Glittering Distraction

When you did finally drag yourself out of bed, still half asleep and grumbling to yourself about the inconvenience, it was in baggy sweatpants and a loose-fitting shirt, your hair tied up into a bun. 

Creaking open the door to your bedroom, you watched him momentarily. He didn’t notice the disturbance, just remained locked into the game, lighting up bright colors and explosions on your television. 

Your fingers easily found the spot they always managed to settle on your face when he was around, pinching the bridge of your nose in stress. 

One of your mugs sat on the coffee table in front of him, filled to the brim. You ignored the problem at hand, the man intruding on your living room before noon without your permission, for the second, or maybe third time that week, and walked toward the coffee maker instead. 

He didn’t acknowledge you as you passed, his eyes instead remaining laser-focused on the screen. You didn’t speak either, hoping that maybe if you continued to ignore him, he’d go away. Though, based on past encounters, it never really worked out that way. Though a girl could dream. 

Pulling down a mug from the cabinet, you attempted to place it carefully on the counter before you, tempering your anger. It didn’t matter anyway, even if you slammed the thing down so hard it shattered into pieces, he still probably wouldn’t have looked up. 

It was when you reached out for the coffee pot, hand just barely touching the handle, that the anger bubbled over. 

You whipped around, coffee pot in hand, face screwed up into a scowl that only Jeong Yunho could produce. “Are you serious?” you asked, raising the coffee pot above your head, directing that scowl in his direction—not that he even looked up to see it. 

He was too locked into whatever video game he busied himself playing on your PlayStation. It drove you over the edge, how little regard he had for you. How he used your apartment like a landing ground, a place to escape—and then dared to ignore you while inside it. 

You walked around the counter, coffee pot still in hand, and stopped in front of the television with your arms outstretched. “Earth to fucking Yunho—what are you doing here?” 

You knew the answer before you asked, knew why he was there based on the sheer lack of sleep you’d gotten during the night. 

He shifted to the side in an attempt to see the screen behind you, but you moved with him, waving your arms to get in the way as much as possible. Finally, with a groan and a roll of his eyes—like you were inconveniencing him—he set down the controller. 

With his attention free, he leaned back, crossing his arms over his chest. His legs were spread, and he took up way more space than he needed to. 

His eyes dragged over you slowly, making a show out of looking at you. It made you squirm in a self-conscious kind of way. The kind of way that also made you want to chuck something at his head.

With a lazy smile, he finally leaned forward again, balancing elbows on the tops of his thighs. “Good morning to you, too,” he said. 

You closed your eyes, sucking in a deep breath to keep yourself from screaming at him this early in the morning. “You know, if you’re going to use my apartment as a hideout, the least you could do is save me some fucking coffee.” 

You had to admit—you understood why his apartment had a constant stream of one-night stands filing in at night and out in the morning. He had this way of looking at someone like they were the only person in the entire universe, like nothing else mattered. He looked at you like that, now. All attentive eyes and half-quirked up lips. 

“Your charm doesn’t work on me,” you said with a roll of your eyes. Because it didn’t. All that charm, it was nice. There were split seconds where you understood, sure. But that feeling always passed even faster when you remembered every other thing about him. 

“Not sure about that,” he teased. It was always this push and pull. Him trying to get under your skin, and you always reacting. 

You pushed past the teasing because you just couldn’t deal with his entire personality that early in the morning. Instead, you got back to the matter at hand. “Is she still in there?” you asked, placing the empty coffee pot down on the table in front of you, simply so you could cross your arms. 

Yunho shrugged, accentuating his uncertainty with a slight lift of his eyebrows. “Why don’t you go over and find out?” 

“We’re not doing this,” you said, looking at him with that same pointed expression. 

“Doing what?” he asked, mocking ignorance. 

This would not be the first time, nor the second, nor the third that you’d provided Jeong Yunho with this kind of turn-down service. The first had been a mistake. Knocking on his door to ream him out for being loud throughout the night. The second time he’d tricked you, asked you to come over. And the third, well, it went something like this. 

“We’re not friends. This is not something I just do for you,” you said. “And stop letting yourself into my apartment.” 

“So, are you going to do it, or?” Yunho asked, one brow raised, and you knew he wasn’t planning on relenting. No, he would be insufferable about it until you gave in. He was always stronger-willed than you in that matter—more stubborn. More annoying. 

“Make some coffee,” you said. It was in exasperation that you turned and stormed out, choosing to face the innocent woman left behind in his apartment rather than continuing to have this conversation. Plus, if there was anything you’d learned, it was that once you’d scared her away, he’d leave, too. 

You didn’t understand why he did it. The whole one-night stand after one-night stand thing. He was charming enough, and any of the many girls you’d kicked out of his apartment probably would have made for a great long-term partner. Even just a situationship. It was his biggest red flag. The thing that turned you off. But you got it, too. Because if he didn’t live next door, if you didn’t get to witness the parade and the payoff, you would probably fall for his tricks and charms just as easily. 

But you’d seen the man behind the curtain. You knew the game. And so you knew, too, that he didn’t give a single fuck about any of those women. Not even enough to reject them himself. 

Even though it wasn’t the first time you’d done this, it still felt strange. Pretending. You knocked on the door. Crossed your arms over your chest. Tapped your foot. Directed the annoyance you felt toward Yunho into pretend anger. 

Someone did, inevitably, answer the door. 

“Hey bab—” the woman started. She had long black hair and warm brown eyes. She wore a long button-up shirt that stopped above her knees. Yunho’s. You witnessed the slow furrow of her brow as she put together the situation before you started whatever badly performed rant you chose this time. 

You scrunched your face up to match, mock irritation appearing in the creases at the corner of your eyes, the slight scowl of your lips. 

“Who are you?” the girl asked. It was always their first question, and sometimes you even felt bad about having to crush their dreams—you shattered the ideal image they had of Yunho in their heads, before he could find a way to do it themselves. You framed them as a mistress, the other half of a cheater. 

Why couldn’t he just reject them himself? Wouldn’t everyone leave with more dignity in that circumstance? You and whatever girl he’d involved included?

But you stood firm, trying to imagine what it would feel like to show up at your boyfriend’s apartment only for the door to be answered by another woman. 

“I’m Yunho’s girlfriend,” you said. You’d said it before. It still felt strange. A label you would never want to have. Probably because it would land you in a situation too close to this one. “Who are you?” you asked. 

“I’m—uh,” the girl said. You didn’t stay to listen, instead pushing past her into the apartment, looking for your cheating boyfriend. It was enough to send her into high gear, throwing her clothes back on and ducking out the front door before you could so much as turn around. 

Once she was gone, you took your time leaving. There was nothing interesting in his apartment, no secrets to glean by snooping. For the most part, he was an open book. All games and pick-up lines, without any actual substance. 

You headed back to your apartment. Yunho stood in the kitchen, leaning against the counter, waiting for the pot of coffee to brew. 

“She’s gone,” you said. 

He chuckled under his breath, like he couldn’t believe you’d actually done it. The first time, you’d both had a laugh about the situation. The incidental scaring off of the woman he’d invited over. It wasn’t as funny anymore. At least not to you. 

You studied him, watching his face for any shred of emotion, finding none. He truly didn’t care about these women or what happened to them after they left his apartment. It wasn’t like he’d speak to them again, so why would it matter how things ended? 

“Come on,” Yunho said. “Don’t look at me like that.”

“I’m not looking at you like anything,” you said. But you could feel the scowl, still pressed into your features. Disgust. 

He took a step forward, towering over you and craning his neck to meet your eyes. He loved getting into your personal space, like he was trying to figure you out just the same. But if he wouldn’t give away any shred of his real personality, then neither would you. 

He was just an annoyance. A neighbor who thought the two of you were friends. That didn’t mean you actually had to be his friend. 

“Well,” he said. “Say it.” His head tilted slightly to the side, waiting for whatever opinion you so clearly wanted to share regarding his dating habits. 

“You should go home,” you said, instead. “Thanks to you and your little house guest, I didn’t get any sleep last night—and I have to work later.” 

This made him smirk, a slow crawl across his lips as he enjoyed the thought of you listening. It wasn’t that you wanted to listen—because of course you didn’t. But he made it difficult. Your bedrooms shared a wall, and it wasn’t exactly thick. 

“Don’t start,” you said, stopping whatever thought process was going on behind his eyes, whatever words he was planning on using to get even further under your skin. 

He took the hint, holding his hands up in defense. He stepped away from you, taking out the full coffee pot to fill both of your mugs. He scooped one spoonful of sugar into his own mug, stirring it a few times before grabbing the mug and walking out of the kitchen. “Have a good day at work,” he said, before the door to your apartment opened and closed. 

“I just don’t understand what his problem is,” you said, standing behind the bar, mixing a drink. Jihyo sat across from you, nursing the first drink you’d made for her. It was a quiet Thursday night, so for the most part, your bar was occupied by friends and a few other regulars who didn’t require that much attention. 

It was Wooyoung who responded. “Maybe he likes you,” he said. It wouldn’t be the first time this idea was floated by the board. But it only earned an eye roll from both you and Jihyo, who refused to believe this asinine idea. “It’s guy logic,” Wooyoung said. 

“Maybe you should move,” Jihyo suggested. 

You pointed a finger at her, but looked at Wooyoung. “Now these are the types of solutions I’m looking for.” You laughed. “Maybe I should move.” 

Wooyoung and Jihyo have been your best friends for ages, ever since college. They’ve been there for you throughout more challenging circumstances than just Yunho. If anyone were going to help you get through this, it would be them. 

“You can’t move,” Wooyoung pointed out. “Your place is too nice.” 

You’d talked in this circle with them countless times before. There was no obvious solution, aside from putting up with him. 

“I could threaten to call the police,” you suggested. “Next time he shows up in my apartment.” You placed the finished drink on the counter in front of Wooyoung, taking his empty glass. 

Jihyo pressed a finger to her lips. “Or,” she said. “You could lock your door.”

“I do lock my door,” you said. “He just knows where I keep the spare.”

“Okay, so hide the spare somewhere else,” Wooyoung said. 

“I’ve tried that,” you said. 

“Do you really need the spare?” Wooyoung asked. 

“You made me get one,” you said, pointedly. “When I kept locking myself out.” 

“Right, yeah,” he said. “You could give your backup to Jihyo instead—then there’s no Yunho problem, and I don’t have to worry about you calling me at two in the morning when you lock yourself out.” 

Jihyo said, “No, no,” with a wag of her finger. 

With a sigh, you picked up a collection of shot glasses, placing them on the bar between the three of you. They both had regular people jobs—i.e., ones that required them to be up early the next day, but neither did they protest when you started filling the glasses. 

Just as you filled the last of the three, the bell atop the front door chimed. Pushing open the door was the topic of conversation himself. He wore a black leather jacket, snow dusting the tops of his shoulders. His cheeks were a soft pink from the cold, and his eyes found yours immediately from across the room. 

His pleased smile was met by yet another scowl on your end. He closed the distance between the door and the bar in only a few steps, coming up behind Jihyo and Wooyoung. He reached forward and took Wooyoung’s shot as you pushed it forward. 

Wooyoung looked at you, brows drawn together in shared annoyance. You and Jihyo already had your glasses raised, and Yunho was quick to join in on the cheers he hadn’t been invited to participate in. 

He didn’t say anything, and neither did you. He just raised the shot to his lips, tipping it back and swallowing the clear liquid as if it were water. 

You watched in stunned shock. 

“Damn,” Yunho said. “You’re hanging out without me?” 

You let your eyes fall shut for a second, trying to process the situation, trying to figure out what words to say aloud without coming off like a complete and total asshole. 

Jihyo took the lead instead. “Why would we invite you?” she asked, a pretty smile appearing on her lips. One that might have looked harmless to an outsider, but you know meant I’ll fucking kill you. 

Yunho placed a hand on his chest. “And here I thought we were friends.”

“You’re delusional,” you said. 

He lifted his eyes to yours and smiled warmly, like he really was that delusional. You poured Wooyoung another shot, holding it while you waited for Yunho to sit anywhere else. Of course, he didn’t, instead opting to sit on the other side of Jihyo, who promptly turned her back to face Wooyoung completely. 

You put the replacement in Wooyoung’s waiting hands.

Just as you were raising the shot glasses, Yunho cleared his throat. “Can I get something to drink, beautiful?” He had one arm on the counter, and he leaned forward over it, looking at you with those big brown eyes. You might even be attracted to him if he weren’t so god damn annoying. 

You ignored him, instead, looking back to your friends. Your shot glasses clinked in the center before you all threw them back. 

“Why is he here?” Jihyo asked in a low voice. 

“He can hear you,” Yunho quipped, and you could hear the smirk in his tone without even looking in his direction. “And this is a public bar. You do know that, right?” 

Jihyo pressed her lips into a tight line, glaring at you because she refused to turn around and glare at the source of the problem. 

“What do you want to drink, Yunho?” you asked, crossing your arms over your chest and attempting to press a smile to your lips. It was your job, after all, to provide good customer service. You couldn’t be the one asking him why he was there or what he wanted from you. At least not when you were on the clock. You would leave those questions to Jihyo and Wooyoung. 

“Do you know how to make an Old Fashioned?” Yunho asked. 

Jihyo did whip around to face him, then. “She’s a bartender, you idiot. She knows how to make an Old Fashioned.” 

That same slow smile crept across his lips. “You’re pretty when you’re mad,” he said, eliciting an immediate groan from Jihyo. 

