you know this version of yourself very well. it’s the one that immediately starts accounting for error before drawing conclusions, and the one that treats uncertainty as concrete evidence you’ve got everything wrong. by the time you reach your car, you couldn’t even pull your stupid phone out of your stupidly tight jeans, because the pocket seemed vacuum sealed to your thighs once you sat down.

the drive home is full of revision. memories, mostly, on the phone: did you dream all of lee heeseung up? who the hell started those conversations? who called you last night?

was this all one-sided?

every turn at every corner feels excruciating. the green lights are too slow and every second that passes makes you want to reach for your phone, call him immediately, and ask just what the fuck that was. your palms stick against the steering wheel and the thought of hearing his response makes your stomach twist unpleasantly.

it just can’t be possible. there is just no way that you’re this unlucky.

the rest of the journey is blank. you didn’t even turn on the radio, nor did you bother to plug in the carplay. it’s almost pathetic how fast you slide out of the leather seat, how hard you slam the door to the driver’s, and how desperately you punch in the code to your apartment. you mess it up once, which earns a small cuss under your breath, but none of it overshadows the confusion.

you can’t possibly text him like this. ringing him would only lead to something even worse. you might say something you don’t mean, or fuck things up in that signature way of yours.

so, you settle for the same routine as always: shower, lunch, nap, and try not to lose your mind throughout the day. at some point, you think it cannot possibly be this serious—you’ve never met the man like this, never spoken to him in person, and not once have you heard his voice utter your name in real life. it is absolutely ridiculous that your knees almost buckle in the shower, at the mere thought that this truly might have meant nothing. just nothing.

there is an attempt to move through the day without acknowledging the hundred pound weight on your shoulders. perhaps it’s because you’ve spent weeks with your brain at full power that it’s starting to swirl with all kinds of things now.

you’re dragging your feet against the floorboards as you make your way to the kitchen. caffeine might help, maybe. there’s no logic or sound reasoning behind the decision, but you reach for your favourite mug and position it under the coffee machine anyway. your bottom lip is swollen from biting down on it, a habit you never really got around to unlearning from middle school, and for a fleeting, pathetic moment, you think that this is your fate.

your knuckles almost go white, grip tightening on the edge of the marble island, like it’ll help regulate your feelings any better. an annoying chime plays from the coffee machine a few seconds later—hot ribbons of steam curling into the air—but you don’t even feel like drinking it at all, really.

half-heartedly, you take the mug and head straight for your bedroom. your hair is still damp against your neck, the apartment smells like your shampoo, and for a moment, you catch a whiff of cigarette smoke from the neighbour above your unit. your things are still in a mess from last night—from when you were still on the phone with him, falling asleep with a sour mood and paper notes crumpled at the foot of your bed, books still flipped open to important pages that you conveniently wiped from your memory an hour ago.

and, your phone. face down, on your night stand, plugged into the wall and far too quiet for your comfort, as if lee heeseung could sense what was wrong with you from miles away.

“hello?”

you end up calling.

you’re sitting on the edge of your bed, shoulders slouched and back hunched over like it’ll do anything to ease the emptiness in your stomach. a screen is pressed up to your cheek, and you swear your nails might snap off if you hold your phone any tighter than you are now; the phone’s been ringing for a while, and now that he’s finally picked up, every thought decides to somersault out of the fucking window—straight down and plummeting into the concrete pavement outside.

“hey, y/n.” he says. “i’m… fuck—sorry. i’m with some friends right now. are you okay?”

he’s out of breath.

yelling in the background. plastic on plastic, some whistling, someone else calling yeonjun’s name.

you swallow thickly, but it gets caught in your throat halfway. your voice comes out more defeated than you intended. “why did you look at me like that?”

silence. you can hear his heavy breathing through the speaker, and all it does is make you pick at the skin around your nails. ears picking up everything, there’s voices layered over each other, the sound of something sharp cutting against snow, or ice. it stops momentarily when he finally understands the question, soft, but loud enough for your heart to pound.

“what?”

“like you didn’t know me,” you almost fucking whimper, and all you can think is: god, how much more humiliating can this get? “why?”

your free hand comes up to rub at the bridge of your nose, until little bursts of pressure bloom behind your eyes. all of this is giving you a headache, and there’s a split second where you think you should just hang up and save yourself the trouble. this is just how it is. your luck. your fingers knead, and knead, and knead—but it’s no use. all you can hear is him.

“y/n,” he mumbles. “can we meet? tonight?”

“you can’t just do that,” you breathe shakily. “tell me why. please.”

time has been moving wrong all day. everything feels delayed and stretched and slow in this awful, unbearable way. five seconds between responses starts feeling like whole afternoons, and minutes feel like centuries. you spent weeks getting used to talking to him whenever something happened—sending him stupid pictures and complaining about classes and saying things before thinking because there was always tomorrow, and that’s exactly what you did last night.

but now that tomorrow is here… shit, it doesn’t even matter anymore.

“y/n,” his voice breaks just a little—not very sure if it’s the horrible connection on campus, if he’s even still there. you imagine, just for the sake of your sanity, that he’s running his hands through his hair, breathing wrong, panicking. anything like those movies where the guy realises he’s going to lose it all. “i know it doesn’t make any sense—”

“what do you think, huh? do you think any of it does?”

“i know—shit, i know.”

your fingers keep kneading at your skin because the headache’s spreading now, radiating into your temples in slow pulses. you keep pressing harder like pain somewhere else will make this one smaller. it doesn’t work.

“i think we should meet in person,” he answers, calm again, like it’s how he’s always been. somehow, it pisses you off even more, when you know he can hear the shake in your voice. “i gotta go. i’m sorry.”

he’s never apologised to you before. not even for missing your calls.

“what the fuck are you sorry for, heeseung?”

you hear him breathe in, then out. he sounds exhausted in a way that has nothing to do with sleep.

“i’m just…” his voice catches faintly, before smoothing back out. “i’m sorry.”

the line goes dead.

you stay, just for a while, phone still pressed against your ear like the warmth of your skin might coax him back and force an explanation out of him. your shoulders fold further into themselves until your spine starts to ache, but moving would mean admitting the call is over, and you’re not quite ready to do that yet.

your eyes remain fixed on nothing in particular—the opposite wall, maybe, where the late afternoon light stretches unevenly across the paint and catches the tiny imperfections in the plaster that you’ve somehow never noticed despite living here for months.

your stomach really hurts. sour and hollow, underneath your ribcage, compelling you to lower your phone and lock your screen before you can over-analyse the messages from last night.

you draw a deep breath through your nose, falling back against the mattress until your shoulder blades scratch against your duvet.

you are not crying over a man you’ve technically never even met.

this is absolutely fucking ridiculous, you mutter under your breath, but you still wipe under your eyes and try to blink all the salt out of your eyes anyway. your phone dies eventually because you forget to plug it back in, and now, all that’s left is you, the tear-stained sheets and meaningless pieces of paper.

─────────────────────────

two weeks ago, park sunghoon was on the brink of losing his shit.

it was purely emotional. probably more emotion than anyone on the team has ever seen him display, and lord, was it utterly humiliating. he wonders if anyone on the team still thinks about it, given how the locker room goes dead silent every time he steps in—and it’s literally like he just got named captain all over again.

practice ended badly. not disastrously, because no one broke anything, and maki didn’t start a petty argument between the goalkeeper and him. yeonjun barely screamed at the little freshmen, and only one of them cried post-cool down—so by all technical definitions, it had been productive enough.

and still, he was irritated.

it had been building for days now, in that same slow, ugly way tension knots all your muscles before becoming pain. finals always fucked everyone over, but not enough to stop them from showing up—mentally, though, they’re elsewhere. sunghoon had been there, before he had decided he was tired of making shitty excuses for his terrible performance.

shortcuts irritate him. he’s watching people cut corners before his very eyes because they assume he’s as tired as them—well, he is, but that’s besides the point.

he hated it.

metal lockers slammed shut one after another while conversations overlapped in every direction. someone was laughing too loudly, and sunghoon was almost certain the obnoxiously loud carly rae jepsen echoing through the room belonged to maki’s fucked up speakers again. the locker room was humid in that unpleasant post-practice way—the air thick with damp towels, deodorant and sweat drying into fabric, hot enough that stepping in after the rink always felt vaguely suffocating.

sunghoon walks further into the space and, while it isn’t the most obvious thing in the world, conversations shift around him in tiny ways he’s learnt to recognize over the years. a few voices lower, someone moves their legs in so he can pass. one of the freshmen instinctively straightens up halfway through pulling his shirt over his head.

his duffel hangs off one shoulder. sweat drips slowly from his temples, sliding down the side of his neck before disappearing into the dark collar of his shirt. his whole body feels heavy today, and not even in the satisfying way—just fucking heavy. his shoulders ache in that deep, irritating way that suggests recovery isn’t catching up anymore, and lately sleep hasn’t been doing much except making him conscious again.

it’s fine. everything had been feeling vaguely wrong for a while now, anyway.

yeonjun’s already on his way out when he brushes past him, shoulder bumping his with enough force to be annoying but not enough to start anything. “have a wonderfully peaceful night,” he mutters with that unbearably cocky, punchable grin.

any other day, sunghoon might’ve shoved him into a locker.

instead, he dropped his bag beside the end of the bench, and listened to the wood creak underneath his weight. the freshmen lingering nearby begin moving almost immediately. one shifts two lockers down, and another grabs his things and suddenly remembers he has somewhere else to be. by the time sunghoon looks up from his phone properly, half of them have disappeared entirely.

he watches one hesitate after accidentally making eye contact. the kid immediately looks away, picks up his shit, and leaves.

sunghoon looks back down. god, his shoulders hurt.

the muscles between his shoulder blades have been tightening more lately. sleep’s been shit. practice feels slower. finals are making everyone stupid. nobody can pass properly anymore, or communicate once they’re on the ice. everything seems held together by routine and whatever miscroscopic amount of discipline he can force onto everyone else.

whatever. it’s manageable, he thinks. everything always is, if you’re strong and willing and miserable enough. eat properly, sleep properly, train properly, study properly. repeat until wanting anything else becomes inefficient or a distraction, until it’s ordinary and until enough days pass that discomfort isn’t discomfort anymore, and simply morphs into the default.

maybe that’s why the past few weeks have felt stranger than anything else—nothing has gotten easier. his schedule has been become even more hellish than before, his muscles still ache and everyone expects more from him; but there’s been this stupid, absurd sense of anticipation stitched quietly into the gaps of his day.

he’s excited for something. for someone.

he checks his phone when he has nothing to do. sleeps later, thinks about conversations while stretching or when someone says something that you mentioned in passing. none of it means anything, at least individually, but it feels so a embarrassingly noticeable once he becomes aware of it together.

“…i’m serious, though.”

his thumb stills over his lockscreen. sunghoon doesn’t look up immediately, because the sentence barely reaches his ears at first. locker room noise tends to sound a lot like static after practice, but then your name slips, and suddenly every other sound becomes painfully irrelevant.

there’s a burst of laughter from somewhere to his left.

“y/n? yeah, i know. she’s prettier than i thought.”

sunghoon’s hand had been unlocking his phone without thought, thumb dragging upward automatically before freezing halfway. his forearm rests against his thigh, veins standing out faintly beneath skin flushed warm from practice, and he only notices after a second that his wrist has gone rigid enough to make the tendons ache.

the fabric of his jersey sticks unpleasantly against the centre of his back, where it hasn’t dried yet.

“fuck, i still remember that dress.”

“she’s fine as fuck, seriously,” someone snorts. “wonder if she’d let me tap. you think?”

“don’t be a fucking asshole,” sunghoon hears, the laughter echoing and bouncing off the walls suggesting that nobody is really bothered by this except him. “you’re not in her league, man.”

more laughter. sunghoon doesn’t think he’s ever been this pissed off before, truly, because now his fist is balled so tight that his knuckles are starting to pale. his ears are beginning to ring, and all his body decides to do is amplify the voices of his teammates who decided you’d be the centre of their attention tonight.

someone tosses their towel onto the bench he’s on. maki’s finally out, he notices, quieter now that he’s packing his things up.

“who knows if she’s desperate… might have a chance.”

“shut the fuck up!”

sunghoon rolls one shoulder once and immediately regrets it. something pulls underneath his shoulder blade where he took a hit earlier. his body feels strangely swollen after practice—muscles tight and full and unpleasantly warm under skin that suddenly feels too small to sit comfortably in. his thighs ache where they press against the edge of the bench, palms still feeling vaguely raw from his gloves.

the conversation goes on, and he tries not to listen. realistically, these men would never get anywhere near you. he wouldn’t let them, but that’s besides the point. willingly giving this his attention would only lead to something he can’t take back, and he knows it.

“you got her number?”

“think i do. we were in the same freshie group.”

wonderful.

his tongue is pressing against the inside of his cheek, and his jaw is ticking. he swears if he bites down any harder that a tooth might shatter, but sunghoon does his best to keep his eyes trained on the screen in his hands.

someone says something else, but he doesn’t even remember what. he only remembers the feeling of his jaw hurting, the edge of his phone case digging into his palm, and the slow, annoying feeling of anger coursing through his veins.

it’s hot in here. sunghoon feels it all—anger, resentment, the guilt and embarrassment, too, because he really wants it to stop. he really, really needs it to. there’s something deeply unpleasant in having to listen to a group of people talk about you like this is all you are, that your face and body, no matter how gorgeous it may be, is your most interesting feature.

do these people know you the way he does?

they don’t. they never could.

park sunghoon’s throat suddenly feels dry in a way water won’t, can’t fix. his shoulders stay tense while his gaze drags over your messages and something inside him twists. it’s obvious that this was never supposed to become anything, and that a relationship built on a lie would crumble before he could begin enjoying it.

it’s just… one late-night call becomes another, then another, and another. somewhere between protein shakes and assignments and practice schedules, he moves everything aside for you, and realises he wants you more than anything he’s ever wanted in his life.

“could you guys just shut the fuck up?”

the words leave his mouth before he gets the chance to think about them. the social repercussions don’t even matter anymore, nor were they even factored in to begin with. his voice doesn’t come out loud, which somehow makes it worse—it stays low and level and entirely lacking in visible irritation, like he’s asking somebody to pass him a bottle instead of telling half the room to stop talking.

the effect is immediate, anyway.

conversations taper off unevenly until the entire room is quiet. somebody lets out a laugh that cuts itself short halfway through, and somewhere behind him, a locker closes gently.

sunghoon only realises he’s spoken after the silence reaches him, and suddenly, his own breathing sounds louder than before. his shoulders ease by a fraction and his fingers loosen around his phone, just enough for him to feel the imprint left across the centre of his palm from holding it too tightly.

nobody says a thing. sunghoon doesn’t even know who was speaking anymore. that detail doesn’t seem important now—not compared to the things that were said, and definitely not compared to what had slipped out of his own mouth immediately after.

park sunghoon sits in the locker room with sweat cooling against his skin, realising something he spent the next two weeks trying very hard to negotiate with.

he wants you.

slowly, surely, quietly, he wants you.

at some point, it felt easier not to think about; topped with all the things he already has to deal with, accepting this fact is not particularly beneficial for him.

fourteen days after that—today—he’s done with practice again, same old, same old; walking into locker rooms that are hyperaware of his existence, everyone treading on egg shells until he gets out of the place and into his car.

he knows people noticed. yeonjun had asked if he was alright on the walk over to the parking lot and tried unusually hard not to sound like he was asking. no grin nor stupid comment attached, it’s plain, awkward concern delivered badly enough that sunghoon knew it was real.

“you good?”

what the fuck is he supposed to say to that?

that he’d heard your voice three hours ago, spent the entire session replaying the shake in your voice, and wanted to rip his heart out of his chest?

that the only time he was so sure of someone, he’s already fucked it up?

it’s his fault that he couldn’t answer and instead settled on walking away. park sunghoon heard you on the phone three hours ago and knew he’d be thinking about it the entire session—but now that he’s actually getting into his car, on the way to see you, his heart is beginning to pound harder.

his shoes scrape quietly against the asphalt of the parking lot as he walks. his duffel drags his shoulder lower on one side, dark blue hoodie sleeves rolled up to his elbows—sunghoon’s hand reaches into his pocket automatically and wraps around his keys before he even gets to the car.

You: where are you? 20:08

Y/n: [Shared a location] 20:08

─────────────────────────

the text came at 7 in the evening. you spent the previous 3 hours wondering where it went wrong, recalling every word exchanged, every misunderstood conversation that you dismissed in the moment. it’s incredibly easy to move past things in the heat of the things, you realise—it just seems silly now, almost childish, that you let those things slip past you.

you left the house in a random zip-up, shorts riding up your thighs with every forward step you took. there’s an annoying little hill you need to climb to get to this park, obscured by dark green trees and stray cats that rub against your legs if you stand still for too long, and you’ll usually start panting by the 2 minute mark.

once you finally reach the top, it’s unmistakable. an old playground swing, a plastic slide, and a bench that sat directly behind the big, interactive structure modelled after a sunflower. your feet feel heavy as you move, slippers scratching against the concrete, and you accidentally kick a few pebbles as you walk.

this feels like a waste of your time. heeseung messaged around thirty minutes ago, and he’s still nowhere in sight—eventually, you’re hunched over the park bench table, hands in your hair, trying to get this nausea to alleviate itself.

so what if lee heeseung decided he wanted nothing to do with you? the magnitude at which this is affecting you is starting to seem ridiculous. you keep telling yourself that a boy shouldn’t matter this much, that talking means nothing, and that modern love is nothing but a cruel endeavour that you’re constantly gambling on. so what if you lose, you think, but the feeling of your heart spilling out of your ribs is pressing so deep into your heart that it’s killing you.

your fingers are pressing into the bridge of your nose again. the streetlamps feel warm over your head, slipping through your fingers when you run them over your face. you think you must look horrible right now, but so does everyone else—never mind that the occasional parkgoer jogs past and stares you down: that is what you choose to tell yourself.

some kid walks by with her mom, pointing at the slide, and it almost makes you laugh when she hesitates before saying ‘no’.

just as the thoughts begin to tone down, swirling less and less, you catch a familiar figure in your peripheral: tall, broad, sleeves bunched at the elbows and dark brown hair falling over his eyebrows, looking as tired and miserable as the day you saw him a week ago.

this can’t be real.

the yellow light washes over his face and bathes him in a warm, almost greenish light. the moment he steps into focus, you’re already on your way up—standing next to the bench, hands shaking like you can’t quite believe this is actually happening.

“y/n—”

three steps later, you’re already on your way out.

what follows is immediate: park sunghoon, tired, red eyes, lounging a big ass bag on his shoulder, jogging towards you with a stride so big that it almost scares you. you can’t bear to look at him like this, like he’s actually hurt over what he’s done, even if you don’t specifically know what it is yet.

everything’s blurry as you move. you can’t feel your stomach, and it took you more than a reasonable amount of effort just to turn away and start walking. you can hear him, faintly—sunghoon calling out your name, as familiar as every night before this one, as sweet and genuine as it had always been—but has it really, though?

“is this some fucking joke to you?”

your voice cracks on the very last word, embarrassingly enough. as if the tears running down your cheeks wasn’t enough shame to carry around, sunghoon has to hear you like this. vulnerable and hurt and wanting answers.

“y/n, please. just stop walking away from me,” he pleads, out of breath from how far he’s been trailing you. the downhill slope isn’t that far away from here, and you can see a few couples taking a night stroll—as if the universe insists on rubbing it in your tear-stained face. “let me explain.”

“what is there to explain?”

you weren’t stupid. it feels like a cruel insult that sunghoon thinks you even need an explanation; he was heeseung. you’d been calling, texting, falling for someone completely different, and the worst part is that it doesn’t even fucking matter in the way he thinks it does.

“i wanted to tell you,” sunghoon blurts out, and the moment it leaves his lips, your feet suddenly stop working. it’s like your heels are anchored to the ground by something invisible, urging you to turn around—everything in his voice screams for you to do just that, to face him, to see how hurt he is by the lie he chose to tell. “y/n, please.”

you can’t. you just can’t.

it’s incredibly corny. this whole scene just seems like a big fuck-you from the universe, dragged straight out of a drama, because god knows you were never deserving of something so beautiful and easy. love had to strangle it’s way out of your hands, somehow. it’s to a point where there’s people staring, whispering as they pass you two.

“you know what? i wouldn’t even have fucking cared, anyway.” you sighed, blinking to get your vision to clear up. “you didn’t even have to lie to me.”

sunghoon is stunned at that. his whole body feels cold, locked in place, and his heart’s pounding so hard that he can hear the blood rushing in his ears. by the time you eventually do turn around, his throat is already constricting, dry and tight, looking down at you—hand running through your hair, glassy eyes staring into his. the guilt weighs heavier now, sinking it’s claws into his neck, so deep that he can feel it nick his heart.

“what?”

he needs to rip it out.

sunghoon genuinely feels like his guts are going to spill out. your eyelashes are wet with tears and he can tell you’re trying your best not to burst into tears, and he hates himself for being the reason for it; he has to dig his fingers into his palms just so he can stop himself from reaching out for you.

selfishly, for a second, he lets himself memorise your face. he thinks it’ll be the last time he sees it. there’s something about you—even when your cheeks are red and your eyes are swollen with hurt, that he wants to see it all.

sunghoon wishes he could undo everything. perhaps, if he had just went up to you that friday night, underneath the stairs with his best smile and most polite greeting, he’d been able to hate himself a little less, and possibly not hurt you at all.

this is what he gets, isn’t it?

it’s a shame.

“i really liked you.” you sniffle. your eyes are deliberately avoiding his. sunghoon’s never leave your face. “heeseung or not, doesn’t even matter now, does it?”

for a second, sunghoon genuinely thinks he misheard you.

the streetlights blur, morphing into bright lines in your vision, and somebody laughs somewhere downhill. a bicycle rolls past, a dog barks behind you, and it is just unbearable how you have to focus on all these sounds just so you can distract yourself from the uneven breaths of your own body.

“i liked you too, y/n.”

sunghoon genuinely forgets how to breathe. his chest expands automatically, but the air never seems to reach his lungs, caught somewhere between his ribs and throat where everything suddenly feels too tight.

all this time, he thought he knew exactly how tonight would go. you’d tell him to fuck off, to stop following you, and he thought he would. it started off like that: the walking part, the not-being-able-to-look-at-him-without-crying. he prepared for it, every night, leading up to this one: imagined you laughing in his face, telling him to leave, to never call again, but this barely fits the mould.

every time he convinced himself that honesty could wait one more day because he needed more time, needed the timing to be better, needed to figure himself out first—all of it feels rotten, so useless and meaningless now.

you stand there with tears drying on your cheeks, eyes swollen and exhausted, and all he can think about is how much easier this could have been for you if he’d just been honest from the beginning. he should’ve never answered, nor should he have went with it when you started getting a little bolder. he should’ve never gone this far to feed his own selfishness.

park sunghoon doesn’t deserve to stand here and watch you cry over him.

“you could’ve told me.”

his fingers curl against his palms until his nails bite crescents into skin. he barely feels the sting. somehow, hearing you say it doesn’t feel relieving at all—not in the way he imagined it would, during all those nights where he let himself think about impossible things before forcing himself to sleep. he thought this moment, if it ever existed, would feel warm. he thought—maybe—there’d be this stupid sense of vindication buried underneath the guilt, a ugly selfish satisfaction that would prove he wasn’t completely insane for wanting you.

all he finds is more guilt, painted by a crystal clear picture of what could’ve been.

the image arrives all at once and it’s unbearable in how ordinary it is. walking up to you that first night instead of watching from a distance. introducing himself properly, and a few weeks later, he’s sitting across from you at some stupid coffee place after class. he’d be seeing his contact under his actual name and listening to you complain through his speakers without feeling his stomach drop every time you said “heeseung.” such painfully normal things that people do every day without thinking, and somehow they feel impossibly far away now, like he’d reached out and ruined them before they even had the chance to become memories.

his hand comes up to his face and presses hard against his mouth. you’re sniffling so much that your nose is beginning to redden. he notices the cuts on your lips, probably from biting down on them, and all he can see is you in the library, far away and out of reach.

“i should have told you,” he acknowledges. it doesn’t do anything to alleviate the pounding headache you have. “i thought that if you didn’t know—fuck, i don’t know. i thought you would’ve liked me better like that… if you didn’t know.”

“how the fuck does that make any fucking sense?”

for the first time today, you’re looking at him. his eyes are red around the edges, the skin underneath them looking darker than normal and his lashes look damp under the streetlights. there’s something almost unbearable about it, the way he looks more exhausted than guilty, like he’s been carrying this around for weeks and would be the one bearing most of the pain.

still, despite it all, you want to wipe the tears away.

“i wasn’t lying,” his lip trembles slightly, “when i said that everyone’s scared of me. that night—fuck, i saw you, y/n. i knew you wouldn’t look at me—”

“what the fuck? really, what the fuck?” you cut him off, voice tapering off into that high, disbelieving tone. “how—just how? how did you think this would turn out, sunghoon? did you think we’d live happily ever after when i—when we spent months talking like that?”

you’re breathing wrong. everything feels so wrong. all of this feels so impossibly fucking wrong. you need to go home.

he flinches at your response. your eyes burn with all the movement in your peripheral, and your chest tightens with every passing second. you laugh, and it sounds horrible—small, breathless, like the sight in front of you is simply too baffling to process properly.

sunghoon’s mouth opens, but nothing comes out. you stare at him, expecting something, anything, but the words refuse to make it past his throat.

“what the fuck is wrong with you, sunghoon?”

there is something painfully tragic about walking away from a good thing. honestly, if you tried hard enough, you could probably forgive him. you could pretend he never lied to you, and that everything he said after that first lie wasn’t a lie, either. you could pretend he was honest and truthful and all those good things, but the thing about pushing it down is that it always bubble back up eventually.

both things can be true: that it’ll always come back, and you’ll always believe that sunghoon could’ve been it.

“y/n—”

“don’t. just don’t fucking—don’t. don’t call me, don’t do anything. i can’t, i just can’t right now.”

you never really knew heeseung at all, now that you think about it. you remember being a freshman and watching him shoot hoops by the cafeteria one sunny tuesday morning—jiwon mentioned how cute he looked, and perhaps as some act of politeness between two newly introduced friends, said that the two of you would look good together. even now, you think that if heeseung had ended up being exactly like sunghoon, you still would’ve fallen.

but that would mean you never fell for heeseung at all, doesn’t it?

with sunghoon here, standing in front of you, all you see is the hardworking, ambitious, weirdly terrified boy you got to know. you see him in front of his computer thinking too hard, and you see him looking surprised that you smiled at him. it feels strangely dissonant that this will be the last time you get to stand this close to him, or that it’ll be the final time you hear his voice.

“you’re such a coward.”

you don’t know what he says after that, because you turn and walk away so quick that anything he mumbles next falls a step too short behind you. the words feel so bitter on your tongue, and you still taste it even as you walk past that one broken street lamp around fifteen feet away, lingering by the time you step into your apartment.

when you walk into your bedroom, you stay by the door a little longer, shoulder pressed against the wooden frame.

ironically enough, you left your phone behind. face down, still plugged to the wall.

then, almost as a final act in this depressing film, you slump over and slide to the floor, crying over something that shouldn’t matter as much as it does.

it takes you a while to crawl into bed.

you blame the exams. that’s definitely why you’re too exhausted to speak to jiwon, despite the multiple texts from three hours ago detailing your predicament. now that she’s practically begging for you to pick up, three hours later, you just can’t.

instead, you scroll. scroll and scroll and scroll, through chats and messages that have nothing to do with heeseung, now that you know the truth—and as you do, a message pops up at the bottom.

lee heeseung: Get home safely, Y/n. 21:09

lee heeseung: I’m sorry for everything 21:10

─────────────────────────

the sun rises another day. it spills into sunghoon’s room in familiar strips of gold, slipping through the blinds and cutting across the walls in uneven slants that make the dust visible. tiny particles drift through the light lazily, suspended in the air and blinding enough that he has to lift a hand over his eyes instinctively, staring through the gaps between his fingers and pretending, stupidly, that if he stays still long enough, he’ll somehow fall back asleep.

he doesn’t.

his shirt is still where he threw it last night, half across the room and gathering dust in the middle of the floor. his once-superbly-clean desk is a mess, in the same way his room is lately—never dirty enough to clean, yet tidy enough not to notice.

his notes are spread all over. he’s pretty sure he should’ve stapled and organized them a long, long time ago, but he honestly could not care anymore. there’s that charger hanging halfway off the edge of his bedside table, a half-empty glass collecting warmth from the morning air, and his hockey bag remains unopened by the door from last night’s practice. he finds it amazing that he still manages to attend—just spectacular that nobody can tell how terrible he’s feeling, and even more so, miraculous that he’s able to do his job the same.

and, his curtains. left open for september’s autumn, long after that quiet summer when he still had you to call.

park sunghoon spends a little longer staring at the window once his eyes stop hurting from the brightness. the sunlight shifts slowly over his sheets as the minutes go by, reaching his hands where they rest against his stomach, and warm enough that it still reminds him of you.

the first thought he has is that he’s being selfish.

it’s embarrassing, honestly, how little he’s done in a month and how exhausting it all still feels. all he does is wake up, lie here, go to practice, come back, and sleep. heeseung’s always got someone new over, jake and jay are physically incapable of doing anything quietly, and sunoo, jungwon, and riki are too afraid to ask why he never speaks at dinner anymore—not that he did much of that to begin with, anyway. he chooses not to believe them when they say he seemed happier when the sun stayed out longer.

a month is barely enough time to break a habit, but it’s long enough that nobody asks anymore. there were those few weeks back in july where he’d let a laugh slip in front of his brothers and didn’t feel immediately disgusted by the sound of it afterwards. he supposes you brought out that side of him—the one that doesn’t need to act all perfect and gorgeous and saintful. at some point, he even let himself eat a tub of ice cream because riki asked nicely enough for him to stay and watch a movie. it didn’t feel difficult then, of course.

yeonjun stopped trying to irritate him after a while, probably realising it wasn’t possible. now, he just avoids it out of pity instead, and sunghoon knows it. nobody says it out loud, but they all look at him differently these days; like he’s become quieter in a way they can’t quite fix, and they don’t know whether to drag him out of it or leave him there in this pit he’s chosen to bury himself in.

he shuts his eyes, and it doesn’t help. all sunghoon sees is that fucking library, and you, standing between metal shelving under the evening sun—squinting and pouting, warm cheeks and messy hair from running your fingers through it all day, and back then, sunghoon wanted nothing but to do the same. that stupid expression you made, pretending like your eyes weren’t watering from all the dusty books and the harsh light hitting your irises, too.

he sees himself telling you to sit on his side, your smile, and how he almost froze up then and there.

all the brains in the world and none of it did anything for him then, and even less now. he spent years believing everything had a formula—that if he worked hard enough, controlled enough, became enough, things would eventually make sense and fall into place. but there was nothing logical about wanting to sit in uncomfortable, sticky heat because it touched your skin first, or remembering the exact way your eyebrows moved when you were confused, or missing somebody so intensely that even morning light starts feeling like fate; there was nothing sensible in falling for someone that makes him act so unpredictably.

“listen, dude. you gotta get the fuck up.”

sunghoon doesn’t realise how badly his neck aches until he turns away from the window. the movement pulls uncomfortably down his shoulders, stiff from sleeping wrong and doing absolutely nothing for days that didn’t involve practice. to his right stands lee heeseung, leaning against the doorframe with one eyebrow raised, looking mildly offended by the fact that somebody could sleep until ten in the morning.

“this is pathetic, do you realise that?” he sighs, pushing himself off the frame and strolling into sunghoon’s room with that same easy, unaffected energy he’s always had. carefree in a way that feels irritating today, and familiar in a way that reminds him too much of you. for a brief second, sunghoon sees it—the appeal. why you looked at him first, and why it was easy to do so. “man. you don’t even run in the morning anymore.”

“get out,” sunghoon mumbles, rolling over onto his side. his skin is cold where it leaves the sunlight and the sheets feel warmer than they should, sending a brief chill down his spine. “i am not in the mood to deal with you.”

“deal with me?” heeseung lets out this dramatic breath of disbelief and sunghoon hears the familiar squeak of his desk chair protesting under sudden weight. wheels scrape softly against the floor before rolling closer and closer until heeseung’s annoyingly charismatic face enters his peripheral. “everyone’s been dealing with your moping, hoon. it gets obvious when it’s six instead of seven after, like, two days—”

“okay.”

“okay?” heeseung repeats immediately, eyebrows lifting. his elbow lands on the arm rest and his chin settles into his hand. “okay.”

sunghoon shuts his eyes. the silence feels like summer all over again.

“do you wanna tell me why the fuck you’re being all weird?”

heeseung’s voice softens slightly. not enough to make a big thing out of it, because god knows how bad sunghoon would freak out and punch him in the mouth for that—but it’s enough to show the concern building up over the past few weeks.

sunghoon opens his eyes again, and somehow, seeing and hearing it for himself only annoys him more. sure, he knows it’s ridiculous and childish and just unfair, but he can’t help himself.

heeseung shouldn’t be worried. nothing happened to him. he didn’t stand in the park and watch you walk away, and he didn’t spend a month replaying every conversation, trying to figure out which version of him you liked more—and he did not ruin anything.

he swallows and stares at the windows again, drifting away from heeseung’s face.

the sunlight’s moved further away.

“i’m fine,” sunghoon says—his voice comes out flatter than intended. regardless, he does nothing to make himself sound any more convincing, and even if he did, he knows heeseung would see right through it.

the chair squeaks again as his friend leans further back, an unconvincing scoff being the only thing that leaves his lips. a soft thud as the backrest hits the wall, sunghoon would’ve glared at him any other day—but now, he can’t seem to find the energy.

“y’know, for someone who spent years acting all emotionless,” heeseung mumbles under his breath, “you’re shit at pretending like you don’t have them.”

it’s a decibel too loud to be accidental. sunghoon can’t even get angry now, because he knows better. after all this time, he really does—he knows better than to get angry at anyone else but himself.

he doesn’t answer. heeseung watches him for a little longer, head tilting slightly as his eyes drift over sunghoon’s face, lingering around the redness in his eyes and the exhaustion dragging down his expression. there’s a brief moment where he looks like he wants to say something and thinks better of it.

“…you know, i still think what you did was insane. i still don’t get why you didn’t just tell her.”

sunghoon closes his eyes. he’s not trying to avoid it, believe him—he’s spent majority of his days holding the guilt against himself, on his shoulders, feeling it weigh down on his chest for days a time. he doesn’t necessarily disagree.

“you talked to someone for months, pretending to be somebody else, and expected that to work?”

sunghoon’s jaw almost shatters from how hard he’s clenching it. he imagined you saying those same words to him, at some point. your gentle smile behind his eyelids seem to be one of many things preventing him from beating the shit out of the guy.

lee heeseung notices it, and can’t help but sigh. “you looked happier, hoon. really.”

sunghoon wishes he just went back to sleep. he doesn’t know what good this is doing him, really—he’s aware of it. it’s lying everywhere, the proof scattered around like meaningless scraps: his reduced sleep, terrible appetite and unwillingness to see any girl that isn’t you.

he knows better than anyone how happy he was.

“didn’t know what it was at first,” he says. “thought you made it to the olympic lineup or something. shit’s no joke.”

he’s not even looking at sunghoon anymore. “i know it when i see it. checking your phone every five minutes, laughing more. then you came home looking like someone fucking died.”

heeseung scratches at the back of his neck, but sunghoon looks away before he can utter the last word.

“do i know her?”

“no.”

sunghoon’s answer is immediate. too quick not to raise his other eyebrow, apparently. heeseung notices, and sunghoon notices that heeseung notices—but both never look each other in the eye.

“…okay.” heeseung mutters. his eyes drift around the room instead, trying to keep themselves occupied, if only for the sake of not looking too long at his miserable, bed-ridden friend’s face. his fingers tap idly against the armrest once, twice, before stopping altogether.

“you’re making this way worse for me, heeseung,” sunghoon deadpans, hand coming up to rub at his eyes. the scene feels oddly intimate for someone who still doesn’t know half of what sunghoon’s done. “it’s getting on my nerves.”

“good.”

sunghoon shoots him a look. heeseung just smiles, soft and underpainted with concern that hurts him to even acknowledge. for all the effort sunghoon’s spent making himself difficult to read—for all the years of swallowing things whole and convincing himself that if nobody saw him, then nothing could really touch him—he’s still shocked that people notice when things go bad.

after a few, quiet minutes of sunghoon wishing for heeseung to vanish into thin air and heeseung’s incessant staring, he speaks again.

“…you going to sunoo’s thing this weekend?”

he completely forgot about that. sunghoon blinks slowly, the memories coming back to him now—he remembers, vividly, your voice on the phone, rambling about the stupid thing for five minutes.

you sounded ridiculously excited. obvious now why that was, it still feels just as bitter as it did back then. “what?”

he knows what. he doesn’t know why he’s acting like he doesn’t have a clue what heeseung’s saying.

“sunoo was freaking out yesterday,” he laughs to himself, head tipping back slightly as the chair rocks under him. one foot drags absentmindedly against the floor while his fingers hook around the edge of the armrest. “said he only needs two more people before he reaches the donation limit. i wonder how long the queue’s gonna be.”

sunghoon can vaguely predict where this conversation is going. his eyes narrow a little, and thinks he’ll genuinely kill lee heeseung if he even suggests going to that ridiculous event. if anybody came up and asked him for donations, he’d give it. fine. whatever. just not while publicly exchanging his dignity for it—

“you should go.”

of course.

sunghoon stares at him, blank-eyed with lips pressed together so tightly they almost disappear.

heeseung looks back for exactly half a second before exhaling through his nose, rolling himself backwards in the chair, spinning once and pushing himself off the wall with one foot.

“okay—listen. you need it, man. you’re acting like the love of your life just died, and shit, sitting around and waiting to stop missing her isn’t gonna fix anything.”

sunghoon lets out a quiet laugh through his nose. humourless, if anything. his hand drags slowly down his face, pressing hard enough over his eyes that little bursts of colour bloom behind his eyelids, like he could wipe the exhaustion—or the irritation—straight off his skin. “you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“ah-ah,” heeseung immediately lifts a hand and wiggles his weirdly long index finger right in sunghoon’s face. nothing productive is going to come out of this conversation, sunghoon realises, so he just decides on shutting up for the rest of the conversation. “i know you keep acting like she already decided on hating you. it’s fine, y’know, if she does.”

heeseung sighs before slapping his palms against his thighs. he gets up in one, swift motion. “don’t you think she has every right to, sunghoon?”

his throat tightens.

“i—”

“shut up,” heeseung cuts him off instantly. “you’re such a control freak, it weirds me out. how did sooha even deal with all that?”

sunghoon is already pushing himself up from the bed. he will hang lee heeseung out to dry—upside down, in nothing but his boxers on this cold, dry autumn day.

though, by the time sunghoon actually manages to sit upright, heeseung’s already halfway out the door. with his hand still clasped around the metal doorknob:

“if she hates you, you should probably let her say that herself.”

the door shuts before sunghoon gets the final word.

he sits there, just for a moment. blanket pooled at the waist, room quiet except for a heater that doesn’t work very well. outside, there’s leaves scraping against the roof and sunghoon just stares at the closed door like it might open up again, with a completely different approach or words that won’t scare him the way heeseung’s did.

it does not.

─────────────────────────

you spent most of your summer waiting.

there’s something cruel about time. unstoppable, immovable, and somehow always aware of when you want it to move faster. it stretches itself thin when you need relief and collapses in on itself when you want more.

summer had always felt like that—golden and lazy and unbearably alive through the heat—but this year, it moved strangely, like someone had pulled all the warmth out and left only an afterglow.

your routine had gone to shit.

you slept at four in the morning, most days, and woke up at around eleven. lunch only happened when there was enough to get by in the fridge, and if your air-fryer was clean enough from the night before—jiwon often had to drag you by the ear to make that happen. half your laundry stays unfolded, because god knows where you disappear to in the middle of folding it, and the books from a month ago still stay.

there are hours spent doing nothing, and yet, the exhaustion lingers. stays in your bones, fusing with you, and refusing to leave.

the worst part isn’t even that you miss park sunghoon, either. it’s how often you reached for him, that being without him feels as significant as loss.

how ironic, considering you never had him to begin with.

you’re curled up on your couch, cheek squished up against the fabric and your knees tucked to your chest. oh jiwon is somewhere in this apartment with you—you’re not exactly sure where, but the soft banging of pots is enough to make a guesstimate.

“what’re you doing?” you yell, half-heartedly because you’re still aware enough to acknowlege your neighbours. “jiwon?”

she doesn’t respond. probably something about dinner, you think. the show on tv is loud enough for her voice to fade into the background, anyhow.

summer break ended some time ago—and with it went the warmth and heat and fuzziness that came with the man on the other end of the line. autumn arrives eventually, cruel in the way all inevitable things are, forcing you and everyone else to spend a little longer indoors because of the increasing cold. september is especially vicious; the air is sharper now, thinner, and you stop walking through that park altogether because every bench and every couple under those stupid yellow streetlamps reminds you too much of him.

for a guy that claimed to be so mundane, he sure takes up an absurd amount of your headspace—even now, even after more than a month of waiting and leaving and forcing yourself not to say things you wouldn’t be able to take back, he still lingers.

your hand still hovers over your phone after seeing something stupid online. you still walk past cute cafés and think he’d probably hate this place. you still watch movies and mentally bookmark scenes because you think he’d have too much fun analysing them with you and somehow, make the whole experience annoyingly enjoyable at the same time.

you still doubt yourself, and you still hear his voice afterwards—steady, certain, monotonous and so lovingly boring—pulling you back up before you spiral too far.

the silence fills your room like a slow-moving plague, settling into corners and underneath your blankets and against your walls until eventually, you start relying on old conversations to fall asleep.

you remember his laugh before his face, and you loved him before you saw his eyes. there’s something pathetic in that, you think, almost gullible—that after everything, after all the anger and humiliation and crying and weeks spent convincing yourself that this should not matter as much as it does—you still soften at the thought of him.

you hate that. you hate that he lied to you, and somehow, still ended up becoming so woven into parts of your life—enough for it to feel impossible to pull apart.

you hate it all, but never him.

“heeello?”

you blink before seeing jiwon’s legs standing right in your line of vision. blocking the subtitles, more like it.

she stares down at you from above with one eyebrow raised, afternoon light shining behind her head, casting her face into shadow in a way that feels unnecessarily threatening for someone holding an empty pot.

“what are you doing? get out of the way.” you squint, shifting ever so slightly—and completely uselessly—to get a full view of the text on screen. your head tilts one way, then the other, as though changing the angle will somehow let you see through her body.

she narrows her eyes and tilts her head, hair falling over her shoulder fluidly. she does that motion where she’s about to hit you with the pan, but you flinch hard enough for her to laugh and lower it down. “welcome back! have fun spacing out? i’ve been asking what you want for dinner, for like, five minutes.”

jiwon follows your line of sight and twists around, just enough to get a proper look at the tv, rolling her eyes before her mouth pulls strangely to one side.

“…you know you watched this last night, right?”

of course she knows that. cons of sharing a netflix account with your best friend, and co-habiting with her for the past month.

your eyes drift back to the screen and the episode progress bar, sitting near the end and there’s already that stupid little preview box hovering in the corner asking whether you want to continue to the next episode. you don’t remember a single thing that happened, and can’t find the energy to recall.

you let out a long sigh and prop yourself up properly against the sofa, blanket bunching around your waist. jiwon’s folding her arms now, a slight frown on her face, and you dislike it immensely.

“…what?”

she stares at you for another second before walking over and dropping onto the other side of the couch, pulling one leg up beneath herself.

“…okay,” she says slowly, looking at you in that way people do when they already know the answer. “are we gonna keep pretending you’re okay or am i finally allowed to ask? will you blow up on me again, or—”

“jiwon—”

“it’s fine, y’know,” she babbles on, immediately waving the hand holding the ladle, before circling around the coffee table. she drops down right next to you with enough force to make the cushions dip. pulling one leg underneath herself, she points dramatically to the apartment around her. “i can just stay here forever, cook forever, and clean forever. it’s alright!”

you stare at her, then glance at the pot, and finally, at the folded laundry sitting on the armchair.

you pinch at the bridge of your nose.

“…i didn’t ask you to do all that,” you mutter under your breath, eyes dropping back to the paused show. your fingers knead at the skin there once, twice, before your hand drops into your lap. you let out another sigh and lean your head back against the sofa. “i’m fine by myself—”

jiwon turns immediately. her eyebrows pull together, and her jaw almost goes rigid. “i do it because i care about you. don’t make me regret it.”

she’s already looking away afterwards, fiddling with the sleeve of her hoodie, and reaching over to adjust the blanket pooled around your legs.

your head hurts. the room is too quiet, again, without that show playing, or the music blasting on the home speakers.

how is it that the missing piece in your life is shaped exactly like park sunghoon?

summer. so useless, and yet, you were so alive.

“listen.” jiwon’s voice cuts through your thoughts. you turn, and she’s twisted sideways now, one leg tucked under herself and chin resting against her palm while her other hand reaches over to steal the remote. she clicks it twice before deciding against turning anything on again.

“about that thing this weekend—”

your jaw hangs. “are you kidding?”

jiwon’s eyes widen immediately. she sighs, both hands dragging down the sides of her face before slapping against the backrest of the couch.

“okay, i know we agreed to go together to the charity event, and all the different booths and shit like that, but my dad’s finally in town again, and i just—”

you wave your hand quickly, once before she can finish, eyes not leaving the screen as your fingers start picking at the seam of the blanket. “oh, yeah, no. i’ll just skip. it’s all good.”

jiwon turns properly this time. her forehead creases. “…what? what about the money?”

you shrug one shoulder and scratch absentmindedly at a loose thread near your knee. “it comes back. it’s all good. if it’s that big of a deal to you, ask your dad to apple pay me.”

jiwon stares at you for a second too long before setting the remote down, scooting across the couch in one smooth movement until her knee bumps against yours. she squints slightly, head tilting as she searches your face. “okay,” she says slowly, one hand reaching over to pinch the fabric over your thigh. “not funny.”

you squeal, and she just grumbles.

then, she nudges your knee with hers again. “but seriously,” she says, shoulders relaxing as she turns more towards you and props her elbow against the backrest, “you need to get the fuck outside.”

you let out a quiet laugh. “you’ve been stuck with me this entire time. we need to go outside.”

jiwon shakes her head immediately and sits up straighter, her fingers slipping off the blanket and flat against your forearm instead. “no,” she says. “that’s not what i mean.”

you look away, and she notices. of course, she notices.

her thumb taps once against your skin before she lets her hand drop.

“…i know you’re avoiding seeing him,” she mutters, eyes drifting briefly around the apartment—the dishes, the curtains that haven’t been opened properly all week, the same hoodie you’ve worn thrice in a row—before settling back on you. she presses her lips together and reaches over to smooth the blanket over your knee again. “but you’re throwing everything away for that.”

you don’t say a thing. you feel like a coward. you feel like a liar. you feel like a lot of things, but jiwon’s looking at you like you’re not.

“…you’ve been talking about that stupid fundraiser since february,” she continues. “you made me pay thirty dollars to get matched with strangers…. among other things. you’ll pay me for that, right?”

she realises, a second too late, that you’re not laughing.

you look away, eyes locked on something outside the window. you can’t really tell with how your vision begins to blur. she waits for a response, but when it becomes clear she isn’t getting one:

“you wanted to go.”

your hand comes up and presses against your mouth.

you remember sitting in the library during finals with your laptop open, and your notes everywhere and thinking about it between lectures. your brain would drift whenever revision got unbearable, and suddenly, you’d be imagining what you’d wear and whether heeseung would actually come, and if he’d be as nice as everybody said he was.

it felt harmless then. stupid and harmless. a little reward waiting at the end.

you remember texting jiwon about it. making jokes, pretending not to care.

but now, you remember another thing.

you remember sitting in the exact same library with someone only two feet away. you remember somebody asking if you’d eaten, and somebody telling you to stop being perfect. somebody remembering your schedule better than you did. somebody finding you in that secluded corner, where the world didn’t exist beyond it, if only for a few hours.

you remember leaving that library and not thinking about lee heeseung at all.

your thumb presses harder against your lip. you’ve been biting at a piece of dead skin on your cuticle unconsciously. “that’s embarrassing.”

jiwon frowns.

“…i don’t think i actually wanted him.”

she doesn’t interrupt.

you keep staring at the television instead, eyes tracing shapes that stopped moving minutes ago. your fingers keep smoothing over the blanket stretched across your lap, flattening the same crease over and over until the friction starts irritating your palms. eventually, your thumb catches on loose thread and you pick at it absentmindedly, winding it once around your finger before letting it snap back. “…i think i just liked wanting something. he was hot, yeah, and people liked him.”

“thought maybe…” you bite down on your bottom lip. “i don’t know. maybe if somebody like that liked me back, then that would mean something.”

everyone’s always told you that you had terrible luck.

you remember teachers saying things like that’s unfortunate and friends joking that your life always sounded a little too dramatic to be accidental. wrong place, wrong time—missing buses. getting sick before things you cared about, liking people that didn’t like you back. liking people too late. liking people wrong. liking people at all.

“proving that i’m not all that unlikeable...” you mumble. “but i’m just as unlucky as everyone says.”

it was never that serious to complain about. it mostly served it’s purpose as comedic relief in other people’s lives, but as one knows, after the age of sixteen—everything just seems self-deprecating instead of humorous.

“you like him.”

jiwon’s voice is slightly too quiet for it to be a declaration. she says it softly enough that you could pretend you didn’t hear, or so that you could roll your eyes and say obviously not and she’d just let you.

you try to think about all the reasons why you don’t, and why you can’t. you think about lying, about the trust, about the humiliation and about standing in the middle of the park, crying like that in front of someone who played you like a puppet.

and still, you do not say a thing.

“i think…” she starts quietly, eyes dropping to where your hands meet before lifting back to your face. “it doesn’t actually change anything. the one you like is still sunghoon, y/n. no amount of this—whatever this is that you’re doing—is going to change that.”

“you fell for who he was. the name was irrelevant, wasn’t it?”

jiwon watches you for a while after that, shoulders sinking further into the couch. she studies your face, one hand disappearing into the sleeve of her hoodie while the other stays resting over the blanket draped across your legs, fingers absentmindedly playing with yours.

she glances at the television once—the paused menu, your reflection sitting small and folded into yourself against all that dead blue light—and exhales quietly through her nose before shifting closer to you.

“can i say something else that might piss you off?”

you keep your eyes forward, rubbing your thumb over the edge of the blanket. “what?”

jiwon squints at you for a second before nodding once, slowly, like she’s 99% sure you will get pissed off anyway at the statement she’s going to make.

“okay. i think you’re being unfair—not to him, though. just yourself,” she says. “i’ve been watching you do this thing for a month now. you keep saying he’s bad for you.”

you look down. she notices, of course.

“maybe he is. probably. whatever,” jiwon mutters under her breath, trying to remember what point she was trying to make. “but i don’t think that’s why you’re cancelling on m—”

“you cancelled, by the way.”

“still. you’re just scared that all those feelings will come back, or that they’ll be completely gone, and it’s scary.” she’s looking forward now, too. she finds it harder to be serious when she’s looking at you in the eye. “it was real, right? everything?”

right.

you hum in acknowledgement, low and partially absent, eyes still fixed somewhere near the bottom corner of the television where the subtitles would usually sit. jiwon watches your face for another second too long, before taking it as permission to continue. honestly, she’s a little surprised you haven’t mauled her yet. a month ago, she would’ve gotten a cushion launched at her head by now.

“the more like you pretend he isn’t real, the more it’ll hurt,” she sighs. “you can forgive him, or don’t, i’m not gonna tell you what to do like we’re fifteen again. oh, that was a really bad time for both of us—ow!”

your fingers dart out before you can stop yourself, pinching the soft skin above her knee hard enough for her whole body to jolt sideways with a startled squeal. she swats uselessly at your hand, rubbing furiously at the spot through her sweatpants before shooting you the most deeply offended look she can manage.

“could you just listen to me for once?” she groans, collapsing dramatically into the couch cushions. “i’m trying really hard to be wise here.”

you roll your eyes, but the corner of your mouth betrays you anyway.

“there it is,” jiwon points immediately, grinning so wide it almost irritates you. “see? you’re capable of experiencing joy!”

“i’m about to experience violence.”

“that’s my girl!”

she laughs to herself before the smile gradually slips away again, replaced by something more serious. her fingers fold together in her lap, thumbs rubbing absentmindedly against each other as she stares down at them for a moment, gathering whatever was left of her courage. when she looks back up, there’s none of that usual teasing left on her face.

“look,” she sighs. “i’m not trying to convince you that what he did wasn’t awful, because it was. i wanted to punch him just from hearing about it, and i still kinda do.”

she wrinkles her nose. “but i also watched you spend almost your entire summer waiting for him to call. you kept pretending you were watching movies when you were really staring at your phone, and you even stopped walking through that park because every bench reminded you of him.”

your throat tightens.

“you don't have to forgive him,” she continues, shaking her head slowly, reaching over to brush a strand of hair away from your face. “honestly, maybe you never will. maybe you shouldn't. but i don't think hiding from the world is the same thing as moving on, y/n.”

you keep your eyes fixed on the ceiling, on the little crack running along the corner where the paint has started to peel. “what if i see him,” you mumble, barely louder than the hum of the fridge from the kitchen, “and i still want him?”

jiwon's expression doesn't change. she takes a moment before her mouth parts slightly, just enough to answer. “then you'll know.”

"and if i don't?"

she shrugs gently, her hand lingering over yours for another second, thumb brushing your knuckle once before it falls back into her lap. she looks almost sad when she says it. "then you'll know that, too."

the apartment falls quiet again. somewhere outside, a car door slams, and a few birds chirp before scattering into the clouds. someone's drilling something in the apartment above you. someone's yelling something in the street. the world keeps going, indifferent and loud, the way it always does when you seem to be

“okay.”

jiwon watches you for a second longer, like she's checking the word for cracks. she must not have found any, or perhaps a few too many to name, because she just lets it go.

─────────────────────────

by the time you reach campus, the fundraiser is already in full swing.

the entire quad has transformed overnight into something almost unrecognisable. white canopy tents stretch across the lawn in neat, uneven rows, their fabric flapping in the wind whenever the cold september breeze decides to pass through.

handmade banners hang crookedly above each stall, painted with far too much enthusiasm and not nearly enough artistic ability—bright acrylic letters bleeding into one another, beneath glitter and shiny lettering that catches the afternoon sun every time somebody walks past.

“come visit booth 6!” “free drinks at booth 52!” “stand a chance to win—”

somewhere off to your left, somebody is aggressively advertising homemade brownies through a megaphone that crackles every other sentence, while another group has somehow convinced the jazz society to play live beside the engineering department’s robotics display. the music overlaps with laughter, conversations, applause and the occasional groan from somebody losing money at one of the carnival games, until it all melts together into any introvert’s worst nightmare.

jiwon, as foretold, is busy smiling, shaking hands and pretending to enjoy the company of the stepfather she’s complained about for the better part of four years, leaving you to fend for yourself amongst a sea of strangers. you’re beginning to wonder if any of this was even worth not paying her the thirty dollars for bailing. you could’ve been at home instead, cocooned underneath your duvet with instant noodles balanced precariously on your stomach while you binged that stupid show she keeps interrupting halfway through every episode—but apparently you did not need to be “sixty dollars broker,” and allegedly, according to her, “exposure builds character.”

students drift through the walkways in slow, uneven currents, weaving around one another with paper cups warming their hands and tote bags slipping from tired shoulders. autumn has only just begun settling over campus, leaving enough warmth in the afternoon sun to coax everyone outside while the breeze nips at exposed skin, carrying with it the smell of caramel popcorn, burnt coffee, fried food and fresh paint that still hasn't completely dried on half the handmade signs.

every few steps, someone brushes your shoulder without meaning to, and another laughs so loudly it echoes between the buildings. the quad feels impossibly alive, like the entire student body had been holding its breath for weeks and finally remembered how to exhale.

you've just realised how long it'd been since you'd seen campus like this.

exam season had stripped everything bare. the library became the centre of everybody's universe, swallowing entire afternoons until the only sounds left were pages turning, keyboards clacking and chairs scraping softly against carpet. everyone looked permanently exhausted beneath fluorescent lighting, surviving almost exclusively on caffeine and blind optimism, and now they're outside again.

clubs are recruiting first-years with embarrassingly enthusiastic chants, and the fourth-year students are pretending they aren't equally interested in the free tote bags.

autumn seems to bring something different into the air. meanwhile, summer, as you've known it, was spent mostly indoors or at the corner store fifteen minutes from campus, where you'd stand in front of the instant noodle shelf for far longer than necessary before carrying the same cup outside to eat on the outdoor seating. there were a handful of evenings where you'd glance up every time a dark-haired guy walked past, stomach flipping before common sense caught up with you. there were even more where you caught yourself wondering whether park sunghoon had ever been here before, whether he'd ever stood in front of the same vending machine deciding between two drinks, whether he'd look out for you the same way you did.

every single time, you wanted to walk straight into incoming traffic for even entertaining the thought. it's ridiculous. he literally lives on campus.

you spend quite a bit of time walking around the place. the sun isn’t too brutal at this time of day, and for once, you don’t dread seeing a bunch of people you know—there’s moments where you make eye contact with an old friend, a new acquaintance or someone who’s friends with someone you know, and they wave like they’ve known you for years. your feet begin to hurt by the end of the hour, and when you look down, you realise you’re holding an overpriced sea salt latte, a bag of homemade cookies, and a doodle of you a second-year student made for $5.

there’s a few flyers in your bag, too. you don’t even remember being interested in crocheting, but alright. somewhere along the way, you’ve lost the map that some student union members handed you when you first walked in, and for fifteen blissful minutes, you convinced yourself that you’ve never been to this part of the quad before.

it works. for a while.

you’re patting your jeans down. perhaps you folded it or crumpled it together with receipts or other useless junk from the day, but it’s literally vanished. nevertheless, your feet are carrying you to unknown places, through thickening crowds and high-pitched laughter that feels impossible to distinguish which direction it originates from.

somebody almost knocks your latte out of your hand. you almost cuss him out, before he whispers a ‘sorry!’ and joins a snaking queue, spilling onto the footpath.

“my god.”

you’re back at sunoo’s booth. pastel pink, covered in ikea string lights that are certainly not suited for outdoor use, the banner above spelling exactly what you signed up for: soul searching.

it sways gently overhead, now slightly lopsided after surviving what looked like several hours of relentless traffic. whoever had decorated the booth this morning had given up on maintaining any sort of order—heart-shaped balloons floated at uneven heights, paper cupid arrows had started peeling away from the tent poles, and one of the volunteers was hurriedly taping another handwritten sign across the front of the table.

queue full! please scan the qr code to join the line! we'll text you when it's your turn ♡

"honestly," somebody behind you mutters as they walk by. "this is way better. nobody’s standing for two hours.”

“right? i’m hoping they move me to the front,” their friend responds. “i bought the early ones too… i feel so fucking desperate. at least we’re in the line at all.”

you glance towards the front, almost absentmindedly. they weren’t wrong—the line that had wrapped halfway around the quad earlier had disappeared entirely, replaced instead by clusters of students with phones in hand. they’re hopping around and comparing wait times while volunteers hurried between the very few tables available, trying to answer stupid questions before the next wave arrived.

you did pay for this. your latte’s gone warm, anyway, and the condensation is starting to drip down onto your sleeves. might as well find out whether your ticket's even still valid.

the qr code sits laminated against the edge of the registration table, surrounded by little hand-drawn hearts and stars that look suspiciously like sunoo's work. you fish your phone out of your tote, thumb hovering over the camera app for just a second before lifting it. you step closer to get a clearer view, tongue poking at your cheek—

"hold on.”

you glance up, blinking slowly until sunoo comes into focus. he’s dressed in all sorts of shades of pink, from hot to muted to pastel, and his cheeks have hearts face-painted onto them.

