ROYAL FLUSH.

Jungwon is troubled by a moral dilemma, being yours when three's a crowd. Your boyfriend is a constant thorn in his side, damned into irrelevancy but clawing back with a type of vengeance leaving bitter ash in Jungwon's mouth. The same distaste he attempts hiding at the stories you tell, the supposed happy pictures cluttering your feed. Happiness shines in your eyes, so pure and abundant. And yet, in your boyfriend's…his smile doesn't quite reach his eyes, something dark hidden behind them. A pretence - a thin veil eclipsing true intentions Jungwon's yet to figure out. It drives him into slight delirium, seeing a variable he can't account for, knowing no good can come from it. 

Then again, there's no good in being with Jungwon, that is something he can admit. But he can also acknowledge that if your boyfriend didn't exist, he would give you everything. If you asked, it'd be yours in a heartbeat. Over and over again before the thought of him or anyone else could cross his mind.

At least in this regard, he can say his intentions are pure. The same cannot be said for your boyfriend, who when finally revealed for who he really is, brings you soaked in downpour at Jungwon's doorstep. A smaller version streaked down your cheeks, collapsing your body in grief towards the man who hates how braced he is for this.

Jungwon wishes this could've come at different price - the void of your pain, the simplicity of it all. A muddle of good and bad blurring into the grey he's been swimming in since he'd laid eyes on you. And, as the soft salt lamp light casts across the soft landscape of your skin, looking like every bit of heaven in Jungwon's attic bedroom, he realises he's stirred long enough in his moral dilemma. Because what is a better confrontation than through?

It starts on an unimportant Thursday. On the blue carpet of their accommodation's foyer floor, where just the night before they'd been throwing back shots so fast it's a miracle they'd gotten into the club, much less found their way there. They're paying the price for it now, slumped in day old sweats shovelling greasy takeout food into their mouths, hoping their queasy stomachs can absorb anything non alcoholic.

"Okay," Sunoo concludes, the older of the three holding up a fried chip. "I admit: Sambuca is a better shot than Vodka but," he blows a raspberry. "In smaller amounts."

"Agreed." Jungwon murmurs, his thousand yard stare cast with a mindless burger-bite. Just the right amount of grease. He groans. 

"You guys are pussies," Riki's eyes roll, stealing Sunoo's chips. Then dipping them into his strawberry milkshake. Jungwon looks away before he hurls. 

"We are not the same clearly," Sunoo establishes, index finger wagging between him and Jungwon. "Jungwon and I know when to quit. You…drink from an unknown bottle outside the club at 4 am."

"That was really bad, I admit," Riki nods his head into the wall he's propped against, toying with his chain bracelets. "At least it wasn't spiked or anything. We had that nice little DMC on the curb too. You win some, you lose some."

The incredulous huff Sunoo does mirrors Jungwon's, eyes caught over in a smile of disbelief. "Let's not gamble with our lives, okay?" Sunoo's hand braces on Riki's shoulder, finally eating his chip with the other. "Just don't pull that shit when she's here,"

Jungwon remembers. "Oh, your visitor?"

"Is she hot?" Riki asks, because he has to.

"She's my cousin."

"My point still stands," the takeout bag echoes with Riki's rummaging, teeth bared to rip open some tomato sauce. "Actually, she can't be, right? Since she's related to you."

Sunoo shoots daggers. "I should kill you."

"It'll get me out my next exam, go ahead," Riki only shrugs, only to pause halfway through. "Actually, don't. I've got tickets to see Carti and Abel in the summer."

"And Abel," Jungwon whispers, chuckle bleeding into his hoodie's arm. For how reserved Riki is, parasocialism lives loudly in him, speaking as if he's familiar enough with the Weeknd to refer to him as Abel.

Jungwon has to bury his face, his hangover amplifying his laughter.

"My God, my exam is tomorrow," his fingers card through his loose curls, tugging at dark roots. "Why did I go out?" 

"First year doesn't count." 

Sunoo lifts his head, looking particularly drained. "I'm in second year." 

"What the fuck?" Riki jerks back. Then Jungwon watches the light bulb go off. "Yeah, wait - you are. Yo, you need to get a grip ─ first years can't be bullying you into nights out."

"Says the guy who'd break down my door if I didn't come out for pres."

After a few more chews, Jungwon clears his throat, changing the subject. "She's staying the weekend?" 

"Yeah. She'll be down tomorrow night and leave sometime Sunday," he explains, tenderness blooming across his face. The staircase light streaming through its leading glass door catches it, the foyer doused in early evening darkness, distant elevators dings announcing their destination. "I'll take her to the city on Saturday - give her another incentive to like the place."

"Another incentive?" Riki steals another chip. 

"It's a long story." 

"She's coming here for uni then?" Jungwon clarifies. 

"Most likely," his response follows with a shake of the head, noticed by Jungwon. "In any case, we'll probably do bottomless brunch that day so if you guys are around, we could all have a drink when we're back."

"Let me get this Sambuca out my system first," Jungwon grins over his burger, stretching his legs to touch soles with the youngest of their three. Riki's nose scrunches, bringing more laughter out Jungwon. "But I'll be around."

"Me too." 

"Thanks guys," Sunoo's cheeks bunch up in that rosy, pleased way. His gaze shifts back to his chips, of which there are none. "Where'd all my chips go?"

Not so discreetly, Riki shoves the last milkshake covered chip in his mouth, caught with a wail from Sunoo who lunges at him.

"Rikiiiii!" 

Jungwon actually forgets you're meant to show. The exam he has the following Tuesday dials in his focus, tucking him away in the quiet library corners on a sparse Friday night. When he's trekking back to his residence of the year, he hears the faint buzz of a club night, admittedly dulled by exam session's tension but still palpable in the tipsy girls zooming past him, shimmering in their glittery tops as they giggle about the pres they're late for. It's the kind of lax Jungwon wishes he'd give himself, so rotted in the high hopes people have for him - overachieving, athletic, oh so friendly - he can't take a day off, doesn't allow himself to.

Existing for others weighs heavily today, a gnawing knot in his neck he massages while weaving through the path leading to his accommodation, wanting nothing more but to collapse into his bed and watch a movie. At least he knew what to expect then. He's rummaging in his coat pocket, a slight annoyance in grazes instead of grapples before his head shoots up, the call of his name earning attention.

In the grassy patch of land outside his staggering accommodation presents a somewhat usual sight. Sunoo, with his green zip-up sleeves rolled up, waving a friendly hand his way, smile to match. Except he's not alone. 

You're there. Painted in hues of late afternoon sunlight, streaking gold into your hair, conjuring something mythical in your eyes, twinkle vast in them as your gaze sets on him. A strange thing happens in those seconds. Perhaps a skipped heartbeat or a flutter in his chest, an unknown coming in hot and fast, a flash of emotions he doesn't want to name. You're shy, he observes as your eyes dart soon afterwards, a hand grated against your jeans when eye-contact overwhelms you, circling back again because he stays. Lingers long after he starts his conversation with Sunoo.

"What you guys doing out here?"

"Riki had his door open, so I took his ball," Sunoo supplies, the football tucked at his side, set on the ground with his foot over it. "We'd do this all time when the weather was like this, playing until our moms came out moaning about mosquito bites and the grass stains we'd help get out,"

Sunoo giggles at the memory, hand over his whiskered cheeks before his eyes take on a comically large shape.

"Oh God, where are my manners?" The same hand splays over his chest, gestured in the space between you and Jungwon. "This is the guy I was talking to you about, my flatmate, Jungwon."

Sunoo introduces you, says your name. Jungwon tests the syllables on his tongue, mouth running dry. "Been friends for almost a year and I'm still your flatmate?"

The harmless tease earns him a slap on the shoulder, smile smug as he extends his hand over to you, shaking it despite the jolt of electricity conjured in your pressed palms. "Sunoo's cousin, right?"

"Yes," you confirm, sugar cookie sweet. It's how your voice plays in Jungwon's ears, haunting him longer than he expects, the current of your pressed skin never forgotten as his hand comes to his side again, a look cast between you and Sunoo. 

"Mind if I join?"

"You're not tired from the library?" Sunoo quizzes, ball rolling out from his foot, treading to where you've created distance. 

It's not intentional. His eyes just happen to find yours, foot coming down on the football as your eyes find his. A lone lip corner ticks, lifting upwards as he relays. 

"I've got energy to spare."

And he does, their trio forming a pointed triangle shape, Jungwon closest to you as the ball gets kicked around, picking up mud specks Riki will rant about later, but it's worth it. Talking with you is worth the earful when he gets to learn more about you, the soft sounds of Sunoo's playlist humming amidst your nearby belongings. 

You're in the middle of firming between one of three uni choices, an addition to seeing Sunoo again presenting the option of seeing the campus of one. You plan on studying Astronomy, have a thing for stars as seen on the star charm on your bracelet and the app on your phone you show him when Sunoo needs a break, chugging water from his Owala bottle. Your shoulders brush in the interaction, Jungwon's figure towering over you as he peers into your phone, focusing on your words, but it frays. Simmers down to your manicured nail pointing out the intricacies of the app he'll download later, camera lens pointed to the sky when you show him the constellations it outlines. Your perfume mists in the movement, something like brown sugar and marshmallow together ─ S'mores, he'll learn later on because your sweet tooth bleeds over into other aspects of your life. Your scent, your words, your actions. He notes it all and when he attempts archiving them in the hoard of his mind, he halts. Questions what to label such a thing. It's attraction, that part he understands, but Jungwon's mindful. Of Sunoo's presence looming protectively over you, hollering in the set sun that you should head inside, relaying the same information your mothers relayed about mosquito bites. 

He also remembers Sunoo's words, about the other incentive swaying your decision and his mind, like it always does, takes it and runs. Mulls over possibilities, deliberates what the consequences of making his attraction known. If you'd reciprocate, if his extends beyond a harmless kiss or remains satisfied with pressed lips. 

Miraculously, the file sorting stops. More so done when your voice pierces through his muddle of thoughts, his backpack hauled onto his shoulders again, looking your way as the football rests against your hip. 

"We're planning on watching a movie after this," you mention, a curve to your lips dashed in timidity. His teeth ache to sink. "Did you wanna…join?"

The invitation fills his chest with a warm light, head tilted with mischief interfering. "Depends,"

You give your side profile, eyebrow arched with the same grin. "I can be a bit snobbish about movies."

"He's all about psychological thrillers," Sunoo rolls his eyes, turning his speaker off. "You'd swear he's studying Psychology with all the stuff docked into his Letterboxd."

"You have Letterboxd too?" He nods. Then takes initiative. 

"You'll have to show me your profile," he insists. Walking alongside you, shoulders brushing again. Your breath hitches, peering up at him with the shake of your pupils as he adds. "This depends on what your favourite four films are."

"This?" 

"How well we'll get along," he supplies, filtering into the lift, leaning against its back rail. "That's what Sunoo would want, right?"

"I'd hope so if you're coming here next year," he hikes a thumb over his shoulder, at Jungwon. "I'm in a house with him and Riki next year, so."

Jungwon drops onto Sunoo, a yelp dashing amusement amidst Jungwon's features as he slings an arm around Sunoo. "You'll be seeing a lot more of us."

It's a promise he sees linger on your mind, present when you've gone and rejoined in Sunoo's room, his door pinned open as Sunoo sets up his monitor to a movie night, Riki invited but already having plans with other friends to hotbox their car. Jungwon doesn't mind. After all, with Sunoo's back to you, he gets to inch close to you, comparing Letterboxd entries, laughing at some but pleasantly surprised by others. You have a lot of crossover, and he lets it be known, a harmless comment turning your head away, as if he hadn't seen the curve of your lips beforehand. 

And when Sunoo's set-up is good to go, Jungwon doesn't persist. Lets Sunoo sandwich in between your bodies, offering butter popcorn you have a thing for and the movie plays, darkness dominating the space if not for the muted tones cast across your faces throughout, your face not forgotten even after you turn in for the night, Jungwon retreating to his room.

Collapsing onto his bed, he sees his notes from earlier. Also sees you. The sterling sliver of your bracelet, the hair against your nape, the aversion of your eyes, a hidden smile. He'd let it co-exist with the race of his thoughts, if not for their unusual lull, gratitude in his chest as he rests easy for the first time in years. 

You're at bottomless brunch like Sunoo mentioned, flooding his Instagram story with scenery pictures and the obscene amount of cocktails you cycle through, Sunoo's words less coherent as the glasses pile. There's one video Jungwon's replayed, where Sunoo drunkenly asks what number cocktail you're on ─ a close friends story ─ and you match his energy, not as drunk but tipsy enough to yell the number back at him, giggling at your own ridiculousness. Jungwon's thumb jams into his screen, video paused on the slivered smile the camera catches, your head turned but expression vivid in his mind. 

He has to do pushups like the loser he is, a poor attempt to erase the sight, heaving his way to 100. He's brought to his knees, hands braced on his thighs as sweat drops to the taut red carpet beneath him, breaths echoed in the vacancy of his room. A shower is needed, not without Riki catching him on his way out, whistling at the towel bunched around his middle, Jungwon ruffling his hair with an eye roll. He has no plans except to study, something he condemns himself to as the hours tick, only for a practice exam question to escape his understanding. 

Luckily for him, one of his module's shining pupils resides in the same accommodation, floors down where he goes to bug him, stopped on his way into the winding staircase.

Sunoo stumbles into the foyer, lights flickered on by his sluggish movements, shopping bags draped around his forearms and is…just a bit of a mess. An endearing one after all the sugary cocktails consumed. 

"Jungwooooon," he wears out all the o's, cheeks flushed and whiskered as he collapses over him in a hug, dropping enough for Jungwon to brace. Over Sunoo's shoulder, Jungwon looks, not exactly caught off guard but similar, looking for the other variable in the messy equation.

The heavy glass-panelled staircase doors echoes with its close, Mary Jane's pushed into your share of shopping bags as frilly white socks skid against floor stubborn on white, pushing hair out of your face. In the motion, your eyes lock, pupils blowing instantly. The twitch of his lip Jungwon's only tell. 

"You should've come with us. There were so many cute shops," Sunoo asserts, prying from him with a pout as he rummages through his shopping bags, kraft paper crinkling. "I bought you something, got Riki a little something too. You know me shopping drunk."

A menace. Running without thought through isles, fawning over whatever catches his eyes and swiping his card without discrimination. It'd been one of the first few times they'd gone out together, a bottomless brunch meant to celebrate Riki who was equally drunk, flushed in his high cheek bones, mumbling to himself as he scanned articles of clothing. He'd picked out a zip-up hoodie, one Sunoo snatched out his hands, insisting it'd be his birthday present to him despite its costly price tag. Sunoo moaned the next morning, hands making a mess of his hair after he'd looked at his bank account while Jungwon and Riki could only laugh, Riki already wearing the hoodie. He wears it often. 

"Glad you had fun," Jungwon comments, hand coming up to whisk some flyaway hairs out of Sunoo's face as he still rummages, stumbling a bit. Jungwon steadies him, turning his attention to you hovering not far behind. "Did you have a good time? No handful Sunoo?" 

"I'm never a handful!" he retorts, childish in tone and encouraging shared laughter, your hand smoothing the back of your cousin's head. 

"It was great fun, I had a good time," you confirm, easiness spread like melted butter amongst your features. Jungwon can't really tell if you're just as drunk, your observed nature one and the same. Except for the repeated flutters of your lashes, eyes somehow more glassy as they peer up at him. "Sunoo's great at convincing me to stay." 

"Pretty sure Jaehyun has a big part in that," is Sunoo's harmless response, except when surprise floods your widened eyes, Jungwon realises the misspoken error. 

"Who's Jaehyun?" he asks anyways, witnessing the squirm of your body as your gaze dashes to your feet, wiggling in your frilly socks. 

"Only the guy she's─" 

Your hand swallows Sunoo's mouth, the rest of his sentence unintelligible but Jungwon puts the pieces together. Surmises your demeanour and knows there's another man in your life. One you're contemplating going to the same university for, all in the sake of proximity. 

He thinks it's cute. Partially wishes it was him that warranted the effort. 

"We'll go put these down and come back out for drinks," you utter through gritted teeth, Sunoo tapping away at your hand with knitted eyebrows. You don't yield, instead baring a tight lipped-smile Jungwon's way. "You're still up for it?"

"Of course." 

He's covered all his bases, study timetable on schedule, so he can afford the luxury. He's too nosy to pass up the opportunity anyways. 

So, you go your separate ways again, rejoining later when Jungwon better understands his practice exam question and Riki's scratched at his door, meowing with an accompanying throaty laugh. Jungwon smiles despite himself, beer can box in hand with the other fist bumping Riki, asking what antics entailed his last night. 

"I woke up high," he giggles, swiping a hand over his face. "Had to trek all the way back trying not to shit myself from all the cars driving by,"

"There was a rat in the bushes near the dining hall too. I fully launched like, at least three feet in the air." 

Jungwon grins, nudging Riki's shoulder. "And you wonder why those scouts are always hounding you." 

"I'm sorry, but I'm already unserious about uni. What makes you think I'll take that seriously?" 

"I don't know," Jungwon shrugs, Riki pushing open the door to the foyer, motion-sensor covered to keep the room's dim, LED disco alight with drinks and chasers circled around Sunoo's ongoing speaker. His gaze cuts to you, shuffling UNO cards they'll use for other purposes and feels joy come from within. "Things surprise you. Maybe it's the kick you need."

Like Jungwon anticipates, the UNO cards are used for some other drinking games, ice broken as laughter clutters the air, meshing with the hype music Riki hogs the aux over, nodding along when he's not actively stirring shit, grin shit-eating when Sunoo forgets the rules again, prompted to drink with which he does with an eye-roll and pleased smile. You can only shake your head, face-palming. When you look up, Jungwon's eyes are on yours. He chuckles too, and the look you exchange embodies a secret you share, your gaze averted first ─ as always ─ before your group gets into other games, one that unknowingly puts Jungwon under the spotlight. 

"Popular?" Jungwon can't help laugh, not drunk enough for this conversation. "This isn't high school, you know?"

"Bro, if we have to stop every five steps because we've come across someone who knows you," Riki cards his fingers through his blond hair, tucking it back into his snapback. "I'd say you're pretty fucking popular."

