she sighed dramatically, reaching out to hold his hand. “you know how it is… my body gets so stressed these days. the doctor said my heart rate keeps spiking—but it’s only because i worry too much about this family.”

she gave his hand a gentle squeeze, her thumb brushing over his knuckle. “but seeing you now… i already feel much better.”

sunghoon let out a soft chuckle, shaking his head. “are you stressed again? you promised me last time you’d take it easy.” his voice dropped into that gentle, concerned son in law, half doctor tone. “you can’t keep ending here. i’ll have to start making house calls.”

the older woman just laughed softly, her eyes lingering on her daughter’s husband's handsome face. “sure, sure. sooha is so lucky to have such a caring husband like you, sunghoon.”

the doctor just chuckled, before turning slightly to face you standing there by the curtain—tablet in hand, wearing your pretty little pink fitted nurse uniform, hair neatly tied in a bun.

“oh,” he said smoothly, placing his larger hand lightly on your lower back to bring you forward. “this is my nurse, yn. i assigned her to your case so she can keep a close eye on you when i’m not around.”

his palm stayed pressed against your lower back the entire time, fingers subtle stroking the fabric of your uniform in small, slow circles no one else could see. the heat from his hand seeped through the thin material.

mrs. kim smiled at you, tilting her head. “aw, you’re such a young and pretty one. how old are you, dear? you look too fresh to be working here.”

you bowed your head, trying to ignore the way your doctor’s thumb was now slowly tracing your spine. “thank you, ma’am… i’m only in my mid 20’s now.”

“only? so young and already so capable,” she said kindly, though her attention quickly drifted back to sunghoon. “i should’ve told sooha to take nursing too…”

you and sunghoon gave each other a look.

sunghoon just hummed in response, his hand still not moving from your back. in fact, he stepped a little closer to you, his body heat now brushing against your side as he pretended to check the monitor beside the bed.

“right—yn’s very capable, mom,” he murmured, fingers brushing over the tubing. his other fingers pressed a little firmer into your lower back, almost possessively. “very attentive. she’ll take care of you well.”

the way he said the last word made your thighs clench involuntarily. 

his mother in law only chuckled, completely unaware of the tension crackling between the two of you. “well, if that’s how it is—then i feel much safer now.”

sunghoon smiled, finally sliding his hand down a few inches before he pulled it away.

“then yn, i’ll leave her to your care,” he turned to you with a soft smile. with his eyes still on you, he hummed. “i’ll come back later at night to check up on you.”

——

later that night, the hospital corridor lights had dimmed to the soft glow. the ward was quiet except for occasional beep of monitors. 

you were helping mrs. kim settle into bed for the night—fluffing her pillow, adjusting the bed level, making sure her iv line wasn’t tangled. not the usual nurse duty, but this is the mother in law of of the chairman’s grandson, for gods sakes. 

she’d been restless for the past hour.

as you tucked the blanket to her, mrs. kim suddenly groaned in pain, her face twisting. “... my chest feels tight again. it hurts…”

you immediately moved closer, gently placing a hand on her shoulder. “it’s okay. take slow breaths for me—i’m right here.”

she let out another soft groan, clutching the blanket. you checked her vitals, then spoke in a calm, soothing voice: “i’ll be in this room the whole night, so don’t worry at all. if the pain gets worse or you need anything, just call my name. i’ll be sitting right there on the couch beside your bed, okay?”

mrs. kim exhaled shakily and gave you a smile. “thank you, hun.”

after giving her some pain relief medication as per the chart and dimming the bedside lamp, you moved to the small couch near the window—you sat down with your laptop, updating notes, doing tasks.

the room fell into a heavy silence, only accompanied by mrs. kim’s occasional soft groans as she fall asleep. 

twenty minutes passed. 

then the door to the private ward clicked openly.

sunghoon stepped inside, still in his white coat, tie slightly loosened. his eyes scanned the darkened room before they landed on you sitting on the couch. a smirk tugged at his lips when he saw you there—his pretty little nurse sitting there with your legs crossed.

he closed the door behind him with a soft click.

“everything alright?” he asked, voice low so as not to wake his mother in law.

you nodded. “i just gave her some acetaminophen earlier.”

sunghoon walked closer, stopping just inches away from where you’re sitting. his tall frame towered over yours as he glanced at his mother in law sleeping form, then back to you. the dim night light cast shadows across his face.

without a word, he leaned down, placing both hands on the armrests of the couch, caging you in. his face was close to yours, and you could smell his clean cologne mixed with the scent of hospital.

“well… what about you?” he murmured, voice deep.

you tilted your head slightly. “what about me?”

sunghoon’s gaze dropped to your lips for a second before returning to your eyes. his arms flexed slightly as he leaned in closer, lips brushing the shell of your ear.

“how are you doing?”

a small, shy smile tugged at your lips as you moved your head to whisper back, “aside form missing you… i’m just really bored, i guess.”

the moment the words left your mouth, you felt the shift in him. a low, satisfied hum rumbled in his chest before one of his hands slowly slid up your thigh, fingers slipping under the hem of your pink uniform.

“bored?” he breathed against your ear. “that’s a shame. i’ve been thinking about you all day.”

his fingers continued their slow ascent, teasing the soft skin of your inner thigh as his mother in law slept just a few meters away. his other hand stayed planted on the armrest, keeping you trapped beneath him.

“taking care of my mother in law like i asked…” his lips ghosted along your jaw. you brought your arms up to wrap around his neck, pulling him in. “maybe i should reward you for being so good.”

his hand moved higher, fingertips brushing close to the edge of your panties just beneath your waistband. 

“tell me… how quiet can you be?”

without another word, sunghoon cupped your face with his other hand and kissed you.

it wasn’t gentle. 

his lips claimed yours instantly, deep and desperate from the long hours of work—starving for you. you whimpered softly into his mouth as he tilted your head back, kissing you harder, tongue sliding against yours with wet, heated strokes. the quiet sounds of your lips meeting filled the dim room—soft and filthy. 

“i missed you too,” your doctor whispered between kisses, voice rough. “fuck, i miss you every day, baby.”

sunghoon kissed you again, slower this time, pouring every unspoken feeling into it. his other hand slid into your hair, loosening your neat bun until strands fell around your face. you clutched the front of his white coat, pulling him closer, hearts bearing wildly against each other.

while his tongue tangled with yours, sunghoon’s slender fingers moved down to the front of your pink nurse uniform. one by one, he popped the buttons open, knuckles brushing over the swell of your breasts as the fabric parted. he groaned quietly into your mouth when he saw your lazy bra underneath. 

“so fucking pretty…” he breathed, kissing you deeper as he tugged the uniform open wider, exposing your chest and stomach to the aircond. his palm slid inside, cupping your breast over the lace, thumb stroking your nipple until it hardened under his touch.

you moaned softly against his lips—and he swallowed the sound, kissing you like he wished to devour you whole. 

“you have no idea how crazy you make me,” sunghoon kissed the corner of your mouth, then your jaw, down your neck while his hands roamed freely over your bare skin. another button came undone—until your uniform was completely open down the front, hanging off your shoulders. 

sunghoon pulled back to look at you—flushed, lips swollen, uniform undone, chest rising and falling. his gaze was full of love and lust. 

“god, you’re mine,” he whispered, leaning in to kiss you again, pecking all over your cheek and jaw—eliciting a soft giggle out of you. “mine, aren’t you?” he hummed, lips brushing your ear as he kissed you there too. “say it, baby.”

“i’m yours,” you breathed, tipping your head back. “only yours, hoonie.”

even with his wife’s mother sleeping just a few feet away, there was no guilt in his eyes—only that shameless hunger he always had for you. you two had long stopped pretending this was just an affair—not when it felt real. too real. 

sunghoon kissed you once more on the lips then stood up, straight in front of the couch. the bulge in his slacks was obvious, straining against the fabric. without saying a word, sunghoon looked down at you with dark, expectant eyes and slowly unbuckled his belt. 

the quiet clink of metal made your tummy flutter. 

you didn’t need instructions. you pulled his zipper down and freed his hard cock—it sprang out heavy and thick, the tip already glistening with precum.

“fuck… look at it—” he murmured, one hand gently cradling the back of your head. “look how hard i am for you.”

you leaned in and pressed a soft kiss to the head before wrapping your lips around him, taking him into your warm, wet mouth. sunghoon let out a quiet, shaky breath, jaw clenching as you started sucking him slowly. 

“that’s it, shit… just like that,” he whispered, stroking your hair. his other hand rested on your cheek, thumb brushing your skin tenderly. you hummed around his cock, the vibration making his hips twitch. he kept his eyes on you the entire time—watching your pretty lips stretch around him, lashes fluttering, eyes twitching as you tried taking him as deep as you could.

your uniform still wide open and exposing your tits as you move your head. 

sunghoon gently began rocking his hips, fucking your mouth with slow, deep thrusts, whispering soft praises the whole time. 

“my girl. shit—your mouth feels s’good.”

he groaned quietly, fingering tightening in your hair as you took him even deeper, eyes watering but never breaking eye contact. it’s always hard to give sunghoon a blowjob—not with his size, and now with how hard it is to fit him in your mouth fully.

his hips twitched as he fought the urge to thrust deeper down and fuck your throat. your warm mouth worked him so perfectly.

“baby—fuck, wait,” he brathed, gently pulling you off his cock with a wet pop. a string of saliva connected your swollen lips to his throbbing tip. your eyebrows pinched in confusion, looking up at him. sunghoon breathed in hard, tugging down on his lip. “not yet. i don’t wanna cum in your mouth tonight.”

he helped you up and kissed you filthily, tasting himself on your tongue as he walked you backward. in one motion, sunghoon turned you around and bent you over the armrest of the couch.

sunghoon pushed your chest down against the couch cushion, arching your back nicely so your ass was up and presented to him. he stood behind you, one hand gripping your hip while the other slowly pushed your pants and panties down your thighs. 

the position was nasty—risky as hell. mrs. kim was sleeping just a few metres away, and if she woke up even a little, she’d have a clear, first hand view of her son in law fucking his nurse from behind like this.

holy fuck—that’s hot.

sunghoon wrapped his hand around the base, rubbing his thick cockhead between your wet folds, coating himself in your slick. they kissed like lovers too—a string of juice connected from the lips to the tip.

“‘m so wet for you, hoonie,” you moaned, pussy twitching in neediness. sunghoon chuckled, leaning over your back and pressing a kiss between your shoulder blades. “really?” he hummed in satisfactory, nudging his cockhead to your entrance.

“my pretty little nurse is this soaked just from sucking me off?” 

he kept rubbing the head in slow, filthy circles, pressing it against your hole only to pull back again, making you whimper in frustration. you pushed your ass back against him. 

“please…” you whispered, voice shaking. “i need you inside me already.”

sunghoon kissed the back of your neck, licking a stripe of it. “my mother in law’s sleeping just right there, baby,” he whispered against your neck, clearly enjoying how shameless you both were. “you really do love this cock more than anything, don’t you?”

you groaned softly, hips twitching. “s—stop teasing… i love you more, hoonie.”

with a soft grunt from him at that confession, he finally pushed the head in—stretching you open before pulling out again, repeating the motion until your thighs trembled, and until your pussy was ready to take him whole.

“fuck, you’re so cute when you’re this needy,” he whispered, burying himself deep inside you, stretching your walls around his thick length. you both moaned quietly—yours muffled into the couch cushion, his against the back of your neck. 

“so big, you’re s’big,” you whimpered, fingers clutching the fabric. sunghoon groaned, pressing his lips against your skin. “no, baby—you’re just too tight… pussy made for me.”

your doctor started fucking you with deep, steady strokes, pulling almost all the way out before slamming back in, the wet sounds of your bodies connecting obscenely loud in the quiet hospital room. 

your tits were pressed against the couch as he railed you from behind. sunghoon leaned over you, one hand gripping your hip while the other reached around to rub your clit in tight circles. 

“you’re fucking dripping, baby,” he breathed hotly against your ear, hips snapping harder. “i can hear how sloppy your pussy is for me.”

you could only moan in response, pushing your ass back to meet his thrusts, just as horny and addicted as he was to you. every deep stroke hit that perfect spot inside, making your eyes roll back.

sunghoon bit down on your shoulder, leaving love and teeth marks as he picked up the pace, fucking you a little harder. 

“i love you so much,” he rasped, pounding his confession into you. “i don’t give a fuck about anything else, right now.”

your pussy convulsed around his cock, wrapping around him like a vice. sunghoon straightened up slightly, gripping both your hips now as he started giving you nastier strokes—pulling you back onto his cock with every thrusts and watching the way your ass rippled against his pelvis. 

you’re trying so hard to stay quiet, but it felt too good. “hoonie,, fuck—” you moaned breathily. “you’re so deep… i can feel you so deep inside me.”

“yeah?” he groaned, pounding into your harder until he swore the couch was going to move. “you like that, baby?”

before you could answer, mrs. kim let out a low groan in her sleep, shifting slightly under the blanket. you both froze for a second, hearts pounding. sunghoon didn’t pull out. instead, he stayed buried balls–deep inside you, slowly grinding his cock against your walls. 

when his mother in law settled again, you whimpered desperately.

“hoonie, i’m so wet it’s dripping down,” you whispered, hips trembling. “i get so horny when you’re around.” 

sunghoon cursed under his breath at your filthy words. he suddenly pulled out, making you whine at the emptiness—only to turn you around. he sat on the couch and pulled you onto his lap, back against his chest.

your eyes widened—legs spread wide over his thighs as he lined himself up and sank you back down onto his cock. the new position made him feel even bigger.

he wrapped one arm around your waist, the other groped your tits, squeezing and kneading them roughly as he started fucking up into you.

“fuck, i love these tits s’much,” he groaned, lips attacking your neck. he kissed you sloppily, tongue sliding into your mouth as he bounced you on his cock. “i get so pissed off when i think of you doing checkups on men,”

—which was the reason why you became his nurse.

you moaned into the kiss, grinding down on him. your hand held his arm around your waist, the other snaked up to cup his head. “hoonie, ngh—s—she’s going to wake up any time now,” you panted between kisses.

sunghoon shook his head. “it’s fine, she won’t.” he reassured so confidently, one hand massaging and pinching your nipples while the other slid between your legs to rub your clit. 

the overstimulation was sending you up to the clouds—sunghoon kept hitting your cervix, his textured cock dragging against your velvety walls. “fuck, right there,” your head fall back against his shoulder. “i—i’m going to cum, hngh—babe”

“do it—cum on my cock,” he rasped against your ear, thrusting up harder. “let me feel this pussy squeeze me.”

“i love you—shit, i love you,” you whimpered, toes curling inwards.

sunghoon groaned deeply, fucking you deep and fast till your tits bounced in his hand.

“i’m close,” he panted, forehead against your shoulder. “‘m gonna cum inside you, baby. want me to fill this pretty pussy up?”

“yes—yesyesyesyes, please,” you whimpered, holding the back of your knees to steady yourself. “cum inside me, hoonie. want it so bad—want you s’bad.”

sunghoon squeezed your cheeks to make you face him—kissing you hard, tongues messily sliding together as his thrusts turned short, desperate, and deep. his other hand kept rubbing your clit, tugging the little pea.

mrs. kim groaned softly again in her sleep, but neither of you stopped. sunghoon just fucked you harder, the wet slapping sounds getting louder. 

“fuck—i’m cumming,” he graoned against your mouth. “take it all, baby. take my cum—”

with a deep, shaky thrust, sunghoon buried himself as deep as possible and came hard. thick, warm ropes of cum spilled inside you, pulse after pulse, filling you up completely. he kept grinding, pushing his load deeper while kissing you through his orgasm, moaning into each others’ mouths.

you whimpered at the feeling of being so full, clenching around him as you came right after, pussy milking every last drop.

the doctor stayed inside you even after he finished, breathing heavily as he pressed soft kisses to the side of your cheek.

“i love you,” he hummed, nuzzling into the warmth of your neck. his cum slowly leaking out around his cock.

——

“alright—! you’re all good, mrs. kim!” you smiled, handing the papers to her. “blood pressure is stable, vitals are normal. you can go home today.”

sunghoon smiled as well, standing next to you. “no more being stressed over small things, yeah, mom?” 

mrs. kim sighed in relief, but then her face scrunched up slightly.

“thank you, hun… but ugh… i think i had such a strange nightmare last night,” she muttered, rubbing her temple. “is this hospital haunted or something, sunghoon? i kept hearing weird sounds… it felt so real. did you hear it, yn?”

the two of you froze. 

a brief, knowing look passed between you two. the corner of sunghoon’s lips twitched upward into the tiniest smirk before he quickly hid it with the back of his hand.

you bit the inside of your cheek to stop yourself from smiling.

“n—no? not at all… there were no such sounds, mrs. kim…” you replied, shaking your head.

sunghoon cleared his throat. “...ah, hospitals can be noisy at night. don’t worry about it, mom. get plenty of rest at home—i’ll come visit soon.”

she nodded obliviously, smiling. 

“about time, hm? sooha’s always complaining how lonely she is,” she shook her head, teasing. then, mrs. kim turned to you, extending her arm to rub your forearm. “thank you for taking care of me. i’ll invite you to dinner, sometime soon.”

you nodded, blood creeping up your cheeks. you held her hand fondly, shaking it. 

“i’ll look forward to it.”

"...in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, do you promise to be faithful? To love him and to honour him all the days of your life?" "I do."

You'd waited for it since you were a young girl. To walk down the aisle, daylight seeping through stained-glass, in a dress of pure white. You'd imagined your hand in his, fingers intertwined, warmly encompassed in safety and certainty—your shared kiss in the chapel, a declaration of your promise not only to him, but to God. A husband, a family, love. The life every good girl prayed for. You prayed for it too, with your hands folded, head bowed, voice steady. But what you imagined most, in the silence after the amen, was the thing no prayer could sanctify. "...But each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death."

Your Sunday school teacher had read the verse aloud with the patient severity of someone delivering a warning she hoped you'd never need. She'd looked at you, it seemed, and said that desire was a seed planted in the heart, that what began as a thought could grow into something monstrous, that a woman who let lust take root would one day reap a harvest of ruin. You'd nodded, hands neatly folded on the desk, terrified by the image of something dark and living growing inside you. You'd tried not to think about the heat already stirring in places you had no name for, the tiny seed you could already feel pressing against the soil of your heart, waiting to split open.

The truth was that while other girls spoke of their desires for true love, for the miracle of childbirth, and motherhood, you desired something too shameful to say aloud. Your mind always drifted to the impure. Instead of exchanging vows, you dreamed of how your future husband would lay you down the night after your wedding. You'd thought of how his hands would feel pressed against your bare skin, always hidden under long skirts and sleeves—his lips, worshiping you in places no good girl should dream of. How he'd relieve that ever present ache between your legs that never seemed to dissipate and claim your innocence. You'd thought of it so much, it began to rot you from the inside.

Many times, you'd held back tears during Sunday service, ashamed of the filth that plagued your mind in the holy place of worship of all places. The hymns would rise around you—Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus Dominus Deus Sabaoth—and you'd mouth the words while your thoughts drifted to the heat of an imagined touch, the weight of a body you'd never felt. You'd clench your thighs beneath your Sunday dress and beg God, silently, desperately, to scrub your mind clean.

In your sleepless nights, to avoid temptation, you'd rise from the bed, hands clasped together in prayer before your bedroom window. You'd leave it wide open, in hopes that the frigid wind would cool down the heat inside you. And though you trembled in your nightgown, goosebumps on every surface of your skin, it could never quite quell the fire that never burned out.

At first, you prayed for it to stop. You prayed for purity. Then, you prayed for numbness, believing you'd rather feel nothing at all. Alas, God granted neither, and you began to question which of the two dawning terrors was more catastrophic: the possibility that He wasn't listening at all, or the possibility that He simply did not care.

You knelt until your knees were bruised, you whispered prayers until they turned into sobbing pleas for mercy. There was only so much you could take until you began to lose faith—not just in God, but in yourself.

It was only then, in a moment of desperation, of utter helplessness, that you pleaded for something else:

"I beg of you," you whispered into the night, and whether it reached God, or for something else entirely, you did not care anymore. "If you cannot make this feeling stop, then I beg for relief." Through the white curtains, you felt a presence. There was no face, no silhouette, no sound other than the howling wind. Yet, you looked up, as if to meet someone's gaze. As if something stood there, watching you. A chill ran down your spine, and not as a result of the winter air seeping into your bones. You don't remember a voice. You do, however, remember a silent promise: relief, in exchange for you, eternally. Eternity. You knew what it meant. Heaven. Hell. The soul's unending life before God or in exile from Him. You were old enough to know better. Desperate enough not to care.

Every night, then after, he came to you in dreams. You envisioned bits and pieces: a tall silhouette, cold fingertips, an ever-present stare. You saw visions of your own blood dripping down your neck, staining your night clothes. You felt his sharp teeth pierce your flesh as he ravaged you, corrupted you, made a sin of your body and had you begging for more every single time.

Your eyes rolled back in ecstasy, your fingers curled around your bedsheets, and when it finished, you awoke in a cold sweat. You, alone. Your window, closed. And your body, still untouched, still sacred despite the obscene wetness between your thighs, and the way your body trembled from the aftermath of your high.

Relieved, you were, to no longer repress your lustful urges. Horrified, you were, to realize you'd given into your darkest desires, pleasure coaxed out of you by the hands of something sinister.

"Look at you. My beautiful wife." Jake hovers atop you, the cross at his neck hovering just above your face. Everything was as god intended. Two untouched children of the lord, about to make love on their marital bed, in a home they should hope to raise a family in. For the first time in many nights, the moonlight didn't feel so unholy. "My beautiful husband," you mirror his adoration, heart beating so fast you fear it might leap out of your chest. "I love you." His fingers lace with yours, his palms clammy and shaking. He's nervous, as are you. He'd told you as much before you even reached the bed. "I love you, too," he whispers.

He leans down to kiss you, different from the kiss you shared in the chapel. No longer did you have to settle for quick, chaste pecks. You feel his tongue, his desperation, years of pent-up desire reaching its limit.

Hand still interlocked with yours, he enters you slow and restrained, a gasp leaving his lips, as it does yours.

Everything is as it should be. As God said it should be. You should be overcome with joy. The world should still around you, heaven should open, and some sacred part of you should be remade forever.

It doesn't. The reality is much quieter. A body receiving another body, and nothing more.

Instead, you feel discomfort—sharp and immediate. And it’s not just the physical kind that mothers warn their daughters about before their wedding nights. Your skin crawls, your stomach tightens, and suddenly the world is collapsing. Everything aches. Your head, your heart, the space between your thighs where your body refuses to yield, refuses to feel, refuses to let you forget even for a moment that you belong to something else.

You can't help but think that your husband, basking in his euphoric glow, deserves someone untainted.

Tears stream down your cheeks before you can choke them back, and at the immediate sight of it, he pulls out of you. Cradling you in his arms, he soothes you, gently asks if he’s hurt you. If there’s anything he can do. You shake your head, your sobs turning to whispered apologies.

He holds you close all night, and you cling to him like you're trying to crawl under his skin, hoping Jake will shield you from the inevitable terrors of the night. Because you know, deep down, even after all of this, you'll still feel its presence in your dreams. Its cold, harsh grasp, its teeth, its predatory gaze.

But tonight, the boundary between dream and waking feels thin. As you lie awake, Jake softly snoring at your side, you feel it. That presence. That feeling you've never been able to explain, something better described as an instinct or a sixth sense. Through the window, half-lidded and drifting, you search for reassurance. Instead, you find a pair of eyes in the dark. A shadow, watching you. You jerk upright, heart hammering, but in the blink of an eye, with a flicker of movement, you find nothing.

“Sweetheart?” You hear Jake's groggy voice at your side, an arm tugging at yours, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, just…” Your breath rises and falls, watching the tree branches drift with the howling wind, watching the snow pile up on the edge of the window. “Thought I saw something.”

He pulls you back down to the bed, kisses pressed to the back of your neck. You allow yourself to relax in his arms, the weight of slumber pulling you under.

You make it through the night. You always do. And this time, you wake up in a pair of warm, loving arms, rather than the shivering cold of your childhood twin bed, which you'd been accustomed to for years. You're thankful at least that in spite of your nightmares, your husband is a daydream.

A week was all you had for a honeymoon, if you could even call it that.

You'd told each other you didn't need a vacation. A honeymoon seemed frivolous when you already had everything you wanted: a house, a ring, a future together. You told each other there would be time for travel later. You have forever, after all.

So, straight into your new home you were, ready to build your life together. Your two weeks of time together were mostly spent unpacking boxes and pretending to help your husband build IKEA furniture. Really, you were mostly there to gawk at how attractive he looks when he gets mad at poorly designed instruction manuals.

Though the time slips through your fingers, and suddenly there are no more late mornings tangled in his arms, slow afternoons with nowhere to be, and evenings fumbling in the dark, learning the strange and sacred shape of intimacy.

You'd come to depend on the safety of his presence, the way his breathing beside you kept the dreams at bay. Selfishly, desperately, you did not want to lose it.

"Please don't leave," you whine like a child, rising from the bed.

He adjusts his tie in the full-length mirror at the corner of your bedroom, and your hands snake around his waist from behind, fingers clawing into the fabric of his shirt. You bury your face into his back, just breathing in his presence before you knew it'd inevitably slip away.

"And miss my first day at the office?" He chuckles, an amused smile playing at his lips.

Finished with his tie, he takes your hands, twirling you once before pulling you against him. His mouth finds your neck, then your jaw, then your lips. You melt into the shape of him, this body you're still learning, still marvelling at. But he pulls away all too soon.

"I can't support my wife and our future kids if I get myself fired."

"I know," you pout, following him out of the room, into the hall, hand still grasping his. "But what am I supposed to do here all alone?"

The question is smaller than the fear beneath it. While it is true that here, alone in a new neighbourhood without any real housework to be done yet, you're at a loss with what to do with your time, you both know the real reason why you're gripping his fingers like a child at the school gates: Your terrors, your anxieties and your skittish nature, once soothed and coddled by your parents, had now become Jake's responsibility to tend to, and you are petrified of being alone with your thoughts for the first time in your life.

"You could call your family?" He glances back at you as you both descend the stairs, his hand sliding along the banister.

"My mom has called me every day since the wedding," you deadpan.

He huffs a laugh and turns into the front hall. You reach the coat rack before he does, fetching his coat while he sits on the bench to lace his boots.

"You could go into town?"

"By myself?" You try to make it sound like a joke. It doesn't work.

He stands. You hold the coat open behind him, and he slides his arms in with a small, grateful sound. Then his gaze drifts past you, through the glass of the front door, to the house across the street. A mother is sending her children off, their school bags bright against the white, snowy morning.

"What if you go around and meet the neighbours?"

It isn't a terrible idea. In fact, trying to make new friends in the neighbourhood is what you should be trying to do, as a new couple looking to start their life there. And though ideally, you'd prefer to have your much more socially competent husband alongside you to do the task, you suppose it's about time you start facing your fears alone.

One messy kitchen and a batch of cookies later, you're wrapping up a small bag for each house on your small, quiet street, smiling behind your wool scarf as you ring the bell to the house across the street.

The first house is easy. A middle-aged couple, grateful and brief. The second is an elderly man who mistakes you for a door-to-door salesman. The third, a woman with six cats and one furious white Persian that hisses at you through the screen door until you retreat.

It all blurs together until you reach the end of the street, with only one bag and one house remaining.

You'd be lying if you said you hadn't saved this house for last. Something about it triggered that feeling inside you that you'd grown used to. A dark curiosity that you'd come to fear.

It isn't just the architecture either. Every home on this street is old. That was part of the appeal, why you and Jake had chosen to live here. You preferred something real, something with history. This one, however, feels like the kind of history you don't want to pry into. The kind of spookiness that children sense from the sidewalk and dare their friends to go up to, just to knock on the door and run before anyone answers.

It towers over the neighbouring roofs as if to assert its dominance, shouldering them aside. You don't like the way the entire premise was encompassed by a black, metal gate, and you like it even less now as the sun begins to set—one of the many unfortunate parts about winter; how the sun sets late afternoon, allowing the dark to creep up on you too soon. You hate the dark.

It's all just in your head, surely. Every house in this neighbourhood has an older look and feel, and you're certain that the people living in there are nothing but normal—perhaps even kind. All you have to do is ring the bell, give them the cookies, and leave. It's no big deal.

You nearly laugh at yourself out loud. You're a grown adult, for god's sake, there is no reason to be scared.

With a falsely confident stride, you push past the gates, walking across a jagged cobblestone path. Though you tremble with each step.

Something doesn't feel right, but you remind yourself it's as real as your nightmares—which is to say, not real at all. Your nightmares, the years of psychological torment, it's all in your head. It always has been.

With the sun just about dipping below the horizon, you ring the doorbell, standing before the heavy double doors. You then knock and, for a second, you are relieved to hear nothing back until the doors open with a loud groan. Though you don't see anyone at all, eyes carefully scanning the dimly lit entryway. Your hands curl around the bag in your hands.

"Hello?" You call out, not yet taking a step. "I'm the new neighbour from across the street.”

Silence.

“I… I made cookies.” Your voice echoes into the hall, and you swallow your nerves. “But, if you don't want to be bothered, I totally understand. I can just leave here and be on my way."

You wait a few seconds, hovering in the doorway, and the silence stretches.

You want to leave. Every part of you is screaming at you to turn on your heel and run far, far away. But they'd opened the door for you. You'd made your presence known already. You're standing right there with the cookies in your hand, for God's sake. You can’t just leave now.

Briefly, you wonder what Jake would do. He'd probably walk in with a confident stride and a smile. He'd charm them easily, have them laughing in minutes and get swept up in conversation for hours.

Stupid, you think. You're fine. Completely fine. Just go inside.

You glance around again. The shoe room is empty, save for a small table that stands just beside the door, close enough. And in a split second, you devise your plan: You’ll set them down and immediately leave with your obligations fulfilled, and avoid seeming like a rude, doorbell-ditching neighbour. It’s perfect. Foolproof. Simple.

You step forward, arm extending toward the table, already planning your retreat.

Then the door slams shut behind you.

"Welcome."

The voice comes from directly behind you. You spin, a strangled sound catching in your throat, and there he is—a silhouette pooled in the darkness beside the doorframe, so close you don't understand how you missed him. He must have opened the door. He must have been standing there the whole time, shielded by the shadow of the door, watching you step past him.

"My apologies," he says, stepping aside, the candlelight giving you a proper view of his face. "I've just woken up, and my eyes are sensitive to the sun. I did not mean to startle you,"

Though your heart is pounding through your chest, and you feel like your legs will give out at any moment, you are oddly comforted by his the sight of him. A young man, tall and pale, not much older than yourself and quite strikingly beautiful. You've never seen his face before, though you think it looks strangely familiar, as if you've known him a long time. You’re staring. And though you are aware of it, you don’t tear your gaze away.

"Are these for me?" He looks down at your hand, where you hold your cookies close to your chest.

Wordlessly, you nod, extending your hand. Though you don't expect him to lower his head, his face dipping towards your outstretched hand, the tip of his nose barely grazing the pulse at your wrist.

He inhales.

The sound is soft, barely audible, and his eyes close for a fraction of a second.

They open again, and they find yours, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. There’s a sharpness to his gaze, and it cuts straight through the cold, a dull, traitorous warmth blooming in your lower stomach.

"Smells delicious."

"Thank you," you squeak, shrinking under his gaze.

"My dear," his head tilts, brows furrowing, "You're trembling. You must've been out in the cold a while."

"Yes, well..." You glance toward the door. "Well, I—"

"I would hate to send you back out there." He takes the bag from your hands before you can finish, the motion smooth, unhurried. "Why don't you stay for tea?"

"Oh! Gosh, no, I couldn't possibly impose—"

"I insist."

As if he were commanding you, you find yourself staying, seated on an old-looking couch, the fireplace cackling, warming your chilled hands. Though it does nothing to ease your trembling. The grandfather clock in the corner ticks every second.

Soon, a small teacup is set down in front of you, as he pours both of you a cup from the pot. You look up as he sits himself across from you, face to face, and your palms dig into the couch cushion.

"I must admit, I'm quite delighted to have a visitor," he crosses one leg over the other, his posture upright, poised. It makes you straighten yourself out, embarrassed by your poor manners. "It's been a very long time. You said you moved here across the street?"

"Ah, Yes. My husband and I just moved." You raised your hand to show your ring finger. "Actually, we also just got married."

"Newlyweds. Congratulations," his voice is smooth, "What made the two of you move here?"

"Well, we're not from too far. Just across the southern river. And we looked at houses closer to home but... Something about this neighbourhood felt right. So we decided to start our life here." you smile briefly at the memory, "It's quieter here. Better for raising children—well, eventually, of course. Hopefully."

You falter, the mention of children suddenly feeling far too intimate for a conversation with a man you met three minutes ago. There's a brief, expressionless pause before his mouth curves into a smile.

"It is a nice neighbourhood." He hums in agreement, "Very safe."

"Exactly."

The conversation lulls, and you use the moment to glance around the room. It's grand, immaculate, every piece of furniture polished to a dark gleam. There's no clutter. No photographs on the mantle. No second mug drying on the drainboard. The silence of the house surrounds you, deep and undisturbed.

Your eyes drift back to him. His hands were folded neatly around his teacup. Pale, long-fingered, ever so still. No ring.

It catches you off guard. A man like this, who is wealthy, well-spoken, and irrefutably beautiful in a way that makes your stomach feel strange, and yet he lives alone in a house like this. There should be a wife. There should be children.

Unless there's something wrong with him.

The thought surfaces before you can stop it. You're being judgmental. He's been nothing but polite. He invited you in from the cold. He made you tea. If he's a bachelor, that's his business. Maybe he's shy, maybe he prefers solitude, maybe he's simply never found the right person.

You don't ask. A married woman doesn't comment on another man’s status. The whole line of thought is dangerous, a door you shouldn’t open.

His eyes are on you now, steady and watchful. Too watchful.

You drop your gaze to your untouched teacup to distract yourself, and the grandfather clock ticks.

Then, he laughs. Sheepishly, you watch as he takes a sip of his tea.

"I did not poison it, I promise,” he says, setting the cup down with a clink.

"Oh!" You gape, "No, no. I did not think—I mean, I did not mean to offend you, Mr. ...?"

"Please, call me Sunghoon."

"Sunghoon, then," you let out a sigh, "I'm sorry. I'm easily startled or, as my husband would say, 'a bit of a scaredy-cat,' but I really do appreciate you inviting me in."

"No offence taken. I understand. This is a pretty scary house," he laughs lightly, his voice dropping ever slightly, "and you are a vulnerable young lady."

You laugh nervously at his last comment, certain that he intended well. But it only makes you feel uneasy. Instinctively, your hand goes to the dainty cross at your neck. A habit you'd developed over the years.

"That is to say, you have every right to have your suspicions. And if I were your husband, I wouldn't take your safety so lightly." You don't miss the way his eyes move from you, down to your neck, "He is a very lucky man."

His eyes remain on your throat. You can feel them there, cool and steady, like a fingertip resting just above your pulse. The cross seems to warm under his attention—or perhaps that's your skin, flushing with a heat you don't want to name. Your fingers stay wrapped around the little gold chain, clutching it as if it can shield you from something you can't quite see.

Stop it, you tell your body. Stop it, stop it, stop it.

You hold it so tightly the edges bite into your palm. A penance. A reminder. You are a woman of God. You are pure. You are—

"A woman of faith, I see."

The fire pops, and a log shifts, sending a shower of sparks up the chimney. You flinch. He doesn't react. In fact, you aren't sure that you've seen him move at all, his body as still as a statue.

"Of course," you reply as naturally as you can sound, "...aren't you?"

"If I say I am not," he raises a brow, "What then?"

You pause, drawing a breath that feels too shallow and force your lips into something resembling a smile.

"Well," you swallow, "God did say to love your neighbour."

"Ah, Mark twelve, verse thirty-three." Sunghoon's smile doesn't waver. "To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbour as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices."

The verse hangs in the air, complete and precise, and the tension in your shoulders eases, if only a little.

"So you are a believer."

"I believe in many things." His voice is soft, almost musing. "I believe in life after death. I believe in sinners and saints. I believe some of us, while we may try to convince ourselves otherwise, do not belong in the light."

He then pauses, and you swear you watch his smile curl into something wicked, before he continues.

"I believe prayers can be answered. Especially the ones laced with shame, whispered breathlessly in the night."

Your teacup rattles, the sound too loud in the quiet room. You set it down, but your fingers are shaking so badly the porcelain nearly slips. The cold that has been hovering at the edges of you since you walked through the door now settles deep in your bones.

You look at Sunghoon, your eyes meeting his lingering, far too intense stare. The horrible ache inside of you, the one you've come to know all too well, the one that has haunted your dreams for years, begins to wake from its slumber.

Something is wrong. His demeanour. The way he doesn't seem to breathe or blink or move at all. His presence. The way he looks at you like he owns you, and how that look makes your thighs clench, an inexplicable heat overtaking you.

You nearly jump out of your skin when the grandfather clock strikes the sixth hour.

"Oh!" You laugh nervously, an attempt to conceal the small yelp that escaped you. "Look at the time! I should really go."

"So soon?"

"Yes! My husband should be arriving soon, so..."

You are scrambling for the door, heart thumping in your chest as he follows close behind. Picking up the pace, you grab your coat from the rack near the door. But before you can grab the knob and swing the door open, you feel his presence behind you, cold and seemingly lifeless. You turn.

"It was lovely meeting you," he takes your trembling hand in his, "I hope to see you again, soon."

He lifts your hand as if to kiss it. Though he doesn't. Not yet.

You hear the soft sound of an inhale, barely there, but unmistakable, a slow, shuddering breath. His eyes flutter half-closed, and you blink, frozen in fear, wondering for a brief second if your mind is playing tricks on you, or if he really just sniffed you like some kind of animal.

He then kisses your hand, his lips just barely grazing your knuckles, featherlight. You should feel horror. You should feel disgust. Both are there, you suppose, but beneath it lies something far more shameful.

In the still, empty silence, you let out the tiniest, neediest whimper.

It lingers long enough for both of you to process what exactly you had just done.

He looks up at you through his lashes with a grin, like the most beautiful predator you'd ever laid your eyes on. And, though you can't quite tell in the dim candlelight, you think the canines peeking out the edge of his smile look rather sharp.

With that look permanently etched into your mind, you run. No other words exchanged, no farewell. You’re sprinting back down the street to your place, as fast as your feet can take you, not sparing a single glance behind.

A sigh of relief, though it sounds more like a sob, escapes you when you see Jake’s car in the driveway.

Your hands tremble so violently the keys skitter against the lock, and when the door gives, you throw yourself inside, slam it shut, press your spine to the wood like you're holding back a flood. You breathe in and out. In and out. Chest rising and falling with every breath. Exactly how Jake had taught you to do every time your fears crept up on you too quickly.

"Jake?"

The house is completely dark, and only the silence whispers back. You take off your boots, your coat, throwing them to the side without care as you move. The floorboards creak beneath your feet, and the panic you had only just quelled begins to rise again.

"Jake, where are you?" You try again, this time a bit louder.

You check the living room. The dining room. The kitchen. Then, on shaky legs, you carry yourself upstairs, hand sliding against the railing as you make your way to the bedroom. Still, not a soul to be found. Your hands grip the doorway, nails digging into the wooden frame as you choke down your heavy breaths, blinking away the tears that threaten your eyes.

