• “There’s no more room on the couch, c’mere,” he says with that sweet smile, even when there’s clearly space. He pats his thigh and locks eyes with you until you sit.

• Once you’re there, his arms wrap around your waist like it’s the most natural thing in the world. He rests his chin on your shoulder and continues whatever he was doing, but you can feel him getting hard underneath you <3

• He gets bolder over time. His hands start sliding under your shirt to rub your stomach softly <3. Sometimes he “accidentally” shifts his hips so his hard cock presses right against your ass cheeks

• “You’re so comfy, baby,” he whispers in your ear one night while you’re watching a movie. His voice is lower than usual. “So soft and warm.”

• The tension finally breaks during one of your usual sleepovers. You’re sitting on his lap in his bed, watching TikToks, when he suddenly grips your hips and pulls you down harder against him. You can feel how hard he is through his sweatpants.

“Jake…” you breathe.

• He buries his face in your neck. “Yeah sweetie?” he asks softly. He starts grinding up slowly, hands guiding your hips. “You feel that? That’s what you do to me every single time you sit here like my good girl.” 🤍

• From then on, “sitting on Jake’s lap” takes on a new meaning.

• He loves when you face him, straddling his lap while he kisses you deeply. He loves when you face away so he can grind his cock against your ass while playing with your tits. He especially loves when you’re wearing his hoodie and nothing else

• Jake your needy, touchy best friend who never lets you sit on your own couch <3

──────────────────

— berry 🍓

He doesn't look at you.

Why wouldn't he look at you?

He sat in the row by your left side, up higher somewhere in the middle. He had his hood up, messy dirty blonde hair he showed up with a couple of days ago trimmed and fresh. It made his complexion warmer, more appealing.

You would know that.

How?

You were glancing at him the whole lecture. You eyes now and then going over your shoulder — subtly. At least you hoped. And not even once did he glance your way.

Riki sat there, lazyly scribbling something down on his notes. The professor's voice echoing the dull hall and simply serving as the background noise to most, but not to him.

He was still following everything, writing down important stuff, brain memorizing some of it like on autopilot.

Who could tell that?

That he was an excellent student, excelling so easily since the primary school. No one actually. At least at a first glance. His stylish persona and cold demeanor was quite contradictory to the actual way he nevertheless had always been.

It's been weeks since the last time.

He never called you up again for the actual tutoring.

And you?

You were walking on eggshells since then. Not because you were avoiding him, scared to face or encounter him in a mere radius of hundred meters — but because you were nervous. Your heart rate would pick up at the mere flash of his image through your mind. Thighs would flex at the memory of his struck face — eyes closed, eyebrows tight together and pants leaving his plump lips as he was at the verge of orgasm.

Never would you think it would be this easy for some boy to enter your head.

But here he was. Sitting just a couple of rows back, feline focused eyes stuck to the paper as he wrote down notes. Organized and responsible. That was him. His leg was bouncing under the high desk, freckles on his slightly tanned skin so attention pulling and mesmerizing.

One thing kept jabbing at you — why was he acting like nothing ever happened?

It made you glance back to the front, head dropping to your lap as you thought. Absentmindedly furrowing your brows, pointer finger digging into your thumbs cuticle. You adjusted your glasses, head turning back over your shoulder and right towards the now blonde boy.

He was too deep into his notes, hair brushing his forehead, lips slightly parted as he wrote something down.

And you hated how you noticed every single thing about it.

———

The psychology department was organizing a student conference next Friday. You signed up immediately. Not because Riki's name appeared on the presenters list.

Obviously.

That would be ridiculous.

You signed up because it would look good on your CV. Because networking was important. Because professors liked seeing students participate. At least that's what you told yourself. Three separate times.

And yet your eyes still found his name first. You arrived ten minutes early, not because you were hoping to see him.

You arrived early because punctuality was important. Because first impressions mattered. Because being late to a volunteer meeting would be unprofessional. At least that's what you told yourself while choosing a seat with a perfect view of the door.

The classroom slowly filled. Around 20 students, nothing mir enorhibg less. Just a meeting about the upcoming conference and the arrangements that needed to be made.

Small groups formed immediately, students chatting amongst themselves as they waited for the professor organizing the conference to arrive. Somebody was talking about presentation topics. Someone else complained about having to come in during their free period.

You barely heard any of it.

Every time the door opened, your eyes flicked up.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

And then—

There he was.

Your stomach dropped so fast it was almost embarrassing. Riki walked inside like he owned the place. One hand shoved into the pocket of his hoodie, backpack hanging from a single shoulder, messy blond hair falling into his eyes.

You hated how immediately you noticed him. Hated how your brain picked up details before you could stop it — the new silver ring on his finger, the dark circles beneath his eyes, the fact he looked like he slept maybe four hours and still somehow managed to look annoyingly good.

Your gaze followed him, then stopped. Because he wasn't alone —a girl walked in right behind him, laughing. Riki glanced at her, his lips moving as he answered. Like it was the most natural thing in the world.

You stared.

The feeling that hit wasn't even jealousy.

Just confusion.

He talked to people?

Voluntarily?

The realization was stupid. Obviously he did, you just had never really seen it. The girl said something else and Riki rolled his eyes. And she laughed again.

Your fingers tightened around your pen, eyes dropping to the notebook in front of you, glasses slightly sliding down your nose. Something unpleasant settled low in your stomach. Not because they were flirting, they weren't.

But she looked comfortable around him. Comfortable enough to tease him, to sit beside him. And when the only empty seats left happened to be the ones next to him she took one without hesitation.

Riki didn't seem to mind. That bothered you more than it should have, a lot more. He adjusted himself on the chair, a small creeping smile on his face as she spoke to him. He let his arm rest on the empty chair on the other side of him, on the backrest as he slightly shook his head with a smile.

Then, as if sensing it, his eyes lifted.

For one brief second they landed directly on yours. Your breath caught. You felt your pulse jump instantly.

Then...

Nothing.

No reaction. No acknowledgment. No expression whatsoever. His gaze slid right past you. Like you were another student in the room.

Like nothing had ever happened.

Like you weren't even worth a second look.

The girl beside him leaned over and asked him something. And Riki turned back to her. The professor walked in moments later.

You didn't hear a single word of the meeting.

The meeting ended a little after six. Students slowly filtered out of the classroom, chairs scraping against the floor as conversations overlapped into one dull buzz. You gathered your notebook, stuffed it into your bag and left without looking back. At least, that had been the plan. Your eyes still found him once.

He stood near the professor's desk, one hand shoved into the pocket of his hoodie while discussing something with another volunteer. The same girl from earlier stood nearby, listening to whatever was being said.

You looked away immediately, annoyed with yourself, then finally headed home after a long day of exhausting lectures and this pretty boring meeting.

By the time you reached your house, the sky had already begun turning orange.

Your tired footsteps echoed the hall as you made your way towards your room, huffing out a breath of exhaustion. The door of your dad's office stood open, stacks of papers covering almost every available surface. Printed surveys, research notes, student evaluations. The usual chaos that pulled your attention as you passed by.

"Perfect timing." He said the moment he noticed you passing by. "Come help me sort these." You groaned, head thrown back in protest as you took a couple of steps back.

He ignored it, eyes dancing over the laptop screen. Twenty minutes later you found yourself sitting across from him, organizing documents into neat piles while he rambled about department funding and conference schedules, making calls left and right.

Normally you enjoyed moments like these. You and your father had always gotten along easily. Today, however, your attention kept drifting. A name on one of the volunteer lists made your eyes linger for a second too long.

Nishimura Riki

You immediately moved the paper away. The rest of the evening passed quietly. Dinner was simple and usual, your mother talked about work, your father complained about administrative responsibilities.

You nodded when appropriate, answered questions when asked, and pushed food around your plate while trying your best to remain present.

Trying. Being the important word. Because every now and then your mind wandered. Not intentionally — never intentionally. A phrase would remind you of something. A tone of voice. A random thought.

And suddenly you were back in that classroom again. Back to seeing him after weeks of pretending he didn't exist, to that brief moment when your eyes met. Back to the irritating indifference on his face. You hated how easily it happened. By the time dinner ended, you felt exhausted for reasons that had nothing to do with the day itself.

You retreated to your room shortly afterward. The familiar comfort of your own space should have helped. Instead, it somehow made things worse. You changed into pajamas, washed your face, tied your hair back and settled at your desk with every intention of studying.

The textbook sat open in front of you, highlighter in hand as your eyes skimmed over the chapter. Notes were scattered neatly around the desk. For several minutes everything went according to plan.

Then your eyes stopped moving across the page. The words blurred. And before you realized it, your thoughts had wandered somewhere else entirely.

You stomach twisted at the intrusive image.

Riki. On his knees. Plump lips around your throbbing clit.

You slammed the highlighter down on the desk, eyes closing at the mere feel of your heart jolting at the thought. A deep inhale filled your tight lungs with stale air before it exited. You opened your eyes again, adjusting your glasses before taking the highlighter again, trying to focus on the theory imprinted on paper before you.

But again, just as you read the first sentence, your mind betrayed you.

The feeling of his big hands brushing your thighs. The lip bite as his eyes were stuck to the way he was pumping into you.

Your thighs clenched. The hot pressure between them all of a sudden present.

You still pushed your mind to focus, gaze following the underlined sentences and moving down the page. But it all was just simply vaguely traced.

Him pushing you into the table — against the hard wood so selfishly as he fucked into you. Fast.

Your hips subtly moved on their own, a deep inhale following through your nose. You shook your head in an attempt to get it all out of your head.

It was too late.

You were throbbing.

You crossed your ankles, thighs pushing harder together. The bottom lip stuck between your teeth, gaze still stuck to the book at a poor attempt to full yourself. To tell yourself this wasn't happening. Not to the thought of him.

But your hips grinded again helplessly against nothing. "No..."

Your hand flew between your crossed legs and over your mound. You pressed. Hard. A breathy shaky sound left you, eyes closing in delight at the feeling.

Riki spreading your thighs, ringed fingers pressing into your warm flesh. His mouth fast between your soaked folds. The way he held you down as he ate you out last time.

You grinded into your hand, ankles uncrossing hastily. "Fuck..." You cursed under your breath, softly and as quiet as possible. Your lips parted soundlessly as the pressure hit your clit so heavenly. The sound of your parents downstairs, talking and getting ready for bed the only thing keeping you tethered.

Your core felt like it was on fire, your folds pressed on repeatedly and the wetness that coated them slowly was getting sucked in by your panties under the pajamas. Your hips moved in a rhythm, making sure the pressure hits your sensitive clit just right everytime.

Images kept popping up. One by one.

His tongue poking at your entrance. Long fingers stuck in your mouth as he fucked your cunt.

And then...

The image of what if.

What if he bent you over his coffe table like he did the first time in the office? What if he ate you from the back before he slammed into you. Uninvited and sudden.

A low and desperate moan left your lips. Your shoulders slouching forward as you kept on grinding and grinding.

He would stretch you so good, your walls would burn at each drag of his, taking him eagerly. You would moan his name, arching against him as his big palms groped every part of you he could.

You couldnt take it. Your thighs parted hastily, hand was fast inside of your panties. Your middle finger glided over your soaked slit before it dipped between your folds.

You were soaked.

You hissed the moment your fingertip came in contact with your throbbing clit. Nerves on fire and toes curling as you delivered fast tight circles to it. You bit your lip at the whines that threatened to echo the bedroom.

He would lean over you, heat radiating off his toned body as he whispers filthy things into your ear. Things like "You are taking me so good baby." or "Yeah? You like the way I'm fucking you? Stretching this pussy so right."

Yes, you would like that so much. So so much.

Your finger sped up, no teasing or gradual built up. You need this. You needed to come. The slickness of your pussy made the circles so messy, finger sliding over, next and around the clit so greedily at the brink of a frenzy. Your wrist started to hurt, the sounds your cunt produced made everything even filthier. You panted, at an attempt to be quiet. And you were. The only sounds that filled the room were the low fast breaths and the sound of your finger working over your swollen clit.

The bubble formed faster and faster at the pit of your stomach. Burning and wanting to explode. One last image of him was enough.

Of him at the brink of his orgasm, deep and raspy pants leaving his lips, brows furrowed as he slammed into you repeatedly.

Your body shuddered. Uncontrollable soft moans left you, the other palm fast enough over your mouth as you kept grinding against your hand. You spasmed whole. Your pussy, your thighs, your every muscle felt the rush. Aftershocks ripped through you so carelessly and hard that it had you lightheaded.

You slowed your finger down, the sudden wetness on your palm all too filthy and gross. You sniffed, blinking in an attempt to collect yourself.

The fragments of high still in your blood, rushing through and slowly subduing.

You shook your head, eyes moving down all over the table, hand slowly retracting from your underwear.

Yeah...

You should go clean up.

———

The week leading up to the conference was pretty usual. Wake up, classes, breaks, study at the library, go home and pray your dad won't stop you for some assistance like he usually did.

The morning of the conference you showed up earlier. The university groupchat reminding everyone signed up to be at least two hours earlier, to helt set everything and review the presentations one last time.

The faculty building looked completely different this early in the morning. Students moved through the hallways carrying cardboard boxes and stacks of papers. The smell of coffee hung in the air, professors already rushing from room to room while discussing schedules and presentations.

The conference hadn't even started and somehow everybody already looked stressed.

You adjusted the volunteer badge hanging around your neck and headed toward the registration desk. The duty that was assigned to you by the department dean. Sad to say it was the boring part.

A professor spotted you before you could properly settle in and immediately handed you a stack of folders.

"Can you take these to room 204, please."

You nodded, hands already grabbing the papers. The folders felt heavier than they actually were as you carried them down the hallway. You huffed out in exhaustion, your being clinging to those four hours of sleep since the exams are coming up in a week.

People in a hurry passed by you now and then, eager to get everything done as soon as possible.

Your steps felt heavy. Like you were a walking corpse. That's how you felt.

The room numbers switched fast as ypt studded down the corridor.

200,

201,

202...

Then you saw him.

Your steps almost faltered.

Riki stood near the main lecture hall, carrying two folded poster boards under one arm. His blond hair looked brighter under the morning light pouring through the large windows. A presenter badge hung around his neck too, lazily turned sideways as if he couldn't be bothered to fix it.

One hand shoved lazily into the pocket of his blue straight fit jeans, the polo shirt he wore giving a completely different vibe he usually carried with himself and his stylish persona.

It makes look him more... Nerd-like.

And it fits him so good.

And the glasses?

You didn't know he wore glasses. It made your breath caught in a way that didn't feel like it should. Then you noticed he wasn't alone. A girl stood beside him. The same one from the meeting.

They are presenting together. At the meeting they led you all through their concept and basics of the way they are going to present.

She was holding a clipboard while explaining something, her hands moving animatedly as she spoke. And he listened, nodding his head attentively as he looked down at her smaller frame.

He answered.

The girl laughed. And he laughed too.

You observed everything, eyes one last time skimming over him attire before you continued walking.

Room 204.

There it is.

You spent the first twenty minutes sorting name tags behind the registration desk — names, departments, universities. Simple tasks.

Every few minutes another volunteer passed by. Every few minutes somebody asked you a question. Then a shadow appeared beside the table. Your fingers paused immediately.

"Those are supposed to be alphabetized."

Your heart nearly launched itself into your throat. You knew that voice. That deep voice.

You looked up and there he was.

Riki stood on the other side of the table. Close enough now that you could see the faint shadows beneath his eyes, the glasses reflecting the light. Close enough to notice the presenter badge hanging crookedly around his neck. Close enough to remember exactly how much you hated being near him.

Or at least how much you were supposed to hate being near him.

His expression remained completely neutral. No recognition beyond the basic acknowledgment one student would give another. You could smell his perfume. His strong, masculine perfume. The one that had every female spiral at the simple whiff of it.

"Oh."

The response left your mouth before you could stop it. Brilliant, very brilliant. You cleared your throat right after. "Okay." Riki nodded once, eyes roaming the table.

"The presenters need their badges separated too." His voice remained flat. Professional, almost bored. "Professor Henry asked me to tell you."

You stared at him for a second. Then immediately looked back down at the table.

"Okay."

Another nod. A second passed. Then he was gone.

The crowd swallowed him almost immediately. You watched his back disappear between volunteers carrying folders and professors rushing toward presentation rooms before forcing yourself to look down at the stack of name tags again.

The silence around you suddenly felt louder.

Because what exactly had you expected?

For him to stop? For him to look at you differently? For something to happen?

Your fingers played with the pen in your hands. Nothing happened. He told you what needed to be done. You answered. The conversation ended.

And somehow that bothered you more than it should have.

———

The conference passed preety smoothly. It was done approximately by two pm. Students after that went to get lunch, some went to their dorms to take a rest before the big clean in the evening.

The organization was simple and tactical. Come early, get everything done, and then clean up the mess by tommorow. It was pretty exhaustiong to your already overstimulated self for the day being.

Well thank god the students actually, including you, decided it would be better to actually do it later and not right away since everyone seemed to be so out of themselves after the very busy day at the campus. The few hours of break passed quicker than you expected.

One moment you were eating with a couple of volunteers at a nearby café, absentmindedly stirring your drink while pretending to listen to the conversation around you. The next, you were already walking back through the faculty doors with the evening sun casting long shadows across the hallways.

The atmosphere had changed completely.

The conference was over.

No professors rushing from room to room anymore. No presentations. No nervous students checking their notes one last time before standing in front of an audience.

Just tired people cleaning.

Music quietly played from somebody's speaker somewhere down the hallway. Laughter echoed now and then through the building as students carried boxes, folded banners and pushed chairs across the floor.

For the first time all day, everything felt relaxed, almost casual.

You found yourself helping clear one of the lecture halls, stacking abandoned programs into cardboard boxes and collecting forgotten water bottles from beneath chairs.

Your legs hurt, your shoulders hurt. And somehow your social battery had completely died somewhere around noon. You barely spoke. Just nodded whenever somebody gave you instructions and continued working.

The less interaction, the better.

Unfortunately, fate seemed to disagree.

The storage room was cooler than the rest of the building. Dimmer too.

Stacks of folded tables lined one wall while chairs were piled nearly to the ceiling on the other. You were busy organizing a box of leftover conference materials when the door opened behind you.

The sound barely registered at first until a familiar voice thanked somebody outside. Then the door shut loudly. Your stomach immediately tightened.

Of course.

Of course it was him.

Riki carried another stack of chairs inside, setting them against the wall with a dull metallic clatter. Silence followed as you kept sorting papers, back turned to him.

He kept stacking chairs, the clatter of metal loud enough in the tight room. Neither of you said anything. A thick glob of saliva dropped down your throat as you focused on the task on hand. Focused on literally anything else. The silence stretched painfully.

One chair. Then another. Then another.

Until somehow the words slipped out before you could stop them.

"You presented well."

The room went quiet. Even the sound of chairs stopped. Your eyes widened slightly, regret rising in your chest fast. Riki paused midway through setting another chair down. "...Hm?"

You stared stubbornly at the cardboard box filled with God knows what in front of you. Too late to take it back now. "Your presentation." Your voice sounded smaller than you intended. "It was good." Silence followed. Long enough to make heat crawl up your neck. Long enough to make you wish the floor would simply open and swallow you whole.

You simply rummage now through the box, things clattering around.

"Thanks."

Simple. Short.

He didn't even bother to stop, to add something more. He kept arranging the chairs, focus back on the wooden furniture. Your hands stopped, resting on top of the sides, gripping the cardboard as you absentmindedly stared at the content of the box. Your jaw tightened. Flexed as you tried to stop the next words coming out of you. You really did.

But—

"You and the girl... did a good job." You swallowed. "The—" You inhaled, eyes slwllyl closing as your voice was down to almost a whisper—tender. "The chemistry was...there."

You paused again.

The words sounded strange the moment they left your mouth.

Not wrong, just a little too specific. The room fell quieter then before. A chair scraped against the floor, making you silently wince.

You heard the movement stop altogether. Slowly, you looked down at the random papers inside the cardboard box, pretending to be fascinated by whatever was printed on them. Behind you, Riki let out a quiet breath.

"Chemistry."

He repeated the word carefully, as if tasting it. Your stomach immediately tightened.

You wished he would just let it go, forger everything, ignore you just like the past few weeks and move on. Get put of this room and leave you to wind down. Alone.

Instead, the silence stretched. Your heartbeat ringed inside of your ears. The silence was so loud, so uncomfortable since he was probably looking at you. Your mind spiraled. And somehow the thought of his eyes on you made it impossible to turn around. "You got all that from a twenty minute presentation?" There was something in his voice now.

Something subtle, not quite amusement nor quite mockery, but something in between. Your grip tightened around the edge of the box. "I was just saying." You replied quietly.

"Hm." The sound was low. Thoughtful.

You finally risked a glance over your shoulder.

Big mistake.

Riki was leaning against the stack of chairs now, arms crossed loosely over his chest. His head tilted slightly to one side as he watched you.

He... had a different outfit on. He was in a simple black hoodie, forearms exposed by the rolled sleeves. Black sweats clinged to his lean figure, just adding to the simple but still edgy look on him. Hair slightly tousled and more relaxed then before during the conference itself, glasses gone. He must have went home right after, definitely showered since the smell that you tried so hard to ignore as he entered the room was intoxicating. Clean and masculine.

Not that you realized he wasn't anywhere right after as everyone had the lunch together.

This was more him.

The attention and the weight of his gaze immediately made heat crawl up your neck.

"You seemed pretty sure."

You looked away immediately. Heart rate seemed to rise indescribably fast. Then you spoke, almost a whisper — tender and shy, meeting his eyes over your shoulder again. "I don't know."

A quiet chuckle escaped him. The sound bounced around the small storage room. Your face burned. Because somehow you knew. You knew he wasn't talking about the presentation anymore.

Not really.

And judging by the look in his eyes, he knew it too. "You don't?" The question came easy. His gaze stayed fixed on you, brow raised as a slight smirk pulled at the corner of his mouth. He waited.

You swallowed. Suddenly finding the cardboard box in front of you incredibly interesting. Riki's tongue pressed briefly against the inside of his cheek, gaze slowly dropping down your figure. Your small fragile shoulders, the was the top hugged you. And then lower. To the skirt you wore since the morning, not too short but not too long. Just perfect for the professional setting that took place this morning. He can't forget that the glasses were an unavoidable detail to it. You style was completely different today.

Oh he knew what this was about.

He could feel it.

It bothered you so much. So much that he didn't talk to you for the past few weeks, call you up about the tutoring, not even glance at you. A small shake of his head followed as he delivered a bite to his cheek. Almost like he couldn't believe you — or maybe couldn't believe how obvious you were being.

"Right."

The single word was enough. Enough to tell you he wasn't buying it for a second. The silence that followed felt unbearable. You swallowed hard, fingers fumbling with a stack of papers before immediately setting them back down. Suddenly you couldn't remember why you were standing there in the first place.

The storage room felt smaller than before, warmer even. Your gaze stayed fixed on the cardboard box, anywhere but him.

A quiet scoff reached your ears.

When you finally looked back, Riki was still leaning against the stack of chairs, still watching you. His arms crossed loosely over his chest, eyes scanning you head to toe. It made your skin crawl.

"What?"

The word left your mouth before you could stop it. His lips twitched, eyes meeting yours. "Nothing."

An obvious lie. You immediately looked away again. Your pulse had started doing stupid things. The kind of things you hated. The kind of things that only seemed to happen around him lately. "You know..." He started casually. "Most people would've commented on the actual presentation."

Heat crawled up your neck harder then before. You busied yourself gathering random papers from the box. "I did."

"Hm."

You hated that sound.

Especially when it came from him. And what you hated more is how much liked it, enjoyed it. "You talked about me and my partner." Your hands froze, papers tight in your grip just for a second. A second too long before Riki noticed.

"You seemed pretty interested in that part."

You opened your mouth. Closed it, opened it again and thanked God you were turned with your back toward him. You moved over to your side, to the drawers that had all the documents stacked in them, before you somehow managed to open it calmly. The sound of the metal draws loud and screeching though the room.

"There was nothing wrong with what I said." Riki scanned your side profile.

"I didn't say there was."

His voice remained annoyingly calm, pretty steady. Meanwhile you felt like your entire brain had stopped functioning. You gathered the last few folders and held them against your chest, the ones you hoped were the same that the other students told you to bring over.

"I should go."

The words came out too quickly, too eager. Immediately giving away your nervousness. Riki's head tilted slightly. Almost curious as kept on jabbing at you.

"Should you?"

Your stomach dropped. You hated how easily he could do that to you. How your body reacted to him so fast. How easily he could make a simple question sound loaded and play with you.

You moved toward the door anyway. Pretty slowly. Because staying felt impossible — but leaving somehow felt worse. Your hand almost found the handle. For a brief second you thought you will escape.

Then his voice came again.

"Was she the problem?"

You froze, your heart and breathing seemed to stop altogether. The question hit harder than it should have. Your fingers tightened around the folders. He uncrossed his arms, body leaning back against the stacked up chairs, high enough for his hips to lean back against the edge.

"No—"

"No?" He repeated, head tilting mockingly. Your grip tightened around the folders.

"No."

The corner of his mouth twitched.

Not a smile but worse. Something amused. His tongue ran over the inside of his cheek, fingers tapping repeatedly playfully against the chairs between his slightly spread thighs.

"You sure?"

Heat overflowed you and you hated that question. Hated the confidence behind it. Hated that he sounded like he already knew the answer. Your eyes dropped to the handle right within your reach, anywhere but him. Your hand was mid air before;

"You think about it, don't you?"

Riki's head tilted in a mocking manner, eyes narrowing at your stiff figure. Your hand paused, it felt like you were stuck in time, in this position, unable to move. You tried to ignore it. Tried to find something else he could be aiming at. But deep down you knew.

"About us fucking..." He said it so casually, so shamelessly. "About me."

Riki kept on dissecting you with his feline eyes. He just knew. He knew you couldn't stop thinking about it. He could bet his life on it. It was all there. Your nervousness, your constant glancing during lectures, during the conference. The comment earlier, the initiation of conversation itself and the hesitation when wanting the exit the storage just now.

It was all too blatantly obvious.

And you were bad at hiding it.

Your inhaled sharply, mind too busy going into a chaos that you didn't care it was so loud and transparent. "I-I'm leaving—"

Your fingers slowly wrapped around the handle, cheeks and neck on fire. You need to get out. Fast. But just as you pulled the door slightly open, a hand came over yours. The sudden warmth engulfing you from the back.

"Don't you wanna use me like I used you?"

You froze. His other arm circled your waist, pulling you flush against his front as he pushed the door closed, big hand taking your wrist and pinning it to the door. His scent was too strong, your senses sensitive to his everything. His touch, his smell. And when he nuzzled his nose against your ear, breath tickling your nape, you swore your heart dropped in your heels.

"Have your sweet little revenge on me, hm?"

Your fingers tightened the folders to your chest, alarms going off in your head. No words were able to escape your paralized self. You whole nervous system screamed, muscles tensing the more you felt him against you.

"Please..."

He nudged his hips against your lower back, grinding once over your flimsy skirt, voice whiny and desperate. He delivered a kiss to the side of your neck, sound echoing the space. You were stunned.

Your mouth almost fell open, from the shock. And from the way you felt your core pool with warmth, the sudden rush of blood to your clit making it burn.

He left pecks all over the side of your neck, goosebumps arising at the feel of his plump lips against you. His teeth grazed your ear, nibbling lightly at it as he let out a needy, shaky breath. Riki's fingers dug into the side of your torso before he uncircled the arm from your waist, hand sensually carresing your hip. The skirts doing a poor job at staying down as he purposely made sure it was rising with each stroke.

It all played out too slow. Painfully slow.

His big palm set your skin on fire. You tensed up, a sharp inhale followed as he held your wrist against the door, his front flush against your frame nor giving you any space to move even if you wanted to.

But did you actually want to?

He whined against your ear, hips bucking into you again. And that was enough for the folders to drop to the floor. Your grip loosened so suddenly it even made you jolt, a squeak escaping you as the papers hit the hard concrete ground.

Riki kept on feeling you up, his hot breath teasing your sensitive skin. His hand traveled right over your hip and dipped between your thighs, your skirt bunching up on his bracelet-adorned wrist. "I will be so good to you..." He rasped out, whispering before he bit your ear. You shuddered the moment his hand went under your skirt, middle finger fast enough caressing your slit right over your thin underwear. "Please..."

He felt your thighs shake, your body betraying you completely. His finger dipped into your covered slit, sliding down till your entrance. "Ruin me. Make me regret it."

His fingertip dipped into the slight dent. Wet. Already so wet. You gasped, hand he held against the door clutched into a fist, other one grabbed his forearm. He thrusted the tip of his finger up, just enough to poke you but not quite fill you. The thin ruined underwear gave him a nice resistance, rebounding his shallow thrusts so teasingly good.

You clenched around nothing, the friction teasing your entrance was enough to set you on fire. His body all of a sudden felt closer then ever, the scent luring out a low moan from you. His strong chest felt so solid, an anchor that held your weak body upright.

Riki felt you shudder in his hold, suppressing a mocking grin that threatened to appear on his smug face. He kept breathing hard against your ear, purposely fanning your skin with his warm breath, lips now and then brushing against it. Riki tightened his grip on your wrist against the wooden door, fingertip teasing your gaping entrance — moving shallowly in, rolling around the tense hole.

"You feel so good, baby."

And that comment alone had you biting your bottom lip, suppressing the reaction after that nickname left his mouth. He felt you tense up even more, hips shifting just a bit for him, thrusting against his finger. The hand that held onto his forearm flexed, eyes closing in delight.

Riki smiled mischievously against your neck, teeth grazing the burning flesh. The wetness against his hand felt heavy and thick the more he played with you, teasing it till he could feel it ooze and drench the flimsy material.

You let your forehead meet the door a little too harshly. A breathy low moan echoed the small room, your grip on his forearm tightened as you let yourself feel everything. His finger poking at your covered cunt, the wetness coating his palm and the inner thighs. His smell, his strong forearm as you kept gripping it, his muscles flexing with each shallow thrust he delivered to your core. And even if you wanted you couldn't get away, his hand was over your hip before it was between your shaky legs, holding you up and against him as the other pinned your weak wrist to the door.

But then the overwhelming pressure between your thighs vanished, his arm was fast to grip your forearm and spin you around. Your back hit the door with a rattle as you let out a gasp of surprise. Before you could register how close to him you were, how your face almost touched his chest, it all happened in a blur — and he kissed you.

You felt his lips against yours, not for the first time. But now it different. It was soft and hungry. Not the usual angry undertone he carried the last two times something happened between you two. It was a new sensation.

You froze instantly. Arms went stiff by your sides and eyes wide. His hands cupped your cheeks, palms brought against your warm skin. He molded your lips sensually but still with a hurry so indescribably and needy. Riki's body pressed up against yours, pushing you harder against the door.

And somehow, against all that doubt and the shock — you melted into the kiss. Hands shot up to his elbows, carresing against the thick hoodie, lips moving in a reckless rhythm he set. He pulled away slightly, just enough to utter as his hips rolled against your pelvis.

"Feel that?"

You did.

He was hard.

Riki smirked at your glossy eyes behind the thin glasses, lips parted in the anticipation of his next move. He pecked them, the smacking sound eliciting a reaction so unexpected — you shivered. Your whole body almost giving out.

"It's all for you..."

His kisses moved down your jaw, the sticky saliva leaving a trail. He kept on kissing each and every part of your neck. "Please..." He begged against your skin, feeling you heat up even more. You couldn't control your hard breathing, a subtle moan tore from your lips as his teeth grazed the column of your throat. Your head feel back against the door, eyes closed tightly.

You pressed your thighs together at a poor attempt to dull the creeping and already pulsing arousal. It was dripping. Your pussy was dripping. Rikis head came up, face to face with your dazed expression before he left one more peck on your slick lips, tongue coming right after to leave a teasing lick on your bottom lip.

You shuddered.

He smirked.

A desperate deep moan left him. Grinning teasingly right in your face, his thumbs brushing your cheeks. He held your gaze, hips grinding against you. His cock was raging with blood. It throbbed subtle under the pressure of his clothes.

How could he let go of this chance though? To fuck you here in the storage room, where anyone could walk in searching for him. When you had this skirt and revealing top on, your breasts hugged perfectly. The way they sat begging for his eyes to devour the decolette.

The intensity of his eyes made you gulp, holding the contact in awe as you started lowering yourself against him. Your knees bucking on the way down, Riki's eyes following your descending figure before his palms were fast to squeeze the sides of your neck, pulling you up. "No no no—" He spoke as he shook his head slowly. You gulped again, legs bringing you back up. Just as you stood up, he was the one that descended, eyes holding your own as his knees hit the ground. Riki's hands carresed your waist, your hips over the clothes. His gaze penetrating the skirt he was face to face with.

He glanced up through his lashes, the dim light in the tight room illuminating him so beautifully. The shadows casting on his features, the golden hue of his hair. It was all too ethereal. Riki's palms went down to your thighs, simply carresing — up, down, and around; feeling your skin prickle with goosebumps wherever his touch reached.

One thing got his attention. The small lanyard poking from the small pocket of your skirt. The one that held the volunteer badge. He simply smiled to himself, hand getting the small thing from your skirt. He stretched the strap, eyes glancing at your quiet self as your kept observing every move of his.

"Wha—"

You stopped the moment he got it around his wrists. He layed it out over the one before he went around the other, his mouth assisting. Riki's teeth grabbed onto the one end as he made sure it went around a couple of time. He expertly got it tight, his teeth pulling at the long strap. Your heart picked up again, throat felt dry and dehydrated and no matter how many times saliva went down your esophagus, it was not helping.

A small smirk tugged at his lips as he finished off the bondage — on himself. He licked his lips once, satisfied with the tightness and the knot. He glanced up at you again, a yearning shine behind his pupils as he moved.

Riki turned his back to the door, sitting down against the same wood you are against. He kicked the forgotten folders to the side with leg, his bonded hands came next to his head, hooking them onto the door handle.

He looked up at you by his side, at your struck face as you tried to realize what was going on.

"Y/N—"

You felt a sudden rush of adrenaline.

"Please."

Riki moaned, eyes furrowing and head meeting the hard door. Your eyes moved over his figure on their own. His hoodie that clung to him, the black sweats and the so obvious tent under them. He bucked his hips into the air, a whine escaping his parted lips.

You finally moved.

You shaky legs led you a step of two away from the door finally turned to face his layed out body at the floor. You scanned him again, shamelessly.

He looked so...

So submissive.

Definitely not the usual him. The usual energy he carried with himself whenever he entered a room.

You would lie if you said it didnt make your pussy throb. A mess in your panties getting even messier. Stickier.

Your eyes moved down to his white tidy sneakers right in front of your feet — you moved again. You kneeled down, drinking in this rare sight of him. Tied up, hands bonded on the handle right by his head.

He was now the one at your mercy. Your will.

And it made your body feel like it might overheat any second.

He observed you and the way you hesitantly moved. You so didn't know what you were doing. It made him scof under his breath, hiding his smirking mouth into one of his biceps' hanging in the air right by his face.

"Come here..."

He gestured with his chin towards him, finally pulling you out of your trance and the ogling at his layed out body. You were moving forward, on your knees and palms right over him. Your breath hitching the moment you crawled over, his scent close again.

You stopped when you reached his lap, eyes hesitantly glancing at the bulge before you sat down on his thighs. "Fuck baby, sit over it." Riki's knees raised from the ground, his hips bucking at the same time and you slid over to his hips. He hissed the moment you grazed his boner, cock pulsing and leaking already.

You on the other hand gasped, the sudden strong move from him made you almost crash onto his chest as you grabbed the sides of Riki's waist. You readjusted your glasses that threatened to fall of as your back straightened.

And that's when you realized how close you actually were. How his throbbing, rock hard bulge poked your covered pussy. Riki's breath ghosted your face before he uttered, low and seductive;

"Kiss me."

He smashed your lips together. His mouth devouring yours before you could even react. Your hands shot to his chest, resting there as hia tongue carresed your bottom lip asking your entrance — and you let him. His tongue mingled with your, stroking and circling the warm muscles around your cavity.

The wet sounds filled the space between you both. His expert tongue playing with yours so softly but demandingly. A soft moan vibrated between your clasped lips, getting swallowed by his hungry ones.

Your fingers tightened around the fabric of his clothes, fisting it as you got bolder with your moves — tilting the head and switching your sides, pressing your own tongue hard against his, gliding it with controlled force. He moaned into your mouth, letting you take over.

It was getting messy.

Saliva dripped down your chin as you kept savouring his taste. He was so sweet. Intoxicating and addictive. He kept on kissing you with all his might, trying to not loose himself in the moment too much. But you were making it hard.

Bubble of arousal grew in the pit of your stomach, goosebumps raised all over your warm skin. A tiny twitch against your core, pressed so firmly but still not quite, made your own hips wake up. They pressed hard against Riki's cock, a drag so sudden but still expected made him groan into your mouth.

You pulled back just slightly, breaths mingling and teasing the swollen lips. An unexplainable fire rose in you, fueling your whole being and running it on a high so new but tempting.

You glanced over his head, where his restrained wrists stood hanging. Riki grinned teasingly against your lips, eyes switching from your eyes down to your swollen lips. "I can't touch you." He spoke throght the grin, shaking his head cockily.

You didn't need a reminder because you fast enough moved yourseld from his lap, sitting lower on his thighs again. The tent was embarrassingly large, the dark material damp from both — him and you.

Riki licked his lips, gaze stuck to you and the way your lips parted as you stared at his lap. A small smirk made its way on his face, hips rolling experimently under your attention. It was enough for your hands to fist the baggy fabric right under the same painful bulge, slowly pulling it down.

Riki raised his hips, assisting your unsure self as the waistband of the sweats slowly went down and over his hard cock. He hissed, the tight band going over his sensitive tent, pressing on every crevice as you just simply pulled it down. It made him whine, eyes rolling to the back of his head at the unexpected friction.

You pulled it all the way over his throbbing cock, the waistband stopping right under it. You looked up at him again.

He looked ethereal.

Your eyes were back to the waiting bulge under the tight boxers. A damp patch larger and darker. You knew what was next. You wanted to do it. But you still hesitated.

You glanced at him for the nth time, waiting for him to say something, to guide you.

Riki said nothing. His lidded eyes stared back at you, hair messy, lips slick. But then he nodded. And it was all you needed. You shaky hands reached for the waistband under his hoodie, fingers grazing the hot skin of his pelvis before you pulled it down. Riki raised his hips again, making sure the band went lower as you pulled only the front down.

You gulped the moment his cock stood between you two. Hard, pulsing and red. It was leaking, slick coating it down to the base.

He was quiet. You stared.

The only thing filling the painful silence was your breathing. Small whiffs of air tgta escaped your nostrils trying to cool you off from the overwhelming heat that flooded your system.

You could feel yourself leak.

Oh God.

But then like a bullet hit you, fear enveloped you. You were both in the middle of a clean up. Tons of other student littered the campus wing you were at, moving around and making sure to finish it as fast as possible. It was already late.

What if someone walked in?

For real this time.

It could happen.

"What if someone walks in? Looking for us?"

Your soft voice broke the tense atmosphere. Adrenaline rushed through you, eyes stuck to Riki's. Still in his lap. Still with his cock right in front of you. And you didn't move.

He chuckled, eyes glimming with something so powerful and controlling. "Then let them see."

It made your breath hitch. The sudden warmth simmering at the pit of your abdomen. Harder. Faster. Riki catched the sudden stiffness of your thighs on his own, his cock twitching at the mere thought and anticipation of what you are going to do next — looking all innocent, clumsy, unsure on his lap. His rock hard length leaking more and more against his hoodie staining the black fabric.

You didn't need anything else said. You were too into your head. Too lost in the boiling, dangerous feeling that led you.

You raised your palm to Riki's lips, offered, open. Slowly. He stared at it, a smirk threatening to appear on his perfect lewd face. But he didnt let that happen. His gaze switched between your palm, right at his chin and your hungry but still unsure eyes.

He held the eye contact, lips coming over to your palm. He collected the warm saliva in his mouth — and let the glob of spit fall from his pursed lips right into your palm.

The sight was filthy.

And it got you going so bad.

Your hand moved down. Nervousness ate from the inside. But still you wrapped your hand around him, for the first time feeling the heaviness of his warm cock in your palm. He pulsed. A low whimper escaped Riki as you started stroking him —up, down, up down. Wetness mixed all over, his spit with his precum. It was sticky and messy.

You fingers gripped him with a delightful pleasure, mocking all the way up to his red tip and down till his base. "Shit—" Riki cursed under his breath, eyes closed and head met the wood behind him. His arms in the air felt limp, all the blood rushing down to his pelvis as you pumped him, slowly.

"Faster, please—"

He whined. And you gradually sped up. The sound filled the room. Rikis chest moved rapidly, a thin layer of cold sweat emerged on his skin. Your hand was working him over so well. The pressure was perfect, the way your hand wrapped around him. It was all perfect.

You twisted your wrist when you got to the tip, collecting more of the sticky precum and he groaned. You met yourself free, delivering experimental squeezes as you kept gliding over him. You own arousal sticking to everything under your skirt — you underwear, your inner thighs. Hell, you even swear some of it dripped down to Riki's sweats.

Your hips grinded on their own in a search of friction but none of that came. You just humped the air, the way you were positioned on his lap made it hard to reach any kind of leverage, only if you moved over to straddle one of his thighs — but you didn't.

You kept on sensually rocking your hips, hand stroking him repeatedly. Riki felt himself almost lose his mind. The restraint on his wrists only fueling the pressure that formed gradually in his pelvis. His breathing sped up and with it your hand too. Your eyes were stuck to your moving palm and his throbbing cock.

Fuck.

You couldn't take it anymore. You want it inside of you.

Riki was on the verge of loosing his mind, he gritted his teeth at the mere feel of his release approaching. Hard breaths left his nose, eyes tight shut as he hid his face in his hanging upperarm.

"Don't let me come. Don't." He spoke through the harsh breaths, a peaking eye of his making sure you heard him. And you did. You glanced up to his flushed face. His lips were parted, gasping for air as he kept on holding your gaze, face in an attempt hidden in a sleeve of his hoodie.

You stopped.

He closed his eyes in recollection, head leaning back against the wood. His arms felt pliant, all the blood escaped the hanging limbs. They felt heavy. Heavier than they actually are. But you two just started.

Before Riki could even process anything else, your lips were on his. You devoured him right away. Your tongue fighting with his, the desperation radiating off you both. Your hands found their place on his shoulders, body moving closer to his torso, raising yourself so you tower over him. Smacking sounds filled the room, salivas mixing in a messy rhythm.

You moaned against Riki's mouth, your tongue felt too heavy with all the work. And he groaned back in response, cock twitching at the filthy kisses you two exchanged. He tugged at the strap that held him restrained before he pulled away from your lips, letting your tongue rest as he trailed his kisses down your jaw.

Your hands flew around his head, fingers playing with his hair at the back as you pressed yourself harder against him, exposing your neck to him. And he dived into it. Sticky openmouthed kisses were left down your skin. A moan escaped you, one strap of your tight top slid from your shoulder as Riki left a slight bite into it. He pulled back, just enough to get a look of your cleavage.

He licked his lips, muttering a low curse under his breath before he delivered a series of fast pecks all around your collarbones. "Yes—" You moaned out, eyes shutting as you held him close to you. Fuck, you need his hands on you.

You want them on you.

But a glance at his tied up hands was enough for another forceful rush of arousal to sprint through your veins. Your cheeks were overheating, the room felt suffocatingly hot.

Another whine escaped you as his plump lips closed around the skin right on top of your right breast, sucking it hard and letting his tongue poke it repeatedly. "Shit Riki—"

He released it, a red mark blooming on the tender skin before he trailed his kisses up your neck, your jaw, before;

"I need you to ride me."

You nodded eagerly, still on the high of the make out. You released his hair, hand fast under your skirt. God...

You are dripping.

Everything is wet, damp.

You wasted no time in moving your panties to the side, a hurry never seen before that there was no time for the clothes off.

You raised yourself on your knees, hand hastily grabbing his wet cock. Riki hissed at the sensitivity of his lenght. Your greedy hand was fast to position him at your entrance, hips angling so he would slide in perfectly.

He stretched you so deliciously. A burn followed right away as you let yourself sink down on his cock, thighs trembling and breathing stopping all together. You inhaled sharply, pausing midway before you sinked down all the way till his balls. Riki groaned, lip between his teeth as he relished in the feeling of you wrapping around him, muscles tensing and adjusting.

"Fuck yeah—"

Riki moaned, head slamming back against the door harshly. He bucked his hips, a sudden move making you tense.

Your fingers tightened onto the fabric of his hoodie, glasses sliding down as you took a deep breath.

You have never done this.

You never took control.

You never were the one to command.

So when Riki whined once again, lips parting as he uttered a desperate 'please' — it was all it took for you to start moving. You raised yourself, knees hurting against the ground as you slid up his dick, the wetness making the glide so smooth but still messy.

A breath of preparation entered your lungs before you lowered yourself down, a silent cry leaving you. Your pussy burned, the way he split you sent shivers down your spine. Your clit pulsed harshly with a need so insatiable it became unbearable.

You raised again, and then dropped.

Riki's breath hitched, fingers digging into his palms to try and control himself. To make sure he doesn't just turn you two over and fuck you senseless into the hard concrete floor right here until you cried. Until you begged him to give you more. Fill you with his warm cum till it sipped out of you.

But he kept his composure.

Letting you be the star today.

You picked up the rhythm gradually, moving on his lap with a amateur edge, sliding up, down, up, down. Your knees already hurting, thighs already burning. But the burning desire kept you going.

Breathless moans filled the room, Riki's curses joining in as you kept bouncing on him. "Fuck— So good baby...Mmm..." He spoke through the haze that made his head lighter. He glanced down to where you two are connected but his view was ruined by your skirt.

The skirt that had hidden everything that is going on — the way your juices mixed creating this filthy sound that echoed the room, the way he split your tight pussy open as you kept on dropping down on his thick cock. It made him whine in frustration, eyes tightly shut as he threw his head back again.

Everything had you drunk on the moment.

Your light headedness, his scent. Him.

Bur most importantly, his big cock that was filling you up as you pleased. The sound of skin on skin reached your ears repeatedly, your fingers twitching against the fabric of his clothes. "Oh God—" You moaned out, hands moving to anchor you somewhere else. Until one of them somehow ended up on his neck.

His adams apple right under your palm as you delivered a subtle squeeze. It made him groan. He opened his eyes, lidded gaze meeting yours as you kept on moving over him. You squeezed your eyes in endurance. It was too much. You legs felt weird, too twitchy and weak. You slowed down, letting yourself take a breather through your parted lips, gasping for air as your walls tensed around Riki's shaft.

Riki watched all of it happen.

The sudden tiredness in your moves hitting you like a truck. The twitchiness of your pussy around him as you sunked down. He felt your fingers dip into the sides of his neck, nails making him quietly wince as you tried to keep it together. Really tried.

Your head lowered, shoulders slouching as the other hand was squeezed into a tight fist by his waist.

"Grind on me."

His deep voice snapped you out of your focus, making you blink away the tears that pricked at your eyes and look at him. "Huh?" You were caught confused, movement finally coming to a complete stop. "I said, grind. It will feel better." Riki spoke again, sternly. His chest moved rapidly, trying to catch his breath.

You blinked. Mind hazy and core on fire.

You moved your eyes down, releasing the fabric you clutched so hard by his side to adjust your glasses back in place. And you moved. Hand flew to grab the hem of his hoodie, raising it and exposing his lower pelvis. His v-line, his belly button and the faint lean abs that hid underneath.

It had you going insane, you hips found the new motion — better. You kept grinding against him, his cock hitting new placed inside of you, the feel of his sweaty skin against your clit as you grinded only added to the pleasure. It was better. Definitely better.

"Does it feel better?" Riki's asked teasingly.

"Mhm..."

Your answer was short, a eager nod paired with the sped up of your hips, eyes stuck to his flexing abdomen. Riki let his back slide a little down the door, giving you more room to move and himself a more comfortable position as you kept on rubbing yourself against him.

"Yeah— That's right." He smirked, his bottom lip between his teeth as he stared at your moving hips. The damn skirt still in the way but not stopping him from imagining the way your wetness spread all over his pelvis ad your little clit dragged across it. The way your juices mixed, coating his heavy balls till oblivion as you kept on griding.

Your hand flexed around his neck, your body growing in temperature faster than you could imagine. A string of moans escaped you. The way his cock hit deeper than ever, the motion stimulating all the right places — your clit, your lips, your walls. You kept on moving back and forth, the hunger in your hips not persisting. "Fuck...Riki.." A whine erupted from you, chest felt tight and flaming with heat, your upper body pressed to his in the midst of it, gazes colliding in a dangerous flame. And he kept your eyes locked.

He nodded at you, reassuring the feeling that kept on growing in the put of your stomach. You let go of his neck hand coming down to anchor you at his waist as you kept on slamming his cock into you. Heavy breathing kept on ringing off the walls, heat overflowed the small space.

Your body felt like it will burst any second. Everything was overstimulating in the best sense possible. The feeling grew and grew, your pussy felt like it was on fire with each grind, your clit throbbed against his slick abdomen. The orgasm is close. So close.

You tensed your pelvic muscles, wanting it to last longer. Wanting to make him cum first. Since that's how it's supposed to go now — right? When he was the one on the receiving end, when he is the one that should be begging you to stop, that it's too much and he can't take it. Then why were you the one to almost scream out a plea as your body betrayed you.

Your pussy convulsed, quiet moans tore from your lips as your orgasm shook you to your core. Goosebumps pricked your sweaty skin, aggressive grinds against him followed. It onyl stimulated you more, prolonging the pleasure as you in the midst of it chanted out, your faces inches apart, breaths mixing;

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry — Im so sorry..."

The orgasm was at its highest, pussy convulsed around him as you grinded and grinded through it. Riki nodded reassuringly, eyes dancing between your lips and the lidded eyes that now and then closed tightly in embarrassment.

"It's okay. Ride it out. Ride it..." His voice trailed off, harsh breaths raising his chest as his fingers digged into his cold palms again. His own high approaching as you let yourself come undone on top of him, head almost nuzzling into his neck. You gradually slowed down, the remnants of the adrenaline still shaking your muscles. Your pussy was still recovering, convulsing around his shaft as you finally came to a stop.

You almost fell on his chest, harsh breaths trying to stabilize you. His length pulsed inside of you, your hips raised to get him out, the overstimulation was at its highest.

Riki's cock slipped out of you, it was followed a wince from you as your walls finally clamped together, your forehead almost hitting his shoulder before;

"Fuck..." He cursed under his breath, unhooked his arms from the handle. Blood finally rushed to the abandoned limbs as he started undoing the knot he himself so securely tied. His teeth pulled at the strap, somehow getting it loose before he pulled it off.

You slightly leaned away, still on his thighs, still wet and ruined as you observed his actions. Your blank face taking everything in. Riki rubbed one of his wrists, the strap left a deep, red, engraved indents in his skin. Riki's eyes met yours again, corner of his lips tugged upwards.

"You said you're sorry... Get on the chairs." He gestured with his chin behind you, right at the corner he was just earlier stacking the furniture. You looked over your shoulder. A couple of stacked chairs were right there by the high stacks. They were facing you, high enough for you to climb them but low enough for him.

You somehow pushed yourself up, legs felt like jelly as you moved across the storage room and right onto the chairs. You faced him, still breathing hard. Before you raised yourself up on the chairs Riki was already on his feet, steps fast enough bringing him over to you and he smashed your lips together. Roughly.

Your ass hit the edge of the top chair, hips moving back to sit on the stack as you both devoured each other. Riki's big palms held your face, his tongue poking at your mouth teasingly before he moved downy kissing your chin, than the jaw.

"Fuck, get on it and turn around." He spoke breathlessly between the kisses, pulling away to get a look at you. At your ruined face. The glossy eyes, glasses low on your nose, parted lips trying to catch your breath. His eyes glanced lower. Your chest. Your top straps falling off the shaky, burning shoulders.

A fucking fantasy.

You hummed in response, turning your back to him as your knee prompted you up onto the higher stack, effortlessly getting you up. Knees dug into the plastic, your hands shaky as they held onto the backrest of the same ones.

You are burning up.

It was all too much. Your head felt light, your body surrendering to the tremors that traveled through you with every breath your took.

But still you bent over.

The sharp plastic digging right under your chest, pressing against your ribs so uncomfortably. Moves of your lungs made it even harder to stay down — until you heard him, a smile audible in his tone.

"Good girl. Already knowing what to do."

Riki observed your back, the way it rose and suddenly faltered at his teasing words. You glanced back at him subtle over your shoulder and was met with him sizing you up, lip between his teeth as he drank you in.

Your heart skipped a beat, sudden nervousness arising in the deep of your pressed chest as you looked back to the floor and the furniture stacked up in front of you.

Riki's hands raised, palms pressing onto your hot skin right over the skirt. He carresed your hips, touch moving upwards. "What's up with you, huh?"

You gulped.

"Your style is...different today."

He reached your waist, the fight top letting you feel the roughness of his palms even over the fabric. "It suits you..." His voice trailed off as his hands rwched your bare shoulders, massaging them as his hips pressed against your ass. You felt it. His hard cock pressed against your skirt, heavy and needy.

He carresed your shoulders, feeling your skin prickled with goosebumps, his fingers hooked onto the bra straps tagt still clung to your skin, pushed them off as he continued to caress you, big palms sliding over to your collarbones. "But I like the baggy one better tho..." Your breathing hitched the moment he pressed harder against you, his strong form looming over you as his palms traveled lower and over your upperarms, tip of the fingers dipping into your bra cup. "It leaves more to the imagination honestly."

A exhale of pleasure left you when he cupped your breasts, pointer fingers moving over your nipples in a side to side motion as he kept on teasing the already hard peaks. Bra dug into your back harder with each move of his hands inside of it, switching from massaging to teasing your nipples. Another wave of heat overflowed you, arousal burning hotter then before between your drenches thighs. Your hips instinctively pushed back against him, his hard lenght resting right between your ass cheeks as he kept on playing with your tits.

"Please..."

You uttered out, eyes closed in pure ecstasy at the feel of his hands against you. It was even better then you imagined. His slender fingers worked you over into another dimension, his closeness adding to the high. "Impatient, are we?" Riki cocked his head to the side, gaze wandering down your back and the arch as you kept backing up on him. He pinched your nipples one last time before his hands pulled out from your bracup, earning a whine of protest at the loss of touch.

His hands were fast onto the hem of your skirt, raising it around your waist and finally revealing you. It was honestly embarrassing what a mess you were down there it made his brows shot up in amusement. "Damn..." His eyes drank in everything. The wetness coating your skin, your ass, the back of your thighs. Poor excuse of a underwear drenched like it was under a fucking faucet, stuck to every inch of crevices.

"Got this wet from bouncing on me just earlier?"

His finger traveled lower, hooking into the underwear right over your swollen pussy. The mild contact of his finger as it hooked onto it made you gasp in surprise. "Need these off." He peeled it off of you, getting it down your hips and your thighs. You raised your knees one by one, assisting him at getting them off fast. He didn't bother to throw it on the ground, instead leaving the tiny fabric clinging to one of your ankles.

You were now completely bare under his gaze. Riki watched the way you clenched around nothing, pulsing under he simplicity of his gaze. It made him chuckle. You were too far gone, everything felt like it could get you over the edge, a desperate whine reached his ears, urging him to do something. And he finally did.

The fat head of his cock pressed against your entrance, teasing the slick hole with the slight shift of his hips. You moaned out,fingers gripping the back of the chair. "This skirt irritated me so much earlier. Couldn't see shit when you rode me."

He pressed harder, the tip for swallowed by your walls. You hummed in response, fingers twitching against the plastic, body leaning down harder against the backrest. He moved forward harsher, letting his whole length enter you. You moaned when he filled you, the familiar stretch sending you completely drooling. He started moving, tip kissing your walls repeatedly as he fucked you with certainty and sterness. "You are taking me so good..."

Riki praised but with an invisible teasing edge. His hands found your hips, not pushing or pulling, just resting there. Your hips backed up against him and the overwhelming thrusts he delivered. He groaned the moment you squeezed him, but then —

A sound of steps and laughter right in the hallway. You froze. Riki didnt stop. The way he split you made it hard to completely surrender to the fear that bashed over you. He leaned over, fucking into you harder, faster — like he enjoyed this.

One of his arms found it's place beside your trembling hands that gripped the chair, breath fanning your ear. "You better stay quiet. Don't want them to see this—" He moved the hair from your ear, eyes scanning the furrowed brows and closed eyes as you tried to control the sounds that threatened to escape you.

