사랑의 눈빛

You assumed that when you moved to the city, that notion would be like finding a needle in a haystack. New York City was bustling with life. Everyone moved here from all walks of life, looking to find another purpose, a deeper meaning. That’s how everyone became a New Yorker, one way or another. But live music existed in this city around every corner. You couldn’t go into a bar nowadays without seeing some new-age indie singer who looked like he hadn’t trimmed his beard in years and probably wasn’t wearing deodorant at the mic stand. Even on campus, where you were attending you final year of grad school, there was someone practicing their guitar in a dining hall.

Perhaps it was a cruel twist of fate that the only place that would hire you part-time was a record store. But you needed the cash and a job was a job. You were utterly unhelpful to customers who were looking for a certain artist or genre, but you were organized and did what you were told. No one kept the store as spotless as you did. Your boss, Aileen, might’ve even considered bumping you to manager status if you at least tried to learn a thing about the records you were selling. There wasn’t enough time in the day though. Your mind was almost entirely booked up by school work that you couldn’t even begin to think about learning the cultural significance of the Velvet Underground & Nico.

As the saying goes though: if you won’t do it, someone else will.

After a long day of classes, you ran from campus to the record store. It was only about a mile, but the autumn chill was coming fast and of course, the bus wasn’t working today. Which meant you had to sprint just to make your 4 PM to close shift. You busted through the doors, hair disheveled and your face halfway buried in a faux fur coat, only to see your boss handing over a key to some man by the cash register. Actually, not just a key. The key. To a man you didn’t know.

Was Aileen on some kind of new drug she didn’t tell you or the other employees about?

Your cheeks were red from running as you approached the counter, one eyebrow already cocked in confusion. Stuffing your hands inside your pockets to warm them up, you asked, “Um … what’s going on here?”

The man with Aileen turned around and you almost buckled. Almost. There wasn’t anything all that special about him. He was just … handsome. And truthfully, not many handsome people came into this record store, so it threw you off just a little. He didn’t notice though. You had learned to school your expression since undergrad, warding off any frat guy that tried to step within two feet of you.

“Oh, right on time,” Aileen said, gesturing between you two. “Meet Hansol, your new manager.”

You looked to where your coworker, Mingyu, was putting up new posters in the back of the store. He shrugged before going back to work, almost shoving a pin through the corner of his thumb by accident.

When you turned back to your new manager – apparently – his hand was out for you to shake. “You can just call me Vernon,” he said in a voice much deeper than you assumed.

You only had to take one look at him to know everything about him. Vernon thought he was special. Vernon wanted to be interesting. Vernon probably listened to artists that only had less than one thousand monthly listeners. The kind of person that made your teeth grind.

His brown hair was cropped and gelled into a few spikes, mimicking a look one of your ex-boyfriends had in high school. Probably. One hoop earring dangled from his ear and he smiled at you almost cat-like, both sides of his lips curling and looking like an upside down three. A small scar was near his mouth, right where a previous lip ring would be. He was wearing an oversized black tee with a washed-out picture of Green Day and baggy cargo pants.

Not management material. Incredibly pretentious. Even for a record store.

Eventually, you slipped your palm from your jacket pockets and shook his hand, telling him your name. He nodded and turned back to Aileen, who continued to give him the lowdown on everything in the store. You took that moment as your reprieve and hurried to the backroom, throwing your jacket and backpack in a locker. Pinning your name badge to your chest, you walked out and approached Mingyu, still pinning posters to the wall. He swore under his breath when he thought he got a paper cut.

“Hey,” you whispered up at him on the small step ladder. Your eyes never left where Vernon stood with Aileen, until he looked over at you and you felt your stomach curdle. “Mingyu,” you called, tugging on the bottom of his ripped jeans.

“I don’t have time to gossip with you about your Art History professor,” he whispered back, rather loudly. “My shift ends in 20 and I have to finish decorating or Aileen is gonna kill me.”

You ignored him and yanked on his jeans again. “Since when was she hiring a new manager?”

“Oh, him?” Mingyu looked back to the register before shrugging. “Beats me.”

You crossed your arms over your chest. “He looks pretentious.”

“I don’t know. He’s kinda hot though.”

Your brow furrowed as you looked up at him. “You think with your dick.”

“Most men do.” He jutted his chin towards the counter again. “I’d head over there before our new manager yells at you.”

Rolling your eyes, you headed to the register where Vernon was bringing a crate of vintage records behind the checkout. A lot of these were purchased for display purposes only, but you guessed that anyone could be bought, given the right price. His arms were kind of skinny, but he was able to lift up the crate without protest. Mingyu was built like a god and he didn’t go a second without complaining.

“Aileen told me you were really good with organizing. It’s half the reason why the store looks as put together as it does,” he said, hands on his hips as he surveyed the area. Turning back to you, he referred to the crate with one hand. “I was asked to go over inventory in the back. So as you man the register, I need you to display these records on the wall here in release date order.”

You glanced from the stack of records, and then back to him. You did this about three times until he realized he lost you somewhere. There would a few covers you recognized, a few you didn’t – you had never seen Surrealistic Pillow before – but this couldn’t be that hard.

“Of course,” you replied, surprising him. “I just need to use my phone to Google the release dates.”

“You don’t know them from the top of your head?”

“Do you?”

“Yeah, a good handful of them.” He picked up one from the crate. “Bleed American from Jimmy Eat World was released in … 2001, I think.”

You took your phone out, searched the release date, and … holy shit, he was right.

Meeting his eyes again, you replied, “How the hell do you know that? I can’t remember stuff like that.”

“I just like music a lot,” he shrugged, placing the record back in the stack. “You can’t even remember when Dookie was released?”

You narrowed your eyes. Was he trying to make you look stupid? Of course, you didn’t know this off the top of your head. You had a life. This was part-time.

He blinked, not waiting for you to answer. “You work at a record store.”

“I’m in a grad program,” you clarified, crossing your arms again. “I needed a job, and Aileen needed an employee that was type A. It was a match made in heaven.”

“I just don’t understand why you would wanna work somewhere when you’re not passionate about it –”

Your hands clenched. “Not everyone is passionate about their job, Vernon –”

“No one is really passionate about records anymore though,” he added, brushing past you, and your arms lowered to your sides. “I mean, look at this store. Reverb Records was one of a kind in the 70s, a staple in the New York music scene. To work here is like walking through history. And now it’s been reduced to … a fraction of the store dedicated to vintage comics and POP figures.”

“We needed to venture outside of music to stay in business,” you defended, remembering the day Aileen broke the news that they almost lost the property. “If we didn’t, none of us would even be working here.”

Vernon nodded, but you could tell he was struggling to not roll his eyes. “Whatever. I’ll be in the back if you need me. Feel free to use your phone for those dates.” 

You watched him as he headed to the backroom, walking past Mingyu, who was finally getting down from the step ladder. He put out his fist, which your coworker gladly bumped his own against. When Vernon disappeared into the backroom, Mingyu turned to you with a thumbs up.

You frowned. He never learned.

It was a particularly dead night at the record store, especially for a Friday. Reverb was located on a pretty popular shopping area in the city, surrounded by thrift stores and a chic coffee shop that a niche Fashion Week model went to once so now it was filled everyday with students. You had your notebook out for Medieval Art History next to the register, your eyes skimming over the barely legible writing. You supposed you could simply print out the slides Professor Lee made, which were far easier to read than your own handwriting, but copying down his notes helped you study better. 

Mingyu’s hand smacked down on the counter, startling you. Your head snapped up and you placed a hand on your chest. He giggled at your expense. “Not funny,” you chastised, looking back down at the page.

“It’s a Friday,” he whined. “Why are you concerning yourself with homework?”

“Maybe because I have a test Monday morning and I’m working every day this weekend.”

He tapped a finger against the counter, but you were steadfast, continuing to ignore him. Did that actually say Lindisfarne Gospels or was your handwriting really that bad?

Suddenly, Mingyu whipped the notebook closed and you viewed up at him with an aggravated expression. “What could you possibly want from me?”

“I have a free ticket to the DJ set at the Blitz Club tonight,” he said, picking up his backpack that you didn’t notice had been at his feet. “I’m heading out now, but I could meet you at the club tonight. You know you want to.”

Your nose scrunched up. “Too loud.”

“You had a blast the last time though.”

“I was drunk out of mind,” you recalled, “and I made out with said DJ.”

Mingyu shrugged. “Sounds like a normal Friday to me.”

You shook your head and opened your notebook back up. “I can’t. My shift doesn’t end until 10 PM anyway. The line for the Blitz Club is so long if you don’t get there right at 9:50.”

“Your loss,” he scoffed before heading for the door.

Your head tilted up again, and with a grin plastered on your face, you called out, “Try not to almost kiss your roommate like last time.”

Mingyu’s hand partially pushed open the entrance, making the bell chime as he sneered at you. “You’re hilarious. He’s hanging out with that girl he met at the office anyway.” He lifted his hand in a mock wave. “I’ll find someone to lock lips with. Trust me. See you!”

A sigh escaped your lips as your favorite coworker left. You busied yourself for a moment, finding Chan’s name badge that he’d been looking for near the cup of pens. You put in your reminders app to give it back when you shared a shift with him next week. Picking up your notebook, you said out loud to yourself, “Okay, Insular Art. The Book of Kells. Allegedly created in 800 AD. 340 folios –”

The store’s music volume immediately went up.

Your head shot up, jaw shifting, and you smacked the notebook back down on the counter. The store was deserted and you couldn’t even be left alone to study for a test that you were so terrified of failing. You turned on your heel, striding to the backroom as you wondered why you decided to go to grad school in the first place.

Vernon was sitting in the small office he shared with Aileen when she wasn’t working. The desk was made of metal and was probably as old as the store, with cabinets that creaked when opened. The computer, thankfully, was updated, but their internet went in and out sometimes when Aileen forgot to pay the bill. Currently, Vernon was leaning back in the chair, feet up on the desk, going through their long inventory list and checking off what needed to be restocked. (A project Aileen constantly abandoned.) He drummed his fingers on the tabletop while chewing on the end of a pen.

You leaned against the doorframe, crossing you arms over your chest. “You know, if you keep chewing on those, you’ll get ink in your mouth.”

His gaze lifted, a smirk playing at his lips. “Not the first time I’ve ingested it.”

Your nose wrinkled. “Anyway,” your arms released to your sides, “did you turn up the music? I can’t focus.”

“I figured our customers would enjoy a little bit of Blink this evening.”

You leaned forward to where the monitor with the security camera footage was displayed, showing no one inside the store. Your eyes flickered back to his. “We haven’t had a single customer since 5,” you informed him. “And I’m trying to study.”

“I think you’re just trying to kill my vibe.”

“I think you’re trying to kill my vibe.”

You were both competing in a staring contest that you were desperate to win, until you realized that it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered, especially this argument. Shoulders sinking, you sulked. “Can you please just turn down the volume a little?”

“Sure,” he replied in a tone much more friendly than anticipated. He sat up straight, leaning towards the computer, and adjusted the store volume. You tried to ignore the way his Adam’s Apple bobbed when he smiled, how his earring glinted in the shitty lights of the office. Turning around, he gestured to you with the pen. “Please is such a pretty word. You should use it more often.”

Your eyes narrowed. It was your turn to drum your fingers on the doorframe, afraid they would form into fists. “What is your problem? You’ve had a vendetta against me ever since your first day.”

He raised a single brow. “Name three things I’ve done.”

“One,” you lifted a finger, “you chastised me on that first day for not knowing the release dates of vintage LPs. Two …” Another finger. “You’re constantly turning the music up and down. Pretty sure just to annoy me or it’s when you really like a song because I can see you playing air guitar on the security cameras.” Your third finger went up. “And three, you practically pop quizzed me on our new release stock as soon as you entered the store last week.”

He exhaled heavily, finally standing from the chair and at his full height. “Honestly,” he shrugged, “I just think you’re pretentious.”

Your jaw nearly dropped. This man … this Vernon … was seriously calling you pretentious just because you didn’t know release dates off the top of your head. He was insane. Where did he get off?

“Well, I think you’re pretentious,” you snapped back.

“Shocker.”

After a long moment of silence, he let his head fall back and groaned with frustration. For a second, your mind wandered. Just for a second. But you didn’t even let yourself entertain that thought because this was your manager and he just insulted you.

“Listen,” he continued, rounding the desk and holding a hand out. “Let’s call it a truce. Working together is going to be hell if we don’t.”

You bit the inside of your cheek and studied him. “I’m not agreeing to anything until you admit that you were being a dick to me –”

“I was being a dick.”

Your lips pursed, not expecting that. He looked down at you, almost leaning into your space, and you felt your cheeks warm. Shaking your head, you clicked your tongue before letting your hand meet his. “Fine,” you said evenly, “truce.”

You felt your hands start to get clammy already, so you pulled it away. He tried to wipe his palm on the back of his pants, but you noticed. You always noticed. Bowing your head slightly, you muttered, “I’ll get back to it. Thanks for turning the volume down.” You spun around and walked towards the exit, hoping you didn’t find a teenager behind the register with a wad of cash in their hands. (Happened on a Chan-only shift, which meant he definitely nodded off in the backroom for an hour.)

Vernon called your name as you had one foot out of the backroom, and you turned your head. He was now leaning against the door frame, a smile tugging at his lips, and he stuck a hand in his front pocket. Your breath stilled for a moment. Only a moment. 

Maybe you should’ve agreed to go with Mingyu tonight. Obviously, you needed another drunk make out if you were starting to fawn over your shitbag manager.

“Who’s your favorite artist?” He asked.

