Computer troll — Jungwon AU Oneshot ⌕
⌕ pairings : Streamer!Jungwon x Reader!fem
⌕ mini playlist : destroy myself just for you — Montel fish ⑇ not you too — drake ⑇ sundress — A$AP Rocky ⑇ Always — Daniel Caesar ⑇ Transform — Daniel Caesar, Charlotte Day Wilson ⑇ Nothings gotta hurt you baby — Cigarettes after sx ⑇ Almost is Never enough — Ariana Grande ⑇ Maniac — Conan Gray ⑇ higher — Rihanna ⑇ Glimpse of Us — Joji Damned — Miguel ⑇
⌕ a/n : if you’re reading the Jay AU it’s going to be delayed for part 3 because I have no wifi at home and I’m at a library so I’m sorry 😅😅 anyways, enjoy the read!
⌕ genre : romcom ⌗ slow burn (mild) ⌗ intimacy ⌗ rivalry endearment ⌗ teasing/banter centric ⌗ micro celebrity ⌗ yearning ⌗ heartbreak ⌗
⌕ desc : Jungwon is a variety streamer who is signing a contract under the company you work in as fate decided ‘3rd times a charm’ for both of you but after seeing him, could you still bear seeing his face after a long time?
You have known Yang Jungwon since you were thirteen years old. That is a long time to have someone on your mind. When you think back to grade nine, it feels like a lifetime ago; back then, Jungwon was not glued to his screen every second. His big dreams were silly things he would whisper to you in the quiet corners of the school library.
Now, you are twenty-two. It seems like the universe has a sick sense of humor, because Jungwon’s name is printed clearly on the contract sitting on your desk.
The office is freezing. Maybe it is just the sight of his signature that makes the air feel so thin. You find yourself thinking about how you crossed paths again in university. You both tried to make it work, but the timing was wrong. School was overwhelming, and Jungwon was already looking toward a future that did not include you. Then came that chance encounter on the sidewalk on Christmas night—you still remember how the biting cold turned the tip of his nose red, and how your heart leaped just to see him.
But then New Year's happened. You went to a party together, and suddenly, you were right back to arguing. Jungwon would go completely silent, staring blankly at his phone while you were mid-sentence. It was infuriating. Feeling completely ignored and drained by the treatment, you finally ended things.
Now, here you are, face-to-face with him again. You can hear his voice echoing from the conference room, sounding entirely too confident. You tell yourself to be a professional, to leave the past in the past, but it is nearly impossible when Jungwon is sitting right in front of you, looking incredibly smug and painfully familiar.
You push the door open. The bright light from the window hits Jungwon first. For a split second, he looks exactly like the boy you used to know. Then, he turns to face you, and that familiar smirk crawls back onto his face.
"Third time's a charm, right?" he asks, sounding like he has already won.
You feel a sudden, desperate urge to scream or cry. Outside, the city is a blur of gray rain. Jungwon is back in your life as if he never left, making you realize just how cruel fate can be.
The words hang heavily in the awkward silence. Jungwon hasn't changed at all. He still has that effortless tilt of his head, and his eyes still crinkle at the corners when he smiles. You freeze, your hand anchoring you to the doorknob. Looking at him makes you feel thirteen all over again.
"You're late," you say, fighting to keep your voice steady. It comes out smaller than you intended, so you clear your throat and step fully into the room. The door clicks shut behind you, sounding terrifyingly like a trap.
Jungwon lets out a soft laugh and leans back in his leather chair. He looks entirely too comfortable, drowning slightly in an oversized black sweater that makes him look smaller than he actually is. Yet, his eyes remain sharp, tracking you as if he can see right through your armor.
"The meeting was set for two," he says, casually checking his wrist. He isn't even wearing a watch, he is doing it purely to get under your skin. "It's 2:03."
You drop the folder onto the table, letting it land with a heavy thud. "I had to pull your file from safe keeping. Your team loves to stall on the exclusivity clauses. Which is funny, considering how eager you were to sign the intent form."
Jungwon repeats the words "my team," tasting them slowly on his tongue. He slides his hands out of his oversized sleeves, his fingers tapping a rapid rhythm against the table—a nervous habit he picked up years ago whenever he was bored or anxious.
The conversation continues like a tense tennis match, with Jungwon expertly pushing your buttons while you struggle to maintain your composure. It is exhausting. You feel yourself losing control, fighting a losing battle that apparently started all the way back in grade nine.
I hate him, you tell yourself. Or… — at least, you try to believe it. But deep down, the lingering feelings are still there, and that is what makes this unbearable.
Jungwon’s eyes slowly trace your face. "You look different," he observes. It isn't a compliment. it is just a cold statement of fact. "Your hair is different. You're wearing those shoes."
A surge of annoyance flares in your chest. "Yang Jungwon, please. Let's just focus on the contract."
He flips the page, his thumb catching the edge of the paper. "I'm just saying. You used to hate offices. Remember that? In grade eleven, we skipped chemistry just to sit on the library roof. You told me you'd rather die than wear a blazer. Now look at you."
Your temper finally snaps. "People grow up, Jungwon. They change their minds. They realize that not all big dreams don't pay the rent."
For a fraction of a second, a flicker of something raw flashes in his eyes—anger, maybe, or hurt. But just as quickly, his mask slips back into place, and the smirk returns.
"Right," he says, leaning forward over the table. "Rent. Of course. Silly me for thinking you’d be the same again." He taps the paper sharply. "Where do I sign? Let's get this over with before you start lecturing me about my phone usage again."
