'print these contracts, organise them in chronological order, and have them ready in my office before you leave.'

that's what heeseung had told you to do, sliding a thick folder across the desk to you. this is what you deserve for disrupting your boss in an attempt to flirt with him, you suppose.

you remember staring at the files, and then at heeseung - asking him if he was serious.

"why wouldn't i be?"

"because there’s like… a hundred pages here," you say slowly, flipping through the folder with disbelief. "and half of these dates aren’t even labelled properly."

heeseung doesn’t look remotely sympathetic.

"then figure it out."

you clutch the stack of half-printed documents dramatically to your chest. "but i'm just a helpless employee, sir."

"don’t call me sir like that."

"like what?" you try to stop the grin from spreading on your face.

heeseung leans back in his chair with a quiet sigh, his watch gleaming under the lights. that looked expensive. "you know exactly what you’re doing."

and maybe you do.

because for the past three months of working under department manager lee heeseung, you'd made it a personal mission to get him to crack.

and to crack him.

"close the door on your way out."

that didn't get you any sympathy points. and now you're leaning against the wall, waiting for the barely-working printer to finish it's job - which would take a millennium judging from how much it already printed in the last twenty minutes.

the printer wheezes like it’s on its last breath before spitting out another single page.

you stare at it.

"you are genuinely useless," you mumble to the machine. another painful whirring sound answers you.

great.

you slide down the wall slightly, arms crossed as you wait for the next page to crawl out. the office is mostly empty now, just the distant hum of keyboards from the few employees still staying back late.

you're contemplating breaking the machine completely at this point. maybe heeseung would consider actually buying a new machine. that would benefit everyone.

the printer suddenly stops again.

"you actually piss me off." you walk over to it, pressing a few buttons before the screen flashes low toner in mocking little letters. you close your eyes, sighing.

"have you really reached a new low that you're talking to printers now?" jay walks by, pausing his steps as he sips on whatever iced beverage he was drinking.

you turn your head slowly toward jay with the blank expression of someone seconds away from a mental breakdown. "please don't start with me."

jay glances at the printer screen before letting out an understanding hum. "ah. toner issue."

"it’s been printing for thirty minutes and i have maybe," you look down at the pathetic stack of papers in the tray, "twenty pages."

"why do you need to print all that, anyway?" jay says gesturing with his free hand. you let out a long sigh, shuffling the papers into a neater pile against your chest.

"heeseung dumped it onto me. apparently the board meeting tomorrow needs physical copies of every contract involved in the merger." you pause, blinking up at jay. "why, you wanna help?"

jay lets out a short laugh, taking another sip from his straw. "very funny joke." he smiles at you, before shaking his head. "absolutely not."

your face falls immediately at the false hope. "oh, you're so fake. i'm never staying overtime for you again."

"that's crazy, because i distinctly remember you ignoring my emails for three business days last month." jay says, tone flat as he acts unbothered.

you roll your eyes, adjusting the heavy stack of papers in your arms. "whatever. i hope heeseung dumps ten times more work on you tomorrow."

"he won't, i'm his favourite." jay boasts, grinning lazily, making you scoff in annoyance.

you exhale through your nose, "i don't think his favourite would be working overtime."

jay just walks past, patting your shoulder. "you should just ask heeseung to fix the printer, it'd help everyone out." he's already around the corner before you can even utter a word out. what an idiot.

the printer makes a weird nose, and you whip your head around to look. yeah, it was definitely cooked. the screen flashes something ominous, low toner, paper jam, and a blinking error icon. sighing softly, you turn it off through the switch at the wall to just stop the loud, unnecessary noises it was creating.

you crouch down, gathering the scattered pages from the tray. around thirty printed overall, twenty properly done, the rest fading out halfway through like the printer gave up mid-sentence.

you stack them neatly, tapping the edges against your palm to straighten them. your eyebrows furrow as you skim the half-finished text. yeah, heeseung was going to cook your shit.

you exhale through your nose, straightening the stack one more time like that’ll magically fix the situation. whatever. it’s not like you personally sabotaged the machine. the thing had been dying for weeks anyway, it was way out of your control.

you’d just tell him that. the printer was already on life support. management issue. structural failure. not your fault.

yeah.

solid plan.

you slip the printed pages into a neat folder, tucking the thicker stack of contracts under your arm as you make your way back to heeseung's office. he definitely wasn't going to expect you back so soon.

you reach the door, and it's pretty much silent inside. well, besides for the loud ass typing sounding from heeseung's keyboard, you presume.

you hesitate for half a second, then knock. the typing doesn’t stop, of course it doesn’t.

you push the door open anyway.

heeseung is right where you left him, seated at his desk, sleeves slightly rolled up now, eyes fixed on his monitor.

you clear your throat.

"sir, the printer's out of ink again." you say, gently placing a stack of papers on heeseung's desk - half printed.

heeseung barely looks up from his laptop. "mm," his fingers continue gliding across the keyboard smoothly.

those fingers were the same ones you fantasized touching you all over.

"did you try replacing the cartridge?" he says, like it's the most obvious thing in the world.

you stare at him flatly, "no, i just thought i'd announce it for fun."

that finally earns you a glance. bingo.

it's a slow one too, heeseung's eyes lift from his monitor screen to your face, his features showing how he currently feels - which is clearly unimpressed. "you're acting very sarcastic for someone who's asking for my help."

despite the attitude, you're reminded once again why you don't mind that your boss to overwork you. even if he isn't smiling at you, the warm feeling in your gut that usually appears when you talk to him is definitely present.

you recover quickly, though, because you have practice.

"i'm not asking for help," you say, lifting the small stack slightly. "i already did it. technically."

heeseung's gaze drops to the papers again, then back to you. he pats the empty space on the table. "put them down." his tone is calm, matter-of-fact, like he already expects you to listen. which, annoyingly, you do. he was your boss, after all.

you walk over and place the papers where he indicated, careful not to let the half-printed pages slide out of order. heeseung immediately pulls the stack closer, flipping through them with quick, practiced movements.

you shift your weight slightly as he scans the faded text on one of the pages, flipping through the papers.

"..this one's unreadable." he says flatly, not even looking at you.

you chew your lip nervously, "in my defence, we all told you the printer was barely working."

you hate how much you get off from this.

seriously. nothing turns you on more than your annoyed boss, always looking unimpressed no matter what actually comes out of your mouth.

most people would probably be intimidated by him, but you enjoy poking fun at him. probably because every now and then, you manage to crack through that perfect composure for half a second.

it’s addictive, honestly. even if he never actually flirts back.

he mostly just stares at you like you’re a problem he hasn’t figured out how to solve yet.

any normal person would’ve probably gotten embarrassed by now, maybe they would’ve stopped after the first few failed attempts at flirting with their boss, but it's not like heeseung even acknowledges your attempts, anyway. there's almost nothing to be embarrassed about.

heeseung just shakes his head softly, setting the papers back down onto the desk before reaching up to loosen and readjust his tie slightly. "it's late," he says calmly, "go home."

that snaps you back to reality, and you have to hide the disappointment that you feel from his words. why must he always look at you like you're the least attractive person in the room?

this was lee heeseung, your boss. you don’t even know what you expected. for him to flirt back? after months of him pretending not to notice every teasing comment you throw his way?

you clear your throat quietly, composing yourself once again. "..what about the contracts?"

"…what about the contracts?"

"i’ll handle them." heeseung nods, looking down at his watch.

"alone?"

he glances back at the papers, "you already stayed late."

you stare at him for a second. no way the boss that constantly forced you to work over time was showing concern.

you try to recover with humour instead. "wow. are you worried about me, sir?"

there’s a pause before heeseung’s gaze lifts to yours again, completely unreadable. he looks upset - yes! this is exactly what you were hoping for. that heeseung would be angry enough to just bend you across his lap and-

"go home," he repeats.

ouch. okay.

"right. goodnight, sir." you say, nodding your head.

you bow politely out of habit, keeping your expression carefully neutral even as embarrassment starts creeping up your neck. he doesn't say anything back even as you walk out of his office.

the second time is all thanks to jake, to be honest.

"so, how was overtime last night?" jake asks, sitting across from you as the two of you eat lunch in the office lunch room. there was practically nobody else there. the two of you decided on a later lunch because you wanted to finish a project before the day got away from you.

you raise an eyebrow, pausing mid-bite. "why are you, asking me that?" you don't hide the way you emphasise the 'you', because everybody knew that jake was actually heeseung's favourite employee, and unfortunately for you, his close friend too.

jake blinks innocently, "what's that meant to mean?"

you lean back slightly in your chair, squinting at him. "you know exactly what that means." you clear your throat, trying not to make it obvious that you clearly care a lot about this. "..did heeseung say something?"

his expression shifts, mirroring you as he leans back in his chair slowly, stretching his legs out under the table. "why would heeseung say something?"

"oh, don't play dumb with me now, jake." you scoff, flicking your food with your fork.

you stare at him, and he stares back. you immediately hate how calm he looks.

"…because you’re asking me about overtime," you say flatly, deciding to say it outright because he's clearly beating around the bush.

"i ask people about overtime all the time."

"no you don't, jake."

"yes i do."

he sighs dramatically, like you were being the difficult one. "fine. i asked because jay mentioned you were still here after nine."

of course he did. you pinch the bridge of your nose. "this office is just one big surveillance system, apparently.'" you poke around at your food again, "it's always something with you two. oh, and i can't forget sunghoon as well." you say, internally rolling your eyes at the thought of them.

"that's not true." jake defends himself, taking offense to being labelled as someone who gossips, even though it was true.

you raise an eyebrow, unconvinced. "are you trying to convince me, or yourself, jake?"

he pauses, leaning back in his chair like he’s deeply wounded by the accusation. “wow. you're being very intense today."

"what did heeseung say, jake?" you crumble, holding your face in your hands. thank god the room was empty aside for you two, because you looked like you were about to go insane.

there’s a long pause, and it's way too long for your liking especially.

when you peek through your fingers, jake is watching you with a look that's way too entertained about your misery.

"okay," you scoff. "fuck you then."

"..why are you acting like he confessed something dramatic?" he asks slowly, taking another bite of his food.

"because you're being especially ominous about it all." you deadpan. "be honest, did he shit talk me? is he gonna fire me-"

"what?" jake nearly chokes on his drink.

you immediately sit up straighter. "oh my god. he is, isn’t he."

he’s pausing. why is he pausing? people only pause when they’re calculating how bad the truth is. you knew you should've just taken the lift to the other department's floor and used their printer, but no - you were lazy and despite being in the presence of your insanely hot boss, you still wanted to go home earlier last night.

"no, no, what? he isn't firing you." jake reassures.

you narrow your eyes. "that pause was too long."

"i was chewing."

liar. people don’t chew like that when they’re innocent. that was a guilty chew.

"liar."

jake laughs under his breath, shaking his head like you’re exhausting but entertaining.

"answer the question." you say sternly, reminding him of the subject at hand.

if he says yes, you're quitting - no questions asked. you're not letting heeseung win. you will resign before you can feel formally embarrassed by your boss and a dumbass printer. fuck the printer, by the way.

he leans back, finally giving you something resembling seriousness. “he didn’t shit talk you.”

"..he didn't?"

"no. i'm serious."

you blink, slowly putting your fork down. "okay," you say carefully, "so, what did he say then?"

jake finishes swallowing any food in his mouth before he speaks again, watching you like he's deciding how much damage he wants to do. "he just asked if you were always like that."

"always like what?" you furrow your eyebrows, confused. always like what? in the way you were a shameless flirt? or was he asking because now he thought you were completely incapable of finishing a simple work task. well, it wasn't a simple task, to be fair.

jake shrugs, "his words, not mine."

"jake," you clutch your skirt with your now empty hand. "you're being extremely unhelpful right now."

"how can i help?" jake grins as he takes another bite of food, "i'm telling you everything i know."

"it's not enough," you whine slightly, straightening your posture. you hate how pathetic that sounded the second it left your mouth.

before he can respond, a loud crack of thunder suddenly echoes outside the building. both of you glance instinctively toward the large windows lining the break room. rain patters heavily against the glass a second later.

"okay well, shit." you sigh. the rain is heavy too, not even the drizzle type. it's heavy. your co-workers that had already left were so lucky that they wouldn't have to go home in this weather.

"i didn’t bring an umbrella," you mumble immediately, making jake look back at you with absolutely zero sympathy.

"unlucky." he shrugs, leaning back. "i have one though, we can go home together if you'd like."

"..are you going to the station afterward?" you ask, and he nods.

"why don't you just ask him?' jake suggests, bringing the focus back to your conversation. the way he acted made it seem like it was the most normal thing ever.

"ask him what, jake? ask my boss if he's talking about me?" you shake your head. "okay, whatever."

you don’t even know why you care this much. logically, this should not matter. your boss asking one vague question about you should not have your entire nervous system reacting like this.

"so, how's your day been?" you ask, shitfing the subject. jake looks at you.

jake looks at you, blankly. "..we've been together the whole day."

oh right. you two have been stuck doing that stupid project heeseung assigned you both. honestly, you’re surprised neither of you snapped first because that was treacherous. pages and pages of data entry, revisions, formatting issues, and enough spreadsheets to the point that if you saw another one, you'd actually go insane.

right on cue, the break room doors swing open.

both you and jake glance up automatically, though jake twists around in his chair more obviously than you do, considering his back was facing the door.

your posture straightens on instinct, a smile forming onto your face. you don't even realise that you're doing it till jake turns around, a stupid grin forming on his face at your expression.

you clear your throat quickly, forcing the smile down into something more normal. meanwhile, heeseung either doesn’t notice, or pretends not to. both are bad, to be honest.

heeseung walks further into the break room calmly, phone still in one hand as his gaze flicks briefly between you and jake seated together.

"why are you two here so late? your day should be over." he asks casually.

jake glances at the clock on the wall before looking back at him. "we lost track of time doing the project you assigned us."

"sounds like poor time management," heeseung replies immediately, making jake laugh.

you straighten slightly in your chair. "we didn’t ‘lose track of time,’ we were literally fixing the spreadsheet you gave us because half the formulas were broken."

heeseung's gaze shifts to you, then he glances briefly to the windows, taking in the rain. then back at the two of you. he doesn't even acknowledge that you defended yourself.

"jake," he says, voice returning to business immediately, "i still need the revised figures before tomorrow morning."

"yeah," jake nods, giving heeseung a thumbs up. "i was gonna stay back another hour and finish it."

your head turns toward him immediately, "..you were?"

"yeah," he says simply. "it’ll take another hour max."

heeseung hums once in acknowledgment before his eyes shift back to you, 'which means," he starts, "you can go home."

your brain pauses for a second. just you? heeseung wanted you out so bad, you sort of felt honoured. "i can stay too," you blurt out, offering before thinking.

both men look at you. jake looks confused and heeseung looks unreadable. you internally slam your head into the table.

why did you say that so fast. oh my god.

"there’s no reason for both of you to stay," heeseung says calmly. "you already finished your part."

"she's going home with me," jake speaks up, also standing up to rinse his container in the sink. heeseung raises an eyebrow, and jake notices.

"what?" jake asks innocently, turning the tap off. "it’s raining. she doesn't have an umbrella."

heeseung pauses before he looks directly at you, "you didn’t bring one?"

you suddenly feel strangely defensive. "the forecast said it was only gonna be cloudy." jake snorts next to you, and you

heeseung stays quiet for a second longer. his expression is unreadable, before he exhales softly through his nose, like he’s already regretting whatever thought just crossed his mind. "..you don’t need to wait for jake."

you raise an eyebrow, turning your head to look at heeseung front-on, who looks mildly inconvenienced by his own words already. "i’m driving anyway," he says flatly. "i can take you home."

a spike hits your heart, and you feel oddly flattered. because realistically, who wouldn’t react a little when their super attractive boss offers to drive them home? especially when said boss happens to be wearing your favourite tie from his rotation today. which you are aware he didn't do on purpose.

your eyes landed on it this morning, maybe lingered a little. the deep colour looked unfairly good against his dress shirt, sleeves still rolled neatly at his forearms from working late. you could only imagine those same arms around your neck later-

wait, you still needed to reply to heeseung. you clear your throat quickly. "you don’t have to-"

"i know," heeseung cuts in smoothly, which hits at your spirits for a moment, but then your mood lifts again anyway, a stupid smile threatening to tug at your lips before you can stop it. because now it sounds less like obligation and more like choice, or, you could just keep telling yourself that.

jake nods, a little too excitedly. "okay, that's fine with me." he presses his lips together, visibly trying not to blurt out something obnoxious.

heeseung glances over to you, "go get your stuff. we're leaving." he says, using his chin to gesture toward the door.

'we're leaving'? not, 'meet me downstairs' or 'i'll wait downstairs., but he's saying we're leaving together.

"okay.." you answer, way quieter than intended.

jake offers you a knowing smile, "drive safe," he says, looking directly at you instead of heeseung.

you're going to strangle him. heeseung either ignores the weird tone completely or chooses not to acknowledge it. you stand quickly before jake can make this worse, grabbing your phone from the table and adjusting your bag over your shoulder.

"finish your work," you mutter at him while passing by.

jake grins shamelessly. "have fun."

you barely make it two steps out of the break room before you become hyper aware of the fact that heeseung is following behind you. probably to his office, it was right next to your cubicle after all.

act normal, why are you suddenly forgetting how to walk. you facepalm internally, you've literally been alone with him before. this is fine.

the hallway feels longer than it needs to. you finally reach the row of cubicles, the familiar maze of monitors and dividers coming into view. you can that your desk is just ahead.

you step inside, grabbing your bag, which is next to your computer. you can feel heeseung's presence behind you, standing outside the cubicle. you grab your things quickly, shoving them into your bag with slightly more force than necessary. guess he already got all of this things and was ready to leave.

you finally straighten, turning around. "okay! i'm ready." heeseung doesn't even blink at your enthusiasm, turning around and walking toward the elevator.

"let's go." he says simply.

you catch up slightly, trailing after him. the elevator is ahead, reflecting both of you in the metal, slightly distorted. he presses the button, and the doors open immediately. the two of you walk in.

you step in first, instinctively moving to one side, and he follows right after you. it's silent and uncomfortable.

you clear your throat slightly. "..long day?" you say, immediately regretting how weak that sounds.

heeseung’s reflection in the doors shifts slightly as he glances at you.

"it was." he agrees simply, not saying anything else. awkward. a small smile tugs at your lips when you see heeseung in the reflection.

the elevator hits the floor to the carpark, the doors slide open to reveal the dimly lit carpark.

"you’re always this quiet after work?" you ask lightly, stepping out of the elevator doors as you walk toward his car.

he glances at you briefly. "you’re always this talkative?"

you grin immediately. "only around people i like." the response slips out smoother than expected, and yet he doesn't say anything back, holy airball. you can hear both your footsteps echoing softly through the near-empty carpark.

heeseung’s lips slightly curl up in a smile, but it disappears basically the second it appears. he rounds what you assume to be his car, and honestly you couldn’t name the brand, but you admit it looked expensive.

you stop beside the passenger side for a second, eyeing it openly. "wow."

heeseung glances at you while unlocking the doors with a soft beep.

"what?"

"your car looks rich." you say, in awe. you reach for the passenger seats door handle, sliding in. the seats are soft, and the car is noticeably clean. the only thing you can smell is a light tinge of his cologne.

heeseung just reaches forward to adjust something near the dashboard, entirely calm. "seatbelt."

you obey, arm reaching over your upper body to grab your seatbelt. the movement pulls your blouse slightly at the shoulder as you tug it across yourself, the quiet click sounding through the car once it locks into place.

you glance over, and heeseung is watching - as if he was making sure you were actually putting it on.

you narrow your eyes at him immediately. "were you expecting me not to?"

heeseung rests one hand against the steering wheel, expression calm. "no."

you scoff, "liar."

he hums softly, finally pulling the car out of the parking space smoothly. "you asked."

"and yet you answered dishonestly." you poke the inside of your mouth with your tongue, glancing out the window.

"i answered you professionally."

narrowing your eyes, "that isn’t even the same thing."

he stifles a laugh, but you notice before he can conceal it, making your stomach flip on instinct.

you slump further in the seat, only now realising the proximity of the two of you. the car feels way smaller than what it did just minutes ago.

glancing back over to him, you see how one hand rests loosely against the steering wheel while the other adjusts the wheel slightly as he turns out onto the wet street. that was like, the hottest thing you’d seen all week.

it feels intimate despite the fact that he’s just driving you home.

wait.

you forgot to give him your address yet he’s still going the right way.

blinking, your posture straightens almost immediately, shuffling back upright in your seat. "..wait."

heeseung keeps his eyes on the road. "what?"

you look directly at him, "how do you know where i live?"

there’s a small pause, before heeseung clears his throat. "your employee file."

you narrow your eyes instantly. "that sounds creepy when you say it like that."

"it’s literally HR information."

"okay, but why do you know it?" you ask, raising an eyebrow.

"i’m your boss."

"that does not answer my question at all."

a faint sigh leaves him through his nose, like you’re being difficult on purpose.

which, okay, maybe you are.

"you’ve worked under me for almost a year," he says calmly. "i know where most of my employees live."

you stare at him suspiciously.

"..do you have everyone’s addresses memorised?"

"no."

"just mine?"

that finally earns you momentary glance, but he looks back to the road a second after. "you’re asking a lot of questions."

"well, only because you aren’t answering the one i actually want answered." you say, shifting slightly in your seat.

rain continues tapping steadily against the windows, soft wipers cutting through the sound every few seconds. heeseung sighs once again, "fine, which one is that?"

you stare at him for a second, trying to hide your suspicion. "you know which one."

"humour me."

he’s doing this on purpose.

you can hear it in his voice now, he sounds so composed. heeseung makes another left turn, the way you remember taking to your house.

"why do you know where i live specifically?" you ask, quieter this time. not that you mind. if it were anyone else, maybe it'd be a little creepy - yeah, but heeseung was welcome over at anytime.

the red light flashes briefly onto his face as he slows down, you take in his pretty features.

"because," he says evenly, "you're usually the last person to leave the office." your stomach does cart wheels at his answer, even if it’s the simplest thing you’ve ever heard.

you try to hide the fattest grin that tries to force itself onto your face. "..you notice that?" you can’t stop yourself from asking.

"you make it difficult not to." if it were anyone else, you’d take that as flirting, but heeseung’s tone is so flat, that if you actually did take it as flirting then you’d need to be admitted to the nearest psych ward for delusion.

so you don’t, even if you want to. you stare out the window instead, watching rain streak across the glass, "are you saying i’m a difficult employee?"

"that isn’t what i said."

"but it’s what you meant, right?"

he exhales softly through his nose, barely a sound. you catch it anyway. the car moves smoothly through the wet streets, indicator ticking quietly as he changes lanes.

heeseung continues, "you stay late."

you glance at him again. "so do other people."

"not consistently."

"that’s because you don’t give anyone else the annoying projects." you argue back, before realising. "does that mean you’re keeping track of when i leave?" you sound a little too hopeful, it’s pathetic.

"it’s part of my job to know what’s happening in my department." he says flatly, shutting that idea down immediately.

you sigh softly, what a boring answer.

heeseung slows down the the familiar streets, and your apartment complex comes into view. heeseung eases the car toward the side of the road rather than pulling straight in.

he stops smoothly, gently turning the wheel as the engine quiets down. you grab your bag, unbuckling your seatbelt. "thank you, i really appreciate it." you’re about to grab onto the door handle, but heeseung halts your movements - grabbing your wrist.

it isn’t tight or forceful, just enough to make you pause. you blink at him, "..what?"

he doesn’t answer immediately. instead, his gaze flicks briefly toward the rain outside, then back to you. with his other hand, he reaches into the backseat pulling out…

an umbrella.

black. simple. clearly kept in the car for situations exactly like this.

he had one the whole time?

"take it." he pushes it toward you, before leaning over your body and opening the door for you. you unclasp the umbrella, turning back.

"good night." you smile, and heeseung nods.

"good night."

you thank him again before holding it over your head and walking into the entrance of your apartment building.

okay but, he had an umbrella the whole time and yet he insisted on taking you home. well, insisted is a stretch but he offered.

that had to mean something.

you had hoped, at least.

the third time you tried flirting with your boss, it was completely unintentional. in the way you weren't even trying to seek him out this time, at least. you were planning that for later.

yes, you had worn an extra nice outfit that day because you wanted to catch his attention. not that it worked, it never did. you don't even know what made you try again.

it starts like a normal morning. no heeseung ordering you around this time. which in hindsight, should've been a bad sign. no emails, no urgent requests, and no heeseung appearing behind your desk randomly - before giving you a stack of papers.

you clock in, sit down, open your laptop as minutes fly by in what feels like seconds. you're at your desk, half-awake as you scroll through your emails, when a voice pops up at your cubicle.

