🗯️

Jiung and Intak, sitting at your sides and across from each other at your small breakfast table, freeze in the middle of their petulant glaring and angry chopstick pointing. 

It hasn’t even been an hour since they stepped into your apartment—you’d invited them to smooth things over since that night only seemed to unravel the tension into something messier. 

The peace had lasted all of ten minutes before the subtle bickering started up again. And now, here you are, in the middle of yet another battle you were unwittingly drafted into. 

They turn to you, their endless ire towards the other slipping away to shock, one flustered and one appalled. 

“I didn’t even get to fuck you,” Intak huffs, dropping his chopsticks with a clatter into his bowl. His round eyes sharpen and snap back to Jiung. “He practically hogged you the whole damn time.”

Jiung’s hand tenses around his chopsticks before he neatly places them down. “You’re just bitter that you lost,” he responds coolly, though the tic in his jaw as he returns Intak’s glare is anything but. 

You sigh to yourself as, like clockwork, they spur on. You were foolish to think you could ease things over with a peaceful dinner and drinks, but the further they get into their bottle of soju, the further they seem to settle in their pettiness. 

“Guys,” you warn. 

“I won, fair and square,” Jiung states, completely ignoring you. 

Intak sputters, hands flying wildly as he attempts to defend himself. “You cheated! What happened—that was—you weren’t supposed to—“

“Nothing happened,” Jiung cuts in, his demeanour of calm a fickle thing in the face of being reminded of the… unforeseen events of that night. 

Jiung refuses to acknowledge what happened between them. He chooses to live in complete denial. You, however…

Flashes come back to you—of an angry kiss, pushing hands, low grunts. None of anything that had any involvement from you.

Your thighs clamp together as a sharp sting of arousal shoots through you at the reminder. The amount of times you’ve had to physically restrain yourself from touching yourself to that memory is a number you’re not willing to admit. 

But now, with them in front of you looking as frustrated and flushed as that night, you can’t help that your body reacts to it. 

If only they would stop fucking fighting. 

“Guys,” you repeat, louder but all the same ignored. 

Intak has a sly grin on his lips now, one that can only mean trouble. “Don’t act like you didn’t like it.”

You could be wrong, but Intak seems to be in the same boat as you. Unless it’s just another one of his tactics—to hold it over Jiung’s head that he might have actually been into what had happened. 

“I just had to do what I had to do,” Jiung snaps, unable to hide the red that starts climbing up his neck to settle at the tips of his ears. “That’s it.”

Intak just preens, feeding off of Jiung’s fluster. “Is that it, hyung? Hm?” The wider his smirk grows, the sharper Jiung’s glare turns and the redder his cheeks go. “I felt you, you know. I could tell how close you were—“

“Intak,” Jiung cuts in, low and warning. 

But in pure Intak fashion, he barrels through. “You don’t want to admit it.” He crosses his arms on the table, his smirk going lazy as his eyes crawl down the slopes of Jiung’s pretty face and rest on his lips. 

Suddenly, you’re not in the room anymore. You might as well be a fly on the wall, just watching the scene unfold right in front of you. 

“But I think you liked it.”

Jiung doesn’t respond, whether to prevent what regrets he might let slip out or simply because he can’t find the words, you don’t know. 

And Intak takes the opportunity to press on. “And I bet,” he murmurs, his eyes traveling further down, “you’re hard under the table right now just thinking about it.”

The pause that follows is thick and nearly tangible with tension in the small space between you three. 

But there is also the chance that Jiung might throw something. To save the peace of your home, you cut in. 

“If you two are going to fuck, can you not do it where I eat?”

All at once the tension breaks—Jiung clicks his tongue as he picks up the empty bowls and rises for the kitchen (he’s not hard), and Intak beams with the satisfaction that he’s won the argument for once. 

Intak turns to throw you a cocky grin. “Dont worry, we wouldn’t leave you out of it.”

You roll your eyes despite the smile tugging on your lips as you rise with your bottle of soju and escape to your couch. 

“Keep dreaming, lover boy,” you tease without commitment as you drop yourself on the cushions. 

Honestly, you wouldn’t want anything more. But you can’t let yourself admit that. Rather, you can’t let them know that—you don’t know just how much more insufferable they can get. You don’t want to know.

As expected, Intak follows you with his complaints. 

“But that’s not fair,” he whines as he drops down beside you with a pout. “I didn’t get a turn.”

“Because Jiung won, fair and square.”

“Oh come on,” he huffs, his warm hand landing on your knee and clamping down pleadingly as he fixes you with those big eyes and that cute smile that he knows you’re weak to. His voice drops to a low purr as he crowds into your space. “I can do so much better than him.”

Your body seems to not want to heed your inhibitions; instead it welcomes his heat in your orbit, subtly seeking it out.

Intak notices the way you falter, and he braves to slide his hand up to settle on your thigh. The heat of his skin is a searing presence through your jeans. 

“Don’t you wanna find out?” He asks, a low whisper as his eyes settle on your lips. The tip of his tongue flicks out in a subconscious tic, one you’ve become familiar with, and leaves his lips looking even more enticing. 

You do want to find out. Your body pulses with a need to. 

So you swallow down the tension in your throat, shifting just a little closer.  

“Don’t fall for it,” comes Jiung’s deep voice as he settles on your other side, another wall of heat encasing you. It sobers you immediately. “He’s all bark and no bite.”

You mentally shake yourself out of your stupor and sigh to yourself, leaning back on your cushions to escape the line of fire. 

“How would you know?” Intak immediately bites, his attention easily pulled from you and fixed on Jiung. Though his hand remains clamped down on your thigh. “See for yourself, and then you can talk shit.”

“I’m not fucking you.”

Intak sputters. “I didn’t mean that!”

“Yeah? Then what did you mean?”

“I just—you—just, go back to the kitchen!”

“Not until you get your dirty paws off of her.”

“Dirty? I’ll show you dirty—“

“Oh my god, are you guys going to just fight or fuck me?” You snap. Two sets of eyes turn to you, bewildered. “Or are you going to actually fuck each other finally? At least let me watch.”

They gape at you like fish, jaws slacked and eyes wide. 

“You—was that a serious offer?” Intak asks, gaze practically glittering at the prospect. 

“Fucking each other?” You raise a brow. “If that’s what you want, go for it, I’ll happily sit back and w—“

“Cut the crap,” Jiung snaps, and you quickly close your mouth. 

Your body grows hot at the tone of his voice, so demanding and so similar to then. He narrows his sharp eyes at you and somehow makes you feel like you should be the one apologizing. 

“Why did you really invite us here tonight?” He asks.

Well. You certainly weren’t fooling yourself.

You let out a sigh, leaning forward to drop your bottle on the coffee table. “Guess there’s no point in pretending.” 

You become hyper aware of their presence, their prying eyes. The air becomes more heated with each passing second that they wait for your answer. 

“I can’t stop thinking about that night,” you admit. 

Your gaze flits between the two of them. Intak just looks hungry, like he’d been waiting to hear that all night. Jiung looks… a little shy. 

He avoids your gaze, looking instead at Intak’s hand fidgeting with the inner seam of your jeans, but he isn’t really looking. 

The thought of making him squirm makes you preen internally. Is this what Intak feels?

“What is it, Jiung?” You coo teasingly. “Don’t tell me you’ve been thinking about it too.”

“How could I not?” He defends weakly, eyes flicking up to you for half a second but they run away, land on Intak, then flit quickly away again like he can’t figure out where he can look without exposing himself. 

It’s cute. Really cute. 

You chance a look at Intak and see that he feels the same, watching Jiung with that same dazed smile you’ve caught him looking at you with. 

And it makes you ponder. 

“Hm…” You lean back, smiling when both pairs of eyes follow you. “Glad I’m not the only one.”

Neither of them respond. They simply wait and watch, like they’re waiting for a cue. Or a demand. 

You bite down on your lip, reaching for Intak’s hand still on you. You lace your fingers through his, his hand twitching in response like he wasn’t expecting the touch. You give it a light tug. 

“C’mere, Intak,” you call quietly, and like a sailor falling for his damnation, he gives to your beckon. 

His lips press to yours slowly at first. Like he’s testing the waters to see what’s safe despite already having been here before. 

You lift your hand to his jaw in quiet encouragement and he takes it well, pressing more insistently against you with a settling sigh. 

You tease your tongue against his lip and he groans like it’s his ruin, his fingers clamping down tighter into your flesh, almost painfully so. 

Magnetized, he parts his lips for you and you lick your way into wet heat, meeting his tongue halfway. There’s something about him that isn’t as eager as that night. He isn’t trying to prove anything to you. It’s like he’s just… giving himself over. 

It makes you dig your hand into his hair and pull, drinking up that pained whimper he lets out into your mouth. 

“You’re so good for me today, Takki,” you whisper with a swipe of your tongue over his parted lips as he heaves. 

He pouts, blinking his hazy eyes into the present like he’d already been floating away with a simple kiss. “‘M always good for you,” he weakly argues, giving with a soft moan when you kiss him again, short but demanding. 

When you pull back, he latches onto your jaw, not quite keen on being separated from you. Your eyes flutter closed for a quick moment when he mouths at the sensitive spot under your ear.

They open again for your vision to clear on Jiung, who watches the scene completely enamoured. His breathing is a little laboured too, like he’s affected just from watching. 

You reach for his thigh, squeezing down onto the thick muscle and he jolts. “Don’t just sit there.”

He swallows, Adam’s apple bobbing as his eyes flicker down to where Intak has attached himself to your neck, leaving biting, wet kisses down the smooth expanse. 

“Come here,” you whisper. 

It doesn’t take more for him to give into your orbit too, crashing his lips to yours in a kiss that’s more fervent than you’re prepared for. 

But you meet his fire with your own. He tries to claim you from the get go, but you don’t allow it. Not this time. 

You push against his seeking tongue with yours, reaching up to grab his collar and pull him further into you. He gives almost immediately, melting under your hands and moaning into the kiss. 

His hand finds your shirt and clutches it in a fist in an attempt to keep it from wandering. But it explores anyway, climbing up before resting just under the swell of your breast, heavy and warm as he lets you drink him in. 

He whimpers when you bite down on his lip, parting his lips like an instinct to welcome your tongue into his mouth. 

You don’t get much time to map him out. Intak, still present and still insistent, starts nipping impatiently at your jaw. 

You pull from Jiung to meet him, but Jiung doesn’t allow it. He grabs your jaw and turns you right back to him, stealing you with a searing kiss. 

Your gasp gets swallowed up as you momentarily lose yourself to his magnetic pull, the one that demands control at all times. 

But Intak doesn’t let it slide, not like last time. 

He bullies his way into the kiss, carving out his own space as he tongues in through the corner of your lips. 

You’re overwhelmed, your body thrums alive and simmers with nerves as they kiss your senses out of you, both in tandem and selfishly. 

It’s a clash of tongues, it’s carnal and dirty and wet and loud and messy. You’re pressed back into the cushions as their bodies mould over you. There’s a hand in your hair, tilting your head back to make more space. There’s a hand on your chest, grabbing and kneading, one at your thigh and dangerously close to your needy heat. 

You don’t know your left from right, your up from down—just that Jiung and Intak have a hunger for you so raw, the need to kiss you so pure, that they don’t even realize they’re kissing each other. 

You pull from them slowly, careful not to startle them away, and watch it unfold. 

Intak parts his lips for Jiung’s searching tongue, accepting it with a choked gasp that Jiung swallows right up. Intak tries to fight back with his own tongue but is immediately tamed when Jiung bites down on his lip. It’s a push and pull; they even kiss angry. 

You’re still not sure if they even realize. But whether or not they do, you can’t look away. 

You don’t know how long it goes for, how long you have to clamp your thighs shut to keep yourself from losing anymore dignity. How long Jiung and Intak try to devour each other whole. 

But the hunger ebbs away as they sober for breath. Your own breaths get caught as their eyes slowly blink open, seeing through their lust driven haze. When the clarity brings them reality of what they’d been doing, they don’t clash like you expect them to. 

Intak’s lips turn up into a lazy half-smile, smug and self assured as he pants his words. “I knew you were into it.”

No, they clash in an entirely different way. 

Jiung is on Intak in a flash, leaping over your lap to claim the space on Intak’s as he smothers his surprised yelp with a kiss that looks more painful than anything. 

“You’re the freak who couldn’t shut up about it,” Jiung spits into Intak’s mouth, digging his teeth into his lip and soaking in the pitiful whine he gets with a low laugh. He’s out of breath and heaving and a little deranged, but he argues anyway. “Don’t act like you haven't been practically begging me with your eyes for it to happen again.”

Intak doesn’t take it lying down. He grabs Jiung’s waist, takes his claiming kiss for another moment, before rolling his hips up in a pointed grind that has Jiung stuttering and throwing his head back. 

“Is that why you’re so hard?” Intak gasps, grinning at the pinched expression that grows on Jiung’s face. “Because you’re not enjoying this?”

When Jiung grinds down, hard, it’s devastating enough that Intak’s expression breaks down to nothing but pure bliss, a loud moan ripping through his throat. 

“I am, actually,” Jiung says, voice gruff as he shoves at Intak’s body to bully him onto his back. 

Thrown into motion, you quickly scamper back to make space, with no power to do anything else. 

“Where’s all that talk now, huh?” Jiung grits as he hastily tugs open Intak’s belt and the buttons of his jeans, scowling a snarky grin down at Intak’s wide, glazed over eyes that can do nothing but watch. 

Jiung is a man of patience. But not in this moment, you surmise, because he just slips his hand in through the layers he couldn’t be bothered to rid Intak of and grabs ahold of his cock. 

Intak wails, body jolting at the sudden pressure as he flails to grab onto Jiung’s thighs. 

“J-Ji—ah!” Intak breaks off with a cry, head thrown back as moans fall freely from his parted, slick mouth. 

You can’t see much from this angle, but you can see enough of Jiung’s arm moving in a rapid, merciless rhythm to know just how undone Intak is getting. 

The lewd, slick sounds of skin on skin fill the air, of Intak’s pleasured little whines and grunts. It takes away all your restraint. 

You clumsily loosen your jeans, pushing your hand in to press against your throbbing heat. It quells some of the ache but it fires up tenfold when Jiung pulls back his hand, spits into it, then uses it to drive Intak into tears and a babbling mess. 

“Ji—mm, m’gonna—“ Intak breaks off with a loud cry when Jiung seemingly twists his fist, his head tilting back as those tears slip through the corners of his eyes. 

“Yeah?” Jiung taunts, slowing his hand down enough for Intak to settle just a bit. He grabs Intak’s jaw to hold his fraying focus, looking down at him with a grin twisted with a sadistic sort of pleasure. Like he gets off on driving Intak insane. “Am I gonna make you cum? Again?”

Intak, the poor thing, can only latch onto Jiung’s forearm with both his hands and nod eagerly, rolling his hips up in mindless little bucks to chase the heat of Jiung’s fist. 

“P-Please,” he sobs, parting his lips when Jiung’s thumb digs into his lower lip. “Need’ta… need you…”

Jiung falters entirely, his expression falling blank for a second that feels like it stretches longer than it is. You hear him curse under his breath before he shoves two fingers into Intak’s mouth to shut him up then starts fisting him again, rapid and unrelenting, a pace that has Intak thrashing and sobbing under him. 