You flinch. It is a low blow, even for him. The memory of his phone's screen reflecting in his eyes while you tried to share your day still haunts you. Back then, it felt like you were playing second fiddle to an online audience that didn't even know his real name yet.
"I am not here to lecture you," you reply, reaching into your blazer pocket for a pen. Your fingers feel stiff. "I am here to finalize a contract for a client. If you want to sign without reading, that's your choice. Just don't come crying to my department when you realize you can't multi-stream on other platforms for the next three years."
He scoffs, finally picking up the pen. He doesn't sign immediately, though; instead, he lazily twirls it between his fingers—a habit from his early days of serious gaming.
"My department," he mimics in a mocking, robotic tone. "You sound like you swallowed a corporate textbook. Is this what Jaeyun teaches you guys in the orientation videos? How to sound like a machine so your exes won't recognize you?"
You grit your teeth. Jaeyun was the team lead who hired you—a boss who actually values your work ethic, unlike the person currently taking up all the oxygen in the room.
"Jaeyun expects professionalism. Something you are clearly still struggling with."
"Professionalism is boring," Jungwon counters. Finally, he leans over the paperwork, scrawling his signature with aggressive speed. He slams the folder shut and slides it back across the smooth wood. "There. I am officially yours for the next three years... or the company's. Whichever helps you sleep better at night."
He stands up, and the stark height difference hits you all over again. The scent of his cologne—something expensive and worlds away from the cheap body spray he used in high school—fills your lungs. It is suffocating.
"Sunghoon is hosting a party on Friday," he says, his eyes drifting away to look at the rain-streaked window. "Kazuha and Riki will be there. Probably Jay, too. You should come... or are you too busy being successful and exhausted to see your old friends?"
The way he spits the word friends makes it sound entirely dirty.
"I have work," you mutter, staring at your own dim reflection in the dark computer monitor on the table.
"You always have work," he murmurs. He reaches his hand out, letting it hover near the back of your chair for an agonizing second, before pulling it back and burying it deep inside his sweater pocket.
The door clicks shut behind him, leaving you in a silence so heavy it feels like the ceiling is collapsing. You look down at the contract. His signature is still wet.
You think about Friday. You think about Sunghoon's apartment, the inevitable questions from Chaewon or Yunjin about why you look so tired, and the way Jungwon will probably spend the entire night tucked into a corner with his phone, ignoring you until the exact moment you decide to leave.
It has been nearly a decade since grade nine. You should be over this. But as the rain picks up, drumming a frantic, messy rhythm against the glass, you realize you are still just as trapped as you were at thirteen without wanting to realize.
Third time's a charm, you think bitterly, pulling the heavy folder tightly against your chest. It's just the one that finally kills you.
You trace the elegant loop of the Y in his signature with the tip of your index finger, pulling your hand back instantly as if you've been burned. Stupid. You wipe your finger frantically against your trousers, half-expecting a permanent smudge to remain—a physical mark of him disrupting your neat, scheduled life all over again.
You don't go back to your desk. You sit there in the quiet until the automated lights in the conference room click off, leaving you in the gray gloom filtering through the glass. The rain has intensified, smacking disorganized and violent against the building.
Suddenly, your phone vibrates in your pocket. The brief, sharp buzz makes your chest tighten before you even look at the screen.
Jaeyun: Did Jungwon sign?
You blink at the text. Of course Jungwon signed. He did it just to prove a point—to show he didn't care about the fine print as long as he got to look down at you while doing it.
You: Yes. Exclusivity locked for 36 months. File is on my desk.
Jaeyun: Great. Bring it to the marketing mixer tomorrow night. His management team is flying in from Seoul. Want you there to hand over the brief.
Tomorrow night. You drop your head back against the leather headrest with a groan. The mixer is an industry event, meaning it will be overcrowded and teeming with people pretending to be more important than they actually are. Jungwon will be right in his area of mindset, thriving as the center of gravity, while you stand awkwardly near the catering table trying to look like you belong in a room that costs more than your annual salary.
You leave Jaeyun on read, sliding the phone face-down onto the table.
The rest of the afternoon blurs into a hazy mix of Excel sheets and system notifications your brain simply refuses to process. By 6:30 PM, the office floor is mostly abandoned, save for the cleaning staff wheeling their gray bins down the carpeted aisles. You pack your bag slowly, dragging out the minutes because leaving just means returning to an apartment that is entirely too quiet, where you will undoubtedly obsess over a house party you already know you are going to attend despite your best judgment.
Why do you do this to yourself? You could easily stay home. You could text Sunghoon—except you don't even have his number. You would have to ask Chaewon, and she would immediately see right through you. "Oh, is Jungwon going?"she would ask with that knowing, pitiful tilt of her head.
You absolutely do not want her pity.
The lobby downstairs is drafty. Pushing through the revolving doors, the wind hits you sideways, throwing heavy raindrops straight into your eyes. You don't even have an umbrella; you forgot it on the kitchen counter this morning because you were too busy rereading Jungwon's draft profile at 7:00 AM.
You step onto the pavement, your heels making a dull, wet clicking sound against the concrete. The streetlights are just flicking on, bleeding yellow and neon pink into the growing puddles. It looks exactly like the digital background of one of Jungwon's streams. Everything feels like an extension of him lately.
You walk toward the subway station, head ducked, water already soaking into the roots of your hair, when a sleek black car pulls up short against the curb. It is a heavy, luxurious vehicle with windows that look like mirrors.
The passenger side window rolls down—just a crack at first, then all the way.
Jungwon is sitting in the back seat. The blue light from his phone washes over his chin, casting sharp shadows under his high cheekbones. He isn't looking at you; his thumb is moving in that quick, jerky way it always does when he is reading live chats or checking statistics.