“Oh my god,” she said. “What is your problem?” 

You looked to Wooyoung, who attempted to hide a laugh with his hand. This was pretty much how it went whenever the three of you were together. You and Wooyoung stopping Jihyo from getting into yelling matches with whoever didn’t agree with her. It was charming, in its own way. 

“It’s fine,” you said, not wanting to make a scene in front of the four other customers in the bar. “Just ignore him. I do.”

You started making the Old Fashion instead, letting Wooyoung and Jihyo get back to their own conversation. All the while, feeling Yunho’s eyes trailing your hands, watching your movements. 

Maybe Jihyo saw your cheeks turning red, or maybe she was just really curious about your love life, because she diverted the conversation away from Yunho, distracting you from his watchful eyes in one swoop. “How are things going with Hongjoong?” she asked. 

You placed the drink in front of Yunho, saying, “Oh, yeah. They’re good,” while making direct eye contact. There was something quizzical in his gaze that you couldn’t quite place. You didn’t ask, and he didn’t voice whatever question it was that plagued his brain. “We’re going out tomorrow night.”

“Third date, right?” Jihyo asked. 

“Mhm,” you said. 

“I hope he puts out,” Wooyoung said, and Yunho choked on his sip, setting the glass down to cough into the collar of his jacket, hiding the redness blooming on his cheeks. 

Your eyes widened at Wooyoung, a pointed glare. 

“What?” he said, unsure why you were looking at him like that. “You’re the one who said it had been a while—”

Jihyo elbowed him in the stomach, and that was the end of that conversation. 

You printed out Yunho’s receipt and placed it on the table in front of him without meeting his eyes. 

“Actually, can I start a tab?” he asked. 

You grabbed the receipt, crumpling it into a ball. Through gritted teeth, you said, “Of course,” taking his card out of his outstretched hand. 

Customers thinned out one at a time for the next several hours, with Jihyo and Wooyoung finally departing a little bit before midnight. But Yunho stayed. 

At 1am, he was still there, watching you clean up from across the bar. 

“So,” he started. 

You threw your head back in exasperation, even though the conversation had hardly begun. You just knew, because it was Yunho, that it was going to be exhausting. 

“You’re dating,” he said. 

It wasn’t what you expected, and it caught you off guard. The way he said it so casually, aloud to the empty bar.

“Is there something strange about that to you?” you asked. “Me dating?” You tried not to go on the defensive. But there was something so inherently cutting about the way he’d said it. Like he couldn’t believe it. Did he think there was something wrong with you? Something fundamentally unlikable? Or were you just projecting?

“No,” he said. “Of course not.”

Silence. Deafening. Your ears had a heartbeat. 

“So, it’s been a while…?” he asked, and that stupid fucking smirk reappeared on his lips, like he was proud of something. 

“I’m not having this conversation with you,” you said. 

“You know, if you don’t remember how to do it, I can give you a crash course,” Yunho suggested, leaning back in his seat. 

“I’ll kill you.” 

“I love it when you talk dirty to me.” 

You took your phone out to check the time, waiting for the numbers to flip forward just enough. When they did, you smiled. “Sorry, we’re actually closed.” You turned to face the register, printing out his receipt. You placed it in a book, then in front of him. 

“You want a ride home?” he asked. 

You couldn’t help the look of surprise that appeared on your face. 

“What?” he asked. “I’m a gentleman.” 

“You are not.” 

“Just because you don’t like me, doesn’t mean I’m not charming,” he said. “So, do you want a ride home or not? It’s cold.” 

He signed the receipt and closed the book. 

You shook your head. “No,” you said. It sounded too firm. “Thanks,” you tacked on. You’d face whatever winter weather you had to in order to get home without his help. 

Yunho stood up, and for some reason, you watched him. You always forgot how tall he was, how broad his shoulders were, until he was standing in front of you. He tossed his leather jacket back on, shoved his hands into his pockets, and left without another word. 

You followed, locking the door behind him. Then, finishing your tasks, you grabbed the book off the counter and pulled out his receipt. On the few drinks he’d ordered, he tipped nearly thirty dollars. And there was a note scrawled across the bottom, too. Sorry for being an ass. You looked at it for a while before putting the tip into the system, storing the receipt, and shutting everything down. 

It was a short walk between the bar and your apartment. Only about ten minutes. There was never any point in getting a car. On weekend nights, you could always count on Jihyo or Wooyoung to bring you home. Other nights, the walk wasn’t so bad. Besides, you kept pepper spray and a knife close at hand in case anyone dared try something with you. It wasn’t masked murderers in the middle of the night that caused a problem, though. 

It was the torrential downpour that came on like a light switch, drenching you in ice-cold rain in seconds. You held one arm above your head as you walked, but it barely shielded you from the storm. 

There were hardly any cars on the road, so when a motorcycle pulled up next to you, you were fairly certain you were about to be kidnapped. 

So when the rider took off his helmet and extended it to you, revealing a quickly drenched Yunho, you couldn’t keep the shock from your face. 

“Come on,” he said. “Get on.” 

“What?” you asked, because your brain wasn’t exactly functioning properly. You didn’t even know he had a motorcycle, and you certainly weren’t going to get on the back of it. 

“Come on,” he said again. “It’s pouring. You’ve made it ten feet. Let me take you home.”

You hated the way he said it, but your clothes were getting heavier as he spoke, so you stepped forward and took it. 

“Isn’t it dangerous?” you asked. “You don’t have another helmet?” 

He shook his head, freeing some of the wet hair that was stuck to his forehead. “Stop talking,” he said. “Just get on.” 

You swung a leg over, keeping your distance from him. “What—how do I?” you asked. 

“Hold on to me,” he said. You hesitated. “Just do it, it’s pouring, if you haven’t noticed, and I’d like to get going.” 

You scooted forward and placed your hands delicately on the sides of his body. One hand at a time, he pulled you forward even more, putting each of your palms on his chest. “You’re such a baby,” he said. “Just hold on to me.” 

“Fine,” you grumbled, pressing your body against his. You hated how large he felt. His back was wide and strong, and his chest felt warm underneath your hands. 

Before you could think about how much you liked being close to him, he started driving. You hardly even had time to worry about him driving without a helmet in the rain before you were pulling into the apartment complex’s garage. 

You were still clutching his chest when he said, “You can let go.” 

“Oh,” you said, not loud enough to be heard through the helmet. You did, however, jump away from him, pulling your arms back and scooting backward before clambering off the bike altogether. 

Your heart raced, and a clamminess had settled on your skin beneath all the layers of drenched clothing. When your hands touched his body—even through his clothes, it felt like being electrocuted. No reason for that could be justified by hatred. But you hated it, still. That he was so hot that just touching him made your body react. You convinced yourself it was purely animalistic. That how much you hated him couldn’t negate how attractive he was. It made you hate him more. 

He turned off the bike and swung a leg over to stand up, reaching a hand out to you. You stared at it for a second too long. “The helmet,” he said. 

Right, you thought. What was making your brain lag behind? Why couldn’t you fucking think straight? Surely it couldn’t be the dripping wet 6’1” man in front of you. 

You took the helmet off and handed it to him. He secured it on the back of the bike, then lifted his hands to grasp his shirt, twisting it. Water fell in droplets onto the floor between you, but your eyes lingered on the patch of exposed skin, the curve of a few abs under the thin shirt. You could barely even process the fact that you were looking, let alone that he looked good. It was only when he cleared his throat that your eyes flicked up to meet his and that stupid smirk that never seemed to fade fully. 

“Thanks for the ride,” you said abruptly before taking a few quick steps away toward the elevator. Unfortunately, he followed, slipping inside before the doors could budge. 

Right, you wanted to say. We’re neighbors. At least you wouldn’t have to listen to him engaging in his usual extracurricular activities that night. Unless he magically found some way to get a girl back to his place in the middle of the night. Maybe he could summon one from the internet with the power of dating apps. You didn’t know how he did it, anyway. 

The elevator immediately felt small, the ride up to your floor longer than it had ever been. Every time you looked up, he was trying to find your eyes, watching you intently. But neither did he say anything—and of course, you kept quiet too. Kept actively trying not to look at him. But you were curious, and you couldn’t help yourself sometimes. Because who was this man? This man who grated on your nerves and got under your skin and was so god damn annoying, but also left you big tips with nice notes and drove you home from work in the rain? This man who was absolutely gorgeous, whose body you wanted to touch again?

“You seem like you’re panicking,” he said.

“What?” you asked, lifting your head to meet his eyes. He leaned casually against the railing in the elevator, watching you with his hands in his pockets. “I’m not panicking. Why would I be panicking?” you asked, but it was immediately too defensive, too much talking. 

He raised a brow, nodding almost imperceptibly. “Right,” he said. “All things someone who isn’t panicking would say.” He kicked off the wall, striding toward you, only to stop a few inches short. 

“What are you doing?” you asked. 

“Just trying to figure you out,” he said. 

“I don’t need figuring out,” you said. 

“Really?” he asked. He reached out, then, because he couldn’t help it. Because he wanted to touch you. His hand skimmed your bicep, and you shivered. He leaned forward. “Are you sure you don’t like me?” 

“Yes,” you said, through gritted teeth, trying to sound as sure of yourself as you possibly could. 

This only elicited a smile and a dry laugh from Yunho. “You don’t sound sure.” 

“I could kiss you, and I would still feel absolutely nothing,” you said with a shrug of your shoulders. Who was he to question your feelings, especially when all you’d ever given him were snarky comments and sass? Did he think a few longing looks at his abs equated true desire?

“Prove it,” he said. 

“What?” 

“Kiss me,” he said. 

Later that night, when you struggled to sleep—you’d argue with yourself about the reasons. You’d say it was a matter of impulse. A desire to prove him wrong. But there would be something in the back of your head, too, a nagging, whispering like the devil on your shoulder—you did it because you wanted to. 

When you stepped forward and stood on your toes, you weren’t thinking about any of that. 

It was a challenge, and you weren’t one to back down. Simple as that. 

The kiss started soft. Yunho took a moment to react, his lips still against yours for only a second before he stepped forward into you, forcing you backward into the wall. His hands moved, first grabbing your upper arms, then the sides of your face as he tilted your head back to deepen it—slipping a tongue between your lips. 

You didn’t hold back. Your hands gripped the zippered edges of his jacket, pulling him toward you needlessly. 

The kiss was not kind or soft, but passionate and aggressive, like something pent up was spilling out for everyone to see. 

Only the ding of the elevator reaching your floor was enough to separate you. You pulled away, letting your hands drop from his jacket as your thumb came up to wipe away some inevitably smeared lipstick—probably worse than you could save with a simple action, anyway. 

“See,” you said, rolling your shoulders back. “Nothing.” 

Then, you slipped out from under his grasp and walked out of the elevator, trying to keep your pace even and calm until you were inside your apartment, breathing heavily with your back against the door. 

Yunho turned to watch you leave, but didn’t follow. Instead, he stood stock still in the center of the elevator, fingers touching his lips, until the doors started to close. 

“You what?” Jihyo asked. She leaned against the door frame as you dusted blush across your cheekbones. 

You hadn’t exactly planned on telling her—or anyone—what happened, but it just slipped out. There weren’t really words to explain the situation. You couldn’t figure out why you’d done it, anyway. He’d tested you, and you weren’t one to back away from a dare. You wanted him to know, for certain, that he had no chance with you. 

But why, then, had it been so difficult to stop thinking about him? 

“I don’t know,” you said, because they were the only words bubbling to the surface in your otherwise Yunho-occupied mind. The heat of his lips on yours, the way his hands roamed all over your skin. You were starting to understand why the women he shared a bed with sang his praises all night long. 

“Well—why? How?” she asked. “When?” 

When you didn’t respond right away, Jihyo’s eyes widened expectantly, waiting for you to reveal all the dirty details of the situation. 

With a sigh, you put down the brush and turned, leaning against the sink. “He gave me a ride home last night, after my shift.”

“He stayed that late?” 

“Yes,” you said. “And I thought it was just to get on my nerves—but I don’t know. He left me a big tip and apologized for being such an ass.”

“He what?” 

“He left a note on his check. Sorry for being an ass,” you explained. 

“And then he kissed you?” Jihyo asked, one brow raised. 

You shook your head. “No. He left. I started walking home. It was cold. It started raining. Yunho found me. I don’t know how. Maybe he was waiting. I don’t know. He gave me a ride home on his motorcycle, by the way.” 

“You got on a motorcycle with Yunho?” 

Your eyes narrowed. “Is that so unbelievable?” 

“A little bit, yeah,” she commented. 

“Anyway, it’s pouring. He drives me home. We’re in the elevator on the way up, and he just accuses me of looking at him differently.” 

“Were you?” Jihyo asked. 

“Hm?” 

“Were you looking at him differently?” she clarified. 

“Oh.” You hesitated. “Of course not. But I don’t know what I was thinking. The words just kind of came out. I said something along the lines of, I could kiss you and still feel nothing.” You, of course, did remember the exact words you’d spoken—but you were trying to be aloof. Trying to pretend that it wasn’t affecting you. 

You weren’t very good at it. And besides. Jihyo could always see through your bullshit. 

“And then he told me to prove it,” you said, your voice a bit smaller than before, ashamed of the act so many hours past it. An entire night's sleep and you still couldn’t believe you’d actually done it. You should have just laughed in his face. Should have ignored him, like you always did. 

“So you did,” Jihyo said. 

“So I did,” you echoed. 

“But you felt something,” she said. 