He bit down on your earlobe, hot breath luring out a low, almost inaudible moan. "See me destroying this pussy so good, yeah?" Your breath hitched, blood rushing to your already swollen and throbbing clit as you bit your lip. "Or you do want that?" He left a slow, torturous lick on your ear, hips not faltering. You shook your head, eyes squeezing harder at the sudden knot forming in the pit of your stomach. Riki's cock pulsed, the sudden tenseness in your muscles luring out a deep chuckle from him.

"Yes you do."

The steps faded in the hall, laughter already inaudible in the midst of the shallow breaths of yours. "You would love that. Letting everyone know we fuck on the low. No one having a fucking clue about what we do when alone."

He panted against your ear, his hand tangled into your hair , fingers tugging at the roots. Your neck strained, head pulled back against his shoulder. He delivered a kiss to the side of your neck, lips brushing the place he just smooched. "You love this so much, baby. You just fucking love it."

You pressed your lips together, nostrils flaring at the big inhale you took. Your system felt like it was overheating, the constant pulsing of your clit made it overstimulating, the sweat that clung to your skin made it all too disgusting.

But you did love it.

His hips smacked and smacked against you, his cock reaching places and abusing spots that you never before knew existed. A moan slipped when he kept his rhythm constant. "Have nothing to say?" He smirked, hand coming over to smack you asscheek. A red hand print blooming as he squeezed the place, feeling your flesh in his palm. You moaned again,hips moving to meet his.

A burning sensation spilled down your core, everything felt sensitive as the knot grew. His thrusts sent you jolting against the chair, plastic digging into your ribs so painfully but that didn't matter. Not now. "Ahh— I'm...." You couldn't even bring yourself over to finish the sentence, to at least utter it out before your toes curled, back arched more against him a she keot on pounding you from the back. It all spilled over.

Your walls fluttered around him, a high moan escaped you as every seemed to shut down for a moment. Your ears ringed, a string of pleas and his name echoed the room, bouncing off the concrete walls as you same undone. "Shit—" He muttered, hips not faltering as he slammed into you mercilessly, making you take it as your moans lowered. "Yesyesyes—! Riki!"

You shamelessly moaned, your body spasming whole as the pressure easied. Everything felt lighter, your own body twitching as your hips moved back against him. A hand came to bring your glasses in place, fingers clenching them hard.

"Fuck..."

You cursed low under your breath, eyelids softly opening as you somehow mustered the strength. His thrust continued. A hand holding onto your waist as he chased his own release. His cock throbbed, pants left his slick lips. Riki's eyes closed, his exhale almost a warning as he cursed under his breath. You wanted to endure it. You did. But your limbs felt heavy, your pussy burning uncomfortably with each slide of his cock into you. You glanced over your shoulder, a tender touch over his hand;

"Riki... I can't take it..." You muttered out in a whine, his fingers dug into your waist before—

"Fuck, turn around and get on your knees."

He spat out, quickly pulling out as you hurriedly turned, sliding down from the chairs. Your legs felt like jelly, walls fluttering as they met again. The stickiness between your thighs almost making you grimace. Your knees met the floor with a thumb so loud but still quiet. Your eyes looked up and there he was right over you, tall frame swallowing you as his hand was fast around his hard and leaking cock. He stroked it. Fast. The other hand coming to the side of your face, getting the messy hair away, thumb pushing at your glasses in place.

Fuck, your glasses.

It had him weak.

His fingers tangled into your hair, chest moving with rapid short breaths as he felt the pressure rise in his abdomen. He moved over closer, one foot coming in between your knees as he kept on stroking himself right over your face. The slick sounds so loud for no reason.

Your hands found his thighs, holding yourself up so you wouldn't fall over since the tremors still shook you. "Fuck— Open that pretty mouth for me."

And you did.

You opened wide, tongue sticking out and ready to be painted with his cum. It made him groan, the pressure at the brink of releasing. And a glance at your eyes behind the glasses, looking so lost and dazed but still slutty enough as you looked him straight in the eyes was enough.

He pulled your mouth against him with a deep groan, thrusting into the welcoming warmth as the pressure snapped. Your slick cavity taking the jets of white as he kept fucking it into your throat.

You almost gagged, the thick fluid sticky and salty making you close your eyes in endurance. Tears pricked at your eyes, shoulders shook as he kept on pulling you against him. He moaned once he pulled out, forcing your head back to look at your face as you sniffed.

"Open."

He spoke sharply, feline eyes scanning your ruined face. Cheeks wet and warm, lashes damp and glasses still there but a quite erotic detail to everything.

You gulped down the thick semen, a grimace almost making its way to your face before you parted your lips, tongue went out.

You swallowed everything. All of it.

Riki let out a satisfied but still amused. "Good fucking girl." He patted your cheek, a inhale of recollection left him as he threw his head back and released his grip on you. You gulped, legs trembling as you got yourself up, the chairs your were just earlier on providing a leverage. You pulled the straps of your bra and top back up, the skirt feel into the place alone.

You wiped your nose, a weird heavy feeling still present on your tongue.

Riki got his hands through his blonde hair, pushing it back off his sweaty forehead. His hands were fast to tuck himself back into the underwear, pulling the sweats back into place. The subtle stains of fluid clinging to his hoodie and the sweatpants, more visible against the black fabrics.

"Shit." He cursed, his hands passing over then in a poor attempt of getting it off. But it was till there. Yeah, he has to sprint to the bathroom before anyone sees him.

You adjusted your self in silence, moving like you were afraid to make any noise. Afraid of actually becoming visible to him.

Like he didn't just rearrange your insides.

You reached down for your underwear tagt was ruined anyway, pulling it up your legs slowly and silently.

Riki finally looked at you, scanning the way you made small moves. Small and unsure. He turned away, steps carrying him towards the door. His hand was on the handle, ready to finally step out of the suffocating room that carried fragments of what just happened.

He paused.

Your eyes were stuck to his back, waiting for him to exit. To not even spare you glance.

Riki glanced over his shoulder, your eyes meeting as he turned toward you, hand still on the handle. Your breath hitched, eyes avoiding his intimidating gaze. He scanned you head to toe, faltering for a moment on your tremoring thighs.

"About the tutoring...I will text you so we can continue."

And he moved out of the room, leaving you confused and shaky. But even after everything, what scared you the most was the sincere and soft tone he said that with. A small smile at the end too.

Riki made his way straight to the bathroom, his steps hurried and eyes making sure there is no one else around. As he made his way down the hallway one thing kept bugging at him.

He wondered and didn't know,

What kind of relationship you two got into without each one of you even consenting to or acknowledging?

But he knew for sure,

He's going to have his fun.

———

! this is all work of fiction. in no way this is a representation of enhypen members nor do I believe this is how they behave in real life or condone these actions!

It’s in the way he’s always just had to be a step ahead of you. Like that time in the fifth grade when your teacher held a mock election for your government lesson, and he’d deliberately ran against you with the sole intention of annoying you. And when he won, he didn’t even do any of the things he’d promised! All he did was pass out whiteboards, and he always made sure to give you the one with the annoying black scribbles on them.

You went through high school like that, with him constantly one upping you in everything you did. He’d even almost beaten you for valedictorian, but you scored two and a half points higher than him on your AP Physics final and the spot was rightfully given to you. 

He didn't even seem mad about it, which made the entire thing even more infuriating. He’d spent years trying to prove he was better than you and didn't even flinch when it all amounted to nothing? What a tool.

University was supposed to be an escape. Not just from the mean high school girls and the boring small town you came from, but from him as well. You’d finally be able to breathe without him constantly hovering, you’d finally be able to relax without the constant worry that he was going to do something to ruin it.

So when you walked into your first day of classes at Decalis University, fully expecting to see no one familiar, you can imagine your absolute horror to see him sitting front and center like he owned the place.

He was already making good conversation with your professor, you could tell by how the older man was talking so admittedly with his hands and smiling like he couldn’t get enough of whatever it was Heeseung was talking about. 

That’s the thing about Heeseung, everyone around you always seems to think he’s this perfect, charming guy. They don’t see what he really is, not like you do. You seem to be the only person he decides to be his actual evil self with. Why he chose you, you aren’t entirely sure. You don’t think you ever will be.

But that was six months ago, and despite the giant Heeseung shaped stain on your university experience, the entire thing has been significantly better than high school. You don’t see him as much for starters, and when you do he seems too busy to actually try and annoy you. Not for a lack of trying though—those first few months were torture.

You’ve got an eight am class today, which means you have an excuse to make a stop at the coffee shop on campus. It’s right next to your dorm which is insanely convenient and definitely bad for your health, but you're a freshman in college. You don’t think you could name a single person who isn’t surviving off of cheap coffee and gas station noodles.

The line is long, which wouldn’t normally be an issue, but you’re running late and your professors decided he'll dock a letter grade for every tardy. You haven’t had to go through that pain yet, and you really don’t want to change that now.

You rock back and forth on your feet uncomfortably, the line seeming to move slower and slower. You almost consider saying fuck it and just going to class, but then you remember that you’re running off of two hours of sleep and decide you’d rather not fall asleep during your lesson.

It takes another ten minutes before you place your order, and then you’re solemnly waiting off to the side and trying to act like your nerves aren’t tangling up in your stomach.

“Long line, huh?”

You tense. You recognize that voice, and when you look up, the face that accompanies it is enough to ruin your entire morning more than it already has been. So much for not bothering you.

Sharp cheekbones, messy dirty blonde hair, big, beautiful shit brown eyes.

Your eyes narrow, lips curling downwards. At this point, you’re starting to believe your body's natural reaction to Lee Heeseung is immediate disdain. “Why are you talking to me?” You ask bluntly. No point in small talk with him, especially when you know he’s just trying to get under your skin by speaking to you.

He laughs, teeth on display as he does. “Are you this hostile with everyone when you first wake up?”

“Only people who annoy me.”

“I just made an observation, why would that annoy you?”

You shoot him a glare, crossing your arms over your chest. He knows exactly what he’s doing–he always has. His innocent act may work on every other person in this university, but not you. You know Heeseung, you know that getting under people's skin is his favorite pastime. You just wish you understood why he loves to do it to you specifically.

“Can you just…not? You know what you’re doing.”

“I promise I don’t.” The smirk threatening to break onto his lips says otherwise.

You take a deep breath and choose not to play into his game anymore. It’s pretty easy actually, because the barista calls out your name and you practically trip over your feet to grab it. You’ve got ten minutes to make it halfway across campus and into your lecture hall before you’re docked an entire letter grade. You’ve made it there with less.

You don’t bother saying goodbye to Heeseung, but you feel his gaze on you as you leave. Your skin prickles from the weight of it, but you don’t have the mental capacity to dwell on that right now. It’s too early for that.

Tonight’s the last game of the football season, which means practically the entire university showed up to the stadium to show their support, if support meant getting drunk off their asses.

You hadn’t planned to go, mostly because sports had never really been your thing, but Yunjin insists you have to come.

“It’ll be fun!” She pleads, her lower lip jutting out in a pout. She grabs your wrist and pulls on it, but you don’t budge from your spot at your desk. You told her that you had a big test to study for and that’s why you couldn’t go. It wasn’t exactly a lie, but you didn’t really need to study, you already knew the material like the back of your hand.

You sigh and pull your arm from her grip, “I can’t do bad on this test, Yunjin. You know what’ll happen if I do.”

“Yes, yes, the big bad Heeseung will score higher than you and your entire life will be ruined. Believe me, I know.” She clicks her tongue and walks behind you so her hands can rest on your shoulders. “But I think Sunghoon would be so sad to see that you didn’t come to support him for his last game.”

You immediately tense, your face going hot and stomach flipping in ways you didn’t know were possible. Even just the mere mention of Park Sunghoon forces a physical reaction out of you. It’s honestly a little embarrassing.

Sunghoon is the kind of boy you read about in romance novels or watch romcoms about. He’s sweet, smart, and the kind of handsome you weren’t aware a person can actually be. And he does it all effortlessly, like being perfect is something he was just born with. It probably was.

It doesn’t help that he’s always going out of his way to talk to you. Study dates, coffee runs after class, texts about nothing in the middle of the night, all things that feel like a relationship but actually aren’t.

Yunjin keeps insisting that you go for it, and you know that it’s probably not going to be as scary as you’re thinking it will be. After all, all it would do is put a title on whatever song and dance it is that the two of you’ve been putting on for the past couple months.

“I doubt he’d notice if I was there or not.” You shrug, doing your best to seem casual and not like the thought of him has hearts forming in your eyes.

Yunjin squeezes your shoulder and spins your chair around so you’re forced to face her. Her red hair is pulled back into a ponytail, her brows furrowed in determination. She looks a little bit like some kind of strange love coach who takes their job way too seriously. “You’re going to this game.” She says firmly.

“I’m not.”

“That’s what you think.”

The stadium is loud, people talking over each other in the hopes their friends will be able to hear them. They don’t, which means people just talk louder. The lights are bright and overwhelming, and you almost feel claustrophobic with how close the seats are to each other, like whoever designed the place did it without any regard for personal space at all.

Yunjin and Jake are on either side of you, both of them way too invested in the game. You are too, but not for the same reasons as them.

Sunghoon got into Decalis on a football scholarship and is the school's best starting quarterback in fifteen years. Even though he has every right to have a big head about it, he’s so humble you don’t think the thoughts ever even crossed his mind. Someone always approaches him about it when you’re out together on campus, and every time without fail his cheeks go bright pink and he gets this bashful smile on his face. It’s one of the reasons you’ve fallen for him as hard as you have, because unlike most guys you’ve interacted with, he doesn’t seem to have much of an ego at all.

It’s a very welcome contrast to Heeseung.

You can see him on the field too, walking behind the players sitting on the bench and getting candid shots of them. Even though you hate admitting it, he’s always been a gifted photographer. His photos were always hanging up in local art shows or featured in your high school yearbooks. Strangely, it’s the only thing he doesn’t brag about, despite it being the only thing he deserves to. 

“Oh, that’s bullshit!” Jake yells, popcorn spilling from his lap as he gestures wildly. “That was our play!”

You give him a side-eye and sink further into your seat. You honestly couldn’t care less about this whole thing; you're just excited to see Sunghoon in his post-game glow as you like to call it. Damp hair, face glowing with a sheen of sweat, his chest still heaving from running up and down the field. The entire thing is admittedly your guilty pleasure.

Yunjin elbows your ribs gently, her chin poking out to the field. You follow her gaze and find Sunghoon with his helmet in hand, drinking out of a green gatorade bottle and laughing at something one of his teammates says. He looks perfect. He is perfect.

And if things go right, he’ll be yours.

By the time the game ends, you’re more than ecstatic to finally get out of your seat and see Sunghoon. Yunjin teases you the entire way down, but you barely notice her. Not when your heart is nearly fluttering out of your chest.

But when you get down there, it’s not Sunghoon you see. No, it’s something much worse.

Heeseung.

He doesn’t notice you at first, and you almost think you’ll be able to sneak around him, but then Jake decides it’s a good idea to open his big mouth and alert the enemy to your presence.

“Heeseung!” He calls, raising his hand in a wave. “What’s good, man?”

Heeseung looks up then, sharp eyes falling onto Jake, and slowly trailing over to you. He grins, all teeth and something akin to mischief, and casually makes his way over to your small group.

“Hey Jake,” he greets, jutting his chin out swiftly. “Yunjin.”

Yunjin returns the greeting politely. “Heeseung.”

She has no reason to be mean to him, but as your closest friend, she understands that she must, by international girl-code law, dislike anyone you dislike, which includes him.

He turns to you then, and you swear you see something flash in his eyes. He keeps the same smile on his face despite the way you glare at him. “Hi, Y/N.”

“Hi.” You respond shortly. You don’t know why he even bothers trying to be nice to you in public, especially when he knows you're not going to return whatever sentiment it is he has.

He smirks like you’ve just said the funniest thing in the world. “Would it hurt you to be nicer?”

“Yes,” you respond easily. “It would, actually.”

He frowns and grabs at his shirt dramatically, right over where his heart is. “Always so mean.”

“You’ll live.”

He chuckles, reaching out and roughing up your hair. You smack his hands away and rush to fix it, palms smoothing down the parts he frizzed up. “Don’t do that!”

He ignores you and turns to talk to Jake about the game, and you can hear them say something about how the referees almost cost the team that last quarter, but you aren’t paying attention to that anymore.

Because behind Heeseung you can see a familiar head of damp black hair, thick eyebrows, and a perfect smile.

“Hey guys,” Sunghoon grins as he approaches. He’s ditched his football uniform and is instead wearing a black long sleeved compression shirt, and you swear your brain short circuits at the sight.

His attention falls to you first, just like it always does, and his smile widens just a fraction. Not enough for it to seem like anything else but a friendly gesture, but it doesn’t stop your heart from fluttering out of control or your cheeks from heating to near impossible levels.

“Hey!” You chirp a bit too loudly, hand shooting up in a wave.

“Nice game tonight, man!” Jake gushes, his hands moving animatedly. “The way you got that goal right at the beginning was insane! I swear, Penn didn't even know what hit them.”

Sunghoon grins and brings a hand up to his neck, the way he always does when somebody praises him, like he still can’t quite process the amount of attention on him. “Thanks, Jake. Seriously.”

“Those refs were awful though,” Yunjin throws in. 

The three of them end up in conversation about the game, all of them spewing out football lingo that you couldn’t be bothered to understand. Heeseung's still here too, just…lingering.

He’s friends with Jake and Sunghoon, yes, but he’s always on the sidelines. He’s been like that since high school. He’s friends with everyone, but he never lets them in. Doesn’t make any attempts to know them outside of a surface level friendship. 

It’s a little sad, honestly. But you stopped questioning the way his brain worked a long time ago. If he wanted to keep to himself, then that was perfectly fine by you. 

You don’t notice her approach, not until she’s sliding into the spot next to Sunghoon like she belongs there. Short black hair, bangs that frame her face like she was born with them, big brown eyes. Kim Chaewon is as beautiful as she is smart, and unbelievably kind. Not to mention she’d made cheer captain as a sophomore, and has kept the title all the way into her junior year.

“Hey, Hoon,” she says, voice sweet like honey. You know it shouldn’t, but something twists low and deep in your chest at the way she looks at him. Like she knows him. Like he belongs to her.

You expect him to greet her like he does everyone else. Always polite, but without the extra tenderness he saves for you. Without the small quirk of his lips or the subtle softening of his eyes, because that had always been yours. Your look.

Instead, when he looks at her, his lips quirk up, his eyes soften, and he snags a hand around her waist like he can’t imagine it being anywhere else.

You think this must be a joke. Not a very funny one, but a joke nonetheless. A tasteless prank. Because there is no way Park Sunghoon—the same Park Sunghoon that calls you in the middle of the night and insists he walk you home from class—has his arm around Kim Chaewon and is giving her the same look he gives you.

Yunjin looks just as shocked as you feel, but she’s never been as good at having a poker face as you. Her jaw drops, eyes going wide as she stares at the pair of them. “Um,” she laughs uncomfortably, “Sunghoon do you mind maybe… informing us as to who this is?”

Yunjin knows who Chaewon is, you know that. She's doing that thing she does where she tries to indirectly ask someone something without coming off as rude. For once, you're thankful for her weird methods.

Sunghoon clears his throat, his eyes flickering to yours for a split second before they return to Chaewon. “Right, uh,” he swallows, and you watch as his fingers flex at his side. A nervous habit. “This is Chaewon. We’ve been…seeing each other.”

You blink, your mind going a million miles a minute as you try to make sense of what he’s saying. The words are coming out of his mouth, and yet they still feel fake. Like a figment of your worst nightmare where the boy you’re in love with tells you he’s seeing someone.

“Seeing each other?” You repeat, voice raising in pitch. 

Chaewon nods, her lips curling up into a shy smile as she places a hand on Sunghoon's chest. “It was a recent development,” she chuckles.

You feel like you’re going to be sick.

Sunghoon smiles at her before removing his arm from her waist so he can gesture at the three of you. “How do you feel about dinner so Chae can get to know you guys? My treat.”

Chae. How long has this been going on for them to already have cute little nicknames for each other?

The thought of sitting at dinner with them sounds like torture. Having to sit there and watch him touch her? Smile at her? You don’t want to sound jealous (you are), but that’s supposed to be you. You’re the one he should be smiling at—you were the one! You can’t wrap your head around how he could suddenly be seeing someone when just last week he was smiling at you like you meant something to him?

Had you imagined it? Convinced yourself there was something there when he was just being friendly? But even Yunjin said he looked at you differently. Was she just feeding into your delusions?

Heeseung's voice pulls you out of your frenzy, and when you look up, he’s looking straight at you like he can read your mind. “Sorry, man,” he says, eyes staying on you for a moment longer before they shift to Sunghoon. “I’ve gotta get these pictures developed before they close the red room.”

Sunghoon waves him off, “don’t worry about it.” He says, “I’ll see you when we get home tonight. What about you guys?”

There’s absolutely no way you’re going to dinner with them. You can’t, like, physically can’t. You think you’ll die if you do.

Instead of saying that, or coming up with some kind of excuse, what comes out is, “I’m free.”

Yunjin's head snaps to you in shock, and then she blurts out a sudden, “same!”

Jake shrugs, “I’ve got nothing better to do.”

“Great!” Sunghoon grins, “let’s meet at that diner off of fifth? They’re usually open late.”

He walks away after that, hand in hand with Chaewon, and you watch them go while your heart sinks deep into your chest. She’s laughing at something he says, her free hand slapping his arm lightly, and he smiles down at her like she’s the only girl in his universe. The same way you thought he was doing to you.

“Well,” Heeseungs starts, his eyes finding you’d once again, like he can feel the hurt radiating off your body. He probably can. “Since when was that a thing?”

Jake shrugs the way most clueless men do. “No idea.”

The two of them walk away after that, and you’re thankful to be left alone with Yunjin.

“What the fuck?” She says, hands resting on her hips. “That’s gotta be a joke. Or maybe some kind of dare. I don’t fucking know, but there’s no way they’re actually seeing each other! He was literally blowing up your phone two days ago!” She snaps her fingers like she’s made some kind of profound discovery. "It must be some kind of spell. You know, I’ve always thought witches and magic were real–”

“Yunjin,” you interrupt, eyes already glassy and throat closing up with an onslaught of tears. You aren’t going to cry over him–that would be ridiculous, especially since you weren’t even dating, but that doesn’t mean it still doesn’t hurt. If you’re being completely honest, it hurts like hell.

Yunjin notices immediately, and before you can process it, she’s throwing her arms around you and pulling you into her chest in the middle of the field. “I’m sorry, babe,” she sighs, “I really thought he was going to ask you out tonight.”

She’s not the only one. 

You just shrug, doing your best to mask your hurt, even though you know there’s no point when it comes to Yunjin. You’ve only known her for six months, yet she’s the only person who can read you like an open book. “It’s fine.”

“It’s not,” she mumbles, pulling away from you and placing her hands on your shoulders. “But it will be. Because we’re going to show Sunghoon exactly what he missed out on.”

You snort, rolling your eyes and shrugging her off of you so you can make the trek back to your shared dorm. “What are you talking about?”

She shrugs, “you’ll see.”

You should question her. Should refuse to go anywhere with her until she tells you what her plan is, but you don’t do any of that. You trust Yunjin, and you know that while her methods may be strange, she does everything with good intentions. Besides, you doubt you won’t be able to handle whatever it is she’s cooking up.

The diner off of 5th is the only place that stays open after ten pm and still serves edible food. It’s a campus staple, which means it’s nearly always packed—especially after games. So, you aren’t too surprised that you have to weave through multiple bodies just to find the table Sunghoon had managed to snag for the five of you, and nobody comments when it takes you nearly five minutes just to make it from the front door to your seats.

“I’m starving,” Yunjin groans, her tongue swiping over her lips as she flips through the menu. The both of you know she’s just going to get the same thing she does every time, but she says she finds joy in looking unpredictable.

“Me too,” Sunghoon agrees. 

He looks good. Tired, but good. His hair is falling over his eyes in that dorky kind of way and he’s wearing his glasses—a rare sight. Normally, you’d be the only one doing this much analysis into his look, but when you glance over at Chaewon, she’s staring at him with a dopey grin on her face.

You frown and look down at your menu. You still don’t understand how this could’ve happened. It just didn’t make any sense. When you take out the part where you’re totally in love with Sunghoon, it still makes no sense for him to hide his apparent relationship with Chaewon. Was it a relationship? Are they even dating? Or are they just in that weird space between where you both know it’s going to happen, but they’re still choosing to dance around it?

You’d thought you were there with Sunghoon. You thought it was only a matter of time before he swept you off of your feet and confessed his love for you with some kind of grand, dramatic gesture.

But your life is clearly not a movie, because Park Sunghoon is reaching for Chaewon's hand under the table. His thumb is rubbing small, comforting circles into her skin, and she’s doing a very bad job at hiding her smile.

You shouldn’t have agreed to come.

Jake, for all his strange qualities, has always been observant (except when it comes to possible romantic partners), and he watches the entire exchange with narrowed eyes and bated breath. You’d never talked to him about your relationship with Sunghoon, but he (along with your nemesis) was the guy's roommate, so you assume he must've known that there was something going on between you. Unless you really are just delusional and everything had been entirely friendly.

“So,” Jake starts, wagging his finger towards the couple. “We’re so glad you’re here, Chaewon. Seriously. But I just can’t believe this is the first I’m hearing about…this. I mean, not to sound like a douche or anything, but I live with Sunghoon and he hasn’t brought you up once. He’s talked about–” his eyes find yours for a fleeting moment, before he clears his throat and tries to pretend it never happened. “It’s just kind of unexpected.”

Chaewon giggles, reaching a hand up and swiping her bangs over her forehead. They fall right back into place. “It was a recent development.”

Yunjin snorts, taking a sip from her cup with the kind of casual confidence you wish you had. “Clearly.”

If anybody catches the irritation in her tone, they don’t comment on it. 

“He actually hit me with a football during practice,” Chaewon laughs, bringing her arm up to rest casually behind Sunghoon. You can nearly make out her fingers playing with the soft hair at the nape of his neck. “It was the total opposite of a meet-cute. But it still worked out anyway, because he invited me to coffee as an apology and things just went from there.”

Coffee? He always takes you to coffee. Did they go to the same place you go to? Did he show her the secret menu that’s not really a secret? Did he joke around with your favorite barista like he does when he’s with you?

Your throat feels tight again, but you suck down a gulp from your drink and try to act like you aren’t on the brink of emotional collapse.

Yunjin smiles, but it looks forced. She taps your thigh once, like she’s warning you, but before you can question it, she’s already opening her mouth. “You know, that’s honestly kind of crazy. Two of my friends are getting into relationships at the same time. You’d think I’d get some of that luck too considering I seem to be the common denominator here, but nope!”

You blink. You love Yunjin, you really do, but outside of you the only other person you saw her consistently speak to is her pet gerbil. And even that was leaning into more of a casual situation lately.

Sunghoon’s eyebrows raise briefly, but he’s quick to lower them. “Really?” He mumbles. You can practically feel the curiosity radiating off of him. He’s always been way too nosy. “Who?”

The next few moments are still a bit of a blur in your mind. You remember feeling like someone had spilled a bucket of cold water on you, but when you ran a hand through your hair, it was completely dry.

Yunjin smiles, and she looks so innocent you almost believe the lie that rolls off of her tongue like honey. You probably would’ve if it didn't have to do with you. “[Y/N], you’ve been seeing someone recently as well, haven’t you?”

You nearly choke, eyes widening into saucers. You splutter for an answer, blinking rapidly as you do. “What? A relationship? I don’t–well, I mean–maybe–?” It’s not until Yunjin sends a swift heel to your shin do you manage to get out a full sentence. “Yes,” you squeak. “I have been…seeing someone. It’s very recent. Very new. Honestly, I’m just as surprised as you are that it happened so quickly.”

The table goes silent for a moment, and you suddenly feel very, very exposed. You know Yunjin knows you’re a terrible liar, she witnessed it firsthand when you tried to lie about eating her leftover cheesecake, and yet she thought making you lie in a group setting would make your skills any better? If anything, it just made them ten times worse!

You’re waiting for the inevitable–for someone to give an uncomfortable laugh before attempting to move the conversation forward. Meanwhile, you’re going to pray to whatever is listening up in the sky for the floor to swallow you whole and for this day to have never happened.

But that doesn’t happen. Instead, the next few moments are probably the most confusing of your life. 

“That’s good, [Y/N],” Sunghoon says, smiling at you the way he does with everyone else. It’s not the smile you’re used to. Not the curl of his lips that would send butterflies fluttering around in your stomach and make your cheeks burst with color. This one is practiced, easy. Entirely wrong. “Who’s the lucky guy?”

You pale, parting your lips to give some shitty excuse. Maybe your delivery man? You met when he was dropping off your amazon vibrator and he complimented you on the brand. A very plausible start to any college relationship, and it’d be easy to hide considering he’s not real. 

But before you can tell your made-up story, Yunjin beats you to the punch.

“Oh, you’re going to lose your mind. I know I did when she told me.” She laughs aloud, and when her eyes find yours, you suddenly wish you’d never even gotten out of bed this morning. Maybe finishing the course with a B wouldn’t have been so bad if it meant you got to avoid this terrible fate.

She leans forward on the table, lowering her voice into that soft teasing tilt she’s perfected. “She’s been seeing your other roommate. The one she apparently can’t stand.”

Jake’s eyes widen, his hands slamming on the table so he can lean against them and get a better look at you. He practically screams when he asks, “you’ve been seeing Heeseung?”

You should’ve just taken the dock off of your grade.

“Yunjin, do not come near me right now or I swear to God you’re going to be missing chunks of hair.”

She winces, hands immediately tugging on the red strands. “Anything but the hair! You know it’s my best feature.” She attempts to joke, but you’re having absolutely none of it.

“You realize they live with him, right? What happens when they ask him about his apparent relationship with me?” You snap, slamming the door to your dorm behind you. The walk here had been completely silent—or, at least, it had been from your end. Yunjin spent the entire time trying to act like she hadn’t just lied to all of your friends that you were dating Lee Heeseung. The one person in this world everyone knows you cannot stand.

She flops onto her bed and stretches her arms over her head. “They’re guys! They don’t talk about that kind of stuff. Jake didn’t even know Sunghoon was seeing Chaewon! Which, can we talk about that, actually? I mean, seriously, what the fuck? One second he’s taking you on these cute little dates and the next—”

“Yunjin,” you groan, rubbing the heels of your palm into your eyes. You’re absolutely exhausted, and you aren’t sure how much longer you can talk about Sunghoon without your head wanting to explode. “As much as I’d love to talk about Sunghoon's sparkling love life and my lack of one, I’ve got a nine am tomorrow that I’d rather not have to sleep through because I stayed up all night talking about my nonexistent love life.”

She nods, a small smile on her lips. "No, yeah, of course. But, before you become dead to the world, you’re actually kind of wrong about something.”

“What?”

“Your love life isn’t nonexistent,” she says thoughtfully. “You’re seeing Heeseung, remember?”

You throw the pillow at her so hard you’re surprised it doesn’t mold to her face.

You’ve always enjoyed your nine am literacy analysis lecture. After all, you’re an English major. Literacy analysis is kind of your whole thing.

The only part of the class that is mildly annoying is the fact that you share it with Heeseung. But, surprisingly, he rarely ever bothers you. You aren’t sure if it’s because he’s finally matured and realized it’s stupid to bother you during lecture, or if he’d just gotten bored of the entire thing. Either way, you’d be perfectly fine with whatever the answer was as long as it kept him away from you.

Today though, your nerves are practically fried. Does he know? Did he expose you? You don’t know why he would lie for you, and honestly, you don’t expect him to. He probably laughed out loud before Sunghoon and Jake even asked him about it.

God, you love Yunjin, you really do, but right now you wish she’d stayed home with her gerbil last night. Maybe that way she wouldn’t have been able to open her big mouth.

You don’t look at Heeseung when you enter. You don’t even look in his general direction. You just keep your head down and try to look as normal as possible through the lecture, which is exceptionally difficult when your mind is buzzing with so much nervous energy it could power the entire university.

The usual hour seems to pass by in a blur, and when your professor releases you for dismissal, you’re quick to pack your bags and make a swift exit. You're practically out of breath by the time you make it outside, but you’re relieved you managed to get out without having to make any contact with Heeseung. You aren’t sure you would’ve been able to survive the embarrassment.

You pull the strap of your bag further up your shoulder and pull out your phone, fully ready to call Yunjin and complain to her about the mess she’s gotten you into, but a call of your name forces your head up.

Heeseung makes his way over to you casually, a backwards baseball cap covering up his dirty blonde hair and his hands stuffed into the pockets of his jeans. He isn’t giving you that usual teasing smile he always wears when he sees you, instead he looks unusually serious. 

You tense, pulse pounding in your ears and alarm bells ringing in your head. You have half the mind to turn and make a run for it, but he reaches you before your feet can move.

“Hi,” he says simply. Casually. Like he’s talking to a friend and asking about the weather.

You hesitate, but return the greeting nonetheless. “...Hi.”

He cracks a smile, but scrunches his nose before it reaches his eyes and his lips fall back down into a straight line. “We need to talk.”

Your blood turns to ice, skin paling before you can stop it. He knows. And if he knows that means he told everyone the truth, and he’s probably already told the entire campus about your stupid lie as well. You’re going to be known as the girl who lied about being in a relationship because she couldn't accept that the boy she likes has a girlfriend, and then you're going to have to transfer somewhere else and start going by a new name. 

God, you are going to kill Yunjin. It’ll be like a final goodbye before you’re forced to move across the country.

You shake your head immediately. “No, uh, we don’t actually. I already know what you’re going to say, so I’ll just start packing my things now. No need for this awkward rejection or whatever–not that I’m being rejected by you. God, I’d rather die before I go out with you. But, Yunjin has a big mouth and I never know how to stop her before she says something stupid, so now my social life is totally dead and–”

You’re rambling so fast it takes a moment for you to register that Heeseung's laughing, and even longer to realize that he’s laughing at you. His shoulders shake from the force of it, and the back of his hand comes up to cover his mouth. If this was anyone else, you might even think he looked cute.

You swallow, unable to help the pout that forms on your lips. “And now you’re laughing at me.”

“I’m sorry,” he chuckles, taking in a deep breath and trying to find some composure. “It’s just…you’ve always been really good at jumping to conclusions.”

Your brows furrow, mouth parting as you try to process his words. What does he mean you’re good at jumping to conclusions? Why does he always talk like he knows anything about you? You know they shouldn’t, but the words tick you off. “What are you talking about?”

He shrugs, lips curving up into that smile you’ve unfortunately become way too familiar with. The one that screams trouble and always means he’s up to no good. “I have to admit, I was pretty surprised when Jake grilled me for half an hour last night on our apparent relationship–” you visibly wince, but he ignores it and continues– “but, I thought to myself, why on earth would [Y/N] [L/N] tell our friends we were in a relationship? I figured you had to have a reason, so I went along with it.”

Your jaw drops, eyes blinking a mile a minute like maybe that’ll help everything make sense. Newsflash, it doesn’t–if anything it just makes everything feel ten times more confusing. “You what?”

He shrugs, “you have a reason, right? Otherwise, we just became a couple for no reason. Unless that’s what you wanted? Was this whole thing just an elaborate scheme to get with me?” His voice drops an octave, and he takes a step closer, until suddenly he’s in your space and you can smell the fresh linen from his detergent and his cedarwood cologne. “You know, princess, if you wanted to be with me, all you had to do was ask.”

You might be extremely confused right now, but you’ve got enough sense to know that the last thing you want in your life is to be in a real relationship with him. And you definitely don’t want him calling you princess. 

You take a step back, your arms coming up to put space between the two of you. “Ew, no, absolutely not. Like I said, I’d rather die before I dated you.”

He hums, shoving his hands back in his pockets and beginning to walk away. “Okay. I’ll just go tell Jake and Sunghoon that you lied then–”

Your hand shoots out and wraps around his arm before you can stop yourself, and you feel the muscle tense up beneath your fingertips. He stills, his head tilting as he looks back at you.

You swallow, taking your pride down with the saliva. “I’m sorry,” you sigh out, “I just don't know how to go about this without sounding like a total loser.”

His lips curve up and he turns so he’s facing you fully. “You’re going to sound like a loser to me no matter what, so just tell me.”

You glower, your hand dropping back to your side. You try to ignore the warmth lingering in your palm as it balls up at your side. “I’ve had a thing for this guy–”

He nods. “Sunghoon, right?”

Is it really that obvious? You narrow your eyes, “How’d you know? Did he say something about me?”

He shakes his head. “No, but I’ve seen the way you follow each other like lost puppies. I’ve gotta admit, I was surprised when he popped out with Chaewon and not you.”

You don’t know if that makes you feel better or worse. If even Heeseung, the one person you absolutely cannot stand, could see that there was something between you and Sunghoon, then that must mean you aren’t delusional. But, on the other hand, it makes you wonder what made Sunghoon change his mind so quickly.

Were you trying to take things too slow? Did he get bored of the waiting? You thought the dancing around each other was sweet, but maybe he was looking at it differently. Maybe he just got sick of waiting around for you.

Heeseung must notice how your thoughts have wandered, because he waves a hand in front of your face and raises his brows. “You still with me?”

Your eyes snap to him and your cheeks heat with embarrassment. “Yeah, sorry, um, as I was saying, I’ve had a thing for him for a while. So, when he took us to dinner with Chaewon last night, Yunjin had this bright idea to say that I was also in a relationship with…you. And the whole thing just kind of spiraled from there.”

He’s silent for a moment, like he’s processing your words. “She said we were dating to make Sunghoon jealous? How does that work?”

You groan and run a hand over your face. “I don’t know! I don’t know what she was thinking! I’ve already yelled at her over it!” You feel your frustration building again, but you take a deep breath and force it down. “It was stupid. And now you’re dragged into this entire mess and I don’t know how I’m going to tell everyone the truth.”

There are a lot of things you dislike about Heeseung. He’s rude in that passive aggressive kind of way, and he only ever does it to you. He always forgets a pen and never gives yours back when you lend one to him. He’s wildly selfish and thinks that the entire world revolves around him. He also always manages to catch you by surprise, and you absolutely loathe surprises.

Today is no exception.

His lips part in thought, and for the first time you can actually see him thinking about what he’s going to say before he says it. Usually, he just blurts out whatever's on his mind and deals with the consequences later.

“What if…” he hesitates for a moment. “What if you didn’t tell them?”

“What?”

He splutters for a moment, a nervous laugh bubbling from his lips. “I just mean, what if we let everyone think we’re dating? Not that we actually date. That would be…awful.”

“Why would we do that, though?” You ask, crossing your arms over your chest. “It’s not like me having a boyfriend is going to change Sunghoon's mind. And what would you even get out of it aside from undeniable blackmail material?”

He shrugs, “actually Sunghoon looked pretty distraught last night. He kept asking me about you and our budding relationship.”

Your heart skips a beat at that. He was asking about you? It shouldn't affect you like it does, especially when he’s got a girlfriend, but the thought of him thinking about you has butterflies flying around your stomach.

Still, it doesn’t explain why Heeseung would want to help you. He’s never gone out of his way to do it before, so you don’t see why he would now. 

“But, what do you get out of this?” You ask, pointing a wary finger at him. “You’ve never been nice enough to actually help me before.”

He scoffs, “first off, that's not true. What about that science project we did Junior year? The one with the ant colony? I partnered up with you after Stella got that weird illness.”

“You mean the ant colony you released into Mrs. Hong's room? She made us deep clean the room every day for, like, two weeks. And Stella had pneumonia.”

“Yeah, but that was after we’d already gotten an A.”

You resist the urge to roll your eyes.

He sighs and pulls out a creme folder from his bag. He taps it once and hands it to you. You accept it questioningly, looking up at him through your lashes with suspicion. “What is this?”

“My portfolio,” he explains. Just as he said, when you open it there's what you think must be hundreds of photos. Some of nature, some of the people on campus, some of just random mundane things. They’re all breathtaking shots, and it's then that you remember he’s here on a full scholarship after winning some national photography contest. It’d been the only thing he talked about for weeks.

You knew he was going to win the moment it was announced.

“Wow,” you mumble, continuing to flip through the photos. “These are amazing.”

He brings a hand up to his neck and scratches at it nervously. “Thanks.”

One picture captures your attention. It’s a candid shot of Sunghoon in class, his glasses slipping down the bridge of his nose, eyebrows tucked in that adorable way they always are when he’s frustrated. The people around him are blurry, and you assume they’re getting their stuff for dismissal.

“The photography committee on campus is holding a competition,” he continues, “$100,000 and your pictures are featured in international art shows. But, in order to enter, I need a muse. Someone I can get consistent pictures of. If we’re “dating”, no one will question why I’m constantly taking pictures of you, and it saves me the hassle of having to ask anyone else.”

You raise a brow. He wants to be in a fake couple so that he can take pictures of you for a contest? It doesn’t feel like a fair trade to you at all. “Why don’t you ask Jake or Sunghoon? I’m sure they wouldn’t mind.”

He gives you a fixed look. “I already did, but they both claimed they were too busy. You’re my last resort before I start asking random people on campus.”

The explanation still feels weird to you, but you aren’t going to fight him anymore on it. Besides, you’re still trying to wrap your head around the fact that you’re now in a fake relationship with public enemy number one.

“So…what now?” You ask, closing the folder and handing it back to him. He takes it with steady hands, and when his fingers brush yours, there’s a solid five seconds where your breath catches in your throat and you almost forget about everything you dislike about Heeseung.

“Jay Park’s having a party tomorrow night,” he breathes, lips turning up into that awful smile. “Beer. Dancing. Maybe some weed. Sunghoon and Chaewon will definitely be there, which means you and I will also be there.”

Your nose scrunches at the thought. You’d only gone to one party so far, and the entire experience had been so awful you’d sworn them off completely.

“I don’t really do parties,” you mumble.

Heeseung snorts like that’s the understatement of the century. “We won't stay for long. Just long enough for Sunghoon to see us, and then we’ll go.”

You nod, and the air between the two of you suddenly feels heavy. Your tongue darts out to wet your lips and your eyes fall to the floor. “Thank you,” you say sincerely. “For helping me.”

He doesn’t smirk. Doesn’t tease. Just nods casually like fake dating people is something he does daily. “I’ll see you tomorrow night, princess.”

You really need to tell him to stop calling you that.

When you tell Yunjin, she doesn’t even try to act surprised. “I knew it would work out,” she says confidently, staring at a pimple in her reflection. “That's why I said it in the first place.”

You roll your eyes, fingers moving over your keyboard rapidly. You need to finish up your analysis paper before the deadline next week, but every time you sit down to write your brain wanders to dirty blonde hair and that annoyingly perfect smile.

“Whatever.” You mumble, “he’s expecting me to go to some party with him tomorrow night, but I don’t know. I really need to finish this paper, and the last time we went to a party I got so drunk I collided with the wall.”

Yunjin snorts at the memory, and then she’s standing and making her way over to you. She sits crisscrossed on your bed and ever-so-gently forces your laptop closed. You don’t argue with her, it’s not like you were getting anything done anyway.

“So, your fake boyfriend–who by the way, is super hot–is asking you to go to a party with him, and you don’t want to because you’d rather stay at home and analyze Edgar Allen Poe?” She asks, drawing out the sentence so you feel completely and utterly stupid.

“It’s not Edgar Allen Poe,” you mutter, “and, I don’t know, this entire thing just feels so insane! Like, what am I hoping happens? Sunghoon realizes he’s actually in love with me and breaks up with Chaewon?”

“Exactly that, yes.” Yunjin nods, like it’s obvious.

You shoot her a glare. “That’s not fair to either of them. If they’re happy, why should I try to ruin that?”

Yunjin sighs, her hands reaching out to grab yours. She brings them into her lap and squeezes them comfortingly. “If they’re happy, then you being in a relationship with Heeseung isn’t going to matter. But you said he asked about you, right? That means he still cares at least a little bit, and if that’s the case, then it’s not fair to Chaewon for him to stay with her.” She smiles softly, her shoulders bobbing as she shrugs them. “I don’t know what he’s doing right now, but I know that there was something going on between the two of you. And if you care about him, you shouldn’t let that go without a fight.”

When she wanted to, Yunjin could give some seriously killer advice. Your lips curve up, chest feeling lighter and mind not so hazy. “Thanks, Yunjin. Seriously. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“Die, probably.”

You laugh loudly, throwing your head back with it. “Yeah,” you agree, “probably.”

The next night, your nerves are absolutely shot. Heeseung texted you that he’d pick you and Yunjin up from your dorm at seven, which meant you’d spent the entire day stressed out of your mind.

Sunghoon was going to be there, that much was obvious, but the thought of parading yourself around with Heeseung in front of him makes you feel sick. For one, he knows you. He’s always been able to see right through you, and you have half the mind to think he’ll make your little lie before you even step through the door.

You suck in a breath, your hands smoothing out the sides of your skirt. The dress Yunjin lent you is a lot shorter than anything you’re used to wearing, and the black cloth hugs your curves in a way you’re not entirely used to seeing on yourself. Your heels force your back to arch, highlighting the curve of your spine and the plump of your ass.

You give yourself a once-over in the mirror, hands coming down to tug the fabric further down your thighs. “Are you sure this isn’t too much?” You ask.

Yunjin clicks her tongue, and you can see her fighting with the straps of her own dress through the mirror. “Absolutely not. You look amazing. The guys are going to lose their minds when they see you in that.”

You raise a brow and turn around to face her. “Guys? Like, plural?”

“Well, yeah,” she shrugs, “Sunghoon and Heeseung.”

Sunghoon, yes. You’d love for him to notice you. But Heeseung? Absolutely not. You could seriously care less about what he thinks about you. He was there when you didn’t understand how to get rid of your acne and when makeup was more of a suggestion then something you actually did everyday.

“Ew, no,” you gag, “I don’t care what Lee Heeseung thinks about me. The only reason he’s even helping me is for his portfolio or whatever. He’s not doing it out of the kindness of his heart.”

Yunjin hums, smoothing out her dress and giving herself one final look over in the vanity mirror. She looks amazing–she always does. You aren’t jealous of Yunjin, but sometimes you wonder what it’d be like to have her confidence. “You seriously think he’s doing this just for his portfolio?”

“Um, yeah. That’s what he said.”

She walks over to you then, her chin resting on your shoulder. “I think–and don’t go nuclear on me for this–but I think he likes you. Like, like-likes you.”

A laugh bursts from your chest. That is the single most absurd thing you’ve ever heard in your life. Heeseung can barely stand being in the same room as you without having to get under your skin. He doesn’t like you, he just enjoys pissing you off. 

“You’re funny,” you snort, “and so insanely wrong.”

She shrugs and takes a step back from you. “I don’t know, [Y/N]. I don’t know many guys who get into fake relationships with people they dislike just so they can finish their portfolio.”

Your phone buzzes from your bed, and when you pick it up you’ve got a text message from Heeseung saying he’s here. 

“You don’t know many guys in general, Yunjin.” You retort. You quickly grab your purse and stuff your phone inside. “He’s here. Don’t say anything weird in the car, please. I think you’ve embarrassed me enough in the last two days to last a lifetime.”

“No promises,” she winks.

Heeseung's car isn’t super nice. It’s pretty typical for any college student, actually. There’s a scratch on the passenger side door and a dent on the hood, and it looks like it could definitely use a round through the car wash. But, despite that, the sight of it makes you nostalgic.

You remember when he pulled into your first day of Junior year with this thing. He bragged about it to anyone who would listen. He’d saved up the entire summer to buy it, and he treated the run down thing like it was his pride and joy. You wonder if that’s still the case today.

He’s leaning against your door when you step outside. Dirty blonde hair, backwards baseball cap, that same fucking smile. The sight alone is enough to irritate you.

But there’s a brief moment where the smile falters. His eyes trail over you, all the way from your heels to your eyes, and you swear you see his ears go the lightest shade of pink.

You raise a brow, but before you can comment on it the smile is back and he’s acting like nothing happened. “Nice dress,” he clicks his tongue, “I didn’t think you owned anything that didn’t look like it came from a librarian's closet.”

You hate him. You hate him so much it hurts your soul. It envelops your being like an ugly monster.

You want to tell him that, but you don’t, because at the end of the day he’s helping you for whatever reason, and your mother told you that hating people was inherently wrong. So, you swallow down your annoyance and make your way to his car. “Can we try and go one night without you being a dick?”

“I don’t know,” he smirks, “you’re the one dating this dick, princess.”

You frown and try not to think about the double meaning behind his words. “Fake dating,” you correct.

“Right. Fake dating.”

The tension between you is thick, and not in the way you’re used to. Instead, this feels like some sort of gravitational pull towards him. Something you’d kept buried that is trying to dig its way back from the grave.

Yunjin groans behind you. You’d nearly forgotten she was here. “God, can you guys just fuck already and get it over with? Your sexual tension is starting to make me jealous.”

“Yunjin!” You practically screech. Your hands gesture wildly as you attempt to defend yourself. “This is not–there is no sexual tension! That’s not what this is!”

She gives you a look that says: don’t make me call bullshit.

You sigh and run a hand over your eyes. “Just get in the car.”

The party is just outside of campus, in Jay Park's two-story home that he mysteriously pays for by himself. (Everyone knows he’s a trust fund baby.) There’s some stragglers outside, all holding red solo cups and trying to act drunker than they really are. You’ve never understood the appeal for parties. To you, they just look like sweat fests that people gaslight themselves into thinking are fun.

Yunjin gets out of the car as soon as you pull up and quickly makes her way over to some guy by the front door. You watch as she tries to talk to him, and for once he doesn’t look intimidated by her outgoing nature. It’s kind of cute, actually.

You, on the other hand, feel a bit sick. For one, you don’t know what you’re going to do when you see Sunghoon. Is he even going to care? Probably not. He literally has a fucking girlfriend, and here you are trying to show off for him like that’ll change anything.

“Hey,” Heeseung murmurs from beside you, his eyebrows knitted together in what you think might be concern. “You good?”

You blink. “I don’t know.” It’s the most honest thing you’ve said all night.

He’s silent for a moment, before he’s letting out a breath and turning to you. “You look good, [Y/N]. Really fucking good. Don’t let a dress like that go to waste because you’re in your head.” He emphasizes his point with a gentle tap to your forehead. “Let’s go in there and show Sunghoon exactly what he lost, yeah?”

You feel your cheeks heat at the compliment, but you force the words to the back of your mind to be dwelled on later. Right now, you just need to get out of this car and get through tonight without wanting to explode. And, honestly, you do want to show Sunghoon what he’s missing out on. 

“Okay,” you nod.

He grins. “Okay.” 

Inside, the party is practically buzzing with people. There’s a few people you recognize, but it’s mostly randoms that you didn’t even realize you went to school with. That’s the thing about college; you’re always meeting someone new. Your high school was the complete opposite of that–you knew everyone in your graduating class on a personal level.

Heeseung keeps a hand on your lower back the entire time, and for some reason, you’re grateful for the subtle comfort it gives you. Like it’s a reminder that he’s here and that you aren’t going into this mess alone.

You eventually make your way over to the drinks, and Heeseung grabs a can of alcohol for himself and water for you. You raise a brow as he hands it to you. You hadn’t planned to drink, but him handing you water makes you feel like he’s treating you like some little kid.

“Actually,” you clear your throat, pointing towards the other beer can on top of the ice, “I’ll have that.”

He looks caught off guard for a moment, but then he shrugs and hands the can over to you. You open it with a pop and immediately take a swig. It goes down like tar against your tongue, and your nose scrunches in disgust.

He chuckles, “sure you don’t want the water?”

You really do. “I’m sure.”

Your eyes search the crowd for Sunghoon, and sure enough he’s here. He’s playing beer pong with some of his friends from the football team, and Chaewon is at his side cheering every time he scores. They look perfect for each other, and your heart squeezes painfully at the sight. Your hands shake as you take another gulp of your beer.

Heeseung taps your waist once, before he’s tugging you into his side and pulling you towards the dance floor. Alarm bells ring in your head as you weave through the crowd. You can’t dance, anytime you’ve tried you’ve embarrassed yourself so bad you’ve debated never showing your face in public again.

“Heeseung,” you attempt, “I can’t dance!”

“Neither can anyone else here. Besides, we can’t just sit in the corner and expect Sunghoon to care. If he’s having a good time, you need to be having an even better one.” He says easily.

You scoff as he comes to a stop in the middle of the floor, directly in Sunghoon's line of sight. Heeseung has always been able to make confidence look easy–like it’s something he was born with. You, on the other hand, are not like that. Your movements are awkward and you fumble to find a rhythm that doesn’t make you look like you’re on the verge of collapse.

“Wow,” he laughs, whistling lowly when you nearly trip over your own feet. “You weren’t kidding.”

Your eyes narrow as embarrassment flushes your cheeks. “I told you! God, I’m going back to the drinks–”

Before you can walk away, he catches your wrist with his hand and pulls you back towards him. Your chest nearly collides with his, and his face is suddenly so close you can practically taste his breath on yours.

“I’m not making fun of you, princess.” He murmurs, his hands sliding up to rest on your hips, “just…observing.”

His voice is right beside your ear, and the proximity makes your body feel like it’s on fire. Suddenly, the room is too small and all you can think about is him. Sunghoon is a thought so distant in your mind you nearly forget you’d ever been thinking about him in the first place.

He brings his lips to your ear, his grip on your hips tightening the smallest bit. You wonder if he’s able to hear your heartbeat. If he can, does he know it’s beating so rapidly because of him?

“He’s looking,” he murmurs into your hair.

The call back to reality feels like a bucket of ice water against your spine. If Heeseung notices the way you tense, he doesn’t comment on it.

You clear your throat and try to ignore the way your voice shakes. “He is?”

“He was,” he grumbles with a click of his tongue. He pulls back so you can see his eyes, and for a moment you think he almost looks as wrecked as you feel. “I’m going to kiss you.”

Your eyes widen and you nearly choke on your own spit. “What?”

You barely have time to process before he’s bringing a hand up to cup your cheek, the other sliding to your spine and pulling you impossibly closer. You’re so close your noses are nearly touching, and his cedarwood cologne feels like it’s enveloping all of your senses.

“Trust me, okay?” He murmurs.

Later, you’ll say you don’t know how it happened. You’ll tell Yunjin that it all happened so fast and that it really wasn’t that big of a deal. He was just helping you get Sunghoon's attention.

But the truth–the truth is that you want him to kiss you. You want him to take your breath away and for his hands to hold you like he’s afraid he’ll die without you.

And that scares you.

All you can manage is one simple word. “Okay.”

And then his mouth is on yours.

The kiss is awkward at first, more a peck than anything else, but he slides his hand to the back of your neck and pulls you closer and suddenly his tongue is in your mouth and he’s kissing you like you’re something precious.

Your hands slide to his chest instinctively, fists balling up the fabric of his shirt between your fingers. His breath mingles with yours, and his tongue licks into your mouth like you’re the best thing he’s tasted in years.

You can’t help the whine that slides from his lips when he pulls away, your own lips chasing his without your permission. It’s like your body's an addict and he’s your drug of choice. 

Heeseung's lips are swollen and his pupils are completely blown, but you doubt you look much better. His tongue darts out to swipe at his lower lip, and then he’s smiling at you. But it’s not the teasing smile you’re used to or the one he gives everyone else. It’s softer. Real. 

Your lips part to say something, anything, but then your thoughts go back to Sunghoon and what comes out instead is a soft, “did he see?”

Heeseungs smile immediately drops, and something akin to disappointment flashes over his face. You don’t know why the sight makes you cringe internally. 

He glances up and nods his head. “Yeah,” he says, using his grip on your hips to turn you around, “he definitely saw.”

When you look, Sunghoon’s cheeks are pink and he’s staring directly at you. When he sees you looking, he’s quick to avert his gaze and try to act casually, but you know Sunghoon. He’s jealous.

This is a complete win.

So, why don’t you care as much as you should?

You should be ecstatic that Sunghoon’s feeling a certain way towards you. That’s the whole point of this stupid deal–to get Sunghoon back.

But when you turn back around and look at Heeseung, all you can think about is the way he smiled at you like you meant something to him. And how you hope he does it again.

It’s been a week since the kiss. A full week of acting like a couple. Holding hands on campus, cheek kisses in class, coffee dates at the cafe you used to frequent with Sunghoon. 

It’s…weird. Somewhere along the way, you stopped hating Heeseung's general presence. Instead of a nemesis, he’s managed to turn himself into someone you don’t really mind having around. A frenemy, maybe. He’s funny, something you never cared enough to notice before, and he’s got this soft side to him that makes your heart melt the smallest bit.

“So,” Yunjin grins, taking a bite of her ramen. “Any word from Sunghoon?”

Your mouth goes dry at the mention of your apparent crush. In truth, you hadn't really thought about him at all. You used to go to sleep imagining it was Sunghoon next to you, whispering sweet nothings in your ear and holding you like you were something fragile.