You dig your teeth into your lower lip to hold back your noises as you rub your clit harder in tandem, your thighs clamping down on your hand. 

You can’t remember being this turned on or this wet—what does that say about you? Getting off to being ignored as the two people you want the most have at each other?

Intak’s body grows taut as it starts to bow up off the couch, his eyes rolling to the back of his head. You drive yourself there too, to the same precipice that Jiung pushes Intak to—before it all gets ripped away when Jiung suddenly pulls back. 

Intak comes crashing back down with a cry of Jiung’s name, the call tangled with a pained sob. 

You refrain from shuddering too, trying to hold yourself still as you climb back into your body, your hand going still where it stays pressed against your core. 

“No!” Intak sniffles. “N-No why did—I was so close,” he pants through his tears, blindly reaching for Jiung through the blur, his body quivering with the loss.

Jiung gathers Intak’s wrists and holds them to his stomach, his own breaths laboured as he watches the boy untethered under him, because of him. 

“Because,” he starts, then lifts his gaze to you. You nearly jolt under the intensity of it, forgetting entirely that you yourself were even there. “You wanted to prove you were better, right?” He’s not talking to you, but the words sink into you and pool low in your gut anyway. “Prove it then.”

Intak tilts his head back slightly, blinking like he’s seeing you for the first time. His eyes turn starry at the prospect, watching you intently for your signal. 

If it were anatomically possible, you’d pull Intak to you and fuck him into oblivion.

“You’re so bossy, Ji,” you say instead, slipping your hand out of your jeans and shuffling closer. 

Intak bristles when you get close, squirming to get out from under Jiung but Jiung doesn’t let him go. 

You press your hand to Intak’s cheek, and he immediately turns to nuzzle into your palm. 

“You want to?” You ask him softly, endeared with how he blinks up at you again and nods eagerly. 

“Want it—want you… Please?”

You smile at his big, begging eyes, glancing up to see Jiung watching with his hands idle on Intak’s lap, mindlessly brushing his thumb over the clothed ridge of Intak’s hard on. You meet his eyes and give him a conspiring smile that he meets with one of his own. 

“You can,” you say, having to grab Intak’s shoulders and push him back down when he immediately tries to push Jiung off of him. “If you can make me come before you do.”

He makes a confused noise, one that goes unanswered as you pull back to start shucking off your jeans and your panties. 

“Otherwise, Jiung gets to fuck me while you watch. Again.”

His complaints die on his tongue when you shuffle to kneel over him. As soon as your dripping cunt moves in line of his vision, his brain reroutes. He grabs onto your hips and sits you right on his mouth without another complaint. 

You gasp at the first swipe of his eager tongue, tremors rushing through your body as he immediately starts to tongue at your clit. 

You’ve fantasized this so many times since that night; you don’t think you’ve met anyone as talented with his mouth as Intak. And he proves it now as he starts a mind numbing rhythm of circling your clit and tonguing at your hole like it’s what he was born to do. 

Seeing how quickly affected you are, Jiung gets right to work. It’s a better angle now as you watch him tug Intak’s jeans and boxers down, freeing him fully. 

You bite down on your lip at the sight. Intak is thick and long, curved enticingly and so, so hard that he’s almost purpling at the tip. 

“Poor thing,” you mumble under your breath, gasping when his tongue drags through your folds while he whines against you. 

Jiung seems just as dazed by Intak’s cock as he wraps his hand around it once again. He has big hands, but even they look small in comparison. 

Intak jerks under the pressure as Jiung squeezes down, mouth faltering against your pussy as Jiung slides his fist up in a slow drag. 

You watch, mesmerized as a pearly drop of arousal beads at the tip then trickles down over Jiung’s knuckles. 

You nearly forget where you are as you're barraged with the sudden urge to lean down and lick his fingers clean, then maybe seek out more straight from the source. 

But you’re pulled right back when Intak’s lips wrap around your clit and sucks down hard enough to seize your body tight for a hot, blinding second. 

“Fuck!” You gasp, bracing down on Intak’s stomach before grinding your hips down, dragging your clit right over his tongue. 

It seems to set everything in motion—Intak grinding you down on his face as he mouths helplessly at you, Jiung holding Intak down with a hand on his hip, the other vigorously working Intak’s aching cock, and you clinging desperately onto your last morsel of sanity. 

Maybe you were in way over your head. There’s no way you can last longer than Intak with the image in front of you, Jiung fisting his best friend like his life depends on it and watching as Intak devours you like he wants to devour him whole. 

So you opt to look away, shut your eyes, but that plan gets immediately derailed when Jiung leans down and wraps his lips around Intak. 

Intak falters with a choked moan, his hips driving up to instinctively chase the wet warmth but Jiung immediately pulls off and brings his hand down on his hip with a harsh smack. 

“Stay down,” Jiung grits before he dives back down, taking him in his mouth again. 

Your clit pulses dangerously at the sight. Of Jiung’s lips stretched around the girth of Intak’s cock, of the furrow of concentration between his brows as he tries to sink deeper. He stops before he can even take half of it, but seems satisfied enough with the way Intak is tensed up and just panting under you, his fingers digging harshly into your hips as a way to brace himself. 

You feel Intak’s moan as a hot breath fanning over your cunt as Jiung slides up his cock, gives an experimental suck on the tip, then sinks back down with a breathy grunt.

You nearly cum on the spot when Jiung bobs his head and starts to fuck his mouth on Intak, his hand wrapped around whatever he can’t take, his eyes rolling back as they flutter shut at heady the taste of Intak on his tongue. 

His cheeks are flushed, the sounds are vulgar and obscene, and you can just tell it’s not about the dumb little bet anymore. 

He’s not blowing Intak because he wants to win—he’s doing it because he likes it. Because he fucking wants to. Jiung never does anything he doesn’t want to.

“Fucker,” you hiss. You reach back to clamp your fist into Intak’s hair and hold him still before you rock your cunt back down over his panting tongue. 

You don’t even care anymore, especially not when the tip of Intak’s nose starts to nudge at your hole. You ride his face and chase that burning pleasure right to the end with the sight before you, of Jiung looking drunk on Intak’s thick cock and struggling to take it as Intak starts to clumsily fuck up into the wet heat. 

You snap with a startled cry, the orgasm hitting you so suddenly that you nearly topple over. 

You catch yourself on Intak’s stomach, shuddering as Intak dutifully licks you through the high despite being in near shambles himself. 

When Jiung pulls off of Intak, it’s slow and hesitant, like he doesn’t quite want to stop. There’s a thread of saliva and precum that strings momentarily between his lips and the tip of Intak’s cock, one that you want to reach over and bat away. Jiung’s eyes are nearly glazed over, lips parted as he pants, like he was the one that just got his shit rocked. 

“Pathetic,” you mutter without thought and his wide eyes snap up to you.

He looks clueless as he stares at you. “Huh?”

“You’re fucking pathetic,” you double down, pushing off of Intak, who lays there limp and unresponsive. You grab hold of Jiung’s chin, forcing his eyes to stay on you. “You’ve been wanting to do that for a while, haven’t you?” You prod, and his eyes widen with each word, red climbing up his skin. 

He starts to shake his head but you tighten your grip on him and hold him still. 

“What, did you really need me to mediate? Are you really that much of a coward?”

He grits his teeth. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he tries to argue but you push him back against the arm of the couch. He falls against it without fight. “Hands behind your head. You’re going to watch Intak fuck me.”

At the sound of his name, Intak bristles alive and starts to climb out from under you, settling behind you. 

Jiung’s jaw goes slack as he rears up to argue. But one sharp look from you has him snapping his mouth shut, hands rising hesitantly to lock between his head and the couch. 

He parts his legs to give you a little more space to settle in the compact area, but all that does is expose just how hard he is, his cock straining against his dark pants, a damp spot seeping through at the tip. 

But you don’t get much time to grill him for it. 

Because Intak latches himself to your back, completely bare from what you can feel of him. He mouths at your neck as his hands climb up under your shirt, clumsily grinding his still hardened cock against your ass. 

“It hurts,” he whimpers into your ear with a press of his hips against you, before he hastily tugs at your top. 

When you pull it off, one of his hands immediately latches onto your chest, kneading at your tit through your bra. The other presses low on your naval to push you back into him and you hiss softly as his cock brushes right against your sensitive mound, his movements eager and hurried like he can’t quite figure out what to do with himself. 

“Please,” he begs, dropping his face into your shoulder to sniffle into it. “Please lemme fuck you, can’t take it anymore—‘t fucking hurts.”

Your heart tugs at the genuine distress in his voice. You’ve been stringing him long enough, and really, he’s been so good to you that he deserves much better than this. 

You card your hand through his soft hair, urging his head up so you can turn to press your lips to the corner of his. He immediately turns to push his lips into yours in a weak but heartened kiss. 

“C’mon baby,” you urge gently into his lips, arching your back to push your cunt against his throbbing length. “Put it in.”

Intak nearly sobs in relief, wrapping his arm tightly around your waist to hold you still as the other reaches down to guide himself into you. 

His tip drags over the length of your pussy, slow, heavy, hot. You think for a second he might turn it around and tease you, get back at you for putting him through everything. But Intak was never one for patience, not like Jiung. 

So he catches against your hole and pushes, not bothering to ease you around him as he drives himself all the way in despite your body’s resistance at the sudden, nearly unbearable stretch. 

Your mouth falls open in a loud, pained whine at the feeling of being practically split open by his cock. You nearly fall over, your body’s weight giving out, but his strong arm around you keeps you up against him. 

Your walls clamp down on him, resisting against the impossible stretch. He’s big, so much worse than Jiung, especially with barely enough prep. But there’s something mindnumbing about the pain that sears through you. 

Intak is a mess too, gasping into your hair as he gathers his bearings from how tight and warm you are around him. 

You barely get the chance to recover before he’s pushing into you with shallow, uncontrolled thrusts that send a flare of stinging pain through you with each one. 

“Fuck, Intak, s-slow d—ah!” You cut off with a yell at a particularly harsh thrust, one that has him nearly kissing your cervix. 

“Can’t,” he pants, his hands sliding down to claw onto your hips. He holds you tightly before he pulls back and punches into you with a hard thrust that has you falling forward and grabbing onto Jiung’s thighs to brace yourself. 

You choke down the pained yelp that rises in your throat. Intak plasters himself to your back, wrapping his thick arms around you again and holding you down as he starts to fuck you with fervour. 

“I can’t I can’t I can’t,” he pants into your neck, his hand lifting to grab onto your chest once again. His hips slam into you, rocking your body with his, his cock piercing in and carving out space inside you, brushing against your walls in spots you didn’t even know were possible. “Can’t—fuck—can’t hold back, need to cum—“ He turns to dig his face into your hair as his hand tugs your bra down so he can paw at your bare tits. “Needed this—needed you for so long…”

All you can do is take it, take it as Intak pounds into you like a man possessed by his carnal desires, ones that he’s been caging inside and letting fester for who knows how long. Of course he can’t hold back anymore. 

“Yeah?” You ask, gasping when he brushes against that gummy spot inside of you. The pain isn’t so much pain anymore as it is fire and bliss. You turn to press your lips to his ear, letting your breathy moans spill right into it as you speak. “Take whatever you need baby… m’all yours.”

Intak falters, his weight dropping on you as his cock pulses inside you. 

Then he rises up, the heat of him against your back ripping away and leaving you cold. He grabs your hips and lifts them, arching your back before he pulls out until his tip catches against your hole, the swollen head stretching the tight ring of muscle. 

Then he slams into you, once, twice, then again and again, with unrestrained, unyielding thrusts. 

You cry out as he starts to insistently piston against your g-spot with the tip of his cock, the precision almost terrifying in his state of carnal chase. 

“Intak!” You yell, your cries muffled when Intak’s hand lands on the back of your head and pushes you down. 

You’re helpless to him and his brutal cock, forced to just lay there with your ass up and take the barrage of pleasure laced with remnant pain. It clouds your head with a fog so thick that you don’t even realize you’re pressed into Jiung’s lap, not until he bucks his hips up in an attempt to press his boner to your lips. 

You blink up through the fog, your vision clearing on Jiung’s pinched expression, his brows furrowed and jaw tight over clenched teeth. His hands are still caught behind his head, though his restraint seems to be hanging on by a thread. His chest rises and falls rapidly as he watches Intak pummel into you and babble mindlessly about how you feel so good, how he’s gonna fill you up, and never gonna pull out.

Jiung’s hips buck up again, more insistently this time that his clothed cock bumps against your nose. You dig your fingers into his thighs in retaliation and he hisses, eyes snapping down to you in a weak glare. 

You manage a weak smile, smug and teasing, before it wipes away with a brutal snap of Intak’s cock against your cervix. 

“Fuck!” You scream, your pussy clamping down on his pulsing girth. He’s close. You’re not sure how he’s lasted so long. 

He drops onto your back again, arms tightening around you as he grinds his cock into you with deep, uncoordinated thrusts. 

“Gonna cum,” he warns with a gritted whimper, his dick kicking inside you as he pushes in and seats himself deep. 

But he doesn’t finish just yet; he reaches down for your clit and presses his thick fingers into it, flicking against the aching nub with quick movements. 

Your body thrashes under the sensation, your walls fluttering around him as you get drawn up to another orgasm. 

“I-Intak…” You gasp, squirming under him. 

He only speeds up, holding you tighter, rapidly rubbing at your clit. “Come on,” he pleads, rocking inside you once. “Come for me first.”

And then he pinches your clit, pushing you right over. You come with a cry of his name, pulsing violently around him as you cream over his cock. 

It drives him over too. He groans and shoves his cock into you once, twice, three times before he spills inside you with a choked grunt, his entire body trembling as he shoots into you and fills you with his hot seed. 

He whines like he’s pained as he releases into you, before dropping his entire weight on you after the wave passes and trapping your body between his and the couch. 

…his and Jiung’s lap, you realize after a moment of coming back into your body. 

You blink your eyes fully open to see Intak’s head settled on Jiung’s other hip, his eyes already open and fixed on the raging hard on right in the small space between your faces. 

You nearly laugh. Until you see the fucked look on Intak’s face. 

Jiung squirms under you, as if trying to shift away. 

“If you two are done,” he starts with his voice low and gruff, like he’d been the one exerting himself. “Can you get off?”

Intak’s eyes meet yours and you know then that that won’t be an option. The idea pulls a tired grin on your lips. 

“I dunno,” you hum, shifting a little under Intak. You shudder as Intak, still buried inside you, twitches anew. You sigh as you turn your face, nuzzling into the side of Jiung’s boner, your eyes flicking up to see him desperately trying to hold in his reactions. “It’s pretty comfy here. Isn’t it, Takki?”

Intak hums in agreement, shifting in to bump the tip of his nose against the hard ridge. 

Jiung gasps a sharp breath then, his hips twitching up in reflex. “Don’t fucking play,” he seethes, though he doesn’t move, nor does he move either of you. His hands remain right where you told him to keep them.

You just giggle, letting the vibration of your voice tease him through the dampening fabric. You’re sure it’s painful with just how much he’s seeped through his jeans. 

“When do I ever?” You taunt, leaning forward to end a bit of his suffering. 

But Intak beats you to it. He presses over your shoulder and runs the flat of his tongue against the rough fabric, leaving a damp trail up until he reaches the tip of Jiung’s cock and latches down. 

Jiung’s hand flies into Intak’s hair, letting out a choked grunt as he pushes his head down and grinds his crotch up into Intak’s face. 

