everyone always told you that you had terrible luck. this applied to most things: friendships, competitions, meeting a friend’s parents, even.

but love? oh, love was where it stung. this was somehow more painful than everything else, because while you could flaunt at least one instance where a friendship didn’t explode in your face, or a parent actually liked you, or you won a gold star—you could never say you hit it off with a guy, ever.

perhaps the men of this generation were simply too terrible for this to ever be a matter of luck. it felt more like a rigged casino: every bet placed in good faith, every hand played carefully, and still you walked away lighter, bled dry all the same.

you weren’t desperate. no. far from it. you did everything right. you waited, chose the boys who made you feel safe instead of reckless, who offered steadiness instead of the dizzy thrill everyone else swore by. you could say, with a quiet sense of pride, that you followed the rules and played it by the book. hell, even after all that, every guy’s true colours somehow emerged victorious by the end of it: they just want sex, sex, or sex.

the truth was that deep down, you didn’t want anything to do with it. even if it was indeed the sexiest, biggest, smartest guy on campus… there was only one guy you set your sights on. just one, with the light brown hair and charming smile, shooting hoops at the basketball court by the cafeteria—lee heeseung.

though, the problem was simple: you’d never actually talked to the guy. this could’ve been easily solved if you shared even one class, but of course, he’d signed up late—every elective already full, while you, being the good student you are, had locked your choices in the moment the portal opened.

the second solution, proposed by oh jiwon herself, was rejected the instant it left her mouth. you were sprawled in her dorm room on a normal saturday night—you, legs spread indecently across the tiny couch she’d smuggled past security in first year, and her, upside down on the bed, hair brushing the floor.

“why don’t you just bump into him and knock all his books down?” she muttered, teeth chomping down on a stack of (probably) expired bbq-xtra-hot chips.

oh, heeeell no. what the fuck was this? a poorly produced drama plotline?

“was he born yesterday?”

the third option, though, felt a little more… dignified. it came to you on a random thursday evening, when the rain felt a little too heavy and you were wishing that lee heeseung would swoop in and hold a $5 umbrella over your heads.

replaying the events of the day in your head as your boots sloshed in muddy puddles, kim sunoo’s annoyingly pretty face comes into view.

“the fundraiser’s gonna be so busy this year, gosh…”

yes. indeed, it will.

the annual fundraiser organised by the student relations club. you remembered being ridiculously excited for it last year—around the same time you’d first started noticing heeseung. after some careful “asking around”, you’d learned he was attending, too. and, as if the universe was personally apologising to you for your tragic love life: he was trying his luck at the blind date booth.

what a sweet guy. donating his hard-earned money to charity and putting himself out there? he had your heart in his hands, and you came to understand that his was the target of many others.

so, it was obvious what had to be done. you signed up the moment sunoo—thank the angels for him—let the information slip. it’s nothing short of fate that you shared an elective with him; it took a bit of coaxing and more than a few judgmental looks, but by that sunny wednesday afternoon, good had prevailed in the world.

it’s safe to say you did not get lee heeseung as your date. instead, you endured a miserable twenty-minute speed dinner listening to a stranger ramble about his league rank. ou’d never been more thoroughly turned off in your life.

but this year?

this year, it will be different.

─────────────────────────

the house smells like weed and alcohol, and also everything that you should not be doing on a thursday night. you got the call from jiwon in the middle of your assignment, head half buried in your hands as the glow from the laptop screen burned your retinas—it’s twelve midnight now, and you have class in eight hours, but the impending sleep deprivation still beats handing in sloppy work.

the house belongs to the frat heeseung’s in. sigma alpha eta, if you remembered correctly. it’s three stories tall, tacky, and reeks of soju and everything wrong with the male species. you’re not even sure if the place ever gets cleaned, but considering it’s full of rich mama’s boys, they’ve probably hired someone to deal with the mess for them.

“what the fuck is going on?”

oh jiwon’s staring at you like you’re the one who dragged her here. you scan the room for no one in particular (lie), and when you turn back—

she’s gone.

“who’s ready to party?!”

the dj is embarrassingly bad. like, physically painful to listen to. the bass is cranked up so high it rattles the floorboards, vibrating straight through your bones. you cringe, already picturing the culprit: some frat guy who bought a $100 mixing set off amazon last week and now calls himself “up and coming”.

everyone you know seems to be here. you’d brushed shoulders with ahn yunjin and danielle on the way in, only to watch them dart toward the porch with a joint already lit.

you snake your way through narrow hallways packed wall-to-wall—overlapping conversations, smoke blown straight into your face, bodies pressing in from every side as you aim for the kitchen. instead, you stumble into the living room. leather couches are occupied by unconscious adults—drunk, high, or some lethal combination of both—bathed in warm overhead light that all but promises brutal hangovers tomorrow.

it seems like the party started long before you got here. where the hell did your jiwon go, anyway?

your feet start to move again, carrying you mindlessly through the first floor—you cross the hallway, take a turn into another doorway, and finally stumble upon the kitchen; it’s less crowded, with fewer drunk people and comparably quiet in contrast to whatever’s waiting for you outside the threshold of that door. your eyes are hesitant, oddly enough, though you know why.

parties like this usually mean hookups. and when hookups are involved, lee heeseung is the first name that comes to mind. the guy’s practically a walking target—especially in his own frat house, swarming with every girl who’s been blessed enough to know the name.

this whole situation feels like a ticking time bomb. your chest tightens. how long before someone else gets to him? how long before you turn a corner and see his face buried in someone else’s neck? 10 minutes? 10 seconds?

“hellooooo!”

and as fast as the thoughts come, they go; head snapping toward the sound, locking onto oh fucking jiwon—standing there, smiling innocently, as if she hadn’t abandoned you to die in the crowd.

“where the fuck have you been?” you sigh, hands running through your hair, like you’d just spent a whole day looking for her. to be fair, time moves weirdly in places like this.

“refilling!” she hiccups. “see?” she tips her red cup to show a dubious mix of jack and coke.

she’s tipsy—no surprise there. jiwon’s always been a lightweight. still, she manages to wobble over and hop onto the marble island, scooting back until her legs dangle comfortably. she looks down at you with glassy, sparkly eyes.

“sooo… heeseung’s place, huh? didn’t know their frat was so fancy. they literally have wine older than my grandparents in here.”

you roll your eyes and drag a stool out from under the island. it screeches against the tile, making you wince, before you climb up onto it.

“you’ve been snooping in their alcohol?” you giggle, shaking your head in mock disapproval. you’ll have to look through it later, too. “you’re a shit guest.”

“guest is always right!” jiwon babbles, before abruptly sneezing. the action makes you flinch. “oh… sorry. anyways,”

you cross your arms, waiting. she’s halfway to blackout, but you humor her anyway.

“fundraiser!” she slurs. “heeseung’s in the pantry. think he’s lookin’ for chips. i dunno. he was with sunghoon, and then i ran into him while lookin’ for more soju—”

and it’s like the universe wants to show you how much it wants you to stay in this lifetime, as a form of divine mercy, or something similar to an apology, because lee heeseung slides the pantry door open and waltzes right out with chips tucked under his armpit, as he munches on something else. your eyes follow him, and so does everyone else’s, and naturally they trail towards the slightly shorter man behind him.

park sunghoon. the guy with the ridiculously sharp, thick eyebrows, a staring problem, and close to half of the campus’s female population wanting to lick his boots. there’s often two responses to the question ‘who’s the cutest guy on campus’, and many of your peers often utter one or the other: heeseung, or his colder counterpart, sunghoon.

you took an economics class with him last year, and thank god you didn’t hit the lottery and end up in the same group, because you’d heard… things. too many things. stories about him tearing into a girl’s work so viciously, she had to beg the professor to let her switch groups with sunoo (it’s strange, how he seemed to be in almost every class you took, now that you think about it).

you’d never talked to him, or anyone from that little group, really, aside from kim sunoo. you knew sim jaeyun was popular over in the engineering block; all brains and good looks, apparently. nishimura riki was another name you heard in passing—always surrounded by a crowd whenever he danced with his crew in some random corner with a giant mirror. as for jongseong and jungwon… you didn’t even want to think about the things people said. absolutely vile in nature.

it seems like the whole lot of them were heartthrobs, in every sense of the word.

it’s just… park sunghoon?

that guy didn’t deserve half the glowing reviews he got.

you were half convinced that if people had star ratings floating above their heads—complete with scrollable comments—he’d be inflating his own with burner emails.

park sunghoon. 5 stars. wow, this guy is sooooo hot and rich! — nothoon12345. he just looked like the kind of guy who did that kind of thing.

okay, maybe you were being a little harsh, considering you’d never actually spoken to him. still, it felt telling when even other men talked shit about him: apparently being both the most disliked and the most respected player on the ice hockey team was impressive enough to land him the captain title.

he walks a few steps behind heeseung, his own bag of chips in hand. you don’t realise you’re staring until his gaze snaps towards you as he passes—a look equal parts smug, disgusted, and painfully punchable.

“what the hell is that guy’s issue?”

“stop looking at him,” jiwon waves you off, swinging her feet. her heel accidentally thuds against the wood. “heeseung's right there.”

your eyes flick back to heeseung, now hovering near the front door, greeting the flood of people streaming in—tonight’s barely started, but somehow, you feel ten times heavier than when you walked in.

lee heeseung, leaning casually against the wall, all perfect teeth, perfect hair, perfectly charming face… and park sunghoon, just a step behind him, stiff, scanning the crowd until his gaze finally locks on you.

before you can tear your eyes away, he cocks his head and gives you a smile—all mockery, all challenge, like he just told a joke you’d never understand. you shift your weight on the stool, cross one leg over the other, but your eyes stay zeroed on him.

“i don’t like that sunghoon guy,” you mutter, dragging a hand through your hair and pretending to look elsewhere.

oh jiwon rolls her eyes, snorts, and leans her weight back on the counter. “you’d be surprised how many people wanna get in his pants—”

“don’t. talk. to. me. about. park. sunghoon’s. pants.” you snap, stabbing a finger toward her chest for emphasis—she giggles at the action, and you do, too. though your eyes flick back, just once, toward where he was.

but when you do, he’s gone. no sunghoon, no heeseung. just the occasional partygoer opening and closing doors, the sound barely registering to your ears through the shitty music.

“how have you not drank anything yet?”

“i literally just got here!”

────────────────────────

it’s one in the morning, and the party seems to be at it’s peak—there’s no one else coming through the front door, and it’s more packed than you could imagine; you’re leaning against the staircase with a cup swirling in your hands, only having taken two sips out of it. jiwon’s still next to you, chatting to a guy you’ve never seen before.

you look at him, then at her. unimpressive, if anything. you’re turning to look at your cup again and the feeling hits, sudden and sharp as it claws at your chest: you feel extremely out of place, even in a house full of people and possibility. people shove their way past you and you hold your cup tight to your chest as it happens. you barely hear anything with the laughter, chatter, and music all at once.

your eyes drift toward the window—yunjin’s with someone else; danielle must’ve left earlier. you scan the room again, half-heartedly looking for a familiar face to talk to—sunoo, maybe, even if the guy doesn’t really think you’re normal. or for park sunghoon, perhaps for some explanation as to why he’d looked at you like that earlier.

“looking for hee?”

that voice. too close. it sends shivers down your spine, every hair standing before your neck snaps to your left—jiwon’s gone, and so is that guy, instead replaced by a girl you know all too well.

she’s smiling at you with her lips curled in a way that makes your stomach drop—unsettling by its very nature. the lights strobe across her face, red and white, purple and blue, painting her in something eerie as her expression lingers, sharp and all-knowing.

“what the fuck do you want?”

she laughs softly, hands coming up to her face to cover her mouth like she’s some gentle, kind creature that’s come to save the day. kim sooha’s always been like that. ever since high school, ever since you’ve been bestowed the honour of knowing how ruthless she gets when she wants to be.

her hair falls over her face before she moves to tuck it behind her ear.

god, you want to slap her. some things never change, no matter how many years pass.

“you need to learn how to relax. you’ve been staring all night,” she sighs, leaning her back against the wall as she talks—like you two are friends, always have been—and that this is the most normal conversation ever. “you’re definitely looking for heeseung, aren’t you? i got a shortcut, if you’re interested.”

you don’t answer. you’ve learnt it’s best to shut your mouth instead of lie, because with girls like sooha, the snake always bites first.

your mind flashes, briefly, to the image of him again: light brown hair falling over his face, his genuine smile as people poured in from the front door, eyes squinting as he spots a good friend from a few feet away. your eyes had never truly left him, until you caught park sunghoon staring daggers at you right behind.

and, strangely, it’s never found him again since.

“listen, i have his number—it’ll save you a looot of trouble.”

you don’t realise you’ve turned away from her until you glance back. her smile widens as you meet her eyes—glinting with something dangerous, like this isn’t truly all there is to her offer.

kim sooha is not about goodwill and donating to charities. the charity would have to return her 110% before she could ever consider doing so; in this case, the charity seems to be you.

“what do you want?”

and it feels like you’ve just sold your soul to the damn devil with how bright her face gets. like a child on christmas morning, unwrapping a brand new toy. well—you suppose you’re a toy, too, in this.

she reaches into the back pocket of her jeans, the jingle of her phone charm barely cutting through the kendrick lamar song that’s causing the floor to vibrate. you wonder how long until someone calls the cops on this place—it’s too loud, too much, and you don’t even want to think about what the second and third floor looks like right now.

“one click, and i’ll send it to you.”

you scoff, breaking the eye contact to take a sip of the peach soju in your hands. you almost roll your eyes before remembering that this was sooha you were getting in bed with—one wrong move, and she’s retracting, and you’ll be left to awkward waves and stuttered hello’s at the fundraiser three months from now.

“my jacket’s upstairs, and i need you to get it.”

if you weren’t confused before, you definitely are now.

“your fucking jacket?” you repeat, and it almost comes out as a laugh. she doesn’t think it’s funny, though, because she’s quick to fire back a response:

“i don’t want to bump into whoever you’re gonna bump into. not in the mood. consider it a gift from me,” she pokes a finger at your collarbone, “to you.”

you flinch, her sharp nail making you stumble back, just a little. her eyebrows raise as you tilt your head towards the stairs, watching you glance up and towards the flight of stairs above your heads—there’s people moving up and down, and it just doesn’t click—why not someone else?

“so… are you doing it? don’t have time to sleep on—“

you chew on the lining of your cheek. something isn’t right. she’s looking at you like she doesn’t care if her jacket actually makes it back to her—all that matters is that you fall into whatever she’s setting up.

“fine. keep your fucking word when i get back down here.”

the smile that spreads across her face makes your heart drop straight to your ass. you don’t like this—not the feeling of being a step behind, not the way it feels like she’s holding something over you.

but… like she said. it’s not as if you have a whole day to sit on your ass and think it through.

“you should know by now. i always do,” she sings, voice lilting and smug, watching as you turn away and head for the stairs. “thank you, dear [name].”

you pause at the bottom, fingers curling tighter around your cup as you glance upward. bodies move through the hallways above—laughing, stumbling, disappearing into rooms that smell like sweat, alcohol and poor decisions. the music thumps faintly through the walls, distorted here, like a heartbeat that doesn’t belong to you.

your head feels light, almost dizzy, but you go anyway. one step. then another. your shoes stick slightly to the floor as you climb, each step feeling heavier than the last.

“this yours?”

your head cocks up, eyes locking onto a familiar face—park sunghoon, standing at the top of the staircase, with a leather jacket haphazardly folded into his hands. it looks expensive when it’s under this kind of light, and knowing sooha, it probably is.

“yup,” you say, the word coming out more clipped than you intend. reluctant, wary—but who the hell could blame you? the guy who’s been staring all psycho and weird, treating you like an out-of-earth entity is holding onto the one thing you need to finish this amazing deal. “thank you!”

he’s tall. towering. with you two steps below him, he’s giving himself a stiff neck just looking at you. his face gives nothing away—not surprise, barely any curiosity, perhaps slight irritation. more than anything, there’s that unreadable calm, like he’s not only three steps ahead of whatever this is, but also skies above it.

your arms reach out to grab it from him, but sunghoon’s quick to retract his hand. he dangles it in front of you, an eyebrow raised, still staring as if you were some kind of odd specimen—you blink a few times, waiting for him to say something, anything.

“i’d watch out if i were you.”

his voice is low, nearly lost beneath the bass thudding through the floor below. it’s flat enough that it barely registers as a voice at all.

but just why the hell is he telling you this? park sunghoon’s talking like he knows kim sooha personally.

really, if you had to pick between the two of you… you’d have to consider yourself the expert.

“o… kay?” you mouth, the word barely audible over the bass thrumming through the walls.

for a moment longer, he just looks at you, then lowers the jacket into your hands. you don’t manage to thank him, because you’re turning around before you can even utter another word.

nothing else matters right now. you’re praying that by the time you reach the bottom of the stairs, sooha will be there—phone in hand, ready to send those digits your way, just like she promised.

though, even if she isn’t, you’re not entirely sure what you’d do about it. there’s no backup plan. you’re definitely not asking sunoo—because you’re not an idiot with a weird obsession with lee heeseung (lie), and you’re not that desperate to talk to him (lie), enough to corner one of his closest friends and expose yourself completely (truth).

well… you guess you’ve already done so by poking around about the fundraiser, but his number is crossing the line. apparently.

you square your shoulders and keep walking, clinging to the thought that this will all be worth it once lee heeseung’s finally a button away, instead of thirty meters and 6 men apart.

“you’re quick with it,” sooha yells over the song playing, now a remix of some chainsmokers single. roses, a classic, which also means people are starting to get oddly energetic despite it reaching two in the morning.

you watch her eyes flick down to her phone, the screen lighting up her face as she brings it to her chest—typing, swiping, pausing just long enough to be irritating—until your own phone vibrates against the back pocket of your shorts.

“thanks a bunch, y/n.” she says lightly. “always so obedient.”

your jaw tightens. you don’t bother responding—just thrust the jacket into her abdomen, harder than necessary. kim sooha doesn’t take it personally, she never does. the flare of your nostrils, the way your fingers curl like you’re holding yourself back—that’s more than enough to make her night.

a sweet, disingenuous smile blooms across your face, as if to say: ‘no problem, bitch.’

she slips past you, shoulders barely brushing, already headed for the front door. just before she disappears, you catch it—the smudged eyeshadow, the eyeliner dragged unevenly beneath her eyes, foundation streaked down her cheeks like she hasn’t bothered to check herself in a mirror.

for a fraction of a second, you find yourself worrying—for her, and for yourself. you’ve never once seen sooha with makeup this (for lack of a better word) bad; she’s always immaculate, flawless, even if that bruises your ego to admit out loud.

which means there are only two possibilities: she’s just fucked someone and realised, far too late, what a mistake it was—or her heart has just been torn into a million tiny, irreparable pieces.

you don’t take much time to dwell on it, before you tear your eyes away from sooha’s figure slowly fading into the distance. her boots clack against the concrete pavement before it comes to a stop, and for a moment, she just stands—until a car pulls up and she ducks her head to fit into it.

what the hell was that?

the front door slams shut from someone else pulling it closed, the sound cutting clean through the music, and your head turns instinctively toward the staircase.

park sunghoon.

the second floor is quieter, stripped of the flashing colours and strobe lights below. in that softer, warmer glow, park sunghoon comes sharply into focus.

he’s leaning over the railing, forearms bearing his weight. an empty soju bottle hangs loosely from his hand, head bowed, expression obscured by shadow—almost like he’s staring straight down at you.

he’s annoyingly gorgeous. his side profile is so lethal that you think if not for his shitty attitude and tendency to stare at everyone sideways, he’d be a model.

you catch yourself wishing he’d just fuck off and do that instead.

your breath catches in your throat. you’re not really sure why—but your body makes the decisions for you tonight, thoughts of sunghoon quickly dissolving as fast as they invaded, feet carrying you toward the front door.

sleek wood and cold metal doorknobs in all their unassuming glory. it’s an exit. a way out of the noise, the lights, and the man upstairs who feels far too aware of your existence.

you move. fluid, deliberate, like this was always the plan.

sunghoon’s gaze tracks you as you slip through the crowd, hair brushing shoulders, bodies pressing in too close. the lights repaint you with every step—pink, purple, red—until you glance back once, just for a second, and the colours smear into something unreadable.

when you finally cross the threshold of the front door, your body is hit with cold wind; unsurprisingly, there’s scattered groups of people across the front yard, smoking and drinking in their quiet bubbles. you inhale the relatively cleaner air, deep, slow, until it settles in your lungs and you’re spared from the remnants of vape flavours and fruity alcohol.

the music dulls behind you, but the vibrations still reach your feet nonetheless.

you sigh, a hand dragging through your hair, before you make your way towards a stone pillar, only to lean your weight against it. you didn’t realise how quiet it could be, after almost two hours in that god forsaken party—the quiet chatter doesn’t make your head spin out here and the occasional laugh isn’t as annoying as the screams inside.

that’s when you see him.

lee heeseung—smoking—with that guy from engineering. jake sim.

the cigarette is pinched between his fingers, and he takes slow drags like it’s the only thing anchoring him to this messy, overgrown scene. jake’s rambling beside him, hands flying as he retells some story you can’t hear, and heeseung just nods along, offering the occasional laugh that reassures his friend that he finds it equally as funny.

everything feels slowed down. time is suspended. his hair slips into his eyes, and every now and then he shakes his head, a small, unconscious motion to clear his vision.

this is kind of creepy. you’re watching lee heeseung smoke at two in the morning from his front porch. you, a year ago, wouldn’t have believed this even if someone swore on it.

okay. that’s enough. you’re leaving—immediately.

but not before you bring your phone to your face—the blue light stings, almost burns your retinas. you blink hard once, twice, until the haze clears. your thumb swipes into your messages.

kim sooha has kept her word.

sooha (do not reply): +82-xx-xxxx-xxxx 01:53

sooha (do not reply): enjoy yourself! <3 01:53

bitch.

you add the contact while lee heeseung is still laughing in your peripheral vision, smoke curling into the dark, completely unaware that—through totally legitimate and ethical means—he’s now a button away.

─────────────────────────

park sunghoon was not interested in love.

this was, somehow, a known fact across campus.

anyone could guess by that stoic look on his face and that gigantic duffle bag he drags around everywhere, that the man couldn’t be paid a million dollars to be locked down—that’s what so little time and too many (non-romantic) commitments does to you.

mondays were the gym. tuesdays, practice. wednesdays, rest. thursdays, practice again. fridays, the gym, and a night run. saturdays and sundays, practice too. he was surprised he even had time to fit kim sooha into his schedule, though, it was not as often as she preferred.

okay, he admits it was just sex—but an hour or two once or twice a week was already cutting it close.

sunghoon was an ex-figure skater turned ice hockey player, so it was clear what the future held for him: he’s talented, rich, disciplined, a genius—the world was his oyster. everyone around him was in his court.

who would he be if he let someone make the rules for him?

you see: park sunghoon couldn’t be bothered with the girls throwing themselves at him, or the ones who acted shy. in his eyes, it all ended the same.

they wanted more. he couldn’t give more. he didn’t want to give more.

kim sooha was no different. of course she wasn’t—park sunghoon couldn’t deny it, because she fit the stereotype of every girl who’d ever wanted him: bashful, a little self-deprecating, and far too clingy.

at least he had been decent enough to tell her that sex was all it would ever be, and all he could afford to give. but what do you know (park sunghoon always knows), someone ends up wanting more.

the night of the party, around ten, sunghoon found himself holed up in his bedroom trying to finish up a paper before the house had started swarming with people. one moment he’s typing, fingers mashing away at his keyboard as the words flow flawlessly, perfectly, and his mind occasionally drifts to the grade he’d get for this assignment. nothing less than 100, of course. he wouldn’t expect anything less from himself.

“hoon!”

and his genius flow is disrupted by none other than jake, peeking his head from behind the doorway, with an idiotic smile painted across his glowing face.

“what do you want?” sunghoon mutters, head turning back to the screen of his laptop. jake sim’s prsesence usually meant the message wasn’t all that important—if it was, it’d be jungwon up here instead. “i’m busy.”

“sooha’s here,” he says. “she wants to see you.”

sunghoon kisses his teeth in annoyance, solely out of instinct, an action which jake pretends not to notice. it only irritates sunghoon even more, really—he’d rather jake just be honest with him, instead of pretending to be polite just for the sake of being polite. he knows better than anyone that all of his brothers hate when kim sooha is around, and that hiding it won’t convince park sunghoon otherwise.

for varying reasons.

he recalls that one dinner two weeks ago, when jay told sunghoon to ‘do a better job at shutting sooha up’. he could barely eat the rest of his food.

“please don’t send her up here. i’ll be downstairs soon,” and jake is almost ready to turn his pretty face right around and back downstairs to help set up the speakers, before sunghoon asks: “why is she even here?”

“hey, you’re the one fucking her, man.” jake shrugs, before he turns around for the final time. sunghoon’s face morphs into one of disgust, weirdly fast, even though the statement isn’t exactly false—still, it doesn’t stop him from wanting to crawl into a hole and die.

there’s something wrong with him. he can’t deny the sex was good, and yes, kim sooha was gorgeous… but commitment? staying? forever? that was different.

he remembers when yang jungwon had a girlfriend. those were not good times. definitely. the guy refused to leave his bedroom for two days after they broke it off—and sunghoon, as much as he cared for poor jungwon, couldn’t stop thinking about how two days meant two lifetimes of missed productivity.

just how much of an asshole could he be?

so, that’s precisely why he settles for sex. a dopamine hit to get himself off edge, so he’s ready to stretch himself thin all over again.

lee heeseung says it’s not healthy, but what the hell would he know? he’s too busy drowning in love letters, home-baked cookies, and instagram requests to understand why this is the best option out of any presented to him. the golden boy doesn’t know what he’s talking about—the only reason he even bothers giving advice is because of the one, maybe two girlfriends he had in first year, which he seems to think qualifies him as an expert in sweet, innocent, and healthy love.

park sunghoon doesn’t even have instagram. it’s a waste of time.

why the fuck doesn’t he get cookies, anyway? why don’t girls approach him just to talk, instead of trying to grind on his crotch at parties? why doesn’t he have someone sweet and steady, sitting in the stands and watching his games—wiping his tears when he plays like shit, or being the first one he looks for when he scores an amazing shot?

never mind the way he takes their hand and leads them upstairs. never mind how easily he leans into a stranger’s touch and lets himself pretend it means something. never mind that he’s learned to let names slip past him, unheard, while his gaze drifts instead to the shape of their lips.

never mind all of it.

he tells himself it’s circumstantial—something inevitable, something learnt. that he would be different, could be different, if the world around him didn’t demand this version of him in return.

lee heeseung gets to commit. he gets to feel it all—the highs, the warmth, the quiet safety of having someone stay, and he makes it out unscathed, unhurt. he gets to ground himself in knowing that she won’t walk out of that door when shit hits the fan, too—fuck, he doesn’t know anything at all.

footsteps thud from the hallway, but he knows it’s just jay and riki shifting furniture around—boards scraping, chairs sliding—enough to rattle the plaster on the walls. jake’s voice cuts through the mess, yelling at heeseung to find the extra loud speakers jungwon had “borrowed” for his own use. somewhere upstairs, sunoo’s probably napping, blissfully unaware of the chaos below.

sunghoon doesn’t mind. five people are more than enough to handle party prep, and he refuses to be dragged into it. the music, the clatter, the erratic shouts—it all feels like someone else’s life, a background noise he doesn’t need to claim.

instead, up here, he can focus on what matters: finishing his paper, keeping his head down, staying untangled in this mess that’s about to spill over the entire house in about an hour.

he leans back against the leather of his chair, shoulders finally relaxing, and lets his gaze wander over the room. the house smells like air freshener, a somewhat helpful idea proposed by riki, but the sharp tang in his nose makes him grit his teeth.

for the first time that evening, he almost smiles at the absurdity of it all, the chaos of his brothers trying to pull off another last-minute party. he knows it’ll all work out fine, and that this will be the talk of campus until it fizzles out in two weeks, but it’s still ridiculous how these people never learn to plan ahead.

he remembers the last party sigma alpha eta threw—someone broke a table, then went swimming naked in the pool. safe to say, jake and him had to track the culprit down the next morning and demand the funds to get it cleaned.

“hoonie?”

a soft click from the front door snaps him out of his thoughts.

he knows exactly who it is.

kim sooha. standing by the dark frame of his door, dressed in something that would’ve had him weak in the knees if he was some random horny loser—skirt smooth, tight against her skin, a leather jacket framing her small body. it’s too bad that he doesn’t give two shits, though.

“you’ve been avoiding me,” she announces, voice sharp yet playful, as if she owns the room that sunghoon’s made his. it irks him.

she leans against the doorframe, one hip jutting out, arms crossed with a face so smug that it makes him want to flip her off. “so, i came early. just to… check in.”

he looks back at the screen of his laptop, bright blue light shining in his face, and barely moves another muscle. “you know where the rules stand. i’m busy.”

“hoonie—“

“told you to stop calling me that.” sunghoon cuts her off, “i don’t need you checking on me, thanks. party’s not starting for another hour. maybe you can help them prep?”

the words land like a slap. sooha’s jaw tightens, but she forces a smile, refusing to let him see the way it stings.

she steps closer anyway, as if proximity can wear him down, break the walls that are already hardening—or climb over whatever’s already there.

“come on. it doesn’t have to be like this.” she tilts her head, letting her hair fall over one shoulder, “i’ve been asking you for weeks, hoon. i’ve always wanted—”

“no.” sunghoon exhales, forcefully slow, as if that’ll help him calm down. “i’ve been saying the same shit for weeks. you’re pushing me.”

she takes two steps closer, heels tapping against the shiny wood floor. the space between them closes as she leans over his desk, shadow casting over the dark oak. he feels like slamming his head into it—the bruise would be less painful than this, the sharp smell of her fruity perfume that sunghoon never bothered to register, but hates anyway now that it finally has.

he never thought he’d have to tell her that he hates the notes of citrus. it didn’t matter if she never stayed long enough to get the words out.

“hoonie,” sooha mumbles, hands bracing the surface of his table. “i thought we were getting somewhere.”

“even after i told you we weren’t?” sunghoon shifts his chair backwards, widening the gap just so he could feel like he wasn’t going to choke at the smell of her perfume. “know what? i’m done. can’t fucking draw any lines with you—“

“that’s it? we’re just—“

sunghoon’s jaw tightens, and he leans back slightly in his chair. “i said it was just sex. nothing more. if you’re begging for a hug and some kisses, go somewhere else.”

the silence hangs in the air, thick, impenetrable. for a minute, sunghoon wonders if he’s gone too far—sooha’s face falters, her sultry smile now replaced by lips that tremble before her teeth bite down on them. she nods once, slow, looking at park sunghoon like he’s driven a ten-foot pole straight through her chest, twisted it, and ripped it back out.

his eyes flick from his laptop screen to her irises. if one thing’s admirable about park sunghoon, is that if he was going to tear you to pieces, he’ll have the decency to look you in the eye.

at least, for that final word. it’s about as much emotion as he can manage.

“get out.”

so she does—nods slow, before turning on her heel, the sharp click of her shoes echoing once, twice, until it fades down the hallway.

the door shuts behind her with a quiet finality. sunghoon doesn’t watch it close.

the smell of sooha’s perfume lingers in the air, unwanted, and he feels petty for even trying to block it out. after all, they’ve shared a bed before, even if they skipped every prerequisite to get there—but it rarely ever felt worth it to him, if at all.

he’s had his fair share of women. he’s always prided himself on being honest about what he wants—in his mind, there’s nothing wrong with that, as long as everyone’s on the same page.

no promises, no expectations, yet it always ends the same way. someone always reaches for more pieces of him than he’s willing—or able—to give. pieces that have were never there to begin with.

jake tells him he’s lucky. says it with a laugh, like sunghoon should be grateful for the attention, the bodies, the ease of it all. heeseung tries to offer half-assed couch therapy, something about “opening up” and “not shutting people out,” advice sunghoon knows was pulled straight out of his ass—or worse, his tiktok feed.

god, if he wanted someone to tell him what was wrong with him, he’d just pay someone with a degree five hundred a session to do just that.

park sunghoon is not interested in love. park sunghoon is not interested in love. park sunghoon is not. interested. in. love.

it’s inefficient—unstructured, demanding, and prone to spilling into places it doesn’t belong. it asks for time he doesn’t have, space he’s already accounted for, pieces of him that are scheduled, measured, calculated and spent elsewhere, where it should be.

he repeats it like a mantra: no one is looking at him and realizing he’s absent more than he’s present—because sooner or later, they always want more, and he’s learnt that it’s better to draw the line early than to watch disappointment set in later.

this is mercy.

but to whom, he can’t answer.

─────────────────────────

you’re not very sure where you’re going with this.

there’s a list of problems so long it could double as a grocery store receipt:

one) how do you even explain that you got lee heeseung’s number, and

two) what excuse do you have to actually talk to him?

still, you’re laid in bed, the glow from your screen washing your face in harsh white light, painting the ceiling in sharp rectangles. your eyes squint, blinking against the burn, as if staring long enough might make this whole thing less terrifying.

it’s nearing four in the morning, and you’re fairly certain the party has been over for hours—probably everyone has stumbled home or collapsed on some couch somewhere, except for you, hovering in your room like a guilty ghost.

okay, no. these are excuses, and this is you overthinking, twisting your brain into knots. once you finally text that damn number kim sooha “gifted” you—reluctantly, no less—you’ll either regret it or… regret it. either way, there’s no turning back.

you: hiiiii

creep.

you: hi

ominous…

you: is this heeseung?

too direct.

this isn’t working. your thumb hovers over the screen, trembling slightly, and the numbers stare back at you like a puzzle you’re too tired to solve. maybe, if you stare long enough, they’ll rearrange themselves into an opening line that isn’t mortifying.

though, instead of the numbers moving, your thumb does.

“shit. shit, shit, shit—“

oh, yes, your butter fingers saved you the trouble of texting him: why don’t you just fucking call him, instead? like that’s so much better, real smooth of you.

riiing. riiing. riiing.

you barely have time to process before the line goes quiet.

the silence swallows you whole—your ears ring with it. it’s the kind of quiet that makes you question if you’ve suddenly lost all ability to hear.

oh my god. this is hell. you’re either died, or the world has ended, or some black hole just opened up in your room, because it’s too silent for it to be even remotely normal.

“hello?”

the voice on the other end of the line sounds sharp, clipped, like you’ve interrupted something important—or worse, like you’ve woken him up.

you can’t even fault him for it. it’s four in the morning, after the biggest party this term, and you’re an unknown number calling like you’ve lost your damn mind. still, it makes your heart twist a little.

“who is this?”

it’s not rude… not exactly. still, something in your chest sinks because you know what that tone usually means.

you have, roughly, three seconds to justify your existence before lee heeseung hangs up and you become another embarrassing almost in your own head.

maybe one.

“hi,” you mumble, and somehow almost stutter—if that’s even possible over the phone, with a single word—it comes out thin, fragile, and utterly useless.

the line goes quiet again, and you genuinely consider slamming your head into the wall just to feel something else other than the tiny voices evil-laughing in your head. “heeseung, right?”

more damn silence.

not the dead-line kind. it’s worse. it’s the thinking kind.

you picture him on the other end, phone held away from his ear, brow furrowed as he debates whether this is worth his time. unknown caller. 4 in the morning. zero context. and it’s some girl who can’t even say ‘hi’ right.

if you were him, you’d hang up. you’d block the number, move on, this becoming nothing but a blip in your already eventful life.

your grip tightens around your phone. “i—sorry,” you rush out, words tumbling over each other now that the dam’s broken. “this is probably really weird, i know. i wouldn’t usually call, i swear. i just—i got your number earlier and—”

“earlier?” he cuts in.

there’s something in his voice now—not annoyance. interest, maybe. a sprinkle of curiosity edged with suspicion that you weren’t exactly authorized to clear.

your pulse stutters. you should’ve consulted with jiwon before doing something as stupid as this—or sunoo. hell, even the neighbour next door. anyone would’ve been better than diving into this unprepared.

“yeah. tonight, at the party.” you say quickly, like saying it fast will make it make more sense. lee heeseung, pleaaaase be hungover. just this once. “you hosted, right? sigma alpha eta?”

“riiight,” he says slowly, like he’s testing the word on his tongue. “and who gave you my number?”

your stomach drops.

shit.

“uh,” you hesitate, immediately regretting it.

lying feels wrong. lying is wrong, actually, according to everyone ever—but the truth feels… way messier.

you weren’t going to hang kim sooha to dry—who knows what she’ll do to you? you can’t risk heeseung finding out the lengths you went to for some digits. besides, you practically played fetch with her.

“a friend,” you say finally, wearing a prideful grin on your face, as if anyone couldn’t have come up with that ridiculous excuse. “yep.”

“a friend,” he repeats, flatly, like he doesn’t believe a single thing coming out of your mouth. “what friend?”

you squeeze your eyes shut. god, this is going terribly. divert!

“look, if this is a bad time, i can hang up. i really didn’t mean to bother you, i just—”

“you already are,” he says, but there’s something off about it. his tired voice crackles, but it barely sounds angry. almost amused in nature.

you blink. “oh.”

there’s a heavy breath on the other end. you can hear it clearly, like he’s shifted positions, maybe sitting up now, or turning over in bed. definitely more awake than he was a minute ago.

gosh. you’re imagining bed-hair heeseung now. this isn’t good.

“you usually call people you don’t know at four in the morning?” he asks.

“no,” you respond immediately. “never. absolutely not. this is a first and hopefully, a last.”

that gets him—you can tell, even without seeing him. there’s a soft huff through the speaker, not quite a laugh, but close enough to make your chest flutter traitorously.

“so, i’m the trial run?”

you hesitate, then answer honestly, because at this point, what do you have left to lose? your dignity that’s already been thrown out the window and run over by a car?

“i wanted to talk to you.”

another pause. this one lingers, stretching just long enough to make your fingers tingle around your phone. strangely, it comforts you, the idea that he might hang up—that this could end cleanly right here, because you’ve (smartly, or accidentally) yet to tell him your name.

he’ll never have to know if he just—

“yeah?” he says, quieter now.

“yeah,” you echo, barely above a whisper.

something shifts. you can feel it, even through the line—the way he’s genuinely listening now, leaning into every word instead of brushing you off. your heart flutters, warmth blooming from somewhere in your chest (you can’t pinpoint it), and lee heeseung seems to be at the center of it all.

“well,” he says finally, voice way smoother now, like he’s got all the time in the world to offer you. “you’ve got my attention.”

“i do?” you ask, genuinely amazed by yourself. “you’re not hanging up?”

“do you want me to?”

