He’s pressing down just lightly enough to make you full—overwhelmed with all of him in every space you want. His tongue is reverent, tracing from your parted lips to your clit to lave with a broad tongue. He swipes one time back and forth, enough for you to grip at his arms, before he latches on with a wet sound.

“Stay still,” he mumbles, the murmur of his lips against your pussy almost too sweet to handle. You can barely gasp in response, nonetheless heed his command, now led with a gentle hand against your stomach.

“Oh—!” Your whine catches in your throat. He gives an experimental suck, followed by a lick that does more to tease the tingle in your core than soothe. 

“Bini—please, please just—,” you sigh with a slow scrape down his forearms. He likes that, if the dip in the bed by his hips is any indication.

“So pretty, baby,” he says, pulling away to brush kisses on skin, “could come just like this.” His lips leave a loved stickiness in their wake, a reminder of how he can’t help himself any more than you can.

“Just let me know when you’re ready.”

He looks up when he says it, lips wet and eyes wide. Perched between your thighs with evidence of you all over him, he’s the only type of haven that can ground you quite like this. 

It might be the peach wine from dinner finally settling, but he feels different in you compared to the other times. There’s almost a sense of devotion in his wandering lips and heavy thrusts, as if you’re somehow significant beyond just a favor extended much too long. Seven months and you’re still convincing yourself that this is nothing more than fucking, two friends tired of empty beds and cramping hands fucking.

That doesn’t explain the heaviness you feel whenever you wake up with the expanse of your bed open to your outstretched limbs. It was too small before him, but now, you lose yourself in the lumps his body should be filling. Without him, it’s too big, too empty.

Even when his body is there to block the spill of morning rays, you’re not sure what to call it. You think you can spend the rest of eternity trying to figure out exactly what he is to you. But now, while he fucks you slowly enough for tears to prick at the corner of your eyes, you believe you have a sense of what that is.

“Love,” he mumbles, lips pushing into the notch of your collarbone. The name isn’t new, but your pussy clenches around him like it’s the first time his tongue has tried it out. You don’t miss the low, wet hitch of his breath against your skin when you squeeze. 

“You’ll end me.”

You can’t help but smile at his words—partially at the number of them, partially for the way it sends a slow rumble tickling down to your toes. Maybe the wine’s gotten to Minho too, fuzzied the brain that’s far too oblivious for its own good. 

The bath would normally be drawn by the time your foot crosses the meeting room’s threshold. Tonight, the basin sits empty, polished and shining in the dim candlelight. You’re not sure why the girls insist on polishing the wood for it to only get wet again, but they press forward every morning with quick feet and low bows, so you let them.

The bin hanging on the hook to your far right looks as if it can fill the basin in five turns, four if you’re lucky enough not to spill on the way back. You don’t mind walking to the well; it’s a path you rarely have the opportunity to walk alone, so the quiet may do you some good. Maybe you can steal a sweet pancake from the kitchen on your way back—one for Cheol when he returns tonight.

Your fingers tighten on the handle at the thought of him. It’s not often he’s away for so long, but when he is, you’re too aware of how bare the kingdom feels. He had been the first to jump at the prospect of visiting the bordering villages after reports of outside raids, the humanitarian in him bursting out the moment Councilman Lee had read the beginning sentences. His fervor could be misinterpreted as inexperience to some—a young king eager to carve his legacy deep—but you know better. You know the responsibility he’s taken to the very core of him, the duty he lives by to serve those around him. It’s noble, the way he leads for others, far more noble than you had seen from anyone in the court. But it’s also the heaviest burden one could place on oneself. Cheol never reveals it, but as his other half, you can sense it. The long days and even longer nights, finger rubbed to a hard callus from his quill—he loses himself. And it hurts you far more than you could’ve anticipated.

The nearby call of a loon pulls you from your thoughts. Your feet must’ve taken you down the pebbled path to the mouth of the hot spring. It doesn’t come as a surprise, with how the route is well worn in your mind after years of travel, but you hadn’t realized how long your mind had wandered for.

You squat and dip your fingers in the water, a pleasant warmth in the night chill. It teases at the future of a basin full and steaming, ready to knead at the tension living in your body. Your fingers inch toward the bin at the thought, and it’s not until you’re raising the filled bin to your head with wobbly arms and aching back that you realize how greatly you need this bath.

Six minutes at an otherwise leisurely place is pushing ten with the nearly overflowing bin perched on your head. You didn’t account for the steady decline down to the spring, but the uneven rocks that line the path up are catching under your feet now. Every groove and ridge is impressed onto the soles of your feet—your shoes are much too old and worn—and it’s only after several stumbles and a few near accidents that the ground beneath you turns to the fine dirt of the garden walkway.