“y/n! you actually came!”

he breaks into a wide grin, so wide that it almost scares you. for a brief moment, you wonder if this is even the kim sunoo you know, considering he was never too worried for your attendance when the fundraiser was first brought up.

before you can even say hello, he's already leaning across the table, volunteer lanyard swinging forward as he peeks at the ticket confirmation on your screen. you hadn’t realised it’s already loaded, displaying the ‘early-bird’ status right at the top. in bold, like it wasn’t humiliating enough just being here.

“i paid, so…”

he circles around the table.

“exactly!” his finger points at your phone. “early bird. you’re lucky!”

you nod slowly, like you understand where this conversation’s about to go. truth be told, you don’t, so in order to hide the confusion, your eyes dart around to avoid his.

"…early-bird participants get priority once they join the queue.”

strange. the other laminated sign your eyes land on, which is pasted right behind sunoo’s head, conveniently says otherwise.

early-bird = guaranteed queue number! ♡ NO PRIORITY sorry!!! :( ♡

“i’m pretty sure that’s not how it works—”

“it literally is.” sunoo declares, with such effortless confidence that you might’ve believed him if not for the piece of paper taped up behind him. he still wears that smile, his cheeks rounding in a way that makes it dangerously easy to nod along, right until one of the volunteers at the registration table slowly lifts his head and looks over.

he deadpans. “sunoo.”

“what?”

“…since when?”

kim sunoo doesn’t even bother turning around to answer his fellow volunteer. you suppose being the organiser has its perks, because he simply says, “since today! operational changes are needed, aren’t they?”

all the guy can do is sigh and rub at his temples.

“great!” sunoo beams, already uncapping a marker with his teeth before flicking the cap into his palm. he hunches over the clipboard, the tip squeaking furiously across the paper in quick, decisive strokes, barely pausing to breathe before thrusting it back against his chest. “congratulations, y/n!”

you narrow your eyes. “on what?”

“you’re next!” he tears a small ticket from the pad with a sharp riiiip, stamps it against the clipboard with far more force than necessary, then slides it into your hand like he’s finalising an important legal transaction.

“sunoo, there’s literally people waiting behind me.”

sunoo merely raises an eyebrow. he tilts his head, peering past your shoulder with enough curiosity that, against your better judgment, you glance back too.

you don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

a queue of complete strangers is, in fact, staring directly at the two of you. some look mildly confused, others openly entertained, but most are just pissed off. one guy even checks his phone, like he’s trying to figure out whether he’s somehow joined the wrong line, and how he, too, could join ‘priority-access’.

“huh."

when you turn back around, sunoo’s already smiling again, not a shred of shame anywhere on his face. “you’re making this up, aren’t y—”

“prove it.”

“okay, then.”

─────────────────────────

a volunteer pulls the canvas flap aside for you with an overly enthusiastic smile, hair sticking to his forehead from the (presumably) constant back and forth sunoo’s making him do. for such a small booth team, the place is surprisingly put-together, and the online queue isn’t glitching out the way other booth’s are. you had to admit that you were somewhat glad you came.

“good luck,” he whispers, to which you reply with a confused expression before walking in.

the noise disappears almost immediately.

the bustle outside dulls into a soft, muffled hum behind layers of canvas, leaving the tiny booth wrapped in an unexpected sort of quiet. sunlight filters through the cream-coloured fabric overhead, warming the little space in soft patches until everything inside glows honey-gold.

it smells faintly of vanilla and paper, with the lingering sweetness of somebody’s perfume clinging stubbornly to the air from the last pairing. you wonder where they went to after their five minutes of alone time—did they go to grab coffee? did he say something to piss her off, and she stormed out early? is that why sunoo’s giving you priority?

you stop just after the entrance.

“oh.”

it’s… actually kind of nice.

someone had gone through an embarrassing amount of effort decorating the place. ivy vines wind around the tent poles alongside more tiny string lights, and battery-powered candles flicker lazily in the centre of a small round table dressed with a cream linen cloth.

a little glass jar is overflowing with folded paper stars. it sits between two untouched bottles of water, and it almost makes you wonder how much money they poured into this thing, before you remember that they probably went over the donation limit a long, long time ago.

somebody had even scattered fake rose petals across the tabletop, though several had already drifted onto the flimsy plywood beneath the chairs.

there’s only two seats. complimentary seat cushion, too, also pink and plaid. you sigh, seeing how it was already squished flat from all the people sitting on it before you, but you make your way regardless. the amount of walking you’ve put yourself through has done no justice to your feet, anyway.

the first thing you notice is that whoever’s sitting across from you is going to bump your knees, unless he happens to be significantly shorter.

you don’t really mind it. the tent is only so big, and god knows how they even managed to squeeze a table through that narrow entrance. still, it’s enough to make you silently hope he isn’t particularly tall, either.

you let out a quiet breath through your nose.

beside the battery-operated candle sits a neat stack of laminated cards bound together by a stainless steel ring, each one printed with colourful lettering and tiny doodles tucked into the corners.

♡ conversation starters ♡

you already know this is going to be terrible. who the hell pitched this?

#5 what’s your most irrational fear?

too intimate.

your fingers flip through the stack, anyway. there’s an identical set resting on the opposite side of the table, presumably waiting for whoever draws the short straw across from you.

#8 if you could relive one day of your life, which would you choose?

too deep. nobody thought these through. you keep flipping, snorting under your breath every few cards.

#10 what’s your biggest regret?

#11 when did you last cry?

#12 do you fall for looks, or personality?

your smile fades before you realise it had even appeared at all. another prank by the universe, you suppose.

the cards settle back onto the table with a soft tap. your hands find their way to the armrests, tapping against the wood, anything to stop thinking about the guy you’re not supposed to be thinking about.

outside, somebody cheers loud enough for it to seep through the canvas walls, followed by another chorus of laughter that slowly dissolves back into the fundraiser’s usual chatter. you glance instinctively toward the entrance, expecting the fabric to move.

nothing. the chair opposite you remains empty, and no one’s walking through that tarp.

you check your phone. it’s been three minutes.

you’re drumming your fingers lightly against the edge of the table now, watching the fake candle flicker. the tiny plastic flame sways with every movement of the air-conditioning fan someone had hidden near the ceiling of the tent, convincing enough that you almost forget it isn’t real.

the things you do in pursuit of love, you think.

it’s almost funny, now that you’re sitting here.

you remember signing up for this thing with only one person in mind—someone you barely knew, someone you had no right to like because of all the missing pieces your imagination had so generously filled in. back then, this booth felt like a shortcut. maybe you’d sit across from lee heeseung, maybe he’d smile at you, maybe the universe would finally decide to do you one favour in this unlucky life of yours.

there was a point where you thought you knew your type. the kind of guy that seemed so easy to trip and fall on your face for. maybe it was that new year’s party, when you caught him standing at the front of the house with a cigarette between his fingers, the street light catching against his jaw while everyone else laughed somewhere behind you. maybe it was those tuesday mornings outside the cafeteria. maybe it was the words of everyone around you, but either way, you never really heard his voice, or stood close enough to know how he laughed, what he sounded like when he was tired, or whether he was a better listener than talker.

distance has a funny way of disguising itself as depth. you mistake wondering for understanding, admiration for affection, until one day you’ve built an entire person out of scattered glances and second-hand stories. maybe that was all the crush had ever been—a collection of assumptions, stitched together by not knowing enough.

perhaps, it was never about lee heeseung at all.

park sunghoon is a fucking headache. he lingers in every inconvenient corner of your life, occupying your thoughts long after he shattered your heart and broke your trust that summer night. it’s almost cruel how thoroughly he’s rooted himself into your memory—his voice still finds you before your own thoughts do, his quiet laugh still sneaks into your head whenever something stupid happens. you remember the thoughtful pauses before he’d answer your questions, the accidental sincerity he always seemed embarrassed by, and the unwavering certainty with which he’d tell you that you were capable of things you never believed you could do yourself.

despite the lies, the betrayal, despite everything. despite the way he looked at you that night, like he couldn’t bear to lose you, and still let you walk away—you realise that there isn’t a single part of you that wishes it had been lee heeseung from the beginning.

the canvas shifts.

at first, it’s nothing more than a shadow moving across the pale canvas, followed by the dull scrape of shoes against packed grass outside. somebody murmurs something—a volunteer, probably—and another voice answers too quietly for you to make out.

your heart’s beating out of your chest. the last time you felt like this, it was january first, and also three in the morning.

the flap rustles once before stilling again, as though whoever’s on the other side already regrets doing this. you let out a quiet laugh through your nose, watching the silhouette hesitate in the narrow entrance where the fading warmth of september collides with the dry chill of the portable air-conditioner humming somewhere overhead.

the afternoon sun outlines him first. he’s tall, broad, holding a bouquet of flowers in his right hand. he turns halfway around to mumble something behind him, and through the gap in the canvas, you catch a glimpse of someone suspiciously resembling sunoo. whatever he says earns him a sharp slap between the shoulder blades and an exaggerated shove forward, the bouquet wobbling dangerously in his grip before he manages to catch it against his chest.

your fingers are still tracing the laminated edge of one of the conversation cards when the canvas finally parts. he stumbles through the entrance, muttering what sounds like an embarrassed complaint under his breath, one hand instinctively reaching back to steady the flap before it swings shut behind him.

you only realise who he is when he looks up.

the sleeves are shoved up to his elbows like they always are, but he looks better than the last time you saw him—cleaner, less wrecked, like he’s actually been sleeping well now that you’re not around. his hair has grown out just enough to fall over his eyebrows, and despite everything, despite the month that’s wedged itself between the two of you, you remember every single feature on his face, and just how much you missed it.

that’s when you realise that a month and a half is nearly not enough time to forget.

for one impossible second, relief blooms before your brain catches up to your body.

the world seems like it’s flipping upside down, now. park sunghoon freezes, like he wasn’t expecting either; your pulse is slamming against your ribs so violently that you swear he must be able to hear it. you can hear your blood rushing in your ears by the time you stand up—chair screeching violently against the plywood as you shove yourself backwards, the legs offering some resistance before jerking free with your force.

your knees collide with the underside of the table hard enough to send the fake candle wobbling between the two of you. it’s tiny, plastic flame is flickering, almost mocking.

every instinct you have screams the same thing: leave.

sunghoon notices (of course he does), and something inside his expression crumbles just enough for you to feel like you’ve been stabbed in the heart.

his shoulder sinks by barely an inch, the hand which holds the bouquet to his stomach now dropping to his side. he doesn’t move any closer, too afraid to even breathe audibly, just standing by the entrance with the afternoon light outlining his familiar silhouette.

his eyes are soft, a gentle smile painted across his face, as though he’s trying to show you how much it hurts not seeing you for so long.

you’re just like how he remembers. golden light on your face, diffused now from the tent’s shade, bright eyes looking up at him the same way it did in the summer. perhaps it’s because of his dreams that this doesn’t feel as shocking as he’d thought it’d be—that one evening in the library between bookshelves replays like a highlight reel behind his eyelids, and in a way, he thinks it’s helped with his what little sleep he's managed to get recently.

and, in the same vein, he looks everything like the boy you've spent the last month trying to forget.

“…you.”

your voice is barely a whisper. sunghoon swallows, and his lips part once before closing again. you want to scream at him, maybe even punch him in the face. with that sad look on his face, you think he might even let you.

“y/n.”

you don’t hesitate. the moment sunghoon sees you grabbing your things, ready to turn around and leave—he speaks again, rushed with a tinge of desperation.

“please. five minutes, it’s all i need.”

what could he possibly say that would undo all of this?

park sunghoon bites down on his bottom lip, trying to stop it from trembling. you’re staring at him with glassy eyes, hands shaking from either anger or just pure despair, waiting for an answer that might not even fix anything at all.

your shoulders stay angled towards the exit, eyes not meeting his. you’re afraid that if you look at him properly, you'll remember everything all over again.

“i'm sorry, y/n.”

you should’ve left as soon as you saw that frame in the sun—as soon as your heart sank and your mind briefly flashed to sunghoon.

silence stretches between the two of you. you’re somewhat thankful for the loud noise outside that helps dampen it. the laughter sounds impossibly far away from where you stand.

“not because i got caught lying to you.” his fingers tighten around the bouquet, knuckles paling beneath flushed skin. “i think about it every day. it never leaves.”

your molars grind together until your temples start to pulse. the muscles in your jaw ache from holding back everything that wants to come spilling out, and you realise, belatedly, that you're digging your fingernails so deeply into the canvas strap of your tote that the fabric has started to wrinkle beneath your grip. you’re blinking the salt away, too, trying not to let it drip down your cheeks. “why did you do that to me, sunghoon?”

your voice comes out quieter than you intended. it’s nothing short of humiliating. sunghoon stares at you for a little while longer, and it really does feel like his heart’s being ripped out of his ribcage all over again. there’s nothing nice about seeing someone you love in tears, much less because of you.

“i didn't think it’d go far.” his voice is barely above a whisper now. “that’s not an excuse. i know it isn’t. i realised that really early on.”

his thumb catches on the edge of the brown paper wrapped around the flowers, smoothing the same crease over and over until it begins to tear.

“i just...” he laughs quietly through his nose, and it breaks somewhere in the middle. “i was terrified, y/n.”

your breath catches. you just can’t understand. every word from him feels like relief and a new betrayal all over again, and for a moment, you wonder how you’re still standing here. there’s half of you that feels glad that he cares enough to show up again—and another that never wants to see his pretty face again.

“the only lie i ever told you,” he continues, finally forcing himself to meet your eyes, “was that i was lee heeseung. everything else was real. all the calls, conversations, every second i spent listening to your voice.”

sunghoon says it like a confession. like an intimate secret he’s yet to admit to anyone else but you, because truly, he hasn’t. it’s stupid how long he’s allowed this to suffocate him.

“i was scared of how much i wanted you, and i let it go on, because it was the best thing that’s ever happened to me. i didn’t want to lose you, and i acted selfishly because of that.”

“you could’ve told me from the beginning.” your hand comes up instinctively, thumb dragging beneath your waterline before another tear has the chance to fall. you sniffle once, sharp and involuntary, and sunghoon feels it somewhere behind his ribs. “you could have. do you have any idea how humiliating that was?”

the words roll off your tongue before you can think twice. “i made myself look like a fucking idiot in front of you.”

sunghoon's breathing falters. his grip tightens around the bouquet until the brown paper crumples loudly in the silence, stems bending awkwardly beneath his fingers. he can't bring himself to look away from your face—not when your eyelashes are clumped together with tears, not when the skin beneath them has gone raw from how hard you're rubbing at it.

“i know.”

his voice barely survives the distance between you.

“every time i think about you,” he swallows hard, the muscles in his throat straining around the words. “i think about everything you trusted me with, and all i can remember is that i stood there and let you keep believing me.” his eyes fall to the floor for the briefest moment before finding yours again, impossibly guilty. “you deserved better than that.”

“i put you through so much,” park sunghoon adds, his voice so quiet you're forced to listen for it. “i was selfish. i convinced myself that if i told you the truth, i’d lose you, even if i deserved to.”

his thumb smooths absently over another crease in the bouquet's wrapping paper. “every day i waited after that, for the right time, for when it was easiest for me—it just got harder, and then it got impossible.”

he exhales shakily. “there was never going to be a good time. i knew that.”

you stare at him, at the bouquet he'd probably spent too long choosing. you imagine how out of place he must've looked picking those out, asking the store owner which ones would be good, knowing nothing about flowers, buying whatever was recommended to him without a second thought.

and then you're looking at the circles beneath his eyes—better now than they were before, but still there, still belonging to a boy who somehow looks exactly like the person you spent all summer missing, and the person who broke your heart in the very same breath.

“you could’ve told me,” you whisper again, the words catching somewhere behind your teeth. your fingers curl helplessly around the strap of your tote until the rough canvas digs into your palm. “you could’ve walked up to me that first night. i would’ve—”

another tear slips free before you can force the last word out. your breath catches violently in your chest, chin dropping toward your collarbone as a broken sob tears through you before you have the chance to swallow it back.

sunghoon moves before he thinks. the bouquet lands forgotten against the table with a muffled rustle, baby's breath spilling over the edge of the table as he closes the distance between you in two hurried strides. his hand comes up instinctively—halfway to your face, halfway to your shoulder, he doesn't even know anymore—before stopping inches from your face.

"...y/n."

sunghoon freezes. fingers trembling, not knowing if he's allowed to be this close to you again, not knowing if he gets to touch you just because you're crying. nevertheless, his hand curls slowly into a fist before falling uselessly back to his side.

your shoulders shake harder.

you clap a hand over your mouth as if that'll somehow muffle the sound, but it only turns each breath into something more desperate and more painful. tears slip between your fingers anyway, dripping onto the backs of your knuckles before disappearing into the sleeves of your top.

sunghoon feels sick. everything is telling him to touch you, to hold you, to do everything he can to rid you of the tears staining your face. wiping your tears away with his thumb and all, like how he’s imagined doing a hundred selfish times over the phone—to tell you it’s okay.

something’s siphoning all the air out of his lungs. "...i'm sorry," sunghoon whispers again, voice splintering under the weight of the words. "i’m sorry, y/n. please, don’t cry, please.”

there’s a tiny part of you that wants to lean into him. instead, you let out something between a laugh and another sob. you drag the heel of your palm beneath your eyes, every tear replaced by another before you can finish catching your breath. vision blurry as you stare down at sunghoon’s shoes, he shuts his eyes.

“i didn’t care,” you sigh. “i wouldn’t have cared.”

your ears don't catch the quiet sniffle that escapes sunghoon. his own vision has long since blurred, tears gathering stubbornly along his waterline until the fairy lights overhead fracture into soft, indistinct halos. he doesn't bother wiping them away, not when you're crying like this—not when every broken breath that leaves you sounds like something he's carved into your chest with his own hands.

“i fell for you, hoon.” you look up at him then, your eyes swollen and shining beneath the warm fairy lights strung across the ceiling of the booth. tears cling to your lashes, catching the light every time you blink. “you could’ve told me.” your voice cracks again, almost pleading. “you could have.”

the words seem to find every hollow place inside him.

his shoulders, already drawn painfully tight beneath the navy hoodie, sink another inch, the tension draining from them so suddenly he almost folds into himself. his hand, still hovering uncertainly between the two of you, curls instinctively before slowly uncurling again. this time, he doesn't stop.

fuck it.

park sunghoon’s touch brushes your cheek so lightly you barely feel them at first. gentle, like he doesn’t know quite how to handle you—warm and careful and everything you’ve ever needed.

his palm settles against the side of your face, thumb sweeping gently beneath your eye to catch the tear before it slips past your jaw. your skin burns beneath the touch, not because it hurts, but because you've missed it without ever knowing what it felt like—it's unbearably familiar for something entirely new.

you don’t mean to lean into him, but your body does it anyway.

for the smallest moment, your cheek rests against his palm, and the breath sunghoon lets out is so quiet that it almost disappears beneath the hum of the air-conditioner overhead. a sigh escapes him, almost as if he can’t believe how much he’s hurt you—and before you break into a sob again, you speak.

“maybe...” you whisper, voice shrinking beneath the weight of the thought—of park sunghoon and you, of that stupid new year's party, of library afternoons and late-night phone calls and every version of the future that never got the chance to exist. “maybe we’d be fine. maybe we’d be happy, if that’s what you even wanted—”

“it is.”

there isn’t a trace of hesitation.

sunghoon's thumb stills against your cheek as fresh tears spill over his own, his forehead dipping just enough that he's looking at you from beneath damp strands of dark hair.

“it’s all i’ve ever wanted,” he mutters. “you are all i’ve ever wanted.”

park sunghoon has never been a decisive person.

it sounds contradictory when you consider everything he's responsible for, but those decisions were never really decisions at all. hockey is straightforward once you've watched enough game tape, drilled the same movement until your muscles remember it better than your brain does, or spent enough hours on the ice for instinct to replace hesitation. there is always a coach standing behind the glass with a whistle around his neck, always someone older, better, more experienced to tell you where your feet should be and how to fix what you've done wrong. school isn't much different. people call him gifted, but sunghoon knows discipline has always done more for him than talent ever could. if you study enough, if you sacrifice enough sleep, if you repeat something often enough, eventually the answer reveals itself.

life has always rewarded certainty. show up, work harder, do better—and there is comfort in that. an almost mechanical predictability to it all, completely untouched by human emotion.

but you have never worked like that. this, whatever this is—it has never operated on that principle.

sunghoon has known he loves you for longer than he's been willing to admit it aloud. what he hasn't known—not for a single day since you walked away from him beneath that streetlamp—is whether seeing you again would heal the wound or rip it open all over. every version of the future he imagined ended differently: maybe you'd scream at him, maybe you'd ignore him. maybe you'd look at him with the same quiet disappointment that had followed him into every waking hour for the past month. there was no correct answer to memorize, no strategy to rehearse, and no amount of discipline capable of guaranteeing that he wouldn't lose you all over again.

he even tried searching for it.

three in the morning, phone balanced against his chest, he'd typed every variation of lied about my identity and fell in love that he could think of into reddit, reading through strangers' catastrophes until the sun came up. none of them sounded quite like his, and none of them ended with an answer worth believing. he’s pretty sure 75% are engagement bait.

there wasn't a guidebook for getting back the only girl he'd ever loved. there was, however, an annoyingly persistent lee heeseung.

his friend spent the better part of yesterday refusing to let him back out, talking over every pathetic excuse sunghoon came up with until there were none left to hide behind. sunoo only agreed to squeeze him into today's schedule after extracting the promise of unlimited access to his card for food deliveries over the next month, grinning so hard throughout the negotiation that sunghoon briefly considered leaving on principle alone. jake had sat through the entire story for the first time without interrupting once, only burying his face in his hands whenever the second-hand embarrassment became physically unbearable. jay, jungwon and riki had been considerably less diplomatic.

yes, he'd fucked up. spectacularly.

yes, there was every possibility you'd never want to look at him again.

no, none of them blamed you for it.

they still told him to come anyway. because if you were going to reject him, then he deserved to hear it from you—not from the version of you he'd spent the last month inventing inside his own head. park sunghoon is not every sure if he’ll ever move on from it, from you, though he sincerely hopes he doesn’t have to.

“i can’t—i can’t hate you, hoon. i tried so hard, and it never worked, so what do i do now?”

the words seems to knock the air from his lungs.

sunghoon's thumb stills against your cheek. even now, even after hearing the words, he can't let himself believe them immediately. his thick eyebrows draw together in quiet disbelief, lashes still damp, mouth parted around a breath that never quite leaves him.

“i think about you so much it hurts.” a laugh escapes you, exhausted more than amused, and you shake your head as tears gather at your chin. when you look up at him, the expression in your eyes drives something sharp straight through his chest. “i just don't know what to do.”

your fingers find his wrist without thinking, curling around it lightly. beneath your touch, his pulse stutters wildly, and sunghoon has the absurd, terrifying thought that if you hold him there any longer, you'll feel exactly how badly he's falling apart.

“i still want you,” you whisper. “so tell me, what do i do?”

sunghoon’s face crumples with relief, so sudden that it almost looks like pain. his shoulders shake before he even realises he's crying again. he presses his lips together, turning away for a second as a breathless, disbelieving laugh slips through his nose, and when he looks back at you, his eyes are wet and helpless and impossibly soft.

every sleepless night and every terrible decision has led park sunghoon here, standing in front of you and bracing for an ending that was never truly his to decide. you are the only thing he has ever looked at and thought, i might not get this back if i lose it, and that realization terrifies him more than failure ever could.

everything else feels survivable. the carefully constructed life he's spent years maintaining—he could lose all of it and eventually claw his way toward something new. he knows himself well enough to believe that, and well enough to know that you are different.

the mere thought of you turning around and walking away again is enough to hollow him out from the inside. it followed him into quiet rooms and sleepless mornings, into practices and lectures and every place he tries to forget you. for the first time in his life, there is something he cannot outwork, outthink, or outrun.

and still, even now, that something is standing here with tears on her face and her hand wrapped around his wrist, asking him what to do.

sunghoon’s wiping uselessly at his eyes. “i don't know,” he admits. “i don’t know what you’re supposed to do.”

your chest immediately drops. there’s that churning feeling again. you pick up on every movement of his, from the way his eyes never leave yours to how he can’t seem to speak up.

“i spent months trying to decide that for you, and look how that turned out,” another shaky breath leaves him, and his shoulders shudder with it. “if you want to yell at me, do it. if you want time, take it. if you wake up tomorrow and realize listening to me was a mistake, i’ll understand.”

sunghoon looks into your eyes. somewhere between the apologies and confessions, the distance between you has disappeared without either of you noticing. your knees almost brush, breaths mingling in the tiny booth, warm enough to fog the already close air between you. the fake candle flickers quietly in your peripheral, behind the abandoned bouquet and scattered conversation cards.

he blinks, just once, watching your eyes soften as they stare back at his. they never leave him, and they’re not searching for answers anymore.

“but if you're asking me what i want,” sunghoon mutters, taking a deep breath in. “i want you. i want you to let me stay, and i want it to be your decision.”

“you hurt me.” you swallow. “forgiving you doesn't magically make all of that disappear—but i’m tired. i’m really tired of being scared.”

“so this is my decision,” you step closer until the space between you disappears entirely. “stay.”

oh, park sunghoon is certain, now.

certainly, for the first time, he cares about someone other than himself, more than his stupid hockey games and ridiculous quizzes that he’d ace regardless if he studied or not—

certainly, the girl he loves is here, in front of him. her heart is in his hands and he’s trying not to crush it, because hurting her means hurting himself. she’s uncomplicated, and she’s beautiful, even in this kind of light, even with tears running down her face—looking at him like he’s all she’s ever asked for, despite everything he’s done.

certainly, he loves you.

all of you.

your arms find sunghoon’s waist with a familiarity that steals what little breath he has left. the movement is so instinctive neither of you seem to think too much about it. sunghoon's hand remains against your cheek for one lingering heartbeat, before his other joins it, cradling your face with impossible care, thumbs brushing absently beneath skin still warm from tears.

the space between you disappears altogether.

your arms slide further around his back, bunching the fabric of his hoodie between your fingers, the last of the tension leaves his body in one long, shaking breath. sunghoon’s own limbs slip around your shoulders, drawing you against his chest so gently it almost hurts, his chin resting lightly atop your head as though he’s afraid that if he lets go now, you’ll disappear all over again.

“i love you, y/n.”

the confession comes easier than he expected—true, almost painfully so, for far too long.

you tighten your hold around him, your cheek pressed against the steady rhythm of his heartbeat.

“i love you, too, hoon.”

for a second, park sunghoon forgets how to breathe.

all those nights spent lying awake, replaying every conversation until sunrise—every version of this moment he'd imagined, every argument he'd had with himself, every impossible outcome he'd tried to prepare for—they dissolve so quietly that he almost doesn't notice them leaving.

the questions that had followed him for weeks no longer demand answers. the guilt is still there, the hurt is still there, and he knows neither of them will disappear overnight, of course—but for the first time in months, park sunghoon knows one thing for sure:

he does not care, and he will keep loving you despite it all.

─────────────────────────

the fundraiser slowly forgets about the two of you.

by the time you step out of the little booth, there’s an insanely long queue that won’t stop staring at you and sunghoon—a bouquet sits in the crease of your elbow, and the man by your side is smiling so wide that it’s borderline embarrassing. he might as well put a sign on your head.

the sun’s begun sinking lower behind the engineering building, bathing the pathways in that familiar honey-gold light that always seems to arrive when you and sunghoon are together. conversations swell around you as students drift from stall to stall with paper bags hanging from their wrists and half-melted ice cream in their hands. somewhere behind you, sunoo lets out an aggressively theatrical cheer before somebody—jungwon, if you remembered correctly—smacks him hard enough to shut him up.

neither of you acknowledge it.

park sunghoon’s hand finds yours instinctually. he’s not even looking at you to see if you’re fine with it, but it doesn’t matter anyway. your fingers intertwine with his, warm and steady and weirdly tight—you glance down and feel the heat rushing up your cheeks.

“…you know,” you mumble, watching your joined hands swing gently between you as you walk down the wide path. “i think this is technically our first date.”

sunghoon blinks. date? you? you and him? on a date?

the crowd has thinned out considerably, but when you glance back towards the familiar pink tent, the queue is somehow still moving. students continue drifting in and out of the little canvas booths, phones in hand as volunteers wave them forward one pair at a time. sunoo catches your eye from behind the registration table, arms folded dramatically across his chest as if he's personally responsible for the greatest love story in university history. you can't help but to smile, and sunoo notices immediately. with an exaggerated roll of his eyes, he flicks his wrist in a half-hearted shooing motion before waving the two of you away.

you laugh under your breath.

ahead of you, the fundraiser is slowly settling into the evening. a handful of student union members balance precariously on folding ladders, looping warm string lights from one streetlamp to the next until little pockets of golden light begin blooming across the walkways. conversations soften as the afternoon crowd disperses, replaced by the quieter rhythm of people lingering instead of rushing somewhere else. somebody nearby is packing away handmade jewellery while another stall is still desperately trying to sell the last of their brownies to anyone willing to make eye contact.

your hand is still in sunghoon's. neither of you talk.

“oh.”

you glance sideways. he’s staring ahead, eyebrows pinched together in the sort of concentration that seems excessive for something this simple.

you snort. “that’s all you have to say?”

“i'm thinking,” sunghoon murmurs, finally allowing himself a quiet chuckle. his thumb absently brushes against the back of your hand before he looks over at you. “does this mean i have to pretend i don't already know everything about you?”

“i wouldn't say everything...” you mumble, nudging his shoulder with yours before looking away a little too quickly. you don't have to see his face to know he's smiling. you can feel it somehow, in the way his gaze lingers a second too long, in the quiet that stretches between you while he leans ever so slightly closer, just enough that the warmth radiating from his hoodie brushes your arm.

“you blush really easily.”

“i do not!” your eyes widen, yet, still refusing to meet his.

“you're so pretty, y/n,” sunghoon says before he has the chance to psyche himself out of it. the compliment leaves him with such effortless certainty that it almost catches him off guard. “so cute when you're shy. blushing like that in front of me...” he continues, the corners of his mouth lifting into the smallest grin. “i don't think i've ever seen anything prettier.”

you squeeze his hand so hard he almost laughs again.

“god,” you mutter, finally daring a glance at him before immediately looking away again, cheeks burning beneath the string lights overhead. “you're still so annoying!”

the fundraiser eventually disappears behind you. after sunghoon’s insistence on sharing an overly-sweet milkshake, his hands are full with paper bags, filled to the brim with overpriced homemade desserts and a few too many keychains. neither of you remember who suggested leaving first—at some point, the booths become smaller in the distance, and the chatter fades into little more than background noise.

there isn’t really a destination. there doesn’t have to be, you both know that—but it helps with the conversation. it flows easier than any of you expect, familiar, curious and gentle in the same way it’s always been.

you stop by a convenience store because sunghoon insists you’re hungry. allegedly, your stomach rumbled on the walk here, so he rushes into the store so fast that there isn’t enough time to protest. the high-school part-timer stares at him weirdly as he wordlessly pays for both ramyeon cups, spending the next five minutes pretending not to hear you complaining about it.

you eat, anyway. sunghoon can’t help but take a picture, too. you almost hit him on the head for that.

an hour later, the walk to your apartment is slower than it needs to be. autumn has finally settled over the city, the breeze cool enough to make you tug your sleeves over your hands every few minutes. leaves skitter across the pavement whenever the wind picks up, collecting around your shoes before scattering around them again, and somewhere overhead the sky melts from gold into a dark, deep blue.

you pass through that same park—cyclists pass every now and then, bells chiming politely before disappearing further down the winding path, elderly couples taking a night stroll with plastic bags hooked around their fingers. the atmosphere is completely different now, though nothing tangible has really changed.

the two of you keep walking. sunghoon feels like he's going to explode from the amount of dessert you'd somehow convinced him to share with you, but the weight tugging at his shoulders feels lighter now. maybe it's because your hand is folded so naturally into his that neither of you have thought about letting go—or the fact that you managed to get rid of all those bags, thanks to him.

“it's nice to talk to you,” you murmur after a while, your gaze lingering on the river instead of him. the city stretches across the water in ribbons of gold and white, every reflection trembling with the movement of the current. “without the phone. easier to hear you.”

another breeze rolls against the river, cool enough to send little ripples across the water and lift loose strands of your hair across your face.

“uuuuhuh, i’m sure.” sunghoon smiles at you, easy-going and so reassuring it makes your pulse race. “keep pretending like we didn’t meet how we did.”

“the hell?”

you glance at him. all he does is squeeze your hand once—then, the corners of his mouth lift into that small, effortless smile.

your heart gives an embarrassingly obvious thump. you let out a laugh before you can stop yourself, ducking your head almost immediately as warmth rushes into your cheeks. “don’t look at me like that—”

“like what?”

sunghoon stops walking. your footsteps falter a beat too late.

your hands are still joined, the sudden halt tugging you backwards before you can catch yourself. you stumble lightly into his chest, the front of his hoodie brushing against your sleeves as his fingers tighten instinctively around yours to steady you. your free hand lands against the warmth of his ribs, and for one, disorienting moment, all you can hear is the wind behind you and the quiet hitch in his breathing.

sunghoon looks down. you're close enough now that the warm lights stretching across this dim path catch in his eyes, turning the dark brown almost amber beneath the glow. a strand of your hair has fallen across your cheek again, flowing in the breeze—and sunghoon, stupidly, reaches up without thinking.

his knuckles brush your skin first—then his fingertips. they slip carefully beneath the loose strand, tucking it behind your ear with a tenderness that makes your chest ache. it lingers for a moment longer than necessary, five seconds too much just to move a strand of hair away, and his thumb rests lightly against your temple as though he’s trying to memorise the shape of your face underneath his touch.

oh. you can’t tear your eyes off of him.

park sunghoon looks like someone you could know forever. a gaze so gentle that you’d think he’s known whoever he’s looking at for a thousand years—a touch so tender that it’s unbelievable that he’s never loved anyone else.

the smile tugging at the corners of his lips dissolves into something almost disbelieving. sunghoon’s forehead dips, just enough so that your face comes into full focus, and the space between you disappears disappears so gradually that neither of you seem to notice how your noses almost brush.

his breath ghosts over your lips. warm, nothing like the cold air that’s enveloping you both. sunghoon hesitates for a moment—even now, he wonders just what he’s done to deserve this. he wants you to choose, and you do.

closing the distance, your lips find his with all the gentleness of someone coming home after being gone for too long.

for one impossible, weightless moment, the whole world seems to narrow until it is nothing more than the warmth of your mouth against his. the quiet rush of wind rolling off your skin, your hand tightening ever so slightly around the fabric gathered at his chest—every sleepless night, every apology, every version of this moment he'd rehearsed alone in his room dissolves the instant you kiss him back.

park sunghoon's convinced nothing has ever felt this right.

you're soft against him, kissing him with the same quiet hesitation you've carried all evening, as though you're still afraid that pressing yourself any closer might shatter whatever fragile thing the two of you have only just managed to rebuild. meanwhile, sunghoon melts into it like he's been starving—he holds himself back for only a heartbeat before months of missed chances quietly unravel between you, his hand sliding around your waist with a tenderness so instinctive it almost startles him. he gathers you closer, careful enough to let you pull away whenever you want. you do not.

instead, your fingers slip from the front of his hoodie to the back of his neck, threading into the soft hair resting there. the movement draws the smallest, almost inaudible breath from him, and before he realises he's doing it, he's smiling into the kiss.

it’s contagious. you’re smiling now, too.

your lips part around a tiny, breathless laugh, and the sound is enough to make a smile form on his face. sunghoon leans in again without thinking, chasing another kiss, only for the movement to catch you off guard. you stumble back half a step, dragging him with you by the collar of his hoodie until the both of you have to force yourselves to stand properly.

your foreheads bump together as his arm tightens instinctively around your waist, trying to stop you from losing your balance.

“do you kiss all your girlfriends like this, sunghoon?”

“don’t piss me off,” his arm loosens from your waist for half a second, just enough for you to stumble before he catches you immediately, pulling you back against his chest with an annoyed sigh. “i don’t kiss anyone else.”

“i could’ve died right here. do you even care about me? should i just die right now?”

“i’m not even going to answer that, y/n.”

─────────────────────────

“who gave you my number?”

by the time the two of you find yourselves right outside your apartment building, the streets have grown quieter. most of the shops have already pulled their shutters halfway down, leaving only convenience stores and late-night cafés spilling warm light onto the pavement. the walk here had taken nearly an hour—your car is still parked at campus, but sunghoon promised to pay the overnight fee anyway. neither of you remember deciding to take the longer route back to your place, but every turn just seemed like another excuse to keep talking.

you stop right in front of your building. the path is uneven here, the road tilted upward; the automatic doors slide shut behind somebody leaving, and the chime hums softly before settling into silence again.

“sooha,” you smile. the blush that infects sunghoon’s face spreads like a wildfire—you’re the one teasing now, after an entire day of his antics. “you had a thing with her, i’m guessing?”

“well, i wouldn’t call it a thing,” sunghoon sighs, thumb rubbing against the back of yours. he swallows before looking at you again. “i’ll be honest with you—we were hooking up.”

he watches your expression carefully for a shift. anything that'll tell him you were upset, or livid—anything at all. he swore he wouldn't blame himself if you were. how would he have known that the love of his life would waltz right in thirty minutes after sooha's exit?

sunghoon adds on a little too quickly. “it was before you.”

“how long?” you ask, tilting your head. curiosity, it seems, but these are dangerous waters that sunghoon’s treading. based on past experiences, his partners (can he even call them that?) never took to well to a previous acquiantance.

sunghoon almost considers lying, just to make himself sound better, before deciding against it. he's never been too good at that anyway. “on and off. a few months, maybe. nothing that meant anything.”

he exhales through his nose, something between a laugh and a wince. “i know. i wasn't—i didn't handle it well. i never called it anything, and i never made her think it was anything, but i also never stopped it when i probably should have.” he pauses, “that’s my fault.”

it's such a sunghoon answer. blunt and completely unflattering to himself, a lack of an attempt to soften it into something easier to hear. you almost want to laugh at how little effort he puts into making himself look good, like it hasn't occurred to him that he could, and you’d never be able to prove otherwise.

you nod, trying to hold your laugh in at the sight of his face. he looks like he's just seen a ghost, no matter how much he tries to hide it—lips pursed together instinctively, eyes wide and scanning yours for any hint of anger. “okay. good to know.”

you give his hand a small squeeze before beginning to loosen your fingers from his, only enough to shift your grip more comfortably. “i appreciate the honesty.”

sunghoon keeps staring. “that's it?”

“were you expecting more questions, hoon?” you can't help but smile now, your free hand covering your mouth in an attempt to hide how adorable you find him. “i didn't know you back then. you were still staring at me weird from the stairs.”

“i was not staring,” sunghoon shakes his head, a stray strand of hair falling loose over his brow with the motion. “you were staring. i’m surprised heeseung didn't notice.”

your jaw drops, mouth falling open in mock offense. "excuse me?"

“whatever. it’s over now, right?” sunghoon sighs, dragging a hand down his face in dramatic disapproval, fingers pausing briefly over his eyes like he's shielding himself from the sight of your face. "not really trying to share you with him."

“you're so annoying!” you shove at his shoulder, and he barely rocks with it, solid where he's standing, biting back a grin like he's trying—badly—to look unaffected.

sunghoon's mouth curls into a smile that reaches his eyes—dark in this dim light. he's still taller than you despite standing a few steps higher, your face now level with his, close enough that you can count the individual strands of hair falling loose over his forehead.

his hair is still a mess from the wind, and from your fingers ruffling through the strands earlier—sticking up at odd angles he clearly hasn't bothered to fix, like it hadn't even occurred to him. his cheeks are still faintly red, yet to fully fade since you first touched his skin, and his ears are airbrushed with a soft pink he probably has no idea is visible.

you hope no one else has ever gotten to see it on him before.

it's quiet. no dogs this time, for some reason. it’s just the low hum of the streetlight above you, buzzing faintly, flickering once before steadying again. an occasional cricket announces its presence somewhere in the bushes lining the building, and beneath that, nothing. though, there’s just your own heartbeat, loud and unreasonable in your ears, and the sound of sunghoon breathing, slow and careful like he's trying not to disturb whatever this is.

sunghoon’s hand is still loosely wrapped around yours, thumb tracing an invisible circle over your knuckles—it’s not quite a habit yet, but close to being one, you can tell. you can feel the calluses along his palm, rough from what you assume is hockey, a strange and grounding kind of proof that this is real, that he's real, standing this close to you at almost midnight with his heart clearly in his throat.

and then, there’s you. even in this horrible, fluorescent lighting—the kind that makes everyone look a little sick—you look undeniably beautiful to him. almost glowing, or maybe he's just sleep-deprived enough that his eyes are playing tricks on him. either way, he thinks, quietly and with helplessness, that he has never wanted to kiss someone this badly in his entire life.

his gaze drops, just briefly, to your mouth. then back up, like he's asking permission before he's even said anything at all.

“can i kiss you, y/n?”

the question is so earnest it hurts. his voice is breathy, needy, everything that you could possibly ever need in a man right in front of you. you feel like if you fall for it—answer him right now, that your life ends here, because this is a trap, or a dream, or all of it at once.

you’re already leaning into him, tilting your head until your noses are brushing each other’s. sunghoon’s breathing so heavily that you feel it against your bottom lip, teasing, just asking for that final push.

one of his large hands settle at your waist. waiting. always waiting.

the kiss is slower than the last one. a little more desperate, maybe—you feel sunghoon’s large arms wrap around you again, tighter now, tongue swiping against your bottom lip, moving you as he pleases just so he can get the most of you.

you taste like him.

the thought’s driving him crazy. you've already confessed everything worth confessing tonight; now, there is only the quiet luxury of learning each other properly, without distance, without static, without the countdown of a call timer reminding either of you that morning would eventually come.

it’s messy in the way that two people are when they’re starving for each other. borderline greedy, too much tongue and then not enough at all, your hands running along the upper part of his back as you keep him anchored to you. sunghoon’s lips feel so perfect when they’re against yours, he genuinely believes that this is what he’s been chasing for all twenty-four years of his life.

every time one of you pulls back to breathe, the other closes the distance again without thinking, as though separating has become something your bodies no longer understand. your fingers wander instinctively over the broad line of his shoulders before settling against the back of his neck, keeping him close without ever needing to ask.

sunghoon’s hands remain anchored at your waist, warm through the fabric of your clothes, thumbs tracing absent little movements that make your pulse flutter for reasons you can't quite explain.

“not here, hoon—” you mumble against his lips before he pulls you right back in. so annoying. sunghoon’s lips crash into yours again, still just as curious, palm flat against the small of your back.

“hm?” the sound vibrates softly between you before he finally relents, resting his forehead against yours instead. one of his hands slides carefully along the curve of your side until it settles once more at the small of your back, holding you as though he'd forgotten any other way to stand. “...tell me where, then.”

you shake your head once, trying very unsuccessfully to compose yourself before meeting his eyes again.

you’re huffing, trying to catch your breath when your hands fall to his chest. the guy is looking at you with the most feverish smile, eyes narrowing because he knows he’s got you flustered.

“upstairs,” you murmur, barely louder than the evening breeze slipping between the apartment buildings. your fingers fist at his hoodie. “come upstairs.”

─────────────────────────

park sunghoon likes to think that he’s good at sex.

there’s nothing complicated about it, really. he knows he’s good at most things.

his body—he knows it’s the kind most people would kill for, the kind other men spend half their lives trying to build. of that, he’s well aware. hockey, school, laundry, cooking, smiling and talking as if nothing’s ever the matter. he’s reduced it to a science: technique, precision, mastery, painstakingly perfected.

the data is there. they scream, they cry out of sheer pleasure, they moan like no one else exists but him, but park sunghoon. he predicts it in the same way he knows he’ll get that perfect score, and make that one ‘lucky’ shot—it’s calculation in it’s most unsurprising form.

human bodies are scientific. their anatomy is roughly similar, so he knows if he moves just like this, whispers just like that, she’ll fold. she’ll crumble underneath him like it’s her first time ever sleeping with a man, clinging onto sunghoon like what he’s doing is some lost art among the modern male.

there’s significant amounts of advice online to tell him how to please a woman. it’s not rocket science applying these concepts in practice, as he’s done—and sure, it’s done himself favours. there were nights where sunghoon couldn’t believe that he’d ever quit hook ups, but soon realised that that’s just how his brain works: that that’s just what the dopamine rush whispers into your ears as you cum for the third consecutive time.

there is a nice predictability in sex. it’s instinct, and where there is instinct, there is nature and nature is almost always studied—even if it’s an utter waste of time, stress relief aside.

though, when he finds himself stumbling into your apartment, kicking off his shoes and slide his hoodie off his back while simultaneously trying to keep his lips on yours, he finds himself wanting time to slow itself down.

just something about you, he thinks. that look on your cute face, staring at him like you didn’t know what to do with the heat pooling between your legs; you stumble against him a few times while you both try to find your way to your bedroom, shoulders nudging against light switches and shoving a few chairs out of place. your laundry is still on the couch from this morning, you note—but when sunghoon puts his hand on your jaw, forcing you to look at him—the reminder fades completely.

“what am i going to do with you?” sunghoon grins, letting his ass fall to the edge of the bed. sitting up, his hoodie’s discarded somewhere by the entryway, and the only article of clothing left being his jeans. his hands roam your body—up and down, before looping around your waist and pulling you between his spread legs. “so pretty.”

you whimper when his hands begin sliding underneath your top. “can i, baby?”

it’s almost pathetic how fast you nod. your hands rest on his shoulders, eyes locked on the way he leans closer to your belly. sunghoon’s slender fingers move up your warm skin, now burning hot under his touch, and eventually, he lifts your shirt completely.

“you sure about this, y/n?” sunghoon looks up, pupils blown with his cheek resting against your bare stomach. “we can stop. whatever you wanna do—”

“n-no,” you sigh, watching sunghoon’s eyes blink up at you, so dazed. “i want you, hoon.”

he hums at your response, turning his head so his lips touch the skin of your belly. they’re still wet from your earlier kisses, pressing nice and slow until he reaches from your belly button to your ribcage. truthfully, sunghoon’s mind has already gone to mush at the mere scent of you: the sweat from the day and your perfume blending into one, the heat from your body, that he just can’t help but to start leaving hickeys along the exposed area.

“i’ll make you feel so good, y/n,” he mumbles against your skin. “but you gotta be good for me. you can do that, can’t you?”

oh. he’s that kind of guy.

something’s flipping in your stomach—simmering low, intense, nothing like you’ve ever felt before. you stare down at him, face visibly flushed from the way he’s touching you; your knees almost buckle upon hearing his voice, and sunghoon can’t help but let a chuckle out at that in between kisses.

“can’t hear you. speak up for me.”

you swallow, feeling sunghoon’s hands exploring further—until his thumbs are right on your nipples, bypassing your annoying bra, rubbing gentle circles, smiling up at you like he’s done nothing too crazy.

“y-yeah, i can,” your voice comes out a tad too soft for his liking, evidently, because his little grin fades into something more displeased.

sunghoon stands up instead, large hands hooking around the hem of your shirt and helping to pull it off of you. your arms point to the ceiling, naturally, letting the fabric part from you with a gasp—the cold air hits your skin, and the wet imprints of kisses on your stomach feel even icier now.

he moves back to your stomach, taking in your scent; it’s even more potent now when you’re bare like this. curiosity gets the better of him once his nose bumps against your bra, his hair nuzzling against your chest as one of his hands move to unclasp it. effortless.

“sunghoon, stop teasing,” you whine, watching him lean back. sunghoon pulls your bra off of you on one swift motion. it’s an understatement to say that you were pretty—just gorgeous when you’re naked in front of him like this.

he ignores you. asshole.

sunghoon’s fingers hook around your skirt next—not quite pulling it down just yet. then, almost as if you’ve done something wrong, he stands up.

you forget how huge he is for a second. when the dim warmth of your lamp hits him, you lose your breath completely. every muscle is highlighted in orange, the definition outlined by shadows that leave you wanting, and it’s like air is caught in your throat from how unfairly good he looks.

“i’ll ask again,” sunghoon mutters, hands back down to your waist, and then your hips, and then he’s flipping you over onto the mattress. “you’ll be good for me, won’t you?”

whatever. fuck it.

all sense of reasoning leaves your body at once. sunghoon cages you between his arms, staring into your eyes, and the look in them sends pure electricity through your veins. he looks hungry, thirsty, like he needed you right now or he’d die.

and still, he waits for an answer.

“i’ll be s-so good, hoonie, i promise.”

the nickname doesn’t leave a bad taste in his mouth anymore. it’s been a while since he’s heard it—but when it comes from you, god, it sounds like it’s dripping in honey and coaxing him into whatever trap you laid out for him.

“gonna fucking kill me,” he rasps, pulling away before pressing a kiss to your cheek, down to your jaw, then to the patch of skin underneath your earlobe. the feeling of his warm tongue sliding against your skin makes you shudder—combined with his fingers pressing into your back, feeling every inch of skin, savouring the feeling of you;

when sunghoon first walked in, he noticed how unbearably you your room was. decorated in posters of your favourite bands, little trinkets here and there that he has no clue how you keep organized. his eyes glazed over your desk, your laptop, your lamp, and everything that you chose to keep that would now remind him of you—right now, your legs are wrapped around his hips, heels digging into his ass while he grinds nice and slow against the warmth of your pussy—feeling right through your panties, skirt tossed somewhere in the corner of the room.

what was most interesting about your room was that mirror in the corner—perhaps he was a pervert for wondering, only for a moment, if you had ever touched yourself in front of that very reflection. he could imagine your legs spread in desperation, knuckles deep in yourself as you chased whatever high you terribly wanted.

did you think of anyone? did you get off to the sound of his voice? though, most importantly, would you let him ruin you in front of that little mirror of yours?

“can i take this off?” he whispers into your ear, hands roaming down from your neck and to the lace around your panties—you nod again, and the chuckle that escapes his lips only sends shivers down your spine.

your legs fall to the side of his thighs, leaving you bare and spread in front of his eyes. “what about you?”

sunghoon literally laughs in your face. “be patient, baby. haven’t even gotten you nice ‘n loose yet.”

your breath hitches at his vulgarity. the image pops up behind your eyelids: sunghoon’s long, pretty fingers buried somewhere deep in you, curled at the perfect angle and prodding at that one spot that makes you sees stars—how long would it take for him to get there? would he even know how to?

famous last words, as they say. it takes four minutes for sunghoon to have your thighs pinned to the mattress, three to have the tip of his index and middle fingers inside of you and two to get you whimpering like a hot, pathetic mess.

maybe just one to get you soaking his wrists.

“what’s wrong, baby?” sunghoon pouts. his eyes are glimmering in the dark, the tiny light left outside reflecting off his irises. in this atmosphere it just seems like a mockery. “too much for my pretty girl? she can’t seem to get enough, though.”

and then his eyes flick down to where you suck him in—glistening, disgustingly sloppy and wet where you take every inch like it was always meant to be yours. it’s times like these where you truly believe fate is real; because there’s just no way you were this close to going your entire life without this—without sunghoon’s fingers buried knuckle deep into you.

“h-hoon, ugh—fuck!” you squeal when he curls his fingers just right, and he just watches, an eyebrow raised like you were some intriguing specimen. just a body underneath his touch, poking and prodding and spreading you as wide as he can, as best as he can. everything he does seems to illicit some reaction from you, too amusing for him to stop. “please, gonna cum, i’m gonna cum, ngh—”

“so quick?” sunghoon sighs, kissing his teeth. “god, you’re so cute. must be too much, then?”

and then, he slows down. ripping your delicious orgasm right from your useless fingers.

“n-noooo,” you drawl, nails clawing into sunghoon’s veiny forearms as he nods slowly, expecting a coherent answer. what a mistake, as if you could even think straight right now. “it’s not—it’s not, fuck, i can take it.”

sunghoon chuckles, head tilting up just enough to get your pretty face in full view. “reaaally? need my permission to cum, too?”

your stomach flips at the way he says it—low and sultry and teasing, like he knows exactly what he’s doing to you. rearranging your guts with his hands alone, whispering these ridiculous things to you, expecting zero reactions. is he stupid? has he lost it?

“you trying to snap my fingers off? relax, baby. can’t have that.”

the humiliation washes over you rather quickly, but disappears just as fast when you feel every muscle in your body beginning to lock up. the words can’t even find themselves, too lost in your mushy brain—everything narrows down to the man with his hands between your legs, pumping his stupidly long fingers in n’ out, watching you lose every piece of sanity you have left.

“who’d have known. such a sensitive girl,” and his thumb brushes against your swollen clit with just enough pressure to have you twitching, but never to cross that final, potentially fatal line. “do you always cum this fast?”

sunghoon sighs dramatically. if you couldn’t see his face, you’d have assumed that he was irritated with you—but your eyes haven’t left his, nor the red in his cheeks and his slightly parted lips, groaning whenever you buck your hips against his palm, feeling the friction of your clit against his skin. they occasionally glance down at the tent in his pants, fighting against tight cloth to be freed, twitching and already forming a dark, wet patch where his tip would be.

“oh my god,” you moan, gripping tight around his wrists. there’s a part of you that just wants to sit up and grind against his hand yourself, but that’d be much too embarrassing to live with. “can’t—can’t, i j-jus… can’t, please, hoonie—”

the words ring a bell that he can’t quite recall, is what he would say if his memory was absolutely terrible. the man remembers exactly when and where you said those terrible, terrible things, under a streetlamp and in a park he had never seen before; so sure that he’d never see you again, and now, here you are, losing your mind and at his mercy.

“oh.” sunghoon grins. cocky little bastard. “you close? gonna make a mess on hoonie? c’mon, soak me. won’t stop ‘till you do.”

there’s something utterly perverted about him tonight. hoonie was never an exclusive nickname, of course—generic by all means. sooha had taken great pleasure moaning and whimpering that exact term a hundred-something nights ago, and sunghoon swears that he must’ve been in a completely different body then. wonders how he ever let the name reach his ears without gritting his teeth, but now that you’re here… it’s like a completely different world has opened before his eyes, and his cock has never, ever been harder.

how could he have fucked anyone else when you existed? how could you have slept with other people when he was right there? the selfish thought invades his sick brain as fast as he feels his cock swell up.

never-mind that. this is way more important—there comes a point during sex where all the pleasure folds in on itself and magnifies by tenfold, becoming it’s own force, taking over your nervous system—nothing matters. sunghoon doesn’t matter. your pride definitely does not matter.

so it’s not really your fault, is it? couldn’t possibly be, even if you’re sitting yourself up (with an unreasonable amount of effort) and grinding your hips against his large, calloused hands, and whining like a bitch in heat against his mouth. even less so now that sunghoon’s letting you—his breath is taken from him when your tongue slides against his, wet and soft and everything he needs to get that pretty cunt fluttering around his digits.

“my filthy girl,” he moans between kisses, his warm breath ghosting against your glossy lips. your arms are running up and down his shoulders and finding a place to stay anchored, and when they finally do, sunghoon doesn’t wince one bit when your nails dig in, out, and in again. “just look at you, fucking yourself stupid on my fingers.”

you don’t hear him. genuinely. it’s all buzzing and static and you feel yourself starting to shake from the hip up. you shudder when he flexes his fingers, and it’s like everything you’ve ever done has led to tonight, every choice, every mistake.

“h-hoonie, ‘m sorry—fuck, need more of you,” you press a searing kiss to his bottom lip, almost missing completely and letting your mouth fall open against his anyway. your breath feel like fire against his skin, and sunghoon can only groan when he feels your walls spasming around his slender fingers. “please, i’ll be so good.”

sunghoon does that same, amused grin on his face, just watching you pant underneath him. the expression only reminds you of that night: you in the kitchen, and him, watching you from the front door on new years eve.

the corner of his lips turn upwards and it’s nothing short of pure perversion—tongue poking at the inside of his cheek, face red with heat crawling up his neck, and an eyebrow cocked up. “are you actually begging me right now? while you’re riding my hand like this?”

you nod your head, frantic. of course you’re fucking begging. it’s been an entire lifetime of teasing and sunghoon’s still dangling the idea of fucking you in your face, just revelling in your visceral and absolutely humiliating reactions.

your mind’s going blank. every thought diverges into park sunghoon and every desire has his stupidly handsome face plastered onto it. your stomach’s so tense that it’s starting to hurt, and you feel lightheaded from how often your breath gets taken right from you—so close, and yet, still so far.

“yes, pleasepleaseplease, i—”

“god, you’re greedy,” sunghoon mumbles under his breath, using his free hand to push you backwards. your spine hits the mattress with a recoil, and the springs creak just enough to muffle the pathetic whine that slips off your lips. “just an ungrateful girl. fine, then.”

and then, there’s nothing. just that mind-numbing feeling of having your body be sent to heaven, only to be denied at the pearly gates.

your heart’s pounding at the sight of him: warm, glistening skin under the dimness of your lamp, chest heaving as he pulls his fingers out from your slick entrance—it feels increasingly, unbearably empty as he retracts his ridiculously long digits. sunghoon does nothing but enjoy the view, eyes glazing over the way your body twists and turns at his cruel punishment.

“come on. again.”

who does he think he is, really? you kiss and make up, and in the same day, he makes you beg for a little gratification? does he have any idea what he put you through? to be truthful, you could go on and on about how he doesn’t deserve any sort of control over you—

“please, hoonie. i’ll take everything—fuck, just fuck me already.”

fuck it. you don’t care. it doesn’t matter that park sunghoon is toying with you. you need him, you need all of him, you need every inch of skin that he’s willing to give and every word he’ll spit at you.

park sunghoon isn’t exactly inexperienced with sex. he knows that intimacy is one of man’s greatest discoveries, and it’s only natural that he participates in it. as one does. what’s not normal is that he’s never felt this before: this insatiable, lustful heat simmering in his core, making his cock twitch before it’s even been touched.

god, you look so perfect—spread bare beneath him with inner thighs soaked in your own juices, whining and pleading and begging for a taste of him, as if he wasn’t holding himself back already. you’re truly the greediest, just taking and taking even if he tries to take his time.

there’s blood lingering in his mouth and the metal feels sharp on his tongue, and still, he continues biting on his lip. sunghoon’s eyes never leave yours, hands coming down to unbuckle his belt with a single hand—the other pins your knees open, and while you squirm under the pressure, you never quite gain the courage to defy.

when sunghoon finally leans forward, the scent of him is enough to overwhelm your nervous system; he grunts when your arms wrap around his neck, and your nose nuzzles against his neck like it has nowhere else to go. a deep breath in and it’s like you’ve never felt more alive than now.

“this enough for you?”

he picks up on everything. from the way your eyes never stay on his for too long, to the way you twitch when he presses his briefs right against your cunt—your breathy moans in his ear as he leans in close, and how quickly you stain the spandex with your slick, mixing with his sticky pre.

“this should be fine, right? my girl can cum juuust like this.” sunghoon’s voice is the only thing cutting through the fog in your head. it’s spinning so much that gripping onto him is serving as the only anchor to your consciousness. your nails drag along this trapezius, sinking into the superficial skin, waiting for a reaction that never comes—instead, all he can offer is a mocking smile, fangs bare and taunting.

his hips are teasing. he moves them slow, taking his time with every drag of up and down, the fabric sliding between your pretty folds and swollen clit; there’s a brief second where he feels the tip of his cock slide into you through the barrier of clothing, only to slip free when he slides up again.