“Fuck,” he hisses, grinding up again when Intak lets out a startled whimper. 

It only spurs Intak on as he starts tonguing over the bulge, trailing his lips tightly down the length before settling at his base. 

“Shit,” you mutter, watching with your jaw slack and another nagging pull at your gut. “I should’ve just made you guys fuck. Would’ve fixed—“

“Shut the fuck up,” Jiung snaps, grabbing your hair with his free hand and pushing your face into his lap. 

You go down easily, lips landing on and wrapping around his base, but not without digging your nails into his thighs in retaliation. 

But he doesn’t respond to that, too occupied with both your mouth and Intak’s on him. The denim of his pants dampens under your tongue as you suckle on him, Intak still mouthing over his heated length. 

“Talk too fuckin’ much,” Jiung pants as he lets you both go, only to tug open his belt.

Intak immediately reaches over you to help him pull himself free with single minded focus, tugging his pants and boxers down to let his cock spring free, hard and leaking with need. 

It’s embarrassing how quickly your arguments die on your tongue, the space too occupied with your drool. 

You don’t bother with your hands, reaching instead with your mouth to swallow his tip in. 

You hum as the salt and musk bursts on your tongue, giving it a firm suck to milk more out of him. It’s nice, the heavy, velvety taste of him. 

Jiung groans, his hand landing in your hair once again, not to push but just to have something to hold onto. 

You can hear the wet sounds of Intak’s mouth sucking and tonguing at Jiung’s base, and you drag down the generous, ridged length to meet him there. 

You don’t even care how obscene it is, the fact that you’re both mouthing at Jiung’s cock like filthy whores while Intak is still buried balls-deep inside you, where you can feel him hardening up again.

All you can focus on is the sounds Jiung is making, the ones Intak makes as he and you lap at Jiung’s cock in tandem, practically making out with it and each other. 

You don't think you’ve done something so dirty, ever felt so dirty yourself. You don’t think you can have it any other way now. 

“Look at you two,” Jiung breathes, his fingers carding through both your and Intak’s hair, fingers scratching down both affectionately and condescendingly somehow. 

You moan against him just as Intak does, dragging your mouth up to swallow him in again, tonguing at the gummy tip. 

Jiung lets go of your hair and takes your chin instead, digging his thumb into your hallowed cheek. “You sound better with my cock in your mouth.”

You let out an offended whine, sucking down hard to watch him hiss and jerk. 

“Brat,” he grits, grunting when Intak starts prodding at the corner of your lips with his tongue in a silent ask. 

You hum, popping off to let Intak in, but you don’t move away. You both tongue at the swollen tip, mouths tangling together as you practically make out with each other on Jiung’s cock. 

You swirl your tongue over the tip and give it a suck before dipping into Intak’s mouth, sharing the salty taste, letting him do the same before he dips into your mouth and sucks at your tongue. 

It’s brainless, completely devoid of any direction, any thought—just pure, animalistic instinct. 

Jiung curses under the barrage, pushed to his limits. He holds you both down with fists in your hair and starts to fuck up into the space between your mouths, poking into your tongue and Intak’s in a mindless alternation. 

Intak’s eyes roll back at the heady feeling, his body spurring to life to start halfheartedly fucking his cock into you, fully hard again.

You just lay there and take it, let the drags of his cock ease the burning that flares up between your hips again. 

You let Jiung chase his orgasm between the messy press of your mouth and tongue against Intak’s—it’s frantic, lewd, head spinning. 

And it’s completely over for you when Jiung starts whining. 

“Gonna cum,” he whimpers, hands tightening down on your and Intak’s heads. Intak grunts at the pressure but he opens his mouth like you do, just letting Jiung rut against your tongues and faces like a bitch in heat. “Fuck, y’r gonna make me… nngh, fuck fuck fuck—”

He breaks off with a choked yell, forcing you both off of him before he takes his cock and frantically fists himself to completion. 

He cums with another yell, head thrown back as he gasps through it, hot ropes of his cum landing on your faces. You try to catch them with your tongue but it’s far too messy and uncoordinated. 

So you turn to Intak’s blissed out, cum splattered face and start lapping it up from him instead, your brain reduced to nothing but a filthy caricature. Intak seems to share that same mind, licking off whatever he can from your chin and cheek before he forces his tongue into your mouth and tries to take from there. 

You moan against him, sharing the taste of Jiung between what you suppose is a kiss, but you can’t really tell anymore. 

It’s when he cums inside of you again that you realize Intak was still fucking into you with rocky, noncommittal thrusts. It’s much less intense than the one before, but the feeling of him spilling into you again does you in, coaxing out a similarly languid orgasm out of you. 

You settle with a shudder, dropping down on Jiung’s stomach, the cotton of his shirt a soft reprieve against your heated skin. 

It’s a quiet moment of hard breaths and slow realization, with Jiung dead against the couch’s arm above you and Intak laid on your back and panting into your shoulder. 

You don’t move. Don’t think you even can.

The first bit of motion after a handful of moments is Jiung’s voice over you, low and gruff and a little fucked up. 

“What the fuck was that?”

It pulls out a startled laugh out of you. You shift, nudging at Intak’s weight to let you free. 

He whines against you but obliges, though hesitant, slowly sliding out of your cunt with a hiss before he rolls down onto the floor, splaying onto his back and staring up at the ceiling. 

“Heaven,” he says, all too serious as he blinks his starry eyes slowly, a giddy grin climbing onto his swollen lips. 

He looks all cute and boyish with that dimpled smile, his bangs fanning over his eyes. Like he hadn’t just blown the guy he’d been fighting with over a girl, while fucking said girl. 

You snort, shuffling down the couch to settle at the other end while Jiung pulls up his pants and tucks himself away with syrupy movements. Of course he’s the only one clothed while you and Intak remain almost completely bare. 

You tug your bra back in place as you curl back into the cushions. “Needed is what it was. To get you dickheads to finally stop fighting.”

Intak giggles from the ground. “He’s too stubborn to stop.”

“Hm. You’re right.”

Jiung glares at you, still boneless where he lays. “I’m right here.”

Intak’s head pokes up from the ground, looking at Jiung with an impish grin. “So? Can you admit it now?”

“Admit what?” Jiung grumbles, refusing to look at him and opting for the ceiling instead.

But Intak, annoying as he is, shuffles closer to rest his head against the arm of the couch, his face right below Jiung’s. “That you wanted it,” he says, waiting with that smile still plastered on his lips. There’s an honest anticipation behind that gaze though, one that seems to be waiting for a particular answer. “Did you?”

Jiung is silent. You watch his throat bob, his eyes flicker down, his jaw work around his teeth.

“No.”

Intak’s smile pulls wider and only then do you see the corner of Jiung’s lips twitch up.

“In that case,” you start, finding yourself grinning too. The heat pooling low in your gut is starting to feel something like a permanent fixture. “Same time next week?”

Turns out, your games weren’t all for nothing. 

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Asking Jiung to let you sleep with him might be a terrible idea. 

But your room is flooded, the hotel’s completely booked, and Keeho’s—you don’t even want to think about it. 

Even if he never really saw eye to eye with you (to be fair, neither did you with him) he should have some ability to show you a bit of mercy… right? 

But then he opens the door and looks at you with such a deadpan look of displeasure that you realize maybe not and nearly tuck tail and leave. 

“What is it?” He asks, and you’re reminded quickly that that’s not an option. 

“My room flooded.”

His eyes widen for a split second, alarmed before his expression quickly schools back to its usual impassive. There’s an awkward pause that follows. Then, “I fail to see how that’s my problem.”

Your shoulders slump, just a little (a lot) disheartened at his snippy tone. You’d think years of being in the same group would make him a little warmed to you. But he never did make it easy for you to give him a reason to be. 

“The hotel’s completely booked out.”

“Then—“

“Keeho’s got his girlfriend over.”

Jiung blinks at you as he comes to the only conclusion this situation is bound to have. You clutch your Pikachu plushie, the one Shota won for you years ago, closer to your chest in anticipation. 

You half expect him to just shut the door in your face. But then he steps aside and opens it a little further while looking entirely unhappy about having to do so. 

You roll your eyes but bite your tongue. Not enough apparently because the words tumble out anyway as you step into the room. 

“Try looking a little more upset about it, that might get the point across.”

The door shuts a tad too loudly behind you. 

“Of course you would complain when I do something nice,” you hear him grumble under his breath as he passes you, sidestepping you so pointedly that you’d think you were carrying a disease. 

You can only scoff, watching the back of his grey hoodie as he moves through the room for his suitcase at the other end. 

“Like you’re doing this out of the goodness of your heart,” you grit through your teeth, your ducky slippers squawking angrily as you pad over to the bed and plop down on the edge. 

“I’m doing this so you won’t go crying to the manager about how I’m bullying you,” he sneers as he fishes out a black t-shirt then reaches for the hem of his sweater. “Again.”

Your mouth snaps open to snipe right back and remind him that he’d ‘constructively criticized’ you to the point of tears but the words die right on your tongue as Jiung pulls the hoodie off his body, leaving his well-toned, lean-muscled, intricately inked skin exposed for your eyes in all their pallor glory. 

He seems none the wiser to your slack jaw and dazed eyes as he tugs his shirt on, muttering something about ‘ungrateful brat’ but you’re honestly not listening because you’re too busy thinking about holy shit, does boxing really do that kind of a wonder for someone’s body, and, is it getting hot in here?

You’re only snapped out of your quickly flitting brain by his snippy tone. 

“Guess I’ll take the floor,” he grumbles as he starts gathering the extra blankets in the hotel dresser. 

You blink yourself back to your body—when did you start floating away?

“Huh?” You ask intelligently. “What? No, just take the bed.”

He pauses as he turns back to face you, arms full of white fluffy cotton that you kind of want to crawl into. Or is it his arms…

“You’re going to take the floor?” He asks. 

“What?” You ask again, and Jiung gives a look that promptly makes you feel stupid so you scramble to explain. “It’s a queen bed.”

“And?”

“…it can fit two adults with extra space to—mmph, hey!”

The pillow to your face jostles you hard enough that you nearly get toppled onto your back. 

You scramble to right yourself, grabbing the pillow and chucking it back to him but he dodges it easily as he starts to fix a makeshift bed on the empty floor space by the bed. 

“That was so unnecessary!” You cry as you frantically pat down your hair. 

“It is if you keep saying dumb things,” he states simply. 

“Why is sharing a bed dumb? Are you really that immature?”

“Have you ever stopped to think that maybe I don’t want to be in that close proximity to you?”

Well. That stings. And it shuts you right up. 

You’ve always been like oil and water, always wanting different things, always pulled in different creative directions, always had different ways of operating. 

But honestly, you thought it was just that. That you just didn’t mesh well, and that’s okay. Not everyone needs to get along. 

But you never thought that Jiung might just simply not like you to the point that being near you is past his boundary of comfort. And that realization actually sort of… hurts.

You know the silence stretches on for too long that you just stare at him, watching him make his little bed and crawl into it, as if he said nothing remiss.

This new feeling in your chest is strange and uncomfortable, like it’s a tangible thing pulling at itself. So you look away, push yourself to the farthest end of the bed from him, and crawl under the blankets in hopes that being away from him might remedy it a little. 

It doesn’t.

Even after you turn off the lights and toss and turn for what feels like an hour, maybe two.

You can’t help it—his words keep ringing in your ear. And that feeling in your chest keeps pulling tighter and it’s honestly getting a little hard to breathe. 

Does he even understand the gravity of the words he’s said? Does he even care?

You haven’t heard a single sound from him, so you have your answer. There he is, sleeping peacefully in his little dreamland where you don’t exist. 

When did it get so bad? Did you push his buttons too far? When was the tipping point and how did you not see it happen?

You’d always had trouble with him but you never hated him. You hoped that it was all just a silly preamble to something of a meaningful friendship that might grow a few years down the road.

You don’t realize when your hands start shaking. When your eyes start watering. When your breaths start trembling. Or when those quiet little sniffles start escaping you. 

You clench your fists and dig your face into the pillow, mentally cursing yourself for being so affected. 

You’re not affected. Especially not by the likes of Jiung, the asshole. The asshole who you hate to admit has been finding himself taking a lot of your headspace lately. 

Well at least it’s clear now you’ve been in none of his. 

These morose thoughts prattle around in your head, then infest you slowly until they’re clinging to you like a second skin. 

When the bed dips behind you, your heart stops. 

You freeze, breaths caught in your throat. The room pauses like a reel stuck on a terrible frame. You pray he’s only sleep-walking.

“I didn’t mean that.”

The deep timbre of his voice does wonders to start prying off that infestation. You hate that it’s so simple, that he can so easily bring you down. 

You don’t want him to. So you take a deep breath to keep your voice from shaking, and you push away. “Sure you did.”

There’s a pause, one that keeps your skin on edge. 

“Not… in the way that you think.”

Now you’re just confused. “What does that mean?”

“My feelings towards you are complicated.”

“…what does that mean?”

He clicks his tongue, a habit of his that always was pointed to you, to berate you in some way. Right now you don’t really mind it. 

“I just said it’s complicated,” he huffs behind you, and you feel the puff of breath bristle the hair at the back of your neck. 

Only then do you become aware of how close he is, and the heat of his body behind you burns more present somehow.

“Wow,” you deadpan, trying to shake off that prickling feeling that starts to grow under your skin. “You make me cry and you can’t even explain yourself.”

He lets out a long suffering sigh. It makes you smile despite your turmoil, wondering if his face is scrunched in that way it always is when he’s fed up with you. You’re just glad he can’t see it. 

“It’s not that I hate being around you.” A pause. “Well, I do.” Before you can start crying again, he barrels on. “But only because… it drives me crazy.”

Well, you might start regardless. “I get it, I’m crazy, you don’t have to keep saying it I believe you—“

“I think I’m in love with you.”

The world around you feels like it’s about to implode in on itself. The room feels like it’s caving in on you. Your brain feels something similar, before it stutters and crashes and goes completely silent.

“Or… at least have very strong feelings for you.”

You take in the breath that’s been refusing to reach you, but it fills your lungs shakily and without commitment to actually helping you function. 

“You’re sure it’s not hate?” You ask, because no part of you can believe the words uttered from his stupidly pretty lips. Lips you wish you could see right about now. Just so you can confirm that he’s actually talking and this is not the little devil on your shoulder playing terrible tricks on you.

“It could be,” he admits solemnly. “Because I really want to push you off this bed right now.”

You whip around, immediately offended at his smug little face. You completely miss the nerves lingering in his gaze as it drops for a split second. 

“Go ahead.” You glare. “I’ll bring you down with me.”

“I won’t stop you.”

When his eyes meet yours, the moment sobers and you’re quickly reminded of… reminded of…

“I mean it,” he says softly, and you’re reminded of just what it was that had blown your whole world open mere moments ago. “I can’t stand being around you because I can’t stand the thought that you don’t want me the way I want you.”

The honesty of his words, the low timbre of his voice, the solid weight of the night that blankets you—it makes something in your chest settle. Something at peace. 

You recall all his snarky remarks about your dancing. You recall the way he always lingered after every practice to help you, armed with condescension and something else you missed entirely. Something you’re seeing now.

You recall those begrudging ‘hbd’ texts, those little frog plushies that would show up in random crevices of your dorm room at odd times of the year. You recall his insults and how they weren’t really insults at all—adoration disguised under disgust, maybe. 

