hands fumbling with the waistband of his sweats, your fingers clumsy and urgent and trembling. "I need you, I need you inside me, I can't—please—"

He pulled back just enough to look at you, and the sight of you, bare from the waist up, your chest heaving, your lips swollen, your eyes glazed with want, wearing nothing but his red plaid boxers, made him exhale shakily and press his forehead against yours and whisper, "You're going to be the death of me, you know that?"

"Then die happy," you managed, and he laughed, even in the middle of this, even with his cock straining against his sweats, his hands on your bare breasts, your fingers in his waistband, and the sound was so warm and so him that it made your heart ache even as your body burned.

He stood, just for a moment, and pushed his sweats and boxers down in one motion, and then he was bare before you, fully bare, and the sight of him, all of him, the lean lines of his hips and the firm planes of his abdomen and his cock, hard and thick and curving slightly upward toward his stomach, the tip flushed and glistening, made your mouth go dry and your breath catch and a single, overwhelmed thought crystallize in the haze of your desire: who knew the campus heartthrob had such a big dick?

You'd imagined, of course. You were only human, and Jay was — well, Jay, and the rumors that circulated through campus gossip were as persistent as they were impossible to verify, and you'd filed them away under "things that were none of your business" even during the weeks when your business and his had become increasingly entangled. But the reality of him, the generous length, the substantial girth, and the way it twitched under your gaze, the tip leaking a bead of moisture that caught the amber lamplight, it exceeded every rumor, every imagined scenario, every late-night thought you'd dismissed as wishful thinking the morning after.

"You're staring," he said, and there was a smile in his voice, that same quiet, confident smile, but there was vulnerability underneath it too, the vulnerability of someone exposing himself, in every sense, to the person whose opinion mattered most.

"I'm appreciating," you corrected, and your voice was hoarse and your eyes were still fixed on him, and you reached out, your fingers wrapping around him, and the sound he made, a sharp, strangled gasp, his hips jerking forward involuntarily into your grip, was the single most intoxicating thing you'd ever heard. "You're—mm, Jay, you're really—you're so—"

"Stop," he breathed, but it wasn't a command, it was a plea, his jaw clenched and his eyes squeezed shut and his hands gripping the edge of the mattress on either side of your hips like he was holding on for dear life. "If you keep talking and touching me like that I'm not going to last long enough to—"

"Then don't make me wait," you whispered, and you released him and reached for him instead, your hands finding his shoulders and pulling him down toward you, and he came willingly, eagerly, his body covering yours, his weight settling between your thighs, his mouth finding yours in a kiss that was gentler than the moment called for, slower, like he was trying to memorize the shape of your lips the same way he'd memorized everything else about you.

He shifted your positions then, his hands on your hips, guiding you, and you understood without being told, he wanted you on top. He settled back against the pillows, his head on the cushioned headboard, his hands on your waist, and he looked up at you with those dark, burning eyes and said, "I want to see you. I want to watch you. I want you to take what you need."

Your heart stuttered. Your hands were trembling as you straddled him, your knees on either side of his hips, the red plaid boxers still loose around your thighs, and you hooked your thumbs under the elastic of both, his boxers and yours, and tugged them down just enough, just far enough, and the cool air hit the slick, swollen heat of you and you shivered. Then you were positioned above him, the tip of his cock pressing against your entrance, and the anticipation of it, the size of it, made your breath come short and your fingers dig into his shoulders.

"Slow," he said, his hands steady on your hips, steadying you, grounding you. "As slow as you need. I've got you."

You sank down.

The first inch made you both gasp, you at the stretch, the overwhelming fullness of him pressing into you, the girth spreading you open wider than his fingers had prepared you for; him at the wet, tight heat of you wrapping around the most sensitive part of him, the clench of your walls drawing a broken, guttural “fuck” from his throat that seemed to come from the soles of his feet. You paused, breathing through it, adjusting, and his hands rubbed slow circles into your hips, his thumbs tracing the crease where your thighs met your hips, so patient even though you could see the strain in his jaw and the tendons in his neck and the way his knuckles were white with the effort of not grabbing you and pulling you down the rest of the way.

"More," you breathed, and you lowered yourself another inch, and another, and the stretch was intense, almost too much, the kind of fullness that bordered on pain and pleasure in equal measure, and your face must have shown it because Jay's hand came up to your face, his thumb brushing your cheekbone, his voice coming out soft and concerned beneath the raw need.

"You okay? We can stop, we can—"

"Don’t stop," you said fiercely, and you dropped your hips the rest of the way, taking all of him, and the sound that ripped from your throat was something between a scream and a moan, loud, broken, and utterly beyond your control, and the sound that echoed from his was its mirror — a raw, shuddering groan that vibrated through his chest and into yours, his head thrown back against the headboard, his fingers digging into your hips hard enough that you knew there would be bruises shaped like his hands tomorrow, and you would press each one in the mirror and remember this moment.

Full. You were so full, impossibly, overwhelmingly full, stretched to your limit around him, and he was big, bigger than you'd even thought from looking, because looking and feeling were two entirely different universes of experience, and the feeling of him inside you, the heat and the hardness and the way your walls clenched and fluttered and tried to accommodate the intrusion, was so much, too much, exactly enough. You stayed still for a moment, both of you breathing, both of you adjusting, both of you existing in the space between anticipation and motion where the world narrows to a single point of connection.

Then you moved.

You lifted your hips, slow, feeling every inch of him sliding against your inner walls, the drag of him exquisite and maddening, and then you sank back down, and the angle pressed him against that spot inside you, that spot, the one his fingers had found earlier, the one that made your eyes roll and your breath stutter and a high, keening whine escape your lips, and the pleasure was so sharp, so blinding, so sudden that your body acted before your brain could intervene. You bounced again, faster, harder, chasing that feeling, and the sound of your bodies meeting, the slick, wet slap of skin against skin, the obscene squelch of him moving inside your wetness, filled the room alongside the symphony of your shared moans.

"Fuck—" Jay's voice was shattered, breathless, his hands gripping your hips but letting you set the pace, letting you ride him, letting you use him for your pleasure, and the sight of you above him, bare and lost in it, your head thrown back, your lips parted, your breasts bouncing with every movement, was unraveling him from the inside out. "You feel so fucking good, you're so—god, you're so tight, you're squeezing me so hard, baby—"

"I can't help it," you gasped, and you couldn't, your walls were clenching around him involuntarily with every thrust, every grind, every time he hit that spot that made your brain short-circuit, and the clenching made him groan and the groaning made you clench harder and the feedback loop of it was driving you both toward an edge that was coming too fast and not fast enough. "You're so—you're so big, Jay, I can feel you so deep, you're hitting—ah—you're hitting right there, right there, don't stop, please don't—"

"I'm not stopping," he growled, and his hands moved from your hips to your breasts, palming them, squeezing them, his thumbs dragging across your nipples with a firm, deliberate pressure that sent shockwaves of pleasure cascading through your body, converging with the pleasure building between your thighs, and the combined sensation was so overwhelming that you barely registered the shift in his posture until his arm was around your neck.

Not choking, never choking, you trusted him with your life and your body and every fragile thing you'd ever held, but holding, his bicep curling around the side of your neck, his forearm resting along your collarbone, his hand coming to cup the opposite shoulder, and the position, the possessiveness of it, the intimacy of it, the way it pressed your body flush against his chest and kept you close and controlled and his, made something wild, needy, and desperate claw its way up from the pit of your stomach and out through your mouth in a long, shuddering whine that you muffled against the side of his neck.

"I've got you," he murmured against your ear, his breath hot and damp, his voice a low, devastating rumble that you felt in your bones, and his hips snapped up to meet yours, and the new angle, the new depth, the new force of him driving into you from below made you sob against his skin. "I've got you, baby, I'm right here, I'm not going anywhere—you feel so good wrapped around me like this, so fucking good, taking me so well—"

"Jay—" His name was a plea and the only word left in your vocabulary, repeated over and over against the warm skin of his neck between wet, open-mouthed kisses and whimpers and the small, helpless sounds that were being fucked out of you with every thrust. "Jay, Jay, Jay—you feel so good, you make me feel so good, I've never—I've never felt like this, you're so deep, you're so—oh god—you're so big, how are you so—fuck—"

"Yeah?" His voice was gravel and fire against your ear, and his arm tightened fractionally around your neck, just enough to make your head spin and your body sing, and his hips pistoned up into you with a rhythm that was losing its steadiness, becoming rougher, more desperate, more animal. "You like how big I am? You like feeling me deep inside this tight little pussy? Squeezing me so good, baby, fuck—you're gonna make me come if you keep making those sounds—"

"What sounds—" you tried to ask, but the question dissolved into a moan so filthy and so loud that you would have been mortified if you had any mortification left, but you didn't, it was all gone, burned away by the heat of him and the grip of him and the relentless, devastating pleasure of him hitting that spot inside you over and over and over until your vision was blurring. Your thighs were trembling, your fingers were clawing at his back, and your sounds — the whimpers, the moans, the broken ah ah ahs, the way your tongue was out and your mouth was open and you were practically drooling with the overwhelming, consuming, ruinous pleasure of it, were filling the room and his ear and his consciousness until there was nothing else in the world but you and him and this.

"Those sounds," he answered, his voice fractured, wrecked, barely recognizable as the composed, collected boy who'd charmed an entire campus without trying. "Those—fuck—those sweet little whines, the way you're moaning my name, the way you can't even—you can't even talk, can you? Too full of me to think, aren't you, baby?"

"Yes—" It came out as a sob, honest and raw, your forehead pressed against his neck, your body bouncing on his cock with a desperation that had abandoned all rhythm and restraint, your hips moving faster, harder, chasing the peak that was building inside you like a wave pulling away from shore, gathering size and force and inevitability. "Yes, I can't—I can't think, you feel too good, you're too —god—you're too big, you're so deep, I'm—Jay, I'm close, I'm so close—"

"Me too," he breathed, and his arm around your neck shifted, his hand moving to the back of your head, his fingers threading through your hair, and he held you against him, your face pressed to the junction of his neck and shoulder, his face pressed to the crown of your head, the way he was holding you like something precious even while his hips were driving into you with an intensity that bordered on savage, made your chest crack open wider than it already was, made the pleasure in your body merge with the love in your heart until they were the same thing, the same overwhelming, consuming, impossible force, and you were crying again, you realized distantly, not from sadness but from fullness, from too much, from the impossible, miraculous reality of being loved, fucked, and held all at once by the same person, by the person you loved, by the person who loved you back.

"Jay—" you whined, high and desperate. Your walls were clenching around him in rapid, involuntary pulses that signaled the approaching edge, and his hips were stuttering, his rhythm falling apart, his breath coming in sharp, ragged gasps against your hair. "Jay, I'm—I'm gonna—"

"Me too, baby, me too," he gasped, and his hand tightened in your hair, and his other arm wrapped around your waist, pressing you impossibly closer, deeper, his cock buried to the hilt inside you and his hips grinding up against you in tight, desperate circles that pressed against your clit with every movement. "Come for me, I've got you, come on my cock, let me feel you—"

And then, just before the wave broke, just before the edge crumbled beneath you, just before your orgasm crashed through you like a storm making landfall, he whispered it.

"I love you."

Oh my god.

Not love you. Not the shorthand version he'd been using for months, the lazy, abbreviated thing that let him say it without really saying it, that kept the I out of it, that kept the confession at arm's length where it was safe and deniable and less terrifying than the full, unedited truth. I love you. With the I. For the first time. The most important word in the sentence, the word that made it a declaration instead of a throwaway, the word that turned it from something you could brush off into something you had to catch and hold and carry with you for the rest of your life, and he said it right there, right then, with his cock inside you and his arms around you and your body on the edge of the most intense pleasure you'd ever felt, and the shock of it, the staggering, breathtaking gift of it, was what pushed you over.

You came with a cry that broke in the middle, his name and a sob tangled together into a sound that was neither and both, and your walls clenched around him in rhythmic, devastating waves that pulled and squeezed and milked him with an intensity that ripped a sound from from his chest that you'd never heard before, raw, loud, unrestrained, his head thrown back, his jaw clenched and his entire body rigid beneath you and inside you and around you, and then he was coming too, his hips jerking up into yours in erratic, desperate thrusts, his cock pulsing inside you, thick and hot and filling, and the feeling of him coming inside you, the warmth of it spreading through you, the intimacy of it, no barrier, no distance, nothing between you but skin and the shared, shuddering aftermath of something that had changed you both, made your orgasm intensify rather than fade, a second wave cresting on the heels of the first, and you were both gasping, trembling, and holding onto each other with a ferocity that suggested letting go would mean falling off the edge of the earth.

The aftershocks rolled through you in diminishing pulses, your walls still fluttering around him, his cock still twitching inside you, your bodies still pressed together from chest to hip, neither of you willing to create even an inch of distance. The room was quiet except for your breathing and the rain against the window, which had never stopped, which had been the soundtrack to the entire night from sidewalk to confession to this, this moment, this bed, this body against yours, this love made physical and undeniable and real.

He was still inside you. Softening, but still there, still filling you, still connected, and the warmth of him inside you, the physical proof of what had just happened, made you squeeze around him reflexively and him hiss in oversensitive response, and the small exchange was so intimate, so coupled, that it made you press your face into his neck and breathe him in and whisper, against his pulse, "I love you too. With the I. I love y—wait, no. I love you more."

His arms tightened around you. His chest expanded with a breath that seemed to fill him entirely, a breath that had been waiting, maybe, since the first time he'd said those words without the I and wondered if you noticed the omission, and the exhale that followed was warm and slow and carried with it a tension you hadn't realized he'd been holding until it was gone.

"Mm, good," he murmured into your hair, and his voice was hoarse and raw and smiling, and the hand in your hair stroked gently, absently, the way you'd stroke something you'd been terrified of losing and were now learning you could hold. "Good. I meant it, by the way. Every time I said it before, I meant it. I just—I wasn't brave enough to include myself in the sentence."

You woke up to the smell of butter.

Not perfume-butter, not the artificial, movie-theater approximation of butter, but real butter, the kind that sizzled and popped and went golden-brown in a pan, the kind that meant someone was cooking something that would be terrible for you and perfect in every other way. Your face was pressed into a pillow, the sheets were tangled around your bare legs, and the space beside you on the mattress was empty but still warm. The amber lamp had been turned off at some point during the night and replaced by the grey-white morning light filtering through the curtains, and you lay there for a long, suspended moment with your eyes closed and your cheek against the pillowcase, breathing in, breathing out, letting the reality of the night before settle over you like a second skin.

Then the smell of butter intensified, and your stomach growled loud enough that it echoed off the headboard, and you opened your eyes.

The bedroom was soft in the morning light, quieter and less cinematic than it had been in the amber glow of the lamp, but somehow more real for it. The chair in the corner where it had all started was just a chair again. The bed was just a bed, albeit one with rumpled sheets and the clear evidence of two people who had spent the night learning each other in ways that went far beyond the physical. Your clothes, his clothes, the grey hoodie and the red plaid boxers, were folded neatly on the nightstand, and next to them was a fresh glass of water, two Advil, and a small sticky note with handwriting that made your chest ache:

Eyepatch for the puffy eyes is in the bathroom cabinet. Left side, second shelf. Take the pills. Come find me when you're ready ❤︎

You took the pills. You found the eyepatch, which turned out to be under-eye gel patches, not a pirate costume, and you pressed them under your eyes and stared at yourself in the bathroom mirror and looked exactly like what you were: a girl who had cried in the rain, confessed her love, had incredible sex, and slept in the bed of the boy who loved her back, in that order. The gel patches were cold, soothing, and you left them on while you pulled the hoodie over your head and stepped into the boxers and padded barefoot down the hallway toward the smell of butter and the sound of something sizzling.

Jay was at the stove.

He was shirtless, still in his sweats, his hair doing that thing it did in the mornings where it stuck up in the back at an angle that defied physics and dignity in equal measure, and he was holding a spatula and frowning at a pan with the concentrated intensity of someone performing neurosurgery rather than making a sandwich. The kitchen was warm and golden with natural light, and the butter was crackling, and there were two plates on the counter and a pot of tomato soup simmering on the back burner, and the scene was so unexpectedly, devastatingly domestic that you stopped in the hallway entrance and pressed your palm flat against your sternum as if you could physically hold your heart in place.

He hadn't seen you yet. He was focused on the sandwich, lifting the edge with the spatula to check the browning on the bottom, muttering something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like come on, come on, don't burn, don't you dare, and the tenderness of it, the sight of this boy, the one the entire campus tripped over themselves to get close to, standing shirtless in his kitchen at ten in the morning carefully monitoring a grilled cheese sandwich as if it were the most important task he'd ever undertaken, made something bloom in your chest so suddenly and so fully that you were moving before you decided to move.

You crossed the kitchen in five quick steps on your bare feet, rose up on your tip-toes, and pressed a kiss to the corner of his jaw.

He was actually startled, the spatula jerking, his shoulder jumping, a small whoa escaping him, and then he turned his head and saw you and the startled expression dissolved into something so warm, so open, so unguardedly happy that you rose up on your tip-toes again and kissed him properly, on the mouth, soft, slow, tasting like nothing at all except morning and him and the quiet, unbelievable joy of getting to do this.

"Hi," you said against his lips.

"Hi," he said back, and he was smiling, you could feel it, the curve of his mouth against yours, and his free hand, the one not holding the spatula, came to rest on your hip over the hoodie, his thumb tracing a small, absent circle against the fabric. "You slept late."

"You wore me out," you said, and the words came out without thinking, and then the meaning of them caught up with you and you felt the heat rush to your cheeks, and Jay's smile widened against your mouth and he pressed another kiss to the corner of your lips and said, "Nice," with such quiet, satisfied certainty that you had to bury your face in his bare shoulder to hide the fact that you were grinning like an idiot.

He finished the grilled cheese, two of them, golden, crispy, and oozing cheese from the edges, cut diagonally because, as he informed you when you raised an eyebrow, "diagonal is the correct cut, this isn't a negotiation,” and poured the tomato soup into two mugs, and you carried everything to the couch and settled into the cushions with your legs folded beneath you. The hoodie pooled around your thighs, the warm mug between your palms, and Jay sat close enough that your knees overlapped and his arm rested along the back of the couch behind you, not quite around you but undeniably there, a warm, steady presence that made the couch feel smaller and safer and more like home than any piece of furniture had a right to.

You ate. The sandwich was perfect — buttery, crunchy, the cheese pulling in long strings when you bit into it, the soup warm and rich and exactly the right thing for a morning when your body was sore in unfamiliar places, your eyes were still slightly swollen, and your heart was so full it felt like it might bruise your ribs from the inside. Jay ate his sandwich in three bites, which was both impressive and horrifying, and then he stole one of your untouched halves and ate that too, and you let him because you were too full, too content, and too busy watching the way the morning light caught the line of his jaw to summon the energy for indignation.

The TV was on but the volume was low, some morning show neither of you were watching, and Jay picked up the remote and navigated to Netflix and handed you the remote with a look that said your pick, and you scrolled. You scrolled through the usual suspects, the true crime documentaries you'd been meaning to watch, the romantic comedy that kept appearing in your recommendations with an algorithmic stubbornness that felt almost personal, the K-drama Jay pretended not to be interested in but always watched over your shoulder when you put it on, the nature documentary with the dramatic voiceover, the animated series, the cooking competition, the vintage sitcom, the new release with the ominous thumbnail, and the sheer, absurd abundance of it, the endless scroll of options that you'd never have time to watch, became its own form of entertainment, the two of you debating the merits of each option with the lazy, low-stakes passion of people who had nowhere to be and no one to impress and all the time in the world to decide.

You'd narrowed it down to three candidates when Jay's phone buzzed.

The sound was sharp and specific, the particular vibration pattern he'd set for family messages, and it cut through the comfortable haze of the morning like a pin through a soap bubble. Jay reached for the phone on the coffee table, swiped it open, and you watched his expression change, the easy, post-sleep warmth in his eyes sharpening into something more focused, his brow furrowing as he read, his jaw setting in a way you'd come to recognize as his tell for something he didn't want to deal with.

"Oh my god, you have to be kidding me," he muttered, and there was a note in his voice — not anger, exactly, but something adjacent to it, the exasperation of a person who'd just been handed an obligation he hadn't asked for and couldn't refuse.

"What's wrong?" You lowered the remote, the Netflix menu forgotten, the three candidate movies suddenly the least important thing in the world.

He turned the screen toward you.

The message was from his mother — you recognized the contact name, the formal Mom with no emoji, no affectionate modifier, just the word itself, clean and unadorned, the way Jay said she preferred most things. The text read:

Mom [10:49 AM]: Jongseong, bring Y/N to the summer estate in two weeks time. Your uncle can't make it this weekend.

And then, directly beneath it, as if the first sentence were merely logistical preamble to the real point:

Mom [10:49 AM]: If you're so serious about her, it's time the entire family met her.

𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐬 : @simsimluver @maishee @grdientlips @yejisair777 @kristynaaah @heesroses @vmpiricou @seungiesdoll @malibluess @stwryun @hooniluhv @rikisn @hazeheart12 @exclipszz @melancholatte @bluepains @gojopolo @jasmineeeee1009 @ming1luvr @ni-k1ttie @enzsstuff01 @willothewispbf @emvss @simjaeyunslut @luvlyjaemin @kikizzz0 @ilovhoonie @prettygirlthings-world @jaesim @luv4dani @perristar @bkatarina @fialtorelle @slutforaz @adoreade | send an ask if you’d like to be added ˙𐃷˙

🎹 ⊹ ࣪ ˖ ഒ i like me better by lauv

𝐞𝐥’𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞 : hi again hoonguin nation !!! unfortunately i did grow attached to this fic somewhere along the way & there are still so so so many things i have yet to put 🙁 no i didn’t put them here because too much would’ve been happening already . . there’ll definitely be a part two soon because i don’t leave you guys hanging 😘

✷ NOTE : thank you all so, so much for reading ! i hope you enjoyed this little world for a while ♡ all of this is purely a work of fiction & doesn’t reflect reality at all . . likes, reblogs, and feedback are deeply cherished and very, very appreciated on here !

[hoonguin]

⠀ CONTRACTUALLY YOURS ❤︎ 박종성

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎written for the heart’s mailroom event ! ༊

‎‎ ‎‎‎​       ‎‎ ‎‎‎​           𝓦𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄𝐈𝐍⠀‎ ✶ ⠀‎ when park jongseong, campus heartthrob, resident rich kid, and future arranged marriage victim, offers you an absurd amount of money to be his fake girlfriend, saying yes should be easy. all you have to do is hold his hand, smile for his parents, survive the rumors, and pretend none of it is real. fake dating was never supposed to be difficult — so why does following the one rule feel impossible? don’t fall in love. simple enough, right?

𝟑𝟏𝟐𝟏𝟕  🗯️ ✽  ───  ⏾  𝘂𝗻𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝘀𝘁𝘂𝗱𝗲𝗻𝘁 park jongseong⠀‎x ⠀‎ 𝓯 ! rea        ´ ꒳ `        𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭 :        fake dating ˒ university au ˒ slow burn ˒ mutual pining ˒ class differences ˒ friends-to-lovers ˒ emotional hurt and comfort ˒ a dash of angst somewhere ˒ 

𝔀𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 :         explicit sexual content ⋮ 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗱 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗺𝗮𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝘂𝗱𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲𝘀, 𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗼𝗿𝘀 𝗱𝗼 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁    ✿   strong language ˒ emotional distress ˒ classism ˒ family conflict ˒ socioeconomic inequality ˒ mentions of financial struggles ˒ unprotected p in v ˒ first time sex ˒ dry humping ˒ fingering ˒ dirty talk ˒ creampie ˒ 

𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐥𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬⠀‎ ✶ ⠀‎ 𝐫𝐞𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭

🗝️ 。 ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ 𝐞𝐥’𝐬 𝐛𝐮𝐛𝐛𝐥𝐞  ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ one of my favorite event works so far !!! yes, i do pour my heart out whenever it comes to a jay fic <//3 a month later and here we are ˙𐃷˙ clearly got lazy in a bunch of parts so oops, let’s ignore that 

"Me? You? Us? Date? What the fuck are you on about?!"

Your voice rang out through the private library study space, bouncing off the cream-colored walls and the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves that lined them.

The sound was sharp enough to make Jay flinch, just barely, a subtle jerk of his shoulders, but he didn't step back. He stood right where he was, planted across from you on the other side of the narrow study table, both his palms pressed flat against the polished wood surface, fingers splayed wide like he was bracing himself. Beside his right hand, just brushing against his pinky, sat a brown envelope, ordinary, unremarkable, the kind you'd use to mail documents or store receipts. Except it wasn't ordinary at all, and you both knew it.

You had already opened it. A few moments ago, when Jay had first slid it across the table toward you with a quiet, "Just look inside first," you'd given him a skeptical look, the same look you gave people who tried to cut the line at the campus café, and undone the metal clasp with one finger. The moment you peeled back the flap, your brain short-circuited. The envelope was filled with money. Not a few folded bills, not some chump-change twenties — filled, stuffed to the point where the paper bulged outward like it was struggling to contain what was inside. Bill after bill after bill, crisp and pressed together so tightly you could barely pry them apart with your fingertips. Your mouth had gone dry. You couldn't even count it properly mentally, not when your eyes were still trying to process the sheer volume of it. Four hundred dollars? Nine hundred? Maybe even a thousand? Every time you tried to land on a rough estimate, the number climbed higher, your mind fumbling with digits the way your hands fumbled with the bills. It was the first time in your life you'd seen so much money in one sitting, let alone held it, let alone had it sitting in front of you on a scratched-up library table like it was nothing.

"Please, Y/N—I swear it'll just be a quick one-time thing. You have to help me out," Jay said, and the desperation in his tone was so raw, so unguarded, that it almost caught you off guard. His voice dropped on the last sentence, going low and almost brittle, like the words themselves were fragile and he was afraid of crushing them. His eyes, dark brown, normally so composed and easy, were wide and searching, locked on yours with an intensity that made the air between you feel heavier.

You already knew it was absolute bullshit. The whole setup, the way he'd walked over to your usual study spot in the library's east wing where you always sat, third floor, back corner, the table beside the window that overlooked the quad, and hovered awkwardly by the empty chair across from you until you looked up from your notes. The way he'd said he had an important question to ask about a subject both of you shared, some elective you'd both wound up in because it fit your schedules. You'd told him to just ask right then and there, leaning back in your chair with your arms crossed because something about the way he was shifting his weight from foot to foot told you this wasn't about academics at all. He insisted on taking you to one of the private study rooms, the kind that required cash to book, the kind with a door you could lock and walls thick enough that sound didn't travel. You said no. Flat out, no, you had studying to do, you didn't have time for whatever cryptic thing he needed to say. He insisted again, his voice dropping lower, his hand rubbing the back of his neck in that restless way people do when they're wound tight. You said no a second time. He insisted a third, and by then a few passersby had slowed their pace, eyes sliding over to the two of you with that particular brand of campus curiosity, the kind that would be a rumor by dinner. You noticed the girl with the ponytail lingering near the shelf a few feet away, pretending to browse a book she was holding upside down. You noticed the guy at the next table suddenly very interested in his phone, which was facedown on the desk. You exhaled through your nose, muttered a curse under your breath, grabbed your bag, and followed Jay down the hall because the last thing you needed was an audience.

Yup, Jay — as in the Park Jongseong. People referred to him as Jay, and you never really knew the full reason as to why, but apparently it was his English name, one he'd had since childhood, and he preferred to be called that around university. He'd introduced himself that way on the first day of freshman orientation, and obviously, the student body didn't hesitate to comply. Jay was and still is the sheer epitome of the typical picture-perfect guy, the kind that seemed like he was drafted in a lab by someone trying to engineer the ideal male specimen. He was intelligent, effortlessly so, the kind of smart that didn't need to announce itself because it showed in the way he spoke, the way he could break down a complex concept in class without breaking a sweat, the way professors seemed to light up whenever he raised his hand. He came from an incredibly wealthy background — old money, the kind that didn't need to be flashy because it simply was, the kind that came with family estates and business empires and the quiet assurance that you'd never have to worry about a single thing in your life. He was the president of the music club, the lead guitarist of the university's band, and as if all of that wasn't enough, the campus heartthrob, a title he hadn't asked for but couldn't seem to shake off.

Every single girl was head over heels for him. That wasn't an exaggeration, it was a documented, observable, almost scientific phenomenon. You could swear you'd overheard your block mate laugh about how during one Valentine's Day, he was hiding in the music room for a whole day because people wouldn't stop chasing after him, shoving gifts and confessions and handwritten letters through the door crack until the floor looked like a paper avalanche. Another girl in your dorm had a Pinterest board dedicated to him, screenshots from his Instagram, candid photos people had taken during his performances, even a blurry shot of him eating at the cafeteria that she treated like some kind of holy relic. It was unhinged. It was also, admittedly, understandable.

Which is why it came to you as a surprise — no, not a surprise, a shock, a full-body, brain-stalling, what-the-fuck-is-happening shock — that he'd dragged your ass to a secluded, cash-only private study room on one breezy Tuesday afternoon with an envelope filled to the brim with cash, set it on the table between you, and asked if you could fake-date him.

You? Jay? Date? It had never crossed your mind. Not once. Not even in some passing, idle thought, the kind your brain produces at two in the morning when you're half-asleep and thinking about nothing in particular. Sure, he's attractive, anyone with functioning eyes could see that, the sharp jawline, the dark hair that always looked effortlessly styled even when he'd just woken up, the way his whole face seemed to carry this natural, easy confidence like he'd never had to second-guess a single thing about himself. But he was way out of your league, and more than that, you both never really batted an eye at each other. You existed in the same spaces, the same lecture halls, the same campus walkways, the same cafeteria, but you moved in entirely different orbits. Just so happened that both of you had taken up the same course, and even then, your interactions had been limited to the occasional "can I borrow a pen" or "did you catch what the professor said about the deadline." Nothing more. Nothing less. Two people who happened to share a lecture room and nothing else.

"Come on, cut me some slack. The girl your parents are arranging for you to marry can't be that bad," you had said, leaning back in your chair, crossing your arms over your chest, trying to sound casual even though your heart was still doing something strange and irregular from the sheer absurdity of this conversation.

"She is!"

"Show me a picture."

Jay let out an exhale, long, heavy, the kind that seemed to carry the weight of several sleepless nights, before fishing his phone from the pocket of his jacket. He unlocked it, his thumb moving quickly across the screen, scrolling through what looked like his mom's messages, then his DMs, his brow furrowed in concentration as he searched for a specific photo. You watched his face as he scrolled, the tightness in his jaw, the slight downward pull of his lips, and for a moment, the campus heartthrob facade fell away entirely, and he just looked like a guy who was stressed out of his mind. Then he found it, turned the phone toward you, and held it there.

You looked. You leaned in. Your eyes traveled across the screen, the girl in the photo was striking, genuinely stunning, the kind of beautiful that made you do a double-take. She had this effortless elegance about her, dressed in something that probably cost more than your entire semester's textbook budget, standing in what appeared to be the foyer of a home that looked like it belonged in an architecture magazine. Flawless. Immaculate. The type of person who looked like she'd never had a bad day in her life.

"Ooooh, she's bad as hell," you smiled — and you meant it, because damn, she really was, and you weren't about to pretend otherwise just to make Jay feel better about his predicament.

A beat. Jay looked at you dead in the eyes, his expression utterly flat, a picture of pure, unamused disbelief. And you just smiled back at him, wide, toothy, completely genuine, the kind of smile that said I know this isn't helping but I'm being honest here.

"Alright, that's enough! That's not the point, my point is I don't want to get married—"

"Then just tell your parents you're not yet ready, as simple as that." You cut him off, waving your hand like you were swatting away a fly. "Sit them down, look them in the eye, say 'hey, I'm twenty-something, I'm not doing this right now,' and call it a day."

"Fuck, I've tried and tried and tried, but they won't budge on their decision." Jay's voice cracked on the last word, just barely, a hairline fracture in his composure that he quickly sealed shut by pressing his lips together and looking away for a second. When he looked back, his eyes were harder, more urgent. "I'm way too young to be marrying at this age. Sure, some people our age are married, but I'm not them and they're not me! I have things I want to do, things I actually want, and being tied down to someone I didn't even choose isn't one of them." His hands curled into fists on the table, knuckles going pale. "Please, Y/N, just—this one big favor. This and nothing more, I'm begging."

He was begging. Park Jongseong, the guy who had the entire campus at his feet, was standing across from you in a dimly lit study room practically pleading with you like his life depended on it. And the worst part, the part that made your chest tighten slightly, the part that made your arms uncross and fall to your sides, was that it was real. You could see it in every line of his body, hear it in every syllable he pushed out. He wasn't being dramatic. He wasn't putting on a show. He was genuinely, desperately, sincerely asking you for help, and the vulnerability of it was staggering.

You had to admit, with his level of desperation, you were starting to feel real bad. You'd never seen someone be this desperate — not around you, not in your presence, not directed at you. Even your ex hadn't been this desperate for you, and they'd had actual reasons to be. This was the campus heartthrob, a guy who could snap his fingers and have a line of volunteers stretching from the library to the campus gates, and here he was, choosing you, asking you, practically on his knees in front of you. It didn't make sense. None of this made sense.

"I'm sorry you have to go through this, but no is no. That's final on my end." You said it as firmly as you could, chin lifted, voice steady. You meant it, or at least, you wanted to mean it, you were trying to mean it, because the logical part of your brain was screaming at you that this was insane, that fake-dating Jay was a terrible idea, that nothing good could come from entangling yourself in the mess of someone else's life, no matter how much money was in that envelope.

"Oh my god, please, I'll do anything, I'll even add more money to the—"

Money? Money.

Yup, as in the brown envelope filled with money. The envelope that was still sitting on the table between you, its mouth open, its contents spilling slightly outward, bills catching the overhead light. The first time you'd seen it, when Jay had first pushed it toward you, you thought he was going to bribe his way through you to get a yes, just straight-up purchase your agreement like you were a transaction, like your consent was a commodity he could afford. The thought had made your stomach turn. But then he'd clarified, hastily, almost tripping over his own words in his rush to explain, he'd just taken some money out of his card, he said, and to see it as a thank-you if ever. A gesture. No strings. No pressure. Just — here, this is what I can offer, if you're willing.

What an arrogant bitch, using daddy's money to get what he wanted. The thought surfaced sharp and bitter, and you let it sit there for a second, let yourself feel the sting of it, the unfairness, the casual way he could just produce this kind of cash like it was pocket change, like it was nothing, like it was the equivalent of buying someone a coffee. Though, you knew, and this was the part that made the thought dissolve as quickly as it had come — you knew you couldn't resist that much money. You couldn't. You were physically, financially, realistically incapable of turning away from what that envelope represented.

Truth is, in this prestigious university filled with students who spent their weekends drinking on yachts and flying home for holidays like commuting was a personality trait, you're the elephant in the room. The odd one out. The one who didn't belong, not because you weren't smart enough, not because you hadn't earned your place, but because you existed in a world that operated on an entirely different currency than the one everyone else was spending. You came from a less fortunate background compared to everyone here, and that was putting it gently. Your hometown was the kind of place people drove through without stopping, the kind of place where the biggest employer was the gas station on the highway and the most exciting thing that happened all year was the county fair. For your whole life, all you could do was study. That was it. That was the one lane you had, the one road available to you, and you ran it like your life depended on it — because it did. Get amazing marks, get recognized enough to be able to get somewhere nice in life, somewhere better, somewhere that didn't feel like a dead end with a nice view of nothing. All that effort paid off in the end, because here you were — admitted to this prestigious university, the kind with the manicured lawns, the stone buildings, and the reputation that opened doors before you even knocked, far from home, with a full 100% scholarship. Every penny covered. Tuition, housing, the works.

You didn't even know this was possible. When the acceptance letter came, when you'd read the words “full scholarship” and felt the ground tilt beneath you, you'd sat on the floor of your bedroom for ten minutes just breathing, because your brain couldn't process anything beyond the fact that something had finally, finally gone right. You were beyond thankful. You still were. Every single day you woke up in that dorm room, you felt it, the gratitude, the disbelief, the quiet, stubborn resolve to not waste a single second of this opportunity.

But gratitude didn't pay for groceries. And a full scholarship didn't cover the things that fell through the cracks, the meals you skipped because the dining hall was closed and the nearest affordable option was a twenty-minute walk off campus, the school supplies that weren't included in the textbook package, the toiletries and the laundry detergent and the occasional cup of coffee that kept you awake during exam week. So now, with Jay offering you an insane amount of money, more than your parents could scrape up for months of careful, pinching saving, more than you'd earn in an entire semester of your part-time job, just to be his fake girlfriend? You couldn't possibly resist. You were already somewhat struggling to keep up, the kind of struggling that was invisible to everyone around you because you'd gotten so good at making it look effortless. You worked part-time as a lab instructor in another department of the university — setting up equipment, walking students through procedures, cleaning up after sessions — and while the pay was something, it wasn't enough to breathe easy. You saved up quite frequently, hoarding every extra cent like a dragon guarding its treasure, to the point where you'd forget to eat at times because the cafeteria line was long and the off-campus options cost money and you'd already convinced yourself that skipping one meal wasn't that big of a deal. You were literally living in the damn trenches, grinding yourself down to the bone in an environment where the person sitting next to you in lecture was complaining about their dad's yacht needing repairs.

He was still yapping about whatever, something about how his parents were persistent, how the arrangement had been in the works for months, how he'd tried every angle he could think of and this was the only option left, when you'd finally snapped back to reality, the sound of his voice dissolving into white noise as your brain latched onto the single, crystalline truth sitting in front of you: that envelope, that money, that lifeline.

"Deal." You said it with your face blank. No smile, no hesitation, no dramatic pause. Just the word, clean and final, dropped onto the table between you like a card laid face-up.

You saw Jay's face change instantly — like a switch had been flipped, like sunlight breaking through clouds. His eyes went wide, his mouth fell open, and then the most genuine smile you'd ever seen on another human being spread across his face, so bright and so unguarded that it almost looked out of place on someone you'd only ever seen looking composed and cool and collected.

"Oh my god really? Thank you, thank you so much, oh my god—" The words tumbled out of him in a rush, his voice climbing higher with each one, his hands coming off the table to gesture wildly in the air like he didn't know what to do with them. He looked, for a moment, like a kid who'd just been told he could have dessert before dinner, pure, unfiltered relief flooding every feature, softening every sharp edge you'd ever associated with him.

"Yeah, yeah, calm down before I change my mind." You retorted, but you were clearly amused at his enthusiasm, the corner of your mouth twitching despite your best effort to keep your expression neutral. There was something almost endearing about watching Jay, the campus heartthrob, the cool guy, the one everyone wanted, practically vibrate with gratitude right in front of you. It was humanizing in a way you hadn't expected.

"Yes, ma'am." He said it with a nod, still grinning, and there was something in the way he said it, the slight dip of his head, the warmth in his voice, that made your chest do that strange, irregular thing again.

So then there you and Jay were, officially "boyfriend and girlfriend." Just like that, in a dimly lit private study room that smelled like old paper and lemon-scented wood cleaner, with a brown envelope full of cash sitting between you and the campus heartthrob beaming at you like you'd just handed him the world. You never knew up until when the act would last, though — just be convincing for as long as possible, up to the point when Jay says it's over, he's free, and both of you could just go back to the way things were. Two people who happened to share a classroom and nothing else, the way it was always meant to be.

At least, that was the plan.

The first week of "dating" was surprisingly easy.

Though, at that point of the week, nothing significant had happened yet. You guys were still somewhat awkward about the whole ordeal, like two people who'd signed a contract to perform in a play but hadn't yet rehearsed their scenes. No crazy public interactions, no dramatic cafeteria entrances, no hand-holding across the courtyard for all to see. You guys never even texted, not really, not in the way actual couples texted, with that constant low hum of conversation that never really stopped. Maybe you'd send Jay a horrendous reel about some funny skit, the kind that made you snort quietly to yourself in your dorm room at midnight, and caption it with something like "this is how i saw you in that study space" and he'd either just react with a haha emoji or reply with a laugh or be sassy in return, firing back with a reel of his own that somehow managed to be even more unhinged than yours. Sometimes he'd message you about an assignment assigned to a shared class, dry, practical stuff, "did prof say apa or mla" or "is the thing due friday or saturday,” the kind of texts that could've been sent to anyone, that carried no weight, that left no residue once they were answered. Just that, nothing more. Simple day-to-day interactions, the bare minimum of communication required to maintain the illusion that two people were in any kind of relationship at all. Honestly, you guys only interacted when you'd remember, perhaps like once every two days, maybe even less, the rhythm of it irregular and loose, like a heartbeat that kept skipping. Ya'll didn't even acknowledge each other in public. Not a wave, not a nod, not so much as a glance across a lecture hall. You'd walk past each other between classes with the same neutral, unseeing expression you'd give a stranger on the sidewalk, and it was fine, it was easier that way, simpler, less to explain, less to perform. The fake in fake-dating had never felt so appropriate.

The second week was when things had gotten a bit strange.

It was a regular Thursday afternoon, the kind of Thursday that felt like it had been stretching on for about six business days already, the kind where the week's exhaustion had settled into your bones like damp cold and you could practically feel your brain running on fumes. You were in the lab, packing up your things because your shift had finally finished — the last student had left twenty minutes ago, the equipment was wiped down and stored, the logbook was updated, and the only thing left to do was zip your bag and drag yourself back to the dorm for whatever sad dinner awaited. You were slipping your charger into the front pocket of your bag when your phone lit up on the counter, the screen glowing with a message notification.

Jongseong [6:13 PM]: hi! :) are you free right now?

Yeah, your contact name for him was Jongseong. Not Jay. Not "bf 💕" or whatever the hell a real girlfriend would save her boyfriend's name as. Jongseong. His Korean name, the one he didn't go by, the one most people on campus didn't even know. He didn't know you'd saved him that way, and he definitely didn't need to know. It just served as a little reminder, a quiet, private, almost superstitious reminder, that this whole thing was meant to be some stupid thing, some arrangement, some transaction dressed up in the costume of a relationship. You didn't know how exactly it'd help, calling him by a name he didn't use, keeping that tiny sliver of distance preserved in your phone's contacts list, but that's what you told yourself, and that was enough.