Now when you close your eyes at night, all you can think about is the way Heeseung's mouth felt against yours. The way his hands gripped your hips and held you close to him.

It takes everything in you to remember that Sunghoon is the goal. You’re just feeling this way because Heeseung kissed you. Once you have Sunghoon, you’ll get over it completely.

“Um,” you mumble, sinking further into your blankets, “not yet. But Heeseung said he saw him looking at us in the coffee shop the other day. That’s good, right?”

She turns to you, her eyes narrowed the tiniest bit. “It is. So why don’t you sound more excited?”

You immediately go on the defensive. “I am excited! I’m just…tired right now. It’s late, and I’ve been up since seven.”

“Whatever you say.”

In truth, you aren’t that excited. It’s nice that he’s thinking about you. It’s the entire reason you and Heeseung are doing this anyway. So why can you not bring yourself to care more?

Your phone buzzes next to you, and you have to dig through your sheets to find it. When you do, the screen is lit up with a message from Heeseung.

Hey, it reads, got time to take some photos tomorrow? There’s this park just a little off campus that I think would be a good spot.

Right. The portfolio. You’d been so busy with yourself you nearly forgot you were supposed to be helping him as well.

Sure, you reply, what time?

It doesn’t take long for him to respond. I’ll pick you up at eleven. Wear something nice, please.

You heart the message and set your phone down. You aren’t sure what something nice is supposed to entail, but you’ll do your best.

The next morning, you’re waiting outside your dorm in an outfit that you deemed appropriate for the park while also being cute. It isn’t something you usually wear–the long skirt feels restricting and the jean vest is more form-fitting then you thought it would be, but Yunjin swore up and down that you looked great, so you’re choosing to believe her.

You rock back and forth on your feet while you wait, scrolling mindlessly through your phone. Heeseung is never late, but today seems to be an exception to that.

You sigh, ready to turn around and go wait in your dorm, but the sound of your name catches you off guard.

When you look over, Sunghoon is walking over to you. He must’ve been on a run, because his arms are on full display in his sleeveless tank top. Usually, the sight would send your mind reeling. But now you barely even glance towards them.

“Hi, Sunghoon.”

He nods, coming to a stop a few feet in front of you. He’s close enough for you to see the moles on his face, but far enough that you can’t smell his usual expensive cologne. A complete opposite of Heeseungs soft cedarwood and linen.

Why the fuck are you thinking about Heeseungs cologne right now?

“I haven’t seen you in a while,” he says shyly, eyebrows knit together. “I’ve…missed hanging out with you.”

Your heart skips a beat, but for all the wrong reasons.

“Sorry,” you murmur with a shrug. “I’ve just been super busy lately. You know how it gets.” It’s not a lie, you have been busy. Just…busy with Heeseung.

He pauses, his tongue darting out to lick at his lips. He looks like he’s contemplating his next words, which is something you’ve never seen him do. It hurts a bit that your relationship has turned into this. Just a month ago the thought of ignoring Sunghoon would’ve seemed unfathomable. Both of you being in separate relationships (given yours is fake) would’ve been a complete joke. And yet here you are, talking like complete strangers.

“Yeah,” he says eventually, the words quiet and hesitant. “I’ve seen you and Heeseung around campus. I was a little surprised, honestly.”

Your response is dry. Bordering on the edge of annoyance. “Yeah. So was I.”

You both know you’re not talking about Heeseung. For a moment, he almost looks regretful.

“[Y/N]-”

“Hey.” 

You didn’t even notice Heeseung's beat up Honda pull onto your street, nor notice him walk out of it. He’s dressed casually in a Decalis University sweatshirt and gray sweatpants. His camera hangs off his neck and rests against his stomach, and his hand instinctively hovers over it as he approaches.

Relief floods your chest at the sight of him. You don’t know why. It must be some kind of hormonal thing.

Sunghoon takes a step back like he’s trying to put up an invisible wall between you. The two live together, and yet the tension radiating off of them makes you wonder what their living situation must be like right now. Jake must be in a constant state of stress.

“You’re late,” you murmur.

Heeseung smiles, his hand reaching for yours and pulling your wrist to his mouth. He leaves a soft kiss on your inner wrist, and your cheeks flare at the gesture. 

“Sorry,” he mumbles against your skin. “Traffic.”

You fold immediately. “It’s fine. I was just worried.”

Sunghoon must sense that he’s no longer wanted, because he murmurs a soft goodbye and makes a swift exit. You watch as he jogs away, his forming growing smaller and smaller, and it doesn’t hurt like it used to. It just feels like…nothing. You look back to Heeseung, and any tension you had melts.

“What was that about?” He asks.

You shrug. “Was just saying hello.”

“And?”

You raise a brow. “And what?”

“Did he say anything about me? About our relationship?”

Oh. Right. You’re in love with Sunghoon.

“Oh,” you clear your throat and attempt to act like you hadn’t completely forgotten your deal. “Yeah, he did. I think he’s jealous, but he’s still with Chaewon, so does it even really matter?”

“Trust me, it does.” He snorts, leading you over to his car. “He was talking to Jake last night about how he apparently isn’t feeling any sparks with Chaewon. He wants to break up with her.”

That’s good. That’s what you wanted. You should be ecstatic and your heart should be fluttering in your chest. Instead, all you feel is a cold pang of disappointment.

“Good! That's great. Amazing, even.” You say, attempting to sound the littlest bit excited, but it just comes off flat and dull. Like you’re talking about an assignment and not the boy you’ve been in love with for months.

He gives you a side-eye as he opens the passenger door for you, and you slip in like it’s second nature. At this point, it is. “You don’t sound too excited,” he observes.

You’re not, but you can’t say that. “I’m just shocked, I guess. I don’t understand why he even got with Chaewon in the first place if he didn’t feel anything for her. It’s kind of…mean.”

Heeseung takes a second to respond as he climbs into the driver's seat. He wordlessly hands you his phone and lets you put on your playlist–something you hadn’t even realized was an option. You play Ariana Grande and watch as Heeseung tries to act like he doesn’t enjoy it.

“Sunghoons always been like that,” he says eventually. “He’s impulsive. Doesn’t think about what he’s doing until he’s regretting it and trying to act like he’s not.”

“Why?”

Heeseung shrugs, glancing at you from the corner of his eye for a split second before going back to the road. “Don’t know. It’s just how he is.”

You chew at the inside of your cheek and look out the window. The campus passes by in a blur, people walking to class together, pigeons scavenging for any scraps they can get, the lecture hall you walk to every morning. It’s familiar. Comfortable.

You look back to Heeseung, and instead of annoyance, you get the same feeling you do when you’re looking at campus. Familiarity. Comfort. And it scares you so much your throat nearly constricts.

“Well,” you croak, running a hand through your hair, “that’s stupid. And all it does is hurt the people around him.”

“Yeah,” he agrees softly, “it does.”

You don’t talk the rest of the car ride, and you’re thankful for it. Your mind is too alert for conversation right now. You can smell his cologne, can hear him humming along to Needy by Ariana Grande, can feel his presence consuming your very soul. It’s too much. It’s not enough.

You don’t hate Lee Heeseung. Because your mother used to say that hate was just another word for love, and that is the last thing you feel for the boy you grew up with.

When you arrive at the park, you’re entirely too eager to get out of the car. You barely wait for him to park before you’re practically stumbling out of your seat with the ordinance of a baby giraffe. 

Heeseung gives you a look, but he doesn’t say anything about it. Just directs you to where he wants to go with confidence. His hand hovers at your lower back–never touching–just there. Like he’s unsure of what to do with himself when you’re not around your friends and having to keep up your act.

You don’t comment on it.

Eventually, he takes you to a small pond in the middle of the park. There’s white lilies around the water, each of them dancing in the wind while the water flows around them. The sun is bright, shining in your eyes and making you squint slightly. It’s pretty beautiful, actually. You had no idea this place was so close to your campus.

Heeseung directs you on how to pose. How to smile like you have no idea you’re being watched. It’s awkward at first, mostly because the only time you’ve ever had someone take pictures of you like this was during your high school graduation, but it doesn’t take long for the tension to ease into something softer. Easier. 

He tells you to sit on the grass and tilt your head towards the pond–but each shot he gets just doesn’t feel right.

“Maybe lean more towards the left?” He mumbles, hand flying out to gesture at you. You do as he says, but apparently, he’s still not getting the shot he wants. 

He clicks his tongue in frustration, “no–that’s not–just–let me fix you.”

You furrow your brows. What does that even mean? “You don’t need to fix me, Heeseung–”

He interrupts you with a laugh. “Not like that, idiot. God, you’re always so defensive.”

You part your lips to retort, but before the words can get out, he’s walking towards you and your chin is in his hand, and you suddenly forget how to communicate entirely.

He tilts your head where he wants it, the pink of his tongue poking out the tiniest bit. His face is so close that it takes everything in you to not remember how he’d tasted when his tongue was in your mouth.

You feel your cheeks heat up, but you let him do what he needs to.

“There, that’s the angle.”

“You couldn’t have just told me to tilt my chin up?”

He smiles and goes back to his camera. “I did, princess. You just don’t listen.”

God, he’s so annoying.

But still, your lips curve up and your heart gets that same feeling it did at the party. The one that you’re not quite ready to name.

“Do we really have to go to this brunch?” You groan, flopping down onto your bed. “Sunghoon and Chaewon are going to be there, and I really don’t feel like watching them be all over each other.”

Yunjin shakes her head, “that’s exactly why we have to go. So that you and Heeseung can do it right back to them.”

“They already saw us kiss! What more do we have to do? Feed each other and do that weird baby talk bullshit couples do?”

Yunjin gags and rolls her eyes. “I don’t know what couples you’re talking to, but please tell them I said to stop doing that immediately. But, no, that’s not what I meant. How is it going to look if everyone's there except for you and Heeseung?”

“Um, fine? No one’s going to care.”

“It’s going to look suspicious. Everyone knows you had a thing for Sunghoon before he popped out with Chaewon. You and Heeseung need to prove to everyone–not just Sunghoon–that you’re actually in love.”

You sigh. You know she’s right, you just hate it. Why do you need to prove your fake relationship to your friends? It feels wrong. It feels like lying.

Actually, it is lying. 

“I hate lying to everyone,” you sigh, hugging your pillow to your chest. “Makes me feel like a bad friend.”

“You’re not a bad friend,” Yunjin reassures, rolling her chair over to you. It gets caught on the rug for a moment, but she’s quick to force the wheels to move again. “Besides, what they don’t know won’t hurt them.”

You give her a look. “That’s like, the worst advice you’ve ever given me.”

She chuckles, “sorry I’m not well versed in the art of therapy for fake dating. I’ll make sure to switch my degree to better accommodate you.”

“That would actually be great, thank you.”

She takes in a breath, her hand reaching for yours. “Just…don’t think of it as lying. Think about it like two friends helping each other out.”

“He’s not my friend.” You scoff, but the words don’t hold any bite behind them. Not like they used to, at least.

Yunjin grins knowingly. “Yeah, he is.”

You don’t bother correcting her again.

Brunch is at noon at that diner off of fifth. The same one you’d gone to when this entire mess started. The same one you’d started falling in love with Sunghoon at. It’s weird now, seeing how much your life has changed in the short amount of time since you were last here.

You have a fake boyfriend now. You don’t talk to Sunghoon. Your life feels like it’s falling apart and coming back together all at once.

You and Heeseung sit next to each other wordlessly, both of you more cautious about touching. It feels like there’s enough space between your leg and his to fill out the Grand Canyon. It shouldn’t bother you, but it does.

Sunghoon holds Chaewon's hand under the table, and their shoulders brush every time they move. It’s irritating and annoying and you strangely enough couldn’t care less about it. That sense of jealousy you’d felt the last time you were here no longer spills over your guts like acid, instead you feel nothing.

You try to force yourself to remember what you’d liked about Sunghoon. He’s kind. Smart. Dedicated. Absolutely fucking gorgeous.

But he’s not…

“Honestly,” Jake says between spoonfuls of biscuits and gravy, “when Yunjin told us you guys were seeing each other, I thought she was lying. I mean, you guys couldn’t even be in the same room without having some kind of argument.”

You tuck a strand of hair behind your ear nervously, “yeah. I was pretty surprised too.”

You don’t miss the way Heeseung cracks a smile at that. “It was kind of sudden, but I'm glad it happened.” He says easily, “means I finally get to stop pretending I can’t stand her.”

You can tell he hadn’t meant to say that last part, because his eyes go wide and he tenses for a second. Not long enough for anyone to catch it, but you do. You see the way fear flashes behind his irises for a moment, the way his breath catches before filling out his chest once again.

Sunghoons throat bobs as he swallows, dark eyes darting between the two of you slowly. “Pretending?” He asks cautiously, like he’s testing the words on his tongue.

But you don’t care about Sunghoon. All you can think about is what Heeseung said. I finally get to stop pretending I can’t stand her. Is he being honest? Or is this all just a part of your act? You hate that you can’t tell.

“Uh,” he laughs nervously, bringing a hand up to scratch at the back of his neck. “When we were in school, I didn't know how to get her attention. She was smart and kind and friends with everyone, and I was just…there. She used to do this thing in kindergarten where she’d wait for everyone else to fall asleep during naptime before she did because she didn’t want anyone to have to sit there alone, and I remember thinking she must’ve been sent by some kind of angel.” He laughs then, a genuine one. The kind that lights up his entire face.

You hadn’t even remembered you did that, but it’s true. You did. It always just felt like the right thing to do, but the fact that he remembers it all these years later makes you feel almost dizzy. 

“I think it was in third grade when I figured the best way to get her attention was to piss her off,” he continues. “I don’t know why. But I spent the next ten or more years making sure I annoyed her to the best of my ability. I think I just decided that I’d rather have her hate me than not have her in my life at all.”

The table is silent aside from the people talking around you. They’re all having normal conversations while you're going through the biggest existential crisis of your life. You understand that this is supposed to be fake–but that didn’t feel like something he made up on the spot. It felt like he was finally coming clean about something that’d been sitting on his chest for years. And if that’s true, where does that leave you?

“Heeseung…” You attempt, eyes searching the side of his face. When he turns to you, he looks more sincere than you’ve ever seen him. His hand reaches for yours under the table and he intertwines his fingers with yours. The hold is gentle, soft, right. It feels like you’re exactly where you were always supposed to be.

“Sorry,” he laughs, turning back to the group. “That was kind of sappy.”

“Nah, man, that was beautiful.” Jake murmurs, bringing a hand up to his chest. “I’m happy for you guys, seriously.”

“Yeah,” Sunghoon nods, “you guys are good for each other.” He looks resigned. Like he’s accepting defeat. It makes something click in your brain.

For the first time in your life, you think you’re starting to see Heeseung exactly for who he is.

You don’t notice the way he looks at Sunghoon. Or how he swallows back his pride and comes to terms with what he knows he has to do.

You don't comment when he pulls his hand away from you, you just assume it's because he wants to be able to properly eat his food.

When brunch is over, you say your goodbyes to everyone with a pep in your step. You know that telling Heeseung how you’re feeling might complicate things, but he basically just confessed that he remembered things you did in kindergarten. You don’t remember that kind of stuff unless it means something, right?

“I’ll walk you back to your dorm?” He murmurs next to you, and you nod.

“I’d like that.”

There’s tension in the air as you walk, one that you’re practically dying to address. But Heeseung doesn’t look like he did in the diner. He looks conflicted, scared–he keeps his eyes ahead and his hands shoved into his pockets. Nothing like the bright boy you’d been sitting next to barely an hour ago.

“Are you okay?” You ask, voice soft.

He doesn’t even glance at you. “I’m fine.”

“Then why do you look like a kicked puppy?” You attempt to joke, but he doesn't laugh. Instead, he pauses on the sidewalk, and you barely get a few feet in front of him when you notice he’s stopped.

“What’s going on, Heeseung?” You attempt again, reaching for his hand. He pulls it back so sharply you nearly flinch.

“I think…I think we need to stop.” He says finally.

Your heart drops. “What? Why? Did I–Did I do something to make you uncomfortable?"

“No, no, it’s not–” He runs a shaky hand through his hair, “fuck, it’s not you.”

You raise a brow. He’s not making any sense. He wants to stop now? After what he said in the diner? “Then what is it?” You snap.

He shakes his head like the words are too painful to speak. “You like Sunghoon, [Y/N], and he’s going to break up with Chaewon soon. I got the pictures I needed for the competition. There’s no reason to drag this on any longer than we already have.”

His words shouldn’t feel like a breakup, but they do. God, they do.  They feel like he’s pulling away from you after you’ve finally come to terms with what you feel for him. “What about what you said in the diner?” You ask finally, voice breaking. “I can’t just act like that didn’t happen, Heeseung. Not when I’m finally–I’m finally…” The words get caught in your throat, but you both know exactly what you mean by them.

His hands squeeze into fists at his side. “That didn’t mean anything, [Y/N].” he says lowly, like breaking your heart is something he does daily. Maybe it was and you just never noticed before. “It was just helping the act. Keeping up the lie. That’s all.”

Tears come to your waterline, the back of your throat beginning to ache from the force of it. “You don’t mean that.”

“I do,” he says firmly, but you can see the way his eyes are beginning to turn glassy. “I really do.”

He turns on his heel then, leaving you alone on the sidewalk and turning his back onto whatever fucked up thing it is you’ve built together. 

Your mother used to say that hate and love were synonymous. You know now that she was wrong.

Because what you feel for Lee Heeseung has nothing to do with love, and everything to do with pure, unadulterated hate.

Your phone chimes, and when you check the notification, what you see doesn't make you feel good. It doesn't bring joy to your heart or make you want to skip down the street. Instead, it makes your heart break a little bit more.

Yunjin: Sunghoon just broke up with Chaewon. We’re so in

You should be happy. This is exactly what you wanted, right?

So why do you feel like you just lost the one thing that mattered the most?

You haven’t talked to Heeseung in three weeks. He transferred out of your shared class–something you didn’t even know was possible this late into the semester–and stopped showing up to any group hangouts. Not that you care, obviously. 

The both of you said your breakup was mutual. That the stress of school and work just didn’t make a relationship possible, but there weren’t any hard feelings. Jake had raised a brow at the entire thing, but ultimately accepted it without a word.

But, Sunghoon seeing the both of you being single at the same time again, decided that meant he could shoot his shot. Which is good–it was the entire point of this entire thing, right?

Sunghoon is nice. He holds the door open for you and he pays for your meals and he takes you back to that coffee shop the both of you loved so much.

He is perfect for you in every sense.

But when he sits next to you, you don’t feel that same spark low in your belly. When he makes a joke, you don’t laugh until you swear you’re going to run out of oxygen. He doesn’t look at you like you mean something to him.

Yunjin's not dumb, she knows something's wrong. Just a few months ago you would’ve been ecstatic at the idea of going on dates with Sunghoon, so why do you seem like you couldn’t care less about him now?

“Are you okay?” She asks, voice filled with concern. “You’ve been…distant.”

“I’m fine,” you answer a bit too quickly. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I don't know, why don’t you tell me?”

You blink, turning to look at her in your mirror. You’re in the middle of getting ready for you and Sunghoons third date. He told you to dress nicely for dinner, but all you can think about is the fact that Heeseung would be presenting his pictures for the contest tonight. You didn’t even get to see them, which is more annoying than anything else.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Yunjin.” You lie.

She sighs, crossing her arms over her chest and making her way over to you. She smooths down the hem of your skirt without a second thought. “Fine. You don’t have to tell me but, if it’s because of Heeseung–”

“It’s not.”

“–If it’s because of Heeseung, then I’d understand.”

You freeze, eyes snapping to hers. You never told her about the last conversation you’d had with Heeseung, because you figured there wasn’t really any point. He’d “broken up” with you, and that was that. It doesn't mean anything else.

You want Sunghoon. You know you do. It’s the entire reason you and Heeseung came up with that stupid plan in the first place. You aren’t going to throw away a good guy because you’d gotten confused.

“It’s not,” you lie again, “I’m just stressed with finals and stuff. That’s all.”

Yunjin obviously doesn’t believe you. You don’t blame her, of course. You’ve always been an awful liar.

She doesn’t say anything for a moment, and you’re already dreading what she’s going to say. Every time Yunjin goes silent, it always means she’s going to say something that you probably don’t want to hear. 

“You know,” she starts, voice soft and low, “I’ve never seen you look at anyone the way you looked at him.”

You freeze, a shiver rushing down your spine like ice cold water. “What?”

“I just mean–” She backtracks for a moment before deciding to just say it, “you never look at Sunghoon the way you looked at Heeseung. You looked…happy with him. Like, actually happy. Not just because you thought you were supposed to be, but because you actually felt it.”

You go silent at that. You were happy. Even if you hadn’t wanted to admit it–even if you were fighting it for whatever reason. “I’m happy with Sunghoon.” You say with finality, but you both hear how your voice shakes.

“If you say so,” she sighs, turning back and sitting at her desk. “What’re you guys doing tonight?”

You’re grateful for the change in topic. “He’s taking me to dinner,” you shrug, clipping on your earrings. “Somewhere fancy, I guess.”

She hums. “Do you think he’s going to kiss you tonight?”

God, I really, really hope not.

“I hope so,” you answer instead. Maybe kissing Sunghoon will be exactly what you need to get your mind off of him. “I think I’ve waited long enough.” You laugh, but it’s weak. Dishonest.

Yunjin frowns at the sound of it, but she doesn’t push. “Yeah,” she mumbles, “me too.”

Sunghoon arrives at five on the dot. Just like he said he would. You should’ve been watching the clock because you were excited for him to get here, but instead all you could think about every time you glanced at it was how nervous Heeseung must be right now. The contest starts at seven, which means he finds out in the next two hours if he wins the money. Your hand twitches at your side. You want to text him and say good luck, but you don’t. 

“You look beautiful,” Sunghoon says. He’s all dark hair and dark eyes, not a single hair out of place. His suit looks expensive, and you wonder if he bought it just for the occasion. That definitely feels like something he would do.

“Thank you,” you respond, hoping he doesn’t see how fake your smile is. “You clean up pretty nicely as well.”

“I try,” he jokes, outstretching his arm for you. You take it easily, but it doesn’t feel right in your palm. It’s sturdy, easy. But, it doesn’t have any of that fire that you think it should.

Sunghoon is a gentleman the entire night. He takes you to eat, makes corny jokes, kisses your knuckles with pink cheeks. And it’s good. It’s so, so good. It’s exactly what you’ve always wanted.

But when you close your eyes, it’s not Sunghoon you see.

It’s dirty blonde hair covered by some ratty baseball cap. It’s that fucking teasing smile that you used to hate seeing. It’s watching him grow up and having him remember things about you that you’d completely forgotten about.

It’s him. Heeseung.

Sunghoon leads you to your front door nervously, his eyes searching yours like he’s trying to get some kind of read on you. You wonder if he can see that your heart isn’t here–that it never was.

“I had a good time tonight,” he says, lips curling up into a soft smile. “I hope it was the same for you.”

“I…” Your words catch in your throat. You know what the logical thing would be to do right now. Accept his compliments, kiss him sweetly, go into your room giddy and wait for him to text you. But it’s wrong. It’s so, so wrong.

“Sunghoon,” you start, eyes filling with tears. “I’m so fucking sorry.”

He’s silent for a split second, like he’s trying to process your words. “Why?” He asks, “Did something happen? Did I–Did I do something?”

God, you wish he had. That would make this entire thing so much easier. 

“No,” you laugh wetly, “It’s not you. It’s–it’s me.” You know it’s cliche, but it's true. Because while you should’ve been enjoying him tonight, all you could think about was Heeseung. About the way he’d kissed you at the party. About how he always looked at you like there was more he wanted to say but he just never knew how.

Sunghoon blinks, his eyebrows knitting together and creasing his forehead. “What?”

“You’re perfect, Sunghoon.” you start, the words flowing out of you like you’re finally admitting them to yourself. “And for a long time, you were everything I ever wanted. You went to the cafe with me. You invited me to your games. I thought–I thought that I’d finally found the person I was meant to be with.”

“I–I don’t understand,” he murmurs, “Is that not how you feel anymore?”

Your heart constricts as you shake your head. “I wanted to. I really, really tried to remind myself of how I felt for you before. But…”

It takes him a second, but you see the exact moment recognition flashes across his face. He takes a step back from you, lips falling into a straight line. “But I’m not him.”

You can’t help the sob that rips from your throat. “I’m so sorry, Sunghoon.”

You half expect him to yell, maybe flip you off and drive off in his Porsche while he gets Chaewon on speed dial. But he doesn’t. He stands there for a long moment, breathing slowly, tongue poking the inside of his cheek every now and then.

And then he looks up at you, at the tears staining your cheeks, at how the honesty ripped out of you like a force of nature. He checks his watch–6:50 pm. Ten minutes before the contest starts.

“Come on,” he says, already jogging to the driver's seat.

You’re frozen, watching him with wide eyes. Did he not hear what you just said? “Sunghoon–”

He gives you a look so sharp it nearly steals the breath from your lungs. “We’ve got ten minutes to make it to that contest, and unfortunately, I’m not very big on breaking traffic laws. So, hurry up and get in!”

You gawk at him, a smile curling onto your lips, but you run into his car, nevertheless.

He was right, he’s not big on breaking traffic laws. But you see he’s going five over the speed limit compared to his usual three, and that feels like it counts for something. Even though you’d been leading him on for the past three weeks, he’s still trying to make sure you’re happy. He’s still looking out for you. 

“Thank you,” you sniffle. And you truly mean it.

His gaze stays glued to the road. "Don't mention it.”

You arrive at the photography center with two minutes to spare. Sunghoon doesn't even let you say bye, just rushes you out of the car and wishes you good luck. You don’t look back as you run inside.

You’re thankful you at least dressed nicely for the date, because everyone in here looks like they come from money. Women in floorlength gowns, men in suits you’re sure cost more than your entire tuition. These must be the donors.

The hall is filled with pictures, some simple–some you think you have to be involved in the community to understand. But even as you practically sprint down the hallway, Heeseung is nowhere to be found.

“Please make your way to the dining hall as the photography committee prepares to announce the winner of this year's $100,000 grant!” A voice rings from the intercom, and you blindly follow the crowd into the large room parallel to the hall.

It’s filled with tables, and there’s a stage right at the front of the room with a podium and a giant projector. There’s nothing on it yet, but you’re assuming that’s where they’ll show the winning portfolio.

The tables all have name cards, so you do your best to conspicuously make your way to the back where nobody will notice you standing awkwardly. Plus, from back here it’ll be easier to try and find Heeseung.

You study the crowd, looking for the familiar head of blonde hair, but you come up empty. For a second, you wonder if he’s even here. He has to be here, you think. This is everything to him.

But every time someone new walks in, it’s never him.

You rock back and forth on your feet, a nervous habit. Pretty soon all the chairs are filled out and Heeseung is still nowhere to be seen. You wonder if he’d dropped out of the contest, but that still wouldn’t make any sense. Why would he drop out when photography was so important to him?

You reach for your phone, half tempted to call him and ask where the hell he was, but the lights dim and the president of the photography committee walks up the podium. She’s an older woman, with pin straight grey hair and huge glasses. She has to pull down the microphone to match her height. Heeseung used to joke that even though she looked like she belonged in a Disney movie, she was the toughest mentor he’d ever had. 

“Thank you all for coming tonight,” she starts, voice light. “We had many great admissions this year. All of which I personally took the time to look through, and let me tell you, there was some tough competition. I almost threw up my hands and gave the money to everyone!” 

The crowd laughs at that, but you can tell it’s just them being polite. “But, unfortunately, we can’t do that. So, after many sleepless nights and lots of talks with the committee, I was able to come to a decision. This year's winner is someone I think has put in more effort into his photos than anyone else I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with. He’s not naturally talented, no, but he’s dedicated. He takes risks. He tries new things and doesn’t shy away when they don’t work.”

The projector begins to come to life. “As you know, this year's theme was muse. The participants were meant to find a singular person and put together a portfolio of said person.”

The first photo flashes against the screen–and your breath catches in your throat. It's you. But it’s not the ones from the park, no, it’s you in class. Your pencil is in between your lips; brows scrunched together the way they always are when you get frustrated. You’re not wearing any makeup–hell, you look like you just rolled out of bed!

Your breath catches as the photos continue. Some of you in class, in the diner, at that God forsaken party. All pictures that look old and new at the same time. You can tell some are from after this entire mess started, when you and Heeseung started to actually enjoy each other's presence. You look happier in those ones.

But there’s some from before too–when the only times you ever thought about Heeseung were when you were thinking about how much you can’t stand him. Those ones are mostly you in class, all of them shot from the same angle. There’s a few of you from group hangouts, and you wonder how you never noticed him taking them. Maybe it’s because you’re just so used to seeing him with his camera that you stopped noticing it entirely.

It’s the last photo that really gets you though. It’s from the park, you’re sitting in the grass, head tilted to the side, lips curling up into a soft smile. You’re looking into the camera–or, behind it actually–directly at Heeseung, and the look in your eyes is enough to knock the breath from your lungs.

You look like you’re in love.

“This year's winner–though I doubt anyone's surprised–Is Lee Heeseung!”

You barely register her words, because all you can see is Heeseung walking up onto the stage. So that’s where he was, you think.

He’s wearing a suit, though it doesn’t look nearly as nice as everyone else's here. His dirty blonde hair is actually styled for once, and his lips are curled up into a small smile. But it’s not the one you’re used to seeing. It doesn’t quite reach his eyes, doesn’t make his face light up like it usually does. Despite winning, he looks almost sad.

He gives a small bow at the podium, shaking hands with the Committee President. He looks nervous as he comes up to the mic, and you squeeze your hands together. Does he want you here? Should you try and make your presence known?

You are the girl in his photos, after all.

“Wow,” he starts, voice shaking slightly. “This is…an honor. Really. I didn’t go into this contest thinking I would win. In fact, I wasn’t going to enter at all. Not until I realized I’d already accidentally found my muse.” He laughs then, but it’s short. “I entered for selfish reasons. Not for the money. Not so that I could get my photos in international shows. But, because I wanted an excuse to get closer to her.”

His eyes scan the crowd, until finally, they land on you. His eyes widen for a moment, lips parting in shock. For a moment, you think he wants you to leave. You wouldn’t blame him if he did.

But he smiles. Really smiles. “None of this would’ve been possible without her.” He continues now, voice more confident. “These photos would’ve sat tucked away in my camera forever. But she made me confident. She reminded me of why I love photography in the first place. So, I’m dedicating this grant to her. To my muse.” His eyes find yours again. “My [Y/N].”

You don’t get a chance to go up to Heeseung until after all of the sponsors have congratulated him, which admittedly takes a lot longer than you think either of you would like.

You can see him on stage, shaking hands with people who you assume must be important. He never keeps his eyes on them for too long. Instead, they trail over to you, like he’s hoping he’ll be able to communicate with you through eye contact.

By the time you can actually speak to him, the hall is mostly empty aside from a few stragglers. He approaches you with caution, like he’s scared of getting too close.

“Hi,” he breathes, stopping a few feet in front of you.

“Hi,” you say back.

The air is softer than it had been the last time you’d seen him. Then, it was harsh. Like smoke filling into your lungs. Now, it feels like a breath of fresh air.

You’re both silent for a moment, like you’re unsure of what to say to each other.

“I broke it off with Sunghoon,” you say eventually, eyes falling to the floor. 

He blinks. “You did?”

“I did.”

“Okay.”

More silence.

“You took pictures of me,” you observe.

“I did.”

“Why?”

He laughs, a full hearty sound, like he’s caught off guard by the question. You don’t know why he would be. You think it’s a perfectly fair thing to ask.

He shrugs, “I felt inspired by you.”

You raise a brow at that. “Inspired? By what—me chewing my pencil like a child?”

He grins, shoving his hands into his pockets. “No. I was inspired by how I felt when I looked at you.”

That makes you pause. “What?”

He fiddles with the corner of his pocket, thumb grazing it once before darting away. He sucks in a deep breath, and then finally, he says everything you know he’s been holding back.

“I’ve been in love with you since we were six years old,” he starts. “Ever since I watched you stay up the entire nap time because Jungwon couldn’t fall asleep. I knew right then and there that I loved you and that I was going to continue to love you for as long as I knew you.”

You can’t help the way your eyes go glassy, heart thumping a million miles an hour in your chest. “Heeseung…”

He doesn’t let you finish. “But I was shy—well, scared is more like it—I was scared that you weren’t going to want to be my friend and I would never be able to be around you.”

“Why would you think that?” 

He shrugs, “why does a third grader think anything?”

You don’t have a reply for that.

He sighs before continuing. “After that it just…became a thing. Our thing. I annoyed you and therefore I got to keep being in your life. Even if it wasn't what I wanted, I figured it was better than not being around you at all.” He swallows, tongue darting out to wet his lips. “But then we got to university and you met Sunghoon and I felt you slipping away from me, and I didn’t know what to do with that. I thought that maybe…maybe it was time for me to let you go.”

Your heart cracks at the strain in his voice, like he’s recalling a bad memory.

“So, I’m sure you can imagine my surprise when Jake came home and started asking me a million questions about our apparent relationship.” 

“Oh, God,” you laugh, shaking your head at the memory. At the time, it’d genuinely felt like the end of the world. Now, you really can’t imagine where your life would be without Yunjin's lie.

For starters, he probably would’ve never told you this, and you would’ve gone your entire life chopping up your relationship to nothing but a high school rivalry that didn’t have any deeper meaning. You would’ve never found out he felt this way—or that you feel the way you do.

“It was good,” he starts again, “pretending. Even though it wasn’t really pretending for me. And then we went to that diner and I just…I got scared. I didn’t want to hold you back from what you really wanted. I thought, she’s hated me for years, at least now she’ll have an actual reason. And I wanted to be okay with that. I really did.” He takes a step closer. “But now you’re here. And I think I know why, but I’m getting tired of assuming things, princess. So, I think you’ll have to tell me.”

You suck in a shaky breath, your own hands fiddling with the hem of your dress nervously. “I…tried. With Sunghoon. I thought it was what I wanted, the easiness of it all. He was kind and he made bad jokes and I thought I was content with that.” 

You roll your eyes, “But then you happened.” You say it like it’s an insult, but you both know it’s not. “And every time I was with him all I could think was how his car didn’t have that mysterious dent in the front. How he didn’t let me play pop music and pretend he wasn’t singing along when we both knew he was. How he didn't make me feel like I actually meant something to him.” 

Your eyes find his for the first time since he approached you tonight. “All I could think about was how he wasn’t you.”

For a brief second, the only noise between the two of you is your breathing and the faint hum of people around you. Heeseung's lips part, his Adam's apple bobbing as he takes in your confession. He’s silent for so long you nearly think you overstepped.

But then he’s taking a step towards you and cradling your jaw with his hand. You don’t move away.

“I’m going to kiss you now, okay?” He says, and the familiarity of his words brings a smile to your face.

“Okay. I trust you.”

And then his lips are on yours.

This kiss is different from the first one. It’s not hungry, not a performance for anyone else. This kiss is solely for you, for the love you’ve found and never plan on losing. It tastes like him and feels exactly like coming home.

His thumb rubs the apple of your cheek, his lips moving against yours slowly. He doesn’t use tongue, but you don’t need him to.

When you finally pull away, he rests his forehead against yours and brings his hands down to your waist. They feel heavy against you, like a claim you never knew you needed.

“I’ve wanted to do that for so long,” he murmurs.

You giggle, bringing your own arms up to wrap around his neck. “Have you?”

“Yeah,” he responds, “along with…other things.”

You raise a brow at that, “yeah? Like what?”

That’s exactly how you end up back at his apartment, his lips moving against yours like he’s trying to memorize your body with them. Jake and Sunghoon are out thankfully, which means you’ve got the entire apartment to yourself. 

Heeseung leads you blindly to his room, never once turning away from you or attempting to look where he’s going. You laugh as he trips over the carpet, but he swallows it with his mouth on yours.

“You’re so beautiful,” he says against you. You don’t even notice you’ve made it into your bedroom before your legs hit the mattress and suddenly, he’s pulling you down onto it. “Been waiting so long to have you like this.”

“Yeah?” You manage to say, your voice airy. “Show me, then.”

He pulls back for a moment, eyes looking directly into yours, and then he’s moving his lips to your neck. He leaves wet kisses down the column of your throat, your shoulder, sucking marks into the delicate skin of your collarbone. 

His teeth graze a particular spot at your neck that makes you gasp, and he processes the noise with a slight groan of his own. He bites down on the spot–not hard, just enough for your back to arch and your fingers to find purchase in his hair. Your legs wrap around his waist as his tongue shoots out to soothe the bite.

Slowly, he brings a hand up to the strap of your dress, his fingers slipping under it but never pulling down.

“Hee,” you practically whine, “please.”

He grins, and then he pulls the strap down ever so slowly. You know he’s teasing you, and the thought makes heat pool between your legs.

Once the dress is off, he throws it to the side and sits back on his heels so he can stare at you. You still have your underwear and bra on, but the sight of your bare stomach and legs is enough for him to let out a low whistle.

“You’re so beautiful, princess,” he murmurs. The sincerity in his voice makes your cheeks hot. “So fucking perfect.”

Your lips part to respond, but he leans down and kisses you again. This kiss is different from all the others. It’s messy and deep and pulls noises out of you that you weren’t even aware you could make.

He sucks on your bottom lip once, and then he pulls away and leaves kisses all down your body. Down your neck, your cloth-covered breasts, your stomach, all the way down until he leaves one final kiss at your ankle. 

He seats himself at the edge of the bed and ever-so-gently pulls you down so your legs hang over the edge of the bed and your cunt is level with his face. He stares at it for a long moment, at the wet patch growing on the lace. At your pretty white panties.

Your hands fist the sheets, legs nearly closing on instinct, but he just pushes them over his shoulders and keeps you open for him. “Don’t hide from me,” he mumbles. His hand slowly trails up your thigh until it finds the edge of your underwear.

He keeps it there for what feels like forever. Never touching. Just looking. 

“Please,” you whimper, “please touch me.”

He grins, “yeah? Want my mouth on you, baby?”

You nod, hips rolling against nothing. “Yes, fuck, please.”

That seems to finally break him, because he licks one large stripe up your cunt through your underwear. You gasp at the feeling, your back arching slightly.

He continues licking small kitten-licks over your panties, and the mixture of his saliva and your arousal begins to turn the cloth nearly translucent.

He groans like the taste of you is his favorite meal. “You taste so good,” he murmurs against you, “like heaven.”

You bite your lower lip to keep yourself from crying out when his tongue catches your clit, and then he brings his hands up to your waist and pulls your underwear down your legs. You don’t miss the way he stares at them for a second before letting them drop to the floor.

He spits on your cunt, watching the way his saliva drips down your slit before he sucks your clit into his mouth.

You cry out at the feeling, your toes curling at his back. He groans at the taste and brings his hands up to your hips, gripping them and keeping them still.

“Fuck,” you moan when he brings his tongue down to your hole, collecting the arousal there like it's his own personal ambrosia.

“All this is for me, right?” He questions, trailing a hand down and rubbing his thumb against your clit. The feeling has your head spinning. “Not for Sunghoon, all for me, isn’t that right, princess?”

You nod feverishly, his possessiveness nearly enough to make you finish right there and then. “Yours! ‘S all yours.”

He smirks, “that’s a good girl.” 

And then he brings a finger to your entrance, circling over it once before letting it slip inside the ring of muscle. The air punches from your lungs at the feeling, but then he sucks your clit into his mouth again while his finger thrusts into you and you really think you’re going to start seeing stars.

“Hee–Heeseung,” you cry, “fuck!”

He hums but doesn’t stop. Instead, he pushes a second finger inside and begins to curl them upwards. You feel him hit that spongey spot inside of you and you know you’re done for.

“I’m close–fuck,”

He doesn’t work you harder, just keeps going at the pace so he can drag out your orgasm for as long as possible. “Come on, baby, cum for me. Show me just how bad you want it.”

That’s all it takes for you to release all over his face and hand. Your muscles tighten and relax over and over again, back arching and vision going white. He groans and licks up every drop, working you through it without a complaint.

You expect him to stop now that you’ve finished, but he doesn’t. If anything, he goes harder. The overstimulation begins to border on the edge of too much, and your hips buck up without your permission.

“Fuck, too much, I cant–”

He doesn’t let up. “Yeah, you can. Come on, wanna see you fall apart for me all over again.”

It doesn’t take long for your second orgasm to crash over you, and this one nearly leaves your body feeling limp and your pulse to blare against your ears.

Your body is still twitching from aftershocks when he climbs up next to you, and you watch with blurry vision as he brings his fingers up to his mouth and licks them clean. He hums at the taste and then brings his hands to the hem of his shirt and slips it off.

Your eyes trail over the sight of his bare chest, noting every ridge of muscle and mole, watching the way his chest heaves slightly. He’s absolutely beautiful, like a painting you’d find at some stupidly expensive art show.

“You’re beautiful,” you murmur.

Now it’s his turn to blush. His ears and cheeks turn a slight shade of pink, but he brings his lips down to yours before you can tease him for it.

Before you know it, his underwear is off and he’s lining himself up with your entrance. He looks up to you for permission, and you nod at him.

Pressure blooms between your legs as he pushes in, but it isn’t exactly painful. It just feels like something you never knew you needed. Like he was made exactly for you.

You keen, back bowing off the bed and eyebrows knitting together. He brings a hand up to cup your cheek and rests his forehead against yours as he finally bottoms out.

You can feel him kissing your g-spot, and he experimentally rolls his hips against yours once. You both groan at the feeling of you tightening around him, and then he pulls out slightly and snaps back in.

You cry out, your nails raking down his back. He hisses slightly at the sting but doesn’t make any moves to stop you. Instead, he begins to rock onto you like his life depends on it. You can feel every ridge of his cock; can feel the way it curves at just the right angle. 

“You feel so fucking good,” he gasps, “so perfect. Always knew you would.”

He buries his face into your neck, his hips snapping against yours like his life depends on it. 

You feel yourself getting close, but before you can warn him your back is arching and you're finishing against him.

He cries out, his thrusts beginning to turn sloppy. “Fuck, fuck, I’m–” He finishes inside you without another word, painting your insides with his cum. 

You both lay there for a moment, trying to catch your breath. He pulls out of you with a low breath and then reaches over for something at his nightstand to clean you up silently.

You watch him as he does, noting the way he cleans up your thighs with so much care. He doesn’t rush the aftercare process either, he kisses your skin gently and murmurs sweet words against you.

By the time your thighs stop shaking and you actually feel like you can breathe without your chest caving in, he’s laying down beside you and pulling you against his chest.

You lay there for a moment, feeling the way his chest rises and falls against your back. The warmth from his skin.

“Heeseung?” You mumble.

“Hm?”

You blink, a smile curling onto your lips. “I love you.”

He doesn’t even hesitate. “I love you, too.”

And for once, you know that you both mean it.

Your mother used to say that hate was just another word for love. And right now, you know that she was right. Because what you feel for Lee Heeseung used to have everything to do with hate, but now you know it was really just another word for love.

You’re staring at your own reflection in the bathroom mirror, and the girl staring back looks like she’s about to either throw up or ascend to another dimension. Maybe both. In that order.

The letter is clutched so tightly in your hand that the pale lavender envelope is starting to crease, and you force yourself to loosen your grip before you ruin the one thing you’ve spent three weeks perfecting. Three weeks. That’s twenty-one days of drafting, crossing out, rewriting, Googling “how to write a love letter without sounding like a desperate loser,” and then rewriting again. You’ve used up an entire pack of stationery. You’ve watched so many calligraphy tutorials that the YouTube algorithm thinks you’re training to become a medieval scribe. All for this one moment. This one letter. This one massive, terrifying, possibly life-ruining leap of faith.

You are a hopeless romantic. Hopeless being the operative word.

It’s not that you don’t believe in love. You do. Desperately, overwhelmingly, with every fiber of your first-year STEM student soul. You believe in meet-cutes and slow burns and the exact moment when two people look at each other and the entire world goes soft around the edges. You’ve read about it a hundred times. You’ve watched it play out on every screen you own. You’ve composed entire daydreams about it during particularly boring chemistry lectures. Love is your favorite subject, the one you’ve studied with more dedication than calculus or physics combined. There’s just one tiny, inconvenient, absolutely infuriating problem.

You’re terrified of it.

Not the idea of it. The idea is lovely. The idea is safe. The idea lives in your head where everything unfolds exactly the way you want it to, where you always say the right thing, where you never trip over your own feet or laugh too loud at the wrong moment or stand frozen in a doorway like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming truck. But real love? The kind that requires vulnerability and eye contact and actually speaking words out loud with your mouth? That kind of love makes your palms sweat and your heart race in a decidedly unromantic, fight-or-flight kind of way. You are, and this is the most embarrassing part, a coward. A romantic coward. You dream of grand gestures but can barely manage a coherent sentence when an attractive person so much as glances in your direction.

Which brings you back to the letter.

The letter is your loophole. Your workaround. Your way of confessing your feelings without actually having to say them, because writing them down felt manageable in a way that speaking never has. You can be eloquent on paper. On paper, you can say things like “the first time I saw your smile, it felt like someone had turned on all the lights in a room I didn’t even realize was dark” without immediately wanting to crawl into the nearest hole and live out the rest of your days an hermit. On paper, you’re brave. On paper, you’re the kind of person who goes after what she wants.

In reality, you’ve been hiding in this bathroom for fifteen minutes, and your hands are shaking so badly that a passing person would think you are having an epileptic seizure.

“Okay,” you whisper to your reflection. “Okay. You can do this. You are a woman on a mission. You are a warrior. You are-”

A toilet flushes in one of the stalls behind you, and you nearly launch yourself through the ceiling.

A girl you vaguely recognize from your introductory programming class emerges, gives you an odd look as she washes her hands, and leaves without saying anything. You wait until the door swings shut, then press your forehead against the cool glass of the mirror and contemplate every life choice that has led you to this moment.

His name is Jungwon.

Yang Jungwon. Second year. Undeclared major but leaning toward something in the humanities, which you know because you may have done a bit of light, respectful, completely non-creepy research. He has a smile that crinkles the corners of his eyes and a laugh that sounds like sunshine if sunshine could make noise, and he holds doors open for people even when they’re still like ten feet away, which creates that awkward situation where the person has to speed-walk to not seem rude, but he never seems to mind. You first noticed him at the campus library during midterms when he quietly slid a pack of gummy bears across the table toward you at 2 AM, muttering something about glucose being good for brain function, and then went back to his book like he hadn’t just fundamentally altered the trajectory of your entire emotional existence.

That was four months ago. You’ve been pining ever since. Pining, yearning, longing, you’ve run through the entire lexicon of unrequited affection, and you’re exhausted. Today, you’ve decided, is the day it ends. One way or another.

You push yourself off the mirror, square your shoulders, and march out of the bathroom with the determination of someone going to war. The envelope is slightly damp from your grip, but it’s still intact, and the words inside are still true, and somewhere on this campus, Yang Jungwon is about to receive the most heartfelt confession letter ever written by a first-year student who has consumed an unhealthy amount of romance media.

Now you just have to find him.

—————

The hallway is bustling with students, the usual midday chaos of people rushing to classes or huddling in groups to complain about assignments. You scan the crowd, looking for a familiar face that might point you in the right direction, and your eyes land on a guy leaning against the wall, scrolling through his phone with the dead-eyed expression of someone who has just finished a three-hour lab.

“Excuse me,” you say, and your voice comes out about an octave higher than normal. You clear your throat. “Sorry, um, do you know where I can find Yang Jungwon? Second year?”

The guy looks up, blinks slowly, deciding whether or not to acknowledge your presence, and then shrugs. “PC room, I think. Saw him heading there like twenty minutes ago.”

The PC room. Of course. It’s in the engineering and informatics building, a place you’ve rarely ever been to. But you know where it is, roughly, and you thank the guy with what you hope is a normal smile and not the rictus grin of someone rushing toward emotional catastrophe.

The walk across campus takes approximately seven minutes, and you spend every single one of them rehearsing what you’re going to say. You’ve already written the letter, so technically you don’t have to say anything, you can just hand it over and flee but you want to say something. Something cool. Something memorable.

“Hey, Jungwon, this is for you.” Simple. Direct. Good.

“I wrote you something. No pressure, just read it when you have time.” Casual. Low-stakes. Excellent.

“Hi, I’ve been emotionally compromised by your existence for several months, please accept this paper rectangle of feelings.” Okay, maybe not that one.

The engineering building looms in front of you before you’re ready. You push through the main doors and immediately feel out of place. The students here move with a different energy, less frantic, more focused, the kind of people who probably know what a server is and have opinions about programming languages you’ve never heard of.

You follow the signs toward the PC room, your footsteps echoing in the corridor, and with every step, your heart climbs higher up your throat. This is it. This is the moment. You’re going to walk in there, find Jungwon, hand him the letter, and then whatever happens happens. At least you’ll have tried. At least you’ll have been brave, even if it’s only for thirty seconds.

The door to the PC room is slightly ajar, and you can hear voices inside, multiple voices, which gives you pause. You assumed he’d be alone. Or with maybe one other person.

You hesitate. Your hand hovers over the door handle. Every instinct is screaming at you to turn around, go back to your dorm, and spend the rest of your life wondering what could have been. And maybe you would, if not for the small, stubborn voice in the back of your mind that says: You’ve already come this far. Don’t you want to know? Don’t you want to be the kind of person who actually does the thing instead of just dreaming about it?

Yes. Yes, you do.

You squeeze your eyes shut, take a breath so deep it makes you lightheaded, and push the door open with more force than strictly necessary. It slams against the wall with a bang that makes approximately twelve heads swivel in your direction, and for one horrifying moment, you are the center of attention in a room full of strangers.

But you don’t see any of them. You only see the figure sitting at the computer closest to the door, his back half-turned to you, hair falling over his forehead, the exact silhouette you’ve been looking for. Or at least, the exact silhouette you think you’ve been looking for.

You don’t stop to confirm. You don’t let yourself think. You just march forward, thrust the letter out in front of you like a shield, and launch into the speech you’ve been rehearsing for three weeks.

“This is for you. I’m sorry if this is weird or sudden but I’ve liked you for a really long time and I couldn’t keep it to myself anymore. You don’t have to respond right away. You don’t have to respond ever, actually. I just wanted you to know that someone out there thinks you’re wonderful and I wrote it all down because I’m better at writing than talking and honestly I might pass out if I keep standing here so please just take this and I’ll go-”

You finally look up.

And the face staring back at you is absolutely, categorically, one hundred percent not Jungwon.

The boy in front of you is taller than Jungwon. Broader shoulders. Sharper jawline. Different eyes, darker, deeper, currently widened in a mixture of surprise and something you can’t quite read. His lips are parted slightly, as if he was about to say something before you launched into your emotional word-vomit, and he’s holding a half-eaten protein bar that’s now frozen halfway to his mouth.

The room has gone completely, utterly silent.

You can feel the stares of every single person boring into the back of your head. Someone coughs. Someone else whispers something that sounds suspiciously like “did she just-” before being shushed by their neighbor.

And then the boy, the very handsome, very wrong boy, sets down his protein bar, takes the letter gently from your trembling hand, and says in a voice that’s low and smooth and completely unfamiliar: “Wow. Okay. What’s your name?”

This is the worst moment of your entire life. You are going to die right here, in this PC room, surrounded by computer monitors and half-empty energy drink cans and a dozen witnesses who will spread this story to every corner of the university within the next three hours. Your obituary will read: here lies Y/N, the loser who can’t even recognize her ultimate crush.

“Y/N,” you croak, because your mouth is apparently still functioning even though every other part of you has shut down. “L/N Y/N. First year. STEM.”

You don’t know why you said STEM. He didn’t ask for your department. You’re offering information nobody requested. This is a disaster.

But the boy, he’s looking at you with an expression you can’t decipher, his head tilted slightly to the side like you’re a puzzle he’s trying to figure out. He’s wearing a dark hoodie with the informatics department logo on it, and there’s a pair of expensive-looking headphones draped around his neck, and his hair is slightly mussed in a way that suggests he’s been running his fingers through it while concentrating. He’s absurdly good-looking, the kind of good-looking that makes you simultaneously want to stare and look away, and you’re only now noticing the way several girls in the room have been watching him since you entered, not just because of your blunder, but because they’ve been watching him.

“I’m Heeseung,” he says, and there’s a hint of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Lee Heeseung. Third year. Informatics engineering.”

Lee Heeseung. The name registers somewhere in the back of your panic-addled brain. It’s familiar in the way that campus gossip is familiar, attached to words like hot and player and don’t get your hopes up because he’ll charm you and then move on. You’ve heard girls in your dorm talking about him in hushed, giggling tones, trading stories about brief encounters and misinterpreted invitations. And you, in your infinite wisdom, have just handed a love letter meant for someone else directly into his notorious hands.

You have to fix this. You have to tell him it was a mistake. You have to-

“I’m flattered,” Heeseung says, and his smile widens slightly, not quite a smirk but definitely approaching smirk territory. “Really. This is... I mean, no one’s ever confessed to me with an actual letter before. It’s kind of old school.” He turns the envelope over in his hands, examining it with what seems like genuine curiosity. “The handwriting is really pretty. Did you do the calligraphy yourself?”

“Yes,” you say, because you are physically incapable of lying when put on the spot, and also because your brain has apparently decided that the best course of action is to just answer whatever questions he asks like this is a normal conversation and not the emotional equivalent of a tornado.

“Impressive.” He looks at you, really looks at you, and something shifts in his expression. The teasing edge softens just a fraction. “A confession is a lot, though. I mean, I’m honored, but we don’t even know each other.”

This is your opening. This is the moment where you say “actually, that’s because this letter wasn’t meant for you, there’s been a terrible misunderstanding, I’m so sorry, please forget this ever happened.” The words are right there, lined up on your tongue, ready to go.

But the room is still watching. A dozen pairs of eyes. The whispers have stopped, but the staring hasn’t, and you can feel every single gaze like a physical weight pressing down on you. If you correct him now, in front of everyone, you’ll have to explain. You’ll have to admit that you walked into a crowded room and confessed to the wrong person like an absolute buffoon. You’ll become a campus legend for all the wrong reasons: the girl who was too stupid to even identify her own crush. The story will follow you for the rest of your university career. You’ll never live it down.

But if you just... let him believe it... if you just nod and agree and leave as quickly as possible... you can fix this later. Privately. Without an audience. You can find him tomorrow, or send him a message, or do literally anything other than humiliate yourself further in front of all these people.

Your mouth opens. Closes. Opens again.

“I know,” you hear yourself say. “It’s a lot. I know.”

Heeseung nods thoughtfully, like you’ve said something profound. “But I’m not against it. Starting slow, I mean. If you want.”

What.

“What,” you say, but it comes out more like a statement than a question.

“I’m okay with starting slow,” he repeats, and now the smile is definitely back, a little crooked, a little curious. “You’re cute. And clearly brave. I like that. So if you want to, I don’t know, get coffee sometime and see where this goes... I’m open to it.”

Someone in the room lets out a low whistle. Someone else says “Heeseung, are you serious right now?” in a tone of utter disbelief. But Heeseung doesn’t look away from you. He’s waiting for your answer, his gaze steady and warm, and you are standing in the epicenter of a complete and total catastrophe with absolutely no idea how to get out.

Say no. Say it was a mistake. Say the truth.

“Okay,” you whisper.

Okay?! Okay?!

“Okay,” he echoes, and the smile breaks fully across his face, transforming him from handsome to devastating. “Good. I’ll find you. Y/N, first year, STEM, right?”

You nod mutely.

“Cool.” He tucks your letter carefully into the pocket of his hoodie, like it’s something precious, like he’s planning to read it later, and the gesture makes your stomach twist with guilt so intense you think you might actually be sick. “I’ll see you around, Y/N.”

You don’t remember leaving the room. You don’t remember the walk back across campus or the elevator ride to your floor or the moment you collapsed face-first onto your dorm bed. All you know is that one moment you were standing in the PC room, and the next you are here, staring at the ceiling, replaying every single agonizing second on an endless loop.

You confessed to the wrong person.

You confessed to the wrong person.

And for some reason that you absolutely cannot comprehend, he said yes.

Across campus, in a PC room that has finally returned to its normal hum of activity, Lee Heeseung pulls a slightly crumpled lavender envelope out of his hoodie pocket and stares at it for a long moment.

“Dude,” says his friend Jay from the next computer over, not bothering to hide his grin. “What just happened?”