You recall the little box of tiramisu always delivered to your door after you’ve had a bad day. You just assumed it was Intak. But now you're realizing you only ever mentioned it being your favourite indulgence around Jiung.

You recall wishing every day that these little things led to something—to Jiung. You recall how you’d look forward to the next moment with him that you’d get to torment him. That you were happy for every little reaction you’d invoke from him. You just didn’t realize why. Until now.

The smile that grows on your lips is entirely his fault. “Who said anything about that?”

“You,” he deadpans. “Multiple times.”

You scoff, hitting his arm without real punch but you let your hand linger there on the soft cotton of his shirt. 

“Only because I thought you hated me all this time,” you murmur, the honestly stripping you bare of all your typical bells and whistles.

“Well,” he starts, slowly mirroring the smile on you. “There have been some grave misunderstandings it seems.”

“I suppose…”

“But it’s not unfixeable,” he says, suddenly looking every bit of nervous that you’re feeling. “Right?”

You hum in thought, half heartedly tugging on a loose string on his sleeve. “True. You can start now.”

He raises a brow at you. “Shouldn’t it go both ways? We’re both at fault for this.”

“Mm… Nah. You go first.”

You bite back your laugh at the glare he fixes you with. You don’t even get the chance to say you’re kidding before suddenly there’s arms around you, tight and strong, and you’re being manhandled against your will. 

Your fight dies down when he holds you close to him, your back to his chest. When you realize the position you’re in and melt in his hold (completely against your will), the tension in his body leaves all at once and he buries his face in the back of your hair. 

“Better?” He murmurs into it, his honeyed voice a living thing inside your skull. His arms twist tighter around your waist and send your stomach into fluttery knots. 

You lean into the touch, letting your hand brush over the warm skin at his wrist. 

“Could be better,” you say as more of a breath. 

When his lips brush against the spot under your ear before pressing against your skin, warm and lingering, your breath hitches in your throat. 

“How about now?” He whispers, breath feathering down your neck. 

You swallow down your thrumming heart, tilting your head towards him just a bit but you still can’t bring it in you to look at him just yet. 

“Getting there,” you try to tease, but it falls weak. 

He chuckles lightly against you, before pressing his palm against your stomach as if holding you to him so he can trace the ghost of his lips down the line of your jaw, caging you in with his body. 

He settles at the base of your chin, biting down with his teeth. 

Your eyes snap open at the quick burst of pain, and you turn to glare at him but he takes that chance instead to seal his lips over yours. 

It feels like you’re falling, again and again, as his lips move over yours. It’s slow, hesitant, a little timid.

But when you sigh into the warmth and move your lips in tandem with his, he presses in. 

His hand comes up to your jaw to hold you in place as he dives. Searching, as he indulges in the taste of you on his seeking tongue, a quick, wet slide that teases your lower lip and leaves your stomach burning. 

The sound he makes against you when you meet the next swipe of his tongue with your own makes you lose all your inhibitions. 

You push back, and he goes under your palms as you turn and slide your body over his, never once severing where you’re connected. You’re practically devouring him now, legs straddling his lap, palms pushing his sturdy chest into the mattress, lips parted enough to let your tongue slide against the seam of his lips. 

He gives with a little moan, accepting your tongue with a soft gasp and his hands clutching onto your hips. He pulls you in flush, solid warmth against your already heated body. 

Your tongue maps his pliant mouth, seeking home and staking claim. It leaves him panting under you, little grunts and sounds spilling from his lips. 

“So noisy,” you coo against the wet heat of his open mouth, his damp breathing marring your slick lips. 

He whimpers, lifting his head and leaning up, already seeking your kiss again. “Wanted this for too long,” he muffles against you, slurred and almost unintelligible as his tongue flits out for another taste of your lips. Like he can’t go without it for even a few seconds.

You take a shaky breath to ease the tempest those words brew inside your chest. You peck his lips to soothe him over for another moment. “I can see that,” you hum, giggling softly when he eagerly captures another needy kiss. 

“Don’t tease,” he whines thinly. 

You kiss him deep and slow, easing him down to the pillow again before you reroute. “Not possible,” you hum against his jaw, trailing hot, wet kisses down the sharp cut then flitting down his neck. “You’re too cute.”

He lets out an angry little puff of breath, digging his nails into the fabric of your shirt. “Thought I was an ogre.”

You snicker against his skin, recalling that time you’d petulantly called him a shrimpy ogre when the concept looks for the Killin’ It era were revealed during a meeting with the company head. And about a few dozen others. 

“Still are,” you state, lifting to grin down at him. “This doesn’t change anything.”

When you take in the sight of him, starry eyed as he stares up at you in a daze, kiss bitten lips parted as he pants for air, pale skin flushed a pretty scarlet over his cheeks and down his neck, you think to yourself, huh—this might change one thing.

You watch as that distant, hazy look in his eye turns sharp and pointed. 

And then he’s got an arm around you, flipping you onto your back like it takes no effort before he sets himself on top of you, slotted right between your parted legs.

That starry look is gone, pupils blown wide with a dark, heated desire that leaves your taunts withering on your tongue. 

He places his hands on your stomach, searing through your shirt as he slides them down just to drag them back up, underneath your layers this time. 

You gasp as the heat seeps directly through your skin and pools low in your belly, his eyes snapping down to catch the movement. 

“I think I can change a few things,” he whispers. 

Hell, you think as he captures your lips again. 

This changes everything.

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1 reblog/comment = 1 virtual kiss <3

chemist!jiung who walks into your lab for the very first time all wide-eyed and enthused for the opportunity to work in a big pharma lab. who you set your eyes on at the first sight of dark, shaggy hair, of big, sparkly brown eyes, of the white lab coat sitting snug over his broad shoulders, nearly glowing against his pale skin. 

He doesn't seem to be taking in anything your supervisor is explaining to him as she walks him around the lab, his wandering eyes flitting between all the complicated looking machines with equal parts nerve and excitement. 

And gods he’s so pretty that you nearly drop your standard solution. 

“Hey,” your benchmate, Jongseob, snaps from across the divider. 

But you ignore him, too busy ogling the new boy’s enticingly lean body. You don’t even know his name. All you know is that you’ll want to scream it at some point. 

A disposable pipette hits you in the face and snaps you out of your reverie. Jongseob is too busy snickering to be phased by your glare. 

“Careful or you’ll catch flies,” he teases. You throw the pipette back at him. 

“Shut up before I catch you by the—“

“And here is our best and brightest!” 

You whip around to see your supervisor sauntering over to your desk with a wide grin, the new boy following behind like a little ducking, all shy with his hands tucked in front of him and a small smile on his lips. 

When his eyes catch yours, your breath hitches. 

“She’s one of our best,” your supervisor starts, but her words fall deaf to you. 

You’re too busy tracing the slope of his perfectly carved nose, where a pair of thin glasses sit in lieu of those stupid chunky safety ones that you despise and rarely wear, never mind being one chemical splash away from becoming blind. You hope he never takes these ones off. 

“…Jiung, if there’s anything you ever need help with, she’s your girl,” your supervisor’s voice pulls you back to the present.

Jiung.

Yeah, you could work with that.

You grin at the shy smile and nod that he gives you and lean over your desk, nearly knocking over your vials with your elbows. 

“Yes, Jiung,” you chime, and you don’t miss the light blush that dusts his cheekbones at your next words. “Anything you need.”

chemist!jiung who starts to stick by your side after you decide to take him on as your protege and let him shadow you on the job, from letting him sit with you at your desk and watch you work, to keeping him company during lunchtime with your group of lab friends, to showing him around the building. 

“And this is our supply cage,” you tell him, stopping at the row of locked cages in a room where the lights are a bit too dim. You unlock the door, bringing him into the overcrowded space. It’s brimming with supplies far too many for the tiny space to hold. “It’s a little spooky but it’s quiet, there’s no cameras, and people rarely come down here.”

His voice rings right behind your head. “It’s pretty small.” 

You turn to find him standing almost body to body with you, which is all the space will allow, as his eyes roam around to take in all the stock. 

“Small, but a nice getaway. Just you and your thoughts,” you smile, not making any effort to put some distance between you. 

He doesn’t either when he looks down at you to mirror your smile. “Good to know,” he hums, his eyes taking their turn to take stock of your face this time. 

There’s a quick moment where you get a glimpse of the man behind that shy, nerdy exterior in the impish slope of his smile. 

But it doesn’t last long, seeming to remember his place as he takes a step back. 

“So can I—“ —just to hit his head against the corner of a protruding box on the shelf behind him. “Ah!”

You break into a laugh at the affronted and embarrassed look on his face as he curls in a little and rubs the back of his head. 

“Careful you dork,” you snicker, taking his arm to pull him back to you. “It’s dangerous in here.”

He scrunches his nose, pouting as he drops his hand to his side. “Could’ve warned me…”

You grin at him, squeezing his elbow once before you let go. “Just don’t come in here alone. You could get mauled by a box of septa caps and no one will find your body.”

He giggles at your dumb joke, shifting his weight on his feet as he meets your eye for only a second before looking away. “Guess I’ll just have to bring you along with me.”

“Mhm.” You step past him for the exit, brushing your shoulder against his. “I’ll protect you, princess.”

chemist!jiung who gets assigned to the empty bench across from you and doesn’t miss any chance he gets with the convenience of it to ask for your help. who you’re delighted to assist with a generous hand and a flirty smile. 

“My retention is failing,” he says, his voice carrying from across the meter gap between your benches. 

You lower the flask in your hand, looking over to see him staring at his computer with a tiny pout on his lips. 

You can’t hold back the giggle that escapes you at the cute sight. Everything he does is cute. “Did you make your mobile phase right?” You ask as you rise to your feet, abandoning your own work, to round over to his bench. 

“I did!” He cries softly, shoulders slumping as he follows you with his eyes. You should feel bad at the sad look in his eye but that strange, primal part of you preens at the sight. 

“Hm…” You stand over his shoulder to watch the peaks on his screen form, chewing on your lip and trying to distract yourself from the helpless gaze that Jiung looks up at you with. “Well it looks like your standard checks passed. Our systems are pretty finicky. Maybe there’s a leak somewhere.”

His pout deepens. “What do I do?” He asks, wringing his hands nervously in his lap. “This is going to be a lab event, isn’t it?”

You bite away the laugh that bubbles in your throat at just how nervous he seems. “Unfortunately,” you answer, and the devastation in his expression actually does make you feel bad this time. “But hey, you held out longer than I did. I only lasted two weeks before I had my first investigation.”

He seems to lighten at that, his brows raising behind his bangs. “Really?” The surprise in his voice takes you a little aback. “But you’re so…” He trails off, struggling to form his thoughts, the blush on his cheeks deepening into a scarlet. 

You grin, bumping your elbow lightly against his shoulder. “Good?”

He lets out a tinkling giggle that wraps snug around your heart. “Well, yeah. You make, like, zero mistakes. You’re perfect,” he rushes out, stumbling over his words, and when he realizes what he’s said, his blush climbs down his neck. “I-I mean, in the sense that—when you work—“

“Relax,” you chuckle, saving him from choking on his own words. He lowers his head to avoid your gaze, no doubt mentally kicking himself. You step just a fraction closer, leaning your hip against his desk and bending down to whisper to him. “But between you and me,” you start, and he looks up at you with those pretty brown eyes, lower lip tugged between his teeth. “I’ve just gotten better at hiding my mistakes.”

You don’t miss the way that his gaze falls to your lips for a split second, the way the corner of his lips twitch up. 

“I guess I still have a lot to learn from you,” he murmurs, unknowingly setting fire to your heart and somewhere… lower.

chemist!jiung who seems to get as struck by you as you are by him, if his wandering eyes and shy smiles and lingering presence at your desk (despite his being only a few feet away) are anything to go by. who doesn’t seem brave enough to make an actual move.

“Some of us are going rock climbing after work this Friday,” you tell him as you hold your cylinder beaker of acetonitrile up to him behind the fume hood glass. “Wanna come with?”

He takes a look at your beaker, gives you a nod, then turns back to marking his own flask. “That sounds fun,” he says after a moment. “Pass me the ACN?”

You lug the heavy bottle over to his side of the fume hood after you finish pouring out your beaker. His hand brushes against yours as he takes it from you—only a minute point of contact that he quickly flits away from like he was burned. The red that climbs up his neck is telling enough.

You bite down on your lip as you go back to finishing up your solution. “I’m thinking about getting some bubble tea after,” you say, hoping he’ll take to the opening. 

As usual, it goes right over his head. “I love bubble tea,” he chimes as he moves to measure out his solvents. 

You let it linger for a moment, hoping he might eventually catch on. 

He doesn’t. 

You sigh internally before you pick up your bottle of standard, turning to face him fully. “Would you like to join me?”

He freezes up, his pipette bulb fumbling out of his hand as he processes your words. You can actually see his brain freeze manifesting into blinking eyes and blushy cheeks and a gaping mouth. 

His head whips around to you. “Huh?”

You’re not sure whether to laugh or be offended. 

You could be straight forward and call it a date, since you know for a fact that he likes you but his brain is too preoccupied with chemical formulas to do something about it, or you could play it safe. 

You play it safe, because you’re not above being a coward. 

“Bubble tea,” you repeat, raising a brow. “Wanna go with me after rock climbing?”

You let the question compute in his mind for a bit, just watching the way his parted lips quiver like he’s about to say something just to come up empty. 

It goes on like that for a handful of seconds before he finally speaks up. 

“Little brother,” he fumbles out, then turns a fire red at your baffled expression. “Uh, my little brother and I are watching a show later that night so… I can’t be out that long.”

You don’t bother to hide your disappointment. But it’s a valid enough excuse. You just hope it’s not a lie. 

“Didn’t know you had a little brother,” you pivot with a smile, giving him a once over. “Suits you though.”

You leave him at the fume hood blinking in confusion as you call over your shoulder for him to,

“Make it up to me some other time then!”

chemist!jiung who doesn’t make it up to you. who instead dodges your attempts to get him alone but does everything to mess with your heart with his gentlemanly and not-so-friendly gestures, like complimenting your new haircut, like offering you a hand to get you down the step ladder, like reaching around your shoulders and caging you in his arms to type something out in your keyboard, like not breaking eye contact for one second as he gives you the space to rant about your shitty coworker. who gives you every reason to believe he wants you but will then reject your advances.  who you get fed up with eventually so you corner him in the supply cage when he asks you to help him bring in new glassware. 

“What’s your deal?”

He whips around to you, clutching a box of new volumetric flasks in his arms as he stares at you with wide eyes. “Huh?”

Normally, you’d find his cluelessness cute. But now you’re just exhausted. 

“Don’t play dumb,” you snap and he bristles, trying to step back but gets interjected by the shelf behind him. There’s no escape from your disapproving look in this tiny space. He must face it head on, five inches away from him. “I’ve been asking you out for like three weeks now. And if you’re going to tell me it’s because you don’t see me that way, then I call bullshit. Your signals say otherwise.”

He goes quiet, and you start to feel like you’ve gone and truly fucked up by misreading everything. 

“…So you really were asking me out,” he mutters, quietly enough that you think you weren’t meant to hear. 

Your brows furrow. “Well no shit. I know you’re a little dense but you’re not that—“

The box in his arm goes crashing to the floor, the very expensive glass inside clanking and probably shattering, but that becomes the least of your worries when his body engulfs you and his lips crash into yours. 

