𝗯𝘆𝗲𝗼𝗹𝘁𝘂𝗮𝗹 @byeoltual - Tumblr Blog

⋙ something takes a part of me, you and i were meant to be.

FREAK ON A LEASH [bassist!yeosang x cheerleader!reader] ⋙ college au, exes to fwb to lovers, regina george x rodrick heffley type shi. intended to be read as a standalone, but is tied to dare. wc 23.2k ⋙ yeosang was the starting running back, until he gave up the cowhide leather in his palm for an instrument strapped across his back. you wanted nothing to do with him after he quit football and joined a band, he went from a star to a loser. but still, after everything, no one compares. no one could ever be him. ⋙ smut minors dni | sub-leaning switch!yeosang, dom-leaning switch!reader, toxic behavior, reader is a warning herself. pinv, mommy kink, creampie, oral (both), facesitting, hate sex/jealousy sex, humiliation, dry humping a hand? ⋙ playlist: freak on a leash — korn / operate — peaches / crazy bitch — buckcherry / glamorous — fergie / feiticeira — deftones ⋙ thank u beamie duckie for fixing my banner so i didn't rip out my hair. i love u @sungbeam

Two hands at twelve on a Sunday night. Six weeks.

It’s been six weeks since he’s seen you. Six weeks since he’s felt your manicured nails on his skin, tasted your lip gloss, smelled your designer perfume layered over the lotion he’s massaged into your aching muscles a thousand times. It’s been six weeks since you’ve stood in the doorway of his apartment; he can’t remember the last time you asked to come inside and waited to hear him say yes.

Six weeks ago you would’ve walked in on your own.

“Hi,” you mumble, shy. Your shoulders are set, your back straight, your eyes pointed but your glossy, bottom lip is tucked between your teeth. Yeosang’s brows furrow, the pulse point in his neck throbbing, he hopes you can’t hear it like he can, a steady rhythm of bass pounding in his eardrums.

“Hi,” he mutters, confused, starstruck, and relieved all at once.

“Can I come in?” you ask, eyes sliding behind him, peering into his apartment. Baby pink sweatpants sit low on your hips, your white, strappy tank barely meeting the waistband, showing a sliver of your skin that makes Yeosang’s short nails curl into his front door.

He steps to the side, allowing you entrance as he mumbles, “Sure.”

There’s flip-flops on your feet, showing off your toes always lined with white, thin, silver rings clamped on the middles. A miniature pink purse sits on your shoulder, you let it fall down to hold it loosely between your fingers as you glance around, taking in the sight of his apartment that hasn’t changed.

“I thought you would’ve gotten rid of the football posters,” you say absentmindedly, as if it’s normal for you to be here, as if you didn’t shatter his heart to shrapnel six weeks ago.

“I still like football,” Yeosang closes the door behind him, but he lingers, fingertips still touching the oak. “My priorities are the only thing that changed.”

“Changed,” you repeat, turning to face him, blowing annoyed amusement through your nose. “You ruined your future, that’s what you did.”

Yeosang sighs. “If that’s what you believe.”

“It’s what I know.” You throw a hand on your hip. “Why haven’t you texted me? You haven’t reached out once.”

Yeosang lets his bare shoulderblades touch the door, letting the cool wood seep into his skin as he counters, “You broke up with me. What did you want me to say?”

You shrug, hands waving in the air on either side of you, purse swinging as you all but whisper, “Something.” There’s an edge to your voice, one that makes his gut rumble, something deep and low. “You could have said anything, Yeosang.”

“You made a choice,” Yeosang keeps his tone calm, soft. “I respected it.”

Your top lifts in distaste, taking a step towards him. “God forbid you actually disagree with me on something.”

“Isn’t acceptance better?” Yeosang’s voice goes shallow, airy. He can smell you and it’s making his head fuzzy, his knees weak. He wonders how long it’ll take to get the smell out this time.

“Define better,” you take another step towards him, eyes flickering over his build. The shorts on his legs, hanging too low for company, the lack of a shirt on his upper half. You drink him in like you missed him.

“Why are you here?”

“I need,” you start, full of confidence, but you cut yourself off. Standing just a foot away from him, Yeosang’s head is angled downward to see you, the first thing he notices is the shift in your breathing. Quicker, shallow breaths, you conjure as much certainty as you can to say, “I want you.”

Yeosang’s brows raise, length opening an eye in his basketball shorts. You don’t give him a chance to respond, running your fingers through your styled hair, voice pitched with impatience.

“No one else gets it,” you mutter, stress bleeding through your words. “You’re different. You get it, you get me.”

“What do I get?” Yeosang’s whispering, he needs to know, even if he’s scared you might change your mind and push past him if he asks. He’s terrified that giving in will alter his brain chemistry. “Why me?”

“Yeosang,” you say his name like it relays everything. He keeps your stare even if he wants to look away, like he was facing a bull, dressed in crimson and there was no way in hell he’d win, but something forces him to stand his ground. Maybe it’s because he knows you just as well as you know him.

“I know your priorities have changed,” your voice lowers, but you keep your eyes on him like you know his defense is already stripped. Like all you had to do was say the magic word and he’d be putty in your palms once more. “But if there’s any part of you that still wants me at all, I need a favor. I need… I need to… I want to fuck you.”

Yeosang can hear his own heartbeat. He can feel the sweat prickling his skin at the back of his neck, on his pecs, at the base of his spine. His eyes blow wide, swallowing down his shock, hesitance making him blink at you, lips parting.

You groan, hands coming up to cup your cheeks, covering your eyes. “Please say something,” you mutter, “it’s humiliating enough that I’m even here right now.”

“I,” Yeosang starts, but his voice cracks on the singular word. Clearing his throat, he shakes his head a little, “I don’t understand.”

“What is there to understand?” Your arms stretch out on either side of you, bewildered that Yeosang didn’t immediately respond yes, that he wasn’t on his hands and knees begging for it. “We had one good thing, Yeosang.”

It hurts his chest, like your manicured hand pierced his skin, reached right for his heart and squeezed. You had plenty of good things, several good things, your relationship was damn near perfect before he quit football. Before he joined Jay’s band.

You take a step towards him and he can see the last six months flash before his eyes.

“You don’t miss me?” Your voice is softer now, dripping in a fake sweetness that makes his breathing manual, he can feel the heat of your body.

Low, almost a whisper, Yeosang says, “I do.”

Your lips curve at the corner, glossy, sparkling and edible. Like he’d given you the green light, your voice coated in candy, you ask, “Can I take care of you?”

Yeosang’s brows knit together ever so slightly, a sign of want, of need. All he can muster is a tiny, whimpered, “Please.”

You don’t kiss him.

You drop to your knees, eyes on his, staring up over your forehead. Slowly, your purse falls to the floor beside you, your fingers reach up to the waistband of his shorts. Yeosang’s brows are already tied together, back arched, hips bent toward you while his shoulders stay flush to the door.

“Do you want to cum in my mouth, or inside me?”

Yeosang sucks in a sharp breath, hollowing out his stomach, abdomen flexing. “Wherever you want me to.”

Your smile is wide and true as you tug his shorts down to his thighs, his cock springing out, slapping against the skin between his veiny hipbones. Pupils dilating like you were starved, like Yeosang was your last meal, you licked your lips, muttering a curse under your breath.

Yeosang’s hips twitch toward you, “Please.”

“Don’t beg,” your eyes flicker upward again. “The fact that you’re this hard when I haven’t even touched you is pathetic.”

A small, tight moan slips from between his lips, cock jumping, face scrunched up in pleasure. Your soft, dainty hand finds the base of his length, sliding up over his tip, your palm rolling against his slit, spreading the slick that’d already begun dribbling down the side. The sound he makes should be embarrassing, it’s deafening, laying over the silence of the room, loud and sharp and needy.

“Quiet.” The order isn’t harsh, but it’s not fully confident, either. Your eyes flicker upward again like you needed to see if he’d listen, like it’d give you confirmation to continue. His lips fold between his teeth and your knees part further on the floor, other hand wrapping around his cock, the two holding him in full.

He fights his own instinct to rock his hips into your hands. His breathing is verbal, heavy, chest rising and lowering, muscles contracting as you squeeze, but don’t move. You stay there for a second, testing him, his restraint, his control– he assumes he passes when you guide his tip toward your glossy lips, tongue poking out to lick over his slit, soft and flat and wet.

Your lips wrap around him and the dull thud of the back of his head hitting the door sounds through the room. Taking him into your mouth, hands falling to his hips, he groans as your tongue massages the underside of his length, sliding down until your nose meets the tuft of hair at his base.

“S-shit,” he grinds out, “s’good.”

You hum around him, vibrating his cock, his hips twitch into your mouth. He glances downward, but you don’t react, you start bobbing your head, working up a rhythm. His hands dig into the wood behind him, whines escaping from his lips one after another, pitched and loud and embarrassing, but he doesn’t care.

It’s been six weeks.

Gagging yourself on him, he whimpers, thighs shaking from how hard he’s trying to keep himself composed. You can feel the way he’s climbing, reaching out for euphoria, silently begging you to let him paint your throat white, you bring him as close as you can to his peak before you’re pushing off him with a pop.

His hips follow, a muddled curse rolling off his tongue, two fists banging against the door behind him. You huff a laugh, licking your lips that curve into a sly grin, “That quick?”

His chest is heaving, golden skin splotched with shapes of pink, his face angled and sharp with denial. “I–, I don’t–”

“Go. On the couch.” You don’t move from where you’re planted on the hardwood, ass on your calves, staring up at him. He listens, still trying to catch his breath, pulling his shorts down to his ankles before he sits back on the deep brown couch, waiting for you.

Standing before him now, you don’t waste any time pulling your sweatpants down, leaving the pink, lacy panties with a bow at the center of the waistband on your hips. Yeosang’s eyes flock to it like a moth to a flame, his favorite. So cute, so dainty, so you, absentmindedly he almost reaches for his cock that leaks onto his abdomen.

“Last longer,” your voice is firm, direct. “You don’t cum until I do. Okay?”

His nod is eager, “Y-yes.”

You kick your sweats and your panties off before you swing a leg over his lap, a manicured hand finding the base of his length again. Yeosang hisses out a curse, you lick your lips, watching him react. Tummy flexing, muscles still just as defined as they were six weeks ago, you note that he’s still going to the gym. Nothing’s changed except his hair color, what was once a pretty blonde was now a neon green, ends tipped with black, a foul pair of hues. You look at his pretty face instead, his pecs that sit flexed, his cute, pink nipples that pebbled in the open air of his living room.

You lift yourself to line him up with your core, bracing yourself for the stretch, it’s been over a month since you’ve sat on his length and fuck you weren’t prepped even a little. Sliding his tip through your folds, wetness coating him, dripping down the width of him, you take your time guiding him inside you, letting yourself feel every inch, every vein, each twitch of his cock that pulsed as you sank down.

Yeosang’s head tips back, groaning, hands finding your hips. “Oh my god.”

You moan as your thighs meet his, fully seated, mounted onto him like he was your throne. Clenching around him, breath picking up, your heart pounds against your ribs at how good he feels inside you. You missed this, you missed him, the way he feels, the sounds he makes, how easy and compliant he is, always.

His fingers squeeze, “T-tight, baby. So tight– shit.”

Yeosang feels like he could bust at any second. Six weeks without sex, without you, it was blowing his fucking mind and you haven’t even moved yet. It feels so good, it’s so wrong, you aren’t together, he doesn’t even know who else you’ve been with. He doesn’t care; he still loves you. The way you look at him, the way your skin feels on his, the way you can read every single one of his expressions, he doesn’t have to say a word. He loves how you take care of him. He loves how easy it is for you to make him cum.

He missed your smell. He missed your smile. He missed the way you order him around and the way his body responds without his brain.

“Gonna move,” you whisper. “Take it.”

You start rocking your hips and Yeosang’s head snaps forward again, eyes wide, jaw slack. It’s so good, you feel so fucking good, clenching around him like he was nothing but a toy. He watches your chest bounce beneath your tank, no bra, your nipples poking through the thin, useless fabric.

His hands follow his thoughts, pushing the hem over the peak of your breasts, cupping them in his palms, thumbs running over your peaked nipples. So fucking pretty, his mouth waters, he needs–

“Go ahead,” you sigh, moving your hair away from your face, over your shoulders.

He leans forward, lips wrapping around your nipple, his hand massaging the other, brows knitted together like he’d died and gone to heaven. Satisfied wasn’t the word, pure bliss, his mouth occupied, your hips moving in a dirty grind against his cock, beautiful, pitched noises leaving your lips, music to his ears.

He feels alive again, it’s so easy to ignore that this is wrong. He shouldn’t be doing this. The ramifications of his actions will be too heavy to bear, a weight on his shoulders for the weeks to come, he doesn’t care, not when your moans grow louder, head tipping back, core clenching around him with every other drag of your hips, chasing an orgasm he’d never deny you.

He’d never deny you anything.

Your hands find his hair, pulling his head backward, you stare into him, his eyes glossed over, his swollen, pink lips parted, so beautiful you want to lean down and kiss him. You don’t, though, it feels too intimate, like it’d send the wrong message, like you wanted him for something more than his cock poking at your cervix.

“Please,” he mumbles, voice lagged and heavy with arousal, “need to feel you cum around me, want– need to fill you up.”

You moan a curse, lifting your hips, dropping them down against his cock harshly, picking up your pace to chase the pressure that’s steadily building in your gut. So pretty, so beautiful, so yours, you mumble a question you don’t register asking, “Have you fucked anyone else?”

He’s quick to answer, “No.”

You’re glad you asked. You laugh a little, a small, tiny breath of amusement, “Of course not.”

He grunts when you clench around him, like it gets you off knowing that in the six weeks you’ve been apart he hasn’t even looked at anyone else. He’s spent the last six weeks in class, in Jay’s garage, or here, on his couch with his bass on his lap, playing the same song over and over. Practicing, thinking, debating on whether or not he made a mistake– he never thought quitting football would make him lose you, too.