“But I felt something.” Your stomach flipped. You turned away from Jihyo, facing the mirror again, your hands gripping the edge. “And I can’t stop thinking about it.” 

Jihyo, ever the pragmatic, said, “Well, stop thinking about it. He’s an asshole, remember.” 

You weren’t naive to believe that his apology truly fixed anything. Besides, maybe this was the long con. Step one: apologize. Step two: get you on the back of his bike. Step three: kiss you in the elevator? Then what? 

Who would he send over to kick you out in the morning? Some other neighbor? 

It wasn’t feasible, these thoughts. They couldn’t go anywhere. It almost made it worse—that they just had to stay in your head. Trapped. Because acting on them, well, it was a fucking horrible idea. And he was probably just playing with you, anyway. That’s what he did. 

“I remember,” you grumbled. 

“Do you remember Hongjoong?” she asked, and you could see the way she smiled reflected in the mirror. Pointed, obvious in the point she was conveying. 

You picked up a lip gloss and ran the wand over your lips. “I didn’t cancel the date, did I?” you said. “I’m wearing a cute outfit. I’m going.” 

Jihyo smiled. “Okay. Good.” 

“You know, you can be really judgmental,” you said, a hint of a laugh escaping between words. 

“That’s why you love me.” She smiled big and wide. “Now have fun tonight. That’s an order. And try to get laid, for the love of god.”

You were standing in front of your door, a little bit tipsy, trying to unlock it, when the one down the hall popped open. You couldn’t help the groan that fell from your lips, knowing just who was going to appear in front of you in no time at all. 

He took his time. You had to give him that. He leaned against the door frame to his own apartment for a little while, watching you struggle. Which was annoying in its own way—but at least it was from a distance. 

The distance didn’t last. He got closer. 

You held up a hand in his direction. “No,” you said. You weren’t drunk enough that your words were slurring, just tipsy enough to say exactly what was on your mind. A dangerous thing, considering what was on your mind lately regarding the man in the hallway. “You stay over there.”

Thankfully, you got the key to work, letting the door to your apartment swing inward. Yunho was faster, though, and more determined. He caught it with one hand before it could slam closed. 

“Are you okay?” he asked, and those weren’t the words you expected to come out of his mouth. They weren’t suggestive or annoying. He actually seemed genuine. Had you ever met a more confusing man? One who could flip back and forth between strange softness and playful humor faster than you could process it? 

He wore black jeans, the same leather jacket he basically lived in. His near-black hair fell just past his eyebrows, only partially obscuring brown eyes that met your gaze. There was a slight crease between his brows, like he was just as confused as you were about the state of his personality—about the way he was acting toward you. 

“Yes,” you said. Yunho closed the door gently behind him. “And you can’t just invite yourself into my apartment whenever you want.” 

“Date didn’t go well, I take it?” he asked, that playful tone coming back at half power. The smirk that appeared put in a lot of work. 

You pressed your lips into a tight line, gritting your teeth. You couldn’t help the blush that rose to your cheeks as you grew embarrassed. Any normal person wouldn’t have commented on the fact that you’d come home alone after a third date—especially after your friends announced so loudly your desire to get laid. 

“Can we not do this right now?” you asked, crossing your arms over your chest as if to cover some of your obvious discomfort. 

“You know,” he said, taking another step closer to you. You didn’t move. Of course you didn’t. You wanted him closer, even if you wanted to pretend otherwise. And ultimately, your body beat out your mind the moment he intruded upon your personal space. “The offer still stands.” 

Your brain wasn’t working. “What offer?” you bit out. 

He didn’t touch you, but his hands might as well have been all over your body with how hot you felt. “You know—if you’ve forgotten what it’s like to be with someone.” 

It was enough to make you take a much-needed step back, sobering you some. “Oh my god, get a grip, Yunho.” 

He just laughed. It wasn’t a big deal to him. It was just another joke, another way to get under your skin. 

You steeled yourself for the lie you needed to speak aloud, to really get the point across. “I don’t want you. I’ll never want you. I like my men with a little more… dignity.” 

For a split second, you were certain you’d hurt his feelings. His eyes softened, and his shoulders lowered. But then he was back to smiling again, acting like it hadn’t affected him in the slightest. 

When had this turned from him asking you if you were okay to him propositioning you again? And why had you wanted to say yes? If it weren’t for the voice of Jihyo playing in the back of your head, reminding you that he was an asshole—over and over again—you might have let it happen. You were feeling just dejected enough, anyway. 

Hongjoong had basically rejected you. It was rightful, too, since you’d barely paid attention to him during your date. Your mind had been on other things. Other people. And besides, there’d been no spark. He didn’t push your buttons. He didn’t make you laugh. 

“Really, though,” Yunho said, taking a more serious tone again—enough to give you whiplash. “Are you okay?” 

“I’m fine,” you said. 

“You don’t seem fine,” Yunho said. 

“If I needed a friend, I’d call Jihyo. Or Wooyoung.” 

Again, that look of hurt. Like he’d been struck. 

“Right,” he said. “Obviously.” He took a step away from you, toward the door. “Sorry.” You were too stunned to speak. “I’ll see you later.”

When you woke up the next morning, there was no woman to escort out of Yunho’s apartment. Your apartment sat empty. Quiet. It continued like that for several days. Nearly a week. You let Jihyo and Wooyoung talk you out of going over there, of making sure everything was okay with him. That he hadn’t died or moved out or something. 

No matter what excuses you made up, however, you still couldn’t get him out of your head. Even when he wasn’t around to bother you. You found yourself hoping to catch him around a corner, in the elevator, or by his bike in the parking garage. You didn’t. 

He was strangely absent. 

Not only that, but his apartment was quiet, too. 

That should have resulted in better sleep, but you found yourself awake for other reasons, staring at the ceiling. You could find any reason to doubt yourself. Maybe you’d been too quick to judge him. The way his face had fallen the last time you spoke haunted you. Eyes open or closed, you could still see the ghost of his disappointment. The soft tenor of his voice and the way he sounded so genuine. 

Convincing yourself that it was a fluke did not help. 

And somehow, you always ended up back in that elevator, his lips hot on yours. 

Yunho was hot. Of course, he was. You had never questioned that fact. You had explicitly tried to ignore it. But he wasn’t your type. He liked to push your buttons, get under your skin. He didn’t respect basic boundaries. 

Now, he was gone. The firm boundary you’d put in place was being respected, and you found yourself being the one who wanted to cross it. 

Maybe that was growth. Or maybe it was all a part of Yunho’s grand scheme to get in your pants. If you thought about it for too long, you could believe anything. It was the only the long con, a way of getting to you by disappearing when you were finally interested—or, it was the first genuine thing he’d ever done. 

And it made you feel bad. 

Something shot through your nervous system, a realization that you didn’t want to make eye contact. You missed him.

It was nearly a week later when you spotted his door clicking shut just as you were leaving to run a few errands. 

Maybe it wasn’t a good idea. Maybe he didn’t want to talk to you. But after all the times he’d barged in uninvited, you figure it was okay to intrude on his space just once. Walking the short distance from your door to his, however, did cause a strange anxiety to settle in next to your heart, tucked away in your ribcage. A thrumming that whispered, “What are you doing? Why are you doing it?” over and over again. 

It didn’t stop you from raising your hand to tap your knuckles against the door. 

When Yunho opened the door, he looked a little worse for wear. His hair was fluffier than usual, sticking up in places like he’d spent the last seven days running his hands through it. He looked you up and down. A smile appeared on his lips, but it wasn’t the same as the proud one you’d grown used to. He didn’t say anything, just watched you. 

“Hey,” you said. Attempting to be casual didn’t exactly suit you. 

“Hey?” he repeated. 

“Yeah,” you said. “Hey.” You tried to meet his gaze, but his eyes kept moving away, finding something else to look at whenever you got close. 

He had one hand on the door, holding it open. It would be easier that way, to close it whenever he needed to. Because he wanted to look at you. He wanted to meet your gaze. But there was this ball of anger in the pit of his stomach, too. A tightly wound piece of hatred. Not for you, of course. He couldn’t hate you. No. He hated himself. And he would never say it out loud, not to himself and certainly not to you—but he hated himself for being someone you didn’t want. 

But all he could do was look past your eyes and force a smile. 

Unfortunately, the hatred he felt toward himself manifested as anger. “Do you need something?” 

The sharpness in his tone sliced straight through you. “What?” 

“You made it clear you don’t want me,” he said. 

“Well—” you stammered. “That doesn’t mean we can’t be friends.”

“You have Jihyo and Wooyoung, right? That’s what you said.” He paused and finally met your eyes. Something crossed his face. “Besides, I don’t want to be your friend.”

“Oh,” you said. The anxiety tucked away in your chest blossomed, and your heart began to race. This was a mistake, then. At least you could leave and pretend it never happened. Why then, were you so frozen solid to the spot in front of his door? Why couldn’t you just turn and walk away? Why could you feel the ghost of his lips on yours, the heat of his palms on your arms? Why couldn’t you look away? 

“You’re afraid to admit it, but I’m not,” he said, his voice dropping to that low, gentle tone once more. The one you hadn’t been able to stop thinking about. The one that floated through your dreams like a melody. “I like you.” 

Your lips parted. He leaned forward to look at you on eye level, studying you. He didn’t touch you, just let his eyes bore into yours. It was far too intimate than your racing heart could take. 

“You think I’m all bad,” he said. “I’m not. Let me take you out sometime. I’ll prove it to you.” The corners of his lips turned up in a small smile. Hopeful. 

It was your own self-hatred, your own uncertainty, your own self-consciousness, your own fear, that made you say what you did. “I can’t,” you said. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” he said. And that’s what broke you. Not the rejection, but the acceptance. The way his smile turned firm as he stood straight up and stepped away from you, moving to close the door just as you turned to flee. 

Several days passed, but even the passage of time didn’t make you feel any better. 

“It’s good,” Jihyo said. “I don’t trust him.”

“Yeah,” Wooyoung echoed. “Me either.”

It wasn’t the first time you’d had this conversation, and it probably wouldn’t be the last, either, given how much you’d been thinking about it. About him. Even your thoughts felt selfish. Because you could have him, if you really wanted to. If you really wanted to have him, you could walk over to his apartment and tell him that. 

But something held you back. 

The fear, mostly. 

The thought that you would just end up like all the other girls he’d engaged in one-night stands with. You weren’t exactly a one-night stand kind of girl. Or, at least, you weren’t certain that was what you wanted from Yunho. You didn’t know what you wanted. Maybe that was the scariest part. 

“You didn’t see the look on his face,” you said, sinking deeper and deeper into the couch. 

It was Wooyoung who eventually said. “If you like him, I guess I don’t really see what the problem is.”

“The problem is he has a different girl over every night,” Jihyo commented. 

“Not every night. Besides, he hasn’t in a while,” you said, which earned you a look from Jihyo. “What? The walls are thin. I can hear everything.”

“Maybe he’s a changed man,” Wooyoung commented. 

“Doubt it,” Jihyo said. 

You could only shrug. “I don’t know. I hardly know him, anyway.” You let out a long, deep breath. “I’ll get over it eventually. So will he. I’m sure it’ll be fine in a few weeks. Maybe we’ll even laugh about it.”

Hours later, when Jihyo and Wooyoung finally left your apartment—you stood at the door, waiting for them to get on the elevator. An old habit. Like making sure they got home safe. The elevator doors opened, and Yunho stepped out. You only saw him at first. 

Then, you saw her. The girl hanging off his arm. Laughing. Smiling. 

Jihyo shot you a look, but you shook your head. It was fine. You didn’t need them coming to your rescue over a man you’d rejected. They got into the elevator and disappeared. You tried to close your door fast, but Yunho spotted you first. You just barely caught him raising a few fingers in a wave, a smile on his lips, before the hastily shut door separated you both. 

Something bloomed in your chest, hot and angry. You’d seen him with other women before. Countless times, in fact. You’d heard them through your walls, escorted them out afterward. And you’d never been angry at anything other than the inconvenience. 

But now the anger flushed your system of coherent thoughts. The tips of your ears turned red as you rested your forehead against the closed door. This wasn’t anger. As much as you wanted to believe it, manifest it into being so—it was so much worse. 

Jealousy. 

It made your skin crawl, the realization. You were jealous. And the worst part was that you had no right to be. He had offered you the same thing he gave all those girls, and you’d turned him down. So why now, did you have your head resting on the door and your eyes squeezed tight? Maybe it wasn’t just jealousy, but anger too. 

Anger at your own poor decision-making skills. Anger at Yunho for—what exactly? Moving on? You were the one who’d been adamant that there was absolutely nothing between you. He’d shot his shot and failed. Had you expected him to retire from the little game he played every weekend? 

You tried to remind yourself what would have happened if you’d gone out with him. That he wasn’t relationship material. That he didn’t want you like you wanted him. 

Fuck. You wanted him. 

You wanted him, and it made you feel like an idiot. 

Is that how everyone who ended up in his bed felt? Confused and annoyed, angry with his charming personality and his ability to sweep pretty much anyone off their feet without really even trying? 

And when had this happened, anyway? He’d moved in a few months ago. You’d been tolerating his presence since—and then things just, well, shifted. 

It didn’t even matter if you ended up as just another one-night stand—you wanted to be in his bed, underneath him, no matter what the outcome was. It was that thought that pulled you away from the door and sent you into the bedroom, diving under the covers and attempting to think about anything other than what was possibly going on in the next room over. 