"hey." sunoo is leaning slightly against the divider, smiling at you in that friendly way he usually does.

you sit up, leaning back against your chair, "what's up?"

sunoo and you don't even try being formal with each other now, it's been a while since the two of you met. "before you ask," he starts, already dropping a stack of papers onto your desk, "yes, this is your problem now."

you glance at the pile, "seriously?"

sunoo laughs softly, resting his forearms on the divider. "it's just some missing formatting stuff from yesterday’s file. i fixed half of it but I got dragged into a meeting."

"wowow," you sigh, skimming over the papers. "you owe me."

"i owe you?" sunoo repeats, tilting his head softly.

"yes," you nod, looking up at him. "this is so much work, sunoo. i'm busy."

"busy doing what? you were scrolling emails and pretending to work," he corrects, making you glare up at him. "god forbid i actually give you to work to do."

"yeah, but it's your responsibility - not mine." you argue back.

sunoo shifts slightly, leaning more comfortably against the divider like he has nowhere else to be. like your desk is just part of his routine. "fine," he says. "we're still on for lunch, right? you're not ditching me for jake again?"

"that wasn't intentional. i had to finish my project, you know that." you don't hesitate defending yourself.

"yeah, yeah." sunoo smiles, his tone condescending like he doesn't actually believe in what you say.

you open your mouth to retaliate, because you refuse to allow yourself to be slandered this early in the morning, but sunoo interrupts. "why're you dressed so fancy today, hm? your blouse looks expensive."

you pause, glancing down at yourself. "in a good way, right?"

"yes, of course." sunoo states obviously, "how can you look expensive in a bad way?"

you ignore his question, "..really?"

sunoo nods immediately. "yes really. you look like you’re about to leave us for a better company."

you hum, pretending to think about it, smoothing your sleeve once like you’re just noticing it exists. "hmm."

"what is it this time?" sunoo sighs, making you scoff.

"bold of you to assume there's an issue, sunoo."

he narrows his eyes at you. "there is an issue. you’re doing that thing where you pretend you’re not doing something."

"what does that even mean?"

"you're overdressed." sunoo spits it out, taking in your outfit.

you tap the edge of the stack of papers on your desk, suddenly very interested in the alignment of the corners. "this is my normal everyday outfit, but okay."

sunoo’s gaze drags over you again, shaking his head. "that's not normal, you can't fool me."

you blink. "excuse you?"

"that blouse is not ‘normal.’ that’s ‘i have plans after work’ clothing."

"..i might have plans," you admit casually, lying out of your teeth. you had zero plans after work today. the most you were planning on doing was hopping on the game after dinner.

oh, but you wished you had plans. you wished your plans revolved around overtime, where you'd crawl underneath heeseung's desk and give them the most toe-curling blowjob any man has ever received.

sunoo’s eyes widen a fraction. "you do?"

you shrug. "hypothetically."

he leans in a little, lowering his voice. "with who?"

this little nosy rat. at least sunoo kept his mouth shut, though. had you told jake and the entire workplace would've heard about it by now.

you open your mouth, but then stop. familiar footsteps sound, and they're getting closer toward you.

heeseung walks into the view beside your cubicle, holding a folder in his hand. he looks at sunoo, who's still leaning casually against your divider, then at you, in which you offer a sheepish smile.

"good morning, heeseung." sunoo chirps, pulling his gaze away from you to greet heeseung. heeseung's eyes briefly flick from sunoo to you, then back to sunoo in almost under a second.

"good morning." he replies finally, but his tone is entirely flat.

sunoo, who is still undeterred, smiles wider. "busy day today?"

"yes," heeseung glances at the folder in his hand. "aren't you scheduled for a meeting that.." he pauses, looking at his watch before his eyes lift back up to sunoo, "started three minutes ago?"

sunoo blinks, offering heeseung a sheepish smile. then he straightens abruptly, like he just remembered that urgency is a concept. "oh, right. that's me."

you watch, barely holding in a reaction, as he takes one step, then another. "see you at lunch!" he calls back way too brightly, before turning his body entirely as he speeds down the hallway.

the silence is loud again, or it feels like it - despite your co-workers being occupied with chatting as well as the soft clatter of keyboards.

you blink once at the empty space sunoo was occupying a second ago, seeing heeseung just standing beside your cubicle with the folder in hand, expression unreadable as ever.

why must he look at you like you're some outdated fashion trend?

"was that necessary?" you ask lightly, nodding vaguely in the direction sunoo disappeared.

he doesn’t even look that way. "yes," he replies, "he was distracting you, and he was late to his own meeting." you shrug in response.

heeseung calls out your name, making you look up at him with a soft hum. "yeah?"

his eyes flick briefly to you, handing you another fuckass folder. it's heavy too, filled with enough paper to ruin your morning. you begrudgingly hold back the urge to roll your eyes. you swore on everyone's life that heeseung assigned you the most heinous roles known to man.

yes, your boss was hot, but was he hot enough for you to suffer at work everyday? yeah, probably, actually. you don't even know why you bothered questioning that.

you glance at him, still holding the folder between your fingers. "are you trying to torture me to death? because it's working."

"it's work," he says simply, "don't get distracted."

you squint at him, "it's killing me, heeseung."

that earns you a soft smile that lasts for literally 0.2 seconds. heeseung taps the folder once with two fingers, "organise it like the last one you did." he adds.

you sigh dramatically. "you know, most bosses say ‘good morning’ first."

“good morning.” heeseung mumbles, making you tilt your head.

"that was still late."

"those files you're going to organise are about to be late too if you keep talking."

you clutch the folder tighter. "they won't-

but he’s already turning slightly away like the conversation is over.

"bring it to my office when you're done." heeseung says like it's an afterthought, back turned to you.

you freeze slightly. "again?"

he pauses just long enough to glance back at you. "again." and with that, he's gone, walking down the aisle back into his office.

rude, but fine. you had worn your shortest skirt, hoping heeseung would at least spare a glance toward you. a glance that didn't involve him assigning even more work with the flick of his wrist.

now you had to spend another three hours filling out stupid spreadsheets, or whatever was actually in this folder. you sigh, flipping open the page.

the fourth time you flirted with your boss, it’s because he called you into his office just to wordlessly fix his tie before a meeting.

you patter your knuckles against the door of heeseung's office gently. "sir?" using your free hand, you adjust and smooth the lines out of your skirt.

when there isn't a response, you open the door gently. that's usually what that meant, anyway. it was a usual for the two of you.

you step inside, taking in his office once again. his office is neat in that way that feels slightly scary. everything's been placed with intention, nothing out of place. he’s standing by his desk, jacket on, tie slightly uneven.

it isn't that noticeable, you just tend to stare at him a lot. heeseung doesn’t look at you right away.

you clear your throat softly, catching your attention. "you called for me?"

he turns to you, features conveying a look of frustration. "fix this." he says only two words with zero explanation, but you understand almost immediately.

you blink, "..your tie?"

heeseung looks at you like you've asked him something obvious. "yes."

you hesitate, but realise he's the one who asked. you step forward, because apparently this is your job now.

you reach up carefully, fingers catching the knot of his tie. it’s already half done, like he rushed it or did it without caring.

you start by undoing it, re-aligning it entirely. heeseung's gaze drops, not to your face, but to your hands - watching your every move. you feel an immediate shift in the air.

"this feels like something you could do yourself." you murmur, trying hard not to mess his tie up as you keep the mood light.

"..i don't actually know how to tie a tie." heeseung admits, making your hands stop.

you glance up at him, "what?"

heeseung doesn’t even look embarrassed. if anything, he looks mildly inconvenienced at having admitted it out loud. "i never learned," he says simply.

"you're actually lying."

"i’m not."

"heeseung, you wear a tie almost every day." you say, genuinely flabbergasted.

"someone usually does it for me."

you squint your eyes, confused on 'who' this could possibly be. was he actually wifed up and this whole time you had been flirting with a married man? that made sense as to why he would never reciprocate. or maybe he just wasn't into you.

no but, if he was married you'd definitely know. there was no way jay or jake wouldn't have brought it up by now.

"..someone?" you mumble quietly, trying to keep this casual.

"stylists. assistants." he pauses. "sometimes jake."

oh thank god. he was the most single somebody could be, for sure. you smooth your expression immediately, pretending the question meant absolutely nothing, just professional curiosity.

you nearly laugh directly in his face, but you hold back for your own sake. you weren't trying to be assigned the workload of the entire team. "oh my god."

heeseung watches you carefully now, expression still composed, but there’s the faintest hint of annoyance underneath it. "what?"

"nothing," you say immediately, absolutely lying. "it’s just very hard to process that you don’t know how to tie a tie."

"you seem to be deeply affected by this."

"i am." you tighten the knot properly, smoothing the fabric down again. "this changes my entire perception of you."

"you're being dramatic," heeseung says making you scoff, but the sound comes out weaker than actually intended because you suddenly become aware of how close you are to him, catching the faint scent of cologne every time he exhales.

your fingers are still curled loosely around the fabric of his tie, brushing against the collar of his shirt as you straighten it carefully. your heel shifts slightly against the floor as you try not to think about the fact that if you tilted your head up even a little more, you'd be directly in his space.

which, technically, you already are, but like, you'd actually be able to kiss him. your eyes linger on his lips for way too long, and he definitely notices. heeseung's gaze shifts downwards, catching yours in the process. you smile, and he looks away, jaw tightening once as his eyes move toward the window beside his desk instead.

heeseung has never been the one to shy away like that. usually he'd just ignore all of your advances. your fingers tighten around the tie accidentally before you let go completely, stepping back casually.

you got a reaction from him this time.

"..done?" he asks, and you nod.

"mhm." you hum. heeseung finally looks back at you, one hand lifting to adjust the knot slightly where your fingers had just touched.

your gaze lifts again, and heeseung sighs quietly through his nose, like you’re the most exhausting part of his workday. "i have a meeting in five minutes."

"and?" you lean against his table lightly, smiling at him innocently.

"and you should go back to work."

"wow," you murmur dramatically. "using me for my tie-abilities and then discarding me?"

"you’re still on company time." he mumbles, but you don't miss the flush on his cheeks.

bingo! your boss really was into you. it isn't obvious, not in the way you were hoping for, not some dramatic giveaway, but it's definitely there if you're paying attention.

and you are absolutely paying attention.

you tilt your head slightly, practically screaming 'fuck me' eyes, watching him with a type of satisfaction you don't bother hiding. "you know," you say softly, "you’re really bad at hiding things."

heeseung's eyes flick up immediately, and you can practically see him having heart palpitations. who knew your stone-cold boss would fold over something as easy as that?

"go back to your desk," he dismisses you again, steadier this time. when he sees you inching closer, he does a complete one-eighty as he speed walks out of his own office.

your jaw drops. what the fuck?? heeseung, get back here!

you don't bother chasing though. now that you knew how heeseung truly felt, you had him wrapped around your finger.

he had it coming.

the next day you walk into the office, it's a friday.

which is usually a good day. lighter workloads, less tension, and maybe even the rare sight of your colleagues having fun before going home for the weekend.

and you of all people were going to have a good day. heeseung wasn't slipping from your hands again. not when you were going to actively pursue him in the actual shortest skirt you owned. not after the tie incident.

you're halfway through the lobby, eyes half focused on your phone as you scroll through unread notifications, when-

bang!

you nearly let out a blood curdling scream.

your entire body jolts violently as you whip around toward the source of the noise.

jungwon is standing near the reception desk, holding a stack of papers, looking mildly alarmed. the metal sign knocked straight onto the floor was the source of the noise.

when he notices you looking, he offers a smile and a wave. "good morning!"

you stare at him in complete disbelief, one hand pressed against your chest. "jungwon," you speak slowly, "you scared me, holy shit."

his eyebrows lift, "from a sign falling?"

"it's metal! it sounded like a gunshot." you walk over, bending down to pick it up.

jungwon crouches slightly too, reaching for the other side. "you're being dramatic."

before you can argue further, footsteps pass behind the two of you.

"cute skirt."

you whip your head around, glancing up instinctively. sunghoon is walking past with an iced coffee in one hand, slowing just enough to glance at you over his shoulder.

your brain malfunctions for a second, "..ah. thanks." you offer him a smile. at least someone thought you looked nice.

sunghoon gestures vaguely toward you with the coffee cup, "the colour suits you." then he walks off, heading into the direction of the cubicles.

you straighten slowly, still holding the metal sign. "wow."

jungwon looks between you and sunghoon’s disappearing figure, before landing back on you finally. "what happened to bagging the boss?"

you narrow your eyes at jungwon, patting down said cute skirt, "what are you talking about?"

jungwon smirks smugly. it would be adorable if it weren't in circumstances like this. "you should've known better than to tell jake and jay.

your stomach drops instantly. "..they told you?"

"they told everyone."

your jaw drops. what the hell?? you were going to kill park jongseong and sim jaeyun as soon as you found those two. "what are they even saying? and who have they told?"

jungwon laughs at your expression, putting down the stack of papers on the reception desk. "relax. i was kidding." he reassures, "only like, a few people know."

he lifts his hand, counting on his fingers with each name.

"jake, jay, sunghoon, sunoo-oh! and that junior, ni-ki."

"..even the junior knows?" you want to collapse directly onto the lobby floor.

jungwon tilts his head. "to be fair, he figured it out by himself."

"literally, HOW?" you exclaim, frustrated. were you seriously that obvious around heeseung?

"uh, cause you stare like you're in some office k-drama? duh." he sasses, which you do not appreciate.

you scoff, "i do not."

jungwon shrugs, "okay, secretary kim."

you roll your eyes, “secretary kim ended up pulling young-joon, though. so is this a sign?”

“you wish.”

“okay, bet you $50 i can pull heeseung.” you declare, making jungwon raise his eyebrows in shock.

“okay, fine. $50.” you reach out your hand, shaking on it.

then, he straightens his posture and widens his eyes slightly in the worst imitation of you imaginable.

"..heeseung," he mocks your voice, pretending to be you. "wow..your tie looks really nice today.." he places a hand over his chest, "did you get a haircut? you look so handsome and emotionally unavailable this morning."

eyes widening, you clasp a hand over his mouth, effectively shutting him up. "oh my god - i do not talk like that."

"good morning." your entire body goes stiff. you remove your hand from jungwon's face, turning your head.

heeseung is standing there, watching the two of you with a blank face. apparently when jungwon was busy humiliating you, heeseung must've arrived to work. his expression is calm as ever, one hand resting loosely in his pocket while the other still holds his phone. heeseung was so hard to read like this.

jungwon immediately straightens. "morning, heeseung."

you push a smile on your face, "morning, sir." heeseung's gaze travels from jungwon to you.

"..why do you look so stressed already?" he asks, voice flat.

jungwon physically bites the inside of his cheek to stop himself from laughing.

you point at him immediately. "he’s harassing me."

heeseung glances over to jungwon with an expression that screams 'i don't believe her whatsoever', so you expect a scolding.

but no.

"jungwon."

jungwon straightens immediately, "yes?"

heeseung's tone stays flat, "you’re not on break."

jungwon blinks in surprise, "i'm literally just talking-"

"you’re supposed to be at reception processing those files," he cuts in, nodding once toward the stack still sitting on the desk. "not standing here causing problems before nine a.m."

hooray! heeseung actually took your side.

jungwon looks betrayed instantly. "i am processing them." his gaze flicks to you, and you stick your tongue out.

jungwon notices immediately, shaking his head like he's re-thinking his life choices. he tightens his grip on the stack of files. "unbelievable." with that, he turns away, walking off.

you're silently cheering in your head when heeseung turns to you next. "you aren't on break either," he nods his chin toward the elevator, "go work."

you pout, "but sir, i have nothing to do."

heeseung looks like he's about to scold you for the use of 'sir', but he doesn't. "you always have something to do," he says simply.

"nope." you shake your head, "jay and i finished the meeting pack preparation." you flash him a smile, way too enthusiastic for someone at work.

you look down for a second, remembering you're wearing the skirt. yoy glance back up, analysing his face. come on, heeseung. at least acknowledge it!

his eyes flick down for half a second, but it's not enough for you to read his expression. "..good." he coughs slightly, clearing his throat. "go help ni-ki, then."

your lips straighten in a frown. "seriously?"

"serious as i can be." you stare at him, and he stares back.

"go. he needs help with formatting." with a huff, you nod.

"fine, fine. see you, sir." you smile, walking past him. behind you, heeseung exhales a sigh of relief through his nose. this was going to be a long day.

when you reach the far end of the office, the atmosphere is completely different from the loud lobby. it's quiet, the kind of quiet that makes every keyboard click sound louder than it should. you can even hear your flats click against the floor with each step.

you scan the desks. ni-ki is lazily seated sideways in an office chair, one leg bouncing softly against the floor, eyes fixed on the monitor.

he doesn't even look at you. "if this is about the formatting issue again, i already fixed it three times." okay, sassy.

you pause beside his desk. "wow," you say. "thanks for the warm welcome."

ni-ki glances up, properly this time. his expression shifts immediately, a slight tinge of confusion before recognition. "oh, you're the help."

"you don't seem very happy to see me." wheeling a nearby chair over, you sit next to him.

he leans back slightly, squinting at you, "trust me. i'm glad it's you and not someone else."

you raise an eyebrow, "oh, spill?"

ni-ki leans down, then tilts his head toward the rest of the office, lowering his voice slightly like it’s classified information or something. "..he sent jake last time, and he 'fixed' it by making it worse."

honestly, that sounded in character. jake was lazy when it came to spreadsheets. "seems like him." you shrug, "so, if you're so good at this, why does heeseung think you need help?"

"he doesn’t think i need help," he says.

you hum. "sounds like he does."

"no," ni-ki corrects, dragging a hand through his hair. "he thinks i need supervision."

"that's probably worst, in all honesty." you snort softly. "that sounds like a polite way of saying you ruin files."

ni-ki points at you immediately. "exactly. see? you get it."

"are you always at the back here? i never see you around front anymore."

"it's better around here. the only person who comes back here is sunoo." your eyes widen. so that's where sunoo kept disappearing off to."

you tap your chin in thought as ni-ki continues clicking through the spreadsheet.

"say, ni-ki." you call, making him glance up at you.

"what?"

you lean forward a little in your chair, "jungwon said something about you earlier."

ni-ki raises an eyebrow, but for the most part he looks uncaring. "said what?"

"keep it a secret." you hold out your pinky.

in which he rolls his eyes as he exhales through his nose like he's already tired of you, but he still shifts his chair a little closer. "you're weird," he mutters, but intertwines his pinky with yours, reluctantly.

you brighten immediately. "okay. so jungwon said you know things about me and heeseung."

"it's hard to miss." he says simply, "i just notice patterns."

you lean forward slightly, still keeping your pinkies linked, "okay then. what patterns?"

"well for starters," he says, "you’re the only one that doesn’t get in trouble for slacking."

you scoff immediately. "you must be joking."

ni-ki finally glances at you, expression flat. "i’m not."

you lean back in your chair slightly. "i literally got sent down here as punishment."

"yeah, and that's a punishment for you? he made me clean the entire storage room when i submitted something late." ni-ki's words make you pause. sure, you already knew heeseung was attracted to you, but special treatment too? awe.

you let go of ni-ki's pinky. "done?" he asks, finally glancing at you.

you clear your throat quickly, snapping back into focus. "right, yeah."

ni-ki shrugs. "it was dusty."

"that’s your takeaway?"

"i don’t like dust."

"fair."

"when are you meant to leave?"

you blink, "leave?"

"from here," he clarifies. "this task."

you glance at the spreadsheet. then back at him. "when it’s done."

he hums like that’s obvious.

"take your time."

hours pass, and you've felt like you've been able to bond with your junior very well, actually. he was entertaining, and was great at multi-tasking. ni-ki was able to keep full-fledged conversations with you while he did his work.

even sunoo came over at some point, pulling up a chair as he sits down with the two of you.

working here was way better than in the cubicles with those idiots. you glance around the quieter section of the office. there are much fewer interruptions, less noise, no one hovering over your shoulder every five minutes. cough cough, jake.

you're mid-conversation with sunoo, standing behind him as the two of you watch something on the monitor together. it feels comfortable as the two of you laugh at something.

"no, wait, pause it again," you say, breathless. "i swear that’s not what he meant to do."

which is exactly why you don't notice the foot steps behind you. ni-ki notices, but you and sunoo don't, still obliviously talking. there's a call of sunoo's name that makes the two of you snap your head back.

sunoo straightens so fast, "oh hi, heeseung."

you slowly let your hands drop from the back of sunoo’s chair like you just got caught committing a crime.

"go home. the day's over, anyway." sunoo nods immediately, standing up as he walks back to his cubicle immediately. ni-ki exhales softly like he’s relieved it’s not him.

damn, you were getting a lot of people in trouble today. oops.

you take a small step back too, ready to follow sunoo back to your own cubicle.

heeseung takes one look at you, "you." he says simply.

you flash him a smile, "..me?"

"go to my office." he says, voice flat. is he mad?

you hesitate, but nod. "right… okay."

he walks past you, checking whatever's on ni-ki's monitor. probably double checking to see if everything's correct. you can hear heeseung dismiss ni-ki home too, eavesdropping. when you realise their conversation is over you speed-walk toward heeseung's office.

you see sunoo, and he waves you goodbye, mouthing a 'good luck'. you nod, waving to him as well. you can see heeseung's office door now. reaching it, you pause for a second. it's the same as usual - neat.

you step inside, closing the door behind you. you’re unsure of whether you should sit or stand. you opt on sitting, taking a seat on his chair.

you wait a few minutes, clicking your heel against the carpet gently. the office genuinely sounded dead outside. was heeseung just wasting your time?

you sigh, standing up and walking toward the door. your fingers curl around the knob, about to open it but it’s pushed open - nearly knocking you onto the floor.

heeseung stands in the doorway, face expressionless. he stares at you, before stepping inside and closing the door behind him.

“sir,” you call out, pitching your voice up the slightest. “are you upset-“

“do you always have to open your mouth?” heeseung pinches the bridge of his nose, irritated. you blink in surprise, shutting your mouth.

once he opens his mouth and realises you’ve actually obeyed, he doesn’t say anything. taking a seat on his chair, he leans back.

“come here.” you look at him, and he looks dead serious. you nod, walking over. you’re standing in front of him now, a confused expression on your face.

heeseung looks up at you with a sigh. “bend over.” your eyes widen.

“what?”

“i said, bend over.” he taps his thigh once, and you get the idea. okay, sure. you move almost a little too eagerly, tripping on heeseung’s foot - but that was clearly planted there on purpose.

your knees hit the floor, definitely bruising as you let out a soft hiss of pain. “why-“

heeseung’s fingers grab your jaw, fingers digging into the skin of your cheeks as you kneel. “stop talking.”

you shut up, nodding. he lets go of your face, leaning back. “clean my shoe.”

your eyebrows furrows in confusion. clean his what? his shoe? with what, a handkerchief? you reach in your pocket, trying to find the small pack of tissues you keep but he nudges your arm with his foot. “with your mouth.”

oh. so he was kinky like that. you look at him, “..are you serious?”

heeseung stares back at you, gaze more intense than you’ve ever seen before. “does it look like i’m joking?” good point.

you don’t answer. instead, you kneel further down, opening your mouth as you lick the base of his shoe. that first swipe of your tongue sent shivers down your spine.

you gag a little in disgust, but then you remembered who the shoe belongs to. the hottest guy you’ve probably ever seen in your life.

so, you persevere, licking another stripe of his shoe, nearing the lace now. you glance up, and heeseung’s just staring down at you, face expressionless. “..did i say you were done?”

you shake your head, “..no, sir.” you lean back down, an embarrassed flush on your cheeks as you unfortunately lick his shoe again, tongue cleaning the side this time. in the worst way possible, you could literally feel your pussy clenching around nothing right now and it was because of the most degrading act ever.

after a few more swipes of your tongue, heeseung lets up. “stop.” you obey, sitting back up, hands on your knees as if waiting for his next command.

heeseung looks down at you, and you feel pathetic - a little. his gaze is scrutinising. he taps his thighs again, making your gaze avert to there. “sit.”

you stand up immediately, straddling his hips. you lean in for a kiss, but he swerves it. embarrassing.

heeseung says your name condescendingly, “you haven’t earnt that privilege.” you feel the wetness in your panties pool at that.