"He's sweet, sociable that way," Sunoo explains, fanning the flush beneath his cheeks before a sidelong glance of feigned disgust is chucked Riki's way. "Unlike someone."

"Good thing I don't do things for anyone's approval." Riki shrugs, swatting away outreached hands in Sunoo's drunk attempt of smoothing Riki's ego. "Doesn't hurt you're stupidly handsome."

Smugness begs for disclosure, pushed down by some shred of sheepishness as Jungwon swipes his flush away. "What are you even talking about?"

"His body when he gets out the shower?" Riki directs his sentence to you, forehead creased with bleached-raised eyebrows. "No joke."

A scorch unrelated to alcohol's blanket gnaws up Jungwon's neck, more embarrassed than flattered. Riki rarely talks in new company, but the alcohol's made him talkative. More than Jungwon bargains for. 

"Hey, you're handsome too, Nishimura," Jungwon winks, gesture met with another swat. He creaks a turn your way, hyper-aware of your presence through this all. "As you can see, dramatics are our thing."

"Don't you think so?" Riki's question is posed, floor given with a fatal silence handed over to you.

Jungwon could kick Riki for instigating, the hidden smirk behind his cup fully intentional. Sunoo could intervene, but he's indifferent when checking his reflection with his phone's screen. Jungwon could too, but over the low murmur of Aminé, his nth life is sacrificed. He's barely known you twenty-four hours and yet, he doesn't recognise himself. The way you have no formula, how no slots carefully curated through his life belong to you ─ in everything he can (in)sanely control, you're an anomaly. Make him act that way too, hinging himself closer to inspect what perception of him you've formed, whether there's a world where if Jaehyun didn't exist, you'd pick him. 

The dark lighting's cruel. It doesn't give you away, but the constant bounce of your pupils do, Jungwon given a nanosecond glance before you rock yourself with knees to your chest, fingers toying with your bracelet charms.

"Yeah," hardly makes it over the music, the speaker smashed to pieces if within Jungwon's reach. Down in your lap, your head ducks as a shallow nod confirms his slight disbelief. "He's, uhm…really handsome."

How do others usually respond to such a thing? A confession of attraction when it matters, when it goes both ways? Flashes come, but they go, not nearly as meaningful to the present moment, your presence balled so small into yourself like you can't believe the words escaped you, centimetres away ─ enough for Jungwon's hand to shift with the graze of his fingertip to your sandals.

"I still take the cake though," Sunoo's voice pulls Jungwon out the hammer of his heart, eyes flicked up in time for Sunoo's imaginary hair flip. "I'll give him a tough time during Summer Ball awards."

You seem to come back to life too, head shaking as you utter. "You have a ball?!"

"I sent you those Winter Ball pics, didn't I?" he gasps, his phone grabbed in a haste, searching through countless photos. Riki, slightly tipsy off rum, doesn't bother hiding his peer into Sunoo's phone, leveraging his chin on him as Sunoo scrolls uninterrupted. "It had a chocolate fountain and everything! They had fake snow blowing for our group photos, it was so─"

However attuned Jungwon usually is to Sunoo's words, they dissipate into the background, glazed over in a blurring film as you make your way across, settling in between Sunoo and Riki to view the pictures Sunoo showcases. Time passes like this, Sunoo's phone on constant display even after you've retrieved back into the dorms section, beer cans emptied in Jungwon's midst, teeth gnawing into his lip at the flush searing beneath his skin.

"I might get my pills," Jungwon lifts himself off the ground, seared heat held in his body. 

"You're meant to take them before you start drinking," Sunoo helpfully reminds him, yanking his phone away from Riki's swipes. "What do you want?"

"Post this selfie, it's bet─" Riki's eyes bulge out his head, grin manic. "Is that a fucking thirst trap?!"

"Give it back, Riki!" 

Jungwon leaves them piled together, a mess of giggles and mild embarrassment with Sunoo's phone out his reach. With a beep, Jungwon scans himself into their flat, halls carrying an eerie silence as his feet swipe across the slate carpet, meaning to duck into his room five doors down but instead going further to the kitchen. Two further doors down, opposite Riki's room, where the door creaks open and─

You're there. Back towards him, having the same idea of getting water. Head whipping in his direction with a look similar to a deer caught in headlights.

"Jungwon," you start, sheepish and small. "Hi."

His heart starts up again, might as well be reaching out his chest to claim you as his own. 

"Hey," he says, low and unassuming. Breaching further into the small kitchen in increments, so not to spook you. "Needed water too?"

"It's for Sunoo," you answer, hoarse to which you clear your throat. "He's always the worst one between us two when we go for bottomless brunch. He'll need it."

Jungwon's brow quirks, remembering your interaction earlier. Despite your supporting act towards your cousin, you'd been fairly tipsy. Enough to look him in the eyes in an unabashed way, the image seared into his corneas. While you still drank after the fact, it was drinks below the percentage of 10, slowly sipping, eyes watching their interactions unfold as you curled into your shell again.

He'd wondered if he'd have the chance to see you comfortable again.

"And you?" he asks, stepping closer. You remain rigid in place, a rush of water filling Sunoo's glass. "You handle alcohol well?"

"I guess…I can have a few," is your estimation, eyes avoiding his. He, however, doesn't miss the split second glance you take at him, fingers seeking the comforted fiddle of your hooped earring. "Sunoo mentioned you flushed when drinking."

"That came up in casual conversation?" 

He pushes. Your layers started to peel away in the shadows of night, a ball kicked across the grass staining the bottoms of his sneakers. You'd found a rhythm eliminating the racket of your brain and spoke freely, which is why he does this. Checks to see how far he can go, even if Sunoo had mentioned some a crush of yours in his presence. The same one you hadn't mentioned since, but seemed pretty gone for. 

Then again, you'd said he was handsome in a group of people. Unless Jaehyun showed up to sweep you off your feet ─ to Jungwon, all bets are off.

Teeth creep into the flesh of your bottom lip, hand caught in the cookie jar. With only your side profile given, Jungwon can only draw conclusions as you close the tap just as starts to overflow, a quiet laugh to yourself as the ring of your hand illuminates the liquid coating it. 

"Sunoo brought it up earlier," you answer, a closed mouth smile given to him. "Said he has to constantly nag you to take your pills."

"Must've taken the night off then," Jungwon's head tilts, stepping closer until he's at your side. Not enough for your shoulders to touch, but as he settles, the sleeve of his shirt catches against your skin, a gulp your only tell. "Is it bad?"

There's only a faint hum occupying the slender grey and white paved kitchen, the ongoing buzz of the fluorescent light haloing your figures as tension eats away at the space, makes the air crackle and walls draw in. Leaning, Jungwon lends a palm to the counter's edge, veined inner forearm exposed, one your eyes do a slow drag of. He chuckles, because you're meant to be focusing on the face he offers and you do so slowly, intimated by what you'll see. His blatant stare as your eyes do a scan of his features, screwed in force focus. The kick he gets out of it must make him sick, pushing him to draw closer, the cloud of his linen fabric softener engulfing you and still…you don't waver. Your eyes do a few fast-paced blinks, but you're rooted in place, nothing but the tremble of Sunoo's glass giving you away. 

You place it on the counter's edge too, realising the hint given. 

"Your cheeks are really flushed,"

Caution laces around the words you utter, trembled but spoken, eyes cemented to a trail of his features, skipping over his eyes. 

"It's going down your neck too," your own neck cranes to catch a glimpse, hand starting to raise then lowering, knowing better. Jungwon doesn't bother hiding his smirk, your head ducked with scattered hands grappling for your glasses, maybe your composure too. 

"I should probably head back, I've─"

A crash.

Water and glasses crashing to the floor, liquid doused on both your shoes with shattered pieces in between. The look of horror pales your face, mouth agape as your fingers tuck back hair behind each ear, sharing the expression with Jungwon. He doesn't say anything for a moment, neither do you, unmoving before your exhale comes out in pieces of it own, apologies steadfast out of your mouth. 

"I can't believe that just happened," your eyes drop down to his shoes, tip of them dyed a deeper hue. "I got water on your shoes too. Oh my god, are you okay? Let me just─"

Before your hands can extend a millimetre, Jungwon's hands eclipses them, holding them firm in place. He catches you in a freeze, not an inch of you moving for what seems like hours, head slowly moving to meet his gaze, his one already on you. Always on you. 

"Let me get the dustpan," he insists, nodding to cue your own. "Hang tight." 

His hands leave yours, coldness invading his palms as he quickly finds what he's looking for, dropped down on a knee before you as the glass clatters together in a bunch. Out his peripheral, he spies your hands, drumming against the flesh of your thighs before nails sink into your short's material, displeased.

"I'm so sorry," your voice withers when you speak, not fond of your mistakes. "I'm usually not like this."

"It's okay. It's just glass," and as glass crackles, swept into the plastic of the dustpan, Jungwon feels the shift before he's a witness to it. The unravel of material in your clutches, the draw back down your shoulders do from your ears. A exhale from the depths of your chest. "Besides, wouldn't want you to injure yourself. You're Sunoo's guest,"

He uses the pause to his best abilities, on his knees before you, peering up at your figure haloed by florescent lighting ─ looking like every figment of dreams that'll haunt him moving forward. 

"I should take care of you too." 

The following year, things change. 

Jungwon starts his second year - the year that actually matters - and moves into an off-campus house with Riki and Sunoo, drawing straws to find himself in the spacious attic room. Sunoo's doing an internship for the year, so he's only around as much as exhaustion and long commute hours allow him to. Jungwon changes sports, feigning upset at his own decision amongst his Swim teammates, reducing his extra-curricular hours down to Taekwondo so he affords himself more hours in the library. Other things stay the same ─ he's still stopped every few metres, greeting people who feel like they know him but one of them he stumbles across, is the only person able to make him stop fully in his tracks.

You.

Your trip up to their campus (now yours too) was the dedicating factor, reusable bags in your hands filled with your food shop and a uni-friendly amount of alcohol. Your smile is sheepish when Jungwon looks back, one with more security mirrored by him before he decides his plans in town can wait. He helps you take your bags back to your accommodation (the quaint one next to his old one), meets your flatmates that happen to be in the kitchen and when he thinks he's due to leave, you invite him into your room. 

It's every bit of you, cluttered with everything you love ─ projector painting the night sky across your ceiling, movie posters pinned to your walls, peg board adorned in cute trinkets your bag has no space for at your desk, the familiar waft of brown sugar and marshmallows. It's like a peak into your mind, abundantly clear in your wardrobe doors plastered with printed photos ─ friends, family, moments you want immortalised forever. A few stick out to him, like the photo frame positioned behind your low bed frame, the pictures with your boyfriend. The same story repeats itself, your smile contagious to everyone except your boyfriend.

Jungwon's lips curl. 

"Fortune cookie?"

In your palm, the red plastic bundles, outlined by gold script like the ones packed into the takeaway plastics ripped apart by him each time he vows never to drink again.

You see the curious tilt of his head, only encouraging the smile on your face as you lead with, "It's one of my favourite memories ─ sugar and fortune after a warm meal,"

Fondness pools in your eyes, trained on the object now closed around your fingers. "We wouldn't go every month, but my parents made a habit of going when we could. The owners were really lovely too, always give us huge portions and sent us home with a bag full of fortune cookies. It was nice ─ it's a good reminder of home." 

You offer the fortune cookie again, Jungwon accepting with gratitude across his face despite the ugly churn of turmoil within him.

He wishes he could say he didn't carry emotional wounds, plasters over bullet wounds he's since trudged along with him since childhood but it simply isn't true. Everything he is is a product of early lessons, where inconsistency ran rampant in his home and he's made do with its consequences. While one parent festers abandonment, another prompts condition ─ to be loved is to be perfect. Anything less and he may as well not have any parents. Looking back on crispy childhood videos, he realises he was a lot to handle, holding the kind of temperament babysitters overcharged for, but it didn't change his parents' fondness over him. Their voices, clear in the background of recorded tantrums carry enough sweetness to make him sick, but it's only after that he realises why he has the reaction, why his stomach turns at the videos. 

Because somewhere along the line, they'd changed. Adored Jungwon like the shiny toy he was and then, as life took its natural course, they'd grown bored. Almost troubled by their own creation. Perhaps there's only so many tantrums you can suffer through before you combat them with silence, but it's deafening ─ it's been deafening for as long as Jungwon remembers and in the helplessness younger Jungwon experiences, his parents slowly retracting from him, he comes to the make-up of his life. 

Control.

Because even if one parents occupies Jungwon's house like a guest, he can at least vye for attention from another. Stop his angry tears, clean up his act and model himself after the children his mother openly praises in front of him, casting a look of regret his way. And it works, he earns admiration back, perhaps not as much as he used to, but it's enough to encourage the mask he puts on as the perfect son. Good grades, excelling at sports, friends with everyone ─ a parent's shiny badge of honour. Everyone adores him for it, the variables in his life he infuses with control, to the point where dawning a mask is not an act but instilled in him. Moulded to his skin, forever stuck over some childhood wound he hasn't bothered dealing with. 

Sure, he's sat on several couches in clinical clean offices asked to describe how those experiences have shaped him, but as soon as those invasive questions crop up, he shuts down. Closes and locks the door so deep-seated emotions don't barrel out of him. He'll give an answer, one seen right through judged by the pitying smile therapists give him and by the end of the session, when they've shook hands, Jungwon knows he'll never return. Not because he's helpless, but because he doesn't see need for it. 

He'd rather cast his control as far as it can reach than sit in the discomfort of his emotions, so to desire a future with you ─ wholly wrapped in your own emotions ─ is laughable at best. Though, he swears he would never assume the same control over you, its debate is valid in what he already holds regarding you. To be with you, and if that comes at the consequence of losing your bum boyfriend, he can't be too mad. 

After all, it is what's best for you. 

Especially after what's meant to be casual conversation he once has with Riki, soon after your first meeting, Riki hunched over his desk as his nimble fingers roll a joint with practised ease. 

He's sourcing information meant to serve him, which should add to his own perceived moral corruption, but Riki sees right through it. Understands it for what it is through shrouded secrecy ─ emotional vulnerability. 

"You know anything about that Jaehyun guy?"

Riki hums, rumble deep in his chest while his heavy-duty jewellery clinks together. Jungwon's only given his friend's back as he rests atop the black abyss of Riki's bed, clutching the duck plushie he's scribbled black dots into.

"Nothing good," Riki relays, gathering the grain of weed to funnel into rolled paper. "I'd go on a few nights out in their town and,"

He shakes his head, thinking no good of the situation. Jungwon's heart starts to do a slow, doomed beat.

Riki's chair squeaks as he swivels it to face Jungwon, joint forgotten as his arm props up to rest against his chair's back. "His friends are a bit scummy, the kind of people who haven't outgrown their popularity in school,"

"I mean, this was right after grad, so I don't know if they're still the same but," Riki's head tilts, a hiss between teeth given before he turns back around, resuming his joint roll. "Even being a guy around them makes you uncomfortable ─ the way they talk about women is just─"

"Degrading?"

"Disgusting," Riki answers, producing a groan afterwards. Remembering. "For her own and Sunoo's sake too, I hope that crush doesn't last long."

Except it does. Carries on as Jungwon finishes off his first year at uni, not moving his parents with his high scores and bleeds into summer, where he discovers over a group call with Sunoo and Riki, you're now dating the bastard. Silence takes over the line, a look traded between him and Riki, all of which is seen by Sunoo who can only sigh. 

"He seems different," Sunoo replies, sounding like he's convincing himself. "I met him a few times, so my hope is that he'll keep treating her well."

It's partially what Jungwon hopes too. Not to suffer at the hands of another, but faith in Jaehyun's hands is hard to give, especially when Jungwon finds himself thinking of you more. Combing over past interactions and theorising how future ones will go now that you're going to the same uni as him. Unfortunately for you, you firm your choice before you're able to hear news of your boyfriend's transfer elsewhere, a distance he sees you're more than willing to travel frequently despite your fear of driving. 

As much as he can appreciate the sentiment, he can't help but scoff. Because even if Jaehyun sends you flowers and lines the smile of your face, it doesn't erase what Jungwon's heard. Though foolish of him to take statements and run, Jungwon rarely finds much logic when it comes to you. How he'll fulfil his role as your friend despite the harboured feelings in his chest, how he'll execute caution in the words spoken to you over the programmed responses he gives over and finally, how he still wants you in spite of how head over heels in love with your boyfriend you are. 

He already knows himself to be corrupt in some sort of way and in the dead of night, when Riki's clocked out his nocturnal shift, their second-year house quiet, his mind will wonder. If there's ever an amount of sweetness he can show you to look his way, to make you reconsider or consider him at all ─ whether that meant if you were with your boyfriend or not. He knows you wouldn't, but in the howls of night, his imagination presents itself for what it is and all he can do at this point is imagine.

Then, he remembers how distant you've grown. How, the longer you're with your boyfriend, the further Jungwon drifts off. So, he lays the aimless thoughts to rest, not entertaining them and succumbing to social obligations, seeing your missing figure in places arranged by coursemates and other friends alike, the fortune given to him burning in his pocket. 

Wait and you'll see.

You wouldn't say your world revolves around your boyfriend, but it's pretty damn close. 

He's the first person you tell small happenings throughout your day to, the first to receive the photos you'll eventually post on socials, the last person you talk to before bed. It's to be expected, you reason. He's your first boyfriend, after all. Your first real boyfriend, not that version on the playground where you propose with candy rings in the morning and breakup before the day ends. It's new and exciting, limbs light when your phone dings with his response. He doesn't respond often, because second year is demanding, but you're happy with whatever dosage you get. After years cradling your juvenile crush to your chest, this is more than you ever anticipated. How ever much you may get of him, you're grateful nevertheless. 

Because in the end, he'd picked you. 

It's not a popular thing. Being in a relationship at university, particularly in your first year where the two-week early start rounds up everyone in the same boat, attempts to familiarize themselves with their new way of life, different shops and places they'll gain memories in ─ of all this in the midst of lethal amounts of drink. You're thankful you can handle your alcohol, but being hungover nearly every day isn't ideal. At least your bed-rotting sessions are a good excuse for a night-off. After the last one, keenness is sparse within you. 

"You haven't slept with anyone yet?" One of your flatmates, Isa asks, face aghast. "It's been like, four days. We've gone out loads too."