But here you were, back in his apartment, wrapped around him like no time had passed, as if you never ended things with him in the first place, like you didn’t ghost him for six weeks. It’s not like he reached out, either, you made it clear that if he wasn’t on the team, you had no business being together. Who was Yeosang to argue with you about what you wanted?

The captain of the cheerleading team and a running back, you liked him in uniform, with shoulder pads and cleats and his fingers wrapped around brown leather. You liked it when he was practicing on the field and the cheerleading team was in the corner, rehearsing, doing stunts on the turf. You liked it when you were both sweaty and high off adrenaline and you’d meet eyes across the green, thinking about what came later. You liked it when he won games, when you could run over and jump in his arms and kiss him stupid, then fuck him in congratulation afterward.

You built a routine together, one that wasn’t official–because that seemed to be the norm on this campus, at this age–and a routine built off instability rarely had a happy ending. Part of Yeosang saw it as a ticking time-bomb, one that met its inevitable end.

Skin wet like you were dripping in condensation, your body moved against Yeosang’s like you were built for him. Like no one else in the world could make you feel this good, he could hear it in how you sang for him, how reactive you were to his touch, to him. You were the one that missed him, that’s the only explanation for you showing up unannounced, mere days after he heard the rumours about you and Jaemin.

Now you’re here. And he let you in so easily.

“Y’feel so good,” you moan, fingers curling into his shoulders. His hands find your hips again, guiding you on his length at the pace that always made you cum quick, his hips angled to curve into the spot at the front of your walls. “Yeosang!” You clench around him again and he bites down a curse. “I’m close.”

His brows knitted together, jaw slack, middle flexing over and over, he focuses on angling himself at that same spot, moving you at the same pace, a fixed rhythm, using your sounds as motivation to keep himself anchored.

You reach down between your bodies, fingers circling your clit and he’s thinking of anything he can to stop himself from coming. A whimper escapes him, pitched and needy and pathetic, he knows it is. You gasp before clenching around him, hard, your body trembling, legs shaking on either side of his body, Yeosang smiles.

“Yes, cumming f’me,” he sounds ragged, rambling out of arousal. “So pretty, so sexy, missed you s’much. Let me fill you up, please? Please let me.”

Your hips pick up in pace on their own, it drives him crazy. He’s moaning, fingertips pressing into your hips, his mouth unmoving because his orgasm is so close he can taste it.

“Cum for me,” you soothe, voice encouraging and full of praise. “Made me feel so good, you deserve it. Wanna feel you, Yeo.”

It’s enough to push him over, stuttering a groan as he empties himself inside you, hips bucking up into yours as he feels every second of release. Six weeks without sex is a long time.

You stay there for a moment, hands warm on his skin, controlling your breathing until your heart rate slows into something regulated. Yeosang keeps his eyes on you, watching, feeling, etching the memory into his mind because he doesn’t know if it’ll happen again. He doesn’t know how long he’ll go without you this time. Maybe forever.

Then you’re lifting yourself off him, standing on his rug before the couch, fixing your white tank, reaching for your panties and your sweatpants. He waits for you to speak.

Your lips flatten as you tug your clothes up to your hips, “Can I use your bathroom before I go?”

A slow nod from Yeosang, a small mumble of of course.

He fixes his clothes, pulls his briefs and his shorts back over his hips, then leans back into the couch, letting himself relax into the plush. Letting himself feel. It feels like his birthday to have you in his apartment – but to sleep with him? Because you missed him? There’s a rush of giddiness inside him, one blooming from his chest to the tips of his fingers, you missed him as much as he missed you.

His heart beats to the sound of your flip flops smacking through his apartment, he opens his eyes to you grabbing your tiny little pink purse from the floor, reaching inside for your lip gloss.

He feels like he should say something. Ask something. He’s scared you’ll leave without a word if he doesn’t.

“Hey–”

“Look,” you cut him off, screwing the cap back onto your gloss, shoving it in your miniature purse. “I’m sorry I came over unannounced, it won’t happen again. I just… I needed that.”

“It can happen again.” He doesn’t want it to be over. “I get it.”

You sigh, a hand on your hip, “It shouldn’t happen again. We aren’t ever going to be anything, Yeosang.”

“Then why come back?” He sits forward a little. “Why fuck me? And not Jaemin?”

Your eyes widen like he caught you red-handed. You stand a little straighter as you swing your purse over your shoulder, “Leave Jaem out of this.”

“Okay,” Yeosang nods, shrugging, internally despising that you just called him Jaem. “I will. Whatever makes you happy.”

Your eyes find the floor, shoulders slouching ever so slightly. “I have to go,” you mumble, not meeting his eye. “I have practice early tomorrow.”

He watches, he hears you as you leave, as your flip flops smack down the hallway outside of his apartment. He wishes he had the balls to ask you to stay. He looses a breath he didn’t know he was holding, running a hand through his sweaty hair, cursing under his breath when he looks at his fingers and sees green.

He smacks his teeth together, the box the neon-green dye came in said it wouldn’t bleed. Disappointed in the hair dye, disappointed in you, disappointed in himself, he knows in his soul he shouldn’t have fucked you. It restarted all the progress he’s made the past six weeks, coming to terms with the fact that you and him were over, that he had a new life now. He’s different now.

He terminated his contract and bleached his head. He dyed it green, texted Jay, asked if he still had the spot open in his band, to which Jay responded hell yeah and Yeosang hauled his ass to his garage with his bass strapped over his back.

In six weeks, he’s played two shows. Everything was just starting to feel right.

There’s fear stemming at the base of his spine, that thirty minutes of his life, thirty minutes of sharing saliva and being inside of you would destroy all the work he’s put in. Everything he’s already changed. Everything he already loves.

Because in the back of his mind, at the bottom of his heart, he knows he loves you more than all of it.

He doesn’t see you again for another three weeks.

You made good on your promise, not swinging by his apartment again. It took days to get the smell of you out of his living room, again. He still smells the couch cushions daily just in case. Maybe a part of him wishes it lingered.

He doesn’t reach out, though. He doesn’t text. He doesn’t DM. He doesn’t go anywhere near the places you frequent on campus. If you miss him, you’d let him know. You’d show him. Somehow.

Yeosang thinks maybe this is your way of saying it, in the Arts Building, nowhere near the lecture hall majority of your classes are in. Did you change your schedule? Forced into taking another elective for the sake of credits? There’s no reason for you to be walking towards him in a denim skirt so small he can almost see the lacy pair of panties beneath it.

Your face is pointed like you had an agenda. All Yeosang can do is sit there, in the common space, on the same cushioned chair he always sat in, sketch pad on his lap, waiting for you to approach him, to speak.

But you don’t.

You walk past him, heeled feet somehow clinking against the carpet-covered floor. Your head doesn’t move but your eyes stay on him until he’s in your peripherals, your chin up, shoulders squared, back straight, Yeosang can’t take his eyes off you. Denim kissing the crease where your ass meets your thighs, the shadow above your waistband showing the indent of your spine, the muscles in your calves flexing with each step, he swings his legs around to the front of the chair just so he can watch you leave.

Moth to a flame.

He curses himself for how easily he gives in to you. You let him see you because you wanted him to see you, you wanted yourself on his mind, you wanted him to go home and sit on his bed with a fist wrapped around his length, recalling the last memory of it being your mouth, instead.

He shoves his sketchbook into his bag, throws it over his shoulder, and hauls himself outside. Screw his last class, he’d look at the notes online, maybe. He doesn’t really care what he’s about to miss. He needs to grow a backbone, needs to strengthen his mind so you can’t penetrate his mental walls so effortlessly. Already he’s stirring beneath his cargos, he needs to go somewhere, he needs to do something, he refuses to go back to his apartment and lose time thinking about you.

Impulse brings him outside of campus. Hours walking through busy streets of the city, listening to music and chatter from restaurants, the traffic rushing between them, he finds comfort in the sunshine on his skin, making his head feel hot, his cheeks feel pink.

Impulse brings him to a piercing shop. Brow quirked, lips pursed, there isn’t much thought in his head as impulse pushes his legs inside.

By ten he’s at home again, throwing his bag on the couch, turning on the speaker in the corner of the room just to fill the silence while he lights a joint. In the kitchen, he makes himself dinner, the thought occurs that he was out for so long and didn’t eat– routine and discipline embedded in his veins makes him pull out meal-prepped food from his fridge.

Half a joint burned to ash and a meal digested, he’s only half-satisfied, he wonders when the practices that years of playing football have embedded in him will fade. If he’ll ever just be Yeosang again, instead of an ex-running-back, or the guy who dropped football for a bass guitar.

He debates checking his phone, calling Jongho, calling Aven, someone to occupy his fucking time, to ease his thoughts, so his fuzzy mind doesn’t hyperfixate on everything being different. So he can forget that he saw you today.

Three knocks sound at his door, loud, angry noises that make him jump where he stood beside the counter. He runs to the front door, swinging it open, about to open his mouth when you barrel past him into his living room like a fucking fly buzzing past his ear.

“You looked at me today.”

You’re angry. Eyes pointed, chest puffed out, brows chiseled and furrowed, Yeosang looks behind him like maybe he isn’t on the receiving end of this. Seeing nothing but an empty hallway, he closes the door behind him, and turns to you again.

“Okay?” He asks, says, it’s genuine. What answer is he supposed to have?

You’re in a sports bra and shorts that cling to your body. They reach high, over your belly button, but the hem squeezes right at the tips of your thighs, painted onto your skin. Yeosang’s breath turns manual as he takes in every detail, how your outfit doesn’t leave anything to the imagination, not that it’s anything he hasn’t seen before.

“Don’t do that,” you huff, hands on your hips, a wristlet hanging from your silver-covered forearm. Three bracelets, bangles, sparkly, they hang off your wrist, still dancing together, sounding like wind chimes on a summer day.

“Okay,” Yeosang’s brows furrow ever so slightly. “I won’t.”

“God, you piss me off,” you start pacing, hands on your forehead, walking back and forth in his entryway, if he could even call it that. If you open his front door, you’re already inside of his living room. “You do understand that I want nothing to do with you, right? That we’re not together?”

Yeosang nods, slowly, brows still furrowed like there are a million points he’s missing. “I’m very aware.”

“Then don’t look at me like that!” You finally stop in the middle of the room, voice loud, accompanied by the wind chimes on your wrist and the music coming from Yeosang’s speaker. “Don’t look at me like you still have some sort of feelings for me. Especially in public, Yeosang, I don’t need anyone asking me questions about you.”

His arms cross over his chest, once again dumbfounded, unsure of how to reply.

Your arms fall to your sides, eyes slimming. “What’s in your ears?”

His head cocks to the side, fingers coming up to touch his ears, suddenly reminded when it stings that he filled them with metal today. Simply, he responds, “Earrings.”

Then you’re marching up to him, manicured hands in his hair, pushing it off his face. You’re so pretty, skin soft, eyelashes long, coated in black. Sunkissed, like you’d just come from an outdoor practice, a little flushed with exertion, as if it wasn’t just after eleven. You’re talking, he can’t hear you, lost in your features, wondering how it’s possible for someone to exist this beautifully.

“Yeosang,” you urge, it’s a warning, stealing his attention. His brows raise in question. “The green hair was enough. What else are you gonna do to ruin yourself?”

“Are you my mother or something?” It slips out of his mouth, instinctive, he smacks his lips together. He blames the weed, the lingering smell of sweat on your skin, your face so close to his, his head is fuzzy. He short-circuited.

Your eyes darken, thinning, your hands fall to your sides. “What did you just say?”

“Nothing,” he shakes his head. “I wanted earrings, so I got them.”

“Don’t change the subject,” you bite. “What did you just say to me? Say it again.”

He swallows, eyes meeting the floor. Voice quiet, under his breath, he answers, “I asked if you’re my mother.”

You laugh, a short, chopped sound of feigned amusement, it makes goosebumps rise on his arms.

“Did you finally learn how to fight back?” Your arms cross, pushing up your chest in your sports bra, Yeosang averts his eyes elsewhere. “To me, of all people. The one person you shouldn’t argue with.”

His eyes flicker upward, meeting your irritated stare. “Why not? We aren’t together, are we?”

From annoyed to impressed to angry, Yeosang watches your face morph into each emotion, a dance of your eyebrows and a scrunch of your lips. He can’t believe he said it, and neither can you.

“No,” your voice lowers, quieter now. “But if there was any chance of us fucking again, it’s gone.”

Yeosang’s eyes flicker down to your chest then, and he can’t find it in himself to feel guilty for it. If he doesn’t know when he’s going to see it again, then he might as well etch it to memory now.

“You know,” you start, eyes twinkling with mischief, a snag in your smile. “It’s funny you used that as an insult, of all things. Am I your mother.”

Yeosang doesn’t respond, but his chest feels heavy. Like he already knows where this is headed.

You take a step forward, close enough that Yeosang can smell the lingering sweat on your skin. He can see the remnants, too, a gloss on the highest point of your cheekbones, over your brows. It melts into your perfect skin, skin you care for daily, every morning, every night. He’s watched you complete your routine enough times to know it was time-consuming and expensive; he knows each and every step, the ingredients in each product, how much they cost.

“There was a time you used to call me something… similar,” you pop a brow, the snag in your grin widening to a smirk. “Remember?” Yeosang gives you a ghost of a nod, barely a twitch of his head. You cock your head, “Remind me, it seems to have slipped my mind. Weird.”

Yeosang’s jaw clenches, embarrassment flaming in his cheeks. He can feel his Adam’s apple move as his throat bobs, like a lump of shame he can’t pass. Quietly, almost under his breath, he mumbles the word. The reminder.

“What was that?” your voice is playful, a sing-song tone. Like you’re eating up every fucking second of this. “Say it louder. With your chest, Yeosang.”

His eyes find the floor, his pale, bare feet a contrast to the hardwood. He says it quicker, louder, a one-syllable confession like he despised the curve of his lips as he said it, “Mommy.”

You smack your teeth, and your grin spreads from ear to ear. “Right, that’s it, can’t believe I forgot!”

Yeosang glares from under his brows, despising the rush of adrenaline he knows is coursing through you at the title on his tongue. A word he used to say proudly, more often than he should’ve, a word that used to push you past the finish line if he said it coated in a desperate whine. Right now, all it’s doing is feeding your already-huge ego.