A pair of arms wrap around you from behind, and the scream that leaves you is almost inhuman.

"It's just me!"

You thrash around in his grasp, and Jake immediately lets go.

He steps back, palms raised, face slack with shock and guilt. You're shaking violently now, heaving as a single tear falls from your eyes.

"Just me, sweetheart." His voice drops, taking your hand in his and guiding you to the edge of the bed. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have scared you like that. That's my fault, I'm—"

You don't let him finish. You collapse into him, and he catches you without hesitation, his arms folding around your trembling form as you curl into his lap. He presses his lips to the crown of your head.

"Don't ever do that again."

"I won't." He murmurs into your hair, "Cross my heart, I never will."

You're sobbing into his chest as he whispers I'm sorries and I love yous—Over and over, until the words blur into a rhythm as steady as his heartbeat beneath your ear. You latch onto him like he's your lifeline. He is warm and solid and alive, and you cling to him with a desperation that should embarrass you but doesn't.

Only when your breathing steadies do you finally find the strength to speak.

"I missed you so much."

"I missed you, too."

"I missed you more." Your voice cracks on the last word, and you feel the tears threatening again.

"Shh. It's okay. I'm right here. It's okay." He smooths a hand down your hair, your back. "What happened, sweetheart? Did something happen? Why were you outside?"

"I..." you trail off, unsure how to even proceed as you sniffle. "I went to meet the neighbours... and... the house at the corner. The man there, he..."

It sounds ridiculous when you try to rationalize it in your head, and would probably sound even more ridiculous if you tried to say it out loud.

Sunghoon didn't technically do anything wrong. He only looked at you in ways that made you feel wrong. He said some things that could be interpreted as threatening, though he said it in a polite tone. He kissed your hand and had maybe sniffed you, if you even remember it properly, or if that's just your terrified, panicked brain making things up. He also made you whimper, but that certainly isn't something you can tell your husband.

The memory of it makes you let out another sob, feeling utterly pathetic and ashamed in his arms.

"Hey, talk to me," his voice drops, "What did he do?"

Swallowing your guilt, you pick up the pieces of the truth you can stomach to say aloud.

"The way he was looking at me, it was—he kissed my hand, and—" you stammer, "I don't know. I don't know how to explain."

You can feel Jake exhale.

"Okay," he says calmly, matter-of-factly, taking in the information, "A creepy neighbour tried to hit on you? Is that it?"

Hitting on you. The phrase doesn't quite capture the feeling of being hunted, like a lamb who wandered aimlessly within a predator's reach.

You don't correct him, though. You nod your head, breathing heavy into his grasp as he smooths down the back of your head, holding you tight.

"I'm sorry," you feel the vibration of his voice against his chest. "You want me to talk to him? Scare him off, a bit?"

You picture that predatory gaze, the eyes of something sinister—something demonic. Then you look to your husband: warm and bright and too good for this world. Your husband is the safest, strongest, and most capable man you know. Still, you are strangely terrified at the thought of letting him go there alone.

"I just want you to stay here. With me." You say, simply, "That's all I want."

"I'll always be here. Forever," he hums, circling your wedding ring, dragging your palm flat along his chest until it rests just above his heart, "That's what I promised to you. 'Til death do us part."

You close your eyes. You try to let the steady thrum of his heartbeat drown out everything else. Safe, you tell yourself. I'm safe. He's here. I'm safe.

It doesn't work. What exactly are you safe from? From a man who only looked at you? From a feeling that had started long before you ever set foot in that house?

The heat is still there, coiled low in your belly, waiting. It doesn't care that you're in your husband's arms. It doesn't care that you want it gone. It's been awakened, and it won't be going back to sleep.

You press your thighs together. You're still hot. Too hot. Jake doesn't notice right away, holding you in his arms, his hand still covering yours above his heart.

Your husband pulls back, cupping your face in his hands.

"You're burning up." He says gently, brows furrowed in pure-hearted concern. "You're really warm. Are you getting sick? You were out in the cold for a while, weren't you?"

You open your mouth to answer, but he beats you to it.

"Maybe we should just order takeout tonight. You should rest. I'll warm you a bath, and we can rent a movie. How does that sound?" His thumb traces the curve of your jaw, his eyes searching your face for clues he doesn't know how to read. "I can call in sick tomorrow, and—"

"Jake."

Your eyes drop to his lips. You're still curled in his lap, your breath shallow, your thighs pressed together beneath your skirt. It takes him a second or two for his expression to shift.

Your mouth is on his before he can speak, hot and heavy, desperate to suppress the dark, deviant desire that refuses to leave you alone. You can't help yourself. Not when you're sitting in his lap like this, your arousal and guilt unrelenting.

He goes rigid, a startled sound catching in his throat. This isn't how you kiss. You never kissed him like this before you were married, and you certainly hadn't after, either.

Every night you've shared so far has been nothing but gentle and loving, always handling you with the care one would give a porcelain doll. He had learned of your fragility and your fears long before he ever learned your body, and made love to you the only way he knew how: carefully, tenderly. As if your pleasure was a gift to be earned and not a hunger you already carry.

Tonight, though, you kiss him with the kind of hunger a sexually repressed Catholic boy can only dream of—the kind he was taught to repent for, to pray away. You moan against his lips, the sound raw and almost wounded, clawing open his shirt and grinding against his hips like it's the only thing you need right now.

"Hey—hey, slow down." His hands close gently over yours, stilling them. His eyes search your face, wide and careful. "We don't have to—are you okay? You were just crying, and I don't want you to feel like—"

You shake your head. All you want is that horrible ache inside you to be gone, fucked away by the man you love, the man you married. You pull your hands free and push him back onto the bed. He goes willingly, propped on his elbows, still watching you with that tender, uncertain concern.

"Baby, I'm serious." Jake's voice cracks. His hands hover at your waist, twitching and uncertain. "I don't need—ah—are you sure you want this right now?" The words tumble out of him, broken and breathless, even as his hips rise to meet yours. His body knows what it wants. His mind is still catching up. "You don't have to do this for me—"

"It's for me." Your voice is low, almost like a growl, and his eyes widen.

You reach for the hem of your own dress first and pull it over your head. The fabric catches for a moment on your ear, on your elbow, and the clumsiness of it makes you want to scream. Then it's gone, discarded somewhere on the floor, and you're working at the clasp of your bra while Jake stares up at you with parted lips and dawning disbelief.

He reaches up again, hand hovering a moment before moving to yours, trying to still or slow your moments, but this time you slap them away. Your hands make quick work of his pants, as you do your own, and without a second to spare, you're staring down at his half-hard length, holding the weight of him in your clumsy, still inexperienced hand. You carefully watch his expression, brows knitted, lips parted, and when you tighten your grip ever slightly as you stroke him, he's thrusting up into your hand.

"Shit." He breathes.

You shift forward, lining him up with your entrance. Your underwear is still on—you realize this too late, and the awkwardness of shoving the damp fabric aside makes your face flush. But you don't stop. You sink down onto him, and the stretch steals your breath.

You sigh at the stretch, not used to taking all of him so quickly—not used to being on top, either, and your eagerness momentarily subsides, taking a moment to adjust. Then, with the awkwardness you'd expect of two adults who only started having sex a few weeks ago, you start to move, hands pressed down against his chest. He gazes up in awe, hands twitching at his sides before moving to your hips.

"Holy shit," he manages, the words repeating in broken moans, desperately containing himself from falling apart right there as he watches you, his gorgeous wife, take him with a newfound hunger. He looks wrecked already, his jaw tight with the effort of holding back. "If you keep moving like that—"

His hands tighten, slowing you. He's trying to pace you, trying to protect you from yourself, and the unbearable, oblivious tenderness of it is the last thing you can stand.

"Jake." Your voice comes out sharp, breathless, a frown tugging at your lips. "For God's sake. I'm not going to break. Just fuck me."

There's a moment of pure shock that lingers, and he goes still. Very still. A part of you almost regrets it. Maybe you frightened him. Maybe you've shown a side of yourself that you were never supposed to show, and now he'll never look at you the same.

He exhales a long, shaky breath.

His hands slide from your hips to your waist, then down to your thighs, gripping with an ownership he's never allowed himself before. He thrusts up into you once, testing, and when you gasp, he does it again. Harder. Your head falls back. A moan spills from your lips, and the sound seems to unlock something in him. "Fuck," he breathes. His fingers dig into your skin as he moves you, setting a rhythm that is no longer careful, no longer restrained. You try to match it, but you're still clumsy, still learning, and after a few desperate, off-beat thrusts, he makes a low sound in his throat and flips you onto the mattress.

Your face falls into the pillow. His hand presses between your shoulder blades, arching your back, and then he's inside you again—deeper this time, fuller. The moan you let out is almost a sob. He pulls back and slams into you, and you feel the curve of his grin against the shell of your ear.

"You like this?" His voice is low, but still laced with that concern he always wears. There's a genuine curiosity to his question, a disbelief that lingers. "You like it rough?"

"Please," your desperate voice is muffled in the pillow, "harder, please."

He makes a sound, something between a laugh and a guttural groan, and his hand spreads warm across the small of your back.

"Look at you," he murmurs, almost to himself. "God, look at you. My wife."

He pulls back slowly, letting you feel every inch of him leaving you, and the anticipation is its own kind of torment. When he thrusts back in, it's deep and full, and the gasp you let out is his name. He does it again. And again.

His hand fists the sheets beside your head. His forehead drops to the curve of your neck.

"Fuck—" His voice is ragged, almost disbelieving. "You're really—I can't—"

His thrusts grow deeper, harder, his hand pressing into the arch of your back as he drives into you with an indulgence he's never allowed himself. You can feel the tension, the pressure building. His name falls from your lips in fragments, and he answers with his body—faster, deeper, more.

"That's it," he breathes, and the pride in his voice is new, too. He's proud of this. Proud of what he's doing to you. Proud of you. "I've got you."

You clench around him, crying out when he hits that spot inside you just right, clawing at the pillows beneath you. The orgasm seizes you and doesn't let go, and he feels it. Every pulse, every shudder. His rhythm falters and then breaks entirely.

His voice cracks, high and wrecked, and he buries himself to the hilt and stills, his whole body going rigid against your back. Then he's coming, too. Deep inside you, his hips jerking with each pulse, his groan a long, ragged thing that vibrates through you. He keeps thrusting, fucking his cum back into you, riding it out until he's shaking, until he's spent, until his forehead drops to the nape of your neck and his breath comes in great heaving gasps against your sweat-damp skin.

For a long moment, neither of you moves. He's still inside you, and you can feel his cum between your thighs, still draped over you, his chest pressed to your back so you can feel the hammer of his heart. Your body hums. The world is quiet. The only sound is your breathing, slowly finding the same rhythm.

Then he laughs.

It starts as a breathless little thing against your neck, almost disbelieving, until it blooms into something utterly delighted. His arms slide around your waist, and he pulls you with him as he rolls onto his side, still buried inside you, his face pressed to the curve of your shoulder.

"Who are you," he breathes, "and what have you done with my wife?"

He's grinning. You can feel it against your skin. His hand is flat across your stomach, holding you close, and he presses a kiss to the crook of your neck.

"Seriously. What was—what's gotten into you?"

You turn in his arms, just enough to see his face. He's flushed, pleased, his eyes half-lidded and warm.

You snuggle into his chest, pressing your cheek to the warm plane of his sternum, and his arms fold around you automatically.

"Missed you," you whisper.

"Clearly." The word is thick with satisfaction, his voice still rough and low. He presses a kiss to the crown of your head. "Must've been real lonely, huh? Waiting for me to come home."

“Never leave again. Please."

He laughs softly, pulling you tighter against his chest. The sound rumbling through his chest beneath your ear. His hand moves in slow, soothing strokes down your spine.

"Sweetheart, if this is what I come home to, you couldn't drag me out that door." He presses a kiss to your hair. "I'll quit tomorrow. Become a stay-at-home husband. Live right here in this bed forever."

His breathing deepens, slows. His hand stills on your back. Within minutes, he's asleep, his lips still curved in the ghost of that grin, his body warm and heavy and trusting against yours.

You don't sleep. You can't. The satisfaction is already fading, replaced by the old familiar ache—a low thrum beneath the surface, waiting. You know the dreams will come tonight. You know what waits for you in the dark. But for now, you let yourself be held. For now, his heartbeat under your ear is louder than the guilt. For now, that's enough.

Like clockwork, the dream arrives. Tangled in your husband's arms, you glance to the window, feeling that same presence you always do, tainting your mind with lustful images you could not escape.

Except that tonight, the shadow has a face.

You've never seen a face in your dreams before. For years, the presence has been nothing but sensation—cold hands, sharp teeth, a voice without sound. A silhouette at the edge of your sleeping vision, tall and still. Never eyes you could look into.

Sunghoon's face materializes out of the dark. First the eyes, dark and depthless, then the sharp planes of his face, then the mouth that curved against your knuckles and made you whimper. He looks exactly as he did in the candlelight. Beautiful. Predatory. Waiting.

Why him? You wonder, visions of his lips at your neck invading your mind. Why now?

Though in your dreaming state, you don't have much time to ponder such questions. You're too consumed by the image of those sharp canines that you swore you saw, sinking into your flesh, his hands wandering the length of your body. You don't flinch. In the dream, you arch toward him. You offer him your neck. You come undone with his name on your lips, only a whisper in the night.

You wake with a gasp, still tangled in your husband's embrace, slick between your legs. Though Jake doesn't stir. His breathing is deep and even, his body warm and trusting against yours.

The ghost of your dream lingers, and you press your palm to your mouth to hold back the sob building in your chest.

Dawn comes pale and grey through the curtains, but you're already awake. You couldn't go back to sleep, no matter how hard you tried. So you stop trying. You slip carefully from the bed and pad barefoot to the shower.

You rinse yourself under scalding hot water as if scrubbing every inch of yourself could wash the dream away. You fold Jake's work clothes into a neat pile on the dresser—a reminder that you are a loving, faithful wife and not whatever your dreams make you out to be.

In the kitchen, the coffee machine clicks and hisses. You stand at the window with your empty mug in your hands, and before you've made the conscious decision to look, your eyes have found it. The house. His house.

Just looking at it makes your blood run cold.

You can't help but wonder why every curtain remains drawn, despite the large, beautiful windows. You wonder why he mentioned having "just woken up," though you'd visited him late afternoon—almost evening—yesterday. You think of the way he looked at you, sharp, calculated, like a predator who'd caught its prey. And those teeth, which now that you're thinking back, most certainly had to be sharp, like the ones in your dreams.

Curtains drawn. Cold hands. Sharp teeth.

"Morning, baby," Jake's groggy voice is heard from the hallway, heavy footsteps pattering into the kitchen.

You turn to greet your husband with a broken smile. He chases your lips for a kiss, hands at your waist as they slide down the length of your nightgown with a newfound ease—remnants of last night's confidence still lingering in his touch. You jump in his grasp, a sound of surprise caught in your throat, but you both turn your heads at the beep of the coffee machine.

He pours you a cup first, and you try to focus on his words, you really do. However, his complaints of a passive-aggressive boss and abundantly vague emails fall on deaf ears as your hands tighten around the warmth of your coffee mug, eyes unwillingly and unhelpfully drifting to the window every few seconds.

You hear your name on his lips, but only process it once his hand reaches out to rest atop yours.

"You're spacing out." His thumb moves in slow circles over your knuckles, "Everything alright? Or am I just talking your ear off?"

"Just... tired."

"That makes two of us," he smiles, the two of you sharing a playful look. But he's still watching you, still reading the tension in your shoulders. "Talk to me, sweetheart. I'm here."

Your thumb traces the rim of your mug, and then, before you can talk yourself out of it.

"Do you believe in supernatural things?" You start hesitantly, "Not just God, obviously, but... other things...?"

Your husband takes a slow, pensive sip of his coffee.

"This is about your dreams again, isn't it?"

He gives you that look. The same one your mother and father used to give you at the mention of your nightmares. Sympathetic, but doubtful.

You look down, and he sighs, lifting your hand to his lips. The kiss is gentle and warm, though you shudder regardless.

"Remind me. How long have you been having these dreams, again?"

"Years."

"Years," he echoes, "And how many times, in all these years, have any of your dreams ever hurt you? Really hurt you?"

You sigh, shoulders slumping, a quiet relief blooming in your chest at the sight of his easy, gentle smile. The sunrise peeks through the window just enough to cast a golden glow across his face. His brown eyes and honey skin, now illuminated, were warm and familiar like the fresh cup of coffee in front of you that you had yet to touch.

"They haven't."

"Then I think it's safe to say that whatever it is you're afraid of, that's just your extra creative brain coming up with new reasons to freak out." he taps your head, and you roll your eyes, cracking a smile of your own. "None of it is real. It can't hurt you."

You kiss him goodbye at the door, your worries soothed momentarily as you watch his car disappear around the corner. But soon after, as you're reaching into the sink to work on a day-old pile of dishes, you can't help but watch the house at the corner. You watch all morning. Not a single soul exits or enters the home.

The town library is exactly what you'd expect. The air is stiff, the scent of old books and dust, and an old woman behind the front counter glares at you over the rims of her glasses, like she’s waiting for a reason to shush you.

You hadn't meant to come here. You were going to do errands. That's what you told yourself, anyway. But your feet carried you straight past the grocery store and straight through the heavy oak doors of the town library. And now, you wandered aimlessly through the aisles, unsure of what exactly you're looking for.

Dreams. You find a nonfiction book on dreams. You pull it from the shelf and flip to a chapter on nightmares. The author theorizes that our deepest fears materialize in our sleep, that the subconscious paints faces onto the things that frighten us most. A stranger who unsettled you. A presence that made you feel unsafe. The brain takes what it can't process during the day and works through it at night.

It makes sense. It's rational. He frightened you with that unsettling look in his eyes and his words, and your dreams gave him a form. It's a natural psychological response.

Then the book goes on to list common nightmare archetypes. The falling dream. The dream of being chased. The dream of being naked in public. Nowhere does it mention the dream where a stranger touches you between your legs, their lips on yours, then at your neck, or why you might envision them sinking their teeth into your flesh and drinking your blood. Nowhere does it account for the way your body responded.

Snapping the book shut and shoving it back on the shelf, you continue drifting with a little more purpose now. Past Town Records. Past Local Histories. Past a whole shelf of sermon collections by long-dead Reverends. Your fingers trail the spines, but you don't stop.

You turn down a narrow aisle in the back corner, away from the windows, away from the light.

The titles swimming into focus are older, darker, their spines cracked and their pages yellowed. Supernatural Histories. The Undead: A Historical Overview. Vampires Among Us.

Your hand reaches for one before your mind can stop it, failing to notice the pair of legs, long and lanky, stretched across the aisle, which blocks your path.

"Oh—!" You nearly trip, steadying yourself against the shelf.

A teenager is wedged between the shelves and the wall. He doesn't even look up. His head is bowed over a thick, hardcover book that looks older than time itself, and the sound of heavy drums and electric guitar bleeds from the headphones clamped over his ears. His school uniform is rumpled, tie loose, blazer nowhere in sight. His hair is jet-black except for a single bleached strand.

You clear your throat.

Nothing.

You clear it again, louder.

He turns a page.

"Excuse me…." You say a little more sternly this time, hands at your hips. "Shouldn't you be in school...?” You pause, glancing at his open backpack, at the name on his notebooks. "…Niki?"

He takes his time glancing up, eyes dragging over you with the lazy, unimpressed scrutiny only a teenager can manage. He takes in the sensible skirt. The ironed blouse. The cross at your neck. One pierced eyebrow lifts a fraction. He pulls his headphones down to his neck, his music a low hum.

"Shouldn't you be in the erotica section, or something?" He retorts, rolling his eyes.

"What?" You gape.

"Just saying." He gestures vaguely at you. "You've got the whole... repressed housewife look."

"You—" You give up halfway through your sentence, deciding your time shouldn't be spent exchanging comebacks with a boy who hasn't even graduated yet.

He goes back to his book, a ghost of a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.

You step over his legs, which he doesn't move an inch, and try to ignore him, scanning the shelf in front of you until you find the book you had your eyes on before. Locating it, you reach.

"Isn't the occult, like, the devil to you people?"

Your hand stops mid-air, and you turn. He's watching you now, the book in his lap forgotten.

"I'm just looking."

"Sure. Just looking." He closes his book finally, giving you his full attention for the first time, and you immediately wish he hadn't. "Listen, lady. Vampire smut's two aisles down. No judgment. I'm not your pastor."

"I already said—" The flush crawls up your neck. "I'm not—I would never—"

"You'd never," he repeats, flat. "Right. So what are you looking for in this section? A cookbook?"

Your hand is still frozen in the air, fingers hovering over the spine of a book with a lurid, painted cover. A woman in a torn nightgown, fainting into the arms of a dark figure with glowing eyes.

"I wanted to... research something.”

"Research.”

You nod weakly.

He pauses a moment, like he’s analyzing you. Then his whole expression shifts.

"Wait. For real? You're not just messing with me?" His eyes are wide now, a hint of a smile tugging at his lips. It makes him appear even younger than he is, his mood brightening with childlike excitement. "You're actually researching vampires? Like, the lore? The real stuff? You're not just looking for sexy billionaire novels?"

"I don't know anything about sexy billionaires—"

"Oh my god." He scrambles to his feet, all gangly limbs and sudden, startling height, and you take an instinctive step back. His face is absolutely alight. "Oh my god, that's sick. That's actually so sick. Nobody in this town cares about this stuff. Everybody here just thinks I'm some freak who—" He stops himself, clears his throat. "Okay. Okay. So. What do you want to know?"

He's already pulling books off the shelf before you can come up with an answer, scanning spines with the practiced eye of someone who has memorized every title.

"Okay, so. First of all, don't touch that one." He jabs a finger at the book you'd been reaching for. "Complete garbage. The guy just makes stuff up. Zero sources."

"You've read it?"

"I've read everything on this shelf." He says it with pride and a slight shrug. He pulls down a thick volume bound in dark blue cloth, its cover embossed with a faded silver symbol you don't recognize. "You want this one. Written by a Victorian occultist. Genuine primary sources. He gets into the super niche stuff most modern books ignore."

"Niche stuff?"

"Yeah, like. The running water barrier—they can't cross it. Like rivers and lakes. Which is wild. And the mirror thing? It's not that they don't have reflections, it's that old mirrors were backed with silver, and silver's purifying. So the reflection was there, just corrupted. Sort of." He's talking faster now, words tripping over each other. "And then there's the soul-contract stuff, which is the real deep lore. Most people don't even know about it."

"Soul-contracts?"

"Oh, you have to hear about this." He grins, clearly delighted to have an audience. "Okay, so—vampires need blood, right? And most of them have to hunt for it. Every meal. Every night. That's a lot of work. So some of them, the older ones, the smart ones, they figured out a more... efficient system."

He flips through the book, looking for a page.

"They find a human who's desperate. Like, really desperate. And they make a deal. The human offers themselves up—their blood, their life force, whatever—and in exchange, the vampire gives them something that they want."

Your stomach tightens.

"Oh! That's..." You struggle to find your words, but force your voice to stay steady. "What kind of something, exactly?"

"Anything. Revenge, protection, a cure for some disease. Whatever the human needs so badly, they'd trade their soul for it." He finds the page, runs a finger down the text. "But the key thing is, the vampire can't just take. The human has to give permission. Willingly. Otherwise, the bond doesn't form. Hence, the contract part of the soul-contract."

"The bond?"

"Yep. The bond is formed only if it is totally, one-hundred percent mutual. The vampire is tied to the human just as much as the human is tied to the vampire. It's not a master-servant thing. It's..." He pauses, searching for the word. "Permanent. The connection can never be broken, like some eternally messed-up, toxic situationship."

Your hand has found the cross at your throat. You don't remember reaching for it.

"What I don't get," he continues, frowning at the page, "is how the whole thing starts. Like, how does the vampire hear the human in the first place? The book says it answers a call. Not literally a call, though. The words are weird. It says: 'A plea uttered from the deepest well of the soul, often in a state of such desperation that it transcends the mortal sphere.'"

"What kind of plea?" Your voice comes out as a whisper.

"Doesn't say exactly. But the book keeps comparing it to..." He squints at the footnote, then pauses, turns the page. "Huh. That's weird."

"What?"

"The language it uses. It says 'a prayer inverted.'" He traces his finger down the margin. "'Not all prayers reach the kingdom of heaven. Some are intercepted by hungrier ears.' Spooky, right?"

You can't breathe.

The cross burns against your palm. You press it harder, trying to ground yourself, but the world narrows to a single point: a memory. Your bedroom window. The winter wind on your wet cheeks. Your knees bruised against the floorboards.

I beg of you. If you cannot make this feeling stop, then I beg for relief.

"Hey." Niki's voice cuts through the static in your head. "You good? You look like you're gonna, uh... hurl. Or pass out."

"I'm fine."

"Yeah, no." He sets the book aside, straightening up, eyes narrowing. "You're definitely not fine. Was it something I said? I have a habit of—I mean, my mom's always telling me I don't know when to shut up, so if I—"

"You didn't do anything." You shake your head, swallowing hard. "I just need some air."

“Wait!”

You step back, your heel catching on the leg he's stretched across the aisle again. You stumble, and he scrambles to his feet, catches your elbow—a quick, awkward gesture.

"Sorry. Didn't mean to—I just—" He pulls back immediately, shoving both hands in his pockets like he's been burned. He drops his voice to a whisper, then he stares straight at you. “You’ve met a vampire, haven’t you?”

You blink.

"No." You shake your head too fast, an unconvincing laugh escaping your lips before you ramble on, "What? No. That’s ridiculous. Vampires aren't real. Aren’t you too old to believe in these things? Please.”

“But—”

“I'm just... I'm bored. And…” You swallow, “I need to get home before my husband is back."

There’s a pause. A long one.

"Oh… I get it.” He gives you a knowing look. “You can't tell anyone. Vampire confidentiality. Right?" He shifts his weight, suddenly looking less like a brooding delinquent and more like a kid who's spent too many lunch periods eating alone. You open your mouth to protest, but he continues. "Then, if you do see one. Hypothetically. Could you... ask something for me?" You take in his wide-eyed, hopeful stare. "The garlic thing. Is it true? Everyone's always arguing about it, but I think it's just complete crap.”

You let out a sigh.

"I'll keep that in mind."

He beams, looking like he’s about to jump up and down with joy, but quickly reins himself in, dropping his voice an octave and shrugging the excitement away. "Cool... cool. Alright. I'll see you later, then, vampire research lady. I'm always here, so come and find me whenever you wanna, like. Hang out or something...You'll come back, right?"

You don't process any of it. Still shaken, you turn and walk. Past the shelves. Past the desk, where the old librarian still watches you with narrowed eyes. Past the heavy oak doors and into the cold, gray afternoon.

Not all prayers reach the kingdom of heaven.

You pull your coat tighter and start walking, not home just yet. You need to let yourself breathe before you go back to the house with the kitchen window that faces his door, before you have to look your husband in the eye and pretend the conversation you just had never happened.

Teenagers believe anything. You tell yourself with every heavy step, fresh snow crunching underfoot. None of it is real. It can't hurt you.

A thick snowfall arrives on a Friday afternoon, the following week. Schools and stores close, and a company-wide email advises everyone to stay inside. Jake stood at the bedroom window when he read it, watching the storm howl past the glass, and felt two things at once: a quiet disappointment that winter is nowhere near its end, and a much louder, much more immediate gratitude that he doesn't have to leave you today.

He's been worried about you. That's nothing new, actually. He's been worried about you since the day you met, when you laughed at one of his jokes only to screech at the sound of a twig snapping under your step two seconds later. He recognized something in you then. To call it skittishness would be an understatement. There was a weight behind your wide-eyed stare. The look of someone who has been carrying something heavy for a very long time and has never asked anyone to help her hold it. You told him about your night terrors a month into the relationship. Sat him down, explained it like a warning, as if it could ever scare him off from pursuing you. He wanted to be the one to help. He still does. It's the quiet purpose of his life.

He was foolishly optimistic back then. The reality of what it means to live with you, alongside your fears, is not an easy responsibility to carry. You smile when you're sad. You deflect when he asks questions. You say I'm fine and change the subject and slide into his lap, and he lets you, because he loves you, because he doesn't always know the right thing to say, and maybe because some part of him is afraid that if he pushes too hard, he'll be devastated to find there's far more he doesn't understand about you than he realizes. He holds you in the ways you ask him to. He soothes your fears without knowing what they are. He plays the role he's resigned himself to—husband, protector, warm body in the dark—and tries not to notice the moments when your eyes go distant, when your hands tremble for no reason, when you stare into nothing like something else is there, staring right back.

It wears on him. He doesn't resent it. He could never resent you. But there are nights when he wakes up beside you, listening to you stir in your sleep and feels a loneliness he can't explain. Sometimes it feels like there is a part of you he cannot reach, a room inside you where he is not invited.

So he does what he can. He goes to work. He comes home. He holds you when you let him. He prays for you, even on the days when his own faith wavers. And when you reach for him, pulling him into bed with that desperate, devouring hunger that has become the new rhythm of your marriage, he gives you everything you ask for. He gives you more. Because in those moments, you are fully present—your attention is on him and not lost somewhere else. In those moments, he is not your caretaker or your protector. He is simply yours.

It's a relief he didn't know he needed. To be wanted. Not needed—wanted. There's a difference.

Jake's always been good at being needed. Being helpful. At smiling, nodding and letting others feel heard. It's something he carried into adulthood. Into his faith. Into his marriage, where his wife's fragility gave him a role he recognized: the steady one. The unneedy one. The one who holds and is never held.

But desire—real, shameless, take-me-now desire—was never something he imagined being on the receiving end of. He was taught that sex was a service a wife provided to her husband. A duty. A kindness. Something to be accepted with gratitude and restraint. He was prepared to be grateful. He was not prepared for you.

These past weeks, you've become something else entirely. You pull him in by the belt before he's shrugged off his coat. You beg him to be rough, to be merciless, to stop treating you like something fragile. The first time you said it, after the initial disbelief subsided, he nearly wept from relief. From the sudden, staggering realization that you wanted him the way he had always secretly wanted you. That the hunger was mutual. That he was allowed to be hungry at all.

He's been enjoying it more than he probably should. He knows that. Some old, stubborn guilt stirs in him every time he pins your wrists above your head, every time he hears you moan his name like a prayer. He used to repent for thoughts far milder than the things you do together now. But the guilt is quieter than it used to be. Quieter than the sound of your breath hitching. Quieter than the way you say harder and please and fuck me right now.

He assumes it's a side effect of your clinginess. You spend all day alone, trapped by the cold, left to the mercy of your own thoughts. Of course, you reach for him the moment he walks through the door. Of course, you want to be touched, held, filled with something other than the silence of an empty house. He's happy to be that for you. He's happy to be whatever you need.

He doesn't understand the whole of you. He'll never understand what keeps you up at night, and why it does. But he understands the curve of your hip, and the sound of your laugh, and the way your body answers his in the dark. And for now, with the snow piled high against the windows and the fire crackling in the next room and you warm and real and wanting in his arms, that is enough. It's more than enough. It's everything he didn't know he was allowed to ask for.

The neglected part of his heart that spent years believing desire was something to be managed, not felt—that accepted loneliness as the price of being steady, that tucked itself away in the front pew and never asked for more—that part is wide awake, and it reaches for you helplessly.

All of that to say is: being holed up with you inside on a cold evening, he does the only thing that makes sense. He finds you in the kitchen, wraps his arms around your waist from behind, and presses his lips to the curve of your neck.

You giggle, leaning back into him, the wooden spoon still in your hand.

"You want me to burn dinner?"

"I want you," He punctuates each word with a kiss to your shoulder, your jaw, then your neck. "Want you all the time. Everyday. Every second."

"You're insatiable." You swat at his arm, but your voice is fond. "And a distraction."

"What's wrong with being distracted?"

"Jake." You roll your eyes, your tone playful but stern, "Go find something else to do."

"Like what?" He pouts, resting his chin on your shoulder, peering down at the pot.

"Maybe, shovelling the driveway?"

He groans. "I'll do that in the—"

"Morning? You sleep like a log. Besides..." You turn in his arms, your free hand coming up to toy with the collar of his shirt, and a suggestive grin tugs at your lips, "You won't have the energy to."

"Oh?" His eyebrows lift, a slow grin spreading across his face. "Well, if that's the case..."

He presses a kiss to your cheek and pulls away.

"Don't miss me too much," He calls out as he makes his way down the hall, dreading having to bundle up for the cold.

"No promises."

He dreads it even more once he's actually outside, scrunching his nose as the icy cold hits him, like little needles against his skin. But seeing you move about the kitchen from where he shovels makes it all worth it. It's always worth it.

He's watched you sleep enough nights to know how hard you fight just to stay still. The way you squirm and pant and clutch at him, sweat beading at your brow, tortured by something he can't see and you can't name. He's learned not to wake you—it only makes it worse. So he holds you instead.

But morning always comes. You always smile at him over coffee, tired and brave, pushing through the day like the night never happened. Like you haven't spent eight hours running from something he can't fight for you.

So, really, the least he could do as a husband was shovel the driveway without complaining. Even if his back was beginning to ache as if he were a middle aged dad. He can clear a path. He can make one thing easier for you, even if it's just the driveway.

"Hello."

Jake lets out an embarrassingly high-pitched scream and nearly topples over into the snow, managing to brace himself with his shovel. He turns, letting out a sigh of relief when his eyes land on the tall, pale-looking man, who greets him with a closed-mouth smile.

"Man, you scared the crap out of me," Jake laughs, which dissolves into nervous laughter when he notices how the man does not laugh with him. He stands still, almost statuesque.

"My apologies. Jake, yes?"

"That's me." He adjusts his grip on the shovel and extends his free hand, tilting his head. "Do we know each other? I'm sorry, I'm terrible with faces."

"Sunghoon." The hand that meets his is cold, even through both their gloves. The grip is brief and precise. "A pleasure. I live at the corner. Your wife made my acquaintance last Monday."

Jake pauses a moment, his hand freezing mid-shake.

The house at the corner. The weirdo. The hand-kissing, too-long-staring, made-you-uncomfortable neighbour you'd come home crying about last week.

His brows furrow at the realization that this was the guy you were talking about. Although he was imagining someone much older and creepier. Not a polished, perfectly composed, and frankly quite handsome—if Jake is being honest—guy his own age.

"You're the neighbour, huh?" Jake deadpans, shoving his shovel into the snow and standing up straight. He looks Sunghoon up and down, taking his time, letting his gaze drag. Sizing him up. He's taller. That's annoying.

"Yes. We had a lovely conversation. I wish to extend my gratitude."

"How kind. But not necessary."

"Oh, but it is."

"But it really isn't."

"I insist."

"Okay. Look, man. I'll give it to you straight," Jake frowns, eyes narrowing, "I know my wife is beautiful and perfect and all. That's why I married her. You got that? So, I think it's best if you leave her alone."

Sunghoon stares, wordless and expressionless, for a moment. Jake holds his ground, though the silence is starting to get uncomfortable. Maybe he'd been too confrontational. Too harsh. Of course, you and your safety are his number one concerns, but from the way the man's face softens so earnestly, the fear of having possibly misjudged the entire situation starts to creep up on him.

"My apologies. It seems I gave you the wrong impression," His tone is bashful and all too disarming, and he clears his throat as he reaches for his pocket. "You see, ever since I lost my wife, I've become a bit of a hermit. But for a pair of friendly neighbours, I thought I might try getting myself out of my shell."

Jake's frown drops. He stands there in the snow, feeling like a complete and total asshole. He'd been ready to defend your honour, all puffed up and protective and righteous, and instead he'd just threatened a lonely widower who was only being kind. His mother would be appalled. His pastor would probably have words: Lord, we lift up Jake, who apparently forgot every single thing we taught him about loving thy neighbor.

Sunghoon extends an envelope, wax-sealed and dignified, held out with a leather-gloved hand.

"Oh." Jake takes it, and the wax seal feels like a personal indictment. "I'm so sorry for your loss. I didn't mean to—I wasn't trying to—really, I just—I'm so sorry."

"It was a long time ago." Sunghoon waves him off with a gentle grace that makes Jake feel even worse, somehow. "I take no offence. I was also quite protective in my first year of marriage."

Jake nods, grateful for the absolution, and sighs.

"When you really love someone, it’s like you'd do anything for them. You know. Move mountains. Fight a bear. Or—" He gestures at the shovel, at his own puffed-up posture. "Accost a stranger in your own driveway, apparently."

"It's true." Sunghoon's mouth curves. "I once threatened a man on the street because he looked at my wife too long. She was mortified. I was unrepentant."

Jake laughs. "And she scolded you for it, I'll bet."

"Absolutely." Sunghoon's expression is something fond, something distant. "But you know..."

"The wife is always right," they say in unison.

"But we love them anyway."

"We do."

Jake smiles. It's the first time since moving here that he's felt something like this. The kind of easy conversation he used to have with friends back home, before the marriage, the move, the new job.

Sunghoon. An odd neighbour. He speaks as if he could be from another generation, hands out wax-sealed letters, and lives in a mysteriously large house all on his own.

Jake could understand why it might be off-putting. But Jake also remembers when you used to scream at the sight of your own shadow. When you'd cling to him at social gatherings in college and glare at every person in the room like they were trying to hurt you.

You've always been afraid. Of the dark. Of strangers. Of everything. He's learned to calibrate for it, to filter the world through the lens of your anxiety and adjust accordingly.

It's not intentionally dismissive. He listens. He tries to. But this time, he should've known that when you crawled into his arms crying over a neighbour who only did so much as look at you, that it would be what it always is: another false alarm.

A part of him still ponders what he could possibly mean by "a long time" when the man before him doesn't look a day over thirty. And even if he were, say, in his mid to late thirties... late thirties...? That's still too young to have lost a wife and had plenty of time to get over it. He does not dare to ask, though. You know, considering he's already accused the guy of hitting on his wife. Following that up with so, exactly how long has your dead wife been dead? feels like it might not improve the situation.

Sunghoon's gaze drifts. Past Jake, over his shoulder. Jake follows it to the kitchen window, where the curtain twitches. There's a flash of movement, quickly stilled. You've been watching the entire time.

"She mentioned being a bit timid," Sunghoon smiles a little, gaze torn away from the window. "If not both of you, perhaps just yourself? I would be glad to host regardless."

"He's weird, sure. But he went out of his way to invite us. I think he's just trying to be friendly in his own, you know, awkward sort of way." Jake rambles to himself over dinner. "A lot of the other couples on this block are a lot older than us. It would be nice to make friends with a guy my own age."

The dinner invitation sits open between you on the kitchen table, its wax seal broken, its cursive script elegant and old-fashioned. You stare at the words on the page, and all you can see is the way he looked at you through the window. The slow, knowing smile. The way his eyes had found yours through the glass, like he'd known exactly where you'd be.

"I think we should accept." Jake's tone of voice is unfortunately optimistic. And a part of you cannot believe half of what you're hearing, but the other part of you knows this is who you married: Jake, a man who assumes the best in everyone, who never enters a room expecting danger, who extends undeserved kindness to every stranger he meets. "Worst case, we learn to stay away. Best case, you have nothing to worry about. Either way, it will put your mind at ease."

Put your mind at ease. You nearly snort aloud. As if an evening in that house with that man could do anything but the opposite. Jake doesn't notice. He's already picturing the dinner party, already imagining a new friendship.

"...I'm not sure. Maybe we should think on it."

