Trope: Choi Jongho x M! reader
Tags: Angst, collage au, stalker! Jongho, sadist! Jongho, drug mentions and consumption, illegal crimes, illegal drug possession
In which, Jongho turns into a rapid illegal drug dealer and tries to involve you.
The low, rhythmic thud of a bassline from the university’s fraternity row vibrates right through the floorboards of the off-campus house, but the kitchen is completely silent.
Jongho sits under the buzz of a single overhead fluorescent light, a half-empty energy drink to his left and a small glass vial resting between his fingers. He doesn't look like the quiet, unassuming classmate you share a lab bench with in chemistry anymore. His jacket is tossed over a chair, and his eyes are wide and glassy, reflecting the chemical buzz of the synthetic stimulants he took to get through a double shift of cutting and bagging product.
"You shouldn't have knocked," Jongho says, his voice a heavy, calm baritone that completely stalls the air in the room. He doesn't look up as you stand frozen in the doorway.
"I was looking for the study group," you say, your eyes tracking the open duffel bag on the kitchen island. It is stuffed to the brim with vacuum-sealed bricks of high-grade narcotics, digital scales, and rows of prescription bottles. "Jongho, what is this? This is enough weight to put you away for twenty years."
"Nobody is putting me away," Jongho says simply. He finally sets the vial down and looks up, his dark eyes locking onto yours with an unblinking, intense focus that makes your stomach drop. A slow, chilling smile touches his lips. "And there is no study group tonight. I sent them the wrong address on purpose. I needed you to come here alone."
A sudden wave of cold dread drops into your chest.
"You're late, by the way," Jongho whispers, leaning back in his chair. "Your afternoon lecture ended at 3:30. It takes exactly twelve minutes to walk from the science building to this block. You stopped at the campus café for an iced coffee. I know your routine better than you do."
You take an involuntary step backward, your hand instinctively reaching behind you for the front door handle. He hasn't just been running a massive campus distribution ring; he has been tracking your movements, learning your habits, and watching you from the shadows of the quad for months.
"Don't bother," Jongho commands, his voice dropping into a dark, authoritative register that roots you to the spot. He stands up, his broad frame easily blocking the exit, casting a long shadow over the kitchen floor. He reaches into the duffel bag and pulls out a thick, heavy plastic pouch filled with hundreds of small blue pills. He slides it across the counter toward you.
"The university police are sweeping the athlete dorms tonight," Jongho says, his tone entirely detached, like he’s explaining a textbook formula. "But they don't check the honors building. You have a flawless GPA, a clean record, and a professor's recommendation. You're going to take this pouch and keep it in your desk drawer until Tuesday."
"I'm not touching that, Jongho," you breathe out, your heart hammering against your ribs as panic takes over. "I'm leaving. I'm going to the campus security office."
Jongho lets out a soft, mocking chuckle, stepping right into your personal space until you can smell the bitter trace of the chemical downers on his breath. He reaches out, his hand wrapping around the back of your neck with a bruising, unyielding grip that forces you to look directly into his dilated pupils.
"Go ahead and run," Jongho murmurs, his fingers tightening just enough to make your breath hitch. "But I've spent the last semester documenting every single time you sat next to me. I have time-stamped photos of you entering this house tonight. If the dean sees those, your scholarship vanishes before the sun comes up. You're helping me on Tuesday, or we both burn together."
Your fingers claw uselessly at his wrist, but Jongho’s grip on the back of your neck is absolute, a heavy anchor pinning you right against the edge of the kitchen counter.
"Let go," you choke out, your voice trembling as the sheer reality of your trapped position settles into your chest. "Jongho, please."
Instead of releasing you, a dark, clinical curiosity flickers across his face. He leans down lower, his face inches from yours, his dilated eyes tracking the frantic pulse jumping beneath the skin of your throat. He likes the terror on your face. To a mind warped by the stress of running state-line drop points and fueled by synthetic stimulants, your panic is the ultimate form of submission. It is a sadistic thrill that makes him feel entirely in control.
"You're shaking," Jongho observes softly, his tone almost gentle, contrasting violently with the brutal pressure of his hand. "Your heart is beating so loud I can hear it. Do you know why you're so scared? Because deep down, you know I'm right. You know you're already caught in my net."
He uses his free hand to reach into his back pocket, pulling out his phone. He taps the screen with his thumb and turns the display toward your face.
Your stomach drops away into nothingness.
The screen displays a hidden folder filled with dozens of time-stamped photographs. There are pictures of you reading by the library window, printed out schedules of your classes with hand-written annotations in the margins, and close-up shots of you walking across the quad at night, completely unaware of the shadow trailing three paces behind you. The most recent photo was taken just ten minutes ago—a grainy, low-light shot of you standing on his front porch, reaching for the doorknob.