“Are you finished?” Yeosang asks, and the question is honest. Without remnants of a snide tone, no snarky attitude, he’s over the humiliation ritual. If you were just going to stand here and tease him, you could leave. Even if every fiber of his being wants you to stay.

You shake your head before answering a smooth, “No.” Shifting your weight onto one leg, you ask again, “Do you remember when you used to call me that?”

Yeosang pops a brow, unsure of the correct answer. “When I was fucking you?”

You blow amusement through your nose. “You never fucked me, I fucked you.”

And maybe it’s the weed, maybe it’s instinct, maybe it’s the half of him that’s still in love with you. Some part of him stands a little straighter and responds, “So do it again.”

Your face scrunches for half a millisecond. Taking a half-step back, you ask, “What?”

“Do it again,” he says with his chest this time, taking a half-step forward, closing the distance again. He searches for the reason inside himself and he comes up with nothing. You came here to tell him to stop looking at you, even if you put yourself in his line of sight. You insulted him, his hair, his earrings, his appearance. You made fun of him for what he used to call you at his most vulnerable moments with your chest puffed, chin jutted upward, making you seem six feet tall.

Is wanting you some kind of incurable fucking disease? Should he go to the goddamn doctor?

“Remind me why I used to call you that,” he leans down, his voice low, smooth. “Give me a reason to do it again.”

Possibly for the first time ever, you seem speechless. Eyes wide like saucers, he can hear your breath catch, an accidental sound between a gasp or spit getting stuck in your throat. You stutter, “N-no, I told you last time was the last time.”

“Then why’d you come here?” he’s too quick to ask, it spills out of him. “Where were you? Working out? On a run, trying to get all this pent-up shit out, when you know the only thing that works is me?”

Your heels come together, back rigid. Your eyes dance around his face, even the shake of your head stutters, like you were desperately trying to control the instinct driving you. He feels like he’s vibrating, electricity threading from his thighs to his fingertips that linger millimeters beside them, body begging to touch you so he could share the lightning.

“Admit it,” he whispers.

Your jaw clenches. “You can’t fucking bait me.”

“I’m not baiting you,” he quips. “I just know you.”

“Fuck you,” you bite, baring your pearly, white teeth.

Yeosang grins. “What do you think I’m trying to do?”

You lunge for him. Not that there’s much space to clear, you nearly jump onto him, into him, his arms catching you underneath your thighs swiftly, holding you tight as your arms wrap around his neck. Your lips hit his and all he could taste was your anger, frustration, all pent up in your sickeningly perfect body, he can’t believe he’s tasting you again. He can’t believe he’s kissing you.

He walks you to his bedroom himself. You don’t even process that you’re moving, he doesn’t break the kiss, he could walk around his apartment without a singular misstep in pitch black darkness. Smooth, effortless, he only breaks the kiss to lay you down gently on his bed.

Still perfectly made from this morning, thank god, you’d have a fit if it wasn’t. Another thing that's stuck. Meal-prep, hydration, shaving, his gym routine, making his bed… Yeosang is a man of practice.

“This is what you wanted,” you growl as soon as your back hits his comforter. “You wanted me here. On your bed.”

“You wanted me,” he pops a brow, words easy. “You came here for one reason, and one reason only.”

Your jaw clenches, “Take my shorts off.” It sounds like your best attempt at coming off icy, but Yeosang hears the burnt edge of arousal, the impatience on your tongue. Your hips twitch against the bed, legs dangling in open air.

Yeosang doesn’t listen. He watches you, taking his time with each sneaker, unlacing the bunny ears before throwing them to his floor. He barely waits to hear the sound of foam and rubber hitting the hardwood before his thumbs are tucking into your socks, sliding them down your smooth, strong ankles, taking his time rolling them off your feet. He doesn’t care where they land on his floor, he hopes it takes time to find them later.

Your cheeks match your chest, both flushed and bleeding impatience, your upper half rising and lowering rapidly like you also couldn’t believe this was happening. Again.

“Yeosang,” you say when he takes a moment to press a knee into the mattress. “My shorts. Now.”

His palms find your knees for leverage as he leans down, eyes catching on the dampened spot on your shorts. A deepened, asymmetrical shape of teal, darker than your turquoise shorts, your matching sports bra. He swallows, mouth filling with saliva, he could feel his eyes fucking dilating and he knows you can see it, too. He tucks his fingers into the waistband of your shorts, using might to pull them down your lower half. With the way they were painted onto your skin, the slight gleam of sweat still sparkling in his dim bedroom, the curves and muscle on your body…

And you have nothing on underneath. He nearly moans.

“Fuck,” he utters under his breath. “So pretty.”

“Shut up, Yeosang,” you huff. “You’re taking too fucking long.”

He doesn’t know how you switched places. Swift movement had Yeosang on his back, your knees pinned to the mattress on either side of his head, and faced with the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen, impulse has his forearms curling over your thighs, pulling you down onto his tongue.

Your pitched moan pierces his bedroom. You peel your sports bra over your chest once your hips start their rhythm on his tongue, fingers flying to your boobs, pinching your peaked nipples. He keeps his tongue poked out, eyelids fluttering, savoring the taste of your soaked folds that coat his tongue in candy.

He takes a moment to inhale, to bask in your scent; natural, mild, a little tang from sweat. Has he ever been this hungry in his life? Can he blame any of this on the weed anymore?

Your hips roll over his flexed tongue, head tipped backward, filling the air of his bedroom with a song of your pleasure, the bass-line the jingle of your bangles dancing down your wrist as your fingers grab for his hair. He can’t hear the music coming from his living room anymore, each one of his senses enveloped by you, and he’d gladly die right here, right now, his last meal being you.

“Yes,” you moan out, and the word is so full of sheer relief it makes Yeosang grip your thighs harder, makes him moan into your core. He focuses on licking over your clit, the rhythm only broken up by his lips swirling around the bundle of nerves, sucking without making it overwhelming, too much too quickly. A pace you love, the pressure he knows pushes you further down the line, Yeosang’s only goal is getting you over it.

You tilt your hips up, clit grazing the tip of his nose, and the way your abdomen flexes has his own hips bucking upward. An abrupt jerk of movement you feel, you know is happening, even if it’s behind you.

Eyes low-lidded, glazed over, you take a peek over your shoulder before asking, “You’re getting off on this?” Yeosang can’t answer with a mouth full of you. You try to laugh, but you suck in a sharp intake of air as his teeth ghost your clit. “You want to be used. Does anyone know what a bitch you are? That you get off on just tasting me?”

Yeosang moans into your center, hips bucking again.

“I’m sure they don’t.” Your eyebrows are tied together as you reach one arm behind you, palm landing on Yeosang’s abdomen for leverage, using the strength of him to give free movement to your hips. You grind yourself onto his mouth harder, faster, a quicker rhythm as you say, “Do they know about me? Or did you get rid of our history when you got rid of your own?”

His fingers sear your thighs, knuckles bone-white. You croak out a whine, “You’d never be this pliant for anyone else. No one else can make you feel this way without even fucking touching you.”

Yeosang moans his agreement, tongue plunging into your entrance, he hopes it’s answer enough. Your head falls back, chest heaving, free hand squeezing your chest, “Shit, I’m close.”

He’s never felt so motivated before. Nodding his head in rhythm with your hips bucking over his mouth, he keeps himself focused, brows furrowed and brain clear. When your moans grow in pitch, when your hips stutter, he keeps your pace fixed by his grip on your thighs. He keeps his tongue flexed, focused on rolling over your clit, using the same pressure, the same speed, never once faltering.

Then you’re crying out, hips seizing, body rolling, the muscles in your stomach clenching and unclenching; but never once do you say his name. Never once do you praise him for being the one to push you over the finish line, to bring you to orgasm.

Sitting back, nearly putting all your weight on his chest, it’s a comfort to him, even if you already look disappointed in the fact that you let this happen again. He can see your heavy breath, upper body expanding, caving in, lips parted and brows upturned ever so slightly. You take a moment to stare at him, to put the pieces together.

“Give me a shirt to go home in,” is all you say before climbing off of him like he was a fucking ride at an amusement park.

Yeosang sits up on his elbows, his own chest heaving, covered in slick from the bridge of his nose to his chin. He licks his lips, whatever skin his tongue can reach, just to savor the taste.

You’re pulling your bra over your chest, grabbing your shorts from his hardwood floor. “Are they in the same drawer?” You ask, not even looking at him. Then you’re before his dresser, opening his tee shirt drawer, grabbing a random white one, pulling it over your head.

It swallows you, down to mid-thigh. Yeosang’s head feels fuzzy, he searches for words inside of himself, he can’t find any. You turn to him, face tight, eyes blown, pupils dilated enough to swallow the color.

“This was the last time, Yeosang,” you say, but you don’t look like you mean it. “I mean it.”

All he can do is grin. He can smell the lie from where he lays.

“You guys don’t have to come.”

Aven and Jongho flanked him, his two best friends, the only two to understand Yeosang down to atoms and particles. Other than you, he supposed; but that was neither here nor there, and he knows you shouldn’t be on his mind, anyway.

“I want to hear your new song,” Aven, on his right, walks in-step with him, while Jongho trails just a step behind.

The latter adds, “This is the only day this week I have off from practice.”

Yeosang’s giddy. He was just being nice, saying they don’t have to come, but the truth is that he’s elated that his friends are coming to his band practice with him. Really, he has plenty of things to be happy about.

You’ve shared his bed twice since the last time. The first time, you’d come over under the guise of giving him his shirt back, just to leave in a different one. The second time, you didn’t have much of an excuse. You’d walked inside his apartment like you owned it, then fucked Yeosang like you owned him. And, in a sense, he supposed you did.

The air feels warmer, the sun feels brighter, the grass looks as green as his hair. Pink and orange flowers blooming on trees wafted sweet-smelling air straight into his nose, as if a reminder to appreciate all that he came across, that everything was okay and will be okay. His life is going back to normal, even if he’d uprooted all of it.

“We have three original songs for our gig at Eonian in two weeks,” Yeosang says, turning the corner that Jay’s house sat on, an older two-story home on the corner, just outside of campus. An easy walk from his apartment, Aven’s apartment, Jongho’s apartment. “The rest are covers.”

Yeosang can hear Jisung shredding, Jongseob on the drums, even from around the corner. Jay’s voice becomes clearer the closer they get, a rough, heavy tone; perfect for the punk genre of music they make, perform.

The garage door was wide open, the inside refurbished into a make-shift studio. Not really. It was the same worn-down garage that came with the home, posters on the walls, the same shelves sitting at the far corner holding mechanic supplies and tools of the sort. Jongseob’s drum set sat at the center of the room, mic stands and amps scattered around the space, Jay’s garage was a cookie-cutter neighborhood’s worst nightmare.

The music died out when the three men caught Yeosang’s head of green hair rounding the corner. Shouts of about damn time, finally, and get in here all met his ears at once, making him flinch.

“I’m sorry!” Yeosang threw his arms up in defense, then threw a thumb pointing behind him. “I had to stop and get these two.”

Jisung’s cheeks went pink at the sight of Aven. “Oh– oh. Hi, guys.”

Yeosang rolled his eyes, pulling on the strap of the nylon guitar bag to get it over his head. Jisung wore a baseball cap on his head, the hood of his zip-up laid on top, his cheeks and white smile the only things visible in the shadows of his hood. Fender strapped around his front, his fingers holding the neck, his body language morphed to something smaller. He’s always had a crush on Aven, and Aven’s always allowed him to.

“Hi, Hanji,” her head tilted, lashes fluttering.

“Hey,” Jongho smacked her arm. A warning.

Yeosang snorted. He pulled his bass from the bag, slinging the strap over his head, and played a few chords just to check the tuning as he made his way toward his spot, just beside Jay, opposite of Jisung.

Jay, lead guitarist and lead singer, took a step forward as Yeosang plugged the chord of the amp into his bass. “You’re happy today.”

Short, cropped hair, midnight-colored and gelled into spikes, his outfit was everything punk. Yeosang lifted a brow, “Yeah? It’s nice out.”

“It’s nice out everyday,” Jay slims his eyes and Yeosang feels his stomach tumble. Fuck Jay for knowing him so well already. “What’s new?”

“You have that freshly-fucked look about you,” Jongseob gleams from behind his drumset. Sitting centered behind the toms, cymbals surrounding him, he twirls a stick in one hand, his blonde hair tied up and braided into an upstyle that made him look feminine. The youngest, a freshman, but he was the fan favorite.

Yeosang’s laugh is nervous, he can’t help it. “What? No.”

Everyone’s face falls as they land on Yeosang. From Jongseob, who looked somewhat surprised, to Jongho standing just over the lifted line of the garage entrance, silence had fallen over the open space like a weighted blanket.

Jongho was the one to interject, “You’re lying and nervous.”

“Holy shit,” Aven mumbles under her breath, eyes sparkling with discovery. “It’s her.”

“No,” Jisung stands a little straighter, eyes going wide. “Yeosang, no.”

Yeosang’s heart is in his asshole. He starts with a rebuttal, shaking his head rapidly, “No it’s not, no it’s not. I don’t know what you guys are talking about.”

“Do you not remember what state you were in when you joined the band?” Jay asks, face angled in disappointment. “You’re like a fucking girl, going back to a shitty ex. I’ve been the shitty ex that girls have gone back to, Yeo, and it doesn’t fuckin’ end well.”

“Okay, well, you suck,” Yeosang’s lips form a line. “We’re seeing each other again, big deal.”

He knew you were not seeing each other again. He knew that it wasn’t anything more than sex.

Yeosang catches Aven throwing a hand over her mouth from the corner of the garage, he sees Jongho shaking his head slowly. But it’s Jongseob who asks, “I thought she was fucking Jaemin now?”

“Jaemin doesn’t fuck her like I do.” Yeosang quips, catching himself smiling, giddy as hell. But his face falls immediately when he takes in the five pairs of eyes on him, all staring with heavy disappointment. Clear distaste.