His smile falters. You know that look. It's the closest Jake ever gets to exasperation.

"Come on." He sets his fork down, and you feel the weight of his stare. "He lost his wife, and he lives in that creepy mansion all alone. Don't you feel a little bit bad?"

You offer no response, picking at your food. He gives you a few seconds, letting the tension-filled silence linger, and when it becomes clear you're not going to budge, he sighs.

"Well." He picks up his fork again, his jaw set with a gentle stubbornness. "You can think on it. I'm going."

"What?" Your fork is clattering against the table. "No. You can't go alone."

He blinks at you, fork hovering halfway to his mouth, his expression caught somewhere between confusion and the beginnings of a laugh. His brow furrows.

"Didn't know I needed supervision." The words come out light, almost teasing, but his eyes are still searching your face. He's trying to find the joke. When the smile doesn't come, the teasing edge fades from his voice. "I'm just going across the street, baby. What do you think is going to happen to me?"

"I'm just being cautious."

"Cautious?” He scoffs, “What, you think he’s an axe murderer or something?”

He waits for you to laugh, to roll your eyes, to admit you're exaggerating.

"Sweetheart.” His voice drops, frustration building up. “Be realistic. Seriously."

"I am realistic. He told me I looked vulnerable. Like it was a threat. Like I was in danger, I...” Your words are tumbling out faster now, more frantic, “He sniffed me. That's not normal, Jake. He—”

“Sure he did.”

It lingers in the air a moment, and you stare, suspended in disbelief at how he’s looking at you as if you are a child describing a monster in the closet.

“You think I’m making it up.”

The dismissal is worse than the doubt. He's not even taking it seriously enough to disbelieve. Your hands are trembling. You press them flat against the table.

"I didn’t mean it like that,” He starts, “Sweetheart—”

“You don’t believe me.”

"I believe…" He stops, taking a moment to reel in his thoughts. He lowers his voice to a tone that's more gentle and patient, acutely aware of how your breathing is growing uneven. "Maybe these nightmares are warping your perception of the people around you. Which is making you act a little judgmental."

He reaches across the table. His palm hovers over your knuckles, an offering. But you swat his hand away before it lands. It's a small gesture, but the impact of it lingers.

"You don't believe me." You repeat.

His frown is no longer patient.

"Do you even believe yourself?"

Jake looks at you, searching for something neither of you can name. For an answer. For understanding. For anything at all. You can't help the shame that creeps up on you, rotting you from the inside.

You don't know what you believe. All you know is that your dreams have a face now. The face lives at the end of your street and has invited you to dinner.

It would be so easy to say you're afraid of him. It wouldn't be a lie. But the truer explanation is also the most shameful: you want your neighbour. You've wanted him since he looked at you in the candlelight and made you feel like prey that was begging to be caught. But admitting that would mean admitting that the rot inside you was never his fault—That all of this has nothing to do with fear and everything to do with the woman you've been trying not to be since you were old enough to know better.

You don't let yourself finish the thought. You never do.

Through the corner of your eye, through the kitchen window, a passing car's headlights reveal the sight of something in your yard. Something red, in contrast to the stark white snow, and you freeze.

"Listen, I’m not trying to argue. I'm really not. I'm just trying to help. You can’t be afraid of every stranger you—"

"I just saw something." The words leave your mouth before you've decided to say them. "Out there."

Jake stops. His eyes follow yours to the window, where the dark has settled back over the yard like a curtain drawn shut. When he looks back at you, his frown is firm.

Holding Jake's hand, you walk with him through ankle-deep snow, his flashlight flickering ever so slightly. The beam is weak but steady enough to catch the trail he's tracking: small animal footprints, evenly spaced, leading toward the hedge at the edge of the yard.

"There," you whisper, though you don't know why you're whispering. "Behind the bush."

He angles the light. For a moment, the snow is just white and clean and untouched. Then the beam catches it. A bright splash of red, vivid against the pale. It's fresh. Still wet.

"Oh my god." Your hand flies to your mouth.

Jake crouches, his jaw tight, and pushes aside the lowest branch. The cat lies curled beneath the hedge, its fluffy white coat matted with blood. Its neck is torn, and two small punctures sit just above the collar, neat, precise, too deliberate to be random. You'd seen it in movies. You'd seen it in the book Niki flipped through at the library.

That night, after Jake calls the old woman across the street and breaks the news that her beloved house pet lies lifeless in your front yard, you find yourself curled up against Jake's chest. Your violent shaking and panicked breathing had now simmered down into quiet breaths and subtle trembling.

"There were no other footprints around."

"Hm?" His voice is thick with the sleep he's been fighting off.

"The cat."

Jake doesn't sigh, but the way his chest rises and falls tells you he was hiding his frustration for your sake.

"It was dark." His hand resumes its slow circles on your back. "We probably just missed it."

"I know what I saw."

"What do you think it was then, hm?" He teases lazily, thoughtlessly. "A scary cat-killing monster with no footsteps?"

He means it as a joke. Mostly. But you don't miss the edge in his voice, how it's sharper than it would have been an hour ago, before the argument at the kitchen table, before the cold trek through the snow to find a dead cat in your yard.

"A vampire."

The word lands in the dark between you and just sits there. Jake goes still. Then, slowly, he shifts upright, disentangling himself from you. The loss of his warmth is immediate.

He looks at you. Really looks at you.

"Okay. What is going on with you?"

"You don't think it could be?" You try, “Two marks, side-by-side, at its neck. What kind of wild animal does that?”

"Is that a serious question?" He blinks at you, "Baby. Look at me. Please tell me you aren't serious."

You don't answer.

This time, he does sigh loudly, and with a small "come here," he's pulling you in his arms again. He settles back against the pillows, tucking you against his chest.

"Let's pretend, hypothetically, that your little conspiracy theories are real. All the vampires and the cat-killing monsters and the creepy neighbours with sharp teeth..." His voice is warm and tired and almost teasing. But mostly just exhausted. "Then I promise I'll protect you from all the big, bad, scary things out there. Okay? Does that make you feel better?"

It should. But all you can think about is the cat beneath the hedge. The two neat punctures above its collar. The way Sunghoon looked at Jake, curious and patient, eyes at his neck when he wasn't looking.

You don't need Jake to protect you. You need him to stay the hell away from that house. You need him somewhere the monster can't reach.

But he won't stay. He's made that clear.

"Jake?"

"Mm?" He's already drifting, the exhaustion finally pulling him under.

"I'll come with you."

You walk the short distance to the house at the corner hand in hand with your husband, his palm warm and steady around yours. The snow has stopped falling, leaving the street hushed and still, though you feel anything but peace. Jake's thumb traces small circles over your knuckles, a nervous habit he doesn't seem to notice.

"You're squeezing," you murmur.

"Am I?" He loosens his grip, shooting you a sheepish smile. "Sorry. I just want this to go well."

You know why. It's not just about making a good impression or redeeming himself for the confrontation in the driveway. He's trying to give you peace of mind, even if he has to manufacture it. A successful evening means a normal neighbour. A normal neighbour means your fears were just fears. He needs that to be true. For you and for himself.

The gate groans when Jake pushes it open, the iron scrollwork black and wet with melted frost. The cobblestone path is uneven beneath your boots, the same path you fled down some time ago with your heart in your throat and the phantom heat of a stranger's lips still burning on your knuckles. The house looms above you, every window dark, the curtains drawn against the fading afternoon light.

"Nice place, right?" Jake says under his breath. It's such a desperately optimistic read of the looming dark house in front of you. You'd call it a generous lie if you didn't know your husband any better.

The heavy double doors open before Jake can knock.

Sunghoon stands in the shadow of the threshold, tall and pale and composed. His smile is closed-lipped, polite, his eyes moving from Jake to you with an unhurried grace.

"Welcome." He steps aside, gesturing you in. "Please, come in out of the cold."

"I'd shake your hand, but my fingers are still thawing." Jake laughs, "Seriously though. Thanks so much for having us."

"The pleasure is mine. It's been a very long time since this house has had guests." Sunghoon guides the pair of you inside, and you don't miss the way his hand brushes your back. His gaze flicks to you, and the corner of his mouth lifts just slightly. "Welcome back."

You murmur something that might be thank you. The warmth of the foyer wraps around you as the door swings shut, but it does nothing to stop the chill working its way down your spine.

"Man, this place is insane. You could fit our whole house in this entryway." Jake is still shrugging off his coat, glancing around the foyer with wide, earnest eyes.  He elbows you gently, grinning. "Why didn't we buy a creepy old mansion, babe?"

You don't answer, shedding your own coat, avoiding Sunghoon's stare.

"It's too much house for one person, I'm afraid. But it does have its charms." Sunghoon turns, gesturing toward the hall ahead. "Shall I give you the tour?"

"Yes, please." Jake nods enthusiastically, following him into the hall.

You trail behind.

Each room is just as beautiful as the last. The parlour with its heavy velvet drapes and furniture draped in dusty sheets. The study, lined floor to ceiling with books, a massive oak desk sitting dark and unused in the center. The dining room, where a long table has been set for three—candles flickering, silver gleaming. The formality of it all makes you feel like you've stepped into another century.

"My wife had a fondness for entertaining," Sunghoon says, noticing your gaze. "I'm afraid I've let the tradition lapse. You'll have to forgive me if I'm out of practice."

"Are you kidding? This is incredible." Jake claps him on the shoulder, already at ease. "Our dining table is just a couple of sad IKEA chairs."

It's in the music room that Jake stops dead in his tracks.

The grand piano sits in front of the large, draped windows. It's an ancient-looking thing, the legs intricately carved and the body engraved with winding patterns, with candelabras on either side, their wax frozen mid-drip. The ivory keys are yellowed with age, but the dark wood gleams, suggesting it's been properly maintained over the years.

Jake drifts toward it. His hand lifts before he seems to realize it, hovering just above the closed lid.

"No way," he breathes. "You play?"

"Occasionally. Though my wife was far better. It belonged to her." Sunghoon comes to stand beside him. "And you?"

"No, no. I just..." Jake runs a reverent hand over the closed lid. "I used to play guitar. Nothing fancy. Mostly in youth group, you know? Worship nights, that kind of thing."

"Ah, yes." Sunghoon's smile deepens. "A man of faith. Your wife mentioned it."

"Born and raised." Jake glances back at you, his expression bright with the pleasure of finding common ground. "Actually, I used to sing in the choir too, back when I was a kid. Drove the conductor insane because I could never remember the Latin verses."

"A church choir. Now that brings back memories." He hums, soft and almost wistful, "I sang as a child, too. Soprano, if you can believe it. Before my voice dropped and they had no more use for me."

"No way." Jake laughs, delighted. "Small world, huh? What denomination?"

"The details blur after a while." Sunghoon waves a hand, "Though I'm afraid my faith hasn't weathered the years as well as yours."

"Hey, I get it. Life has a way of testing you." Jake's hand finds yours, squeezing, as if to say, see? He's just a guy. A normal, lonely guy. "But the door's always open, right?"

"So I've heard."

You stand a few paces behind them, your hand limp in Jake's grip, listening to the easy rhythm of their conversation. It should be a comfort—your husband, making a friend, building the life you'd both imagined for yourselves in this new town. But all you can feel is the way Sunghoon's gaze keeps drifting toward you even as he speaks to Jake. The way his smile never quite reaches his eyes.

You drift away, taking in the rest of the room while their voices fade behind you.

The bookshelf is built into the far wall, floor to ceiling, packed with old volumes in dark, cracked leather. You let your eyes trace the spines without really seeing them—something to do, somewhere to look that isn't the two of them. Most of the titles are in languages you don't recognize. Latin, maybe. Something older.

Then your gaze snags.

A book bound in dark blue cloth, its cover embossed with a faded silver symbol you recognize instantly. You've seen it before. In the narrow library aisle, in the hands of a bored teenager. Instinctively, your hand reaches.

"Have you read it?"

The voice comes from directly behind you, close enough that you feel the words stir the hair at the nape of your neck. You flinch, spinning on your heel, and find Sunghoon standing less than an arm's length away. You hadn't heard him move. You hadn't heard anything at all.

You look around frantically. Jake. Where is Jake? Where did he—?

"It's local history, mostly. Folklore. Old superstitions." He reaches past you, his sleeve brushing your shoulder, and pulls the volume from the shelf. He turns it over in his hands, long pale fingers tracing the embossed symbol. "You don't strike me as the type to believe in such."

"I don't." You say too quickly, "I just find it interesting. The stories. The history."

"So you have read it."

His eyes meet yours. The candlelight catches them strangely, deepening the dark, and for a moment, you can't look away. You don’t want to. Nor do you want to keep trying to convince yourself that the way he looks at you is anything normal.

"What about you?" You tilt your chin up. "Do you believe any of it is real?"

"I think I’ve told you before. I believe in many things." He slides the book back onto the shelf. "They say curiosity is a dangerous thing. It can be. Though I think a curious mind, who is drawn to things they cannot explain, is putting themselves in far more danger by resisting their nature."

"One might call it resistance. One might also call it none of your concern."

The words come out sharper than you intended. Sunghoon smiles, slow and knowing.

"The scaredy cat has claws." He doesn't step back. His gaze doesn't waver.

Against your will, your mind flashes back to the cat in your front yard, lying bloody and lifeless in the snow. A shudder runs through you.

Jake's footsteps echo in the hallway, and Sunghoon steps back, the space between you reasserting itself as if it had never closed.

"Anyway." Sunghoon's voice lifts, smooth and easy, perfectly timed to Jake's reappearance in the doorway. "It's quite an interesting read, even for a skeptic."

"Sorry about that." He says, expression half sheepish. "I kind of got lost on the way to the bathroom. This house is—yeah. What'd I miss?"

"Your wife was admiring my library," Sunghoon replies. "She has excellent taste."

The three of you sit at one end of the long dining room table, silverware grasped in your unsteady hands, your wine glass untouched. Sunghoon brought out the first course—something rich and dark, red wine sauce pooling on porcelain. It smells delicious, and you watch Jake dig into it thoughtlessly. You move the food around your plate instead. Your mother would scold you for bad table manners, but you don't owe this man any manners. Not when he’s charming your husband to his face, and cornering you when he’s out of sight.

"So only a few weeks," Sunghoon says, refilling Jake's glass with a bottle that had no label. "Married, moved in, new job. You've been busy."

"Busy doesn't even cover it." Jake is already reaching for his glass, his shoulders loosening with each sip. "I barely have time to do anything like this anymore. Socializing, I mean. As much as I love being cooped up with my other half..." He shoots you a wink. "This is nice. Really nice."

"It is." Sunghoon hums in agreement. "I remember what it was like. The demands on a new husband can feel endless. The pressure to build something lasting, to be enough for someone who's given you everything."

"Yeah." Jake exhales, something in his posture softening. "Exactly. It's a lot sometimes."

Sunghoon's gaze drifts to yours.

"Of course, it's hard on the wives, too. I'm sure." He says. "The adjustment can be difficult. Old habits. Old fears. They don't disappear just because there's a ring on your finger."

Jake doesn't seem to notice how you shift in discomfort. He’s already nodding, already raising his glass in a loose, tipsy agreement. He doesn't hear the implication. He doesn't see the way Sunghoon's eyes haven't left your face. He doesn’t listen to you when you tell him to stop drinking, either.

One bottle turned into two, and you don't know how many glasses you've watched your husband down, but you know with certainty that he's far gone as you sit in the living room, stiff and silent while the men chat away. You don't listen. You're too busy noticing how your heart beats faster than the ticking grandfather clock in the corner, eagerly waiting to leave.

The fire has burned down to embers, a low red pulse that makes the shadows stretch along the walls. The record crackles to life, piano drifting through the air. Something slow and minor.

"My wife adored Chopin's nocturnes, but I preferred his sonatas. Though one could argue that everything he composed was excellent." Sunghoon places the record sleeve down, the edges worn. "I used to listen to this one to clear my head."

Jake stirs against you, lifting his head with visible effort.

"Oh yeah?" His voice is thick, syrupy. He squints at the record sleeve in Sunghoon's hands, then back at you. "I know someone who could use that."

He looks straight at you. His eyes are glassy, fond, and painfully oblivious. You glare.

"I'm just teasing, baby." His hand finds your thigh, squeezing. A drunken peace offering. It doesn't help at all. "Just teasing."

"Careful." Sunghoon's voice is closer now, light and teasing as he slides into the couch across from you two. "You'll end up sleeping on the couch tonight."

Jake snorts, and you watch something loosen in his shoulders—watch him lean into the camaraderie of it, the easy, too-easy understanding that passes between them. He gestures with his glass, the dregs of wine sloshing against the crystal.

"She wouldn't let me. Who else is going to protect her from all the scary monsters and the dark?" He rolls his eyes, affectionately dismissive.

"Jake." It comes out as a whisper, a plea.

"You're scared of the dark?"

"She's scared of everything." Jake interrupts, his words slurring. "Scared of the dark. Scared of being alone. Scared of herself, even." He raises his hands in surrender, palms out, the gesture loose and exaggerated. "Don't ask me why. Nobody knows why. I've been trying to figure it out since we met, and I've got nothing."

He lets his hands drop, gazing at you with a sad, broken look in his eyes. Something only alcohol could drag out of him, and something he'll hate himself for in the morning.

"I don't know how to help." He continues, "I don't know what to do. I never know what to—"

"Jake, stop it."

He blinks at you, the awareness that he's crossed a line he definitely shouldn't have dawning on him all at once. His shoulders hunch, invisible weight pressing down on him.

"Right. I should shut my mouth. I know, I know." He sets his glass down on the side table, clumsy, the stem rattling. His hand finds your knee and pats it twice, a sloppy apology. "I don't know what I'm saying. I'm not trying to be mean, sweetheart. I just… don't understand you."

"I know."

"I try. I promise, I try."

"I know you do." You soothe him, feeling his weight press against you. You turn to Sunghoon. "I think he's had too much to drink. We should probably—"

"I try, just..." He exhales, long and slow, the last of the fight going out of him. "Just... can't..."

His head dips forward. His shoulders go slack. The weight of him against your side becomes dead weight, heavy and still.

"Jake?" Your hand moves to his chest, shaking gently. Nothing.

His breathing remains deep and even, but there's no flicker of consciousness beneath his eyelids, no reflexive squeeze of his hand where it lies slack in yours.

"Your husband." Sunghoon hasn't moved from his chair. The firelight catches the pale angle of his jaw, the dark gleam of his eyes. "He's lovely."

"He is." The words come out defensive.

His gaze then drops to your throat.

Your hand twitches up. Beneath your blouse, the cross rests against your heated skin. You wore it like this on purpose, tucked away so you wouldn't be tempted to reach for it, so he wouldn't have the satisfaction of seeing you clutch it like a shield. Still, your muscle memory betrays you.

"Though, not quite as lovely as you."

You dart your gaze away immediately, redirecting your attention to Jake. You shake him with less care and more urgency.

"Jake." You hiss his name under your breath, a prayer and a plea. "Jake, wake up."

He returns nothing. Not a twitch. Not a flicker of consciousness.

"Please." Your voice is rising now, shedding its careful composure. "Please, Jake—"

"He's not going to wake up."

Sunghoon's voice is certain.

Your hand stills on Jake's shoulder.

"What did you do to him?" Your voice is low. Gone was the politeness you'd faked for your husband's sake.

He smiles.

"Nothing. He drank my wine. Enjoyed good company. That's all." Sunghoon states plainly, "He's exhausted. You've noticed it, haven't you? The dark circles. The way he collapses the moment he's home."

Your gaze drops to Jake's face. To the shadows pooled beneath his eyes. The way his hand, even in sleep, rests on your thigh like he's still trying to anchor you. Your throat tightens. You've done this to him. Your fears. Your clinging. And—

"And the nightmares," Sunghoon continues, his head tilting. "The things you call nightmares. They must be so tiring for him to tend to."

A slow, creeping horror spreads through your chest as you stare back at him.

"But they're not really nightmares." His voice drops, low and intimate. "They never have been."

You move before you can think.

"Jake." Your hand closes around Jake's arm. You pull, trying to drag him upright, trying to haul his dead weight off the couch. "Jake, get up. We're leaving. We're leaving right now—"

His body is heavy and uncooperative, slumping against you, and you're not strong enough, but you try regardless. You try because you can see Sunghoon start to rise from where he's seated from the corner of your eye.

You reach to set down your wine glass. You need both hands. You need to grip Jake properly and drag him out of this house, even if you have to crawl. But your hands are shaking, and the glass comes down too fast.

It shatters.

The sound is obscene in the quiet—a bright, crystalline burst, shards scattering across your hand, across the coffee table and onto the carpet.

Immediately, the pain rises through your palm, and you hiss, jerking your hand back. You watch the blood well up—dark in the low light, beading along the cut and spilling over, sliding down the curve of your wrist.

A single drop falls to the carpet.

Then you hear it. A low, ragged inhale, shuddering and deep, as if the air itself has become something to be devoured. Your head lifts before you can stop it.

He's already above you, his presence caging you into the couch, and the expression on his face has changed. His eyes are dark. His lips have parted. His whole body is still, but it is not the stillness of composure. It is the stillness of a predator in the moment before the strike.

He reaches down. Takes your wrist. The motion is nothing gentle, but there is a restraint in his grip that makes your pulse hammer against his fingers. He draws your bleeding hand toward his face, eyes fixed on the red tracing its way down your palm. He lowers his mouth to it.

"Sunghoon—"

He inhales, and the groan that escapes him is low and guttural, pulled from somewhere deep in his chest. It is pure hunger, pure want, and it makes your thighs press together where you sit, a traitorous heat blooming low in your belly that you cannot control.

"What are you?" Your voice is a mere whisper, weak and trembling. "What do you want from me?"

"You know what I am. You've known me a very long time." His fangs catch the firelight, sharp and unmistakable. He turns your wrist over, watching a bead of blood trace down your palm. "As for what I want... All I've ever wanted is what you promised me all those years ago."

The memories come back to you all at once: The dreams. The cold hands on your bare skin. The sharp teeth sinking into your neck while you begged for it, night after night, year after year. The presence at your window that was never a nightmare at all.

It's always been him.

"For so long, I've waited." He shudders, and the sound is almost pained. "For even just a taste of what is mine."

You watch, frozen, as his lips close around your fingers. His tongue moves against your wounded hand, lapping at the blood with a hunger that feels obscene. His eyes flutter shut. A tremor runs through him, and you feel it echoed in your own body.

Your husband lies sleeping three feet away, a monster is drinking from your hand like a man dying of thirst, and you cannot speak. You cannot do anything but watch and feel the shameful heat pooling between your thighs, the ache you've spent a lifetime trying to pray away now so acute it nearly doubles you over.

A whimper catches in your throat. You try to swallow it back, but it escapes anyway, small and utterly pathetic. His eyes open at the sound, fixed on yours as you watch the slow movement of his throat as he swallows. Your breath is coming short, and you nearly forget how to breathe entirely when his knee comes up to the couch, just between your thighs as he leans over you. Your free hand is pressed flat against your thigh to keep it from reaching for him.

When he finally pulls his mouth from your fingers, a thin strand of saliva, stained with your blood, connects his lower lip to your skin.

"Just a taste..." he breathes, the words ragged. His grip on your wrist tightens, not enough to hurt, but enough to make clear he is holding himself back by a thread. "It's not enough."

"Please," You shake your head. "Please, I don't—"

"Don't you remember? The way you kneeled before me. How I answered your call." His voice drops. "I promised you relief—in exchange for you. For your blood. Your flesh. Your soul. Your innocence. We made a deal."

The soul-contract.

Permanent. Mutual. Even if the vampire dies, the connection doesn't break.

You had hoped it was all folklore. Even after you saw his fangs, after he tasted your blood. Some small part of you clung to the belief that the promise you made at your window was nothing more than a desperate girl's cry into the dark.

But the deal was real. Your marriage, your faith, your husband's gentle love—none of it could change what you'd already given away.

"Why now?" Your voice cracks. "Why me. Why—"

"You have no idea how torturous it was. To be bound to someone I could not reach." His voice is ragged now, stripped of its usual composure. "To feel your wanting every night. Your dreams, your shame. To be unable to touch you. To be unable to drink you. Unable to even stand at your window and watch you."

His eyes find yours, and the hurt in them is so raw, so genuine, that for a moment you forget he's a monster.

"And then you moved across the river. Across the street. I thought—finally. Finally, she's come to me." His expression hardens. "But you came with him. You let another man touch what was already mine. How could you do that to me?"

The running water barrier—they can't cross it.

You remember when you viewed the house in this neighbourhood. The unmistakable, almost unsettlingly strong pull you'd felt. You'd taken it as a sign from God that this place was right. That your future belonged here.

So you left your childhood home behind. You crossed the southern river. You brought yourself within his reach, and you brought your husband with you.

God. He hadn't been the one to answer your prayers. He hadn't guided you on the right path, either. Perhaps you'd let him down too many times. Perhaps your faith was too bleak, too fragile. Or perhaps he'd stopped listening altogether the night you knelt at your window and begged for something He couldn't give.

"I felt everything. Every touch. Every kiss. His name on your lips." His gaze cuts to Jake's sleeping form, a strange sort of understanding surfacing beneath his frown. "I even felt your love for him."

He is quiet for a long moment, and so are you. Then, his gaze returns to you.

"I cannot understand how you could love someone else. Though, I also cannot blame you for needing someone in my absence."

His mouth is at your throat now. You feel the graze of his fangs against the thin skin over your pulse, the place where your blood beats closest to the surface.

"But I am here now. Do not deny me any longer." His voice is a murmur against your neck, each word a brush of cool lips. "I've been so patient, my love."

Your pulse is racing, warm and alive under his cold touch. Your blood sings to him, practically begging to be taken. Though he doesn't bite.

You remember why before you can question it: The soul-contract requires permission.

Your body is screaming for you to give in. Your hand wants to curl into his hair and press him closer to your neck, to offer yourself and enjoy every second of it, the way you have done so in every dream you've ever had of him. You are trembling with the effort of holding yourself still as you imagine the pleasure, the relief.

Then you look to Jake, the peaceful look on his face, his soft breathing.

"Don't."

His hand stills. Then it withdraws entirely. The loss of contact is almost worse than the touch—your skin aching where his palm had rested, your pulse hammering against nothing.

His expression shifts, tenderness replaced with something wounded.

"That night." Your voice trembles, but you force the words out. "It was a mistake. I was young. And desperate. That's all it was."

"You can lie to your husband. You can even lie to yourself. But you cannot lie to me." He frowns. "I can smell your desire from down the street. It reeks."

"I don't desire this. I don't. I don't want it. I just want to be left alone." You shake your head as the words fall out, painfully unconvincing. The tears come before you can stop them, spilling over your cheeks. "Please. Please leave me alone."

He watches you weep, ever so still and silent. Then, his hand rises, near your face. For a moment, you let yourself lean into the possibility of the touch, the cold comfort of his fingertips.

"These tears." His voice is barely a whisper as a single finger traces the track of your tears. "You only cry because you continue to deny yourself."

You sniffle. Blink. Meet his gaze through the wet blur of your lashes.

"You've tormented me for years." You try to sound angry. Your voice doesn't obey. "You've ruined me. And now you're ruining my marriage."

"Tormented?" His brows furrow, and he studies your face—the parted lips, the flushed cheeks, the wet gleam of your eyes. His hand remains at your cheek. His touch is cold. It soothes, momentarily, the all-consuming heat inside you. "You have it all wrong. I've loved you for years."

"Love." You'd laugh if you weren't crying, "You're not in love. You're hungry."

"Hunger is the purest form of love. It doesn't think. It doesn't negotiate. It simply wants." He tilts his head. "You know that. You've been hungry your whole life. You hunger for something only I can give you. Something only we can share."

You think of the ache. The one that never goes away. The one you've tried to pray away, fuck away, hide away in the deepest part of yourself. It pulses now, insistently, and you know he could make it stop.

You pull away regardless. Your body screams, but you ignore it. You will not give in to temptation. You will resist.

"Stay away from me."

His expression doesn't change, but the air between you feels as if it does. He looks at you for a long, unreadable moment. Then he inclines his head.

"Very well."

The firelight catches his face—his terribly beautiful face. It hurts to even look at him.

"You're stubborn." His hand drifts from your neck, his gaze longing. "So was I."

He brings his palm to your forehead, and your eyelids grow heavy. The weight of slumber threatens to pull you under, and you try to fight it, but your body is no longer yours to command. It hasn't been for a long time.

"But you know, my dear..." His voice is the last thing you hear, "A vampire still needs to feed."

His gaze shifts past you. Toward the couch. Toward Jake.

You aren't able to protest. The record still plays, the second sonata in its third movement, and it lulls you, allowing the darkness to swallow you whole.

You wake slowly, your body rising before your mind can follow. The first thing you register is warmth. The second is wetness, a slick, shameful heat between your thighs that tells you the dreams have come again even if you can't remember them.

The third is the press of your husband's body against your back. Hard. Insistent.

"Shit, baby." Jake's voice is rough, his arm tightening around your waist. "You're killing me."

Your husband.

You lurch forward, twisting in his grip, your hands finding his shoulders and pushing him flat against the mattress so you can climb over him. Your heart is pounding from the images that linger at the edge of your memory like a flickering candle flame. His face. His teeth. Your blood on his lips. The way your husband slumped against the couch, and how he moved towards him.

"Jake!" The name tears out of you. Your hands cup his face, thumbs pressing into his cheekbones, tilting his head left and right. "Jake, you're alive."

He blinks up at you, squinting against the pale morning light. His hair is a mess, flattened on one side, and there's a crease from the pillow pressed into his cheek.

"Ugh. Barely." He groans, scrubbing a hand over his face. "How much did I drink last night? I feel like I got hit by a truck."

Your hands are still on his face, your eyes still searching.

"Do you... do you remember anything?"

"Uh..." He hums, his brow furrowing with the effort of recollection. "The meal was amazing. And the wine. A lot of wine. And..." He shifts, adjusting himself with a wince. "I remember thinking our neighbour's a really cool guy."

Your heart drops into your stomach.

"I could see myself being friends with him."

Friends. With him. With that monster. You bite your tongue.

"Do you remember anything else?" You ask a little quieter this time.

"Should I be remembering something else?" He props himself up on his elbows, his expression shifting from groggy to concerned. "Did something happen?"

"Do you remember passing out on his couch?"

His eyes widen.

"I did? Shit. That's... so embarrassing." His hands come up to his face, a half-groan, half-laugh leaving him. "It was fun, though. You had a good time too, right?"

You don't answer. Your gaze drifts to his neck, to the skin just below his jaw. There they are. Two small punctures, red and slightly raised, the skin around them faintly bruised.

A vampire needs to feed.

You reach, your fingertips brushing the wounds. Jake flinches.

"What is that?" He twists away from your touch, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and stumbling toward the mirror above the dresser. He tilts his chin, squinting at his reflection. "Huh. Looks like mosquito bites or something. Weird time of year for bugs."

"Vampire bite."

Jake's eyes meet yours in the mirror. For a moment, his expression is unreadable—caught somewhere between confusion and a smile, like he's waiting for the punchline. Then his face settles into something flatter. Tired.

"Ha. Yeah, right. Very funny." He turns from the mirror, reaching for a T-shirt on the floor. "Don't tell me you're still serious about that."

"I am serious."

He pauses, one arm in his sleeve, the other still free. He turns to look at you over his shoulder, his expression wholeheartedly, genuinely, bewildered with disbelief.

"Baby." He pulls the shirt the rest of the way on. His voice is groggy, too tired to give your seeming absurdity any real argument. "Come on."

"You don't understand, you—" At the fuzzy recollection of the previous night—the glass shattering in your hand, and the wound he licked clean, you scramble to show Jake your hand, holding out your right palm. "Look. I cut my hand and he..."

Your voice trails off, seeing your hand. You turn your hand over, flexing your fingers. You know you didn't imagine the pain of the glass piercing your skin. You know you watched him devour the blood from your open wound. And yet, there isn't a single mark. Not even a faint scar. Not a trace of proof to show him.

"Sweetheart. Look at me." Jake says slowly, calmly. "Are you actually suggesting that our neighbour—who, by the way, invited us into his home and made us dinner—is a vampire?" He waits, watching you. Watches how you don't answer, how you ignore him and continue to inspect your hand for proof that isn't there. "You can't be serious. Vampires aren't real. They're Halloween costumes. They're shitty movies. They're— "

"Jake. Just—look at your neck." You gesture, and his hand flies up instinctively to the wound. "It's literally right there. We're both looking at it."

"These are—I don't know what they are. An allergic reaction. A spider bite. I don't know. But it's not..." He stops himself, shaking his head. "You believe this. You actually, genuinely believe that Sunghoon is a vampire?"

"He is."

Neither of you moves.

Jake stares at you. You stare back. And for a long, strange moment, you're both just standing there in your bedroom looking at each other like you've each just discovered the other is speaking a foreign language.

"I don't..." He passes a hand over his face. "I don't even know what to say to that."

"Say you believe me."

"I don't." He exhales, long and slow. "Baby, you're asking me to believe in actual, literal monsters who drink blood and sleep in a coffin and turn into bats."

"He doesn't turn into a bat, or—"

"Oh, well, that's reassuring. Thank you for clarifying." He scoffs. "I can't believe what I'm hearing. I can't—it's too early for this."

"Jake," you plead, "I know it sounds crazy. But I know what I saw."

"What did you see?"

The question hangs in the air between you. He poses it the same way he always does, when he asks about your nightmares. And you realize, with a sinking, gut-wrenching clarity, that there is no answer you can give that he will believe. You could describe the fangs—sharp and white and gleaming in the firelight. You could describe the sound he made when he smelled your blood, animalistic and starving. You could describe the way his mouth closed around your fingers, the way his tongue moved against your skin as he drank from your hand. You could spend hours, talking in circles, trying to explain it. It doesn't matter. Jake didn't see it. He would only look at you with those patient, loving eyes and say you had a nightmare or you were scared and the wine got to your head. "Hey." His voice softens. He crosses the room and sits on the edge of the bed beside you, his hand finding yours. "I'm not trying to make you feel bad."

"I know."

"Where is this coming from?" He asks, "The vampire talk. Is it your dreams?"

You nod. It's true, even if not the whole truth.

"Tell me about them." His thumb traces your hand. "I know you don't like talking about your dreams. But I can't help you if you don't tell me."

Jake waits. When nothing comes, he squeezes your hand.

"Please. I want to understand. Please give me something." His fingers lace through yours, intertwined with his hand, "I'm your husband. You can tell me anything."

The words are right there. My dreams, my sins, the things I prayed for in the dark,  the monster that answered. But they don't come. Saying them out loud means admitting what you'd done, what you brought into your marriage and haunts the space between your thighs when you wake in the dark. What you still, in the deepest and most secret part of yourself, want.

He wouldn't see the woman he thought he married. He'd see filth. Sin. Your rotting, corrupted soul. A woman who begged evil to touch her.

"I don't think my dreams are just dreams anymore." The words come out barely a whisper. You can't bring yourself to tell him the rest. "I'm so scared, Jake."

The sob that follows is ugly and raw. You crawl into his lap like you did a few weeks ago, your fingers twisting into the fabric of his shirt, your face pressed to the warm hollow of his throat. And he holds you. Like he always does. Like he's come to expect.

"Okay," he murmurs into your hair. "Okay. I've got you. It's okay."

But it's not okay. Even now, with his arms around you and his heartbeat steady beneath your ear, you feel it. That hunger. A ravenous void inside you, hot and insistent and utterly indifferent to the tears still drying on your cheeks. It never leaves. It's always there.

Your hand moves before you can stop it. Sliding up his chest. Curling into the collar of his shirt. Your mouth finds his.

He lets you kiss him, his lips parting under yours, a small sound of surprise caught in his throat. His hands come up to your waist, steadying you, and for a moment it's like every other time—the familiar heat, the familiar hunger, the familiar way your body presses into his like he's the only thing keeping you tethered to the earth.

You climb deeper into his lap, your knees bracketing his hips. You roll against him, a slow, desperate grind, chasing the friction that might quiet the ache for even a few seconds.

You need him to be enough. You need him to be the answer, the cure, the thing that scares the monster out of you.

"Baby." His voice is breathless, his hands tightening on your waist. "Slow down."

You don't—you can't. Slowing down means thinking, and thinking means remembering the cold hands, the sharp teeth, his mouth on your fingers while your husband slept three feet away. So you kiss him harder. You grind down against the pressure in his underwear, a desperate little sound escaping your throat.

"Hey." His grip shifts, trying to tame you. "Hey, slow down. Just—"

Your hand drops to grasp him, but he's quicker than you. He closes around your wrists, and your back hits the mattress, his weight settling over you, his knees bracketing your hips. He keeps your hands pinned down on either side of your head, breathing heavy above your form.

You thrash. Not playfully, either. Not with a smile or a giggle or a pout. It's a full-body thrash, fuelled by a sharp and sudden frustration, verging on genuine anger. You twist beneath him, trying to free your hands, trying to arch up into the heat of his body.

"Stop." His voice is quiet. "Just stop. For a second."

You thrash again. You hiss his name, and you even try to kick him, but he shifts his weight enough to keep you fully restrained. He doesn't budge. His grip on your wrists is secure, his weight solid and unmovable.

It's only when you feel your tears sliding from your temples into your hairline that you realize you're still crying. You must look insane. You must look like exactly what you are: a woman trying to fuck her way out of her own damnation.

"Please." The word comes out broken, barely a whisper. You don't know if you're asking him to let go or to never let go.

"No." He shakes his head. "We're not doing this."

"Why not?"

"Every time you get scared, or something upsets you, you climb into my lap and kiss me. I don't know what you're trying to do or why, but..." His voice isn't quite as steady as it usually is. A hitch in his breath, a flicker of something else. He swallows. "I can't just fuck the hurt out of you. It's not right."

"It helps." Your voice cracks. "Please. Just help me."

He stares down at you. His eyes are so tired. So unbearably, impossibly tired. And beneath the exhaustion, there's something you've never seen before.

"Sweetheart." He whispers. "You're scaring me."

Your body goes slack beneath him, but his grip doesn't loosen. He still holds your wrists against the mattress, still keeps his weight braced above you, still watches you with those wide, careful eyes. Like you've gone rabid.

He shouldn't have to hold me down, you think. A good wife doesn't need to be restrained.

A good wife doesn't claw at her husband while she's still crying. A good wife doesn't grind against him like a bitch in heat, chasing a relief he can't give her, chasing a hunger that has nothing to do with love. A good wife doesn't show her burning desire. Desire belongs to the husband. It's his to wield and use, and for her to accept it.

But here you are. Pinned to your own marriage bed for all the wrong reasons, your face wet with tears you can't explain, your body still aching with a want he didn't ask for—a want to be consumed, to be devoured without shame, without guilt. Of course he doesn't know what to do with it. You crave something he cannot give you.

The fight drains out of you all at once, leaving nothing but the hollow ache and the shame and the terrible, traitorous thought that rises up before you can stop it.

Sunghoon wouldn't stop.

Sunghoon wouldn't be scared. He would see the hunger on your face and recognize it. He would give you exactly what you were asking for. He would pin you to the mattress and sink his teeth into your throat and make the ache disappear. He wouldn't try to save you. He would let you drown.

"Baby?"

Jake's voice cuts through the dark. You blink, and the fantasy recedes, with Sunghoon's face dissolving, the cold hands retreating, the sharp teeth fading back into the shadows where they belong.

Your husband is still there. Still hovering over you with that furrow between his brows, that gentle, worried look he's been wearing for weeks. He's been talking. You haven't been listening.