“I don’t know,” Heeseung says honestly. And he doesn’t. He’s used to attention, he knows how to handle it, how to smile and nod and gently redirect without hurting anyone’s feelings. It’s a skill he’s developed over the years, the only way he knows to deal with the unfortunate side effect of his people-pleasing tendencies. He’s nice to someone, he helps them with an assignment, he holds a door open or offers a pen, and suddenly they’re looking at him with stars in their eyes, and he doesn’t know how to tell them that he was just trying to be polite without sounding like an arrogant jerk. So he lets them down easy, or he avoids the situation entirely, and his reputation grows in ways that don’t reflect the truth at all.

But this, this is new. A letter. An actual, physical, handwritten letter, with swooping calligraphy and a lavender envelope and a girl who looked so terrified that he thought she might actually pass out right there on the linoleum floor.

She looked at him like he was a natural disaster. Like she was watching a building collapse in slow motion and couldn’t do anything to stop it.

And then she said okay anyway.

“She’s interesting,” Heeseung murmurs, more to himself than to Jay, and carefully opens the envelope.

“Interesting how?”

He doesn’t answer. He’s too busy reading, his eyes moving slowly across the carefully penned words, the ink slightly smudged in places where the writer’s hand might have trembled. It’s beautiful. It’s earnest. It’s the kind of letter that someone writes when they mean every single word, when they’ve poured their entire heart onto the page without holding anything back.

He’s never received anything like it before.

And he wants to know more about the girl who wrote it, the girl who burst into his afternoon like a hurricane of nerves and feelings.

“Jay,” he says, still staring at the letter, a hint of a smile playing on his lips. “I think something interesting just walked into my life.”

He doesn’t notice the way his friend shakes his head and mutters something about “here we go again.”

He’s too busy wondering when he’ll see Y/N next.

—————

The following forty-eight hours of your life can be accurately described as a masterclass in strategic avoidance and tactical regret.

You skip two classes. Not on purpose, exactly, you just can’t bring yourself to leave your dorm room when every shadow in the hallway might be Lee Heeseung coming to collect on that coffee date you apparently agreed to in a moment of temporary insanity. You survive on instant noodles and the protein bars your friend left on her desk with a sticky note that said “FOR EMERGENCIES ONLY,” which this absolutely qualifies as. You watch three entire seasons of Bridgerton without retaining a single moment because your brain is too busy replaying the PC room incident on a continuous, merciless loop.

“I’m Lee Heeseung. Third year. Informatics engineering.”

“I’m okay with starting slow.”

“You’re cute.”

You bury your face in your pillow and scream, but it comes out muffled and pathetic, like a small animal giving up on life.

By day three, you’ve developed a system. You only leave your room during off-peak hours, skittering through campus, your head on a constant swivel. You’ve memorized the locations of every vending machine in buildings Heeseung is unlikely to frequent. You’ve started taking the long way to your remaining classes, cutting through the art department and the greenhouse and once, memorably, a service corridor that smelled strongly of bleach and soap. You’ve become a ghost. A phantom. A creature of the shadows who survives on granola bars and instant noddles.

But the problem with running away from your problems is that your problems don’t actually go anywhere. They just wait. And think about you. And eventually, when you least expect it, they catch up.

It happens on a Thursday.

You’re crouched behind a potted plant near the science building, scanning the courtyard for any sign of tall, attractive informatics students, when your phone buzzes with a text from your best friend, Yunjin.

Yunjin: heard you’ve been living like a sewer rat. want me to bring you real food?

You: can’t. i’m in the middle of a crisis

Yunjin: You’re executing what we talked about yet?

You: it’s in process

Yunjin: at the end of the day, you will have to tell him

You stare at the message for a long moment. It’s such a simple solution. So elegant. So reasonable. And yet, every time you imagine yourself walking up to Heeseung and saying “actually, I meant to give that letter to someone else,” your entire body physically recoils like you’ve touched a hot stove. The humiliation would be astronomical. The look on his face, surprise, then confusion, then that horrible moment of realization that he was never supposed to be the recipient would haunt you for the rest of your natural life. And you’d still have to explain the Jungwon part. And Jungwon would find out. And then you’d be the weird girl who couldn’t even confess to the right person, and Heeseung would be the guy who got accidentally confessed to, and everyone would laugh about it for weeks, and-

Your phone buzzes again.

Yunjin: i can hear you overthinking from across campus. just rip off the bandaid. what’s the worst that could happen

You type back a single message: he could tell everyone and i’d have to transfer schools and change my name and become a farmer in New Zeland

Yunjin: dramatic. but valid. good luck with your plant hiding

You shove your phone back into your pocket and peek around the potted plant again. The courtyard is clear. This is your window. You take a deep breath, steel your nerves, and scuttle out from behind the foliage.

The plan for today is simple: find Heeseung, explain the misunderstanding, and disappear forever. You’ve spent the entire morning psyching yourself up for this. You’ve practiced the speech in the mirror seventeen times. You’ve even written a script on your phone that you can refer to in case of emergency. It’s thorough, it’s clear, it leaves absolutely no room for misinterpretation, and it ends with a sincere apology and a polite request that you both pretend this never happened. It’s perfect. It’s foolproof. All you have to do is locate the target.

Easier said than done. You’ve been looking for him since yesterday, not to talk to, but to observe from a safe distance so you could plan your approach and the universe, in its infinite comedic wisdom, has made him completely unfindable. It’s like he vanished off the face of the earth the moment you actually wanted to see him. Three days ago, you couldn’t walk three feet without catching a glimpse of him, but now? Now he’s a ghost. A myth. A concept rather than a physical entity.

You’re going to have to ask for help.

This is, objectively, a terrible idea. Asking for help means talking to people, and talking to people about Heeseung means potentially revealing that you’re looking for him, which means potentially revealing why you’re looking for him, which means the whole campus could know about the letter situation by lunchtime. But you’re running out of options, and you’re running out of granola bars, and you can’t live behind potted plants forever.

You find your informant near the engineering building, a girl with neon green headphones and a laptop covered in stickers, sitting on a bench and typing furiously at something that looks like code. She seems approachable. She seems like she won’t ask too many questions. You approach with what you hope is casual confidence and not the desperate energy of someone who has been living on protein bars.

“Excuse me,” you say, and your voice comes out surprisingly normal. Points for you. “Do you know where I can find Lee Heeseung? Third year, informatics?”

The girl looks up, her eyes flicking over you with mild curiosity. She doesn’t ask why you’re looking for him, which makes you want to hug her. “Heeseung? Yeah, I think I saw him heading to the quad about ten minutes ago. Something about meeting up with some people before his next class.”

The quad. Of course. The most open, public, exposed location on the entire campus. The place where literally everyone congregates. The absolute last place you want to have a conversation about accidental love confessions.

“Great,” you say, and your voice is definitely an octave higher now. “Great. Thank you. Thanks. So much.”

The girl gives you a weird look, shrugs, and goes back to her coding.

You’re already moving, your feet carrying you toward the quad before your brain can catch up and talk you out of it. This is fine. This is progress. You’ll find him, you’ll pull him aside, you’ll give him the speech, and then you’ll be free. You’ll be a normal person again. You’ll be able to walk through campus without checking every corner for a tall informatics student who thinks you’re cute and brave and worthy of a coffee date.

The quad is bustling when you arrive, clusters of students sprawled across the grass and gathered around the stone benches near the fountain. The afternoon sun is bright and warm, the kind of weather that makes everyone want to be outside, which is lovely and picturesque and deeply inconvenient for your purposes. You squint against the glare, scanning the crowd for a familiar dark-haired figure.

No Heeseung.

You circle the perimeter, weaving between groups of friends and dodging a frisbee that comes sailing dangerously close to your head. You check near the fountain, near the big oak tree, near the cluster of food trucks that’s set up along the east edge. Still no Heeseung. Your informant said ten minutes ago, he should be here. Unless he already left. Unless you missed him. Unless this is a sign from the universe that you should give up and commit to the farmer life plan after all.

You’re so focused on your search that you don’t notice someone approaching until a shadow falls across your path, and a voice, warm, familiar, the exact voice you’ve been daydreaming about for four months, says:

“Y/N? Hey, it is you!”

You look up.

Yang Jungwon is standing right in front of you, smiling like the sun just came out from behind a cloud, and every single coherent thought in your brain immediately evaporates.

He’s wearing a soft-looking cream sweater with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows, and his dark hair is slightly windswept, and there’s a tiny mole near his chin that you’ve never noticed before but is now seared into your memory forever. He’s holding a book, something with a cracked spine and a title in a language you don’t recognize and he’s looking at you with genuine, undiluted pleasure, like running into you is the best thing that’s happened to him all day.

“It’s me,” you say, because you are a conversational genius. “I mean. Yes. Hi. Hello.”

Smooth. Flawless execution. Ten out of ten.

Jungwon doesn’t seem to notice your complete lack of verbal grace. His smile widens, crinkling the corners of his eyes in exactly the way you’ve catalogued in your mental Jungwon database. “I thought I recognized you. You’re in my philosophy elective, right? Front row, near the window?”

He knows where you sit. He knows where you sit. This is both the best and worst information you’ve ever received, because on one hand, Yang Jungwon has noticed your existence, but on the other hand, Yang Jungwon has noticed your existence, and now you have to be a normal human being and not the disaster you currently are.

“Front row near the window,” you confirm, nodding a little too vigorously. “That’s me. I like the natural light. For... note-taking purposes.”

“Makes sense.” He shifts his weight, tucking the book under his arm. “You take really detailed notes, by the way. I sat behind you once, and I was honestly impressed. Your color-coding system is no joke.”

Jungwon has looked at your notes. Jungwon has been impressed by your notes. Your brain is short-circuiting at approximately the speed of light, and you have to physically resist the urge to fist-pump in the middle of the quad.

“Thank you,” you manage. “I have a lot of highlighters. Maybe too many. Is there such a thing as too many highlighters? I don’t think so, but I’ve been told my stationery collection is concerning.”

Oh no. Why are you talking about stationery? You need to say something charming. Something witty. Something that will make him see you as more than the girl with the aggressive color-coding system.

“I don’t think it’s concerning,” Jungwon says, and there’s a teasing lilt to his voice that makes your knees go weak. “Passionate, maybe. Dedicated. I respect it.”

“Passionate and dedicated,” you repeat faintly. “That’s... yeah. That’s my brand.”

He laughs, and it’s exactly like you remember, bright and warm, the kind of laugh that makes you want to do whatever you just did again and again just to hear it on repeat. “I like it. Passion is underrated.” He tilts his head, studying you with an expression you can’t quite read. “So what brings you to the quad? You usually eat lunch in the science building courtyard, don’t you?”

Your heart stutters. He knows where you eat lunch. He’s observed your habits. This is either a sign of mutual interest or you’ve accidentally become the subject of a sociological case study, and at this point you’re willing to accept either outcome.

“I’m, um, looking for someone,” you say, and the confession letter debacle comes crashing back into your consciousness like a wrecking ball through a glass window. Right. You’re supposed to be finding Heeseung. You’re supposed to be fixing the misunderstanding. That’s why you’re here. Not to bask in the radiant warmth of Jungwon’s attention like a lizard on a sunny rock.

“Anyone I know?” Jungwon asks, and there’s something in his tone, curiosity, maybe.

“Probably not,” you say quickly. “Just a... just a person. A random person. Not important.”

Jungwon raises an eyebrow, clearly unconvinced, but before he can press further, a new voice cuts through the afternoon air like a knife through butter.

“There you are.”

You freeze. Your blood turns to ice. Every cell in your body screams in unison: run.

Lee Heeseung is walking toward you across the quad, his headphones hanging around his neck and his hands tucked casually into the pockets of his jacket. He looks exactly as devastatingly attractive as he did three days ago, which is deeply unfair. His expression is a mixture of curiosity and amusement, and when his eyes meet yours, that slight smile, the one that’s not quite a smirk but definitely is a smirk’s second cousin, curves across his lips.

“I heard you’ve been looking for me,” he says, coming to a stop beside Jungwon like this is the most natural gathering in the world. “You know, if you wanted to see me, you could have just messaged. I would have given you my number at the PC room.”

Jungwon looks between you and Heeseung with visible confusion, his earlier smile fading into something more guarded. “Wait. You two know each other?”

This is it. This is the moment the universe has been building toward. Every terrible decision, every act of cowardice, every misguided attempt to avoid embarrassment, it’s all led here, to this exact spot on the quad, with the wrong guy standing next to the right guy and your entire romantic future hanging in the balance.

“I wouldn’t say know,” you begin, but Heeseung is already talking over you, apparently immune to the desperate telepathic signals you’re trying to beam directly into his brain.

“She confessed to me two days ago,” Heeseung says, and his tone is so casual, so conversational, like he’s discussing the weather or what he had for lunch. “Walked right into the PC room, handed me a letter, told me she’d liked me for a long time. It was very romantic. Very old-school. I was impressed.”

Silence. Jungwon stares at Heeseung. Then at you. Then back at Heeseung.

“She... confessed to you,” Jungwon repeats slowly, and his voice has gone flat in a way that makes your heart splinter into approximately seven thousand pieces.

“Full confession,” Heeseung confirms, still smiling. “I’m thinking we’ll start with coffee. Keep it simple, you know? She’s shy. I don’t want to overwhelm her.”

This is a nightmare. This is a waking, breathing, actively-unfolding nightmare, and you are trapped in it like a fly in amber, unable to move or speak or do anything except watch as every possible future with Jungwon crumbles to dust before your eyes.

Because here’s the thing you realize in that horrible, crystal-clear moment: you can’t correct Heeseung now. Not in front of Jungwon. Not when Jungwon has just been told, in no uncertain terms, that you confessed to someone else. If you explain the truth, that the letter was actually meant for Jungwon, that the whole thing was a catastrophic mistake, then what? Jungwon would know you’d been planning to confess to him, but he’d also know that you somehow managed to mess it up so spectacularly that you confessed to his friend instead. You’d look incompetent at best and completely unhinged at worst. And Heeseung would be humiliated, and Jungwon would be awkward, and you’d be the epicenter of a social catastrophe so immense that all three of you would have to avoid each other for the rest of your academic careers.

You are trapped. Completely, utterly, irreversibly trapped.

“Interesting,” Jungwon says, and the word is so neutral that it cuts deeper than any insult ever could. “I didn’t realize you two ran in the same circles.”

“We don’t,” you croak. “We really, really don’t.”

“We’re just getting started,” Heeseung says cheerfully, and he has the audacity to wink at you. Like this is some kind of adorable inside joke instead of the emotional apocalypse it actually is.

You have to get out of here. You have to escape before the sob building in your chest forces its way out and makes everything infinitely worse. You can feel it pressing against your ribs, hot and insistent, and if you don’t leave right now, you’re going to burst into tears in the middle of the quad in front of both of them, and then the disaster will be complete.

“I have to go,” you blurt out, and you’re already backing away, your feet moving before your brain can issue any kind of warning. “I have… a thing. A class. A lab. A lab class. It’s very important. I can’t miss it. I have to go.”

Heeseung’s brow furrows slightly. “Wait, I thought you wanted to talk to-”

“Nope! No talking! We’re good! Everything’s fine! Bye!”

You spin around and power-walk toward the nearest exit, which happens to be in the direction of the fountain, which you only realize when your foot catches on the low stone ledge and you go sprawling forward with all the grace of a newborn giraffe.

Your knee hits the ground. Your dignity hits the ground approximately three feet to the left. Several people turn to look.

“Y/N!” That’s Jungwon’s voice, concerned and moving closer, and you absolutely cannot handle that right now.

“I’m fine!” you shriek, scrambling to your feet with adrenaline-fueled desperation. “Totally fine! Happens all the time! I’m very clumsy! It’s part of my charm!”

You don’t look back. You can’t look back. If you look back, you’ll see Jungwon’s worried expression and Heeseung’s confused one, and you’ll have to confront the full magnitude of what just happened, and your fragile emotional state simply cannot withstand that kind of pressure. So you run. Not jog, not power-walk…run. Across the quad, past the food trucks, through a gap between two buildings, and out onto the main campus pathway like the hounds of hell are snapping at your heels.

You don’t stop until you reach the arts building, and you don’t start breathing normally until you’ve locked yourself in a practice room on the third floor, surrounded by soundproof walls and a piano that’s seen better days. You slide down against the door, pull your knees up to your chest, and let out a sound that’s halfway between a groan and a wail.

Everything is ruined. Everything. You had one chance, one single, solitary chance to fix the misunderstanding and salvage your dignity and maybe, just maybe, preserve the possibility of something with Jungwon somewhere down the line. And instead, you let your hopeless romantic heart get distracted by a five-minute conversation about philosophy notes and highlighters, and now you’re the girl who confessed to Lee Heeseung, and Jungwon thinks you’re interested in someone else, and there is no conceivable way to untangle this mess without making everything exponentially worse.

You’re going to have to transfer schools. You’re going to have to move to another country. You’re going to have to fake your own death and start a new identity as a goat farmer in New Zeland.

The door handle jiggles behind you. “Occupied!” you yell, your voice cracking.

“Y/N? Is that you?”

Your best friend Yunjin’s voice filters through the door, muffled but unmistakable, and the sound of it is enough to crack the dam you’ve been desperately trying to hold together. You scramble to your feet, fumble with the lock, and yank the door open to reveal Yunjin standing in the hallway with a cup of bubble tea in each hand and an expression of profound concern on her face.

“I saw you running,” she says, her eyes scanning your disheveled appearance. “Like, truly running. I’ve never seen you run before. You once told me running was for people who don’t appreciate the journey.”

“Yunjin,” you crumble, and your voice is so pitiful that she immediately sets down both drinks and pulls you into a hug.

“Okay,” she says, steering you back into the practice room and closing the door behind her. “Okay. Sit down. Tell me everything. What happened? Did you talk to Heeseung? Did you fix it?”

You laugh, but it comes out wrong, high and wobbly, on the edge of hysteria. “Fix it? Fix it? Yunjin, I made it so much worse. I made it so much worse that I think I actually created new dimensions of worse. Scientists are going to have to invent new words to describe how badly I messed this up.”

“That’s... improbable,” Yunjin says carefully. “But I’m listening.”

She settles onto the piano bench, and you collapse onto the floor in front of her, crossing your legs and burying your face in your hands. The story spills out of you in a torrent, the quad, the search for Heeseung, the unexpected appearance of Jungwon, the conversation that made your heart soar, and then the moment Heeseung appeared like a harbinger of doom and casually announced your confession to the one person you never wanted to know about it.

“And then I fell,” you finish miserably. “In front of both of them. And I ran away. And now Jungwon thinks I like Heeseung, and Heeseung thinks I like Heeseung, and I can’t correct either of them without making everything even weirder, and my life is a romantic comedy written by a petty incel.”

Yunjin is quiet for a moment. Then she lets out a long, slow breath. “Okay. That’s... that’s a lot.”

“I know.”

“And you’re telling me you couldn’t just say, hey Heeseung, sorry for the mix-up, the letter wasn’t for you, my bad?”

You look up at her, your eyes rimmed with red. “In front of Jungwon? After Heeseung already told him I confessed? What would Jungwon think of me?”

Yunjin considers this. “That you’re a disaster, probably.”

“Exactly!”

“But a lovable disaster,” she adds. “Disasters can be endearing.”

“Yunjin, please focus.”

She holds up her hands in surrender, but there’s a glint in her eye that you recognize, the one that means she’s about to drop some wisdom on you whether you’re ready for it or not. Yunjin has been your best friend since orientation week, when you both accidentally joined the wrong club meeting and ended up spending two hours in a competitive gardening seminar before realizing your mistake. She’s practical where you’re dreamy, decisive where you’re hesitant, and she’s talked you down from approximately four hundred anxiety spirals since the semester started. If anyone can find a way out of this mess, it’s her.

“Okay,” she says, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees. “Let me present you with an alternative perspective.”

“I’m listening.”

“Lee Heeseung,” she says, ticking off points on her fingers, “has a reputation. A big one. Everyone knows it. He’s the guy who’s super nice to everyone, especially girls, and then they fall for him and he gets all surprised when they expect something more, and then things fizzle out because he wasn’t looking for anything serious.” She makes air quotes with her fingers. “Sound familiar?”

You blink. “I mean... I’ve heard things. But he didn’t seem like-”

“That’s his whole thing,” Yunjin interrupts. “He doesn’t seem like it. That’s why it works. He likes when everyone is after him. But nice doesn’t equal interested, so girls get the wrong idea and then they get hurt. It’s a cycle.” She pops a tapioca pearl into her mouth and chews thoughtfully. “My point is, you don’t need to do anything. You don’t need to fix this. You just need to wait.”

“Wait for what?”

“For him to get bored.” She says it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “Think about it. You’re not actually interested in him, right? You’re not going to fall all over yourself trying to get his attention. You’re not going to be waiting outside his classes or accidentally showing up wherever he hangs out. You’re not going to be like every other girl who’s chased after him.”

You frown. “So... what, I just... do nothing?”

“No, you do the opposite of chasing.” Yunjin grins, and it’s slightly wicked. “You make yourself as uninteresting to him as possible. You’re awkward, you’re weird, you’re clearly not trying to impress him. You don’t dress up when you know you might see him. You talk about boring things. You mention, I don’t know, your extensive collection of vintage stamps or whatever nerdy hobby you can think of. You make yourself boring.”

“I don’t have a stamp collection.”

“Then make one up! The point is, Heeseung is used to girls who want him. If you clearly don’t want him, his interest is going to fizzle out faster than a cheap sparkler. He’ll move on to the next girl who bats her eyelashes at him, and you’ll be free. No confrontation necessary.”

You turn this over in your mind. It’s... not the worst idea you’ve ever heard. In fact, compared to your current strategy of blind panic and tactical fleeing, it’s practically genius. If you can’t correct the misunderstanding without making everything worse, maybe you can just... let it die on its own. Let Heeseung’s fabled short attention span work in your favor. Become so aggressively unappealing that he loses interest within a week and never thinks about you again.

And once he’s out of the picture, once enough time has passed, maybe you can try again with Jungwon. Properly. With better aim.

“You’re a genius,” you tell Yunjin, the hope creeping back into your voice. “An absolute genius. I could kiss you.”

“Please don’t, you’re covered in grass stains.” She nudges one of the bubble teas toward you with her foot. “Drink your tea. Hydrate. And then we’re going to brainstorm all the ways you can make yourself seem as unappealing as possible to a hot third-year informatics student.”

You grab the drink and take a long sip, the sweetness settling something in your chest. For the first time in three days, you feel something other than panic. You feel strategic. You feel determined. Lee Heeseung might think you’re cute and brave and worthy of a coffee date, but he hasn’t met the version of you that’s about to emerge, a version so bland, so uninteresting, so aggressively mediocre that he’ll run in the opposite direction before the week is out.

“Okay,” you say, wiping your mouth with the back of your hand. “Okay. Let’s do this. Operation Make Heeseung Uninterested starts now.”

Yunjin raises her bubble tea in a toast. “To being boring.”

You clink your cup against hers. “To being boring.”

Somewhere across campus Heeseung is still standing in the quad with a confused expression on his face and a lavender envelope in his pocket, wondering why the girl who supposedly has a crush on him just sprinted away like she was being chased by bears.

He’s not used to this. He’s not used to any of this.

And that, he realizes with a small, bemused shake of his head, is exactly what makes it so interesting.

—————

Operation Make Heeseung Uninterested lasted exactly four days before it encountered its first major obstacle.

That obstacle is approximately six feet tall, has flowing hair that falls perfectly across his forehead, and is currently walking directly toward your table in the cafeteria with a tray in his hands and a smile on his face that suggests he has absolutely no idea he's supposed to be losing interest in you.

You spot him approximately 2.3 seconds too late. By the time your brain registers the approaching danger, you are already mid-bite into a sad cafeteria sandwich, your mouth full of bread and lettuce and the dawning realization that you are trapped. There is no escape route. Your table is in the corner, surrounded on three sides by walls and on the fourth side by Heeseung's rapidly approaching form. You are a cornered animal. A very stupid, very panicked cornered animal with mayonnaise on her chin.

"Y/N!" Heeseung says your name like it's his favorite word, bright and warm and entirely too enthusiastic for someone who's supposed to be a notorious womanizer with a short attention span. "I was hoping I'd run into you. Mind if I sit?"

Mind if he sits? Of course you mind. You mind immensely. You mind with every fiber of your being. Sitting with Heeseung is the exact opposite of what Operation Make Heeseung Uninterested is supposed to accomplish. Sitting with Heeseung means talking to Heeseung, and talking to Heeseung means opportunities to accidentally charm him, and charming him is categorically Not The Goal.

But Heeseung is already pulling out the chair across from you, and his smile is so genuine, and there's a tiny bit of what looks like grease on his cheekbone that suggests he's just come from some kind of engineering lab, and you are weak. You are so, so weak.

"Go ahead," you hear yourself say, and then immediately want to punch yourself in the face.

Operation Make Heeseung Uninterested, Day Four, 12:34 PM: catastrophic failure already in progress.

Heeseung settles into the chair with an easy grace, setting his tray down and immediately stealing one of your fries like you're old friends who share food on a regular basis. You watch the fry disappear into his mouth and feel a small part of your soul leave your body.

"So," he says, leaning back and studying you with those dark, unreadable eyes. "You ran away from me pretty fast the other day. Should I be worried? Do I have something on my face?"

He doesn't. He absolutely doesn't. He has the kind of face that belongs on a billboard, all sharp angles and soft edges and that one little mole on his forehead that you are definitely not noticing because noticing things about Heeseung's face is counterproductive to the mission.

"No," you say quickly. "No, you're fine. Your face is fine. I mean, you don't have anything on your face. I just remembered I had somewhere to be. Very suddenly. It was urgent."

"An urgent… lab class?" Heeseung's lips twitch. "That's what you said, right? An urgent lab class on a Thursday afternoon?"

Your face heats. "Yes. Exactly. Lab class. Very urgent. Science doesn't wait."

"Mmm." He pops another one of your fries into his mouth. "Well, the good news is, you don't look like you're in a hurry right now. So we can actually talk. You know, like normal people who are supposedly getting to know each other?"

Right. Getting to know each other. Because you confessed to him. Because he thinks you like him. Because you're living in an elaborate lie of your own making.

This is your chance, though. This is the perfect opportunity to implement Phase One of the Make Him Uninterested plan: Be Weird and Off-Putting. You just have to be the most boring, strange, unappealing version of yourself that you can possibly imagine. How hard can it be?

Pretty hard, as it turns out, because your brain chooses this exact moment to go completely blank.

"So," Heeseung says, apparently unbothered by your silence, "tell me about yourself. What do you like to do for fun? Besides writing beautiful love letters and then running away from the recipient?"

You choke on your own saliva. Just… straight up choke on nothing, like a cartoon character. "I don't…that wasn't…I do normal things. Normal fun things. Like… watching paint dry. And counting ceiling tiles. Very relaxing. You should try it."

Heeseung's expression flickers, confusion, amusement, something in between. "Counting ceiling tiles?"

"There are forty-seven in this cafeteria," you say, doubling down with the desperate energy of someone who has already committed to the bit. "Forty-eight if you count the one that's partially covered by that vent over there. But some people don't count partial tiles. It's a philosophical debate, really."

"Fascinating," Heeseung says, and the worst part is that he sounds like he actually means it. "What else?"

What else? What else can you say that will make you sound completely unappealing? You cast around for inspiration, your eyes landing on your sandwich. Okay. Fine. If words can't do the job, maybe actions can.

You pick up your sandwich with both hands and take the weirdest bite you can physically manage, mouth open slightly too wide, chewing with exaggerated jaw movements, making an unfortunate amount of noise in the process. You feel like a cow. You look like a cow. You are embodying the spirit of a cow, and surely, surely, this is enough to make any self-respecting hot informatics student run for the hills.

Heeseung watches you chew. His expression doesn't change.

"Good sandwich?" he asks mildly.

"Mmf," you say, still chewing, still being a cow. "Very good. I love-"

And then the lettuce hits the back of your throat.

You don't know how it happens. One moment you're chewing normally, well, abnormally, but in a controlled way and the next moment a piece of lettuce stages a rebellion and lodges itself directly in your windpipe. Your eyes go wide. Your hand flies to your throat. You make a sound that is somewhere between a wheeze and a honk.

"Y/N?" Heeseung's amused expression shifts to concern. "Are you okay?"

You are not okay. You are choking. You are choking on lettuce in front of Lee Heeseung in the middle of the cafeteria, and this is how you're going to die.

Heeseung is on his feet now, moving around the table with surprising speed. "Hey, hey, can you breathe? Do you need me to-"

You shake your head frantically, still making dying cow noises, and grab your water bottle with shaking hands. The first gulp does nothing. The second gulp, by some miracle, dislodges the lettuce just enough for you to cough it up into a napkin with all the grace and dignity of a cat hacking up a hairball.

Silence.

The entire cafeteria, you're convinced, is staring at you. In reality, probably only a few nearby tables have noticed, but it feels apocalyptic. You sit there, red-faced and teary-eyed, clutching a napkin full of your own near-death experience, and want the floor to open up and swallow you whole.

Heeseung kneels beside your chair, one hand hovering near your shoulder like he isn't sure if touching you would be welcome. "Hey. You're okay. You're okay, right? Do you need me to get you anything? More water? A doctor? A new sandwich without lettuce?"

His voice is gentle. Genuinely gentle. Not the smooth, charming tone you expect from someone with his reputation, but something softer, something that sounds almost like real concern.

"I'm fine," you croak, your voice ravaged. "I'm fine. That happens. All the time. I'm very bad at eating. It's one of my traits."

"One of your traits," Heeseung repeats, and the corner of his mouth twitches despite his obvious worry. "Being bad at eating?"

"It's a lifestyle choice."

He laughs. Not a polite chuckle or a mocking snicker, but a real laugh, surprised and bright and completely unguarded. He sits back down in his chair, shaking his head, and looks at you with something that is definitely not boredom or disinterest.

"You're really something else, you know that?"

You don't know how to respond to that, so you don't. You just sit there, still clutching your napkin of shame, and wonder how Operation Make Heeseung Uninterested has somehow resulted in him laughing at your jokes and looking at you like you're the most entertaining thing he's encountered all week.

"So," Heeseung says, propping his chin on his hand, "I've been wondering. What made you decide to confess to me? Was there a specific moment? Something I did?"

Oh no.

Oh no, oh no, oh no.

This is the worst possible question he could ask. You can't tell him the truth…I didn't mean to confess to you, I meant to confess to your friend, you just happened to be sitting in the wrong place at the wrong time, please don't hate me…but you also can't just… not answer. He's looking at you expectantly, his dark eyes curious and open, and you have approximately three seconds to come up with a convincing lie before the silence becomes too awkward to recover from.

"Your… kindness," you say, grasping at straws. "You're very… kind. To everyone. I noticed."

Heeseung tilts his head. "My kindness?"

"Very kind," you repeat, nodding vigorously. "So kind. The kindest. I saw you… hold a door open for someone once. It was… inspiring."

"I held a door open."

"A door. Yes. It was a very heavy door. And you held it. For a long time. Multiple people went through. It was very impressive."

Heeseung stares at you for a moment, and you stare back, your face burning, your soul evacuating your body. This is it. This is the moment he realizes you are completely unhinged and decides to never speak to you again. This is the victory of Operation Make Heeseung Uninterested.

"That's…" Heeseung starts, and then pauses. "That's the first time anyone's ever confessed to me because I held a door open. Usually I get compliments about my face. Or my voice. One girl told me I had a nose made to be sat on, which I still don't fully understand."

"Your node is… fine," you say weakly. "I didn't notice your nose. Or your face at all. Just the door. The door was the important part."

"A door," Heeseung says, and that smile is spreading across his face again, the one that makes him look less like a notorious player and more like someone who has just found a particularly entertaining puzzle. "You wrote me a three-page love letter because I held a door open."

"The calligraphy alone took a week," you say, and immediately regret it.

Heeseung laughs again, and this time it's softer, almost wondering. "You're not what I expected," he says. "At all."

"Is that… good or bad?"

"I haven't decided yet." But he's still smiling, and his eyes are still fixed on you with that curious intensity, and you're starting to get the sinking feeling that everything you do, no matter how strange or off-putting you try to be, is having the exact opposite effect of what you intend.

You need a new strategy. Something foolproof. Something so aggressively unappealing that even the most determined people-pleaser can't pretend to be interested.

And then, like a gift from the gods of social awkwardness, the topic of video games comes up.

Heeseung mentions something about blowing off steam after a tough assignment by playing a few rounds of something, and the question slips out before you can stop it: "Wait, do you play League of Legends?"

He raises an eyebrow. "Sometimes. You?"

And that's it. That's the moment the dam breaks.

You don't mean to start geeking out. It just happens. One moment you're thinking be boring, be uninteresting, be bland, and the next moment you're fifteen minutes deep into an impassioned monologue about the current meta, the problems with the jungle role, and why Riot Games needs to nerf a specific champion into the ground before she single-handedly destroys the competitive scene.

"-and don't even get me started on the new items, because the balance team clearly doesn't play their own game, which is fine, whatever, it's not like I have strong opinions about it except I absolutely do, and I wrote an entire essay about it on the subreddit that got like two thousand upvotes, so clearly I'm not the only one who thinks the armor penetration scaling is completely broken-"

You stop.

You stop because you have just realized, with dawning horror, that you have been talking for an incredibly long time without letting Heeseung get a single word in. You have been gesticulating. You have been making sound effects. At one point, you're pretty sure you drew a diagram on a napkin to illustrate the optimal jungle pathing route.

This is it. This is definitely, absolutely it. There is no way a hot third-year informatics student wants to listen to a first-year STEM girl rant about video game balance for fifteen straight minutes. Operation Make Heeseung Uninterested has just achieved its first genuine success.

You brace yourself for the polite excuse, the awkward glance at his phone, the slow backing away.

Instead, Heeseung leans forward, resting his elbows on the table, and says: "Okay, but hear me out, what if the armor penetration scaling isn't the problem, and it's actually the base damage values that need to be adjusted? Because if you look at the win rate data across different elos, the issue isn't consistent at all levels of play."

You blink.

"I main ADC," he adds, as if this is a perfectly normal confession. "So trust me, I feel your pain about the jungle situation. Do you know how many times I've been left to solo dragon because my jungler was AFK farming? Too many. Too many times."

"You… main ADC?"

"Vayne and Kai'Sa mostly. Sometimes Jhin if I'm feeling dramatic."

You have no response to this. Your brain has short-circuited somewhere around the phrase "win rate data across different elos," and it's still rebooting.

"Your essay on the subreddit," Heeseung continues, pulling out his phone. "What was the title? I want to read it. I love seeing well-reasoned arguments about game balance, and honestly, most of what gets posted is just people complaining without any actual data to back it up."

"It was… it was called The Current State of Armor Penetration: A Statistical Analysis and Why I'm Losing My Mind," you say faintly.

Heeseung types something into his phone, scrolls for a moment, and then his face lights up. "Found it. Two thousand three hundred upvotes and fourteen awards? That's impressive. Wait, you made graphs? You made graphs?"

"I was very passionate about the subject."

"Passionate," Heeseung repeats, looking up from his phone with an expression you can't quite read. "Yeah. I'm starting to get that about you."

He tucks his phone away and smiles at you, and it isn't the smooth, practiced smile you expect from the campus womanizer. It's something smaller. Something realer. Something that makes your stomach do a weird, traitorous flip that you immediately try to suppress.

"You know," he says, tilting his head as he studies you, "you remind me of a mouse."

Your brain screeches to a halt. "A… mouse?"

"Yeah. A little field mouse. The way your nose scrunches up when you're thinking, and how you get all twitchy and skittish when you're nervous. It's cute. It's really cute."

Cute. He calls you cute. He compares you to a rodent and somehow makes it sound like a compliment, and worst of all, worst of all, you can feel a traitorous blush spreading across your cheeks like wildfire.

"I'm not…I don't…mice are not cute. Mice are pests. They carry diseases. I'm basically a health hazard."

Heeseung laughs, and it's the same genuine laugh from before, and he's looking at you like you're the most entertaining thing he's seen in years. "A health hazard. Right. Well, consider me warned."

He stands up, gathering his tray, and for one beautiful, hopeful moment, you think the ordeal is over. But then he pauses, looking down at you with that unreadable expression, and says the words that haunt you for the rest of the day:

"I was interested before, but now?" He shakes his head, still smiling. "Now I'm really interested. See you around, little mouse."

And then he walks away, leaving you alone at your corner table with a half-eaten sandwich, a napkin full of regurgitated lettuce, and the sinking realization that Operation Make Heeseung Uninterested is not only failing, it's backfiring spectacularly.

You try to be weird, and he calls you cute.

You try to be boring, and he engages with your niche gaming opinions.

You try to choke to death in front of him, and he kneels beside your chair with genuine concern in his eyes.

You bang your forehead against the cafeteria table once, twice, three times, not caring who sees. This is a disaster. This is an unmitigated, unprecedented, absolutely catastrophic disaster. Hana's plan was supposed to work. Heeseung was supposed to get bored. He was supposed to move on. He was not supposed to look at you like you're a puzzle he wants to solve, or call you a mouse in a tone of voice that makes your heart do gymnastics, or read your League of Legends essay and compliment your graphs.

You need to regroup. You need to call an emergency meeting with Yunjin. You need to figure out a new strategy before this situation spirals even further out of control.

But first, you need to go to the library and return the books that are due today before you accrue another fine, because no matter how catastrophic your love life becomes, the university library shows no mercy.

—————

The library is your sanctuary. It always has been, a quiet, climate-controlled haven where the smell of old paper and the soft hum of fluorescent lights can soothe even the most tensed of nerves. After the cafeteria incident, you need sanctuary more than ever. You slip through the main doors with your stack of books clutched to your chest, inhaling the familiar scent of knowledge and dust, and feel some of the tension begin to ease from your shoulders.

Everything is fine. Everything is going to be fine. You return your books, you find Yunjin, you regroup, and you figure out a way to-

"Y/N?"

The voice comes from somewhere to your left, and you know that voice. You know it the way a flower knows the sun, the way a compass knows north, the way a hopeless romantic knows the exact cadence of her crush's greeting.

Jungwon is sitting at a table near the history section, surrounded by a fortress of textbooks and loose papers. He's wearing glasses…glasses…and his hair is slightly mussed from what you assume is hours of intense studying, and he's looking at you with that smile, the one that crinkles the corners of his eyes and makes your entire nervous system short-circuit.

"Hey," he says, waving you over. "What are you doing here?"

Existing in the same space as you, you think. Breathing the same air. Trying not to spontaneously combust.

"Returning books," you say, holding up your stack as evidence. "I have some overdue ones. The library fines are no joke."

"Tell me about it. I had to pay fifteen thousand won last semester because I forgot about a book I'd checked out for a research paper." Jungwon winces at the memory. "My wallet still hasn't recovered."

"That's brutal."

"The library giveth, and the library taketh away."

You laugh, and it comes out surprisingly normal, not too loud, not too high-pitched, just a regular human laugh from a regular human person who is definitely not having an internal meltdown about how good Jungwon looks in glasses.

"Hey," Jungwon says, glancing at the empty chair across from him, "if you're not in a hurry, do you want to study together? I've been here for three hours and my brain is starting to melt. It would be nice to have some company."

Your heart stops.

Yang Jungwon, the Yang Jungwon, the owner of the smile and the laugh and the gummy bears at 2 AM is asking you to study with him. This is the kind of moment you've daydreamed about for months. This is a meet-cute in progress. This is the universe throwing you a lifeline after the cafeteria disaster, a chance to actually spend time with the boy you've been pining over since midterms.

"Yes," you say, before your brain can remind you of all the reasons this is a terrible idea. "Yes, I'd…I'd love to. Let me just return these first."

You practically skip to the returns desk, your heart doing a full backflip in your chest. By the time you make it back to Jungwon's table, your philosophy textbook and notebook spread out in front of you, you've convinced yourself that this is exactly what you need. Some time with Jungwon. Some time to remember why you wrote that letter in the first place. Some time to reconnect with the feelings that got buried under the chaos of the Heeseung situation.

The only problem is that you can't focus on studying at all.

You try. You really, genuinely try. You open your textbook to the assigned chapter. You uncap your highlighter. You fix your eyes on the page and attempt to absorb information about ethical frameworks and moral philosophy. But your eyes keep drifting up, against your will, over the top of your book, to the boy sitting across from you.

Jungwon is studying. Actually studying, not fake studying, not pretending to study while secretly watching you the way you're watching him. His brow is furrowed in concentration, his pen moving steadily across his notebook as he takes notes. Every so often, he pauses, taps the end of his pen against his chin, and then resumes writing with renewed focus. The late afternoon light slants through the window behind him, catching the highlights in his dark hair and making him look like he's stepped out of a painting.

He is beautiful. He's so beautiful that it makes your chest ache, a soft, sweet ache that you've been carrying around since the moment you first saw him in this very library. You watch the way his fingers curl around his pen, the way he bites his lower lip when he's thinking, the way his glasses slide down his nose and he pushes them back up with an absent gesture.

"I can feel you looking at me," Jungwon says, not glancing up from his notebook.

Your entire body jolts like you've been electrocuted. "I wasn't…I was just…there's a clock behind you. I was checking the time."

Jungwon looks up then, and there's a knowing glint in his eyes that makes your stomach do a slow, somersaulting flip. "The clock is to your right, Y/N. Not behind me."

You look to your right. Sure enough, there's the clock, hanging on the wall in plain view, which you would have noticed if you'd spent even one second actually looking for it instead of gazing at Jungwon's face like a Renaissance painter studying their muse.

"I'm… directionally challenged," you say weakly.

"Uh-huh." Jungwon sets down his pen, and the smile playing at the corners of his mouth is soft and teasing and absolutely devastating. "Come here for a second."

"What?"

"Just come here. Lean forward a little."

Your body obeys before your brain can intervene. You lean across the table, your heart hammering so loudly you're certain the entire library can hear it. Jungwon leans forward too, closing the distance between you, and you catch a faint whiff of something clean and subtle, laundry detergent, maybe, or the kind of fragrance that just smells like him.

His hand reaches out, and before you can process what's happening, his index finger gently pokes your cheek.

"Boop," he says.

You make a sound. You don't know what the sound is supposed to be. Maybe a laugh, maybe a question, maybe a plea for mercy. What comes out is something closer to a squeak, a small, strangled, completely undignified squeak that would be embarrassing if you had any brain cells left to feel embarrassment.

Jungwon's smile widens, and his finger lingers on your cheek for just a moment longer than necessary. "You had an eyelash," he says. "Right there. But also, you just looked really cute staring at me like that. I couldn't resist."

Cute. He calls you cute. That's twice in one day that a devastatingly attractive boy has called you cute, and your hopeless romantic heart doesn't know whether to celebrate or go into cardiac arrest.

"I wasn't staring," you whisper, but it comes out completely unconvincing.

"You were absolutely staring." Jungwon withdraws his hand, but his smile stays, warm and fond and knowing. "It's okay. I don't mind. It's kind of nice, actually. Being looked at like that."

"Like what?"

"Like I'm something worth looking at."

The words settle into your chest like a stone dropping into still water, sending ripples through your entire body. He thinks it's nice. He thinks you're nice or at least your staring is nice and he pokes your cheek and calls you cute and now he's going back to his studying like he hasn't just fundamentally altered your brain chemistry.

You try to return to your textbook. The words swim in front of your eyes, meaningless and blurry. You highlight a sentence at random, realize you have no idea what it says, and highlight it again for good measure. The page is now approximately forty percent highlighter ink.

"You're going to run out of highlighter at that rate," Jungwon observes, not looking up.

"I have backups," you say. "I always have backups."

"Of course you do."

The studying session continues for another hour, and you absorb approximately zero information about ethical frameworks. What you do absorb is a comprehensive catalogue of Jungwon's study habits: the way he organizes his notes with color-coded tabs, the way he mutters to himself when he's working through a difficult concept, the way he absentmindedly drums his fingers against the table when he's thinking. Every detail is another entry in your mental Jungwon database, another thread in the tapestry of your affection.

By the time you pack up your things and say goodbye, "See you in philosophy," Jungwon says, and you respond with something that might be words or might be a series of enthusiastic nods, you are floating. You are literally, physically floating, your feet barely touching the ground as you drift out of the library and across campus toward your dorm.

Jungwon pokes your cheek. Jungwon calls you cute. Jungwon says he likes being looked at by you.

You are winning. Despite the Heeseung disaster, despite the cafeteria catastrophe, despite everything, you are winning.

By the time you reach your dorm room, you are a mess of giddy energy with nowhere to go. You close the door behind you, throw your backpack onto your desk chair, and then proceed to wriggle across your bed like an ecstatic worm, kicking your feet and muffling your squeals into your pillow.

"He called me cute," you whisper to your empty room, your voice muffled by fabric. "He poked my cheek. He did the boop thing. The boop thing, you guys. Who does the boop thing? Adorable people, that's who. Perfect people. People with beautiful smiles and kind eyes and-"

You roll onto your back, staring at the ceiling with a dreamy expression. The ceiling has forty-three tiles in your room. You counted them on your first night in the dorm. But right now, all you can see is Jungwon's face, the way he looked at you across the library table, the way his finger felt against your cheek, the way his voice went soft when he said like I'm something worth looking at.

You are going to marry him. You are going to marry Yang Jungwon and have a beautiful wedding with string lights and wildflowers and a three-tier cake, and you will tell the story of how you stared at him in the library and he poked your cheek and-

You stop wriggling.

Wait.

Wait, wait, wait.

You can't marry Jungwon. You can't even confess to Jungwon, because Jungwon thinks you confessed to Heeseung. Jungwon thinks you're interested in someone else. Jungwon was sweet and friendly and maybe a little bit flirty, but that's just his personality. He's nice to everyone. He gives you gummy bears at 2 AM; he probably gives gummy bears to everyone who looks tired. You aren't special. You are just… there.

The giddiness begins to drain out of you, replaced by the familiar weight of reality. You are still trapped in the Heeseung situation. You are still the girl who confessed to the wrong person. And no matter how many times Jungwon pokes your cheek, that fundamental fact isn't going to change.

With a heavy sigh, you drag yourself through your evening routine: shower, skincare, the episode of the baking show you're halfway through and finally crawl into bed around midnight, your emotions a tangled knot of hope and despair.

Sleep comes slowly, a gradual descent into darkness, and then-

—————

You are in the PC room again.

But this time it's different. The lights are dimmer, the computers all dark, the chairs empty. It's just you, and the door is swinging shut behind you, and there's someone waiting at the computer closest to the door.

Heeseung.

He's sitting in the chair, facing away from you, his headphones around his neck and his shoulders relaxed. When he hears your footsteps, he turns, and his expression isn't surprised or amused or curious. It's something else entirely. Something darker. Something that makes your breath catch in your throat.

"You're here," he says, and his voice is lower than you've ever heard it, a rumble that vibrates through your bones. "I've been waiting for you, little mouse."

"I'm not-" you start, but he's already standing, already moving toward you, and you can't seem to make your feet work. You're rooted to the spot, watching him approach with a mixture of fear and something else, something you don't want to name.

He stops inches away from you, close enough that you can feel the warmth radiating from his body, close enough that you can see the individual strands of his hair and the curve of his lips and the way his eyes, God, his eyes are fixed on your mouth.

"You know what I've been thinking about?" he murmurs, and one of his hands comes up to brush a strand of hair away from your face, his fingers lingering against your temple. "I've been thinking about that letter. The way you said you only had eyes for me. The way you said you couldn't stop thinking about me."

"That wasn't-" you try, but your voice comes out as barely a whisper, and Heeseung's thumb is tracing along your jawline now, feather-light and devastating.

"I can't stop thinking about you either," he says, and his face is getting closer, closer, and you can feel his breath against your lips. "Do you want to know what I think about?"

Your heart is hammering. Your skin is on fire. You can't move, can't speak, can't do anything except stare up at him with wide eyes as his other hand settles on your waist, warm and solid and pulling you closer.

"I think about this," he whispers, and then his mouth is on yours.

The kiss is…it's…

It's intense. It's consuming. It's the kind of kiss that erases every rational thought from your brain and replaces it with pure, unfiltered sensation. His lips are soft but insistent, moving against yours with a confidence that makes your knees weak. His hand tightens on your waist, pulling you flush against him, and you make a sound against his mouth, something small and breathless and completely involuntary.

When he finally pulls back, his forehead resting against yours, his voice is rough. "You’re what I’ve been looking for my whole life, Y/N. You’re my miracle."

And then his lips are on your neck, trailing fire down to your collarbone, and your head falls back, and his name escapes your mouth in a way you've never said it before-

He kneels before you, his movements fluid and deliberate. His eyes never leave yours as he unzips his jeans, freeing his already hard cock. It stands proud and thick, the tip glistening with pre-cum. He takes your foot in his warm hand, bringing it to his shaft.

"Look what you do to me," he murmurs, his voice husky with desire. He wraps your foot around his length, his thumb pressing against your arch as he begins to move your foot up and down his cock. His eyes flutter closed for a moment, a low groan escaping his lips.

The sensation of his hot skin against your sole sends shivers through your body. You watch, mesmerized, as he uses your foot to pleasure himself, his hips thrusting in rhythm with the movements of your foot. His other hand moves to your ankle, his grip firm but gentle, his fingers stroking your sensitive skin.

His eyes open, locking with yours again, and the intensity in his gaze makes your breath catch. "You're so beautiful," he breathes, his movements becoming faster, more urgent. "You’re perfect the way you are."

His breathing grows ragged, his muscles tensing. With a guttural moan, he comes, his hot release spilling over your foot and his hand. He leans forward, his tongue darting out to taste his own cum from your skin, his movements slow and sensual. He licks your foot clean, his tongue tracing patterns on your arch, between your toes, sending waves of pleasure through your body.

Then he shifts, positioning himself between your legs. He looks up at you, his eyes dark with desire. "I need to taste you," he says, his voice rough with need.

He hooks his fingers into the waistband of your panties, pulling them down slowly, his eyes never leaving yours. He tosses them aside, then leans in, his breath hot against your most sensitive flesh.

His tongue flicks out, teasing your clit, and you gasp, your hands flying to his hair. He chuckles, the vibration sending another jolt of pleasure through you. "Patience, little mouse," he murmurs against your skin.

His tongue moves in slow, deliberate circles, building your pleasure gradually. He alternates between broad, flat strokes and quick, precise flicks of his tongue against your clit. His fingers join in, one, then two, sliding inside you, curling to hit that spot that makes you cry.

Your hips buck against his face, your breath coming in ragged gasps. "Heeseung," you moan, your fingers tightening in his hair.

He responds with increased enthusiasm, his tongue working faster, his fingers pumping in and out of you. The pressure builds inside you, a coil of pleasure winding tighter and tighter until it snaps.

You come with a cry, your body convulsing as waves of pleasure wash over you. But Heeseung doesn't stop. He continues his assault on your senses, his tongue and fingers working in perfect harmony to bring you to the edge again.

And then you are squirting, your release flooding his mouth and chin as he drinks you in, his movements never faltering. He looks up at you, his eyes gleaming with satisfaction as he laps up every drop.

When he finally pulls away, his face glistening with your juices, he crawls up your body, capturing your lips in a searing kiss. You can taste yourself on his tongue, and the intimacy of it sends another wave of desire through you.

"Tell me you’re only thinking of me," he whispers against your lips, his hands roaming your body. "and not Jungwon."

You wake up.

You wake up in your dorm room, in your bed, at 7:43 AM on a Tuesday morning, with your heart pounding and your skin flushed, your panties soaked and your sheets twisted around your legs like they've been through a battle.

For a long moment, you just lie there, staring at the ceiling, trying to remember how to breathe.

Did you just… did you just dream about… did Lee Heeseung, the guy you're supposed to be making uninterested in you, the guy you've been trying to avoid and ignore and repel, just star in what can only be described as an extremely obscene dream? The virgin you are just cringed at the memory.

You press your hands to your burning cheeks and let out a sound that is somewhere between a groan and a scream.

"No," you whisper to the empty room. "No, no, no. This isn't, this can't…I don't even like him. I like Jungwon. Jungwon! I've liked Jungwon for four months. I wrote a letter to Jungwon. I have a color-coded mental database of Jungwon's habits. I want to marry Jungwon and have a three-tier wedding cake with wildflowers!"

But your brain, traitorous and unhelpful, keeps replaying fragments of the dream, the way Heeseung's eyes go dark, the way his voice rumbles against your ear, the way his hand feels on your waist, the way his tongue is warm and-

You grab your pillow and press it over your face, screaming into it with all the force your lungs can muster.

This is wrong. This is so, so wrong. You are a Jungwon girl. You've always been a Jungwon girl. You don't think about Heeseung like that. You don't think about Heeseung like anything. Heeseung is an obstacle. Heeseung is a problem to be solved. Heeseung is the guy you're actively trying to repel, not the guy who shows up in your subconscious and does things that make you blush in the privacy of your own bed.

"I'm a psychopath," you say to your pillow. "I'm a complete and utter psychopath. Who dreams about this with a guy they're supposed to be making uninterested? A psychopath, that's who. A deranged lunatic. A person with a broken brain."

Your pillow, predictably, does not respond.

You drag yourself out of bed and into the bathroom, splashing cold water on your face and avoiding your own reflection in the mirror. You don't want to look at yourself. You don't want to see the evidence of the dream still lingering in your flushed cheeks…and between your legs.

This is a problem. This is a Major Problem with capital letters and possibly a warning siren. You can't afford to be having dreams about Lee Heeseung. You can't afford to be thinking about Lee Heeseung at all. Your entire strategy, Operation Make Heeseung Uninterested depends on you being able to keep a clear head and a steady heart, and neither of those things is going to be possible if your subconscious keeps ambushing you with extremely vivid, extremely inappropriate content.

You need to talk to Yunjin. Immediately. Before your brain can conjure up any more unauthorized imagery.

But as you grab your phone and type out a frantic message, EMERGENCY MEETING REQUIRED IMMEDIATELY CODE RED REPEAT CODE RED, you can't quite shake the lingering sensation from the dream.

The way Heeseung's thumb traces along your jawline.

The way he calls you little mouse in that low, rumbling voice.

The way he says you were perfect the way you were like he means it, like it's true, like he's been into you his whole life and hasn't even known it.

You shake your head violently, flinging droplets of water across the bathroom mirror.

"Nope," you say out loud. "Nope, nope, nope. We're not doing this. We're not thinking about this. We're going to go to class and eat lunch and avoid all tall informatics students, and we're going to get our brain back on the Jungwon track where it belongs."

But even as you say it, even as you try to mean it, a small, treacherous part of you wonders if maybe, just maybe, the Jungwon track isn't the only track worth following anymore.

You shove that thought into a mental box, lock it, and throw away the key.

You have a plan. You have a strategy. You are going to make Heeseung uninterested, and you are going to figure out a way to untangle the misunderstanding, and you are going to end up with Jungwon like you were always supposed to.

The dream is just a dream. It doesn't mean anything. It can't mean anything.

You refuse to let it mean anything.

(But when you catch yourself glancing toward the informatics building on your way to class, you walk a little faster, and you definitely, absolutely, one hundred percent do not wonder what Lee Heeseung is doing right now.)

—————

The dream haunts you for three days.

Not in a supernatural, ghost-in-the-corner kind of way. More in an I-can't-make-eye-contact-with-my-own-reflection kind of way. Every time you close your eyes, fragments of it flicker behind your eyelids like a movie you hadn't asked to watch. The dark PC room. The way Heeseung's voice drops to a rumble. The phantom sensation of his tongue on your clit, his hand on your ankle, his look-

You physically convulse every time the memory resurfaces, which is approximately every forty-five minutes. Your philosophy notes become a graveyard of distracted doodles, half of which look suspiciously like the curve of someone's jaw. You have to throw away an entire page because you accidentally write "little mouse" in the margin instead of "moral relativism."

Yunjin is no help whatsoever.

"So you had a wet dream about the hot guy who you’re supposedly getting bored of," she says over bubble tea the day after the incident, her expression thoroughly unimpressed. "This is a problem because…?"

"Because I don't like him, Yunjin! I like Jungwon! I've liked Jungwon since midterms! Jungwon is the goal! Jungwon is the three-tier wedding cake!"

"And Heeseung is…?"

"A temporary obstacle! A misunderstanding with legs! A very tall, very inconvenient plot twist!"

Yunjin sucks on her tapioca pearls with the air of a therapist who has heard it all before and is no longer surprised by anything. "You know what they say about protesting too much."

"I am not protesting too much. I am protesting exactly the right amount. I am protesting a perfectly calibrated quantity."

"Sure." She pats your hand with condescending sympathy. "Whatever helps you sleep at night. Oh wait-"

You throw a tapioca pearl at her face. It sticks to her cheek for a solid three seconds before falling off, and the look of absolute betrayal on her face is the only bright spot in your otherwise nightmare-plagued week.

But now it's Thursday. Thursday, 2:15 PM. You're stationed in the science building's main hallway, crouched behind a bulletin board that is absolutely not wide enough to hide your entire body, waiting for the coast to clear so you can sprint to your next class without encountering any tall informatics students.