You stared at the message for a bit, your thumb hovering over the keyboard. What the hell could he possibly want now? You thought, your brow furrowing slightly. It had been days since your last actual exchange, a reel about a cat falling off a counter, three days ago, to which he'd responded with a skull emoji. And now, out of nowhere, on a random Thursday evening, a cheerful "hi! :)" and a question about your availability like you were being summoned for a meeting. You typed back a while later, after you'd zipped your bag and slung it onto your shoulder.

You [6:15 PM]: why? i'm at the lab rn

He saw the text almost immediately, the read receipt appeared within seconds, which told you he'd been staring at his phone waiting for your reply, which was somehow both endearing and mildly concerning.

Jongseong [6:15 PM]: oooh okay

Jongseong [6:15 PM]: do you wanna head out to this

Jongseong [6:15 PM]: new retro themed diner that opened up? 😅 it's a bit far from the university though, but i can drive you back and forth

Diner? Eat out? Goodness, you couldn't even afford to buy dinner on some days, and he was asking you to go to some trendy new spot that probably charged eighteen dollars for a milkshake and had a waitlist longer than the financial aid office. The thought alone made your wallet ache in sympathy.

I mean, you did have money, the one Jay had given you in that envelope, the one that was currently tucked inside the zippered pocket of your bag, still as full as the day he'd handed it to you. But you couldn't bring yourself to spend it yet. Not even for something this small, not even for a meal that your growling stomach was practically begging for. You had more priorities, bigger ones, heavier ones, the kind that didn't go away just because you were hungry. Sending some money back to your parents, for one, you'd already calculated how much you could afford to send without destabilizing your own fragile ecosystem, and the number was pitifully small but it was something, it was the least you could do when your mom and dad were back home stretching every paycheck until it tore. Your needs, too, the things that kept you functional, the toothpaste and the laundry soap and the replacement headphones because your current pair was held together with electrical tape and prayer. All the works. Every dollar in that envelope was already earmarked for something, already spoken for in the mental ledger you maintained with the obsessive precision of an accountant during tax season.

You [6:16 PM]: dude

You [6:16 PM]: i'd love to but i have no money

Jongseong [6:16 PM]: the envelope?

You [6:17 PM]: can't bring myself to spend it yet jay 🥲 i have lots of things i need to prioritize rather than some dinner

Jongseong [6:17 PM]: i understand

Jongseong [6:17 PM]: dinner's on me ☺️ i'll pick you up from the lab in a bit

Jongseong [6:17 PM]: just gonna grab my keys

Oh my god, this guy. You stared at your phone screen, your mouth slightly open, that familiar mixture of disbelief and reluctant warmth spreading through your chest. He'd just — announced it. Like it was obvious, like it was already decided, like your financial situation was a minor obstacle he could simply breeze past with the casual ease of someone who'd never had to think about the price of anything in his entire life. And the smiley face. The little ☺️ at the end of the message, so completely without guile, like he genuinely didn't see the big deal about paying for your dinner. You didn't know whether to be grateful or annoyed, so you settled for a weird combination of both that manifested as you pressing your palm against your forehead and exhaling slowly.

You [6:17 PM]: wait wait ok but what are we even gonna do at the diner

Jongseong [6:17 PM]: eat?

You [6:17 PM]: yeah what else 🫠 no way you're just doing this without some explanation

Jongseong [6:17 PM]: i'm just being a nice boyfriend, no?

Jongseong [6:17 PM]: but yes lol i have something i want to talk to you about

Something he wanted to talk about. That was vaguely ominous, or maybe it wasn't, maybe it was exactly what he said it was, a conversation, a discussion, something practical and straightforward. But the phrase "something I want to talk to you about" had a certain weight to it, the way phrases that start with "we need to talk" or "can I tell you something" always carried more gravity than their individual words suggested.

You [6:17 PM]: can't we just… do this over the phone?

He didn't answer. You stood there for a minute, your phone held loosely in your hand, waiting for the three dots to appear, waiting for the typing indicator, waiting for anything. None. The screen stayed still, the conversation hanging on your last message like an unanswered question mark. So you just continued on with your business, packing the rest of your things, double-checking that nothing was still plugged into the electrical sockets, a habit you'd developed after nearly starting a small fire during your first week on the job, closing the lights off in some areas. Then your phone vibrated in your hand, a sharp little pulse against your palm.

Jongseong [6:23 PM]: look at the door

You did. And there he was.

The lab doors were those awkward ones, the ones with a rectangular window set into the middle of the door, like a porthole, the glass slightly frosted but not enough to obscure whoever was standing on the other side. And Jay was right there, visible through that window, his face backlit by the hallway's amber light. He was tapping on the glass with his knuckles, waving at you with his other hand, and wearing this boyish smile, this wide, slightly crooked, utterly disarming smile, that made him look about five years younger and infinitely less like the campus heartthrob and more like some eager puppy that had shown up at your door expecting a walk.

You let out an exhausted exhale, the one that came from deep in your lungs and carried with it every ounce of resistance you'd been trying to maintain. And you flipped him off, just raised your middle finger casually, without heat, the way you'd flip off a friend who was being annoying but not annoying enough to actually be mad at. He just smiled wider, his eyes crinkling at the corners, clearly unfazed, then reached for the door handle, pushed it open, and walked in.

"Still busy?" he asked, his voice easy, light, like he hadn't just driven across campus to show up unannounced at your workplace like some kind of determined golden retriever.

"No, I'm done with everything already. Just—checking up on some things." You said, gesturing vaguely around the lab, your tone carrying that tired-but-not-unfriendly edge that had become your default around him.

"I'll help you," he muttered, already moving past you into the lab, his eyes scanning the room with a quick efficiency that surprised you. "It's getting dark already. We should get going before some ghost clings onto my girlfriend."

The word "girlfriend" hit you like a small, unexpected electric shock, a quick jolt that started in your stomach and radiated outward, making your fingers tingle and your breath catch for just a fraction of a second. A knot twisted in your stomach, tight and warm and deeply confusing, the kind of physical reaction you had zero authority over and absolutely no interest in analyzing. It was the first time he'd said it out loud, at least to your face, in a context that wasn't part of some rehearsed pitch, just dropped it into conversation like it was natural. You didn't even have the time to argue with him, to protest, to say don't call me that, it's weird, because he'd already started venturing through the lab, checking the sinks, unplugging a device you'd missed, verifying that the gas valves were shut off, his movements quick and competent and entirely too helpful for someone who'd probably never set foot in a science lab before today. You had just watched him, watched the way he moved through the space with an easy confidence, the way his sleeves were pushed up to his forearms revealing the subtle curve of muscle and the glint of a watch that probably cost more than your entire semester's living expenses, the way he double-checked things without being asked, the way he just helped, simply and without fanfare. When he was finally done, he walked back over to you, reached out, and pulled you gently by your wrist — not grabbing, not yanking, just a warm, steady pressure around your wrist that guided you forward, his fingers fitting loosely around the bone like a bracelet. With his other hand, he scooped your shoulder bag off the table where it had been sitting, slinging it over his own shoulder without a word, and then he looked at you.

"Ready? Didn't leave anything?" he asked gently, and the softness in his voice. the genuine, unhurried concern in it, made something in your chest shift, a tiny tectonic movement, barely perceptible but undeniable.

You looked at the table, then around you at the dim lab, then at him — at his face, at the way the hallway light caught the slope of his nose and the dark of his eyes, at the way he was standing there with your bag on his shoulder. "Nope, didn't leave anything." You said, and your voice came out quieter than you intended.

A smile tugged at his lips, small, warm, barely there but unmistakable, before he walked you out of the lab, his hand dropping from your wrist but the ghost of his touch lingering on your skin like a fading warmth you couldn't quite shake.

The diner was incredibly cute, wait, cute wouldn't even be able to do it justice. It was charming in the way that places only existed in movies or in the carefully curated feeds of lifestyle influencers, the kind of spot that seemed almost aggressively aesthetic, like it had been designed in a boardroom by someone with a Pinterest board titled "i miss being a kid" and an unlimited budget. Red vinyl booths with chrome trim, black-and-white checkered floors, vintage neon signs spelling out words like "EATS" and "SHAKES" in glowing pink cursive along the walls, a jukebox in the corner that actually played real records, its arm moving mechanically from song to song while a warm, crackling version of some fifties doo-wop track drifted through the speakers. There were framed posters of old films, Breakfast at Tiffany's, Rebel Without a Cause, Grease, and the air smelled like frying batter, vanilla, and that particular, indescribable scent of a place that took its desserts seriously. It looked exactly like how those influencers would post about, all warm lighting and curated messiness, exactly like how the social media pages would market it, except somehow better.

He chose to sit beside you. Which was — okay, crazy, genuinely unhinged behavior, because you guys were seated at a dining booth. The classic kind, the one with two seats facing each other, a table in the middle, the configuration designed so that two people could sit across from each other and have a face-to-face conversation like normal human beings. But no. Jay wanted to sit beside you. On the same side of the booth. Like an actual couple. Like people who wanted to share the same view, the same space, the same pocket of air. You didn't argue, you couldn't, actually, because by the time your brain had processed the audacity of his choice, he'd already slid into the seat next to yours, settling in with an easy sigh and draping one arm along the back of the booth behind you, not quite touching your shoulders but close enough that you could feel the warmth radiating off his arm like a space heater you hadn't asked for. The proximity was ridiculous. Your knees were inches from his. You could smell his cologne, something clean and faintly expensive, the kind of scent that probably had a French name and a price tag with too many zeros. You stared straight ahead at the empty seat across from you, hyperaware of every inch of space between your body and his, which wasn't very many inches at all.

He had told you, repeatedly on the drive over, in between navigating the streets and fiddling with the radio and making small talk about the weird billboard they'd passed, that he'd be the one paying, so don't hesitate to order anything you wanted to eat. He'd said it casually, like he was reminding you about the weather, like dropping forty or fifty or a hundred dollars on dinner was the equivalent of swiping a metro card. But that was hard on its own, wasn't it? You were used to the idea that whenever someone chipped in some of their money to buy you stuff, a meal, a drink, a ticket, you'd purposely pick one of the cheapest options so it wouldn't break a hole in their wallet. It was instinct, deeply ingrained, the kind of reflex you'd developed over years of being the person who couldn't afford to be treated and didn't want to be a burden. You'd scan the menu from the bottom up, looking for the lowest number, and you'd convince yourself that the cheapest thing was the thing you wanted anyway. But Jay wasn't having it. He insisted you get something that you actually wanted to try and eat, anything, desserts and drinks too, and he clearly wasn't in the mood to tolerate your bullshit.

"Jay, wait, I'm deadass. This one is pretty okay for me already—" You pointed at one of the cheaper items on the menu, a simple chicken sandwich that was reasonably priced and wouldn't make you feel like you were eating someone's weekly grocery budget.

"Pretty okay? Not the one that's 'I'd love this?' Come on, don't worry about the money please, don't worry about my money, just pick something you want to eat—" His voice was earnest, almost pleading, and he leaned slightly closer, his shoulder brushing yours, the contact light and brief but enough to make your breath hiccup.

"That is okay!"

"Okay doesn't necessarily mean that's what you want!" He shot back, and there was a frustrated edge to his tone — not anger, not even close, but something softer, something that sounded like he genuinely cared about whether you were settling for something instead of choosing something, as if the distinction between okay and I want this mattered to him more than the money it cost.

You both had spent about five minutes going back and forth over the menu, a delicate, ridiculous tug-of-war that probably looked insane from the outside. The waiter sitting by the table even seemed amused, their pen hovering over their notepad, watching the two of you bicker like an old married couple over whether you were allowed to order the thing you actually wanted. You eventually just gave up, the exhaustion of arguing with someone who had infinite money and infinite stubbornness was too much for your tired, post-shift brain, and settled for this incredibly gigantic cheeseburger with wedges on the side and a vanilla milkshake because Jay had insisted, pointing at it on the menu and telling the waiter before you could protest one last time. You couldn't even catch wind of what he'd ordered for himself, he'd rattled it off so quickly and smoothly that by the time you registered he'd stopped talking, the waiter was already walking away with a knowing smile.

When all you guys had to do was wait for your order, you leaned back in the booth, as much as the vinyl seat would allow, which wasn't much, not when Jay's arm was still draped along the back of it behind you, and started to speak.

"So, what thing did you want to talk to me about?" You said, turning your head toward him, and the motion brought your face closer to his than you'd anticipated, close enough that you could see the faint freckle below his left eye, close enough that you could count his eyelashes if you were the kind of person who counted things like that, which you absolutely were not.

"Oh my god, right. So, I kind of—I wanted to talk about the boundaries we should establish for this whole fake relationship thing." He said, and his tone shifted, still casual, still easy, but there was a note of seriousness underneath it.

Boundaries? For this fake relationship? You thought it was pretty self-explanatory already — the basic don't-fall-in-love type shit, the obvious don't-catch-feelings clause that went without saying, the unspoken agreement that this was a transaction and not a romance. But he wanted more depth, more clarity, more than the envelope and the unspoken assumptions that had carried you through the first week.

You both then spent a long time talking about the do's and don'ts. Even after your food had arrived, the cheeseburger towering on the plate like a small architectural marvel, the wedges golden and steaming, the milkshake thick and cold in its metal cup with the extra in the mixing tin beside it, both of you were still at it, the conversation flowing around bites and sips and the occasional pause to chew.

"No weird couple shit." You insisted, pointing a wedge at him for emphasis, a golden spear of potato that served as your gavel.

"What do you mean no weird couple shit? It has to be convincing!" He argued, leaning forward, his eyebrows raised in that way that said he thought you were being ridiculous, and the motion brought his shoulder pressing lightly against yours again, the warmth of it seeping through the fabric of your jacket.

"Yeah—but there are certain things we can do to make it convincing that doesn't involve doing weird stuff!" You shot back, and you could hear how unconvincing your own argument sounded, the vagueness of "weird stuff" hanging in the air between you like a question mark.

He raised his brow, the corner of his mouth twitching upward in that particular way that meant he was about to challenge you and he was already enjoying it. "Define weird for me then."

You did. No matching anything, no matching outfits, no matching phone cases, no matching profile pictures like those couples who treated their social media accounts as a joint enterprise. No pet names — absolutely no "babe" or "baby" or "honey" or any of those saccharine, tooth-rotting terms of endearment that real couples used like breathing. No holding hands unnecessarily, no leaning into each other for photos, no excessive physical contact beyond what was strictly required to sell the illusion. The works. You laid it all out like a lawyer presenting terms, and that only earned you another argument from Jay, who countered every single point with the kind of rhetorical precision that made you suspect he'd been on the debate team in high school. No matching? Then how would people know we're together? No pet names? What do you want me to call you in public, "my esteemed colleague"? No hand-holding? Then what do we do when someone's watching, stand six feet apart like we're at a COVID checkpoint?

You must admit, arguing with Jay was funny. Not frustrating-funny, not the kind of funny that makes you want to throw something. Actually, genuinely funny, the kind that makes your cheeks hurt from trying not to smile. He simply wouldn't back down on his argument, even if you'd already found five different loopholes in his logic, he'd manage to find another loophole to swing past through, pivoting and redirecting with the nimbleness of someone who was used to getting his way but was having too much fun trying to get it to just give up. His eyes would light up when he thought he'd cornered you, and then they'd narrow playfully when you'd slip out of his trap, and the whole thing felt less like a negotiation and more like a game, a game where nobody was keeping score and the point wasn't winning but just the pleasure of playing. You don't even remember where the debate had ended, it just started with you taking a potato wedge, he took a bite from his eggs and bacon, and eventually you both just started eating, the arguments dissolving into the rhythm of the meal, forks and voices rising and falling in alternating turns until the conversation had drifted so far from its original shore that you couldn't even see the starting point anymore. It strayed off somewhere, from favorite childhood memories (his involved a summer in his grandparents' countryside home, catching dragonflies by the creek; yours involved the single year your town had a carnival and you'd won a goldfish that lived for three miraculous days) to a professor Jay absolutely despised (a man whose grading system seemed to operate on spite and a coin flip) to a weird urban legend that had been circulating in the university since its foundation (something about a ghost in the old humanities building who only appeared during finals week, which, honestly, made sense because who wouldn't be haunted by the ghost of failed exams). And through all of it, you were aware, vaguely, persistently, like a low hum in the background, of how close he was. The heat of his arm behind you. The way his knee would occasionally brush against yours under the table and neither of you moved away. The way he'd turn toward you when he laughed and his shoulder would press into yours and it felt like something you didn't have a name for, something you weren't supposed to be cataloguing.

You thought you were done. Both of you were done, your plates were empty, the milkshake was nothing but residue and melting ice, the conversation had reached that natural lull that signaled it was time to go, time to head back to the dorms, time to put this strange, unexpectedly pleasant evening to bed. You were reaching for your bag when an unusually large banana split arrived at the table, a towering monument of ice cream and fruit and whipped cream and chocolate sauce, served in one of those long, boat-shaped glass dishes that seemed designed to be shared. It came with two spoons, placed neatly on either side, a quiet invitation. Jay took one spoon for himself, offered the other one to you, handle-first, and told you to eat.

You opened your mouth to talk more, to say you were full, to say you couldn't possibly, to deploy any of the dozen polite refusals you kept on standby for moments like this. He said he couldn't finish it alone, which was probably true, the thing was obscene, a three-scoop sundae with enough toppings to feed a small party, and you argued you were full, which was also true, your stomach was at capacity and your cheeseburger was sitting like a contented stone in your abdomen. And he just — shut you up. Reached over, took the spoon right out of your hand, your fingers stuttering on the cold metal as he plucked it away, took a scoop of the vanilla ice cream drizzled with chocolate syrup and rainbow sprinkles, and shoved it in your mouth. Just like that. No warning, no ceremony, just the cold press of metal against your lips and then the sweetness flooding your tongue, vanilla and chocolate and the crunch of sprinkles, so sudden and so unexpected that you made a small sound of surprise, something between a yelp and a laugh, and your eyes went wide and Jay was grinning at you, grinning like he'd just won a prize, grinning like this was the most fun he'd had all week, and you couldn't be mad, you couldn't even pretend to be mad, because the ice cream was good and his smile was ridiculous and somehow, impossibly, this was your life now.

You both bickered even more after that, but this time, laughing and giggling, the kind of laughing that's hard to do with a mouth full of ice cream, the kind that makes you snort and almost choke and reach for a napkin while the other person just laughs harder at your suffering. The banana split was a mess within minutes, the neat architecture of scoops and toppings collapsing into a delicious, chaotic swirl as you both dug in from opposite ends, occasionally fighting over the same cherry, occasionally stealing the best bite from the other's side of the dish with zero remorse. The head chef, all the way from the kitchen, poked his head through the service window and was smiling at you both, this warm, knowing smile, the kind that said he'd seen a thousand couples share a banana split and knew exactly what he was looking at, even if you didn't.

Yet.

By the sixth week, that's when things got absolutely insane.

For the third week, you'd walk with Jay from one class to the other, not deliberately, not in some rehearsed couple-y way, just naturally, the way two people do when their schedules happen to overlap and the route to the next building is the same. Except it wasn't just the same route, because you'd find yourself slightly altering your path to match his, and he'd slow his pace without mentioning it, and somewhere between the science building and the humanities wing, your strides had synchronized without either of you acknowledging it. Totally not disappearing from your friends and the next time they'd see you was with Jay, walking beside him, your shoulder almost level with his, laughing at something he'd said about the professor's tie, while your friends stared from across the courtyard like you'd grown a second head.

Of course, some people caught wind of it and you'd heard some allegations being thrown at the both of you, whispers in the hallways, the kind that traveled fast and loose through a campus where everyone's business was everyone's entertainment. But since walking with someone from the opposite gender is completely normal, a lot of people brushed it off as the two of you being friends. Study buddies. Classmates who happened to share the same route. Nothing to write home about.

For the fourth week, a group of guys from the basketball team saw you and Jay studying together in the library. Of course, Jay wanted to get to know you more — more to the point he'd at least have something to say about you if someone asked, something beyond "she's in my class" or "we share a course," something that sounded like what a real boyfriend would know. Your favorite coffee order. The class you hated most. The way you tapped your pen against your notebook when you were thinking. He'd ask questions casually, sprinkled between textbook chapters, and you'd answer just as casually, and somewhere in the middle of explaining why you couldn't stand the smell of peppermint, you'd realize you'd been talking for an hour and neither of you had turned a page. You let him in, gradually, and he let you in too, small facts at first, then bigger ones, the kind of disclosures that built a portrait of a person stroke by stroke. Occasionally, he'd drag you back into the secluded study spaces if you mentioned, in passing, that the library was too noisy, "come on, I know a spot," he'd say, and you'd follow him down the familiar hallway to the same cash-only rooms where this whole thing started, except now the door stayed unlocked, the envelope nowhere in sight, and it just felt like two people who wanted to hear each other without the static of the world layered on top. The basketball guys obviously didn't care — one of them nodded at Jay on the way out, that was the extent of it. But the people at the tables nearby did, their heads turning as you disappeared behind a closed door. Both of you didn't really care.

For the fifth week, a professor that absolutely adored you both for being incredibly attentive in her class, she'd called you two her "favorite students" more than once, half-joking and half-completely serious, passed by the both of you when she was going to another professor's office to leave something, and both of you were heading back to the main space. As always, Jay picked you up from the lab, he was carrying your bag slung over one shoulder and a couple binders you'd also brought to the lab because you didn't have the time to run back to the dorms and leave them since your class from before had ended a little bit later. So you'd shown up to the lab with your bag, your binders, and your slightly breathless "I'm here, sorry," and Jay had shown up at 6:15 like clockwork and taken all of it from you without asking, the bag and the binders tucked against him like they weighed nothing, leaving you empty-handed and oddly weightless as you walked beside him through the corridor.

She saw you both, both of you saw her, both of you joyfully greeted her, a warm, simultaneous "hi, Professor!" that came out so in unison it was almost comedic, and she greeted you both back, her eyes flicking from you to Jay to your bag on his shoulder to the easy, close way you were walking, and she plastered a knowing smile on her lips, deliberate and impossibly smug, and said "both of you look good together" then walked off, her heels clicking down the hallway like a punctuation mark.

You laughed afterwards, short and bright and slightly too quick, because what else could you do? The knot in your stomach had pulled tighter and you didn't know what to do with that either.

By the sixth week, you were just eating lunch with your friends at the cafeteria. Yes, the public cafeteria filled with a bunch of people from different courses and different years, all mushed into one sprawling, echoing space — the kind of scene that felt like it belonged in a movie's wide shot, hundreds of bodies and trays and conversations layered into a wall of ambient noise. It wasn't cramped, it was huge even, but it was awkward with the amount of people present in the room, every table occupied, every seat filled, the kind of crowded that made you feel visible whether you wanted to be or not.

You were eating with your friends, mid-bite into your rice, explaining to them for the ninth time the step-by-step procedure for this one assignment, "no, you add the reagent after, not before, I swear I've said this eight times already,” when a hand just lightly tapped your shoulder. Just a tap, brief and warm, the kind of touch that was gentle enough to be a question rather than a demand.

You looked back, and oh my god, it was Jay. He was standing behind you with a bouquet of flowers, your favorite flowers rather — yellow and white lilies, the ones you'd mentioned once, just once, in passing, during one of those library study sessions weeks ago, a throwaway line about how your grandmother used to grow them in her garden and you'd always thought they were the most beautiful thing you'd ever seen. And he'd actually remembered, because here they were — yellow and white lilies, absolutely gorgeous, wrapped in craft paper and tied with a simple twine bow, the petals soft and slightly open. The whole function stopped what they were doing. You heard a fork drop in the distance, the clatter of metal on tile sharp and cartoonish. You heard a camera click from somewhere to your left. You heard the hushed murmurs of those nearby, a wave of whispers rippling outward from your table like the surface of a pond after a stone.

"What the hell is this?" you asked, but your voice came out steadier than your heart, which was doing backflips, literal backflips, acrobatics you didn't know it was capable of. This was the first time you'd ever received a bouquet of flowers from anyone, not from your ex, not from a friend, not from no one, let alone from the campus heartthrob himself, standing behind you in a crowded cafeteria on a regular weekday like this was something people just did.

"Who else would it be for aside from my absolutely lovely and gorgeous girlfriend?" he said, smiling, not smirking, not performing, just smiling, warm and bright and so unreasonably genuine that it made something behind your ribs stutter.

Fuck, even about a month later and the word "girlfriend" still made a knot in your stomach tighten, still sent that same small electric pulse through your system, still made you feel like the ground had shifted a fraction of an inch under your feet. He said it loud enough for everybody to hear it, loud enough for the tables nearby, for the camera that had clicked, for every pair of ears in this room that had been waiting for confirmation of whatever rumor they'd been spinning for weeks.

You accepted the bouquet, your fingers closing around the craft paper, the stems cool and slightly damp against your palm, and said thank you, and your voice was softer than you meant it to be, softer than the moment called for, because the lilies smelled like your grandmother's garden and you weren't prepared for that particular wave of nostalgia to crash into you in the middle of the cafeteria. He crouched down to meet you at eye-level, his face close to yours, close enough that you could see the way his eyes softened when he looked at you, and he whispered something to you, "you're doing great, by the way,” so quiet that only you could hear it, his breath warm against your ear, and then he pressed a feather-light kiss to your cheek. Just a brush, just a ghost of contact, his lips landing somewhere below your cheekbone and above your jaw, barely a second of touch, but it burned, a warm bloom spreading from the point of contact across your face, down your neck, and into your chest like a drop of red food coloring in a glass of water. You could feel yourself getting red, could feel the heat climbing your skin. After the whole ordeal, he just simply walked away — straightened up, gave you one last look, that same easy smile, and walked back toward the exit like he hadn't just detonated a small bomb in the middle of the lunch rush. You turned back to your friends like it was nothing, setting the bouquet down beside you on the bench, the lilies resting against your thigh.

Your friends were in absolute disbelief.

"Girl, what the fuck?! You have to fill us in! How did you pull the Park Jongseong?!" a friend asked, leaning across the table, her eyes wide, her voice climbing into a register that was part shriek and part interrogation.

"Even better, how did he pull you," another squealed in excitement, grabbing your arm, bouncing in her seat, the kind of giddy that was infectious even when you were trying very hard to be stoic.

None of them knew you were getting paid to do this though.

That same evening, in your dorm, the lights off except for the small lamp on your desk, you snapped a photo of the flowers, you'd found a cup large enough to hold them, filled it with water from the hallway fountain, and set them on your desk like a tiny, temporary garden. The photo came out warm, the lamplight catching the curve of the white petals, the yellow centers glowing like small suns. You sent it to Jay.

You [10:04 PM]: one image attached

You [10:04 PM]: thank you so much for the flowers wtf 🥹 i've never received a bouquet from anyone before

You [10:04 PM]: lilies are my absolute favorite oh my goodness

He replied almost instantly — the read receipt and the response arriving so close together it was like he'd been waiting.

Jongseong [10:04 PM]: you're always welcome ☺️

Jongseong [10:04 PM]: no thank you for the kiss?

Right, the kiss. The feather-light, cheek-grazing, face-reddening, cafeteria-witnessed kiss. The most physical you'd both agreed to was holding hands, or at least around that point, the boundary lines drawn during that diner conversation, the ones you'd insisted on, the ones he'd argued about, the ones you'd both silently been adjusting week by week without ever formally revising the contract. The kiss was uncalled for. The kiss was not part of the agreement.

You [10:04 PM]: dude hell no, we did not agree to that point 😹

Three dots. Appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again, like he was typing and deleting and typing and deleting, wrestling with the response like it was a decision that mattered.

Jongseong [10:05 PM]: mmmm

Jongseong [10:05 PM]: sure, but it did make us look convincing, right?

It definitely did. The whispers after he left, the stares, the camera click — convincing didn't even begin to cover it. The whole cafeteria had swallowed it whole, no questions asked.

Damn you, Park Jongseong.

The cafeteria occurrence didn't need a whole day for the entire university to figure it out.

By that evening, it was everywhere, the campus confessions page, the group chats, the study group threads, the comment sections of Jay's Instagram posts from three months ago that had nothing to do with you but suddenly had people tagging your handle underneath them. Literally everybody figured it out, and a lot of people were enthusiastic about the whole thing, the kind of enthusiastic that manifested as heart emojis in your DMs, strangers smiling at you in the hallway, and your lab students suddenly treating you with a reverence that had nothing to do with your teaching ability and everything to do with who you were allegedly sleeping with.

But of course, there were some who were incredibly salty about it. A few bad words directed to you here and there, muttered under breaths as you passed, the kind of venom that was just quiet enough to be deniable if you confronted it. Salty social media notes that were so painfully directed to you that it was almost comedic, the kind of anonymous posts that said things like "some people will do anything for attention" and "weird how the most popular guy on campus suddenly has a girlfriend nobody's ever heard of,” vague enough to maintain plausible deniability, specific enough that you could feel the crosshairs on your back. The whole package. But you couldn't care less. Imagine going crazy over a man who's "taken" but he's technically single? The irony wasn't lost on you. You were being paid to hold his hand, and people were tearing themselves apart over it. The absurdity of it was almost enough to make you laugh out loud in the middle of the hallway, but you didn't, because you had a reputation to maintain — however fabricated it was.

The word spread like wildfire, until it eventually reached Jay's parents. Yeah, he told you that personally, called you on a Wednesday night, his voice tense but not panicked, more like someone bracing for impact rather than already in the crash. Jay's parents were powerful people, powerful as in they had every single kind of connection to the school — administrators, board members, donors whose names were etched into the marble plaques on the walls of the newest buildings. The kind of people who could make a phone call and change a curriculum, who could lean on a dean's decision with nothing more than a raised eyebrow at a dinner function.

His mom had heard through the wife of a trustee, who'd heard through her daughter, who'd heard through the campus grapevine, which meant the news had traveled from students to parents in less than forty-eight hours. Jay had told them it was true, that he was seeing someone, that it was you, that it was serious. And they'd wanted to meet you. He'd managed to delay it somehow, told you not to worry about it yet, that he'd figure out the timing. You'd nodded, said okay, and pushed it to the back of your mind where it sat like a box you didn't want to open.

Those seconds turned into minutes, then minutes into days, then days to weeks, then weeks into months.

Then somewhere in the blur of all that time, somewhere between the walking, the studying, the cafeteria lunches, the quiet drives, and the late-night texts, you fell in love with him. Shit, you didn't even notice it happening. That was the thing. It wasn't a moment, wasn't a lightning strike, wasn't a cinematic realization set to swelling strings. It was slow, quiet, and insidious, the way morning light creeps across a room until you suddenly realize you can see everything clearly. It happened in the margins. In the spaces between the fake and the real, in the moments that weren't part of the performance, in the details that no contract could account for. By the time you recognized it for what it was, by the time you could put a name to the warmth that had taken up permanent residence in your chest, it was already too late, and you'd been living with it for so long that it felt less like a revelation and more like an admission of something you'd always known.

It was in the polaroid. The one in Jay's car. You'd noticed it one evening when he was driving you back from the diner, the second time you'd gone, or maybe the third, the visits had started blurring together into a single, warm continuum. The car had stopped at a red light, and you'd glanced at the dashboard, and there it was, tucked into the corner of the visor, held in place by the clip, a small polaroid photo of the two of you. You and Jay. In the photo, you were laughing, mouth open, eyes crinkled, mid-sentence or mid-laugh, caught in that unguarded space between expressions where you looked the most like yourself. And Jay was looking at you. Not at the camera, not smiling for the lens — looking at you, his head slightly tilted, a soft, almost wondering expression on his face, the kind of look that made your breath catch even through the distortion of polaroid film and faded light. When the hell did he even take this? No, when has someone taken this? You didn't remember a camera, didn't remember posing, didn't remember anything except the warmth of whatever moment it had captured.

"Is that us?" you'd asked, reaching for it.

Jay's hand had come up quickly, not roughly, but quickly, and gently guided your hand away, his fingers wrapping loosely around your wrist for just a second. "Don't touch, the lighting's perfect right there."

"You have a photo of us in your car," you said, and you were teasing but your voice came out strange, softer than you intended, with a wobble you couldn't quite control.

"Of course I do. What kind of boyfriend would I be if I didn't?" He'd said it lightly, easily, his eyes on the road, eventually the light turned green, and he drove off, the polaroid stayed where it was, and you spent the rest of the ride staring at it from the corner of your eye, this small, square proof that somewhere along the way, a moment between you had been important enough to preserve.

It was in the condominium. The first time Jay had suggested you study at his place instead of the library, you'd hesitated. His place, as in the off-campus condominium his parents had bought for him, the one you'd heard about in passing from people who talked about Jay's lifestyle the way people talked about celebrity real estate. But the dorms were unbearable that week — to your right, the person in the next room wouldn't stop watching anime at full volume, the theme songs bleeding through the wall in an endless, tinny loop of Japanese pop that drilled into your skull every time you tried to focus on a paragraph. To your left, someone was constantly jamming — guitar riffs, the same four chords over and over, the kind of repetitive, enthusiastic mediocrity that made you want to open your window and throw your textbook into the quad. You'd mentioned it to Jay offhandedly, just venting, the way you'd mention bad weather, "I can't focus, my neighbors are insane,” and he'd said, simply, "Come to mine. It's quiet." You'd said no, that's too much, and he'd said, "It's literally just a place to study, Y/N, I'm not inviting you to a masquerade ball," you'd laughed despite yourself, and an hour later you were standing in the lobby of his condominium complex, looking around like you'd walked into the wrong building.

Because it looked and felt exactly like a hotel. The lobby had high ceilings and polished marble floors and a front desk with someone who actually greeted you by name. The elevator had more buttons than your dorm had floors, and the hallway to his unit was lined with expensive wood paneling and soft ambient lighting and the kind of silence that felt like a luxury. His unit itself was definitely something. It was everything you weren't used to. Hardwood floors that gleamed. Floor-to-ceiling windows with a view of the city skyline. A kitchen with marble countertops and appliances that looked like they'd never been touched. Bookshelves made of dark, rich wood, actual wood, the kind that smelled like forests and money, stocked with novels, vinyl records, and a small collection of framed photos you didn't let yourself look at too closely. It was warm though, not sterile, not showroom-perfect, but lived-in in a way that surprised you. A throw blanket draped over the couch. A mug left on the counter from that morning's coffee. Sheet music scattered across the dining table, handwritten, his handwriting, notes and chords in pencil and pen. It smelled exactly like him, that same woody, clean cologne from the diner, but also coffee, detergent, and something underneath that was just so him, a scent you'd started associating with safety without realizing when.

You studied at his dining table. He studied on the couch. For the first hour, you worked in comfortable silence, the only sound was the scratch of your pen and the soft turn of his pages. Then he'd get up to refill his water, pause by your chair, lean down to read over your shoulder, and make some comment about your handwriting, "is that an 'a' or a tiny drawing of a fish?" and you'd swat at him and he'd dodge, grinning, and retreat back to the couch. This became the routine. You'd show up with your bag and your binders, he'd already have a drink waiting for you on the table, iced tea, the way you liked it, no sugar, extra ice, a detail he'd clocked without being told, and you'd study, and you'd bicker, and sometimes you'd order food and eat cross-legged on his living room floor with the TV on low, and sometimes he'd play something on his guitar. You'd listen from the table with your chin in your hand, your pen still, and your heart doing that thing it did whenever music came out of his hands, like the sound was traveling directly from the strings to your chest without bothering to go through your ears first.

It was in the jacket. During Jay's shows with his band, the university events, the seasonal showcases, the occasional gig at a bar off-campus that served overpriced drinks and undercooked nachos, you started showing up. Not every time, not at first, but enough that the people in the crowd began to recognize you as that girl, the one standing near the side of the stage with her hands in her pockets, watching the lead guitarist with an expression she couldn't quite control. And you wore his jacket. It started because the venue was cold, that was the practical reason, the one you told yourself, the bar had aggressive air conditioning and you'd worn a thin shirt and Jay had shrugged off his jacket without asking and draped it over your shoulders mid-conversation, the leather still warm from his body, the lining soft against the back of your neck. But then you kept wearing it. To every show. It was oversized on you, the sleeves falling past your wrists, the collar swallowing your shoulders, and it smelled like him. When you wrapped yourself in it, standing in the crowd with the bass vibrating through your ribs and the stage lights washing everything in amber and blue, you felt like you were wearing an embrace. Every single time he'd find you in the crowd mid-song, his eyes scanning the faces until they landed on yours, and he'd smile. Not the performance smile, not the heartthrob smile, not the smile he used for the audience. A different one, just for you.

It was in the food. Jay showing up to your dorm with takeout bags in his hands became so regular that your roommate stopped asking questions and started just setting an extra place at the desk. He'd knock, two quick taps, your rhythm, and you'd open the door, and he'd hold up the bag like a trophy and say something like "you skipped lunch again, didn't you" or "don't argue, I already bought it" or, once, memorably, "I got the spicy one because you lied last time about being able to handle mild." He'd sit on your bed, your narrow, creaky dorm bed that was approximately one-third the size of his king at the condo, and you'd sit cross-legged across from him, and you'd eat and talk and laugh. He'd tell you about band practice or something his mom texted or a song he was trying to learn, and you'd tell him about your shift or a grade you were stressed about or the weird noise the pipes in the hallway were making at 2 AM, then the food would get cold because you'd forget to eat while you were talking, and then he'd notice and say "eat your food" and you'd say "you eat your food" and he'd pick up a piece of whatever and hold it in front of your mouth until you took it, you'd both laugh, then the knot in your stomach would tighten, and you'd think: this isn't fake. This can't be fake. Nothing about this feels fake.

And it was in the words. Those two damn words. Whenever you were in public, walking across campus, leaving a building, saying goodbye at the car, parting ways at the cafeteria, Jay would look at you with that easy, warm expression and say, "Love you." Not "I love you." Just "love you." Two words, dropped casually, breezily, like they weighed nothing. But there was never an "I." Never the subject, never the declaration, never the full sentence that would turn it from a fragment into a statement. Just "love you,” light, effortless, and always accompanied by a smile or a wave or the brush of his hand against yours, and every time he said it, you felt the words land somewhere deep in your chest and settle there — warm, confusing, and impossible to parse. You told yourself it was part of the act. Convincing. Consistent. A boyfriend thing to say. But the absence of the "I" nagged at you, not because you needed it, but because its absence felt deliberate, like he was holding something back. "Love you" was a door he could walk through and close behind him and "I love you" was a door that didn't have a handle on the other side. You didn't ask about it. You were afraid of the answer. You were more afraid that there was no answer at all, that it was just habit, just performance, just two words that meant exactly as much as the envelope of cash they were attached to.

Months. Eleven months. You'd been fake-dating Jay for almost a year, and somewhere along the way, the fake had started flaking off like old paint, and what was underneath was something you didn't have the courage to name, something that felt too big for the arrangement you'd made, something that made you lie awake at night staring at the glow-in-the-dark stars your roommate had stuck on the ceiling freshman year and thinking fuck, fuck, fuck in a quiet, desperate loop. Because you knew that this had an expiration date, that one day Jay would sit you down and say it's over, he was free, his parents had backed off, and both of you could go back to the way things were. Two people who happened to share a classroom and nothing else. And you'd say yes, of course, sure, sounds good, and you'd smile.

You'd take whatever was left of the envelope money and you'd go back to your life and he'd go back to his. The polaroid would stay in his car, the jacket would go back in his closet, the lilies would wilt on your desk, the word "girlfriend" would stop making your stomach twist, and you'd be fine. You'd be fine. You'd absolutely, definitely, completely be fine.

You were at the convenience store near campus — the one that stayed open past midnight, sold rice balls and instant ramen, and the kind of cheap coffee that tasted a lot like regret but kept you awake during exam week. It was a Thursday, or maybe a Friday, the days had started running together, your brain fuzzy from a long shift at the lab and a longer afternoon of studying and the kind of bone-deep tiredness that made the lights of the store feel both too bright and strangely soothing. You were standing in the snack aisle, holding two different brands of shrimp chips and trying to decide which one was less of a mistake, when your phone buzzed in your pocket.

You pulled it out. The screen glowed.

Jongseong [11:47 PM]: come home with me next weekend

Jongseong [11:47 PM]: i'll introduce you to my parents :)

You stared at the screen. The shrimp chips hung limp in your other hand. The words on your phone sat there, stark and undeniable, and the knot in your stomach, the one that had been tightening for eleven months, the one you'd been pretending wasn't there, the one that felt exactly like love, pulled so tight you thought it might snap.

Jongseong [11:47 PM]: sound good?

You didn't type back. Not yet.

Shit, you were so, so damn screwed.

The drive was forty-five minutes of your heart attempting to exit your body through your throat. Jay's car hummed along the highway, city lights smearing past the windows, and you sat in the passenger seat with your hands folded in your lap and your pulse visible in your wrists.

You'd spent the entire morning getting ready, not for them, you told yourself, for you, because if you were going to walk into the Park family estate, you were going to walk in looking the part. Black kitten heels that clicked when you walked. A black satin maxi skirt that moved like water around your ankles. A white turtleneck top, it was baggy, the sleeves wide and draped, ending just below the elbow, the kind of silhouette that managed to look effortless and intentional at the same time. Gold jewelry, because your grandmother always said gold warmed the skin and you believed her. A gold bangle on your right wrist that caught the light every time you moved. Your favorite necklace, a gold chain with a heart locket, and inside that locket, a photograph of your grandmother, the one who'd gifted it to you when you were fourteen, her smile small, proud, and permanent behind the glass, and beside her photo, an empty space where a second picture could go, a blank rectangle of possibility you'd never filled. Gold teardrop earrings that swayed when you turned your head. Your hair was done out, wavy at the ends, falling over your shoulders the way you'd spent forty minutes and two YouTube tutorials perfecting.

