ℓibra 🧸

The bass of another noise song thrums through the floorboards, up through the soles of your shoes, and resonates deep in your chest where the alcohol has already made a warm little home for itself. The frat house is in a state of its standard party disaster—red solo cups scattered across every available surface, bodies pressed together in the living room that's been converted into a makeshift dance floor, the sharp mix of spilled beer and cologne and sweat weaving through the air in various equally sickening combinations. Somewhere in the back, someone's started a celebratory chant that keeps getting louder and then dissolving into laughter before it can really take off.

You're not paying attention to any of it, you're occupied with something else. With someone else.

Mingyu's lap is warm beneath you, his thighs solid and familiar, one of his big hands splayed across the small of your back while the other rests on the meat of your hip, fingers dimpling the soft flesh there. His mouth is hot and eager against yours, tasting like the cheap beer he's been nursing for the past hour, and you let yourself melt into it because Mingyu kisses the way he fucks—enthusiastic, a little sloppy and breathtakingly effective. His tongue slides against yours and you make a soft sound into his mouth, your fingers threading through his damp hair, still wet from the post-game shower.

"You were so good out there," you murmur against his lips, pulling back just far enough to speak, your breath fanning across his mouth. His eyes are half-lidded, pupils blown wide, and he chases your lips with that increasingly more horny desperation, immediately cutting you off before you manage to finish what you were saying. "Watched you the whole time. That tackle in the second half? You looked so hot and strong. Had me clenching in the stands." Distantly, you think that if you weren't a little drunk you'd cringe at your own words right now but since you're slightly intoxicated saying something like this feels easy and right.

He groans, low and wrecked, his grip on your hip tightening. "You can't just say shit like that."

"I can," you tell him, pressing a kiss to the corner of his mouth, then his jaw, then the spot just below his ear that makes him shiver. "I can say whatever I want. You know why?"

"Why?" His voice is strained.

"Because in about twenty minutes, you're gonna find us somewhere private, and you're gonna bend me over, and I'm gonna let you fuck me so hard you forget your own name." You nip at his earlobe, soothing the sting with a flick of your tongue. "That's your reward for winning. You earned it, big boy."

Mingyu makes a sound that's halfway between a whimper and a growl, both hands now gripping your ass, pulling you tighter against him, and you can feel him getting hard beneath you, the thick line of his cock pressing up against your clothed cunt. You roll your hips just to hear him curse, and he does, a strangled oh fuck that makes you grin.

This is easy. This is comfortable. Mingyu's been on your roster since the middle of your second year, and he's never once made it complicated. He's gorgeous and he knows it, tall and broad with a swimmer's build that's been beefed up by rugby, and he fucks with the kind of athletic stamina that leaves you bow-legged and stupid. But he also knows the rules. He doesn't get jealous, doesn't get territorial, doesn't look at you like he's thinking about keeping you.

Unlike—

"There you are."

The voice cuts through the bass and the noise and the fog of arousal like a blade through silk. Deep. Rough at the edges. Punctuated by that quiet authority of his that makes your spine straighten instinctively, your body responding before your brain can catch up.

You know that voice. You know it in your bones, in the wet heat already starting to pool between your thighs in Pavlovian response, in the way your heart kicks against your ribs like it's trying to break free.

Mingyu's hands loosen on your ass. Not because he's scared—Mingyu's not scared of anyone, even if it's his team captain—but because he knows the rules too. The unspoken ones. He knows what that voice means when it's directed at you.

You turn your head.

Seungcheol is standing in the doorway of the living room, and he's already changed out of his rugby kit into gray sweatpants and a team bomber jacket that does practically nothing to hide how broad his shoulders are or how built he is in general. If anything it only accentuates the fact. His hair is still damp, pushed back off his forehead, and there's a flush high on his cheeks—from the game, from the adrenaline, from the victory still singing in his blood. His chest is rising and falling a little too fast, as if he's been looking for you and came straight here the second he could.

His eyes find yours and something in them flickers. Something dark and hungry and possessive that makes your cunt clench around nothing in response.

"Cheol," you say, and your voice comes out steady and a little bored, just like you intended, despite feeling anything but bored in this moment. "Hell of a game."

He doesn't acknowledge the words. His gaze drops to where you're sitting in Mingyu's lap, to Mingyu's hands on your hips, to the way your lip gloss is smeared from kissing someone who isn't him. His jaw tightens. The muscle there jumps.

"Up," he says. Not to Mingyu. To you.

You raise an eyebrow, unimpressed. "I'm a little busy."

"You're done being busy." He takes a step into the room, and people move out of his way without seeming to realize they're doing it. He has that effect. "Come here."

Mingyu sighs behind you, but it's more resigned than annoyed. "Just go," he murmurs, giving your hip a soft pat. "You know how he gets." You turn to look at the guy and there's a small teasing smirk on his face.

"I don't belong to him," you say, and you're not sure if you're reminding Mingyu or yourself.

"Could've fooled me," Mingyu mutters, but there's no bitterness to it. He presses a kiss to your shoulder, gentlemanly despite everything, and helps you slide off his lap. "Rain check?"

"Of course," you tell him with an easy smile.

Then Seungcheol's hand is wrapping around your wrist—not hard, he never grabs you hard enough to hurt or scare, but firm enough that you know you're not getting away—and he's pulling you through the crowd, past the dancers and the drinkers and the people who pretend not to sneak glances, up the stairs, down the hall, into one of the bedrooms that's mercifully unoccupied.

The door clicks shut behind you. The music muffles to a dull throb and your ears ring a little with the newfound silence.

And then you're being pressed up against the door, Seungcheol's body a wall of heat against your back, his breath hot and uneven against the curve of your neck. His hands find your waist, your hips, your stomach, like he's reacquainting himself with the geography of your body even though it's only been three days since the last time he had you.

"Could smell you throughout the whole house," he rasps against your ear, and the words send a bolt of pure lightning straight to your clit. "That perfume you wear. The one like cherry and rum. Knew you were here before I even saw you."

"Good nose," you attempt something sassy, but your voice is already going breathy, your body already starting to soften and yield the way it only ever does for him. You briefly register your hips pushing backwards, into him. And you don't care to stop yourself from it.

"Good nothing." His teeth graze your earlobe, nipping. "I just know you. You know what else I know?" You hum in response, playing along as if intrigued. "I know the way you smell when you're worked up. And you were worked up, weren't you? Sitting on Mingyu's lap like a pretty little slut, grinding on him, getting him hard."

"He earned it," you say, and it's supposed to come out defiant but lands a lot closer to needy because you are a sucker for degradation when it comes from him. Always so sweet, it makes you feel fuzzy even when you just think about it.

Seungcheol's laugh is dark and low, rumbling through his chest and into your back. "Oh, did he?"

"He won the game."

"And what about me?" His hand slides up your stomach, over your ribs, and stops just beneath the swell of your breasts. "I was on that field too. I scored two tries. I bled for that win." His lips brush the shell of your ear. "What do I get?"

You swallow hard. Your thighs press together, seeking friction, seeking relief. "Depends on what you want."

"You know what I want." His hand moves higher, finally cupping your breast through your top, his thumb finding your nipple even through layers of fabric and pressing down just hard enough to make your breath catch. "I want your mouth. Want to fuck that pretty throat until you're crying, until you can't talk, until the only thing you remember how to do is swallow."

Your knees buckle. He catches you easily, arm banding around your waist, and you can feel him—all of him—pressed against your ass. The thick, heavy line of his cock is already hard, already straining against his sweatpants, and you can feel the heat of it through both layers of fabric like a brand.

"Fuck,” you breathe.

"Yeah," he agrees, and spins you around to face him.

God, he's beautiful. It hits you every time, this stupid, gut-punch of a realization that you never quite get used to despite the fact that your roster is full of gorgeous men. No one hits like that. His eyes are dark and liquid, those big brown eyes with lashes so long they cast shadows on his cheekbones, and they're looking at you like you're something precious and something filthy all at once. His lips are parted, plump and pink and slightly wet, and when he smiles—just a little, just the corner of his mouth quirking up—his dimple appears like a secret.

"Missed you," he says, softer now, and it makes your chest ache.

"It's been three days."

"Three days too long." He cups your face in both hands, thumbs stroking over your cheekbones, and tilts your head up. "You been good?"

You know what he's asking. You know what he means. And a part of you wants to lie, wants to tell him that you've been a perfect little angel, that you haven't let anyone else touch you, that you're his, just his, only his.

But that's not the game you play. That's not the arrangement you have with him or anyone else for that matter.

"Been busy," you say instead, and watch his eyes darken. It brings you its own special kind of masochistic satisfaction.

"Busy," he repeats, flat.

"Jihoon on Thursday. Soonyoung yesterday morning." You hold his gaze, defiant and terrified in equal measure. "They're on the roster too, Cheol. Remember?"

Something flickers in his expression—something that looks a lot like hurt and a lot like jealousy—but it's gone as fast as it appears, replaced by that dark, possessive heat that makes your cunt drip.

"Then I better remind you why I'm at the top of that list," he says, and drops to his knees.

You don't have time to process the sight of him there, on his knees for you, looking up at you with those burning eyes—because his hands are already rucking up your skirt, pushing it up around your waist, and his mouth is pressing hot and open-mouthed against the damp cotton of your panties.

"Cheol—"

"Shh." His breath is warm through the fabric. "Let me take care of you first. Let me taste you. Then I'm gonna fuck your throat until you forget Soonyoung's name and everyone else's except mine."

His tongue presses flat against your clothed cunt, and you moan, head thumping back against the door. Your hips cant against his face, frustrated that there's some sort of barrier between his mouth and you.

This is how it always goes with him, how it's been going since the end of your second year, when you finally collided with him at a party not unlike this one, when you'd already built some reputation and he'd already heard the rumours. Neither of you had been prepared for the way your bodies would fit together like puzzle pieces.

Before that night, you'd known of him, obviously. Everyone knew the rugby team, and Seungcheol was the captain—loud and commanding on the field, quieter off it, with a cute laugh that didn't match his build and a dimpled smile that made you want to do stupid things. You'd seen him around campus, exchanged pleasantries, maybe flirted a little the way you flirted with everyone. But you'd never hooked up with him, partly because your paths didn't cross that way and partly because something in your gut had whispered to wait.

Waiting had been the right call. By the time you finally got your hands on each other, the tension had been stretched so tight it snapped like a rubber band, and you'd spent three hours in his dorm room doing things that still made even you blush when you thought about them too hard. And there weren't many things left that could make you blush anymore.

The difference was that Seungcheol hadn't been satisfied with one night. He'd come back for more. And more. And more. Unlike all your other hookups who followed your lead and showed up or engaged with you only on your demand.

So, somewhere along the way, he'd stopped being just another name on your roster and started being something else. Something you allowed in your content, something you kept allowing more than you allowed anyone else.

"Fuck, you're soaked," he groans against you, pulling your panties to the side and swiping his tongue through your folds. The sensation is electric and sweet, and your hips buck against his face without your permission. "Taste so fucking good. Always taste so good."

"Cheol, please—"

"Hmm?" He looks up at you, chin glistening with your wetness, and the sight is so obscene it makes your brain short-circuit. "Use your words, baby."

"Please—fuck, your mouth—"

"My mouth what?" He's teasing now, the bastard, pressing soft little kisses to your inner thigh, your mons, everywhere except where you need him. "Tell me."

"Eat me out," you breathe, dignity abandoned. "Please, Cheol, please eat my pussy, I need your tongue, need you to make me come—"

"Good girl." And then his mouth is on you, tongue plunging into your hole and nose pressing against your clit, and you gasp.

He eats pussy like he's starving. Like your cunt is the only thing that's ever satisfied his hunger. His tongue is thick and clever, alternating between fucking into your tight opening and flattening against your clit, and his hands are gripping your thighs hard enough to leave bruises, holding you open and steady, pressing you against his face like he wants to crawl inside you.

You're babbling, you realize in a brief blink of clarity. Strings of praise and profanity falling from your lips between whimpers and mewls. "So good, so good, your tongue is so fucking good, Cheol, right there, please don't stop, please—"

Seungcheol doesn't stop. He doubles down, sucking your clit into his mouth and flicking it with the tip of his tongue, and your orgasm hits you like a freight train—sudden and utterly beyond your control, knocking the breath out of your lungs. Your thighs clamp around his head and your fingers fist in his hair and you come with a broken cry that gets swallowed by the bass still thumping through the house.

He works you through it, gentler now, laving at your oversensitive clit until you're twitching and whimpering and trying to push him away. Only then does he pull back, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and looking up at you with eyes that are practically black as he licks your juices clean off of it.

"That's one," he says, and rises to his feet.

"One?" You're still catching your breath, still trembling with aftershocks, and he's looking at you like he hasn't even started. In your haze you've totally forgotten what he said he wanted you to do for him.

"One." He cups your jaw, thumb pressing against your bottom lip, tugging it down until your mouth obediently falls open. "Now it's my turn. On your knees, baby. Show me you still know how to worship this cock."

You sink to your knees before he finishes that sentence.

The carpet is scratchy against your skin, but you barely pay attention. Which is fixed on the way he's pulling down his sweatpants, freeing his cock, and there it is—a solid length of thick, flushed, leaking cock, curving slightly upward, the head an angry purple-red that looks almost painful. His balls hang heavy beneath, swaying as he strokes himself once, twice, smearing precum down the shaft.

"You remember this?" he asks, and his voice has gone gravel-rough. Half a step forward and Seungcheol is slapping the thick meat of his cock against your face. They are soft, almost gentle slaps that make you lean in and try to nuzzle, brain going offline on his musky scent. "Remember how it feels? How it stretches your throat? How it makes you choke?"

"Yes," you whisper, and feel your mouth watering, saliva pooling under your tongue. Your eyes are glued to his cock and you barely restrain yourself from trying to follow it and catch with your mouth. "Yes, I remember."

"Then show me."

You don't make him wait. You lean forward and press a kiss to the tip, as gentle and reverent as ever, tasting the salt-bitter tang of his precum. His breath hitches. You do it again, and again, pressing soft kisses up and down his shaft, nuzzling into the thick thatch of hair at the base, breathing him in. He smells like sweat and soap and that unique musk that you have no other description for than just him, and it makes your head spin the more you focus on it. You can probably get off on that alone.

"Stop teasing," he grits out, but his hand comes to rest on the back of your head, gentle, so gentle. Even though you wouldn't mind if he just grabbed your head to steady it and started face fucking you in earnest.

You look up at him through your lashes, make sure he's watching, and then you open your mouth and take him in.

The first inch is easy. The second makes your jaw stretch. By the third, you're breathing through your nose, relaxing your throat, letting muscle memory take over. You've done this enough times—with him, with others—that your body knows what to do even when your brain has gone hazy and dumb with want.

"Fuck," he breathes, and his hips jerk forward just a little, just enough to push another inch past your lips. "That's it. That's my good girl. Taking me so well."

You hum around him, and the vibration makes him curse. Your tongue works the underside of his shaft, tracing and massaging the thick vein that runs from base to tip, and your hand comes up to cup his balls, rolling them gently in your palm. They're heavy, full, and you can't help but imagine how much cum he's got stored up in just three days he hasn't seen you, how much he's going to pump down your throat.

It makes you moan again—the image you drew in your head—and you almost want to whimper and whine but you have a mouth full of cock and instead you just take him deeper, desperate to swallow him whole, to get more of him the only way you know how.

"Been thinking about this all game," he tells you, voice strained. "Couldn't focus during the second half. Kept looking for you in the stands. Kept thinking about your mouth."

You pull back until just the tip rests on your tongue, breath heavy, and then you sink down again, taking him even further this time, until he nudges the back of your throat and your gag reflex flutters. You push past it, breathe through it, and then you're swallowing around him and his cock is buried to the hilt and your nose is pressed against his pubic bone, cushioned with the bush of hairs there.

"Oh, fuck—" His hips buck, involuntary, and you choke but don't pull away. "Sorry, sorry, baby, you just—you feel so fucking good, I can't—"

You reach up and grab his hand, guide it to the back of your head, and press down.

He gets the message.

His grip tightens in your hair, and then he's fucking your throat in earnest, hips snapping forward in a rhythm that's just shy of brutal. You can hear the wet, obscene sounds your own mouth is making—the slurping, the gagging, the choking, the slick slide of his cock through your spit-slick lips—and it's filthy, it's degrading, it's the most liberating thing you've ever experienced. To be reduced to this. No thoughts, no responsibilities, just sucking fat delicious cock.

"Look at you," he grunts, staring down at you with something like awe. "Taking all of it. Taking my dick like you were made for it. No one— no one sucks cock like you do. No one. Fucking— made for this. My perfect little cocksucker."

Tears are streaming down your face, mixing with the drool dripping down your chin, and your mascara is probably ruined, and your throat is going to be raw tomorrow, and you don't care. You don't care about anything except the substantial weight of him on your tongue, the stretch of your lips around his girth, the way his breathing is getting ragged and uneven.

"Gonna cum," he warns, and tries to pull back. "Baby, I'm gonna—"

You grab his hips and pull him closer, taking him so deep your throat constricts around him, and he breaks.

The first spurt of cum hits the back of your throat, hot, thick and bitter, and you swallow on reflex, squeezing your eyes shut before blinking through tears. The second fills your mouth, and the third, and he's groaning like he's dying, like you're killing him, like you're giving him something no one else ever has. His hips jerk through the aftershocks, pumping more and more cum into your waiting mouth, and you take it all, swallow it all, until he's finally, finally still.

He pulls out slowly, and you gasp for air, chest heaving. Your throat feels used, bruised, incredible. Your jaw aches. Your face is a mess of tears and spit and cum, and you've never felt more beautiful. You'd go for another round all over again this very minute if you could.

"Jesus Christ," he breathes, and then he's hauling you to your feet and kissing you, deep and filthy, licking into your mouth like he's trying to taste himself on your tongue. "You're insane. You're fucking perfect. I'm not done with you yet."

"I know," you rasp, and your voice is wrecked, barely a hoarse whisper. "You said something about my tits?"

His responding grin is sharp and hungry. "Take off your top."

You do. Your bra follows, and then your bare breasts are swinging free, heavy and round with puffy inverted nipples that are already aching tight from arousal. Seungcheol stares at them like a man possessed, and then his hands are on you, cupping the weight of them, thumbs circling your nipples until they pop out and he can pinch them between his fingers.

"Love your tits," he murmurs, bending to take one in his mouth and suck on it. His tongue is hot and wet, laving at the sensitive bud, and you moan, arching into him. "Love how big they are. Love how they bounce when I fuck you. Love how pretty your nipples are." He says that in the brief pauses he takes, alternating between the two breasts.

"Cheol—"

"Lie down on the bed." He pulls back, giving your nipple one last lick. "On your back. I want to watch them move while I fuck them."

You scramble to obey, positioning yourself on the edge of the mattress, and he follows, straddling your ribcage. His cock is still half-hard, glistening with your spit, and he strokes it back to full stiffness while he looks down at you.

"Hold them together for me."

You cup your breasts in both hands, pressing them together to create a deep, soft channel. He groans at the sight, and then he's slotting his cock between them, the head peeking out from the top of your cleavage.

"Fuck, that's good," he breathes, and starts to thrust.

The slide is slick from your spit and his cum, and he picks up a rhythm quickly, hips rocking as he fucks the valley of your breasts. His cock drags against your sternum, the head brushing your chin with every thrust, and you tilt your head down to lick at it each time it appears.

"Yeah, that's it," he pants. "Tongue out. Want you to taste me every time."

You obey, sticking your tongue out so the tip of his cock drags across it with every stroke. The angle is awkward and your neck is going to ache later, but the look on his face is worth it—eyes glazed, mouth slack, a flush spreading down from his cheeks to his neck and disappearing beneath the collar of his t-shirt.

"Gonna paint your tits," Seungcheol warns, pace quickening. "Gonna cover them in my cum. Mark you up so everyone knows you're mine."

The possessive growl in his voice makes you moan, and the vibration travels through your chest and into his cock. He curses, hips stuttering, and then he's coming again—ropes of white streaking across your breasts, your collarbones, the lower part of your face. He milks himself through it, groaning, until every last drop is dripping down your skin.

You drop your head back onto the mattress and you wipe your face with your fingers. Cleaning most of the mess only to lick it all from your fingers. Seungcheol collapses beside you on the bed, chest heaving, and for a moment the only sound is both of you gasping for air.

Then he turns his head to look at you, and his expression is soft, so soft, softer than it has any right to be. He reaches out and brushes a strand of hair from your face, tucks it behind your ear, and his fingers linger on your cheek.

"Hey," he says.

“Hey,” you croak back.

"You okay?"

"Yeah. Just—give me a minute."

"Take all the time you need." He leans over and presses a kiss to your forehead. "I'll get something to clean you up."

He disappears into the ensuite bathroom, and you lie there, staring at the ceiling, feeling his cum cool on your skin where you didn't wipe it. Your throat is raw, your jaw aches, your cunt is still throbbing with renewed need. And your chest aches in a completely different way. Which has nothing to do with the physical.

You push the feeling down. You're good at that.

When he comes back, it's with a wad of rough brown paper towels, the cheap kind that feel like tree bark against your skin, but he's somewhat dampened them under the tap and his touch is so fucking gentle as he cleans you up that you barely notice the difference. "Sorry," he murmurs, swiping carefully across your chest, your chin and anywhere else he sees that needs cleaning. "No actual towels. Fucking animals." He says it with so much genuine irritation that you laugh, and he looks up at you with that dimple and that soft, soft gaze, and your heart does the little summersault again.

"I'll survive," you manage.

"You will." He tosses the paper towels into a bin by the desk, then stands there, half-dishevelled, looking at you with his sweats slung low on his hips, showing the band of his boxers where his t-shirt rode up, and that possessive heat still simmering in his eyes. "We should go back down. It's still early, and the boys'll give me shit if I hog you all night."

You raise an eyebrow, even as you're reaching for your discarded clothes. "Since when do you care about that?"

"Since I'm the captain." He shrugs, unrepentant. "Gotta show my face. But—" He steps close, fingers catching your wrist, pulling you up against his chest the second your shirt is back on. His mouth finds your temple, lips warm and soft. "I'm not letting you out of my sight. You're with me tonight. Okay?"

The words shouldn't affect you but you feel the smouldering warmth spill through your body, heating you up from within. If he told you to drop down and fawn and do a puppy pose you would. You swallow. "Okay."

"Good girl." He says it like praise, low and private even though no one else can hear you in this room, and it makes your stomach flip even as you roll your eyes.

You both finish making yourselves look somewhat presentable. He helps you smooth down your skirt, his knuckles grazing the back of your thighs in a way that's more intimate than half the things you've ever done with other people. Then his hand finds yours, fingers lacing together, and he's leading you out of the room and down the stairs back into the controlled disaster of the party.

The bass hits you again, still throbbing through the house, but it's mellowed a little as the night's gone on. It couldn't have been that long and yet people are drunker now, looser, the dance floor more of a tangle of bodies than it was before. The air is thick with beer and sweat and the faint sickly-sweet smell of someone's vape or multiple of them—it's hard to tell. Seungcheol doesn't pause. He threads through the crowd with the same quiet authority he has on the pitch, and like always people just sort of move for him, and because you're with him, they move for you too.

He heads straight for the back corner where the rugby team has claimed a cluster of battered couches and a low coffee table covered in cups and bottles. Mingyu's there, sprawled out with his long legs taking up way too much space, laughing at something Seokmin just said. Seokmin is leaning forward, beer in hand, cheeks flushed from alcohol and the residual high of the win. Joshua's perched on the arm of the couch, drink held delicately between two fingers, smiling his serene, knowing smile and thinking about something else and distant, judging by the slightly absent look on his face. Chan is on the floor with his back against the couch, scrolling through his phone but looking up when he sees you approach.

"There they are!" Seokmin crows, arms spreading wide like he's welcoming royalty. "Captain! And his—" He catches Seungcheol's eye, and whatever word he was about to say dies on his tongue. "—guest. His very special guest."

Mingyu snorts, raising his cup in a lazy salute. "Took your time? We were taking bets on whether you'd come back down at all."

"Put your money away," Seungcheol says, easy but with an edge that says conversation over. He pulls you onto one of the couches—a worn leather thing that groans under both your weight—and situates you directly in his lap, his arm banding around your waist like it's the most natural thing in the world. Like he does it all the time. Like he has every right.

And maybe he does, because no one bats an eye. Mingyu just grins knowingly and takes a sip of his drink. Seokmin launches back into whatever story he was telling, something about a questionable call in the first half. Joshua offers you a faint, warm smile that you really don't want to read into so you don't. Chan goes back to his phone.

And because no one gives any big reactions you just let yourself relax into Seungcheol's chest. His thumb starts tracing slow circles on the jut of your hip, a steady, grounding rhythm. Every so often, he dips his head and presses a kiss to your temple, your hair, the shell of your ear, murmuring things only you can hear.

"You okay?"

"Mhm."

"Warm enough? Want my bomber?"

"I'm fine, Cheol."

"Need water? You should drink some water."

"You're not my mum."

"Doesn't mean I can't take care of you." He says it so quietly, so matter-of-factly, that you don't have a retort, only feel your heart clench painfully tight in your chest.

The conversation around you ebbs and flows. Seungcheol is fully present in it—laughing at Seokmin's jokes, debriefing a specific play with Mingyu that devolves into good-natured bickering because the two like to act like an old married couple, teasing Chan about his post-game ritual of eating an entire pizza by himself and then recalling that one time the youngest almost fought Seokmin when the latter accidentally took a slice. He's easygoing and he's exactly the kind of captain the boys respect because he leads with warmth, not fear. But he also knows where the line is. When one of the boys makes a joke that's a little too crude about a cheerleader, Seungcheol gives him a look—just a slight narrowing of his eyes, a tilt of his chin—and the teammate immediately backtracks, hands up. "Joking, joking. Sorry, Cheol!"

"Mm," Seungcheol says, and the conversation moves on.

Through all of it, his attention keeps circling back to you. His hand never stops moving—stroking your hip, your thigh, the small of your back. He keeps checking in, his lips brushing your ear as he asks, "Still good?" and "Need anything?" and, when you start to flag, "You want to get out of here?" The last one is said with genuine concern, his voice dropping to a register meant only for you.

You shake your head, but your body betrays you. You're slumping heavier against him, your head finding the hollow of his shoulder. The bass is starting to feel less like music and more like an indistinguishable noise causing a headache. The chatter of the team is still warm and funny, but you're not following it anymore. Your eyelids are heavy.

"You're falling asleep," Seungcheol murmurs, amused and tender all at once.

'''M not."

"You are." He shifts, adjusting you more securely against his chest. One hand comes up to cradle the back of your head. "Alright. Time to go."

He says it to you, but the team hears it too. Seokmin starts to protest. "Already? It's not even—" but Seungcheol just glances at him, and the protest dies. Mingyu waves a lazy goodbye, a smirk on his lips. "See you, man. Take care of her."

"Don't drink too much on the weekends. I expect you all on the clock for Monday practice," Seungcheol says sternly, and it's not a throwaway. It's a legit threat. You've heard the boys complain in the past about him making them do various exercises till failure for punishments.

He stands, lifting you with him like you are weightless, and you barely have the energy to be embarrassed. Your legs are jelly, your mind foggy. You manage a vague wave to the group, and then Seungcheol is steering you out of the frat house, into the cool night air, one arm wrapped solidly around your waist.

He takes you home. His car smells like his cologne and an old air freshener shaped like a pine tree, and he keeps the radio low as he drives, his free hand resting on your thigh. At red lights, he glances over at you, and you're too tired to hide the way you're looking at him whenever your eyes are not too heavy to do so.

Your apartment is quiet when you stumble inside. You're barely upright, and Seungcheol doesn't ask if you want him to stay. He just does. He guides you to the bathroom, and there, under the harsh white light that takes some of that sleepiness away, he turns to you with a comically determined focus, considering the task at hand.

"Tell me what to do," he says, gesturing at your face. "Makeup. How do I not mess this up?"

Your chest clenches and if you were a little more drunk and a little less restrained, you'd definitely start bawling your eyes out.

Instead, you point him to the micellar water on the counter, the cotton pads in the drawer. He soaks a pad, and you sit on the closed toilet lid as he kneels in front of you—kneels, like it's nothing, like it's exactly where he wants to be—and carefully, wipes the ruined mascara from under your eyes, the smudged lipstick from the corners of your mouth. His tongue pokes out slightly in concentration, and he's so fucking gentle and adorable it makes your throat tight and your lips twitch with a hint of a laugh.

"There," he says when he's done, sitting back on his heels and inspecting his work. "Good?"

"Yeah." Your voice is a rasp as you turn to examine his work in the mirror. "Good."

Seungcheol helps you undress next. He's done it before, but this time it feels different somehow—more intentional? You're not sure.

He unclasps your bra with practiced ease—and you let out a heavy sigh of relief,—presses a kiss to your collarbone before he strips down to his boxers, and you're both standing there in the dim light of your bedroom, skin to skin, nothing between you but the cool air and the warmth of your skin.

He pulls you into bed. You curl into him instantly, seeking warmth in the still-cold sheets, your head on his chest, his big strong arms wrapped around you. You're both still warm from the party, from each other, and the heat of his bare skin against yours is the most comforting thing you've ever felt.

Seungcheol's heartbeat is steady under your ear. His hand traces lazy shapes on your spine that make your eyes feel heavier with every curl and swirl.

"Sleep," he whispers. "I'm not going anywhere. I've got you."

And you do. With a deep sigh, your heavy eyes close and you immediately drift off.

You wake up to sunlight and the weight of him. He's still curled around you, his body a wall of heat along your back, his arm draped over your waist, his face half-buried in your hair, warm breath fanning quietly against your scalp. It sends weak shivers along your spine the moment your brain focuses on this little detail. And there's something else already—of course there is—the thick press of his morning wood against the curve of your ass, insistent even through his boxers.

Sometimes you think that the two of you should actually be separated and never allowed to interact ever again. There's always a high risk of turning into two horny bunnies and never leaving the bed.