“so perfect,” sunghoon whispers into the conch of your ear—you don’t realise what he’s said until you feel his sharp teeth gliding against your helix, before he finally nips at it. “you’re so perfect, baby. made for me, aren’t you? can’t believe i almost let you go.”

sunghoon thinks about how ridiculous he must look right now—humping your poor cunt like he’s in heat, holding himself back for reasons beyond him, whispering these obscenely intimate things in your ears like he doesn’t want to fuck you right this second. the strain on his cock is getting too much; blood’s rushing down, he’s aching, and he doesn’t know how much longer he has left before he flips you over and has your ass slapping against his skin.

“hoon, fuck, i’m gonna cum,” you say, bucking your hips up just once. wrong move. “please, don’t fucking stop—it feels so good.” sunghoon’s head turns in your direction, nose brushing against your cheek before his mouth meets yours again. he doesn’t care that they don’t latch properly, nor that he’s practically drinking in your saliva, or that he’s gonna cum just from feeling the friction between your bodies. all sunghoon truly cares about is that you’re holding him like he’s all you truly need in this world.

“yeah? just from this?” sunghoon’s hand comes up to grip at your jaw, thumb and index pressing deep into the flesh of your cheeks. his body feels heavy on top of you, quick little movements doing the most to get you both over the edge—and though he still seems a little more composed than you, it all goes to shit when your fingers graze the sides of his ribs. “fuck—do it. cum for me, please, y/n—”

his hands run up your arms until his fingers are tracing your palms, slithering between your own, before finally interlacing. sunghoon’s pressing sweet kisses to your jawline as you moan into thin autumn air, feeling the vibrations of his groans against your throat; he moves at a frenzied pace, chasing friction that won’t ever compare to being buried tip to cervix, but it’s all he can get right now.

“i’m fucking cumming, hoon, oh my god—”

twenty seconds. twenty seconds is all he needs to have you gushing all over the spandex of his briefs, and twenty-five is all you need to chase his lips because you know you’ll scream if you don’t. perhaps around thirty for him to stop feeling like the room is spinning, and him along with it—your tongues meet and circle on another’s again, moans clashing between desperate attempts to slow down, and it’s only sixty for him to finally hook his thumbs around his boxers and shove them down his thighs.

thwap.

sunghoon’s heavy in a way you can’t say out loud. words get caught in your throat, with nothing but a pathetic hitch in your breath being audible. he’s so unbelievably pretty, flushed a deep red from the relentless teasing he’s put you through, serving as confirmation that he’s wanted this as much as you have.

he stares for a minute, catching his breath, before his hand reaches for you—spreading your folds wide between his fingers, watching it glisten under the orange light, almost sparkling if he could look close enough. the sheets below are soaked with you—a large, wet patch that’s darker compared to the rest of the pink duvet.

“thought about this pretty pussy for weeks,” sunghoon lets his saliva collect in the well of his tongue, before spitting a thick glob riiight onto your entrance. “and now you’re aaaall mine. aren’t you, baby?”

sunghoon looks up just as the name rolls off his tongue. you look absolutely wrecked, hair tangled in places where you didn’t even know it could get tangled—tear stains running down your face and highlighting the flush on your cheeks so well. your eyes are wide, caught between staring at his leaking cock and his expectant eyes, shifting between the two every now and then;

a reverent sigh leaves you when sunghoon begins pumping himself, nice and slow using his hand, spreading the pre all over his hardened length. sounds of wet slick echo through the room as he strokes, just enough to get himself wet, before his knees shift forward and he’s finally, finally letting himself touch you without a stupid barrier.

“gonna stuff this pussy full,” sunghoon hisses through his teeth. “pump you full of my cum, fuck, i can’t hold back anymore—” his right hand wraps around the base of his cock, the back of your knees brushing against his thighs as he pulls you flush against him. you’re still heaving by the time he taps his mushroom tip against your folds, running it along the wetness of it, once or twice before aligning himself with you.

“you’re so… annoying,” you huff, eyebrows pinched together, watching his jaw go slack at how warm you feel even from the outside. sunghoon’s stomach is in knots, anticipating the moment he finally sheathes himself all the way, how you’d probably claw at his skin from the sheer stretch—

and that’s exactly what you do.

“f-fuuuuck, hoon! it’s too—you’re too—”

park sunghoon is thick. so undeniably heavy and dizzying, pushing past your walls, and as much as you clench and squirm around him, they offer no real resistance. your pussy takes him in like it needs him—squelching when he bottoms out at last, big arms caging your relatively smaller head between them—all the air in your lungs feels like it’s being siphoned out.

who the fuck is this big? when was the last time you’ve had something this huge inside of you?

“o-oh my fucking god,” his eyes screw shut for one, weightless second, before they shoot back open. he stares down at where you two finally meet, your velvet walls fluttering around him so warmly, a desperate whimper clawing it’s way out of his throat that’s interrupted by a messy kiss.

“so perfect, baby, you’re so perfect,” he mumbles against your swollen lips, hips at a standstill because he plain refuses to move—convinced that he’ll cum as soon if he so much as shifts his weight. “wish you could see your face. so pretty when you’re taking me.”

“you’re… fucking… crazy,” you whisper against his mouth before your hands tangle in his hair; they bunch around the dark locks, pushing his lips against yours again, and he laughs between the sloppy attempts to lock your lips together—noses bump and his forehead thuds against yours. “just fuck me, please, hoon.”

“look at what you do to me,” he sighs, his warm breath sending shivers down your spine. borderline addictive the way you wriggle underneath his touch, like you know his size would knock you out cold, but you still beg through small movements. “all your fault, isn’t it? and you keep asking for more. just a needy little slut for me, huh?”

and then his hips retract—pulling out halfway, your cunt still weeping from the reduced contact. he looks back down, hair falling over his forehead, marvelling at the way his cock glistens with you. so utterly filthy.

you whimper when you feel the emptiness. his veins slide against your gummy walls as he pulls out agonizingly slow. “don’t wanna hear you complaining tomorrow morning, then.”

sunghoon’s pace is slow at first. gentle, sweet thrusts that still manage to make you see stars—he’s too afraid to hurt you, too busy savouring in the sweet moans that sprinkle in his name every once in a while. he feels hot, every bone in his body begging for him to hurry and stuff you full of his cock—but how could he? you’re taking him so well just like this, and all he wants is to drag every second out longer, until he dies blissfully happy in this pussy of yours.

“fuck, mmngh—” and the man slams his lips against yours as his fingers find yours again. you wonder just how many times you’ve managed to kiss tonight, but the thought immediately wipes itself clean when he angles his hips so deliciously right that you feel him all the way in your throat.

“shit, i can’t—you’re too fucking big,” the sound of your breath shakes, too much for his brain to compute, and something primal claws at his sick brain until all he’s thinking about is folding your knees up and bullying your cunt ‘till it’s red. you moan into nothing, hands running over every hard-earned muscle in his back, eyes screwing shut because looking at him feels like a perverted form of self-torture. “fuck, you feel so good, hoonie.”

“yeah?” and sunghoon literally feels every thread of sanity snap when you say his name again. “fuck, look at me then—wanna see your pretty face.” your thighs shake with every slap of wet skin, his heavy body shifting the bed closer to the wall as he pounds and pounds and pounds. his hands move the damp strands of hair out of your eyes, ensuring the perfect, unobstructed view.

you mewl, all sweet and so coaxing when he presses an innocent kiss to your cheek. it’s wet and salty on his tongue, but sunghoon’s smiling so wide that you think he must’ve truly fucking lost it completely.

“want you harder, hoon—not enough, please,” you whisper against his mole. there’s just something in the way you’re batting your eyelashes at him that he thinks is sending his nervous system into overdrive, but it’s irrelevant now. your pleas sound like honey to his ears, but the one singular thought that keeps circling his mind is if you’ll be able to take him like that.

his hands slide back down, stopping right where your tits are—his thumb grazes the hardened bud before he begins to palm at the mound of flesh. “f-fuck—”

“god, can’t hold myself back anymore,” sunghoon’s nose nuzzles against your neck and he takes his time breathing in your scent. the smell of your shampoo lingers, now masked mostly by sweat and fading perfume, and it faintly reminds him of a familiar library where all he could focus on was you, you, you.

you, beautiful you. you who’s underneath him now, pleading with him to give you what you want—still so naive, still so unaware, asking for things you have no idea what to do with—you, who bats her eyelashes with a curiosity he doesn’t know how to address, not without showing you.

he licks a long stripe along your jaw, rutting into you a little faster now. sunghoon’s hands find their way to the sides of your head; rationality has long left him, and his brain’s all foggy with visions of you. he wonders if he could take you just as well on the counter, on the desk, or by the window, and he just gets needier.

he’s getting sloppy and his brain’s all fuzzy. he’s not even sure what the rush is; when there’s someone else in his bed, he almost always finds it easier to take his time. teasing, foreplay, whatever the fuck you wanted to call it—he realised that the reactions he got were much more visceral.

but now—god, he needs you to cum around his cock as soon as possible.

“f-fuck, ngh—pussy was made just for me,” he mutters under his breath, pushing himself up—he towers over you like this, lowlights bathing his skin in warmth all over again as his arms wander down to your waist, then your hips, and then to the back of your knees. “w-what’s wrong, hm? gotta speak up, baby. let me hear you. all that talking was just for show, huh?”

“f-fuuuuh—hoon, please, t-too much—”

“ah-ah, take it like the good girl you are,” his eyebrows knit together in focus, and a bead of sweat rolls down his face, down his chin and drips right onto the valley of your breasts. “y-yeaaah, see? just like that.”

you’re choking on a sob by the time he folds your knees up—brutal, to say the least. your tits get squished by your thighs as he pins your legs up, sunghoon’s rough fingers wound tight around the soft flesh, bullying his way into your poor cunt.

the sounds echoing through the room might as well be featured in a porno. your moans mix until it’s an amalgamation of yeses, gentle sobs, and sunghoon’s relentless teasing. every thrust knocks the wind out of you, your hands clawing at his wrists and leaving red streaks—but the pain barely even reaches him—the only thing on sunghoon’s mind is how gorgeous you look underneath him, taking every inch like it’s what you were born to do, moaning the name he spent so long hating;

“f-fuck, i love you, love fucking this pussy so much—” he hisses through his teeth, eyes zeroed on the way your eyes roll every time he buries himself to the hilt. your head tilts back, throat bobbing as you swallow back embarrassing moan after embarrassing moan—sunghoon’s making it difficult with the way he presses against your belly with one hand, the other holding your left thigh up. “shit, baby, you can be louder than that, can’t you?”

oh, fuck park sunghoon. fuck this stupidly huge cock drilling it’s way through you, and fuck this ridiculously gorgeous man who has you biting back screams, fuck everything, fuck how good you feel—your vision is clouding, stars exploding behind your eyelids every time you shut them, and all you can do is just sit and take it. “s-sunghoon, a-ah—slow down, i’m gonna fucking cum again—”

he kisses his teeth, now resorting to grinding his hips against yours. the angle is new, almost beautiful in it’s discovery. his hands are too curious, before settling on the fat of your ass, palming and fondling and treating it like his personal stress-toy until—

smack.

the moan you let out on contact is nothing short of humiliating. his palm smooths over the handprint, now blooming red right before his eyes, and your brain actually short-circuits for a second.

“fuck,” sunghoon laughs, mocking, rude and mean all in one. “you into that shit?”

the sting sends electricity through your body. sunghoon pulls his hips back just enough, before sliding back between your pretty folds so slow that it actually makes you gasp. every single time he pushes himself back in, it’s like you have to get used to it all over again—the stretch never becomes familiar, always melting your brain and forcing every coherent thought you have to mere nonsense.

“god, you’re such a fucking slut,” sunghoon’s head tilts back momentarily, his hair falling with the gravity and sending little drops of sweat down his neck and onto his back. his heart’s beating all wild now, cock aching for more friction, more force, more of you; so greedy and full of desire, bringing his hand up to land another harsh blow to your ass.

“a-ah—hoon!” you hiss, but you never really try to stop it. you squirm, hips jerking with every slap he decides to give you, but sunghoon knows your cunt tells a different tale: your pussy clenches around him so tight that it’s suffocating him, just begging for his load, and it’s driving him insane. “t-too rough, i can’t—slow down, fuck, you’re gonna break the bed in half—”

it’s true. the frame’s creaking upon each thrust, headboard slamming against the walls, but why would sunghoon care? fuck, he’ll buy you a whole new bedroom if he has to, so long as you just let him have you like this for a little longer.

“don’t give a shit, haa—i’ll buy you a new one, mm? fuck you again ‘till we break that one too. bet you’d want that, wouldn’t you?” he grins, and the corner of his lips turn up sharply when he sees how utterly fucked out you look. there’s this familiar expression he’s seen on other girls—when sunghoon proves to be too much for them to handle, and they end up tapping out—but it’s none of that on you. no matter how much you cry that you can’t take it, you cling onto him like the only thing you know, want, and need is him.

“answer me.”

and the coil in your stomach begins to tighten almost instantly—you don’t even realise that his hands have made it’s way up to your jaw, thumb and index pressing into the bone. a small squeal escapes your throat, and there it is again; that innocent look written all over your face, making sunghoon’s stomach do somersaults. his grip gets firmer with each passing second, before you finally manage to speak:

“y-yes, fuck, need it—i want it, pleasepleasepolease, sunghoon!”

it’s times like these were sunghoon really is convinced he’ll never quit sex. not when there’s a woman like you, with a pussy like this, with a voice so sweet that it makes his chest ache and his cock drip pre. it’s quite a confusing matter, actually, considering he’s never been one to talk too much during the act—that shit just leads nowhere, and feelings get confused by the time he comes down from his high, but god, he doesn’t think his mouth can stop at this rate, not when it’s you he’s buried in.

“yeaaah? gonna cream all over me, baby? make a mess all over this cock, come on.” sunghoon nods feverishly, both hands pinned to the undersides of your knees now, pushing you deeper and deeper into the mattress. your mind tries to catch up, but the pace at which he moves is too relentless for any real thought to form.

his hair falls over his face when he leans forward, just enough to press his full weight down on you. sunghoon’s washboard abs tense every time your nails claw at his chest and just thinking felt weirdly impossible now. your mind’s reduced to slush, ears ringing with wet smacks and constant grunts from the man above you. there’s an occasional moan that slips from him, to which he realises, far too quickly, turns you on more than you’d (probably) ever be willing to admit. mental note for the next time he decides to rearrange your guts, he supposes.

sunghoon glances down again. just for a moment. in the past twenty seconds that’ve passed, you both don’t realise how close you’ve got, damp foreheads pressed against each other in something sweet in the midst of all the roughness. his grunts have transformed into something else completely—now laced with need and breathy pleas, begging.

“there we go, yeah—cum on my cock, please, baby. i’m so fucking close—”

“i love you.”

the words almost kill him.

something seems to have snapped almost instantaneously. park sunghoon’s lips crash into yours with newfound fervor, and every muscle in his body seems to be operating on the sole purpose of getting you to come undone. he’s so fucking tired, truly—but the pain fades and all the soreness in his muscles from yesterday’s practice is irrelevant now.

“yeah? you love me?” his pussydrunk face is the only thing in view, a small gasp slipping when he feels you clench down on him. his hips begin to stutter, jerk, pace faltering. his eyes stare into yours through the gaps in his damp hair, waiting for an answer. “fuck, say it again—please.”

“i love you, sunghoon,” you whisper, almost sultry, your voice barely reaching his ears but ghosting against his lips anyway. “i-i love you—”

a starving man he proves to be. his lips lock with yours again, and this time, they never really leave. his tongue swirls around yours, drinking up every sound that you have to offer, still rutting into your cunt like he needs to fuck a whole new generation into you. your core tenses up so much that you think you’re gonna pass out from the impending orgasm—all sunghoon does is moan into your mouth, fingers intertwining with yours as he abuses your pussy with ruthless strokes.

“i love you, y/n,” the words are so sweet it makes your head spin. it doesn’t correlate at all with the obscene view beneath you, his soaked pelvis and your thighs pressed up against your stomach—your hole squelches with every roll, now much messier and haphazard, and the high is so close that you can almost taste it on the tip of your tongue. “that’s it, baby. let it out for me, just like that.”

so cruel.

“c-cumming, fuck, i’m gonna cum, hoon—”

a revelation comes to sunghoon as soon as your walls begin spasming around his length—sunghoon has never had sex this good. you get impossibly tighter, and your moans are broken up by your lungs trying to take in more air. you sob when it hits, almost blinding in it’s entirety as sunghoon continues fucking you through it, feeling how you soak him from the inside and how it gets disgustingly easy to pound into you when you’re this wet.

“fuuuck, o-oh my god,” a guttural sound claws it’s way out of his throat. his forehead dips again, lips still glossy and tasting just like you, entranced by the way your pretty lips part in a silent scream that ends as a loud gasp. “you’re so fucking tight when you cum, shit—”

sunghoon is gone. just chasing his own release, sloppy thrusts making your juices splurt everywhere; your moans amplify and you’re barely holding your sanity together by the time you come back from whatever plane of reality you decided to visit. his thumb digs into the dip behind your knees, still trying to push his cock deeper into you, tip grazing your cervix every now and then—god, it’s pure filth. you’re half convinced that you might have to take the stairs tomorrow if you want to avoid your upstairs neighbour.

humans are truly just animals. sunghoon proves just as much with how frantic he is to spill himself inside of you. truthfully, the thought is stirring him on more than he’d like to admit—which is kind of scary, if he thinks too long about it. it’s a shame that he’s incapable of that right now, because all he manages to babble is:

“please, y/n, can i? let me cum inside of you, please, please—shit, need to fill you up, wanna see it dripping out of you all fucking night, please.”

and you, as drunk on him as he is on you, nods like it’s all you’ve ever needed in life.

sunghoon’s hips snap against your ass, eyebrows knit in frustration and lips parted to let an animalistic groan out. you take it, all of it, from the way he kisses you like he wants to eat you up, to the way he thumbs at your clit because he just needs you to unravel with him again. selfish as he is, he can’t have this alone—not when you look so beautiful breaking.

it takes ten seconds for you to cum for the second time, and him, eleven. it’s all heat and lust and pure hunger condensing into one, singular moment, where he buries himself to the hilt and spills months worth of holding back.

your walls pulse around him. your clit throbs unapologetically under his restless thumb, still circling nice ‘n slow as if you weren’t already gasping for air as it is. his dick almost feels like it’s getting bigger, twitching as it shoots load after load, hot and thick as it paints every crevice.

god, what the fuck. sunghoon’s panting when he finally collapses on top of you, the soreness from yesterday creeping up on him—though he has reason to believe it may be more of your doing. his face buries itself into your neck, not before his hands finally let your thighs loose, dropping right next to his, and for a minute, the two of you simply lay there.

sunghoon breathes you in again, slow enough that the scent of you settles somewhere deep in his chest. your arms slip around his neck without hesitation, fingers disappearing into the soft hair at the nape of it while your lips find his forehead in small, absent kisses that feel less like affection and more like habit. he lets out a quiet sigh against your shoulder, eyes falling shut as warmth spreads through him in steady waves.

“you smell good today.”

he lets himself believe, just for now, that it can stay this way, though it is probably foolish. if he were being honest, every sensible part of him should still be waiting for the other shoe to drop, for you to wake up and realise you've chosen the wrong person, for the guilt he's carried around for months to finally become heavier than whatever it is you've found in him. even after all of it, all you’ve dragged each other through—you’re still here, trusting him with your body.

confusing, he thinks. you’re so confusing.

“hoon,” you mumble against his skin. he hums in response. “you’re being weird—oh my god. stop sniffing me, i’m getting ticklish.”

he hums against your skin before taking another deep breath in. “don’t care.”

before you, none of this would have unsettled him. there had been other people, other nights, other attempts at filling the empty spaces—and it had been good. he had learned very early that casual was easy to survive because it demanded so little of him—he could leave before morning and return to his life unchanged, carrying nothing home except the faint smell of someone else’s perfume and the relief of having avoided being known. it never bothered him. if anything, he preferred it that way.

“can we wait a little longer?”

“didn’t know you were into cockwarming. you’re sick in the head.” you sigh dramatically, earning a groan from sunghoon—he shifts his weight slightly, hissing when he feels you squeeze around him again.

“just give me a minute,” he answers. “need to remember my first with you. should we take a selfie?”

you fist at his hair and sunghoon winces. “fuck, i was just kidding.”

four in the morning.

the clock on your nightstand blinks the numbers back at you in soft, white light, stubborn and familiar. nine months ago, that hour belonged to a stranger's voice crackling through your speaker and a crush that felt enormous simply because it was all imagination.

you remember lying awake with your phone pressed against your cheek, convinced the boy on the other end of the line was someone else entirely, and now the room is quiet enough to hear the city breathing beyond the windows.

sunghoon shifts against you, cheek warm where it's pressed to your chest, his hair a soft mess beneath your fingers. when he tilts his head up, tiredness still clings to him around the edges of his eyes, but they find yours immediately, like they've learned the route by heart. there is something almost unfair about it—that the boy who once hid behind another person's name now looks at you with such terrifying honesty.

“can you get off of me now?”

sunghoon lifts his head just enough to look at you, cheek still resting against your chest, dark hair falling messily across his forehead. he considers the question with suspicious seriousness before leaning over to press another lazy kiss against your collarbone. “no.”

luck and fate. such intangible concepts, but the feeling creeps up on you regardless. the universe seems unusually generous now, which scares you—after everything that’s happened, after all the ways the two of you managed to hurt each other before finding your way back, it feels dangerous to believe that happiness could be this simple.

and still—something tells you that this feeling might be yours to keep, anyway, so long as you keep choosing for it to.

sunghoon shifts closer, his voice rough with impending sleep as he presses his face into the warmth beneath your jaw. “i love you, y/n.”

when your eyes flutter open the next morning, the blinds are only half-shut, thin ribbons of sunlight slipping through the gaps and painting pale gold across the floor. there's a t-shirt bunched around your waist that definitely wasn't there when you went to sleep, and your hair is sticking to your cheek in a way that immediately informs you that you’ve slept in way too long.

you stretch with a quiet groan, arms reaching above your head until your shoulders pop pleasantly, then roll onto your left side in search of the cooler side of the bed—but instead, you’re greeted by more warmth.

for a brief, sleepy second, you wonder if autumn has somehow changed its mind overnight. is it summer again?

but then, you see him.

park sunghoon is sprawled face-down across your mattress like somebody dropped him there and forgot to pick him back up. one arm is flung over the edge of the bed, the other trapped beneath your pillow, and his dark hair sticks out in every possible direction. sometime during the night, he'd apparently migrated until three-quarters of his body occupied your side of the bed while you clung to the remaining sliver.

his bare back is outlined by faint shadows of the morning, still unfairly sculpted while knocked out cold. it annoys you, just a little, but enough that you briefly consider stealing the blanket back out of spite.

instead, you stay where you are and watch him.

you watch the slow rise and fall of his ribs beneath your fingertips, the tiny hitch in his breathing every few breaths, and the way one hand twitches occasionally against the mattress as though he's still reaching for you in his sleep.

you lean forward until your lips brush the warmth of his shoulder—but the words you whisper there are too soft for him to hear.

“i love you too, park sunghoon.”

he sleeps through your confession, completely unaware of the smile that finds your face as you settle next to him again. your heart slows just a fraction, calming when your breathing unconsciously matches the rhythm of the man beside you.

time seems to slow itself down. the morning birds are quieter than usual, the grandmother across the street has spared the neighborhood her daily yelling, and when you look over at your calendar, there is nothing waiting for you there.

for a love this gentle, the universe has chosen to be unusually generous.

lucky you!

─────────────────────────

hoonie <3: [Attachment] 20:28

hoonie <3: I’ll be over after practice 20:28

hoonie <3: Yeonjun and Maki keep asking about you it’s starting to piss me off 20:29

hoonie <3: Also did you change my contact? 20:34

y/n: yes heeseung 20:40

y/n: oops i meant Park Sunghoon. my favourite boyfriend out of 10 20:40

hoonie <3: I’m going to walk into traffic 21:12

y/n: ????? ur so dramatic Hello 21:15

© kissued 2026 — do not repost, edit, redistribute or translate my work without prior permission and credit. all my work is strictly fictional and not an accurate representation of these people in real life.

ORANTE PARTIES ARE PERHAPS YOUR LEAST FAVORITE RESPONSIBILITY AS A PRINCESS.

The castle's grand ballroom has been transformed into a glittering display of excess, the crystal chandeliers reflecting torchlight and dappled shadows across polished marble floors, the heavy velvet drapery covering the walls in hues of crimson and midnight blue - all of it tailored to make the inside of the room feel like something from another world.

You hate every inch of it. You hate the weight of your gown and its scratchy material, you hate how you can feel the bone stitching of the corset digging into your ribs, you hate the brittle laughter and the clink of crystal goblets, the venomous whispers behind delicate gossamer fans. Most of all, you hate the way every eye in the room seems to track your every movement, measuring you, judging you, waiting for the perfect princess to make a single mistake so they can talk about it with practiced smiles.

A bard stands at the center of the hall, his fingers dancing over the strings of a lute as he sings a soulful ballad of lovers lost in the heat of one another, of stolen touches and a kind of passion you'll never understand. You wonder what it might be like to experience something like that, to be touched by someone who wants you so badly they risk everything, to have hands on your skin that aren't bound by protocol and propriety. To do something dangerous and sinful, to have someone hold you the way those lovers in the song held each other, with urgency and desire instead of duty.

You'll never be that, of course. You are forever bound to this kingdom where the entire world is your stage, where you must remain untouched and controlled, and you're constantly expected to perform.

You're not the only one performing tonight, of course. You're halfway through a painfully boring conversation with the Lord of Coin regarding taxes when a burst of laughter cuts through the murmur of the party. Your gaze drifts against your will toward the small crowd forming near the arched windows, and though you can't see the man at the center of their attention, you know he's there.

The court jester's voice drifts toward you, mischief wrapped in pretty velvet clothes and a silly hat. You'd seen him earlier tonight, dressed in his best midnight blue velvet doublet and matching pants, little crystals stitchy to the fabric to make it look like he's lost in a midnight sky. His eyes had been filled with particularly vicious mischief when they'd landed on you, but your father had whisked you away to greet the Lady of Harvest before the fiend could slink your way.

Jeonghan is a fiend. You are perhaps the only person at court who thinks behind the practiced smiles, card tricks and juggling that there's something far more dangerous, but you've never been able to convince anyone of it. And why should anyone agree with you? Jeonghan is favored among the court for his wit, rhymes and tricks, thrilling the men and charming the women as he slides through each party like smoke, taking the shape of whatever his audience desires most.

A fresh wave of laughter erupts from his audience, brighter and more genuine than anything else you’ve heard tonight. It makes your skin itch and you turn away from the crowd, focusing back on the conversation at hand and determined not to let Jeonghan ruin your night like he does at most parties, determined to vex you and make you feel affronted and flushed and-

No. 

You shove him from your mind as the conversation drags on while you sip spiced wine from your glass. As the Lord of Coin talks, you wonder what it would be like to leave this room. To go get somewhere lost in the city below. To fall into the bed of someone who would touch you like the lovers in the bard’s song, someone who smells like sandalwood and smoke and whose smile is sharp and familiar.

For now, you stay put and keep your eyes on the lord in front of you, ignoring the growing laughter coming from Jeonghan's corner. You hate that he enthralls them so - hate that even though you’re suspicious of him, he charms you in his own way, worming into your thoughts on lonely days, leading your mind astray to wonder how it is he does those tricks of his.

Your father appears suddenly, the Lord of Coin fumbling over whatever he was saying about inflation as the king puts a hand on your shoulder, grinning jovially. "Lord Hastings, forgive me, but I'm here to steal my daughter and spoil her with the fun part of the night!"

"Of course, Your Majesty!" Lord Hasting bows. "Thank you for the conversation, Your Highness."

"The gratitude is all mine, Lord Hastings," you nod, letting your father spin you away as dread knots in your stomach.

The crowd near the arched windows opens up as you approach, the members of the court bowing as you and your father approach the entertainment. Torchlight flickers on their faces, showing how flushed with delight they are as they watch the spectacle in front of them. Jeonghan stands in the middle of the, his midnight doublet fitting him perfectly as the crystals sparkle with his every movement.

Though the jester hat might look silly on anyone else, Jeonghan makes it look fashionable. His long, dark hair frames his angelic face, all sharp cheekbones and carefully sloped nose. His dark eyes find yours immediately, flashing as he grins. Your heart skips a little but you remain uneffected, staring at him as he juggles three daggers for the crowd as they ooo and ahhh at him.

You watch as the blades flash in the torchlight, each one caught cleanly while people gasp and clap. A lady nearby giggles behind her fan just as Jeonghan makes the daggers disappear into his sleeves with a quick motion. The crowd claps as he grins and bows politely, his dark eyes finding you again.

Irritation simmers, your gaze locking onto his and holding it. While everyone seems impressed, your instincts scream danger, wolf in fool’s clothing. The corner of his mouth tilts upwards as he steps toward you, the smell of his sandalwood and smoke clinging to him.

"Your Highness," he greets smoothly. "You look bored. Let me change that."

You say nothing but your father claps, his laughter booming as Jeonghan starts his performance. Cards fly from his hands in quick patterns and your attention is drawn upward as they flit through the air. He dances away from you and leans toward Lord Jeon, plucking a card from behind his ear before flicking his hand and turning it into a coin. The crowd laughs and claps as you stand there stiffly, watching as he charms his way through the nobles until he comes back toward you.

Jeonghan stops in front of you and holds out his hand, bowing slightly at the waist. The crystals on his double clink together as you stare at him, your stomach twisting when he looks up at you through his dark, silky lashes. To anyone else, the look might be reverent, but you see it for what it is - hunger. 

"For the best trick tonight, I need a volunteer," he murmurs. The crowd claps excitedly and when you glance at your father, the king urges you forward, excited. “Your Highness, would you do me the honor?”

Swallowing thickly, you place your hand in Jeonghan's. His skin is warm, sending a spark of heat up your arm as he guides you toward the center of the circle where he spins you in a twirl, the skirts of your dress flaring. The lords and ladies clap, delighted and shouting how beautiful you look, how wonderful their princess is. Jeonghan’s touch lingers a moment longer than necessary before he grins and lets go, eyes glued to you as he circles you like a wolf might its prey.

When he stops, he leans close enough that you can see the silver threading in his collar and the way his sleeves are tailored to allow free movement, probably full of pockets for all of his cards and daggers and other baubles he uses for his performances. He's close enough that the sandalwood and spice makes your lashes flutter, making you think of something dark - not at all the cheery jester he claims to be.

"Try not to look so afraid," he murmurs, low enough that only you can hear him. "The court might think you're afraid of a simple card trick."

"I'm not afraid," you snap.

"No? Then why is your pulse racing?"

You grimace. Ever the observationalist, seeing far more than anyone ever dares to give him credit for.

"Do your trick, jester," you growl.

Jeonghan grins as he produces a deck of cards from one of his sleeves, fanning them out again. "Choose any card but don't show me, love."

Ignoring the casual way he uses a pet name entirely unfit for his station, you select a card from the middle of the deck and when you flip it, you see the seven of swords. You angle it away from him, eyes darting between him and the card. His eyes watch you closely, the heat of them making you fight off a shiver.

"Show the crowd, I'll look away. Cross my heart and hope to die."

You roll your eyes when he turns his back to you. The crowd leans in as you flip the card, showcasing the front to them all. They all nod excitedly, tittering behind hands and fans until you flip the card back around, holding it close to your chest and away from Jeonghan.

"Good," he says when he turns back around, tucking the deck away in one of his sleeves. "Put the card against your palm, card face down."

You follow his instructions, holding your palm out with the card face down to conceal the seven of swords. Jeonghan reaches for your hand, his fingers warm as he presses his palm on top of yours, the card firmly kept between both of your hands. You hate the way your skin responds to the contact, the way the sudden awareness of him prickles up your arm.

"Do you trust me?" he murmurs.

"Hardly."

"Clever." He guides your pressed palms upward so that you're both holding the card between you, each of your hands pressing forward with equal force. "Good girl. Keep your hand steady."

A snarl works its way to your lips at the pet name, but before you can snap at him for the impropriety, Jeonghan shuffles closer and the crowd goes quiet. You realize how far away they seem, the sound dull like it's on the other side of a bubble. Jeonghan is close though - so close you have to tilt your chin up to look up at him, his eyes glittering as they watch you.

"You're quite good at playing a dutiful princess," he notes.

"You know nothing about me."

"Don't I?" His eyes search yours, and there's something sharp in his gaze, something that cuts through the fool's mask he wears. "I know you watch everything. I know you see more than you let on. I know you're the only person in this room who looks at me and wonders what I'm really doing here."

Your heart pounds harder, the rhythm so forceful you're certain he can see it in the pulse at your throat. He's far too close and far too observant for a mere jester. The air between your palms feels charged, almost electric, and you're acutely aware of every inch of space he occupies. You want to step back, to put distance between you and whatever game he's playing, but the crowd is watching and so is the king. So you look onward, staring at him as he smirks.

"Breathe," Jeonghan says, softer now, and there's something almost gentle in his tone that makes it worse somehow. "You're holding your breath, love."

“Stop calling me that.”

"Nervous?"

You glare. "No."

His grin widens a fraction. "Liar."

The word hangs between you, intimate and dangerous. No one else speaks to you like this. No one else would dare, but Jeonghan isn't like the others at court. He refuses to be cowed by your title and your cold shoulder, protected by the silly little performance he puts on, convincing others that he's a fool. It gives him a freedom that feels threatening, and you're the only one who seems to notice.

The hand that isn't pressed against yours moves, tracing a slow circle in the air around where your palms are joined. The movement is hypnotic, and you find yourself following the movement, watching as he repeats the motion a few times. For a moment, you feel a little hazy, eyes fluttering as your thoughts grow foggy. Then, your mind sharpens again, Jeonghan’s intense gaze coming into focus. 

"Picture your card," he instructs, loud enough for the crowd to hear. "Imagine exactly what it looks like - the edges, the images. The way it's shaped. The colors used, the details of the card face."

You think of the seven of swords, trying to focus on the image of it, trying to use it as an anchor against the way your pulse races. It's difficult to do so with the warmth radiating from his palm and the way his breath stirs the air between you. He's close enough that you can count every one of his eyelashes and see the way his dark eyes catch the light from the chandeliers overhead.

As you try and picture the curling red numbers on the card and blue paint of the swords, you let your eyes flit over his sleeves. His hands. His pockets. You try to work out what exactly the charade is, ready to catch him in his trickery. You always try, and you always fail, never quite able to pin down the source of the performance.

"You're thinking about the card," he says, dropping his voice again so only you can hear. "But you're also thinking about how I'm doing this. Trying to work it out. Trying to catch me." You don't answer, feeling the heat hit your chest and cheeks as you flush under being caught. Jeonghan smirks, nodding. "You also don’t like being caught. Are you afraid of what I'll see when I look at you?"

"You see nothing, jester."

"Untrue." He tilts his head slightly, studying you with an intensity that makes your skin prickle. "I see someone who's hungry to be wanted. Someone who wants to be touched like those lovers in the ballad the bard was singing, with heat and urgency and desperate desire. Someone who wishes there was a person bold enough to touch her the way a princess is never supposed to be touched. To want her not because of the crown but despite it." His eyes glint with something darker. "And I see someone who looks at me and knows exactly what I am. A wolf in fool’s clothing, right?”

You want to deny it, but the words stick in your throat. You hate that Jeonghan is right and that he sees through you as easily as you see through him. There's a part of you that's always craved this kind of understanding, someone who could look past the crown and what lies beneath, but not like this. Not from him.

Being known by Jeonghan feels like standing naked before a predator, and the worst part is that you're not entirely certain you want to cover yourself. Your chest tightens with the contradiction of it, the simultaneous ache to be truly seen and the primal need to hide from his gaze. 

"Now," Jeonghan says, and his voice drops again, intimate and teasing. "I'm going to find your card without ever touching the deck again. Without you saying a word." He leans in, just slightly, and you can feel the whisper of his breath against your temple, warm and deliberate. Your skin tingles where it touches. "Would you like to know how?"

You can't answer. Your throat has gone tight, and you're frozen there, caught between the urge to pull away and the strange, unwanted pull that keeps you rooted in place.

"I'm going to read your mind," he murmurs, and his lips are so close to your ear now that you feel each word as much as hear it. "I'm going to look into those careful, guarded eyes and see exactly what else you're hiding."

Your hands are shaking now, both of them, and you know he can see it. The crowd can probably see it too, but they likely think it's part of the act, part of the performance. They don't know that your heart is hammering so hard it hurts, that every nerve in your body is screaming at you to move, to step back, to break whatever spell he's weaving.

"It's the seven of swords," Jeonghan says, and his voice is soft enough to raise the hair on your arms.

Your eyes widen before you can stop yourself, before you can school your expression into something more controlled. The reaction is instinctive, damning, and you see the exact moment he registers it. See the satisfaction that flickers across his face.

"There it is," he murmurs, so quietly that you almost don't hear it over the blood rushing in your ears. "That's what I wanted to see."

Suddenly he steps back, and the loss of his proximity should be a relief but instead feels like an absence. His hand that was mirroring yours drops away to reveal that the card that was pressed between your palms is no longer there. You frown, mouth falling open slightly as he reaches toward your face. You go still as his fingers brush the edge of your jaw, feather-light and deliberate. It's barely contact at all, the barest whisper of his fingertips against you, but you feel it everywhere.

When he pulls his hand away, he's holding a card between two fingers, flicking it to show you the seven of swords. The crowd erupts in applause and delighted exclamations, the sound washing over you while you stare at him. You want to know how he did it, to know what you missed. Had his whispers distracted you from when he placed it there? Was it a trick of the light?

"Your Highness," Jeonghan says, and his voice is pitched for the crowd now, all performance and charm. He bows deeply, flourishing the card. "Thank you for your assistance."

When his eyes meet yours again, they tell a different story. They say he knows exactly what effect he's had on you. That he planned it, wanted it, enjoyed watching you unravel. It makes you step back, putting necessary distance between you as your heart hammers, your pulse deceiving you.

You excuse yourself as soon as the opportunity presents itself, your father turning to another lord as he laughs about something and the crowd pressing around Jeonghan, cutting him off from you. No one notices when you slip away from the gathered nobles, picking up the skirts of your dress as you rush for the exit, skin overheating.

Cool night air washes over you as you step into the gardens and away from all the noise and eyes. The sound of the ballroom has long since faded behind you, replaced by the gentle rustle of leaves and the soft trickle of water from the fountain somewhere deeper in the garden. You inhale deeply, letting the scent of roses and night-blooming jasmine fill your lungs, trying to steady the frantic beating of your heart.

The gardens are empty. Everyone is inside, drinking and dancing and watching Jeonghan perform his tricks. Out here, there's only moonlight filtering through the branches overhead, casting everything in silver and shadow. The paths wind between tall hedges and rose bushes, their blooms pale in the darkness. Your footsteps are quiet on the stone walkway as you move deeper into the maze, away from the ballroom, away from the noise and the eyes and the suffocating weight of your crown.

You walk without direction, letting your feet carry you past marble statues and flowering vines that climb the garden walls. The moonlight catches on the petals of white roses, making them glow like ghosts. Everything is still and quiet, peaceful in a way the ballroom could never be.

Out here, you can think. Out here, you can try to make sense of what just happened.

Except you can't make sense of it. Can't explain why Jeonghan's proximity affected you so deeply, why his whispered words felt like they were carving themselves into your skin, why the loss of his touch left you aching in ways you don't want to examine. You barely know him. You don't trust him. And yet-

"Running away, Your Highness?"

You spin around, heart leaping into your throat to see Jeonghan standing in the middle of the path behind you as though he's materialized from the shadows themselves. His little hat is nowhere to be found, dressed only in the velvet outfit with crystals glittering like stars. The moonlight above catches in his dark hair, turning it silver at the edges. His eyes gleam, and you become hyperaware of the unnatural quiet of his presence.

"I needed air," you say, trying to keep your voice steady.

"Mm." Jeonghan takes a step closer, his movements fluid and unhurried. "Or you needed to escape me."

You don't answer - can't answer, because he's right and you both know it. He moves closer still, slow and deliberate, and you suddenly feel like he's a wolf giving the sheep time to run if it wanted to. You don't run, your feet planted to the stone path even as your pulse hammers in your throat, even as every instinct screams that you should walk away.

"You know," Jeonghan says conversationally, stopping just within arm's reach, "most people can't wait to be near me. They laugh at my jokes, beg for my tricks, hang on my every word." His head tilts slightly, studying you. "But you? You look at me like I'm something dangerous."

"You are dangerous," you say before you can stop yourself. “Even if I can’t prove it.”

His smile is slow and devastating. "Yes. I am."

The admission should frighten you. Instead, it sends heat curling through your belly, making your breath catch in your chest. He's standing close enough now that you can see the way the moonlight plays across his features. He's beautiful, with a sharp jawline and elegant nose, the curve of his mouth full and dangerous, the kind of beauty that bards say is dangerous, luring people into the spider’s web.

"But that's not why you ran," Jeonghan continues.

"It's not?"

He shakes his head. "You ran because of what I said in there. Because I saw through you, and you didn't like it."

"You don't know anything about me."

He takes another step, and now he's close enough that you can feel the warmth radiating from him, can see the way his gaze travels deliberately over your face, your throat, the rapid rise and fall of your chest.

"I already proved that isn't true, love."

Your breath catches. Heat floods your cheeks, your chest, spreading through your entire body. "You're far too presumptuous and entirely impromper."

"I'm observant."His eyes meet yours, and there's something raw in them now, something that makes your stomach flip. "And I know you felt it too. In the ballroom, when I was close to you. The way your breath changed. The way you leaned toward me even as you tried to pull away. The way you're looking at me right now, like you can't decide if you want to run or-"

"Or what, jester?" You demand, huffing. "If you know me so well, just say it."

Jeonghan's smile turns predatory. "Or if you want to stay right here and let me show you what you desire, no matter how improper it is."

Your heart is pounding so hard you're certain he can hear it. "You wouldn't dare."

"Wouldn't I?" He takes one more step, closing the distance until you can feel his breath against your lips, until you're backed against the rough bark of a tree you didn't realize was behind you. "I'm not afraid of your crown, love. I'm not afraid of what anyone would say or do. I'm not afraid of you."

The words send a thrill down your spine that you absolutely should not feel. His hand comes up, not touching you but hovering just beside your face, close enough that you can feel the heat of his palm against your cheek. You grit your teeth, refusing to lean into the hand the way you want to, refusing to give him the satisfaction again tonight.

"Why risk it, then?" You ask. "Only a fool would."

"I am a fool," he agrees. "Let me show you how foolish I am. Let me show you what it's like to be touched and desired. Let me show you what I've wanted to do since the moment I've met you and how I want to make you come undone. Let me make you lose all that polished control you loathe so much."

You should say no. Should push him away. Should remember every reason this is a terrible idea. But your body isn't listening to your mind, and you find yourself leaning toward him, drawing by the magnetic pull you've been fighting all evening.

"What do you say," he asks, hand coming to cradle your face and tilt it upward until you're looking at him with half-lidded eyes. "Do you want your desires answered?"

You lick your lips and his eyes track the movement, pupils expanding. Swallowing dryly, you give the shallowest nod, damning yourself to desire, to the feeling of being wanted and seen.

It's all he needs. Jeonghan's eyes darken, and then his mouth is on yours and the world narrows to just the heat of his lips, the press of his body as he crowds you back against the tree, the rough bark catching on the fabric of your gown. He kisses you like he's starving for it, deep and demanding, his tongue sliding against yours in a way that makes your knees weak.

You gasp into his mouth and he swallows the sound, one hand tangling in your hair while the other grips your hip hard enough to bruise. The kiss is nothing like you imagined. It's not gentle or reverent or careful, but instead it’s consuming, devastating, the kind of kiss that you never knew existed.

He tastes like wine and something darker, something that makes you want more even as your lungs burn for air. His teeth catch your lower lip and you whimper, your hands coming up to clutch at his shoulders, feeling the lean muscle beneath the fabric of his costume.

"I've wanted this for so long," Jeonghan murmurs against your mouth, then trails his lips down your jaw to your throat. "Wanted you. Do you know how difficult it was to keep my hands to myself during that trick? To stand so close and not touch you the way I really wanted to?"

His teeth graze your pulse point and you can't stop the sound that escapes you, half gasp, half moan. He makes a satisfied noise low in his throat, then his hand slides from your hip to your thigh, gathering the heavy fabric of your gown and pulling it up as you pant against the tree, your head digging into the bark.

"Tell me to stop," he says, but his fingers are already tracing the inside of your thigh, moving higher. "Tell me you don't want this. Tell me all my chasing and teasing and prodding is for nothing and that I should leave."

“I can’t.”

"Fuck," Jeonghan breathes against your throat, and the crude word from his elegant mouth sends another wave of heat through you.

His fingers find the edge of your undergarments and he pulls them aside with deliberate slowness, exposing you to the cool night air. When his fingers press against you directly, finding you already slick, you bite down on your lip to keep from crying out. The gardens are secluded and shadowed, but not so far from the ballroom that sound wouldn't carry.

"Don't," Jeonghan says, his free hand coming up to pull your lip from between your teeth. "I want to hear you. Want to know exactly what I'm doing to you. Want to hear every sound you make when I touch you like this."

His fingers slip between your slick folds and you do cry out then, unable to stop yourself. Your hands tighten on his shoulders, nails digging in through the fabric of his costume, and he groans like your pleasure is his own. You feel a shiver go through him and you realize he’s just as affected by you as you are by him and it makes the heat even worse, the knowledge that he wants you this badly turning your blood to fire.

"So wet," he murmurs, his fingers sliding through your folds, exploring you with maddening slowness. "So perfect. Is this what you were thinking about during the bard's song? Someone touching you like this? Making you fall apart?"

You can't answer. Can't form words. All you can do is gasp as his fingers circle your clit with devastating precision, sending sparks of pleasure shooting through your entire body. Your legs turn molten and Jeonghan pins you against the tree with his hips, sliding one of his knees between your legs to keep you pried open for his hand. 

"Answer me," Jeonghan demands. "Tell me what you were thinking about."

"Yes," you manage, the word coming out broken. "Yes, I was thinking about being touched."

His fingers press harder, moving in tight circles that make your vision blur. His fingers slide lower, teasing your entrance, and you can feel how wet you are, your entrance clenching around nothing as his fingers trace laze circles where you need him most, your hips twitching.

"I'm going to give you exactly what you want," he promises. "Going to make you come so hard you see stars.

He slides one finger inside you and you cry out, your back arching off the tree. He's watching your face with an intensity that should make you self-conscious, but you're too far gone to care, too lost in the sensation of his finger moving inside you, curling just right, finding spots that make you shake.

It feels so good - better than you imagined, even. Jeonghan is precise, leaning forward to leave bite marks and kitten licks up and down your neck as he works you slowly, finger pressing against your front wall in a way that sends you squirming against him. Your breath comes out in short, quick gasps, sweat gathering at the back of your neck as he fucks you with his finger, the wet press of his hand maddening.

"Look at you," Jeonghan murmurs, his voice rough with desire. "So beautiful like this. So desperate. I want to see you fall apart. Want to see your face when you come."

He adds a second finger and you whimper, your hands sliding from his shoulders to grip his arms, needing something to hold onto. The stretch is perfect, overwhelming, and when he curls his fingers inside you while his thumb finds your clit, you nearly sob, rolling your hips forward into his hand, thighs trembling as you clench down on his fingers.

"You're so tight," Jeonghan continues, his voice a dark purr in your ear. "So perfect around my fingers. I can feel how close you are. Can feel you clenching around me. Do you want to come, love? Do you want me to make you fall apart right here in the garden where anyone could find us?"

The thought should horrify you. Instead, it sends another wave of heat through you, making you clench harder around his fingers. You nod desperately, squeezing your eyes shut as your cunt throbs around his fingers and you writhe against the tree. 

"You like that," he says, and you can hear the smile in his voice. "Like the danger of it. Like knowing that you're supposed to be in there playing princess while you're out here letting the court jester play with this pretty pussy."

His words are filthy and crude, and they shouldn't affect you the way they do, but combined with the movement of his fingers, the pressure of his thumb on your clit, the heat of his body pressed against yours, you feel overwhelmed and strung out, the feeling low in your stomach coiling and coiling and coiling until you're babbling and squirming and squeezing your eyes shut.

"Please," you gasp, and you're not even sure what you're begging for.

"I know what you need." His fingers move faster, harder, curling inside you with devastating precision. "You need to let go. Need to stop thinking and just feel. Need someone to take control so you don't have to be perfect for once in your life."

His thumb presses harder against your clit, circling in tight, relentless patterns, and you can feel the pleasure building to an impossible peak. Your thighs are shaking, your breath coming in desperate gasps. Jeonghan invades your senses - the smell of him, the heat of him, the way his teeth scrape against your neck, the way his hair tickles against your skin.

"You're mine right now," Jeonghan growls. "Not a princess. Not a performance. Just mine. Say it."

"Yours," you gasp. "I'm yours."

"Good girl. Now come for me. Let me feel it. Let me watch you fall apart."

His fingers curl one more time, hitting that perfect spot inside you while his thumb works your clit, and the orgasm crashes over you like a wave. You cry out, unable to stop yourself, your body convulsing against the tree as pleasure floods through you. You clench around his hand, throbbing as your body shakes until you feel like you can't breathe.

Jeonghan works you through it, his fingers never stopping, drawing out your orgasm until you're boneless and gasping and oversensitive. He's murmuring praise in your ear now - how beautiful you are, how perfect, how he wants to do this again and again until you can't remember your own name - and it makes you dizzy, feeling like you're drunk off of him alone.

Finally, the waves subside and Jeonghan withdraws his hand slowly. You feel the loss of him like an ache, your legs still trembling and barely holding you up. He brings his fingers to his mouth, and you watch through hazy eyes as he licks them clean, tasting you. The sight sends another pulse of heat through you despite your exhaustion.

"Delicious," he murmurs, his eyes dark and satisfied. "Even better than I imagined."

Reality begins to seep back in slowly. The cool night air on your heated skin. The distant sounds of the party still going on inside. The rough bark of the tree against your back. What you've just done, and who you've done it with.

You should feel ashamed. Should feel horrified. Should be scrambling to fix your dress and run back to the safety of the ballroom. You don't. You feel satisfied and boneless and strangely alive all at once, like you've finally done something that feels real instead of the pretty performance.

When you look up at Jeonghan, you see him watching you, his expression unreadable in the shadow of the tree. The breeze makes the leaves dance, kissing your cooling skin as his hand comes up to cup your face, thumb brushing across your cheek with surprising gentleness.

"Regrets?" He asks, voices soft as the smoke that clings to him.

You should say yes and that this was a mistake, that it can never happen again and that you need to return to the ballroom and pretend this never happened. You should remind him that this is improper and unacceptable. Yet instead, you find yourself leaning into his touch, lashes fluttering.

"No," you admit. "No regrets."

Something like satisfaction shifts in his gaze, and he leans in and kisses you again. This time it's different - softer and slower, less consuming and more like he's savoring the taste and feel of your lips against his. You kiss him back, your hands sliding up his chest, feeling the crystals click against your skin as his heart pounds beneath your palms.

When he finally pulls back, you're both breathing hard again, and your mind is spinning with questions you're not sure you want answered.

"How did you do it?" you ask suddenly.

Jeonghan tilts his head, a small smile playing at his lips. "Do what?"

"The card trick. In the ballroom."

His smile widens, and there's something dangerous in it now."I already told you. I read your mind."

You shake your head, confusion and disbelief warring inside you. "That would make you something magical. Not just a jester with clever tricks."

"Yes," Jeonghan agrees, his eyes gleaming in the moonlight. "It would."

The implication of his words hits you like a physical blow. Your breath catches, your mind racing through everything you know about him, everything you've seen, the way he seems to move through the world like something other. Like something more.

He's grinning now, watching the realization dawn across your face, and then he's kissing you again, harder this time, more possessive, like he's claiming you. Like he knows exactly what he's revealed and doesn't care. When he pulls back, his lips are still close enough that you can feel his breath against your mouth.

As soon as he saw the Aston Martin DB9 Voltane, silver exterior, pink interior, with heavy damage in the front from most likely a rear end collision pull up, he knew exactly what kind of customer he was dealing with.

Wiping his hands on his jeans, the ones he has several pairs of, so he doesnt care if they get messy or not, he watches as you step out of the car. 

Predictable. Denim mini skirt, light pink baby doll top, hair freshly blown out, full face of makeup, and to top it off, playboy bunny heels.

He looks across the mechanic garage at Jay, who's already looking at him with a knowing eyebrow raised.

You grab your designer purse, looking around the garage, the smell of oil, and metal lingering in the air. You curse your father for making you do this by yourself. 

Watching as none of the workers here make any move to come forward and help you, you scoff. Typical of these low lifes.

“Does anyone actually work here?” You say, attitude leaking from your voice

He shakes his head stifling a laugh before making his way to you from across the garage.

You watch as a man, probably around your age approaches you, immediately noting how handsome he is, dark hair, defined features, cat like eyes that draw you in.

“How can we help you today?” He asks, tone calm, collected.

“Well clearly the bumper’s fucked up.” You say, hand signaling to the front of your car

His eyebrows raise slightly at your straight foward attitude.

“Yeah, I can see that.” His eyes drop to your tits for a split second, how could he not when they're practically spilling out of your little top

“So I need you to like, fix it” You say like its the most obvious thing, which it clearly is.

He walks around to the front, crouching to look closer at the damage, you watch his face

“yikes..” He says through his teeth, making a slight panic bubble in your chest

“What?” You ask, urgently needing an answer

“This baby’s gonna need some work that's for sure.” He stands up, walking around the car to check for any more damage

“Sensors are definitely damaged, we’re gonna have to order a new bumper, for this specific car it could be hard to find one. You might need a new engine too.” He looks at you, reaching into the front seat, finger hovering over the hood button “May I?” you nod

He pops the hood before going back around to look at the engine, you watch as another man comes to look at it, he must also work here. “Shit– V12 too, that's gonna cost a fortune to fix” The third party adds.

“Since it uses aluminum body panels, it's going to be harder to fix than steel.” The first one says, hand rubbing his jaw in thought, you look at them confused as ever because you don't know what the hell they are saying.

“I don't even know what that means. Can you fix it or not?” You ask, crossing your arms over your chest, completely oblivious to the way you're pushing your tits up more, and to the way both of their gazes drop to look at them.

“Yeah, I can fix it. But it's not gonna be cheap.” He says

“How much?” You ask, tone uncaring, this is just information your father needs to know anyway.

“It's not definitely not minor damage, parts are probably gonna have to be shipped from out of state, so maybe around 20-25 grand?” He estimates in his head

You don't bat an eye, “How long will it take then?” You ask impatiently 

“Well it sure as hell isn't going to be ready tomorrow, I'm thinking 3-5 weeks.” He says calmly

“That's like almost a month!” practically shouting at him

“Like I said, parts from out of state.” He adds, watching the way you pull out your phone, swiping frantically on it, you don't excuse yourself before walking a good 5 feet away to call your father.

He picks up on the 4th ring 

“Yes Y/n?” he says, bothered 

“Dad, they said it's going to take almost a month to fix it!” You say in your phone, completely unaware of how Jungwon and Jay can hear your conversation perfectly clear.

Typical, you have no sense of space either.

“Well that's what happens when you get your car wrecked.” he says

“But I can't survive a whole month-”

“Well you're going to have to, maybe if you weren't so careless with your speeding, and texting while driving, you wouldn't be in this situation at all.” You quiet down as he continues

“Ill have the driver pick you up, sign whatever papers they give you. You have my card right?” 

‘Yes.” You reply clipped, anger seeping in your tone

“Use it. I don't care for the cost” He adds, you hear the sound of papers shuffling in the back, knowing that the reason for his straight forward attitude is because he's at his office. 

“Fine.” 

“And y/n?”, "Don't be rude.” He adds before hanging up the phone, you bring it down to look at the screen, scoffing before shoving it in your bag and walking back towards the annoyingly hot workers.

They are both looking at your engine when you walk back towards them, you watch the first one look up, before he tells the other one to grab the papers.

He comes back with a clip board and hands it to you with a pen, you scan it, looking at the first box, ‘Mechanic Name’, you look up at him

"What's your name?” tone bored

“Jungwon.” He says, you repeat the name in your head. Leaning against the side of your car to fill out the rest of the form, rolling your eyes as you check off the boxes for the reasoning of your visit. The other worker is already back working on one of the other cars.

You hand him the clipboard without a word, watching his eyes skim over it before he lets a smirk show, what the fuck is he smirking at.

“What?” You ask rudely, making him stifle a laugh. 

“Nothin’ I just knew it’d be a rear end.” He says, pulling out a business card from his pocket

“The hell is that supposed to mean?” Your nostrils flaring at the way he’s speaking to you.

“Just means girls like you are predictable.” He watches your face, ignoring the glare you’re giving him before continuing “Let me guess, you were on your phone”

You open your mouth to speak, to defend yourself but close it, because that's the exact reason why. He grins at that, knowing he’s right.

“Right. I'm gonna see exactly what she’s gonna need, and I'll message you the exact cost so you can come back and pay.” He says, handing you his business card

You take it reluctantly, hating the fact that you actually have to come back here again. You look down at the way his hand is still held out, looking down at the oil stained flesh in disgust before glancing up at his ridiculously perfect face

“What? Do you want me to hold your hand or something?” 

He chuckles lightly, “I need the car keys, princess.” You hide your embarrassment, obviously he needs the keys. You lean into your car, bending enough that your mini skirt rises slightly higher than necessary, revealing the pink lace panties from Victoria's Secret's spring collection, he ignores the way his cock jumps at the sight.

You hand him the keys, he looks down at them, resisting the urge to laugh at your key chains, the mini chanel heel, to the pink fluffy pom pom ball, before bring them down, finger hooking around the key ring

“kay’ so is that all?” You ask impatiently, kitten heel tapping on the ground lightly, “For now.” He says, shamelessly dropping his eyes to your glossy lips before turning around and walking back to his tool table.

You roll your eyes, making sure you grabbed everything out of your car before walking out of the garage, the faint smell of oil sticking to you. Yeah you're taking a long shower when you get home. 

“Y’know, you could've just got her card on file” Jay mutters, walking over to him

“Whats the fun in that?” Jungwon says, looking at the papers you signed, y/n. Pretty name.

-

People often referred to you as the ‘spoiled daddy’s girl’ type, to be fair you didn't deny it. Your father did spoil you rotten, after all he was one of the wealthiest men in the country. Obviously you took advantage of it, from the designer clothes, and bags, your whole closet screamed it. Your friends were rich too, naturally. You didn't want to surround yourself with people who leech off your money.

It had been three days since you saw your car, three days since you saw that sexy ass mechanic.

So what if you wore this outfit just for this specific occasion, you weren't completely clueless. You could tell when a man knew how to fuck, simply by his attitude, and Jungwon was screaming big dick energy.

You reapply your shiny lipgloss on your lips, as your driver pulls up to the shop. Looking down at your outfit, from the tight denim shorts to the white baby tee, you purposely didn't put a bra on with.

You smile sweetly at your driver before stepping out, your dior bag in one hand, and strawberry beverage in the other before walking in the shop.

You look around the shop trying to spot Jungwon, he had messaged you that he was able to find all the parts, and needed to double check with you to confirm the payment.

You don't like when people make you wait either. 

“God, this place is fucking slow.” You say before walking to your car, you pause when you him stand up from working on the engine of your car

“Sorry to keep you waiting princess” He says, putting the wrench in his hand down, dusting his hands off and standing up, he’s wearing a white tank top. Biceps, those biceps are all you can think about right now.

He runs his hand through his hair, pushing the messy strands back before walking past you. You try not to act shocked when he doesn’t even glance at your outfit– guy’s would fucking kill to see you in this. 

You hesitate a beat before following him to what you're guessing is some kind of break room..looking around from the desk, to the couch, to the ash tray sitting on the table in the center.