“no,” the word slips out before you can stop it—soft, a little too quick, and much too honest to take back.

for a beat, there’s nothing, then a breath on the other end of the line—slow, deep—followed by a low sound that might be a laugh, or might just be him exhaling tension.

“yeah,” he murmurs. “i thought so.”

you roll onto your side, sheets whispering against your skin. the ceiling blurs above you, white and featureless, while the rest of the world stays asleep—unaware that something small yet irreversible is happening at four in the morning, right in this room, in your hands.

“so,” he says, “why’d you really call?”

your fingers tighten around your phone. your phone peels away from your cheek, and for a brief moment, you just stare at the glow of the screen, at his contact—*heeseung lee—*like it might blow up if you lie.

“well,” you mumble, chewing on the lining of your cheek. “i just wanted to introduce myself.”

“ah,” he says. there’s movement again, like he’s forcing himself to stay awake and hear you out. “did your… friend warn you i’m not friendly at this hour?”

you can almost picture him now. propped up against his headboard, hair a mess from sleep. his arm slipping under the hem of his shirt to scratch absentmindedly at an itch on his lower abdomen. knuckles rubbing hard at his eyes, chasing away the last stretch of drowsiness you interrupted—before you called, that is.

“i don’t think she mentioned that,” you say, a nervous smile tugging at your lips despite the fact that he can’t see it. your knees draw tighter to your chest, arms locking around them like you’re bracing for impact. it feels like there are insects beneath your skin—restless, frantic, crawling along the lining of your stomach. “she just said you wouldn’t hang up.”

“you trusted that?” his laugh filters through the speaker, low and unexpectedly warm, the sharpness from earlier dulled into something almost fond. “what if she gave you a fake?”

“then i guess i just woke up some random guy at four in the morning,” you say after a second, attempting nonchalance and failing spectacularly. “which would be… humiliating.”

“hm.” there’s movement on his end again—fabric shifting, a quiet thud like he’s moving around the room. god, you wish you knew what his room looked like. “so, you’d just apologize and hang up?”

“…literally what else would i do?”

there’s a pause before he speaks. you can almost hear him think out loud. “don’t know. try harder?”

the words are simple, but they settle heavy in your chest. what the hell does he mean by try harder?

“try harder?” you repeat, incredulous, a little astonished that the man you’ve dreamt up is a little different from what you’re hearing.

“yeah.” his voice lowers a fraction, losing the teasing edge and gaining something steadier. “if you wanted to talk to someone that bad, i’d hope you wouldn’t give up after one wrong number.”

your fingers curl tighter around your phone. “you don’t even know why i called.”

“don’t i, though?”

okay—what the fuck? you’ve moved somewhere closer to your window by now, staring at bright windows, counting the very few amount of people walking around at this hour downstairs. anything that’ll fill the silence between his words and your reply, which your brain has yet to compute.

do not call boys you like at four in the morning. note taken.

“anyway,” his voice sends a soothing relief through your body. “what’s your name?”

the question feels strangely intimate.

“why?” you deflect, suddenly hyper-aware of how exposed you are. there’s no going back from this—once he knows you’re you, it’s sealed.

you might have to discuss… alternative routes tomorrow. there is no way in god’s green earth that you’ll be able to face lee heeseung in those hallways once this is done.

“because,” he say purposefully slow, like he’s explaining things to a toddler. “if you went through the trouble of getting my number, i should at least know who i’m losing sleep over.”

“y/n.”

okay—flights to antarctica. a new name. a new identity is what you need right now, in order to combat the nerves in your body going into overdrive.

he goes quiet for slightly less than ten seconds—though you’re not exactly sure why you’re counting—and the quiet literally burns. it’s embarrassing to hear his breathing on the other end of the line, because what does it mean? is he disgusted? is he shocked? is he going to block you, or fall in love with you right now?

“it’s a pretty name,” he says. “haven’t heard it before.”

you’re fighting every urge in you to scream.

this feels oddly reminiscent of that middle school crush you had back when you were 13. it’s all butterflies and shaky hands, and even sweatier palms.

lee heeseung’s voice is silky smooth at this hour. exhaustion creeps up on him like it’s claiming his sleep debt, and you hear it in the tiny yawn that sounds through your speakers. you hoped that not holding your screen to your cheek would aid in the worry that he could hear your nervous breathing.

“well, we’ve never talked directly before, so…”

he hums in response. “well, it’s almost five.”

“trying to get rid of me?” you joke, and boy, does the post-flirt-humiliation hit—your eyes screw shut as you silently mutter a ’what the fuck?’.

he scoffs, “am i?” with the faintest trace of a smile in his voice. you can hear it well enough without the need to look at him—though that would be preferable—which only sends you further into a delusional spiral.

lee heeseung finds you funny.

you bite back a grin, pressing your lips into a thin line. your cheeks ache. you’re probably flushed tomato red from this conversation alone.

you stand up just to keep yourself busy. sittig still feels dangerous, like if you let your body settle, your mind will only follow.

the fear of focusing too much on him—on the way his voice dips at the end of certain words, on how easily he fills the quiet with that strangely confident tone—could be catastrophic.

your fingers trail along the edge of your desk, feeling the shallow nicks in the wood, the uneven varnish near the corner. you latch onto the smallest details: the coolness of the surface, the faint tremor in your hand.

anything to keep yourself grounded to the earth, in the very possible case that lee heeseung sends you into orbit.

on the other end, there’s the muted shift of fabric, like he’s rolling onto his side. you picture him staring at the ceiling, one arm tucked behind his head, the phone resting against his cheek.

“didn’t think you’d be the type to be so responsible.”

“one of us has to be,” he says easily. “you don’t sound like someone who keeps track of time, no?”

us.

the word slides into your chest and sits there, heavy and bright all at once.

us, us, us.

you hook a finger through the metal ring of the keychain hanging from your backpack and start spinning it slowly, watching the small charm catch the faint light from your desk lamp. “i absolutely do,” you protest, but the retort comes out thinner than intended.

“do you?” he presses, gentle but unrelenting. “you called me at four in the morning.”

“it wasn’t exactly planned,” you mutter.

“impulsive, then.”

there’s no judgment in his tone. he talks to you like you’re something intriguing under the lens of a microscope.

you cross your room in slow, restless steps, phone held up to chest-level as if the added distance will somehow steady you. the floor is cool beneath your feet. outside your window, the sky is beginning to pale, the darkness thinning into something bluish and uncertain.

“you picked up, though. you didn’t have to.”

the counter-argument is weak. there’s a brief pause before he admits, “yeah, so?”

“so, what does that say about you?”

your fingers still against the keychain. your feet stand still across from it, refusing to move until he says something to keep this seemingly empty conversation moving. there’s a short, succinct moment of quiet that makes you swallow.

and then—a breath. a faint exhale that sounds nothing like a laugh, but more acknowledgement than anything else.

“i make bad decisions before sunrise. i need my sleep,” he answers. “i got an early morning.”

huh. okay. your eyes are narrowing in suspicion before he can get the last word out. “how early?”

“early enough.”

you let it go, though the curiosity lingers. instead, you’re turning around to lean your weight back against your desk, pressing yourself against the solid wood edge, focusing on the cadence of his breathing. “you don’t sound tired anymore."

“that’s your fault.”

your pulse stutters. “mine?”

“hard to sleep when someone’s interrogating you.”

you huff out a quiet laugh, but your grip on the phone tightens. “i’m not interrogating you.”

“right.” the sound vibrates low through the speaker. you imagine him dragging a hand down his face, sitting up now, feet touching the floor. there’s a faint creak—wood under weight—followed by the soft scrape of something being nudged aside.

“i should probably end this,” he says after a moment, words slowed. “tomorrow’s going to be brutal.”

right—he’s crazy popular. probably has a lot going on.

you straighten instinctively. the conversation has shifted into its closing act without warning. “right, yeah. of course.”

“don’t stay up,” he adds, tone a smidge lighter, yet it doesn’t quite hide the undercurrent. “you’ll blame me when you miss your alarm.”

“bold of you to assume i’d admit that.”

“you wouldn’t,” he agrees easily. “you’d just call again. wake me up for the second time to complain, yeah?”

again.

“goodnight, heeseung,” you say before you can dissect the word further. any longer and you might’ve memorised the oxford definition for it.

a beat. you can hear a snicker on the other end of the line, but before you can say much, lee heeseung beats you to it.

“goodnight.”

the line disconnects. you remain standing in the corner of your room, keychain still looped around your finger. your heart’s drumming against your ribs as the early light creeps further across your walls.

your mind’s swirling again—it’s sending you further into that rabbit hole that looks a lot like heeseung’s perfect hair and charming smile.

note to self: call lee heeseung again. tomorrow. four in the morning.

─────────────────────────

the line goes dead.

the sun is barely peeking above the trees now, as if easing it’s way into the sky. he thinks it’ll be fully up by the time he finishes brushing his shower—and there’s that faint smell of citrus. again. disgusting.

a dull, faint thudding sound comes from downstairs. the sound of glasses clinking together reaches all the way up here; echoing in the dimly lit house.

it must be sunoo. making breakfast, he guesses.

there’s sunlight diffusing into the room, divided into slits by his white blinds that’ve all but stayed drawn throughout the night. skin’s sunken in under his eyes, partially, as a result of microsoft word creeping it’s way into his routine again—he supposes he should know better by now, but still. time is short.

his hands trail under his tank, scratching at a small itch under his chest. the metal hanging on the far wall catches the widening morning light, thin ribbons casting fragile shadows against white paint. a golden trophy sits dead centre on his dark oak bookshelf, polished to an almost obnoxious shine.

“fuck…” he groans, dragging both hands through his hair, fingers pressing against his scalp like he can physically push the night out of his system.

the strands fall back obediently, barely disturbed—as if exhaustion has weighed them into submission. there’s something irritating about that, too. like even his body refuses to reflect the fact that he was up until sunrise.

the weekend usually goes like this: brush. shower. dress. breakfast. run. shower. practice. assignments fit somewhere in between.

he begins to crawl out of his duvet. it’s cold—it always is when it’s this early into dawn. the wind kisses his skin like it’s reminding him of this fact, clinging to him as he drags his feet against the wood floor: slow, lazy shuffles until he actually manages to wake up.

open the door, down the hall, to the right. he passes by rooms, involuntarily listening to the muffled snores through wood as his feet carry him to the tiled room at the end of the hallway. the light in sunoo’s room casts shadows at his feet, peeking under the door, which confirms his suspicion: the waffle smell is coming from downstairs.

the door hits the wall with a soft thud. one perk about being the first one up is that the bathroom is almost always spotless.

his toothbrush sits in a black mug, along with six others. it’s a plain white, his name written in permanent marker at the handle. just in case a repeat of five months ago happened—nishimura riki, of course, making that mistake.

toothbrush in the mouth. bristles against teeth. back and forth, left and right, circles. gums. tongue. he stares at the stupid smiski figurine that jake left on the shelf just to give himself an excuse not to look at how tired he is.

and as he spits the mint paste out of his mouth—his phone vibrates against the marble counter. there’s water on his screen from putting it face down.

we2fuckincold🥶 (informal gc)

yeonjun (vice): good morning princesses 06:01

yeonjun (vice): rink opens at 6pm 06:02

yeonjun (vice): game’s coming up. do not be late or our dear captain will not be happy! 06:05

yeonjun (vice): can we all strive for a happy hoonie today 06:05

yeonjun (vice): also send ur fucking food logs bro @nicho 06:07

for fuck’s sake.

he groans, yanking the phone closer, tilting it to shake off the water droplets. the screen lights up his tired face in brief flashes of fluorescence, each message a reminder that the world outside this house has already started without him.

shower. breakfast. run. practice. the ritual is looping in his head, mechanical, familiar—but today, each step feels like it’s being forced through molasses. it’s definitely the microsoft word.

he squints against the glare, ignoring the faint taste of toothpaste still clinging to his tongue, scrolling past the ridiculous group chat chatter to land on the pinned schedule.

2027 training schedule.pdf

and at the top—his name, in bold, for everyone to remember, as if he hasn’t spent long enough drilling it into his team’s heads.

“captain: park sunghoon/vice captain: choi yeonjun”

sunghoon leans against the counter, elbows braced, letting the faint vibrations of the phone thrum through his fingers. the early sunlight, spilling in at an angle the shitty blinds can’t fully block, makes him want to shut his eyes and go back to bed—jungwon’s interior design choices continue to do him no favors.

he stares at the phone a moment longer, thumb hovering over the text threads he knows he should respond to. teasing from his fellow teammates that they know gets under his skin. stupid morning selfies that no one asked for, because the informal group chat is run by no one but the noisiest.

he showers. he’s downstairs. he’s shoving a spoonful of oats into his mouth, gulping down a protein smoothie like it’s water, and only then is he outside and tying his laces. it’s like he’s fucking teleporting around this place.

something feels off. he almost forgets his apple watch before crossing the threshold called sigma alpha beta’s front door. forty minutes later and the morning air is still damp with dew, the neighbourhood quiet save for the distant hum of traffic that hasn’t fully reached it’s potential yet.

the door shuts behind him with a click. heart rate: 93 bpm.

sunghoon begins his run like any other morning. the stretch of his limbs feels mechanical at first, the stiffness in his bones finally relenting after hours spent hunched over his laptop. he jogs in place, letting his blood move, allowing his muscles to remember their morning rhythm.

the street around him is quiet, edges softened by dawn—a stray leaf skitters across the sidewalk and the faint smell of a house’s breakfast drifts through the wind. everything is ordinary, almost painfully so, except for the faint pull in his chest.

god knows why.

a heavy sigh leaves him, curling into vapour the second it meets the cold. his calves are warm, ready to move, muscles primed for the first push forward—

bbrrr. bbrrr. brrrr.

choi fucking yeonjun.

“the hell?” he mutters, wrist lifting automatically as he taps the flashing green icon. “what the fuck do you want?”

there’s a small, sacred list of things that can truly get under park sunghoon’s skin. missed passes. sloppy drills. people who don’t keep their word. anyone who interrupts him. and now, apparently, choi yeonjun calling him at six-fifty in the morning, on a fucking sunday.

“are you on your period or something?” yeonjun’s voice comes through crisp and far too alive. “good morning, my honey bun.”

“stop bothering me.”

“how did you sleep, huh? why do you sound so angry? you usually save it for practice, in case you don’t remembe—”

the thought interrupts him so abruptly it almost throws off his breathing.

okay, to be fair, it was the assignments first. the blinking cursor, and the way microsoft word has this sick habit of stretching minutes into hours until the sky outside starts lightening without permission. he’d told himself he’d sleep right after submitting. just one more paragraph. one more edit. one more citation.

it sounded a lot like a random girl calling his phone at four in the morning. asking about lee heeseung, no less.

gravel crunches harder beneath his shoes as he picks up his pace without meaning to, breath sharpening on the exhale.

“i slept,” sunghoon says flatly, somehow. his eyes stay fixed on the long stretch of road before him.

“no,” yeonjun replies instantly. “you sound tired. sooha kept you up?”

he doesn’t bother to address that. not worth his time. “i’m running.”

a snort crackles through the tiny speaker. “yeah, no shit. i can hear you trying to outrun your personality.”

sunghoon rolls his eyes, though there’s no one there to see it. the park path stretches ahead, thin and empty, washed in early gold. right foot over the left, his stride perfect, pace never faltering. “why are you psychoanalysing me at seven in the morning?”

“it’s six fifty,” yeonjun corrects. he keeps running. “and it’s only cause you sound like you died yesterday.”

and just what the hell am i supposed to do about that, he thinks—it’s not his fault someone rang him in the middle of the night, asked for his best friend like it was urgent, like it mattered at all. it’s not his fault she ate up the remaining hours of sleep he’d planned to ration carefully. it’s not his fault she sounded so intent—so utterly determined—to talk to lee heeseung.

his jaw tightens slightly.

it’s also not his fault that she doesn’t know anything—who she was actually talking to. how easily she let the conversation stretch. how readily she laughed. how she filled silences that would’ve seemed suspicious to anyone else.

you’re so fucking naive. it makes him sick.

“are you trying to break a record right now?”

sunghoon glances down at his watch. his pace has increased by almost thirty seconds per kilometre.

what exactly was he supposed to do, anyway? interrupt her mid-laugh and tell her she’d reached the wrong person? tell her she’d misdialed and should try again? hand her off like a misplaced package?

park sunghoon tells himself he only kept the call going because it was easier, and that it was late—and most of all, it’ll only happen once.

that’s all.

“sunghoon.”

“what?”

“did you hit your head or something?”

sunghoon exhales sharply through his nose, pace steady, shoulders squared like they always are when he runs. unshakeable. “focus on your own head.”

yeonjun laughs. “wow. so cold. captain, your bedside manner is terrible.”

“goodbye, yeonjun.”

he ends the call before the vice captain can squeeze in another comment. silence rushes back in, thick and uninterrupted, save for the steady impact of rubber against pavement. sunghoon’s eyebrows knit together as he continues down the path, watching windows flicker to life in real time—one square of yellow, then another, then three in a row. the campus is waking up, unaware of the private absurdities that unfolded at the expense of park sunghoon’s rest.

and he wonders, briefly, if you slept soundly after that call.

if you rolled onto your side with a faint smile, phone still warm in your palm, thinking about lee heeseung.

or if he were the one you believed you were talking to, would it have sounded the same?

would you have laughed like that—would you have fallen for every word?

the thought is almost amusing.

perfect lee heeseung, who forgets half his deadlines. who shows up five minutes late with an apology grin that fixes everything. who doesn’t have to hold a locker room together or pretend his moods don’t exist. who can afford to be charming because nothing rests on his shoulders long enough to bruise. and still, you never fucking noticed the difference.

but the thing is this: park sunghoon might as well have his face plastered on billboards, because everyone around him knows—or thinks they do. they all see him. they’re all watching him.

a slightly clipped tone. a delayed response in the group chat. half a second too long between reps at practice. they notice. they always notice.

if he’s irritated, the team feels it. if he’s distracted, the drills get sloppy. if he’s quiet, the locker room gets tense. his mood isn’t just his—it’s contagious. spreading like hazardous, passionate wildfire. a fucking plague that everyone’s afraid to upset.

heeseung doesn’t need to think about that, does he?

heeseung doesn’t have thirty pairs of eyes scanning his expression the second he walks into the rink. doesn’t have rookies straightening their posture when he passes. he doesn’t have to calculate the weight of every word because one careless comment could echo for weeks.

how pathetic. sunghoon really has to stop throwing himself into self-deprecating chains of thought in the middle of his morning runs.

─────────────────────────

you move through the day like you’re on autopilot.

your alarming lack of errands feels like the source of your misery—nothing fills the time well enough. the clock drags its feet out of spite, each minute stretching thinner than the last, and there are simply not enough tiktoks in the world to scroll through until four in the morning.

…does it even have to be four in the morning?

you’re sprawled across the couch in your apartment, limbs loose, attention even looser. jiwon’s out tonight—dinner with that guy she met at sigma alpha eta—and you waved her off earlier with a distracted nod after sitting through a solid hour of her spiralling about how she’s “not sure if he’s the one.”

your fingers tapped impatiently against your phone while she twirled in front of you, once, twice, the fabric of her dress catching in the stale air of the living room. you were slumped against the backrest, head heavy in your palms, fighting sleep that had nothing to do with exhaustion and everything to do with boredom.

“i literally told you my opinion,” it escapes as a groan, your lashes fluttering shut before your head lands against the cushions. “if you’re just gonna keep going back to this dress, just wear this one.”

jiwon looked at you like you’d shot her in the chest. “you’re just so patient, aren’t you?”

your arm drifted lazily toward the glass table, fingers stretching for your phone like a dying man reaching for water. it’s barely out of reach, but somehow still too far.

you hook it toward you at last. the screen lights up: nothing. of course.

and then she continues to talk—something about silhouettes, about first impressions, about how boys apparently notice everything—but her voice dissolves into background noise. you nod when it feels appropriate. hum when she pauses, look over when she calls your name.

sorry, oh jiwon. you do not have the capacity to give a fuck right now—lee heeseung’s name is sitting on the top of your call log like a secret, ready to be shown off to the world.

“fine. i’ll just wear this—“

she leaves with her keys jingling down the hallway. you chew your lip like the short-lived guilt might manifest into an apology and hunt her down that corridor, but between you and literally anyone else?

it will be forgiven and forgotten when she returns tomorrow morning, you assume, only because there’s smuggled condoms in her purse—like she’s starring in some coming-of-age film.

the rest of the evening passes in a strange, slippery blur.

you’re cooking dinner at one point, staring absently at the stove while oil crackles in the pan, nearly burning the garlic because you drifted too far into your own head. later, you’re in the shower, steam clinging to your skin while you tilt your face away from the showerhead, replaying last night’s conversation in fragments—the way he laughed. the pause before he answered certain questions. the tone of his voice when he teased you.

you’re checking your phone again. this is definitely worse than that crush you had when you were thirteen.

─────────────────────────

a few miles away on campus soil, practice runs longer than it should. park sunghoon has sweat clinging to his skin, darkening the collar of his shirt, tracing the lines of muscle that took years to carve into something worth respecting. every movement feels marginally heavier than usual despite the near-flawless precision of his drills. his turns are clean. his stops sharp. his passes calculated.

still, there’s just something about today.

he pushes the team harder than usual. he tells himself it has nothing to do with your voice bouncing around in his head like an insufferable little ping-pong ball. absolutely nothing to do with the way you laughed at something he said at four in the morning.

it’s discipline. that’s all.

there’s hesitation in the juniors’ movements. it’s especially obvious in the way they avoid him—questions rerouted to choi yeonjun instead, who is currently preoccupied with his self-assigned duty of shooting nicholas with two pucks at once for reasons known only to him. sunghoon watches it unfold with a faint twitch of annoyance—he has to take off his helmet just to breathe right. sometimes, he genuinely wonders how yeonjun managed to snag vice captain.

eventually, though, the confusion climbs its way back to him like it always does. a hesitant shuffle. a cough. a poorly disguised glance in his direction.

“captain—”

his voice cuts through the rink’s cold air with surgical clarity. he explains every movement, every angle, every adjustment with mechanical perfection. there is no room for misunderstanding when he speaks. there rarely ever is when he’s this worked up.

by the time he gets back to sigma alpha eta, his muscles ache and his head feels heavier than it should—his skull weighing on his spine, every knot tightening in a body that was already rigid to begin with. even if he swears he warmed up enough, his gait still comes out stiff.

he heads straight for the bathroom after tossing his bag onto the floor, haphazardly by the doorframe of his room. the tiled floor is slightly slippery from someone else’s shower, much to his dismay.

he peels his clothes off, the overhead light catching the sheen of sweat still clinging to his skin. his gaze lingers, unintentional, over the familiar outline of his body—something he built, piece by piece, over years of repetition and restraint.

it’s taken him so long to get here.

park sunghoon turns slightly, glancing over his shoulder. his eyes squint at the subtle tints of blue and purple, an occasional yellow and familiar reds.

a faint bruise blooms along his back—noticeable enough to catch his attention, but still subtle enough to ignore. his thumb presses into it briefly. it doesn’t hurt much, sitting in a valley between his shoulder blade and the deep impression of his spine.

he doesn’t dwell. no time. there’s roughly ten minutes before his eyes have to shut and his cells get to work at repairing the strain he never fails to put himself through.

the shower is quick. burning hot water pelts his shoulders, steam gathering thick against the tiles as the tension in his body dulls into something manageable. afterward, he downs another protein shake, the grainy texture catching in his throat like it’s meant to fill more than just hunger.

then, the sheets rustle as he settles in. tonight feels cooler than usual, though that might have more to do with the window he left wide open—jake sim always made the habit of reminding him to, otherwise, it’d be too stuffy. the blinds sway with the wind, wood tapping lightly against the glass in a steady, hollow rhythm.

no assignments. class begins early tomorrow. park sunghoon needs all the energy he can get if he wants to maintain that stellar gpa of his—it’s reason enough to shut his screen off and reach for the charger without hesitation.

this is what most nights look like. the temperature shifts by a degree or two. the sounds outside change. the air moves differently. but if he squints, it’s all the same, really. park sunghoon—the captain, the leader, the one everyone watches—falls asleep the same way every night, staring at what he’s built.

his gaze drifts back, almost involuntarily, to his now-dimmed phone. the last item on his mental checklist has been crossed off, but the weight on his shoulders doesn’t lift. if anything, it settles deeper, heavier, as the thought of monday presses in.

there will be mondays for the rest of his life. obviously.

it’s sunday nights like this—quiet, cold, stretching endlessly before them—that serve as meaningless prologues that do nothing but make park sunghoon feel like the loneliest man in the world, at the top of the chain that he’s tried so desperately to scale.

his eyes shift to the wall instead. an attempt at distracting himself.

medals, trophies, certificates. plaques stacked where there’s no space left for more.

there’s boxes shoved beneath his bed, too. filled with the rest of it, or rather, everything that didn’t make the cut. almost all of it’s in there—wrinkled homework from the when he first learned how to write his name coherently, all the way to the year he left his hometown.

it’s taped shut with cheap, barely-there adhesive, the kind that curls at the edges if you look at it for too long. he’s almost certain his mother shoved it in the car, insisted he bring it with him to college—something about keeping memories close, about not forgetting where he came from. he can’t recall how else it would’ve ended up here, with him, haunting his conscience like a guilty ghost.

sunghoon plugs the cord in, the battery icon flashing obediently on the corner of his screen. that should be the end—

ding!

his jaw tightens. his tooth almost cracks from how hard he’s gritting them. it’s even more annoying, because his arm’s already bent over the table, ready to drop the device on his small night stand.

so god help him, if it’s choi yeonjun asking for the practice footage again, or sending another half-coherent voice note about formations he absolutely should have memorised by now—

ding!

sunghoon exhales sharply through his nose and retracts his hand. the attention-aware feature on his phone causes his screen to light up almost immediately, and despite the fact that he was just staring at it moments ago, it burns all the same.

unknown contact.

he doesn’t even need to see the name. sunghoon sees the call log from last night, ending at five in the morning, and immediately knows.

y/n l/n: day went great btw 01:21

y/n l/n: not a single yawn 01:21

he’s going to bed. he’s tired, and he’s not definitely past dealing with a girl who doesn’t even care that he doesn’t sound like lee heeseung—or at the very least, not enough to verify that it is indeed park sunghoon on the other end of the line.

y/n l/n: i know you said 4am but i have class at 8 tmr sooo 01:21

absolutely. fucking. not.

riiiiing. riiiing.

park sunghoon is not picking up the phone.

─────────────────────────

“and then?”

he lied.

there are a few things park sunghoon would never admit to anyone else. firstly, that he’s terrible at making his own coffee and still gets riki to do it for him. secondly, that he needs to hug his ridiculously large, sausage-shaped pillow to fall asleep, or he wakes up worse than usual.

and third—

that he’s genuinely listening to a random girl on the phone, without slipping in a quiet, so are you coming over or not? somewhere between her sentences.

it doesn’t feel like a decision. there’s something settling into place, clicking in his chest before he has a real chance to question his own intentions. the words come out easily, slipping off his tongue and past his lips like water, because that’s what this is—natural, for reasons beyond him.

sunghoon lies back with one arm tucked behind his head, the other holding his phone loosely against his cheek. moonlight spills into the room through the half-open blinds, stretching across his ceiling like it has nowhere else to go. he knows he should’ve closed them earlier, but the thought passes without consequence, dissolving somewhere between the moment your name lit up his screen and now.

his hair falls in soft streaks across his forehead, long since dried from the aggressive towel action he’d put himself through not even half an hour ago—something he refuses to think about too meticulously, especially not in relation to the notification that had pulled him back to his phone.

incoming call from y/n l/n.

there’s a dull ache pressing at his temples, insistent, like it’s trying to remind him of something he’s choosing to ignore. he knows better than this, he really does. in the same way he knows that you think he’s someone else entirely.

he breathes, slow and deep like it’ll undo all the knots in his muscles. it’s strange that it’s working now, compared to all the times where he got a sports massage after practice with no real effect, and he wonders—no matter how absurd it is—that if it’s your voice that’s making him so, so sleepy.

on the other end, you never hesitate. you answer him with a kind of ease he isn’t used to, words flowing like there’s nothing in the world worth holding back. there’s something almost intimate in it—not intentional, barely meaningful, but there all the same. like two people who have already decided, somewhere along the way, that they belong in each other’s space.

the thought comes uninvited.

is this what couples do?

it makes him want to shut his eyes and forget he ever had it.

your voice carries through the line with the same unfiltered simplicity that he’s already starting to recognize—light, animated despite the hour, spilling from one thought to the next with barely any pause. there’s a lack of calculation in the way you speak, a clear absence of consideration in what words were okay to say, and what details were appropriate to omit—in which there were none. you even told him about your ten minute doomscroll session on the toilet midway through biochemistry.

it fills the silence before it can exist. it’s not like he’s not used to the noise—he’s surrounded by idiots who can’t keep their mouth shut, and god, has he wished for years that everyone around him would just be quiet for at least ten minutes—but when your soft, sweet voice rings in his ears, he’s not even sure what he’s feeling.

the realistic part of him, however useless he may be now, knows that everything is a lie. there’s you, rambling to him solely because you think he is the man you have that miserable crush on, and then there’s him: feeding your delusions, for his own selfish intents, as if that makes him any less dumber than you.

you’re talking to him because you think he’s someone else. because you’ve attached yourself to a version of a person that doesn’t exist on this end of the line.

he lets it happen, anyway.

sunghoon shifts against his pillows and the mattress dips slightly beneath his weight. the room remains dim, lit faintly by the fluorescent lighting radiating from his screen, probably killing off all his melatonin receptors by now—the dull wash of streetlight slips in, occasionally cut off by a passing car through half-open blinds. the air moves lazily, wind brushing past his skin, cooling what little heat still lingers from his shower.

his responses lag. he lets you talk. it’s intentional at first, an easy excuse for something he can fall back on. you seemed like the type who didn’t need much prompting, anyway—your words come in soft bursts of laughter, half-finished thoughts and tangents that circle back around before he can fully follow them. it should be difficult to keep up with, but as with everything that’s occuring, it’s unknown to him why it isn’t.

somewhere along the way, it stops being passive. there’s things that he’s noticing that he doesn’t want to notice. hearing things that he never means to. it’s lodged into his brain that’s already fighting for more storage space—your tone that shifts when you’re about to say something embarrassing, or how you rush through it a little faster, before doubling back as if to justify it. there’s pauses that aren’t quite pauses, just brief breaths where he can almost picture you thinking, deciding whether to keep going or jump to the next part of your day.

he remembers that party. he remembers how your hair fell on your face, and in the moment, sunghoon thought you’d just be passing in his already busy life—he finds it extremely irritating that he can recall almost every mundane feature on your face as if you were the most beautiful girl he’d seen. that dress that you probably found deep in your dresser and didn’t bother to smooth out, or that cup in your hand that’s barely holding any liquor. you were there for someone, after all.

he stood at that stairwell, watching, as if you were someone he couldn’t approach. please—if lee heeseung wasn’t the one you already set your sights on, he bets he could have you in his bed that very night.

if only he hadn’t froze.

you’re not anyone meaningful to him. you’re not supposed to take up what precious space he has for himself, and yet, here you are, barging into his life like you demand his attention.

it’s not like he’s any better, honestly. he knows that much.

“i was wondering if i should call, y’know,” you mumble through his phone’s speaker. he raises an eyebrow, as if you could see it. “it’s really late. don’t you have class tomorrow, too?”

“i do,” sunghoon sighs. he makes a conscious effort to stop himself from sharing which. “all day.”

unknown to park sunghoon, you’re lying upside down on your pink duvet, hair falling over the edge of your bed. you’re acting like you have no real responsibilities or hour long classes tomorrow morning, and that energy is somehow infecting him, too.

his grip around the phone shifts, thumb brushing absentmindedly along the edge of his thick case. the thought of telling you who he really is comes and goes without fully forming, though the feeling that claws at his ribs is quieter than guilt. it’s not sharp enough for him to address just yet.

you say something. he doesn’t catch all of it, only the way your laughter follows right after. sunghoon almost thinks you must love hearing your own voice with how giggly you are.

nevertheless, it pulls something out of him before it can be stopped. a response—low and tired in nature, slipping into the conversation as if he didn’t spend the past ten minutes wondering if anything he’ll say will give him away.

and still, you respond, picking it up without hesitation, folding his words into yours like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

“i didn’t even realise the time until i checked my phone,” you lie. “i’m sorry if you were just kidding yesterday… and didn’t want me to actually call. i wasn’t sure.”

“it’s fine, really.” sunghoon murmurs, voice low and threaded with sleep. “but you really should’ve called earlier. i’m about to knock out.”

there’s a soft scoff on your end, fabric shifting faintly. sunghoon’s ears pick that up, too. “you picked up anyway, didn’t you?”

he doesn’t respond to that, and the silence continues. it’s not empty or uncomfortable, filled with something else that simmers under his skin. he lets it stay.

you don’t push, instead humming like you’ve already moved on. you talk more about your day, admitting to things that you probably shouldn’t, voice drifting back into that easy rhythm that makes him want to turn over and shut his eyes for the night. “i kept checking my phone like something interesting would happen today, but…”

“nothing did?” he asks, eyes half-lidded—his eyelashes feel heavier now.

“wellll…” you drag out the word slightly, a hint of a smile tucked into it, like sunghoon couldn’t already hear the teeth in your voice. “i’m telling you about my day now, so i guess it all worked out.”

he exhales softly. his finger comes up to his face to rub at his nose, and he sniffles before responding, “that’s a really low bar.”

“i’m being honest,” you admit, voice dipping just slightly, unaware of the cliff you’re driving yourself off of. “you seem like someone who’s always busy.”

he supposes, in a sense, he is. just not in a lee heeseung way. “i’m not that busy.”

there’s a hint of disbelief in your laugh that fades quickly. it gives way to something more curious, and all it does is ease the conversation into something quieter and more fluid. your voice lowers as words blend together, and sunghoon finds his shoulders caving into his chest.

he shifts against the pillows, letting the weight of the night settle into his tired limbs. you wrap around him like a thread pulling taut—he doesn’t need to respond immediately; the words coming from you are enough to fill spaces he’s left behind.

sunghoon blinks slowly. “you’ve got me wrong.”

“yeah, now that i think about it,” you whisper. “i don’t think i know enough to be right.”

park sunghoon rarely gets nervous, if ever. there were a few times in fifth grade that he’d gotten a tummy ache before going up on stage, or in middle school when he had to give a presentation on the cultural history of korean calligraphy. he supposes the habit just vanished, because by the time he turned sixteen and played in his first hockey match, it never manifested again.

there’s a relief that comes with finding your coping mechanism. sunghoon never really examined why he would feel like throwing up before getting in front of a bunch of strangers, but he understood, even if on a very basic level, that hockey took that away from him—it’s the smooth slide of his skates against ice that tends to narrow down the world to just him, where nothing and no one else matters.

he’s not exactly sure why that is; reflection wasn’t really his thing. he knew it when his teacher would set him aside from other kids and ask ’how are things at home?’, to which he had no answers.

as long as it works, right?

still, it’s here now. that feeling of his heart dropping straight through his mattress, and his stomach churning something that refuses to let him speak.

“i feel like i’ve just been yapping,” you say. you aren’t wrong. it’s barely your fault, though he can’t really tell you that.

sunghoon swallows, throat dry and constricting around nothing. the grip he has on his phone tightens momentarily before easing again, his gaze darting around the room like he’s searching desperately for answers that’ll magically manifest.

he could say something. he should. something vague would be good. easy to follow up with, or be mysterious about. slightly personal so you don’t pry too much, that doesn’t let this tip any further than it already has.

and yet—the words don’t come. it barely makes it past his throat.

sunghoon exhales and the sound is almost lost against the line. “it’s getting late.”

it’s been ’getting late’ for the past two hours. his voice sounds worn, and he blames no one but himself—for letting his schedule fall apart like this, and still picking up the phone anyway.

and you, being the unsuspecting, naive girl you are—humming softly as if to tell him you understand. “yeah, i guess so.”

park sunghoon tears his screen away from the warmth of his cheek. only now does he realise how long it’s truly been; the absence of his warm device and the presence of cold wind hitting his face helps him remember how absurd this is.

he looks at the duration of the call, now barely over two hours.

the number sits there, steady and indifferent, as if it doesn’t account for the way time had slipped past him without resistance. as if it doesn’t mean anything at all.

for a moment, he just stares at it, his thoughts lagging behind the reality of it. two hours of listening, of responding, of letting himself exist in something that shouldn’t have been this easy.

this should end here.

sunghoon brings the phone back to his ear, the warmth returning in a way that feels almost deceptive now. he blinks once, twice, before clearing his throat. “goodnight, y/n.”

“goodnight, heeseung.”

the line cuts. sunghoon lies still in his white sheets, the duvet crinkling softly beneath his weight—though it feels heavier than it should, like it’s dragging him deeper into the earth. he stares blankly into the space above him, eyes fixed on nothing, as if he can’t quite register the way the room seems to close in, inch by inch.

outside, the world goes on, completely unaware.

cars pass. lights flicker somewhere beyond his window. time moves the way it always does—steady, indifferent to him, and for a fleeting moment, he wishes he wasn’t in this body.

the thought comes quietly, almost absurd in its simplicity. the thought that he could step out of himself and into someone else—someone forgettable, someone ordinary—someone who doesn’t carry the weight of expectation so tightly wound around his chest. he imagines it briefly, the ease of it: letting tomorrow belong to someone else.

letting the responsibilities, the precision, the constant awareness slip from his grasp for just a day.

just once where he doesn’t have to move like he knows exactly what he’s doing, or carry himself like someone people look up to—like someone who has everything under control, when the truth is that he’s no different from anyone else. just one fucking day is all he asks.

it was nice—the two hours sunghoon got to pretend like he wasn’t sunghoon. he could say it was almost natural, which only unsettles him even more.

he shifts slightly against his sheets, and the loud rustle only anchors him further into the reality he’s in. he blinks slowly before letting his eyelids shut, and almost as if to say ‘you’re never living this down’, your face appears right behind them.

here you are, reconstructed behind his shut eyes like you’re something worth remembering—it's your perfect hair. your eyes that dulled the lights strobing in your face. that dress that looked weirdly good on you.

this is so fucking frustrating.