It’s inevitable that your feet will bear some marks of the journey; you’ve always bruised easily, much to the girls’ dismay. But now you have an excuse to keep Cheol busy outside of the council room, occupied with rubbing your feet as your husband instead of the king.

You follow the short path through the firs before you reach the steps to your living chambers. With careful slides, you kick your shoes off at the base of the steps, paying particular attention to the full bucket on your head. You’ll have to remember to get the thicker-soled boots from the side closet before heading back out. Maybe the lynx coat too, to set out for a dusting. It won’t be long until you’ll need it, from the way the air feels.

With cautious steps, you shuffle down the hallway, turning the first corner and continuing down the stretch toward the bedroom. One of the screen doors is crooked, what looks like a jam along the cracks. It’s something that happens when you’re preoccupied and forget how gently you have to maneuver the doors. And though it’s been a long day, you don’t remember leaving for water with the door open.  

It only takes a well-aimed kick at the base for the screen to lurch back into its tracks. You slide the door just wide enough so the width of the bin can fit through, making it a couple steps before your eyes land on a body sprawled on the bed. Your mouth opens, ready to signal the guards, but a small sigh stops you. You can recognize that sound from across the palace.   

“Cheol,” you breathe, a smile breaking across your lips.

He sits up at your voice, a little slower than usual. This trip must’ve been hard on him. He gives no indication of such however, getting up and walking toward you with a wide grin.

“My love,” he says, cupping your face in his hands, and you’re once again reminded of how his touch stabilizes you. Your body warms as his eyes trace over you, landing on a drop trickling down the slope of your nose. He notices at the same time you remember the wooden bin perched on your head, but his hands beat yours in lowering it to the ground. 

Only with the weight from your head gone do you realize the tension creeping up from your shoulders. Like a bow pulled taut, the muscles breathe with the sudden relief, and you tilt your head forward to massage at the back of your neck, a stray droplet tracing down the slope of your nose at the movement.

He leans close to catch the water at the tip of your nose with his lips. With him so close, you can smell the heady hints of sandalwood, light with the hours of rain and travel. It’s become habit to tuck yourself into the crook of his neck, and when you press forward to settle in the familiar spot, you feel the soft roll of laughter rumble through him.

His lips rest on your temple before traveling to your hair. “Go get ready. I’ll get the rest of the water.” He’s gone with the bin before you can object, leaving you to undress. It’s late enough in the season that the cold has started to creep in through the cracks. Your skin pimples when you slide the jeogori off your shoulders, and you rush to step out of your skirt and underclothes to get to the warm haven of the bathroom. Now fully bare, you can feel the autumn chill as deep as your bones, and you wonder if Cheol is cold from all the travelling. You’ll have to check his toes when he returns.

There’s already a pleasant steam hanging in the air from the first binful of water when you enter the bathroom. Looking into the basin, it’s barely enough to cover your legs, your hips if you try hard enough, but you step in to sit anyway. You’re right—it laps only halfway up your thigh, but the warmth is such a friendly welcome to your worn muscles that it makes no difference.

The heat must’ve lulled you into a drowse because a small thud has you blinking your eyes open to Cheol, kneeling by the foot of the basin. He looks up when you shift in the water.

“You looked so peaceful. I didn’t want to wake you up,” he says, tucking a stray hair behind your ear.

“So you were just watching me? Should’ve called the guards,” you tease. But you can’t resist kissing the inside of his wrist. 

He flicks your nose with a playful huff before standing up and reaching for the bin next to him, a bigger one he must’ve found along the way. He rests it on the side of the basin, and with your nod, he tips it over to add to the water pooling at your legs.

“Oh,” you sigh as the water creeps higher up your body. The level now rests right below your breasts, high enough that you can bend your legs and sink down to your chin.

“Nice?”

You hum, letting your eyes drift to where he’s standing. His eyelashes cast shadows under his eyes in the dim light, and you wish you could trace them, kiss them until there’s no hint of them left.

“Join me.” You raise your arms from the water to stretch them towards him. “I miss you.”

He smiles and bends to set the bin down. “Well, we can’t have that my lady.”

He’s quick to shuck off his undershirt and pants, turning to place them on the side table. You take the quiet moment to look over his shoulders, waist, thighs—bends and crooks of his you’ve been able to imprint into your memory with an unusual ease. The thought of being able to feel him again after so many weeks makes your toes curl.

“Come here.”

He carefully fits himself in the space that you’ve made, mumbling something incoherent when he stretches his legs alongside yours and leans back against the basin. You follow suit, pushing back onto his chest until you can feel his arms dip below the water and wrap around your waist.