“Is this like a man cave or something?” You ask, stepping in the room like the floor would burn you, he lets out a low chuckle before sitting down at his desk, and pulling up the website for you to pay. 

You look down at his concentrated face before leaning over his shoulder to get a better look at it, slightly brushing your tits on the side of his face. He freezes for a split second before speaking without looking at you. “I need your card.” 

Standing up straight you reach in your purse pulling out your fathers black card and handing it to him. He scoffs, typing the numbers in “Daddy’s money huh?” He says, voice low before handing it back to you.

You roll your eyes, but you don't deny it either.

“Alright that's all I need from you.” He says, standing up and going back out to the main garage, passing Jay as he works on the engine for another customer. 

You watch him walk away, tossing your finished beverage in his office trashcan "That's all?” You say approaching him again.

“What do you mean ‘thats all’?” He turns to look at you

“You came here for somethin’ else princess?” Using that nickname again. 

He lets his eyes fall to your body, he knew you weren't wearing a bra the second he saw you. Not to mention those tiny shorts that don't leave shit to the imagination.

You must be fucking desperate to shown up looking like that here.

“No–I just thought” You huff out a frustrated breath, before pulling out your phone to text your driver to come back. 

He looks over your shoulder, no sign of Jay. He probably went to the office to smoke anyway.

“Thought what?” He watches the way you shove your phone in your bag, irritation on your features, even though he knows exactly what you thought. Plenty of girls think the same thing.

When you cross your arms over your chest like a spoiled brat he chuckles. “Thought I’d want you just cause’ you show up looking like a slut?” 

Your face switches from irritation to straight up anger “Fuck you-” 

“Yeah I'm sure you’d want that huh?” He smirks, not missing the way your nipples harden under his stare

You look past his shoulder to see the familiar black SUV pull up before looking back at him in his stupid tank top that shows off his stupidly big biceps.

You know what, fine. You're not wasting any more time on this asshole. 

“Dont scratch my car.” You say before walking out, he watches the way your hips sway, your ass begging to be let out of those tight shorts, pushing his tongue against his cheek before getting back to work on your car.

-

“You have got to be kidding me.” It had been a week since you last saw him. Yet here he is, at your favorite club..dancing.

You look at the girl he’s dancing with, the way she slides her hand under his shirt–of course he has fucking abs.

You're pulled from your thoughts when your friend taps your shoulder “Girl, what's going on?” 

“What? Nothing, I just need a drink. Bad.” You walk to the bar, flashing a smile that has the bartender immediately catering to you. 

You can't help but let your eyes stray back to the dance floor, to see Jungwon's hands on that bitches waist, smiling against her ear. You try to ignore the ting of jealousy you feel, what does she have that you don't?

After downing whatever your friend ordered for the both of you, and something more, you turn to face her “I wanna dance” you say, dragging her on the dance floor with you

You don't miss the look of recognition that passes along his face when he sees you walking towards the dance floor, the surprise making you grin.

Took less then 3 minutes to feel a pair of strong hands on your waist, you recognize the rough look of them immediately.

“Got bored of that little whore?” You say, purposely grinding your ass back against him

He chuckles against your ear, “Jealous?”

You scoff at that, which makes him tighten his hands on your waist, for a mechanic he sure can move his hips, hitting every beat with each roll against your body 

“You wanted it to be you huh?” he whispers, voice low

“Why would I voluntarily want to grind against your small dick?” you snap, earning a low chuckle from him

“Small?” He says turning you around to face him “Princess, I promise you nothing about my dick is small.” 

“Yeah?” You say, brow raised, looking up and down his form like he was your next Chanel purchase, “Prove it.” 

He smirks looking down then looking back up at your face, “You asked for it.” He rests his hand on your lower back before leading you two out of the club, you look at him curiously before he drags you into an empty alley, you can still hear the music from out here.

“What? Are you gonna fuck me here?” Your face shows irritation. Even though your heart is nearly beating out of your chest.

“No.” He watches your face, stepping closer till your faces are less than an inch apart, the rough brick of the club building digging into your head.

He trails his lips along your neck, breathing your scent in. You can't help the shivers that go down your spine, and straight to your core at the attention

He presses his hardening cock against your thigh, your breath slightly hitches at the contact

“You feel that?” He whispers against your neck

“What’s that, like 2 inches?” still not letting go of your bitchy attitude.

He chuckles low, but it's not jokingly, it's dangerous, knowing.

“Get on your knees, brat.” you hesitate a second before lowering yourself on the hard concrete. He almost could laugh at how quickly you listen

“Look at you, spoiled rich girl on her knees.” He looks down at you, the way your face is asking for specific instructions

“Go on.”

You hate that your hands are shaking when you lift them to unbuckle his belt, your tongue darting out to lick your lips before you look up at him, he nods, watching as you pull down his jeans and boxers in one go.

You nearly gasp at the way his thick, flushed cock springs out, slapping his abdomen with how long it is. Definitely not 2 inches. 

“You really are a slut huh? On the ground in the middle of some alley, just to suck dick.” He caresses the side of your face, in such a gentle way you would think he’s comforting you, his thumb swipes over your bottom lip urging you to open your mouth

You stick out your tongue for him, letting him stick his thumb down your throat, closing your lips around it, he pushes it in farther earning a small gag from you

“Oh sweetheart, if you can't handle this, how will you take my cock?” He says condensendly, pulling his thumb out of your mouth and wiping it on the side of your face.

His eyebrows raise slightly when you wrap your hand around the base of his cock, and bring him closer to your mouth before wrapping your lips around the tip, the taste of his pre cum coating your tongue. He lets out a groan at how warm your mouth is, his hand coming down to grip your hair in his hand.

“Suck it like the slut you are.” His mouth hangs open slightly as he looks down at you

You mumble around his dick before taking more of him in your mouth, curling your toes in your heels to not gag, because then you would be proving his exact point.

Closing your eyes to concentrate, you take him slightly deeper, you whine when you see he’s not even fully in your mouth, making him chuckle at your desperate state.

“Let me help you out, yeah?” he says before gripping the back of your head harder and thrusting his cock into your mouth further, till your nose kisses his pelvis, he lets the most guttural groan at the way your throat convulses around his length, his other hand coming up to steady himself on the brick wall behind you.

You brace your hands on his thighs, gagging around his cock, before he pulls it out of your mouth, looking down at the way your saliva coats it, “Who’s small now huh?” He doesn't give you time to reply before shoving himself back in your mouth, biting his lip at the way you attempt to adjust to the length. 

You look up at him, the way his head is thrown back, the slight shine of his sweat coating his neck, before moving your hand down to cup his balls in your hand, the sound he lets out is fucking insane. 

“F-fuck–yeah just like that” He breathes out, watching the way you sloppily take him in your mouth, You swirl your tongue around the base, before sucking on the head of his cock sharply, massaging his heavy balls in your hand, when his grip on your hair loosens slightly, you know hes about to come.

“Can you s..swallow like a good girl for me?” He says through a moan, the vibration that comes from your mouth is your answer, he brings his hand down from the wall, gripping the back of your head with both his hands, before pushing himself deep in your throat, making you gag as he spills his warm load into you. He tries to stifle how loud he is, but fails miserably, he looks down at you, pulling his cock out of your mouth slowly, watching the way you swallow his come.

“Fuck that was hot.” He lets go of your hair, admiring the fucked out look on your face

“Should’ve came on your face though.” He says, stepping back, tucking himself in his pants and fixing his belt. 

You stand up wiping your mouth with the back of your hand, fixing the way your mini dress slid up your thighs

“That's all?” you ask, watching him finish buckling his belt before looking at you

He steps closer until your back hits the wall, lips ghosting over yours, you close your eyes slightly, waiting for the kiss, he smirks at that.

“I still have a car to work on sweetheart.” He says slyly, pulling back, not sparing you a glance before he walks out of the alley way. Leaving you, confused, and absolutely soaked. And that just won't do. 

-

You've been told countless times before that you have no shame, but you say it's just because you're bold. You know what you want, and you'll get it no matter what.

Which is exactly why you went back to the mechanic shop, claiming you left something in your car and needed it urgently. When you really just wanted to slip a little something into the center console, and you did just that.

“Jungwon” You watch as he works on your car's engine, sleeves rolled up, hair slick with sweat due to the spike in temperature today.

“Princess.” He replies back, casually. Like this is normal

“I think there's something wrong inside the car, can you look at it?” You ask sweetly, feigning innocence as he looks into the car, eyebrow raised

The vibration of your phone takes your attention, your drivers here. “You’ll know when you find it” You offer that smile that makes men go weak in their knees before walking out of the garage.

He watches you walk away, confusion etched on his face before looking in the cup holder, the second he opens the center console he feels the heat rush to his dick. His fingers wrap around the delicate lace.

He couldn't help but bring them to his nose throughout the day, just to inhale your scent, he swears he could get high off it.

Fine then. If you want to offer yourself on a golden platter to him, then he’s going to take it.

-

9:34

Jungwon: Your cars ready

You: Okay?

He chuckles down at his phone, already sensing your attitude through the damn screen

Jungwon: So, you can pick it up

You: Isn’t it a little late for me to come

Jungwon: Come get your car y/n.

You cant help the small laugh the slips past your lips at the message

You: Fine.

Yes, you purposely aren't wearing panties under your mini skirt, because if you're right, then you're not going to need them. 

The main garage doors of the shop are closed, so you opt for the regular one, the lights are slightly dimmer then usual, but you also haven't been here at night before. You pass by the other cars in the garage, the silence being odd for a place like this, except for the sound of your heels clicking on the ground with every step you take to your car.

Its completely fixed. The bumper is brand new, it honestly looks how it did when your father first bought you it.

You walk around the front of the car to take a closer look, when something solid, No. Someone solid presses against you, a gasp slips past your lips at the contact

“Can’t believe you actually came princess” He says, smiling against the back of your ear, his breath on your skin making you shiver

“You said the car was ready, so obviously I did.” You roll your eyes, even though he cant see it. But he senses it.

His hand trails down your body, resting on your lower stomach “Is that why you're not wearing any panties?” He asks, voice low, a rasp in it you recognize from the alley

“Coming in here with your pussy out. Like a slut. You're lucky it's only me here tonight." He brings his hands back up, cupping your tits in his hand

The filthy words he’s saying only making you all the more wet. You can feel the slick dripping on your inner thigh

A breathy sound slips past your slips as he kneads the flesh in his hands over your tank top “I knew they’d feel like this too” He pulls your tank top neckline down so he can really feel you, the way it slightly pushes your tits up more makes his dick harden in his jeans. “So fuckin’ soft” He knips at your ear before pinching your nipples with his fingers, you whimper at the touch

“Aw, so sensitive already?” He smirks, rutting his hips against your ass, making you have to brace one of your hands on the hood of your car

“Just..F-fuck me already” You say through a breathy moan as he bounces your tits in his hands

He laughs at that, actually fucking laughs. Nothing is funny when you’re in this state of desperation, in need of being filled so badly.

“God, you're actually so desperate it's embarrassing” He says, before pushing you down against the hood of your car, earning a gasp that sounded a whole lot like a moan from you.

He just looks down at you for a second, spoiled rich girl bent over your own fucking car, at his mercy. “Are you just gonna stand there-” You don't even get to finish your sentence when he yanks your skirt down your legs, the air hitting your pussy immediately

You spread your legs the best you can, just to show off for him. “Holy shit, it looks like you fucking pissed yourself” He drags a finger through your folds, collected the slick on his fingers, making you moan into the cold steel of your car

“I knew you’d be this wet, could smell it the second you walked in.” he says, plaming your ass in his hand, making your body jolt when you feel a sharp slap “The fuck-” You start but immeditly shut up when he pinches your clit inbetween his fingers

“Got even more wet from that huh? You like this shit.” He chuckles low before landing another sharp slap to your ass, the sound echoing in the garage

He soothes the burn with his hand, you look behind you, straining your neck when you see him get on his knees behind you, he’s not even looking at your face, his gaze is right on the way your hole clenches around nothing

He spreads your ass just to get a better look, you push yourself back against his face slightly “Stop being greedy.” He says, the tone in his voice asserting his authority, how much power he has in this right now.

You dont have time to come up with a bratty reply when he licks a strip up your pussy, collecting your juices on his tounge “knew you’d taste this fucking good too” He mutters into your pussy before burying his nose in your folds, absolutely inhaling your scent, his dick throbbing in his pants. “Oh my–fuck..” You breathe the words out at the feeling of his nose aligning perfectly. 

He smiles against your pussy before plunging his tongue in your hole making your hands attempt to claw at the hard surface beneath you, “Jungwon-!” You yell out, when his thumb comes up to rub small circles on your clit

He flicks his tongue against you, enjoying the way you squirm

“Want you to come like this” He mumbles into your cunt, fucking his tounge in and out of you at a criminally fast speed

You’re a moaning mess against the car, his name on your lips everytime you’re able to speak.

“m’ gonna come–” You breathe out as his finger speeds up its teasing on your sensitive bud, your juices are dripping on his chin, he sucks whatever you give him, the tight pressure making your legs tremble

If you weren’t bent over this car right now you’d definitely collapse.

You cry out when his tongue hits deep inside you, flicking in your pussy as you come on his face, he presses his thumb against your clit as he licks everything, taking his mouth off your cunt with a pop. 

You’re slouched against the car, knees weak trying to comprehend what the fuck just happened.

He stands up, licking his lips, not giving you any time to react before he flips you onto your back, “No thank you?” He tilts his head to the side slightly, studying your face

You look at him like he has two heads, even when you’re spread infront of him like his next meal, you still have a fucking attitude.

“Oh, but you want me to fuck you right?” He scoffs, before stepping closer to you, fitting right between your legs.

If he just presses against you more, you'll feel the hard bulge in his pants that you can see so clearly right now.

You nod at his question

“You’re so fucking spoiled.” He says before leaning down against you, rocking his hips into you, letting his clothed dick grind on your pussy

You whine at the feeling. He presses small kisses to your neck, trailing up your jaw, he watches your face, the way your eyebrows furrow, like it’s killing you that he’s not inside you right now.

He doesnt think before pressing his lips to yours, Its not sweet, or loving, its fucking unhinged.

You immediately let him in, arms coming up to wrap around his neck to pull him closer, his chest brushing against your hardened nipples, when his hand comes up to twist them in his fingers you moan into his mouth. “Fuck me Jungwon- please” you cry out desperately making him smile

“Yeah? Spoiled brat wants to be fucked on her fancy car?” He looks down at you as you nod frantically

“Words or else you're not getting shit.” He stands up straight, sliding off his shirt with practiced ease before unbuttoning his pants and pulling them down, along with his boxers.

You watch as his cock hits his abdomen, the tip flushed red, you practically drool at the sight of it, at the familiar memory of sucking him off , a memory that has replayed every night since.

“Yes, I want you to fuck me, right here—please” Your face mimicks a pout that has him bringing his hand down to stroke himself in his hand 

“Like the slut you are?” He presses, wanting to hear you say more

“Only for you” You say, biting your lip at the way he squeezes his length in his hand

You watch him line the head of his cock with your hole,coating his dick in your arousal from earlier, and the new wetness thats fomed since, you’re so fucking easy to get wet its insane.

He brings his hand to hold down your hips, to anchor himself before he slides into your pussy, he watches as you squirm, trying to adjust to his cock, his mouth hangs open as he bottoms out,

“You’re so tight holy shit-” He breathes out, doing small movements with his hips to get you to adjust better

You can't even think right now with the way he’s stuffing you so full. He pulls out slowly before stamming back into you, watching the way your tits bounce at the movement.

“mmm..faster “ You say through a moan, he thrusts into you slow, teasing, even if it is taking everything in him to not absolutely drill into your tight cunt.

You let out a frustrated sound, that has his eyes leaving where you two connect, and up to your face, He thrusts into you harder, just see your tits bounce, before he brings his hand up from your hip to squeeze one in his hand. “You want me to go faster?” He asks, voice rough, strained.

“Yes–fuck-” You nearly scream when he delivers a harsh slap to your tit, the sting making you arch your back off the car, He smirks down at you, as the flesh turns a light shade of pink

“Use your manners.” He smooths over the flesh with his hand, fingers grazing lightly over your nipple

“Please..faster Jungwon–please.” You whine out, thats all it takes before hes lifting your leg to rest on his shoulder and ruthlessly pounding into you.

You cant even keep your eyes open as he fucks into you, the only sound being the ones coming from both of your mouths, and your wet pussy squelching around his cock as his balls slap your ass over and over again.

He watches the tears that swell in your eyes “Are you fucking crying?” He teases, thumb coming up to swipe the tear threatening to fall.

He feels the way your hole flutters around his cock, “S-shit princess” He groans out, leaning down to take you in his mouth, you immediately kiss him back

he swallows the moans you let out, letting you wrap your legs around his hips to pull him imposisbly closer

“I-im gonna come–fuck-” You manage to say, moaning into his mouth like a damn pornstar.

“Fuck yeah, come on my cock princess” He says through desperate pants of his own, when he feels you clench down even harder he thrusts into you deeper, letting your pussy suck in his cock as you reach your high, the feeling making him shoot his warm load inside of you, the sounds that leave both your mouths completing it.

His head is buried in the crook of your neck, you feel him start to soften inside you, a major part of you proud of yourself for making him come.

“That was–fuck, you’re perfect.” He whispers, pulling out slowly, the sensitivetly making you wince slightly, using his hands to help him get up, he looks down at you, the fucked out expression on your face before grabbing his jeans and putting them on, you watch him, before moving to get up but he stops you “What are you doing?” he looks at you like you're crazy “I- I was going to leave..” You say sitting up

“No you’re not.” Is all he says before picking up his shirt and using it to clean you “What-” 

“Im not a complete asshole princess.” He mutters, fixing your tank top and grabbing your skirt from the ground

“Plus, I want you to come back.” he adds, watching you put your skirt on

“To fuck?” You ask, tucking a strand of hair behind your ears

He can't help the small smile that paints his lips, watching you act like this, so clueless.

“And incase you rear end someone else.” he shrugs, watching the way your face instantly changes to irritation

“You fucking-” he pulls you to him, shutting you up with a hard kiss against your lips before pulling back

“Dont finish that sentence, because im perfectly fine with fucking you dumb again.” He warns, tone serious

That familiar playful look on your face tells him everything he needs to know, as you finish what you were saying.

-

Yesyesyes freaky won give him to me NOW

It happened on a sunny day, when, usually hidden in the depths of hell, the Lord of the Underworld decided to take a stroll. Around the spring meadows, with the air carrying the flowery scent of blooming nature. So strange and bizarre, never floating around the endless plains of his domain. 

He didn't show his face often up there, as God of the Dead was much, much busier than one could think! Humans were weak, reckless, dying like flies and flooding the Underworld with their restless souls. 

Heron crossed the Styx like a madman, and Cerberus couldn't close his eyes even for a second, as the hell was a mad and troubled place.

But then, that one day when the sunlight finally blessed his crimson eyes, Hades, or Sukuna as he much rather preferred, could finally pleasure himself in breathing the air not stained by a musty smell of death.

Each of his steps left the lush grass withered, and the air bent under the heaviness of his aura. Birds would fall silent whenever the God of the Dead passed through the trees they sat in, as if in fear of being taken by the Grim Reaper too soon. Fruits hanging off the branches would suddenly fall rotten, not allowing God to taste the sweetness of their pristine juices. 

As there was no sweetness or warmth in Sukuna's life and it had been a long time since he learned how to live with it. For why would anyone care about the wellness of the Lord of the Underworld himself?

And so the world withered and shattered around him, but God truly didn't mind. 

Until he saw you, the Goddess of Spring.

Beautiful, alive, with sun smooching your laughing cheeks and eyes curving under the golden rays. Little flowers were tucked in your hair sweetly, and single strands framed your face heartily. Sukuna enjoyed looking at blooming plants, although they quickly withered under his bloody gaze. 

But not you.

You quickly became his most dearest petal, with loose, light robes always in a riot of pastel hues and lovely laughter carried by spring winds through the vast meadows. Bare feet ran through the fields of flowers without any worries, and eyes always glanced somewhere over the horizon. Somewhere, towards the seas and trees and frolic nymphs playing near the rivers. Fingers weaved wreaths one by one, and a cooing voice helped the flowers grow and blossom beautifully. 

Your robes were always slightly dirty from the earth, warm cheeks marked by pollen, eyes bustling with warmth and kindness, that touched every plant, every animal that cuddled into your open arms.

He usually lurked among the trees. Tall, broody, with a massive body covered by dark robes and a grim aura clinging to his skin. Four arms crossed on a wide chest and two pairs of eyes fixated on a young Goddess frolicking with her friends.

Soon, he started coming more often. 

The usual workaholic, a gloomy God who liked nothing and no one, a brute, as some liked to call him, suddenly found something that started haunting his mind. His dreams and nightmares, as even there, you always seemed to smooch his cheeks like a soft petal.

There, you always seemed to be his.

 His lovely, dear wife. A Queen of the Underworld.

For all those days he watched you carefully, you've never noticed him.

Not even once, as if completely blinded to everything else outside the walls of your little world.

Until one day, you were left alone.

No friends chirping to your ear, no animals warming your legs – just you.

And, well, him. 

He didn't know when and how, but a warming tiredness fell on his eyes, and oh-so-mighty God of the Death slipped into a light slumber. With withered grass lulling his heavy body and birds ogling him from the thick branches. Wind whirred quietly, brushing his pink hair, slipping between the strands and massaging tired temples.

He could almost swear that he fell asleep on the grass. Hard ground moulding under his even harder body and green tuft giggling his cheeks. And yet, after turning and squirming like a restless child, he felt something softer under his head. 

Something plush, squishy, beaming with the sweetest, flowery fragrance he's ever smelled. The wind's murmur turned into a lovely hum. A melody that coiled his senses and flooded down his spine, filling his body like the sweetest wine.

He didn't dare to open his eyes. 

As he knew, the sight of the lovely Goddess brushing gently through his hair would lead to his death. For Sukuna was rather sure that the only thing in this world that could truly stop his heart was the graceful look of your eyes fixed on him.

Not on flowers, not nymphs, nor animals.

Him.

And thus he lay quietly, with your thighs dipping under his head and soft fingers playing with his hair. 

"The Lord of the Underworld in my spring domain," you hummed, swirling a pink strand around your finger. "What a bizarre sight, I must admit."

A chuckle slipped from between your lips when his brows furrowed. Slightly yet rather openly stating that the God of the Dead, with his colossal body bending your earth, has not, in fact, been sleeping. 

But there was no need to out his silly manner, and your fingers continued soft curls around his temples. As everyone, no matter their origin, was most welcome in your domain.

Something changed around him. The air, the melody, the structure of grass.

Your presence brought life back to the withered plants and silenced animals that feared him. The birds sitting high on the branches slowly flew down, huddling shyly on his chest. Decayed grass turned lush once again, smooching his skin with its plushness.

"There's no need for fear," you whispered warmly, seeing how wary the animals were of his presence. "He is a good creature too."

Forest animals started to come closer, and closer, and closer, with deer sniffing his body and frogs clumping on his shoulders. Their little, sticky toes left traces of gluey slime, but he didn't mind.

Because God of the Dead rarely felt a life embrace his body.

And thus he decided to cherish it and pray that this single, intimate moment would last forever. With your thighs beaming warmth under his head and animals cuddling to his limbs. Surrounding him in a tight circle with furs and feathers tickling his skin. 

He couldn't open his eyes, to not destroy the moment, although, heavens, he truly wished!

To see your hearty face up close. To brush the lower lip coloured with fresh berries and tuck a single strand of hair behind your ear. To see the way pastel robes clung to your skin like a mist, and eyes peeked down at him. But instead, he could only lie quietly and listen to the melody slipping past your lips, curling around his mind like a viper.

A moment has passed, and the deep slumber began to coo his senses. He tried to fight it, longing to stay in your embrace a little longer. To remember the melody of your voice and the pattern of fingertips massaging his temples. The flowery, honeyed fragrance clinging to your skin and filling every corner of his body, taking away his privilege to smell anything else for the next few days.

Before the darkness blanketed his mind and breath became shallower, he could hear the last whispers of your voice:

"Go to sleep, my God. Allow me to accompany you for a while."

When he woke up, you were no longer there. Just a withered grass bending under his body and the warmth of the setting sun bathing his hair in red hues. 

No sign of you or animals, and the God, once again, felt devastated. As if deprived of something he should hold onto with all his strength. He was a divine being, after all, and yet your misty figure slipped between his fingers like flowing water. 

But his mind recalled those few words. Allow me to accompany you.

And thus, Sukuna decided to take this wish too faithfully.

⛥ ⛥ ⛥

"Stop going out there alone," your mother has sighed, looking at your figure swirling around the wooden hut. "It's dangerous, the Gods are unpredictable–"

Your head shook, lifting the little willow-wined basket used for gathering flowers. "I am a Goddess, mother," you chirped in with a giggle, before glancing at the woman's creased forehead. "And you are too. There's simply no need to fear anything. Besides, we're safe in the spring domain."

Liar.

You didn't tell her about the God of Death crossing the border between the Underworld and mortals much more often than he should. Than he used to. With his gloomy aura beaming off the woods, although he thought that you didn't notice it. Crimson eyes followed you every single day for the past few weeks, and whenever he appeared, one side of your domain suddenly went quiet. Withered, under his death-bringing feet and the silent atmosphere he spread around himself.

And as a Goddess of Spring, you knew of everything happening on your land. 

At the beginning, you thought it was rather funny. To see the animals and flowers frightened by his sole presence. You didn't give it much thought, as various Gods had strolled through the plains of your earth and chit-chatted whenever they spotted your figure hunched over the flowers.

But Lord of the Underworld wasn't the talkative type, nor did he engage in any closer relations. In fact, you didn't know much about him aside from what you'd managed to notice over the past weeks.

And you've noticed a lot. His body was built like a mountain, with a heaviness that couldn't be put into words. Two pairs of crimson eyes, lidded like sweet almonds and framed by rather long lashes. Pinkish hair reminding you of blushed peonies, and you wondered whether it would feel equally soft under your touch. Four muscular arms carried the little birdies up their trees when he thought you didn't see, and black stripes curled around his body – like deathly mist, tattooed all over his chest, back, and cheeks, as the God of the Dead didn't mind relaxing his beastly, naked body in the nearby rivers.

The water spilt over the grassy edge, and four arms rested on drenched earth. Crystal water looped his body shyly, smooching the sun-kissed skin with cold kisses. He couldn't see your hazy figure lurking in the bushes.

Your eyes glimmering like two fresh peaches and lips curling in a sly smile, upon seeing muscles upon muscles bending on the God's back. Slick and bulging, stripped of the heavy, dark robes he usually wore and enjoying the kisses of the Mediterranean sun.

Sometimes a nymph would notice him bathing at the river and coo shyly at the handsome but rather intimidating God. You've always observed those interactions from the tree, lurking curiously, with birds perched on your shoulders. All the encounters always ended in a rather pathetic failure, with the Lord of the Underworld ignoring the sweet chirps of little nymphs and their promises to warm his cold body. 

All of them flew quickly upon seeing a grave grimace twisting the God's face, and all four palms curling into fists. 

"Always so, so angry," you murmured to the red bird sitting on your finger, as it nodded its little head. 

And so you didn't tell your mother about these few encounters, for there was no need to worry her. She kept you away from the Olympian Gods as long as she could, yet couldn't stop you from becoming a Goddess too. Truly unfortunate, if she had to admit it, as she had tried for a whole life to keep you well hidden in the far, far corner of Mount Olympus, in your own little spring domain.

"Just be careful," your mother whispered, pushing back a few loose strands of your hair. A small basket hung on your back, and robes clung to your skin. "You know how Gods can be…"

You knew. For you heard of Apollo and Daphne. Of Medusa and a curse sent upon her for being a maiden far too beautiful. About Zeus and Callisto, and more, more Goddesses, who suffered a terrible fate from the hands of Gods themselves.

You understood your mother's worry. Why she tried to tie you up to this little hut hidden in the woods of Olympus. Why she was the Goddess of Agriculture and tried so, so hard to keep her dear spring flower hidden from the prying eyes.

And yet, the serpent flow of destiny was truly twisted and unpredictable. Bending under the Moirai's deathly whispers, with a thin thread slipping between their bony fingers like a river of silk. 

As many Goddesses before you, you too were soon to learn that playing with Gods – particularly those who seemed to take a special fondness for you – was a treacherous path. That approaching them cheekily, taking pleasure in keeping them in your arms and cooing like a wounded animal, was simply foolish. Mad, in every deep sense of the word, as out of the many Gods in this world, you particularly should not play like a fox with the Lord of the Underworld himself. 

So, on the same day, as golden rays dribbled down your figure hunched over flowers, hands picking the season's most beautiful blooms, the earth suddenly burst open. With a raw, brutal rumble, unleashing chaos across the peaceful meadow. Birds rose from the lush branches, and all the forest animals that were cuddling near your body ran off.   

The heavy dust had covered your eyes, smooching flimsy dress and delicate petals that bent under the heavy, little droplets of curled earth. 

The obsidian chariot harnessed with three black horses appeared right in front of your eyes. Tall and eerie, still carrying the coldness of the Underworld and a man whose crimson eyes stared down at your figure.

No words could slip past your lips as one muscular arm lifted you up and easily flipped you over the shoulder. Locking you in place with the sheer strength of one hand, until your head hung down the man's back.

"Wait!" Rolled in a scream as the world in front of your eyes started to spin. 

A voice you hadn't heard yet punched you like a bucket of cold water. "Don't be afraid, my Goddess," Sukuna said, before whistling to his horses. "You'll soon be able to run through the meadows of the Underworld."

It tasted raw, heavy, so, so low, licking your ears with flamed tongues. A voice truly worthy of the God of the Dead himself.

Before you knew it, the earth had swallowed the chariot once again. The rumbling tore through your spring domain, causing vast fields of flowers to vanish as if slowly devoured by the sky. The horses sped downward, pulling the chariot deeper into the earth, until only a faint glimpse of the familiar sun remained – a warmth you wouldn't see again for the next few months.

The darkness engulfed you, wrapping your skin with icy, deadly touches. It felt as though the three sisters had already severed your thread of fate, sending you to the Underworld sooner than anticipated and plunging you into the claws of the beast you inadvertently unleashed. 

"My God," you mumbled, trying to wriggle under his heavy arm. "Where are you taking me?"

Sukuna chuckled lowly, his whole body trembling with a laugh that made your spine tingle. "To home, my dearest Queen."

Deathly whispers curled around your body with curiosity, as if the air in the Underworld had tasted such a sweet life for the first time. Dark clouds filled the sky, and the chariot plunged even lower. Soon, a vast, grimy land spread beneath you, with a thick river curling around the dark soil.

You have never seen the Underworld and have never shown any interest in it. Yet, from that point, with the obsidian chariot soaring high in the sky, it looked mesmerising. Almost magical, with deep, dark forests and withered meadows stretching across the land, lit only by the pale blue light of the moon and little gleaming shadows wandering aimlessly across the plains.

It wasn't difficult to spot Hades's temple. Or maybe you should say a castle.

Sitting quietly on the cliff, with Styx's calm waters flowing beneath its heavy walls. It towered over the whole domain, glimmering in blue light under the moonlight's kisses, and something in your breath has hitched upon seeing an enormous garden filled with withered trees looming over the dead flowers. 

The air was biting cold, and yet the closer you were to the temple, the warmer it seemed to smooch your skin. It didn't carry the familiar flowery fragrance, but rather a heavy, woody scent, as if something alive still lingered in the bleak land filled with agony and doom. 

When the chariot came to a halt on the dark grass, Sukuna set you down gently. With one strong arm still stalling on your back, as if afraid the moment your feet touched the earth, you would try to escape. 

But there was no chance for it, as the Underworld was a trickery and a dangerous place.

"From now on, this is your home. My Queen," his crimson eyes never left your face, even when the hand showed towards the temple looming deathly.

You moved a step away, trying to slip from between the heavy fingers brushing your waist. "It is not my home, and I will not be your Queen. Now take me back to my domain."

Looking up was a mistake, for the gravity of his gaze almost pulled you down to earth. Four eyes stared down at your fuming face before one hand lifted and fingers traced the softness of your warm cheeks. "I cannot do it, my Goddess. That's what I decided, and that's what the Gods accepted."

"The Gods?"

His big thumb brushed your lower lip, and you smacked his hand away. A low chuckle slipped through before he pushed you towards the temple. "Zeus agreed, and that's all that matters. Neither you nor even your mother has any say in it."

You tried to move away again, but his strong arm only pulled you closer to his massive body. Twice your height, with four arms ready to manhandle you like a beast – you knew standing up to him would be foolish. And yet, you tried.

But he didn't mind, as you weighed less than a feather and lifting you was not a sweat for a God of his calibre. Your body once again rolled like a sack over his shoulder, but this time you tried to fight. With nails dragging down his back and teeth digging into the muscles bulging under his robes.

For you, it was a matter of life and death. 

For him? A flimsy, sweet teasing from his dearest Goddess, who was yet to accept her fate. 

Oh, his heart swelled with the purest joy at the sight of your misty figure wrapped in his arms after weeks of yearning. It didn't matter whether you wanted to stay here or not – Sukuna aimed to use every possible means to soothe your mind and pamper you like his precious wife.

"You ignorant brute, a beast, freak!" Rolled furiously, as you once again left the bloody, tooth marks on his back. "You cannot do it!"

Another throaty chuckle escaped from his side, with his arm cuddling around your waist with fondness. "I can, my Goddess. That's how love works."

"And what can you possibly know about love, my God?"

Sukuna didn't know much, but his greedy desire to always keep you in his sight and worship you as if you were the only Goddess in the pantheon must have been close to what love felt like. To get drunk on your laugh and the plush skin of your body every single evening, as if his whole world twisted around nothing but you. To hear your chipper run with stale wind through his decaying land and once again feel your fingers brush through his hair. 

The God of the Dead, the elder of the mightiest brothers, harbinger of death, wished for nothing but to taste the nectar of your love. 

But with a frown you looked at him, your teeth digging deeper into his skin – for now, it seemed rather fruitless.

He entered the temple and moved towards the massive stairway curling to the heavens themselves. Your furious shouts could be heard throughout the whole land, but it seemed that neither he nor the servant who suddenly appeared seemed to mind.

"Uraume, prepare a bath for the Queen," Sukuna said, glimpsing quickly towards the woman. Her white, short hair curled around her slim face, and deep eyes blinked in amusement at your sorry state.

"My Lord, I don't think the Queen likes this position," she muttered, sending you a pleading look.

Sukuna scoffed, correcting your body on his shoulder. "The Queen acts like a brat, so she will be treated like one"

Uraume nodded before going down the stairs and disappearing somewhere in the deep chambers of the temple.

Thus, it was the two of you again, and Sukuna moved slowly through the dark corridors, with blue flames licking your writhing body. He didn't mind the shouts, the nails scarring his back through the dusky robes till crimson droplets formed under the material and bites that your teeth have left on his shoulders.

In fact, the God of the Dead took a bizarre pleasure in feeling your flaming touch on his skin. Something in his chest swelled whenever your lips travelled to his neck, and it didn't really matter that they left the bloody bites and not the nectar kisses he yearned for.

At some point, you've finally entered the big chamber. The weird warmness crept through the tall windows, bending in heavy, marble arches. Vast plains of the Underworld rolled like waves on the horizon, and you stopped scratching Sukuna's back when the full land came in view.

Beautiful, endless, mesmerising, so different from what you grew up with. With only a pale, blue moon constantly shining upon the lost souls and deep, agonising cries coming from the Tartarus.

Sukuna finally put you down. "That's our chamber," rolled almost proudly, and you looked around the bedroom.

Dark, draped in misty veils, with a huge bed covered with crimson sheets and a baldachin moving together with gentle swooshes of wind. Warm flames have lit the place, with torches and long waxed candles glimmering shyly around the whole chamber.

Just behind the crimson curtain, you've heard the dripping of water and Uraume's hushed voice. So that must've been the bath.

"I will not be sleeping with you in one bed, my God," you barked, but Sukuna seemed not to care at all.

He pushed you towards the balcony, with a heavy hand placed on your lower back. "That's the garden. I made it for you," your chest squeezed. For you. "You can do anything you want with it, of course."

"It's impossible to grow life within your domain," slipped harshly, before your eyes looked up. Crimson moons stared down at you. All the time. "So you kidnapped me to grow you a garden?"

His sharp jaw tightened. "I did it for your own good," he muttered, hand lifting to brush away your hair. "For our good. I want you to be the Queen of the Underworld. My wife," fat thumb kissed you fuming cheek. "My Goddess."

And as much as you wished to stay angry, it felt impossible to hide the special fondness rising in your chest. A mix of hate and curiosity, as it was difficult to imagine why the Lord of the Underworld himself was such a desperate beast to lock you in his clutches.

Your eyes went back to the garden, taking in the withered earth and flowers bending in death.

But then you've noticed something – a tree. Dark, yet looking rather alive, blooming with red, round fruits that looked as if ready to burst.

Pomegranate.

And you, as the Goddess of Spring, knew why it seemed to be the only fruit growing deep within this deathly domain.

Sukuna followed your lidded eyes before a low hum filled the air. "You'll eat it at some point," seeing a sudden shock bathing your face and a slow shake of your head, he added. "Even if I have to force you."

Soon, you would discover that there were many, many other things the God of Death would force upon you, just to keep you within his touch.

And as surprising as it seemed, eating the pomegranate seeds to bind you eternally to the Underworld would be the last.

You didn't say anything, looking at the pomegranate tree with a grim expression ripping your lips. A Spring Goddess you were, and yet the single look of this rich fruit made you want to burn it right here and there.

"My Lord, my Queen, the bath was prepared," Uraume slipped in politely, before once again disappearing into the darkness.

Sukuna came inside, and you followed, passing under his heavy arm as he lifted the curtains between the chamber and bath.

Multiple candles licked dark walls, and the steam curled in the air. The big, marble pool filled with hot water called your name like a madman, and you were ready to tear your dress in half just to dip inside. The air in the Underworld was much, much colder than up in your domain, and after the eventful day, you truly wished for nothing but a simple bath.

And yet, even this was to be wrecked by Sukuna's four hands slipping the misty robes of your shoulders. Your trembling finger caught the dress in front of your chest before it could fall.

"My God, may I know what you are doing?" There was no trace of madness in your tone, only simple weariness and irritation.

His lips curled in a smirk, and if not for both hands gripping your dress, you would surely smack his cheek. You would try at least, as bending your head back to meet his gaze was already difficult enough.

His dark robes hit the floor before you've noticed it, exposing you to the view that – rather unfortunately – made your thighs clench. Massive thighs bulged under muscles, and it seemed clear that he could snap your neck with a single clamp.

But it wasn't the thighs that hit your cheeks with a maddened fever. No, rather two, fat cocks, with shafts so heavy they barely stood straight. Droplets of sticky pearls curled around two pulsing heads, sticking like a net to his pubes. The smooth, reddened skin glimmered under the dimmed flames, and your breath hitched while taking in the inhumane size.

And then your eyes followed up to his belly, mouth grinning mischievously, torso wide as mountains and four arms, just waiting to grab your flimsy body.

Sukuna was… terrifying. Alluring, feral, obscene, but oh so beautiful. With a body worthy of a God and an almost tyrannical aura that clung to him like a second skin. The mortals have feared him, Gods always tried to keep the relations as polite as possible, and yet you somehow found a wisp of fondness coiling in his gaze.

"I'm planning to bathe with my Queen, of course," Sukuna murmured, tilting his head with a cheeky grin. Four crimson eyes burned your skin, and you've never, ever felt as small and helpless as now. "Let me help you with it." Fingers tugged on your dress, trying to slip it down.

You took a step back, gripping the robe even tighter. "My God, I'm fine. But please enlighten me why we should take a bath together?"

He, however, was relentless, and it took a single, harsher tug to let your robes fall down the marble floor. A gasp slipped past your lips as you tried to cover yourself with pathetic moves.

Sukuna lifted your body with a single arm, and soon both of you sat on the little bench carved in a pool.

He took a deep, deep sigh, leaning against the edge. Two muscular arms kept you in place, with your back plastered to his chest and ass brushing against the massive cocks, while the other two started to soap you up.

A shiver ran down your spine, feeling big, yet soft hands smooching your skin in gentle circles. Slowly, tenderly, massaging your shoulders and back, going down, and down, to the swell of your wet breasts.

A quiet, shy moan escaped your feverish cheeks when his thumbs brushed the perked nipples. You wriggled under his touch, as if fighting against itself to give into the warmness beaming from his body and heavy fingers washing your tired skin.

Your hips jerked again when he pinched your nipples, sending a sudden, electrifying wave down your spine.

"My Queen, try to keep yourself in place," he said with a low voice, and only then did you notice that your ass had been bumping against his cocks for this whole time.

You didn't look back, as if in fear that even a single glance could pique Sukuna's curiosity and test the dangerous waters of your patience. "Is it necessary, my God? I can wash myself."

Two hands gripped your hips, quickly turning you towards him.

Your hands rested on his shoulders as he sat you right on his muscular thighs. The water spilt over the pool's marble edge, and crimson eyes stayed fixed on your face. On your slightly parted lips and hair sticking to your cheeks.

His upper arms slipped up to your waist, while the lower ones started to massage your thighs. In slow, gentle circles, dangerously close to the naked pussy that bounced against the fatness of his shafts.

He played a dangerous, oh so dangerous game, but took a maddened satisfaction in observing the changing looks on your face. Anger mixed with delight, as if you wanted to hit him and nuzzle into his touch at the same time.

"What's wrong, my Queen?" he muttered, soaping up your waist. "Why would you wash yourself alone if your husband is here?"

At this point, both of you knew that the bath was a mere, foolish excuse for the Lord of the Underworld to finally enjoy the sight of your naked body. To take a pleasure in feeling your naked skin against his and test his own patience, feeling the warmth of your cunt brushing against his cocks.

His moves were deprived of any sexual manner, and yet your insides burned with the most wicked flame. Your drenched fold were bumping against his cocks, yes, and the fat shaft brushed against your clit, maybe, but even then, he didn't try to push you.

To force himself on you, as if waiting for your consent.

As if he wished you craved him as much as he did you.

But even then, every few seconds, he would move closer. His fingers would brush your trembling nipples, hips move beneath yours, and he would always take in your muffled moans with a sly smile.

"You're not m-my husband," rolled embarrassingly weak, and Sukuna hummed, brushing your lower lip with his thumb.

"Not yet. I'll give you time to make yourself at home," thick digit slipped inside your mouth, and you quickly bite it. Hard, feeling his bones crack under your teeth, although he only smiled. Like a man possessed. "As I was saying, I'll give you a month–"

"And what then?" you mumbled, with lips still curled around his thumb. "What if you won't tame me after a month?"

Pink strands of hair stuck to his wet forehead, and you needed to dig your nails into his chest, not to lift the fingers and brush them away. Four crimson eyes – two big, lidded in slyness and two smaller, curved like a moon – drank in the sight of a sweet little Goddess squirming on his massive body.

"Then I'll force you to love me," spilled calmly, without hesitation. And maddening yearning in his eyes told you that he was ready to do it. That his understanding of love was far from the sweetness and kindness you've known of.

His fingers travelled up, through the breasts, collarbones, and neck, till the second hand joined your face. He cupped your cheeks gently yet lined with restrained violence.

Possessiveness, madness, that filled his flamed eyes.

"Don't test my patience, my Goddess," he murmured softly, pulling your face closer. His lips nearly brushed against yours, and a wave of warmth washed over your body. "Let me love you in my own way, and I promise to make you happy. Within my domain, you can be as free as you desire."

It was difficult not to have your heart flutter upon hearing those words.

He knew how crazy your mother was about you. That you spent most of your life chained to her leg, never leaving the spring domain, never feeling the winds of freedom.

That's why his promise sounded so exhilarating. Wild, absolutely insane, and yet letting you let out a deep sigh. Because finally, after so many years, you were alone.

Without your mother, without the prying eyes of Gods, without the same meadows caging around you like a prison.

Only with a much, much bigger, heavier, and mind-spilling problem, of a God of the Dead who seemed to take a special, wicked interest in you.

Your hands, still trembling on his chest, pushed yourself away. Hips slipped from his cocks, but not before giving two, feverish heads one last brush. As if you wanted to push him over the edge.

He groaned and squinted his eyes. "Where are you going, my Goddess? We're not done yet."

Four hands shoot towards you, fingers trying to catch your slippery body. It curled at the end of his fingertips, teasing him mischievously with full breasts dripping with crystal droplets and soft skin glimmering under the gentle flame of candles.

His cocks moved, eyes tried to take the wholeness of your divine beauty, and yet, after weeks of watching you every single day, he still couldn't believe that a woman of your sort truly walked this earth.

"I am done with you…" your eyes curved cheekily as you slowly moved back. "My God. I agree to a monthly trial–"

"It's not a trial, you'll be staying here forever."

Your back hit the pool's edge, but Sukuna didn't move. Instead, he observed you. Like a predator, preparing for a deadly attack.

"As I said, I do agree. But if you won't manage to persuade me to stay," slipped in a whisper, and you smiled even wider, seeing a furrow creasing his forehead. "I will simply kill myself. Just like Daphne did."

His heart nearly stopped, crimson eyes bloodshot. Before you could escape the pool, two arms yanked you back, pressing your chest against his. He lifted you, wrapping your legs around his waist. Finger gently squeezed your face with a slight pinch, until salty fog blurred your sight.

"My God–" you barely muffled.

"Don't ever," he growled, gripping your cheeks harsher. "Ever say that in front of me again. I will break your legs if I have to. I will tie you up to bed if you force me to," something warm spilt from his belly, and just then, you remembered about his mouth. Heavy tongue took a long, fat drag of your wet cunt, and you cried within his brutal embrace. "You are mine. Every dream of yours, every part of your body, every single laugh, all of it belongs to me."

His grip on your cheeks was too strong to let you shake your head, but light enough to allow another moan to spill from your throat. In sweetness and pain, feeling the teeth of his belly mouth pinch your clit.

"My God–"

"Do you understand me?"

"I-I–ahh," a cry filled the foggy bath, feeling his tongue slurp on your wetness. It felt heavy, girthy, tasting you with a maddened pleasure as if feasting on the honeyed juices dripping down the water.

"Do you understand?" he gritted through his teeth, loosening up his grip on your cheeks. "I don't like to repeat myself."

With another sweet mewl, your head lulled to one side in a nod, and he finally released you from his clutches. You stood right in front of him – wet, trembling, with slippery thighs and cunt already missing the swirling of his tongue on your clit.

His thumb followed down to his belly, gathering traces of your cum. A second later, thick digit found its way to your lips, pushing the stickiness right onto your tongue.

It tasted sweet, almost milky-like, clinging to the muscle like a spider's web while his thumb smeared it all over your insides.

"Tastes delicious, hm? That's what you're keeping away from me," Sukuna groaned, drinking in the sight of your teary face. "I am not a patient man, my Goddess, but my heart belongs to you, and I wish to treat you the best I can," he lifted up your face, creaming your cheeks with the rest of the cum. "But I do warn you, dearest. When the month passes, I won't be holding myself anymore. So you'd better accept this fate and just let me love you."

You didn't nod, didn't even blink. Just observed his devilishly handsome face with teary, wrecked eyes beaming with fury.

You tried to snap back, but his thumb pushed harder on your tongue. "Uraume," he called, looking somewhere over your shoulder. "Take the Queen back to our chamber. I think she's a bit tired."

Light, white robes curled around your shoulder, before Uraume gently pulled you away from Sukuna's clutches. "My Queen, allow me to–"

You shook off her hand, wiping the rest of your cum from your cheek. "Thank you, I know how to tuck myself to sleep."

And so you left your future husband alone, with rage and ecstasy still mixing beneath your chest.

⛥ ⛥ ⛥

The next few weeks passed with silence and tension binding the Goddess of Spring and the God of the Dead like a thin thread of fate. Only the three sisters were able to cut it swiftly and release you from the torment, and yet no one ever came to save the poor petal.

The first few days you spent mostly in the garden, lying under the pomegranate tree and observing the darkness blanketing the sky. The withered plains of the Underworld have never been touched by sunlight, and the lack of it started to bother you too.

There was no way to tell day from night, as the air was always slightly cold and the sky never turned any colour other than dark blue. Sometimes a sudden fog has risen over the horizon, curling above the parched trees.

The agonising screams from Tartarus could be heard over from your balcony, although after complaining to Sukuna about your lack of sleep, they somehow quieted down. You didn't pry into his methods, nor did you need to exactly know how he accomplished it.

It was difficult to grow anything in the garden, and after days of trying, you finally gave up. Well, not entirely, for you spent more and more days trying to think of a plant that would not need sun nor much water to bloom and if Sukuna could let you out even for a few days, surely you could find something.

He, however, was fully relentless at your begging as there was nothing binding you to the Underworld. Yet.

Fresh pomegranates whispered sweet sins to your ears as you looked at the round fruits bursting with crimson seeds. You wondered what they tasted like. How pristine their juices were.

Sometimes your finger would trace their hard skin with delicacy and quickly pull away, feeling Sukuna's heavy gaze drilling the hole in the back of your skull.

He seemed to always have you in his sight. It didn't really matter whether you strolled around the garden or went deeper into his domain – he was always there. Somewhere, lurking at your misty figure, the only colourful thing in his vast world, even if you didn't see him.

For the first few days, you didn't talk at all. And he was oh so angry with your nasty mood swings, even though it seemed he truly tried to be on his best behaviour.

For a while, you even refused to sleep in the same bed. He would wake up in the middle of the night only to find you cuddled into Cerberus's massive, soft body, snoring like a little baby and nuzzled under his heavy neck.

The beastly dog quickly became your favourite creature in the whole domain, and Sukuna couldn't count the times when you strolled with it through the dark plains and meadows, giggling sweetly whenever it rolled in withered grass.

It seemed the beast was particularly fond of and protective of you, so that even the God of Death himself could not approach you without the beast's shiny, sharp teeth growling his way. Crimson eyes observed him carefully, as if ready to rip his heart out if his lone finger brushed your silky skin.

And whenever Sukuna reminded you that Cerberus also had his role in the Underworld, the loveliest pout would twist your lips, and a dog's low growl would slash through the air.

And because Sukuna was softhearted only for you, he didn't have another choice but to allow you to adopt Cerberus as your own, exclusive pet.

But he absolutely couldn't stand waking up to the coldness wrapping around his body, and thus, for the first few days, in the middle of the night, he would travel all the way to Cerberus's cave only to take his Goddess back.

"Where is she?" the God would growl, with all four arms folded on his chest and eyes lidded with sleep. "Give her back, she'll come back to you in the morning anyway."

And the dog would usually ignore him, with three massive heads pretending to be plagued by a heavy slumber. Sukuna would sigh and slip a soft plea, trying to resonate with a beast he raised himself.

Three pairs of bloodshot eyes would glare at him deathly, but after a few quite embarrassing and yet desperate pleadings, the dog would lift his head up, only to reveal your peacefully slipping body. Curled against his fluffy neck, with fingers gripping the soft fur and shallow, peaceful breaths coming from your parted drooling lips.

Sukuna would lift you up with utmost care and bring you back to your chamber, wrapping himself around your body with all six limbs.

When the "morning" came, he was always the first one to slip from the bed. But not before getting himself untangled from your body. Lying serenely on his broad chest, with a drool pooling right above his heart and soft strands of your hair tickling his chin.

It was his most favourite sight during that month, and the only chance to see your face without a pout or crease forming on your lovely forehead. No matter how hard he tried, he still couldn't get close to you as much as he wished to.

But at least, after the few weeks of constantly going back and forth between your chamber and Cerberus's cave, you finally stopped escaping from his clutches and slept in his embrace for a whole night.

Moreover, during those weeks spent in each other's presence, you seemed to enjoy nothing more than pissing the God of the Dead off.

During one eventful night that both he and Uraume would recall in the future with a painful headache, you sat quietly at the long table. The wooden furniture bent under the heavy supper, with meats, fruits and vegetables prepared in feast portions.

Sukuna loved to see your cheeks stuffed full, and sometimes you would even joke that he tried to fatten you up only to eat you for dessert. He chuckled lowly, every time answering that if only you spread those thighs nicely, my Goddess, I would gladly eat you for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

An embarrassed, nasty slip from your lips, as you tried to ignore the warmth blooming in your lower belly.

One evening, however, Uraume interrupted your supper with a heavy panting and trembling gaze.

"My Lord, my Queen," she said, taking a few deep breaths. "Forgive me for the intrusion, but something deeply concerning has occurred."

"What is it?" Sukuna mumbled, not even looking her way. Instead, he poured you another cup of wine, while you tried to hide your flushed cheeks behind a curtain of hair.

Oh, you were so, so fucked.

"All the souls lingering on the river's banks have entered the Underworld."

Sukuna suddenly stopped and put the jug of wine back on the table with a loud thud. "What?!"

Both you and Uraume shrugged.

"Charon took them all," she said, glimpsing your way.

You, however, looked down at your plate, as if trying to completely erase yourself from this conversation.

"All of them were buried with a coin? How is it possible?" Sukuna growled.

Uraume took a deep sigh, with deep, sorry eyes still lingering on your hunched figure. "He said that…" She hesitated, biting down on her lower lip. "The Queen ordered to let them in."

Fuck.

The air suddenly stilled, and a moment passed before Sukuna's crimson, angry eyes looked your way. But it's not like you could see the rage blazing in his gaze, as you still carefully observed the fresh fig lying on your plate.

The fact that he somehow got delivered all your favourite, fresh fruits down to the Underworld was truly–

"Do you want to tell me something, my Queen?" he asked with utmost politeness, although you sensed the displeasure bubbling in his throat.

"No, not really," you murmured, playing with a juicy fruit.

He took a deep sigh, curling all four of his hands into fists. A soft vein popped on his forehead as he truly, really tried to keep himself calm.

"I will ask you again," slipped softly, before his two hands pulled your chair closer to him. Your thighs brushed against each other, and his fingers lifted your chin up. Till you were forced to meet his heavy, bloody gaze. "Is there anything you wish to tell me?

Oh, lying to him like that was much, much harder.

"Listen," you started, and he already sighed. "I don't see any problem with it. Why would you keep them there if Charon can just take them all to the Underworld? Isn't that the whole point of your domain?"

His fingers tightened on your chin because, dear-fucking-heavens, he really struggled to hold it together. Four bloodshot eyes looked down at your pouty lips and doe eyes, as if your pure loveliness could melt his anger.

Well, it usually could.

"They cannot enter Hades if they do not get buried with a coin. That's the rule all of them must obey," rolled harshly, and your pout became even sweeter. Fuck. "How did you even force Charon to do it? This old man is stubborn as hell."

You nestled into his palm, attempting to ease his heart with a gentle, pleading look. "It turns out most of the creatures here are quite afraid of Cerberus," you giggled, even though Sukuna was clearly unhappy. "Um, and they’re also afraid of you. The threat of reporting to the Lord of the Underworld himself tends to work quite effectively."

Sukuna pulled away with a heavy groan and started massaging his temples. One side of him was rather happy that, after weeks of fighting, you decided to use both your title and him to get what you wanted. But the other wanted to curl his fingers around your neck and snap it clean, for the mess you have caused with your need to piss him off.

He closed his eyes, taking a few deep breaths. "Why did you do it?"

"They looked sad."

His crimson gaze once again snapped to your face. "Sad? The souls?"

You nodded. "Well, all of them wanted to enter Hades so–"

"My Goddess, you can't do such a thing!" Uraume cried, looking out the tall window as if all those souls were travelling up Hades' temple.

"Why? I thought I was the Queen of the Underworld." A cheeky smile curved your lips, and Sukuna almost lost it. "I can do whatever I want. Your own words, my God."

Well, he did tell you that from now on, this domain was under both his and your control, but his mind ran far too short to predict that you, in fact, wouldn't know the most basic rules of this land.

And thus, he could only swallow his rage and look back at Uraume. "Catch them all and bring them back to the shore. Also, tell Charon that from now on he's forbidden from listening to the Queen's orders."

You scoffed, crossing arms on your chest. "I'm just going to set Cerberus on him."

"Right," Sukuna growled, sending you a short, angry look. "And also chain the dog to his cave. This beast has forgotten who his real master is."

You could forgive him mistreating the poor souls and Charon, but a line had to be drawn regarding your beloved dog.

Your fingers grabbed his forearm, eyes bulging in worry. "Wait! Leave Cerberus out of this," Sukuna looked at your nails digging into his skin and a jittery gaze. "I'm sorry, okay? Just…" There was a thread linking you both – dangerously thin, leading to an emotion your relationship hasn't yet discovered. Forgiveness. "Please don't hurt him. It's my fault. Cerberus listens to everything I say, he's just a silly dog. So let him be. If there's someone who should be punished, it's me."

Sukuna didn't say anything for a while, staring at your pleading eyes with a furrowed brow. A storm of feelings coiled in his head, and you noticed his gaze soften slightly. He often acted like a brute, of course, but you believed that somewhere, deep, deep beneath his chest, there was still a man who placed the little birds that had fallen from the trees back in their nests.

"Fine," he finally muttered and oh, how shocked he was when you chuckled and wrapped yourself around his neck. For a moment, he sat frozen in place, but soon all four arms curled around you, as he inhaled the sweetness coating your skin.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you!"

Uraume looked away to hide a little smile tugging on her lips, as it was a long, long time since she had seen the God of the Dead blushing like a virgin nymph.

Sukuna coughed, sending her a deadly gaze. "But I still believe that you and Cerberus could use some time away from each other. I'm tired of raising two brats at the same time," he mumbled, and you giggled into his neck.

"Well, my God, try to suggest it to him, and we'll see what happens," you pulled away, with hands still wrapped around his neck. "I'm afraid your beast found himself a new owner."

And so, since that evening, a little, hopeful grain started to bloom in Sukuna's heart.

As it seemed that his lovely Goddess had finally begun to warm to him. During the evening baths, you chirped into his ear like a fair birdie, sometimes even washing his muscular back and massaging his always-creased forehead.

At night, your body instinctively nuzzled into his. Legs wrapped around him tightly, hands curled around his arms, and a slightly wet cheek left a small puddle of saliva on his chest. He always beamed with warmth, and you, like a cat, used his body as a heater.

During the shared breakfast, you kept talking while he fed you the sweetest, juiciest fruits. What's more, your roles would shift, with your fingers occasionally placing a piece of orange onto his lips – sometimes upper, sometimes lower.

Whenever you stole a few apples for Cerberus, as he's tired of eating raw meat, he would only scoff and wave his hand. The beast has been living on meat and water for thousands of years, and yet, a few weeks after your appearance, he suddenly developed a lavish taste for fruits picked only by you.

On some afternoons, when Sukuna would nap under the pomegranate tree, you would creep to his side. Carefully place his head on your thighs and hum a lovely melody, just like you did back then in a forest. He would always try to stay as still as possible, just to prolong those precious moments – your fingers brushing through his hair and flowery fragrance coating his skin.

One special afternoon, your hum was interrupted by something else.

Something… alive.

The high trilling of crickets, soft chirping of birds and muffled croaks of the frogs, coming from the little pond Sukuna has built up for you.

Your fingers suddenly stopped in their tracks, and the God coughed quietly, wriggling under your touch. Like a dog, begging for more pats.

"How is it possible?" you asked, looking down at his "sleeping" face.

There was a minute of silence before he slowly, carefully opened his eyes and sighed heavily, meeting your solemn gaze. "The animals also need to enter Hades. Just on different rules," His eyes fell on something crawling up your hand. "Look there."

And to your surprise, you've noticed a grasshopper sitting serenely on your skin. It wasn't as lush and green as you remembered it to be, but misty, almost like a cloud, with only his foggy soul still crawling up your arm.

And then you've noticed birds sitting high up on the pomegranate tree, with their little wings looking like a shadow.