“Has she stayed over?” Jongho asks, arms crossed over his chest. Long shorts, a black tee tucked in, hair styled over his forehead, he wore the silent accusation in the thin line of his lips. Yeosang swallows. Shaking his head, he tries not to let the shame show in his eyes. Jongho smacks his teeth, “I thought so.”

Yeosang can feel the heat on his cheeks. “It’s not a big deal–”

“She hurt you,” Aven continues, “because you pursued your passion. Do you really want to be with someone like that? Who wants to be with you for looks, the image it portrays, instead of liking you for you?”

Yeosang can feel the frustration bubbling up inside him, overflowing before he has the chance to close the lid. “Are you in any place to give me shit? You’ve been fucking the same guy for four months, and he won’t even–”

Jongho cuts him clean off, “Do not finish that sentence.”

Yeosang didn’t even realize that he stepped forward, that his chest was heaving. For years they’ve bickered like siblings, saying the truth even when it hurts. Yeosang nods at Jongho, taking a steadying pause, silently thanking him for interrupting before he said something he’d regret. Wooyoung was the touchiest subject of them all for Aven, four months of back-and-forth, a relationship hidden in the shadows. He supposed he couldn’t give her shit, anymore, either.

“We just care about you,” Jay admits from beside him, the center of the makeshift-garage-stage. “And we don’t want to see you hurt again.”

Yeosang’s jaw ticks. “I know what I’m doing.”

He can feel the phantom stretch of his nose growing an inch longer. The lie burns. He has no idea what the fuck he’s doing.

Yeosang hears his door open, then close. He doesn’t even look, he knows it’s you, no one else would be barging into his apartment after the sun goes down, it’s the entire reason he left his front door open.

Tuning his bass on the couch, he’s sitting hunched over it, eyes on the heads, thumb on a string. He hears you come closer, stopping on the other side of his coffee table, he’s willing to bet a thousand dollars you have your hands on your hips, weight beared on one side of your body.

When he looks up, he makes a mental note that he owes himself a thousand dollars. Standing in his hoodie, it comes down to mid-thigh, swallowing the shorts he wasn’t completely sure you were wearing. He blinks, you’re staring. Hard.

“What, you don’t care that I’m here?” You finally bark out, arms crossing over your chest. “I could have been, like, a murderer or something.”

“I knew it was you,” Yeosang answers, then brings his attention back to the instrument on his lap, playing a chord. His top lip lifts, he tweaks the head. “I know your footsteps.”

There’s a pause before you kick your shoes off, walking towards his kitchen. He eyes your flip flops sprawled across the rug beneath his coffee table, making yourself at home, when this wasn’t your home. At one time you’d treated his apartment just like this, walking in unannounced, leaving your shit wherever because you could, because you shared just as much of Yeosang’s space as he did.

He looks over his shoulder, watching your head of hair bop around his kitchen, silently. After a moment, you hold up a laptop charger and turn to him. “Who’s charger is this? It’s not your laptop charger.”

His lips flatten, a sigh threatening to escape. “It’s Aven’s, she was here earlier with Jongho, studying.”

Your brows raise a millimeter. “Aven’s,” you repeat. “They were here studying.”

“Here we go,” he says under his breath.

You cross the kitchen, back into his living room, eyebrows tied together as you make your stand beside the couch. “She’s here often, isn’t she?”

“Yes,” Yeosang says, voice flat. “Just like she always has.”

Your eye twitches. “And she just leaves things here, often?”

“No, she has a lot going on right now.”

Your face blows into surprise, disgust. “Oh, and now you’re making excuses for her.”

“She’s literally dating Mingi,” Yeosang argues, hating the taste of the lie on his tongue. “Why is this a big deal?”

“It’s not,” you shrug, feigning nonchalance. You walk back to the kitchen, putting the laptop charger back where you found it, white chord glowing atop the charcoal granite. You used a little more force in dropping it than necessary. You keep your voice steady as you say, “Jaemin asked me to go get drinks tomorrow after his game.”

He can hear the control you’re reaching for as the words leave your lips. He asks, “Yeah? You going?”

He wasn’t sure what you were doing in his kitchen now. He plays another chord, and it sounds smooth. “I think so,” you respond. “Probably.”

Yeosang doesn’t know what kind of strength he has in his soul that made him respond, “Good, you should go.”

There’s a pause, he doesn’t hear your bare feet moving across the tiled floor of his kitchen. His fingers pick at the strings, strumming a small, melodic, funky rhythm. Then he hears your feet slapping against wood as you trudge into the living room, beside his couch again, face twisted up in confusion. “You don’t care if I get drinks with Jaemin?”

“Why should I?” Yeosang asks. You wouldn’t be telling him if you were actually going, you wouldn’t be telling him if Jaemin had actually asked you, but his heart is below the hem of his shorts, anyway. “You’re not my girlfriend, are you?”

“No,” you answer simply, happily, almost. Yeosang plays another beat, another strum of chords, his finger catching the wrong strong, the entire melody clashing. He didn’t realize his fingers had started shaking. You grin, “I knew it.”

Yeosang’s head snaps to the side, “Knew what?”

“You’re jealous.” You’re smirking, arms crossed, accomplished.

All five of Yeosang’s fingers point toward the kitchen, “You just flipped shit over a laptop charger.”

“Because it’s hers!” You argue, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “You have a girl over here every other day, leaving her shit here, her hair-ties, her charger. What’s next, her clothes? Tampons in your bathroom?”

“It’s Aven,” Yeosang reiterates, like the mention of her name was enough explanation. “She’s been my best friend for years, you know this.” You blink at him, and his lips curve in a grin. “You’re jealous.”

“Why the fuck would I be jealous?” you spit out, arms uncurling from where they sat twisted over your chest. “I’m the one that’s fucking you.”

Yeosang can’t help but laugh. Head tipping back, bass and body slumping into the couch cushions, his laugh is genuine, straight from his belly. “You–” he tries to get out, head turning to the side, laughter still barreling out of him. “You tried to make me jealous with Jaemin, the fucking kicker.”

Your body feels hot. You’re positive your face is flushed, arms crossing right back over your chest again, you could stomp your fucking foot in irritation. “You’re so fucking aggravating, Yeosang.”

“Yet you’re here,” he responds, his laughter dying down to a breathy giggle. “Look at where you’re standing.”

Your jaw locks, teeth grinding, body ignited, growing hotter by the second. Just his stare, chocolate eyes, long lashes, knowing they were fixed on you made you feel two feet tall. You don’t answer, not as he pulls his bass off his body, setting it down beside him on the floor, the neck leaning against the couch. You can hear your heartbeat, feel the heat on your skin, sweat prickling beneath your hoodie. His hoodie.

“We’re not dating,” you finally announce. “We aren’t exclusive.”

“I know,” he nods once. “Which means you’re free to go do whatever with the kicker.”

You hate the way he mocks him, the way he says kicker like it’s an insult– he doesn’t even play anymore. Jaemin’s nice; a little stupid, he definitely doesn’t let you rough him up, and he certainly doesn’t know any of the kinks you keep buried, revealed to Yeosang and Yeosang only.

“I do,” you lie. “And I’ll continue to. Just wanted to make sure you were aware.”

Yeosang sits up a little straighter. “Aware of what? The possibility of getting an STD?”

Irritation only makes you burn hotter. “He’s clean, Yeosang, and so am I.”

“You sure?” his brows lift. He’s taunting you. “When’s the last time you got tested?”

“Shouldn’t you have asked me that,” you pull your hands out from your sleeves to count on your fingers, “a few weeks ago, before you fucked me raw, came inside me, let me sit on your face? Or how about when I had your cock down my throat? Shouldn’t you have wondered before that?”

He shrugs, a small thing. “Forgive me for having trust in you.”

“Trust,” the word makes you laugh. “Because there’s so much trust in what we have.”

Yeosang stands, his bulky build swallowing you, height towering over you. You can’t believe your body forced you to swallow.

“We don’t have anything,” he uses emphasis on the last word. “As per your choice. You come here to fuck, blow off steam, you come here to get what no one else can give you. You tell me that only you can make me feel this way, but what about you? Who else is fulfilling every little thing your nasty fuckin’ mind gets off on?”

Your breath catches. He continues, “And you want me angry over Jaemin? Did you forget I know him, and know him well? That I was on the same team as him? Lived in the same house as him?” You don’t answer, eyes widening, you can feel your pupils dancing below your lids, trying to gauge his next move. “You don’t think I know that he drinks whiskey like it’s water, and can barely get it up half the time? That when you fucked him—which I’m sure was, what, once or twice?—he busted after three strokes and was already asleep by the time he rolled off you.”

You can feel your heart beating, an unsteady thrum in your chest. “You’re wrong, Yeosang.”

He’s right.

“Does he let you call him names?” He asks. You notice that his green hair has faded a little, framing his sculpted, flushed cheeks. His birthmark seemed brighter, more opaque, a spot you’ve kissed a million times, it beckoned you to do it again. “Does he let you slap him? Does he let you choke him? Does he call you mommy?”

You gasp. It’s small, but it’s clear, slicing through the air between your faces. Every ounce of you wishes you could suck it back in, retract it, feign that his words were doing nothing to you. It would be useless, anyhow, he knows you down to the bone, keeping any sort of emotion from him proved futile time and time again.

“Answer me,” Yeosang urges, and there’s nothing in his voice that’s calm. The subdued, submissive man you’ve spent countless hours with is nowhere to be seen. The muted hum of adrenaline swimming through your body zaps at the base of your spine, like it’d been woken up, branching off to every nerve ending.

“No,” you whisper, hating that you’re admitting it, but what choice was there? “He doesn’t.”

“I know,” Yeosang grins. There’s no warmth in it, it’s sly, mocking. Like all of that was just to get you to say it. “Remember that, the next time you want to make me jealous of the goddamn kicker.”

His chest is flushed pink beneath the white tank he wore. Heaving, rising rapidly, lowering just enough to suck more air in. He’s pissed, and you don’t know why the sight is going straight to the throb in your panties. Never once has Yeosang been dominant, never once has he been mad at you, never once has Yeosang not been the submissive man you trained.

“When he does fuck me,” you start, and you genuinely have no idea where you’re going with it. “He’s… rough. He does to me what I do to you.”

Lies. You’re lying through your fucking teeth. To anyone else, Yeosang would seem unbothered. But you see the flash in his eyes, the deepening of chocolate to coal, how his lips peeled back from his teeth ever so slightly.

“And I like it,” you breathe. “I like it better.”

There’s a semblance of amusement in the curve of his brow. “Yeah?”

You nod, “He’s better than you. Bigger than you, too.”

The snag in Yeosang’s grin, you’ve never seen before. Mischievous, like he was already planning the million-and-one ways he’d break you apart. It makes your toes curl into the hardwood beneath your feet, your fingers twitch, your heart double in speed. Excitement, thrill, that’s what was passing through the air between you, a stand-off of sorts.

Do it, you think, hoping, praying he can hear you. Do it, Yeosang.

And he does.

His lips find yours in a hasty crash, his right hand reaching for your throat. Unsteady, uncontrolled movements, not entirely full of confidence but not insecure, either. You moan into it, the sound desperate and relieving all at once, and his fingers tighten. Pressing against the sides of your neck, weight on your veins, your eyes flutter beneath your lids, knees trembling.

“This what you want?” He asks into your mouth, breath heavy, panting like he’s been waiting for this.

Your knee hooks over his hip, “Yes, Yeo, yesyesyes.”

His hand leaves your throat, grabbing at the leg you threw over his body, using just that one fucking hand under your thigh to lift you off the floor. You answer with your other leg, he catches it swiftly, moving your bodies backward, toward his bedroom. Never breaking the kiss, your hands find purchase in his hair, tugging at his roots with enough force that he hisses into your mouth.

He throws you back on the bed instead of laying you down delicately, and as your back hits the mattress, your eyes peel open to catch the sight of him. Pupils dilated, cheeks splotched, forehead kissed with moisture, he looked at you with such hunger it made your back arch off the fucking bed.

“Teasing me,” he mutters, and you think he’s talking more to himself than to you as he climbs over your frame. “Dangling him right in front of my fucking face like I wouldn’t do anything about it.”

“Yeah?” you push his hair off his face, throwing your legs over his muscled thighs. “What are you gonna do about it, then?”

He studies you for a cool, calm second before moving. Sitting back on his calves, he pulls your body flush to him, then he flips you over in one swift movement. With a yelp, you’re on your stomach, eyes wide and legs parted, hips lifted off the mattress.

“What can you take?” He asks, and instinctively, you weren’t sure if it was rhetorical. “What’s he do when he fucks you rough?”

Without you answering, he pushes the back of your hoodie up, fingers digging in the elastic of your shorts, pulling them over your ass. You whimper, pushing yourself up by your knees to help him get them off you.

Elastic rolled around your thighs, he lands a harsh smack to your ass. You barely get a cry out before he’s repeating himself, “I asked you a question.”

“Fuck,” is all you can get out, nails curling into the duvet beneath you. “H-he fucks– he fucks me hard.”

You don’t have time to wonder if he’s buying the bullshit you’re spewing, not when he gets your shorts down to your knees, then down and off your ankles. Two strong, callused hands lift you by the hips, hiking you upward until you’re on your knees.

“You’re such a fucking liar,” he hisses from behind you, painting a finger through your folds. A moan forces itself through your lips at the stimulation, thighs already shaking. Did he know you were lying from the jump? Was he doing it anyway?

“‘m not lying,” you whimper in response, knees spreading further, needing more.

“If you wanted me rough, you could have just asked.” You can hear the ruffle of his shorts sliding down his thighs, the elastic of his briefs snapping against his skin. Then you feel his length, his tip, sliding against your folds, spreading the slick that’s already gathered. “Aren’t we past the point of pretending I wouldn’t do anything for you?”

The question lights you up like a Christmas tree, but sends a pit of something other to your gut simultaneously. You weren’t sure how to break down the feeling, you didn’t have the brain power to try, not when his tip was prodding at your entrance without prep, without stretch, without anything.