"I think I know what's going on."

You look up.

"We haven't been to church in weeks. Either of us. Ever since the wedding, we've just... let it slip." His voice is so certain. "You're losing touch with God, and it's scaring you."

Losing touch.

Your eyes land on the cross around his neck, catching the pale light from the window. It's the same one he was wearing when you met him all those years ago. You've never seen him without it.

Jake is a good Christian. He always has been. His faith has never wavered, never faltered, never turned its back on him the way yours turned its back on you.

Foolishly, you'd once hoped that his goodness might rub off on you, that marrying a man who loved God so easily might help you remember how to do the same. Now you wonder if you're doing the opposite. If you're the one dragging him away from the light.

"I'm not saying it's the whole answer. I'm just saying... maybe it's a start." He presses a kiss to your head. "Let's go. Together. It can't hurt, right?"

The hope in your chest is as steady as a single lit candle in the wind. Somehow, it still burns—It flickers, it wavers, but it still burns. You don't know if it's because you're too stubborn to let it go out, or if you only cling to it because it's the only thing you know.

"Yeah," You nod. You try a smile, though it feels stiff against your cheeks. "Let's go."

The church is small and quaint, an old-fashioned-looking chapel. Stained glass windows filter in colour from the grey winter light, and the air smells of incense and old wood and the faint, sweet perfume of the elderly women who fill the front pews.

You sit near the back, and Jake holds your hand throughout the opening prayers, his thumb tracing those same familiar circles. When the choir rises to sing, he glances at you with a small, encouraging smile. See? the smile says. This is where we belong.

You try to feel it. You close your eyes. You bow your head. You let the Latin verses wash over you, the same ones Jake joked about forgetting as a boy—Gloria in excelsis Deo, et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis—and wait for the peace that is supposed to follow.

The prayers feel hollow in your mouth, words without meaning. The hymns rise and fall, but they bring you no peace. The stained glass saints stare down at you with flat, judgmental eyes, and you feel the weight of their disapproval.

You don't belong here. You are sitting in the house of God with the stain of your dreams still fresh on your skin, with the memory of a monster's eyes and sharp teeth and the wet heat of your own arousal clinging to you beneath your skirt. You are filthy.

Jake squeezes your hand, and you flinch.

"You okay?" he whispers.

You look at him, his smile, his earnest concern.

You don't belong. You are filthy, you are damned. But you are trying. God help you, you are trying.

Returning the squeeze of his hand, you nod.

The service drags on. The priest's homily is about faith in times of trial, about holding fast to belief when the world grows dark around you. You sit with your hands folded in your lap, your spine rigid, listening to the words but taking in none of it.

When the final blessing is given, and the congregation rises to leave, you feel like you've been holding your breath for an hour and only just now remembered how to exhale.

"See?" Jake says, his arm slipping around your waist as you walk toward the doors. "That was nice, right?"

"Hey, lady!"

The voice echoes through the vestibule, bright and unmistakable, and you freeze. Jake turns, his arm still around you, and you watch his expression shift from confusion to surprise as a lanky figure in a rumpled button-up shirt comes bounding toward you through the thinning crowd.

Niki. From the library. The collar of his shirt askew. His hair looks like it hasn't seen a comb since last Sunday. And he's grinning like you're the most exciting thing to happen to him all week.

"Hey, lady! And sir—" He glances at Jake, giving him a quick, awkward nod. "Lady's husband. Hi."

"We need to go," you say quickly, your hand tightening on Jake's arm. "Sorry, Niki, we're—"

"What's this?" Jake's free hand has already reached out, plucking a slim paperback from the boy's grip before either of you can react. He turns it over, reading the cover. "Vampire lore, huh?"

Jake turns the book toward you. The cover shows a shadowed figure with glowing eyes, looming over a sleeping woman. The Old World Vampire: A Study of Belief, Burial, and Blood.

"I keep it in the Bible during service," Niki grabs it back, oblivious to how Jake's expression flickers with all the shock, scandal, and the distant horror of a youth group alumnus at the thought of someone tucking something so unholy between the pages of Scripture. "Please don't tell my mom. She'd kill me if she knew I was reading this stuff in church."

Jake doesn't respond to Niki. He's looking at you now, and the lightness in his voice is a thin veneer over something sharper.

"Sweetheart." He waits until you meet his eyes. "How exactly do you know this kid?"

"We met at the library. A few weeks ago."

"Dude." Niki is staring at Jake now with unbearable sincerity. "Your wife is so cool."

Jake blinks, the exhaustion in his face flickering. His brow lifts almost imperceptibly as he glances at you, a question forming at the corner of his mouth. Something in his expression is almost amused.

"She's the only person in this entire town who cares about this stuff. My mom literally tried to get the pastor to purify me one time because of my 'satanic theories' but she—" He jabs a finger toward you, his face alight. "She gets it."

The amusement dies.

"What stuff?"

You can feel Jake's stare now, the weight of it pressing against the side of your face. You don't return it.

Niki opens his mouth to answer, but Jake raises a hand.

"I'm asking her."

The silence that follows has Niki's grin faltering. He looks at you, then at Jake, just catching up to the tension in the room.

"History. Folklore." You swallow, "The occult—"

"Vampires." Jake finishes for you, flatly. Then turns to Niki. "My wife talks to you about vampires, is that it?"

Niki blinks, nodding enthusiastically. "You're so lucky, man. Seriously. I've got no one to talk to about this stuff and you just, like, get to be married to her. That's insane."

"Yeah. Lucky me."

"We should go," you say quickly. "Goodbye — "

"Wait!" Niki is already digging in his pocket, his fingers closing around a crumpled scrap of paper. "I wanted to give you this. My Discord."

He points at the username scrawled across the paper: xX_vampK1_Xx "I kept waiting for you to come back to the library, but you never did, so..." He thrusts it toward you, his expression almost painfully eager. "Message me? Please?"

From the distance, a woman's voice calls out. "Niki! Car. Now."

"That's my mom." He shoves the paper into your hand, his fingers cold and quick. "Okay, bye lady! Bye, lady's husband!"

And then he's gone, swallowed by the crowd of departing church-goers, leaving you standing in the vestibule with a scrap of paper in your fist and your husband staring at the side of your face.

The drive home is quiet.

Jake doesn't speak until you're through the front door, until his keys are tossed onto the hall table and his coat is shed. You shed yourself of your own coat, the small paper Niki had handed you still folded in its pocket.

"When I said go out to town and make friends," he says, his voice carefully level, "I didn't think you'd go befriending... emo teenagers."

You don't answer. You smooth the sleeve of your coat, align it on the hanger and close the closet door with a soft click.

"Kid gave you his Discord in front of me. At church. Ballsy, I'll give him that." A laugh, but there's nothing funny about his tone. "Must've really charmed him with all that vampire talk."

"Don't tell me you're jealous of a high schooler." You turn to face him finally, your back against the closet door.

"You know that's not it." His arms cross over his chest. "You never told me you went to the library. You never told me you were—what, researching? Talking with some kid who hides monster books inside his Bible?"

You push off the door and walk past him, into the kitchen. Away from the hurt in his eyes that you can't quite bear to witness.

"You're keeping secrets from me." He raises his voice ever so slightly, not enough to startle you, but enough to be heard from down the hall. "You're not going to explain yourself?"

His footsteps trail behind you. You reach the sink and turn on the faucet, letting the water run for no reason at all. Just sound. Something to drown out the shame.

"I went to the library to read about vampires. Because I thought—Because I know our neighbour is a vampire." You say, "And I didn't tell you because I knew you would look at me like... this."

Jake exhales, a long, measured breath.

You turn off the faucet, eyes glued to the tub of hot water, but you don't reach for any dishes.

"You don't believe me. So why would I tell you?"

His hands find your shoulders, warm and steady, and he turns you gently away from the sink. Away from the dirty dishes and the pretense that any of this is normal.

"I believe that you believe it." His thumbs trace the curve of your shoulders. "I believe you're scared. I believe something is wrong. I just don't think it's what you think it is."

"That's not the same thing."

"No. It's not."

He's quiet for a moment. Then, with a sigh, he guides you. His hand finds the small of your back. He pulls out a chair at the kitchen table and waits until you sit. Then he sits across from you and takes both your hands in his.

"Don't keep things from me." His voice is low, but it sounds like a plea. "I don't care how crazy it is. Even if you became a madwoman, I would never leave you. Never." He squeezes your hands. "Please. Don't hide. Don't push me away."

"I'm sorry," you look down at your joined hands. "I'm sorry that I'm like this. I'm sorry I can't just be normal."

"Stop. Don't apologize." He lifts one hand to your chin, tilting your face up until you meet his eyes. "I love you. I'll love you 'til the day I die."

You nod, sucking in a breath. You think you would be crying if you hadn't already shed all your tears earlier that morning.

"I love you too."

He nods, but the furrow in his brow doesn't smooth. His thumb traces a slow arc across your knuckles, and you can feel him preparing himself for whatever he's about to say.

"I want you to see someone. A therapist, or a counsellor. Someone who can actually help you work through all of this.” His voice is gentle, but there's no hesitation in it. He's been thinking about this. Maybe for a while. "These fears. The nightmares. It's not healthy. You can't spend the rest of your life like this."

A therapist. Your eyes drop to Jake's neck, where you know a vampire's bite hides beneath his collar.

"It won't help."

"It might." He squeezes your hands, willing you to meet him halfway. "You don't know unless you try. Even if it doesn't, at least we tried."

He lifts your hands to his lips and presses a kiss to your knuckles. His eyes are full of love, but tired. So very tired. You can see it in his movements, in the slight hunch of his shoulders.

You could argue. You could try to explain why it's a waste of money and time. But that's not what he needs to hear.

"Okay." You say. "I'll go."

His eyes widen, like he'd braced himself for a fight and doesn't quite know what to do now. Then he pushes back his chair and stands, pulling you up with him. His arms wrap around you before you've even found your footing, one hand splayed across your spine, the other cradling the back of your head. You feel his breath against your hair, warm and unsteady, and you feel his smile.

"Thank you," he murmurs. "Thank you."

He pulls back just enough to kiss your forehead. Then your cheek. Then the bridge of your nose, clumsy and reverent, and you almost laugh despite everything. He's already talking about a counsellor his mother knows, a name he'll look up, a number he'll call in the morning, but the words blur together, lost in the rhythm of his heart against your ear.

Being held is not the same as being saved, but you close your eyes and accept his embrace anyway. His arms are warm, and his heart is steady, and for now, that's enough. It's all you have left.

The call comes Monday afternoon.

You've been at your laptop for the better part of an hour, filling out a self-assessment form for the counsellor Jake's mother recommended. On a scale of one to ten, how often do you feel overwhelmed by daily tasks? Do you experience intrusive thoughts? Have you ever felt disconnected from reality? The last question is taking you longer than it should, when your phone buzzes against the kitchen table. The number is one you don't recognize, and you almost let it ring. But then you look back at your screen, and decide you'd rather do anything else than pick out numbers on a scale that can't measure what's actually wrong with you.

"Mrs. Sim?"

Your hand tightens around the phone. Jake's boss explains something about how he looks terrible, how he nearly collapsed getting up from his desk, how someone needs to come get him immediately.

"I told him he should have stayed home," the boss's gruff voice says over the phone, "He kept saying he didn't want to let anyone down. Is he always this stubborn?"

You find him at his desk, pale and half-slumped, a coworker hovering uncertainly at his elbow. Between the two of you, you get him to the car. He doesn't argue. That's how you know it's bad. And you watch him from the corner of your eye the whole drive home, his head against the window as he fights his own exhaustion.

"It's nothing. Really." His words slur together as you guide him down the hall, his arm heavy across your shoulders. "Probably just a cold. I'll be fine in the morning."

You ease him onto the mattress. He sinks into it, his body going slack the moment his head touches the pillow. His eyes close. His breathing evens out, shallow but steady.

You bring him soup, which he doesn't eat. You bring him water, which he barely sips. You sit on the edge of the bed and watch the shallow rise and fall of his chest, and the whole time your mind is spinning through the past few weeks like a reel of film you can't stop.

Every night you've woken gasping from dreams you can't confess to. Every morning he's held you through the aftermath, whispering reassurances into your hair while the shadows under his eyes grew darker and darker. Every time he's said I'm trying, baby, I'm trying so hard—and you've let him. You've let him carry you, let him comfort you, let him pour himself out trying to understand something you can't explain.

And what have you given him in return? Tears. Secrets. A hand squeezing his at church while you both pretended everything was fine. Late nights where he held you instead of sleeping, early mornings where he made you coffee and asked gentle questions and got nothing back but silence.

You look at him now, with his work shirt still half-unbuttoned, his face slack, his fingers twitching faintly against the blanket and feel the guilt settle over you. He's spent every ounce of himself trying to save you from a monster he doesn't believe in.

"I'm sorry," you whisper to the quiet room. He doesn't stir.

The next day, he is worse.

You can't get him to lift his head for more than a few seconds. The medicine you brought sits untouched on the nightstand. His skin has taken on a translucence that makes your blood run cold, and when you press a cool cloth to his forehead, he barely seems to register the touch.

"Just need to sleep," he murmurs, the words slurring together. "Don't worry. You worry too much."

You don't leave his side.

You watch the hours crawl past, the gray morning fading into a grayer afternoon, the light at the window never quite brightening, and try to convince yourself it's a fever. A winter bug that hit him harder than most. But even as you tell yourself these things, your eyes keep drifting to the collar of his shirt, to the pale skin beneath, to the two small marks you know are there, still healing. You don't see any other marks, but the thought lingers.

By the third day, he can barely open his eyes.

You've stopped leaving the room except to refill the water glass he can't drink from. You've stopped pretending this is something you can fix with soup and cold compresses and whispered prayers. You sit in the chair beside the bed, your knees drawn up to your chest, and watch him fade.

It's around noon when you notice it. The sun is high in the sky today, not a single cloud, and the light illuminates the blood stain on his pillowcase, clear as day.

A small stain, rust-brown and drying, near the nape of his neck. Your hands are shaking as you reach for him, as you ease him onto his side and lift the hem of his shirt.

The marks are everywhere. Some are fresh—bright red, the skin around them inflamed and angry. Others have scabbed over, dark and ugly and bruised. Bite marks. Dozens of them. Clustered between his shoulder blades, and trailing down like a map of slow consumption.

You don't realize you're crying until a tear falls, mingling with the dried blood on his skin.

The sound you make must wake him, because his fingers twitch against the blanket, and his voice, thin and weak, drifts up from the pillow.

"Hey." A long pause. He doesn't have the strength to turn his head. "Don't cry."

You help him lie back against the pillows, your hands trembling so badly you can barely manage it. His eyes find yours—still that same warm brown, still impossibly gentle, even now, even after everything—and the tears come harder. He opens his mouth, as if to say something, but doesn't. Whether he can't find the strength or the words, you aren't sure. But you aren't about to let him finish, even if he could.

"I have to tell you something." You say quick and certain, though you feel anything but. "Please just listen."

He blinks, slow and heavy. Barely aware, barely awake.

"When I was younger. Before I met you. Before I even knew what I was doing. I prayed for something God couldn't give me. Something sinful. Something—" You swallow, force yourself to continue. "Lustful. Shameful. Every night. Every prayer. It was consuming me."

Jake's brow furrows. His hand moves across the blanket, searching for yours.

"My prayers were answered," you keep going. "But not by God. By something else. Something evil. These nightmares didn't appear out of nowhere. They're the consequence of what I did. It came to me in my dreams. It tempted me. It tainted me. For years. And now..."

You can't look at him. You stare at the blanket, at the pattern of the quilt, at the pale shape of his hand still reaching for yours.

"I've dragged you into the darkness with me." You grip his hand, "I'm sorry, Jake."

Silence. A long, stretching silence, broken only by the rasp of his breathing.

Then his fingers find yours.

"Baby."

You look up. His eyelids are heavy, his brow furrowed with an effort that seems to take everything he has left. The slow, laboured machinery of a mind trying to surface and failing.

"Baby, you are the light of my life." His voice is barely a whisper now, each word an effort. "I know you. I know your heart. It's pure. The purest of them all. Don't say scary stuff like that."

"You don't understand." You shake your head, the tears sliding hot and fast down your cheeks.

"I know." A ghost of a smile crosses his lips. He strokes the back of your hand, the motion so familiar, so tender, that it makes your chest ache. "But you understand me either."

The room is quiet. The light through the window has shifted—the gray afternoon giving way to the pale gold of a winter sunset, slanting through the glass and spilling across the bed.

Jake's gaze drifts to your face, and something in his expression changes. Softens. Opens.

"If only you could see yourself right now." His voice is barely audible, but there is a warmth in it that remains. "The way the light hits you. You're so beautiful." His fingers tighten around yours. It's the last of his strength, poured into a single gesture. "You look like an angel."

Your heart swells.

He doesn't see it. Even as you confess words you'd never dared to even think about out loud, he doesn't see the rot, the sin, the stain that has been spreading through you since long before you ever met him.

"You should see yourself," he murmurs again, his eyes already drifting closed. "So pretty. My pretty wife. I love you so much."

"I love you more." You whisper, watching the rise and fall of his chest.

He doesn't understand what you've told him. Or maybe he does. Maybe the truth is too big, too impossible, too far outside the world he believes in. All you know is that even now, when your sins are quite literally bleeding him dry, he looks at you and sees something worth loving.

You lay your head against his chest, closing your eyes. You listen to the fading rhythm of his heart, like a ticking clock.

You will not let time run out.

"Hello? Who is—wait." A pause. A sharp inhale. "Lady? Is that you? You actually made a Discord!"

Niki's voice crackles through your laptop speakers, tinny and incredulous. In the background, you can hear the faint, distorted blast of music, which cuts off abruptly as he slams a button. A desk chair creaks.

"This is amazing. I didn't think you'd actually call me. I mean, I hoped, but I've been checking my Discord every day since church."

You stare at the Discord interface, feeling decades older than you are. Jake lies down the hall, silent and still. You made sure he was asleep, though that wasn't hard to ensure. He hadn't done so much as open his eyes since the afternoon.

"I need your help."

"Help. Yeah. Okay. Um. Help with what, exactly?" His voice drops to a theatrical whisper. "Is it a vampire thing?"

You take in a breath.

"I need to know how to kill one." The silence on the other end stretches so long you think the call has dropped. Then you add, "Hypothetically."

"Oh. My. God." A drawer opens. Pages ruffle. "Okay. So. Classic methods. A wooden stake through the heart works, but the wood matters—hawthorn, ash, some sources say rowan. Decapitation is more reliable, but that's hard to pull off unless you have a sword, which I'm guessing you don't."

"I don't."

"Sunlight. Direct, full exposure. Not just a cloudy day—like, dawn, clear sky, no shade. Fire works on basically everything, but you'd have to trap it somehow." He's speaking faster now, the words tumbling over each other. "There's also holy water and consecrated ground, but the research on that is mixed—"

"That's enough. Thank you."

"What? No. Wait. I have so much more. I have an entire notebook. I have—" He stops. His voice changes, sharpens. "Wait a second. Why do you need to know this?"

"Goodbye, Niki—"

"No, hang on—You're literally asking how to kill a vampire." His voice cracks, and he clears his throat, the words still returning with a squeak as they come out in a rush. "Holy shit. You do know a vampire. I knew it. Is it in town? Is it drinking people's blood? Did it attack you? Are you in danger?"

You sigh, a hand to your temple. He's talking so fast, you can't find a proper opening to leave, and though you know you should probably just hang up, some part of you doesn't want to leave the poor boy in a state of panic.

"I’m not in any danger. I'm—”

"I can help, you know. I'm not just some kid. I know so much about this stuff. More than anyone. I've read every book in that library twice. I've read books that aren't even in the library. I know lore that isn't even translated yet. You need a vampire taken down? I'm your guy. I mean, I've never done it, but I could probably figure it out."

"That's sweet of you, really, but—"

"And you're just a housewife—not saying that housewives can't kick ass! I'm sure you could. Maybe. But you're not exactly, like, a vampire hunter." He sucks in a breath so sharp you hear it whistle through his teeth. "Wait. Shouldn't your husband be protecting you? Why isn't he—does he even know about this?"

You close your eyes.

"He doesn't know," Niki gasps in horror. His voice drops to a horrified whisper. "That's why you were asking about soul-contracts in the library. That's why you looked like you were going to throw up when I read that passage. You're in a soul-bond with a vampire, and your husband doesn't know."

Your head is in your hands now, his voice rambling through the laptop speaker.

"That's—that's insane. That's literally insane." He sputters, the words tangling in his mouth. "Isn't that like—I mean, a soul-contract, isn't that kind of like—isn't that like cheating? Like, spiritually? Eternally? Your husband thinks he's married to you, but you're already—"

"I have to go."

"Wait!"

You end the call.

The laptop screen glows, Niki's profile picture still visible in the corner—some anime character with a stupid hairstyle, smirking at nothing. A notification pops up. Then another. Then a string of them, rapid-fire, the little red badge counting up.

xX_vampK1_Xx: wait xX_vampK1_Xx: pls dont hang up xX_vampK1_Xx: or die

You don't read them all, closing the laptop instead. Wooden stake. Fire. Sunlight.

You wait for him. Curtains drawn back, the window open. The winter air slips through the gap, cold enough to make you shiver in your nightgown, but you remain there, facing the open night. You wait the way you used to wait—on your knees, on the floor, praying for something that God refused to give you. Down the hall, Jake lies in the guest bedroom. The room you'd once hoped would become a nursery. It seems like a distant dream now, a life that belonged to someone else. You'd moved him there before the sun had set, his body heavy, unconscious, and blissfully unaware. He doesn't know what you're about to do. You hope he never will. When the silhouette appears, it's almost a relief. He steps through the parted curtains, and the moonlight reveals him. He's too pale, too still, his dark eyes already fixed on you before you've even found your voice. He's beautiful. He's always been beautiful, and you hate that he is. It would be so much easier if he were grotesque—if his skin were rotting flesh and his eyes were hollow and vacant pits belonging to something long dead, you could recoil. You could run. Instead, you stare, almost forgetting your true intentions for a moment. "Now, this brings back memories." He looms over you, unmoving. His eyes drift to the bed, where your husband is absent. "To what do I owe the pleasure?" "You're killing my husband." He doesn't flinch. Of course he doesn't. He stands there in the center of your bedroom, hands at his sides, and regards you with an expression that teeters on amusement. "Believe me." His gaze drops to your throat, to the cross trembling against your collarbone. A faint smile tugs at his lips. "I would much prefer to have you." There's a silence before you scoff. "Taking the life of the man I love won't make me want you." "Indeed, it won't. You already want me. Yet foolishly, you continue to deny yourself." He is silent for a moment as he watches you clutch helplessly at the cross at your neck. "Look at you. You waited here. Alone, in the dark, to face something that could destroy you in seconds. And you still clutch that thing." His lips curls into a frown. "As if God could ever save you." He takes a few steps forward, leaning down until his lips are at your ear. "But you're a smart girl. You know that He can't." He says, leaning down. One hand reaches for your chin, lifting it to properly meet his gaze. "That's why you prayed to me instead." "I prayed to God." You hiss. "And as always, God did not answer." He drops your chin. Then he moves past you, toward the window. His fingers brush the curtain, and he looks out at the dark street, the bare trees, the distant glint of the river just visible beyond the rooftops. "I was once like you." He says, "I prayed. I prayed for her to heal. I prayed every waking hour at her bedside." His wife. You assume that's who he means. You think of the house he keeps tidy in her memory, the piano that stays tuned for her, but you don't ask. His tone tells you the grief is old, smoothed by the centuries past, no longer a wound but a scar. You swallow the bitter taste in your throat. Selfishly, you dislike the idea of him loving anyone else. The thought is irrational, and deeply shameful, but it surfaces before you can push it back down. "Please do not fret, my love." He says it all too quickly, as if he sensed the shift in you before you felt it yourself. "It was a very long time ago." You open your mouth to protest but the words die on your tongue. He's looking at you with that quiet, knowing expression, and you realize there is no point in lying to a creature who can read your emotions before you've even named them.

"I was merely a fragile human. Hopeful enough to offer God everything. Foolish enough to believe he would answer with anything other than silence." The breeze howls past the window, brushing his hair from his face. "So I found another way. And I have been what I am ever since."

"You were once human, too?" Your voice is soft, curious, and more sincere than you wish it was. He finally turns to face you again, this time with a hint of a smile.

"We are more alike than you know." he holds out a hand to you, and you take it. You let him help you stand, your nightgown catching the wind as you look up at him. "I can smell the shame in you. I've always been able to. It's the same shame I carried centuries ago."

A monster, comparing himself to you. You should feel offended by the way he looks at you, right through you, past the skin and bone, into the soul you've spent a lifetime trying to scrub clean. Though, you suppose he's earned the right. He's been in your dreams for years. He's seen every thought you tried to drown, every aching desire you tried to bury, and how it rots you from the inside. He's seen all of it, and he does not recoil. A man can judge you. A monster cannot. You're horrified to find relief in that thought. "The difference between you and me, however, is that I've stopped pretending to be something I'm not." Your eyes wander to the door briefly, knowing your husband lays peacefully down the hall. "Jake still looks at me as if I'm pure. As if I'm worthy of his love. Even after everything I've done." Your eyes burn, and you blink hard against the sting. "That's all I have, and you're taking it away." "Because I needed to feed. Because you have not given me permission. I cannot take what is mine unless it is offered freely. So I took what was available to me. Your scent on his skin. Your proximity." His eyes hold yours. "Do you understand what that is like? To be bound to someone, to feel their wanting every night, to taste it in the air, and to not be allowed to have them? The blood of animals does nothing. The blood of your husband is unsatisfying. I am ravenous." He steps closer. The space between you shrinks to almost nothing.

"It is not merely blood that you promised me. You offered me your soul. Your life. Your eternal presence. That is what I hunger for—not the taste of you on my tongue, but the whole of you, bound to me as you were always meant to be." His voice drops to a whisper. "Every second I have waited has been a small death. I have died a thousand times since you made your promise."

You know what that hunger feels like. You've carried it your whole life, coiled low in your belly, hot and insistent, never fully quieted. You tried to fill it with prayer. You tried to fill it with your husband's body. Nothing worked. Nothing ever works.

"He is innocent." Your voice splinters. "He doesn't deserve this."

Sunghoon is silent for a long moment. Then he sighs—a soft, tired sound.

"Innocent. Pure of heart. Kind—too kind for a human, if you ask me." He says. "You're terrified of what he'd think. You don't believe his love is unconditional." "How could anyone love this?" A tear slips down your cheek. You had no idea you were on the verge of crying, but you feel it now. The uncontrollable trembling of your body, the sob threatens to escape your throat. Sunghoon's hand rises. His fingers brush your jaw, cool and smooth, tilting your chin upward. You open your eyes. It's the first time you've seen him this close, the moonlight casting a soft glow over his features. His expression is nothing cruel. It's something almost tender, which is far more devastating. "I do." He says. "I love your scent. Your shame. The way you whisper my name in the dark." Your lower lip trembles, and his thumb traces it, feather-light. In fact, all of you trembles. You've stopped trying to decide whether it's out of fear, want, or the draft of winter air. "You offered me your soul long before you ever gave him your hand. That is a promise no ring can compare to." His eyes hold yours, unrelenting. "I love you eternally." His hand trails down your throat. His fingers curl, lightly, around the column of your neck, just holding it, just relishing your pulse beneath his fingertips. The cross dangles between you, and you feel his gaze flicker to it.

"Please understand. I have only ever wanted you. He was merely the vessel I drank from because I could not drink from you." his voice drops to a murmur. "Give me what you promised me. What you've been promising me every night for years. I'm patient. I've waited long, and I can wait longer. Your husband, however..." his eyes drift to the door, an acknowledgement of his fading life down the hall, "He doesn't have the luxury of patience."

"If I refuse, he dies."

Sunghoon doesn't blink. "Yes."

No hesitation. The truth, cold and simple. You feel your hands tighten into fists at your sides.

"That's not a choice. That's not 'asking for permission.' That's a threat." He only laughs in response. "You made a deal with a monster. Did you expect him to play fair?" Sunghoon tilts his head. "I'd argue I've been rather generous. I could have drained him on your wedding night, when he laid hands on what was already mine. Could have left him in your bed, cold and lifeless. But I didn't. I let him live. I even offered him my wine."

He wears the slightest grin, cruel and merciless, and his fangs catch the light. "Aren't I kind?"

"You are vile." You spit. "You are despicable. Awful. And—"

"And you still want me."

The space between you shrinks as he leans closer, until you can feel the chill radiating off his skin, until you can see the faint gleam of the moonlight on his pupils.

"He is not the reason you will say yes."

His voice is quieter now.

"You will say yes because you have been starving for as long as you can remember. Because you have tried to fill that hunger with prayer and penance and the body of a man who loves you but cannot understand you. Because you knelt at your window and begged for relief, and I am the only one who has ever offered it to you. I am the only one who can give it to you." His fingers brush your jaw. Feather-light. "So, go on." He nods, "Tell me what you want." "I want you to leave Jake alone." You hiss. It only makes him grin. You expect nothing less. "And what else?" "I want you to stop making me feel like this." "How do you want me to do that, exactly?" You open your eyes. He's so close now. Your body is trembling—not from the cold, not from fear, but from the unbearable, humiliating effort of holding yourself back. Your thighs press together beneath your nightgown, a needy, restless friction that does nothing to ease the ache. Your pulse hammers in your throat. Between your legs, you're soaked. You've been soaked since he stepped through the curtains. Every inch of you is screaming for relief. Every inch of you has been screaming for years. It's not really a choice. If you pull away, you're letting your husband die and spending the rest of your life mourning a man you loved but couldn't save. Regardless, your body doesn't want to pull away. It made its own choice the moment you knelt at your window all those years ago. Everything since then has been the long, torturous process of coming to accept it. The prayers. The shame. The dreams you woke from, wet and wanting. All of it leading here. To him. "I want you to touch me," you whisper. The words come out ragged, half a sob, half a plea. "I need you to relieve me from this torment. I can't—I can't take it anymore. Please." His hand tightens just barely at your throat.His hand rests at your throat, cool and steady. His touch remains ever patient, and his eyes flicker from yours to your neck like he cannot decide which is more precious to him in this moment. "Say it properly." And you do. "I give you permission. My blood. My body. My soul. Take it. It's all yours. It's always been yours." He exhales—a shuddering, both reverent and ravenous sound.

His hand tightens around your throat, fingers digging into the vulnerable flesh, feeling the pulse hammering beneath his touch, the rush of blood through your veins. He dips his head into the curve of your neck, and the breath he takes in, the groan that rumbles against your skin—they are not the sounds of a man. They belong to a predator who has caught its prey at last and is trying very hard not to devour it all at once.

Your eyes flutter shut.

"If only you could smell yourself right now." His voice comes out rough, almost like a growl, "Your terror, your desperation. Your arousal." He lifts you in a single, clean sweep, as if you weigh no more than a feather. Your feet are off the ground, your body helpless in his grasp, and you don't have the time to react as he throws you down on the marital bed with a force that knocks the breath from your lungs. You barely have time to register the impact before his body is over yours. His knee rises between your thighs, spreading you open beneath him and his hand fists your hair, tilting your head back, baring your throat to the moonlight and his teeth. His gaze drifts down the length of your body, catching on the way your nightgown has ridden up your thighs, on the rise and fall of your chest. He leans forward. "My stubborn, sinful girl. You were never meant for heaven." His fangs press against your pulse, not yet sinking in, but with enough pressure that it makes your breath catch and your body go rigid beneath him. "You were always meant for me." One hand grips your throat, fingers digging into the flesh just beneath your jaw, holding your head in place with a force that borders on bruising. The other rests over your heart, palm flat, enough to feel the frantic rhythm. "So fearful that nobody could love you in the dark, when I have loved you for years." His fangs sink into you, and a cry is torn from your throat, gasping into the dark and your body arches into him without your permission. The sounds he makes are equally as ungraceful and unrestrained— a growl that sounds like it belongs to an animal, a groan that sounds so guttural and almost pained, as if tasting you after all this time is a relief so profound it hurts. You writhe beneath him, but his body holds you steady, his grasp so harsh that it's sure to bruise. The pull of his mouth is rhythmic, hypnotic, each draw of your blood sending a fresh wave of heat spiraling through your core. You are dizzy with it. You are alive with it. You are his, and you have always been his, and the acceptance of that truth is the single most liberating thing you have ever felt. Disgust is a distant flicker, extinguished before it can catch. The pain is already gone. In its place, a pleasure so sharp and bright it borders on agony races through your veins. You shake with it, every inch of you raw and exposed, the sheets a torment against your feverish skin. Your hands find his back and hold on, clawing at his shirt. "What is—?" Your voice is a whiny, pathetic sound, piercing through heavy, laboured breaths. The ache between your legs from before is now throbbing with a sort of want you couldn't even begin to describe. Something unnatural, feverish and all-consuming. "Why do I feel like—?"

"It feels good, doesn't it?" His fangs retract, but his mouth stays, kissing the wound he left behind, lapping up every last drop of your blood. "The venom. It immobilizes prey. Turns pain into pleasure. Though you didn't need much convincing, did you?" A broken sound tears from your throat as his tongue drags down the column of your neck, chasing a stray bead of blood. His hand rips your nightgown higher, baring you to the cold air, and he finds you soaked. You can feel his grin at your neck.

"You were begging to be fucked long before I ever bit you," he whispers, "Long before your nice little husband ever put his hands on you." "Please, Sunghoon," The words tumble out before your pride can catch them. It's wrecked, shameless, and entirely honest. "Just touch me. Please."

He obliges without a word. Your panties are eased down your thighs, the cold air a brief shock against your overheated skin, and then he finds you—slick and aching and desperately ready. A single, long finger slips inside with no resistance at all, and the sound that escapes you is almost a sob. You might cry from just that alone, graciously accepting any kind of touch at this point. You might already be crying, though you don't have the sense to think about it. You're lost in the sensation, clenching around him, your hips rolling forward of their own accord, chasing more. "It feels so much better when you give in." His voice is soft, almost crooning, as his finger moves inside you with excruciating slowness, a rhythm designed to tease rather than satisfy. "When you stop denying yourself." A frustrated sound catches in your throat. Your hips lift, chasing his hand, and he hums in quiet approval. Then a second finger slides in beside the first, stretching you, and the cry that escapes you is louder than before. Your head falls back against the pillow. Your fingers twist in the sheets. And then his fangs are at your throat again—a sharp, searing sting that melts almost instantly into heat. He drinks as his fingers move inside you, a slow, devastating counterpoint: the pull of his mouth, the thrust of his hand, the weight of his body pinning you to the mattress. You are caught between pleasure and surrender, and you have stopped caring which is which. "My sweet little sinner." He pulls back just enough to speak, his lips stained, his breath cool against the wound he left behind. His fingers curl inside you, finding a place that makes your vision blur. "What would he think if he saw you like this? His fragile, innocent wife, offering herself to a monster, begging for more." He thrusts deeper, and your back arches off the bed. "Would it break him? Would it shatter that pure, simple love he carries for you?" The tears come before you can stop them, spilling down your temples and into your hair. A sob tears free, raw and ugly, and you shake your head against the pillow. "No?" His voice is soft, almost tender. His thumb traces your cheek, smearing the tears there. "Use your words, my love." "I don't care." The words rip out of you, jagged and desperate, louder than you intended. Your hips are still rolling against his hand, chasing the climax he keeps just out of reach. "I don't care what he thinks. I just want this." You feel the pressure building, the tightening in your belly, rushing toward the edge faster than you can outrun it.

"Please." The word is barely a whisper now, your voice wrecked and trembling. "Please take me. I can't—I need—please." His fingers still inside you. You cry out at the loss, at the empty ache he leaves behind, and when you open your eyes, he is looking down at you with something like awe. Something like triumph. Something like love, if a monster is capable of love, as he claims. He grabs the front of your nightgown and rips it open. The fabric splits with a sound like a scream. You gasp, arms flying up to cover yourself, but he seizes your wrists and wrenches them away. Forces your hand down between your bodies, pressing your palm against the hard, aching length of him.

He releases you to tear at his own clothes. His shirt. His pants. Then he is bare above you, and the sight is almost too much—the blood on his mouth, the pale plane of his chest, and his eyes, how they devour the sight of you whole, looking at you in all your filth and finding you holy. "I'm going to ruin you." You feel the tip of him at your entrance, and your body stiffens. His eyes hold yours, dark and depthless and full of terrible tenderness. "Just like you begged me to." He sinks into you in one slow, devastating thrust, and your mouth falls open on a sound that might be his name, but before it can escape, his lips find yours. He swallows your cry the way he swallowed your blood, consuming it, claiming it as his own. His tongue sliding against yours, and you taste your own blood on his lips. His mouth never leaves yours, as if he would drink every sound you make, as if there is no part of you he does not intend to devour. You start to cry. Not because it hurts. Not because you're being ruined, though you are, though you've wanted to be. You cry because it's better than your dreams ever were. Because every fantasy you spent years repenting for, every shameful vision that drove you to your knees at the window, was a pale shadow of this. He pulls back to look at you, and the expression on his face is rapture. His hand is wrapped around your throat, holding you steady for each forceful thrust, pinning you to the mattress, to the moment, to him. The rhythm of his hips is relentless and perfect. Every drag of him inside you eases the ache you've carried for so long it has become a part of you, and at the same time deepens it, feeds it, stokes it into something insatiable. The venom only heightens the feeling—pleasure easing your hunger, each stroke pushing you closer to an edge you no longer want to escape. He is the most beautiful creature you have ever seen. You think it without flinching. You think it while tears stream down your temples and into your hair, while your body arches to meet his, while you give yourself over to the monster who answered when God wouldn't. He is beautiful. He is yours. You are his. And you have never felt less like pretending otherwise. He fills you in a way your husband never could. It's terrible and entirely the truth. You have spent weeks trying to use Jake as a remedy—his body, his love, his gentle, faithful hands—and it worked, for a few hours at a time. But the hunger you carry was never something he could satisfy. He was never meant to. That was never the deal you made. This is what you bargained for. What you knelt at the window and begged to feel. You lose yourself in the rhythm of him. The thick, unrelenting drive of his cock. The weight of his body pinning you to the mattress. The way he takes and takes and takes, and still watches you like you are something sacred. His dark eyes hold yours with something that looks like awe. Something that looks like devotion. Something that looks, impossibly, like love. If you even believe that a creature like him can feel love. Though love is the furthest thing from your mind right now. "That's it." His voice is a low growl, rough with pleasure and hunger and the effort of holding himself back. "Cry for me. Let me see you fall apart."