But the thought drifts away as easily as it came in and you shift, just a little, and Seungcheol groans, low and sleep-rough. "Mm. Baby?"

"Morning," you murmur, pressing back against him deliberately. His hips twitch in response, a reflexive grind that makes your cunt pulse with want. You're already getting wet, you realize. Already aching. There's really no preamble with him. There never is.

"Fuck," he breathes, more awake now. His hand slides down your stomach, fingers slipping beneath the waistband of your panties, finding your clit with unerring accuracy. It isn't surprising anymore, considering how many times he's been down there by now. He rubs slow circles, and you gasp, your hips bucking into his touch. "So wet already. How long have you been awake?"

"Long enough." You turn in his arms to face him, and his eyes are heavy-lidded but bright, the brown of them almost gold in the morning light. You kiss him, soft at first, lazy. Your hands are resting on his pecs, sliding lower to his stomach and then over to his soft sides. The kiss gets deeper, with your tongue sliding against his as his palms rest on the swell of your ass instead, squeezing you repeatedly like a stress ball, and you know you're bound to have light bruises after some especially passionate grabs. Then his hand glides to the front again, fingers dip lower, teasing your entrance, and you whimper into his mouth.

"Want you on top," he says against your lips. "Want to watch you take what you need."

"Hmm, is that so?"

There's no world in which you say no to that. You push Seungcheol onto his back and straddle his hips, your knees bracketing his thighs. He's already shoving his boxers down, freeing his cock, and it's just as thick and flushed and perfect as it was last night. Even better now that you can see it in broad daylight. You lean forward and spit into your palm—just a quick, filthy little motion—and reach down between your legs to wrap your hand around his shaft, stroking him once, twice, smearing the spit and his own leaking precum down the length.

"Fuck," he groans, head pressing back into the pillow. "You're so hot. So fucking hot."

You shift your panties to the side—can't even be bothered to take them off—and position him at your entrance. The first push is slow, a delicious stretch that makes both of you moan. Your cunt swallows him inch by inch, fluttering and squeezing and adjusting to his girth, and by the time he's seated inside you to the root, you're trembling, your clit throbbing where it's pressed against his pubic bone.

"There you go," he murmurs, his hands finding your hips and gripping tight, massaging soothing circles into the soft flesh there. "Take your time, baby. Ride me however you want. Use me."

You start to move. It's slow at first, a leisurely grind that rolls your hips against his, his cock dragging along every sensitive spot inside you. You brace your hands on his chest, feeling the solid muscle flex under your palms, and he stares up at you with his half-lidded doe eyes like you're the most beautiful thing he's ever seen. The sunlight catches his face—the strong cut of his jaw, the pretty flush blooming on his cheeks, the way his plump lips part on every exhale.

"You feel so good," you whisper, and the words come out wrecked already. "So deep like this. Fill me up so perfect."

"Made for my cock," he agrees, and there's no arrogance in it, just awe. "This cunt was fucking made for me. Look at you. Look at how pretty you are, taking all of it."

You feel your face heat up in your cheeks and ears. Every time you think you're way beyond getting flustered upon receiving compliments there's Seungcheol with his seemingly personal mission of proving you wrong and successfully making you feel like the shy high school girl everyone made you to be.

You pick up the pace, rolling your hips faster, and the wet sounds of your pussy fill the room—slick and obscene, your arousal dripping down around the base of his cock. He's so deep that every thrust punches a moan from your throat, and you're not quiet, you've never been quiet with him, especially not in the confines of your apartment. The bed frame creaks in rhythm with your movements. His fingers dig into the meat of your hips hard enough to bruise.

"Love your tits bouncing like that," he grunts, eyes entranced on your chest. "Love watching them move when you ride me. Fuck, you're a dream. A fucking dream."

You feel tingles run through your body and rush all into your cunt, making you clench on Seungcheol's dick with a pathetic mewl that escapes before you can stop it.

Seungcheol moans and before another would leaves his mouth you lean down to kiss him, and the change in angle makes him hit even deeper, makes you gasp into his mouth. His tongue slides against yours, messy and hungry, and he fucks up into you now, meeting your rhythm with sharp little thrusts that make your vision go white at the edges. One of his hands leaves your hip and snakes between your bodies, his thumb finding your clit and pressing down in tight, perfect circles.

"That's it," he pants against your lips. "Want you to come on my cock. Want to feel you squeeze me. Can you do that, baby? Can you come for me?"

You can. You are. The combination of his cock driving into you and his thumb on your clit and the way he's looking at you—like you're everything, like you're the only thing—sends you hurtling over the edge. Your orgasm crashes through you in waves, your cunt clamping down on his shaft so hard he has to stop moving just to breathe through it. You cry out, a broken, shameless sound, and he swallows it with a kiss as he fucks you through the aftershocks.

"Good girl," he rasps. "My good fucking girl. Gonna fill you up now, okay? Gonna cum inside you. Want it?"

"Yes," you gasp, still trembling. "Please, Cheol, please fill me up—"

He groans, low and wrecked, and then he's thrusting up into you in quick, desperate strokes, chasing his own release. You can feel him swelling, pulsing, and then he's coming, hot and thick, painting your walls with his cum. The sensation of it—the warmth flooding your insides, the way his cock jerks with every spurt—makes you moan again, clenching around him to milk every last drop.

He collapses back against the mattress, chest heaving, and you slump forward onto him, your forehead dropping to his shoulder. You lie there for a long moment, both of you gasping, his cock still nestled inside you, his seed slowly starting to leak out around it.

"Fuck," he finally says, and you can hear the grin in his voice. "Good morning to me."

You laugh, breathless and boneless, and he wraps his big arms around you and holds you tight.

The shower is a necessity after that. You stumble into the bathroom together, and he insists on washing your hair—sure fingers massaging shampoo into your scalp with a thoroughness that makes you want to melt. You return the favour, soaping up his broad back, tracing the lines of muscle, the bruises from the game that are already starting to purple on his ribs. You kiss every one of them. He pulls you under the spray and kisses you back until you're both completely out of breath and the water runs lukewarm.

Later, dressed in clean clothes that somehow smell like you and him all mixed together (no you don't have a drawer dedicated specifically to his stuff), you walk to the little cafe two blocks from your apartment. It's a Sunday, and the streets are quieter, the air crisp and clean. He holds your hand the whole way. His thumb strokes over your knuckles, and it's such a small thing, but it makes your chest ache in a way you refuse to look closer at.

At the cafe, you get a table by the window. Seungcheol orders a black coffee and a sandwich from their breakfast menu; you get a sweet latte with a syrup and a croissant that flakes all over the table whenever you as much as pick it up from its plate. He steals bites of your pastry and makes exaggerated sounds of approval. You steal a sip of his coffee in retaliation and grimace at the bitterness, audibly judging him for his beverage choices. He laughs, and the sound of it is so bright, so easy, that you feel something loosen in your chest.

You don't think about Monday. You don't think about your roster, or your own rules, or the way this whole thing is supposed to work according to them. You don't let yourself focus on the fact that you've never let anyone stay the night like this, never let anyone wash your hair and clean your face and hold your hand on a Sunday morning like it's the most natural thing in the world. You will have the time to think about it later, to reprimand yourself for it. But it's not now.

You just sit there, across from Seungcheol, your ankle pressed against his under the table, and you let yourself have this.

One more morning. One more slow, golden morning where he looks at you with his shiny boba eyes like you're something rare like the eighth wonder of the world, and you let him, and the world doesn't end.

It can hurt later, you tell yourself. The hurt will come—it always does. But right now, he's smiling at you with a flake of croissant stuck to his lip, and you're reaching across the table to wipe it away, and he's catching your hand and pressing a kiss right to the centre of your palm, lips soft and smooth after you threatened him into using your lip balm, and none of the rest of it matters.

And that's enough. For now, it's enough.

Monday can wait.

Monday morning starts with a text from Seungcheol.

It arrives while you're still half-asleep, face-down in your pillow, one arm flung out across the cold expanse of mattress where he'd been lying thirty-something hours ago. Your phone buzzes on the nightstand, and you grope for it blindly, squinting at the screen through eyelids that feel like they've been glued shut.

hope you got home okay. forgot to text yesterday. still thinking bout that croissant.

There's a pause, then a second message: actually you. mostly you.

You stare at it for too long. Your thumb hovers over the keyboard, and you type out you're such a dork before deleting it, then miss you already before deleting that too, your face heating against the pillow even though no one's around to witness it. Eventually you settle on the safest option, the one that doesn't betray the way your pulse has picked up just from seeing his name on your screen.

Your coffee choices are atrocious.

His response comes almost immediately: brutal. i'm wounded.

Dramatic.

ouch, another wound:(

You don't answer that. You put the phone down and press your face into the pillow and try very hard not to think about the way he'd looked at you at that cafe, sun catching the gold in his eyes, his ankle hooked around yours beneath the table like he couldn't stand even that small of a physical distance. You try not to think about the kiss he'd given you when you'd parted—soft and lingering in the middle of the sidewalk, his hands cupping your face, his thumbs stroking your cheekbones like you were something fragile and precious. "See you later," he'd said, and it hadn't sounded like a request. It had sounded like a promise.

You'd walked away from him with your heart pounding and your stomach in knots, and you'd spent all of Sunday afternoon telling yourself it was fine, it was nothing, it was just breakfast. People have breakfast. People who fuck each other regularly can absolutely have breakfast without it meaning anything.

Except you'd let him wash your hair. Except he'd held your hand the whole walk there and the whole walk back. Except you'd sat there with pastry flakes on your fingers and coffee on your breath and you'd felt a door crack open inside you, the one you'd spent years reinforcing to be locked permanently.

Monday can wait, you'd told yourself on Sunday evening, curled up in bed that still smelled like him. Monday can wait.

Monday, as it turns out, has other plans.

Your first class is Cognitive Psych at nine, and you barely make it on time, sliding into your usual seat near the back with your hair still damp from a rushed shower and your coffee clutched like a lifeline. The lecture hall is one of those big, tiered rooms with creaky seats and inadequate heating, and Professor Hitcher is already droning on about working memory models by the time you get your notebook out. You try to focus with all your might. But your brain keeps drifting back to Sunday morning—the warmth of Seungcheol's hand around yours, the way he'd laughed with his whole chest when you'd gotten powdered sugar on your nose, the way he'd wiped it off with the pad of his thumb and then licked the sugar off his own skin without breaking eye contact.

You're so lost in the memory that you almost miss the notification that pops up on your laptop screen. A Discord message, from the unofficial uni server you're in just like the rest of the university because everyone is hungry for juicy gossip.

so apparently someone saw that camgirl with choi seungcheol at that cafe yesterday morning?? like holding hands and everything??

Your stomach drops.

You close the notification and try to pretend you didn't see it, but the damage is already done. Your phone buzzes. Then buzzes again. By the time the lecture ends, you've got seven messages across three different platforms, all variations on the same theme: Is it true??? Are you and Seungcheol actually DATING???

You don't answer any of them. You shove your laptop into your bag and power-walk out of the lecture hall, head down, earbuds in, dodging the curious glances of the girls who sit two rows ahead of you and always whisper when you walk past.

It's not that you're surprised, exactly. Campus gossip moves at the speed of light, and you've always been a favourite topic. The girl who fucks like a man. The girl who doesn't catch feelings. The girl who's slept with half the rugby team and still walks around with her head held high like she hasn't noticed—or doesn't care—that most of the women on campus treat her like a contagion. You're a fascinating specimen to them. A cautionary tale and a fantasy and a threat all rolled into one.

You've heard the whispers before. You've perfected the art of ignoring them.

But this time it's different. This is Seungcheol, and that makes it feel personal in a way you can't afford it to be.

The quad is bustling when you cross it, students streaming between buildings in that mid-morning rush that always feels vaguely chaotic. You keep your head down, but you can still feel the looks—some curious, some hostile, some just... speculative. A girl from one of your classes catches your eye and immediately looks away, her mouth tightening. Two cheerleaders huddle near the fountain, and one of them elbows the other as you pass, her voice carrying just enough for you to catch: "...seriously, what does he see in her?"

Your jaw tightens. You don't break stride.

This is the part they never understand. The part you've stopped trying to explain. You didn't set out to be the campus villain, didn't wake up one day and decide to become the girl that other girls warned their boyfriends about. You just... refused to be ashamed. Refused to apologise for wanting what you wanted, for taking what was offered, for enjoying sex the way men have always been allowed to enjoy it without consequence. And somewhere along the way, that refusal had calcified into a reputation, and the reputation had calcified into a persona, and now you're the slut, the threat, the cautionary tale—and it's easier to lean into it than to fight it. Easier to pretend you don't care than to admit that sometimes the isolation gnaws at you like hunger.

You'd had friends, once. Back in first year, before everything. Girls who'd invited you to study groups and coffee dates and nights out, who'd shared their make up with you and borrowed your clothes and told you their secrets. But one by one, they'd drifted away. Sometimes it was gradual—a slow cooling, texts left on read, invitations that stopped coming. Sometimes it was abrupt: a boyfriend who'd looked at you a little too long, a rumour that he'd been seen talking to you at a party, an accusation you hadn't even known you were defending yourself against.

The thing is, you've never fucked a taken man. Never. It's a line you've drawn in permanent marker, a rule you've never even been tempted to break. But it doesn't matter. The possibility is enough. The idea of you is enough. You're the stress test for every relationship on campus, and most women decide it's easier to cut you out than to trust their partners not to fail or to blame them for failing.

So you'd built something else. Something stranger and lonelier and, in its own weird way, functional. A network of men who knew the rules and respected them, who didn't ask for more than you were willing to give. Your roster. It was supposed to be simple. Transactional. Safe.

Only two of them had ever slipped past those defences and become something else entirely.

You find Wonwoo and Minghao in the library exactly where they always are at this time on a Monday—the big table in the south corner, near the windows, with a clear sightline to the door that Wonwoo insists helps him concentrate and Minghao insists is just his control issues manifesting. Wonwoo is already buried in a book, his glasses perched on his nose and his posture so perfect it makes your spine ache in sympathy. Minghao is sprawled in the chair beside him, scrolling through his phone with the elegant disinterest that only he can pull off, his silver earrings catching the light every time he moves.

They look up in unison when you approach, and their expressions shift into something that makes you immediately suspicious. It is especially infuriating that Wonwoo haven't even lifted his eyes from the book.

"No," you say, dropping your bag onto the table and slumping into the chair across from them. "Whatever you're about to say, no."

"We haven't said anything," Minghao points out, but the corner of his mouth is twitching.

"You're making a face."

"I'm not making a face."

"You're absolutely making a face," Wonwoo confirms while still reading. "But to be fair, you're also making a face. It's the Seungcheol face."

"I don't have a Seungcheol face."

"You definitely do," Minghao says, setting down his phone and leaning forward with his chin propped on his hand. You scowl but his eyes are sharp and knowing, dark and amused in a way that makes you want to squirm. "It's very specific. Equal parts horny and emotionally constipated. You've been wearing it since you walked in."

"I hate you both."

"You love us," Wonwoo says, and finally closes his book, marking his page with one of those little sticky tabs he carries in his bag. "We're the only ones who'll study with you and not try to get in your pants."

"Jihoon studies with me."

"Jihoon studies with you and then gets in your pants."

"That's—" You pause, and your mouth twitches despite yourself. "Fair, actually."

Minghao laughs—his laugh is a low, elegant sound that rings soothingly in the space between you three—and leans back in his chair. The late afternoon sun slants through the window behind him, catching the sharp angles of his face, the delicate line of his collarbones where his shirt hangs open. He's beautiful, objectively speaking—all fine bone structure and dancer's grace—and you'd tried to sleep with him a few times, early on, before you'd figured out that he was looking for something different from what you were offering. It had been good, because sex with Minghao is always good, but it had also been... quiet. Tender in a way that made your skin itch. Afterwards, he'd looked at you with those perceptive eyes and said, "You don't actually want this from me, do you?" and you'd been so startled by the accuracy of it that you'd laughed and felt a heavy rock drop off your shoulders.

Wonwoo had been similar. A single night, a year and a half ago, after a party where you'd both drunk too much and talked too little. You'd woken up in his bed with a pounding headache and a surprisingly gentle hand on your shoulder, a glass of water pressed into your palm, and a soft voice saying, "We don't have to do this again. But I'd still like to be your friend, if you want that."

You'd cried in front of him. Right in his bed, tears leaking down your cheeks before you could stop them, because he'd offered friendship without conditions and you'd realised, in that moment, how desperately starved for it you were. That happened exactly around the period of time when all your girl friends peaked in massively withdrawing and the new ones already heard too much to take you in without prejudice.

They've been your people ever since. The only two who see past the persona to the person underneath. The only two who call you on your bullshit and save you a seat at the library and don't look at you like you're either a threat or a conquest.

Which is why you know, with a sinking certainty, that they're not going to let this Seungcheol thing go.

"So," Minghao says, and the single syllable is loaded with enough implication to sink a ship. "Sunday morning."

Your stomach tightens. "What about it?"

"Interesting choice of cafe," Wonwoo observes, his voice dry as old paper. "Very public. Very... date-appropriate."

"It wasn't a date."

"Right." Minghao nods sagely. "You just happened to be holding hands with Choi Seungcheol over croissants at ten in the morning on a Sunday. So platonic and casual."

"We were hungry." You can hear how defensive you sound, and you hate it. "We'd just—we'd been at the party the night before, we crashed at mine, and in the morning we were hungry. It's not a big deal."

"The party where he dragged you away from Mingyu like a caveman claiming his territory," Wonwoo says, still in that same mild, unbothered tone. "I saw that, by the way. Everyone saw that. Mingyu complained about it for ten minutes."

"Mingyu's fine."

"Mingyu's very fine," Minghao agrees. "But that's not really the point. The point is that you went from caveman-territory-claiming to hand-holding-breakfast in less than twelve hours, and you're sitting here telling us it's nothing."

"It is nothing." You grab your notebook out of your bag with more force than necessary, flipping it open to a random page. "It's just sex. It's always been just sex. Breakfast doesn't change that."

"Doesn't it?" Minghao's voice is softer now, less teasing. He's looking at you with something that might be concern, and that's so much worse than the mockery. "Because you let him stay the night. You let him take you to breakfast. You held his hand in public, where anyone could see. Those are not things you do with casual hookups. Those are things you do with someone you're—"

"Don't," you warn, your voice coming out louder sharper than you intended. "Don't say it."

Wonwoo and Minghao exchange a glance—one of those silent, loaded looks they've perfected over years of friendship—and you want to throw your highlighters at both of them.

"Look," Wonwoo says, gentler, more careful. "We're not trying to push. You know we're not. But we've been watching you circle this thing with Seungcheol for almost a year now, and you've never looked at anyone the way you look at him. Not even close."

You stare down at your notebook. Your pen has left a small ink blot on the corner of the page, bleeding outward.

"He's different," you admit in a whisper, and the words feel like pulling teeth raw. "I don't know why. I don't know what it is. But he just... he gets under my skin. And I hate it. I hate how much I—" You cut yourself off abruptly, swallow hard. "I hate how much I think about him when he's not there. I hate that I keep breaking my own rules for him without even meaning to. I hate that the idea of him with someone else makes me feel like I'm going to crawl out of my own body."

There's a pause. The library hums around you—the distant click of keyboards, the rustle of pages turning, someone coughing softly a few aisles over.

"That sounds a lot like feelings," Minghao says, but his voice is kind.

"It's terrifying," you murmur.

Wonwoo reaches across the table and puts his hand over yours. His fingers are cool and dry, and the simple, platonic comfort of the gesture makes your throat ache.

"You're allowed to be scared," he says. "You're allowed to want things, too. They're not mutually exclusive."

You don't have an answer to that. So you just sit there, your hand under Wonwoo's, your chest full of something too big to name, and let yourself be scared.

Minghao breaks the silence first, his voice light but measured. "For what it's worth, I don't think Seungcheol is going to hurt you. I've known him for a while—we were in that ethics seminar together last semester, remember?—and he's not the type. He's disgustingly earnest, actually. It's a little off-putting."

You snort despite yourself, a wet, half-laughing sound. "Earnest?"

"Painfully so. He talked about responsibility and integrity for fifteen minutes straight during one discussion and the professor had to cut him off. It was very intense. Very captain-of-the-rugby-team energy."

"He scored two tries on Saturday," Wonwoo adds, withdrawing his hand and picking his book back up like the conversation hasn't just peeled back several layers of your emotional skin. "I don't know anything about rugby, but apparently that's impressive. Soonyoung mentioned it at least four times."

"Soonyoung mentions everything at least four times."

"True."

You look between them—Wonwoo with his glasses and his steady presence, Minghao with his sharp eyes and sharper wit—and something in your chest unclenches, just a little. This is what you'd been missing, in those days when your friends had peeled away one by one. This easy, uncomplicated affection. This space where you don't have to perform, don't have to pretend, don't have to be the persona you've built like armour around yourself.

"Thank you," you say quietly.

"For what?" Minghao asks, eyebrows raising.

"For not—" You gesture vaguely. "For not treating me like I'm contagious."

Something flickers across Minghao's expression, there and gone. "Yeah, well. We've seen how people treat you. It's bullshit."

"It's not entirely unearned," you admit. "I know what my reputation is."

"Your reputation," Wonwoo says glued to his book once more, "is largely the result of a double standard that neither me nor Hao subscribe to. You're a woman who enjoys the healthy pleasures of life and refuses to apologise for it. That doesn't make you dangerous. It makes you honest and real. The fact that most people can't handle that says more about them and the society we live in than it does about you."

You stare at him. He turns a page.

"That's—" You blink rapidly, your eyes suddenly stinging.

"It's just logic," he interferes, but the tips of his ears have gone slightly pink.

Minghao is watching you with something soft and knowing in his eyes. "You've got good people around you no matter what type of relationship you have with them," he says. "Seungcheol. Soonyoung. Jihoon. Even Mingyu, in his own himbo way. The others. You built something that works for you, and you found people who respect it. That's more than most people manage."

"It's not exactly traditional."

"Since when have you ever wanted to be traditional?"

You don't have an answer for that. You've never wanted to be traditional. Okay, at least not since you figured out the world assigned you a role and it wasn't what you wanted for yourself. Ever since then you've never wanted to be the girl who gets the picture-perfect white picket fence and the monogamous fairytale and the happily ever after (even though you don't really mind that last one, who does in their right mind?). You've just wanted to be free. To want what you want without shame, to take pleasure where you find it, to owe nothing to anyone except what you choose to give.

But Seungcheol—Seungcheol makes you want things you never thought you'd want again willingly. Makes you dream about Sunday mornings and hand-holding and someone to come home to. Makes you wonder if maybe the fairytale isn't the trap you always thought it was. Maybe it's just... a story. A story you get to write yourself, in your own way, with whoever you choose.

The thought is so terrifying you have to physically shake your head to dislodge it.

"Okay," you say, and your voice comes out steady while you feel everything tremble inside. "Enough feelings. I have a cognitive psych exam on Friday and I've retained approximately nothing from this morning's lecture because I was too busy dodging stares and whispers about my alleged date."

"Alleged," Minghao repeats, arching an eyebrow, his tone so unimpressed and dry you suddenly want to take a sip of water.

"Alleged."

"Sure." He pulls his notes toward him, but his smile is knowing. "Whatever helps you sleep at night."

You're about to fire back with something defensive once again when Wonwoo, who apparently got disracted to watch you and Minghao talk, pushes his glasses up his nose and opens his book again. "Start with Baddeley's working memory model," he says, and his voice has returned to its usual dry, academic tone, not without a hint of humor though. He lets you off the hook, even if it's just for now. "Central executive, phonological loop, visuospatial sketchpad. You're welcome."

You flip him off, but you're smiling, and when you finally bend your head over your notes and start to actually study, the tight knot of anxiety in your chest has loosened into something almost bearable.

Monday is still Monday. The whispers are still out there, spreading like ripples in a pond, and you know you're going to have to face them eventually. You're going to have to figure out what you're doing with Seungcheol, what you want, what you're willing to risk.

But first, the cognitive psych exam.

The messages from Seungcheol stop on Wednesday.

There is no fight or a slip up you can point to. They just... stop. Tuesday morning you'd woken up to a photo of a very disgruntled pigeon on the quad with the caption this is me when you're not around, and you'd laughed into your pillow, kicking your feet under the blanket, the sound of your giggle bright and unguarded in the quiet of your apartment. You'd typed back tragic, and he'd sent a string of crying emojis, and that had been that. Wednesday you'd sent him something about a professor with an absurd combover, and he'd replied LMAO six hours later, and you'd stared at those four letters for longer than you'd ever admit, trying not to admit to the growing unease twisting your stomach in knots as you kept waiting for the follow up that never came. Thursday was radio silence. By Friday morning you've stopped checking your phone every ten minutes, and the disappointment has settled into something dull and familiar—a low-grade ache at the base of your sternum, easy to ignore if you don't breathe too deep.

You expected it when you allowed yourself the weakness of letting him in closer than you usually have. You knew what you were signing up for.

You want to laugh, remembering Hao's words from Monday. I don't think Seungcheol is going to hurt you. Disgustingly earnest, he'd said. Painfully so. You'd let yourself believe it, just a little. You'd let yourself unclench, open a crack more, imagine that maybe this time it could be different. Even though this is exactly how almost every week went about for the past several months. Only this time you allowed yourself this weakness. And now you're paying for it.

Stupid. You were so fucking stupid.

Friday afternoon finds you walking across campus toward the athletic complex, your bag slung over one shoulder and a half-formed plan in your head. Your subscribers are getting restless—the comments on your last video with Seungcheol have become something of a monument to collective thirst, hundreds of messages demanding Daddy's return, speculating about your relationship, leaving increasingly unhinged declarations of devotion. You'd posted a short clip from your archives on Tuesday night to tide them over—Seungcheol's face out of frame as he fucked you from behind with you in a puppy pose, just the sound of his grunts and the sight of his thick cock disappearing into your cunt—but that kind of content has a shelf life, and you're running out of it. You need fresh material to stock up on. You need him.

Or you did. Before he stopped texting. Before the silence stretched longer and longer.

Now you just need to ask, because asking is practical, because content is content and business is business, and you're not going to let whatever this is—this hurt, this disappointment, this thing you refuse to give name to—interfere with your personal little empire you've built. If he says yes, you'll film. If he says no, you'll figure something else out. Simple and transactional. Exactly the way it's supposed to be.

The rugby pitch is at the far end of the athletic complex, and practice must have just ended because there's a stream of players heading toward the locker rooms, sweaty and grass-stained and loud with the particular brand of masculine energy that comes from an hour of what you sincerely consider to be just sanctioned violence. You scan the crowd for Seungcheol's familiar bulk, his captain's armband, the way he carries himself with that easy authority that makes people unconsciously move out of his way.

You don't see him on the pitch. You don't see him near the benches.

You do see him, eventually, around the side of the building near the parking lot, pressed up against the brick wall with a girl's legs wrapped around his waist.

The first thing you register is his hands. One is tangled in her ponytail—blonde, glossy, the kind of sleek high ponytail that cheerleaders favor—playing with the hair-tie and the other is halfway up her skirt, fingers dimpling the bare skin of her thigh, and even from twenty meters away you can see the way his hips are grinding against her, the way she's moaning into his mouth, the way his tongue is so far down her throat it's a public indecency charge waiting to happen.

The second thing you register is that you can't breathe and your heart may have stopped beating entirely.

It's not like a punch. A punch would be quick, clean, a sharp burst of pain that fades. This is something else—something that creeps in like cold water, starting at your crown and sliding down your spine and pooling in your stomach until you're sick with it. Your vision goes dark at the edges. Your hands curl into fists at your sides, nails biting into your palms hard enough to sting. And somewhere beneath the shock, beneath the hurt, a hot and ugly rage ignites in your chest like a match struck against a rough surface.

You think about Minghao's words again. I don't think Seungcheol is going to hurt you.

Fucking hilarious.

You should walk away. That's what a rational person would do—turn around, go home, nurse your wounds in private, and compose a very firm and very unbothered text about how you won't be needing his services anymore, thank you very much. You should be the bigger person. You should be unbothered, icy, the version of yourself that doesn't care about anyone or anything.

But you've never been rational when it comes to him. And you've never been good at walking away.

So instead, you start walking toward them.

Your footsteps are measured, unhurried, audible against the pavement with a rhythm that announces your approach before your voice does. The girl notices you first—her eyes flutter open, widen, and she makes a muffled sound against Seungcheol's mouth that's more surprise than pleasure. She pulls back, her face flushed and her lip gloss thoroughly ruined, and you allow yourself the brief satisfaction of watching her expression shift from dazed to confused to something that looks a lot like apprehension.

She's young, you realize. A first-year, probably. You can tell by the freshness of her face, the way it's still a little round and naive, the way she still has that deer-in-headlights look that upperclassmen lose somewhere around the middle of second year. She's pretty in a conventional way—big eyes, pouty lips, the kind of body that looks good in a cheerleading uniform—and she's looking at you like she's not sure whether to be scared or defiant.

Seungcheol, still oblivious, has his face buried in her neck. "Mm, don't stop," he mutters, and his voice is rough with arousal, the same voice he uses with you, the same voice that's murmured good girl and let me take care of you and missed you against your skin in the dark.

The sound of it makes your stomach lurch.

"Busy, are we?" you say, and your voice comes out light, almost pleasant, with just the faintest edge of something sharp and deadly beneath it.

Seungcheol's head snaps up so fast you you're surprised he doesn't break his neck.

The look on his face would be almost comical under different circumstances—shock, then recognition, then something that flickers dangerously close to guilt before it's smothered by a mask of composure. He pulls his hand out from under the girl's skirt so fast it's like he's been burned, and the girl makes a small, confused noise, her legs sliding down from around his waist until her feet touch the ground.

"Hey," he says, and his voice is strained. "Didn't—didn't know you were coming by."

"Obviously." You let your gaze slide from his face to the girl and back again, unhurried, assessing. Then you give the girl a once-over—deliberate, slow, the kind of look that makes people feel like they're being measured and found wanting. She shrinks back a little, her hand coming up to wipe at her smeared mouth, and you feel a savage little spike of satisfaction at how easily she folds. "So. This is who you've been busy with all week?"