It takes a moment for your soul to make it back into your body—but at the insistent grasp of his hands on your hips, the insistent press of his plush, warm lips against yours, the insistent little noise he makes at the back of his throat when you don’t immediately kiss him back, you melt against him. 

You kiss him back with an aching fervour, one that’s been festering inside you the moment you laid eyes on him. He sighs into the kiss, parting his lips to let you map out his mouth with your tongue as he pushes his body against yours. 

The shelf digs painfully into your back but the pain gets overridden by the overwhelming surge of pure want that rattles through your veins. 

You dig your teeth into his lower lip, drawing a broken moan from him. “Fucker,” you hiss at him, grabbing him by the back of his hair to hold him in place so you can bully your tongue back in his mouth. 

He just takes it, trying to push deeper into your lips but his glasses bump awkwardly against your cheek. 

He pulls away with a curse, pulls his glasses off and tosses them blindly aside, then lets you pull him back in by the collar of his lab coat. 

Those new flasks never make it to the lab. 

chemist!jiung who ignores you almost entirely after that. who is, of course, a professional so he can’t entirely ignore you but keeps his interactions with you strictly business. 

You sit with him at lunch? He’ll divert the conversation you try to start with him to your other coworkers. 

You try to give him a hand with supply cage runs? He says he’ll ask Taeyang for help. 

You try to strike up conversation from your desk when the workload lulls? He’ll give you dry, uninteresting answers. 

So you stop trying entirely, bitter and a little (read: a lot) hurt. You really thought something could have come out of this. But the excitement that came with waking up everyday and having a reason to look forward to going to work has turned into a dread that makes you resent ever meeting him in the first place.

But even then, even with all his evasive behaviour, his eyes still won’t leave you. 

You feel it when you divert your attention to Keeho during lunch, when you opt to talk with Jongseob from your desk, when you’re setting up your system all the way across the lab. 

You know your little game isn’t over just yet. You’re just not sure how to end it. 

chemist!jiung who causes another investigation a few months in, one that your supervisor thinks will need your expert hand to fix, so she assigns you both to come in on a saturday to rerun his project. who is the only other person in the building with you. 

You work in tandem with him, keeping interactions short and your words clipped, just enough to get through the work well enough.

But your attention keeps straying from the tasks at hand—to the furrow between his brows and the pout on his lips as he mixes solvents, to the way his shoulders move under his lab coat as he works, to the way his long fingers move under those nitrile gloves, prominent veins shifting under the thin material. To the glasses that keep slipping down his nose, the safety ones shoved up in his hair and out of the way. 

You let him do the cleaning, leaning against the solvent cabinet as you watch his back while he rinses glassware. 

It’s quiet, just the sound of running water and clinking glass.  

“I can feel you glaring at me,” he says after a while, the deep timbre of his voice a little rasped from the long hours of work.

You let your silence linger for a little longer, before,

“What’s your deal?”

His movements freeze for a moment before they resume as he reaches out to shut off the water. “I feel like I’m getting deja vu.” 

“Right,” you mutter, just a little bitter. “Don’t you think it’s a little unfair that I’m in this position again?”

He places the flasks in the glassware cart before slowly turning to you, gaze lowered as he pulls off his gloves. You hate that your eyes follow the movement, seeking out the sight of his unfairly attractive hands. 

“I’m sorry,” he finally says. 

You straighten on your feet, folding your arms over your chest as you step towards him. “Sorry?” He freezes up as you inch closer, step by slow step. “That’s all I get after you kiss me stupid then leave me hanging?”

You watch as his throat bobs with a nervous swallow, as the familiar red starts to creep over his skin. “I-I didn’t mean for that to happen,” he stammers, wringing the wet gloves in his hands. “I just…”

You stop in front of him, inches away. “Just what?” You snap.

He flinches, glancing up at you for barely a split second before looking down again. “I don’t date coworkers.”

You want to laugh. 

“Yeah?” You tilt your head, waiting for him to look up at you again before continuing. “That doesn’t stop you from eyefucking me in the middle of the lab.”

He makes a soft, panicked noise, his eyes blowing wide open behind his glasses. “I-I don’t—“

“You do,” you cut in, snatching the gloves from him and tossing them in the way of the bin. You’re pretty sure it misses entirely. “So I’m asking you again.” You lean in, close enough that you can almost feel the tip of his nose against yours without actually touching. “What’s your deal?”

His breath hitches, his panicked eyes flitting between yours as he searches for an answer. 

“I shouldn’t…” He whimpers, a weak and weary thing. 

“Shouldn’t? Or don’t want to?”

“I want to!” He bristles, his nose bumping into you. He flinches back at the contact. “I-I want to but… It’s a huge HR violation…”

Again, you want to laugh. And maybe throw up a little bit from the ridiculousness of it. On him, preferably. 

You narrow your eyes at him. “Do you know how many safety hazards I ignore in this lab? You think I give a fuck about HR violations?”

His lips part, jaw going slack as he tries to grapple with the idea of defying code of conduct. 

You take a step back and it seems like it physically blows him. His hand reaches out for you almost on instinct before he forces it back to his side. 

“I’m going to the cage to get some new cylinders,” you say, the invitation loud and clear, before you turn and leave him in his agony. 

chemist!jiung who seems to make up his mind pretty quickly, because you don’t even have to wait five minutes before he’s in the supply cage with you, on his knees with his face buried between your thighs. 

His tongue is eager and relentless and talented as he fucks you with it to what seems like is going to be an overwhelming high. 

“F-fuck, Jiung!” You cry, legs shaking under you, your hand tightening in his hair as your hips rock against his face. 

He pulls off of you, clicking his tongue at the loud whine you let out. “Quiet,” he snaps, his voice deeper than you’d think it could go. It makes your head spin. “There’s still a security guy roaming the halls. You don’t want him to hear, do you?”

You huff, hissing when his fingers dig into the thigh you have swung over his shoulder in retaliation. “Fine, just—“ You tug him back in by the hair and he obliges, latching onto your clit. 

Your back arches off of the shelf when the tip of his tongue starts to rapidly flick over the throbbing bud, your jaw falling open in a silent moan. 

His hand not holding up your leg climbs up your body to pull open your lab coat. Then he starts to hastily unbutton your shirt, latching onto your breast over your bra and kneading the soft flesh in his palm, making you arch further into the touch. 

The heat in your gut coils tighter, threatening to snap when you catch the sight of him, so completely enthralled by the taste of you. His glasses are starting to fog up but you can still see that his eyes are half lidded with a drunken look to them. His cheeks are splattered with the familiar red, and the sight of him like this is so pretty that when his tongue glides down to circle at your hole, the tip of his nose prodding at your clit, you nearly come undone. 

But then he pulls away entirely and you actually sob as the pleasure gets ripped away from you. “Jiung,” you whimper, your vision blurring through the tears. 

“Shh.” He lowers your leg, his hand finding your hip as he starts to climb up your body, leaving kisses over you, over your mussed clothes as he rises to his feet. He trails them up to your exposed chest, tugging down your bra so he can tongue at your nipple. “Want you to come on my cock.”

The words barely register in your hazy brain before he’s turning you around, still gentle as he handles you despite the mind-reeling switch in his demeanour. 

The clinks of his belt and the sound of his zipper makes the realization dawn on you. “J-Ji—“ You break off into a whine when you feel the blunt head of his cock, thick and throbbing, swipe through your soaked folds. 

You both shudder at the feeling, his hand tightening on your hip, his head dropping to your shoulder as he pushes against your entrance. But he doesn’t press in just yet. 

Your hands tighten on the shelf, the cold metal digging into your cheek where you’re pressed against it. 

When he still doesn’t move, you let out a whine, pushing your hips back. His tip catches against your hole and he curses, all restraint flying through the window as he holds down your hips and pushes his cock into you, seating himself deep enough to where you feel him nearly kissing your cervix. 

Your jaw falls open into a loud moan but his hand quickly snaps over your mouth, muffling out the sound before he hisses in your ear. “What did I say?”

But you can’t think about anything past the way he stretches you out and fills you up so nicely, especially not when he starts to fuck into you in a slow, deep pace that makes it feel as though he’s carving out a space inside of you in the shape of him, brushing every inch of himself against your gummy walls, punching into that spot inside of you with each precise thrust. 

It doesn’t take much from him to get you shaking like a leaf and creaming around him. 

“Is this what you wanted?” He gasps into your ear, his arm winding around your shoulders to hold you against him as he snaps his hips quicker into you. 

You whine, the question not registering past your fucked out daze as you grab onto his forearm for stability, your body jerking with each of his harsh thrusts.

“Hm?” He persists, turning to press his lips into your ears. “Is this what you imagined when you brought me in here that first time?”

You let out a weak whine, nothing but an unintelligible babble of his name that makes him chuckle. 

“I imagined it too,” he whispers, slowing down to deep, grinding thrusts that push against your cervix and make your body grow taut with an overwhelming mix of pain and pleasure. “I imagined it so many times.” His breaths are hot and wet against your neck, his tongue flicking out to trace the shell of your ear. “Bending you over my bench when you’d come over to fix my mistakes for me. Eating you out in the PSD room. Fucking you on my fingers in my car right in the parking lot. Fuck—“ He hisses when you clamp down on him as the images of him defiling you in the lab fill your head, his pace stuttering as he lets out a choked laugh. “Yeah? You like that?”

He pulls out until the tip just to slam all the way back in and pick up a rapid pace that has the shelf rattling and your body thrashing. 

“Imagined this too,” he breathes, voice starting to thin out into something airy and needy and whimpery as he nears his edge. “Fuck—imagined it just like this… So many fucking times, fuck, I’m coming—“

He reached around to start drawing quick, tight circles around your clit to barrel you right over to your orgasm, just as he reaches his. 

“Come for me,” he begs, fucking you rapidly into delirium. “Fuck please—please come for me, I’m gonna—“

He thrusts into you once, twice before pushing all the way in and shooting ropes of warm cum into you just as you pulse and thrash around him, sobbing through your orgasm. He lets his bitten out grunts and whimpers drown out into your hair, his attempts to stay quiet not entirely successful. 

But he doesn’t care, not when he gets to stay seated deep in your warm body with his arms around you, head buried in your neck as he breathes himself back into his body. Not when he eventually pulls out and sees you dripping with him, and his head gets filled with ideas of where to fuck you next. 

chemist!jiung who breaks open a new box of kimwipes to clean you up and then puts you back together, kissing your senses back into your trembling body. 

“Come on,” he murmurs, still breathless as he pulls you up on your feet and into his arms. “We gotta see if my standard checks are passing.”

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𓆩⟡𓆪 check out my masterlist for my other works

1 reblog/comment = 1 virtual kiss <3

The place is empty, save for Jiung who sits at the edge of the ring holding an ice bag to his face and wallowing in his defeat. 

You frown to yourself at the sight of him. You knew this was an important match for him—he’d been training and preparing for it tirelessly. The defeat wouldn’t be easy for him to handle, so the least you can do is be there for him. 

You make your way to the ring, your boots scuffing loud enough against the wooden floors for him to hear but he stays staring at the centre of the ring, as if he was replaying the fight in his mind and wondering just where he went wrong. 

You stop at the edge of the ring. “Tough fight,” you say softly. 

He only gives you a bare thing of a nod as a response. 

Sighing, you pull yourself up and slip inside through the ropes. “Let me,” you say, lowering yourself in front of him and reaching for the ice pack. 

He doesn’t meet your eye, but he relinquishes the pack to you and lets you press it to the bruise on his cheekbone. His hands find your waist instead as you settle yourself to straddle his thighs. 

There’s a cut against his forehead that’s scabbed over and red, his lower lip a little busted, a few bruises here and there along his bare torso. The thin sheen of sweat makes his skin glisten under the dim lights. Like always, your eyes snag on his tattoos as they make their way back up to his face.

He’s already looking at you, expression devoid of any emotion. 

You give him a small smile, brushing back his damp hair with your free hand before curling your fingers into the dark locks and lightly scratching into his scalp. 

“You did good tonight, Ji.”

“I lost.”

You raise your brow at him. “And?”

He tries to look away but you catch him by the chin, turning his gaze back to you. His impassive mirage has given away to frustration. 

“I lost,” he repeats icily. You know the sharp edges of his words aren’t pointed at you. They’re for himself. “I trained for months and I still lost.”

“And that guy has been training for years,” you point out. If anything, logic will reach him better than baseless consolation would. “You’re still new to this Ji. What matters is that you’re still here. Are you going to cry and run away after one loss?”

His jaw ticks, eyes sharpening at you before he lowers his gaze again. 

You shuffle closer, lowering the ice pack to the floor before cradling his jaw in both hands and tilting his gaze back up. 

He leans his head back, dark eyes blinking slowly up at you. You brush your thumb under his eye, leaning in to press a quick kiss to the tip of his nose. 

“You were real impressive up here,” you tell him, changing tactics.

It seems to get to him. He blinks, lips twitching as he tries to hold in his reaction. “You think so?”

“Mhm,” you agree, pecking the uninjured side of his lips. “You looked like a seasoned fighter. All intimidating and… hot.”

You grin when the corner of his lips tick up. His thumbs slip up under your shirt, digging lightly into your skin. 

“Of course you’d get off on me being all beat up and bruised,” he chides lightly, though you can see the growing mischief in his eyes as they trail down to your lips. 

“Can you blame me?” You giggle, letting your palms slide down the warm skin of his body before settling at the waistband of his shorts. “It just makes me wanna take care of you.”

His tongue flicks out to wet his lower lip before he swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing with the movement. You follow each shift on him as your hand travels lower, palm pressing down against the growing bulge under his shorts. 

He takes a sharp breath, eyes fluttering closed for a moment before they snap back open. 

“Yeah?” He asks, voice already gruff and affected. His hands tighten on your hips, starry eyes locked like a trance on your lips. 

You tease your thumb over the length of his clothed cock, smiling when you feel it twitching under the minimal sensation. 

“Mhm.” You let your hand settle at his waistband again, fingers brushing lightly over the inked skin. “It’s the least I can do after you worked so hard, no?”

He swallows again, brows furrowing as his hips buck up lightly at the brush over his sensitive skin. 

“Yeah,” he breathes. “Just—Please don’t tease.” He looks up at you with those big brown eyes, desperate for your touch. 

It’s enough to break your resolve. You didn’t plan on teasing in the first place, but there’s no way you could deny those pretty eyes. 

So you slip your hand in and wrap your palm around the heavy, pulsing length of his cock. 

The reaction is immediate. He lets out a groan, head pushing back against the ropes as his eyes squeeze shut. 

“So sensitive, Ji,” you coo, dragging your fist up to collect the moisture at his tip before slicking it down to his base. 

Even just that first drag has his breaths stuttering, jaw clenching tight as his fingers dig harder into your hips. 

“Mm—“ He lets out a broken moan as you start fisting him at a slow pace. His eyes flutter open again to look up at you, eyes bleary with pleasure. “Feels good,” he whispers. 

“Yeah?” You bring your free hand up to card into his hair again, and his eyes flutter as your nails scratch down. “You deserve to feel good,” you tell him. He whimpers softly, gasping when you twist your hand at his tip before picking up the pace. “Especially after how well you did. You did good, didn’t you, Ji?”