“..how can i?” you murmur, glancing at him.

“you can kiss me if you can make yourself cum just like this.” heeseung says, leaning back in his chair. you scoff, that was easy. just looking into his eyes could probably make you cum.

heeseung raises an eyebrow at your scoff, but you don’t elaborate. “..okay.” and so with that, you move your hips, grinding your clothed cunt right against his thigh. despite the fabric separating the two of you, the heat emanating from your core is unimaginable.

heeseung doesn’t touch you for the most part. his hand travels down your back, fingers tingling your spine as he looks at you, eyes dark. despite knowing you should feel embarrassed, you can’t. this is what you’ve been waiting for, after all.

as you keep grinding, you can feel his dick harden through his dress pants - heeseung refuses to acknowledge it though. you continue grinding, hands on his shoulders as you practically hump his thigh, begging for release.

you bury your face into his shoulder, panting into his ear. heeseung pushes your hair back, pressing open-mouthed kisses along the nape of your neck.

it’s when his hand travels further down your back and onto your ass. heeseung spanks your clothed butt once, and you orgasm just from that, letting out a soft moan. fingers tangle themselves in the back of your hair, pulling you away from his shoulder.

“there’s no way you came just from that.” heeseung mocks, almost holding back a laugh. you’re about to defend yourself, but heeseung speaks again. “but then again, we both know that this is what you wanted, right? to be bent over my desk like a cheap whore, desperate for me to fuck you?”

your cheeks heat up, hands pressing against his chest. “if i say yes, will you do exactly that?”

heeseung scoffs. “you seriously have no shame at all. get up.” you scramble to your feet, thighs shaky.

he stands up after you, bending you right over his desk. you whimper when your face hits his table a little roughly but it’s whatever. a hand trails down, going underneath your skirt. heeseung cups your pussy with his hand, shoving your panties to the side.

“you’re seriously this wet with this sort of treatment?” he sounds surprised, despite his tone still being flat. his hand delivers a sharp spank to your cunt, making you whimper softly.

leaning down, his mouth is next to your ear. “you seriously think i didn’t notice you wearing those tiny skirts all the time?” he roughly pushes your skirt up, slapping the fat of your ass hard. a pained moan leaves your lips.

“..you never said anything about it breaking dress-code, so i think you liked it.” you mumble out, grinning. he hits your rear again, wiping that smugness off your face instantly.

“so that means you dress like a whore for everyone to see?” heeseung mocks, tilting his head. “might as well show up to the entire office naked. i’m sure they’d all love to see that.” his palm strikes down again, making you choke. he hits hard, for sure.

“i was dressing like that for you-“ you stutter out, choking on a sob. “not anyone else.” heeseung yanks you back up with full force, holding your arms against your back. your back is pressed against his chest, making you dizzy at the proximity. this way you can feel his dick poking you through his pants.

“nobody asked you to do that though, did they?” he kisses your nape again.

you nod your head in agreement, “n-no, they didn’t.”

“good. are you finally learning your place?” heeseung’s hands travel down, going back underneath your skirt as he hooks his fingers on the waistband of your panties. he drags them down with ease, and you step out of them.

“i can.”

“you can?” heeseung mumbles behind you, fingers ghosting your slit. his index finger travels your entrance before finally pushing in - going knuckle deep immediately. you choke.

“i’m not giving you an option.” he sits back down on his chair, pulling you back onto his lap with him. he spreads your thighs with ease, before sliding another finger into your cunt.

“i think i’ve been way too lenient with you.” he whispers into your ear as he pumps his fingers in and out, his thumb circling your sensitive clit.

you let out a shaky breath, “h-how so?” a soft whimper leaves your lips when he hits the back of your walls. his fingers go a bit deeper, hitting your g-spot, and effectively making your toes curl. your walls are literally clenching onto his long digits, unable to let them go.

“well, for starters.” he shoves another finger in, making you squirm. “you act like you own the place, and how does that make me look as a boss?” with one more slide of his middle finger, you cream all over his wrist, your back arching into him.

“stupid slut.” he mumbles, “you’re seriously not good for anything apart from cumming, hm?” heeseung lets you rest on him as you catch your breath, kissing the side of your temple.

you pant, distracted. how has this man made you cum twice already? “y-yeah, not good for anything else..”

heeseung makes you stand, bending you back over his desk again. he lifts the back flap of your skirt, and you hear fabric rustling. he grabs your hands, pulling them against your back as he wraps something around them.

you turn your head and see him tying his tie around your wrists. you turn your head back, cheek flat against the wood of the table. there’s a sound of an unzip, and you feel the head of his cock press against your sopping cunt.

he’s sliding it against your slit, not penetrating it. “..what are you waiting for?” you turn around, frustrated. you try buck your hips back, in which heeseung spanks your ass, making you gasp in surprise.

“beg for it.” heeseung scoffs, making you whine.

“are you serious?” you groan. when there’s no respond from his end you know the answer. “please, please, fuck me.” heeseung doesn’t budge.

you try buck your hips back, but heeseung grabs both of your hips with his hands, crescents digging into the soft flesh making you whimper.

“sir, please fuck me. i’ll be a good girl, just please.” tears well up in your eyes from the frustration of the lack of freedom and movement.

the tip of heeseung’s dick slides smoothly across your slick folds, making you whine deliciously. one hand drops from your hip, and before you know it, you’re impaled onto his dick in one go, his pelvis flat against his ass. your cunt struggles with the intrusion, walls fluttering to accommodate his length. you don’t miss the whimper that leaves his lips when he buries himself to the hilt.

you choke, burying your face into the hard desk, which isn’t comforting at all. he pulls out halfway, before slamming back in - letting out a soft hiss at the sensation of your velvety walls around his shaft dragging him back in.

his fingers dig into the soft flesh of your ass, kneading roughly as he holds you flush against him. “..you’ve been such a needy little thing all week, haven't you?”

a hand wraps around your throat from behind, pulling you closer to him. “just begging for my attention. you’re pathetic.” his other hand moves to your hip, holding you in place as he starts thrusting again, each snap of his hips bruising the back of your thighs.

“c-cause you always ignore me,” you gasp out.

“ignore you? please. i’m giving you exactly what you deserve.” he punctuates his words with a particularly hard thrust, grinding his pelvis against your ass. “tell me you’re going to start acting normally from now on.”

you feel your eyes roll to the back of your head as his dick grinds into your sweet spot, hitting the x marker. “i..” you whimper, “i’ll start acting normally..”

“good girl.” heeseung grabs your jaw, angling you toward him as he kisses you, swallowing your moans and whimpers. pulling back, he looks at you with hooded eyes, his pupils blown wide.

his thumb finds your clit, circling the sensitive nerve. “you’re gonna cum right?” heeseung leans closer to you, watching the way your cunt spasms around his cock.

you nod, “please.” you just automatically assume he’s going to take it away from you, “please, let me cum.”

“you can cum.” heeseung punctuates his words with shallow thrusts, the thick head of his cock kissing your cervix with each movement. his thumb doubles down, applying pressure. you can barely stand anymore, heeseung’s the only thing keeping you up right as your legs tremble.

with a flick of his fingers, you gush around his cock, eyes rolling to the back of your skull. heeseung clamps a hand over your mouth before you can release any loud sounds, just in case someone was still lingering in the office.

heeseung pulls out before he cums himself, forcing you back onto your knees. before you can process what’s happening, he’s already pressing the head of his dick onto your lips.

pressing a soft kiss to his tip, you open your mouth obediently, wrapping your mouth around his shaft. heeseung’s hands tangle themselves in your hair, creating a makeshift ponytail as he controls the pace, moving your head back and forth.

he whimpers when he hits the back of your throat, feeling you gag around his length. “s-shit, right there.” you can’t breathe, nose firmly pressed against his pelvis but it’s okay. the expression on his face right now makes up for any sort of discomfort you could possibly be in.

heeseung starts jerking his hips slightly, hitting the back of your throat constantly. you gag again, tears welling up in your eyes, as well as drool escaping the corners of your mouth to dribble down your chin.

with one more thrust of his hips, he cums down your throat. it’s bitter, but you can barely taste it by the time it’s down your esophagus anyway. he’s panting softly, tucking his dick back into his pants. once he’s done, he starts combing your hair down gently with his fingers.

kneeling down, he wipes any liquid on your face with a tissue. “..was i too rough?”

you’re panting, and dazed, but you shake your head. “n-no. fuck me like that again.”

heeseung sighs, it kind of sounds like one of relief but you can’t tell. “come on, get dressed. i’ll take you home.”

“..i can’t stand up.”

on monday when you come in, the first thing you do is look for jungwon.

and you find him almost immediately, standing near the reception desk. he notices you, of course he does, his expression shifting into one of suspicion.

"oh, hey." jungwoon greets, smiling. you stop right in front of him.

"$50," you say.

jungwon tilts his head, "what?"

"you owe me $50."

his eyebrows lift immediately, "no I don’t."

"oh, you absolutely do."

jungwon turns to face you, "for what?"

"you said I couldn’t pull heeseung."

there's a pause as jungwon just stares at you. "..i said you couldn't-"

"you lost." you cut in immediately.

he exhales, sighing like he's rethinking every single financial decision he's ever made. "i hate this job," he mutters.

you brighten instantly, "..so $50?"

jungwon glares at you, "..i'll transfer it later."

you nod once, satisfied. "good."

this prompt has been sitting in my drafts for ages icl so i finally decided to finish it💔💔

⟢ dirty secrets by @prkhaven ⋮ wc 28.2k ♯ smut, sister’s boyfriend!jake, inexperienced reader, forbidden love

⟢ sweet like candy by @bambiihee ⋮ wc 4k ♯ smut, friends to lovers, roommates, virgin!reader, experienced!jake

⟢ i don't wanna be just friends by @heejamas ⋮ wc 28k ♯ smut, friends to lovers, college au, pet play, extreme horniness

⟢ responsible guy by @heejamas ⋮ wc 13k ♯ smut, office au, coworkers to lovers, romcom, daddy kink

⟢ complementary pt.1 + pt.2 by @heegyukeluv ⋮ wc 27k + 13k ♯ smut, brother's best friend, tutor!jake

⟢ jake teasing reader by @jakeyswifeblog ⋮ wc ??k ♯ smut, brat tamer!jake, just pure smut

⟢ call me when you hate me less by @jaylaxies ⋮ wc 18.3k ♯ smut, angst, rich footballer jake, tutor!reader

⟢ chemistry pt.1 + pt.2 + pt.3 + ? by @starryjake ⋮ wc 11.5k + 6K + 4.8k ♯ smut, best friend's ex!jake, toxicity, angsty

⟢ clueless by @jaysbaefie ⋮ wc 11.7k ♯ smut, best friends to lovers, hard dom!jake, oblivious reader

⟢ procrastination killer by @p2nyoreo ⋮ wc 3.6k ♯ smut, studdy buddies, sexy messy sex idk

⟢ the bet by @arlyxn ⋮ wc 16.8k ♯ smut, angsty, fluffy, inexperienced!reader x experienced!jake

sunghoon

⟢ inch by inch by @intromortal ⋮ wc 23.6k ♯ smut, brat tamer bick dick!sunghoon, overstimulation

niki

⟢ the neighbour and his cat by @enjakey ⋮ wc ??k ♯ smut, neighbours to lovers, niki has a kitty, very yummy couch scene

⟢ fuckboy!niki pt.1 + pt.2 by @enhani-ki ⋮ wc ??k ♯ smut, fuck boy niki tries to win you over

⟢ beg for it by @bimbobarbie4life ⋮ wc 7.6k ♯ smut, popular!reader x nerd!niki, mean dom!niki, tutoring, humiliation

⟢ student council president by @arlyxn ⋮ wc 10.9k ♯ smut, enemies to lovers, mean dom!niki, control and jealousy

·˚&TEAM

kei

⟢ neighbors by @starryjake ⋮ wc ??k ♯ smut, neighbours to lovers, divorced dilf!kei, daddy kink, honestly the only fic ever

⟢ break room by @starryjake ⋮ wc 8k ♯ smut, office au, cheating, coworkers to lovers

nicholas

⟢ intrigued and indulged by @nteamxdoor ⋮ wc 8.8k ♯ smut, strangers to lovers, bad boy!nicholas, college au

⟢ got your nails in my back by @wangweno ⋮ wc ??k ♯ smut, alpha werewolf!nicholas, knotting, sex in the forest

⟢ let us help by @pineappleonmyburger ⋮ wc 4.6k ♯ smut, nichojoo threesome, bsf euijoo and friend nicholas

⟢ chew toy by @iclimbjungwon ⋮ wc 1.6k ♯ smut, daddy kink, oral fixation

⟢ like a drug by @subbyrua ⋮ wc 4.3k ♯ smut, fuck boy!nicho, angst, comfort, good ending

⟢ body like gossip by @ikeukiss ⋮ wc 7k ♯ smut, frat boy!nicholas, angsty, situationship to lovers

⟢ tails the gangsta by @st4rstudd3d ⋮ wc 1.5k ♯ smut, wolf hybrid!nicholas, breeding, knotting and...piss...

⟢ spin the bottle by @starryjake ⋮ wc 5k ♯ smut, nichojoo threesome, bf!euijoo, mxm content

⟢ my moon, my man by @minhosimthings ⋮ wc 15k ♯ smut, princess!reader, knight!nicholas, themes of war, virginity loss

euijoo

⟢ needy by @lunegenic ⋮ wc 3k ♯ smut, established relationship, , needy!euijoo kitchen sex

⟢ just the two of us by @crdteezv ⋮ wc 4.3k ♯ smut, husband!euijoo, teasing

⟢ not like that by @joojeans ⋮ wc 14k ♯ smut, university au, dubcon, reader is hard to get

⟢ after party by @shyxcherry ⋮ wc 3k ♯ smut, frat boy!euijoo, established relationship, jealousy, slightly toxic euijjoo

⟢ poor girl by @starryjake ⋮ wc ??k ♯ smut, sick reader, praising, finger sucking

⟢ let us help by @pineappleonmyburger ⋮ wc 4.6k ♯ smut, nichojoo threesome, bsf euijoo and friend nicholas

⟢ spin the bottle by @starryjake ⋮ wc 5k ♯ smut, nichojoo threesome, bf!euijoo, mxm content

maki

⟢ naughty nights for niceness by @danisofair ⋮ wc 2.8k ♯ smut, hard dom maki, bratty!reader

⟢ fighter by @lunegenic ⋮ wc 4k ♯ smut, major flirt!maki, boxing, car sex

·˚RIIZE

shotaro

⟢ pretty girl discount by @01zfan ⋮ wc 4.9k ♯ smut, plug!shotaro, backshots

⟢ a simple favor by @abriizeyday ⋮ wc ?? ♯ smut, handyman!shotaro, neighbours, possible switch!shotaro?

anton

⟢ always yours by @imsosoheee ⋮ wc 4.8k ♯ smut, long distance bf!anton, angst, emotional make up sex

·˚TXT

soobin

⟢ distraction by @calumcxke ⋮ wc 9.1k ♯ smut, best friends to lovers, reader is scared of thunder, rough comfort sex

⟢ midnight spirit by @filmsbyun ⋮ wc 17k ♯ smut, strangers to lovers, festival guide!soobin, mutual pining, lantern festival

⟢ chapter seven by @monoceros-in-ink ⋮ wc 10k ♯ smut, puppy hybrid!reader, heat, overstimulation, cum play

⟢ dream team? more like cream team by @st4rstudd3d ⋮ wc 1k ♯ smut, best friends to lovers, confession, dry humping, cumming in pants

(๑ᵔ⤙ᵔ๑) these were just some fics i have saved in my notes app lol :p i will keep updating this list! i couldn't include everything since i can't find some users anymore sadly :( i will soon add recs for james as well! keep coming back to see my updates if you wanna :3

The campus café is a small, cozy establishment nestled between the student union and the art building. You have been here exactly twice before, both times with Yunjin, and both times you have spent more money on a single drink than you usually spend on an entire meal.

Today, the café is moderately busy. A few students hunch over laptops, a couple in the corner have what looks like a very intense conversation about something, and a barista with an impressive mustache wipes down the counter. The smell of espresso hangs in the air.

"Why don't you grab us a table?" Heeseung suggests, pulling out his wallet. "I'll order. What do you want?"

You blink at him. "You don't have to pay for me."

"I'm the one who invited you. It's the least I can do." He tilts his head, that curious expression settling over his features. "Consider it part of the starting slow thing. Coffee first, then maybe a meal, then eventually I'll work up to buying you a gift."

You don't know how to respond to that, so you just tell him your order: a vanilla latte, the most basic thing on the menu, and flee to a small table near the window before your face can betray you any further.

Okay, okay, okay. This is fine. This is manageable. You are just having coffee with Heeseung, the guy who thinks you confessed to him, the guy you have been actively trying to repel, the guy who starred in your extremely inappropriate dream three nights ago. This is fine. Everything is fine.

You watch him at the counter, chatting easily with the mustachioed barista like they are old friends. He laughs at something the barista says, and the sound carries across the café, warm and genuine. A group of girls at a nearby table glance over at him, then put their heads together and whisper. Heeseung doesn't seem to notice. Or if he does, he doesn't react, doesn't do any of the things you would expect from someone with his reputation.

It's infuriating.

A few minutes later, he walks toward your table with two cups in his hands. "One vanilla latte for the lady," he says, setting yours down with a flourish, "and one Americano for me. I got you an extra shot of vanilla. You seem like you could use it."

"I could use a lot of things," you mutter, wrapping your hands around the warm cup. "Vanilla is a start."

Heeseung settles into the chair across from you, his long legs stretching out under the table. "So," he says, "do you want to tell me why you were hiding behind a bulletin board earlier? Or should I just keep guessing? My current theory is that you're secretly a spy for a rival university and you're gathering intel on our science department."

"Your theory is wrong."

"Then what's the real reason?"

I was hiding from you, you don't say. I was hiding from you because I dreamed about you eating me out and now I can't look at your face without spontaneously combusting.

"I'm just… very committed to checking bulletin boards," you say instead. "There's a lot of important information on them. Club announcements. Study group postings. Lost and found notices. Someone lost a cat last week. Did you see that poster? Very sad. I hope they found the cat."

"You're doing it again."

"Doing what?"

"Rambling. You ramble when you're nervous." He takes a sip of his Americano, his eyes never leaving your face. "It's cute. But you don't have to be nervous around me, you know. I'm not going to bite."

The word "bite" should not make your stomach flip. It is a normal word. A mundane word. A word that people use in completely innocent contexts all the time. But your brain, still apparently haunted by the ghost of that dream, chooses to remind you of the part where Heeseung's lips trailed down to your collarbone, and suddenly you can't look at his mouth anymore.

"I'm not nervous," you lie. "I'm just… naturally like this. I'm a naturally weird person. This is my baseline."

"Your baseline is being weird?"

"Extremely weird. The weirdest. I once alphabetized my entire book collection by color instead of author name because I wanted to see what it would look like. It looked terrible. I kept it that way for three months."

Heeseung considers this. "That's not really weird. That's just… creative organizational choices."

"I also talk to my plants. All of them. Individually. I have a succulent named Jason and I tell him about my day."

"That's just being a good plant parent."

"I cannot snap my fingers. I've tried for nineteen years and I simply cannot do it. My fingers make no sound. It's like they're broken but specifically only for snapping purposes."

Heeseung smiles now, that same genuine smile that appeared in the cafeteria when you talked about League of Legends. "Okay, that one's a little weird. But in an endearing way."

Endearing. He called you endearing. This is not going according to plan.

"I should go get napkins," you say abruptly, pushing back your chair. "We need napkins. For the coffee. In case of spills. You can never be too prepared."

Heeseung glances at the napkin dispenser that is already sitting on the table between you. "We have napkins."

"These aren't… good napkins. I need the good ones. The thick ones. From the counter. I'll be right back."

You escape before he can protest, weaving through the tables toward the counter where the barista is busy steaming milk. You don't actually need napkins. You need a moment to breathe, to collect yourself, to remind your heart that it is supposed to be beating for Jungwon, not doing gymnastics every time Heeseung smiles at you.

The barista hands you a stack of napkins without you even having to ask. You clutch them to your chest like a shield and turn back toward your table.

Heeseung is watching you, his chin propped on his hand, his expression soft and curious and completely unguarded. The afternoon light from the window catches the angles of his face, the sweep of his hair, the slight quirk of his lips. He looks like a painting. He looks like something you would pin to a Pinterest board titled "dream boyfriend" and then immediately feel bad about because no real person should look that good while just sitting in a café.

You start walking back toward the table, your mind a whirlwind of panic and confusion and the desperate need to get through this interaction without making a bigger fool of yourself.

And then your foot catches on the leg of a chair.

It happens in slow motion. One moment you are walking, your napkins clutched to your chest, your eyes fixed on Heeseung. The next moment your toe hooks around a wrought-iron chair leg that is sticking out slightly from a nearby table, and your body pitches forward, and the napkins fly out of your hands, and the coffee, dear God, the coffee who's sitting on the table gets knocked off and sloshes out of your cup in a great wave.

Time speeds up again. You hit the floor with a thud that rattles your teeth, and the coffee hits you approximately 0.3 seconds later, soaking through your sweater and your jeans and possibly your very soul. The liquid is still warm, not scalding but definitely not pleasant, and it is everywhere, on your clothes, on your hands, dripping from the ends of your hair, pooling on the floor around you in a sad, beige puddle.

The café goes silent.

You sit there, on the floor, covered in your own vanilla latte, and stare at the puddle spreading beneath you. The napkins have scattered across the tiles like confetti, completely useless now. A drip of coffee rolls down your forehead and off the tip of your nose.

This is it. This is the moment you finally break. All the stress of the past week, the letter, the misunderstanding, the dream, the bulletin board incident has been building toward this, and now, sitting in a puddle of expensive café coffee with every eye in the establishment fixed on you, you feel the tears prick at the corners of your eyes.

You are going to cry. You are going to cry in front of Heeseung and the mustachioed barista and the couple in the corner and those girls who have been whispering about Heeseung earlier. You are going to cry, and there is absolutely nothing you can do to stop it.

But then you look down at your hands, and you realize something.

His coffee. The Americano. The cup who's been next to yours, you have managed, in the chaos of your fall, to keep it upright by holding it. Your arm lifted it above your head at the last second, some primal survival instinct kicking in to protect the beverage that isn't even yours, and the Americano is still sitting perfectly intact in its cup, not a single drop spilled.

You are covered in latte. Your sweater is ruined. Your dignity is in shambles. But his coffee is safe.

"I saved yours," you say, your voice coming out as a croak. You hold up the Americano like a trophy, your arm trembling slightly. "Look. I saved yours."

Heeseung is already out of his chair, already crouching beside you, his expression shifting from shock to concern to something else entirely, something soft and wondering and absolutely devastating.

"You saved my coffee," he repeats.

"It was a reflex. I don't know why. I don't even like you that much. I mean, I like you a normal amount. A regular amount. The amount you're supposed to like someone you accidentally-" You stop yourself before you can say more. "I saved your coffee."

Heeseung stares at you for a long moment. Then, very deliberately, he reaches out and takes the Americano from your hand. He looks at you, covered in vanilla latte, sitting in a puddle on the café floor, your glasses askew and your hair dripping.

And then he pours his own coffee over his head.

Just… tips the cup over and lets the dark liquid cascade down his hair, over his forehead, along the sharp bridge of his nose, soaking into the collar of his black hoodie and leaving trails of coffee across his skin.

You gape at him. The entire café gapes at him.

"What-" you start, but your voice has stopped working.

Heeseung sets the empty cup down with a quiet click and smiles at you, a warm, genuine, completely unhinged smile that makes your heart do a full backflip inside your chest.

"Now we match," he says.

You can't speak. You can't think. You can only stare at him, this absurd, beautiful, incomprehensible boy who has just poured coffee on himself in the middle of a crowded café for no other reason than to make you feel less alone in your humiliation.

"But… your hoodie," you manage. "Your hair. The floor. The-"

"I have other hoodies. My hair will dry. And the floor can be mopped." He reaches out and gently straightens your glasses, which have gone crooked during your fall. His fingers brush against your temple, feather-light. "You looked like you were about to cry. I couldn't let you cry alone."

"Alone?" Your voice cracks. "You couldn't let me cry alone?"

"I mean, ideally you wouldn't cry at all. But if you are going to cry, I figure I should give you company. Solidarity in humiliation, you know?" He's still smiling, still crouching in front of you, still covered in Americano like it is the most normal thing in the world. "We make a pretty good pair of disasters, don't you think?"