Seungcheol's jaw tightens. "It's not—"

"Relax, Cheol." You wave a hand, the picture of breezy indifference. "I'm not here to cause a scene. I just came to ask you a question." You pause, letting the silence stretch, watching the muscle in his jaw jump the way it always does when he's uncomfortable and tense. "But I can see you're... occupied."

The girl looks between the two of you, her brow furrowing. "Who is this?" she asks, and her voice is higher than you expected, a little breathy. She's looking at Seungcheol with a proprietary tilt to her head that makes your molars grind together.

"No one important," you say before Seungcheol can answer, and the flicker of hurt that crosses his face is almost satisfying. "Just a friend. We do some work together." You let the word work hang in the air, loaded with innuendo, and the girl's eyes narrow slightly. Adorable.

"I was going to ask if you were free to film this weekend," you continue, directing your words at Seungcheol with the kind of casual professionalism you'd probably use with a business associate if you had any business to begin with. "My subscribers are getting antsy. They miss seeing you. The comments on our last video are frankly obscene." You smile, a sharp little curve of your lips that doesn't reach your eyes. "But I can see your schedule's pretty full."

Seungcheol opens his mouth, closes it. His hands are hanging awkwardly at his sides now, and he looks like a man who's been caught with his pants down—which, metaphorically speaking, he has. "I can—we can talk about this later."

"Oh, don't worry about it." You shrug, another gesture deliberately careless. "I'll find someone else. Mingyu's been asking to be in a video for ages, you know that. He's got the stamina for it… and the subscribers love a fresh face. Maybe it's time I give him what he's been wanting."

Something in Seungcheol's expression goes rigid. His eyes darken, and you can see the possessive thing that lives inside him stirring, the territorial caveman who dragged you away from Mingyu's lap at the party and pressed you against a door and told you you were his. Perfect. Let him choke on it.

"Mingyu," he repeats, flat.

"Yeah." You tilt your head, feigning thoughtfulness. "He's got a great body. Nice cock, too. The viewers would eat him up." You let your gaze drift back to the cheerleader, who's now standing there with her arms crossed and her mouth pressed into a thin line, clearly trying to figure out why this random girl is talking to the guy she was just making out with about another guy's cock. You can't help a humourless smirk creeping in at the thought. "Anyway, I'll let you get back to... this." You gesture vaguely between them. "Enjoy your freshman, Cheol. Hope she's worth the crick in your neck."

The girl's mouth drops open indignantly. "Excuse me—"

"Have a good weekend," you say, and your smile is all teeth. Then you turn on your heel and walk away through the parking lot, your boots clicking against the pavement, your back straight, your head held high.

You don't look back. You don't let yourself. But you can feel his eyes on you the whole way, burning a hole between your shoulder blades, and you hope—viciously, childishly—that his erection has completely wilted and he's going to spend the rest of the evening trying to explain to a confused freshman why some random girl just talked to him about filming sex content.

You hope she asks questions he can't answer. You hope she realizes she's just a stand-in, a placeholder, a warm body he grabbed because he apparently thought you weren't available and he couldn't handle the silence any more than you could. You hope he goes home alone and jerks off to the memory of your mouth on his cock and feels like absolute shit about it.

But mostly, you hope the sick, hollow feeling in your stomach goes away before you have to be around other people.

It doesn't.

By the time you get back to your apartment, the triumph of your little performance has curdled into something darker. The rage is still there, simmering beneath your skin, but underneath it is hurt—raw and throbbing and so much bigger than you want it to be. You slam the door behind you, drop your bag on the floor, and stand in the middle of your living room with your hands shaking and your chest heaving and your eyes stinging with tears you refuse to let fall.

This is why you don't do feelings. This is exactly why. Feelings make you stupid and vulnerable and they give people the power to hurt you, and Seungcheol had promised—he'd fucking promised, hadn't he? I'm not going anywhere. I've got you. Liar. They're all liars in the end when you give them the upper hand.

You pull out your phone and scroll to your contacts with hands that are still trembling. You don't let yourself think. You just press the call button.

Soonyoung picks up on the second ring. "Hey, sweetheart," he says, and his voice is warm and easy, the way it always is. "What's up?"

"You free right now?"

"For you? Always." There's a pause, and then his voice shifts, dropping into something lower, more interested. "What do you need?"

"Bring Jihoon."

Another pause, longer this time. "Both of us?"

"Both of you. My place. Thirty minutes."

He doesn't ask if you're okay, and you're grateful for it. Soonyoung has always been good at reading a room, good at knowing when to push and when to let things lie. He just says, "We'll be there," and hangs up.

You toss your phone onto the couch and start undressing.

By the time they arrive, you've stripped down to a matching set of dark red lingerie—sheer lace that frames your tits nicely and a thong that barely covers anything—and you've lit a quite few candles in your bedroom and put on music, something low and thrumming with bass. You've also poured yourself a drink and you've downed half of it before the knock comes.

You open the door, and Soonyoung's eyes go dark the second he sees you. "Fuck, bunny. You look—"

"I know," you say, and pull him inside by the front of his shirt.

Jihoon is right behind him, quieter, his dark eyes sweeping over you with an intensity that makes your skin prickle as his eyebrows climb up in surprise. You barely get the door closed before Soonyoung's mouth is on your neck and Jihoon's hands are on your hips, sandwiching you between two warm, eager bodies.

"Someone's worked up," Jihoon murmurs against your shoulder, his voice low and knowing. "Rough week?"

"Don't want to talk." You turn your head and catch his mouth with yours, kissing him hard enough to bruise. "Just want to get fucked. Can you do that for me?"

"We can do that. We can do anything you want us to," Soonyoung says, and his hand slides down your stomach, fingers dipping beneath the waistband of your thong and finding your clit with practiced accuracy. You gasp into Jihoon's mouth, your hips bucking forward. "Fuck, she's getting wet already."

"Always so eager for us," Jihoon agrees, pulling back just enough to look at you, his thumb stroking your cheekbone. "That's what we love about you, gorgeous. No games. Just tell us what you need."

"Need both of you. Need to not think. Need to feel so full I can't breathe."

They exchange a glance over your shoulder—something quick and unreadable—and then Soonyoung is spinning you around and walking you backward toward the bedroom, his mouth never leaving your neck, his hands working at the clasp of your bra. Jihoon follows, stripping off his shirt as he goes, and by the time your back hits the mattress, all three of you are naked and the air is thick with the heat of skin and the sharp, musky scent of arousal.

Soonyoung settles between your thighs first, draping your legs over his shoulders and looking down at your cunt with something approaching reverence. "Prettiest pussy," he purrs, running a finger through your folds and watching the way you glisten in the candle- and lamplight. "Look at how wet you are, bunny. This all for us?"

"Yes," you gasp. "All for you."

It's not a lie. It's just not the whole truth. But that's not what tonight is about.

Soonyoung lowers his mouth to your soft pussy, and the first lick is broad and flat, from your dripping hole all the way up to your clit. You moan, your back arching off the mattress, and then Jihoon is straddling your chest, his cock thick and flushed and already leaking, tapping against your lips.

"Open up," he says, and his voice is rough but not unkind. "Want to feel that pretty throat."

You open your mouth and take him in.

The stretch is immediate and familiar, your jaw adjusting to his girth as he slides past your lips and over your tongue. You breathe through your nose and relax your throat the way you've learned to do, and he groans, his hips twitching forward just enough to push another inch deeper.

"Fuck," he breathes. "Your mouth so fucking good. So wet. So warm."

You can't answer—your throat is too full—but you moan around him, and the vibration makes him curse. Below you, Soonyoung is eating you out like he's starving, going all ravenous, his tongue plunging into your hole and then flicking up to your clit, alternating between broad, flat licks and sharp, targeted flicks that make your hips jerk against his face. He sucks your clit into his mouth and pulses his tongue against it, and the dual sensation of his mouth on your cunt and Jihoon's cock in your throat is so overwhelming that your brain starts to go hazy at the edges.

"There we go," Jihoon murmurs, looking down at you with hooded eyes. "There's that glassy look. That's what we want, isn't it? No thoughts. Just our cocks. Just how good we make you feel."

You hum around him, and he groans.

"Gonna fuck your throat now," he warns. "Tap my thigh if it's too much."

He doesn't wait for a response. His fingers thread into your hair, and then he's thrusting into your mouth in deep, steady strokes, the head of his cock nudging the back of your throat with every push. You gag around him, spit pooling and spilling from the corners of your mouth, and he groans like it's the hottest thing he's ever observed.

"Fuck, yes. Take it. Take all of it. Such a good little cocksucker."

Soonyoung pulls his mouth off your cunt just long enough to say, "She's dripping, Jihoon. Absolutely fucking soaked. You should see her pussy—it's clenching around nothing. She needs to be filled."

"Then fill her," Jihoon grunts, still fucking your mouth. "She's got three holes for a reason."

Soonyoung doesn't need to be told twice. He gets up to sit on his knees and positions himself between your legs, the head of his cock pressing against your entrance. He's gets himself slick with your wetness and his own spit, and when he pushes in, the stretch is so perfect it makes you keen around Jihoon's cock even with your mouth full.

"Fuuuuck," Soonyoung groans, burying himself to the hilt in one smooth thrust. "So tight. So fucking tight, bunny. This cunt was made for us."

He starts to move, and the rhythm is brutal-hard, fast strokes that drive the air from your lungs and make your tits bounce with every impact. Jihoon is still fucking your throat, and they find a tempo together, one thrusting into your cunt while the other pulls out of your mouth, so there's never a moment when you're not full. The wet, obscene sounds of your body fill the room—the slick squelch of your pussy getting pounded, the wet gagging of your throat, the sharp slap of skin against skin.

Spit bubbles at the corners of your mouth and runs down your cheeks. Your mascara is definitely ruined. Your cunt is making sounds that would be embarrassing if you had the capacity to feel embarrassment, but you don't—you've gone somewhere else entirely, somewhere where the only things that exist are the two cocks using your body and the music still thrumming through the apartment and the desperate, animal need to be used until you can't think anymore.

"Switch," Jihoon says abruptly, pulling out of your mouth. You gasp for air, chest heaving, and before you can catch your breath, they're maneuvering you like a doll—Soonyoung rolling onto his back and pulling you on top of him, Jihoon positioning himself behind you.

"Both holes," Soonyoung says, looking up at you with eyes that are practically black. "Think you can take us both, bunny? Think you can take my cock in that pretty cunt and Jihoon's in that tight little ass?"

"Yes," you gasp, scrambling with disoriented hands to present your tight puckered hole. "Yes, fuck, please—"

"Please what?" Jihoon's voice is rough in your ear, his chest pressed against your back, the hard length of his cock sliding between your ass cheeks. "Use your words, gorgeous. Tell us what you want."

"Want both of you. Want to be stuffed. Want to be so full I can't breathe, can't think, can't remember my own fucking name—"

"Good girl," Soonyoung growls, and pulls you down onto his cock.

The stretch is exquisite—deeper than before, the angle hitting that spot inside you that makes your vision go white and fuzzy. You're still adjusting to him when you feel Jihoon's fingers at your other entrance, slick with lube you didn't even see him grab from your nightstand drawer—probably too busy processing Soonyoung's dick impaling you,—working you open with careful, practiced pressure. One finger, then two, stretching your tight ring of muscle until you're gasping and pushing back against his hand.

"Ready?" he asks, and his voice is strained from watching you take his fingers while your pussy is already stretched on another cock.

"Ready."

He lines himself up with your anus and pushes in.

The sensation of being filled in both holes at once is indescribable—a fullness so complete it borders on pain but it's exactly what you wished for, two thick cocks separated by only a thin wall of muscle, moving inside you in counterpoint. You're spilling nonsence, you realize, strings of profanity and praise and broken moans falling from your lips. "Fuck, fuck, so full, so good, both of you, ah—please don't stop, don't ever stop—"

"Never gonna stop," Soonyoung grunts, thrusting up into you. "Gonna fuck this cunt forever. Gonna fill you up so good, bunny, gonna pump you so full of cum it's dripping out of you."

"Want that," you gasp. "Want your cum. Want both of you to cum inside me—"

"Fuck," Jihoon grits out, and starts moving faster, his hips slamming against your ass with wet, filthy slaps. Soonyoung matches his pace, and they're both pounding into you now, two cocks filling you completely, and your orgasm is building at the base of your spine like a scorching hot tidal wave, gathering force, unstoppable.

"Gonna come," you whimper. "Gonna come, please, please let me come—"

"Come for us, bunny," Soonyoung grunts, and reaches down to pinch your clit between his fingers. "Come on our cocks. Show us how good we make you feel."

You shatter.

The orgasm is violent—a full-body convulsion that rips through you like a hurricane, your cunt clamping down on Soonyoung's cock and your ass clenching around Jihoon's in spasms so intense you can't breathe, can't see, can't do anything except scream yourself hoarse as wave after wave of pleasure crashes over you exactly the way you wished it would.

They fuck you through it, relentless, and then Jihoon is groaning and burying himself deep, his cock pulsing as he pumps his load into your ass—hot and thick, filling you up, and the sensation of it tips you into another orgasm, smaller but no less devastating. Soonyoung follows a moment later, his hips snapping up into you as he comes with a guttural roar, his cum flooding your pussy in thick, hot spurts that you can feel painting your walls.

For a long moment, none of you move. You're sandwiched between them, still impaled on both cocks, your body trembling with aftershocks, your holes dripping with their cum. Your face is a mess of tears and spit and ruined makeup, and your throat is raw, and your jaw aches, and you feel...

Empty.

The moment your mind clears enough for a thought this realization hits you like a cold wave. You're lying there, filled in every possible way, soaked in sweat and cum and spit, and you feel absolutely, utterly hollow. Worse than before. Worse than when you saw him with that cheerleader, worse than when the messages stopped, worse than anything you've felt in a very long time.

Because it didn't work. None of it worked. Even with two cocks inside you, even with two sets of hands on your body, even with two voices praising you and two loads of cum warming you from the inside—you couldn't truly stop thinking about him. About Seungcheol. About the way his eyes had gone dark and possessive when you'd mentioned Mingyu. About the way he'd looked at you like you were the only person in the room at the party. About the way he washed your hair on Sunday morning while taking a shower with you. Everything is just a broken record in your head, spinning on repeat.

You blink, and a tear slides down your temple and into your hair. It startles you and you almost forget to take a breath.

"Hey," Soonyoung says, and his voice is soft now, post-coital and gentle. He reaches up and wipes the tear away with his thumb. "You okay?"

"Yeah," you rasp, and your voice is wrecked. "I'm fine. Just... overwhelmed."

He doesn't look convinced, but he doesn't push. That's not what you invited them for.

They pull out gently, and you wince at the sudden emptiness, at the wet trickle of cum sliding down your thighs. Jihoon disappears into the bathroom and comes back with a warm washcloth, and he cleans you up with the same quiet efficiency he's always had about him, touch careful, eyes unreadable.

"We'll head out," he says when he's done, pressing a kiss to your forehead. "Unless you want us to stay."

"No," you say, too quickly. And then reach for them to compensate for it. Both take your hands, hold you with reassuring touches. "No, I'm good. Thank you. Both of you."

Soonyoung looks at you for a long moment, something flickering in his expression. Then he nods and pulls on his clothes. "Text us if you need anything, bunny."

"Will do."

They leave, and the door clicks shut behind them, and you're alone.

The apartment is suddenly too quiet. The pretty candles have burned down to stubs, and the music has stopped somewhere along the way, and the only sounds are your own ragged breathing and the distant hum of the refrigerator. You lie there in your bed, naked and sore and sticky with the remnants of someone else's pleasure, and you stare at the ceiling and you try very, very hard not to cry.

It doesn't work.

The tears come hot and fast, leaking from the corners of your eyes and dripping into your hair, and you don't even have the energy to wipe them away. You just lie there and let them fall, let the sobs build in your chest until they're shaking your whole body, ugly and uncontrollable and nothing like the poised, unbothered persona you've spent three years perfecting.

You think about Sunday morning. The cafe. His hand around yours. The way he'd wiped powdered sugar off your nose and kissed your palm and looked at you like you were something precious.

You think about his messages—the pigeon, the crying emojis, the mostly you—and the way they'd dried up like a river in a drought, leaving nothing behind but silence.

You think about his hands on that cheerleader, his mouth on her neck, and the way it had felt like being gutted alive.

You think about Minghao's words. I don't think Seungcheol is going to hurt you.

You were right to be scared. You were right to keep your distance. You were right to build those walls, to keep everyone at arm's length, to never let anyone close enough to leave a mark.

Because look at what just happened. You let him in—just a crack, just a tiny crack—and now you're bleeding.

You curl onto your side and press your face into the pillow that still smells faintly of his shampoo, and you let yourself be pathetic, just for tonight. Tomorrow you'll put the persona back on. Tomorrow you'll be the campus slut, the heartbreaker, the man-eater, the girl who doesn't care. Tomorrow you'll film content with Mingyu or Soonyoung or whoever the fuck you want, and you'll moan and fuck and smile for the camera and for the whole world around, and you'll pretend that Seungcheol is just another name on your roster. The way he's supposed to be.

But tonight, you're just a girl with a broken heart she didn't even think she had anymore, crying into a pillow that still smells faintly like the boy who broke it.

The text from Seungcheol comes maybe an hour after you've finished crying, maybe two. Your phone buzzes on the nightstand while you're still curled in bed, still naked, still sticky with the cooling remnants of Soonyoung and Jihoon's cum drying on your thighs. You're too weak to force yourself into shower and for once in a lifetime you can't bring yourself to care.

can we talk?

You stare at the screen until it goes dark. Your eyes are swollen and your throat is raw and somewhere deep in your chest, something that was already cracked splits a little further.

You don't answer.

The second text comes Saturday morning.

i know you're pissed. i get it. just let me explain.

You're sitting at your kitchen counter, nursing a coffee that's gone cold, wearing an old t-shirt finally having taken the shower that brought you back to feeling human even if just a bit. You read the message three times. The first time, your stomach clenches. The second time, your eyes sting. The third time, something hardens inside you—a callus forming over the wound, protective and necessary.

You type back: Nothing to explain. You're free to do whatever you want with whoever you want. We never said otherwise.

His response is immediate, like he's been waiting by his phone: can we please just talk in person?

Busy this weekend. Maybe another time.

You don't say what you're busy with. You let him imagine it. Let him picture you with Mingyu, with Soonyoung, with anyone else on your roster who isn't him. Petty? Maybe. Cruel? Probably. But the image of his hands on that cheerleader is still burned into the back of your eyelids, and you're not above making him choke on the same thing he fed you. In fact, you are right on that level.

He sends a few more messages over the next couple of days. i miss you. Read, no reply. can i see you? Read, no reply. please, baby. Read, and the baby sends a spike of something hot and sharp through your ribs, but you still don't answer.

By Monday, your responses have settled into a rhythm of sanitised politeness. When he texts how was your weekend, you reply Fine, busy with stuff and nothing more. When he sends thinking about you, you leave it on read for six hours and then respond with Hope practice is going well like he's a colleague you vaguely tolerate. The messages are so neutral and so utterly bloodless—exactly the way they used to be, back before he'd carved out a space inside you that you didn't know you'd given him. Back when he was just another name on a list, just another warm body, just another cock to chase your pleasure with and send on his way. Actually, scratch that! Back then you had it in you to be sincerely friendly and flirty, to be pleasant. Now it's just hollow.

You're trying to go back to that easiness. You're trying so fucking hard.

It's not working.

The thing nobody tells you about letting someone in is that once they're in, you can't just evict them without causing a deep wound on your heart. They leave things behind—memories, habits, reminders. You catch yourself reaching for your phone to send him a stupid meme and then remembering. You catch yourself thinking Seungcheol would laugh at this and then remembering. You catch yourself waking up in the middle of the night with your hand stretched out toward the empty side of the bed, and the cold sheets under your palm feel like a rebuke.

But you don't text him when you get the urge. You don't call even when you really want to. You don't let yourself crack, because cracking is what got you here in the first place, bleeding out from a wound you'd handed him the knife to make.

Instead, you work.

Tuesday afternoon finds you in your bedroom with the lighting adjusted and the camera rolling and Mingyu's head between your thighs, his big hands gripping your hips hard enough to dimple the flesh, his tongue working your cunt with enthusiasm so strong it borders on devotional. You're propped up against your pillows, legs draped over his broad shoulders, one hand fisted in his dark hair while the other grips the sheets.

"Fuck, Gyu," you gasp, and your hips roll against his face without your permission. You know he loves that type of evidential validation mixed with verbal. "Your mouth—fuck, your mouth is so good—"

He hums against your clit, pleased, and the vibration sends a bolt of electricity straight up your spine, making you arch. His tongue is thick and relentless, alternating between broad flat licks that cover your entire cunt and sharp flicks against your swollen bud, working it in ways you never thought were possible, and he's got two fingers curled inside you, stroking that spot on your inner wall with insistent accuracy. The wet sounds of his mouth on your pussy and his fingers inside it fill the room—obscene and slurping and squelching and perfect for the camera angled at the foot of the bed.

"Taste so fucking good," he groans, pulling back just long enough to speak before diving back in. His chin is glistening with your wetness, his lips swollen and pink, and he looks up at you through his lashes with those eager puppy eyes that have always made you feel like the center of the universe. "Could eat this cunt forever. Swear to god."

"Don't stop," you whimper, grinding down against his face. "Please yes, more of—yes yes yes, fuck, Gyu, I'm so close—"

He doesn't stop. He doubles down, sucking your clit into his mouth and stroking his tongue against it while his fingers fuck into you faster, deeper, and the orgasm hits you in a sudden savage wave that makes your back arch off the mattress and your thighs clamp around his head. You come with a broken cry, your cunt spasming around his fingers, and he works you through it with gentle laps of his tongue until you're twitching and whimpering and pushing at his forehead with whines and pitiful helpless giggles.

"Fuck," you breathe, chest heaving, shaking with breathless laughs. "Okay. Okay, your turn."

Mingyu grins up at you, his mouth still wet with you, and crawls up your body with the kind of athletic grace that always makes your stomach flip. He's so fucking big—broad shoulders and thick arms and a chest that blocks out the light when he hovers over you—and when he kisses you, you can taste yourself on his tongue.

"How do you want me?" he asks, and his voice has gone rough with want.

"Want to ride you," you tell him, pushing at his shoulder until he rolls onto his back. "Want to watch your face when you fill me up."

He groans, low and wrecked, his cock twitching against his stomach where it's lying thick and flushed and already leaking. You swing a leg over his hips and position yourself above him, your hand wrapping around his shaft to guide him to your entrance. He's frankly bigger than Seungcheol—not as girthy maybe, but he's longer and still really thick, and that combination makes your jaw and throat ache just looking at it—and when you sink down onto him, the stretch is so intense you have to pause halfway, your breath catching in your throat.

"Easy," Mingyu murmurs, his hands finding your hips and gripping tight to support your weight. "Take your time, pretty. Don't hurt yourself."

"I can take it," you say competitively, and push down the rest of the way.

The sound he makes is halfway between a groan and a whimper, his head pressing back into the pillow, the tendons in his neck standing out. You brace your hands on his chest—solid muscle and warm skin that looks even hotter with his natural tan—and start to move, a slow grind that rolls your hips against his, his cock dragging along every sensitive spot inside you.

"Hell, fucking hell," he breathes, staring up at you with glazed eyes. "You're so tight. So wet. How are you always so fucking wet?"

"Maybe you just bring it out of me," you say with a sly wink, and pick up the pace.

The rhythm builds quickly—faster, harder, the wet slap of your bodies filling the room along with your moans and his grunts and the creak of the bedframe beneath you. Your tits bounce with every thrust, and Mingyu reaches up to cup them, thumbs circling your nipples and pinching them between his fingers until they pop out of their hiding. The dual sensation of his cock driving into you and his hands on your chest makes you gasp, your rhythm faltering for just a moment before you find it again.

"Love your curves," he grunts. "Love touching them. You're so soft and pretty, beautiful."

"Gyu—"

"Gonna come," he warns, his hips starting to buck up into you, meeting your rhythm with desperate little thrusts. "Where do you want it?"

"Inside," you gasp. "Cum inside me. Want to feel it."

Mingyu groans, and then he's surging up, one arm banding around your waist to pull you tight against him as he buries himself deep and comes. His cock pulses inside you so tanglibly it makes you gasp in surprise—you can never get used to that. He's flooding your cunt with hot thick cum, and the sensation of it—the warmth spreading through your belly, the way he's groaning against your shoulder like you've broken him—sends you over the edge for a second time, your cunt clamping down around his shaft and milking him through the aftershocks.

You slump against his chest, both of you gasping, his cock still nestled inside you. His hand comes up to stroke your hair, gentle despite the bruising grip he'd had on your hip a moment ago. His arms are big and warm and they wrap around you so nicely you feel yourself drift away a little.

"Good?" he asks, and there's something soft in his voice.

"Yeah," you say. "Really good."

And it was. It was good. Mingyu is always good—enthusiastic and eager and athletic in ways that leave you with jelly legs. But as you lie there, sweaty and sated and full of his cum, you can't help but notice that the hollow ache in your chest hasn't gone anywhere. It's still there, nestled behind your sternum like a stone, and no amount of orgasms seems to dislodge it.

Mingyu stays for a bit—helps you clean up, raids your fridge and yaps about his sister being a pain in his ass lately, presses a kiss to your forehead before he leaves—and you let him, because Mingyu is easy and uncomplicated and he's never once looked at you like he's thinking about keeping you. But after he's gone, the apartment is too quiet yet again, and you find yourself staring at your phone, thumb hovering over Seungcheol's contact. It's instinct to reach of him at this point. And you're going to have a hell of a time unrooting it.

So you don't text him. You open your filming schedule instead and start filling in slots that were initially all reserved to him and him alone.

Wednesday is Soonyoung. You film a scene with him in the morning—him fucking you over your desk while the natural light streams through the window, his hips slamming against your ass with a rhythm that's part dancer's precision and part animal hunger—and then you save the footage to your hard drive without posting it. You're not sure yet what you're going to do with all this content. You just know you need to keep making it, keep stocking up, keep yourself busy enough that you don't have time to think about anything else.

"You're different today," Soonyoung says afterward, when you're both lying on your bed, cooling down. His head is propped on his hand and he's looking at you with those sharp eyes that always see more than you want them to.

"Different how?"

"I don't know." He reaches out and traces a finger down your arm, light and idle. "Quieter. More... focused."

"I'm always focused during filming, you just don't know because you never filmed with me."

"I see." He pauses, and you can feel the question coming before he asks it. "Is this about Seungcheol?"

Your jaw tightens, you can't keep the defensiveness out of your voice and you can't meet his eyes either. "Why would it be about Seungcheol?"

Soonyoung shrugs, but his gaze is still too knowing. "Word gets around. Jihoon talks to Mingyu who talks to Seungcheol, and Minghao mentioned something about you and Cheol having a thing, and then Cheol showed up to practice on Monday looking like someone kicked his puppy, and now you're filming with me on a Wednesday afternoon instead of him." He ticks the points off on his fingers and you feel increasingly more embarrassed and defensive. "I'm not stupid."

"There's no thing," you say, and your voice comes out flatter than you'd like. You know it gives you away. But with Soonyoung anything can give you away, the guy has that sixth sense on max stats. "We hook up. He hooks up with someone else, I go through my roster like I always did. That's the end of it. Nothing special. I just needed content and he was busy, so I figured I'd remember that I actually have options."

"Mhm." Soonyoung doesn't look convinced. "And how's that working out for you?"

You don't answer. Just huff in irritation and roll onto your side, facing away from him petulantly, and after a moment he sighs and presses a kiss to your shoulder and gets up to leave.

Thursday is Jihoon, quieter and more intense, his dark eyes tracking your every movement as you ride him on the couch, your hands braced on his shoulders and your head thrown back, doing your best angles for the camera. He doesn't talk as much as the others—Jihoon has always been more about action than words—but when he does speak, it's measured, his voice rough with the effort of holding back.

"You're using me," he says, and it's not an accusation. Just an observation.

Your rhythm stutters. "What?"

"Using me. Using Soonyoung. Using Mingyu." His hands tighten on your hips, guiding you back into motion. "You're trying to fuck something out of your system. I get it. Just... be careful, okay? Whatever it is, don't let it eat you alive."

You stare down at him, at his steady gaze and the unexpected gentleness in his voice, and for a moment you want to tell him everything—the breakfast, the cheerleader, the way Seungcheol's messages had stopped and then started again, the way you can't close your eyes without seeing his face. But that's not what Jihoon is here for. That's not the arrangement you have.

So instead you take a mental note to cut this little moment from the footage later and then lean down and kiss him, hard and desperate, and you fuck him until neither of you can think anymore, and when he comes inside you—thick and hot, his groan muffled against your throat—you let the sensation drown out everything else for a few blessed seconds.

Afterwards, you add his footage to the growing folder on your hard drive. You still don't know if you'll post any of it.

Friday morning, you meet Wonwoo and Minghao at the campus coffee shop—it is cramped and small, tucked between the library and the humanities building, with exposed brick interior and stylish mismatched chairs and the constant hiss of the coffee machine. It's early, the sun is still watery and pale through the windows, and you're on your second almond latte by the time they both arrive.

Minghao slides into the seat across from you with that fluid grace that always makes you feel vaguely graceless in comparison. Wonwoo settles beside him, more reserved, setting his coffee down with the careful precision of someone who's never spilled or knocked off a thing in his life.

"So," Minghao says, and the single syllable is loaded with enough implication to fill a novel.

"So," you echo, and take a pointed sip of your latte, aiming for something nonchalant and lazy.

"We heard," Wonwoo says, and his voice is mild but his eyes are sharp behind his glasses. He begins to list off, matching your vibe. "About last week. Soonyoung and Jihoon. Then this Tuesday with Mingyu… and Wednesday with Soonyoung, and Thursday with… Jihoon again, I believe."

"Ah." You set your cup down, keeping your expression carefully neutral. "That."