When Jay had arrived at your dorm to pick you up, he'd knocked his usual two taps, and you'd opened the door, and he'd — stopped. His hand was still raised from the knock, his mouth slightly open, his eyes traveling from your hair to your earrings to the locket resting against your collarbone to the drape of the top to the sweep of the skirt to the kitten heels, and then back up again, slowly, the way someone reads a letter they weren't expecting. He didn't say anything. He just looked at you, and the silence stretched, and it wasn't the comfortable kind, it was the kind that had weight, the kind that pressed against your skin and made you acutely, almost painfully aware of every inch of yourself.

"Jay?" you said. "Do I have something on my face? Is my foundation cakey? Did I smudge my—" You touched your cheek, your hand moving instinctively, your confidence deflating by the second under the intensity of his stare.

He blinked. Then he swallowed. Then he said, quietly, almost to himself, "You look—" and stopped again, the word lodged somewhere in his throat, and he exhaled a small breath and ran his hand through his hair and tried again, his voice steadier but still carrying that undercurrent of something stunned and unguarded: "You look really beautiful, Y/N."

The knot in your stomach, yup, the same damn one you'd been ignoring for months, pulled tight enough to hurt.

Now you were here, walking through the front door of the Park family home, and the word home didn't even begin to cover it. The foyer was the size of your entire dorm floor. Dark hardwood, polished to a mirror shine. A double staircase curving upward. A chandelier that probably cost more than your parents' house. Fresh flowers on a console table, lilies, white ones, and you tried not to read into it but your hand drifted to your locket anyway. The house smelled like gardenias, furniture polish, and the kind of quiet that only enormous, expensive spaces could produce.

Dinner was served in a dining room that could have seated twenty and was currently set for four. Candles. Crystal glasses. Plates that probably had a heritage. You sat across from Mrs. Park and beside Jay, and the food was extraordinary and your appetite was nonexistent, but you ate, because that was what you did — you ate what was in front of you and you were grateful for it, because once upon a time there hadn't always been something on the plate.

"So, Y/N," Mr. Park began, his voice deep and measured, carrying the practiced warmth of a man who was accustomed to making people feel comfortable before he decided whether they deserved to stay that way. "Jongseong tells us you're on a full scholarship. That's quite impressive."

"Thank you, sir! It took a lot of work, but I'm grateful every day for the opportunity." You kept your voice steady, your posture straighter than it had ever been, your hands folded in your lap under the table where they wouldn't give you away.

"And what are you studying?"

You told him. He nodded. The conversation moved through the expected checkpoints, your coursework, your lab work, your plans after graduation, and you answered each question cleanly, precisely, the way you answered exam prompts, and Jay beside you was a quiet, steady presence, his hand occasionally brushing your knee under the table in a gesture that was either reassurance or reflex or both.

"She's the top of her class, actually," Jay said, and there was pride in his voice, real pride, not performance, the kind that couldn't be faked, or at least the kind that you chose to believe couldn't be. "She works as a lab instructor on top of her full course load. She's—she's really remarkable."

Mrs. Park smiled. It was a beautiful smile, technically. All the right muscles, all the right timing. But it didn't reach her eyes, which remained cool and assessing, two dark stones set in an otherwise immaculate face. "How lovely," she said. "You must be very dedicated."

"I try to be," you said.

"And your family—where are they based?" Mrs. Park asked, and the question landed softly, the way sharp things do when they're wrapped in silk.

You told her. The small town. The modest background. The distance. You didn't apologize for it, you wouldn't, but you felt the temperature of the room shift, felt it the way you feel a window crack open in winter: a thin, precise draft that changes everything without disturbing a single thing.

"How quaint," Mrs. Park said, and lifted her wine glass to her lips.

The rest of dinner passed in a rhythm that felt like walking across a frozen lake, each step measured, each sound checked for the groan of something giving way beneath you. Mr. Park asked about your interests, your hobbies, your opinions on a recent news story, and you answered, and he nodded. He seemed pleased, genuinely, which was more than you could say for the woman sitting across from you, whose silence had developed its own vocabulary. Every time you spoke, her gaze would drift, just slightly, to the locket at your collarbone, or the modest cut of your top, or the way you held your fork, cataloguing, calculating, placing each observation into a mental file labeled Not Enough.

After dinner, Mr. Park retreated to his study with a cordial "it was wonderful to meet you, Y/N," and Jay went to use the restroom, and Mrs. Park excused herself with a gracious smile and a hand on your shoulder that lingered one beat too long, and you were left standing in the hallway with the echo of crystal and the ghost of gardenias, unsure of what to do with your hands or your body or the evening that still stretched ahead of you.

So you wandered. Not with intention, just with the aimless, curious impulse of someone who'd never been in a house this size and couldn't quite fathom its dimensions. You found the kitchen. Or rather, the kitchen found you, you turned a corner and there it was, vast, gleaming, and staffed by two women in uniform who were clearing the dinner dishes with the quiet efficiency of people who had done this a thousand times and would do it a thousand more.

"Can I help?" you asked, and they looked at you the way you'd been looked at all evening, with surprise, though this time it was a different kind.

"Oh, no, miss, we've got it," the older one said, her hands already moving, stacking plates.

"Please, I insist. I'm not a guest who sits around," you said, and you were already reaching for a dish towel, and something in your voice or your hands or the way you said guest, like it was a costume you were wearing rather than a role you inhabited, made them pause, and then relent, and then smile, and before long you were standing beside them at the counter, wiping down plates and making small talk about the weather, the commute, and how long they'd worked here. It was easy, the easiest you'd felt all night, because you knew this rhythm, this work, this language of hands, tasks, and the quiet solidarity of people who kept things running while other people sat at tables and made decisions about their lives.

You helped sweep the kitchen floor, the broom familiar in your hands, the motion automatic — you'd done this before, after all. Not in a house like this, but in houses, other people's houses, back when you were young and your mom would clean for families in the next town over. You'd go with her on weekends because she couldn't afford a sitter, and you'd help because that was what you did, because your hands were small but they could hold a rag, because every extra pair of hands meant finishing earlier and going home sooner, and because the women who employed your mother sometimes slipped you a few bills at the end of the day. You'd hand them over and your mom would kiss your forehead and say “that's my girl.” The money would then disappear into the jar on top of the refrigerator that was saving for something you never quite reached.

"You're very kind," the younger maid said, watching you work. "Most of Mr. and Mrs. Park's guests don't—they don't really notice us."

"I notice you," you said simply, because you did, because you always had, because you'd been on the other side of that not-noticed wall your whole life and you'd promised yourself that if you ever ended up on this side, you wouldn't be the person who walked past.

After a while, you needed paper towels, you'd spilled a bit of water on the counter and the dish towel was already damp. The younger maid pointed you toward the supply closet down the hall, and you walked, your heels quiet on the hardwood, the hallway long and lit by sconces that cast amber pools on the walls, and you were rounding the corner when you heard your name.

Not your first name. Your full name. Spoken by a voice that was smooth, unhurried, and utterly without malice — which made the words it was producing all the more devastating.

"She's a sweet girl," Mrs. Park was saying, and her voice carried through the gap of a door that wasn't fully closed, a sliver of warm light falling across the hallway floor. "She's pretty, she's smart, she's polite. But she's poor, Jongseong, and we do not want that reputation clinging onto our family."

Your hand stopped on the wall. Your heels stopped on the floor. Your lungs stopped in your chest.

"I don't want other people figuring out that my son married a peasant."

Peasant. The word hit you like a slap — not sharp, not sudden, but deep, a bruise that formed instantly and throbbed with a pain that radiated outward into your jaw, your shoulders, your fingertips. Peasant. As if your grandmother's hands that raised you were dirt. As if your mother's back that bent over other people's floors was a stain. As if the scholarship you'd bled for was a charity case instead of a testimony. Peasant. You pressed your back against the hallway wall and the locket was cool against your collarbone, your grandmother's face was pressed against the glass inside it. You wanted to scream but your throat was made of stone.

"Mom, that's—" Jay's voice, strained, tight, a wire pulled to its limit.

"Jongseong, honey." Mrs. Park again, and her tone shifted — still smooth, still gentle, but with an edge underneath, the edge of someone who believed with absolute certainty that they were doing you a favor by telling you the truth. "I know what's best for you, and Y/N isn't what's best for you."

"Isn't it better that she comes from less?" Jay said, and you could hear him struggling, hear the syllables catching and tumbling, hear the way he was reaching for arguments and coming up with handfuls of air. "She's hard-working, she's independent, she's earned everything she has—like, she didn't just inherit it, she built it. Built it. Isn't that—isn't that worth something?"

"Of course it's worth something, dear. Worth something to her," Mrs. Park said, and the distinction was precisely devastating. "Worth something to the life she comes from. But this family has a legacy, and that legacy requires a partner who can stand beside you at a charity gala and talk to the governor's wife about the yacht club without looking out of place. It requires someone who understands the world you're going to inherit."

"I understand the world I'm going to inherit," Jay said, but his voice was smaller now, less certain, and you realized with a slow, sickening clarity what was happening, he wasn't failing to defend you. He was drowning in something else entirely, something that was rising in him at the same time his mother was tearing you apart, and the two forces were colliding inside his chest and neither one was winning and you could hear it, you could hear the exact moment when the boy who'd handed you an envelope full of cash, begged you to save him realized that you'd saved him in a way money couldn't buy, and he couldn't speak because love, real, involuntary, and irreversible love, doesn't come with talking points.

"Your father agrees with me," Mrs. Park continued, and you heard Mr. Park's voice then, low and conciliatory, the voice of a man who'd already made his decision and was now merely softening its edges: "Jongseong, your mother and I only want what's best for you. You're the sole heir to the company. Everything we've built—the business, the reputation, the standing—all of it goes to you. And the person standing beside you determines how the world sees that legacy. It isn't about Y/N as a person, okay? It's about suitability."

Sole heir. The words registered somewhere beneath the devastation, filed away in the part of your brain that was still functioning, but they landed on numb ground. Of course he was. Of course the only son of this house, this dynasty, this gleaming empire of hardwood and chandeliers. Of course he was the one who'd carry it all. And of course they wanted someone suitable. Someone who knew what a yacht club was. Someone who didn't learn which fork to use by watching other people eat. Someone who wasn't you.

"Y/N is suitable," Jay said, and his voice cracked on the word suitable, cracked the way his voice had cracked in that study room ages ago when he'd said I'm begging, except this time the desperation wasn't about freedom from an arrangement. It was about you, specifically you, and the crack in his voice said everything his sentences couldn't: he loved you, that he'd been too late realizing it, that the realization was so big and so sudden and so consuming that it had stolen the language right out of his mouth, and his mother was still talking and he couldn't find the words to stop her because every word he reached for felt too small for what he was trying to say.

"Jongseong." Mrs. Park's voice again, patient, immovable, the voice of a woman who had been winning arguments in this house since before her son was born. "I'm not saying she's a bad person. I'm saying she's not our person. There's a difference, and you know it. You've known it your whole life."

Silence. The worst kind — the kind that isn't absence of sound but absence of response, the kind that means someone has opened their mouth and found nothing there, the kind that means the person you needed to fight for you is fighting something inside themselves instead and losing.

You pressed your palm flat against the hallway wall. The wallpaper was silk, you noticed. Actual silk. You noticed because noticing small, irrelevant things is what the body does when the large, relevant things are too heavy to carry. Your grandmother's face was warm against your collarbone. The empty space in the locket beside her was cold.

"Y/N, dear? The paper towels?" A voice from behind you, gentle, concerned, the younger maid, standing at the end of the hallway with a questioning tilt of her head, her eyes scanning your face and finding something there that made her expression shift from curiosity to caution. "Are you okay?"

You straightened. You smoothed the front of your skirt. You touched the locket once, quick, reflexive, like pressing a hand to a wound, and you smiled. A small smile. A functional one. The kind that holds a person together long enough to get to the bathroom where they can fall apart in private.

"Yup, coming!" you said, and your voice didn't crack, not even once, and that was the bravest thing you'd ever done.

An hour later, you still felt so sick to your stomach that you were genuinely surprised you hadn't thrown up.

The nausea sat low and persistent, a churning, acidic thing that had nothing to do with the food and everything to do with the word peasant reverberating through your skull on an endless loop, each repetition carving it a little deeper, making it a little more permanent, turning it from something someone had said into something you might always hear. Both of you had left the Park residence about ten minutes ago, you in the passenger seat, Jay behind the wheel, the glow of the dashboard illuminating his jaw, his hands, the side profile you'd memorized without meaning to. And his mother — his mother had the audacity, the sheer, staggering audacity, to pull you into a hug before you left. Right there in the foyer, in front of the gardenias and the chandelier, she'd wrapped her arms around you and pressed her cheek to yours and said, "It was so lovely to meet you, dear," and her perfume was expensive and her embrace was warm and every cell in your body was screaming you called me a peasant, you called me a peasant, you called me a peasant while your arms hung at your sides and your mouth said, "Thank you for having me, Mrs. Park," and you smiled, and she smiled, and the hug lasted exactly the right number of seconds for a woman who meant absolutely none of it. Absolutely disgusting.

You were upset for the whole ride, and you knew it was visible, you could feel it in the weight of your own silence, in the way your answers came out a half-beat too slow, in the faint, persistent tremor in your hands that you hid by keeping them folded in your lap. You were still talking to Jay, still responding to his questions, still maintaining the basic architecture of a conversation, but there was a layer of sadness underneath everything, thin and translucent but unmistakable, the way frost on a window doesn't block the view but changes the color of everything behind it. He'd asked if you had fun. You said yes. He'd asked if you thought dinner went well. You said it went fine. He'd asked if his mom was nice to you. You said she was very hospitable. Each answer was technically true and emotionally hollow, and the hollowness rang like a bell in the space between you.

Of course, Jay noticed. He noticed within the first three minutes, because Jay noticed everything about you, had been noticing for months, cataloguing your habits and your silences and the specific way your voice changed when you were trying very hard not to feel something, and this voice — this flat, careful, polite voice — was the one you used when you were hurting and refusing to admit it. He tried pushing you to answer why you were upset. Gently at first, "Hey, are you okay? You seem quiet,” and then with more intention, "Seriously, Y/N, talk to me. What's wrong?" and you wouldn't budge. You shook your head, you said nothing, you said you were just tired, you said it'd been a long evening, you said you were fine, and every "I'm fine" was a door you were closing in his face. He kept knocking, you kept closing, and the rhythm of it was making the air in the car thicker, heavier, and harder to breathe.

A few pushes later, rain started pouring. Somewhat heavy rain, the kind that arrived all at once, as if someone had turned a faucet, the sky splitting open and dumping sheets of water across the windshield so thick that the world outside became a blur of headlights, dark asphalt, and the ghostly shapes of trees bending under the weight of it. Predictable, you thought. You'd checked your weather app earlier, back at the dorms when you were still getting ready, and it had said it was going to rain around this hour. You'd even packed a small umbrella in your bag. Funny how the universe couldn't even be original about the timing. Eventually, that was all the conversation in the car was about while it was raining, Jay kept pushing and you just wouldn't give, the back-and-forth wearing down into something jagged and raw, his persistence meeting your silence like water against stone except the stone was starting to crack and the water kept coming and neither of you knew how to stop.

"Y/N, come on, you've been off since we left, just tell me—"

"I'm fine, Jay."

"You're not fine, you haven't been fine all night—"

"I said I'm fine."

"Would you stop saying that? You're clearly not—"

"There's nothing to talk about."

And then, finally the thread snapped. Jay's hands gripped the steering wheel tighter, his jaw clenched, and something broke loose in his chest, something that had been building for miles, and the words came out sharp, frustrated, and louder than he meant them to be, loud enough to cut through the rain drumming against the roof of the car, loud enough to make you flinch:

"Fuck, Y/N, you're acting like we're an actual couple!"

The car went quiet. Even the rain seemed to recede for a second, pulling back just enough to let the silence rush in and fill the space where the sound had been. Then your eyes burned. Just like that, without warning, without permission, the heat surged upward from somewhere deep in your chest, hit the backs of your eyes, your vision blurred, and the dashboard lights smeared into streaks of amber and white, and you couldn't even hold it anymore, couldn't keep the door closed, couldn't pretend the frost on the window wasn't there, and the tears came. Not the quiet, dignified kind. The kind that take everything with them. Your mascara and your eyeliner, the eyeliner you'd spent twenty minutes perfecting, the mascara that was supposed to be waterproof but clearly had not been road-tested against the specific devastation of hearing the boy you love tell you that your feelings were out of bounds, streamed down your cheeks in dark, inky rivers, tracing lines along your jaw, dripping off your chin onto the satin skirt you'd chosen so carefully, and you couldn't stop it, you couldn't even slow it down, you could only sit there in the passenger seat and sob silently, your shoulders barely moving, your mouth pressed shut, the only sound the wet, ragged catch of your breath trying to hold itself together and failing.

Jay just thought you'd gone radio silent, another refusal, another door, another round of the same fight. He glanced over once, briefly, saw you facing the window, and returned his eyes to the road, his jaw still tight, his hands still gripping the wheel, the frustration still hot in his veins. Then he glanced at the rearview mirror. And he saw you. Not the back of your head, your face, reflected in the glass, and the reflection showed mascara-streaked cheeks and red-rimmed eyes and a mouth trembling with the effort of not making a sound, and you were sobbing, silently, completely, the kind of crying that meant the person had decided long ago that their pain wasn't worth hearing and was holding it underwater with both hands. His heart broke. It broke the way glass breaks, suddenly, completely, into a thousand pieces that couldn't be reassembled, that could only be swept up and carried. He pulled over. No warning, no signal, just the car jerking to the right, the tires splashing through the puddle at the edge of the road, the vehicle settling onto the gravel shoulder of some neighborhood street, the houses dark, the streetlights haloed in rain, the world reduced to the sound of water and the ghost of your breathing.

"Y/N—" he started, and he reached over, his hand extending across the center console toward your shoulder, toward your arm, toward any part of you he could hold, because he couldn't think straight while driving and he couldn't think straight now and the only thing his body knew how to do was reach for you. But the moment his fingertips brushed the fabric of your sleeve, you moved, you unbuckled your seatbelt with a sharp click, yanked the door handle, and you were out, the door swinging open and the rain pouring in and you stepping out of the car and into the downpour like it was the only direction left.

You ran. Not far, not fast, your kitten heels slipped on the wet asphalt and you kicked them off without breaking stride, bare feet slapping against the puddles, the rain hitting your shoulders, your hair, your face, mixing with the tears until you couldn't tell which was falling from the sky and which was falling from you. You didn't know where you were going — just away, just forward, just anywhere that wasn't the passenger seat of that car where you'd heard those words.

You're acting like we're an actual couple.

Jay followed. He was out of the car before the door had fully closed behind you, his own door left open, the interior light on, and he was running, actually running, his shoes hitting the pavement, his shirt already soaked through, the rain flattening his hair against his forehead, and he was following you because one time, months ago, when you'd stepped out of your dorm without an umbrella on a cloudy day, your roommate had absentmindedly told him, told Jay, who'd been waiting in the hallway with takeout, that you were prone to sickness. Like, one raindrop and it was absolutely over. One drop and you were congested for a week. One chill and you were bedridden for three days. She'd said it casually, dismissively, the way people mention things that are just facts of life, and Jay had filed it away in the same mental cabinet where he stored your coffee order and your favorite flower and the sound of your laugh, and now you were standing in a downpour in with nothing but your dogs out and he was not about to let you catch your death on some stranger's sidewalk.

"Y/N, stop—please, just stop—"

You didn't stop. You walked faster, arms wrapped around yourself, the rain hammering your back, your skirt heavy with water and clinging to your legs, the gold earrings cold against your neck, the locket pressed to your chest like a shield that wasn't working. He caught up to you anyway, longer legs, less stubbornness, more desperation, and fell into step beside you, and you kept walking, and he kept pace, and the two of you moved down the wet sidewalk like two people who'd lost the map and couldn't agree on which way was home.

"Y/N—"

"I'm fine, Jay."

"You're not fine, you're standing in the rain without shoes—"

"I said I'm fine!"

And then you stopped. Not because you wanted to — because your legs gave out, not from weakness but from the sheer, crushing exhaustion of holding months of love inside a body that wasn't built to contain it. You stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, rain streaming down your face, your bare feet in a puddle, your mascara ruined and your hair ruined and your heart absolutely, irreparably ruined, and you turned to face him, and the dam broke.

"I feel so stupid," you said, and your voice cracked on stupid, cracked wide open, the word splitting into fragments that the rain carried away. "I feel so—god, I'm so stupid, Jay, because I—I heard what your mother and father said about me. I heard it. I was looking for paper towels and the door was open and I—I heard everything." A sob tore through your chest and you pressed your hand over your mouth and it did nothing, the sound still came, muffled and wet and broken. "They called me a peasant. Your mother called me a—she said peasant, Jay, and your dad—suitability, he said it's about—about suitability, and I—"

You were breaking down. Visibly, audibly, completely. The stoic, composed girl who'd walked into the Park residence was gone, and what was left was someone younger, someone rawer, someone who'd been holding herself together with thread, spit, and willpower, had finally run out of all three. Your sentences were stuttering, fragmenting, words tumbling over each other like people trying to escape a burning room.

"And I know—I know this is just—I know we're just—I know it's fake, I know that, I was the one who said no, I was the one who—who said no falling in love shit, I was the one who said no weird couple stuff, I drew the lines, I made the rules, and—" Your breath hitched, a sharp, involuntary gasp that bent you slightly forward, and the rain ran down your face, your shoulders shook, you were crying so hard you could barely form words but you kept going because it was all coming out now, all of it, everything you'd swallowed, buried, and denied for months, and it was messy, ugly, and exactly what the truth always sounds like when it finally gets permission to speak. "But fuck you, Jay! Bullshit—I actually love you. I love you so much it hurts, and I—I don't even recall when it started feeling less like some mutual agreement and more like—more like—"

You couldn't finish. The sob swallowed the rest of the sentence and you stood there, drenched and trembling, your hands balled into fists at your sides, your mascara in ruins, your grandmother's locket pressed cold and heavy against your sternum, and you'd said it, you'd finally said it, and the relief and the terror of it were indistinguishable, two rivers merging into the same flood.

Jay stared at you. Through the rain, through the dark, through the curtain of water that blurred the edges of everything, he stared at you, and the expression on his face was something you'd never seen before, not shock, not pity, not the practiced composure of the campus heartthrob, but something stripped and raw, a boy standing in the rain watching the girl he loved say the words he hadn't been able to find in his parents' study, the words that had been sitting in his throat for weeks, months, maybe since that first evening in the diner when she'd smiled at him with ice cream on her lips and he'd thought oh no.

He stepped closer. One step. Two. Three. Close enough that you could see the rain caught in his eyelashes, close enough that you could see his chest rising and falling with breaths that were faster than they should've been, close enough that you could see his hands shaking. He reached out and pulled you into a hug from behind, his arms wrapping around your shoulders, his chest pressing against your back, his chin dropping to the top of your wet, wavy hair, and the embrace was so sudden, so warm, and so tight that it knocked the remaining breath out of your lungs and a fresh sob out of your throat. You could feel his heart through his soaked shirt, hammering against your spine, and it was racing, racing the way yours was, the same tempo, the same desperation, two drums beating in the same storm.

Then he turned you. Gently, his hands on your shoulders, guiding you until you were facing him, and the rain was between you, on you, and everywhere. Your eyes were red, your face was a mess, and he looked at you the way he'd looked at you in that polaroid in his car, not at the camera, not at the performance, at you, just you, and there was nothing guarded in it, nothing held back, nothing fake.

"And even after all that," he said, his voice low and rough and thick with something that sounded like it had been drowning for months and had finally broken the surface, "you still feel like you're the one who broke the agreement?"

And then he kissed you.

Not a feather-light press. Not a convincing-for-the-crowd peck. Not a contractual obligation on a cafeteria cheek. He kissed you in the rain, on a sidewalk in a neighborhood neither of you knew, with your mascara running, his shirt soaked, your bare feet in a puddle, and his hands cupping your face like you were something precious and terrifyingly impossible to let go of. It was long — longer than any kiss you'd imagined, longer than any kiss in any movie, long enough that the rain had time to trace paths down both your faces and pool where your lips met, and the cold became irrelevant because his mouth was warm and his hands were warm and the whole world was cold and wet and none of it mattered, none of it existed. Nothing existed except the pressure of his lips, the steadiness of his grip, and the way your hands found the front of his shirt and held on the way you'd been wanting to hold on for months, fingers twisting into the wet fabric, pulling him closer, closer, because if this was the only real thing then you were going to make it as real as possible, you were going to press every ounce of everything you'd been carrying into the space between your mouths and hope it was enough.

When you broke apart, slowly, reluctantly, the way people separate when the air they share is more necessary than the air around them, he didn't go far. His forehead rested against yours, his breath warm and uneven on your rain-cold skin, his thumbs brushing the remnants of mascara from your cheeks with a gentleness that made your chest ache in a completely different way than it had been aching all night. Then he pressed a quick kiss to your forehead — a seal, a promise, a full stop on a sentence that had been running for months. Then he took your hand, raised it to his lips, and pressed a soft kiss to your palm, the kind of kiss that wasn't about passion but about tenderness, about treating a part of you that had swept floors, held rags, carried groceries, and typed lab reports as though it was worthy of being kissed.

"Let's head back now to the car," he said quietly, his voice still rough, still raw, but steadier now, anchored.

You looked down at yourself, drenched, barefoot, skirt heavy with water, hair plastered to your neck, and then at him, equally soaked, shirt clinging, shoes squelching, the both of you looking like you'd climbed out of a lake, and you let out a small, watery, almost-laugh. "We're both soaking wet, Jay."

He looked at you, and the corner of his mouth lifted, that same easy, warm, real smile, the one that was only yours, and he said, "It's okay. You're acting like I can't handle some wet ass car seat. It's all good."

You laughed. An actual laugh, small, broken, wet, and still trembling with the aftershocks of everything, but real, and he smiled wider, and he kept your hand in his as he walked you back to the car through the rain, and the car seat did get wet, but it didn't matter at all.

Jay drove you back to his condominium unit. He didn't ask, he just told you. The car was still humming with the aftershocks of everything that had just happened on that sidewalk, the rain still hammering the windshield, your bare feet still cold and your skirt still heavy and the taste of him still faint and electric on your lips, when he glanced at you and said, simply, "You're staying at mine tonight." Not a question. Not an offer. A statement, delivered with the same quiet certainty he used when he told you to order what you actually wanted at the diner, the same certainty he used when he picked up your bag without asking, the same certainty that had been steadily, silently eroding every wall you'd built since the day you'd said deal in that study room.

"Jay, I—"

"You're wet. You're barefoot. Your roommate went home for the weekend, right?" He already knew the answer, you'd mentioned it earlier in the week, in passing, one of those small facts that Jay collected and stored and retrieved at exactly the moment they became relevant. "I'm not letting you walk back to an empty dorm soaking wet in the rain. You'll get sick. End of discussion."

You wanted to argue. Some part of you, the stubborn, self-sufficient part that had raised itself on the principle that you didn't need anyone to take care of you, wanted to say I'm fine, I can handle it, I've handled worse. But that part was small and tired and waterlogged, and the part of you that had just said I love you out loud for the first time was larger and louder and didn't have the energy to pretend anymore. So you nodded, a small, quiet nod, and you pulled your knees up onto the seat, looking out the window and you let him drive you home.

His home. The word didn't feel as foreign as it should have.

The journey up to his unit was funny, in the way that things are funny when they're happening to you and you're too exhausted to feel embarrassed about them yet. The lobby of his condominium was quiet at this hour, late enough that the ambient music had been turned down to a whisper and the marble floors reflected only the warm glow of the recessed lighting and the silence had that particular, hushed quality of spaces that were usually full but were currently holding their breath. You walked in behind Jay, your bare feet leaving wet prints on the polished floor, your ruined satin skirt dripping a small trail behind you like a sad, glamorous snail, your mascara still smeared under your eyes in a way that made you look vaguely like a raccoon who'd had a very bad night. Jay was no better, his shirt was plastered to his torso, his hair was flattened against his forehead in dark, wet spikes, and his shoes made a squelching sound with every step that echoed through the lobby like someone repeatedly stepping on a sponge.

The woman behind the front desk, the same one who'd greeted you with "Welcome back, Mr. Park, and guest" all those months ago, looked up as you both passed. Her eyes traveled from Jay's soaked shirt to your bare feet to the dark mascara tracks on your cheeks to the way Jay's hand was resting on the small of your back, and her expression underwent a very specific, very readable journey: first confusion, then assessment, then a slow, knowing crinkle at the corners of her eyes, and finally a smile, warm, private, the kind of smile people reserve for things they find genuinely endearing. She didn't say anything to you, but as you passed the desk, you heard her mutter under her breath, quiet enough that she probably thought you couldn't hear but you could, you absolutely could: "Lovebirds, how cute." And then a small, fond exhale, the way someone sighs at a movie scene that hits a little too close to home.

Jay didn't hear it. He was already guiding you toward the elevator, his hand still warm against your back even through the wet fabric. But you heard it, and something about it, the casual certainty of it, the way this stranger looked at the two of you, dripping, ruined, and walking through a lobby at midnight, and saw love before she saw mess, made your throat tighten in a way that had nothing to do with the cold.

You showered first. Jay handed you a towel and pointed you toward the bathroom and said "take your time, the water pressure's ridiculous" and you stood under the shower for longer than you needed to, letting the hot water undo what the cold rain had done, watching the mascara swirl down the drain in grey and black ribbons, pressing your forehead against the tile and breathing and breathing and breathing. When you turned the water off and reached for the towel, you realized the problem. Your undergarments. Your bra, your underwear, the ones you'd worn under, the ones you'd chosen specifically because they didn't show lines, were wet. Soaking, thoroughly, irreversibly wet, the rain having penetrated every layer you'd been wearing, and you hadn't brought a change of clothes because you'd come to Jay’s house to have dinner with his parents, not to sleep over, not to plan for a rain-soaked confession and a kiss on a stranger's sidewalk and a night that had gone so far off-script that the script was now a distant memory. You wrapped the towel around yourself and cracked the bathroom door open and called out, "Jay?"

He appeared a moment later, still damp, having changed into dry sweats and a t-shirt, his hair sticking up in that way it did when he'd toweled it off without looking in a mirror. "Yeah?"

"I, um. I don't have—my undergarments are wet. Everything's wet. I didn't exactly pack an overnight bag."

He stared at you for a second, then his face did something, a quick flicker of oh followed by that familiar, faint flush that crept along his cheekbones whenever the conversation veered into territory that reminded him you were, in fact, a person with a body, and that that body currently existed on the other side of a towel. He cleared his throat. "Right. Yeah. Of course. Hold on."

He disappeared and came back with his arms full, an oversized grey hoodie, soft and worn from many washes, the kind of hoodie that had lived in his closet long enough to carry the shape of his shoulders; a pair of red plaid boxers, clean, folded, the fabric soft and slightly faded; a pair of thick socks, the kind meant for hardwood floors in winter; and a pair of slippers he handed you with a slightly sheepish expression. "These are a little big. I never really wear them—they were a gift, my aunt bought them thinking I'd use them around the unit but they don't fit right and I keep forgetting to throw them out. They're clean, though. I promise."

You took the pile from him, and the hoodie was warm from being in a drawer near the heating vent, and it smelled like his laundry detergent, that same clean, woody scent that his whole condominium carried, the scent that meant safe before your brain had consciously decided it meant anything at all. You closed the bathroom door, dropped the towel, and put everything on. The hoodie hung past your hips, the sleeves falling well beyond your wrists, the neckline wide enough that it slipped slightly off one shoulder. The boxers sat loose around your waist, the plaid pattern absurd and comfortable. The socks were thick and warm and the slippers were, as promised, a little big, your feet sliding slightly when you walked, and you looked at yourself in the bathroom mirror, mascara-free, hair wet, drowning in a grey hoodie and red plaid boxers that belonged to the boy you loved, who loved you back, and you thought: this is the most myself I've ever looked.

When you opened the bathroom door, the steam followed you out into the hallway. Jay was standing right there, waiting, a towel draped over his shoulder and a smaller one in his hand, the hair towel, you realized, when he gestured for you to come closer.

"Come here," he said, and you did, walking toward him in your oversized slippers, and he guided you to sit on the edge of the couch, and then he stood behind you and began drying your hair with the smaller towel, his hands working the fabric through your damp strands with a gentleness that made your eyes prickle. You'd never had anyone dry your hair before. It was such a small thing, a nothing thing, a functional thing, and yet the intimacy of it was staggering, the careful way his fingers moved through the wet, the way he'd occasionally pause to squeeze a section between the towel and his palm, the way he'd brush a strand away from your neck and his fingertips would graze your skin and send a small, involuntary shiver down your spine that had nothing to do with the cold.

"My eyes still hurt," you whined, pressing the heels of your palms against your closed eyelids, and the whine came out small and childish and genuinely pitiful because they did hurt, you'd cried so hard on that sidewalk that your eyelids were swollen and raw and every blink felt like sandpaper. "They're all puffy and gross."

Jay giggled, a bright, surprised sound, the kind that escaped him before he could catch it, and you could hear the smile in it, the unguarded warmth of it, and you wanted to be annoyed that he was laughing at your suffering but the sound was so genuinely, infectiously happy that you couldn't even muster the indignation.

"They're not gross," he said, still working the towel through your hair, his voice soft with amusement. "You're just having a reaction to being dramatically beautiful in the rain for ten minutes. It's a known side effect."

"Dramatically beautiful?" You lifted your head slightly. "I looked like a swamp creature."

"Mm, a very pretty swamp creature," he corrected, and you could hear the grin, and you groaned and slumped back against his abdomen and he laughed again, and the sound of it traveled through his chest and into your spine and settled there, warm and constant, and you thought: I could live in this sound.

He finished drying your hair after a few more minutes, the dampness reduced to a soft, manageable weight that would air-dry the rest of the way. He gave your shoulder a gentle squeeze. "I'm gonna go wash up. Make yourself comfortable, there's water in the fridge, extra blankets in the closet, and the TV remote is—somewhere under the couch cushions, I always lose it."

You nodded, and he disappeared down the hallway toward the bathroom, and you heard the shower turn on, and then you were alone. The condominium was quiet, that rich, expensive quiet that big spaces produced, the kind that felt like being wrapped in something soft. You sat on the couch for a moment, your knees pulled up to your chest inside the oversized hoodie, the slippers half-off your feet, the towel still draped over your shoulders.

Then you got up. You didn't mean to go looking for him, you were just restless, your body still humming with the residual electricity of the evening, your skin still remembering the rain, the kiss, and his hands on your face, and walking felt like the only thing to do with all that leftover voltage. You padded down the hallway in your too-big slippers, past the kitchen, past the closet with the extra blankets, past the bathroom where the shower was still running, and you found his bedroom.

The door was open. The room was dim, just the lamp on the nightstand, a warm amber glow that made the bed and the bookshelf and the guitar propped in the corner look like they belonged in a painting rather than a real person's life. And there was Jay, seated in the comfortable lounge chair in the corner, the one with the deep cushion and the angled back that faced the window, the one you'd seen him sit in before when he was reading or thinking or absentmindedly strumming chords on his guitar without plugging it in. He was still in his sweats and t-shirt, his own hair damp and finger-combed back, his legs stretched out, his phone abandoned on the armrest, and he looked up when you appeared in the doorway, and the look on his face, open, warm, a little tired, completely yours, made your breath catch.

You walked in. Your slippers made a soft, shuffling sound on the hardwood. You didn't say anything, you didn't know what to say, your voice having apparently used up its entire vocabulary on that sidewalk and now sitting empty and quiet in your throat. You just walked toward him, slowly, your hands finding the front pocket of the hoodie and burying themselves inside it, and you stopped a few feet from the chair, and you looked at him, and he looked at you, and the air in the room felt thick and warm and charged with something neither of you had named yet but both of you could feel pressing against your skin.

Then, without warning, without a word, without a question, without anything except the quiet, certain movement of his hands, Jay reached out and pulled you onto his lap.

It was smooth, the kind of movement that looked effortless but required a specific kind of confidence, a specific kind of certainty that the person being pulled wanted to be there. His hands found your waist inside the hoodie, his fingers closing around the fabric and the warmth underneath, and he drew you forward and down until you were settled across his thighs, your knees on either side of his hips, the hoodie riding up slightly where his hands gripped it, the red plaid boxers hidden beneath the grey fabric. Your hands landed on his shoulders, the only place they could go, and you were close, closer than ever before because this was a different kind of closeness, the kind that wasn't born from desperation or confession but from choice, from the simple, deliberate act of being exactly where you wanted to be.

His hands stayed on your waist. His eyes stayed on yours. The lamp cast shadows across his face, highlighting the slope of his nose and the sharpness of his jaw and the way his pupils had darkened, blown wide, the amber glow reflected in them like small fires. Neither of you spoke. The room was quiet except for the sound of your breathing and his breathing and the distant, low hum of the city beyond the window, and the silence wasn't awkward, heavy, or uncertain — it was full, the way silence is full when it's holding something that words would only diminish.

You sat there, on his lap, in his hoodie, in his boxers, in his slippers that had fallen off your feet somewhere between the doorway and the chair, and his hands were warm through the fabric, and his heart was beating fast against your chest, and the night was still raining outside, and you were exactly where you were supposed to be.

"If there's something horrendous on my face you should tell me and stop staring like that."

The words came out softer than you intended, barely more than a whisper, because the way Jay was looking at you right now made it difficult to breathe properly, let alone speak at full volume. His eyes were dark, not the warm amber-brown they'd been over dinner or the soft, fond shade they'd taken on while drying your hair, but something deeper, something hungrier, the color of burnt honey held over a flame, and they were fixed on you with an intensity that made your pulse stutter and your thighs press instinctively tighter around his hips.

He didn't answer right away. His thumbs, which had been resting idle against your waist, began to move — slow, deliberate strokes along the curve of your hips through the hoodie, his fingers pressing into the fabric just hard enough that you could feel the warmth of each individual fingertip through the worn cotton, and every point of contact lit up like a switch being flipped somewhere beneath your skin.

"There's nothing horrendous on your face," he said finally, and his voice had dropped, lower than you'd ever heard it, a rough, quiet thing that seemed to vibrate through the pads of his fingers and into your bones. "I'm staring because you're in my clothes and it's making me lose my mind."

A startled laugh escaped you, breathy and nervous. "It's just a hoodie—"

"It's not just a hoodie." His grip tightened fractionally, his fingers curling into the fabric at your hips, and the slight, possessive pressure of it sent a sharp thrill skating down your spine. "You're sitting on my lap in my clothes, smelling like me, looking like that, and you're asking me why I'm staring?" He exhaled, a short, almost-laugh that was more breath than sound. "You're killing me."

The laugh that had been building in your throat dissolved into something else, something warmer and less certain, and you became acutely aware of how close his face was to yours, close enough that you could see the faint water droplets still clinging to the ends of his hair, close enough that you could feel the warmth of his exhale ghosting across your chin, close enough that the distance between his mouth and yours had become a question that neither of you had asked yet but both of you were waiting to answer.

You answered it.

It wasn't planned. It wasn't a decision made by the rational, thinking part of your brain. It was gravity, pure and simple, the same force that had pulled you into his lap and pulled you to this condominium and pulled those three words out of your mouth on a rain-soaked sidewalk, your body leaning forward, your fingers tightening on his shoulders, and your mouth finding his with a certainty that surprised you both.

Jay made a sound against your lips, a low, sharp inhale through his nose, and then his hands were sliding from your waist to the small of your back, pressing you forward, pressing you closer, and he was kissing you back with a fervor that made the kiss on the sidewalk feel like a prelude, a rough draft, a sketch compared to this, the final, full-color rendering, all the detail and depth and texture filled in at once. His mouth was warm, sure, and unhurried despite the urgency thrumming beneath it, his lips moving against yours with a precision that suggested he'd been thinking about this exact thing for longer than he'd ever admit, mapping out the pressure, the angle, and the way his lower lip fit between yours, and the deliberateness of it, the care of it, was so fundamentally him that it made something in your chest crack open and spill warmth through your entire body.

Your fingers climbed from his shoulders into his hair, threading through the damp strands, and the sound he made in response, a muted, rough “fuck” breathed against your mouth, sent a jolt of electricity straight down your center. You tugged lightly, experimentally, and his head tilted back. His breath stuttered and his fingers dug into your back through the hoodie hard enough that you knew his fingerprints would be embedded onto your skin, and the thought of that, of wearing his fingerprints beneath his hoodie, made you press into him harder, made the kiss deeper, made your tongue slide against his with a desperation that surprised you.

He responded instantly. One hand left your back and came up to cup the side of your face, his thumb tracing the line of your jaw, tilting your head just slightly, and the new angle made everything sharper, more intense, the slide of his tongue against yours sending sparks skittering down your nerve endings like lit matches dropped on dry kindling. His other hand stayed pressed into the small of your back, keeping you flush against him, and you could feel his heart hammering against your chest, or maybe that was yours, or maybe it was both of them beating in tandem like they'd been doing it forever and were only now acknowledging the rhythm.

You shifted on his lap, adjusting your weight, your knees tightening against the outside of his thighs, and the movement pressed your hips down against his in a way that made you both freeze. The sound that escaped you was small and involuntary, a half-swallowed whimper that vibrated against his lips, and the sound he made was worse, or better, depending on perspective — a low, guttural groan that seemed to come from somewhere deep in his chest and traveled through his body into yours like a seismic event.

"Don't—" His voice was fractured, barely coherent, his forehead dropping against yours, his breath coming ragged and hot against your swollen lips. "Don't move like that if you're not—fuck—if you're not planning to follow through, because I—"

You moved again. Deliberately this time, not an adjustment but a choice, your hips rolling forward in a slow, deliberate grind that pressed the heat between your thighs against the unmistakable hardness that had developed beneath the fabric of his sweats. The friction, the pressure, the feeling of him solid and insistent against you even through layers of clothing, pulled a moan from your throat that you didn't recognize as your own voice.