Your heart flips. It doesn't flutter. It doesn't skip a beat. It does a full, acrobatic, Olympic-level flip inside your chest, and you feel the sensation reverberate through your entire body.

Why is he like this?

Why is Lee Heeseung, reputed womanizer, notorious player, the guy everyone warns you about, sitting on the floor of a café covered in his own coffee just to make you feel better about spilling yours? Why is he looking at you like that, with those dark, gentle eyes, like you are something precious instead of the absolute disaster you clearly are?

You don't know. You don't understand. And the not understanding is starting to become a problem, because every time you think you have Heeseung figured out, he goes and does something like this, and your careful mental categories crumble a little more.

"We should probably…" You gesture vaguely at your coffee-soaked selves. "Clean up. Or something."

"Probably," Heeseung agrees. He stands up and offers you his hand, his coffee-stained, still-damp hand and you have no choice but to take it. His grip is warm and solid, and he pulls you to your feet with an ease that suggests you weigh nothing at all. "There's a student services office around the corner. They keep spare t-shirts for emergencies. We could both use a change of clothes."

You look down at your sweater, which is now more latte-colored than its original blue. "That's… probably a good idea."

Heeseung pulls out his wallet and drops several bills on the nearest table, far more than the cost of two coffees with a nod to the mustachioed barista. "For the mess," he says. "Sorry about the floor."

The barista nods slowly, his expression suggesting he has seen many things in his years at the café but has never quite witnessed anything like this.

And then Heeseung guides you out of the café, his hand hovering at the small of your back but not quite touching, and you walk through the student union in matching coffee-stained clothes like the world's most unfortunate pair of twins.

The student services office is a small, cluttered room tucked into a corner of the union building. It is staffed by a perpetually exhausted-looking graduate student who has clearly seen too much in his years of dealing with student emergencies. When you and Heeseung walk in, dripping coffee and smelling like a coffee explosion, he doesn't even blink.

"Coffee incident?" he asks flatly.

"Yes," Heeseung says.

"Both of you?"

"I'm told we match now."

The student stares at him for a long moment, then sighs with the weariness of someone who long ago stopped questioning the absurdities of university life. "We have spare t-shirts in the back. They're not fashionable. They have the university logo on them. You don't get to complain about the design."

"We wouldn't dream of it," Heeseung says.

The student disappears into a back room and emerges a moment later with two folded shirts. They are, as promised, aggressively unfashionable, a mustard yellow color with the university mascot printed on the front in peeling letters. Beneath the mascot are the words "Embrace the process!"

"These are incredible," Heeseung says, holding up his shirt with genuine delight. "I'm keeping this forever."

"The bathrooms are down the hall," the student says, already turning back to his computer. "Please don't track coffee into them. I just had the floors cleaned."

You and Heeseung change in separate bathrooms, and when you emerge, you are confronted with the sight of Heeseung wearing a mustard-yellow shirt that is slightly too small for him, the fabric stretching across his shoulders in a way that is definitely not doing things to your heart. The coffee has been wiped off his face, but his hair is still damp, curling slightly at the ends, and the combination of the terrible shirt and the wet hair and the ridiculously attractive face is so absurd that you actually laugh out loud.

"What?" Heeseung asks, grinning. "Do I look as good as I think I do?"

"You look like you traded shirts with a child."

"A very fashionable child. This slogan will hype me up for my next exam." He looks you over, his eyes crinkling. "You don't look half bad yourself. Yellow's a good color on you."

You are wearing the exact same shirt. You look like a banana. But Heeseung says it like he means it, and you feel that traitorous flutter in your chest again.

"We should go," you say, because standing in a hallway with Heeseung while wearing ridiculous matching shirts is doing something strange to your brain chemistry. "I have… I need to… there's a thing…"

"The mysterious thing," Heeseung says. "Your nemesis. Your arch-enemy. The eternal obstacle to us spending more time together."

"It's a very busy thing. It takes up a lot of my schedule."

"Right." He is still smiling, still looking at you with that soft, curious expression. "Well, before you run off to your very important thing, let me walk you to-"

"There you are, Heeseung! I've been looking everywhere for-"

The voice comes from the end of the hallway, and you know that voice. You know it the way you know your own heartbeat, the way you know the lyrics to every Ariana Grande song, the way you know that vanilla lattes are now your mortal enemy.

Jungwon walks toward you, his phone in his hand and a slight frown on his face, like he has been searching for Heeseung for a while. He looks so unfairly beautiful that your heart does the thing it always does when you see him, that painful, hopeful, aching thing that feels like a bruise that won't heal.

But then his eyes land on you, and he stops walking.

"Y/N?" His gaze travels from your face to your shirt to Heeseung's matching shirt to the general air of disaster that still clings to both of you. "What… happened to you guys?"

"Coffee incident," Heeseung says, with the casual air of someone explaining something completely normal. "She spilled hers, so I spilled mine too. Now we're twins."

Jungwon blinks. "You poured coffee on yourself?"

"Matching disasters. It's a new concept. We're pioneering it."

You want to say something, anything, to salvage this situation. Jungwon is looking between you and Heeseung with an expression you can't quite read, and your brain screams at you to explain, to clarify, to make sure he doesn't get the wrong idea about what he is seeing.

"It's not… we're not-" you start, but your voice comes out squeaky and strange. "The coffee was an accident. Well, my coffee was an accident. His coffee was on purpose. But not in a romantic way. In a… solidarity way. Against the humiliation. We are fighting humiliation together."

"Fighting humiliation," Jungwon repeats slowly.

"Enemies," you say, nodding too hard. "We're humiliation enemies. Humi-nemies. It's a whole thing."

Heeseung watches you with that amused expression again, and you can tell he is biting back a smile. "Humi-nemies," he echoes. "Right. That's what we are."

Jungwon is quiet for a moment. Then, unexpectedly, he smiles, but it isn't his usual warm smile. It is something smaller, something more careful, something that makes your stomach drop even as you can't identify why.

"You guys make a cute couple," he says.

The words hit you like a physical blow. Your mouth opens. Closes. Opens again. No sound comes out.

"We're not-" you try, but Jungwon is already stepping back, already half-turning away.

"I've got to get to class," he says. "Heeseung, I'll catch up with you later. Y/N… nice shirt."

And then he walks away, and you stand in the hallway with your heart in your stomach and Heeseung's matching shirt still warm against your skin.

"We're not a couple," you say, but it comes out as barely a whisper.

"Not yet," Heeseung says cheerfully, apparently completely oblivious to the emotional devastation that just occurred. "But we're off to a good start, don't you think? Coffee disasters, matching outfits, running into my friends, this is basically a textbook meet-cute progression."

You turn to stare at him. He is grinning, still radiating that unshakeable, inexplicable joy that seems to follow him everywhere. He has no idea. He has absolutely no idea that the boy you actually like just saw you in matching shirts with someone else and assumed you were a couple.

"Are you okay?" Heeseung asks, his smile fading slightly. "You look a little pale. Was the coffee too hot? Do you need to sit down?"

"I'm fine," you manage. "I just… I need to go. The thing. The very important thing. It's calling me."

You don't wait for him to respond. You turn and walk away, not running, because running would be too obvious, but walking very quickly, your mind a tornado of panic and regret and the image of Jungwon's smile fading as he says the words that just shattered your entire world.

You guys make a cute couple.

He thinks you are a couple. Yang Jungwon, the boy you have been pining over for four months, the boy you wrote a three-page love letter to, the boy who poked your cheek in the library and called you cute, he thinks you are dating Lee Heeseung.

You are trapped. You are so, so trapped.

By the time you reach your dorm room, you are practically vibrating with suppressed emotion. You close the door, lean your back against it, and press your hands to your face.

You guys make a cute couple.

"We're not a couple," you whisper to your empty room. "We're not a couple. We're humi-nemies. That's a real thing that I definitely didn't just make up because I can't communicate like a normal human being."

Your room does not respond.

You slide down the door until you are sitting on the floor, your legs stretched out in front of you. You look ridiculous. You feel ridiculous. Your entire life has become a comedy of errors, and you are the punchline.

But even as you sit there, drowning in self-pity and the lingering scent of vanilla latte, you can't quite forget the look on Heeseung's face when he poured his coffee over his head. The way he smiled at you, open and unguarded. The way he said I couldn't let you cry alone like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Why is he like that? Why is he so… him?

You don't have an answer. And that, more than anything else, is starting to scare you.

The library has become your second home.

Not by choice, exactly. More by necessity. The library is neutral territory, a place where you can exist without fear of coffee-related disasters, unexpected bulletin board ambushes, or tall informatics students appearing out of thin air to pour beverages on themselves in acts of solidarity. The library has rules. The library has silence. The library has mercifully dim lighting that hides the dark circles under your eyes from three consecutive nights of restless sleep.

It has been four days since the coffee incident. Four days since Jungwon looked at you in your matching shirt and said those fateful words: You guys make a cute couple. Four days of replaying that moment over and over in your head, analyzing every micro-expression on his face, every nuance in his voice, trying to determine if there was something else there, something like disappointment, or regret, or maybe even jealousy.

You have come to no conclusions. Your analytical skills, apparently, are useless when applied to matters of the heart.

So you do what any reasonable, emotionally overwhelmed STEM student would do: you throw yourself into your studies with the intensity of someone trying to forget their entire life. You have read the same paragraph about cellular respiration seventeen times. You have highlighted so many sentences that your textbook looks like a rainbow has thrown up on it. You have consumed approximately four hundred milligrams of caffeine in the past three hours alone, and your hands shake slightly as you turn another page.

It is fine. Everything is fine. You are fine.

"You're going to burn a hole through that book if you keep staring at it like that."

The voice comes from directly above you, and you jolt so hard that your highlighter goes skidding across the table and rolls onto the floor. You look up, your heart already doing that familiar, traitorous leap, and there he is.

Jungwon.

He stands beside your table with a gentle smile on his face, his backpack slung over one shoulder, his hair slightly messy like he has been running his fingers through it.

"Sorry," he says, stooping to pick up your fallen highlighter. "I didn't mean to startle you. You just looked so intense. Like you were trying to intimidate the biology into making sense."

"The biology is winning," you admit, accepting the highlighter with a hand that trembles slightly. From the caffeine. Definitely from the caffeine. "I've been reading the same page for twenty minutes and I still have no idea what oxidative phosphorylation is."

"It sounds like a spell from Harry Potter."

"That's what I've been thinking! But apparently it's something about electrons and I just-" You gesture vaguely at the chaos of papers spread across your table. "I'm losing the war."

Jungwon laughs, that bright, sunny sound that never fails to make your heart flutter. "Mind if I join you? I've been looking for a quiet spot to study, and honestly, sitting next to someone who's fighting for their life against biology sounds way more entertaining than sitting alone."

Your heart, the same heart that belongs to this boy, that has belonged to him since the moment he slid gummy bears across a library table at 2 AM, screams YES with the force of a thousand suns. Your brain, the traitorous organ that got you into this mess in the first place, reminds you of all the reasons this is a terrible idea.

"You probably don't want to sit with me," you say, the words tumbling out before you can stop them. "I'm not very good company right now. I've been mainlining caffeine and I think I can hear colors."

"That sounds like excellent company." Jungwon pulls out the chair across from you and sits down without waiting for permission. "What colors can you hear?"

"Biology textbook beige, mostly. It sounds like despair."

He laughs again, and the sound settles into your chest like a warm blanket. This is fine. This is okay. You can study with Jungwon without making it weird. You have done it before, you have spent a whole hour in this very library, watching him take notes and push his glasses up his nose and poke your cheek with that devastating smile. You can do it again. You are a professional. You are a master of emotional compartmentalization.

For a while, you actually do study. Or at least, you both pretend to. Jungwon opens his philosophy book and starts reading, his brow furrowed in concentration, his pen tapping absently against his notebook. You stare at your biology textbook with renewed determination, willing the words to make sense.

But your eyes keep drifting up, against your will, over the top of your book, to the boy sitting across from you. The way the library light catches the highlights in his hair. The way he bites his lower lip when he is thinking. The way his fingers curl around his pen, elegant and deliberate.

"You're doing it again," Jungwon says, not looking up from his book.

Heat floods your cheeks. "I'm not doing anything. I'm reading about oxidative phosphorylation. It's very interesting. Lots of electrons."

"Y/N." He looks up then, and his expression is softer than you expected. Gentler. "It's okay. I told you before, right? I don't mind being looked at like that."

"Like what?"

"Like I'm something worth looking at." He sets down his pen and folds his hands on the table, giving you his full attention. "You have a very particular way of looking at people. Did you know that? It's like you're trying to memorize them. Every detail. Like you're cataloguing things that most people wouldn't notice."

Your heart pounds so hard you are certain he can hear it. You want to say I'm only looking at you like this because it's you. But the words won't come. "That's… that's my STEM brain. I'm very analytical. I notice things. It's a curse."

"I don't think it's a curse." Jungwon's voice is quiet, thoughtful. "I think it's actually really special. Most people don't pay attention like that. Most people look at you and see what they want to see, not what's actually there." He pauses, his eyes searching your face. "You're different, Y/N. You actually see people."

The words hang in the air between you, heavy with meaning. This is it. This is the moment. The conversation has shifted into something deeper, something more intimate, and you can feel the confession building in your chest like a wave about to break.

You can tell him. Right now. You can tell him everything, the letter, the misunderstanding, the way your heart has been his since the very beginning. You can clear the air and finally, finally be free of the tangled web you have accidentally woven around yourself.

"Jungwon," you say, and your voice comes out steadier than you expect. "There's something I need to tell you. About Heeseung. About the confession. About everything. It's not what you think. It's never been what you think."

Jungwon's expression flickers, surprise, confusion, something else you can't quite name. "What do you mean?"

"I mean-" You take a deep breath, gathering your courage. "The letter. The one I gave to Heeseung. It wasn't-"

"Wait." Jungwon holds up a hand, stopping you mid-sentence. "Before you say anything else, can I say something first?"

You nod, your heart hammering.

Jungwon leans back in his chair, his eyes never leaving your face. "I've been watching you and Heeseung," he says slowly. "The past few weeks. Ever since he told me about the confession. And I've never seen him like this before."

Your stomach drops. "Like what?"

"Like… happy. Genuinely happy. Not the surface-level people-pleasing happiness he shows everyone else, but something real. Something that goes all the way down." Jungwon's voice is earnest, almost protective. "Heeseung is my friend. One of my best friends. And I know what people say about him, that he's a player, a womanizer, that he'll charm you and then move on. But that's not who he really is."

You don't know what to say. You don't know where this is going. But you can't seem to interrupt, can't seem to find the words to stop him.

"Heeseung is…" Jungwon pauses, searching for the right words. "He's the guy who will stay up all night helping you debug code even when he has his own assignments due. He's the guy who remembers everyone's birthday and always gets them a gift that shows he actually paid attention to what they like. He's the guy who can't say no to anyone, ever, because he's so terrified of disappointing people that he'd rather burn himself out than let someone down."

He smiles, but there is something sad in it. "Girls think he's flirting with them because he's nice to everyone. And he won't correct them because he doesn't want to hurt their feelings. So he just… lets them believe what they want to believe, and then he feels guilty when they get attached, and the whole thing becomes this cycle he can't break out of. It's not malice. It's the exact opposite of malice, it's too much kindness, too much caring, and not enough ability to set boundaries."

Your throat is dry. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Because I think you're different." Jungwon meets your eyes, and his gaze is steady and sincere. "I think you actually see him. Not the reputation, not the rumors, but the real him. And I think he's starting to see the real you too." He pauses, and when he speaks again, his voice is softer. Almost fragile. "So I need you to promise me something."

"What?"

"Take care of him. Please." Jungwon's smile is gentle, but there is something behind it, something that looks a lot like pain, carefully hidden, expertly concealed. "He's been alone for a long time, even when he's surrounded by people. I don't think he even realizes how lonely he is. But you… you could change that. I can see it."

The wave of emotion that crashes over you is so overwhelming that you can't speak. This isn't how this conversation is supposed to go. You are supposed to confess to Jungwon. You are supposed to clear up the misunderstanding. You are supposed to finally tell him the truth.

Who knows - Daniel Caesar playing now

But Jungwon isn't finished.

"There's something else I should tell you," he says, and his voice drops even lower, barely above a whisper. "Something I probably shouldn't say. But I think I need to, or I'll regret it forever."

"What is it?"

Jungwon looks down at his hands, folded on the table. When he speaks, his voice is steady, but you can hear the effort it takes to keep it that way.

"I like you."

The words don't make sense. They can't make sense. You hear them, understand them individually, but your brain refuses to assemble them into a coherent meaning.

"What?" you breathe.

"I like you," Jungwon repeats, and now he looks up at you, and his eyes are so full of something, regret, maybe, or longing, or both, that it makes your chest ache. "From the first day of philosophy class. You sat in the front row, near the window, and you had like eight different colored highlighters lined up on your desk, and you took notes so furiously that your pen ran out of ink halfway through the lecture. I remember you made this little frustrated noise and searched your bag for a spare, and you looked so genuinely distraught that I almost offered you mine."

The library. The philosophy lecture. The day you ran out of ink. You remember it, vaguely, distantly, a moment so mundane you never thought about it again. But Jungwon remembers. Jungwon has been watching you, just like you have been watching him.

"I noticed you after that," he continues, and his voice is achingly soft. "The way you always sat in the same spot. The way you organized your notes. The way you bit your lip when you were concentrating. I kept telling myself I'd talk to you, but I could never find the right moment. And then midterms happened, and we were both in the library at 2 AM, and I saw you looking exhausted and stressed, and I just…" He laughs, but it is a sad sound. "I gave you gummy bears because I couldn't think of anything else to do. It felt so stupid at the time. Who gives gummy bears to a stranger at 2 AM?"

"A stranger who hadn't slept in thirty-six hours and was about to cry over organic chemistry," you whisper. "It wasn't stupid. It was the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me."

Jungwon's smile flickers. "I was working up the courage to actually talk to you. To ask you out properly. But then…" He trails off, and his expression shifts, something closing off behind his eyes. "Then Heeseung told me about the confession. And I saw the way he looked when he talked about you. And I knew… I knew I'd missed my chance."

No. No, no, no. This is wrong. This is all wrong. He hasn't missed his chance. The chance is right here, right now, sitting in front of him with a heart full of feelings that have always been meant for him.

"Jungwon," you say, and your voice cracks. "The letter… it wasn't-"

"I'm not telling you this to make things awkward," Jungwon interrupts gently. "I'm telling you because I want you to know. I like you. I really, really like you. And sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I'd been braver, if I'd said something sooner, if I hadn't waited until it was too late." He pauses, and his eyes meet yours, and the weight of what he says presses down on your chest like a physical force. "But I'm glad it's Heeseung. He deserves someone like you. And you deserve someone who sees you the way he does."

"You don't understand," you try, desperation creeping into your voice. "It wasn't supposed to be Heeseung. The letter was meant for-"

"Take care of him," Jungwon says again, and this time his voice is final. Resolute. Like he has already made his peace with something you haven't even realized he was struggling with. "That's all I ask."

He stands up, gathering his book and his notebook, and you watch him with a growing sense of panic. This can't be how it ends. You can't let him walk away without knowing the truth.

But then he pauses, looking down at you with that devastating smile, the one that crinkles the corners of his eyes and makes your heart do somersaults, and he reaches out and gently pokes your cheek.

"Boop," he says softly.

The gesture that once made you giddy with joy now feels like a knife twisting in your chest.

"Liking you was never a waste of my time, Y/N," he says, and his voice is tender in a way that breaks your heart into a thousand pieces. "I don't regret it. Not even for a second."

And then he walks away, and you are left alone at your table with a biology textbook you haven't read and a heart that is shattering into so many fragments you don't know if you will ever be able to put it back together.

I like you.

I gave you gummy bears because I couldn't think of anything else to do.

Liking you was never a waste of my time.

He liked you. He liked you this whole time. All those months of pining, of yearning, of writing and rewriting that letter and he has been feeling the same thing. You have been two ships passing in the night, each carrying the same cargo of unspoken feelings, and you have missed each other by a margin so narrow it is almost laughable.

But it isn't laughable. It is devastating. It is the most devastating thing that has ever happened to you, and you are sitting in the middle of a silent library trying not to fall apart.

You don't remember packing up your things. You don't remember leaving the library. One moment you are staring at the spot where Jungwon was sitting, and the next you are walking across campus in the fading evening light, your backpack hanging heavy from your shoulders, your feet carrying you automatically toward your dorm.

And then the tears come.

They start slow, a burning sensation behind your eyes, a tightness in your throat. You try to swallow them down, try to hold them back, but they won't be contained. By the time you reach the pathway between the science building and the student union, you are crying openly, tears streaming down your cheeks in hot, relentless rivers.

This isn't a romantic cry. This isn't the kind of crying that happens in movies, where the heroine looks beautiful and tragic and a single perfect tear rolls down her cheek. This is an ugly cry. A messy, hiccuping, snotty cry that makes your nose run and your shoulders shake and your breath come in ragged gasps. You are crying because the boy you liked liked you back, and instead of ending up together like you were supposed to, everything has gone terribly, irreversibly wrong.

You stop walking. You can't keep going. Your legs won't carry you any further. You lean against the rough bark of a tree and press your hands to your face, trying to muffle the sounds that escape from your throat.

You cry for the letter you sent to the wrong person. You cry for the courage it took to write it, and the cowardice that has kept you from correcting your mistake. You cry for Jungwon, who liked you and gave up on you because he thought you wanted someone else. You cry for yourself, for the hopeless romantic who dreamed of grand gestures and perfect moments and has ended up with nothing but misunderstandings and a heavy heart that breaks into smaller and smaller pieces.

You cry until your throat is raw and your eyes are swollen and you don't think you have any tears left to shed.

And then a voice, gentle, concerned, painfully familiar, cuts through the fog of your grief.

"Y/N?"

You look up.

Lee Heeseung stands on the pathway a few feet away, his hands in the pockets of his jacket, his expression shifting from casual curiosity to alarm as he takes in your tear-streaked face and trembling shoulders.

"Hey," he says, and his voice is softer than you have ever heard it. "Hey, what's wrong? What happened?"

You should make an excuse. You should say you are fine, that it's allergies, that you just got something in your eye. You should tell him to leave you alone, to give you space, to let you fall apart in private.

But the words won't come. All that comes out is another sob, and your knees buckle slightly, and then Heeseung is there, his hands on your shoulders, steadying you.

"It's okay," he says, even though he doesn't know what is wrong, even though you haven't explained anything. "It's okay. I've got you."

"No, you don't understand," you choke out. "Everything is messed up. Everything is so messed up and it's all my fault."

"Then we'll fix it." He says it with such simple certainty, like it is the most obvious thing in the world. "Whatever it is, we'll fix it."

"You can't fix this. No one can fix this."

"Maybe not." Heeseung's hands move from your shoulders to your upper arms, his grip gentle but grounding. "But I can be here. I can listen. And I can promise you that whatever it is, you don't have to deal with it alone."

Something in his voice, the steadiness, the sincerity, the complete lack of judgment, cracks through the last of your defenses. You stop trying to hold yourself together. You let the tears fall, let your shoulders shake, let yourself be exactly as broken as you feel.

And Heeseung doesn't flinch. He doesn't look uncomfortable or try to escape or offer meaningless platitudes. He just stands there, his hands warm on your arms, his presence solid and unwavering, letting you cry without asking for explanations or justifications.

After a while, you don't know how long, the tears begin to subside. Your breathing steadies. The storm inside you quiets to a dull, aching calm. You wipe your eyes with the back of your hand, suddenly aware of how awful you must look, how puffy and red and wrecked.

"I'm sorry," you whisper. "Your jacket is probably wet."

"My jacket has survived worse." Heeseung's voice is gentle. "Come on. Let's sit down somewhere."

He guides you to a bench nearby, a small wooden bench tucked under a cluster of trees, partially hidden from the main pathway. You sit down heavily, your legs still shaky, and Heeseung sits beside you, close enough that you can feel the warmth of his body but not so close that it feels invasive.

Dream - Keshi playing now

For a long moment, neither of you speaks. The evening settles around you, the sky shifting from pale blue to soft pink to deeper purple. A few stars start to appear, faint pinpricks of light against the darkening canvas overhead. The campus is quiet, most students already back in their dorms or the library, and the only sounds are the distant hum of traffic and the occasional rustle of leaves in the breeze.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Heeseung asks eventually.

"Not really."