Damn his stupid motorcycle and the way his shirt, damp with rain and sweat, had stuck to his skin. Damn his stupid, charming smile that shifted between snarky and kind. Damn his everything, every detail that made you look twice, that had you second-guessing every moment, every interaction. 

It was even worse, knowing that he wanted you, too. Knowing that he wanted you, and that you could have just had him, if you weren’t such an idiot. 

And so you oscillated back and forth like that for a while—between being annoyed at yourself for rejecting him and at him for being so charming and so untrustworthy at the same time. 

It went on like that for some time before you eventually fell asleep to thoughts of walking down the hall and throwing the door open, to grabbing him and kissing him—before your mind eventually decided being awake no longer served you. 

Unfortunately, when morning came, it wasn’t with a new, refreshed mind. 

Instead, more thoughts swarmed, and before you could stop and think about what you were doing, you were standing in the hallway outside Yunho’s apartment in your pajamas. 

It wasn’t until you raised your hand to knock that you realized exactly where you were. 

Yunho must have sensed it. The door swung open, and there he was, standing there with that somewhat charming, somewhat obnoxious smile on his face, looking at you like this—whatever you were doing—was, in fact, completely normal behavior. 

He looked just out of bed, messy hair and plaid pajama pants. A white shirt that clung to him and a loose robe overtop. One hand held a mug of coffee, and he leaned against the door frame in such a casual manner as you glanced him over, trying to figure out some excuse for why you’d shown up at his door. 

“Good morning,” he said. There was a coldness to his voice. Something absent from his tone that you didn’t want to linger on. Like he was distancing himself from you. 

Words failed you. 

“I—” you started. You took a step forward, nearly into his body. He didn’t yield against you, instead holding firm in the door frame. You tried to look over his shoulder to see if the girl was still present. Did he not want your help escorting her out?

The smile that fell on his lips was slow, and you watched him figure you out in record time. 

“Looking for someone?” he asked, that cold tone growing warmer, charm seeping back into his words, that familiar enjoyment. A cat playing with a mouse. 

You took a step back. “No.” 

“Seems like you are.” 

“I’m not,” you said, but you weren’t able to keep the defensive note from your voice. It was so painstakingly clear to both of you why you were there and what you were looking for. It became a game, then, of who would concede the space first. Who would give up. You could easily admit your lie, but there was no pride in that. And Yunho, well, he could just as easily call you out on it, but that didn’t seem like the path he wanted to take, either. 

Instead, it turned into a standoff of words loaded into guns and backs turned. Paces counted before firing. Eye contact, before your gaze dropped to his lips, and the slow smile crawling across turned into a smirk of victory undeserved. 

“I just thought you might want my help,” you said, cocking your head back and crossing your arms. A feeble attempt to gain some ground. 

“I don’t,” he said. Sharp. You hated that the simple words cut, even though you would have claimed to hate said help only a week prior. 

“You don’t,” you repeated. 

Your cursed brain. He’d found someone else. Someone else to break the streak of one-night stand girls. He’d found someone else, and it was too late, and you’d ruined everything out of pure indecisiveness and misguided advice. 

Maybe he wasn’t even such a bad guy. 

Maybe your vision had been clouded by jealousy from the very beginning. 

Yunho stepped away from the door, walking deeper into the apartment. You hesitated. He brought down another mug and filled it, pushing it in your direction and eying you to take it. 

“You know,” he said. “You’re cute when you’re jealous.” 

Your brows drew together as you watched him, sipping his coffee and looking over the cup at you, still standing in the hallway. 

“I’m not—” you started, but he just laughed. “I’m really not.” 

“Then why are you here?” he asked, the genuine nature of his voice catching you off guard. “You already rejected me, remember?” 

Your feet carried you into his apartment. You closed the door behind you. 

“I remember,” you said. You stopped across from him and reached over to pick up the mug of coffee, the kitchen island separating you. You looked over your shoulder, eyes wandering toward the open door of his bedroom. 

“You’re funny,” he said. 

“What?” you asked, eyes snapping back to him. 

“There’s no one here,” Yunho said. He set his coffee mug down on the counter and walked closer to you. “And whatever you’re trying to do—you’re not very good at it.”

He reached up and took the coffee mug out of your hands, placing it on the counter next to his. 

“There’s no one here,” you said, repeating his words back to him for the second time. It was easier than finding new ones to say. 

He rolled his eyes, but the annoyance didn’t reach his lips. No, those still held that same pleased smile, like he knew something you didn’t. 

Yunho reached out, closing the distance between you, to tuck a lock of hair behind your ear. He looked down at you with a gaze you couldn’t place. Something between admiration and lust. His fingers trailed down your jaw and hooked under your chin. 

His touch froze you. You could only blink and watch, your gaze darting between his mouth and his eyes. 

“Are you jealous?” he asked, holding your chin and looking at you carefully. 

“I don’t know,” you said, because that was the truth. All the thoughts in your mind were jumbled, and nothing made sense when it came to him. 

He raised one brow, skeptical. “Did you need to borrow something?” he asked. “Or yell at me because the TV was too loud?” 

“No,” you said. 

“Then why did you come over?” he asked. He led you toward the answer, walked you there while holding your chin and making sure you kept your eyes trained on his. His voice was gentle, but stern—and you knew he wouldn’t relent until you gave him the truth. 

You sighed, and this small act of giving up only made the corners of his lips turn up. “I couldn’t stop thinking about you,” you said. His lips parted in shock. Because he’d been expecting an admission regarding your jealousy, not the way that he raced through your mind all night. But you kept going, anyway. “And I didn’t mean to come over, I mean—I guess I did. But I left my apartment, and then here I was—and I wasn’t even going to knock, but you opened the door, and then all I could think about was whether or not you had a girl over.” 

His hand slipped from your chin to lay flat against the side of your head, his palm on your cheek and his fingers dipping into your hair. 

Your heart raced faster as his eyes dropped to your lips, and your first kiss played on a loop over and over again until you were stepping closer to him, lifting a hand to touch the one on your cheek. 

He inched closer too, until your bodies were almost touching. 

Yunho’s eyes met yours, then flicked downward. Up and back. Your eyes followed the same pattern, and you moved closer, closer, a centimeter at a time, until his lips were on yours again and everything agonizingly slow kicked into full speed. 

His other hand came up to cup your other cheek as he kissed you slowly. It wasn’t the abrupt, intense heat of the kiss you shared in the elevator, but a soft, molten kiss that sent your nerves firing. 

When he pulled away, it was only a half an inch, barely enough to keep you from recapturing his lips and stopping whatever sentence whirred to life behind hazy eyes. “That’s what I wanted our first kiss to be like,” he said. 

“I liked our first kiss,” you said, without really thinking. 

He dropped his forehead against yours. “Me too.” 

“I liked the second too.” But you didn’t let yourself reach out again, not with the last thought that nagged at the back of your mind. “What about the girl—your date last night?” 

“She didn’t stay long. I couldn’t stop thinking about my neighbor.” He put a half-step’s worth of space between you. 

“How annoying,” you said, laughing under your breath. 

“Yeah, she really is,” he teased. “Kinda hot, though.” 

“Kinda?” you asked, raising a brow at him. 

“Okay, insanely,” Yunho said, crossing his arms over his chest. “So hot she’s driven me mad since the day I moved in. Is that what you want to hear?” 

You couldn’t help the smile that spread across your lips. “Yes.” 

“Now will you let me take you out?” he asked. 

You hadn’t thought about what would happen after you stormed over to his apartment without invitation, nor what would happen after his lips were on yours. You thought he would try something more, but he kept his distance—asked about dates instead. 

“You look shocked,” he said. 

“I’m not,” you said, and he chuckled under his breath. Apparently, you were easier to read than you thought, or maybe he was just good at knowing what you were thinking. Somehow, that wasn’t as annoying as it used to be. 

“Not jealous, not shocked…” he trailed off. “Not very good at lying, either.” 

“I just didn’t think dating was really your thing,” you said. 

He placed a hand to his heart in mock hurt. “You wound me,” he said. “I’m a romantic at heart, you’ll see.”

“Oh, will I?” you asked, “From what I’ve heard, it doesn’t sound like romance.” You tilted your head to the side, looking up at him, watching for the reaction. 

His brows lifted a hair. “You’ve been listening.” 

“The walls are thin, Yunho.” 

“And that’s why you’re jealous?” he asked, reaching out to poke your cheek. “Because of what you’ve been hearing?” 

“No,” you stammered, a crinkle developing between your brows in irritation. 

“I can’t figure you out,” he said. “You think I’m this big player, right? But you’re also up at night with your ear to the wall trying to listen in so—I think you might be the real freak, here.” 

You slapped his arm playfully. “I am not.” 

“We’ll see,” he said, continuing before you could get a word in, “Let me take you out tonight.”

“I’m working,” you said. 

“Tomorrow night.”

You pretended to ponder the availability of your schedule. Since your minor situationship with Hongjoong fizzled out, you hadn’t had plans with anyone but Jihyo and Wooyoung. And they wouldn’t mind a night off from having to listen to your problems. Maybe you’d get an earful from Jihyo about how you were choosing to spend the night, instead, but Wooyoung would come around. 

“Tomorrow night,” you confirmed. 

It was strange how quickly everything turned over in your mind. Maybe you were naive, but one kiss and you’d started to see him differently. That voice that nagged in the back of your mind, reminding you that maybe he was like this with all the girls he brought back, had disappeared completely. Instead, you found ways to justify it all. There was nothing wrong with sleeping around, anyway. 

You’d had more active times in your life, too. And no one had judged you for that, well, experimentation. 

He watched the cogs turn behind your eyes. “What are you thinking?” he asked. 

“Just trying to figure you out, is all.”

He opened his mouth, then closed it, rethinking whatever it was he wanted to say. It seemed like you were both playing the same game—trying to understand the other without giving too much away, without making a big deal out of something that hadn’t gone anywhere, yet. 

“So,” you said. A blanket of silence suddenly fell between you, the awkward air of the kiss settling on your shoulders, and the future plans made. 

“So,” Yunho said, much cooler, calmer, than you had. “I’ll see you tomorrow night, then?” 

“Yeah,” you said. “Definitely.” 

You took a step back, but he reached out to grab your hand before you could get too far. He held it, not too tight, but not exactly with a gentle grasp, either. “I’m looking forward to it,” he said. “Really.” 

Heat rose to your cheeks. 

“Yeah,” you said. “Me too,” before disappearing from his apartment. By the time you were back home, your palms were sweating. 

Was this a horrible idea? And if it was, why did you want it so badly?

The next 36 hours went by at an unimaginably slow pace. In that time, you managed to spend a good several more hours overthinking, at least thirty minutes on the phone with Jihyo, convincing her that this was, maybe, a good idea, actually, and the rest of the time panicking about your ability to make decisions regarding your love life. 

“It doesn’t have to be anything,” Jihyo said at the end of the call, after retiring her role as devil’s advocate. “It was just a kiss, right? And it’s just a date.” 

“Maybe I want it to be something,” you said. “That’s what scares me. What if he doesn’t?” 

You could hear her shrug over the line. “Guess you’ll have to ask him.”

Wooyoung chimed in from over Jihyo’s shoulder. “Besides, what’s the worst thing that can happen, anyway? You find out if the sex is good, and then he stops showing up at your apartment without permission?” 

You pinched your nose between your thumb and forefinger. “Neither of you are helpful,” you said. 

Hours after the call, however, you couldn’t help but admit that Wooyoung’s words were true. This was a sexual attraction. Yunho was sexy. He had a confusing charm to him that you never understood, and a contagious smile. He was goofy, good at video games, and fun to bicker with—but you didn’t really know him, did you? 

So you decided that’s what the date would be for. 

You’d get to know him. Decide exactly what you wanted. And if that was just sex, well. There wasn’t anything wrong with that, right? Maybe fucking him would get him out of your head, too. Though, you had a feeling that probably wouldn’t be the case. 

By the time eight o’clock rolled around, you were standing in your bedroom, looking in the floor-length mirror, still attempting to determine exactly which outfit was right for the date. 

You’d never been this nervous for a date before. 

It was just a date. Yunho was just a man. 

The knock at the door, however, sent your heart into your stomach—so maybe you were just lying to yourself. Either way, it wasn’t working. 

You smoothed your hands down the front of your shirt, over the sides of your skirt. Was there time to change? He was on the other side of the door, and still, you didn’t feel exactly right. Almost like you were wearing a costume, something to impress him, but not something that was really you. 

The nerves were getting to you, and all you had to do was just open the door. 

Open the door, and he would be there, staring back at you. You knew exactly what he would look like, too. Leather jacket, permanent smirk curling up the corners of his lips, knowing brown eyes scanning you. It was a comfort, almost, this knowing. 

But still, you were frozen. 

Like opening the door was some kind of test of your own nature. He was the same, steady. Predictable. But you? Was he on the other side of the door, telling himself the same thing, that you were there—familiar?

What if he didn’t like this version of you? The one who had spent hours trying to figure out how to look just right, for him. The one wearing a skirt, the one who was excited about the date, who had gotten her hopes up. 

What if he had only ever liked you because you didn’t like him?

You rubbed your temples, trying to quiet the ever-existing anxiety that stirred behind your eyes, a reminder that this was something you fucking cared about, which only made the whole thing worse. You cared, which meant you could screw it up. You could screw it up, and it would hurt. 

“You gonna open the door?” Yunho asked from the hall. He had this weird ability to read your mind, to sense when you were nearby. Like he knew some part of you that even you couldn’t see. 