“Yeosang!” You squeal, turning your head to the side, trying to catch even a glimpse of green over your shoulder. But then he’s pushing in, and the feeling sucks all the air from your chest, forcing your eyes to squeeze shut.

“Baiting me,” he gruffs out, like he was talking through his teeth. “Telling me Jaemin’s bigger than me when I’ve seen his fucking cock. We lived together. Do you think I’m stupid?”

“N-no,” you whine, head in the clouds, somewhere else entirely. His hips snap against yours, a rough, nasty pace; sliding over the front side of your walls, massaging you deliciously, all you can do is shake with pleasure.

“You talk so much shit, run your fucking mouth,” he says, fucking into you like he was strumming along to a beat. “What happened to you didn’t fuck me, I fucked you? Huh? Look who’s getting fucked now.”

You think you might be crying, face hot, mouth pried open. Your fingers lose their grip on the duvet, body completely at Yeosang’s mercy, to his hips that snap against yours brutally, relentlessly.

“Quiet now?” He asks, then his thrusts stop completely. His hands grab for your arms, pulling you backward, up toward him. He grabs your hoodie by the hem, pulling it over your head, throwing it elsewhere; then one hand splays across your stomach, the other up at your throat, and he fucks into you again like he never stopped. “Did I break the fucking bitch inside you?”

Your body folds. Or tries to, a loud, uncensored cry ripping from your throat. He holds you steady, two hands keeping your back pressed to his chest, his mouth on your ear.

“You liked that, huh?” He asks, amusement playing in his tone. “Good to know, for the next time you want to make fun of me because I call you mommy, I’ll remind you of today. Of tonight.”

“Yeosang,” you whimper, eyelids fluttering again, your hands searching for his, clasped around your body. Tugging, pulling at them, nails clawing into him, he doesn’t budge.

“Mm,” he moans into your ear. “I don’t think so. Should I make you call me daddy? Call me sir?”

Your head tips back, falling limp against his chest, the pocket of skin between his pec and his shoulder. “Yeosang.”

His hips switch into a nasty grind, cock dragging against your walls perfectly, his hand drops from over your stomach to between your thighs. Two fingers rub at your clit at the same pace his cock fucks into you, and you nearly fold again.

“Shit!” you gasp out, “shit, shit, shit.”

“Ask me,” he says from behind you, voice clear like you were the only one losing your mind. Pressure looms, pleasure building steadily with each circle he traces. “Ask me if you can cum.”

You think you might have whiplash. It makes sense, you think, in all the months you’ve dommed him, all the times you’ve said nasty shit, for him to pocket every single movement, every single sentence.

You whimper, “Please.”

He grunts. “Ask. Me.”

“Please, Yeosang,” you urge, eyes finally cracking open. And thank god you did, because the sight before you threatens to rip the breath from your lungs all over again. Green hair stuck to his forehead, bleeding down his cheeks, over the red mark beside his eye. Cheeks flushed, lips parted, eyes wide and crazed; you nearly cum on the spot. Instead, you ask, “Can I cum? Please?”

He kisses you, forgoing a response, forcing you to hold it. His tongue slides into your mouth, teeth clashing against yours, so messy and hot you find yourself teetering scarily on the edge, thinking of anything to delay the inevitable.

“No,” he says into your mouth, the word final.

Despair seems like a tangible thing. A sob cracks from your throat as he lifts his fingers from your clit, sliding out of you, and pushing you face-first onto the mattress. Your body might be jerking, twitching, twisting– you weren’t exactly sure, because too quickly his hands hook under your legs again, flipping you onto your back.

“Denial sucks, doesn’t it?” he asks, grin wide. You wished you had the brainwidth to wonder how he was so good at this, where this experience came from. The easiest answer would be from you. He pushes your knees up to your chest, settling between them, callused palm leaving your skin only to line himself up with your entrance.

Pushing in smoothly, he tucks his bottom lip between his teeth, muffling his moan of pleasure. You reach for him, his face, his shoulders, his hair, and he gives you all three as he leans down, elbows bracketing your head. His lips find yours, tongue and teeth and spit, another messy conjoining with the slick sounds of his hips hitting the backs of your thighs.

“Want you to cum, just like this,” he says, voice quiet, barely more than a ragged breath. His bottom lip stays on yours, sharing breath, sharing space. And for a moment, staring into his eyes, you’re scared.

It’d be easy to get addicted to this, you think. To him, all over again. When you were together, it was addiction; it was daily, sharing spit, sharing space, him inside you like that was his first home, then the apartment surrounding you. With Jaemin, with anyone else, on the field, you performed. You acted, you were someone other than yourself, living outside of your skin.

You’ve never had to perform with Yeosang. Other than the acts you enjoy putting on, the displays of dominance– submission now, too. It was natural, fitting, like water and ice, matchstick and flame. Running back and captain of the cheerleading team.

Staring into his eyes, panting into his mouth, clenching around him as euphoria swallows you whole, there’s a part of you that damns him for quitting football. For stretching the gap between you, ruining routine, forcing you into having feelings for a fucking bassist of a garage band.

He had everything. He had it all. He had a future, he had stability, he had routine– he had you.

And he ruined all of it. For what?

He kisses you as he empties himself inside you, spit warming your tongue, filling the space where your breath had dried it. You push the feelings down, the wave of dread, the feeling of everything crumbling around you. You let his weight on your chest be a comfort, the smell of him, a little weedy, sweaty and Yeosang.

There was no one else on the planet who understood you like him. There was no one else who could satisfy you like him. There was no one else who could handle everything that you are.

The thought haunts you, that he might accept you for all of it. Pom-poms, glitter, bi-weekly manicures, a nasty personality and a sex drive that challenged a virgin’s. He might even like the parts of you that you consider a nuisance, the parts that even you can’t comprehend.

Would anyone else pay so much attention? Would anyone else learn you down to what’s at your core?

“Why are you crying?” he asks, face warped into confusion, concern.

You blink. Once, twice before your hands are flying to your face, wiping at your tears. “Subdrop, maybe,” you laugh a little, nervous. Embarrassed. “Happens sometimes. Never been on this side of it before.”

He moves your hair out of your face, swiping his thumb under your eye. He shakes his head once, “Can I get you anything? Water? Food? A shower? Clothes?”

“Jesus, Yeosang,” you laugh again, the sound fully forced out of your chest as you push him off you. Sitting up, you can feel the rumbling of emotion in your chest. You push it down, down, down. “I’m fine.”

He stares at you for a long second, and you shudder under the weight of it. Moving, your legs aching, you swing them over the edge of the bed, running a hand through your hair. Sheepishly, you look over your shoulder, “Maybe water?”

“Lay with me,” he says, naked and flushed, chest still heaving. Eyes softer now, less terrified, a comfort. “Five minutes.”

This wasn’t right. Usually it was you offering comfort, you’ve never been the one having the come-down after a release of emotion. Of control.

You swallowed, face heating. But you nodded, and then laid back down.

And as his body engulfed you with sticky, sweaty heat, it terrified you that there was nowhere else you wanted to be.

He didn’t mean to pass you.

Not really.

But on the way to the Arts Building, if he took the long way, especially if he really needed to get his steps in… it’s for his stamina, he swears, to keep his lungs strong onstage. That's the only reason he passed the field, rounding the corner of the one-hundred-twenty yard turf. It just so happened that he passed by your side, catching a glimpse of your black, tiny shorts, your black sports bra, white Nfinity sneakers on your feet.

Hands on your hips at the top of the formation, stood opposite of the rest of the team, your team, nodding your head with each beat of the actually kinda sick song. Heavy bass, guitar riffs, vocals dim and monotone. Not a competition mix, then.

He hears your voice yell over the turf, bold and dominant, a captain’s voice. “Five, six, seven, eight. Tight! Tight, strong, clean. Get it right!”

Yeosang pauses for a second, his own head nodding along to the beat, watching the twenty-something girls with their hands balled in fists burst into quick, clean movements. Over their heads in a V, hands on their hips, knees bent as they damn near glide into their next formation, fluid with the song.

He kicks his feet into motion as you bark out another order, a girl’s name. He’s lucky he played football instead of being a cheerleader, he thinks, he doesn’t know if he’d survive you as his captain.

But it’s sexy nonetheless, seeing you in your element, guiding, controlling, watching with a calculating eye, picking out mistakes as soon as you see them. A perfectionist, someone who thinks good isn’t good enough, a captain who cares about her team, how they’re perceived. How they rank.

You don’t see him, thank god. But that means he still has to pass his team—his old team—and he wonders if it was worth it to catch a glimpse of your boobs tucked into your bra or your ass peeking out of the legs of your bloomers.

He snorts to himself. Of course it was.

Eyes trickling down to the field, opposite of where you practice, he recalls all the time he’s spent on the turf. Drills, sprints, positional work, formations, it’s weird looking down to the green, the guys on it, and feeling nothing. He could cling to nostalgia all he wanted, the feeling he had when he scored, when he won a big game for his team.

But he didn’t miss being down there. He didn’t miss those guys at all. And he feels guilty for it, because they never did anything bad to him.

He spots Mingi, the quarterback, his hair dark, long and sweaty, visible without a helmet on. He’s dancing on his cleat-covered toes, football between his gloved palms, watching Haechan run down the field, waiting to throw the ball. He can remember the days when it was himself sprinting down the field, adrenaline pushing his legs harder, faster, readying himself for Mingi’s no-doubt perfect pass.

His mind wanders, thinking of Aven, thinking of those two, together. Part of Yeosang worries that she’ll get hurt in her plan to hurt Wooyoung, that Mingi would crack the last bits of her that still wanted to try, that still had hope of a relationship, of love.

He shakes his head, ridding himself of the thoughts. If anything, Aven will eat him alive.

His ears catch onto a particularly loud yell, and his head snaps backward, watching as you saunter out on the turf, fingers pointing, voice lashing. He laughs to himself as he watches you correct someone’s form, physically fixing her arms into place, throwing your hands over hers to strengthen her fists.

Yeah, he wouldn’t survive you as his captain. Thank god he played football.

Grabbing his phone from his pocket, he dials Jay, wondering if the younger man was in class, or home. With a seven-second long conversation, he turned on his heel, and headed home to grab his bass, instead.

Twenty minutes before he ended up in Jay’s garage, he was thankful his lead singer didn’t press him about the reason he was there. Jay didn’t question Yeosang at all, the two understood each other differently than the other two– what music meant, how it shaped a person. Jisung and Jongseob were in class, leaving Yeosang and Jay standing on opposite sides of the garage, their instruments plugged in, and in complete verbal silence, they played.

Finding each other’s melodies, adapting when the other switched, trying to keep in-tune with one another, it was a game. A challenge. A fun one, Yeosang quickly realized, sweat kissing his brow, his tongue poking out between his lips in focus, listening to Jay while simultaneously moving his own fingers, slapping his bass to the tune of the younger man’s electric guitar.

This is what Yeosang lived for. Music has always been vital; morning workouts, evening workouts, a playlist he had plenty of songs forced into ringing through the speakers during practices. When he was younger, his parents had music playing almost all the time. He woke up to soft rock, ate lunch to metal, played in his backyard to pop, ate dinner to jazz, fell asleep to classical.

He first picked up an acoustic guitar when he was eight. His first song might have been Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, but as soon as he learned the chords, the strings, how to move his fingers along a fretboard, it was over. Yeosang came home from school and picked up his guitar like it was the only thing he cared about— the only thing he lived for.

And for a long, long time, it was. The first time he picked up a bass he was twelve. Different from guitar, the neck was longer, the strings were thicker, Yeosang quickly became obsessed with how if you aren’t listening, you can’t pin-point where the bass is in a song. But if you really listen, if you look for it, you’ll know that bass is vital.

Rhythmic precision, in-sync with the beat of the drums, the sounds coming from a bass guitar are low, but not any quieter. A song without bass is hollow, depthless. For whatever reason, Yeosang became infatuated with the idea, with the fact that if he played bass, if he mastered it, he’d be as vital as the instrument.

Then he learned he was really good at catching a football, and at that point Yeosang had so many hobbies he still to this day wonders how he made time for them all. Keeping up with guitar, with bass, and with football was a lot easier when he was twelve than when he was seventeen, getting scouted for college. Long talks with his guidance counselors, with his parents, and Yeosang knew that football was his choice. It’d put him through on a scholarship, and he could still play, he could still shred, but football was his top priority.

And for the first two years, he loved it. Life was easy— he lived in the football house, he had friends, his team, a shared routine with all of them, he’d found a family. He spent countless hours in his bedroom on the second floor, playing for no one. He’d bring his bass downstairs during parties, play it like it was his hidden party trick. No one knew what his bass meant to him, what music meant to him. He had Jongho and Aven for that, the two people he fully confided in, that knew the feelings he kept in the small corner of his conscience. For those first two years, that was enough.

The end of his sophomore year, when he met the younger man beside him, Jay had heard through the grapevine that Yeosang played bass, and approached him in his lecture hall looking for a bassist for his band. Jisung, Jongseob, two younger guys he didn’t know at all, Yeosang almost laughed in his face, almost asked Jay if he knew who he was.

When he met you, for those first few weeks, everything in his life cracked open. He started playing more, he became addicted to it all over again, the weight of mahogany on his lap, strapped over his shoulder. Slapping his callused fingertips on strings and being mesmerized with the sounds that it made, he played often, any moment he could find, with you always at the forefront of his mind. He cared less about football, only that you were on the other side of the field, or on the sideline. He didn’t really care about his teammates, was it so terrible that the only weight they held for him was surface-level friendship? He started focusing on the things that mattered, whatever brought him joy.

You, and his bass. Jongho and Aven, too, when they weren’t a pain in his ass.

It was hours now that he’d spent in Jay’s garage, but thankfully, Jay didn’t bring you up once. As if the younger man knew Yeosang was plunging balls-deep in his own mind, and didn’t want to bring it to the surface. They talked about their show instead, in a week and a half, at the bar they frequented on Fourth Avenue, just outside of campus. It wasn’t their first show at the dingy dive, but they had more original songs now then they did last time they performed there, and pressure was a weight he gladly bore.