You didn’t expect that question. “I … I don’t know,” you shrugged. “I’m almost always listening to the same couple of albums for the nostalgia. Maybe Avril Lavigne?”

“Interesting.” He nodded, amused. Why was he smiling at you? “You should let me show you some music sometime.”

You snorted. “What? So you can chastise me again?”

“Nooo,” he quipped, dragging out the word as he stepped closer to you. “We made a truce, remember?”

“R–Right …” Your voice got smaller the closer he was. Even just a foot away from you felt a little suffocating, but maybe that was because he was wearing a heavy cologne.

“I’m not going to chastise you. I promise.” He put his hands up in surrender. “I just want us to chill out, listen to music, and maybe you’ll be able to see why I appreciate working here so much. Why I’m so pretentious in your eyes. And I’m not saying that’s not a fair assessment, but I just want to show you some music and you can decide for yourself. Simple as that.”

You hummed then, almost wanting to laugh that he wanted to prove himself to you. It was … sweet. Somehow. Something about his voice here made you forget why you didn’t like him in the first place. “Sounds like something friends would do,” you muttered.

He smacked a hand on his head, feigning surprise. “I totally didn’t tell you,” he exclaimed before grinning down at you. “In the fine print of our truce, it said we had to become friends.”

In a shocking turn of events, you gave Vernon your number, but maybe that should’ve been a given since he was your manager. Even worse, you were currently spending your single day off this week by taking the subway to his apartment in Bushwick. You buried your face in the collar of your jacket, trying not to inhale the stench of cigarettes from the person next to you. This was an exquisite form of torture. You were being set up. Why else would you be doing this in the first place?

Maybe because your conversation over text went a little like this –

Vernon (Manager): you’re off today, right? want to spend it on your first music lesson, or is your brain too fried from school? You: he has jokes. hilarious. You: I can come over a little after 3.  Vernon (Manager): see you then!

You shook your head when your voice of reason fought against you. This was so dumb. Why were you doing this? So he could prove a point? You might’ve called a truce, but this was stepping out of bounds for work ethics. And he was still pretentious. So were you. Kind of.

Despite your reservations, you still got off at the right stop, walking up the stairs and into the cold autumn air. You pulled out your phone, struggling to bring up walking instructions, even with your screen-friendly gloves on. In the time span it took you to walk to his apartment and wait for him to let you in, you could’ve turned around and immediately took the subway back home, simply see him at work later that week. But you didn’t. And that was something for you to dwell on another day.

“You’re a fast walker.”

You turned, seeing him hold open the door to his building. Your cheeks were red from the chill – not for any other reason – and you squeezed past him just to feel the warmth of the old, rickety brownstone. “Yeah, well,” you said, already beginning to climb the stairs because you assumed he lived on the second floor. “I’m all legs anyway.”

He didn’t agree, just chuckled at your reply and followed behind you. Once you were both on the second story, he took the lead, gesturing for you to come inside apartment 202. Unwrapping the scarf from your neck, you let your gaze flit around the room. His studio looked the same as every other one in Bushwick, right down the peeling white wallpaper in the tiny kitchen. Where he differed, though, was the large record player in front of the couch, in lieu of a flatscreen TV. You walked over to it immediately, pulling at the sleeves of your sweater, and investigated the soft hum of whatever was playing. Oasis. Time Flies… Your dad liked to listen to Oasis when you were a kid.

“You ever heard that one before?” Vernon asked from behind you, crinkling some kind of paper.

“I’m … not sure. But my dad really liked this band,” you explained, not bothering to look back as you studied the large bookcase next to the player. Instead of novels, he filled these shelves to the brim with records. They weren’t organized, and some had more wear than others, but the collection was impressive.

Vernon noticed you admiring the shelves. “I’m not made of money. I get a lot of these as gifts or from yard sales.”

“Oh, I wasn’t assuming –”

You whirled, noticing the silver tray and ground weed on the coffee table before your eyes fixed on the joint he was rolling in his hands. Blinking slow, your gaze flicked up to his as he sealed the end of the joint with his tongue, wrapping his lips around it slightly. You swallowed, and he smiled. 

“Have you not smoked a joint before?” He lifted a brow. “I just thought – I can put it away –”

You tsked. “Oh, my god. Yes, I’ve smoked a joint before. I’m not a prude, Vernon.” You walked forward and opened the window slightly, allowing fresh air when he finally lit the end. “Truthfully, I was just surprised that you could roll one yourself. Bet you used to smoke cigarettes and hand-roll those too, right?”

“Now, that I take offense to. You really think I’m that pretentious?” He shook his head as you took a seat on the carpet beside him. After a moment, he smirked at you. “Yeah, I hand-rolled them in high school. You got me.”

You chuckled, hand over your mouth to hide your snort. When he smiled – really smiled – it was so wide that you could see his gums. His eyes even crinkled at the corners. For a moment, you wondered why you two ever disliked each other in the first place. It felt unfair to hate someone who beamed like that, who laughed with you as if you didn’t just tease him like a child.

He set down the joint to get to his feet, fingers brushing over the spines of his vinyls on the shelf. “I looked through some of the top sellers on Record Store Day this year. Figured that would be a cool place to start because you might recognize some of the album names,” he said, finally pulling out one in particular. “I really liked this one by the Cure. The Head On the Door.”

Your eyes squinted as he showed you the cover. “Oh, yeah, I recognize that one. I thought you might play something by – um … oh, Charli xcx. We sold out of that album of hers with the red cover in less than a few hours this year.”

He lifted the tonearm and looked back at you with a grin. “We can listen to that one next. I managed to snag that record a few years back on eBay.”

After lowering the stylus onto the spinning vinyl, the apartment was suddenly filled with the upbeat sounds of the first songs, slowly introducing a hyper-strummed acoustic guitar. Vernon lowered the volume slightly, and you weren’t sure if it was to cultivate a vibe or he was still cognizant of that time you stormed into the backroom to complain about the music inside the store. Sitting back down beside you on floor, he placed the joint in his mouth and lit the end with a lighter that had seen better days. Smoke wafted into the air before being pulled out the open window with the help of his overhead fan.

He held the joint out to you and you took it instantly. “What kind of strain is this?”

His shoulders sagged as he coughed softly. “Does it matter?”

“I guess not.” With the joint resting between two fingers, you brought it to your lips and inhaled. It was a little harsh, but not bad. You couldn’t remember the last time you smoked weed; it had to be a while though. Maybe you actually needed this just to chill the fuck out finally. If you kept worrying so much about your thesis, your head would surely explode.

He propped one elbow on the edge of the couch, facing you, as you handed the joint back to him. “Is this what you do when you’re not at the store?” You asked in a slightly hoarse voice.

His eyes narrowed. “I don’t just work at a record store and smoke weed all day. Do you really think I’m a walking stereotype?”

“None of those words just came out of my mouth.”

“Well, you sound a little judgey.”

“I’m not being judgey.”

“You sure?”

“Just answer the question.”

He laughed after taking a drag, and then another. You focused on the way smoked billowed from his nostrils, until he started speaking again. “I also do photography on the side. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be able to afford to live in this city.”

“I get it,” you nodded, playing with the joint between your fingers when he passed it over. “Reverb is for extra cash. Student services for my grad program pays half of my living expenses. Thank god.”

He adjusted his stance, his chin resting on his fist as he studied you. The record transitioned into the third song, but he barely noticed in that moment. He let you smoke the joint for as long as your heart desired. Something told him that you needed it. With one finger tracing his lips, he said, “You never told me what you study.”

He was smiling at you. Again. All cat-like.

“I didn’t think you’d be interested.”

“You gotta stop assuming things about me.” He tapped your arm jokingly. “Tell me. I’m interested.”

When you felt your insides start to turn to mush, you couldn’t help but mimic his posture: one elbow propped on the couch, the side of your head pressing into the heel of your palm. Your eyes were hazy now, a dull pink entering the whites. His words were swirling around in your head, haunting you like a ghost.

Tell me.

You breathed in another drag.

I’m interested.

You exhaled.

“I’m studying European History,” you finally replied, handing the joint back to him. Your fingers brushed, but only for a moment. “I want to become a professor.”

“A professor,” he nodded, his brow shooting up as he inhaled. Coughing away from her direction, he added, “That’s … oddly fitting. Are you almost done with the program?”

You nodded, unable stop looking at him as he flicked the end of the joint against an ash tray. “I’m working on my thesis while taking a few concurrent classes in my fall semester only. It makes things a little harder, but the courses are relevant and do help with research. I could do without having to take tests, though.” You shrugged. “I’m managing.”

“That’s a lot on your plate, on top of work,” he mused. One knee curled up to his chest and he rested his arm on top, the joint in his fingers halfway gone already. “You’re kind of a superhero.”

Your gaze flickered up to his again, breath stilling for a moment. The air was so warm, despite the open window, and your body was starting to feel fuzzy. He turned his head to yours, that grin on his lips so dangerous that it sent a shiver through you. Maybe it was the weed, but he looked like he was moving closer to you, invading your space. 

Not that you wanted that. No, you couldn’t want that. Because if you wanted that, it would ruin everything in the carefully crafted plan you made in your head long ago. 

Vernon’s eyes squinted then, and he finally replayed his words over. “Well,” he paused, “a superhero in the sense that you’re taking on a lot with probably no ‘thank you.’”

Blinking, you realized he was making a joke. You snorted and hit his arm, but he captured your hand before it could fall on your lap. For a moment, you wondered if time had stopped – it was the weed; it had to be the weed – because he was slipping the joint back into your palm so smoothly while saying the dorkiest line possible: “For you, my lady.”

He stood, walking over to the record player, leaving you with a half-lit joint in your open palm while your head was far too in the clouds to comprehend anything. You were so high that you didn’t even realize the album ended, and he was now switching it over to something different – Charli xcx, the red album. A melodic symphony hummed through the speakers, followed by a woman’s voice harmonizing, “I’m a dreamer … Step, step out the Beemer …”

When he came back to sit next to you, he noticed you still staring at the joint in your hand. His gaze flickered from your face, to the joint, before he started laughing. “You’re probably done, right?” He tried not to snicker, but it was hard not to when you were giving him this far-off look in your eyes. Plucking the joint from your hand, he put it between his lips and relit it.

It took you a whole minute to realize it wasn’t in your hand anymore, and you viewed up at him sheepishly. “I’m so sorry,” you whined. “I got … I think I got too high.”

He couldn’t hold back his laughter anymore. “It’s okay. Think you needed this more than I did.”

“My brain feels like slop. But in a good way.” Gravity got the upper hand as you let your whole head fall onto the cushion now. “How are you comprehending anything right now?”

Vernon smiled, all cocky. “My tolerance is infinitely better than yours.”

“Whatever. Dick.”

You flipped forward, letting your spine press into the edge of the couch as the back of your head rested on the cushion, which was just hard enough to ground you in this state of mind.  Neither of you said a word. The record played another song, and another, as Vernon finally ashed what was left of the joint. He let his head fall too, your gazes pinned to the ceiling. The overhead fan started to swirl in his vision, and he grinned to himself.

“Vernon?”

“Yeah?”

“You know a lot about music.”

He turned his head and dramatically held a hand to his chest. “That might be the nicest thing you’ve ever said. I’m touched.”

You chuckled under your breath, hitting his forearm again. “No, I’m serious. I … This is nice.” You paused, listening to the song playing. All over … Deep under my skin … You got me so emotional … Your lips pursed. “I really like this album.”

He raised a brow. “Not just the weed talking?”

“No. Surprisingly,” you added. “We should keep doing this. Until you tire of me.”

“It’s a plan.”

You were beginning to realize that Vernon was true to his word. Almost every day – even after work, closing shifts and all – the two of you got together to listen to a few of his favorite records while he rambled on about the artist. Sometimes you got high, sometimes you didn’t. You simply liked being there besides a calming presence, listening to another person talk about their favorite subjects. A complete contrast to the hustle of grad school work, but you liked it.

There was a certain comfort that came to being around him, one you hadn’t experienced before. His voice was deep, yet soft, and he spoke about music with confidence. Like it was his favorite thing in the world. He could go on tangents without taking a breath, and you’d notice the way he’d sometimes pause when he talked for far too long. You didn’t stop him though. You only  smiled, let your head fall back against the couch, and listened.

What had you let yourself become?

Perhaps, it all started on the day you both met up in Central Park. Neither of you had a shift that day and you had managed to get done a good chunk of thesis research in the morning. Around 2 PM, you found him lying on a flannel blanket near the edge of Central Park, carrying two Italian subs from the pizza joint near your apartment that you swore had the best in the city. Vernon didn’t hear you approach; his eyes were closed as he listened to the music blasting through his headphones with one arm behind his head. A sliver of his stomach peeked out from underneath his grey hoodie, making you stumble – for what reason, you weren’t sure – and almost drop the tightly-wrapped sandwiches.

Vernon sat up then, finally hearing the rustle of your sneakers on the fallen leaves, and chuckled. “Woah, no need to rush.” He stood and grabbed the subs from your grasp. “You’re holding precious cargo.”

Your laughter was awkward, tense. You were simply not understanding why the mere sight of  his exposed skin had your stomach in knots, even though you knew the truth. Of course, you did. But you were going to sit there and pretend you didn’t because that was easier than confronting what was real. 

After demolishing both your sandwiches – “These actually might be the best in the city,” Vernon had agreed – you sat back on the blanket as he handed you one of his headphones. He hadn’t upgraded to Bluetooth ones yet, said he was going to use these until they died, but you did notice that the sound on right bud he gave you might be softer than the left. He asked if you wanted an edible and after all the schoolwork you did this morning, you took it before even answering him. 