Something heavy formed in your throat and heart stirred with affection. "You brought them for me?"

Sukuna hummed, closing his eyes and gently placing your hand back on his head. "You can say that. Most of them were already here. I simply ordered to be bring them to our garden."

Your fingers started working through his hair again – scratching and massaging his head, till the beastly God stretched on your thighs like a cat and nuzzled into the softness of your belly.

You didn't push him away but rather giggled and whispered a sweet thank you. A little smile tugged on Sukuna's lips, and he purred softly my pleasure, Goddess.

And thus, for the first time in your life, you have felt free.

With Underworld's woeful air smooching your cheeks and shadowy animals following you around the withered plains.

You have never felt more alive than in the realm of the dead.

That's why when Sukuna called you into the main hall one day, your heart froze. With dread and fear, upon seeing your furious mother standing right next to him by the altar.

The altar, decorated with your small marble figures and fresh flowers, he ordered to be changed daily since no plant in the Underworld could survive longer than a day.

Your fingers curled in fists, lips fell in line, and somehow, even though you loved her dearly, you simply couldn't take a step closer.

Sukuna stood still, with four arms crossed on his chest and eyes looking carefully at your trembling body. As if he could read all the thoughts coiling beneath your furrowed brows.

"My darling, oh Gods," she sighed, crossing the distance between you two in a few steps. Before you knew it, she pulled you into a hug, although your arms hung loosely by your sides. "I thought I'd lost you forever. Can you believe that I needed to threaten Zeus himself to finally find you?"

She pulled away and grabbed your cheeks, only to meticulously ogle your face. "Oh my, you're so pale! This place did you no good, but at least you're fine. This brute…" she looked over her shoulder, glancing at Sukuna's stony face. "My heart almost stopped upon hearing that he was the one who kidnapped you. Did he touch you? Are you okay? Did he, you know, force you to–"

"Mom," you quickly interrupted her and wriggled yourself out of her embrace. "Why are you here?"

She looked dumbfounded – with warm eyes bulging in shock and lips slightly falling open. When you stepped back, her forehead creased.

"I came to take you back, of course."

A gentle sigh echoed through the vast temple hall as you glanced over her shoulder. Somewhere nearby, a man was attentively listening to you, with a heart pounding loudly in his throat. Filled with fear, anticipation, hope.

Sukuna rarely looked at you with that gaze – filled with love and dread, as if he understood that neither anyone else nor he himself was truly worthy of your heart. He scarcely ever seemed so weak and afraid, as if his mind, soul, heart were fully, completely wrapped around your finger.

And thus now, after so many of his threats, you could make a choice.

To stay here, with him, or go back to your mother.

"Let's go, darling, I'm getting nauseous just from being here," she tried to grab your hand, but, once again, you stepped away.

"I'm not going back," slipped in a whisper. "I can't go back."

She looked shocked, and her lips curved in a nervous smile. "What do you mean, you can't?"

"I'm bound to the Underworld."

Lie.

But oh, how good it felt in your heart, lifting the weight of all the mixed emotions you've buried over the past few days.

"Bound? What do you–" she started, and then, as if suddenly enlightened, gasped. A sharp cry escaped her throat, and her eyes looked back at Sukuna with a frightened, intense gaze. "You! You forced her to eat the seeds!"

Before she could step closer and smack his cheek with an open palm, you grabbed her. "No, mom. I did it myself."

She stopped, turning back your way. With disappointment filling her eyes and trembling lips. "You did what?"

"I love him."

And that, well, that was a confession no one expected. Not you, mother, and particularly not Sukuna. His breath hitched, eyes bulged, and he almost, almost took a step closer.

As his heart, mind, and soul were consumed by a desire to hold you and caress you yearningly until your lips swell from the sweetness of the kiss.

Your mother quickly interrupted, holding your cheeks. "You don't. Don't say it. You don't love him. He's a beast who manipulated your mind, love has no place here. Don't act foolishly, that's not how I raised you."

Your heart shuddered in wretchedness upon her words. As you knew how much she hated all the Gods. How hard she tried to keep this sweet, yet so foreign feeling away from you, as if the little seed growing in your heart was something shameful.

Crystal droplets trickled down your cheeks, wetting her pads. "But I do, mother. And I will stay here, with him. That's my home now."

There was no need to listen to her further. Sliding her trembling hands from your cheeks, you turned and quickly disappeared into the comforting darkness of a temple you used to hate that much.

Her low pleadings filled the main hall, but you could only ignore them. Seeing her again, after a whole month, brought dreadful memories of years spent in her golden cage.

You entered the chamber and sat down on a plush bed. Your hands still slightly wet from nervousness, eyes taking in the cosiness and warmth of the bedroom you shared with… him. Candles licked your skin sweetly, and moon lurked through misty curtains.

Even the usual shrieks coming from Tartarus were mild that evening, allowing you to enjoy the little crickets slipping from the garden.

Cerberus barked somewhere deep within your domain, and a smile tugged at the corners of your lips. You were on your way to give him his daily dose of apples when your mother suddenly appeared.

You sat on a bed, hunched and frozen, not noticing a massive shadow that swooshed closer. Dark robes appeared in front of your feet, and soon a heavy, musky fragrance followed.

"My Queen," Sukuna started, not quite sure what to say. A silence has fallen – pleasant, warm, homey. He sighed and crouched to meet your gaze. "Are you okay?"

Only then did he notice crystal droplets still dripping down your cheeks. "My Goddess, why are you crying?"

"Don't allow her to take me," slipped in a crying whisper, before a muffled choke followed. His big hands gripped yours, trying to stop the trembling. "Please, let me stay here."

His fingers lifted to gently cup your face. "What are you talking about? Of course, I won't let you go," crimson eyes softened as a large thumb brushed your lower lip. "Have you forgotten my words? You're never leaving my side."

"Never?"

He shook his head. "Never. I will stand against all of Olympus if that's the price of loving you."

Another sharp cry rolled from your lips as you nuzzled into his hand.

He changed your positions, sitting on the bed and letting you climb onto his thighs, only to push your crying face into his neck. Four hands embraced you before he began to cradle you like a baby.

With soft whispers and kisses placed on your forehead.

When the first shock rolled away and the tears finally stopped, you pulled back. With swollen lips and puffy cheeks, that made Sukuna's heart swell with fondness.

His tongue lapped up the last salty droplets before big palms cupped your hips. "You'll stay here, with me," plush lips peppered your cheeks, nose, and the slightly trembling chin. "And you'll let me love and worship you as you deserve," his hands rolled your hips against his, drawing a moan from your throat. "No one will take you away from me. Not now, not ever."

Your arms wrapped around his neck, back bent in a delicate arch. You looked at him with a plea, taking in the divine beauty of his beastly face. "What if Zeus himself comes for me?"

His lips were barely brushing against yours, and a woody, heavy smell of his body tickled your heart. "I'll kill him. My Goddess, you truly underestimate me. I will move heaven and earth to keep you by my side."

And then, with a last longing gaze connecting your starving souls, your lips have finally crashed.

In a slow, gentle, yet raw kiss, with his teeth biting down on your lower lip and throat swallowing all your sugary moans.

All four hands quickly found their way around your body – caressing, holding, gripping the swell of your ass and moving your hips in harsher rolls.

Misty robe hanging on your shoulders slipped down with a gentle tug, and soon his two upper hands lifted to cup your breasts.

The softness of your skin made Sukuna's mind spin, and a craving to sink himself into your warm cunt felt almost maddening. His cocks, still clothed by a dark tunic, brushed against your folds and the sweetest, purest moan rolled right into his lips.

"Feed me, my God," you murmured, pulling away slightly. "Feed me the pomegranate seeds and tie me to the Underworld. To you."

Of course, you lied to your mother.

And Sukuna knew it too. He observed you for a whole day and night, never leaving your giggles out of his sight, and thus he was aware of your little, desperate lie.

What he hoped for, however, was that your confession was sincere.

Tasting the sweetness of your lips, he realised how truly doomed he was – completely entangled with the scent of your skin and the beauty of your eyes. His heart skipped a beat when your fingers pulled his pink hair, causing his hips to buck instinctively, seeking the intense pleasure.

You pushed his chest, forcing his massive body to lie down on the mattress. "Feed me, and I shall let you have a taste too."

Your lips met his cheeks, jaw, and dropped down through the bulging throat and collarbones, while fingers slipped from the dark robes. He wore nothing beneath the long tunic, and soon your lips curled around his nipple, biting it softly with a hum.

Two upper arms swiftly pulled you up to his face, while the lower ones still held your bare hips. "What will you let me taste, my Goddess?"

A cheeky smirk tugged on your lips as you placed your leaking cunt right over his open belly mouth. "Your favourite fruit, my God."

With a loud moan, you lowered down onto its tongue, feeling the heavy muscles giving you a long, nasty lick. A shudder washed over your spine, and Sukuna drank the next cry that escaped your throat.

"You taste even better than I remembered, my Goddess," he groaned, feeling the saccharine droplets coat his lower tongue. Sticking to his teeth and inner cheeks like the sweetest honey. "But I have a much better idea."

And with that, you quickly found yourself facing his massive cocks and hovering over his face. Your puffy, drenched folds hang right above his lips, and he looked at your dripping cunt with a low groan.

"Fuck, my Goddess," two fingers parted your folds, only for a small, sticky droplet to drip down his chin. "You smell so fucking good, lower yourself a bit."

He didn't wait for your answer as two big hands pulled your hips down with a single, strong move. A groan slipped past his lips and went straight to your cunt, sending a wave of trembling pleasure straight to your clit.

"That's right, my sweet fucking Goddess," he mumbled, lips curving under the weight of your hips. "Don't be shy, get yourself comfortable."

"I-I'm not shy," and if not for a heat that slapped your cheeks, he maybe would believe you.

But your body was too honest, too inexperienced to hide the way your hips rolled against his tongue. Another pitched moan filled the foggy air when his tongue slipped inside your tight cunt.

His lower hands landed on your back and slowly, slowly bent you down. Till your wet lips met with two, pulsing heads and breasts hang right over the belly mouth.

Oh, he was right, this position was absolutely killing… both of you.

Because the moment big, beastly lips curled around your nipple, your hips buckled, and a sweet moan tickled both leaking heads.

"Nghhh," bounced sweetly off his veiny shafts. "That's–mhmm, my God, feels so good."

Sukuna chuckled, slurping on your swollen clit and pushing another cry from your chest. "Give them a little lick, my Queen. They've been waiting for you whole fucking month."

With a hazy gaze, you glanced at two fat cocks smooching your cheeks. Wet and massive, with droplets of musky precum oozing down the pulsing skin and a strong fragrance making you even wetter. He smelled so heavy, manly, and the moment you gave the first cock a kitty lick, Sukuna groaned straight into your clit.

Your hand grabbed the other one and started pumping it in slow, gentle moves, with your thumb brushing the reddened head. Belly mouth sucked on your breasts as if waiting for something more creamy to release itself onto his ravaging tongue, and you cried even louder whenever the wet tongue travelled between both of your nipples.

"How is it possible, fuck," Sukuna groaned, scooping a hefty gush of your cum and drinking it straight from your fluttering hole. "That you're so sweet everywhere. My beautiful, divine Goddess. Come on, try to suffocate me with your cunt. Put your whole weight into it."

With your cheek stuffed full of his cock, you pulled away with a nasty pop and looked over your shoulder. "My God, please take a deep breath," you reminded, because Sukuna seemed to be absolutely lost between your drenched thighs.

With a single finger thrusting into your tight hole and an open mouth catching all the dripping sap. His teeth grazed your clit, before a warm tongue kissed the pain away. He slurped like a madman, whispering little obscenities straight into your pussy and kissing her with nasty squelches. Gluey cum stuck to his nose, lips and chin, connecting him with your parted folds.

"I can't, I don't have to, she needs me," he groaned, giving you another heavy lick. With tongue covering the entirety of your cunt and finger pushing through your pulsing walls. "So sweet, my Goddess, you're so fucking delicious."

Oh, there was truly no remedy for him!

And thus you went back to his pulsing, almost bursting shafts. Your puffy lips kissed two heads before sucking on one gently. Fingers squeezed his constricting balls, juggling them softly and giving them a shy lick.

Sukuna trembled under your body, so you did it again, and again, and again, kissing, licking and sucking on his balls, while rolling your hips against his tongue.

"My God, are you okay?" you slipped shyly, although a cheekiness shimmered in your haze.

Sukuna pulled away from your cunt, and took a deep breath. "Don't ask me stupid questions, my Goddess. My patience is already hanging by a thread, so unless you want me to fold in half and fuck that cunt raw, you better shut that pretty mouth of yours."

You giggled, biting gently down on his balls. "I'll take that as a ye–ah!" you moaned, when the second finger slipped into your tight cunt. "My G-God, that's too–"

Too much wanted to roll, but Sukuna soon added the third . "You're so tight, my Goddess. I'm afraid both of them won't fit in," he slurped, feeling the desperate squeezes of your walls and juices trickling down his fingers.

Both?

An unsettling, truly frightening thought has crossed your mind. He could tear you apart with one, and using two seemed to be a completely foolish idea!

When his pads pushed something, slightly swollen and plush, your whole body shuddered. Pleasure washed over your spine, dripping down to curled feet, and a sugary moan wrapped around his leaking cock.

"There it is," Sukuna growled, looking at your raw, soaked pussy trying to mould itself around his fingers. "My Queen, you're doing so well. Squeezing my fingers so tight, I can't wait to feel you wrapped around my cocks."

The weird warmth has been coiling in your belly since his lips landed on your clit. But now, with fingers pushing your walls and pads brushing against the plump spot, something warmer, wetter started to plash inside your pouch. Something dangerously pleasurable and ready to burst beneath Sukuna's tongue and his big, stomach mouth sucking sweetly on your tits.

"My G-God, I–" you moaned, when all of his three fingers bent against the sweet spot and lips slurped on your clit. "I'm going to, mhmm, allow me to cum on your cocks, p-please."

And a single teary look over your shoulder, with hair sticking to your wet cheeks and lips fallen open, was enough to make him lose his mind.

"Whatever you wish, my Queen," he said, quickly pulling you away from his mouth.

Your body turned again, and this time you found yourself back on top, with two massive cocks squirming beneath your drooling folds and his lower hands gripping your thighs.

"You want me to…?"

He nodded, gently pulling your hips up, to help his leaking heads kiss your fluttering hole. "Ride me, my Queen. I want to watch you take it up…" his fingers traced the softness of your belly, before pushing on a spot somewhere just beneath your button. "here. Both of them."

Your pussy was ready to burst any second, and you could already feel something else, other than your normal wetness, drip down his cocks. The fog in your mind grew thicker, sweat coolly lined your neck, as you pressed both hands against his chest and leaned on trembling, feeble arms.

Rough thumb from the upper arm slipped between your folds, rolling gently the puffy clit. "Slowly, my Queen, take a deep breath." You did just that, with eyes looking straight into his. Both heads started forcing their way through your tight walls, gathering the slippery juices on the way. "That's it, that's my good girl, deep breaths."

He talked you through it, with thumb rubbing the sweet button and lower hands slowly, slowly, pulling you down his shafts.

A sharp cry rolled past your lips when both heads slipped inside. Pushing into your contracting walls and ripping you open, till the metallic taste of blood pooled somewhere at the back of your throat.

The water plopping inside your belly was filling you full, together with Sukuna's cocks constantly trying to thrust inside. You could feel every vein, every detailed curve of his shafts lick your gummy insides, as he pushed, and pushed, and took in the maddening beauty of your face, utterly lost in pleasure.

Your pussy squelched around his monstrous cocks. Cried sweetly, with a clit slowly getting much harsher rubs, till the swollen button started to tremble.

"My God, w-wait, something's wrong," you cried, trying to pull yourself off.

But Sukuna's lower hands kept you in place, and his hips bucked up, trying to meet yours. "Everything's good, my Queen. Deep breaths, you're doing so well."

"No, you don't get it, I–"

The heat hit your cheeks, walls clamped down half-thrust, and the alarmingly plopping water, finally, finally, spilt.

You came.

Or maybe, gushed.

With his cocks barely inside, a hefty wave rolled through your spine, spraying Sukuna's hands, belly, and chest with your cum. Your body trembled in pleasure, and he used this short moment of distraction to thrust his cocks fully, till your hips finally met his.

It was brutal, mean, absolutely filthy, with his lower mouth drinking your squirt and crimson eyes glimmering with maddening yearning.

Something in his mind snapped when he noticed a big bulge right under your belly button, and within a second, your position changed once again.

And this time, you knew that it was over.

He folded you in half, till your ass peeled off the drenched bed, and pussy glistened under his fiery gaze. All four arms kept you tightly in place, with lower limbs spreading your soaked thighs and upper ones taking something from the bedside table.

Only then have you noticed a crimson, bursting pomegranate, licked by the candle's warm tongues and dripping down Sukuna's forearm. He ripped it in half with a single, gentle move, before drinking the seeds with eyes never leaving yours.

"Deep breath, my Goddess," he said again, before both of his cocks rammed into your needy, stretched hole and lips crushed against yours. "Swallow it," he muttered into your reddened teeth, pushing all the pomegranate seeds straight into your mouth. "My little slutty Queen. Coming on my cocks when I barely thrusted in."

The fruit tasted sweeter than honey itself and mixed with Sukuna's sweet spin. His tongue trailed against yours, before lips moved towards your cheeks, chin, jaw, leaving all over your face a sweet, bloody trace of the fruit.

The power that tied your body, heart and soul to the God who wished for nothing but to love you like a madman and worship every piece of your skin.

His thrusts became more erratic, brutal, with squelches filling the wet, foggy air and his heavy, massive body leaning on your folded legs. His hips met yours with each roll, and whenever he pulled away, a long, sticky strand stretched between his soaked shafts and your sensitive cunt.

"Open up, my Queen," he growled, digging his fingers into your jaw. "Show me how well you swallowed it all."

Your lips fell open, and a string of drool trickled down his fingers. Big thumb pushed on your reddened tongue, and you sucked it sweetly, with eyes crossing in pleasure.

The long, fat tongue of his lower mouth slid out and gave your clit a long, filthy lick, before its lips sucked on it raw. Irritating the sensitive button and slurping on the last droplets of your squirt. Sukuna groaned, feeling your walls clamping around his cocks and pushed harsher, as if trying to fight the merciless squeeze.

"Fuck, my Goddess, let me–ahh–let get to your womb," he groaned, giving you a single, brutal thrust. You cried around his thumb, but he simply shushed you sweetly. "Don't cry, it's alright. Ngh, squeezing me so fucking hard," he leaned over, licking off the salty droplets.

His hips moved with unbelievably violent motion, rocking your bed against the wall and drawing a loud cry from your throat. Two pulsing heads kissed your womb with squelches till it swelled like a juicy peach and bent under his heartless thrusts.

A familiar warmth once again started to pool in your belly. Your arms curled behind Sukuna's neck, pulling him into another, filthy kiss. "My God, I'm g-gonna… soon… mhmm so good, s-so–ahh!"

He chuckled against your lips, but couldn't ignore the lovely tenderness filling your teary eyes. His heart jumped, and lower hands folded you into an even meaner mating press. Till you could barely breathe under his massive body, squeezing you down.

"Say it," he whispered, letting his cocks rip you raw. "Say it again."

Two fat shafts slipped in and out, smooching every little corner of your tired, swollen cunt. The pleasure filled you from head to toe, overflowing your body in electrifying strokes.

You knew what he wanted to hear. But his thrusts made a mushy mess out of your mind and eyes rolled back each time his hand pushed the bulge forming under your belly. Not even pregnancy could get you that bloated.

When your head lulled to the side, his fingers dug into your cheeks again, forcing you to look into his eyes. "Say it, my Goddess," he said, licking the last red traces of pomegranate juice from the corner of your lips. "I beg you."

"I love you," slipped like a dream. "I–I, mhmm, I love you. My God, I–"

His lips joined yours in a yearning, maddened kiss. "Fuck, my sweet Goddess. I love you so much, so fucking–fuck."

The warmth in your belly spilt again, and watery cum flooded his abdomen. The belly mouth sucked itself onto your clit, drinking each and every bead of your sweet nectar.

A second later, his hips finally stilled. Pulsing heads nuzzled into your womb, filling it with heavy, gluey cum. He pumped you full, with maddened pleasure creasing his forehead and knees digging into the mattress. Everything, just to get as close to you as possible.

His hefty cum filled your belly before bursting outside and buttering your folds.

"My God, at this point, mhmm, you'll knock me up," a sweet, tired giggle slipped past your lips, feeling his seed overflowing your poor womb. "Although I truly wouldn't mind."

He sighed, nuzzling warmly into the crook of your neck. The plushiness of your skin still made his mind spin, and the flowery fragrance haunted him like a spirit. "My Goddess, don't play with fire."

Your fingers brushed through his hair, pulling a low hum from his massive chest. "I'm not afraid to get burned," you said with full seriousness.

But God didn't answer. Just cuddled closer to your body – plush breasts, soft neck, and hair tickling his nose. He reminded you of Cerberus whenever the beast tried to cuddle into your side.

And with the same love and fondness, you kissed his temple, whispering simple yet oh so important, I'm yours, forever.

Forever it truly was for you, as no other couple on Olympus would ever conquer the utter devotion and love of the Goddess of Spring and the Lord of the Underworld.

Such contrary characters and yet relishing themselves in the most maddening obsession the Olympus has ever seen.

©liahcharms all rights reserved. Do not copy, plagiarise, feed AI, translate or modify my works.

Oh god, I'm tired but so, so happy. I think it's pretty good, but please let me know your thoughts in the comments <3 Pray forgive me for any mistakes, the wizard was proofreading it at 11 p.m.

Collection taglist: @silverklaus @buttclencher28 @anothergojostan @sirensdairy @waterisntwetanymoreiam @somekindofcelebrity @prome911 @iridescentshine @venussdovess @classycreationlight @bokenessa @sashabearsstuff @gater-grabber96 @venetiandream @luvducks19 @koreluvsspring @moonlight-inthe-sea @hashahasha @mysicnote @sukunasl-ttywh0re @princesstiti14 @kissthegoatt @chosoismyeverthing @getospuresoul @ane5e

This was the nth time. The nth damn time since you’d moved in six months ago. With a sharp exhale, you shoved your chair back and stormed out of your apartment, not even bothering to change out of your oversized hoodie and sweatpants. The hallway reeked of spilled beer and expensive cologne.

You could already hear the chaos before you even reached his door. Laughter, glasses clinking, some girl’s high pitched giggle cutting through the music.

You banged on the door harder than necessary. It took a few seconds before someone inside yelled over the noise, “Yoo Heeseung! Someone’s banging at your front door!”The door finally swung open.

Heeseung stood there in all his infuriating glory tall, broad shouldered, black hair slightly tousled like he’d been running his hands through it. His button up was half undone, revealing a silver chain that rested on his collarbones and a glimpse of toned chest. Behind him, the party pulsed with red solo cups, dim lights, and at least half the basketball team.

A pretty girl with long hair and a tight dress was pressed close to his side, her hand resting possessively on his arm. He’d clearly been in the middle of charming her into his bed by the end of the night.

The second his dark eyes landed on you, that signature cocky smirk curved his lips.“Hi, miss morals,” he drawled, voice low and teasing, like he’d been waiting for this exact interruption.

You rolled your eyes so hard it was a miracle they didn’t get stuck. “Can you turn it down? The music is too loud.”

Heeseung didn’t move. Instead, he leaned one shoulder against the doorframe, crossing his arms in a way that made his biceps strain against the fabric of his shirt. The girl behind him shifted, clearly annoyed at the sudden attention shift, but Heeseung didn’t spare her a glance now.

“Miss morals strikes again,” he laughed, the sound rich and mocking. It sent an unwelcome spark of irritation down your spine. “What’s the problem this time, neighbor? Come to bless us with your righteous presence?”

“I’m serious, Heeseung,” you said, voice sharp as you folded your arms tightly across your chest. “Not everyone has the pleasure of partying all night. Others have to actually study to pass their exams whereas others can just have daddy pay for everything when they fuck up.”The words hung in the air between you.

Heeseung’s smirk faltered instantly. His jaw tightened, and he sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth. For a split second, something raw annoyance, maybe even hurt flashed across his face before he quickly shoved it back into that indifferent mask. His eyes darkened, the playful glint gone.

“Whatever,” he muttered, voice suddenly flat and cold. “I’ll lower the volume.”He said, “Thank you,” you replied curtly, refusing to let the small victory show on your face even though your heart was hammering.

Heeseung didn’t say anything else. He simply stepped back and shut the door right in your face with a firm click that echoed down the empty hallway.

You stood there for a moment, staring at the closed wooden door, fists clenched at your sides. The music inside dropped almost immediately, not completely off, but low enough that you could finally breathe. Muffled laughter and voices still filtered through, but at least your walls wouldn’t shake anymore.

“Asshole,” you whispered under your breath, turning on your heel and heading back to your apartment.As you closed your own door behind you, you leaned against it for a second, eyes closed. Why did he always have to make everything so difficult? Why did one look from him always manage to crawl under your skin like this?

You shook your head, forcing the thoughts away. Back to studying. Back to pretending Lee Heeseung didn’t exist. But deep down, you already knew tonight’s silence between you two had just gotten a little louder.

You were halfway through rewriting your notes when your phone buzzed on the desk, the screen lighting up with a new message.

yunjin : you know sunghoon righttt? he’s throwing a massive party after midterms and he personally invited me. pleeease come with me?? i don’t wanna go alone 🥺

You stared at the text, already feeling the familiar dread settle in your stomach. Another party of course. You typed back quickly

you : No thanks im good have fun tho

The two dots appeared immediately.

yunjin : babe come onnnn

yunjin : it’s after midterms!! you deserve to relax

yunjin : sunghoon’s parties are actually fun i swear

yunjin : there’ll be good music, free drinks, and i heard the basketball team is coming too 👀

You groaned, rubbing your temples. The last thing you wanted was to be anywhere near the basketball team especially not after tonight’s lovely encounter with their captain.

you : exactly why I’m not going pass

yunjin : please please please i really like sunghoon and this could be my chance

yunjin : i’ll owe you big time i’ll even help you study for the next round of exams i’ll buy you that expensive matcha you like for a month!!

You leaned back in your chair, biting your lip. Yunjin was relentless when she wanted something. And honestly she had been there for you through every late night breakdown this semester. Saying no felt a little cruel the pleading texts kept coming

yunjin : i won’t leave your side the whole night ( she is lying )

yunjin : we can leave early if you hate it , pretty please with cherries on top?? 🥺🍒

You sighed deeply, already knowing you were about to lose this battle.

you : fine, ONE HOUR that’s it if it sucks, we’re out.

yunjin : YESSSSS!!! you’re the best i love you so much

yunjin : we can dress up together at my place okay , see you tomorrow <33

You tossed your phone onto the desk and dropped your head into your hands. Great, just what you needed. Another night surrounded by loud music, drunk athletes, and the very real possibility of running into the Lee Heeseung again.

You glanced at the wall that separated your apartment from his. The music was still playing faintly, but at least it was bearable now. Just one party, you could survive one party right?

The next morning, the art history lecture hall was already filling up with the usual mix of sleepy students and last minute crammers when you slipped into your regular seat in the middle row.

The faint scent of fresh coffee and old books lingered in the air. Yunjin dropped dramatically into the chair on your right, her long hair still slightly damp from her morning shower, eyes bright with far too much excitement for a 9 am class.

On your left, Soobin settled in quietly, tall frame folding gracefully into the seat. He placed his neatly organized notebook on the desk and pulled out a perfectly sharpened pencil, offering you a soft, reassuring smile.

Soobin was always like this calm, steady, the kind of friend who showed up without making a fuss. He was the complete opposite of the loud, chaotic energy that seemed to follow Heeseung everywhere.

Yunjin, however, was already completely distracted. She was leaning forward, chin resting on her hand, openly staring toward the front rows where Sunghoon sat chatting with a couple of friends. Her gaze was soft and dreamy, a tiny smile tugging at her lips every time he laughed at something.

You nudged her arm with your elbow, voice low and teasing. “You’re oogling him again it’s getting embarrassing at this point.”Yunjin didn’t even pretend to deny it. “I’m not oogling, im appreciating art,” she whispered back, still not tearing her eyes away. “Look at him he’s literally perfect.”

Soobin let out a quiet chuckle beside you, shaking his head as he flipped open his notebook. “Sure ‘appreciating’ that’s why half your notes from last week were just little hearts around his name.” He teased her, to which she replied,

“Traitor,” Yunjin hissed playfully, finally glancing at both of you as her cheeks flushed pink. “You two are supposed to be on my side.”The light banter continued until Soobin turned to you, lowering his voice a little. “Hey, I heard there was a party at Heeseung’s last night, did you survive the noise?”

You let out a long, dramatic groan and slumped back in your seat, the memory of last night’s confrontation still fresh and irritating. “Barely. That idiot had the music blasting so loud my textbooks were literally vibrating on the desk. I had to march over there in my hoodie and sweatpants like some angry neighbor from a sitcom again.”

Soobin listened attentively, his expression patient and sympathetic. He never interrupted your rants or told you to just ignore it. He just nodded along, dark eyes focused on you, making you feel genuinely heard.

It was one of the many reasons you treasured his friendship he was thoughtful, kind, and never loud or arrogant for the sake of it. The polar opposite of Heeseung.

“And of course he answered the door half dressed with some girl hanging off his arm like a trophy,” you continued, voice dripping with annoyance. “Called me ‘miss morals’ like it’s the funniest joke in the world.

Then when I pointed out that not everyone has a rich daddy to bail them out when they party instead of studying, he got all pissy, sucked in this dramatic breath, and slammed the door right in my face. He’s such an entitled asshole.”

Soobin hummed softly, a small frown creasing his brow. “That sounds exhausting, you should’ve texted me you know, i could’ve come over with snacks and we could’ve studied together instead of dealing with his nonsense alone.”

You smiled faintly at the offer, warmth cutting through the irritation. “Next time, maybe at least someone in this building has basic human decency.”

Yunjin finally tore her gaze away from Sunghoon long enough to grin at you. “Heeseung’s just bored and likes getting a rise out of you if you stopped reacting, he’d probably get bored and stop.”

“Easy for you to say,” you muttered, crossing your arms. “You don’t have to live next door to the human equivalent of a walking migraine.”The professor walked in moments later, cutting off any further complaints.

The next hour passed in a blur of projected slides on Renaissance techniques, quiet note taking, and the occasional whispered comment from Yunjin whenever Sunghoon shifted in his seat.

When class finally ended, the three of you packed up your things and joined the stream of students flowing out into the crowded hallway. The air was filled with chatter about upcoming midterms, weekend plans, and the usual campus gossip.

As you walked side by side, Yunjin suddenly looped her arm through yours, her excitement bubbling over again. “So, about Sunghoon’s party after midterms you’re definitely coming, right? And Soobin you should come too! It’ll be so much more fun with all three of us there.”

Soobin blinked, surprised, his eyebrows raising slightly. “Wait you’re actually going?” He looked at you, genuinely shocked. “I thought you hated parties, especially ones thrown by the popular crowd.”

You shrugged, already regretting your decision a little. “Yunjin begged a lot and guilt tripped me with matcha promises. One hour max, if it sucks, I’m dragging her out.”

Yunjin squealed happily and squeezed your arm. “See? She’s coming! So you have to come too, Soobinn please?”Before Soobin could respond, a familiar voice cut through the hallway noise from behind you.

“Can’t imagine miss morals at a party but I’m looking forward to seeing you there.” Your stomach dropped, you didn’t even have to turn around to know who it was.

Heeseung was leaning casually against a set of lockers a few feet away, arms crossed over his varsity jacket, that signature cocky smirk playing on his lips. He must have overheard the entire conversation.

His dark eyes locked onto yours with clear amusement, like he lived for these moments of catching you off guard.

You rolled your eyes so hard it almost hurt, refusing to give him the satisfaction of a verbal response. Heat crept up your neck partly from annoyance, partly from the embarrassment of him hearing your plans.

Yunjin stifled a laugh beside you while Soobin just shook his head quietly, a small, amused smile tugging at his mouth.

Heeseung’s low chuckle followed you as the three of you kept walking, but you kept your gaze fixed straight ahead, jaw tight. God, you really, really hated that guy.Midterms week stretched into a brutal two week marathon, and as an art curator major, you felt every single hour of it in your bones.

Your apartment had become a war zone of curated chaos towering stacks of books on museum exhibition design, printed slides from Art Conservation and Curatorial Practices, mood boards pinned to the wall for your upcoming gallery proposal project, and color coded flashcards scattered across every surface.

Late nights blurred into early mornings as you hunched over your laptop, drafting proposals for hypothetical exhibits while trying to memorize the intricate history of 19th century European collections. Sleep was a distant dream. Caffeine was your only reliable companion.

And then there was Heeseung.

He didn’t blast music or bring girls over every single night that would have been almost predictable. No, he was crueler than that. He chose random days, like he knew exactly how to keep you off balance, turning your already exhausting study schedule into a minefield of unwanted interruptions.

The first time hit on the second night of midterms. You were deep into analyzing a case study on museum ethics when the wall behind your desk started to vibrate faintly. At first it was just low music.

Then came the giggles two distinct female voices, breathy and flirtatious. Heeseung’s deep laugh cut through it all, followed by the unmistakable sound of bodies moving against furniture.

“Fuck, Heeseung you’re so good at this,” one of the girls moaned loudly, the words carrying crystal clear through the thin shared wall. The headboard started thumping a slow, steady rhythm against your wall rhythmic, insistent, growing faster.

You could hear the wet slap of skin, her exaggerated gasps turning into full throated cries every time he thrust.You yanked your noise canceling headphones on so hard the band dug into your temples, cranking the volume until classical music drowned most of it out.

But you could still feel it, the steady bang bang bang vibrating through your desk, through your chair, through your skull. Your cheeks burned with secondhand embarrassment and pure rage.

'Of course he’s fucking some random girl while I’m trying to memorize the difference between Baroque and Rococo curation techniques.' You thought bitterly, stabbing your highlighter across the page. Must be nice to have zero responsibilities except basketball and dick appointments.

It stopped around 2 a.m., but the damage was done. You only managed three hours of sleep before your 8 a.m. lecture.

The next morning, you were running on pure spite and too much coffee when you caught Heeseung in the hallway just as he was stepping out of his apartment. He looked annoyingly fresh — hair still damp from a shower, varsity jacket slung over one shoulder, that perpetual cocky smirk already in place.

You stopped right in front of him, arms crossed tightly. “Keep it down next time,” you said flatly, voice low but sharp. “Some of us are actually trying to pass our midterms instead of auditioning for porn.”

Heeseung raised an eyebrow, clearly amused. “Aw, miss morals heard everything? Didn’t know you were such a light sleeper.” You glared at him, heat rising to your cheeks. “Just tone it down, the headboard banging is ridiculous.”

He chuckled lowly, the sound sending another spike of irritation through you. “Noted.” Then he leaned in slightly, voice dropping. “Though from the sounds of it last night, she seemed to enjoy the banging.”

You rolled your eyes and walked away without another word, his soft laugh following you down the hall.The next disruption came four days later. A random Thursday when you had a massive group project due on modern curatorial strategies.

You’d just settled in with your laptop open to a half finished exhibition proposal when his door slammed open down the hall. One girl this time, but she was even louder.

The moment they got inside, the sounds started again her high pitched whimpers, Heeseung’s low, cocky murmurs “Yeah? You like that? Tell me how much you want it” followed by the unmistakable wet sounds of them going at it on what sounded like his couch first, then migrating to the bed.

The headboard slammed against the wall so hard your framed print of Van Gogh’s Starry Night rattled. Her moans turned into broken sobs of pleasure, each one punctuated by Heeseung’s grunts and the filthy slap of bodies. “Harder fuck, right there, Heeseung don’t stop—”

You ended up studying in your bed instead, laptop balanced on your knees, pillows stacked around you like a fortress. Headphones on full blast. Still, every thrust made the wall tremble.

Every moan crawled under your skin and made focusing on your notes feel impossible. By the time they finally finished (or at least quieted down) around midnight, your eyes were burning and your proposal was only half done.

You hated how your body reacted sometimes not with attraction, but with pure, simmering resentment that made your stomach twist.That same night, after the noises finally stopped, you grabbed your phone in a fit of exhausted anger and texted him.

you : keep the noise down, some people are trying to study for actual grades, not coast on basketball talent and daddy’s money

His reply came faster than you expected. A picture popped up first. A close up selfie of Heeseung lying in bed, shirtless, messy hair, lazy smirk on his face, with the caption

heeseung : sorry, miss morals hard to stay quiet when they scream my name like that

heeseung : next time i’ll try to fuck quieter or maybe you can just join and tell me how to do it right?

You stared at the message, face flaming with a mix of rage and disbelief. You immediately blocked the image from your mind ( and definitely did not linger on the way his abs looked in the dim lighting ) before typing back a single furious reply

you : delete my number, asshole

The worst random night came during the final stretch, just three days before your last exams.

You were pulling an all nighter on your capstone project a full digital mock up of a contemporary art exhibit you’d spent weeks perfecting when the noises started again around 11 p.m. This time it was two girls.

Their laughter spilled into the hallway first, then straight through your wall. Heeseung’s voice was low and teasing, the kind of filthy charm that probably worked on every girl on campus.

Soon the bed was creaking loudly, headboard banging in a frantic rhythm while both girls moaned in tandem one breathy and high, the other deeper and more desperate.

“Heeseung oh god, yes fuck me like that—” mixed with wet, obscene sounds that left zero doubt about exactly what was happening next door. The wall vibrated so intensely your coffee mug slid an inch across the desk.

You sat there in your oversized hoodie and sweatpants, staring at your glowing screen, jaw clenched so tight it ached. Every moan, every dirty encouragement from Heeseung, every rhythmic thud felt like a personal attack on the one thing you actually cared about your future.

Your grades, your dream of curating real exhibitions someday. While I’m over here trying not to fail out of the only thing I’m good at, you thought, fingers flying angrily across the keyboard, he’s over there living his best life with a rotating cast of girls screaming his name.

You wore the headphones until your ears rang. You even tried white noise apps, earplugs underneath nothing fully blocked it. The sex noises went on for nearly two hours that night, loud and shameless, until they finally quieted around 1:30 a.m.

By the end of the two weeks, you were running on fumes dark circles under your eyes, caffeine shakes in your hands, and a permanent knot of irritation lodged in your chest whenever you passed his door.

The random nights had been spaced out just enough to feel like psychological warfare instead of constant chaos.Heeseung never once toned it down. Never once seemed to care that someone on the other side of the wall was actually trying to build a future that didn’t involve daddy’s money or NBA scouts.

When Friday morning finally arrived and your last exam was over, you dragged yourself back to the apartment building, shoulders heavy with exhaustion. The hallway was quiet for once. Heeseung’s door looked innocently closed.

You unlocked your own door, stepped inside, and immediately collapsed face first onto your bed, still in your clothes midterms were done.But the resentment toward the boy next door had only grown sharper and Sunghoon’s party was tonight. You groaned into your pillow one hour in and out. Just don’t kill Heeseung on sight.

You took the quickest shower of your life, and changed into the first comfortable outfit you could find—a simple black crop top that showed just a sliver of your midriff and your favorite pair of dark jeans—comfortable, practical, safe.

You texted Yunjin that you were ready to head over to her place to “get ready together,” secretly hoping she wouldn’t make a big deal out of your clothes—big mistake. Yunjin’s apartment was only two blocks away, and the second you stepped inside, she took one look at you and gasped like you had personally offended her.

“No no absolutely not,” she declared, hands on her hips, eyes scanning you up and down with pure horror. “You cannot go to Sunghoon’s party looking like that.”

You glanced down at yourself, confused. “What’s wrong with this? It’s cute it’s comfortable.”“Cute? Comfortable?” Yunjin repeated, already dragging you toward her bedroom like a woman on a mission.

“Babe, we’re going to a party, not the library. You just survived two weeks of hell tonight you’re supposed to look hot, not like you’re about to give a museum tour.”

Before you could protest, she flung open her closet and started pulling out clothes with frightening speed. She held up a black mini skirt dangerously short, made of soft leather like material and a sheer black button up shirt that was practically see through.

“Try these,” she ordered, shoving the hanger into your hands. You stared at the outfit like it might bite you. “Yunjin, no way, that skirt is barely legal and the shirt is see through i’m not wearing that.”

“Yes way, you are,” she sang, already pushing you toward the bathroom. “You agreed to come to the party that means you’re under my styling jurisdiction for tonight go change now”

You argued the entire time you were changing. “This is ridiculous! im going to freeze, people are going to stare i look like I’m trying way too hard—”

But Yunjin was relentless. The second you stepped out in the mini skirt and sheer shirt ( with a black bralette underneath so you weren’t completely exposed ), she clapped her hands and squealed.

“Oh my god, yes! Look at you!” She spun you around in front of her full length mirror. The skirt hugged your hips and ended high on your thighs, making your legs look longer.

The sheer shirt draped softly over your shoulders, the black bralette visible underneath in a way that was teasing but not outright scandalous. “You look insane like, dangerously hot.”

You tugged at the hem of the skirt, cheeks burning. “I feel naked. Can't I at least wear the jeans over this or something?”“No,” she said firmly, already sitting you down in front of her vanity. “We’re doing makeup now sit still.”

For the next twenty minutes, Yunjin worked her magic. Winged eyeliner sharp enough to cut glass, soft smoky eyes, a touch of highlighter on your cheekbones, and a bold red lip that made your mouth look fuller. She even styled your hair into loose, effortless waves that framed your face perfectly.

When she finally stepped back, she let out a satisfied sigh.“Anyone would worship the ground you walk on looking like this,” she said, grinning proudly. “Trust me tonight, you’re not the stressed out art curator girl who yells at her neighbor. You’re the girl who turns heads even Heeseung won’t know what to do with himself when he sees you.”

You rolled your eyes, but a small flutter of nerves mixed with reluctant confidence settled in your stomach as you looked at your reflection. The outfit was way bolder than anything you’d normally wear, but you had to admit it looked good.

“Fine,” you muttered, smoothing down the skirt one last time. “But if I hate it, we’re leaving early and if Heeseung says one word about ‘miss morals’ in this outfit, I’m pouring a drink on him.”Yunjin laughed and linked her arm with yours. “Deal now let’s go make Sunghoon’s party unforgettable.”

You and Yunjin barely made it out of her apartment before your phone buzzed with a text from Soobin saying he was already waiting downstairs. The three of you had agreed he would drive so none of you had to worry about getting home later.

The elevator ride down felt too short. Your heart was already beating a little faster than usual partly from the unfamiliar outfit, partly from the knowledge that you were actually going to a party after surviving two brutal weeks of midterms.

The black mini skirt kept riding up slightly with every step, and you kept tugging nervously at the hem while Yunjin wouldn’t stop complimenting how good you looked.

When you stepped out of the building into the cool evening air, Soobin’s car was parked right in front, engine idling. He was leaning casually against the driver’s side, scrolling through his phone, but the moment he looked up and saw the two of you approaching, his eyes widened noticeably.

Especially when they landed on you. Soobin froze for a second, his usual calm expression cracking into pure, genuine shock. His gaze traveled slowly from your loose waves and sharp winged eyeliner, down to the sheer black shirt that subtly revealed the black bralette underneath, then to the dangerously short leather like mini skirt that made your legs look endless.

He blinked once, twice, before quickly clearing his throat and straightening up, ears turning a light shade of pink.“Wow” he said, voice a little higher than his normal soft tone. “You both look really nice like, really nice.”

Yunjin grinned triumphantly, looping her arm through yours and squeezing. “See? Told you! Even Soobin is shook, she looks hot, right?”

You felt heat creep up your neck and quickly crossed your arms over your chest, suddenly hyper aware of how different you looked from your usual oversized hoodie and jeans self.

“It’s all Yunjin’s doing. She basically held me hostage in her room until I changed. I tried to wear my normal clothes and she acted like I committed a crime.”

Soobin gave a small, shy laugh, rubbing the back of his neck as he opened the back door for both of you like the gentleman he was. “No, it really suits you, you look great tonight.” His compliment was sincere and gentle, making the awkwardness feel a little softer. “Ready to go? Sunghoon’s place isn’t too far from here.”

The car ride was filled with easy, light chatter that helped calm your nerves. Yunjin sat in the front passenger seat, already buzzing with excitement about seeing Sunghoon, while you sat in the back, occasionally tugging at your skirt and staring out the window at the passing streetlights.

Soobin kept the conversation flowing comfortably, light complaints about how brutal midterms had been, predictions about how wild the party might get, and Yunjin’s endless teasing about how

Sunghoon had “personally invited” her. Every now and then Soobin would glance at you through the rearview mirror, still looking a little flustered whenever your eyes met.

Before you knew it, Soobin was pulling up to a large off campus house that was already pulsing with loud music and flashing colored lights. Cars lined both sides of the street, and groups of people were laughing and chatting on the front lawn, red cups in hand.

The three of you climbed out of the car, and the heavy bass from inside immediately hit you like a wave. The night air smelled like a mix of cheap beer, sweet perfume, and fresh cut grass. Yunjin practically bounced on her heels with excitement as the three of you walked up the pathway toward the front door.

Sunghoon was standing right at the entrance, playing the perfect host in a simple black shirt and jeans. His sharp, handsome features broke into a warm, genuine smile the moment he spotted your group approaching.

“Hey! You guys actually made it,” he greeted cheerfully, voice carrying easily over the noise from inside. His eyes lingered on Yunjin for an extra beat, a soft grin tugging at his lips. “Yunjin, glad you came and you brought friends, nice.”

He gave Soobin a friendly nod and then turned his attention to you, eyebrows raising slightly in pleasant surprise as he took in your bold outfit. “Hey! you clean up really well. Welcome to the party, hope you guys have fun tonight.”

You managed a small, polite smile, still feeling slightly out of your element. “Thanks for inviting us.”Sunghoon handed each of you a red solo cup filled with something fruity and strong smelling a sweet cocktail that had a sharp kick of alcohol when you took your first cautious sip.

“Drinks are flowing inside help yourselves to whatever you want. There’s food in the kitchen, beer pong in the living room, and dancing. Pretty much everywhere enjoy!”

Yunjin thanked him brightly, her cheeks already a little flushed with excitement, and steered you and Soobin further into the crowded house. The interior was packed wall to wall with people.

Students were laughing loudly, dancing in the middle of the living room, playing intense games of beer pong, and making out in dimly lit corners. The music was loud but not yet overwhelming, colorful lights flashing across the walls and bodies.

For the first few minutes, the three of you stuck close together, weaving through the crowd while sipping your drinks. Soobin stayed protectively near your side, occasionally leaning down to say something quiet and reassuring whenever he noticed you looking a bit overwhelmed by the chaos.

Then you felt it. That familiar, annoying prickle on the back of your neck, like someone was watching you. You turned your head slightly, and there he was.

Heeseung was leaning casually against the wall near the staircase, a red cup dangling from his fingers. He was surrounded by a small group of his closest friends—Beomgyu laughing at something on his phone, Jake with his usual bright smile, and Jay nursing his own drink while scanning the room.

Heeseung looked effortlessly good tonight in a black button up with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, exposing his toned forearms, and dark jeans that sat low on his hips. His hair was styled in that signature messy but perfect way.

The moment his dark eyes found you across the crowded room, his conversation with the guys stopped mid sentence.

His gaze dragged slowly and shamelessly down your body, taking in the short black mini skirt that hugged your hips and thighs, the sheer shirt that teased the black bralette underneath, the way the outfit accentuated your curves before snapping back up to your face.

For once, his usual cocky smirk didn’t appear instantly. Instead, there was a flash of genuine surprise, followed by something darker, more heated, and appreciative.

He pushed off the wall and started walking straight toward your group, completely ignoring whatever Beomgyu was saying behind him.

“Well, well, well,” Heeseung drawled when he was close enough, his voice cutting smoothly through the music. His eyes were still shamelessly roaming over you. “Look who decided to show up. Miss morals in a mini skirt i almost didn’t recognize you damn.”

You felt your stomach twist with that familiar mix of irritation and unwanted warmth. Before you could even open your mouth to snap back, Yunjin jumped in defensively, stepping slightly in front of you with a bright but sharp smile.

“Excuse me, Heeseung? She looks amazing, and she doesn’t need your backhanded compliments,” Yunjin said, tilting her head with fake sweetness.

“Unlike some people who only know how to throw loud parties and bring random girls over during midterms, maybe focus on your own game instead of commenting on her outfit.”

Heeseung chuckled lowly, clearly amused by Yunjin’s quick defense, but his eyes never left you. Jake, Beomgyu, and Jay were now watching the exchange from a few feet away, Beomgyu smirking like he was enjoying the show and Jake looking mildly entertained.

“Relax, Yunjin,” Heeseung replied smoothly, taking a sip from his cup. “I’m just saying that she cleaned up dangerous tonight, didn’t think our neighbor owned anything shorter than ankle length. Beomgyu, Jake, Jay back me up here. She looks good, right?”

Beomgyu grinned and raised his cup in a lazy toast. “Yeah, she do be looking fire tonight.”Jake nodded with a bright laugh. “For real, new look suits you.”Jay just shook his head with a small smile, staying quiet but clearly entertained.

You rolled your eyes, lifting your red solo cup to your lips to hide the flush creeping up your cheeks. “Don’t start with me tonight, Heeseung i’m only here for one hour, and I’d rather not spend it dealing with your nonsense.”

Heeseung tilted his head, that signature cocky smirk fully back in place now as he took another slow step closer. The way he was looking at you made the noisy room feel suddenly ten degrees warmer.

“Gonna dance tonight, or are you just here to supervise everyone else’s fun like usual, miss morals?”

You didn’t even give Heeseung the satisfaction of a proper reply. Instead, you flipped him off with a sharp middle finger, turned on your heel, and grabbed Yunjin’s arm. “Come on, let’s go.”

Yunjin laughed loudly, clearly proud of your reaction, and let you drag her deeper into the crowded house while Heeseung’s low chuckle followed behind you. Beomgyu, Jake, and Jay were already teasing him in the background, but you refused to look back.

For the first half hour, the party actually felt manageable. You stuck close to Yunjin and Soobin, sipping from your red solo cup and people watching from a quieter corner of the living room.

The music was loud, the lights flashed in rhythm with the bass, and the alcohol slowly started to loosen the tight knot of stress that midterms had left in your chest. Then Sunghoon appeared again.

He approached your group with that easy, charming smile, eyes mostly locked on Yunjin. “Hey want to dance?”Yunjin’s face lit up like he’d just offered her the moon. She turned to you quickly, squeezing your hand. “You’ll be okay for a bit, right? I’ll be right back!”

Before you could even answer, she was gone, disappearing into the sea of bodies on the dance floor with Sunghoon’s hand on her waist, now it was just you and Soobin.

You tried to keep the conversation light, but the longer you stood there, the more the party energy started to pull at you. The drink in your cup was strong and sweet, and after two weeks of pure academic hell, the idea of letting loose felt dangerously tempting.

“Fuck it,” you muttered under your breath. You downed the rest of your drink in one go, the burn sliding warmly down your throat. Then you grabbed another cup from a passing tray and started sipping again. Why not? Midterms were over. You deserved this.

Soobin noticed and raised an eyebrow, but he didn’t judge. He stayed beside you, chatting quietly, making sure you weren’t completely alone. But after a while, you started feeling guilty. He was sweet, always listening, always there and here he was babysitting you instead of enjoying the party.

“Go talk to your friends,” you told him, giving him a gentle push toward a group of guys waving at him from across the room. “Seriously, Soobin i’ll be fine, i don’t want you wasting your night stuck with me. Go have fun i’ll text you if I need anything.”

He hesitated, looking concerned, but you begged him with your best pleading eyes until he finally nodded. “Okay but stay safe, text me if anything feels off.”

Once Soobin walked away to join his friends, you let yourself drift toward the dance floor. The alcohol was hitting nicely now a warm, fuzzy buzz that made the music feel better and your body lighter.

You moved to the edge of the crowd first, swaying gently, then slowly worked your way deeper into the pulsing bodies.

You didn’t notice him at first. But Heeseung had been watching you the entire time. From the moment Yunjin disappeared with Sunghoon, his eyes had followed you. He watched you down your drinks. He watched you convince Soobin to leave.

And now he watched as you finally stepped fully onto the dance floor, hips moving to the heavy beat, the short black mini skirt riding up just enough to draw attention, the sheer shirt catching the flashing lights.

Heeseung set his cup down and started moving through the crowd toward you, slow and deliberate. When he was close enough, he didn’t just grab you like most guys would. Instead, he leaned in slightly, voice low and surprisingly respectful against the loud music.

“Hey can I dance with you?”

You turned your head, alcohol making you bold. Your eyes met his, and for once, you didn’t immediately snap at him. The buzz in your veins, the way he was looking at you like he couldn’t look away…it made something reckless spark inside you.

You nodded “Yeah okay.” Only then did Heeseung step closer. The moment he did, the space between you disappeared. His body pressed lightly against yours at first, hands hovering respectfully before you started moving together.

The music was sensual, slow and heavy, and your bodies naturally fell into rhythm. It didn’t stay innocent for long. Heeseung’s hands gradually grew bolder one sliding to your waist, the other brushing up your side, fingers grazing the sheer fabric of your shirt.

You moved closer, hips rolling against his, the short skirt brushing against his thighs. His touch grew hotter, palms sliding down to grip your hips, then slowly roaming over the curve of your ass, pulling you flush against him.

The air between you thickened. Your breathing grew heavier. Every brush of his body sent sparks through your skin. Heeseung leaned in, lips brushing the shell of your ear as he spoke, voice low. “fuck, not being able to kiss you right now is actual torture.”

The words hit you like a shot of pure heat. The alcohol, the weeks of built up tension, the way his hands felt all over your body everything crashed together in one reckless moment.

You didn’t think, you just acted. turning your head as you grabbed the front of his shirt, and crashed your lips against his.

The kiss was messy, desperate, and instantly wild. Heeseung groaned into your mouth the second your lips met, one hand flying up to cup the back of your neck while the other tightened possessively on your waist, pulling you even harder against him.

You kissed like you were angry at each other—teeth clashing, tongues sliding hot and deep, lips moving with raw hunger.

Heeseung kissed like he’d been waiting for this exact moment. His mouth was demanding, devouring, tilting your head to kiss you deeper. You moaned softly against him, fingers threading into his hair and tugging, which only made him kiss you harder.

The dance floor disappeared around you. The music faded into background noise. There was only the heat of his body, the taste of alcohol on his tongue, and the way his hands roamed greedily over your curves sliding up your back under the sheer shirt, gripping your hips, pressing you so close you could feel exactly how much he wanted you.

The makeout was crazy sloppy, passionate, breathless. You bit his lower lip, and he responded with a low growl, sucking on your tongue before kissing you even harder.

Your bodies moved together to the beat, grinding slowly while your mouths stayed locked in a heated battle.

When you finally pulled back for air, both of you were panting, lips swollen and shiny. Heeseung’s eyes were dark, pupils blown wide as he stared down at you like he wanted to devour you right there on the dance floor.

“Shit” he breathed, forehead resting against yours. “You’re going to kill me tonight.”The kiss finally broke, both of you breathing hard, lips swollen and glistening under the flashing party lights.

Heeseung’s forehead rested against yours, his hands still gripping your hips like he was afraid you’d disappear if he let go.

His eyes were dark, pupils blown with want, and the way he looked at you sent another rush of heat straight through your body.

You didn’t think. The alcohol, the weeks of hating him, the way his hands had felt all over you everything made you reckless. You leaned in closer, voice low and breathless against his ear. “Wanna go back to your apartment?”

Heeseung pulled back just enough to look at you, a dangerous smirk tugging at his swollen lips. For a split second, surprise flashed across his face, but it quickly melted into pure hunger.

“Fuck yes”

He didn’t waste another second. His hand slid down to grab yours firmly, fingers lacing tight as he started pulling you through the crowded dance floor. People moved out of the way as Heeseung cut a path toward the front door, his grip on you possessive and urgent.

You barely had time to register anything else Yunjin and Soobin were somewhere in the house, but right now, none of that mattered.The cool night air hit your flushed skin the moment you stepped outside, but it did nothing to calm the fire burning in your veins.

Heeseung’s car was parked a little down the street. He didn’t let go of your hand the entire way, and the second you reached the passenger side, he opened the door for you with surprising speed before rounding the car and sliding into the driver’s seat.

The moment the doors closed, the tension exploded again. Heeseung started the engine, but you were already growing impatient. The short drive back to your apartment building felt too long. Every red light, every stop sign made the ache between your legs worse.

You kept stealing glances at him his jaw tight, hands gripping the steering wheel, the way his shirt was slightly undone from your earlier tugging. At the third red light, you couldn’t hold it in anymore.“Fuck this,” you muttered.

Before Heeseung could react, you unbuckled your seatbelt, climbed over the center console, and straddled his lap in one swift motion. The mini skirt rode up high on your thighs as you settled on top of him, your hands immediately cupping his face as you crashed your lips back onto his.

Heeseung groaned loudly into the kiss, his hands flying to your waist to steady you. The kiss was even wilder than on the dance floor desperate, messy, all tongue and teeth. You rocked your hips against him, grinding down slowly at first, then harder, feeling him harden beneath you through his jeans.

His hands roamed greedily, one sliding up under your sheer shirt to palm your breast over the bralette, the other gripping your ass and pulling you tighter against his growing bulge.

“Shit you’re driving me crazy,” he muttered against your mouth between kisses, voice rough and wrecked.

You moaned softly, grinding down harder, the friction sending sparks through your entire body. The car windows started to fog up as you moved together, lips never leaving each other for long.

Heeseung’s tongue slid against yours, deep and filthy, while his hips bucked up to meet your movements, the steering wheel pressing into your back.

You were completely lost in him hands in his hair, tugging, lips sucking on his bottom lip, hips rolling in desperate circles when the sharp sound of honking suddenly pierced through the haze.

Once, twice, then a chorus of angry car horns blaring behind you reality crashed back in.

You pulled away from the kiss with a gasp, lips shiny and swollen, breathing ragged. The light had turned green, and the cars lined up behind you were laying on their horns, some drivers shouting out their windows.

Heeseung let out a breathless laugh, his hands still gripping your thighs tightly. His eyes were dark, hair messy from your fingers, lips red and kiss bitten.“Fuck,” he rasped, voice hoarse. “We’re gonna cause an accident if you keep this up.”

You quickly scrambled back into the passenger seat, heart pounding, cheeks burning with a mix of embarrassment and lingering arousal.

Your skirt was hiked up dangerously high, and you tugged it down with shaky hands while Heeseung adjusted himself in his seat, clearly struggling to focus on the road.

He shot you a heated sideways glance, smirk returning as he pressed the gas pedal.“Almost home,” he said, voice low and promising. “Try not to jump me again until we’re inside or don’t. I'm not complaining.”

The rest of the short drive was torturous. The air in the car was thick with tension, both of you stealing glances, the memory of your grinding still fresh and electric.

When Heeseung finally pulled into the parking spot outside your shared apartment building, he killed the engine and turned to you, eyes blazing.

The second you were both out of the car, he grabbed your hand again and practically dragged you toward the entrance, the promise of what was about to happen hanging heavy between you.

The second the door to Heeseung’s apartment slammed shut behind you, all restraint vanished.He had you pinned against the wood before you could even catch your breath, mouth crashing back onto yours in a filthy, open mouthed kiss.

His hands were everywhere one sliding up under your sheer shirt to palm your breast roughly, the other gripping your ass and yanking your hips flush against the hard line of his cock already straining in his jeans.

“Been thinking about this since you walked in wearing that tiny fucking skirt,” he growled against your lips, biting your bottom lip hard enough to make you moan. “Look at you acting like such a good girl all semester and now you’re begging to get fucked in my bed.”