"Shit—" Jay's head fell back against the chair, his neck corded, his jaw clenched, his eyes squeezed shut for a single, trembling moment before they opened again and fixed on you with a look so raw, so unguarded, so full of want that it made your stomach clench and your breath come short. His hands slid down from your back to your hips, fingers spread wide, and he held you there, held you against him, and he didn't stop you when you moved again.

The dry grinding started slowly, almost tentatively, your hips finding a rhythm against his that was more instinct than experience, more feeling than technique. The seam of the boxers you were wearing, his boxers, dragged against you in a way that sent sharp, stuttering pulses of pleasure through your core with every movement, and the angle of it, the way his body was positioned beneath you, meant that every roll of your hips pressed you directly against the length of him, hard, thick, and impossible to ignore through the thin cotton of his sweats. You could feel the shape of him, the heat of him, and the knowledge that you were doing that, that you were the reason the campus heartthrob was hard, breathless, and gripping your hips like you were the only solid thing in a spinning room, sent a fresh wave of arousal pooling between your thighs so quickly it almost embarrassed you.

"Jay—" His name came out broken, half-moaned, and you didn't even know what you were asking for, only that the friction wasn't enough anymore, only that the fabric between you was a barrier that your body was increasingly desperate to dissolve.

"I know," he breathed, and his hands flexed on your hips, guiding you, easing you into a slower, deeper grind that made you both gasp. "I know, baby, I know."

Baby. The word hit you like a physical thing, warm and weighted, and the way he said it, rough and reverent, like it had been sitting on his tongue for weeks waiting for permission to come out, made your hips stutter and your fingers tighten in the fabric of his t-shirt and a small, needy sound escape your lips that you couldn't have stopped if you'd tried.

"You feel so good," you whispered, and the admission came easier than it should have, your inhibitions eroded by the haze of sensation and the certainty that the boy beneath you was someone who would catch every vulnerable thing you dropped. "Mmgh, Jay, you feel—god, you feel so big."

A strangled sound escaped him, half-laugh, half-groan, and his hands slid from your hips to your ass, palms covering the curve of you through the hoodie, fingers pressing into the plush softness with a grip that made your breath hitch and your spine arch. "You can't just—fuck—you can't just say things like that to me—"

"It's true," you breathed, rolling your hips again, slower, feeling every inch of him against you, and the words tumbled out without permission, fueled by the way his fingers were kneading your ass through the fabric with a desperation that matched your own. "You're so hard, Jay, I can feel all of you and you're so—"

He kissed you to shut you up, or maybe because he couldn't not kiss you, his mouth crashing into yours with a hunger that made the previous kisses feel like polite suggestions, his tongue sliding against yours with a slick, dirty insistence that made your toes curl and your hips grind down harder and your thoughts dissolve into a warm, wanting blur. His hands were everywhere on your lower half, squeezing, gripping, pulling you against him with each roll of your hips, and the wet sounds of your kissing and the muted creak of the chair beneath you and the broken, shared breathing filled the quiet room like a symphony composed in the key of desperation.

When he pulled back, just enough to breathe, his lips were swollen and wet. His eyes were nearly black, the amber swallowed entirely by the blown-wide pupils, his chest was rising and falling with a heaviness that made you feel powerful and wrecked in equal measure. His right hand stayed on your ass, fingers digging into the flesh hard enough to dimple the fabric, but his left hand moved, traveled from your hip to the front of the hoodie, fingertips tracing up your stomach through the soft cotton, leaving a trail of goosebumps in their wake, until his hand reached the hem of the hoodie where it bunched at your waist, and his fingers slipped beneath it.

The first touch of his bare fingers against the skin of your stomach made you shiver violently, a full-body tremor that had nothing to do with cold and everything to do with the way his hand was warm, moving downward with a slowness that was almost cruel. His fingertips traced the line of your waistband, his waistband, the plaid boxers, the fabric you were wearing because everything you owned was soaked through, ruined, and the only thing standing between his hand and the place you needed it most was a thin, faded layer of cotton that he'd bought at a store months ago and never thought would be worn by anyone but himself.

"Can I?" His voice was barely a whisper, rough and low, his forehead pressed against yours, his breath mixing with yours in the small space between your faces. His hand had stilled just above the hem of the boxers, his fingertips resting against the bare skin of your lower belly, and the question was so gentle, so Jay, even now, even with his other hand still gripping your ass, his hardness still pressing against you, and his breathing still ragged with want, he was still asking, still making sure, still putting your comfort above his own desperation, and the tenderness of it made your eyes sting, your heart clench, and your hips can’t forward into his palm in an answer that was more honest than words could ever be.

"Yes," you breathed. "Please, yes."

His hand slipped beneath the waistband.

The first brush of his fingers against you made a sharp, keening sound rip from your throat that you'd never made before, a sound that seemed to come from somewhere deeper than your lungs, somewhere primal and wanting and utterly unguarded. Jay groaned in response, a low, broken sound, and his fingers pressed more firmly against the damp fabric, feeling the wetness that had nothing to do with rain, and the heel of his palm ground against you and fuck—

"You're so wet," he breathed against your mouth, and the words were reverent and ragged and almost disbelieving, like he couldn't quite comprehend that he was the cause of this, that the girl on his lap was this affected by him, by his hands and his mouth and the sound of his voice saying baby like it was the only word that mattered. "God, you're so wet for me already and I've barely touched you."

"You've been touching me," you managed, and your voice was unsteady, cracked down the middle by the slow, deliberate circles his fingers were drawing against you through the thin cotton. "You've been—ah—touching me this whole time, your hands on my—on my hips, on my ass, you've been—"

"Been driving you crazy?" he finished, and there was a smile in his voice, that same quiet, knowing confidence that made you want to kiss him and kill him in equal measure, and his fingers chose that moment to hook around the elastic of your underwear and tug it aside, the first touch of his bare fingers against your bare skin made every thought in your head evaporate like mist.

He explored you slowly at first, which was somehow worse than if he'd just plunged in and gotten to it, because his fingertips traced along the slick, swollen edges of you with a meticulous attention that felt like study, like he was memorizing you, learning you, cataloging every fold and every flutter and every place that made your breath catch or your hips jerk or your fingers dig harder into his shoulders. His middle finger slid through your wetness, gathering it, spreading it, and the obscene, slick sound of it combined with the feeling of his finger moving so close to where you needed it most and yet not quite there, not quite inside, was a form of torture so exquisite you almost sobbed.

"Jay, please—"

"Please what?" His voice was silk and gravel, his finger still drawing lazy, maddening patterns along your entrance, dipping just barely inside before retreating, a cruel, tantalizing hint of what was to come. "Use that pretty mouth for me, baby."

"I want—I want your fingers inside me, please, I need—"

He gave you what you wanted.

One finger slid inside, slow and deep and deliberate, and the stretch of it, the intrusion, the feeling of him entering you for the first time in any capacity, made your mouth fall open, your eyes squeeze shut, and a sound escape your throat that was somewhere between a moan and a cry. He was inside you, his finger, just one, but the girth of it, the length, the way it curled slightly as it pressed to the hilt, was enough to make your walls clench around him reflexively and your hips grind down against his hand seeking more, more, because one wasn't enough, not when you could feel how much more he had to give.

"Mmgh, that's it, baby," he groaned against your jaw, his lips brushing the skin there, his breath hot and unsteady. "Clench around me like the good girl you are."

The phrase hit you like a freight train. Good girl. Two words, spoken in that low, rough voice, with his finger inside you and his other hand still gripping your ass like he owned it, and you felt a fresh pulse of wetness coat his finger and your walls clamp down around him so hard that he hissed through his teeth and his own hips bucked up involuntarily beneath you.

"You like that," he observed, and it wasn't a question, and the quiet certainty in his voice, the way he'd clocked exactly what those words did to you and filed it away for future use, made you whine high and needy in the back of your throat. "You like when I tell you how good you're being for me."

"I like—I like everything you do," you gasped, and it was the most honest thing you'd ever said, because his finger was moving inside you now, curling and pressing and finding a spot that made your vision white out at the edges, your thighs tremble against his, and his thumb had found your clit and was drawing tight, devastating circles around it that made coherent thought impossible. "I like—oh god—I like you, I like your hands, I like—"

"Mm, like my fingers inside you?" His voice was filth, pure filth, spoken against the shell of your ear, and the warmth of his breath, the obscenity of the words, and the feeling of a second finger joining the first made your whole body seize and arch and press into his hand with a desperation that bordered on mindless.

Two fingers. The stretch was significant now, the girth of two of his fingers pressing into you, spreading you open, and the fullness of it, the pressure, the way his fingers moved in tandem, curling, thrusting, grinding against the spot inside you that made stars scatter behind your eyelids, was so overwhelmingly good that the sounds you were making weren't even words anymore, just a stream of whimpers and moans and broken syllables that spilled from your lips without your permission or your awareness. Your tongue was out, just slightly, your mouth open, your breathing ragged and wet and audible, and you were riding his hand now, your hips moving of their own accord, grinding down against his fingers, chasing the pleasure, and every roll of your hips pressed your ass into the grip of his other hand, which was squeezing and pulling you apart with a fervor that made you feel desired in a way you'd never felt before, like you were something precious, filthy, and his.

"You're so wet and so tight," he groaned, his fingers pumping into you with a steadiness that contradicted the tremor in his voice, the crack in his composure. "Squeeze me tight, baby, just like that—fuck—just like that, you're doing so good, you feel so fucking good—"

"I feel—you feel—" You couldn't finish the sentence, your brain unable to string together enough words to express the overwhelming, consuming, devastating pleasure of his fingers inside you, his thumb on your clit, his other hand on your ass, and his voice in your ear saying things that would make your past self combust with embarrassment and your present self drip with more arousal onto his already-soaked fingers. "Jay—ugh—Jay, please, I need—I need more, I need you, I need—"

"You need me?" His fingers slowed, just slightly, and his forehead pressed against yours, his eyes finding yours, and the look in them was so intense, so burning, so full of love and lust and something fierce and protective that it stole the air from your lungs. "You need me where, baby? Tell me."

"Inside me," you whispered, and the words came out trembling and true and stripped of every layer of pretense you'd ever worn. "Not your fingers. I need—I need your cock inside me. Please."

Something in Jay's expression fractured. You watched it happen, watched the last thread of his restraint snap like a guitar string pulled too tight, watched his jaw clench and his nostrils flare and his eyes darken to something feral and desperate, and then his fingers withdrew from you, dragging through your wetness, leaving you empty and aching. Both hands came to your hips, gripping hard, steadying you, and he stood up from the chair in one fluid motion, lifting you with him, your legs wrapping around his waist, your arms locking around his neck, and he carried you the four steps to the bed and laid you down on the mattress with a gentleness that was almost incongruous with the hunger in his eyes.

He stood over you for a moment, just looking, his chest heaving, his hair falling across his forehead in damp, messy strands, his sweats tented obscenely, and the visual of him, this boy, this man, who you'd watched from across lecture halls and sat beside in study rooms and fake-dated for months, looking down at you like you were the only thing in the world worth seeing, made you reach for him with both hands, your fingers closing around the hem of his t-shirt and tugging.

"Come here," you said, and your voice was wrecked and breathless.

He came. He stripped his t-shirt over his head in one swift motion and dropped it somewhere — floor, chair, another dimension, you didn't care, couldn't care, because his chest was bare, his abdomen was lean and toned, his skin was glowing warm in the lamplight, and then he was climbing over you, his knees bracketing your hips, his hands on either side of your head, and he was kissing you again, deep and dirty and consuming, his bare chest pressing against the hoodie, and you could feel his heart pounding against yours, or yours against his, or both, both, both.

"Wait," he said against your mouth, and he pulled back just enough to look down at you, at the hoodie, at his hoodie stretched across your body, the fabric that carried his scent and his shape and now you inside of it, and something in his expression went soft and hungry and utterly undone. "You have no idea what you look like right now."

"I look like I'm wearing your clothes—"

"You look like you're mine," he said, and the word came out rough and low and proprietary in a way that should have made your feminist sensibilities bristle but instead made lava flood through your veins and pool molten and insistent between your legs. "You look like you belong to me, and I've never—god—I've never been so horny for anyone the way I am for you right now. The way I've been for you this whole time. Every time you wore my jacket, every time you pulled it around yourself and it swallowed you whole and you looked at me from inside it like you were safe there—I wanted to put you on every flat surface I could find and—"

"Then do it," you interrupted, breathless, bold, your hands sliding down his bare chest, feeling the heat and the firmness and the slight tremor of his muscles beneath your palms. "Stop telling me and show me."

His breath hitched. His eyes searched yours for a single, electric second, and then he was kissing you again, and his hands were on the hoodie, pushing it up, his fingers sliding beneath the fabric and finding your bare waist and climbing higher, higher, until his palms covered your breasts, the feeling of his warm, slightly rough hands cupping you, squeezing gently, his thumbs tracing the swell of you above the cups, made you arch into his touch with a whine that vibrated against his lips.

"Off," he said against your mouth, and it took you a confused moment to realize he was talking about the hoodie, and then his hands were gripping the hem and pulling it up, and you lifted your arms and let him peel it off you, the soft grey fabric sliding over your head and your arms and joining his t-shirt on the floor, and the cool air of the room hit your bare skin for exactly one second before his mouth was on you, his lips pressing to your collarbone, your chest, your breasts, and his hands were everywhere, warm and big and eager, kneading and caressing and exploring the territory they'd been denied for months with a thoroughness that left you gasping and trembling and threading your fingers through his hair and holding on.

"Loved you in the hoodie," he murmured against your sternum, his breath hot and damp, his lips dragging across your skin between words. "Love you out of it, too. Love you every way you come. I want you every way you'll let me have you."

"Have me," you breathed. "All of me. Every—ah—every way."

His hands were on your bare breasts, palming them, cupping them, his thumbs dragging across your nipples with a slow, firm pressure that sent lightning bolts of pleasure shooting straight down your body to the place where you were wet and swollen and desperate and aching, and you were making sounds again. You couldn't stop making sounds, couldn't stop the whimpers and the moans and the small, keening ah, ah, ahs that fell from your lips every time his thumbs circled or his fingers squeezed or his mouth dipped down to press hot, open-mouthed kisses to the curve of your breast. Your back was arched, your hips were grinding against nothing, seeking friction, seeking him, and the desperation of it, the mindlessness of it, would have embarrassed you if you had any capacity for embarrassment left, but you didn't, you'd left it on that sidewalk in the rain along with every wall you'd ever built.

"Jay, please," you gasped, your hands fumbling with the waistband of his sweats, your fingers clumsy and urgent and trembling. "I need you, I need you inside me, I can't—please—"

He pulled back just enough to look at you, and the sight of you, bare from the waist up, your chest heaving, your lips swollen, your eyes glazed with want, wearing nothing but his red plaid boxers, made him exhale shakily and press his forehead against yours and whisper, "You're going to be the death of me, you know that?"

"Then die happy," you managed, and he laughed, even in the middle of this, even with his cock straining against his sweats, his hands on your bare breasts, your fingers in his waistband, and the sound was so warm and so him that it made your heart ache even as your body burned.

He stood, just for a moment, and pushed his sweats and boxers down in one motion, and then he was bare before you, fully bare, and the sight of him, all of him, the lean lines of his hips and the firm planes of his abdomen and his cock, hard and thick and curving slightly upward toward his stomach, the tip flushed and glistening, made your mouth go dry and your breath catch and a single, overwhelmed thought crystallize in the haze of your desire: who knew the campus heartthrob had such a big dick?

You'd imagined, of course. You were only human, and Jay was — well, Jay, and the rumors that circulated through campus gossip were as persistent as they were impossible to verify, and you'd filed them away under "things that were none of your business" even during the weeks when your business and his had become increasingly entangled. But the reality of him, the generous length, the substantial girth, and the way it twitched under your gaze, the tip leaking a bead of moisture that caught the amber lamplight, it exceeded every rumor, every imagined scenario, every late-night thought you'd dismissed as wishful thinking the morning after.

"You're staring," he said, and there was a smile in his voice, that same quiet, confident smile, but there was vulnerability underneath it too, the vulnerability of someone exposing himself, in every sense, to the person whose opinion mattered most.

"I'm appreciating," you corrected, and your voice was hoarse and your eyes were still fixed on him, and you reached out, your fingers wrapping around him, and the sound he made, a sharp, strangled gasp, his hips jerking forward involuntarily into your grip, was the single most intoxicating thing you'd ever heard. "You're—mm, Jay, you're really—you're so—"

"Stop," he breathed, but it wasn't a command, it was a plea, his jaw clenched and his eyes squeezed shut and his hands gripping the edge of the mattress on either side of your hips like he was holding on for dear life. "If you keep talking and touching me like that I'm not going to last long enough to—"

"Then don't make me wait," you whispered, and you released him and reached for him instead, your hands finding his shoulders and pulling him down toward you, and he came willingly, eagerly, his body covering yours, his weight settling between your thighs, his mouth finding yours in a kiss that was gentler than the moment called for, slower, like he was trying to memorize the shape of your lips the same way he'd memorized everything else about you.

He shifted your positions then, his hands on your hips, guiding you, and you understood without being told, he wanted you on top. He settled back against the pillows, his head on the cushioned headboard, his hands on your waist, and he looked up at you with those dark, burning eyes and said, "I want to see you. I want to watch you. I want you to take what you need."

Your heart stuttered. Your hands were trembling as you straddled him, your knees on either side of his hips, the red plaid boxers still loose around your thighs, and you hooked your thumbs under the elastic of both, his boxers and yours, and tugged them down just enough, just far enough, and the cool air hit the slick, swollen heat of you and you shivered. Then you were positioned above him, the tip of his cock pressing against your entrance, and the anticipation of it, the size of it, made your breath come short and your fingers dig into his shoulders.

"Slow," he said, his hands steady on your hips, steadying you, grounding you. "As slow as you need. I've got you."

You sank down.

The first inch made you both gasp, you at the stretch, the overwhelming fullness of him pressing into you, the girth spreading you open wider than his fingers had prepared you for; him at the wet, tight heat of you wrapping around the most sensitive part of him, the clench of your walls drawing a broken, guttural “fuck” from his throat that seemed to come from the soles of his feet. You paused, breathing through it, adjusting, and his hands rubbed slow circles into your hips, his thumbs tracing the crease where your thighs met your hips, so patient even though you could see the strain in his jaw and the tendons in his neck and the way his knuckles were white with the effort of not grabbing you and pulling you down the rest of the way.

"More," you breathed, and you lowered yourself another inch, and another, and the stretch was intense, almost too much, the kind of fullness that bordered on pain and pleasure in equal measure, and your face must have shown it because Jay's hand came up to your face, his thumb brushing your cheekbone, his voice coming out soft and concerned beneath the raw need.

"You okay? We can stop, we can—"

"Don’t stop," you said fiercely, and you dropped your hips the rest of the way, taking all of him, and the sound that ripped from your throat was something between a scream and a moan, loud, broken, and utterly beyond your control, and the sound that echoed from his was its mirror — a raw, shuddering groan that vibrated through his chest and into yours, his head thrown back against the headboard, his fingers digging into your hips hard enough that you knew there would be bruises shaped like his hands tomorrow, and you would press each one in the mirror and remember this moment.

Full. You were so full, impossibly, overwhelmingly full, stretched to your limit around him, and he was big, bigger than you'd even thought from looking, because looking and feeling were two entirely different universes of experience, and the feeling of him inside you, the heat and the hardness and the way your walls clenched and fluttered and tried to accommodate the intrusion, was so much, too much, exactly enough. You stayed still for a moment, both of you breathing, both of you adjusting, both of you existing in the space between anticipation and motion where the world narrows to a single point of connection.

Then you moved.

You lifted your hips, slow, feeling every inch of him sliding against your inner walls, the drag of him exquisite and maddening, and then you sank back down, and the angle pressed him against that spot inside you, that spot, the one his fingers had found earlier, the one that made your eyes roll and your breath stutter and a high, keening whine escape your lips, and the pleasure was so sharp, so blinding, so sudden that your body acted before your brain could intervene. You bounced again, faster, harder, chasing that feeling, and the sound of your bodies meeting, the slick, wet slap of skin against skin, the obscene squelch of him moving inside your wetness, filled the room alongside the symphony of your shared moans.

"Fuck—" Jay's voice was shattered, breathless, his hands gripping your hips but letting you set the pace, letting you ride him, letting you use him for your pleasure, and the sight of you above him, bare and lost in it, your head thrown back, your lips parted, your breasts bouncing with every movement, was unraveling him from the inside out. "You feel so fucking good, you're so—god, you're so tight, you're squeezing me so hard, baby—"

"I can't help it," you gasped, and you couldn't, your walls were clenching around him involuntarily with every thrust, every grind, every time he hit that spot that made your brain short-circuit, and the clenching made him groan and the groaning made you clench harder and the feedback loop of it was driving you both toward an edge that was coming too fast and not fast enough. "You're so—you're so big, Jay, I can feel you so deep, you're hitting—ah—you're hitting right there, right there, don't stop, please don't—"

"I'm not stopping," he growled, and his hands moved from your hips to your breasts, palming them, squeezing them, his thumbs dragging across your nipples with a firm, deliberate pressure that sent shockwaves of pleasure cascading through your body, converging with the pleasure building between your thighs, and the combined sensation was so overwhelming that you barely registered the shift in his posture until his arm was around your neck.

Not choking, never choking, you trusted him with your life and your body and every fragile thing you'd ever held, but holding, his bicep curling around the side of your neck, his forearm resting along your collarbone, his hand coming to cup the opposite shoulder, and the position, the possessiveness of it, the intimacy of it, the way it pressed your body flush against his chest and kept you close and controlled and his, made something wild, needy, and desperate claw its way up from the pit of your stomach and out through your mouth in a long, shuddering whine that you muffled against the side of his neck.

"I've got you," he murmured against your ear, his breath hot and damp, his voice a low, devastating rumble that you felt in your bones, and his hips snapped up to meet yours, and the new angle, the new depth, the new force of him driving into you from below made you sob against his skin. "I've got you, baby, I'm right here, I'm not going anywhere—you feel so good wrapped around me like this, so fucking good, taking me so well—"

"Jay—" His name was a plea and the only word left in your vocabulary, repeated over and over against the warm skin of his neck between wet, open-mouthed kisses and whimpers and the small, helpless sounds that were being fucked out of you with every thrust. "Jay, Jay, Jay—you feel so good, you make me feel so good, I've never—I've never felt like this, you're so deep, you're so—oh god—you're so big, how are you so—fuck—"

"Yeah?" His voice was gravel and fire against your ear, and his arm tightened fractionally around your neck, just enough to make your head spin and your body sing, and his hips pistoned up into you with a rhythm that was losing its steadiness, becoming rougher, more desperate, more animal. "You like how big I am? You like feeling me deep inside this tight little pussy? Squeezing me so good, baby, fuck—you're gonna make me come if you keep making those sounds—"

"What sounds—" you tried to ask, but the question dissolved into a moan so filthy and so loud that you would have been mortified if you had any mortification left, but you didn't, it was all gone, burned away by the heat of him and the grip of him and the relentless, devastating pleasure of him hitting that spot inside you over and over and over until your vision was blurring. Your thighs were trembling, your fingers were clawing at his back, and your sounds — the whimpers, the moans, the broken ah ah ahs, the way your tongue was out and your mouth was open and you were practically drooling with the overwhelming, consuming, ruinous pleasure of it, were filling the room and his ear and his consciousness until there was nothing else in the world but you and him and this.

"Those sounds," he answered, his voice fractured, wrecked, barely recognizable as the composed, collected boy who'd charmed an entire campus without trying. "Those—fuck—those sweet little whines, the way you're moaning my name, the way you can't even—you can't even talk, can you? Too full of me to think, aren't you, baby?"

"Yes—" It came out as a sob, honest and raw, your forehead pressed against his neck, your body bouncing on his cock with a desperation that had abandoned all rhythm and restraint, your hips moving faster, harder, chasing the peak that was building inside you like a wave pulling away from shore, gathering size and force and inevitability. "Yes, I can't—I can't think, you feel too good, you're too —god—you're too big, you're so deep, I'm—Jay, I'm close, I'm so close—"

"Me too," he breathed, and his arm around your neck shifted, his hand moving to the back of your head, his fingers threading through your hair, and he held you against him, your face pressed to the junction of his neck and shoulder, his face pressed to the crown of your head, the way he was holding you like something precious even while his hips were driving into you with an intensity that bordered on savage, made your chest crack open wider than it already was, made the pleasure in your body merge with the love in your heart until they were the same thing, the same overwhelming, consuming, impossible force, and you were crying again, you realized distantly, not from sadness but from fullness, from too much, from the impossible, miraculous reality of being loved, fucked, and held all at once by the same person, by the person you loved, by the person who loved you back.

"Jay—" you whined, high and desperate. Your walls were clenching around him in rapid, involuntary pulses that signaled the approaching edge, and his hips were stuttering, his rhythm falling apart, his breath coming in sharp, ragged gasps against your hair. "Jay, I'm—I'm gonna—"

"Me too, baby, me too," he gasped, and his hand tightened in your hair, and his other arm wrapped around your waist, pressing you impossibly closer, deeper, his cock buried to the hilt inside you and his hips grinding up against you in tight, desperate circles that pressed against your clit with every movement. "Come for me, I've got you, come on my cock, let me feel you—"

And then, just before the wave broke, just before the edge crumbled beneath you, just before your orgasm crashed through you like a storm making landfall, he whispered it.

"I love you."

Oh my god.

Not love you. Not the shorthand version he'd been using for months, the lazy, abbreviated thing that let him say it without really saying it, that kept the I out of it, that kept the confession at arm's length where it was safe and deniable and less terrifying than the full, unedited truth. I love you. With the I. For the first time. The most important word in the sentence, the word that made it a declaration instead of a throwaway, the word that turned it from something you could brush off into something you had to catch and hold and carry with you for the rest of your life, and he said it right there, right then, with his cock inside you and his arms around you and your body on the edge of the most intense pleasure you'd ever felt, and the shock of it, the staggering, breathtaking gift of it, was what pushed you over.

You came with a cry that broke in the middle, his name and a sob tangled together into a sound that was neither and both, and your walls clenched around him in rhythmic, devastating waves that pulled and squeezed and milked him with an intensity that ripped a sound from from his chest that you'd never heard before, raw, loud, unrestrained, his head thrown back, his jaw clenched and his entire body rigid beneath you and inside you and around you, and then he was coming too, his hips jerking up into yours in erratic, desperate thrusts, his cock pulsing inside you, thick and hot and filling, and the feeling of him coming inside you, the warmth of it spreading through you, the intimacy of it, no barrier, no distance, nothing between you but skin and the shared, shuddering aftermath of something that had changed you both, made your orgasm intensify rather than fade, a second wave cresting on the heels of the first, and you were both gasping, trembling, and holding onto each other with a ferocity that suggested letting go would mean falling off the edge of the earth.

The aftershocks rolled through you in diminishing pulses, your walls still fluttering around him, his cock still twitching inside you, your bodies still pressed together from chest to hip, neither of you willing to create even an inch of distance. The room was quiet except for your breathing and the rain against the window, which had never stopped, which had been the soundtrack to the entire night from sidewalk to confession to this, this moment, this bed, this body against yours, this love made physical and undeniable and real.

He was still inside you. Softening, but still there, still filling you, still connected, and the warmth of him inside you, the physical proof of what had just happened, made you squeeze around him reflexively and him hiss in oversensitive response, and the small exchange was so intimate, so coupled, that it made you press your face into his neck and breathe him in and whisper, against his pulse, "I love you too. With the I. I love y—wait, no. I love you more."

His arms tightened around you. His chest expanded with a breath that seemed to fill him entirely, a breath that had been waiting, maybe, since the first time he'd said those words without the I and wondered if you noticed the omission, and the exhale that followed was warm and slow and carried with it a tension you hadn't realized he'd been holding until it was gone.

"Mm, good," he murmured into your hair, and his voice was hoarse and raw and smiling, and the hand in your hair stroked gently, absently, the way you'd stroke something you'd been terrified of losing and were now learning you could hold. "Good. I meant it, by the way. Every time I said it before, I meant it. I just—I wasn't brave enough to include myself in the sentence."

You woke up to the smell of butter.

Not perfume-butter, not the artificial, movie-theater approximation of butter, but real butter, the kind that sizzled and popped and went golden-brown in a pan, the kind that meant someone was cooking something that would be terrible for you and perfect in every other way. Your face was pressed into a pillow, the sheets were tangled around your bare legs, and the space beside you on the mattress was empty but still warm. The amber lamp had been turned off at some point during the night and replaced by the grey-white morning light filtering through the curtains, and you lay there for a long, suspended moment with your eyes closed and your cheek against the pillowcase, breathing in, breathing out, letting the reality of the night before settle over you like a second skin.

Then the smell of butter intensified, and your stomach growled loud enough that it echoed off the headboard, and you opened your eyes.

The bedroom was soft in the morning light, quieter and less cinematic than it had been in the amber glow of the lamp, but somehow more real for it. The chair in the corner where it had all started was just a chair again. The bed was just a bed, albeit one with rumpled sheets and the clear evidence of two people who had spent the night learning each other in ways that went far beyond the physical. Your clothes, his clothes, the grey hoodie and the red plaid boxers, were folded neatly on the nightstand, and next to them was a fresh glass of water, two Advil, and a small sticky note with handwriting that made your chest ache:

Eyepatch for the puffy eyes is in the bathroom cabinet. Left side, second shelf. Take the pills. Come find me when you're ready ❤︎

You took the pills. You found the eyepatch, which turned out to be under-eye gel patches, not a pirate costume, and you pressed them under your eyes and stared at yourself in the bathroom mirror and looked exactly like what you were: a girl who had cried in the rain, confessed her love, had incredible sex, and slept in the bed of the boy who loved her back, in that order. The gel patches were cold, soothing, and you left them on while you pulled the hoodie over your head and stepped into the boxers and padded barefoot down the hallway toward the smell of butter and the sound of something sizzling.

Jay was at the stove.

He was shirtless, still in his sweats, his hair doing that thing it did in the mornings where it stuck up in the back at an angle that defied physics and dignity in equal measure, and he was holding a spatula and frowning at a pan with the concentrated intensity of someone performing neurosurgery rather than making a sandwich. The kitchen was warm and golden with natural light, and the butter was crackling, and there were two plates on the counter and a pot of tomato soup simmering on the back burner, and the scene was so unexpectedly, devastatingly domestic that you stopped in the hallway entrance and pressed your palm flat against your sternum as if you could physically hold your heart in place.

He hadn't seen you yet. He was focused on the sandwich, lifting the edge with the spatula to check the browning on the bottom, muttering something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like come on, come on, don't burn, don't you dare, and the tenderness of it, the sight of this boy, the one the entire campus tripped over themselves to get close to, standing shirtless in his kitchen at ten in the morning carefully monitoring a grilled cheese sandwich as if it were the most important task he'd ever undertaken, made something bloom in your chest so suddenly and so fully that you were moving before you decided to move.

You crossed the kitchen in five quick steps on your bare feet, rose up on your tip-toes, and pressed a kiss to the corner of his jaw.

He was actually startled, the spatula jerking, his shoulder jumping, a small whoa escaping him, and then he turned his head and saw you and the startled expression dissolved into something so warm, so open, so unguardedly happy that you rose up on your tip-toes again and kissed him properly, on the mouth, soft, slow, tasting like nothing at all except morning and him and the quiet, unbelievable joy of getting to do this.

"Hi," you said against his lips.

"Hi," he said back, and he was smiling, you could feel it, the curve of his mouth against yours, and his free hand, the one not holding the spatula, came to rest on your hip over the hoodie, his thumb tracing a small, absent circle against the fabric. "You slept late."

"You wore me out," you said, and the words came out without thinking, and then the meaning of them caught up with you and you felt the heat rush to your cheeks, and Jay's smile widened against your mouth and he pressed another kiss to the corner of your lips and said, "Nice," with such quiet, satisfied certainty that you had to bury your face in his bare shoulder to hide the fact that you were grinning like an idiot.

He finished the grilled cheese, two of them, golden, crispy, and oozing cheese from the edges, cut diagonally because, as he informed you when you raised an eyebrow, "diagonal is the correct cut, this isn't a negotiation,” and poured the tomato soup into two mugs, and you carried everything to the couch and settled into the cushions with your legs folded beneath you. The hoodie pooled around your thighs, the warm mug between your palms, and Jay sat close enough that your knees overlapped and his arm rested along the back of the couch behind you, not quite around you but undeniably there, a warm, steady presence that made the couch feel smaller and safer and more like home than any piece of furniture had a right to.

You ate. The sandwich was perfect — buttery, crunchy, the cheese pulling in long strings when you bit into it, the soup warm and rich and exactly the right thing for a morning when your body was sore in unfamiliar places, your eyes were still slightly swollen, and your heart was so full it felt like it might bruise your ribs from the inside. Jay ate his sandwich in three bites, which was both impressive and horrifying, and then he stole one of your untouched halves and ate that too, and you let him because you were too full, too content, and too busy watching the way the morning light caught the line of his jaw to summon the energy for indignation.

The TV was on but the volume was low, some morning show neither of you were watching, and Jay picked up the remote and navigated to Netflix and handed you the remote with a look that said your pick, and you scrolled. You scrolled through the usual suspects, the true crime documentaries you'd been meaning to watch, the romantic comedy that kept appearing in your recommendations with an algorithmic stubbornness that felt almost personal, the K-drama Jay pretended not to be interested in but always watched over your shoulder when you put it on, the nature documentary with the dramatic voiceover, the animated series, the cooking competition, the vintage sitcom, the new release with the ominous thumbnail, and the sheer, absurd abundance of it, the endless scroll of options that you'd never have time to watch, became its own form of entertainment, the two of you debating the merits of each option with the lazy, low-stakes passion of people who had nowhere to be and no one to impress and all the time in the world to decide.

You'd narrowed it down to three candidates when Jay's phone buzzed.

The sound was sharp and specific, the particular vibration pattern he'd set for family messages, and it cut through the comfortable haze of the morning like a pin through a soap bubble. Jay reached for the phone on the coffee table, swiped it open, and you watched his expression change, the easy, post-sleep warmth in his eyes sharpening into something more focused, his brow furrowing as he read, his jaw setting in a way you'd come to recognize as his tell for something he didn't want to deal with.

"Oh my god, you have to be kidding me," he muttered, and there was a note in his voice — not anger, exactly, but something adjacent to it, the exasperation of a person who'd just been handed an obligation he hadn't asked for and couldn't refuse.

"What's wrong?" You lowered the remote, the Netflix menu forgotten, the three candidate movies suddenly the least important thing in the world.

He turned the screen toward you.

The message was from his mother — you recognized the contact name, the formal Mom with no emoji, no affectionate modifier, just the word itself, clean and unadorned, the way Jay said she preferred most things. The text read:

Mom [10:49 AM]: Jongseong, bring Y/N to the summer estate in two weeks time. Your uncle can't make it this weekend.

And then, directly beneath it, as if the first sentence were merely logistical preamble to the real point:

Mom [10:49 AM]: If you're so serious about her, it's time the entire family met her.

𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐬 : @simsimluver @maishee @grdientlips @yejisair777 @kristynaaah @heesroses @vmpiricou @seungiesdoll @malibluess @stwryun @hooniluhv @rikisn @hazeheart12 @exclipszz @melancholatte @bluepains @gojopolo @jasmineeeee1009 @ming1luvr @ni-k1ttie @enzsstuff01 @willothewispbf @emvss @simjaeyunslut @luvlyjaemin @kikizzz0 @ilovhoonie @prettygirlthings-world @jaesim @luv4dani @perristar @bkatarina @fialtorelle @slutforaz @adoreade | send an ask if you’d like to be added ˙𐃷˙

🎹 ⊹ ࣪ ˖ ഒ i like me better by lauv

𝐞𝐥’𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞 : hi again hoonguin nation !!! unfortunately i did grow attached to this fic somewhere along the way & there are still so so so many things i have yet to put 🙁 no i didn’t put them here because too much would’ve been happening already . . there’ll definitely be a part two soon because i don’t leave you guys hanging 😘

✷ NOTE : thank you all so, so much for reading ! i hope you enjoyed this little world for a while ♡ all of this is purely a work of fiction & doesn’t reflect reality at all . . likes, reblogs, and feedback are deeply cherished and very, very appreciated on here !

[heevnly]

"His Favorite Troublemaker"

Pairing: CEO!Heeseung x Fem!Reader

Genre: fluff, romance, comedy, jealousy, arranged marriage au, husband heeseung

WC: 1.56k Or 1,568 words.

Synopsis: Heeseung thought surviving another boring corporate gala would be easy. unfortunately, his wife decided to show up looking breathtaking, and an overly confident businessman made the mistake of flirting with her right in front of him.

Everyone in the business world knew Lee Heeseung.

Young CEO. Brilliant strategist. Cold in meetings. Ruthless during negotiations. The kind of man whose mere presence could silence an entire conference room with a single glance.

At least, that was the version the world knew.

The version Y/N knew was entirely different.

The Heeseung she knew was the one who buried his face in her shoulder the second he stepped through the front door after a grueling twelve-hour workday. The Heeseung who followed her from room to room like a lost puppy, completely discarding his sharp corporate persona the moment they were behind closed doors. The Heeseung who constantly flirted with her just to watch her blush, acting as if he couldn't survive a single day without his wife.

And tonight?

Tonight he was suffering.

"Absolutely not."

Y/N glanced up from the vanity mirror, adjusting a delicate silver earring. "Hm?"

Heeseung stood in the doorway of their bedroom, leaning against the frame with his arms crossed over his chest. He was staring. Or rather, glaring.

At her dress.

The elegant black evening gown fit perfectly, hugging her curves in all the right places before cascading down to the floor. It was tasteful, elegant, and entirely appropriate for a high-profile corporate gala. Nothing scandalous.

Yet his expression looked like she had personally declared war against him.

"You're not wearing that out," he said, his voice dropping an octave.

Y/N fought back a smile, turning around on her stool to face him fully. "And why is that?"

He narrowed his eyes, his gaze sweeping over the exposed skin of her collarbones. "You know why."

She absolutely did.

Their marriage had started as a cold, calculated arrangement between two influential families. Neither had expected much from it besides polite coexistence. Yet somehow, somewhere between late-night conversations over takeout, shared quiet mornings, and countless small moments, they had fallen hopelessly in love.

Now, two years later, Heeseung was completely and utterly whipped. And he made absolutely no effort to hide it when they were alone.

"It's just a dress, Heeseung."

"It's dangerous."

"It's fabric."

"It's a public safety hazard," he countered, finally walking into the room. He closed the distance between them and wrapped his arms around her waist from behind, resting his chin heavily on her shoulder. He looked at their reflection in the mirror. "Stay home with me."

"We have to attend," she reminded him, running her hands over his forearms. "You already promised the organizers."

"I can cancel. A sudden corporate emergency."

"You won't."

He let out a dramatic, exaggerated sigh against her neck. "Unfortunately, you know me too well."

An hour later, their sleek black sedan pulled up to the venue. The grand ballroom sparkled beneath enormous crystal chandeliers, casting a warm glow over the crowd of executives, investors, and elite business leaders filling the space.

The moment the double doors opened and they were announced, countless eyes shifted toward them. More specifically—toward Y/N.

Heeseung noticed instantly. His jaw tightened, his hand smoothing over the small of her back in a gesture that was as protective as it was possessive.

Y/N noticed the subtle shift in his posture, which only made her bite back a grin. It was a bad idea to tease him in a room full of reporters and business rivals, but watching the unflappable CEO lose his composure over something so simple was entirely too entertaining.

For the first hour, everything went smoothly. They moved through the crowd seamlessly, engaging in the usual corporate routine of polite nods, business discussions, and networking. Heeseung was the picture of professionalism, answering questions with sharp intellect while keeping Y/N closely by his side.

Then, the peace broke.

"Mrs. Lee, right?"

A smooth voice interrupted their conversation. Y/N turned to find Kang Minho, a young representative from a rival tech firm, standing there with a champagne flute in hand. He was confident, charming, and clearly a little too comfortable.

Y/N smiled politely, out of pure instinct. "Yes, hello."

"I've heard a lot about you, but the rumors don't do you justice," Minho said, his eyes lingering just a second too long.

Beside her, the air around Heeseung turned ice-cold. His fingers tightened imperceptibly against her waist.

Minho, completely oblivious to the impending danger, continued talking, shifting his stance to step a little closer into Y/N's personal space. "I'd love to invite you to our firm's upcoming charity event next month. I think you'd find our latest projects very interesting."

Several nearby executives, sensing the sudden, suffocating drop in atmospheric pressure around Lee Heeseung, quietly took a step back. One by one, people cleared the immediate blast radius. Nobody wanted to be caught in whatever storm was brewing.

Y/N, however, decided to play with fire. "Oh, really? That sounds lovely."

Minho smiled, encouraged. "You're even more gracious than people described. I'd love to discuss it further over lunch sometime, if your schedule allows."

Clink.

The sound of Heeseung setting his glass down on a passing waiter's tray was sharp enough to cut through the ambient noise of the ballroom.

Done. Finished. Limits exceeded.

Before Minho could utter another syllable, Heeseung stepped forward, shifting his weight so that he effectively blocked half of Minho's view of his wife. His arm wrapped securely around Y/N's waist, pulling her flush against his side in a firm, undeniable statement.

Mine.

"I'm sure my wife appreciates the invitation," Heeseung said, his voice incredibly calm, smooth, and utterly terrifying. He offered a polite, practiced corporate smile—one that didn't reach his eyes in the slightest. "However, her schedule is completely managed through my office, and I can assure you, she is entirely booked."

Minho blinked, the charm draining from his face as he finally looked up to meet the eyes of the young tycoon. The sheer intensity in Heeseung's gaze made the younger man swallow hard. "I—of course, Mr. Lee. Just professional courtesy."

"Of course," Heeseung replied smoothly, his tone laced with a silent warning that needed no translation. "Enjoy the rest of your evening."