─────────────────────────

you only see kim sunoo once a week. there’s careful planning that goes behind the days leading up to psychology of mass media—it’s the only hour you can get any intel, if at all, due to the convenient fact that sunoo likes to be the first to leave and last to arrive.

in reality, it’s just you showing up earlier than necessary, and lingering a little longer than you should in hopes that you’ll catch sunoo again.

you have one question. just one. he won’t mind, would he?

the lecture hall is still half-empty when you slip in, and the fluorescent lights actually burn—rows of seats stretching out in that familiar, uninspired gradient of grey and black. there are a few scattered groups that have already settled in, most of them slumped over their desks with jackets thrown over their heads. the sound of keyboard clicking echoes, bouncing off the sterile walls, and you do your best to tune it out.

it takes two minutes for kim sunoo to walk in, beige tote slung over his shoulder, stride light and easy—he always looked put together despite the hour. there were times you considered if he was a vampire, considering how he never looks tired, but the thought never sticks long enough to matter.

he slides into his usual seat without much ceremony, setting his bag beside him before pulling out his macbook. there’s a faint glow of white casts over his face, highlighting the smoothness of his skin, and it feels ridiculous—that split second when you feel a little jealous of him.

fifty five minutes left.

you move before you can think too hard about it, because you already know how that ends. your sneakers thud softly against the carpeted floor as you make your way down the steps, gaze flickering briefly around the room—not because there’s anything to actually be wary of, but because it feels like there should be.

as if anyone here could read your mind, and as if they’d even care enough to judge you for it. the thought lingers in the back of your mind all the same.

you slow just a fraction as you near his row, like the sensible part of your brain’s giving you one last chance to turn around and act like the normal girl who doesn’t care that much. there’d be some grace in taking that empty seat behind him and pretending like the thought of snooping around lee heeseung’s love life never crossed your mind at all—but it has to happen, and unless the gift of time travel is suddenly bestowed upon you, your ass is about to meet the plastic chair beneath you.

the chair creaks softly under your weight, the sound swallowed almost immediately by the low hum of the room. everyone’s blissfully unaware of the humiliation you’re about to put yourself through, though it somehow makes your courage muster a little easier.

“you’re staring at me.”

sunoo’s voice is monotonous. he doesn’t bother to spare you a look, because in truth, he doesn’t need to turn his head to see the way you’re burning holes through his.

“i’m not.”

he scoffs, though he means nothing spiteful of it. as much as he hates to admit, you were one of the nicer seatmates he had this year. “you are.”

“okay, well,” you begin, hands coming up from under the long, laminated wooden desk in front of you. you press them together, like that’d make things less awkward—your fingers fidget just for the sake of doing something other than staring at sunoo. “i was thinking—”

“about me?” kim sunoo smiles, still not looking at you. the corner of his lip is lifted up in something similar to genuine amusement, but it does nothing to help the embarrassment that’s stabbing at your nerves. “you’re blunt, [name].”

“ha ha,” you mock. sunoo can’t help but giggle at that. “the posters. outside. i saw them.”

ah. he sees what this is about.

soul searching ✦ booth 35, level 1, outside block A friday, 10th september 2026, 1pm-8pm ❤︎ love life in shambles? wanna meet new people? come visit our booth to find your perfect match! ❤︎ a quick questionnaire, a curated pairing—one conversation might change everything. rumour has it that the first person you meet… might just be the one. for early bird tickets, scan here!

the promotional poster that you stumbled upon was one of many pasted across campus. there were a few that jiwon mumbled to you about this morning, over the phone, and while you can’t exactly recall the exact details of the conversation, you just know it made her reconsider attending. it was obvious in the way she kept asking, ‘should i?’ followed by ‘i don’t know, maybe i should’, circled back with ‘i’ll think about it’.

it was for, roughly, five seconds that you wondered just how many girls would be lining up for it as well. you remember standing there a little longer than necessary, eyes skimming over the bold lettering like it was supposed to mean more than it did. the paper had been slightly wrinkled at the edges, tape barely holding it against the wall like it had been put up in a rush—but it was bright, unapologetically pink, and you almost grimaced at the thought of other people stopping to stare at it the same way you did.

you’d already decided you were going to go.

scanned the qr code right then and there, shamelessly, in the middle of the hallway on the way here—thumb hovering for less than a second before pressing submit, like hesitation would somehow make it worse.

the soulmate part, though—that stuck, unfortunately. it clung in a way that was irritatingly persistent, like gum pressed into the grooves of your thoughts. not because you believed it, necessarily, but because it was the kind of idea that refused to leave once it had somewhere to sit.

“so…. details?” you ask, a bright and inviting smile plastered onto your cheeks. “is heeseung going for sure? how does it even work?”

kim sunoo shrugs, typing briefly into his laptop before looking at you. “it’s a fundraiser booth. students sign up and get paired at random. i think, like, five seniors found their husbands here a few years back, and it’s been a myth ever since.”

you blink. “wait—so the first person you meet thing, that’s real? the soulmate shit?”

“yeah. haven’t you seen how many campus couples made it because of us? it’s really weird.”

soulmates. it’s all bullshit.

people talked about fate like it was something clean and predictable, like they didn’t sit behind the steering wheel of their own life. it’s as if someone or something invisible was guiding them—like there was a line drawn somewhere out there with your name on it, waiting for you to follow it without question until it led you to the right person.

you’ve never experienced it that way. if anything, your history with relationships feels like the opposite: bad timing, poor judgement, moments that almost worked until they didn’t. near misses are dressed up as something meaningful, but conversations fizzle out just when they start to feel like they might matter.

nothing stayed. nothing was ever meant to. you, having a soulmate—in that sense—it felt extremely unlikely.

it isn’t in a dramatic, self-pitying way—it’s the same way you understand that most things in life don’t fall neatly into place without sustained effort and consistency. relationships aren’t something pre-built that you stumble into, perfectly right and accommodating despite yourself, and they’re definitely not something you keep just because the universe decided you should.

couples will look you in the eye and tell you they’re meant to be, like it was written somewhere long before they ever met, but they barely talk about the parts where they almost walked away, or the moments where instinct told them to leave and they didn’t. the hesitation. the doubt. the very real option of not choosing each other.

fate, soul ties, forever. there are a lot of excuses people make when they don’t want to admit their own fault in something. it’s easier to dress things up as something inevitable than to acknowledge the effort it took to keep it going—or the moments where it almost didn’t.

do people just like pretending that they don’t have a say in what they do?

sunoo pauses, shifting his dark hair from his eyes before glancing at you. “do you think it’s cringey? saeri told me to remove that part of the poster… but i didn’t. it’s the charm of our booth, i think.”

“i don’t think so,” you lie, adrenaline humming through your veins. it is kind of corny, but who would admit that to him—kim sunoo probably doesn’t need more people hating on his poor slogan choices, and the more you act like it was a wise move, the better the chance you get paired with heeseung once he realizes you signed up. “i think it’s… uhm, plausible.”

anything but asking him directly, though.

“anyway,” sunoo glances back at his screen. microsoft word fills the entire monitor with graphs and figures you’re sure are from jiwon’s econ class. “i think everyone’s coming, except sunghoon. that guy…”

you raise an eyebrow. this is the first you’ve heard of him since that party two weeks ago—at this point, he almost feels like a hallucination. “sunghoon? what’s his deal?”

“he’s not a relationship guy. i think he knows it’d be a waste of time to sign up and make the girl feel like shit for five minutes straight,” sunoo sighs, leaning into his palm as if this were the harsh reality he’s learned to accept. “he cares, but has no idea how to show it. he’s like a three year old.”

you nod slowly, like you understand. you don’t.

though, something’s happening in your body that’s reminiscent of sunday night. it’s that odd, simmering sensation—proof. it flickers at the edge of your mind like a fuzzy memory, echoing that same low, lingering pull that sat right in the centre of your sternum.

sunoo’s cheek leans back into his palm, his eyes following professor choi’s figure that’s just strolled in. it’s your queue to shut the hell up and start preparing your materials for class, but it sets something else off.

you try, briefly, to chase it. to trace it back, to link it to something tangible and real and concrete. a face, a voice, a moment that would justify the way it settles into you so easily, but it slips through your fingers just as quickly, dissolving before it can really take shape.

“i see,” you hum. “well, i’ll come. don’t worr—”

“i wasn’t worried.”

“okay, then.”

─────────────────────────

the text comes while he’s brushing his teeth. his hair’s a mess as he stares into himself, eyes flicking down to the sink where some of his toothpaste’s fallen off his toothbrush—your voice is replaying in his head like a sick alarm, though he knows that it’s only because he’d hung up the phone only two hours ago.

sunghoon found himself silently praying that practice was cancelled. it was unlike him; the way he lingered in his sheets and had to take a deep breath before getting up. he dragged himself to the bathroom, hand swiping at the towel rack outside the door—hoping that he didn’t take jake’s by mistake, and begging (to whom?) that he wouldn’t need to use it.

snu hockey boys ’26 ⛸️🏒

yeonjun: practice is cancelled 06:32

yeonjun: coach has an emergency but pls send your food logs by 2200. whoever misses = double ur distance tmr 06:32

yeonjun: rink is still open tho 06:32

he took one good look at his to-do list this morning and resolved that he was going to the library. he’s fully convinced that if he lets his assignments pile up any more, his professors will start to think he’s slipping. god forbid—as if the boy hasn’t gotten less than a a in years.

we2fuckincold🥶 (informal gc)

nicho: guys pls stop eating by the benches too the janitors r gonna beat us :( 06:45

yeonjun: u guys cant fucking control yourselves can you 06:56

park sunghoon moves through the early dawn like he usually does, except that he walks right past the folded jersey and duffle bag already sitting on his desk. he lets himself slouch a little as he walks downstairs; the tiredness is already seeping in despite the constant self-correction.

it’s going to be a long day of cramming if he wants to get anything done, clearly—so he decides on unplugging his laptop charger, folding it neatly into the small zipper of his backpack, and leaving the house without his running shoes packed.

he’s still stretching when he hears the shuffle of footsteps outside. it’s too early for any one of his brothers to be up—on weekdays like this, park sunghoon was always the first to get moving, followed by jay in another hour.

it’s only six. nobody else gets up at six.

sunghoon reaches for the strap of his backpack as he makes his way towards the door—slightly ajar, swaying faintly with the draft, about to shut itself. it’s only when he’s a step away from the frame that he catches sight of lee heeseung walking past.

lee heeseung doesn’t get up until eleven.

reaching for the metal knob, sunghoon pulls back the door with more force than he’d like to admit, only to see heeseung—already at the top of the stairs, leaning lazily against the railing like the early hour means nothing—plaid boxers slung low on his hips, hair flattened in odd directions, and the faint imprint of wrinkled sheets still pressed into his back.

he just watches. doesn’t want to ask. the answer is already written across heeseung’s body in fading purples and reds, scattered along his neck and arms, threaded between the pale, healed superficiality of old scars.

instead, park sunghoon makes his way towards the stairs as well, with a backpack slung over his shoulder and an undeniable tiredness in his bones. he passes his dear friend before making his way down the flight of wood steps, feet thudding against the floor, eyes occasionally glancing towards the big entryway before him.

there’s a girl by the front door, half-crouched as she slips her shoes back on. her hair is messy in an unmistakable way, fingers combing through it as she balances herself against the wall using her other hand. she doesn’t look up, too preoccupied with fixing herself—it’s the last thing on her mind, and all she wants is to fit her heel into the mary janes she’s got sitting outside.

she pulls the metal handle, and looks back up at lee heeseung. nothing else is said, not even a wave, nor does he dismiss her presence—he just watches her warm smile curve up.

it feels like he’s walked in on something intimate. heeseung has a faint smirk that sunghoon was never able to wear when sooha was around, no matter how satisfied she made him feel, and he’s wearing that look of comfortable, guilt-free laziness that he recognises in the mirror every morning, after he hangs up on you.

─────────────────────────

sunghoon walks into the library like he owns it. professional poker face and all, heading straight for that seat by the windows that aren’t facing east, so the sun doesn’t burn his face off. just how he likes it.

the air-conditioning hits his skin and the lights above him are bright enough to sting. it’s enough to keep him awake for the next few hours, combined with the warm black coffee swishing around in his tumbler as he takes his time setting his stuff down.

a few stares and silent whispers are expected as he passes by the busier sections. he takes his usual seat—not many people know about it, due to the fact that it’s shoved so far away in isolation, miles from the bathroom and entrance, but park sunghoon appreciates this fact. nobody is around to stare at him sideways while he does his work, and there won’t be any eyes that refuse to leave his when he finally looks up.

the large, wood-laminate six-seat table was completely empty, and spotless. no coffee stains or broken sockets, and completely cut off from student civilization.

he settles into a bright orange chair by the window, where his face is obstructed by a large pillar—the sun warms his hands up as they pull his laptop out, already booted up from the night before, on the microsoft word home screen.

he groans when he sees at least three empty documents, all of which he meant to start yesterday. of course, that was the plan prior to your call, and sunghoon swore he’d at least try to multitask, if only not to feel the guilt later on. it’s obvious that he can’t do that anymore.

his slender fingers slide over the touchpad, navigating to his most urgent assignment for economics.

the cursor blinks at the top of his toolbar—it’s waiting for him to click something, anything, and he almost does. it circles around the add text box and darts away again, to open chrome. park sunghoon is staring at his screen like it’s a foreign, alien-sent object.

once upon a time, this would’ve sufficed. a quiet corner, an uninterrupted day, and his laptop on full-charge. work and productivity comes easily to someone as hard-working as him, and when there’s nothing else competing for his attention. compartmentalization is an incredibly common skill, but sunghoon is different, in the sense that he could live two separate lives in a single day, if need be.

though, these days, concentration feels far rarer than he’d like to admit.

the sound of soft, carpeted footsteps approaching barely registers in his ears. he’s too focused reading over the same one line he’s written—his name and student id number—to shift his eyes elsewhere.

his peers pass through this section all the time. not many, but enough for it not to be alarming. this was still a public space, after all.

his eyes remain fixed on the screen as he reaches for his tumbler, taking a slow sip of coffee. outside, the sky is finally brightening into that familiar golden, instead of a depressing, cold blue. few students pass by the large glass panels, some in clusters and others alone.

this is simple enough. all he has to do is write. sunghoon has the brains for this, the attention span, and overall capability to complete this useless assignment—so he adjusts himself further into the chair and begins skimming through the brief for what feels like the tenth time since it’s released. it’s all market trends, consumer psychology, something about forecasting models by the time the words begin to blur together.

the caffeine isn’t circulating fast enough. he reaches, sips again, and draws a deep breath in through his nose. halfway through his second paragraph, a chair thuds quietly against the carpeted floor, before the faintest “shit” is heard.

libraries are full of idiots. nobody can even drag a chair out properly anymore, apparently. now that the sound has derailed his train of thought, sunghoon can’t help but to flick his dark brown irises up, locking right onto you.

for a second, he genuinely wonders if his sleep deprivation has evolved into hallucinations.

of all the tables and empty seats scattered across four. fucking. floors.

park sunghoon’s grip tightens slightly around his black, metal rimmed tumbler, an action you thankfully do not notice. this corner of the library is so damn meaningless to him—but now that you’re here, it’s like this is all he’ll ever remember, all he’ll ever associate with the place.

the moment of recognition doesn’t last very long. surprisingly, it doesn’t send panic through his bloodstream, nor does it get his heart bursting out of his chest—though, he can still feel it pounding a little harder—instead, it’s just vague acknowledgement written all over that pretty face of yours, reserved for familiar faces.

park sunghoon. hockey captain guy. heeseung’s friend, the one who unintentionally stared at you sideways that one friday night (that he’ll never forget).

“oh.”

the tension binding his shoulders tight is loosened, just a fraction. the tiny sound leaves your mouth quietly, though it sounds nothing like shock, and it’s more to yourself than to him.

“hope you don’t mind if i—”

sunghoon’s response comes out rougher than intended. “no.”

you smile in response, and god, sunghoon wants to fucking drive a ten foot pole into his chest at the sight of your cheeks puffing up. there’s a faint flush on your cheeks from walking in the morning sun, and he notices a few blemishes on your skin as the sun almost blinds you—he can tell it’s getting into your eyes because you’re squinting. “you can sit here.”

you almost choke by the time sunghoon realises what he’s just said. “what?”

“it’s hot on that side.”

there’s three chairs on his side of the long, dark side of the table. it’s oddly poetic how he’s sat in the dark and you’re standing across from him, bathed in that golden sun like it’s your rightful place, and how he can’t help but have you next to him, even now, even selfishly.

fortunately, you save him the humiliation of walking away or just planting your ass down in the sun. you circle around the table, keychains on your backpack jingling as you do, and pull out the plastic chair two seats away from him.

perfect. it’s enough distance for him to pretend like you’re not even there. your gaze flickers between him in the corner of your eye, to the span of other empty seats in front of you. why the hell are you even here?

there’s a moment where he thinks you’re going to change your mind, get up, and walk away without looking back. it’s mostly due to the fact that you haven’t even set your things down yet, organised your stationery or even took out your sleek, plastic-shielded macbook. sitting next to park sunghoon when there was an entire eight-seat table like, ten feet away made most people nervous.

and still, when he turns (or merely pretends to by reaching for his tumbler again), he realises you’re far from nervous, and instead very confused.

your eyebrows are still raised in slight confusion, and you’re scrambling to find a pen you lost somewhere deep in your bag. flecks of dust float in the air, and one lands right on the top of your head—shining so beautifully in this terribly congested space, warmth bouncing off the dull carpet and reflecting back onto your face, dusting your skin like it knows how exactly to make him weak.

you don’t notice, but he does. park sunghoon is noticing everything, and for suddenly, painfully, and very unpredictably, he realises why people write songs about these kinds of feelings.

“do you need something?”

god, you’re so pretty. your eyebrows lift slightly, out of genuine curiosity (or perhaps concern, with the way sunghoon is staring at you… he can’t find a fault), and those lips of yours look so effortlessly perfect, soft, a faint sheen veiling it thanks to the lip-balm chained to your backpack zipper.

“no.”

and it’s like he’s slammed the door on you again.

again?

you’re not sure why you dwell on it too much, actually. most of the evening is spent staring at blank documents, because this module unfortunately included math, and for some odd reason, lee heeseung was always good at math despite being an arts major. he’d know what to do, and for a good minute you wonder if you should just call him right now.

you pause for a moment before your attention slips away from him again. turning back to your bag, hands still searching for something you apparently cannot find, your fingers moving with growing frustration through compartments that seem to hold everything except what you actually want.

sunghoon should probably mind his own business now, yet instead, he’s glancing over your shoulder and at your empty document.

he turns back to his laptop, slightly, or pretends to, lifting his tumbler just enough to give himself something to look at that isn’t you. in doing so he finally catches the full spread of your movement as you settle in, pulling your laptop out, then your charger, then your pencil case, then a small pouch that seems to contain an entire separate ecosystem of items, all of which you organise with a kind of quiet determination that feels oddly intimate to witness.

your brow furrows as you dig deeper into your bag, hand disappearing and reappearing empty more than once, and he notices the way your mouth presses into a line of mild frustration that never fully escalates into anything outright upset, just plastered there as an expression of someone mildly inconvenienced by their own decisions.

somewhere between your second and third attempt at finding whatever it is you’re looking for, your phone appears in your hand, screen lighting up briefly before you unlock it. sunghoon’s attention shifts almost against his will because the movement is too familiar now, even to him, with something he shouldn’t be aware of.

your thumb hesitates over the contacts screen. lee heeseung.

god, please don’t call. please, please, please, please, please.

his eyes are beginning to strain with how hard he’s trying to make himself appear unsuspicious. you hover over his contact, before looking back up at your empty document, and then down again. hesitantly you settle for resting your phone atop the mahogany, letting the screen darken on the words ‘lee heeseung’, then typing your very first words.

the mistake on your screen comes predictably. that’s not to say sunghoon thought you were stupid—it’s only honest for him to say many people messed up the way you did. careless, happens when you haven’t spent the days prior drilling these kinds of theorems into your head. his eyes were starting to hurt, squinting, trying to see how to help you.

the guilt creeps up on him, unexpectedly. he just can’t.

it’s unfortunate that sunghoon already knows exactly what he’d do if he were sitting right next to you, looking over your shoulder properly instead of pretending not to while still catching every mistake you make.

unfortunate that the assignment in front of him is something he could finish in less than an hour if he actually tried, something so mindless it doesn’t even deserve the amount of attention he’s currently refusing to give it, and yet he keeps sitting there anyway as if the decision is more complicated than it actually is.

“swap your x and y values.”

sunghoon has never in his life packed his things so quickly. he’s already moving before he fully processes what he’s done.

his chair scrapes back lightly against the carpet as he gathers his things in motions so quick it almost feels automatic—laptop closing before his assignment is anywhere near complete, tumbler shoved into his bag without care for whether it spills or not.

you’re still looking at him when he straightens, your brows drawn together slightly as you glance down at your screen again, scrolling back to where you left off.

your expression only changes the moment you realise what he said was correct. the mistake is exactly what he pointed out, sitting there so obviously wrong now that it feels almost insulting that you didn’t see it earlier.

sunghoon slings his bag over his shoulder too quickly, the strap wrong-side up, before he quickly settles it in place. he doesn’t look at you directly again, even though he can feel your attention still on him.

there is no explanation he can give that wouldn’t make it worse. no version of this situation exists where staying longer feels safer than leaving immediately, because the longer he sits here, the more likely it becomes that something small will slip.

you will notice. it may be something in the way he speaks or pauses or breathes that does not belong to heeseung at all. he knows you will put it together, because these are things he notices about you, unwillingly.

so, he leaves.

sunghoon’s footsteps are steady as he moves between tables, fiddling with his car keys between his slender fingers—until he reaches the aisle where the library opens up toward the exit.

only then does he allow himself one brief glance back.

you’re looking at him, still. like you haven’t decided whether you’re supposed to stop or keep watching, eyes slightly wider than they were a moment ago, as if you’re still catching up to the fact that he actually spoke, actually stood up, and actually left without giving you anything close to an explanation.

it’s not like he owed you one, anyway. right?

there’s a faint crease between your brows now, nothing like frustration, instead softened into something that makes his heart twist and do all sorts of things against his ribs. it’s not an exaggeration to say that he’s never felt such a feeling, and it’s even more of an understatement when he says it scares him.

he almost trips over his jeans when he crosses the threshold of the library, out into the pavement and in front of the carpark.

sunghoon needs to go home. he needs to get his shit together and go to practice, like how he’s always done in the months before this, and how he’ll continue to do—and yet, god knows why he can’t even drive out of the lot, instead he’s glued to his seat with his feet planted on the mat like it’ll kill him if he stepped on the gas pedal.

sunghoon is already outside the library by the time he’s back in his own body, aware that he’s moving.

the air hits him colder than expected. sharp against skin still warmed by the inside of the building, and for a moment he just stands there, half between steps, like his body has forgotten what it was supposed to do next. the carpark stretches out in front of him in clean, repetitive lines, familiar enough that it should be automatic, but nothing about his movements feels familiar anymore.

“fuck—“

sunghoon almost trips when he steps down the last curb, not because he isn’t paying attention, but because his body is slightly ahead of his thoughts and neither of them are aligned with anything resembling control. he corrects himself quickly, hand tightening briefly around the strap of his bag, and continues forward in a way that would look normal to anyone watching from a distance.

sunghoon’s car is where it always is. he gets in, sits his ass down, and doesn’t move.

the engine is not on yet, keys resting in his hand without being inserted, and his foot stays planted on the mat as if there is some unspoken rule that says starting the car will make something irreversible happen. he stares at the steering wheel for a long time without really seeing it, jaw set in a way that suggests focus but is really just restraint.

that look on your face is so easy to remember. park sunghoon knows he has to tell you, if there’s any chance—any at all—that he gets to look at you like that again.

a curse, truly, because now he knows what it feels like to be so close to you, to have such a feeling strike him so deep, lodging itself in his chest; whenever your face pops up uninvited in his peripheral, or in his daydreams, or on his cell. almost humiliating and actively consuming his sick brain.

the honesty might not even make you stay, and it probably will not make the confession noble—it feels ridiculous to him, almost absurd, because the only thing keeping him tethered to his car mat is the replay of your face in his mind: so painfully uncomplicated that he can’t stand the thought of touching it with borrowed hands and stolen time.

he can still picture the way you looked at him across that table, brows faintly drawn together in confusion, not because you were intimidated or nervous or trying to figure out if sunghoon was really as the rumours say, but because you genuinely did not understand why he had stood up and left.

no expectant eyes, no carefulness, barely any fear. frowned when you were confused and smiled when something amused you, all with the kind of ease that feels so natural on you that he doubts you even notice it yourself. it is the sort of thing most people take for granted, he thinks. the sort of thing people are lucky enough to have for so long that they stop recognizing it as freedom.

sunghoon only notices because he does not have it.

hockey captain, top student, dependable, intimidating, disciplined, the guy could make his own dictionary with the obnoxious amount of adverbs attached to his image. almost every room he walks into seems to demand something from him before he even opens his mouth, and somewhere along the way he stopped questioning it. teammates watch his reactions before deciding how to react themselves. juniors reroute questions through other people because they are too nervous to ask him directly. professors talk to him like they actually have expectations—classmates wait for him to know the answer. even the fraternity treats him like a fixed object, something solid and predictable that will always be exactly where it is supposed to be.

then, there’s you. all perfect hair and soft lips and weirdly adorable frustration carved onto your face, sitting beside him with a pen between your fingers with the other hand on your keyboard. your entire life is on the verge of spilling out your mouth whenever you talk, completely unaware of how rare it looks from where he stands, saying things because you want to say them—because it’s funny, even if it’s meaningless, even if it contributes nothing of value to the conversation.

you call when you miss him, you laugh at his unintentionally self-deprecating humour, you ask questions when you don’t know. you get sad, you cry on the phone, and you get so ridiculously angry about such trivial matters, that he can’t help but smile at his screen.

for one brief, stupid, and careless moment in that library, sunghoon thinks he wanted to stay because you were pretty.

the thought survives all of five seconds. pretty girls are not exactly rare, but the feeling stirring in his chest and the warmth spreading through his body definitely is.

barely any of it has to do with the curve of your smile or the sunlight caught in your hair. instead, it had everything to do with the feeling of being around you, the uncomplicated nature of it all, and the subtle identity crisis where he did not have to be a captain, student, impressive or disciplined.

you will probably leave him, he thinks. the only other option seemed much too cruel, even for him, stripping that choice from you.

You: can we meet up? 12:34

─────────────────────────

ever since you moved into your apartment, you’ve been trying to build a routine—something efficient and optimal, taking up the least amount of time and effort, while maximizing the amount of tasks done.

the first few weeks were horrible—every small decision felt disproportionate and too time-consuming. there’s ten minutes you could’ve used to get ready for bed that you spent cooking dinner, which you should’ve made prior to leaving the house, bla bla bla. you knew it was bad when the sequence after unlocking your door alone was enough to irritate you: whether to eat first or shower, how long to wait before brushing your teeth so you wouldn’t scrub your enamel off. it was stupid, the amount of thought you poured into things that were supposed to be automatic, but you couldn’t help it. everything had to fall into place in this busy life of yours and serve it’s rightful purpose.

there were too many small decisions like that. too many things to get right.

maybe that’s why this feels so off. because there’s nothing to figure out, and no reason for it to happen so often.

there’s no adjustment period, no careful slotting of time or reshuffling of habits. he just fits into the spaces you’ve already made. it’s incredibly mundane and underwhelming in the way it happens.

for now, heeseung calls you almost every damn night, and you feel weirdly normal about it.

it starts on a random thursday. then it’s saturday, then monday, then tuesday. somewhere along the way, it stops being a coincidence or convenience.

by wednesday, you’re calling him to help you pick out an outfit for a department event, holding up different tops to your mirror like he can somehow see through the line. you’re describing the colours, the cut, every minute detail, assuming his imagination could keep up with your rambling.

on thursday, you’re complaining about how much you hate psych, words spilling faster than you can filter them. by the time friday rolls around, he’s the one calling—something about needing help with an assignment, though it diverges quickly into him venting about a useless groupmate in his behavioural economics class.

it morphs into something consistent, though, still strange regardless.

you could’ve sworn lee heeseung took his electives in art culture this year. yet, with the way he’s talking about stock markets and all rationality being lost on the modern day consumer, it sounds like he’s well-versed with the contents.

“you ate an entire block of cheese for dinner?” he repeats back to you. now that you’ve retold the entire process of cooking dinner, down to the amount of parmesan cheese you used, hearing it repeated back to you makes it sound a little insane. “you couldn’t just salt it?”

“are you judging me?” you giggle, turning over in your sheets. the fabric twists with you, cool against your skin and your joints protest almost immediately—your right shoulder’s starting to cramp from how long you’ve been hunched over on your side.

you let out a quiet sigh into the air. “it was a better choice. tasted good, so… i don’t see any problem.”

there’s a pause on his end. you fidget as you wait—picking at your cuticles, long overgrown and in desperate need of a maintenance check, even cracking your knuckles just to fill the silence.

“i think that’s the issue,” he huffs. your shoulders finally relax at the sound of him—lacking any true judgment despite his words.

there’s faint rustling that crackles through your device, and for a minute, you imagine how he must look like right now: laid up in bed in some old jersey, shorts barely hanging onto his hips from how lazy he is to tie the drawstrings tighter. the night’s winding down and you’re still here, with him, like this is an absolute must-do before your eyes shut.

and the routine must repeat tomorrow, of course. not that you’re complaining.

the rest of the conversation flows without much resistance. lee heeseung talks about his afternoon run that seemed to piss him off a great deal, because he got a call from choi yeonjun—something about being five minutes late to the gym and how he’s clearly not committed.

“oh. you’re friends with him? isn’t he in a completely different department from you, though?” you mumble, hoping that it doesn’t come off as blunt—you very well could have missed this detail in your earlier conversations. *“*how do you guys get to the point of going to the gym together?”

“he’s been bothering me ever since freshman year.” heeseung responds, “seriously. i don’t know how i haven’t strangled him yet.”

you chew on your bottom lip, searching for a response. the silence stretches just a little too long, and something about it starts to itch—like you’ve asked the wrong question and you’re pushing somewhere you shouldn’t.

“ah,” you say finally. “i see… he’s really popular, so i’m not surprised.”

“yeah, he is. it gets annoying as fuck when he brings his girls to lunch…” heeseung mutters under his breath—you’re toying with the string of your hoodie, if only to make yourself feel less awkward. there’s another long and excruciating pause before you finally decide to push the conversation in another direction:

“are you going to that fundraiser?” your voice comes out softer than intended. you can only hope that heeseung doesn’t make you repeat yourself. “sunoo’s… one. you know.”

“sunoo’s one…” he repeats back to you, slower. the concept almost sounds abstract to him. “no. not my thing.”

not his thing.

you’re back to fiddling with your fingers again. suddenly, the drawstring of your sweats seems more interesting than anything else you can hear from the other end of the line.

his voice fizzles out. you hear him, yes—his tired, monotonous voice crackling through the speaker reaches your ears and lands straight in your stomach. between short breaths and awkward pauses, you hyperfocus on the wind howling past your thin curtains.

“oh,” you manage after a moment. the word escapes weakly, scratching at your throat before you clear it up. “thought you were. my bad.”

you don’t realise how sweat-slicked your palms are until your phone almost slips from your hand. you turn over in bed, just to save your eyeballs from the sting of streetlights hanging outside your window—it’s almost three in the morning, and despite that dreadful fact, cars are still honking like they own the neighbourhood.

“are you?” heeseung asks. “probably, huh?”

“shut up,” you laugh. “what’s that supposed to mean?”

a quiet huff escapes through the line. your free hand traces the hem of your blanket, now tangled between your legs, serving no real purpose.

“it just sounds like something you’d be into.” heeseung states without a hint of laughter or a smile. “trying new things, even if they’re childish and embarrassing.”

“well—”

“it’s not a bad thing.”

you don’t respond immediately. a soft hum of acknowledgment is heard through the device—it’s barely triumphant or teasing—like he understands the reasoning behind why you’re throwing yourself out there, unknowingly, to him.

you roll onto your back again, tucking your arm over your belly. the cotton’s cold from the absence of your body against it, pillows still damp from your wet hair and impatient self; phone pressed awkwardly against your cheek, the heat almost battles that of sunday mornings.

speaking of, you haven’t experienced in it’s entirety for the past few weeks.

“why don’t you try it, then? it could be fun.” you murmur, eyes screwing shut at the instant the words rolled off your tongue. “sorry. you don’t have to… if you find it weird.”

his laugh makes your heart rate stutter, then spike.

it’s sweet. genuine. warm and unrehearsed in it’s charm, filling the dimness of your room and settling right under your ribs. your face burns up like you’ve just swallowed something hot, and the heat blooms right in your abdomen and crawls up your neck ridiculously fast.

“relationships aren’t my thing.”

lee heeseung says it like it’s already been decided—something fixed and immovable, written in bold or carved into a rock somewhere far beyond him. existing outside of his control, predetermined, and he’s made peace with it—it’s simply the way things are—though the heavy sigh that follows betrays him, outlined faintly with something that sounds nothing like acceptance.

the past few weeks have unfolded into something more than they should’ve. conversations stretching deeper than expected, softening and melting into quiet teasing that feels almost familiar, like you’ve known each other your entire lives.

“really?” your lips can’t help but to curl slightly upward. “you’ve never dated?”

“never had time for that. i’m not the best with affection. people talk to me like they’re scared of me, that kind of thing. even at that stupid party, i just drank by myself upstairs.”

perhaps your memory is failing you, then.

it’s strange, in hindsight, how most of your attention that night had never really stayed where it was supposed to. you remember the first few times you saw lee heeseung—his best friend following shortly after—and your gaze always seemed to lag behind who you claimed to like.

just how did those two end up together?

your seniors used to tell you to look forward to college. new place, new faces, new prospects—like the world finally opens up and hands you options you didn’t know you had. one day, you’re trapped in a classroom from seven to six; the next, you’re weaving through a campus that doesn’t know you yet, trying to decide who you get to be in it.

lee heeseung made it easy to know. he was the kind of person people noticed without trying. effortless in a way that felt almost unfair—hair falling exactly how it should, skin catching the light like it was always meant to. you’d pass by his friend group and hear him before you saw him, laughter loud and uncontained, a basketball tucked under his arm like it never knew how else to store itself. he fit into everything so naturally that it almost felt like the world was his and his alone.

it made sense to like him. and even then, your attention seemed to stray—slipping quietly and slowly just past him.

sunghoon hangs behind like it pained him to be around other people. always a little removed and distant enough to not involve himself in the conversation but not to turn around and walk away unnoticed; broad shoulders angling themselves slightly away, eyes flicking over other people like it physically pained him to see other humans.

it’s small, useless things. the way he’d shift his weight from one foot to the other when conversations dragged on and he was tired of it. his hands would stay tucked into his pockets like he didn’t know what to do with them otherwise. watching more than he spoke, like he was just slightly out of sync with everyone else.

you’ve only ever seen him laugh once*.* it was weirdly off-timed and the rest of his friends laughed only three seconds later. you wondered if all of heeseung’s friends were as strange as that, or if it was just him.

it’s weird, actually. thinking about it now, you realise you remember more about park sunghoon than you should for someone you never consciously paid attention to. his name seemed to be the last piece to his mysterious identity, no thanks to oh jiwon.

“i’m sure that’s not true.”

“it is,” he says. “i try to stay, but things don’t work out. rarely ever do.”

you raise an eyebrow. “work out? so you almost dated?”

“i show up. i do what i’m supposed to. it just stops feeling like something i want to be in after a while.”

“so you just dip?” you question.

“not all at once. i get scared. i pull back and i cancel things that i already fought to fit into my schedule,” he pauses. “i say it’s nothing. they don’t press much after that.”

you hum. the line goes quiet for a few seconds. you’re trying hard not to bombard him with every invasive question on your mind: who’s your most recent girlfriend? how long ago was the relationship? why do you run away?

he continues regardless.

“people get frustrated with me,” he mutters. “i can’t even handle my own emotions. i run from my issues and go on pre-workout to deal with my baggage. nobody sane does that shit.”

“heeseung—”

the name slips from your tongue like a mistake. you bite down on your bottom lip as if that would stop the words from echoing into his ears, somewhere, miles away.

“you’re the only girl that doesn’t treat me like that. i still don’t get it.”

just where did all these thoughts come from? there's weeks of conversations that stretched until midnight. unfiltered words that you silently agreed to keep between you two. your heart’s begun to match the rhythm of his voice, unintentionally, from the moment he picks up the phone to the second he cuts the line. somewhere between your first call to now, you’ve gotten to know him—it’s exactly why you can’t blame the confusion bubbling in your head or the pit in your stomach that only seems to sink deeper.

“aren’t you scared of me, too?”

and here you were, thinking that the answer was abundantly clear. he cuts himself off when you want to start rambling. he finishes your sentences when you’re falling asleep. he asks what ridiculous, unhealthy dish you cook up for dinner every single day without fail—so why does he still sound like that?

you shift slightly against your sheets, phone pressed a little tighter to your ear as if proximity could make sense of it. “i don’t get it,” you admit quietly. “why would anyone be scared of you?”

there’s a pause on the other end. it doesn’t feel empty. things rarely ever do when you’re on the phone with him; it feels more like he’s weighing whether to answer honestly, soften the blow or leave it alone entirely. “this is what i mean, [name].”

you frown. there’s a shuffle of feet upstairs, thudding against your ceiling, which momentarily distracts you. it’s almost four in the morning and nothing feels any clearer than it did ten minutes ago. “what?”

“you don’t care,” he continues. “simple.”

he doesn’t bother to explain further. he hasn’t bothered to say much at all, actually—not in a way that should make sense to you or anyone that knows the name heeseung. still, you understand it anyway, in that vague, unspoken way that two people manage to do, where language feels slightly too slow for what’s already being felt, and too shallow to tell the other person what you really mean.

there’s a hollow kind of discomfort sitting low in your stomach. you’ve learned by now that this is usually a warning sign, even if you don’t always know what it’s warning you about.

you’ve never had particularly good luck with these things, anyway. whatever invisible logic governs timing, people, attachment—it has never seemed especially fond of you.

you exhale softly, pulling your blanket higher over your shoulder, as if that might settle something internally. your gaze drifts to the empty space beside you, unoccupied, waiting in a way that feels louder than it should at this hour.

“what don’t i care about?”

your voice comes out as a whisper, unintentionally. the sound barely makes it past your lips, weak and soft like it’s embarrassing that you even thought about saying it and just plain humiliating that you let it out. either way, heeseung’s answering it seconds later.

“what people say about me,” he sighs, “i like it better like that.”

you don’t really know what he means by that—your hair scratches against the cold, crisp pillowcase under your head as you turn over anxiously. lee heeseung was very known, yes, but the way the words land just feels so… odd.

sniffling when he speaks again, the responses that follow never reaches your ears.