“I’ve always thought that music sounds better on a record,” he said, scrolling through his library to find one artist in particular. “Besides this album. Maybe it’s because this is the first album I ever listened to and it was through headphones. Something about the nostalgia factor of it all.” He turned his head to yours and smiled. “But I want you to hear it this way.”

Intimacy, closeness, was always laced in his tone. Little statements like, “This is for you,” or “I’m interested,” or “I want you to hear it this way,” meant so much more when they came from his lips. Words lost meaning. Just a simple “hello” as he passed you at the register blurred into, “Do you want to hang out later?”

You managed to see the album cover before he turned off his phone. That blue album by the Smiths. You’d seen it before. Every douchebag with a mullet that came into Reverb bought it. But as you laid back and let the edible take over, you began to appreciate the music in a whole new way. Maybe you were becoming one of those douchebags with a mullet, but there was something about the melody of these songs, how some were recorded acoustic while others were with a full band. Everything blended into a kaleidoscope of powerful vocals and lyrics that made your brain melt.

Vernon would cut in at some parts to tell you fun facts about the song, and other times he would just stay quiet. Neither of you were comprehending much anyway, focused solely on the pretty words pouring into your ears. As the album finally hit the last song, you realized Vernon was singing under his breath. Your head slowly turned, watching the way his lips moved to form the words, “So please, please, please … Let me, let me, let me … Let me get what I want …” It helped that your earbud wasn’t as loud, letting you tune into more of his voice.

You were staring at him now. Nothing could tear your eyes away. He was drumming his fingers on his stomach, that small sliver of skin poking out yet again as he bent his arm behind his head. He was in his own world, singing softly, while the autumn leaves started to fall around his head. It was the last week of November. Leaves shouldn’t be falling, especially when it was forecasted to snow next week. But fate had a funny way of doing things, and the red and yellow cascading around his spiked hair looked like a painting. 

Maybe it was the edible hitting the home stretch, but you were noticing things about him that you didn’t before. His nose scrunched when he sang. His fingers tapped to the beat of the drum, the pads calloused and cold. His other ear was pierced once, but he only wore an earring on his right one. His skin was pretty, and yet, you liked that he still had some acne scars littered around his cheekbones. He needed chapstick – bad – but his lips were still pink and nice and –

What if you kissed him?

Jesus. That had to be the edible. Because no way in your right mind would you ever consider kissing Vernon. Just a couple months ago you were fighting the urge to wring his neck. But now you were … staring at his lips again, learning the way he mouthed, Please, remembering when he told you that itwas such a pretty word. It was even prettier when he sang it. 

Kissing him would be so easy. You could kiss him, and then get it all out of your system.  You could lick the smile off his lips, taste whatever made him secretly ache. Every lingering thought that you had about him would vanish. You didn’t have to worry about accidentally holding his hand when he passed you a joint, or hope that you wouldn’t moan his name the next time you touched yourself. You could kiss him right now and everything could go back to normal –

His eyes opened as soon as the song finished and he looked over at you. For a moment, you assumed he was going to ask why you were staring at him. Instead, he moved to his side and propped himself up on one elbow. “Do you even know who the Smiths are?”

Moment ruined. His inner douchebag with a mullet made a triumphant return. Thank god, you didn’t kiss him.

You frowned. “I might not know as much as you do about music, but I know who the fucking Smiths are, Vernon.”

His grin widened. “Just making sure you’ve been paying attention.”

Time seemed to blur. Autumn faded into the first frost, and snow started to gather on the streets of New York City. The air got even colder, making you revisit memories of stubbed-out joints and sharing headphones in nicer weather. If you tried hard enough, you didn’t think about kissing Vernon ever again, but most days, you found it too difficult to put in the effort. It was wrong, icky, harboring feelings for your friend and manager. But you told yourself that they weren’t deep; they were just a product of your yearning for intimacy, for the quick press of another’s lips against yours.

That’s all that it was. That’s all that it would be. It might take a few months, maybe a year, but feelings falter and you had more important things to worry about.

Was this what ego death felt like?

Mingyu had called out today because of the snow, saying that his “bike was frozen solid to the ground.” Thankfully, Chan had been available for his shift, and you watched him from the register as he helped a customer look through your stock of records from the 90s. He was truly a guru for all things 90s pop. And he could sing too, a mini Timberlake in the flesh.

“I was thinking …” Vernon started.

You stood up straight, looking away from your laptop. The store wasn’t so busy today because of the snow, so your delightful manager had given you permission to work on your thesis while manning the register. He was sitting on the edge of the counter behind the checkout, dangling his feet slightly while he studied one of the new releases they got in stock a few days ago. For a moment, you let your eyes follow his two fingers that skimmed down the track listing.

Finally, you blinked, leaning against the register and crossing your arms. “That isn’t good.”

He lifted his head, glaring at you. “Funny.” Setting the record back in the box, he bent forward and gripped the edge of the table. “Are you opposed to playlists?”

“Not particularly, no.”

“Second question: are you opposed to someone making you a playlist?” He asked, and when you simply tilted your head, not understanding what he was getting at, he sighed. “I was attempting to build up suspense. I made you a playlist.”

“Oh.” You released your arms, letting them fall at your sides. “Why?”

He was looking at anything but you now. “Because I …” His back was tense as he pulled out his phone. “I don’t know. I just thought it would be a nice way to share all the music we’ve listened together so far.” He lifted his head again. “Don’t read into it.”

Before you could reply, he slipped off the counter while pulling up your texts. You looked down at your own phone, seeing a new text from him on the lock screen.

Vernon (Manager Friend): [Spotify Link: Your New Favorite Playlist]

“It seemed almost wrong to make it on Spotify.”

You lifted your head up and met his eyes, brow furrowing.

“Burning music onto CDs is a lost art,” he explained, and just that one sentence completely killed every romanticization you had about him. “I’m simply too lazy to do all of that now.”

“Well, that’s good then,” you said, turning back to your laptop when you still felt your cheeks start to heat. Why were you blushing? This was unlike you; this didn’t mean anything. You reminded yourself this as you turned your head, finding him over your shoulder. “I don’t own a CD player. Most people don’t nowadays.”

He thought for a moment, and then flicked your arm. “Right.”

Despite yourself, despite what he told you – you read into it. There was no way to not when he told you it consisted of songs that he always wanted to show someone like you. You kept the playlist on repeat, wondering if it could be burned into your brain like a CD. Most were songs you’d heard before, but there were some that stood out, some that you wanted injected into your veins to be a part of you forever. Was this how he felt? Hearing a song so beautiful that you never wanted to part from it? You listened to the playlist more times than you liked to admit, allowing the last one in particular to replay until you got tired of it: Night Drive by Jimmy Eat World.

Come alive on the driver’s side … So close I taste your breath … Your lips go dry, but there’s sweet inside … Wine must go right to your head …

The lyrics were pouring through your right AirPod when Mingyu started waving a hand in front of your face. You had begun to listen to the playlist during shifts, distracting yourself from whatever album Aileen had plugged into the speakers to repeat throughout the day. Pausing the song, you took out your AirPod and asked, “Do you need me to yell at you again for your shitty organizational skills?”

“No,” he quipped, “and I find it rude that you would assume I would change my ways. I’m leaving now anyway. My bike is still frozen outside, so Wonwoo is picking me up.” He pondered, and then added, “Well, him and his girlfriend are picking me up in her car. But at least I don’t need to take public transit.”

Your brow lifted. “Your nerdy roommate finally bagged that girl from his office?”

“He is not important.” Mingyu tapped his fingers on your screen, noticing the album cover to the song you’re listening to pop up. “What the hell? Since when do you listen to anything other than Avril Lavigne?”

“Excuse you, I listen to more than just her. I just keep my favorites in rotation.” You then shrugged. “I’ve been trying to venture outside of my bubble.”

“You? Outside of your bubble?” He almost wanted to laugh, but that would earn him the kind of look that made him feel like knives were piercing his stomach. Instead, he smirked a little. “That seems like a song Vernon would listen to.”

You didn’t look at him, knowing you’d been caught redhanded. Mingyu could be such a gossip; telling him things meant the entire city knew. Busying yourself with cleaning up around the register, you replied, “Not sure what that could mean.”

“Well, you two have been hanging out after Reverb closes.” He crossed his arms over his chest, his biceps still visible even underneath his ripped denim jacket. “Oh, come on. I see your Instagram stories. You would never willingly be in Bushwick, unless …”

You shot him that signature glare. Already, he felt a pain in his gut. “What are you trying to suggest?”

He narrowed his eyes, and then said, “You guys are hooking up.”

“Can you lower your voice?” You whispered back harshly. “We do still have those security cameras, you know.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“No!”

“I thought we were lowering our voices.” His grin widened. “Honestly, he was the last person I expected you to go after, but I am kinda into the whole manager and employee thing.”

You frowned. “I am not hooking up with Vernon.”

Mingyu realized you were serious. His expression fell. “Then, what is it?”

“We’re just friends,” you scoffed, opening up your phone to check the time. It was then, as you were staring down at your screen, reading the title of the Spotify playlist, that you realized Mingyu was probably looking at the same thing. He saw it, noticed Vernon’s name as the creator, and you felt every bone in your body freeze as if you were standing outside.

Both of your heads lifted at the same time. Mingyu was the first to say, “He made you a playlist.”

There was no way out of this one, not even as you locked your screen again. “Um –” You swallowed hard. “Yes.”

“And you’re not fucking?”

“No, Mingyu, we’re not fucking,” you grumbled. “He told me not to read into it.”

Suddenly, it dawned on him, and Mingyu damn near giggled with how innocent both of you were being. Something about this was so pure, despite the obvious tension between you and Vernon. “So he likes you,” he stated confidently, “and you like him.”

“No,” you replied so quick he almost didn’t finish speaking. “We’ve been just hanging out for a couple months. He’s been showing me music on the off days I’m not at school and after work. That’s all.”

He chuckled under his breath. “A guy would never do all that unless he liked someone.”

“We’re just friends –”

“And you would never willingly go out of your comfort zone unless …” He scrunched up his nose, trying to think. “Well, unless you had a crush. I’ve known you for over a year now. This isn’t that hard to figure out.”

You blinked at him. “I resent that statement. I don’t have a crush.”

“Maybe I’m wrong.” Mingyu put his hands up in surrender, and then immediately lowered them. “But I’m not though.”

Your mouth opened to retort, but the bell above the door was chiming as a tall, lanky man sprinted through it. Wonwoo, Mingyu’s roommate, stopped short by the entrance, his glasses fogging from the heat inside the store. His voice was slightly muffled by the scarf wrapped around his neck, “Mingyu, come on. She has the car running outside and with our luck, she could get a ticket.”

“A tragedy,” Mingyu muttered, adjusting the strap of his backpack and heading for the door. Wonwoo sighed, stepping back into the cold air, and as Mingyu reached the door frame, he looked back at you. His expression was smug, and you felt every hair on the back of your neck stand up. “See you tomorrow, lover girl.”

So maybe you did have a crush.

But that didn’t mean anything. It couldn’t mean anything, and you simply didn’t have the balls to approach the conversation otherwise.

Mingyu had to be full of it. A guy would never do all that unless he liked someone, was such bullshit. You had been friends with men before, and you were sick of the assumption that the opposite sex couldn’t be friends. Just because you were defying your own rule with your crush meant nothing. Absolutely nothing. You knew that Vernon saw you as a friend anyway.

You didn’t want to ruin this. You couldn’t remember the last time you were this relaxed in your two years of grad school. The last thing you wanted was this to slip from your fingertips.

You needed a distraction – anything to not think about the stupid feelings growing inside you, the kind that made you want to claw at your stomach to stop the butterflies. For the first time, you were working the closing shift on a Saturday with Mingyu because Vernon had taken the day off. You were trying to focus on writing your thesis behind the register, but the store had been swamped today, leaving you with your racing thoughts and the best customer service smile you could muster. Mingyu was in the backroom doing god knows what, but you did notice that the music throughout the store had changed to club songs when he was in charge.

When you finally had a moment of reprieve, you slouched against the back counter and scrolled through your phone. You stopped when you noticed an ad for a local band Vernon had recommended to you a couple weeks ago called Broken Antenna. They were playing a show in Queens tonight, conveniently right after your shift ended at Reverb. Tapping your fingers on the counter behind you, you wondered if this was crazy, impulsive even. You were never like this, making spur of the moment plans, but something was telling you to live a little.

If not for yourself, just to get these thoughts about Vernon out of your head. At least for one night.

After looking around to make sure no one was in the store, you walked to the back and found Mingyu spinning in the office chair that Aileen or Vernon typically occupied. He stopped the second you knocked a fist on the doorframe, looking up at you with wide eyes. “Having fun?” You said with a brow raise.

“We all need a break every once in a while,” he quipped, standing up and sliding his phone in his back pocket.

“Speaking of breaks,” you replied, and now he was lifting a brow, “you got any plans tonight? There’s a band playing in Queens and I don’t want to go alone.”

Mingyu grinned big.

It didn’t take much convincing. You definitely could’ve texted one of your friends from school to go, but truthfully, you knew Mingyu was dying for another night out with you. Despite how drunk you got the last time you both went to a club, you could admit that it was still fun and he was one of the few people that could get you to let loose for a few hours. 