His breaths shake, his hips bucking up to meet your fist with a mind of their own. “Y-Yeah,” he whispers hoarsely.

“Yes what?” You ask him and he whines, his cock pulsing under your palm with the threat of release. He won’t last much longer. 

“Yes,” he whimpers, eyes blinking through the tears that gather along his lash line. “I-I did good.”

“That’s right, Ji.” You smile, tightening your fist around him. 

He’s already leaking so much, the steady stream of precum making it easier for you to fist him quicker to completion. 

“So good,” you whisper, drinking in the way his body starts to tense up, the way his eyes roll back, the way his lips part to give way to gasping breaths. “So good, baby. So good for me.”

He comes with a broken moan, body jerking under you as ropes of warm release spill over your moving fist. 

You slow your hand, riding him through his high as you lean forward to press a kiss to his parted lips, giggling at the fucked out look on his face. 

“You did so good, Ji.”

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—⊹₊⟡⋆   1. INTAK

Exhaustion from the hours of practice seeps into the marrows of his bones, threatening to throttle Intak off his feet as he fights against the rattling bus to keep himself upright. 

The streets pass by through the windows in a blur and he can’t focus on anything except for the DoorDash that’s waiting at his dorm. 

He’s startled out of his hunger-induced daydreams when he feels a weight drop onto his shoulder. 

His head whips to his right to see you lifting your head quickly off him, pushing your weight against the divider to keep from falling over as your body sways. 

You blink slowly at him with an equally startled, albeit tired, look in your eyes. Your lids look as if they’re too heavy to keep open for longer than a second.

Did you just… fall asleep? Standing?

He’d noticed you seemed a little low on energy during practice but he didn’t think it was this bad to the point you were tired enough to nearly give out like this. 

Intak frowns when he takes notice of the scarlet rimming your eyes. “Are you okay?”

The question takes a few seconds to register in your head before you give him a smile that looks too forced and too creepy. 

“Yup!” You chirp, then nearly tumble over when the bus makes a sharp turn.

Intak’s arm snaps out  winds around your waist to pull you into him and hold you steady. “No you’re not,” he says, leaning his back against the divider and using his free hand to press your head against his shoulder. “If you need to sleep, sleep.”

But you’re squirming out of his grip and he really doesn’t want to look like a creep in front of these strangers by holding down a woman in his arms so he reluctantly lets go.

“Innie, I’m fine,” you insist as you ruffle your hair back into place. 

You lean yourself against the divider across from him, turning to look out the window instead and effectively ending the conversation.

Intak pouts a little. Clearly, you’re tired. But if you insist you’re fine, then you’re fine. Everyone gets a little sleepless every now and then, right?

—⊹₊⟡⋆   2. KEEHO

As quietly as possible, Keeho tiptoes his way out of his bedroom and pads down the stairs to do something about his post-midnight cravings. 

It’s one of those nights where sleep evades him no matter how desperately his body craves it and he hopes a meal is all it’ll take to knock him right out. 

But as he rounds the corner into the kitchen, Keeho’s soul leaves his body when he’s met with the sight of a figure standing in the dark, dressed in all white and staring motionless at the wall. 

He jumps when the figure’s head snaps to his direction, phone clattering out of his hand. He’s about to scream for help but then his eyes adjust and now he has to keep himself from yelling in anger to disrupt the sleeping dorm. 

“You!” He whisper-yells instead, bending down to snatch his phone from the floor. “What the hell are you doing?”

You don’t respond for a moment and Keeho starts to think maybe you aren’t you. 

“Couldn’t sleep.”

He shudders. Even your voice sounds monotonous and downright terrifying, all rough and scratchy.

“Oh,” he breathes, then takes a cautious step forward because he’s still not quite sure you’re not his sleep paralysis demon. “…Did you want something to eat?”

There’s no response and he feels the night’s chill prickling at his skin the longer the silence stretches.

“No,” his not-hat-man says before it drifts towards the balcony door like a ghost. 

He watches you step outside and settle criss-cross on the ground, completely still like a statue as you just… sit there.

He rubs his hand over his chest to soothe his suffering heart. 

“Weirdo,” he mutters to himself before he moves to make his ramen. He makes a little extra and leaves it on the counter, just in case. 

—⊹₊⟡⋆   3. JONGSEOB

Jongseob tries to smother his wince at the scratchy sounds raking against his ears, praying that he hasn’t given himself away under your intense gaze. 

His hands fidget in his lap as he does everything in his power to keep his eyes firmly on the soundboard and keep his face steeled with indifference. 

Once the demo finishes (he hates that he celebrates internally when it does), he quickly pulls off his headphones and glares at them for assaulting him. 

“Well?” You ask him, and he does actually flinch this time. 

“It’s… uh… it’s good!” Jongseob says, his cheeks burning when his voice cracks midway.

He doesn’t have to look at you to tell the way your eyes narrow at him like they always do when you’ve caught onto his lies.

“I’ve been working on this all night without sleeping.”

“Sounds like it,” he mutters. 

“What was that?”

Jongseob bristles in his seat and shoves the headphones back in your hands. “Nothing!”

You’re glaring now and Jongseob wishes the ground would swallow him whole. 

“It’s not bad!” He defends. “It definitely has potential. It’s just…” He starts to squirm, feeling like he’s getting smaller and smaller under your smothering gaze. “It sounds like your sleep paralysis demon possessed you while you made this.”

You blink at him, eyes distant and nearly absent as you process the words. “Okay,” you say simply, then slip the headphones over your head and shoo him away.

“Huh?”

“Go away,” you say as you swivel around to the production board. “I’ll make it better.”

Sure enough, Jongseob wakes up the next morning with a text from you at 4:53AM of a brand new demo that sounds like success. 

—⊹₊⟡⋆   4. SOUL

Soul pouts when you reject his offer of the fried rice he made. You didn’t even bother to look at it before you shooed him off, eyes stuck on your laptop.

“You haven’t eaten all day,” he presses, pushing the bowl between you and the laptop.

But you simply shift over on your bed, bringing your laptop with you as you go, eyes still locked on your screen. “I’m not hungry.”

Soul’s shoulders slump, frowning now as he glances between you and the bowl of steaming rice. 

“I made it,” he tries weakly. 

That takes your attention, and you turn to him with a questioning look. “You did?” You ask, eyes finally falling to the bowl. 

Soul’s heart soars with glee when he sees the interest in your eyes. He grins and pushes the bowl back towards you. “I did!”

There’s hesitation there, but you give in and take the bowl from him. “Thanks Sho,” you say with a weak smile. 

Soul giggles, reaching out to comb the stray hairs on your head down with his fingers. “Enjoy,” he chirps before he prances out of your room, preening internally at finally having gotten some food in you. 

He’s noticed you’ve been neglecting your meals for the past few days, because you had either forgotten or simply didn’t have the time. He didn’t want you going hungry and his delivery apps weren’t working and no one else wanted to cook so he took the responsibility himself. 

It’s his victory that has him humming to himself as he cleans the mess he made in the kitchen.

Soul returns to your room later that night to find you curled awkwardly in the middle of your bed, dead asleep. 

He giggles to himself as he goes over to gently shift you into a less spine breaking position, laying you out properly on your back. 

You shift and mumble nonsensically as he tucks the blanket over you, and he’s overwhelmed with the urge to smother you in kisses but you haven’t been sleeping well recently and he doesn’t want to disturb this. 

He picks up the laptop at your feet and turns to place it on your bedside table, stopping short as his victory dwindles to nothing when he sees the bowl of rice sitting nearly untouched. 

—⊹₊⟡⋆   5. THEO

Theo’s had just about enough of your evasive behaviour and short temper. Especially when he sees Intak, fidgeting on the couch, looking like he’s one reprimand away from bursting into tears.

“What happened?” He asks, beelining over to him as soon as he steps in through the door. 

Intak startles and looks up at Theo with wide eyes, blinking the moisture out of them. “Nothing!” He says quickly. 

Theo narrows his eyes at him, perching his hands on his hips. “Intak.”

The boy’s eyes flit quickly towards your bedroom door before falling to the floor. “I think she’s in a bad mood…” He answers quietly and Theo’s immediately marching to your door, ignoring Intak’s panicked, “Hyung don’t!”

But Theo doesn’t stop. He barges right in and slams the door behind him, glowering down at your wide eyes from your desk. 

Your gaze sharpens once. “Taeyang, what the hell—“ 

“What’s wrong with you?” He snaps. 

You blink in shock, taken aback by the ice in his tone.

He doesn’t care if he’s being harsh, because you’ve been worse for the past week now and no one’s had the guts to actually do something about it. Their excuse was that you were just in a temporary mood but it’s not excusable in Theo’s books if it’s hurting someone else.

“What are you talking about?”

“You,” he states. It takes a few quick strides for him to stand in front of you and he feels a little victorious when you try to push yourself back into your chair. “Your attitude. Your behaviour. You’ve been a dick to everyone lately, so tell me, what’s going on with you?”

A myriad of emotions flash through your eyes too quickly for Theo to make out but the one that sticks in the end is a defensive cold.

You push up to your feet, just inches away from him. “There’s nothing wrong with me. It’s not my fault everyone keeps pestering about things that aren’t any of their business.” Your voice is low, shaky with weak restraint. Your eyes are wide and a little manic; the scarlet rims look even more prominent now. “Can you blame me for getting annoyed?”

“No,” Theo answers calmly, taking a step forward but you don’t pull back. “But you can’t blame them for being worried about you. What I can blame you for is being an asshole about it.”

Your lips curl down into a scowl, a look that Theo doesn’t think belongs on you. “Back off, Taeyang,” you sneer in a tone that doesn't sit right with him. “Just leave me alone.”

“No.”

“I’m being serious!”

“So am I!”

He watches your resolve crack right before his eyes and he stumbles back when your hands roughly push at his chest. “Taeyang,” you start slowly, voice shaky. “I don’t know what you think you’re accomplishing here but I can tell you that you’re not helping.”

He tries to take a step forward but you fall back, keeping the distance. Theo knows you aren’t your full self but he hates that it still hurts, the way you look at him like you’d rather be anywhere else but with him. 

“But you do need help,” he tries, desperation overriding whatever anger he was feeling. “You’re clearly not okay, so let me just—“

“I don’t need it!” You yell, and he flinches back this time. “I don’t need you.”

The silence settles like a suffocating cloud in the room and Theo stands there, searching you for any remorse. But there’s nothing. 

That anger starts to creep back, a feeling he’s more welcome to let in than the hurt. 

He grits his teeth, ignoring the tight band wrapping around his chest as he steps back. “Fine,” he relents quietly, turning for the door. “Have it your way.”

Jiung and Intak are hovering in the living room when Theo steps out, and by the looks on their faces he can tell they’d heard everything. 

“Taeyang, is she—“

“Forget it,” Theo mutters as he pushes past them for his room. “She’s hopeless.”

—⊹₊⟡⋆   +1. JIUNG

Jiung doesn’t think so. He knows what it's like to be in a mental state where nothing seems to matter except for trying to get through the day and meeting the required deadlines to not get you fired, no matter how unreasonable they are. 

It’s been a week now since your blowup with Theo and to say things are tense would be a grave understatement. 

No one bothers you. No one speaks to you. You barely leave your room unless it’s to go to work and even there, people disperse from you like you’re a walking pressure bomb. 

Even Jiung kept his words with you short and succinct but he knows deep down that all this is doing is just pushing you further into your bubble of self destruction. 

It can’t keep up. So he devises a scheme with the others, after spending an hour convincing Theo’s stubborn grudge away, and paces in the living room while he waits for you to get back home. The others remain hidden away, waiting for their cue. 

As soon as you step through the door looking even more like a zombie than he’d sent you off in the morning, it feels like the air freezes over. 

Your eyes meet his, as lifeless as ever, and Jiung kind of wants to crawl in a hole. 

But he takes a deep breath, steels his nerves, and then opens his arms to you. 

All you do is stare at him. For a good few seconds. Jiung stares back expectantly. 

“…What?” You finally ask as you drop your bag to the floor, brows furrowing in suspicion.

He smiles stiffly as he fights the urge to tuck tail. “Isn’t it obvious?” He waves his arms up and down. “I want a hug.”

The way your brows shoot up and your mouth falls open in a look so taken aback by the mere prospect of him asking for affection is so adorable that Jiung almost entirely abandons the plan in favour of smothering you. 

But he holds strong, waving his arms again and taking a step forward. “Well? Are you just gonna leave me hanging?”

You blink away your shock, that suspicion quickly bleeding back on your face. Your hands fidget at your sides as you look him over, calculating. “This feels like a trap.”

He forces a glare at you. “Hey, even I want some physical affection sometimes. Who am I supposed to go to? Keeho?” He can almost hear Keeho’s affronted yell from the other side of the wall. 

Your shoulders slump; he can practically see the fight draining out of your limbs. “No, don’t subject yourself to that.”

Before he can laugh, you're buried in his arms and Jiung’s arms wrap around you like it’s instinct. 

You’re warm and small in his arms and the way you melt against him, like you’re relieving your burdens onto him limb by limb, has him squeezing you even tighter. 

He nearly forgets to give his cue when you turn your face and bury it in his chest, but you’re starting to drop all your weight onto him like it’s too much for you to carry right now and it reminds him why he needs to do this. 

“Now!” He yells, apologizing quickly when you flinch at his sudden yell.

“What the hell— hey!” 

Jiung keeps your arms pinned down when Intak emerges from some crevice and starts rummaging through your pockets. Once he has your phone, he holds it up like a trophy. 

“Got it!” He yells at the same time as Jongseob does when he’s snatched your bag from the doorway. 

“What— give that back!” You yell, trying to squirm out of Jiung’s grip but he doesn’t relent. “What are you doing?!”

“What needs to be done,” is all Jiung answers before he hauls you over his shoulder and brings you to your bedroom. 

Your fists pound against his back as you thrash around under his hold. “Put me down right now Jiung, I’m not kidding!”

“If you say so,” he giggles then drops you on your bed, right between where Keeho and Theo are stationed and they immediately lock your arms down so you can’t get up.

Your eyes are wide and frantic as they flit between the two of them. “Seriously? What the hell are you maniacs doing?” You grouse as you try to weasel out of their grips.

“We’re doing what we should’ve done a long time ago,” Keeho states, his arms winding tighter around yours to keep you still.

“Stop fighting,” Theo grumbles, using a hand to push your shoulder down as you try to sit up.

You turn your head away from Theo, something not unnoticed by Theo the way he frowns, as you glare up at Jiung. “Stop this. Let me go.”

“Hmm…” Jiung puts his hands on his hips, pretending to think. He feels a little cruel relishing in the way your eyes beg him but he lets the silence stretch for a moment.

Then he throws himself forward and lands on top of you, ignoring your grunt of pain as he settles his chin on your chest and wraps his arms around your waist. 

He hears the other three filter into the room in a flurry of muttered conversation before the door shuts. 

“We’ve hidden your laptop and your phone,” Jongseob says before he settles at the end of the bed to Jiung’s right.

“Somewhere you’ll never find it,” Intak chimes in, dropping onto Jiung’s left. 

“Is it in your closet Intak?” You scowl at him. 

“No,” Intak replies too quickly. 

Jiung rolls his eyes. “Even if it is there, you’ll never find it in the mess.”

“It’s not that messy!”

He snickers when you drop your head back with a frustrated huff but his amusement fades quickly when he feels your breaths start to stutter a little under his chin.