You opened the door halfway through an eye roll. 

And there he was. 

He looked nothing like you’d imagined in your head. His leather jacket was missing, replaced by a black suit jacket with a white button-up underneath, a skinny black tie cut down the middle. Though you could barely see his torso behind the bouquet of flowers he held in one arm. 

Yunho’s eyes stayed glued to yours. They didn’t wander, as yours did. But that slow smile did crawl across his lips as you took him in, this different version of him. 

“Are those for me?” you asked, looking at the arrangement of tulips and baby’s breath. 

He took a step closer to you, dropping his free hand around your shoulders to place a kiss atop your head, into your hair. It was immediately overwhelming, being in his presence again, especially after so many hours of trying to pretend that he had no effect on you. 

Well, there that effect was. The way your heart immediately beat faster, your nervous system racing into high alert, goosebumps rising on your forearms. You would think that something was truly wrong, the way your body reacted. Like this was something to run away from. But coupled with the feeling of ignition—the warmth of him being close started a fire somewhere deep within you—there was no chance you would run away. 

“Do you have a vase I can put these in?” he said, answering your arguably dumb question as he took a step away from you. 

You moved out of the way, letting him step into your apartment. A place familiar to him. Some place he’d basically broken into over and over again. He moved through it like it belonged to him, walking into the kitchen to grab a vase from under the sink. He filled it with water and placed the bouquet inside, leaving it on the counter. 

“You seem nervous,” he commented as he trimmed away the plastic wrapping with a pair of scissors he’d also known the location of. 

Your arms were crossed over your chest, not in disappointment or contempt, but because you had to hold onto something to steady yourself. Your fingers dug into your biceps only slightly, but he must have caught that, too. 

Or maybe he was just so used to the inner workings of your mind, your body, that he could sense these differences too. 

You had no idea he paid so much attention. 

“I’m not,” you said. But even a stranger would have known you were lying. 

He peeled away the rest of the crinkling plastic and put it in the trash, snipping the rubber band on the bouquet and letting the flowers fall outward. 

“They’re pretty,” you said, as if that could distract from your nerves and his commentary on them. “Thank you.” 

You kept your distance from him, standing just outside the kitchen while he worked. But once finished, he strode toward you again. He stopped just short, not opting to reach for you, just looking. 

“You’re welcome,” he said. “You sure you’re okay?” 

You cleared your throat as you nodded. “Mhm.” 

He could only chuckle under his breath. You were standing so straight, holding yourself so tightly. He did reach out, then, peeling one of your hands away from your arm to hold it. He laced his fingers between yours. 

Yunho’s hands were large and warm, and they didn’t serve to ground you any. 

Oh god. What was happening to you? 

You tried to remind yourself of everything you’d said earlier. This was just a date. Yunho was just a man. A really, really fucking hot man. And a man who drove you absolutely insane. A man who knew how to kiss. 

“You ready to go?” he asked, eyes flicked downward, watching your joined hands. He couldnt’t believe it either—was just better at keeping his cool—that this was actually happening. That you’d agreed to it. 

“Yes,” you said, and the pair of you walked out of your apartment together. He made eyes at you in the elevator. 

Were you both thinking about the same thing? The upward quirk of his smile was enough to make you think yes. 

“You are nervous,” Yunho commented as the doors to the lobby slid open. 

“Shut up,” you said. “I’m not.”

He held his free hand up in defense. “Not a very nice way to talk to your date.”

You shot a glare in his direction, but it wasn’t very threatening when paired with the smile gracing your lips. 

He squeezed your hand. “Why?” 

“Why, what?” you asked. 

“Why are you nervous?”

“I’m not nervous,” you said again, but this time the pointed look was from him. And frankly, it was deserved. “Shut up,” you said again, as the two of you stepped outside. “I’m not nervous, you’re nervous.”

“I’m a little nervous,” he said. 

He kept your hand in his as you walked. He didn’t tell you where you were going, and you didn’t ask. 

“What?” you asked. “The Jeong Yunho, nervous? Haven’t you done this like a million times?”

“Yeah, but never with you,” he said, which only made heat rise to your cheeks. 

You were still not used to this version of Yunho. The charming one. The complement to the snarky asshole who’s been appearing in your apartment for the past several months. 

“Where are you taking me, anyway?” you asked, diverting the conversation from compliments that made your skin turn pink. 

“We’re almost there,” he said. 

There were so many other questions flying through your head, but it was so much harder to form words around him, now. It was easier before, when all those words were full of frustration and anger, when you were making fun of him or reacting to his torment. When he was being kind to you, it only left you speechless and on uneven footing. 

Thankfully, he was right. In only a few minutes of walking, you arrived at a small Italian bistro. A place you’d seen a hundred times on walks home from work, but never stopped into. It wasn’t exactly a bartender’s salary kind of place, unless you wanted to blow an entire month’s food budget on delicious gnocchi. Which, honestly, you’d thought about plenty of times before. 

Booths lined the walls with tables in the center, spread out and quiet, each with its own warm candlelight in the middle, its own dangling chandelier in the center. The tables were preset with wine glasses and cutlery. 

He gave his name at the host stand, and the two of you followed her to a table. Yunho’s hand settled on your lower back as you walked. 

Only the thin layer of your shirt stopped the electricity from knocking you out, dulling it to a mild spark instead. You slid into a booth opposite him. 

The host rattled off some wine specials. 

“Whatever you suggest,” Yunho said, smiling warmly at the woman. 

She disappeared momentarily, then returned with a bottle of red wine with a name you didn’t know how to pronounce. She filled up your glasses, then left the bottle behind. 

“So,” Yunho said, picking up his glass to look at you over it. “I should have said this already, but you look really nice tonight.”

“Don’t,” you said, a knee-jerk reaction to his complimenting. “I mean—”

“You know this is a date, right?” he teased. “You agreed to go on a date with me.”

You laughed under your breath, covering your mouth with your hand. “Sorry,” you said, trying not to laugh. “Still trying to get used to you being like this.”

“Like what?” he asked, one brow raised. 

“Oh, come on. You know like what,” you fired back. You lifted your glass of wine too and took a small sip. It was delicious. Deep and dry. 

He set his wine glass down and leaned slightly forward with both elbows on the table, trying to get closer to you. He tilted his head to the side, watching you curiously. “I don’t,” he said. 

“All charming and nice,” you said. 

“I think I’ve always been charming and nice,” Yunho said. 

You shake your head, taking another sip of your wine to hide the fact that the smile won’t fade from your lips—that being around him made you smile, now. “That’s not true, and you know it, Yunho.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Please,” you said. “You can’t pretend that for the last several months you haven’t been trying to get on my last nerve.”

He pursed his lips like he was really, actually taking the time to think about it. “Maybe I just like getting you all hot and bothered,” he said, finally. 

“Wasn’t hot,” you said. “Just bothered.”

“And now?” Yunho asked, leaning even further over the table, as if making direct eye contact would allow him to glean every secret you ever had. 

“Still just bothered, I think,” you teased, lifting your glass to your lips. 

Yunho leaned back in his seat, picking up his own glass and smiling smugly to himself. “I do like a challenge.”

When the waitress came over to ask about starting courses, you were still looking at one another, like you were both trying to place exactly what was going on, exactly what all of it meant. Yunho looked at you like he was trying to read your mind, trying to figure out what you thought about him, and you looked at him like you were trying to piece together a complex puzzle, trying to figure out what he wanted from you. 

It was Yunho who broke eye contact first, who glanced over at the waitress, who ordered a few starters for the table. 

When she walked away, you were still looking at him, watching. Studying, almost. Like you could glean something in the way he talked to others, in whether he chose bruschetta or burrata. 

“So,” he said, lowering his empty glass back to the table. 

“So,” you mirrored. 

It occurred to you then that you knew almost nothing about him, aside from the fact that he liked video games and coffee. Aside from what his mouth felt like against yours. 

You engaged in tense, short, small talk for a little while, until the food came out. How work had been for you, what he’d been up to with his time. Trying to get to know each other even a little bit more. It all came back to pointed glances and tension—both of you guarded against something. Not each other, really, but refusing to let the other in. 

Yunho didn’t give much away about himself, only continued asking about you. And you could only tease him in response. Keeping him at a distance by pushing back, instead. 

As the wine levels lowered, so did your defenses. 

“Is this how it usually goes for you?” you asked, finishing off your second glass of wine while you waited for his answer. He didn’t speak immediately, so you clarified. “Like, on all your dates, is this usually how things go?”

“I don’t know where you got this idea that I go on tons of dates,” he said. 

It only served to stun you. Because—where else would you have gotten that information, aside from the obvious? By living next door. By kicking out said dates the next morning. 

“I mean—” you started. 

“Your impression of me,” he said. “It’s wrong. You think I’m this ladies man, right?” He laughed like he couldn’t even say the words with a straight face. “I’m really not.”

“Oh, please,” you said, because you knew that to be false. You’d met the women. Spoken with them. 

He chuckled under his breath. “Just because they were at my house didn’t mean I went out on dates with them. You know that, right? That you don’t have to go on a date with someone to get into bed with them?” He raised a brow in such a suggestive way that you choked on your saliva. 

“I know that,” you said. Even though it didn’t really occur to you that he wasn’t actually dating anyone. 

“This is the first date I’ve been on in over a year,” he said, offering up something about himself completely unprompted. “So I don’t know how it’s going, really. My date seems a little tense. A little nervous, even though she doesn’t want to admit it.”

“You haven’t been on a date in over a year?” you asked, lingering on the details. “But you’re so—” you started, then realized you had no idea how to finish the sentence. What? Active? 

“Let’s just get this conversation over with,” Yunho said, a bit of tension appearing in the crease between his brows. He didn’t want to talk about this, didn’t want to draw attention to it. But you were so obviously curious, and it was so easy to do anything when it was what you wanted. 

“No,” you said, holding a hand up. “It’s okay, really. I shouldn’t have assumed anything.”

“It’s okay,” he said. “It makes sense why you did. The women I’ve been with, they knew what I was looking for. I didn’t trick them or make them think I was looking for a relationship when I wasn’t. We met at bars or clubs or on dating apps. I didn’t date any of them.” 

“Okay,” you said. 

“So, I guess I’m kind of rusty,” he said. “When it comes to stuff like this.”

You laughed. “You’re not rusty at all,” you said. “You’re charming. You’ve always been charming.” 

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah,” you said. “Like, annoyingly so.” 

He looked down at the table, but not before you caught the slight blush appearing on his cheeks. Had you actually made Yunho blush?

“I think that makes you the experienced dater in the situation, then,” Yunho said. 

This, too, made you laugh. Because if there was anything you didn’t have experience with, it was dating. All of your dates had ended—with a fizzle and certainly without a bang. Your track record over the past year or two was mostly boring. Boring men who didn’t make you laugh. Boring men who you couldn’t bicker playfully with. Men who wanted more from you than you had to give. Or not enough. 

“I don’t know about that,” you said. Then, “Maybe we’re both losers.”

A bright smile crossed his lips. “Yeah,” he said. “Maybe.”

The rest of the dinner went by without as much tension. You learned a few little bits of information about one another. Where he grew up. What you studied in school. What your favorite drink to make at work was. 

“Do you like it?” he asked, refilling your wine when a new bottle appeared at the table seemingly out of nowhere. “Your job?” 

You shrugged. “Most of the time, yes.” You took a small sip. “I like the people. The regulars are mostly cool. And I get this glimpse into people’s lives that I don’t think I could get anywhere else. I only get to see what they want to show me. What they tell me about their day, or whatever baggage they bring to the counter. I like that.”

“Is what they say about bartenders really true?” he asked. “Do people tell you their life stories, their secrets?”

“Sometimes,” you said. “Depends on the person, and how many drinks they’ve had. Most people keep to themselves, but I have a few regulars who like to talk.”

“You’re kind of fascinating, you know that?” he asked. 

“What?” you said, exhaling a short laugh. 

“When I moved in down the hall, you were headed out somewhere with Wooyoung and Jihyo—”

You interrupted him. “No, that’s okay, you don’t have to—”

“Why?” he asked. “I like this story.”

You put your hands over your face like you could hide from it, from your own actions several months ago. 

“You walked right over to me and introduced yourself. I thought that was pretty cool.” 

Really? Because you had recounted that interaction several times in the hours afterward, convinced that you had made a complete ass out of yourself, convinced that you were the lamest person in the entire world. 

“Do you remember what you said to me?” he asked. 

“No,” you said. Even though you obviously did. Even though you knew exactly the words you’d said. 

Yunho smiled. “That I could come over any time if I needed something. That you were excited to have a cool, new neighbor.”

You hid your face behind your hands again. “God, that’s so lame.” 

“I thought it was cute.”

“You did not,” you said. 

He took a sip of his wine, eyes not leaving yours as he did. Heat rose to your cheeks, and you were certain that this embarrassment was going to kill you. 

“And then you came over whenever you wanted for the rest of forever,” you said. “Just to bother me.”

He laughed again. “I came over because I thought you were cute.”

“I thought you were just trying to get away from the girls in your apartment.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Because they weren’t you.”

You rolled your eyes at him because it was such a line. So something he would say to get what he wanted, to make a girl blush, or make them want him. It was probably something he said to those girls in the bar, to get them to come home with him. Not that he probably had to say much of anything at all. His appearance could do most of the talking. 

“Don’t roll your eyes at me,” he said. “I’m being honest here.”