Once your shift was over, you hid your belongings in the backroom, bringing only your jackets, before locking up the store and heading to the subway. It didn’t take long to get there, and you probably arrived at the bar-turned-venue only forty minutes after the set started. After showing the bouncer both your IDs, hands shaking from the cold, you were let inside the packed bar. Mingyu was tall, so he took the lead with pushing through the crowd. The band was loud and slightly off pitch, but the crowd was lively and made the experience all the more fun. Tugging you towards the bar, Mingyu order four tequila shots and two beers.

It was going to be one of those nights with him.

You both downed your shots immediately, and by the time Mingyu was pulling you into the crowd, you felt your vision start to blur. Maybe it was because you drank almost half of your beer now too. Or maybe you were simply a lightweight. Both could be true. As the band shouted at the crowd, Mingyu hollered back, angling his phone over the throng of people to capture someone crowd surfing on video. How someone could be crowd surfing in this packed bar, you had no idea, but you clutched Mingyu just to get out of the way. 

Looking up at your coworker, you couldn’t fathom how he wasn’t tripping over himself right now. His height allowed him to tower over everyone and his muscle mass was extensive, but it was like the two shots hadn’t effective him in the slightest. This was your sign to start going to the gym more often, build up some muscle, because you couldn’t keep getting this tipsy after just a couple shots. 

He pulled out a nip of whiskey from one of the pockets in his cargo pants, and then offered it to you. “Want some?” He asked, going up to your ear to yell over the music. Your eyes squinted, and even he looked confused why the nip was on him. Everything inside you told you to slow down, but if you didn’t, you’d have to be burdened with the aching realization that you liked fucking Vernon.

So you took the nip and drank half of it.

You were swaying now, hands in the air as the music rang through your eardrums. You couldn’t even hear your own thoughts at this point. Which, honestly, had been your goal. Lacing one of your arms with Mingyu’s, you both began bouncing up and down to the band together, screaming when the singer pointed to you two in the crowd. 

The next time you jumped up, your ankle twisted on the ground, almost making your knees buckle. You clutched onto Mingyu hard, but he didn’t really notice you fall. The alcohol was getting to you, and you had now just spilt the ounce left of your beer all over your favorite work sweater. You hissed at the soreness in your ankle, not realizing as you started to stand that another person was pushing through the crowd. There was a new pair of shoes next to you, and you tilted your head up to meet a familiar face.

“Are you okay?” Vernon asked over the guitar blaring through your ears.

He didn’t look surprised to see you, but you were blinking, trying to get your vision to cooperate. “I – yes,” you shouted back. Your eyes couldn’t focus on anything right now, especially with the alcohol coursing through your body. “What – what are you doing here? I didn’t – didn’t expect …”

You couldn’t even finish your sentence, your mouth just deciding not to move anymore. Vernon searched your eyes, pupils wide from intoxication, and he plucked the beer glass out of your hands before you could pull away. “Hey!” You snarled, but he held his arm back, even in this packed crowd.

“What do you mean, ‘what am I doing here?’ I showed you this band!” He replied, hostility laced in his tone. “I’m taking you home.”

“But I came here with –” You looked to your left, seeing Mingyu’s arm not intertwined with yours anymore. Confused, you looked over the swarm of people and saw him now bumping shoulders with the small pit that formed in the middle of the floor. Your jaw dropped – when did he leave your side? You hadn’t even felt it.

Before you could register it, Vernon tucked your fingers through his and began pulling you out of the densely packed crowd of drunk adults. Even through the fog of tequila and whiskey, a small flutter rose in your stomach when you realized your hand was locked around his. His palm was warmer than you expected, nothing like your cold skin, constantly pricked with goosebumps.

The December air was so cold that it burned your skin, making your cheeks flush even more than alcohol. Vernon’s hand was still in yours, still tugging you, the wind whipping back your hair and almost taking your feet off the ground. But he guided you, kept you upright. Only about a block later and he was ushering you towards his old Chevy parked on the street, helping you into the passenger seat. You huffed when he reached over you to grab your seatbelt, “I can just –”

“Please, shut up,” he muttered, locking the seatbelt in place.

Your lips sealed immediately.

He rounded the car quickly before jumping inside and starting the engine. He held his hands out, waiting for the heat to crank on. After a minute, he started blowing into his hands and glanced over at you, watching you shiver as you forced your head to stay up. Grabbing your freezing palms, he placed them over his mouth and blew his own hot breath into them. Your eyes were wide now, unsure of what to do. 

Something about sharing his warmth with you felt so intimate. More intimate than kissing, even sex.

Once heat began to sputter out of the vents, he let go of your hands and pulled into the deserted city street. Your looked at your palms, now face up on your lap, and wondered if this was one of those daydreams you had when you were blackout drunk. It had only happened twice, but it was enough to become a pattern. A buzzing sound emerged beside you, and it took you a long moment before you realized Vernon was talking to you.

“H-Huh?” You hiccuped, shoving your hands in the pockets of your jacket.

“I asked what your address is.”

“Oooooh,” you nodded, a line forming between your brows as you concentrated. “I … hmm, I can’t remember right now. I think it’s … jeez.”

Vernon pinched the bridge of his nose. “Where’s your wallet?”

“Uhhhhh …” Your words slurred, trailing off as you pulled your wallet from your pocket.

He grabbed it immediately, filtering through the cards with his eyes still on the road. You watched his fingers flip through your wallet, trying to ignore the warmth brewing inside you, until he located your license. Looking down for a quick moment, he found your address and nodded, throwing the wallet back to you. “Ow,” you murmured.

As you leaned your head against the seat rest, you noticed that he was rolling his eyes at you, white knuckling the steering wheel. You were so drunk that you considering prying his fingers off, holding one of his hands to release the tension inside of him. But your brain felt like goo and you couldn’t make sense of a damn thing.

“You’re … you’re b-being m … mean,” you stuttered, and then poked him in the arm. 

He made an annoyed sound under his breath. “I’m not being mean. I’m literally driving you home.”

You studied him for a moment, as much as an intoxicated person could. Your eyes narrowed. “Iffffff you’re not being m-mean, then what … what are you? Jealooooooous?”

The car halted at a stop light and he looked over at you immediately. His stare was blank, serious and critical. “Yeah,” he stated, no hesitation. 

You chuckled for a moment, your breath tainted with the stench of cheap whiskey, until you realized that he wasn’t joking. His gaze was still locked on yours, until the light turned green  and he was pressing on the gas again. Your laughter died instantly as you faced the road with him, playing with your hands on your lap.

Silence echoed throughout the car.

The fog in your head was telling you to close your eyes, but you willed yourself to keep them open. “Is t-this …” Your throat was suddenly dry. “Is this about Mingyu?”

Vernon sighed. “Fuck, it’s – it’s not about Mingyu.”

A dull pain emerged in your forehead. How could this be happening already? Rubbing at your temples, you whined, “Then whaaaaaat could it possibly be about?”

“I’m going to sound like a dick.”

You snickered, “Never stopped you before.”

He didn’t even register your words, because he was shaking his head and rubbing a finger over his top lip, frustration clawing at him. “I thought …” He paused, and somehow, having to look at the road and not into your drunken gaze made this so much harder. “I just thought you would’ve asked me. To go see the band, I mean. I didn’t even know you were interested in going. If I had known, I would’ve asked you or hoped you would ask me.”

“B-But I … I only went because I saw an ad for the c-concert. And I wanted a distraction from …” Your voice got quiet as you wrinkled your nose. “I still don’t understand  … hoooow you’re … y-you’re jealous.”

“I’m jealous that someone else got to spend this time with you when it should’ve been me.”

You were staring at him again, his words almost suffocating you, compressing into your head and matching the throb between your temples. You wanted to scream. You wanted to cry. You wanted to hurl yourself right out of this vehicle. Tonight was about freedom and not coming to terms with whatever was happening inside you. Not a confession.

Vernon licked his lips, meeting your eyes for a split second. “I thought listening to music was our thing.”

Your breathing stilled, your lips falling open in shock. Fingers digging into the seems of your pants, you felt the bile rise up in your throat, and you desperately tried to shove it down. This was sick. This was twisted. Why the fuck was he telling you this right now? Why couldn’t he just pretend that he wasn’t mad, drop you off, and be on his merry way?

“That’s it?” He added, turning down the heat slightly. “You’re gonna say nothing –”

God, you actually were going to puke.

“Can you pull over? I think I’m gonna vomit.”

His brow furrowed, startled, but he pulled onto the side of the road without saying a word. He had parked on the bridge, just as small flurries of snow started to fall. You practically punched the door open, stepping out, and not even being able to make it to the edge of the bridge. Vomiting all over the sidewalk, you were surprised when another pair of shoes materialize beside you and a hand began to rest on your back. But you supposed this was his thing: appearing when you needed him most. You coughed and looked up at Vernon, the anger vanishing from his expression. 

You hacked again, phlegm dribbling on your chin. “You’re gonna get puke on your shoes.”

“I know,” he exhaled heavily, before swiping away the drool on your lips.

He let you continue to hurl your guts out as snow gathered in your knotted hair. Vernon refused to move away, kept a firm hand on your back as you extracted all the alcohol left in your body. When you were finally done, you straightened your back and he tucked hair behind your ears. You wiped your mouth, looking up at him all doe-eyed, and his resolve almost crumbled. He ushered you back inside the warm car before you could start shivering, intent on getting you home more than ever.

You weren’t sure how long it took you to fall asleep in his passenger seat. But when you woke up the next morning with no recollection of the conversation from the night before, the single thing you did remembered was someone tucking you in.

At some point in every adult’s life, you learn that you’re just not as young as you used to be. When you went through the entire weekend and realized you had gotten blackout drunk at that concert, you came to the conclusion that you shouldn’t go that hard ever again. The body you had in undergrad could handle things that you simply couldn’t today.

Your memory of that night ended when Vernon appeared beside you in the crowd, after you almost fell on the dirty ground of that bar. Mingyu had been at your side. Or had he gone away around then? Again, you couldn’t remember. But at some point, Mingyu was with you, and then Vernon had helped you to your feet. The rest was a tequila and whiskey-induced blur. When you swallowed, you still got a tinge of it on your breath, no matter how many times you mouthwashed.

Your next shift with him was on Tuesday evening. Running from your last class of the day, you slipped and fell on a patch of ice, not taking a moment to collect yourself before you were sprinting to Reverb again. Your ass was already hurting and there would surely be a bruise, but you couldn’t worry about that right now. The wind bit at your cheeks and you stuffed your frozen hands in your pockets, until you reached the door of the store –

At the same time as Vernon.

You both stopped short, your hands reaching for the handle. His cheeks were red, and something told you it wasn’t from the winter air. Averting his gaze, he held the door open and said, “After you.”

You nodded, “Thanks.” Your tongue darted out as you passed him, licking your lips, and he noticed. (Of course, he noticed.) He entered into the store after you, brushing snowflakes from his cropped hair. You spotted Mingyu talking to Aileen at the front before you turned to Vernon beside you. 

Despite the rush you’d been in, both of you lingered by the doorway, kicking the snow off your shoes. Vernon was looking at his boots, refusing to meet your eyes, and you didn’t want to beat around the bush. Lowering your head slightly, you said, “You haven’t texted me in few days. Is something wrong?”

Finally, his eyes flicked up. Instead of answering your question, he replied, “I didn’t … I didn’t know if you’d want to hear from me.”

Your eyebrows furrowed. “Why?”

“You don’t remember anything from Saturday?”

You rubbed the back of your neck. “Not exactly,” you muttered, a red flush creeping onto your cheek. “I might’ve had a bit too much to drink. I think Mingyu drove me home. Or we took the subway back. It’s kind of a blur.”

Hurt flashed across his face for a moment, but he recovered quickly. “Oh, yeah, he did,” he nodded, scratching behind his ear. “I’m glad you got home safe.”

You felt the tension between you dissipate, the air suddenly feeling cleaner, relaxed. A smile made it’s way to your lips as you both began to walk towards the backroom. You waved to Aileen and mentioned, “I’m pretty sure I saw you there, right? Everything kind of gets hazy after you appeared next to me. But it was cool to see some of those songs live after listening to them together.”

“Yeah,” Vernon exhaled heavily, “I was thinking the same thing.”

“Aileen held you up all day,” you said while still staring at your laptop behind the counter. 

Mingyu paused by register, adjusting the strap of his backpack, and nodded. “We’re trying to figure out what shipment this week got held up at the port. I don’t know. I guess her husband is gonna help her figure it out.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Way out of my pay grade.”

You finally glanced up and shut your computer, making sure to save your thesis document first. There were lines under Mingyu’s eyes that hadn’t always been there. He was always in pristine condition, a partier that never sacrificed his beauty sleep. Rather than talking around the subject, you were blunt: “No sleep this weekend?”

He chuckled. “Yeah. Got my first proper night on Monday. On Saturday, I almost stayed up for a full 24 hours.”

“That’s not like you,” you replied, and he agreed with a chuckle under his breath. Leaning your hip against the checkout, you played with the buttons on the computer and added, “Speaking of Saturday, thanks for taking me home after the concert. I know I can be very annoying when I’m drunk. Next shift, I’ll bring you Shake Shack for lunch.”

“You really do know the key to my heart.” He placed a hand on his chest and pouted. He looked so much like a puppy sometimes. And then, his expression fell. “I didn’t take you home though.”

Your eyes darted around, confused. He was probably too tired to remember right now. “I was so sure you did. Even Vernon confirmed it.”

Mingyu’s brow knitted. He was pausing by the register, not caring that Wonwoo was most likely waiting in the freezing cold to pick him up from his shift. Tapping three fingers on the counter, Mingyu huffed out a short laugh. “Well,” he clicked his tongue, “I don’t know why he would say that. Because he drove you home.”