Your nails rake down his back. Your thighs tremble around his hips. The tears are still falling, streaming into your hair, but you don't hold them back. You don't try to hide. You let him watch. You let him see all of it. The surrender, the pleasure, the relief at last. You finish, your high crashing through your body in pulses that leave you gasping, clenching around him, your back bowing off the bed. You cry out his name, and he groans as he feels you break around him, his rhythm faltering for just a moment before he drives deeper, harder, more. You barely have time to come down before his fangs find your throat again. The bite is sharp and sweet, and the venom floods your veins anew—reigniting the fire that had just begun to go out, pulling you back toward the edge you just tumbled over. "More," you plead. The word is raw, scraped clean of pride. "More." He gives you more. He gives you everything. And you take it all of it with your eyes open and your soul laid bare beneath him. More. More. More. The night folded in on itself, a long, delirious rhythm of hunger and satiation, of teeth and hands and the slick press of bodies moving together in the dark. He would drink until you grew faint, then pull back, laving the wound with a tenderness that made your chest ache, and wait for your eyes to flutter open, for your hips to lift in silent, desperate invitation. And then he would begin again. You lost count. It didn't matter. Time had become a thing that happened to other people. You remember, dimly, the sound of your own voice sobbing his name into the hollow of his throat. You remember the weight of him, the cold press of his skin slowly warming with each swallow of your blood. You remember his mouth tracing the length of your collarbone, his fingers mapping the dip of your waist, his voice murmuring things against your flesh. The window stood open through all of it. The curtains drifted. The winter air slipped in, cooling the sweat on your skin, but you never felt cold. You felt nothing but him. Nothing but the slow, spreading heat of the venom and the terrible peace of finally letting go.

The pale, gray light starts to rise in the distance. The hush of early morning. The distant, muffled quiet of a world still half-asleep.

He is still inside you. Still moving a slow, grinding rhythm, more reflex now than urgency, the last shivering aftershocks of a night that had no end. His face is buried in the curve of your neck, his lips parted against the wound that hasn't closed, and his hips roll against yours in a lazy, hypnotic pulse that feels less like fucking and more like breathing.

Your hand is in his hair. Your fingers are tangled in the dark silk of it, your thumb tracing the shell of his ear, and the gesture feels so natural, so intimate, that your throat tightens with something you refuse to name. Then the light shifts.

It spills through the open window, pale gold, the first true ray of a winter dawn. It creeps across the floorboards, slow and searching, and climbs the edge of the bed. It touches your bare ankle. It warms the tangled sheets. It reaches, like a blessing or a blade, for the man in your arms. You watch it happen.

It finds his shoulder first. The light glistens, a luminous sheen on the marble of his skin catching the ridge of his shoulder blade, the curve of his spine, the place where your nails have left their marks across his back. He doesn't notice. His mouth is still at your throat, his body still moving against yours, lost in the rhythm of consumption. "Sunghoon." He lifts his head.

His eyes are black, pupils blown, the irises reduced to thin rings of dark amber. Your blood is on his lips. Your blood everywhere. All over your own lips, all over your neck, your chest and the sheets beneath you. And his skin, his beautiful, terrible skin, is beginning to gleam in the morning light. Every plane of his face limned in gold, the sharp angle of his jaw, the impossible symmetry of his features. He looks like something that fell from heaven and landed wrong. He looks at you. And you see the moment he understands. The light is spreading. It touches his temple. The curve of his ear. The column of his throat. And where it touches, his skin begins to change—taking on a strange, crystalline shimmer, like the surface of fresh snow catching the first light of dawn. It starts to unmake him. He doesn't move. He doesn't flee. He just looks at you, old and tired and almost, almost human. Your hand is still in his hair. You don't pull it back. A broken growl, low but softened, escapes him, and his forehead drops to yours. His eyes close, and for a long, suspended moment, you lie there together in the path of the rising sun. It starts at the edges, before the shimmer spreads a slow, glittering dissolution, like diamonds fracturing along the surface of him. The places where the sun touches him turn luminous, iridescent, and then they begin to separate. He is coming apart in fine fragments, a mist of dust that catches the light and holds it, suspended, before drifting upward on the morning air. His eyes find yours one last time. There's no fear in them. No anger. Just that same dark, depthless devotion. That same hunger. Your body is still humming with the aftermath of pleasure, your thighs slick, your throat aching with the memory of his hands around it. You close your eyes. They're too heavy to keep open.

"More." The last thing you feel is his hand returning to your neck, and his teeth sinking into your flesh once more. The last thing you hear is the sound of his growl as he savours his last meal. Tangled with death, you lay, lips parted in pleasure.

Meanwhile, Sunghoon started dating one of your close friends, Sooha. She was sweet, bubbly, and had always gotten along with him during group hangouts. Seeing them together at first stung like hell, but you told yourself it was for the best. Everyone moved on. Or so it seemed.

The problem was the friend group. You all ran in the same circle, mutual friends from the industry, trainees, dancers, and staff who loved throwing parties, dinners, and weekend getaways. No matter how hard you tried, you and Sunghoon kept crossing paths. At first, it was awkward. Polite nods, short conversations, avoiding eye contact. But the tension never died. It only grew.

Every time you saw him, memories flooded back. The way his large hands used to grip your hips. How he’d pin you against the wall and kiss you until your knees buckled. The low groan he made when he was deep inside you. The way he’d look at you with those sharp, dark eyes right before he made you come. And you knew he felt it too. You’d catch him staring at your legs in short dresses, or the curve of your ass when you bent over. His jaw would tighten, and he’d quickly look away, especially when Heeseung was right beside you with an arm around your waist, or when Sooha was laughing and clinging to his arm.

The air between you two was always thick, charged and dangerous.

It started small. A house party six months after you and Heeseung became official. Sunghoon and Sooha had been dating for three months. The music was loud, drinks were flowing. You were in a tight dress that hugged every curve. Sunghoon couldn’t stop glancing at you. When you passed each other in the narrow hallway on the way to the bathroom, your bodies brushed. Just shoulders and hips, but it was enough. You felt him, hard, warm, familiar, and your breath hitched. He froze for half a second, eyes darkening, before muttering a low “sorry” and continuing. That night you rode Heeseung like you were possessed, but it was Sunghoon’s face you saw when you came.

Another time, at a beach trip with the whole group. Sunghoon was shirtless in the water, water dripping down his toned abs and sharp v-line. You were in a bikini. Heeseung was building sandcastles with friends, Sooha was napping under an umbrella. You and Sunghoon ended up wading in the shallows at the same time. The waves pushed you closer. His hand accidentally grazed your waist as he steadied you. Electricity shot through your body. Your nipples hardened instantly under the thin fabric. You saw the bulge in his swim trunks grow. Neither of you said a word. You both swam away, hearts pounding, bodies aching.

These encounters kept happening. Birthday parties, award after-parties, late-night karaoke sessions. Every time, you’d leave the function wet and throbbing, panties soaked, thighs clenched. You knew he was going home hard too, probably fucking Sooha while thinking about you. The guilt was there, but the desire was stronger.

One particular night, it became unbearable.

It was a small, intimate gathering at a friend’s luxurious apartment. Only twelve people. Heeseung was there, sitting beside you on the couch, his hand resting possessively on your thigh. Sunghoon and Sooha were across the room. The lights were dim, music soft. Someone suggested truth or dare. Stupid idea. When it was your turn, someone dared you to sit on Sunghoon’s lap for three minutes. The room erupted in laughter. “For old times’ sake!” they joked, not knowing how deep the cut went.

You hesitated. Heeseung chuckled and nodded, thinking it was harmless. Sooha looked a little uncomfortable but played along. Sunghoon’s eyes met yours, dark, warning, hungry.

You sat on his lap.

The moment your ass settled over his crotch, you felt him. He was already half-hard. As the timer started, his hands rested lightly on your hips to “steady” you. His cock twitched beneath you, growing thicker and harder against the thin fabric of your dress and his pants. You were wearing nothing but a tiny thong underneath. You could feel every inch of him pressing right against your clothed cunt. Heat flooded you. Your clit throbbed. You shifted slightly, “accidentally,” grinding down on him. He exhaled sharply through his nose, fingers tightening on your hips. His cock was fully hard now, thick and long, the same shape you remembered so well. You were soaking through your thong, your juices starting to wet the front of his pants.

Three minutes felt like eternity. Torture. Bliss. When the timer ended, you stood up on shaky legs. Sunghoon’s eyes were nearly black. A small wet spot was visible on his thigh where you’d been sitting. He quickly adjusted himself. You excused yourself to the bathroom, locked the door, and leaned against it, breathing hard, your pussy was dripping, you wanted to cum so badly it hurt.

That night, after the party, Heeseung fucked you in his car before you even got home. You came twice, but it wasn’t enough.

Two days later, you were alone in your apartment. Heeseung was away for a schedule. The memory of sitting on Sunghoon’s lap had been haunting you. You took a long shower, trying to calm down, but your body was on fire. After drying off, you opened your drawer and found it, the pale pink satin slip Sunghoon used to love.

It was short, silky, with thin straps and a deep neckline. The hem barely covered your ass. There was a high slit on the left side that went almost to your hip. He used to push the strap down, suck on your tits while fucking you in it. You hadn’t worn it since the breakup.

Tonight, you slipped it on. The fabric felt cool and luxurious against your heated skin. Your nipples were already stiff, poking obviously through the thin material. You stood in front of the full-length mirror in your bedroom, dim lights on. The slip clung to your body, the hem riding up to show the bottom curve of your ass.

You climbed onto your bed, heart racing with guilt and excitement. This was wrong. So fucking wrong. Heeseung was your boyfriend. Sunghoon was his best friend. He was dating Sooha, your friend. But you couldn’t stop.

You lay back against the pillows, knees bent, legs slightly spread. Your hand slowly trailed up your body. You cupped one breast through the satin, squeezing it gently. A soft moan escaped your lips. You imagined Sunghoon’s large hand instead, bigger, rougher. You pinched your nipple, rolling it between your fingers the way he used to. The sensation shot straight to your core.

“Oh god…” you whispered.

Your other hand slid down, pushing the hem of the slip higher. The slit on the side made it easy. You parted your thighs wider, exposing your bare, dripping pussy. You were soaked. Your fingers brushed over your swollen clit, and your hips jerked.

In your mind, it was Sunghoon touching you.

You pictured his sharp jaw, his intense eyes looking down at you. The way he’d smirk when he felt how wet you were for him. You imagined his long fingers replacing yours, two thick digits sliding inside you while his thumb circled your clit. You pushed two fingers into your tight heat, moaning louder. The slick sounds filled the room as you pumped them slowly, curling them just right.

Your other hand kept playing with your tits, pulling the strap down so one breast spilled out. You pinched and tugged your nipple harder, imagining Sunghoon’s mouth on it, sucking, biting, licking.

“Sunghoon…” you breathed, even though you knew you shouldn’t say his name. It felt too good. You added a third finger, stretching yourself, fucking yourself deeper. Your hips rolled, grinding against your hand. The satin slip bunched around your waist now. You were completely exposed, legs spread obscenely, fingers plunging in and out of your creamy pussy.

You thought about that night on his lap. How hard he’d been. How big he felt. You imagined pulling his cock out right there in front of everyone, sinking down on it, riding him while the party continued. You imagined him bending you over in the bathroom after, slamming into you from behind, hand over your mouth to keep you quiet while he filled you up.

Your fingers moved faster. The heel of your palm rubbed your clit with every thrust. Your other hand switched to your other breast, squeezing hard, twisting the nipple. Pleasure built rapidly, hot and intense.

You were so close.

In your fantasy, Sunghoon was on top of you, thrusting deep, whispering how much he missed your tight pussy, how no one fucked him like you did. You imagined his hips snapping harder, his balls slapping against you, his cock hitting that perfect spot inside.

“Fuck—Sunghoon—yes—” you moaned, voice breaking.

Your orgasm crashed over you violently. Your back arched off the bed, thighs shaking. Your pussy clenched hard around your fingers, gushing wetly. You kept fingering yourself through it, drawing it out, riding every wave. Juices dripped down your ass onto the sheets. The slip was ruined with sweat and your arousal.

Even after you came, you kept your fingers inside, gently stroking as the aftershocks rolled through you. Your chest heaved. Guilt tried to creep in, but the pleasure was too strong, too addictive.

You knew you’d do this again. You couldn’t help it. The tension between you and Sunghoon was only getting worse. Sooner or later, something was going to break.

But for now, in the quiet of your room, wearing the slip he used to love, you let yourself drift in the fantasy of him, your ex, your boyfriend’s best friend, your friend’s boyfriend, fucking you senseless the way only he knew how.

—

A few weeks had passed since that night you spent alone in your apartment. The guilt had lingered for days afterward, especially when Heeseung came back from his schedule and kissed you so sweetly, completely unaware of whose name you’d moaned. But the ache between your legs never fully went away. Every time you saw Sunghoon in the group chat or caught a glimpse of him at a quick schedule overlap, the memory of his hardened cock pressing against you during truth or dare flooded back.

Tonight was another mutual friend’s birthday party, held at a spacious rooftop venue. The city lights glittered below like scattered diamonds, and the air was warm with late spring humidity. Fairy lights and soft neon accents bathed the space in a seductive glow. Music pulsed from hidden speakers, R&B and deep house tracks that made bodies move instinctively. About thirty people were there: dancers, idols, staff, and close industry friends. The drinks flowed freely, champagne, soju cocktails, whiskey on ice.

You arrived with Heeseung, dressed in a dangerously short, deep burgundy silk dress that clung to your curves and ended high on your thighs. The thin straps left your shoulders bare, and the low back dipped dangerously close to the curve of your ass. Heeseung had complimented you endlessly in the car, his hand sliding up your leg the whole ride. But the moment you stepped onto the rooftop, your eyes found Sunghoon across the crowd.

He looked devastating. Black button-up shirt with the top few buttons undone, revealing the sharp lines of his collarbones and the beginning of his toned chest. Tailored black pants that hugged his long legs and narrow waist. His dark hair was styled messily, falling over his sharp eyes. Sooha wasn’t there, she’d texted the group earlier saying she felt sick and was staying home. Heeseung, oblivious as ever, spotted Jay and Jake almost immediately and gave your waist a quick squeeze. “I’ll be back in a bit, baby. They want to talk about the new choreography.” He kissed your cheek and disappeared into a group of guys near the bar.

You were alone, and Sunghoon noticed. The tension started immediately.

You felt his gaze like a physical touch the second you walked toward the open bar. When you turned to order a drink, a strong soju cocktail with peach, he was already watching you from a few meters away, leaning against a high table with a glass in his hand. His eyes dragged slowly down your body: lingering on the way the silk hugged your breasts, the exposed skin of your thighs, the way your hips swayed when you walked. You met his stare boldly, heart racing, and took a long sip. The alcohol burned pleasantly down your throat.

For the next hour, it was a game of stolen glances and near-misses.

You danced with some girlfriends on the makeshift dance floor, laughing as you moved your hips to the rhythm. But every time you turned or dipped low, you felt him. Sunghoon stayed on the edge of the crowd, talking to a few guys, but his attention never left you. You caught him staring at your ass when you bent slightly to adjust your heel. His jaw clenched. When you licked a drop of drink from your lower lip, his eyes darkened.

You grew tipsy. Then drunk. The cocktails hit harder than expected, warmth spreading through your veins, loosening your limbs, making your skin feel hypersensitive. Your cheeks flushed. Your pussy already felt warm and slick just from the weight of his gaze.

Heeseung was still deep in conversation with Jay and Jake on the far side of the rooftop, laughing loudly, safe, distracted.

Sunghoon finally moved closer during a slower song. You were at the bar getting another drink when he appeared beside you, ordering a whiskey. His arm brushed yours. The contact sent electricity shooting through your body.

“Looking dangerous tonight,” he murmured, voice low enough that only you could hear. His breath ghosted over your bare shoulder.

You turned your head, lips parted. “You’re one to talk.”

Your eyes locked. The air between you crackled. For a moment, it felt like the rest of the party disappeared. His gaze dropped to your mouth, then lower, watching your chest rise and fall. You pressed your thighs together, already feeling yourself getting wet.

The night blurred deliciously after that.

You danced again, this time with a mixed group. Sunghoon joined casually, keeping a safe distance at first. But the music grew slower, more sensual. Bodies moved closer. You swayed your hips, feeling the alcohol make you bold. Every time you turned, your eyes met his. He watched the way your dress rode up your thighs. You watched the way his shirt stretched across his broad shoulders when he moved.

Another song, you danced near him, shoulders brushed, then hips. He smelled like whiskey and that familiar cologne that used to drive you crazy, your head felt light, body hot.

Finally, the moment broke. A slow, heavy R&B track started playing. The kind that made people grind without shame. Most of the group had paired off or were lost in their own conversations. Heeseung was still occupied. Sunghoon stepped behind you without a word.

You didn’t resist. His tall frame pressed against your back as you both started swaying to the music. Your ass nestled perfectly against his crotch. Even through the layers of fabric, you could feel him, already semi-hard, thickening rapidly as you moved together.

“Fuck…” he breathed against your ear, so quietly it was almost lost in the music.

His hands settled on your hips at first, guiding you. The dance was filthy. You rolled your body against him, grinding slowly, deliberately. His cock grew fully hard, long and thick, pressing right between your ass cheeks through his pants. You bit your lip to hold back a moan.

The crowd around you was drunk and distracted. No one was paying attention to the exes dancing far too intimately. Sunghoon grew bolder.

One of his hands trailed down your side, fingers brushing the hem of your short dress. He leaned his head down, lips grazing the side of your neck. Not quite kissing, just hot breath and the faintest brush of his mouth. Your skin erupted in goosebumps.

“You’re driving me insane,” he whispered, voice rough with lust. “Been hard since I saw you in this dress.”

You pushed back against him harder, feeling his cock throb. “Then do something about it.”

His hand slipped lower. While your bodies continued swaying sensually to the slow beat, your ass grinding in slow circles against his erection, his fingers crept under the hem of your dress from behind. The rooftop was dimly lit here, and his tall frame mostly shielded you.

He found the edge of your tiny black lace panties. You were soaked. Dripping. His middle finger traced the wet fabric covering your pussy, pressing lightly against your swollen folds through the lace.

You gasped softly, knees weakening.

Sunghoon’s lips finally pressed against your neck, open-mouthed, hot and wet. He sucked gently, then harder, teeth grazing your skin as his finger pushed the lace aside. The pad of his long finger slid directly along your slick pussy lips, parting them, collecting your arousal.

“Shit, you’re drenched,” he groaned quietly against your neck, voice vibrating through you. “This pussy still gets this wet for me?”

You nodded frantically, biting back moans as you kept swaying with him, pretending it was just a dance. His cock was rock-hard, grinding slowly against your ass in time with the music.

He pushed one thick finger inside you without warning. Your walls clenched around it instantly, sucking him deeper. The wet sound was faint but filthy under the music. He added a second finger, stretching you, curling them perfectly against that spot he knew so well.

His mouth worked on your neck, kissing, licking, sucking hard enough to leave marks you’d have to hide later. His free hand gripped your hip tightly, holding you against him as he fingered you deeper, faster. His palm rubbed against your clit with every thrust of his fingers.

You were trembling. Pleasure built rapidly, hot and overwhelming. Your juices coated his hand, dripping down his wrist. The silk of your dress bunched up further. Anyone looking closely might have seen, but the risk only made it hotter. “Sunghoon…” you whimpered under your breath.

He bit your earlobe. “Missed this tight little cunt. Missed how you fall apart for me.”

His fingers pumped faster, curling relentlessly. The heel of his hand ground against your swollen clit. Your orgasm crashed into you without mercy, hard, sudden, devastating. Your pussy spasmed violently around his fingers, gushing slick arousal down his hand and onto your thighs. You moaned softly, body shaking as he held you upright, still swaying slowly to the music like nothing was happening.

He didn’t stop. He kept fingering you through it, drawing out every wave until your legs felt like jelly. When it finally subsided, he slowly withdrew his fingers, bringing them up to his mouth behind you. You heard him suck them clean with a low, satisfied groan.

The song ended. You turned in his arms, flushed, breathing hard, eyes glassy with lust and alcohol. His eyes were nearly black with desire, lips parted, chest rising fast. His cock was straining obscenely against his pants. Neither of you spoke. The tension had finally snapped.

You both knew this was only the beginning of the night.

The song faded out, but the heat between you didn’t. Your legs were still shaky from the orgasm he’d just pulled from you on the dance floor. Sunghoon’s chest was pressed flush against your back, his breath hot against your ear as he spoke in a low, rough whisper.

“We need to go somewhere private. Right now.” His voice was strained with barely contained lust. “Before I bend you over in front of everyone.”

You didn’t even hesitate. The alcohol and adrenaline made you bold. You gave him the smallest nod, and he immediately took your hand, guiding you through the crowd with purposeful strides. Heeseung was still laughing with Jay and Jake near the bar, completely unaware. Sooha was safe at home. No one noticed as the two of you slipped inside the luxurious indoor section of the venue.

The bathroom was a single, spacious unisex room, dimly lit, marble counters, a large mirror above the sink. The second the door clicked shut and locked, all restraint vanished.

Sunghoon was on you instantly. He spun you around and pulled your back flush against his chest, positioning both of you in front of the mirror. Your eyes met in the reflection, his dark and feral, yours glassy and desperate. His hands were rough with urgency as he yanked the hem of your short burgundy dress up over your hips in one swift motion, bunching the silk around your waist.

“Fuck,” he growled, staring at your reflection. Your tiny black lace panties were soaked through, the fabric clinging obscenely to your swollen pussy lips.

His right hand slid down immediately, fingers slipping under the waistband of your panties. Two long, thick fingers dragged through your slick folds, parting them, coating themselves in your wetness. He pressed them against your clit first, rubbing slow, firm circles that made your hips jerk.

A broken moan spilled from your lips. “Ah—Sunghoon…”

He relished it. His eyes darkened further in the mirror as he watched your face contort in pleasure. “That’s it. Let me hear you moan for me again.”

He pushed those two fingers deep inside you without warning, burying them to the knuckle in your dripping heat. Your walls clenched hard around the intrusion, still sensitive from the earlier orgasm on the dance floor. He curled them instantly, stroking that perfect spot he knew better than anyone.

Your head fell back against his shoulder, another loud moan escaping you. The wet, obscene sounds of his fingers pumping into your soaked pussy filled the bathroom.

Your hands moved behind you with frantic need. You palmed the massive bulge straining against his tailored pants, feeling how hard and hot he was. Sunghoon hissed sharply as you squeezed him through the fabric. With trembling fingers, you tugged his zipper down, reaching inside to pull his thick cock out.

He was rock hard, veins pulsing, the head already glistening with precum. The familiar weight and girth made your mouth water. You wrapped your hand around him, stroking from base to tip in long, firm pumps exactly the way he liked it.

“Shit—yes,” he groaned, hips bucking into your fist. His fingers fucked you harder, faster, plunging in and out while his palm rubbed relentlessly against your clit. The mirror gave you both a perfect view of everything, your flushed face, your tits nearly spilling out of your dress, his hand disappearing between your thighs, your smaller hand working his cock desperately.

You pumped him faster, twisting your wrist at the head, spreading his precum down his shaft. Every time you squeezed him, his fingers would thrust deeper into you, like a filthy feedback loop. Your moans mixed with his low grunts.

“Look at yourself,” he demanded, voice hoarse. His free hand came up to grip your jaw, forcing you to watch your reflection. “Look how fucking desperate you are for me. Dripping all over my fingers while your boyfriend’s right outside.”

The words only made you wetter. You whimpered loudly, stroking him quicker, feeling his cock throb and twitch in your hand. His fingers curled and scissored inside you, stretching you open, hitting that spot over and over until your thighs started shaking.

You were both lost in it, driven by pure, pent-up lust. The sound of his fingers plunging into your creamy pussy mixed with the slick sound of your hand jerking his cock. Your juices were dripping down his wrist and onto the marble floor.

“I’m gonna—fuck, Sunghoon—I’m close again,” you gasped, eyes half-lidded in the mirror.

He leaned down, biting the side of your neck hard as his fingers sped up. “Cum for me, baby. Cum all over my fingers like the dirty little slut you are for your ex.”

Your orgasm hit you like a freight train.

Your mouth fell open in a silent scream, then a loud, broken moan tore from your throat as your pussy clenched violently around his fingers, gushing slick arousal all over his hand. Your knees buckled, but he held you up, still fucking you through it with his fingers while you frantically stroked his cock.

Sunghoon groaned deeply, hips stuttering as your orgasm pushed him over the edge too. Thick ropes of cum shot from his cock, spilling over your hand and onto the sink counter as he came hard. For a few long seconds, the only sounds were heavy breathing and the faint bass of the music outside.

You both stared at each other in the mirror, flushed, messy, and still hungry.

This wasn’t going to end here. The bathroom air was thick with the scent of sex, your arousal and his cum. You were both still panting, staring at each other through the mirror. Sunghoon’s fingers were still buried inside you, lazily stroking through the aftershocks while your hand was covered in his release.

Without a word, you slowly turned around and sank to your knees on the cool marble floor in front of him. His cock was still hard, glistening with cum and your spit from earlier strokes. You looked up at him with hazy, lust-drunk eyes as you wrapped your fingers around the base.

You leaned forward and pressed a soft, lingering kiss to his swollen tip, tasting the salty remnants of his orgasm. Sunghoon’s breath hitched sharply, one hand immediately threading into your hair.

“Fuck… you’re really gonna do this?” he rasped, voice wrecked.

You answered by parting your lips and taking him into your mouth. You sucked on the head first, swirling your tongue around it, cleaning every drop of cum. Then you sank deeper, relaxing your throat to take as much of his thick length as you could. The familiar stretch of your lips around him made you moan around his cock.

Sunghoon groaned loudly, hips twitching. “That’s it… just like that, baby.”

You bobbed your head, sucking him eagerly, hollowing your cheeks. Your hand worked what you couldn’t fit in your mouth, stroking him in time with your movements. The wet, sloppy sounds echoed obscenely in the bathroom as you deepthroated him again and again, eyes watering, spit dripping down your chin.

He watched you through the mirror above, the sight of you on your knees in that tiny burgundy dress driving him crazy. His grip tightened in your hair as he started fucking your throat gently.

“Missed this pretty mouth so fucking much,” he growled.

You moaned around him, the vibration making his thighs tense. You could feel him throbbing against your tongue, growing even harder. His breathing turned ragged.

“Shit—I’m gonna cum again—”

You didn’t pull away. You took him as deep as possible, looking up at him with teary eyes. Sunghoon cursed loudly as he came down your throat, thick spurts of hot cum shooting straight into your stomach. You swallowed every drop, milking him until he was shuddering and oversensitive.

He pulled you up roughly by your arms and spun you around, bending you over the marble sink. Your hands braced against the counter, eyes locked on your own reflection, flushed face, swollen lips, messy hair. Sunghoon yanked your dress up again and ripped your soaked panties down your thighs in one motion.

He rubbed his still-hard cock between your dripping folds, teasing your entrance. Then he pushed in, one long, powerful thrust and he buried himself to the hilt inside you.

Both of you moaned loudly at the same time. “Oh my god! Sunghoon…” you cried out, the stretch overwhelming after so long apart.

“Fuck—your pussy… still so tight,” he groaned through gritted teeth, eyes squeezed shut for a moment. The feeling of your warm, velvety walls clenching around him made his knees weak. “I missed this so fucking bad.”

He gave you only a second to adjust before he started moving, deep, hard strokes that slammed into you with every thrust. The sound of skin slapping skin filled the bathroom as he fucked you against the sink. Your tits bounced heavily inside your dress with every powerful snap of his hips.

Sunghoon reached around and yanked the front of your dress down, letting your breasts spill free. His large hands immediately grabbed them, squeezing and kneading roughly just like he used to. His fingers pinched and rolled your sensitive nipples, tugging them as he pounded into you harder.

“Look in the mirror,” he demanded, voice low and filthy. “Watch how I’m fucking you.”

You obeyed, eyes glazed with pleasure as you watched his reflection. His sharp jaw was clenched, dark eyes burning into yours through the glass. One hand stayed on your tit, playing with it possessively, while the other gripped your hip hard enough to bruise.

He fucked you relentlessly, cock dragging against every sweet spot inside you. The angle had him hitting so deep you felt him in your stomach. Your moans were loud and broken, impossible to hold back.

“Sunghoon—ahh—fuck, you’re so deep—”

He leaned over you, biting your shoulder as he played with your tits and slammed into you. “This pussy is mine. Always been mine.”

The pleasure built fast and brutal. Your second orgasm ripped through you without warning, your walls fluttering and clenching around his cock like a vice. You cried out his name as you came, juices dripping down your thighs.

The feeling pushed Sunghoon over the edge right after you.

With a deep, guttural groan, he buried himself as deep as possible and came hard inside you. Thick ropes of cum flooded your pussy, filling you up completely. He kept thrusting through it, pushing his load deeper, claiming you in the most primal way.

For a long moment, you both stayed like that, his cock still buried inside you, his hands still groping your tits, both of you breathing heavily as you stared at each other in the mirror.

Reality slowly crept back in. Heeseung was somewhere outside. Sooha was waiting at home. But neither of you could bring yourselves to care yet. Sunghoon pressed a messy kiss to the back of your neck, still twitching inside your cum-filled pussy.

“We’re not done tonight,” he whispered darkly. “Not even close.”

"Hm, smells good!"

Over the stark midnight induction stovetop, steam dances under the sunset stove hood light, bubbles crackling in the pot of pasta you brew, competing with the soft sounds of your playlist ─ your picture of serenity. Tossed over your shoulder, your lips line into a smile at your incoming roommate, Sunoo, sauntering through the living room with his arms braced against the back of a kitchen stool, whiskered smile on full display. 

"I haven't even gotten to the sauce yet," you dash a wink, slightly turned to whisk your tortellini in its pot. "I'll save you some though."

"You're a godsend," his palms clasps together, joy plentiful. "That'll save me making hashbrowns when I get back."

"You mean those hockey pucks?" Laughter bubbles out of you two, fondness painting over the amusing memory. "They were frozen in the middle and you had the audacity to say,"

"Your hashbrowns have been served!" 

He collapses in a fit of giggles, you halfway there as you back away from the stove, clutching your stomach at the resurfaced memory, Sunoo so happy to serve you frozen hashbrowns after a night out. While thoughtful, it did prompt ready-made food to be stored away for such occasions. 

"You know I'm no good in the kitchen, how much more drunk," he comments, index finger dabbing away acute tears. 

"Yeah, that actually might have been my bad," offering a sidelong glance, your teeth bite back your mirthed grin. "It made for a good memory, though. That I can't complain about,"

"Even if you threw up whole hasbrowns the next day?"

Eyes clamped shut, your shoulders shake with amusement, the boil of pasta subduing poor attempts to backtrack muffled snickers. 

"Even if so." you decide on, looking back at him with the kind of fondness your friendship thrives on, the same mirrored back at you. 

On the stool's back, his elbow balances on its edge, palm holding his chin as his back extends, lips settled into a small pout. "Did you make cocktails too?"

"I would have but," a flush gnaws at your neck's nape, a sudden flash of heat blowing towards your face. "I didn't have any time."

"Too busy with other cock…"

"You know what!"

His body collapses under the weight of familiar laughter, eyes moon crescents as your spatula's raised, accusingly pointed in his direction as timidity keeps your smile downturned, flush alive and well in your bunched cheeks. 

"I've had just enough of you!' 

His arms shape into a W, eyes flared with a knowing smirk. "Am I wrong?"

Eyes rolling, you revert your attention back to your pasta, shaking your head along with your stirs. "Insufferable."

"Your moans were insufferable, I'll tell you that." 

A near gasp attempts an offended launch, embarrassment heavy in your furiously burned cheeks ultimately falling with the closure of your mouth, displeased groans having to suffice. 

"Where's your boy toy anyways? Did he leave yet?"

Absently, you answer. "He's napping in mine."

"He's still here?!" you can hear his eyes bulge out his skull, eyes cutting to the ticking kitchen clock, speaking of the late hour. "It's like, 7 in the evening. He's been here this whole time?" 

"Don't ask how." Cause you're better off not thinking about it.

"You fixing him a plate too?" 

Your lack of a response is answer enough.

"Holy fuck, I'm losing my best veteran!"

Past the point of ridiculousness, your head swivels back to him, an accusatory spaculta raised. "Don't you have a pres to go to?" 

In your view, Sunoo plays up his scowl, retreating into himself as he strings a zip-up hoodie across his arm. "I'm going, I'm going."

With his back turned, making a start for the door, you think you'll regain some semblance of peace if not for his last remarks. 

"Shame you didn't get to those cocktails," he starts. "Well, tails I should say."

"Goodbye, Sunoo!" 

He hollers his goodbye back, door unlocking and locking behind him, the slam of the door your signal for peace and quiet. Despite the heavy exhale out your chest, your lips can't help settle into one hinting at leftover laughter, your conversation re-run as you dwindle the heat down on the stove. 

Regardless of his dramatics, Sunoo's reaction is well warranted because he knows anything about you, it's that your casual hook-ups never extend to this. In your bed past daybreak, a hot plate of food waiting for them hours later. They're not even allowed in your bedroom period, their poor excuse of a bedroom settled for because if they don't take up space in your room, there's less chance of mind-real estate taken up once they're onto the next shiny toy. 

Somehow, Sunghoon separates himself from the rest. Meant to be a one-time fling you could have bragging rights over, only for him to become a constant. A chanced at outreach turning into a preference, the gamble of an orgasm not considered when it's guaranteed with him. He's never made things complicated too, toeing the arm's length you've kept him at without any complaints. It should make you happy ─ it does ─ but somehow, in the frequent trips over to his (that don't feel like camping), you've gotten lax.

In no rush to leave his cloud-like mattress, eating and mingling with his roommates when you've would've dodged them otherwise, inviting him into your room ─ your space ─ and well, now that he's spent a near 24 hours over at yours, you're not sure what to make of things. If this still constitutes as casual or if you'll have to complicate things for yourself weighing out pros and cons of his loss. 

As you're about to stop your impending spiral, turning off the stove, warmth envelopes the expanse of your back, swaddled arms wrapping around your waist with tenderness. Fresh linen and sandalwood makes its way into your senses, unwinding your shoulders into the embrace you subconsciously slump into, the grain of Sunghoon's chin settling against your shoulder. 

Your hand overlaps his before you stop yourself. "You're awake."

"Yeah," he muses, voice coarse with afternoon's slumber, taken with permission after how ever manage rounds you'd managed to fit in between a late-night text. "I heard you were cooking, so I came out to help."

The aimless pats over his crossed over hands still mid-air, brain pinpointing to the obvious. "You heard us?"

His beat of silence doesn't inspire much confidence. "Partially,"

The groan you do is immediate, laughed over as your body sags with the half-hearted dread, unsure of what's worse ─ Sunghoon hearing your conversation or the lack of apprehension in having those two parts of your life start intersecting.

"It was funny ─ hush," he surmises, the kiss placed to your cheek starting something funny in your chest. "You're making tortellini?" 

"Yeah," you confirm, the sudden lump in your throat cueing the clear of your throat as your body grows rigid. "Did you want some?" 

Again, he plagues you with a pause, a thoughtful hum given vibrating against your skin, aligning the fragments of your spine. "I could have a bite."

He chooses then to sink his teeth into your earlobe, a surprised yelp pried out your throat as you tug your head the other direction, only amplifying the dull stretch.

"You're sick," is your harmless retort, his hands canvasing the perimeters of your waist, underneath your tank top's flimsy material where hairs stand to attention. "You'll have to wait. Gotta drain this and make the sauce first."

You swear you hear the sound of his smirk, his lips stretching far and wide as they hover over your ear's shell, a crane into him at the proximity. 

"I've got something else you can drain."

His embraces grows tighter, pulling you into the firmness of his chest which isn't the sole thing firm about him. Against the curve of your ass, through the thin layers of shared clothing, the outline of his cock makes itself known, hitching the breath lodged in your throat, a rush of adrenaline coursing through you. 

As if he didn't put you through the mattress only hours before. 

Perhaps that's why you're so well-suited for each other. You can't stop fucking like rabbits. 

"Do you want me to get knocked up?" You joke, an act of incredulous performed as your neck cranes to meet his gaze. "My birth control's working overtime here."

He gives a laugh too, a hum resonating in the fabric of your skin as his hands continue to roam, intimacy dialled tenfold as his fingertips tease with possession, a middle finger drawn above the waistband of your sleep shorts. 

"I want you filled," he says, voice doused in the desire rife in your bodies, the languid graze of his fingertip unearthing a mewl from your quickly crumbling body. "Don't you want it too? Or have you forgotten how much you've begged for it?"

Nails sink into his hands, bucked hips following in hot pursuit as you will yourself a sliver of self-restraint. "Hoon," 

"Come on, princess," all he does is entice, nosing along the column of your neck, phantom bites eliciting the muffle of your moans, willpower waning. "I've got something better to fill your mouth with anyways." 

Gentle hands manoeuvre you in his direction, as if you weren't on your way down to your knees already, the same mischievous glint matched in your eyes as you're face to face. While your descent to your knees is already predestined, what you don't anticipate is the kiss he pulls you into, possessive hand clasped in the curve of your nape to eat at the distance. 

Searing with claim is how his kiss feels, committed to memorizing every line and hump of your lips, your nails dragging down the sides of his torso, a desperate plunge over clothes before your fingers hook into his sweatpants' waistband, pulling him flush against you. The impact with its friction breathes relieved sighs in between, an over-extension of your greed earning the subtle reminder of your place, sharpened canines settling into the ghost of previous markings, the melted moan you do making him smile against you. In his last brush of demise, his tongue glosses over the vague dents, saliva edging over into your mouth that you hum at, parting from him with the lick of your lips.

Usually, you'd make a show of what lies ahead ─ graze fingertips short of his waistband like he did, trail slow-moving hands down his thighs, nose along his print before you kiss into the twitch of his cock, chest fluttering as your teeth puncture into the waistband, going for a pull coupled with your helping hands. But you're impatient, pressed to swallow him whole, like you are most times as seen when your hands hook into his sweatpants and underwear, nails scraping with the tug you do thereafter. 

His cock stands tall, filled in and flushed, tip beaded with precome pooling saliva in your mouth at the sight. The plane of his stomach is almost unfair in the dimmed light, warmth emphasising the shadows of the abs your finger helplessly drag down between, loving the shiver he does as the motion ripples through him, precome pooling to the point of overflow.

You're quick to catch its fall, a hand wrapped around his base as the flat of your tongue swirls slowly around his tip, saving the best for last as his come reunites with your taste buds, the salt and musk of him prompting lightheadedness in your muddled mind. Above you, you hear a groan, chest-harboured but evident enough, fingers carding into your hair to make you look up.

"See how hard you make me, hm princess?" his head is tilted, an overcast in his eyes as his hips jut forward to paint precome to your lips, canines shown when your lips run over the trail. "You want it, don't you?"

You clench at nothing, nodding with the brush of your lips against his tip. His lip catches between his teeth, firmness in his fingers, a tug at your scalp as he says,

"Then get to it."

Diving in, you greed pushes you to accept him all at once, mouth closing around his length, trimmed pelvis hair trickled against the tip of your nose, huffed out of as a hissed inhale sounds from above. Keeping yourself there, you let the weight of him hang on your tongue, savouring the taste and feel before a shallow thrust tickles near the back of your throat, throat constricting around his tip. On your tongue, his length twitches again, a shaken sigh escaping him as precome beads back into your throat, closing to capture every drop. 

The saliva collecting around him lends itself as your hand's compensation, head dragging yourself back to his tip to accommodate for the fist folding over his cock, clutching with the pressure he loves, tongue grazed over engorged veins on your way back. Coldness creeps into the knees braced against arctic kitchen floor, paid no mind in the face of the thrill of this, letting your mouth and hand do sloppy work of Sunghoon's cock in a place anyone could chance upon. The same thought seems to occur to the man above, a weathered moan coming with the involuntary buck of his hips, the hardness around your mouth throbbing like the situation pains him, leniency given to him as your hand swirls up to meet your lips, tunnel kissed before moving in tandem.