"Yeah, that." Minghao leans forward, his chin propped on his hand. "Care to tell us what happened? Because last we talked, you were doing the emotional constipation dance about Seungcheol, and now suddenly you're having threesomes like it's second year again."

You shrug, aiming for casual and landing somewhere in the vicinity of brittle. "Nothing to tell. I wanted to film content, Seungcheol was busy, so I called Soonyoung and Jihoon instead. And Mingyu, he wanted to be in one of my videos for a long time now anyway. It's not a big deal."

"Seungcheol was busy," Wonwoo repeats, and his tone is dryer than the Sahara.

"Apparently."

"Busy with what?"

"I don't know, Wonwoo. I didn't ask." You pick up your almond milk latte again, more for something to do with your hands than because you actually want more caffeine. "Look, it doesn't matter. The point is that I remembered I have options. I've got a whole roster of people who are more than willing to help me out, and I don't need to wait around for one guy to make time for me. That's the whole point of the roster. That's literally why I built it."

Minghao and Wonwoo exchange a glance—another one of those silent, loaded looks that you've come to recognise as their wordless way of saying she's full of shit. You hate when they do it in front of you.

"You saw him with someone else, didn't you," Minghao says. It's not a question.

Your jaw tightens. "Who told you?"

"No one. I'm just good at guessing." He tilts his head, his earrings catching the light. "Also, you're doing that thing where you pretend you don't care, but you're gripping your cup so hard your knuckles are white."

You look down. Your knuckles are, indeed, white. You force your fingers to relax.

"It's fine," you say, sounding so much steadier than you feel. You're almost proud of it. "We weren't exclusive. We were never exclusive. He can fuck whoever he wants. I can fuck whoever I want. That's how this works. That's how it's always worked."

"Except that's not how it's been working," Wonwoo says quietly. "Not for months. You stopped seeing most of your roster. He stopped seeing anyone but you. You were spending weekends together and holding hands in cafes and—"

"And none of that meant anything," you cut in, sharper than you intended to allow yourself to. "Clearly. Because the second he thought I wasn't available, he found a freshman cheerleader to stick his tongue down her throat. Which is fine. It's totally fine. I'm not upset about it."

"You're definitely upset about it," Minghao says.

"I'm not."

"You're doing the Seungcheol face."

"I don't have a—" Your back goes stiff and your voice begins to raise and you immediately stop, exhale hard through your nose. "Okay. You know what? Fine. I was upset. I was upset for like, a few hours. And then I got over it, because I remembered that I don't do relationships and I don't do feelings and I don't need some guy to validate my existence. It was just a good reminder of that, so I called Soonyoung and Jihoon, and Mingyu because I wanted to have a good time, and I had a good time, and that's the end of it. Can we please talk about something else now?"

There's a pause. Minghao is looking at you with something that's equal parts exasperation and affection, and Wonwoo is doing that thing where he pushes his glasses up his nose and says nothing but somehow communicates everything.

"You know it's okay to be hurt, right?" Wonwoo says eventually. "You're allowed to have feelings. You're allowed to want things. Pretending you don't isn't going to make it hurt less."

"It'll make it hurt less than the alternative."

"The alternative being... what? Actually admitting you care about him?"

"Admitting I care about him and then getting my heart broken when he inevitably gets bored or finds someone better or decides I'm not worth the hassle." The words come out before you can think better of it, ugly and honest in a way you haven't let yourself be all week. "That's how it goes. That's how it always goes. People leave. People get tired of you. People decide you're too much work or too much drama or too much whatever, and they leave. And I'm not—I can't—"

Your voice cracks. You stop, swallow hard, and stare at the dregs of your latte like they might contain the answers to the universe. No crying in public, no crying in public, no crying in public no crying in—

Minghao's hand covers yours on the table. His fingers are cool and soft, the rings on them pressing into your skin.

"He's not your bullies from middle school," he says quietly. "He's not your fake friends from high school or the ones who left when you started becoming more of yourself and less of what everyone thought you should be. He's not any of the people who hurt you before. He's Seungcheol. And I told you—he's disgustingly earnest. He's probably been moping all week."

"Then why did he stop texting me?" The question comes out smaller than you want it to, more vulnerable. "Why did he just—disappear for days and then I find him with someone else?"

"I don't know," Minghao admits. "But I think maybe you should ask him instead of trying to fuck the hurt away."

You pull your hand out from under his and cross your arms. "I'm not trying to fuck the hurt away. I'm filming content. It's what I do. My subscribers have been asking for variety."

"Uh huh." Wonwoo's tone is still bone-dry. He's so unimpressed with your antics you begin to feel remotely embarrassed. "And the fact that you've filmed with three different people in the past week and posted none of it?"

"I'm stocking up."

"You're avoiding."

"I'm not."

"You're a mess," Minghao says, but his voice is fond. "A complete and total mess. And we love you anyway."

You want to argue. You want to tell them they're wrong, that you're fine, that you're in complete control of your life and your emotions and your roster. But the words won't come, because they're not wrong, and you're so tired of pretending you're not exhausted.

"If he knows about Friday," you say instead, quieter, "if Soonyoung and Jihoon talked and Mingyu talked and everyone talked... Seungcheol knows too, doesn't he."

"Probably," Wonwoo says. "That group gossips worse than a knitting circle."

Something flickers in your chest—grim satisfaction, maybe, or something darker. You think about Seungcheol hearing about your threesome or any later encounter. You think about him picturing you with Soonyoung and Jihoon. You think about the possessive, territorial thing that lives inside him, the caveman who dragged you away from Mingyu and pressed you against a door and told you you were his.

You want to let him choke on it. Let him feel even a fraction of what you felt when you saw his hands on that cheerleader.

But the satisfaction curdles almost as soon as it arrives, leaving behind the same hollow ache that's been living in your chest since Friday afternoon. It doesn't feel like victory. It just feels like more of the same emptiness, dressed up in different clothes.

You leave the coffee shop with a promise to actually study this weekend instead of just doing it for the sake of distraction and you walk back to your apartment through the thin autumn sunshine, your hands shoved in your pockets and your head full of noise.

That night, you film a solo scene with your favourite vibrator, and you come twice with your face pressed into the pillow that still somehow smells like Seungcheol, and when you're done you lie in the dark and stare at the ceiling and try very hard not to think about anything at all.

By the end of the next week, you've stockpiled enough content to keep your subscribers happy for a few months on end. Solo scenes, paired scenes, one threesome footage that you still haven't decided whether to post or delete entirely. Your hard drive is full, your body is sore in ways that should be satisfying, and you're still waking up every morning with the same dull ache behind your sternum, the same reflexive reach for your phone, the same disappointment when the only messages are from people who aren't him.

You're handling it. You're fine. You're the campus gooner dream, the man-eater, the girl who doesn't care about anyone or anything, and you've got a roster full of gorgeous men who are more than happy to fill whatever role you need them to fill.

But at night, when the camera is off and the only thing in your bed is the memory of his arms around you, you press your face into that stupid pillow and you breathe in the fading scent of his shampoo and perfume and you wonder if he's thinking about you too.

You don't text him. You don't call. You don't crack.

But you want to. God, you want to.

And that's the worst part of all.

You've been live for forty-three minutes when the apartment door opens.

The stream started simple enough—you, your bedroom, the soft amber glow of the ring light you've positioned just off-frame, and the familiar hum of arousal building slow and honey-thick in your lower belly. You'd announced the stream on Twitter an hour before going live, a casual "come keep me company tonight?" with a photo of yourself in the black lace set that always drives your subscribers feral, the one with the filthy cutouts that frame your nipples and leave very little to the imagination. By the time you hit "Start Streaming," you'd already amassed a waiting room of nearly two thousand people, their usernames scrolling past in a blur of anticipation.

Now that number has swelled past five thousand, the chat flying at a pace that makes it nearly impossible to read individual messages, and you're sprawled across your bed in a pose that's equal parts lazy and calculated—propped against your pillows, legs spread just enough to show the damp spot darkening the centre of your panties, one hand trailing idly up and down your stomach while you read comments aloud in the breathy, teasing voice that's become your signature.

"Is that new lingerie? It's so pretty on you." You read it with a small, pleased smile, tilting your head toward the camera. "It's not new, actually. Had this set for a while. Just don't wear it often because—" you pluck at the waistband of your thong, letting it snap back against your hip, “—it's a pain to take off and put on. Too many little straps." A pause, a knowing glance at the lens. "But I figured you guys were worth the effort."

The chat explodes with heart emojis and flame emojis and a flood of tips that make your phone buzz on the nightstand. You let your smile curve wider, genuine despite yourself, because this part never gets old—the rush of being wanted, the validation of knowing thousands of people are getting off to you right now, the power of it.

"Let's see," you murmur, scrolling through the comments with your free hand. "What else are we talking about tonight?"

"Posted the new guy video finally I see"

"Ah, yeah." You stretch, arching your back just enough to make your tits press against the lace, and catch the way your nipples are already tightening beneath the fabric. "Posted that one on Tuesday. You guys seemed to like it—the views went kind of insane, actually. What did you think?"

A cascade of responses floods the chat. "He's so big" / "New daddy??" / "Where's the original daddy tho" / "Love seeing you with new people" / "When is Seungcheol coming back????" / "No one fucks you like he does" / "are you two still together??"

The mention of his name lands like a papercut—small, sharp, surprisingly painful. You've gotten better at not reacting, but you still feel the way your smile tightens at the corners, the way your hand pauses mid-stroke on your stomach. You've been seeing his name in the comments all week, ever since the Mingyu video dropped. Some of your viewers are obsessively loyal to him, the way people get attached to characters in a show they've been watching for months, and they've been demanding to know when he's coming back, why you're filming with other people, whether something happened between you.

You can't tell them the truth. You can barely admit the truth to yourself.

"We're mixing things up," you say, aiming for breezy and landing somewhere luckily close enough. "I was starting to feel like my content was getting a little stale, you know? Same angles, same faces. Figured variety would be good for everyone." You let your hand drift lower, fingers brushing over the damp spot on your panties, and let out a soft, theatrical sigh. "Mingyu was fun, right? He's got great energy. And there's someone else who's been wanting to film for ages, so you might see him soon too, we already recorded some stuff."

"But what about Seungcheol??" / "We miss daddy" / "Is he still on the roster or what" / "You two were so hot together please say he's coming back"

Your jaw tightens. You keep your expression pleasant through sheer force of will help of god. "Seungcheol's great," you say, and you feel like you swallowed some sludge and now the remnants of it won't wash off your tongue. "We're still... we're still friends. He's just busy with rugby stuff. You know how it is." You shrug, a little too casual. "I'm not his only priority. He's got a lot going on."

You don't say he's got a freshman cheerleader to keep him occupied. You don't say he stopped texting me after the best weekend of my life and then I caught him with his hand up someone else's skirt. And you certainly don't say I can't close my eyes without seeing his face and I hate him for it and I miss him so much I feel like I'm drowning.

You just smile, and reach for the vibrator on your nightstand, and say, "Anyway. Enough about boys who aren't here. Let's talk about what we're actually going to do tonight."

The chat, mercifully, lets you redirect. Questions pour in—"Are you going to use the pink one?" / "Please ride the dildo we never see you ride it anymore :(" / "Show us how wet you are first" / "Can you talk about what you think about when you touch yourself"—and you let yourself sink back into the performance, the familiar rhythm of teasing and pleasing and giving them just enough to keep them begging for more.

You're forty minutes in when it happens.

You've worked yourself up slowly, deliberately, drawing it out because you know the anticipation drives your tips up. Your panties are soaked through now, the dark lace glistening with wetness and clinging to your cunt, and you've pushed the cups of your bra down so your tits spill over the top, your nipples hard and sensitive from the cool air of the bedroom. You've got the vibrator pressed against your inner thigh, not quite where you need it, and you're reading a particularly unhinged comment about what someone wants to do to you while you trace lazy circles on your clit through the fabric.

"Someone's feeling creative tonight," you're saying through a chuckle, your voice a little breathier than it was before, a little more genuine. "This one says they want to—"

The apartment door opens.

You hear it clearly over the music—the click of the lock disengaging, the soft creak of hinges, the heavy footsteps in your entryway, the door shutting closed—and your entire body goes rigid. Your heart lurches into your throat, adrenaline flooding your system before your brain has time to catch up, and for one wild, stupid second you think someone's breaking in—

And then you remember.

The key.

Your key. The spare you'd given him months ago, in a moment of trust you'd never quite been able to bring yourself to revoke, not even during the worst of the silence. The key he's never used without asking before, because Seungcheol, for all his possessive caveman tendencies, has always been careful about your boundaries. Has always been respectful. Has always waited for you to invite him in.

Until now, apparently.

Your head snaps toward the bedroom doorway just as he appears in it—broad and solid and so fucking familiar it makes your chest ache. He's wearing gray sweatpants and a black hoodie with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows, and his hair is damp, pushed back off his forehead like he just showered. His chest is rising and falling a little too fast, like he ran here, like he saw your notification and didn't stop to think before coming over.

He leans against the doorframe, arms crossed over his chest, and his eyes sweep over you—sprawled on the bed in your ruined lingerie, vibrator in hand, five thousand people watching—with an expression that's equal parts hunger and something softer that looks terrifyingly like hope.

"Started without me," he says, and his voice is casual, almost lazy, but you can hear the tension underneath it. "That's cold, baby."

You glare at him.

You don't mean to. You know, on some distant rational level, that you should be performing right now—should be pasting on a smile, feigning pleasant surprise, playing the role of the girl who's delighted her favourite co-star has shown up unannounced. But your body reacts before your brain can intervene, and the look you throw him is pure venom, scorching and clawing and full of every single thing you've been choking on for the past weeks.

The chat notices.

"LMAOOO THAT LOOK" / "she's PISSED" / "wait is there drama??" / "omg did they break up???" / "She looks like she wants to murder him" / "DADDY'S BACK THOUGH" / "DADDY DADDY DADDY DADDY DADDY"

You don't read any of it. Your eyes are locked on Seungcheol, and he's staring right back at you, and the air between you is so thick with unspoken things you could cut it with a knife and still choke on it. His jaw tightens at your glare—he saw it, he definitely saw it—but he doesn't flinch. Doesn't retreat. Instead, he pushes off the doorframe and walks toward the bed with that easy, rolling gait that's always made your mouth water, and your traitorous cunt clenches around nothing even as your hands itch to curl into fists.

"What are you doing here," you say, and it comes out flat, barely a question.

"Saw you were live." He settles onto the edge of the bed like he belongs there, like he's never left, like the past three weeks haven't happened. His eyes flick to the camera, then back to you, and his mouth curves into that half-smile that makes his dimple appear. "Thought I'd keep you company. You don't mind, do you?"

You mind. You mind so fucking much. But he's already turning to the camera, already addressing your audience with the ease of someone who knows exactly how much they love him, and you're trapped—because if you tell him to leave now, if you cause a scene on camera, the questions will never stop. The speculation will explode. Every single person watching will know something is wrong, and the carefully constructed narrative you've been maintaining—we're still friends, he's just busy, nothing happened—will crumble like wet paper.

"Of course not," you manage, and your voice is almost steady. Almost. "Wasn't expecting you, that's all."

"That's the point of a surprise." He leans closer, close enough that you can smell him—soap and something woodsy, the cologne he's worn as long as you've known him—and your stomach flips. His hand comes up to brush a strand of hair from your face, his fingers lingering on your cheek, and the gentleness of it makes your throat tight. "Missed you," he murmurs low enough that the camera might not catch it.

You want to bite his hand. You want to press your face into his palm and cry. You want to scream at him until your voice gives out and then kiss him until neither of you can breathe.

You do none of those things. You just hold his gaze, and let him see the hurt still simmering there, and say nothing.

The chat, oblivious to the nuances of your silent standoff, is losing its collective mind.

"THE WAY HE TOUCHED HER FACE" / "i'm literally crying they're so cute" / "MISSED YOU 😭😭😭" / "He's so down bad for her look at those eyes" / "Why does she look like she's about to cry though" / "maybe she's just emotional" / "DADDY CAME HOME" / "fuck her already PLEASE" / 'I'm throwing money at the screen TAKE IT" / "someone tipped $100 Imaoooooo"

Seungcheol glances at the chat scrolling on the monitor positioned just off-camera, and his smile widens. "You guys are really excited, huh? Been a while since I was on one of these."

A fresh explosion of caps-lock and emojis. He reads a few aloud, his voice dropping into that lower register he uses when he's playing up the Daddy persona for the audience—"We missed you, Daddy", "Please never leave again", "The content hasn't been the same without you”—and you watch him work with a mixture of resentment and grudging admiration. He's good at this. He's always been good at this. The persona fits him like a second skin, and the viewers eat it up, and somewhere beneath the anger you remember that the first time you ever filmed together, he'd been so nervous his hands had shaken. He'd hidden it well, but you'd felt the tremor in his fingers when he'd touched you, and you'd thought—Oh. He's not just doing this for the camera experience. He actually wants it for me.

You'd been so naive. So willing to believe.

“—right, baby?" Seungcheol's voice cuts through your thoughts, and you blink, realizing he's asked you a question you didn't hear.

"What?"

"I said, you've been having fun without me, haven't you? New videos. New faces." His tone is light, teasing, but his eyes are dark and serious, searching your face for something you're not sure you want him to find. "Mingyu, huh? That's who you replaced me with?"

"I didn't replace you." It comes out colder than you intended, and you see his expression flicker—hurt, maybe, or guilt, or both. You force yourself to soften, to remember the camera, to remember the thousands of people watching this exchange with bated breath. "I told everyone earlier. I'm just mixing things up. Variety is good for content."

"Variety." He repeats the word like it tastes bitter. "Right."

The silence that follows is heavy, loaded, the kind of silence that makes the chat go wild with speculation. You need to do something—need to take control of the situation before it spirals into territory you can't recover from—so you do the only thing you can think of. You reach for him.

Your fingers curl into the front of his hoodie, and you pull him toward you with more force than necessary, your mouth crashing against his in a kiss that's more teeth than lips. He makes a sound of surprise against your mouth, his hands coming up to grip your hips, and then he's kissing you back just as hard, just as desperate, the familiar slide of his tongue against yours sending a bolt of heat straight to your cunt. And you feel the unwanted relief of something tight loosening in your chest just enough to allow you an easier breath.

The chat goes absolutely feral.

"FUCK YES" / "FINALLYYYYY" / "That was so aggressive Imaooooo" / "she's marking her territory" / "THE TENSION WAS INSANE" / "I'm so hard rn" / "look at the way he grabbed her" / "they're literally made for each other" / "DADDY IS HOME"

Your entire world has narrowed to the heat of his mouth, the solid weight of his body pressing you back against the pillows, the way his hands are already sliding up your sides, thumbs brushing the undersides of your breasts where they're still spilling out of your bra. He kisses you like he's starving, like you're the only thing that's ever satisfied his hunger, and you hate how much you've missed this, hate how your body responds to him on instinct, hate that even now—even after everything—your thighs are falling open to make room for him as he leans you backwards onto the mattress and your hips are rocking up to meet the bulge already straining against his sweatpants.

But you don't relax into it the way you usually do. You can't. Every time you start to soften, to yield, your brain supplies an image—his hand under that cheerleader's skirt, his mouth on her neck, his voice rough with arousal as he told her don't stop—and the rage spikes fresh and hot in your chest, and your fingers curl into claws against his back.

He pulls back just enough to breathe, his forehead pressed against yours, his chest heaving. "Baby—"

"Don't." You don't know what you're warning him against. Don't apologize. Don't explain. Don't pretend nothing happened. You just know you can't hear his voice say your name right now without shattering.

His jaw tightens, but he nods, just barely. "Okay." He kisses your forehead, soft and careful, and it makes your eyes sting. "Okay. Whatever you need."

What you need is for him to hurt the way you've been hurting. What you need is for him to understand what he did to you. What you need is for him to hold you and never let go and promise that he'll never, ever put his hands on someone else again.

You can't say any of that. So instead you kiss him again, and this time you bite his lower lip. Hard.

He hisses, his whole body tensing, and you taste copper—the bright, metallic tang of blood welling up where your teeth broke the delicate skin. His doe eyes fly open, dark and shocked, but he doesn't pull away. Doesn't push you off. Just stares at you with something that looks almost like understanding, his tongue darting out to touch the small wound, smearing red across his lip.

"Okay," he says again, quieter this time. "I deserve that."

You don't answer. You just sink your nails into his back and drag them down, hard enough to leave raised red lines that' probably bruise by morning, and he groans—a low, wrecked sound that's half pain and half pleasure—and buries his face in your neck.

"Whatever you need," he repeats against your skin, and his voice is ragged now, strained with something that sounds a lot like guilt. "I'm here. I'm not going anywhere."

You want to scream at him. You left! You stopped texting. You had your hands all over some freshman bitch with a ponytail and you didn't even think about me! But the words won't come, stuck somewhere between your throat and your tongue, so instead you dig your nails in harder and feel the way his muscles jump beneath his skin, and you tell yourself this is enough. This is revenge. This is you hurting him the way he hurt you.

It doesn't feel like revenge. It just feels like more of the same hollow ache masterfully masked yet again.

"Okay is it just me or is this really intense" / "She's literally clawing him up" / "the way he's just taking it though" / "what the hell happened between them" / "I feel like I'm watching something private" / "this is hotter than any porn or sex scene i've ever watched or read" / "the tension is INSANE" / "why am i crying"

Seungcheol lifts his head from your neck and looks at you. His lip is still bleeding, a small bead of red welling up and threatening to drip down his chin right before he licks it off, and his back is on fire from the scratches you've carved into it, and his eyes are so soft, so impossibly tender, that it makes your chest crack open.

"I'm sorry," he says, and the words are barely a whisper, meant only for you. "I'm so fucking sorry, baby. I was stupid and scared and I fucked up, and I know you're angry, and you have every right to be angry, but please—please just let me—"

"Stop." Your voice comes out broken, cracking in the middle. "Don't. I can't—"

"You can." His hands cup your face, thumbs stroking your cheekbones, and the gesture is so familiar, so achingly tender, that your eyes flood with tears. But you stubbornly refuse to let them fall. "You're the strongest person I know. You can do anything. You built this whole life from nothing, you made yourself into exactly who you wanted to be, and you don't need anyone, and I love that about you. I love everything about you. I love the way you laugh and the way you get excited when you eat good food and the way you get competitive about getting stupid little facts exactly right and the way you frown when you're focused and so many other little things. I love you. I've loved you since the first time you let me stay the night, and I was too scared to say it because I didn't think you'd want to hear it, because I thought I was just a name on your list, just a warm body, just someone you'd get bored of eventually—"

"You stopped texting me," you choke out, and the tears are falling now, hot and fast, tracking mascara down your cheeks. "You stopped texting me and then I saw you with her, I saw your hands on her, I saw—"

"I know." His voice is wrecked, barely above a whisper. "I know, and I hate myself for it. I was scared. Sunday was—Sunday was the best day of my life, and then Monday you went back to being casual, and I thought—l thought that after all it meant nothing to you. I thought I meant nothing to you. And I just—I wanted to feel wanted. I wanted to stop hurting for five minutes. She was there, and she was easy, and she wasn't you, and I couldn't even—" He breaks off, his jaw clenching. "I didn't sleep with her. I couldn't. You left and I stopped. I felt sick. Because she wasn't you. No one is you."

You stare up at him, your vision blurry with tears, your chest heaving. "You didn't sleep with her?"

"No." Seungcheol shakes his head, emphatic, his thumbs still stroking your cheeks. "No, baby, I didn't. I couldn't. The whole time I was just thinking about you. About how much I wished it was you. About how I'd ruined everything with you because I was too fucking scared to just openly tell you how I felt." He presses his forehead to yours, his breath warm and uneven against your lips. "I love you. I'm in love with you. I have been for almost a year. And I know that's not what we agreed to, and I know you've got your rules and your roster and your whole thing about not catching feelings, and if you don't want me like that, if you just want this to be sex, l'll take whatever you'll give me. But I can't keep pretending I don't feel it. Not after Sunday. Not after I got to have you like that and then I thought l'd lost you."

The chat is going absolutely berserk at this point.

"OH MY GOD" / "HE'S IN LOVE WITH HER" / "THIS IS THE MOST ROMANTIC THING I'VE EVER WITNESSED" / "I'M LITERALLY SOBBING" / "HE DIDNT SLEEP WITH THE OTHER GIRL" / "what other girl????" / "SOMEONE EXPLAIN THE LORE" / "she's crying i'm crying we're all crying" / "CONFESSION ON LIVE CAMERA" / "this is better than a drama" / "I'm screen recording this for posterity" / "THEY'RE SO IN LOVE IT HURTS" / "look at the way he's holding her face" / "DADDY IS GONE THIS IS JUST A MAN IN LOVE" / "$500 tip HOLY SHIT"

You don't see any of it. Your world has narrowed to the man above you, his face inches from yours, his eyes wet and earnest and terrified. The man who washed your hair and held your hand and kissed your palm and looked at you like you were the centre of the universe. The man who hurt you, yes, but who's hurting too—who's been hurting this whole time, just as lost and scared and stupid as you've been.

"You love me," you whisper, tasting the words.

"I love you," he confirms, and his voice breaks on the last word. "I love you so much it scares me. I love you so much I did the dumbest thing I've ever done because I thought you didn't love me back. And if you don't—if you can't—l understand. But needed you to know. I needed to say it out loud, at least once, even if it's in front of five thousand strangers."

A wet, hiccuping laugh escapes your throat. You glance at the monitor. "Six thousand. And climbing."

He blinks, then turns to look at it too. A reluctant smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. "Oh, fuck."

"Yeah." You reach up and wipe at your tears with the back of your hand, smearing mascara across your knuckles and your cheeks. "We just did this on camera."

"We really did."

"Everyone saw."

"No doubt."

You should probably be mortified and scrambling to shut off the stream, to salvage some shred of privacy, to reclaim control of a situation that's spiralled completely out of your hands. But instead, you just feel... lighter. Like something that's been pressing on your chest for two weeks has finally lifted, and you can breathe again, really breathe, for the first time in days.

"I love you too," you say, and it's so scary to confess to it that your gut twists in a knot. "I've loved you for—I don't even know how long. It just happened and when I noticed it was already too late. I was just too scared to say it. I thought if I said it, you'd leave."

"I'm not leaving." His voice is fierce, almost angry and his big arms wrap tighter around you, as if you could escape. "I'm not everyone. I'm not going anywhere. I told you that on Sunday, and I meant it. I've got you. I'm always going to have you, if you'll let me. And I'm sorry that I made you doubt it but I'm not going anywhere anymore, just say the word."

"Even when I'm a disaster?"

"Especially when you're a disaster." He kisses your forehead, your temple, the tip of your nose. "I love the disaster. I love the mess. I love all of it. I love you."

The chat, which you've been ignoring for several minutes now, is still scrolling at a pace that makes it totally unreadable now.

"THEY SAID I LOVE YOU" / "I'M CRYING IN THE CLUB RN" / "this is the most unhinged livestream i've ever watched and i've been subbed for 2 years" / "FROM CLAWING HIM UP TO LOVE CONFESSIONS" / "the emotional whiplash" / "SO ARE THEY TOGETHER NOW???" / "ask her to be your girlfriend COWARD" / "We just witnessed history" / "someone please tell me they're recording this" / "I'm never going to recover from this" / "BEST LIVESTREAM OF ALL TIME"

Seungcheol glances at the monitor and snorts at something he catches there. "They're telling me to ask you to be my girlfriend."

"Well," you say, and your voice is still watery but there's a smile tugging at your lips now, small and tentative but real, "are you going to?"

He looks back at you, and the expression on his face is so open, so hopeful, so overflowing with love—his baby cow eyes staring at you so intently—that it makes your heart stutter. "Will you? Be my girlfriend? For real this time? No roster, no rules, no pretending we're just casual?"

"Yes." The response comes out before you can overthink it, before you can second-guess, before the fear can creep back in and steal your voice. "Yes, Cheol. I want to be yours. I've wanted to be yours for a while, I just didn't have the courage."

The smile that breaks across his face is so bright it nearly blinds you. His dimples appear like a secret, and his eyes crinkle at the corners, and he looks so genuinely, incandescently happy with that gummy smile of his that it makes your chest ache in the best possible way and you can't help a responding smile that finds its way to your lips.

"She said yes," he announces to your viewers, like it's a victory, like he's just won the championship and the world cup all at once. "Did you hear that? She said yes!"

The chat erupts.

"SHE SAID YES" / "WE HEARD WE ALL HEARD" / "THIS IS THE BEST DAY OF MY LIFE" / "CONGRATULATIONS DADDY YOU DID IT" / "from toxic situationship to marriage in one livestream" / "I'm throwing a virtual wedding RIGHT NOW" / "FINALLY OMFG" / "the slow burn paid off y'all" / "I've been subscribed for 18 months and this is the most satisfying conclusion I could have imagined" / "they're both crying i'm crying we're all crying" / "SOMEONE CLIP THAT" / "this is going to go viral omg"

You laugh, and Seungcheol laughs with you, and then he's kissing you again—soft this time, gentle, mindful of his split lip—and you're melting into him the way you always do, the way you only ever do for him.

"We should probably," you murmur against his mouth, "acknowledge the fact that we just trauma-dumped our entire relationship drama in front of six thousand people."

"Seven thousand now actually," he corrects, and his voice is sheepish but still giddy. "And I think there's more coming in."

"Oh my god."

"It's fine." He kisses the corner of your mouth, then pulls back to look at the camera. "Hey, everyone. Thanks for witnessing my emotional breakdown, I guess. Sorry it wasn't sexier."

"Speak for yourself," you mutter loud enough for the stream to catch, and he laughs again, that bright boyish laugh that makes your heart do backflips and somersaults.

The chat, predictably, disagrees with his assessment.

"This was the sexiest thing I've ever seen and it wasn't even sex" / "emotional vulnerability IS sexy" / "you apologized and confessed your feelings that's better than porn" / "We still want to see you fuck though" / "yeah don't think you're off the hook" / "now that you're officially together give us the makeup sex" / "MAKEUP SEX MAKEUP SEX MAKEUP SEX"

Seungcheol reads the last few comments and raises an eyebrow at you. "They have a point."