Another flatmate, Yuna, nudges her shoulder, mutters amongst them two heavily clogged in uncapped laughter, knees slapped over the chorus of the same playlist you're getting sick of.

"Well, I've got a boyfriend, so…"

"Stop, that's so sweet!" One of your nicer flatmates, Kazuha saves the day, hand over her heart, to which you smile to.

It's short lived.

"Ha, right," Yuna huffs, a fictional record scratch screeching as the rest of your flatmates' heads whip her way. She sees their widened eyes and realises her mistake, smoothing over the glittery crop top you'd just complimented her on. "Sorry, that was uhm, silly of me,"

"It's just," she starts, swirling the contents of her drink in her red paper cup, sharp eyes cutting up to yours, distaste pooled in hers. "It could never be me. Committing to a man, giving him my youth only to watch my whole world fall apart because in the end, all men do is disappoint." 

She straightens, the kitchen alarmingly silent, music playing no longer as her lip corner sharpen like pitch forks, falsehoods in her expression. "But you know ─ to each their own, right?" 

You shouldn't have gone out that night, you'd been emotional enough to bite your tongue, drowning your sorrows in the corner while Kazuha exchanged worried looks to you, rubbing your back when no one looked. But you went anyways, because you'd made a point of proving your youth didn't revolve around Jaehyun and yet, when you'd thrown up your guts in the club bathroom, escorted out by security guards, subsequently walked home by an exhausted Kazuha, you'd called Jaehyun. He didn't pick up the first few times, but ultimately did to hear your cries, tears streaming down your face as you wished for nothing more than to be with him, in the comfort of his arms where hurtful words didn't mess with your head and you could just be happy with what you had. 

She'd apologized the next day when you'd hauled yourself out your bedroom, washing the dishes while your stomach could only hack noodles. It lacked sincerity but at that point, you didn't care. You're bound to meet people unlike you at uni, she's one of them. Besides, despite your reservation, you could make friends. You didn't have to rely on Sunoo and his friends' company, and maybe it's a cheat code making friends who are just as obsessed with their boyfriends as you are, but it brings peace. Peace you long for amidst the whirlwind of classes starting, so many things happening all at once, the weekend your boyfriend invites you up to his weeks later immediately accepted. 

You're with him now. A time long awaited due to scheduling conflicts and your crippling fear of highway driving you conquer to see him, to make things work. And yet, in the middle of the folded over-limb kisses you drown in, your mind is elsewhere. 

It isn't initially, your heart sent into a series of flutters as Jaehyun indulges you in the sweet kisses you've missed, so brimmed with happiness you smile into his lips as you peck him, again and again until your arms loop and cross at his nape. Missed yous are traded, initiated by you then relayed back by him, his lips overlapping yours as the kiss deepens. There's a calmness that comes with the intimacy, the dull of your mind amplified by static accumulated through the week. Pending assignments, next year house stress, one of your girlfriends in the midst of a breakup. The tears she cried, you mirrored alone in your room after consoling her, riddled miserable at the mere thought of your life without Jaehyun. The whole other half of your heart, no longer yours after so long pining after him, counting petals on the chances of him loving you or not. Phone calls and texts can only do so much. After all, he's busy too, his degree eating away at your anxious bats for assurance and after your last call ends, your mind's set on seeing him again. Existing alongside him, stuck to his side because at least then, your love is tangible. Not a detail of fiction, but something you can hold and touch, pressing your chest against his to have your hearts sync because what is your heart if not beating for this? For him?

Except it doesn't. Not now anyways.

As the kiss deepens and your back lays across the expanse of Jaehyun's bed, his body caging yours, a thigh slides between your legs, your breath picks up. Starved for oxygen yet with no intention of prying, you lose yourself in his affection, so sugary sweet your heart aches. His thigh shifts, and it's just close enough for friction, a touch of it and your claws seek a home, hinging into the material of his t-shirt as a tease. You're meant to falling further into intimacy, seeking to become one with Jaehyun, but the more you lose yourself, the more things begin to blur. Jaehyun's figure isn't as prominent, clouded in a haze of lust then cleared by an image you can't forget.

Jungwon. 

Jungwon kissing you like you hold his last breath, adoring your skin in searing kisses filled with love, trailing all the way from the hollows of your collarbone down past your navel and then, he looks up at you. Through long lashes and dark eyes, desperation and affection overflowing in his iris' hue, begging you for the chance. And you let him, his veined hands working at your jean button before he cannot do without your lips longer, coming back up for kisses you reciprocate in the same vein, a moan caught at the back of your throat as his hand cups over you, in no way possessive, but a reminder of his presence. Of how badly you both need each other. 

Then his hand moves. Slithers beneath rough material then soft, under the waistband of your underwear. His fingers, unhurried, feel you, glide between your glistening folds. You're too far gone for the weight of embarrassment, its shred kissed away by the groan Jungwon does into your lips, an open-mouthed moan vibrating against them. 

"So good for me, so wet," he'd say and you'll moan in likeness, writhing from his words and motions, your zipper undone by the force of his hand as he explores you further. Teasing your entrance with circled fingertips before they go in, one at time because he knows it's your first and treats it as such. Whispering sweet nothings amidst syrupy kisses, a drizzle of degradation mixed in just to have you weaker. Putty in his hands so that when you're close too soon, it's to no surprise.

He'll only grin against you, teeth teasing your bottom lip before he utters the magic words. "You gonna come? Gonna be a good girl for me and come?"

And that's when it hits you. How vivid the image is, how badly your mind and body holds onto that desire in the face of another. Your boyfriend who is not Jungwon, but Jaehyun attempting the same thing as your miraged Jungwon. 

"Stop, stop," you pant against him, licking your mixed saliva as your hand braces to his chest. He relents, expression winded and…confused. Perhaps your mind plays mean tricks on you and there's a flicker of disappointment in his eyes, the crush of guilt following the avalanche of the man miles away, none the wiser. 

"I'm sorry," it's an admission of many, weighing heavily in the air now stale. Your back straightens off the bed, legs loosely crossed as you toy with the fingers in your lap, your stare there too. "I just…I'm not ready."

You could be. Things are going well, enough to brave the terrain of uncharted territory because of all you held in your heart for Jaehyun. Other than the glaring fact that you'd just imagined the entire sequence with someone other than him.

"It's okay," Jaehyun says, falling into compliance as the bed springs hiss with his leaving weight. His back to you, you hear the latter part of his response. "Not like this hasn't happened before."

However cruel it may be, his words carry truth. Many a times there has been when something resembling readiness filled your chest, reaching out a hand to grab ahold of his in attempt to become one and yet when the moment comes, intervention does too. Not by any outside forces but a gut feeling. An internal voice whispering its disagreement, not giving its reasons but a feeling convincing enough to pump the breaks, sorrows on your shoulders as you're forced to deal with the consequences, having to convince Jaehyun he's still someone you want while also shouldering your own conflict. The internal brawl of why you aren't ready, why this couldn't happen, what would it take to make the voice disappear. 

These are thoughts you don't get to share with Jaehyun, his ego tender as is it now. In the same song and dance, you flock over to him, on your tips of your toes, draping over his back in a blanket of sympathy.

You hope this time he isn't hurt enough to shrug you off. 

"I want to, I really want to," you confess, giving him the pieces of you to bind together. Calm the noise. "I don't know why or what…stops me." 

Your body lifts in the degree his shoulders rise with the exhale he does, so heavy and eerie in profound disappointment. You have to shut your eyes so you won't hear it in your dreams. 

"No worries. You're not ready, I wouldn't do anything you aren't prepared for," he recites like it's rehearsed, his go-to phrase in times like these. In his hands, he fumbles with the matching LEGO keychain you insisted on getting, a physical manifestation of your bond. He discards it to the table, a gaze tossed over his shoulder, expression softer now. "I'm just glad you're here."

The lump in your throat makes your voice hoarse, gulped down in the pained smile you give. 

"Me too."

His neck cranes more at the same time you go in for a peck, a series of little affections before the rain clears, grey clouds not yet gone as he lists off options for dinner. Later on, when you've made polite conversation with his flatmates in their shared kitchen, chuckling over a hot pan with bellies filled, you'll cuddle together, the best mess of limbs as he plays a Marvel movie. It's not your favourite, but isn't that love? Aligning best, accommodating even when interests mismatch. Your mind starts to scatter as the city crumbles on screen, reminded of the last time you'd watched a movie.

With Jungwon, a respectful block of distance in between that you hadn't thought twice of. Until now, when you relive the experience, cells singing in your body at the proximity, its abundance and prospects of a lack of. How the screen illuminates his side profile, painting the slopes of his face in a way that seems unfair for someone born with such features. His fingers will nudge the popcorn over to you, knowing how much you like the butter on your tongue and in a movie that interests you both, a scene will come calling for shared sentiment. Your gazes lock, the shared smiles coming with the lock of hearts on the same wavelength.

And now, you do ─ share a secret. Only, it's yours alone. Bathed in grime and shame, the possibility of Jaehyun's cutout figure replaced with Jungwon's.

You don't entertain the thought, closing the door on the impossible and locking it behind you. Because you know, no good comes from the click of its unlock. 

Keeping up appearances proves to be exhausting. 

This, Jungwon knows all too well. The same old story, the same horse beaten to death as soon as Jungwon saw himself as an outlier. All his responses come rehearsed, some interest mixed in with falseness as he conversates with his coursemates. Exams have come and gone, relinquishing the chains keeping Jungwon at a study desk the past few weeks. He should be happy, he supposes. Now life can resume its usual pattern, more freedom to catch-up on his hobbies, indulge Sunoo and Riki in time spent together not crackled with impending stress. His mind can ponder more on you and why even in a time like this, your presence mirrors that of a ghost. 

You'd already rescinded the longer you spent being Jaehyun's, disdain apparent in Jaehyun's face the one time you facetimed him alongside Jungwon. Sunoo and Riki had been there too, all in the kitchen together making some pasta dish you'd lit up at, the same one you mirror at your on-screen boyfriend. Jungwon plays his part, masking the bitter aftertaste he suspects Jaehyun sees right through. It'd explain why you'd leave the room whenever Jaehyun would call afterwards, if you hadn't thoight to do so firs. Why you meet up with Sunoo on campus more often, Jungwon's presence more so an accessory than a necessity. 

He tries not to mind. After all, what possessiveness harbours in his heart is his alone, not meant for someone with a significant other. Except it lingers longer than he accounts for, his crush preceding levels of prediction his mind can't control. It's something he wants to dissect, pick apart to figure its intricacies and faults so he can best move forward, however that may look like. However, the only logical thing for him is to let you go, live the fabricated life you've dreamed up with Jaehyun. A shame, because you amount to more than what he can give, but who is Jungwon to judge?

After all, he's meant to be nothing but a friend. A quiet accomplice that comes with the natural bond between you and your cousin. Yet, he lingers, never one to let go.

It's what he does now, a pint grabbed at the Falcon with coursemates celebrating the end of academic torture. He laughs along, sometimes sliding in a joke himself they'll laugh at. He'll catalogue it, knowing to play it safe with them, chat like their work colleagues because in a sense, they are. Enough distance for no further invitation, but enough to share commonality. 

It's the story of Jungwon's life, a sentiment shared with most because Jungwon's biggest fear is not losing anyone, but fear of himself. The authenticity of his figure and what that entails. 

"Jungwon!" A voice pierces through the barrage of muddled thoughts. His head shakes to clear them, surveying his surroundings to find himself at the pool table, drink in hand and three sets of eyes on him.

One of them very familiar, his fangs bared in a slick smile. "Wanna join? I could use the help." 

His course mates have since left, onto more wholesome activities because their version of fun stops after two pints. Exams over with, Jungwon's teeth gnaw into his lip, not eager to leave but considering if this unknown is how his night unfolds. Sunghoon, known through his Taekwondo extra-curricular, is one of the guys from that crowd Jungwon gravitates to, liking that their togetherness didn't require conversation for its own sake. And when a session is particularly draining, sweat dripping from Jungwon's body, Sunghoon will offer a cold drink, slapping his back with a proud smile. It makes him feel seen - in ways he usually strayed from. 

However, Sunghoon isn't alone. He's with what Jungwon assumes are his housemates - Heeseung and Jay - judging by their Tom and Jerry dynamic, bickering about nothing, none the wiser to Jungwon's looming presence. 

Sunghoon cocks his head, expectant. Jungwon gives his brain the moment off, relief in his smile as he ambles over, Sunghoon's eyes in moon crescents as he welcomes Jungwon into their fold, pulling him in like he's always had a space. 

Heeseung and Jay are good at that too, dapping Jungwon up with bumped shoulders and continuing their conversation like Jungwon was already there, deliberate sidebars taken to give him context. There's nothing feigned about the interaction, their attitudes genuine as they immediately reveal themselves to be crude but friendly losers, only half listening when Sunghoon goes over the stakes of pool. Of which there are none for Jungwon since they'd already agreed the loser would clean out their haunted basement. 

Heeseung and Jay are determined not to lose. 

Jack of all trades, Jungwon doesn't worry. Especially when he overhears Heeseung strategising how to interfere with Sunghoon's 'fucking A shots,' one of the suggestions being interference from one of the ladies working the bar - a lady Jungwon infers Sunghoon has some history with. 

Which piques his interest because last he heard, Sunghoon was with another girl. One of the hockey girls from the uni team who giggle and wave every time he'd walk past their pitch. 

Additionally, there's someone missing. Sunghoon's longest friend out of the bunch. 

"Where's Jake?"

The pool game's started, Sunghoon first to go. The stakes seem higher than anticipated. 

"He's got plans," The pool balls knock together. Hard and dispersed, several sinking with spectating groans. "With his girl."

Despite the drone of ongoing indie music, Jungwon could hear a pin drop, visible tension festering in unspoken air. Heeseung's cleared throat cuts through the waning indie song dulling in the bar's speakers. 

"Songyi." Jay supplies, an elbow to his ribs courtesy of Heeseung. "Ow! Fuck's that for?"

"Unnecessary," Heeseung seethes, a gulp done while his gaze trembles in Sunghoon's vague direction, the same man striding to Jungwon's side, eyeballing his shot. "Hey man, he didn't mean─

"What's it matter?" Sunghoon pipes, eyes trained on the green. His lip corners sharpen, pinpointing the scattered balls. All to their advantage. "You guys are gonna lose - I've got my girl anyways," 

In its aftermath, Heeseung and Jay exchange wide eyes, smiles forced down with snickers bitten back to secrecy. Like that, the energy shifts like there was no tension to begin with and Jungwon struggles. Wondering if he'd imagined it or would it be a conversation he'd ever get to know later on. Sunghoon's always good to be around, comfortable enough for Jungwon's mask to drop enough for a real peak at him but Sunghoon's different with the guys around. Bold with a hard laugh scrunching his nose, volleying crude jokes back and forth with Jay and Heeseung to the effect of Jungwon's guffaw, doubled over with ringing ears not quite believing their input. The onslaught of beers he nurses help loosens him up amongst new company, brain still working to catch onto their group dynamic. However, as the night winds, Jungwon can only think it's not really playing into a role around them, rather him getting comfortable enough to be himself. At peace and unworried. 

If only things were always like this.

"We're gonna go pick up and smoke," Jay's eyes point to Jungwon, giving a highbrowed invitation. "I'm out my overdraft, my treat."

"Just say yes. His poor budgeting isn't your problem." Heeseung folds over Jay's shoulder, shoved off with an abrupt jerk. 

"I'm a nightmare on anything except edibles," is Jungwon's response, foot kept in the closing door with the add on. "I know a good brownie recipe, so whenever you're free, I'm down."

"My man," with a head nod, Jay leans in for a dap and shoulder nudge. His attention moves over to Sunghoon, amusement sparkled in his eyes. "Where the fuck you been hiding this guy?"

"We could've got that 5 bed house with the jacuzzi," Heeseung adds.

"Not sure how'd that work with all the Nitro subs you give away," Jay argues, turning back to Jungwon. "He's paying for at least three girls subscriptions. For what favours? I'd hate to know,"

"Or love to, actually. Lord knows this guy ain't getting any."

"I'd be so easy to kill you right now," Heeseung seethes in a joke, perched arms on Jay's shoulder giving leeway to putting the younger in a headlock, smiles between the two.

Jungwon smiles, warm from something unrelated to alcohol.

"Yeah, well whenever you get your hands on those ingredients, let us know," Jay insists, pulling out a wad of cash, checking if the amount suffices. "I'd offer our kitchen but Jake's a bit of a bitch with it. Likes keeping it a certain way,"

"Yeah, after you left his used pan to rot the week he was away," Heeseung snorts, no more applying a chokehold but hanging off Jay, the view admittedly sweet. "The way he saw it, stopped, then said you could keep it."

"Free upgrade," Jay shrugs, stuffing the cash back in his designer wallet. The look Heeseung and Jungwon share makes his dimple appear. "I did feel a bit bad, but it's whatever."

"Come round anyways," Heeseung proposes. "Jake's not home much, so it'll be fine."

If Jungwon could look behind him, at Sunghoon, he would. Instead, he smiles, accepting the offer before they leave, patting their backs in embraces he's pulled into, smiling regardless. 

With their presence gone, a quieter ambience comes through, affording Jungwon the chance to digest the past few hours. He doesn't over-complicate things, what he could've said better, what landed with them and just enjoys it for what it was ─ a good time. Sunghoon sees as much on his face, affection in his expression as he offers Jungwon a pint at the bar, his favourite bartender conveniently free. Under the neon lights streaming behind her, she works slower than usual, served patrons still bustling about but settled into their dispersed conversations, allowing her the chance for quick chatter. 

She is beautiful, that Jungwon can objectively can agree to, beam akin to sunshine when her attention finds Jungwon's. She's kind and a bit mischievous, seen in the wink she sends, reminding Sunghoon of a promise after her shift. Handing Jungwon's Guinness to him, foam remains on her thumb, licked away with eyes locked on Sunghoon's. Jungwon looks away to spare himself of what he feels is a private matter, suddenly fascinated with the ongoing ice hockey game projected on one of the TVs until Sunghoon escorts them to another area. It's the direct opposite of where they last were, virtually no one in the tucked away section only lit by one sole overhead orange light, green plush armchairs amongst modern chic decor too nice for a uni town bar, its only eyesore an out-of-place dart board without any darts.