“You are not,” you said. 

His eyebrows raised at your blatant dismissal. “Just because you don’t want to believe me doesn’t make it untrue.”

“Yunho, be serious.”

“I am being serious,” he said. “None of those girls meant anything to me. They knew it. I knew it.”

“How charming,” you said. 

“Are you going to keep judging me for this, or can we move on?” he asked, straight-faced, just as blatant as your words. It must have been the alcohol, making you both so free to talk about what you were really thinking. 

“I’m not judging you for sleeping around. I don’t care about your sex life, Yunho. I really don’t,” you said. “You just can’t expect me to believe that you were thinking about me the whole time. I mean, we didn’t even know each other.”

“I know you wake up at ten on weekdays and eleven on weekends. I know you record more reality TV than any sane person probably should. I know that you like coffee and you hate tea. I know you make a really good old-fashioned. I know you like people. I know you’re kind, but you don’t take people’s shit.”

It was all true. 

“And I know I think about you when you aren’t around. I know that I’m not good enough for you even on my best days.” 

“That’s not true,” you said. “You’re good.”

“Is that why you rejected me?” he asked. 

“No,” you said. “I rejected you because I wanted more than I thought you wanted to give me.”

Something lit up behind his eyes when he smiled. 

The rest of the date went on without incident. You returned to small talk. To easier conversation. To more teasing and taunting. 

When you finally left, both wine drunk and happy, it was with intertwined hands. 

“So nice of you to walk me home,” you joked. 

“Well, I am quite the gentleman,” Yunho said. 

You laughed under your breath. 

“Your place or mine?” you asked as you stepped into the lobby and pressed the button to call the elevator down. 

He looked shocked by this. Like he hadn’t been thinking about it all night, what taking you back to his place would be like. Okay, so maybe he had, but that didn’t mean he was going to act on those feelings. No, he wanted to do this right. 

He didn’t respond fast enough, and it felt like a rejection. 

You played it off. “I just want to make you a drink, Yunho. Don’t be weird,” you said. Even though that wasn’t exactly what you meant. Maybe it meant what he thought it meant. That you were looking for more. 

“Your place, then,” he said, trying to keep the smile off his lips with little success. 

The elevator doors slipped open, and you both stepped inside. 

That same tension returned again. The we-kissed-here tension. 

You were both looking at each other. Wine drunk and smiling. You used your intertwined hands to pull him toward you. He took one confident stride closer. When the doors slid open at your floor, his hands were reaching up to touch your arms, that same darkened look in his eyes. The part of his lips, the way his eyes roamed your face, up and down, unable to stop in any one location. He wanted to kiss you. 

But he remained that step away, instead letting his knuckles glide along your skin. 

You reached out for him, like that first night. Your hands found his lapels as the elevator doors slid closed. You didn’t tug him closer, but just held them. 

He leaned down slowly, eyes shifting between your lips and your mouth. Your lips parted, too, and he captured them like it was an invitation. 

Kissing him felt just as insane every single time you’d done it. There was the urgency and the fear of the first night, the pretending. And days ago, there had only been tenderness in his investigation. This kiss fell somewhere in the middle. 

You could taste the wine on his lips as they moved slowly against yours. He tried to savor every bit of you. But as soon as it was really getting started, he was pulling away, cutting it off. 

Then, his hand intertwined with yours again. He hit a button to make the elevator doors open again, and he led you down the hall, toward your place. 

You wanted to reach for him again, wanted to drag him down for another kiss. But his expression looked like steel. He didn’t look at you, but instead forward at the door while you dug around for your keys. Even when you tried to steal a glance, he didn’t meet it. 

But he let you lead him into your apartment, and once you were inside, he removed his jacket, placing it on the back of one of your chairs. You went to the kitchen, and he followed you, wrapping his arms low around your waist so he could rest his chin on your shoulder. 

It was so domestic that it made your teeth hurt like you were sucking on a sweet candy. 

“What do you like to drink?” you asked. “Do you actually like an old-fashioned, or were you just trying to piss me off?” 

He chuckled in your ear, low and melodic, his breath curling against the shell of your ear. “I like them.”

“But are they your favorite?” you asked. 

“I don’t know if I have a favorite,” he said. 

“Everyone has a favorite,” you said.

“What’s yours?” he asked. “That’s what I want.”

You weren’t going to be able to make anyone anything if he kept holding onto you like that, kept whispering in your ear. 

“I like, um,” you started. “Mai tais. Rum-based drinks in general.” 

“Rum sounds good,” he said. 

You took a step forward, and his arms fell away from you. You collected a few things from the counter, moving them over to the place next to the sink. Yunho stayed close, watching you work as you sliced and juiced a lime. He watched as you filled a shaker with ice and added the ingredients. He watched you shake it, then strain the contents over ice in a lowball glass. He watched as you carefully placed a few cherries atop the drink next to a lime wheel. 

“Wait,” you said. “Finishing touch.” You dug around in a drawer and found a tiny umbrella, which you dropped into the drink for him, before picking it up and handing it to him. 

He took a tentative sip, then smiled. “Damn, that’s good.” 

“Kind of my specialty,” you said, already starting the process over for yours. 

Eventually, the two of you migrated to the couch. You took a seat on the ground, your back to the legs of the couch, your drink on the table adjacent to you. Yunho sat behind you, on the couch itself. 

You already had a controller in your hands, and it didn’t take long before Yunho wandered to the other side of the room to pick up another one. 

While you scrolled through your available games, he said, “Trying to figure out which game you want to lose at?” 

You shook your head, not looking back at him. “Cocky,” you commented. “I think you’ll find I’m better than you think.”

“I play on your account,” he said, which really meant I’ve seen your statistics. 

“Okay, so I’m bad at the games you like to play,” you said. 

He slipped onto the ground next to you. 

“I was thinking something collaborative.” 

You pulled up Overcooked and watched as he rolled his sleeves up. 

“It’s that serious?” you asked, teasingly. 

He laughed. “It’s incredibly serious.” 

You both finished your drinks and played into the middle of the night, yelling at each other about vegetables and recipes. 

It was nearly three in the morning when your eyes started to get heavy, when your head started to hurt, the hangover starting. You leaned your head against his shoulder, letting your eyes fall closed. Neither of you moved for a long time. At some point, his hand came up to stroke long lines into your hair. And when you did, finally, fall asleep like that, he scooped you up and carried you to bed. 

He peeled back the covers and deposited you there, pulling them back up around your body afterward. He pressed a kiss into your hair and disappeared.

When you woke up the next morning, it was to an empty apartment. When you wandered into the living room, there were no empty mai tai glasses to be found, no dishes from your late-night cocktail crafting. Everything was clean and put away. 

You had no choice but to call Jihyo. 

When she answered, it was not with a hello but with the immediate, important questions. “Oh my god, how was it?”

You kicked your feet up on the coffee table, leaned back with arms crossed over your chest, thinking. 

“You’re up later than usual—does that mean it went really well?” Jihyo asked. 

What was this feeling developing in the center of your chest? It couldn’t possibly be disappointment, right? There was nothing wrong with the date. He’d been a perfect gentleman. He’d paid for the meal, walked you home, let you yell at him into the wee hours of the night. He’d even tucked you in and washed your dishes. 

But he’d hardly kissed you. 

“It was… good,” you said. 

“That doesn’t sound good.”

“It wasn’t bad,” you said hastily. “It was really good. It just—I just, I guess I can’t even tell if he really even likes me or not.”

“What do you mean?” she asked. 

You shrugged, even though Jihyo couldn’t see it. “We kissed again, but that was it—and he didn’t even seem like, eager to continue.”

“That’s… weird,” was Jihyo’s analysis of the evening. You filled her in on the rest of the fine details. The restaurant, the banter, the moments of tension. “Maybe he’s just being careful?” she suggested. “Like he doesn’t want you to think he just wants you for one thing.”

“Yeah,” you said. “Maybe.”

Jihyo laughed. “So what you’re saying is that it was a really good date, but you’re annoyed he didn’t put out?”

“That’s not what I’m saying,” you said. 

“Kind of sounds like what you’re saying.”

“I’m hanging up now,” you said. 

And you did. 

It wasn’t long before you heard from Yunho again. Before another date was scheduled. Before you were calling Jihyo afterward again to recount the same news. The lack of news. And then it happened again. You were beginning to think the worst, that he didn’t want you. When he pulled away from another kiss on the night of your fourth date, two weeks into whatever it was the two of you were doing together, you threw your hands out in exasperation. 

“Is there something wrong with me?” you asked. 

He folded his arms over his chest. “Hm?” he asked. Then, what you said must have registered with him. “What do you mean?” He might have teased you if you hadn’t sounded so serious. 

You chewed on your bottom lip for a long time, trying to work up the nerve to say the words you really wanted to say. 

“I mean,” you started, but the words died on your tongue. 

He had to know. 

There was no way he didn’t. 

He lifted his hand to your face, curled two fingers under your chin, and lifted, making you hold his gaze. His eyes were sharp, brown, drowning in blown-out pupils. 

“Do you even still like me?” you asked, getting the words out. They weren’t exactly the right words, but the right words made your stomach turn. Even these ones made your heart beat faster, made your fingers twitch. Because it felt so stupid to be asking. Obviously, he liked you. 

And he laughed. 

Because, of course, he laughed. 

It was a stupid fucking question. 

“Of course, I like you,” he said, still holding your chin, still looking at you. Something knowing crossed his features, then, and you wished he would just confirm your worries without you having to actually speak them aloud. 

“Then why don’t you want me?” you asked, voice small and timid. 

His hand moved to the side of your face, his fingers dipping into your hair, holding you. “You think that I don’t want you?” he asked. 

“I mean, it’s the only reasonable explanation,” you stammered, heat rushing to your cheeks. 

“It’s not reasonable,” Yunho said. 

Then, he dropped his hand from your face, slipping his palm into yours instead. He tugged you toward his door, away from your apartment—where he was previously dropping you off for the evening. You don’t even remember what his excuse had been. Something about having to work in the morning. 

You let him lead you down the hall, toward his apartment. You would have followed him anywhere. He didn’t speak, just walked with you trailing behind. The short distance felt so much longer when you had to cross it without knowing what was on his mind. 

As soon as you were inside, the door closed behind you, and he had you pressed against it, the cold metal interior, the doorknob just to the side of your hip. He didn’t kiss you. Just held you caged between his arms, elbows next to your shoulder, forearms resting against the door next to your head. 

You cleared your throat. Breathing felt like an impossibility, like all of the air had been sucked fully and totally out of the room, with his face so close to yours, his eyes studying every movement you made. 

“What were you saying?” you asked, voice just above a whisper. “About it being unreasonable?”

He ran the tip of his tongue along the inside of his cheek, and it was so much hotter than it had any reason to be. 

How high did he keep the heat in his apartment? Why did it feel like you were absolutely drenched in sweat? Your hands were clammy, your fingers tense at your side. You didn’t touch him, even though you wanted to. You weren’t afraid of being rejected. You knew that wasn’t what this was, exactly. But you were too curious to move. 

Curious about what he would do—what he wanted. 

Yunho shifted his weight, pressing against the door with one arm, in order to lean slightly back, to run the pads of his pointer and middle finger along your jawline. Your eyes stayed locked on his, watching him as he followed the movement of his hand. They flicked back to you, dark and deep. He cleared his throat, parted his soft, almost heart-shaped lips, to speak. 

“I was trying,” he started, voice still gravely despite his attempt at clearing it. “To be a gentleman.” 

Your lips formed into an oh, and you swallowed thick, trying to gather the confidence to say the next thing. To make the words known. “You don’t have to be.”

His fingers stilled on your jaw, and his dark brown eyes—overflowing with want—caught yours. You tried to keep your gaze neutral, but you could tell by the way he was looking at you that it wasn’t a success. 

One corner of his lips quirked up first, just before the smirk drew across his face. Brows slightly raised, eyes inquisitive. 

He was still so close to you, leaning in just an inch away from your lips. You could have closed the distance if you wanted to, but there was something appealing about this game the two of you had started playing the moment the door to his apartment closed. Like it was something tangible between the two of you that could be grabbed at any moment, but you both tiptoed around it, careful and curious. 

Yunho’s hand fell to your neck, his knuckles dragged downward, skittering over your pulse and making your heart beat faster. 

“So jumpy,” he said. “How long have you been thinking about this?” he asked. “About saying something?” 

Your lips parted, but the confidence in your brain didn’t meet the confidence of the real-life situation, couldn’t face the way he was looking at you. Words died on your tongue, and he looked at you like he could see the entire process. Your struggling only made his smirk more proud. 

“Really interesting,” he said, voice still low and gravely, but soft—too. A tool he used for inspection. “I was trying to be a gentleman for you, and you were thinking about—what?” he asked. 

Your breath caught in your throat as he lowered his lips to the edge of your ear. You tried to collect your thoughts, tried to figure out how to navigate this new situation. This was the Yunho you were more familiar with. The one who poked and prodded at you. Who teased you in the living room, who was downright difficult. 

It was the gentlemanly version of him that you’d been unfamiliar with, that you didn’t know quite how to handle. 

“Oh, now she’s quiet,” he commented. “You had so much to say not even five minutes ago.”

“Five minutes ago, you didn’t have me pressed up against a wall,” you said, trying to steady your voice into something that sounded any semblance of calm, even if you didn’t feel it. 

He slipped his hand into your hair at the base of your neck. “How long have you been thinking about it?” he asked. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you said, tilting your head up as you ran your tongue over your lower lip. 