“Have baths always felt this good?” His lips trace at the shell of your ear, travelling down to give your lobe a quick suck.

“Mmmm,” you breathe, tilting your neck to give access to his wandering lips. “Only with you.”

You stay like this, quiet except for the occasional ripple of water. It’s as close to a sanctuary you think you may get with the looming thought of meetings and scrolls, but you push that to the far corner of your mind, running your hands down Cheol’s thighs to his knees.

“Long day?” he asks, gathering the pieces of hair that have fallen from your clip and slipping them through the teeth.

You can’t help the small snort you let out. “The absolute longest,” you say, skimming the surface of the water with gently pruning fingers, “it never fails to surprise me how stubborn old councilmen are.”

“Hey,” he murmurs into your skin, “that’s going to be me someday.” 

“You’re more handsome.” 

His hand finds yours to bring to his lips. You can feel the curve of his mouth against your palm, and the feeling makes you settle closer into the breadth of his chest. The water laps gently around your knees as you lean back, little kisses of warmth to exposed skin.

Cheol must see the beginnings of gooseflesh because he lifts an arm to place his hand over your knee. The action makes you smile—he never liked seeing you cold, even when there’s nothing but a comfortable glow all throughout you. 

Your hand pulls from his grasp to rub up and down his now-exposed arm. He’s relentless in his quest to keep you warm, but you’re also aware of how his toes curl towards your calves whenever a morning snow hits. “Do you want to talk about your trip?” you ask, massaging his bicep.

He sighs softly enough that you wouldn’t have known if not for the stuttered fall of his chest. You press deeper into his arms, as if you can push every bit of strain out of him.

“Not tonight. Tomorrow?” A small squeeze on your thigh serves as a tacit appeal for no questions, not tonight. It’s late anyway, nearly midnight if you’re thinking correctly, so you nod your head in agreement. Whatever can wait until the morning. 

Lips fall to the base of your neck, following the drying droplets to trace down the length of your shoulder blade. It’s a silent thank you for the reprieve he most likely didn’t get from the villagers, the advisors. It’s a silent thank you for being his sanctuary—he’s told you as much—even though you’re a mere attempt for what he is for you. You still try anyway.

One hand grabbing his, the other gripping the edge of the basin, you stand up, grimacing at the rush of cold air. Cheol is still sitting down, eyebrows raised. 

“It’s not hair washing day?” he questions.

“Mmmm, did it the other night,” you respond, letting your eyes wander over his chest. “Come out. I’m getting cold.”

He stands, careful not to splash any water over the side. You bear down onto your right hand to give him stability as he steps out, his wet feet joining yours to make a small puddle on the floor.

“We’ll wipe it up later,” he promises. You’re not one to argue when he’s wet and naked, so you nod and lead him out toward the bedroom.

The chill sweeps over you nearly instantaneously, and you can barely contain the shiver that cascades through you. “Cheol, it’s c—”

His hand leaves yours to cup at your hip. He taps twice, a signal you’re more than familiar with, for you to turn around. You take a look at the sly smile on his face before looping your arms around his neck and jumping. He catches you with a practiced ease, though he stumbles a bit from your added weight onto his slippery feet. 

“Easy. I’m trying to get both of us onto the bed alive.” His words are stern, but the beginnings of a laugh are pushing through his lips, pulling one from your own.

You cling on tighter to tuck your head into the notch of his neck. “Just get there quickly so you can warm me up.” 

He squeezes your thigh in acknowledgement and walks the last steps to your bed. You’ve begun to pepper kisses around the base of his neck, your eyes nearly shutting on their own accord at the feel of his steadily hardening cock between the inside of your legs. It reminds you that you haven’t had him for weeks, but even after all that time, your body responds as if he had never left.

You raise your head when his feet stop at the foot of the bed. “Don’t want to let go,” you say, your lips brushing against his own. His teeth catch your bottom lip for a gentle pull.

“Who says you have to let go?” He sucks your lip with a smile before you feel one of his hands hike your hips further up his, the other moving to brace the back of your neck. The movements are quick, and you only just process the change before he’s leaning forward to guide you down onto the bed. It squeaks in protest at the sudden weight of you two, retaliating with a small crack somewhere towards the center of the headboard.

A few moments of wide eyes pass before laughter peals out, catching in each others’ mouths.

“That’s been there for the last century and we managed to break it in two years,” he giggles, tickling the traces of your lips.

“You managed to break it,” you correct with a poke to his side. “I didn’t steal extra of Mrs. Jung’s dumplings today, so it couldn’t have been me.”