"Okay." He doesn't push. He doesn't pry. He just sits there, his shoulder almost touching yours, his presence a quiet comfort in the gathering dark.

"You're not going to ask questions?"

"You'll tell me when you're ready. Or you won't. Either way, I'm not going anywhere."

The simplicity of it, the uncomplicated, undemanding kindness of it, makes your eyes sting with fresh tears. You blink them back, determined not to start crying again.

"Why are you being so nice to me?" you ask, your voice hoarse.

Heeseung turns his head to look at you, and his expression is unreadable. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"Because… because I'm a disaster. Because I've been weird and awkward and I ran away from you and hid behind bulletin boards and spilled coffee on myself and I can't seem to do anything right. Because you barely know me, and what you do know is mostly just me making a fool of myself."

Heeseung is quiet for a moment. Then, unexpectedly, he smiles. Not the smirk or the teasing grin, but something softer. Something realer.

"Can you guess the movie I've watched recently?"

The question is so random that you blink. "What?"

"A movie I've watched recently. Can you guess?"

"Am I supposed to?"

"No, because I've never told you." He leans back on the bench, tilting his face up toward the emerging stars. "I don't usually tell people. It's kind of embarrassing."

You sniffle, curiosity temporarily overriding your grief. "What is it?"

"To All the Boys I've Loved Before."

You stare at him. "The Netflix movie? The one with Lara Jean?"

"The very same." He doesn't look embarrassed at all. If anything, he looks almost proud. "I've watched it like eight times. Maybe nine. I lost count somewhere around the sixth viewing."

"But… that's a teen romance. That's a movie about fake dating and love letters and-" You stop. "Oh."

"Yeah." Heeseung's smile turns wry. "The parallels weren't lost on me. Girl writes love letters she never meant to send. Letters end up reaching the boys. Chaos ensues." He glances at you sideways. "Sound familiar?"

Your heart does something strange, something fluttery and uncertain. "Why did you watch it?"

"Because Lara Jean is a hopeless romantic who's terrified of actually living the romance she dreams about." Heeseung's voice is thoughtful, almost contemplative. "She's brave on paper but scared in real life. She has all these feelings and no idea what to do with them. And she's convinced that if she actually tries to be vulnerable, everything will fall apart."

He turns to look at you fully, his dark eyes catching the faint glow of the distant streetlamps. "Does any of that sound familiar to you?"

Your breath catches in your throat.

"You write beautiful letters," Heeseung continues, his voice dropping lower. "You pour your heart onto paper because it's safer than saying things out loud. You make graphs about video game balance because you're passionate and detail-oriented and you can't help but go all-in on the things you care about. You talk to your plants and name your succulents and hide behind bulletin boards because real life is scary and rejection is terrifying and it's easier to dream about love than to actually risk your heart for it."

You can't speak. You can barely breathe. He is describing you, not the surface-level you, not the "weird first-year STEM student" you, but the real you. The you that lives in daydreams and love letters and the safety of your own imagination.

"The letter you wrote wasn't just a confession," Heeseung says quietly. "It was a work of art. The calligraphy, the words, the way you talked about noticing small things and finding beauty in ordinary moments, that's not something you write to just anyone. That's something you write when you've been paying attention. When you really see someone."

He pauses, and when he speaks again, his voice is almost a whisper.

"You remind me of her. Lara Jean. The girl who was so busy dreaming about love that she almost missed it when it showed up in front of her. You are Lara Jean. My Lara Jean."

Your heart races. Your palms are sweaty. The evening has grown dark around you, the stars fully emerged now, and Heeseung's face is half in shadow, half illuminated by the distant campus lights.

"Why are you telling me this?" you whisper.

"Because I think you're scared," Heeseung says simply. "I think you've been scared since the moment you handed me that letter. I think you're scared of what it means, scared of being vulnerable, scared of letting someone actually see you. And I want you to know that I see you anyway. Even when you're trying to hide."

He reaches out, and his hand finds yours in the darkness. His fingers are warm, his grip gentle.

"You don't have to be scared with me," he says. "I'm not going anywhere. I'm not going to hurt you. And I'm not going to stop being interested just because you're awkward or clumsy or you spill coffee on yourself or you ramble about League of Legends until you run out of breath." He squeezes your hand. "That's the stuff I like about you. That's the stuff that makes you real."

You stare at him, your eyes still swollen from crying, your nose still red, your heart still aching from the conversation with Jungwon. And yet, sitting here on this bench with Heeseung's hand in yours and his words echoing in your ears, something shifts. Something changes.

"I don't know what I'm doing," you admit, your voice barely audible. "I don't know what I want. I don't know what I'm supposed to feel."

"Then don't figure it out tonight." Heeseung stands up, still holding your hand, and gently pulls you to your feet. "Come on. Let's get you back to your dorm. You need rest and probably some water. Crying is dehydrating."

Despite everything, the heartbreak, the confusion, the complete emotional chaos of the past hour, you almost smile. "That's a very practical observation."

"I'm an engineering student. We're practical by nature." He falls into step beside you, your hands still joined, and begins walking you toward your dorm building. "Also, I may have done some research on crying. You know, for science."

"You researched crying for science?"

"It was for a psych elective. But also for life skills. You'd be surprised how many people don't know that emotional tears contain stress hormones that need to be flushed out of your system. Crying is literally good for you."

"You're very weird," you say, but there's no bite to it.

"Coming from the girl who named her succulent Jason, I'll take that as a compliment."

You walk in silence for a while, the campus quiet and peaceful around you. The stars are bright overhead, and the air is cool against your tear-stained cheeks, and Heeseung's hand is warm in yours, steady and reassuring.

When you reach your dorm building, he stops at the entrance, turning to face you. The light from the lobby spills through the glass doors, illuminating his features, the sharp line of his jaw, the gentle curve of his lips, the way his dark eyes fix on your face like you are something worth looking at.

"Y/N," he says.

"Yeah?"

"I meant what I said earlier. You don't have to figure everything out tonight. You don't have to have all the answers. But whatever you're going through, whatever made you cry like that… I hope you know you can talk to me. About anything. Even if it's hard. Even if it's confusing. Even if it's not what you think I want to hear."

Your throat tightens. He has no idea how relevant those words are. He has no idea that the thing that made you cry is, in part, him or at least, the situation he is unknowingly caught up in.

"Thank you," you whisper.

Heeseung smiles, that same soft smile that appeared when he poured coffee over his head, when he called you a little mouse, when he listened to you talk about video games for fifteen minutes straight. And then, before you can react, he leans forward and presses a gentle kiss to your cheek.

It isn't romantic or it isn't supposed to be. It is brief and soft and chaste, the kind of kiss you might give a friend who is hurting. But his lips are warm against your skin, and when he pulls back, your cheek is tingling, and your heart does that traitorous flutter again.

"Goodnight, little mouse," he says. "Get some sleep."

And then he walks away, his hands in his pockets, his silhouette disappearing into the darkness of the campus night.

You stand there for a long moment, your hand pressed to your cheek where his lips have been, your heart a tangled mess of grief and confusion and something else, something warm and growing, something you don't want to name.

This is supposed to be simple. You are supposed to like Jungwon. You have liked Jungwon for four months. You wrote him a letter and dreamt about him and catalogued his habits and built an entire future around the idea of him.

But Jungwon walked away. Jungwon made his choice. Jungwon told you to take care of Heeseung and then poked your cheek one last time, a goodbye disguised as a signature gesture.

And Heeseung… Heeseung poured coffee on himself to make you feel less alone. Heeseung held your hand and told you that you were his Lara Jean. Heeseung kissed your cheek and called you little mouse and looked at you like you were something precious.

You don't know what to do anymore. You don't know what to feel. The map you have been following, the one that leads straight to Jungwon has crumbled in your hands, and now you stand in unfamiliar territory with no compass and no guide.

You push open the door to your dorm building and walk to your room in a daze, your mind still spinning. When you finally collapse onto your bed, still in your clothes, still wearing the tear tracks on your cheeks, you stare up at the ceiling and try to make sense of the chaos in your heart.

Jungwon liked you.

Jungwon gave up on you.

Heeseung said he wouldn't go anywhere.

Heeseung kissed your cheek.

You press your fingers to the spot where his lips have been and close your eyes.

"I don't know what I'm doing," you whisper to your empty room. "I really, really don't know what I'm doing."

Your room, as always, offers no answers. But somewhere in the distance, you can almost hear Heeseung's voice: You don't have to figure everything out tonight.

So you don't. You let the exhaustion pull you under, let sleep claim you, and try very hard not to think about the fact that the boy who just comforted you through your heartbreak is the same boy who might be slowly, quietly, unexpectedly stealing your heart.

The university, in its infinite and questionable wisdom, has decided that what the student body really needs is a three-day trip to a skiing station.

You received the email three weeks ago, skimmed it with the vague interest of someone who has never skied in her life and has no intention of starting now, and promptly archived it into the dark abyss of your inbox alongside seventeen other emails you will never open again. The trip is optional, after all. Attendance is not mandatory. You can simply stay on campus, enjoy the quiet emptiness of the dorms, and continue your ongoing mission of avoiding all tall informatics students while trying to piece together the shattered remnants of your romantic life.

It is a perfect plan. Flawless. Foolproof.

Until Yunjin gets involved.

"You're going," Yunjin says, standing in the doorway of your dorm room with her arms crossed and her expression one of immovable determination. She has just finished reading the email over your shoulder, and the glint in her eye is the same one she gets when she is about to bulldoze through every objection you can possibly raise.

"I'm not going," you reply, not looking up from your biology textbook. "I don't ski. I don't snowboard. I don't even own a proper winter coat. The heaviest thing I own is a cardigan, and I'm pretty sure it's made of acrylic."

"Then we'll get you a coat."

"Yunjin."

"Y/N."

"I can't go to a skiing station. I have studying to do. I have lab reports to write. I have approximately eight hundred flashcards to review before the next exam. My social life is already a disaster zone, I don't need to add frostbite and potential avalanche-related injuries to my list of problems."

Yunjin steps fully into the room, closes the door behind her, and fixes you with a look that you recognize as her "I'm about to say something brutally honest and you're not going to like it" expression. "You've been moping for two weeks."

"I haven't been moping. I've been processing."

"You've been moping. You've been staring at walls, listening to sad music, and eating instant ramen for every meal. I saw you crying over a nature documentary the other day because the baby penguin got separated from its family."

"That was emotionally manipulative editing! They set it to sad piano music! Anyone would have cried!"

"Y/N." Yunjin sits down on the edge of your bed, her voice softening. "I know about Jungwon. I know he told you he liked you and then walked away. I know you've been carrying that around like a weight on your chest. But hiding in your room isn't going to make it better. You need to get out. You need fresh air. You need to do something that isn't just staring at the same four walls and replaying the same conversation over and over in your head."

You set down your highlighter. "What if I run into Jungwon on the trip?"

"Then you'll be a normal human being about it. Or you'll be weird and awkward, which is your default state anyway, so nothing will have changed."

"Comforting."

"What if you run into Heeseung?"

The question catches you off guard. Your hand stills on your textbook, and you feel that familiar, complicated flutter in your chest, the one that has been appearing more and more frequently whenever someone mentions his name. "I don't know. I haven't really talked to him since…" Since the night he kissed your cheek. Since the night you realized that maybe, just maybe, your heart is no longer as firmly in Jungwon's camp as you always assumed.

"Exactly," Yunjin says, as if your silence has proven her point. "You need to figure things out. And you can't do that if you're hiding in your dorm room subsisting on sodium and self-pity. The ski trip is three days. Three days of fresh mountain air, hot chocolate, and the chance to actually talk to people face-to-face instead of through a fog of depression ramen."

"The ramen isn't that bad."

"The ramen is a cry for help."

You are quiet for a moment, staring at the pages of your textbook without really seeing them. Yunjin is right. You know she is right. You have been hiding from Jungwon, from Heeseung, from the tangled mess of feelings that you still haven't sorted out. The past two weeks have been a blur of avoidance and overthinking, and you are no closer to clarity than you were on that bench under the stars.

"Fine," you say finally, the word escaping before you can stop it. "I'll go."

Yunjin's face lights up. "Really?"

"But I'm not skiing. I refuse to ski. I'll sit in the lodge and drink hot chocolate and judge people from the window like a ghost."

"That's the spirit."

The morning of the trip arrives with a gray sky and a biting chill in the air. You stand outside the student union with your hastily packed duffel bag, which contains exactly zero items suitable for winter sports because your wardrobe is approximately eighty percent oversized sweaters and twenty percent academic stress, and watch your breath fog in the cold morning air.

The bus is already parked at the curb, a massive coach with the university logo emblazoned on the side. Students mill around, dragging suitcases and carrying thermoses of coffee, their chatter filling the air with a buzz of excitement. You spot a few familiar faces from your classes, a group of engineering students comparing snowboards, and your heart lurches, a flash of dark hair that might be Jungwon disappearing into the bus.

Yunjin has already boarded, abandoning you for a seat near the front because she wants to "network with the economics majors" or some other nonsense that you can't relate to. You are alone, clutching your bag and wondering if it is too late to fake a sudden illness, when a voice speaks directly behind you.

"Need help with your bag?"

You spin around so fast that your duffel bag swings in a wide arc and nearly takes out an innocent bystander. The innocent bystander, thankfully, has very good reflexes. He ducks, straightens up, and smiles at you with that familiar, devastating smile that has been haunting your dreams for weeks.

Heeseung.

He wears a black puffer jacket that makes his shoulders look even broader, a gray beanie pulled low over his hair, and a pair of snow boots that actually look like they belong on a ski trip. His cheeks are slightly pink from the cold, and his eyes are bright with that unshakeable, inexplicable cheerfulness that seems to follow him everywhere.

"Hi," you say, because your brain has apparently decided that monosyllables are all you can manage.

"Hi," he replies, his smile widening. "Fancy meeting you here. I thought you said you were photosensitive and couldn't be exposed to direct light. Is snow-light different from regular light?"

"That was a lie and you know it."

"I know." He reaches out and gently takes your duffel bag from your white-knuckled grip. "Come on. Let's find seats together. The bus is filling up."

"I… what… together?"

"Unless you already have a seatmate?"

Yunjin has abandoned you. You have no allies, no escape routes, and no valid excuses. "No," you admit. "I don't."

"Great." Heeseung starts walking toward the bus, your bag slung easily over his shoulder like it weighs nothing. "Fair warning, I'm a chronic window-seat person. I need to be able to stare dramatically at the scenery while contemplating the meaning of life."

"That's very specific."

"It's a lifestyle choice."

You follow him onto the bus, your heart doing that complicated gymnastics routine that it has perfected over the past few weeks. Heeseung navigates through the aisle with practiced ease, nodding at people who call out to him, exchanging quick greetings, but never stopping until he reaches an empty row near the middle of the bus.

"Window seat's yours," he says, gesturing for you to go first.

"I thought you said you were a chronic window-seat person."

"I am. But I'm making an exception." He stows your bag in the overhead compartment, then steps back to let you pass. "Consider it part of the whole starting slow thing. Sacrifices must be made."

You slide into the window seat, your heart hammering, and Heeseung settles in beside you. The seats are closer together than you expected. His shoulder brushes against yours, and even through the layers of your coats, you can feel the warmth of his body. You press yourself slightly closer to the window, trying to create more space, but the universe, in its infinite comedic wisdom, has clearly designed this bus to maximize accidental physical contact.

"Comfortable?" Heeseung asks, his voice tinged with amusement.

"Extremely. Never been more comfortable in my life. This is peak comfort."

"You're pressed against the window like you're trying to phase through it."

"The window is cold. The glass is… nice. I like glass."

Heeseung laughs, that genuine, surprised laugh that you heard in the cafeteria and the café and on the bench under the stars. "You're doing it again."

"Doing what?"

"The rambling thing. The nervous rambling thing." He turns in his seat slightly, facing you. "You know you don't have to be nervous around me, right? I thought we established this. Coffee disaster solidarity. Matching shirts. The whole thing."

"I'm not nervous," you lie. "I'm just… the bus is very… bus-like. It's making me feel things."

"Bus-like feelings."

"Exactly."

Heeseung shakes his head, still smiling, and pulls a pair of earbuds from his jacket pocket. "Here. Music helps me relax on long trips. We can share if you want."

He offers you one of his earbuds, holding it out between his fingers like it is something precious. The gesture is so simple, so unexpectedly intimate, that your breath catches in your throat. Sharing earbuds means sitting close enough for the cord to reach. Sharing earbuds means listening to his music, hearing the songs he likes, experiencing something together in the quiet space between words.

"Okay," you whisper, taking the earbud.

Your fingers brush against his, just for a second, and the contact sends a spark of electricity up your arm. You quickly insert the earbud, focusing very hard on not thinking about how close he is, how warm his shoulder feels against yours, how the faint scent of his cologne fills the space between you.

"What are we listening to?" you ask.

"A playlist I made," Heeseung says, scrolling through his phone. "It's kind of all over the place. Some indie, some R&B, some stuff I found on TikTok that got stuck in my head. I'm not very organized with my music."

"That's shocking. I assumed an informatics engineering student would have their music meticulously categorized by genre, mood, and decade of release."

"You assumed wrong. My playlists are chaos. This one is literally called vibes idk."

"That's the worst playlist name I've ever heard."

"It's an accurate playlist name. You'll see."

Lovers - Anna of the North playing now

He presses play, and music fills your ear.

"We should play a game," Heeseung says after a few songs have played. "To pass the time."

"What kind of game?"

"Twenty questions. But the version where you can skip questions if you don't want to answer. No pressure, no judgment, no awkwardness."

You consider this. Twenty questions with Heeseung is a dangerous proposition. There are so many things you don't want to answer, so many topics you have been carefully avoiding, so many truths that are still tangled up in misunderstandings and misplaced letters. But there is also something disarming about the way he offers the terms, no pressure, no judgment, no awkwardness, like he genuinely cares about making you feel safe.

"Fine," you say. "But you go first."

"Okay." Heeseung leans back in his seat, his shoulder still pressed against yours, his expression thoughtful. "What's your favorite movie of all time?"

"Pride and Prejudice. The 2005 version with Keira Knightley."

"The hand flex scene?"

You turn to stare at him. "You know about the hand flex scene?"

"Every person with a functioning heart knows about the hand flex scene. It's cinema history. Mr. Darcy flexing his hand after helping Elizabeth into the carriage because he's so overwhelmed by touching her? Iconic. Revolutionary. I think about it at least once a week."

You don't know what to do with this information. Lee Heeseung, reputed womanizer, hot informatics engineering student, the guy who is currently wearing a beanie and looking unfairly attractive in bus lighting, knows about the hand flex scene from Pride and Prejudice. He thinks about it weekly.

"You're very strange," you say.

"I prefer culturally literate."

"You said you've watched To All the Boys I've Loved Before at least six times."

"That's one of my favorite modern movies. Pride and Prejudice is my favorite classic. I contain multitudes." He nudges your shoulder with his. "Ask me something else."

The questions flow back and forth as the bus winds its way out of the city and into the mountains. You learn that Heeseung has an older brother who he FaceTimes every Sunday, that he chose informatics engineering because he loves the logic of coding but secretly dreams of being a music producer, that he loves Shin ramyeon and has created his own way of eating his instant noodles. He learns that you started collecting highlighters in middle school and now own over forty different colors, that you have named every plant in your dorm room after characters from classic literature, that you once won a poetry contest in high school but never told anyone because you were embarrassed.

The landscape outside the window shifts as the bus climbs higher into the mountains. Snow begins to appear, first in patches, then in sweeping blankets that cover the trees and the slopes and the distant peaks. The sky is a pale winter blue, and the sun glints off the snow.

"Next question," Heeseung says. "What's something you're scared of?"

The question hangs in the air between you, weightier than the ones that have come before. You could give a surface-level answer, spiders, heights, the dark, but something about the quiet intimacy of the bus, the warmth of his shoulder against yours, the gentle music in your ear, makes you want to be honest.

"Being seen," you say quietly. "Really seen. By someone who matters."

Heeseung doesn't respond right away. When he does, his voice is soft. "Why?"

"Because if someone really sees you, they might not like what they find. It's easier to stay on the surface. To be the version of yourself that you can control." You pause, watching the snow-covered trees blur past the window. "I'm good at dreaming about things. Imagining them. Writing them down. But actually doing them… actually putting myself out there… that's the scary part."

"That's why you write letters," Heeseung says. It isn't a question.

"Yeah. It's safer on paper. You can edit a letter. You can cross things out and start over. You can't do that with real life."

Heeseung is quiet for a long moment, and when he speaks, his words are careful and measured.

"For what it's worth," he says, "I've been seeing you for a few weeks now. The real you, I mean. The one who rambles and spills coffee and hides behind bulletin boards. And I haven't found anything I don't like yet."

Your heart stutters. You don't know what to say, so you say nothing, just let the music fill the space between you and try to memorize the exact timbre of his voice saying those words.

The skiing station is everything the brochure promised and more. A sprawling complex of wooden lodges and snow-covered slopes, nestled in a valley surrounded by towering peaks. The air is crisp and clean, carrying the scent of pine and woodsmoke, and the snow glitteres under the afternoon sun like a carpet of crushed diamonds.

You step off the bus and immediately sink three inches into a snowdrift.

"Excellent start," Yunjin says, appearing at your elbow and grinning. "Really graceful. Ten out of ten."

"I didn't see it."

"It's snow. It's everywhere. How did you not see it?"

You extract your foot from the drift and shake the snow off your boot with as much dignity as you can muster. "I was distracted by the scenery."

"Uh-huh." Yunjin's grin widens. "And by the scenery, you mean the six-foot-tall informatics student you spent the entire bus ride cuddled up with?"

"We weren't cuddling. We were sharing earbuds. There's a difference."

"There's really not."

You grab your duffel bag from the luggage compartment and follow the crowd toward the main lodge, your cheeks burning despite the cold. The lodge is a massive timber-frame building with a soaring ceiling, a massive stone fireplace, and windows that look out over the slopes. Students are already scattered across the lobby, checking in, collecting room keys, and making plans for the afternoon.

Your room is small but cozy, with a window that faces the mountains and a bed that looks impossibly inviting. You dump your bag on the floor, plug in your phone to charge, and then immediately find yourself staring out the window at the snow-covered landscape.

Yunjin finds you an hour later, dragging you out of your room and into the lodge's main café for hot chocolate. The café is warm and bustling, filled with students comparing ski passes and swapping stories about near-misses on the slopes. You find a table near the window, and Yunjin wastes no time in grilling you about the bus ride.

"So," she says, stirring her hot chocolate with a cinnamon stick, "Heeseung."

"What about him?"

"You spent three hours cuddled up with him on a bus."

"Sharing earbuds is not cuddling."

"You let him listen to music with you. You played twenty questions. You told him about your highlighter collection and the poetry contest you never told anyone about." Yunjin fixes you with a knowing look. "Those are not casual bus acquaintance topics. Those are I'm emotionally vulnerable with this person topics."

You stare into your hot chocolate. "I don't know what I'm doing, Yunjin. Everything is so tangled up. I started this whole mess because I was too scared to confess to the right person, and now the wrong person has been nothing but kind and thoughtful and unexpectedly perfect, and the right person told me he liked me and then walked away, and I don't know what I'm supposed to feel anymore."

Yunjin is quiet for a moment. Then she reaches across the table and places her hand on yours. "Maybe there isn't a supposed to. Maybe there's just what you actually feel, when you strip away all the expectations and the plans and the ideas about how things were meant to go."

You look up at her. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, you've been so focused on the idea of Jungwon, the letter, the confession, the grand romantic gesture, that you might have missed what's been happening right in front of you." She squeezes your hand. "Heeseung poured coffee on himself so you wouldn't feel alone. He held your hand while you cried. He looked at you on that bus like you were the most interesting person he'd ever met."

"That doesn't mean-"

"Y/N." Yunjin's voice is gentle but firm. "When are you going to stop being scared and start being honest?"

The question hits you like a punch to the chest. Because she is right. Yunjin is always right, that is the infuriating thing about her. You have been scared since the moment you walked into that PC room, scared of rejection, scared of humiliation, scared of what would happen if you actually let someone see you. And that fear has led you into a labyrinth of misunderstandings and half-truths, and somewhere along the way, you have gotten so lost that you can't even see the exit anymore.

"I need to tell him," you say quietly. "Heeseung. I need to tell him the truth about the letter."

Yunjin nods. "I think that's a good idea."

"He might hate me."