Yunho laughed dryly under his breath. “Is that right?” 

“That’s right,” you repeated. 

“I was going to be so nice to you, baby,” Yunho whispered, breath curling against your ear. “Was going to treat you so good, too. Now, I’m not sure you deserve it.” 

Your mouth fell open. 

“What?” he asked, pulling back to look at you, to read the shock running its way across your face. “You want to play pretend now—pretend you haven’t been thinking about it, pretend you didn’t just ask. I can play, too.” 

“I just—” you start. “You weren’t—” 

“What wasn’t I doing?” he asked, one brow quirked upward. He wanted actual, tangible answers. 

The way he spoke made everything in your brain stop working. All the lights turned off, and it was just fizzling, crackling energy left behind. Nothing that converted the thoughts into words. You were left just staring at him, mouth opening for a moment before your lips pressed together again. 

Yunho was patient. He didn’t speak. Just kept his hand laced through your hair, kept that same look leveled on you. It didn’t help, but it certainly didn’t hurt, either. 

“Let’s recap,” he said after a moment. “You asked me why I don’t want you. Which, I’m not sure where you got that idea, but that’s not important. And I asked you how long you’ve been thinking about this. And what was it that you said?” he asked. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

A small smile crept across your lips in delight at the way he spoke, the way his words got faster the more irritated he got with trying to figure you out. It was nice to be the one to get under his skin for once. 

He shook his head in disbelief, but you could see the hint of a smile on his lips, too. He was enjoying this just as much as you were, this back and forth. 

“I don’t,” you said, a proud smile on your lips now. “Know what you’re talking about.”

He exhaled through his nose, almost a laugh. 

“You know if you keep playing innocent, you’re not going to get what you want. What we both know you want,” he said. 

You pressed your lips into a pout. He couldn’t resist. He removed his hand from your hair and touched the center of your lower lip with the pad of his thumb, dragging gently downward. “You don’t have to pout,” he said. “Just tell me how long you’ve been thinking about it—and don’t lie.”

Speaking didn’t appeal to you. Instead, you parted your lips around his thumb and leaned just slightly forward so the pad landed flat atop your tongue. 

He did it again, ran the tip of his tongue along the inside of his cheek in an attempt to mask his frustration. He hummed, a disapproving sound laced with something else. Like he enjoyed it, but didn’t want to indulge. 

“That’s not going to work on me, beautiful,” he said, pulling his thumb slowly out of your mouth. He dropped his hand to the space right below your neck, holding it ever-so-gently. He leaned in slowly, so his lips were only a fraction from yours. 

Your body reacted before you could stop it, leaning slightly forward to try to capture his lips. He pulled back, holding you firm against the door with one hand. “Ah, ah,” he said. 

“You don’t want to kiss me, Yunho?” you asked, pouting. “I mean, I kind of got that impression on our dates, but I thought maybe I was wrong.” 

He ran his tongue over his gums, just under his lower lip, and you could tell you were driving him insane, too. 

But you kept going. “If you don’t really want me, I could just go home,” you said. 

“Never said that,” he said. He took one of your hands, hanging useless at your side, and placed it atop the taut material and the hard length underneath it, lowering his lips to your ear again to whisper, “I want you, but not before you tell me what I want to hear.” 

He didn’t hold your hand to him, but yours lingered, regardless. You moved your palm against him, and he worked hard to keep his expression neutral, to not break immediately underneath your touch. After a few moments, he pulled your hand away, holding it tight in his. 

“Come on, baby,” he said. “How long?” The tip of his nose ran along the shell of your ear, and you shuddered under the sensation. Goosebumps rose on your forearms, and the heat of the apartment had only increased. “How long were you thinking about this while I was focused on treating you right, being a gentleman?” 

He kissed the hinge of your jaw. “I just want to know how long it took,” he said, pressing another kiss lower, along your jawline. “Was it the first date?” he asked. “Or the second?” Another kiss, this time at the top of your neck. You angled your head away from him, giving him better access. He didn’t comment, but you could feel the pride tug at the corner of his lips. “You must have been really frustrated to ask.” He dragged his teeth downward, then bit gently. “Were you frustrated?” 

All the bravado disappeared, and you were left, mouth open, victim to his ministrations, trying to figure out exactly how you could argue against this idea that you had been thinking about him like this nonstop for the past two weeks. 

You could no longer find a good reason to continue frustrating him. 

“The night you drove me home,” you said, your voice just above a whisper, like it was embarrassing to admit. His smile grew against your skin in an instant. 

“Mmm,” he hummed against your skin. “The kiss in the elevator really did it for you?” 

“No,” you said, like it was an instinct to shut him down. 

He only chuckled into the crook of your neck. 

“Is this what I have to look forward to?” he asked. “You being a brat?” 

“No,” you said, cocky smile across your face. 

“I’m gonna kiss you now,” he said, exasperation seeping into his words, seconds before his lips were on yours. You were all talk. The moment his lips touched yours, you came alive against him. It was a taste of what you wanted, and you immediately didn’t want it to end. You pushed away from the door, letting your arms fall over his shoulders as you pressed your body into his. His hands fell to your waist, then slid around to your back, holding you against him. 

Yeah, sure. Maybe you were impatient. Maybe you’d been thinking about this for weeks. Maybe you didn’t want him to know just how much you’d been thinking about it, how much your body absolutely craved his. But when your hands dropped to the buttons of his shirt, he didn’t complain. He didn’t make you stop to recite the answers to any questions. 

He just smiled against your lips, proud, like he’d won something. 

Your fingers grazed his bare skin as you worked further down. He deepened the kiss, angling forward as he tilted your head back, slipping his tongue between your lips. Yunho’s fingers dug into the cloth covering your hips, and your fingers stalled on his shirt. You reached for his skin instead, wanting to touch anything you could. You put one hand flat on his chest, but he was quick to loop a hand around your wrist and pull it away. 

“Hey,” you mumbled into his lips. 

He gave no response, only laced his fingers through the hand he’d stolen and pinned it back against the door as he continued to kiss you, running his tongue along yours. 

“Tell me to stop, and I will,” he said, breaking apart from your mouth, breaths ragged, forehead touching yours. “At anytime,” he said. 

You nodded, but remained silent. Hoping for the continuation of whatever he was doing, his lips on your again, his hands exploring your body. Any of it. You didn’t care. You’d take what he was willing to give. You might even say thank you.

He kissed you again, dragging your lower lip into his mouth as his fingers inched toward the hem of your shirt. One hand snuck underneath it. His knuckles grazed your bare stomach, and you jumped. He smiled into the kiss, and you rolled your eyes, even though he couldn’t see it. 

“You sure you’re going to be okay?” he asked, muttering the words against you between kisses. “I’m barely touching you.”

“I’m fine,” you hissed. His lips found the column of your neck again, however, and you began to question the declaration. 

He chuckled again, letting the sound reverberate through you as his fingers climbed further up your abdomen. 

Your head lolled backward, resting against the door behind you, the rest of your body arched forward into him. 

“You give up on the shirt?” he asked, eyes glancing between the two of you, to the few buttons holding his shirt together. 

“No,” you said. 

His hand still held one of yours pinned to the door. You reached between your bodies with your free one and worked on the button. It kept slipping free from your fingers at the same time as your soft moans. He bit your pulse point, sucking your skin into his mouth gently at first and then harder. Your lids fluttered closed, and the fabric fell out of your hand again. 

“Come on,” he said. 

His other hand slipped under your bra, cupping your breast. You almost had the last button done when his thumb ran over your nipple. “Yunho,” you hissed in annoyance. 

“Want me to stop?” he asked, lifting his lips from your neck just enough to catch your gaze, his thumb still moving back and forth across your nipple inconsistently, making it impossible to get used to. 

“It would be easier,” you said. “If I could use my other hand.” 

“Huh,” he said. “That’s too bad.” Then, he dropped his lips to your neck again, kissing lower, grazing them along the length of your collarbone. 

You finally did get the last button, then used your one free hand to attempt to push the fabric back off his shoulders. You tugged against his hand, trying to free yourself from the grip. He held firm, didn’t even so much as budge. But he felt your attempt, and that had him grinning. 

“Need help?” he asked. 

“Nope,” you said. You had most of his chest revealed, and that was good enough for you. You reached out for it, running just the tips of your fingers down the center. He didn’t stop you this time, letting you explore him. 

He released your hand then, only for his own benefit, to grab the hem of your shirt with both hands and lift it up and over your head. 

You stood apart for a second, looking at one another. His eyes fell to your chest, your cleavage. His tongue flicked out to wet his lower lip. You were too busy getting the rest of his shirt off to notice the way he looked at you. 

The break only lasted a moment, but it might as well have been an eternity of not touching one another. Of studying what was before you and wanting it. You both seized forward at the same time, your lips colliding as hands roamed over bodies. Yours found his shoulders, slid down his arms over his biceps, then back up. His went to your waist, around to your back. One fiddled with the strap of your bra before unhooking it in a swift motion. 

He didn’t break the kiss, just took a half-step back as he pulled the straps off your shoulders and down. Once your bra was on the floor in the growing pile of clothes next to you, he pulled away again to look at you. His lips were on your skin again in no time, working downward as his hand moved upward. He rolled one nipple between thumb and forefinger as he kissed a circle around the other. 

Your body tensed under his ministrations, and you were certain this man was going to be the absolute death of you with his knowing looks and his slow touches. Heat started in your stomach and dripped dangerously low at every caress. But you tried to keep your cool, tried to handle it. You didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of being putty in his hands. 

Yunho hummed a sound of happiness as he sucked, flicking your nipple with his tongue. Your hands threaded into his hair. 

His hands fell to your pants, unbuttoning the top button. “Take these off,” he said, and you finished the job, stepping out of them as he kissed back upward, taking his time. His fingers teased at the waistband of your underwear. 

You sucked in a breath, hot and sharp between your teeth. The door pressed cold lines into your back, and Yunho’s fingertips continued to flutter atop the band, teasing. The heat of the moment and the cold of the metal did not grant you equilibrium but only contributed to the building feeling of overstimulation that you know he would absolutely revel in if he could read your mind. 

Maybe he could read your mind, because he smirked against your skin for at least the tenth time in so many minutes, and you were starting to think he knew every nasty thought you’d ever had. 

It was a stalemate, because you knew that he wanted you restless. He wanted you begging. But you didn’t want to voice another word, another request, didn’t want to do what he told you to do. Unfortunately, you also really wanted him to slip his fingers lower. 

He watched you, too, like he knew you were making this calculation. 

He placed his hand across your stomach as he leaned forward to whisper in your ear. “Just say it,” he whispered. “I know you want to.”

He lifted your chin with his fingers as he pulled back, meeting your eyes. His eyes were dark and heavy, full of clear desire. The word no died on your tongue. 

But neither did he wait for you to ask. He held your eye contact as he moved his hand between your thighs, humming as he ran the pads of his fingers along your clothed slit. “Nice and wet for me, hm?” 

He pushed your underwear to the side, dragged his middle finger through your folds, and then slipped it inside of you to the knuckle. 

“See, I can be nice,” he said.

You choked on a gasp and tried to let your head fall back against the door, but he held your chin firm, keeping his eyes on you. He moved his finger slowly as you adjusted. His eyes traced your expression, the subtle part of your lips, the way your eyes rolled slightly backward. And you studied his, too. The hooded gaze as he watched you, the way his smirk got cockier every time you reacted to the movement. 

There was no escaping his careful eye. He caught every soundless gasp, every subtle movement.  

He liked you like this, falling apart and trying to keep yourself together at the same time. Not wanting to give in to him, but wanting everything he had to give. He liked teasing it out of you, that desire. 

Your lids fluttered closed as he stroked just the right spot, curling his finger to meet it. 

“Eyes open,” he said. His voice was firm, but not sharp. Commanding in a gentle kind of way. 

It didn’t make you want to listen. 

“Or what?” you challenged, eyes still closed. 

“Or I’ll stop,” he said. And he did. 

Your eyes flew open, and he couldn’t help the breathy laugh that fell off his lips. 

“You’re trying so hard, baby, but your body keeps giving you away,” Yunho said, a hair away from your lips, before he kissed you. 

He slipped another finger inside of you at the same time, and your body arched forward, your hands reaching for something to hold onto and finding his shoulders with ease. You groaned into his mouth, both at the feeling and his words. 

“God,” you moaned, breaking away from his lips to catch your breath. He didn’t go far, instead dropping his lips to your neck, biting and sucking at your skin until you felt like you were melting. You rolled your hips against his hand, wanting more, and he gave it without a word. His thumb ran over your clit, sending a shudder through your body. “Yunho, oh my god,” you muttered, hands digging into his shoulders. 

It was all too much. His teeth on your neck, his fingers moving fast inside you, curling, and his thumb running circles over your clit at a pace that made everything ache. 

“That feel good, baby?” he asked, voice gravely, breath hot on your neck. 

He didn’t slow his pace, so you could barely voice the words you wanted to say. All that came out was a breathy, “Don’t stop.”

And he was smirking again, running his tongue over your pulse before whispering, “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

Your hips kept rolling into his fingers, but he managed to keep the dizzing pressure on your clit as you squirmed. He took a step into you, pressing you up against the door again. One of his legs snuck between yours, and he used his upper thigh to hold you in place. 

He had you on the edge, about to teeter over, every muscle in your body so tense you were almost shaking. 