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finals week has made you it’s bitch.

there’s something almost childish in how irritable you get in the days leading up to exams. you’ve never learnt to move past it, and soon enough, the people around you eventually adapted to the sensitive storm that is you, minimally three days before a major paper.

three rules:

one) do not disrupt y/n l/n’s naps;

two) do not text, call, or approach first, and

do not ask how studying is going. the answer is never changing: it’s bad, i’m going to fail, my life is over.

okay, to be fair, these rules were not as strict as they sound. most of the time, people are already cooped up in study rooms and occupied with their own revision—clearly much too busy to talk to anyone else, much less you. so, when your entire friend group goes awol, you do nothing but let it happen.

though, there is just one person that remains.

lee heeseung, sounding entirely too relaxed over the phone with a blender going somewhere in the background, because he’s making his second protein shake of the day. he doesn’t sound very… worried about the approaching three-hour exam.

your feet are folded together, criss-cross on your office chair as you hunch over your desk. your room is pitch dark, save for the bright, white light radiating from your study lamp—sprawled over the surface of your cheap table is rewritten notes, scribbled equations and the occasional bible verse (for good measure).

“you sound upset,” he says.

“oh, do i, now?”

you almost drop your phone at that. you’ve been silently panicking for the last forty minutes without realising you’ve been breathing like that, and talking like this. you’ve spent even more time, close to five hours on this laptop that’s crying for you to shut it down, on lectures that you should’ve watched weeks back.

there’s a pause on his end, something shifting in the background—cupboard, blender stopping, maybe him leaning against the counter—and when he speaks again, it’s slower. “which one are you on?”

“twenty,” you say.

“how many left?”

“twelve,” you admit, already hating how it sounds when spoken out loud. somehow, all hope seems lost when you utter that forsaken number, despite it being (very) obviously displayed on the top left of your screen for the past few hours. “…fuck.”

this morning felt like hell. you’re sure your eye-bags have magically darkened themselves in the past few hours, and for a minute, you grimace at the thought of having to show up to school like that every damn day, all because you’re too tired to seem put together. breakfast was skipped, which was unfortunate, cause the guilt of preparing a heavy lunch only made the stress worse. heavy eyelids blinking open, slow, regretful for every delayed hour of sleep—limbs still tangled in cold sheets like it physically pained you to leave.

the sun bled through your blinds, warm over your ankles and blinding you through your eyelashes. you walked around the house in nothing but your underwear, even forgetting your slippers under the bedframe; there was only one thing on your mind. that much stayed consistent today, with the only variable factor being lee heeseung on the phone.

you didn’t think he’d call. schedules do that.

“it’s manageable,” his voice crackles through the speaker, and then there’s the sound of a cupboard slamming shut, along with the soft shuffling of… something. you actually consider hanging up on him, just for a brief moment. “how many topics?”

to be honest, you’d half-expected heeseung to tease you. laugh, even. maybe even tell you to stop being so dramatic, to answer his texts, and that he doesn’t understand why you’re freaking out over a dumb test—but here you are, and here he is, telling you that you have it figured out.

“four. it’s over,” you answer flatly, staring at the lecture list like if you looked hard enough another topic might spontaneously disappear. “it’s actually so over.”

“it’s not, y/n.”

heeseung’s voice stays annoyingly level. the speaker crackles with something that sounds like a spoon scraping against plastic and the jealousy almost gives you whiplash. he’s making a fucking protein shake while you’re stuck here memorising lecture slides on two-times speed and slowly developing permanent neck damage.

“you said your paper’s next tuesday. if there’s four topics left and you stop rewriting things you already know, you’ll finish tonight and still have time to revise.”

your head hits the table before you even realize you’ve moved. forehead pressed into paper, warm skin sticking slightly against cheap ink and printer sheets, you let yourself rot there dramatically. with your phone right beside your face, his voice sounds clearer than before—too clear, actually—and it feels vaguely humiliating, how quickly your chest warms when he talks like this.

you let out a long breath instead of responding, eyes drifting downward toward the floor beneath your desk. there’s crumpled paper scattered near your chair. a few sticky notes had missed the bin entirely and ended up attached to the outside of it instead, clinging there stubbornly like even they didn’t want to commit to failure.

he’s talking like he knows you.

“how’d you know—”

heeseung cuts you off with little trouble. “you’ve told me. pretty sure you can cut some lectures out, since you’ve been learning them for the past few weeks.”

you don’t answer. you narrow your eyes at his response, because who the hell is that observant? he doesn’t even need to confirm your schedule anymore—he just talks and cuts you off, knowing he’s completely right, because he listens that intently—but god.

he has no idea how warm that makes you feel.

on the other end of the line, heeseung walks back upstairs with his phone trapped awkwardly between his cheek and shoulder, head tilted enough that his neck would probably hurt later. his laptop balances in one hand, tumbler in the other, and his steps slow unconsciously as your breathing filters through the speaker.

his room looks exactly the same as always.

his duffel is already packed for practice tonight despite being excused for finals week. the afternoon sun catches against the medals mounted along his wall and reflects across his desk in strips of gold, schedule taped beside his wardrobe. his calendar is updated three weeks in advance, with a single day blocked out for the day you end your exams.

his eyes drift over the reminders stuck to his wall, and he’s reminded of it—the reason why he decided he was still going to practice today.

studying isn’t enough, clearly, if he’s still on the phone with you.

he already decided that he’d wait. finals week meant distance. finals week meant no showing up unexpectedly and no making this worse than he already has. finals week meant letting you breathe and not letting himself confuse temporary loneliness for something else, and finals week also meant not sinking deeper into you.

it’s just two weeks.

two weeks, and then, he’ll tell you.

“do you think i’ll do okay?” you mumble, so soft that you almost don’t hear yourself. it’s so quiet that you can hear the exact moment his fingers stop clicking against his keyboard, and so intense that the second he answers, your heart begins to pound.

“yeah. i know you will.”

─────────────────────────

you don’t think much of it when you tell heeseung where you’ll be tomorrow, or rather, today. truthfully, you haven’t been thinking much at all lately—unless you count the thirty-second ponder about lunch options earlier this morning.

finals week does something deeply unfortunate to people. everybody becomes uglier in small, socially acceptable ways, because everyone around you just… gets it. hair goes unwashed for an extra day, clothes repeat twice, thrice in a row, and eyebags sink further in with no substantial effort to conceal them. entire friend groups, including yours, quickly dissolve into delayed replies and weak promises to hang out after exams, because who the hell wants a mass social gathering after four all-nighters?

your room starts becoming unbearable by day four. there’s something fundamentally wrong with spending twelve hours in one place—any longer and you might’ve begun associating your digital lock chime with impending doom.

the second you sit at your desk, your chest tightens automatically. it’sm like your brain immediately morphs the cute wallpaper around you into blank rows of seats, and your ears only hear mindless scribbling, despite the cheerful music blasting through your headphones.

by the time noon comes around, you’ve scarfed down every grain of rice from your takeout container—dragging your feet and will to live through your apartment, searching for your purse before leaving.

it’s wednesday. the sun is shining on you, warm and consequentially irritating as the sweat begins to pill on your temples. they roll down your cheek in fat beads, and it almost serves as motivation for you to get your ass into that library as soon as possible.

your macbook is pressed against your side, tote slipping down your shoulders every few minutes, only to be caught by the crevice of your elbow. there’s an iced coffee from last night, standing in for your mid-day snack; and, as if you hadn’t eaten just an hour ago, your stomach rumbles in defeat.

the library doors open as you stomp against the carpeted sensors. the cold air hits your face hard enough that you nearly stop walking, but you settle for a deep, relieving sigh before turning left and speed-walking down those winding corridors built out of metal shelving.

your body already knows where to go now—past the noisier floors, up the stairs, away from printers and bathrooms and groups of students pretending to study while giggling about their situationships at full volume. roughly fifty-six seconds later, your consciousness kicks back in full gear, and you’re dumping your things down onto a familiar table before immediately realizing that you forgot your fucking charger.

“are you fucking—”

oh, well. problem for future you. worse comes to worst, you’ll scare some freshman away with your horrendous, sleepless eyes and unusually wide smile and steal theirs.

libraries distort time as well as they force you to keep track of it. hours behave well in the quieter corners, but if you’re somehow in urgent need of completing an assignment, they start speeding themselves up. it’s exactly why you’re chanting mantras to yourself now: studying isn’t urgent at all. this exam will not kill me! yes! i already know everything there is to know!

afternoon becomes evening rather quickly. suddenly, your water bottle is empty, your iced coffee splits into two separate layers of cloudy water and room temperature caffeine, and the light crawls across the carpet so much that your chair is no longer in the same patch of sun you sat down in.

you stopped checking the time thirty minutes ago. notes multiply, hair becomes tangled at the back of your neck, and your spine hurts. you spent forty minutes writing notes on a lecture, not realizing it’s a replay.

sometime later, when your legs are beginning to feel like tv static, movement catches in your peripheral and your eyes lift automatically before your brain even has a chance to catch up.

“sunghoon?”

my god. just stand up and run into his arms, why don’t you?

his reaction comes a fraction of a second later. despite the prior brain lag, you’re suddenly thinking about his face—sunghoon looks different outside of wherever you usually see him. less assembled, with a ridiculously large hoodie hanging loose around his frame, which only makes him look even bigger from where you’re sitting; there’s shadows beneath his eyes that soften his face unexpectedly.

his hair looks horrible. his sweatpants are dragging against the floor, too. sunghoon looks exhausted, and his gaze hangs low, until you call out for him, that is.

the corners of your lips curl upward before you even realise it’s happening. his expression doesn’t change much, but the faint raise of his thick eyebrows tells you enough. his eyes flick toward the empty chairs around you, and you almost assume that you weirded him out—great, he’ll walk away now—but all sunghoon does is return a soft, supposedly meaningless smile in your direction.

there’s that brief moment, where people who know each other silently debate whether acknowledging the other’s presence is necessary in public—and then he gives you a small nod, right before he takes his laptop out and sits right in front of it.

two seats away from you. like last week. if you hadn’t met the man before, you would’ve thought he wanted to kill you with a face like that. eyebrows knit together in frustration, typing furiously at his keyboard like it owed him twenty bands, tapping his foot against the carpet like he was thinking about something deathly important.

cute—wait, what the fuck, said you, around fifteen times over in the past two hours.

you become aware of him in entirely useless ways. he drinks water without looking away from his screen, sometimes even types with one hand as the other holds that tumbler to his lips. he cracks his knuckles at every given opportunity, and his fingers hover over the keyboard occasionally when he thinks. you leave for more coffee, come back, go to the bathroom, and he’s literally still there.

at one point, you look up because your neck hurts, and caught yourself stretching. fucking stretching, left to right, just for an excuse to get a full view of his side profile. in that tiny, meaningless moment, you witnessed him rub his eyes and immediately return back to typing his unfinished methods section.

it’s strangely comforting that park sunghoon is there for you to look at. oddly. it helps with the whole ‘i’m the only one in this universe, it’s all a simulation’ delirium.

regardless, at around six, the words on your screen are beginning to morph into one big demonic face, and every letter on your keyboard just resembles an egyptian hieroglyphic. words are decorative, english is just a bunch of made up gibberish, and you need to get out of this plastic seat before you melt into it—so after rereading the same paragraph four times, absorbing nothing (shocker), your eyes begin to ache and decide: changing tasks will fix all these worldly pains you have.

the ‘changing tasks’ arrives in the form of a reference nook your professor mentioned. standing, stretching, you’re doing it all before disappearing into the shelves.

it’s warmer here than it is at the tables, somehow. perhaps it’s the way the sun is setting now, and it’s getting all in your eyes and in your hair, just like it did this morning. though, when you turn towards the closest, wide-set window, your breath almost gets taken away at the blend of pinks and oranges that colour the sky.

you see this sunset almost every day. still, it doesn’t take any of the beauty away.

dust catches in the overhead light, paling in comparison to the golden hue that the light is bathing the room in—the smell of old books penetrates your nose in a way that makes you think about middle school. you drag your fingers across rows of spines, reading titles under your breath, stepping slower in each aisle because your brain refuses to remember the author’s name. you bet sunghoon doesn’t struggle with things like that.

“behavioural psychology… where the fuck even is that?”

─────────────────────────

following a mini mental breakdown, park sunghoon’s brain decides not to accomodate a single molecule of information until he gets up and got his blood moving.

there was only so much economics and statistics a person could consume before words stopped behaving like language and started looking like numbers flipped around. his screen brightness had been lowered twice, and his coffee had gone cold sometime around four—the sleeves of his hoodie were pushed halfway up his forearms and there was a faint imprint from resting his cheek against his knuckles for too long, which he finds immensely humiliating.

he closes the document, opens it again, reads the same words over and over, and realises he won’t get anything done like this; so his eyes leave the screen for the first time in twenty minutes and settle automatically on the empty seat in his peripheral.

his head back turns so fast that he almost curses at himself.

and, to make things extra embarrassing, his mind starts to weigh the odds of whether you’re about to leave, or if you’re just gone for another break. scanning your side of the desk, taking in your untouched water bottle, open laptop and tangled wired headphones—you’re somewhere nearby, a conclusion he unwillingly comes to.

sunghoon’s fingers drum once against the tumbler before he remembers there was a book he wanted earlier. or needed. something vaguely related to an assignment he’d been putting off. either way, he stands, pushes in his chair halfway, and makes his way into the shelves.

it really does feel different in here. the high-pitched clacking of mechanical keyboards is muffled, almost muted behind these thick walls of books, where light filters in through strips and catches every speck of dust floating around. he turns once, twice, passing business ethics—until he finally reaches behavioural psychology, and stops dead in his tracks.

it’s not even about the book. if he remembered correctly, the one he was looking for’s two floors down, but this—here, in front of him, on this floor, was you.

sunghoon ducks into the next aisle like he’s guilty. he presses his back lightly against the endcap of the shelf, as though the solid structure might help him reset whatever just short-circuited in his brain.

this is ridiculous. he’s in a library. on a weekday. trying to study. and yet, somehow, his entire nervous system has decided that walking in a straight line is suddenly the most difficult thing in the world.

he exhales, before trying to occupy himself by looking for something similar to what he’s studying for another module. he stands still for a second longer than necessary, fingertips running against this one book which he can’t bother to know the name of, and all it does is feel like a weak alibi.

business psychology is a popular section. lots of students with sunghoon’s major share modules, hence, explaining why the other book he’s pretending to need isn’t even here. it also explains why the fuck his eyes keep gravitating towards you, through tall-enough gaps, locked on your concentrated face and frustrated pout.

every interruption in his life, somehow, becomes framed with you. a horizontal slit between two rows of books, a deliberate architectural hesitation, tall enough to fit even the thickest and tallest of publications out there—and you, existing between it.

it’s closer than before, not in distance but in clarity. the kind of proximity that does not require physical reduction to feel intimate. the light falls differently here, angled through a window he cannot fully see, softening the edge of everything it touches—your tip of your nose, the ends of your hair, and the faint movement of your hand as you adjust your page.

you look so beautiful. nothing has changed. he knew it when he saw you sitting in front of him today, he knew it when you walked into this place last week, and he knew it when he saw you at that party, wearing a dress that seemed so inclined to his attention and a smile that made all the flashing colours pale in comparison.

and, most of all, he knows it now. a fool he is, for thinking that these feelings would fade.

sunghoon tries to locate himself properly in the task he came for—something about organisational theory, a phenomenon he can usually reduce into clean frameworks and exam-ready structure. his hand has been resting against the spine of the book for the past twenty seconds, fingers curled just enough to suggest intent, but nothing in him is actually compelling the pull.

the thought arrives with a sharpness that feels almost physical, like pressure behind the ribs.

park sunghoon wishes he could redo college from the start. not in the abstract, as nostalgia or regret type thing, instead with specificity—clean edits to timing, tone, and presence. a revision pass on himself. one that would let him stand a few steps closer to you now, without feeling like the distance between yourselves is self-inflicted.

his thumb shifts minutely along the book’s spine. the motion is absent-minded, almost mechanical.

once you know who he really is—strip away whatever version of him you’ve only seen in passing corridors and half-glances at the long oak table—will you stop looking for him?

fuck. he doesn’t even care enough to stop looking at you. hair falling over your face, your lips blowing air to get the tiny, annoying strands to stop itching your nose.

selfish. selfish, selfish, selfish. that’s all he is.

─────────────────────────

─────────────────────────

august meant summer.

the sun is unforgiving, blazing hot rays beating down on your back as sweat trickles down your shoulder blades—everything about today seemed relentless, exam included. around you, people are already decomposing the paper in clusters: comparing answers, laughing too loudly, swearing they’re finished in voices that sound almost celebratory. someone says question 47 was impossible. someone else says it was free marks. you keep walking.

there’s that feeling when you finally press submit on a paper. not relief exactly—more like your body forgetting what to do after operating at full capacity for too long. to be truthful, there were multiple times where you thought you were fucked throughout the exam, and then you’d look at the bottom of your screen and see: 21 out of 80 questions saved.

you really, sincerely thought handing in that empty thing was better than typing whatever you studied. no matter how hard you worked these past few weeks, there was always that irritating, sly little voice whispering into your ear that it was for nothing. that all those late nights, colour-coded notes, skipped breaks and panic-induced productivity spurts would collapse into one single, defining moment that you were never going to catch up.

somewhere around the second hour—after your eyes started blurring and the timer at the corner of the screen felt less like a clock and more like a countdown to execution—you broke. quietly, of course. you had enough tact not to lose your shit in front of a hundred other students in the same venue.

you understood less than you thought. you should’ve started earlier. you’re embarrassing yourself.

you just stared at question 22 for three minutes straight and felt your throat tighten because suddenly, everything became impossible at once. reading felt impossible. thinking felt impossible. even moving your cursor felt weirdly impossible. you literally just bought it yesterday, because you were convinced the one you always use would die.

fuck everything, you thought, until some other voice started talking to you—in that calm, gentle demeanour that you’ve gotten used to over months. low and amused in tone when he said, “why’re you so hard on yourself, y/n?”

last night, he was on the phone with you. you remember lying flat on your bed with your notes open but untouched, your lamp the only thing still awake in your room. coffee wasn’t doing it, or maybe it was just the fact that it was your sixth cup today; he’d called later than usual, and somehow the conversation drifted away from exams, and shifted more toward your incessant need to be perfect, despite and in spite of the circumstances.

“what do you mean?”

moonlight spilling in through thin curtains, the thrum of public transport and dogs taking late-night walks with owners who talk too loud on the phone. no one knew where you were, no one cared what you were doing, but it didn’t matter. he knew. he cared.

you don’t even remember how the conversation got there, either. was it some joke about failing? one too many of those were made, now that you think about it. it wasn’t even self-pitying, either—all casual in the way that people talk, repeating the same thing enough times that it sounds like truth—but then he went quiet and said, “you talk like you’ve already decided on fucking it up.”

you remember laughing. whatever, because what do you do when someone says something so accurate? what the hell do you say when someone sees right **through you?

“i just have bad luck in these things.”

he laughed. fucking laughed. it was this short, incredulous breath through his nose like he couldn’t decide whether to be annoyed or amused. “you study all day, every day, and act surprised when you know the material.”

you frowned automatically. “well—”

“no,” he interrupted. “you’re smart. hard working. you’re trying, and i don’t think you should dismiss those efforts.”

“but—”

“i have to get back to work,” he breathed into the phone. his voice dropped slightly at the end, words softened by distance and whatever position he’d shifted into. you could hear movement through the phone—the subtle crackle of fabric, the hollow acoustics of a room that sounded emptier than yours. “get some sleep before your exam. goodnight.”

no good-lucks, no you’ll-do-wells, no last minute reassurance that would only soothe your nerves for ten minutes before you’d spiral again. last night, it had seemed cruel. not in the obvious sense—he wasn’t mean nor dismissive—but there was something irritatingly unsympathetic about the way he refused to give in to you. you’d left that call mildly offended, convinced he was sick of hearing you talk like that. sick of your catastrophizing, sick of your weird habit of turning every achievement into an exception and every mistake into evidence. sick of you.

yet, now, walking towards your car with the heat sitting heavy against your skin and your student id still peeking out the pocket of your jeans, it seemed more like belief.

in you, that is. almost as if that you doing terribly had never come across his mind, occurring as a possibility.

you recall staring at your ceiling, phone falling face flat to your mattress, face flushed with embarassment and annoyance that only seemed to erupt when it came to late replies and slightly off-sounding tones. it’s almost exclusive to him—you were never that great at reading rooms, after all.

your car keys twirl around your index finger, a different spring in your step now that the bitter taste of last night has dissolved completely. you’ll call him tonight, later, maybe once your foot crosses the threshold known as your front door, or once you step into the car. you’ll tell him about the exam, about how there was a moment where you genuinely considered submitting half a paper because, somehow, failing after trying felt more humiliating than failing without trying.

you’ll tell him that his stupidly calm voice somehow survived twelve hours and a three-hour exam. that while you were sitting there spiralling and preparing to abandon the entire thing, you remembered the way he said it—like he knew, understood, and reached for you when you abandoned yourself.

you’re already halfway through mentally composing the conversation when movement ahead catches your attention. someone’s walking towards you from the opposite direction, feet dragging against concrete in a way that would usually annoy, but instead of diverting your attention to the phone in your pocket—you look up.

you recognize him immediately. lee heeseung.

weirdly enough, you haven’t seen him up close around campus for the past three months. you assumed it was probably because he was just that busy—you’d seen his figure in the distance, but by the time you caught up, he’d be gone. there were tons of excuses that he made up on the phone, too, earlier into your relationship: personal projects, mostly, though the details were always lacking.

perfect hair. perfect face. perfect stride. even now, people notice him as he walks past. conversations soften for half a second, eyes lifting instinctively and following his pace before returning to wherever they were before. heeseung moves through it without acknowledging anything, shoulders relaxed, expression neutral, looking exactly like someone who’s long stopped recognizing attention as something unusual.

you straighten automatically, lifting your hand, almost waving, but not quite yet. heeseung doesn’t even need to see it in motion for him to look right into your eyes.

his expression shifts—something adjacent to confusion, an eyebrow raised as if to say, where do i know you from?

what. the. fuck.

© 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.

for this pls pretend that hwa-jin was never engaged to gayun, in this she never existed !! (all love to her though, i swear it just makes more sense for this).

𓂃 ࣪˖ ִֶָ𐀔

⤷ being young, you're mainly used to go undercover in circumstances that geun-dae is not able to. for example, when the ERPB are investigating an all girls school or when geun-dae is more useful sticking primarily with the computer and technology side of the whole operation. your main duties can differ from making yourself become a target for the bullies, to creating a strong bond with the popular clique in order to get inside information. depending on your situation, hwa-jin's involvement with you will differ.

› if you're the bullied - he's protective, constantly checking up on you when he is able to (ensuring there's no wandering eyes that could spoil the whole plan), han-rim is told to keep an eye on you for when he is unable to and she's under strict instruction to step in if it looks like things are going to be taken too far. he loathes seeing you with any marks or looking even slightly dishevelled when you return to him at the end of a long work day, but you reassure him that you are absolutely fine and capable of handling a little roughing up from a few highschool bullies.

› if you're the bully - he understands that you might have to get involved with some not-so-friendly treatment towards other students (if you didn't it would surely raise some eyebrows) but he makes sure none of this out of character behaviour gets to your head. he understands how easy it can be to let a 'character' consume you, especially if you're stuck at a certain school for a long period, and fights to ensure that none of the mannerisms or opinions forced on you remain permanent.

⤷ one of the advantages the two of you have working together, is never having to worry about your job being the reason you grow distant/apart due to lack of quality time. neither of you have to stress about the other sat at home, feeling neglected because you spent 12 hours a day, 7 days a week at work, you were both working (suffering maybe) together. all you had to do was turn around and hwa-jin would be hunched over a folder of paperwork needing to be read through, and all he would have to do is glance to the side to see you gossiping away with han-rim, a fond smile appearing at the sight of you bonding so well with the other important woman in his life.

⤷ your relationship unfortunately remains a secret to everyone outside of the ERPB organisation, for obvious reasons. the bureau already spends a large amount of time in the limelight for an abundance of negative reasons - that you argue are stupid, adding what would be considered a 'controversial relationship' to the mix would just make all your lives harder. so, when you were out you made a conscious effort to ensure that any interactions between the two of you could only come across to any passerby's who recognised you as platonic. it was infuriating at times, not being able to kiss your insanely good looking boyfriend whenever you wanted, but it was something you would just have to cope with. at least until the media's interest in the ERPB died down.

⤷ sometimes he worries that he's holding you back. people your age are out partying, travelling the world, having one night stands weekly and just partaking in all the stupid stuff that people who are in their early/mid twenties are supposed to be partaking in. and yet, you're with him. someone who has already done all that and now wants to be in bed by ten o'clock every evening, whose idea of a good night out is a meal at a sophisticated restaurant and then a walk around a quiet park, who is at a point in his life where he's eager to get married and have kids. it's his biggest insecurity when it comes to your relationship but thankfully, he's mature enough to come to you when he's having these thoughts so that you can talk it out. it gives you the chance to reassure him that he's not holding you back from anything. you choose to be with him because you love him, if you weren't happy then you would end things with him, and it was as simple as that.

⤷ dating him feels like a gift given from god as an apology for all the stupid boys you'd had to put up with throughout your teenage years. you no longer had to deal with a boyfriend who gave you mixed signals, had you wondering if he was secretly messaging over girls or only paid attention to you when he wanted to get into your pants. you never for a single second questioned how hwa-jin truly felt about you, he treated you like you were the reason he got out of bed in the morning. he never withheld affection, or verbal declarations of how much he loved you, and he definitely did not act selfish between the sheets. sometimes when you woke up, with his arms wrapped around you in a protective grip, you had to fight the urge to pinch yourself to make sure you weren't still asleep.

⤷ he often found himself guilty of 'parenting' you, which you absolutely hated and put a firm stop to whenever it occurred. if you had a day when you ate too much junk and too little of a balanced diet, he'd scold you and order some 'real food' for you if you were stuck at work, or cook you something if you were home. he argued that it was him caring about your wellbeing, you argued that it felt like he was telling you off like a child who wouldn't eat their vegetables. it never really led to any serious arguments or put a huge wedge between you, but it was something hwa-jin actively worked on reducing to make you happy.

⤷ han-rim was an added bonus to your relationship. the nutty girl never held back from sharing old stories regarding what the two of them got up to during their special forces era and you adored hearing her rather dramatised version of events. it was even better when she got lost in a tangent of all the embarrassing moments she had witnessed from hwa-jin throughout the years that they had spent knowing eachother, giggling her way through each story. you actively encouraged her everytime, but when hwa-jin caught onto what was happening he was quick to send han-rim away with a made up task and a slight dig to her side with his elbow. he can't have his reputation being tarnished.

⤷ the angriest you ever saw him was when someone new joined the ERPB, he wasn't actively working with your group, just in a different department, but he still felt the need to interact with your inner circle as if he had known you all for months. you all shared looks of irritation and exasperation when you saw him coming, but you bit your tongues and just dealt with the brief but painful interactions for the sake of peace and harmony. that was until said person found out about your relationship with hwa-jin, and that's when his annoying but harmless interactions became something more sinister.

› he had cornered you, in a deserted hallway just nearing the end of your shift with a scowl and the unwavering idea that the only reason you had the job he so desperately wanted was because you were sleeping with the 'boss'. he called you names, accused you of not being qualified for your position and threatened to leak your relationship to the media. by the end of it, you were in tears and riddled with anxiety for what was to come. you'd had people get in your face before, but they were usually snobby teenagers who were mostly talk, this was a grown man who was visibly bigger than you in both muscle and height, having him back you into a corner, literally, whilst he fired off threats was a terrifying ordeal.

it was geun-dae who found you sat in an empty room, using a tissue to wipe away tears that kept on falling and he was immediately frazzled by the unusual change in your usually cheerful demeanour. he approached and interrogated you, both of you unaware of the fact that hwa-jin had entered the room only a minute after geun-dae did, and that he had heard every second of your recount of what you had just dealt with barely thirty minutes ago. it wasn't until he slammed the door on his way out, too angry to care about the damage or noise he caused, that you both caught sight of him storming down the hallway through the window and it was obvious where he was heading.

you knew it was no use trying to stop what was to come, but you still chased after your raging partner in the hopes that a miracle would be granted and you would be able to calm him down before he found the man he was looking for. as expected, nothing you said to try and subdue the fury that was palpitating off of him worked and it wasn't long before he tracked down the guilty party who was excessively typing away on his phone with an unhinged smirk, no doubt getting ready to let the world know about your true relationship status. he never got the chance to release any information though, hwa-jin made sure of that when he smacked the phone out of his hand with force and grabbed the back of the man's head, smashing it down into the nearby table, temple first.

what followed was a series of very serious threats, a few degrading comments and a very satisfied hwa-jin when the man cried out for mercy whenever hwa-jin added more pressure, pushing him harder and harder into the wooden surface. he eventually let go when the man looked on the verge of passing out, and his attention instantly turned to you, wanting to make sure his girlfriend was feeling better off now that the problem had been dealt with, even if his methods had been a little unorthodox. the man handed in his resignation the next day and your relationship remained a mystery to the public for a long time after.

⤷ birthday's are an occasion he will go all out for, no argument. he wants you to feel like the only girl in the world on your special day, and he'll do whatever he has to, to make that happen. he takes you out of the city for the day in hopes that the further you go, the less chance there is of people knowing who you are so that he can really spoil you in both affection and possessions. he'll go way too far with buying you gifts, anything you want really, even if it's as ridiculous as a bagel or as expensive as a brand new laptop for your workload, he'd get you three if that's what you really wanted (although he'd be secretly hoping that you don't for the sake of his bank account).

⤷ you can always tell when a certain case gets to him more than others, he won't rest until the victim(s) are given some form of justice, to a point where he will overwork himself beyond exhaustion. you really have to break down his walls during moments like these, any attempt to persuade him to take a well overdue break will be met with a firm dismissal, he wont even glance in your direction as he focuses on gathering the evidence needed to bring down whoever he needs to. you eventually have to physically pull him away from the computer, dragging his chair back so that he can't see the screen anymore, a task that is as hard as it sounds, but it does grab his attention and that's when you get the opportunity to have a serious talk with him. you explain that overworking himself will only lead to burning himself out, and might even cause a drop in his usually flawless worth ethic. he can still get justice even if he takes an hour to eat and refill his water bottle regularly.

⤷ you force him into doing all the things he would usually find cheesy or annoying. tiktok challenges that get posted to your private account, a photobooth when you come across one during a secret date night, wearing matching couple's costumes on halloween just for the fun of it, and anything else that comes to mind. he complains during every second of it, but he can't bring himself to tell you no when you give him that look. and honestly, the feeling he gets in his chest when he sees how happy it makes you to do these things with him makes it all worth it in the end.

⤷ when your relationship does eventually get found out by the media (because lets be real, it's bound to happen) you're both simultaneously worried and relieved, or more like you're worried and he's relieved. your head goes to the worst case scenario, the bureau is going to be torn to shreds on several platforms, people are going to protest in hundreds, you're going to have to resign and everything you've worked for is going to fall apart. hwa-jin's thought process is vastly different, all he can think about is how this is probably the best thing for your relationship. by now you've been together a few years and now you can stop hiding, no more holding back in public, no more being overly cautious outside the comfort of your shared home, you were free to behave like a normal couple finally.

› it goes without saying that the minister defends your relationship when the media outlets come knocking for answers. to him, it's not at all relevant to the work you do to better the education system throughout the country. if people want to throw away all the good the ERPB has done because of one adult relationship between coworkers, then that's their loss.

oh my god. 

your fucking group partner is geum seongje. 

you think your college must actually be hell. 

you wouldn’t describe yourself as very academically gifted. in fact, you’re starting to lose touch with reality ever since college started. but hey, you’re in your second year and things should looking up right? 

apparently not. 

because your group mate is one of the lovely lovely frat guys in your class. 

notorious for picking fights with other frats just because, being on the school’s e-sports team, and somehow being a player with that. 

thankfully, he’s mostly quiet in class. but he yawns loud and clicks on his mouse obnoxiously when he’s bored. probably playing league of legends. he cusses under his breath and his friends lean over to see what he’s doing. 

you don’t care much for school but even then, can’t he be unscholarly quieter? 

and now youre stuck with him for your fucking midterm project. 

he’s currently staring at you from across the library table. the table is way too small but it’s the only one available since it’s midterm season. you see whiteboards being written on and people chugging celsius and redbull like it came from the fountain youth. 

it’s been an odd staring competition ever since you got here. neither of you are willing to give in and say anything. the one thing you said when you were assigned to each other was, “wanna go to the library?” and that’s where your minimal conversation ended. 

looking closer, you see that he has a mole under his eye that’s usually covered by his glasses. he has a long looking face and the tips of his eyes are roundish. though, his brunette hair is looking a little shaggy today. 

you’d ask him if he was wearing a wig but you’re worried your reputation will wither up and die if you open your mouth to sass him.

he’s wearing a multicolored jacket with trigger print on the breasts. it’s vaguely better than the neon orange one he seems to treat like his first born child. secretly, you do have a favorite jacket that he wears. 

(it’s the red racing jacket he has.) 

(not that you care or anything.)

you can hear noises from his laptop and you’re sure it’s league of legends. you wonder why he even plays the game because you’ve heard around that he’s broke multiple mouses due to the game. he probably needs a different hobby. 

“so? are you gonna do it for me?” 

his voice perks up, breaking your staring context as he settles back into the seat. tilting his head at you and his eyes widen a little. you assume he’s trying to intimidate you. 

well, he’s not very bright. 

too bad you’ve been tainted by the lifelessness that college instills in you everytime you walk around on campus. it then occurs to you that you don’t have a reputation. you don’t stand out and you do not give a fuck what people think of you. 

“why the fuck would i do that?” 

his eyebrows shoot up, as if he wasn’t expecting you to talk back. which is such an odd thing for you to think about because who on earth wouldn’t talk back to literally being made to the whole group project. emphasis on group.

“because i asked nicely.”

“ask my right foot, bruh.” 

he barks out a laugh in the almost full library and you scramble to shut him up. no one actually cares but it’s embarrassing enough you have to be seen in public with this shell of a man. 

your hand clamps over his mouth and he immediately retaliates by licking your hand. you seethe and pull at his jacket. this group project is going extraordinarily well so far. 

you believe in the ideals that no one is ever really staring at you. public humiliation is a construct created by insecure people. it doesn’t actually exist as long as you believe it doesn’t. 

“holy shit, your face is so fuckin red right now!”

okay. 

you’re tanking the F. 

you go to snatch your shitty $200 laptop but he slaps his hand on top of it. he has a shit eating grin and his eyes are staring into yours. he’s reached across the table and is leaning his cheek against his knuckles. 

“you have balls to talk to me like that. you got a dick too?” 

“if i did, could you hop off of it already? i’m tanking the F. i can’t do this with you.”  

there’s that cackle again and he grabs your wrist. yanking you so your torso tumbles onto the table. a grunt leaves your lips as the boy digs his elbow into your spine to make you stay there. 

“you’re funny but you’re doing the fuckin project.” 

“are you seriously assaulting me over a gen ed????” 

you crane your head to look up at him and he’s giving you a lazy shrug. his lips pursing as he thinks about what to do. his grip is tight on your wrist and when you try to wiggle out, he stretches you across the table like a sad slinky. 

you think everyone is genuinely possessed by the midterm demons because no one is telling him to stop and is actually talking louder to not acknowledge this frat guy literally assaulting you.

damn it all. 

it’s then some girl comes up to your guys’ table. well you assume it’s a girl from the voice. your face is currently smushed against the table and his sharp ass elbow is still preventing you from moving. 

she’s talking to seongje without even looking down at your body. there’s no way your reputation is so down under the dirt that absolutely no one cares right? 

well apparently so because she has a giggly voice talking to geum seongje. oh you see, she must be one of the girls he’s rotating with. fucking gross… it’s known around campus he’s a player. and you don’t think he’s that attractive. 

it’s completely blindsided to you why they let themselves be side chicks for a guy who doesn't even treat them like people. 

“oh, you should let her go, seongje!” 

there’s a beat of silence before the hands are removed off of you. it happens in a flash and you scramble up and go to swear to give the girl your first born child and name it after her. 

but something splashes on your shirt. 

and when you look down, it’s brown and it smells like a sugar factory exploded. and when you look up, she’s holding a venti sized cup from starbucks in the library. the top removed and there’s only about half of the drink remaining.

oh no fucking way. 

she threw her fucking coffee onto you. 

“oh i’m soo sorry!! i didn’t mean to! you just moved too fast!” 

she’s so hilariously fake that you just stand there with an incredulous smile. your head cocked to the side and your eye twitching. she’s an extremely pretty girl and you’re in complete shock that she’d do this for a man. 

does she think this is a webtoon or something? in what universe does this even happen??? 

in your peripheral vision, you can see geum seongje isn’t even trying to hide his giddiness. as if so amused, he’s about to start laughing in the middle of the library. the library that still hasn’t go silent in shock. the world carrying on as if any of this is normal. 

you fight down the rage building inside of you as you calmly bend down to grab your backpack. putting your lovely $200 laptop into the sleeve in your bag. she’s giggling and holds her hand out to seongje so they can probably go fuck in his room. 

then you grasp the neck of the starbucks bottled frappuccino in your back pack and twist the cap off. chucking the entire bottle onto the girl who “spilled her coffee on you”. her gasp rings out in the entire library and her half full coffee trembles in her grasp. 

it stains her matching blouse and skirt. some of it even getting on her face. the brown matching the stain on your own clothes. 

you hear geum seongje break out into the loudest cackles you’ve heard in the last 20 minutes. something snaps in you and you snatch the girl’s half empty plastic cup from her manicured fingers. throwing the entire rest of it onto geum seongje, notorious dickhead on campus. 

he goes silent almost immediately as you shove the plastic cup back at the girl. the entire front of his designer jacket stained now too. you grab your backpack and storming out of the library, your fingers balled into fists. not interested to see if the library actually went silent that time. 

why are you genuinely in a D rate k-drama now? 

this is all geum seongje’s fault. 

…

“you mad?” 

“no i’m totally fine with the fact your one night stand loves sucking your dick to the point she threw coffee on me. what kind of question is that?!” 