"Get in," he says. His voice is completely flat, barely carrying over the sound of traffic and the heavy rain drumming against the roof of the car.
You halt on the pavement. Water droplets run down your forehead, blurring your vision, but you can see him clearly enough. You can see the stubborn, hard set of his jaw.
He finally looks up from the screen. His dark eyes reflect the glowing streetlamps behind you. He looks exhausted, too.
"You're going to ruin your shoes," he says, his gaze dropping to your feet before traveling back up to your face. "Don't be stupid. It's pouring."
"I like the rain," you lie, your teeth already clicking together from the chill.
Jungwon lets out a small, mocking scoff. Leaning over, he pushes the door open from the inside. "You've hated it for a long time. You cried when your notebook got soaked after track practice. Get in the car."
It's always right there, isn't it? This massive, clumsy pile of shared history that neither of you knows how to clean up. You stand there for three agonizing seconds as cold water trickles down the back of your collar before you finally give in. You hate yourself the moment you do. Your limbs feel heavy, and the subway station is still three agonizing blocks away.
You slide into the plush leather seat, immediately engulfed by the scent of his crisp, expensive cologne mixed with damp air. You slam the door hard. Entirely too hard.
The car pulls away from the curb instantly, the driver not uttering a single word—likely used to Jungwon’s sudden, erratic stops.
You press yourself as close to the window as humanly possible, leaving a massive, chilly gap of space between the two of you on the bench seat. You refuse to look at him. Instead, you stare at your wet reflection in the glass, your damp hair plastered to your cheeks, looking small and thoroughly miserable.
"Where are you living now?" Jungwon asks, already back to scrolling through his phone.
"The district near the campus," you say, your voice tight and formal. "Just drop me at the station. I can walk from there."
"I'm not dropping you off at a station," he mutters without looking up. "It's out of the way, anyway."
"Then why did you even pick me up?"
The restless scrolling stops. Jungwon slides the device into his pocket, and the back of the car instantly feels smaller and darker without the artificial blue glow. He turns his head toward you, leaning his shoulder against the doorframe.
"Because you looked pathetic standing there," he says. His voice is remarkably soft, even if the words themselves are sharp. But beneath the bite of his tone, there is a lingering warmth—one that sounds exactly like the boy who used to share his umbrella with you in the ninth grade.
"And because you still don't look at where you're going."
You turn your head to face him, the anger rising hot in your chest, burning out the chill from the rain. "I know exactly where I'm going, Jungwon. I've been doing fine for the last two years without you monitoring my ways."
"Yeah?" He leans in slightly, his eyes narrowing. "Is that why you looked like you were about to faint when you walked into the conference room today? Is that part of your great knowing how to get around things by avoiding them?"
"You're unbelievable," you breathe out, turning back to the window. Your hands are shaking in your lap, so you tuck them under your thighs to hide it.
he mutters, shifting back into his corner. "You're still trying to act like nothing hurts. It's exhausting to watch."
The car goes dead silent again, save for the wipers rhythmic swish-swish against the windshield. You stare at the neon signs of shops blurring past. You want to tell him that he's the one who makes it hurt.
there was no air left for you, but you keep your mouth shut.
But as the car turns down your old, familiar avenue, you realize the air in here feels exactly like it did on New Year's night—thick, unsaid, and heavy.
The silence stretches out, tight and fragile, until the car finally idles outside your building. It’s an old brick place, water running down the rusted fire escapes in thick sheets. You don't wait for him to say anything. You push the door open, step back out into the wet, freezing air, and slam it behind you without looking back. You don't watch the car pull away either, though you hear the tires splash through the pooling water on the asphalt as you fumble with your keys at the lobby door.
Your apartment smells like stale toast and emptiness. You leave your wet shoes by the door and spend the night watching the rain track down your window, the rhythmic sound doing nothing to stop your brain from looping his face over and over. Exhausting to watch. He really thought he knew everything.
Three months later, the rain has turned into a sticky, suffocating mid-summer heat, but the city still feels exactly the same. Dense. Gray. Too crowded for you to never run into the one person you're trying to avoid.
You’re standing in the back of a reception hall, a lukewarm glass of champagne melting in your hand. Minju’s wedding. You’d spent three weeks trying to find an excuse not to come—blaming work, blaming deadlines, blaming a stomach bug that didn't exist—but Minju had been your desk partner in high school. You couldn't skip it. So here you are, wearing a dress that feels slightly too tight around your ribs, watching people you haven't seen in years slow-dance under strings of fairy lights.
"You look like you're plotting a murder," a voice says from your left.
You turn your head. Yunjin is leaning against the pillar next to you, her hair pinned back, holding a plate of half-eaten appetizers.
"Just tired," you say, taking a small sip of the cheap alcohol. It burns your throat. "Work's been brutal."
"Yeah, Jaeyun said they’ve got you running the entire logistics backend for the summer rollout," Yunjin murmurs, her eyes scanning the crowd. "He thinks you're going to burn out. We all do, honestly. You need a vacation."
"Vacations don't pay for renovations," you mutter, nodding toward the newlywed couple across the room. Minju is laughing, her head resting against her husband's shoulder, looking small and secure. It makes something ache deep in your chest—not because you want a wedding, but because you can't even imagine what it feels like to look at someone and not feel a knot of old, unresolved anger tightening in your gut.
"True." Yunjin pauses, her fork hovering over a strawberry. She shifts her weight, her tone dropping into something a little too casual. A little too careful. "You know he’s here, right?"