You roll your eyes, but the heat is already starting to pool in your belly again, slow and sweet, accelerated by this dopamine rush you just unleashed onto yourselves, your body remembering that you were worked up before all of this started and Seungcheol is still here, still solid and warm and now he's also yours, finally fully all yours. "You're insatiable."

"For you? Always." He kisses your shoulder, your collarbone, the hollow of your throat. "But if you want to stop the stream, we can. Whatever you want."

You consider it. Your makeup is ruined, your emotions are raw, and you've just exposed the most vulnerable parts of your relationship to an audience of thousands. The sensible thing would be to end the stream, crawl under the covers with him, and figure out the rest in private.

But then you look at him—his swollen lip, his flushed cheeks, the way he's looking at you like you're the only thing in the world that matters—and you think, fuck it. You've never been very good at being sensible anyway.

"Let's give them what they want," you tell him, and your voice comes out husky. "If I am going all in then it's all in."

His eyes darken. "Yeah?"

"Yeah." You reach for the hem of his hoodie and tug it upward until he's forced to take it off and throw it somewhere on the floor, revealing the broad expanse of his chest, some fresh bruises from the drills, the fresh red scratches you've just carved into his back. Fuck you missed him like that so much. The urge to crawl under his skin and curl there is gnawing at your sanity. "Show them how you love me. Show them you're mine."

"I'm yours," he agrees, and his voice is a growl now, rough with renewed want. "Always been yours. Always will be."

He captures your mouth in another kiss, and this one is different—deeper, hungrier, the apology and the confession giving way to something more primal and soothingly familiar. His hands find your hips and pull you against him, and you can feel him hard and thick beneath his sweatpants, pressing insistently against your thigh. Your cunt throbs in response, already soaked, already aching for him, and you moan into his mouth, your fingers threading through his hair that already dried up.

The chat, which has been demanding makeup sex for the past ten minutes, gets exactly what it asked for.

Seungcheol strips you out of your lingerie with reverent hands, his mouth following every inch of newly exposed skin—your shoulders, your collarbone, the swell of your breasts, the sensitive undersides where his tongue traces patterns that make you shiver. He takes his time with your nipples, sucking them out of their shy inverted state until they're hard and pebbled and glistening with his spit, and you arch into his mouth with breathy gasps and tiny needy mewls that the camera definitely picks up.

"Love your tits," he murmurs against your skin, and the words are familiar, a call-back to every other time he's said them, but tonight they land differently. Tonight they feel like a premise to something so much bigger than just an arrangement. "Love how responsive you are. Love how you moan for me."

"Cheol—"

"Shh." He kisses down your stomach, his tongue dipping into your navel, his hands gripping your thighs and spreading them wide. "Let me take care of you. Let me show you how much I missed you."

He settles between your legs, draping your thighs over his shoulders, and looks at your cunt with the kind of reverent hunger that always makes your breath catch. You're dripping, your folds slick and puffy and flushed, your clit a hard little pearl peeking out from its hood, begging for attention. He runs a finger through your wetness, spreading it around, and then brings it to his mouth and sucks it clean, his eyes fluttering closed like he's tasting the sweetest syrup on earth.

"Fuck," he breathes. "Missed this. Missed your taste. Missed the way you get so wet for me."

"Then stop talking and eat my pussy," you manage, and your voice is wrecked already, barely a whisper even though you aimed for something more smug and commanding. Still, it doesn't fail to make him get to work.

Seungcheol grins, feral and sharp. "Yes, ma'am."

His mouth descends on your cunt, and the first lick is broad and flat, from your dripping hole all the way up to your clit. You moan, your hips bucking against his face, and he groans in response, the vibration travelling straight through your sensitive flesh. His tongue is thick and clever as always, alternating between plunging into your hole and flicking against your clit, and he's alternating it with wet smooches and filthy slurps, and his fingers dig into your thighs hard enough to leave bruises, holding you open against his face like he wants to crawl inside you and stay there, like he always does.

"So fucking good," he grunts, pulling back just long enough to speak before diving back in. "Best pussy I've ever tasted. Best pussy in the world. My pussy."

"Yours," you gasp, and the word feels different now, heavier, more real. Certainly real, not just cheap dirty talk to throw around. And the notion turns you on so much more. "Yours, Cheol, always yours—"

He groans against your clit, and the sound is so unrestrained, so desperate, that it sends you toward the edge like a speeding freight train going off rails. Your fingers fist in his hair and your thighs clamp around his head so hard you're briefly scared that you're either going to strangle him or squish his scull but the thought is fleeting. You come with a broken cry, your cunt spasming against his tongue while he works you through it, gentler now, lapping at your oversensitive flesh until you're twitching and whimpering and trying to push him away.

Only then does he pull back, his chin glistening with your wetness, his swollen lip beaded with fresh blood from where his mouth stretched too wide. He looks up at you with eyes that are practically black, and the sight of him—ruined by just having you and so beautiful in his want and all yours—makes your spent cunt clench around nothing.

"That's one," he says, and rises to his knees. His cock is straining against his sweatpants, a dark wet spot where his precum has soaked through the gray fabric. "Now I'm gonna fuck you, baby. Gonna fill you up so good and reclaim this pretty pussy. Gonna make sure everyone watching knows exactly who you belong to."

"Already know," you breathe. "Already yours. Just—please, Cheol, please fuck me—"

Seungcheol doesn't make you wait. He shoves his sweatpants down just far enough to free his cock, too desperate to care for full undressing. You've seen him so many times and yet the sight of him thick and flushed and leaking at the tip, fat girthy inches of pure, aching need—never fails to make you salivate. He positions himself between your legs. The head of his cock presses against your entrance, and you're so wet that he slides in with one smooth thrust, burying himself to the hilt in your waiting cunt without any resistance.

The sound you both make is obscene—a shared groan that fills the room, fills the stream, fills the ears of eight thousand people who are absolutely losing their minds in the chat.

"FINALLYYYYY THE MAIN EVENT" / "the way he just slid in so easy she was so ready" / "THAT GROAN" / "I need a cold shower after that" / "they're so in love and so hot at the same time" / "this is the best livestream in the history of onlyfans" / "DADDY IS BACK FOR REAL THIS TIME" / "look at how he's looking at her" / "I don't know whether to swoon or be a horndog" / "I'm never going to emotionally recover from this stream"

"I love you," Seungcheol says, and the words are strained, his hips already starting to move in slow, deep thrusts that drag against every sensitive spot inside you. "I love you, I love you, I love you-"

"I love you too," you gasp, your legs wrapping and locking around his waist, your nails digging into his shoulders. "Love you so much, Cheol, please don't stop—"

"Not stopping." He punctuates the promise with a harder thrust, and you moan, your back arching off the bed, feeling the sweet sparks building back up in your belly. "Never leaving. Never letting you go. You're mine. You're finally mine."

He fucks you like he means it—deep and steady and devastatingly thorough, his pubic bone grinding against your clit with every stroke, his cock filling you so completely that you can feel him in your throat. The wet sounds of your bodies fill the room—the slick squelch of your cunt, the sharp slap of skin on skin, the broken praise falling from both your lips. He tells you you're beautiful, tells you you're perfect, tells you you're the best thing that's ever happened to him, and you sob your agreement into his mouth, your orgasm building at the base of your spine like a tidal wave.

"Gonna come," you whimper. "Cheol, I'm gonna—"

"Come for me, baby." His thumb finds your clit and presses down in tight, perfect circles. "Cream on my cock. Show me you're mine."

You shatter.

The orgasm is crushing—a full-body convulsion that rips through you like a hurricane, your cunt clamping down on his shaft so hard he has to stop moving just to breathe through it. You cry out, a broken, shameless sound, and he swallows it with a kiss as he fucks you through the aftershocks, his rhythm stuttering as he chases his own release.

"Gonna fill you up," he grits out. "Gonna cum inside you, baby, gonna pump you so full—"

"Do it," you gasp. "Please, Cheol, please do it inside me, want to feel it—"

He groans, low and wrecked, and then he's burying himself deep and cumming, his cock pulsing inside you as he pumps rope after rope of hot, thick spend against your walls. The sensation of it—the warmth flooding your insides, the way his cock jerks with every spurt—sends you over the edge for a third time, a smaller but no less intense orgasm that makes your pussy milk him dry.

He collapses on top of you, his full weight pressing you into the mattress, and you wrap your arms around him and hold on.

For a long moment, neither of you speak. You just lie there, tangled together, his cock still lodged deep inside you, his cum slowly leaking out around his shaft. His breath is warm against your neck, and his heart is pounding against your ribs in sync with yours, and you can feel every inch of him, solid and real and here.

"We should probably," he says eventually, his voice muffled against your skin, "check the chat."

"Mm." You don't move. "Do we have to?"

"I think we broke them."

"Probably."

He lifts his head to look at the monitor, and his expression shifts through several emotions in rapid succession—surprise, amusement, something that might be embarrassment because his ears begin to turn bright pink. "Uh. There are ten thousand people watching."

"What?"

"Well… ten thousand. And climbing."

You turn your head to look at the monitor, and sure enough, the view count is sitting at 10,247, and the chat is scrolling so fast it's barely legible.

"THEY'RE DONE" / "that was the hottest thing i've ever gooned to" / "HE CAME INSIDE HER" / "I'm crying and horny at the same time" / "This was better than any movie" / "FROM EMOTIONAL BREAKDOWN TO LOVE CONFESSION TO MAKEOUT TO SEX" / "I'm subscribing for life" / "congrats on the sex and the relationship" / "they're just lying there now" / "look at them they're so cute" / "post-fuck cuddling is what we deserve yes"

You laugh at that last one you manage to catch, and the sound is breathless and giddy and maybe a little hysterical. "We just livestreamed our entire relationship drama and then had makeup sex in front of ten thousand people."

"We did," Seungcheol agrees. He looks down at you, his expression soft and wondering. "Any regrets?"

You consider it. You think about the roster, the rules, the walls you've spent three years building. You think about the girls who whisper when you walk past, the boyfriends who look too long, the reputation and a character that's defined you for so long you almost forgot there was a person underneath it. You think about that Sunday morning, the cafe, the way he'd wiped powdered sugar off your nose and kissed your palm and looked at you like you were the most precious thing in his world. And you think about tonight—the confession, the tears, the way he'd let you claw him almost bloody and then held you anyway. The way he'd had ten thousand strangers witness him telling you he loved you and didn't care who heard it. The way he's looking at you right now, like you're the answer to a question he's been asking his whole life.

"None," you say, and mean it. "No regrets."

"Good." He kisses you, soft and sweet, mindful of his split lip. "Because I meant what I said. I'm not going anywhere."

"I know." You reach up and touch his face, your thumb tracing the edge of his dimple. "I believe you."

And you do. You really, really do.

He pulls out gently, and you wince at the sudden emptiness, at the wet trickle of his cum sliding down your thighs. He disappears into the bathroom and comes back with a warm washcloth while you show off for your audience—a little lazy because your bones are all jelly and very smug because you always love to brag about what Seungcheol does to you—and he cleans you up with the same gentle thoroughness he used on your face that Friday night when he brought you home after that party.

"Alright," he says when he's done, turning to the camera with his best captain-of-the-rugby-team authority, which is somewhat undermined by the fact that he's still half-naked and his lip is swollen and his ears are actually burning bright red now that everything's catching up to him. "Show's over. Go drink some water. Go to sleep. We'll see you next time."

You tug him back down to the bed, curling into his side, your head on his chest. "Yeah," you add, addressing the camera with a smile that's genuine for the first time in weeks. "Thanks for witnessing our emotional carnage. Sorry it wasn't the usual programming. We'll be back to regularly scheduled filth soon."

"Very soon," Seungcheol murmurs, and you elbow him in the ribs.

The chat protests, as expected—a flood of "NOOOOO" and "DON'T GO" and "STREAM FOREVER" and "THIS WAS THE BEST NIGHT OF MY LIFE"—but you just laugh and blow them a kiss and reach for the laptop.

"Goodnight, everyone. Thanks for being here. Love you all."

"WE LOVE YOU TOO" / "GOODNIGHT DADDY AND DADDY'S GIRLFRIEND" / "this was unironically the best livestream i've ever watched" / "CONGRATS ON THE RELATIONSHIP" / "see you next time!!" / "sweet dreams you two" / "I'M SO HAPPY FOR THEM"

You switch off the stream.

The silence that follows is sudden and absolute, broken only by the sound of both of you breathing, the distant hum of the refrigerator, the soft rustle of sheets as he pulls you closer. The ring light is still glowing, casting warm amber shadows across the ceiling, and you should turn it off, clean up properly, do a dozen different things that feel very far away right now.

"I love you," Seungcheol says into the quiet, and his voice is soft, private, meant only for you.

"I love you too," you whisper back. "I'm sorry I didn't say it sooner."

"Don't apologize." His hand traces lazy patterns on your spine, the same way it always does, and your eyes flutter closed. "We got there in the end. That's what matters."

"The end," you repeat, and the word feels strange to your ear. You wouldn't call it an ending, really. A beginning—yes. The start of something new and terrifying and maybe—probably—the best thing you've ever been brave enough to try.

"The beginning," he corrects, as if reading your mind. "This is just the beginning, baby. We've got a lot more mornings to figure out."

Your throat tightens. You press your face into his chest, breathing in the scent of him—fresh sweat and soap and home—and let yourself believe it.

"Stay," you murmur, already half-asleep. "Stay with me for the night, don't want to let you go yet."

"Always," he says, and presses a kiss to your hair. "I've got you. I'm not going anywhere."

And this time, you don't doubt it. Not even a little.

*.(๓•͙ ˕ •͙๓).* Please like + reblog + comment if you enjoyed your time reading this! This means a lot and motivates me to continue posting.

You rolled your eyes. “I wouldn’t know, ask the trashcan how it tasted.”

Seokjin gave you an incredulous look, his eyebrows raising practically into his hairline. He looked offended. Good. “You… threw it away?”

“Sure did.”

He scoffed. “Are you serious?”

All you could do was glare at him in response. “Why did you get me food anyway? What’s your endgame?”

He was acting perplexed now. What a faker. “My… endgame?”

“Don’t play with me, Seokjin. You know exactly what I mean.” You grit out.

“I’m afraid I don’t actually. Care to enlighten me?” He asked, voice dripped in sarcasm.

“Why-“

“That’s enough, both of you!” Jeongguk snapped.

“I didn’t do anything wrong! She yelled at me for bringing her food.” Seokjin defended himself.

“Yeah, to what, piss me off?”

“Sure, because everything I do is all to piss you off.”

“I know damn well you did not bring me food out of the kindness of your heart. You don’t have one!” You shot back.

Seokjin was about to respond, but his younger brother beat him to the punch. “Y/n, you promised me…”

You deflated at the disappointed look on your best friend’s face. “You’re going to take his side?”

“Yes, Y/n, I am, because Jin hyung came to me and told me he was going to get some food to leave for you, and specifically asked what kind of coffee you liked these days too. If he was trying to piss you off, he wouldn’t have done that and instead would have got you something you didn’t like.” Jungkook said as if he were scolding you. Wow, being scolded by your best friend.

“You don’t understand, JK…”

“No. It’s you who doesn’t understand, Y/n. He wasn’t doing this to be mean. What you did was mean here. He thought of you and wanted to make sure you had something to eat. You need to let the past be in the past and take a better look.” He said the words, but somehow, you felt like something wasn’t being said here.

“What is that supposed to mean?” You asked.

Jungkook flapped his arms in the air. “I can’t keep this secret anymore.”

“JK.” Seokjin warned.

“No. I know you’re my big brother and I always respect you, but this is getting ridiculous. I can’t take it anymore. She’s never going to let it go.” Jungkook shook his head before turning to look at you.

“Y/n, Jeremy only wanted to get to you to take your virginity, and make a fool out of you to the entire school. He wanted to humiliate you in front of everyone because he thought your crush on him was pathetic. He planned on recording your first time and exposing it to the entire school. The only reason that didn’t happen was because Jin hyung over-heard him telling that to his friends in the locker room. That was why he told Jeremy what he told him, so that his quest to embarrass the fuck out of you could be ruined.” Jungkook started, and you began feeling your heart clench in pain.

“Wh-what? No… That can’t be true.” You whispered.

“It is. Jin told me when I yelled at him and asked him why he would do that to my best friend. He explained why, and told me not to tell you because he said it would be easier for you to hate him rather than learning the truth and be even more devastated.” Tears formed in your eyes as your best friend spoke, but not because you were heartbroken by a high school crush, but because you treated your best friends brother like shit for years only to find out that he was only trying to protect you.

“I don’t… I don’t understand.” You furiously rubbed at your eyes.

“The reason Jin hyung got suspended from school was because he beat the shit out of Jeremy when he called you a slut. I would have beat him up to, but I didn’t know all of this until I confronted my brother.” Jeongguk finished.

You blanched, suddenly feeling like you were going to be sick. No, not just feeling, you were going to be sick. You stood up, placing a hand over your mouth as you ran up to where the waves hit the shoreline, bile rising up to your throat before escaping from your mouth into the sea.

Both Jungkook and Seokjin made to get up, but it was Lea who stopped them both, standing up herself. “I’ll talk to her. Make sure she’s okay… Woman to woman.”

You felt hot all over, feverish, as you collapsed onto your knees into the sand, heartache like you’ve never felt in your life making it hard to breathe… hard to think. Except now… You only had yourself to be angry at.

“Y/n.” Lea squatted down next to you, placing a hand on your shoulder.

“I’m a terrible, terrible person Lea…” You squeezed your eyes shut tight, a sob escaping you.

“No, you’re not. You didn’t know.” She tried reassuring you, rubbing your back. “They shouldn’t have kept this from you, no matter what. You deserved to know what really happened, even if it might have hurt at the time.”

“But it… It doesn’t take back how awful I’ve been to him. Doesn’t take back all- all the horrible words that came out of my mouth. The things I said to him…. I told him straight to his face that I hated his guts. I told him that he was a monster… That he was heartless. So many times, I told him that…” You trailed off, make- up staining your cheeks as you cried.

“You didn’t know.” She said once more.

“Doesn’t matter… It doesn’t matter. Doesn’t make me feel any better…” You shook your head in disgust, disgust with yourself. “Can… You guys go on the helicopter ride without me… I- I can’t.”

Lea’s hand came to grip your own, giving it a gentle squeeze. “No, we’ll do the helicopter ride tomorrow instead, all of us.”

“But, I’ve already ruined-“

“You haven’t. The trip just started. We have the rest of the day and another two days to go. Why don’t you take some time back at the hotel room to collect yourself, maybe try to get some more rest? I can let the guys know. You can call us whenever you’re ready, okay?” She held her arms out, and you went, crying into her shoulder, but you agreed with a nod. You didn’t want to waste away in your hotel room, but you also knew that you really did need to collect yourself and let this out. You felt terrible.

The first thing you noticed when you made it back to the room was the bag of food in the trash can, and it served to make another wave of fresh tears pour down your cheeks. If it wasn’t for the split coffee all over it, you would have taken the bag back out, but now you couldn’t even eat because your stomach was too upset, filled with guilt.

You changed into some dry clothes before collapsing onto the bed, curling into yourself as you, quite literally, cried yourself to sleep….

‘Dear diary, I met my new best friends brother for the first time today, and my heart did in fact skip a beat. I’m not sure what I should do. Is this love? That sounds silly, I know. What sucks is… I can’t tell Kookie because it’s his brother. What would he think of me? Our friendship is still fresh, but he has already became the best friend I ever had. I would never want him to think I was using him to get to his brother. So diary, it looks like you are the only one I get to talk to about my secret crush.’

‘Dear diary, Jin smiled at me today, and it caused my stomach to flutter like there was a whole bunch of butterflies flying around in there. Does that sound like I’m being dramatic? Because that’s really what it felt like. I wish I could talk to Kook about it, but I just can’t…’

‘Dear diary, Jin made me laugh so hard today my stomach started hurting. I feel like I love him. No, I do love him. What do I do?’

‘Dear diary, I really need to get over this crush on my best friends brother because it won’t lead me anywhere good. Plus… Jin could never feel the same way about me. He just thinks of me as his brothers best friend.’

‘Dear diary, Seokjin is an asshole. I can’t believe I ever even had feelings for that jerk. Forget every kind thing I ever told you about him. It was all a lie.’

When you woke up for the second time that day, it was to sore, bloodshot eyes and a slight headache behind them from all of the crying you did, and even though you rested, you still felt the guilt clawing its way up your chest. How could you face Seokjin? You had to… You needed to apologize to him. You pulled your phone out, dialing your best friend. You didn’t have his brothers number…

“Y/n, how are you feeling?” Was the first thing your best friend asked when he answered.

“I’m… I’ve been better… Can I talk to Seokjin?” You asked, swallowing through your nerves.

“He’s not with us. He insisted on giving me and Lea some romantic alone time.”

“Oh…”

“I’ll text you his number. Y/n listen, I’m sorry… I know this wasn’t a good time to let you know the truth, and I should have told you before… Jin hyung, he should’ve told you too… I just-“

“It’s okay, Kook…. I mean, I wish I had known so I hadn’t spent years thinking the worst about your brother… but I understand you both didn’t want to see me hurt. I get it. I just hope Seokjin can forgive me for being so awful to him…” You exhaled a shaky breath.

“He will.”

“You sound so sure of that.”

“Yeah, I’d say I know him pretty well. I’m not sure if you are aware, but he is my brother.” Jungkook said conspiratorially, and a laugh escaped you.

“Shut up.”

Jeongguk laughed over the line. “Honestly though, don’t worry.”

“Okay… JK…” You trailed off after a beat.

“Yeah?” He asked.

“I need to get something off my chest.” You closed your eyes.

“I’m waiting, dear friend.”

“Before…. Before Jeremy… I- I had feelings for Seokjin. When I met your brother, I crushed hard. I never told you because I didn’t want you to ever think I would use our friendship to get to him. He doesn’t know either. I just pushed my feelings down because I thought it would be for the best.” You said sadly, but in a way, it felt good to finally be able to tell your best friend. Like a weight was lifted.

He was silent for a good minute, and you were starting to get nervous when he finally spoke. “Y/n… You should have told me.”

“I know… I guess we all had something we needed to be honest about, huh?” It was more of a rhetorical question than an actual one, but your best friend hummed in agreement anyway.

“If it makes you feel any better, you have my blessing.” He added.

“It’s too late for that now.” Your hands trembled.

“You sure about that?”

“The way I treated him…”

“So make it up to him.”

“You make it sound so easy.”

“And you make it sound so hard. First of all, you didn’t know. Second, he knows that you didn’t know.” Jungkook stated.

“He only ever saw me as his brothers best friend. It’s probably why he protected me to begin with.” You pointed out.

“You know what I think?”

You hesitated. “What?”

“I think you should call him, now. Goodbyeeee Y/n.” He hung up before you could say anything else, and a second later, your phone pinged with a text message from JK and a phone number attached.

You stared at it for a good minute, trying to get up the nerve to hit the call button, but the longer you waited the harder it was going to get, so without thinking any further, you hit call. It rang three times before Seokjin answered.

“…Y/n?” He sounded confused, but wait, now you were confused.

“How did you know it was me?” You asked, your words practically a whisper.

“Um…” He hesitated, and you almost thought he wouldn’t answer. “I never really deleted your phone number.”

Your heart stopped, or atleast, that’s what it felt like, and then it restarted again. “Oh.”

“Is everything alright?” He asked, most likely wondering why you were calling him randomly.

“No… I mean, physically, yes, but mentally, not so much.” You responded, and a beat later, “Where are you?”

“I’m about to go on a sunset boat cruise.” He answered.

“Oh. That sounds nice.” Why couldn’t you talk?

“Do you want to join?”

“Sure… I- yeah.”

Doned in a sundress, you met Seokjin down by the beach where the ship would be taking off soon, and as you approached him, you felt nervous, and it was even worse now then it was back then. He was wearing the same white button up and black pants that he was earlier. He always was so handsome, even in your moments of hate, you could still admit that.

“Hey.” You whispered. God… You felt so, so guilty. It was swallowing you whole.

“Hi.” He said back, a ghost of a smile on his lips. What would it take to earn a real one again? To feel deserving of it if you did get one?

“Listen Seokjin, I’m really sorry, I- Even saying the words doesn’t feel like enough, but I am. For throwing the food away when you were just trying to be nice, for all the mean things I’ve said to you, for hating you… Everything. I’m sorry for all of it.” Tears gathered in your eyes once again, and you blinked them back. You didn’t want to ruin your fresh make-up again.

“It’s okay.” He responded, simple. “You didn’t know.”

“Everyone keeps saying that, but… That doesn’t change the way I treated you. It doesn’t make me feel better.” Your voice trembled. “You should have told me the truth.”

“I know… You’re right. I just- I couldn’t at the time because you would have been devastated, and then, as time went on… I didn’t think there was a point to bring it up anymore and open up a whole other problem.” His tone held guilt of his own.

“The most devastating thing for me was spending years hating you for no reason. I would have gotten over the truth, easily.” You shook your head.

“I’m sorry, Y/n… I really am.” He said truthfully, and that wasn’t what you wanted.

“No, don’t apologize, please. I just want you to know, that’s all. I just want you to know…” More tears escaped you. Damn it. You couldn’t even talk properly.

“I didn’t realize you cared about me that much. I thought… It would be easier than feeling betrayed by a guy you had feelings for.” His words punched you right in the gut.

“How could…” You trailed off before breaking down entirely, but instead of collapsing on the ground, it was into Seokjin’s arms because he caught you, his arms enveloping you completely. You gripped onto the back of his shirt tightly, wrinkling it into your fist as you shook against him.

“Y/n, don’t cry. It’s okay…” He rubbed soothing circles over your back until you relaxed.

“It’s not okay, Seokjin.” You shook your head, and then he was tilting your chin up with his finger to look into your eyes.

“It will be. It will be okay.” He reassured, his thumb coming up to wipe away your tears, dabbing at the spots where your make-up ran down, clearing up your skin.

“Come on, the ship is here. Do you still want to go?” He asked a moment later, and then, “We don’t have to if you aren’t feeling up to it.”

You took a deep breath, collecting yourself before nodding. “I want to go.”

“Then, let’s go.” He smiled at you then, making the pain come back beneath your ribcage, but you breathed through it, managing to smile back.

He held your hand to help you onto the ship first before he stepped in behind you, and you tried to let all thoughts of sadness slip away as soon as you stepped foot on the ship. You really wanted to enjoy this. You wanted to enjoy it with him.

Seokjin wasn’t really sure when it was that he started loving you, but he knew that from the moment he met you, his heart skipped a beat. Maybe it was all along. He did know one thing, he never once hated you, even if you hated him. He also knew that he failed, because he promised himself years ago that he would make sure you were always happy, no matter what. Now though, with you sitting across from him while the sun set as you looked down at your menu deciding on what to order for dinner, you looked sad. He needed to rectify that. He needed you to be happy again.

“You can order whatever you want, I’ll buy.” He said softly, bringing you out of your thoughts. He wondered what exactly it was you were thinking about…

“Seokjin, it’s fine. You don’t have to do that.” You said meekly.

“I want to. I mean, as long as you promise not to throw it in the trash.” He joked, trying to uplift your mood.

You blanched. “I’m really sor-“

“Y/n, it’s okay. I’m just kidding. I was trying to get you to laugh. I guess I failed.” He said with a pout.

“Oh…” You caught on, and that was when a laugh bubbled out of you. It made Seokjin’s breath catch, you haven’t laughed because of him since before you started hating him. He thought he had moved on. He made a life for himself, and accepted the fact that you were always going to hate him, but being here with you in this moment… It served to remind him that he was always going to love you. It was probably the reason he never dated for long. Nothing ever stuck.

He was shaken out of his thoughts when you said his name, like you were speaking this whole time. “Sorry… What did you say?” He asked, feeling his ears turn red.

You laughed again, this time more freely. “I said, I’m not sure what to get. Everything looks amazing. And it seems like they give generous servings. I don’t know if I’ll be able to finish it, and I really don’t want it to go to waste, especially because you’re paying.”

“Well, what if I order two things and we share them both? That way, you can just eat however much you’re able to, and I’ll finish the rest.” He suggested, and in return you gave him a smile. He felt like he was getting whiplash from your change of heart.

“That sounds like a good idea. Is lobster still your favorite?” You asked, and he blinked, shocked.

“You remember that?” He asked.

There was a blush on your face like you were embarrassed, and he couldn’t figure out why, but you nodded slowly.

“I- yeah, it’s still my favorite.”

“Then, let’s order that.”

“Are you sure?”

Another nod, and another smile.

“Okay, you pick the other one then.” He suggested.

It looked as if you were thinking about it for a moment before you responded. “How about the shrimp, but without the garlic, since you’re allergic. There’s no reason to have a reaction if you don’t have to. You shouldn’t have to be in discomfort.”

He was stunned once more at the fact that you remembered that, even more than the fact about lobster being his favorite. He was about to respond, but the waitress approached with a grin. “Before I ask if you’re ready to order, can I just say that you guys look like… really good together. You’re both hot. Such a cute couple.”

You blushed furiously, but you couldn’t bring yourself to let the waitress know that you weren’t together. What if you wanted to pretend? Atleast for the night.

Seokjin was giving you a strange look, probably because you didn’t boldy reject the idea like you usually would, but what surprised you even more was the fact that his face was red too, and also the fact that he didn’t refute her either. What?

The waitress thought nothing of your silence. “Aww adorable. Are you guys ready to order?”

You gave the man sitting across from you a smile, and the go ahead, and he returned your smile ten fold before he ordered the food. You felt like you didn’t deserve that smile, and it also made you feel like your heart was going to beat out of your chest. The fact that you hated… this incredible man for years made your heart hurt. It made it hurt more than it’s ever hurt in your life. All you wanted to do was make it up to him, and shower him with love, because finding out the truth, exposed that truth that never really went away. The reason you were so hurt, the reason you hated him so deeply, was because you were in love with him. You always were. You would have been indifferent instead if that weren’t the case.