Your system has evolved since the early days of the crisis. You now have a color-coded schedule of Heeseung's known movements, courtesy of some light reconnaissance work that Yunjin calls "stalking" and you call "strategic intelligence gathering." You know his class schedule. You know his preferred study spots. You know that he tends to grab coffee from the campus café at exactly 3 PM on Tuesdays and Thursdays, which means the science building hallway should, theoretically, be a Heeseung-free zone at 2:15.

Theoretically.

You're just about to make your move, a quick dash to the stairwell, then up two flights, then a straight shot to classroom 307, when you hear it.

"Hey, is Y/N L/N in there?"

Your blood freezes. Your muscles lock. Your soul briefly departs your body and then slams back into it with force.

That's Heeseung's voice. That's unmistakably, undeniably, catastrophically Lee Heeseung's voice, and it's coming from approximately ten feet to your left, where the door to your department's main office stands open.

You press yourself harder against the bulletin board, praying for invisibility, praying for a sudden power outage, praying for the ground to open up and swallow you into its merciful embrace. None of these things happen. Instead, you hear the department secretary respond with cheerful obliviousness.

"Y/N L/N? First year, STEM? I think I saw her in the hallway just a minute ago. Let me check, oh, there she is! Y/N! You have a visitor!"

The secretary is pointing directly at your bulletin board. Your bulletin board that is not hiding you at all. Your bulletin board that is, in fact, leaving approximately seventy percent of your body completely visible to anyone who happens to look in that direction.

Heeseung turns.

Your eyes meet.

Time stops.

There are moments in life that feel like they stretch into eternity, moments so profoundly awkward, so cosmically embarrassing, that the universe itself seems to pause and take notice. This is one of those moments. You are frozen in a half-crouch behind a bulletin board, your backpack dangling from one shoulder, your hair escaping from the ponytail you threw it into this morning, your expression one of pure, unfiltered terror. Heeseung is standing in the doorway of the department office, looking unfairly attractive in a simple black hoodie and jeans, his eyebrows rising slowly toward his hairline.

A small crowd of students has paused in the hallway to watch. You can feel their eyes on you like a physical weight. Someone whispers something to their friend. Someone else pulls out their phone.

You are going to die. You are going to perish right here in the science building hallway, and your ghost will be doomed to haunt this bulletin board for all eternity.

"Y/N?" Heeseung's voice is a mixture of confusion and amusement. He takes a step toward you, and you instinctively take a step back, which results in you bumping directly into the bulletin board and causing several flyers to flutter dramatically to the ground. "Were you… hiding behind that?"

"No," you say, too quickly. "No, I was…I dropped something. A contact lens. I was looking for my contact lens."

"You don't wear contacts."

"I might! You don't know my life!"

"Your glasses are literally on your face right now."

You reach up and touch your glasses, which are indeed sitting on your nose, clearly visible, doing their job of correcting your vision. You have no response to this. There is no response to this. You have been caught in a lie so transparent it's essentially a window.

Heeseung's lips twitch. "You know, most people who have a crush on me don't run away and hide behind furniture. This is very confusing for my ego."

The crowd is still watching. Why is the crowd still watching? Don't they have classes to go to? Midterms to study for? Lives to live that don't involve spectating your public humiliation?

"I wasn't hiding from you specifically," you say, because apparently your mouth has decided to operate independently from your brain. "I was hiding from… the sun. It's very bright in here. I'm photosensitive."

"You're a STEM student hiding from the sun in a basement hallway with no windows," Heeseung says slowly. "That's… a new one."

"It's a medical condition. It's very serious. My doctor says I need to avoid direct fluorescent lighting."

"The fluorescent lighting is what's getting you."

"Absolutely. It's my greatest enemy. Well, second greatest. After-" You stop yourself before you can say after incredibly hot informatics students who keep appearing in my life like a recurring nightmare.

Heeseung waits. When you don't finish the sentence, that smile, the one that's definitely a smirk's second cousin, maybe even its first cousin at this point, spreads across his face.

"Well," he says, "now that I've found you and dragged you out of the shadows, literally, I was wondering if you wanted to grab coffee. With me. Right now."

Every single person in the hallway is looking at you. The secretary is looking at you from the office doorway, her expression one of grandmotherly delight at what she clearly perceives as a romantic overture. The students who stopped to watch are exchanging glances and whispers. One girl gives you an encouraging thumbs up.

You are trapped. You are cornered. You are a mouse being offered coffee by a very tall, very persistent cat.

And just like every other time Heeseung has put you on the spot, you open your mouth and the wrong words come out.

"I love coffee," you say. "Coffee is my favorite liquid. After water. And possibly juice. But it's definitely in the top three."

"Is that a yes?"

"…Yes."

This was the nth time. The nth damn time since you’d moved in six months ago. With a sharp exhale, you shoved your chair back and stormed out of your apartment, not even bothering to change out of your oversized hoodie and sweatpants. The hallway reeked of spilled beer and expensive cologne.

You could already hear the chaos before you even reached his door. Laughter, glasses clinking, some girl’s high pitched giggle cutting through the music.

You banged on the door harder than necessary. It took a few seconds before someone inside yelled over the noise, “Yoo Heeseung! Someone’s banging at your front door!”The door finally swung open.

Heeseung stood there in all his infuriating glory tall, broad shouldered, black hair slightly tousled like he’d been running his hands through it. His button up was half undone, revealing a silver chain that rested on his collarbones and a glimpse of toned chest. Behind him, the party pulsed with red solo cups, dim lights, and at least half the basketball team.

A pretty girl with long hair and a tight dress was pressed close to his side, her hand resting possessively on his arm. He’d clearly been in the middle of charming her into his bed by the end of the night.

The second his dark eyes landed on you, that signature cocky smirk curved his lips.“Hi, miss morals,” he drawled, voice low and teasing, like he’d been waiting for this exact interruption.

You rolled your eyes so hard it was a miracle they didn’t get stuck. “Can you turn it down? The music is too loud.”

Heeseung didn’t move. Instead, he leaned one shoulder against the doorframe, crossing his arms in a way that made his biceps strain against the fabric of his shirt. The girl behind him shifted, clearly annoyed at the sudden attention shift, but Heeseung didn’t spare her a glance now.

“Miss morals strikes again,” he laughed, the sound rich and mocking. It sent an unwelcome spark of irritation down your spine. “What’s the problem this time, neighbor? Come to bless us with your righteous presence?”

“I’m serious, Heeseung,” you said, voice sharp as you folded your arms tightly across your chest. “Not everyone has the pleasure of partying all night. Others have to actually study to pass their exams whereas others can just have daddy pay for everything when they fuck up.”The words hung in the air between you.

Heeseung’s smirk faltered instantly. His jaw tightened, and he sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth. For a split second, something raw annoyance, maybe even hurt flashed across his face before he quickly shoved it back into that indifferent mask. His eyes darkened, the playful glint gone.

“Whatever,” he muttered, voice suddenly flat and cold. “I’ll lower the volume.”He said, “Thank you,” you replied curtly, refusing to let the small victory show on your face even though your heart was hammering.

Heeseung didn’t say anything else. He simply stepped back and shut the door right in your face with a firm click that echoed down the empty hallway.

You stood there for a moment, staring at the closed wooden door, fists clenched at your sides. The music inside dropped almost immediately, not completely off, but low enough that you could finally breathe. Muffled laughter and voices still filtered through, but at least your walls wouldn’t shake anymore.

“Asshole,” you whispered under your breath, turning on your heel and heading back to your apartment.As you closed your own door behind you, you leaned against it for a second, eyes closed. Why did he always have to make everything so difficult? Why did one look from him always manage to crawl under your skin like this?

You shook your head, forcing the thoughts away. Back to studying. Back to pretending Lee Heeseung didn’t exist. But deep down, you already knew tonight’s silence between you two had just gotten a little louder.

You were halfway through rewriting your notes when your phone buzzed on the desk, the screen lighting up with a new message.

yunjin : you know sunghoon righttt? he’s throwing a massive party after midterms and he personally invited me. pleeease come with me?? i don’t wanna go alone 🥺

You stared at the text, already feeling the familiar dread settle in your stomach. Another party of course. You typed back quickly

you : No thanks im good have fun tho

The two dots appeared immediately.

yunjin : babe come onnnn

yunjin : it’s after midterms!! you deserve to relax

yunjin : sunghoon’s parties are actually fun i swear

yunjin : there’ll be good music, free drinks, and i heard the basketball team is coming too 👀

You groaned, rubbing your temples. The last thing you wanted was to be anywhere near the basketball team especially not after tonight’s lovely encounter with their captain.

you : exactly why I’m not going pass

yunjin : please please please i really like sunghoon and this could be my chance

yunjin : i’ll owe you big time i’ll even help you study for the next round of exams i’ll buy you that expensive matcha you like for a month!!

You leaned back in your chair, biting your lip. Yunjin was relentless when she wanted something. And honestly she had been there for you through every late night breakdown this semester. Saying no felt a little cruel the pleading texts kept coming

yunjin : i won’t leave your side the whole night ( she is lying )

yunjin : we can leave early if you hate it , pretty please with cherries on top?? 🥺🍒

You sighed deeply, already knowing you were about to lose this battle.

you : fine, ONE HOUR that’s it if it sucks, we’re out.

yunjin : YESSSSS!!! you’re the best i love you so much

yunjin : we can dress up together at my place okay , see you tomorrow <33

You tossed your phone onto the desk and dropped your head into your hands. Great, just what you needed. Another night surrounded by loud music, drunk athletes, and the very real possibility of running into the Lee Heeseung again.

You glanced at the wall that separated your apartment from his. The music was still playing faintly, but at least it was bearable now. Just one party, you could survive one party right?

The next morning, the art history lecture hall was already filling up with the usual mix of sleepy students and last minute crammers when you slipped into your regular seat in the middle row.

The faint scent of fresh coffee and old books lingered in the air. Yunjin dropped dramatically into the chair on your right, her long hair still slightly damp from her morning shower, eyes bright with far too much excitement for a 9 am class.

On your left, Soobin settled in quietly, tall frame folding gracefully into the seat. He placed his neatly organized notebook on the desk and pulled out a perfectly sharpened pencil, offering you a soft, reassuring smile.

Soobin was always like this calm, steady, the kind of friend who showed up without making a fuss. He was the complete opposite of the loud, chaotic energy that seemed to follow Heeseung everywhere.

Yunjin, however, was already completely distracted. She was leaning forward, chin resting on her hand, openly staring toward the front rows where Sunghoon sat chatting with a couple of friends. Her gaze was soft and dreamy, a tiny smile tugging at her lips every time he laughed at something.

You nudged her arm with your elbow, voice low and teasing. “You’re oogling him again it’s getting embarrassing at this point.”Yunjin didn’t even pretend to deny it. “I’m not oogling, im appreciating art,” she whispered back, still not tearing her eyes away. “Look at him he’s literally perfect.”

Soobin let out a quiet chuckle beside you, shaking his head as he flipped open his notebook. “Sure ‘appreciating’ that’s why half your notes from last week were just little hearts around his name.” He teased her, to which she replied,

“Traitor,” Yunjin hissed playfully, finally glancing at both of you as her cheeks flushed pink. “You two are supposed to be on my side.”The light banter continued until Soobin turned to you, lowering his voice a little. “Hey, I heard there was a party at Heeseung’s last night, did you survive the noise?”

You let out a long, dramatic groan and slumped back in your seat, the memory of last night’s confrontation still fresh and irritating. “Barely. That idiot had the music blasting so loud my textbooks were literally vibrating on the desk. I had to march over there in my hoodie and sweatpants like some angry neighbor from a sitcom again.”

Soobin listened attentively, his expression patient and sympathetic. He never interrupted your rants or told you to just ignore it. He just nodded along, dark eyes focused on you, making you feel genuinely heard.

It was one of the many reasons you treasured his friendship he was thoughtful, kind, and never loud or arrogant for the sake of it. The polar opposite of Heeseung.

“And of course he answered the door half dressed with some girl hanging off his arm like a trophy,” you continued, voice dripping with annoyance. “Called me ‘miss morals’ like it’s the funniest joke in the world.

Then when I pointed out that not everyone has a rich daddy to bail them out when they party instead of studying, he got all pissy, sucked in this dramatic breath, and slammed the door right in my face. He’s such an entitled asshole.”

Soobin hummed softly, a small frown creasing his brow. “That sounds exhausting, you should’ve texted me you know, i could’ve come over with snacks and we could’ve studied together instead of dealing with his nonsense alone.”

You smiled faintly at the offer, warmth cutting through the irritation. “Next time, maybe at least someone in this building has basic human decency.”

Yunjin finally tore her gaze away from Sunghoon long enough to grin at you. “Heeseung’s just bored and likes getting a rise out of you if you stopped reacting, he’d probably get bored and stop.”

“Easy for you to say,” you muttered, crossing your arms. “You don’t have to live next door to the human equivalent of a walking migraine.”The professor walked in moments later, cutting off any further complaints.

The next hour passed in a blur of projected slides on Renaissance techniques, quiet note taking, and the occasional whispered comment from Yunjin whenever Sunghoon shifted in his seat.

When class finally ended, the three of you packed up your things and joined the stream of students flowing out into the crowded hallway. The air was filled with chatter about upcoming midterms, weekend plans, and the usual campus gossip.

As you walked side by side, Yunjin suddenly looped her arm through yours, her excitement bubbling over again. “So, about Sunghoon’s party after midterms you’re definitely coming, right? And Soobin you should come too! It’ll be so much more fun with all three of us there.”

Soobin blinked, surprised, his eyebrows raising slightly. “Wait you’re actually going?” He looked at you, genuinely shocked. “I thought you hated parties, especially ones thrown by the popular crowd.”

You shrugged, already regretting your decision a little. “Yunjin begged a lot and guilt tripped me with matcha promises. One hour max, if it sucks, I’m dragging her out.”

Yunjin squealed happily and squeezed your arm. “See? She’s coming! So you have to come too, Soobinn please?”Before Soobin could respond, a familiar voice cut through the hallway noise from behind you.

“Can’t imagine miss morals at a party but I’m looking forward to seeing you there.” Your stomach dropped, you didn’t even have to turn around to know who it was.

Heeseung was leaning casually against a set of lockers a few feet away, arms crossed over his varsity jacket, that signature cocky smirk playing on his lips. He must have overheard the entire conversation.

His dark eyes locked onto yours with clear amusement, like he lived for these moments of catching you off guard.

You rolled your eyes so hard it almost hurt, refusing to give him the satisfaction of a verbal response. Heat crept up your neck partly from annoyance, partly from the embarrassment of him hearing your plans.

Yunjin stifled a laugh beside you while Soobin just shook his head quietly, a small, amused smile tugging at his mouth.

Heeseung’s low chuckle followed you as the three of you kept walking, but you kept your gaze fixed straight ahead, jaw tight. God, you really, really hated that guy.Midterms week stretched into a brutal two week marathon, and as an art curator major, you felt every single hour of it in your bones.

Your apartment had become a war zone of curated chaos towering stacks of books on museum exhibition design, printed slides from Art Conservation and Curatorial Practices, mood boards pinned to the wall for your upcoming gallery proposal project, and color coded flashcards scattered across every surface.

Late nights blurred into early mornings as you hunched over your laptop, drafting proposals for hypothetical exhibits while trying to memorize the intricate history of 19th century European collections. Sleep was a distant dream. Caffeine was your only reliable companion.

And then there was Heeseung.

He didn’t blast music or bring girls over every single night that would have been almost predictable. No, he was crueler than that. He chose random days, like he knew exactly how to keep you off balance, turning your already exhausting study schedule into a minefield of unwanted interruptions.

The first time hit on the second night of midterms. You were deep into analyzing a case study on museum ethics when the wall behind your desk started to vibrate faintly. At first it was just low music.

Then came the giggles two distinct female voices, breathy and flirtatious. Heeseung’s deep laugh cut through it all, followed by the unmistakable sound of bodies moving against furniture.

“Fuck, Heeseung you’re so good at this,” one of the girls moaned loudly, the words carrying crystal clear through the thin shared wall. The headboard started thumping a slow, steady rhythm against your wall rhythmic, insistent, growing faster.

You could hear the wet slap of skin, her exaggerated gasps turning into full throated cries every time he thrust.You yanked your noise canceling headphones on so hard the band dug into your temples, cranking the volume until classical music drowned most of it out.

But you could still feel it, the steady bang bang bang vibrating through your desk, through your chair, through your skull. Your cheeks burned with secondhand embarrassment and pure rage.

'Of course he’s fucking some random girl while I’m trying to memorize the difference between Baroque and Rococo curation techniques.' You thought bitterly, stabbing your highlighter across the page. Must be nice to have zero responsibilities except basketball and dick appointments.

It stopped around 2 a.m., but the damage was done. You only managed three hours of sleep before your 8 a.m. lecture.

The next morning, you were running on pure spite and too much coffee when you caught Heeseung in the hallway just as he was stepping out of his apartment. He looked annoyingly fresh — hair still damp from a shower, varsity jacket slung over one shoulder, that perpetual cocky smirk already in place.

You stopped right in front of him, arms crossed tightly. “Keep it down next time,” you said flatly, voice low but sharp. “Some of us are actually trying to pass our midterms instead of auditioning for porn.”

Heeseung raised an eyebrow, clearly amused. “Aw, miss morals heard everything? Didn’t know you were such a light sleeper.” You glared at him, heat rising to your cheeks. “Just tone it down, the headboard banging is ridiculous.”

He chuckled lowly, the sound sending another spike of irritation through you. “Noted.” Then he leaned in slightly, voice dropping. “Though from the sounds of it last night, she seemed to enjoy the banging.”

You rolled your eyes and walked away without another word, his soft laugh following you down the hall.The next disruption came four days later. A random Thursday when you had a massive group project due on modern curatorial strategies.

You’d just settled in with your laptop open to a half finished exhibition proposal when his door slammed open down the hall. One girl this time, but she was even louder.

The moment they got inside, the sounds started again her high pitched whimpers, Heeseung’s low, cocky murmurs “Yeah? You like that? Tell me how much you want it” followed by the unmistakable wet sounds of them going at it on what sounded like his couch first, then migrating to the bed.

The headboard slammed against the wall so hard your framed print of Van Gogh’s Starry Night rattled. Her moans turned into broken sobs of pleasure, each one punctuated by Heeseung’s grunts and the filthy slap of bodies. “Harder fuck, right there, Heeseung don’t stop—”

You ended up studying in your bed instead, laptop balanced on your knees, pillows stacked around you like a fortress. Headphones on full blast. Still, every thrust made the wall tremble.

Every moan crawled under your skin and made focusing on your notes feel impossible. By the time they finally finished (or at least quieted down) around midnight, your eyes were burning and your proposal was only half done.

You hated how your body reacted sometimes not with attraction, but with pure, simmering resentment that made your stomach twist.That same night, after the noises finally stopped, you grabbed your phone in a fit of exhausted anger and texted him.

you : keep the noise down, some people are trying to study for actual grades, not coast on basketball talent and daddy’s money

His reply came faster than you expected. A picture popped up first. A close up selfie of Heeseung lying in bed, shirtless, messy hair, lazy smirk on his face, with the caption

heeseung : sorry, miss morals hard to stay quiet when they scream my name like that

heeseung : next time i’ll try to fuck quieter or maybe you can just join and tell me how to do it right?

You stared at the message, face flaming with a mix of rage and disbelief. You immediately blocked the image from your mind ( and definitely did not linger on the way his abs looked in the dim lighting ) before typing back a single furious reply

you : delete my number, asshole

The worst random night came during the final stretch, just three days before your last exams.

You were pulling an all nighter on your capstone project a full digital mock up of a contemporary art exhibit you’d spent weeks perfecting when the noises started again around 11 p.m. This time it was two girls.

Their laughter spilled into the hallway first, then straight through your wall. Heeseung’s voice was low and teasing, the kind of filthy charm that probably worked on every girl on campus.

Soon the bed was creaking loudly, headboard banging in a frantic rhythm while both girls moaned in tandem one breathy and high, the other deeper and more desperate.

“Heeseung oh god, yes fuck me like that—” mixed with wet, obscene sounds that left zero doubt about exactly what was happening next door. The wall vibrated so intensely your coffee mug slid an inch across the desk.

You sat there in your oversized hoodie and sweatpants, staring at your glowing screen, jaw clenched so tight it ached. Every moan, every dirty encouragement from Heeseung, every rhythmic thud felt like a personal attack on the one thing you actually cared about your future.

Your grades, your dream of curating real exhibitions someday. While I’m over here trying not to fail out of the only thing I’m good at, you thought, fingers flying angrily across the keyboard, he’s over there living his best life with a rotating cast of girls screaming his name.

You wore the headphones until your ears rang. You even tried white noise apps, earplugs underneath nothing fully blocked it. The sex noises went on for nearly two hours that night, loud and shameless, until they finally quieted around 1:30 a.m.

By the end of the two weeks, you were running on fumes dark circles under your eyes, caffeine shakes in your hands, and a permanent knot of irritation lodged in your chest whenever you passed his door.

The random nights had been spaced out just enough to feel like psychological warfare instead of constant chaos.Heeseung never once toned it down. Never once seemed to care that someone on the other side of the wall was actually trying to build a future that didn’t involve daddy’s money or NBA scouts.

When Friday morning finally arrived and your last exam was over, you dragged yourself back to the apartment building, shoulders heavy with exhaustion. The hallway was quiet for once. Heeseung’s door looked innocently closed.

You unlocked your own door, stepped inside, and immediately collapsed face first onto your bed, still in your clothes midterms were done.But the resentment toward the boy next door had only grown sharper and Sunghoon’s party was tonight. You groaned into your pillow one hour in and out. Just don’t kill Heeseung on sight.

You took the quickest shower of your life, and changed into the first comfortable outfit you could find—a simple black crop top that showed just a sliver of your midriff and your favorite pair of dark jeans—comfortable, practical, safe.

You texted Yunjin that you were ready to head over to her place to “get ready together,” secretly hoping she wouldn’t make a big deal out of your clothes—big mistake. Yunjin’s apartment was only two blocks away, and the second you stepped inside, she took one look at you and gasped like you had personally offended her.

“No no absolutely not,” she declared, hands on her hips, eyes scanning you up and down with pure horror. “You cannot go to Sunghoon’s party looking like that.”

You glanced down at yourself, confused. “What’s wrong with this? It’s cute it’s comfortable.”“Cute? Comfortable?” Yunjin repeated, already dragging you toward her bedroom like a woman on a mission.

“Babe, we’re going to a party, not the library. You just survived two weeks of hell tonight you’re supposed to look hot, not like you’re about to give a museum tour.”

Before you could protest, she flung open her closet and started pulling out clothes with frightening speed. She held up a black mini skirt dangerously short, made of soft leather like material and a sheer black button up shirt that was practically see through.

“Try these,” she ordered, shoving the hanger into your hands. You stared at the outfit like it might bite you. “Yunjin, no way, that skirt is barely legal and the shirt is see through i’m not wearing that.”

“Yes way, you are,” she sang, already pushing you toward the bathroom. “You agreed to come to the party that means you’re under my styling jurisdiction for tonight go change now”

You argued the entire time you were changing. “This is ridiculous! im going to freeze, people are going to stare i look like I’m trying way too hard—”

But Yunjin was relentless. The second you stepped out in the mini skirt and sheer shirt ( with a black bralette underneath so you weren’t completely exposed ), she clapped her hands and squealed.

“Oh my god, yes! Look at you!” She spun you around in front of her full length mirror. The skirt hugged your hips and ended high on your thighs, making your legs look longer.

The sheer shirt draped softly over your shoulders, the black bralette visible underneath in a way that was teasing but not outright scandalous. “You look insane like, dangerously hot.”

You tugged at the hem of the skirt, cheeks burning. “I feel naked. Can't I at least wear the jeans over this or something?”“No,” she said firmly, already sitting you down in front of her vanity. “We’re doing makeup now sit still.”

For the next twenty minutes, Yunjin worked her magic. Winged eyeliner sharp enough to cut glass, soft smoky eyes, a touch of highlighter on your cheekbones, and a bold red lip that made your mouth look fuller. She even styled your hair into loose, effortless waves that framed your face perfectly.

When she finally stepped back, she let out a satisfied sigh.“Anyone would worship the ground you walk on looking like this,” she said, grinning proudly. “Trust me tonight, you’re not the stressed out art curator girl who yells at her neighbor. You’re the girl who turns heads even Heeseung won’t know what to do with himself when he sees you.”

You rolled your eyes, but a small flutter of nerves mixed with reluctant confidence settled in your stomach as you looked at your reflection. The outfit was way bolder than anything you’d normally wear, but you had to admit it looked good.

“Fine,” you muttered, smoothing down the skirt one last time. “But if I hate it, we’re leaving early and if Heeseung says one word about ‘miss morals’ in this outfit, I’m pouring a drink on him.”Yunjin laughed and linked her arm with yours. “Deal now let’s go make Sunghoon’s party unforgettable.”

You and Yunjin barely made it out of her apartment before your phone buzzed with a text from Soobin saying he was already waiting downstairs. The three of you had agreed he would drive so none of you had to worry about getting home later.

The elevator ride down felt too short. Your heart was already beating a little faster than usual partly from the unfamiliar outfit, partly from the knowledge that you were actually going to a party after surviving two brutal weeks of midterms.

The black mini skirt kept riding up slightly with every step, and you kept tugging nervously at the hem while Yunjin wouldn’t stop complimenting how good you looked.

When you stepped out of the building into the cool evening air, Soobin’s car was parked right in front, engine idling. He was leaning casually against the driver’s side, scrolling through his phone, but the moment he looked up and saw the two of you approaching, his eyes widened noticeably.

Especially when they landed on you. Soobin froze for a second, his usual calm expression cracking into pure, genuine shock. His gaze traveled slowly from your loose waves and sharp winged eyeliner, down to the sheer black shirt that subtly revealed the black bralette underneath, then to the dangerously short leather like mini skirt that made your legs look endless.

He blinked once, twice, before quickly clearing his throat and straightening up, ears turning a light shade of pink.“Wow” he said, voice a little higher than his normal soft tone. “You both look really nice like, really nice.”

Yunjin grinned triumphantly, looping her arm through yours and squeezing. “See? Told you! Even Soobin is shook, she looks hot, right?”

You felt heat creep up your neck and quickly crossed your arms over your chest, suddenly hyper aware of how different you looked from your usual oversized hoodie and jeans self.

“It’s all Yunjin’s doing. She basically held me hostage in her room until I changed. I tried to wear my normal clothes and she acted like I committed a crime.”

Soobin gave a small, shy laugh, rubbing the back of his neck as he opened the back door for both of you like the gentleman he was. “No, it really suits you, you look great tonight.” His compliment was sincere and gentle, making the awkwardness feel a little softer. “Ready to go? Sunghoon’s place isn’t too far from here.”

The car ride was filled with easy, light chatter that helped calm your nerves. Yunjin sat in the front passenger seat, already buzzing with excitement about seeing Sunghoon, while you sat in the back, occasionally tugging at your skirt and staring out the window at the passing streetlights.

Soobin kept the conversation flowing comfortably, light complaints about how brutal midterms had been, predictions about how wild the party might get, and Yunjin’s endless teasing about how

Sunghoon had “personally invited” her. Every now and then Soobin would glance at you through the rearview mirror, still looking a little flustered whenever your eyes met.

Before you knew it, Soobin was pulling up to a large off campus house that was already pulsing with loud music and flashing colored lights. Cars lined both sides of the street, and groups of people were laughing and chatting on the front lawn, red cups in hand.

The three of you climbed out of the car, and the heavy bass from inside immediately hit you like a wave. The night air smelled like a mix of cheap beer, sweet perfume, and fresh cut grass. Yunjin practically bounced on her heels with excitement as the three of you walked up the pathway toward the front door.

Sunghoon was standing right at the entrance, playing the perfect host in a simple black shirt and jeans. His sharp, handsome features broke into a warm, genuine smile the moment he spotted your group approaching.

“Hey! You guys actually made it,” he greeted cheerfully, voice carrying easily over the noise from inside. His eyes lingered on Yunjin for an extra beat, a soft grin tugging at his lips. “Yunjin, glad you came and you brought friends, nice.”

He gave Soobin a friendly nod and then turned his attention to you, eyebrows raising slightly in pleasant surprise as he took in your bold outfit. “Hey! you clean up really well. Welcome to the party, hope you guys have fun tonight.”

You managed a small, polite smile, still feeling slightly out of your element. “Thanks for inviting us.”Sunghoon handed each of you a red solo cup filled with something fruity and strong smelling a sweet cocktail that had a sharp kick of alcohol when you took your first cautious sip.

“Drinks are flowing inside help yourselves to whatever you want. There’s food in the kitchen, beer pong in the living room, and dancing. Pretty much everywhere enjoy!”

Yunjin thanked him brightly, her cheeks already a little flushed with excitement, and steered you and Soobin further into the crowded house. The interior was packed wall to wall with people.

Students were laughing loudly, dancing in the middle of the living room, playing intense games of beer pong, and making out in dimly lit corners. The music was loud but not yet overwhelming, colorful lights flashing across the walls and bodies.

For the first few minutes, the three of you stuck close together, weaving through the crowd while sipping your drinks. Soobin stayed protectively near your side, occasionally leaning down to say something quiet and reassuring whenever he noticed you looking a bit overwhelmed by the chaos.

Then you felt it. That familiar, annoying prickle on the back of your neck, like someone was watching you. You turned your head slightly, and there he was.

Heeseung was leaning casually against the wall near the staircase, a red cup dangling from his fingers. He was surrounded by a small group of his closest friends—Beomgyu laughing at something on his phone, Jake with his usual bright smile, and Jay nursing his own drink while scanning the room.

Heeseung looked effortlessly good tonight in a black button up with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, exposing his toned forearms, and dark jeans that sat low on his hips. His hair was styled in that signature messy but perfect way.

The moment his dark eyes found you across the crowded room, his conversation with the guys stopped mid sentence.

His gaze dragged slowly and shamelessly down your body, taking in the short black mini skirt that hugged your hips and thighs, the sheer shirt that teased the black bralette underneath, the way the outfit accentuated your curves before snapping back up to your face.

For once, his usual cocky smirk didn’t appear instantly. Instead, there was a flash of genuine surprise, followed by something darker, more heated, and appreciative.

He pushed off the wall and started walking straight toward your group, completely ignoring whatever Beomgyu was saying behind him.

“Well, well, well,” Heeseung drawled when he was close enough, his voice cutting smoothly through the music. His eyes were still shamelessly roaming over you. “Look who decided to show up. Miss morals in a mini skirt i almost didn’t recognize you damn.”

You felt your stomach twist with that familiar mix of irritation and unwanted warmth. Before you could even open your mouth to snap back, Yunjin jumped in defensively, stepping slightly in front of you with a bright but sharp smile.

“Excuse me, Heeseung? She looks amazing, and she doesn’t need your backhanded compliments,” Yunjin said, tilting her head with fake sweetness.

“Unlike some people who only know how to throw loud parties and bring random girls over during midterms, maybe focus on your own game instead of commenting on her outfit.”

Heeseung chuckled lowly, clearly amused by Yunjin’s quick defense, but his eyes never left you. Jake, Beomgyu, and Jay were now watching the exchange from a few feet away, Beomgyu smirking like he was enjoying the show and Jake looking mildly entertained.

“Relax, Yunjin,” Heeseung replied smoothly, taking a sip from his cup. “I’m just saying that she cleaned up dangerous tonight, didn’t think our neighbor owned anything shorter than ankle length. Beomgyu, Jake, Jay back me up here. She looks good, right?”

Beomgyu grinned and raised his cup in a lazy toast. “Yeah, she do be looking fire tonight.”Jake nodded with a bright laugh. “For real, new look suits you.”Jay just shook his head with a small smile, staying quiet but clearly entertained.

You rolled your eyes, lifting your red solo cup to your lips to hide the flush creeping up your cheeks. “Don’t start with me tonight, Heeseung i’m only here for one hour, and I’d rather not spend it dealing with your nonsense.”

Heeseung tilted his head, that signature cocky smirk fully back in place now as he took another slow step closer. The way he was looking at you made the noisy room feel suddenly ten degrees warmer.

“Gonna dance tonight, or are you just here to supervise everyone else’s fun like usual, miss morals?”

You didn’t even give Heeseung the satisfaction of a proper reply. Instead, you flipped him off with a sharp middle finger, turned on your heel, and grabbed Yunjin’s arm. “Come on, let’s go.”

Yunjin laughed loudly, clearly proud of your reaction, and let you drag her deeper into the crowded house while Heeseung’s low chuckle followed behind you. Beomgyu, Jake, and Jay were already teasing him in the background, but you refused to look back.

For the first half hour, the party actually felt manageable. You stuck close to Yunjin and Soobin, sipping from your red solo cup and people watching from a quieter corner of the living room.

The music was loud, the lights flashed in rhythm with the bass, and the alcohol slowly started to loosen the tight knot of stress that midterms had left in your chest. Then Sunghoon appeared again.

He approached your group with that easy, charming smile, eyes mostly locked on Yunjin. “Hey want to dance?”Yunjin’s face lit up like he’d just offered her the moon. She turned to you quickly, squeezing your hand. “You’ll be okay for a bit, right? I’ll be right back!”

Before you could even answer, she was gone, disappearing into the sea of bodies on the dance floor with Sunghoon’s hand on her waist, now it was just you and Soobin.

You tried to keep the conversation light, but the longer you stood there, the more the party energy started to pull at you. The drink in your cup was strong and sweet, and after two weeks of pure academic hell, the idea of letting loose felt dangerously tempting.

“Fuck it,” you muttered under your breath. You downed the rest of your drink in one go, the burn sliding warmly down your throat. Then you grabbed another cup from a passing tray and started sipping again. Why not? Midterms were over. You deserved this.

Soobin noticed and raised an eyebrow, but he didn’t judge. He stayed beside you, chatting quietly, making sure you weren’t completely alone. But after a while, you started feeling guilty. He was sweet, always listening, always there and here he was babysitting you instead of enjoying the party.

“Go talk to your friends,” you told him, giving him a gentle push toward a group of guys waving at him from across the room. “Seriously, Soobin i’ll be fine, i don’t want you wasting your night stuck with me. Go have fun i’ll text you if I need anything.”

He hesitated, looking concerned, but you begged him with your best pleading eyes until he finally nodded. “Okay but stay safe, text me if anything feels off.”

Once Soobin walked away to join his friends, you let yourself drift toward the dance floor. The alcohol was hitting nicely now a warm, fuzzy buzz that made the music feel better and your body lighter.

You moved to the edge of the crowd first, swaying gently, then slowly worked your way deeper into the pulsing bodies.

You didn’t notice him at first. But Heeseung had been watching you the entire time. From the moment Yunjin disappeared with Sunghoon, his eyes had followed you. He watched you down your drinks. He watched you convince Soobin to leave.

And now he watched as you finally stepped fully onto the dance floor, hips moving to the heavy beat, the short black mini skirt riding up just enough to draw attention, the sheer shirt catching the flashing lights.

Heeseung set his cup down and started moving through the crowd toward you, slow and deliberate. When he was close enough, he didn’t just grab you like most guys would. Instead, he leaned in slightly, voice low and surprisingly respectful against the loud music.

“Hey can I dance with you?”

You turned your head, alcohol making you bold. Your eyes met his, and for once, you didn’t immediately snap at him. The buzz in your veins, the way he was looking at you like he couldn’t look away…it made something reckless spark inside you.

You nodded “Yeah okay.” Only then did Heeseung step closer. The moment he did, the space between you disappeared. His body pressed lightly against yours at first, hands hovering respectfully before you started moving together.

The music was sensual, slow and heavy, and your bodies naturally fell into rhythm. It didn’t stay innocent for long. Heeseung’s hands gradually grew bolder one sliding to your waist, the other brushing up your side, fingers grazing the sheer fabric of your shirt.

You moved closer, hips rolling against his, the short skirt brushing against his thighs. His touch grew hotter, palms sliding down to grip your hips, then slowly roaming over the curve of your ass, pulling you flush against him.

The air between you thickened. Your breathing grew heavier. Every brush of his body sent sparks through your skin. Heeseung leaned in, lips brushing the shell of your ear as he spoke, voice low. “fuck, not being able to kiss you right now is actual torture.”

The words hit you like a shot of pure heat. The alcohol, the weeks of built up tension, the way his hands felt all over your body everything crashed together in one reckless moment.

You didn’t think, you just acted. turning your head as you grabbed the front of his shirt, and crashed your lips against his.

The kiss was messy, desperate, and instantly wild. Heeseung groaned into your mouth the second your lips met, one hand flying up to cup the back of your neck while the other tightened possessively on your waist, pulling you even harder against him.

You kissed like you were angry at each other—teeth clashing, tongues sliding hot and deep, lips moving with raw hunger.

Heeseung kissed like he’d been waiting for this exact moment. His mouth was demanding, devouring, tilting your head to kiss you deeper. You moaned softly against him, fingers threading into his hair and tugging, which only made him kiss you harder.

The dance floor disappeared around you. The music faded into background noise. There was only the heat of his body, the taste of alcohol on his tongue, and the way his hands roamed greedily over your curves sliding up your back under the sheer shirt, gripping your hips, pressing you so close you could feel exactly how much he wanted you.

The makeout was crazy sloppy, passionate, breathless. You bit his lower lip, and he responded with a low growl, sucking on your tongue before kissing you even harder.

Your bodies moved together to the beat, grinding slowly while your mouths stayed locked in a heated battle.

When you finally pulled back for air, both of you were panting, lips swollen and shiny. Heeseung’s eyes were dark, pupils blown wide as he stared down at you like he wanted to devour you right there on the dance floor.

“Shit” he breathed, forehead resting against yours. “You’re going to kill me tonight.”The kiss finally broke, both of you breathing hard, lips swollen and glistening under the flashing party lights.

Heeseung’s forehead rested against yours, his hands still gripping your hips like he was afraid you’d disappear if he let go.

His eyes were dark, pupils blown with want, and the way he looked at you sent another rush of heat straight through your body.

You didn’t think. The alcohol, the weeks of hating him, the way his hands had felt all over you everything made you reckless. You leaned in closer, voice low and breathless against his ear. “Wanna go back to your apartment?”

Heeseung pulled back just enough to look at you, a dangerous smirk tugging at his swollen lips. For a split second, surprise flashed across his face, but it quickly melted into pure hunger.

“Fuck yes”

He didn’t waste another second. His hand slid down to grab yours firmly, fingers lacing tight as he started pulling you through the crowded dance floor. People moved out of the way as Heeseung cut a path toward the front door, his grip on you possessive and urgent.

You barely had time to register anything else Yunjin and Soobin were somewhere in the house, but right now, none of that mattered.The cool night air hit your flushed skin the moment you stepped outside, but it did nothing to calm the fire burning in your veins.

Heeseung’s car was parked a little down the street. He didn’t let go of your hand the entire way, and the second you reached the passenger side, he opened the door for you with surprising speed before rounding the car and sliding into the driver’s seat.

The moment the doors closed, the tension exploded again. Heeseung started the engine, but you were already growing impatient. The short drive back to your apartment building felt too long. Every red light, every stop sign made the ache between your legs worse.

You kept stealing glances at him his jaw tight, hands gripping the steering wheel, the way his shirt was slightly undone from your earlier tugging. At the third red light, you couldn’t hold it in anymore.“Fuck this,” you muttered.

Before Heeseung could react, you unbuckled your seatbelt, climbed over the center console, and straddled his lap in one swift motion. The mini skirt rode up high on your thighs as you settled on top of him, your hands immediately cupping his face as you crashed your lips back onto his.

Heeseung groaned loudly into the kiss, his hands flying to your waist to steady you. The kiss was even wilder than on the dance floor desperate, messy, all tongue and teeth. You rocked your hips against him, grinding down slowly at first, then harder, feeling him harden beneath you through his jeans.

His hands roamed greedily, one sliding up under your sheer shirt to palm your breast over the bralette, the other gripping your ass and pulling you tighter against his growing bulge.

“Shit you’re driving me crazy,” he muttered against your mouth between kisses, voice rough and wrecked.

You moaned softly, grinding down harder, the friction sending sparks through your entire body. The car windows started to fog up as you moved together, lips never leaving each other for long.

Heeseung’s tongue slid against yours, deep and filthy, while his hips bucked up to meet your movements, the steering wheel pressing into your back.

You were completely lost in him hands in his hair, tugging, lips sucking on his bottom lip, hips rolling in desperate circles when the sharp sound of honking suddenly pierced through the haze.

Once, twice, then a chorus of angry car horns blaring behind you reality crashed back in.

You pulled away from the kiss with a gasp, lips shiny and swollen, breathing ragged. The light had turned green, and the cars lined up behind you were laying on their horns, some drivers shouting out their windows.

Heeseung let out a breathless laugh, his hands still gripping your thighs tightly. His eyes were dark, hair messy from your fingers, lips red and kiss bitten.“Fuck,” he rasped, voice hoarse. “We’re gonna cause an accident if you keep this up.”

You quickly scrambled back into the passenger seat, heart pounding, cheeks burning with a mix of embarrassment and lingering arousal.

Your skirt was hiked up dangerously high, and you tugged it down with shaky hands while Heeseung adjusted himself in his seat, clearly struggling to focus on the road.

He shot you a heated sideways glance, smirk returning as he pressed the gas pedal.“Almost home,” he said, voice low and promising. “Try not to jump me again until we’re inside or don’t. I'm not complaining.”

The rest of the short drive was torturous. The air in the car was thick with tension, both of you stealing glances, the memory of your grinding still fresh and electric.

When Heeseung finally pulled into the parking spot outside your shared apartment building, he killed the engine and turned to you, eyes blazing.

The second you were both out of the car, he grabbed your hand again and practically dragged you toward the entrance, the promise of what was about to happen hanging heavy between you.

The second the door to Heeseung’s apartment slammed shut behind you, all restraint vanished.He had you pinned against the wood before you could even catch your breath, mouth crashing back onto yours in a filthy, open mouthed kiss.

His hands were everywhere one sliding up under your sheer shirt to palm your breast roughly, the other gripping your ass and yanking your hips flush against the hard line of his cock already straining in his jeans.

“Been thinking about this since you walked in wearing that tiny fucking skirt,” he growled against your lips, biting your bottom lip hard enough to make you moan. “Look at you acting like such a good girl all semester and now you’re begging to get fucked in my bed.”

You didn’t deny it you couldn’t. The alcohol and weeks of pent up hatred had turned into pure, desperate need. You tugged at his shirt buttons, popping a few open in your haste, and Heeseung chuckled darkly before ripping the rest off himself.

The shirt hit the floor. Yours followed a second later, then your bralette, leaving your tits exposed to the cool air of his apartment.

Heeseung’s mouth was on your neck instantly, sucking a mark right below your jaw while his hands squeezed your breasts, thumbs flicking over your nipples until they were hard and aching. “So fucking pretty when you’re needy like this,” he muttered, voice low and rough. “Bet you’re already soaked for me, huh?”

You whimpered when he shoved the mini skirt up around your waist and cupped you over your panties. His fingers pressed against the soaked fabric, rubbing slow circles over your clit.

“Shit you are dripping already.” He smirked against your throat. “Such a dirty little secret you’ve been hiding, miss morals.”

You didn’t have time to snap back. Heeseung dropped to his knees right there in the entryway, hooked your panties to the side, and buried his face between your thighs without warning. His tongue dragged a long, nasty stripe up your pussy, groaning at the taste of you.

“Oh my god—” Your head thunked back against the door as he licked and sucked like a man starved, two fingers sliding inside you easily because you were so wet.

He curled them perfectly, pumping fast while his tongue flicked mercilessly over your clit. The sounds were obscene wet, sloppy, loud and he didn’t care. He ate you like he wanted to ruin you.

You came hard on his tongue within minutes, thighs shaking, fingers yanking at his hair as you cried out his name. Heeseung didn’t stop until you were trembling and pushing at his head, then he stood up, lips shiny with your arousal, and kissed you deep so you could taste yourself.

“Bedroom now,” he ordered.

He didn’t wait for you to walk. He grabbed the back of your thighs and lifted you like you weighed nothing, carrying you down the short hallway while your legs wrapped around his waist.

Your skirt was still bunched around your hips, panties shoved to the side. You could feel his cock pressing against your soaked core with every step.

The second he kicked his bedroom door open, he dropped you onto the bed. You barely had time to bounce before he was stripping the rest of his clothes off. His jeans and boxers hit the floor and his cock sprang free—thick, hard, and already leaking at the tip.

Your mouth watered at the sight. Heeseung climbed over you, caging you in with his arms. “You want this?” he asked, voice dark, one hand stroking his cock slowly as he looked down at you. “Tell me you want it.”

“I want it,” you breathed, reaching down to wrap your hand around him. “Fuck me, Heeseung.”That was all it took.

He shoved your legs apart wider, lined himself up, and pushed in with one long, brutal thrust. You gasped at the stretch, nails digging into his shoulders as he bottomed out inside you, so deep you swore you could feel him in your stomach.

“Fuck, so tight,” he groaned, forehead dropping to yours. “Taking me so well already.”Then he started moving hard fast and filthy.

The headboard slammed against the wall with every thrust, the same wall that separated your apartments. The irony wasn’t lost on you, but you couldn’t bring yourself to care.

Heeseung fucked you like he’d been imagining this exact moment for months.Deep, punishing strokes that made your tits bounce and your breath hitch.

He grabbed one of your legs and hooked it over his shoulder, folding you in half so he could fuck you even deeper. The new angle made you cry out, the wet slap of skin on skin echoing through the room.

“Look at you,” he rasped, eyes locked on where his cock was disappearing inside you. “Taking every inch like a good little slut, who would’ve thought the girl next door gets this fucking nasty?”

The degradation was light, just enough to make your pussy clench harder around him. You moaned louder, hips trying to meet his thrusts.

Heeseung’s hand slid between your bodies, thumb rubbing tight circles on your clit while he pounded into you.

“Come on, baby. Come on my cock again, wanna feel you squeezing me.” You shattered for the second time, back arching, walls fluttering around his thick length as your orgasm crashed through you. Heeseung fucked you through it, hips never slowing, chasing his own release.

“Fuck— I’m close,” he growled, voice strained. “Where do you want it?” He asked, “Inside,” you gasped, still riding the high. “Come inside me.”

Heeseung cursed loudly, thrusting a few more brutal times before he buried himself to the hilt and came hard. You felt every pulse, every hot spurt filling you up as he groaned your name against your neck, hips jerking through the aftershocks.

For a moment the only sounds were both of you breathing hard, bodies slick with sweat.

Heeseung stayed inside you for a long minute, forehead pressed to yours, before he finally pulled out slowly. A trickle of his cum leaked out of you onto the sheets, and he watched it with dark, satisfied eyes then collapsed beside you.

Instead of pulling away, Heeseung immediately reached for you. He wrapped one strong arm around your waist and tugged you against his chest, your back flush to his front in a tight, warm hug. His other hand gently pulled the duvet up over both of you, cocooning your naked bodies in soft warmth.

You were still sticky with sweat and cum, thighs trembling, but the way he held you possessive yet surprisingly gentle made something soft flutter in your chest despite everything.

Heeseung pressed a lazy kiss to the back of your shoulder, his breath warm against your skin.“Stay,” he murmured, voice already thick with sleep as he tightened his arm around you. “Just stay.”

Exhausted, fucked out, and strangely comforted by his warmth, you let your eyes drift shut. His steady heartbeat against your back and the heavy duvet wrapped around you lulled you quickly into sleep, safe in Heeseung’s arms for the night.

ꪆ୧ ─── ドラマ. next morning !

The first thing you registered was the pounding in your head. Your eyes fluttered open slowly, the dim light filtering through unfamiliar curtains making everything feel hazy. The digital clock on the nightstand glowed red 4:28 a.m.

Your mouth was dry, throat scratchy, and a dull throb pulsed behind your temples the unmistakable aftermath of too many drinks and not nearly enough sleep. You shifted slightly under the heavy duvet, and that’s when you felt it.

A warm, solid body pressed against your back. An arm draped heavily over your waist, holding you close skin against skin. The faint scent of cologne, sweat, and something distinctly masculine filled your senses.

Your heart slammed against your ribs. Memories from last night crashed over you like ice water.

The party, the red solo cup dancing. Heeseung’s hands all over your body on the dance floor. The reckless invitation. The car ride where you’d climbed into his lap like you had no shame.

The way he’d pinned you against his door, dropped to his knees in the entryway, fucked you hard on his bed until you were crying out his name. The filthy sounds. The way he’d filled you up. The way he’d pulled you against his chest afterward, hugging you tight under the duvet as you both drifted off.

You had fucked Lee Heeseung

You had fucked your loud, cocky, insufferable neighbor the basketball captain you’d spent months complaining about, the one who called you “Miss Morals” like it was the funniest joke in the world.

Mortification burned hot through your entire body. Your stomach twisted violently. What the hell had you been thinking? The alcohol had stripped away every ounce of common sense, and now you were lying naked in his bed, his cum still faintly sticky between your thighs, his arm wrapped around you like you belonged there.

Heeseung was still sound asleep behind you, breathing deep and even, his chest rising and falling steadily against your back. His face was relaxed in sleep no smirk, no cocky grin but you knew the second he woke up, everything would change.

He would never let you live this down. The teasing would be relentless. “Miss morals” would turn into something far worse. He’d smirk every time he saw you in the hallway, make dirty little comments about how loud you’d been, how desperate you’d sounded begging for him.

The walls between your apartments were thin he’d probably bring it up every time you complained about his noise again. Your life next door would become a living hell.You couldn’t stay here.

Panic clawed up your throat. You had to leave before he woke up. Before this became real. Before he opened his eyes and looked at you with that knowing, satisfied smirk.

Carefully, so carefully, you lifted his arm from your waist. He stirred slightly but didn’t wake, murmuring something incoherent under his breath. Your heart hammered as you slowly slid out from under the duvet, the cool air hitting your naked skin and raising goosebumps.

You moved like a ghost around his room, gathering your scattered clothes as quietly as possible. Your sheer black shirt, the black bralette, the dangerously short mini skirt, your panties all crumpled on the floor where they’d been tossed in the heat of the moment.

You dressed as fast as you could, fingers trembling as you buttoned the sheer shirt and tugged the mini skirt down your thighs. Your hair was a mess, makeup probably smudged, but you didn’t care. You just needed to get out.

Barefoot, shoes in hand, you tiptoed toward the bedroom door. Every creak of the floorboards felt deafening. You glanced back once at Heeseung still asleep, one arm now stretched across the empty space where you’d been, dark hair messy against the pillow.

A strange, unwelcome pang twisted in your chest, but you shoved it down hard. This never happened.

You slipped out of his bedroom, quietly closing the door behind you. The living room was dark and silent. You navigated through the unfamiliar space, heart racing, until you reached the front door. The lock clicked softly as you turned it.

The hallway was empty and dimly lit when you stepped outside. The cool air felt like freedom. You didn’t even bother putting your shoes on yet you just hurried the few steps to your own apartment door next door, fumbling with your keys until they finally slid into the lock.

The moment you were inside, you locked the door behind you, leaned against it, and slid down to the floor, breathing hard.

Your body still ached in the best and worst ways. Thighs sore, a faint bruise forming on your hip from his grip, the ghost of his touch lingering everywhere. You could still feel him inside you, still taste the heat of his mouth.

You buried your face in your hands, mortified beyond words. What had you done?You had slept with the one person you couldn’t stand and now you had to live right next door to him, pretending it never happened.

Because if Heeseung ever found out you’d run away like this, the teasing would only get worse much, much worse. You spent the rest of that early morning in a haze of denial.

Your phone vibrated then again. You reached for it with a heavy sigh, squinting at the bright screen.

yunjin ( 3 new messages )

yunjin : babe where did u go?? one second u were dancing and then u disappeared 😭

yunjin : sunghoon said he saw u leave with someone?? pls tell me ur okay

yunjin : im worried call me when u wake up!!

soobin ( 4 new messages )

soobin : hey, you okay? you left pretty suddenly last night without telling both of us yunjin’s freaking out a bit

soobin : let me know if you got home safe

soobin : if you need anything or want to talk, i’m here no pressure

soobin : hope you’re resting well ❤️

You stared at the messages, throat tightening. The kindness in Soobin’s texts and Yunjin’s worried energy made fresh tears prick at your eyes. They had no idea what you had done. No idea you had spent the night in Heeseung’s bed, letting him touch you, kiss you, fuck you like you’d lost all common sense.

You typed back with trembling fingers, keeping it short and vague

you : got home safe, just drank too much and needed to leave early sorry for worrying you guys i’m okay, just tired talk later ❤️

You sent it and immediately turned your phone on silent, burying your face in your hands the memories wouldn’t stop replaying. Heeseung’s hands on your hips, his mouth on your neck. The way he had groaned your name when he came inside you.

How safe and warm his arms had felt when he pulled you under the duvet afterward. You squeezed your eyes shut, trying to push it all away this never happened.

After sliding down your front door and sitting on the cold floor for what felt like hours, you finally dragged yourself to the shower.

You scrubbed your skin until it was raw, trying to wash away every trace of Heeseung his scent, his touch, the sticky evidence of what you’d done between your thighs. The hot water did nothing to erase the soreness or the vivid flashbacks that kept playing on loop in your head.

By the time the sun came up, you had made a decision this never happened. You would bury it so deep that even you would start to believe it. No one needed to know. Not Yunjin, not Soobin, not even yourself on most days.

You would go back to normal go to classes, focus on your art curator projects, complain about the noise next door like always. And most importantly, you would avoid Lee Heeseung at all costs.

ꪆ୧ ─── ドラマ. flashback !

Heeseung stepped out of his apartment with a half empty water bottle in hand, planning to grab the last box from his car before the evening practice. The hallway was quiet until it wasn’t.

A girl came rushing around the corner, arms overloaded with a massive cardboard box that completely blocked her line of sight. She collided straight into his chest with a startled gasp.

The box flew out of her hands and crashed to the floor, spilling books, notebooks, and what looked like art supplies everywhere across the hallway carpet. Heeseung instinctively reached out and grabbed her arms to keep her from stumbling backward.

She looked up at him, flushed and clearly annoyed, strands of hair falling across her face from the chaotic move. She was pretty, sharp eyes, determined expression the kind of girl who didn’t seem impressed by campus status.

A smirk tugged at his lips before he could stop it.“Easy there, neighbor,” he drawled, voice laced with amusement. “You always run into people like you’re trying to tackle them, or am I just lucky?”

She blinked, then quickly crouched down to gather her scattered belongings, avoiding his gaze.“Sorry,” she muttered, tone tight and clipped. “Didn’t see you.”

Heeseung crouched down as well, picking up a thick book on museum curation that had slid toward his foot. He turned it over in his hands, raising an eyebrow.“Art stuff, huh?” he asked casually. “You moving in next door?”

“Yeah just today,” she replied shortly, snatching the book back from him with a little more force than necessary.

He stood up first and leaned against the wall, arms crossing over his chest as he watched her struggle to reorganize everything into the box. Most girls would have smiled, maybe even recognized him as the basketball captain.

This one? She looked like she already wanted nothing to do with him.“I’m Heeseung,” he said, flashing his most charming grin. “Lee Heeseung, your new neighbor. Need help carrying that? Looks heavy.” He offered,

“I’m good thanks,” she answered without even looking up, standing quickly and slinging the tote over her shoulder.

Heeseung didn’t move out of the way. Instead, he tilted his head, studying her with open curiosity. There was something refreshing about her indifference that it made him want to push a little harder.

“Just so you know,” he added, voice dropping into a teasing tone, “The walls here are pretty thin, try not to be too loud when you’re studying or doing whatever it is, serious art curator girls do at night.”Her eyes finally snapped up to his, narrowing with clear irritation.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” she said flatly. “And maybe you can try keeping your parties down some people actually have to study to pass their classes.”

Heeseung let out a low, genuine laugh that echoed down the empty hallway. She had bite and he liked that.

“Welcome to the building, miss morals,” he called after her as she turned toward her door, the nickname slipping out naturally. She didn’t respond. She fumbled with her keys, unlocked her apartment, and slipped inside without another word, the door shutting with a firm click.

Heeseung stood there for a moment longer, still grinning to himself. The girl next door already hated him, and he hadn’t even thrown his first party yet. This was going to be interesting.

The gym echoed with the sharp squeak of sneakers and the rhythmic bounce of basketballs. Afternoon practice was in full swing, but during a water break, Heeseung leaned against the bleachers, towel draped over his shoulders, a cocky grin already plastered on his face.

Jay tossed him a bottle of water. “You look way too happy for someone who just ran suicides.”Heeseung laughed, taking a long sip before wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Can’t help it ran into the new neighbor again this morning.”