You didn’t deny it you couldn’t. The alcohol and weeks of pent up hatred had turned into pure, desperate need. You tugged at his shirt buttons, popping a few open in your haste, and Heeseung chuckled darkly before ripping the rest off himself.

The shirt hit the floor. Yours followed a second later, then your bralette, leaving your tits exposed to the cool air of his apartment.

Heeseung’s mouth was on your neck instantly, sucking a mark right below your jaw while his hands squeezed your breasts, thumbs flicking over your nipples until they were hard and aching. “So fucking pretty when you’re needy like this,” he muttered, voice low and rough. “Bet you’re already soaked for me, huh?”

You whimpered when he shoved the mini skirt up around your waist and cupped you over your panties. His fingers pressed against the soaked fabric, rubbing slow circles over your clit.

“Shit you are dripping already.” He smirked against your throat. “Such a dirty little secret you’ve been hiding, miss morals.”

You didn’t have time to snap back. Heeseung dropped to his knees right there in the entryway, hooked your panties to the side, and buried his face between your thighs without warning. His tongue dragged a long, nasty stripe up your pussy, groaning at the taste of you.

“Oh my god—” Your head thunked back against the door as he licked and sucked like a man starved, two fingers sliding inside you easily because you were so wet.

He curled them perfectly, pumping fast while his tongue flicked mercilessly over your clit. The sounds were obscene wet, sloppy, loud and he didn’t care. He ate you like he wanted to ruin you.

You came hard on his tongue within minutes, thighs shaking, fingers yanking at his hair as you cried out his name. Heeseung didn’t stop until you were trembling and pushing at his head, then he stood up, lips shiny with your arousal, and kissed you deep so you could taste yourself.

“Bedroom now,” he ordered.

He didn’t wait for you to walk. He grabbed the back of your thighs and lifted you like you weighed nothing, carrying you down the short hallway while your legs wrapped around his waist.

Your skirt was still bunched around your hips, panties shoved to the side. You could feel his cock pressing against your soaked core with every step.

The second he kicked his bedroom door open, he dropped you onto the bed. You barely had time to bounce before he was stripping the rest of his clothes off. His jeans and boxers hit the floor and his cock sprang free—thick, hard, and already leaking at the tip.

Your mouth watered at the sight. Heeseung climbed over you, caging you in with his arms. “You want this?” he asked, voice dark, one hand stroking his cock slowly as he looked down at you. “Tell me you want it.”

“I want it,” you breathed, reaching down to wrap your hand around him. “Fuck me, Heeseung.”That was all it took.

He shoved your legs apart wider, lined himself up, and pushed in with one long, brutal thrust. You gasped at the stretch, nails digging into his shoulders as he bottomed out inside you, so deep you swore you could feel him in your stomach.

“Fuck, so tight,” he groaned, forehead dropping to yours. “Taking me so well already.”Then he started moving hard fast and filthy.

The headboard slammed against the wall with every thrust, the same wall that separated your apartments. The irony wasn’t lost on you, but you couldn’t bring yourself to care.

Heeseung fucked you like he’d been imagining this exact moment for months.Deep, punishing strokes that made your tits bounce and your breath hitch.

He grabbed one of your legs and hooked it over his shoulder, folding you in half so he could fuck you even deeper. The new angle made you cry out, the wet slap of skin on skin echoing through the room.

“Look at you,” he rasped, eyes locked on where his cock was disappearing inside you. “Taking every inch like a good little slut, who would’ve thought the girl next door gets this fucking nasty?”

The degradation was light, just enough to make your pussy clench harder around him. You moaned louder, hips trying to meet his thrusts.

Heeseung’s hand slid between your bodies, thumb rubbing tight circles on your clit while he pounded into you.

“Come on, baby. Come on my cock again, wanna feel you squeezing me.” You shattered for the second time, back arching, walls fluttering around his thick length as your orgasm crashed through you. Heeseung fucked you through it, hips never slowing, chasing his own release.

“Fuck— I’m close,” he growled, voice strained. “Where do you want it?” He asked, “Inside,” you gasped, still riding the high. “Come inside me.”

Heeseung cursed loudly, thrusting a few more brutal times before he buried himself to the hilt and came hard. You felt every pulse, every hot spurt filling you up as he groaned your name against your neck, hips jerking through the aftershocks.

For a moment the only sounds were both of you breathing hard, bodies slick with sweat.

Heeseung stayed inside you for a long minute, forehead pressed to yours, before he finally pulled out slowly. A trickle of his cum leaked out of you onto the sheets, and he watched it with dark, satisfied eyes then collapsed beside you.

Instead of pulling away, Heeseung immediately reached for you. He wrapped one strong arm around your waist and tugged you against his chest, your back flush to his front in a tight, warm hug. His other hand gently pulled the duvet up over both of you, cocooning your naked bodies in soft warmth.

You were still sticky with sweat and cum, thighs trembling, but the way he held you possessive yet surprisingly gentle made something soft flutter in your chest despite everything.

Heeseung pressed a lazy kiss to the back of your shoulder, his breath warm against your skin.“Stay,” he murmured, voice already thick with sleep as he tightened his arm around you. “Just stay.”

Exhausted, fucked out, and strangely comforted by his warmth, you let your eyes drift shut. His steady heartbeat against your back and the heavy duvet wrapped around you lulled you quickly into sleep, safe in Heeseung’s arms for the night.

ꪆ୧ ─── ドラマ. next morning !

The first thing you registered was the pounding in your head. Your eyes fluttered open slowly, the dim light filtering through unfamiliar curtains making everything feel hazy. The digital clock on the nightstand glowed red 4:28 a.m.

Your mouth was dry, throat scratchy, and a dull throb pulsed behind your temples the unmistakable aftermath of too many drinks and not nearly enough sleep. You shifted slightly under the heavy duvet, and that’s when you felt it.

A warm, solid body pressed against your back. An arm draped heavily over your waist, holding you close skin against skin. The faint scent of cologne, sweat, and something distinctly masculine filled your senses.

Your heart slammed against your ribs. Memories from last night crashed over you like ice water.

The party, the red solo cup dancing. Heeseung’s hands all over your body on the dance floor. The reckless invitation. The car ride where you’d climbed into his lap like you had no shame.

The way he’d pinned you against his door, dropped to his knees in the entryway, fucked you hard on his bed until you were crying out his name. The filthy sounds. The way he’d filled you up. The way he’d pulled you against his chest afterward, hugging you tight under the duvet as you both drifted off.

You had fucked Lee Heeseung

You had fucked your loud, cocky, insufferable neighbor the basketball captain you’d spent months complaining about, the one who called you “Miss Morals” like it was the funniest joke in the world.

Mortification burned hot through your entire body. Your stomach twisted violently. What the hell had you been thinking? The alcohol had stripped away every ounce of common sense, and now you were lying naked in his bed, his cum still faintly sticky between your thighs, his arm wrapped around you like you belonged there.

Heeseung was still sound asleep behind you, breathing deep and even, his chest rising and falling steadily against your back. His face was relaxed in sleep no smirk, no cocky grin but you knew the second he woke up, everything would change.

He would never let you live this down. The teasing would be relentless. “Miss morals” would turn into something far worse. He’d smirk every time he saw you in the hallway, make dirty little comments about how loud you’d been, how desperate you’d sounded begging for him.

The walls between your apartments were thin he’d probably bring it up every time you complained about his noise again. Your life next door would become a living hell.You couldn’t stay here.

Panic clawed up your throat. You had to leave before he woke up. Before this became real. Before he opened his eyes and looked at you with that knowing, satisfied smirk.

Carefully, so carefully, you lifted his arm from your waist. He stirred slightly but didn’t wake, murmuring something incoherent under his breath. Your heart hammered as you slowly slid out from under the duvet, the cool air hitting your naked skin and raising goosebumps.

You moved like a ghost around his room, gathering your scattered clothes as quietly as possible. Your sheer black shirt, the black bralette, the dangerously short mini skirt, your panties all crumpled on the floor where they’d been tossed in the heat of the moment.

You dressed as fast as you could, fingers trembling as you buttoned the sheer shirt and tugged the mini skirt down your thighs. Your hair was a mess, makeup probably smudged, but you didn’t care. You just needed to get out.

Barefoot, shoes in hand, you tiptoed toward the bedroom door. Every creak of the floorboards felt deafening. You glanced back once at Heeseung still asleep, one arm now stretched across the empty space where you’d been, dark hair messy against the pillow.

A strange, unwelcome pang twisted in your chest, but you shoved it down hard. This never happened.

You slipped out of his bedroom, quietly closing the door behind you. The living room was dark and silent. You navigated through the unfamiliar space, heart racing, until you reached the front door. The lock clicked softly as you turned it.

The hallway was empty and dimly lit when you stepped outside. The cool air felt like freedom. You didn’t even bother putting your shoes on yet you just hurried the few steps to your own apartment door next door, fumbling with your keys until they finally slid into the lock.

The moment you were inside, you locked the door behind you, leaned against it, and slid down to the floor, breathing hard.

Your body still ached in the best and worst ways. Thighs sore, a faint bruise forming on your hip from his grip, the ghost of his touch lingering everywhere. You could still feel him inside you, still taste the heat of his mouth.

You buried your face in your hands, mortified beyond words. What had you done?You had slept with the one person you couldn’t stand and now you had to live right next door to him, pretending it never happened.

Because if Heeseung ever found out you’d run away like this, the teasing would only get worse much, much worse. You spent the rest of that early morning in a haze of denial.

Your phone vibrated then again. You reached for it with a heavy sigh, squinting at the bright screen.

yunjin ( 3 new messages )

yunjin : babe where did u go?? one second u were dancing and then u disappeared 😭

yunjin : sunghoon said he saw u leave with someone?? pls tell me ur okay

yunjin : im worried call me when u wake up!!

soobin ( 4 new messages )

soobin : hey, you okay? you left pretty suddenly last night without telling both of us yunjin’s freaking out a bit

soobin : let me know if you got home safe

soobin : if you need anything or want to talk, i’m here no pressure

soobin : hope you’re resting well ❤️

You stared at the messages, throat tightening. The kindness in Soobin’s texts and Yunjin’s worried energy made fresh tears prick at your eyes. They had no idea what you had done. No idea you had spent the night in Heeseung’s bed, letting him touch you, kiss you, fuck you like you’d lost all common sense.

You typed back with trembling fingers, keeping it short and vague

you : got home safe, just drank too much and needed to leave early sorry for worrying you guys i’m okay, just tired talk later ❤️

You sent it and immediately turned your phone on silent, burying your face in your hands the memories wouldn’t stop replaying. Heeseung’s hands on your hips, his mouth on your neck. The way he had groaned your name when he came inside you.

How safe and warm his arms had felt when he pulled you under the duvet afterward. You squeezed your eyes shut, trying to push it all away this never happened.

After sliding down your front door and sitting on the cold floor for what felt like hours, you finally dragged yourself to the shower.

You scrubbed your skin until it was raw, trying to wash away every trace of Heeseung his scent, his touch, the sticky evidence of what you’d done between your thighs. The hot water did nothing to erase the soreness or the vivid flashbacks that kept playing on loop in your head.

By the time the sun came up, you had made a decision this never happened. You would bury it so deep that even you would start to believe it. No one needed to know. Not Yunjin, not Soobin, not even yourself on most days.

You would go back to normal go to classes, focus on your art curator projects, complain about the noise next door like always. And most importantly, you would avoid Lee Heeseung at all costs.

ꪆ୧ ─── ドラマ. flashback !

Heeseung stepped out of his apartment with a half empty water bottle in hand, planning to grab the last box from his car before the evening practice. The hallway was quiet until it wasn’t.

A girl came rushing around the corner, arms overloaded with a massive cardboard box that completely blocked her line of sight. She collided straight into his chest with a startled gasp.

The box flew out of her hands and crashed to the floor, spilling books, notebooks, and what looked like art supplies everywhere across the hallway carpet. Heeseung instinctively reached out and grabbed her arms to keep her from stumbling backward.

She looked up at him, flushed and clearly annoyed, strands of hair falling across her face from the chaotic move. She was pretty, sharp eyes, determined expression the kind of girl who didn’t seem impressed by campus status.

A smirk tugged at his lips before he could stop it.“Easy there, neighbor,” he drawled, voice laced with amusement. “You always run into people like you’re trying to tackle them, or am I just lucky?”

She blinked, then quickly crouched down to gather her scattered belongings, avoiding his gaze.“Sorry,” she muttered, tone tight and clipped. “Didn’t see you.”

Heeseung crouched down as well, picking up a thick book on museum curation that had slid toward his foot. He turned it over in his hands, raising an eyebrow.“Art stuff, huh?” he asked casually. “You moving in next door?”

“Yeah just today,” she replied shortly, snatching the book back from him with a little more force than necessary.

He stood up first and leaned against the wall, arms crossing over his chest as he watched her struggle to reorganize everything into the box. Most girls would have smiled, maybe even recognized him as the basketball captain.

This one? She looked like she already wanted nothing to do with him.“I’m Heeseung,” he said, flashing his most charming grin. “Lee Heeseung, your new neighbor. Need help carrying that? Looks heavy.” He offered,

“I’m good thanks,” she answered without even looking up, standing quickly and slinging the tote over her shoulder.

Heeseung didn’t move out of the way. Instead, he tilted his head, studying her with open curiosity. There was something refreshing about her indifference that it made him want to push a little harder.

“Just so you know,” he added, voice dropping into a teasing tone, “The walls here are pretty thin, try not to be too loud when you’re studying or doing whatever it is, serious art curator girls do at night.”Her eyes finally snapped up to his, narrowing with clear irritation.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” she said flatly. “And maybe you can try keeping your parties down some people actually have to study to pass their classes.”

Heeseung let out a low, genuine laugh that echoed down the empty hallway. She had bite and he liked that.

“Welcome to the building, miss morals,” he called after her as she turned toward her door, the nickname slipping out naturally. She didn’t respond. She fumbled with her keys, unlocked her apartment, and slipped inside without another word, the door shutting with a firm click.

Heeseung stood there for a moment longer, still grinning to himself. The girl next door already hated him, and he hadn’t even thrown his first party yet. This was going to be interesting.

The gym echoed with the sharp squeak of sneakers and the rhythmic bounce of basketballs. Afternoon practice was in full swing, but during a water break, Heeseung leaned against the bleachers, towel draped over his shoulders, a cocky grin already plastered on his face.

Jay tossed him a bottle of water. “You look way too happy for someone who just ran suicides.”Heeseung laughed, taking a long sip before wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Can’t help it ran into the new neighbor again this morning.”

Beomgyu perked up immediately, spinning the ball on his finger. “The girl next door? The one who already hates your guts?”

“miss morals herself,” Heeseung confirmed, his smirk widening. “I was just leaving for practice when she came out, i told her the walls are thin and she should try not to be too loud at night. You should’ve seen her face, she looked like she wanted to throw her coffee at me.”

Jake, who was stretching nearby, let out a loud laugh. “Dude, you’re obsessed! that’s like the third time this week you’ve mentioned her.”

“I’m not obsessed,” Heeseung shot back, but his grin betrayed him. “It’s just too easy. She gets so worked up over the smallest things. Last week I had a couple of people over, nothing crazy and she banged on my door at midnight like the apartment was on fire, called me an entitled asshole who only passes because ‘daddy pays for everything.’”

The group burst into laughter. Sunghoon shook his head, amused. “She’s got balls, most girls on campus would be throwing themselves at you the second they find out you’re the captain.”

“Exactly,” Heeseung said, tossing the towel aside. “That’s what makes it fun, she doesn’t give a single fuck who I am. No flirty smiles, no asking for tickets to games, nothing. She just glares at me like I personally ruined her life by existing next door it’s hilarious.”

Beomgyu grinned mischievously. “So what’s your plan? Keep annoying her until she moves out?”

“Nah,” Heeseung replied, bouncing the ball once. “I’m just getting started, next time the music’s on, I might turn it up a little louder to see how long it takes before she comes marching over again. Bet she’ll have that cute little angry face on.”

Jake, who had been quietly listening while stretching his hamstrings, suddenly straightened up with a knowing look.“Don’t you think you’re in love with her or something?” he asked casually, but loud enough for the whole group to hear.

The gym went quiet for half a second before the guys exploded with laughter and teasing whistles. Heeseung nearly choked on his water. “What the fuck, Jake?”

Jake shrugged, completely unfazed. “Think about it, she’s literally the only girl who doesn’t give a shit about you no ego stroking, no chasing after the basketball star. She treats you like any other annoying neighbor and instead of leaving her alone, you keep poking at her like a kid with a new toy. That sounds like a crush to me.”

“Bullshit,” Heeseung scoffed, but his ears turned slightly red. He dribbled the ball harder than necessary, trying to play it cool. “I’m not in love with her, she’s just entertaining. It's fun watching her get all riled up, that’s it.”

Jay raised an eyebrow, smirking. “Sure ‘Entertaining.’ that’s why you bring her up every single practice.”

“Exactly,” Jake added with a grin. “If she suddenly started being nice to you, you’d probably be bored in a week but because she ignores you and calls you out, you can’t stop thinking about her.”

Heeseung pointed the ball at Jake threateningly, though his smirk was fighting to stay hidden. “Keep talking and I’ll make you run extra laps, Sim.”

The team laughed again, but Jake just held up his hands in surrender, still smiling. “I’m just saying, man. One day you’re gonna realize you’re not annoying her because it’s funny, you’re doing it because you like the way she fights back.”

Heeseung rolled his eyes and turned away, dribbling the ball toward the court to end the conversation. But as practice resumed and he sank a clean three pointer, Jake’s words lingered in the back of his mind longer than he wanted to admit.

Maybe there was a tiny bit of truth to it. Or maybe he just really, really enjoyed getting on your nerves.

The laughter from the team slowly died down as practice resumed. Heeseung shook off Jake’s teasing comment, channeling the slight irritation into sharper shots. He sank another clean three pointer, the ball swishing through the net with satisfying precision.

For a few minutes, the court felt like the only place where everything made sense no annoying neighbors, no complicated feelings, just the game. Then the gym doors swung open with a loud bang.

Everyone turned as a tall, sharply dressed man in a tailored coat strode in, his presence immediately sucking the casual energy out of the room. Coach paused mid instruction, nodding respectfully.

Heeseung’s stomach dropped the moment he recognized the figure his father. Mr. Lee didn’t smile. He never did when he showed up unannounced like this. His eyes scanned the court with cold calculation, lingering on Heeseung with clear disapproval.

“Take five, boys,” Coach called out, sensing the shift in atmosphere. Heeseung wiped the sweat from his brow and walked over, jaw already tight. “Dad what are you doing here?”Mr. Lee stopped a few feet away, arms folded behind his back. His voice was low but carried easily across the quiet gym.

“I came to see if my son is actually putting in the work that’s supposed to get him into the NBA,” he said flatly. “From what I’ve been hearing, it doesn’t look like it.”Heeseung’s friends lingered nearby, pretending to drink water but clearly listening.

“I’ve been at every practice,” Heeseung replied, keeping his tone even. “Coach said my shooting percentage is up this week—”

“Don’t make excuses,” his father cut him off sharply. “Your brother Heedo was never this distracted at your age, he was laser focused top scorer captainfull ride to the best program in the country. And you? You’re out here laughing with your little friends during water breaks, probably thinking about parties and girls instead of the game.”

Heeseung’s grip tightened on the basketball until his knuckles turned white.“I’m not distracted,” he said through gritted teeth. Mr.Lee stepped closer, voice dropping into that familiar, cutting tone that always found its mark.

“You’re good for nothing if you can’t even focus on what matters. All that talent wasted because you’d rather play around and act like some campus king. You think the scouts care about your popularity? they don’t, you will never be enough if you keep this up and you will certainly never be better than your brother.”

The words landed like punches. Heedo — the golden child. The one who had already made it pro overseas. The one their father never stopped comparing him to.Heeseung’s jaw clenched so hard it ached. He wanted to snap back, to defend himself, but years of this had taught him it was useless. His father never listened.

Mr. Lee straightened his coat, expression unchanging. “Fix it or don’t bother coming home for the holidays, i didn’t raise a failure.”Without waiting for a reply, he turned and walked out of the gym, the heavy doors swinging shut behind him with a final, echoing thud. The silence that followed was uncomfortable.

Heeseung stood there for a moment, staring at the floor, chest tight with anger and something heavier he refused to name. The team slowly went back to practice, but the energy had shifted. Jake shot him a concerned look, but Heeseung ignored it, dribbling the ball harder than necessary as he moved back onto the court.

Inside, the familiar bitterness churned.His father’s words echoed louder than any cheering crowd ever could. You will never be enough. You will never be better than your brother. Heeseung sank another shot, but this time it didn’t feel satisfying.

All he could think about was how easy it was to annoy the girl next door because at least when she glared at him and called him an entitled asshole, he felt something other than this hollow, crushing weight.

The heavy gym doors swung shut behind Mr. Lee, leaving an awkward silence in his wake. The team tried to resume practice, but the atmosphere had soured.

Heeseung stood frozen for a few seconds, staring at the spot where his father had been. The familiar sting of those words good for nothing, never enough, never better than your brother settled heavy in his chest like lead.

Jake jogged over, clapping a hand on his shoulder. “Hey, man don’t let him get to you, your dad’s always been like that you’re killing it out here.”

“Yeah,” Beomgyu added, spinning the ball on his finger. “Ignore him, you’re the one who’s gonna make it to the NBA, not Heedo.” Jay nodded. “Come on, let’s run some more plays we’ll crush the next game.”Heeseung forced a half smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Yeah sure.”

He went through the motions for the rest of practice dribbling, shooting, defending but he was quiet. No cocky jokes no teasing his teammates no loud laughter. Every time someone tried to pull him into conversation or hype him up after a good play, he gave short, one word replies and kept his head down. The usual spark was gone.

Even Coach noticed, shooting him concerned glances but saying nothing.The moment practice officially ended, Heeseung grabbed his bag and left first, ignoring the calls from his friends asking if he wanted to grab food. He needed air. He needed to get away from the echoes of his father’s voice.

He walked aimlessly for a while, the cool evening air doing little to clear his head. Eventually, his feet carried him toward the small café just off campus the one with decent coffee and quiet corners where he sometimes went to think.He pushed open the door, the bell jingling softly, and scanned the room out of habit and then he saw you.

You were sitting alone at a corner table near the window, surrounded by textbooks, notes, and your laptop. Your hair was tied up messily, a pen between your teeth as you frowned at something on the screen. You looked focused serious and annoyingly cute in that concentrated way of yours.

A small, familiar spark ignited in his chest the one that always appeared whenever he spotted you. Before he could think better of it, Heeseung walked straight over and slid into the seat across from you without asking.You looked up, startled at first, then your expression quickly shifted into pure annoyance.

“What the hell are you doing here?” you asked, voice sharp but low enough not to disturb the other customers. You closed your laptop slightly, glaring at him. “This is my table, go sit somewhere else.”

Heeseung leaned back in the chair, crossing his arms, that signature smirk slowly returning despite the heavy weight still sitting in his stomach. Seeing your irritated face felt lighter somehow. Easier than dealing with everything else.

“Relax, miss morals,” he said, voice teasing. “I’m not here to ruin your precious study time. Just saw you and thought I’d say hi to my favorite neighbor.”

You rolled your eyes so hard it was almost impressive. “Favorite? We barely tolerate each other and I’m trying to work unlike some people who can afford to slack off because ‘daddy can pay for everything.’”

The jab should’ve stung more, especially after his father’s visit, but instead it made Heeseung’s smirk widen. There, it was that fire. That complete lack of care for who he was or what people usually said to him. You didn’t tiptoe around him. You didn’t try to impress him. You just called him out.

It felt strangely nice. Not in a romantic way, just refreshing ( liar liar liar he is totally in love with her ) He leaned forward slightly, resting his elbows on the table. “Ouch straight for the throat today. What are you working on that’s got you so grumpy? Another museum thing? Planning to curate an exhibit called ‘Why Heeseung Should Shut Up’?”

You gave him a flat look, clearly not amused. “It’s for my capstone project and yes, if it helps keep loud neighbors quiet, I might include a whole section on it.”

Heeseung chuckled softly, the sound genuine even if it was quiet. For the first time since his dad had shown up, the tight knot in his chest loosened just a fraction. He realized something in that moment. Your company wasn’t bad.

In fact, sitting here watching you get all annoyed and snappy at him felt better than sitting alone with his father’s words ringing in his head. It was simple predictable in the best way. You gave him a reaction real, unfiltered and for a few minutes, it made everything else fade into the background.

He loved annoying you. Not because he wanted to hurt you but because when you pushed back, it reminded him he was still here. Still capable of feeling something other than pressure and disappointment.

“Fine,” he said, raising his hands in mock surrender, though he made no move to leave. “I’ll behave for now but only if you tell me what that exhibit is actually about.” You narrowed your eyes suspiciously, clearly debating whether to kick him out or just ignore him. Heeseung waited, smirk still in place, secretly hoping you’d keep arguing with him a little longer.

ꪆ୧ ─── ドラマ. heeseung’s pov !

Heeseung woke up to a heavy, unfamiliar silence.

His eyes opened slowly, the soft gray morning light filtering through the curtains. His body felt sore in places that reminded him immediately of last night a dull ache in his shoulders, the faint stickiness between the sheets, the faint scent of sex still hanging in the air.

He turned his head to the side the bed was empty. The spot where you had been lying was cold, the pillow slightly dented but untouched now. No clothes scattered on the floor no shoes by the door nothing.

Heeseung sat up slowly, rubbing his face with both hands. The memories came back in quiet, unflinching flashes the party you in that short black skirt.The heated dancing that turned into something reckless.The desperate makeout in his car while horns blared behind you.

How he’d carried you inside, how urgently you both had moved against each other against the door, then on this bed.The way you had moaned his name.The way he had finished inside you.

And how, afterward, he had pulled you close under the duvet, your back against his chest, both of you falling asleep in silence.

Now you were gone. He glanced at the clock. 7:23 a.m. You must have woken up in a panic sometime in the early hours and slipped out while he was still asleep. The realization settled in his stomach like a stone heavy, uncomfortable, and strangely final.

Heeseung let out a long, tired breath and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. He sat there for a moment, elbows on his knees, staring at the floor. This was a mistake, a stupid, drunken mistake.

You had always made it clear how much you couldn’t stand him. The constant complaints about his noise, the glares in the hallway, the way you called him entitled behind his back.

Last night had been nothing more than too much alcohol and bad judgment on both sides. You waking up and running away only confirmed it.He didn’t blame you. If anything, he felt a quiet wave of regret wash over him. He should have known better.

He should have stopped things before they went that far. Now things between you two were already tense, this was going to be even more awkward.

Heeseung stood up and walked to the bathroom. While the shower heated up, he looked at himself in the mirror. There were faint scratch marks on his shoulders and a small bruise near his collarbone. Physical proof that last night had really happened.

He stepped under the hot water, letting it run over his face and shoulders. It never happened, he told himself. That was the only way forward.He would forget about it. Pretend the entire night was a blur he couldn’t quite remember.

No teasing no comments in the hallway no bringing it up ever again. You clearly wanted to erase it, and honestly so did he. The last thing he needed right now was more complications in his life especially with someone who lived right next door.

After the shower, he got dressed in a simple black t-shirt and sweatpants. He made coffee in the kitchen, moving on autopilot. The apartment felt too quiet now.

Heeseung leaned against the counter, sipping the bitter drink, and stared at the wall that separated his place from yours.From now on, things would go back to normal. You would keep avoiding him like you always did.

He would keep his music at a reasonable volume when he remembered. And neither of you would ever speak about what happened last night. It was better this way, cleaner and simpler.

He finished his coffee, rinsed the mug, and set it in the sink. Last night was a mistake and as far as Heeseung was concerned, it was already forgotten.

For the next two weeks, you turned your life into a carefully orchestrated mission of avoidance while your body slowly started betraying you in ways you couldn’t ignore. The mantra remained the same this never happened.

Every morning began the same way. Your alarm went off at 6:15 a.m., pulling you from restless sleep. The moment you sat up, a familiar wave of nausea rolled through your stomach, not violent, but persistent and queasy, making the room feel slightly off balance.

You’d sit on the edge of the bed for a few minutes, breathing slowly through your nose, waiting for it to pass. Some mornings it did. Others, you’d rush to the bathroom and dry heave over the sink, nothing coming up except bitter bile and a metallic taste that lingered on your tongue.

Once the worst of it subsided, you’d quickly get ready, choosing simple, comfortable clothes that wouldn’t draw attention. Then came the listening part. You’d press your ear to the front door, heart beating a little too fast, straining to hear any sound from Heeseung’s apartment next door.

If you caught even the faintest click of his lock or the low murmur of his voice on a phone call, you’d wait sometimes ten minutes, sometimes twenty pretending to reorganize your bag or check your notes until the hallway was silent again.

Leaving became a tactical exercise. You slipped out as quietly as possible, taking the side staircase instead of the main hallway whenever you spotted his car in the parking lot. The fatigue hit hardest during these moments.

Your legs felt heavier than usual, and by the time you reached campus, you were already drained, needing to sit down in the library for a few minutes just to catch your breath. Coming home was even more stressful.

You started timing your returns obsessively. If practice usually ended around 6 p.m., you’d stay late at the library or in an empty classroom, working on your capstone exhibition proposal until you were sure Heeseung was either out with friends or already inside. One evening, the dizziness caught you off guard.

You had just turned the corner into your hallway when the world tilted slightly. You had to lean against the wall, breathing shallowly, while a strong wave of nausea made your stomach churn.

The faint scent of someone’s dinner cooking nearby sent you rushing the last few steps to your door. The moment you got inside, you barely made it to the toilet before vomiting actual, forceful vomiting that left you trembling on the cold tile floor.

You told yourself it was stress. The constant hyper vigilance. The lack of proper sleep. The emotional weight of pretending that night had never occurred. But the symptoms kept creeping in, growing harder to dismiss.

Smells became your enemy. The aroma of coffee from the café near campus, which you used to love, now made your stomach revolt. You switched to plain crackers and ginger tea, keeping a secret stash in your bag.

Even the scent of your own shampoo sometimes triggered a gag reflex. Food tasted strange too salty, too sweet, or completely off. You lost interest in meals altogether, surviving on small portions that you could keep down.

The fatigue settled deep in your bones. You’d come home from classes, collapse on the couch, and wake up hours later feeling like you hadn’t rested at all.

Your breasts felt tender and slightly swollen, brushing against your shirt making you wince. Mood swings hit at random. One minute you were focused on your work, the next you felt inexplicably teary or irritable. All of this made the avoidance even more draining.

One Thursday night, your timing failed you had stayed late at the library, hoping Heeseung would already be inside. When you finally dragged your tired body back to the building, the hallway lights felt blindingly bright.

Just as you reached your door, fumbling with your keys, you heard the unmistakable click of his lock opening.Panic surged through you. Your hands shook so badly that the keys nearly dropped. You managed to slip inside just as his door opened, pressing your back against the wood, heart hammering wildly.

You held your breath, listening to his footsteps pass by. The moment they faded, the nausea hit like a wave. You barely made it to the bathroom before throwing up again, knees weak, tears stinging your eyes from the force of it.

Afterward, you sat on the bathroom floor with your forehead resting on your knees, breathing shakily. This was getting worse.You were exhausted from the constant calculation when to leave, when to return, which route to take, how long to wait in the stairwell. The thin wall between your apartments felt like a constant threat.

You’d hear him moving around sometimes. The low sound of his music ( mercifully quieter these days ), the murmur of his voice when he was on the phone, the occasional laugh. Every sound made your stomach twist with anxiety and unwelcome memories.

You became hyper aware of everything. You avoided cooking anything with strong smells. You did laundry at 2 a.m. when you were sure he was asleep. You even changed the time you took showers, worried the sound of running water might coincide with him coming home.

Yunjin and Soobin noticed the changes. “You’ve been canceling plans a lot,” Yunjin said during one quick lunch. “And you look really tired, are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine,” you lied, forcing a weak smile while fighting the nausea brought on by the smell of her food. “Just stressed about the capstone deadline it’s taking everything out of me.”

Soobin watched you quietly, concern clear in his eyes, but he didn’t push. Inside your apartment, the symptoms continued to build.

Mornings were brutal. You’d wake up with tender breasts and that persistent queasy feeling. Some days the vomiting was so bad you had to keep a small bucket discreetly by your bed.

The fatigue made it hard to focus during lectures. You'd find yourself zoning out, head heavy, fighting the urge to lay your head on the desk. Yet you refused to connect the dots .It’s just stress, you told yourself repeatedly. The avoidance the guilt the lack of sleep.

You pushed through, continuing your careful dance of avoidance. You timed every exit and entry with military precision. You became an expert at predicting Heeseung’s schedule ( she should become a dispatch employee )

You kept your headphones on to drown out any sound from next door. You buried yourself in your art curator work, sketching exhibition layouts late into the night until your eyes burned.Two full weeks passed in this strange limbo.

You were pale, exhausted, and constantly on edge. The nausea came in unpredictable waves. The fatigue made simple tasks feel monumental. And the fear of accidentally seeing Heeseung in the hallway kept you trapped in this self imposed isolation.

Deep down, a small, terrified voice in the back of your mind whispered that something was very wrong. But you silenced it the same way you silenced every memory of that night this never happened.

You would keep avoiding him. You would keep pretending everything was normal.Even as your body screamed louder and louder that nothing was normal anymore.

One ordinary afternoon, everything shifted. You were sitting in the small campus café with Yunjin and Soobin, the three of you squeezed around a corner table. Yunjin was dramatically slumped in her chair, one hand pressed to her lower stomach, complaining loudly.

“Ugh, my period is literally killing me today,” she groaned, stirring her iced latte with a pout. “Cramps are so bad, I can barely sit straight why does it always hit the worst during the worst season? I swear my uterus hates me.”

Soobin chuckled softly, offering her a sympathetic smile. “Do you want me to grab you some painkillers from the convenience store?” You tried to smile and nod along, but the words barely registered.

Her period is killing her…..

The sentence echoed in your head like a siren your own period. You mentally counted the days. It should have come a full week ago. Seven days late. Maybe more.

You had been so caught up in avoiding Heeseung, dealing with the constant nausea, fatigue, and vomiting that you hadn’t even noticed the date slipping by. Your heart started beating faster.

You pulled out your phone under the table and quietly opened your cycle tracking app. The screen glowed with the familiar calendar. A bright red notification stared back at you

period : 7 days late

You stared at the words until they blurred. No no, no, no. You tried to push the thought away immediately. It had to be stress. The irregular sleep, the constant anxiety of avoiding Heeseung, the vomiting all of it could easily throw your cycle off. That was normal right?

But then the symptoms started flashing through your mind like warning lights. The persistent nausea every morning. The vomiting that left you weak on the bathroom floor. The crushing fatigue that made it hard to stay awake in lectures.

The dizziness, sensitivity to smells, tender, swollen breasts. Your stomach dropped, could you be pregnant?

The word felt foreign and terrifying in your head. No. Absolutely not. You wouldn’t get pregnant from one night. One reckless, stupid night. People had unprotected sex all the time and nothing happened.

You were on the pill…wait, were you? You had been so stressed with midterms that you couldn’t even remember if you had taken it properly that week. The thought made bile rise in your throat again.

Across the table, Yunjin and Soobin were still talking something about upcoming assignments and a group project. Their voices sounded far away, like you were underwater.You couldn’t focus on a single word they were saying. Your mind was spinning, heart pounding so hard you were sure they could hear it.

Yunjin waved a hand in front of your face. “Hello? Earth to you! you’ve been spacing out the entire time are you okay?”You blinked, forcing yourself back to the present. Your mouth felt dry.

“I—yeah, sorry just tired,” you mumbled. “Guys, I think I’m gonna head home early today my head’s killing me.”Soobin frowned, concern clear in his eyes. “Do you want me to walk you back?”“No, it’s fine,” you said quickly, already standing up and grabbing your bag. “I’ll text you later promise.”

You left the café before they could protest, walking fast, then almost jogging once you were out of sight. The nausea was back, stronger now, mixing with pure terror. Your hands were shaking as you headed straight for the small convenience store two blocks away.

Inside the store, you felt like every camera was watching you. You moved quickly through the aisles, heart hammering, until you found the family planning section. There were several pregnancy test kits.

You grabbed the most reliable looking one with trembling fingers, not even reading the brand properly. The cashier gave you a neutral look as you paid, but you couldn’t meet her eyes.

Bag clutched tightly to your chest, you practically ran the entire way back to your apartment building. You took the side stairs again, praying Heeseung wasn’t around. The moment you were inside your own apartment, you locked the door twice and leaned against it, breathing hard.

You pulled the kit out of the bag with shaking hands. The box felt heavy dangerous. You read the instructions carefully, twice. Pee on the stick. Wait three minutes. One line = not pregnant. Two lines = pregnant simple but terrifying.

You went to the bathroom, heart pounding so loudly it echoed in your ears. You followed every step exactly, hands trembling so badly you almost dropped the test. When you were done, you placed the stick on the counter and set a timer on your phone three minutes.

You paced the small bathroom, arms wrapped tightly around yourself. Every second felt like an hour. The nausea was back, but this time it had nothing to do with morning sickness. It was pure fear.

What if it was positive?

What if you were actually pregnant with Heeseung’s baby?

The thought made your knees weak. You slid down the wall until you were sitting on the cold tile floor, staring at the test on the counter like it was a bomb about to go off.The timer was still counting down.

Two minutes left. You hugged your knees to your chest, eyes fixed on the small plastic stick that now, held your entire future in two little lines. You were so scared.

The timer on your phone hit zero with a soft chime that felt deafening in the small bathroom. You stayed frozen on the cold tile floor for several long seconds, knees drawn to your chest, staring at the pregnancy test lying face up on the counter like it was a live grenade.

Slowly, you pushed yourself up on shaky legs and stepped closer. One line was already dark and clear the control line. The second line was faint at first, but unmistakable. A pale pink line slowly darkening right beside the first one.

two lines = positive

You blinked hard, once, twice, as if the result would magically change if you stared long enough.“No…” you whispered, voice cracking. “No, that can’t be right.”Denial crashed over you like a wave. You snatched the test off the counter and held it closer to the light, turning it at different angles. Maybe it was a faulty test.

Maybe the line was an evaporation line. Maybe you had read the instructions wrong. You grabbed the box again and reread the instructions three more times, your hands trembling so badly the paper shook.

But no matter how many times you checked, the two lines stared back at you, clear and undeniable. It was positive. You were pregnant. The reality slammed into you all at once.

Your knees buckled. You sank back down to the bathroom floor, the test still clutched tightly in your hand. A sob tore out of your throat before you could stop it. Hot tears spilled down your cheeks as the full weight of what this meant crashed over you.

You were pregnant with Heeseung’s baby. The boy you couldn’t stand. The neighbor you had spent months avoiding. The one person you had sworn to pretend never touched you.

A broken sound escaped you half sob, half laugh of pure disbelief. Your free hand moved instinctively to your stomach, pressing lightly against the still flat surface. There was a life growing inside you right now. A tiny, real consequence of one reckless, drunken night.

The crying came harder. You curled in on yourself, forehead resting on your knees as sobs wracked your body. All the symptoms you had tried to blame on stress the nausea, the vomiting, the fatigue, the dizziness suddenly made perfect, terrifying sense.

You were going to have a baby. And the father was the last person on earth you wanted to be tied to. After several long minutes, the tears slowed, leaving you drained and hollow. You wiped your face with the back of your hand, staring blankly at the two pink lines.

You made a decision right there on the bathroom floor. You were not telling Heeseung anything, not a single word.He didn’t need to know. He would never know. Telling him would only make everything worse the teasing, the drama, the forced proximity, the endless complications with someone you already couldn’t stand.

You could barely handle living next door to him as it was. Bringing a child into that mess was unthinkable. This was your problem. Your body, your choice. You would handle it quietly. You would get rid of it.The thought made fresh tears sting your eyes, but you forced them back. There was no other option.

You were still in school, chasing your dream of becoming an art curator. Your life was barely stable right now. A baby, especially one with Heeseung as the father would ruin everything.

You stayed on the floor for a long time, clutching the test, letting the weight of the decision settle over you.

Eventually, you stood up on unsteady legs. You wrapped the test in toilet paper and hid it deep in the trash can under some tissues. You washed your face with cold water until the redness in your eyes faded a little.

You looked at your reflection pale, exhausted, terrified and whispered to yourself “This never happened.” You would schedule an. appointment. You would end this quietly.You would move on with your life and never speak of that night again.

But as you turned off the bathroom light and stepped into your silent apartment, the weight in your chest felt heavier than ever. You were pregnant. And for the first time since that night, the wall between you and Heeseung felt like it was closing in.

The decision sat heavy in your chest like a stone. You weren’t going to tell Heeseung. You were going to end this quietly and move on with your life. The very next morning, you tried to make the appointment.

You sat on your bed with your laptop open, hands shaking as you searched for clinics near campus that offered termination services. Your stomach was already churning with nausea again, but you forced yourself to focus.

You found a few options a women’s health clinic downtown and a Planned Parenthood branch about twenty minutes away. You clicked on the booking page for the first one. The form asked for your name, date of birth, contact number, and reason for visit.

Your fingers hovered over the keyboard for a long time. You couldn’t do it. Every time you tried to type your real information, panic surged through you. What if someone recognized your name? What if the clinic called or sent confirmation texts while you were near Heeseung?

What if the appointment somehow got back to campus gossip? The thought of walking into a clinic alone, explaining your situation to a stranger, and going through with it made your throat close up.

You closed the laptop without saving anything. You told yourself you’d try again tomorrow when you felt calmer. But tomorrow came and went. Then the next day. And the next. Meanwhile, the symptoms grew worse.

The nausea was no longer just morning sickness it hit you at random times throughout the day. The smell of food in the cafeteria made you gag. Even walking past the coffee shop near campus triggered violent waves that left you rushing to the nearest bathroom.

You started carrying saltine crackers and a small bottle of ginger ale everywhere, but they barely helped anymore.

Vomiting became more frequent. One afternoon during a lecture, you had to excuse yourself midway through and barely made it to the restroom before throwing up.

You returned to class pale and sweaty, mumbling something about food poisoning when Yunjin looked at you worriedly.

Fatigue wrapped around you like a heavy blanket. You fell asleep in the library twice that week, waking up with your cheek stuck to your notebook. Simple tasks like climbing the stairs to your apartment left you breathless and dizzy.

Your breasts were constantly tender, and your mood swung wildly one moment you were numb, the next you felt like crying over nothing. Yunjin and Soobin started noticing. During lunch on Thursday, Yunjin set her chopsticks down and stared at you.

“Okay, something is seriously wrong,” she said, voice firm but concerned. “You’ve been looking like a ghost for days, you barely eat anything, you keep disappearing to the bathroom, and you look exhausted even when you say you slept are you sick? Is it stress? Talk to us.”

Soobin nodded, his gentle eyes filled with worry. “You’ve been canceling plans and spacing out a lot. If something’s going on, you don’t have to deal with it alone. We’re here.”You forced a weak smile, pushing your untouched food around your plate. The smell of it was making you nauseous again.

“I’m okay, really,” you lied, voice quieter than usual. “Just… really behind on my capstone. The deadline is stressing me out more than I thought. I’ll be fine once I catch up.”

They didn’t look convinced, but they let it drop for the moment. Still, you could feel their eyes on you for the rest of the meal. Even Heeseung started noticing something was off.

You had managed to avoid direct contact with him for weeks, but it was impossible to hide everything when you lived next door.

One evening, you were coming home later than usual after another failed attempt to book the appointment online. You felt dizzy and nauseous, moving slowly up the hallway with your keys already in hand. As you reached your door, Heeseung’s door opened.

He stepped out, wearing a simple black hoodie, hair slightly messy like he’d just come back from practice. His eyes landed on you immediately.

You froze for half a second, then quickly turned your face away and fumbled with your lock, trying to get inside before he could say anything. But Heeseung didn’t tease you this time.

Instead, he paused in his doorway, brow slightly furrowed as he watched you. You looked pale. Thinner. There were dark circles under your eyes, and the way you moved seemed off fragile.

He opened his mouth, then closed it again. For once, the usual cocky remark didn’t come.“You good?” he asked quietly, voice lacking its normal edge.

You didn’t answer. You finally got the door open and slipped inside without looking at him, shutting it quickly behind you

Heeseung stood there for a moment longer, staring at your closed door with a strange, unsettled feeling in his chest. Something wasn’t right with you. He could see it.But after everything after that night you both had silently agreed to forget he didn’t know if he had the right to ask.

Inside your apartment, you leaned against the door, breathing hard. Fresh tears stung your eyes as another wave of nausea hit you. You slid down to the floor, hugging your knees. You still hadn’t been able to book the appointment.

The symptoms were getting worse every day, your friends were worried and now even Heeseung had noticed something was wrong. You pressed your forehead to your knees, whispering to yourself again and again

“This never happened… this never happened…” But the lie was starting to feel impossible to keep. Heeseung had noticed. For the past two weeks, it had become painfully obvious that you were avoiding him like the plague.

At first, he thought it was the usual the cold shoulder after that night you both had silently agreed to forget. But it quickly went beyond that. You timed your movements with military precision.

He would hear your door open and close at odd hours, always when he was either inside or already gone. You took the side stairs. You left earlier than usual in the mornings and came back much later at night.

Even at university, catching a glimpse of you had become nearly impossible. You seemed to disappear into the library or empty classrooms the moment practice ended.It was clear you were doing everything in your power to never cross paths with him.

Heeseung told himself it didn’t bother him. He had decided to forget that night too. No teasing. No bringing it up. Just normal or as normal as things could be when you lived right next door

But something was wrong. You looked terrible lately. He first noticed it in passing the dark circles under your eyes, the way your shoulders seemed to slump with exhaustion. Then it got worse you moved slower.

Your face was paler than usual. You barely left your apartment except for classes, and even then you looked like you were running on empty.

One evening, after a long basketball practice, Heeseung was walking back to the apartment building, gym bag slung over his shoulder. The sun had already set, and the streetlights cast long shadows on the path. That’s when he saw you.

You were a few meters ahead, heading toward the entrance. Your steps were unsteady, one hand pressed lightly against the wall for support.

Even from behind, he could tell something was very wrong. Your posture was slumped, your breathing looked shallow, and you looked like you were barely holding yourself upright.

Heeseung’s stomach tightened. He quickened his pace without thinking and caught up to you just as you reached the building door.“Hey,” he said, voice low and serious, no trace of his usual teasing tone. “Are you alright?”

You turned your head slightly, eyes glassy and tired. The moment you recognized him, your expression hardened.“I don’t have time for your teasing right now, Heeseung,” you muttered weakly, trying to push past him toward the elevator.

Heeseung felt a flash of annoyance, not because you were dismissing him, but because he was genuinely worried and you clearly didn’t believe it.“I’m not teasing,” he said, more sharply than he intended. “You look like you’re about to pass out.”

You didn’t respond, just kept walking toward the elevator. Heeseung followed, stepping in right after you. The doors closed, trapping the two of you in the small space. The silence was thick and uncomfortable. He could hear your breathing too fast, too shallow.

When the elevator reached your floor, you stepped out first. But the moment your feet hit the hallway, your legs buckled. You swayed dangerously, one hand reaching out blindly for the wall as the world spun around you. Heeseung moved fast.

He dropped his gym bag and caught you before you could hit the floor, one arm wrapping around your waist, the other supporting your back. Your body went limp against him for a few terrifying seconds.

“Shit—” he muttered, heart pounding. “Hey, stay with me.” You were half conscious, mumbling something incoherent about being fine. Heeseung didn’t waste time arguing. He adjusted his grip and lifted you carefully into his arms in bridal style, your head lolling against his shoulder.

Your apartment was right next to his. He fumbled for a moment with your keys ( which had fallen from your hand ) until he managed to unlock the door. He carried you inside, kicking the door shut behind him, and headed straight for your bedroom.

The room was neat but clearly lived in textbooks stacked on the desk, a half finished sketch on the table, a small trash can near the bed. Heeseung gently laid you down on the bed, pulling the blanket over you. Your face was pale, forehead slightly damp with sweat.

He stood there for a moment, unsure what to do. You looked so small and fragile like this. Nothing like the fiery girl who used to bang on his door and call him an entitled asshole.

Heeseung grabbed a glass of water from the kitchen and placed it on your nightstand. Then he pulled up the chair from your desk and sat down beside the bed, watching you carefully.

Your breathing slowly evened out. The tension in your face relaxed as you slipped into a deeper sleep. Heeseung stayed there, elbows on his knees, running a hand through his hair. He didn’t know what was going on with you.

He didn’t know why you looked so sick. He didn’t even know if you’d want him here when you woke up. But right now, leaving you alone didn’t feel like an option. So he stayed quietly waiting.

Until your breathing became steady and deep, and he was sure you were fully asleep. Heeseung stayed. He told himself he’d only wait until you fell into a proper sleep, but the longer he sat there watching your pale face and shallow breathing, the harder it became to leave.

You looked exhausted, truly exhausted in a way that went beyond simple tiredness. Dark circles under your eyes, lips slightly chapped, skin lacking its usual color. Something was clearly wrong, and the protective instinct he didn’t know he had kept him rooted to the chair.

After almost an hour, when your breathing had deepened into steady, even inhales, Heeseung stood up quietly. He couldn’t just sit there doing nothing. He moved silently through your apartment, careful not to make noise.

Your kitchen was small and neat, but the fridge was nearly empty a few bottles of water, some crackers, and not much else. Heeseung frowned. No wonder you looked so drained. He opened the cupboards and found rice, a couple of eggs, and some ginger.

Simple gentle on the stomach. He decided to make congee something light that his mom used to make for him when he was sick.

He worked quietly, chopping what little he could find, boiling water, and stirring the pot on low heat. The smell of ginger and warm rice slowly filled the small apartment. He hoped it would help when you woke up. Maybe it would make you feel a little better.

He kept glancing toward the bedroom every few minutes, making sure you were still resting. Almost two hours later, you started stirring.

Heeseung was just turning off the stove when he heard movement from the bedroom. He poured some congee into a bowl, added a bit of water to make it lighter, and was about to bring it to you when

You bolted upright in bed, eyes wide with sudden panic. The smell of the food hit you like a wave. Your face went even paler, hand flying to your mouth as nausea surged violently. Heeseung’s eyes widened. “Hey—”

You didn’t wait. You scrambled off the bed on shaky legs and ran straight to the bathroom, barely making it in time.

Heeseung followed right behind you, worry spiking through his chest. He reached the bathroom door just as you dropped to your knees in front of the toilet and started throwing up violently.

“Shit—” He moved quickly, kneeling beside you without hesitation. One hand gently gathered your hair, holding it back from your face. His other hand rubbed slow, soothing circles on your back. “It’s okay I’ve got you, just breathe.”

You retched again, body trembling with the force of it. Heeseung stayed right there, murmuring quiet reassurances, his hand never stopping its gentle motion on your back.

When the worst of it seemed to pass, he reached over and flushed the toilet, then grabbed a clean towel from the rack and dampened it with cool water.“Here,” he said softly, handing you the towel. “Wipe your face.”

You took it with trembling hands, still breathing hard. Heeseung stood up briefly to get a glass of water from the sink and brought it back to you.“Small sips,” he instructed, crouching down again. “Don’t drink too fast.”

While you rinsed your mouth and took careful sips, Heeseung’s eyes wandered around the small bathroom, looking for anything that might help. His gaze landed on the trash can beside the sink. Something white and plastic was poking out from under some tissues.

Curious, he reached down and pulled it out, it was a pregnancy test. Two distinct red lines stared back at him clear, unmistakable, and positive. Heeseung froze.

His brain short circuited for a second. The test felt heavy in his hand as the reality sank in. Positive you were pregnant. He slowly turned his head toward you. You were already looking at him.

Your eyes were wide with pure terror, face drained of all color, lips parted in shock. You looked caught completely and utterly caught like the worst secret in the world had just been ripped open. The glass of water trembled in your hand.

Heeseung’s mouth opened, but no words came out at first. His gaze flicked between the test in his hand and your terrified expression.

The pieces clicked together horribly fast the avoidance, the exhaustion, the vomiting, the way you looked like you were barely holding yourself together for the past two weeks.

This wasn’t just stress this was because of that night because of him. Heeseung swallowed hard, his voice coming out quieter than he expected.

“…Is this yours?” The bathroom fell into a heavy, suffocating silence. You were still staring at him, tears already gathering in your eyes again, looking like you wanted the floor to swallow you whole.

Heeseung didn’t know what to say. He only knew that everything had just changed. Heeseung stared at the two red lines on the pregnancy test for what felt like an eternity.

The bathroom was deathly quiet except for your shaky breathing. When he finally looked up at you, your face was pale, eyes wide with pure terror, tears already spilling down your cheeks. He swallowed hard, his throat tight.

“…Are you pregnant?” he asked, voice low and rough. You didn’t speak at first. Your lips trembled as fresh tears rolled down your face. Then you gave a small, barely noticeable nod.

Heeseung felt something twist sharply in his chest. He looked back down at the test, then at you again. His next question came out quieter, almost hesitant.

“Is the baby mine?” The moment the words left his mouth, your face crumpled completely. You broke into heavy, broken sobs, shoulders shaking as you tried to cover your mouth with one hand.

“I’m sorry…” you choked out between cries. “I’m so sorry… I didn’t want this to happen, i never meant for any of this, it was just one stupid night and I— I’m planning on getting rid of it. I won’t bother you with any of this, i won’t get in your way. You don’t have to worry about anything, i’ll handle it quietly.”

Heeseung’s expression shifted the instant you said those words. Hurt flashed across his face raw, unguarded hurt. His brows drew together, jaw tightening as he processed what you were saying.

The idea that you were planning to terminate the pregnancy without even telling him felt like a punch to the gut. His hand holding the test lowered slowly to his side. You kept crying, words tumbling out faster now, desperate and apologetic.

“I’m really sorry. I know you didn’t ask for this. I didn’t ask for this either, i’ll take care of everything. You can just forget about it…i promise I won’t drag you into anything.”

Heeseung stayed silent for a long moment, staring at you as you sat on the bathroom floor, looking small and devastated.

The hurt in his chest mixed with something heavier confusion, disbelief, and a strange ache he couldn’t quite name. Finally, his voice came out low and strained.

“and you didn’t bother telling me?”

READ PART TWO HERE >.<

PERMANENT TAGLIST : @wonscrchy @miniij @ni-kichromeheartzz @evansfangz @jakeycakeys @addictedtohobi @babydumplingpandabamboo @simjakeyjake @angelhyuka @nodoubtily @chanchamm @ni-k1ttie @yangw0ni3 @mystgene @enheenie

FIC TAGLIST : @fluveryss @st4g1rlies @lillotus17 @mel-reads @cherrilimae @reysblr @luvksnn @papichulomacy @imsojuliaaaa @deobitifull @ckline35 @ellushic @axfyl @gthae @enhypens-hoe @nithxhoon @en-stellar @sievenderz @yunkivamp @isa942572 @starfallia @jellykitti @darjeelinglemontea @graythecoffeebean @eirlyscloud @heehee67 @lawjakesim @vananas @fancypeacepersona @hoonlvrrz @thinkinboutbin @erehkinnie30 @encorp @satorus-slut @shreyanshii11 @cylinax @zoe1love @vissnipherwifeey @lanadellarry13 @simjaeyunslut @simjaeyunlvrclub @soraokkotsu

៸៸៸ nsfw tags for the whole fic, as in both chapters: masochism (jake), sadism (reader and jake), overstimulation, painful masturbation, praise, worship, dirty talk, blowjob, finger fucking, pussy eating, riding, missionary, mating press,  standing up sex yayyyyy, huge giant fat cock jake, deep penetration, unprotected sex, implied breeding, choking, hair pulling, suffocation, cock warming, crying, begging, hate sex, hitting (m receiving), squirting

・・・・・・・・・・・・・・

The next morning, you were late waking up to log into your work account but Jake was still there, drowsy and smiling at you from the moment you opened your eyes. 

You briefly remember the early morning pouting he gave you, hard against you and lips all over you, and in turn you remember how you made a promise to yourself swiftly after rejecting his needs.

Your face heated up the second he said good morning to you, flustered over the fact that not only do you want him, but you want him to want you like that again, despite your rejection. After all, you let him sleep over, and he didn’t try to take advantage of you despite sporting an intense boner through the majority of it. 

He sees the way your eyes check him out upon waking up too, but you stay silent after he gives you his good morning greeting. 

“Are you hungry? I can step out and pick up some breakfast so you can work.” He offers, stretching his arms out wide and tapping you to stand up. “I’m staying again today.” 

Your eyes widen at him, but the smile on your face betrays that little red flag in your head that has forced you, up to this point, to struggle to give him what he needs. 

“I’d like that.” You nod to him, cheeks permanently warmed at the image of your shining boyfriend. “Sorry about last night.” You blurt now, standing up and stretching yourself. 

“It’s fine love, it's just hard to keep my hands to myself sometimes.” He says, intensely watching your reaction.

You lend a pause in your stretch at those words, having heard them before when your ex did things that made your body ache for weeks. There is a pull in your gut hearing him say that before you remind yourself that they’re just words. He just really likes you, and he did stop when you told him to.

He is not your ex. 

“I wouldn’t have hurt you though,” He continues, seeing you deep in thought in front of him. “If you’d have let me, I mean.”

“Jake I–” You stop yourself, feeling a flood of words on the tip of your tongue. “I know you wouldn’t hurt me.” You confirm, now moving forward to hug against him. “I would have–” 

“You would?” His eyes light up, smile brighter than you’ve ever seen before. 

“No, I mean,” You stutter in panic, hugging him tighter. “I would have touched you if you asked.”

His eyes go dark instantly, making his smile seem more eerie than anything as you look up at him. 

“I’m okay with doing the touching, we can work our way up to the other stuff…maybe? If that’s okay?” 

“Oh, baby, that’s more than okay.” He coos out, now losing his appetite for actual food and wanting nothing more than to show you just how good he could really be for you. His arms hug you tightly before releasing you, and he ushers you across the room. “We can talk about this later though, you’re already late, right?”

You nod, feeling a bit better about initially rejecting him and doing just that, moving to the small nook that holds your desk and PC and listening to him slip his shoes on. 

“I’m going to grab breakfast, and I’m gonna stop by my place to grab some clothes.” 

He leaves before you can answer, which is nice because part of you didn’t want to hear your own voice accepting that. 

Accepting that he’s leaving right now, accepting that he’s coming back to stay another night, accepting that you feel perfectly fine with all of this despite your inner demon advising you to run. 

You don’t know who you are in this moment, but what you do know is that you’re safe. That’s what’s driving you to act blatantly against what your own brain is telling you.

・・・・・・・・・・・・・・

You’re clinging and Jake is fucking devoted to the feeling of it.

Devoted to the way your fingers, so much smaller than his own, grab him to kiss him. Devoted to the way you kiss the bruise above his brow, and the way you ask him to stay for another night, and another, and another, up until he finds himself doing his and your laundry together just so he doesn’t have to go back home to grab more clothes to rotate through. 

It’s been a week since he’s been in your apartment, rolling around on your bed with you in it, cleaning himself in your shower, washing himself with your soap. It’s like only the two of you exist in this space, where he is the only one to step out and see the sun, solely so you don’t have to.

Or, solely so you can’t. He doesn’t think he’d let you at this point, now that you’re his and you prove it with each kiss and hug. All you need to do is sit and look pretty, sit and love him. That’s what your purpose is in this relationship, he will do the rest. 

Given, he’s also fucked his fist each second he can get in your bathroom. But goddamn do you cling. You whine when he separates himself from you even for a moment, and day by day he can see you come closer and closer to fulfilling his need to be loved by you entirely. 

Your phone hasn’t received any unsavory messages you’ve noticed as well, they haven’t needed you to come into the office, and all you can manage to think is that…you’re in love with being in this apartment with him.