He leans back to fix you with a discerning look. “Hmmmm,” he muses, eyes roaming from across your face, lingering a little longer at your lips. “Whatever you say, my lady.”

You lace your fingers in his hair to tug him back to your mouth. “Exactly what I like to hear. Besides, they were all gone when I passed by the oh—” you groan at the sudden thought. The sweet pancake. 

“The sweet pancake!” You pinch the inner corners of your eyes. “I was going to get a sweet pancake on my way back from the spring! I know for a fact that General Yoo doesn’t let you stop at that bun stand in Seorabeol, so you must be so hungry. I can’t believe I forgot, and—and you’re laughing?” 

When you blink open, you see that he is. 

His fingers rub the space between your brows until the wrinkle disappears. “You look very concerned,” he laughs, shifting up to place a kiss where his fingers were. “And I do love those sweet pancakes, but General Yoo broke off with half the men to do evaluations in Ungjin, so I was left with Commander Pyo, who you know loves those buns as much as I do.”

You wrap your arms around his middle with a relieved sigh. “So you’re not hungry?” you ask. “And you’re not going to have to leave bed?”

“Definitely not going to leave bed,” he confirms, repositioning your legs to bring your core even closer to him. “As for whether I’m hungry or not,” a swipe of his tongue across the seam of your lips makes you let out an impatient whine, “haven’t tasted you in far too long.”

His mouth sears a trail down your neck and across your collarbones before you can kiss him, can poke fun at the sudden forwardness that still somehow makes your fingertips itch for him. All you can do is gasp and let him suckle at your nipple. His tongue is a welcomed heat on your skin, and you can feel it prickle with every swipe.

He grounds himself to move downward by holding your sides, a sight that in it of itself makes you shiver. You can always feel the roughness of hands—have essentially memorized how every ridge and callous move on you—but seeing them, large and reverent in their handling, makes you want to do everything in your power to keep them there. He’ll always take care of you. His eyes say it first, and his body never fails to assure it.

But you need him to feel the same unwavering devotion. Even when he’s gone and especially when he’s not. He never asks, never will, but there’s no one more deserving of something so unconditional.

“Cheol,” you murmur, while he kisses over the soft spot on your stomach. “Stop.” You tug gently at his hair.

His lips pull away, and his eyes are on you. “Everything okay, love?” 

“Yes, of course,” you assure with a small nod. “I just—I want to take care of you.”

“You want to take care of me?” he asks with furrowed brows. His hands are still heavy at your sides, and you reach down to grasp at his wrists. He lets you guide him onto his back, lets you straddle his hips and hover yourself over where you need him most.

He’s looking at you through half-lidded eyes as you bring yourself onto his cock, using your anchored hands to slide him back and forth between your lips. You’re already wet—have been since the moment he carried you to the bed—so he slips through with an easy slick. The head of his cock kisses your clit on one rock of your hips, sending a tingle through your core that makes you bow your head. He groans too, responding with a buck that shifts you higher up his pelvis.

“Love,” he sighs before pressing forward to kiss your lips. When he speaks again, he does so softly. “Let me taste you.”

“Mmmm,” you mumble, trying to temper your voice from whining. “I’m supposed to be taking care of you remember?” You squeeze his wrists in reminder, though you know he could easily break free. 

He smiles at the same thought. “I remember, but—” he wriggles his hands from your grasp to settle at your hips. “I think the best way for you to take care of me—” he lets out a small hiss when he lifts you off him, guiding you to turn around so you’re facing away from him. You lick your lips at the sight of his heavy cock straining against his stomach, but you’re cut off by a swift tug that pulls you back.

“Is to give me what I want.” The last few words are hummed against your skin as his lips trace the inside of your thighs. He’s taking his time nipping around the soft skin, tending to each mark with a soothing hum. Every movement is slow, purposeful, too much so for your growing impatience. You reach to run a light finger over a vein on his cock in hopes of provoking him, but he only tightens his hold on your legs. Even with you closer to his mouth, he’s still lingering around where you need him the most.

“Cheol,” you whine, pushing your hips back. “Don’t tease.”

He licks a quick stripe up the length of your lips, making you gasp and buck your hips back. His mouth is gone too soon, leaving only his hands to anchor you from seeking his tongue again. 

“What I want, remember?” 

“Fuck.”

It sounds like a promise he would make when he’s feeling indulgent, with no other goal than to get you begging. So it comes unexpected when he pulls your body down at the same time his neck cranes up. His mouth lands hot on your center, tongue pushing through to lick at your core. You blink your eyes close with a moan as his attention moves to your clit, his tongue landing quick flicks on it. The pressure’s delicious, a burning heat that makes your toes curl into the sheets. You feel as if you can cave in on yourself and still remember the imprints of his mouth. It’s so generous—the way this bliss always consumes you—that you don’t realize that his hips are moving in tandem to yours, have been for some time.