The dinner was just as amazing as it looked, and you enjoyed every bite of it, and as you watched the sun set together as you ate, you yearned for him. You wished he could finally be yours. You wished to be his. You had your best friends blessing, nothing was holding you back, except hoping that he could feel something for you after everything. After all of this time. If anything, you would take his friendship if that was all he was willing to give, but there had to be a reason he didn’t tell the waitress you weren’t together. Who knows, maybe you were reading into it, maybe he just didn’t want to make things awkward by denying it…

“Y/n, are you okay?” Seokjin dragged you out of your thoughts.

“I- yeah, I was just thinking.” You looked up at him.

“What about?” He asked softly with a smile.

“I had a really good time tonight.” Was what you responded with, a smile of your own rising to your lips. “Thank you for inviting me, and for dinner.”

“Don’t mention it. I had a good time too.” He agreed, his smile growing until his dimples appeared, and there was that feeling again in your heart, in your stomach… everywhere.

You were honestly sad when the sunset cruise came to an end, but Seokjin didn’t let the night end there. The two of you did some exploring around the island, checking out the gorgeous waterfalls before retiring back to the hotel room late at night. It was weird to think that you were glad he was staying in the same room as you now. You found that you didn’t want to be away from him. It was probably because your feelings were all haywire. Going from hating him, to finding out the truth, to deep rooted, pushed down feelings coming to the surface again. It still made you want to cry, to make up for lost time, wasted time.

You let Seokjin take a shower first, because you took extremely long showers, and you didn’t want him to have to wait on you, or use all the hot water on him. Once you finished up with brushing your teeth and slipping your pajamas on you left the bathroom, feeling a pang of guilt at seeing Seokjin on the couch again.

“You can sleep on the bed… There’s plenty of room.” You said softly as you padded into the room, getting underneath the covers yourself.

“Are you sure? It’s not that big of deal…” He responded hesitantly.

You nodded. “I’m absolutely sure, I know the couch is uncomfortable, and I feel bad that you had to sleep like that last night... I don’t mind, honestly.”

“Okay.” You sighed in relief when he agreed instead of being self-sacrificing. You would feel even more guilty if he ended up in pain by sleeping so uncomfortably. You didn’t want that. There was no reason you couldn’t share the bed.

When you felt him slip in beside you, plenty of room between you since it was a king sized bed, you closed your eyes. “Good night, Jin.”

“Good night, Y/n.” You heard him respond, and that night… You slept soundly.

When you awoke the next morning, it was to the sound of a heart beating steadily. Feeling his warm body pressed against you, you smiled, nuzzling closer into Seokjin’s chest, and oh… You suddenly froze, realizing what you were doing.

Was he awake? Did he know that you were cuddling him like this? He did have his arms wrapped around you as well… Did he realize it? Would he be disgusted when he found out? You couldn’t blame him if he was… after everything. That thought had your heart clenching painfully, because for you, it felt so right. It felt like coming home. He felt like home. You didn’t want this moment to end. You wanted to stay here, in his arms like this.

Feeling terrified, you blinked your eyes open before looking up to see if he was still sleeping. His eyes were still closed, and you took the chance to study his features. You’ve never been this close to him before, if you leaned any closer, your noses would be pressed together. Your hand came up to trace his cheek lightly, a whisper of a touch, and it was at that moment, his eyes blinked open, brown ones peering into your own.

When you finally realized what you were doing, it was too late. You’d already been caught, but before you could be embarrassed and start stammering apologies, his own hand was coming up to place it over your own, his larger palm pressing your hand firmly against his skin.

Your breath hitched, your heart starting to race. Has it ever raced this fast? You didn’t think so…You felt like you were having tachycardia, but you couldn’t bring yourself to look away from him. Suddenly, the space between you both was disappearing until your foreheads were pressing together, his lips ghosting over your own, asking for permission. Permission that you were happily willing to grant.

You closed that final distance between you, finally feeling Seokjin’s plush lips on your own, and a whimper escaped you, or maybe it was him, or maybe… it was the both of you. You didn’t know, didn’t care. All you cared about right now was the fact that you were actually kissing him, and now that you started, you never wanted to stop.

The kiss turned desperate real quick, passionate, breathing heavily into each other’s mouths, and when his tongue traced the seam of your lips, you eagerly allowed him entrance, his appendage plunging into your mouth to search out your own. The space between you was zilch, the entire line of his hard body pressed against your own soft one.

Your hand moved from his cheek into his hair, and his moved to your hip, holding you against him as you all but devoured each other.

There were tears in your eyes, and once they started falling and wetting Jin’s cheeks, he pulled away in alarm to look at you.

“What’s wrong?” He asked, his voice breathy.

“Nothing.” You shook your head.

“You’re crying.” His fingers came up to wipe away your tears before cupping your cheek.

“I just feel like I don’t deserve this…You.” You leaned into his touch, your eyes fluttering shut.

“That’s not true.” His lips were pressing against your forehead, lingering there. “I want you to do something for me. It will make me happy. Will you?”

“What is it?” You asked softly.

“I want you to forgive yourself, please. It would make me sad to see you continue to hold onto to guilt when there is no need for it. I never blamed you. You thought I did something horrible-“

“But you didn’t…”

“I know, but it doesn’t change the fact that you thought it, and I never let you believe otherwise. This is on me for not telling you the truth. Will you please forgive yourself? Allow yourself happiness, with me?” His free hand moved in search for your own, and when he found it, he intertwined your fingers together.

“I am happy here, with you. I’m happier than I’ve been right now, it’s just going to take me some time to feel like I deserve it, but I’ll get there, and I’ll try my best to forgive myself.” You whispered, squeezing his hand.

He smiled then, a soft tilt of his lips, his eyes full of… Love? “That’s all I ask.” Then, he was kissing you again, and you melted into him, letting out a sigh of content into the kiss.

“Jin…” You murmured against his lips, pressing closer to him. It wasn’t enough. You needed to be as close as possible.

“Hmm?” His hand slipped beneath your pajama shirt, and his palm felt like fire against your back.

“I need you, please.” You rocked against him, and a light moan escaped his lips.

“I’m here. You have me.” He trailed kisses down your neck, and you let out a moan of your own as he kissed a bruise onto your skin, slipping a leg between yours to let you grind against him.

“Jin…” You dragged him back up for a kiss, taking his lower lip between your teeth, making sure it looked just as red and kiss swollen as your own.

“I need to tell you something.”

“What is it, beautiful?” Your heart swelled at the term of endearment falling from his lips, a blush heating up your skin.

“When you said you didn’t realize how much I cared about you… That hit something inside of me because… I was in love with you. Well, I still am. It’s the reason I held onto my hate so long. I hated so passionately, because no matter how much I hated you, a part of me still burned for you. When I learned the truth, it just felt like… I never stopped loving you. I pushed it down because I didn’t want my best friend to think I was only using him to go after you, and I didn’t think you saw me that way… I bottled my feelings up. My crush on Jeremy was a rebound. The reason I put so much into that guy was because I was trying to get over you.” You admitted, watching his face for his reaction, and he looked… shocked.

“You… You were in love with me?” He stumbled out.

“No… not was. I am, still in love with you.” You cupped his cheek.

“I-“ He looked like he was at a loss of words.

“It’s okay, Jin. I just wanted you to know. I don’t need you to say it back.” You said, even though your own words sparked pain inside your chest.

“Y/n… I’ve been in love with you since the day you yelled at my brother for unplugging my playstation mid- battle.” He laughed at the memory, but his tone held nothing but the truth.

“Wait… Are you… Really?” You asked, stunned beyond belief.

“Yes, really.” He tucked a stray hair behind your ear.

“And you still love me… after everything?” Your voice cracked.

“I still love you. I’m always going to love you. Loving you is just… a part of who I am.” His words made you tear up. AGAIN.

Things got frantic after that, this was something you had both denied yourselves for years, and those stupid buttons on his stupid flannel pajama shirt were starting to piss you off and you groaned impatiently. You only managed to get one button open.

“Here, let me help you.” Jin chuckled, replacing your fingers with his own to pop the buttons open on his shirt, making it look so easy, but that didn’t matter. All that mattered was that his glorious golden skin was being revealed to you, exposing his abs and slim waist. Holy shit, this was the first time you actually got to see his body. Well, except for a couple times in high school at the pool without his shirt, and boy, has he been working out since then. It wasn’t over the top, and it didn’t need to be. You weren’t exactly attracted to men with overly bulging muscles or a six pack. This… this was perfect. Then again, Kim Seokjin would be beautiful no matter what.

You raked your fingernails from his chest down to his stomach, and he shivered beneath your touch, but then his hands were moving quickly to sit you up before pulling your pajama shirt over your head, his deft fingers un-clasping your bra before throwing it to the side of the bed, and then he worked on getting your shorts off.

“Jin.” You murmured, and there was heat in his gaze as he let you slip his shirt all the way off.

He kissed you once, and you whimpered as you tried to chase his lips. “Lay down. Let me take of you.”

You listened, moving back to lie your head down against the pillows, and you shifted self consciously as Seokjin’s eyes roved over ever inch of your body.

“Don’t be embarrassed, sweetheart. You’re beautiful. I feel honored I get to see you like this.” He hooked his fingers in your panties before slipping them off of you, surprised to find you already wet from anticipation, for him.

“Jin, please… I need you.” Your tone was desperate, but you didn’t care, and he allowed you to reach for him, dragging him down for a messy kiss. You were addicted to his lips already.

“You will have me, I promise, but… I want take my time with you.” He murmured against your lips before trailing a path of wet kisses down to your neck, a light kiss placed upon the purple bruise he had left on your skin, making you shudder.

He lavished attention to not just one, but both of your breasts, his teeth scraping against your nipple before sucking the bud into his mouth, and you let out a light moan at the attention he was giving you, and now, there were mars of kissed bruises along the expanse of your chest.

He work his way down to your stomach before completely sidelining your core to suck a bruise onto your inner thigh, and you gasped at the sensitivity of being marked down there. You were sure your body was littered with his marks by now. It was unfair, because you wanted to leave your impression on his body too.

“Jin, please…” Your hand came down to comb your fingers through his thick hair, hoping he got the hint.

“Will you be mine, Y/n? Will you belong to me forever?” He pressed a kiss over the mark he just left, and a gush of wetness leaked out of you at his words.

“Yes… Yes, Jin. I’m yours, there’s nothing I want more, and you… You’ll be mine?” You asked, figuring as much, but your heart needed to hear him say it anyway.

“I’ve always been yours, Y/n.” Was his response, and then he was licking a long, wide stripe through your folds, making you gasp out his name, setting your body alight with pleasure as he pressed the flat of his tongue against your clit.

He licked his lips before looking up at you, a smirk plastered across those pillowy lips as he spread your legs for him. “You taste so good, better than I could have ever imagined in my wildest dreams.”

“You dreamed about me?” You blushed.

“So many times… I’ve imagined taming the brat inside of you whenever you gave me an attitude by fucking you so hard that you couldn’t walk straight for days.” He slid a finger through your folds, slicking it with your juices before pressing it inside of you, sliding in with ease from how wet you were.

“Oh god…” You moaned out, desperately pressing your hips into his touch.

“Fuck… You’re soaked. Tell me it’s only for me.” He demanded, but his voice came out desperate.

You would gladly tell him, because it was the truth. No one else had ever gotten you wet this easily. One look at this beautiful man, and you were desperate for him. “It’s you, Jin… Only you.”

“Good girl. My girl.” Your core clenched needily at the growl he let out, and then he was burying his face between your legs as he ate you out so good that you began seeing stars behind your eyes, his tongue working inside of you alongside his finger that was crooking just right, and when he found your g-spot, he abused it relentlessly, his tongue leaving you to suckle at your clit.

“Oh… fuck, Jin… I’m gonna…” You gasped out, pleasure so intense building up inside of you as you held his face against you, and when he let out a deep moan that reverberated through you, you lost it, pellets of your wetness hitting his face, dripping down his cheeks obscenely, your core tightening as your orgasm washed through you.

You panted as you came down from your high, and you let out a needy whine that had you ready to go again from the look of the man on his knees before you. His hair was sex mussed, and his eyes were lust blown, pupils dilated enough to where the brown even looked black, and his cheeks and his chin were shining with your juices. When your eyes drifted downwards, it was to find a large bulge in his sweatpants, making them tent obscenely.

“Jin, please, need you.” Your hand came down to palm at his erection, but before you could, his hand caught your wrist.

“Just a second, baby.” He breathed out harshly, pressing a kiss to the back of your hand. “Trust me, I’d love nothing more than to have your hands on me, but if you touch me right now, I’m going to cum, and that’s not what I want. I need to be inside of you.”

“Yes, please, I want that too. I want you to fuck me, Jin. I need you inside me.” You agreed, needing him like you needed air to breathe.

“Fuck… You’re driving me crazy.” His hands were shaking as he hooked his fingers in the waistband of his sweats, shoving them, along with his boxers down and off of his legs.

Your mouth watered as his erection was exposed to you, and yeah, next time you wanted that horse of a dick inside your mouth. You wanted to taste him. You wouldn’t usually describe a cock as gorgeous… but, his was, and he was so, so hard. The head looked red and angry, stiff and oozing pre cum out of the tip at a steady rate, veins bulging along the underside. No wonder he didn’t want you to touch him. He looked like he was about to blow. He was long, and you were sure he’d be able to hit that spot inside you precisely. He was also a perfect amount of girthy. That thing was going to stretch you out nicely. Fuck, you wanted him inside of you, badly. He would fill you up so good, make you feel whole.

“Are you even going to fit?” You gaped at Seokjin, but fuck, you sure hoped it would because you needed to feel him.

He chuckled in response, hovering over you before leaning down to kiss you, running his slick cock through you folds, driving you positively insane. “It’ll fit. This sweet cunt was made for my cock, don’t you think, sweetheart?”

“Yes, fuck… Yes, Jinnie, my cunt is made for your cock.” You shuddered, throwing your arms around him before dragging him down to bite at his neck. It was your turn to mark up that beautiful skin of his.

“I missed you calling me that.” He groaned as you kissed bruises on his neck, and then the next groan he let out sounded more pained.

“What’s wrong, did I hurt you?” You pulled away from his neck in concern.

“No, no, of course not, I- We might have to wait because I wasn’t even thinking with how badly I wanted you… I don’t have a condom.” He pressed a kiss to your shoulder, and you tilted his chin up with your thumb to get him to look at you.

“It’s okay, Jinnie. We don’t need one, I’m on the pill, and I trust you. So, If you- if you’re okay with it, I am.” You pulled him down for a kiss, your palm cupping his cheek, and you hummed as he kissed you back lovingly.

“I trust you too. Are you sure, Y/n?” He whispered into the kiss, pressing your foreheads together.

“I’m absolutely sure. Never been more sure of anything. I’m sure about everything when it comes to you.” You traced along his jawline with your fingers, in awe that this beautiful man was actually yours. You couldn’t believe that you ever hated him. He was everything you ever wanted.

When his lips found yours again, you drowned in him, and it was also a distraction from the blunt pressure at your entrance, the head of his cock splitting open your walls. It helped that you were still wet from your earlier release, otherwise you weren’t sure if you could take him, the intrusion causing sparks of pain to burst through you. Your pussy was trying to pull him in and force him out at the same time, but once halfway in, he didn’t make anymore movements.

“Are you okay?” He checked in on you, and he was holding his breath, trying to hold himself back.

“I’m okay, Jin. You can keep going.” You ran a hand down his shoulder, gripping onto his bicep, lifting your hips to encourage him.

He took in a shuddering breath as he pressed the rest of the way inside of you, his cock snug inside of you, and he was so big that the tip of him was pressing right up against your cervix. The pain bled in pleasure, the feeling of being full consuming you. Fuck, you loved his cock. You were sure you’d become addicted to it easily.

“Sh-shit, Y/n, so fucking tight… this perect pussy is clinging to me, baby. I’m not going to last long. You feel way too good.” Jin groaned as he watched the sight of his cock being swallowed up by your walls, one of his hands gripping onto the headboard above you, and it sounded like they were going to be charging for the wood when you heard it split.

“It’s okay, Jin… I’m not either. You feel incredible, fill me up so good, I love your cock, baby. I want you to fuck me and fill me up with your cum.” You could practically feel Jin’s cock throb inside of you at your words, and yeah that was definitely the wood cracking when his grip got tighter.

“Fuck, Y/n… You can’t just say things like that. You’re gonna make me cum way too soon.” He growled, taking in a few breaths to distract himself before he was reaching for both of your hands, only to pin them above your head, and then he was dragging his cock out of you slowly until only the head was popped in before thrusting back into you, hard. Your body would have moved up the bed if you weren’t pinned beneath him, completely at his mercy.

“Jin!” You screamed out as his name at the powerful thrust, settling for pulling him closer by hooking your ankles behind him since your hands were held captive above you.

“That’s what you want, Y/n, you want my cum inside of you? Fuck… You’ll look so pretty with a part of me leaking out of this perfect cunt. I’m gonna fill you up so good, give you everything I’ve got.” His words almost sent you over the edge, and when your walls contracted around him, he let out a downright feral sound as he set a rough pace, making good on his promise of fucking you so hard that you actually were pretty sure that you weren’t going to be able to walk straight, his dick repeatedly battering into your g-spot, making you cry out in pure ecstasy.

“Jin, please… I want to touch you, please, let me touch you…” You begged, not caring in the slightest how needy you sounded, but when his grip on your hands left you, you immediately raked your fingers down his back as he fucked into you over and over.

“Harder.” He groaned out, and you didn’t need to be told twice, your fingernails clawing down his back causing the skin to break, drawing a light amount of blood, and it served to make him drive into you borderline animalistic, the headboard smacking into the wall over and over, sounds of skin slapping against skin filling the air as you breathed harshly into each others mouths.

“I- I’m gonna cum.” He panted out, his thumb moving between you to rub at your clit, causing stars to burst behind your eyelids once more.

“Yes, yes… cum for me, Jinnie. Fill me up, please.” You babbled as he buried his face in the crook of your neck, biting down on your skin, leaving an imprint of his teeth behind as he let out a desparate sound of your name, and then he was releasing a full body shudder as his cock throbbed hard inside of you before you were being filled up with the warmth of his cum. It’s what tossed you over the edge with him, holding him in your arms as you chanted his name.

You both were breathing harshly as you came down from your highs, Seokjin being a comfortable weight on top of you, consuming you, his cock still inside of you until it eventually softened, slipping out of you, his release following it, and there really was a lot of it.

Instead of cleaning you up though, Seokjin settled between your knees to gather up his cum before he was pressing it back into you, his fingers pressing it in deep. He then reached into your suitcase to grab you a fresh pair of panties before slipping them onto you, a smirk on his face.

“You want me to walk around like this all day?” You gaped at him, but your voice came out content from being fucked so well.

“Yes, I want you to walk around with my cum inside of you. All day. I want you smelling like me.” He admitted unabashedly, slipping one of his t-shirts over your head. Apparently he wanted you to wear his shirt today too. You were not complaining, you could get down with that.

“Possessive.” You remarked.

“Maybe.” He admited.

“Maybe I like it.” You admitted yourself, tracing your finger along the good sized mark you left on his neck. “I like belonging to you. As long as you belong to me. I can be a bit possessive myself.”

“Like I told you before, I’ve always belonged to you. You’re the only one for me.” He said, and then he was kissing you, just for the sake of it, lips swollen and red from how much they have been fused together, and you would never, ever, tire from it.

He ended up slipping a pair of his boxers on before sliding back into bed and pulling you into his arms. You went happily, nuzzling into his chest. Maybe you could get a nap in after that incredible orgasm.

Or not… Seokjin’s phone started going off. He ignored it with an annoyed groan, only holding you closer. Then, it was your phone that started ringing, making you sigh dramatically as you rolled over to pick it up. It was your best friend.

“What?”

“Now, is that any way to greet your best friend? Hyung didn’t answer. I was calling to see if you guys still wanted to go on the helicopter ride? I mean, is everything all good now? Did you talk to him?” He asked.

“Yeah, I talked to him. We’re good.” You smirked, even though your best friend couldn’t see it over the phone. “What time is the helicopter ride?”

“Well, I thought we could go now.” Jeongguk said happily.

“Now? It’s early.”

“It’s almost noon, dumbass. On vacation.”

“Excuse me, Kook.” You gasped.

“What did you call my girlfriend, JK?”

“GIRLFRIEND?!!” You laughed as you imagined the stunned look on your best friends face. “Hold up-“

“We’ll be down in thirty, bestie, bye.” You hung up the phone with a grin before rolling on top of your boyfriend.

“Girlfriend?” You reiterated Jungkook’s question, gazing down at him.

“That’s right.” He confirmed with a smile of his own.

The high school version of you, before everything went down, squealed in delight. You finally got the man of your dreams. He was really yours. “I can’t believe it. The only guy I ever wrote about in my diary is officially my boyfriend.”

“You wrote about me in your diary?” Seokjin was surprised, and very intrigued.

“Oh- I - Well-“

“I want to read your diary now.”

“Absolutely not.”

“See, all I got out of that, was absolutely.”

“Oh really? You must have missed the part where I said, not.”

“Hmm, no… I don’t think so. Pretty sure you said absolutely.”

“Seokjin.”

“Y/n.” The smile he was giving you was filled with so much adoration and love that it had you melting. Damn it.

“It’s… It’s cringey, Jin. Young me was so cringey.”

“You were young. Weren’t we all?” Your boyfriend chuckled. Boyfriend. You would never get tired of that.

“Please?” He gave you a perfect example of a puppy dog look, and oh great. Now he’s won.

“Fine!” You relented, grabbing one of the pillows to throw it at him.

He gasped, mock offended as he clutched the pillow in his hands. “Did you just challenge me to a pillow fight, Jagiya?”

“What? No. Seokjin… No, don’t give me that look. Ah!” You jumped off the bed, feet landing on the ground as you took off running, and seconds later, you felt a pillow hitting your back.

You stood there for a second, a smirk rising to you lips before turning around slowly, picking up the pillow. Your boyfriend raised a single eyebrow at you. You lifted the pillow like you were gonna throw it, watched his arms shield himself, and then you retreated. He lowered his arms, looked at you, then brought them back up again as you acted like you were going to throw it once more, only to not do it.

“Yah! What are you-“ The pillow hit his face in his distraction, and you threw your arm up in the air in victory.

“Gotcha!” You giggled.

“You wound me, Jagi.” Seokjin placed a hand over his chest, but his smile betrayed his words.

“Will a kiss make it better?” You asked, crawling onto the bed on your knees before sliding into your boyfriend’s lap.

“Hmm, maybe. We should test it out.” His hands settled on your bare hips underneath his t-shirt, leaning in.

You met him halfway, sealing your lips together in a slow kiss, mapping his mouth with your tongue as your fingers came up to muss up his hair some more, a happy sigh leaving him.

Both of your phones pinged with a text. A group text.

‘I hope you guys are getting ready right now.’ - JK

You did start getting ready after that message came through, because you and Seokjin were actually looking really forward to the helicopter ride, and when you met your best friend and his girlfriend in the lobby, Kook’s eyes were bugged out of his head, while Lea just smiled, smug.

You were wondering why they looked like that, and then it clicked. You and Seokjin had matching bruises along your neck, and while you were wearing his t-shirt, his hair clearly gave the look like he was just fucked. You purposely ran your fingers through it before you left to dishevel it. What really threw it over the top, was the slight limp you had when you walked.

“You guys fucked already? You both work fast, holy shit.” Jungkook exclaimed crudely, making Seokjin snort beside you. “And you’re holding hands, aww how cute.”

“Shut up, dumbass.” You repeated his words from earlier, grinning.

He grinned back. “Congratulations, guys. Honestly… I just want you both to be happy. You look good together. Just don’t break eachothers hearts, because then I would be sad.”

“I don’t plan on it.” You and Seokjin both said at the same time, and then you were blushing and giving your boyfriend a dreamy smile.

“Ew, gross.” Jungkook shuddered as if he didn’t act that way with his own girlfriend because he totally did, but he pulled Jin in for a hug, and then you one.

“You smell like my brother, I don’t know if it’s from the shirt or something else. You know what… I don’t want to know. Double ew.” Jungkook crinkled his nose in disgust, and you laughed because, it wasn’t only from the shirt, but what your best friend didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.

Seokjin wrapped an arm around your waist, pulling you into him with a smirk. “Y/n has kept my cum inside of her like a good girl.”

You flushed crimson. Lea choked on nothing, laughing uncontrollably, and Jeongguk blanched, making gagging faces. “Oh, you two are disgusting! I need to… the visual. Oh god, I need to bleach my eyes and unhear this whole conversation somehow. Someone find me a time machine.”

“Oh Kookie, like we haven’t gotten up to similar stuff.” Lea patted her boyfriend’s shoulder.

“That’s different. This is my best friend, and my brother. My brother! I don’t need to hear about anything that has to do with his dick. I’m happy for you guys, I am, but please do not tell me about your sex lives, for the love of god, please!”

You, Seokjin, and Lea were all cracking up, and poor Kook was still pale. “Now I gotta sit here all day knowing that my brothers cum is inside of you. Gross.”

Your best friend forgot all about it during the helicopter flight, taking in all the stunning views that Maui had to offer. It was truly a remarkably beautiful… stunning island. You were truly happy that you were getting to experience this with none other than Kim Seokjin.

Boyfriend, Best friends brother, Ex- enemy, Future husband, yeah that’s right, and the love of your life. Your whole world. Your happiness.

“I love you, Jagiya.” Seokjin reached for your hand as the flight came to an end, fingers fitting together perfectly.

“I love you too, Jinnie.” You smiled, so much so that your cheeks started hurting.

Jungkook was smiling too as he looked at the both of you, looking so in love. He looked at Lea that way, which meant, he knew he didn’t have to worry about his best friend and his brother, knowing that you both would make it. He would have been happy just to have the two of you get along, but this… This was even better. This was the best outcome imaginable, and now, his best friend would become his future sister in law. You would be welcomed into the family with open arms.

Of course, later on that evening as you all watched the sunset on the beach, he was reminded of how gross the two of you were. As Seokjin pulled his t-shirt over his head to get into the water, Jungkook sputtered out his Piña colada as he spotted the raised scratch marks marring his brother’s back.

“Y/n! You attacked my brother.” He started wheezing.

“I didn’t attack him, you idiot! It’s called passionate sex. He asked me to do that specifically. It made him turn into an animal let me tell you, he fucked me so goo-“

“Okay, enough! I’ve heard enough! La la la, I can’t hear you.” He covered his ears with his fingers, making you snicker.

Best couples trip ever.

“Wow,” he adds, glancing at the box. “You moving in or fleeing the country?”

You laugh before you can stop yourself. It comes out lighter than you feel. “Moving in. Unfortunately.”

“Unfortunate for the box,” he says. “Great for the building. I’m Changbin. You want help before gravity wins?”

You pause for just a moment before nodding. He lifts the box easily, holding it at his hip. You follow him up the stairs, trying not to stare but failing right away. He asks which floor, jokes about how stairs build character, and somehow makes the whole thing feel less miserable.

“Yah! We’re neighbors! I live next door,” he says, pointing to the front door one down from yours.

He greets neighbors by name and waves as they pass.

Halfway through unloading, a group of kids comes barreling down the hall, sneakers squeaking.

“Changbin hyung!” one of them yells. “Are you playing soccer today?”

Changbin lights up instantly. “Later,” he promises. “After I help our new neighbor. Same time as yesterday.”

They cheer and run off, and you’re left blinking at him.

“You’re popular,” you say.

He shrugs, a little bashful. “They’re good kids. Way better at soccer than me, honestly.”

You don’t believe him for a second.

Inside your apartment, he stacks the boxes neatly, asks where things should go, and jokes about labeling and how everyone promises to unpack right away but never does. You notice his hands again and the way he laughs with his whole chest. You realize you’re already in trouble—instant crush. No warning.

As he lifts the last box inside, footsteps echo in the hallway. A woman’s voice follows, light and familiar.

“Changbin?”

You freeze.

He turns, smiling softly as a girl steps into your doorway. She’s pretty, relaxed, and clearly comfortable enough to come looking for him. She glances at you, then back at him.

“Oh,” she says. “You’re helping someone move?”

“Yeah,” he replies easily. “She just moved in.”

Something in your chest sinks before you can stop it. Girlfriend, your brain supplies immediately. Of course.

They talk quietly as he sets the box down, and then, without any awkwardness, they step into the apartment next door together. The door closes gently behind them.

Changbin gives you one last wave before disappearing.

You stand alone in your half-unpacked apartment, surrounded by boxes and the echo of his laughter, trying to ignore the tight, unexpected disappointment in your stomach. You tell yourself it’s ridiculous—you just met him.

A few weeks go by, and Changbin stops being just the hot neighbor who helped you move in. He becomes something more dangerous: familiar.

You see him in pieces at first. In the mornings, when you’re rushing out with coffee balanced precariously in one hand and your phone in the other, he’s usually just coming back from a run, hair damp, breathing easy like it didn’t nearly kill you to climb the stairs. He always says hi. Always smiles and waves. Sometimes he asks where you’re sending people this week, like being a travel agent is the most interesting thing in the world.

With your busy schedules, you talk in short bursts. Five minutes in the hallway. A quick chat by the mailboxes. A laugh when the elevator breaks again. It all feels easy. Maybe too easy.

In the afternoons, you see him outside with the neighborhood kids. At first, you just watch from your balcony as he kicks a soccer ball with them, laughing when they gang up on him and pretending to lose. Then one day, he notices you.

“Y/N-ah,” he shouts, pointing up at you. “Come here. We need teams.”

You try to protest. You really do.

It doesn’t work.

Soon you’re out there too, your shoes scuffing the pavement while the kids shout rules that change every half minute. When one of them calls your name without the honorifics, Changbin stops playing.

“Yah,” he says gently but firmly, crouching down. “What do we call her?”

The kid groans. “Noonaaa.”

“Exactly,” Changbin says, grinning at you with pride. You feel something warm twist in your chest.