Your stomach drops before your brain even registers the pronoun. You don't have to ask who he is. There's only one person who requires that specific, warned-off tone.
"I didn't know he knew Minju," you say, keeping your voice flat, even as your eyes automatically start tracking the edges of the room. The bar. The outdoor terrace. The VIP tables near the front.
"He doesn't really," Yunjin says, chewing slowly. "But he’s friends with the groom’s brother. Or something like that. Honestly, with how big his platform got after the spring tournament, people just invite him to things now so they can say he showed up. He brought some girl with him. An influencer, I think. Chat was losing its mind about her last week."
The champagne suddenly tastes like copper. You set the glass down on a nearby tray with a sharp click.
"You're a terrible liar," she sighs, but she doesn't push it. She taps your shoulder with her knuckles before walking off toward the photo booth where Chaewon and Sooha are waving her over.
You stand there alone for a minute, the noise of the reception turning into a dull roar in your ears. You shouldn't look. You really shouldn't. It’s been three months of clean execution at work—handling his management's emails through third parties, letting Jaeyun take the face-to-face meetings, keeping your head down. You’ve been doing so well.
He’s sitting at a table near the glass doors leading to the garden. He’s wearing a proper suit this time, dark navy, the collar open and no tie, looking less like a kid playing dress-up and more like the actual adult the media portrays him as. His hair is pushed back, sharp and neat. And she’s right next to him. A girl with sleek, long hair and a laugh that involves a lot of hand-touching on his forearm.
Jungwon isn't looking at her, though. He’s looking at his phone.
Of course he is. His thumb is scrolling, the white screen reflecting in his dark eyes, his face completely blank while the girl keeps talking. It’s the exact same sight from New Year's. The exact same cold, distant wall he builds around himself when he’s bored of the reality in front of him.
You feel a sudden, violent surge of irritation—and something else, something hotter and meaner that you refuse to name. You turn on your heel, intending to find the restroom just to splash cold water on your face, but the crowd shifts, and before you can step away, his eyes snap up from the screen.
Across twenty feet of crowded floor, through the smoke and the flashing cameras and the noise of a hundred conversations, his gaze locks straight onto yours.
He doesn't smile. The smirk doesn't even appear. His fingers just stop moving against the glass of his phone, his jaw tightening as he watches you stand there in your nice dress, looking right back at him. The girl next to him says something else, leaning in close to his ear, and Jungwon deliberately maintains the eye contact for one, two, three seconds before he slowly turns his head to answer her, his hand moving to rest on the back of her chair.
It’s petty. It’s an intentional, silent strike, and it hits exactly where he wanted it to.
You turn away so fast your heel catches on the carpet, your heart hammering against your ribs like a trapped bird. You walk straight through the side exit, ignoring the heat of the summer night as you step out onto the concrete balcony, the heavy glass door shutting out the music behind you.
The air out here is thick with humidity, the city lights reflecting off the low-hanging clouds. It’s going to storm later. You can feel the static in the air, the heavy, suffocating weight of it pressing down on your skin.
"You still run away when you're mad," a voice says from the darkness near the stone railing.
Jungwon is standing there, a cigarette unlit between his fingers, his jacket unbuttoned. You hadn't even seen him move from the table. Or maybe he’d been out here before you even noticed him inside.
"I'm not mad," you say, your voice shaking slightly before you can stiffen your spine. You walk over to the opposite side of the terrace, putting as much distance between you and him as the concrete allows. "I wanted some air."
"Right." He slips the cigarette into his pocket, his knuckles scraping against the fabric of his trousers. He looks at you through the dark, his expression completely hidden by the shadows of the overhanging roof. "That’s why you looked like you wanted to break my table from across the room."
"Your table looked busy enough without my input," you snap, the words slipping out before you can stop them. You curse yourself internally. Idiotic. You just handed him exactly what he wanted.
Jungwon lets out that dry, quiet breath of a laugh. He takes two steps forward, his leather shoes scraping against the gravel on the terrace floor. "She's an associate from the marketing agency. My manager wanted her there."
"I don't care who she is, Jungwon."
"You do," he says softly. He stops just a few feet away, the heat radiating off him mixed with that familiar, sharp cologne. "You always did that. You get that little line between your eyebrows when you're trying to pretend you don't care, but you're actually furious."
"Don't act like you know me," you say, turning your face toward the dark garden below. Your hands are gripping the stone edge so hard your knuckles are white. "We haven't known each other for two years."
"Nine years," he corrects, his voice dropping into that low, dangerous register that always makes your throat feel like it’s closing up. "We didn't just start happening two years ago, no matter how hard you try to pretend we were never a thing.."
You snap your head back around to look at him. "What do you want from me, Jungwon? Seriously. You signed the contract. You got the global backing. You have everything you wanted. Why can't you just leave me alone?"
The first heavy drop of rain hits the concrete between you, dark and sudden.
Jungwon looks down at the spot where the water hit, his mouth flattening into a hard line. He looks smaller for a second, the sleek suit and the fame peeling away under the dark sky.
"Because you're still in my way," he mutters, his eyes rising back to yours, dark and completely devoid of the usual smirk. "Every time I look up, you're just... standing there. Looking like you hate me."
"I do hate you..," you whisper.
The sky finally cracks open above the city, a sudden, blinding sheet of summer rain drenching the terrace in seconds. Neither of you moves. The water drops are hitting his hair, flattening the sharp style down into his forehead, running down the line of his jaw and soaking into the collar of his expensive suit. He looks completely ruined. and he’s staring at you like you’re the only thing keeping him grounded in the middle of the storm.