“I have an idea,” Yeosang told Jay, the pair in beach chairs on his driveway now. A pizza sat on a folding table between them, two brown bottles of beer on the cement beside their chairs.

Jay popped a brow, “Yeah?”

“A song to cover,” Yeosang says, reaching down to grab his beer bottle, bringing it up to his lips. Swallowing, flushing down the pizza, he continues, “For the show at Eonian.”

“The show is in like, a week.” Jay shook his head. “Fuck no.”

“Come on,” Yeosang leaned forward in his beach chair. “Do you trust me?”

“Fine, I’ll bite.” Jay says, reaching for his beer. Bringing it up to his mouth, his bottom lip touching the rim, he asks, “What song is it?”

Yeosang’s lips pursed. “I don’t know. Yet.”

“You don’t know?”

“I just heard it,” Yeosang explains, cheeks flushing pink. This is what he gets for speaking without thinking. “I’ll find out tonight, play it for you tomorrow.”

“I don’t doubt that, you fuckin’ weirdo,” Jay laughs to himself. “It creeps me out when you do that, learn a song just by listening to it.”

Yeosang shrugs, a small smile playing on his lips.

When he gets back to his apartment, immediately he's on his couch, sitting over his bass, on the couch, trying to play the melody from memory. He thinks he has one section down, maybe, possibly, by the time you’re bursting through his apartment, right on-time.

His front door slams behind you. You’re still half-dressed, but at least you had a shirt on now. Even if it was his, and the bottom hem was tucked up into the band of your sports bra, showing off the stretch of skin from your upper abdomen down to the waistband of your shorts.

Your hair was still tied up, off your face, white sneakers still on your feet. Fresh off the field, then. “I’m irritated.”

Fresh off the field and pissed. Yeosang sits a little further back on the couch, readjusting himself, waiting for the explanation.

“Those girls have no fucking respect,” you throw your wristlet onto his coffee table, arms crossing over your chest.

“Karina?” Yeosang asks, remembering when you were appointed captain at the end of the previous captain’s, Jihyo’s, reign. Karina is the only one on your team who never accepted that you were captain, and not herself.

“Karina and her evil fucking minion, Giselle,” you snap, eyes big and raging. “I think they’re doing it on purpose. Either to get me to step down or get my rank removed, but the joke’s on them, because neither is going to fucking happen.”

Walking from one side of his rug to the other, you keep going. “We’re doing a pep rally next week, and I was told about it a week ago. I only had a few days to choreograph a routine before we needed to start practicing, and I did, now I don’t know if it’s because of where Karina is placed in the formation, but the ones that are watching her are copying her. These girls have been cheering for years, Yeosang, we’re a D1 fucking school and they can’t learn a routine in a few days?”

Yeosang’s lips flatten. “You’re putting in the work and they aren’t.”

You stop in your tracks. “You’re right, it’s literally only me putting in work, isn't it? I need to talk to my coach, I don’t know how half of these girls made it onto the fucking team.”

“I could probably learn the routine quicker than them,” Yeosang shrugs.

You nod ecstatically, “You could. You literally fucking could, Yeosang. You should see these girls, it’s like they’ve never cheered a day in their life.”

“Show me the routine,” Yeosang says.

You pop a brow, standing still, palms finding your hips. “What?”

“Show me,” Yeosang shrugs, then smiles. “Let me see if I can do it.”

“No!” You shake your head like the idea was ridiculous. “I’m not cheering for you, that’s embarrassing.”

“Okay, fine,” he huffs. “At least let me hear the mix.”

“It’s not a mix,” you say, quieter. Voice small, like you were even embarrassed of that. “It's a song.”

Yeosang tilts his chin up. “Let me hear it.”

As you pick up your wristlet, unzipping it to pull out your phone that somehow fits in the tiny, skinny thing, Yeosang’s grip tightens on the frets of his bass, fingers steadying over the strings.

It takes you only a moment to pull up the song, to press play, like you hadn’t even checked your phone after finishing practice, you had come straight here. He doesn’t let the thought linger as the beat starts playing through the small speakers, Yeosang’s ears straining to pick apart the melody like he could see the sheet music in front of him.

He nods his head as you nod yours, your limbs moving like you couldn’t stop yourself from micro-performing if you tried. Counting in his head, gauging the sound, the rhythm, the beat, Yeosang’s fingers start moving.

Your eyes fly to his bass, wide, then back up to him. He starts playing, flawlessly, as if he’d heard the song a million times before.

“What?” You mumble under your breath, eyes locked in on where his fingers smack at his strings. “How the fuck are you doing that?”

Yeosang smiles, pride in the display of teeth, head nodding along as his fingers pluck the strings. A monotonous beat, his other hand barely moves on the frets.

He gets it now. The song takes shape in his head, his lips scrunch in satisfaction, tongue poking out, nodding to the beat he plays without even looking now.

You look starstruck. Unblinking, stuck in place, eyes wide, jaw slack. You take a step forward, like you couldn’t believe it, like Yeosang was a fucking hologram or something.

“Yeo, that’s really fucking cool,” you almost whisper. Your eyes meet his again, finally blinking, fast enough that Yeosang thinks you might’ve actually convinced yourself he was an illusion. “How do you do that? Can you do that with any song? How do you know how to play it?”

Yeosang shrugs off what he takes as compliments. “I’ve kinda always been able to,” he explains. “I started playing guitar when I was eight, bass when I was twelve.”

Your jaw drops further as you round the coffee table, taking your spot next to him on his couch. “That long? Like, over a decade?”

Yeosang snorts, “Yes, over a decade. It’s about time that I did something with it.”

The song ends, you bury your phone in the couch cushion absent-mindedly, eyes twin saucers as you stare at him like he was a completely different person. “Is that what you want?” you ask, leaning into the back of the couch, pulling your knees up to your chest. “To make it your career?”

He nods without hesitation. “I thought I wanted football… obviously, going to a D1 school and all. But then I met Jay, and realized that I only played football because I had to, then everything felt like it was moving in the same direction, y’know?”

“Like it was meant to be,” you offer. He nods. Your lips purse, scrunching to one side before you admit, “You seem happier.”

“Really?” He grins, teeth showing. “I guess I am, I like being onstage, I’ve always liked performing, actually.”

“I never thought that about you,” your eyes find the couch, a string of fuzz ripped from the seam. You pick at it with your manicured fingers, mumbling, “Outside of football, you seemed content being… hidden. Quiet, like a mouse. I guess that makes sense, though, you were kind of a star on the field.”

“Mingi’s the star,” Yeosang says. “He gets all the glory.”

“Well, I was always cheering for you.” You finally look up at him, eyes sparkling, and he can feel his breath catch, hear it. So pretty, so perfect, he’s never loved anything in his fucking life the way he loves you. Maybe music. Maybe his bass. But there’s still the part of him that knows neither compared to what he feels for you, that you were the reason he fell back in love with music all over again.

“Would you still cheer for me?” He finds himself asking, but to him, it feels like a different question entirely. “When I’m onstage. Would you cheer for me in the crowd?”

Your head tilts, a playful smile taking over your entire face. “Wait, like, actually come to one of your shows?”

“Yes, actually,” he teases, shifting his body so he faces you a little more, bass still taking up space between you. He doesn’t mind it, though, barely notices it, not when your gaze fixed on him is hotter, brighter than stage lights. “Next Friday. Eonian.”

Your lips scrunch again, a cute flush spreading across the apples of your cheeks, your nose. “I don’t know, Yeosang.”

“You don’t have to be front and center,” he urges, “even though I know that’s where you love to be. Just…come see me play.”

You stare at him, eyes dancing across his face, contemplating. Your smile falls a little, and he knows you’re running through the events in your head, what could go wrong, what people would think, what it’d look like if you showed up for him.

“I’ll think about it,” you nearly whisper, and he knows that not giving him an answer, avoiding yes or no, was intentional.

You’ve already made up your mind. He knows you won’t come. He can feel it, an icy chill spreading through his blood, prickling his scalp. Rejection.

All you have is sex. That’s all it’s been from the jump.

He stands, placing his bass carefully in its stand, deciding that he didn’t want to stare at your perfect face anymore. Looking back at you over his shoulder, he asks, “Have you eaten?”

“No,” you admit. “I came straight from the field.”

That, he knew. He knew you didn’t eat before he even asked the question. Without thought, without words he aims for his kitchen, sorting through his fridge for something that wasn’t prepped already, his cabinets for anything in-line with your diet which was just as extensive as his own.

“What are you doing?” In the entryway of his kitchen, your shoes are gone, you probably kicked them off somewhere on his rug.

He doesn’t look for longer than a millisecond. “Trying to find something to feed you with.”

“You can feed me something else.” Your voice lowered into velvet, he can hear the want lining your tone, slurring the words together. “I’m still irritated, and I’d rather fuck it out than eat right now.”

“Should I act surprised?” He quips, leaning his hip into the counter, brows flat.

You step closer, confusion spreading across your features. “Where’d the attitude come from?”

He runs a hand through his hair, sighing as your feet land before his, your arms swinging around his neck. “I don’t have an attitude.”

You raise yourself on your toes to bring your face close to his as you say, “You do, and if you keep it up, I’m gonna redirect my irritation to you.”

Your fingers find his hair, nails scratching at his scalp, and his eyes close, lungs emptying. He can remember when you first came to his apartment, vulnerable and needy, asking to fuck him. You told him you had one good thing. He wonders if you were right.

Your lips press into his, soft, questioning, searching for the taste of yes on his mouth. His hands find your waist, lips parting, tongue slipping into your mouth to answer your silent ask. Always yes, he’d never deny you anything, he ignores the way his chest aches, how his throat constricts.

He can remember the day he picked up his bass from the corner of his bedroom at the football house, sitting on his bed, and playing the same measly love song he’d memorized years prior. He hummed the lyrics as he played, fucking up chords, his bass completely out of tune. He didn’t care, though, he could barely hear it over his thoughts swarming, every single one about you. The cheerleader he’d just started hooking up with, the one with a loud mouth and a pretty smile, the girl that made him feel whole again.

For a while, you just kissed. You turned him until his back hit the counter, hands in his hair as you kissed him breathless. Your tongue licked into his mouth like there was new space to cover, land to explore, like he felt new. He let you, mind wandering, hands falling under the tee shirt that swallowed your body, touching every inch of skin he could find, wondering if he’d ever feel the rush of picking up his bass from the corner of his bedroom like it was the first time again.

When you broke away from him, panting, fingers still curled in his hair, you kept his face close to yours, mouths barely an inch apart. He spoke first, though. “Thought you wanted to fuck it out.”

Your lips curve, a breathy laugh tumbling into his mouth. “Me too.”

You kiss him again, palms sliding across his chest, down to his abdomen, nothing about your touches felt impatient, or stemming from frustration. Like you were basking in him, as if he were the anchor bringing your temper, you back down to earth.

In the times that you’ve fucked since you knocked on his door those weeks ago, you’ve never just kissed. He isn’t sure if you’ve ever just kissed. The lack of heat, without promise, just exploratory, easy. Intimate, in a way, more intimate than his most vulnerable moments with you.

A man he is, with disgusting, primal, masculine instincts, the blood rushing below the hem of his shorts is anything but voluntary. He gasps when your front brushes against him, your body warm, your scent in his nose, stray hairs tickling his cheeks. You’re all over him, part of you lives inside him, it’s second nature that your spit on his tongue gets him hard. You smile into the kiss, and he can feel the shape of pride in it, the arrogance.

Your palm drops, ghosting over his length in his shorts and he moans. It’s pathetic, really, how easy he is, how fucking worked up you get him without even doing anything. Your palm lays flat, adding pressure, and he groans.

“Work for it,” you whisper, palm curving over his length, fingers gripping the width. Yeosang’s hands leave your waist to grab the edge of the counter behind him. “You know what to do. Make me proud.”

His hips rock once, experimentally grinding his length into your palm. His head tips back when he’s met with a wall of pressure, your hand unmoving, a surface for him to get off on. He can’t fight the high-pitched whimper that crawls up his throat, pleasure igniting each nerve ending in his body, the apples of his cheeks on fire because he can’t believe he’s getting himself off on your hand.

You make a small sound, maybe in awe, Yeosang isn’t sure. He rocks his hips faster, harder, broken moans and ragged breaths slurring together, completely unbothered by the fact that there were two layers of cloth between skin.

“So pretty when you’re like this,” you murmur, palm made of stone, warm like a boulder basking in the summer sun. “Thinking with your cock, doing anything I tell you to. Do you always get this hard when you kiss me?”

He forces out a breathy, “Yeah.”

“My pretty boy,” you coo, then smack your lips. “So good for me. Y’gonna get on your knees after I make you cum in your pants?”

He moans, head rocking forward again, features twisted tight. “Fuck, yeah, yes.”

“You want it? Don’t wanna fill me up?”

He bares his teeth, your question slicing through his pleasure, not enough to get him to fuck up his rhythm. “Where– wherever you want– want me to, mommy.”

You gasp, and he opens his eyes to see your brows furrowed in pleasure, eyes dark and focused. His cock twitches at the sight of your swollen, kiss-plump lips, parted, glossy with spit. Pressure builds in his gut, knowing what the title does to you, that it tumbled off his tongue.

“Cum,” you demand, the word coated in arousal. “Cum for me, wanna see you make a mess.”

He grunts, gasping out a desperate, muddled moan, but it takes no more than three more humps of his cock on your hand to spill hot, sticky release into his briefs. He hisses at the feeling, uncomfortable, messy, humiliating. When his hips slow to a stop, you don’t move your hand, you don’t lessen up the pressure. Your fingers wrap around his cock over his shorts instead, and Yeosang curses so loudly he prays the entire complex can’t hear him.

“Shut up.”

He shudders, backing into the counter impossibly further, lowered down to his elbows, knees trembling. Whines, whimpers and moans spill from his lips, bucking away from you, jerking rapidly under the weight of your hand. “I can’t take it,” he shakes his head, sucking air down to the base of his diaphragm. “I can’t– I can’t–”

“You can,” you move closer, caging him in. Eyes locked on his hips, how he shakes beneath you, he can see the grin on your lips from above you, the curve of your cheeks. “Wanna see how much.”