The twisting motion is chased after the warmth of your mouth, eager to please and be filled as you feed him down to your throat, unearthed moan blending into his skin. The sensation earns a tug of your locks, smiled to as your head bobs, filthy slick sounds filling the dimmed room.

"Right where you belong, hm sweet girl?" Sunghoon muses, a dark lick to his words swirling the pool of arousal in your belly, the hum you do around him slowly picking at his crumbling composure. "You're sin on your knees."

Brushed out your face, he gets a better view of your work, kicking in your mouth at the pleasure bloomed over features he's been obsessed with. 

"Bet you've soaked through those pretty panties you've got on," he smirks. "You know they're no use when I'm round." 

Your hips seek him, bucked forward with no gratification except the closer draw of your thighs, rubbed together to ease the ache between them. Your tongue swirls over his tip, flat and unhurried as your hand squeezes around him, coaxing more precome into the mess of saliva coating him, the shadow of his labouring chest peeking into your vision.

"I'd take you anywhere, wouldn't care who sees because I know─" he chokes on a pant, fingers taut within your hair. "I know you'd want it too."

"Don't you, princess?" he asks, already knowing the answer but making you beg for it, adding fuel to the fire conjured in your stomach, pathetic mewl closing your throat around him. "Don't you wanna be fucked wherever? Used like the slut you are?"

You're useless in the face of your own desires, pushing yourself for more as your mouth ventures further down his generous length, lips brushed against the bunch of your hand at his pelvis, forcing breaths through your nose. There's an impossible squeeze of your thighs, so desperate for friction, pressure will have to suffice, slick echoed as your hole goes for clenches met with nothing but slick. 

"Hm, that's it princess. Take my cock," he coos, tenderness in the palm of his hand as he marvels down at you, head thrown back with a throaty groan. "Know how much you love choking on it." 

The whine strung out of you hovers on the border of pathetic, ending in a broken sob as you force more of him into you, pushing through the gags his breath hitches at. 

Despite the fact, he's sweet as can be, fingers coming up for oxygen as a lone palm is soothed over your sculp, a sliver of comfort contrasting the raging fire consuming your body. 

"There you go, all the way down. Nice and easy," his deep timber has you mewling through tears, gathered in the clump of your lashes as your chest sizzles, nagging for the shallow breaths taken through your nose. Your senses overflow with him, drunk on the heady scent enveloping you, arousal strong enough to taste as a few more gags give to accommodate his size. "Look so pretty choking around my cock like that. Look up for me, pretty."

Too far gone, his voice sings to you like a siren, luring the uplift of your head, cock pushed back further at the angle that makes you choke, eyes forced shut then pried open. Even in subtle darkness, light illuminates him, his figure haloed as every piece of your filthy imagination constructs in a picture of him, rosiness hinted beneath the porcelain of his skin, a lone drop of sweat beading down his temple down to the angular cut of his jaw. His chest's heaved but his smile sickening, the high keen you do nothing but a mere consequence of your compliance. 

"There she is," syrup drowns the onslaught of his words, sugary sweetness held in the honey of his eyes as they focus on nothing but you, stuffed full like you always beg him to be. "All teary-eyed too. Is it too much for you, baby? My cock's too big for your little mouth?"

Body restless, you squirm in skin constricting three sizes too small, nails scrapping at whatever expanse available, claw marks carved into the skin of his hip bones. His tongue pokes into the interior of his cheek, scarred but enjoying every minute of your idea of heaven, no attempt made to move your head ─ simply indulging in the comfort of him in your mouth, tip edged further down than your poor throat can take. 

"Hm, too bad, baby. You wanted this," Sunghoon only affirms, the condescending dip of his words only making you clench harder, high strung on nothing but walls caught in your grasp. "Because that's what you love most ─ nothing but my cock swarming that pretty head of yours."

You make a sound that's meant to be confirmation, or a plea ─ whatever it is, it's gargled mess against him, spit bypassing the plush of your lips, mini bubbles forming at the breath you attempt, lungs scorched, desperate for more oxygen. 

Relentless, your hands don't seek a tap on Sunghoon's thighs for refuge, his fingers moving into your hair to grasp on the sides of your head, a hint for actions leaving you leaking down your thighs. 

"Lemme bruise your throat a bit, lemme fuck you," and you let him, rigid in place as he teases you with a few shallow thrusts, only rewarded with the makeshift nod given. Hands stapled at his hips, he drags himself the long way back, leaving only his tip kissed by your lips before thrusting in again, quick to build speed, generating the curses he heaves. "Shit," 

He starts to build a rhythm, punishing and deep just how you prefer, tears clouding your vision as you keep your mouth firm despite the moans it begs to release, tongue catching the underside of his cock, picking away at the pieces of your restraint. Saliva pools at their feel, further encouraged by the angry throb of his cock, veins coursed over as Sunghoon's laboured pants compete with the gags amplified by his reach at the back of your throat. 

"You sound so fucking filthy, princess," he swears, halfway torn apart as a gasp wrestles out his own throat. "Gonna make me come sounding like that. That's what you want, right? Me filling you?"

The friction of your feverish gargles and his incessant pistons come alongside your shared pained moans, a near growl liberated from his chest as his hips gather more speed, held onto in desperation as he works at making your wishes come true. 

"So good for me, pretty. I'll give it to you, I'll give you what you want," his words come out in a muddled rush, his release hinging you on the edge of delirium, the slump of your body only prevented by his steady grip. "And after this, I'm filling you properly."

His promise squeaks you against the lathered skin of his cock, his broken moan your satisfaction as your body shivers and shakes, his length removed with a wet pop, echoing far and wide. 

Immediately, his hands fold over the mess your mouth's made, fisting his cock with the presence of a madman as his world narrows down to you and your mouth. 

"Open. Up." 

The command hits you deep in your core, the low graft of his voice expelling more mess into your soiled panties and down your thighs, jaw unhinging with a creak as you follow through. 

The yield to his command pushes him over the edge, tip weighted down on your tongue as spurts of come shoot down the tunnel of your mouth, some askew and straying around the perimeters around your lips. It works out better for Sunghoon, the borderline-gone groan he gives brewed from the depths of his toned stomach as he watches his masterpiece unfold, it's final piece being the sack of bones you fold into after he gives you his last, inflamed throat gulping down his hot stream of come.

Fatigue submerges your figures in an endless wave, the tide only pulled back long after your pasta is forgotten, the fog cleared when your fawn-enabled body is hauled up in strength Sunghoon reserves for you. 

His hand clasps around the back of your head, your chin tucked into his shoulder as your feet scramble for the floor, arms swaddled around him for safety.

"I'm fucking you. You'll get those sorry excuse underwear off and spread yourself on the bed for me," his command grates into your eardrums, spine straightening in the possessive hold his other hand kneads into the the flesh of your ass. "I'm eating you for dinner." 

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A few days of silence would pass, sometimes a week if both of you were stubborn enough. Then, without fail, he would reach out. A message late at night, pleading for you back with a string of apologies. And no matter how determined you had been, no matter how much you told yourself and your friends that you were done, you would always find yourself replying. 

Sunoo had seen every version of it. He had become so used to the routine that your dramatic entrances into his room no longer surprised him. Exasperated, you’d flop down onto Sunoo’s beanbag, mumbling the same words every time,

“Sunghoon and I broke up.” 

He would barely react anymore, mustering up a pitiful smile at most. Sometimes he wouldn’t even look up immediately; he’d just sigh quietly and reach for his phone.

“Do you want me to be honest?” he’d ask, already knowing your answer.

“No,” you’d mumble.

“Okay,” he’d reply flatly. “He’s the worst, and you really do deserve better. This is definitely the last time.”

And then, after a pause, “Should I order food?”

You always said yes.

And that was it. That was the cycle. You would cry, you would complain, and then you would wait. Because somewhere deep down, you always knew how it would end. Sunghoon would come back, and you would let him back in with open arms.

So when it’s been forty days since the last breakup, Sunoo doesn’t take it that seriously. It plays out like it always has, a dramatic faceplant into his bed, your sobs coming out in choked gasps, the way your whole body shakes like this is the worst it’s ever been, even though, historically, it never really is. His hand moves absentmindedly against your back, comforting you yet again.

“Sunghoon and I broke up,” you mumble into the mattress.

“Mm,” Sunoo replies, not even looking up. His thumb is already halfway through unlocking his phone. “Do you want me to be honest or—”

“No.”

“Okay. He’s a fucking douchebag. You could so get with somebody better.”

The room stays silent for a second. 

“Should I order food?”

You sniff. “Yeah.”

He nods absentmindedly. “Forty days, though. That's probably the longest so far.”

“You’re acting like you’ve been waiting for this,” you groan, rolling slightly over so you can breathe properly.

“I mean,” he shrugs, “I don’t even have to wait that long.”

You kick him lightly. He ignores it.

“I’m done this time,” you say, sitting up a bit now, your hair a tangled mess from lying there too long and your wet, matted eyelashes sticking together in uneven spikes.

Sunoo deliberately pauses. “You said that last time.”

“This time I actually mean it.”

“You also meant it last last time, and the time before that, and even before that—”

“I get it!” you cut in quickly, voice rising just a bit, “but it’s different this time. I’m actually moving on. I’m talking to someone new. I’m not going to do this again.”

Sunoo finally looks at you properly. “Really?…Someone new?”

“Yes.” You say matter-of-factly. 

He nods slowly, not convinced. “Okay.”

“I’m serious.”

PARTY 1: They weren’t lying when they said that saying something is easier than actually doing it. You thought it’d be simple, and you’d even made yourself a mental checklist

Find someone new to talk to

Move on

BONUS: Maybe even do what Sunoo casually called “get some new dick up in your system.”

In reality, it was proving to be… not that.

You weren’t even sure what kind of party this was supposed to be. The house was too loud in a sticky, suffocating way. Your dress kept rising no matter how many times you fixed it, and your heels, clearly not broken in, made every step feel like hell on earth. 

Somewhere in the corner, there was a livestream happening. Some random frat guy being followed around by a whole crew, while a few people hovered around him like this was a completely normal thing to witness at a party.

Sunoo had called him Clavicular, like that was a real name that someone would actually have. You were starting to think Sunoo just made words up when he got bored.

Your phone sat face down on your thigh. You hadn’t checked it in twenty-three minutes, which honestly deserved some kind of award considering the circumstances.

“Hey.”

Your eyes shot up to find a guy standing in front of you. He was cute, definitely tall. But not taller than Sunghoon. A baseball cap pulled low over his eyes and the kind of easy smile that usually worked its charm on people immediately.

“You’re Sunoo’s friend, right?” He asked, a grin stretching across his face.

“Mhm.” You hummed.

“I’m Minjae.”

You introduced yourself politely, shifting slightly on the couch to make room when he sat beside you. He leaned close enough for you to smell the alcohol and expensive cologne radiating from him. Normally, this kind of thing would’ve distracted you. 

“So,” Minjae asked casually, “are you here with someone?”

“No.”

The answer came too quickly.

Minjae kept talking, and you really did try listening! You nodded at the right moments. Smiled when you were supposed to. But your attention drifted embarrassingly fast.

You wondered if Sunghoon had eaten dinner yet.

You wondered if he was still sleeping on the left side of the bed, even though there was no one occupying the right anymore.

You wondered if he still reached across the mattress half-asleep before remembering you weren’t there.

The thought made something ache painfully inside your chest.

God.

This was pathetic. You were so pathetic.

“You okay?” Minjae asked suddenly.

You blinked hard, fake eyelashes fluttering. “Huh?”

“You looked kinda sad just then.”

“Oh.” You forced out a laugh. “That’s just my face.”

Thankfully, he laughed too, accepting your answer easily.

Around you, the party only got louder. The music rattled through the walls hard enough to vibrate beneath your heels while people squeezed past each other carrying drinks that sloshed onto the floor. Somewhere near the staircase, somebody screamed over a game, followed by an automated “you just died.” The entire house smelled like sweat, cheap liquor, and somebody’s overly sweet vanilla perfume.

And somehow, all you could think about was how different this felt from being with Sunghoon.

You missed the stupid things the most. The tiny things you never noticed while they were happening, only in the wake of their aftermath. The way he’d tug you into his lap absentmindedly while scrolling through his phone. The way his hand would always find your waist automatically in crowded places, like his body just expected yours to be there.

You hated how vividly you remembered it all.

“You want another drink?” Minjae asked.

“Oh— sure.”

“I’ll be back.”

The second he disappeared into the crowd, you hurriedly grabbed your phone.

No notifications.

A heavy ache unfurled through your chest so suddenly it almost made you angry with yourself.

Forty days.

Forty fucking days.

Usually, Sunghoon would’ve cracked by now. Usually, there would’ve been late-night paragraphs, a few missed calls at two in the morning, a series of voice messages full of exhausted apologies and “baby, please just talk to me.”

But there’d been nothing.

Your thumb hovered over his contact before you could stop yourself.

hoonie

He was still pinned. Still stupidly pinned.

You stared at the chat, eyes boring into the screen. The last message was from him.

i’ll leave you alone if that’s what you really want.

You remembered sitting on the cold tiles of your bathroom floor, reading it over and over again five weeks ago, tears running down your face while you waited for another message to appear underneath it.

It never did.

Your throat tightened at the recollection of the memory.

“You’re kidding me.”

Sunoo dropped onto the couch beside you, holding a half-open bag of chips, before narrowing his eyes immediately. “Why do you look like someone just died?”

You locked your phone instantly. “Nobody died.”

“You were staring at your screen like you got a funeral notice.”

“Shut up.”

His eyes widened dramatically. “Oh, my god. You miss him.”

“I do not.”

“You absolutely do.”

You opened your mouth to argue before stopping.

Sunoo stared at you for a second longer before his face softened.

“…Oh,” he said, quieter this time. “Wait. You actually miss him.”

Your silence answered for you.

And somehow that expression on Sunoo’s face got worse. “You know,” he said carefully, “you guys break up so often that sometimes I forget you’re actually in love.”

That was the problem, wasn’t it? It would’ve been easier if you didn’t love him anymore. If the relationship had ended nicely because one of you just stopped caring. But every breakup with Sunghoon felt less like falling out of love and more like drowning in it.

“You should text him,” Sunoo said quietly.

You laughed immediately. “Absolutely not.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m trying to move on.”

“Are you?”

You looked away.

Across the room, a couple leaned into each other lazily. Somebody else kissed near the staircase like they were alone.

And suddenly the entire party felt unbearable.

You missed him. You really fucking missed him, in the most humiliating way possible. You missed calling him when something funny happened. You missed hearing the jingle of his keys outside your apartment before he walked in without knocking. You even missed your screaming fights with him.

Sunoo watched your expression carefully.

Then his phone buzzed. He checked it once and physically froze.

“Oh,” he muttered to himself.

Your stomach dropped instantly. “What?”

“…Nothing.”

“Kim Sunoo.”

He slowly turned the screen toward you.

sunghoon: is she there

Your heart actually stuttered.

Below it, another message appeared.

sunghoon: don’t tell her i asked sunghoon: just tell me if she’s okay

The room suddenly feels too warm, wrapping around your neck and suffocating you. 

You hate how quickly your body remembers him before your brain can catch up. The tightness in your chest. The way your stomach flips over itself. The instinctive urge to answer him immediately, even after all the nights you spent crying because of him.

Sunoo watches your expression carefully from beside you, his lips parting like he wants to say something before deciding against it. Instead, he pulls the phone back toward himself slowly, thumb hovering over the keyboard.

“Don’t reply yet,” you say quickly.

“I literally wasn’t doing anything.”

“You were thinking about it.”

“I am thinking about it,” he admits shamelessly. “Because this is the longest you two have gone without speaking since, like, the invention of electricity.”

You glare weakly at him, but there’s no real energy behind it. 

just tell me if she’s okay

The worst part is that you can hear his voice saying it.

Because despite everything, despite all the arguments and slammed doors and tearful “maybe we just shouldn’t do this anymore” conversations at two in the morning, you know he loved you. Maybe badly sometimes. Maybe in ways that damaged both of you more than either of you wanted to admit.

But he loved you.

“You should answer him,” Sunoo says again, softer this time.

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

Because if you answer him, everything starts again.

That’s the problem.

One message turns into a conversation. The conversation turns into him calling you late at night because he “just wanted to hear your voice for a second.” Then suddenly, he’s outside your apartment holding your favourite drink and a bouquet of your favourite flowers, like muscle memory alone just carried him there on its own.

And the worst part?

You always let him in.

Every single time.

It wasn’t because you were weak, and definitely not because you enjoyed heartbreak. It was because loving Sunghoon had never left room for pride. It seemed like the one thing you truly knew how to do.

You look down at your hands. Your nails are chipped. One of your rings sits crooked on your finger because you’ve been twisting it unconsciously all night.

“You know what’s embarrassing?” you murmur.

Sunoo hums beside you, urging you to continue.

“I genuinely thought I’d be okay without him this time.”

The words come out smaller than intended.

For a second, Sunoo doesn’t joke around. He doesn’t tease you. He doesn’t laugh and pat you on the back. He just leans back into the couch cushions with an exasperated sigh.

“I think,” he says carefully, “you guys keep trying to act like the problem is that you love each other too much.”

You frown slightly.

“I think you both just don’t know how to stop hurting each other. It’s too toxic, y/n”

Your chest tightens.

Because maybe he’s right.

You and Sunghoon had always loved each other desperately. Every emotion between you became enormous. Fights escalated too quickly. Small misunderstandings turned into unbearable conversations that lasted until the sun rose. Neither of you knew when to stop talking once you were upset. Neither of you knew how to let things go.

But somehow, even your worst moments with him still felt more real than anyone else.

That was the sick part. No matter how exhausting it became, nobody ever compared to him.

Not the random people Sunoo tried setting you up with. Not the awkward conversations at parties. Not the pretty strangers smiling at you across the crowded rooms.

Nobody looked at you the way Sunghoon did, like he was terrified of losing you even while he was actively ruining things.

Across the room, Minjae finally reappears holding two drinks. The second he notices your expression, his smile falters slightly.

“You okay?”

You blink like you’d forgotten he existed. You probably had forgotten.

“Oh. Yeah.”

It sounds fake even to you.

He hands you the drink anyway, before sitting beside the armrest this time instead of directly next to you. He probably sensed he had walked into something.

Sunoo suddenly stands up.

“I’m going to the bathroom,” he announces suspiciously.

You narrow your eyes immediately. “Don’t text him.”

“I’m literally peeing.”

“You’re evil.”

He flashes you his white pearls, and then he disappears into the crowd before you can stop him.

You sink further into the couch with a groan, covering your face with your hands as if it could shield you from everything.

Minjae laughs softly beside you. “Rough night?”

“You have no idea.”

For a moment, neither of you speaks.

The music changes again, the bass vibrating through the floorboards hard enough to rattle the cups on the table. Someone nearby starts singing horribly off-key. And suddenly, all you want is to go home.

Not because the party is bad. Because Sunghoon would’ve noticed ten minutes ago that you were uncomfortable. He always noticed.

He would’ve tugged you somewhere quieter without making a big deal out of it, fingers brushing against your wrist gently as he pulled you through the crowd. Then he’d look down at you with that stupidly sincere expression he only ever wore around you and ask, “You wanna leave?

Like leaving together was the most obvious thing in the world.

Your chest aches so suddenly that you almost feel angry about it.

Forty days.

And somehow you still miss him in every room you enter.

PARTY 2:

You convinced yourself that the first party after the breakup was a trial run. You would surely move on and find a rebound this time! You were sure of it!

Because that’s what you were supposed to do, right? Keep going out, keep meeting people, keep proving to yourself that Sunghoon wasn’t supposed to be the centre of everything anymore.

“You cannot spend another weekend rotting in bed watching relationship tarot readings,” Sunoo had said, practically doing your own makeup for you for the party. 

“They were accurate.”

“You believe some woman called MoonPrincess444?”

“She understands me!”

Sunoo ignored you completely, already sifting through your closet. “Wear the black dress.”

“The short one?”

“The hot one.”

Exactly an hour later, you’re standing in another overcrowded house filled with strangers and flashing lights.

At first, it feels exactly like last time. The same sticky heat in the air. The same bass vibrating through your ribs like it’s trying to rearrange something inside your chest. 

You stayed near Sunoo at first, letting him lead you through the crowd like he always did, but even that didn’t last long. He kept getting pulled away by people he knew, conversations swallowing him whole until you were left standing slightly off to the side, holding a drink you didn’t remember agreeing to take.

You tried at first. You really did. You talked when people talked to you. You smiled when it felt appropriate. You even laughed once or twice just to prove to yourself that you still knew how to. But it never quite really stuck.

Your attention kept slipping in ways you couldn’t control. Every interaction felt slightly out of focus, like your mind was watching it from somewhere behind your body instead of inside it.

This guy laughs too loudly. Sunghoon used to laugh as it caught him off guard.

This one looks at his phone while you’re speaking. Sunghoon used to look at you like everything else in the room didn’t exist.

At some point, Sunoo vanished again into the crowd, leaving you alone near the edge of the kitchen area. You stayed there for a while, not really moving. The drink in your hand had gone warm. You weren’t even sure when you stopped noticing the music properly.

You were staring down into the swirls of your drink when it happened.

Your body reacted before your thoughts could catch up. A tightening in your chest, a shift in your breathing. Slowly, you turned your head.

And everything stopped.

Sunghoon was standing at the entrance.

He was wearing your his favourite hoodie, his hair falling in front of his cheekbones, his hands tucked strictly into his pockets as if he was holding himself together. There was something about the way he stood there that felt different from every other person in the room, not because he was doing anything noticeable, but because the space around him seemed to respond to him, as if the atmosphere itself had adjusted.

He had not seen you yet.

But you had already seen him.

And that alone was enough to make your chest tighten in a way that felt almost painful.

Then his eyes glanced up. 

And he saw you. Your eyes diverted immediately

The recognition was immediate and absolute, like there had never been any real distance between you at all, like the forty days had not stretched or faded anything, but had simply been waiting for this exact second to collapse back into itself.

Your fingers tightened around your cup without you meaning to, the pressure building into the bones of your hand as your body reacted faster than your mind could intervene.

Around you, the party continued as if nothing had changed. People kept talking, laughing, and moving through the space without even noticing what had happened to you. 

Because Sunghoon was still looking at you.

And in his expression, something changed in real time.

His gaze flickered briefly, and then, just for a moment, past you.

And that was when you realised.

Someone had been talking to you earlier. Standing too close that you could still feel the warmth radiating off his body. Close enough that it looked harmless to anyone else but Sunghoon.

Sunghoon’s jaw tightened further as his attention returned fully to you. There was a heaviness in the way he looked now, as if seeing you here, like this, in a room that was not his, next to people who were not him, was something he had not prepared himself for, even if he had known he might eventually have to.

And that was the part that made something in him snap.

Because Sunghoon did not come here tonight expecting peace. He did not come here expecting healing or acceptance or any of the things people pretended happened after breakups when they were trying to sound mature about it. He came because forty days of silence had slowly stopped feeling like space and started feeling like divine punishment from God, and because the last words of “I’ll leave you alone if that’s what you want” had begun to rot in his chest the longer you did not come back.

He had told himself he would be normal about it. That he would walk in, act like he did not care, maybe have a drink, maybe talk to a few people, maybe convince himself that seeing you again would finally mean nothing. At least, that's what Jake said would happen.

It did the fucking opposite.

Because the moment his eyes found you across the room, everything in him reacted like it had been waiting for that exact sight. The way you stood there, holding your drink as if you belonged somewhere else entirely, your expression soft in a way he used to be the only one who got to see up close, made something in his chest tighten so much it almost hurt.

His jaw tightened before he could even think about it. His grip on his phone shifted in his pocket, fingers curling hard enough that he almost forgot he was holding anything at all. He watched the angle of your body without meaning to, the way you were facing slightly away from the guy but not moving away either, and his mind filled in the gaps faster than he could stop it.

You looked fine.

That was the worst part.

You looked like you were completely okay here.

Like you had adjusted just fine.

Like you were not waiting for anything anymore, that you weren’t waiting for him anymore. 

And that thought, more than anything else, made his chest tighten in an almost unbearable way.

He started walking before he fully decided to.

The music got louder as he moved deeper into the room, but it felt miles away to him now. People brushed past him, scoffing at his abrupt movements. Jay called his name, some girl laughed too loudly near his shoulder, but none of it mattered to him. His focus wasn’t on them; it stayed on you.

On the way, you had looked away like you’d been caught.

On the way, you still had not moved.

On the way, someone else still stood too close to you.

By the time he was only a few steps away, he could finally see your face properly again. He saw the way your expression had changed slightly, as you had finally noticed something was different in the room, even before you turned fully. He saw the small hesitation in your posture, the way your attention was no longer fully anchored to the conversation beside you.

And then, slowly, you turned.

And everything stopped for him again, too.

Up close, it was worse.

Because now there was no distance. No crowd to hide behind. Just you, standing there, looking at him like you were not sure whether he belonged here or in your memory.

For a second, neither of you said anything.

Forty days sat between you, like some sort of physical barrier. 

Then Sunghoon looked past you again, just briefly, just enough to confirm what he already did not like. The guy was still there, now watching the interaction with obvious confusion, like he could tell something was wrong, but didn’t understand what.

Sunghoon felt his expression change before he could control it.

When he looked back at you, his voice came out lower than usual.

“You’re serious?”

The words were simple, but the way he said them was not. There was something underneath them that sounded almost disbelieving.

You did not answer immediately, and that hesitation alone did something to him.

Because he knew you, he knew exactly what your silence usually meant.

The jealousy didn’t feel rational anymore. It was not just some guy. It was about everything he was suddenly seeing all at once. You laughing with someone else. You standing comfortably without him. You existing in a space where he was not automatically the centre of your attention.

He took a breath, slower this time, forcing his expression to steady, but his eyes did not soften.

Instead, they stayed on you.

“I leave you alone for a month,” he said finally, quieter again, “and this is what it looks like?”

There was no accusation in it. And for the first time since he walked in, Sunghoon did not look like someone trying to act normal. He looked like someone who had just realised that maybe he was not the only one still stuck in the same place. And for a second, it felt like neither of you knew what to do with that.

Because that was the truth that neither of you had said out loud yet. Not in forty days, not during the breakup, not in any of the arguments that had ended with slammed doors and messages left on read until they stopped meaning anything.

Sunghoon had not moved on.

Not even slightly.

And seeing you here, like this, made that fact unbearable in a way he did not have the words for.

“You’re not answering,” he pressed.

“I don’t need to,” you replied, and your voice was steadier than you expected it to be.

That steadiness made something in him crack further.

Because it was wrong. Wrong in every single way, it disrupted the version of you he still held in his head. The version who always looked at him first in a room. The version of you who would beam at him, ushering him to your side. The version that never made him feel replaceable.

But you weren’t doing that now.

You were just standing there, completely still, completely fine without him. And it made him feel ridiculous for assuming anything would be the same.

“You’re really just going to stand here like I didn’t just walk in and see—” he stopped himself, as if he had reached a dead end and didn’t know how to navigate a way out. 

“You don’t get to act like that,” you sighed, everything that had been kept bottled up over the forty days pouring out, “You don’t get to break up with me, disappear for forty fucking days, and then walk in here like you still have the right to—”

You swallowed your words.

His eyes stayed locked on yours in that way that always used to make you feel like the rest of the world didn’t exist. As if he only existed in your orbit.

“You don’t get to show up,” you continued, voice shaking now despite your best effort, “and act like I’m doing something wrong just because I’m here.”

The guy behind you shifted awkwardly, suddenly very aware of himself, of his proximity, of the fact that he had become a detail in something much larger and much more volatile than a casual conversation at a party. He muttered something under his breath and took a step back, disappearing into the crowd in a blink.

Sunghoon laughs, actually fucking laughs. “You think I left?” he repeats, like the idea itself is insulting.

“You literally said you’d leave me alone,” you remind him, voice rising now, your throat tightening. “You said it. You wrote it. You made it sound so final, like I was supposed to just, what? Wait for you?”

“No,” he says quietly. “I said I’d leave you alone if that’s what you wanted.”

“That’s the same thing.”

“It’s not.”

It is. It is. It is.

You shake your head slightly, frustrated in a way that feels familiar and humiliating all at once.

AFTER PARTY

You really did try not to succumb to Sunghoon’s touch. You should have pushed him away—should have reminded him that whatever this was ended a month ago—but the familiar heat of his palms through your dress made your breath catch. His fingers tightened slightly, testing your resolve, and you hated how easily your body still responded to him.

Without a word, he guided you away from the crowded living room, his grip firm enough that no one would question whether you were following willingly. The noise of the party dulled as you moved down the hall, replaced by the sound of your own heartbeat pounding in your ears. People blurred past, but you barely registered them. Not when Sunghoon’s thumb was tracing slow circles against the dip of your waist through the thin fabric of your dress.

"You're thinking too much," he murmured, his breath warm against your ear as he nudged open the bathroom door. The click of the lock was deafening.

Your body registers that you're being set down on the bathroom sink top before your mind does. 

"You said you'd leave me alone," you repeated, voice breaking on the last word.

Sunghoon's fingers traced idle patterns along your hipbone beneath the hem of your dress. "I did." His thumb brushed the sensitive skin just above your thigh. "And then you showed up here looking like this."

Within seconds, he’s bunching your dress up around your hips. 40 days apart hadn't changed the way your bodies fit together—his cock hard against your core, your nails already digging into his shoulders.

Your panties were gone before you could protest, tossed carelessly to the floor, and then his fingers were there—stroking, teasing—just long enough to make your hips jerk toward him.

"Still wet for me," he noted, voice thick with amusement as he pressed the head of his cock against your entrance. "Even after all this time."

You grip onto the bathroom counter as you feel him push inside of you, the stretch so deliciously intoxicating, your jaw slack. He groaned when you clenched around him, his forehead dropping to yours as he bottomed out. "Fuck, you feel—" 

"Don't," you cut him off, even as your legs hooked around his waist to pull him deeper. "This doesn't mean anything."

Sunghoon laughed darkly, pulling out almost entirely before slamming back in hard enough to make you cry out. "Keep telling yourself that," he taunted, his hands gripping your hips to keep you still as he set a punishing rhythm. "Your body knows the truth."

His thumb found your clit, rubbing rough circles just the way you liked, and you hated how quickly you unraveled under his touch. The pleasure coiled tighter, your back arching off the sink as he fucked you through it, his name spilling from your lips like a prayer you didn’t mean to say.

Sunghoon’s breath hitched when you came, his thrusts turning erratic as he chased his own release. "Missed this," he gritted out, fingers digging into your thighs. "Missed you."

You didn’t answer. Couldn’t, when his cock was still buried inside you, when every nerve in your body was alight with the aftershocks.

“I don’t miss you.” His large hand moves, slapping the meat of your ass as a response. The sting of his palm against your flesh makes you gasp, your back arching further as he picks up the pace. His hips snap into yours with ruthless precision, each thrust hitting that sweet spot deep inside you until your thighs tremble. You bite your lip, refusing to give him the satisfaction of hearing you break—but your body betrays you. Your nails dig into the cold marble countertop, leaving faint crescent marks as pleasure coils tighter in your core.

Sunghoon’s breath is hot against your ear, dripping with lust. "Still lying to yourself, huh?" His fingers tighten around your hips, holding you in place as he drives into you harder, the slap of skin echoing off the tiled walls. "Your pussy's begging for me. Always has."

A moan claws its way out of your throat when his thumb circles your clit again, pressing just enough to make your vision blur. You hate how easily he unravels you, how your body remembers every filthy thing he can do to it.

"Say it," he growls, punctuating the demand with another sharp thrust. "Tell me you missed this."

You shake your head stubbornly, but your hips rock back against him anyway, taking him deeper. The bathroom mirror fogs with the heat between you, obscuring your reflection—just as well, because you can't bear to see how wrecked you look beneath him.

Sunghoon laughs darkly, dragging his teeth over your shoulder. "Yeah, that's what I thought."

His hand wraps around your throat, not enough to cut off your air but enough to make your pulse leap wildly beneath his fingers. The pressure sends a dizzying rush through you, your body tightening around his cock in helpless response. "Look at you," he murmurs, lips brushing the shell of your ear. "Always so fucking perfect when you’re mine."

The words shouldn’t unravel you—but they do. Your resolve crumbles with every punishing thrust, every filthy whisper against your skin. His free hand slides down your stomach, fingertips skimming lower until they find you throbbing and soaked, your clit swollen under his touch.

"Sunghoon—"

His hips jerk forward, slamming into you so deep your back bows off the counter. "Say it."

You choke back a sob as pleasure fractures through you, your body clenching around him in helpless waves. He doesn’t let up, fucking you through it until your legs go weak and your hands scramble for purchase against the slick sink.

The last thing you feel before everything goes white is his mouth on your neck, teeth sinking in as he groans your name.

thirteen years ago.

Sunghoon took a deep breath as the chill air of the rink, even from where he sat in the locker room, sent shivers down his spine. His thin black blouse with rhinestoned sleeves did nothing to shield him from the cold. 

He should have been used to it by now. But today would be the most important skate of his life. 

The World Championships. The event that would decide his place at the next Olympics. 

Just a few years ago, he had missed out on competing completely due to a knee injury. Sunghoon was determined this time to make his dreams come true. His seniors always said that Olympic ice felt different, more real. This would be it. His last chance before the younger, more talented skaters took his spot later down the line.

He was picking at his nails with his teeth, a habit he so desperately needed to let go of. Even with ten competitors ahead of him, Sunghoon was already on edge. You, his good luck charm, had not arrived yet. It wasn't typical of you. In your three years of dating, you never missed the opening skate of any competition he'd been in. 

It’s where you first met. You had been in the stands, taping your phone number onto a penguin plushie he’d caught after his award-winning skate. Since then, it's been tradition for you to sit in the same exact seat during local competitions.

His left leg bounced impatiently as he sat on the locker room bench. Sunghoon has sent about 16 texts to your phone already. He shook his head, unlocking his phone for the umpteenth time. Crickets. His phone screen photo of you blowing a kiss into the camera was taunting him now.

Where the hell were you?

Coach Jung patted him on the shoulder. “Don’t think too much. You're gonna psych yourself out.”

“I'm not nervous,” Sunghoon replied, unconvincingly. “It's just cold.”

Coach Jung rolled his eyes.

“You're not new to this, kid,” he doubted the young man. “You're gonna do great out there. This is what you've been dreaming of. Just don't mess it up.”

Sunghoon didn't know if that was meant to be motivating or not, but when Coach Jung left, he felt a pit in his stomach start to form. It's been years in the making. Blood, sweat, and tears were poured into this. The time he could've spent going on longer dates with you all went to extra hours practicing quads in the rink. He couldn't let his sacrifices go to waste. It would be a disservice to both of you.

He put his hands to his face and repeated a mantra of self-affirmations.

‘You got this, you got this, you-’’

“Hoon?” He heard your sweet voice call out. Your head poked through the locker room door before entering cautiously. Audience members weren’t typically allowed in here, but you always managed to sneak your way in.

He dropped his hands immediately, a wave of relief washing over him.

“There you are,” Sunghoon whispered to himself, rushing to you as fast as he could with skates on the carpet. You let out a small sound as he picked you up by the waist, spinning you around like a princess.

“Where have you been?” Sunghoon sighed happily, setting you down with a kiss to your temple. “I was blowing up your phone! I thought you died.”

You smiled, but he noticed how tight it looked. The light didn't quite reach your eyes, and your lips twitched as if it was almost painful to maintain. He brushed a stray hair away from your face, tucking it behind your ear.

“Everything okay?”

You nodded, resting your hand on his as his thumb drew small circles on your cheek.

“I…” you trailed off. You were looking at the ground, at the ceiling, and even at the trash cans. Anywhere but him. “I want to talk to you about something.”

He raised a brow. Your fingers were quivering, and he noticed redness in the whites of your eyes. Were you crying?

“Of course, baby. You can tell me anything.” 

Sunghoon is worried now as he took both of your hands into his. He felt how cold they were, even more so than his.

“Can the remaining five acts please be on stand-by?” the overhead speaker blared into the locker room. That was him. He was one of the last five. 

He pursed his lips as he looked towards the door and back at you. Your mouth opened, just as flustered by the announcement.

“Let's wait,” you said in a rush, noticing the sweatiness of his palms. “It can wait.”

Sunghoon shook his head. Your voice faltered. He knew better now not to let these things linger.

“No, [Y/N]. Tell me what's wrong.” He stood his ground. Your eyes were watering, his gaze unmoving from yours. As you spoke, it was like the world around him went still. His chest felt heavy, throat so constricted he thought he would choke.

“I'm pregnant.”

No, he thought. It can’t be.

“H-how? We never– That’s impossible– We always use-”

His voice trailed off, afraid that if he said anything out loud, it would become more real. You pursed your lips, biting your top lip so hard that it drew blood. 

“Don’t you remember?”

two months ago.

You were laughing, he was laughing. You both looked insane, obnoxiously cackling at nothing, in the dimly lit streets that led to his apartment. You were drinking with the guys at a new bar, underestimating the power of tequila compared to the usual shots of soju.

Sunghoon's arm was wrapped around your waist, putting his weight on you to prevent himself from faceplanting on the ground. He had lost too many hands in poker with Jay and Jake, and instead of betting money, he took an extra four shots as punishment. It was a big mistake.

“They got lucky,” he blabbered, “If we played Go Fish, I would have wiped the floor with them.”

He was hiccuping, and that sent you into a further spiral of giggles. Sunghoon was always so darn cute when drunk, so different from his icy exterior. His cheeks were tinged with red, and his pupils dilated. You weren't doing all that well either, with your body so warm from the alcohol that you had shed your jacket on the ground just a few minutes earlier. Where that jacket was now is lost on you.

“Hoon!” you exclaimed, pointing at his apartment gate. “We did it!”

Sunghoon stumbled to get his keys from his pocket. Opening the gate and then going up the steps felt like an hour-long operation with how you two struggled. When he slid down the wall by the entrance of his apartment, you collapsed with him. 

The two of you, by his coat rank, staring into each other with heavy-lidded gazes and too far gone to even turn the lights on. By then, your movements were already out of your control. 

You traced the moles on his face like divine art, cradling his jaw with such care. Even in the drunkest of states, he looked so heavenly. He was so pretty in the moonlight. 

You pressed your lips against his, slowly at first, tugging at the rolled-up sleeves of his button-up shirt. Sunghoon made a noise of shock before deepening the kiss, hands roaming everywhere until they met your waist. His lips were so plush against yours, hungry to taste every inch of you. Your tongues danced with an urgency you've never felt before. Nipping at your bottom lip, he coaxed small sounds out of you. 

Sunghoon lifted you, firm hands on your bum to sit you atop him. 

He broke the kiss to bury himself in the junction between your neck and shoulder. Sunghoon's lips found your pulse point, suctioning around it like he was drawing your heartbeat out of your body. You gripped his soft hair and tilted your head back to give him better access. He lapped at your neck, your collar bone, anywhere his tongue could access. He was addicted to the taste of your skin, to the taste of you. You always smelled so good, had him so riled up even in the most unassuming of moments. He remembered how you looked in the bar with this sparkly red dress. Remembered how it rode up every time you sat down next to him. Fuck. 

You felt him then. The tent of his pants and the friction of his hips as they hopelessly jut up to meet yours.

You whined at the contact. He was palming your ass now with both hands, massaging as he moved you up and down on the tightness of his jeans.