Kept behind the bar, a common practice. Especially after Sunghoon mentions an incident involving a very drunk football player and stitches he needed over his eyelids. 

Over the indie soft rage of Rec Hall, the two nurse their beers in silence, gazes mostly avoided as they observe other uni students engage. Let their hair down because their biggest worry is how much of their loan will cover tonight's drinks, laughing loudly and without care. Some flirt, some reflect while others hang off their seats, guys cradling cash notes in their hands watching the game play out. 

Jungwon thinks about what that all means ─ the people you surround yourself with. Sunoo and Riki back at the flat, Sunoo indulging Riki in some video game he's obsessed with despite his disinterest, despite the long hours of his unpaid internship. He wonders if Jake and Sunghoon ever did the same, if they'll ever do anything like that again. 

Sunghoon's seemingly unbothered by the whole thing, but years together frayed isn't something Jungwon thinks anyone is capable of sweeping under a rug. 

So, he asks. Because if there's anyone who will reflect the honesty he gives back, it's Sunghoon. 

"What was that earlier?" Jungwon chances, peering into his drink to feign casualness. "With Jake's girlfriend."

Jungwon cranes his neck like the sight fascinates him, ears catching the scratch of stubble as Sunghoon runs his hands over his jaw. He's too nosy for his own good, Jungwon thinks, but things left unsaid always bother him ─ annoyed by himself at the words he can't relay to you.

"Ah, that," Jungwon's head lifts, eyes on Sunghoon as he speaks. "Well, thing is, Songyi used to be my girlfriend."

Pool balls knock together in the distance, their impact may as well sounding like a natural disaster. Very fitting considering the information Sunghoon's just dropped.

Jungwon's back straightens, a slow crawl to alignment with his jaw dropped. "You're not serious, are you?"

"Not my idea of a joke," Sunghoon laughs, stare directed ahead of him before he chugs his drink, smiling over the rim. "But how can I be mad? I got what I wanted in the end."

"Your girlfriend?" Jungwon questions, Sunghoon nods. 

The bartender, the dots connect in his mind. Jungwon lazes his sight over in the direction of the bar, seeing his new girlfriend pour a drink and remembering how close they'd been when ordering drinks. "When did you start dating?"

Something sick falls over Sunghoon's face, grin wolfish as a chuckle comes thereafter.

"You're better off not knowing," He casts Jungwon a look as if it's a throwaway, iris hue dark and heavy. "Officially, a while ago."

He spares Jungwon the rest, sagging into the plush of their chairs fit for kings. "Jake's relationship didn't come long after that and even though it's been ages, the guys always have some sort of awkwardness about it. As if things were─"

Sunghoon contemplates his next words, hand against his stubble with slow, distant blinks weighing out the options of what he'll choose. Jungwon chooses not to move. 

"Let me not. I was the asshole at the end of the day."

Jungwon casts sensitives glances around their surroundings, assured by no prying ears. "Hard to imagine you that way,"

He gulps down his beer to shrug off the compliment, meaning it but still carrying a sense of apprehension. 

Sunghoon laughs like he's said something funny. "People can surprise you then." 

"You don't look too caught off-guard about other things though," his arm crosses over their shared side table, nudging Jungwon's shoulder gently. "What's got you troubled?"

"Nothing." Jungwon answers immediately, a reflex. Another, the scratch behind his ear. 

"Bullshit," Sunghoon chuckles, a twinkle of amusement dashed in his eyes. "I know that tortured look anywhere. I wore it the same year I had no means to my girlfriend,"

Curiosity crosses his face, a thick eyebrow raised. "It's about a girl?"

Jungwon non-answer is answer enough.

"Who is she? Girl in your lectures? Flatmate?"

The grilling should call for tension, a natural deflection Jungwon's offered other times in positions like this. He likes to think of conversations as pieces of a puzzle and with the right pieces he picks, it'll all make sense. He'll make his own image, while the other person makes theirs of him ─ his image, but this isn't like then. More than wanting a knack for honesty, he's troubled. Beyond the circumference of his own knowledge, so he seeks it in Sunghoon. 

"Flatmate's cousin."

"They close?" Sunghoon asks, Jungwon's nod bringing out a hiss from the older of the two. "Dicey, but I trust your judgment. She must be sweet."

He thinks of you then, delicate when the world isn't. Sweet when you have no reason to be, simply because it's your nature. You're braver than he is, Jungwon realises. 

"She is," he confirms. "All my opposites."

Sunghoon pushes Jungwon's shoulder with disapproval, the pity-party he throws for himself a circus quickly packed away. 

"Must be why there's that famous saying," Sunghoon alludes to, languid pace in conversation as they watch the bar pass them by. "Really though ─ why the anguish?"

There's many points to his anguish, but he settles for the most obvious. "She's got a boyfriend."

"And that's stopping you?"

"It should," Jungwon counters, picking the lint off his long sleeve. "But…I'm betraying myself. I can't not want her," 

"Are you betraying yourself or what others expect of you?"

Jungwon doesn't answer despite the dip of his heart, instead looking to Sunghoon with mirth. "Enough pints deep to be introspective, huh?"

"I need some redeeming qualities," he jokes back, a secret between them in their smiles before their gazes tear apart, back on the moving bar that move ahead of them.

"Her boyfriend's a piece of shit." 

"They usually are when they're in it for the wrong reasons," Sunghoon sips on his beer, a smack of the lips and a breath afterwards. "She relies on you, right?"

Jungwon nods. 

"Then there's nothing to worry about. What's probably got her is puppy love ─ I don't think I need to tell you how that ends," he supplies, sequences of your relationship's end playing in mind, each a different version. All with the same ending. "One day, her knight in shining armour will look a lot like you. Run when you've got the chance."

"You think it'll come?"

"It will," Sunghoon doesn't miss a beat, his line of sight Jungwon as his head turns to him. "When everything's said and done, we should go on one of those double dates. My girl loves making friends,"

Behind the counter, as if sensing their eyes, Sunghoon's girlfriend brims a cheek-filled smile, busing the table with a wave. Jungwon thinks of the mess they've been through, then sees their shared smiles in spite of it. It makes him feel better about his own situation, has the thought cross his mind that even the right things can sometimes be messy. 

If wanting to be with you, to cherish you with a heart that had no limits, a mess is what he'd have to be.

You're here again. 

In the perimeters of Jungwon's room that carries a world's worth of weight in the air despite the cracked open windows. He suppose it's a consequence of the day's earlier events, how you'd been cornered and like Sunghoon said, Jungwon appeared like your knight and shining armour. He wishes it were true, since Jaehyun is still Prince Charming in your eyes, but at least here in his room, he can create a world where none of that exists - where you don't long for a prince disguised as a dragon and peer down from your castle, eyes only for Jungwon.

Movie night. 

They've been few and far between the longer you've been with Jaehyun, time between lectures spent making new friends and driving up to see Jaehyun on the weekends. Every weekend. And every weekend, when he hates himself, he'll make his dreaded way to Instagram and see the flood of your story ─ dates with Jaehyun, your held hands, him looking off elsewhere instead of at you. To some, it reads as cute, as commented by your friends, but Jungwon can't help the ugly fester in his chest. Knowing you're the only one making the effort because Jaehyun is 'done' with your uni town, says there's nothing to do there as if you're not there. 

You say you don't mind the three hour long drive, most times taking back roads instead of the highway that still scares you. And like the idiot Jungwon is, he suggests going on it together because scary things are best tackled in company. 

"Really?" you perk up, lashes fluttering with disbelief. "You'd do that for me?"

He'd do anything for you. 

"Of course," he says instead, propped against the kitchen counter top with his arms folding across his chest. "What are friends for?"

When the day comes, you're white-knuckling the steering wheel, speeding up the slip road joining onto the highway and you're scared. Jungwon takes charge of the aux, switching the song to something like yours ─ a shared thing since Shrek had made it's way into both of your four favourite films ─ Smash Mouth's 'All Star' thumping through the speakers. You don't take your eyes off the road, but your head turns the slightest in his direction, a former aghast face morphing into mirth, nervous laughter becoming a whole-hearted one, grip released with thumbs thumping against the leather steering wheel. What starts off low becomes lyrics belted out obnoxiously, you still mindful of the road, but scared of it no longer. Not with good tunes blasting and Jungwon at your side, like he always is. 

He's not this time when you're heading up to see Jaehyun again, because he's incapable of coming down himself. A fact Sunoo grumbles into his apple, taking a bite with an eye roll. He doesn't mean to do it, but Jungwon's eyes meet Riki's and dart away, a sentiment between them ─ a sense of doom.

A sense he should've taken more seriously as he readies himself for lectures, only for his phone to ring.

"Hey, what's up?" Because you never call.

That much apparent when he hears raised voices in the distance, the roar of the highway pouring through the phone speaker. "Won," 

"I didn't know who to call, Sunoo's at work and I─" you're shaken, tremble apparent in the frenzy of your voice. 

Jungwon's already putting on his shoes. "Where are you?"

You describe the highway leading out of your uni town, the one always taken on your way to Jaehyun except your driving fears have been confirmed. You'd been in an accident, not a big one when Jungwon runs every red light to get to you, but enough to stare blankly at your clipped car, expression void of emotion. To make things worse, the asshole that's cut you off and caused the whole thing, is entitled, some middle-aged loser who looks like he's never put down an alcohol bottle in his life. Jungwon pulls up when the loser's cursing at you, threatening to sue you within an inch of the life for the damages he's made of his own car. The slow-moving traffic, prying eyes and the raise of his voice dial you down in notches, head hung with the toe of your shoe digging into obsidian asphalt. You've never looked smaller, so in your head. Jungwon's at your side in a flash, hands braced against your shoulders as he searches your eyes for more distress. 

"You okay?" he asks, voice tender and steady. Eyes darting to inspect your face of injuries ─ there, thankfully, are none. 

"I'm fine," you huff out, breath withering before you take a big inhale, centring yourself. "I called insurance, they'll be here soon. I just─"

"Should've let your boyfriend drive. That way, we wouldn't be in this mess."

Scum sounds behind Jungwon, and it sets him alight. Licks heat against his back and conjures wrath in his chest, eyes growing wild as his head does a slow swivel to the scum in question. He's a balding man, looks like he hasn't showered in weeks, spoken to a women in longer. If you weren't here, Jungwon hates to think of what he could do, knowing the danger you'd encountered on a trip he didn't even want you going on in the first place. His hands have left your face, bunched up in a fist at his sides, but they give, colour bleeding into his knuckles again as he glances over his shoulder, at you more in need than the shitty guy trying to take advantage. 

So, he ignores the man. Tends you until your respective insurance companies come, a tow-truck too because your cars are unfit to drive. While you're busy with the agents, hands used to explain the situation, the culprit takes a drag of his cigarette, satisfied with his wrongdoing.

Jungwon doesn't think, simply yanks the cigarette out his grip and stubs it to the asphalt, crushing it beneath his shoe. 

"What the fuck?"

"Try that shit again," Jungwon retorts, the epitome of hate pooled in his dark eyes. "And you'll be road-kill I'd run over."

The man hollers behind Jungwon, but he doesn't care to listen, walking off when heads turn, at your side for the rest of the fiasco before everyone departs, your weekend belongings now in the back of Jungwon's car. He's on his way to the vehicle, you in tow with the man loitering around to try hitch a ride, except you stall in your steps. Turn and face the man who'd made you feel small.

"It's not my fault," you start, your soft features blending in with the rigidness your chest puffs with. "Your careless driving is not my fault. And you putting the blame on me makes you an even shittier person than you are now."

It's the only place Jungwon thinks of after your insurance companies have left the cleared scene, prying eyes no more as cars zoom by, Jungwon slipping in when he gets the chance. Your gaze sets out the window, mind elsewhere and he makes no attempt to arrest it in poor attempts of cheering up, instead letting the place he takes you to speak for itself, surprise drawing a blank on your expression, your body turning to him. 

"The planetarium?" you ask, almost in disbelief. 

Jungwon kills the engine, keys jangling together. "Yeah. Let's go."

It's a bit out of the way, three towns away from your uni campus. It'd been the one you couldn't wait to see when Jaehyun said he'd come down for the weekend, but caught the flu and didn't want to make you sick. 

At least your excuse is more believable. 

Jungwon gets out the car, opening your car door because you're slumped in your seat, not plagued by earlier but rather the gesture of it all. How you've found yourselves here during an early Thursday afternoon, little to no cars around, the planetarium all yours to wonder about. Jungwon probably has class ─ you remember he does when the fog clears ─ and yet he makes no mention of it, purchasing your tickets and leading you inside, room swallowed in black beside the calm glow of planets and stars hung, a voice in likeness relaying information known to you like the back of your hand. 

You attempt a bargain of his time, insisting you can leave early so he can make it for his workshop. You only get a laugh in return, Jungwon's face illuminated from the stars projected onto him, ducking through different avenues of the room as you hear from say, 

"I don't want to," he answers, plotting himself on the slated bit of floor where other spectators lay a bit away, pointing up at the stars on the ceiling. "I've been missing those workshops for the past two weeks. I'd rather be here."

A chill runs down your spine when with you whispers in your ears, freezing your hands mid-air with eyes enlarged, looking around like help will come. Except your version of help is at your feet, Jungwon's arm behind his head as he shuffles for comfort, a gaze cast your way in a quiet question.

Will you sit? 

And you do, folding in a mechanical way, hugging your knees to your chest with a look up at the ceiling, lips brushed together as you stare at constellations you name. Out-loud, it seems, when Jungwon points out another, asking its name. Their names are being introduced in the ongoing intercom, yet he wants to hear it from you. Take your mind off things, not known to you until after the fact when you've laid back beside him, mouth having run a hundred miles a minute as you've filled him in on details the intercom leaves out, the same sparkle belonging to the stars above found in your eyes as your chest heaves, propped up on an elbow as you're looking at him.

His eyes trail downwards, his full face given moments later along with the slow spread of his smile, dimple somehow showing amidst darkness and there's another thing. Lightness in your chest, burdens forgotten when you're with him. And you soak in it, revelling in how his interest never dips no matter how much information you've dumped on him, questions asked to show he's been listening. There's a moment too, when he's hauled himself off the ground with the dust of his clothes, a hand offered to you. You take it like you have times before, but a current ripples right down the middle of your pressed palms, alarm flared within you as he brings you to your feet. 

He sees it. Asks, "You okay?"

"Yeah," is your poor excuse, hands grated against your jeans to dilute the current. "Just winded. Hungry maybe." 

In true Jungwon fashion, he takes everything you say to heart. Pauses for you to accustomize to the topsy-turvy spin of your world, steps slower as you venture further into the museum, reading slates of information, posing for pictures he happily takes and when there's nothing left to be seen, Jungwon takes you to your favourite fast-food restaurant, exchanging toys with you over salty fries when he gets the one you wanted. A Sanrio keychain, Keroppi yours and Kuromi's his. Unbeknownst to you, he'll clip it onto his bunch of keys, jangling as he turns the ignition on and drives back, early evening colouring the sky once you've climbed out his car, watching him lug your weekend bag on his shoulder and unlock the front door, turning to you with a smile that's only inviting, luring you into a house that doesn't exactly feel like home with how long you've been away, but Jungwon builds the bridge. Indulges in what you've left behind, lighting a candle you'd purchased as a house-warming gift, mixing in with the aroma of butter popcorn to the sounds of your favourite movie. 

You don't check your phone, forget to after you sent Jaehyun a text explaining why you couldn't come up. Only for planetarium photos to dot your Instagram story, question marks his response. You don't see them until morning, not after you've watched three movies alongside Jungwon, trading popcorn and conversation, the wear of the day slumping you to his shoulder, a smile on your face as you slumber, the same one mirrored by him before he tucks you in, at least having the decency to sleep on the couch despite Riki's puzzled face. 

When he's gone, lights turned off in his wake, Jungwon burrows into the cushioned couch, pulling the blanket over his eyes but still remembering the last of your conversations before you'd fallen asleep. 

"The main couples here," in the movie Hairspray, musical notes filling the room. You chuck a piece of chocolate in your mouth, eyes undeterred. "They seem to give an equal amount, don't they? In their relationship."

Jungwon contemplates. Knows the root of your question despite the attempt at clouding it. 

He hums, hand swallowing popcorn from the bowl between you two. 

"There's a bit of back and forth but in the end, it seems equal, right?"

You must realise it too. The plea woven into your voice, the quiet desperation making your pupils tremble whilst looking at him, his expression not giving anything away.

Because if it did? You'd know how undeserving he thought Jaehyun is of you. 

Alias, he relents, settles into a passive expression seen as empathetic before he replies, "I'd say so," 

"I don't believe in relationships being 100% but say if they were, I think that amount being the same is a bit of a stretch,"

"Life happens, after all. You're whole before you met your partner, but even then, when you are together, it's hard to maintain that whole because you're sharing a life together," he explains, fingertip absently tracing the bowl's rim. "You're not gonna be 100% all the time, and they won't be either. You give and take, but what matters in the end is if you feel like that whole doesn't feel empty with them by your side."

He chances a look at you, not sure how his words land ─ if they make sense at all because his brain is scrambled. Wrestling between reason and his own emotions that never seem in-check around you. It's only years of practised masking allowing him to be this way: diplomatic, trying to see your situation from all different angles and delivering his verdict in a way that's kind but still the truth.

Which explains why you ask the unexpected, duvet cover bunched in your non-buttered hand while you look at him, mini TV screen casting colours across your features. 

"Do you think I give too much?" 

He's not stumped. Besides the momentary stall of his heart, every bodily functions carries on uninterrupted. His brain works over the words, erases the blunt edges and gives encouragement in his lifted lip corners, eyes trained on yours as he lets you down easy. 

"I think you're being brave. Loving with your whole heart isn't something a lot of people can do, if everything is considered," if he considers himself. "I can't say anything for sure because I don't know everything about your relationship, but I think you always show up as your best. I'd hope he does the same for you."

You're quiet long afterwards, gripping the duvet cover harder before you grant it some give, an exhale expelled before your back meets the hoard of pillows against his headboard. The thought that maybe he's somehow overstepped occurs to him, but reason reels him back in. Reels you in as you nudge the popcorn bowl his way, solace your expression as you spare him the turn of your head, a bittersweet grin on your face.