“No,” he gasps, eyes squeezing shut, his body in fight or flight. The overstimulation burns to the point of ache, his mind going fuzzy, all you do is laugh. “Please– please.”

“One more,” your eyes glance upward, round and doe-like as if you weren’t pushing him past the breaking point. You still haven’t even taken off his shorts. “Can you do that for me?”

There’s a demon inside him that loves to obey you. That gets off on doing what you ask of him. It erases his refractory period like it didn’t exist at all.

“Y-yes,” he whimpers, tongue lolling out of his mouth, swiping over his bottom lip.

“Yes what?”

“Yes–yes mo–mommy.”

“Kiss me, baby,” your voice is so soft he blinks to make sure he heard it right. “Come here.”

Lifting himself up, your wrist twists over his shorts, palm rolling over his tip and it’s just enough pleasure to get him building again. He pants into your mouth, the kiss not much of a kiss at all, exchanging breath and spit, teeth clashing together. Yeosang’s babbling into your mouth, begging for something he isn’t sure of, reprieve, maybe. But he’s close and you taste so sweet and your hand feels so fucking good and it’s not even touching his skin.

Your other hand finds his hair, fingers tugging at his roots, with a sharp hiss from his lips and a stuttered, staggered grunt, he’s spilling into his shorts all over again. You coax him through it, praises, compliments, sweet words he only got to hear when he was obeying you, it makes his brain all fuzzy, makes his abdomen twitch and his cock jump like he had more to give. He knew in his soul that he didn’t.

You kiss the corner of his lips, his chin, his jaw, then pepper short, soft presses of your lips down his neck. “You’re so good,” you whisper into his sweaty skin, “always so good for me. So proud of you.”

His chest is still heaving, eyes barely closed, but your praise gives him clarity. “Need to clean up.”

“Wanna see,” you whisper, soft, delicate hands traveling down his abdomen, over his tee. “Let me see.”

Your fingers dip into the elastic of his shorts, pulling them down. He can feel the heat of shame, his head tipping backward, eyes on the ceiling. He didn’t want to see the mess he’d made.

He hears you gasp, the trickle of awe falling past your lips. Maybe he does want to see what you see. “You’re so perfect,” you whisper, and he looks down at his light gray briefs, the shattered splotch of wetness darkening them into charcoal. Marvelling at the sight, you mumble, “Look at you.”

“Stop,” he whines, hips twitching, “‘s embarrassing.”

“It’s hot,” you counter, fingers tugging at the waistband of his shorts, pulling them over where his soft length hangs heavy. “So messy, you’d do anything for me if I asked.”

His cheeks burn. He doesn’t answer, tucking his lips between his teeth, eyes finding the ceiling once more. “C’mon.” His briefs snap against his hips again. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

Confused, he fixes his gaze on you again. “Wha–? Do you–”

“Bathroom,” you hum, already turning. “Come on, messy boy.”

He follows, like a moth to a flame, a dog to his owner. You clean him, though, a warm towel to his pelvis, his wet clothes thrown in his hamper. In silence, the hum of the bathroom fan sound enough, he watches you move, the fluidity of your movements, brows crooked in focus, with care. You care about him.

You walked through his apartment like you were angry at god himself and somehow, he diffused it. His head tilts, sitting on his bed, watching you sort through his drawers for new clothes as if he were incapable of doing it himself. Thinking out loud, he says, “You really should talk to your coach.”

Your head snaps to the side, black briefs in your hand. Your face reads calm, but your answer is short, “I know.”

“If they’ve been torturing you this long, they’re not going to stop.”

You sigh, and he knows you’re trying to find your favorite pair of his shorts. Gray, soft, long, they reach below his knees. Finding them, you close his bottom drawer and turn, crossing his bedroom to hand the fabric to him. “What kind of captain does that make me? That I can’t handle two girls.”

He stands, “It’s not that you can’t handle them, you shouldn’t have to.”

You watch him tug his briefs over his hips, his shorts. “The other girls, my girls, I don’t want them to think I’m some kind of dictator. That if you don’t like me, you’re out.”

Yeosang grins, “That sounds like a very you attitude to have.”

You roll your eyes, sitting on his bed, then deflate as your back stretches over his duvet. He can see the hint of a smile tugging on your lips as you argue, “Not when it comes to them. I don’t want them to hate me, or hate cheer because of me. They felt that way with Jihyo, I felt that way with Jihyo, and she chose me. I wanna be different.”

Yeosang lays down on his bed beside you, flat on his back, lungs emptying as he stares at his ceiling. “You’re different from her, you’re strict, but you’re not unfair. Just because you don’t condone bullying doesn’t mean you’re a dictator.”

He can feel your eyes on him, so he turns his head, meeting your stare. “What would you do? If you were me.”

“I’d give it right back,” he answers, without a second of thought. “You’re not the kind of person who backs down. Remind them who you are.”

You stare at him for a second, unanswering. Then your head turns, eyes finding the ceiling, and Yeosang mimics you, staring at the beige wall above him.

Minutes might have gone by, maybe hours.

You finally turn to him, “I’m hungry.”

His brows lift. “It’s late.”

“I think we both know by now that your bed’s big enough for two.”

The pep rally was rough.

In the locker room, chatter filled the air, high-pitched giggles, yells, conversation swarmed the hallways, bouncing off the metal lockers, directly into your fucking ears.

The Birds put on a beautiful show, which you assumed they would, probably the outcome of a pep-talk by the one and only Song Mingi. The team revered him as if he were a god or something, desperate to impress him, like if Mingi said the word, they’d be drafted to the NFL alongside him. It helped you out, though, it left the crowd distracted, focused on them, a thrum of adrenaline passing through the stadium as you ran onto the turf with your girls.

You don’t think the crowd even looked at you or the team once when you were in the middle of the field, fucking up each step of your goddamn choreography.

Your friends weren’t there, there wasn’t a familiar face to look at, to keep your focus on. Not that it specifically bothered you, there were plenty of away games you cheered at where you had to stare at random faces, maybe an older man’s bald head, and used it as a beacon. Somewhere to look. Something to keep your eyes on while you performed outside of your own fucking body.

But the team still didn’t have the routine down, and the last-minute tweaks you made to make the routine easier, to dumb it down, failed. The team couldn’t keep their heads on straight, Karina couldn’t remember what you had just taught her two days ago, and had been rehearsing since. It was frustrating, to know that you failed, to accept that all that you had done still wasn’t good enough. You shuddered thinking about getting a call from your coach later.

Enduring all of it, feeling all of it, you knew in the pit of your gut there was something else. You don’t know what’s wrong with you, what’s wrong. A sense of dread was consuming you head-to-toe, like something was off, something was missing. You couldn’t put your finger on it.

Maybe it was just a rough week; you’re sure the girls hated you right now, with how hard you pushed them all week, they must feel relieved to know the pep rally’s over. Even if you have to start preparing for competition tomorrow.

You caught Jaemin’s eye on your way to the locker room, just a glimpse over the kelly green pom-pom in your hand that held the door open for the rest of the girls. He winked at you, smiled with every single one of those beautiful, white teeth, and you felt nothing. Nothing.

You never have felt anything for Jaemin, if you were being honest with yourself. If you were being really honest, if you came to terms with what you felt, you’d remind yourself that every time you catch Jaemin’s eye on the field, after practice, all the times he’s sauntered up to you when you were cleaning up on the turf, flirting with you shamelessly… you remembered when it was Yeosang. You wished it was Yeosang.

Your stomach aches. Twists, churns, like cramps on the second day of your period. You slammed your locker shut a little harder than you meant to, jaw settled in frustration, palms sweating.

“You good?” Karina asks, black hair still tied at the crown of her head, curled and framing her face, laying on her shoulders. The massive, bright green bow glimmered, lined with gold and white, bringing out the red in her cheeks.

You grimace. Feigned concern, Karina doesn’t give a fuck if you’re okay, she doesn’t care about anyone except herself.

“Fine,” you respond, a short, curt reply. It meant don't push it.

Karina huffs a laugh as Giselle comes up to her side, the brunette twin smirking as if she could read Karina’s mind. You think maybe they could read each other’s minds— where one goes, the other follows. Your eyes bounce between the two with growing confusion, your upper body jerks as if to ask what.

“Nice hickey,” Giselle giggles. “Jaemin?”

Your hand comes up to clasp around your neck, the spot where Giselle’s eyes were locked. You didn’t even know it was there, you don’t know how you didn’t notice when you were putting your makeup on.

“No,” Karina makes drama of the word, dragging it out, head tilting to the side, body leaning into Giselle’s. The two had dressed already, back to denim shorts and microscopic tank tops, flip flops on their feet. “She’s not fucking Jaemin anymore. Right, Captain?”

Your cheeks flush, an embarrassed heat flooding you. Maybe the reminder of Yeosang is what you needed to fake a laugh, one icy, mean. “And since when are you two so interested in who’s inside me? Are you waiting for your turn?”

Giselle nearly gags. Karina huffs, “That’s disgusting, why would you even say that?”

You shrug, a nasty smirk tugging at your lips. “Seemed like where it was headed. If you asked nicely, I might have said yes.”

“I wanted to know because I fucked Jaemin,” Karina stands a little straighter, arms crossing over her chest. “He said you haven’t called him in weeks. Ghosted him. Guess it’s ’cause you’re gay now?”

You grab your duffel bag from the bench, a rectangular, heavy bag beaming hues of green and gold through the locker room like a kaleidoscope. “Were you talking about me before, or after you fucked him? Or was I on your mind during all three strokes?”

Karina’s cheeks redden, face morphing into something horrified. Her eyes dance, searching for something to argue with before she flat out asks, “I— you— are you still fucking Yeosang?”

You hate the way his name sounds on her tongue. Your hand grips your bag strap tighter, knuckles changing color with strength. “No,” you hiss.

“We know you are,” Giselle crosses her arms, like Karina’s mini. “Are you going to his show on Friday? To watch your little garage-band boyfriend?”

Your jaw clenches, ears moving with the grit of your teeth. Karina laughs, head tipping back, “It’s a shame, you know. He had a bright future, but now he’s a loser. Do you think he quit football to get away from you? Just for you to follow him like a lost puppy dog?”

“I wonder if he’s thinking ‘damn, I can’t get rid of her’,” Giselle sighs, a finger poking her cheek like she’s mid-thought. “Or maybe he’s so fucking high from all the weed he smokes he just doesn’t care who he’s fucking.”

“You don’t get to talk about him,” you hiss, stepping forward, dropping your duffel to the floor in a harsh smack. “Keep his name out of your filthy fuckin’ mouth.”

“Or what?” Karina steps closer, meeting your broadened shoulders, her chin jutted upward. “Go ahead, do something. I’ll be made captain so fucking quick it’ll make your head spin.”

You laugh, and it’s vile. Low, coated in malice, it takes everything in you not to spit on her. Tipping your chin up, looking down at her over your nose, you say, “You wish you had someone like Yeosang. The only guys you can get to fuck you are the ones so fucking drunk they can’t see you.”

You snap your head to Giselle, “I’ll be at his show, proudly watching my garage-band boyfriend while you keep plowing through the lacrosse team, praying one of them will actually text you back this time.”

You bend down, grabbing your duffel bag from the floor. “I’m captain because I deserve to be, I worked my ass off for that title. What have you accomplished, other than living in my shadow?”

Karina counters, “Those girls watch me, not you.”

“I wouldn’t be able to look away from a trainwreck, either,” you bark back, teeth bared. “I’ll make sure to keep you in the back from now on.”

Karina gasps, eyes blowing wide like that was a death sentence. “No.”

“I’m the captain,” you respond, leaning forward, making her shrink where she stands. “You’ll be lucky if Coach doesn’t kick you off the goddamn team after I call her.”

Steam is radiating off you as you barrel out of the locker room. Chest heaving, jaw locked, fingers shaking around the strap of your duffel bag, your mind is roaring as you nearly sprint down the hallways dripping in gray. Flickers of green and white beckoned for your sight, posters, banners, streamers, you couldn’t see until you were out of the stadium. And then began your trek to him.

He wasn’t home, though. His apartment door locked. You knocked, you banged, you called his name. No answer. You thought about calling him, your phone buried somewhere in your duffle, when you looked down you realized you never even changed. Still in uniform, a green and white tank, Birds printed diagonally across your middle, your matching mini-skirt reaching just mid-thigh.

You needed him, you needed him, not to blow off steam, not to touch him and feel like you had a semblance of control over something. You needed him to tell you again, that you’re strong, you don’t back down, that you’re worthy of your title and you aren’t just like Jihyo. You wanted to hear him say that he was proud of you for sticking up for yourself, that you’re right, only his reassurance could ease the raging war in your chest.

You needed him. You’ve never needed anyone in your fucking life.

“Hey,” you hear from behind you, a voice so comforting and warm your body twists.

Your eyes widen, taking in his outfit. Green tee, oversized, white long-sleeve covering his arms. Denim on his legs, boots poking out, hair styled over his forehead, silver gleaming in his ears. You’re slapped with the memory of waking up beside him, the both of you naked, bodies molding together like you’d both been dreaming of it.

You blink, “Where were you?”

His cheeks go pink. Sheepishly, he admits, “The pep rally.”

It steals the air from your lungs, relief flooding you, rendering your body hot. “You came?”

“You were stressed about it,” he shrugs. “I skipped band practice for it. You were right, that bitch was smug, she knew exactly what she was doing–”

You drop the duffel bag, throw your arms over his shoulders, and steal his lips. He smiles into the kiss, holding you tight, laughing a little at your enthusiasm. “Why?”

“You came,” you’re smiling, pressing your forehead against his. “I didn’t think you were there, I didn’t even think to ask you to come, Yeosang.”

“I thought you would’ve spotted me,” he’s laughing, his smile silly and happy. “Green hair and all.”

Your hands find his hair, soft between your fingers, “So much team spirit.”

He kisses you again. “You caught me, I dyed it so everyone would know I was there for you.”

