Architorture

the noise is deafening to you in a different way—a slow, rising pressure in your chest. you want to speak, to make them stop. but your voice won’t come, and the words you want to say die in your throat, replaced by that quiet ache of helplessness.

that’s when seongje steps in.

he’s not supposed to be there. he’s supposed to be in baekjin’s office, probably arguing or being a general pain in the ass—but the noise coming from the alleyway catches his attention. he comes striding out, a curse on his lips as he surveys the scene, his eyes lighting up with the familiar flash of anger.

“what’s with all the fucking noise, fuckers?!,” seongje shouts, his voice dripping with disdain as he eyes the delinquents, but his gaze lands on the one holding your hearing aids, who freezes up as soon as he realizes who’s standing in front of him.

“aww, you guys are really fucking pathetic,” seongje steps forward, his mood shifting from bored to dangerous in an instant. he slaps the delinquent’s face, knocking the hearing aids out of his grip, and catches them before they hit the floor.

the delinquent stumbles back, startled, and seongje doesn’t miss the way his bravado slips. “hey, if you want to get your ass kicked, i’ll be happy to oblige. otherwise, get the fuck out of here,” seongje growls, and his voice carries an unmistakable warning.

the delinquents scatter quickly, realizing they’re not really looking forward to get beat up by the wolf himself. seongje watches them leave with a bored smirk, but his eyes return to you, where you’re still sitting silently, your gaze downcast. his anger bubbles under the surface, but it doesn’t seem to be directed at you—it’s more frustration at how they treated you. and, maybe… it’s confusion. because why would he be frustrated?

he despises those who put on a front, acting all tough and dominant when they're around someone they know is weaker, but turn into cowards the moment they face someone like seongje. the hypocrisy makes him sick—they don’t even have the balls to face him.

you look up at him then, your lips parting as if to say something, but the words stay locked inside. seongje stares back, a little too long, before he gestures to the now-empty bowling alley with a roll of his eyes.

“shit, it’s way too quiet in here now,” seongje mutters, half to himself. “i need a fucking drink. you coming?” his fist reaching out to you, making you flinch, but he simply turns and opens his palm to reveal your hearings aids, offering it back to you, his gaze not even meeting yours.

you hesitate, a flicker of uncertainty crossing your face. seongje doesn’t wait for a reply. he knows how this works—he doesn’t need words from you to tell if you’re okay. you’ve already said more than enough with that silence of yours.

it’s a few weeks later when seongje starts to notice something he wasn’t expecting—something soft. you’re not the type to speak, but you show him things. you leave him little letters. they’re simple at first, just words on paper—carefully written, neat and soft. but each one has meaning. you might leave him a note after a chaotic day, telling him, thank you for helping me today—a gesture he’s not used to.

seongje can’t stop himself from reading them over and over, even if he pretends they don’t matter. he tosses the first one aside in an exaggerated motion, but later, when he’s alone, he pulls it out again, trying to make sense of it. there’s something oddly comforting in your words. something real. his usual sharpness dulls just a little when he reads them.

it’s a typical night, and you don’t expect anything to go wrong. seongje has always been unpredictable, but you can’t stop yourself from trusting him. there’s a strange sort of understanding between the two of you now. he doesn’t need you to speak, and you don’t need him to be anything but… himself. still, you don’t expect what happens when he calls you to meet him in a parking lot late one evening.

the dim light from the streetlamps makes the whole place feel cold and detached. you spot him standing there, leaning against the hood of a car, his eyes narrowing slightly when he sees you approach. but there’s something different tonight—something unsettling in his stance.

"come here," seongje says, his voice almost too casual for the tense atmosphere.

your breath catches in your throat as the boy on his knees comes into focus. you've seen him around before—he’s one of the delinquents from the union. the same one who’d been taunting you in the bowling alley, waving your hearing aids like some cruel joke. that memory hits you sharply, and your stomach churns with discomfort as you recognize him now, his face bruised and bloodied, a lip split open, looking like he’s been through hell.

but why is he here? why is he on his knees, shaking in front of seongje? what happened to him?

seongje stands over him, his posture casual, his grin wide and wicked as he watches the boy with almost bored amusement. he kicks the delinquent’s side lightly, like it’s a game, and the boy flinches.

"come on, kid," seongje says, his voice teasing but edged with something darker, something almost amused by the kid’s fear. "just like we practiced."

the delinquent on his knees doesn’t speak, his eyes downcast, probably too terrified to even look up at seongje, but his shaky hand lifts. you watch as he tries to make the "a" handshape, his fingers clumsy as he attempts to sign. seongje looks down at the boy, his grin stretching wider as he watches him fumble.

the delinquent hurriedly completes the sign, his hands shaking, his breath coming in short bursts as he struggles to perform it correctly. he spins his hand in a half-hearted clockwise motion, and you can tell how hard it is for him to even try. he looks humiliated, and maybe that’s what seongje wants—to make him feel small, to show that he’s the one in control now. like how the boy probably felt back in the bowling alley with you.