Only good things happen when Jake is with you and you’re growing so attached that you’ve thought more than once to just move him in with you. Your mother would scold you, your ex would kill you, and arguably, Jake would absolutely do it. 

He waits on you hand and foot. Cooking, cleaning, doing your laundry, holding you and giving you some of the best sleep you’ve had in years. You refrain from considering it seriously though, because this relationship is still so new. You don’t want to freak him out or cause an uproar in your already fucked up and unsteady life. You’re throwing yourself in like you always do, but…is it so bad when he’s doing the exact same thing?

Until he’s not, anyway. 

“Love,” Jake starts, tapping his chin with the tips of his fingers as he lounges on your bed. “I need to go home today.”

Your heart immediately sinks. 

“What? Why?” You ask in a voice that plainly shows your panic.

“Well,” He taps on his chin again before moving his hand through his hair. “I’m pretty sure my mailbox is probably full by now, I need to clean out my fridge, and I should probably check my course work.”

“You’re…in college?” 

Jake nods with a snicker, laughing at how he’s given up his entire life for you. 

“Yeah, probably won’t be soon though.” He laughs, shaking his hair out and then looking at you with big, rounded eyes. “Just for the day, I’ll be back before sunset.”

You look down in a disappointed way before nodding to him. 

“Aww, babe. Don’t be like that–” He mock pouts as he turns to you, grabbing both of your cheeks and squishing them up, forcing your lips to pucker before landing a harsh kiss against them. “I’m coming right back, I promise.” 

You nod again, unable to keep a smile from forming on your face. 

“You’re so cute, it’s going to kill me one of these days.” He smiles back at you, hopping up and preparing himself to head back to his apartment. 

What you don’t know is that, while Jake wasn’t lying and that he should at least clean out his fridge, he needed to go home. 

He needs to unload the footage onto his computer, he needs to watch it back, he needs to fuck something.

And so, he does just that. 

The second he gets back to his apartment, it’s almost uncomfortable. Unfamiliar scents, no warmth, rotting food in the fridge, neglected pillows and bed sheets. 

Even so, it’s like he acts on instinct when he walks past everything he needs to do and lands himself at the window. His mind takes over in an instant.

It felt like so long ago when he first saw you from here, knowing you were the most beautiful, the perfect girl for him. Knowing you would love him too, and that you’d never want to leave him. He smiles at his victory, knowing that you’re sitting in that apartment right now thinking about him too. If he knew where he would be now, he thinks his former self may have very well fucked himself to death. After all, he’s felt you, tasted you, and even seen parts of you based on the little image he sent to himself from your phone. Everything happened better than he knew it would.

If it weren’t for your ex, perhaps you wouldn’t have let him stay with you in your apartment. Perhaps you wouldn’t have clinged to him so immediately. 

In a way, he almost wants to thank the man before he eventually strangles the life out of him. 

He’s tasted almost all of you by this point, and each moment it happened is trapped within the files of that little camera there. All of it, for him to remember. Each kiss and makeout session he made sure happened in the view of this camera, and so badly does he want to watch over and over again the moments where you gave in to him. The moments where you needed him. 

He’s quick to push the camera to his pc, uploading a weeks worth of files before placing it back onto the window sill and immediately shoving his hand down his pants. 

Jake shivers at the first unrestricted graze of his hand against his cock, eyebrows falling into that of probably one of the most pathetic faces he could ever make in his life. The relief is so good, so painful.

He can’t fucking help it. After jerking off multiple times a day before finding himself in your apartment with you, it’s hard to only do it once a day within a short time span of a few minutes. He felt so restricted in terms of his release, and he has so much cum to give right now. He’s aching for it. He wants to bleed it dry. 

He wants you so bad at this point, seeing you dangle yourself in front of him and not yet give in to at least going down on him– he needs this. He needs it now. 

Even if it’s not you touching him, he needs to release before he takes it from you. Before he does something stupid and makes you hate him forever. Before he really does become your ex. It felt like he was going insane in your apartment, surrounded by you, only wanting to fuck you, and still not getting to. 

God, the footage is so grainy but it hits his cock so fucking fast. He memorized each moment as it happened, and now watching it in third person makes him feel as if he’s some sort of ghost. Like he’s having an out of body experience and can see and feel you in a completely different light.

In more ways than he already has, even.

He releases within thirty seconds, barely holding his cock when he doubles over at the footage of that very first, harsh kiss you gave him. Sensitive and twitching, his raging length spilled all in his pants, drenches them through even, as his body shakes with the need for more.

And as if it never happened, he takes a firmer hold of his cock now, fast forwarding the footage to each and every kiss, wondering how good those lips of yours would feel elsewhere on his body. How pretty your moans would sound for him, how cute your hand looked gripping your tit in that little nude of yours, how–

He comes again, forcing him to let out a choked sob and drop his head to his desk. God, it hurts. He’s so sensitive, and still, he wants you so bad. His dick is still raging, aching, and begging, especially when he thinks of how you’ve been clinging. How your hands have fucked yourself, and how badly he wants them to stay on him forever. 

God he wishes your fingers could slice him open, leaving painful and love-filled reminders of not who you belong to, but of who he belongs to. 

When he thinks of how he’s only doing this right now because you have your claws buried into him already, almost refusing to let him leave you, he knows he could come another four or five times within the next thirty minutes solely because you cling, and cling, and fucking cling. Fuck..

That’s so hot to him.

He’d let you cage him up in a heartbeat, he’d let you fuck his entire life up and then laugh at him for it. It’s what you deserve. To have a man willing to do anything for you, someone willing to give up everything just to hear you breathe, to have him be that person. 

Third release, forcing him to hold his breath to the point of feeling faint.

The veins on his neck protrude, sweat now dripping down his brow. 

It hurts, it hurts, it fucking hurts.

But it doesn’t hurt enough.

And all day he does this. Until the sun is telling him that he needs to go back to you, until his hair is drenched in sweat and his arm is sore. Until his body feels weak and his cock feels spent, raw, and still throbbing for more. 

It hurts when he puts on a new pair of pants, hurts even more when he forces himself to squat in front of his fridge to clean it out, opting to toss everything into a bag rather than sifting through what’s good and what isn’t. 

Now more than ever does he want you against him, knowing that he’s fucked himself half to death solely to keep himself from scaring you, and still he isn’t satisfied.

At this point, nothing will satisfy him but you. He knows this now.

He’s quick to lock up, even quicker to toss his trash, and finds himself inside of your lobby at a loss.

Goddamn his libido. Goddamn this love for you. 

He can’t stop wanting you, and he can’t just fuck the need away himself at this point. He needs you to fuck his brain quiet, only you can satiate this horrifyingly deep hunger. 

Waiting, watching, waiting, waiting, waiting. 

He’s waited enough. He’s done waiting. 

・・・・・・・・・・・・・・

Jake appears at your door right on time, and you were expecting to see his smiling face and big stretched out arms to greet you as you open the door for him.

You didn’t get that though. In fact, you found yourself frozen with the door half open as you stared at your boyfriend and the way his terrifyingly small pupils looked back at you before instantly growing twice the size. So different from this morning, heaving, lips shaking, eyes darker than they’ve ever been. 

Before you can even ask why he’s looking at you like that, you learn exactly why. 

“I’m going fucking insane.” Jake says shortly in a hot whisper, stepping forward and slamming the door behind him. You feel his hands on you instantly, slipping under your shirt and grabbing your waist tightly. “Can’t be away from you, can’t be with you, I can’t stand it.” 

You just listen, feeling him walk you into the living room, fluttering his lips all over your face and neck, only to press you up and against the window with his entire body pinning you there with a slam. 

You’re shocked, unable to do anything but listen to him and feel the way his hands grip and search your entire body for something to hold onto. 

“All fucking day,” Jake seethes out angrily, pulling back from you and grabbing your face to turn it. Almost pissed that you simply exist in front of him right now. “Right there.” He says, pointing directly to his apartment. “I sat right there trying to deal with this.” He presses his hips against you, letting you feel exactly what he’s talking about. “And still, I need more.”

Your brain goes numb. Or maybe it goes hot, you’re not sure. You’ve only recently realized that he turns you on beyond belief, it’s difficult to decipher the difference between horniness and fear right now. 

“Jake–” You turn back to him, now using your own hands to grab his face, forcing his eyes to steady and look at you, as if to bring him back to reality. “Do you need–”

He cuts you off with a harsh kiss, hands running up just to press you harder against the window, his hips chasing whatever he can get from you. Like he’s using you in this moment, as if you’re not real and simply a doll for him to release against and inside of. 

He’s fucking gone. Outside of himself, and you, and the universe as a whole. 

“What I need,” He says, pulling back and stating in an almost demanding tone. “Is for you to take care of me.”

You knew this would come sooner or later, and you’d been trying to work up the courage to do it. You’ve run his patience dry, and you guess it’s now or never at this point.

“Just tell me.” You whisper submissively, wanting to give him whatever he needs solely so that he won’t leave you.

You see his expression soften within a split second, his hips release their pressure against you, and he pulls his hands back.

“Fuck.” He lets out apologetically, demeaning himself for losing his control and being so blatant. Pointing out his fucking apartment to you. “Baby, I’m sorry, I–”

You’ve already made your decision, understanding exactly why your boyfriend broke his composure. This past week proved enough to you that he wasn’t in it to fuck you, and even though his needs weren’t being met, he still worked hard to meet yours, you feel…

Yeah, you’re happy he did this. Even the force didn’t scare you entirely. The only thing that scares you is him leaving you over this. And he watches as you do it, sinking to your knees and reaching out to hook your fingers into the loops on his pants. 

“Baby,” He warns you, feeling you pull him straight to you. “Wait, wait.”

You don’t, knowing that if you were to stop now you might end up talking yourself out of doing this again.

“No,” You shake your head, lifting on your knees just to rub your cheek against the length in his pants. “Let me take care of you, I’ve neglected you enough.”

God, he fucking buckles. Dropping right to his knees in front of you, pulling you in by the face, and kissing you as hard as he possibly can. His entire body quivers, bursting in a euphoric sense of arousal as the hairs rise on his body at the very image of you on your knees for him. 

“You’re so good to me,” He mumbles through kissing you. “So, so good to me.”

And you just let yourself feel it. Intensely, to the point that even your stomach flips at knowing what’s about to happen.

Strangely enough, it flips in a good way. You haven’t felt like this in years, and it brings so much glee to you knowing that Jake is right here, willing to let you make him feel good. Willing to let you feel these things again, willing to make you feel good if you work up the courage to ask for it. And most of all, he’s staying. 

“Stand up then.” You whisper in a smile. “I’ll take care of you, so don’t run back home to do it yourself anymore.”

Jake shakes his head with a smirk, happy to get what he not only wants at this moment, but what he so desperately needs. 

“I did that for you, and look where it got me.” He says, standing and staring down at you. “Nothing will ever satisfy me, only you can.” 

You chuckle shyly, reaching up to fumble with his button only to have him take over for you, dropping his pants and gripping himself. 

“Don’t be so sure though.” You swallow around a lump in your throat at the size of him, proving why you were always able to feel it and not quite ignore it. “I don’t have a lot of practice with this.”

Oh, could you be any more perfect? Any more fucking endearing? With those pretty eyes staring down what he wants to put in you so bad, not even knowing how he’s only ever gotten this hard for you and you alone. Fuck, he could give it to you so good, he could fill you until you can’t breathe, he could keep you forever.

You look so pretty like this, with your lips trembling as you wet them, with the way your smaller hands swat him away as if to ask him to let you try and hold it yourself. 

He could shoot his load right now if you asked him to, looking so fucking docile on the floor for him. He needs to look away, he needs to prepare for this.

“I don’t know if I can, um,” You start, gripping him and noting that he’s thick, there’s no way it will all fit in your mouth without absolutely suffocating you. “Jake, I genuinely don’t know if I can fit all of it.”

He lends you a short chuckle as he takes in a breath, his fingers going down to tip your chin up at him. You feel it pulse in your hand as he looks at you, almost feeling his quickened heartbeat through the vein that runs up the underside of it. 

“Love, I don’t need it to fit.” He smiles, pressing it harder into your palm. “Even this is enough right now.” He lies, pressing his hips forward as if to show you that he’s lying.

He needs it to fit so bad.

You eye him down, feeling the twitch release a little dribble of precum that rolls down and onto your circled fist. It’s been a long time since you’ve looked at another person this way, wanting to taste it, almost needing to. 

Rubbing your legs together, almost uncomfortably, you swallow again as you keep your eyes trained on his before glancing back down. You pull your hands back just to see the way it drops. God, it’s so heavy. You can imagine he’s full of resentment for how long it’s taken you to simply look at it. His cock rages at you, darkened in color and glistening in the light of the setting sun through the window. 

All you can do is stare.

And all Jake can do is stare too, watching you do math in your head of what you need to do with him. He’d take anything, fucking anything, from you right now.

“Mm,” Jake hums for a moment, grabbing your hand and squeezing it tighter. “Like this.” He instructs.

“I know how to give a hand job, you know.” You roll your eyes playfully, despite totally forgetting how to do it now that, you know, you want to. 

“Yeah, don’t tell me that.” He warns, annoyed that you’d even say that right now. “Just, grip me harder–” He closes his eyes, pretending that you’ve never touched a cock that wasn’t his own, noting how your hands have always been gentle with him, save for that day you dragged him around by the shirt in a kiss.

You listen, trying to grip the girth of it as tightly as you can while dragging your hand forward and back, forcing little grunts out of him.

“Yeah,baby–” he encourages you, “Just like that.” He continues to lose himself to the feeling in soft moans, blinking down and now moving his hips in your grasp, fucking forward a bit harder. “Use your other hand too..”

You listen intently, never having to use both hands on a man like this before. You try to squeeze him, offering as much pressure as you can as he swivels his hips forward and back, slicking your hands up nice and wet with his precum. Unbelievable how much he has, actually. 

 You look up when he lolls his head back in a drawn out moan, staring at the expanse of his neck and the way it tenses when he swallows around the same moan. And then, suddenly, in a split second he hangs his head back down and looks at you as if he can see everything you are, everything you ever have been, and everything you ever could be. You gasp at his expression, feeling totally lost and in awe when you see that gaze go dead as he stares back. 

His lips fall slack when his hips pick up pace, essentially fucking your fists rather than letting you do the work. And when you glance away from him, tuning in to the consistent pre-cum spilling out of him, he sees you lick your lips. 

He watches, he sees you want it. 

So, very gently, he places one of his hands on the back of your head, encouraging you to do it. And it’s like he can taste colors when you let him and instantly wrap your lips around the big, swollen head of his leaking length.

The half-moan-half-amazed-chuckle that falls out of him only comes from the fact that you instantly stretch your lips around it, lapping at his tip in an almost hungry way. 

“God, fuck–” He keeps his head hanging forward, watching intently as you take him further and further into your mouth, up until you release one hand and grasp his thigh to hold onto. “I’ve dreamed of this.” He admits, shocked that you’re really going to do this for him.

You blink up at him, trying to smile around the heavy length pressing your tongue down. If you’re going to do this, the least you can do is make sure he fucking loves it. Not to mention, the fact that you’re also enjoying it only drives you to do more. Like the wall inside of you has been shattered and nothing could ever stop you from wanting him in any and every way possible.

He smiles through a deep groan at the way your lips still curl around him.

Never in his fucking life did he imagine you smiling while sliding his cock down your throat. Really, you did that entirely on your own and somehow, he feels even more insane than he did walking into your apartment earlier. 

You’re making it fit, and all he can do is help you, now bracing that same hand on your head and pressing further into your mouth.. 

More, more. 

And when he feels your fingernails dig into his thigh and his cock hit the back of your gagging throat, he chokes out, eyes tearing up, and he sobs out your name in a desperate attempt to compliment you for it. 

That sound alone from him went straight through you, igniting a long awaited arousal within your belly. You feel the drip, relishing in the feeling of being wet for the first time in fucking years. He’s so big, and he’s so suffocating. You want to do this, you want to hear him cry out your name again.

Even when he tries to pull his hips back, you grab onto him and hold his hips in place, pushing your lips further down, depressing your tongue even more as the thickest part of him cuts off your airways. Your throat restricts around him, and you feel proud of it. Proud of choking on him, happy to keep doing it. 

He stutters in awe, gripping the windowsill with his free hand and using the other to feel your hollowed out cheeks. Shit, you’re going to taste him, he’s going to give you all of it, he’s going to–

Shocked, floored, entirely drunk for you, all he can do is watch as you choke. His body did not warn him at all when his cum shoots into your throat, warming your belly with that first swallow around him. 

Your reaction to it is immediate though, as he watches with half-crossed eyes the way you pull off of him and let his cum spurt out and drip all over your face. Down those beautiful cheeks, onto your plush lips, and down your neck.

It won't stop. He just keeps coming. His entire body trembles as he stares at you, and you stare back before closing one eye due to the fact that there is now cum in your eyelashes, and you fucking smile at him.

The image alone keeps him hard as his body finally stops twitching. You, there on your knees, smiling up at him drenched in him. 

“Baby,” He soothes out with a raspy tone. “Fuck, you didn’t have to do–”

“I’m wet. Jake.” You smile, as if you’re admitting this to him to gain some sort of congratulations for it. And in a way, you are. He has no idea how amazing it is to you right now that you can feel your panties go sticky. It feels amazing to admit to him, actually. 

It’s so relieving, it’s so warm, it’s something you never should have missed out on in the first place.

“What?” He asks with uneven breath, dropping to his knees in front of you again, rubbing the cum into your skin with his thumb as he caresses your face. “You are?”

You beam at him, smiling with a nod.

“Really?” He asks again, in disbelief because this was all it took? 

You nod again, leaning back on your arms and watching him follow, hovering over you and slotting himself between your legs with a hungry gaze. 

“Can I feel?” He asks abruptly, crawling over you to the point that your back hits the side table behind you, keeping you from lying all the way down. 

And you nod before you think about it. Wondering if this is how it’s always supposed to be. Always willing, always wanting, always needing. 

He stares at you when you nod, glancing down to your middle then back at you as if to gain another confirmation. 

You nod again, this time wanting to hide your face in your arms. You anticipate it, wondering what it’ll feel like to be touched there again by a hand that isn’t your own after all this time. And when you feel his shaking hand dip into your sweat pants, you don’t even shutter. You don’t shy away.

You’re surprising yourself even, letting out a gasp when he cups your core and looks down at you with a cautious smile. 

“You’re dripping, baby.” He smiles as he balances himself on one arm over you, rubbing his hand back and forth and memorizing the dips and folds he can feel through this flimsy fabric. Then, his more intrusive thoughts spill in an unintentional and needy groan. “Fuck, I bet you’re so tight.”

Words that would make you recoil are no longer scaring you. You can tell he wants to apologize for saying it too, but goddamn, you loved hearing it. In fact, your entire body pulses at the words, feeling his hand do nothing more than hold you there and gently rub. His eyes are pleading though, with his lips pouting as he relishes in thoughts of probably fucking his fingers into you just to see if he’s right. 

Or maybe it’s just you hoping that’s what he’s thinking about. You can’t help the way you clench, letting out a strained breath as you lurch forward and hug him around his neck, squeezing so tightly as you whisper against the shell of his ear. 

“You can touch me– if you want.” You whisper, physically feeling the goosebumps against his neck raise to your lips. “Just go slow.”

You still need to go slow, after all, you don’t know how your brain may react to this, despite loving it at the moment. Relishing in the fact that someone managed to make you feel horny again. You feared that you never could again. God, he’s amazing. 

“I’ll go so slow for you,” He whispers back, twisting his hand in your pants to hook his fingers around your panties to pull them to the side. “Oh, baby, you really do want this, don’t you?” He whispers again upon really feeling you drip, trying to slide his fingers through the slick mess before rubbing circles around your hole. He’s lost his train of thought now, only able to feel one sense at a time so that he can fucking memorize how you coat his fingers entirely.

He moans again from deep in his chest along with you, despite knowing you’re the only one feeling the pleasure of his fingers. You feel his moan vibrate through his throat when you kiss him there, anticipating what it’s going to feel like when he slides a finger in.

And it’s like you see stars when he does, slowly pressing one into you as he wraps his other arm around your waist to hold you in place, sitting back on his knees and forcing you to stand on your own infront of him. 

There he holds you as if he’s afraid you’ll start to fight, relishing the feeling of your wet walls hugging his finger all while you cling to him through it. He was right, you are tight despite how wet you’ve gotten. It’s almost like you’re a virgin despite knowing that you’re not. 

Your body is reacting this way for him, and you’re hugging him, and your pussy is clenching for him. He just knows that if he manages to fit his cock into you, he’d fucking lose it. You’d squeeze him so tight, and he’d fuck it so deep. Fill you up, deeper, deeper, until the only name you know is his. 

He’s losing it again, hearing your little whispered moans against his ear, hanging on him like a fucking pet, god, he wants you to squeeze the fucking blood out of him. You’re being so compliant, so submissive, so–

“Do you even know…” He starts babbling, trying to silence his thoughts by giving them straight to you as his finger slides out, eagerly shoving two back in at a much quicker, much harsher pace. “How much I’ve dreamed about this?” 

You shake your head noting how he’s already mentioned dreaming of you once. The thought has you spreading your legs out to feel how deep his fingers reach inside of you. There’s no pain involved in this, despite his pace not being nearly as slow as he said he would go. You’re not upset, you want him to go faster, you want him deeper, you want to hear him talk.

“So many times, baby, so many times.” He soothes himself more than you through these words, losing himself more and more each second to the feeling of your core clenching his fingers. “You’re even prettier to me right now,” He continues to babble, listening to you hum in his ear at the pleasure you feel. “I want you to take everything from me.” 

“I want you to wrap your legs around my neck, I want you to rub my nose in it, I want you to suffocate me, I want—”

“Shit, Jake.” You moan out his name for the first time at the dirty words. They’re a lot to take in only because you know it truly is a lot, or rather, it should be. But you fucking want that too. You want everything from him, you want everything he wants. Everything. “What else?” You urge him to keep talking.

“I want you to pull my hair,” He says, instantly feeling your fingers slide up his neck and into the thick of it, tugging immediately. “I want you to make it fit here too.” He continues, curling his fingers inside of you, thrusting his own hips against the dense air in your apartment. 

You moan again at his hot words. You’re overwhelmed by how much you want more, how much you’d let him, right here, right now. 

“Keep going,” You sing out, feeling it in your stomach and knowing that this familiar feeling is so much better than you’ve ever felt before. “Tell me, Jakey, fuck–” You continue, huffing at the way his fingers quicken even more. 

“Sound so pretty saying my name, fuck,” He groans now, more level than before as he feels your legs close around his arm, fingers relentlessly hitting the soft spot inside of you. “Tell me that I’d never hurt you, that only I can make you feel like this.”

You nod aggressively as your brain hits a wall, unable to fulfill his request. Every muscle in your body tenses in pleasure as you begin to shake, moving your own hips against his fingers and tugging his hair harder without intention. 

He moans out at how tight you hold him, wanting nothing more than to lay you out and bury himself into you, to feel your pussy jerk him off. 

“Feels so good, baby, right?” He continues to talk, feeling your tight walls try to push his fingers out with each threat of your build up, his mind is spinning. “Say it–” He stutters, feeling his own body react the same way yours is. “Fuck, please, say that you’re mine.”

“I’m yours.” You whisper out of breath against his ear, the hot breath sending him overboard as he immediately pulls his fingers from you and grips his cock instead, ignoring your whimper of the lost build up.

“Yeah,” He cries out, thrusting his hips against his hand. “So let me– please, please let me.” 

His face looks so broken when you stare at him in shock, eyes pleading for you to give him all of it. To give him everything right now. How could you fucking say no to that expression? How could you ever say no to him? 

And still, with your orgasm half-fulfilled, you’re entirely enamored with the way you instantly want it too. As if you’re rushing head first into a brick wall with him, and you stop just to think for a moment.

Should you? 

Do you intend to keep this man forever? Do you want him to leave? Would you be able to picture a day without him? 

It confirms in your brain right then and there. You do intend to keep him. You don’t want him to leave. You could never picture a day without him at this point. 

If he wants to have sex with you right now? Why not? You’re sure that if he is truly wanting to stay, sooner or later you’ll feel him pumping inside of you. Why should it matter that it happens now rather than tomorrow? Or next week? Or even next month? 

Instantly upon your snap decision, you stand on shaking legs, watching him watch you. His hand gripping himself harshly to prevent a pathetic and untouched orgasm, cheeks flushed, eyes glassy. 

You smile, dropping your pants, panties, and then lifting your shirt right up and over your head. All he does in response is wince, grip the base of his cock harder, and try to focus on not spilling and wasting his cum on your floor. Brain only slightly trying to distract him with the idea of grabbing those sticky panties to suck them clean. 

“Really?” He chokes, out of breath and standing up, swiping your panties up quickly and crumpling them in his hand.

Then, you feel one hand on you after he drops his length, and the other rubbing those same wet panties against your skin, as if he has a death grip on them and you. Still, he walks you right back to the window and against it, speaking in that same, needy and shaking breath. “Baby, are you sure?” 

You look away, feeling vulnerable and shy but so willing, so ready when you nod and throw your leg around his waist as if to tell him that you’re more than sure. 

He gives you a breathy chuckle, pulling back just to lift his shirt off of him, hang your panties at the base of his cock, and then he grabs your leg and holds it in place. “Right here?”

He can’t tell if he’s even alive right now, with your pussy sitting spread open right up against him as you let him hold you here, your ass is probably looking great for the camera right now. Your panties feel so good in their rightful place, dangling just in front of his balls. You feel so good in your rightful place, right up against the wall with him trapping you here. 

You nod again, pressing your hips forward, proving to him how hungry you feel for him right now. Finally feeling dirty and not hating yourself for it.

“Right here.” You confirm, tuned into his lips and leaning forward to lick against them. “That’s what you want, right?”

He’s stunned by how you take control while still being somehow submissive to him about it. Almost like you’re shaming him for wanting it, almost like you don’t want to admit that you want it too. 

“Is that what you want?” He asks, trying hard not to think about how you’ve shifted entirely within the span of however long it’s been since the two of you started this. Is this how you act when you're horny? 

“How could I not?” You confirm again with a confident tone, watching your boyfriend break in front of you. “Look at you.”

Jake can’t bear to look at himself, he knows he looks just about as pathetic as he’s always wanted. Never quite able to feel pathetic enough to satisfy him, only now understanding why he chased and chased the feeling to have you like this. 

Controlling whether he can stick his dick in you, controlling whether he can fuck off and die. 

That’s how it’s supposed to be in a relationship, but somehow it’s something else between both of you. For him, it’s like you’ve intentionally edged him for an entire week and for you it’s like you finally have control over your own sexuality again. 

You feel powerful, and Jake wants to be entirely at your mercy. 

“No one has ever wanted me this bad and waited.” You finally say to his intense and loving stare. “I want to give you anything you want.”

If he had a tail, it would be wagging so fast right now. It’s like he’s being given a treat for being exactly who you needed him to be, and he doesn’t think he’ll ever stop doing it. 

“I could wait longer,” Jake mumbles, inching his lips to yours and letting his other hand cup one of your tits. “You could make me suffer,” He continues, whispering it right into your mouth. “Could lock me up and starve me of it.”

You lean your face back, a little shocked at his choice of words there. 

“So you meant those things you said earlier?” You ask, remembering how he babbled on about wanting you to suffocate him, about how he wanted you to take everything from him. 

“Do you want me to be honest?” He counters, now pressing his hips forward and letting his cock weep against your thigh. 

You nod to him. 

“I want you to take it all out on me.” He admits, gripping your tit in his hand tighter, hiking your leg up higher. “I want you to control every aspect of my life.”

Honestly, it shouldn’t be a thought that brightens your brain but it does. It sounds toxic, and you can’t even tell if he’s saying this just because he’s horny and is about two seconds from slamming you up and against this window with the force of his cock alone. Somehow, you love the thought of all of it. 

“Every aspect?” You ask with interest. “What do you mean?”

He chuckles as he hangs his head, watching his length pulse constantly against your thigh and the panties hanging off of it. Only then does he release your tit and use your panties as a way to position his cock up, lining up with the wet of your core that is only for him.

“It means–” He starts, sliding into you with a paused moan, hiccuping slightly as he furrows his brows. “I want you to make me cry for you.” He continues with a tilt to his head as he watches the way you wince at all of the strength he has to hold you up like this, to slide into you like this. “I want you to hurt me, and I want you to love doing it.”

He bottoms out after that, holding you in place and feeling your walls struggle to adjust to the tight fit. 

“It’s what you deserve.” He soothes out to you, kissing you once. “To take someone the same way you’ve been taken.”

You recoil instantly, pussy restricting in horror at the reminder of why you never do this with another person, but god the way he lifts on his toes just to plunge somehow deeper into you. The way his lips trap you even more, the way his force is nothing but fucking amazing to feel. All you can do is moan, bump your head against the window, and squeeze him. 

“You said you wanted to give me what I want–” He slides out of you just a little bit. “So, can you?” He pushes back in, listening to you get wetter at his words and feeling your answer when you can’t seem to speak for yourself. 

“I said I’d never hurt you, love,” He coos out this time, watching your body shift up against the window as he picks up some sort of rhythm, taking you the way he’s always wanted you. Right here, against the window. “But I never said that you couldn’t hurt me.”

Why the fuck is that so hot? God, why does a man like Jake offer you so much? Why is he doing this to you? Why is he doing it to himself? Why do you love it? 

You find yourself nodding as you moan out, still not quite adjusted to his size and the way he made it fit into you in such a…pleasurable way. It doesn’t hurt at all, it feels good. 

“Yeah, I knew you would.” He continues to talk as if he’s not internally losing it, but months worth of pretending, several orgasms today alone, and having your pussy hugging him just as tightly as he knew it would? That’s helpful. 

And now, as your fingers grip at him through his harsh and deep thrusts, all he can do is hold your leg against him, lean forward, and stare directly into his apartment window. As if he’s mocking his former self, as if everything in the world has fallen into place. You wouldn’t leave him now, never, you’d be just as stupid as everyone else if that were the case. 

He has faith in you, in himself, in this, and the way you drip all over him. 

He knew you’d be perfect for him. 

It doesn’t take long, really, for him to pull an orgasm out of you when he’s doing it this good. In fact, you don’t even have to reach a hand down to help pull it out of you by the time your body begins to stiffen up at it. 

His pace is slow, his cock is deep, and fuck his entire body is on you. You couldn’t squeeze your hand down if you tried, in fact, you don’t think he’d even consider letting you do any of this on your own. 

His grip is so strong, you can feel your sweat stick to the window as you slam your head down on his shoulder, sliding up and down the window with each of his powerful thrusts. 

It feels so good to do this again.

“Jake–” You hiccup against his neck, listening to his heaved and choked breaths through each thrust. “I wish I had done this sooner.” You manage to get out, body tensing and relaxing by the minute with the threat of an orgasm. “I’m sorry I made you wait so long.”

And honestly, you don’t know what’s gotten into you, nor do you fucking care. If you want to cry, you’ll fucking cry. It’s been too long since your tears hit you out of pleasure, or happiness, or fucking safety. At this rate, you’ll never let this man go. 

“I know baby, I know.” He soothes you, arms shaking as he holds you up and thrusting in as deep as he can go.

You feel him stutter in his pace, his hips stopping as you feel his heavy cock pulsate against your clenching walls. 

“Are you close?” He says, pulling back and looking at you. “Is that why you’re sorry?”

You look at him with glassy eyes, smiling dazed at him as you shake your head. 

“No,” You smile wider, running your hands up and into his hair, remembering what he asked for before. You tug, forcing his head to tilt back so that you can attach your lips to him. “I’m saying it because I want you to always make me feel this good.” You whisper against his pulse point, kissing it hard. 

You feel him lose composure at that, his hips immediately moving again, slamming up and into you so hard that you can’t even hold your head still enough to kiss him there again. 

“Ah, fuck,” He whimpers out, “why would you fucking say that to me right now?” He continues, relentlessly fucking himself against the soft and sensitive spot inside of you. “You still make me feel so insane, only you could do this to me.”

You smile, having learned that he appears to love the torture anyway. 

“You love it though, don’t you Jakey?” You say, loving the way he loses it for you, learning how badly he’s wanted this, seeing him intend to stay. 

And at those words, he can’t take it anymore. Fuck the camera, fuck anything else in the world that isn’t you. He ignores that wince on your face when he slips out of you, ignores the way the panties fall from his length, and focuses entirely on the way you hug him as he carries you straight to the couch. 

Right there, he drops you and watches the way your tits bounce at the motion. 

“I’m fucking obsessed with you.” He says, feeling the arousal run through his veins, knowing you’d love to hear him say that while never knowing just how true it is. “How are you real?”

You smile, hiding your face as you feel his hands hold your thighs open. You know what he’s looking at, and you can’t force yourself to see him do it. Solely because you know it’s going to swell your heart so big that you’d only fear the day he wants to leave it empty.

And you don’t respond either, because you can’t. His fingers are spreading you open and you can hear him drop to his knees yet again for you. You wan’t to look so bad, but still, you fear the love in his eyes.

You fear and want all of it. 

He hears the sharp inhale you give when he spreads you out, really inspecting the single spot on your body that no one on this earth should ever see aside from him. 

“This is where it hurt the most, isn’t it?” He asks, staring into the hole he’s already fucked, watching it beg him for more despite his words that probably stab your soul. 

You’ll never understand how he can take your pain and turn it into something you don’t mind hearing though. Yes, that’s where it hurt the most, and still, that’s where you want him the most. 

“Yeah, baby?” He asks again, reaching an arm up and forcing you to look at him. “This is what you were so afraid of?” He continues, dipping down and rubbing his face directly into the folds and inhaling a deep breath. 

“Y-yeah.” You choke out at the feeling, in awe of how you knew his eyes would make you terrified. He still stares up at you as he does it, pointing his glare straight through you and into your fucking spirit.

Only Jake can make you fear nothing else in this world aside from the thought of losing him. 

“I’ll make it better,” He says, boosting his ego at the way your legs wrap around his head. “You’ll always want me here,” He continues, cooing out with each taste and lick of your budding arousal. “You’ll never want me to stop–” 

No man has ever wanted you this bad while having you, even as you experienced the trauma of just that. Your ex wanted you physically, but something about the man drying to drown himself in your pussy right now makes you feel like he wants you on a level far deeper than what’s possible.

He’s eating you out like he wants to eat you whole. Like he could devour you, and never spit you out of his mouth. 

“Shit, shit–” You moan, hands shooting down to his hair yet again, finding yourself loving the way his grown-out roots feel softer than the harsher dyed section of his hair. You tug harder than you have before, feeling his tongue search and yearn for everything you have to offer him. 

“Mhm.” He mumbles with a mouth full of pussy, rolling his eyes back at how you do just as he suggested before. Rubbing his nose in it, letting him continue to lose himself in the point of all of his problems. 

And it’s as if you forgot that this only happens to reach a point of coming. The experience alone feels like one long and drawn out orgasm already, it doesn’t take anything at all for him to get you there. 

It’s like he already knows it too, because you go entirely silent with a held breath as he holds your hips and buries his tongue deep inside of you. He wants to feel it, he wants to taste it. And he suffers for it, really, neglecting his own cock and knowing he’s going to come through this alone anyway. 

As expected, he does. Upon the first gush of your slick hitting his tongue, his cock pulses, his balls squeeze up, and he can feel it shoot out of him each time your pussy shakes against his suffocated mouth.

And your hands, so perfect in his hair, pulling without even knowing. You’re everything he’s ever wanted, this is more than he could have ever asked for. 

・・・・・・・・・・・・・・

By this point in your relationship, the two of you have moved so quickly that it doesn’t even scare you. In fact, if it slowed down at any point, you’d probably be preparing a suicide note simply because you don’t want to be in this world without Jake. 

Since the first time you got intimate with him, it’s like it hasn’t stopped. You’re shocked at his thirst for you and even more shocked that someone so fucking perfect would waste his breath on you even for this long. 

It hasn’t been that long, really, since the first time you touched him. A few days at most, but it’s like that moment solidified a lot for the two of you.

One, he’s not going to be sleeping in his own bed anytime soon or, ever, really. Two, you’ve learned through at least two more sessions of Jake’s mouth on you that he really does want you to live up to his requests. He makes it known how badly he wants you to make him suffer, how badly he needs you to give him everything he wants. Thankfully, he’s patient with your reluctance. And Three, your ex is no longer a threat. 

Each message you receive, you just hand your phone to Jake and he takes care of it. 

It doesn’t even translate in your head that you’ve been barred from answering your mother’s calls until the police show up at your door for a wellness check. Where, of course, Jake answers,

“Yeah, she’s here.” You hear his voice as you lay flat against your bed, heaving breaths as if he didn’t just have the tip of his dick in you. “Why?” You hear him question. 

A few more muffled words and you hear the door close and his footsteps making his way to your room. 

“Cops.” He dead-pans, “Your mom thinks you're dead.” he adds with an eye roll. 

Your internal panic, a feeling you had once been so accustomed to that now feels almost foreign, takes over your body.

“Fuck, my mom!” You say in a fast breath, rushing onto your feet and throwing on a pair of his soiled sweatpants. 

Jake hangs back but listens to your conversation from your hallway, listening intently to how you speak to other men, cops or not. 

“Yeah,” You say, scratching your temple with shame. “I guess I didn’t realize she was calling me so much.” 

Try five times a day. 

“I’ll call her now, sorry for wasting your time.” You continue with that nervous chuckle that you used to use on him during your dates. 

And then you’re back in the room, looking at him with a raised brow. 

“Why didn’t you tell me my mom has been calling?” You ask, a little annoyed that it’s gotten to the point of freaking your mother out. 

Jake shrugs, then looks at you apologetically. 

“I don’t like when she forces you to talk about it.” He finally says, sulking his shoulders and huffing out. “I don’t like that she tells you to be careful around me.”

You roll your eyes, relieved that he’s just being himself and wanting to keep you happy. 

“Still, you should have told me. She’s going to have a fucking heart attack thinking he showed up at my work place again.”

Jake’s entire brain stops working, his body going rigid as if the cold air outside is hitting him in full force. 

Your eyes immediately widen as you slam your hand over your mouth. Fuck, you forgot that you told her in a hushed tone, explaining that it’s okay. That Jake wouldn’t let anything happen to you. 

Fuck. 

“He what?” Jake says, dumbfounded at the slip of your words. 

“Jake, wait–” You try to get an explanation but he’s not having it. 

“You haven’t been at work, what do you mean he showed up?” He glares, chest heaving as his heart rate picks up. 

“It was from that day when you first stayed over,” You look at the floor apologetically. “I didn’t want to talk about it…” You trail off, feeling his energy hit you in the face at how he’s completely shifted from that loving, soft boyfriend you’re so used to. 

“You kept that from me!?” He seethes out in disbelief. This whole time he thought he fucked your ex up enough to prove what would happen if he even fucking tried it. By you explaining that it happened just after Jake found him, that’s a direct insult.

A threat.

A fucking death wish.

“I didn’t–” You stutter trying to explain yourself. “I didn’t think it would matter since you were here. You were keeping me safe.” 

“You lied to me?” He continues interrogating you, coming up to you and practically demanding an answer through his eyes.  

You look away, nodding. 

“You said you wanted me to keep you safe, what would have happened if you had to go to work again?” He drones on and on, seemingly stuck on the fact that you didn’t tell him. “What would happen if they called you to go in today?” 

Already you’re starting to cry, feeling stupid for not making a bigger deal out of it. To be fair, not talking about it helped and you did intend to tell him at some point. That just…never happened. 

“I would have asked you to stay with me at work.” You say, feeling numb as the fear of losing the man in front of you steals your every thought. “I’d have not gone. I’d have quit. I don’t know!” 

Jake backs down at your words, only able to soften his rage if you’re the one who causes it. 

“Baby,” His soft voice shocks you when you feel him come back to himself, as if to comfort the fear he just instilled in you. “I’m not mad.”

Yes he is, you know he is. 

“Now you’re the one lying.” You argue, pushing him away only to feel his grip on you tighten. 

“Am I?” He asks, urging you to keep talking. “Are you mad at me now?” He continues, intentionally pushing your buttons. 

“Mad that I should have already known?” 

“Mad that I didn’t let you talk to your mom?” 

“Mad that I’m keeping you safe, while you keep putting yourself in the position to be hurt by him again?” 

You stare at the floor. 

“Mad that this is your fault?” 

Yeah, you are mad. 

“Fuck you, Jake.” You break, feeling his strangling fingers on your skin scratch and leave welts when you force yourself away from him. “Fuck you for all of that.”

“What else?” He presses, hanging on specific words. “Fuck me for what else?” 

You just stare at him, and he can see the anger in your eyes. 

“For not being there when it happened?” He asks gently. “For not killing him when I had the chance?”

When he had the chance. 

“What do you–” You try to ask, but he just continues, closing back in on you. 

Somehow, you need it, despite wanting to pull away every time. 

“Fuck me for wanting this from you, right?” He says, much closer to you and dipping down to kiss you. “Fuck me for wanting you to be this mad, hmm?” 

You break again, something deep within you spiraling into a different type of insanity you’ve never felt. You don’t feel trauma, you don’t feel scared, you feel…enraged.

“Fuck me for thinking you look perfect,” He whispers against your lips. “Fuck me to fuck me, fuck me to fight me, fuck me.” 

The repeated words fit into your brain like they belong there. Like this anger is supposed to be filling you with pleasure rather than dread. Like you’re supposed to feel just as in love as you are mad. 

“Just fuck me, baby.”

And god fucking dammit. How does he crawl into the depths of your brain, like a fucking roach, and kiss all of the areas you don’t know exist? How the fuck does he wake shit up inside of you that you never dreamed of having, or feeling, or wanting.

“I hate you.” You say, and meaning it too. 

Because you don’t think you’ve ever loved someone more than you do now. 

“Yeah, I bet you do.” He smiles, dipping his hand down into the sweats you put on and sliding into the same slick he had spilling out of you just before the pigs showed up. “I love it.” He chuckles against your lips when you refuse to moan at his touch. 

You’re pushing against every good feeling inside of you right now, thinking only of how this rage spills out of you and against his fingers. 

“So wet to hate me–” He says, pressing and pressing and pressing for you to just fucking– “Hit me.” 

He sees your eyes shine at the very thought of how badly you must want to do that, unknowing of how much he wants it too. Needing it almost. 

And oh, the moan he lets out when your weak hands raise to shove him back. He plays off of it, stumbling back to your bed just to fall on it. Waiting, knowing you’ll come take him for all he’s worth.

“Come on, love.” He encourages you. “Make me sorry.” 

You hate him, and you hate that you love it. Love that he loves it, fucking adore that he wants this, he wants to let you do whatever you want to him. 

To kick, cry, scream, release everything that’s been trapped in your head for years.

You don’t even falter, feeling it bubble up and overtake every thought. Dripping down your legs as if this is the only way you could ever fulfill your own pleasure again. Only now to you slide the pants back off of you, so horny out of your mind that all you can manage is to feel these emotions drip for him. 

He watches you straddle him bare from the waist down, sees your breath shaking, and your lips quivering.

Jake knew you had it in you. 

“Take them off.” You demand, rolling your eyes at the way he looks up at you with pure bliss.

“Hit me first.” He offers, feeling his cock strained against his own pants that he haphazardly threw on when he heard the knock at your door. “Hit me, and I’ll fuck the hate out of you.” He lies.

“Take them off.” You repeat, cold hands reaching down as you do it yourself, lifting just enough to shove them down far enough.

And god, the breath is knocked clean out of him with the way you just take him. You slide down perfectly, bottoming him out in one motion. He can see now that you need this perhaps even more than he does. 

“God, come on baby.” He moans, feeling you just sit still on him. 

“Jake,” You warn, running your cold hands up to his neck on instinct. “Shut up.” You squeeze. 

The smile that forms on his face is pornographic at best, and drunk at worst. You see him love every instant of it, and you don’t want to admit that you do too.

You didn’t know it would feel so good to have a man’s neck in your hands, squeezing it just to shut him up. Releasing it just to hear him gasp out a praise. 

“So good,” He praises, eyebrows knitted together as he loses himself to the way your pussy chokes his length. You’re not even fucking him, you’re just– “So perfect.” He continues, nearly wailing out at the immense love he feels inside. 

And then, you do. You hit him. Power hungry and entirely at a loss for your own pleasure, you land a harsh and loud slap right against his face, only for him to moan louder. 

Only for him to fuck up. 

Only for him to grip your sheets so tight that you hear a rip. 

Again. You slap him, feeling your anger slowly fizzle with each frantic moan he gives back. 

Again, and again.

“Shit, you love that, don’t you?” He manages to say, feeling his cheeks sting with red-hot passion, only to be hit again, and again. “God, make it hurt.” 

At this point, you know that you could never give him enough as the rage leaves your body entirely and it’s replaced with nothing but the need to just….fuck him. Never in your life have you ever been blinded by a need so badly, save for safety.

And you have that now, don’t you? You have Jake now, right where you want him, right he wants to be. He wants you to feel this, he made you feel this. 

The first bounce felt like pure agony, slamming his cock into you by your own force, feeling him stretch you open, hearing it slap and echo against the walls. 

“Make it hurt?” You finally say, pinching his cheeks together and forcing him to look at you. “I don’t think I could hurt you enough if I tried.” You admit, quite truthfully, mind you.

Jake gives you a crooked smirk. 

“Try it anyway.” He coos, feeling the way you repeatedly arch your back just to ride him faster. “Could fill you up, right here, right now, flip you over and make you take it if you’re so worried that you can’t.” 

It runs through you like a cold shiver. You don’t want to give up this power, you want to try. 

“That’s big talk for someone asking to be choked right now.” You dead-pan at him, voice even and calm. You continue to move your hips, listening to his repeated moans with each breath. “So loud and needy for it too.”

Jake nods proudly and drunkenly, reaching his hands out to yours and forcing them back on his neck. 

“I could be needier.” He says, pressing your hands against his airways. 

You take over for him, choking his remaining words out of him and forcing him to moan. 

“You said you’d make me take it?” You seethe out through your own pained moan, riding him so hard that you feel sensitive. “Like you think it would hurt me?” 

He shakes his head rapidly, implying that you’re wrong to think that. Wanting to tell you that if he made you take it, you’d love every second of it. You wouldn’t tell him no. 

“After promising you never would, Jake?” You question still, knowing he can’t answer. You squeeze harder as you watch his face darken, the blood rushing to burst in the whites of his eyes. “Is that it? You want to hurt me so that I hurt you back?”

He nods in a daze, wanting nothing more than to die like this now, or some other day. To hear your voice, feel your hands, and know that you’re fucking him through it. 

“You don’t scare me.” You finally say, releasing the grasp and listening to the sharp inhale he takes in. “As much as I wish you did, you don’t.” 

That’s all it takes really, knowing that he could work you like a puppet and you’d still love him. Why else would you say that? You wouldn’t fuck him like this if you didn’t mean it. Your mother long forgotten, the anger gone, it’s just a raw form of you and him right now. 

Everything you’re saying is more truthful than he ever thinks you’ve been with him. 

“Want me to?” He finally asks with a wet gasp as he continues to catch his breath. “I bet I could.”

“You can’t.” You say, now slowing your hips as your legs tire out, bracing yourself on his shoulders to take a breath. 

“I can.” He says, immediately overpowering you. He sits up quick, flipping you right over and onto your back. “I can make you feel anything I want.” He whispers darkly to you. He grabs your legs and pushes them to your chest, lost entirely from this reality. “Anything you want.” 

You just stare up at him, willing to accept his words even more when he slams his length into you, so deep that you feel nothing but the pain of it. 

For the first time, he’s hurting you through pleasure alone. 

“Could make you love it too,” He continues to dote on himself as he watches the sparkle in your eye dim. “You love it already, don’t you?”

“I’m not afraid.” You manage to mutter out through a guttural groan, wincing at the way he drives himself into you at such a speed that all you feel is pain. 

“I can’t take you seriously when you talk like that.” He chuckles, feeling entirely in control of whatever entity is running his body right now. “I see you baby, you’re terrified to lose me.” 

Your eyes die in that moment, because out of anything in this world, he’s pinpointed your biggest fear. 

“So pretty when you’re scared too,” He hums out, not relenting at all with the force of his hips when he lets your legs fall around him, and he finds himself burying his face between your tits. “Maybe I should threaten to leave you.”

Instantly, you cry. 

“Just so I can eat up these little tears you have for me.” 

You wish he would shut up. 

“So I can taste the way you come on me, and feel your pussy try and lock me here.” He smooths over your nipple at the words, slowing his hips and pulling out just to the tip. “Your body tells me more than you know, love.”

Your eyes roll up when his pointed thrust shoves your body across your sheets, your hands reach for his shoulders, clawing for any sense of normality to this moment. 

“So quiet.” He lightens his own voice now, letting it fall against your collarbone in a tone just above a whisper. “So stubborn.” 

Your mind awakens at the insult, hoping he’s right. 

“To think I’d ever leave you.” He smiles, lifting up to meet your lips. “I’m not going anywhere.”

He tastes your tears and it’s just enough for him to forgive you. 

To forgive you for not hitting him enough, for not choking him until he died. To forgive you for even thinking you’d need to talk to your mother, and for fucking lying to him. 

And only now does he go quiet, fucking you will full intent now that he’s already in your head at every turn and corner. He can tell with the way you don’t even realize your previous orgasm. 

With the way it bubbled out and down his balls, hugging his cock so tightly that all he could do was keep fucking with your mind, toying with threats only to silence them. 

And then, you inhale a sob, and breathe out his name, so pretty to your ears, even more beautiful to his own. 

“Don’t leave me.” You chime out, body numb and emotions threatening you into a panic attack.

“I’m right here, love.” He chuckles. “You’re shaking.” 

You are. More than you can even comprehend, your body is shaking from feeling everything and nothing at once, all the way up until you do feel something. 

“Ah, shit.” You cry out, hugging his body so tightly against you. “Right there–”

And Jake does it, angling his hips to repeatedly hit the spot inside of you. Knowing you’re sensitive, knowing you can take it, knowing that he can’t when he feels every drop in your body push him out of you. 

Instantly he plunges back in, listening to the wet sounds of all that love you must have for him. He can barely move in this suffocating hug as your body shakes and quivers more than it ever has, even through your past traumas, even through the cold nights this city offers. 

He has spent you and fucked you dry. 

“There she is,” He echoes into your ear. “The girl of my dreams.” 

The only energy left in you is enough to give him a smile before your tunnel vision fades into nothingness. 

It feels calm in the darkness he gives you, and even calmer when you wake up feeling as if all of this was a dream. 

It wasn’t though, because you can feel the way you’re still leaking all over your bed. Your own slick mixed with his, and you don’t even remember when or how he orgasmed because he certainly was taking his time before you initially fainted, but you’re glad he did. You think he is too, with the way he clings to you like a puppy, as if he didn’t just fuck reality straight out of you. 

Lending you the gift of floating, and of pain you find yourself to love. 

・・・・・・・・・・・・・・

Waking up the next morning felt like you were a new person and you couldn’t be happier to see the saddest version of you die. The only fear you need to have is that Jake may some day choose to leave, and he said himself that he never would. 

You trust him more than anyone, more than yourself even, considering he’s managed to force you into facing so many versions of yourself that you didn’t even know you had. 

This is the first morning you’ve woken up without your skin crawling and you can’t help but shake him awake, destroying that blushed and sleeping face of his. 

“Jake,” You shake him, feeling him stir instantly and lend you a crooked smile. “Wake up.”

You listen to his morning stretch as his body vibrates in a yawn, and then he’s nuzzling his face even further into your naked chest. 

For what feels like hours, you find yourself engaging in pillow talk. Logging into work? Long forgotten. Calling your mother? Forgotten. The pain in your body? Ignored.

You tell him everything. Every detail of your life, your first memory, your first laugh and cry. All of the times your heart has been shattered, your least favorite colors and favorite words in the world. And he just…listens.

He nods, he smiles, he coos and kisses you throughout all of it. 

And then–

“You know, a while back before we met, I came home and noticed some of my things were missing and messed with. I can’t help but feel like he’s known where I’ve been this whole time.” 

Jake stiffens in your grasp before relaxing. It happened so fast that you don’t think anyone but you would have noticed it.

“Some of my panties were gone, and the batteries in my toys went missing weeks ago–not that it matters now or anything.” You continue, watching his face intently. “ At first I thought that maybe I was just forgetful but– now i know that it really was him.” You pause, smiling at him. “I’m just kind of waiting now, wondering if he’s ever going to try and do it again.”

“Do you want me to kill him?” Jake chuckles out as if to offer a funny little solution, one that he has genuinely considered more times than he can count. And he should have already, honestly.

You feel warmer at the way he makes jokes, but you know better than anyone that Jake jumps into action driven only by rage at times.

“He won’t come near you again, love, haven’t I proved that to you already?” He continues, imagining the blood of his man on his fists again. Imagining the way his bones would crack so beautifully. 

You nod in an almost shy way to him.

“You’re safe with me.” He says, wrapping his arms around himself as you cradle him. “You’re safe with me.” He continues, repeating it more to himself because he feels as though he can’t fail you again, “You’ve always been safe.” 

You haven’t believed words so deeply until you met him. 

“He already fucking knows–” He whispers shortly, cutting himself off. “I’ll kill him.” He whispers a bit louder, uncaring if you heard that first slip of his words.

Something in your brain floods at those words. A confirmation that you’ve seen him break before, and it wasn’t your imagination. Your protective, loving, and sweet boyfriend has a side to him that you’ve yet to truly see. Those words were more believable than any of the sweet things he’s ever said to you. 

And still, you almost want to encourage it, reminding yourself of the image of your ex the day he showed up, all bruised up. And then to the image of Jake with his own little battle scar.

Deep down you think you knew what happened.

And you still wonder how such a perfect man fell into your lap? Your bruised up, pain-loving boyfriend, breaking his soft persona and showing you a glimpse of something that feels….unnervingly beautiful to you.

Unsure, almost, you feel. As happy as you are that he lied to you, you try to not think of how Jake found your ex with nothing more than an out-of-context description of your abuse. You try not to think of the way he looked away from you when you mentioned the items in your apartment that went missing. 

You try not to think about how close he lives to you, and how he always managed to show up when you couldn’t hang out. 

How all of his interests matched your own, up until he never spoke about them again when he started staying with you. 

How he only looks at you, how he only talks to you, and about you.

How he always knew what to say to you.

You try not to think about how you saw him toss his own laundry into your washer many nights ago, seeing a glimpse of what you thought could have been a pair of your own missing panties. Or how he always accidentally picked up your toothbrush rather than his own in the mornings.

You push those thoughts far into the back of your mind, knowing that you were just being paranoid, grasping to not trust a single person in this world as you fall into this life with him. Even if all of those instances were with purpose on his end, you know you’d simply accept them as normal. You’d accept him, you wouldn’t think twice. 

Jake is your only safety. He would never do anything to harm you, he’s proved that. 

You hold his head tighter against your chest, breathing out a sigh and accepting everything at face value, pushing back the slight doubt in your head that everything he has done for you, to you, and with you, isn’t normal. 

“Did you tell him already?” You sigh out in a calmer tone, soothing him with your fingers in his hair. “That you’d kill him? Is that really why you had that bruise?”

Jake stiffens under your grasp briefly. 

“What do you m–” He starts. 

“I won’t ask how,” You cut him off. “But thank you.”

He relaxes, thumbs now rubbing hearts into your skin, stomach bubbling in butterflies. 

“I did.” He now admits reluctantly, feeling dangerously close to a truth you don’t need to see or know about. “I couldn’t just let another person think that you still belong to them.”

You pause, then nuzzle closer to him. 

“I knew from the first time I saw you that I wouldn’t let anyone else touch you.” He continues, spilling and spilling. “I knew that you’d be mine.”

You try not to think too hard about it, asking out gently and instead choosing to just love him harder.

“When was the first time you saw me?”

Jake goes silent and tries to read the air in the room, sensing how relaxed you are against him. 

“Eighteenth of October at the supermarket. We both made spaghetti for dinner that night.” He lies, never intending to admit that the first time he saw you was through your window. Never admitting that he actually already knew you by that eighteenth of October. That he followed you to the market.

He says it so confidently, and the fact that he’s right about what you cooked should scare you. The fact that you must have seen him that day too should make you feel unnerved.

You choose to ignore that too. 

“Was your spaghetti good?” You ask, allowing yourself to spiral into the safety that he offers you. The image of your bruised ex boyfriend bringing joy to you, the idea of Jake keeping his promises making your stomach tingle with even brighter joy.

“No.” He admits with a chuckle. “Yours was probably better.”

“You really would kill him, wouldn’t you?” 

Jake nods.

You trust him. 

He’s not lying. 

He would never lie to you. 

Him knowing what you cooked that night is a coincidence. Him remembering the date and month is just him being mindful. Your lost panties must have gotten tangled in his laundry, surely. He found your ex because you probably let sensitive information slip without realizing it. 

He met your mother and uncle by coincidence. 

He’s the perfect man by chance, and you’re lucky to have him. 

“I love you, you know.” You say, feeling him immediately shift away from your chest to look at you.

The look in his eye when he’s immediately getting on top of you, it’s still as if he’s about to wisp away with you in his arms to another realm. You’ve already been there before, and your body warms at the thought. 

“What did you say?” He asks, voice shaking and somewhat far away from your own dissociated reality. 

“I love you.” You say again, watching his lips quiver, and feeling his hands squeeze you. 

He did it. He’s won. 

And at the end of the day, you don’t think Jake could ever lose. After all, you’ve never felt so safe in a grasp as tight as this one, as painful as this one. You’ve never wanted a man to leave his fingerprints on you so bad. 

As you look at him, seeing him lose himself from reality, you follow suit. Losing yourself with him, feeling that painful grasp on you turn into begging hands. Swelling him under your palms, soothing his stinging skin with your lips, listening to him encourage you, knowing that if your ex ever tried to step into this room, he wouldn’t make it out alive. 

・・・・・・・・・・・・・・

oh, the horrors, amirite?

this is the last of the fic. there is not a part three.

"I think I should drop out too" you murmured softly, your eyes fixed on the flickering light of the TV, refusing to look up at him. "Just for a few years. I can help you with a job. We need money for the baby stuff, Ryo. The medical books alone are—"

Sukuna’s hand dropped from your shoulder, his massive palm sliding down to wrap around your stomach, gently squeezing the rounded slope. It had become a constant, protective habit of his. in the first weeks, he had been too terrified to even touch you there, as if his strength might break something so fragile, but now his hand lived there.

"No." he grunted, his rough voice vibrating through his chest wall against your cheek. "You just Focus on your studies."

"Ryo, even with the scholarship, the laboratory fees and the equipment cost money" you argued, shifting your weight to turn your head and look up at him. The dim light of the living room caught the sharp lines of his face, his pink hair messy against his forehead. "It’s better if I just take a break. Once the baby reaches a certain age, I can always go back."

Sukuna’s red eyes drifted down from the screen, locking onto yours with an intensity that always made your chest tighten. A slow, faint smirk pulled at the corner of his lips.

"It’s now or never." he said, his large hand moving to your cheek, his thick fingers playfully pinching the skin until you let out a small laugh. "I found a job. A real one. The firm pays well for structural steelwork, and the hours mean I’m home at night. I’ll pay the fees for your med schoo and enough to take care for the kid, You just focus on studying and keeping yourself healthy."

"Ryo... don't burn yourself out for us" you whispered, reaching up to touch his wrist. His presence had always been your peaceful. he was a storm to everyone else, but to you, he was a your calm place, a home.

He let out a low grunt, his arm suddenly shifting behind your back. With a single, effortless pull, he hauled you up onto his lap, his massive body hovering over yours as he pressed you back against the sofa cushions. You felt the sudden, hot flush creep up your neck as his lips found the sensitive skin beneath your jaw, pressing a sequence of heavy, deliberate kisses there.