"I didn't choose you at random," Jongho whispers, his breath warm against your cheek. "I’ve spent months curating this. You are the smartest, cleanest piece on this entire campus, and I am not letting you ruin my operation because you're having a crisis of conscience."
He lets go of your neck with a sudden shove, sending you stumbling back against the kitchen sink. Before you can even catch your breath, he snatches the heavy pouch of blue pills off the island and shoves it roughly against your chest, forcing your hands to close around the cold, crinkling plastic.
"Take it back to your dorm," Jongho commands, his voice dropping into a flat, chilling finality that leaves no room for negotiation. "Lock it away. If I check my phone on Tuesday morning and find out you didn't show up to the drop location, the dean gets an anonymous tip with every single photo in this folder. Sleep well tonight."
The cold plastic of the pouch bites into your palms as you grip it against your chest. Your knuckles are white, your breathing shallow and rapid in the oppressive silence of the kitchen.
Jongho doesn't move. He stands there, entirely still, watching you with that same clinical, detached intensity. He is waiting to see if you will break, but you just stand there, paralyzed by the sheer weight of the folder on his phone. The threat is airtight. Your scholarship, your future, your entire life—he holds it all in his hand like a light switch he can flip whenever he wants.
"Are we understood?" Jongho asks, his baritone voice dropping an octave, heavy and unyielding.
You look down at the hundreds of blue pills shifting behind the clear plastic, then look back up at his glassy, unblinking eyes. You manage a single, desperate nod.
"Good," he murmurs, a shadow of that cold smile returning to his lips. He steps aside, finally clearing the path to the front door and letting the cool air from the hallway cut through the suffocating kitchen. "I knew you were smart. Go back to the dorms. Don't run, don't look suspicious, and don't touch the product."
You don't need to be told twice. You shove the heavy pouch deep into your backpack, zipping it shut with trembling fingers, and bolt out of the kitchen. Your heavy footsteps echo down the hallway as you throw open the front door and burst out into the freezing night air of the university’s fraternity row.
The walk back to the honors quad is a blur of pure, unadulterated paranoia. Every shadow beneath the campus oak trees looks like Jongho trailing behind you. Every headlight from a passing campus security cruiser makes your heart seize, your mind convinced they can see right through the nylon of your backpack.
By the time you slide your keycard into your dorm room lock, your shirt is soaked with nervous sweat. You slip inside, locking the deadbolt, and slide down against the back of the door, staring at your desk in the dark. The pouch is in your bag, sitting in the center of your room, a ticking time bomb waiting for Tuesday morning.
The Tuesday morning alarm cuts through the silence of your dorm room like a siren, instantly triggering a sickening jolt of adrenaline. You haven’t slept properly in three days. Every time you closed your eyes, you saw the folder of time-stamped photos on Jongho's phone.
You stand up, your limbs heavy and trembling from pure exhaustion. The honors dorm is quiet, but the backpack sitting at the foot of your bed feels like a physical entity, radiating a heavy, suffocating aura. Inside it, hidden beneath a stack of biology textbooks, sits the thick plastic pouch of blue pills. Today is the day.
Your phone vibrates against the desk. The screen lights up with an unknown number.
“10:15 AM. The old maintenance shed behind the campus stadium. Don't be late.”
The message is brief, cold, and entirely final. It leaves no room for hesitation.
By 10:00 AM, you are walking across the university quad. The backpack weighs heavily against your shoulders, every step feeling like a march toward a cliff. The autumn wind is freezing, but your palms are slick with sweat. As you pass a group of laughing students, a campus security golf cart rolls by. Your breath hitches, your heart hammering a frantic, deafening rhythm against your ribs. You look down, pulling the straps of your bag tighter, convinced that everyone can see the panic written plain across your face.
You slip past the edge of the campus, where the paved walkways give way to cracked asphalt and overgrown weeds behind the massive concrete stadium. The maintenance shed sits in the shadow of the bleachers, its metal siding rusted and peeling. The area is completely deserted, shielded from the view of the main campus by a line of dense pine trees.
You push the heavy wooden door open. The hinges groan loudly, cutting through the quiet morning air.
The interior smells of damp earth, motor oil, and the faint, sweet scent of synthetic stimulants. Jongho is already there, sitting on a rusted toolbox. He is wearing a dark hoodie, his sleeves pushed up to show his bruised knuckles. The fluorescent tube light flickering above his head catches the dangerous, glassy dilation of his pupils. He has been up all night preparing for the drop, and the chemical buzz gives him a hyper-focused, unpredictable edge.
"You're precisely on time," Jongho says, his low, heavy baritone vibrating through the small, enclosed shed. A slow, chilling smirk touches his lips as he stands up, his broad frame instantly blocking the exit. "I knew I could trust my number one student."
He steps right into your personal space, his shadow completely swallowing you. He doesn't wait for you to move; instead, his large, calloused hand reaches out, grabbing the zipper of your backpack and dragging it down with a sharp, violent rip.