"Always there for me, aren't you?"

His heart cracks a little, a huff of what's meant to be amusement coming out wistful, stonewalled by the handful of popcorn he takes, pushing it back to you before his eyes draw back to the screen. 

"I try my best."

His phone screen glares beneath his blanket, searing at the back of his eyes but he still looks on. Lets them crawl over the snapped picture taken: not of you, but of his bunch of keys and yours. You'd left them on the living room table shortly after you'd entered the house, disappearing into the bathroom and he…they'd been together. Yours and his, keychains aligning and he'd acted on impulse. Sinking into the sad shell of himself that doesn't get to hold you close while you sleep, turning his phone off and trying to sleep, seeing stars dance across your face like they had in the planetarium where only you and him existed.

Today's one of the days where Jungwon thinks the weather's manufactured. 

Spring's meant to be in full swing, gentle breezes of the winter's last winds, sun sheepish behind its accompanying clouds and yet it's been nothing but rain. Angry rain and arctic winds, enough to not confuse him of what coat to wear walking to campus. Then, on a random Tuesday, the air sizzles with a preview of summer, temperatures high enough for Sunoo to fill up the children's paddle pool they'd foolishly purchased with Riki's insistence to have a barbecue.

Which is exactly what they do, Jungwon driving with Riki hogging the aux again, Sunoo with his head out the rolled down windows as they drive to the big supermarket in their town. Everyone comes out with the sun, outside seating for cafes and restaurants packed with patrons laughing, smoking, burning a shade of pink all in the joy of summer's hinted presence. To Foster the People's 'Take Me Back' Jungwon finds himself not looking in his rear-view mirror for what feels like a first. In the teased summer sun, his hand hangs out the window, carding cruising winds through his spread fingers with one hand on the steering wheel. Something's ticked in his brain ever since he's seen you last, seen Sunghoon last too. How life would be if he didn't premeditate it, let the cards fall where they may be and at least give himself the grace of a moment before he dissects it. It's hard, any ingrained habit to be unlearned is, but today, when time seems to move slower, ice cream doing a slow melted drip in the sun, he feels it. The moment he exists in, the buzz of excitement in the air, the music thumping through his car's sound system, the comfort in the triangle friendship he's found with Sunoo and Riki. It makes him chatty, trading old stories and current tidbits with friends who feed off the flow of conversation, stopping every so often in a singalong, their shared first year summer playlist entailing all their fave songs and memories. 

It's nice. Peaceful. 

"You skipped my song again," Sunoo sounds from the backseat, clicking his tongue with a swat at Riki's shoulder. "There's a queue for a reason."

"I'm sorry, but I'm not in the mood for Rina Sawayama."

"Well, I'm not the mood for Sexyy Red," Sunoo argues back, eyes finding Jungwon's. "Would you like to be driving a car blasting Get it Sexy?"

Jungwon pauses, remembering last when the song played. Their trio drunk, the song's moans filling their living room. "Good song, but time and place."

"Wouldn't want to scare off the ladies,"

The car comes to stop at a red light, the car beside them occupied by four elderly women, hollering with sunglasses and canned cocktails floating in their backseat. By sheer coincidence, all their gazes cast Jungwon's way, his head nod rippling swoons through the car, their chatter amplifying before the green light diverges their paths. 

"You pulling everyone except who you want is kind of peak." 

"What does that mean?" Sunoo asks, hands hinging on each of their car seat shoulders. "You're interested in someone?"

Jungwon can only laugh really, dimples cratering into his cheek as his forehead falls into his palm, elbow balanced on his windowsill. It's been nearly a year since Jungwon met you, downstairs on a stretch of grass where things unknowingly began to shift, it was only a matter of time before he'd be found out. For however observant Jungwon attunes himself to being, it's synonymous with Riki, many moments occurring to his dot-connections and shit stirring. He should've expected this, maybe been a bit mad at Riki for letting it slip in front of the last person who should know but Jungwon can't find it in himself to be mad. Riki's apologetic in the boxy smile stretching his lip corners and the sun's out ─ he really can't complain. 

"It means nothing," Riki deflects, barely covering his grin. "Here you go. Here's a song actually worth queuing."

Stardust comes through, living up to Riki's words and despite the shambled attempt at covering Jungwon's crush, Sunoo doesn't pry, seemingly losing himself into the collective head nod done throughout the car, volume turned all the way up by Jungwon before the bass drops. They're singing offkey when the lyrics finally come, enunciating even the beats of the song. It's silly and care-free, everything Jungwon deprives himself of, but not now. Not in the car he nearly swerves, not the big supermarket where he laughs at Nut-Free Bluey Cake and launches onto Riki's taller frame, happily carried into the next aisle while Riki attempts a grumble beneath him, Sunoo pushing the cart with a giddy grin. And when they've racked up an abysmal bill, rock-paper-scissors played at the till, they laugh. Louder than they should because Sunoo's been picked, swiping his card while Riki and Jungwon jump around, hugging with fevered pats on each other's backs. They sing more songs back in the car, Jungwon taking the long way home to fit in more and when they're back at the house, Sunoo gone to change, Riki and Jungwon linger in the kitchen, reading over the receipt and transferring the difference to Sunoo before they bolt their separate ways. 

The care-free energy doesn't cease when they return, changed into swimming adjacent attire, board shorts mixed in with vests and rash guards, Riki starts up the grill as Jungwon wrestles Sunoo into the paddle pool, his shrieks filling the tiny back garden in harmony with Riki's hiccuped laugh. A tip of Riki's finger gets Sunoo stumbling in, laughing in a shriek as he clatters, eyes in moon crescents as he tosses the remaining water not splashed onto the hot concrete their ways, Riki fleeing through the back door's walkway and Jungwon defending his own with a pre-loaded water gun. 

When the coast seems clear, Riki returns and there's almost no water in the pool now, an epic war fought where there's only wet losers who decide to make themselves useful, drying off and taking shifts inside the house, unpacking meat for Riki to grill and pre-making their burger buns, stuffed with combos Jungwon jokingly wrinkles his nose at, Sunoo's shoulder shoved into his with a playfulness he sinks into. Happy, the happiest he's allowed himself to be. 

They're together again sometime later when Riki's grilled most of the meat, Sunoo's shrimp only left which he leaves in Jungwon's hands, heading back inside to take a call. There's still some sun, customary of the late season, the spared sunlight hitting Sunoo's face as he lounges in the pool, legs extended with feet dangling off the pool's rings while Jungwon grills, not a thought running in the lull of his usually over-active brain.

"You're different these days." Sunoo observes, fingers rippling through what's left of the paddle pool.

Lightness takes at Jungwon's chest, carefully flipping the skewered-shrimps. "How so?"

"I don't know," Sunoo drawls, a pout on his face. Jungwon can tell even with his back to him. "I feel like I know you better than I have. It's…nice."

He presses, hears the sizzle of shrimp as he gives it firmness from the spatula held in his hand. He thinks of Sunoo's words, how transparent they are and vulnerable he's become. His answer is an easy one. 

"I think so too," it ends in a smile, only for his heart to do a slow sink. "Next year's gonna be hard." 

With Sunoo graduating, Riki and I in his rear view mirror, Jungwon thinks. You'll still be here, but it won't be the same. 

For a beat, no words occupy the space. Only the sizzle of meat and the drag of water, quiet and tranquil. Bird chirp in the distance, a gust of wind making dead leftover leaves dance across stones, the temperature suddenly dropping.

"It's bittersweet, isn't it?" Sunoo offers, and Jungwon has to turn. Stand on the opposite side of the grill and face his friend, watching his exact words spell across his face in a reluctant curve of his lips. "But why are you thinking so far ahead? There's still plenty of time left."

Because it's instinct, thinking three steps ahead, anticipating. 

"I don't know," is Jungwon's premade answer, and it bothers him how dishonest it sounds to his own ears. He thinks again, searching, keeping his hands busy with the meat that might charcoal. "I think I'm preparing for the worst and controlling what I can. So that when it happens, it doesn't hurt as much." 

It's as honest and coherent he's been about his own feelings, a somewhat sickly feeling coming with the admission. Like he could crawl out of his skin. But before he can take it back, his eyes catch on Sunoo's face, silent surprise unfolding with lips shaped in an O. Then, when he notices their eyes lock, kindness brims in them, warmer than usual as Sunoo's head tilts, surprise morphing into quiet sympathy. 

"You live your life so far ahead of itself," he lets the younger one know, a pinch of regret in his face as if he experiences Jungwon's life himself. "I don't like getting hurt either, but that's life no? Getting to experience what you can in spite of it,"

"I think that's what makes moments like these better. Knowing I opened my heart up to the experience because even if somewhere along the way, pain comes along ─ it's only temporary. Because in the grand scheme of things, I'll still be able to look back at this - all the memories we have together - and still be grateful I accepted them for what they're worth," Sunoo explains, heart on his sleeve. "Something to cherish." 

Jungwon thinks back. There's little to cherish from before, living for others despite being the most guarded he's ever been. He's been that way at uni, the key from the keyhole removed just to let Riki and Sunoo in and when you come along, he unlocks it completely. Opens the sliver of sunshine streaming in, and what feels like all he knows isn't enough. He wants to let people in, wants to share more belly laughs and inside jokes that resonate with him. Be in the moment and not worry about every moment after. Perhaps he's made his start, like Sunoo indicated, but when they pack up their house next year, Sunoo's tears spilling over while Riki wills himself not to cry - Jungwon wants to cry too. From the depths of himself because he knows he'll miss what felt like forever. He'll miss taking no more than ten steps to bug Sunoo to watch a movie, push back his hair with Sunoo's headbands as they try out skincare masks, huddle in the kitchen on weekend mornings - all three of them - their blended playlist blaring in the background, dancing around even Jungwon after spills the milk to his cereal. Because there's more to life than getting it right the first time. Jungwon knows this now. 

"Yeah," Jungwon concedes, burying his chin into his propped knees. Not holding back his tears, but blinking then away. "You're right. It is better that way."

Sunoo is nice enough not to say anything, not initially. Jungwon's too in his feelings to hear him come out the paddle pool, Sunoo's hand finding the back of Jungwon's head with tender strokes, a brush of pride-filled affection in his touch. Jungwon lets his heart crack a little, a tear escaping with the bite of his lip. The hurt festers, but as soon as its felt, it's gone. Soothed away by being experienced and with the lift of his chin, Jungwon inhales. Exhales for what feels like the first time ever and lets a little of rigidity go.

Whatever may come of his life, he will let it happen. Won't orchestrate anything beyond his exhaustion and let destiny take the wheel.

The ride is smoother that way. That much clear when Riki comes back with a share of ribs for Jungwon, buying them despite their extortionate prices because he's always thought of Jungwon. And even when he jokes about the sombre mood, when they're on their feet again, he bumps Jungwon's hip with careful eyes searching for Jungwon's temperament. And like this, meat sizzles, tucked into buns perfectly sliced by Sunoo and eaten in ongoing chatter, another day in sun but one of the first where Jungwon leaves the door open. 

It's raining again. Heavily. 

A matter of days before Jungwon's set to take his final exams for the year and he's surprisingly calm. Of course, he'd studied but he'd also had fun, spending nights when Sunoo wasn't tired in the living room as a trio, doing and talking about absolutely nothing but still marked as something to cherish to him. He also sees Sunghoon, goes over to his place where Heeseung perches on Jungwon's shoulder, oohing and ahhing over the brownies he makes, Jay enticed by the aroma filtering into the living room where he'd previously played his guitar. And in their concrete backyard, they lounge on camping chairs, munching on the soft heaven Jungwon manages to bake and minutes later, they're laughing at nothing. The small fire Sunghoon's made outlines their faces, their happiness on display and Jungwon sinks into his own, hands in his pockets and slumps into his chair, happy. 

Which the weather doesn't mirror. Except it's not meant to reflect his mood, but yours, heart thudding in your neck as your phone vibrates with incessant calls attempts and a flood of texts. 

You'd been just about to toss your phone away for a study session, settling down at your desk, smiling at your pegboard, trinkets and a photo booth photo taken recently of you and Jaehyun. Your Kerropi keychain had found its way onto the pegboard too, because after you'd lost one of your keychains, you'd been apprehensive of losing others. 

In your hand, your phone buzzes, screen alight with a selfie of you and Jaehyun, his cheeks squished as you pucker your lips into a kiss onto his cheek. Happiness floods you, accepting the welcome distraction, painfully unaware of its destruction. 

"Hi baby!" 

You've been butt-dialled, softened by material and limbs, but even that couldn't muffle the words you'd heard. The horrid laughs of his friends back home since he'd finished the academic year, you always coming last. 

"Dude! Surely, it's been a year," his friend hollers, a smack delivered to Jaehyun. "And you still haven't cracked that?"

"I've been trying, believe me!" he insist, tone doused in a bucket of sinister tar you're so unfamiliar with. "She always clams up the last minute. Can't tell you how many boners she's sent to the grave." 

"She has that whole innocent, cutesy thing going for her," another friend explains, one you've had nothing but respectful interactions with. Your stomach twists, a sudden wave of nausea attempting to drown you. "But, I mean, come on? She would've slobbered on your knob with that crush she had on you in school. What's stopping her now? Men have needs too, don't they?"

"Don't even, bro, because─" and he laughs, a genuine hearty laugh that splits your heart in two. "─when she's feeling all guilty for not putting out, she'll try give me a blowjob and it's the fucking worst," 

He laughs again, his hand likely over his eyes like you've seen him do plenty of times. Only now, you're the butt of the joke. 

"I just imagine whatever Pornhub video I watched the night before and jizz in her mouth to get it over with," he explains, chorus of laughter filtering through the phone's speaker. "There's still time though. All bets are not off yet, gentlemen. I'm getting my money, her virginity too!" 

It's the last thing you hear as your phone jolts in your tremored hand, thumb aggressively tapping at the red end call button, with its delayed end coming with the shudder of your breath. The force of it, dry heaved out a throat working, gargling with no remnants in your stomach being pulled again and again, a desperate rush to your en-suite, your phone dropped like your knees to hard floor, spit plonked into the toilet bowl. 

Sanity is the last thing considered, your back pressed to cold tiled wall as your arms circle around your knees, wobbled lips pressed into the bone as your body rocks. Willing whatever wretchedness you've just heard not to be real, to be a figment of whatever horrible imagination your mind's become. 

However, when you're shaking your head, hoping the thoughts will drop out your ears, you only manage to connect the dots. His sudden interest after an eternity spent pining over him, the half-efforts elsewhere except the bedroom, the dismay you'd been met with when you'd introduced him as your boyfriend to other hometown friends, to Sunoo, Jungwon and Riki. The thought makes you sick, how everyone was able to see what laid beneath the surface but you, the person supposedly closest to him. His girlfriend. 

The title once meaning everything to you drops slug over your body, skin crawling at the heavy, disgusting feel as there is no one to blame except yourself. For wearing your heart on your sleeve, for believing Jaehyun was above you, for giving yourself to him. 

You want out. Out this bathroom, out your skin, not a thought in mind as you're stumbling out your bathroom, not caring for the pitter-patter of rain hitting your window and storming through doors and halls, figure soaking in rain as you run as hard as your burning lungs allow. The drenched weight of your clothes threatens to weigh you down, but you persist, tears mascaraed in the rain pouring over your face as you round the familiar corner, huffing and puffing with your hands on your knees, at the doorstep of someplace urgent. A place you'd neglected trying to find a home in Jaehyun. 

Jungwon opens the door, because of course he does. In the face of his surprise, you can only sigh, meekness in your croaked voice as you ask, "Can I come in? Please?" 

He'd be a fool to leave you in the rain, a fact you know now Jaehyun is capable of doing if it didn't get his dick wet. Your eyes pinch together, weak heart hoping once you trudge through Jungwon's doorway, all thoughts of your ex-boyfriend will cease, soaked shoes slipped off, tracking rain in the house as you're ushered to the upstairs bathroom, Jungwon moving swiftly to hand you towels and an extra change of clothes.

His. 

The relieved sigh you do should make guilt crush you, but you've forgone all thought. All emotion, only allowing the hot shower of water run down your back like you'd hope your previous relationship would.

You don't talk much after you've come through the door, whispered 'thank you's the extent of your vocabulary as Jungwon hands you towels and clothing to change into, hanging your soaked pair on the towel warmer to dry quicker. 

You're wounded, that much is clear in the gauntness in your face, skin pale and eyes soulless. He can't pry, the first tumble of his words possibly the final blow, your crumble inevitable, fleeing because where else can you go? Sunoo's not meant to be in until late, you're not as close with your friends because well, Jaehyun is your best friend. 

And yet, you make no mention of him. Don't attach yourself to your phone like you'd done before, giggling over sparse text messages and fawning over pictures of you together. As a substitute, your small figure hovers at the stairs leading up to his attic bedroom, complaining of the rain, how your troublesome presence would've left earlier if you didn't want to get soaked. 

"Stay over," he insists, hauling himself off his bed. "You can take the bed, I'll get the blow-up sorted."

There's back and forth and in an effort not to make you cry, he gives into your insistence, you taking the blow-up bed and him preached on his bed. The small TV mounted in his room blares, in the corner you occupy playing some movie he doesn't pay any attention to, face permanently creased as his eyes run over yours, wondering what he can do to erase it. 

There's little he can do without knowing the source, an omission of truth on your part after an hour and half long film, another absently switched over to before you burrow into your set of bedding, back towards him for a long while. The TV's eventually turned off, silence eating away at the bitter night.

"He had a bet going with his friends," you confess, voice small and tear-wrinkled. "That's all this was to him ─ some sick joke that he could make with his friends,"

"I don't even─I can't even─"

Jungwon sits up, heaving a sigh twisted in disappointment and heartache. Mounts his pillows to support his back, salt rock lamp in the corner providing some light as he coaxes you with tenderness. "Up on the bed," 

You don't move. His hand pats his mattress in a three-beat sequence. "C'mon, angel."

Hesitation for a moment longer, your back still to him, and then there's give. Your figure hauls itself up, drowning in his clothes and ambling over to him, stalling at his bedside, his arms out in comfort you've been robbed of. 

A knee edged into his bed, dipping with your looming presence before you draw to him, submitting. 