You blinked, making sure you were understanding him. Your arms crossed over your chest and your eyes narrowed, assessing his answer. No, he was telling the truth. Mingyu was the worst liar on the planet; you could tell by his stance. The last time he tried lying to Aileen, his back hunched so much you thought he had an underlying medical condition.

“Then why would he tell me the opposite?” You asked, agitation laced in your tone.

Mingyu shrugged. “Beats me. Do you think he said something to you while you were drunk that he’s glad you forgot? You guys are basically in love.”

“You are so fucking dramatic,” you scoffed. “He did ask me if I remembered anything from Saturday. Maybe he –”

“You know I’d love to stay and chat about your emo boy struggles,” Mingyu cut in, already walking away from the register and wrapping a scarf around his neck. “But Wonwoo definitely has the car running. Just text me. I’ll answer. Don’t give me that look. I promise.”

The bell above the door rang as it closed behind him, leaving you with the question still on the edge of your tongue. What the fuck did Vernon say to you when you were drunk?

After a long week of classes, thesis writing, and your weird manager-turned-friend kind of icing you out, you were surprised to receive a text from said friend on Sunday evening. You had spent the majority of the weekend reading through a portion of research for your thesis, the words so mind numbing that they began to blend together. You found this study interesting, honesty, but research writing had a way of making just about anything boring sometimes. There was only so many times you could read about the impact of the printing press on the Protestant Reformation. 

When you finally looked down at your phone – twenty minutes after it lit up – you saw the preview of Vernon’s text and straightened up. You had been sitting in the same position on your couch for so long that your back cracked.

Vernon (Manager Friend): are you doing anything tonight? You: thesis Vernon (Manager Friend): let me rephrase: are you doing anything important tonight? You: this is important. rude. Vernon (Manager Friend): I want to see you tonight You: that’s all you had to say, vernon. no need to beat around the bush Vernon (Manager Friend): who am I if not beating the bush? Vernon (Manager Friend): that came out weird Vernon (Manager Friend): meet me at the borough exchange in bushwick around 9. there’s a show I want you to see You: can I bring some friends? promise I hang out with not just mingyu Vernon (Manager Friend): I’ll believe it when I see it

You texted your friends, tried not to get offended when they acted surprised that you wanted to go out on a Sunday night, and then ransacked your closet for something to wear. Nothing was right. It was either too casual or too fancy. The jeans you liked didn’t hug your waist the same just out of the dryer and your favorite going-out top didn’t fit your chest like it used to. Eventually, you decided on your favorite pair of jeans – the ones that fit perfectly but were a little ratty at the bottom – and a tight, white thermal long-sleeve that was casual enough but made your boobs look good, even without an open neckline. There was no reason to overthink this. It was a Sunday, and this was just Vernon.

Just. Vernon.

After throwing on your parka, you met up with your friends, Hana and Seungkwan, at the subway. Hana had been one of your classmates since undergrad, while you met Seungkwan a few years ago at an art gallery and you both quickly bonded over medieval art and thrift shopping. The three of you saw each other when you could, during planned dinner reservations made weeks in advance or nights like these when you were going out of your small bubble and needed some company. 

A missed train or so later, your group finally managed to get off at the right stop and headed for the Borough Exchange. It was a dive bar near Vernon’s apartment that you maybe visited once before. (Mingyu was right. You didn’t typically go out of your way to see Bushwick.) You shivered as soon as the warm air hit you when you entered the small pub, music blaring from the back where a live band was playing. You could only guess that was where Vernon wanted to meet.

Pushing through the bodies of tipsy patrons, you vowed to not have a drop of alcohol tonight after last weekend. Even the thought of whiskey made your head throb. As you guys settled near the wall of the dance floor, Hana shouted over the loud guitar solo, “Where’s you friend?”

“Not sure,” you shrugged, and then checked the time on your phone. “It’s past nine. Maybe he’s running late?”

“Uh, based on your description of him,” Seungkwan called out, pointing towards the front, “I think that’s him on the stage.”

Your head whipped around, gaze meeting Vernon's immediately as he sang into the mic. His fingers danced across the strings of the red electric guitar in his hands, calloused and dry, but  he was so talented you almost didn’t believe it. He was backed by a band behind him, who you remembered from a picture he showed you once. His best friend, Minghao, played the base, while Seokmin was on the drums and Jihoon commanded a keyboard. They sounded great. They sounded professional. Vernon’s singing was out of this world, reminding you of all the old bands he spent showing you, but so authentically him. When did he start possessing such raw talent?

Your voice was unrecognizable, almost in awe, as you said, “Wow, he’s so –”

“Hot,” Seungkwan finished, and you turned to him with wide eyes. “Oh, come on, I knew you were going to say it.”

“Of course, she was,” Hana said, bumping her hip against yours. “He’s the one she’s been spending so much time with. She even came to see him at the drop of a hat.”

Seungkwan’s cheeks were so big as he poke you in the arm. “This is so fun! Almost like high school all over again, just without all the trauma. You liiiiiiike him.”

“Shhhhhhhh!” You scoffed, tugging on both their sleeves, your attention back on the stage. Your lips widened into a huge smile. “There’s a concert in front of us. Pay attention.”

Vernon and his band were only allowed to play for fifteen more minutes, until the bar manager came near the stage during one of their songs and started twirling his finger for them to wrap it up. They finished their covered of Complicated by Avril Lavigne before Vernon grabbed the mic and thanked the small crowd for listening. “Feel free to pick up our EP at the door,” he added, lifting up one hand. “We’re Awkward High-Five.”

Seokmin came up from behind the drums to slap his hand against Vernon’s. Minghao bumped his shoulder as they all jumped off stage, muttering, “We have to change the name. I was busy when you guys voted on it. It’s terrible. Even Woozi agrees with me.”

Jihoon pinched the bridge of his nose, already walking off to the bar for a drink.

“You’ll get over it, Hao,” Vernon replied, his stare completely focused on you. Minghao rolled his eyes before heading outside to have a cigarette, Seokmin quickly following behind. You were so nervous that you weren’t sure how to unclench your fists. It felt like it was only you two in the room as he walked over, your gazes unwavering. Even your friends stepped off to the side to give you privacy, or maybe Hana just wanted to talk to Jihoon. It didn’t matter, because you couldn’t focus on anything but the way Vernon was smiling at you. And now you were grinning even bigger. And the world felt like it was so small, fit for only you and him.

“Hi,” you murmured.

“Hey.” One of his hands reached out to caress your wrist. Just barely, only for a second. But enough to make your cheeks heat. “You came.”

“You called.”

He nodded, “Indeed. I knew it’d be tough to tear you away from your computer though.”

“It was, but …” You tried stopping yourself, teeth sinking into your bottom lip, and he noticed, eyes flickering just for a moment. They softened for you. And finally, you admitted, “I missed you.”

His mouth formed into that cat-like smile again, eyes crinkling at the edges. “Let me buy you a drink.”

He bought you a Shirley Temple because you expressed that you didn’t want alcohol tonight, and he joined you. The drink was sweet and syrupy, and gave you a quick glimpse of him being able to tie a cherry stem with his tongue. He didn’t let you dwell on it though – that’d be too dangerous – and he tugged on your hand to force you to introduce him to your friends. He spent an hour chatting with all of you, making an effort to tease Seungkwan because he noticed the way your friend laughed when he did. All the while, you felt his free hand skim the small of your back. Hardly there, a ghost of a touch. You felt it though. You always felt him.

When both of your glasses were empty, he turned to your friends instead of you and asked, “Would you guys mind if I drove her home?”

You shook your head. “Do I have a say in this?”

“No,” they said in unison, and then Seungkwan added, “You should drive her home, Vernon.”

“Better than taking the subway,” Hana added. “Not many people have a warm car in this city.”

You rolled your eyes before you gaze locked with his, allowing him to lead you out of the bar with a firm hand on your back this time. Minghao and Seokmin were tossing their instruments back of a van while Jihoon smoked what was left of the joint in his pocket. He offered it to Vernon as he said goodbye to all of them, but he simply waved his hand. “Nah,” he answered, “gotta drive home.”

He never turned down a joint before.

Blasting the heat as soon as you both got inside his car, the memories of Saturday night became a little more clear. You didn’t voice it, but you suddenly remembered the plushness of his passenger seat, the way his glove box didn’t close fully, the stench of weed and cologne that lingered in the fabric walls. You gave him your address, wondering if he’d give himself up, but he simply nodded and pulled out of his spot on the curb. 

He handed you his phone with Spotify open. You looked at him with confusion, pushing the aux cord in when it tried to pop out. “Show me an album you like,” he said with a jut of his chin. 

“Really?” 

He nodded eagerly. “Really.” His eyes flickered over to you quickly, noticing the way you lit up as you scrolled through his phone. Your tongue stuck out slightly from the corner of your mouth when you concentrated, and he hated that he had to tear his eyes away from you to drive. You had no idea, and how could you have know, how much it meant for you to show him music you liked. How you were engaging in a love language he never realized was there.

After much deliberation, you set his phone down and the familiar sound of Katy Perry’s voice filled his old speakers. He recognized this song from somewhere – Hackensack? – but it was acoustic. He’d never heard any of Katy’s softer work. Flicking his phone screen on for a moment, he saw an album cover that said, Katy Perry: MTV Unplugged 2009.

“I realize how random this is,” you began when his eyes met yours before turning back to the stop sign ahead. A smirk played at his lips. “Don’t laugh. I’ve listened to this album at least every week since I was a kid. I just really love it.”

The songs faded into each other – from Lost to Waking Up in Vegas – taking him back to his childhood too. He remembered when his sister used to sing these songs into her hairbrush, screaming in his ear just to piss him off. Did you experience them a different way? Or did you, too, jump around your room with your hairbrush pressed against your mouth as you belted? He wondered how much this album meant to you, if you listened to it in times of distress, if you had your first car make out to a song as silly as I Kissed a Girl. There were a million memories that you probably had with this album and he was now hearing it for the first time, through your eyes.

He slowed down at a red light as the chorus to Thinking of You picked up, and you sunk into the passenger seat, watching the streetlights twinkle outside as you warmed your hands inside your jacket sleeves. Vernon had never heard this song like this before, had never taken the time to hear the lyrics or how the guitar riff slowed: Cause when I’m with him, I am thinking of you … What you would do … If you were the one who was spending the night …

Vernon was looking at you now – really looking at you – and he wondered if the world had stopped because all he could hear was white noise in his ears. The way your lips tugged into a smile made your cheeks dip. The way your eyes lit up at the smallest of things. How proud you got when you did something right. When you got excited to talk about your studies. Everything hit him in that moment and he realized how icing you out this week because he was being an awkward asshole made him miss you. Miss this. Just you and him.

The ringing stopped, and the song filtered through.

Oh, I wish that I was looking into your eyes …

Vernon pursed his lips. “Do you want to go somewhere else instead of your apartment right now?”

You turned to him, beaming, all warm like the shit heating system in his car. “Sure.”

He nodded, finally looking back as the light turned green. Instead of going straight, he took a right, heading for one of the parks in Brooklyn. Pulling into the parking lot, you were greeted with the sight of Prospect Park Lake at night, something you hadn’t considered seeing before. The lake was man-made, sure, but the stars shined down on it just right, making the water glitter like diamonds.

Vernon parked right in front of the snow piles, but you both could still see the lake from here. He leaned back in his seat, his elbow resting on the edge of the window while his cheek pressed onto his fist. “I used to practice guitar here when I was a teenager,” he mused, watching the water. “I didn’t have the money for lessons, so I had to teach myself. The lake was the only place where I found peace and quiet in the city. Usually, it would just be me here and someone’s dad fishing.”

“How did you afford a guitar back then if you couldn’t get lessons?”

He sneered. “I have always been a yard sale fiend.”

Settling into a comfortable silence, the Katy Perry album ended and transitioned into his liked songs. You could tell because the Cure was now playing, a song he had showed you months ago. Your hands twitched, and you eventually turned on your side in the passenger seat to face him. He was still staring at the water lick against the rocks, running a hand over his spiked hair. “Did you bring me here to kill me?” You asked, brows narrowing.

“What?” His head whipped to yours. “Why would you ask me that?”

You tilted your head. Was he that oblivious, or did he want you to say it? This had to be one of your worst nightmares. “You’ve been acting so strange around me recently,” you answered, now playing with the broken zipper dangling by your waist. “I mean, for instance … why didn’t you tell me about your band before?”

He shrugged. “I didn’t think you’d be interested.”

“Tell me,” you said quickly, your mouth forming in a soft smile “I’m interested.”

You made his words more beautiful, like wind chimes on the first day of spring.

So he told you. Turning in the driver’s seat, he spoke about when he met his friends, how they decided to make music. It had been Jihoon’s idea; he was the mastermind behind everything. When they weren’t practicing covers of songs they all grew up listening to, Jihoon was writing their music or putting together melodies. He would get home from his 9 to 5 accounting job and immediately open his notebook to write, finding joy in this as much as his other friends. They had only been doing this for a year as a hobby, and just recently decided on a name, but he wondered if maybe, just maybe, if they applied themselves … “I don’t want to get my hopes up though,” Vernon waved his hand. "Especially with Hao’s bad attitude about the name.”

“He’ll get used to it. Hopefully,” you snickered. “The name is … well –”

“Not you too,” he sighed. 

He was looking at you again, and suddenly, it felt like you were the Mona Lisa. Like you were an LP being ogled by a customer chasing a deal. His eyes were intimate, almost hungry, and his words were slightly laced with the impulse to be closer: “I missed talking to you this week. I know we didn’t share a lot of shifts, but I didn’t text you. I know I was being weird.”