“Hoon,” you gasp. “Not here-”

He lifted his head to look at you, eyes so dark and full of lust. He wasn’t having it; you could see it in his face. His deliciously tense jawline. The bead of sweat running down his temple. You felt yourself clench around nothing just at the sight. How could a man be so gorgeous?

“Can't wait,” he hummed. “Need you now.”

He pushed your dress up your body, the material bunched at your waist.

You purse your lips in anticipation. He’s rock hard by now, and you can’t help but take it as an invitation to feel him. Your hands find his bulge, ghosting over his form. It jumped in response when you finally took hold, squeezing cautiously. Your cheeks warmed at the sight of the front of his jeans already damp with your fluids. Sunghoon enjoyed the view just as much as you did, his head tilted back to relish in your ministrations. He couldn’t hold back any longer.

Sunghoon’s hand, large and veiny, moved your panties to the side impatiently. 

"Hoon-" you gasped at the skin-to-skin contact.

His fingers traced the slit of your folds up and down, covering his digits with your slick. You found his swollen lips again to suppress your whimpers, saliva running down your joined mouths as you unzipped his painful-looking jeans. He was already prepping you for him, index finger cautiously pushing its way inside your plush walls. He groaned at the feeling of your fluttering warmth. Already, you were sucking him in.

“Always so fucking wet,” he muttered on your lips. You couldn’t help but grind down on him, a roundabout way of telling him to apply more pressure. To go harder. Rougher. To ruin you. He chuckled at your frustration. Needed to see more of it, more of you begging.

Sunghoon tested the waters and pushed in a second. Your moans were drowned out again by his merciless mouth. Tongues shoved so far down each other's throats, you swore you could feel him at the back of your neck.

He was fucking you onto his hand now, his palm making contact with your clit after every thrust. His forearm was tense, pace so relentless. Animalistic. You were practically bouncing on him, hands digging into his shoulder blades to chase your release. He loved the sight, wanting to hear you come undone just from his measly fingers in your dripping pussy.

“So desperate,” he hummed into your mouth. “Who's making you like this?”

Sunghoon was never this mouthy during sex, usually because he didn’t want the apartment next door to hear through the thin walls. But he had let go of all his inhibitions, the tequila still sitting fresh in his stomach.

“You, Hoon,” you cried out, legs shaking from the harsh pace of his fingers and your incessant grinding. “Please-”

You didn't know exactly what you were begging for, but you knew he could give it to you. Knew he was the only one who could. Your mind was filled with Sunghoon and Sunghoon only. The effects of the alcohol had made you a bumbling mess, pleading and begging for more. Your back arches to meet his fingers better, but it wasn’t not enough.

He added a third to relieve you, watching as your mouth opened into a silent scream.

“Hoon– Need it– Please– I need–”

You couldn't find the right words, couldn’t even keep yourself upright without his support. Sunghoon’s hands roamed up your body as one made its way to the back of your neck. With his thumb, he pressed down gently on the pulse point he was nipping at just earlier. His eyes were heavy on you, watching you so intently. Your eyes rolled to the back of your head, as your airways slowly constricted, as his thumb pushed against you. God, you loved the feeling.

“Enjoying yourself, baby?” 

Lightheaded, you were practically gripping his bulge at this point. The sounds between your legs were borderline pornographic, his fingers drawing out every wet squelch as they sank and twisted in and out of you. You felt so full of him, three fingers so deep inside you. But you could take more; you wanted to take more.

“Speak up,” he drawled, his voice slurring from the tequila. “Tell me what you want, or I'll stop.”

You sobbed, clawing at his clothed chest as he let go of your neck to let you talk. You gasped for air as you let yourself fall onto him.

“Need you inside me,” you cried as he pistoned his fingers into you harder. You wished he could just rip your underwear so you could feel his rough palm grind onto your bare clit. “Please, please, pl-”

"I am inside you," he teased. And all you could do was wail, shaking your head out of distress.

"Hoon-"

Your movements were forced to stop as Sunghoon's free hand gripped your thigh. His fingers were curved into you, stroking that spongy spot that he always managed to find. He massaged your G-spot at a steady pace, anticipating your climax. You wanted to move, but he held you down roughly. Your eyes were forced to look into his, and you felt the floodgates of your release start to open. 

“No-,” you whined. 

You were close, so close. But your mind was made up. Well, at least what was left of it.

“Wanna cum with you. Can I, Hoonie? Please?” you beg.

“Fuck-”

His grip on you loosened. His hand slowly left your tight folds, and he admired the slick that coated his long fingers. He brought them to your mouth, motioning you to taste the juices he coaxed out of you. With your doe eyes looking straight at him, you swallowed around him. Tongue flattened and bringing him in deeper.

His other hand reached into the back of his pocket, fiddling around to find his emergency condom. The one that became a necessity to bring around you. 

Sunghoon's mind was all over the place. Your tongue lapped at his fingers, sucking them so harshly. He'd have given anything right now to see your lips wrapped around his cock instead.

He'd almost grabbed the condom until you pulled his boxers down. Your mouth released his fingers with a small ‘pop’ as his painfully hard member slapped his stomach. You positioned yourself closer, adjusting so that his thickness slid against your soiled, clothed pussy. You cursed your stupid underwear for getting in the way again.

“B-baby-” Sunghoon stuttered out as you moved your panties to the side once more, his raw cock lined up to your aching hole. “Just give me a second-”

His hand tried to reach for his wallet again, but you interlocked them with yours instead. You shook your head, grinding against him cautiously. You don't know what's gotten into you. It's like the tequila was letting you act out your deepest, darkest dreams — ones of him fucking his cum so deeply into you that you were dripping wet with his fluids.

“Please?” you asked hopelessly. Your breath hitched. His cock met your clit, his precum spread all over your folds. Fuck it. You were too far gone. “I-I wanna feel you.”

Sunghoon would like to think he had self-control. Would like to believe that he was calmer than most. But the way your pleading eyes looked at him, and how your legs trembled in excitement. His intoxicated brain couldn't tell right from wrong. He wanted to give you everything you asked for. 

“Fuck, are you sure?” he groaned as you aligned his cock to your entrance, pushing down slightly to envelop his tip. He lets out a hiss, teeth gritting from the feeling. You were so tight, so fucking perfect for him.

“Mhm,” you mustered, wrapping your arms around his neck as his large hands met your ass again. “It's okay…”

You were sinking onto him now, his head buried into your neck from the sensation. You two had never done it without a condom before, always so careful. But he wondered, as his large cock was slowly sucked into your soaked pussy, why he'd never fucked you raw before. Sunghoon swore under his breath as he felt you clench around him. Fucking you with a condom was ruined for him forever. He could never put one on again. 

“Fuck, baby,” he willed himself not to move too fast. The stinging stretch of him had you withering above him, but you didn’t care. Not one bit. You clutched his hair as you impaled yourself on him, so lost in the feeling of him penetrating you so slowly. 

He was fully sheathed inside you now. Sunghoon needed a second to recuperate, but you were making it so difficult for him.

"Fuck-" he inhaled sharply as you grinded down on his pulsating cock. You were so impatient, already so worked up from his fingers.  

You were suctioning him, trapping him in your walls like you would never let him go. His grip on your hips tightened as he growled into your collarbone.

“Baby,” he said sternly this time, finding some semblance of sanity. “Don't.”

You whined, your hips stuttering through his tight grip on your ass cheeks. You wanted him to plow into you like you were his personal toy. Was there anything wrong with that?

“Why?” you drawled out, desperate for movement, for anything. Your eyes met his, and even through your drunken haze, you understood. He was close, already so on edge from feeling your raw pussy. And that made you want him even more.

You swore your hips moved on their own. You lifted yourself, shallowly thrusting yourself against him as he tried to hinder your attempts.

“N-no,” he grunted. “Too soon-”

You giggled as his hands were on your back now. Despite your protests, he did not stop you in any meaningful way. 

His grip on your ass was replaced with him pulling the straps down of your dress and bra to free your bouncing tits. He cupped them as you raised yourself higher, until just the very tip of him was left inside you. You took a deep breath, pushing yourself down on him without assistance. You moaned, feeling his heaviness in your lower stomach.

“Fuck-” he cried through clenched teeth. Sunghoon’s head was against the wall now, hands massaging your breasts so eagerly. 

He tugged at your nipples, pinching them between his index finger and thumb. Such a sight for sore eyes, seeing him so fucked out underneath you as you bounced on his cock. You wished you could engrave this in your memory. His parted lips and glistening forehead. 

You grinded your hips so helplessly against him, hands on his knees as you squeezed him through every downward thrust. 

“Baby, s-slow down.”

You're determined now, even as you start to feel that fluttering ache in your core. You wanted to do good for him, wanted to make him lose control like you would whenever he had you pinned to the bed and crying.

“Hoon, speak up,” you teased, mimicking his earlier words. “Tell me what you want or I-”

You couldn't finish your sentence as his hand meets the back of your neck, crashing his lips onto yours. His hands traveled down to your thighs, squeezing them roughly.

He thrusted up into you harshly, his grip on you guiding his movements. His pace was even more merciless than yours, not giving you time to catch your breath as you felt your inner walls contract around him. 

No! 

He needed to cum first. It was always you who came undone before him. You just needed to hold out, just for a few more seconds-

And in perfect timing, he found it. That part of you that had you practically screaming into his mouth. He smirked against your lips and hoisted you closer, fucking up into you as his fingers pressed firmly into the flesh of your thighs. Your insides churned with a tingling feeling, like something needed to be released. You pulled yourself away from his lips.

"No… Hoon-"

"Take it," he grunted. "You want it, right?”

You cried as his thrusts grazed your G-spot over and over again, his tip kissing your cervix at the right angles. 

“So fucking take it."

Your eyes roll back, the sensation was stronger and stronger until-

"Oh my god-"

Your climax hit you like a ton of bricks, crashing down on you so unexpectedly that your walls wanted to hold his raw length in place. Sunghoon continued his thrusts, not caring for the tears that threatened to spill from your eyes. You had your fun. Now, let him have his. 

His hands spread your ass cheeks apart, guiding you down onto his painfully hard cock with fervor. Sunghoon felt his high inching closer as he pumped in and out of your wetness, ignoring your cries of overstimulation.

“So fucking tight,” he groaned into your neck. He's there. He felt it. You braced yourself for his sweet release. 

“Need to pull out...”

Your eyebrows furrowed, expression laced in devastation. As if on instinct, you clenched around him. You wanted it. Whatever ‘it’ was. 

“In me,” you babbled through strained moans. “Please, Hoonie?”

He grit his teeth. That damn pet name. You were evil, so fucking evil. With your pretty tits and batting eyelashes. Who was he to deny you? His thrusts were erratic, admiring as your breasts bounced to the rhythm of his thrusts. 

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fu-”

His hips stuttered up into you. White, hot spurts met your cervix as you reached another orgasm from the sheer feeling of his release, mouth wide open. Your hips gyrated against his, easing both of you through your releases. His head rolled back, jaw clenched, and eyes wired shut as he felt you milk his cock of everything he was worth. 

You watched as a white ring formed around his cock was buried deep in you, still a little hard. You rested your body against his. Your eyelids were heavy, so content and warm in ways that only Sunghoon could bring out in you. 

“I love you,” he sighed into your hair, his own lethargy getting the best of him. “So fucking much.”

“I love you too.”

And as ridiculous as it sounds, the two of you slept in that position for hours. Two bodies connected at the entrance way of Sunghoon's studio apartment. When the sun came up and you realized what was done in your drunken states, you two panicked for the wrong reason. Did the neighbors hear? What happened to your jacket? Were you gonna get a UTI?

Sunghoon's cheeks reddened from the memory. It had to have been that night.

“A-are you sure?” he stuttered. 

You nodded solemnly. You knew it wouldn't be good news for him. It wasn't for you either. 

You were almost done with university. It’s supposed to be the year you figured out what you wanted out of a career. So when your first wave of morning sickness hit you just a week earlier, you knew every plan that you had would be forever ripped from your fingers. 

To travel the world. To start new hobbies. It would all have to wait. This would be your life now.

When you told your mother, tears streamed down her face. She called you everything underneath the sun. But she knew what it was like to carry a life unexpectedly, so she hugged you through it. Your dad’s reaction was worse. He hadn’t spoken to you yet.

“Two months along,” you whispered. Though he could never regret that night, he realized now how stupid it must have been to ignore the alarm bells in his head. He knew better. You knew better. Why the fuck did it end up like this? 

“So…” He gulped. He didn’t know what to say. “What now?”

“I…” you started. Heaving a deep breath, you felt him tense up. 

“I want to keep the baby,” you swallowed. Sunghoon’s mouth was parted, and his eyes were blank of emotion. 

It made you anxious, his lack of response. 

When he didn't reply, you started again. “What should we-”

“Sunghoon Park. Sunghoon Park. Please be on stand-by,” the overhead speaker rang out. He didn't mean to, but like muscle memory, his hand let go of yours. Guilt crashed over him, and he couldn't bring himself to look into your wavering eyes as he walked past you. 

The competition. This was his last chance. Coach Jung's voice resounded in his head. Don't mess it up.

“Hoon-” 

Your voice fell on deaf ears. His hands covered his face again, trying to refocus. He couldn't throw this away. Years. It took him years to get to this point. He couldn't. He had to skate. 

Tears spilled over as you watched his back retreat away from you. You should have waited to tell him, but he had asked. He said he wanted to know. 

Your back slumped against the wall of lockers, clutching your stomach as you cried. You couldn't bring yourself to go to the stands and watch him perform.

You knew it was dumb. You weren’t ready, not even close. But still… You wanted to try.

But him. Sunghoon.

You leaned your head back against the cold wall, breath faltering through your tears. What did you even expect? That he'd be happy? Excited?

You let out a shaky laugh.

Of course not. It's not like you were either.

You stood up, dusting yourself off.

You'd figure out a way to do this, you convinced yourself. If it meant that you were by yourself, that was fine. He didn't have to be there. He had big dreams, ones that predated you. You understood, even though it hurt. 

“Next to skate, representing the People's Republic of Korea. Sunghoon Park!” 

The cheers that ensued soon after made your chest constrict just a little more. You just couldn’t bear to watch him skate now. It was all too much.

You trudged towards the ice rink's exit, arms crossed around you like you were holding yourself. You were proud of him, so proud. He worked so tirelessly for an opportunity like this. Missed sleep and took a gap year from college to pursue this. He wanted it so bad, and though it was heartbreaking to watch him walk away, you knew why. You could talk later, you convinced yourself.

But the thoughts still echoed in your head.

A professional figure skater couldn’t be a father—not now, not at his age. You knew that. God, you hated that you knew it so well. His life wasn’t what most people imagined. There was no glamor in it. 

It was practices at the crack of dawn in freezing rinks and endless flights to cities he barely saw beyond hotel rooms. He could only fund basic living expenses with what little he earned from winning. He had a part-time job working the graveyard shift at a convenience store to even afford competition fees and dates with you. 

He gave everything for this dream—his body, his sanity, his youth. 

But he tried. In everything he did, he tried. That was the worst part.

Because even with all that trying, you still knew. That there would be no space in his life for the tiny heartbeat inside you.

You knew he'd have to quit. There was no way around it. Raising a child takes too much time away from the rink. 

If he stayed, if he chose to be in this child's life, he'd have to give it all up.And it would be because of you. 

But this was your life too. Your body. Your future. And no matter how tightly you clung to the image of him at your side, holding your hand in the delivery room, learning how to hold a newborn with trembling fingers—you had to be honest with yourself.

You wanted this baby. Even if it meant letting him go, even if that meant standing alone with a life you never planned for, you’d do it.

Because you knew that if it ever came down to choosing between his dream and you, it would always be-

“[Y/N], wait!”

You stopped in your tracks, stunned to hear his voice so close. Like he was here and not on the ice. You didn’t even notice that music stopped permeating the walls of the rink, that the announcer had moved on to the next contestant. He was running to you, socks thumping on the ground like he had taken his skates off only a moment before. 

No. It couldn't be. 

He reached you, his arms wrapped around you from behind. You heard his shaky breath against the back of your head. His thumb rubbed your forearms, planting a small kiss on your hair.

“We'll figure it out,” Sunghoon blurted out when he felt like the silence between you two was suffocating. “Together.”

You turned around to face him, panicked.

“Sunghoon, no,” you tried to push him away, but he pulled you in closer. “You need to go-”

“No.”

You looked at him, pain etched in every part of his beautiful face.

“But that's your future,” you cried out, mustering everything in yourself to not melt in his embrace. He was making a mistake. He'd hate you for the rest of your life if he-

“No,” he said again, much clearer. More determined. “It’s you.”

His hand drifted to your stomach, and he smiled this time as he looked into your teary eyes.

“You're my future.”

You shook your head incessantly. “Hoon, you're not thinking straight. I should've waited to tell you. You're not in your right mind. You need to go back and-”

He silenced you with his lips, so soft—like it might break you if he were any less gentle. You fell into his touch, unknowingly pulling him closer. He kissed you again and again, hands holding yours until your tremors faded with his touch.

“I love you,” he would say between each peck. “I'm not letting you do this alone.”

And you smiled, a real, genuine smile.

“I love you too.”

You moved in with him in that tiny studio apartment, shortly after, sharing a bed that barely even fit his tall frame. The cradle he built took up the majority of the living area.

But it was nice, waking up with him every day. He talked in his sleep, would whisper your name in that sweet voice of his so lovingly. Some days, Sunghoon wouldn't let you lift a finger, would insist that you needed as much rest as possible before your due date. You had to convince him that your job as a receptionist was certainly not so physically taxing that he had to follow you to it every day.

You also got married. It was simple. Just Sunghoon and you in a courthouse with Jake and Jay, trying not to stifle their laughter as witnesses to your marriage ceremony. You wore the white dress your mother wore, and Sunghoon wore his best suit, tie tied by you.

“Say cheese!” Jake chimed as you two posed with your signed certificate. The two of them cooed at your growing belly.

You were showing now, a small bump that Sunghoon admired each time he saw you do your online classes on the kitchen counter. He never got around to buying a desk, even though he was also back in school full-time. 

He had that dreaded conversation with Coach Jung beneath the dim lights of an empty rink. Sunghoon told him quietly, almost like an apology, that he’d be hanging up his skates until further notice. He wanted to be there for you at every step of the pregnancy. If he was going to stick beside you, he was going to do it right.

Coach didn’t yell. He didn’t need to. The disappointment on his face said everything. 

And so Sunghoon hadn’t touched the ice since.

He couldn’t bear to set foot in that rink anymore. Not when he knew he’d only be watching from the stands.

Not when the sound of blades carving through the ice was coming from someone else’s skates.

Not when he used to relish in the cold air passing through his body. Now, the only wind on his face came from passing cars as he biked to his second job.

He picked up a shift at a nearby restaurant. Just as a server. The kind of job that reminded him how painfully ordinary he was without his skates. Sometimes, when no one’s looking, he’ll shift his weight just right and practice his landings in the break room, arms out, knees bent. 

Other times, he scrolls through YouTube during his graveyard shift at the convenience store, searching up his own name with trembling fingers, watching old performances through a phone screen. Reading comments. Trying to remember what it felt like to matter to people he never met. 

You noticed, probably more than you let on. You just tried not to pry. He would get distant when you mentioned it, like that part of himself needed to be tucked away and out of his sight. You knew he was afraid, terrified to look back and see everything he gave up. 

But when Sunghee was born, it was like his world started to make sense again. He held her like she was made of glass. Sobbed so loudly the first time he saw her, you thought he was in pain. 

But no, he was just overwhelmed. Taken by the way her tiny hand curled around his finger, how her cries quieted the moment he held her close.

He’d protect her, he swore to himself. That this—her—wrapped up in the pink hospital blanket, was his life now.

And maybe, for a moment, he believed that was enough.

But the thoughts never stopped. His eyes would flicker toward the old duffel bag in the closet, where his skates were still packed away. He gave that up. For you. For her. And he’d never say he regretted it. But you knew.

You understood what he was grieving. Because you grieved too.

That girl who used to dream of making art, she felt like a ghost now. Someone you used to know.

Your passions, the things that once lit a fire in you, now sat gathering dust. All shelved quietly the moment your body became a home for Sunghee.

And your parents. You were still trying to reassemble the broken pieces of your relationship with them. Your mother tried to be there for you in her own way, but her disappointment was loud in the quietest moments between you two. And your father… well, he still hadn’t really looked you in the eye since the day you told him. 

And though she was born healthy, Sunghee came into the world screaming. She was a loud baby, inconsolable most nights, and the exhaustion had tested Sunghoon and you.

You took turns because you had to. He’d rock her until sunrise, then stumble to his classes. He started falling asleep during his breaks at work, cheek pressed against cold metal tables.

He didn’t care much for his own health, but the bags beneath your eyes pained him. Your face, once bright and curious, had dimmed under all the sleepless nights and rising costs of diapers. You were both burnt out.

He dropped Sunghee off with his parents for one night and dragged you out to see your friends. It was Jake's going-away dinner.

“It’s so hard to meet nowadays,” you sighed. “Feels like I’ve been nursing a migraine for the past three months.”

Jake laughed.

“Sad I won’t get to see her grow up,” he said as he poured himself a beer. “Make sure to bring her to Australia one day. She deserves to see her coolest uncle play football.”

Niki rolled his eyes.

“No one’s paying for that long-ass flight to see you benchwarm,” Niki mumbled, chewing on some chips. “Have her come see me dance instead. At least I’ll be in the center.”

Jake smacks his friend on the back of the head.

“No need for any of that,” Jay chimed in. “She won’t have time for either of you. Papa bear here probably already has her future all mapped out. Skates on before she can walk.”

An awkward silence filled the room. The joke was lighthearted, but it landed too close to a wound no one had dared to touch in the past year. Sunghoon gave a quiet laugh, a hollow one without warmth. He brought the bottle to his lips and didn’t look at anyone when he spoke.

“Yeah... she’ll be a star.”

He eyed the ceiling, pondering what she would look like. Maybe just like him. Graceful. Passionate. “Olympic-worthy. Could probably win gold if we find the right coach early enough.”

You pursed your lips and stared at the condensation running down your glass. 

Sunoo cleared his throat, noticing the tense atmosphere. He raised his glass with forced enthusiasm. “To our beautiful Sunghee,” he cheered. “And to Jake’s success!”

Sunghoon smiled, but not really. He was happy for his friend, sure. But behind his facade, envy sat heavy on his tongue.

‘This night could have been for you. They could have been congratulating you. And you gave it all up. Now look at you. You’re a nobody.’

You couldn’t help but watch him throughout the night as he grew quieter, his sips of beer more like chugs now. You rubbed circles on his back like you always did when he got like this, hoping to bring him back into the conversation. But his eyes stayed glued to the back corner of the bar.

As you patted him, he pulled your wrist away. Not harshly. Not angrily. Just a simple tug. He set your hand back on your lap, his gaze straight ahead and away from you.

“I’m okay,” he assured you, but you didn’t believe him. Not then. 

Not ever, really.

Though time passed, life never got easier. The weight of responsibility pressed harder on your shoulders with each passing year. And while you both smiled through milestones and made do with the small hiccups in your relationship, you were content with this life. Doing laundry on lazy Sundays, Sunghoon singing nursery rhymes to Sunghee before school.

But after the birth of your second child, Sungjae, it had all started to rot.

Sunghoon’s longing for his old life never faded. It stewed in him, creeping into his thoughts at his corporate job after finishing university, haunting him on bus rides home. 

The bills piled higher. Your patience wore thinner. Conversations turned into quiet disagreements and tired sighs. You no longer fought. You didn’t even have the energy for that. Just two ghosts of your former selves moving through the same rooms, sleeping in the same bed, wondering what could’ve been. 

thirteen years later. the present.

Sunghoon adjusts his tie, furrowing his brows as he sees how crooked it is from the reflection of the mirror. He gives up halfway through. Fuck it, it would be a no-tie kind of day. He exits the bedroom, his footsteps making loud echoes on the way down the spiral staircase and towards the all-marble kitchen. He inhales slowly as he smells the fragrance of smoked spices dancing around his nostrils. It was enough to make his mouth water.

“What's cooking, good-looking?” he says, entering the kitchen with a wide grin on his face.

“Ew,” a voice rang out, soft and disgruntled. Sunghoon turns the corner and almost laughs at the sight.

“Shut up,” Sunoo scoffs, clad in an apron and silk pajamas. “Don’t say corny shit like that in my house until you get your act together.”

Sunghoon takes a seat on the barstool of the kitchen counter. He watches Sunoo maneuver the wide expanse of the kitchen like an expert.

“I'm a dad,” Sunghoon sighs out. “That’s kind of our thing.”

“Yeah, one going through a divorce,” Sunoo snaps back, monitoring his frittata closely on the stove.

Sunghoon's shoulders slump. Of course, the only friend willing to let him stay for an indefinite amount of time was the one most critical of his life choices. Sunoo insisted, in fact. Said his place was “feeling empty” anyway.

“So,” Sunoo coughs, acknowledging he might have taken it too far with his earlier comment. “Any word from her about the court date yet?”

Sunghoon shrugs, eyes on his watch as it nears 8:30 a.m. He'd have to leave soon to get to work. His boring, dull job as a fiscal manager at blah blah blah corporation. Even he barely knows what he does for a living.

“Can I borrow your car?” Sunghoon asks, ignoring his friend's question. He doesn't like to talk about it. Doesn't want to speak anything into existence, even if it was already happening. 

You asked for it two weeks ago. A divorce.

He's been living with (mooching off of) Sunoo since.

“Which one? The Bugatti or the Ferrari?”

Sunghoon gives Sunoo a side-eye, and the younger fails to stifle a laugh. He never wastes a second to flex on his friend, the only one out of their friend group who worked at a 9-5 job in total and absolute misery.

Heeseung's a streamer, Jay took over as CEO of his father's company, Jake was still playing football in Australia, Jungwon started his own Taekwondo studio, and Niki was traveling the world as a choreographer. And of course, Sunoo wound up in a big old mansion with his modeling career.

Sunghoon thought he'd end up like them. He got the right experience after university to find a stable job that didn't involve slaving away at customer service gigs like he did before.

He thought he'd move up higher in his company by now. Have a team to call his own, like Jungwon had, or make “small, high-impact decisions” like Jay claims he does. But none of that ever came. His heart was never in it.

Sunghoon sighs. 

“Whatever gets me from Point A to Point B,” he mutters. Sunoo cuts a piece of frittata from the skillet and plates it. He slides it over to his older friend and tosses a key from his pocket.

“Take the Kia Soul.”

Sunghoon groans. “You're fucking with me.”

“Mr. Park,” his coworker chirps into his ear. “I was wondering how your KPIs were this week…”

Sunghoon lets him drone on as he types on his computer. No private office, just a cubicle by the elevators. He hates how people tend to gravitate towards him for small talk. He's not very good at it. Never has been. It was a common joke within his family that he skated more than he spoke growing up. 

You dragged him out of his shell when you met, cracked him open with your bright-eyed gazes and addictive laughter. He’d planned to keep his head down when he was younger. No distractions and no detours. Just figure skating.

But how could he not fall in love with you?

He shakes his head, trying to push the thoughts aside before it settles in too deeply. He reminisces too much.

It’s like the past is all his mind drifts off to these days.

He leaves work on time. Gets stuck in traffic, like usual. And drives to the home you two once shared. A routine he's used to by now. 

He sees your car in the driveway and groans. He knew if he sees you, you'd bring up the papers again. Those stupid fucking papers.

“Hey, kiddo,” he says as he enters the once-familiar home. You've made changes to it since he's been gone. He squints to get a better look. In just two weeks, the kitchen's completely repainted with a soft green instead of gray. The living room was completely rearranged, and family pictures were taken down from the walls.

Sungjae is sitting on the couch, playing with his iPad. He only looks up for a second before he gets back into whatever is playing on his device. Sunghoon knew he should have hidden that thing before he left. Or, he guesses, before you kicked him out.

“Where's your sister?” he asks, practically into the void.

As if on cue, Sunghee walks down the stairs. Her eyes are already rolling, and she's still wearing her pink pajamas and bunny slippers.

“Get dressed, princess. We're gonna be late for your practice!”

Sunghee tsks. 

“C'mon,” Sunghoon adds with a forced smile. “You missed the last two practices already. You're gonna fall behind-”

“Dad, I already told you I want to quit,” she cuts in. “Can't you just take a freaking hint?”

Sunghoon stares blankly at his daughter, trying to hold back the irritation bubbling beneath the surface. Sunghoon doesn’t know where she gets the attitude comes from. It's like when Sunghee hit the age of 13, she morphed into a walking stick of dynamite with a terribly short fuse.

“Well,” he begins, voice tight but even. “Why don't we push through it for today, hm? You know, back in my day, I wasn't always up for the challenge, but-”

“We get it dad!” she groans. “'Back in my day' this, 'if I were you' that. No one cares!"

It stings him more than he cares to admit. 

"Sunghee," he says, slower this time, the edge creeping into his voice. 

She just scoffs at her father's serious expression. She's never been scared of him when he's angry. That was always your role. 

"I’m not going," she stands her ground, crossing her arms. "You can't make me. If you wanna go so bad, then go to that stupid ice rink by yourself.”

Sunghoon inhales sharply, planting his hands on his hips to seem more assertive.

From the couch, seven-year-old Sungjae snickers.

“Listen here, young lady-”

“Listen here, young lady…” Sungjae mocks, in a tone much like his father's. Sunghoon whips his head to his iPad kid.

“And you, young man-”

“Sunghoon,” you say sternly as you appear at the staircase. “I already called to cancel. Indefinitely. Even if you take her now, she won't even be able to join the other kids.”

Sunghee sticks her tongue out at her father, prancing to the couch to pinch her younger brother's cheeks.

He blinks, brows knitting together. “What? Why would you do that without telling me?”

"Sorry, was that a decision that needed your approval?" you ask sarcastically. "You can't make her do something she doesn't want to do."

Sunghoon scoffs, pointing an accusatory finger at you. But he stops himself. His gaze flickers to the kids, who pretend like they're not watching from the living room.

He swallows down whatever instinct tells him to argue right here, right now. You two never fought in front of them, an unspoken rule. Even if you were technically separated, he would not break that now. 

“Let's talk in our room,” he whispers closely, and you roll your eyes.

“My room,” you correct, already turning to head back up. You don’t see it, but he tries not to flinch at your harshness.

He closes the door behind you two, the air thick with tension. He starts again.

“Why are you making decisions without me already?” he asks, trying to keep his tone level. “You cancel her figure skating classes and repaint the kitchen? Why are you-”

You sigh, already tired.

“We've been talking about repainting that ugly kitchen for years, Sunghoon,” you sigh. "You never wanted to actually get started on it. Sorry, I actually make time for the things I want."

So this is the direction you wanted the conversation to go in? Fine. He can be passive-aggressive, too.

"And Sunghee? Didn't you think to run that by me when I’m the one that pays for those lessons?"

You grit your teeth. He sees where Sunghee gets it from now, your hands crossed over your chest in disdain.

"Have you tried listening to her about practices? She gets injured all the time! Coach Jung is horrible to her. She’s miserable-”

His jaw tightens. “You don't think I was too? Half the time, I hated skating! But that’s what it takes. You think greatness just feels good all the time?! And the kitchen was fine. I don’t get why—”

"She's not trying to be great, Sunghoon!" you cry exasperatedly, your hands thrown up into the air. "She's not trying to be you."

You point your finger at his chest. “And you always think everything's fine. Until it's too late.”

Your words hung in the air, his eyes meeting yours. 

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” he says finally, quieter this time. 

You retract your hand, nervous under his gaze. It’s intense, familiar in a way that still sends sparks throughout your body, even now. Even after everything.

“Stop trying to force your dreams onto her,” you finally let out, and you see his eyes waver. "Just because it didn't work out for you doesn't mean you can try again through her."

“That's not what-”

“Look,” you interrupt him, turning away from him to face the wall. “All I'm saying is that maybe this is your wake-up call. Things change. Not everything that you want is going to happen. Maybe learn to change with it.”

He scoffs.

You turn back around to face him. He's angry, but his face doesn’t give it away. It’s his trembling hands, how his posture straightens just a little too stiffly.

“A little too late to change when my whole life was already laid out for me,” he says through bated breaths. “It’s not like I ever had a choice where I’d end up.”

Your heart sinks. “And it's all my fault, right?”

Sunghoon’s eyes flicker, his gaze softening at your hurt expression.

“I didn't say that-”

“But it's what you think, right?” You try to look strong. You think of all the nights he lay awake replaying his old skating clips in the glow of his phone screen. The way he cheered for Sunghee during competitions, like his voice alone could ignite the passion she didn’t have. The muffled sniffles from the shower after the last Winter Olympics ended. You saw it all. You always did.

Sunghoon is silent, and you fight the sting in your eyes.

“I never asked you to marry me,” you say as low as a whisper, cutting through the silence.

“But I did,” Sunghoon says quickly. Desperately. “And I wanted to.”

You draw out a laugh, bitterness dripping through.

“I'm so sorry, Sunghoon,” you say, sarcasm spilling over your lips. “I'm sorry this isn't the life you wanted. But newsflash: you're not the only one living with regrets. ”

He steps forward, but you move back. The weight of everything presses against your chest now that the words are out. Now that it’s not just his pain taking up space in your relationship.

“You act like you’re the only one who lost something,” you say, softer now. “But I gave up things, too. I had dreams too.”

You don’t mean it cruelly, and he doesn’t take it that way. But it hurts, still.

"And I'm done walking on eggshells around you just because you can't stand the fact that you aren't living the life you wanted.”

You take a deep breath and continue.

“If I knew this was how we'd end up, we should have never even met-"

His hand hovers over your cheek. His lips, so dangerously close to yours. “Stop it.”

His voice is shaky.

“Don’t say things you don’t mean.”

You don't pull away, but your gaze does not waver. “I mean it. Genuinely.”

You don’t see Sunghoon’s heart break at that moment. But he feels it. Feels the tightness in his chest, the way his throat closes up, like your words were enough to kill him.

“When did you become so cruel?” Hurt laced his voice.

“And when did you start resenting me?” you bite back, but the words barely escape your throat. 

He doesn’t answer, just leans in and kisses you. And you let him.

Because maybe this is the last time you’ll feel him like this. Maybe this is the last tender moment you two will share.

His hand lingers at your jaw, thumb brushing gently over your cheek. You feel your own breath catch, and for a second, you almost melt into him.

“I love you,” Sunghoon says, but it sparks nothing in you.

Instead, you hear everything he didn’t say. He didn’t say no or that you were wrong. So maybe he really does, you thought to yourself.

His kisses almost make you forget. Almost enough to blur out the long winters and how distant he gets. How painfully silent he is at the dinner table, eyes always somewhere else. 

His lips guide you through it all, each kiss igniting a memory.

How his shoulders sagged the day he started that full-time job. How his smile, once so quick to bring out of him, turned into something you had to search for. How the light in his eyes, so blinding when he was on the ice, dimmed, little by little. 

His hands trail under your shirt now as he peppers kisses down your throat. 

“I miss you,” he sighs. 

How he’ll wake up in the middle of the night and leave without a word, how you’ll see his location is at the ice rink, probably watching the Zamboni circle around. But he'd never bring his skates with him.

His lips meet yours again, deeper this time. His knee finds its way in between your legs.

You couldn’t do this anymore. It’s been far too many times, letting him wiggle his way back into your good graces. This was it. You would choose yourself this time.

Your fingers close around his wrists, gentle but firm. The warmth of his skin against yours nearly breaks your resolve, but you force yourself to meet his eyes. Even though it hurts.

“I think you should leave.” 

You release yourself from his hold. Sunghoon's expression is unreadable, but you know by now it's a facade. 

You could not carry his pain with you any longer. You needed him to let you go, just as much as you needed to let him go.

“Baby...” he starts, voice fragile.

“Don't,” you say quickly, lips pressed tight. “You can't call me that anymore, Sunghoon.”

His heart aches. He was supposed to be Hoon to you. Your Hoon. When did that change?

But he doesn't ask. He just watches you, eyes dark and full of all the things he never figured out how to say until it was already too late.

“The papers...” you pause, swallowing hard. You see a flicker of panic flash across his face. 

“They're on the kitchen counter. Take them before you leave.”

Sunghoon did not take the papers. 

In fact, just like Sunghee suggested, he went to the so-called “stupid” ice rink by himself. 

He sits in the highest row of the stands, arms crossed, jaw clenched. The kids glide around the ice below. Parents he used to talk to are filming on the sidelines, their laughter echoing faintly off the cold, hard walls.

Envy coats his skin.

Coach Jung is barking commands at the kids. He sneaks glances up at Sunghoon every so often, trying to be subtle. But he knows what that look means. It’s pity. 

At one point, Coach Jung had pulled him aside to tell him that Sunghee wasn't built for the sport. Not like Sunghoon was. She was too stiff, too in her own head about spinning in the air. She never cracked a smile when she was on the ice. She always kept her head low and movements small, as if it was still scary for her after years of practicing.

It's not like Sunghoon didn't notice, but he always thought she’d come around to it. He was pushed into figure skating by his parents, much like he was doing for her. It wasn’t like his passions ignited overnight. ‘It could be her dream if she let it be,’ he thought to himself.

Why couldn’t she let it? Why wouldn’t she even try?

Sunghoon sits in the stands, even after the kids pour out one by one and the lights start to dim. Coach Jung offers one last, forced smile before disappearing into the locker rooms. Sunghoon stays until he’s the only one left under the lights.

The Zamboni comes in, shaving and washing the ice to be used for the next day. When the machine finishes, the driver climbs out and heads up toward the stands. He's in his early twenties with blonde hair and dark eyes. He's moving towards Sunghoon with a smile.

Sunghoon stands up, a little intimidated by the younger man. His back turns to go up the stairs and to the exit, wanting to avoid a conversation.

“You're always here at night, sir,” the guy calls out. “Do you have a special connection to this place?”

Sunghoon stops in his tracks. He used to get recognized all the time. On the streets and in this very place. He used to mean something.

He turns around and gives a polite smile to the young man. He points at one of the many banners that hang from the ice rink walls. “Park Sunghoon” was in bright gold colors on each one. 

“I used to train here,” he says, with a hint of pride. “National champion for ten straight years, from when I was 11 up until I was 21.”

The guy whistles softly, impressed.

“We could use you, you know?" he says. "I think they’re looking for a new coach. Heard the old one's retiring soon.”

Sunghoon flinches. “Coach Jung? He hasn't told me yet. My daughter trains with him.”

He can't bring himself to use the past tense with her just yet.

The young man just nods. "I think he's planning to announce it after the next competition."

Sunghoon feels his chest constrict. He shakes his head. Another person leaving.

“I guess everything’s changing…” he whispers, but it did not fall on deaf ears. The stranger moves closer to him. "We're all so old now."

The stranger sighs. “Youth can be so cruel, can't it?”

Sunghoon, in his confusion, scoffs.

“The opposite, actually,” he argues. “Life's easier when you're young. Anything was possible back then.” 

He takes a second to continue.

“And it all can be taken from you,” he mutters, more to himself. “Before you even realize it.”

“That's the worst, isn't it?” The young man chimes in. He's sitting where Sunghoon was earlier. “When you wonder what could've been…”

Sunghoon’s mouth twists into something like a smile, but it doesn’t reach his eyes.

“That's all I think about,” he said, surprised at himself for opening up to a stranger. And it's true. 

What if he hadn’t stopped skating? What if you hadn’t gotten pregnant?

He sits back down, next to the Zamboni driver.