"Good," he says, stepping closer until the space between you is gone, his breath hot against your face despite the freezing downpour. "Then keep hating me. Just don't look at anyone else like that."
The summer rain is a solid, roaring wall around the two of you, cutting off the bass of the wedding reception, the clinking glasses, and the rest of the world.
He doesn't give you time to pull away. Jungwon reaches out, his hand coming out of his pocket to cup the side of your neck. His fingers are freezing from the downpour, but his palm is shockingly hot against your skin. He pulls you forward, aggressive and desperate, tilting his head to catch your lips in a kiss that tastes like rainwater and old, bitter history.
It’s not gentle. It’s the peak of years of unsaid words, the friction of two people who have spent a decade spinning in each other's orbits without ever learning how to collide safely. You don't freeze. You twist your fingers into the damp fabric of his navy suit jacket, pulling him closer because your brain has entirely short-circuited. For a split second, the thick weight in your chest lifts. The anger, the exhaustion, the quiet apartment—it all burns away.
It brushes against your jawline, a quick, restless, habitual twitch.
The realization hits you like a bucket of ice water, sharper than the storm. Even right here, soaking wet in the dark, holding onto you like his life depends on it.
You tear your mouth away from his, your breathing ragged, and shove his chest with both hands.
Jungwon stumbles back a step, his shoes skidding on the wet gravel. His hair is plastered to his forehead, his lips parted and dark with the rain, looking utterly dazed. "What—"
"Get away from me," you choke out, wiping your mouth with the back of your trembling hand.
"Are you serious right now?" He steps back in, his voice rising over the thunder, a sudden flash of raw frustration breaking through his expressions. "You're the one who was holding onto my jacket like—"
the rain stinging your eyes as you glare through the dark. "You do this every time. You pull me back in because you're bored, or because your manager told you to sit at a table you didn't want to be at, or because you just wanted to see if you still could. And then tomorrow, you'll be back behind a screen, looking right past me."
"That's not what this is," he snaps, his jaw clenching so hard a muscle twitches beneath the damp skin.
"It is what this is! It’s exactly what it is." You take a step back toward the glass doors, your heels sloshing in the pooling water. The hem of your dress is heavy and ruined, clinging to your ankles. "Go back inside to your associate, Jungwon. Go. I'm going home."
"Don't do this," he says, but he doesn't chase you. He stands under the torrential downpour, his hands dropping to his sides, looking completely hollowed out by the summer storm.
You pull open the heavy glass door, the sudden wave of air conditioning and pop music hitting your face like a physical blow. You don't look back to see if he's watching. You push through the crowd of wedding guests, ignoring Yunjin's confused look as you blow past the photo booth, and head straight out into the night to find a cab.
By autumn, the city has dried out, the heavy summer humidity replaced by a crisp, biting wind that smells like dead leaves and exhaust fumes.
The logistics backend for the winter rollout has taken up every single hour of your life. Your desk is a disaster of spreadsheets, and you've taken to ordering takeout to the office three nights a week just to avoid going back to an empty apartment before midnight. It’s a clean, distant routine. You don't check his streaming notifications anymore. You blocked the official platform alerts on your personal phone, forcing everything through the corporate server so you only see his name when Jaeyun signs off on a tournament budget.
"Hey," Jaeyun says, knocking lightly on your open cubicle door. He’s holding two paper cups of coffee. "You look like a zombie. When was the last time you went outside during daylight?"
"Tuesday," you say without looking up from your monitor. "Maybe Monday. What's the status on the Seoul broadcast relay?"
Jaeyun sighs, setting one of the cups on the corner of your desk. "The relay is fine. The talent management, however, is being a pain. Yang's team is disputing the autumn analytical metrics. They think the platform is throttling his discoverability in the European region."
Your fingers freeze over the keyboard. You take a slow, deliberate breath, keeping your voice perfectly steady. "The contract states the European market is subject to regional licensing laws. Section eight, paragraph three. Send them the PDF and tell them to read it."
"I did," Jaeyun says, rubbing the back of his neck. "His manager wants a live audit. And since you're the lead on the backend data..." He trails off, looking genuinely apologetic. "They're coming into the main hub tomorrow at three. I need you in the presentation room."
You close your eyes for a brief second. "Can't Sooha take it?"
"Sooha doesn't know the regional architecture like you do," Jaeyun says gently. "Look, I know it's awkward with him. But it's a ten-minute data overview, and then they're out the door. Just be the robot you always are."
"Fine," you mutter, finally looking up and taking the coffee. "Three o'clock."
The next day, you don't wear a blazer. You wear a thick, oversized cream sweater—something that feels like armor, something that looks absolutely nothing like the corporate uniform he mocked three months ago. You keep your hair tied back in a neat, severe bun.
When you walk into the presentation room at 2:58 PM, the lights are already dimmed for the projector.
Jungwon is already sitting there. He’s not in a suit today. He’s back to his usual look—a gray hoodie with the hood down, dark jeans, and his fingers moving across his phone under the edge of the table. His manager, an older man with graying hair and a sharp tailored coat, is shuffling through papers next to him.
"Ah, the data lead," the manager says, looking up with a polite smile. "Thank you for taking the time."
"Of course," you say, your voice smooth and hollow. You don't look at Jungwon. You step up to the podium, plug your laptop into the console, and bring up the regional server logs on the massive wall monitor. "Let's look at the European distribution."
For ten minutes, you speak in pure data. You break down everything. Your voice doesn't waver once. You point to the graphs, explaining each slide. The manager nods along, taking notes, completely satisfied.
Throughout the entire thing, Jungwon doesn't say a word. He doesn't even look at his phone. He just sits there in the dim light of the projector, his chin resting on his fist, his dark eyes fixed entirely on your face as you speak.