His palm was open and resting on the center console. You couldn’t help but reach out and coast your fingertip over one of the lines. Without looking at him, you asked, “Why did you lie about driving me home after the concert last weekend?”

“Caught red-handed,” he muttered, closing his fingers around yours, but only for a moment. Your gaze flicked up and met his. “I was embarrassed.”

“Because …?”

“Because I was jealous that you didn’t ask me to go with you,” he admitted, running a hand down his face. “Because I was being possessive over your time when … well, when that’s not for me to dictate.”

“You can be possessive over my time, Vernon. Just ask me first.” You flicked his arm, and he opened two fingers over his eyes to look at you. “And no more lying.”

He let the hand fall from his pretty brown eyes, grinning so big that he was showing his perfect teeth. You were almost jealous of him now, his nice, straight teeth, not one out of place. But he was staring at you like your smile lines didn’t mean a thing, like your front teeth weren’t stained from years of black coffee or that stress zit near your chin didn’t exist. His hand closed around your wrist again, thumb running over your pulse point. It was so intimate and yet so far away and oh, my god – you were finally going to say it –

“Vernon.” Your voice was so quiet you almost didn’t recognize it. “What are we doing?”

He stifled a laugh. “I’m not sure.” 

You didn’t respond, unsure how to take it, but his thumb was still caressing your wrist and sending shivers up your spine that you hadn’t felt in years. When was the last time someone touched you this way? With reverence, with actual desire?

“Pretty certain you can’t go back to being friends after admitting I got jealous over you,” he clicked his tongue, and then tilted his head up. Brow furrowing and his other palm out on the console, he added, “It was never about Mingyu, FYI. But did you really have to go with him? I mean, like, the guy’s a god.”

You giggled. Actually giggled. The sound was unfamiliar, but never with him. “I don’t like Mingyu in that way.”

He squinted one of his eyes, a snarky reply on the tip of his tongue. But he wanted for you to continue; too scared to admit more of the truth. Rejection was fleeting, not painless, and he could see that you were fighting the same battle with the way you were biting your lip. God, did that make him want to kiss you more –

“I like you,” you whispered back, resting your palm over his other one. “And I’ve just been … too scared to ruin this. But I know I can’t be anymore. So if you didn’t bring me here to kill me, the least you could do is –”

He didn’t let you finish your sentence, leaning over the center console to crash his lips onto yours. Noses bumped, teeth gnashed, but when his hand came up to cradle your jaw, you let yourself melt into it. His kiss was slow, despite all the pent-up tension that had been riddling inside him. Morrissey’s voice filtered through the speakers – And you never knew … How much I really liked you … Because I never even told you … – as Vernon licked into your mouth in a way that had your thighs pressing together in the cramped passenger seat.

He tugged on your bottom lip, and then let go. He pushed himself back against his seat, realizing he’d gotten a little more excited than planned. But he’d finally got to kiss you, and your lips were so soft, and the way your soft sounds filtered into his mouth made him undoubtedly hard –

He noticed you bring a hand to your bottom lip, swiping a droplet of blood, and that was all it took.

Cranking his seat back, you let him pick you up as if you were nothing but a doll, sliding you over the console until your hips were flush against his. You had to lean forward to prevent your head from bumping against the roof of the car and your legs were even more cramped as you kneeled on his lap, but you were doing this. How could you not when his hands were so slow, precise? They trembled slightly from pure excitement as he unzipped your jacket, letting them glide up the tight thermal you were thankful you chose to wear.

The windows began to fog up from the heat, but he didn’t notice a damn thing except for the way you were sitting so perfectly on his lap. He sat up a little, and you guided his hand to cup the swell of your breast. “Christ,” he muttered, now against your lips, “you have no idea …”

“About what?” Your hot breath fanned his cheek. His touch was barely there as he ran his thumb over your nipple, feeling it harden underneath your shirt. It felt like he was ripping you open and putting you back together just from a graze of his finger.

“How much … how much I’ve wanted to touch you,” he confessed, nibbling on your lower lip for a brief second. You pushed yourself more against him, and he almost moaned from the weight of your breasts in his palms. “I held myself back because we were friends and I didn’t want to become one of those guys. But every time we were alone, I couldn’t help but think about what it would be like to kiss you, especially when your eyes got all glassy after we smoked a joint, and sometimes I’d have to excuse myself to go to the bathroom because just being near you got me fucking hard. And it was so pathetic and needy, and so unlike me, but I started thinking about you when I jerked off –”

“I thought about you when I touched myself too.”

“Oh, fuck.”

You kissed each other like it was pure instinct, and it was rough, desperate, but needed. So needed. It was like watching the Discovery Channel, even Animal Planet – two mammals surviving on basic intuition and barbaric bliss. He kissed you like he’d been waiting for centuries, one hand pulling your hips against his while the other squeezed your breast. You pressed down on him, waiting until you heard that – oh, there it was – groan of his enter your mouth and his cock hardened in his jeans. You chased it, feeling it strain against his zipper, grinding down on it as he kissed you without trying to pathetically moan into your mouth. But it was hard – he was fucking hard – and you were so pretty on his lap that he could almost cum without being touched.

He needed to distract himself from his impending doom of cumming too early, so he  took off his jacket – quite haphazardly, enough to make you chuckle – before he peeled off your thermal top, leaving you in just a lace bralette you threw on, not even thinking another soul would see it tonight. But here you were, and now he was swallowing hard, drinking in the sight of your hard nipples pressed against the flimsy fabric. And he simply couldn’t help himself, leaning forward and yanking down the lace, dragging his tongue around one nipple. You shivered in his hold, nails raking through the short hair at the nape of his neck. “Vernon,” you whined. 

“Hansol,” he corrected, looking up at you as he shifted, tongue flicking against the other nipple.

“Huh?”

“Hansol tonight. Please.”

“Okay,” you whispered, the need in his voice making the hair on your arms stand up. Or maybe it was just his tongue, switching between both breasts as he lathered them with his spit. He wouldn’t stop, like he couldn’t get enough of you, like the goosebumps rising on your sensitive skin was the only thing keeping him alive. Eventually, you cut in, “But, Vern – Hansol –”

He chuckled, low and husky. “Yeah?”

“How the hell am I going to get my pants off?”

“Oh.” He leaned back, seeing the zipper on your jeans just halfway undone, hardly any room for you to move around. “That would be helpful.”

You practically snorted, pecking his lips before sliding off his lap and back into the passenger seat. Having you leave his lap was torture, but he tried to divert his attention away from his aching cock by struggling to take off his long-sleeve tee. Even you were grappling with kicking off your pants in the small vehicle, your panties so soaked just from dry humping that you had to shuck them off.

Vernon didn’t think this moment would ever come: you, sitting in his passenger seat, fully naked. It was something out of one of those wet dreams – and he had many about you – but he knew this was real because you were already climbing over the console and perching yourself right back on his lap, bare pussy pressed against his clothed erection. “Fuck,” he muttered under his breath, sitting up again as he watched your arousal seep into his jeans.

He was never washing these again.

Actually, he didn’t want to be gross. He would wash these.

(Theoretically, he wasn’t washing these jeans again.)

“I’ve never called you Hansol before,” you mused, pushing back his hair. “Why tonight?”

He grinned, all teeth. “I like the way you say it.”

“What if I mistakenly call you Vernon at one point?”

“That’s okay.” His hands skimmed up your sides again. “I just want to touch you.”

“Your pants are still on though.”

“Emphasis on touch,” he quipped. “We can worry about that after this.”

Holding onto your waist, he looked down and let one of his fingers trail over your folds, smearing the wetness. You breathed out a sigh, leaning back against the steering wheel, opening yourself up to him as much as you could in this confined space. It occurred to you then that if you guys had simply gone back to your apartment, he could’ve fucked you into the mattress, but it seemed fate simply wanted you both to have sex in a car at Prospect Park Lake. 

As he watched you leak onto the pads of his fingers, you couldn’t help but blurt out, “It can become like Niagara Falls down there. You’re in the splash zone.”

He immediately let out the loudest laugh, leaning back in the seat as his nose scrunched up. The way he laughed made more butterflies rise in your stomach, igniting a fire in you that not even his fingers could do. You were unable to contain yourself, smiling from ear to ear. “Holy shit,” he breathed out when his amusement subsided, and then subtly tasted you on his fingers when he thought you didn’t notice. He had to fight the urge to groan at the flavor. “Good to know. Thanks.”

“Not a problem,” you joked, lifting up a hand.

He reached down again, but before he went any further, he met your gaze. “You still want to do this?”

“Yeah, Hansol,” you replied, and his eyes fucking lit up when he heard that name come from your lips. “I want to.”

“Okay,” he smiled, straightening his back and lifting his dominant hand up. Before you could ask what he was doing, he said, “Open up.”

Your brow furrowed, but you opened your mouth anyway.

He placed three fingers on your tongue, and you closed your lips around them automatically. No hesitation needed. He watched you, felt your tongue swirl around his digits, transfixed and fantasizing what else you could fit in your mouth. But that was for another time. And if he didn’t get his fingers inside you soon, he just might die.

A trail of salvia connected your mouth to his fingers as he slipped them out, but he made sure to wipe it away with his thumb. Snaking his hand between your bodies, both of you practically folded like pretzels, he tested the waters by dipping a single finger inside your tight channel, looking up to check if you were okay. You arched slightly against the steering wheel,  careful not to hit the car horn and ruin the entire moment. He swirled that finger deeper, and you keened, pushing against him. 

You cracked one eye open. “I can take more than one finger, you know.”

“Well,” he huffed playfully, “now you’re just sounding ungrateful.”

“I’m not –”

He shoved three fingers inside of you and curled. You gasped like the wind had been knocked out of you. “Fucking Christ, Hansol –”

“Not so ungrateful anymore, huh?”

You opened both eyes, seeing him smile at you, and your own expression reflected his. Grabbing the interior handle above your head, you rocked you hips into his hand. He let out a ragged, heartbreaking breath as he began to piston those three fingers inside you. His gaze was laser focused, watching your essence drip onto his palm. The sounds you made only spurred him on, wanting to go deeper, to find that spot that made you see stars. You were still a little tense, and that might have to do with the limited space you were in. So he pressed his thumb down, flicking your clit like it was the only thing he knew how to do, and viewed up when he heard you whine.

“Like that?” He asked, and your response came in the form of another mewl. “Okay, I got you. Come closer.”

Before you could shift, he was wrapping an arm around your waist and pulling you forward. He sat up, letting your chest become flushed with his, leaving no room for you to escape his long fingers. He shoved them back inside, crooked them even deeper, and your hips jumped in a way that told him he found it. That place. And now, you were whispering his name just as pathetically as he did with yours when he jerked off. “Hansol, please –”

“I know,” he cooed, tilting his head to graze his lips against yours. “Lemme make you cum. Soak my fingers.”

You nodded weakly, pressing your cheek against his as he fucked those three fingers into you. Your nails dug into his shoulders, anchoring yourself to him, as your hips began to roll in time with his hand. His praise was like a soothing rhythm in your ear, but you could tell he was desperate. He was so hard underneath you that you felt his precum soak through his jeans. His fingers moved faster, pressing down on your clit while you heaved out his name. And then you were letting go, stars exploding behind your eyes when his fingers curled just right inside of you, his thumb rubbing harshly on your swollen clit at the same time. You gushed around his fingers and he was huffing like it was his first time all over again, and god, if this is how you felt around his fingers, he didn’t want to imagine how you were going to feel wrapped around his cock –

“Hansol?”

He lifted his head up again, meeting your half-lidded eyes. It took everything in him to pull his fingers out of you, to lick your release off his fingers and try not to moan loud enough to scare you off. Your stare was already so fucked out and there was sweat at your hairline and holy shit, your lips – parted with just a tiny bit of drool lingering at the corner. Fuck, he was – “I’m so fucking obsessed with you,” he murmured, and then his face twisted. “I’m sorry. I sound like such a loser.”

“No, you don’t,” you chuckled softly. “You’re usually so confident. Where did all that go?”

“I think I turned to mush when you came on my fingers.”

Your brow shot up.

“I just …” He struggled to find the words, eyes darting around the car. “I didn’t really expect this to happen. Like ever. And the last place you’ve probably ever wanted to be is in my car, and –”

“Hansol,” you said, grabbing his face so he would look at you. “This is the only place I want to be. Do you want to have sex?”

“Yes,” he answered without hesitation. “I kind of need to be inside you.”

You both laughed together, sitting back on his lap as he unzipped his jeans and wrestled with shucking them down enough. Your eyes raked down him then, finally noticing just how toned he was without a shirt. His skin was soft, but almost had a pearly hue in the moonlight streaming through the foggy windows. His chest was wide and his arms were slender, yet toned. His collarbones were pronounced, and you realized there was a silver chain dangling on his neck. You reached out, playing with it, as he eventually pulled his cock out.

He was longer than you assumed – at least, longer than average – with not a lot of girth, but enough to make you gawk a little. A few veins ran up the shaft, and a pretty pink head with precum running down his knuckles now. His erection, once neglected, was now demanding attention, and Vernon held it as if he was scared of being inside you, as if the mere thought of you wrapped around him was too much of a fantasy to bear. He met your eyes and you slid forward, his cologne beckoning you closer.

At one point, it was that very cologne that made you want to move further away. How the tables had turned.

You reached out, hesitated, until he realized what you were doing and allowed you to wrap your nimble fingers around him. You gave an experimental stroke, and then another, and another. His cock was hard and throbbing, but the skin was as soft and delicate. Vernon’s breath hitched, making you whisper, “Hansol …” Your thumb rubbed circles on the tip and more precum drooled out. “I thought … thought about doing this … when I touched myself,” you mewled for him, and his head fell forward.