Beomgyu perked up immediately, spinning the ball on his finger. “The girl next door? The one who already hates your guts?”

“miss morals herself,” Heeseung confirmed, his smirk widening. “I was just leaving for practice when she came out, i told her the walls are thin and she should try not to be too loud at night. You should’ve seen her face, she looked like she wanted to throw her coffee at me.”

Jake, who was stretching nearby, let out a loud laugh. “Dude, you’re obsessed! that’s like the third time this week you’ve mentioned her.”

“I’m not obsessed,” Heeseung shot back, but his grin betrayed him. “It’s just too easy. She gets so worked up over the smallest things. Last week I had a couple of people over, nothing crazy and she banged on my door at midnight like the apartment was on fire, called me an entitled asshole who only passes because ‘daddy pays for everything.’”

The group burst into laughter. Sunghoon shook his head, amused. “She’s got balls, most girls on campus would be throwing themselves at you the second they find out you’re the captain.”

“Exactly,” Heeseung said, tossing the towel aside. “That’s what makes it fun, she doesn’t give a single fuck who I am. No flirty smiles, no asking for tickets to games, nothing. She just glares at me like I personally ruined her life by existing next door it’s hilarious.”

Beomgyu grinned mischievously. “So what’s your plan? Keep annoying her until she moves out?”

“Nah,” Heeseung replied, bouncing the ball once. “I’m just getting started, next time the music’s on, I might turn it up a little louder to see how long it takes before she comes marching over again. Bet she’ll have that cute little angry face on.”

Jake, who had been quietly listening while stretching his hamstrings, suddenly straightened up with a knowing look.“Don’t you think you’re in love with her or something?” he asked casually, but loud enough for the whole group to hear.

The gym went quiet for half a second before the guys exploded with laughter and teasing whistles. Heeseung nearly choked on his water. “What the fuck, Jake?”

Jake shrugged, completely unfazed. “Think about it, she’s literally the only girl who doesn’t give a shit about you no ego stroking, no chasing after the basketball star. She treats you like any other annoying neighbor and instead of leaving her alone, you keep poking at her like a kid with a new toy. That sounds like a crush to me.”

“Bullshit,” Heeseung scoffed, but his ears turned slightly red. He dribbled the ball harder than necessary, trying to play it cool. “I’m not in love with her, she’s just entertaining. It's fun watching her get all riled up, that’s it.”

Jay raised an eyebrow, smirking. “Sure ‘Entertaining.’ that’s why you bring her up every single practice.”

“Exactly,” Jake added with a grin. “If she suddenly started being nice to you, you’d probably be bored in a week but because she ignores you and calls you out, you can’t stop thinking about her.”

Heeseung pointed the ball at Jake threateningly, though his smirk was fighting to stay hidden. “Keep talking and I’ll make you run extra laps, Sim.”

The team laughed again, but Jake just held up his hands in surrender, still smiling. “I’m just saying, man. One day you’re gonna realize you’re not annoying her because it’s funny, you’re doing it because you like the way she fights back.”

Heeseung rolled his eyes and turned away, dribbling the ball toward the court to end the conversation. But as practice resumed and he sank a clean three pointer, Jake’s words lingered in the back of his mind longer than he wanted to admit.

Maybe there was a tiny bit of truth to it. Or maybe he just really, really enjoyed getting on your nerves.

The laughter from the team slowly died down as practice resumed. Heeseung shook off Jake’s teasing comment, channeling the slight irritation into sharper shots. He sank another clean three pointer, the ball swishing through the net with satisfying precision.

For a few minutes, the court felt like the only place where everything made sense no annoying neighbors, no complicated feelings, just the game. Then the gym doors swung open with a loud bang.

Everyone turned as a tall, sharply dressed man in a tailored coat strode in, his presence immediately sucking the casual energy out of the room. Coach paused mid instruction, nodding respectfully.

Heeseung’s stomach dropped the moment he recognized the figure his father. Mr. Lee didn’t smile. He never did when he showed up unannounced like this. His eyes scanned the court with cold calculation, lingering on Heeseung with clear disapproval.

“Take five, boys,” Coach called out, sensing the shift in atmosphere. Heeseung wiped the sweat from his brow and walked over, jaw already tight. “Dad what are you doing here?”Mr. Lee stopped a few feet away, arms folded behind his back. His voice was low but carried easily across the quiet gym.

“I came to see if my son is actually putting in the work that’s supposed to get him into the NBA,” he said flatly. “From what I’ve been hearing, it doesn’t look like it.”Heeseung’s friends lingered nearby, pretending to drink water but clearly listening.

“I’ve been at every practice,” Heeseung replied, keeping his tone even. “Coach said my shooting percentage is up this week—”

“Don’t make excuses,” his father cut him off sharply. “Your brother Heedo was never this distracted at your age, he was laser focused top scorer captainfull ride to the best program in the country. And you? You’re out here laughing with your little friends during water breaks, probably thinking about parties and girls instead of the game.”

Heeseung’s grip tightened on the basketball until his knuckles turned white.“I’m not distracted,” he said through gritted teeth. Mr.Lee stepped closer, voice dropping into that familiar, cutting tone that always found its mark.

“You’re good for nothing if you can’t even focus on what matters. All that talent wasted because you’d rather play around and act like some campus king. You think the scouts care about your popularity? they don’t, you will never be enough if you keep this up and you will certainly never be better than your brother.”

The words landed like punches. Heedo — the golden child. The one who had already made it pro overseas. The one their father never stopped comparing him to.Heeseung’s jaw clenched so hard it ached. He wanted to snap back, to defend himself, but years of this had taught him it was useless. His father never listened.

Mr. Lee straightened his coat, expression unchanging. “Fix it or don’t bother coming home for the holidays, i didn’t raise a failure.”Without waiting for a reply, he turned and walked out of the gym, the heavy doors swinging shut behind him with a final, echoing thud. The silence that followed was uncomfortable.

Heeseung stood there for a moment, staring at the floor, chest tight with anger and something heavier he refused to name. The team slowly went back to practice, but the energy had shifted. Jake shot him a concerned look, but Heeseung ignored it, dribbling the ball harder than necessary as he moved back onto the court.

Inside, the familiar bitterness churned.His father’s words echoed louder than any cheering crowd ever could. You will never be enough. You will never be better than your brother. Heeseung sank another shot, but this time it didn’t feel satisfying.

All he could think about was how easy it was to annoy the girl next door because at least when she glared at him and called him an entitled asshole, he felt something other than this hollow, crushing weight.

The heavy gym doors swung shut behind Mr. Lee, leaving an awkward silence in his wake. The team tried to resume practice, but the atmosphere had soured.

Heeseung stood frozen for a few seconds, staring at the spot where his father had been. The familiar sting of those words good for nothing, never enough, never better than your brother settled heavy in his chest like lead.

Jake jogged over, clapping a hand on his shoulder. “Hey, man don’t let him get to you, your dad’s always been like that you’re killing it out here.”

“Yeah,” Beomgyu added, spinning the ball on his finger. “Ignore him, you’re the one who’s gonna make it to the NBA, not Heedo.” Jay nodded. “Come on, let’s run some more plays we’ll crush the next game.”Heeseung forced a half smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Yeah sure.”

He went through the motions for the rest of practice dribbling, shooting, defending but he was quiet. No cocky jokes no teasing his teammates no loud laughter. Every time someone tried to pull him into conversation or hype him up after a good play, he gave short, one word replies and kept his head down. The usual spark was gone.

Even Coach noticed, shooting him concerned glances but saying nothing.The moment practice officially ended, Heeseung grabbed his bag and left first, ignoring the calls from his friends asking if he wanted to grab food. He needed air. He needed to get away from the echoes of his father’s voice.

He walked aimlessly for a while, the cool evening air doing little to clear his head. Eventually, his feet carried him toward the small café just off campus the one with decent coffee and quiet corners where he sometimes went to think.He pushed open the door, the bell jingling softly, and scanned the room out of habit and then he saw you.

You were sitting alone at a corner table near the window, surrounded by textbooks, notes, and your laptop. Your hair was tied up messily, a pen between your teeth as you frowned at something on the screen. You looked focused serious and annoyingly cute in that concentrated way of yours.

A small, familiar spark ignited in his chest the one that always appeared whenever he spotted you. Before he could think better of it, Heeseung walked straight over and slid into the seat across from you without asking.You looked up, startled at first, then your expression quickly shifted into pure annoyance.

“What the hell are you doing here?” you asked, voice sharp but low enough not to disturb the other customers. You closed your laptop slightly, glaring at him. “This is my table, go sit somewhere else.”

Heeseung leaned back in the chair, crossing his arms, that signature smirk slowly returning despite the heavy weight still sitting in his stomach. Seeing your irritated face felt lighter somehow. Easier than dealing with everything else.

“Relax, miss morals,” he said, voice teasing. “I’m not here to ruin your precious study time. Just saw you and thought I’d say hi to my favorite neighbor.”

You rolled your eyes so hard it was almost impressive. “Favorite? We barely tolerate each other and I’m trying to work unlike some people who can afford to slack off because ‘daddy can pay for everything.’”

The jab should’ve stung more, especially after his father’s visit, but instead it made Heeseung’s smirk widen. There, it was that fire. That complete lack of care for who he was or what people usually said to him. You didn’t tiptoe around him. You didn’t try to impress him. You just called him out.

It felt strangely nice. Not in a romantic way, just refreshing ( liar liar liar he is totally in love with her ) He leaned forward slightly, resting his elbows on the table. “Ouch straight for the throat today. What are you working on that’s got you so grumpy? Another museum thing? Planning to curate an exhibit called ‘Why Heeseung Should Shut Up’?”

You gave him a flat look, clearly not amused. “It’s for my capstone project and yes, if it helps keep loud neighbors quiet, I might include a whole section on it.”

Heeseung chuckled softly, the sound genuine even if it was quiet. For the first time since his dad had shown up, the tight knot in his chest loosened just a fraction. He realized something in that moment. Your company wasn’t bad.

In fact, sitting here watching you get all annoyed and snappy at him felt better than sitting alone with his father’s words ringing in his head. It was simple predictable in the best way. You gave him a reaction real, unfiltered and for a few minutes, it made everything else fade into the background.

He loved annoying you. Not because he wanted to hurt you but because when you pushed back, it reminded him he was still here. Still capable of feeling something other than pressure and disappointment.

“Fine,” he said, raising his hands in mock surrender, though he made no move to leave. “I’ll behave for now but only if you tell me what that exhibit is actually about.” You narrowed your eyes suspiciously, clearly debating whether to kick him out or just ignore him. Heeseung waited, smirk still in place, secretly hoping you’d keep arguing with him a little longer.

ꪆ୧ ─── ドラマ. heeseung’s pov !

Heeseung woke up to a heavy, unfamiliar silence.

His eyes opened slowly, the soft gray morning light filtering through the curtains. His body felt sore in places that reminded him immediately of last night a dull ache in his shoulders, the faint stickiness between the sheets, the faint scent of sex still hanging in the air.

He turned his head to the side the bed was empty. The spot where you had been lying was cold, the pillow slightly dented but untouched now. No clothes scattered on the floor no shoes by the door nothing.

Heeseung sat up slowly, rubbing his face with both hands. The memories came back in quiet, unflinching flashes the party you in that short black skirt.The heated dancing that turned into something reckless.The desperate makeout in his car while horns blared behind you.

How he’d carried you inside, how urgently you both had moved against each other against the door, then on this bed.The way you had moaned his name.The way he had finished inside you.

And how, afterward, he had pulled you close under the duvet, your back against his chest, both of you falling asleep in silence.

Now you were gone. He glanced at the clock. 7:23 a.m. You must have woken up in a panic sometime in the early hours and slipped out while he was still asleep. The realization settled in his stomach like a stone heavy, uncomfortable, and strangely final.

Heeseung let out a long, tired breath and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. He sat there for a moment, elbows on his knees, staring at the floor. This was a mistake, a stupid, drunken mistake.

You had always made it clear how much you couldn’t stand him. The constant complaints about his noise, the glares in the hallway, the way you called him entitled behind his back.

Last night had been nothing more than too much alcohol and bad judgment on both sides. You waking up and running away only confirmed it.He didn’t blame you. If anything, he felt a quiet wave of regret wash over him. He should have known better.

He should have stopped things before they went that far. Now things between you two were already tense, this was going to be even more awkward.

Heeseung stood up and walked to the bathroom. While the shower heated up, he looked at himself in the mirror. There were faint scratch marks on his shoulders and a small bruise near his collarbone. Physical proof that last night had really happened.

He stepped under the hot water, letting it run over his face and shoulders. It never happened, he told himself. That was the only way forward.He would forget about it. Pretend the entire night was a blur he couldn’t quite remember.

No teasing no comments in the hallway no bringing it up ever again. You clearly wanted to erase it, and honestly so did he. The last thing he needed right now was more complications in his life especially with someone who lived right next door.

After the shower, he got dressed in a simple black t-shirt and sweatpants. He made coffee in the kitchen, moving on autopilot. The apartment felt too quiet now.

Heeseung leaned against the counter, sipping the bitter drink, and stared at the wall that separated his place from yours.From now on, things would go back to normal. You would keep avoiding him like you always did.

He would keep his music at a reasonable volume when he remembered. And neither of you would ever speak about what happened last night. It was better this way, cleaner and simpler.

He finished his coffee, rinsed the mug, and set it in the sink. Last night was a mistake and as far as Heeseung was concerned, it was already forgotten.

For the next two weeks, you turned your life into a carefully orchestrated mission of avoidance while your body slowly started betraying you in ways you couldn’t ignore. The mantra remained the same this never happened.

Every morning began the same way. Your alarm went off at 6:15 a.m., pulling you from restless sleep. The moment you sat up, a familiar wave of nausea rolled through your stomach, not violent, but persistent and queasy, making the room feel slightly off balance.

You’d sit on the edge of the bed for a few minutes, breathing slowly through your nose, waiting for it to pass. Some mornings it did. Others, you’d rush to the bathroom and dry heave over the sink, nothing coming up except bitter bile and a metallic taste that lingered on your tongue.

Once the worst of it subsided, you’d quickly get ready, choosing simple, comfortable clothes that wouldn’t draw attention. Then came the listening part. You’d press your ear to the front door, heart beating a little too fast, straining to hear any sound from Heeseung’s apartment next door.

If you caught even the faintest click of his lock or the low murmur of his voice on a phone call, you’d wait sometimes ten minutes, sometimes twenty pretending to reorganize your bag or check your notes until the hallway was silent again.

Leaving became a tactical exercise. You slipped out as quietly as possible, taking the side staircase instead of the main hallway whenever you spotted his car in the parking lot. The fatigue hit hardest during these moments.

Your legs felt heavier than usual, and by the time you reached campus, you were already drained, needing to sit down in the library for a few minutes just to catch your breath. Coming home was even more stressful.

You started timing your returns obsessively. If practice usually ended around 6 p.m., you’d stay late at the library or in an empty classroom, working on your capstone exhibition proposal until you were sure Heeseung was either out with friends or already inside. One evening, the dizziness caught you off guard.

You had just turned the corner into your hallway when the world tilted slightly. You had to lean against the wall, breathing shallowly, while a strong wave of nausea made your stomach churn.

The faint scent of someone’s dinner cooking nearby sent you rushing the last few steps to your door. The moment you got inside, you barely made it to the toilet before vomiting actual, forceful vomiting that left you trembling on the cold tile floor.

You told yourself it was stress. The constant hyper vigilance. The lack of proper sleep. The emotional weight of pretending that night had never occurred. But the symptoms kept creeping in, growing harder to dismiss.

Smells became your enemy. The aroma of coffee from the café near campus, which you used to love, now made your stomach revolt. You switched to plain crackers and ginger tea, keeping a secret stash in your bag.

Even the scent of your own shampoo sometimes triggered a gag reflex. Food tasted strange too salty, too sweet, or completely off. You lost interest in meals altogether, surviving on small portions that you could keep down.

The fatigue settled deep in your bones. You’d come home from classes, collapse on the couch, and wake up hours later feeling like you hadn’t rested at all.

Your breasts felt tender and slightly swollen, brushing against your shirt making you wince. Mood swings hit at random. One minute you were focused on your work, the next you felt inexplicably teary or irritable. All of this made the avoidance even more draining.

One Thursday night, your timing failed you had stayed late at the library, hoping Heeseung would already be inside. When you finally dragged your tired body back to the building, the hallway lights felt blindingly bright.

Just as you reached your door, fumbling with your keys, you heard the unmistakable click of his lock opening.Panic surged through you. Your hands shook so badly that the keys nearly dropped. You managed to slip inside just as his door opened, pressing your back against the wood, heart hammering wildly.

You held your breath, listening to his footsteps pass by. The moment they faded, the nausea hit like a wave. You barely made it to the bathroom before throwing up again, knees weak, tears stinging your eyes from the force of it.

Afterward, you sat on the bathroom floor with your forehead resting on your knees, breathing shakily. This was getting worse.You were exhausted from the constant calculation when to leave, when to return, which route to take, how long to wait in the stairwell. The thin wall between your apartments felt like a constant threat.

You’d hear him moving around sometimes. The low sound of his music ( mercifully quieter these days ), the murmur of his voice when he was on the phone, the occasional laugh. Every sound made your stomach twist with anxiety and unwelcome memories.

You became hyper aware of everything. You avoided cooking anything with strong smells. You did laundry at 2 a.m. when you were sure he was asleep. You even changed the time you took showers, worried the sound of running water might coincide with him coming home.

Yunjin and Soobin noticed the changes. “You’ve been canceling plans a lot,” Yunjin said during one quick lunch. “And you look really tired, are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine,” you lied, forcing a weak smile while fighting the nausea brought on by the smell of her food. “Just stressed about the capstone deadline it’s taking everything out of me.”

Soobin watched you quietly, concern clear in his eyes, but he didn’t push. Inside your apartment, the symptoms continued to build.

Mornings were brutal. You’d wake up with tender breasts and that persistent queasy feeling. Some days the vomiting was so bad you had to keep a small bucket discreetly by your bed.

The fatigue made it hard to focus during lectures. You'd find yourself zoning out, head heavy, fighting the urge to lay your head on the desk. Yet you refused to connect the dots .It’s just stress, you told yourself repeatedly. The avoidance the guilt the lack of sleep.

You pushed through, continuing your careful dance of avoidance. You timed every exit and entry with military precision. You became an expert at predicting Heeseung’s schedule ( she should become a dispatch employee )

You kept your headphones on to drown out any sound from next door. You buried yourself in your art curator work, sketching exhibition layouts late into the night until your eyes burned.Two full weeks passed in this strange limbo.

You were pale, exhausted, and constantly on edge. The nausea came in unpredictable waves. The fatigue made simple tasks feel monumental. And the fear of accidentally seeing Heeseung in the hallway kept you trapped in this self imposed isolation.

Deep down, a small, terrified voice in the back of your mind whispered that something was very wrong. But you silenced it the same way you silenced every memory of that night this never happened.

You would keep avoiding him. You would keep pretending everything was normal.Even as your body screamed louder and louder that nothing was normal anymore.

One ordinary afternoon, everything shifted. You were sitting in the small campus café with Yunjin and Soobin, the three of you squeezed around a corner table. Yunjin was dramatically slumped in her chair, one hand pressed to her lower stomach, complaining loudly.

“Ugh, my period is literally killing me today,” she groaned, stirring her iced latte with a pout. “Cramps are so bad, I can barely sit straight why does it always hit the worst during the worst season? I swear my uterus hates me.”

Soobin chuckled softly, offering her a sympathetic smile. “Do you want me to grab you some painkillers from the convenience store?” You tried to smile and nod along, but the words barely registered.

Her period is killing her…..

The sentence echoed in your head like a siren your own period. You mentally counted the days. It should have come a full week ago. Seven days late. Maybe more.

You had been so caught up in avoiding Heeseung, dealing with the constant nausea, fatigue, and vomiting that you hadn’t even noticed the date slipping by. Your heart started beating faster.

You pulled out your phone under the table and quietly opened your cycle tracking app. The screen glowed with the familiar calendar. A bright red notification stared back at you

period : 7 days late

You stared at the words until they blurred. No no, no, no. You tried to push the thought away immediately. It had to be stress. The irregular sleep, the constant anxiety of avoiding Heeseung, the vomiting all of it could easily throw your cycle off. That was normal right?

But then the symptoms started flashing through your mind like warning lights. The persistent nausea every morning. The vomiting that left you weak on the bathroom floor. The crushing fatigue that made it hard to stay awake in lectures.

The dizziness, sensitivity to smells, tender, swollen breasts. Your stomach dropped, could you be pregnant?

The word felt foreign and terrifying in your head. No. Absolutely not. You wouldn’t get pregnant from one night. One reckless, stupid night. People had unprotected sex all the time and nothing happened.

You were on the pill…wait, were you? You had been so stressed with midterms that you couldn’t even remember if you had taken it properly that week. The thought made bile rise in your throat again.

Across the table, Yunjin and Soobin were still talking something about upcoming assignments and a group project. Their voices sounded far away, like you were underwater.You couldn’t focus on a single word they were saying. Your mind was spinning, heart pounding so hard you were sure they could hear it.

Yunjin waved a hand in front of your face. “Hello? Earth to you! you’ve been spacing out the entire time are you okay?”You blinked, forcing yourself back to the present. Your mouth felt dry.

“I—yeah, sorry just tired,” you mumbled. “Guys, I think I’m gonna head home early today my head’s killing me.”Soobin frowned, concern clear in his eyes. “Do you want me to walk you back?”“No, it’s fine,” you said quickly, already standing up and grabbing your bag. “I’ll text you later promise.”

You left the café before they could protest, walking fast, then almost jogging once you were out of sight. The nausea was back, stronger now, mixing with pure terror. Your hands were shaking as you headed straight for the small convenience store two blocks away.

Inside the store, you felt like every camera was watching you. You moved quickly through the aisles, heart hammering, until you found the family planning section. There were several pregnancy test kits.

You grabbed the most reliable looking one with trembling fingers, not even reading the brand properly. The cashier gave you a neutral look as you paid, but you couldn’t meet her eyes.

Bag clutched tightly to your chest, you practically ran the entire way back to your apartment building. You took the side stairs again, praying Heeseung wasn’t around. The moment you were inside your own apartment, you locked the door twice and leaned against it, breathing hard.

You pulled the kit out of the bag with shaking hands. The box felt heavy dangerous. You read the instructions carefully, twice. Pee on the stick. Wait three minutes. One line = not pregnant. Two lines = pregnant simple but terrifying.

You went to the bathroom, heart pounding so loudly it echoed in your ears. You followed every step exactly, hands trembling so badly you almost dropped the test. When you were done, you placed the stick on the counter and set a timer on your phone three minutes.

You paced the small bathroom, arms wrapped tightly around yourself. Every second felt like an hour. The nausea was back, but this time it had nothing to do with morning sickness. It was pure fear.

What if it was positive?

What if you were actually pregnant with Heeseung’s baby?

The thought made your knees weak. You slid down the wall until you were sitting on the cold tile floor, staring at the test on the counter like it was a bomb about to go off.The timer was still counting down.

Two minutes left. You hugged your knees to your chest, eyes fixed on the small plastic stick that now, held your entire future in two little lines. You were so scared.

The timer on your phone hit zero with a soft chime that felt deafening in the small bathroom. You stayed frozen on the cold tile floor for several long seconds, knees drawn to your chest, staring at the pregnancy test lying face up on the counter like it was a live grenade.

Slowly, you pushed yourself up on shaky legs and stepped closer. One line was already dark and clear the control line. The second line was faint at first, but unmistakable. A pale pink line slowly darkening right beside the first one.

two lines = positive

You blinked hard, once, twice, as if the result would magically change if you stared long enough.“No…” you whispered, voice cracking. “No, that can’t be right.”Denial crashed over you like a wave. You snatched the test off the counter and held it closer to the light, turning it at different angles. Maybe it was a faulty test.

Maybe the line was an evaporation line. Maybe you had read the instructions wrong. You grabbed the box again and reread the instructions three more times, your hands trembling so badly the paper shook.

But no matter how many times you checked, the two lines stared back at you, clear and undeniable. It was positive. You were pregnant. The reality slammed into you all at once.

Your knees buckled. You sank back down to the bathroom floor, the test still clutched tightly in your hand. A sob tore out of your throat before you could stop it. Hot tears spilled down your cheeks as the full weight of what this meant crashed over you.

You were pregnant with Heeseung’s baby. The boy you couldn’t stand. The neighbor you had spent months avoiding. The one person you had sworn to pretend never touched you.

A broken sound escaped you half sob, half laugh of pure disbelief. Your free hand moved instinctively to your stomach, pressing lightly against the still flat surface. There was a life growing inside you right now. A tiny, real consequence of one reckless, drunken night.

The crying came harder. You curled in on yourself, forehead resting on your knees as sobs wracked your body. All the symptoms you had tried to blame on stress the nausea, the vomiting, the fatigue, the dizziness suddenly made perfect, terrifying sense.

You were going to have a baby. And the father was the last person on earth you wanted to be tied to. After several long minutes, the tears slowed, leaving you drained and hollow. You wiped your face with the back of your hand, staring blankly at the two pink lines.

You made a decision right there on the bathroom floor. You were not telling Heeseung anything, not a single word.He didn’t need to know. He would never know. Telling him would only make everything worse the teasing, the drama, the forced proximity, the endless complications with someone you already couldn’t stand.

You could barely handle living next door to him as it was. Bringing a child into that mess was unthinkable. This was your problem. Your body, your choice. You would handle it quietly. You would get rid of it.The thought made fresh tears sting your eyes, but you forced them back. There was no other option.

You were still in school, chasing your dream of becoming an art curator. Your life was barely stable right now. A baby, especially one with Heeseung as the father would ruin everything.

You stayed on the floor for a long time, clutching the test, letting the weight of the decision settle over you.

Eventually, you stood up on unsteady legs. You wrapped the test in toilet paper and hid it deep in the trash can under some tissues. You washed your face with cold water until the redness in your eyes faded a little.

You looked at your reflection pale, exhausted, terrified and whispered to yourself “This never happened.” You would schedule an. appointment. You would end this quietly.You would move on with your life and never speak of that night again.

But as you turned off the bathroom light and stepped into your silent apartment, the weight in your chest felt heavier than ever. You were pregnant. And for the first time since that night, the wall between you and Heeseung felt like it was closing in.

The decision sat heavy in your chest like a stone. You weren’t going to tell Heeseung. You were going to end this quietly and move on with your life. The very next morning, you tried to make the appointment.

You sat on your bed with your laptop open, hands shaking as you searched for clinics near campus that offered termination services. Your stomach was already churning with nausea again, but you forced yourself to focus.

You found a few options a women’s health clinic downtown and a Planned Parenthood branch about twenty minutes away. You clicked on the booking page for the first one. The form asked for your name, date of birth, contact number, and reason for visit.

Your fingers hovered over the keyboard for a long time. You couldn’t do it. Every time you tried to type your real information, panic surged through you. What if someone recognized your name? What if the clinic called or sent confirmation texts while you were near Heeseung?

What if the appointment somehow got back to campus gossip? The thought of walking into a clinic alone, explaining your situation to a stranger, and going through with it made your throat close up.

You closed the laptop without saving anything. You told yourself you’d try again tomorrow when you felt calmer. But tomorrow came and went. Then the next day. And the next. Meanwhile, the symptoms grew worse.

The nausea was no longer just morning sickness it hit you at random times throughout the day. The smell of food in the cafeteria made you gag. Even walking past the coffee shop near campus triggered violent waves that left you rushing to the nearest bathroom.

You started carrying saltine crackers and a small bottle of ginger ale everywhere, but they barely helped anymore.

Vomiting became more frequent. One afternoon during a lecture, you had to excuse yourself midway through and barely made it to the restroom before throwing up.

You returned to class pale and sweaty, mumbling something about food poisoning when Yunjin looked at you worriedly.

Fatigue wrapped around you like a heavy blanket. You fell asleep in the library twice that week, waking up with your cheek stuck to your notebook. Simple tasks like climbing the stairs to your apartment left you breathless and dizzy.

Your breasts were constantly tender, and your mood swung wildly one moment you were numb, the next you felt like crying over nothing. Yunjin and Soobin started noticing. During lunch on Thursday, Yunjin set her chopsticks down and stared at you.

“Okay, something is seriously wrong,” she said, voice firm but concerned. “You’ve been looking like a ghost for days, you barely eat anything, you keep disappearing to the bathroom, and you look exhausted even when you say you slept are you sick? Is it stress? Talk to us.”

Soobin nodded, his gentle eyes filled with worry. “You’ve been canceling plans and spacing out a lot. If something’s going on, you don’t have to deal with it alone. We’re here.”You forced a weak smile, pushing your untouched food around your plate. The smell of it was making you nauseous again.

“I’m okay, really,” you lied, voice quieter than usual. “Just… really behind on my capstone. The deadline is stressing me out more than I thought. I’ll be fine once I catch up.”

They didn’t look convinced, but they let it drop for the moment. Still, you could feel their eyes on you for the rest of the meal. Even Heeseung started noticing something was off.

You had managed to avoid direct contact with him for weeks, but it was impossible to hide everything when you lived next door.

One evening, you were coming home later than usual after another failed attempt to book the appointment online. You felt dizzy and nauseous, moving slowly up the hallway with your keys already in hand. As you reached your door, Heeseung’s door opened.

He stepped out, wearing a simple black hoodie, hair slightly messy like he’d just come back from practice. His eyes landed on you immediately.

You froze for half a second, then quickly turned your face away and fumbled with your lock, trying to get inside before he could say anything. But Heeseung didn’t tease you this time.

Instead, he paused in his doorway, brow slightly furrowed as he watched you. You looked pale. Thinner. There were dark circles under your eyes, and the way you moved seemed off fragile.

He opened his mouth, then closed it again. For once, the usual cocky remark didn’t come.“You good?” he asked quietly, voice lacking its normal edge.

You didn’t answer. You finally got the door open and slipped inside without looking at him, shutting it quickly behind you

Heeseung stood there for a moment longer, staring at your closed door with a strange, unsettled feeling in his chest. Something wasn’t right with you. He could see it.But after everything after that night you both had silently agreed to forget he didn’t know if he had the right to ask.

Inside your apartment, you leaned against the door, breathing hard. Fresh tears stung your eyes as another wave of nausea hit you. You slid down to the floor, hugging your knees. You still hadn’t been able to book the appointment.

The symptoms were getting worse every day, your friends were worried and now even Heeseung had noticed something was wrong. You pressed your forehead to your knees, whispering to yourself again and again

“This never happened… this never happened…” But the lie was starting to feel impossible to keep. Heeseung had noticed. For the past two weeks, it had become painfully obvious that you were avoiding him like the plague.

At first, he thought it was the usual the cold shoulder after that night you both had silently agreed to forget. But it quickly went beyond that. You timed your movements with military precision.

He would hear your door open and close at odd hours, always when he was either inside or already gone. You took the side stairs. You left earlier than usual in the mornings and came back much later at night.

Even at university, catching a glimpse of you had become nearly impossible. You seemed to disappear into the library or empty classrooms the moment practice ended.It was clear you were doing everything in your power to never cross paths with him.

Heeseung told himself it didn’t bother him. He had decided to forget that night too. No teasing. No bringing it up. Just normal or as normal as things could be when you lived right next door

But something was wrong. You looked terrible lately. He first noticed it in passing the dark circles under your eyes, the way your shoulders seemed to slump with exhaustion. Then it got worse you moved slower.

Your face was paler than usual. You barely left your apartment except for classes, and even then you looked like you were running on empty.

One evening, after a long basketball practice, Heeseung was walking back to the apartment building, gym bag slung over his shoulder. The sun had already set, and the streetlights cast long shadows on the path. That’s when he saw you.

You were a few meters ahead, heading toward the entrance. Your steps were unsteady, one hand pressed lightly against the wall for support.

Even from behind, he could tell something was very wrong. Your posture was slumped, your breathing looked shallow, and you looked like you were barely holding yourself upright.

Heeseung’s stomach tightened. He quickened his pace without thinking and caught up to you just as you reached the building door.“Hey,” he said, voice low and serious, no trace of his usual teasing tone. “Are you alright?”

You turned your head slightly, eyes glassy and tired. The moment you recognized him, your expression hardened.“I don’t have time for your teasing right now, Heeseung,” you muttered weakly, trying to push past him toward the elevator.

Heeseung felt a flash of annoyance, not because you were dismissing him, but because he was genuinely worried and you clearly didn’t believe it.“I’m not teasing,” he said, more sharply than he intended. “You look like you’re about to pass out.”

You didn’t respond, just kept walking toward the elevator. Heeseung followed, stepping in right after you. The doors closed, trapping the two of you in the small space. The silence was thick and uncomfortable. He could hear your breathing too fast, too shallow.

When the elevator reached your floor, you stepped out first. But the moment your feet hit the hallway, your legs buckled. You swayed dangerously, one hand reaching out blindly for the wall as the world spun around you. Heeseung moved fast.

He dropped his gym bag and caught you before you could hit the floor, one arm wrapping around your waist, the other supporting your back. Your body went limp against him for a few terrifying seconds.

“Shit—” he muttered, heart pounding. “Hey, stay with me.” You were half conscious, mumbling something incoherent about being fine. Heeseung didn’t waste time arguing. He adjusted his grip and lifted you carefully into his arms in bridal style, your head lolling against his shoulder.

Your apartment was right next to his. He fumbled for a moment with your keys ( which had fallen from your hand ) until he managed to unlock the door. He carried you inside, kicking the door shut behind him, and headed straight for your bedroom.

The room was neat but clearly lived in textbooks stacked on the desk, a half finished sketch on the table, a small trash can near the bed. Heeseung gently laid you down on the bed, pulling the blanket over you. Your face was pale, forehead slightly damp with sweat.

He stood there for a moment, unsure what to do. You looked so small and fragile like this. Nothing like the fiery girl who used to bang on his door and call him an entitled asshole.

Heeseung grabbed a glass of water from the kitchen and placed it on your nightstand. Then he pulled up the chair from your desk and sat down beside the bed, watching you carefully.

Your breathing slowly evened out. The tension in your face relaxed as you slipped into a deeper sleep. Heeseung stayed there, elbows on his knees, running a hand through his hair. He didn’t know what was going on with you.

He didn’t know why you looked so sick. He didn’t even know if you’d want him here when you woke up. But right now, leaving you alone didn’t feel like an option. So he stayed quietly waiting.

Until your breathing became steady and deep, and he was sure you were fully asleep. Heeseung stayed. He told himself he’d only wait until you fell into a proper sleep, but the longer he sat there watching your pale face and shallow breathing, the harder it became to leave.

You looked exhausted, truly exhausted in a way that went beyond simple tiredness. Dark circles under your eyes, lips slightly chapped, skin lacking its usual color. Something was clearly wrong, and the protective instinct he didn’t know he had kept him rooted to the chair.

After almost an hour, when your breathing had deepened into steady, even inhales, Heeseung stood up quietly. He couldn’t just sit there doing nothing. He moved silently through your apartment, careful not to make noise.

Your kitchen was small and neat, but the fridge was nearly empty a few bottles of water, some crackers, and not much else. Heeseung frowned. No wonder you looked so drained. He opened the cupboards and found rice, a couple of eggs, and some ginger.

Simple gentle on the stomach. He decided to make congee something light that his mom used to make for him when he was sick.

He worked quietly, chopping what little he could find, boiling water, and stirring the pot on low heat. The smell of ginger and warm rice slowly filled the small apartment. He hoped it would help when you woke up. Maybe it would make you feel a little better.

He kept glancing toward the bedroom every few minutes, making sure you were still resting. Almost two hours later, you started stirring.

Heeseung was just turning off the stove when he heard movement from the bedroom. He poured some congee into a bowl, added a bit of water to make it lighter, and was about to bring it to you when

You bolted upright in bed, eyes wide with sudden panic. The smell of the food hit you like a wave. Your face went even paler, hand flying to your mouth as nausea surged violently. Heeseung’s eyes widened. “Hey—”

You didn’t wait. You scrambled off the bed on shaky legs and ran straight to the bathroom, barely making it in time.

Heeseung followed right behind you, worry spiking through his chest. He reached the bathroom door just as you dropped to your knees in front of the toilet and started throwing up violently.

“Shit—” He moved quickly, kneeling beside you without hesitation. One hand gently gathered your hair, holding it back from your face. His other hand rubbed slow, soothing circles on your back. “It’s okay I’ve got you, just breathe.”

You retched again, body trembling with the force of it. Heeseung stayed right there, murmuring quiet reassurances, his hand never stopping its gentle motion on your back.

When the worst of it seemed to pass, he reached over and flushed the toilet, then grabbed a clean towel from the rack and dampened it with cool water.“Here,” he said softly, handing you the towel. “Wipe your face.”

You took it with trembling hands, still breathing hard. Heeseung stood up briefly to get a glass of water from the sink and brought it back to you.“Small sips,” he instructed, crouching down again. “Don’t drink too fast.”

While you rinsed your mouth and took careful sips, Heeseung’s eyes wandered around the small bathroom, looking for anything that might help. His gaze landed on the trash can beside the sink. Something white and plastic was poking out from under some tissues.

Curious, he reached down and pulled it out, it was a pregnancy test. Two distinct red lines stared back at him clear, unmistakable, and positive. Heeseung froze.

His brain short circuited for a second. The test felt heavy in his hand as the reality sank in. Positive you were pregnant. He slowly turned his head toward you. You were already looking at him.

Your eyes were wide with pure terror, face drained of all color, lips parted in shock. You looked caught completely and utterly caught like the worst secret in the world had just been ripped open. The glass of water trembled in your hand.

Heeseung’s mouth opened, but no words came out at first. His gaze flicked between the test in his hand and your terrified expression.

The pieces clicked together horribly fast the avoidance, the exhaustion, the vomiting, the way you looked like you were barely holding yourself together for the past two weeks.

This wasn’t just stress this was because of that night because of him. Heeseung swallowed hard, his voice coming out quieter than he expected.

“…Is this yours?” The bathroom fell into a heavy, suffocating silence. You were still staring at him, tears already gathering in your eyes again, looking like you wanted the floor to swallow you whole.

Heeseung didn’t know what to say. He only knew that everything had just changed. Heeseung stared at the two red lines on the pregnancy test for what felt like an eternity.

The bathroom was deathly quiet except for your shaky breathing. When he finally looked up at you, your face was pale, eyes wide with pure terror, tears already spilling down your cheeks. He swallowed hard, his throat tight.

“…Are you pregnant?” he asked, voice low and rough. You didn’t speak at first. Your lips trembled as fresh tears rolled down your face. Then you gave a small, barely noticeable nod.

Heeseung felt something twist sharply in his chest. He looked back down at the test, then at you again. His next question came out quieter, almost hesitant.

“Is the baby mine?” The moment the words left his mouth, your face crumpled completely. You broke into heavy, broken sobs, shoulders shaking as you tried to cover your mouth with one hand.

“I’m sorry…” you choked out between cries. “I’m so sorry… I didn’t want this to happen, i never meant for any of this, it was just one stupid night and I— I’m planning on getting rid of it. I won’t bother you with any of this, i won’t get in your way. You don’t have to worry about anything, i’ll handle it quietly.”

Heeseung’s expression shifted the instant you said those words. Hurt flashed across his face raw, unguarded hurt. His brows drew together, jaw tightening as he processed what you were saying.

The idea that you were planning to terminate the pregnancy without even telling him felt like a punch to the gut. His hand holding the test lowered slowly to his side. You kept crying, words tumbling out faster now, desperate and apologetic.

“I’m really sorry. I know you didn’t ask for this. I didn’t ask for this either, i’ll take care of everything. You can just forget about it…i promise I won’t drag you into anything.”

Heeseung stayed silent for a long moment, staring at you as you sat on the bathroom floor, looking small and devastated.

The hurt in his chest mixed with something heavier confusion, disbelief, and a strange ache he couldn’t quite name. Finally, his voice came out low and strained.

“and you didn’t bother telling me?”

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You vaguely remember his hand wrapped tight around your wrist, pulling you through the crowd. You didn’t fight it, you never do. The last clear image in your head is his jaw clenched, eyes darker than you’d ever seen them, and then… nothing.

And now you’re here, in the aftermath of something you can’t fully piece together, your pulse still uneven.

You and Heeseung have been tangled together for as long as you can fucking remember. Childhood scraped knees, teenage secrets whispered past midnight, growing pains and growing up side by side. He knew you better than anyone… or at least, that’s what you told yourself.

Because you were so damn convinced you knew him too. God, you were wrong. So fucking wrong.

There were parts of him you never saw or maybe you did, in flashes, in those moments you brushed off because it was easier than questioning it. The way his expression would shift when he thought you weren’t looking, smth darker, almost… hungry. Then it would be gone, replaced with that soft, familiar version of him you clung to.

You called him overprotective. That’s the word you used, laughing it off when your friends pointed it out.

“He’s just like that,” you’d say. “He cares.” And he did, like he really fucking did.

He’d hover too close when you talked to other guys, his presence pressing in as a silent warning. He always knew where you were, somehow?texting at the exact moment you needed a ride, showing up before you even asked. He’d walk you home, wait until you got inside.

He’d hold doors open, buy you flowers for no reason, do all the little things your boyfriends never quite managed to get right. Hell, he did their job better than they ever could but you never questioned it, even when it drove them insane.

Not that you blame them. How could they compete with someone who already had all of you?And that was the thing.

Heeseung never spoke, never gave a reason. He didn't open up. Didn't share what he thought or how he felt. His emotions stayed hidden. Locked away like a vault no one could access.

No one except you. Or at least… that’s what you thought.

What you didn’t know—what you never even fucking considered was behind that careful control, there was smth else entirely. Heeseung would grunt, biting down on his shirt held up by him, hands fisting his angry cock, pumping them up and down. He pants, looking infront of him, into his computer and there you are.

You were stretched across your bed, laughing at whatever the person on the other side was saying. You were wearing nothing but just a simple tank top with black panties, circling your fingers over your belly absentmindedly. Girls do that when they don’t know they’re being watched.

He has hacked your devices, your web cam, everything you owned was his. Your cloud backups. Your email. He had access to your photos, your notes, your private drafts you never showed anyone. Conversations you deleted, thinking they were gone, he still had them.

Your social media—Knew who liked your posts, who DM’d you. Even the accounts you stalked quietly? He knew. Your ride apps. Your late-night searches. Your playlists. The things you ordered, the things you almost ordered but didn’t. Every digital footprint you left behind—was his.

Of course you didn’t know any of this. Thats what made it even more thrilling. Though, heeseung knew this was illegal, that he shouldn’t do any of this but fuck. How can he not? Heeseung rolls his eyes back, cock twitching into his palms as he neared his release. “Fuckk—Y/n.” So innocent and so mine. He thought as he came in a loud groan.

He tried to get over you. God, he tried. Threw himself into other relationships, distractions, anything that might dull whatever this was. But it never worked. It always came back to you. It always ended because of you.

And maybe the worst part? along the way, he stopped trying to fight it. He started to like it.

Obsession is dangerous as hell. At first, it’s small. Harmless. A touch that means a little more than it should. A word, a feeling you brush off because it’s easier not to think about it.

But then it grows. It twists. It sinks its claws in. And suddenly, it’s not enough anymore. You want more. And Heeseung? He crossed that line a long fucking time ago.

And for some reason, your twisted brain found the mystery of him even more attractive, like the opposite of a moth drawn to a flame, drawn to his darkness she could feel calling to yours.

PRESENT — 10:30 PM.

Now here you are, back hitting the wall with a dull thud, breath knocked out of you as he corners you in, the door clicking shut behind him.

It all comes rushing back in fragments. “Come with me.” You had never heard his voice sound like that. Cold. Icy. It ...it didn't suit him, at least not the him you knew, though that knowledge was limited. No, heeseung was the collision of control and chaos, hellfire and hedonism, a hades of his own underworld, and damn you if a part of you didn't want to be the girl he brought into it.

“Tell me,” Heeseung murmured, voice lower. You panted, “Wait—we shouldn’t—you should go.” You had no idea what you were saying at this point, all you knew was your stomach flipped, heat rushing up your spine. "Go here?" His mouth moved to your shoulder. "Or here?" It moved up your neck.

Heeseung’s hand lifted, fingers brushing against your chin. “Did you do that to bait me, angel, hmm?” The pet name sent smth electric through your veins. You hated it did that.

All of this started when he saw you entering the party house, wearing a tight black dress, with a sprinkle of white painted on the side, just like his, but with glitter around the paint.

‘I'm looking at a fucking angel. My angel.My anchor.Mine. I love her more than life.’

A dark sense of obsession takes hold of him, urging him to rip off that dress and sink inside your tight heat.

Heeseung titled his head, observing you from afar, contemplating whether to walk up to you or not. But it wasn't that which stopped him in his tracks. No, it was the man sitting opposite you, too close to you, almost his age, laughing at something you said and making you crack a small smile.

That smile fell like daggers in his chest. They were his. Your smiles. Your laughter. Your tears. Your noises. Everything.

He knew he was being unreasonable, but the idea, the sheer thought of another man seeing your softness made him see red. You were his, and it was about time the world knew that.

You stood there stiff, his warm tongue forcing his way past your lips meeting your pink ones. Heeseung pushed his knee up against your core, pressing right where you wanted him. You exhaled loudly, eyes closing as he started rubbing his knee over your now-soaked fabric making your thighs quiver, head dropped back.

Heeseung was not watching you intensely, watching to what friction you reacted to most, knee pressing hard against you. The press of his length near your thighs doesn’t help and when you roll your eyes, he shoots out an amused chuckle.

Suddenly, Heeseung picked you up, his hands wrapping around the curve of your ass making you gasp, “Hee—” pulling you down with him as he drops onto the couch, both of his hands trailing up to your hips before pulling you down flush against his lap, facing him. You can’t help the yelp of surprise that leaves your mouth.

You rest your hand on his shoulder, steadying your self. “Fuck—you drive me crazy.” He buries himself in the crook of your neck, inhaling your scent. You let your head fall back, exposing more of your neck, too drunk of him to stop now. "This stops when you say so," heeseung whispered against your neck. "This doesn't even start unless you say so."

You press your hips down on him harder, giving him the answer he’s waited for years. “Hmm shit, angel.” His already hard cock in his pants hits the seam of your jeans just right, making him groan, lips trailing along your jaw.

You pull back only to meet his lips, moving with yours slowly. “You have no idea—” He pulls back before biting your lips, Heeseung drowned out your gasp by sticking his tongue inside your mouth instead at the golden opportunity. “No fucking idea how long ive been wanting this. You, beneath me like this…fuck. The thought always drove me mad.” He whispers. It was true, of all people in his life, you were the only one who could make him lose control. You feel his hands digging into the flesh of your skin, cupping your ass through your jeans, grinding you back down on him again and again.

Your mind and pulse gone haywire. You didn't say a word. You didn't have to; your presence was telling enough. This time, there was no crowd, no music, only the desperate, frantic need to get as close to him as possible. A moan rose in your throat when he drew your bottom lip between his teeth and the stiff, reserved best friend of yours was gone. In his place was someone who kissed like a man possessed, filled with filthy promises and wicked intent.

Your hands roamed over warm skin and sculpted muscles, you were pressed so tightly together you could literally feel the wild beats of his heart, but it wasn't enough.

Heeseung trailed sloppy kisses back up ur jaw, relishing in how your body jerked each time your clit dragged along his thigh and his teeth grazed over the sensitive hickeys he just left. But, he wouldn’t just let you cum that easily.

He didn’t even bother to move his black hair out of his eyes so you could really see how much it had actually pissed him off. Heeseung groaned when you arched into him, craving more. "I was right. You are going to be the death of me," he muttered.

Strong, warm hands swept up the backs of your thighs and lifted you up, only to grind you back down on his hard-on. One stayed on your thigh, sliding up and around until it brushed the wetness soaking your underwear; the other stole beneath your top and bra to palm your breast.

The world tilted when the fabric of your dress slipped from your shoulders, body all bare under his stare. His other hand hooked your panties and dragged them down your legs while lifting you up for a while, eyes glued to the slick mess between your thighs. Air hitting your pulsing pussy, heeseung moved back to glance at your slick folds, glistening under the dim light. He suddenly kept his thumb on your pussy, working it deeper with each movement. A whimper clawed up your throat as your body lit beneath his erotic manipulations.

"Please." half gasp, half whimper. You felt his lips twitching, “Already begging? i haven’t even started, angel.” your head grew light, every ounce of consciousness arrowing to the heat building in your center. Heeseung’s fingers squeezes your chin until your gaze snapped back at him.

"Eyes on me, baby," he murmurs, voice thick and wrecked, lips shiny with you. "Wanna see exactly what I do to you." He still hadn’t done anything and you were shaking. “You look perfect, so pink and wet for me." All you could do was gasp as both his fingers and his already straining cock were hitting your wetness at the same time.

A yelp of surprise leaves your mouth when you’re being lifted up by him, heeseung walks you to his bed, kissing your forehead before dropping you onto the mattress with a soft bounce. Then, he takes a step back, admiring the art he’s been waiting for years to have in his hands, here you were. In his bed, ready to melt at his touch.

"So fucking pretty," he praises. "Look at you. All laid out for me." Your first instinct is to hide, so you try to close your legs, but Heeseungs hands clamp against your inner thighs, holding you open. You moan, both opposed to what he's doing and not all at once. "Don't you dare," he chides.

"I want to see you. All pink and dripping for me." You gasp at his words. You know Heeseung has a dirty mouth. You’ve been well aware from the start, but hearing it for real is drugging because you want all his filthy promises.

Heeseung swallows hard, his gaze dragging over your body—Eyes half lidded, mouth slightly open, cheeks flushed, tits bare and heavy, pussy dripping only for him. You're beautiful. So fucking beautiful it messes with his head. It doesn't matter what you wear. You could walk in the simplest outfit and he’d still lose his breath.

He’s that obsessed with you. Addicted to you. Fucking in love with you and the beautiful chaos you bring to his life.

God, how badly he wanted to know what it was about you that made him crazy like this, but Whatever it was, from the moment your fire had found his, your fate was already sealed.

Heeseung drags a teasing knuckle over your slit, tutting when you whimper and arch. "Sweet girl, you must be aching. So wet and swollen. Have you been this needy all night long under that pretty dress?" You watched as heeseung shed his clothes one by one until you weren’t the only one naked. God, his body was even more beautiful up close.

Your lips parted at the sight of his cock, the tip of his cock had turned a heated shade of red from all the build-up you've done. "Give me those pretty eyes.” He growls, grabbing the back of your neck and pulling you closer. “Spread your legs for me, angel.” His thumb presses into your clit, rubbing ruthless circles.

You do as he says, spreading your legs wider, making his eyes drop down. “Little slut is dripping.” He chuckles when he feels you throb around his fingers, “Needy little thing, aren’t you? You’re so fucking desperate for cock that it has you clenching around nothing.” Heeseung continues, rubbing his thumb in your wetness.

“Pleaseee.” You cried out, “Please what?” He asked, still tormenting your clit. “Tell me what you want, you’re a good girl, aren’t you?” You shook your head, hips bucking up for more fraction of his fingers but he shoved you down, “Stay still.” He hummed, “Hee, please—please touch me, please.”

Satisfied, he finally shifted. Without any warning, he pushed a finger deep enough inside you to make you cry out. “Fuck, so tight.” He swore when your cunt clenched around him instantly. His fingers kept moving, a strange and growing warmth between your legs made you shift on the bed, hips chasing his fingers. You cried out when you felt another one of his fingers slip inside your puffy folds as he started pistoling them in and out , settling in a fast rhythm.

You whimpered at the sudden stretch of his fingers pushing till hes buried himself up to the knuckles. High pitched moans spilled into the air, masking the existing, filthy noises of moans, whimpers, and the wet sounds of his fingers plunging in and out of you. “Heeseung—i can’t.” Your arousal dripped down your thighs. “You can’t what?” He spoke low, voice slightly whiny. “I need to—come—oh my, please.” You whined out, the tip of his fingers teasing your clenched hole with shallow thrust.

A whimper clawed through the air when he buried his fingers to the hilt and pressed a thumb against your swollen clit, you crave for every inch of your body to be touched by his, that’s how needy you are right now.

“Gonna come for me, sweetheart?” You think you nod, but then your not sure when you see heeseung dipping his face down, eyes still fixated on the ones he fell in love with—then you feel it, warm liquid falling on your dripping filth. Did he just? did he just spit on you— it’s the last thing you could care about—not when his digits are working to spread his spit all over you.

Another finger claws its way up. Oh god, it was getting too much. “Wanna have you real wet and open for me, angel.” You clench around him hard, body all tensed up as you accommodate the sudden change in thickness. Your slick covered his whole hand in seconds, the embarrassing amount of arousal oozed out of you with each plunge of his long fingers inside of you as he kept massaging your walls with in a fast pace.

Inch by torturous inch. It felt unbearably intimate, but you didn't look away until he withdrew to the tips, slamming them back in and your eyes instinctively shut with a gasp.

He increases the pace of his pumps while lowering his head, sucking on your nipples into his mouth. Heeseung groaned. You tasted even better than he'd imagined. He licked and sucked on your nipples while he savagely fucked in and out of your tight, clenching pussy. "No—please." You beg, shaking your head, he's been at it for god knows how long.

He grazed his teeth over your nipple. "You need to come? Hmm?" You whisper, "Y—yes." It came out as a half plea, half moan. You were wrecked. Hair a mess, your face streaked with tears, your skin slick with sweat and hot with arousal. His tongue, hot and wet, comes out and swirls around the pebbled flesh of your nipple, teasing you, and his fingers dig into your skin as he goes back for more, nibbling the whole breast.

Then he lifts his head and dragged his mouth on your neck until he reached your ear where he whispered, "Come for me like the slut you are." Heeseung pinched your nipples and fucked his fingers into you with the hardest thrust yet, and you exploded, your mouth falling open in a soundless scream while your cunt strangled his fingers. Pulling him in more, he winced.

Pain prickled at you, followed by a white-hot burst of pleasure. You’ve had toys to keep you company the past years, but none of them had been so big or buried so deep. The unrelenting stretch drove the oxygen from your lungs, and your body involuntarily bucked and twisted as you struggled to take only his fingers.

"So pretty when you're soaking wet like this I can't wait to see how perfect you look around my bare cock" Another, more guttural groan. You’re so wet and tight and heeseung is so impossible hard. He could cum right now just thinking about how good you’d feel wrapped around himm, walls convulsing and milking him dry with every orgasm he gives you, every orgasm you rip out of him. "That's it, sweetheart. You can take it." You sniffle, hands gripping the bedsheets. "Please." You weren’t sure whether you were begging him to stop or make you come again. Both. Neither. It didn't matter. All you knew was you craved something only he could give, and you desperately hoped he could figure it out on his own because you couldn't so much as remember your name right now.

Heeseung gripped your thighs to hold you in place while he withdrew. Slowly, until just the tip of his large fingers were inside you. Then he thrust back in. Deeper. Faster. Harder.

"Fuck, your cunt’s getting wetter. Are you gonna cum again just with my fingers, hmm?” His cruel cackle rang in your ears. A strangled noise leaves your throat, vision blurring, lashes damped. Heeseung would kill to see this side of you everyday. He curled them inside you, the loud squelching noises of his fingers abusing and stretching out your wet cunt were too much to bear.

Any remaining coherence shattered as he fucked you open on the mattress with so much force it rattled your bones. Your nails dug into his shoulders as squeals and whimpers poured out of you, mingling with his low grunts whenever you’d clench around him. You were getting close.

Heeseung’s teeth grazed the skin of your thighs. “Come for me, angel.” His voice whispered into your ear in time with a particularly savage thrust. White-hot sensation ripped through you when you felt his other hand smacking your ruined slit with so much force the trickles of wetness dragged down. Tears leaked from your eyes as you finally let go, releasing into his hands.

He doesn’t stop, pushes in deeper and deeper until you’re gushing on his palm, your essence dripping down his wrist. Another lightening strikes through you as you feel heeseung fucking you through your orgasm with his tongue. The new sensation causing a chocked-back moan to let out of you. Heeseung groans, you taste exactly like he knew you would—all his.

You’re still fluttering around it and releasing your juices right into his awaiting mouth as heeseung slurps up all he can get out of you. This is getting dirtier, nasty, the lower half of his face is completely coated in your essence, chin shiny with your slick but he doesn’t care. He keeps going.