His cock is somehow even harder than before, following the path of his hips with a heaviness that makes your mouth water. You know tonight is for him, but you also think you won’t make it to see to his pleasure if you don’t feel him on your tongue.

And you can’t help the pride that streaks straight from your core to your heart when he groans at the welcome of your mouth. You start off slow—kitten licks across his slit to hear more of his muffled sounds until you wrap your lips around his head. He sucks your clit in response, thrumming over your bud with an insistent tongue when you begin to guide him further to the back of your mouth.

You begin a slow bob up and down, easing your mouth further down him each time. Your hand works his base, twisting up the smooth skin with help from the wetness dribbling from your mouth. He’s thick enough that you can’t wrap your palm completely around him, but you try anyway, eager to not leave any part of his cock untouched.

He breathes it into your thigh, where you can already feel slick smearing. “You taste so good, love. Love when you let me taste you like this. Want you just like this when you come.”

All you can do is moan around his cock and hope he can taste how wet you are. You ease your mouth off to catch your breath, your hand replacing it to set a steady rhythm up and down his cock. It’s a comfortable pace with the wetness from your mouth, and for a few moments it’s just this—the sound of your hand and his tongue warming the room.

Your whine breaks the tempo at the feel of his fingers joining his tongue before slipping into your core. He enters easily with two fingers, pulling a quiet squelch when he’s up to his knuckles. His fingers aren’t moving, waiting for you to adjust to the fullness, but you need him to move. Need him to curl his fingers and sink back and forth into you so some of the tension in your lower stomach can be relieved. He’s taking his time however, pulling out until he’s mid-knuckle and pushing back in as if trying to gauge how much you can take.

You fit his cock back into your mouth in hopes of encouraging him to move. He must get the hint the moment he hits the back of your throat because he pushes both fingers into you with a groan and begins a punishing pace. If his other hand weren’t still secured on your hip, you would’ve squirmed away from how he’s hitting that one spot with practiced expertise. With the way your thighs are beginning to shake, you don’t know how much longer you can handle before you buckle under his fingers and tongue.

You pull off his cock to release the whine that’s pushing past your lips. “Cheol, too—too much,” you moan. It is too much—his fingers fucking into you as if his tongue weren’t already undoing you from the core. Your forehead lolls to rest on his thigh, your hand around his base nearly forgotten because you’re so close. Just the sounds of his wet sucks on your clit could have you coming with a cry. They make you greedy, make you want to bury his face deeper into your core until he can’t remember anything but the taste of your slick on his lips.

His mouth leaves your heat at your words, though his fingers maintain their steady thrusts in and out. “Too much?” he says, words muffled by your thighs. “Want me to stop?” 

“No—I.” Your hips push down to find his mouth again. When he flicks at your clit, you mumble into his skin. “Just want you to make me come. Need you to.”

His hips jerk at your voice—a seemingly unspoken acknowledgement to your request by the way he adds a third finger into your pussy with a squelch. You feel full, as if you’ll always have a reminder of him in the pits of your lower stomach, and it makes you drunk to imagine what his cock will feel like. Stretching you somehow more than his fingers, dragging out of you until you can see what a mess you’ve made on him. Your hand tightens around his cock at the thought.

He groans when he feels your pussy mirroring your hand, clenching around his fingers. “I got you. You can come for me.”

You mewl at his words, moving your hips in time to his thrusting fingers. He curls them to a new angle that makes you drop your head to his leg again, and when he meets the spot with a suck of your clit, the bubble in your lower stomach bursts into hot white. Your legs give out beneath you just as his fingers pull out for support. With his hands keeping you stable, you tremble against his tongue for several thuds of your heartbeat, until you can lift yourself upright onto your forearms.

You know he’ll keep you like this, wave after wave of pleasure thrumming through you until you can’t distinguish the beginning of him and end of you. So you untangle yourself from him as quickly as your sluggish limbs will allow. You turn to face him, not quite letting yourself press into his pelvis.

“Good?” he asks, cheeks flushed and lips wet. Even after all these years, you’ll never quite get over the vision of Cheol stained with love.

You can’t resist leaning down and kissing his cheek, which warms underneath your lips. 

“More than good. Always my favorite.” Your hand brushes a strand of hair that’s fallen into his eyes. “Want to make you come though.”

The corners of his eyes crinkle at your words. “Want to make you come again though.”