You laugh, head tipping back, arms tight around his shoulders. Words thrum under your skin, floating through your limbs, climbing to the tip of your tongue. Your smile falls. Swallowing all three of them down, you admit, “I fought with Karina in the locker room. I think I won.”

“Like, fist-fight?”

“Strongly-worded verbal argument.”

“That’s your forte,” he makes a face like that was obvious. “No shit, you won.”

Your smile returns tenfold. “Can we go in?”

“Does that mean you’re going to change out of your uniform?”

“Yeah.”

“Then, no.”

You feel like you’re living outside of your own body.

You aren’t a dive-bar girl, you were lucky you had your ID in your purse, you didn’t even think about needing to show it to the tall, bulky brunette guy standing outside the front door. He let you in, and you mentally thanked god he got you away from the guy smoking the disgusting cigarette out front that nearly choked you. Who even smokes anymore?

Reality hits you, and you remember you're at a bar. Not a nice one, either. Neon signs hang from the walls, license plates and dollar bills scribbled on with black marker stapled to the deep brown oak lining the roof over the bar, music played through the speakers, rock music, heavy music, you fought not to cringe. The smell– the smell, tobacco and beer and sweat, there were college kids fucking everywhere.

All people your own age, but fuck, each and every single one you laid eyes on, you gave a stare of disgust. You didn’t understand the point of coming here on weekends, drinking until you blacked out, kissing randoms in the corner, the idea of you doing it had you gagging. The bar was packed, brown leather stools topped with people in denim, a guy with a shaved head behind the bar juggling bottles.

You felt scarily out of place. You think you might turn around and leave.

You had too much to make up for. Too much to prove. Too much to fix.

Conventional relationships weren’t for you. Your taste was different– what got you off, what you searched for in a partner, wasn’t something you could find in just anyone. When you met Yeosang and realized you could be yourself, that you were free, you dug your nails in and refused to let go.

When he quit football and ripped your world from under your feet, you hated him. You hated him for a long while. You were embarrassed that you felt so deeply for someone who was comfortable with climbing down the social ladder instead of up. You felt shameful that you were so attached to someone who didn’t mind upending his entire life, without even considering you or how you felt about it.

You can remember the night he told you he was quitting football, how you screamed at him, you can still count how many times you said no. You’ll regret that night for the rest of your life, because how free you felt with Yeosang, how everything fell into place, how comfortable you’d become being yourself, is what he became after he quit. When he committed himself to his passion.

He was comfortable changing his entire life because he felt safe enough to be happy. He assumed he had your support, that you’d be by his side through it all, and you let him down. You left him. And for what? What the fuck did you leave him for? What shame did you think you’d carry, if your boyfriend was no longer on the football team?

You ordered a drink from the bald guy and ignored his face when Aperol Spritz left your lips. Yeosang showed up for you, after he asked you to show up for him, and you basically said fuck no to his face. Were you really so ignorant that you couldn’t see yourself cracking each and every layer of his confidence? Were you so shallow that the only thing that’s real to you, is how other people see you? Did that make it reality?

It’s pathetic. He’d give you the world if you asked him to, and you’ve never done anything for him. You’ve never given him any reason to be kind to you, any reason to love you. And yet he still trusts you with every ounce of himself, trust you’ve never, not once, deserved.

You’re simmering in rage, self-loathing as you take the seat of a high top table in the back corner. Bare legs crossed, one knee over the other, the toe of your heel sits on the bar of the chair, your mini-skirt covering only what it needs to. You feel eyes on you, on your low-cut top, and the part of you that still clings to being perceived, wonders if they’re judging the streak of green you clipped into your hair. The one that matches Yeosang’s shade exactly.

You keep the skinny black straw attached to your lip, the orange liquid in the tall glass bitter. Your eyes find the stage, still dark, the head peeking out of the side. Olive skin, dark eyes, ebony hair spiked atop his head, you think that’s Jay. You’ve never met him, only heard about him from Yeosang, but from the description you remember receiving, it matches him. Your back straightens when you realize his eyes land on you, the two of you wide-eyed, staring at each other. You couldn’t be sure, the stage on the opposite side of the bar, but how his body seemed to freeze, you think he might know you, too.

You poke at your phone that laid dark on the table-top. They were supposed to go on any second now. Your leg starts bouncing, lips sucking on your straw, guzzling down liquid. Impatient, nervous. You scan the bar, muscleheads, girls half-dressed, people dressed in all black, silver sparkling on their wrists and necks.

You spot Mingi at the bar, and for a second you feel relief seeing a familiar face. His eyebrows are tied together, mouth moving, hands splaying with every word like he’s mad. Then you spot Aven beside him, chin jutted upward, shoulders back like she could will herself into being taller than him. Your brow pops in curiosity.

Eyes sliding to the corner, you spot Karina, Giselle, standing with another girl that looks semi-familiar. Then you notice cigarette-guy at her back, arms wrapped around her, and you cringe as you remember the smell of tobacco. Says a lot about your two teammates, if that’s the company they keep.

It feels like fucking forever until the music shuts off, the lights go dim, and the stagelights burn warmth. Jay walks out first, you think the brunette is Jisung, the small blonde boy Jongseob. Yeosang’s last, and your glass nearly falls from your fingers.

He’s in leather. Black, on his legs, hugging each and every muscle in his thighs. On his bicep, a band, leather and tight, it squeezes him ever so slightly, his bicep bulging out above and below it. On his left hand, a loop around his pointer finger, covering the stretch of skin on the outside of his palm.

The tank on his upper half is cotton, you think, low-cut, showing off his pectorals, the hint of purple from the hickey you’d left days ago still bruising his skin. His hair is messy, freshly dyed, bright and neon and attention-stealing. His smile is wide and sure, his grip on his bass firm, you’ve never seen him look so confident. So assured.

His eyes scan the crowd, the people who flocked to the stage. Jay’s speaking, you can’t hear him, it was as if there was a tunnel between yourself and Yeosang, the two of you on opposite sides, all you could see was him, all you could hear was him.

And like he really was on the opposite end, his eyes landed on you. They stay there, widening ever so slightly in surprise, maybe happiness? You hope it’s happiness. You can feel your heartbeat pick up, heat on your cheeks like you were the one beneath the spotlight, you wondered if you made a mistake in coming here.

Jay strikes a chord, and Yeosang’s muscles flex as his fingers find the strings of his bass. For too long, his eyes stay on you, like he couldn’t believe that you were really there, as if he’d made it up. You throw him a little wave, a small smile, and he beams.

The first song was original, you recognized it, something punk, loud and rhythmic. Your head nods, your foot bouncing against the bar on the chair in tune with Jongseob beating on the drums. Halfway into it you know they’re talented, better than good, and you curse yourself for never asking Yeosang to play for you. For never caring about this side of him, never showing interest, never wanting to know.

It’s not until the third song that your cloud of self-loathing dissipates, because you recognize it. Last week, he sat on his couch, bass in his lap while you played it from your phone. Just days ago, you performed with this song as the fucking track.

You stand from the chair, his eyes find yours. Smirking, like he knew exactly what was going through your mind. Then you’re fighting through the crowd, kitten heels stepping in puddles of liquid, arms pushing people out of your way like they were nothing but obstacles. You were sure people cursed at you, yelled at you, you didn’t hear them, not when you were feet away from the man you love and he was playing a fucking song for you.

Bodies jumped at the front, arms swinging, people singing along. You stood there, eyes wide, trying to catch your breath, hand over your pounding heart in your chest. He’s beautiful. Sweat kisses his skin, his pink-splotched chest, hair already wet and sticking to his face. You’ve never seen him look this way before, confident, more than confident, arrogant, even– fingers plucking at the strings like he could play it with his eyes closed.

You love him. You love him.

Overcome with emotion, adrenaline pounding through you like Jongseob’s sticks hitting the drums, you let go. Jumping, singing along, your arm swings over your head, the sound of your heels hitting the floor completely drowned out. You keep your eyes on him, completely and utterly ecstatic, and Yeosang smiles back, refusing to take his stare away from you like he didn’t want to look away, either.

You love him, you love him, you fucking love him.

You loved the structure of your relationship before he quit football. You loved him in uniform, in cleats, a football in his hand– but was this that much different? Was this not better, doused in black and leather, his fingers creating instead of catching? Did the rush you felt when you kissed him on the field even compare to the rumbling in your chest right now? Why the fuck did it take you so long to give it a goddamn chance?

For the rest of his show, you stayed up front, and to your surprise and his, you knew some of the songs. Old music your dad used to play when you were growing up, but that kind of nostalgia sticks with you, glued to your spine. Much like your eyes stayed glued to him, swaying back and forth, jumping out of your skirt when Jay and Jisung started shredding. What the hell have you been so afraid of?

After they bow and leave the stage, you’re moving with them, pushing through bodies to the left of you to try and get yourself where Jay had poked his head out earlier. You weren’t thinking, you didn’t even consider if you were allowed backstage as you pushed yourself forward, forward, forward.

You needed to see him, needed to touch him, you needed him. You needed to tell him you fucking love him, that you’re proud of him, that nothing makes you happier than seeing him happy.

He meets you at the curtain. Dark eyes dilated, body doused in sweat, clothes sticking to him, you didn’t care. He pulls you behind it and you don’t say a word before you throw your arms around his neck and crash your lips onto his.

He holds you steady, one foot stepping backward to keep you both upright, he’s laughing into the kiss, giggling like he still didn’t quite believe you were here. Pulling away, your hands fly to his hair, “I’m so proud of you.”

“You came,” he says, voice breathy, he still hadn’t caught it. “You’re here.”

“You’re insane.” You laugh, pushing the stray hairs off his face, your feet not even touching the ground. “You’re fucking insane, Yeosang, I didn’t know– I didn’t know you were so good.”

“Damn, what about us?”

Your smile drops, eyes blowing wide as you lift your head up. Jisung stands with a brow popped, Jay’s face flat, Jongseob’s face blown into full surprise, hands half-gripping his drumsticks like even he couldn’t believe you were here. It was a sorry excuse for a backstage, or a green room, you weren’t sure. You were at a dinky dive bar.

Yeosang slowly lowers you back down to the ground as you swallow, “Sorry. Hi guys.”

Jay’s lips stay flat, he waves, just a movement of his fingers. Jongseob blinks. Jisung grins, “Hiii.”

“That was incredible,” you force a smile, it’s nervous. “You’re all so talented.”

“We put him back together,” Jay says, tone flat. Yeosang jumps, trying to interject, but Jay cuts him off, “We were there when you destroyed him. Do you even know what he went through?”

You swallow, cheeks flaming. You shake your head.

“Jay,” Yeosang warns, his voice tight. You’ve never heard it before, but you barely notice, you can’t when Jay’s eyes thin further.

“Don’t force us to do that shit again,” Jay barks. “It took too long, and we’re too busy.” You loose a breath at the amusement playing in his tone. “And we better see you at our show next week.”

Nodding, you immediately agree, “I won’t, I’ll be there. I promise.”

Jisung’s hands find Jay’s shoulders, nudging him forward, “Come on, father Jay, Jesus Christ. Let’s give them some space.”

Jongseob follows the pair, eyes still wide and sparkling, head never once turning away from you as all three of them walk through the curtain. You release the rest of the breath you didn’t know you were holding as you turn back to Yeosang, “Did he mean that?”

Yeosang starts to shake his head, mumbling reassurance, hands searching for your waist, but you stop him. “Sangie,” you urge him, “did he mean what he said? Did I hurt you?”

“Can I say something without freaking you out?” Yeosang asks, and your hands find his shoulders as you nod. “I was, like, balls-deep in love with you. When you ghosted me, I went off the deep end a little.”

Your bottom lip curves, pain slicing through you. “I’m so, so sorry.”

“That’s in the past,” he shakes his head. “Long time ago.”

“Not long enough,” you whisper. “I’ll regret hurting you forever, Yeosang. I’ll never do that to you again.”

His eyes dance across your features, reading in-between the lines. He doesn’t respond.

“Do you still love me?” you ask, and fear curls in your gut.

His lips perk upward, “You know I do.”

A smile dares to swallow your face. “Is it okay that I love you, too?”

He answers with his lips on yours, both of his hands on your back, kissing you so hard it dips your body backward. You squeal into his mouth, arms flying around his neck, holding him tight as he lifts your feet off the ground.

“You showed up for me,” he says into your mouth, before kissing you again. “You cheered for me. That’s all I could have ever wanted, ever asked for.”

“Start thinking of new gifts,” you say as you land back on your feet. “There’s a lot I need to make up for.”

He presses his forehead to yours, fingers squeezing at your hips. “The fact that you love me is enough.”

You cup his cheeks in your hands, heels lifting off the floor to press another kiss to his lips. “You make me a better person, Yeosang. You let me be me. I want to be that person for you, too.”

“You are–”

“No, I’m not,” you shake your head, your smile weak. “But I will be, if you let me.”

He kisses you again, and it’s answer enough. He pushes you backward by your hips, five steps before your back gently hits a wall, arms closing around his neck. You throw one of your legs over his, pushing your tongue into his mouth, fingers toying with the hair at the nape of his neck.

“Say it again,” he says into your mouth, pushing his hips into yours.

“I love you.”

He moans, quiet, but telling. “Again.”

You roll your hips against him, “I love you, Yeosang.”

His palm finds your thigh, gripping tight as his other hand tilts your jaw upward, kissing you deeper, harder. Your hands search his abdomen, his chest, sliding up to cup his cheeks, using the smallest bit of force to pry his lips off yours.

“You’re not fucking me here,” you breathe out, taking in his dilated pupils, his red cheeks. “This place is disgusting.”

He snorts, head dipping forward, “You’re gonna have to get over that, what if I go on tour one day and wanna have a quickie backstage?”

A full-body shiver racks through you, and it only makes him laugh harder. He kisses you once more, then peels himself off you. “I love you, too, even the high-maintenance.”

“You don’t even know half of it,” you bring your leg back into yourself, both feet finding the floor, fixing your skirt. “How high-maintenance I actually am.”

“I assume I’ll be learning.”

“Yes, you will.”

you are an HONEST PERSON with a warm heart do NOT steal my shit masterlist 🦠

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