"Right. Excuse me," Minho mumbled, backing away so quickly he nearly tripped over his own leather shoes.

The second the man disappeared into the crowd, Y/N let out a breath, pressing her face against Heeseung's shoulder to hide her laughter.

"You enjoyed that far too much," Heeseung muttered, looking down at her with a look of pure betrayal.

"I have no idea what you're talking about, Mr. Lee," she teased, looking up at him with wide, innocent eyes. "I was just being a supportive spouse."

"You were encouraging him to walk straight into a lion's den," he corrected, though the corners of his lips twitched downward, trying to maintain his stern facade. "You're a menace."

The moment the clock struck ten, Heeseung practically dragged her out to the waiting car. The entire drive back to their estate was filled with playful teasing, mostly from Y/N's side while Heeseung leaned back against the leather seats, looking thoroughly exhausted by her antics.

"You should've seen your face," she laughed, leaning into his side. "I thought you were going to buy his company just to fire him."

"The thought crossed my mind," he admitted dryly, turning his head to look out the window. "He was standing too close."

"He was just networking."

"He was breathing my oxygen," Heeseung countered, which only made her laugh harder.

By the time they finally stepped inside the privacy of their own home, the heavy tension of the gala completely evaporated. The quietness of the house welcomed them, and before Y/N could even kick off her heels, Heeseung pulled her back into his arms, trapping her between his chest and the closed front door.

"You're impossible," he whispered, his eyes scanning her face, all the coldness from the ballroom completely gone, replaced by a soft, vulnerable warmth.

"You love me anyway," she smiled, reaching up to wrap her arms around his neck.

"I unfortunately do," he murmured, leaning down to press his forehead against hers. "It's a terrible weakness. The board of directors would be horrified if they saw how easily you ruin my composure."

"Good thing they aren't here then."

Heeseung looked down at her for a long moment, taking in the sight of her smiling up at him, entirely unaffected by the fierce reputation he held in the outside world. He sighed, a soft, defeated sound, and wrapped his arms tight around her waist, pulling her into a warm embrace.

"You're still jealous," she whispered into his chest.

"A lot," he confessed honestly, kissing the crown of her head. "And I don't care who knows it. Just don't wear that dress around anyone else again."

Y/N smiled, resting her head against his heartbeat. Let the business world think whatever they wanted about the cold, ruthless young CEO. As long as she had this version of him—the one who belonged entirely to her—she wouldn't have it any other way.

[jongst4r]

(not) spoiled (p. jay)

jay loves to spoil you, even if you don't want him to

pairing: jay x reader || wc: 1.2k || cw: fluff!! established relationship, kissing, use of petnames, comfort(?), very lightly suggestive || warnings: none! || a/n: all thanks to this request!! oh jay </3

you and jay have been together for almost two years now, and one thing has never changed: your inability to accept gifts without feeling massive guilt.

it’s a sunny saturday afternoon when the issue comes up again.

you’re walking through the luxury department store because jay needed new shoes for an upcoming schedule. at least, that’s what you thought. somehow you’ve ended up in the jewelry section, and jay is staring at a delicate gold necklace with a small diamond pendant that costs more than your monthly rent.

“don’t even think about it,” you say immediately, grabbing his arm.

jay turns to you with that signature raised eyebrow. “why not? it would look perfect on you.”

“because it’s too expensive,” you whisper, glancing around like someone might overhear. “jay, that’s literally insane money for a necklace. i don’t need it.”

he sighs, the same sigh he always gives when you start this. “baby.”

“no. girl, no,” you insist, tugging his sleeve. “i already feel bad when you buy me coffee. this is way too much.”

jay looks at the necklace again, then back at you. without another word, he flags down the sales associate and says calmly, “we’ll take this one. and can you wrap it nicely?”

your eyes widen. “park jongseong.”

he just smirks and pulls out his card like it’s nothing. when the associate walks away, he wraps both arms around your waist and pulls you against his chest.

“you’re cute when you’re mad at me for spoiling you,” he murmurs, pressing a kiss to your temple.

“i’m serious,” you mumble into his shirt, cheeks burning. “i don’t want you wasting money on me.”

jay pulls back slightly so he can look at you. his expression softens, but there’s still that stubborn glint in his eyes. “it’s not wasting money if it’s for you.”

later that evening, you’re both on the couch watching a movie when a notification pops up on your phone. it’s a delivery update.

“jay… why is there a package coming tomorrow from that fancy skincare brand i mentioned once?”

he doesn’t even look guilty. “because you said your skin’s been dry lately.”

you groan and hide your face in a pillow. “i was just complaining! i was going to buy the small version myself!”

“the set is better,” he says simply, pulling the pillow away so he can see your face. “and before you say anything, no, it’s not a waste. you take care of me all the time. let me take care of you too.”

you peek up at him, lips pouty. “you already do enough.”

jay leans in and kisses the pout away. “never enough.”

the biggest fight happens two weeks later.

it’s your birthday, and jay has planned an entire weekend getaway. you only found out because he accidentally left the confirmation email open on his laptop. when you confront him, you’re standing in the kitchen with your arms crossed, trying not to cry from a mix of love and guilt.

“jay, a private villa? for two nights? that’s crazy expensive. we could’ve just gone to a nice dinner or something—”

“we can still do dinner,” he says, leaning against the counter, completely unfazed. “but i want to take you away. just us. no schedules, no members, no stress.”

you feel your chest tighten. “i don’t want you spending all that money because of me. it makes me feel bad, like i’m taking advantage—”

jay walks over and cups your face gently, thumbs brushing your cheeks.

“hey. look at me.”

you meet his eyes, blinking back tears.

“you are not taking advantage of me,” he says firmly. “you never ask for anything. ever. you always tell me not to buy you things. you get embarrassed when i pay for dinner. you even tried to split the bill on our first date, remember?”

you nod, embarrassed.

“so let me do this,” he continues, voice softer. “i work hard so i can spend it on the person i love. it doesn’t feel good when you act like my money is a burden. i want to spoil you. i like spoiling you. it makes me happy.”

you bite your lip. “but… it’s too much.”

jay smiles, that gentle, patient smile that always melts you. “it’s not too much. you deserve the world, baby. and i’m lucky enough to be able to give you pieces of it.”

he pulls you into his arms and holds you tight, rubbing your back slowly.

“please let me take you on this trip,” he whispers into your hair. “let me show you off. let me wake up next to you with ocean views and order you breakfast in bed. let me do this without you feeling guilty.”

you stay quiet for a long moment, face buried in his chest. then you mumble, “you’re really annoying when you’re right.”

jay laughs, the sound vibrating through his chest. “i know. but you love me anyway.”

“unfortunately,” you tease, squeezing him tighter.

the weekend at the villa is perfect.

jay keeps catching you staring at the beautiful scenery, the huge bathtub, the massive bed, and every single time he says, “stop calculating how much it costs in your head.”

you try to argue when he orders the most expensive bottle of wine for dinner, but he just raises his hand in that sassy way (the same one he uses with the members) and says, “babygirl stop.”

you end up laughing so hard you almost choke on your pasta.

on the last night, you’re both sitting on the private terrace under string lights. jay pulls you onto his lap and wraps his arms around your waist, one hand resting protectively over your stomach even though there’s nothing there yet.

“thank you,” you whisper, playing with the necklace he bought you that’s now resting beautifully against your collarbones. “for everything. i’m… still learning how to accept it. but i’m trying.”

jay kisses your shoulder softly. “that’s all i ask. just let me love you the way i want to. money is just money. you’re priceless.”

you turn in his lap to face him, cupping his face with both hands. “i love you so much it scares me sometimes.”

“good,” he smirks, but his eyes are warm. “because i’m never going to stop spoiling you. get used to it.”

you groan playfully but lean in to kiss him anyway — slow, sweet, full of gratitude and love. jay kisses you back like you’re the only thing that matters in the entire world.

when you pull away, he rests his forehead against yours.

“happy birthday, my love.”

“best birthday ever,” you admit softly. “even if you spent way too much.”

jay chuckles and pinches your side. “there you go again.”

you laugh and hide your face in his neck. “sorry. habit.”

“it’s okay,” he murmurs, holding you closer. “we’ve got time. i’ll keep reminding you until you believe you deserve every single thing i give you.”

and as the waves crash softly in the distance, you think maybe — just maybe — you can start believing him.

because with jay, love isn’t just words.

it’s him ignoring your protests.

it’s him rolling his eyes with a fond smile when you say “don’t waste money on me.”

it’s him whispering “too bad, i’m spoiling you anyway” right before he kisses you stupid.

and honestly?

you’re the luckiest girl in the world.

© jongst4r, 2026

taglist: @solonenova, @neabrownn, @drowsypanther, @redessertired, @pinkdazed, @enhypenlvrsstuff, @strwberrylhs, @insignificantlillady, @vanillakirstein, @jaeynslutt, @d2iose, @gchirpy, @k13endall, @phjayyy, @unnatrual, @kookiesnkim, @kpopishgirlie, @kaejua, @ineedjaeyun, @moonchild-31, @cortised, @borderdaytwo, @wonrlls, @heartsski, @dollhoonki, @kristynaaah, @d1m-cataclysm, @bitemhoon, @wh0re4deonnu, @h4esexng, @thisisalwaysthat, @heesno1gooner

[alek6iey]

Heeseung called us engene again in his live, but this time he instantly backtracked and apologized. and that hurts because he felt as though he needed to apologize.

he's been calling us engenes for six years. his account on enhypen's weverse was disabled when his name was still "engene's man". and maybe it's not that deep, but hearing him apologize for calling us that again felt as if something was being taken away from us.

I still want to support them, but I miss what enhypen was before March 10th.

[luffles424]

Kairos

☼ Pairing: Seokjin x reader

☼ Genre: A/B/O dynamics, college au, omega!reader, Alpha!CEO!Seokjin, s2l, fluff, smut, minor angst (they’re idiots)

☼ Count: 25.6K

☼ Warnings: teasing, marking (+ a little blood), unprotected sex (stay safe kids!), knotting, creampie, multiple orgasms, impreg kink, minor dom/sub undertones, oral (f receiving), fingering, pillow humping, dirty talk, praise kink, heat sex, seokjin is a soft alpha

☼ Summary: kairos καιρός (greek, n.) - the perfect, delicate, crucial moment; the fleeting rightness of time and place that creates the opportune atmosphere for action, words, or movement

When your financial aid falls through for your last year of school, you fear you’ll have to drop out and postpone your degree. Until Taehyung gives you a suggestion to make a lot of money, quick. His idea can’t possibly end well, can it?

☼ a/n: So, guess who’s not dead? Sorry it took so long to get something new out, life’s been… busy. I’ve got other stuff currently in the works and I hopefully won’t take quite so long to put something else out again. Anyway let me know what you think! My ask box is always open ~ 💙💙💙💙

Keep reading

[hazeheart12]

A LITTLE TO CLOSE THIS TIME [¯◉°] 이희승/EVAN

film features…….bsf!Heeseung & bsf!freader

film contains…….You are doing skin care for your best friend by sitting on his lap as usual, while he is gaming, but accidentally grind on him, ending up with his cock inside you

film caution …….MINORS DO NOT INTERACT Unprotected sex(don’t do it) dry humping, making out/ kissing, grinding, fingering, edging, nipple play, talking abt fem!reader body parts, neck kisses, nipping the neck, spanking, usage of the word ass, clit play?, mentions of nick names like baby and etc, riding, tell me if anything more should be mentioned.

film length………5.2min(5.2k)

film keeper whispers ……….This is my first ever time publishing fic, I’m learning to write since I imagine a lot, I want to get it into words and now I got an idea for this with the help of Pinterest 😪. I tried my best, and slowly I’m gonna start my oneshot, idk how long it’s gonna be 🤷‍♀️. If any mistakes, let me know. Please request if u want anything. I will try my best to write butI’m a slow writer 😢. Would love moots, reblogs and likes ♥️

film melody playing……….. into you- ariana grande

˚ ༘ 🎞️ ｡𖦹 ° 🎥 ⁀જ⁀➴ film starting……..

The chaotic bursts of neon light from the monitors washes over the room, casting long, jagged shadows against the walls of Heeseung’s room.

The room smells of expensive cologne, ozone from the humming PC, carrying the faint and sterile scent of rosewater and gentle soap in the air. 

You are seated on Heeseung’s lap, straddling his hips, knees around them, on his chair, facing him in a position that the friction of your thighs against his jogger’s can’t be ignored.

Heeseung is fully concentrating on his game for now. 

His eyes are sharp, darting to every move in the game, playing it very carefully though you are quite a distraction to him. 

The headset he has on is filled with sounds of  explosions and gunshots, and he  pushes one piece of the headset aside so he can hear you.

You hold a small glass jar aloe vera gel, the product cool and smooth between your fingertips.

You’ve been massaging it on his face for the past ten minutes or maybe you just use it as an excuse to stay on his lap longer. 

But then still, you don’t care about the game he was playing, you just wanted to end the ‘washing face with whatever soap is there in the shower’ routine for him, so he can get good and fresh skin.

“Stop moving idiot” you murmur, voice soft but firm and commanding him a little because he keeps on moving.

You can feel the heat radiating from him as you blend the cream on his face in small upwards circles.

His jaw is clenched, trying his best not to feel you and your stupid tactics as a distraction, which you are sitting innocently on his lap like you don't understand what’s wrong in doing this.

“I’m in an important fight, Y/N” he grunts, though there’s no real anger behind his voice.

“If I lose this round, I’m gonna blame you and your so-called skincare routine” he adds, mocking lightly.

“Uhh, my skincare routine is obviously way better than whatever you do in the stupid shower,” you retort, sliding your fingers on his temple now.

“No soap is gonna clean your face like my skincare does, your skin feel shit, and it’s screaming for help, so think of this as an upgrade for your face”

He lets out a laugh, his eyes fixed towards the screen. “Sure,” he says as if it’s nothing, “My skin has a mouth and it’s screaming”. 

You roll your eyes at that, moving a little back so you can look at him even though he doesn’t.

“Just because it doesn’t have a loud, cocky mouth like you, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist,” you shoot back. 

“And for your kind information,” you continue, leaning closer to his face again, to spread the gel on his face, “You’re skin is so dehydrated, maybe it looks fine, but it really isn’t, so be grateful”

“I should be— What? grateful? Why? And what? I have a cocky mouth?” he splutters, turning towards you showing an exaggerated, horrified expression which was totally just acting.

"First place, I don’t even care about my skin, Second, you should be grateful that I’m letting you do this while I’m literally in the middle of a serious fight, Third—”

“Hey, dont move!,” you interrupt, pushing back his face towards the screen.

“I can’t do it properly, if you keep moving” you add and he becomes quiet and goes back to playing his game very seriously.

You slowly get even more closer to his face. 

For real, you’ve done this almost a hundred times before, sitting on his lap touching his face and all stuff, but today something in the air feels different.

For the first time the closeness doesn’t feel normal.

It feels dangerous, surreal and maybe something new.

Every time he breathes near you, every time his chest brushes against yours, you feel your pulse raise. 

You try to ignore it, focusing your attention back to what you are doing, but it only makes it worse, because now, you’re actually looking at him. 

The sharp line of his nose, the long lashes that fall against his skin, the bambi-like looking eyes, and then your gaze drops down— unintentionally. 

You blink, realizing you are staring at him, you shake your head slightly to clear it, pushing those sudden, distracting thoughts away as quickly as they come. 

You don't want to be caught by him, which will only make it more embarrassing.

You quickly turn back to your work— properly this time. 

So, you shift your weight, moving closer to him, trying to adjust the position so reaching the bridge of his nose would be easier.

As you move, your thighs slide against his joggers, hips very slightly against each other, the friction sending a sudden spark through your body, but you push it away. 

It was just a small moment for you, which you just want to ignore, but it sent a shudder through Heeseung’s body which you didn’t know.

“Fuck—” Heeseung groans, throwing his head back against the chair, his adam’s apple bobbing up and down, suddenly gripping your hip with one hand so tightly as you freeze at the pressure.

“Don’t—Don’t fucking do that, I’m trying my best to concentrate, baby” he forces out softly, the words tight as he grits his teeth.

You don’t understand what happened.

One second, you’re applying the gel on his face, moving closer to reach his nose—and the next, he throws his head against the chair and it’s pissing you since you already told him to not move.

“I said to not move, Heeseung!!  And seriously, it’s not my mistake that you can’t concentrate on your game” you say, a hint of irritation slipping through your voice.

You don’t understand what is wrong or what is his problem, even though it was quite obvious you couldn’t figure it out, so you just get back to working on his face. 

You shift your weight again, trying to adjust your position to get a better angle on his face, slightly moving left. 

This movement causes your leggings to unintentionally rub your thigh against his growing hardness.

“Baby, fuck—“ he rasps, as his other hand also leaves keyboard to grab the other side of your hip and holds you so tightly with both of the hands that you were sure it will leave few bruises by tomorrow. 

His head abruptly falls on your shoulder as the room fills with the loud harsh blares from the monitor which indicates he lost the game but you didn’t know it.

“Heeseung what the—” before you could even scold him, you gasp from him pulling you down, pressing you against him in a way that you can feel his big bulge on your core. 

“Heeseung….” you whisper, your voice trembling.

“Don’t—fucking don’t,” he starts, speaking as his head is still on your shoulder, you hear it in his voice, how he is trying his all best to control himself. 

“Don’t tell me stop when all I was doing was sitting here….trying my all best to control myself, while here you are sitting on my fucking lap, moving how ever you want……. God! Y/N you’ve been killing me here, I can’t stop anymore—”

He stops talking, lifting his head from your shoulder before capturing your lips in a searing, aching, desperate kiss, hands moving from your hips to your waist, gripping it so tightly it knocks the air out of your lungs.

He kisses you rough, like gentleness isn’t even an option right now, like he’s done holding back, done pretending this doesn’t mean anything as the gel smears on your face from his face.

All the years of your friendship, when he did his best to hold back, but now he’s done.

For a second you forget how to breathe, the intensity, the desperation and the desire from his mouth against yours, knocking the thoughts out of your brain.

You don’t even process the fact that HE, HE, your best friend is kissing you right now. Never in a million years did you think this out of all would happen—a lie you had a lot of sex dreams with him cuz he was too hot, and……..never mind.

You are still trying to process this when the grip on your waist tightens to pull you out of your thoughts.

The jar slips from your hand, shattering into pieces, and gel spreads everywhere on the floor, but you don’t even notice it. 

You melt against him, your hand slowly moving from his shoulder to the nape of his neck, fingers curling tightly in the hair as you pull him closer and kiss him back with the same desire, desperation and intensity.

He lets out a low deep growl, something filled with satisfaction like he knew you would kiss him without holding back.

It vibrates through your whole body, slowly heat starts coiling up in your lower belly more than what you felt a while ago.

You start feeling needy and want him more than you ever did.

But then he pulls back, forehead against yours, his breath hot, and his lips swollen from the hard rough kiss.

“Tell me to stop—” he whispers against your mouth in a low hoarse, octave voice which sends a shiver through your body.

You shake your head instantly before he can even finish.

“No,” you whisper, the word barely leaving your throat. “Don’t. Please don’t ” 

You roll your hips against his voluntarily. 

You need more.

You need the friction to not be a tease and start being the truth. The reality.

“Fuck—“ Heeseung hisses the moment he hears the deny and feels the roll of your hips directly against his bulge.

This time you’ve done it on purpose, you need more and you are clearly showing it.

He roughly grabs your jaw,tilting your head back, and crashing his lips on to yours again.

This time it’s all tongue and teeth, he doesn’t ask for permission, he claims it like it’s his.

You gasp into the kiss, this was more aggressive and desperate han before.

He takes his chance to enter his tongue into your mouth when you gasp.

His tongue plunges into your mouth, taking in your whispers and every inch of your mouth, he doesn’t waste a single single second.

His palm is hot.

He moves his hand from your waist to your hips as they slowly slip under your long hoodie or probably his which you wear all the time.

His hands move on your lower back, pulling you closer that there isn’t a millimetre also left between you both.

He breaks the kiss to move lower, his lips dragging along your jaw, sucking gently, before moving down to the column of your throat.

You tilt your head back without thinking, giving him more, your fingers going to his shoulders to hold tightly as his kisses grow firmer, more lingering.

“Hee….mm….Hee…” your breath stutters, his name coming from your mouth like a chant, unsteady whispers, which you can’t hold back anymore. 

His hand moves down to your ass, giving it a firm squeeze before delivering a spank.

His palm against your ass made you leave out a loud gasp, your back arching slightly.

He doesn’t pull away, he soothes it down slowly, in a way it makes your toe curl. 

The literal sensation sends sparks right over to your core, making you clench a round nothing.

He starts placing open mouthed kisses near your collarbone and neck, his breath hot and damp, leaving the warmth of his mouth behind.

He moves below your ear, instantly financing your sweet spot and nips your skin lightly.

You let out a sharp cry, breathing unsteadily.

The moment you let it out, he leans in again, nipping it harder than before, sucking a dark, purple mark, visibly claiming you.

He follows down to your collarbone, nipping wherever he finds your sweet spots to let out those sweet little sounds that feel like music to his ears.

You don’t stop, you keep whimpering his name, gasping when his tongue darts out to lick gently after nipping on your sweet spots.

You are drenched. 

Your panties are suffocatingly tight because of the silk clinging to your folds as you leak for him.

You need him.

You need to feel full.

You were sure it is making it hard to even take in air properly just because of his hot kisses on your body.

One of his hands tugs the hem of your hoodie, asking you permission if he was allowed to remove it while he was still busy marking you up.

“Yes! Please—remove it” you please, your voice cracking a little bit.

He doesn’t even take a second to tug it off, the moment you accept it, in one fluid motion he pulls it off you.

For a second he freezes.

You aren’t wearing a bra, the cool air hitting your bare skin, making your nipples harden and maybe you weren’t even sure if it was air or his gaze all over your body making you turn again and again and again…..

You aren’t wearing anything else except the black lace of your panties peeking out of your tiny shorts you wore.

“Fuck baby—” he growls, his eye’s darkening, pupils expanding until his hazel is almost entirely black.

He looks at you like you’re both sin and miracle given to him at once.

“This is what you have been gatekeeping from me, huh?” he asks, his hands moving to cup the underside of your breast, lifting them up slightly, as his thumb slightly grazes over the peck.

 You whimper, throwing your head back at that little touch surge of pleasure shoots to your core.

“This tiny waist,” his hands moving to the mid section, squeezing the softness there, devouring your body with his eyes.

“These wide, beautiful hips,” his finger moving on the waistband, pulling the elastic tight.

He bends a little, pressing a hot, lingering kiss right above the fabric of your panties, his lips grazing the skin of your hip.

The sensation sends a jolt through your body, sending shivers as your legs shake.

“Including the ass you’ve been teasing me with for years,” he said his voice filled with lust and love, and then he looks at you, how you look wrecked just for his touch.

He spanks you again, harder and more firm this time.

You cry out, a sound filled with shock, pleasure and pain, but please wins it all for now.

You thought he would probably soothe it again but no, it was paining harder but he made no movement to touch or soothe it, just casually leans back on to the chair.

He just lets it linger there, making it a reminder for you.

To remind you, who you actually belong to though he hasn’t fucked the shit out you yet.

Now his gaze isn’t on your face, it moves lower.

Your neck. No

Your collarbone. No

Your Shoulders. No

Just shamelessly, directly looking at your breasts with a hungry gaze, something you wanted to see all along.

“And finally……these beautiful, big boobs” he whispers.

He bends down, his lips hovering right over your breast, his hot breath teasing your nipples.

And then he pecks it…..to just tease you more.

The moment his hot breath was on your nipple.

Just his hot breath. 

Hot.

Breath.

You found yourself getting hungrier for him, you didn’t want him to tease you, you needed him, right then and there.

He knew it, he knew how you felt, how you are breathing, how you need him, but won’t give you what you want right now.

“Hee please—” you grind on him again but he holds back your hips making you stop, before you please again or tell him how badly you need him.

Then he starts sucking it, like he can’t hold back anymore, like this was the last thing left on the earth, maybe even like he was thirsty for them.

He wants to tease you, but couldn't hold himself back from you either, that grinding, those pleas from your mouth, made him rethink his decision from teasing you.

You could hear his sucking sounds, wet and vulgar, because of the wetness of his saliva spreading on to your nipples.

Your back arches, your hands instinctively find his hair, gripping it tightly.

He groans at the tight pull of his hair, making him harder underneath.

He sucks on your nipples, tongue circling around the peck, and tugging it slightly before sucking it again, doing the same thing over and over again, while his other hand finds your breast, squeezing, kneading it and rolling your nipple in between his fingers.

You moan, loud, honest, no stopping.

The pleasure was too good.

Your hips start bucking instantly against his bulge again, rolling your hips harder than before, grinding more.

He notices it as he pulls back from sucking with a wet plop.

“Eager now baby?” He teases, his voice dropping low.

You nod, hips moving harder, searching for friction.

For a second he thought to let you do something at least for yourself or not stopping you like he was before but no, straight away his hands move to your hips stopping you right when you thought it was getting better.

Then he bends down and moves to the other breast without a word to you, giving it the same attention as before, while his other hand was on the breast which was wet from his saliva, but still playing with it, satisfying you with his hand.

It was good, undeniably you like you, but the fact that your pussy was throbbing to be filled was not ignorable. 

You didn't want to wait. 

“Hee….please…please..I need you so bad—ahh” you let out a sharp cry as he bites down your nipples, his hands lowering, across your thighs and rids your shorts from your legs without asking you.

“Needy baby?” He asks as he pulls back, like knew nothing.

“Hee—ahhh” you moan when his fingers touch the wetness of your pussy just through the lace black panties.

“So wet for me baby” he coos as he feels the moisture soaking through the lace.

He finally strips them away also, leaving you bare on his lap, pressing against him.

The contact is sharp, as now you are directly pressing against the rough fabric over his bulge.

He finds his way to your clit, pressing on the swollen bud right away, rubbing it in circles with no patience, but with punishing pressure that makes your vision blur.

Your mouth opens, letting out sharp breaths, eyes shut, finally getting whatever you’ve been longing for, you instinctively bite down on your lips as choked sobs and moans come out of your throat.

“No baby, don’t bite your lip, don’t stop, moan for me, darling” he says softly, before pushing 2 fingers into your soaking warmth at once.

You scream from the sudden push, it wasn’t warned, it was too sudden.

He starts pushing deeper into your spongy walls, as your walls clench around his fingers, he groans in your neck, his fingers curling in spots making you moan and vision blur from the pleasure.

“Fuck baby, thats it, take my fingers like a good girl” he finally adds the third finger, stretching you apart as you wail, and then heeseung leans to kiss you again, tongue entering your mouth directly, taking in all your sounds while pumping his fingers in and out, while his thumb presses and circles on your bud.

He moves faster, pulling away from the kiss, gripping your hips tightly while pumping his fingers faster, your hands move to his shoulders tightening as you squeeze your eyes shut tightly, while whimpering and gasping, leaving out breathy huffs.

As you feel your orgasm building, tightening low in your belly, just the tension in your thighs becomes unbearable.

“Hee— I’m—” before could even finish your sentence, he pulled out his fingers, just only the pad of his thumb pressing over your swollen clit, trapping the pleasure before it could explode.

Your eyes open wide, blown in shock as a moan of frustration screeches from your throat at the literal loss of his fingers inside.

“Hee, why–” you gasp, hips bucking instinctively towards his hand wanting more.

“Mmm” he just hums, looking down at your pussy while circling your clit, rubbing it in small circles but never quite providing the friction you need to tip over the edge.

“Hee, please!” you whine, trying to grind his hand, but he holds your hip tight enough to not let you move, he is still looking at your pussy, but then finally looks up.

Eyes dark with lust, his smoldering gaze at you making you pause for a second before he says “please, what?” in a low octave, his voice sounding husky.

“I-I need to come,” you wail, grinding on his bulge over his rough fabric making you want more, in fact you’ve never felt this needy.

Him edging you just made it worse, you couldn't take the teasing now, you need him and you won't stop asking for it.

“please hee please I need you, I want you so badly. I can’t take it anymore!!” you beg. 

He chuckles, a dark, hungry sound.

He doesn't put his fingers back in you or do anything you asked for.

Instead, he starts to kiss you, deep, demanding kisses that taste of mint and desperation.

The intensity of the kiss swallows you while leaving you breathless and your hands move to his head, running your hands through his long, lustrous black hair.

His tongue slides against yours, sucking and swirling desperately while sliding down his joggers and boxer to pull his cock out.

He pulls away from the kiss, pulling your head back away from his.

You look down into his hands and the moment you saw it, you were starstuck.

He is big.

Not big like you think, very big in a way you weren't sure if you could even take him.

It was shocking.

You knew this was coming, when you guys crossed your lines today but god he is just so big.

His cock is big, fucking standing straight, curling a little but still so so straight in way you never stood in your whole life, wow, it is hot and swollen, throbbing as the tip is in a beautifully pink color, glistening with precum as he held the shaft in his hand.

You are staring at it shamelessly, because who wouldn't look at something so beautiful and gorgeous. 

“Like what you see baby?” he asks, when he caught you staring at his cock.

You snap out of your thoughts, raising your head up, eyes locking on to his eyes, as your cheeks burn from embarrassment.

“Want it inside you baby?” he questions as he feels your arousal just by looking at you face.

You nod slightly and that's what it takes before he jerks it on your pussy once, slapping his cock against it a few times, spreading his precum all over.

An unfiltered screech comes out of your throat, showing how needy you are when he slaps the tip on your pussy.

You move a little, rubbing it a little on his cock, whimpering a little.

“You want it so bad right? You’ll get it baby” he doesn't wait another second.

 He grips your waist and heaves you upward and then slams you down on to his cock.

Your hands find their way to his shoulders as you scream into the crook of his neck when he buries himself, all the way to the hilt inside you in one fluid, powerful motion.

The fullness is overwhelming, a blunt pressure that hits your cervix and sends ripples of pleasure radiating through your entire lower body. 

The sensation is overwhelming, the feeling of being completely filled, the stretch of your pussy, the sudden, intense heat of him deep within your pussy.

You feel your internal muscles spasm around him, clamping down tight, clenching it so tight which makes Heeseung leave a raw guttural growl out feeling you all around him.

His cock twitches inside you, showing how badly he needed this.

“Baby–fuck, so tight…you feel so good baby” he says, his hands sliding down to your ass gripping. 

You stay still for a moment, both of you catching your breath, the only sound the heavy thrum of the PC fans and your synchronized gasping.

The gaming chair creaks as you begin to move, tentatively at first, lifting your hips a few inches and then sliding back down.

You only lift an inch before slamming back down, the impact making the gaming chair rock precariously. 

The feeling of him filling inside you was so so good, that you didn't care about anyone hearing your moans, as your moans echo all through the room. 

Your grip on his shoulder tightens as the pleasure of him being inside you, stretching you apart with his cock was the best feeling you ever felt.

The squelching and wet sounds of your pussy moving on his cock, taking him all the way down to his shaft, then moving back halfway, and falling back down, with your moans and Heeseung’s groans fill you the room.

The sounds are lewd, obscene or even pornographic, it didn't feel real.

You riding your best friend's cock feels like a dreaming true. 

You slowly find your rhythm, more confident, more desperate.

Your mouth falls agape, moaning loudly every time you ride him, head falls back as the tip hits that spot that makes you see stars, your breasts bounce with every downward thrust, your hardened nipples scrape against his shirt every time.

“Yes, just like that baby” he groans as his head hits the chair, while he grips your ass and starts lifting you higher so he can move deeper. 

You are desperate now, the need for release overriding everything.

The friction against your clit is intense, a searing heat that builds with every slide.

You lean forward, your hair falling over your face, your mouth finding his again.

The kiss is sloppy, desperate, the sound of your tongues clashing mixing with the wet slaps of your bodies. 

Tentatively, Heeseung also starts moving his hips up, thrusting upward slowly, testing the waters to see how it would be.

And fuck it, it was so so so good.

“Ahh” you moan as the tip of his cock hits deeper in your pussy, as your walls clench around him in pleasure.

You scream into his mouth, it is so intense, your pussy takes him all the way on to his shaft.

You keep riding him until you feel that low tingling feeling in your lower stomach.

You are about to come, you needed it any minute now.

You are moving faster, breath uneven, shamelessly moaning so loudly, you are sure your neighbours could hear it but you couldn't care less.

“Ngh heee” you wail, you dont know if its pain or pleasure or all together but it was good and stretching you apart and finally you are about to come.

“Hee–hee i-m im coming!!” you choke out, the orgasm is about to come as he moves his hips faster, thrusting harder.

“Yes baby, yes, come for me, come on my cock baby” he says, holding your hips, gripping it so hard, it could leave red marks on it and speeding up the movements, slamming you down onto his cock, taking control.

“Ahh–mm yess, yess im coming!!” you throw your head back, a loud, uncontrolled cry escaping your lips as waves of pleasure crash over you, leaving you breathless and shaking.

Heeseung doesnt stop, he fucks you through it, chasing his orgasm. 

“Hee—” you scream so loudly, it was too much, you are overstimulating, you coat his cok, milking it all the way.

“I-i cant..too much–”

“Yess, you can, you can for me baby” his movements becoming faster, more erratic. He's grunting now, the sounds guttural and raw.

He lifts you slightly and then slams you down, the leather of the chair creaking loudly under the strain.

The sound of your pussy engulfing him is a wet, rhythmic squelch, the air being pushed out of your orifice in small, needy puffs. 

“Im-im coming baby” he moves faster again and again.

“Im gonna fill you up, you’re gonna take me like a good girl and fill me up right?” he says as he looks at you and captures your lips into kiss again.

You feel him tense, his entire body turning to stone beneath you.

With one final, deep thrust that feels like it reaches your very soul, he lets out a loud, guttural roar, his entire body tensing.

He gives one final, massive thrust, burying himself as deep as possible as you feel the hot, pulsing jets of his cum hitting your cervix, filling you up, the liquid warmth spreading through your internals.

“Fuck–take it baby” 

You moan as he fills you up, while he grunts and finally comes undone inside you which felt so so so good.

As the intensity fades, he doesn't move.

He keeps you pressed against him, his heart hammering against your ribs.

You can feel his cock slowly softening inside you, though he remains deep within. A small amount of semen and lubricant leaks from the junction of your bodies, dripping onto the black leather of the chair with a soft patter. 

“That was–soo good” you whisper to him.

He smiles, that goddamn smile that melts you right away, probably even your bones.

He pushes a wet hair stand behind your hair as he finally speaks.

“Very good. Are you happy?” he asks and that genuinely made you feel happy that he was asking your opinion. 

You nod, you look wrecked so did he, both of you breathing heavily, faces flushed.

“Are you ok?” he asks you sweetly after showing his dark side which you loved and so did you like that gentleness in his which made your heart filp and beat faster.

You blush as you nod and hide your face in the crook of his neck.

“Dont hide baby” he pulls you back cupping your face. 

“Mm” you whine sweetly.

He kisses your forehead gently.

"So," he says, a small, tired smile playing on his lips. "I think I lost that match."

You let out a soft laugh, leaning your head against his shoulder.

"Worth it?"

"The best loss of my life," he whispers, kissing your temple. 

Heeseug twitches inside you, making you whimper.

“You’re still inside me hee” you say to him as it hurts a little but don't bother but it's still sticky and messy altogether. 

But then he shrugs it off as if it's nothing, you frown and ask him “what?” and try to pull away.

He doesn't let you, he slams you back down as you scream and squeal from shock.

“Hee–” then while you are still inside him, he abruptly stands up, while still holding you tightly around your waist and still inside you.

“Ready for round 2 baby” he asks as you widen your eyes in shock while his cock gets stiff all the way till his shaft again.

“Hee~” he crashes his lips on to yours slamming you onto the wall and starts moving inside you.

˚ ༘ 🎞️ ｡𖦹 ° 🎥 ⁀જ⁀➴ film ending.......

taglist- @prettygirlthings-world @strawberrywonnie @heeqluv @isagistar @hoonieslove

tqsm for being in my taglist anyone wanna be in perm and it would be good if you like and reblog

[heevnly]

Pads With Wings?

Pairing: husband!heeseung x fem!reader

Genre: domestic fluff + crack + newlywed chaos

Drabble!

WC: 1.1k!

"When you ask your husband to buy you pads with wings"

One month into marriage, and Heeseung had already learned two important things.

One: Y/N always stole his hoodies.

Two: He should never assume he understood what she meant.

"Baby, can you buy pads with wings on your way home?"

"Got it."

Simple.

Easy.

Heeseung was confident.

Which was exactly why he walked through the front door carrying two separate bags.

Y/N looked up from the couch.

"What took so long?"

"I had to find the wings."

"The wings?"

"Yeah."

He proudly held up the first bag.

"Pads."

Then the second.

"And chicken wings."

Silence.

"...What?"

"You said pads with wings."

Y/N stared.

Heeseung stared back.

Y/N burst out laughing so hard she nearly slid off the couch.

Heeseung frowned.

"What? Why are you laughing?"

"Heeseung."

"Yes?"

"The wings are attached to the pads."

"..."

"..."

"...THEY ARE?"

Y/N was wheezing at this point.

His ears turned bright red.

"Why would they call them wings if they're not actual wings?!"

"Oh my God."

"I'm being scammed."

For the next ten minutes, Y/N laughed while Heeseung dramatically accused the pad industry of false advertising.

───

Later that evening, after recovering from the embarrassment, Heeseung decided to be an attentive husband.

A very attentive husband.

Maybe too attentive.

Y/N was curled up on the couch with a heating pad when Heeseung appeared beside her holding snacks, water, medicine, and enough blankets to survive a blizzard.

"You comfortable?"

"Yes."

"You sure?"

"Yes."

"Positive?"

"Heeseung."

"Right. Sorry."

Three seconds passed.

Then—

"So where does the blood come from?"

Y/N blinked.

"What?"

"The blood."

He sat down cross-legged, looking genuinely curious.

"Like... where does it start?"

She stared.

"Did you skip biology?"

"I was busy."

"Doing what?"

"I don't know. Existing."

Y/N groaned into a pillow.

Five minutes later—

"Can sharks smell periods?"

"HEESEUNG."

"What? I saw it online!"

Another five minutes.

"Can you hold it in?"

"No."

"So it's like a surprise attack every month?"

"Please stop talking."

Yet another five minutes.

"If periods hurt, why hasn't humanity evolved past them?"

"Ask evolution."

He considered that.

"Rude of evolution, honestly."

───

Despite the endless questions, Heeseung spent the rest of the night taking care of her.

He brought her tea.

Rubbed her back.

Refilled her water before she even asked.

At one point, he tucked a blanket around her shoulders so carefully that she almost forgot he had asked if periods had loading screens like video games.

Almost.

As Y/N rested her head against his shoulder, Heeseung looked down.

"You feeling better?"

"A little."

"Good."

He kissed the top of her head.

Then—

"One last question."

Y/N immediately groaned.

"No."

"But—"

"No."

"What if it's important?"

"It isn't."

"It might be."

She narrowed her eyes.

"Fine. What?"

He paused.

Completely serious.

"Do the pads without wings feel left out?"

Y/N threw a pillow at his face.

Heeseung laughed so hard he fell off the couch.

And somehow, despite everything, Y/N found herself laughing too.

Maybe marriage was just this.

Love, chaos, chicken wings, and a husband who knew absolutely nothing—but would do anything to make her smile.

And honestly?

She wouldn't trade it for anything.

[yeokii]

⠀⠀LOVE ME BACK ' 𝗈𝗇𝗅𝗒 𝗒𝗈𝗎

⠀ ❤︎ ' jake, your boyfriend didn't care enough for you. but his best friend heeseung did.

𝗖𝗛𝗥𝗢𝗠𝗘 𝗛𝗘𝗔𝗥𝗧𝗦 ─── ✿ 𝗌𝗆𝖺𝗎 . heavily inspired by otl ! 𝗐𝖺𝗋𝗇𝗂𝗇𝗀 ' angst jake is a shit bf alcohol profanity hangover ' ( 𝖽𝖺𝗂𝗅𝗒 𝖼𝗅𝗂𝖼𝗄 ) ♱ like and reblog ! 𝗉𝗋𝗈𝖽 . 𝗆𝖺𝗀𝖺𝗓𝗂𝗇𝖾

⠀ ‎‎𝐈𝐈 . O1 O2 O3 O4 O5 O6 O7 O8 O9 O10 O11 O12 O13 O14 O15 O16

여키 EDITION . otl smau oh ya heeseung as goathyeok drool emoji yum

⠀ join the taglist 💌 perm taglist ( send and ask or comment ) ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ or join the love me back taglist only !

⠀⠀𝖺 𝗒𝖾𝗈𝗄𝗂𝗂 𝗉𝗋𝗈𝖽. do not copy, repost or translate my works

[unknowacczzz]

Stupid btch

[paarksunghoon]

resignation (9)

SUMMARY: For the last six years, you’ve dedicated your career to ensuring Park Sunghoon never misses a day of work in his life. But you’re tired of endless days that seem to blend together, and seeing him living his fun, luxurious lifestyle makes you think about what else you might be missing out on. When Sunghoon finds your resignation letter on his desk, he does everything in his power to convince you to stay.

NOTES: life & summer got in the way, so enjoy this extensive chapter x

(unedited, so...typos)

WARNINGS FOR THIS CHAPTER: oral (m/f receiving), unprotected sex, semi-public sex, 69, chest-obsessed hoon, fingering.

SERIES PLAYLIST + SERIES MASTERLIST

***

When you wake up, it takes you a minute to realize you’re sleeping next to Sunghoon. 

Much like the first night you awoke in his guest bedroom, your panic subsides when you remember where you are. You blink slowly to grow accustomed to the morning light and look beside you to see a sleeping, naked Sunghoon. 

Your mind replays memories of the night prior and you start to blush all over again. It feels right to describe it like a night of passion. For as cheesy as that is, years of pent up sexual tension finally exploded in this bedroom. 