“Relax,” he whispers. He shuffles up to hover his face above yours, heart squeezing when he sees the glassy tears in your eyes as you try to evade his gaze. “Hey,” he urges gently, bumping his nose against yours.

You try to blink them away as you finally meet his eyes but they only well back up. Frustration and defeat drift between the tears, he recognizes all too well.

“I know you think you don’t need us,” he starts quietly. “That you can handle this on your own.”

“I’m not handling anything, I’m just doing what I need to do,” you defend weakly, voice tight with emotion as you try to turn your face and hide but there’s someone at every angle watching you with sympathy. 

Jiung moves his arms up and places his elbows on either side of your head as some semblance of cover for you. He thanks Jongseob’s quick thinking to turn the TV on and provide a buffer with the noise to give Jung some space with you. 

Jiung presses his forehead to your temple, letting you bury your face into his bicep and sniffle away, the sounds drowned out by the opening of Star Wars and arguments over changing the movie into something more ‘relevant’.

“You’re tired,” he speaks quietly into your ear, his heart squeezing tighter when your body wracks with a sob. He feels Theo burrowing in closer to his left. “So much more than tired. I can tell because I’ve been there too. And do you remember what you did for me all those years ago?”

He waits for you to slowly shake your head before he continues. “You kidnapped me and held me hostage in my own room and refused to let me go until I ate and slept.” A sharp puff of breath leaves you in the form of a weak laugh and he smiles, playfully pressing his lips into your ear as he whispers, “This is payback.”

You squirm under him, trying to knock your head against his. “Tickles,” you whine and he chuckles, lifting his head. 

His smile pulls to a soft grin when you finally blink your tired eyes up at him. “Let us take care of you for a couple days, okay?” He asks you, wiping your tears with his thumb. “That’s what we’re here for. To take care of you when you can’t do it yourself. Just like you’re always doing for us.”

He lets the words process through your muddled brain, letting his thumb brush idly over your cheekbone. When you nod in assent, he sighs in relief. 

“Good,” he beams, then pecks your nose quickly and shuffles back down to rest his chin on your chest.

Your eyes are already drifting closed but Keeho’s quick to butt in before Jiung can. 

Keeho pushes his face into view as he presses a kiss to your head, giggling when you scrunch your nose. “You gotta eat before you sleep.”

You’re about to argue but then Soul is settling down on Keeho’s lap holding a bowl and a spoon and your objections die down before they can form.

Jiung holds back a fond giggle at the hopeful look in Soul’s eye as he holds the bowl out to you. 

Your eyes fall to the bowl before lifting back up to Soul’s face with a sheepish smile. “I’m a little stuck,” you point out, squirming under the hold of the three men. “Mind feeding me?”

Soul’s grin is nearly blinding as he picks up the spoon. “Okay!”

They shuffle around to sit you up a little so you don’t choke on the food. As you eat, Jiung turns to lay his cheek on your shoulder and meets Theo’s eyes from where he’s sitting with his arms still wrapped loosely around your arm. 

‘Say something,’ he tries to tell him with his eyes.

Theo’s eyes widen for a second before he quickly shakes his head. 

Jiung narrows his eyes at his stubbornness and Theo glares right back. 

When it becomes apparent that Jiung isn’t backing down, Theo sighs and hesitantly turns his gaze to you. 

“…Is it good?” Theo asks and Jiung rolls his eyes. 

Whatever, its progress. He shuts his eyes and tries not to listen in but it’s happening right above his head and Jiung isn’t always above being nosy.

“Yeah,” you answer quietly through a mouthful. 

“I helped make it.”

“…And everyone made it out alive?”

Jiung smiles into your shoulder when he hears Theo scoff a laugh.

“Watch it. I’ll poison it next time.”

There’s a quiet moment that follows, the opening of what might be an Avengers movie playing in the background. 

“I’m sorry,” you finally admit when your words aren’t obstructed with food. 

“It’s fine,” Theo responds quickly, nuzzling a little closer into your, and Jiung’s, side. “I could’ve handled it better.”

“Yeah, you could’ve,” Keeho butts in from the other side and Jiung isn’t even phased at the resulting smack and yelp of pain. 

But he has to cut it off before things can escalate so he lifts his head and immediately interjects when hands start flying at each other over you. “No fighting!” Jiung snaps, pushing Theo’s and Keeho’s limbs back in their own places. 

“He started it!” Keeho cries as Theo makes a face at him.

Jiung’s about to yell again but he’s stopped short when he hears you laugh— the sweet, tinkling sound that’s been missing from their lives for a gruelling few weeks.

Your laugh dies down quickly at the weight of all their gazes. “…What?” You ask, eyes flitting over them in confusion. 

“Nothing,” Theo says, smiling fondly as he picks off the grain of rice stuck at the corner of your lips. He presses a quick kiss to your cheek. “Go to sleep.”

They shuffle back down to lay you on your back again and it’s an awkward mess of limbs on a bed that is definitely not made to hold seven adults clustered together. 

Jiung grunts when Soul starts to elbow his way in and tries to steal the space on top of you. 

“Shota, stop,” he complains, not really wanting to give up any more of you but Soul is stubborn as he settles himself down half on Keeho and half on you, leaving Jiung half on Theo. 

“You’re hogging,” he states, smiling smugly when your hand cards into his hair and pulls his head to settle on your other shoulder.

“You can share,” you say, laughing again and Jiung can’t seem to care anymore as he turns and buries his face in your neck. 

It’s peaceful for a moment before Intak goes and ruins it all by jumping on top of Jiung and Soul. 

“What about me?!”

There’s a chorus of grunts and complaints and shuffling around as Soul and Jiung both try to shove him off but he pushes right back. 

There’s a smack and a cry from Intak before Jongseob speaks. “You’re gonna kill her, get off.”

Intak pouts but shuffles off, settling back at the end of the bed by their legs. “Fine but I get her tomorrow.”

“Fine by me,” you mumble, unbothered and already grifting off despite the momentary chaos.

Jiung smiles when your breaths go full and steady, and only when he’s sure that you’re asleep does he close his eyes.

It’s a small victory, but they just need a few more of those before they can finally get you back.

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You still remember the excitement you’d felt that day when they told you you’d be debuting in a group. It didn’t matter to you that it was with six boys; all that mattered to you was that you’d get to realize your dreams and you’d get to do it with a family. You’d no longer be alone like you had been through the grueling years of your training.

But that excitement lived short. It had quickly dwindled away when you saw the looks on their faces when you were introduced as their final member. They’d returned your beaming smile with shock, disbelief, confusion— and with silent ire in Jiung’s case. Your hope had started chipping away from day one.

You’d reasoned to yourself later in bed that night their reaction was only because of how sudden your entrance was. They were blindsided by the fact that they’d have another new member on top of Jongseob on such short notice before debut, and a girl at that. All you needed to do was to just work hard at integrating yourself with the group. You were good at making friends, at easing into new spaces. Surely it would be no problem and they could learn to be okay with having you. It's how most workplace relationships started, isn’t it?

But the seeds of division were sowed from the very beginning when you’d been segregated into a separate dorm. Obviously, it made sense why. But it created a physical barrier on top of the initial one; one that meant the boys would spend their nights living their youth outside of work together and you’d spend yours curled up on the floor and writing lyrics all by your lonesome.

It made it so that your only chances at connecting with them were during work. But the stress that came with preparing for a debut didn’t give you much opportunity to work with.

And by the time you could even attempt to try, they were already close from however many months or years they spent together before your transfer into the company. You’d watch them as they meddled around with each other from where you stretched on the floor of the practice room. They’d joke with each other during sessions in ways you would never be privy to given that you just weren’t there for it. 

It was sweet to see they’d all bonded together. It was bitter that you weren’t part of it.

When you messed up choreography, you were on your own. No supportive claps on the back, no words of reassurance from them, no one to step in and help you fix your mistakes. 

You’d watch them filter out of the room together as a group while you were left behind in defeat. But instead of moping, you stayed behind to fix your own mistakes. If no one had your back, you had yours. But it also meant missing out on their post-practice convenience store snack runs; not that they’d invite you in the first place anyway.

That’s how it all started. You locked yourself away in practice rooms and studios to put whatever extra time you had into your work rather than trailing after them and begging for attention. And they started to believe it’s what you’d preferred. It became a treacherous cycle. 

You’d return to your dorm alone, go to sleep with no one to wish you goodnight, wake up with only the sun as your company, and get through work with only your own mind as a friend. You convinced yourself you were okay with it.

It only took a few months for you to start realizing how truly alone you felt.

Your ideas were never pushed during meetings. Well, none of theirs were either, but the upper staff at least heard the boys out whenever they had something to pitch in. You could barely get a word in before you were talked over.

You’d never felt so frustrated before. And no one ever fought for your voice to be heard. Somewhere along the way, you’d stopped fighting for it yourself. 

You thought maybe you had to prove to everyone a little harder than the other members that you deserve every bit of your place in the group as the boys do. You’d come into this knowing you’d have extra work to do as the only woman in a den of wolves.

You just didn’t realize how much you’d have to prove yourself, not only to them, but to the fans as well.

Because after P1Harmony was shared with the world, you’d somehow felt even more isolated.

The company created a clear divide between you and the others. You were always placed to the side during interviews, you were given the least amount of lines in scripts, you never got to do duo shoots, your roles in content videos were always minimized, and your lives could only be solo unless it was with the whole group. 

What hurt more was the fans. If your company held the key, it was the fans that built the cage. 

You knew going in that you wouldn’t be the fan favourite; you weren’t the visual, you weren’t the star rapper, you weren’t the vocal powerhouse.

Your merch was always the lowest sold and your banners were never held during fan events. Fansigns felt like a special chamber of torture for you, because you could practically see it in their eyes that they were itching to move onto the next member while they sat in front of you. It didn’t matter that you tried to connect, to make conversation. You were the cutscene before they got to meet their bias.

Fan content was never centered around you. You’d come across countless edits and compilations of the boys, none of which you were given spotlight in. On one hand, it was nice to see through everyone else’s eyes how much love the boys had for each other. You’d seen it with your eyes too, but to see it be documented by the world is something else entirely. And the fact that there was nothing to be documented for you told you more things than you’d liked to have known.

You told yourself you were okay with it because it meant none of the others had to bear the burden of being the least liked member. You could sacrifice a bit of yourself if it meant keeping them from feeling the way you did. It’s not a good feeling to have. You didn’t want that for them. Because despite everything, you did care about them.

But what hurt the most, out of everything? Your members never seemed to care about you.

How could they? You wouldn’t consider yourself to really be a part of them. You never spent time with them outside work. Not that it was by your choice anyway; even if Keeho tried to some extent, it was simply out of duty as the leader, no matter how clumsy he was with his role at the beginning. But you still denied his invites for dinner or otherwise, because whenever he asked you to join you could almost feel the tense air wash over everyone else in the room. You would just save them the trouble and excuse yourself instead.

Still, it meant something that Keeho could bear your presence enough to at least ask you. You couldn’t say the same for the others though. Jiung was always cold to you— well, he was cold to everyone in the first few years but you bore the brunt of it. His answers to your questions were short and clipped, underlying with a tone of ‘Don’t you know this by now?’ You’d learned quickly to go to someone else with your questions.

You’d directed them to Intak, but even he was stiff around you. Distant, like he’d rather be anywhere but having conversation with you. Eventually you landed on Jongseob, who was always polite, but so much so that it felt like you were talking to a stranger. And you might as well have been a stranger to Theo, who didn’t so much as look in your direction when he spoke to you.

Your only hope at something of a loose companion was Soul, who would give you a smile and a wave when you’d enter a room or head home for the night. But even still, he was a part of them before anything, not you.

All to say, you never had someone to fall back on. You never were part of a duo. Your existence in the group felt like an afterthought and at some point along the way, you’d started going to bed wondering why you were there in the first place.

You don’t remember when this heavy weight had settled permanently in your chest. Maybe it was after the hundredth interview you’d done where you couldn’t get a single word in. Maybe it was after the hundredth time your lines in songs had gotten cut short to mere seconds. Maybe it was after the hundredth time that the company had scrapped your ideas only to redress them as something they thought of themself. Maybe it was after the thousandth time you’d had to cry yourself to sleep with no one to notice.

Even after years of being part of the group, you felt no more part of it than you had when you’d debuted. Maybe even less so, somehow.

At some point the pain turned to nothing. You just felt numb. And the weight in your chest started feeling more like a void that started sucking the life out of you— your energy, your spark on stage, your passion in writing. Your willingness to get out of bed for another day of being reminded that you didn’t belong here.

The company started calling it a lack of commitment. The fans started calling it lazy. And your members, as usual, didn’t notice. Or care. 

But Keeho did. At least, it seemed like he did. You still remember that day in the studio; the day that you realized it was never about you.

You were on the floor of the studio with your pen in hand and an empty page in your lap when Keeho had barged in unprompted.

He froze in step when he noticed you there. “Oh, sorry,” he said, blinking in surprise. “Didn’t realize anyone booked this one.”

“No, it’s okay.” You started hastily gathering your things. “I was about to leave anyway.”

“Wait, actually.” You paused, watching as he shut the door behind him and moved inside, dropping his bag by the door as he went. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you for a while.”

You followed him with your eyes as he settled on the floor in front of you. “Okay…?” You leaned back against the wall, dropping your books back in your lap. He’d never ‘meant to talk to you’ before, whatever that might have meant. Not in any context outside of a meeting. Your heart gave a pathetic little flutter that you didn’t want to quash down.

You tensed under the way he peered at you, like he was trying to find the right way to approach speaking with you. Four years together and he still didn’t know how to talk to you. You weren’t sure if you wanted to laugh or to cry.

His voice was softer than you’d ever heard it when he did speak. “Are you okay?”

The words had your heart pounding in your chest. This was something you weren’t prepared for, and honestly, you didn’t even know how to answer the question. You can’t remember the last time someone asked you that.

Your answer came instinctive though, protective. Defensive. “I’m okay,” you answered with a smile, hollow and practiced. 

He didn’t look convinced. “Are you sure? Because we're a little worried about you.”

That had your heart stop entirely for a moment. Worried?

“Worried?” You whispered. You didn’t think they thought about you at all. Let alone worry. But the thought of them actually being concerned about you, caring to some extent, it had this feeling buzzing in your chest. Warm. Unfamiliar but not unwelcome.

“Yeah,” he said, then averted his eyes as his hand went up to rub the back of his neck in a nervous tick. “Well… We’ve sort of been noticing it in your performance. It just feels like you’re not totally at your best lately? I really don’t mean to sound like I’m attacking you or anything but it’s starting to affect some of the others’ performances too and I just thought…”

His words faded away as did your momentary delusion. They were worried about your performance. Of course they weren’t worried about you.

“…It’s just— You know,” he broke off with an awkward laugh. “Listen, if there’s anything—“

“I’m just tired,” you cut him off, because you really, really didn’t want to hear any more. You didn’t want to be in front of him right now. Not with the way your gut twisted and threatened a familiar dread-induced nausea. “I’ll work on it.”

He paused, staring at you quietly for a moment. “I… I get that. I do. But we’re all tired, you know. We’re still giving it our best.” And you’re not, his unsaid words told you.

You mustered up whatever caricature of a smile you could, digging your nails into your palm to redirect the ache from your heart. “I’ll try harder,” you assured him. “I promise.”