"He might. But he also might not. And either way, you'll finally be able to stop carrying this around." She leans back in her chair, blowing on her hot chocolate. "Besides, from everything you've told me about him, I don't think hating you is high on his list of priorities."

"What if it ruins everything?"

"What if it fixes everything?"

You don't have an answer to that. You just sit there, watching the snow fall outside the window, and feel the weight of your decision settling onto your shoulders. Tonight. You will tell him tonight. Before dinner, maybe, or after. You will find a quiet moment, away from the crowds and the noise and the chaos of the ski trip, and you will finally, finally tell him the truth.

Finding Heeseung turns out to be easier said than done.

The ski station is massive, a maze of slopes and trails and lodges that all look exactly the same. You wander through the main lodge, check the café, peek into the game room, and even brave the equipment rental shop where a terrifyingly efficient employee tries to convince you to try snowboarding. You escape with your dignity barely intact and a pamphlet about beginner lessons that you immediately stuff into the nearest trash can.

It isn't until you step outside, squinting against the glare of the sun on the snow, that you spot him.

He is on the intermediate slope, a dark figure against the white expanse of snow, cutting down the mountain with the kind of effortless grace that makes your heart lurch into your throat. He is snowboarding, of course he is snowboarding, because apparently there is nothing Lee Heeseung can't do and he moves like he was born on a board.

You have two options. Option one: wait at the bottom of the slope like a normal person and flag him down when he finishes his run. Option two: try to reach him now, which will involve navigating the snowy terrain between you and the slope, a task for which you are woefully underprepared both in terms of footwear and basic motor coordination.

You choose option two, because you are an idiot.

The path to the slope is a gentle incline of packed snow that looks deceptively easy to traverse. You take three steps and immediately realize your mistake. The snow is slippery, not the powdery kind of snow that crunches satisfyingly underfoot, but the packed, icy kind that has been trampled by hundreds of skiers and snowboarders and now has the texture of a skating rink.

You take a fourth step. Your foot slides. You windmill your arms frantically. Your other foot slides in the opposite direction. For one glorious, suspended moment, you do something that might generously be called a split, and then gravity takes over and you go down in a tangle of limbs and snow and absolute humiliation.

"Y/N?"

The voice comes from above you. You look up, snow clinging to your hair and your eyelashes and probably places you don't want to think about, and there is Heeseung, standing over you with his snowboard tucked under his arm and an expression somewhere between concern and barely suppressed laughter.

"Hi," you say weakly. "I was looking for you."

"You found me." He kneels down beside you, brushing snow off your shoulder. "Are you okay? That looked like a pretty spectacular fall."

"I've had better. I've also had worse. This is somewhere in the middle."

"Your standards for falls must be very high."

"I'm an overachiever."

Heeseung laughs and offers you his hand. You take it, and he pulls you to your feet with the same easy strength he showed in the café, steadying you when you wobble on the slippery snow.

"Come on," he says, still holding your hand. "Let's get you somewhere less treacherous. The beginner slope is over there, it's flatter and a lot less likely to attack you."

"I don't snowboard."

"I'll teach you."

"Heeseung-"

"It'll be fun. I promise." He already guides you toward the beginner slope, his hand warm and solid around yours. "Besides, you came all this way to find me. The least I can do is give you a snowboarding lesson."

The beginner slope is, as promised, much less intimidating than the intermediate one. It is a gentle hill with a slow incline, populated by other beginners who fall over with the same frequency and enthusiasm that you anticipate for yourself. Heeseung finds a quiet spot near the edge, props his snowboard in the snow, and turns to you with an expression of exaggerated seriousness.

"Okay, lesson one: standing on the board without falling."

"That sounds fake."

"It's very real. I've done it many times."

"Show-off."

He grins and proceeds to walk you through the basics of snowboarding with the patience of a saint and the enthusiasm of someone who genuinely loves sharing his hobbies. He holds your hands when you wobble, catches you when you fall, and laughs with you instead of at you when you face-plant into a snowbank for the third time in ten minutes.

"You're getting better," he says, pulling you upright after your fourth fall. Snow dusts his beanie and clings to his eyelashes, and his cheeks are flushed pink from the cold. "That time you almost made it five feet."

"Almost being the key word."

"Almost is progress. Almost is the first step toward eventually."

You look at him, really look at him and feel something shift in your chest. This is it. This is the moment. You can't put it off any longer.

"I need to tell you something," you say, your voice coming out steadier than you feel. "Can we sit down for a minute?"

Heeseung's expression flickers, curiosity, concern, something else you can't name but he nods. "Of course."

You find a bench near the edge of the slope, tucked under a pine tree whose branches are heavy with snow. The afternoon sun starts to sink lower in the sky, painting the mountains in shades of gold and pink, and the air is cold enough to make your breath fog. You sit down, and Heeseung sits beside you, close but not too close, his snowboard propped against the bench.

For a long moment, you don't say anything. You are gathering your courage, trying to find the right words, trying to figure out how to start a conversation that might change everything.

"The letter," you say finally. "The one I gave you in the PC room. There's something I need to tell you about it."

Heeseung doesn't react. He just waits, his dark eyes steady on your face.

"It wasn't meant for you," you say, and the words come out in a rush, tumbling over each other in their hurry to escape. "I wrote it for someone else. For Jungwon. I'd been planning to confess to him for weeks, and I'd written this whole letter, and I asked someone where he was and they said he was in the PC room, and I walked in and I saw someone sitting at the computer and I just assumed it was him, and I didn't look, I didn't check, I just handed over the letter and started talking, and then you looked up and it wasn't him at all, it was you and I was so embarrassed and everyone was watching and I couldn't correct you in front of all those people, and then everything spiraled and I kept trying to tell you but I couldn't find the right moment and then Jungwon found out and I couldn't correct it in front of him either and now everything is a mess and I'm so, so sorry, and I understand if you're angry, I understand if you hate me, I just… I couldn't keep lying to you anymore. You deserved to know the truth."

You stop talking. Your heart pounds so hard you can feel it in your temples. Your hands shake, and you press them together in your lap to keep them still. You don't look at Heeseung, you can't look at him, can't bear to see the expression on his face.

The silence stretches for what feels like an eternity.

And then Heeseung says, in the most casual voice imaginable: "I know."

Your head snaps up. "What?"

"I know the letter wasn't meant for me." He smiles, not a smirk, not a grin, but something gentle and warm and completely without judgment. "I've known since the beginning."

"But… how… since when-"

"Since I read it." Heeseung leans back on the bench, looking out at the snow-covered slope with a thoughtful expression. "The letter was beautiful. Every word of it. But it wasn't about me. It was about someone who smiles a certain way, someone who gave you gummy bears at 2 AM, someone who studies hard during free time at the library." He glances at you sideways. "I've never given anyone gummy bears. And I'm an informatics student, I don't take philosophy."

Your brain short-circuits. "You knew. This whole time. You knew."

"I knew."

"And you didn't say anything?"

"What was I supposed to say?" Heeseung's voice is gentle. "You were so flustered and embarrassed, and I could see you panicking in front of everyone. If I called you out right there, you would have been humiliated. And then I kept waiting for you to tell me yourself, but you never did, and eventually I just…" He shrugs. "I got curious. You wrote this incredible letter, and you were so weird and skittish and interesting, and I wanted to understand you. So I kept showing up."

"You kept showing up because I was interesting?"

"At first. Then it became something else." He turns to face you fully, his expression open and earnest. "You're not like the other people who confess to me. They want the idea of me, the reputation, the image. You didn't even want the real me. You wanted someone else entirely. And that was… refreshing. You weren't trying to impress me. You were trying to get rid of me. It was the first time anyone ever hid behind a bulletin board to avoid me."

"I wasn't… I didn't…" You bury your face in your hands. "This is so humiliating."

"It's not humiliating. It's human. You made a mistake. A very entertaining, very elaborate mistake." He gently pulls your hands away from your face, forcing you to look at him. "And somewhere along the way, while you were busy trying to make me lose interest, I got to know the real you. The one who names her plants after literary characters. The one who writes passionate essays about video game balance. The one who cried over a baby penguin last week."

"Yunjin told you about that?"

"Yunjin and I have been texting. But don't worry she didn't spilled all your dirty secrets."

You gape at him. "You and Yunjin have been texting?"

"She reached out after the coffee incident. Said she wanted to make sure my intentions were good." He smiles, a little sheepishly. "I think I passed the test. She said I was less of a disaster than expected."

"I'm going to kill her. I'm going to kill both of you."

"Before you do, let me finish." Heeseung's voice softens, and he takes your hand in his, the same way he did on the bench under the stars, steady and warm and reassuring. "I knew the letter wasn't for me. But I also know that somewhere along the way, something changed. Maybe it changed for you too. Maybe it didn't. Either way, I wanted to give you the space to figure it out on your own terms."

You stare at him, your mind reeling. He knew. He has known this entire time, and instead of being angry or hurt or humiliated, he just… waited. Gave you space. Let you come to him when you were ready.

"You're not upset?" you whisper.

"I'm not upset."

"You don't feel… I don't know, betrayed? Lied to?"

"Y/N." He squeezes your hand. "You were scared. I get it. I've spent my whole life being scared of disappointing people, scared of saying no, scared of letting anyone down. I know what it's like to be trapped in a situation you didn't mean to create. I'm not going to hold that against you."

The tears threaten again, not the ugly, heartbroken tears from that night on the pathway, but something softer. Something that feels almost like relief.

"I'm sorry," you say, your voice cracking. "I'm so sorry for not telling you sooner."

"You're telling me now. That's what matters."

"I don't know what I feel," you admit. "About anything. About anyone. Everything is so confusing."

"Then don't figure it out right now." Heeseung stands up, pulling you gently to your feet. "We have three days at a ski station. There's a jacuzzi. There's hot chocolate. There's an entire mountain to explore. Let's just… enjoy it. See what happens. No pressure, no expectations, no misunderstandings."

Just like that, the weight you have been carrying for weeks, the guilt, the anxiety, the tangled knot of secrets, begins to loosen. Not disappear entirely, but loosen enough that you can breathe again.

"There's really a jacuzzi?" you ask.

Heeseung grins. "There's really a jacuzzi. I saw it on the map. Outdoor, heated, with a view of the mountains. Very romantic. Very much the kind of thing you'd put in a letter about someone."

"You're making fun of me."

"A little bit. But also, I'm serious." He picks up his snowboard and tucks it under his arm. "What do you say? After dinner? We can go check it out."

You think about it. The jacuzzi. With Heeseung. In a swimsuit. In warm water under the stars, surrounded by snow-covered mountains. It is terrifying. It is ridiculous. It is exactly the kind of thing the hopeless romantic inside you has always dreamed about.

"Okay," you say. "After dinner."

By the time dinner rolls around, you are a nervous wreck.

You have spent the rest of the afternoon in your room, alternating between staring at the ceiling and frantically texting Yunjin for advice. Yunjin has responded with a series of increasingly unhelpful messages:

Yunjin: wear the cute swimsuit

You: i don't OWN a cute swimsuit

Yunjin: wear the one you borrowed from me for the pool party last semester

You: the black one???

Yunjin: YES the black one. he won't know what hit him

You: i don't want him to be HIT i want this to be NORMAL

Yunjin: nothing about your life has been normal since the moment you walked into that PC room. embrace it. wear the swimsuit.

You wear the swimsuit.

Underneath your clothes, of course. Underneath a thick sweater, a pair of jeans, and the oversized winter coat you borrowed from Yunjin specifically for this trip. You feel like you are wearing armor, except the armor is actually a swimsuit, and the battle is against your own nervous system.

Dinner is a blur. The lodge's restaurant is packed with students, the noise level somewhere between "lively" and "chaotic," and you barely taste the food on your plate. You keep glancing toward the table where Heeseung sits with a group of his friends, and every time he catches your eye, he smiles at you, that same soft, knowing smile that makes your stomach do complicated acrobatics.

At one point, you accidentally make eye contact with Jungwon across the dining hall. He sits with a group of philosophy students, and when your gazes meet, he raises his hand in a small wave. His expression is unreadable, not sad, not angry, just… neutral. You wave back, and then you both look away, and that is it. A quiet acknowledgment of everything that has happened and everything that hasn't.

After dinner, you return to your room and proceed to have a minor meltdown.

The text from Heeseung arrives at exactly 8:47 PM.

Heeseung: jacuzzi? meet in the lobby in 10? bring a towel

You stare at the message for approximately three full minutes. Then you type out seventeen different responses, delete all of them, and finally settle on:

You: okay

Just "okay." No punctuation. No enthusiasm. Just the monosyllabic response of someone who is either incredibly chill or seconds away from spontaneous combustion.

You grab your towel and make your way to the lobby. The lodge is quieter now, most students either in the game room or in their own rooms recovering from the day's activities. The fireplace in the main lobby still crackles, and a few people gather around it with mugs of hot chocolate.

Heeseung is already there, leaning against the reception desk with a towel slung over his shoulder and that same gray beanie pulled over his hair. He has changed out of his snowboarding gear into something simpler and when he sees you approaching, his face lights up with that genuine smile that never fails to make your heart flutter.

"Ready?" he asks.

"No," you admit.

"Good. Let's go anyway."

The jacuzzi is on the outdoor deck of the spa building, a steaming oasis surrounded by snow-covered rocks and pine trees draped in lights. The mountains rise in the distance, dark silhouettes against a sky so full of stars it looks like a painting. The air is freezing, the kind of cold that makes your lungs ache, but the water is perfectly, blissfully warm, and when you finally shed your coat and your sweater and your jeans and slip into the bubbling water in your borrowed black swimsuit, you let out a breath you didn't realize you have been holding.

"This is nice," you admit, sinking down until the water reaches your chin. "This is really, really nice."

"Told you." Heeseung slides into the water across from you, his towel discarded on a nearby bench. The lights catch the angles of his face, the curve of his shoulders, the way his hair curls slightly at the ends from the steam. "Sometimes I'm right about things."

"Sometimes."

"Rarely. Occasionally. Once in a blue moon."

You laugh, and it feels good, lighter than it has in weeks. The warm water, the cold air, the stars overhead, the boy across from you who has known the truth all along and hasn't run away, it all feels like something out of a dream.

"I'm glad you told me," Heeseung says quietly. "About the letter."

"Me too."

"And I'm glad you're here. At the ski station. In the jacuzzi. With me."

Your heart flutters. "Me too."

"So what happens now?" Heeseung asks, but there is no pressure in his voice. Just curiosity. Just openness.

"I don't know," you say honestly. "But I think… I think I'd like to find out."

Heeseung smiles, soft and real and full of something you are only just beginning to recognize.

"Then let's find out," he says. "Together."

The jacuzzi is bathed in purple light.

You don't know if it is intentional or if someone just installed colored LEDs and called it a day, but the effect is undeniably, unfairly romantic. The water glows with a deep violet hue, shifting to indigo where the bubbles break the surface, and the steam rising into the cold mountain air catches the light and turns it into something almost magical. It looks like a movie.

A romance movie, specifically. The kind you have watched a hundred times in your dorm room, wrapped in a blanket, dreaming about the day something like this would happen to you.

And now it is happening. And you are absolutely, catastrophically unprepared.

Heeseung sits across from you in the bubbling water, his arms stretched out along the edge of the jacuzzi, his head tilted back slightly to look at the stars. The purple light paints shadows across the planes of his face, the sharp line of his jaw, the curve of his lips, the column of his throat disappearing into the steam. Droplets of water cling to his skin, and when he tilts his head forward to look at you, his dark eyes reflect the violet glow in a way that makes your stomach drop straight through the floor.

"You're doing it again," he says, his voice low and amused.

"Doing what?"

"Staring at me like you're trying to figure me out."

"I'm not staring. I'm… observing. It's different."

"Is it?"

"It's scientific. I'm conducting research."

Heeseung's lips curve into that familiar smile, the one that is definitely a smirk's first cousin by now, maybe even its sibling. "And what has your research concluded so far?"

"That you're very annoying," you say. "And that the purple light is doing unfair things to your bone structure."

"Unfair things to my bone structure," he repeats, laughing. "That's a new one. I'll add it to the list of compliments I've received."

"You keep a list?"

"Mentally. It's not written down anywhere. I'm not that egotistical."

"Debatable."

He laughs again, and the sound echoes across the water, mixing with the gentle hum of the jacuzzi jets. You try very hard to be normal, to act like you aren't sitting in a bubbling hot tub with a boy who has known your secret all along and has still chosen to be here, in the purple light, looking at you like he wants to kiss you.

And then he reaches for your foot.

His hand closes around your ankle beneath the water, warm and gentle, and before you can process what is happening, he lifts your leg, guiding your foot toward him. Your heel presses against his chest, against the firm warmth of his skin, the steady rhythm of his heartbeat, and your breath catches in your throat so abruptly that you make a small, strangled sound that is definitely not dignified. The memory of your wet dream surges instantly, and you mentally thank the purple lights for hiding the sudden flush on your face.

"What are you doing?" you manage, your voice coming out several octaves higher than normal.

"You were floating awkwardly," Heeseung says, like this is a perfectly reasonable explanation. His thumb traces a slow circle against your ankle bone, feather-light and devastating. "I thought you might want something to anchor you."

"My ankle. You're anchoring my ankle."

"Ankles are very anchorable."

"That's not a word."

"It is now. I'm an engineering student. I can invent words."

Your heart pounds so hard you are certain he can feel it through the sole of your foot. His hand still wraps around your ankle, warm and steady, and the position is so unexpectedly intimate, your leg stretched across the space between you, your foot pressed against his chest, his thumb drawing lazy patterns on your skin, that you don't know where to look or what to say or how to breathe.

"You know what's funny?" Heeseung says, his voice conversational, like he isn't currently holding your foot against his heart. "The jacuzzi scene in To All the Boys I've Loved Before."

Your brain, which is already operating at approximately ten percent capacity, struggles to process the shift in topic. "The… jacuzzi scene?"

"Lara Jean and Peter. The ski trip. The hot tub." He gestures vaguely at the purple water around you. "They're in a jacuzzi together for the first time, and Lara Jean is all nervous, and Peter is trying to be cool about it, and there's all this tension because they're fake dating but they're both starting to feel real things."

"I know the scene," you say, your voice faint.

"It's kind of the turning point in the movie. The moment where the fake relationship starts becoming real." Heeseung tilts his head, and his eyes meet yours, and there is something in them, something dark and warm and knowing—that makes your skin tingle. "Funny how we ended up in a jacuzzi too. At a ski station. Just like them."

"Are you saying we're in a romance movie?"

"I'm saying the parallels are getting a little uncanny." His thumb traces another circle on your ankle, slow and deliberate. "The letter. The ski trip. The hot tub."

"Well, technically the parallels are there but it's still different…"

"You're right. At the end of the day we're not in a movie… This is real life."

"Which means…"

"Which means we're in uncharted territory now." Heeseung's voice drops, becoming something lower, something that vibrates through the water and into your bones. "No movie to reference. No script to follow. Just… whatever happens next."

Your mouth is dry. When did your mouth become so dry? You are surrounded by water, and yet every drop of moisture has apparently evaporated from your body.

"That's terrifying," you whisper.

"Is it?" His hand tightens slightly on your ankle, grounding you. "I think it's kind of exciting. Don't you?"

You don't know how to answer that. You don't know how to articulate the complicated knot of fear and anticipation and something else, something warm and fluttering that has taken up residence in your chest. So you do what you always do when you don't know what to say: you deflect.

"You're very smooth, you know that?" you say, aiming for teasing and landing somewhere closer to breathless. "Has anyone ever told you that? The ankle thing, the movie reference, the uncharted territory line, it's a lot."

Heeseung's lips twitch. "Is it working?"

"I'm not answering that."

"That's an answer in itself."

"You're insufferable."

"And yet you're still here." His eyes flicker down for just a moment, barely a second, but enough to make your skin flush. "Letting me hold your ankle."

You pull your foot back, but he doesn't let go. His grip remains gentle, steady, his palm warm against your skin. "I'm not letting you do anything. You just… did it."

"And you didn't stop me."

"I was being polite."

"Polite." Heeseung's smile widens. "Right. That's what this is. Politeness."

The purple light flickers slightly, casting new shadows across his face. The bubbles swirl around you, warm and enveloping, and the cold mountain air nips at your exposed shoulders, creating a contrast that makes every sensation feel heightened. You are acutely aware of everything, the heat of the water, the chill of the breeze, the rough texture of the jacuzzi edge beneath your fingers, the steady pressure of Heeseung's hand on your ankle.

"Can I ask you something?" Heeseung says.

"You're going to anyway."

"True." He pauses, and when he speaks again, his voice is softer. More curious. "Have you ever done this before?"

"Done what? Sat in a jacuzzi?"

"Been physical with someone. Intimate." He says the words without embarrassment, without leering, just genuine curiosity. "You get so flustered every time I touch you. Earlier, when I kissed your cheek, I thought you were going to combust. And I'm not trying to make fun of you, I'm genuinely asking. Is this… new for you?"

Your cheeks, already flushed from the heat of the water, burn even hotter. "That's a very personal question."

"You don't have to answer. Remember? Twenty questions rules. No pressure."

You are quiet for a moment. The bubbles churn around you. The stars glitter overhead. Heeseung's thumb continues its slow, hypnotic circles on your ankle.

"I've kissed people before," you say finally. "A few times. But it was always… quick. Awkward. Spin the bottle at parties, that kind of thing." You pause, gathering your courage. "I've never had a real relationship. I've never… you know."

"Made out with someone?"

The bluntness of the question makes you choke on air. "I… that's… yes. That. I've never done that."

"Okay," Heeseung says simply.

"Okay? That's all you have to say?"

"What else would I say?"

"I don't know. Something. Most people would say something."

Heeseung is quiet for a moment, his expression thoughtful. Then he says, "I haven't either. Much, I mean. I've had my few moments but the amount you can count on your fingers. People assume I have, because of the reputation, but the truth is I've never really… connected with someone like that. I've had opportunities, I guess, but I didn't want to do it just for the sake of doing it. I wanted it to mean something."

The confession catches you off guard. You assumed, everyone assumed, that Lee Heeseung was experienced, that his womanizer reputation was built on a foundation of romantic conquests. But here he is, in the purple light of the jacuzzi, telling you that the reputation is just that: a reputation. Smoke and mirrors. Assumptions built on his inability to say no.

"We're both disasters," you say.

"Absolutely. But at least we're disasters together."

"Disaster twins."

"Matching shirts and everything."

You laugh, and it comes out lighter than you expected. The tension that has been coiling in your chest begins to ease, replaced by something warmer. Something that feels almost like comfort.

Wus Good/Curious - PARTYNEXTDOOR playing now

Somewhere in the lodge, someone has connected their phone to the outdoor speakers. The song that starts playing is slow and sensual, the timing so absurd, so perfectly, comedically timed, that you can't help but laugh. "Did you plan this?"

Heeseung laughs too, shaking his head in disbelief. "I swear I didn't. The universe is just showing off at this point."

"This is the least romantic song that could have possibly played."

"I don't know. It's got a certain vibe." His eyes meet yours, and there is a glint of mischief in them. "Very sensual. Very on-the-nose for a jacuzzi scene."

"It's about-" You stop, your face heating.

"It's about what?"

"You know what it's about."

"I want to hear you say it."

"You're the worst."

Heeseung grins, and the purple light catches the curve of his lips, the sparkle in his eyes, the way the water droplets trace paths down his neck and across his collarbone. The song continues playing, and you are suddenly very aware of how close he is, how the space between you has somehow shrunk without you noticing.

"Come here," he says softly.

"What?"

"Come here. I want to show you something."

Your heart hammers so hard you can feel it in your throat. "Show me what?"

"Trust me."

And you do. That is the terrifying thing. Despite everything, the misunderstandings, the secrets, the weeks of chaos and confusion, you trust him. You trust the boy who poured coffee on his head to make you feel less alone. You trust the boy who held your hand while you cried. You trust the boy who has known your secret all along and has never once made you feel foolish for it.

You move through the water, closer to him, and the purple light swirls around you like something out of a dream. When you are within reach, Heeseung's hands find your waist beneath the water, gentle but sure, and he guides you until you are straddling his lap, your knees on either side of his hips, your faces inches apart.

"Is this okay?" he asks, his voice barely above a whisper.

Your breath comes in short, shallow gasps. His hands are warm on your waist, his thumbs tracing slow circles against the curve of your hips. His face is so close you can see the individual droplets of water on his eyelashes, can count the shades of brown in his eyes, can feel the warmth of his breath against your lips.

"Yes," you whisper. "This is… okay."

"You're shaking."

"I'm nervous."