You’ve never seen Sunghoon look so peaceful before. His eyelashes look unfairly long against his cheeks and he snores quietly. You sit up on your elbow and peer at him below, taking in his quiet demeanor amidst the stillness of the room. He doesn’t feel like your boss right now. He feels like a lover. 

His chest anchors against the mattress with his face turned towards you, and you try not to reach your hand out to touch him. Sunghoon radiates warmth, even from the distance you put between your bodies. You’re still naked and push the sheets over your chest to give you some sort of dignity, but something tells you that isn’t necessary. 

Is it normal to feel so…calm? 

There’s no sense of dread about going into work and inevitably facing a million emails from people you don’t care about. You move on autopilot most days, running through the same routine to the point where you grow tired of it. But here, in Sunghoon’s vacation home, you feel more relaxed than you have since working with him. 

It’s weird and unsettling. You don’t scramble for your phone—did you even charge it last night?—nor do you push yourself to do something with your day to avoid feeling the endless doom of the incoming week. Something about seeing Sunghoon breathing peacefully beside you puts you at ease, and that thought alone makes you a bit nervous. It’s hard enough that you aren’t the type of person to fall for everyone you meet. Even harder when you’re in love with someone who might not feel the same way. What a recipe for disaster. 

As if he hears your loud thoughts, Sunghoon opens his eyes and sees you looking down at him.

“You like watching me sleep?” You shove Sunghoon at his bicep but he merely chuckles and turns on his back to look at you. You try not to blush too much at his shirtless nature and sculpted body. 

“Nothing to look at.”

“Right.” 

You’re lying, clearly. His morning voice is deep and raspy, unlike anything you’ve ever heard before. He blinks at you with those sleepy eyes after putting your body through the mattress for hours on end. Sunghoon looks painfully normal like this. 

“How long have you been awake?” Sunghoon asks, reaching for your hand before putting it on his chest. You feel how warm his body is. 

“Not long.” Your fingers start to trace on his skin. “Forgot where I was for a second, though.” 

“Mm,” he hums. “You forgot how I fucked you so good you came screaming every time?”

“Sunghoon.” You bury your head in his chest and feel him laugh from your hiding spot. Sunghoon wraps an arm around you loosely and pulls you closer to him.

“Can’t handle the truth, can you? What happened to my headstrong girl?”

“You’re such an asshole, Park.” 

“Your asshole, no?”

Your heart flutters. 

“Keep teasing me and you won’t be,” you say, looking up at him. He smirks and closes the gap, pressing a short kiss to your lips.

“We’ll see about that. Although, you should know I haven’t had a good night’s sleep like that in weeks.” 

“Yeah?”

“Oh yeah, baby. You have a magical pussy, or something.”

You roll your eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Whatever you say.”

“I’m serious.” He lifts himself off of the bed until you’re lying back on his mattress, staring up at his deep brown eyes. Sunghoon’s lips quirk into a smirk when his hand disappears underneath the covers and lands on your bare core. “Fuck. Still as good as I remember.” 

You open your legs and welcome the intrusion. His fingertips dance along your folds and you look up at him with a somewhat mischievous grin on your face. Sunghoon brings his hand up to his mouth, sticks his tongue out to lick the pad of his fingers, then puts it back onto your cunt. 

Sunghoon inserts his middle finger and is pleasantly surprised to find you as wet as you are. He breathes heavily and supports his body on his elbow to get a better angle. He moves his hand at a slower pace, feeling every drag of your walls as he pushes himself in and out of you. 

“Pretty baby.” The compliment comes out of nowhere and he kisses you right after. It’s tender and warm, but hot and sensual at the same time. 

Somewhere along the way, you take initiative and reach out to his lap. He’s already half-hard by the time you touch him, and he groans into your mouth when you wrap your hand around his dick. Swiping your thumb against his slit brings out a deep moan within him, and Sunghoon plunges his finger into you even deeper. 

He grows harder in your hand by the minute. The two of you are barely kissing at this rate. Sunghoon’s added another finger into your wet cunt and you focus on hearing just how much you’re splashing against his palm while stroking him, using the precum that’s oozing out to make him wet too. Your lips are just touching. You can feel his uneven breaths when you tug on his cock and twist your wrist, and Sunghoon keeps a steady gaze on you when you squeeze his base. 

Sunghoon mutters a quiet fuck and your heart swells with pride. When it comes to your professional life, it seems difficult to get a positive reaction out of him unless you go above and beyond. But when it’s just the two of you in his bedroom, Sunghoon praises you like it gets him off too. 

His precum leaks from his tip and you use your hand to coat it around him. Your palm feels his warm, throbbing dick that pulsates every time you twist your wrist. Sunghoon’s fingers falter every now and then. It feels like a victory to have him let his guard down. Although your day job is to take care of him, you find that Sunghoon seldom allows you to actually do it. 

“Let me take care of you.” 

You whisper it against his lips so tenderly that Sunghoon pulls away and looks down at you like he’s trying to decipher a difficult riddle. His fingers pause inside of you. 

“Me? Don’t you do that enough?” 

You roll your eyes and pull your hips from his hand. Sunghoon watches you with a curious arch to his brow as you maneuver onto the bed and move yourself between his legs as he spreads them apart. You pull the sheets off him, not caring that you’re naked too, and drink him in like you’re seeing him for the first time. 

His dick stands tall and proud. It felt so big inside of you last night. The thought of putting it in your mouth and sucking the soul out of him makes you clench around absolutely nothing and you feel no shame for it. 

You don’t look at Sunghoon directly, but you know he’s looking at you. His gaze is somewhere between watchful and lazy. It’s a perfect combination of curiosity and expectation, especially when you lay your chest down onto his mattress and wrap both hands around his base. Sunghoon flexes his thighs and breathes like he’s willing himself to calm down. 

You kiss his tip first and savor the salty taste of his precum before moving your lips to put gentle kisses all over him. You don’t know what compels you to be as gentle as you are. Perhaps it’s the morning sunlight and the quiet of the neighborhood that’s making you feel this way. It’s unlike the loud, bustling city that Seoul is. There’s no expectation to hurry and get started on your day. There’s just Sunghoon. 

He hums when you wrap your lips around the head and suck on it. Sunghoon’s hands clench beside him like he’s trying to get a grasp on reality, especially when your tongue swirls around it. You let your spit collect until it’s nearly spilling out of your mouth before pushing another couple of inches into your mouth and suck. That elicits a gasp from Sunghoon, who pushes his hands deep into the mattress. 

Like he’s done with you before, you reach for his hand and pry his finger away from his palm. He opens his eyes and looks down at your hand as your mouth works on his cock and immediately laces his fingers with your own. You’re still surprised at how they’re so soft. Sunghoon must take good care of himself.

With your other free hand, you grab his balls and gently squeeze them as you rise to push yourself down on his dick. Your throat constricts around his girth and you don’t pay any attention to the spit that falls from the both corners of your mouth. It adds lubrication and you ignore every uncomfortable sensation to fit even more of him. 

Sunghoon makes the most gorgeous noises. His deep voice echo throughout the room and his chiseled chest makes him look like a supermodel who stepped out of a fashion magazine. He’s gorgeous in every sense of the word and the fact that he isn’t afraid to moan in front of you makes him that much hotter. Sunghoon lets his pleasure do the talking and doesn’t disrupt your ministrations to get him off faster. You like that he’s letting you take control. 

Eventually, you pull him out of your mouth to catch your breath and focus on pumping his cock while your mouth travels down to his balls. He moans even louder when  you massage them with your tongue and switch them in and out of your mouth. The noises he makes are unlike anything you’ve ever heard from him. Sunghoon sounds pained and pleasured at the same time, almost like he’s been waiting to feel this good his entire life. 

“Shit, baby,” he says finally after regaining his composure. The hand that isn’t holding yours grabs your hair into a messy ponytail and you put your mouth back around his cock. 

Sunghoon doesn’t have to say anything else. With the way his thighs clench and how he grits his teeth while grunting, you know he’s close to his orgasm. He doesn’t push your head until you move it up and down his shaft, and you feel him grip onto your hair tighter. It makes you moan around his dick and he rewards you by emitting the deepest, sexiest sound you’ve ever heard from him. He pulls and pushes you down on his cock until he’s spurting his come right down your throat. 

It’s a welcomed sensation, but only because it’s Sunghoon. You don’t fight his hot seed, nor do you try to pull your head away from him. His grip on your stills and keeps you right where he wants you. You do your best to swallow every drop without choking on it and breathe through your nose to avoid coughing it up. Some of it spills from your mouth and you desperately chase it when he lets go of your hair. You don’t even feel embarrassed to lick up all of him that escaped your throat and you don’t notice Sunghoon looking down at you like he can’t believe you let him do that. 

When you sit up, Sunghoon immediately pulls you to him and kisses you. He doesn’t seem to care that he can taste himself on your mouth, and that makes you that much wetter. His cock, still hard even after coming to an orgasm just a minute prior, prods at your bare hole when you situate yourself on his lap. 

“You’re perfect,” Sunghoon mutters through sloppy, wet kisses. “My perfect girl.” 

“I give pretty good head, don’t I?” 

He gently smacks the side of your thigh. “You like teasin’ me, baby?” 

“Maybe.” You giggle against his mouth and he grins, pecking you once. 

“Mm. Won’t argue with you because that mouth of yours just made me come.” 

Even after having his dick in your mouth, his boldness still makes you shy. You look at him and bite your lip before wrapping your arms around his shoulders and digging your head into the crook of his neck. He laughs and you feel that vibrate along his naked chest. Sunghoon merely pulls you away from him and strokes the side of your face to push the hair from your eyes. 

“You’re so cute,” he coos. “Such a shy little thing when I have you in my bed.” 

“Total bitch when I’m in the office though, am I right?”

His grin widens. “Oh, yeah. Wouldn’t have it any other way. You don’t want to know how many boners I’ve dealt when you rip me a new one.” 

“You’re so weird.” His hot cock rests under your slit and Sunghoon can feel you aching against him. He lifts your lap up to position his tip against your hole and allows you to slowly sink onto him at your own pace until you’re fully seated on his lap. 

“Fuck,” you moan while his fingers caress your back as you slowly ride him. “So big.” 

Sunghoon looks up at you with dazed eyes like he just might love you. That smile he gives you makes your heart flutter. 

“You have the most perfect pussy.” 

That makes your face hot. 

“Hoon…” 

“Hoon,” he moans, eyes closing shut for just a brief second while his mouth warps into a lazy smile. “Call me that again.”

“Hoon?”

“Again.”

He pushes you down on his cock and pushes into your lap until it reaches your depths. 

“Hoon!”  

You yelp when he pulls your body down to his chest and brace yourself by flattening your palms on his chest and the mattress. Sunghoon’s hips drill right into yours at lightning speed. His tip hits the very spot he’s been managing to find this entire weekend and you feel completely limp against him. Every time you try to position yourself upright, Sunghoon tightens his grip around you while bending his legs to push into you at a deeper angle. 

You don’t think you’ll ever get used to the way he feels inside of you. His skin is warm and sticky from the friction and his muscles are so hard underneath your grip. With one hand on his chest and the other on his bicep, your nails dig into his skin and you hear Sunghoon hiss at the pain throughout his moans. He doesn’t say anything, though. In fact, knowing how hard you’re clinging onto him turns him on even more. 

The room might as well be the scene of a pornography video with the way the two of you are moaning. Nobody’s ever pulled these kinds of sounds out of you and when you think about all of the women Sunghoon has slept with, you wonder if he’s ever fucked them as hard as he’s fucking you. 

Temporary jealousy takes over and that little pang in your chest makes you grab his jaw between your hands to kiss him hard. Teeth and tongue clash everywhere as Sunghoon responds immediately, mouth pushing against yours in a heated fury. You orgasm around him when he hits your sweet spot and he feels you moan right into his mouth. Sunghoon drinks it right up and uses his hands to pull your chest right against him as he finishes inside of you too. 

You don’t know what you’re a fan of more: the long, drawn out bedroom sessions or quick morning sex. Sunghoon still manages to leave you satisfied in a fraction of the time compared to the night before. He basks in your glory, hair sticking to his forehead and the sheen of sweat covering his naked body. Sunghoon watches as you look at him all over before you bite your lip and bend down to kiss him tenderly. 

Unlike the fast pace from moments before, Sunghoon accepts the slow kiss and keeps his hold on you with a feather-like touch. He caresses your spine like he’s done it a million times before, his dick softening inside of you with your shared orgasm spilling out. The plushness of his lips feel like two soft pillows you want to kiss over and over again. 

“Good morning,” you say, bringing your hand to brush the hair from his face. He looks at you fondly. 

“Good morning, baby.” 

“You look so good right now.” Sunghoon brings your hand from his hair to kiss your palm. 

“You’re so cute when you’re soft.” You bite your lip and hide your face in his neck and feel him laugh. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you like this. I learn something new about you everyday.” 

“Don’t get used to it,” you mumble. Sunghoon grips your ass and gives it a hard squeeze. 

“I love it when you get feisty with me. But I like seeing you when you’re soft like this. It lets me know you trust me.” 

You pull yourself upright. “Does it?” 

“I’ve learned that you’re not easily impressed and it takes a while for you to let your guard down completely. When we’re at work, that's one thing. But from hearing your dating stories, it sounds like these guys didn’t give you a reason to stick around.”

“Well…that’s true.” 

He kisses underneath your jaw. “I don’t care if you’re yelling at me to get my shit done or being gentle. I like everything about you.” 

“Careful. You might say something you regret.” 

He looks you in the eye. 

“I always say what I mean.” 

The tension in the room is palpable and you almost say those three little words that seem to come easily for Sunghoon and no one else. You keep your tongue to yourself, however. He doesn’t seem to notice the inner turmoil going on inside of you and pulls out of you slowly before leaving to get a clean rag. 

Sunghoon beckons your legs open and cleans you up with a warm, wet rag. He’s gentle with his hands and smoothes over your folds and inner thighs. He holds you with such a delicate touch that it makes you feel as if you must be made of glass or something of more important weight. 

When he’s done, Sunghoon holds the cloth in one hand and bends down to press a long kiss onto your slip with his lips pushed right against them. He slips his tongue out and licks a stripe up your slit like he’s a kitten licking milk. He’s so attractive between your legs, especially with his eyes closed like he’s enjoying the meal. 

It’s too much for you to look at. You push his face away and close your legs while Sunghoon laughs and helps you up onto your feet, handing you a spare sweater before kissing you goodbye with the promise of meeting you for breakfast in the living room once you’re decent.

***

Midday comes around and the weather has gotten hotter as the sun reaches its peak. Lunch is long forgotten on the kitchen island as you pack a bowl of fruit and grab a few bottles of water to bring outside to the pool area. Sunghoon fetches a few towels and sunscreen before removing the protective barrier covering the pool, revealing stunning tiling that makes it look like a blue lagoon. 

The bikini you’re wearing barely hides any part of your body. The cups accentuate your breasts and you might as well have ditched the bottoms you’re wearing because they barely cover your ass. You can tell Sunghoon likes them too, with the way he’s been ogling your body ever since you walked out. He stares at your legs and the curve of your ass before trailing his eyes to the valley of your breasts. He’s shameless about it, too. But nothing about this feels like objectification. In fact, you want Sunghoon to look at you like you’re something he wants to devour. 

“Can you put sunscreen on me?” you ask him, holding out a bottle for him to use. Sunghoon takes it from your grasp and stares at your chest before his eyes flicker up to your eyes. 

“Sure, baby. Where do you want it?” 

You turn around and his eyes immediately follow your ass. You tilt your head until you can see him, and Sunghoon averts his gaze when you catch him staring. 

“Can you start with my back? I can’t reach there.” 

“Mhm.”

He hums when you turn your head back around and you hear the sunscreen squirt from out the bottle and onto his hands. Sunghoon rubs the product between his hands and you feel him put his palms on your shoulder blades before working it down your back. 

“This bikini…”

“You like?” 

“Yeah,” he says in disbelief. “I like it a lot.” 

“Haven’t had an excuse to wear it. I don’t have a pool in my apartment building.” 

“Mm,” he mumbles. “We should fix that.” 

You giggle. “Yeah, I guess we should. More trips to this house?”

“Whatever you want.” 

He sounds so unfocused that it nearly makes you double over in laughter. Sunghoon’s fingers reach the hem of your bikini bottoms before he brings his hands to cup your asscheeks, temporarily removing himself from your body to grab more sunscreen. 

“Can’t forget about your ass, baby. They might get sunburnt too.”

You push yourself out to him and look behind you. He’s barely paying attention to anything but your ass. “You’re so right, Hoon. Do you think you can put sunscreen there, too?” 

Sunghoon pushes the fabric together until it resembles a thong, using both of his enormous hands to spread the sunscreen all over you. He pulls apart your ass as if to inspect it and massages the meaty flesh before him until the product disappears. Sunghoon pushes your bottoms back to the appropriate position. 

“All done,” he says, clearing his throat. “I should put sunscreen on you everywhere just to be on the safe side, right?” 

“Right,” you say with a certain nod. “How about my chest?” 

“Good thinking.” He twists your body until you’re facing him and tugs on your bikini strings until his fingers graze your skin. “I think we should put some sunscreen here.” 

Sunghoon pulls the fabric away from your breasts to expose your taught nipples and nearly drools at the right. He bends down to suck your left nipple and squeezes the other, flicking his tongue expertly while you grab his head and moan softly above him. He hums around your nipple and pinches the other one gently before switching, taking his sweet time exploring your body while you stand helplessly. 

He pulls away faster than you’d like, but you relish in the way he looks completely dazed and out of it, like he forgot he’s supposed to put sunscreen on you. Sunghoon, acting in a daze, puts sunscreen all over your chest and stomach before clearing his throat and turning away. It makes you laugh. 

Sunghoon jumps in the pool and it splashes against the bottom of your legs. When he emerges, you fight the urge to squish your legs together. He wipes the water from his eyes and somehow, Sunghoon likes twice as good with water dripping down his body. It accentuates his muscles and you’re dripping wet without having jumped in yet. 

“I don’t bite,” he says when he sees you staring. Damn Sunghoon and the uptick on his mouth. 

You roll your eyes and get into the pool by the steps instead of jumping in like Sunghoon did. He waits for you to approach him and watches the way your assets bounce against the small currents from your movements. He licks his lips shamelessly and reaches his hands out to squeeze your hips when you come to him.

“There she is,” Sunghoon says. “There’s my girl.” 

You swat his chest. “You only like me because my tits are out.” 

Sunghoon averts his eyes to your chest. “Can’t say that isn’t true.” You fix your bikini top until your nipples are nearly peeking out just to tease him.

“Better?” He squeezes your hips. 

“Much better. Though, I think they’d look better if you took the bikini off.”

Sunghoon turns your body around until your back is pressed against his chest. His lips attach to your neck and he peppers kisses along your hot skin while his hands trail up your body to cup your breasts. His thumbs pass over your hardened buds and you don’t shy away from his touch. 

In fact, you encourage it. There’s no mistaking the arch in your back to press yourself against Sunghoon’s crotch. He grunts against your neck and cups your breasts through your top, giving them a gentle and firm squeeze. It makes you whimper softly against the sound of the pool water moving against the two of you and you swear Sunghoon grows harder by the second.

“Sexy girl,” he mutters, pulling the fabric covering your chest to the side to completely expose you. He hooks his chin on your shoulders and peers down at your breasts. “Fuck, they’re so beautiful.” 

It exhilarates you like no other to have him touch you like this in public, even though his backyard isn’t accessible unless you come from the house. Still, the prospect is still the same. 

“Let’s say we take these off, hm?”

He doesn’t wait for your permission, but it’s not like you’d decline him anyway and he knows it. Sunghoon moves his fingers slowly to untie your bikini top until it’s floating in the water next to you. He groans when your chest is free and cups them in his palms as he thrusts his hard dick against your ass. 

“Need my dick between your tits.” Sunghoon squeezes you again and you match the way he’s rubbing against you by pushing on him too. “Wanna see my come all over them.”   

“Yeah?” 

“Oh yeah, baby. I’ll fuck your perfect tits until they’re nice and dirty for me.” He drops one hand to your bottoms and bypasses the fabric until his fingers graze your slit. “Jesus, darlin’. Making me so horny in this little number of yours.” 

“Fuck,” you moan out. Sunghoon plunges a finger inside of you hastily and groans against your ear. His breath makes your body shiver and you feel him smirk right against you when he feels it. 

“I want to taste you right now.” 

He moves the two of you closer to the shallow end where the steps are and nudges you to turn around. You whimper when he withdraws his finger but the way he looks at you makes up for it. 

Your body’s halfway out the water and you feel more exposed when he undoes your bottoms, letting that float away in the water too. Sunghoon’s is rock hard against his swimming trunks when he bends down to bring his face closer to your naked cunt and licks a wide stripe up your slit.

You don’t shy away from moaning loudly and that seems to please Sunghoon, who licks you again and again until you’re moaning in contentment. You feel unburdened by anything and his mouth takes the stress from your body, and turns it into something pleasurable. 

His hands grip your thighs to keep you in place while his mouth attaches to your folds, lips puckered while his tongue runs across the expanse of your cunt like he’s trying to memorize every bit of you from this experience alone. Sunghoon is so good with his mouth that it astounds you how turned on you are just from oral. 

He hums when he feels your feet touch his back and buries his head deeper in you. The water subtly splashes around and the cool droplets lessens the burn of the hot sun. 

You’ve never imagined yourself to be someone as bold as this. Seldom do men make you feel comfortable enough to let your guard down, much less eat you out in a semi-public area. Sunghoon’s tongue explores your inner walls with every pass and his hands keep you grounded, reminding you to enjoy the present and turn your brain off. 

The hard concrete underneath you starts to feel uncomfortable and Sunghoon strokes your skin with his thumb as if to say you’re doing a great job withstanding the subtle friction. He moves his face until his tongue is perfectly hitting your clit repeatedly, making you come right on his mouth with your legs spread impossibly wide. The thrill of it all makes your stomach coil and you don’t shy away from bucking your hips right into his face. 

Sunghoon pulls back and his face looks absolutely wild, from his lust-filled eyes to his hard dick standing upright in his trunks. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand while you push your legs back underneath the water and attempt to stand on your own. He takes a step forward when you falter and kisses your forehead like he didn’t just devour you in his pool. 

“So good for me,” he mutters, moving to kiss your lips next. “I knew I’d get you out of your shell.” 

“Can’t believe I let you do that in public.” 

“Not technically public.” 

“Anyone could’ve seen!” He rolls his eyes when you laugh at him. You try not to seem bashful when he pulls himself out of his swim shorts but his hard, leaking dick looks you right in the eye and you become some animalistic version of yourself. 

“Atta girl,” Sunghoon says when you prop yourself over the ledge of the pool. 

You part your legs to fit him in between and he rubs your ass with one hand while gliding the tip over your hole with the other. The feeling of Sunghoon against your cunt will never get old. The intrusion is welcomed and encouraged, and he senses your eagerness when you squeeze around the head. 

It’s hot, mid-morning, and today feels like the kind of day to relax and unwind. Unlike this morning, Sunghoon doesn’t rush to make either of you orgasm. He sets a moderate pace and holds your hips while pushing his pelvis against your body. You’re content hearing him grunt behind you and your tits hangs over the ledge as he pushes and pulls from you repeatedly. 

To you, sex could never be as casual as this. It’s amazing how Sunghoon makes you feel like you don’t have to be ashamed to feel pleasure. You don’t need an excuse to have somebody adorn your body with their mouth or fuck you like they’re desperate for it. Here you are, spreading your legs and ass for your boss, but it feels like you’re on your first vacation with your boyfriend. 

You try not to think about that too much. Instead, you let the feeling of pleasure and euphoria takeover until you’re both coming. Sunghoon finishes inside and mutters something about how he doesn’t want to make the pool all dirty, and so your pussy is the only logical place to come. That makes you horny again, and you make him fuck you on the pool chair out in the open.

***

After the pool, you and Sunghoon decide you’ve played too hard to do anything that requires a functioning brain cell. The two of you shower together. Sunghoon tries to start something while you wash your hair and pouts when you tell him you need to clean yourself in peace. He waits patiently and doesn’t rush you, and you reward him by deep throating his cock until he bursts. 

The two of you dry up and spend the rest of the afternoon lazily lounging in his bed with the TV on in the background. For an hour, the two of you talk about everything and nothing, sneaking in a few kisses until you inevitably fall asleep on his chest. Sunghoon falls asleep shortly after. 

When you come to, Sunghoon is awake and checking his phone. You blink the sleep out of your eyes and see that he’s looking at an email for a dinner reservation. Sunghoon, who notices you’re awake when you stir above him, glances down and kisses your nose.

“Good morning, princess.” 

“It’s four in the afternoon, Hoon.”

“Good morning, princess,” he repeats. You swat his chest and fall back against him. “There’s a restaurant nearby that I really love. Romantic, candle lit, and everything. We have a reservation at seven.” 

“It’s so weird to let you handle this stuff,” you mutter against his neck before kissing it once. “I feel useless.”

“Relax and let me do the work, yeah? You can go back to being my assistant when we’re at the office.”

“I guess…” He grins when he hears your playful tone. 

“I know you’re sleepy, but I think you should get up and start getting ready. We need to leave by six-thirty to make it on time.”

You groan. “Wanna sleep. Wanna have sex a little more too.” 

“Oh, yeah?” Sunghoon pulls his body until he’s hovering over yours and locks eyes with you. “I knew you couldn’t get enough of me.”

“Not you. Your dick.” You bring a hand over his shorts to cup his bulge before squeezing it. 

Sunghoon spreads both of your legs wider and presses his covered crotch along your own covered mound, pushing himself until you feel his body heat. You can’t help but gasp, especially when you feel that he’s already started to harden against you. Sunghoon slowly grinds himself and the friction feels a bit too good to admit. He lifts his hips up and down until his hard dick is slotting themselves against your pussy. Your slick is already pouring out and your panties are pasted to the shape of your folds. 

“Feels so good,” you whisper against his lips when Sunghoon bends down to kiss you.

“I’ll fuck you some more after.” You whine when he pulls away. “Go get ready, brat. Let me be good to you. Stop sabotaging me with those eyes of yours.” 

You pout when you realize your seductive gaze isn’t working on him, but get up nonetheless.

Sunghoon gives you space and breathing room to get ready. He says he wants to be surprised by what you’re wearing and steps out of the room before you can say anything else. You put on some music while you paint your face a bit more elegant than normal, and feel the excitement of a date creep upon you.

While the two of you have had dinner just the two of you before, this feels like a real date. The intention of impressing him is clearly there. Your lips are an incredible shade of red and the way you did your eye makeup makes you look like a seductive siren. You don’t overthink it too much. This is Sunghoon, the man you’ve known for six years. He’s seen you naked and has finished inside you. There’s no reason to feel nervous.

But the nerves are still there. The warm feelings you have towards him creep up like a sleeper spy. They hit you when you least expect it and when you’re not distracted by him. The weighted reality of going back to Seoul and the two of you never addressing this weekend is a fear you have, but it’s one that doesn’t need to be addressed at this very moment. 

The lingerie you packed makes your body look like a sinful temptation. It leaves very little to the imagination and emphasizes your assets in a way that makes you feel more confident than not. The dress you’ve chosen makes you might as well be the most beautiful person in the room. Every insecurity you have seems to have vanished when you look at yourself in the full length mirror, and your nerves stem from excitement rather than worry. For the first time, you get a feeling that tonight won’t end up in tears and drowning your sorrows in cheap wine and popcorn. 

“Holy shit,” Sunghoon curses when you come out of the room. You hold your sleek pair of heels in your hands—a tall peep toe shoe with a buckle around the ankle—while Sunghoon’s eyes roam all over your figure. “Fuck, baby. I think I might cum right now.”

“Don’t flatter me too much.” It’s hard to avoid his eyes. He’s staring at your legs and beckons you to give him your shoes.

You stare in utter shock when Sunghoon bends to his knees to help you put them on. One by one, you slip into the heel and feel his fingers brush against your ankle until he’s standing in front of you with parted lips. Sunghoon looks delectable when he’s on his knees for you.

“I want to kiss you, but I’ll ruin your lip gloss,” he mumbles, eyes gazing at your mouth while his hands touch your hips. Sunghoon slowly kisses both of your cheeks instead. The way he’s looking at you makes your heart race.

He loops his arm with yours and leads you out the door. 

As promised, the restaurant is as romantic as Sunghoon described it. There are small candles on every table and the lighting is just low enough to make you feel like you and Sunghoon are the only two people in the room. 

The host leads you to the reserved table right by the window and the combination of the natural moonlight and the live band makes you feel like you stepped into a cliche romance novel. Usually, you’d turn your nose up at romantic endeavors, but tonight you feel like you’re brave enough to bask in its glory. 

Sunghoon pulls your chair out for you and you let him. Tonight, you’re his date. Not his assistant. 

“You look amazing.” You laugh.

“You said that four times already.” 

He grabs your hand above the table and starts playing with your fingers. Sunghoon, too, looks breathtaking. He’s slicked his hair back and you can see the silver jewelry adorning his neck and fingers. Sunghoon is so stylish, even down to his shoes, that it makes you feel a bit embarrassed to remember all of the guys who’ve dressed so poorly when they took you out on a date. 

Maybe it’s mean to judge those men for not having the means that Sunghoon does. But he’s clearly secure in himself and doesn’t mind letting you take center stage without a moment's notice. You saw it when he let you walk in front of him from the valet to the restaurant, and you saw it in the way he kept his eyes on you the entire time. You know you look good. He knows it too. 

If there’s one thing you love about Sunghoon, it’s that he seems to know what you’re feeling before you do. It’s your job to know that when he’s at work, but you often forget that he’s learned a lot about you in the time you’ve been working alongside him. He expertly suggests appetizers and cocktails that he thinks you’ll like and you actually enjoy them. Men from your past puff their chest and talk big for people who don’t know what they’re doing. 

You feel taken care of. And, if you’re honest with yourself, it feels good to let someone else take the wheel for a change. Sunghoon understands you on a level that is beyond your imagination. Neither of you have to speak in order to be on the same wavelength. It’s as if the two of you are two foreign objects working in tandem, completing each other without intent. 

It’s scary to realize how fast you’ve fallen for him. But on the other hand, were these feelings already there, and did you only act upon it when Sunghoon started to show interest in you too? You thought you had squashed these feelings down years ago, chalking it up to loneliness when you developed a small crush on your boss. Viewing him like the authoritative figure who signed your paychecks worked for a little while. Now, that method has gone down the drain. 

You’d always been a bit envious of the beautiful women in Sunghoon’s life and those who wanted to rub elbows with him. You never believed you could measure up because of the wealth disparage, and most would ignore your presence for the sake of having a good time with him. Working alongside him the first two years of your career was a challenge and a half. Picking him up from far away locations at ungodly hours of the morning tested your patience, as did seeing him with post-sex hair at 2 A.M. 

It was like a breath of relief when Sunghoon stopped seeing women so frequently. No more envy of the rich and famous, and no more heartbreak over the fact that he’d been with women who weren’t you. It was you who he called to fix his messes and it was you who he “came home to” at the end of the day. Per the requirements of your contract, you were always there for him and Sunghoon knew you’d be a call away. 

People push you out of the way when they realize you’re his assistant and not his equal. You’ve had your fair share of women weasel their way into his life with bad intentions and mistreat you because of it. Some are polite while others are snarky. Some try to butter you up with gifts and sweet words of affirmations, while others turn their noses in your direction. 

Learning to develop a thick skin came with time. Part of growing up meant knowing when to shut feelings off. You’d grown comfortable leaving your morality and emotions at the door every morning you stepped into the office building. Only when you’d read the threshold of your apartment would you break down into a puddle of tears. It’s a dog-eat-dog world and your position did not make life easier for you. 

Somewhere along the way, Sunghoon started to feel like a colleague rather than your boss. He started asking for your input and entrusted you with a few of his projects. As time passed by, the two of you developed a way of working well together without stepping on each other’s toes. For some accounts, you were the coordinator and liaison while Sunghoon took the backseat. On others, you were his acting assistant and remained that way until the end of the project. 

It almost felt like you were an employee of his status, too. You felt like you could’ve made a great career out of it. But jumping through hoops and glass barriers in your way posed a great challenge that you were not able to meet. Perhaps the stagnation of your job and the repetitive nature was what started to burn your light. Traveling to far away places only seems fun when you take the work aspect out of the equation. 

There was never enough time for you, and the accumulation of boredom and routine was what drove you to resign. But even now, in the wake of abandonment, Sunghoon cares for you. The end of the meal is anything but a sobering thought after multiple glasses of wine and enough food to make you feel like a rich heiress. What’s left is your raw feelings and your relentless love for him.

“You’re so good to me.” Sunghoon tilts his head and looks at you. 

“What makes you say that?”

“You’re so…attentive.” 

“I’d like to think I know you pretty well.”

“It’s hard for me to trust people completely.” 

He smiles softly. “I know.”

“I’m not used to letting my guard down, is what I’m trying to say. It feels like we’ve been on vacation for weeks, even though it’s only been a day.” 

“I care about you a lot, you know?” Sunghoon says. He sips on his wine without breaking eye contact, your own glass on its second pour. “You know me better than anyone else does.”

“Sometimes, I feel like I’ll never get out of the cycle I’m in. I’m scared that I’ll always feel lonely.”

He strokes your hand. “Is the second glass getting to you?” 

“Maybe…”

“You’re really cute.” 

You pout. “You keep saying that, but I’m telling you some depressing shit about how my life is boring and I’m sad all the time.”

“So cute.” 

He bites his lip and looks at you for a moment. It makes you feel like you’re under inspection. Perhaps it’s the wine that’s making you feel vulnerable and light-headed, but Sunghoon looks at you like he wants you to believe him. 

“You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I could never be the man I am today without you.” 

“You…You’re giving me too much credit.”

“No, baby.” You melt at his deep voice. “I don’t think I knew how intertwined our lives are until you gave me your resignation letter. You’ve been a constant in my life for the past six years and I took that for granted every single day. I want you to stay, but I don’t want you to choose me if that means sacrificing your own happiness.” 

His words pierce your heart.

“I’m…drunk.” 

Sunghoon seems to know what you mean. Your mind is too loud and combined with the volume of your heart pounding in your chest, you feel like nothing could ever capture what you want to say. Your eyes feel wet and glossy from his words and the alcohol that’s just on the precipice of wearing off. You’re sure you must look like some hot mess with smudged lipstick and a dazed look. To Sunghoon, you look like the epitome of perfection. 

“Let me take care of the bill, yeah? Let’s go home.” 

He kisses the back of your hand before standing up to pay. The empty dessert plates, insistent by Sunghoon, who tells you a tiramisu won’t kill your savory taste buds, sit on the table like they’ve been licked clean. It’s nice to jump off the deep end and do things differently every now and then. You can still feel his lips where he kissed you. 

When Sunghoon comes back, he kisses your forehead quickly before leading you out of the restaurant with his hand in yours. You let him lead you to the valet and will your beating heart to slow down before you die of a heart attack. The only thing you can think about when you’re in the car is how it feels like you’re his wife coming home after a much needed date night. You’re not his employee. You’re his equal. 

Sunghoon parks his car inside of the garage when you unbuckle and grab his face with both hands. You push your lips upon him by surprise and he makes a sound from the sudden movement, but his hands find themselves on your waist when you kiss him. It’s somewhere between heavy and seductive, rushed and calculated. You throw all inhibitions out the window and let your body do all the talking for you. There are no reservations and hidden insecurities when you’re with Sunghoon, just love. 

He pushes his hands up your dress and you happily moan against his touch. Sunghoon rewards you by kissing you harder and pulls away when he needs to catch his breath. 

“You’re so fucking sexy,” he mutters. His big, brown eyes look up at you and you wear you could finish right there. 

“I want you,” you whisper in the quiet of the garage. The hum of the fluorescent lights is the only thing you register, aside from how fast your heart is beating. 

“You have me.” 

Sunghoon beckons you out of the car after a few more kisses and promises to have fun with you when you resist. You see him harden up when you whine about him not touching you and it makes Sunghoon more aroused than ever before. He sees and hears your sheer desperation. It makes him want to take you on every inch of this house. 

Eventually, the two of you make your way inside the house and you nearly stumble when Sunghoon drops to his knees. His hands fumble with the strap of the ankle and you feel his fingers gently undoing the buckle. Every pass of his skin feels electrifying and so does looking down at him. He, who plays the role of an authoritative figure, is on his knees for you.

He’s still in control, but it makes you feel like you have all the power. You’re putty in Sunghoon’s hands and you’re starting to assume he’s the same when it comes to you. His surprisingly soft hands caress your leg with every touch that wakes up some pent up sexual frustration from the pit of your stomach. The desire is there and Sunghoon’s the first person to bring it out of you to this extent. 

Sunghoon puts your heels aside and kisses up your leg. He pushes the hem of your dress towards your upper thigh when he alternates legs until his face is right by your stomach. He kisses you there keeps his chin there to look up at you as if to admire you from where he kneels. It’s too much for you. It makes you want to suck the soul out of him and never return it. 

“You looked beautiful tonight,” Sunghoon says while maintaining eye contact with you. His hands come to cup the back of your legs, caressing your skin with his thumbs. You feel his warmth radiating off of him and he looks at you like he’s somewhere in between starving and satiated. 

You don’t say anything. You can’t say anything. Sunghoon has you stopped in your tracks that you feel like you’re frozen on the ground with nothing but the sound of your heart pounding in your ear drums. 

“You always look so good when you get dressed up. Did you dress up for me?” 

You blush at that. 

“I…”

“It’s okay if you did.” 

Sunghoon starts to feel up your body underneath your dress and touches the lace lingerie you have on underneath. He hums in satisfaction and looks up at you again.

“You’re so strong, you know that? It’s what I like about you the most. You don’t need me to tell you anything.” He snaps the band of your panties and you subtly jolt in your stance. Sunghoon rises from his spot on the floor, and you look up at him once he’s at his full height. 

“But I’m selfish. I like it when you dress up for me.”

“Yeah?” you whisper.

“Yeah. It makes me feel special.” 

“Special?” 

You never thought you could make him feel that way too. You’ve been so caught up in your own life and distracting yourself from falling too hard that you never considered how you affect him. His dark brown eyes reach the depths of your soul when he looks at you like this. 

“You don’t do things because anyone asks you to. You do it for you. You’re quitting your job as my assistant because there’s more to life than that. My brave girl. I like it when you dress up for me because I know you must feel the same way I do.” 

“I don’t want to leave you forever,” you quietly confess.

“I don’t want that either. You have me, remember? I’m not going anywhere. 

Sunghoon makes you feel all kinds of uncanny things. He makes you feel like the star of your own romantic movie. Every cliche is not meant with resistance, like you would with other men. Instead, Sunghoon says all the right things and you find yourself falling for every word. 

Except, there’s something about this that makes you believe it’s real. He’s not saying it to get into your pants and leave you in the morning. Everything about him fighting for your employment to taking you on a whimsical weekend vacation makes you think he feels just as deeply as you do. He’s never done this with any of his past flings and short lived relationships before. You’ve seen it firsthand when he blames work for keeping him busy instead of confronting whatever truth he’s hiding from. 

With you, Sunghoon seems to have let all of that go. 

The two of you kiss messily and stumble in the hallway until you’re in the bedroom. Sunghoon throws his jacket on the floor and doesn’t have time to think when you kneel before him and pull your dress down to expose your chest. He stutters and nearly trips, if not for the edge of the bed directly behind his knees, and takes his shirt off when you unbuckle his pants to fish out his cock. 

You don’t say anything before you put your mouth on him. No warning. Nothing but pure greed and lust mixed together. Sunghoon watches you lick him up and down with your warm tongue and groans at the feeling of your wet saliva smearing all over his dick. You don’t care that your cheeks are starting to dampen up. That makes him even harder.

You force his pants and boxers down when you fit him inside of your mouth. You’re not thinking at all. Sunghoon moans loudly when you take as much of him as you can in a single shot. His hands find the back of your head to balance himself while you hook your hands onto his legs to push more of him deeper in your small throat. Watching you pull your head back only to push right back in makes Sunghoon thrust his hips towards you. 

The gagging sound makes you wetter and it makes him quicken his pace. You breathe through your nose and focus on how good it feels to know you’re the one making him act like this. Every grunt, every moan, and every orgasm is because of you. 

Humming around his dick makes Sunghoon moan too. The two of you sound like a pornography film when you moan in tandem. The noises he makes are beyond anything you’ve ever heard before. Men before you have been too afraid to make any sounds during sex, but it’s like Sunghoon needs to let them out in order to feel true pleasure. His baritone voice makes you impossibly wet. 

He holds your head in place and starts to fuck your mouth without abandon. The tip hits the back of your throat and you gag until spit is falling all over the place, but you don’t care at all. Sunghoon’s pelvis touches your nose with every thrust and you arch your back and the pace he sets, sticking your ass out for him to see. He moans and widens his stance for a better angle and shoves his dick deeper in your mouth. 

“Oh, fuck,” he moans. “I don’t want to cum yet.”

Sunghoon pushes your head away and holds you by the hair with a tight grip. You chase his dick after it slips out, but he holds you in your place instead of letting you suck him back in. Sunghoon’s cock twitches when you whine. He pivots and forces you onto the bed before he lies on top of it with his chest facing the ceiling. 

When he pulls your dress down your body, he curses upon seeing the red lace adorning your body. Your chest is pushed in all the right places and nearly spills over the cups. He throws the fabric somewhere behind him and spreads your legs for him to see, and feeling like an object he’s inspecting turns you on so much that you’re sure he can spot the wet patch by now. 

Sunghoon doesn’t comment on it, too focused on taking in the way you look underneath him. His hands reach to grip your breasts and stomach, his finger tracing the line of the lace hem above where you need him the most. 

“Can’t believe you wore this for me.” Sunghoon bends his head down between your chest and kisses the spot there before turning to lick your left nipple over the cloth. “You’re so fucking sexy, you know that? Do you know how hard it is to keep myself in check every time I see you? It doesn’t matter if you’re wearing a trash bag. I get so fucking hard every time you walk into a room.”