“We all have regrets,” the young man says, looking ahead, voice soft.

Sunghoon stares up at the ceiling and lets out a breathless laugh through the silence. Flashes of you overcame his vision. Nights of hushed arguments and facing away from each other on the bed. Nothing went his way after the World Championships. He lost it all. His passion. His dreams. You. 

“Why does it have to be that way?” he asks no one in particular.

A silence fills the room. The blonde turns his head to face him. “Maybe you could live a life without one, Park Sunghoon.”

He stills for a second.

“How did you know my na-” And as Sunghoon turns to face the stranger, he is met with nothing. Like the man was never there in the first place.

He's driving in that ugly, neon green Kia Soul, making his way back to Sunoo's egregiously large mansion.

Sunghoon's grip on the steering wheel tightens every time he checks the rearview mirror. He can’t shake the feeling like he’s being watched. That guy… the way he talked, like he knew him. Not just his name, but everything underneath. 

But screw that guy and whatever cryptic bullshit he was spouting. Screw his perfect friends, rich and successful. Every time they reunite, it’s like a reminder of everything Sunghoon’s not.

And screw the way Sunghee and Sungjae don’t even look at him like he matters. He tries. God knows he does. But they don’t know him. Don't know who either of you were outside of being their parents.

And you know what? Screw you and those damn papers too-

SCRREEEEE.

In an instant, his world is spinning out of control. Airbags deploy as Sunghoon jostles in a car that tumbles with him. The last thing he remembers is flashing lights and the loud sound of a crash. A sharp pain shoots through the left side of his body, and he feels as if he is coming in and out of consciousness. 

Sunghoon's eyes blink open, but he's not lying where he thinks he should be. It’s not the inside of a casket, nor is it a hospital room ceiling. He lies there with a cold and familiar feeling.

Ice.

Instead of the wrinkled suit he threw on that morning, he’s wearing sweatpants and a fitted black top. Not a scratch on him. No blood, no bruises. 

Was he dead?

“Is just one axel hard for you now, kid?” a voice calls out. 

He recognizes it almost immediately. Coach Jung. Sunghoon sits up, yanking his gloved hands from the coldness. What the fuck was happening?

“Get your ass back up and do it again,” Coach Jung shouts from the sidelines. The music starts again. Sunghoon’s eyes flutter shut, and he swears it's muscle memory. He knows this routine. The one from that night. The night he met you.

He moves. Instinct takes over. Jumps, spins, the sharp sound of his blades cutting clean into the ice. Every turn and landing exactly where it should be. He’s smiling from ear to ear now, almost childlike.

And if he were dead and this was the last thing he'd ever experience, then maybe dying wasn't so bad. He’d stayed off the ice for years, terrified that if he felt this weightless feeling again, that his regrets would consume him. 

“Perform like that and you'll win no matter what,” Coach Jung calls out as the music fades. Even breathless, Sunghoon felt like he could do ten more spins across the ice. His heart was racing. Everything felt so real. The soreness of his muscles, the cold air against his skin, the echoes of Coach's voice.

“What day is it today?” Sunghoon asks abruptly. "And what year?"

He’s pinching his wrist now, nails digging in and almost drawing blood. He flinched. It hurt like hell. Was this not a dream?

“Kid, did you hit your head when you fell?” Coach Jung laughs. 

And when he says the exact date, Sunghoon's confused. It wasn’t like today was anything special. Just a random Tuesday. So why would this moment, 16 years ago, be where he ended up after crashing his car? 

Looking at the reflection of his younger, more athletic self in the mirror, he just couldn't believe it. No matter how much he slapped his face or banged his head against the locker room door, he was still here. In this younger body.

He's walking home from practice now. His phone buzzes in his pocket of the boys’ group chat, the old one they used to fill with dumb inside jokes before you and the other significant others joined the group. But your name is yet to be in his contacts. 

And then he remembers. It’s three days before you’re in the stands of the smaller national competition he won many years ago. 

He’s not one to panic, but his thoughts are running in circles. Did he actually go back in time, or is this all in his head?

He sees someone in his periphery. A man around his age, standing near the curb, waving. Casual. Like they’ve met before. And they have.

The Zamboni driver.

He has a sinister smile, one that sends shivers down Sunghoon’s spine. Sunghoon doesn’t hesitate. He marches forward and grabs him by the collar. “Who the fuck are you? Is this happening because of you?”

The man smirks, clearly amused.

“You wanted to try, right? A life without regrets?”

Sunghoon glares at him, confused.  “What?”

“Park Sunghoon,” the blonde says sternly. “This is your last chance. Use it wisely.”

Before he can respond, the man shoves him back.

“What are you talk-”

And as he blinks, the stranger disappears. His head starts throbbing uncontrollably, and ringing sets in his ears. He hears a voice then, yet he can’t recognize it.

“What will you choose in this life?”

Even as the reality of everything he left behind starts to settle, he feels a strange sense of calm wash over his grief.

He knows what to do.

three days later.

Sunghoon sees you in the corner of his eye as he’s tightening his skates. You’re sitting with your friends, ones who had encouraged you to come and watch him. Back then, he was all anyone on campus could talk about. The quiet freshman with Olympic dreams who just missed his opportunity last year. He was skating harder than ever, pushing himself to the edge. Skipping classes. Shutting out everything but the rink. 

Until you came along.

He remembers your first date. He'd asked awkwardly, “How come you like me?” because he genuinely didn’t understand.

It’s not like the plushie you threw was the first with a phone number taped to it. Not even the tenth. He got plenty of confessions growing up, but he wanted to know why. What made anyone interested in an introverted and one-track-minded guy like him? He had no hobbies outside of figure skating, no real conversation skills that went past awkward greetings.

Yet, you teased him with that Cheshire grin of yours. 

“How could I not?" you say so casually as his heart bloomed. "I’ve never seen someone pour so much love into what they do until I met you. You know what you want. I admire that.”

Your words stuck with him. He’d never forgotten it. And even now, those words echo in his chest as he skates to the center of the ice.

The music starts, and he lets himself get lost in the rhythm. As he glides across the ice, there is nothing on his mind. He just takes it all in. The roar of the audience. The sound of skates hitting ice. It’s all he ever wanted.

The routine, like in the past, was met with a standing ovation. The screams of those in the stands overwhelm him. He goes to each section of the rink, bowing as tears threaten to spill over. It’s all too much. And not enough.

Then, he reaches yours. Sunghoon finds you in the sea of people like he did before. Your hair is down, and your face is softer. He chokes back on his tears, so enthralled by your beauty. He couldn’t take his eyes off you. 

He bows, more deeply than to the other sections.

You throw that stuffed penguin through the air at the perfect time as it lands by his feet. And as Sunghoon rises from the bow, your eyes are on him again. Expectant. 

You don’t know him yet. Not really. You aren't aware of the pain to come. The fights. The distance. The way he’ll drain all the color from your life. 

As he turns to move to the final section, he catches a flicker of sadness in your eyes. A frown is present on your beautiful face. He wants to make it go away, but he can’t. Not in this life.

And so the penguin sits on the ice, lifeless, as he skates off the rink.

That night, he skips the afterparty. He goes straight to his shitty studio apartment, the one with the thin walls and peeling paint, and collapses on the bed.

He buries his face into the sheets, the fabric dampening his sobs. The crowd’s cheers still ring faintly in his ears, but now it all sounds hollow. He screams then, into the mattress, at the thought of Sunghee and Sungjae. His babies. The only pieces outside of you in his old life that made it worth fighting for. Would they ever exist in this version of his life?

He tries to steady himself. Tells himself this was for the best. That your life would be easier without him as your words echoed in his head.

"If I knew this was how we'd end up, we should have never even met."

No years wasted, no sacrifices stacked on top of each other until they became resentment. No nights spent worried about bills or appeasing your parents, who never really quite liked him.

He wants to believe he’s doing you a favor.

But the tears don’t stop. Not when he thinks about the weight of Sunghee in his arms the first time he held her. Not when he remembers teaching Sungjae how to read with his tiny hands clutching the book, his eyes lighting up at each new word.

He’s letting it all go. All of it.

This was supposed to be his second chance. To live his dream without regrets. To see what it felt like. 

And it felt like hell.

The next few nights were abysmal. Practice became unbearable. He wasn’t eating. He wasn’t sleeping. His body hit the ice harder whenever he missed a spin, which was every time at this point. Coach Jung eventually pulled him aside, clearly frustrated.

“Go home, Sunghoon. Straighten yourself out and get the hell off my ice.”

But home didn’t feel real. None of this did.

He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t keep skating like this, not when every turn reminded him of you.

Sunghoon had to see you. Just once. Just enough to know you were okay. He told himself the kids would still exist somehow, even if your love story started differently in this version of life. That thought was the only thing holding him together.

He freshens himself up to go to campus, not having touched his backpack in weeks. He remembers your route like the back of his hand. Morning coffee at the cafe just off campus, right before your 9 AM. He will intercept you here, at this corner of the street.

Sunghoon's in a black turtleneck, wearing the glasses you would always steal off of him. The one that made you squirm under his intense gaze. The air was chilled, and his hands were buried deep in his navy jeans. He sees you coming into view, and he almost extends a hand to wave. 

But he sees him, too.

Beomgyu. Your ex. The one who would ask your friends how you were doing, knowing full well that you were married with kids. The one who eventually became a guitarist for a band he would pretend not to like. Sunghoon had asked you to block him from everything before, and you complied. It hurt to admit that his insecurities were still present even now, in another life.

Sunghoon hides behind a tree as he watches you two struggle through the cold. Your shoulders are close but not quite touching. He feels his heart rate accelerate, his lips pursed to prevent himself from saying anything that would compromise his hiding spot. 

“Beomgyu, you don’t have to walk me to class,” he overheard you say with a laugh. “I’m okay, really.”

Sunghoon’s hands balled into fists. Why did your voice sound an octave higher than it usually does? 

Beomgyu had the nerve to laugh, and it took Sunghoon everything in himself not to jump out.

You once told him that Beomgyu was your first love. Your high school boyfriend. You had ended things on good terms at the end of high school to find yourselves in college.

“Good,” Sunghoon once said. “Because you found me.”

And now here you were, looking happy. Grinning from ear to ear. What was there to smile about? 

“Doesn’t this remind you of old times? You used to stuff your hands in my pockets-” 

And though Sunghoon almost wills himself to leave the spot behind the tree, he doesn’t. Because he needed to watch this. Needed to watch you live the life you would’ve had without him. The easier one. 

He sees it now in the way your nose would scrunch to laugh at Beomgyu’s jokes. How you playfully hit the boy’s shoulder and hide your giggles with the sleeve of your puffer jacket. 

Maybe that’s why the stranger had chosen this year. To taunt him.

Look how happy someone else could make her. Was he the only reason why you were miserable? How much did he really hold you back? 

And so Sunghoon steps aside, shoving his hands back in his jeans. The icy wind cuts through his reddened cheeks. He asked for this. And he’ll have to live with it in this life.

Sunghoon turns around to give you one last look. But he also sees Sunghee, in her Elsa costume for Halloween. Sungjae asking for a mountain of kimchi at every restaurant. Your hand reaching for his across the dinner table.

He’ll have to live with it.

In the next three years, Sunghoon put his all into skating. He is consumed by it. Throws himself into it like it’s the only thing keeping him alive.

His professors have to send him emails to remind him not to neglect his studies. His mother scolds him for missing holidays at home because he travels so much for competitions. But Sunghoon doesn’t care.

He loves figure skating. Loves the endless cheers from the crowd when he lands a clean program. Loves the headlines, the trophies lining his apartment shelves, the constant buzz of being "the nation's pride." It’s everything he knew he wanted. 

But, there’s always that one seat in the stands. The one you used to sit in during his competitions, holding up a handmade banner and shouting his name louder than anyone. 

Now, the face in that seat changes all the time. Some new fan. Some stranger holding a sign that doesn't mean anything to him.

He tells himself the past doesn’t matter. That this version of you, the one who laughs in cafes with Beomgyu, who’s always posting photos from new cities, new hobbies, new lives, wouldn’t even recognize the girl he remembers.

The girl who used to sit cross-legged on his couch, studying while he iced his ankle. Who wept with joy the night he won first at an international competition.

Now you’re in a photography club. A painting class. Pottery? Really?

You travel more now than you two ever did in your 16 years together. He scrolls past your updates with a numb thumb, telling himself he’s glad. He guesses that he did the right thing. 

And every time he walks past you with Beomgyu, smiling with all your teeth, it lingers. Those damn words are repeating in his head again.

"If I knew this was how we'd end up, we should have never even met."

Now he gets it. He guessed that he held you back from so much. Look at you with your wonderful friends and the amazing life you live without him! He scoffs. You deserve it.

You adjusted to him and his demanding training schedule, canceling plans with people so that you could maximize the time you had with him in the rare chance that he was in town. Maybe Beomgyu never would’ve asked you to sacrifice like that. Maybe he would’ve waited for you to come home from your clubs, instead of dragging you to cold rinks and rushed meals together in between practice sessions.

Sunghoon's fine. He swears on it.

Wake up. Go to class (if he feels like it). Skate for hours. Push through the pain. Go home. Cry into his pillow. Rinse and repeat. 

The Olympics are a year away. The World Championships are in two months.

And the night you two conceived Sunghee is tomorrow.  

tomorrow.

He wills himself to stay home, even when the boys suggest he hit up a few bars and clubs. It's the weekend after all. 

But Sunghoon is used to making excuses by now. Blames it on his training schedule, his diet, Coach Jung. Whatever would get Jake off his back. 

So when Sunghoon hears a knock at his door, and three boys pull up already reeking of alcohol, he’s surprised that he finds himself in that exact bar where he promised himself he wouldn’t be.

It’s just like before. Same music, same sickening smell of spilled tequila and too much cologne from Heeseung. And, as always, he’s bad at poker. Worse than he remembers. He’s downing a shot after every loss until his head is spinning and he can’t remember the rules anymore.

“I’m gonna… go… pee…” he tries to say, but his words get lost in mumbles and drooping eyes. He miraculously stumbles towards the restroom and does his business in the urinal. He’s dousing his face with water after barely washing his hands, and he smiles at his reflection. God, why didn’t he want to go out again? 

Sunghoon exits the restroom, shaking his wrists to expel the water from his hands. And his breath catches. He sees you.

Your back’s to him at first, your sparkly red dress riding up on the stool just like it was that night. You’re laughing at something the bartender says. And he swears for a second, time stops.

Maybe it’s the alcohol. Or maybe it’s the years of missing you bottled up too tight. But he starts walking over before he can stop himself. 

“Hey,” he says plainly, elbow hitting the bar. You turn towards him, eyebrows raised in curiosity. 

He'll be different in his first impressions this time. More experienced and confident than the shy fool he was when he met you. He'd match this new version of you, too. Show you what you were missing out on.

There’s a confused smile on your face.

“Hi.” He looks at you more clearly, his vision impaired from leaving his glasses at home and the tequila shots in his system.

“You come here often?” He’s too out of his senses to stop himself from saying it. But he doesn’t regret it because you laugh. He does too.

“You say that to every girl, Park Sunghoon?” 

His heart skips a beat. “You know my name?”

You roll your eyes, taking a sip of the cocktail that the bartender just handed you.

“Call me a fan,” you smile up at him, and he swears he could have melted right then and there. “Your face is everywhere.”

Sunghoon licks his lips, his mouth suddenly dry.

“I wish I could see more of yours,” he grins. “I think I’d skate ten times better if I saw you in the crowd.”

You scoff jokingly. “And here I thought winning was enough for you.”

It should be. It was supposed to be.

He promised himself he wouldn’t do this. That he’d leave you alone. He would let you go about your life, forget him, and be who you wanted to be. Who you should have been before he came to your life.

But here you are, impossibly close, and every part of him is begging not to let you go.

"You... you single?" he asks, trying to be casual. But his voice catches at the end. He wants to know. Needs to hear from your own lips if you actually chose Beomgyu in this life.

Relief washes over him when you shake your head.

"Wouldn't be talking to you if I was," you say with a teasing grin. Electricity shoots through him as he watches you. Too bright, too much. This short conversation, one he never planned on having, could never satisfy him. He could never get enough of you.

“Do you wanna get out of here?” he asks before he could stop himself, arm outstretched for you to take. Your face stiffens, and he almost thinks you’d say no until your fingers wrap around his arm.

“Where to?” 

You barely make it past his front door before he has you up against it. His hands hold yours above your head, pinning your body against his. Sunghoon’s lips move against you ferociously, an unending battle between your tongues. You try to match his movements, but he is starved beyond belief.

You have no idea how badly he missed this.

Three years since he last heard you speak to him. Three years since he’s felt your lips. And the last time was when you asked him to pick up some stupid divorce papers from the kitchen counter. He needs this. Needs this more than breathing, more than eating, more than skating.

Sunghoon lifts you to wrap your legs around his middle. His hands find your bottom, giving a gentle squeeze that has you arching into him. He didn’t want to scare you, but he couldn’t will himself to stop. Your scent was too intoxicating for his mouth to ever leave yours.

You tap at his chest to push him away softly. With bruised lips, you whisper, “Can we go to your bed?”

He could almost moan just from the sound of you. His sweet, beautiful wife. Still so perfect for him.

His grip on your ass tightens as he maneuvers you through the studio apartment you once shared, laying you softly on the bed. Sunghoon wonders why you two just went at it like animals at the entrance way when the bed was only a few steps away back then. This time, he would savor it. Savor you.

He follows you down as he trails kisses on your neck. You crane it for him like you used to, giving him access to your most sensitive spots. His hands trail underneath your dress, teasing the hem of your panties. He looks up at you, silently asking for permission. All you could do was nod, opening your legs wide for him to continue. His dick twitches in his pants. You drive him insane.

Sunghoon peppers a few more kisses on your collarbone as his index finger prods carefully at your clothed pussy. 

“Already soaked,” he whispers into your skin, pressing the pads of his fingers onto your underwear. Liquid courage still very much in his system.

He feels bold right now, eager to impress. He doesn't know who you've been with in this life, but he'll make you forget them all. Fuck you so good that you forget those experiences. Remind you that he's your husband for a reason. His fingers hook the side of your ruby red panties, gliding them down your plush thighs.

“I bet I’d go in so easily, huh?” his drunken voice slurs out. "So fucking wet."

When you nod again, he tsks. So silent, and for what? His fingers find your clit, ghosting over it. You arch to lean into his touch, but his hand retracts.

“Use your words, baby,” he says darkly. “Whatever you want, I can give it to you.”

You groan, eyes shut in frustration. “Can’t you just fuck me?”

He laughs. Always so uncharacteristically vulgar when horny. He loves it. He loves you.

“Can’t I get a taste first, baby?” he says, his face already inching downwards. He pulls your dress all the way off you, so that your breasts are finally exposed. Your satin red bra matched your panties like they were made to be seen tonight. He didn’t know why that fired him up so badly. 

Would another man have you like this if he didn't make a move?

He dips his head between your thighs, latching his mouth onto your clit. You gasp at the suddenness, not knowing how much you’ve angered him just from your underwear choices. His tongue moves downwards, lapping at your folds like a man dying of thirst. His hands pinned your legs to open even wider, and you writhed underneath him.

“Please-” you beg, hands gripping his hair as his tongue plunges into your wetness. Sunghoon’s eyes roll to the back of his head at the sensation. He could never, ever forget this taste. 

He pushes his tongue in and out as deeply as he can with his curled tongue, grinding against the mattress for any semblance of stimulation.

He would make love to you tonight. Until you remember who he was. Until you remember the life you built together.

His tongue does one agonizing lick all the way up to your clit, and your back arches just to feel him better. He’s sucking it harshly, tongue flicking at it in all the right ways.

“Sunghoon-” you cry out, your feet digging into the mattress to push your hips up to meet his ravenous lips. He pulls away and glares up at you. Your hips fall.

“Why’d you stop?” you whine, pushing his hair back down to your core. It takes everything in him not to laugh. He adores you like this. Desperate for him. Needy for him. Shaking in pleasure for whom? Him.

“Don’t call me that,” he whispers into your inner thigh, nipping at it slightly. He chuckles at your confused expression. “Hoon. If you’re gonna moan my name while I fuck you, I need you to say it properly.”

Your cheeks warmed. Heaving out a groan, you nod your head anyway. 

“H-hoon,” you test out. “Can you please continue?”

He smiles mischievously. “With what?”

You huff out in frustration. “I swear if you don’t fucking make me cum right now I’m going to-”

And his lips smash down on yours to shut you up. His hands replace his tongue as his middle finger draws figure-8s on your clit. He pulls your slickness from your folds and up to that sweet spot, relishing in the indecent noises between your legs.

Your moans are muffled by his tongue, body twitching underneath his. You taste yourself, so sweet on his lips as he caresses the most inner parts of your mouth. So dirty and so wet. He knew every part of you. Knew what made you cry, knew what made you scream. And fuck, he will make you scream. 

He pulls away from you to admire his ruthless pace on your clit.

You are clenching around nothing as your nails dig into his shoulders. He coaxes a gasp out of you as a coil in your stomach starts to form.

“Want me so fucking bad, don't you?” he teases, his other hand on the nape of your neck. Sunghoon tilts your head down to show you the mess you were making. 

His sheets are stained with your arousal, and his fingers are drawing circles on your bundle of nerves with such fervor. You catch a glimpse of his painfully clothed member. 

He was right. You wanted him so desperately, wanted to feel him inside you at that very moment. Your breath hitches. Fuck. You felt something building.

Your hips start to rise again, and it’s hard to formulate a sentence.

“Hoon! Oh my god– Fuck it’s– It’s–” You cry out as Sunghoon’s pace quickens, motivated by the sound of your moans. His other hand tries to anchor your thighs down. You feel it as you start to lose vision in your eyes. His thumb is rubbing so intensely that it draws a whine right out of you.

The coil inside of you snaps.

“Fuuuck…Ngh…”

A wave of pleasure washes over you, and you feel your juices coat your folds, dripping more than before. 

You're squirming underneath him, thighs twitching from the stimulation. He slows his pace, drawing out your orgasm for as long as possible.

His cock was in pain, desperate for it to make contact with any part of you. In this life, one thing he developed over the past three years of watching you in the shadows was patience. And you had none.

“God, just put it in,” you groan so casually, resting your forearm to shield your eyes away from him. You were so fucked out. Hair splayed all over the pillow in messy waves. Lips bruised, your cherry gloss staining your chin and his cheek.

So eager to just have him take you. If he were a weaker man (maybe Beomgyu), he would have listened. But like he said earlier. He would savor this.

His fingers travel down to your folds, one dancing at your entrance to tease you. Sunghoon smirks as you whimper. He pushes a finger in and bites his lip at the feeling. He hasn’t felt you, or anyone for that matter, in ages. In these past three years, he couldn't bring himself to even talk to another woman who wasn't you. It didn't feel right.

All the lonely, and frankly sad, nights touching himself to thoughts of you. Fucking himself on his wrist as he remembers all the nights you’ve shared in your 13 years of marriage. He had plenty of material to work with, with all of your past escapades, but it was nothing like the real thing. Nothing like feeling you again.

“Sunghoon, stop teasing me-”

His finger stilled, and you thought about cursing him out. He pulls your forearm away from your eyes, forcing you to look into his.

“Want to try that again?” he says, threateningly slow. The darkness of his gaze was enough to have you pliant and doe-eyed.

“Hoon?” He smiles, kissing you on the forehead softly.

“Good girl.” And just like that, he dips another finger in, scissoring them into you with precision. You’re a mess underneath him, overstimulated beyond belief, but he honestly couldn’t give less of a fuck. He needed you to be ready for him. His heaviness was throbbing painfully just thinking about how you'd take him after all this time.

How long would it take you to adjust to his size?

Sunghoon’s fingers squelch with each thrust, finding the soft spot he was so familiar with. He’s obsessed, drinking in the sight of your eyelashes fluttering, your hands gripping at his shoulders like your life depended on it. You were so wrapped up in your own pleasure, fucking yourself onto his fingers. Grinding up at him without a care in the world. 

“Look at you,” he laughs. “So needy.”

Sunghoon pulls his fingers out of you before he brings them to his lips. He hums, relishing the taste. He’d have to go down on you again later tonight. Taste you after his cock has had its fill.

You watch him in anticipation as he takes his pants off. You follow his lead as you unhook your bra, throwing it across his floor, sighing at the feeling of cool air hitting your nipples. Sunghoon pulls his throbbing member out of his briefs, pumping himself languidly. 

Sunghoon's eyes meet yours for a second before they go back to your cunt. He's churning something in his mouth, and you almost ask him what he was doing until he positions his mouth just above your folds. 

With sultry eyes directly gazing up at yours, Sunghoon lets his saliva drip down onto your pussy. 

You throw your head back on the pillow from the sight. Fuck, that was hot. He moves back up to you, guiding his hand to spread his spit with the tip of his leaking cock.

His dick smears your joined liquid in an up-and-down motion, pushing in ever-so-slightly. You gasp and clutch his chest, nails digging in enough to get his attention. He stops.

“I’m not on birth control,” you mutter, like you’re scared to tell him. 

“Should I stop?” he asks, even with his tip pulsing so desperately between your folds. You avoid eye contact, though he doesn’t know why. 

“Look at me.” he growls.

Sunghoon tilts your chin to face him, and with glossy eyes, you shake your head. He smiles, and a tinge of sadness hits him. You look so soft underneath him, so fucking beautiful.

He’s spent three years stuck in this version of his life, crying over you to avoid this very moment. But he just wanted you so bad. Wanted to feel you at least once again. Then, he’ll let go, he swears. This will be the first and last.

“Use your w-” 

You interrupt him with a kiss, wrapping your legs around him to push him deeper into you. He groans, collapsing onto his elbows. You dig your heels into his back as you pull him in deeper. Sunghoon's lips leave you to lay his forehead against yours. His breathing grows heavy, so lost in how your hole sucks him in.

“So fucking tight,” he groans, testing the waters with a small thrust after bottoming out. You squeak in response. “Fuck, baby.”

He wraps you in a tight hold, propping his knees underneath your thighs into a mating press. He fucks into you at an agonizing pace. It's so slow, you could feel every part of his rigid cock. His large size. His thick veins. The soft pulsing. It's so slow that you almost flip him over to ride him instead. But the desperation in his eyes stops you. His head buries deep in your hair, and you could hear the shakiness of his breath as he pulls out of you and plunges back in.

Sunghoon relishes the way you clench around him, your tight warmth pulling him deeper and deeper with each thrust. He drives himself into you with languid, but strong thrusts. He wants to engrave his place inside you so that you are ruined for anyone who might come after him. And again, he angers himself.

"You only this good for me?" he asks, searching your eyes for reassurance. But you aren't listening. You meet his thrusts, grinding yourself onto him. You want more. More of his touch. More of his length. Just more of him.

“Faster–” you whine, thighs pushing into his sides with each hard thrust. He was reaching the deepest part of you, your cervix kissing his tip ever so deliciously. Sunghoon doesn’t abide, so you take what he gives you.

"You this desperate for everyone, baby?" he whispers into your ear darkly. You shake your head, tears forming in your eyes.

"No..." you muster out. "Just you."

And even through all the tequila and the self-restraint not to jackhammer into you, he believes you. 

His hands are on your tits now, catching them as they bounce with the strength of his slow thrusts. He twists a nipple between his fingers, coaxing a moan out of you. He tugs and pulls, and it's enough to have you moaning underneath him.

You feel that familiar fire build inside of you. An ember that burned in your lower stomach and traveled down to the very tip of your toes. 

“Hoon! Please- Fuck- I need... I need-” 

You couldn’t form full sentences. His thrusts were so harsh and still so painstakingly slow. His eyes never left your face. He basked in the way your brows furrowed for him. How your lips formed silent screams as he hit that certain spot within you. Again and again.

“Tell me what you want,” he whispers hoarsely, his lips so close to yours. “Tell me who you need.”

“You!” you cry out. "Only you!"

He smashes his lips against yours as he finally thrusts into you hard and fast. His hands on your breast travel down to your waist, locking you onto the mattress as he fuck into you.

You feel something pooling, feel the tingling of your toes intensify with his breath against your face. His moans are just as loud as yours, grunting in your hair like a beast.

“You feel so fucking good–” his hips piston forward, brushing against that spot with every movement. Your chest is pressed into his as you claw at his back. The sensation builds and builds as your stomach starts to tighten.

“Hoon- Oh my god- I’m-Angh!”

Your second orgasm rips through you, the tension within snapping like a chord. It's so much stronger than your first one. It hits you in waves as you weep through it, your hips grinding up to meet his unending thrusts. You were so sore, so sensitive, but his pace stayed so relentless. 

“Close– So fucking close, baby–” he moans into your hair.

He clutches your hips, driving into you with reckless abandon. Even if you had no idea who he was, he would have your body remember him. Sunghoon, in this life, would be your best one-night stand. He swears on it.

He grunts as he feels you clench around him harder, his hips stuttering against yours.

“I’m gonna–” He tries to pull out, tries to push you away. Tries not to repeat the same mistakes. But your arms pull him downward as legs wrap sternly around his waist. You push him in deeper.

And he comes. Hard. 

“Fuck-”

Sunghoon plants an open-mouthed kiss on your lips, drowning out his sweet noises as he feels his raw cock twitch deep inside. His hot cum spills deep inside you with thick spurts. Your lips parted at the warm feeling, and he could tell you enjoyed every bit of milking him dry. 

Sunghoon pulls away from you with a soft groan. He watches as his cum spills out of you. He brings his finger to your folds, pushing his fluids into you. 

As he meets your eyes, he’s shocked to see how concerned you look. Because unbeknownst to him, there were tears streaking down his face. And before he can fully sober up and stop himself, he says it.

"I love you."

You’re gone before he wakes up.

Sunghoon screams into his pillow, recalling his words like a bad nightmare. Stupid. So stupid. This was supposed to be different. He was supposed to be different.

That stranger, whoever he was, said this was his last chance. And what did he do? He threw away three years of silent pining just to chase you down on the very night the troubles in your relationship had begun.

Was he a fucking idiot? 

You never even said goodbye, never even replied to his confession last night. Didn’t even leave a trace of what last night meant to you—if it meant anything at all. He must’ve looked insane.

Sunghoon grips the back of his neck, exhaling hard. You don’t know him. You aren’t the same girl from his past life. You're different now. Three years. That’s how long you’ve had to become someone else.

And him? He hasn’t changed at all. He’s still chasing ghosts. If it wasn't figure skating in his past life, it would be you in this one.

He sighs and sits up. Practice. He should go to practice.

two months later.

“Are you messing around, kid, or do you actually want to win this thing?!” Coach Jung shouts after Sunghoon falls on his ass for the umpteenth time. His palms sting from the fall, but he barely feels it. 

The World Championships are in a week, and he hasn’t heard a single peep from you since you left his apartment. Hasn’t seen you on campus in his usual routes to watch you from afar. He knew he had reached a new level of patheticness when he actually went up to Beomgyu to ask how you were.

Turns out, you two weren't even as close as he thought you were. He smiled to himself after that, but frowned when he realized that it truly was as if you had disappeared.

“Sorry,” he huffs, out of breath from the demanding routine. “One more time?”

Coach Jung pinches the bridge of his nose. “How about ten more, you punk? Get your act together.”

Coach mutters something under his breath and storms off, leaving Sunghoon alone with the cold silence of the rink. He tries again. Falls again. He smacks his gloved hand against the ice, hard enough that the sharp sting shoots up his arm. He should’ve known. The moment he got a taste of you, he knew this would happen. 

No matter when or how, he would always bother you. He would always lose himself. He would always manage to ruin everything.

“Are you living the life you wanted, Park Sunghoon?” a voice echoes behind him. He spins on his skates. 

There he is again. The blonde prick. Somehow, he’s in his sneakers and standing still on the ice. His hands are smug in his coat pockets.

Sunghoon doesn’t take the time to question it until he’s skating at breakneck speed towards him.

He swings at him, but the stranger disappears into smoke. 

“Or do you still have regrets?” the voice is behind him again. Sunghoon turns around to the stranger, giving him that annoying, shiteating grin. 

“I want out,” Sunghoon says with a strained jaw. “Bring me back. To Sunghee. To Sungjae. To her. Now.”

The blonde laughs. “You haven’t even done what you set out to do yet. Wasn't this what you wanted?”

Sunghoon lets out a bitter sigh, chest tight.

“I get it, okay?" he says with wavering breaths. "I was selfish. I asked for too much. I get it now. So just... please. Please, send me back.”

The boy steps forward. His sneakers make no sound on the ice. Inches away from Sunghoon now, just a little taller than him. 

“You don’t always get what you want in life,” the stranger says with that sick, twisted grin. It sends a rush of dread through Sunghoon's body.

“I thought you would have learned that by now.”

the world championships.

He’s in the locker room. His left leg is bouncing up and down, nail splitting as he gnaws at it incessantly. Only ten contestants ahead of him, but he has the time to panic. Just like he did before.

Coach Jung pats him on the shoulder. “Don’t think too much. You're gonna psych yourself out.”

Sunghoon shakes his head, unlocking his phone to check the time. The lockscreen, snow falling past a dark streetlight, holds his gaze longer than it should. He sighs.

“I'm not nervous,” Sunghoon replies, unconvincingly. “It's just cold.”

Coach Jung rolls his eyes.

“You're not new to this, kid,” he doubts the young man. “You're gonna do great out there. This is what you've been dreaming of. Just don't mess it up.”

And when Coach Jung shuts the door behind him, Sunghoon puts his hands to his face. And instead of self-affirmations, he is trembling. Barely breathing, he replays the memory again. Of him spinning you in his arms. Of your kind smile.

Sunghoon told himself not to expect you. In this lifetime, you'd only met once. Only fucked once. But he still thought... maybe the universe would be kind. Maybe you’d show up like you did back then.

“Can the remaining five acts please be on stand-by?” the overhead speaker blares into the locker room. That's him. He's one of the last five. 

There’s no one to hold him back this time. No distractions. Just an aching in his chest. 

Sunghoon's by the stands now. He watches with shaky hands as the crowd ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhs’ at his competitors’ routines. He hates watching before his turn. 

His eyes naturally fall on a seat in the stands. He blinks, rubbing his eyes to check if he was hallucinating. 

Someone sits there. Not a stranger. Not this time. It's you. Your brows furrowed like you were forcing yourself not to enjoy his competitor’s performance. Wearing the same outfit. He huffs a laugh under his breath. What are you doing here?

As the routines passed one by one, he could not take his eyes off you. Even from afar, your eyes glisten so beautifully. The same eyes that once glowed, helping the kids with homework. The same eyes that looked at him across the table after long days and short tempers. His wife. The mother of his children. The version of life he gave up for this one.

Now, he would have to settle for this. Longing stares and a heartbeat he could hear in his ears.

“Next to skate, representing the People's Republic of Korea. Sunghoon Park!”

He steps onto the ice with a big smile on his face. He forces it out, forces himself to act fine when you cheer at the sound of his name. He takes his pose at the center of the ice.

The music begins. His edges wobble, nerves bleeding into the blade. He practiced day and night, no distractions. Not even you. So why… Why was this happening? 

He takes in a deep breath as he prepares himself for the first spin. He’s skating backwards, building up momentum. He pushes off the ice. Toe pick hits.

Sunghoon rose high. He spots himself. One. Two. Three. Almost four– but his shoulders tilt, the axis too loose. The rotation slows. A half-second of weightlessness gives way to gravity, and he’s tumbling onto the ice hard. 

Gasps echo through the arena, and then applause as he brushes himself back up and onto his skates again.

He gets up. He keeps going. Muscle memory takes over. The rest of the routine is clean. Almost perfect, but not enough. 

The first quad... He fucked it up. He bows, head down, as if apologizing for even trying.

And when the score is announced while he's sitting on the sidelines, his body is limp. He barely reacts, face blank with emotion.

He could blame you for it. Pretend you were the reason why his routine didn't score high. But the truth is, he stopped believing in excuses a long time ago.

Years of hating himself led here. All this time, resenting the path he took, only to fuck this one up, too. 

Sunghoon had to laugh. He deserves it. Of course he did. The low score. You leaving him. The heartache. 

Everything he thought he was capable of, everything he pushed aside to have this moment. None of it mattered without you. 

As he rises from his seat on the floor, he searches for you in the endless crowd of faces. The other competitors pass by him with pity; he sees it in everyone’s faces. But they don't matter. 

Because you're gone. Your seat is empty. 

"Kid-" 

He pushes past Coach Jung without looking back. There's nothing left to say.

Sunghoon pulls his skates off skillfully, breaking into a sprint towards the exit. He runs with only socks separating him from the floor. 

Then he sees you, clutching your stomach and moving toward the exit. His breath catches. Somehow, he knows. He's seen it all play out before.

“[Y/N], wait!”

You stop in your tracks, hands trembling. You turn around, and he is already clutching your face, kissing you so deeply. You would have every right to push him away, to call him a creep and spit every insult at him. But you don’t, and he doesn’t understand why.

Instead, you lean into his touch, fingers fisting the thin fabric of his blouse. He’s the first to pull away, forehead resting against yours.

“Why are you here?” he asks. It’s not the only question he has, but it’s the first that comes out. You’re crying now, eyes wide, mouth parted. But why?

“I was just…” You try, but you fail to find the right words. “I just came to support you?”

Sunghoon shakes his head. He doesn't buy it. Not for a second. Your voice faltered. He knew better now not to let things linger.

“You came to tell me something,” he says knowingly, replaying the scene of the past in his head as it happens right in front of him. He smiles sadly, wiping a stray tear from your cheek. “What is it?”

You flinch.

“I can’t,” you whisper, the first barrage of tears falling down your face. “It'll ruin you.”

He laughs then. Quiet. Tired. Even in this life, you were so selfless. He doesn’t deserve you. Never did.

“You always say that. Even now.”

He takes your hands into his.

“Are you pregnant?” he asks, taking the words right out of your lips. Your mouth opens in shock.

“How did you-?”

“We'll figure it out,” Sunghoon interrupts softly. He was smiling now. Sunghee was here. She was growing inside you. “Together.”

For a moment, something shifts. You search his face like you’re looking for confirmation. And just like that, you pull away. What? It stings. 

This didn't happen before. Why were you-

“You went back," you say. "Didn’t you?” Your voice sounds foreign now, laced with hurt. It’s his turn to look confused. 

“What do you mean?” he asks, hands reaching for yours again. You avoid them, and he feels a sharp pain in his chest. “What are you talking about?”

“You… You went back in time like I did, right?” Sunghoon’s eyes widened. “That’s how you knew.”

He freezes.

It clicks. Like cold water hitting his skin. He remembers the first time he saw you in this life. How carefully he avoided you. How he left the penguin plushie behind, just like before. How badly you’d looked at him after that. It all makes sense now.

“I didn’t want to avoid you,” he musters. “I had every intention of finding you again. I passed by that damn cafe every day just to see you-”

You shake your head, but he keeps going, vomiting out word after word.

“I even tried to talk to you, but you looked so happy. All I could think about was the last time we spoke. How you said you regretted us. Watching you with Beomgyu, or whatever his name is-"

“Sunghoon-” 

“I was fucking miserable-” His voice cracks.

“Sunghoon-” You’ve never heard him talk this much. Never seen him look so broken.

“And I couldn’t even fight the guy who dragged me into this mess. I was stuck. Thinking about you. About us. About Sunghee. Sungjae. God, I missed you all so fucking much it hurt to breathe—”

“Sunghoon, please—”