"Ryo..." you breathed, your fingers curling into his pink hair.

"Shh... let me kiss my girl" he muttered against your skin, his lips moving up to pepper your cheeks, your eyelids, and the tip of your nose until you were smiling thoroughly. He buried his nose into the crook of your neck, inhaling the sweet, familiar scent of your skin like a man finding water in a desert.

"You left your whole family behind just to stay with me and my brat" his voice came out firm, thick with a rare, raw devotion that brought a sudden sting of tears to your eyes. "Burning myself out to take care of you and our kid isn't much. It’s exactly what I’m supposed to do."

_____

Seventeen years later, the house still smelled of him cedarwood, faint tobacco, and the clean, sharp scent of your laundry detergent.

You were buried deep beneath the heavy duvet, your naked body completely tangled with Sukuna’s. His massive, tattooed arm was locked around your waist, lifting your back flush against his chest, while his face was buried directly between your shoulder blades. He was snoring softly a low, somehow you had gotten used to his snores and maybe those notes always make you fall asleep quickly.

But this morning, sleep was an impossible

From the kitchen downstairs came a succession of sharp, chaotic noises the loud, metallic clank of a skillet hitting the burner, the scraping of a stool across the tile, and finally, the deafening crash of a stainless-steel mixing bowl hitting the floor.

The sound was loud enough to make you stir, but you were thoroughly surprised when the heavy weight behind you shifted with an annoyed groan. Sukuna could usually sleep through a earthquake, but the specific, irritating rhythm of the racket downstairs had broken through his sleep

He let out a long, miserable sigh, his face shifting from your shoulder blades to bury itself directly into the soft curve of your breasts, his breath hot against your bare skin. "What the fuck is that kid doing downstairs?" he muttered, his voice thick and raspy with sleep.

You let out a soft hum, your fingers automatically finding their way into your husband’s short pink hair, gently scratching his scalp the way he loved. "I don't know, Ryo. I’m just surprised he’s even awake this early on a Saturday."

Sukuna nuzzled closer, his large hand shifting on your hip to pull you impossibly tight against his frame, but another loud clatter-bang from the kitchen made him stiffen. He let out an aggravated grunt against your skin. "Just fucking perfect. Even on my one day off, I can't even sleep peacefully with my wife."

You let out a soft chuckle, your fingers tracing down the back of his neck, your eyes admiring the dark, intricate tattoos that adorned his broad shoulders and back. Even after nearly two decades, the sight of him still made your heart skip.

He sighed, his muscles relaxing slightly under your touch. "Let’s go on a date today" he murmured, his eyes still closed. "We’ll send the brat out to the movies or something, have some quiet sex, and then take a long bath together. Just us."

You smiled into the dim room. "Sure, Ryo. That sounds just perfecto" you teased

"Nah, don't just say it. Give me a kiss first" he grumbled, finally pulling his face away from your chest to lean over you, his sharp features shadowed by the morning light.

You tried to turn your head away, laughing as you pushed at his broad chest. "No! Ryo, stop, morning breath! Ugh, eww, get away from me!"

You closed your eyes, but it was already too late. Sukuna let out a low rumble of laughter, his large hands easily pinning your wrists above your head against the pillow. He dropped his mouth onto yours, his kiss deep, heavy, and thorough, taking your breath away until you were melting against the mattress, your fingers twisting into his hair as you kissed him back.

His lips traveled down your jawline, leaving a trail of wet, deliberate kisses along your throat before his mouth found your bare breast. He swirled his tongue gently against the sensitive peak, making you squirm and let out a soft, high whine against his lips.

"MOM! DAD! ARE YOU AWAKE?!"

The shout from the hallway made you bolt upright. In a panic, you hauled the heavy duvet all the way up to your chin, covering both yourself and Sukuna. Sukuna, entirely unbothered, merely let out a furious sigh, dropping his heavy head back onto your breast with a groan, his arms locking around your thighs to keep you pinned beneath him.

The bedroom door burst open. Standing in the threshold was your fifteenyear old son, Yuji.

he was fully dressed in a crisp blue button down shirt and clean black jeans a wardrobe choice that was highly unnatural for him at seven in the morning. His bright pink hair, a carbon copy of his father’s, was actually brushed. When you had been pregnant, Sukuna had grumbled for months about wanting a daughter, convinced a boy would be a nuisance, yet Yuji had arrived looking like his absolute twin. The only difference was the soul; where Sukuna was a storm angry, jerk not with you but still. Yuji was a sweet, sunny, remarkably gentle kid who lacked a single ounce of his father’s malice.

"Knock on the fucking door, brat!" Sukuna barked, finally sitting up and aggressively tossing the blanket over your shoulders to ensure you were covered. He glared at his son with dark, murderous red eyes.

You leaned back against the headboard, smoothing your hair down as you stared at your son, waiting for an explanation.

Yuji’s face flushed a bright, violent crimson as his eyes darted from his father’s bare, tattooed chest to the tangled sheets. "Dad! Okay, I'm sorry! I'm really sorry! But look... I invited my girlfriend over this morning for breakfast." He rubbed the back of his neck, his cheeks burning hotter. "I know it's stupid, but she’s busy all day with her family later, so this was the only time. Can you please help me make something tasty? Please?"

For a second, the room was dead silent. Then, your husband burst into a full blown, mocking laugh.

"You? A girlfriend?" Sukuna scoffed, leaning back against the pillows. "I'm surprised you could even pull a girl, brat. But then again, you have my face, so I suppose I can understand how it happened." Under the safety of the heavy blanket, his large hand found yours, giving it a playful, reassuring squeeze that made you chuckle.

"Stop teasing my son, Ryo" you said, giving Sukuna a warning look before turning your attention back to Yuji. "So all that noise downstairs was you trying to cook?"

Yuji nodded frantically, his eyes wide with appeal. "Yeah! She really loves pancakes, and that’s all she wanted, so... I tried. But I burned the first three, and the batter is lumpy, and the kitchen is a mess. Mom, please help me. Dad isn't going to do anything but sit there and judge."

You smiled, the sweet sight of your son being so completely unraveled by a girl melting your heart. You reached out, playfully slapping the back of Sukuna’s head. He let out a low grunt but didn't move.

"Alright, Yuji" you said gently. "Go downstairs and start clearing all burned pans. Your dad and I will be down in a few minutes."

"No, fuck off" Sukuna grumbled, rolling his shoulders as he glared at his son. "I ain't getting out of bed early just to meet some middle school brat's girlfriend. You're not going anywhere either, woman. I wanted to sleep."

Yuji immediately turned his gaze to you, his large, brown eyes wide with the exact puppy dog expression he had used since he was a toddler. You turned your head, giving Sukuna a sharp, icy glare

Sukuna cleared his throat, his posture instantly shifting. "Alright, alright. We’ll be downstairs in five minutes. Go clean up the mess before your mother sees it" he muttered quickly.

The moment the bedroom door clicked shut behind Yuji, Sukuna didn't lose a second. He lunged across the mattress, hauling you directly onto his lap. His hands gripped your waist, pulling your bare skin flush against his thighs as his mouth crashed onto yours in a deep, bruising kisses. You let out a small whine, your hands wrapping around his neck as you felt the heavy, rigid length of his manhood already pressing hard against your hip.

"A quick one" he whispered roughly against your throat, his breath coming in hot, uneven gasps as his teeth gently nipped at your collarbone. "I swear, baby. Just five minutes."

You laughed softly, your fingers tangling in his pink hair as you pulled him back up for another kiss. "You're pathetic, Ryo."

He lets out soft grunt "only for my wife."

___

When the two of you finally walked into the kitchen twenty minutes later no make it thirty. you had thrown on a simple white cotton nightie decorated with a black lace that fell just above your knees. Sukuna hadn't bothered with a shirt. he had simply pulled on a pair of grey sweatpants that hung low on his hips, his bare chest and tattoos on full display.

Yuji had indeed cleared the counter. He was currently leaning against the refrigerator, scrolling through his phone, but he quickly shoved it into his pocket the moment he saw the two of you step onto the tile. His eyes narrowed slightly as he took in his father’s thoroughly relaxed, smug expression.

"A 'few minutes' took way too long" Yuji said, giving both of you a massive side eye. "And for the record...I heard those noises."

Sukuna didn't even blink. As he walked past his son toward the coffee maker, he reached out and delivered a swift, playful punch to Yuji’s stomach hard enough to make the boy huff but light enough to be a joke. "Be grateful for those noises, brat. If it wasn't for them, your annoying face wouldn't even be standing in my kitchen."

Yuji scoffed, turning away to hide his red ears, and moved toward the island where you were already gathering a fresh bowl and flour. He reached over, pressing a sweet, apologetic kiss to your cheek. "Thank you, Mom" he whispered, immediately grabbing the milk and eggs to help you rewrite his culinary disaster.

You left soft smile.

While you measured out the ingredients for a proper, fluffy pancake batter, Sukuna stood by the far counter. He had already turned on the stove to boil water for your tea and pour a dark, bitter black coffee for himself.

"Just pour it gently into the center of the pan, Yuji" you instructed softly, guiding his hand as he held the ladle over the sizzling butter. "Once you see the little bubbles forming on the surface, that’s your cue to flip it. Don't rush it."

Yuji nodded with intense concentration, his entire focus dedicated to the circle of dough. Seeing that he had it under control, you left the bowl with him and walked over to where your husband was leaning against the marble counter, a freshly lit cigarette held between his lips as he stared out the window into the morning fog.

You reached out to grab your tea mug, but before your fingers could touch the cup, Sukuna’s large arm snaked around your waist. He hauled your back flush against his bare chest, his strong arms wrapping around you securely from behind, his chin resting comfortably on the top of your head. He handed you the hot mug with his free hand, his palm settling flat against your stomach, warm and steady.

"So" Sukuna murmured, puffing a stream of grey smoke "Who’s the girl?"

Yuji glanced over his shoulder, taking in the sight of his parents practically glued together. He gave another bombastic side eye, but there was a faint, fond smile on his face. he had been raised in a house where his parents were disgustingly, thoroughly in love, and he was completely used to it.

"She's a classmate" Yuji said, carefully flipping his second pancake with a proud grin. "Her name is Ozawa. She's really nice, She’s quiet, but she’s really smart. Sometimes she stays back after hours to teach me math when I’m failing."

Your eyes instantly brightened with excitement. "Oh, that’s wonderful, I am glad you meet someone like her!"

Sukuna let out a low sigh, the smoke curling around his sharp nose. "Just treat her right, brat. Don't do anything stupid. I'm still surprised that you could pull a girl like that" he muttered, though there was a faint, rare trace of fatherly pride in his rough tone.

You let out a soft chuckle, leaning back against his chest as you delivered a sharp elbow to his ribs. "Ryo! Be nice."

"Woman, stop abusing your man" Sukuna grunted, though his arm only tightened around your waist, his lips pressing a brief kiss into your messy bun.

____

An hour later, the kitchen table was entirely transformed. You and Yuji had compiled a massive stack of golden, perfect pancakes, alongside a savory platter of thick-cut bacon, soft scrambled eggs, and toasted sourdough mostly because Sukuna hates sweets for breakfast and needs real food. Sukuna had finally gone upstairs to take a quick shower and throw on a black t-shirt, while you quickly twisted your hair into more proper messy bun

Lately, the smell of food had been doing strange things to your equilibrium. As you set the last platter down, a sudden, violent wave of nausea washed over you, making your stomach churn. You swallowed hard, pressing a hand to your chest until the dizziness passed. You had felt off for the past week the mere sight of the maple syrup made your throat tighten, but you pushed it down. It was Yuji’s big morning. you weren't going to ruin it.

The sharp chime of the doorbell cut through the house.

Yuji instantly went rigid, his spatula nearly dropping from his hand. He looked incredibly nervous, his eyes darting to you for reassurance. You offered him a warm, encouraging smile, walking beside him as he hurried to the front entryway.

When he swung the heavy wooden door open, your eyes softened. Standing on the porch was a lovely, simple girl with short, neat blonde hair, large brown eyes, and slightly chubby cheeks that gave her a thoroughly sweet, innocent appearance. She was wearing a modest denim skirt and a cream sweater, her fingers clutching a small paper gift bag and a glass bottle.

"Hello, Mrs. Sukuna" she said, her voice small and polite as a bright, nervous blush covered her cheeks. "I am Ozawa. Thank you so much for having me."

Yuji stepped forward, offering her an awkward, stiff one armed hug that made you hide a giggle behind your hand. "Hey, Ozawa. Come on in."

"Good morning, Ozawa," you said warmly, stepping into the light with a bright smile. "It’s a pleasure to finally meet you. Come inside, the food is hot."

The girl’s eyes widened slightly as she looked at you, her blush deepening. "Oh... please take this, Mrs. Sukuna. It’s some traditional sweets from my hometown and a bottle of homemade apple juice my mother pressed yesterday." She held the bag out eagerly.

"Oh, sweetheart, you didn't have to bring anything" you said gently, reaching out to decline, but she pressed it into your hands with a shy smile.

"Please! You are so beautiful, Mrs. Sukuna" Ozawa blurted out, her eyes shining with genuine admiration. "Yuji always talks about how amazing his mom is, but you look so young!"

You let out a genuine, delighted laugh, the sweet compliment instantly winning you over. "You are too sweet darling And please, just call me Y/m."

As you led her into the dining room, you found your husband already seated. He had a fresh cigarette between his fingers, his eyes tracking the steam rising from the bacon. He looked thoroughly hungry and slightly bored, but the moment he heard your footsteps, his dark red eyes snapped up.

Seeing Yuji’s girlfriend enter, Sukuna lazily stood up from his chair, his massive, imposing height instantly making the room feel smaller.

"Good morning, Mr. Sukuna" Ozawa said, bowing her head politely, though she looked a bit intimidated by the sheer size and sharp tattoos of the man before her. "Thank you for inviting me to your home."

Sukuna gave a slow, single nod, stubbing his cigarette out in the glass ashtray with a practiced motion. "Morning, Ozawa. You're welcome in the house" he said, a faint, amused smirk playing on his sharp features as he glanced at his son. "If the brat ever does anything stupid or gives you any trouble, you just tell me. I’ll punch his pretty face for you."

A collective round of laughter broke the lingering tension. Yuji groaned, groveling into his seat. "Dad, please."

Breakfast turned out to be an incredibly easy, pleasant affair. Ozawa was delightfully grounded. she didn't try too hard to impress you or put on an act, simply remaining her polite, sweet self. She shared stories about her family’s farm, talked about her school projects, and explained how she managed to drag Yuji’s grades up in algebra.

Sukuna remained uncharacteristically quiet, mostly focusing on tearing through his plate of eggs and bacon with a savage appetite, but he occasionally dropped a few short, blunt questions. "Where does your father work?" "What are your plans for university?" It was his version of a thorough background check, and when Ozawa answered him directly without stuttering, a faint look of approval settled into his red eyes. He liked people who didn't shrink away from him.

By the time the plates were cleared, Yuji and Ozawa stood up to leave. he had promised to walk her down to the train station before her family event. You package a small box of fresh cupcakes you had baked the previous afternoon, handing them to the girl with a warm hug. Truthfully, you couldn't even stand to look at the sugar without your stomach turning, and Sukuna wouldn't touch them anyway.

"Thank you so much, Mrs. Suk-Y/n" Ozawa said, her smile wide and bright as Yuji led her out the front door.

The front door clicked shut, leaving the house in a sudden, heavy morning quiet.

You walked back into the kitchen, the lingering scent of syrup and grease making your throat tighten again. Your stomach let out a hollow, painful growl, but the thought of solid food made you dizzy. Needing something cold and light to coat your throat, you grabbed a couple of bananas from the basket, threw them into the blender with some milk and honey, and turned the machine on.

As the blender whirred, two large, warm arms wrapped around your waist from behind.

Sukuna pulled your back flush against his chest, his large hands anchoring tightly over your hips, holding you steady against his frame. He didn't say anything at first, simply burying his face into the side of your neck, his rough stubble scratching your skin as he inhaled deeply.

"Everything alright?" his deep voice rumbled against your skin, unusually soft. "You haven't eaten a single thing normal for the past three days"

Your fingers tensed against the handle of the blender. You should have known. Sukuna was a man who noticed every single shift in your breathing, every single change in your posture. you could hide things from the rest of the world, but you were entirely transparent to him.

"I'm fine, Ryo" you murmured, turning off the blender and pouring the thick, yellow smoothie into a glass. "Just a minor stomach bug, I think. a little ache."

"Y/n" Sukuna said, his tone dropping into that firm tone that made you tense up, His hands shifted from your hips, his thumbs pressing firmly into the skin through the white nightie as he slowly turned you around within his embrace until you were forced to look up at him.

His dark red eyes searched your face, taking in the slight paleness of your cheeks and the faint shadows beneath your eyes. "You've been throwing up every single morning before the sun is even up. You look at the food I cook like it’ poison"

He leaned in closer, his chest pressing against yours. "So? Are you trying to surprise me by keeping a secret, or are you just being stubborn? Because it's completely obvious to anyone with eyes."

You stared up at him, your breath hitching as your fingers gripped the edge of the marble counter behind you. You let out a long, trembling sigh, the weight of the realization finally breaking through your own denial.

"I... I don't know, Ryo" you whispered, your eyes drifting down to his chest. "Getting pregnant at thirty-six... it sounds crazy. Yuji is fifteen. We have a teenager. It feels so weird."

A sudden, massive grin broke across Sukuna’s face a wide, sharp expression that instantly erased the years from his features, making him look exactly like the twenty year old kid who had pressed his hands against your stomach in a cramped bedroom.

"We’ve been trying to give the brat a sibling for seven years, so stop sulking" he rumbled, his large hand instantly dropping down to press flat against your stomach, his fingers spreading wide across your nightie. The familiar heat of his palm sent a wave of absolute security through your veins. "And don't give me that thirty six bullshit. You don't look a single day older than twenty, ma."

He leaned down, pressing his forehead firmly against yours, his red eyes burning with a deep, victorious joy.

"Ryo..." you breathed, your arms finally rising to wrap securely around his neck, burying your face into his shoulder. "I love you so much."

"I love you more, ma" he whispered against your ear, his arms locking around your waist as he lifted you effortlessly off the kitchen floor, holding you tight against his heart. "Let's see what the brat says when he finds out he's got to share his room."

"we have three empty rooms" you says with soft smile

"doesn't matter."

Part 2 >

Mhm yeah (this was Sukuna with his own son)

The party is Mina’s idea. It always is. You’ve stopped pretending otherwise — stopped doing the thing where you spend twenty minutes debating whether you’re really feeling it before Mina gives you the look and you both know you’re going regardless.

It’s a Friday in late September, the air outside finally tipping from warm to something with a bite in it, and you’ve been in your dorm room since two in the afternoon staring at the same paragraph of Middlemarch without absorbing a single word.

“You need to get out of this room,” Mina says from your bed, where she’s been watching you not read for the past hour. She’s already dressed — black top, dark jeans, the gold hoops she only wears when she’s decided the night is going to be worth the effort. She decided before she came over. The last hour has been a courtesy. “You’ve been staring at that book like it cheated on you.”

The word lands between you, briefly. Mina’s face doesn’t change “George Eliot is a menace,” you say.

“You love George Eliot.”

“I love George Eliot when I’m not trying to produce fifteen hundred words on her narrative voice by Monday morning.” You close the book. It’s not like you’re reading it anyway.

The thing about Delta Kappa parties is that they are, by any objective measure, too much. Too loud, too hot, the bass sitting somewhere in your sternum, red cups and bodies everywhere you look. Mina thrives. You tolerate it with the specific resignation of someone who knows they’re going to have a good time despite themselves and finds this faintly irritating.

You’re on your second drink when you see Sunghoon. He’s across the room near the kitchen doorway, mid-conversation with someone you don’t recognise, laughing at something. Head tipped back the way he always did — that particular way, unhurried and a little private, like whatever amused him was his alone. You used to love that about him. You watch it for maybe three seconds before you look away, which feels like a victory of some kind.

Four months. Four months since you’d found out, since you’d sat on your dorm room floor and read a conversation thread you were never supposed to see, since everything you thought you’d built with him had turned out to be built on something rotten underneath.

Two years of your life. Your first real relationship. You’d thought it would last.

You look away. You drain the rest of your cup.

“He’s here,” Mina says, appearing at your elbow with the precision of someone who has been watching.

“I know.”

“Do you want to leave?”

“No.” You mean it. “I’m not leaving a party because of Sunghoon Park.”

She studies you for a moment with that particular look — the one that measures the difference between actually fine and performing fine with uncomfortable accuracy. Whatever she finds seems to satisfy her, because she clinks her cup against yours and says, “Then let’s get another drink.”

You’re at the makeshift bar — someone’s kitchen counter pressed into service — when you become aware of someone standing beside you. Not waiting for the bottle. Something else. A specific quality of attention that you register before you’ve consciously clocked it. You look up. Jake Sim looks back.

You know who he is the way you know most things about the people who exist in Caldwell’s uppermost stratum — passively, through cultural osmosis, without ever having chosen to learn. Captain of the Wolves. Dean’s son. The name that comes up in a specific tone of voice, like a warning dressed as gossip.

Up close he is, unfortunately, exactly as good-looking as that reputation implies. Tall, built through the shoulders and chest in the way that years of hockey builds — not showy, just solid, like his body was designed to take up space and does so without apology. Dark eyes. A jaw that should probably be illegal. A mouth curved at the corner like he’s already three steps ahead of the conversation and finds this mildly entertaining.

“You’re doing maths,” he says.

You blink. “What?”

“Your face.” He nods at you, vaguely. “Very intense for someone just standing at a bar.”

“I’m making a drink.”

“You’ve been staring at that vodka for forty-five seconds.”

“I didn’t realise I was being timed.”

“You weren’t.” He reaches past you for the bottle — close enough that you catch something clean and faintly expensive — pours his own cup, sets it back.

“I’m Jake.”

“I know who you are.” Something moves through his expression. Amusement, maybe, or the specific satisfaction of a fact confirmed.

“Most people do,” he says, and there’s no arrogance in it, just a statement of observable reality, which is somehow worse. “And you’re—”

“Also a person,” you say.

That gets a real smile. Brief, but actual. “Fair enough.”

You should find Mina. You’re aware of this the way you’re aware of the coursework due Monday and the fact that it’s past midnight — true, noted, irrelevant. Instead you stay where you are and let the conversation go where it goes, and it goes somewhere you didn’t expect.

He’s good at this. That’s the thing you clock first and keep clocking — the way he makes conversation feel like it has momentum, like you’re building toward something together, the timing of his humour landing slightly off-beat in a way that catches you. He asks questions and actually listens to the answers. You know it’s a formula. You know it has worked on an uncountable number of girls at an uncountable number of parties exactly like this one, and knowing that should make you immune to it, and it doesn’t.

Mina finds you at some point, clocks the situation in under a second, raises her eyebrows precisely two millimetres — a full paragraph in two millimetres — and disappears back into the crowd.

At some point his hand finds the small of your back. Light. Questioning. You don’t move away from it. At some point, close enough that you feel the words more than hear them, he says: “We could get out of here.”

You think about Middlemarch, which you’re not going to read tonight regardless. You think about the two years you spent being someone’s person and the four months since that have felt like learning to walk in a body that’s been subtly rearranged. You think about Sunghoon somewhere in this house with his head tipped back, laughing.

“Okay,” you say.

His room is in the east block upperclassmen housing — a single, because of course, because Jake Sim has probably never had to negotiate space with anyone in his life. It’s tidier than you’d have guessed. You file this away without meaning to, the way you’re still filing things even now, even when you’ve told yourself you’re not doing that anymore.

He closes the door and you’re already turning toward him and then his mouth is on yours and it’s nothing like how he acted downstairs — no charm, no ease, just heat and intent, his hands gripping your face and kissing you like he’s already decided exactly how this goes.

You grab his shirt and walk him backwards and he turns you instead, smooth and immediate, your back hitting the wall beside the door hard enough to knock the breath out of you and you don’t care, you’re already pulling at his shirt and he’s already got your top halfway up your body.

He strips it off you and his mouth drops straight to your throat, open and hot, and then your bra is unclasped and gone before you’ve fully registered his hands at the back of it.

Then his mouth is on your tits and he makes a sound low in his chest like the sight of them was specifically designed to ruin him. His hands cup them, squeezing, thumbs dragging slow over your nipples and watching your face while he does it. You feel your cheeks go hot because his expression is entirely too focused, too attentive, like he’s cataloguing your reactions and filing it away for later use.

He bends his head and takes one nipple into his mouth, tongue working in slow wet circles. Your head drops back against the wall on a moan you didn’t mean to let out that loud.

“Yeah,” he says against your skin, rough and pleased, “get loud,” and bites down lightly you gasp and your nails find his shoulders through his shirt.

He marks you up like he has all the time in the world — mouth dragging from your tits to your throat to your collarbone and back again, teeth and tongue, leaving his work on your skin with a thoroughness that should feel like too much and instead just makes you want more.

His hips grind into yours against the wall, the hard line of his cock pressed against your core through clothing, slow and deliberate, the friction makes you roll up into it and he does it again to which you make a sound that’s honestly embarrassing.

“Bed,” you manage, and he pulls back just enough to look at you — mouth-bitten, dark-eyed, satisfied with himself in a way you don’t have the capacity to be annoyed about right now — and walks you to it.

You land on the mattress and he’s over you immediately, his mouth back on your tits before you’ve stopped bouncing on the mattress, you’re pulling at his shirt until he lets you get it off him and then his jeans are gone and yours are gone and he’s settled between your thighs in just his boxers and the weight of him is — a lot, in the best way, solid and warm and pressing you into the mattress, his hips grind down slow as his cock drags against your pussy through the thin fabric of your panties, you grab his shoulders to hold onto something.

He does it again. Slower.

His mouth is still at your nipple, tongue working it stiff while his hips keep that maddening rhythm, grinding into you with enough friction to make your thighs clench around him but not enough to give you anything real, you can hear how wet you are, can feel it and judging by the way his jaw tightens he can too.

“Jake,” you say, and it comes out more desperate than you intend.

“I know,” he says, like that’s an answer, and then he’s moving down your body.

He hooks your underwear off, throws it somewhere and finally puts his mouth on your pussy. Your back comes off the mattress.

He licks into your folds slowly, taking his time, his tongue dragging from your entrance up to your clit in one long stroke and then doing it again, his hands are spread flat on your inner thighs holding you open and still and there is nothing to do but take it.

He’s good — infuriatingly good — like he’s genuinely interested in making you cum, like this is something he wants to do rather than something he’s doing to get to the next thing. You’ve got one fist in the sheets and one pressed to your own mouth to which he pulls your hand away from your face without looking up. “Don’t,” he says against your cunt, and goes back to work.

His tongue finds your clit and stays there, tight focused circles, two fingers then press at your entrance and push in slow, curling immediately, finding the spot that makes your hips jolt and working it with patience that feels almost cruel.

The sounds coming out of you are loud and continuous and undignified and he hums against you like he approves, the vibration travelling straight up your spine, and you can feel yourself getting close embarrassingly fast, your walls clenching tight around his fingers, your whole body chasing it.

“Don’t stop,” you manage, “don’t — please —“ and he doesn’t, his tongue relentless on your clit and his fingers curling deep, and you cum on his mouth with your thighs shaking, his name coming out broken and too loud for the room.

He works you through every second of it, tongue gentling, fingers slowing until you’re twitching and oversensitive and pulling at his hair to get him off you, he comes back up your body looking composed in a way that feels like a personal attack. There’s something dark and satisfied in his expression as he looks down at you and kisses you before you can say anything, slow, and you taste yourself on his tongue.

His cock is hard against your hip, straining against his boxers, you reach between you and wrap your hand around him and feel him shudder. He’s thick and heavy in your palm, already slick at the tip and when you stroke him his composure cracks — hips pushing into your grip, jaw tightening and a low rough sound forming against your mouth.

You work him slow and watch his face and feel something warm and powerful settle in your chest. “Condom,” you say.

“Yeah,” he says and reaches for the nightstand.

He pushes in slow and you feel every single inch. The stretch of him opening you up, thick and relentless, your walls giving way around his cock, you dig your nails into his back and breathe through it until he’s fully seated. You’re so full it sits somewhere between pleasure and pain and then he rolls his hips and it tips firmly into the first one.

He starts slow — deep, grinding strokes, his cock dragging against every nerve of you, the weight of his hips pinning yours into the mattress and his mouth finds your tits again immediately, like he can’t help it, tongue working your nipple while his hips keep their deep rhythm and you stop being capable of thoughts that go anywhere.

“You’re so fucking tight,” he says against your breast, low and rough, and bites down on the swell of it and soothes it with his tongue and does it again somewhere else.

“Jake—”

“I know,” he says, his thumb finds your clit. The added pressure makes you gasp and your hips jolt up to meet his and he makes a sound that isn’t quite a groan and picks up the pace.

The slow grind gives way to something sharper. His hips snap against yours and the headboard knocks the wall and the wet sounds of it fill the room. You have completely stopped caring about anything except the way his cock fills you on every stroke, deep and thick, the drag of him pulling back and driving in again setting off a chain reaction of sensation that climbs fast.

He shifts your leg up higher over his hip and the angle changes, deeper, and the sound you make at that is genuinely obscene. “Yeah?” he says, doing it again, deliberate. “There?”

“Yes,” you manage, “there, don’t stop, please—”

“Dirty when you want something,” he says, low and pleased, and fucks you harder.

His thumb circles your clit without stopping, his cock drives into your cunt again and again and his mouth marks your throat. The build crests too fast to catch — you cum for the second time harder, walls clenching rhythmically around him, his name coming out wrecked and he follows you over with his hips buried deep and his face pressed to your throat, low broken sounds against your skin as he cums.

The room goes quiet. You stare at the ceiling. Your body has been taken apart and put back together slightly differently and everything feels warm and loose and heavy.

That, you think distantly, was either the best or worst decision you’ve made in months.

Possibly both.

Jake disposes of the condom, comes back, drops onto the bed beside you. The quiet settles. It’s almost comfortable — the dark, the warmth, both of you just breathing. And then…

“You can go whenever,” he says. Flat. Casual. Already looking at the ceiling like you’re no longer the most interesting thing in the room. Like you’ve been downgraded, in the last thirty seconds, from a person to an inconvenience that’s resolved itself.

You blink. You can go whenever. Not you don’t have to rush, not do you want some water, not even basic human decency. Just — you can go. Door’s there. Thanks for coming.

Something cold moves cleanly through the warmth in your chest and extinguishes it. You sit up. “Right,” you say. Your voice comes out level. You’re proud of that.

He says nothing. He is staring at the ceiling with his arms folded behind his head like a man with absolutely no awareness that he’s just been profoundly rude, or perhaps perfect awareness and total indifference, which is worse.

You find your clothes in the dark with quiet methodical efficiency — jeans, top, shoes, bra shoved into your bag because life is short. You do not look at him while you dress and he does not look at you. At the door you pause, and you genuinely don’t know why, some reflex kicking in from a life spent being polite to people who haven’t earned it.

“Bye, then,” you say.

“Mm,” says Jake Sim, at the ceiling not even at you. You want to scoff in his stupidly hot face.

You close the door behind you.

The walk back across campus takes twelve minutes and you spend all twelve of them with the cold night air doing its best against the heat in your face. Not embarrassment — or not only that. Something sharper. The specific anger of someone who knew exactly what they were walking into and walked into it anyway and is now annoyed at themselves for being annoyed.

I knew, you think, with each step. I knew what he was. Everyone knows what he is. I just—

You’d let the hour at the bar do its work. You’d let the conversation and the hand at the small of your back and the dark eyes and the unfair jaw do their work, and you’d told yourself it was fine because you were going in clear-eyed, and the sex had been — god, the sex had been amazing — but then he’d opened his mouth and reminded you exactly who he was and now here you are, at one forty in the morning, crossing the quad with your bra in your bag.

You text Mina. still up?

The reply is immediate. obviously. how was it?

You stare at your phone for a moment. come to mine, you type back.

Mina is sitting up in your bed when you get back, laptop open, a bowl of cereal balanced on her knee that she definitely made while waiting. She takes one look at your face as you come through the door and sets it on the nightstand. “Tell me.”

You drop your bag, toe off your shoes, and sit on the end of the bed. You press your fingers to your eyes for a moment. “The sex,” you say carefully, “was genuinely incredible. Like — top three of my life, Mina. Easily. Potentially top two.”

“Okay—”

“And then, the moment it was over, he looked at the ceiling and told me I could go whenever.” You drop your hands. “In the tone of someone dismissing a tradesman. Like I’d come to fix his boiler.”

Mina’s expression moves through several stages. “He did not.”

“He absolutely did.”

“What did you say?”

“I said bye then and closed the door.”

“Bye then?”

“I panicked and defaulted to manners.” You flop backwards onto the duvet. “I knew. That’s the thing. I knew exactly what he was before I ever spoke to him and I did it anyway because—” You gesture at the ceiling. “I don’t know. Because I’m tired of being careful. Because Sunghoon was across the room being beautiful and I wanted to feel something that wasn’t about him.”

Mina is quiet for a moment. Then: “Was it, at least something that wasn’t about Sunghoon.”

You consider this with the ceiling. “Yes,” you admit. “Annoyingly, yes. Right up until he opened his mouth.”

“He really is the worst,” Mina says, with the conviction of someone delivering a verdict.

“He really, genuinely is.” You stare upward. “He’s got such a good cock though, Mina. Like. I’m annoyed about it. I’m actively annoyed.”

Mina puts her face in her hands. You watch her shoulders shake. “It’s not funny,” you tell her, and then you’re laughing too, and the tight mean thing in your chest loosens by a fraction, and outside the window Caldwell goes on being loud and indifferent and fully lit up, and you are fine.

You’re fine. You’re completely fine.

The week after the party you are, by any reasonable measure, completely fine.

You turn in the Middlemarch essay on Monday morning — fifteen hundred words on narrative voice, mostly written Sunday afternoon in a single focused stretch that you attribute to having gotten something out of your system.

You go to your Tuesday seminar and your Wednesday lecture and you have coffee with Mina on Thursday at the place near the English building where they do the good almond croissants, and you do not think about Jake Sim.

Or you think about him the normal amount. The amount that is appropriate for a person you slept with once at a party and will probably never speak to again, which is to say occasionally and without weight, the way you might think about a film you watched on a plane — enjoyable in the moment, not something you’d seek out again, largely irrelevant to your actual life.

This is what you tell yourself. Mina does not challenge it, which means she’s either convinced or she’s decided to let you have it, and knowing Mina it’s the second one.

Sunghoon texts you on Wednesday. Just — hey, saw you at Delta Kappa Friday. you looked good. You stare at it for a long time. You don’t reply.

You see Jake on Monday. You’re crossing the main quad, coffee in hand, bag over one shoulder, running approximately four minutes late for your seminar, and he’s coming the other direction with Jay Park and someone you don’t recognise, all three of them in Wolves gear, clearly post-practice.

He’s laughing at something Jay said, head tilted back, and he looks — easy, and loose, and completely unbothered by anything in the known universe, which you knew, which is exactly what you expected, and yet something about seeing it in person at ten forty-three on a Monday morning makes your jaw tighten anyway.

He doesn’t see you. Or he does and gives no indication of it, which amounts to the same thing. You look straight ahead and keep walking and do not think about it for the rest of the morning.

You think about it a little bit in the afternoon. By evening you’ve filed it away under irrelevant and moved on, which is the correct and mature response and you’re proud of yourself.

The sickness starts on Wednesday morning. You wake up with your stomach doing something wrong — not dramatic, not the sharp unmistakable rebellion of food poisoning, just a low persistent nausea that sits behind your sternum like it’s made itself at home. You lie still for a moment, waiting for it to pass.

It doesn’t.

You get up, make it to the bathroom, sit on the edge of the tub for ten minutes breathing carefully, and then it eases enough that you can brush your teeth and get dressed and tell yourself you’re fine.

You’re not fine by Thursday morning.

The nausea is worse — still not acute, still this low insidious wrongness, but it’s there when you wake up and it doesn’t fully lift, and your coffee tastes like something burnt and metallic and you push it away after two sips which Mina clocks immediately from across the table at the place near the English building.

“You’re not drinking your coffee.”

“I’m not feeling it today.”

Mina looks at the cup. Looks at you. “You have never in three years of knowing you not felt like coffee.”

“There’s a first time for everything.” She watches you for a moment with that look. You look back at your laptop and don’t say anything else.

By Saturday you feel actively, genuinely terrible.

Not sick-sick — no fever, no aches, nothing you can point to as a specific illness — just this relentless creeping nausea that is worst in the morning and fades by afternoon and makes the idea of eating before eleven o’clock an abstract and unpleasant concept.

You cancel your Saturday morning coffee with Mina, which you have never done, and she’s at your door by noon with a container of crackers and a forensic expression. “Talk,” she says.

“I think I’m coming down with something.”

“What kind of something.”

“I don’t know, Mina, a virus. A bug. Something that’s going around.”

She sits down on your bed and opens the crackers and holds them out to you and you take one because the sight of them is, somehow, the most appealing thing you’ve encountered all week. You eat it slowly. Your stomach does not immediately rebel. You take another one. “How long?” Mina asks.

“Since Wednesday morning.”

“And it’s worst in the morning.”

“Yes.”

“And you can’t drink coffee.”

“It tastes wrong.” Mina is quiet for a moment. You eat another cracker and look at the wall. “I’m sure it’s just a bug,” you say.

“Yeah,” Mina says, in a tone that means something else entirely. “Probably.”

The conspiracy theories start that evening, though. It’s the two of you on your bed with Mina’s laptop open and a bag of pretzels between you, and it begins reasonably enough — you googling nausea worse in morning possible causes and working through the list with the detached efficiency of someone who is definitely not spiralling. Stress. Acid reflux. Inner ear issues. Viral gastroenteritis. Dietary changes.

“Have you eaten anything different lately?” Mina asks.

“No.”

“Stressed about something?”

“When am I not stressed about something.”

“Fair.” She scrolls. “It says here inner ear problems can cause—”

“I don’t have inner ear problems, Mina.”

Mina scrolls further. You eat a pretzel and watch her face and wait for it. You know it’s coming. You’ve known since Saturday morning, if you’re being honest, since she’d sat on your bed with that specific expression and said probably in that specific tone, and you’ve been not-thinking about it with considerable effort for the past several hours.

“Okay,” Mina says, carefully, still looking at the screen. “What if.”

“No.”

“I haven’t said anything yet.”

“You don’t have to.” You pull the laptop toward you and close the tab. “It’s been less than two weeks. It’s too early for that. It’s a bug.”

“You used a condom?”

“Obviously.”

“They’re not a hundred percent.”

“It’s a bug,” you say. “It’s a completely normal bug that normal people get and it has nothing to do with — it’s a bug.”

Mina looks at you with the expression of someone who has several more things to say and has made a strategic decision to not say them yet. “Okay,” she says. “Bug.”

By Sunday you can’t keep breakfast down. You sit on your bathroom floor at eight in the morning with your back against the tub and your forehead against your knees and you think about the party, and Jake’s room, and the nightstand, and the condom, and you think no very firmly and repeatedly and it doesn’t help at all.

You text Mina. can you come over

She’s there in seven minutes. She doesn’t say anything when you open the door, just looks at your face, and you nod back at her.

The Caldwell campus drugstore is a five minute walk from your building and has, blessedly, a single-occupancy bathroom at the back that Mina sweet-talks the Saturday cashier into letting you use on the grounds that you’re not feeling well, which is at least entirely true. It’s a very small bathroom.

The two of you fill it completely — you on the closed toilet lid, Mina with her back against the sink, the test sitting on the edge of it between you with three minutes on Mina’s phone timer counting down. Nobody says anything.

The tile is white. There’s a motivational poster on the back of the door — you’ve got this! in yellow letters — that you stare at with a feeling you can’t fully name.

Two minutes.

“It’s probably negative,” you say.

“Probably,” Mina says.

“The condom—”

“Yeah.” “And it’s been less than two weeks. Like. The timing—”

“The timing is actually about right,” Mina says, gently, “for symptoms to—”

“Stop,” you say.

One minute.

You watch the timer. The timer watches back. Your hands are completely still in your lap which surprises you — you’d have expected them to shake, but instead you feel very calm in the specific way that you get sometimes when something is about to happen and your body has decided that panic is a resource to be conserved.

The timer goes off.

Neither of you moves for a second. Then Mina picks up the test and looks at it. Her face does something — a flicker, fast and controlled, there and gone — and she hands it to you without speaking.

Two lines.

You look at it for a long time.

“Okay,” you say, finally.

“Yeah,” Mina says.

The motivational poster on the wall says you’ve got this! in yellow letters and you stare at it and think about Jake Sim telling the ceiling you can go whenever and feel something move through you that is too big and too complicated to have a name yet.

“Okay,” you say again. Like if you keep saying it, it’ll start meaning something useful.

—

You don’t go to him straight away. That feels important somehow — that you don’t just spiral out of that drugstore bathroom and make a beeline for the Hargrove Center in a panic, that you go back to your dorm first and sit with it for a while like a person with some degree of self-possession.

You and Mina order food you mostly don’t eat and sit on your bed with the test face-down on the nightstand like if you can’t see it it’s less real, and you talk around it for a while before you talk about it directly, which is its own kind of processing.

“You don’t have to decide anything today,” Mina says.

“I know.”

“You don’t have to tell him today either.”

“I know.” You pull your sleeves over your hands. “But I feel like — I don’t know. He should know. Like in or not he’s — it’s his. He should know.”

Mina is quiet for a moment. “Okay,” she says. “But eat something first.”

You eat half a portion of noodles. It’s the most you’ve managed in days and your stomach accepts it cautiously, like it’s making no promises. Then you change your top, put your shoes on, and look at Mina.

“Don’t come with me,” you say.

“I wasn’t going to.”

“You were absolutely going to.”

She opens her mouth. Closes it. “Text me the second you’re out.”

The Hargrove Center is a twenty minute walk across campus and you use all twenty minutes to rehearse what you’re going to say, which turns out to be a complete waste of time because the moment you push through the side door and the cold air of the rink hits you — that particular sharp smell of ice and equipment — your prepared sentences evaporate entirely.

Practice is just wrapping up. You can see them from the entrance, the Wolves coming off the ice in clusters, helmets off, sticks in hand. Jay Park says something that makes Riki Nishimura laugh. Jungwon Yang is already halfway to the boards.

And Jake is — there, centre ice, still, talking to one of the assistant coaches with his helmet under his arm and his hair pushed back from his face, and even from here he looks like someone who has never had an uncontrollable variable in his life.

You wait.

You’re good at waiting. You’ve spent the last two weeks being good at things you didn’t choose to be good at.

He sees you when he comes off the ice — clocks you in the way that people clock something unexpected in a familiar space, a brief recalibration. Something moves across his face, too fast to read. Then it’s gone and he’s walking toward you with the easy unhurried stride of someone who has decided to be unbothered and you stand your ground and wait for him to reach you.

“Hey,” he says. Like you’re an acquaintance. Like he’s mildly surprised to see you and finds it mildly unremarkable.

“I need to talk to you,” you say. Something shifts.

The easy expression doesn’t disappear exactly but it adjusts, becomes more guarded. He glances around — Jay is watching from the boards with open curiosity, Riki less subtly — and then jerks his head toward the corridor off the main rink.

You follow him into it. It’s quieter here, the noise of the rink muffled, the overhead lights slightly too bright. He turns and faces you with his arms crossed and his weight back, and waits. You had sentences. You had very good sentences, all the way across campus.

“I’m pregnant,” you say.

The corridor goes very quiet. Jake looks at you. His expression does several things in quick succession that he doesn’t quite manage to keep off his face — shock, and something that might be fear, and then a shuttering, a closing, something careful dropping down over all of it.

“Okay,” he says.

“Okay,” you repeat.

“That’s — okay. How far—”

“I just found out today. So.” You fold your arms across your chest. “Not far.”

He nods slowly. His jaw is working. He looks at the floor for a moment and then back at you and the careful expression is fully in place now, composed and unreadable, and you don’t know whether to be relieved or furious about it.

“Are you sure it’s mine,” he says.

The corridor goes even quieter somehow.

You look at him. “What did you just say.”

“I’m just—” He shifts his weight. “We don’t know each other. I don’t know who else you’ve been—”

“Are you calling me a slut.” It comes out flat. Not a question.

“I’m not calling you anything, I’m just saying I don’t know—”

“You’re the only person I’ve slept with in four months.” Your voice is very level. “I was in a relationship. It ended. I haven’t — there’s been no one else. There’s only been you.” You look at him. “And I can’t believe I’m standing here explaining that to you.”

“I’m not trying to—”

“You literally just implied I could have slept with someone else.” The level voice is beginning to fray at the edges. “You literally said that. To my face.”

“Look, I just—”

You slap him.

You don’t plan it. Your hand moves before the decision has fully formed, the sharp crack of it landing across his cheek, and then there’s a ringing silence and your palm is stinging and Jake’s head has turned with the force of it and he’s looking at you now with an expression you haven’t seen on him before. Not angry. Something more complicated than angry.

“Don’t ever,” you say, quietly, “imply something like that to me again.”

He says nothing. His hand has come up to his cheek, not pressing, just — there. His jaw is tight.

“I thought you should know,” you say. “That’s all. I thought you deserved to know because it’s yours and you deserved to know. I haven’t decided anything yet and I’m not asking you for anything.” You pull your bag higher on your shoulder. “Okay?”

“Okay,” he says. Low. You walk back out into the cold. You text Mina out and she sends back seventeen question marks which is fair.

You tell her you’ll explain when you get back and spend the walk home feeling the particular hollow exhaustion of someone who has done the thing they needed to do and now has no idea what comes next.

You’re back in your building, one flight up, when you hear him behind you. “Hey—”

You turn. Jake is in the stairwell, still in his practice gear, slightly out of breath like he walked fast to get here, and you have absolutely no idea how he found out which dorm you’re in and you’re going to have questions about that later.

“How did you—“

“Jay knew,” he says, which explains nothing and everything.

He comes up the last few steps and stops on your landing and runs a hand through his hair and looks like someone who has been having a very difficult internal conversation at speed. “Can I—”

“No,” you say.

“Two minutes.” You look at him. He looks back. The mark from your hand has faded from his cheek but his expression is still doing that thing — complicated, unreadable, something working behind it.

“Two minutes,” you say, and unlock your door. Your room is small and suddenly smaller with him in it. He stands just inside the door like he’s not sure he’s allowed further in, which is the most uncertain you’ve seen him, and you sit on the end of your bed and look at him and wait.

He reaches into his jacket. He puts a stack of bills on your desk. You look at the money. You look at him. “Jake.”

“It’s enough to cover — whatever you decide.” He’s not quite meeting your eyes. “I’m not — look. I don’t want a kid. I’m not in a place for that. We don’t know each other. But I’m not going to just—” He stops. Starts again. “Take it. Whatever you need it for.”

You stare at the money for a long moment. “Are you going to want to be involved,” you ask. “If I decide to keep it.”

Something crosses his face. “I don’t — I haven’t—” He exhales. “I don’t know.”

“Okay,” you say. “That’s honest at least.”

“Are you going to keep it,” he asks. Quietly. Like he’s not sure he has the right to ask.

You look at the money on your desk. You look at him — standing in your doorway in his practice gear, jaw tight, trying very hard to look like someone who has this handled and not quite managing it — and you think that this is the first time he’s looked like a person to you. Not the reputation, not the corridor composure, not the ceiling of his bedroom. Just a person who is as blindsided as you are and coping with it badly.

“I don’t know yet,” you say. “I’ll let you know when I do.”

He nods. He looks at you for a moment longer than necessary. Then he picks up the money from your desk and puts it on your nightstand instead, like the desk was somehow wrong, like the four feet of distance makes a difference, and you don’t say anything about it.

“I’m sorry,” he says, at the door. “For what I said. At the rink.”

You look at him. “Which part.”

“All of it.”

He closes the door behind him and you sit on your bed in the quiet of your room for a long time, the money on your nightstand and the weight of everything pressing down, and then you pick up your phone and call your sister.

She picks up on the third ring. “Hey, you.” Hannah’s voice is warm and slightly distracted in the way it always is — you can hear one of the kids in the background, the particular high-pitched negotiation of a five year old who wants something and has decided now is the time. “Give me two seconds.”

Then, away from the phone: “Lily, baby, I said after dinner. After. Yes. Because I said so, that’s why.” A door closing.

Then: “Okay. Hi. Sorry. What’s up?”

You open your mouth. You’ve been sitting on your bed for forty minutes since Jake left, the money on your nightstand and your phone in your hand, and you’ve composed this conversation approximately thirty times in your head and all thirty versions started more coherently than what actually comes out, which is: “I did something kind of stupid.”

“How stupid.”

“Significantly.”

A beat. Hannah has always been good at letting silence do its work, at not rushing in to fill it with the wrong thing. It’s one of the things you’ve always loved about her. “Okay,” she says. “Tell me.”

So you tell her. All of it — the party and Jake and the test and the corridor and the slap and him in your room with the money — and Hannah listens through all of it without interrupting, which is its own kind of gift, and when you’re done there’s a moment of quiet that feels like her sorting through it.

“Okay,” she says again. “First question. Are you physically okay?”

“Yes.”

“Second question. Do you have someone with you?”

“Mina’s coming over in an hour.”

“Good.” You can hear her moving around, the soft sounds of her kitchen. “Third question, and I want you to actually think about it before you answer — not what you think you should say, not what’s practical, not what he wants or what anyone else wants. Just you.”

She pauses. “Do you want to keep it?”

You look at the money on your nightstand.

You think about the question the way she asked it — stripped of everything else, just you, just the truth of it underneath all the noise.

The thing is, you already know. You’ve known since the bathroom floor this morning, since you sat with your back against the tub and your forehead on your knees. It’s why the knowing has been so terrifying — not because you’re uncertain but because you’re not, and being not uncertain makes it real in a way that uncertainty would have postponed.

“Yeah,” you say. Quietly. “I do. I just — I don’t want it to be his. I don’t want to be tied to someone who—” You stop. “I don’t want the situation. I just want—”

“The baby,” Hannah says. “Yeah.” She’s quiet for a moment. “Those are two separate things,” she says. “The situation and the baby. They feel like the same thing right now but they’re not.”

You hear her sit down somewhere. “Marcus and I — when I had Lily, things with us were not good. You remember. We were not in a good place. And I thought about it the same way — I want her, I just don’t want this. And it was hard. It was genuinely really hard. But she’s five now and she’s the most annoying, amazing person I’ve ever met and I can’t — I can’t imagine.”

You press the back of your hand to your mouth.

“I’m not telling you what to do,” Hannah says quickly. “I promise I’m not. Whatever you decide I’m with you. I just — you asked.”

“I know,” you manage. “I know you’re not.”

“Is he terrible?” she asks. “This Jake person.”

You think about the corridor. The money. I’m sorry. For what I said. All of it. “I don’t know yet,” you say. “He’s — I don’t know what he is.”

“Okay.” Hannah’s voice is careful and warm. “You don’t have to know yet. You don’t have to know anything yet except what you want. Everything else gets figured out.”

You sit with that for a moment. “I’m keeping it,” you say. Out loud, to another person, for the first time. It lands differently than it did in your head — more solid, more real, like something that has been decided rather than something being considered.

“Okay,” Hannah says, and she says it the way Mina says it — not okay as in fine but okay as in I’ve got you. “Then we figure out the rest.”

You tell Mina when she comes over and she holds your hand and doesn’t say anything for a long moment and then says “okay, what do we need to do” in the tone of someone rolling up their sleeves, which is exactly right, which is why she’s your person.

You tell Jake two days later.

You find him after morning practice on a Wednesday, same side entrance to the Hargrove Center, and this time he sees you coming and something in his posture adjusts — not quite bracing, just becoming more careful, more deliberate, the way he gets when he’s paying attention. “Hey,” he says.

“I’m keeping it,” you say.

He goes very still. You watch him process it — the stillness and then the almost imperceptible movement of his jaw, the way his eyes go somewhere internal for a second before coming back to you. He looks like someone doing rapid and complicated mathematics. “Okay,” he says finally.

“You don’t have to be involved. I meant that when I said it. I’m not — I’m not asking you for anything except to know. You deserved to know and now you know and whatever you decide to do with that is up to you.”

“I said I’d provide,” he says. “I meant that.”

“Money isn’t the same as involved.”

“I know.” He shifts his weight. His hands are in his pockets and he’s looking at you with that careful expression, the one you can’t fully read. “I don’t — I’m not going to be the guy who just throws money at it and disappears. That’s not—” He stops. “I don’t know what I am yet. But I’m not that.”

You look at him for a long moment. There is, underneath the practice gear and the careful composure and the history of the last two weeks, something that might be decency in there. It’s buried. It’s inconsistent. You’ve seen it appear and disappear enough times already to know better than to trust it yet. But it’s there. “Okay,” you say. “Then figure out what you are and let me know.”

You turn to go. “Can I—” He stops. You look back. “Can I have your number,” he says. “Properly. So we can — so it’s easier to—”

“To what.”

He looks, briefly, like someone who hasn’t thought this far ahead. “Talk,” he says. “If we need to.”

You look at him for a moment. Then you take out your phone and hold it out. He puts his number in and hands it back and you save it under Jake Sim (do not text unless necessary) which you do not show him. “I’ll be in touch,” you say.

Jake doesn’t mean to tell his friend— or he does, but not like this, not in the locker room with his gear half off and Riki eating a protein bar on the bench across from him and Jay taping his wrist in the corner and Jungwon doing something on his phone. It comes out the way things come out when you’ve been holding them too long and the effort of holding them finally exceeds the effort of saying them.

“I got someone pregnant,” he says.

The locker room goes quiet. Riki stops chewing. Jay puts down the tape. Jungwon looks up from his phone. “I’m sorry,” Jay says, with the careful enunciation of someone who wants to make sure they’ve heard correctly. “You what?”

“You heard me.”

“I heard you, I just want to make sure I—” Jay sets down the tape fully and turns to face him. “Who.”

“Girl from Delta Kappa. Three weeks ago.” Another silence. Jay is looking at him with an expression that Jake doesn’t particularly enjoy — something between concern and the specific look of someone doing the maths on how this could have happened and arriving at several uncomfortable conclusions about Jake’s general life choices.

“Are you—” Jungwon starts.

“I’m fine.”

“That’s not what I was going to ask.”

“Then what.”

Jungwon looks at him steadily. “Is she okay.”

Jake opens his mouth. Closes it. Thinks about you in the corridor at the rink and your voice going flat and your hand cracking across his face, and then you in your dorm room — calm and certain and telling him you weren’t asking him for anything, which was somehow the part that landed hardest. “I think so,” he says. “She’s — yeah.”

“Do you like her?” Riki asks, with the bluntness of someone who has not yet learned that some questions require more runway.

“I don’t know her,” Jake says.

“That’s not what I asked.” Jay shoots Riki a look. Riki shrugs and takes another bite of his protein bar.

“What are you going to do?” Jay asks, turning back to Jake.

Jake leans his elbows on his knees and looks at the floor. The locker room smells like it always does — ice and rubber and effort — and it’s familiar in a way that is almost destabilising right now, how normal everything around him is when nothing feels particularly normal. “I don’t know yet,” he says. “Be there, I think. As much as she’ll let me.”

“As much as she’ll let you,” Jay repeats. Something in his tone.

“She’s not — she’s not soft.” Jake looks up. “She’s not going to make it easy.”

“Should she?”

Jake looks at him. Jay looks back, steady and unhurried. “No,” Jake says, after a moment. “Probably not.”

Jay nods once. Picks the tape back up. “Then figure it out,” he says, like it’s simple, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, and Jake sits with that in the familiar smell of the locker room and thinks that he probably needs to.

—

The truce, when it forms, is not announced. It happens gradually over the following week — a text from him checking if you need anything, which you respond to with I’m fine thanks and nothing else. A text from you three days later telling him your first appointment is booked for the following week, which he responds to with do you want me there and you respond with not yet and he responds with okay and that’s it, that’s the whole exchange, and somehow it’s the most civil conversation you’ve had.

He doesn’t push. You note this without letting it mean too much. You’re not friends. You’re not anything with a name. You’re two people who made a mistake that turned into something neither of you planned for, and you’re figuring out how to exist in the same orbit without either of you combusting, and most days it feels manageable and some days it feels impossible and on the days it feels impossible you call Hannah, who answers on the third ring and lets the silence do its work.

It’s something, you think. It’s not much but it’s something. For now, that has to be enough.

The thing about Caldwell though, is that it’s a big campus until it isn’t.

Thirty thousand students, four faculties, two libraries, a quad the size of a small park — and yet somehow the people you most want to avoid have an unerring instinct for occupying the same coffee shop, the same corridor, the same stretch of pavement at the same time.

You’ve been navigating this for four months with Sunghoon and you’ve gotten good at it. You know his schedule well enough to avoid it without meaning to, the way you learn the shape of someone after two years and can’t quite unlearn it.

Which is why it catches you off guard when he’s just — there. The library café, a Tuesday afternoon, three weeks after the test. You’re at a corner table with your laptop and a cup of tea you’ve been nursing for an hour because coffee is still wrong and probably will be for the foreseeable future, and you’re halfway through a close reading of Middlemarch chapter forty-two when someone pulls out the chair across from you and sits down and you look up and it’s Sunghoon.

He looks, as he always looks, like something assembled with unreasonable care. Dark hair, clean jawline, the particular quality of stillness he has that used to make you feel calm and now just makes you feel tired.

“Hey,” he says.

You look at him. Then at the chair he’s sitting in. Then back at him. “I didn’t say you could sit.”

“I know.” He doesn’t move. “I just wanted to talk.”

“Sunghoon.”

“Five minutes.”

You close your laptop. Not because you’re agreeing, but because whatever he’s about to say you want to be looking at him when he says it. “Five minutes,” you say. “And then you’re going to go away.”

Something moves through his expression — not quite hurt, but adjacent. He folds his hands on the table. He has nice hands. You spent two years noticing his hands. “I saw you at Delta Kappa,” he says.

“I know. You texted me.”

“You didn’t reply.” He looks at you steadily. “You were talking to Jake Sim.”

There it is.

You keep your face very neutral. “I was at a party. I talked to a lot of people.”

“Jake Sim isn’t a lot of people.” Something in his voice shifts — not quite possessive, not quite jealous, threading that needle with the precision of someone who knows he doesn’t have the right to either and is trying to disguise it as concern. “He’s not a good person to get involved with.”

“Thank you for that,” you say. “I’ll bear it in mind.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.” You look at him. “Sunghoon. You don’t get to come sit at my table and tell me who I should and shouldn’t talk to. You gave that up.”

His jaw tightens. “I know I did.”

“Then why are you here?”

He’s quiet for a moment. Outside the café windows the quad is grey and overcast, students moving across it with their heads down against the wind, and Sunghoon is looking at you with an expression you know — you’ve catalogued it, the way you’ve catalogued everything about him, two years of accumulated knowledge you can’t seem to put down. It’s the expression he gets when he wants to say something and is choosing his words with care.

“I miss you,” he says.

You look at him for a long time. The honest answer is that you miss him too — or you miss the version of things you thought you had, which isn’t exactly the same as missing him but lives close enough to it that the distinction is hard to maintain on a grey Tuesday afternoon with him sitting across from you looking like that.

You miss having a person. You miss the shape of your life before it got complicated in every possible direction.

But you also know what he did.

You know it with the specific clarity of something you’ve gone over enough times that it’s stopped being sharp and started being just — true. A fact about him. A fact about what he chose. “I know,” you say. Carefully. “But that’s not my problem to fix.”

He nods. Slow. Like he expected it and it still costs him something. He stands up, pushes the chair back in, and then pauses with his hands on the back of it. “Are you okay?” he asks. “Actually? You look—” He stops.