You shoot him a warning glance. “I’m taking care of you, remember?” you say, raising onto your knees and placing your hands onto the planes of his chest. The skin’s smooth and taut, and when you run your palm over the left side, you can feel the unmistakable beat of his heart—a stamp you hope will never fade from your memory.

“As if I can forget,” he replies with a smile. “Not every day the queen takes care of you.”

His hands squeeze your waist to signal he’s ready, so you still your roaming hands. There are still traces of your orgasm on your thighs, along with pinkened reminders of where his lips travelled. You know the moment you tuck him between you, you’ll be even more sensitive, your pussy snug around the part of him you’ve missed so much. So you lower onto his cock with care, gaze locked on how he disappears beneath your hair. A quick glance at his face shows that he’s focused on where you’re joined as well. His teeth are worrying his bottom lip as you sink down, welcoming him with a slow slide. There’s a soft squelch when you near his base, and you can see wetness already gathering by his curls. 

“Cheol,” you let out a shaky breath as he bottoms out. He’s deep, deeper than you remember him being, but it’s been a few weeks since he’s filled you like this. You lean into your hands to lift yourself up, but his hands grip your thighs before you can shift.

His lips are parted enough so you can hear his sharp exhales. “Love,” he says, cutting off when you lean forward to place your forearms on either side of his head. A low grumble vibrates through his chest, and you can’t resist dropping a kiss to the tip of his nose. “You have to stay still for a little or I’m going to come.” He grits his teeth when you settle your hips further back, somehow taking even more of him.

A warning flashes in his eyes, stopping your movements. “Okay, okay,” you whisper, the traces of a smile forming on your lips. “Let me know when you’re ready.”

You hide your grin by taking his mouth, pushing your tongue in to try to distract yourself from the fullness you feel. His lips are giving, letting your mouth take the lead to nip and sip. He tastes like you, something that makes your center flutter. You wonder if he tastes himself on you, if he likes it too.

He kisses you for a few more moments, momentarily diverting your attention from the ache in your core. The gentle bite that lands on your bottom lip however, makes your hips twitch forward. It’s a small motion, but the way his cock shifts in you has you moving one hand down to grip at his bicep.

“Please tell me I can move soon,” you mumble with a squeeze to his arm.

Cheol’s mouth moves to trace over your cheek, toward your ear. “Yeah, yeah,” he breathes, tickling the hairs on your neck. “Move, baby.”

You place a kiss on his jaw before bracing your hands on his chest to lift up. His hands are stroking around your hips, digging into the little notches for a better hold. He’s not guiding you so much as grounding you, making sure that every sink of your hips has you meeting his curls.

There’s nothing rushed about the first moments he’s in you. It’s not until his hands begin to wander, or the ache between your legs begins to throb, that your pace starts hardening. In the nascent bits though, you’re relearning how his body fits in yours. So you take your time raising yourself until only his tip remains in you, and sliding down slowly enough to watch your wetness trail down with you.

He doesn’t demand more from you than this gradual pace, but you can sense his growing sense of urgency by his hands. Once again, they begin their journey of the terrain of your skin, leaving a searing trail in their path. Up the smooth of your stomach, over the swell of your breasts to tease at your nipples, up the length of your collarbone to the base of your neck. It makes it difficult to concentrate on him, when there’s so much of his focus on you.

Intent on his pleasure, as well as soothing your burning thighs, you brace your hands on his stomach and push your hips forward instead of up. You feel his body cave in in surprise at the sudden change, your body now grinding against his with a purpose.

“L—love, so good,” he groans. “Feel so good when you’re like thi—.” He cuts off with a moan when you squeeze yourself around him.

“Yeah?” you breathe, arching into him with a moan when your clit bumps against the base of his cock. You grind back to press forward again, chasing after the familiar tingle up your spine. Back and forth you rock, the slick leaking down between your thighs and onto Cheol’s skin fueling you to keep going despite your protesting legs. “Think you can come like this?”

“Y—yes,” he gasps, trailing his hands back down to your hips to help you move against him. The added strength of his hands angles your clit to rub against him. 

You’re struggling for breath, trying to stay upright by planting your palms against his chest, but the sight of him beneath you with eyes glossy is almost too much to bear. You can easily come just like this, have every urge to with the building pressure in your core. 

He can too. From the little dent that’s formed between his brows to his stuttering thighs, he’s nearly there too. It’s a chase for his orgasm that you will never be able to deprive him as long as you’re the one who can guide him to it.

So you push your own wave down and focus on having him come undone within you. You slow your hips just enough to lean over and rest your forearms by his face. Your pace quickens again to one almost punishing, the resounding thud of skin ringing through the air.