“don’t get your panties in a twist. i was making conversation.” 

you have no fucking idea why he thought it was a good idea to follow you after you left the library. he had sidled up next to you on the sidewalk while whistling. the wind is blowing against your clothes and it’s making the liquid even colder against your skin. 

you just want to get back to your dorm but there’s an annoying child following you. when you snapped and asked what he wanted, he shrugged. but you could see veins popping out the side of his head. he must be a little pissed off. just a little. 

then he grabs your wrist and drags you in the direction of the business dorms. dubbed the name because they’re close to the business buildings. which is in the complete opposite direction of your dorm. 

you are going to rip your hair out. 

well, no one is going to come save you. other guys in frats steer clear of seongje because he gets irritated so easily and fights like a maniac. you’ve seen it on snapchat (a fundamental part of college socializing). some guys posted him fighting another dude from a frat and he was laughing the entire time. 

so you just keep up with his long legs as he drags you across campus. every so often trying to run away but he pulls you back with an irritated smile. even pulling your hair to drag you back. 

“is it that time of the month or some shit? stop fucking running.” 

“wow, it’s a wonder girls fucking like you. violent, misogynistic, and forcing girls to do things. you’re like the perfect trad husband!” 

the laugh that leaves his lips is still infuriated but tinged with amusement. his hair even more messed up as his lips hold a cigarette between them. you don’t know how he even got it in his mouth and lit it with one hand but you’re more focused on making it out of here in one piece. 

but he drags you along like a disgruntled veterinarian with a feral cat. 

…

when you’re shoved into the dorm room of your oh so esteemed partner, it seemed oddly clean. your own building was full of hooligans and you’re sure that their rooms weren’t any better. the freaks there made sure of it… 

(your first example is the guy who has satin red bedsheets. what kind of bedroom is that? the dominatrix dungeon?) 

but geum seongje’s room seemed clean. he shared his room with someone else obviously, you can tell from the difference in decoration. 

or lack there of.

there were some stares from people at his dorm and when they tried to ask seongje how he was doing, he spat his cigarette out and stomped on it on the carpet. all while still dragging you by his wrist. 

“don’t you see i’m fucking busy? fucking idiots.”

oh the bystander effect is going to kill you. 

so you step onto the elevator with a poor girl trying to politely look away as you and geum seongje bark at each other. both of your outfits tinged in coffee and it overpowers the dingy elevator. he punches the 4th floor and the girl trips over herself to get off at the second floor. 

now here you are. 

one side of the room has posters of singers that people of his kind would probably like. fucking EDM that frat boys blast in your dorm and some rap artists. there’s a big ass speaker on the floor next to his bed. 

you’re like 90% sure he’s the frat boy who blasts the EDM music here. 

the other side looks pretty bare. the bed isn’t even neat with being bare. it’s just bare. you start debating in your own head if seongje actually sleeps on both beds and pretends he’s homeless. said boy flops down on the bed that somehow has designer sheets. you wonder how that’s possible but it’s tacky all the same. 

when you take too long to sit down, he clicks his tongue and nods to his desk. ah, it’s on the side that has a frat flag hung up on the wall. you should’ve known. of course seongje is the frat guy. when you look on the desk, there’s a bowl full of condoms he probably stole from the health center. 

ugh. 

“what? annoyed because you thought i’d be dirty?” 

“she’s probably annoyed ‘cause you’re annoying as fuck, shit for brains.”

a more raspy voice deadpans. you didn’t even realize the door had opened. your disgust with geum seongje making you deaf to all other noise. your maybe ex group partner leaned back and when you turned your head, you were greeted with a new character. 

a very purple character…

his hair seems more unkempt than your obnoxious group mate. it ruffs out at the sides and it curls onto his forehead. it’s dyed purple all the way through, you’re impressed at how violet the color is. his stature is shorter than geum seongje but still taller than you. 

he’s wearing a KANZO long sleeve with gym shorts. he’s wearing KANZO strapped shoes as well. how good does the brand have to be that he gets the shoes as well? you have no fucking idea. his knuckles are taped with bandages that disappear under his sleeves. 

he walks into the room with no exaggerated swagger like seongje does. he just walks in with a hand stuffed in his pocket and the other holding his phone. he has headphones pulled down around his neck as he haphazardly throws them onto his bed. 

geum seongje leans back on his bed and sighs loudly. stretching his back as you stand there between the two beds on either side of the room. his presumed roommate ignoring your presence in favor of putting down the duffle bag that was slung across his shoulder. 

“not very romantic, wolf~ don’t you see i have a guest? play nice.”

“piss off.” 

you lowkey disgusted by the vast amounts of testosterone assaulting the atmosphere. you don’t recognize his roommate but he seems to not like geum seongje very much. and did he say his name was wolf? is that his actual name? 

your thoughts are running with questions for the new guy in the room when he turns to you. he doesn’t bother looking anywhere but in your eyes. as if you’re not worth the effort of moving his pupils.  

“get the fuck out.” 

you’re taken aback by how blunt he is. his face not emoting anything you’re familiar with other than general stoicism. he’s rolled up his sleeves and is unwinding the tape going up his arms. you can see gnarly bruises decorating his arms and it’s then you realize he has white bandages on his neck and the side of his jaw. 

did this dude get run through a meat grinder or something?

you hear seongje mutter something about his “stupid fucking roommate” before picking his head up. 

“i invited her, she stays.” 

“i don’t remember asking.” 

you’re about to walk out yourself because seongje did drag you here against your will. when wolf is about to shove you out of the room, seongje stands up from his bed and goes in front of you. he’s three inches taller than wolf but wolf doesn’t crumble under the height difference. holding a flat face as seongje grins down at him. 

you think you’re seeing two wolves fighting for dominance in this small ass dorm room. over… your presence????

wow you must really be in a manhwa right now. 

you drop your backpack onto the floor and seongje whips his head around to look at you. you don’t pay any mind to their expressions or their presence despite the fact this definitely isn’t your room. you shrug off your jacket that has coffee splattered on the sleeves. 

and proceed to pull the edge of your shirt and lift it over your head. you hear geum seongje let out a breathless laugh. you remove the shirt off your back with a slide of your arms. which leaves you in your black bra. 

you don’t spare either of the men in the room a glance as you stomp over to the closet on seongje’s side. throwing it open, you shuffle around until you find what you’re looking for. 

“what the fuck are you doing?” 

you don’t reply as you keep looking around. and there in the back, you grab what you were looking for.you shove the red racing jacket over your arms and zip it up. it drowns your figure but you’re stubborn enough to not care. you pick up your stained jacket and shirt and shove it at seongje’s chest. 

he stares down at you wearing a jacket he doesn’t even let his hookups wear. his lips twitching from a grimace into a very pissed off smile. wolf watching with slightly raised eyebrows. 

“wash my fucking clothes. it’s your stupid ass hook up’s fault anyway.” 

“why the fuck should i?” 

you give him a stare before throwing the clothes onto his bed. 

“okay. bye.” 

wolf blinks as you pick your backpack off the floor and leave their room. the laugh that leaves his lips hasn’t been heard since his friend hwangmo got his new haircut two months ago. geum seongje whips his head around and his ears are tinged pink. 

wolf flops onto his bed, still laughing at the expense of his roommate. as if it was the funniest thing he’d ever seen in his life. 

“what a funny girl.” 

seongje only grits his teeth as he runs his hands down his face. slumping into his desk chair. 

“fucking annoying.” 

⏔⏔⏔ ꒰ ᧔ෆ᧓ ꒱ ⏔⏔⏔

The meeting is scheduled for ten o'clock. By nine fifty-eight you are already seated in the conference room on the fourteenth floor with a paper cup of coffee going cold between your palms, watching the door.

You’re nervous.

Eight months ago, the other four members of Blossom terminated their contracts and walked out of this building with their personal items in paper bags. You watched them go from the window of this exact floor. The label had offered a restructured deal and they had declined it, collectively and without much deliberation, and then they had looked at you in the hallway outside the legal team's office with an expression you have spent eight months trying not to think about too precisely.

You did not leave with them. The label's restructured deal had your name on a separate clause, and the penalties attached to that clause were a number that made your vision go briefly white when you read it. So you stayed, and now you are a solo artist with eight months of rejected concept submissions and a debut that the label needs to happen before the end of the fiscal quarter.

The concept submissions are not bad. You know they are not bad. Sunshine, Sunshine has a key change in the bridge that your vocal coach called exciting, which is the most enthusiastic thing your vocal coach has said about anything in three years. The production team said it was charming.

Chansung, the label's head of A&R, is at the head of the table rearranging his papers. Your manager Jisoo is beside you reviewing something on her tablet. Two junior A&R staff sit at the far end of the table with their laptops open, speaking quietly to each other about something that stops the moment you glance at them.

Everyone in this room knows something you don't know yet. You can feel it in the particular quality of their helpfulness this morning, the way Chansung offered you coffee twice and then apologized for the cups being paper.

"He's particular about punctuality," Chansung says, to no one specifically.

"It's ten oh four," you say.

The door opens.

Keum Seongje is not what the industry photographs suggest. The photographs present him as angular and composed, all sharp jaw and expensive neutrals. In person he takes up more space than his frame should allow. He’s wearing a grey hoodie with the cuffs pushed up and glasses that cost more than your monthly vocal coaching sessions. He has a coffee cup from the place two blocks over, which means he stopped somewhere on the way here and did not hurry.

He sits down without greeting anyone. He opens his laptop and reads something on the screen. He does not apologize for the time.

Chansung clears his throat. "Seongje, thank you for making the trip. We're very glad to have you on board for this project. As I mentioned in the brief, we're looking at a solo debut for our artist here, building on the fanbase she established with Blossom, and we thought given your track record with image repositioning that you might have some interesting-“

"Play it," Seongje says.

Chansung stops mid-sentence. "Sorry?"

"The submission." He sets his phone face-down on the table. "Play it."

Chansung looks at you. You pull out your own phone, connect it to the room speaker, and press play. Sunshine, Sunshine fills the conference room. The opening is bright and synth-driven. Your vocal sits high in the mix, clean and controlled. The key change arrives at two minutes and twelve seconds, right on schedule.

Seongje listens with his elbow on the table and two fingers pressed against his mouth. He stares at a fixed point slightly above the speaker like the music is a document he is reading rather than something meant to be felt.

The track ends. Thirty-two seconds of silence follow it.

"No," he says.

Chansung shifts in his seat. "The key change in the bridge was something we were particularly excited about, the production team felt it added a real sense of-“

"It's not bad. It’s just not right,” Seongje says. He finally looks at you. "Sing something for me."

You blink. "The track is right there."

"I heard the track." He gestures vaguely at the speaker. "Sing something. Anything. Whatever you were singing this morning."

Your manager Jisoo makes a small sound beside you.

"I wasn't singing this morning," you say.

"Then yesterday. Whenever you last sang something because you wanted to, not because someone was recording it."

You think of the voice memo you recorded at two in the morning three weeks ago, sitting on your bathroom floor because the acoustics were good and you couldn't sleep and there was a melody circling your head that wouldn't resolve. Then you look at this room full of people and you sing four bars of Sunshine, Sunshine instead, a cappella, just to give him something to work with.

"Lower," he says.

"It's written for my range."

"I'm not asking about the song. Drop it an octave and do it again."

The melody transforms into something your chest has to work for, something that sits in the back of your throat rather than the front of it. Four bars. Twelve seconds, maybe.

Seongje is very still.

Then he picks up his pen, writes two words on the notepad in front of him, and turns it to face Chansung.

"What does it say?” you ask.

Neither of them answers immediately, which is its own answer.

"What does it say?" you repeat.

Chansung turns the notepad toward you.

Sexy concept.

The silence that follows is the loudest thing that has happened in this room all morning.

"No," you immediately refuse.

"Yes," Seongje says, already writing something else.

"That is not what we discussed. You can’t just-“

"Your submission was written for a group," Seongje says, without looking up. "Four other voices, a concept that only works as a unit. What I just heard from you in that octave has nothing to do with Blossom. That belongs to you."

"I can't pull off sexy." The words come out before you can arrange them better.

"I didn't ask if you could pull it off."

"Because you are not the one who has to."

"Chansung." He caps his pen and looks straight at you. "Play me her fancam from the Inkigayo performance last March."

Chansung pulls it up on his laptop and turns the screen. You know the one. You know every frame of it. You were in the center, the camera finding you every eight counts, and you were doing exactly what the choreographer told you to do, which was be bright and accessible and pleasing.

Seongje watches twelve seconds of it and stops the video.

"That part." He points at the frozen frame. "Right there. You dropped the smile for exactly two seconds because you were listening to the bass line change." He taps the screen. "That is not a cute concept face. You made that face because the music did something to you and you forgot to perform for a second."

Your throat tightens.

"Oh," says one of the junior A&R staff at the end of the table, very quietly, like something has clicked into place for him.

"Oh my god," says the other one, slightly louder.

Chansung is nodding the way he nods when he is already composing the press release in his head.

"It suits her perfectly," the first staff member says. "Why didn't we ever-“

"Because you were looking at what she was doing instead of what she was about to do.” Seongje picks up his coffee. “I will take the full project."

"I am in the room," you say.

"I know," he says.

I haven't agreed to anything." The words come out sharper than you intended but you can’t help it. This stranger showed up four minutes late and now he thinks he can dissect your entire career in one sentence. You have been doing this for five years. Your image has been carefully constructed and maintained through comeback after comeback. No producer who couldn’t even arrive on time should be able to unravel it this quickly.

The protest sits on your tongue ready to be spoken. Except the bass line change from the Inkigayo stage is still lodged somewhere in your chest like a physical object. The way your voice sounded in that lower octave has not stopped replaying in your head since you heard the recording. A terrible suspicion creeps in that he knows exactly what both of those things are doing to you right now, that he can see the curiosity you are trying to bury under professional skepticism.

Your gaze shifts to Chansung for backup or at least solidarity.

Chansung’s posture has relaxed. One hand rests on the table near the portfolio like he is already planning which photos to use for the concept shoot. The betrayal of it makes your jaw tighten.

"Fine," you say. The word tastes like defeat. "But I want approval rights on the final direction."

Seongje has already turned back to his notepad before you finish speaking. His pen moves across the page in quick efficient strokes. Notes get added to whatever framework he has been building this entire meeting.

"Sure," he says without looking up. The tone carries the easy agreement of someone who has no intention of honoring what they just promised, like he is humoring a child who thinks they have negotiating power.

Your fingers curl against your thigh under the table where no one can see.

────୨ৎ────

The second meeting is in the same conference room, which you are beginning to resent on principle.

Seongje arrives on time. The punctuality gives you nothing to be quietly annoyed about before things officially begin. He sets his laptop on the table and pulls a small portable drive from his jacket pocket. The drive slides across the table toward you.

"Reference tracks," he says. "Listen to all of them before you say anything."

You don’t even bother reaching for the drive. "Good morning to you too."

He opens his laptop without acknowledging the comment.

Chansung has developed a new habit of sitting precisely between the two of you like a human buffer. He clears his throat now and attempts to restore some semblance of professional courtesy. "Today we are narrowing down the creative direction. Seongje has prepared some references, and we thought it would be useful to-"

"I have references too," you say. Your own laptop opens and the screen turns toward Seongje. A mood board you spent four hours building last night fills the display. Clean lines and soft lighting create something that walks the border between the image you have and the image they want. It’s a version of the concept that does not require you to become someone unrecognizable. "This is what I think we could be working toward."

Seongje glances at it for approximately three seconds.

"No," he says.

"You looked at it for three seconds."

"I didn't need longer." He nods at the drive still sitting in front of you. "Listen to the references."

The drive gets picked up. You put it in your laptop and open the first file with more force than necessary.

The track is nothing like what you expected. Slow and low, it builds around a bass line that takes up more space than the melody does. The vocal sample sitting on top is not pretty in any conventional sense. The voice sounds like it has been somewhere and came back changed.

You close the file after ninety seconds.

"That is not my style," you say.

"Not yet," Seongje clarifies.

"Not ever. My fanbase is not going to follow me into whatever that is." The gesture you make toward the laptop encompasses the entire concept he seems to be building.

"Your fanbase followed Blossom. Blossom doesn't exist anymore. You are building a new fanbase. The old one is a bonus if it comes along, not a blueprint."

The junior A&R staff are very still at the end of the table. Nobody seems to be breathing.

"I have two hundred thousand people who have followed my career for five years," you huff, suddenly angry. "That’s the foundation of everything the label has invested in, and if we alienate them with a complete image overhaul then we’re gambling with the only one I have."

Seongje glances at Chansung. "She's not wrong about the risk."

You blink, surprised he even had the ability to agree with you.

"She's wrong about the solution," he continues. You sigh. You knew it was too good to be true.

His hands pull the laptop toward himself and open the second reference file. "The answer isn’t to stay inside the old image to keep the old audience. The answer is a transition that gives the existing audience somewhere to go."

He turns the screen toward you. A chart fills the display with streaming numbers across a three-year period. The artist whose name you recognize stares back from a thumbnail photo. "She had a cute concept for four years before doing a full pivot at twenty-three. She lost thirty percent of her casual listeners in the first month but gained them back within a quarter, plus the new audience on top. The music was good enough that people followed it."

"She isn’t me," you argue.

"Correct. Her voice is less interesting than yours."

The room goes quiet in a different way than it has before. The junior A&R staff exchange glances.

"You don't know my voice well enough to say that. You heard me sing for twelve seconds in this room last week." The compliment feels fake coming from him.

"Fourteen seconds," he says. "And yes, I do."

"That is exactly my point. You don’t know me. You walked in here with a decision already made based on fourteen seconds and a fancam.”

"Then what do you actually want?" He closes the laptop. His full attention lands on you and it carries an uncomfortable weight. "Not what's safe or what keeps the label happy. What do you want the music to do when someone hears it?"

"I want people to feel something," you say. The answer is true but also a lie at the same time.

He looks at you for a long moment while his expression remains unchanged. "That's not an answer. That's what everyone wants. Try again."

"I don't have a better answer for you right now." Your hands flatten against the table on either side of your laptop.

"Then we have a problem," he says as his coffee cup lifts to his mouth without him drinking from it yet. "I can't build a direction around an artist who doesn't know what she wants the music to be."

"I know what I want it to be. I want it to be..." The words trail off as you stop yourself mid-sentence. The mood board is still open on your laptop and your eyes drop to it. "I want it to feel like me."

"The mood board doesn't feel like you." He sets the cup down.

"You don't know what feels like me." The defensiveness in your voice has become obvious now. "What do you even want from me?"

Seongje leans back in his chair and the leather creaks under his weight. "For you to stop performing in the studio."

"I am a performer. That is literally what I do for a living." Your spine straightens in response.

"That’s it. You perform for the crowd, not for yourself," he corrects. "The music I'm building will not work if the person singing it is managing everyone else's reaction to her the whole time.”

“That’s a very easy thing to say to someone whose entire career was built on being likable," you scoff.

"I’m not asking you to change your identity. I am asking you to separate your music from it,” he continues. "The problem is that you think your music has to be your identity and that every song you release has to represent the totality of who you are as a person. The music is part of you, not all of you.”

You have no idea what to say to him or how to argue against something that makes this much sense. Every meeting with him goes like this. You walk in prepared for one conversation and he tilts the entire axis of it before you realize what is happening. The ground keeps shifting beneath you and you keep losing your footing.

His laptop opens and the sound of keys clicking fills the quiet as he types something. A few seconds pass before a soft chime indicates an email being sent.

"I just sent you the rest of the references," he says while his eyes stay on his screen. "Listen to all of them before our next session. Pay attention to how the music makes you feel.”

You pull out your phone once everyone leaves and open the email to find six audio files attached. The subject line reads simply: "Listen with headphones."

You download the first file.

────୨ৎ────

The references he sends are forty-three minutes of music you would never have found yourself.

You listen to all of them sitting cross-legged on your studio apartment floor with your laptop open and the lights off because somehow the dark makes it easier to hear things properly. Track after track, the same aesthetic running through all of them like a thread pulled tight. Low tempos, with negative space in the production where most music would fill in the gaps.

You listen to the whole thing twice. Then you sit in the dark for a while.

The problem is not that the music is bad. The problem, the one you cannot say out loud in a conference room, is that it makes sense. Not for the image you have built and maintained for five years or for the fanbase that knows your name because of synchronized choreography and matching pastel outfits, but for something inside you that you have carefully buried inside you when the label first told you to do a cute concept.

You open a new browser tab and sit there for a moment. Then you type: clubs in Mapo idols frequent.

It takes you twenty minutes to get ready. You tell yourself this is a reasonable and professional thing to do, gathering information, field-testing a concept before committing to it in a studio with Geum Seongje watching you through the glass. If you walk into a room dressed the way his references suggest and nobody looks at you, then you will have concrete evidence that the concept does not work. Concrete evidence is something even he cannot argue with.

The cab drops you outside at eleven-fifteen. Inside, the music is bass-heavy and continuous, and the lighting is dark enough that your eyes take a moment to adjust.

You find a spot at the bar and order something without tasting it.

This is the part where you did not think far enough ahead. In the version of this plan that existed in your apartment with the lights off, you walked in and either things happened or they didn't and you had your answer. You didn’t account for the specific loneliness of standing alone at a bar in a club at eleven-fifteen on a Wednesday, nursing a drink you don't want, performing casualness for an audience of nobody.

Blossom used to come to places like this together. All five of you in a corner booth, Jiyeon ordering for everyone, Haerin stealing fries from the platter, the particular noise of four other people who knew your face without the stage makeup on. You hadn’t thought about that in a while. You think about it now, standing here alone. You finish your drink and order another one.

The second drink is when he sits down.

He’s attractive in a generic, well-maintained way, wearing a shirt that costs money. He smiles at you with the confidence of someone who does not often hear no.

"You've been standing here alone for twenty minutes," he says, leaning slightly toward you to clear the music.

"I'm aware," you say.

"That seems like a waste." He flags the bartender. "Let me get you something."

"I have something." You hold up your glass.

"Then let me get you something better." His smile doesn't shift. "I feel like you could use the company."

You’re deciding how to handle this when a hand settles at the small of your back.

"She's good," says a voice beside your ear.

You go completely still.

Seongje is looking at the man on the stool with the mild, unhurried attention he gives everything, glasses catching the bar light, one hand still at your back and the other wrapped around what appears to be his own drink. He looks like he belongs here in a way, the complete opposite image of how out of place you feel.

The man on the stool reads the situation in about four seconds. His smile stays but the confidence behind it drains out. "My bad," he says, and picks up his drink and leaves.

Seongje's hand drops from your back and leaves the space where it was feeling suddenly cold.

You turn to look at him but he is already facing forward with his elbow on the bar. His attention focuses on the middle distance like none of the last thirty seconds happened.

"What are you doing here?" you say.

"Having a drink." He takes a sip of whatever he's drinking and the ice clinks against the glass.

"Here specifically."

"It's a bar. They have drinks here." His tone suggests this should be obvious. He turns his head and looks at you with an expression that differs from the conference room version of him. The club lighting does something to the sharp lines of his face and softens the edges just enough that he reads like a different person standing in the same body.

"Go home," he says.

"I was here first." Your grip tightens on your glass.

"I know." He looks at you for one more moment that lasts long enough for you to feel it in your sternum before he looks away again. "Go home. This place isn’t for you."

You set your glass down on the bar with more force than necessary. The sound of it hitting the wood makes the bartender glance over. "This place doesn't suit me? You picked a sexy concept for me."

"I know." He swirls the liquid in his glass and watches it move.

"Both those things can’t be true," you say slowly in the way you speak when you are trying very hard not to raise your voice.

"They are. You just don't understand how yet." His fingers tap once against his glass in a rhythm that matches the bass line bleeding through the speakers.

The laugh that comes out of you is not polite. Several people at the bar nearby glance over in your direction. Seongje closes two fingers lightly around your wrist. He pulls you away from the bar without any particular urgency but with clear purpose.

"What are you doing?" You pull back against his grip but he is already moving. "I’m not going anywhere with you."

"You're making a scene." He navigates through the crowd like he knows exactly where he is going.

"I’m whispering."

"You're whispering loudly." He steers you down a short corridor off the main floor before stopping at a door marked Private which he opens without knocking.

The room inside is small and dim, with a lounge arrangement that sits empty. The door closes behind you both and the bass from outside drops to a low thrum through the walls. The sudden quiet makes your ears ring.

"You brought me into a private room in a club." Your arms cross over your chest defensively.

"You were about to get loud." He leans against the wall like he has all the time in the world.

You point at him with one hand while the other stays wrapped around your elbow. "Pervert."

"You came here to prove you couldn't pull it off," he says, seeing right through your plan.

"I was trying to understand the concept," you argue.

"The concept isn't about being in a place like this," he says. "It's not a club concept. What I sent you, those references, did any of them feel like this?"

He gestures vaguely at the walls, the muffled thump of the music outside.

"No," you admit, quietly and with great reluctance.

"You were trying to test the wrong thing." He pushes off the wall. "You can't field-test this in a club. It doesn't live here."

"You are still a pervert for bringing me in here,” you turn to leave, because suddenly all of the exhaustion from the night hits you all at once.

"There was a bouncer twelve feet away the entire time."

"A pervert with backup," you say, and push open the door before he can respond.

The bass hits you immediately, full volume, and you walk back through the club and out the front door into the cold without looking back. The cab you call takes four minutes and you spend all four of them standing on the pavement in the black dress telling yourself the heat in your face is from the noise inside and not from anything else.

────୨ৎ────

Three more concept meetings happen in the following two weeks, each one shorter than the last. The direction is set. The aesthetic is what it is.

His studio is in Mapo, on the fourth floor of a building that looks like it should contain a dental practice or a mid-tier accounting firm. There is no label signage anywhere. The directory in the lobby lists the fourth floor as a private recording space with no company name attached, just a unit number, which tells you something about the kind of person who works here. His name is not on anything.

The door code he texts you the night before is eight digits. You stand in the hallway and type it in and feel, for no reason you can justify, like you are entering somewhere you were not entirely meant to find.

The studio is not what you pictured. There’s a long desk crowded with two monitors, an audio interface, and a keyboard controller pushed to the far edge to make room for a legal pad covered in handwriting you cannot read from the doorway. Cables are bundled and labeled with small pieces of tape. Three empty coffee cups are lined up along the windowsill. One of the monitors has a sticky note on the bezel that says fix the low end on 3 in what you assume is his handwriting.

Seongje is at the desk with his back to you, headphones around his neck, clicking through something on the left monitor. He does not turn around.

"Sit down," he says.

The only other chair in the room is pushed against the far wall. You pull it up to the desk and sit.

He finishes what he is doing, rolls his chair slightly to the right, and pulls up a project file on the right monitor. The waveforms are dense, layered, more tracks stacked than you expected for something still in the working phase. He has been in here building this for a while. You look at the file name at the top of the screen.

YN_titletrack_v9.

Version nine.

"Instrumental first," he says. "Don't say anything until it's done." He hits play.

The track comes through the studio monitors. It’s different from what you’ve been hearing his references through laptop speakers for the past two weeks. The sub-bass sits below your hearing and registers in your sternum instead, a low persistent pressure that you feel before you consciously process it as sound. The opening is sparse, the bass and a hi-hat pattern land slightly behind the beat in a way that makes your body want to lean forward into the rhythm.

Then the melody comes in. It’s softer than the instrumental suggests it should be, sitting in a middle register that has room and warmth to it. There’s a moment in the pre-chorus where the bass drops out entirely for two counts.

The chorus builds slowly. It deepens, adding texture in layers, the melody folding into a lower harmony that runs underneath it and pulls the whole thing somewhere more serious than it started.

The second verse is tighter than the first. He has compressed something in the arrangement, pulled the space in slightly, and the effect is the feeling of something closing around you. The bridge strips everything back to the bass and a single vocal line, unharmonized, and the nakedness of it after the layered chorus is the most affecting thing the track does. It is over in eight bars and when the final chorus comes back in you feel the loss of that space immediately.

The track ends on a single sustained note that fades.

"It's good." The admission requires no effort because it is simply and completely true, and dressing it up would be embarrassing for both of you. "It's very good."

Something in his posture settles. Not pride or satisfaction in the way you expected it would look on him but more like the quiet release of a tension he was not visibly carrying.

He pulls up a new document on the left monitor and turns it toward you. "This one’s still a working draft. Nothing is locked."

You lean forward. The title track is called Under Your Skin.

The first verse opens cleanly, the language restrained, almost domestic in its specificity.

You leave your things on my side of the room Like you're marking something Like you already know I don't mind, I don't mind That's the part I can't say out loud

You read it twice. It’s not explicit per say. Implication is more effective than statement, and the restraint of the first verse makes the turn in the pre-chorus land harder than it would have otherwise.

I've been good at keeping distance You make it look so easy to close it Come here, I said, come here

The repetition of come here sits in your chest the same way the bridge of the instrumental did, stripped and direct. You keep your face very still. The chorus arrives and the track stops being careful.

I want to get under your skin Find the parts you don't let anyone near Stay there I want to stay there Tell me where it hurts I'll learn every single one

The second verse deepens what the first established. The language is still not technically explicit but it has stopped pretending to be innocent, the domestic specificity of the opening replaced by something more physical.

You run warm, always warm I notice everything The way you breathe when you're trying not to show it I notice everything

The bridge has four lines.

Don't tell me to be careful Don't tell me to slow down You've been watching me the whole time We both know what this is

You finish reading and sit back in your chair and look at the ceiling for a moment.

"It's still good." You look back at the monitor. "It's also very."

"Very," he repeats, waiting.

You gesture at the screen. "You’ve written a song about sex."

He leans back in his chair. "The reading is up to the listener."

"Seongje." You point at the screen. "Explain to me how that is suggestive and not explicit."

He reads it again with the genuine focus of someone considering the question seriously. "It could be about emotional vulnerability."

"It’s obviously not."

"You're being a prude."

"I am being a professional." You sit up straighter. "I agreed to sexy. Not to whatever the bridge is doing."

He looks at you for a long moment. "Are you actually going to be able to sing this?"

"I can sing it."

"You look like you've never heard a song with a double meaning before." He tilts his head slightly. The studio lighting catches the edge of his glasses. "You're not seriously this sheltered. You've been in the industry for five years."

"Being in the industry for five years does not mean—"

"I'm just saying." He leans back in his chair. "You're acting like a virgin."

The word lands in the room and sits there. You open your mouth, unable to stop yourself from gaping at him.

"It was a joke," he scoffs, already turning back to the monitor. "Calm down."

"I know it was a joke."

"You're very red."

"It’s warm in here."

"The temperature is fine." He scrolls through the lyrics. "Look at the second verse, the meter is what I actually want your opinion on—"

"I'm not a virgin," you say.

The scrolling stops.

He turns his chair very slowly and looks at you. You avoid eye contact. The back of your neck is hot. You said it too fast and too loud, with the specific energy of someone who has proven the exact opposite of what they intended to prove. You know it, and he knows it.

"Okay," he talks to you in the same tone you would use with a toddler throwing a tantrum.

“The second verse,” you change the topic. “You wanted my opinion on the meter.”

He’s quiet for a moment. When he speaks again, his voice has lost its usual edges. “I shouldn’t have said that. It was a cheap joke.”

You weren’t expecting this. Three weeks of meetings have taught you to anticipate his deflections. You don’t know what to do with this plain acknowledgment. The lack of performance disarms you more than the apology itself.

“It’s fine,” you manage.

He accepts this with a small nod and turns back to the monitor. “The third line in the second verse runs long. Tell me if it feels natural to sing or if it needs cutting.”

You pull your chair closer to the screen and read the third line of the second verse.

You run warm, always warm

It sits cleanly in the melody in your head. The problem is not the meter. The problem is that the line means something different than it did sixty seconds ago, and Keum Seongje is eighteen inches away waiting for your professional opinion.

"It's fine," you say, in a perfectly level voice.

"Agreed," he nods and opens the next file.

────୨ৎ────

The break happens at a natural pause, him switching between project files and you reaching the limit of how long you can read suggestive lyrics with your face arranged into something professional. He gets up to deal with the coffee situation, which apparently involves a small machine on the shelf behind the desk that he operates with the quiet focus of someone who does this exact thing at the same time every day.

You roll your chair back and stretch your neck.

"I want to see the rest."

"Sure," he says, and sits back down.

He opens the second file and turns the monitor toward you.

The title is two words. Taste Test.

You read the title. You set your coffee cup down.

"That's just the title," he says.

You read the actual lyrics. You read them twice because the first time through you are not entirely certain you are parsing the Korean correctly, and the second time confirms that you are.

"I need a moment," you say.

You stand up and walk to the far side of the room and stand there with your hands on your hips facing the wall for approximately ten seconds. The wall has a small framed print on it, abstract, which you study with great attention while you locate your professionalism. Then you walk back and sit down.

"Next one," you say.

He opens the third file. Get Closer.

The opening line is deceptively simple. Four words, nothing technically explicit, but sitting inside the melody he has built for it in your head they land with a weight that is considerably more than the sum of their parts. You read the first verse without incident. You read the second verse. You get four lines into the bridge.

Don't keep the door between us You know I can hear you breathing Come here, just come here Stop pretending you don't want this too

You stand up. You make it to the door this time before you turn around. Seongje watches the entire thing with his elbow on the desk and his chin resting in his hand, expression unreadable.

You walk back. You sit down. "All of them," you say. "Just show me all of them at once."

He opens tracks four, five, and six in sequence and pushes the monitor toward you without a word.

Track four is called Running Hot and opens with two lines that make the back of your neck prickle immediately.

You run warm, I run warmer Come find out what that means

The chorus of track four does not bother with implication.

Track five is called After Hours and is structured as a conversation, call and response, the kind of song that requires two people to perform it.

Track six is called Stay and is the quietest thing in the folder, slower than the others.

You read all three without getting up, which you consider a genuine personal achievement, though by the end of track six you are sitting with your elbows on the desk and your face pressed into both palms.

The room is quiet. Down the hall, something from another studio moves through the walls at low volume.

"I'll edit them," Seongje says.

You lift your face. "What?"

"The other tracks. Pull the language back on a few of them." He is already opening the second file. "The title track is close to final but the rest have room to—"

"Don't."

He stops.

You look at track six still open on the screen. Stay is sitting there in plain text and the last two lines are still doing something to the inside of your chest that you are not going to examine right now. "These work. All of them. Don't water them down because I made a face."

He says nothing for a beat. Then, carefully: "I just want to make sure we're on the same page. Because two weeks ago-"

"I am aware of what I said two weeks ago." You pick up your coffee. "I am updating my position. People are allowed to do that."

He looks at you for one more moment, the corner of his mouth doing the thing you have started to recognize as the closest he gets to laughing, and then he turns back to his keyboard.

"Meter on the bridge of track two," he says. "It runs long."

You pull up Taste Test and read the bridge again. The bridge is still the bridge. You read it with professional detachment and only minimal damage to your composure. "Last four words. They're dead weight."

He makes the note.

"Track three, second verse, line five," you say. "Syllable count is off against the instrumental. You can hear it even when reading it cold."

He leans over and reads it, then pulls up the instrumental file and plays the section in question. Twelve seconds of music fills the room, the bass sitting in your chest the same way it did on the first listen. He stops it and makes a note. "Good catch."

"The call and response structure on track five," you say. "Is that intentional or a draft thing?"

"Intentional."

You look at the lyrics for After Hours on the screen. "That requires two voices. Are you planning a feature?"

"Something like that," he says, which is not an answer .

The session continues. Track four remains exactly as written. You read the chorus of Running Hot two more times over the course of the afternoon for purely professional reasons, and by the third time the initial heat in your face has downgraded to something that is almost, almost manageable.

Almost.

────୨ৎ────

The booth is smaller than it looks from the other side of the glass. You put the headphones on. Through the glass Seongje settles into his chair at the board, pulls the monitor toward him, and his voice comes through the cans a moment later, close and direct in a way that is slightly disorienting.

"Warm up first. Anything."

You run through your scales. Your voice sounds different here than it does in any rehearsal room you have worked in, the acoustic treatment catching every detail.

"Good," he says, when you finish. "Take it from the top of the first verse. Just the verse, don't push into the pre-chorus yet."

You find the melody in your head and come in on the count.

The problem is the bridge.

Specifically the third line of the bridge, which reads simply as "I've been waiting so long I've forgotten how to want anything else", and which you have now sung fourteen times across two hours with results that Seongje has described, in order, as: too bright, too controlled, too performed, too careful, too much like a ballad, too much like a jingle, and, most recently, too much like you are reading a grocery list.

"Again," he says, through the cans.

You breathe. You come in on the count.

Don't tell me to be careful Don't tell me to slow down I've been waiting so long I've forgotten how to want anything else We both know what this is

"Stop," he says.

"I know what the problem is,” You sigh, stopping him before he can start. “I don't know how to fix it."

"What does the line mean to you?" he asks.

"Wanting something for so long it becomes the whole of you," you answer. "Losing the ability to want anything else because the wanting has taken up all the available space."

"And have you ever wanted something like that?"

"That's not relevant," you say.

"It's the only relevant thing." He leans forward, elbows on the board. "The line requires a specific quality of longing. The particular feeling of something you have wanted for so long it has become structural, part of how you're built." He pauses. "If you haven't felt that you cannot fake it. The mic will hear the difference."

"I have felt longing before."

"Not like this," he says, and the certainty in it is not unkind but it is absolute. "This is not the longing of someone who is sad about missing something. This is the longing of someone who wants something long enough that the wanting has become its own kind of fever." He holds your gaze through the glass. "That is a very particular feeling and your voice does not have it yet."

The booth is very quiet.

"I don't have a reference point for it," your voice comes out quieter than you intended and more honest than you planned.

The studio is completely silent except for the low hum of the equipment.

You do not look up.

Through the glass you hear the subtle shift of his chair, the sound of him sitting back. He does not say anything for a long moment, long enough that you are constructing a full list of things he might say, all of them worse than the silence.

"That's the problem," he says finally. "I'm aware."

Another silence.

Then, in the same tone, unhurried and completely clinical: "I could give you that reference point."

Your first thought is that you misheard him. The headphones sometimes do something to consonants, compress them slightly. You have been in this booth for two hours and it’s possible that what he actually said was something logistical, something that your exhausted brain assembled incorrectly into the sentence you think you heard.

Your second thought is that you did not mishear him.

You look at him through the glass. His elbow is on the desk, face in its usual arrangement. He does not elaborate or follow it with anything that would tell you whether it is an offer or a producer solving a technical problem with the most direct available solution. The silence stretches.

You think about asking him to clarify. You construct the sentence in your head: what do you mean by that. Four words, professionally delivered, a reasonable request for clarification in a working context. You could say it. You should say it. You have the sentence fully assembled and ready.

He pushes his chair back, the casters rolling softly on the floor, and stands up. He doesn’t look at you as he walks around the console. He reaches for the door handle of the booth and you take a step back without meaning to, a purely physical response, your body making a decision slightly ahead of your brain.

The seal breaks with a soft thump of releasing pressure.

Suddenly he is in the booth with you. The small booth turns microscopic. He pulls the door closed behind him, and the world outside the glass ceases to matter.