You start to notice a pattern. Different women come and go, sometimes the same ones. You hear laughter through the walls at night, then see polite distance the next morning. There’s no hand-holding or lingering kisses in the hallway.

The only red flag about him.

You tell yourself you’re fine with that. After all, you’re just neighbors. Friends, maybe. Still, every time he smiles at you, every time he chooses to sit next to you on the steps while the kids play, every time he casually exists in your orbit, you feel it settle deeper.

The first time it happens, you think you’re imagining it.

It’s late, Seoul humming softly outside, when a sound slips through the shared wall—laughter first, then a voice that obviously isn’t his. You freeze in bed, staring at the ceiling, heart stuttering. The walls are thin. You knew that. Still, your face burns as the sounds shift, quieter but unmistakable. You turn the volume up on the YouTube video you’re watching, willing it to disappear.

The second time, you recognize the pattern.

Laughing. Then later, the low moans bleeding through the drywall, followed by breathy noises you absolutely do not want to be hearing from your neighbor’s lovers. You shove a pillow over your head, mortified, annoyed at yourself for feeling annoyed. You tell yourself it’s none of your business. You tell yourself you don’t care.

Weeks go by, turning it into a montage you never wanted. Some nights it’s brief. Other nights it drags on, the rhythm so familiar your stomach twists before you realize it. You lie there, jaw clenched, feeling ridiculous—jealous of someone you never had, embarrassed for listening even though you tell yourself you’re not.

The worst part isn’t the noise.

It’s the mornings after. Changbin in the hallway, with a soft smile, and his hood pulled up. Joking like nothing echoed through your wall hours ago. Like you didn’t lie awake, annoyed now—not at him, not really, but at yourself for letting it get under your skin.

By the time it happens again, you don’t blush.

You sigh, roll over, and think, irritated and sharp:

Yeah. I get it.

You’re awake before it starts. 

You hear the familiar sound of his bedroom door closing, the soft murmur of voices, and instead of heat creeping up your neck, you feel resigned. You turn onto your side, pulling the blanket higher, and listen. It’s rhythmic, consistent, unmistakable. You count the beats, your heart beating in time with the headboard thumping against the wall.

Then you hear high-pitched moans. You wonder if she’s faking it or if he’s really that good. You sigh and turn onto your other side.

The moans keep going, getting louder and more dramatic. You roll your eyes and pull the pillow over your head, hoping it will block out the noise.

Suddenly, there’s a pause. Silence. Then you hear a muffled, "Changbin, oh my god" and you wince. He answers, his voice low: "Shh." The moans start again, even louder. You throw your pillow across the room in frustration. "Seriously?"

By the time you hear it again, you’ve had enough.

It’s 11:30 on a Wednesday, your alarm is set obscenely early, and your patience is already worn thin by weeks of this. You stare at the clock, then the wall, then sit up with a sharp exhale.

Another thump. Another moan.

That’s it.

You shove your feet into slippers, throw on a hoodie, and march out of your apartment before you can overthink it. You stop in front of his door, hesitate for half a second, then knock. Harder than you mean to.

The door opens a few moments later, and your brain immediately short-circuits.

Changbin stands there, shirtless, hair messy, in baggy sweats. Your eyes betray you, flicking once—chest, collarbones, the faint sheen of sweat—before you snap them back up to his face, mortified.

“Oh,” he says, blinking in surprise. “Hey.”

You swallow. “Hi. Sorry. I—I really hate to do this, but…” Once you start, the words just come out. “The walls are really thin, and it’s late, and I’ve been hearing…everything. For weeks. Could you maybe keep it down?”

Your face is on fire. You can’t believe this is your life.

Changbin’s expression shifts immediately. His eyes widen slightly.

“Oh,” he says again, softer this time. “I’m really sorry. I didn’t realize it was carrying that much.”

He glances back over his shoulder, then back at you. “That’s on me. I’ll fix it. Promise.”

Relief washes over you so quickly that it almost makes you dizzy. “Thank you,” you say right away. “I’m really not trying to be—”

“No, you’re totally right,” he interrupts gently. “I should’ve been more aware. Thanks for telling me.”

He smiles at you and steps back. “Get some sleep, yeah?”

You nod, mumble a goodnight, and turn to leave before your heart can embarrass you further. As you walk back to your apartment, the hallway feels quieter. Lighter.

Changbin watches you before closing his door softly.

The wall stays silent.

You think it’s finished.

The next morning, you step into the hallway with your bag over your shoulder, still tired but relieved. The silence lasted. You slept. You’re almost over it.

“Hey.”

The voice is sharp and accusing.

You turn, and there she is—the girl from last night. One you’d seen before. Up close, she looks irritated more than intimidating, arms crossed tight against her chest, eyes already narrowed at you.

“You,” she says, pointing like she’s confirming something she already decided. “You’re the one who knocked.”

Your stomach drops. “I—”

“You ruined my night,” she cuts in, words tumbling fast now. “Do you know we didn’t even finish because of you? He completely lost the mood. I mean, who does that? It was so embarrassing.”

You stare at her, stunned. Heat crawls up your neck, your brain scrambling for something—anything—to say. “I just asked him to keep it down,” you manage weakly. “The walls are—”

“Oh, please,” she scoffs. “It’s an apartment building. What did you expect—silence?”

Before you can respond, the door opens.

Changbin steps out of his apartment, now fully dressed, hair still a little messy, but his expression immediately sharpens when he takes in the scene. His eyes flick to you first, then back to her.

“What are you doing? Stop,” he says, calm but unmistakably firm.

She whirls on him. “Are you serious right now? She embarrassed me—”

“No,” he interrupts, voice steady. “You’re embarrassing yourself.”

He doesn’t sound angry, but there’s a clear line in his voice. You can feel it between them.

“She didn’t do anything wrong,” he continues. “We were too loud. She asked politely. End of story.”

The girl splutters, clearly not used to this. “So you’re just kicking me out?”

“I’m asking you to stop,” Changbin corrects, stepping closer to her—not aggressive, just unmovable. “And don’t talk to my neighbor like that.”

The hallway goes quiet. After a beat, she huffs, bag swinging, and storms past you without another word.

Changbin watches her go, then exhales softly and turns to you. His expression gentles immediately.

“I’m really sorry,” he says. “You didn’t deserve that.”

You shake your head, still a little stunned. “I didn’t mean to cause problems.”

“You didn’t,” he says firmly. “I did.”

There’s a pause. The air between you feels heavier now—not uncomfortable, just real. He gives you a small, apologetic smile.

“…You okay?”

You nod, even though your heart is still racing.

Changbin hesitates instead of immediately going back inside.

He rubs a hand over the back of his neck, gaze drifting down the hallway like he’s making sure she’s really gone. When he looks back at you, there’s something more serious in his expression than you’ve ever seen before.

“I should probably explain,” he says quietly.

You blink. “You don’t have to. Really. It’s not my business.”

“I know,” he replies right away. “But…I consider you a friend. And I don’t want you thinking I’m just an asshole.”

That makes you laugh softly despite yourself. “I wasn’t.”

He leans against the wall, arms loosely crossed, posture relaxed, but his voice thoughtful. “I don’t do relationships,” he says again, like he’s testing the words. “Not because I don’t like people. Or because I’m scared of commitment in the cliché way.”

You stay quiet, giving him space.

“My parents divorced when I was younger,” he continues. “Bad one. Lots of promises, lots of love talk, and then suddenly they couldn’t even be in the same room. Watching that mess up two people who were so sure…it broke the illusion for me.”

You open your mouth, instinctively wanting to soften it for him. “Changbin—”

“I know,” he says gently, shaking his head. “People fall in love and stay together. I’m not saying it never works.” He pauses. “I just don’t think romantic love is what people think it is. I think it’s something they confuse with comfort, or habit, or timing.”

His eyes flick to you, careful. “And I don’t want to promise something I don’t believe in.”

The hallway is quiet again, but this silence feels different. It feels intentional.

You nod slowly. “That actually makes sense.”

He smiles a little, relieved. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” you say. “Still not my business, though.”

He chuckles at that, tension easing. “Fair.”

For a moment, neither of you moves. Then Changbin straightens, giving you that familiar, easy smile again.

“Thanks for listening,” he says. “And, uh…thanks for being cool about last night. Seriously.”

You watch him head back into his apartment, the door closing quietly behind him.

This time, your chest feels tight for a different reason. Knowing him better somehow makes wanting him both harder and riskier than before.

For the next few days, Changbin’s words sit with you like something unfinished.

They follow you on the subway, pressed between strangers, replay in your head while you answer emails and build itineraries for honeymoons and anniversaries. You keep thinking about the way he said it—not bitter, not angry. Just…resolved. Like he’d already closed a door and learned how to live comfortably without ever checking if it might open again.

You believe in love. You always have.

Not in the fairytale way, not in destiny or soulmates written in the stars, but in the weight of it. The way it settles in your chest. The way it’s emotional and physical all at once, tangled and messy and real. If love were just a chemical cocktail, you think, then heartbreak wouldn’t feel like grief. It wouldn’t hollow people out. It wouldn’t linger the way it does.

You know heartbreak because you loved.

That’s the part Changbin is missing.

You catch yourself watching him differently now: how patient he is with the kids, how he listens when you talk, how careful he is with other people’s feelings, even when he refuses to offer them more. Someone like that doesn’t lack depth. He lacks belief.

Belief can be challenged.

The idea forms slowly, then all at once: not a confession, not a grand gesture. You’re not going to corner him or try to change him overnight. You’re smarter than that. This isn’t about proving him wrong. It’s about showing him what love looks like when it’s quiet, consistent, and chosen.

You’ll start small. Conversations. Time. Moments that aren’t charged, just honest. Let him see that love isn’t confusion or habit. It’s showing up. It’s care without expectation.

You’re not trying to make him fall in love with you.

You’re trying to make him believe it exists.

And if your heart has to be involved for that to happen, well—

You already knew this wasn’t going to be safe.

You show up at Changbin’s door on a Saturday morning armed like you’re about to defend a thesis.

Binder tucked under one arm. Loose papers threatening to escape. A tote bag bulging suspiciously. You knock once, then adjust your grip, already rehearsing your opening line.

The door opens.

Changbin blinks at you. “Hey—”

You immediately hold up the binder. “I have a plan.”

He looks from your face to the binder, then down at the tote bag. “Should I be scared?”

“No,” you say quickly. “Actually, yes. But in a good way.”

That makes him laugh, the soft, surprised kind. He steps aside automatically. “Do you want to come in, or are you staging some kind of intervention in the hallway?”

You march past him, already unzipping the tote bag and spreading its contents across his kitchen counter like you’re revealing evidence in court.

“Okay,” you say, breathless. “So. You said you don’t believe in romantic love. I’ve thought about it extensively, and you’re wrong.”

Changbin leans against the counter, arms crossed, thoroughly entertained. “Wow. Not even easing into it.”

You flip open the binder. It’s color-coded.

“This,” you say, tapping the first tab, “is a structured itinerary designed to prove that love is not just chemical confusion. Section one: experiences. Museums, long walks, shared meals—”

He peers over. “Is this a flyer for the National Museum of Korea?”

“Yes.”

“And is it laminated?”

“Yes,” you repeat firmly. “Because love is about preservation.”

He snorts. “I like that you committed to the bit.”

You wave him off. “Please focus.”

You flip to another page. “Section two: media. Movies. Carefully curated. No toxic romances, no tragic misunderstandings that could reinforce your point. Emotional intimacy. Growth arcs.”

He reads a title. “You put Pride & Prejudice on here.”

“Obviously.”

“That movie ruins people.”

“Exactly,” you say triumphantly. “Why would it ruin people if love wasn’t real?”

Changbin laughs again, shaking his head. “Is this a debate or a hostage situation?”

“Both,” you say. “But friendly.”

You’re too excited to notice the way his teasing slowly softens into something quieter, more attentive. He lets you talk about emotional permanence, about heartbreak, about how love is an action, not a promise. He makes small jokes, tries to derail you, but you just barrel forward, glowing with purpose.

When you finally stop, breathless, he’s smiling—not amused now, just thoughtful.

“So,” he says gently. “You made all this for me?”

You blink, suddenly aware of how ridiculous you look standing in his kitchen with a binder full of feelings disguised as logic.

“…Yes.”

Changbin exhales a soft laugh. “You’re incredible,” he says, and this time there’s no joke attached.

The moment doesn’t last forever.

Changbin’s smile fades just a little, twisting into something gentler. Careful. Skeptical, but kind. Like he’s choosing his words so they won’t bruise.

“This is…a lot,” he says softly, tapping the edge of the binder. “And it’s sweet. Really. But I still don’t think—”

“Changbin,” you interrupt, already shaking your head. “You think too much. That’s the problem.”

He laughs under his breath. “You’re saying that to a man?”

“Forget about gender,” you shoot back.

He raises his hands in surrender. “Okay, okay. But believing in love because of museums and movies feels optimistic.”

“It’s not about the museums,” you argue, stepping closer, animated. “It’s about shared experiences. About choosing to care. You already do that—you just refuse to call it love.”

“That’s different,” he says gently. “I care about people. Kids. I just don’t think romance is anything more than—”

“—chemicals,” you finish for him, rolling your eyes.

You go back and forth like this, voices calm but insistent, neither of you angry. He’s respectful, thoughtful, and frustratingly reasonable. And you can feel him slipping back into that emotional distance you hate—the polite wall he keeps up so no one gets hurt.

So you sigh and pull out the final card.

“Fine,” you say, flipping to the very last page in the binder. “Do it as a favor.”

He blinks. “A favor.”

“Yes,” you say, nodding seriously. “For me. For the weeks I had to lie in bed, listening to your…escapades. For my trauma.”

His mouth opens. Closes.

“That’s—” He laughs, incredulous. “That’s not fair.”

“Oh, it absolutely is,” you say sweetly. “I’m not asking you to change your worldview. I’m asking you to follow an itinerary. Museums. Movies. Conversations. That’s it.”

He studies you for a long moment, searching your face for something—pressure, expectation, a trap. You give him none of it. Just hopeful stubbornness.

Finally, he exhales, rubbing his jaw.

“You’re impossible.”

You grin. “You already knew that.”

He glances at the binder again, then back at you. “If I do this,” he says carefully, “it doesn’t mean I’ll believe in love at the end.”

“I know,” you say, softer now. “I just want you to try.”

Another pause. Then, reluctantly, fondly, Changbin nods.

“Okay,” he says. “I’ll do it. For you.”

Your heart leaps, ridiculous and triumphant.

You don’t notice it yet—but that’s already the most dangerous thing he’s said.

You’re sprawled on Changbin’s living room floor with your binder open between you like it’s sacred text.

“This,” you say, pointing dramatically, “is where you confuse lust with love.”

Changbin snorts from the couch. “Already accusing me. We’re five minutes in.”

“You said romantic love is just chemicals,” you continue, undeterred. “Lust is chemicals. Dopamine. Adrenaline. That whole mess.”

“And love isn’t?” he asks, raising an eyebrow. “Oxytocin doesn’t exist now?”

“It exists,” you say, sitting up straighter. “But love stays. Lust shows up, wrecks your sleep schedule, and leaves through the fire exit.”

He laughs. “Wow. That’s harsh.”

“You’ve literally demonstrated this for weeks,” you say, gesturing vaguely toward the shared wall.

“Ouch,” he says, hand to his chest. “Attacked in my own home.”

You grin. “See? Lust jokes don’t hurt. Love arguments do.”

He leans forward, elbows on his knees. “Okay, then explain heartbreak. If love is so real, why does it end so badly so often?”

You don’t hesitate. “Because it mattered.”

He pauses. You see it land.

“If it was just chemicals,” you go on, softer now, “people wouldn’t grieve it like a death. You don’t mourn caffeine withdrawal for years.”

“That depends,” he mutters. “Have you talked to me before coffee?”

You throw a pillow at him. He catches it easily, laughing, but his expression shifts to thoughtful again.

“So you’re saying,” he says slowly, “lust is instinct, love is choice?”

“Yes,” you say immediately. “Choice. Action. Staying when it’s inconvenient. You already do that with everyone who lives here except yourself.”

He looks at you for a long moment. “That’s unfair.”

You shrug. “Truth usually is.”

Silence settles—not awkward, just full. Then he smiles, small and genuine.

“You know,” he says, “for someone arguing for love, you’re very aggressive about it.”

“Passion,” you correct. “Another thing you confuse.”

He laughs, shaking his head, and for a second it feels easy. Too easy. Like something is quietly shifting under the jokes.

Changbin flips the binder closed with one finger, like he’s drawing a line in the sand.

“Okay,” he says, sitting back. “My turn.”

You narrow your eyes. “I knew this was coming.”

He smiles, slow and thoughtful. “If love is real—if it’s more than chemicals and habit—why does it fade? Why do people wake up one day and feel nothing? My parents didn’t stop choosing each other all at once. It just drained out.”

The room goes quiet.

For the first time tonight, you don’t immediately answer. You blink, mouth opening, then closing again. He watches you carefully—not smug, not triumphant. Just curious. Waiting.

You exhale, then sit cross-legged, grounding yourself.

“Okay,” you say slowly. “That’s a good question.”

He lifts an eyebrow. “High praise.”

You ignore that. “Love doesn’t fade because it was fake. It fades when people stop protecting it.”

He waits for you to continue.

“It’s like language,” you say, seeing him not immediately rejecting the idea. “If you grow up bilingual and stop speaking one language, it doesn’t mean it never existed. It just means you stopped practicing. Love needs attention. Maintenance. Effort. When people assume it should survive on memory alone, it starves.”

Changbin doesn’t interrupt.

“Your parents didn’t fall out of love,” you finish quietly. “They stopped feeding it.”

Silence stretches.

Changbin looks away, jaw tight, eyes unfocused like he’s somewhere else entirely. When he looks back at you, his teasing is gone.

“That’s not fair,” he says again, but this time it’s softer. “You’re not supposed to have an answer for that.”

You shrug, gentler now. “You asked.”

He lets out a slow breath, leaning back against the couch. “I hate that that makes sense.”

You smile faintly. “You don’t hate it. You’re scared of it.”

He doesn’t deny it.

The moment lingers—quiet, heavy, unfinished—until a knock cuts through it.

Changbin glances at the door, then at his phone on the table. He taps the screen, and the time lights up.

“Oh,” he says. “…Right.”

You don’t need him to explain. You’re already reaching for your binder, stacking papers with exaggerated calm.

“It’s fine,” you say lightly. “Your chemistry experiment has arrived.”

He winces. “You don’t have to—”

“I absolutely do,” you reply, sliding everything back into your tote. “Can’t interrupt your ongoing research.”

He laughs, rubbing the back of his neck. “I swear the timing just—”

“—is impeccable?” you finish, grinning. “Tragic, really.”

The knock comes again. You’re already on your feet.

“I’ll get it,” you say, breezing past him before he can stop you.

You open the door to find her standing there—one you haven’t seen before. Pretty, put together, clearly expecting a very different scene. Her eyes flick past you, confused.

“Oh—” she starts.

You smile warmly. “Hi! I’m his neighbor.”

Her confusion deepens. “Neighbor?”

“Yep,” you say cheerfully. “We were just…debating.”

Changbin groans softly behind you. “Please don’t say it like that.”

You glance back at him, amused. “Love versus lust. Very academic.”

The girl blinks.

You step aside, grabbing your bag. “Anyway, have fun. Walls are thin,” you add, sing-song sweet, then look at Changbin. “Remember—moderate volume. For science.”

He laughs despite himself. “You’re evil.”

“Convincingly loving,” you correct.

As you pass him, your fingers brush his arm—unintentional, fleeting. His smile falters for just a second.

You don’t look back as you head down the hall, heart doing something inconvenient in your chest.

Behind you, the door closes.

Movie night turns out to be a terrible idea.

Not because the rom-com is bad—honestly, it’s doing its job just fine—but because Changbin cannot shut up.

Five minutes in, he leans over and whispers, “Statistically, there’s no way she trips into his arms again.”

You shove popcorn into his mouth without looking. “Chew. Quietly.”

He chews loudly on purpose.

On screen, the leads make eye contact in the rain.

“Oh come on,” Changbin mutters. “If that were real life, someone would be getting pneumonia.”

You hiss his name. He grins.

Another dramatic pause. Swelling music. The almost-kiss.

He gasps dramatically. “Wait, is this the scene where they misunderstand each other because no one communicates like an adult?”

You grab a fistful of popcorn and stuff it into his mouth harder this time. “If you ruin this for me—”

He muffles, “Mmph. Aggressive affection. Interesting love language.”

An elderly woman in front of you slowly turns around. Her glare could curdle milk.

“Shhh,” she says, deadly serious.

Changbin straightens instantly. “Sorry, ma’am.”

She turns back.

He leans toward you again, whispering, “See? Even she believes in love. That look was passion.”

You snort despite yourself. “You’re impossible.”

He steals popcorn from your bucket. “Yet here I am. On a date.”

“This is not a date.”

“Sure,” he says lightly, eyes on the screen. “Then stop smiling.”

You do. Immediately. Obviously.

Ten seconds later, you’re smiling again.

While you’re focused on the screen, Changbin isn’t.

He tells himself he is. He tells himself he’s watching the plot unravel, the predictable arc, the inevitable confession he’s already complained about twice. But his eyes keep drifting sideways, betraying him.

You’re leaning forward slightly, chin resting on your knuckles, eyes bright with focus. The glow from the screen softens your face, catches on your lashes. You smile at something small and earnest on-screen, like you believe in it completely.

Something twists in his chest.

It’s brief. Sharp enough that he notices, but quiet enough that he can dismiss it just as fast. He exhales through his nose and leans back, crossing his arms like that might contain it.

Friendly affection, he tells himself.

That’s all this is.

You’re his neighbor. His debate opponent. The only person who’s ever brought a binder into his apartment with the sole purpose of dismantling his worldview. Of course, he likes you. Anyone would. You’re funny. Passionate. Annoyingly convincing.

That doesn’t mean anything.

Still, his gaze flicks back to you when you laugh softly at a joke in the movie, unguarded and warm. He notices the way you tuck your hair behind your ear without thinking. The way your mouth curves when you’re fully absorbed in something you love.

He swallows.

You’re pretty, he thinks, then immediately corrects himself.

No. You’re beautiful.

The realization lands heavier than he expects. He shifts in his seat, jaw tightening, forcing his eyes back to the screen just as the characters on-screen finally kiss.

“Unrealistic,” he mutters automatically, more to ground himself than to tease.

You don’t hear him. You’re too busy smiling.

And that feeling in his chest—he doesn’t name it. He presses it down, buries it under logic and habit and old conclusions.

But it lingers anyway.

Quiet. Stubborn.

Waiting for him to slip up.

The museum trip is your idea. Obviously.

You march Changbin through the entrance like you’re leading a field trip, pamphlets already in hand. “Okay,” you announce, “today’s theme is Love as Artistic Motivation.”

He squints at the banner overhead. “I thought today’s theme was ‘I get dragged places against my will.’”

“Same thing,” you say brightly.

You start with classical paintings: lovers frozen mid-glance, tragic embraces, dramatic yearning. Changbin tilts his head at one canvas, arms crossed.

“See,” he says, “this guy looks miserable. That’s not love. That’s bad communication.”

“That,” you reply, pointing, “is devotion.”

“That,” he counters, pointing right back, “is neck pain.”

You move on to sculptures. Marble bodies leaning into each other, hands eternally inches apart.

“Explain this,” you say triumphantly.

He circles one slowly. “Okay, but imagine holding that pose forever. My arms would fall off. Romance ruined.”

You groan. “You’re impossible.”

He grins. “You love it.”

You pause. “Don’t say that.”

He raises his hands. “Friendly affection.”

In the modern art wing, you stop in front of an abstract piece—chaotic colors, overlapping shapes.

Changbin studies it. “This looks like what you described heartbreak feels like.”

You blink. “Okay, rude, but also accurate. I’ll be sure to tell my therapist you’re available for guest lectures.”

You read plaques aloud with dramatic flair. He pretends to yawn. You threaten him with the pamphlet. At one point, he catches you staring a little too long at a painting of two people dancing, faces soft, unaware of the world.

“You’re imagining us in that one, aren’t you?” he teases.

You scoff. “Please. That guy’s posture is terrible.”

But you don’t move on right away.

By the time you exit through the gift shop—him holding a postcard you forced on him “for reference,” you buzzing with victory—he sighs.

“I still don’t believe in romantic love,” he says.

You smile, satisfied anyway. “You don’t have to. Art already does.”

He doesn’t argue.

You’re still basking in your artistic victory lap when it happens.

You’re standing a little too close to Changbin, both of you arguing about whether a painting is “yearning” or “emotional constipation”, when an elderly couple shuffles up beside you. They’re holding hands, matching hats, the whole lethal combo.

“So sweet,” the old woman says warmly. “Young love.”

You and Changbin freeze.

“Oh—no,” you say at the exact same time he says, “We’re not—”

“—together,” you both finish, overlapping again.

The couple beams harder.

“Oh, you remind us of us,” the old man says, squeezing his wife’s hand. “Always bickering.”

“We fought all the time,” the woman adds cheerfully. “Still do.”

“Sixty years,” the man says proudly.

Changbin chokes. “Sixty?”

“Married at twenty-two,” she continues. “Everyone said love wouldn’t last. Look at us now.”

You and Changbin exchange a look—pure panic, mirrored perfectly.

“That’s amazing,” you manage.

“You’ll see,” she says knowingly, patting your arm. “You’re already halfway there.”

Changbin bows so fast he nearly throws his back out. “Thank you, but we’re really just friends.”

“Yes, yes,” the woman says, waving him off. “That’s how it starts.”

They shuffle away, still cooing.

The silence afterward is deafening.

You bow politely in their direction, then turn to Changbin, eyes gleaming. “Sixty years.”

He groans. “Absolutely not.”

“Exhibit A,” you say, pointing after the couple. “Love. Real. Durable.”

“That’s survivor bias,” he mutters.

“You’re just scared,” you sing.

He sighs, rubbing his face. “Why are strangers emotionally attacking me today?”

You grin as you walk on. “Because love is persistent.”

Behind you, Changbin shakes his head, but he doesn’t argue.

And you count that as another win.

You’re still mid-argument by the time you reach the apartment complex.

“Sixty years,” you repeat, jabbing the elevator button like it personally offended you. “That’s not a fluke. That’s commitment.”

“That’s endurance,” Changbin counters, stepping in beside you. “Very different skill set.”

The elevator dings, mercifully saving you from yourselves. You’re both grinning now, the fight purely recreational.

His phone rings halfway down the hall.

Changbin checks the screen. “Tattoo shop.”

You gesture grandly. “Put it on speaker. Let me hear more evidence that I’m right. If someone’s getting their ex’s name covered, that’s not heartbreak—it’s asset protection.”

He answers anyway. “Yeah?”

A pause. Then his mouth twists.

“…A name?” He exhales. “How big?” Another pause. “Mm. Yeah. Classic.”

He hangs up and looks at you like he’s been handed a winning argument.

“You called it,” he says. “Someone wants their ex’s name covered up. Love isn’t real. It’s a bad decision with a budget.”

You scoff. “Wrong.”

“Oh?” He crosses his arms. “Convince me.”

“They loved hard,” you say immediately. “Hard enough to put it on their body. You don’t permanently mark yourself over something fake.”

“Or,” he says, “they were young and impulsive.”

“And now they’re hurting,” you shoot back. “Because it mattered. If love wasn’t real, breakups wouldn’t cost money.”

He laughs despite himself. “That’s the worst argument you’ve made.”

“It’s also flawless,” you insist. “No one gets a cover-up for a casual crush.”

Changbin slows outside his door, considering it. “Still seems inefficient.”

“Love isn’t efficient,” you say. “It’s meaningful.”

He opens his door, shaking his head. “You’re exhausting.”

“You’re welcome.”

He pauses before stepping inside. “Same time tomorrow?”

Your heart jumps, but you keep your tone light. “Obviously. You still owe me movie number three.”

He smiles, easy and warm, and disappears into his apartment.

You linger in the hallway a second longer than necessary, keys cold in your hand, watching Changbin disappear into his apartment.

The door closes with a soft click.

And that’s when it hits you.

This isn’t just a crush anymore. It’s not just banter, stubborn debates, or proving a point. It’s the way you look for him without meaning to. The way your chest feels lighter when he laughs and heavier when he doesn’t. The way you keep building arguments for love that sound suspiciously like confessions.

That realization scares you enough that you finally turn away.

Inside your apartment, the silence greets you like an accusation. You lean back against the door, eyes shut, heart doing something reckless.

Don’t, you tell yourself.

He warned you. He drew the line. You’re the one choosing to walk closer.

Next door, Changbin drops onto his couch like gravity finally remembered him.

He stares at the ceiling for a beat, exhales, then pulls out his phone—meaning to distract himself, to scroll, to reset. Instead, he opens his camera roll.

Museum photos. Abstract art. Sculptures. A blurry shot of a plaque he definitely doesn’t remember reading. He swipes idly, then stops.

There you are.

Laughing mid-argument, eyes bright, hand frozen in a dramatic gesture. Another one: you squinting at a painting, head tilted, completely absorbed. He doesn’t remember taking them. He remembers wanting to.

Changbin swallows.

He tells himself it’s nothing. Familiarity. Comfort. He tells himself a lot of things.

Still, his thumb hovers, then goes back. Lingers. Zooms in without permission.

“Idiot,” he mutters, locking the phone and tossing it aside.

He stares at the ceiling again, chest tight in a way that feels suspiciously like the thing he doesn’t believe in.

That night, on either side of the wall, you both lie awake longer than usual.

And neither of you is ready to admit that something has already started.

And then things change.

A text pushed back an hour. Then another one canceled entirely.

Sorry—shop’s busy.

Rain check?

Next week for sure.

Next week never comes.

You still see him, technically. In passing. A flash of a black T-shirt on the stairwell. The sound of his door opening and closing at odd hours. Laughter bleeds through the wall again. Different voices. Familiar pattern.

Changbin buries himself.