“sorry.” he signed.

as the boy finishes, seongje pats his shoulder with an almost affectionate thud, a grin still plastered on his face. “good job,” he mutters, voice dripping with mock praise. but his eyes flick to you, then back to the delinquent, as if waiting for some kind of reaction.

the delinquent scrambles to his feet, not daring to say a word, but you can see the fear still fresh in his eyes. without another glance, he stumbles off into the shadows of the parking lot, and seongje doesn’t follow him, not bothering with any more theatrics. “now that’s how you apologize,” he sighs contentedly, glancing at you from the corner of his eye as he walks back to where you two came from.

you don’t respond, but you follow him. because, despite everything—despite how messed up all of this is—he’s still the one who, somehow, happened to feel like the safest person to be around. despite his… unique antics.

despite the way he does things no one else would dare to. because even if he’s rough around the edges, unpredictable and loud, seongje never made you feel small. and that, weirdly enough, was enough.

seongje’s desk at the bowling alley becomes a quiet sort of shrine to you—littered with your letters and notes, half-crumpled from him rereading them over and over. he never bothers to clean it up. they’re scattered across the surface like leaves in a storm, but he knows exactly where each one is. it’s an organized mess, chaotic in the same way he is. but if anyone even looks at them too long—tries to pick one up, makes a joke about the handwriting, even breathes too close to the edge of his desk—they’re basically asking for a death wish.

“touch it and you die,” he’ll mutter without even looking up, one foot kicked up on the desk, cigarette dangling from his lips. it’s not even a threat—it’s a promise.

somewhere in between the late night meetups—where the world is quiet and it’s just the two of you—and the stolen moments in back rooms lit by vending machine glow, seongje softens. not in a way that’s obvious to most, but in ways you catch. like when he plays bowling with you late at night at the union headquarters, just the sound of pins crashing echoing through the empty lanes. he’s terrible at it, but he doesn’t care. he would fair better hitting someone at the back of the head with these bowling balls. he only really lights up when it’s your turn.

you roll the ball, knock down every pin, and before you can even react, he’s throwing his hands in the air, exaggeratedly signing applause, a wide grin stretching across his face.

“that’s what i’m fucking talking about!” he shouts, clapping loudly on top of the sign for applause he just made, just because he’s still him—loud, obnoxious, impossible—but now he’s loud for you.

yeah… to seongje, you’re like a stray puppy at first. small, quiet, following him around without saying a word, eyes always wide and watching. at first, he thinks it’s kinda funny—endearing, even. you don’t talk back, don’t flinch when he’s loud, and you’ve got this habit of showing up with little notes or food like some soft, strange ritual he doesn’t understand. he starts calling you “puppy” just to mess with you, ruffling your hair whenever you come around.

but somewhere along the way, that fondness stops being just a game. no, you’re not a pet to seongje. but maybe, you became an equal.

he starts waiting for your notes. starts leaving his office door slightly cracked, just in case you come by. he catches himself watching you instead of his phone. gets weirdly pissed off when other people so much as look at you wrong.

and the night he realizes it’s different—that it’s not just him babysitting some quiet kid—it’s when you sign “stay” with soft hands after a long night, and he does. no grumbling, no jokes, just settles next to you and doesn’t leave.

after that, it’s not a question. you’re not a puppy. you’re his person.

and yeah, maybe he never said you were dating. but everyone knows. you leave your food in the union’s fridge, your letters in his desk, your comfort in the chaos of his life. and he protects you, respects you, listens to your silence more than he’s ever listened to anyone’s voice. and no one in the union dares to bring it up or even question your soft presence in the nitty gritty bowling alley.

seongje is loud. like, really fucking loud. he talks with his whole body, yells when he's annoyed, laughs like he owns the air around him, and never knows when to shut up. he's noise and motion and chaos wrapped in one, dangerously sharp-edged boy. but you—you're quiet. not just in voice, but in presence. you move gently, offer kindness without demanding attention, speak in ways that don’t need sound.

and somehow, in all the noise of his world, your silence is the only thing that ever made sense. he used to think silence was empty, but now it’s where he finds comfort. he’s still loud, still volatile, still the type to throw a punch first and maybe ask questions never. but now there’s this... softness around the edges. a space he carves out just for you. like you’re the eye of the storm, and he’s always, always circling back to you.

in your quiet, he feels understood. and maybe that's the wildest thing about this whole mess—that a boy made of sound found peace in someone who never had to say a word.

note: aaa i feel like this so short >><< i wanted to give them more of a backstory but for now this is what i’m going with. if you’d like to see more of them that’d be nice 🫶 this is such a different take from collarless tho, and it’s nice to also write a softer character to contrast our tough collarless!reader to explore more dynamics with seongje.

i don’t aim to reform or soften seongje, but have the peaceful presence of the reader be incorporated into his life without changing his ideals and personality.