He closes the distance in two deliberate steps. Now he’s standing in front of you, not touching, but the heat from his body is a tangible force. He looks down at you, his sharp eyes cataloging every micro-expression: the widening of your eyes, the quickening pulse in your throat, the way your fingers curl uselessly against the foam panel.

“You’re shaking,” he observes. His voice is lower here, without the mediation of the headphones.

“I’m not.”

“You are. Here.” He lifts a hand, fingertips stopping a centimeter from your throat. “And your breathing is all fucked up. You’re holding your breath, then taking these shallow little sips of air. You can’t sing like that.”

“I know how to breathe,” you whisper. The protest is pathetic.

“Do you?” He finally touches you. Just his index finger, under your chin, tilting your face up. The contact is electric, a jolt that travels straight down your spine. His skin is warm. “You know technique. You don’t know feeling. It’s a physical problem. So we solve it physically.”

His other hand comes up, palm flat against the panel beside your head, caging you in. You are surrounded by him.

“What are you doing?” The question is airless.

“Giving you a reference point.” His thumb strokes the corner of your mouth, a slow, deliberate pass. You do your best to resist leaning into the touch. “You said you lacked the experience. I’m providing the experience. Consider it vocal coaching, free of charge.”

He leans in. His mouth hovers near yours, sharing the same frantic air you’re exhaling. You’ve been kissed before, chaste, staged things for cameras or awkward, fumbling attempts in darkened vans. This is nothing like that.

“Have you ever been touched?” he asks, voice a rough murmur against your lips. You can’t speak. You shake your head, a tiny, shameful movement.

“Ever had a man’s hands on you? Here?” His thumb leaves your mouth and drifts down, tracing the column of your throat, over the frantic jump of your pulse, down to the neckline of your sweater. He hooks a finger in the fabric. “Or here?” His palm settles, heavy and warm, over the swell of your breast through the thick wool. You jerk as if scalded, a full-body flinch that he absorbs without moving.

“Fuck,” he breathes, and for the first time, the clinical edge slips, replaced by something darker, more intrigued. “You really are completely untouched.”

The humiliation is a hot wave. You squeeze your eyes shut.

“Don’t. Look at me.” He commands it. Your eyes fly open. “This isn’t something to be ashamed of. It just means every sensation is new. That’s what I need from you in there.” He nods toward the microphone. “That raw, unfiltered signal.”

His hand on your breast kneads once, slowly, and a shocked, thin sound escapes you. Your nipple tightens instantly under the layers of fabric. The sensation is utterly foreign, a line of pleasure that draws your belly tight.

“See?” He watches your face like a scientist. “That’s a physical response. You’re not supposed to think about it. Your body knows things your brain hasn’t caught up to yet.”

He drops his hand from your breast, and you almost whimper at the loss of contact, a reaction that horrifies you. But he’s not finished. His hands go to the hem of your oversized sweater. You grab his wrists, panic flaring.

“Wait—”

“Do you want to fix the bridge or not?” The question is brutal in its simplicity. It’s not about this. It’s about the song. It’s always about the song.

Your fingers loosen. You let your hands fall to your sides, clenched into helpless fists.

He pulls the sweater up and over your head in one smooth motion. The cool studio air hits your skin, and you cross your arms over your simple cotton bra.

“Stop hiding,” he says, and his hands wrap around your wrists, pulling your arms down to your sides. He bends his head, and his mouth finds the skin where your neck meets your shoulder. He bites.

The pain melts into a deep, throbbing heat that pools low in your abdomen. You feel yourself growing wet, a desperate betrayal between your legs.

“You like that,” he says against your skin. One of his hands releases your wrist and slides down your side, over the waistband of your jeans, to cup you between your legs. You buck against his hand, a shudder wracking your whole frame. Even through the denim, the pressure is intense and overwhelming.

“So sensitive,” he mutters. His fingers rub a slow, firm circle over the core of you. The friction is maddening. Your hips jerk, seeking more, and a ragged moan is torn from your throat. “There it is. That’s the sound. That’s the fucking sound I need on the track.”

He unbuttons your jeans. The zipper’s rasp is obscenely loud. He shoves the fabric down over your hips, just enough. His fingers slip beneath the edge of your plain cotton panties, and then he’s touching you, skin to skin.

You gasp, your head thudding back against the panel. His fingers are direct, exploring without ceremony. They slide through the slick heat he’s found, parting you, finding the tight, clenching entrance of your virgin body.

“Jesus,” he breathes, the clinical detachment faltering for a split second. His forehead rests against yours. “You're dripping wet.”

His thumb leaves your entrance, shifts upward, and finds the swollen, desperate knot of your clit. Your knees actually buckle. Only his body and the wall keep you upright.

“There,” he says, his voice rough in your ear. He begins to move his thumb in slow, deliberate circles. The pressure is perfect. “This is the part they don’t put in the songs. This specific, fucking needy ache.”

You are unspooling. Your hips are moving on their own, a frantic rocking against his hand, chasing the sensation. You’re making noises you’ve never heard before, guttural, hungry little whimpers that echo in the dead air of the booth.

“That’s it,” he coaxes, a dark, approving whisper. “Give me the real sound.”

The pleasure builds in a terrifying, glorious wave. Your muscles clench, breath coming in ragged gasps. The world dissolves into a blur of sensation: the scent of his skin and the perfect rhythm of his thumb. You are so close to something, teetering on the edge of a cliff you didn’t know existed. Your body is tensing, bowing, every cell straining towards a shattering release.

“Please,” you hear yourself beg, the word ripped from somewhere primal. “Oh, God, please…”

You’re right there. The wave is cresting, about to break.

He pulls his hand away.

The loss is so violent and abrupt, it’s a physical shock. A cry of raw protest tears from your throat. Your body convulses, empty and furious. The promised release snatched away leaves you throbbing and desperate, obscenely unfinished. You slump against the wall, trembling violently, humiliation and need warring in the pit of your stomach.

Seongje brings his wet fingers to his mouth and tastes them, his gaze locked on yours.

“Now,” he says, his voice low and graveled with a tension that wasn’t there before. “You know what wanting feels like.”

He steps back, giving a single, devastating once-over your heaving chest and the ruined look in your eyes. “Now let’s sing the bridge.”

────୨ৎ────

The month happens the way most significant things happen, gradually and then all at once, the individual sessions blurring into a continuous thing that you stop being able to separate into distinct memories somewhere around the third week.

What you can reconstruct, if you try: the first time you stayed past midnight because the bridge of track three was not sitting right in the mix and leaving felt wrong. The takeout containers that started appearing on the windowsill beside the coffee cups, a permanent installation, Seongje ordering without asking what you wanted after the second week because he had already catalogued your preferences. The studio couch, which is narrow and not particularly comfortable, on which you fell asleep twice and woke to find a jacket over you that was not yours.

The almost-moments are harder to reconstruct because almost-moments require identifying where they begin and end, and in this studio, in this month, they did not have clear edges. They accumulated instead, layering over each other the way tracks layer in the mix, until the texture of being in a room with Keum Seongje became something you had to consciously manage.

You did not name any of it. Neither did he. The work was always there to return to, and returning to the work was easier than examining what was accumulating in the space around it.

The lap situation has a clear origin, which is that the studio's listening setup is built for one person. There’s only one chair at the board and one set of monitors positioned at ear height for whoever is sitting in that chair, the sweet spot in the room calibrated to a single point in space. When Seongje plays back a finished section he sits at the board and listens from that point. The sound is exactly what he built it to be. When you stand beside him to listen, the perspective shifts enough that the mix loses something. The difference matters when you are trying to evaluate a finished take.

You stood for three sessions before your back made the decision for you.

The first time you sat on the edge of his chair he moved without comment to give you room, which somehow became you sitting properly on his lap and him with an arm loosely around your waist to keep you both on the chair.

It’s simply how you listen to the playbacks now, your back against his chest, his chin occasionally dropping to your shoulder when he is focused on something in the mix, the weight of his arm across your lap a thing you have stopped noticing the way you stop noticing.

That’s not entirely true. You haven’t stopped noticing. You have simply developed a working arrangement with the noticing, a way of letting it exist alongside the professional purpose of being in the room without letting it consume the professional purpose of being in the room.

It is an imperfect arrangement.

────୨ৎ────

The finished album takes six weeks from the first vocal session to the final master. On the last night he sends the final files to the label and then opens them again in the studio.

You climb into his lap. He moves his arm to accommodate you without looking away from the monitor. He pulls up the first track.

Under Your Skin fills the studio through the monitors and it is different from every previous listen, different from the rough mixes and the working drafts and the late-night playbacks where you were still fixing things. It is done. The decisions are made and locked. The version of you that is in this track is permanent now.

Seongje's arm is across your lap. You can feel his breathing against your back, slow and even, the breathing of someone giving the music his complete attention.

The pre-chorus arrives. You remember the fourteen takes of the bridge you two went through. The chorus opens up the way it always does, the production expanding outward, and your voice is doing what he built it to do.

His chin drops to your shoulder, the way it does when he is listening to something specific in the mix. You feel rather than hear the small sound he makes in the back of his throat.

"It's done," he says.

By track four you have stopped looking at the monitor. You listen to your own voice do things that six weeks ago you didn’t know your voice could do.

Seongje shifts slightly behind you. His chin lifts from your shoulder. You feel him turn his head and you are fairly certain he’s looking at the side of your face rather than the monitor, but you don’t turn to confirm this.

Track five begins and you are not prepared for it, which should not be possible given that you already recorded it. After Hours in its final form is the most intimate thing you have ever heard your own voice do.

You remember recording the pre-chorus. You remember the specific quality of Seongje's silence through the glass after the first clean take, the way he sat very still at the board for a moment before reaching for the talkback button. You remember him saying, simply, that's the one, and the flatness of his voice when he said it.

The chorus arrives and it is the most explicit thing on the album, the language finally abandoning the restraint that the other tracks maintained, direct in a way that made you stand very still in the booth the first time you read it and very still again now, listening to your own voice deliver it with a conviction that still surprises you.

Tell me what you want Don't dress it up, don't make it pretty I want to hear you say it All of it Tell me what you want from me tonight I can take it Tell me

The track ends without a resolution, the two channels falling silent at different times, the right channel a half beat after the left, like one person leaving a room before the other has finished speaking.

You look at the monitor. The waveform for track five is complete, flat line at the end, the album continuing to track six automatically. You reach forward and stop it.

"There's no feature," you say.

"No," he says.

"You built the production around two voices." You look at the waveform. "There's a space in it. You built a space for another voice and you never filled it."

"I remember. I’m taking it off the album," he says.

You turn your head to look at him, which requires some maneuvering given the current arrangement, but you manage it. His face is its usual face, attentive and composed.

"What? Why?" you’re more upset than you thought you’d be.

"It doesn't fit the sequencing."

"It fits the sequencing perfectly. You built the sequencing around it. Track four into track five into track six is the emotional arc of the whole second half of the album. You told me that yourself."

"The arc works without it."

"Seongje." You look at him steadily. "We spent four sessions on that track. The pre-chorus alone took two hours. Whatever your reason is, it is the best thing on the album and pulling it makes the record weaker. You know that."

"The record is strong without it."

"Who were you going to feature?”

"It doesn't matter."

"It clearly matters."

"The track is coming off," his voice has the finality he uses to end conversations, the tone that in the first weeks of the project made you feel like a door being closed. You know it better now. You know it is not always a door being closed. Sometimes it is a person standing very still in front of something they do not want looked at directly.

"It's my call," he insists. "I produced it."

"Release it as a solo track," you fight back. "No feature. Reformat the production and close the space in the mix, it works as a single voice. It's actually more interesting that way. You know it's more interesting that way."

The quiet that follows is different from the other quiets in this studio. It has heat in it. Seongje stands up.

"You want to talk about what's actually happening," he says, and his voice is low and even, "or do you want to keep talking about the track."

"Close the space in the mix," your voice is steady, which is an achievement given the current circumstances. "Release it as a solo track. If you pull it, I’ll go to Chansung."

The mention of the CEO’s name lands like a thrown glass. His eyes flash, a crack in the composed facade. “You’d really run to him?”

“To release my best work? Yes.” Your voice doesn’t waver. “It’s my name on the album. My career.”

“Your career.” He repeats the words like they’re a joke in poor taste. The space between you evaporates. He closes it in two swift steps, his hands coming up to frame your face, his grip not painful but inescapable. “You think this is about your career?”

His mouth crashes down on yours.

He bites your lower lip, sucks it into his mouth, and you gasp against him. Your hands fly up, clutching at the front of his shirt, the fine cotton twisting in your fists. He breaks it as suddenly as he began, breathing harshly, his forehead pressed to yours.

“It’s a song,” you pant, your own breath coming in short, sharp bursts.

“It’s our song.” He spits the words. “That gasp in the bridge? At 2:47? That’s the sound you made when I had my fingers inside you. That’s mine.” His thumbs dig into your jawline. “You want to release that? You want the whole world to hear exactly how wet you got for me in that booth? To play it on the radio while they drive to work?”

Heat floods your cheeks, but a different heat coils low in your belly. “They won’t know.”

“I’ll know.” He shakes you, just once. “Every time I hear it, I’ll see you against that wall. I’ll remember how you shook. You want to let strangers get off to the sound of you coming apart?”

“Stop it.”

“Or what?” His voice drops to a seething whisper. “You’ll run to Chansung and tell him what, exactly? That your producer won’t let you release the song he fucked the performance out of you for? You think that helps your ‘sweet member’ image?”

The slut-shaming is crude, effective. It reduces the raw, terrifying intimacy of those sessions to something cheap and dirty. It makes you feel cheap. And yet, your body betrays you, a treacherous pulse throbbing between your legs. He sees it. He always sees it.

“You’re a fucking hypocrite,” he growls. “You cling to that demure little act, but you begged for it in that booth. You came against my hand like a starved thing. Now you want to package that and sell it.”

“That’s not what it is!”

“It’s exactly what it is.” He releases your face, his hands sliding down to your waist, yanking you hard against him. You feel the rigid proof of his anger straining against his slacks.

He grinds himself against you. A ragged moan escapes you, humiliation and arousal twisting together into one inseparable knot. Your head falls back, and his mouth finds your throat.

His teeth sink into the soft skin beneath your jaw, a sharp claim that draws a gasp from your lungs. You push at his chest, but the motion was weak, your body arching into the brutality of his mouth instead of away from it.

“You’re turning me into one of them,” you spat, the words trembling. “You wanted this. A marketable slut.”

He released your throat with a wet sound, leaning back to look at you. His eyes held a weary, cynical amusement.

“Maybe the concept just needed the right material.” He ground himself against you again, the hard line of his erection a blunt demand through the fabric. “We haven’t even fucked yet, Y/N, but you’re fine with the whole country listening to you sound like a desperate little thing begging for it.”

You shoved him, hard enough this time that he took a single step back, his hands falling from your waist. The space between you crackled with violent, unsaid things.

“I’m not desperate,” you said, but it sounded thin.

“Aren’t you?” He laughed, a short, harsh bark.

Your calves hit the edge of the couch and you collapsed onto it, looking up at him as he loomed over you. He undid his belt with a sharp, metallic rip. He pushed your skirt up your thighs, hands rough and efficient.

His fingers hooked into the sides of your plain cotton panties and tore them down, the fragile material yielding with a soft sigh. The cold air of the studio kissed your exposed skin, making you flinch. You were spread open before him, utterly revealed, and the clinical glare of the desk lamp left nothing to the imagination.

“See?” he said, his voice low. “You’re dripping. For a man who’s done nothing but use you for a song. That’s not desperate?”

You had no answer. Your body was a traitor, slick and throbbing, clenching around nothing.

He watched you, his eyes dark and unreadable, before lowering himself to his knees on the floor between your spread legs. You tried to close your thighs, a last instinct of modesty, but his hands clamped on your knees, holding you open.

“Don’t,” he said, the word flat. “This is what you’re selling, remember? Let’s see the product.”

He leaned forward, his breath hot against your inner thigh. So perfect and untouched,” he murmured, a mockery of wonder.

One hand left your knee. You heard the rustle of his slacks, the tear of a foil packet. You squeezed your eyes shut.

“Look at me.” The command was absolute.

You opened your eyes. He was sheathing himself, his expression focused, almost bored. The sight of him sent a jolt of pure animal fear through your veins. It was too much. You were too small.

“I can’t,” you whispered.

“You can.” He moved closer, the head of his cock pressing bluntly against your entrance. The pressure was immense, a fullness that promised to split you open. You cried out, a sharp sound of protest, and your hands flew to his wrists, nails digging into his skin.

He stilled, but didn’t retreat. “Relax.”

“It won’t fit,” you gasped, panic clawing up your throat.

“It will.” He shifted, removing himself, and you felt a dizzying mix of relief and shameful loss. He spat roughly into his palm, the crude sound echoing, and brought his wet fingers back to you.

One finger pushed inside you, deeper than before, a slow, relentless invasion. Your body resisted, clenching tightly around the intrusion, a sharp burn accompanying the stretch. He swore under his breath. “So fucking tight.”

He began to move his finger, a slow in-and-out. The burn began to soften, your body reluctantly yielding, betraying you with a fresh slickness.

“See?” he said, his voice low. “Your body knows what to do. It’s just your brain that’s scared.”

He added a second finger. The stretch was intense, a burning pressure that made you gasp and arch off the couch. He scissored them inside you, stretching the tender, virgin flesh.

“That’s it,” he coaxed darkly. “Take it. Just like you took my direction in the booth. Open up.”

He crooked his fingers, searching, and found a spot that made you jolt. A shocked, sharp sound was punched from your lungs. He pressed it again, circling it, and your hips gave a helpless, involuntary jerk. A broken sob escaped you.

“There,” he breathed, a hint of triumph in his voice. He worked you open, his fingers pistoning with a ruthless rhythm, stretching you until the initial burn faded into a hot, slippery ache. Your cries softened into moans.

The sound you made when he withdrew his fingers was a wet, obscene gasp in the quiet room. Your body clenched around nothing, a reflexive protest against the sudden emptiness. Your mind was a storm of shame and want, the sharp bite of pain from the stretching already softening into a deep, throbbing ache. He watched you, his eyes tracing the glistening evidence of your arousal on his fingers before he wiped them casually on the leg of his slacks.

“Up,” he stepped back, giving you space to rise on trembling legs. Your skirt fell back down, a flimsy veil over your utter exposure. The torn cotton of your panties lay on the floor near the couch, a stark white flag of surrender. You couldn’t look at them.

He was already moving, his back to you as he walked around the desk. You watched his hands, those same hands that had just been inside you, as they reached for a piece of equipment.

It was a microphone. A sturdy, professional condenser model on a short stand, one of several he kept nearby for when a melody or a lyric struck and couldn’t wait for the booth. He placed it carefully on the cleared edge of the desk, adjusting the angle with a precise twist. The small red power light winked on.

He looked at you over the expanse of black glass and scattered papers. “Come here.”

Your feet carried you forward on autopilot. You stopped in front of the desk, the cold edge pressing into your thighs.

“Turn around,” he said. “Bend over. Put your hands flat on the glass.”

You turned, facing away from him, toward the darkened window that reflected a ghostly, fractured version of the room. You saw the lamp, the couch, the torn underwear on the floor. You saw your own wide, dark eyes in the glass. You leaned forward, the position forcing your hips back, your spine into a deep curve. The cool, smooth surface of the desk met your palms. Your cheek pressed against it a moment later. The scent of lemon polish and old dust filled your nose.

One hand settled heavily on the small of your back, pinning you in place. The other gripped your hip, his fingers digging into the bone.

The blunt, thick head of his cock nudged against your entrance, still slick from his fingers and your own arousal. You tensed, every muscle locking.

“Don’t,” he warned, his breath hot against your ear. “You’re ready. Take it.”

He buried himself deep inside you, letting you feel every inch of him, letting your body convulse around the sudden, shocking intrusion. Your cry echoed off the hard surfaces of the office, decaying into a series of ragged, wet sobs.

“Fuck,” he groaned into your hair, the word vibrating through his chest and into your back. “You’re so fucking tight.”

He pulled back almost all the way, the drag a new, shocking friction, and slammed back in. The force of it drove you forward an inch on the desk. His hips slammed against your ass with a wet, meaty sound that was obscenely audible over both your breathing.

He was hitting something deep inside, a place his fingers had only teased. A broken, gasping moan fell from your lips.

“That’s it,” he snarled, his voice rough with exertion. “Let me hear it.”

And you did. You were so, so loud. Every slam of his body into yours punched another sound out of you, a sharp gasp, a choked sob, a high, keening wail you didn’t recognize as your own. You were crying, tears smearing the glass under your cheek, but you were also pressing back against him, meeting his thrusts with a desperation that shamed you.

He shifted his angle slightly, and on the next downward drive, he struck a place that made your vision whiten. A shattered, screaming cry ripped from your throat, echoing wildly in the room.

His hand left your hip. You heard a faint click. Then his fingers were in your hair, fisting painfully, yanking your head up and back. He forced you to look into the dark window at your own reflection.

“Look at you,” he panted, never breaking his rhythm. “Look at what you are. Not the sweet little idol. This. A messy, noisy, desperate little fuck.”

You wanted to deny them, but your body was proof. You were clenching around him, milking him. The coil in your belly was winding to a breaking point, fueled by the overwhelming friction and his degrading praise.

“You’re gonna come,” he stated, as if reading the tremors building in your thighs. “Come on my cock. Let the whole building hear you.”

He reached around your hip, his thumb finding your clit, swollen and exposed. He pressed, hard, and rubbed a rough circle.

Your back arched wildly against his restraining hand. A raw cry was torn from your very core, a sound so loud and ragged it scraped your throat. Your inner muscles clamped down on him in frantic, fluttering pulses, gripping him like a vise.

The feeling of you climaxing around him was the trigger. With a guttural groan that was pure animal satisfaction, he buried himself one last time, grinding deep. You felt the hot, sudden rush of his release inside you.

He held there, both of you locked together, shuddering. The only sounds were the ragged symphony of your breathing and the faint, electronic hum of the equipment.

Slowly, he softened and slid out of you. You heard him dealing with the condom, the soft toss into a trash can.

You couldn’t move. Your forehead was back on the cool glass, body trembling.

You saw his hand in the reflection. He reached for the microphone on the desk beside your head. He pressed a button. The red light went off. He had recorded it.

You pushed yourself up from the desk, your arms shaking violently. The cool air of the studio hit the wet mess between your thighs, a disgusting reminder. You turned to face him, your body screaming in protest at the movement. He was calmly wrapping the microphone cable around his hand, his expression unreadable.

“You… you recorded that?” Your voice was a hoarse shred of itself.

“I record everything.” He didn’t look at you, placing the mic back on its stand. “It’s a studio. That’s what I do.”

A hot, cleansing fury boiled up through the shame and the ache. It cut through the daze. “You’re sick.” The words were a whisper, then a shout. “You’re a fucking pervert!”

He finally looked at you, his sharp eyes assessing. “Am I?”

“You get off on this! On degrading me. That’s what this is!” You gestured wildly at the desk, at your own body, your voice cracking. “It’s not about the music. It’s about you being a twisted, controlling pervert!”

“That performance, right now, was the most honest thing you’ve ever done. I wanted the real thing.”

“That’s not me!” you screamed, the tears coming hot and fast now.

He walked to the laptop, his movements unhurried. He tapped a key, and the screen bloomed with a waveform. He clicked play.

The room filled with the raw, intimate cacophony of your own pleasure. First, the wet, slick sound of his fingers working inside you, obscenely amplified. Then your sharp, hitched breathing, the muffled sob against the leather couch. Your own voice, pleading “I can’t” in a tremulous whisper you hardly recognized.

You clapped your hands over your ears, but it was useless. You were hearing the pure need in the guttural moans that followed each brutal thrust.

“You set me up,” you whispered, the fury gone, replaced by a cold, sinking horror.

He closed the audio file. “You chose to come here. You chose to fight for the track. You chose to push. Your body chose to respond.”

Your hand moved before you could think. The slap cracked through the room. His head snapped to the side. A slow, red bloom appeared on his cheekbone.

He didn’t react. He just turned his head back, absorbing the shock, his eyes never leaving yours. A faint, almost approving smirk touched his lips. “Good.”

Then his hands were on you again. One palm cradled the back of your head, fingers tangling in your sweat-damp hair. The other splayed against the small of your back, pressing you into him. His mouth found yours.

You fought it for a second, teeth clenched, before a broken sound vibrated in your throat and you opened for him. He walked you backward until your knees hit the edge of the heavy steel desk. He broke the kiss, his breathing ragged.

He didn’t bother with a condom this time. He just gripped himself, gave two rough, slick strokes, and guided his head to your sore, swollen entrance. He pushed in with a deep thrust that made you gasp, your back arching off the cold metal.

Your body, despite everything, rose to meet his. A ragged, pathetic moan escaped you with each drive. You were wet for him again, a fresh, hot slickness that eased his passage and betrayed your every protest.

“This is the deal,” he grunted, his rhythm stuttering as he pushed deeper. “You want the art that matters? You pay for it here. I’ll give you a masterpiece to show the world. That’s the transaction.”

“That’s it,” he hissed, feeling your internal muscles begin their frantic flutter. Your legs wrapped around his hips, ankles locking, pulling him deeper into the mire of your own betrayal. “Come on it. Come on the truth.”

Your cunt clamped around him in rhythmic pulses, milking him desperately. It triggered his own release. He slammed into you one final, crushing time and groaned as he emptied himself deep inside your clenching heat.

He pulled out slowly. A gush of his spend followed, pooling beneath you. He found a box of tissues from a drawer and tossed it onto your stomach.

You mechanically cleaned yourself, wadding the tissues and letting them fall to the floor.

He was back at the laptop, his back to you. “Fine. The track stays on the album. Go home. Shower. Be back at ten for vocal comps. We’re finishing the album.”

You walked to the door on numb legs. Your hand paused on the handle.

“The recording,” you said, not turning around. “The raw file.”

You heard the clack of a single key. “Deleted.”

You didn’t believe him. You knew you would never speak of it again. You opened the door and stepped out into the sterile, bright hallway.

The demo he’d played earlier was still on the laptop, the track now irrevocably fused with the memory of your own screams. He highlighted the file: YN_AFTERHOURS_TAKE_H_FINAL.

He changed one letter. The H became a J.

YN_AFTERHOURS_TAKE_J_FINAL.

────୨ৎ────

The album drops on a Friday.

By Saturday morning it has charted in eleven countries. By Saturday afternoon the title track has two million streams and the comments section of every platform is a variation of the same thing: who is she and I did not know she could do this and where has this been hiding.

By Saturday evening your phone has become a continuous notification, buzzing against every surface you set it on. Chansung calls three times. The third call you answer.

"The numbers," he says, and then stops, like the numbers are too large to follow with a complete sentence.

"I know," you say.

"The label is—" Another stop. "There are no words."

He mentions a celebration dinner on Monday. Full label team, management, A&R, the marketing department who spent three months building the rollout. You agree to Monday. You hang up.

You sit on the floor for a while with your back against the bed and your phone face up on your knee, watching the notifications come in. Streaming numbers. Comment screenshots. A fan-made compilation of reaction videos set to the title track that someone has already edited together and posted, which you watch twice.

Seongje does not call. Seongje does not text.

You are not waiting for him to.

────୨ৎ────

The message arrives at 2 a.m.

A link. Below it, eight characters: the password.

Below that, a single word: Congratulations.

You sit up.

You look at the message for a moment, clicking it when you should probably wait. It’s seven in the morning and you are not fully awake. Whatever is behind a password-protected link that Keum Seongje sent at two in the morning is probably something you should approach with more preparation than you currently have.

The drive opens. It has an audio file, the filename a string of numbers with no title attached, the way his working files always look before he names them properly.

You put your earphones in and press play.

The opening is familiar. The bass line of After Hours settling into your sternum the way it always has, the production you spent six weeks living inside, the mix you know well enough to identify individual elements by the way they sit in the arrangement.

The difference arrives in the second half of the first verse, where the right channel comes in with the answer to your voice's question. It is his voice.

I'm not ready to go, he sings. His voice isn’t a performer's voice, not polished or produced in the way yours is, but it doesn’t need to be because he built the track around exactly what it is, something unguarded and direct, and the directness of it is worse than polish would have been.

You open the message thread.

You: what is this You: why does it sound like that You: you recorded yourself on it Seongje: The mix needed something in the right channel. Go listen to the rest of it. You: why did you put your voice on it Seongje: Twelve now. Chile came through last night. You: That's not what I asked. Seongje: Congratulations on twelve countries. The label dinner is Monday. Get some sleep. You: I'm still angry at you Seongje: I know

You look at the word for a long moment. It is the closest thing to an admission you have ever received from him.

You lie back against the pillow and close your eyes.

Seongje: Congratulations again

The air around you feels damp and raw now in a way that has very little to do with the early summer heat. You force yourself onto your stomach and stuff your face into your pillow.

You can’t keep doing this to yourself. 

Or, rather, he can’t keep doing this to you. However excruciating his presence is when your family is around, it’s so much worse when they’re not.

Most of the time you want to throttle him. It had been that way since you were kids. You can still feel the grovelling embarrassment of being somewhere close to ten years old and begging him and your brother to let you tag along with them to do something stupid like peeking through the dirt-grimed windows of a neighbour’s house or sneaking into a derelict, moss-eaten hotel until someone called the cops. In defiance of all stereotypes, your brother never had a problem with it. He has doted on you since you were in the cradle.

Bucky, though. He was never receptive to it. He would let you make your case, watching you humble yourself with calculating, amused eyes that looked slightly wrong on a boy of only twelve years. You can still remember how he would make a big show of deliberating, before simply handing out a ‘no’, and moving away. Your brother would shoot you a remorseful grin but always followed after him without hesitation.

On the rare occasions he did let you trail after them, he made you regret it. He would poke and prod at you, pulling lightly at your hair or making fun of you until big, fat, brutally-resisted tears would well up in your eyes. Oh, you remember how much he used to enjoy that - the mean smile he wore while he called you a crybaby. It always ended with your brother sternly telling him to lay off, before walking you home.

Your parents refused to hear a bad word about him. They still won’t. 

You’re not really sure what is up with Bucky’s family and his home life. You just know that he had always spent more time at your house than his own. Once summer rolled around, it was like he forgot he even had a house of his own to begin with.

Your parents treat him less like a guest and more like a favourite son. The guest bedroom became Bucky’s room when you were eleven. When he tinkers around and puts together your mom’s overly-complicated coffee machine or fixes the hot water or - the very worst - mows the lawn, your parents treat him like a king. They rave in public and private about how they don’t know what they would do without him. When you had tried to tattle as a kid, the most you would get was a patient rub on the back.

It was a push and pull between the two of you. Always had been. Bucky was either acting bothered at your presence, poking and prodding at you cruelly - or irritating you with his own presence and annoying taunts.

And all of that was annoying. Is annoying. But nothing compares to that feeling. The one you’re experiencing right now.

It started when you were pushing sixteen. You had stopped asking to tag along a few years ago but that summer was different. Bucky was told by your brother, firmly and categorically, that you would be hanging out with them whether he liked it or not. He stared at you with odd fixity but made no protests and suddenly you were part of the friend group. Your brother had a crush on your best friend Wanda, who was also hanging around a lot that summer. That played into it. But you took it as a win regardless.

You spent most of your time that summer hanging out in a clearing in the woods by your house. There was nothing else to do and even if there was, you had no money to do it. Most of the details of the day itself now evade you - they’re blurry around the edges. There was a new addition to the group whose name you cannot now remember. A persistent, uncomfortable pass made for you. Your brother distracted by Wanda. A few coarse comments made, before the new guy began to touch.

What you do remember - what you well and truly cannot forget - is what happened after that touch. The way Bucky propelled up from where he sat on tree branches and lichen. How he grabbed the collar of What’s-his-name and flung him to the ground with one heavy, solid punch. The silence afterwards. The crawling shameful pang of excitement in your gut.

You never looked at him the same. 

It’s not for lack of trying.

God - you try. You try so hard. You have tried for so many years. But every fling you had in college ended up wearing his face when you closed your eyes. 

Thoughts of him run through your mind while you fill your pillow up with gasps. You’re sure that if you wrung out the fabric or pressed down hard, those sighs would have to spill back out, surround the room with breathless cries of his name.

But you have graduated now. You’re back home until you find a full-time job and this childhood crush will no longer do. It’s remarkably inconvenient, the way your knees go weak and wobbly when he walks in the room, even while you paint a snarl on. The way a hot, sticky warmth begins to flood the space between your thighs when you watch him work like he is today. 

And you’ve tried everything there is to try. You’ve tried dating other people - it usually ends sour. You made a trip or two to the counsellor on campus. You had even left stop-sign stickers around your dorm room as a reminder to snap out of it when you are thinking about him.

At Wanda’s recommendation, you have started a diary. Every time you think about him or let yourself get stupidly, fantastically turned on by him, you create a new entry. Not all of the entries are about him - some are flimsy little notes to distract yourself - but they all lead back to him one way or another. Once the book is full, you will burn it. You started it just before you left campus three weeks ago and the book is almost half-way full.

You know it’s a stupid idea. It won’t work, which is why you have already sought out a witch on Etsy for when this fails.

The deep, low tingle at the bottom of your stomach hasn’t ceased, because even while deep in thought, the image of Bucky’s strong back and his bold, lopsided smile are still running behind your eyes. You become suddenly aware that you’re lightly sweating. Your underwear is warm and damp.

You glance over at your diary on your bedside table - most recent entry late last night, courtesy of your traitorous imagination. You sigh and pick it up. 

Bucky sees you in the window to your bedroom. You’re just a little floating head above the window sill. He can’t make out an expression very clearly. He waves and forces back a laugh when he sees your bratty eye-roll, the way you flop away dramatically.

You’re back home. For the summer, at least. Until all those fancy graduate jobs in New York or Boston or Philly start opening up.

He doesn’t need to be here, if he’s being honest. Has no reason to be. The lawn has no need for mowing and there’s not a damned thing left in the house to be fixed. His own apartment isn’t exactly a paradise, but it’s not bad either. 

You won’t be here forever, though. He’ll take what he can get in the meantime.

He likes how it feels to annoy you without a buffer. With no parents to be on his best behaviour in front of, no brother to shoot him warning glances when he pokes too hard. 

He regresses slightly every time he floats back into your orbit. Falls out of adulthood and back into the familiar rhythm. The push and pull. 

His childhood crush has matured into something deeper, but his actions haven’t. He still tugs your pigtails in a metaphorical sense. It’s much too late to get you to see him as anything but an annoying, big brother-type figure now, but he can deal with that. He likes watching you get riled up, anyway.

You regress around him too. He takes great satisfaction in that. You walk into the house after months of being away, haughty and put-together, like you had finally done all your growing up in college. A few grating words from him can make you twitch a little bit while you fight the urge to snap, irritation spilling through the cracks. And you eventually do crack. All the way. Every single time.

He mows until the short tufts of grass turn to clippings. He spares no blade, weed or flower and thinks about you, lying up on your bed. Probably doing something dumb. Probably scrolling on your  phone or flipping through some magazine. He remembers when you were thirteen and he found that stash of teen-pop magazines in your room, the pages with boyband members dog-eared, hearts circled around their pictures. He smiles, thinking about the way you screamed when you caught him red-handed. How you told him to “stop being such a pain in my ass”, pushing him out your bedroom door and slamming it shut behind him while he laughed. You were sulky at dinner afterwards.

He rolls the mower back into the shed, ties the padlock and tugs at it twice before walking into the house through the sliding glass doors.

He’s sweating lightly. He takes a quick swallow of water from the glass on the counter - whether it’s yours or his, he can’t remember - and licks a few beads of moisture from his upper lip. He feels good. 

He flops down on the couch, puts on some show indiscriminately and wonders what you’re doing right now. He wonders if you’re on the phone with your college friends. Or with that Matt guy he had heard about through the grapevine. He wonders if you’re wearing the same tight shorts you had on yesterday.

He considers going upstairs to annoy you but thinks better of it. He will wait a while to see if you come downstairs on your own.

He imagines Matt as some football player. He can’t picture a face - just some obscure blur - but he’s probably handsome. Definitely blonde. Social butterfly. Good grades. He can’t see you going for someone without good grades. 

Bucky’s grades were never great, but you were such a little swot. He used to sit alongside you while you did your homework. When you would tell him to get lost, he would shoot back that he had homework to do too. It’s probably the only reason he graduated high school.

Matt is probably biding his time right now until you both have steady jobs so he can propose. He’s probably boring as shit. Fucks you missionary for thirty seconds before rolling over onto his back. He probably asks you whether you came afterwards, and you probably talk to your stupid college friends about how much he cares and how respected you feel. 

But that’s a dangerous avenue to walk down. Because now he’s thinking about how you would look afterwards, naked and unsatisfied. Would you ever think about shooting him a text when Matt drifts off to sleep after getting his rocks off? See if he could sort you out any better than your boring fuck of a boyfriend? 

Obviously not. But it’s a nice thought.

You probably don’t do any of the things that Bucky would want to do with you - and definitely not with Missionary Matt. You’re too fucking prissy. No way in hell are you letting anyone take you the way Bucky wants to.

He doesn’t even understand why his brain has chosen you of all people to be the star of every daydream he has had since he was old enough to know what a crush was. You’re arrogant and spoiled and you think that just because you attract men like flies to shit that you can bat your eyes and get whatever you want. (You absolutely can. Bucky has tried to be the one exception to that rule, but he’s also just a man.) 

Unfortunately, he knows all of this and still desires you desperately. And the want that pours out of him in waves isn’t strictly sexual - in fact, it’s mostly something else - but he’s not sure how to define it. He likes you, except ’like’ doesn’t seem strong enough to cover all he feels. So it’s easier to focus on the sex. Maybe that way he can convince himself it’s all he wants.

He has run out of patience. You still haven’t come downstairs and he can only deny himself for so long.

He takes the stairs two-at-a-time, but paces himself so you don’t hear his footsteps and think he’s eager. Your bedroom is at the very end of the hall. When he approaches your white door - still adorned with stickers and tags from every phase you ever went through - he thinks about knocking. He doesn’t.

He can’t remember the last time that he was in your room, but it is exactly as it always was. Pink wallpaper. A white desk in the corner armed with perfectly positioned sticky notes and neat, alphabetised folders. Stuffed animals perched in a line atop your bed like marching soldiers. Posters on the walls from films you thought made you seem edgy when you were fifteen, in direct opposition to the frilly pink decor of the room. 

The only thing missing is you, but he can hear the shower going in your ensuite.

He goes to sit down on your bed and focuses deeply on not getting a hard-on while he watches the bathroom door. But he lands on something solid.