"Well, that clears up the discrepancy," the manager says, standing up and extending a hand toward you. "We appreciate the clarity. Jungwon, we need to head to the studio for the pre-production meeting."
"Go ahead," Jungwon says, his voice cutting through the room, low and heavy. "I need to get a copy of the raw file from her anyway. I'll meet you in the lobby."
The manager glances between the two of you, senses the immediate shift in the air pressure, and quickly gathers his things. "Right. Don't be late."
The door clicks shut behind him.
The projector hums, casting a bright blue light across the corporate table, throwing long, distorted shadows against the back wall. You don't look at him. You click through your laptop, hitting eject on the external drive, your movements quick.
"You're doing it again," Jungwon says from the darkness of the table.
"I'm downloading your file," you say, your eyes fixed on the progress bar on your screen. "It'll take two minutes."
"You didn't look at me once during that entire presentation." He stands up, his chair scraping loudly against the carpet. He walks around the long table, stopping just outside the circle of light from the projector. "You looked at my manager. You looked at the wall. You looked at the floor. Not at me."
"I was presenting data to a client, Jungwon."
"Stop calling me that," he says softly, his voice dropping that professional distance entirely. "You sound like a recording."
"That's what I am here," you say, finally lifting your eyes to meet his. In the blue light of the screen, his face looks sharp, older, the faint purple shadows under his eyes more prominent than before. "I'm the platform representative. You're the talent. That's the only version of us that functions without someone breaking something."
Jungwon takes a step closer, his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his gray hoodie. He looks down at your laptop, then back up to your face, his mouth setting into that familiar, stubborn line.
"I tried to delete the live feed app from my phone last month," he says suddenly.
The admission hangs in the quiet room, strange and heavy. You look at him, your hand pausing on the laptop lid.
"Why?" you ask, your voice losing a fraction of its defensive edge before you can stop it.
"Because every time it buzzed, I kept hoping it was a notification from an email address that didn't have a company domain attached to it," he mutters, looking away toward the blue light on the wall. He lets out a short, rough breath. "It didn't work. My team reinstalled it three days later because of a sponsor lock-in."
He steps right up to the podium, his shoulder nearly brushing yours, the faint scent of that expensive cologne hitting you again—but under it, there's just the smell of rain and cold autumn air from the street outside. He reaches out, his fingers hovering over the corner of your laptop, not touching you, but close enough that you can feel the heat of him.
He tries to utter a word but instead his eyes drop to your mouth for a split second before rising back to your eyes, dark and completely serious.
"Here's the file..," Jaeyun's voice says as the heavy door suddenly swings open.
The light from the hallway floods the room, bright and sterile, instantly breaking the shadow between you. Jaeyun stops in the doorway, a thumb drive in his hand, looking between you and Jungwon with an immediate, awkward realization.
Jungwon doesn't flinch. He just slowly pulls his hand back, sliding it into his pocket as he turns toward the door.
"Thanks, Jaeyun," Jungwon says, his voice instantly dropping back into that smooth, effortless tone he uses for the public. He takes the drive from Jaeyun's hand, gives you one long, unreadable look over his shoulder, and walks out into the bright white corridor without another word.
The door clicks shut. The projector hums in the sudden quiet, the blue light fading as your laptop goes into sleep mode.
The sudden silence of the presentation room feels less like peace and more like a drop in cabin pressure. You stand behind the podium, your fingers still hovering over the cold plastic keys of your laptop, staring at the empty space where he stood.
Jaeyun doesn't ask. He’s smart enough, and tired enough, to just clear his throat, mutter something about an executive meeting on the sixth floor, and let the heavy wood door click shut behind him again.
You sink slowly into the nearest leather chair, the dim blue light of the idle projector washing over your face.
It’s always like this. A decade of short-circuits. You spend months building walls out of Excel sheets, metrics, and data logs, convincing yourself that you’ve finally outgrown the ghost in your head. You tell yourself you're an adult now, someone who handles logistics, someone who doesn't cry when things get ruined. And then he speaks—mentions a library roof, or confesses to a deleted app—and the foundation crumbles instantly. You’re left standing in the debris, furious at him for knowing exactly which brick to pull to make the whole thing collapse.
You don't finish your shift. For the first time since Jaeyun hired you, you leave at 4:30 PM, abandoning a half-mapped regional layout on your screen.
By 9:00 PM, the autumn wind outside has turned vicious, rattling the loose pane in your kitchen window. Your apartment is dark, the weak amber glow of the streetlamps cutting through the blinds. You’re sitting on the counter, a glass of water sweating against your palm, watching the dust specks dance in the light.
You’re tired. Not the kind of tired that a good night’s sleep fixes, but the deep, marrow-deep exhaustion of fighting a losing battle against your own memory.
You look at your phone resting on the laminate counter. The corporate block is still active. But your personal contacts aren't. You haven't deleted his number. You never did. It’s just been sitting there, a dormant string of digits under a name you haven't typed into a text box in two years.
Your thumb hovers over the glass. You think about the rain on the terrace, the way his hand felt against your neck, and the terrifying realization that no matter how much you claim to hate him, the alternative is just a vast, gray emptiness. You want to ruin it. You want to break the cycle entirely so there's nothing left to salvage, nothing left to yearn for.
You type a single line. No greeting. No explanation.
You: Come over. If you're alone.
You don't even have time to set the phone down before the screen lights up.
You send the pin. Ten minutes pass. Then twenty. Your heart is knocking against your ribs, a dull, rhythmic thudding that feels identical to the nerves you had before track practice in grade ten. It’s a terrible idea. You know it’s a terrible idea.