Heeseung’s hand slid up your thighs, spreading them wider as he lowered himself further, alternating between slow and sloppy kisses, teasing without giving. He nuzzled his nose into your wetness, groaning. “Fuckk—you taste like heaven.” Inhaling your essence through his nose. You whimper, he drags a cry of pleasure from you as one fang grazed your sensitive nub of flesh. The strokes of his tongue were firm and determined. Your hands were fisting the sheets by your sides as you rolled your hips into his face. Heeseung’s strong hands slipped past your thighs to your hips, yanking them down back on the bed. “No. You take what i give you and you like it.”

Heeseung let his tongue taste the mess you’ve made, licking a stripe from your hole, grabbing a handful of your ass as he spreads your pussy lips open with his tongue to find your clit, throbbing from your previous orgasm.

His tongue is everywhere at once, broad, flat, filthy laps from your clenching hole then sucking the swollen bud between his lips, rolling it between his lips, toys with it with his tongue till your bucking into his mouth. He moans into your pussy like he’s the one getting off of this, nails digging into your hips, pulling you closer when you start moving too much.

“Fucking stay still, angel.” He licked and sucked. Then he feasted, feeding from you as desperately as he had at your chest. You were lost. Your body tried to follow, but the hands at your hips held you in place. “Fucking hell.” Heeseung pulls off of your clit with a loud popping noise to talk to you, his tone sweet as honey but the edge in his voice sending shivers down your spine, hollowing his cheeks around your cunt for the last time as he licks his lips afterwards. Heeseung yanked his hands away from your pussy and pushed them into your mouth, you moan, it’s so easy for him to get a reaction out of you.

He hummed in approval when you sucked and licked your own juices without him asking you to. "Do you taste that, Angel? That's the taste of you giving yourself to me. Because from now on, I own you. Body, mind, soul, everything." Another moan. “You know you’ve always been mine, right?” You cry out, the noise breaking from the pitch as deep-seated pleasure consumes you from the inside out when you feel him shoving his fingers inside again, pumping in and out, hitting all the spots which made you scream.

“You know everything i do is for you, yeah?” Of course you know. How could you not? He’s always there. Waking up before you even ask, memorizing your routines, finishing your sentences like he’s already lived them with you. Snacks appear without you mentioning you’re hungry, your favorite things lined up exactly how you like them.

He notices when your tone shifts by the slightest bit, when your smile doesn’t quite reach your eyes. He remembers what you wore on random days, who you talked to, what made you laugh. If something bothers you, it’s gone before you even bring it up. If someone upsets you, they don’t stay in your life for long.

Heeseung wasn't a believer, but you were his miracle. He didn't know if what happened inside him where you were concerned was love. It felt wrong to say that. Love was light, love was beautiful, love was pure. What he felt was dark, obsessive, deviant, and utterly possessive. He would kill for you, as he always had, and he would die for you, if needed. He would slay your demons and give you the sword to slay them if you wanted. He wanted to hold you close and protect you from anything wanting to tarnish your being.

You’re his, my y/n. You're the girl he killed for and you're the woman he’d die for. You are his and you are exactly where you're supposed to be. He’s fairly positive he’d be the one burning the world down if anyone ever tried to take you from him.

“You have no idea how long i’ve been wanting this. I've been thinking about it all these fucking years. I don't think I'll be able to get enough of you.” He grunts as he lowers himself, His erection pressed against your inner thigh, thick and hard. Oh God. Your insides knotted; your breaths came out in heavy, whining pants. So close.

You loudly gasp when he latches his mouth onto your pussy all over again and starts sucking. Still keeping the pressure of his fingers inside you, never slowing down. Thumb brushing your clit in lazy circles, curling against that spot inside while he tongue flicks your clit in rapid, relentless strokes. He kept pushing until he was knuckles deep inside you. "Please—no more.” you moaned, too dizzy and turned on to think properly. Tears leaked down your cheeks as you arch your back. He growls into your pussy, the vibration making your vision spark white.

You feel his nose bump your entrance each time he sucks a breath in, “Heeseung—fuck!” You yelp at a particularly harsh tug on your clit. You bucked again, but it was no use. You couldn't get enough friction to light the simmering fuse in your stomach. "I need to come...let me come...please." Your fingers were nothing compared to his, the stretch was unfamiliar. “Fuck, angel. I love the way you sound while screaming my name. Can’t wait to hear it when i’m inside you.” He added a second finger, scissoring them to open you up, his thumb rubbing your pussy left to right, steady motions. “My pretty angel likes my fingers?” Your orgasm ripped through you in one brutal, mind-numbing tear. Your entire body bowed from the intensity; bursts of light exploded behind your eyes.

“Soak my fingers. Give it to me.” You finally shatter with a broken cry, clamping down around him in hard, pulsing waves. “Fuckfuckfuck, you’re so fucking pretty like this.” He groaned, watching your face, his free hand stroking your thighs as they shake violently. You gueh around his hand, slick flooding out around his fingers, soaking his entire hand and You twisted your head to look at heeseung, your face flushed from your orgasm and your eyes round with shock. You were drenched, cum dripping down your thighs and probably ruining the sheets before you both even actually started.

He fisted your hair with one hand and gripped your hips with the other hard enough to bruise. “I’m not done using you, get on your knees.” You pant, the aftershocks still not denying down. You slowly pulled yourself up, wincing. You sank to the floor, obeying, your eyes never leaving his and that only made him go crazy, his chest hurt and his cock throb. He fisted your hair and you watched as heeseung shed his clothes, revealing broad shoulders, and a sexy V-cut and veins that led down to his...

Holy shit.

Your mouth dried at the sight of his cock. Long, thick, and hard, with a bead of pre-cum glistening at its tip. It was so big that you involuntarily clenched at the thought of it filling you. You shuffle closer between his legs eagerly, heeseung chuckles at the moment. “Eager now, are we?” He cocked his head to the side, eyes scanning your pathetic state infront of him. But to him, you still looked the most beautiful woman alive.

“Gonna make you choke on it. You’d like that?” You nodded furiously, desperate for anything he’d give you rn. “You wanna gag and drool all over yourself while you do it, hmm?” You nodded, too far gone to even think about what you were agreeing to. Heeseung tangled his hands in your hair tighter, roughly pulling you closer to it. You look at the hand that comes down to shaft as he gives himself a few long pumps. "Open your mouth. I'm going to fuck you exactly how you need to be fucked. Now, you be a good girl and spit on it.” You sigh, taking it in your hands, tongue darting out before your spit coats his tip, he actually whimpers, you give out a small kitten lick at his tip, circling your tongue around it and looking up at him for approval.

He smirked, shaking his head. “You can do better, angel.” So you took him in further, trying to run your tongue along the underside of his cock . Tongue flicking over heeseung's, giving him a slow pump to the remaining half that didn't fit into your mouth. You blinked up at him—eyes watering at his size.

"Oh fuck, angel." Heeseung moans, fisting your hair with one hand as his head falls back with a low groan. You start bobbing your head as you slowly lowered an inch or two more, feeling him in your throat. You slid down a few more inches and sucked like a pro on ur way up. Fuck. His hand fisted in your hair once more, gliding your head back down. And up. And down.

He restrained his movements, going easy on you because of your previous orgasms. But when you made little humming noises around his cock and pressed your thighs together, Heeseung realized this was really turning you the fuck on. 'Fuck me.’ He thought and his restraint snapped. "Deeper, angel," He ordered harshly. Complying, you quickened your pace, spit coating the shaft of his dick as you used your other hand to twist up and down. You could taste the pre cum from the tip of his dick, you moaned at the taste.

“Just like that, good fucking girl.” your mouth slid down even farther to take in those last few inches. You gag horribly before you make it. He curses the moment you squeeze the base with a teasing motion of your hand. You trap him inside your mouth, flicking your tongue over the ridges of his digits. “Fuck yeah, suck that cock like a good little whore.” You chocked, burying your head as close to his groin as you could before driving back up for air, taking in greedy little breaths before diving back in on his dick.

He fisted your hair and used it as a leverage to yank you down on his length more causing you to gag as you hallow your mouth around his digits. Your spit was running down to your hand and his shaft. That didn’t really matter, it was a problem you’d think of later. His hips snap into your mouth, forcing himself to sear into the back of your mouth and pressing your nose against him more, chin hitting his balls repeatedly. You choke as you manage to breathe slowly through your nose. "Relax your throat," He rasped, slapping your cheeks slightly. You pulled back to suck in a ragged breath, a string of spit connecting the tip to your lips as you sputtered, chest heaving.

And the next time you took him in ur mouth, you slid down, managing to take every fucking inch. He grips your head and shoves you down, moaning. "That's it—Take it. Your mouth is made to be fucked." You claw at his thighs, lips wrapped around heeseung's cock like it's the only thing you're made to do. He griped your hair with both hands and fucked your mouth, "Fuck, yes. Just like that. Take me in, angel. Let me fuck that pretty little throat." He hissed through his teeth, enjoying the sight of your mascara running down your face, chest covered in drool.

Your throat constricted around him and it was game over. “This is where you belong, under me. Chocking on my dick as if your fucking meant for it.” You couldn't see properly through the tears clouding your vision, but the buzz between your legs had grown too loud for you to ignore. The heat inside him erupted so violently his ears rang as heeseung finally came down your throat. “Swallow every drop. Yeah, just like that. Drink me whole, y/n. I’m planning to come down your throat every night for the rest of our lives.” You weakly nod, his release burning hot in your mouth, you gobble it down till every last bit of his come was now down your throat.

"Your mouth looks so pretty full of my cum." He squats down, swiping two fingers across your tongue, dragging them over your chin and throat. He continues the descent down your chest, circling each one of your. nipples, leaving a glistening trail of moisture in his wake. "Bet your tight little cunt would look even better filled up." Heeseung caressed your cheeks, "filthy fucking slut." You whimper, your tongue swirled one last time. A last lick that sent a shudder through him and then you release him with an audible pop.

“Ass up, face down, on the bed. Now.” His palms ran up your legs as You get up, his thumbs pressing into your inner thighs, lifting you up with a harshness that made your stomach tighten in an unexpected way. His rough hands felt so absolute against your soft skin. Your hands hit the mattress first. He manhandled you over your stomach, yanking your ass up into the air before spanking it hard enough to sting. Spank! Your body jolted upwards at the new sensation. “Hmph! heeseung!” You whined, “Uh huh? You like that, angel?” Spank! He grinned, gripping your ass with both hands and spreading your cheeks to expose your holes, nails digging into your flesh before he spanks your ass again. Spank!

You yelped when heeseung yanked you back towards him by pulling your hair until you were looking up at him with teary eyes. He looks into your eyes, the ones he finds beautiful filled with lust and every ounce of pleasure left in you, “Say it. Who do you belong to?” He smiles and Spank! “You!—” Spank! “I belong to you.” You wail out, hips bucking up more as you grind back on him for any kind of friction. Heeseung closes his eyes, fuck. The sight of you like this, giving him a view of a lifetime. Legs spread, cool air brushed your pussy and you were suddenly aware of how wet you were. His gaze touched you there, warm yet still tinged with anger.

“Such a good little slut, ass out, pussy up, just the way i like it." He said before shoving your face down into your pillows and you felt him align the head of his cock against your folds with wet smacks, barely thrusting in half an inch in and out as he enjoyed the sounds your pussy made. The way he was teasing you like this, barely letting you feel even the tip was driving you crazy. You bit your lips, grinding back to have him sink into you but his grip on your hips were like iron steels.

"Remember, every part of you is mine, angel, and you will never feel whole again without me inside you." He glides his tip up and down your slit, pressing it with teasing motion which makes you buck your hips onto him more. A whimper escapes from your lips as he works his head between your folds, using his hand to coat the rest of his length in your arousal. “Pleaseee— just put it in already.” He scoffed, “Woah missy! you’re alot bratty today. What’s with this attitude?” He sunk in a bit more now, the head of him inside you and the problem was heeseung was thick. So it made your thighs quiver with just his tip in.

Heeseung moaned when he slid in a bit further, hissing at how you squeezed him so tight, you felt so fucking good. Tight and wet and made for him, like You were the puzzle he'd been missing all his life. He once more sank in what felt like another inch, you sniffled, your walls trying to accommodate his girth. He pulled out, then slid back in with a slow, smooth glide. "Your pussy was made for me, y/n. Every part of you, made for me." His own breaths harshened as he increased the pace.

“I’m not even halfway in, angel.” He pushed his hips more, “And you’re already crying?” You gasped, tears sprung at the corner of your eyes. “Crying like a bitch when i’m not even halfway in. Do i need to stretch you open more? Where’s your vibrator?” your eyes widen. “W-what?” He caresses the curve of your ass.

“Your vibrator. The one i’ve heard you fuck yourself with everytime i was sleeping over? Tell me. Where is it?” his voice all innocent. Your gaze shifts to your drawer next to the bed and he follows it. You see him yanking the drawer open, his eyes turning dark when he finds what he was looking for.

Lube and a vibrator. Not just any vibrator, it was double standard, with clitoral suction, one which could give you a mind blowing orgasm. He brought the vibrator down beneath you, the buzzing head being dangerously close to your slit. “Sit pretty for me, slut.” Heeseung held on your shoulders before arching them back. He pressed the tip of the toy on you, and you let out a ringing sob. No, the overstimulation was so fucking much.

Your body trembled, legs shaking as he sank inside you further that he could literally feel the vibrations of the toy on his dick as your walls slicked up more. “Look, you’re opening up for me. Such a good girl.” You couldn't think, couldn't breathe. All you could do was lay there-only for him to see, only for him to ruin. A slave to his doings while he fucks you open like a madman. Fast. Slow. Fast. Slow.

“You have no idea what you look like right now." You were so close already, heeseung slipped out till on the thick tip of his remained inside you, paused, and plunged back in, cockhead spearing to the deepest part of you against your cervix, hitting all the sweet spots you didn’t know you had.

His hands reached around and pinched your swollen clit and your body spiked with pleasure so hard and intense that you instinctively tried to scoot away from him for mercy, but you couldn’t. His hands held you in place.

“Try that again, and i’ll spank you so hard you won’t be able to sit in this damn house tomorrow without wincing.” He pulled the vibrator away, turning it off, throwing it somewhere on the bed. You could feel him completely now, hips pistoling into you, forcing you to stay still and feel the way he stretched you open. The same hand coming up and smacking your flushed cheeks, making you jerk forward before he rubbed the flesh there, smoothing off the sting.

You look back at him, spit falling down to your neck, makeup smudged, new puddle of tears falling down. Fuck, you looked so beautiful, so perfect and so entirely ruined—His.

I love you, Heeseung thinks . And he suspects that you love him, too. And he cannot wait for you both to admit it to each other. He cannot wait to see what happens next.

The tip of his cock was rubbing so deeply in you, you felt a bulge in your belly. “Fuckfuckfuck—no more, please—” you drop your head on the cushions, the noise being muffled by it. Babbling out nonsense yet you didn’t notice the way your hips kept grinding back into his hold because you’re fucking greedy and ruined. Heeseung hissed as he felt your walls swallowing him whole. "Your pretty pussy is just eating me up every single time. Greedy little thing." He rasped to himself. Your arousal was coating even his thighs now, a large wet spot darkening on the bedsheets under you as you continued to drip.

He pulled back out again, then thrusting inside, watching you fall apart infront of him as he wrecked your pussy like he promised he would. “That’s my girl. Taking every inch of my cock.” Before you could even respond, even think, Heeseung was wrapping his bicep around your throat, halting the breath from your lungs from the pure shock. He didn’t hold back—his arm around you was just tight enough to make you were lightheaded. Your ears rang and your eyes rolled to the back of your head.

He squeezed as he pulled you in to meet his thrusts, his other hand holding you still to keep himself up. You chocked back for air, tears landing on his biceps now as he pounded into you mercilessly. “Good fucking girl. Yeah? You like being my good girl, Angel? You like when I tell you how pretty you look with my cock stretching you open?" He cooed in your ear. Heeseung’s headlock got a fraction tighter with each sentence, teetering you right along the edge before throwing you over completely. Your pussy fluttered wildly around his cock and his harsh thrusts that he refused to soften.

“So much—no…” You gasped out, “Too deep.” the only answer you got was his dark chuckle as he yanked you up, straightening his back and arching yours as he forced you upright, bicep srill curled around yours neck. You felt his hand meet with your stomach, pressing in hard on the bulge— A perfect outline of how beautifully you were taking him. Then he pressed harder causing you to moan, “You feel this? look. That’s me in your stomach. Fuckk—Gonna fucking breed this cunt till it’s dripping all over this room.”

You whined as he pushed you down again, hands finding your clit, giving it that same mean pinch and rub that had you seeing stars. You completely unraveled, melted right into heeseung’s arms as your body shook and a moan that only could be heard in a cheap porno moved right through you. And you come, going weightless in his arms as your knees practically gave out but he just used it as a way to slip deeper into you. You felt your release dripping down to your knees.

“Who fucks you?” He growled, throwing your ass back to meet his thrusts, “Y-you do—” you whined, feeling his cock twitch and move, pressing right against your cervix, “Now say that without stuttering, angel.” Spank! He buried himself to the hilt one last time before he uploaded inside of you, warm liquid coating your walls in white.

“You do!” You sniffle, sighing out another breathy moan. “Who else?” Heeseung’s thrusts finally slowed as he kept fucking you through his own orgasm, pressing wet kisses to the side of your neck and sending shivers down your spine. At last he pulled out, cock still hard, leaking with the left over cum that trickled out of your hole. “Only you.”

You fall face flat on fhe mattress, fucked out. Then the very next second he flips you onto your back, your eyes nearly popping out of your skull when you see the vibrator in his hand again. You blinked and your body shivered, “Wa-wait!” You tried closing in your legs but he forced them apart, hand shoving between a knee to expose your puffy core to him once more.

“Oh, we’re just getting started, angel.”

After what felt like an hour of non stop fucking, him just ruining your insides, it had finally stopped. Heeseung was laying beside you now, your head resting on his shoulder. The silence was comfortable—too comfortable. The aftershocks of how good he fucked you still running through your body and the smell of sex lingering in the air, the faint rise and fall of his breathing… everything felt too real.

You tilted your head, looking up at him. “So…..” He turned to you, his gaze already on yours. His breath brushed against your lips, noses touching.

“So….?” he echoed quietly. Then his hand came up, brushing a strand of hair away from your face. “Do you think this was just… something that happened?” he murmured. Your eyebrows pulled together. What was he saying? “Do you think idk you love me?” Your chest tightened. “Heeseung—”

“I know you, Y/n,” he cut you off softly, his forehead pressing against yours. “The deepest desires of your heart, the softest secrets of your soul, the meanest moments in your mind. I know them all… I own them. Every desire, every secret, every thought.”

Your breath hitched, his words sinking into you slowly. “This isn’t just tonight,” he continued, his voice dropping. “It never was.” You pulled back slightly, searching his face, but he didn’t let you go far. His hand tightened gently around your wrist, grounding you in place.

“I want you ti know. You have been, you are, and you will always be my only obsession.” Obsession. Your heart started racing, but you couldn’t tell if it was want, fear or smth else entirely. The confession was sudden, you didn’t think he’d pull if off like this. “If there was any love in this world of mine, Y/n… it would be you,” he said, quieter now, almost a confession that felt as if it was been buried for years. “I am darkness. I live it, I breathe it, I am it. There is no redemption, no emotion, nothing for me.”

Heeseung’s thumb brushed against your cheek.“Nothing but you.” The way he said it…..Everything inside you stilled.

“You’re the moon to my dark night, angel,” he whispered, his gaze never leaving yours. “You’re the only thing in this black sky that can thrive when I swallow everything else whole.”

God, you fucking loved this guy snd he didn’t even know it. Not yet.

“The stars don’t exist in this space. Just you and I.” His lips hovered just barely against yours, before he places a quick kiss.

“You need me to glow… and I need you to exist.” A pause. “It’s simple as that.” heeseung has always looked at you like you were just… there. Just his. And maybe that was the worst part.

Because he didn’t see it—the way you lingered, the way you stayed, the way you kept choosing him even when you knew you shouldn’t. Or maybe… he did. And he was just waiting for you to admit it first.

“I love you.” The words left you before you could stop them—soft, fragile, and terrifying in how real they sounded once they existed outside of you. Heeseung blinked, once then twice. Sucking in a ragged breath before groaning. “Say that again.” You smile softly at him, eyes glowing. “I love you.”

“I love you too… god, you drive me insane.” His voice was low. The words wrapped around you, heavier than you expected, settling deep in your chest. His hand came up to your face, thumb brushing your cheek slowly. “You don’t even realize what you do to me, do you?” he murmured, a faint, almost disbelieving smile tugging at his lips. “The way you look at me… the way you stay…”

He exhaled softly, forehead resting against yours.“It’s enough to make me lose my mind.”

You step down onto the road and the heat hits you like a physical thing.

Chicago in September is crisp. Leaves turning, wind off the lake, the smell of the city sharpening into something almost bearable. You have lived your whole life in that particular kind of autumn and you are standing here now in what should by all rights be the tail end of summer and the ground is baking. The sky is enormous. There are no buildings tall enough to interrupt it, nothing to cut the blue into manageable pieces, and for a moment you just stand there with your suitcase at your feet and your hat in your hand and feel very, very small.

“You the new schoolteacher?” You turn. A young man — can’t be more than nineteen — is leaning against the side of the bus stop with his arms crossed and his dark hair falling into his eyes. He’s got a look on his face that isn’t quite a smile but is clearly thinking about becoming one.

“That obvious?” you say.

“You’ve got a suitcase and a look on your face like you’re trying to figure out if you made a terrible mistake.” He pushes off the wall and picks up your larger bag before you can protest. “Riki. I work out at Sunrise Ranch but I’m in town most days. Mr. Lee sent me to check if you’d arrived.”

You blink. “Someone was expecting me?”

“Mrs. Calloway at the boarding house would’ve had your room ready since Tuesday,” he says, already walking. “Small town. News travels.”

You pick up your smaller case and follow him. Mrs. Calloway. The name lands somewhere behind your sternum and sits there, inert. Just a name. A common enough name. You are done flinching at common names. “I’m Y/N,” you say.

“I know,” Riki says, not unkindly. “Everyone does.”

—

Main Street — the only street, really, though two dirt roads branch off it like afterthoughts — is quiet in the way that feels inhabited rather than empty. A woman sweeps her front step and nods at you. Two men outside the hardware store pause their conversation to watch you pass with open, unapologetic curiosity. A little girl with two braids chases a dog around the side of the church and neither of them pays you any attention at all, which you find oddly comforting.

The diner is called Park’s and it has a specials board in the window that reads Tuesday: Peach Pie in chalk letters, and through the glass you can see red vinyl booths and a long counter with spinning stools and a man behind it who catches your eye through the window and raises a coffee pot in greeting like he’s been expecting you too. “That’s Jay,” Riki says, following your gaze. “He’ll want to talk your ear off. I’d give yourself a day before you go in or you’ll never get unpacked.”

“Is everyone here this—” you search for the word.

“Friendly?” Riki offers.

“I was going to say informed.”

He considers this. “Yeah,” he says. “Both.”

The boarding house sits at the end of the main street where the road widens slightly, a two-storey white clapboard building with a porch and a wind chime and flower boxes in the windows. It is, you think, the most aggressively quaint thing you have ever seen in your life. You grew up in an apartment on the fourth floor of a building that smelled like other people’s cooking and city rain and you are trying very hard not to let your face say anything impolite about wind chimes.

Mrs. Della, the landlady — not a Calloway, you exhale quietly — is a broad warm woman in her sixties with silver hair and flour on her apron who opens the door before you knock and says “There she is” like you’re something she ordered and is pleased to find arrived undamaged. “Come in, come in, you must be half dead from that bus.” She takes your smaller case clean out of your hand. “Riki, you staying for supper?”

“Can’t,” he says, setting your larger bag inside the door. He looks at you briefly, something almost like reassurance in it. “You’ll be alright here,” he says, which is a strange thing to say and which you believe immediately, and then he’s back down the porch steps and heading up the road with his hands in his pockets.

“Good boy,” Mrs. Della says, watching him go. “Lee Heeseung took him in two years back, gives him work and a roof. That man would give you the shirt off his back.” She says it the way people say things that are simply true, established fact, no elaboration required, and ushers you inside before you can ask who Lee Heeseung is.

Your room is small and clean and has a window that looks out over the back garden and a field beyond it and then nothing but flat land and sky all the way to the horizon. The bed has a quilt on it in yellow and white. There is a writing desk and a lamp and a hook on the back of the door.

You sit on the edge of the bed and let the quiet settle around you. In Chicago there is always noise — traffic and neighbours and the radiator banging in winter and the el train every twelve minutes rattling the windows. You have slept to that noise your whole life. This quiet is a different texture entirely. Crickets, somewhere. Wind moving through something dry. The distant low sound of what might be cattle.

You think about the apartment you gave up. The life you gave up — or that was given up on — and the way the story circulated, the whispers at the school where you’d taught for three years, the way your mother had said maybe if you’d been less difficult, Y/N, as though your own broken engagement was a character flaw you’d displayed in public. You’d applied for twenty-seven jobs in towns you’d never heard of. Castillo Creek, Texas was the one that wrote back.

You lie back on the yellow quilt and look at the ceiling and think: New soil. See what grows.

In the morning Mrs. Della makes you eggs and biscuits and coffee so strong it makes your eyes water and tells you that the schoolhouse is two blocks north, that school starts Monday which gives you four days to settle, that the previous teacher Miss Hargrove retired to be closer to her sister in San Antonio and left her lesson plans in the desk drawer, and that if you need anything at all you are to ask and not to be proud about it. “We don’t stand on ceremony here,” she says, refilling your cup. “You’ll find people are plain. They say what they mean.”

“That’s refreshing,” you say, and mean it more than she knows.

“You’ll fit in fine,” she says, in the same tone Riki used last night, that same easy certainty, and you don’t know yet whether Castillo Creek is simply a town full of optimists or whether they can see something in you that you can’t currently see in yourself.

After breakfast you walk the street. Slowly, no destination, just learning the shape of the place. The hardware store is run by a man named Gus who shakes your hand and calls you ma’am and means it respectfully. The general store has everything from canned peaches to horse liniment arranged with cheerful illogic on its shelves. The church noticeboard has a harvest dance announced for the first week of October, hand-lettered on card. A tabby cat sleeps on the post office step and does not move when you step over it.

You end up at Park’s because you are not made of stone and the peach pie in the window has been watching you since yesterday. The bell above the door chimes when you push it open. The diner smells like coffee and something frying and woodsmoke and the particular warm smell of a place that has been feeding people for a long time. Three of the booths are occupied — two older men playing cards over the remains of breakfast, a young woman nursing a baby and reading a magazine, a teenager staring out the window like he’s being paid for it.

The man behind the counter looks up and grins like you’ve just won something. “There she is,” he says, which is apparently how everyone in this town greets you. He’s handsome in an easy, untroubled way — dark eyes, an apron over his shirt, the kind of smile that has probably never caused him a day’s trouble because it is entirely, disarmingly genuine. “Jay Park. Welcome to Castillo Creek, and more importantly, welcome to my diner. Sit anywhere. Coffee?”

“Please,” you say, sliding onto a counter stool. “Y/N.”

“I know.” He’s already pouring. “The whole town knows. Don’t let that spook you — it’s not menacing, we’re just starved for news.” He sets the cup in front of you. “You surviving Mrs. Della’s biscuits?”

“They’re extraordinary.”

“Don’t tell her I said this but mine are better.” He leans on the counter. “How are you finding it so far?”

“I’ve been here less than twenty-four hours.”

“First impressions.”

You wrap your hands around the coffee cup. Outside the window the main street sits quiet in the morning sun, dust turning gold where the light hits it, a man on horseback moving slow at the far end of the road, hat low against the glare. “It’s very quiet,” you say.

“City girl.”

“Is it that obvious?”

“The accent gives you away a little,” he says, not unkindly. “Chicago?”

“Born and raised.”

He nods like this explains something. “You’ll either love it here or you’ll be back on the bus in a month. There’s not usually an in-between.” He tilts his head, studying you with the frank, comfortable curiosity of a man who talks to everyone and has learned to read them quickly. “My money’s on love it.”

“Why?”

“You ordered coffee before you ordered pie,” he says. “Practical. And you’re still here instead of back at the boarding house wondering what you’ve done. Means you’re the kind of person who walks toward things.”

You look at him for a moment. “You do this with everyone?”

“Do what?”

“Make them feel like you’ve known them for years.”

Jay grins, unabashed. “Only the interesting ones.” He reaches under the counter and produces a plate with a slice of peach pie on it, sets it in front of you without asking. “On the house. Welcome to town.”

You eat the pie. It is, genuinely, one of the best things you’ve ever tasted, which you tell him, and he looks so pleased about it that you find yourself smiling for what feels like the first time in a long time — the real kind, not the composed kind you’ve been wearing since spring.

You are still there an hour later when the bell above the door chimes and a man walks in. You notice the hat first. Worn tan leather, shaped by years and weather, pushed back just enough to see his face.

Then the face — and it is, unfairly, a lot of face: dark eyes, jaw that belongs in a painting, and a smile that appears when he spots Jay like the sun deciding to come out from behind something. He is tall and lean in the way of men who work with their bodies, wearing a shirt with the sleeves rolled and boots with actual dust on them, and he moves through the diner like a man who is completely comfortable taking up space, not arrogantly, just — naturally. Like the room fits him.

Half the diner looks up when he walks in. You notice this and then notice that he doesn’t seem to notice it. “Heeseung,” Jay says. “You’re late.”

“Riki let one of the mares out this morning,” the man says, dropping onto the stool two down from you. “Had to get her back in before she ate the garden.” His voice has the particular warm drawl of a man who has lived in Texas his whole life, the vowels long and unhurried. He glances over — and for just a moment, before the smile arrives, you see him register you. A quick, frank, unguarded look. Then the smile.

It is, you think distantly, a remarkably good smile. “You must be the new schoolteacher,” he says.

“So I’ve been told,” you say.

He huffs a quiet laugh and extends a hand across the empty stool between you. “Lee Heeseung. I run Sunrise Ranch, out east of town.” A pause, then, easy as breathing: “Welcome to Castillo Creek, darlin’.”

The darlin’ lands warmly, casually, the way he probably says it to everyone. You shake his hand. His grip is firm and his palm is calloused and he lets go at exactly the right moment. “Y/N,” you say.

“Pretty name,” he says, and turns back to Jay to ask about the lunch special, and that is that.

You finish your pie. You say goodbye to Jay, who tells you to come back tomorrow, and nod to Heeseung, who tips his hat slightly without looking up from his coffee, and you push out into the dry Texas morning with the bell chiming behind you and the sky enormous overhead. You think: new soil.

You walk back toward the boarding house and do not think about the smile. (You try.)

—

The schoolhouse is a single rectangular building painted white, sitting back from the road behind a low wooden fence with a gate that sticks. There is a bell above the door on a rope, a covered porch with two steps, and six windows along each side that let in long rectangles of morning light. Inside: four rows of desks, a blackboard, a bookshelf with a sadly depleted top shelf, a globe with a crack running through the Pacific, a teacher’s desk at the front with a chair that wobbles on its left leg, and the lesson plans Miss Hargrove left in the drawer, written in such small precise handwriting that you have to hold them close to the lamp to read them.

You spend the weekend getting acquainted with it. You rearrange the desks slightly — four rows feels regimented for fourteen children ranging from five to eleven — into a looser configuration that won’t make the little ones feel like they’re waiting to be sentenced. You find chalk in the wrong drawer and a box of coloured pencils in the right one. You fix the gate with a piece of wire you find coiled on the porch. You read Miss Hargrove’s lesson plans and her notes on each child, written in the margins in that same small hand: Clara D. — very bright, reads above her level. Tommy H. — struggles with numbers but never says so. Eli L. — clever, restless, tests limits. Handle firmly but don’t let him know you’re doing it.

You read that last one twice. Eli L.

You’d heard the name once already, briefly, the way you hear a lot of names in a town like this — someone mentioning someone else in passing, the social web of a small place where everyone is connected to everyone by approximately two degrees. Riki worked at Sunrise Ranch. Sunrise Ranch belonged to Lee Heeseung. Lee Heeseung had a son. Clever, restless, tests limits.

You put the lesson plans back in the drawer, look at the rearranged desks.

Monday morning arrives with the particular clarity of a sky that has not clouded in weeks. You are at the schoolhouse by seven-thirty. You write your name on the board — Miss Y/N — and you stand at the front and look at the empty desks and do something you haven’t let yourself do since you stepped off that bus: you feel, briefly and privately, afraid. Not of the children, not of the job — you have been a teacher for three years and you are good at it, this you know — but of the starting over. Of the standing in a room and introducing yourself to people who don’t know you yet and hoping that this time, in this place, what they learn about you is something you’ve chosen.

You take a breath. You put your composed face on. You go stand on the porch to watch them arrive.

They come in ones and twos, mostly walked by mothers who linger at the gate with polite curiosity to get a look at you, a few by fathers, one or two on their own who are clearly old enough to have decided they don’t need walking. The little ones are solemn and wide-eyed. The older ones are watchful. They file onto the porch and past you with varying degrees of shyness, and you smile at each of them and say good morning, and most of them say it back.

The boy who doesn’t say it back arrives at eight on the dot, alone. He is small for seven — wiry and dark-haired with his father’s eyes and a gap where one of his front teeth used to be — and he walks through the gate with his lunch pail swinging and his chin up with the specific energy of a child who has decided in advance that he is not going to be impressed. He stops at the foot of the porch steps and looks up at you.

You look down at him. “Good morning,” you say.

He considers you. His gaze is frank and assessing in a way that reminds you immediately, disconcertingly, of his father. “You talk funny,” he says.

Behind him, two of the other children go very still in that particular way children do when someone has said the thing everyone was thinking. “I do,” you agree pleasantly. “Good morning.”

He blinks — he was expecting something else, you can tell — and then, almost against his will: “Morning.” He goes inside. You allow yourself precisely one second of satisfaction and then follow him in.

Their names, as you learn them through the morning: Clara, Tommy, Ruth, Beau, Ida, Jesse, Mae, Henry, Grace, Daniel, Lottie, Patrick, Susie, and Eli. Fourteen children, five to eleven, in one room with one teacher, which is simply the way of it in a town this size and which you knew going in and which presents itself as exactly the specific beautiful chaos you anticipated.

The little ones need different work from the older ones, the older ones need to be trusted enough not to resent the time you spend with the younger, and the whole arrangement requires a kind of orchestrated independence that takes most new teachers a month to establish.

You have it running by lunch. This is not arrogance. It is three years of practice and the lesson plans of Miss Hargrove, who clearly knew what she was doing, and the children themselves, who are — beneath the shyness and the staring — genuinely good. Clara reads to the two youngest while you work arithmetic with the middle group. Tommy, who struggles with numbers and has clearly been told by someone who loves him to hide it, relaxes visibly when you kneel beside his desk and show him the same problem three different ways without making it a thing. Grace, who is eleven and takes her seniority seriously, helps you hand out the coloured pencils for the afternoon drawing exercise with the gravity of someone performing a civic duty.

Eli sits in the second row and does exactly enough work to be technically compliant and spends the rest of the time studying you like you’re a puzzle he’s deciding whether to bother solving. He is not disruptive. He does not cause trouble, exactly. He just — watches. And occasionally says something, not quite under his breath, that makes the children near him stifle laughter, and when you look at him he is already looking at the ceiling or his pencil or the middle distance, expression perfectly innocent.

At half past two he raises his hand for the first time. You are, cautiously, relieved. “Yes, Eli?”

“How come you don’t say cahn’t like us?” he says. “You say can’t like it’s short.” The room goes quiet with interest.

“Because I grew up in Chicago,” you say. “People talk differently there.”

“Why?”

“That’s a good question. Different places develop different ways of speaking over time depending on who settled there and where they came from originally. It’s called a dialect.”

He turns this over. “So you’re not talking wrong, you’re just talking different.”

“That’s exactly right.”

He seems to file this away somewhere. He looks at his desk, then back up at you. “My dad says Chicago’s real big.”

“It is.”

“Did you like it?”

There is nothing loaded in the question — he is seven, he is simply curious — but the room is listening and you have a composed face for exactly this and you use it. “I did,” you say. “But I like it here too. Different things to like.” You hold his gaze for just a moment. “Good question, Eli.” He ducks his head in a way that might, if you’re reading it right, be pleased.

You let them out at three o’clock. They pour off the porch like water and scatter in every direction — some toward the main street, some down the side road, a few collected by waiting parents at the gate. You stand on the porch and watch them go with the pleasant exhausted satisfaction of a good first day, the kind where you know the shape of things now even if the details are still forming.

The last child through the gate is Eli, lunch pail swinging again, cap pushed back on his head. He pauses at the gate and turns back. “Miss?” he calls.

“Yes?”

He looks at you for a moment, that assessing look. Then: “You fixed the gate.”

“It was sticking,” you say. He nods, apparently satisfied with this. And then he’s gone, off down the road at a trot, and you lean against the porch post and look at the empty yard and the long afternoon light making everything gold and think that clever, restless, tests limits is right but that the note should have also said watching everything, deciding what to do with it.

Jay brings you pie. Not in the diner — he appears at the boarding house at half past five with a covered plate and the energy of a man who has been wanting to ask you about your day since approximately eight that morning. Mrs. Della lets him in with the equanimity of someone accustomed to Jay Park appearing with baked goods and sets an extra cup on the table. “Well?” he says, sitting down across from you with the plate between you, which you note he has not uncovered, clearly operating on the pie as leverage.

“Well,” you say.

“First day.” He tilts his head. “Good? Bad? You still here, which is promising.”

“Good,” you say honestly. “They’re good kids.”

“They are.” He uncovers the plate — cherry, this time. “Any trouble?”

You think of dark eyes and a gap-toothed grin and you talk funny. “Nothing I couldn’t handle.”

Jay smiles, something knowing in it. “Eli Lee give you a hard time?”

“He was perfectly behaved.”

“That’s almost worse, honestly.” He leans back in his chair. “He’s a good kid. He just — tests people. Wants to know if you’re going to stay.” He says it lightly but you hear something underneath it, something careful. “His last teacher, Miss Hargrove, he adored her by the end. Took him a month.”

“I’ve got time,” you say.

Jay looks at you the way he did that first morning at the counter, that frank easy assessment. “You know Heeseung came into the diner after you left Friday,” he says, with the absolute casualness of a man deploying information he has been sitting on for days.

You cut into the pie. “Did he.”

“Asked how you seemed. Whether you looked settled.” Jay’s expression is the picture of innocence. “Just being neighbourly.”

“That’s nice of him.”

“Mm.” Jay drinks his coffee. “He doesn’t usually ask.”

You eat your cherry pie and look at Jay Park over your fork and decide that you like him enormously and that he is also going to be an absolute menace and that these two things are entirely compatible. “Thank you for the pie,” you say.

Jay grins. “Anytime, darlin’.”

The word lands differently in his mouth — friendly, careless, the way you’d expect. The way it probably sounds from everyone. You eat your pie and don’t think about the way it sounded Friday morning on a counter stool two seats down from you, unhurried and warm, like the man saying it had all the time in the world.

Wednesday afternoon you are erasing the board after the children have gone when you hear the gate. You turn, chalk dust on your hands, and Heeseung Lee is coming through it.

He has his hat in his hand this time — held at his side, the gesture you will come to learn is his version of courtesy, the small deliberate thing he does when he’s on someone else’s ground. He is in his work clothes, boots dusty, shirt with the sleeves rolled like the first time you saw him, and he is looking at the schoolhouse with a particular quiet expression that you can’t read yet. “Mr. Lee,” you say from the porch.

He looks up. “Miss Y/N.” The smile comes easy and unhurried, the same one from the diner, and you are annoyed to find that it works just as well the second time. “Hope I’m not disturbing.”

“Not at all.” You dust the chalk from your hands on your apron. “Is something wrong?”

“No, ma’am.” He reaches the foot of the steps and stops there, which you note — he doesn’t come up onto the porch uninvited, just stands at the bottom with his hat in his hand. “Eli mentioned you fixed the gate.”

You blink. “It was sticking.”

“I know. I kept meaning to get to it.” He looks at the gate briefly and back at you. “Just wanted to thank you. And to say — he told me about the dialect conversation.”

“Oh?”

“He came home and used the word dialect four times at supper.” Something warm moves through his expression. “He hasn’t stopped asking questions about Chicago.”

You lean against the porch post. “He’s very bright.”

“I know,” Heeseung says, quietly, the way parents say things about their children when they’re proud and trying not to make a production of it. “He can be a handful.”

“He’s been fine,” you say, and mean it. “He’s testing me. I don’t mind being tested.”

Heeseung looks at you for a moment — that same brief, unguarded register you caught in the diner, there and then gone. “Miss Hargrove said the same thing about him.” A pause. “She was right, and so are you.” He puts his hat back on, settling it with the ease of long habit. “I won’t keep you. Just — thank you. For the gate and for the patience.”

“It’s my job,” you say.

“The gate wasn’t,” he says simply, and tips his hat, and walks back through it — and you notice, as he goes, that he lifts the handle the right way so it doesn’t stick on him. He knew how it worked. He just hadn’t gotten to it.

You stand on the porch for a moment after he’s gone, chalk dust still on your apron, the afternoon light going gold and long across the schoolyard. Alright, you think. But it’s a different alright than the one on the bus.

—

You learn the rhythms of Castillo Creek the way you learn anything new — by paying attention. Monday through Friday the main street wakes slowly, the diner first, Jay’s lights on before six and the smell of coffee reaching the boarding house if the wind is right. The general store opens at seven, the hardware store at eight. The church bell rings at nine for no reason anyone can explain except that it always has.

Afternoons are quiet in the way that heat makes things quiet, everyone retreating into shade, and then around four the street comes back to life — horses at the post, trucks pulling in, the sound of voices carrying in the dry air. Evenings on the boarding house porch: crickets, the occasional distant sound of music from the diner where Jay sometimes puts a record on after hours, the sky going colours you don’t have names for yet.

Weekends the ranch hands come into town. This is when you first understand that Sunrise Ranch is not a small operation. Saturday morning and there are three trucks parked outside the general store and Jay’s counter is full and the voices are different — louder, easier, the particular looseness of men at the end of a working week. You are becoming a recognisable figure on the main street now, two weeks in, and people nod or wave or say morning, Miss Y/N with the comfortable familiarity of a town that has decided you belong, or is at least willing to extend the provisional assumption.

Riki finds you at the general store on the second Saturday, reaching for a tin on a high shelf. “Here,” he says, getting it down for you without ceremony.

“Thank you.” You put it in your basket. “How’s the mare?”

He blinks, then remembers. “Back in her paddock. She does it once a month like clockwork.” He falls into step beside you toward the counter, hands in his pockets. “How’s Eli?”

“Getting there,” you say.

Riki’s mouth twitches. “He told me you knew what a dialect was.”

“He told his father the same thing four times at supper, apparently.”

“Five times,” Riki says. “I was there. Mr. Lee made him use it in a sentence correctly before he could have dessert.” Something soft moves through his expression — fond and private, the look of someone describing a home. “He does that. Makes it a game so Eli doesn’t know he’s being taught.”

You look at him. “You live at the ranch?”

“Have done for two years.” He picks up a paper bag of something from the counter and adds it to your basket without asking, then pays for it along with his own things before you can protest. “Mr. Lee offered me the room off the stable when I first got here. Said I could work it off.” A pause. “I haven’t worked it off yet. I don’t think he’s keeping count.”

You think of the gate. Of a man standing at the foot of porch steps with his hat in his hand, not coming up unless invited. “He seems like a good man,” you say, carefully.

Riki looks at you with the frank, uncomplicated assessment of a nineteen-year-old who has not yet learned to be oblique. “He’s the best man I know,” he says simply. And then the door opens and two of the other ranch hands come in and Riki’s face shifts back into something easier and the conversation moves on, but you carry that best man I know out of the store with you and into the bright Saturday morning and find that you believe it without quite knowing why.

The invitation comes through Eli. It is a Thursday, three weeks into term, and Eli has — incrementally, perceptibly, in the way of a child who makes decisions slowly and then commits to them entirely — decided that you are acceptable. This has manifested in: asking you approximately forty questions about Chicago over the course of various lunchtimes, showing you a drawing he did of his horse with the air of someone bestowing an honour, correcting Tommy’s arithmetic before you can get there and then looking at you to see if you’ll mind, and most recently appointing himself the unofficial distributor of coloured pencils, a role Grace has had to be diplomatically persuaded to share.

On Thursday he stays behind after the others have gone.

You are at your desk reviewing the week’s work when you become aware that he is still in his seat, lunch pail on the desk in front of him, regarding you with his father’s eyes and an expression of elaborate casualness. “Yes, Eli?” you say, without looking up.

A pause. “My dad says you should come see the ranch.”

You look up. He is studying his lunch pail. “He said if you wanted. He said don’t make it a thing.” He glances up at you briefly. “I’m supposed to say it like it’s my idea.”

You press your lips together very firmly. “Whose idea was it?”

Eli considers the ethics of this for a moment. “Both,” he decides. “I said you’d like the horses and he said he’d been meaning to ask.” He picks up his lunch pail. “Saturday morning. Riki said he’d make sure the good horses are out.”

You look at this seven-year-old boy with his gap-toothed earnestness and his father’s dark eyes and the absolute transparency of a child who is not yet old enough to be a convincing liar and feel something in your chest do something inconvenient. “Saturday morning,” you say.

Eli nods, satisfied, and slides off his chair. At the door he pauses. “Miss?”

“Yes?”

“Dad said wear boots if you have them.” A beat. “Do you have boots?”

“I’ll manage,” you say. He looks doubtful but lets it go.

You do not have boots.

Mrs. Della solves this problem on Friday evening by producing a pair from somewhere in the back of a wardrobe that fit you well enough and have clearly belonged to several people before you, worn in and comfortable in the way of things that have been used properly. She does not make a fuss about it. She sets them by your door and says “for your visit to the ranch” with the serenity of a woman who knew this was coming before you did, which you are beginning to understand is simply Mrs. Della’s relationship with information.

Saturday morning is cooler than usual, a thin cloud cover cutting the worst of the heat, and you walk the road east of town with Mrs. Della’s boots on your feet and the particular feeling of a person going somewhere they haven’t decided how to feel about yet.

Sunrise Ranch announces itself before you reach it. The land opens up, the scrub giving way to fenced pasture, horses moving slow in the morning light — four, five, you count seven in the near paddock — and then the gate with Sunrise in iron letters across the top, and beyond it a long low ranch house in weathered timber, a stable block, a water tower, a barn with its doors open, and the general cheerful disorder of a working property.

Eli appears from nowhere, running. “You came,” he says, like this was uncertain, and then immediately: “You have boots.” He looks at them. “They’re okay.”

“Thank you,” you say gravely.

“Come see Maple.” He is already walking, assuming you’ll follow, which you do. “Maple’s mine. Dad got her for me last year. She’s brown.” He says this last detail with enormous authority, as though colour is the primary criterion for horse quality.

“Is she,” you say.

“She’s the best one.” He pushes open the stable door. “Don’t tell Riki’s horse.”

The stable smells of hay and horses and something warm and animal that is not unpleasant, and the light comes through the high windows in long dusty bars, and Maple is indeed brown and does indeed regard you with the large patient eyes of a creature who has learned that humans are mostly harmless if you wait them out. Eli shows her off with the proprietorial pride of a small boy who has been trusted with something real, and you let him lead you through every detail — her feeding schedule, her preferred brushing side, the way she does something with her ears when she’s happy — and listen properly, because he is telling you something important about himself by telling you about the horse. “She’s beautiful,” you say, and mean it.

Eli glows. “Yeah,” he agrees. He strokes her nose. “Dad taught me to ride on her. Well — on her and Scout. Scout’s too big for me yet but I can get on him if someone helps.”

“Who’s Scout?”

“Mine,” says a voice behind you. You turn. Heeseung is in the stable doorway, hat on, a coffee cup in one hand, backlit by the morning in a way that is doing no one any favours. He looks at you with that easy unhurried expression and then at Eli. “You showing her around properly?”

“I was getting to the rest,” Eli says, with dignity.

“Sure you were.” Heeseung’s gaze moves back to you. “Morning. Glad you came.” He says it simply, no particular weight on it, and holds out the second coffee cup that you hadn’t noticed he was holding. “Mrs. Della said you take it black.”

You take the cup. “She told you that?”

“Jay told me. Mrs. Della told Jay.” He lifts a shoulder. “Small town.”

You drink the coffee. It is good — strong and dark and made by someone who takes it seriously. “Thank you.”

“Thank Eli,” he says. “It was mostly his idea.”

“He told me,” you say.

Heeseung looks at his son with an expression of fond resignation. “Did he.” Eli, sensing this conversation is edging toward accountability, has become very interested in Maple’s left ear.

He shows you the ranch himself, Eli orbiting ahead and behind like a satellite, Riki appearing occasionally from whatever task he’s been given and nodding at you with the quiet approval of someone whose opinion you hadn’t realised you were seeking.

Heeseung walks beside you with his coffee and talks about the land with the ease of a man who has known it his whole life — the pasture his father planted, the fence line he extended six years ago, the water table, the horses by name and temperament, the rhythm of the seasons out here where seasons are more about rain than temperature. He is not performing. That is the thing you notice, watching him from the corner of your eye as he points out the far ridge where the light hits different at sunset. He is simply telling you, the way people talk about things they love when they’re comfortable enough to let it show. “How long has your family been here?” you ask.

“Three generations,” he says. “My grandfather broke the land. My father ran it until—” a brief pause, easy enough that you’d miss it if you weren’t paying attention “—until I was ready to.” He looks out at the pasture. “I can’t imagine being anywhere else.”

“I used to think that about Chicago,” you say, before you mean to.

He glances at you. “What changed?”

The morning light is warm on the fence rail where you’ve stopped. The horses move slow in the paddock. Eli is attempting to convince Riki to let him ride something he’s probably not supposed to, and Riki is maintaining a very patient no. “Things do,” you say. “Change.”

It is not an answer and you both know it. But Heeseung doesn’t push — just nods once, slow, and looks back out at the pasture, and the silence that follows is the comfortable kind. The kind you don’t feel obligated to fill.

“Scout,” he says, after a moment. You follow his gaze. A large grey horse has appeared at the paddock fence — appeared is the right word, horses move quietly for their size, you’re learning — and is regarding you with the same patient assessment as Maple, though with more authority behind it.

“He’s enormous,” you say.

“He’s a gentleman,” Heeseung says. “Come here.” You follow him to the fence. Scout watches you approach with ears forward. Heeseung holds out his hand and the horse drops his nose into it with the ease of long familiarity, a small exhale of breath like a greeting. “Give him your hand,” Heeseung says. “Palm up.”

You do. Scout sniffs your palm, his breath warm and grass-scented, and then shifts his nose slightly to nudge at your wrist, which makes you laugh — actually laugh, surprised out of it, the unguarded kind. Heeseung is watching you when you look up. He looks away just a moment too late, back to Scout, and settles his hand on the horse’s neck. “He likes you,” he says.

“Or he wants something.”

“Same thing, with horses.” The corner of his mouth lifts. He rubs Scout’s neck once and steps back from the fence. “You ride?”

“No.”

“You want to?”

You look at Scout. Scout looks at you. He is very large and very calm and the morning is soft and there is coffee going warm in your hand and no one in this field knows anything about you except that you fixed a gate and knew the word dialect and took your coffee black. “Yes,” you say.

He doesn’t put you on Scout — that comes later, he says, and something in the later is easy and assuming in a way that you notice and don’t examine — but on a smaller bay mare named Honey who is, in Eli’s expert opinion, basically a chair, she’s so calm, which Heeseung overrules diplomatically.

He helps you up with one hand steadying the stirrup and one hand briefly at your waist — functional, impersonal, the practiced efficiency of someone who has helped people onto horses many times — and then steps back and talks you through it. Heels down. Hands soft. Don’t grip with your knees. Breathe.

You walk Honey around the paddock twice with Heeseung at her head and Eli on the fence calling encouragement that is mostly suggestions about how you’re holding the reins wrong. By the third pass Heeseung drops back and lets you go alone, and there is a specific feeling in that — in him deciding you’re ready, stepping back, watching from the fence with his arms resting on the top rail and his hat low — that you don’t have a name for but that sits somewhere behind your sternum and stays there. “You’re a natural,” he calls.

“She’s a chair,” you call back, and hear him laugh from across the paddock, a real one, the kind that alters the whole shape of his face.

Eli says “I said that” with great indignation.

You stay until noon. It isn’t planned. It is the accumulation of small things: Eli deciding you needed to see the barn cat’s new kittens, the kittens being an objectively compelling argument for staying, Riki appearing with a plate of something Mrs. Lee — Heeseung’s housekeeper, an iron-haired woman named Bea who has been with the ranch for twenty years — had left covered on the kitchen table. You all eat on the porch in the late morning sun, Eli wedged between you and Heeseung with a kitten in his lap that he has named Chicago with the satisfied look of someone cementing an inside joke.

It is — easy. Unreasonably easy for a woman who has spent two months being careful about everything.

Heeseung sits with his ankle crossed over his knee and doesn’t push any conversations and doesn’t fill silences that don’t need filling and listens when you talk in the particular way that makes you feel actually heard rather than waited out. Once, when Eli says something that makes you laugh, he catches it — the laugh — in that peripheral way, not staring, just noticing, and then looks deliberately at something else. You notice him noticing. You look at something else too.

He walks you back to the gate at noon. Eli has been redirected to afternoon chores with the selective enthusiasm of a child who has negotiated the terms. Riki raises a hand from the stable door. The horses stand easy in the afternoon quiet.

At the gate Heeseung stops and holds it open — it swings cleanly, well-oiled, this one — and tips his hat. “Thank you for coming,” he says. “Eli’s been talking about this since Thursday.”

“Only since Thursday?” you say.

He smiles. God, that smile. “Since Tuesday,” he admits. “I told him to wait.”

You step through the gate and turn. He’s on the other side of it, hat tipped forward, the morning light going warm gold over the ranch behind him. Scout visible in the paddock beyond, Maple beside him. “Thank you for the coffee,” you say. “And the riding lesson.”

“Anytime,” he says. And then, easy as breathing, the way he always does it, like it costs him nothing: “You’re welcome here, darlin’. Any time you want.”

You walk the road back to town with the borrowed boots and the feeling of a morning that opened up something you hadn’t known was closed. Behind you the gate swings shut, clean on its hinge. New soil, you think. See what grows.

—

October arrives like an exhale. The heat doesn’t break exactly — you’re learning it doesn’t really break here, not the way it does in Chicago where summer ends with a week of storms and then suddenly you need a coat — but it softens. The mornings are cooler now, the light coming in at a different angle, and the scrub on the edge of town goes colours you weren’t expecting: amber and rust and a dry pale gold that isn’t quite like anything you’ve seen before. Mrs. Della puts a second quilt on your bed. The church noticeboard updates the harvest dance announcement with a date: Saturday, October 12th. All welcome. Bring a dish.

You have been in Castillo Creek six weeks. You know, now, which floorboard in the schoolhouse creaks and how to avoid it during silent reading so you don’t startle the little ones. You know that Tommy is left-handed and was made to switch and that this is why his numbers come out backwards sometimes, and you have quietly, without making it a thing, begun letting him work with his left hand and watching his shoulders drop two inches with relief. You know that Clara will read anything you put in front of her and that the shelf of books in the schoolhouse is genuinely inadequate and that you have written to the county school board about this and received in response a letter of such elaborate non-commitment that you have started a separate fund from your own salary, small but growing. You know that Eli Lee will behave perfectly for four days and then on the fifth do something just left of the line — not malicious, never malicious, just testing — and that the correct response is to look at him steadily and say his name once, and he will subside, and on day six he will be angelic in a way that is clearly an apology.

You know that Jay’s cherry pie is better than his peach, that Riki takes his coffee with enough sugar to make your teeth hurt, that Bea at the ranch makes the best biscuits in Texas and would probably agree with you about this if you said so, that the tabby cat on the post office step is named Gerald and will accept exactly one ear scratch before moving to bite you. You know that Heeseung Lee tips his hat to every woman on the main street and that it means something different when he does it to you, and you have not examined this too closely because you are being careful and new soil takes time and you are not here to start anything. You are just noticing. That’s all.

Eli asks you about your family on a Tuesday. It is lunchtime, the other children spread across the yard in the October sun, and Eli has taken to eating his lunch on the porch steps near where you stand with your coffee. This started without announcement — one day he was in the yard, the next he was on the steps — and you have not remarked on it because remarking on it would make him self-conscious about having done something soft. “Do you miss Chicago?” he asks, through a mouthful of whatever Bea has packed him.

“Sometimes,” you say. It’s true. You miss the lake. The particular smell of the city in November. The diner near your old apartment that made pierogi on Thursdays.

“What do you miss?”

“The lake,” you say. “Lake Michigan. It’s enormous — like an inland sea. You can stand at the edge and not see the other side.”