Reaching underneath his thigh, he picks up a little pink notebook, turns it over in his hands. More little stickers plastered to the front, hearts scribbled onto it with a pink gel pen. He knows instantaneously that he has gold dust in his goddamn hands. He expects to feel at least a little guilt or shame for what he is about to do and is mildly surprised to find he doesn’t.

This is your diary.

The first entry is from three weeks ago.

22 May I just broke up with Matt. It was awful. He kept asking me why. I had to say that I didn’t want to live in Boston like him. He said he would find a different internship and we could go to New York instead, and then I really had no idea what to say. It’s not like I could tell him the real reason. He cried. I’m just glad it’s over.

I think I should feel at least a little bit sad about it, but I don’t. I’m just relieved and feeling awkward. I don’t think I could let him fuck me one more time without going out of my mind. This really is a curse. I hope he moves on quickly. I think Suzy is into him.

Bucky can’t help the stupid grin that breaks out across his face. Looks like Missionary Matt was too boring, even for prim little you. No engagement on the horizon after all. He shifts around slightly on the bed in the guest bedroom and tries not think about what might have been so lacking in the bedroom with Matt for you.

23 May My family are ditching me. They’re all heading off to the south of France for three weeks, but I won’t be home from college early enough. They fucking suck. I wonder if Bucky will still be hanging around. Three weeks of torture incoming.

He laughs, loud and long, at that. What a spoiled little brat. Still, it’s kind of cute.

Bucky was asked to join your family on their holiday and declined. Partially because he still, after all this time, doesn’t quite believe them when they say it’s not a bother. But it was mostly because of a selfish hankering to be able to hang out with you alone. To not have to check himself when his gaze lingers a little too long or when he presses you a bit too hard to be able to convincingly feign disinterest. He reads on.

23 May Now that I have thought about it, I can’t stop. Bucky is going to be hanging around the house. He always hangs around the house, even when nobody else is there. Dad said he’s going to help him with building a new shed outside. I wonder if he will be doing that while they’re gone. I remember that one time he helped Dad with that old vintage car he bought on a whim. I could see him from my window. He was shirtless and working under the car from a skateboard like something out of a goddamn porno. I think I’ll die if I have to see him do something like that again. 

Bucky’s grin is frozen on his face, skin heating up around his bones. The shed would be a good excuse to stick around now that he’s done everything else - he had forgotten about that. 

He wasn’t aware you had been watching him fix up that car from your window. That must have been, what - two? three? - years ago. Old Pontiac runs like new now. His eyes catch on the word ‘porno’, scribbled in your pink, curly writing. He thinks about you watching him from above.

24 May I might be going insane. I shouldn’t have let myself think of the visual of Bucky under that stupid car last night. I think it’s a good thing I dumped Matt. I would have let him fuck me and felt so guilty afterwards for imagining someone else. I handled it myself but I woke up feeling just as riled up. My fingers aren’t big enough. Maybe I should buy a dildo or something. Bucky’s fingers are huge. One time he put his hand over my mouth because he said I was whining too much and it covered more than half of my face.

The blood rushes to his cock so fast it leaves him lightheaded. He has to read the entry twice to make sure he didn’t black out and invent something out of wishful thinking.

25 May This stupid diary isn’t doing shit. It’s making it worse. Every time I write something down, it just makes me think about it more. I spent all of yesterday thinking about Bucky’s stupid fingers. I hate him so much. I want him to bend me over something and fuck me until I’m an inch from passing out. Maybe that’s all I need to get this out of my system.

26 May Today I thought about that time last summer when we were at the bonfire and I made out with that guy in the Bulls jersey and snapback. I forget his name.

Bucky looked so angry. I think that’s why I did it. I think I wished he was jealous, even though I know he was just pretending he’s my fucking brother or something. It made me think of that time he punched that other guy in the clearing in the woods just for touching me. I forget that guy’s name too. 

Bucky hasn’t forgotten either of their names. The bonehead from the bonfire was Jon and the asshole from the woods was Robby. And he was jealous. He was so fucking jealous. His dick is hard as a rock in his jeans, head spinning.

28 May Yesterday was ok. I kept myself busy. Today has been terrible. Mom sent me a group picture of everyone eating dinner out in the back garden and Bucky was wearing a tight, white t-shirt. He looked so big, even bigger than when I last saw him. I just kept wondering if his cock would be big too. I zoomed in and took a screenshot like some fucking pervert. I got myself off so many times and I still feel like I haven’t gotten it out of my system. I literally fingered myself until my sheets were-

“Fuck,” he grunts, strained even to his own ears. His eyes squeeze shut and his dick throbs violently at the idea of your little fingers pushing themselves into your pussy at the thought of him. He’s not sure how much more of this he can read before jizzing in his pants like some kind of virgin.

Who knew? Who fucking knew? His stuck-up little priss isn’t so prissy after all. He’s a bit dizzy with want and some other unidentifiable sensation. Something warm and gooey in his chest.

He almost likes how ashamed you are of it. It makes it that much more satisfying - like he’s won some game that he didn’t even know he was playing. He’s dimly aware of the fact that he lost the very same game himself, but he ignores it. 

You would be so embarrassed to find out he is reading this. You would yell and scream and throw shit around the room in a tantrum like a toddler. You might never speak to him again. Even so, he can’t help himself but flick over the pages to the most recent entry. It feels like a spoiler to a book he hasn’t finished.

14 June He came around with the lawnmower again. It’s getting harder every day not to get myself off to the thought of him-

He clearly missed that part. He wonders how long ago you made that resolution. He will find out soon enough.

-when he looks that good. I could literally see the fucking muscles in his back through his t-shirt and it was black. I’m so fucking wet. I’m going to have a long, cold shower and tonight I’ll cum to the thought of someone else. Literally anyone else.

Then and there, Bucky decides that won’t be happening.

You feel better after your laborious shower but only for a matter of minutes. You walk into your room wrapped in your bathrobe and notice that you can no longer hear the lawnmower. Bucky must have finished the job. He’s probably in the shower now, washing off the pollen and sweat.

And that does it. You sigh at the stickiness forming between your legs and reach over to your bedside table for your diary.

Except it’s not there. 

You open and close the small drawer underneath. Ruffle around in your sheets and pick up your stuffed animals one-by-one to look make sure they’re not sitting on it. Eventually you get up and remove the duvet from the mattress, pull the bed frame away from the wall, crawl to the floor. You even go to the bathroom to make sure you didn’t carry it in with you. It’s not there. It’s not anywhere.

You must have left it lying out somewhere outside. Your stomach lurches into your throat. Except that’s not possible, because your last entry was written right here on this bed just before you went in for your shower. You had left your room to get a towel and steal some of your mother’s hair stuff - maybe you had inadvertently carried it out with you. You had been severely distracted.

You dress as quickly as you can physically manage, ignoring the way your wet hair is soaking through your cotton sweatshirt, but when you leave your room your footsteps are hesitant and careful. The idea of Bucky picking up your diary somewhere and deciding to give it a browse sends a cold sweat of terror up the knobs of your spine. Oh god, don’t let him find it. Please don’t let him find it. 

You tear the linen closet apart. You even pick up the piles of towels that you know you didn’t touch and shake them out. Nothing. You fold them in a way that would make your mother wince and put them back.

Your parents’ room wields no results either. You run your fingers over the wooden bannister faintly while you walk down the stairs. Bucky isn’t there - thankfully - but neither is your diary. You hadn’t even come downstairs between writing your last entry and going for your shower. That, you’re absolutely certain of. But you’re running out of options.

You have one room left to check, but you will have to play your cards carefully. One wrong move, a bit too much information, and you could find yourself on the receiving end of questions that you would really prefer not to be asked. Or of a bit too much curiosity for your liking.

Your fingers linger over the wood of Bucky’s bedroom door for a whole minute before you can bring yourself to commit to a small, tentative knock. Bucky grunts on the other side and it’s untranslatable but you take it to be an in invite.

He’s lounging on his bed, one ankle hooked over the other, head reclined back to rest lazily on the headboard. He doesn’t move his bored gaze from the television, where some reality television documentary about the daily lives of zoo veterinarians is playing. You’re distracted by it momentarily. You didn’t think this would be his sort of thing.

“What’s up?” he asks you, still not looking your way. He didn’t shower. He’s still sweaty and tense, the smell of grass sticking to his clothes and skin. You try not to look.

“Just saying hi,” you say, shifting feet. You look at the door for a brief moment before deciding to close it awkwardly behind you.

He looks at you then, one eyebrow and one side of his lip quirking upwards in tandem. “Just saying hi.”

You nod. His smile breaks free then, but it’s not altogether a nice one. “Well, hi,” he says.

“Hi,” you mumble back. You continue to look at each other while you fidget, stepping forward cautiously until your knees hit his bed. You look at him expectantly and he rolls his eyes before moving his own legs so you can sit.

“What’s got you all buggy?” he asks sardonically, giving you a light tap on the side with his foot. He’s not wearing his boots anymore, but some grass still rubs off on you somehow. You rub your side and shoot him a look as if it hurt, even though it didn’t. 

“I’m not buggy.”

“Yeah y’are. You got bugs.”

“You got bugs,” you snap. “I’m perfectly fine.”

He laughs. “Alright, you don’t got bugs. I have bugs ‘cause I was out there mowing all day. Now what do you want?”

Your stomach gives an odd jerking motion at the memory of him out there mowing the lawn. You try to keep any guilt from showing on your face. “Maybe I just wanna talk to you.”

“Oh yeah?” He doesn’t seem convinced. You nod.

“Yeah,” you say, picking at a loose thread his bedsheet. “So what have you been up to?”

“Sweetheart, what’s goin’ on?” he chuckles, turning slightly on his side so he can see you. “You know what I’ve been up to. You saw me out there.”

“Duh,” you say. You roll your eyes again and you can feel him laugh more than you can hear it - the minute little vibration through the sheets. His skin is inches away from yours. If you reached out just a little bit, you could touch his hand.

“Duuuhhh,” he mimics you with an exaggerated Valley-girl drawl. “Why’d you ask then, smartass?”

“I meant, like, after that.”

“After I finished the lawn?”

You nod. You are so desperately bad at this.

“Not much. Watched this,” he says, pointing at the TV. He gets distracted by something there and begins to watch it again. “Did a bit of light reading. What about you?”

Your heart is moving up in a slow but steady elevator to the base of your neck. “I’ve been in the shower,” you say casually. “What are you reading?”

“Long shower,” he says.

“Well it was an everything-shower,” you say defensively, forgetting yourself for a moment.

“The hell is an everything shower?”

“Don’t be dense. It’s literally in the name. It’s called an everything shower because you do everything in the shower.”

His gaze flies back to you then, dark and questioning, eyebrows raised slightly. It takes for his lip to twitch into a small smile before you come to your senses.

“A-as in,” you stammer. “You do all your self-care stuff. Like shaving and exfoliating and hair masks. That kind of everything.”

His smile widens and he nods, half sarcastically. “Right. That kind of everything.”

Your face heats up. There’s a brief pause. 

“So what are you reading at the mo-”

“Y’know I think you’d like this,” he says, pointing over to the TV again. You glance over distractedly. A giraffe is giving birth standing up. You can’t help the way your nose twitches slightly as you take in all the blood and goo onscreen.

“Why is that?” you ask.

“There’s this one girl who cries every time an animal dies. She’s been working there five years and she still cries every time. She’s like you.”

“I’m not like that.”

“Yes you are,” he laughs and the sound travels through you. “Remember that one time you cried because your dad asked me to catch and kill that mouse?”

You do. He had been strangely nice about the whole thing. He made a makeshift humane trap and brought it to the old railway line a few miles away instead. 

“I was sixteen-”

“And if you’re tryna tell me you wouldn't react the same way right now, I say you’re full of shit.”

You look at him resentfully. “Like you’re any tougher. You’re the one who saved him.”

“Well you know I can’t help but give you what you want once the waterworks start. You’re a pretty crier, sweetheart.”

You just look at him, feeling a bit dazed and uncomprehending. Saliva floods your mouth and you’re forced to swallow. He just glances over at you for the smallest of instances. You like the handsome, self-satisfied smile he gives himself before turning back to his programme, even though it’s at your expense. You know instinctively that you’ll be failing at your new resolution tonight. 

“Shut up. Don’t be weird,” you say, because you can think of nothing else. He huffs with humour and there’s something in his expression that you don’t like.

“So you said you were reading something?” you say. You’re aiming for a casual tone but you think you might be overselling it.

“Mhm,” he says, nodding once. The programme can’t be that interesting, but he seems absorbed in it.

“I didn’t think you liked reading.”

“I have a newfound appreciation for it.” He smiles at the screen and maybe you’re feeling a little jealous. You snatch the remote out of his hands, careful not to let your fingers brush, and blackness eats the image of a family of monkeys. His eyes snap to you with amused surprise. 

“What are you reading?”

Your heart is pumping while Bucky appraises you for a second, eyes sliding their way around your flustered face. He licks his bottom lip slowly before sucking it into his mouth. He speaks low.

“Don’t worry about it. ’S’too dirty for you, sweetheart.”

You really fucking hope that doesn’t mean what you think it does. He has the book. Oh dear god, don’t let him have the book.

Your voice comes out weak and fractured. “Are you… reading smut?”

He laughs again, face lit up. Eyes still on you. “That what you call it? Sure. Something like that, at least.”

“Bucky,” you say, voice no more than a horrified whisper. There’s a brutal heat curling in your gut - embarrassment and something else. “What are you reading? Please.”

He looks at you for just a second longer before reaching under the blanket beside him. His hand reaches out again, fingers curled around a book that looks incredibly small in his large palm.

You blink at it for just a second, as if concentrating hard enough might make it disappear. Please make it disappear. Please make it nothing at all.

But then you’re rolling forward, hardly aware of what you’re doing until your back is bowed, a low, despairing groan escaping you while your limbs slip away from you. Eventually you’re played across the bottom of the bed, face firmly pressed to the soft memory foam. If you stay here long enough, your face might imprint itself there. A garbled, monotonous litany is spilling from your lips. You’re not even sure what you’re saying.

Your stomach is going haywire. Bucky is laughing like you knew he would - you fucking knew he would be an asshole about this - and you would go running from the room if it didn’t mean that you would have to move your face from the bed and look at him. 

You suppose it’s better that he’s laughing than looking at you with the raw kind of disgust that you had pictured whenever you imagined him finding out about your feelings towards him. Maybe it means that you two can go back to normal at some point, even if the humiliation raging through your body begs to differ.

“Don’t be such a baby,” Bucky says and you hate him. Your face pops up to look at his. Still amused. Still wicked and gleeful. 

“Where did you get that?” you bark.

“Your room,” he says, as if it should be obvious. “Interesting read. You should be a writer with that vivid imagination. What did you call it, smut?”

“Fuck you!” you screech, and Bucky physically recoils at the loud noise, irritation crawling onto his features for the first time in this interaction. “You had no right to go into my room and invade my privacy. What the hell is wrong with you? You are such a piece of shit!”

Bucky rolls his eyes while you make your way up the bed and take a swing for his chest. He catches your wrists in time and your traitorous body pauses at the touch. 

“Like I said,” he says sternly. “Don’t be such a baby. You need me to help you get this out of your system? What was it you said again? Bend you over and fuck you until you’re an inch from passing out?”

You give one last valiant jerk to break free, but he has a death grip with seemingly minimal effort. You go still while the fight leaves you. Hot humiliation and more than a little arousal course through you.

“Fuck you,” you say again with considerably less vitriol.

“I will,” he says, eyes locked on yours punishingly. “If that’s what you want.”

Your breath stutters, heat rising up the length of your face. You’re not sure if he’s messing with you, but the words are having the intended effect regardless. Your thighs press together gently to alleviate some of the pressure that his words and his eye-contact are creating. His eyes flicker down quickly, following the movement, before moving back up to meet your own gaze.

“Got nothing to say now? That’s ok, baby. I saw enough in that little book. Let’s look.”

He lets go of your wrists and you immediately lurch forward to grasp the diary, but he gets there first. He opens it at a random page.

“I came home from college today,” he starts to read, voice low. “Everyone else was gone, but Bucky was here. I don’t know how it’s possible but he’s so much hotter since I last saw him. He wears a bit of stubble now and his muscles were almost bursting out of his t-shirt. We bickered a little bit in the evening, but the whole time I was just wondering what he’s like in bed. I don’t think he would be sweet and soft all the time, like Matt. Maybe sometimes but I think he would be so mean and rough most of the time. He seems like he knows how to make a girl cum.”

He looks up at you. You feel tears prickle behind your eyes, shame steamrolling through you. You reach for the book again but he moves it out of your reach effortlessly.

“You’re goddamn right I do,” he says, smiling as if he’s talking about something totally innocent. “You want me to show you, sweetheart?”

Your brain is scrambled and the only thing escaping your lips is a garbled mess of vowels. You’re still suspicious. It wouldn’t be entirely unlike him to get you to admit to this and then pull the rug out from under you a moment later.

He huffs an impatient sigh. “Don’t go dumb on me already, silly girl.”

He flicks to another page in the book, smiles, and finally hands it over to you. You take it uncertainly.

“Why don’t you read that for me? Out loud. Jog your memory a bit.”

You’re not sure what you’re doing, but at this point it’s easier to follow instructions than to figure out what to do yourself. You look down, take another hesitant glance at an encouraging Bucky and begin to read with a sheepish, shameful tone. Your face is burning.

“I want him so bad. I think I’ll die if I don’t have him. The orgasms I’m giving myself aren’t enough. I need him to fuck me, even just one time. I’ll never ask for anything else again in my life if I can get his cock inside me just once. I’m going so deranged, I actually pictured him choking me yesterday with those huge hands and it made me cum so hard.” 

Your own words have done a number on you. You are stupidly, ridiculously turned on by his eyes on you and your own words echoing around the room. You raise your eyes slowly and sheepishly to meet his and the look on his face is nothing short of starving.

“Fuck it,” he breathes, pulling you forward and into a kiss.

Your unsuspecting mouth meets his with short, stabbing gasps. His right arm moves to the back of your neck, pulling you against him firmly, while the prosthetic arm pulls you onto his lap. His lips move against yours and the only word to describe it is filthy. His lips are still wet from licking them and his tongue is sliding over yours delicately but expertly.

You’re in a state of euphoria. Part of you always wondered whether you had played this up too much in your head. You wondered - if you were given the chance to finally touch him like this, whether it might be a bit disappointing after all you had imagined. 

If possible, it might be the opposite. Your body is shaking with adrenaline. Without thinking too much about it, you grind down on his lap and feel his hard length through his jeans. A bolt shoots up your spine. Has he been hard this whole time?

He grunts at the friction, calloused fingers tightening their hold on you. His hand glides slowly down from your neck, through the valley of your breasts and over your stomach, playing with the waistband of your cotton shorts. You’re already so riled up, it makes you press down on him again, clutching at his shoulders as if you could possibly pull him any closer. You’re high off the feel of him when he pulls away, just a few inches.

“You ready to admit it yet? That you want me?”

“I want you,” you breathe. It’s almost embarrassing how automatic the response is. How little you even have to think about it.

You feel his smile spreading against your own face. “I know, sweetheart. Of course I know. Don’t worry, I’ll take good care of you.”

Bucky is on the warpath, tearing your sweatshirt and his t-shirt off in quick succession. He takes a second to zero in on your breasts and you feel mildly self-conscious about your plain black bra, but he seems adequately distracted by them.

He slows down. Unclips your bra with languor. You shove away the sick, jealous feeling that creeps up when he doesn’t fumble even remotely with the clasp.

Once you’re bared to him, he seems to move slower. His hands go up to fondle them with uncharacteristic gentleness and you suck in a breath. His eyes darken to black, shiny knobs at your reaction and he maintains eye-contact with you while he presses a gentle kiss over your nipple, pulling it into his mouth.

A moan slips out at the sensation. So that’s what that should feel like.

“Wanna know a secret?” he murmurs between kissing and sucking, moving over to your other breast. You nod, uncertain whether or not he can see you. 

“Want you too. Wanted you since we were kids.”

You look down at him. He is seemingly avoiding your eyes. Your brain is a little hazy but still operational for the most part.

“Since when?”

“Just fuckin’ told you,” he says, moving a warm hand up your thigh. It’s a distraction tactic.

“No but when? What age?” Your voice is coming out breathy with the way his thumb is creeping underneath your shorts, stroking the sensitive crease between your thigh and the hem of your underwear. You wonder with some apprehension if his fingers can sense the warmth radiation from you. You’re soaked through.

“Doesn’t matter,” he says, moving back up to kiss you. His thumb strokes over your panties now and you gasp into his mouth.

“Yes it does. Tell me,” you say. Because you’re muddled and jittery and incredibly fucking worked up, but more than all of that - you’re stubborn.

He gives you a hard look for a second, likely deciding whether he will be able to get you to let this go. You’re not.

“Was sweet on you when I was ten,” he says, rubbing you over your underwear harder now. Stars are exploding in your eyes, but the heavy, sluggish machinery that is your brain in its current state still chugs along at its steady, slow rhythm.

“Isn’t that when we first-”

“Yes.”

The shock almost overrides the sensation of his thumb slipping under the waistband of your underwear. But not quite. A loud, whining moan makes Bucky smile, but you still haven’t lost your head completely.

“You’ve liked me since we first met as little kids?”

He makes a loud, frustrated noise that vibrates through you and flips you over so you’re on your back. It happens so quick that it makes you dizzy. He folds himself over you and presses a vigorous kiss to your lips.

“Can you shut the hell up for two seconds?” he grunts, yanking your cotton shorts and underwear over your legs until you’re completely bare underneath him. “Tryna do something here.”

You laugh at him, but it doesn’t last long. He palms your breast briefly before trailing his fingers down, down, down. His fingers just barely graze over your clit and you buck up with a moan. All the humour is gone - you’re struggling to remember what you even found funny in the first place.

He brings his fingers up then to show them to you, glistening with your wetness. “You see how fucking desperate you are?” he asks. “Barely touched you and look how you’re reacting. Nobody’s ever touched you right, have they?”

You shake your head unthinkingly and his smile widens. It’s almost predatory.

“Poor thing,” he says with a smirk, lowering his hand once again to stroke over your clit. “I can tell. All jerky and twitchy. Just wait ‘till I get my cock in you.”

The whine you emit at his words slowly turns itself into a moan as he dips a finger into you. Slow, just feeling. He adds another when he sees how easily you accept the first. You had been right in everything you had ever thought about his fingers and how good they would feel inside you, how much they would stretch you out. Except it didn’t quite cover it.

None of the other college boys you had fucked had fingers like this. Calloused and big and rough. You clench around him when he begins to stroke, expertly curling into the perfect angle to hit that spongey spot inside you. Where the fuck did he learn to do this?

He presses you down with his other hand splayed over your stomach, stopping your hips which are moving down, trying to meet the rhythm of his fingers. The pressure it puts on your lower stomach makes you clench around him.

“Y’feel so fucking tight,” he grunts, eyes on your lips. “This what you wanted, huh? This what you touched yourself thinking about?”

You nod, but it’s not enough. He pauses his ministrations and raises his eyebrows for an answer.

“Yes, I- fuck, yes keep going - I thought about this when I got myself off.”

“For how long?” he demands.

“I- what?” you ask, feeling a bit dumb. His lip twitches impatiently.

“How long have you been thinking about me like this? With my fingers stuffing your tight little pussy?”

Your face heats up with shame, but you know if you don’t answer him, he will stop again. And that’s a lousy deal. 

“A long time,” you say, hoping he will accept it as an answer. Thankfully, he does.

“Fuck, sweetheart. Should’ve told me. Wouldn’t have let you go unsatisfied like all these other assholes. Would’ve kept this pussy so busy, you wouldn’t have had the time to write in that silly little book. Would’ve put you in your place.”

“Put me in my place?” you spit, dragged out of the floaty headspace you had been in. Unfortunately you can’t concentrate too much on your anger and indignation. The pleasure he’s giving you is too much to hold on to anything else but him. It does nothing to stave off your incoming orgasm - if it wasn’t so fucked up, you might admit that it probably brings you closer to the edge. His fingers push into you smooth and hard. He grinds his palm against your clit.

“Yeah, put you in your place. Such a fucking spoiled brat, always throwing tantrums and bitching. Whole time you just needed a good fuck. Well I’ll give you plenty, baby. Sort you right out. Your family can thank me for your good behaviour when they’re home.”

There’s something fucked up about the way his mean - and undoubtedly problematic - words push you over the edge. You clench down and all but explode over his fingers, bright spots in your eyes. You’re not sure if you’ve ever come so fast before, or so intensely. Your head is still spinning while you come down, twitching around his fingers until he draws them back out.

Your vision is still slightly blurred, but you see Bucky sliding his fingers into his mouth. He doesn’t even make a show of it - he’s not even trying to make you watch him. He’s just tasting you for the pleasure of it. Your pussy jumps.

When he kisses you, you can taste yourself on his tongue. You should be spent by now, or at least somewhat less horny but you’re not. Your brain and body have clearly made a pact to make the most of your time with the man who has been driving you crazy for years. You begin to gush again when he bites your bottom lip. He releases a smoky chuckle against your mouth when your hips twitch against him.

He pulls up, standing over the bed to unbutton his jeans.

You’re still a little mad at him over that boorish ‘putting you in your place’ comment, but it does not stop you from getting dizzy when his cock is bared to you.

He’s the biggest you’ve ever seen and it’s not even close. Part of you knew he would be, but you didn’t think it would be this pretty. You didn’t even know a cock could be pretty.

It’s huge and rock hard where it presses up on his stomach. It’s very slightly curved with veins running up the flushed, heavy length. Your arm raises upwards unconsciously just to see how it would look in your hand, but you think better of it and quickly tuck it away again.

“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” he asks and you realise he has been watching your reaction the whole time. Your face burns. “Feelin’ shy?” 

Your mouth opens and closes. “I don’t know how much…” you trail off, uncharacteristically nervous. You’ve never had a problem butting heads with Bucky before. Why is he so intimidating like this?

“Y’don’t know if it’ll fit?” he asks. You nod lightly and watch his cock give a small, light twitch. He takes it in his hand and gives it one slow pump. It makes your mouth hang open.

“Don’t worry, angel, we’ll take it slow. Don’t want to break you. Not this time, anyway.”

Feeling brave, you reach forward and take his warm, heavy cock in your fingers. It looks so much bigger in your hand than it does in his own and the sight makes your gut curl in both dread and excitement. He throws his head back, eyes half-lidded and dazed.

You give him one small pump and he grabs your wrist, shaking his head at you. You glare up at him.

“What the hell, Bucky? Don’t-”

He leans forward, grabbing your jaw in his hand roughly. “I know you wanna play with it so bad, sweetheart, but you can do that later. I’ll let you play with it as much as you want. But I’ve waited long enough and I’m not wasting another second. Gonna fill that tight cunt now. You hear me?”

You’re back in that floaty headspace, body feeling light, head feeling dreamy. You nod.

He smiles, using his leverage on your jaw to bring you in for a kiss while he climbs on top of you. You can feel the head of his hard cock pressing against your stomach.

“Good girl,” he says, moving away to lather kisses over your neck. His hips move to press the tip of his cock against your clit and you gasp. “My good girl You’re so sweet when you’re doing what I tell you to. Wish I’d known I could shut you up like this.”

You’re trying to be pissed off. You really are. But if you can be completely honest with yourself, it’s just turning you on more.

Your brain is almost gone, but you have one last spark of sentience. “Condom,” you gasp. “In my room.”

Bucky laughs against your neck. “You think I’m wearin’ a rubber with you?”

“Wha- yes?” 

“Don’t fuck with me, sweetheart, I know you’re on the pill. Seen it in your bathroom.”

“What were you doing in my-”

“I’m clean, just got checked. And I’m willing to bet you’ve never let anyone use this prissy little pussy without a condom before.”

You take a second, trying to assess how you feel about this. He really is such a douchebag, but he’s a douchebag you know incredibly well - he wouldn’t lie to you about this. You’re sure you could talk him into wearing a condom, but it might take a lot of back-and-forth. And his cock is teasing your hole now, and you’re squeezing around nothing, trying to suck him in. His cock is fully lubricated, all from the wetness between your thighs. You don’t say anything, but your body goes a bit limp.

“Yeah?” he says, celebrating his victory with a smile. You feel it against your collarbone. “You gonna let me skip the rubber?”

“Yeah,” you breathe. “Just stop fucking around Bucky. Please.”

He laughs lightly and begins to press in, the tight ring of muscle protesting against his size. You seize up while he stretches you out. It’s leaving a tight and uncomfortable sensation in your abdomen and you let out a quiet yelp.

“Such a good girl,” he says, reaching down to stroke your clit. He’s thrusting in slow, giving you just a little bit more with every press. His voice is low, as if he’s trying to comfort you, but it’s still coming across slightly patronising. “Letting me fuck you raw. Gonna take my cum like the good girl you are.”

You’re loosening up with the help of his dirty words and his fingers on your clit, drawing tight circles. It’s starting to feel good - more than good. But he’s still not in all the way. You have no idea how you’re going to take him.

His cock is insistent inside you, pressing in further and further while he whispers filthy praises and encouragements on your sweat-glistening skin. You brain is becoming jumbled with pleasure and the overwhelming sensation of fullness.

“This what you pictured when those other limp-dick assholes used to fuck you?” he grunts, bottoming out. You yelp at the angle he hits, body squirming around him. You thought you knew what getting fucked deep felt like, but you had never felt this. 

He pulls out and presses another punishing thrust into you. You gasp. “Answer.”

“Yes,” you say and you might be on the verge of tears. You can’t wrap your head around what’s happening. Everything feels a little blurry and his finger on your clit is still drawing tight circles. You just know that you need him to move. “Pictured you every time.”

He rewards you by beginning to slowly pull out and in, gently getting you used to his size. You’re filled to the brim with him. “I know. Read all about it in that dirty little book. Made them take you doggy so you could pretend it was me. So fucking desperate.”

Shame and pleasure are amalgamating in your stomach. It’s creating something more powerful than just the feeling of him moving inside you. It’s all becoming a bit too much, but in a way that you can’t help but love.

“It’s okay, angel. I’m no better than you. You turn me into such a fucking creep. Picking up girls who look like you. Leaving the dinner table to jerk it in the bathroom when you get all bratty and whiny.”

Just the thought of that makes you startle, pussy clenching around him. He looks so pretty, blue eyes dark with want, pink lips crushed between his teeth, gaze zeroed in on where you’re taking him, the light imprint in your tummy. The pleasure of it - the culmination of all your want - has you gasping, tears leaking from your eyes and trickling down your cheeks.

He sees it and startles. You can read it all on his face now - the awe and adoration.

“Oh, sweetheart,” he cooes, thumb reaching up to brush a fat tear from the corner of your eye. “Always been such a crybaby. You’re so pretty like this, such a pretty crier.”

It makes the tears puddle faster, the pleasure bordering on too much.

“I know, baby. It’s so much, isn’t it? I know,” he soothes you, while his hips work in direct opposition - fucking into you with brutality. It’s not just the pleasure, but the overwhelming emotion. You can’t work out exactly what you’re feeling, and you know that now isn’t the time to figure it out anyway.

Instead, you just let yourself feel it. The way his hips grind against yours, the feeling of him stretching you out, the crescendo of all that pent-up want finally bursting into song. You can’t stop looking at him, how pretty and fucked-out he is above you, even when he’s still pretending he hasn’t lost an ounce of control. 

“Stop with those fuckin’ eyes,” he grunts, catching your gaze. You’re still teary-eyed and pouty. “Gonna make me lose it early.”

The thought of him spilling inside you does nothing to curb the feeling. Your eyes widen and he grunts, pulling out of you and sitting up with his eyes squeezed shut. He takes a deep, dogged breath.

“Turn around,” he bites out.

With the way his face is pinched, eyes squeezed tight, he might be greatly suffering or experiencing a euphoria of pleasure. You don’t disobey a man at either point.

You spin around, face-down on the bed. You can hear him shuffle around, but seconds pass where you don’t feel his skin on yours. The anticipation makes you shiver.

When you finally do feel his touch, it’s his two hands slowly stroking down your hips. You lean backwards into his touch, whimpering just a little.

“What you whining for now?” he asks from behind you. You hear the smile in his voice.

“Put it back in,” you moan, pushing back on him until you feel his cock prod against your ass. You’re no longer feeling any shame at your desperation. You’re too far gone.

He takes your hip firmly with his prosthetic hand, the other moving down to give your ass a loving pat. “You need it that bad?”

“Don’t be a dick.”

He laughs low. “Still so fucking bratty. Think I can fuck it outta you?”

You can do nothing but nod, head rolling forward while the thick tip prods your entrance, sliding in slowly once more.

“That’s it,” he groans. He feels so much deeper like this. You can feel him all the way up your stomach to your throat. “Knew you’d take my cock like this. Knew you’d feel this good, just didn’t think you’d be this fucking dirty.”

“Fuck, Bucky, I need you,” you moan. You’re obscurely aware of the fact that you’ll probably be cringing at the memory of saying those words later, but it matters very little to you in this moment. “Needed you so bad.”

“Yeah?” he grunts. “Why don’t you tell me what you needed so bad?”

Your brain is moving like slow, heavy machinery again - too slow to come up with anything. “I- no, Bucky, I can’t-”

“Let me help you out.”

His arm reaches out in front of you, pulling out the godforsaken book that started this entire mess in the first place. You’re still a bit dumb, watching him pull open the book and flick to a page he has ear-marked - like a significant page in his favourite book. He slams it in front of you palm pressing it open until you take it from him cautiously. You look down at the book uncomprehending, body still jostling with the force of his thrusts.

“Read.”

Your head spins back, even though you can’t see him from this angle. He can’t be serious. 

One firm pinch to your ass confirms that he is.

Face burning and stomach clawing with shame and arousal, you clear your throat. Your voice comes out breathy and high.

“Matt always wore a condom but I think Bucky would be such a jerk about it. I wouldn't even mind. The thought of him coming inside me turns me on so- ooh!”-

Bucky’s hand reaches down below you, stroking at your clit.

“- so much. I really want him to fill me up. I wonder if he - fuck, Bucky - cums a lot. Whenever I think about him fucking me, I picture him filling me up to the brim until I’m dripping with his…”

You can’t go on any more. It just gets filthier from then on and you’re already on the verge of coming again. Thankfully, that seems to do enough for him.

“Jesus, you have a thing for this shit? That’s real fucking dirty, sweetheart. I promise I got a big fucking load for you. You’re the only one who is gonna take it from now on.”

You want to snap that he clearly has a thing for it too, judging by how riled up he is. He’s panting behind you, losing his rhythm. But you can’t do any such thing. All you can do is moan unintelligibly. You feel the familiar prickle behind your eyes, tears spilling out while you sniffle.

“Aw angel, you know what those tears do to me. Can’t help but give you what you want. You want my cum?”

You nod enthusiastically, spasming around him. You just wish you could see his face right now, but you can picture it.

“Fuck, yeah you do,” he growls. “Such a good girl for me. My good girl, all mine. Gonna give you my cum now, never gonna let you go empty from now on.”

With a firm hand between your neck and shoulder, he drags you upright against him. Your hands reach out to balance yourself against the headboard and he moves your jaw back until your mouth meets his. The kiss is brutal and sloppy, the angle not-quite-right, but just the feeling of his lips on yours and the movement of your tongues against each other makes you tumble off the edge.

A surge of unbridled want courses through you. You cry into his mouth, tears spilling between your lips until you can taste the salt. It’s either the taste of your tears or the sensation of your walls fluttering around him that causes Bucky to grunt, dick twitching once before spilling deep inside.

You had thought about this almost obsessively since you were old enough to understand the possibility. Somehow, you underestimated what it would do to you.

You might be floating or flying or drifting out of consciousness, but you are very conscious of the fact that you had never really known what it means to experience true pleasure until this moment. The noises he makes are filthy while he pumps you full of him, but you’re sure you’re likely giving as good as you’re getting. Not that you have the faintest awareness of what you’re saying.

Bucky wasn’t lying. You can feel his heavy load dripping out of you you, messing your thighs and the sheets. He continues to bounce you on his cock slowly and gently even after you have both come down from your highs. You’re sensitive and sore, but there’s something comforting about small, shallow thrusts, even if the squelching noises it’s making are obscene.

Eventually, he slides himself out of you and wraps himself around you instead. He envelopes you in a sort of gentle tackle, pulling your exhausted body with him deeper into the sheets.

“You still with me, sweetheart?” he asks, brushing a strand of hair away from your face. You can feel his stubble against your temples, his breath on your skin.

“Uh huh” you try. It comes out as more of a garble. He laughs, light and airy.

You open your eyes, take in his tired, happy grin. His blue eyes have gone bright again.

“Thought you said you weren’t gonna break me,” you say sardonically. 

He plays with your hair, twirls it around a finger. “Might have gotten carried away.”

You roll your eyes. He does a poor imitation of you, rolling his eyes all the way back into his skull in mockery. You try to glare but it doesn’t work against your smile. You settle back down against his chest. Feel it vibrate while he laughs.

“You really meant that?” you ask after a moment. You cough away a scratch in your voice. “About wanting me since we were kids?”

“Hell yeah,” he chuckles. Your head bounces against his chest lightly. “I was so crazy about you when we were kids. Can’t believe you didn’t know.”

“How could I know? You were always so mean to me.”

“Don’t tell me you don’t know what that means in kid-language.”

“You still are. Sometimes.”

He raises his head to look down at you, searching your face. “Old habits.”

You nod, but you’re still working through everything in your head. Your post-orgasmic brain is working no faster than it was ten minutes ago. 

“I’m sorry for reading your diary,” he says after a few seconds and you swear you might see the raw edge of panic sitting somewhere there on his face. “It was a shitty thing to do. I don’t regret it, because I don’t know that I would have ever had the balls to make a move otherwise, but I am sorry.”

It’s so bizarre, so completely unexpected, you can only stare. He’s looking back at you with an uncharacteristic nervousness that makes you slightly uncomfortable. Truthfully, you had forgotten you were even mad about the privacy violation in the first place. Maybe it’s the two orgasms.

You still don’t want to have a heart-to-heart with Bucky - that might be pushing things a bit too far, a bit too early. Instead you lean forward to give him a small, chaste kiss. He smiles.

“I’ll make it up to you,” he says, pressing small kisses to your lips, moving down your cheek and on to your neck. “Just wait ‘till I get my tongue on you.”

You tense up, resolutely ignoring the heat pooling low in your stomach. There is no way in hell you can endure another round right now. Your limbs are still shaking.