“Jesus Christ,” he moaned, his warm breath hitting your nipples in the best way possible.  Your strokes were lazy, but enough to make his balls ache. “If you … if you keep touching me like that, I’m not gonna fucking last.”

You chuckled. “Okay, I won’t torture you any longer.”

“You can. Some other time,” he promised with a grin. “But don’t expect to get nothing in return. I think I need to spend a few hours with my face between your legs.”

The giggle you released turned into a snort, and you flicked his nose before aligning his cock with your entrance. “I can agree to those terms, if you survive tonight.” You hovered above him, your head bent over the roof of the car in perhaps the most uncomfortable position possible. You made it work though, allowing your lips to just barely graze his tip, the friction making you both keen.

Vernon sighed heavily. “Fuck, I might not.”

Slowly, reverently, you sank down on Vernon’s cock, taking him inch by inch. You let out a deep whimper as he filled you, the angle making you feel the length of him almost in your stomach. The moment he was seated fully inside, he let out a groan that was unrecognizable. A pathetic tilt resounded at the end, his breathing getting heavier and heavier the longer you simply didn’t move. He swallowed hard and demanded, “You need to move.”

“Are you going to cum just from that?” You asked, nearly out of breath.

“I might,” he confessed. “I wasn’t joking that I’ve been thinking about this forever. If you don’t move, I’m going to move you.”

You lifted your head to give him a look. “You’re so –”

His hands seized your hips, kneading hard, as he lifted you slightly off his cock before slamming you back down. You practically choked on your own spit, looking at him underneath you. He was smirking, and your jaw was unhinging. You didn’t have to say it; he could tell from your eyes that they were saying, Do it again. So his grip on you got firmer, and he began fucking you onto his cock.

Your hips ground against his, not wanting to be separated from him, and your arms wound around his neck. His moans turned louder, tongue lapping at one of your nipples again as you writhed on top of him. “Hansol,” dripped from your mouth like honey, causing his fingers  to dig into your hips deeper with each pass. His breathing was so heavy, so pretty, close to a whine and making him sound absolutely ruined even though he was the one wrecking you like his life depended on it. Maybe it did. Because you were trembling and drenching his cock in your essence and fuck, you felt like a vice around him. 

“I want –” He hit a spot inside you that made you almost double over. You met his eyes as he tweaked your nipple with his teeth. “I want you to cum inside me.”

He leaned back releasing your nipple that was now red and coated in his spit. “Probably not a good idea.”

“I’m on the pill.”

“Fuck, oh my god,” he murmured – anguished, desperate. “Why did you tell me that?”

It was like you flipped a switch inside him. He bounced you on his cock with renewed vigor, not even giving you the room to rock against him. There was a finish line now; there was a reason to keep touching you and a reason to have you gripping his hair like this was a ride you wouldn’t survive. He was panting now in your ear, taking a few moments in between to bite on the lobe, and when he felt his balls draw up, he somehow was able to snake a hand in between you without you noticing. His thumb was back on your clit, rubbing hard circles, and you whined and moaned, feeling like melted ice cream on a hot summer day.

Sparks blotted your vision. You saw white, and then realized what was happening. You were clenching around him so taut that you both moaned in unison. You soaked his entire shaft, and he was still fucking you through it, pinching your clit just right to prolong your orgasm. Your body was reeling, tears pricking at your eyes, not sure how much more you could take and wondering if you’d been cumming for hours. His voice sounded gruff and distant in your ear. 

“Oh, my fucking – you’re so tight when you cum. I think I’m gonna die – shit,” he muttered, a whine echoing at the end. “When was the last time you got f–”

“A while,” you huffed, forehead falling into the crook of his neck as his movements slowed a little. He was rocking you into him now, trying not to cum so quick, but you knew he’d been at the edge for a while now, and Christ, you just wanted him to fill you so badly. “So make this worth it, Vernon.”

He snickered, “Yes, ma’am.”

You gasped when you felt him fuck up into you, thrusting his hips somehow in this cramped space. Teeth biting into his shoulder, you cried out his name. You were overstimulated and fucked out, but he needed to cum. So you clenched around him again, making him breathe hard and then – there it was. That groan again. So desperate and loud and whiney as his release spilled into you. Your fingers were in his hair now, tugging, and his head fell back enough so your lips could connect. His moans poured into your mouth and they tasted sweet like grenadine. Warmth filled you, dripping between your legs when he finally stopped bucking up into you. 

Mouths detached then, hot breath fanning both your faces. Your hands now cradled his face as your lips barely ghosted over his. It took all your strength to finally sit up, feeling his softening cock begin to slip out of you, and he laid back in the seat to give you a better angle. When you were finally free, you slid over the center console and fell into the passenger seat. Neither of you bothered to put your clothes back on. The car was warm enough, the windows completely fogged, and you agreed that the only thing you wanted to do right now was just lie back. 

Eventually, you both began to laugh, tickled at the absurdity of what just happened. Vernon flipped open his glove box in front of you and pulled out a small metal tin. He flicked the lid open, revealing two hand rolled joints and a quarter of one left. He took one of the full ones and lit the end with a lighter he conveniently had in one of his cupholders. After taking a heavy drag, he handed it over to you.

Bending your seat back all the way like his, you took the joint and let the smoke fill your lungs. You opened the window a crack, just to flick a few ashes out. The leather of the seat became sticky as some of your combined releases trickled out, but neither of you, not even him, cared enough to do anything but smoke this joint and giggle.

As you relit the end, he turned to you, his lips tugging up. “So,” he began, tucking a lock of hair behind your ear, “since I survived tonight, mind if I take you home to do as I promised?”

You inhaled and choked at the same time, passing the joint back to him as you coughed. He patted your back, concerned, until you started laughing uncontrollably. “We finally have hook up,” you said in between snorts, “and that’s the first thing you say?”

“Do you not want to then?” He asked with the joint hanging from the corner of his mouth.

“I would be a fool to say no, Hansol.” You made an effort to call him his chosen name even when you weren’t being intimate, and that, above all, was what made his cheeks flush. The thought of his face spending hours between your thighs made your skin prick. Your pinky slowly found his on the console. “I’ll agree to your terms, if … if you promise to take me on a real date. Not some listening party in your apartment, although those are fun. Even if it’s just pizza at Tony’s. I want it to be real.”

With the joint still in between his teeth, he held up your locked pinky fingers and smiled. “You got yourself a deal.”

📺 True Romance, starring Choi Seungcheol

after going on a blind date with false pretenses with the ceo of your company, things take a turn when he asks you to marry him to keep himself from ending up in an arranged marriage.

pairing: ceo!seungcheol x f. reader genre: romance, smut, fluff, fake engagement, rom com at times, angst rating: 18+ warnings: cussing, explicit sexual content, lying

✷ director: @straylightdream | pilot | full series ✷ inspired by: business proposal

📺 Business Proposal, starring Yoon Jeonghan

finding out your boss is a misogynistic pig when you're up for the biggest promotion of your life is, to put it mildly, minorly inconvenient. finding out your ex is also a candidate? majorly infuriating. sometimes the only way to win is to not play… but other times the guy working a dead-end job at the convenience store near your apartment agrees to fake marry you so long as he gets what he wants out of the deal. too bad you can't stand each other.

pairing: jeonghan x f. reader genre: fake dating, marriage of convenience au; mutual annoyances to lovers, miscommunication; crack, fluff, angst, smut rating: 18+ warnings: capitalism, misogyny, adult content

✷ director: @100vern | pilot | full series ✷ inspired by: no gain no love

📺 Guard of the Heart, starring Joshua Hong

You have a lot of standards to meet. You’ve always had. Your family, your company, your fans, they all expect the best from you. And while it is your company who signs your checks, you have yet to disobey your family. So, when your mother demands you go on a blind date to find yourself a competent husband to take over the family business, you listen. You go on a blind date and meet with the worst possible man you could imagine — Joshua Hong. Annoying, careless, Joshua, who manages to make an impression on you nonetheless. But you refuse to fall for him or his shenanigans, especially after the series of events following your first meeting.

pairing: demon!joshua x idol!f. reader genre: romance, strangers to lovers, bodyguard romance, magic rating: 18+ warnings: smut, blood, graphic descriptions of violence, obsessive fans, death threats

✷ director: @jakedustry | pilot | full series ✷ inspired by: my demon

📺 You Again, starring Wen Junhui

it's been 10 years. since you last saw jun. since the break up that rocked you. since you've been back to this town. since you thought about any of this. but leave it to one of your closest friends to draw both you and jun back in and send your world spiraling again.

pairing: jun x f!reader genre: attempts at humor, fluff, angst, smut, exes to ? rating: 18+ warnings: smut, past relationship issues

✷ director: @starlightkyeom | pilot | full series ✷ inspired by: our beloved summer

📺 Our Rented Marriage, starring Kwon Soonyoung

out of options when your roommate becomes engaged to her boyfriend, you find hope that maybe there you'll find your ground when you meet kwon soonyoung, your landlord, and the man who asked you to marry him for the sake of rent.

pairing: soonyoung x f. reader genre: slice of life, romantic comedy, angst, marriage of convenience, strangers to lovers, slow burn, suggestive rating: 18+ warnings: alcohol, smoking, miscommunication, harassment, misogynistic environments/workplace

✷ director: @mellow-wishes | pilot | full series ✷ inspired by: because this is my first life

📺 Truly Madly Deeply, starring Jeon Wonwoo

Jeon Wonwoo is a brilliant programmer. The "what if" of your college years, he's back in your life in the most dramatic way. Yours and Wonwoo's internal Cells villages get into a state of chaotic, hilarious situations and things get interesting. Your Love Cell finally started to wake up from its deep slumber after your last devastating heartbreak. Jeon Wonwoo, has come to wake up every single Cell in your brain in the best way possible, to heal and to learn. To love again.

pairing: wonwoo x reader genre: friends? to lovers, romance, fluff, slight angst, comedy, fantasy au, mutual pining rating: 18+ warnings: strong language working environment, mentions of eating due to stress, past relationships, suggestive, a tiny little miscommunication, wonwoo is down bad

✷ director: @lovelylonelinesssvt | pilot | full series ✷ inspired by: yumi's cells

📺 Crossing the Bridge to You, starring Lee Jihoon

When Jihoon returns to Daeho after three years, the last thing he expects is running into a woman who claims to be his fiancé. You, who have been stuck in Jinyowon for the past three years, rattle his world with your eccentric yet kind nature. Your boldness is new to him but so is your naivety; will he get his happy ending despite the tragedy that has bound him to guilt? Will you get yours after opposing your mother? Only time will tell.

pairing: sorcerer!jihoon x priestess!f. reader genre: angst, fluff, fantasy, strangers to lovers, marriage of convenience rating: 18+ warnings: graphic descriptions of violence, near death situation, memory loss, constant suffering, blood, posession and usage of weapons (swords, bow and arrow), murder, corpses, mentions of suicide, self-blame, lack of freedom and being locked up, messed up timeline of AOS s2 plot

✷ director: @cherrymayz | pilot | full series ✷ inspired by: alchemy of souls

📺 Crumpled Paper and Metal Stars, starring Lee Seokmin

Your second semester of grad school has begun. Everything should be relatively easy, you've completed a semester and most of the people in your cohort adore your kindness and sunshine like disposition. Just as you're getting settled, an anonymous post ignites your semester. Instead of an easy sixteen weeks of learning, you're balancing teaching, a post that has the attention of literally everyone, and the personification of a gray cloud: Lee Seokmin.

pairing: grad student!seokmin x grad student!f. reader genre: grumpy x sunshine, angst, university au, cohorts to lovers, fluff, secret relationship and the angst that comes with it, anonymous confession rating: 18+ warnings: alcohol, seokmin is the grumpiest (lowk to the point where he's an asshole), mentions of academic burnout, mentions of a sick parent, suggestive scenes

✷ director: @gentleisa | pilot | full series ✷ inspired by: dear m

📺 Oops!! We Broke the Plot, starring Kim Mingyu

You and Mingyu are childhood friends and two self‑aware comic characters that are forced into clichéd romcom roles you both hate. On the page, he’s the perfect jock and you’re the villainess; off the page, you’re a nerd–queen duo secretly in love. Fed up with scripted drama and unwanted love triangles, you rebel, glitching the comic as the Writer fights to force you back into place. What follows isn’t a romcom but a battle for agency, freedom, and the right to choose each other.

pairing: mingyu x f. reader genre: romantic comedy, smut, angst, drama, childhood friends to lovers, meta, breaking the fourth wall(?) rating: 18+ warnings: smut/nsfw content

✷ director: @xomakara | pilot | full series ✷ inspired by: extra-ordinary you

📺 Universal Error, starring Xu Minghao

Being a doctor is hard work. Running your own fan page with over a thousand followers and translating a Chinese webtoon every week? Even harder. Being an avid reader and fan girl of the popular Chinese Webtoon, "Universal Error" turns your life upside down for the better as you translate it every week for your leaks page. However, when the finale turns dark and the main character, Xu Minghao's ending is left open-ended and undetermined. You thought your life couldn't get any worse, until an unforeseen circumstance happens that ends with you waking up in an alternate reality with Xu Minghao's life in your hands. Will you be able to change his reality or would you be left with a Universal Error yourself?

pairing: xu minghao x f. reader genre: fluff, angst, smut, strangers to lovers, thriller, suspense, fantasy rating: 18+ warnings: smut/nsfw content, talks about murder, weapons, blood