When you bend to kiss him, it’s gentle in comparison. Just a ghosting of lips, but it feels far more intimate. 

“Come for me, baby,” you say against his lips, feeling how his breath hitches in his throat. “I want to feel all of you.”

He breathes in response, tongue poking out to taste your lips. You purse your lips and suck at the tip while you push back with one last thrust, deeper than the rest, and he comes with a cry. A sticky warmth fills you up as you continue moving on him, hoping you can take everything he can give in the moment. His thumb makes its way to your clit and rubs in tight circles, persistent until you feel yourself quiver around him. You come with his thumb asking more from you, and you have to pull his hand away once you begin to feel too sensitive.

Your head hangs forward while you catch your breath. His cum always makes you feel dizzyingly full, and that paired with the flutters still radiating through your body, you’re relieved when he helps you off his cock. You don’t realize how heavy your limbs are until you topple over trying to swing your leg over his side.

“You’re going to kill me one day,” he laughs, bringing you into his arms so he can kiss your temple. His skin, as well as yours, is slippery with a sheen of sweat, and his cum has started to drip down the inside of your thigh. 

You throw an arm over his torso to pinch his side. “As long as it’s a good death,” you muse, smiling into his chest when he slaps at your hand. “Feel good though?”

“I had to! Rumi and I were reading that bunny detective story and then Jaein climbed up and knocked me over. Oh—woops.” There’s fumbling on his end of the line until you hear his voice again. “I forgot that Jaein’s napping,” he whispers, though he’s barely quieter than before. “And you were practicing so much in front of the girls yesterday, so you better not come home! Rumi’s already making a menu of what to make you for dinner, so you can’t disappoint her.”

“A menu?” Your bottom lip inadvertently wobbles at the thought of Rumi cooking, one small fist swallowed in a mixing bowl, the other pointing Mingyu toward his station by the stove.

“Mmm, a menu,” he affirms. “We went to the mart earlier and she wouldn’t stop talking about making you waffles. You should’ve seen her cart, you know the little ‘customer-in-training’ ones with the green flag? She was opening every freezer door to get every type of waffle. Can’t believe you pushed that agenda on her. And Jaein kept babbling, ‘bah bah’, you know the way she says it? Where she pushes her lips out like a duck? Well she kept on saying that and pointing, but she only pointed at root vegetables while she was saying it, so I think she’s a geniu—wait, are you crying?”

You mask a sniffle with a swipe of your hand across your face. “N—no. I just can’t believe she took after you in deciphering which vegetables are root or not.”

“Nothing to cry about though,” he says, but his voice is soft.

“I know.” You blink at your tears. “Just miss you.”

“Baby, we miss you too. Now go ace your presentation! Ru, wish mama good luck.”

There’s a shuffle, and a quiet voice sounds on the other end.

“Good luck, mama! I’m whispering because Jae’s sleeping, but I love you!!”

“Love you so much, baby,” you murmur into the phone. “I’ll see you soon.”

[4:28 pm, From: Gyu 💓]: Sent an attachment.

“I’ll spend the rest of my life figuring out the different ways to love you.”

He reminds you even now, with his head in your lap and his lips mid-hum. It comes from nowhere, tumbling after the verse so smoothly that you don’t quite process the change until you catch his eyes.

They’re sincere, as they always are, but there’s a seriousness in them that never rears its head unless he’s about to say something that’s likely to make your head spin. He said it when you first let him undress you, your skin tingling under every stroke of his palms. 

“If you want me, I have you,” he had said, pulling back from your lips to smooth over the tremble in your stomach, arms, neck. He hadn’t known that you were shaking from being drunk on the feeling of him rather than the uncertainties of yourself. For once, it wasn’t who you are to him, but what he is to you—a sense so liberating that you had pulled him back to you and never let him go.

Now years later, he says it again. There’s no way he could know—it’s only been a couple of days since you’ve found out—but your pulse quickens. It’s not that you didn’t want this with him—nearly the opposite. You can’t think of doing this with anyone besides him, and that leaves you vulnerable and just a bit cautious. He never leaves you in want of more, but you always think there may be a time you ask too much of him.

You brush through his hair, more to calm your own nerves than anything. His nose is scrunched. He’s thinking of what to say.

“I found the pregnancy test.”

Your hands stop in their tracks. “Seok, I—I was going to tell you.”

“I know,” he says softly. “It was my fault, actually. I couldn’t find those socks I like and thought maybe they ended up in your drawer, so I went through and found it.”

He pauses for a second, and you busy yourself with watching someone skip rocks. One, two, three, four, five. Your pulse thrums against your skin with every skip, and when you see the rock sink into the seventh ripple, you hope that another one is set to follow. Anything other than counting would make the silence feel longer than it already does.