"In my arms. That's it," your back finds his chest, slumping with the world's weight on your shoulders, turned away because he can only imagine you'd hate for him to see you like this. In pieces ─ for nothing. "Go ahead, get it off your chest."

"He─" you hiccup, trembling in Jungwon's hold. "They knew I liked him and made a joke of it. They probably said all kinds of hurtful things and I just…he made it clear he was never in it for me,"

"He just wanted to brag to his friends about beating them to it," the disgust flicks off your tongue, body tensing against him. In the circle of his arm, a thumb caresses the top of your arm, devoted to your care. Your comfort. "As if I'm something to claim." 

"You know you're not his to claim," Jungwon reminds you, cheek pressed to the side of your head, lips brushing against your hair. "Nothing of you is even his to begin with because no man ─ no person ─ can ever take anything from you,"

"If you love the way you love and treat people, that will always come back tenfold," he assures you, something you might hate to hear, but need to anyways. "Same goes for what those shitheads did,"

It's a first. The crackle of your laughter, subdued, but undeniably there, vibration bleeding through to his chest. A smooth curve graces Jungwon's face, dimple cratering. 

"I can't wish bad on them," Even though he already has, mulling over methods of a get-back while he selects words for you. "But they'll get what's coming to them. Nothing goes unpunished,"

"Nothing goes unrecognised either," his neck cranes to see you better, tear-stained cheeks and a pout on your lips, painted in the soft cream hues of his lamp. "I'm really grateful you confined in me. I can't begin to imagine the pain you're going through,"

"But at least you and I both know by talking about this and separating yourself from the situation, you're doing good by yourself. Clearing out all the bad to make way for good because at the end of the day, that's what I truly believe you deserve and that's what will come to you. Everything good because you're deserving of that and much more," 

"Okay?" His head ducks to meet your hung head, lifting to reveal the wobble of your lips as you nod along. "C'mere."

You burrow, body turning to envelope in the embrace he gives you, limbs tangling in a sigh of relief as you bury your face into his shoulder, his chin resting upon yours, hand stroking the back of your head. 

"It's okay," he mumbles, knowing it'll be, hoping you'll eventually see it that way. "He doesn't know how good he had it, but that's not for him to know."

Your bodies separate on your behalf, the first pull away, him following along. He anticipates more distance between you, easiness in his expression that you'll attempt a smile at, which you do, but at a closer proximity, hands hinged at the top of his chest, fingers overlapping onto his shoulders. The heat of your skin burns into his, through material and his skin dotting with goosebumps as novelty swirls in the hue of your eyes, features creased in a taste of bittersweet before you're inching closer, nails digging into his shirt. 

"Jungwon,"

His name is breathless, uttered in a hushed voice like others will pry. Will take him away from you, and he tenses. Sees beyond your intentions, hyper-aware of his hands splayed onto your folded knees between his legs before he lets out a shaky exhale. 

"I─I don't know if this is," right, some things considered. Varying in severity depending on the person, he thinks his own motives regarding you aren't as squeaky clean as you believe them to be. He isn't sure whether after things with Jaehyun (if they've ended, which he hopes they have), you're doing any better than a man who'd been so desperate to have you, he considered push and prying. Inserting himself where he didn't belong. 

There's no need now. 

He's corrupted, he thinks. Maybe not meant for the porcelain you are. 

"I," you struggle for the words, grasping to the front of his shirt like a lifeline, at odds with yourself. Your eyes show him as much ─ but there's something else in them too. 

A plea. 

"You're the only one I could tell this to," you confess, glassy eyed all over again. "I don't think you or I realise how many times you've been there for me,"

Your forearm's used to wipe away your tears, a quiet sniffle before steadiness leads your eyes, ceasing the expansion of Jungwon's unmoving chest. 

"I may be acting out of weakness, but that doesn't change what you've always given me," your hands move, flat against the plan of his chest, up and down like you could soothe the hammer of his deafening heart. "All I need is comfort,"

You. All I need is you, is the statement echoed in Jungwon's mind, run on repeat like a broken record, lost in an echo chamber that doesn't know what to do with itself. Not with this information, not with you on him, pleading with your pretty tear-streaked cheeks and eyes that cast a sparkle despite the darkness looming over you like the dark clouds in the sky. 

He should be logical about this. Differentiate it like everything he's ever done with his life because it's got him places he'd set for himself. Study hard ─ good grades, good university, good job. Sociable ─ hangouts, friends, the loss of being alone. Everything is a system and chain reaction for him, spelled out because at least if dealt the hand of fearing loss of control, he could control some things. All the variables he could plausibly dictate while maintaining his good graces. 

But you're not a variable. Not some stat he could account for since the first moment he's laid eyes on you and it makes him tick. Tittering on how this could be and what he had to do to make things plain and simple. 

Unfortunate for him, all he had to do is accept it for the mess it is. Like everything else involving thoughts and feelings.

"Do you want to?" he asks, because he really needs to know. In the depths of his heart. "I don't want this to be something you regret."

After he's gained your trust, to see a reality where come sunrise, you never meet his eyes, sit furthest on the couch, don't entertain anything that has to do with him ─ he's selfish and enamoured enough to never want that for himself. Not in any timeline. 

"I can't regret you," you affirm like a confession, steady enough to meet his gaze with a calmness running the direct opposite down his spine. "I can regret things, but that will always exclude you." 

A hard thump, then a flutter. His heart tickles against his bruised chest and his fingertips itch, gnawing into the material splayed over your knees, his clothing. Even now, having gone through rain and a warm shower, brown sugar and marshmallow still persists, a sugary sweet aroma enticing him, begging him for mercy. 

His forehead falls to yours, your arms woven around, wrists crossed at his nape. Breaths shared, his eyes closed, brain scanning for what to do next. What to do with what he wants most, whether he can accept it for what it is or plague himself for never accepting it in the first place.

Noses brush each other, breaths synched. Both are shaky, for different reasons but you anchor yourself to Jungwon, fingernail tracing across his nape before you're holding his face with hands that won't let go. The itch persists, shorts material sleeving into the webs of his fingers. He so badly wants this, has been pining over you for months and that greed grinds his teeth together, gritted in apprehension. Questioning whether even if your words given, this will be a once-off thing. He's gone enough to take what he's given but as he peers down at your lips, plump, unkissed - he can't help wrestle himself. Wondering if once is ever enough when it comes to you. 

"I don't wanna think about this too much," you bring him back to life, speaking the words he needs to hear. Your forehead's creased, sincerity in your red-rimmed eyes. "If it feels right, then…"

He'll let go. Stop thinking five steps ahead, of the worst possible outcome and let himself be. Kiss you like how he's always wanted to.

The mere press of your lips electrifies him, drawing goosebumps all over his warm body as you let the press linger, lips overlapping each other in a pucker capturing the tip of the iceberg. The nerves, tamed desire. It's only the surface of what Jungwon feels and he's hooked, falling apart when you go in for seconds. He surrenders to buried feelings, firming his grip on your arms as you press further, face screwed like you're giving him your all. Jungwon can't help the groan that escapes him, especially when the hitch of your breath ends with a whine, lips parted as his tongue runs along your bottom lip, the shudder you get travelling through to him. He could do this forever, Jungwon thinks, kiss and kiss you, get lost in the plush of your lips and never leave, engulfing himself in your existence because that's what matters most to him. You and then everything after.

Being together like this unlocks you, peels back what you've so secretly hidden away under the guised affection for Jungwon that couldn't exist beyond the confinements of friendship. You'd pushed himself aside, too enamoured by the star you'd set yourself on, staring too long into the Sun, only to leave yourself blind. But Jungwon, always there, has this gravitation pull over you, keeping you to him despite your best efforts and with the gentleness of the moon, you fall. Tip over into the dark well you've always harboured for him, witnessing first-hand how much devotion you hold for him as your body sinks into the kiss, limbs pressed into his with a want that won't cease. 

Jungwon's back finds the mattress, laid flat with his head between pillows, his pupils swallowing the honey brown of his eyes. There's softness in his eyes, there's always been for you, but in the dark of his room, his eyes are almost sharper, fuelled by the sentiment iron-cladding his grip to your hips, his chest rising as you peer down at him, hands attached to him. You blink away the lazy film coating your eyes, letting out a wistful sigh while your hands explore, inched centimetres over to where his heart is. It'll beat out his chest, you think, with how fast it's going. The intimacy of it, being seen makes him shift briefly, hips unknowingly brought up to make you move on him, something more brushed against your back. You gulp it down, the sheepishness flooding your cheeks. He sees it too, and extends his hands out for you, holding your cheek in his palm with the quiet call.

"C'mere,"

And you fold, arms bracing yourself as Jungwon holds your face in his hands, kissing you like he'd always meant to. The thought pools warmth in your stomach, stirred slow and steady as he leaves traces of himself all over your lips, teeth tugging at your bottom lip to make you do a silent gasp, the boil threatening to spill over as your body grows antsy, wishing to fan the flame. 

"Won," you rasp, and it sounds so desperate. So harsh in your ears. "More," 

His thumb traces the outline of your mouth, ghosting over its frame to settle below your cupid's bow, capturing its every movement as the confession finds itself said into words.

"I need more." 

Only then, his eyes flicker up to yours. They're unassuming, more so gauging where you stand of all places, to which he makes up his mind. Flashes an indulgent grin your way before you start to feel him shift. 

"I'll give it to you, baby. Don't have to say another word," he muses, back lifting off the mattress as you pull away for space. Between your legs, he's hard, impossible to notice. Especially when the dull ache between your legs attunes itself to him. "In my arms, back to me."

Wonder starts in your mind, prickled by the erratic jolt of your heart rate, but in the calm of Jungwon's expression, you find some peace. Let your nerves be nothing more than that and let him guide you, shorts given to you taken off with your shoulders surrounded by his frame, his arms shadowing yours, hands over your fidgeting ones.

"Nervous?" he asks in a whisper, so close his lips brush the shell of your ear. You squirm into him, channelling the jitters with crescent nail-pressed marks in your thighs. 

"A little," you confess, sheepishness finding itself in your cheeks again. Your head turns away like he's facing you. "I-I haven't done this before." 

"Not with yourself?" he hums, nosing along your neck.

You gulp, memory providing clip images. "I have, but…"

Your head hangs, breath coming out ragged from the patterns he draws on your thighs. "It doesn't feel as good,"

He hums in understanding, against your back to make all the hairs on your body stand. His hand inches closer, not purposely because he's still drawing patterns, but it feels that way. "It usually feels better when someone's doing it for you," 

His teeth catch on your earlobe, a gentle mark before he lazes over down the column of your neck to lick a stripe against it, a whimper his reward. "We don't have to do anything you're not comfortable with,"

"I'll touch your clit and you'll feel so good, princess. I promise," he begs, threading your fingers with his before they ghost over the front of your underwear, with no pressure in a hover that makes you buck. "And when you're ready and want my fingers, I'll give them to you. At your own pace, until you come."

You've never felt so restless, a thing of feral nature scratching at your chest, with no release but this. A man's hand between your thighs as you heave like you've done under covers, lips clamped together with a whimper of your release. You think of Jungwon, how he'd take his time with you, learn what feels good for you and commit to it, whispering sweet nothings in your ear before he kisses you right off a cliff.

There's only one answer.

"Please," you plead, squeezing his fingers. Turning around to give him your glossy eyes, tortured without any. "Touch me." 

A soft curve pulls one end of his lips, false pity in his features before he pecks your lips, looking you in the eyes as he says, "Then let me."

Wordlessly, you unhook your fingers from his, a steady tremble against your thighs as you give him free reign, anticipation rife in twitch of your lips. First, he doesn't do anything, just lets you sit with your legs open, helplessly aching and wet. Somehow, it's a secret you want to keep to yourself but as Jungwon's middle finger drags across the gusset of your panties, over your entrance - a slight push in to hear your slick's echo - and upwards, between your outlined folds and onto your clit, where he rubs, you croak. Unleash a sound you've always kept to yourself and he groans at it.

"So sweet for me," he moans in your ear, hands already beneath your waistband, tugging. "Off, off. These need to come off," 

With the same haste, you try slide your underwear off, bracing against Jungwon who doesn't even let you get them off your ankles before he's on you. Collecting all the slick spilled out your entrance, circling it with three fingertips with a drag up to your clit, going up and down to collect or savour as teeth tease at your neck. You mewl, body feverishly hot at the new stimulation, of having someone else touch you this way, your head spinning too fast to keep in time with.

"You're so wet. So ready for me, huh?" he groans into your neck, licking it as you feel his hips buck up into your back, a firm push of his clothed cock against your ass. A quiet squelch sounds, caught on the graze of Jungwon's fingers. "You clenched, baby. Oh, you know I want it too, fuck."

His fingers come back up to circle your clit, nice and slow to the detriment of your deep breaths, shallow and worn as a pool of molten lava swirls in your belly, at unrest while Jungwon dedicates himself to you. Kissing every inch of your skin, grazing with his teeth and then biting, applying enough pressure to pull the high keen from your throat, embarrassed but so turned-on you can't think straight.

"Feels good, angel?" he coos at your fast nods, your hips helplessly following the fast rubs he does, breaking you from within. "Think you're ready for my fingers?"

A desperate hand reaches for his one stationed on your knee, keeping your legs open. Your head tips back on his shoulder, throat bobbing as you rasp a moan, near tears. "Please ─ want more,"

"When did my princess get so greedy, hm?" he muses, the hint of condescension in his voice. Buckling under the shame of it, you seep into its pleasure too as your hands splay onto his thighs, muscles tense beneath your palms. "It's okay, I'll bite. Just sit back and watch."

So, you do. Watching with a heaving chest as his hand slides further, then stops. The silence of the moment is ear-splitting, nothing but Jungwon's slow and controlled breaths in your ear before his fingertip circles your entrance, done with no motive but make you shake. Have it glisten against his fingertip, done with his index finger to and held up for both your eyes to see, your cheeks set aflame.

It's not the end of Jungwon's cruel and unusual punishment, the fingers hovered to your face, expectant for your mouth. Jungwon doesn't say anything, just gives the slightest nudge of his shoulder, bottom lip coming between your clenched teeth. Then, they draw closer and your mouth opens, fingers laid flat against your tongue before your mouth closes. You sing around the digits, tasting yourself with a mewl that can't seem to stop, timid at first but when your tongue twitches, you try again ─ tongue swirling round his fingers, tasting him too.

"Fuck, you're good with your mouth," he gruffs out, fingers gliding further to make your throat close, gag muffled against his skin. His other hand leaves your knee, lightly pressed to your throat as he tries again, another gag following. "Holy shit,"

Both hands leave the circumference of your face, one hand back on your knees admittedly pulled together to calm the ache between your thighs you couldn't solve and his other ─ dipped behind you, the smack of his lips coming with the drop of your heart.

"You're mine now," he says, a bite down on your earlobe to make you yelp as he busies himself with his fingers tracing your entrance, taunting. "No one's gonna get you like this, taste you like this,"

A breach ─ finally ─ and he steals all the words you could possibly say, your chest full of air, shoulders heightened up to his neck and you blink a hundred times over, adjusting to the foreign feeling of someone else so intimately intertwined with you. More feeds in, your breath shuddering as all you can do watch, his knuckle past your glistening lips before it curls, a high keen automatic.

Claws fly into material, the fabric of Jungwon's sleep trousers, scrunching into the material as you catch your lip in your teeth, body hunching over into the feeling. So pleased, wanting more and more. Down your spine, Jungwon's kisses follow, at the top of it where exposed skin prevails and down into the material of his shirt, warm air huffed into as he chuckles into you.

"Too much?"

"No," you shake your head, hip jutting for more. "Jungwon,"

"What, baby?" he calls, so sweet despite his amused chuckles. He's curling more, moving his hand for the heel of his palm to hit against your clit. You squeal. "Use your big girl words. How else am I supposed to know how you're feeling?"

The squeals never stop, echoed as you brace back onto Jungwon like a magnet, his trousers in your hands as squelches fill the room. You can't help yourself, the slow unwinding of your body does into him, only your hips drawn to him as he pumps a lone finger into you, everything and not enough at the same time. The feeling pumping through your veins overwhelms you in the best way, seeing the truth to his words as he fingers you, feeding more until he's knuckles deep. And when he's─

"It's here, isn't it?" he smiles into the column of your neck, loving to hear you whine. "That gets you weak?"

He says it like a mere observation, finger hooked with a press against a spongy spot hunching you over, the moans pouring out each time he presses it against it. Desperate hands seek his crumpled duvet covers, clutching for dear life as you feel your brain rewrite itself, attempting to recall if you've ever felt this good or if it's just Jungwon who makes you feel that way. No time is offered to ponder the matter, pleasure drowning out simple mental gymnastics as you keen more, walls closing in as you buck your hips to meet his finger.

"Oh baby, you love getting fingered this much?" Jungwon chuckles, a firm hand on your shoulder to haul you back to him. Against him, your chest lapses, forehead accumulating sweat as you blink away the dazed haze over your eyes, pressure building your stomach. "I haven't even put another in, how much more my cock."

You buckle over his crude words, melting back with a whine as your hips keep bucking, meeting the hand cupped over you with more and more on your mind. "Should I add another?"

"Please. Now!"

"Oh," the disappointment comes with a hard bite against your neck, a yelp surfacing at the same time he pushes another finger in. Your nails find his bicep, lodged in with a cry. "I'm sure there's better ways to ask for what you want," 

Two fingers deep, the top bone of his palm slams into your clit with vengeance, voice stolen from you, released without regard for prying ears and your dignity. 

"There's better ways to ask me," he emphasizes, a shiver sent down your back. "Right, princess?"

Despite the incessance of his fingers, you at least have the presence of mind to answer back, an enthused nod coming with your answer. "Yes."

"My sweet girl," the sternness melts in a blink, smoothed against the skin of your cheek with an adoring kiss as the coil in your stomach twists, nearing its limit. "I'll add another, okay?"

"Thank you," the heave comes with the shutter of your eyes, head hung as the pressure builds beyond what you're equipped to handle. A short break, then the stretch. 

The fingers you'd already been dealt had a stretch of their own ─ foreign, long, thicker with the kind of intrusion edged with discomfort. Except when you'd taken a breath, closed your eyes and trusted, he moved at your pace. He listened to you, attuned to every shift in your body that resisted or begged for more. And now, the width bares teeth into your bottom lip, discomfort sounding at the back of your throat. Immediately, he ceases, leaned into the crook of your neck.