"I know." His hands slide up from your waist, over your ribs, coming to rest on either side of your face. His palms are warm against your cheeks, his fingers threading gently into the wet strands of your hair. "We don't have to do anything you're not ready for. We can just sit here. We can talk. We can get out and go back inside. Whatever you want."

The gentleness of his voice, the patience in his eyes, the way he holds your face like you are something precious, it makes your chest ache in a way that has nothing to do with fear and everything to do with the realization that you are in very, very deep trouble.

Because this boy, this absurd, beautiful, incomprehensible boy who stumbled into your life through a misplaced letter and a catastrophic misunderstanding, has somehow become someone you can't imagine letting go of.

"What I want," you say, your voice barely steady, "is for you to kiss me."

Heeseung's eyes darken. The purple light flickers across his features, and his thumbs trace the line of your cheekbones, and his lips part slightly, and for one suspended moment, the entire world holds its breath.

"Okay," he murmurs. "But we're going to do this right."

And then he kisses you.

His lips meet yours softly at first, gentle, exploratory, the barest brush of contact. He tastes like the mint tea he had after dinner, and his mouth is warm, and the kiss is so sweet and so tender that you feel your entire body melt into him. Your hands, hovering awkwardly at your sides, come up to rest on his shoulders, and you feel the muscles beneath his skin shift as he pulls you closer.

But then you try to deepen the kiss, and it goes wrong.

Your nose bumps against his. Your teeth clack together with an audible click. You pull back, mortified, your face burning. "I'm sorry… I didn't… I don't know what I'm doing-"

"Hey." Heeseung's voice is gentle, his hands still cupping your face. "Hey. It's okay. Look at me."

You force yourself to meet his eyes, expecting to see amusement or frustration or something worse. But all you see is patience. Warmth. Something that looks a lot like affection.

"Everyone's first real kiss is awkward," he says. "That's normal. That's how it's supposed to be."

"It wasn't supposed to be with someone who actually knows what they're doing."

"Then let me teach you." His thumb traces your lower lip, feather-light. "We'll go slow. You follow my lead. And if at any point you want to stop, just say the word. Okay?"

Your heart pounds so hard you can feel it in your temples. "Okay."

He leans in again, slower this time, giving you every opportunity to pull away. When his lips meet yours, the pressure is deliberate, gentle but firm, guiding you. His mouth moves against yours in a slow, languid rhythm, and you follow, mimicking his movements, learning the dance as you go.

"Tilt your head a little," he murmurs against your lips. "There. Like that."

You adjust, and suddenly the angle is better, the kiss deepening naturally. His hands slide from your face down to your waist, pulling you closer, and you feel the length of his body against yours, warm and solid and very, very real.

"Now try parting your lips," he whispers. "Just a little."

You do, and the kiss changes. Becomes something deeper, more intense. His tongue brushes against your lower lip, a question rather than a demand, and when you open for him, the sensation is so overwhelming that a soft sound escapes your throat, something between a sigh and a gasp.

"Good," Heeseung breathes. "You're doing so good."

The praise sends a shiver down your spine. Your fingers curl into his shoulders, gripping him like he is the only solid thing in a world. The kiss deepens further, his mouth moving against yours with a confidence that makes your head spin, and you follow his lead, letting him guide you, letting yourself get lost in the warmth of his body and the taste of his lips and the steady, grounding pressure of his hands on your waist.

"Now," he murmurs, pulling back just enough to press a kiss to the corner of your mouth, "there's variation. You don't have to do the same thing the whole time."

"Variation," you repeat, your voice dazed.

"You can kiss here-" His lips brush the edge of your jaw. "-and here-" A kiss to the sensitive spot just below your ear. "-and here." A kiss to the hollow of your throat that makes your breath catch and your fingers tighten on his shoulders.

"That's… a lot of places."

"There's more." He pulls back, and his eyes meet yours, dark and warm and full of something that makes your stomach flip. "But we can save those for later. If you want."

"If I want," you echo, still dazed.

"Only if you want." His hand comes up to cup your face again, his thumb tracing your cheekbone.

"This is insane," you whisper.

"Completely insane."

"I can't believe this is happening."

"Neither can I." He presses his forehead against yours, his breath warm against your lips. "But I'm really, really glad it is."

"Can we try again?" you ask, your voice small but steady. "The kissing thing. I think I need more practice."

Heeseung laughs, and the sound vibrates through his chest and into yours. "Practice makes perfect."

"I'm a STEM student. I believe in empirical evidence."

"Then let's gather some data."

He kisses you again, and this time, you are ready. Your lips meet his with more confidence, your hands sliding from his shoulders into his hair, it is soft, damp from the steam, and the way he sighs against your mouth when your fingers thread through it makes you feel powerful in a way you have never experienced before.

This time, when you deepen the kiss, it's less clumsy. It's more natural, instinctive, the kind of kiss that feels like it has been waiting to happen for weeks and is finally making up for lost time. Heeseung's hands tighten on your waist, pulling you impossibly closer, and the water swirls around you.

Your hands roam over his chest, feeling the firm muscles beneath your fingertips. Heeseung's tongue teases your lower lip, seeking entrance which you grant without hesitation. The kiss becomes hungrier, more desperate as your bodies press together in the warm water. He has been patient with you, letting you set the pace, never pushing for more than you are ready to give.

You feel something hard pressing against your thigh through the thin fabric of your swimsuit. You pull back slightly, breathless, your cheeks flushed with both desire and embarrassment.

"Don't mind it," Heeseung murmurs, his voice husky with arousal. "It's just a natural reaction to kissing someone I find incredibly attractive."

But instead of shying away, something bold awakens inside you. You've been waiting for this moment, wanting to take your relationship to the next level. Taking a deep breath, you meet his gaze directly, though your words come out in a clumsy rush.

"I want to... I mean, if you want to... I think I'm ready to... do it," you stammer, feeling your face heat up even more. "With you."

Heeseung's eyes widen slightly before softening with affection. "Are you sure? Here? Your first time should be special."

"It is special because it's with you," you insist, trying to sound more confident than you feel. "I want this. I want you. I want to be honest with myself."

A slow smile spreads across his face. "Okay," he murmurs, his hands moving to cup your face. "But we need to prepare you properly. I don't want to hurt you."

His thumb brushes against your cheek as he continues, "Have you ever... touched yourself before?"

You shake your head, feeling a mix of embarrassment and excitement.

"That's okay," he assures you. "I'll teach you. I'll make sure you feel good."

WGFT - Gunna playing now

Heeseung shifts slightly, adjusting your position on his lap. One hand trails down your back, over your hip, and between your legs. Even through the fabric of your swimsuit, his touch sends sparks through your body.

"First, I need to make sure you're ready," he explains softly. His fingers find the edge of your swimsuit bottom, toying with the fabric. "May I?"

You nod, your breath catching in anticipation.

Slowly, his fingers slip beneath the fabric, finding your folds. You gasp at the contact, your body tensing for a moment before relaxing into his touch.

"It's twitching," he murmurs against your ear. "That's good. It means your body wants this too."

His fingers explore gently, learning your anatomy as you bite your lip to hold back moans. He finds your clit and circles it slowly, watching your face for reactions.

"When I touch you here, it should build pleasure." he explains.

He demonstrates, applying a bit more pressure. You can't help but arch your back, a soft cry escaping your lips.

"Like that?" he asks with a knowing smile.

You can only nod, lost in the sensations he's creating.

After a few minutes of this delicious torture, he slides one finger lower, testing your entrance. "I'm going to prepare you," he warns softly. "It might feel a little strange at first, but I promise it will get better."

His finger enters you slowly, carefully. There's a slight discomfort, but as he begins to move in and out, the sensation transforms into pleasure. He watches your face intently, adjusting his movements based on your reactions.

"Does that feel good?" he asks.

You nod, your hips beginning to move in rhythm with his hand.

He adds a second finger, stretching you further. "You're so tight," he groans. "I can't wait to be inside you."

His words send another wave of desire through you. His thumb returns to your clit, rubbing in circles as his fingers continue their work inside you. The dual stimulation is overwhelming in the best way possible.

"Heeseung," you gasp, your hands clutching at his shoulders.

"I know, little mouse," he murmurs, kissing you deeply. "Let it build. Don't fight it."

The pleasure intensifies, coiling in your stomach like a spring. Your movements become more erratic as you chase the feeling building within you.

"That's it," he encourages. "Good girl"

With a cry, you shatter, waves of pleasure washing over you. Heeseung continues his movements, drawing out your orgasm until you collapse against his chest, trembling and breathless.

"You're so beautiful when you come," he whispers, kissing your forehead. "Can you do more?"

You can only nod, still recovering from the intensity of your first orgasm with someone else.

He slides down his shorts slightly just to reveal his already hard cock and slides your swimsuit to the side. His hands move to your hips, and you begin to grind against him instinctively. The water sloshes around you as you move, his lenght sliding between your folds, creating a delicious friction under the water. Lost in the moment, you shift your hips, trying to get closer, to feel more of him.

Suddenly, you both freeze as you feel him slip inside you. There's a sharp pain, followed by a sense of fullness that takes your breath away. Your eyes widen in shock as you look at Heeseung, whose expression mirrors your surprise.

"Oh my god," he gasps, his hands tightening on your hips. "I... I didn't mean for that to happen. Are you okay?"

You nod, still processing what just happened. The initial pain is already fading, replaced by a strange mix of discomfort and pleasure.

"I'm so sorry," Heeseung continues, his cheeks flushing with embarrassment. "I should have been more careful. I didn't..."

As he stammers through an apology, you can't help but let out a small laugh. The absurdity of the situation , your first time happening so accidentally, so clumsily, suddenly strikes you as hilarious.

Heeseung looks at you in confusion before a smile breaks across his face. "You're laughing?"

"We're so clumsy," you giggle, the tension breaking between you. "All that careful preparation and then..."

He joins in your laughter, the moment transforming from awkward to intimate. "Well," he says once the laughter subsides, "since we're already here... are you okay to continue? We can stop if you want."

You shake your head, a new determination filling you. "No, I want to continue. Show me what to do."

Heeseung's expression softens with affection. "Okay," he murmurs, his hands guiding your hips. "Just relax and let me do the work. Move with me, but let me lead."

He begins to move slowly, guiding you in a gentle rhythm. The water sloshes around you as you find a pace together. With each thrust, pleasure builds, different from before but just as intense.

"You feel so good," Heeseung groans, his control beginning to slip. "So tight around me."

His praise only heightens your arousal. You try to meet his movements with your own, but your motions are awkward and uncoordinated. You feel clumsy, unsure of exactly how to move to maximize pleasure for both of you.

"Don't worry about doing it perfectly," Heeseung reassures you, noticing your frustration. "Just feel. Let your body respond naturally."

He adjusts your position slightly, changing the angle of his thrusts. A gasp escapes your lips as he hits a particularly sensitive spot.

"There," he murmurs, repeating the movement. "How does that feel?"

"Amazing," you breathe, your hands clutching at his shoulders.

Heeseung's hands roam your body, caressing your breasts, your back, your hips. His mouth finds your neck, sucking gently at your pulse point. Marking you as his.

"I've wanted this since the moment we got in the jacuzzi," he admits between kisses. "But I was too scared you would run away if I decided to act up."

"I want it," you assure him, your voice breathy with pleasure. "I want all of you. I'm not scared anymore."

Your words seem to unleash something in him. His movements become more deliberate, more purposeful as he chases his own release. One hand moves between your legs again, finding your clit and rubbing in time with his thrusts.

The dual stimulation quickly pushes you toward another orgasm. "Heeseung," you cry out, your nails digging into his shoulders.

"I know," he groans. "Come with me this time."

His words are all it takes to push you over the edge. As you clench around him, Heeseung finds his own release, burying his face in your neck with a guttural moan.

For a moment, you stay connected, catching your breath as the water continues to bubble around you. Heeseung presses soft kisses to your shoulders, your neck, your cheeks.

"Are you okay?" he asks softly, pulling back to look at you.

You nod, a contented smile spreading across your face. "Better than okay. That was..."

"Incredible," he finishes for you, returning your smile. "You're incredible."

As you slowly separate, Heeseung adjusts your swimsuit back into place before

As you both recover in the warm bubbling water, you notice something pressing against your thigh again. You glance down and see that Heeseung is already getting hard once more. A blush spreads across your cheeks as you meet his eyes.

"Already?" you ask with a small laugh.

Heeseung grins, a hint of embarrassment in his expression. "I can't help it," he admits. "You feel so good, and I've wanted this for so long. My body seems to have a mind of its own around you."

A boldness takes hold of you, spurred by the confidence your first time gave you. "If you want to do it again... your way this time... I don't mind," you say, trying to sound casual despite the flutter in your stomach.

Heeseung's eyes darken with desire at your words. Without warning, he pounces, lifting you effortlessly from his lap. He carries you to the edge of the jacuzzi and gently sets you down on the edge. The contrast between the warm water and the cool air sends a shiver through your body.

"My way?" he asks, his voice husky with arousal. "I like the sound of that."

He kneels in the water between your legs, his hands spreading your thighs apart. His eyes never leave yours as he leans forward, pressing soft kisses to your inner thigh. You watch, mesmerized, as he works his way upward, leaving a trail of fire on your skin.

When he reaches your core, he pauses, his breath warm against your most sensitive flesh. "I've wanted to taste you since the first time I saw you in that swimsuit," he confesses, his voice low and intimate.

Then he dives in, his tongue exploring your folds. You gasp, your hands flying to his hair as waves of pleasure wash over you. Heeseung maintains eye contact as he eats you out, his dark eyes watching your every reaction, learning what makes you moan, what makes you arch your back.

"You taste so sweet," he murmurs against you before returning to his task, his tongue circling your clit before dipping inside you.

The sensations are overwhelming, building quickly toward another orgasm. Heeseung seems to sense your approaching release and redoubles his efforts, adding his fingers to the mix, curling them inside you as he continues to lavish attention on your clit.

"Heeseung," you cry out, your hips bucking against his face. "Please don't stop."

He doesn't. Instead, he increases his pace, his tongue and fingers working in perfect harmony until you shatter, crying out his name as waves of pleasure crash over you. He continues his ministrations, drawing out your orgasm until you're trembling and breathless.

Only then does he pull back, a triumphant grin on his face as he licks his lips. "Delicious," he declares, rising from the water.

He kisses his way up your body, over your stomach, between your breasts, along your collarbone, up your neck, until finally his lips claim yours. You can taste yourself on his tongue as the kiss deepens, passionate and hungry.

Without breaking the kiss, Heeseung positions himself at your entrance. This time, there's no accidental slip, he enters you deliberately, slowly, filling you completely. You moan into his mouth at the exquisite stretch and fullness.

He begins to move, his hips thrusting in a deep, slow rhythm that drives you wild. Each stroke is measured and controlled, hitting all the right spots. His movements are faster and harder than before, but still gentle, still considerate of your inexperience.

"You feel incredible," he groans, his voice thick with pleasure. "You're taking it well."

His hands roam your body as he moves, caressing your breasts, your hips, your thighs. His mouth finds your ear, his warm breath sending shivers down your spine as he whispers praises and encouragements.

"You're doing so well," he murmurs. "Taking me so deep. You feel amazing wrapped around me."

His words only heighten your arousal, pushing you closer to another peak. You wrap your legs around his waist, pulling him deeper, matching his rhythm as best you can despite your inexperience.

After a few minutes, Heeseung pulls out gently. "Turn around," he commands softly.

You obey, positioning hands at the edge of the jacuzzi. He enters you from behind, this new angle allowing him to reach even deeper inside you. You cry out at the intensity of the sensation.

"Is this okay?" he asks, his voice strained with restraint.

"More than okay," you manage to gasp. "Don't stop."

He resumes his movements, his hands gripping your hips as he thrusts into you. The water sloshes with each movement, adding to the sensory experience. Heeseung's pace increases, his thrusts becoming more urgent as he chases his release.

His moans fill the night air, raw and uninhibited. "I'm getting close," he warns. "Where do you want me?"

"Inside me," you answer without hesitation.

Heeseung hesitates for a moment. "Are you sure? We didn't use anything."

Your mind races for a second before you respond, "I'm on the pill. It's okay."

With a groan of relief, Heeseung continues his movements, his pace becoming erratic as he approaches his climax. With one final deep thrust, he buries himself inside you, his body trembling as he finds his release.

For a moment, he stays inside you. Then he pulls out gently and helps you turn back over. He leans to slowly kiss you while stroking himself a few times before releasing again onto your stomach, warm and sticky.

You look at him in surprise.

"I couldn't," he explains, noticing your confusion. "I couldn't resist, I wanted to see you covered of me."

He reaches for a nearby towel, gently cleaning your stomach before pressing a soft kiss to your lips. "Next time," he promises, "I'll be more gentle. We'll take our time, explore everything properly."

"There's going to be a next time?" you ask with a smile.

Heeseung grins, pulling you into his arms. "Oh, there's definitely going to be a next time. And a time after that, and after that... I'm never getting enough of you."

The walk back to your room feels like floating.

Not literally, of course, your feet are very much on the ground, leaving wet footprints on the wooden floorboards of the lodge hallway, but your mind is somewhere else entirely. Somewhere purple-lit and steaming, somewhere filled with the taste of mint tea and the feeling of warm hands on your waist and the sound of Heeseung's voice murmuring instructions against your lips.

You have had sex. In a jacuzzi. Under the stars. With Lee Heeseung.

The hopeless romantic inside you does cartwheels. The realistic part of your brain is still buffering, stuck on a loading screen that says "please wait while we process what just happened." Your body is somewhere in between, pleasantly warm despite the cold air, tingling in places you hadn't known could tingle, wrapped in your borrowed coat and your towel and the lingering sensation of his skin against yours.

Heeseung walks beside you, his hand intertwined with yours. He hums softly, and when he catches you looking at him, he smiles that devastating smile and squeezes your hand.

"What?" he asks.

"Nothing. Just… processing."

"Processing what?"

"Everything." You gesture vaguely with your free hand. "The conversation. The jacuzzi. The… everything after the conversation."

"The everything after the conversation," he repeats, his smile widening. "Very descriptive."

"I'm a STEM student, not a poet."

"You wrote a three-page love letter with calligraphy. You're absolutely a poet."

"That was a one-time thing. A fluke. I've since retired from poetry."

"Tragic. The literary world has lost a great talent."

You reach your door, and Heeseung stops, turning to face you.

"Are you okay?" he asks, and his voice is gentle. "Really okay? That was… a lot. I know it was a lot. And I want to make sure you're not freaking out."

"I am absolutely freaking out," you admit. "But in a good way. I think. It's hard to tell. My brain is still catching up."

"Good freak-out or bad freak-out?"

"Good. Definitely good. Just… overwhelming." You pause, searching for the right words. "It wasn't how I imagined my first time would be. It was awkward and clumsy and it accidentally went in, and I'm pretty sure I made some very weird sounds, and-"

"It was perfect," Heeseung interrupts softly. "It was real. It was you. That's all I want."

Your heart, which has already been through approximately seventeen different emotional states in the past hour, does another complicated flip. "You're very good at saying the right thing."

"I'm not trying to say the right thing. I'm just telling you the truth." He reaches up and tucks a damp strand of hair behind your ear, his fingers lingering against your temple. "You're amazing, Y/N. And I'm not saying that because of what just happened. I'm saying it because it's been true since the moment you walked into that PC room and handed me a letter that wasn't meant for me."

"You're going to make me cry again."

"Please don't. I've seen you cry twice now, and both times it made me want to fight whoever made you sad. I can't fight myself. That's a conflict of interest."

You laugh, and it comes out a little watery. "You're ridiculous."

"I'm aware." He leans down and presses a kiss to your forehead, soft, gentle, lingering. "Goodnight, little mouse. Get some sleep."

"Goodnight, Heeseung."

He pulls back, his hand slipping from yours, and walks backward down the hallway for a few steps, still smiling at you. "Dream about me."

"I make no promises."

"I'll take that as confirmation."

He turns the corner and disappears, and you are left standing in front of your door with the lingering warmth of the best night of your life.

The moment you step into your room, Yunjin is on you like a hawk on a field mouse.

"WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?"

You close the door behind you, leaning against it with a dazed expression. Yunjin sits cross-legged on her bed, her phone in her hand, a half-eaten bag of chips on the nightstand. Her eyes are wide, her expression a mixture of curiosity and accusation.

"The jacuzzi," you say faintly.

"For three hours?"

"Was it three hours? It doesn't feel like three hours."

"Y/N." Yunjin shuts her laptop with a decisive click. "You're wearing a towel. Your hair is wet. You have that look on your face, the one that says I just did something and I don't know how to process it. Spill. Now. Every detail."

You push yourself off the door and collapse onto your bed, staring up at the ceiling.

"We had sex," you say.

"What?!"

"We had sex, don't make me repeat it please or I'm gonna die…"

Yunjin is silent for exactly two seconds. Then: "YOU GUYS FUCKED?"

"Yeah…"

"IN THE JACUZZI?"

"There aren't exactly a lot of alternative locations. The water is warm. There's purple lighting. It's very atmospheric."

Yunjin scrambles off her bed and crosses the room in three steps, grabbing your shoulders and pulling you upright. "I need details. I need all the details. How did it happen? Who initiated it? Was it good? Was he good? Did he-"

"Yunjin!" You press your hands to your burning cheeks. "I can't just… I don't know how to-"

"Start from the beginning. The jacuzzi. What happened?"

You take a deep breath, gathering your scattered thoughts, and then the words start tumbling out of you as you tell her everything.

Yunjin is quiet for a moment, processing. Then she lets out a long breath. "So your first time was in a jacuzzi, under the stars, with a hot informatics engineering student who knew you'd accidentally confessed to the wrong person and liked you anyway."

"That's… yeah. That's basically the summary."

"And you're telling me you're still worried this is some kind of disaster?"

"I'm not worried," you say slowly. "I'm just… confused. About what we are. We don't exactly have the what are we conversation. We just kind of… had sex. And now I don't know if we're dating, or if it was a one-time thing, or if he's going to wake up tomorrow and realize he made a huge mistake and-"

"Stop." Yunjin holds up a hand. "Just stop. I'm going to tell you something, and I need you to actually hear it."

"I'm listening."

"Lee Heeseung has known your secret for weeks. He's seen you at your absolute worst, hiding behind bulletin boards, choking on lettuce, spilling coffee all over yourself, crying on a bench in the middle of the night. He's seen you ramble about video games until you run out of breath, and he's seen you face-plant in the snow eight times in one afternoon. And after all of that, he still chooses to spend three hours in a jacuzzi with you and make sure your first time is special and safe and good."

Yunjin leans forward, her expression intense. "That's not the behavior of a guy who's going to wake up tomorrow and change his mind. That's the behavior of a guy who is completely, thoroughly, absolutely gone for you."

The words settle into your chest. "You really think so?"

"I know so. And I think you know so too. You're just scared to admit it because admitting it means this is real, and real is scary."

"When did you get so wise about relationships?"

"I've been watching you be a disaster for months. I've picked up a few things."

You laugh, and it comes out lighter than you expected. "So what do I do?"

"Tomorrow, you go find him. You see how he acts. And if he acts like nothing's changed except that he's even happier to see you than usual, then you'll have your answer."

"And if he acts weird?"

"Then I'll key his snowboard."

"Yunjin!"

"Kidding. Mostly." She grins and flops back onto her bed. "Now go to sleep. You've had a big night. You need rest. And honestly, I need time to process the fact that my best friend had a romantic jacuzzi rendezvous while I was sitting here eating chips and doomscrolling on TikTok."

"You could have come to the jacuzzi."

"And interrupt whatever is happening between you two? I'm a good friend, not a saint. I'd be third-wheeling so hard I'd need a snowplow to get out."

You laugh again, and for the first time in weeks, you feel light. Unburdened. Like the weight you've been carrying since the moment you walked into that PC room has finally been lifted.

"Goodnight, Yunjin."

"Goodnight, you absolute disaster of a human being. Dream about your hot engineer boy."

"He's not my-"

"Yet. He's not your boy yet. But I give it twenty-four hours."

You throw a pillow at her. She catches it and tucks it under her head with a satisfied grin.

The next morning, you wake up with a start, your heart racing. Dreams of purple light and warm water and hands on your waist and a voice murmuring good girl, you're doing so good against your lips haunt your memory.

You press your face into your pillow and scream.

It is a happy scream, mostly. A disbelieving, giddy scream. But it is also a nervous scream, because in approximately one hour, you are going to have to go downstairs and face Heeseung in the cold light of day, and you have absolutely no idea how that is going to go.