"Let's see the product," he murmurs, his dark eyes burning into yours with a sadistic, controlling intensity that leaves you completely breathless.
The heavy, damp air of the maintenance shed presses down on your chest, smelling of industrial grease, rusted iron, and the sharp chemical tang of synthetic stimulants.
Jongho doesn't take the backpack from your shoulders right away. Instead, he steps closer, his broad frame casting a shadow that completely traps you against the rusted metal workbench behind you. The flickering overhead tube light catches the glassy, dilated edge of his eyes. He looks like a stranger—someone entirely removed from the quiet, calculating student who sits next to you in class.
"Take it off," Jongho commands, his low baritone cutting through the quiet hum of the campus stadium nearby.
Your hands shake so violently you can barely slide the nylon straps off your shoulders. He snatches the bag from your grip, unzipping it with a sharp, careless rip that spills your biology notes across the dirt floor. He reaches deep past your textbooks, pulling out the thick pouch of blue pills. He holds it up to the gray light filtering through the cracked window, checking the vacuum seal with clinical precision.
"Flawless," Jongho murmurs, a slow, chilling smirk touching his lips. "I knew your clean little hands wouldn't mess this up."
The sheer weight of the crime, the money, and the stalker photos on his phone crash down on you all at once. Your chest tightens so hard you can barely draw a breath. Your heart hammers against your ribs like a trapped bird, and the walls of the small shed feel like they are closing in. You need something—anything—to dull the sharp, terrifying edge of the panic before you completely unravel.
You look from the pouch of pills down to the pack of rolling papers and a small baggie of green sitting on the workbench beside him.
"J-Jongho," you whisper, your voice cracking nervously as you look up at him through your eyelashes. Your hands are trembling so badly you have to tuck them into your pockets. "Can I... can I smoke with you? Please. I just need to calm down."
Jongho freezes. His eyes trace the frantic rise and fall of your chest, a dark, clinical curiosity flickering across his face. A slow, deeply satisfied smile pulls at his lips. He loves the terror on your face, but seeing you actively ask to step into his dark world—seeing you beg him for an escape—gives his twisted mind a massive, sadistic thrill. He is completely bending your perfect reputation to his will.
"You want a hit?" Jongho asks, his voice dropping into a low, dangerously soft purr. He reaches over, grabbing the lighter and a pre-rolled joint from the bench. He steps right into your personal space until his chest is brushing yours, locking you against the wood. "I didn't think an honors student like you liked getting dirty."
He sparks the lighter, the small flame illuminating his dilated, unblinking eyes. He takes a long, slow drag, the sweet, skunky smoke pluming between your faces before he holds it out to your trembling lips.
"Take it," Jongho murmurs, his free hand wrapping around the back of your neck with a bruising, unyielding grip that forces you to stay right under his shadow. "Breathe it in. If you're going to be my partner, you might as well learn to love the fog."
You reach out with a trembling hand, your fingers brushing against his cold skin as you take the joint from between his fingers. Your lips wrap around the paper, and you take a sharp, nervous drag. The harsh, skunky smoke hits the back of your throat, making you cough violently as the heat burns your lungs.
Jongho lets out a low, breathy chuckle. He doesn't loosen his grip on the back of your neck; instead, his thumb rubs a soothing yet firm circle right against your hairline, anchoring you in place as the small shed begins to tilt.
"Slow down," he murmurs, his voice a heavy, grounding vibration close to your ear. "Hold it in. Let it do its job."
You squeeze your eyes shut and take a second, deeper hit, forcing the smoke to settle in your chest. Within seconds, the chemical reaction collides with the raw adrenaline in your veins. The sharp, terrifying edge of your panic begins to dull, morphing into a heavy, slow-motion haze. The flickering fluorescent light above loses its harshness, blurring into a soft, dizzying hum. Your heart still thrums against your ribs, but the sound feels miles away, muffled by a thick blanket of fog.
When you open your eyes, Jongho is staring down at you with absolute fascination. His dilated pupils are wide and dark, reflecting the small, glowing ember between your fingers. He takes the joint back from your hand, taking a slow pull of his own before exhaling the thick smoke directly into the space between your faces.
"Look at you," Jongho whispers, his expression unreadable as the air in the small shed grows heavy. He leans forward, his presence filling the cramped space, pinning you against the workbench. "The library feels a long way from here, doesn't it? See how quickly everything changes."
He reaches down, sliding a heavy paper envelope of cash into your jacket pocket. The weight of it is immediate and undeniable, a physical reminder of the situation you have found yourself in. The earlier panic has shifted into a weary, heavy stillness as the reality of the transaction settles in.
"You are part of this now," Jongho murmurs, his voice low and commanding as he maintains his firm grip. "Every Tuesday, you come here, and you handle the delivery. The old routine is over. We are working together now."