“I mean what I said.”

It pulls you from the river and to him, a look so deliberate on his face that you can’t second guess his words.

“I wanted to figure out how to love you before today and I still want to tomorrow. Nothing’s changed, except now, part of loving you is loving our baby.”

“Don’t touch me. Never touch me,” you say through gritted teeth. “I’ll kill you the next time you touch me.”

His hand stops halfway to your shoulder, pausing for a second in the space between you before dropping to fist his coat. Just the sight of him makes your mouth turn acrid, a taste you never thought his presence would leave on your lips. But the people you trust the most always have funny ways of stripping you bare.

“Please let m—,” he starts to say, but you raise a hand, cutting him off.

“Let you what? Explain?” you snort a breath. “Finally feel the need to explain after two years.” Your hand is trembling, but you rather that than your voice. 

“Do you know how you left me?” It’s a rhetorical question because there’s no possibility that he could ever fathom it—the thousand stinging needles that left your heart bleeding and your mind throbbing. All because you could never bring yourself to erase your memory of him, even after he buried you so deep.

“You left me in the shadows,” you say, and you can’t help the way your voice cracks at the end. “You left me in the shadows with a promise that you’d come back.” You swallow at the vision of yourself, throat raw from counting the seconds he was gone, the seconds he would take to come back. At 651,212, your tongue started getting fuzzy. At 1,319,201, you stopped counting. 

He takes a tentative step forward, small enough to barely tease at the tacit boundaries you’ve made around yourself. You look at him with a hard stare, and he stops.

“I—,” he starts, and you realize that he’s changed in the two years. There’s something burdensome about the way his shoulders slouch, as if the time passed has been difficult for him too. 

“I—I tried to get back to you, with all I had. You,” he blinks away what look like tears, “you don’t know what it did to me, not being able to come back to you. It—it almost killed me.” He looks down and runs a finger over the base of his pinky, where the red string ties to your own. 

You rub at the tingling at your pinky. It’s a strange feeling, similar to someone tying string around it and tugging. The skin doesn’t move, but the pull is certain. 

“I wish I could taste your cunt.”

It’s a whisper in your ear, placed closely enough for the hairs on your neck to stand at his breath. You’re tucked away in a quieter corner, away from the concentrated smell of sweat and alcohol. The music should be less deafening this far from the bar, but the space is cramped, too ambitious in its capacity. And now, with his lips so close to your ear, arm curved around your hip as if it belongs there, you realize just how close he is.

“Do you think it would still taste like me?” he asks, blowing a puff of air onto your ear lobe. Your knees buckle, too sensitive to his words, and you feel his lips curl against your neck. He tightens his hold on you, fitting himself in between the space where your legs have parted—an effort he later insists was made to keep you upright against the brick wall. 

But now you can feel every inch of warmth from him. Maybe it was the alcohol that made him brazen with his tongue, but that would suggest that this is uncharted territory, which it isn’t. The sly eyes, smooth words, controlled touches, you see often enough in private. Yet, he’s never been so public before, never outside of the barrier of linen curtains in your bedroom. Everything about how pointedly open this is should make you feel self-conscious, but his presence and everything that comes with it is fogging the last bit of inhibition you had. With your pussy wetting the edges of your underwear, there aren’t many more pressing matters than having his cock in you.

The thought of him filling you, pounding into the wetness he had painted white mere hours before makes you eager to fold into whatever he wants with a quick, hard yearning. You can never deny him, especially when it comes to him having his way with you.

His knuckles sear a path up your front, catching in your shirt. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you baby?” Your newly exposed stomach doesn’t have a chance to pimple before the heat of his palm covers you. “You’d like for me to fuck you until my cum’s filling you up, spilling out of you. I’d clean you up—you know there’s nothing that tastes better than you and me.” 

You mewl, hands gripping for some type of purchase at his shoulders. You’re burning, from the core out, and his cock pushes against you with the same insistence that his words hold.

“I would give you a taste after,” he muses into your ear. “Make sure you know how good we are together. You would do that for me, wouldn’t you?” 

He hasn’t moved his hands, hasn’t done anything other than speak, but you feel bare against the hardness of him. Stripped and stunned with the thought of his cum and his tongue without any move of your clothes.

He doesn’t like your silence. “You would do that, wouldn’t you baby?” he repeats with practiced patience.

“Yes,” you manage to gasp. That earns you a kiss to your temple.

“C’mon, baby.” He pulls away, steadying you with a hand on your waist. A quick adjustment of your shirt and another kiss on your forehead before he’s guiding you through the crush of people with a gentle hand on your back.