Eli processes this. “We have the creek,” he offers.

“I know. I like the creek.”

He nods, satisfied that the comparison comes out even. Then: “Do you have family there?”

“My parents,” you say. “A brother.”

“Do they visit?”

You think of your mother’s voice on the telephone — the one call you’ve made since arriving, standing in the general store with the receiver pressed to your ear, your mother saying when are you coming home in the tone that meant you’ve made your point now. “Not yet,” you say.

Eli swings his feet against the step. “My grandma visits sometimes. Dad’s mom. She lives in Austin.” He picks at his lunch. “I don’t have a mom,” he says, with the casual directness of a child who has been saying this long enough that it no longer feels like a wound, just a fact. “She went away.”

Your chest does something careful and quiet. “I know,” you say, gently. “I’m sorry.”

“Dad says she got sick,” Eli says. “But I think—” he stops. Looks at the yard. Starts again: “I think that’s not the whole story. But he doesn’t want me to be sad so he says it that way.” He looks up at you with those dark perceptive eyes. “Do you think that’s bad? To say a not-whole story?”

You look at this seven-year-old boy who is so much older than seven in the specific ways that loss makes children old, and you think about not-whole stories and composed faces and she wanted a simpler life and how many versions of the truth are actually just the parts you can bear to carry in public.

“I think,” you say carefully, “that sometimes people tell not-whole stories because they’re trying to protect someone they love. And I think when you’re older you’ll understand the rest, and your dad will tell it to you when you’re ready.” You meet his eyes. “Does that make sense?”

Eli thinks about it seriously, which is the only way he thinks about things. “Yeah,” he says. Then: “You’re smart.”

“Thank you.”

“Dad thinks so too.” He says it with absolute offhand innocence and takes a large bite of his sandwich and looks at the yard, and you look at the middle distance and drink your coffee and say nothing at all.

The thing about a small town is that the architecture of people’s lives is visible in a way it never is in a city. In Chicago you could live next door to someone for three years and know nothing about them. Here the walls are thin by design — not maliciously, just the natural result of everyone’s business being conducted in the same four blocks, the same diner, the same church on Sundays, the same post office queue. You learn things about people without trying. You learn them through Jay, who is a font of town history delivered in the register of casual conversation, and through Mrs. Della, whose knowledge of Castillo Creek extends back forty years and who shares it in the same tone she uses to describe the weather — matter of fact, no particular drama.

This is how you learn that Heeseung Lee has been running the ranch alone since he was twenty-six. That his father died the year before Eli was born, and his mother moved to Austin to be near her sister, and Heeseung stayed because someone had to and because the land was in him the way some things get into people.

That Clara — his wife, Eli’s mother — left when Eli was two. Jay tells you this on a Wednesday evening when you’ve stayed past closing, helping him wipe down the counter because you were in the middle of a conversation and neither of you wanted to stop it, and he says it quietly, without the gossipy relish he sometimes deploys for lesser information. He says it like he’s trusting you with something.

“She wasn’t unhappy,” Jay says, wiping the same spot twice. “Or — she was, but not because of him. She was a person who needed more than this place could give her and she stayed too long trying to want what she had and then she left.” He sets down the cloth. “Eli was two. Heeseung — he didn’t fall apart. That’s the thing about him. He just. Kept going.” He looks at the counter. “He hasn’t let anyone close since. Not like that.”

You are quiet for a moment. “Why are you telling me this?”

Jay looks at you with his frank dark eyes and the expression of a man who has thought carefully about what he’s going to say. “Because you’re going to be around for a while,” he says. “And I think you should know who he is. The real shape of him.” A pause. “And because he asked about you again today.”

“Jay—”

“He asked if you seemed settled,” Jay says. “Same question as before. He asks it like it’s nothing.” He picks the cloth back up. “Heeseung doesn’t ask about people, is the thing. He notices them. He listens. But he doesn’t ask.” He looks at you. “He’s asking about you.”

You go home to the boarding house and sit at your writing desk for a long time without writing anything.

—

The week before the harvest dance, Eli presents you with a drawing.

This is not unprecedented — he has given you two previous drawings, one of Maple and one of what you eventually identified as the schoolhouse, rendered in the bold confident lines of a child who draws from feeling rather than observation. This one he places on your desk at the end of Friday with the elaborate casualness he deploys for things that matter to him.

You wait until the room is empty before you look at it. It is two figures. One small, one tall. The small one has a gap in its teeth rendered in careful pencil. The tall one has long hair and is wearing — you look closer — a dress with a collar, which is clearly you. They are standing in front of something you take a moment to identify as the paddock fence, and between them, taking up most of the page, is a horse. Brown. Maple, you think, though the horse has been given an expression of benevolent authority that transcends species.

At the bottom, in the large uneven letters of a child still mastering the relationship between thought and handwriting: MISS YN AND ELI. FRIENDS.

You sit with that for a long moment. Then you take a piece of tape and put it on the wall beside the blackboard, where you can see it from your desk, and you go home for the weekend with something warm sitting in your chest that you don’t try to name.

Saturday, the day before the harvest dance, you are in Jay’s diner mid-morning when Heeseung comes in. This is not unusual. He comes in most Saturday mornings, sometimes with Riki, sometimes alone, and you have in six weeks arrived at a kind of comfortable parallel presence with him — you are often there, he is often there, you talk easily when you talk and don’t force it when you don’t, and Jay watches the whole thing with the serene satisfaction of a man who has predicted an outcome and is waiting for everyone else to catch up.

Today he comes in alone and sits at the counter and orders coffee and then turns to you with his hat on the stool beside him and says: “You going to the dance tomorrow?”

“Mrs. Della seems to think I’m obligated,” you say.

The corner of his mouth. “She’s not wrong. First harvest dance as a Castillo Creek resident is non-negotiable.” He turns his coffee cup in his hands. “It’s good. They do it right.”

“Do you go every year?”

“Every year.” He pauses. “I usually take Eli for the first part. He passes out around nine and I bring him home and come back.”

“Who looks after him?”

“Bea stays late.” He glances at you sidelong. “She has opinions about the dance. Mostly that someone should be dancing and it might as well be me.”

You smile. “Sound advice.”

“Mm.” He is quiet for a moment in the comfortable way he does quiet. Then: “Would you want to — go over together? You and me and Eli. He’d like that.”

The way he says it: simple, direct, no particular performance of casualness but no weight on it either. Just an offer, made plainly. You look at him. He is looking at his coffee cup with the expression of a man who has said the thing and is now waiting without making it a big deal either way. “Yes,” you say. “I’d like that.”

He nods, once, and drinks his coffee, and Jay behind the counter turns to do something at the back shelf that absolutely does not require his attention, and the diner is warm and smells of coffee and something frying and outside the Texas October is going gold in the morning light.

That afternoon you go back to the boarding house and sit on the edge of the bed and look at the window.

Outside: the field, the flat land, the sky. You think about Richard. You do this less than you used to — the thinking about Richard — which is itself a kind of measurement of how much has shifted in six weeks. He is still there, the way a bruise is there: faded but present when you press on it, the particular combination of shame and anger that comes from having your own story told about you rather than by you. The thing he did was not dramatic. That is almost the worst of it. He simply — ended the engagement, and then explained it in a way that made people look at you, and you could not stay in a city where everyone was deciding what version of you to believe.

You think about what Jay said: He asks about you. You think about Eli’s drawing on the wall beside the blackboard. You think about a gate that swings clean on its hinge, and a man who knew how it worked all along.

You are being careful. You are allowed to be careful. A woman who has had her story taken from her is allowed to be careful about who she gives it back to. But you are also — and this is newer, tentative, growing in the way things grow in new soil when they finally get enough light — you are also here. Present, in this room, in this town, in this life that is beginning to feel less like a retreat and more like an arrival.

You look at the field and the sky until the light goes gold and then rose and then the soft dark blue of a Texas evening. Tomorrow there is a dance. Heeseung Lee is going to take you and his son and bring you home after, and this is a simple thing, a neighbourly thing, a Castillo Creek thing where everything means less than it would mean somewhere else.

Or it means exactly as much as it means, and you’re just going to have to find out.

Eli arrives at the boarding house at six o’clock exactly.

You hear him before you see him — the gate, then footsteps on the porch, then a knock that has clearly been practiced for being the right amount of grown-up. You come downstairs to find Mrs. Della already at the door with the expression of a woman who has been waiting for this moment since approximately Tuesday.

Eli is in a white shirt with the collar buttoned and his hair combed flat in a way that will not survive the evening. He is holding his hat in both hands the way his father holds his, you notice — at his side, turned slightly. He looks up at you and his face does something he can’t quite control, a brightness that he immediately tamps down into dignity. “Dad’s outside,” he says.

“You look very smart,” you tell him.

He stands slightly taller. “Bea made me tuck in,” he says, in the tone of a man who has suffered and endured. Behind you Mrs. Della makes a sound that is definitely not a laugh.

You have worn the blue dress. You own three dresses suitable for an evening out and the blue one has a collar and buttons down the front and a skirt that moves when you walk and it is the one that makes you feel most like yourself, which is the only criterion that matters tonight. You have your hair down, which you don’t do at school, and Mrs. Della’s good earrings which she pressed on you with the firmness of a woman who will not be argued with about earrings.

You step out onto the porch. Heeseung is at the foot of the steps. He is in a dark shirt, clean boots, his hat. He looks up when you come out and there is a moment — brief, unguarded — where his expression does something he doesn’t quite catch before the easy steadiness comes back. His eyes move over you once, quickly, and then he looks at Eli.

“Hat,” he says. Eli puts his hat on. “Good.” Heeseung looks back at you, and the corner of his mouth lifts. “Miss Y/N,” he says. “You look real nice.”

“Thank you,” you say. “So do you.”

He makes a small sound, not quite dismissive, like a man who doesn’t know what to do with a compliment offered plainly and has decided not to examine it. He offers his arm — an old-fashioned gesture, natural on him — and you take it, and Eli immediately takes your other hand with the confidence of someone who has decided this is simply how the arrangement works, and the three of you walk down the road toward the lights and the music already drifting from the community hall at the end of the street.

The harvest dance is, as advertised, done right. The community hall is a low timber building you’ve walked past without knowing what it was, and tonight it is strung with lanterns and smells of sawdust and food and the particular excitement of a town that doesn’t get many occasions. Tables along the walls hold enough food to feed Castillo Creek twice over — Mrs. Della has contributed a peach cobbler, which you carried over earlier, and it is already half gone. A four-piece band is set up at the far end: fiddle, guitar, upright bass, a woman on piano who plays with her whole body. The dancing has already started, couples moving on the cleared floor, children weaving between adult legs at the edges.

The town turns to look when you walk in. Not unpleasantly — it is the small-town version of a head-turn, curious and warm, the collective noting of Heeseung Lee with the new schoolteacher that you can feel passing through the room like a current. Several women note it with expressions ranging from warmly approving to something more carefully neutral, which tells you what Jay has already told you about the general feeling toward the man beside you.

Heeseung appears to notice none of it. He steers you toward Jay, who is leaning against the far wall with a plate of food and the expression of a man who has been looking forward to tonight for reasons that are entirely about watching other people. “Well,” Jay says, looking between you with magnificent restraint, “don’t you both clean up nice.”

“Food’s good,” Heeseung says, ignoring this.

“I made the cornbread.”

“I know. I already had some.” He looks at Eli, who has been scanning the room with the efficient tactical assessment of a child locating friends. “Stay where I can see you.”

Eli is already gone. Heeseung watches him go with the particular expression of a parent who knows better than to fight it and has positioned himself where he can see the whole room.

The evening unfolds the way good evenings do: without agenda, in the accumulation of small moments. You eat. Jay introduces you to people you haven’t met, which turns out to be fewer than you expected — you know more of Castillo Creek than you realised, the six weeks of main street mornings and school gate conversations having done their quiet work. Mr. and Mrs. Holt from the farm to the north, who have a daughter in your class — Ruth, the one who does everything left-handed and ambidextrously, a fact you have been admiring for weeks. Old Pete from the hardware store, who shakes your hand and says “you fixed the school gate” with the respect of a man who rates practical competence above most other virtues. The minister’s wife, who is warm and enormous and has clearly decided you are good people and broadcasts this to the room through sheer force of conviction.

Heeseung stays near you without being beside you constantly — he moves through the room the way you’ve noticed he does, at ease everywhere, known to everyone, the smile given genuinely and the name remembered for everyone he talks to. Women approach him with the practised ease of long familiarity and he is warm and kind to all of them and doesn’t linger with any of them and drifts back in your direction after each one with the reliability of water finding level. Jay watches this and eats his cornbread and says nothing, which from Jay is extremely loud.

Eli reappears at intervals to report on things of importance: that Tommy has had four pieces of pie, that someone’s dog has got in and is under the far table, that the fiddle player has a hole in his boot which Eli finds compelling for reasons he can’t fully articulate. Each time he appears he is slightly more dishevelled — the collar loosened by degree, the hair no longer remotely flat, a smear of something on his cuff that you choose not to investigate.

The ninth time he appears he is pulling someone by the hand. “Miss Y/N,” he says, with great ceremony, “this is my friend Cody. Cody, this is my teacher. She’s from Chicago and she knows what a dialect is.”

Cody, who is approximately Eli’s age and has the look of a child who has eaten too much pie, nods with solemnity. “What’s a dialect?” he asks you. You explain it, briefly, and both boys listen with their heads slightly tilted, and Heeseung beside you makes a sound very low in his chest that is a laugh he has decided not to have.

The boys disappear again. You look up at Heeseung. He is already looking somewhere else, but his mouth is still doing the almost-laugh. “He’s been telling people that for weeks,” he says. “The dialect thing.”

“I know,” you say. “Grace told me he explained it to the minister’s wife.” The laugh escapes this time, quiet and genuine, and the shape it makes of his face is something you file away without meaning to.

The band shifts tempo around eight. The faster songs have been running for most of the evening — the kind of music that makes your feet move without asking — and now the fiddle drops into something slower, longer, the bass underneath it steady and low. Couples move differently on the floor. The children at the edges drift toward the food tables.

You are by the lantern at the far wall when Heeseung appears beside you. “Dance with me,” he says.

Not would you like to or may I have this — just dance with me, quiet and direct, the way he says most things, like an offer that trusts you to say no if you want to. You look at him. The lantern light is warm on his face, the hat casting a slight shadow, and he is watching you with the patient steadiness that is simply how he is — unhurried, undemanding, there. “Alright,” you say.

He takes your hand and leads you to the floor and puts his other hand at your waist, and you are aware of the warm weight of it through the blue dress, and you put your hand on his shoulder and you dance.

He is good at it. Not showy — he doesn’t have the look of a man who thinks about whether he’s good at things — but easy and sure, the same way he moves through everything. He leads without being heavy about it, and after the first few measures you stop thinking and just follow, and the music goes slow and the lanterns are warm and the whole room is soft at the edges. “You’re surprised I can dance,” he says.

“A little,” you admit.

“My mother’s doing.” Something fond in it. “She said a man who can’t dance is a man who doesn’t know how to listen.” He tilts his head slightly. “She’s right about most things.”

“She sounds formidable.”

“She’d like you.” He says it simply, without apparent awareness of what it implies, and you think: he means it exactly as plainly as he said it, which is somehow more significant than if he’d been trying.

You dance without talking for a while. The fiddle goes somewhere low and sweet. Around you other couples turn slowly, and across the room you can see Jay watching with the expression of a man witnessing the inevitable and finding it satisfying. “Can I ask you something?” Heeseung says.

“Yes.”

“Why Castillo Creek?” He looks at you — not the look he uses on everyone, the warm social look, but something quieter and more direct, the look you’ve caught a few times when he doesn’t know you’re watching. “Of all the places.”

“It was the furthest,” you say. You’ve given this answer before, half-answer that it is, and you feel him register the incompleteness of it.

He doesn’t push. He nods once, slow. “Were you running from something?” he asks. Gently. No judgment in it, just the question, open-handed.

The music turns. You consider him — the steadiness of him, the patience, the careful way he holds you on the dance floor like something he doesn’t want to break but also doesn’t want to handle too gingerly. “Yes,” you say. First time you’ve said it plainly.

He absorbs this. “You don’t have to tell me what,” he says.

“I know.”

“But if you ever want to—” he stops. Starts again. “I’m not going anywhere.”

I’m not going anywhere. Said so simply, with no particular weight on it, just a fact, and yet it lands in you somewhere deep and quiet and stays there like something settling.

“Thank you,” you say. He nods. You dance.

Eli falls asleep in a chair at half past eight. Not gracefully — he is mid-sentence, apparently, Cody reports, about something to do with the dog, and then he simply isn’t anymore. He is curled in the chair with his hat over his face in a pose of complete unconscious dignity, and Heeseung looks at him for a moment with an expression that is purely and simply love, uncomplicated by anything else. “I’ll take him home,” he says.

“Of course.” You help him get the boy upright — Eli stirs briefly, says something about the dog, and goes back under — and Heeseung lifts him with the ease of long practice, the boy’s head dropping onto his shoulder.

“Come back,” Jay says, appearing from nowhere.

“Give me twenty minutes,” Heeseung says. He looks at you over Eli’s sleeping head. “Will you—” a pause, something careful in it. “Will you still be here?”

“Yes,” you say. He holds your gaze for a moment. Then he nods, and carries his son home through the warm October night, and you go back to Jay and the music and the lanterns and the feeling of a hand at your waist that you can still feel even though it’s gone.

“Well,” says Jay.

“Don’t,” you say. He puts his hands up, peaceable, and hands you a glass of lemonade. But he is smiling.

Heeseung is back in eighteen minutes. You are talking to Mrs. Holt when you see him come through the door, hat resettled, and he finds you in the room immediately — doesn’t scan for you, just finds you, the way you find a light when you walk into a dark room. He comes over and Mrs. Holt makes a gracious excuse and leaves, and he stands beside you and accepts the glass of lemonade you’ve been holding for him without either of you remarking on why you knew to have it.

The band starts something slow again. Heeseung looks at you. You look at him. “Again?” he says.

“Again,” you say.

This time when he puts his hand at your waist you don’t catalogue it, don’t file it, don’t hold it at a careful distance to examine later. You just — let it be what it is, warm and steady and real, his hand and your shoulder and the fiddle going slow and the lanterns burning low, and if the space between you is slightly less than it was the first time then neither of you mentions it.

You dance until the band stops for a break and then you get food and eat it on the hall steps in the cool October night and talk — easily, unhurriedly — about nothing much and everything, the ranch and the classroom and things you’ve read and things you’ve seen, the way a conversation goes when two people discover they have more to say to each other than they anticipated.

At some point you become aware that the music has started again inside and neither of you has moved to go back in. At some point after that you become aware that your shoulders are nearly touching on the step and neither of you has moved apart.

The night is clear, stars enormous in that Texas sky that has too much room in it, the music muffled through the wall, and Heeseung is talking about the ranch in winter and you are listening and also listening to the warm unhurried sound of his voice and the night is soft and something is very quietly happening, the way things happen in new soil: without announcement, without drama, just the steady irresistible work of growing.

He walks you home at eleven. The street is quiet, the dance still going distantly, the air cool and smelling of dust and something dry and sweet. He walks beside you with his hands in his pockets and you walk with your arms crossed against the chill and at the boarding house gate you stop. He is looking at you.

The porch light is on — Mrs. Della — and in it his face is all warm shadow and that particular steadiness, and you are aware that this is a moment, the kind that has a before and after, and that you are both standing in it. “I had a good night,” you say.

“Me too,” he says. Quiet. Sincere. A pause. The street is empty. The stars are doing what they do.

He reaches out — slowly, deliberately, giving you every opportunity — and tucks a strand of hair back from your face, his fingers barely grazing your cheek, and it is such a small thing, so careful, and it takes your breath in a way that no grand gesture ever has. He drops his hand. “Goodnight, darlin’,” he says. Soft. Just yours.

“Goodnight,” you say. He tips his hat and walks back down the street and you watch him go and then you go inside and you sit on the edge of your bed in the dark and you press your fingers to your cheek where his hand was.

Outside the stars are enormous. New soil, you think. Something’s growing.

—

Nothing is said. This is the thing about Heeseung Lee — he does not press. He does not arrive at the schoolhouse the next morning with declarations or at Jay’s diner with meaningful looks or at the boarding house gate with anything that requires you to respond to it formally. He simply — continues. Being present in the way he is always present, warm and steady and unhurried, and the only difference after the harvest dance is a slight calibration in the frequency with which he finds reasons to be near you, and the way the darlin’ sounds when it’s only the two of you, lower and more deliberate, like a word that has been renegotiated.

You continue also. Teaching, reading, eating Jay’s pie, watching the season turn. But you are aware of him now in a way that has moved past noticing into something more like — waiting. Not anxiously. Just the particular heightened attention of a person who has begun to understand that something is being built, slowly, with care, and who has decided to trust the pace of it.

Eli notices. Of course Eli notices. He is seven and perceptive and he has his father’s eyes. He doesn’t say anything directly — he is too clever for direct — but the quality of his watching changes. He begins positioning himself as a reason for the two of you to be in the same place. Dad, can Miss Y/N come see the new foal. Miss, Dad says you should have Bea’s recipe for the cornbread. The transparent architecture of a child conducting an operation he believes to be covert, and which you and Heeseung have both silently agreed to treat as such because he is seven and it is working and no one is going to be the one to make him stop.

The new foal is three weeks old when Eli invites you to see it, and it has not yet decided what its legs are for. Eli brings you to the ranch on the second Saturday of October — I asked Dad and he said yes and also that it was fine if you were busy but you’re not busy, right? — and the foal is in the small paddock nearest the stable, bewilderingly long-limbed, a dark bay that will probably lighten as she grows. She looks at you when you approach the fence with the expression of a creature that has been in the world twenty-one days and has not yet accumulated the patience to find humans interesting. “She doesn’t have a name yet,” Eli says. “Dad said I could name her.”

“What are you thinking?”

He has clearly been thinking about it for days and has not decided, which is unusual for him — he is not generally a boy who holds back opinions. He leans on the fence rail and watches the foal with unusual gravity. “It has to be right,” he says.

“It does,” you agree. Heeseung is on the other side of Eli, his arms resting on the fence, watching the foal with the particular quiet warmth he reserves for the ranch and for his son. He glances over Eli’s head at you and something passes between you — amusement, tenderness, the shared appreciation of a child being serious about something — and it is so easy, so natural, that for a moment you don’t know what to do with how easy it is.

“What about Chicago?” Eli says. Casually. You look at him. He is studying the foal. “The horse you name,” Heeseung adds. “The barn cat?”

“The barn cat’s name is Chicago,” you tell Heeseung.

“I know,” he says. He is looking at the foal. His mouth is doing the thing. “He named it the day you came to the ranch.”

Eli has achieved maximum innocence, his face a study in disinterest.

“I think Chicago is a good name,” you say. The foal, as if in response, takes three uncertain steps and sits down abruptly.

Eli looks at his father. His father looks at you. You look at the foal, sitting in the dirt with its legs at improbable angles and its ears pricked forward as if this was entirely the plan. You all three start laughing at the same moment.

Riki makes coffee. This has become a thing — the coffee on the porch, the late morning sun, the ranch quiet around you. You have been to Sunrise Ranch four times now and each time it has arranged itself into the same comfortable shape: Eli showing you something, Heeseung nearby, Riki appearing and disappearing like a benevolent ghost, Bea’s food involved at some point, the afternoon light eventually demanding that you walk back to town.

Today Riki sits on the porch steps with his cup and looks out at the paddock where Chicago the foal is attempting, again, to organise her legs. “She’s going to be good,” he says, about the foal. “Look at the shoulder on her.”

“You know horses?” you ask.

“Mr. Lee taught me.” He says it simply, the way he says most things about Heeseung, with that uncomplicated weight of someone describing a fact that is also a debt he’s decided he’s glad to owe. “When I first came here I didn’t know anything about any of this. I just needed work.” He drinks his coffee. “He didn’t ask a lot of questions. He said: here’s the work, here’s the room, the rest we’ll figure out. And then he just — showed me things. Every day. How to work the land, how to read a horse, how to fix what breaks.” A pause. “He does that. Shows rather than tells.”

You think of the riding lesson. Heels down. Hands soft. Don’t grip. Breathe. And then stepping back and watching from the fence to see what you’d do on your own. “Yes,” you say. “He does.”

Riki glances at you with his dark eyes and the particular directness of someone who is not quite nineteen yet and hasn’t learned to be oblique about what he observes. “He’s happy,” he says. “More than usual. I thought you should know.”

You look at your coffee cup. The morning is warm and still.

“Thank you, Riki,” you say. He nods and goes back to watching the foal, and the matter is settled, and you sit on the porch of Sunrise Ranch in the October sun and feel the particular quiet terror of something you want very much beginning to feel possible.

—

The almost-kiss happens on a Wednesday. It is not planned. It is not even exactly an almost-kiss, which is perhaps the most honest thing about it — it is more a moment in which a kiss becomes a possibility that both of you become aware of simultaneously, and the awareness itself is so charged that it amounts to nearly the same thing.

You have stayed late at the schoolhouse marking reading assessments, the kind of work that requires the particular quiet of an empty room, and you are still there at five when you hear the gate and look up to see Heeseung coming through it with something in his hand. He stops at the foot of the steps. “Bea sent this.” He holds up a cloth-wrapped parcel. “She made too much.”

Bea, you have come to understand, always makes too much. This is not accidental. “Tell her thank you,” you say.

“You tell her. She likes you more than she likes me.” He comes up the steps — this is newer, the coming up the steps, the crossing of the porch — and you open the door and he follows you inside because the light is going and neither of you suggests he leave.

He sets the parcel on your desk and looks at the wall beside the blackboard. Eli’s drawing. He looks at it for a long moment without saying anything. “He gave it to me on a Friday,” you say. “I put it up that evening.”

Heeseung is quiet. In the low afternoon light his profile is — you don’t look directly. You tidy the papers on your desk. But you are aware of him in the specific physical way you have been aware of him since the harvest dance, a warmth that doesn’t require proximity to function, that exists simply because he is in the room. “He doesn’t give drawings to people,” Heeseung says, finally.

“I know.”

“He gave one to Jay once.” A pause. “Jay cried.”

“Did he?” You let out an amused breath.

“He’ll tell you he didn’t.” He turns from the wall and the small distance of the schoolroom is between you, both of you standing in the last of the afternoon light through the windows, the assessment papers on the desk and Bea’s parcel beside them and the drawing on the wall. “You’ve been good for him,” he says. “For Eli.”

“He’s been good for me,” you say. Heeseung looks at you. The directness of it, steady and warm and something beneath it that is no longer entirely hidden from you — something careful and wanting and very, very controlled.

He takes a step. Just one. The room is small and one step is a significant renegotiation of the space between you, and you are aware of your own stillness, the way you are not moving away, the way you are — you realise — leaning, fractionally, toward him.

His hand comes up. The same gesture as the gate night — slow, deliberate, no ambiguity about the intention — and his fingers brush your jaw, not your cheek this time but your jaw, tilting your face up very slightly. He looks at you. You look at him. The moment is right there, the exact shape of it, and you can feel his breath and the warmth of his hand and the whole quiet room holding itself still— the gate.

You both hear it. A second later: footsteps on the porch, and Eli’s voice, Dad? Riki said you came here, and the door opens.

Heeseung’s hand drops. He steps back — not hastily, not guilty, just back — and turns toward the door as Eli comes through it with his schoolbag still on his shoulder from wherever he’s been, looking between the two of you with eyes that miss nothing.

“Bea sent food,” Heeseung says.

Eli looks at the parcel. Looks at you. Looks at his father. He is seven years old and he has the perceptive assessment of someone three times that age and you watch him put something together behind his eyes and decide, with great and deliberate charity, not to say it. “Okay,” he says. He drops his bag. “Can I have some?”

—

November comes in quietly. The cold arrives properly now, the mornings sharp, the light later. You have a proper coat from the general store — Castillo Creek wool, practically indestructible, Mrs. Della’s recommendation — and your own boots now, bought from the hardware store with the heel worn to fit your foot. You are, you realise one morning walking to the schoolhouse in the frost, no longer performing belonging. You just — belong. In the small ordinary way of someone who knows which floorboards creak and which gate sticks and which order to say good morning to the main street in. This is a thing you didn’t know you needed until you had it.

The children change too — they are yours now, fully, in the way a class becomes yours when they’ve stopped watching you to see if you’ll stay and started simply assuming you will. Tommy does his arithmetic left-handed and his numbers come out clean. Clara has read everything on the bookshelf and you’ve started lending her your own. The new books arrived last week from the county — three boxes, more than you expected, apparently the board received two letters — and the morning you unpacked them Eli said did you write two letters? and you said the second one was more strongly worded and he looked at you with pure satisfaction and said good.

Grace organises the shelf. Eli helps whether or not he’s asked. The little ones treat the new books with the reverence of sacred objects, which is the correct response.

The second time it almost happens is on your porch. Heeseung walks you home from the diner on a Friday — you’ve fallen into this, the Friday evenings at Jay’s that end with him walking you the two blocks home — and at the gate he stops, as he always does, and you turn, as you always do.

But tonight is different. Maybe it’s the cold, the way it makes the air sharp and close. Maybe it’s the week that’s been — Eli had a difficult day on Tuesday, something about a boy from another farm saying something about his mother, and he’d been quiet for three days until this evening when he’d appeared at Jay’s with Heeseung and been loud enough to make up for it, and you’d watched Heeseung watch his son come back to himself and felt something in your chest pull tight with feeling.

Maybe it’s just that you’re tired of the careful distance and your body is making decisions your head hasn’t approved.

You are at the gate and he is looking at you and the cold is making your breath visible between you and you say, before you’ve decided to: “You could come in.” He goes still. “For coffee,” you say. “Mrs. Della makes it before bed. She won’t mind.”

He looks at you for a long moment. The street is empty and dark and cold and the porch light is on and he is — you watch him weigh something, watch the careful consideration of a man who has learned the cost of moving without thinking, and you wait, and you don’t take it back.

“Not tonight,” he says. Quietly. Not as a rejection — the quality of it is entirely different from rejection, warm and regretful and something else, something that sounds almost like not yet. His eyes hold yours. “But—” he stops.

“But?” you say.

His hand finds yours, briefly, in the cold — not holding, just his fingers over yours for a moment, warm against the chill, a contact so small it might be nothing and is absolutely not nothing. “Soon,” he says.

You look at your hands. His fingers over yours. “Okay,” you say.

He squeezes once and lets go and steps back. Tips his hat. “Goodnight, darlin’.”

“Goodnight.” You go inside. You stand in the hallway for a moment with your hand held against your chest. Soon, you think.

Outside, his footsteps on the road, going home.

Tuesday in the third week of November, after school, after everyone has gone, the room is empty and the light low and you are at your desk and Heeseung has come — ostensibly to fix the wobbling chair leg, he appeared with a tool and a particular determined expression — and has fixed it and straightened up and you are still at the desk and the room is quiet and the space between you is approximately nothing.

He looks at you. You look at him. You say: “Heeseung.” Just his name. No question in it, no instruction, just the sound of it in the empty room, and something in him — the careful controlled something — gives way.

He crosses the room and his hands find your face and he kisses you.

Gently. Almost unbearably gently for a man who has been waiting this long — his mouth soft on yours, one hand curved around your jaw and one in your hair, the kiss slow and thorough and so tender that you feel it behind your eyes. He kisses you like he has all the time in the world and intends to use it, like he’s been thinking about exactly this and is in no hurry now that he’s here.

You make a sound, quiet and involuntary, and his hands tighten slightly in your hair — controlled, so controlled — and then he pulls back just enough to look at you, your face between his hands, his forehead almost touching yours. “Been wanting to do that,” he says, low, “since the diner.”

“The first morning?” you say. Your voice is not entirely steady.

“The first morning,” he confirms.

You pull him back down. This kiss is different — less tender, more certain, the both of you having established the territory now and moving through it with more confidence. His hands stay in your hair and at your jaw and you have one hand in his shirt and one on his arm and the chair leg is fixed and the school room is empty and the afternoon is going dark outside the windows.

Eventually — reluctantly — you separate. He rests his forehead against yours. His breathing is not entirely steady either, which you find deeply satisfying. His thumb moves along your jaw, once. “Eli’s at the ranch,” he says.

“I know.”

“Riki’s with him.”

“I know.” He pulls back enough to look at you properly. The expression on his face is something you haven’t seen before — open, unguarded, the steadiness still there but with something warmer beneath it, something that has stopped being controlled.

You look at him. This man who fixes things slowly and holds gates open and walks beside you without filling every silence and has been waiting, you realise, as carefully as you have — the both of you circling something real at a respectful distance because you both know the cost of getting it wrong. “Not here,” you say. “Not yet.”

He nods immediately, no argument, no pressure. “No.” He straightens. His hand drops from your jaw to your shoulder, rests there for a moment. “Soon.”

“Soon,” you agree.

He kisses you once more — brief, deliberate, a punctuation — and steps back and picks up his tool from the floor. At the door he pauses with his hand on the frame. “Fixed the chair,” he says.

“Thank you,” you say.

The corner of his mouth. He puts his hat on. He goes. You sit in the fixed chair in the empty schoolroom with your fingers at your lips and the particular feeling of someone standing at the very edge of something they’ve been walking toward for a long time.

Outside: Castillo Creek, going dark, going cold, going quiet. Inside: something beginning.

—

You don’t see him come in — you’re at the schoolhouse, mid-morning, working fractions with the older children while the little ones do their letters — but the town sees him, which amounts to the same thing. A black car, which is the first thing, because nobody in Castillo Creek drives a black car, everyone drives trucks with dust on them, and a black car with city plates sitting outside the boarding house is the kind of thing that travels the length of the main street in approximately four minutes.

Jay tells you at lunch. He appears at the schoolhouse gate during the midday break with his hands in his apron pockets and the expression of a man who has information he doesn’t want to deliver but will, because not delivering it would be worse. “Someone checked into Mrs. Della’s this morning,” he says.

You are eating a sandwich on the porch steps. “Who?”

“Man from Chicago.” He watches your face. “Name of Calloway.”

The sandwich stops being something you’re interested in. Jay sees it — the thing that happens to your face, the quick controlled shutting-down of it, the composed face coming up like a shutter. He sees it and his expression does something careful and angry on your behalf. “Richard,” you say. Not a question.

“Mrs. Della said he asked for you by name.” Jay’s voice is even, but only just. “Said he was an old friend.”

You set the sandwich down on the step beside you. In the yard the children are playing — Eli is attempting to teach Cody something that involves a great deal of running, unclear objective, self-invented rules — and the sound of them is bright and ordinary and very far away from the thing that is happening in your chest. “How long is he staying?” you say.

“Didn’t say.” Jay pauses. “You don’t have to see him. I mean it. You don’t have to do a single thing.”

“I know, Jay.” You look at the yard. Eli has apparently won whatever the game was and is explaining this to Cody with both hands. “Thank you for telling me.”

Jay looks at you for a long moment with the expression of a man who wants to say more and knows you well enough to know not to. “I’ll be at the diner,” he says. “All night if you need.” He goes. You sit on the steps and watch the children play and breathe.

You see Richard in town at four o’clock. You don’t plan it — or rather you plan to not plan it, to go home the back way and avoid the main street, but you have never been a person who runs from things indefinitely, which is different from a person who retreats to regroup, which is what Castillo Creek was supposed to be, and the distinction matters to you.

So you walk the main street at four. He is outside the general store. Six months since you’ve seen him and he looks exactly the same, which is the particular cruelty of certain kinds of men — Richard Calloway at thirty has the same easy handsomeness he had at twenty-five, the good jaw and the good clothes and the way of standing that broadcasts money without appearing to try. He is talking to Mr. Gus from the hardware store with the particular charm he deploys on strangers, warm and attentive, and Mr. Gus, who is a perfectly reasonable man, appears to be finding him perfectly reasonable.

Richard sees you at the same moment you see him. “Y/N,” he says. He says it the way he’s always said your name — with a kind of ownership, like the name is his to use, like he coined it. Six months ago that sound did something to you. Now it does something different: a cold clarity, like being fully awake.

“Richard,” you say. Mr. Gus, sensing something, makes a gracious excuse and goes inside.

Richard crosses the distance between you with that easy unhurried gait. He is looking at you the way he always looked at you — the assessing look, cataloguing, deciding what he’s working with. He looks at your coat, your boots, the dust on them. “You look well,” he says.

“What are you doing here?”

No preamble. His expression flickers — he expected something else, you can tell, some version of the composed uncertainty he knew how to work with — and then recalibrates. “I wanted to see you.” He tilts his head. “I’ve been worried. Your mother has been worried.”

“My mother knows where I am.”

“She knows where you are.” He glances around — the main street, the hardware store, the distant sound of the diner — with an expression that is almost too carefully neutral. “She’s less certain about why.”

“I am,” you say. “Certain about why.”

Something moves through his expression. Not hurt — Richard doesn’t do hurt, exactly, he does the performance of it — but something more like recalculation. He has come here with a script and you are not following it and he is deciding which page to go to next. “Can we talk?” he says. “Properly. Not — here.”

“Not today,” you say.

“Y/N—”

“I need to get home,” you say. “I have work to do.” You walk past him. You feel his gaze on your back the whole length of the street and you keep your spine straight and your pace even and you do not look back, and you turn the corner to the boarding house and you stand in the hallway for thirty seconds with your hand flat against the wall.

Then you go upstairs and sit at your desk and write lesson plans for the following week with the particular furious focus of a woman who knows exactly what she’s doing and exactly why.

He stays.

This is what you didn’t account for — or what you knew, somewhere, and didn’t want to know: that Richard Calloway does not come somewhere and leave without getting what he came for, because Richard Calloway has not, in thirty years of life, not gotten a thing he came for. He is patient in the manner of a man who has never had to be truly patient, which is a different thing from Heeseung’s patience — Heeseung’s patience is the patience of someone who understands that good things take the time they take. Richard’s patience is the patience of someone who is simply waiting for the situation to arrange itself correctly.

He is in the diner on Friday morning when you come in. He has clearly been there a while — Jay’s expression when you walk in tells you everything, the tight professional smile of a man maintaining composure in his own establishment — and Richard stands when he sees you with the automatic courtesy of old money and gestures at the booth across from him like you’ve just arrived somewhere he owns.

You sit at the counter instead. Jay puts coffee in front of you without being asked and goes to the back. Richard slides onto the stool beside you. “Your friend doesn’t like me,” he says pleasantly.

“Jay doesn’t know you,” you say. “He’s good at people.”

A flicker. “I see you haven’t lost your—” he pauses, finds the word “—sharpness.”

“I’ve been busy,” you say. “Teaching.”

“Yes.” He turns his cup in his hands. This is a gesture you know — he does it when he’s choosing his approach, the hand movement while he thinks. “You’re a good teacher, Y/N. You were always good at it. You could be doing it in Chicago. Somewhere with—” he doesn’t finish it but you hear it: resources, standing, people like us.

“I like it here,” you say.

“You’ve been here two months.”

“Ten weeks.”

“Ten weeks,” he says. “In a town with four hundred people.” He looks at you sidelong. “Is this really what you want? Or is it just — the furthest you could get?”

The question lands because he knows you well enough to know it might. You drink your coffee.

“Both,” you say. “And then it became what I wanted.”

He is quiet for a moment. Then, lower, the charm dialed back, something more direct underneath: “I made a mistake.” You look at him. “The way I handled things,” he says. “The way I — let people talk.” He meets your eyes. “I should have been clearer. About what happened.”

“What did happen, Richard?” you say. “Tell me your version.”

Something careful moves through his face. “We weren’t right for each other. I should have said that, instead of—”

“Instead of implying that I was unstable,” you say pleasantly. “Instead of telling your mother that I had become erratic, which she told her friends, which—” you stop. The composed face. “You know what was said. You know what it cost me.”

“That’s why I’m here,” he says. “I want to make it right.”

“By coming here,” you say. “To this town with four hundred people where I have managed, without your help, to make a life.”

He looks at you. His jaw is set slightly. “Come home,” he says. “That’s all I’m asking. Come home and we can—”

“No,” you say. Quietly. No drama. Just no, the way you should have been saying it for the two years you spent trying to become something that would satisfy him.

You finish your coffee. You put the money on the counter. You stand. “I hope you enjoy the rest of your visit,” you say. “The peach pie is very good.” You walk out. Behind you the bell chimes.

You don’t tell Heeseung. This is the thing you’ll come back to later — not telling him. It’s not deception, exactly, or you tell yourself it isn’t. It is the particular guarded instinct of a woman who has had her story taken from her once and is not ready yet to hand it to someone else to hold, even someone she trusts, even someone whose hands are the careful kind.

But Castillo Creek is four hundred people and a black city car parked on the main street and Richard Calloway has his father’s charm and the town is talking.

Jay doesn’t tell him either — you don’t have to ask, Jay simply knows — but Jay also cannot control what a town talks about, and towns talk.

You are outside the schoolhouse at half past four, gate latched behind you, walking toward the main street, and Richard is there.

He has been doing this — appearing at the edges of your day, not enough to be a confrontation, enough to be a reminder. Outside the general store, at the end of the street when you’re walking from the diner, once at the boarding house gate, though he didn’t approach that time, just stood at the end of the road as you went in.

Today he is at the corner near the schoolhouse and when you come through the gate he falls into step beside you. “I need you to stop,” you say.

“I just want to talk.”

“We’ve talked.”

“Y/N.” He takes your arm. Not hard — he’s never hard, that’s not how he operates, Richard operates through persistence and charm and the slow rewriting of reality until you can’t find the original — his hand on your arm, a familiar gesture from a thousand ordinary moments, the gesture of someone who knows where your arm is.

“Let go,” you say.

He does. Immediately, palms up, the gesture of a reasonable man. “I’m sorry. I just—”

“Richard.” Quietly. Firmly. “Go home.”

You step around him and walk. You don’t see Heeseung at the end of the street. But he sees you.

He doesn’t come to the diner on Friday. This is the first Friday in all the weeks you’ve been here that he doesn’t come. Jay notices — of course Jay notices, Jay notices everything — and he watches the door and watches you and keeps your cup full and doesn’t say anything, which from Jay means he is thinking very carefully about what not to say. You notice the absence like a change in weather. A front coming in.

He doesn’t come on Saturday either. Eli is in town — you see him outside the general store with Riki, who gives you a look you can’t fully interpret, something complicated — and Eli waves but doesn’t run over, which is so unlike him that something cold and certain settles in your stomach. You go to Jay. “What does he think he saw?” you say.

Jay is wiping the counter. He wipes it for a while. “Man from the city with his hand on your arm,” he says finally. “Outside the schoolhouse.”

“Richard grabbed my arm. I told him to let go. He did.”

“I know that.”

“Heeseung doesn’t.”

Jay sets down the cloth. He looks at you with the expression of a man who cares about two people who are being stupid at each other and has to navigate this carefully. “He didn’t ask me,” he says. “Which tells you something. If he thought it was nothing he would’ve asked.” You look at the counter. “He’s not angry,” Jay says. “He’s just — he’s gone back inside himself. The way he does.” He pauses. “You know about Clara.”

“I know she left.”

“He watched her talk to someone for a week before she told him she was going. He came home one day and she was packed.” Jay says it plainly, not for drama, just because you need to know the shape of what’s happening. “He doesn’t — he doesn’t do this consciously. It’s just where he goes. When it looks like someone’s about to leave.”

“I’m not leaving,” you say.

“I know.”

“He doesn’t know why Richard is here.”

“No.”

You are quiet for a moment. The diner is warm around you, the smell of coffee and the distant sound of the radio, and outside the window the main street is grey and cold under the November sky. “I should have told him,” you say.

“Yes,” Jay says, not unkindly. “You should have.”

—

Riki appears at the boarding house in the early morning of Sunday with his hands in his pockets and the look of someone who has decided to do something and is committed to seeing it through. You sit on the porch together in the cold and he looks at the street. “He’s not eating properly,” Riki says.

“Riki—”

“I’m not saying it to make you feel bad. I’m saying it because you should know what’s happening over there.” He looks at his hands. “He got up at four this morning and went out to the fence line and I don’t know when he came back.” He pauses. “Eli asked him why you hadn’t visited and he said you were probably busy. Eli didn’t believe him. He’s seven and he didn’t believe him.” You close your eyes briefly. “The man from the city,” Riki says. “Who is he?”

“My ex-fiancé,” you say. “He came here to bring me back. I told him no. What Heeseung saw—” you stop. “It wasn’t what it looked like.”

Riki is quiet for a moment. “He won’t ask,” he says. “He’ll just—” he does a gesture, a closing-in, both hands coming together. “He’ll just decide it’s already over and start making peace with it. He does it fast. He had a lot of practice.”

The cold is sharp on the porch and the street is empty and you think about a man up at four in the morning walking a fence line alone. “I’m going to the ranch,” you say.

Riki stands. “Good,” he says. Simply. And goes back down the porch steps and up the road, and you watch him go and then you go inside and put your coat on.

The ranch is quiet in the Sunday morning. Heeseung is at the paddock fence when you come through the gate — you know his shape at this distance now, the particular way he stands, the hat — and he turns when he hears you and goes very still. You walk toward him. The cold air is clean and the horses move slow in the paddock and the sky is white and enormous.

You stop at the fence beside him. He looks at you — that careful, closed look, the inside-self look that Jay described, and underneath it something that is trying very hard to be nothing and isn’t.

“His name is Richard Calloway,” you say. “He was my fiancé. He ended our engagement and made sure the story that circulated made me look like the problem. I came here because I needed to be somewhere no one knew that story.” You look at the paddock. “He came here to bring me back. I told him no. What you saw — he took my arm. I told him to let go. He did. And then I walked away.” Heeseung is very quiet beside you.

“I should have told you he was here,” you say. “I know that. I was—” you stop. Find the honest word. “I was holding it. My own story. I’ve had it taken from me before and I wasn’t ready to hand it to someone else yet, even someone I—” you stop again.

The paddock. The white sky. Chicago the foal, visible at the far end, picking her way through the grass. “Even someone I trust,” you finish.

A long silence. “He’s gone?” Heeseung says. His voice is careful. Controlled.

“He left yesterday morning,” you say. “Mrs. Della told me.”

Another silence. You can hear him breathing beside you, and the sound of it — the slight unevenness of it — tells you more than anything he’s said. “I thought—” he starts. Stops. Jaw tight. Starts again: “When I saw him with his hand on your arm I thought—”

“I know what you thought,” you say, gently. “I know why you thought it.”

He looks at you then. The inside face, still there, but cracking slightly at the edges. “I don’t do this well,” he says. “The—” he stops. “I’m not good at trusting that people—” another stop. He takes his hat off and turns it in his hands, looking at the brim. “I had six years of practice at being fine on my own and I got good at it.”

“I know,” you say.

“And then you came here,” he says. Quietly. “And Eli drew you on his wall.” Your chest does the thing it does. “And I started—” he stops again. The hat in his hands. “Getting bad at being fine on my own.”

You reach out and put your hand over his on the fence rail. Just your hand over his, the way he did at the boarding house gate in the cold, that same small warm contact. He looks at your hand. “I’m not going anywhere,” you say. “I fixed the gate. I’m staying.”

Something in him — the closed, careful, six-years-practiced something — gives. Not all at once, not dramatically. Just a breath, long and slow, and his hand turning under yours so his fingers can close around it. “Okay,” he says.

You stand at the fence in the cold white morning with his hand around yours and the horses moving slow in the paddock and the whole quiet ranch around you.

“I have to tell you something else,” you say.

“Alright.”

“I’ve been in love with you since approximately the harvest dance,” you say. “Possibly since the coffee in the stable. I’m not sure of the exact date.”

Heeseung is quiet for one moment. Then he makes a sound — low and startled and something that becomes a laugh, helpless, the kind that alters his whole face — and he pulls you toward him, one hand at the back of your head, and presses his mouth to your hair, your temple, and holds you there against the paddock fence in the November cold. “The coffee in the stable,” he says, into your hair.

“You’d already made two cups,” you say. “You knew I was coming.”

He laughs again, quieter. His arm is around you and his chin is on your head and across the paddock Chicago the foal is watching you both with enormous disinterested eyes. “Since the diner,” he says. “The first morning.”

“I know,” you say.

“You know?”

“You looked at me before you smiled,” you say. “Just for a second. Before the smile came. That’s when I knew.”

He pulls back enough to look at you. His expression — open, unguarded, the steadiness still there but warm all the way through now, nothing held back. “Lord,” he says softly. “You see everything.”

“I’m a teacher,” you say. “It’s the job.”

He kisses you. Right there at the paddock fence in the cold, his hand in your hair and yours in his coat, and it is nothing like the gentle kiss in the schoolroom — it is certain and warm and long and he kisses you like a man who has been holding something carefully for a very long time and has finally been told he can put it down.

When you separate, eventually, you are both slightly breathless. “Darlin’,” he says, low, the word doing what it does when it’s just yours.

“Yes?” you say.

“Come inside,” he says. “Bea made enough breakfast for six people and Eli is going to absolutely lose his mind when he sees you.”

You laugh. You take his hand. You go inside and Eli does, in fact, lose his mind. Not loudly — he is not a loud child, not in the way of tantrums or theatrics — but in the specific Eli way, which is a brightness that takes over his whole face before he can manage it, and then the immediate, instinctive suppression of it into dignity, and then the dignity failing completely because he is seven and some things are too good to be dignified about.

He is at the kitchen table with Bea when you come through the door behind Heeseung, still holding his hand, which Eli clocks immediately with the particular alertness of a child who has been waiting for exactly this data point. His eyes go to your joined hands. Then to your face. Then to his father’s face. Then back to your hands.

Bea, who misses nothing and reacts to nothing, sets a plate on the table. “Sit down,” she says. “Food’s hot.” Eli sits down. He is vibrating slightly.

You sit across from him. Heeseung sits beside you, easy, his knee against yours under the table. Bea puts coffee in front of you without being asked and goes back to the stove. Eli looks at you. “Hi,” you say.

“Hi,” he says. Carefully. Then, unable to help it: “Are you staying for breakfast?”

“If that’s alright.”

“It’s alright,” he says, very quickly. He picks up his fork. He puts it down. He looks at his father with the expression of a child requiring confirmation of something he doesn’t want to ask directly. Heeseung looks at him steadily. “Yes,” he says.

Eli picks up his fork again. He eats a bite of egg with enormous composure. Then: “I told Cody you’d probably end up friends.”

“Did you,” Heeseung says.

“I said probably.” He cuts a piece of biscuit with careful precision. “Cody said maybe.” He looks at you. “I was right.”

“You usually are,” you say.

This pleases him so deeply that he has to look at his plate to manage it. Bea, at the stove, makes a sound that is not quite a laugh but contains one.

Breakfast at Sunrise Ranch on a Sunday morning. This is what it is: the kitchen warm from the stove, the windows fogged slightly at the corners, Bea moving with the unhurried authority of someone who has run this kitchen for twenty years and will run it twenty more. Eli eating and talking and eating and talking, a stream of school information directed primarily at you — Tommy can do multiplication now and Clara finished the new books already, both of them and Grace thinks she should be in charge of the globe but the globe has a crack in it so it seems unfair — and Heeseung beside you, knee against yours, drinking his coffee and listening to his son with that expression, the open unguarded one, the love-without-complication one.

Once, while Eli is telling you about the globe, Heeseung’s hand finds yours under the table. He doesn’t look at you when he does it. He is looking at Eli. His thumb moves once across your knuckles and stays. You look at Eli and listen about the globe.

After breakfast Eli disappears outside — Riki materialises to take him to the stable, the easy choreography of a household that has its rhythms — and Bea goes to do something elsewhere in the house with pointed discretion, and you are alone in the kitchen with Heeseung and the remains of breakfast and the Sunday morning quiet.

He refills your coffee. He sits back down, closer this time, turned toward you slightly, his arm along the back of your chair. “Tell me about him,” he says. “If you want. Richard.”

You look at your cup. “I don’t want to spend the morning on Richard.”

“No,” he agrees. “But I want to understand what he did. What you were carrying when you came here.” His voice is even. “Not for any reason except I want to know what it cost you. Because I think it cost you a lot and I don’t think many people asked.”

You look at him. The steadiness of him, and underneath it now, openly, the warmth. You tell him. Not everything — there is no everything yet, some things need more time and more trust before they become speakable — but the shape of it: the engagement, the ending of it, the way the story moved through their social world with Richard’s fingerprints invisible on it, the school where you’d taught finding reasons to see you differently, your mother’s voice on the phone saying maybe if you’d been less. The twenty-seven job applications. Castillo Creek writing back.

Heeseung listens the way he always listens — completely, without filling the pauses, without deciding what your story means before you’ve finished telling it.

When you’re done he is quiet for a moment. “He came here thinking you’d go back,” he says.

“Yes.”

“And you—”

“I was never going back.” You look at him. “I think I knew that before he arrived. I think Castillo Creek stopped being a retreat and started being — this — weeks ago. I just hadn’t said it out loud yet.”

Heeseung nods, slow. He reaches out and tucks a strand of hair behind your ear with the same careful deliberateness he always uses — the gesture that gives you time to move away, that assumes nothing — and leaves his hand curved at your jaw. “He doesn’t get to have this,” he says. Quietly. “What happened to you back there. He doesn’t get to have the last word on it.”

“He doesn’t,” you agree.

“You fixed a gate,” Heeseung says. “You wrote two letters to the school board. You put a drawing on your wall.” His thumb at your jaw, the lightest movement. “You’re not someone who needed rescuing.”

“No,” you say. “I’m not.”

“Good,” he says. And kisses you, soft and brief, like a conclusion.

—

The weeks that follow are the best of your life.

You will think this later and it will surprise you — not the fact of it but the simplicity of it, that best can be made of such ordinary material. Morning coffee. The schoolhouse. Eli’s questions at lunch. Jay’s diner on Friday evenings. The ranch on Saturdays, your boots by the stable door, your coffee cup with the small chip in the handle that has become yours without anyone saying so.

Heeseung walks you home from the diner on Fridays and comes in now — Mrs. Della receives him with the satisfaction of someone whose predictions are being validated in real time — and they drink coffee at the kitchen table, all three of them, and talk until late, and then he walks back to the ranch and you watch him from the porch.

He kisses you in ordinary places: at the boarding house gate, in Jay’s diner when Jay has turned to the back shelf, at the paddock fence with one arm over the rail and one around you. He kisses you like someone who is very aware of what he has and intends to be careful with it. Tender, deliberate, thorough. You are, you think, going to have to do something about the thorough.

It happens on a Saturday in early December. Eli is in town with Riki — a deliberate arrangement, you’ll think later, with the particular transparency of a child who is also operating a long game — and Bea has gone to her sister’s for the weekend, and the ranch is quiet and cold and yours.

You come over in the morning with the box of marking you’d told yourself you’d do at the kitchen table, which is true, and which you do, for approximately forty minutes while Heeseung works at the desk in the adjoining room doing ranch accounts. The domestic ordinariness of it — the scratch of his pen, the occasional sound of a horse outside, the winter light — is the kind of thing you want to press into memory and keep.

Then the pen stops. You hear his chair. His footsteps. He appears in the kitchen doorway and leans against the frame and looks at you. “You’re not working,” you say, without looking up.

“I finished,” he says.

“I haven’t.”

“How much is left?”

You look at the stack. “Some.”

“Y/N.” You look up. He is in the doorway with his arms crossed and that expression — the warm one, the open one, the one that has nothing controlled about it — and the morning light behind him and the whole quiet ranch around you.

“Come here,” he says. You put your pen down. You go.

He kisses you in the hallway, backed against the wall with one hand braced beside your head and one at your waist, and it is immediately different from all the careful public kisses — there is nothing held back in it, nothing managing itself, just his mouth on yours and the warmth of him and the knowledge that there is no gate, no Eli, no diner bell, nowhere either of you needs to be.

You pull him closer by the front of his shirt. He makes a sound low in his chest — something between a groan and an exhale, the sound of a man whose patience has run its full course — and his hand moves from your waist to your hip and presses there, firm and deliberate. “Heeseung,” you say, against his mouth.

“Yeah,” he says. Like he knows.

“Bedroom,” you say. He pulls back enough to look at you — checking, the way he always checks, that you mean what you say — and you look back at him clearly, no ambiguity, and he makes that sound again and takes your hand and takes you there.

His bedroom is the ranch made interior: worn timber, a quilt in faded colours, the window looking out over the paddock. Clean and spare and entirely his. It smells like him — something warm and outdoor and specific, the smell you’ve catalogued without meaning to over months of being near him.

You sit on the edge of the bed and he stands in front of you and you reach up and take his hat off and set it on the nightstand. He looks down at you with that open expression, the warmth all the way through. “You’ve wanted to do that for a while,” he says.

“Since the diner,” you say. “The first morning.”