When the buzzer down in the lobby rings, the sharp sound makes you flinch. You click the release button without using the intercom.
A minute later, there’s a low, heavy knock on your apartment door.
When you pull it open, Jungwon is standing in the dim hallway. He’s still wearing the gray hoodie, the fabric damp around the shoulders from the mist outside. His hair is slightly messy, falling into his eyes, and he looks out of breath, like he took the stairs instead of waiting for the old elevator.
He doesn't say anything. He just steps across the threshold, and the moment the door clicks shut behind him, his hands are on you.
It’s completely different from the terrace. There is no performance here, no audience to maintain. He pulls you against his chest, his mouth finding yours in the dark entryway with a desperate, heavy hunger that cuts off your breath. His hands slide under your oversized sweater, his palms rough and shockingly hot against your bare waist, lifting you slightly until you're forced to wrap your legs around his hips.
You trip backward into the short hallway, your back hitting the wall with a dull thud that rattles the cheap frames hanging there. You don't care. You pull at the hood of his sweater, bringing him down into you, burying your face in the crook of his neck where the scent of the cold autumn wind is still clinging to his skin.
It’s a jumbled, silent rush. He carries you into the bedroom, both of you tumbling onto the unmade sheets in a tangle of limbs and discarded layers. The gray hoodie hits the floor, followed by your cream sweater.
In the shadows of the room, stripped of the suits and the lacings, he feels exactly like he did when you were younger—frenetic, intense, and entirely focused on you. His fingers lock through yours, pressing your hands into the mattress, his lips tracing a path down your jaw to the hollow of your throat. Every touch feels like an eviction of the last two years of silence. You let yourself drown in it, letting the heat of his skin burn out the solemn, cold reality of your office life, matching his pace until the room is nothing but the sound of heavy breathing and the wind scraping against the glass outside.
At 4:45 AM, the room is freezing.
The pale, gray light of dawn is just beginning to bleed through the edges of the blinds, turning everything a sickly, washed-out blue.
You wake up slowly, the chill of the apartment settling into your bare shoulders. You shift against the pillows, expecting the warmth of his back, but your hand hits cold, empty fabric.
Jungwon is sitting on the edge of the mattress, his back to you. The room is quiet enough that you can hear the faint, rapid click-click-click of his thumb against a screen.
The blue light from his phone is casting a sharp, metallic glow over his profile, carving out the line of his jaw and the cold, focused expression in his eyes. He’s already dressed in his jeans and a fresh t-shirt. On the screen, tiny blocks of text are scrolling past at a dizzying speed—live norms, agency emails, schedule notifications for the winter tournament.
The world has crawled back in before the sun is even up.
He notices you move, his thumb pausing on the glass for a fraction of a second, but he doesn't turn around. He doesn't slide the phone into his pocket.
"My manager is picking me up at five," he says, his voice low and scratchy from sleep, but entirely flat. Entirely professional. "We have an early broadcast test for the European relay."
You lie there, the sheet pulled up to your chin, watching the blue light bounce off his shoulder blades. The heat from an hour ago feels like a hallucination. The intimacy hasn't fixed anything— it just proved that the boundaries are exactly where you left them.
"Okay," you whisper. Your voice sounds dead. Empty.
Jungwon stands up, finally slipping the phone into his back pocket, though his hand stays near the fabric. He looks down at you through the gray gloom, his expression unreadable, masked by the person he has to be for the rest of the day.
"The file data was clean, by the way," he mutters, reaching down to grab his gray hoodie from the floor. "Jaeyun said your backend logs are the best they've had all season."
He walks out of the bedroom. A moment later, you hear the heavy click of your front door locking from the outside, followed by the faint, distant echo of his footsteps heading down the stairwell.
You turn over, pulling his pillow into your chest. It smells like him—crisp, expensive, and completely out of reach.
You wanted to ruin it. You wanted to break the cycle so it wouldn't hurt anymore. But as you watch the gray morning light slowly fill the room, highlighting the empty space beside you, you realize you didn't break anything at all. You just gave him one more memory to haunt you with for the next thirty-six months.
Months pass, and the autumn chill turns into a long, quiet winter.
The contract keeps you tied together, but you both learn to build new walls. The frantic texts and the sudden confrontations stop. Instead, you enter a strange, quiet routine.
Every few weeks, when the silence in your apartment gets too heavy or his screen gets too bright, one of you will send a single text. A time. An address. There are no explanations, and there is never any talking afterward. He arrives in the dark, and he is always gone before the sun comes up. It is simple, rational, and completely temporary. A mutual understanding that you are both just using each other to escape the loneliness for a few hours.
During work hours, things change too.
You still see him on the corporate server logs, and you still have to attend the occasional data audit with Jaeyun. When you are in the same room, the sharp, angry banter from before starts to fade. He doesn't mock your clothes anymore.
Instead, he sits quietly. He answers your questions with short, polite nods.
When he does speak, his voice is flat, matching your professional tone perfectly. To anyone else in the room, it looks like you are finally just two adults who have learned to do their jobs.
But sometimes, when you are busy explaining a data graph on the wall projector, you can feel his eyes on you.
Jungwon stays quiet, his hands shoved deep into his pockets, but his gaze doesn't leave your face. The ruinous smirk is entirely gone. He watches the way you breathe, the way you pull your hair behind your ear, and the way you look everywhere in the room except at him.
He is falling all over again, and he knows it. He knows it’s a losing game, so he hides it behind a blank expression or the simple teasing he does but not as much. He doesn't say a word, because he knows that the moment he lets the professional mask slip, you will run away again or the cycle will start again.