Would he be awkward? Would he be distant? Would he pretend nothing happened? Would he-

Your phone buzzes on the nightstand.

Heeseung: good morning little mouse. breakfast in 30?

You stare at the message for a solid ten seconds. Then you type back:

You: okay

Heeseung: you're very eloquent in the morning

You: i haven't had caffeine yet

Heeseung: i'll have a vanilla latte waiting for you. extra shot of vanilla. just like last time

Heeseung: hopefully with less spilling this time

You: no promises

You get dressed in a daze, pulling on approximately four layers of clothing because you still don't own proper winter gear and the borrowed coat can only do so much. Yunjin is already gone, she has left a note on the nightstand that says went to find the economics majors. don't do anything I wouldn't do. (do everything I wouldn't do), so you are alone with your thoughts as you make your way down to the lodge's dining hall.

You spot Heeseung immediately. He sits at a table near the window, two cups of coffee in front of him, his hair still slightly messy from sleep. When he sees you approaching, his entire face lights up.

"There you are," he says, standing up and pulling out a chair for you. "I was starting to think you'd bailed."

"On breakfast?"

"On me. On this. On everything." He says it lightly, but there is a flicker of vulnerability in his eyes, a tiny crack in his usual confident demeanor. "I wasn't sure if you'd want to see me this morning, or if you'd need space, or-"

"Hey." You reach out and touch his hand, just briefly. "I'm here. I want to see you."

The relief that washes over his face is so genuine, so unguarded, that your heart clenches. "Okay. Good. That's… good."

You sit down, and he slides the vanilla latte toward you. Your fingers brush as you take the cup, and the contact sends a spark of electricity up your arm. You both pretend not to notice, but the way Heeseung's ears turn slightly pink suggests he feels it too.

"So," you say, taking a sip of your latte to give yourself something to do with your hands. "Breakfast."

"Breakfast," he agrees. "Eggs. Bacon. Possibly a pastry if we're feeling adventurous."

"Very adventurous."

"I'm a risk-taker."

You try to eat normally. You really do. But every time you look up from your plate, Heeseung looks at you with that soft, wondering expression, and you forget how to chew, and you end up staring at him with a piece of toast halfway to your mouth like you've been frozen in time.

"You're doing it again," he says.

"Doing what?"

"The staring thing. The I'm trying to figure you out thing."

"I'm not trying to figure you out. I already figured you out. You're a people-pleaser who can't say no and you have a secret soft spot for romantic comedies."

"Then what are you thinking about?"

You set down your toast. "I'm thinking about last night. And what it means. And what we are now."

Heeseung's expression shifts, becoming more serious. "Do you want to have that conversation? The what are we conversation?"

"I don't know. Do you?"

"I asked you first."

"That's very mature."

"I have my moments." He leans forward, resting his elbows on the table. "Look, I know we did things kind of backwards. Most people start with coffee and work their way up to jacuzzis. We started with a misplaced love letter and somehow ended up in a hot tub under the stars. It's not exactly a conventional timeline."

"When has anything about us been conventional?"

"Fair point." He reaches across the table and takes your hand, his thumb tracing circles on your palm. "I don't know what we are. Labels feel… complicated. But I know what I want us to be."

"What's that?"

"Something real. Something that isn't built on misunderstandings or accidents or letters that weren't meant for me. Something that's just… us. Figuring it out together."

Your heart does that fluttering thing again. "That sounds terrifying."

"I know. But you've been scared this whole time, and you've still kept showing up. That's the bravest thing I've ever seen."

"I haven't felt brave. I've felt like a disaster."

"Disasters can be brave. The two aren't mutually exclusive." He squeezes your hand. "So what do you say? Want to be brave together?"

You look at him, really look at him, and see the boy who poured coffee on his head, the boy who held you while you cried, the boy who knew your secret and waited for you to tell him in your own time. And you feel the fear, familiar and insistent, coiling in your stomach.

But beneath the fear, there is something else. Something warmer. Something that feels a lot like hope.

"Okay," you say. "Let's be brave together."

Heeseung smiles, real and open and devastating. "Okay."

The afternoon finds you back on the beginner slope, strapped into a snowboard and wondering how you let Heeseung talk you into this again.

"You said you wanted to practice," he reminds you, tightening the bindings on your boots. "Snowboarding, I mean. Not… other things."

"My entire body is sore from yesterday. Both from the snowboarding and from the… other things."

"Then we'll take it slow. No jumps, no tricks, just a gentle run down the beginner hill." He stands up and offers you his hand. "I'll be right there the whole time."

"You said that yesterday, and I still fell eight times."

"And you got up eight times. That's the important part."

You take his hand and let him pull you to your feet. The beginner slope stretches out before you, populated by other beginners who fall over with roughly the same frequency as you.

"Okay," you say, taking a deep breath. "Okay. I can do this. I'm a capable human being. I understand physics. Snowboarding is just physics with extra steps."

"That's the spirit."

"I'm going to fall."

"Probably."

"And you're going to catch me?"

"Always."

The word hangs in the air between you, heavier than it should be. Always. Not just on the ski slope, but everywhere. Always.

"Okay," you whisper. "Let's go."

You push off.

The first few seconds are wobbly, your balance shifts, your arms flail slightly, your heart pounds in your ears. But then something clicks. Your body remembers the lessons from yesterday, the way Heeseung taught you to lean into the turns, to keep your weight centered, to trust the board beneath your feet.

You pick up speed, and instead of panicking, you lean into it. The wind rushes past your face, cold and exhilarating.

And then, miraculously, impossibly, you reach the bottom of the slope without falling.

"I DID IT!" you scream, your voice echoing across the mountain. "I DID IT! I SNOWBOARDED!"

You are laughing, giddy with adrenaline and triumph, and you turn around to find Heeseung, to share this moment with him, to see the proud expression on his face.

But Heeseung isn't at the bottom of the slope.

He is still at the top.

And he is shouting something.

"Y/N! Y/N L/N!"

The entire slope seems to go quiet. Other skiers and snowboarders slow down, turning to look at the boy standing at the top of the beginner hill, his hands cupped around his mouth, his voice carrying across the snow with startling clarity.

"I HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY!"

Your heart stops. Then starts again, twice as fast.

"I'VE BEEN TRYING TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO SAY THIS FOR WEEKS!" Heeseung shouts. "AND I REALIZED THAT THE BEST WAY TO TELL YOU IS THE SAME WAY YOU TOLD ME, WITH WORDS THAT I CAN'T TAKE BACK!"

People are staring. Everyone is staring.

"LEE HEESEUNG, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" you shout back, your voice cracking.

"I'M CONFESSING!" he yells. "PROPERLY! IN FRONT OF EVERYONE! BECAUSE YOU DESERVE A CONFESSION THAT'S JUST FOR YOU! YOU DESERVE THE LOVE YOU'VE DREAMED ABOUT!"

"THE FIRST LETTER WASN'T FOR ME!" Heeseung continues, his voice ringing across the snow. "BUT I WANT TO WRITE YOU ONE! I WANT TO WRITE YOU A HUNDRED LETTERS! I WANT TO LEARN YOUR FAVORITE HIGHLIGHTER COLORS AND THE NAMES OF ALL YOUR PLANTS AND THE EXACT WAY YOU LIKE YOUR VANILLA LATTES!"

Someone in the crowd lets out a wolf whistle. Someone else starts recording on their phone. You can't move, can't speak, can't do anything except stand at the bottom of the slope and stare up at the boy who shouts his heart out for everyone to hear.

"YOU'RE A DISASTER!" Heeseung yells, and his voice is full of joy, full of affection, full of something that looks a lot like love. "YOU'RE A HOPELESS ROMANTIC WHO'S TOO SCARED TO LIVE THE ROMANCE YOU DREAM ABOUT! YOU HIDE BEHIND BULLETIN BOARDS AND YOU CHOKE ON LETTUCE AND YOU SPILL COFFEE ON YOURSELF AND YOU MAKE GRAPHS ABOUT VIDEO GAME BALANCE AND YOU CRIED OVER A BABY PENGUIN IN A NATURE DOCUMENTARY!"

"This is the worst confession I've ever heard!" you shout back, but you are laughing, tears streaming down your face, your heart so full it feels like it might burst.

"I'M NOT FINISHED!" Heeseung takes a deep breath, and when he speaks again, his voice is softer, still loud enough to carry, but more intimate, more vulnerable. "YOU'RE A DISASTER, Y/N L/N! AND I'M A DISASTER TOO! I'M A PEOPLE-PLEASER WHO CAN'T SAY NO, I HAVE A REPUTATION THAT DOESN'T REFLECT WHO I ACTUALLY AM, AND I POURED COFFEE ON MY HEAD BECAUSE I COULDN'T STAND TO SEE YOU CRY ALONE!"

He starts walking down the slope toward you, his snowboard forgotten at the top, his boots crunching through the snow.

"AND I THINK, NO, I KNOW THAT I'VE BEEN FALLING FOR YOU SINCE THE MOMENT YOU WALKED INTO THAT PC ROOM AND LOOKED AT ME LIKE I WAS THE WORST THING THAT HAD EVER HAPPENED TO YOU!"

He gets closer now, close enough that you can see the nervousness in his eyes, the vulnerability beneath the bravado, the way his hands shake slightly despite his confident posture.

"SO I'M ASKING YOU, IN FRONT OF ALL THESE PEOPLE, ON THIS VERY EMBARRASSING SKI SLOPE, IF YOU'LL BE MY DISASTER. OFFICIALLY. NO MORE MISUNDERSTANDINGS. NO MORE LETTERS MEANT FOR OTHER PEOPLE. JUST US."

He stops a few feet away from you, his breath fogging in the cold air, his dark eyes fixed on your face.

"WHAT DO YOU SAY, LITTLE MOUSE?"

The silence that follows is deafening. Every person on the slope watches you, waiting for your answer.

And you, you, the hopeless romantic who has always been too scared to live the romance you dream about, you take a deep breath, throw your arms out wide, and shout at the top of your lungs:

"I LIKE YOU TOO, YOU ABSOLUTE IDIOT! I'VE LIKED YOU FOR WEEKS AND I DIDN'T KNOW HOW TO SAY IT AND YOU JUST SHOUTED IT FROM A MOUNTAINTOP LIKE A CHARACTER IN A KDRAMA!"

Heeseung's face breaks into the biggest smile you have ever seen. "IS THAT A YES?"

"THAT'S A YES! THAT'S A THOUSAND TIMES YES! NOW COME HERE AND KISS ME BEFORE I PASS OUT FROM THE EMBARRASSMENT OF HAVING THIS CONVERSATION IN FRONT OF LITERALLY EVERYONE!"

He doesn't need to be told twice. He crosses the distance between you in three long strides, catches your face in his hands, and kisses you, deep and thorough and joyful, right there at the bottom of the beginner slope, with the snow sparkling around you and the crowd erupting into cheers and someone's phone recording what will undoubtedly become the most-watched video on the university's social media for the next month.

When he pulls back, his forehead pressed against yours, his breath warm against your lips, he grins like he has just won the lottery.

"You shouted your feelings from a mountaintop," he murmurs. "You, the girl who was too scared to even correct a misunderstanding, just shouted your feelings from a mountaintop."

"You started it."

"I did. And you finished it." He kisses the tip of your nose. "I'm so proud of you."

You have never been more embarrassed in your entire life, and you have never been happier.

"We're still disasters," you say.

"Absolutely. But now we're disasters who are dating."

"Are we dating? Is that what this is?"

"This is me, shouting from a mountaintop that I want to be with you. I'm pretty sure that counts as dating." He pauses, his expression shifting to something more serious. "Unless you don't want-"

"I want." You grab the front of his jacket and pull him closer. "I want everything. The letters and the coffee disasters and the matching shirts and the snowboarding lessons and the jacuzzi conversations and the ridiculous mountaintop confessions. I want all of it."

Heeseung kisses you again, and this time it is softer, sweeter, full of promise.

"You know what this means," he says against your lips.

"What?"

"We're going to have to tell Jungwon."

You groan. "Can we wait until after the trip? I need at least twenty-four hours to recover from this before I have another emotionally complicated conversation."

"Deal." He pulls back, taking your hand in his. "Come on. Let's get out of here before someone asks us for an interview."

And hand in hand, laughing like fools, you run away from the crowd and the chaos.

・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・

his touch makes you melt. makes your brain short-circuit. makes you forget about any worries you have about ruining what you already have with him. he drags his tongue over the bite marks he's just made, soothing the spot.

he litters soft kisses all over your chest, and just like that, you forget why you ever held off fucking him like this in the first place. "okay," you whisper. "shit—okay."

he looks up quick, like he's not sure if he even heard you right. but there's this grin on his face. it's wide, toothy, and entirely too smug. like he knew you'd end up agreeing. if he wants to rub it in, he doesn't, which you're a little grateful for.

"fuck, baby, thank you. gonna fuck you so well, i swear you won't regret it."

yeah, just like he swore he wouldn't go past the tip. the retort dies on your tongue, because then he's pushing into you, the bed frame creaking in protest with every thrust. he's just so big, and he barely gives you a moment to adjust.

"mm, wait, hee—"

"sorrysorrysorry," he groans, the words falling from his mouth in a single string. "just spent so long dreaming of fucking this pretty pussy."

PARK JONGSEONG ── "y'know, you're not doing a great job at pretending you don't want this."

your face flushes, and you try to duck your head, but jongseong's hovering over your body. with the hand that's not on your bare hip, he pulls your chin back towards him, forcing eye contact.

"seongie," you whine, a tinge of embarrassment in your voice. "you promised we wouldn't go all the way."

"and you're making a mess all over my cock, baby. just give in. you know you want to." he doesn't say it like he's pleading or trying to convince you. he says it like it's a fact, which might be worse.

actually, it is worse.

because he can read your body. he can read the tremble in your voice as you try to hold your ground. the hitch of your breath when his tongue flicks against your nipple.

even now, when he's barely more than an inch into you, he doesn't miss the way you're squeezing him, practically trying to suck him in. and with how wet you are, it'd be so easy to just slip right in.

"i—i don't know," you stammer out, or try to, as he rubs slow circles onto your clit, smearing your messy arousal all over your thighs. you part your lips, like you're about to protest, but all that comes out is a moan.

"but we're friends—" you bite out, your arms around his neck, instinctively pulling him closer.

"so what? we'll be friends that fuck. or more, if that's what you want. that's what i want. we can work out the details later, can't we?"

the word more rings in your ears, and jongseong can hear the gears shifting in your cock-drunk mind.

"hey, hey. don't worry your pretty little head about that right now. just let me take care of you. it'll be the best you'll have."

you nod once, barely interceptable, but he shakes his head. "words, sweetheart. use your words for me, hm?"

you feel heat creep up your neck, but you nod again anyway. "yes, seongie. i... i want you to fuck me."

god, you really don't have to tell him twice.

it's when he finally bottoms out, that he has to stop and go though a roster of formula 1 teams, in order not to cum.

after all, might not have kept his initial promise, but he would be the best fuck of your life.

SIM JAEYUN ── "please, angel. fuckin' hell... you need this as bad as i do, don't lie."

jake's eyes are so innocent, though the intent behind them is anything but. his gaze, set firmly on you, makes heat pool in your stomach, adding to the wet mess on the sheets beneath you.

sure, you and jake had fooled around before. it wasn't rare. if anything, it was a daily occurrence. you'd humped him mindlessly on the couch before, sucked him off in his studio, and let him finger you for hours at a time. but this?

this wasn't the same. actually fucking him felt like crossing a line. like stepping over an already blurry boundary.

but he's adamant. so adamant. he's got his heart dead-set on this, pouting at you with those pretty pink lips, slightly swollen from kissing. as mentioned, however, it's anything but innocent.

he's spent the better part of an hour marking you up, leaving hickeys and bite marks all over your body. your neck, your chest, your thighs. shades of pink and red have bloomed all over your skin, and he's never looked prouder.

"jakey, 's not that i don't wanna," you say, soft and shaky. because of course you want to. it's all you've ever wanted. to feel his cock inside your cunt, for him to fuck like a dog in heat. "it's that i don't wanna mess this up."

"mess what up? us? angel, you could never. no matter what, okay? you seriously can't get rid of me that easy," he assures you, both efficiently and kindly. and in case his words aren't enough to soothe your doubt, he leans down to press a kiss to your lips, quick but lingering.

"really?"

"really. will you let me feel all of you now? hm? let me fuck you the way you deserve?"

"please," you murmur, looking up at him through your lashes. that's all it takes for him to ease into you slowly, like he's trying to memorize this moment and keep it with himself forever. the groan that jake lets out at hearing your soft whimpers—it's straight up pornographic.

"this pussy is so much fuckin' better than my fist."

PARK SUNGHOON ── "you're leaking all over my dick, and still... you're going to say you don't want me?"

one thing park sunghoon always found joy in was teasing you. it didn't matter what for.

whether it was pointing out every time you'd stumbled over a crack in the sidewalk, or still bringing up that one time from a year ago when you'd accidentally put the cereal in the fridge and the milk in the pantry—he was relentless when he wanted to be.

like now. especially now. just... instead of sidewalks and cereal boxes, it was the way you were a teary, needy mess, and still insisting that you didn't want any more than the tip of his thick cock.

you shake your head, trying to fight back a moan when he pinches your clit. "d—don't be mean, hoonie."

"i'm not being mean, sweets," sunghoon chides, but he presses a kiss to the tip of your nose nonetheless. "if anything, you're the one being mean. you're such a pretty little thing, thighs spread, all dripping for me... and you expect me not to want to fuck you all the way?"

he clicks his tongue, pushing a little further into you. he watches your eyes hit the back of your head, the cutest, breathiest sound leaving your mouth.

"please," you whimper, your nails digging into his shoulders.

"please, what? i can't even tell what you're begging for, baby. 'please, hoonie, fuck me?' is that what you're begging for?"

"fuck—yeah," you blurt, before you can even process the words that are leaving your mouth. it seems to surprise him just as much, because his eyes go a little wide, and for someone who's spent the last thirty minutes with sharp, quick responses, he seems a little speechless.

"well, damn, baby. thought we'd be going back and forth a little while longer," he chuckles, brushing a stray strand of hair away from your face. "not really complaining, though."

when sunghoon fucks into you, it's so him. harsh and cruel, but with loving intention. the pace he sets is rough, and he really doesn't show you any mercy.

turns out, being a little mean can get you a long way.

KIM SUNOO ── "so insistent on playing this game, huh?"

"sun, it's not... It's not like that," you protest weakly, but the way sunoo's looking at you—like a man who's got the world at his fingertips and knows it—has the rest of your sentence dying on your tongue.

"what is it like, then? you just feel like being a brat?" sunoo's words are sharp, they always are, but never sharper than the feeling of his teeth nipping at your collarbone. he doesn't seem annoyed by the waiting game. a little impatient? well, yes.

not annoyed, though. not frustrated. just... bored. it isn't disinterested-bored. more like give-in-already-so-we-can-cut-to-the-chase-bored. it's different. it's cocky. because he knows you'll end up submitting to him.

the feeling of his tip pressing against the entrance of your wet heat makes you flinch, and it takes everything in you not to beg him to fuck you right then.

"i—i feel," you stutter, "like not losing us over some sex."

sunoo's head snaps up. "some sex?" he asks, almost sounding offended. no, scratch that, he does sound offended. "you're seriously underestimating how good of a fuck i am."

"that's not the point!" if he didn't have your hands pinned together above you, you'd hit him, because he's being so... sunoo. misinterpreting your words on purpose, teasing you, seeing how far he can push you until you snap. and both of you know you're already reaching your breaking point.

he lowers his head to the crook of your neck, leaving wet, open-mouthed kisses all over your chest. his lips wrap around your nipple, sucking and biting, committing your soft whimpers to memory.

"nothing'll happen to us just 'cause we had some earth-shattering sex. i mean it. if anything, you'll just become more obsessed with me," he snickers, dropping a hand between your legs to slip his fingers between your folds.

"fuck you."

"i'm clearly willing."

you're silent for a beat, but the sheer need for him, for wanting to get fucked dumb on his cock, is overwhelmingly loud. "fine," you whimper, squeezing your eyes shut. he laughs, condescending, but it just makes you clench.

he pushes into you, and his dick fills you up, makes you feel so good, so full. sunoo's hips snap against yours, his fingers digging into the flesh of your hips. every thrust makes you cry out, and he drinks up the sweet sound.

"i'll show you some sex," he scoffs.

YANG JUNGWON ── "i know, pretty girl. i know. but you won't regret it."

his words are entirely too convincing. they fall from jungwon's mouth, easy and honey-sweet. there's a soft sheen of sweat on his skin, and the curve of his lashes has you melting into his touch.

"wonnie..." you whisper, soft and uncertain. like there's more you want to say, but can't find the words for.

jungwon just kisses you, his lips slotting against yours. and because he's him, your best friend for ages, you kiss him back. he tastes like strawberries and your coffee that he stole sips from.

he's already more than an inch in anyway, waiting for you to let him in all the way. "you're thinking s'loud," he murmurs, pulling away, a thin line of saliva connecting his mouth to yours. "i can hear you from here. don't overthink it. haven't even fucked you yet, and you're already squeezing around my cock."

his voice dips to a lower register, and he leans down by your ear, his breath hot. "just let yourself have it." the tone jungwon uses makes your face flush, and your heart skips a beat in your chest.

he always looks so gentle about everything, but there's a mocking lilt in his tone right now that makes you wrap your legs around his waist, pulling him closer.

the movement makes him slip deeper into your cunt, and he groans, "fuck—fuck, princess. give a guy a warning, yeah? gonna make me cum just from that." jungwon's hips stutter as he readjusts, and he shifts his angle, needing more of you.

"sorry," you breathe, looking up at him. his hair is tousled, slightly unkempt from you running your hands through it. "i just... um, i like you. this. us. whatever 'us' is."

"yeah? same here, baby. i care about you too much to ever do anything to jeopardize us." he pauses, tucking hair behind your ear. "do you trust me?"

you don't hesitate. "yeah, wonnie. i do."

"good," he says, his lips meeting your temple. he looks at you, silently acknowledging what he's about to do. when you nod, he bottoms out, pushing himself all the way in. his cock drags against your walls, stretching you out on himself.

"mm—won—" you moan, grasping his arms to steady you.

"shit, you're such a good girl. feels nice, right? didn't i say it would?"

NISHIMURA RIKI ── "screw that promise, baby. to hell with it. this pussy's so perfect, s'begging to get fucked by me."

so far, riki's been true to his word. he's only an inch deep, but you know it's better than anything you've ever had before. he knows that, too—it's what makes him so confident.

"'ki, but you said—"

"angel, i say a whole lotta things. i definitely don't mean them all," he snorts, reaching down to rub your clit with his thumb. it makes your frown melt into an expression of bliss, the kind you only get from pleasure.

it doesn't help that riki's so pretty, and surely it doesn't make any of this easier. because he's the smug kind of pretty. the kind where he's fully aware and doesn't hesitate to use it to his own advantage.

it’s the way he looks at you like he already knows exactly what you’re thinking, and he’s just waiting for you to trip over your words first. it’s not even that he’s trying too hard; it’s just there, in that little tilt of his head or the way he lets a silence stretch out just a second too long.

he knows it gets under your skin. he knows it makes it impossible to actually stay mad at him, which is the worst part. you want to call him out on it, but then he smiles that specific way, and suddenly you’re the one who’s on the defensive.

trembling, you shake your head, though your resolve is wearing away. "friends don't fuck," you say, your tone hush.

"friends don't do whatever this is, either. if you're worrying about crossing some sort of line, i think we're a little far past that point."

you groan, burying your face in your hands. riki always has to go and make everything harder, doesn't he? in response, he just kisses your tit, and then your jaw, before finally pulling your hands into his.

"that doesn't make me feel better," you mumble.

"it wasn't really supposed to. i'm being honest, sweets. we're gonna be fine. we're gonna be okay."

finally, you sigh, "well, okay. i guess—"

you're cut off by his cock abruptly slamming straight into you, without so much as a warning. you cry out, back arching up as you sink your nails into the biceps of his arms.

mid-moan, you gasp, "what the fuck, riki!"

"sorry, fuck, sorry," he grunts, but by the way he isn't slowing down, you don't know if he means it. "ripped the bandaid off, angel."

riki leans down to capture your lips in a sloppy, wet kiss, swallowing the noises you make. with every ram of his hips against yours, you can feel his dick kisses your cervix, the way he throbs inside you, how his pelvis grinds against your clit.