As if to prove a point, Sunghoon pushes his cock over your covered pussy. He moans quietly and pulls the cups of your bra down to suck on your buds with a gentle hum, like he’s satisfied a craving of his. His tongue feels like some kind of gentle heaven and you can’t help but arch your back, which pushes your chest right into his face. 

You paw at his dick and grip it hard in your hand, attempting to tug on it at this angle. He chuckles against your chest when you struggle to grip all of him. 

“I love how eager you are,” he mutters against your chest before crawling on the bed himself. “You look so desperate trying to touch my dick. Is that what you want?” 

Sunghoon obliges. His hands grab your body and place you on top of him with your mouth pointed at his crotch. His cock looks so much bigger from this angle and you’re dripping right onto Sunghoon’s tongue. The feeling of the first pass makes you clench your hole and grip the base of his cock to balance yourself. 

He pulls your panties aside and moans against your pussy and licks you simultaneously. You feel his warm breath and the way his hands are prying your ass apart for him. Sunghoon groans when you push your lap onto his face, slapping your asscheek. 

You get the hint and wrap your lips around his dick, trying to fit all of it in your mouth. It’s slower than Sunghoon’s languid licks, but you must be doing a good job because you feel the vibration of his voice on your clit. It sends shivers up your spine and it makes your mouth water. 

Eventually, you find a steady pace as your hands squeeze Sunghoon’s balls between your fingers. You suck his tip like it’s a goddamn lollipop and you’re mouthing him like you have an oral fixation when it comes to him. He nearly bites you when you swallow his sack in your mouth and let your tongue lick through the seam. A swell of pride resides within you when you hear him. He’s so put together most of the time. It’s nice to feel him let his inhibitions go. 

You hollow your cheeks until it becomes a makeshift vacuum and suck on his dick as hard as you can. The moans coming from your throat make it hard for Sunghoon to stay still beneath you, but you welcome the intrusion every time his hips buck right into your mouth. Your saliva makes everything that much wetter and the sounds of his wettened cock and your slick core, egg both of you on. You’ve never felt so turned on sucking someone off before. 

Sunghoon’s tongue thrusts into you and you push back on his face, momentarily fearing that you might suffocate him if you continue. But his movements feel too good to care at this point. Sunghoon slurps up your juices and massages your ass while he eats you like a man on a mission, tongue rolling everywhere with no real method.

It makes you feel jealous that other women have experienced his magical mouth. You hate that he’s tasted women who aren’t you and you hate that you’ve had to watch him come home from a one night stand while pushing your own feelings below the surface. 

This motivates you to suck him with a death grip. Your mouth never relents and you force your head down until you’ve shoved all of him down your throat. Sunghoon moans against your core and you feel his grip on your ass tighten the more you constrict yourself around his cock. 

With a new sense of pride for making him moan the way he does, it propels you to use your head like that. You pull back and push down over and over again, letting his thick, mushroom head hit the back of your throat while your saliva spills everywhere. You refuse to take a break when Sunghoon’s suffocating himself on your pussy. 

One hand continues to touch his balls and aid his pleasure while the other grips his base to keep his dick right where you want him. God, you think. Where has this man been all my life? 

You cum when Sunghoon sucks on your clit. You push yourself off of him to arch your back, and grasp anything to make you feel sane. He moans when he tastes your orgasm and keeps licking while you process your high and come down from it. His cock is untouched and twitching with excitement upon tasting your release. 

“Need it,” Sunghoon nearly growls. 

He pushes your body off of him until the back of your head touches the plush pillows. He puts his mouth underneath your jaw and kisses you every place he can touch. Sunghoon drags his tongue all over and tastes the salty sheen of your sweat, grinning to himself. His canines graze your pulse point and you buck your hips until the underside of his wet cock is brushing against yours. 

“Do you want me as badly as I want you?” he whispers against your neck. 

“I need you more than you know.” 

“Fuck. I want all of you.” 

You spread your legs wide open and Sunghoon takes this opportunity to reach between your bodies to guide his tip to your entrance after pulling your panties to the side again. The push is slow and monstrous, unlike the times you’ve had sex with him before. He feels bigger somehow. More girth than earlier this morning. The stretch is deliciously painful and the sting burns no matter how wet you are. 

You both moan out into the open when he slips it in. Sunghoon looks like something devilish when he shuts his eyes while moaning. He’s so fucking hot that it’s not fair at all. His face becomes flushed and his forehead glistens with the sweat he’s built up eating you out. He buries himself to the hilt until you feel his warm sack on your ass. 

Your toes curl and you both feel the way your hole flutters around Sunghoon’s dick. His breaths are slow and deep. They make you more aroused, especially in the quiet of the night with nothing but the moonlight illumination through the uncovered windows. 

Sunghoon doesn’t snap his hips like you expect him to. He raises his hips and rolls them in slowly as if trying to savor every drag of your walls against his wet cock. He’s so slow that you hear your combined breaths trying to regain some kind of dignity and failing. The wet sounds add to your euphoria. Sunghoon starts to increase his speed, but not by much. 

“Perfect,” he mutters to himself. “So fucking perfect.” 

He braces both of his hands on either side of you. Sunghoon’s muscular bicep comes into view and makes you clench around him, to which he hissed and loses his composure, pushing his chest to yours. Your nipples squeeze under his skin. His body is so warm against you.

You don’t think you’ve ever felt like you lost your mind before this very moment. Sunghoon feels like he’s reached every untouched crevice in your body and it makes you feel like you're frozen in time. You don’t run from this pleasure either. You stay right where you are and tell yourself you deserve to have good sex and you deserve Sunghoon. 

You’ve enticed him. Sunghoon widens his own legs to better angle himself until he’s plunging his dick straight into you. The sheer force and depth at which he’s fucking you feels incredible. He doesn’t seem like he’s thinking at all. He acts like this is his primal instinct and he’s letting that version of himself takeover. 

Sunghoon groans with the sexual frustration he has within him and drills himself into you like he’s trying to make the two of you become one. His hips start to lose control the faster he thrusts into you, his cock warm and heavy even at the pace he’s setting. It’s all so hot. 

You think you might love him so much that walking away would shatter you. Your heart can’t help but choose him every time, and some part of you is desperate to know if Sunghoon feels the same way about you. 

Whimpers pour past your lips the faster Sunghoon fucks you. The gradual pace tells you he’s the absolute master of self indulgence and patience. You see elements of it when you see him in the office, and it’s always made you wonder just how patient he can be. Tonight, it seems like he’s trying to draw out your combined pleasure for as long as humanly possible. 

“Oh god,” Sunghoon chokes. He’s pounding into you with relentless force. “I’m cumming, shit shit shit.” 

He holds his breath, focusing on his orgasm. Sunghoon breaks you out of any thought that isn’t right here and right now. He arches his back so beautifully when he’s close and it drives his cock into you that much deeper. 

Sunghoon glances down at you before shutting his eyes and letting the first droplets of cum seep into you. You tighten your grip around his dick in preparation for what’s to come. Only, this time surprise you more than the time. 

“I love you.” 

He moans it without caring how loud he’s being. Sunghoon’s admission triggers your own orgasm and you thrash your body around while he chases your hips to settle you in your place beneath him. Your pussy clenched over and over again, collecting every drop from his leaning tip. Your shared orgasm leaks from the empty space between the two of you and you feel it drip between your legs. 

It’s like your heart is bursting with warmth and shock at the same time. Electricity flies off of your body and your mind runs so fast that you don’t know if you’ll ever come down from this particular high. Sunghoon finds your lips and kisses you with fervor and passion while he slows down his thrusts. He’s kissing you like he’s trying to make sure you’re real. He doesn’t pull away or pull out, even when he’s becoming soft. 

“You love me?” you ask.

“Yeah.” Sunghoon laughs incredulously and looks down at you. “Yes I fucking do.” 

“Sunghoon—”

“Don’t tell me you don’t feel the same, because I know you do. Your body tells me everything I need.”

“I didn’t think you’d feel the same.” Sunghoon soothes your lips over with a gentle kiss.

“I’ve loved you for a while now. I just started listening to my heart.” 

“That was so corny.” 

He grins against your mouth. “It was, wasn’t it?”

“Well…you’re lucky you’re cute.” 

“Are you not gonna say it back?” he teases. You look away and pretend to be confused. 

“I don’t know what you mean.” 

“Brat,” he says, pushing his half hard cock deeper in you to make you yelp. “Say you love me back, baby.” 

You don’t need that much convincing.

“I love you.

***

taglist 1: @i58ssj @motherscrustytoenailclippings @immelissaaa @sunnyjayjays @skzenhalove @tobiosbbyghorl @babystrlla @sagegreenhairclip @doririsstuff @second-floors @sievenderz @favoritten @kiikiisblog @ynzyy @jessicaradreamer @questionsdearreader @leeymws @wonislife17 @semi-wife @synamon @letwiiparkjay @spicxbnny @bbinwrld @25dejulho @globaloppaaa @1-800-peakyblinders @heesunghooney @ambi01 @simpforskz143148 @shaysimpss @steddie-steddie @ning2lover @fairystudio @yujinxue @dearmyfavoritepeople-bts @in-somnias-world @mellowgalaxystrawberry @1ckyw1ckyyyyy @kgneptun @ithinkulikeme @kristynaaah @jessxxxfwd @lovingjongseong @intoomanyfandom-s @jeoncarla008 @just1moodz.

[unknowacczzz]

Looking for enhypen fics/au, check out these accounts!!

@eeunoia (fave author!!)

@slutofpsh (eeunoia but 18+)

@nishimmortal (text smau)

@crimswon (text smau)

@goon4hoon

@in-enha-world

@liuhsng

@mssishipi

@simjakedly

@hoonguin

@hee-cloud

[toasttew]

An alternative version of me and my bestie:

[heevnly]

"When The Spotlight

Sleeps"

💌 Genre: Romance • Fluff • Domestic AU • Husband-Wife AU • Idol Life AU • Comfort • Slice of Life • Emotional Healing • Soft Angst

💌 Synopsis: An exhausted idol comes home from tour craving affection from his overworked wife, leading to chaotic, tender moments and a late-night conversation about love, burnout, and growing apart.

💌 WC: 2.7k!

🌷ꫝ Note: This is purely fictional—please don’t link it to real life. Kindly don’t copy or repost. Read and enjoy ♡

The apartment was too quiet.

Not the peaceful kind of quiet Y/n usually liked when she studied—no rain tapping against the windows, no humming from the kitchen, no distant singing from the shower.

Just silence.

Which should’ve helped her focus.

Instead, she kept glancing at the clock.

11:42 PM.

His flight landed almost an hour ago.

Y/n sighed and rubbed at her tired eyes before typing another paragraph into her laptop. Her notes for tomorrow’s presentation were spread across the dining table in organized chaos—sticky notes, highlighted pages, cold coffee she forgot to drink.

The front door suddenly beeped.

Then—

“Wifffeeeee.”

Y/n froze.

The suitcase hit the floor with a loud thud.

“Y/N!” Lee Heeseung’s voice echoed dramatically through the apartment. “Your husband has returned from war.”

A beat.

“…Tour isn’t war, Hee.”

“It is when I haven’t seen my wife in nine days.”

She finally looked up.

And there he was.

Tall. Exhausted. Dressed in a black hoodie and sweatpants, baseball cap crooked over messy dark hair. His eyes looked sleepy, his lips pouty, and despite the fatigue dragging at his shoulders—

He still somehow looked unfairly pretty.

Y/n felt her chest ache immediately.

Heeseung spotted her at the table and his face visibly softened.

“There you are,” he murmured.

Then he walked straight toward her with zero hesitation and collapsed against her dramatically.

Not onto the couch.

Onto her.

“Heeseung—”

“I missed you,” he whined into her neck.

“You’re crushing me.”

“I know.”

“You’re literally all bones.”

“And sadness.”

Y/n snorted despite herself.

He wrapped both arms around her waist and just stayed there, breathing her in like he’d forgotten what home smelled like.

For a moment, neither of them spoke.

The exhaustion in him felt heavy. Familiar.

Tour always did this to him.

Too many cities. Too many cameras. Too many people wanting pieces of him every second of the day.

At home, he could just be—

Her husband.

Not an idol.

Not the perfect performer.

Just Heeseung.

“You ate?” she asked softly, threading her fingers through the hair peeking out beneath his cap.

“Mhm.”

“Properly?”

“…Jake forced me to.”

“Good.”

“He threatened to call you if I skipped dinner again.”

“That’s because Jake likes me more than you.”

“Impossible.”

He tilted his head back to look at her, eyes warm and sleepy.

Then he frowned.

“Why are you still working?”

“Because unlike some people, I don’t get paid to look pretty and dance.”

He gasped. “That is NOT all I do.”

“You also pout professionally.”

“That’s true.”

Y/n laughed quietly.

God, she missed him too.

Even the dramatic nonsense.

Heeseung suddenly narrowed his eyes at her laptop.

“No.”

“No what?”

“You’re done now.”

“Heeseung—”

“No more work. It’s husband time.”

She blinked.

“Husband time?”

“Yes.”

“That sounds illegal.”

He ignored her and reached over to close the laptop.

Y/n immediately smacked his hand away.

“Hey! I’m serious, I need to finish this.”

“And I need affection.”

“You’re twenty-five.”

“And neglected.”

“You landed forty minutes ago.”

“Exactly.”

He folded his arms and stared at her with betrayal so theatrical she almost applauded.

“You don’t even care I survived.”

“You were posting selfies on Weverse six hours ago.”

“That could’ve been pre-scheduled.”

“It literally said ‘currently eating ramen in Osaka.’”

“…Details.”

Y/n tried not to smile as she resumed typing.

Unfortunately, Lee Heeseung was not a man who accepted defeat.

Especially when touch-starved.

Five minutes later, he dragged a chair beside hers and rested his chin on her shoulder.

Three minutes after that, he started reading her notes out loud in a fake documentary voice.

“Here we see the hardworking wife in her natural habitat—”

“Heeseung.”

“She survives solely on caffeine and spite.”

“Heeseung.”

“She has not known peace since marrying an attention seeker—OW.”

He clutched his arm dramatically after she pinched him.

“Domestic violence.”

“You’re annoying.”

“You love me.”

“…Unfortunately.”

His grin appeared instantly.

“There she is.”

He looked so happy over one tiny response that guilt twisted unexpectedly in her chest.

Tour season always left him clingier than usual.

And honestly?

Y/n secretly loved it.

The world got polished celebrity Lee Heeseung.

She got this version.

The sleepy one who followed her around the apartment like an abandoned cat.

The one who randomly kissed her shoulder while she brushed her teeth.

The one who forgot he was internationally famous and whined when she wouldn’t cuddle him immediately.

Right on cue, Heeseung slid lower in his chair until his head ended up in her lap.

“Baby.”

“No.”

“I didn’t even ask anything yet.”

“You’re distracting.”

“But you’re warm.”

“You have blankets.”

“They don’t smell like you.”

Her fingers paused over the keyboard.

Dangerous.

Very dangerous.

Because his voice had gone soft.

Low.

Sleepy.

And Heeseung always got extra affectionate when exhausted.

“Come cuddle for ten minutes,” he mumbled.

“I can’t.”

“Five?”

“No.”

“Two?”

“Heeseung.”

“One dramatic sigh and a forehead kiss?”

Y/n looked down.

His eyes were already half closed.

Hair falling over his forehead.

One hand loosely gripping the hem of her sweater like he was unconsciously making sure she stayed there.

Her heart melted instantly.

“…You’re manipulative.”

“I’m pretty,” he corrected.

“That too.”

He smiled lazily.

Then her phone buzzed.

A group chat notification.

Jungwon: Did Heeseung hyung make it home alive?

Sunghoon: Or is he currently laying on the floor whining for attention

Jay: Give it ten minutes before he starts fake crying

Y/n snorted.

Heeseung opened one eye suspiciously.

“What.”

“Your members know you too well.”

He immediately sat up. “Lies and slander.”

Another text came in.

Jake: Did he ask for cuddles before taking his shoes off

Y/n burst out laughing.

Heeseung looked offended. “Why is everyone attacking me.”

“Because apparently this is predictable behavior.”

He huffed and grabbed her phone.

“Traitors.”

Then—

He frowned.

“Wait. Why did Jake text a heart after asking if I ate?”

“Because he’s my favorite.”

Heeseung gasped so loudly she nearly choked.

“You replaced me.”

“You were gone.”

“I leave for one week and suddenly Australian golden retriever steals my marriage.”

“He cooks.”

“I cook!”

“You burn eggs.”

“That was once.”

“You set off the fire alarm.”

“THE PAN WAS DEFECTIVE.”

Y/n was laughing so hard now she could barely breathe.

Heeseung stared at her for a second.

And softened immediately.

There it was again.

That look.

Like hearing her laugh after weeks away fixed something inside him.

His thumb brushed lightly against her wrist.

Quietly.

Tenderly.

“I missed this,” he admitted.

Her smile faded into something gentler.

“Me too.”

For once, he didn’t joke after that.

The exhaustion returned to his face all at once.

Y/n noticed the faint dark circles beneath his eyes.

The way his shoulders sagged.

How he kept blinking slowly like he was trying not to fall asleep sitting upright.

“You should shower,” she said softly.

“Mmm.”

“And sleep.”

“Mmm."

“You’re dying.”

“Probably.”

Yet he still didn’t move.

Instead, he stared at her for a moment before speaking quietly.

“Come with me?”

Y/n’s expression softened completely.

“Your shower?”

“No,” he deadpanned. “The afterlife.”

She laughed and shoved his shoulder.

“Go.”

He finally dragged himself up with exaggerated suffering.

Halfway toward the hallway, he turned dramatically.

“If I perish alone in that bathroom, remember me fondly.”

“I’ll sell your gaming setup.”

“You’re evil.”

“Love you too.”

“Love you more.”

—

An hour later, Y/n finally finished her work.

The apartment lights were dim now.

Soft.

Quiet.

She closed her laptop with a sigh and stretched before padding toward the bedroom.

The door was slightly open.

Inside, Heeseung was sprawled across the bed diagonally like a starfish.

A very sleepy, clingy starfish.

One arm hung off the mattress.

His damp hair fell messily over his forehead.

The TV played quietly in the background, clearly abandoned halfway through whatever he’d been watching.

Y/n smiled instantly.

“Hee.”

No response.

She walked closer.

“Heeseung.”

One eye opened.

“There’s my wife.”

“You’re taking up the entire bed.”

“I saved your spot.”

“There is no spot.”

He shifted approximately two inches.

“There.”

“That changed nothing.”

“Don’t be negative.”

Y/n rolled her eyes fondly and climbed into bed anyway.

The second she settled beside him, he wrapped around her immediately.

Legs tangled.

Face tucked into her neck.

Like instinct.

Like breathing.

A long sigh left him.

The kind that sounded relieved.

Safe.

“You’re clingy,” she murmured.

“You like it.”

“I tolerate it.”

“Liar.”

True.

Complete liar.

She ran her fingers slowly through his damp hair.

Within minutes, his breathing slowed.

Then—

Quietly—

“Do you think we’re getting too used to this?”

Y/n blinked.

“What?”

He stayed still for a second before speaking again.

“This.” His voice was softer now. “Me leaving all the time. Missing things. Coming home exhausted.”

Her hand paused in his hair.

Heeseung rarely talked about this part out loud.

“I don’t know,” she admitted carefully.

He swallowed.

“I worry about it sometimes.”

Y/n turned slightly to look at him.

His eyes were open now.

Tired.

Vulnerable.

“I keep thinking…” He hesitated. “What if one day you stop missing me when I leave?”

Her chest tightened painfully.

“Heeseung—”

“What if I’m gone so often that eventually we just…” He searched for the words. “Adjust.”

“You think I’d stop loving you because you’re busy?”

“No.” He shook his head quickly. “Not that.”

“Then what?”

He looked away.

“That you’d get tired of waiting for me.”

The honesty in his voice hurt.

Because underneath all the teasing and dramatics and clinginess—

There it was.

Fear.

Burnout had been creeping up on him for months now. She’d noticed it before he admitted it himself.

The constant schedules.

Pressure.

Performing.

Always smiling.

Always moving.

Always needing to be on.

And Heeseung loved being an idol.

But sometimes she thought he forgot he was human first.

Y/n cupped his face gently until he looked back at her.

“You wanna know something annoying?”

He blinked.

“What.”

“I miss you even when you’re in the shower.”

A small laugh escaped him.

“I’m serious.”

She brushed her thumb beneath his eye.

“You could leave for a hundred tours and I’d still wait for you to come home and annoy me.”

His mouth twitched.

“That’s romantic.”

“It’s true.”

He stared at her quietly.

“You’re really okay with this life?”

“I’m okay with you.”

Something fragile crossed his face then.

Like relief.

Like disbelief.

Y/n kissed his forehead softly.

“You don’t have to earn rest, you know.”

He closed his eyes briefly.

“That sounds fake.”

“It’s not.”

“I just…” He exhaled shakily. “I’m tired lately.”

There it was.

Finally.

Not performer Lee Heeseung.

Not the polished idol answer.

Just him.

“I know,” she whispered.

“I’m scared if I slow down, I’ll fall behind.”

“You won’t.”

“What if people stop caring?”

Y/n frowned immediately.

“Heeseung.”

“What?”

“You could disappear for six months and people would still scream if you smiled at them once.”

(Enhypen is 7)

That made him laugh quietly.

“You think so?”

“I’ve seen your fans.”

“Terrifying people.”

“Exactly.”

He smiled against her shoulder.

Then after a moment—

“I missed you so much,” he admitted again, softer this time.

Y/n held him tighter.

“I know.”

Outside, the city lights glowed through the curtains.

The apartment stayed quiet except for the distant TV and the soft hum of air conditioning.

And tangled together beneath warm blankets, exhausted and teasing and painfully in love—

Lee Heeseung finally let himself rest.

[unknowacczzz]

I miss him so much.......

[jongst4r]

little nightmares (p. sunghoon)

your boyfriend can’t sleep well, so you decide to surprise him

pairing: sunghoon x reader || wc: 2.6k || cw: all fluff and cutesy! established relationship, mentions of exhaustion and nightmares, kissing, use of petnames, mentions of showering together (non-sexual!) || warnings: none! || a/n: based on this lovely request <3 i looove this hoonie so much

sunghoon sits on the edge of the hotel bed in a foreign city, the lights of tokyo bleeding through the half-closed curtains. his body feels heavy, like every step on stage earlier drained something vital out of him.

the tour has been nonstop for weeks now, and tonight his throat scratches with the beginning of a cold while his head throbs in rhythm with the distant city noise.

he misses his home.

he misses you.

he lies back against the pillows but sleep refuses to come. again. the same nightmare from last night flickers behind his eyes every time he closes them — blurry images of forgetting choreography, of the crowd turning silent, of reaching for your hand only for you to fade away.

he turns to his side, hugging a pillow that smells nothing like you, and sighs. practice today was rough. his moves felt stiff, his focus scattered. the members noticed but said nothing, giving him space he doesn’t really want.

his phone lights up on the nightstand. it’s a message from you, sent hours ago because of the time difference. thinking about you. hope the show went amazing today. love you so much.

he stares at the words until they blur. his chest tightens. god, he needs to hear your voice.

he dials before he can talk himself out of it. the phone rings once, twice, and then your sleepy voice answers.

“sunghoon? baby, are you okay?”

he tries to speak but his throat closes up. the exhaustion, the loneliness, the pressure — everything crashes down at once. a quiet sob slips out, then another. soon he’s crying properly, shoulders shaking as he presses the phone closer to his ear.

“i… i miss you,” he whispers, voice cracking. “so much it hurts. i can’t sleep. can’t even practice right. everything feels wrong without you here.”

you’re instantly awake on the other end. he can hear you shifting, probably sitting up in bed back home. your voice turns soft and soothing, the way it always does when you comfort him.

“oh hoonie… i’m right here. tell me what’s going on. breathe with me, okay?”

he tries. he really does. you talk him through it — reminding him how proud you are, how the fans love him, how this tour is temporary and soon he’ll be back in your arms. you tell him silly stories about your day, about the cat you saw on your walk that looked like him when he pouts. for a few minutes it helps. his breathing evens out and the tears slow.

but then another wave hits. the nightmare flashes again. the emptiness in his chest feels too big.

“it’s not enough,” he admits quietly, ashamed. “i know you’re trying and i love you for it but… i feel so lost right now. my body hurts. my mind won’t stop. i keep dreaming you’re gone and i wake up reaching for you and you’re not there.”

you stay silent for a second, then speak with even more tenderness. “i wish i could hold you right now. i’d play with your hair until you fell asleep. i’d make you that tea you like and kiss your forehead until the bad thoughts leave. you’re doing so well, sunghoon. even on hard days you’re still my strong, beautiful boy.”

the praise makes fresh tears spill. he curls up smaller on the bed, phone tucked between his ear and the pillow. you stay on the call for over an hour, voice never wavering even as sleep tugs at you. you sing softly — one of the songs he wrote for you — and it almost lulls him. almost.

eventually his sobs turn to quiet sniffles. you whisper goodnight promises, telling him to try and rest, that tomorrow will be softer. when the call ends, the hotel room feels even emptier. sunghoon stares at the ceiling, phone still clutched in his hand, missing you worse than before.

the next day is worse. rehearsals drag. his voice cracks during vocal warmups and he keeps missing counts in the choreography. the choreographer pulls him aside gently, suggesting he rest, but sunghoon shakes his head. he pushes through, sweat mixing with frustrated tears he refuses to let fall. back at the hotel he skips dinner with the members, claiming he’s tired. in reality he just wants to lie in the dark and think about you.

night falls again and the cycle repeats. another nightmare — this time he’s lost in an endless airport, announcements calling your name but you never appear. he wakes up gasping, heart racing, skin clammy. it’s 3am local time. he knows it’s late for you but he calls anyway.

you pick up on the second ring, voice thick with sleep but full of concern. “sunghoon?”

“i had another nightmare,” he chokes out immediately. tears are already falling. “i can’t do this anymore. i feel sick and empty and i just… i need you.”

you comfort him again, stronger this time. you tell him stories from when you first met, how his shy smile made your heart flip. you describe in detail what you would do if you were there — wrapping him in your favorite blanket, cuddling until he feels safe, tracing patterns on his back. your voice is a lifeline, warm and steady, but he can hear the worry underneath it. no matter how much you say, the distance feels like an ocean.

“i love you,” you repeat for the tenth time. “this tour is hard but you’re not alone. i’m with you even from here.”

he nods even though you can’t see, wiping his face. “i know. i’m sorry for calling so much. i’m being a burden.”

“you are never a burden,” you say firmly. “cry if you need to. i’m here.”

the call lasts even longer this time. nearly two hours of you holding space for his tears and exhaustion. when he finally hangs up, a small spark of determination lights in his chest. he loves you too much to keep dragging you through his pain from so far away.

the following morning he moves through schedules like a ghost. another show, another flawless performance on the outside while inside he feels like he’s crumbling. during the encore he looks out at the sea of lightsticks and forces a smile, but his mind is on you. on how your eyes light up when he comes home. on how your laugh fills every empty corner of his life.

back in the hotel after the show, he showers and collapses on the bed. he doesn’t call this time. instead he texts you goodnight messages, heart emojis and promises that he’s trying. but inside the ache grows.

you, meanwhile, are pacing your apartment. the last few calls have left you restless. hearing sunghoon cry, hearing the exhaustion in his voice, it breaks something in you. you’ve tried everything you can from this distance — words, songs, memories — but it’s not enough. he needs more. he needs you.

you sit at your desk and open your laptop. your hands shake a little as you check flight schedules. the tour dates, the cities, the time zones. there it is — a flight leaving in two days that would get you to him. your heart races. you have enough savings. you can take the time off work. you’ve already quietly arranged things in your mind.

you don’t tell him. this has to be a surprise. something tangible to break through the fog he’s in. you imagine his face when you show up at his hotel door, how his tired eyes would widen, how he’d pull you into his arms and finally breathe easy.

packing is quiet and careful. you fold his favorite hoodie of yours, the one he always steals, and tuck in small gifts — his favorite snacks from home, a new pair of warm socks, printed photos of the two of you. every item feels like a promise. you’ll hold him through the nightmares. you’ll rub his back until he falls asleep. you’ll be there when he wakes up.

as you zip the suitcase, a soft smile settles on your face. the distance has been too long, the pain too heavy. soon you’ll close that gap. you check the flight confirmation one more time, heart full of love and nervous excitement.

you’re going to him.

sunghoon wakes up the next morning with puffy eyes and a heavier heart than usual. the hotel room feels sterile, the sheets too crisp, the air too cold without your warmth beside him. he drags himself through soundcheck, his body moving on autopilot while his mind replays your voice from the calls. you sounded so worried last night. he hates making you feel that way. during a short break he leans against the stage wall, scrolling through old photos of you two — your smile buried in his neck during a winter date, your hands covering his eyes as a surprise birthday cake appears. it makes the ache sharper.

the members try to cheer him up. jake slaps his back lightly and says something about powering through, but sunghoon only nods weakly. he performs that night with everything he has left, pouring the loneliness into the choreography, letting the bright lights blur his vision. the fans scream his name and it helps for those few hours, but the second he steps off stage the exhaustion crashes back down. another night of fighting sleep awaits.

meanwhile you sit on the plane, heart hammering the entire flight. the hours stretch endlessly as you clutch the armrest, imagining his tired face, his soft cries through the phone. you replay his voice in your head and it fuels you. when the plane finally lands you feel a rush of nervous energy. you text a vague hope you're resting well tonight so he doesn’t suspect anything, then grab your suitcase and head straight to the hotel where the team is staying. you had messaged their manager earlier in secret, explaining the situation, and he kindly arranged a keycard for you after confirming with the staff.

the elevator ride up feels eternal. your hands shake as you stand in front of his door. it’s late — past midnight — and you know he’s probably trying and failing to sleep again. you take a deep breath, slide the keycard, and push the door open quietly.

the room is dark except for the faint city glow through the curtains. sunghoon lies curled up on the bed, back facing the door, shoulders tense even in sleep. his breathing is uneven. you set your suitcase down gently and slip off your shoes, heart swelling at the sight of him looking so small and drained.

you approach the bed slowly and slide under the covers behind him. your arm wraps around his waist, pulling yourself flush against his back. he stirs immediately, body tensing.

“what—” he starts, voice hoarse and confused.

“shh, it’s me,” you whisper against his neck, pressing a soft kiss there. “i’m here, hoonie.”

sunghoon flips around so fast he almost knocks you off the bed. his eyes widen in the dim light, disbelief written all over his face. for a second he just stares, like you might vanish if he blinks. then his face crumples and he pulls you into his chest so tightly you can barely breathe.

“you’re… you’re really here?” his voice breaks on the words. tears soak into your shirt instantly as he buries his face in your hair. his whole body trembles against yours. “how? when? i thought i was dreaming again.”

you rub slow circles on his back, feeling the tension start to melt under your touch. “i couldn’t stand hearing you like that anymore. i booked the flight right after our last call. surprise.”

he lets out a shaky laugh mixed with a sob, hands roaming your back like he needs to confirm you’re solid and real. “you flew all the way here for me… i don’t deserve you.”

“you deserve everything,” you murmur, kissing his forehead, then his damp cheeks, then his lips softly. he tastes like salt from the tears and the faint mint of his toothpaste. the kiss deepens slowly, full of longing and relief, his fingers threading through your hair as if afraid you’ll disappear.

you spend the next hour just holding each other. sunghoon clings to you like a lifeline, head on your chest while you play with his hair exactly the way he loves. you whisper all the comforts you couldn’t give him over the phone — how proud you are, how strong he is even when it feels impossible, how much you missed his scent and his little pout when he’s tired. his breathing finally evens out, the nightmares staying away for the first time in days because your heartbeat anchors him.

“i love you,” he mumbles sleepily against your skin, already drifting off. “more than anything.”

“i love you too. sleep now. i’ve got you.”

the next morning sunghoon wakes up first. he watches you sleep for a long time, tracing your features with gentle fingers, a soft smile on his face that hasn’t appeared in weeks. when you stir he peppers your face with kisses until you giggle.

“best surprise ever,” he says, voice still raspy from sleep and crying. he looks better already — eyes less shadowed, shoulders more relaxed.

you make him stay in bed while you order room service — warm soup for his throat, his favorite fruits, and steaming tea. you feed him bites between soft conversations, making him laugh with stories from home. he eats more than he has in days, leaning into your side the entire time.

later you join him at the venue. the members light up when they see you, teasing sunghoon about how whipped he is, but their relief is obvious. during rehearsals you sit in the corner and watch him. knowing you’re there seems to unlock something — his moves become sharper, his voice steadier. every few minutes he glances over at you with that bright, lovesick smile that makes your heart flutter.

during a break he pulls you into an empty dressing room and kisses you like he’s making up for all the lost time. slow and deep at first, then playful as he lifts you onto the counter, nose brushing yours.

“you make everything feel easy again,” he admits between kisses. “i was falling apart without you.”

“you were never falling apart,” you reply, cupping his face. “you were just carrying too much alone. now we share the weight.”

that night’s concert is one of his best on the entire tour. you watch from the side stage, heart bursting with pride as he shines under the lights. during the slower songs he looks straight toward where you stand, singing with new emotion. the fans sense the shift in energy and the cheers grow louder.

after the show he finds you immediately backstage, still sweaty and buzzing with adrenaline. he picks you up and spins you around, laughing freely for the first time in weeks.

back at the hotel the two of you take a long shower together. not rushed or heated — just tender. you wash his hair while he hums happily, eyes closed in bliss. afterward you tuck him into bed and crawl in beside him, legs tangled, his head resting on your chest again.

“no nightmares tonight?” you ask softly, fingers drawing patterns on his scalp.

he shakes his head, pressing closer. “none when you’re here. you chase them all away.”

you stay with him for the rest of that tour leg. every morning you wake up wrapped in each other. you attend practices and make sure he eats properly and rests between schedules. you leave little notes in his bag — you’re my favorite person or can’t wait to cuddle later — and he finds them during the day, sending you hearts and shy selfies in return.

on off days you explore the city together hand in hand. he buys you matching keychains and insists on taking couple photos even when he’s tired.

at night he falls asleep easily now, whispering love confessions until his voice fades. the hard times still come in waves — another tough rehearsal, another wave of homesickness — but now he turns to you instead of suffering alone. you hold him through the moments when tears return, kissing them away until he smiles again.

one quiet evening in another hotel room, city lights twinkling outside, sunghoon pulls you onto his lap on the couch. his arms circle your waist as he looks at you with those deep, sincere eyes.

“i was really struggling,” he says softly. “the nightmares, the pressure, missing you… it felt endless. but you came. you always come when i need you most. i don’t know what i did to deserve someone who loves me like this.”

you lean forward and rest your forehead against his. “you deserve the world, sunghoon. and i’m going to keep reminding you every single day.”

he kisses you then — slow, grateful, full of all the emotions he couldn’t express over the phone. the kiss turns into lazy cuddles that stretch into hours of quiet conversation and gentle touches. outside the tour continues with its chaos and demands, but inside these moments, it’s just the two of you. safe. warm. together.

and sunghoon thinks, as he falls asleep with your heartbeat steady under his ear, that this kind of love is what carries — and will carry — him through anything.

forever and ever.

© jongst4r, 2026

taglist: @solonenova, @neabrownn, @drowsypanther, @redessertired, @pinkdazed, @enhypenlvrsstuff, @strwberrylhs, @insignificantlillady,  @vanillakirstein, @jaeynslutt, @d2iose, @gchirpy, @k13endall, @phjayyy, @unnatrual, @kookiesnkim, @kpopishgirlie, @kaejua, @ineedjaeyun, @moonchild-31, @cortised, @borderdaytwo, @wonrlls, @heartsski, @dollhoonki, @kristynaaah

[unknowacczzz]

🥺

[unknowacczzz]

Calling all enhypen authors..... THISSSS OMG IMAGINE MAFIA ENHYPEN × SECRETARY Y/N (or whatever you as long as its mafia enhypen hahahaha) OR FORCED MARRIAGE ENHA

[hoonguin]

polka dots‎‎‎‎‎‎‎ ‎ ✿‎ ‎ ⁠. ۫ ·‎ ‎ 西村力

 ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎written for the heart’s mailroom event ! ༊

✷ nishimura riki spends an entire luxury fashion event forcing himself to stay composed while watching another man flirt with you, his oblivious fiancée, only to completely lose the battle against his jealousy the second you guys get home !

pairings ⸝⸝ fiancée‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎!riki ✿ oblivious!f!rea ‎ ‎ ✉️‎ ‎ ‎ wc ⸝⸝ 10.0k

🗯️ 内容‎ ‎ ‎  ‎ explicit sexual content ♫ 18+ ⸝⸝ intended for mature audiences | minors do not interact ᯓ established relationship, public event tension, lots of emotional intimacy and domestic moments, jealousy, reassurance, possessive behavior, markings, praise kink, edging, oral sex (f. and m. receiving), face fucking, tipsy sex, unprotected p in v, dacryphilia, creampie !

EL’S ✷ BUBBLE : again, i got a bit carried away with this one so oops ! this may lowkenuinely be one of my most favorite fics i’ve written for this event >< if it wasn’t already obvious, i’m a complete sucker for fashion, polka dots (swear on my life i loved them before they became a trend everywhere), and anything nishimura riki 😚 requested by my one and only @vmpiricou, of course! aaand technically this isn’t even an event request, but a request that’s been rotting in my brain and inbox for forever now, so i thought it’d be the perfect addition to the lineup . . . basically a two-in-one request fic hehe ! enjoooooy <33 mwehehehehe with much love

The invitation had come in the mail three weeks prior, thick, cream-coloured cardstock with the Prada logo embossed in matte black foil, the kind of paper that felt like money between your fingertips. 

A winter showcase. 

An outdoor installation that merged fashion and architecture, held on the grounds of a privately owned estate just outside the city, where hedges were trimmed into geometric shapes and the fountains had been drained for the season so they wouldn't crack under the frost. 

You'd been on the guest list before, your brand had collaborated with half the houses present tonight alone, but this year felt different. 

This year, you weren't just a designer in attendance. You were the fiancée of one of Prada's youngest ambassadors, and the whole world knew it.

You'd spent the entire morning preparing. Not because you needed the time, you could throw together a look in twenty minutes flat, a skill honed from years of running your own label, but because the outfit required precision. 

Every detail was deliberate, every accessory a statement, and if there was one thing you refused to do, it was to show up to a Prada event looking anything less than editorial.

The fuzzy grey high-neck winter jacket was your own design, a prototype from your upcoming fall-winter collection that you'd finished stitching at two in the morning the night before. 

The thick scarf wrapped around your neck was a mix of blue, white, grey, and brown plaid patterns, hand-woven by a small atelier that was run by the sister of your online friend in Scotland that you'd been supporting since your brand first turned a profit. 

The black mini-skirt was deceptively simple, a high-waisted silhouette that hugged your hips just right, the hem hitting mid-thigh. 

Your brown winter boots were lined with shearling, practical but polished, the kind of footwear that said you understood the assignment: fashion first, frostbite second.

But the highlight, the pièce de résistance, was the tights.

Black polka dot tights. 

Tiny white dots scattered across the sheer black fabric, close enough together to form a pattern but far enough apart that you could still see skin underneath. The dots caught the light differently depending on the angle, shifting from stark white to almost pearlescent when you crossed your legs. You'd spent an embarrassing amount of time deliberating over them, holding up pair after pair in front of your full-length mirror until Riki had finally wandered into your studio, chin resting on your shoulder, arms looping around your waist, and murmured, "The polka dots. Obviously."

You were also wearing a pair of black-framed glasses, rounded, slightly oversized, with thin metal arms, that Riki had gifted you on your six-month anniversary. He'd picked them up from a vintage shop in Harajuku during a tour stop, tucked them into his carry-on between his passport and a half-eaten pack of melon bread, and presented them to you in the back of a van with his manager yelling at him to hurry up. 

The frames suited you in a way that made his chest tight every time you put them on, which was precisely why he'd bought them. Your hair was curled at the ends, soft waves framing your face, and your bangs were clipped back with two small silver clips, half-moon shaped, another one of your designs. White fuzzy earmuffs sat over your ears, the kind that looked like they belonged on a snow bunny in a 1960s ski film.

When you finally emerged from the bedroom, Riki was leaning against the kitchen counter, scrolling through his phone with a glass of water in his other hand. He glanced up, did a full double-take, and then just — stopped.

His phone slipped. Not all the way, not dramatically, but enough that he fumbled to catch it, his fingers closing around it a second too late, and it clattered against the marble countertop with a sound that made you wince.

"Riki—"

"Don't move."

"Huh?"

"I said don't move." He set his glass down carefully, deliberately, like he was afraid any sudden movement would shatter the image in front of him. His eyes dragged over you slowly, from the earmuffs perched on your head to the glasses sitting on the bridge of your nose, down the column of your neck wrapped in plaid, the grey jacket, the mini-skirt, the polka dot tights, the boots, and something in his expression shifted. His lips parted. His throat worked. He looked, for a moment, like a man who had just realised he was thoroughly, devastatingly out of his depth.

"You look," he started, and then stopped. Swallowed. Tried again. "You look unreal."

"You already said that when I tried on the jacket last week."

"I meant it then and I mean it now." He pushed off the counter and crossed the kitchen in three long strides, his hands finding your waist like they were magnetised to the spot. He dipped his head, pressing his forehead to yours, and you could feel the warmth of his breath fan across your lips. "The tights," he said, voice low. His fingers skimmed down your side, over your hip, settling at the bare strip of thigh between your skirt hem and the top of your boots. "The tights are going to be a problem."

"Ow, you don't like them?"

"I like them too much." He kissed you then, soft and slow, his thumb tracing circles on the outside of your thigh where the polka dots pressed against your skin. When he pulled back, his eyes were half-lidded and there was a faint smudge of your lip gloss on his bottom lip. "We're going to be late."

"You started it."

"I'm aware." He smiled, the smile that crinkled the corners of his eyes and showed the slight overlap of his front teeth. "Come on, baby. Car's waiting."