Whatever expression is on your face makes Bucky laugh. “Don’t look at me like that. I’ll give you a couple hours. We got two long weeks in this house by ourselves.”

a/n: the diary entries are basically just my dms with my moots lmao

🏷 everything taglist: @buckysbbydoll @donuelle @angelryex @kombuchaaaaa @dollfaceglow @vip-hs

🏷 bucky taglist: @dolcesaints @marina468 @avgdestitute @tw1sters @dxnsgrl @thegirlwhowaited5everok @pjo4life1939 @otheliesstuff @domitaylorsversion @simplemind-simplematter @love-stucky @queen-acdc @epiphanyrogers @monicasposh @daddysbitchybaby @yearninglustfully @starr-jazz @las-galletas @thatesqcrush @mathcat345 @openlyluckyartisan @buckmybarnes @atsumubabe @annoyingrebelsoul

and your arms were winded around his neck. your knees pulled to your chest as your cheek rested on his collarbone. 

he reeked of sweat and stank of alcohol. there’s a small lingering scent of weed. and his signature musk of cigarettes. 

you two didn’t speak for a long time. 

just basking in his warmth.

(you wonder vaguely if he was basking in yours too.)

you can imagine his face. he’s probably infuriated but indifferent at the same time. not seeing a point in shoving you off. he probably has the fattest grimace on his face and absolutely despises you.

his lip is downturned but his eyes are flat. like he’s slightly off put by your behavior but he’s too lazy to want to change it. 

the visual is too funny. 

you lie down in the feeling. you’ve never done this with a boy before. you haven’t thought about it in a long time. your parents shoved the idea of no boys down your throat so much and pushed pushed pushed when you could start dating.

you used to laze around in school day dreaming about when you’d have your first kiss. giggling to your friends about if “that boy in your class is the one!”

then you got bad. 

and you stopped thinking about it at all. 

any crushes or feelings you harbored suddenly turned to nothing. 

until, of course, you decided that you’ll choose something for yourself for once. 

so you lament about the fact you’ll probably die a virgin when you’re lying in bed. and no person at your school knows you enough to want to date you for the last measly months of your life. and you’ll never get that dreamy first kiss you used to fantasize about when you were a child. 

but the boy of your reality is under you. somehow not shoving you off and spitting on you. his arms don’t wrap around you to smother you into complicity with your heartache. he doesn’t sink into your body. nor do you receive the comfort of kisses pressing against your face. 

he just sits there. 

so you bask in the touch of someone who doesn’t care for you. 

it’s nice. 

other girls may want someone to treat them kindly. to treat them like glass and like they’ll break if you even graze them a bit too hard. 

but this? 

this is enough for you. 

because you have no expectations for him. your parents are supposed to understand you. your friend are supposed to hold your hands and tell you that you’ll be okay. 

wolf doesn’t owe you anything. 

because you and wolf aren’t anything. 

he’s a rough plane. the darkness forcing you to only focus on his touch. the brush of his chin and the warmth of his body. his steady heartbeat under your ear. 

a boy who only uses you. and doesn’t care that you cling onto him like a parasite. 

you think it gives you both a hand in each other's uses. 

he can use you to patch him up. as a bribe that you won’t tell your father that he’s basically running an underground money scheme. and you can use him to feel something everyday. 

you don’t move for a long time. 

and he doesn’t either. 

until eventually, he plants his hands on your waist and places you on the cushion next to him. you’ve only felt his hands when you patch him up. grabbing your hair or holding your face mockingly doesn’t count. 

he gets up to flick on the lights. and when the lights flicker on, he has his face turned away from you. staring at the wall where the light switch is. 

“i’m going to sleep.”

you blink before a light hearted chuckle leaves your lips. his voice is rough and scratchy, probably from throwing up for the last hour. you kinda like that his voice is still boyish, it makes him just a bit more human when he says things like this. 

he must be mad at you. that makes sense. after all, what teenage boy wants to admit that no one remembered his birthday. other than some stupid girl who annoys him everyday.

so you grab the purse that you brought to work and walk to where he’s standing. hes still not looking at you. 

he doesn’t… have a broad back. 

it’s broad sure, but in a way you describe a boy’s back. it’s just wider than yours, that’s the difference. he’s still just a kid. 

you wonder how he carries the weight of his life on it so freely. to do anything he wants, to beat people up just because he wants to. 

you feel like you’re always hunched over. cracking under the pressure. your fingers run up the bandages under your sleeves. you went a little crazy after kitty died didn’t you? 

you’re jealous of him. 

but you admire him. 

you gently place your forehead on his back. your eyes lidding half closed as you stare at his wooden floor. you’re really pushing his physical boundaries today. 

you’re sure you’re one more touch away from a punch to the face. hopefully he’s still drunk from that alcohol so you can run when you need to. 

“really. i mean it. happy birthday.” 

he doesn’t reply and you don’t make him. one of your many talents is knowing when you’re not wanted. so you laugh as you pull away. reaching the front door before throwing a smile over your shoulder. 

“and put the cake in the fridge! eat it tomorrow okay?” 

you leave before he can march over to where you’re standing and kill you. the door clicking closed behind you as you’re hit with the wool wind of spring. 

it’s far past your curfew. 

your parents will definitely yell at you. 

but for some reason, you’re not worried tonight. even if your parents will yell at you, you don’t care. you walk home with a smile and a twirl in your step as you laugh to the night.

as if there’s a secret only you and the darkened sky knows about. when you get home, you’re going to change your bandages and start separating your things.

how exciting!

and when you walk out, you can’t see the way his breath hitches. the way he looks back at the stupid cake on his table. and how his fists tighten as if he’s angry at something.

his parents? 

his subordinates? 

you?

he doesn’t know. 

so he gives up on blaming someone and shoves the stupid cake into the fridge and stubbornly crawls into bed. his heart beating out of his chest as he desperately curls away from the warmth flooding his body.

something that’s so foreign to him now. 

and the jar of ashes on his desk glare back at him with evidence of softness he refuses to acknowledge, softness from his own heart. for a stupid bothersome girl who smiles at only him. who said she’s grateful for him. and willingly clung onto him like he’s something worth holding.

and that’s terrifying. 

…

it’s been a few days since then.

wolf hasn’t brought up your little birthday celebration. maybe he’s embarrassed. that’s definitely part of it. but he’s also not really talking to you in general. 

well it’s not like it happens on purpose. you’re both busy and you don’t usually talk to each other in school. you’re too busy thinking about what to keep and what to give away. and he’s too busy running ganghak in line for the union. 

you think about when you were running down the streets. looking for at least one place that was still open. when you saw a pastry cafe about to close and practically begged the grandma there let you buy something. 

she let you with a gruff nod and you smiled and hugged her. thanking her endlessly and she rolls her eyes and pats your back. you wonder when you became so outgoing. what an odd feeling. 

so you grabbed the nicest cake you’ve ever seen. you don’t know if wolf likes strawberries nor do you care. you get some chocolate icing on the side and she lets you take the whole thing. you’re glad your job is working out or else you would’ve never bought this.

you walk back to wolf’s house and quietly open the door. you can hear him heaving and gagging even through the closed bathroom door. you silently decorate the cake with the worst drawing of a wolf you’ve ever seen in your life.

and you completely forgot about the candles so you searched around his cabinets for some. everything looked incredibly dusty, some pots looked used but that was very little. 

your eyes glide from cabinet to cabinet before you find a little dish full of candles. there’s some leftover cake from probably years ago still dirtying the bottom of some of them. it’s kinda gross and you stick your tongue out when you see them. 

you pull the dish out and set it on the counter. a little note falls from under and when you pick it up, there’s cursive writing. feminine and dainty. telling whoever it’s dedicated to that they’re not getting another birthday because they’ve been a bad boy.

because they’re going to give it to his brother.

the numbered candles you see go up from 1 to 10. 

the grin you have evaporates. 

so you grab the long white ones without numbers on them. running them under water to get rid of the caked on dust on them. you rip up the note and throw it away. no one wants to see such useless things on such a nice day. 

you stick the candles on the cake and it’s horrifically ugly. and wolf will definitely think the same. it’s incredibly horrendous and you have to cover your mouth to stop the giggles from escaping. 

to be honest, you dont really know why you did it. 

you were high off of gourmet food that you didn’t pay for. sitting with the boy who makes everyday worth getting out of bed. to see his face when he beats people up and how careless he really is. 

maybe seeing him so pathetic made your chest twist. squeezing out every ounce of empathy you had left when you saw those depressing notifications on his phone. seeing him stumble back to his empty house, leaning on you. 

your dog is left without a leash once again. 

so who are you to not give him a treat every once in a while? 

he deserves it after all. 

you’re broken out of your thoughts when you the orange haired boy in your class is in front of you. what was his name again? hwangmo? he’s one of wolf’s subordinates, that’s all you know about him.

when your eyes lazily look up, you see his face twisted. you think he’s trying to look mean. or trying to look mean. he’s slightly sweating, maybe he’s nervous. he looks constipated more than anything. 

“wolf wants to see you.” 

oh? 

how nice. 

your lips twist up as you look at the boy. his hair looks interesting. its bright orange and pulled into a ponytail behind his head. a singular curly part is next to his face. he’s trying to put on a tough face but it’s hard to do that when he’s so obviously stressed. 

a small smile graces your lips as your pat his arm that’s crossed over his other one. standing from your chair in the near empty classroom and the stragglers trying not to stare because who can’t at the sound of wolf’s name.

“you don’t have to shit yourself, i’ll go with you.” 

you can tell he wants to let out the biggest sigh of relief ever. what a cutie, maybe he didn’t want to use force. but you’re a girl and boys want to look tough in front of girls so he just nods. 

he leads you to the roof where you first met wolf keum. and hes sitting in office chair that was so obviously dragged up to the roof by his want. he’s surrounded by cigarettes and snack wrappers.

you look around and see his other subordinates playing on their phones and the emo one, hayden,  is surprised to see you. mouthing something to the one next to you and you can vaguely make it out. 

holy shit, is that the girl from the club?

hwangmo just lets you do whatever you want and goes to stand with hayden. that’s when he lets out the sigh he’s been holding and holds out his hand to get a hit of hayden’s cigarette. and you watch hayden laugh as he hands it to him, both of them going to stand next to the ledge on the rooftop.

you approach wolf’s chair. his legs are stretched out and there’s a cigarette to his lips. the smoke lightly blowing to the wind. his glasses reflect the sky and you can’t see his eyes. 

you find it amusing. 

he really is fitting into the role of delinquent.

so you lean against the chair and look at him. his gradient purple hair shifts with the wind and you can hear the laughing of his subordinates behind you. wolf still not looking at you.

“yes?” 

you ask softly as you stare down at him. you gently wave your hand over his upturned face. explicitly making your presence known to the boy. 

“youre coming with me to an assembly today.” 

his voice is flat and monotone, indifferent to the fact that you can reply and talk back to him. you blink at the delinquent. 

usually, he doesn't care what you do. if he needs you, he’ll bother you at your job when you're working. and if he doesn't need you to patch him up, he wont bother you on weekdays. 

you're like a shadow he can turn on and off. he can choose when to pay attention to you when he needs you. and you're content to be that obnoxious mouthy thorn in his side. 

so it’s odd to hear him specifically order for your presence. the last time you went with him to a meeting, you were off work. you just followed him just because. 

“i have work.” 

instantly, there’s quiet in the air. his subordinates stare at you like you're a mythical being. some of them stiffen and some have their jaws dropped. the sounds of clash of clans ring from their phone. 

man, you really don't like boys sometimes. they might as well bow at your knees because they're treating wolf like jesus and you like judas. and you’ve just betrayed him.

he doesn’t look at you still, staring up at the sky as he takes a puff from his cigarette before stubbing the filter and flicking it away. 

“so?” 

you wonder if wolf knows what a job is. or maybe jobs are null to delinquents. they don’t seem like the types to be very understanding of circumstances.

“… so… i cant go after school.” 

your refusal is loud even though your voice is soft. and you can almost feel his subordinates hold their breaths. 

you wonder if wolf is the kind of boy to be embarrassed at such things in front of his subordinates. to be talked back to by a girl. he isn't usually, but you're normally alone with him anyways. 

you think he might be. despite the indifferent look on his face. his mouth set in a firm line 

his hand then shoots out to grip your wrist. twisting it in a way where he shields it from the others. shoving your sleeve up and your heart rate spikes. 

your eye twitches as you stand there. his grip is grueling and unrelenting on your wrist. you can’t move. and you feel bare to the eye when his eyes burn holes into the tight white bandages wrapped over your arm. 

his hand slowly twists your arm. threatening to show others your dirty secret. and you feel nauseous. your eyes water but not from sadness. you’re infuriated and mortified. 

even if these people don’t matter to you, the bottom line is very clear to you. 

wolf is not a kind person. 

and to think wolf is worth feeling sorry for. wasn’t he the one to bandage your hands? you forgot above all else, hes a piece of shit. he’s selfish and only cares for himself and what he wants.  

your chest twists with sickness as your mind folds in on itself. 

wolf stops before anyone who’s staring at you two can get a good look at your arm. and he lets go, to which you shove your sleeve down and gasp out a breath. tears pricking your eyes as you huff out pants. 

what did he get out of this? 

you try to supply your mind with answers to why wolf is being needlessly cruel now that he has subordinates and is in a stupid gang. to show dominance? to prove that he has more power than you? 

why the fuck would he need to show that against you?

“i’ll send you the address.” 

“wolf- i told you i can’t go-”

“did i fucking ask for your opinion?” 

he punctuates his words with a yawn. a laugh to your emotions spinning inside of you. after such a good streak of not going back there, wolf always has to dredge up the worst parts of your life and shove them back in your face. 

wolf is a cruel person. 

wolf is rude. 

…

you just thought… 

…

(what did you think?)

you stare down at the dog who’s just bitten your fingers. disobeyed you. your one solace. he finally meets your eyes with his own piercing grey ones. flat and indifferent. there’s something else there. what is that? 

resentment? 

anger? 

what did you do to deserve this?

“fuck you.” 

you whimper like a wounded animal. your hand raises and you slap him across the face. and he takes it. it only makes you angrier. rolling his eyes like you’re not even worth flinching for. 

and you’re not. 

you know that. 

you know that. 

but your dog isn’t supposed to make you feel like this.

(especially not when you’re supposed to be enjoying the last few months of your life.)

you stomp back inside and muffle your tears in your sleeve. you can’t yell right now and you don’t want to face anyone so you cry alone in the bathroom and peel scabs until your head stops screaming. 

…

oh.

ah…

where are you? 

shelves, stale bright lights, the ding of the door. there’s a woman and a little boy walking around and the child is giggling at silly faces his mom is making. you’re holding a scanner. you’re wearing your work vest.

work.

work?

when did you leave school? 

…

ah.

yes, yes, that’s right. 

you had a shift today.

or was that yesterday? 

hm. 

well you’re already here so you had to have a shift today. 

today…. 

hm….

oh

wolf’s thingie. 

he wanted you to go today didn’t he? 

…

wolf…

(don’t think about it don’t think about it don’t think about it don’t think about it don’t think about it)

“hey, you’re off your shift. get out of here.” 

huh? 

you look up and see that the mother and child aren’t there anymore. your co worker, a high schooler like you, fills the space infront of you. she has nice long black hair and pink eyes.

doesn’t your shift end at 11pm? 

“no, your shift ends at 7 today…?” 

oh. 

damn. 

when was your 11pm shift? 

you swore that it was today. 

“are you…. okay?” 

why did she ask that? you think you’re fine. you look down at yourself and you see nothing out of place. 

you wave your hand and shrug of your work vest. smiling easily at the girl and nodding. she watches you walk out from behind the counter with your backpack.

you don’t see her eyes look at your twitching hands and your bitten off fingernails. 

“yes, i’m okay. i’m just losing track of time.”

today is a good day. 

…

shit. 

where the fuck are you? 

when wolf sent you the address, you weren’t expecting it to be so far away. and far away for you is leaving your bed so you might as well be travelling to antarctica. 

you think you’re in a park? 

it’s too fucking dark for this shit. 

it’s then you wonder again why the fuck do delinquents meet up at night? are they afraid their parents will see them out? 

jeez. delinquents are so damn lame sometimes. 

you’re really trying not to think about wolf keum because then you’ll have to unpack about how it all makes you feel. and another thing you’re amazing at is knowing when you’ll freak out. so you do yourself a favor and busy yourself with stupid thoughts instead. 

but you also can’t avoid wolf keum so you’re searching for the stupid ass park anyway. it makes you queasy but there’s nothing you can do. so you let yourself stay in this limbo of anxiety and feigning ignorance to your own feelings. 

oh shit and you just almost bulldozed over an ajumma. 

maybe you should stop spacing out…

“you kids need to watch where you’re going!!! i already had someone almost try to kill me!!” 

she’s pointing a little further down the path to where there’s a clearing. a bigger space that certainly could house a little army of delinquents. fucking finally, you’re getting tired. 

you beam at the ajumma and apologize again. putting on your most earnest smile because thank god she just saved your directionless ass. and she just huffs and mutters about stupid kids. 

you skip away as the crickets are loud in the face of late night. 

when you get there, there’s some stares but no one really regards your presence with much weight. maybe you're just a part time worker passing through or a girl taking the long way home after cram school. 

you're surrounded on all sides with testosterone. some of them are really really rough looking. both in appearance and their facial features. some of them trying too hard look tough, leaning against their probably stolen motorcycles smoking cigarettes. while others are loitering around, looking their age as you can hear the chimes of clash of clans coming from their phones. 

what is it with that god forbidden game? 

theyre either wearing their school uniforms or some brand that kids your age are fucking obsessed with. encircled by adidas, supreme, or gucci. an embarrassing amount of axe body spray and the odor of teenage boys who forget showers exist. 

its definitely a new experience. it thrusts you into a different environment and you cant help but smile. usually you dont feel much for your everyday life but this is so fun. you look like a delicate flower in the depths of the swamp. 

youre weaving in between boys talking and their too loud assumptions. theres some whispers about who you are filtering in and out of your ears. 

whose girl is this? 

dude, what do you mean whose girl? who the fuck would date any of us? 

well she looks like she’s happy to see someone.

right as that last whisper crosses your mind, something or someone smacks into your shoulder.  bad for you because you’re shorter than this person and it turns into an aggressive shoulder check. 

damn maybe that ajumma wasn’t exaggerating…

you’re less annoyed and more so put off. because they shoulder checked weirdly hard, to the point where you stumble back. you bow your head just a little to be polite. rolling your eyes because you wonder if delinquents have basic manners. 

the boy who ran into you doesn't reply for a moment. and its then you realize theres a hush around you. your presence really drawing the attention of the the boys surrounding you now.

before it can get too quiet though, a surprised laugh rings out through the air. 

“oh! hey! you're wolf’s friend, aren’t you?” 

your head snaps up to see your attacker was that orange haired fellow you saw when you went with wolf to his first meeting. his light brown eyes staring into yours as he grins down at you. 

he’s hunched a little to lean down to look at you properly and has a hand up to greet you. he’s so oddly luminescent in this hellhole of teenage boys. he says his name is jake ji and beckons you to say yours. 

ah man, 

he really is cute. 

a smile reappears on your lips as you say your name and he nods excitedly like a dog. up close and not suffering with nicotine sickness, jake is cuter than you remember. soft cheeks and rounded eyes. 

he’s more of a dog than your own dog…

“how did you remember me?” 

“well how can i forget you calling wolf short as fuck! so hilarious!” 

he laughs loud and unapologetically. as if he doesn’t know the weight his presence brings along. or more so not acknowledging it. other delinquents stare as you and jake laugh at the memory. 

there’s some whispers and talks among you as you and jake are recounting the encounter. him asking how you even got that sick and you replying that smoking cigarettes suck! he agrees and you two chuckle again. 

it’s easy and effortless back and forth banter. 

you haven’t experienced something like this in a while. 

the teenagers not hiding their stares very well murmur under their breaths. most of them are saying how they never expected wolf to have a girl. and then it descends into a dick stroking contest of who would have a girl. 

maybe women aren’t very popular around these parts…

because they assume you and wolf are an item. even at jake’s careful word choice that you’re wolf’s friend. but what teenage boy hears that one of the new heads in the union has a female friend and doesn’t assume you two are something more. 

eventually, your banter is put to a stop as someone steps behind jake to put him into, what you think is, a friendly chokehold. he has glasses with chains and is wearing a snapback with what you assume is a popular brand. 

“hey, are you talking about one piece again? stop harassing people about it, man.” 

“i wasn’t even talking about it!!!!! its not my fault that you didnt cry when vivi left the srawhats!!!!” 

the display is so… weirdly innocent. the one behind jake obviously knowing he wasn’t talking about one piece but just bringing it up to bother him. just two boys squabbling like they actually enjoy each other’s presence. 

you learn the taller one’s name is dean. he says that its surprising enough that jake even came along in the first place and the tangerine boy murmurs it's because he made him. 

there’s a pout on his lips as you wonder why he looks so downtrodden at the prospect of coming to these meetings. but then you think about it and jake doesn’t really seem like the kind of person to be in the union. 

after a bit, jake seems to remember that you’re still standing there and gives you an apologetic look as he smacks his palm over the taller’s mouth. muffling his angry scolding. well, you were too busy staring to remember why you were here in the first place. 

“oh you must be looking for him! ganghak is over there, kay?” 

he points over a little bit away where you see red uniforms. you wonder why you didn't see them in the firs place. probably just some fanfiction bullshit to get you to talk to jake. 

he bids you goodbye and you reciprocate, waving to him and the talks amongst you mostly go back to normal. there’s still some stares as some as intrigued on who you are to wolf. 

there’s a stare that pierces the back of your neck and when you turn, you see a pale white boy. he has red eyes and piercings on his right eyebrow. he gives you a smile and your eyebrows just furrow as you pivot away.

weirdo…

when you walk over to where jake pointed, wolf is there leaning against a blue motorcycle smoking a cigarette. staring off into the dark sky as his subordinates talk with each other and some other kids from other schools. hwangmo is hanging by wolf’s side though, looking around with a mean glare. 

something in your heart catches when you look at wolf. defensively turning your non dominant arm away from him. your lips pulled into a frown as you stand a little behind him. 

hwangmo seems to be staring at you then wolf and then he turns away to save face in case wolf kills him. 

there’s tension that’s thick between you two. you doubt he feels it though because wolf doesn’t care for anyone but himself. he proved that with his little stunt to show dominance over you at lunch. you force your face to be amicable. 

wait, 

why are you being amicable? 

you strike wolf’s shin with a huff and a snap in your voice. you can see hwangmo off to the side closing his eyes and turning his head away. praying for his own peace. 

“hey. i’m here. be grateful.” 

you don’t pay attention to the students who gawk at the display like you just lit a flame to a gas canister. and the others who are currently snickering at the fact that wolf’s girl is currently having a tantrum on him. 

you don’t care for it.

because they don’t know what wolf did and why it means so much. and you’ve never been allowed to show your feelings so explicitly. so you leap at the chance to be able to do it now. 

you’re always always always pushed it down and smiled and hoped for the best. hid it from everyone and expressed it in the only way you knew how. in the dark of your bathroom and room at night. 

but you don’t want to do that anymore. 

you can’t do that anymore. 

…

wolf doesn’t reply to you though. 

his eyes glide from the night sky and plainly stares at the sidewalk as he smokes his cigarette. the red mark from when you slapped him has long faded and you’re thinking of replacing it with another one. 

your lips purse as he doesn’t acknowledge your presence or your hurt. so you pinch his arm and step on his foot again. he still doesn’t budge. 

you guess you shouldn’t be surprised. you’ve seen him when he bears people up and he tanks hits like his body isn’t even real. so this probably feels like a baby trying to hurt him right now. 

your hand that was wrapped in bandages by wolf is suddenly stopped in its journey to strangle him. firmly held by his own rough digits as he clasps the width of your palm. he stares at the purse of your lip and your livid eyes. 

the hand that grips yours tugs your body into his side and forces you to be still. effectively rendering you useless when you look up at him. unable to do anything but step on his feet which he’s already shown his indifference towards. 

when he finally takes the cigarette from his mouth and shoves it between your lips, you scowl but take it anyway. taking a puff and letting the nicotine burn off some of your anger. there’s no point in fighting back when you know you’ll lose. 

you’re focused on trying not to kill the boy in front of you as his eyes shift from you to the group of students from daehyeon. listening to your huffed out breaths as you cough out smoke. 

“you’re mad.” 

“astute observation, wolf! someone get this guy a fucking nobel prize!”

you can tell he’s willing back the want to roll his eyes to the back of his skull. there’s stifled laughter among the general noise of other delinquents. he’s quiet for a moment as you soak into his warmth. biting the filter to the cigarette while glaring at the sidewalk. 

“you know jake?” 

…

huh? 

“… uh… no? he just told me where you were.” 

“hm.” 

wolf isn’t the kind of person you’d describe as inconspicuous. he’s explosive and makes his presence known when he wants it known. and he does it through violence or making himself known to the people who are afraid of him. 

but his hand grips your jaw, his arm still slung around your shoulders and pressing you into his side. his body seems to cover yours from others and your teeth gnash together and you accidentally bite off the filter to your cigarette. 

“don’t fucking talk to anyone here.” 

you watch it clatter to the ground as wolf speaks quieter. staring off into the distance as his thumb and fingers dig into your skin.

“i can do whatever the hell i want.” 

he doesn’t dignify you with a response but his grip tightening is response enough. why is he so serious about this? whatever. you can talk to the nice pretty boy if you want to.

hwangmo stares at the side of wolf’s face. his chin tilted up and the girl doesn’t even think to look up at him. his face and neck pale. but his ears are burning crimson. 

when wolf angrily messes with his hair, he almost catches hwangmo’s eye. and hwangmo politely turns his head before wolf can realize someone caught the feelings he’s so desperately trying to hide. 

…

wolf lets you go when the assembly starts. you cross your arms and stare up at the steps that their apparent leader stands on. there’s that guy with the slicked hair behind him and you’re staring up at the boy they call donald na. 

the crowd seems to silence immediately. all shitty mobile games powered off and all heads turned toward the vampire looking guy. his red eyes seem to regard his followers. 

he speaks of things you don’t care for. of numbers and to make sure students wear their expensive uniforms to advertise the companies the gang controls. and you instead turn and observe everyone’s faces. 

everyone seems to look very serious. some look a little more careless than others. some having a smirk and jake has a small smile as he looks around. but most have a severe expression that masks their true feelings under it. 

you can sense it in the way their fingers tap against their thighs and fists clenching. 

they’re scared of him. 

you glance again at donald na and think about how much of an oppressive force he has to be to hold this much power. maybe he’s hiding a full set of abs and crazy biceps under that gucci tracksuit. 

wolf’s face is one of the only ones that look genuinely unconcerned with anything that’s happening. you can tell he doesn’t care about the oppressive atmosphere. you wonder if it’s because it’s not set on him or he’s just not intimidated. 

you wonder if wolf ever feels intimidated by anything. 

the wind blows and the assembly ends. voices talk about homework, school, and this and that. wolf doesn’t look at you as you wave to jake’s friendly arm. 

…

oh the bane of your existence.

group assignments. 

a feat that is only completed when you’re a pushover and unwillingly finish it for the other three people. or actually works out because the people assigned are competent and split the work.

when you turn around in your desk to face your classmates, you smile just enough to be polite. nod when they ask if you’re well. grin as the topic shifts from history to what are our plans this weekend. they must all be close friends. 

you say, “i’m working this weekend.” 

and the girls moan in pity for you. your smile tightens at the sound as you look down at your paper where you were jotting down the answers to the actual group assignment. looks like you were fulfilling the former of the way most group assignments went. 

then the conversation shifts.

“where do you want to go?”

“ahhh maybe seoul…”

“i have to study sooo hard!” 

they talk of their own futures, giggling at thinking about classes in college. if they’ll find a boyfriend and if he’ll be attractive. if their grades right now are good enough to get into their preferred institution. 

you seem to completely filter out of the conversation, separated immediately when you don’t have half hearted smiles or replies to their words. none of them see the way your half assed smile melts away. and no one can hear the way your heart pounds in your chest. 

so you busy your trembling hand with finishing the paper you four were assigned to. 

staring down at the sheet so the three of them can’t see the way your face drops at the mention of university. because supposedly, you should be excited right? what a fantastic future ahead of you. what an amazing opportunity. 

…

a wry smile appears on your lips.

what a joke. 

you wonder how it’s so easy to be so ecstatic for the turn out of the future. to smile and laugh and be excited for years ahead of you. excitement that’s predating the next few years of high school even.

how does one even muster that much excitement for their life? like their mere existence is something to be celebrated.

because at the slightest mention of failing, you lost all your vigor for life immediately. you don’t know when that light got snubbed from your eyes. or maybe you’re being melodramatic, but something ugly coats your chest in sticky feelings that make you sick to your stomach when you think too hard about it. 

you swore that at one point, you really wanted to live. maybe when you were a kid and laughed. maybe when you used to joke with your friends. or maybe when your parents said you were “so so so responsible and mature.”

you swear you wanted to live at some point in your life. 

but the more it goes on, you start to forget those distant memories. 

you don’t remember when you didn’t live with the mindset you have now. that you have to live in debt for the rest of your life for the mere payment for deserving to live. when did your life become so transactional? 

was it when it seemed your parents did not love you when you were anything but a good obedient daughter? was it when your life seemed like it had absolutely no purpose other than fulfilling dreams that were not your own? 

you circle the last answer and look back up at the girls whose conversation now switched to crushes and boys. plastering the smallest smile onto your lips as you excuse yourself to turn in the paper to the teacher. and they seem surprised when you suddenly leave. 

you did not have dreams that were worth chasing. you did not have dreams that made you want to break out of this mold that had formed around you. there was nothing in your future that excited you. if anything, it made you unreasonably nauseous. 

maybe you really never had a good reason to live after all. 

you’ve only ever lived for other people, haven’t you? 

so you’ll stay in that tiny box that was created for you. curl up like an obedient dog living out its final days. coming out to eat when there’s food. running around when you need to. bark at people for no reason other than your own amusement. 

getting a few licks of deadly foods like peanut butter at the notion that your life is ending.

thats nice, isn’t it? 

what a nice way to end your life. 

when you return to your desk, the girls immediately turn to you with a shine in their eyes. cooing about guys. not the ones in the union of course, those guys were delinquents and so so dreadful. why, they shake in their shoes everytime wolf keum even glances at them. 

you don’t think any of them know that there’s someone in your class that is in the union. a certain orange haired boy whose currently trying very hard to solve his section of the group assignment with his group. 

you hide a real giddy smile behind your hand as you nod. feigning a stretch and a yawn when they talk about the more handsome guys in school. boys in upper grades and giggling about this one boy in your class but you honestly think he looks about as attractive as a literal piece of shit. 

you give your honest opinion here and there. saying that each of the guys they point out look average at best and not so much at worst. they get jokingly offended and you feel a bit better about doing the assignment by yourself. 

then they ask who you like. 

its an innocent enough question, you don't think you’ve ever talked to these girls before.  

you think for a moment, genuinely considering the question. a soft smile on your lips as you look out the window to see the sky that’s covered in clouds. your classroom is noisy with teenagers goofing off and the teacher gently hushing the too loud students.

you haven’t liked anyone in a while. most of your crushes have been one sided and you’ve definitely never had a boyfriend before. 

your mind goes to the boy who introduced himself as jake. and it’s true he’s pretty. his face is soft and his boyish smile pulls you in. but hes too… happy. 

something about him makes you envious and angry. and it makes you sad because he’s so soft. you’re jealous of him. that’s probably it. you’re consumed with jealousy and anger when you see him laugh and talk about one piece. 

and he doesn't light something in you the way someone else does.

sure, he makes you mad. and you’re still mad at him now. he’s a cruel person and he’s incredibly rude. 

but he’s still your dog, isn’t he? 

(and he’s all you have.)

“i guess… keum seongje?” 

…

there’s silence from the three girls before they start squealing and slapping your arm. high pitched as they pray for your safety and tell you to keep it down or else you might get beat up. 

“hes in the union!” 

“girl… do you not know the rumors???” 

“he’d literally kill you!!” 

you start laughing wholeheartedly at their reactions. even without his presence, wolf somehow makes everything so much more enjoyable. 

your cheeks don’t flush at the lie of saying keum seongje is your crush. you don’t bashfully hide away or twiddle your thumbs. your heart is racing but not because you're flustered, more so because you're absolutely loving this. 

“well… ehehe he’s pretty cute..” 

“GIRL. HES NOT EVEN TOP 10.” 

“cute or not, hasn’t he beat up half the boys at school??” 

“actually… she lowkey got a point..” 

there’s indignant gasps as two of the girls shake the other’s shoulders. screaming for her to get a grip. and you start laughing even harder as you watch the one being crucified put her hands up and shrug. saying that she’s seen wolf beat someone up before and it was kinda hot. 

this is fun. 

you're having fun. 

…

only people in ganghak know about wolf’s massive issue with staring. sure, he’s beat up kids at other school who stare at him for too long but it wasn’t ever enough to warrant attention. 

students in ganghak knew if you stared at wolf a few seconds too long, then you probably were going to stare at his shoes when he slammed his fist into your face. forcing you to bow and apologize to him with a smile. 

the union does not have this notion yet. 

they can feel his temper and the weight of the look in his eye but because most of them are delinquents, they look away anyway. no one gives wolf the opportunity bite and tear them to pieces. 

until wolf is passing forrest lee, the subordinate to myles joo at hyeongshin high school. 

wolf doesn’t care to remember names. he only remembers the three people he met at that one meeting but that’s about it. so when he hears union buzzwords sneered out of the lips of the red head, his head cranes lazily. 

he’s only slightly intrigued because he’s really fucking bored right now. 

it’s all useless shit. like being mad about myles joo being head, being scared of donald na. typical shit the useless idiots in this gang talk about. 

this whole union thing is getting really fucking boring. the money’s nice. wolf can’t deny that. he’s able to buy real designer and not that fake shit his dad used to buy to keep him quiet. 

but wolf is settling into a routine of being someone’s lapdog and he’s not liking it. the last thing he wants is to run someone else’s stupid ass errands. 

didn’t she say this would be fun? 

so he calls out forrest’s name with a cackle. and when the thick browned boy turns his head, he regards wolf with a blatant face of disrespect. and holds his stare. 

he gives forrest lee three seconds to look away. 

1..

it kinda reminds wolf of something. 

2…

what was it? 

3. 

ah his father. 

a grin splits his face as he lunges forward and start beating forrest lee to a pulp. the boy doesn’t get a chance to step back or run away. it’s not a fight that wolf likes. mostly because it’s not a fight, he’s kinda just beating the shit out of the dude. 

and eventually, forrest falls to the ground and wolf crouches above him with a smile. cocky and arrogant because how else can he act when faced with adrenaline in his veins. he doesn’t care for consequences and he doesn’t think ahead usually. 

he doesn't think about the three second rule that people in and out of the union will eventually regard him with. he doesnt think about the fact that forrest lee is the subordinate to myles joo.

it feels good.

he feels good.

and that’s all he cares about. 

…

that’s all he cares about until donald na’s thin pale lips speak a name into the air. a name that he doesn't tell anyone nor does he bother to explain her presence to the dunces at those meetings or his subordinates. 

a girl who he observed was quite close to wolf and he seemed to withstand her even stomping on his foot. why would he do that? why would he beat up a fellow member of the union and not the girl who hung around his side at the assembly? 

in fact, who even was this girl to wolf anyway? 

wolf stares back and pretends that there’s no bumps on the back of his neck and on his arms. he forces his hands still and he’s always been on guard when he’s threatened by someone who’s threatening something that belongs to him. 

so he cocks his head to the side and asks donald na why does it matter who she is to him. donald na feels as though he’s speaking to a child. a child who wants to keep his toys a secret from his father. 

it’s a losing battle on both ends and both boys know the other won’t budge without more force. and force isn’t what donald na needs. the leader of the union needs to be able to control all of his pawns in this game of chess. 

he needs control over this rogue dog. 

but it’s up in the air if he has it yet. despite the money and despite the power wolf holds now. he thinks back to kingsley’s call to him after his initial attempt to have keum seongje join the union. 

“he said no but there’s a girl with him. it’s unknown what their relationship is.”

another factor he needs to consider it seems. if he wants wolf, he needs to accept he may be harder to control than jake. he needs to have some leverage on him. he needs more leverage than that girl. 

so he lets wolf go with a warning and a gleam in his eye. 

and wolf walks out of the office and immediately rubs the bandage covering the side of his neck. gritting his teeth and biting his lip. 

fuck. 

…

wolf is handing something to you. 

it’s a small box and a ceramic jar. 

when you open the box, you’re met with black velvet and something tucked into the cushion. 

there’s a note on the inside. 

it’s some jargon from a small company. thanking you for buying from them and explaining that they mixed the remains with the ceramic like the buyer asked. 

…

it’s a necklace. 

a sturdy black chain and there’s a small attachment that makes it a necklace. it’s a small kitty curled up. you can see small grey flakes embedded into the black. it hangs limply on the chain and you feel your heart clench. 

wolf isn’t a kind person. 

wolf is a rude person who only cares for himself. 

wolf… gave you the ashes and a necklace to commemorate your cat. the cat you knew no one else acknowledged. the cat you spent hours sobbing over. 

wolf has given you solidified proof that he was real. that it wasn’t a figment of your imagination. and that your heartache was real. it was true. 

you weren’t in pain for no reason. 

your lips part in a toothy grin as you hold the necklace up. 

“was it expensive?” 

“does it fucking matter?” 

so it was. 

you clasp the lock behind your neck and put it on.it rests right inbetween your clavicles. nestled into the valley between your collarbones. kitty is curled there safe and warm. 

“i won’t do it again.” 

it’s a promise made by the baddest delinquent at your school. the closest thing to an apology wolf keum can muster. you wonder if wolf ever lies. 

because the wolf you know doesn’t give a shit if you’re upset or not. because he knows you’ll follow him no matter what. 

you wonder what changed for him to desperately need your trust back in him. 

“okay. thank you.” 

you think about if you really do have a crush on wolf keum. he stands in front of you on the rooftop. his subordinates nowhere to be seen. he probably told them to fuck off. 

it’s a cloudy day. the rooftop looks gloomier than usual and it washes his purple hair a little darker than normal. the hair that you ran your fingers through. he’s not looking at you, as if it pains him. his hands stuffed in his pockets. 

he’s…. pretty. 

his sleek grey eyes and those oddly long eyelashes. you wonder what those two bandages are that cover his left cheek and the side of his neck. 

wolf really is attractive. 

is that the first time you’ve thought that? 

you lied to those girls in your class. you usually think wolf looks like a fucking nerd. he’s a nerd with fluffy hair and a completely 180 appearance than in his personality. 

but why is a flush crawling up your neck?

…

ha. 

no fucking way youre starting to like keum seongje. 

next chapter

///

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