That was the first time you let yourself cry outside of the safety of your room, as soon as Keeho shut the door behind him as he left you behind. You didn’t care if anyone walked in to see how weak you really were. You actually kind of hoped someone would. Maybe then they’d care.

But if anything, that had been your wake up call to pull yourself together. It didn’t matter that the weight in your chest kept trying to drag you down with it.

And you’d gotten your answer; they did care about you. Only to the extent of your labour to the group. Nothing more.

So, you pushed yourself. You pushed yourself to work harder, and pushed yourself further away from them. You’d become more strict with yourself. You didn’t go home until you were worn to the bone from practice or recordings. 

And you’d started pushing back on the others too. You let the anger bubbling in your chest over the years start to boil over. You were snappier with them. You didn’t sugarcoat your words. It felt good to tell them their technique was lousy, that their tone wasn’t right for the song, that their gestures were all wrong. It was misplaced vengeance but it was always honest. Your words— no matter how cutting, how harsh— were true. But they came from a place of anger instead of the goodness of your heart. 

You were lashing out from years of being cornered, but wasn’t it inevitable? You couldn’t possibly think that your feelings would just lay dormant.

If they didn’t already hate you before, they surely did then.

But all that mattered was showing your worth in the next comeback. You made sure your voice was heard even if you had to yell and snap. That way they’d at least listen before they could ignore you. And it worked for a little while because your ideas were good. But that didn’t mean they were happy with you.

It took a turn during choreography for Pretty Boy. You’d pitched an idea; for you to dance with each member during their solos with the focus being on them so you weren’t completely left to the background of the song. It would keep you a part of the performance for a song you had no lines in besides backing, while also upholding the song's message for the boys. They couldn’t deny it was a good idea.

Mistakes didn’t go past you. You sank your claws into whoever was unfortunate to slip up. Tensions were high throughout that practice, you could tell. But that didn’t stop you. 

Maybe you should have stopped. But if you had, you wouldn’t have learned what they truly think of your place in the group.

It happened while learning the bridge with you and Jiung. Jiung came in a step too early, and you’d made it known. His movements were sharper than you’d wanted, and you’d made that known too. He clearly didn’t like having to listen to you, you could tell. It was when you’d made the comment about him needing to just listen to someone else instead of yourself for a change that had pushed him right over the edge.

“What’s gotten into you?” He’d snapped, refusing to fall in place as you returned to your starting position.

You didn’t look at him, just checked on your positioning in the mirror. “What are you talking about?” Your own voice was similarly clipped, taut from frustration and the ice that had been steadily growing between you and Jiung throughout the practice.

You could feel the others’ eyes drift over to you both from where they were working on their solo gestures.

Jiung stepped in front of you, blocking your view of the mirror, and you narrowed your eyes at him. “Your attitude,” he said, voice laced with vitriol.

You’d seen Jiung get angry with the members plenty of times before. But you’d never seen him look this… hateful, if that was the word you had to describe the way he looked at you. Like he’d intended for his words to hurt.

“My attitude?” You repeated in disbelief.

You remember the way it felt like the walls had started to close in on you with each pair of eyes that weighed down on you in similar provocation to Jiung’s. 

“I’m just doing my job,” you said through grit teeth, trying to keep a hold on your composure. “Isn’t this what you all wanted though? For me to work harder?”

Keeho’s words had rung in your mind countless times a day ever since that conversation in the studio. The implication that they thought you were slacking. But even when you stepped up, it was too much?

Theo cut in from somewhere on your left, voicing what you could see Jiung rearing up to say, but wouldn’t. “There’s a difference between working hard and being a control freak.”

The words stung you more than you’d like to admit. A control freak. As if you were doing anything to jeopardize them.

“Hyung,” Jongseob tried to cut in. “Maybe don’t—“

“No,” Jiung snapped. His eyes hadn’t left yours. You remember wanting to crumble under their weight. Hide away from everything you saw in them, everything you felt about yourself reflected back in someone else you were meant to admire, to look up to. “He’s right. Maybe we don’t need you in the performance at all if you’re going to be like this.”

Your breath had stilled in your chest. You waited for someone to step in, for anyone to tell him he was speaking out of line. But nothing.

You were left on your own to suffocate in the truth that they all saw space without you. You found out that day in the dressing room what a panic attack felt like.

Pretty Boy was the first performance video you weren’t part of. The first song that you were actually dispensable in. And it did numbers without you.

You didn’t speak out of line ever since. You moved in silence, did as you were told, and worked just hard enough to not raise any questions.

You’d realized your true place in the years to come. The one to take the blame when performances fell short. The one to carry the weight of the least idolized member. The one to bear the pain no one else wanted. You’d realized they were okay with you carrying that weight. 

Your world became quiet. Stadiums of people that didn’t scream your name. A discography with hundreds of songs that didn’t have your sound. Quiet nights where the only thing that lulled you to sleep were your silent tears.

You felt like a ghost; dead and buried and roaming a world that had no space for you.

So when it all came to this moment, pen in your hand, a fresh contract in front of you to renew your spot in P1Harmony for the next seven years, your choice came easy.

You just wish your escape wouldn’t be so quiet. You wish they’d say something, but they sit across from you wearing faces you can’t read. The absence of any surprise, any emotion, told you they were expecting it. Like this was inevitable. Maybe it was.

There’s no fight. But you find that this is the only battle you’ve ever wanted to lose.

“So that’s it,” Keeho finally says. His eyes don’t lift up from the table. The table that holds six inked contracts and a blank.

You don’t know what to make of the twisting feeling in your chest. Relief? Or was it grief?

“That’s it,” you answer. It’s the loudest your voice has been the past eight years.

You nearly break when they hug you goodbye. Even though you can tell it's perfunctory, even though they don’t even meet your eye, it’s the most contact you’ve ever had with them. Save for maybe Soul.

Soul, who stands in front of you with tears in his eyes.

“Are you really leaving?” He asks you. His voice is a weak thing, and his lips quiver around his words.

You place your hands over his where he’s twisting them together at his stomach. “There’s no space for me here, Shota. I’ll be better off where I’m going,” you lie. For his sake or yours, you don’t know.

But he accepts your hollow words as truth and wraps his arms tightly around you, burying his face in your shoulder. “You’ll keep in touch with me?” He mumbles into your sweater through sniffles.

You wind your arms around his waist and pull him close. “Of course,” you lie again, and hold him for as long as you can because it's your only chance to.

You leave without a whisper. More paperwork, more meetings where your say doesn’t matter, and one more night in your dorm. You cry yourself to sleep for the final time in that bed. And you’re gone the next day with the knowledge that your name would never be brought up again.

You spend the first few days in America hoping for— well, you don’t know what. A text, a call to ask if you’d landed safely. Something. Anything. Any small gesture that showed they were at least thinking of you. Nothing.

The news had broken a few days later that you wouldn’t be signing back with the group and the reaction was a resounding breath of relief.

Cutting off deadweight, they call it. Stepping out of the grave, you call it.

You remain as a ghost for the next year, waiting for your name to become a phantom before you make your move. The group thrives without you. And you learn to live with just yourself.

You sign with a new label exactly one year after you leave P1Harmony. One more year passes before you release your first studio album, Ghost.

It does numbers for its vulnerable lyrics and captivating vocals. A cry for help, many called it. A call for attention, the ghosts of your past deemed it.

But none of that mattered to you because things aren’t so quiet anymore. You finally have sound and it’s of your own making.

And of course, controversy sparks when people start to question if your album is about the mistreatment you faced in your old industry. If your songs were about them. They’re not wrong, but you’ll never speak their name again, just as they’ve refused to speak yours in the past two years.

But you do wonder if they’ve heard it. And if they did, do they finally realize how much they’ve hurt you?

You find yourself falling back to thoughts of them, the hiraeth you can’t shed, even though you’d promised yourself you’d leave them behind with Ghost. It’s harder said than done.

But as the months pass, as the crowds start to call your name, as you meet people you can actually call your friends, as your fans seek you out in public, you slowly come to learn that it was never you that was the problem.

You can blame it on a million things, but it’s easier to just let it be. You’ve spent years pointing fingers and it found you nothing but misery. Your past trails behind you like indelible shadows— present but something you can simply turn away from as you move forward.

While that weight remains buried in your chest, things don’t feel as suffocating anymore. It becomes easier to live with.

It all comes crashing down one night with a simple, “Hello?”

You were on your couch, hours past midnight, music sheets scattered around you and your guitar abandoned by your side in favour of Stardew Valley on your phone. It was some semblance of a peaceful night until you’d gotten a call and Jiung’s voice on the other end had thrown your being back to all those years ago.

“Jiung?” You whisper. That same ache in your chest comes alive again, that same twist in your gut, that same cold dread prickling at your skin.

“Yeah, it’s me.” His voice is a little deeper than you remember, but it’s got that same rough, careful edge to it. As poised as he ever was. “I’m sorry to call you out of nowhere.”

A million possibilities flash through your head. But all you can settle on is a simple, strained, “Why?”

It’s like the sound of his voice alone brings back the feeling of walls closing in on you. Your chest feels too small for your heart and your lungs feel too shallow for your breaths.

There’s a long silence that follows from the other line and you start to wonder if you’re hallucinating.

“I—“ He starts, then stops, a mirror of the stutters that are happening in your chest. “We wanted to check in on you.”

You swallow down the bitter taste that rises in your throat. “Two years later?”

There’s a sharp exhale from the other side and you nearly find yourself flinching at the sound. You squeeze your eyes shut, trying to erase the flash of irate eyes and pinched brows looking down at you. 

“I know,” he says. But his voice is quiet. Tired. Not sharp like you remembered it. “We… We weren’t allowed to contact you.” He hesitates, like he’s not sure if he should be saying these things. 

You’re not convinced what he’s saying is true. Even if it was, would they have tried to contact you in the first place?

Your nails dig into your palms, an instinct reawakened from being long buried. “Is that all that was stopping you?”

Another silence follows. This one has your skin itching to run away and hide from an answer you don’t want. But you’d done plenty of that before.

“I wish I could say no,” he answers quietly. “But I think you deserve better than being lied to. Especially after everything.”

You bite down on your lip to keep it from quivering. Crying right now is the last thing you want. You’d shed enough tears over them already.

“What changed?” You find yourself asking. Your voice is a weary thing, thin with emotion. 

“Your album.”

Your breath rushes out. “You’ve listened to it.”

“Yeah,” he whispers. “We all have. It’s… It’s good. Really good.”

Just those simple words have tears prickling at your eyes. Words you’d kill to hear back then feel like prying open old wounds now. 

“But—“ His voice breaks, and you hear a shuddered breath on the other end. “It was about us wasn’t it?”

The waver in his voice, the shaky edge like he just can’t hold back his emotion, the weakness— you’ve never heard that from him before. He was all restraint and hard exteriors; never this raw, never this vulnerable.

It makes the cage around your heart feel tighter. To know that you’ve affected him in that way. Hurt him maybe. It doesn’t feel like retribution.

You let out your breath, and with it, your tears. “It is.”

All those years you spent refusing to show them emotion, all those walls come crashing down and you’re helpless to stop it. That restraint in you is weak from disuse. So you cry.

“It is,” you repeat. You don’t bother to hide your emotion this time. “Do you get it now? Why I was the way I was?”

“I’m sorry,” he surrenders softly and you can tell he means it.

But all you can do is laugh, cold and mirthless. “I’m afraid you’re a few years too late, Jiung.”

“I know,” he admits. “I wish I wasn’t. I really, really wish I wasn’t. We had no idea.. I didn’t realize what you were going through.”

You take a breath to the bottom of your lungs, leaning your head back against the cushion as you let it out. “That’s the problem, isn’t it? You didn’t realize. You didn’t even try to understand. None of you did. You just assumed I was okay.” You don’t recognize your voice as you speak. It sounds faraway, like it’s coming from somewhere out of your body as you talk up to the ceiling. “I wasn’t.”

You let the words linger in the silence that follows.

“Do you remember that day in the practice room?” You ask. “During Pretty Boy?”

You can almost hear the flinch in his uneven breath. “I do.”

“I think that was when I realized I couldn’t stay.” The moment comes back to you in sharp spikes of pain in your heart. The panic from that day brews distantly somewhere in your ribs like a mirage as you recall the memory. “I think I’ve always known you guys would do well without me. That was the first time I realized you felt the same way too.”

Jiung doesn’t answer, so you continue. You lay yourself open to him like you’ve never done with anyone.

“It still hurts, Jiung,” you whisper. “All of it. I thought I was over it. And now you’re here and now I feel like I’m right back where I was.”

The sniffle that sounds from the other end is quiet but clear as day. Your heart twists at the sound despite it all.

“So what is it then?” You ask, desperate to leave this awful feeling behind. “What do you want from me here? Forgiveness? Because I don’t think I can give that to you.”

“No,” he answers and you can hear the way his breath hitches around a silent sob. “No, we don’t deserve that. But can we just…” He pauses to take a breath to even out his shaky ones. “Can we come see you? Please?”

You squeeze your eyes shut. The thought of having to face them— the people they are now without you, better than before— fills you with a new sense of dread. You’re not sure if you have what it takes to go back to fixing old wounds that have already healed over in nasty scars.

“How’s Shota?” You ask instead. You don’t think you could physically deny them even if every bone in your body begs you to.

You hear him exhale slowly. You can almost hear the defeat in the sound. He takes another moment to recover before he answers. “He’s okay. He misses you. A lot. He was the one who got our contact ban lifted.”

A smile rises to your lips, one that you can’t fight, as you recall sparkly eyes and tinkling laughter. “Well I knew it wouldn’t be Theo.”

A sharp breath comes out by way of laughter and the sound eases the cage around your heart just a little. “Right. He’s…” He stops and redirects. “I had to pry the phone away from Shota. Keeho and Jongseob are laying on him in the living room.”

You scoff lightly at the image. “Bad call. If it was him calling I might have said yes.”

“Probably,” Jiung agrees lightly. But he sounds careful again.

What follows is a silence from both ends, one of acknowledgment. You know you can’t go back, and you think he understands why you can’t. At least you hope he does.

You’re about to pull the plug, to hit the final nail in the coffin, before he speaks up again. “I hear you’re up for a Grammy.”

The reminder has a short burst of excitement flutter within the confines of your chest. “I hear you guys are too.”

The global rise of P1Harmony was one that took everyone by surprise— everyone except you. It wasn’t a matter of if to you, but when.

It’s nearly poetic that it’s happening with you, but without you.

“We are,” he affirms softly and you don’t miss the proud lift in his voice. “I guess… Well, we’ll see you there then.”

“Yeah,” you say, and the thought of that doesn’t feel so daunting. “I’ll see you there.”

You fall asleep on the couch that day feeling that weight in your chest, the one you’d buried away under new memories and forced optimism, start to lift just a little.

You win your first Grammy on your own, on the same night that P1Harmony wins their first. 

It’s kind of poetic, isn’t it? You’d told Keeho as you handed him the award with a smile on your face, if a little teary. 

And as much as you felt like a ghost with them, you feel unbalanced now at the podium without them to your right. You meet Keeho’s eyes in the crowd and the smile he gives you is mournful. But it’s understanding. Understanding that you were always meant to make it on your own with no one else to hold you back.

Being a ghost wasn’t the end for you. It just meant you had your own plane of existence to make yours.

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