✷ director: @livmarauder | pilot | full series ✷ inspired by: w: two worlds apart

📺 Cyber Love is Bullshit, starring Boo Seungkwan

You hate Love Alarm and everything that it stands for, especially since it's the reason why your last relationship ended. Now navigating through a society where people rely a machine to dictate who you fall for, you find a lone soul like yours who makes you believe in love again.

pairing: seungkwan x reader genre: fluff, angst, smut, strangers to lovers, found family? rating: 18+ warnings: talks of infidelity, sexual content

✷ director: @aeristudios | pilot | full series ✷ inspired by: love alarm

📺 Rabbit, starring Vernon Chwe

Revenge is the only thing that kept you alive after your family’s betrayal. When the police force you to earn your place by infiltrating the same syndicate that destroyed you, you step back into a world that feels far too familiar - especially Vernon, who seems to see right through you.

pairing: vernon x f. reader genre: mafia, criminal, angst, smut ratings: 18+ warnings: violence, criminal behavior, explicit language, explicit content

✷ director: @sailorsoons | pilot | full series ✷ inspired by: my name

📺 You Think You Know a Guy, starring Lee Chan

Chan’s grandmother says she disapproves, but he knows she doesn’t mind so long as he proves he can turn a profit before he's given a role in the family business. That’s the easy part, Chan thinks, since a friend in Tokyo says business is booming for his own boyfriend rental service. So he hires four good looking guys— the himbo, the stoic romantic, the playboy, and you, the pretty one. The hardest part, Chan thinks later, is stopping himself from looking your way. (Or: allegedly straight Chan questions his sexuality when all he can think about is the guy who works for him.)

pairing: boss!chan x afab reader genre: fluff, angst, smut, strangers to lovers rating: 18+ warnings: questioning sexuality and gender, employer/ee dynamic, queer themes, accepting family/friend group, accidental but non-malicious misgendering; reader is afab, uses she/they pronouns, and looks androgynous

✷ director: @imnotshua | pilot | full series ✷ inspired by: coffee prince

🥂 Chef Special: the one where the stranger you fake date turns out to be your childhood friend by @bitchlessdino

🍴Main Course: Choi Seungcheol x Reader

🔥 Flavour Profile: In a world where relationships mattered just as much as money or status did, Seungcheol found himself wrapped up with a person from twenty years ago. He didn't know how you remembered him, and frankly he didn't know how he remembered you, but the way you've reentered his life, like a gust of wind, he didn't think he'll ever forget you now.

🫕 Appetizer 🧾 Order Now!

🥂 Chef Special: The Pursuit Of Love by @tusswrites

🍴Main Course: Choi Seungcheol x reader

🔥 Flavour Profile: A heart’s relentless quest for love, fueled by the perfect visions of romance etched into the world around you, woven through the bittersweet tapestry of rejections, heartbreaks, and long-buried secrets. Along the way, you uncover that perhaps the love you've been chasing has been quietly waiting, right beneath your nose all this time.

🧾 Order Now!

🥂 Chef Special: don’t you want me, baby? by @seungkw1

🍴Main Course: Yoon Jeonghan x reader

🔥 Flavour Profile: Jeonghan has been nothing more than your annoying classmate your whole life, so everyone is surprised when you get romantically involved with him senior year of high school. The relationship doesn’t last, and life moves on. You graduate, go your separate ways to different colleges, never to see each other again. Or so you thought - but a chance encounter years later just might change everything.

🧾 Order Now!

🥂 Chef Special: ride down the memory lane by @multi-kpop-fanfics

🍴Main Course: Yoon Jeonghan x reader

🔥 Flavour Profile: one thing you will never forget from your childhood is the bicycle races around your neighborhood against a certain boy who always lost to you. fifteen years later and in the big city, that same boy isn't a boy anymore and he knows how to ride more than a child's bicycle.

🧾 Order Now!

🥂 Chef Special: all the petty things & all the pretty scenes by @starlightkyeom

🍴Main Course: Joshua Hong x reader

🔥 Flavour Profile: when your best friend suggests a trip away for valentine's, you think it's the perfect opportunity to get away from all the happy couples on a holiday while you're single. that is, until you realize that he also invited his new roommate. everyone seems to love joshua and you just don't get it. how are you going to survive a long weekend with him?

🧾 Order Now!

🥂 Chef Special: caught up in you by @hannieween

🍴Main Course: Joshua Hong x reader

🔥 Flavour Profile: It all started with a little, harmless lie. After telling your mother that you would bring your boyfriend to her obnoxiously high-society birthday party, you had to improvise. With no actual options to ask, you turned to your dear friend, Joshua Hong. Caught up in this lie, you could only hope that real feelings wouldn’t start to bloom… right?

🧾 Order Now!

🥂 Chef Special: My Girlfriend Faked Her Amnesia by @miabebe

🍴Main Course: Wen Junhui x reader

🔥 Flavour Profile: It wasn’t always that life gave one the chance to hit reset, but now that Jun had gotten one, he didn’t have long before time ran out - 10 days to valentine's day which meant 10 chances to make his amnesiac girlfriend remember him again. But it wasn’t going to be a cakewalk - afterall, how could one be reminded of the past if they were only pretending to forget?

🧾 Order Now!

🥂 Chef Special: in limine by @eoieopda

🍴Main Course: Wen Junhui x reader

🔥 Flavour Profile: you think that by remaining single this year, you’ve found a loophole in your string of shitty valentine’s days. the universe thinks you should lose your only paralegal on the eve of a major trial and see if you wouldn’t rather have all of those untimely breakups and missed dates instead.

🫕 Appetizer 🧾 Order Now!

🥂 Chef Special: the accidental one-night stand by @fxstpace

🍴Main Course: Jeon Wonwoo x reader

🔥 Flavour Profile: the consequences of sleeping with your best friend while drunk include waking up with no memory of how you ended up in his bed and the awkward realisation that your friendship is irreparably damaged. but avoiding it only works for so long—especially when feelings you’ve both been hiding begin to bubble to the surface.

🧾 Order Now!

🥂 Chef Special: A Comprehensive List of Why You Can’t Stand Jeon Wonwoo by @tomodachiii

🍴Main Course: Jeon Wonwoo x reader

🔥 Flavour Profile: You had no idea when or what started your mutual hatred with Jeon Wonwoo. And if anyone were to ask why you hate him, you could give them a comprehensive list of everything you can’t stand about Jeon Wonwoo. But as the saying goes: there’s a fine line between love and hate.

🧾 Order Now!

🥂 Chef Special: crash course in romance by @etherealyoungk

🍴Main Course: Kwon Soonyoung x reader

🔥 Flavour Profile: meet kwon soonyoung, he’s the ultimate goofball— sweet and chaotic but clueless when it comes to romance. so when you ask him to be your fake boyfriend even though you barely know him, he says yes, even though he's never dated before and has no idea what to do. as you show him the ropes and coach him on how to be the perfect boyfriend and slowly get to know him, soonyoung finds himself slowly falling for you. and maybe, just maybe, you're falling for him too.

🫕 Appetizer 🧾 Order Now!

🥂 Chef Special: The Fine Print Of Fake Dating by @c-oupsie

🍴Main Course: Kwon Soonyoung x reader

🔥 Flavour Profile: Two broke college best friends enter a Valentine’s ‘Hottest Couple’ contest to win a semester of free tuition. The plan? Ace the romantic challenges without anyone realizing they’re faking it. The problem? The fine print never mentioned what to do when fake dating starts to feel all too real.

🧾 Order Now!

🥂 Chef Special: Found You First by @bluehoodiewoozi

🍴Main Course: Lee Jihoon x reader

🔥 Flavour Profile: For years you’ve hated Valentine’s day, convinced you’d never find a love worth celebrating. Maybe this year you’ll see that what you needed has been right in front of you all along.

🫕 Appetizer 🧾 Order Now!

🥂 Chef Special: smarter, and yours. by @vitaminkyeom

🍴Main Course: Lee Jihoon x reader

🔥 Flavour Profile: Jihoon, school's no. 1 (or no. 2), was nothing but a pain in the ass for you. Sure he was better than you in some subjects but so were you. The two of you were equally good enough for the first place so to increase the competition, he decided to suggest the most scandalous thing you had heard: the two of you of you tutor each other.

🧾 Order Now!

🥂 Chef Special: Don't Run Away by @lovetaroandtaemin

🍴Main Course: Lee Seokmin x reader

🔥 Flavour Profile: When unexpected circumstances lead to you sharing an apartment with your best friend's older brother, the transition from acquaintances to roommates is anything but smooth. Over time, however, you two realize that you truly care about each other. Will a drunk confession bring the two of you together, or will you continue to run away from your feelings?

🧾 Order Now!

🥂 Chef Special: the subtle art of stirring the pot by @miniseokminnies

🍴Main Course: Lee Seokmin x reader

🔥 Flavour Profile: [STIRRING THE POT] definition: To make a situation more difficult or to deliberately provoke conflict. The kitchen at Quartz and Serenity in New York City runs like a well oiled machine.Then comes Lee Seokmin, the new sous chef, breezing in with a carefree attitude that disrupts your routine. All you've known for the last few years is studying, sleeping, and this kitchen. You try your best to work with the new addition to the chaos but what happens when the pot gets stirred?

🧾 Order Now!

🥂 Chef Special: Cinnamon by @daechwitatamic

🍴Main Course: Kim Mingyu x reader

🔥 Flavour Profile: You finally decide to try and move on after years of waiting for Mingyu to return your feelings. But when you start bringing your new boyfriend around more often, things with Mingyu get... difficult.

🫕 Appetizer 🧾 Order Now!

🥂 Chef Special: Dessert First by @highvern

🍴Main Course: Kim Mingyu x reader

🔥 Flavour Profile: You've got a great life. Your wedding planning business is booming, your clients are great, and you're finally over your ex-boyfriend after years of pining. Or you are, until the universe decides to test if those three things are actually true.

🫕 Appetizer 🧾 Order Now!

🥂 Chef Special: muddled hearts by @haologram

🍴Main Course: Xu Minghao x reader

🔥 Flavour Profile: things take a turn for the better when you finally find a roommate to escape your incredibly overpriced apartment, but you don’t expect to ruin the only relationship that matters to you in the process.

🧾 Order Now!

🥂 Chef Special: hit replay by @starlightkyeom

🍴Main Course: Xu Minghao x reader

🔥 Flavour Profile: everything in your life is going well. too well, probably, in hindsight. when the empty unit on your floor gets filled by none other than your ex that broke your heart, you feel like you shouldn't be surprised. but you can avoid with the best of them. especially when someone seems to be taking care of paying for your coffee every day on the way into work.

🧾 Order Now!

🥂 Chef Special: Just One Chance by @soo0hee

🍴Main Course: Boo Seungkwan x reader

🔥 Flavour Profile: while for some valentines day was a day spend filled with love, compassion and roses, for you it was a total disaster. Alone and dissapointed you return home after what was suppossed to be the saving grace for your relationship where you were met with your best friend and roommate Boo Seungkwan. Maybe your night wouldn't end with total catastrophe...

🧾 Order Now!

🥂 Chef Special: Fake it Til You Make it by @diamonddaze01

🍴Main Course: Boo Seungkwan x reader

🔥 Flavour Profile: You could honestly throttle Seokmin right now. Of all the half-baked, caffeine-fueled ideas he’s ever had, convincing the entire office that you and Seungkwan—your sworn nemesis and parking spot thief—are madly in love might just take the cake.

🫕 Appetizer 🧾 Order Now!

🥂 Chef Special: On the Clock by @sailorsoons

🍴Main Course: Chwe Hansol x reader

🔥 Flavour Profile: Modern problems call for modern solutions, including naming a random stranger at the book store as your boyfriend to avoid an embarrassing encounter with your ex. The problem? The stranger is Vernon and he’s not supposed to be a stranger at all - he’s your coworker, and now everyone at the office - including your ex- thinks you’re dating.

🫕 Appetizer 🧾 Order Now!

🥂 Chef Special: stupid cupid by @aeristudios

🍴Main Course: Chwe Hansol x reader

🔥 Flavour Profile: you are madly in love with your best friend and it's eating you alive. one day you will tell him how you feel, but you have to deal with his girlfriend first.

🫕 Appetizer 🧾 Order Now!

🥂 Chef Special: Soundproof by @gyuswhore

🍴Main Course: Lee Chan x reader, Neighbours to Lovers

🔥 Flavour Profile: Noise has followed Lee Chan his entire life, at least that what it feels like to you since the day his family moved in next door. It goes from his yells and screams to his midday guitar riffs and drum solos, all somehow ending up in your parents garage for his audacious band practices. Noise has followed Lee Chan his entire life, but at some point, you fell in line too.

🧾 Order Now!

🥂 Chef Special: paging dr. heartthrob by @wheeboo

🍴Main Course: Lee Chan x reader

🔥 Flavour Profile: You can’t afford to be burnt out, especially during a crucial era of your life: being in medical school. Enter your best friend—a boy with a tough-looking exterior, a skateboard that’s seen better days, and a heart softer than his beat-up converse—Lee Chan, with his backpack full of snacks, and an uncanny ability to show up exactly when you need him most. He may not be a doctor, nor exactly your therapist, but he certainly is a heartthrob, and your heart can’t help but always page him.

🫕 Appetizer 🧾 Order Now!

yeah, there was no way this wasn't going to be my favorite song on the album after i literally manifested a vernon x 100 gecs collab. it's been a while since i had time to fuck around in photoshop; hope you like it. <3