Riki's outfit was, by his own admission, "an attempt at restraint." A black puffer jacket with a fur-trimmed hood that made him look like he'd stepped out of a streetwear lookbook, a white sweater peeking out from underneath the hem and collar, baggy denim jeans that sat low on his hips in that effortlessly cool way that only he could pull off, and his trusty pair of winter boots, the same ones he'd worn to three different fashion weeks and refused to replace because, in his words, "they're broken in perfectly." Around his neck was a striped blue scarf that you were eighty percent sure he'd stolen from your dad's closet last Christmas, but you didn't have the heart to call him out on it because he looked so damn cozy wearing it.

The estate was beautiful in the way that only places with old money could be, ivory walls and wrought-iron gates, gravel paths that crunched underfoot, and a sprawling garden that had been transformed for the event. 

Heaters stood at intervals along the walkways, glowing orange against the early evening dark, and sheer tents had been erected over the main areas, their fabric catching the golden light of the chandeliers suspended within. 

The air smelled like pine and expensive perfume, and everywhere you looked, someone was wearing something that cost more than a semester of tuition.

You and Riki entered together, his hand resting on the small of your back, and the cameras erupted. Flash after flash after flash, a wall of white light that made your glasses reflect like mirrors, and Riki's grip on you tightened, not out of possessiveness, but out of practice. He'd learned to guide you through crowds like this, his body angling to shield you from the worst of the surge, his hand a steady anchor against the chaos.

"Over here, Mr. Nishimura!"

"Miss! Miss, over here! The tights—who designed them?"

"Are those your own brand? Can you confirm—"

You smiled, tilted your chin, let the cameras capture the outfit from every angle. Riki did the same beside you, effortless, practiced, the product of years in an industry that demanded you be both accessible and untouchable. But just before you stepped past the photo wall and into the venue proper, he leaned down and pressed his lips to your temple, and the resulting shutter sound was deafening.

"You're killing me," he muttered against your hair.

"Behave."

"No."

The event was the kind of thing that looked effortless but required an exhausting amount of social choreography. You and Riki had been seated at different tables, his as Prada's ambassador, yours as the founder of your label, and while the tables were only about twenty feet apart, the distance felt insurmountable in a room where every conversation was a negotiation and every smile was a calculated move.

You handled your end with the ease of someone who'd been doing this since she was nineteen, when your grandmother's old sewing machine had been your only investment and your kitchen table had been your cutting room. 

You shook hands with buyers, charmed editors, laughed at jokes that weren't funny, and somehow managed to compliment someone's shoes without lying. 

Your grandmother had raised you to be warm, to hug people when you met them, to touch their arm when you laughed, to lean in close when they spoke so they knew you were listening. It was second nature to you, as automatic as breathing, and in the fashion industry, where everyone was accustomed to a certain degree of frostiness, your affection was disarming.

Which was how you found yourself in conversation with a man whose name you hadn't quite caught, something French, maybe, or Belgian, who had apparently designed the installation's centrepiece and was very keen to tell you about it.

"Your work is extraordinary," he was saying, his accent rounding out the consonants in a way that made everything sound like a compliment. "The way you construct silhouettes—it's architectural. Structural. I see a lot of myself in it."

"Oh, thank you!" You beamed at him, genuine and bright, because you appreciated any kind of comparison to architecture. Your grandmother had been a seamstress, yes, but she'd also been the daughter of a carpenter, and she'd always told you that building a garment was no different from building a house, you needed a strong frame, good materials, and a steady hand. "That means a lot coming from you. The centrepiece is incredible, by the way. The use of negative space—"

He stepped closer. You didn't notice. You were too busy gesturing at the installation, your hands painting shapes in the air the way they always did when you were excited about something. He reached up and adjusted the clip in your bangs, his fingers brushing against your hairline, and said, "This was falling. I fixed it."

"Oh! Thank you," you said, smiling. "These clips are tricky, they slip sometimes—"

"Your glasses too. May I?" And before you could respond, he was sliding them further up the bridge of your nose, his fingertips grazing your cheek, and you blinked at the proximity but didn't pull away because why would you? He was being helpful. He was being nice. That was a thing people did — they helped each other. Your grandmother had always said that kindness was free and should be given freely, and you'd lived your whole life by that philosophy.

Across the venue, Riki was in the middle of a conversation with a Prada executive about an upcoming campaign, and he was doing an admirable job of appearing engaged. 

He was nodding at the right moments, asking the right follow-up questions, even managing a convincing laugh when the executive made a joke about a rival house. But his attention was divided. It had been divided since the moment you'd separated, his eyes tracking you across the room like a compass needle finding north, and right now, that needle was spinning wildly.

He saw it all.

He saw the man lean in too close — close enough that his breath was probably visible in the cold air between your faces. He saw the hand that reached up to fix your clip, fingers lingering a beat too long against your hair. He saw the way the man adjusted your glasses, his touch drifting from the frame to your cheek like it belonged there. He saw the way you smiled up at the man, bright and completely, heartbreakingly oblivious, because you were you, and you assumed the best in everyone, and it had never once occurred to you that someone might be using the excuse of helpfulness to touch you in ways that made Riki's blood pressure spike.

His grip on his champagne flute tightened. The glass was sturdy, Prada didn't skimp on glassware, but he could feel the tension in his knuckles, the fine tremor of restraint running through his forearm.

"Nishimura?" The executive's voice cut through. "You had thoughts on the Milan venue?"

"Sorry, yeah." He dragged his gaze back to the conversation, forced his expression into something neutral. "The Milan venue is great. The lighting is the main thing—we need to make sure the—"

The man had his hand on your shoulder now. Your shoulder. He was leaning down to say something near your ear, his thumb rubbing small circles against the wool of your jacket, and you were nodding along, completely unaware of the way his eyes were tracing the line of your jaw, the curve of your neck, the dip of your collarbone visible above the high neck of your jacket.

Riki smiled through it. He smiled through the next conversation too, and the one after that, and the one after that. He smiled when a photographer asked for a solo shot, and he smiled when a stylist complimented his scarf, and he smiled when a fellow ambassador asked about the ring on your finger, visible now that you'd taken your gloves off to accept a drink, because what the hell could he say? That he wanted to cross the room, slide his arm around your waist, and tell every man within a ten-foot radius to back the fuck off? That he wanted to bite the spot where that stranger's thumb had touched your shoulder? That he was actively restraining himself from doing something that would end up on every gossip account by midnight?

He could practically see the tweets already. 

Oh my god.

PRADA’S NISHIMURA RIKI CAUSES SCENE AT PRADA EVENT—JEALOUS BOYFRIEND OR JUST BAD TEMPER? followed by a thread of clips taken from unflattering angles and captioned with takes so hot they could melt the ice on the garden paths. 

He could see the think pieces, the psychoanalysis, the stan Twitter wars between people who thought he was justified and people who thought he was toxic, and neither side would be right because neither side knew the truth — they didn't know that you were the most oblivious person on the planet, that you thought everyone was just being friendly, that if someone flirted with you using the subtlety of a sledgehammer you'd probably just think they had great posture.

So Riki stayed where he was. He smiled. He networked. He kept his grip on his champagne flute tight enough that the tendons in his hand stood out like cords, and he watched, and he waited, and every time the man touched your shoulder, three times, he counted them, three goddamn times, he filed the number away like a brand seared into his memory.

By the time the event wound down, Riki had shaken approximately forty hands, smiled through approximately sixty conversations, and consumed approximately four glasses of champagne on an empty stomach. 

He was tipsy, not sloppy, not sloppy enough for anyone to notice, but just enough that the edges of things had gone soft and warm and his tongue felt loose behind his teeth. The buzz was pleasant, distracting, a buffer between his brain and the image of that man's hand on your shoulder that he kept replaying like a scene he couldn't stop watching.

You found him near the exit, adjusting his scarf with one hand and his phone with the other, and you slipped your arm through his like it was the most natural thing in the world. "Ready to go, baby?"

"Yeah." His voice came out rougher than intended. He cleared his throat. "Yeah, let's go."

The car was waiting — a sleek black sedan with tinted windows, booked privately through the service Riki always used when he didn't want the company van's driver to overhear whatever half-coherent conversation would inevitably happen on the ride home. You climbed in first, pulling your earmuffs off and shaking out your hair, and Riki followed, immediately reaching for the partition button to close off the driver's compartment.

Then you were on him.

Not in a sexual way, not consciously, but in the way you always were when you'd been apart from him for more than an hour. You pressed yourself against his side, your cheek finding the curve of his shoulder, your fingers walking up the front of his puffer jacket to fiddle with the zipper pull. You pressed a kiss to his jaw, then another to the spot just below his ear, and you could feel the way his pulse jumped under your lips even though his posture remained carefully, deliberately relaxed.

"I missed you," you murmured against his skin. "The event was so, so long, baby. I kept looking over at you."

"Did you?" His arm came up around your shoulders, his thumb rubbing a slow circle against the curve of your arm. The gesture was affectionate, automatic, but there was something in the rhythm of it that felt… off. Like a metronome that was slightly out of time. "I was watching you too."

"Were you?" You smiled against his neck, your nose brushing the collar of his sweater. "Did you like how I handled the Barneys buyer? I think I got them to commit to the spring line—"

"You seemed pretty busy." The words were casual. Too casual. The kind of casual that was constructed, deliberate, a mask placed over something sharper. "With that guy."

"What guy?" You pulled back just enough to look at him, your brow furrowed. Your glasses had slipped down your nose again, and you pushed them up absently. "Oh—you mean the installation designer? He was super sweet, Ki! He helped me fix my clip, and he had really interesting things to say about textile architecture. Did you know he studied under—"

"He was flirting with you."

The car took a turn, and the glow of a streetlight swept across Riki's face, illuminating the hard set of his jaw, the slight furrow between his brows, the way his eyes were fixed on the window instead of on you. You stared at him, blinking.

"He was what?"

"Flirting. With you." Each word was clipped, precise, like he was biting them in half before they could escape. "He touched your hair. Your face. Your shoulder—three times. He was leaning in so close I could practically see his dental work."

"Oh." You sat back slightly, processing this information the way you processed most social cues with a delay long enough to be endearing and a little bit tragic. "He was... flirting? With me? But he was just being nice. He fixed my glasses, Riki. Who fixes someone's glasses if they're not being nice?"

"Someone who wants an excuse to touch your face," Riki said flatly. "Someone who sees an opening and takes it because you're too sweet to notice that he's not being nice, he's being interested, and there's a difference, and you—"

He stopped himself. Exhaled through his nose. His jaw worked, the muscle there jumping, and you watched the tension ride through his frame like a current, shoulders rigid, fingers flexing against your arm, the tendons in his neck taut. He looked like he was physically holding something back, and the realisation hit you like cold water.

"Baby," you said softly, reaching up to touch his face. "Hey. Look at me."

He did. His eyes were dark in the low light of the car, the amber of the passing streetlamps catching in them intermittently, and there was something raw there, something unguarded that made your chest ache. You'd seen Riki walk for ten thousand people. You'd seen him navigate boardrooms and red carpets and interviews with the ease of someone who'd been trained to be likable since he was fourteen. 

But this — this was different. 

This was your Riki, the one who got sulky when you ate the last mochi, the one who practiced his confession in the mirror for three days before actually saying it, the one who was sitting in the back of a black sedan with champagne-warmth in his veins and jealousy sitting heavy and obvious in his chest.

"I'm sorry," you said, and you meant it. You were sorry — not for being friendly, because that was who you were and he'd never ask you to change, but for not noticing, for making him sit through that, for being the kind of person who could have a man practically draw her a map to his intentions and still think he was just being polite. "I didn't realize. I would've—I should have—"

"It's not your fault." He said it quietly, firmly, and his hand came up to cover yours on his cheek, pressing your palm against his skin like he needed the warmth. "I know that's just how you are. I know you don't see it. That's not—you're not the problem, okay? That bitch is the problem. I just—" He exhaled again, sharper this time, and his eyes fluttered shut. "It drove me insane. Standing there, watching him touch you like that, and I couldn't do anything. I couldn't just walk over there without it being a whole thing, and I knew if I said something it'd be everywhere, and—"

"Ki."

"—and he just kept touching you, and you were smiling at him, fuck, and I know you didn't mean anything by it, but you're mine, and—"

"Riki."

He stopped. Opened his eyes. Looked at you with that expression you'd only ever seen in the privacy of your shared spaces, hungry and soft and a little bit desperate, like he was standing at the edge of something and needed permission to fall.

"I'm yours," you said simply. "You know that."

"I know." His voice was rough. The champagne had loosened something in him, stripped away the careful composure, and what was left was raw and wanting. "I know. I just—need to remind myself."

The rest of the drive was quiet, but it wasn't the comfortable kind. 

It was the kind of quiet that hummed with tension, that filled the space between your bodies like static electricity, that made every point of contact, his hand on your thigh, your head on his shoulder, his thumb tracing absent patterns on the inside of your wrist, feel charged and significant. 

You pressed more kisses to his cheek, leaving faint traces of lipstick like signatures, and he let you, his eyes half-closed and his jaw still tight, and the offness you'd sensed earlier crystallised into something you could finally name.

He was jealous. He was jealous, and he was tipsy, and he was holding himself together with the kind of restraint that was fraying at the edges.

The house was warm when you walked in, you'd left the smart thermostat on before you left, and the heat had been cranking for the past four hours, turning the space into a cocoon against the winter chill outside. 

You kicked off your boots in the entryway, your feet finding the hardwood in just your tights, and you were reaching for the zipper of your jacket when Riki's hands found you.

Not your jacket. 

You. 

His arms wrapped around your waist from behind, his face pressing into the curve of your neck, and his entire body folded into yours like a building collapsing in slow motion. 

He was heavy, taller than you by nearly a head, broader across the shoulders, all long limbs and lean muscle, and when he let go, he let go, his weight sagging against your back until you staggered slightly under the pressure.

"Whoa, hey—"

"You're mine." The words were muffled against your neck, damp and warm, and his arms tightened around your waist like he was trying to press you into himself, eliminate any space between your bodies. "You're mine, and he was touching you, and I couldn't—I wanted to—"

"I know, baby. I know." You turned in his arms, your hands coming up to cradle his face, and he looked at you with eyes that were glassy and dark and so painfully honest that it made your heart crack open. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I should've noticed, I should've—"

"Don't apologize." He shook his head, his hair falling across his forehead in that way that always made you want to push it back. "Don't. It's not—it's not your fault. You're too good. You're too good and people take advantage of it and it makes me—"

He broke off, his throat working, and something shifted in his expression. 

The whine was still there, the babyish, I-need-complaint pout that he wore when he was feeling small and wanted to be coddled, but underneath it, something else was surfacing. 

Something harder. Hotter. The jealousy that had been simmering all evening was reaching its boiling point, and the warmth from the champagne was fanning the flames.

"Enough." His voice dropped. Not angry, never angry with you, but firm, decided, the kind of firm that brokered no argument. "I've been patient all night. I've been good. I've smiled and shaken hands and let that man put his hands on what's mine without saying a word, and I'm done being patient."

Your breath caught. "Riki—"

"I need to mark you." He said it like a confession, like something he'd been holding behind his teeth all evening and could finally release. "I need to mark you, doll. I need to see my marks on you so that the next time someone thinks they can touch you, they'll see them and know."

He kissed you then, not the soft, reverent kisses from the car but something deeper, harder, his teeth catching your bottom lip and tugging until you gasped into his mouth. 

His hands were everywhere: cupping your jaw, tangling in your hair, sliding down your back to grip your hips and pull you flush against him. You could feel the heat of him even through the layers of your jacket and his puffer, the hard line of his body pressing against yours, and the champagne on his tongue was sweet and sharp and made your head spin.

"Up," he muttered against your lips, and then his hands were under your thighs, lifting you like you weighed nothing, and you wrapped your legs around his waist and your arms around his neck and held on as he carried you down the hallway to your bedroom.

He kicked the door open, not hard enough to damage it, but hard enough that it bounced off the wall, and laid you down on the bed with a care that contradicted the urgency of his movements. You sank into the duvet, your hair fanning out across the pillows, and he stood over you for a moment, chest heaving, eyes dragging down your body like he was committing every detail to memory.

"Keep the tights on," he said, and his voice was hoarse.

You blinked up at him. "What?"

"The tights." He sank to his knees at the edge of the bed, his hands finding your ankles and sliding up reverently over the smooth fabric dotted with tiny white polka dots. "Keep them on, baby. I have... plans."

His fingers traced the pattern, pressing gently into the sheer fabric, feeling the warmth of your skin beneath. The polka dots were like Braille under his fingertips, tiny raised dots that he read like a language only he knew. 

He pushed your mini-skirt up, baring the expanse of your thighs, and the sound he made, low, guttural, somewhere between a groan and a growl, sent a shiver racing down your spine.

"God, these tights." He pressed his lips to your knee, then to the soft skin above it, the fabric of the tights a whisper-thin barrier between his mouth and your skin. "Do you have any idea what you've done to me tonight? Walking around in these—looking like that—and then letting some other man put his hands on you—"

"I didn't know—"

"I know you didn't, doll. That's what makes it worse." He kissed the inside of your thigh, open-mouthed and hot, and your breath hitched. "You're so trusting. So sweet. You think everyone's just being nice, and meanwhile I'm standing across the room watching some guy memorize the shape of your body through these—" He bit down. Not hard enough to hurt, not yet, but hard enough that you felt the pressure of his teeth through the thin fabric, and you let out a startled, breathy sound that was half gasp and half moan.

"Riki—"

"He touched your shoulder three times." He bit down again, harder this time, and this time there was no mistaking it, he was leaving a mark, his teeth indenting the skin of your inner thigh through the polka dot tights, and the contrast was devastating: the delicate pattern of dots, the dark fabric, and the red bloom of a bruise rising underneath. "Three times. I counted. I counted every single time his hand made contact with your body, and each time I wanted to break his fingers."

"Baby—"

"Three." He bit down again, higher up on your thigh, and you arched off the bed with a cry that you muffled against the back of your hand. The pain was sharp and bright, but it faded almost immediately into something warm and throbbing, and when you looked down, you could see the mark already forming, a dark, mouth-shaped bruise against the polka dot fabric, the white dots like witnesses to the claim.

"Two." Another bite, on the other thigh now, and his tongue swept over the mark after, soothing and wet and obscenely hot through the tights. You were trembling, your fingers twisted in the duvet, your glasses askew on your face, and he hadn't even taken off a single piece of your clothing.

"One." The last bite was the hardest, placed high on your inner thigh where the skin was softest and the tights were stretched thin, and you felt the sting of it all the way down to your toes. He pulled back to admire his work, and the sound he made, low, satisfied, almost predatory, made heat pool in your stomach. Three marks. Three whole ass bites. One for each time that man had touched you, each one a brand that would darken over the next few days into deep, mottled purple.

"Perfect," he breathed. His fingers traced the marks, pressing lightly, watching the way your breath stuttered. "You look so pretty with my marks on you, angel. So pretty. And everyone's gonna know. Not that they'd see these—" He dragged his thumb over the bruise on your inner thigh, and you whimpered. "But I'll know. And you'll know. And every time you move your legs tomorrow, you're going to feel them and remember that you're mine."

"I'm yours," you whispered, and you meant it with every cell in your body.

He smiled at that, not the sharp, possessive smile from before, but something softer, something that cracked through the jealousy like sunlight through clouds. "Yeah," he said, and his voice was gentle even though his hands were still pressing bruises into your thighs. "Yeah, you are."

He reached for the waistband of your tights then, hooking his fingers under the elastic and dragging them down your hips slowly, pressing open-mouthed kisses to every inch of newly exposed skin. The tights peeled off like a second skin, the polka dots sliding away from the bruises he'd left, and he tossed them somewhere over his shoulder without looking. 

Your underwear followed, a scrap of black lace that he pulled down with his teeth, and the visual of it, Riki on his knees, his eyes dark and fixed on your face, his mouth dragging lace down your thighs, was enough to make your breath come in shallow, desperate pants.

"Ki, please—"

"Please what?" He settled between your legs, his breath warm against your inner thighs, his lips ghosting over the marks he'd left. "Tell me what you want, doll. You have a mouth for a reason."

"Your mouth. Please—I need—"

"What do you mean by please?" He pressed a kiss to your inner thigh, dangerously close to where you needed him, and his tongue darted out to taste the mark he'd left. 

The sensation was electric, warm and not nearly enough, and you squirmed beneath him, your hips lifting off the bed in silent pleading.

"I need your mouth on me. Please, Ki. Please, baby."

"Good girl." The words vibrated against your skin, and then his mouth was on you, and you stopped thinking entirely.

He was thorough. 

He was always thorough, Riki had never done anything half-heartedly in his life, and that included this, but tonight there was an edge to it, a hunger that bordered on desperation. His tongue was hot and precise, mapping every fold and curve with the focus of a cartographer charting new territory, and when he found the spot that made your back arch off the mattress, he stayed there, circling and pressing and sucking until you were making sounds you didn't recognise.

"Riki—oh god—Ki—"

He groaned against you, the vibration of it shooting through your body like a shockwave, and his hands gripped your thighs hard enough to leave fingerprint bruises alongside the bite marks. 

He was making noises too, low and guttural sounds that were half-moan and half-growl, the kind of sounds that came from a man who was losing himself in the taste of you, who couldn't stop even if he wanted to, who was drunk on champagne and jealousy and the sweetness of your body on his tongue.

"You taste so good," he murmured against you, his voice wrecked. "So fucking good, angel. My doll. Mine."

"Yours—ah—yours, baby, I'm—"

He didn't let you finish the sentence. His tongue flattened against you, broad and wet and relentless, and he licked into you with a determination that made your vision blur. Your glasses were completely fogged now, the lenses clouded with heat and moisture, and you reached up blindly to pull them off, tossing them somewhere on the nightstand, and the world went soft and dark at the edges. Not that you needed to see. You could feel every stroke of his tongue, every press of his lips, every sharp inhale he took between your legs like he was breathing you in.

The orgasm built slowly, a tightening coil in your lower belly that wound tighter with every stroke of his tongue. You could feel it approaching, cresting, your thighs shaking around his head, your fingers tangled in his hair, pulling him closer even though closer was physically impossible—

And then he stopped.

You made a sound of protest that was embarrassingly close to a sob, your hips chasing his mouth, but he pulled back just out of reach, his hands pressing your thighs down against the mattress. "Not yet," he said, and his voice was steady even though his lips were swollen and glistening and his chest was heaving. "You don't get to come yet."

"What—why—"

"Three." He said it simply, and the meaning crashed over you like cold water. Three. Three edges. Three denials. One for each time that man had touched your shoulder, one for each moment Riki had watched from across the room and done nothing. This was the reckoning.

"Riki, I can't—"

"You can." He pressed a kiss to the inside of your knee, gentle and reassuring. "You can, and you will. Because I asked you to. Because you're mine, and you're going to take what I give you, and you're going to be good for me. Can you do that, doll?"

Your eyes were stinging. Your body was thrumming with unresolved tension, every nerve ending screaming for release, and he was asking you to hold on, to wait, to endure. But the way he was looking at you, soft and dark and so full of love that it made your chest ache, made it impossible to say no.

"Yes," you whispered. "Yes, I can be good for you."

"My good girl." He smiled, and then he was moving, shedding his puffer jacket and pulling his sweater over his head, revealing the lean lines of his torso, broad shoulders tapering to a narrow waist, and the faint definition of his abs. He was beautiful. He was always beautiful, but like this, dishevelled and hungry and looking at you like you were the only thing keeping him tethered to the earth, he was absolutely devastating.

"Come here," you whispered, reaching for him, and he went.

He kissed you as he settled over you, his weight pressing you into the mattress, and you could taste yourself on his tongue, sweet and strange. His hands worked at the remaining pieces of your outfit, the jacket, the scarf, the mini-skirt, until you were bare beneath him, your skin flushed and dotted with the marks he'd already left, and he pulled back to look at you again.

"You're so beautiful," he said, and his voice cracked on the last word. "So fucking beautiful, and you're mine. Say it again."

"I'm yours, Ki."

"Again."

"I'm yours. Only yours. Always yours."

He kissed you harder, his hands roaming your body with a reverence that bordered on worship. He traced the curve of your waist, the swell of your hips, the dip of your collarbone, his touch feather-light and burning. "This body," he murmured against your jaw. "This body is mine. Every inch of it. Every curve. Every mark." 

His lips found your breast, his tongue circling your nipple, and you arched into the wet heat with a broken moan. "He can look all he wants. He can fix your glasses and adjust your clips and touch your shoulder until his fingers fall off. But at the end of the night, this—" He bit down gently on the swell of your breast, and you keened. "—this comes home to me."

"Yes—yes, baby, always—"

"Open your mouth for me, doll."

You did, without hesitation, without question, because you trusted him with every fibre of your being and because the look in his eyes right now, the raw and naked need, made it impossible to do anything but surrender. 

He shifted, his knees bracketing your shoulders, and you watched through half-lidded eyes as he freed himself from his jeans, the hard length of him bobbing heavily against his stomach.

He was big. 

You'd never gotten used to it — the first time you'd been together, you'd actually laughed, because what else were you supposed to do when confronted with something that looked like it belonged in a textbook? He'd been mortified until you'd explained, and then he'd been insufferably smug about it for approximately five weeks. Now, though, there was no laughter — only hunger, only want, only the desperate need to feel him in whatever way he'd give you.

"Tap my thigh if it's too much," he said, and his voice was gentle even though his hand was shaking where it gripped the headboard. "Okay?"

"Okay."

He pressed the head of his cock against your lips, and you opened wider, your tongue darting out to taste the salt of him, and the sound he made, a sharp, bitten-off groan that he tried to swallow and failed, sent a pulse of heat straight to your core. 

He pushed in slowly, inch by inch, giving you time to adjust, and you felt the stretch of him, the weight, the girth, the way he filled your mouth until your jaw ached with the effort of accommodating him.

"Fuck," he breathed. His head fell back, the long line of his throat exposed, his Adam's apple bobbing as he swallowed hard. "Fuck, doll, your mouth—"

You hummed around him, and his hips jerked forward, pushing himself deeper, and you fought your gag reflex bravely, your throat fluttering around the intrusion. He noticed, he always noticed, and his hand came down to cup your jaw, his thumb stroking your cheek in a gesture that was so tender it made your eyes water.

"You're doing so good," he said, and the praise washed over you like warm honey. "So good for me, angel. Taking me so well. My perfect girl."

He started to move then, shallow thrusts at first, letting you set the pace, but gradually deeper, faster, his hips rocking into your mouth with a rhythm that was steadily losing its restraint. 

The sounds he was making were obscene: low, rumbling moans that came from somewhere deep in his chest, punctuated by breathless curses and fragments of your name. He was vocal always, had been since the very beginning, the first time you'd been together he'd been so loud that his neighbour had pounded on the wall and he'd just laughed, breathless and unashamed, but tonight, with the champagne stripping away his inhibitions, he was practically singing.

"Ah—fuck, yes—just like that, doll—your mouth feels so—god—"

His hand fisted in your hair, not pulling, just holding, and his thrusts grew more erratic, his breathing more ragged, and you could feel him getting close, the way his muscles tensed, the way his moans pitched higher, the way his thighs trembled against your shoulders. 

But he pulled back before he could finish, his cock slipping from your lips with a wet sound that made you both groan, and he was breathing hard, his chest heaving, his eyes squeezed shut like he was physically holding himself together.

"Not yet," he said, more to himself than to you. "Not like that. I need—I need to be inside you when I come. Need to feel you."

He moved down your body, settling between your legs again, and this time when he kissed you, it was slow and deep and tasted like the two of you mixed together. 

You could feel him hot and hard against your stomach, the slick of him smearing across your skin, and you reached down to wrap your hand around him, but he caught your wrist and pinned it above your head.

"Patience," he murmured against your lips, and you whimpered because patience was the absolute last thing you had right now.

"I've been patient," you protested, and your voice came out wrecked, raw and hoarse from his cock in your throat and the moans you couldn't stop making. "Please, Ki—I've been so good—"

"You have," he agreed, and his free hand was sliding down your body, over the curve of your hip, between your legs, and his fingers found you dripping and swollen and so achingly sensitive that even the lightest touch made you jerk. "You've been so good for me, baby. My perfect, perfect girl. You deserve a reward, don't you?"

"Yes—please—"

He entered you in one long, slow thrust, and the sound you both made was identical, a broken, desperate moan that harmonised in the quiet of the bedroom. 

He filled you completely, the stretch of him bordering on too much and then settling into something that made your eyes roll back in your head, and he held himself there, buried to the hilt, his forehead pressed against yours, his breath coming in ragged pants.

"Feel that?" He rolled his hips, a slow grind that pressed against every sensitive spot inside you, and you sobbed. "That's mine. You're mine. Say it."

"I'm yours—fuck—I'm yours, Ki—"

He started to move then, really move, and the pace he set was punishing. Deep, hard thrusts that drove you up the mattress, each one punctuated by the slap of skin against skin and the wet sound of your bodies moving together. He was relentless, his hips snapping forward with a precision that spoke of barely contained control, and each thrust hit something inside you that made your vision go blank.

"This is mine," he gritted out, his hand sliding down to grip your hip hard enough to bruise. "This body—this pussy—all of it. Mine. Not his. Not anyone else's. Mine."

"Yours—only yours—baby, please—"

"Please what?" He shifted the angle, hitching your leg up over his hip, and the new position let him sink even deeper, and you heard yourself make a sound that was barely human, high and thin and desperate. "Please let you come? Is that what you want, doll?"

"Yes—yes, please, I need—"

"You need to wait." He thrust into you hard, and you screamed, and he swallowed the sound with his mouth, his tongue sweeping past your lips in a kiss that was all teeth and desperation. "Three, remember? You've had one. You need two more."

"I can't—I can't take it—"

"You can. You will." He pressed his forehead to yours, his eyes dark and molten, and his voice dropped to a whisper. "You're so strong, doll. So perfect. So beautiful. You can take anything I give you, and you'll thank me for it. Won't you?"

"Yes—yes, I'll thank you—thank you, Ki—"

"Good girl."

He kept moving, and you kept climbing, and just as the coil in your belly was about to snap for the second time, he pulled out. Stopped out of nowhere. 

The emptiness was unbearable, your body clenching around nothing, your hips chasing the friction that had been so cruelly denied, and the sound you made was a full-bodied sob that echoed off the walls.

"I know," he said, and his voice was gentle even though his hands were shaking. "I know, baby. I know it's hard. You're doing so well. Just one more."

"One more," you repeated, like a prayer. "One more. I can do one more."

"My good girl."

He pushed back in, and this time the thrusts were slower, not gentler, not by a long shot, but more deliberate, more controlled, each one a calculated assault on your senses. His hand found the spot between your legs, his thumb pressing in tight circles, and the sensation of him inside you and his fingers on you was too much. You were shaking, tears streaming down your temples into your hair, your hands fisted in the sheets so tightly that your knuckles were white.

"You're so beautiful like this," he said, and his voice was reverent, worshipful, like he was looking at something holy. "All teary and desperate and mine. Nobody else gets to see you like this. Nobody. Not the designers, not the buyers, not the men who think they can put their hands on you at events. This—" He thrust deep, grinding against you, and you keened. "—this shit is mine."

"Yours—only yours—Ki, please—"

"Please what?"

"Please let me come—I can't—I'm going to—I need—"

"Not yet." But his voice was strained, his own control fraying, and you could see it in the way his jaw clenched, the way his thrusts were becoming more erratic, the way his moans were pitching higher and more desperate. 

He was close too, you could feel it in the tension of his body, the way he was fighting his own release alongside yours, and the realization that he was denying himself as much as he was denying you made something hot and tight twist in your chest.

"Ki—"

"One more, doll. Give me one more. You can do it. I know you can."

He changed the angle again, deeper now, impossibly deep, the head of his cock pressing against your cervix with each thrust, and the pleasure was so intense it bordered on pain. You were beyond words now, beyond coherent thought, reduced to a creature of pure sensation, every nerve ending firing, every muscle trembling, your entire being focused on the point where his body met yours.

He pulled out again.

The third denial was the worst. Or the best. You couldn't tell anymore. You were sobbing openly, your body wracked with tremors, your thighs shaking around his hips, and when you reached for him, your hands were so weak that you could barely grip his shoulders. The orgasm that had been building for what felt like hours was hovering just out of reach, a wave that had crested but hadn't yet broken, and the frustration was so acute it was almost its own kind of pleasure.

"I can't—" you wept. "Ki, baby, please—I can't take another one—please, I need to come—I need—"

"I know," he said, and this time his voice broke on the words. "I know, doll. You've been so good. So perfect. So patient. You took all three so beautifully. My good girl. My perfect, perfect girl."

He thrust back in, and this time there was no stopping. No pulling out. No denial. Just the relentless, punishing rhythm of his hips and the pressure of his thumb on your clit and the sound of his voice in your ear, low and rough and so full of love that it made your chest hurt.

"Come for me," he said, and it was a command and a plea and a prayer all at once. "Come for me, doll. Let go. I've got you. I've always got you."

You came.

It hit you like a wall of light, blinding, all-consuming, every muscle in your body seizing at once as the orgasm that had been denied three times finally, finally crashed over you. 

You were aware of screaming his name, of your nails raking down his back, of your body arching off the bed so violently that he had to pin you down with his weight, and the pleasure was so intense that for a long, terrifying moment, you couldn't see or hear or think, you could only feel, every cell in your body exploding and reforming and exploding again.

He followed you over the edge a moment later, his hips stuttering, his breath catching, and then he was spilling into you with a groan that seemed to come from the very marrow of his bones. 

You felt the warmth of it, the pulse of him inside you, the way his body shuddered with each wave, the raw, animal sound of his release, and it triggered another smaller orgasm in you, your walls clenching around him in aftershocks that made you both gasp.

He didn't pull out. He couldn't. His body had given out the moment the orgasm hit, and he collapsed on top of you with his full weight, his face buried in the crook of your neck, his breath coming in ragged, shuddering gasps that you could feel against your sweat-damp skin. 

You held him, your arms wrapping around his back, your fingers tracing the scratch marks you'd left, thin red lines that would be visible tomorrow if he took his shirt off, and you pressed kisses to whatever part of him you could reach: his temple, his hairline, the shell of his ear.

"I love you," you whispered, and your voice was wrecked—raw and hoarse and barely audible. "I love you so much, Ki."

"I love you too." His voice was muffled against your neck, thick and slow and sleepy, the champagne and the orgasm hitting him all at once. "I love you more than anything. You know that, right?"

"I know."

"Good." He pressed a lazy kiss to your pulse point, and you felt him smile against your skin. "Mine."

"Yours."

The silence that followed was warm and comfortable, the kind of silence that could only exist between two people who had just dismantled each other completely and were now lying in the wreckage, too spent to move but too content to care. The heater hummed in the corner. The snow was falling outside the window, visible in the glow of the streetlight, and somewhere in the distance, a car alarm went off and was ignored.

Eventually, Riki shifted, just enough to lift his head and look at you, his eyes heavy-lidded and soft and so full of affection that it made your heart do something embarrassing in your chest. 

"Hey," he said.

"Hello to you too."

"Are you okay?"

"Mm." You stretched, wincing at the soreness that was already settling into your muscles, and you shifted your legs experimentally, and that was when you saw them.

The marks.

What the fuck.

You propped yourself up on your elbows, looking down at your body, and the sight that greeted you made your breath catch. 

Your inner thighs were a patchwork of bruises, the bite marks from earlier, already darkening into deep purple and blue, overlapping and intersecting like some kind of abstract painting. 

Your hips were fingerprinted, ten small crescents where his hands had gripped you. 

Your breasts bore the faint impression of his teeth, and your collarbone — well. It looked like you'd been attacked by a very determined vampire.

"Oh my god," you breathed.

Riki followed your gaze, and the satisfied smile that spread across his face was entirely unapologetic. "Oh my god?" he repeated, his tone incredulous. "That's all you have to say?"

"Riki, there are—there are marks everywhere."

"That was kind of the point, doll."

"I know, but—" You shifted again, wincing as the bruises on your thighs pressed against the mattress, and then a thought struck you that was equal parts mortified and relieved. "Oh, thank god it's winter."

Riki raised an eyebrow. "Thank god it's winter?"

"So I don't have to head out in shorts twenty-four-seven," you explained, gesturing at the constellation of bruises decorating your thighs. "I mean, can you imagine? I'd walk into the office and my team would think I'd been attacked by a wild animal."

"A very handsome wild animal," Riki corrected, and you laughed.

"A very handsome wild animal who can't control his teeth," you amended.

"I control them just fine. I placed every single one of those marks with intent." He pressed a kiss to your shoulder, then another to the mark on your collarbone, his lips warm and lingering. "And besides, baby, you won't need to worry about shorts. I just washed and prepared your maxi skirts, especially the denim one your mom reworked, so thank me later."

You stared at him. "You did what?"

"Washed your maxi skirts." He said it casually, like it was the most normal thing in the world, like he hadn't just confessed to doing your laundry — which he never did, not because he was unwilling but because you were particular about the way your garments were handled and he'd once shrunk a cashmere sweater and you'd made a face so tragic that he'd sworn off laundry duty entirely. "The denim one is hanging on the back of the bathroom door. I air-dried it like you showed me. And the grey wool one is in the closet, third hanger from the left."

"You, Nishimura Riki, washed my skirts. By hand. And air-dried them."

"Yes." He blinked at you, all innocent and earnest, like he wasn't lying there with love bites covering his throat and your lipstick still smudged on his jaw. "Is that... is that weird?"

"No." Your voice came out thick, and you realised with a start that you were getting emotional, over laundry, of all things, but it wasn't really about the laundry, was it? 

It was about the fact that this man, the same man who had marked you like a territorial wolf not fifteen minutes ago, had also spent time carefully hand-washing your skirts because he knew, somehow, that you'd need them. That he'd thought ahead. That he'd taken care of you in ways that were quiet and domestic and so fundamentally him that it made your eyes sting again. 

"It's not weird," you said again, softer this time, and you cupped his face in your hands and kissed him, slow and deep and full of a love so enormous that you couldn't possibly contain it. "It's the opposite of weird. It's the most thoughtful thing anyone has ever done for me."

"Now who's being dramatic," he murmured against your lips, but he was smiling, and you could feel the way his chest expanded with the kind of quiet pride that he'd never admit to out loud.

"Thank you, Ki."

"You're welcome, baby." He shifted, pulling out of you with a wince that matched yours, and the absence of him left you feeling empty and cold and aching in ways that were both physical and emotional. 

He reached for the duvet, pulling it over both of you, and gathered you against his chest like you were something precious and breakable and infinitely worth protecting.

"Hey," you said, your voice muffled against his skin.

"Hm?"

"Next time someone flirts with me at an event and I don't notice, you have my full permission to come over and be insane about it."

He laughed, the kind that shook his whole body and made the bed creak. "You're going to regret saying that."

"Probably." You smiled against his chest, your fingers tracing lazy patterns on his skin. "But at least I'll have the maxi skirts to cover the evidence."

"The denim one especially," he said, and you could hear the grin in his voice. "Your mom did a great job on it. The hem is perfect."

"You’re so weird."

"You love it."

"Yeah." You pressed a kiss to the centre of his chest, right over his heart, and felt it beat steady and strong against your lips. "Yeah, I really do."

Outside, the snow kept falling, blanketing the city in white, and inside, under the warmth of the duvet and the weight of each other, you fell asleep to the sound of his breathing and the knowledge that tomorrow, when you pulled on that reworked denim maxi skirt, the marks on your thighs would press against the fabric like a secret — yours and his and nobody else's.

When Riki handed you your glasses from the nightstand the next morning, his fingers lingering on the frames just a moment too long, you thought about the way he'd looked at you when you'd put them on the night before, like you were the only person in the room, in the city, in the world, and you smiled, and you didn't bother wondering whether the man from the event would reach out, because it didn't matter. 

None of it mattered. 

The only hands that would ever touch you like that, the only hands that had the right, were the ones currently reaching for the coffee maker, still clumsy with sleep, still wearing the scratch marks on his back like a badge of honour.

"Hey, baby?" Riki called from the kitchen, his voice rough with morning and fondness.

"Yes?"

"The tights—are they hand-wash only? Because I may have like… thrown them on the floor last night, and I want to make sure I don't ruin them when I pick them up."

You laughed, bright and so full of love it hurt, and you padded barefoot into the kitchen, your bruises hidden under the oversized sweater you'd stolen from his closet, and you kissed him until the coffee went cold and the snow outside melted into slush and the whole world narrowed down to this: his mouth on yours, his hands on your waist, his heart beating against your palms.

"Hand-wash only," you murmured. "Cold water. Lay flat to dry."

"I'll add it to the list," he said, and he smiled, the one that was just for you, and you thought, not for the first time and certainly not for the last, that you were the luckiest woman alive.

And the polka dot tights, when you finally retrieved them from the bedroom floor, were perfectly fine, ready for the next event, the next outfit, the next time Riki would look at you across a crowded room and know, with absolute certainty, that you were his.

Just as he was yours.

⭐ ⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

标签 : @simsimluver @maishee @grdientlips @yejisair777 @kristynaaah @heesroses @vmpiricou @seungiesdoll @malibluess @stwryun @hooniluhv @rikisn @hazeheart12 @exclipszz @melancholatte @bluepains @gojopolo @jasmineeeee1009 @ming1luvr @ni-k1ttie @enzsstuff01 @ixnotmee @emvss @simjaeyunslut @luvlyjaemin @kikizzz0 @ilovhoonie @starboyhee @prettygirlthings-world @jaesim @luv4dani @perristar @bkatarina @fialtorelle | send an ask if you’d like to be added ˙𐃷˙

💿 ࿐ . . moonlight by kali uchis

✷ NOTE : thank you all so, so much for reading ! i hope you enjoyed this little world for a while ♡ all of this is purely a work of fiction & doesn’t reflect reality at all . . likes, reblogs, and feedback are deeply cherished and very, very appreciated on here !