"Hurts?"

"A bit," you admit, feeling small. "It'll get better though,"

"It doesn't have to if it's too much for you," his response is instant. "I can go back to─"

Your hands eclipses his, a turn back to him with trembled lips and a tension that cannot be eased. "No. I-"

You turn away, having no reason to be shy but being so in the end. "I wanna try. It'll be preparation for…"

He knows. He knows what you mean too, if not from context clues, but the way your walls do a weak squeeze of his fingers, his smirk bitten back. 

"C'mere," he calls, and you answer. Kissed like you're porcelain, wondering how you'd ever allowed yourself to be kissed any other way. "So sweet for me. I'll go slow, okay? Let me know if you need me to stop,"

And you would ─ if you needed him too. Except you're on the brink of destruction, your body not your own as your pants fill the room, mixed in with the squelches that only amplify, Jungwon's fingers picking up speed as he feels you relax, letting go as you surrender everything to him. 

"You're close," he huffs, littering your neck in kisses. "Gonna come for me, angel?"

You might, except this release doesn't feel like others. It feels like─

"Jungwon, I might─" the embarrassment colours your face, bucking hips eagerly to meet him despite the horror soon approaching. "I might, fuck."

He knows you best, it seems. A graze of his teeth to your pulse, a tender bite and a kiss to seal the deal. "You won't, this is different. It's okay, princess. Come for me."

His fingers are still going, your hips are still bucking and you can only brace as you take your last breath and shatter in his hold. Let go like he asks with your vision engulfing in stark white. The world beyond the feeling is no concern of yours, swallowed by the birth of pleasure swallowing you whole, vibrating in every crevice of your cells bumping together. Your eyelids force blinks, ones that don't come with the clear of your vision initially, but when your soul finds itself back into your body, Jungwon's room comes back into focus. His lit salt lamp, sneakers arranged in a straight line, the hoard of medals ─ you see it all, and then your sight drops down between your legs. A damp pool seeping through Jungwon's navy blue duvet cover, probably darker if not for the low-lighting, and the removal of his fingers, both them and his hand drenched in clear liquid making your shivering body very still.

In silence is how the next few excruciating moments pass, eyes darting nowhere in particular as you come to terms with the mess you've made ─ whether Jungwon anticipated this, or whether your first sexual experience entails embarrassment you can't come back from. Decision paralysis keeps you rooted in place, no limb budged an inch except for Jungwon's hand - hoisted over your shoulder with the careful chase of your sidelong gaze, not seeing but hearing his fingers in his mouth again, lips smacked together. 

Then, a hum comes. Much like the last time, except there's something feral on its tail end, an unexpected variable your brain's failed to consider. So, you shift ─ just slightly, angling yourself enough to get a better look of him, his expression no longer cast in the darkness of your silhouette and illuminated by his salt lamp. His eyes are what you've seen black holes look like, an endless pit of exposed hunger you're still trying to wrap your head around. Amongst other things like how he just stares at you, licking you off his fingers while he hums at the taste. Emotion lurches in your chest, a door opening you're unaware of its existence and it…resonates with this. Filth. A unknown you've quietly managed to package away, only to meet its other half.

"Must've felt so good, huh angel?" he coos, other hand coming up to caress your cheek, an automatic melt into his palm. "You're not embarrassed, are you?"

Eyelashes bat, your gaze scatters. All cues he sees before his palm places tender pats on your cheek, the skin of your cheek pulled between his pinched fingers. 

"Don't be silly," he drawls, shifting closer to you. The hairs on your body stand, his fresh linen scent engulfing you. "If I needed to know how good you felt, that was the best way to show me,"

His head ducks, meeting your eyes flickered down to your lap. "It felt good, right?"

A look into his eyes is given a chance, cheeks aflame at how starkly honest they are. Your head ducks again, nodding wordlessly. 

Then his hand migrates, softly and without a word too, hands woven around your ponytail he tugs at enough for your head to lift. Caught in your throat, your breath is gulped down in a big gesture, eyes having no choice but to peer into his. 

"Want more?"

You already know your answer. 

Except the vacancy of its sound is not enough to appease Jungwon. 

"I won't give you more if I can't hear you."

Your exhale crumbles on its way out, brain racking itself to remember if Jungwon was ever like this. Gentle, yet stern enough to straighten your back, kept on your toes as your breath held for his every word. 

"Yes," your voices comes out, meek but an answer nonetheless. "Please, Won. I..need you,"

Magic to his ears, the loaded tension of the moment disarms itself in the smile he beams, a more playful yank of your hair done before he's barrelling towards you, capturing your lips in a searing kiss. It feels like a contrast and continuation of your last kiss all at once ─ hungry, desperate and with an itch with the sole function of being scratched. The amount of affection he bombards you with knocks you off-balance, lips prying in a pathetic plea as his teeth sink into your bottom lip, soothed with the stroke of his tongue, the action folding your body into yourself. 

You do your best to support yourself, staying upright but Jungwon leans and leans, frenzied to feel every inch of skin pressed into his and it lights you on fire, being so desired and wanted when you've felt nothing but discarded. With your back blending into the mattress again, his lips meeting skin you hadn't spared a thought towards ─ the tip of your nose, under your eye where a mole rests, on the curve of your jaw and all the way down your torso, teeth nibbling the skin of your collarbone to render you even more weak. Kissing his way all along from one hip to another, taking his time with you until your fingers thread into his hair, tugging enough to warrant the lift of his head, teary eyes meant to summon some sympathy. 

"You have no idea how long I've wanted you," he groans into your skin, dragging his lips against the skin of your lower stomach. "I want to savour everything,"

One last kiss is pressed to you before he lifts from the bed, pushing his boxers and sweatpants down in one swoop, not waiting a minute longer. Except for the moment you rise, propped up on your elbows to stare, slow blinks done as your eyes hate to starve themselves of the sight of Jungwon stroking himself in long, languid strokes, his large tip smeared with precome as more beads, its flushed appearance and size a hard pill to swallow. 

The corner of his lip lifts, amused with the honesty you wear on your face before he draws closer, the nudge of his tip to softly spread your lips apart making you clench. An aired chuckle is all you hear beyond the mess in your chest, sight devoted in watching Jungwon glide his cock between your folds, knocking into your clit knowing it'd make you quiver, hand flying to grab his arm. 

"Angel," his voice bleeds with fondness, brain a puddle of syrup between your ears. "Look at how wet you get for me,"

The slick that's accumulated in his scarce motions is to the amount of flattery, echoed when your walls close again as he nudges your clit, dragging himself down with his thumb replacing his tip. You catch your lip between your teeth, whimper heard nonetheless as his precome trails down to your entrance, his tip resting there. 

Your hips circle with his thumb, but your neck cranes to see what he schemes before his tip circles your entrance, painted to his eyes. The image must conjure fire in him as he gives a broken breath, tip not resting, but being feed in, the tiniest bit of skin beginning to meet yours. 

"I should─fuck, get a condom," he sounds winded, looking dishevelled with the heightened rise of his chest, pulling back out to trace your entrance again. He tosses a look to his bedside table like he's actually considering it, head swivelled back to yours when you give his wrist a squeeze. 

"It's okay." is all you say, slowly but surely spreading your legs further, your extension of invitation. 

Everything following afterwards occurs in blocks of time, the flutter-shut of his eyes as he collects himself at your words, him lining himself up with you and then him pushing in. On sleepless nights, you'd considered what this moment would be like, you anticipated pain and while there's a sear of it, there's more relief. Not in that you're doing this with someone you love, but the fact that it would feel good. And that Jungwon delivers on. 

Plenty of adjustment time is given to you, his palm smoothing over the skin of your forehead before it's kissed, sugar-sweetness in his voice as he asks if you're ok. At this point, he's buried to the hilt and it's compressed your lungs from the inside-out, the stretch of him an element to account for. But the fullness? How engulfed and full you feel, with all of him snug in you, arms caging your body with his mouth possessive against blooming bruises on your neck? Your brain cannot comprehend the kaleidoscope of sensory and emotional information. 

Then he moves. Eyes locked where you connect, watching while you feel himself almost pull out entirely, only his tip left before he feeds himself back in, slow and unhurried. The keen at the back of your throat comes with the curl your body does into itself, nails seeking refuge in the duvet cover. Shallow thrusts follow, pulling the want out of you as every thrust, however minimal adds fuel to the fire, discomfort dissipating with the slow bloom of pleasure, your voice no longer yours as moans empty with every grind. 

"Sound so pretty when I'm in you," Jungwon smiles, grabbing the collar of his shirt to take his t-shirt off. The hard ridges of his toned torso make you squeal, walls coming down on Jungwon's cock. "Keep this up and I'm gonna keep stuffed forever."

The filth he speaks with contrasts sharply with the dimpled smile he gives you, endearment unapologetic and ever-flowing as Jungwon maintains his slow grinds into you, your jaw unhinging as shallow pants empty out of your mouth. 

You must feed his ego with all your reactions, face permanently scrunched as Jungwon rubs slow circles against your clit, coaxing your walls to have some give as his thrusts remain shallow and controlled. Every place your skin meets his feels explosive, cells vibrating with the slow drizzle of ecstasy you find yourself drowning in, thighs twitching as one of your ankles hooks around his waist, looking for an anchor.

His eyebrow raises, the beckon of your hand bringing him closer, his hips in no way stalled as he switches to torturous grind into you, pelvis grinding up against your clit in an action you squirm at, holding onto him hopelessly as he engulfs your vision's field.

"Won," you moan, leaned into the hand he cups your cheek with. "Faster, please...I want more."

The thumb giving your skin calming caresses halts midway, a momentary pause where his eyes linger on your lips and the squirm of your hips bucking for friction, before his moves again. Down to your chin and flirts with your neck, no pressure applied except for his index finger down on your pulse, erratic thunder beneath his fingertip. 

"What my angel wants," his lips curve, sharp at their edges. "She gets."

It's the last of his sweetness you see, your request fulfilled as he lifts from the human cage his body makes over yours, situating your legs with a wider spread and better grip. He pulls out of the home he's made in between your legs, leaving nothing but his beaded tip for your walls to cling to before he sinks in again, with no remorse for the drying gasp you do. Your brain barely has time to catch up to the fill of him, the rhythm his thrusts set almost claiming as he notches into you feverishly, a subtle build but with enough speed to undo the last of his restraint, his head thrown back as his Adam's apple bobs, a trail of sweat gliding against its column. 

It's too much all at once ─ the incessant pressure of him pistoning into you, deep enough to make his claim of you everywhere and the image of him, so worked up yet so relieved. Sheer bliss is born amongst his features as his head lolls back to you, eyes drinking you in with unmatched attention. Losing yourself in the building coil pulling tighter, you're acutely unaware of how Jungwon sees you: the precious body before him, breasts bouncing with every thrust delivered, thighs trembling beneath his bruising grip with a face so perfectly strung in rapture he wills himself not to come. You look every bit of heaven he feels, the lurch of his heart mirrored by his hand as it soars to knead the flesh of your tits, soft skin under his palm as his fingers flick over your sensitive nipples. 

"Taking me so good," Jungwon's voice makes it over the slaps of skin, his biggest competitor the moans you've given up withholding. "Aren't you a good girl for me?" 

Your enthusiastic nods earn a chesty chuckle, an itch scratched as his fingers pinch your pebbled nipple, Jungwon getting off at the squirm you do, huddling into yourself as if you can escape him. 

He knows how to reel you back in though.

"Oh, you just love praise, don't you? Love hearing me tell you how pretty you sound, how good you are at taking cock," he coos, heart growing three sizes at how you visibly undo at his words, eyes doing a reveal with the bat of curled lashes. "You're just a sweet little thing that likes getting fucked, right princess?"

He deserts your tits for your face, thumb smoothing over the plush of your pouted lips, resting in their middle. They aren't usually words you'd say out loud, your response, but even as your head turns with the deniable sheepishness hiking your cheeks up, he sees right through you. 

"You're cute trying to hide from me," he muses, a gentle hand directing your eyes back onto him. "It's no use. Not when this pretty pussy's clenching around me."

His thumb presses and you comply, parting your lips and letting him fill your mouth as he drives further into you, somehow maintaining the constant chase he does after your orgasm, pleased moan hummed into the wet slick of his skin. 

"God, you're gonna make me come sounding like that," he curses, a knit to his eyebrow as sweat beads between them, breaths coming with lapses in his chest. "I'll take care of you first. How about that, princess? Stretch you out, reach all the places your fingers can't,"

You're squirming again, hips with a mind of their own, moan blending into the flesh of his thumb your tongue lolls around, parting with a trail you mewl at. It disconnects once far enough, most of it dribbled down your kissed lips parting open again as Jungwon finds your clit, ample slick for the circles he draws on you, unearthing squeals that white-knucle your hands to the duvet covers. 

"It's okay, baby. You've got me now," he coos, affection in the face of his punishing thrusts. "I'll cherish you, I'll treat you well,"

"I'll fuck you like you deserve." 

His words have you in a complete daze, head spun in endless loops that never allow your mind to settle, on zeroing in on the feeling deep-seated in your stomach, so big and explosive you're scared of what it'll bring. 

Jungwon's right there with you, holding your hand as you brace for impact. 

"You wanna come?" he asks, voice hoarse. His eyes track down to where you connect, a white ring of your mixed fluids around his cock. "God, this isn't enough, but I'm gonna come too,"

Regret rings heavy in his words, his frustration your own as your lips tremble, wondering if you'll ever feel this good again. 

"Promise we'll do this again?" 

His sentence hits your eardrums like a pin, prickled with a waver and vulnerability he's been stripped down to, your legs hoisted onto his shoulders before he leans down towards you, tearing a yelp out your rasped throat as he buries further into you, bucking up into you with all the desperation he offers.

Close like this, skin-to-skin, you share breaths, cycled between searching lips only just missing each other, the sight of his eyes unforgettable as they swim in the ocean of his defencelessness. 

"I need to hear it," he chokes, torn gaze cast away then directed back to you, a kiss pressed in time with a thrust. "You promise, princess?"

Your fingers sail to the dishevel of his hair, making more of a mess in your own desperation, body ticking away as your eyes brim with overwhelm, chest burning with your release. 

"I promise."

It's sealed with your release, the pressure built over stretches of time erupting with the last overlap of your lips, yell echoed off his lips as you come. The feeling rips right through you, electric through bodily cell as your eyes roll back, a helpless grasp at the sides of Jungwon's face as your head cocks back, body bowing off the mattress. No word can even attempt to describe how you feel, suspended in air that can only compare to a freefall, soaring through whistled air before you're hung amongst the clouds, coming down with a regulated breath pattern after its shudders paired with the ones passing through your body.

Unbeknownst to you, Jungwon experiences a similar fate, laying witness to your orgasm capturing him as if you never want to part, velvety walls coming down on him with a taste for ruin. He has no choice but to fall apart, starved for the last few pumps his greed seeks before he pushes himself deepest in you, spilling over in white, thick ropes. It takes everything in him ─ the awareness he'd hurt you otherwise ─ to keep himself rooted in place, core burning as his forearms keep him suspend, his head hung as he catches his breath. 

The lazed film coating his eyes, speaking to his exertion, is prompted to clear at the feeling of fingers in his hair. They're tender, unhurried like their prior pull, and in the soft hum from your chest, his head is coaxed to lift upwards, pushing your legs down at his sides when he gazes up at you. In a glowing sheen, you beam a closed-mouth smile, twirling the end of his hair around your finger. Much like he is, having given himself over to you, its evidence seeping trying to seep out the walls he's plugged himself in, neither of you in any hurry for its discard. Unravelled around your finger, it moves down to his face as it descends down the slope of his nose, ghosting over his lips to rest in one corner of his lips, a question in your eyes. 

"You okay?"

Despite his fatigue, he can't help but chuckle. "I should be asking you that." 

Your lip corners lift higher, downturning in a brush of timidity. 

"Are you?" Jungwon asks, sincere now. Eyes searching yours. "Are you okay?"

Happy? 

Silence denotes the moment, nothing but the murmured sounds of night and sleeping figures taking any shred of spared space. Your index finger thoughtfully taps into the crevice of his lip corner, soaking in its feel as well as your own. 

It doesn't take long for you to answer back. 

"Yeah, I am," you croak, sincerity shining back into his eyes. "I will be too." 

That's all Jungwon needs to hear before he's summoned enough strength to inch himself upwards, peppering your face in adoring kisses you giggle at, fingers in his hair then and after you two drift into a slumber, the world beyond his bedroom walls forgotten. 

Jungwon has a hard time getting out of bed the next morning.

Not because his exhaustion keeps him chained to his bed, but because you're there with him. Peacefully asleep with limbs tangled in his, something he's somehow missed yearning for. Not plagued with yesterday's earlier woes, your chest rises and falls as you sleep soundlessly, nose only twitching when Jungwon's thumb caresses over the flesh of your cheek, wondering how any of this is real. 

If it'll continue being real.

Before he can stop his own mental spiral, your arms encase him, eyes closed as you pull him closer. His smile is as true as can be as you nuzzle into him, the warmth of your close bodies unwinding the creep of tension in his, his body finally at ease as he falls back asleep. 

An hour or two later, the comfort of his bedroom is swapped for the cold of the kitchen, his clothing draped over you in oversize as you sit at the kitchen counter, the extent of him letting you help with breakfast being keeping him company. Over the flip and sizzle of fresh pancakes, Jungwon finds himself grateful not only for you, but the fact that Sunoo ─ an early riser like himself ─ has plans, keeping him from discovering his one and only cousin spent the night. He didn't need to know just yet whatever…this is. While Riki poses somewhat of the same threat, it'll be hours before he trudges downstairs, swaddled in a blanket with his hair scraping the high ceilings.

Like this, Jungwon's shoulders unwind, cease their climb to his earlobes and he basks in it, the warmth and quiet of his home, the taps of your nails against kitchen counter, some song hummed absently under your breath and the domesticity of it all. What he hopes can someday become his permanent reality. 

"I broke up with him," you say, a confession abrupt enough for Jungwon to cast a sidelong glance, pancakes browning. The least he does is heighten his eyebrows, saving the rest of his reaction in internal monologue. "I should've said so before but,"

He hears a knock of bone into the counter, your elbow braced into the slab as your chin rests in your palm, a pout on your lips with eyes that seem far away. Out his realm of understanding. 