So, you both keep playing your parts. You give him the data, he gives you the streams, and in the quiet spaces between the text messages, you pretend that the history between you isn't slowly burning you both alive.
By late winter, the cold has settled into the bones of the city, and the silence between you has become a heavy, physical thing. Jungwon is better at his job than ever, but worse at being human. He spends more time in front of the lens, his face broadcast to thousands, while his real life remains a series of quiet, empty rooms.
In the office, the air shifts whenever you walk by. He doesn't call out to you anymore, but his body language speaks for him. When you stand at the coffee machine talking to a junior designer—laughing at a joke that has nothing to do with gaming or data—Jungwon’s thumb stops mid-scroll. He doesn't look up, but his jaw tightens, and the light of his phone reflects in eyes that look suddenly very dark and very tired.
He hears your laugh and realizes it’s a sound he hasn't heard directed at him in months. It bites at him, a sharp, subtle jealousy that he has no right to feel. He is the one who chooses the silence. He is the one who leaves before dawn.
One Tuesday, you are in a glass-walled meeting room with Jaeyun and a new consultant from the Seoul office. The consultant is young, bright, and he keeps leaning toward you, his hand brushing yours as you point at a spreadsheet. Through the glass, Jungwon is walking toward the elevators, surrounded by his management team.
For a heartbeat, he ignores his manager's voice. He watches the way the consultant smiles at you, and the way you don't pull your hand away immediately. Jungwon’s fingers curl into a fist inside his hoodie pocket. He wants to walk in there and break the professional glass. He wants to remind you of the way your breath hitched in his ear at 3AM, or the way you used to hide in the library with him when the world felt too big.
But he does nothing. He can't. He has built this cage himself, brick by brick, just to keep himself distracted.
He turns away and steps into the elevator, the doors sliding shut on his reflection. He pulls out his phone, his thumb moving automatically to check his latest stream metrics, but he isn't reading the numbers. He is just waiting for the next time his phone vibrates with a location and a time—the only moments he feels like he isn't a ghost in his own life.
He is yearning for a "forever" he already threw away twice, and the third time is proving to be the most painful of all.
The next time the phone vibrates on your counter, it isn't you who typed the message.
You don't look at the clock. You just hit the buzzer, your chest tightening as the heavy click of the lobby door echoes through the intercom. When he reaches your floor, he doesn't knock. He waits for you to turn the handle, and you do… he steps right into your space
There is no hesitation this time. Jungwon doesn't wait for the dark of the bedroom or the safety of the shadows. He catches your waist with both hands, his grip firm and urgent, pulling you against him until there is no air left between you. His mouth finds yours with a sudden, burning intensity that makes your knees go weak. It isn't the cold, detached touch of the past few months. It is entirely raw.
He presses you back against the closed door, his fingers tangling into your hair, tilting your face up so he can kiss you deeper. You can feel the rapid, frantic beat of his heart against your ribs. He is breathing like a man who has been underwater for months and has finally found the surface.
"Jungwon," you breathe out against his lips, trying to find your footing, trying to find the wall you built.
"Don't," he mutters, his voice cracked and low. He buries his face in the crook of your neck, his lips pressing hot, desperate kisses against your skin. His hands are shaking against your back. "Don't tell me to leave. Not tonight."
The quiet ache that has been sitting in your stomach all winter turns into something sharp and overwhelming. You wrap your arms around his shoulders, pulling him into you, letting the pretense drop. If this is a mistake, it is a spectacular one.
He carries the weight of the silence into the bedroom, but everything about the way he moves has changed. He doesn't look away. In the dim light of the room, his eyes stay fixed on yours, dark and completely unguarded. Every touch is slow, deliberate, and full of a quiet, heavy desperation. When his fingers lock with yours against the mattress, he doesn't let go. He holds on tight, his thumb tracing the back of your hand over and over, as if he is trying to imprint the feel of your skin into his memory.
It is intimate in a way that hurts. He isn't escaping the world anymore; he is entirely present, giving you every ounce of the focus he usually splits among thousands of strangers. You feel the heat of him, the heavy rhythm of his breathing, and the sudden, terrifying realization that he has stopped running.
When the pale morning light finally begins to track through the blinds, turning the room a soft, quiet gray, the usual routine breaks.
You wake up feeling the steady warmth of his arm wrapped securely around your waist, pulling you back against his chest. He hasn't dressed. He hasn't reached for his phone. The device is sitting face-down on the floor, completely ignored.
Jungwon is awake, his chin resting lightly against your shoulder. He watches you open your eyes, his grip tightening just a fraction, refusing to let the dawn create the usual distance between you.
"You usually leave," you say, your voice small and rough in the quiet room.
"I'm staying," he whispers. His breath is warm against your ear, his voice carrying a heavy, settled certainty that you haven't heard since you were teenagers. He shifts, leaning over you so you are forced to look at him, his dark eyes clear and completely focused on your face. "I'm not going back to the studio early. I told them to reschedule."
You stare up at him, your heart doing that old, painful skip. "Jungwon, the rollout—"
"I don't care about the rollout," he interrupts softly, his fingers reaching up to brush a stray strand of hair away from your forehead. His touch is lingering, gentle, and completely devoid of the professional distance he used at the office. "I've spent two years pretending I could look past you. I can't. I'm tired of the silence."
He leans down, pressing a slow, bruising kiss to your lips—it feels heavy but completely real. He isn't hiding away anymore. He is right here, completely yours in awhile.
➜ None of my work is related to the real person. It’s all fictional.