Then, he did exactly what he said he wouldn’t. He stopped. He dragged his fingers out of you slow, removed his thumb from your clit, and met your eyes. He struggled to keep your gaze, his eyes falling to your heaving chest as you tried to catch your breath. 

You groaned and tried to let your head fall back against the door, but he caught it, holding you forward by the neck. 

“Aw, you don’t like being teased, baby?” he asked, looking down his nose at you. 

You whimpered, moving your hips against his thigh in search of something. He only pinned you harder, keeping you from moving at all. 

He lifted his hand, slick with you, and tapped your lower lip. “Open,” he said. 

Your lips fell open, and he placed both of his fingers on the flat of your tongue. You closed your lips around them. He pressed down on your tongue, and you licked from the base of his finger to the tip without breaking the very direct eye contact he made with you. 

“Look at that,” he said. “You can follow directions.” 

You rolled your eyes and bit down gently on his fingers. He hooked his fingertips just behind your teeth and pulled you forward. 

“Mm,” he hummed. “I think I like you like this—unable to talk back.”

You ran your tongue over his fingers again, tried to move your hips again, chasing anything that would give you any kind of satisfaction now that fire danced over every inch of your skin, where he touched you and where he didn’t. 

He pulled his fingers from your mouth slowly as you licked them clean. He replaced his fingers with his tongue, lips crashing into yours—hungrier than before. The entire length of his body pressed up against you, anchoring you in place. You could hardly move between him and the wall, except to reach for him, to grip his arms tight in a grounding kind of way. 

He took a step away from you, dragging his lips from yours like it was the hardest decision he’d ever made. Then, he was grabbing your hand, pulling you deeper into his apartment, past the kitchen, through the living room, toward his bedroom. 

You’d been here before, seen these places before. You’d stalked through his apartment, looking for your fake boyfriend in order to drive off the women he’d slept with, you’d sat on his couch post-date, talking into the late hours of the night. 

The place seemed different now. His bedroom a completely new world. You’d only seen it in the aftermath, or with another woman sprawled out across it, waiting for his return. It was pristine now, the bed made with crisp sheets and a comfortable atop it. Pillows stacked in front of the headboard.

He guided you toward the edge of the bed, and you sat while he towered over you, hands lowering to his belt. You watched with rapt attention, tongue running between your lips. He undid his belt buckle, then the top button of his pants. He worked slowly—slower because he could tell you were watching, waiting. 

Yunho let his pants fall to his ankles. He stepped out of them, and your hands shot out, touching his abdomen but trailing downward for more. You were so interested, so needy. You’d never wanted anyone as much as you wanted him, right then. 

He slipped his hands over yours, and you rolled your eyes before he could open his mouth. 

“Ask for it,” he said, looking down at you. That same smirk playing on his lips. You should have known that being with him would be like this, with all the teasing he did outside the bedroom. All the playful glances he always shot in your direction, all the comments he made. It just never occurred to you that he would be so, well, annoying. 

Why was it so hot, then? If you were so annoyed, why did his words always make that same heat pool between your legs, always make you want him even more? And why did it drive you absolutely insane anytime he asked you anything? 

You pressed your lips into a tight line, determined to be stubborn about this. 

“You don’t have to touch me,” he said. “But if you want to—I’m going to need to hear you ask.” 

He held your hands tight in his to prevent them from going anywhere. 

“You’re—”

“What, baby?” he asked, still looking down at you, not touching you anywhere other than your hands. He cocked his head to the side. “What am I?” 

“Bossy,” you said. “And kind of a pain in the ass.” 

He laughed, a full, deep one that shook his chest. “You want me to stop?” he asked, lifting one hand to tilt your chin upward. “I could be nice to you, instead. Really nice.” 

You hesitated. 

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” he said. 

“Shut up,” you said, pushing against his abdomen with your intertwined hands. You grumbled under your breath. You batted your eyelashes at him. “I’d really like to touch you, Yunho. Could I, please?” 

He smirked. “Now, I don’t think you really mean that.”

“Oh, should I get on my knees?” you said, that same expression on your face—fluttering eyelashes, like you’d do anything he wanted if he really wanted it. 

“Only if you want to, beautiful,” he said. He freed your other hand, too. 

You hooked your fingers into the band of his boxers and pulled them down, tongue flicking out to wet your lips as you slid off the edge of the bed and onto your knees in front of him. He watched, silently, one hand coming up to gather your hair away from your face. 

One of your hands lifted to wrap around him. He was big, you had to admit. And you couldn’t keep the look off your face. Like you were drunk on want. Like he was all you could possibly think about. 

You leaned forward, flattened your tongue against the underside of the tip, eyes flicking up to meet his as you did, watching for a reaction. He didn’t hold back as you did, but let you watch as his lips parted. His hand tightened in your hair, and you gasped as you took him into your mouth—shallow at first, as you got used to the size. 

Slowly, you took him deeper. 

“Fuck,” he hissed. “You’re so good.” 

He rolled his hips once, slow, as he held the back of your head. 

“That okay?” he asked, his voice dropping to one much more gentle than how he’d been speaking to you. 

You nodded as best you could with your mouth wrapped around his cock. 

Another slow roll of his hips, and he was reaching your throat. You dropped your hands from him and looked up. You stopped moving, letting him take control instead. He held the back of your head firm and rolled his hips again and again, a little harder each time. 

Each time he hit the back of your throat, your eyes stung. His grip in your hair tightened, and you moaned around him, which only made him thrust into your mouth faster—harder. 

Tears stung in the corners of your eyes, but neither of you stopped. 

“God,” Yunho hissed again, hips bucking, snapping forward into you one more time before he pulled out fast. 

“Get up,” he said, and you stood—no attitude needed. 

He wiped the tears from under your eyes, the drool from your mouth, then spun you around and pressed you down, into the mattress. He reached into the drawer next to his bed, ripped open a condom with his teeth, and rolled it on, keeping one hand on your lower back. 

He guided the tip of his cock to your entrance and dragged it through your folds. “Still so wet, and I wasn’t even touching you,” he said. 

You couldn’t get a single word out. Your face was buried in the bedspread. He pushed just the tip inside of you, and every muscle in your legs went taut, seizing up. 

“Relax, baby,” Yunho said, moving forward another inch, reveling in the stretch, the feeling of tightness as you clamped down hard around him. Your hands were already balled into the fabric next to you, your teeth already biting down hard on your bottom lip to keep from whimpering. You pushed back against him, trying to get more. 

His hands came up to hold your hips, preventing you from moving. He slid forward another inch, slowly, enough to make you ache. 

“Please,” you begged, needing all of him way faster than he was willing to give it. 

You could practically hear the smirk appear behind you as he rolled his hips forward into you, filling you up. 

A jagged gasp escaped your lips. You could feel him pulsing inside of you, twitching, betraying his resolve. But he didn’t move. He kept one hand on your hip, then ran the other down your spine, making you shiver. 

“Yunho,” you whimpered. 

“Something you want, hm?” he asked, voice low and dark, like he was holding back from what he wanted, too, just to break you down even further. 

You gritted your teeth. “Yes,” you said, forcing the word out. 

He traced lazy circles on your back. “Tell me.” 

“Yunho,” you moaned again, trying to move your hips against them again. 

He stilled them once more. “I want to hear you say it.” 

“Say what?” you teased—only punishing yourself. 

He shifted only slightly, enough to remind you what you wanted. He grabbed your shoulder, pulled you back against him, pushing his cock even deeper into you, making you gasp into the blankets. “Tell me what you want from me.” 

“God, Yunho,” you muttered, thighs starting to shake. “I want you,” you said. “I don’t know—I want you, I just want you.” 

He laughed dryly under his breath and rewarded you with a slow roll of his hips. “Not specific enough,” he said. 

You groaned again, exasperated and desperate. 

“I don’t—” you started, another slow, agonizing thrust. “I don’t—” 

“You know,” he said. “You just don’t want to say it.”

He pulled out of you slow, then snapped his hips forward, taking you to new levels of desperation. 

“You’re—” you stumbled over your words. “You’re being so mean.”

He stilled again, giving you time to process, to think. He massaged circles into your hip with his palm. “Yeah?” he asked. 

“Yes,” you said, through gritted teeth. He started slow again, and you couldn’t help the whimpers that fell off your lips immediately, giving you away. “I want you so bad, please. Yunho, please,” you begged. 

He didn’t move. 

“What do you want me to say?” you hissed, irritated. “That I want you to fuck me until I see stars?” 

His fingers dug into your hip, and you knew you’d hit the mark. 

“Look at you, so good with your words,” he commented. 

His hips snapped forward again, deeper this time, faster. He established a rhythm. “Fuck—” you started, only to be interrupted by your own gasps. “You.” 

He slammed into you until you were stuttering, barely even able to say his name or mutter any other profanities. Your thighs were still shaking, legs tense and tight, especially as you arched into him, standing on your toes to lift your ass even higher. He put his hands on your shoulders, holding you in place before him, not letting you shift forward with every thrust—instead taking all of him with each deep stroke. 

It didn’t take long for you to start crumbling against him. He’d had you on the line for a long time, and your body could hardly take it anymore. Your thighs clenched, walls slamming down around him. 

“You wanna come, baby?” he asked, voice soft and deep, just above a whisper. You could hear the desire dripping from it, and it only made it more difficult to hold back. 

You nodded, whimpering as he kept up the pace, holding you and slamming forward again and again. He reached forward and grabbed your hair at the root, pulling you back. Your fingers tightened in the bedspread as the orgasm crashed into you, over you, through you, and you pressed yourself back against him as hard as you could, taking everything he could give as everything tightened so hard it was nearly unbearable. 

“That’s it, baby,” he coaxed as you came undone, falling limp beneath him. His pace slowed into long, languid strokes before he pulled out. 

With his hands on your hips, he turned you over, and you let him. Your face was flushed, your chest hot and red, your lips swollen from earlier kisses, and your hair a mess from his hands. 

“You’re so fucking sexy,” he said. 

You let out a shaky breath, eyes dropping to his cock, still hard. You must have read his mind, because as he crawled onto the bed toward you, you moved away, sliding up so you could rest your head atop the pillows. 

Your knees were folded up, thighs pressed together. 

He slipped a hand on the inside of your knee and pushed them open so he could crawl between, moving up your body. Your hands went to his shoulders immediately, looking for something to grab before he touched you anywhere. 

Yunho pressed a kiss to your jaw, your cheek, the side of your nose. 

“Can you take more, baby?” he asked. 

You nodded, lip between your teeth. 

“God, you’re fucking perfect, you know that?” he asked. 

You shook your head, and he laughed, dropping his lips to yours in a slow, tender kiss, such a stark difference from the previous few and their feverish nature. 

He slipped a hand between your bodies, slipping a finger inside of you quickly, in and then out, before lining himself up with your entrance again. You sucked in a breath before he even moved. In one fluid motion, he sheathed himself fully inside of you. You shared the same gasp, mangled between kisses. 

Everything felt immediately intense. Each stroke lighting a new fire. He seemed intent on wrecking you completely, because his fingers moved quickly to find your clit. He put pressure on it with two fingers, letting the movement of his thrusts provide the friction. 

He sat up and pulled your hips down on him as he slid into you over and over again. 

“Yunho, oh my god,” you said through heavy breaths, the combination of sensations making you dizzy, making it difficult to keep your eyes open. 

Your sounds only encouraged him further, and soon his own grunts joined with your moans. He rubbed your clit with his thumb, not stopping to give you a second to calm down, only taking the sensation higher and higher. You squirmed, trying to get away from him, trying to stop the overstimulation, the feeling of everything being encompassed in wet, hot fire, but he didn’t let you move an inch. 

You threw your head back against the pillow in defeat, letting your hips roll against his. He lifted one of your legs, leaning it against his shoulder as he fucked deeper and deeper into you. You had to close your eyes—and he didn’t stop you, didn’t demand your attention, just kept touching and thrusting, and holding you until it was all too much. 

“I can’t—” you started, hips stuttering as your core tightened impossibly, strangling him inside of you. He groaned as you came, and you felt him twitch inside of you at the same time as he fucked you through your second orgasm of the night, until you were lying nearly boneless beneath him. And then he was still, too, collapsing on top of you, gathering you into his arms. 

You breathed heavily together for some time. Yunho pressed soft kisses to whatever skin he could reach and smoothed your hair away from your face. 

It was a long time—intertwined just like that—before he got out of bed to clean up. As soon as he returned, it was to gather you into his arms all over again, to hold you flush against his skin, to kiss your lips soft and slow. 

“That was—” you started, even though there were no words in the known world to finish the sentence properly. 

“Yeah,” he said. “Really was.”

You nestled your face deeper into his neck, and he held you even tighter, like he was worried you were going to go somewhere. 

When he spoke again, it was quiet, just above a whisper. “I really like you, you know.” 

You peeled away from him enough to catch his eyes. There was a bit of worry in them. Your hand shot out to touch his cheek. 

“I really like you, too,” you said. 

He cleared his throat. “Haven’t really—you know, dated anyone,” he said. “In a while.”

The words hung between you for some time. 

“I want to, though. I mean, I want to keep dating you,” he said. 

You laughed under your breath. He was cute when he was flustered. “Good,” you said, touching the tip of his nose with yours before pressing a soft kiss to his lips. “I want that, too.” 

“Sex was that good, huh?” he teased, and you pushed his shoulder. “Kidding.”

“It was good, though,” you said, pointedly. “But that’s not the only reason. A silver lining, definitely.”