"He sent me all these frantic texts after I ended the call, saying everything was out of context and that he could explain." 

Even Jungwon can't hide the scoff he does, turning the stove off with an eye roll.

"Of course, there was nothing to explain. I'd heard it all," a flash of hurt crosses your eyes, and Jungwon white knuckles the spatula unloading the pancakes onto your plates. He'd do any to scrub Jaehyun's existence from your brain, not for his own selfish reasons anymore ─ just so you wouldn't have to carry the baggage of hurt he's brought you.

"I ended it right then and there. Told him we were through," you conclude, brimming a closed mouth smile, extending when he draws closer with your plate. Whipped cream and sprinkles he's specially set aside for your share are in his other hand, a funny feeling in your chest at the sight. "So, we don't have anything to worry about."

Jungwon's eyebrow can't help but quirk, the question sharp on his tongue. Heavy in his throat. 

"We?"

You're not as stumped by the question as he imagined, a raise of your shoulders coming with comfort blended in the soft curve of your lips. 

"If you wanted to," is your suggestion, shaking the can of whipped cream. "I mean, I'm a bit of a mess at the moment and probably shouldn't be proposing anything serious right now, but─" 

Your words die in the press of Jungwon's lips, his body leaned over the counter to meet you. It's soft and tender, how things have always been with him, a smile coming with the gentle reminder as your hand deserts the can and lays across your cheek, thumb resting in the dip of his dimple. 

A sincere lock of the lips and another press of him is all you get before he centres in your vision again, nothing but patience in his expression. "In your own time. You figure stuff out ─ how you feel, how you'll move forward and whenever you're ready, I'll be here,"

"Even if it's not me," his voice carries an echo, lid unscrewed before he gets out a heart sprinkle, placing it atop the swirl of cream. His eyes cut back to you, honest as he'll ever be before he adds, "I'll be here because my support is the least of you deserve." 

It happens suddenly, the flood of emotion rushing up your chest and to your eyes, a miserable wobble of your lips cooed over as Jungwon gives a light chuckle, hand to your cheek as a tear is wiped. "Thank you."

"No need," is his quick answer, your plate pushed closer as he gives you a nod. "Eat up before it gets cold."

A hum dislodges from your throat, gulped down with the rest of emotion's ugly flare, heart still seemingly in two. It's to be expected, despite everything. Jaehyun was someone you'd projected your life intertwined with, stretching far beyond the scope of university with your white-picket fence and sold sign outside your two-storey house. You'd loved him, undeniably so, and with the reveal of how sorely misplaced it'd been…your reaction is warranted. Has a place, as Jungwon's expressed, where you'll sort through all your fondness, the signs you'll hate yourself for seeing in hindsight and whatever else comes with the crumble of hopeful dreams. And in that, you'll find yourself again. Who you are beyond the label of a girlfriend, someone who stands in their own right and still loves with all their heart because even if Jaehyun screwed you over, you'll bloom again. Because love given is never wasted. 

Fondness comes in a blanket draped over Jungwon's shoulders, seen in his lopsided smile as he watches you decorate the rest of your pancakes, excitement tipped in the corners of your lips as you snap quick photos before digging in. He watches it all unfolds, cutlery put to use and served to your mouth enveloping the fluff before the hum comes. Overflowing with satisfaction, eyes alight as they sparkle, flavours dancing on your tongue. His heart lurches, like it's always done, but at least now, the phenomenon doesn't feel as lonely, Jungwon no longer on his one-man island as he rejoins society, feeling everything before he can sort it into boxes, because despite what you'd said about yourself being a mess, he likes it. Prefers the chips in the mosaic you've made of yourself, of everyone he's letting in properly this time and allows himself to be the same ─ an imperfect mosaic, pieces of everyone he's ever loved. 

There's nothing but goodness engulfing Jungwon, his own plate in hand as he settles down beside you with a playful shoulder nudge, the same one done by you with a smile. Jungwon realises, despite how picturesque and pure the scene is, he can still be evil. Not wholly, but enough to make you look like an angel. Though his future intentions don't denote the same villainess, he carries some of it while you busy yourself with pancakes in his kitchen, phone at his side as he sends off an anonymous text to the man he'll drive wild. Your dear ex-boyfriend who never stood a chance. 

Unknown number: Beat you to it. 

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posts thirst traps. not the super slutty, skin-showy ones. just lip-syncing vids to maybe brent faiyaz or the weeknd songs complete with the hand gestures. do not argue with me on this.

"the hoes gon' love this" ahh heeseung 🥀🥀 but they do. the hoes go crazy for it.

gets known for being very fucking good, like INSANELY good, at a lot of different things. rollerskating vlog???? basketball vlog??? perfect pitch challenge? you name it, he has a video of himself being good at it.

he posts a video of him doing yoyo tricks and its by far the Most Viral and most popular video on his page because the comments are just different levels of unhinged

he has several comments saying "what is bro NOT good at 😭😭" or "didn't know an adult playing with a kid's toy could look this attractive" and he'd be so fucking cheeky and reply something like "i try haha ty :)"

ZEROOOOOO SHAMEEEEE when it comes to being equally freaky with people the comments section

tiktok-user00879 commented: omg i love ur voice .... do u do whimpering audios? heavenlee_ replied: really depends how much ur willing to pay for it, pretty :p tiktok-user60912 commented: please keep going im close heavenlee_ replied: ur such a good good girl for saying pls :)

in conclusion: he'd be a little shit but you'd still want to check everyday if there's a new thirst trap post.

── JONGSEONG

i think he'd be fairly active when it comes to posting!!

he posts guitar covers. bass, acoustic, electric. lots of diff kinds !

but FACELESS. exclusively. he angles it just below his neck. if you're lucky and he's a bit careless with cropping, you'd maybe get a bit of his jawline at most.

regardless his hands are hella attractive so it attracts a huge amount of freaky audience in no time.

i see him as having like 200k-ish followers? he dgaf about the numbers though. he really just wants to post with his pretty little guitars.

he's really kind !!! :(( he'd reply to comments asking question abt guitars / questions from guitar newbies. maybe sometimes he'd post slowed down tutorials with edited tabs ehehe he's a lovely guy overall.

his account is strictly just about his guitars — but once in a blue moon, he'd post a photo carousel of a trip overseas. not to brag but like ??? maybe let his community in a little abt his personal going ons? and his audience eats up the old money vibe he has like "wow. bro is Rich rich."

he does a chase atlantic guitar cover w his electric guitar and it's so good so he just decides to post it with his face in the frame and Oh My God his comments are full of people foaming at the mouth.

tiktok-user81237 commented: okay do that finger thing again but on my puh next 🥰 parkedonmy.guitar replied: What? tiktok-user0912 commented: next thing u can cover: me in your cu- *gunshot* parkedonmy.guitar replied: ???

immediately weirded out by all of it and has to take like a 2 month break until the hype of his face reveal dies down.

it never does.

── JAEYUN

semi-active but you don't see much of his face.

his niche would maybe be in animal care? vlogs like "life as a dog dad." or "day in the life of an animal volunteer!" super sweet boy. :(

he DEFINITELY fosters. makes videos of dogs he's fostering in hopes his audience would be as invested in getting the dogs a proper home as much as he does. < 3

reposts weratedogs' videos. Every. Single. One. and maybe like informative videos about dog breeds / what type of dog breeds are best for different kind of people.

i see him maybe like doing a couple of videos on nerdy stuff too??

he'd stitch one (1) dumb science take and go viral because people are enamored about how earnest and genuine he is in trying to correct the person as much as possible.

the video: "proof that dinosaurs did NOT exist." 

jake's stitch: actually, here's proof that it did. 🤓☝️ and goes on abt the discovery fossils and the aftermath of the big bang so on and so forth

he tries to have good faith conversations but overtime his posts become snarky as FUCKKKKK like it starts off "okay what misinformation are you dumbasses spreading again?" (he's just like me fr)

in usual tiktok fashion, people are being dumb on purpose in his comments just to be funny and he Genuinely gets ragebaited.

he stops engaging in That Side of tiktok entirely but up to this day, in his sweet layla vlog video, he'll get conspiracy theory comments like:

tiktok-user12389 commented: ok but if the water is flat inside my glass then that means the earth is flat too right? luvlylaylas_dad replied: PLEASE familiarize urself w the concept of gravity tiktok-user5543 commented: the people lost at sea actually just reached the border of the earth and fell off into space. change my mind. luvlylaylas_dad replied: don't pmo. 😐

── SUNGHOON

he's pretty active!! but his posts are like . 90% of him being inside the gym.

GYM! GYM! GYM! he's big on fitness content.

i love him but he'd definitely reposts videos with text like "Lean is Law." make of that what you will.

uhhhhh i think he'd be too shy to keep actively filming himself using gym equipments unless the gym is pretty empty so his posts are mostly like slideshows / carousels with informative texts.

shit like "how to engage your core when using the captain's chair" or "this machine for this specific group of muscles"

he was feeling extra confident and extroverted so he did something new and filmed a vlog of him trying pilates. (it did not end well.)

said pilates video is just cuts of him struggling with mozart's lacrimosa as the background music and its still racking up views up to this day. a bunch of regular people and pilates people are in his comments having a BLAST.

he would post shirtless pics but only of his back. (still yummy.) he'd probably post actual topless all-muscles-flexed progress pics like maybe once every year or every two years.

i don't think he'd fall into the toxic gym dude archetype? like he loves fitness but he isn't an ass about it.

would maybe even make a post of his first week at the gym with him looking lost and scrawny with text laid over it like "he's the guy that got me where i am. :)" a lil corny but Very Sweet. i lov him.

the only non-gym background videos he makes are meal prep tutorials of his high protein low carb food or how he makes his healthy dessert recipes or favorite takeout orders :3

you know that sleeper build trend??? yeah. he joins that and gets like maybe 2mil views on it AT LEASTTTT.

comments go crazy and he's def cocky abt it LOL

tiktok-user1031 commented: when sza said i need a big boy..... yeah i get her tiktok-user9723 commented: bro CHILLLLL im on this app 😂 builtlike_sh replied: LMAOOOO y'all funny 😂😂

── SUNOO

okay. rubs hands together. i personally see him as very active. not chronically online type of active. just very aware of trends.

he wants to try each trend he can but wouldn't overextend himself trying to chase after them if u get what i mean???

has gone semi-viral multiple times for different shit. cute trends. a few faceless product recommendation carousels.

the most viral video he has isn't even from his account??? a rando saw him and posted sumn like "oh my god i saw this cute guy at a cafe. does anyone know his name???"

he'd comment on that post saying "hey! that's me! 😅" and instantly gain like 60k+ followers overnight.

he falls under the lifestyle + beauty niche. any other answer is Wrong. talk to a wall.

he doesn't mean to go viral. he just posts whatever the fuck he wants (mostly yap vids abt about skincare and makeup he's been liking) and it just happens. he loves the attention though.

he's so EASY to be parasocial with because he replies to comments like everyone's his irl ALKSDJASKLD

"trying -insert trending dessert here- for the first time!" and people love it bc when it's good he gets super giddy and its cute to see him happy but when it's bad u can tell he hates it by his facial expression. he still tries to word his critiques nicely though!! 😭 oh, my sweet baby

cute ootds. mini life-vlogs. he's big on HAULS. funny challenges w his friends.

reposts dessert mukbang videos, cute animal videos, or dreamy aesthetic videos with sweet encouraging texts. < 333

every now and he'd get in a mood of being not-so-cutesy and he'd post a masculine-leaning dance video (re: vedo fine shyt video. yes THAT video) just to send his audience SCRAMBLINGGG.

tiktok-user0623 commented: ok do that hip thrust thing again but on me sunnysideout replied: bet. c'mere baby. tiktok-user0623 replied: ??? WHAT tiktok-user87041 commented: a tear ran down my legs sunnysideout replied: let me wipe it for you then tiktok-user87041 replied: OH MY GOD STOP

he laughs like a maniac alone in his room reading the comments and flirting back because his ego is boosted when he gets people to fold. he's psychotic and i love him and i want him to do it 2 me. thank u for coming to my ted talk.

── JUNGWON

downloaded tiktok SOLELY for the vibes. loves catching references. watches memes and recreates them but only puts them for friends only / private.

reposts videos of people ragebaiting kids on roblox. he actively gets a giggle out of them.

also just a lot of weird shit. "over-under mukbang" of a guy trying to eat a whole cheesecake in 3 bites or "how many cigarettes can i smoke in 2 hours at a children's park?" or satire content that u might not be able to get unless you're on tiktok everyday. shit like that.

eventually he gets over his desire to be mysterious and he js posts whatever tf he wants. his dog. fit checks. lip syncing to random trends. those tiktok game filters. mini life-vlogs (rare, but he does post it.)

his fit checks are done from HORRIBLE angles. camera on the floor tilted so far up the overhead lights are glaring against his phone and it's barely showing his face but the fit still eats so he'll post it anyway.

he eventually finds his niche in commentary videos. i see him in something adjacent to the same content drew gooden / kurtis connor makes??? he mixes it with a bit of comedy and brainrot but his eloquence really brings home the point he wants to make. v smart boy. :3

a viewer makes an edit of him and that goes viral and it drastically increased his viewership which encourages more of his funny shenanigans

the edit builds him a considerate fanbase !! and yes they love him but like 95% of the time they're just "blah blah blah proper name, place name, backstory stuff" and you know what??? i get it.

goes out for a drink and gets a little drunk. he says "fuck it, dance challenge"

he's an amazing dancer. Duh. of course it blows up too. and people are going insane because??? who knew THE dry humor king yang jungwon could bust out a few moves???

tiktok-user14302 commented: ur like.. not doing anything to help my increasing parasocial crush on u 😭 garden.jwon replied: just because i danced? tiktok-user15021 commented: storytime on how u learned dancing is going 2 be an insane video topic garden.jwon replied: i learned to move my limbs. get off ur phone and try it. 😐

people obviously find him to be attractive based on looks alone but considering how smart and aware he is??? OUHHHHH the comments are just constantly so thirsty but he's having NONE OF IT!!

flirty comments will be ignored or made fun of. be warned.

── RIKI

he's active on scrolling through tiktok. it takes up most of his screen time, even. but he genuinely doesn't gaf about posting.

his reposts are goofy as fuck. druski, kai cenat, tony statovci type shit. reposts videos dogging on every drake release. maneesh on the beat shebang??? he's got VARIANTS of that clip reposted dawg TRUSTTTT

has a whole collection of dance tiktoks that he's saved to his favorites.

one day he's bored and he's like??? ykw ? let me try posting sumn

first one he posts goes VIRALLLLLLLL im talkin like 3m views in 5 days. he's happy abt it. maybe shows it off to his insta close friends but doesn't take advantage of the virality. he still posts whenever he wants.

he has a formula. low exposure + backlit so you barely see him???? he has his hood up too so like you only really see his silhouette but even then the dance skills are there . he's talented as fuck and no one can tell him otherwise

he doesn't just dance to anything too. he's stubborn and has a bit of an ego and wants to prove a point so when he does post a dance video, it's gonna be those hard-as-fuck-to-execute dances

eventually warms up to the idea of posting his dances Seriously. he works up the courage to make his own choreo to a trending song, too!!

goes viral for it AGAIN

every video on the song for an entire week has "dc: @ nishi.mura" included in the captions iktrrrr 🤏🏻

HIS FIT CHECKS GO HARD BRUHHHHHH he def attracts like . indie streetwear brands and wears them for his dancing vid sumtimes :3

tiktok-user0623 commented: hello??? wheres ur dc??? nishi.mura replied: fym dc dawg 😭😭😭 im literally the choreographer 😭 tiktok-user87041 commented: omg totally unrelated to the dance (its cool i promise) but where'd u get ur rings!! nishi.mura replied: all chrome hearts 😂

PERMANENT TAGLIST  ➤  @mariegibeau @kristynaaah @ikeukiss @zerocoded @alex-is-sleeping @ntxs1 @angelhyuka @tsukheeshima @clxssy1997 @cripplinghooman @xoxo-seraphine @jakeycakeys @neozon3nha @jakeycakeys @vmpiricou @ja4hyvn @luv4dani @nightcat101 @wonkiipiilled

FROM YAN 🐰 ➤ and that's it for children of divorce !! :3 i really giggled over the insanity of jay/n "breaking character" after every fight 😭 everyone was so fun to write too (especially niki bc his character turned out so funny n dramatic n over the top. i Lov him.) but yeaaa this is probs one of my favorite smau releases by far (also the most chaotic) nd i hope u guys liked it as much as i enjoyed making it !! ><

PERMANENT TAGLIST  ➤  @mariegibeau @kristynaaah @ikeukiss @zerocoded @alex-is-sleeping @ntxs1 @angelhyuka @tsukheeshima @clxssy1997 @cripplinghooman @xoxo-seraphine @jakeycakeys @neozon3nha @jakeycakeys @vmpiricou @ja4hyvn @luv4dani @nightcat101 @wonkiipiilled @boundlesselixirflux @cokewithcameron @taesungx @aerrdeicall @meikstv @justpassingdontworry

FROM YAN 🐰 ➤ idk how this idea hit me but it has and you all have to bear witness bc i think it's funny and i have to materialize it. :3 part two will be coming out soon. will open one tag list for it so just lmk !!

PERMANENT TAGLIST  ➤  @mariegibeau @kristynaaah @ikeukiss @zerocoded @alex-is-sleeping @ntxs1 @angelhyuka @tsukheeshima @clxssy1997 @cripplinghooman @xoxo-seraphine @jakeycakeys @neozon3nha @jakeycakeys @vmpiricou @ja4hyvn @luv4dani @nightcat101 @wonkiipiilled @boundlesselixirflux @cokewithcameron @taesungx @aerrdeicall

COD TAGLIST  ➤  @xolaufeyberry @sleepymochiiii @rikingrinse @katalior @wtfhyuck @jayhoonsgf @starfallia @pshrosie @dr1diot @iiunique @ssolarae @niksri @buttersoob @dolcetari @hyunjinsslut12 @wonuziex @scarett-lover23 @dina-10s-blog @svtenfate @sakiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii @enhypen113020 @jakeyyyjakexoxo @whoisovee @riknywngi