In work first. You hear about it from neighbors before you hear it from him—late nights at the tattoo shop, double bookings, cover-ups stacked back to back. He looks more tired when you do catch a glimpse, shadows under his eyes, smile still there but thinner. Polite. Distant.

The women come back.

You don’t need proof. You recognize the cadence now. You sit on your bed staring at the wall, jaw tight, heart doing something stupid and bruised.

You tell yourself it’s fine. This is exactly what you knew would happen. He said he doesn’t do relationships. He didn’t promise you anything. You were the one who brought binders and belief into his apartment like a fool.

Still, it hurts.

And next door, Changbin knows exactly what he’s doing.

He stays late on purpose. Says yes when he should say no. Lets distraction pile up until there’s no room left to think. When he’s alone, the photos on his phone feel too loud. When he’s not, the silence afterward feels worse.

He calls it coping.

He calls it habits.

He calls it anything but what it is.

Avoidance.

Because every time he thinks about you—laughing in the museum, arguing on his floor, looking at him like love is something he could still learn—his chest tightens in a way that scares him more than loneliness ever has.

So he runs.

The problem starts with one drink.

Then another.

Then the third, which you absolutely did not need but finished anyway because your thoughts were loud and your apartment was too quiet. The wall stays silent tonight.

You check your phone.

Working late, he’d said earlier.

You hear a thud from next door.

You laugh into your glass, humorless. “Liar,” you tell the room.

By the time you slip on your shoes, you’ve decided this is less a bad idea and more a necessary confrontation. Liquid courage counts as courage. Probably.

You knock on his door harder than you mean to.

Nothing.

You knock again, swaying slightly. “Changbin,” you call, muffled by the wood. “Open up. I know you’re in there.”

There’s a pause. Then the door opens.

Changbin blinks at you, startled. He’s fully dressed, hair soft and undone, the glow of the TV spilling out behind him. The sound is low—some late-night documentary murmuring calmly about marine life or history or anything other than a rom-com.

“Oh,” he says. “Hey.”

You stare at him, then past him. At the couch. The blanket.

“You’re not at work,” you say flatly.

He hesitates just long enough. “I got home early.”

You laugh, sharp and tipsy. “Funny. You couldn’t come over early. Or text. Or—” You gesture vaguely between your apartments. “Exist.”

Changbin’s expression tightens, guilt flashing before he smooths it away. “You’ve been drinking.”

“Congratulations,” you say. “You still have eyes.”

He steps aside automatically. “Come in before you fall over.”

“I’m not—” You stumble slightly. “Fine. Maybe I am.”

You walk past him, pointing accusingly as you go. “You’ve been avoiding me.”

He closes the door softly, like volume control matters. “I haven’t.”

“Oh, please,” you scoff, turning on him. “You canceled movies. Museums. Arguments. Lunch. You disappeared into work and random women like it’s a full-time job.”

He winces. “That’s not fair.”

You laugh again, voice wobbling now. “Neither is ghosting your friend.”

Silence.

The TV hums quietly behind you.

Changbin exhales slowly, rubbing his face. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

“But you did,” you say, quieter now. “So congrats. Very efficient.”

He runs a hand through his hair, pacing once like he’s trying to bleed the tension out of his body.

“I didn’t ask for this,” he says carefully at first. Too carefully. “I didn’t ask you to insert yourself into my life and start trying to fix me.”

The word lands harder than anything he’s said tonight.

You straighten, blinking. “I wasn’t fixing you. I was helping.”

He lets out a short laugh, incredulous. “By what? Giving me homework? Debates? A syllabus on how to feel?”

“Yes,” you snap back, stepping closer. “Because you shut yourself off, Changbin. You pretend you’re fine, but you’re terrified of wanting something real.”

“That’s not true,” he says quickly.

“It is,” you insist. “And I didn’t do it for fun. I did it because I care about you.”

Something in his face shifts at that—panic, maybe—but it hardens just as fast.

“I don’t need help,” he says, louder now. “I didn’t ask to be your project.”

Your chest tightens. “You think this was a project?”

“What else was it?” he fires back. “You deciding I’m broken because I don’t want the same things you do?”

“I never said you were broken,” you say, voice shaking now. “I said you were scared.”

He stops pacing and looks at you, jaw clenched.

“I’m happy,” he says, voice rising despite himself. “I like my life. I like my work. I like not promising things I can’t keep. I like not waking up one day and realizing I ruined someone because I tried to believe in something I don’t.”

The words hit like glass.

“Then why run?” you ask softly. “Why avoid me?”

He opens his mouth, then closes it.

Because the answer is standing right in front of him, eyes too bright, heart too open. Because you make things feel real in a way he doesn’t know how to control.

Instead, he says, “Because you don’t listen.”

You laugh, hollow. “I listened to everything you said. I just didn’t agree.”

Silence crashes between you, heavy and messy and full of everything neither of you wants to admit.

The TV keeps murmuring uselessly in the background.

His frustration finally snaps.

“Maybe this isn’t about love at all,” Changbin says, voice sharper now, words coming faster. “Maybe you’re just…jealous.”

It’s tossed out casually at first like a theory, like he’s testing it in the air between you.

“Because it kind of feels like you like me,” he adds, shrugging like it’s no big deal. “And you don’t like that I don’t—”

The room goes silent.

Your breath catches so hard it’s embarrassing. You stare at him, and whatever expression crosses your face gives you away instantly. There’s no covering it. No joke. No argument ready.

Changbin freezes. “Oh,” he says quietly.

The realization hits him all at once, crashing straight through his defenses. His jaw slackens, chest tight, eyes searching your face like he’s hoping he’s wrong.

“Wait,” he says, panic creeping in. “I didn’t mean it like that. I shouldn’t have—”

You step back. “Don’t,” you say, voice trembling but firm. “Don’t try to take it back now.”

“I’m sorry,” he rushes out. “I didn’t think—I wasn’t trying to hurt you—”

“You did,” you cut in. The words sting your throat on the way out. “And you’re right. I do like you. Which is exactly why I shouldn’t be here.”

He takes a step toward you instinctively. “You don’t have to go—”

“Yes,” you say, already reaching for the door. “I do.”

Your hand shakes as you open it. You don’t look at him again.

“Leave me alone, Changbin,” you say softly. “You’re good at that anyway.”

The door closes behind you before he can answer.

Changbin stands there in the quiet, heart pounding, the weight of what he said echoing louder than any argument—knowing, too late, that calling it jealousy was the first honest thing he’s admitted in years.

The first text comes an hour later.

Bin: Did you make it home okay?

You see it light up your phone while you’re brushing your teeth. You flip the screen face down and don’t answer.

The next day, he tries again. Casual. Safe.

Bin: So when’s the next “love seminar”? Museum round two?

Nothing.

That evening, a joke.

Bin: I just walked past a flower shop and thought, “wow, she’d definitely use this as evidence.”

Three dots never appear.

Changbin stares at the screen longer than he should, thumb hovering, then drops the phone onto the couch like it burned him. He tells himself you’re busy. You’ll cool off. You always bounce back. You’re stubborn, not gone.

Except you are.

You rearrange your life with surgical precision. Longer hours at work. Extra clients. You say yes to things you used to put off. You come home late, leave early, and if you hear his door open, you turn the other way. When you pass him once in the stairwell, you nod politely like he’s just another neighbor.

That hurts more than yelling would have.

Three days later, his resolve cracks.

Bin: I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt you.

The next day.

Bin: I shouldn’t have said that.

And then the day after.

Bin: I miss you.

You read them over and over, chest tight, fingers numb.

You don’t reply. You archive the conversation like it’s a closed chapter, even though it feels unfinished.

Changbin throws himself into work again. Late nights. Ink-stained hands. Clients who tell him their worst stories and leave pieces of themselves behind. He listens. He’s good at that.

But when he’s alone, his phone always ends up in his hand.

Museum photos. You laughing. You arguing. You looking at art like it’s speaking directly to you. He tells himself he’s just deleting clutter.

He never does.

Instead, he scrolls back. Lingers. Zooms in. Then locks the screen and stares at the ceiling, jaw tight, heart heavy.

On either side of the wall, life goes on.

Just not together.

At first, Changbin does what he always does.

He fills the space.

A text sent. A door opened. Someone new stepping into his apartment with an easy smile and expectations he knows how to meet. It should work. It used to work. Familiar motions. Familiar laughter. A practiced version of himself that never asks for more.

But it’s different now.

The moment they sit on his couch, he’s aware of the wall.

Of you on the other side of it.

Every laugh feels too loud. Every touch feels misplaced. When someone leans into him, his chest tightens—not with excitement, but with a strange, creeping discomfort. He finds himself listening instead of participating, mind drifting to whether you can hear this, whether you’re awake, whether this is hurting you.

It ruins everything.

One night, in the middle of a kiss, he pulls back without thinking.

“Sorry,” he says quickly, already standing. “I—this isn’t a good time.”

She looks confused. Hurt. He apologizes, because he always does. He lets her leave with grace, with kindness, with no explanation that would make sense.

After that, he tries again. Once more. Just to be sure. Same result.

The wall feels louder than any sound ever did before.

Eventually, he stops answering messages. Stops inviting people over. Stops pretending that distraction feels like freedom. The quiet settles in—not peaceful, but honest.

He lies on his couch at night, staring at the ceiling, phone in his hand, your photos open again without him remembering how he got there. You smiling. You arguing. You looking at him like he was something worth fighting for.

His chest aches now when he thinks of you.

And there’s no one left to blame for it but himself.

Changbin doesn’t numb it.

He lets it hurt.

You’re not doing any better.

It hits you at the most inconvenient times—standing in line for coffee, halfway through answering an email, brushing your teeth before bed. Something small reminds you of him, and suddenly your chest aches so sharply you have to stop what you’re doing.

You cry quietly when you think about how close you got. Every “lesson” you dragged him into hadn’t felt like a project at all. It felt like dates. Like choosing each other, even if neither of you ever said the word out loud.

That’s what hurts the most. Because it was real to you.

You fell in love somewhere between banter and honesty, between shared popcorn and quiet glances. You fell in love with the way he listened, the way he cared without realizing it, the way he tried to protect himself so hard it broke something anyway.

And now you hate yourself for it. You hate that you started it. That you knocked on his door with a binder and belief and hope like you weren’t walking straight toward a cliff. You tell yourself you should’ve listened when he said he didn’t do relationships. You should’ve stayed just neighbors. Just friendly. Just safe.

Instead, you wanted more.

You curl up in bed, wishing you could go back to when the silence didn’t hurt. When wanting him felt harmless.

Now it feels like grief. And the worst part—the part you don’t say out loud—is that even if you could do it over again, you’re not sure you’d choose differently.

Two months is supposed to be enough time to move on.

That’s what you tell yourself as you walk back to the apartment complex, heels clicking, arm loosely trapped in Eunwoo’s grasp. He’s handsome in a way that feels rehearsed: perfect smile, perfect hair, and perfectly aware of it. Dinner had been fine. Conversation less so. He talked about himself like he was pitching a brand.

You’re tired. More than tired. You’re done.

At your door, you fish for your keys, already planning your polite goodbye. Eunwoo steps closer instead, crowding your space, smile turning confident.

“So,” he says, leaning in, “should we keep the night going?”

“No,” you reply lightly, stepping back.

He follows.

“I had a really good time,” he insists, hand brushing your wrist, then your waist.

“I didn’t say I didn’t,” you say, firmer now. “But I’m going inside.”

He laughs like you’re joking and leans in again, clearly expecting compliance.

“Hey,” you snap, pushing his chest. “Get off.”

Your voice echoes down the hallway, sharp and unmistakable.

The door next door opens immediately.

He’d been listening since he heard your soft voice travel down the hallway.

Changbin steps out of his apartment, eyes immediately locking onto the scene—Eunwoo too close, your posture rigid, your hand still braced against his chest. The shift in Changbin’s expression is instant. Gone is hesitation. Gone is distance.

“Is everything okay?” he asks, voice calm but edged with something dangerous.

Eunwoo scoffs, straightening. “We’re fine, man. Just saying goodnight.”

You don’t hesitate. “I told him to stop.”

That’s all it takes.

Changbin steps fully into the hallway, placing himself just slightly between you and Eunwoo. He doesn’t touch you, just makes himself unmistakably present.

“She said stop,” Changbin says evenly. “So stop.”

Eunwoo bristles. “This is between us.”

Changbin meets his gaze without blinking. “Not anymore.”

The silence stretches. Finally, Eunwoo throws his hands up. “Whatever. Didn’t know you had a boyfriend.”

“I don’t,” you say flatly.

Changbin doesn’t correct him.

Eunwoo mutters something under his breath and storms off, footsteps fading fast.

The hallway goes quiet, and you’re suddenly very aware of your breathing. Of Changbin standing close. Of how familiar and unfamiliar that feels all at once.

“You okay?” he asks, softer now, turning to you.

You nod, swallowing. “Yeah. I am now. Thank you.”

He hesitates, like there are a hundred things he wants to say and none of them feel safe. Finally, he nods.

“Good,” he says. “If you ever—” He stops himself, then exhales. “Just knock. Okay?”

Your chest tightens, but you don’t respond.

As you turn back to your door, fingers fumbling with your keys, Changbin doesn’t move away.

“So,” he says, quieter now. “Have you been going on dates?”

The question makes your shoulders tense. “Yes,” you answer shortly, metal clinking as you miss the lock the first time.

He hesitates, then asks, “Do you—are they…good?”

That does it.

You stop trying to unlock the door and turn on him, frustration sharp and sudden. “What do you want, Changbin?”

He looks startled by the directness, like he didn’t expect to be called out so plainly. For a second, he says nothing. Then his voice drops.

“I’ve missed you,” he admits. “The past two months. I think about you. A lot.”

Your chest tightens, anger flaring hot enough to burn through the ache. “You don’t get to say that now.”

“I’m just being honest—”

“No,” you cut in. “You were honest when you avoided me. When you canceled. When you disappeared.”

He winces. “You didn’t text back.”

You laugh, bitter. “Because you made it very clear where I stood.”

“That’s not—”

“You don’t do relationships,” you remind him. “You don’t need help. You’re happy. Remember?”

He opens his mouth, then closes it.

You turn back to your door, finally finding the lock. “I’m your neighbor, Changbin. That’s it. That’s all I ever was.”

The words land between you, heavy and final.

As the door closes, he stands there in the hallway, realizing too late that distance was the one thing he asked for—and now it’s the only thing you’re willing to give.

You don’t even make it halfway to your bedroom before there’s a knock.

You freeze, hand still on the strap of your bag. For a moment, you consider pretending you didn’t hear it. Then it comes again.

You open the door just enough to glare at him. “Changbin, go home.”

“I can’t,” he says quietly.

“That’s not my problem.”

You try to shut the door, but he steps forward, determined. His hand braces the doorframe, and slips inside with an apology already on his lips.

“I’m sorry,” he says quickly. “I just—please. I need to say this.”

“Changbin,” you warn, heart pounding. “You can’t just—”

“I know,” he interrupts, gentle but urgent. “I know. And if you tell me to leave again, I will. I swear. Just…let me say it first.”

You stand there, torn between anger and exhaustion, before opening the door wider, letting him in. You watch him take in your apartment like it’s something fragile. He doesn’t touch anything. Doesn’t move closer. He just looks at you like he’s been carrying a thought for two months and it’s finally gotten too heavy.

“I messed up,” he says. No jokes this time. No deflection. “I thought distance would fix it. I thought if I buried it long enough, it would go away.”

You cross your arms. “And?”

“And it didn’t,” he admits. “It got louder.”

The silence stretches.

“You told me to leave you alone,” he continues softly. “I tried. But seeing you tonight—someone else touching you like that—” He swallows. “I realized I don’t get to pretend anymore.”

Your voice shakes despite yourself. “Pretend what?”

“That I don’t feel anything,” he says.

The word hangs there, fragile.

You look away, jaw tight. “You don’t get to decide this now.”

“I know,” he says immediately. “I’m not asking you to forgive me. Or to believe me. I just needed you to know.”

You finally meet his eyes. They’re earnest. Unarmed. Terrified.

“Know what?” you ask.

“I was wrong,” Changbin says.

The words come out steady, but his hands give him away—fists opening and closing at his sides like he’s bracing for impact.

“I know I said I didn’t believe in love,” he continues, voice low. “I know I said it was confusion, chemistry, convenience. I was wrong.” He swallows. “Because whatever this is—what I feel when I think about you—it’s not any of that.”

You don’t move. You don’t trust yourself to.

“I can’t stop thinking about you,” he says, the admission raw. “Everything reminds me of you. Movies. Shows. Something I see on my way home. Music. Arguments I rehearse in my head like you’re still there to interrupt me.” A breath, shaky. “I tried to bury it. Work. Women. Silence. None of it worked.”

He takes a step closer, careful, like he’s approaching something fragile.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “For everything. For making you feel small that night. For acting like you were a problem I needed distance from. For pushing you away because I was scared of wanting something I couldn’t control.”

Your chest tightens; your eyes burn.

“I know I hurt you,” he goes on. “And I know apologies don’t erase that. But I need you to know I see it now. I see you.” His voice cracks, just barely. “And I can’t spend another day pretending I don’t.”

He stops in front of you.

“I don’t want to not talk to you,” Changbin says softly. “I don’t want to not see you. I don’t want another day where you’re just a wall away, and I act like that’s enough.”

The room is quiet except for your breathing—uneven and unsteady.

“I’m in love with you,” he says. “And that scares me. But losing you scares me more.”

You swallow, arms crossing tighter over your chest like you’re holding yourself together.

“What about the women?” you ask quietly. “The ones you buried yourself in.”

Changbin doesn’t flinch. If anything, he looks relieved you asked.

“I stopped,” he says immediately. “After the first week you stopped answering me.” He shakes his head. “It felt wrong. Every time. I couldn’t do it knowing you were on the other side of the wall, not talking to me.”

You hesitate. “You expect me to just believe that?”

“No,” he says quickly. “I don’t.”

He pulls his phone out of his pocket like it’s been waiting there for this moment. Unlocks it. Opens his messages. Then, almost too fast, he presses it into your hand.

“Look,” he says. “I deleted the contacts. I stopped replying. I stopped inviting anyone over. I didn’t do it for points. I did it because it made me feel sick.”

You scroll despite yourself. Empty threads. Names erased. Unanswered messages left on read weeks ago.

His voice is tight now. “I know this doesn’t erase anything. And I know you don’t owe me trust just because I say I changed.”

You hand the phone back slowly, skepticism still buzzing in your chest. “People say things when they’re scared of losing someone.”

“I know,” he says. “That’s why I’m not asking you to take my word for it.”

He looks at you—really looks at you—eyes open, unguarded in a way you’ve never seen before.

“Tell me what to do,” Changbin says softly. “Not grand gestures. Not promises I don’t understand yet.” A breath. “What can I do to show you I’m in love with you?”

There’s no confidence in the question. No charm. Just honesty. And fear. And hope tangled together.

You stand there, heart racing, realizing this is the part where belief becomes terrifying. Because whether you do or don’t answer, things have already changed.

You take a breath, steadying yourself.

“Consistency,” you say finally. “That’s what I need.”

Changbin stills, listening like every word matters.

“I don’t need promises about forever,” you continue. “I don’t need labels or grand declarations. I need you to show up the same way tomorrow as you are right now. I need you to respect my boundaries. To be okay if I’m not ready. To not disappear the moment things get uncomfortable.”

He nods immediately. “Okay.”

“You don’t get to rush me,” you add. “And you don’t get to punish me if I need space.”

“I won’t,” he says, voice firm. “I swear.”

You search his face, looking for cracks, for hesitation. There isn’t any, just resolve.

“I’m not saying yes to anything,” you clarify. “Not yet.”

“I know,” Changbin says gently. “And I’m okay with that.”

He steps back, deliberately giving you space. “I’ll be consistent. I’ll be here. And if you tell me to stop, I will. No arguments.”

Something in your chest loosens—not trust yet, but the possibility of it.

You nod slowly. “That’s all I’m asking.”

Changbin exhales, like he’s been holding his breath for months.

“Then that’s what I’ll do,” he says quietly. “As long as it takes.”

He does exactly what he promises.

It starts small. A good-morning text before you even open your eyes. A good night one when you’re half asleep, no pressure attached. It’s him letting you know he’s thinking of you. He never misses a day. Not once.

Every week, without fail, there are flowers. Always fresh. Sometimes sunflowers. Sometimes something soft and pastel. Once, something wild and imperfect that makes you laugh because it’s so Changbin. He never asks if you like them. He just leaves them on your doormat when he knows they’re probably starting to wilt.

On nights you come home late—exhausted, shoes kicked off by the door—there’s a text sent right away.

Bin: I made too much. You hungry?

He hands you containers like it’s the most natural thing in the world. No expectations. No hovering. Just food made with care, still warm, still yours even if you don’t eat it until midnight.

And when you allow him into your home again, he tells you he loves you in a hundred quiet ways.

By asking how your day actually went and listening. By remembering things you said weeks ago. By showing up when he says he will. By never disappearing again.

You still live in your apartment. He still lives in his. The wall remains, but it doesn’t feel like distance anymore.

Some nights, when you’re brushing your teeth or lying in bed, music seeps through the wall. Love songs. Old ones. Soft ones. Sometimes embarrassingly earnest ones. Just loud enough for you to hear.

You smile every time.

He doesn’t rush you. He gives you consistency like it’s sacred. Like it’s the proof you asked for.

And slowly and carefully, you start to believe him. Because love doesn’t have to be loud to be real, sometimes, it just has to keep showing up.

A few weeks into this—into flowers and food and songs through the wall—Changbin finally asks.

It’s not dramatic. No big speech. Just him standing in your doorway, hands a little nervous at his sides.

“Would you…go on a real date with me?” he asks. “No binder this time.”

You don’t even pretend to think about it. “Yes.”

The relief on his face is instant and breathtaking, like he’s been holding his breath since the moment he first knocked on your door months ago.

And then the dates. So many of them.

Late-night street food runs where he insists you try everything and pretends not to notice when you steal bites off his plate. Long walks along the Han River, shoulders brushing, fingers brushing until he finally intertwines his with yours. Quiet cafés where he watches you talk like it’s his favorite pastime. Arcade nights where he’s ridiculously competitive and dramatically offended when you beat him.

They always end with him walking you to your door and lingering like he’s afraid to blink.

And then the kisses start.

The first one is soft, tentative—outside your apartment, his hand hovering at your waist like he’s asking permission even now. You say yes by leaning in.

After that, they happen more easily.

Before you part ways. In the quiet after laughter. Under streetlights. In doorways. Slow, warm, and certain.

And now, every date ends with his forehead pressed to yours, lips finding yours like it’s exactly where they belong. And every time, he pulls back just enough to smile at you like he still can’t believe this is real.

You don’t debate love anymore. You live it.

Date night this time is accidentally themed.

“You wore black,” Changbin says, eyeing your outfit as you step out of your apartment.

“You wore black,” you shoot back.

He looks down at himself, then grins. “We’re coordinated. This is basically destiny.”

“Don’t let it go to your head,” you say, locking the door. “I dressed like this because I was late.”

Dinner is easy. Comfortable. He tells a ridiculous story about a client who brought in three reference photos of completely different people. You laugh so hard you nearly knock over your drink. He dramatically saves it, bowing like he deserves applause.

Outside your apartment, you both linger.

“This was fun,” he says, then pauses, suddenly more serious. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” you say immediately, like you’ve been waiting to say it all night.

His smile is slow, stunned, like he still can’t believe he’s allowed to be this happy. He leans in and kisses you—soft at first, then deeper, laughter caught between breaths when you bump noses.

You pull back just long enough to tug him toward your door. “Do you want to come in?”

He raises an eyebrow, teasing. “Are you inviting me, or is this another experiment?”

You grin. “Strictly practical research.”

He laughs, steps inside with you, and the door clicks shut behind you.

Once inside, you both take your shoes off at the door, quietly and slightly nervous. You both know why you invited him in. 

You walk to the kitchen, feet padding softly against the hardwood floor. “You want something to drink, Bin?” You ask, hearing his own footsteps following.

He follows you, his heart pounding in his chest. The sight of you—your hair slightly disheveled from the walk, cheeks flushed from the cold—or maybe from the kiss outside—it does something to him. "Water is fine," he says softly, his voice slightly hoarse. He leans against the counter, watching you pour two glasses.

 His mind races with thoughts he usually suppresses around you. You hand him the glass, your fingers brushing briefly.

You both drink the water, eyes locked over the rim of the glass. He sets his down at the same time you do, clearing his throat before stepping forward. 

Your eyes stay firmly on his, heart racing.

He reaches out, his hand sliding around your waist, pulling you gently against him. There's no teasing in his touch now, only sincere intent. His other hand comes up to cup your face, thumb brushing your cheek as he leans in. The kiss starts slow—deep, lingering—like he's committing every sensation to memory. His fingers tighten on your waist as he walks you backward until you hit the counter, caging you in gently.

You breathe out a soft sigh when your lips connect, hands gliding up his clothed chest—firm and solid—to wrap around his neck, pulling his face closer to yours. Your fingers play with the hair at the nape of his neck, sending chills down his spine at the sensation.

He responds by pressing even closer, his mouth slanting over yours hungrily. His hands slide down to your hips, gripping hard enough to leave bruises, he hopes. He wants evidence of this on your skin, wants you to wake up tomorrow and remember exactly how he kissed and touched you as if his life depended on it. His tongue slides along your bottom lip, seeking permission and finding it instantly. You part your lips on a gasp, letting him deepen the kiss further.

And then he’s pushing you into the counter harder as he presses the evidence of his desire against your stomach, making you pull away. You try to catch your breath as he trails his lips along the heated skin of your neck. “Bin,” you breathe out, eyes closed and head tilting.

He freezes, listening and waiting. Your neck is bared to him, vulnerable and inviting. He tests it, kissing gently where your pulse point thrums wildly. Once. Twice.

"Yes?" He breathes against your skin, knowing exactly what he's doing. His hands on your hips squeeze possessively, pulling you even closer, your bodies aligned perfectly. "Too much?" He asks softly, nipping your earlobe gently. He knows it's not—your body language is screaming for more.

“Not enough. Need more,” you whisper, clinging to him.“Bedroom,” you manage to say.

He lifts you in his arms and carries you swiftly to the bedroom, his arms wrapped securely around you. The moment you hit the mattress, he follows you down, covering your body with his own. His kisses are frenzied now—mouth moving from your lips to your jaw, down your neck, to your collarbone. His hands are everywhere—roaming over your curves, pulling at your clothes with urgent need. "Too slow?" He pants between kisses, already shrugging off his own jacket and shirt. His abs flex with the movement, drawing your eyes momentarily.

You reach up and drag your fingers along the hard ridges and planes of his chest and abdomen, marveling at the sight of him. “Holy shit, you’re sexy.”

He freezes for a second, surprised and incredibly pleased by your words. Then he's grinning and leaning down against your neck, sucking gently at your pulse point. "You think so?" He murmurs, his hips pressing down against yours deliberately. He's hard and thick behind the fabric of his jeans, and the friction makes you gasp. He rocks against you slowly, torturously. "Or do you need more proof?" His voice is low and seductive, dripping with promise.

“Ugh, you’re annoying,” you say playfully, biting your lip and grinning up at him as he pulls your shirt up and over your head—your pretty lace bra deliberately chosen for this exact moment.

He throws the shirt aside carelessly, his gaze fixed on the delicate fabric covering your chest. His hands hover over the cups, fingers twitching with the urge to touch. "This is cute," he comments, running a finger along the lace edge. "Too cute." His eyes meet yours, dark and intense. "I'm going to ruin it." You nod eagerly, arching your back to give him better access. He unhooks the bra with ease and tosses it aside.

But you don’t give him time to look too long before you’re reaching to pop the button of his jeans open, pulling the zipper down, and palming him through his boxers.

He groans deeply, hips jerking into your touch. "Careful," he warns, but his words are breathless, lacking conviction. His own hands move to your jeans, unbuttoning them with shaking fingers. He hooks his thumbs into the waistband, slowly pulling them down your legs, revealing your matching lace panties. "Goddamn," he mutters, taking in the sight of you half-naked beneath him. He kicks off his own jeans and boxers in one smooth motion. "I'm trying to go slow here."

“I get it, babe. I really do, but you don’t understand how long I’ve needed this,” you say, pulling your panties down and throwing them to the side somewhere.

He watches them go with a hungry expression, his pupils dilated. "How long?" He asks hoarsely, ripping the rest of his clothes off before settling between your legs. His hardness rests against your wet heat, and you both groan at the contact. "Tell me how long you've been wanting this." He moves his hips slowly, sliding against your core. "Because I've been imagining it for a very long time." His confession sends a jolt of pleasure through you.

You pause, looking up at him, eyebrow raised. “Like how long?” You ask.

He pauses, his hips stuttering against yours. "Too long," he admits gruffly, his forehead resting against yours. "Since you smiled at me for the first time.” He kisses you roughly, his tongue sliding against yours. "Too fucking long." His hips move more deliberately now, the head of his cock teasing your entrance. "So if I'm not being gentle right now—"

It’s when he feels how wet you are that he remembers he doesn’t have a condom on, prompting him to pull back.

"Fuck," he curses, his face flushing red. "I'm not— I don't have a condom. Shit." He sits back on his haunches immediately, his breath ragged. "I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking—" He looks mortified, his hands shaking slightly as he runs them through his hair. "Just give me a second. I'll go get one—" He moves to get up, but you wrap your legs around his waist, stopping him. "What are you doing?" He asks breathlessly.

“Did you use condoms every time with them?” You ask, cheeks tinging red. It was awkward, but you had to know. The fact that he was on his way to get one clued you in, but hearing him say it would ease you.

He freezes completely, then exhales heavily. "Yes," he says immediately. "Always. Every single time.” His eyes soften. "I got tested after the last time. I'm clean." His eyes search yours seriously, seeing your hesitation but also understanding why you're asking.

You use your legs to push his hips forward, trapping his throbbing cock against your wet pussy, looking up at him and nodding.

"Are you...?" He starts, but then you move your hips deliberately, sliding against his length, coating him completely in your wetness, and he loses his train of thought entirely. "Fuck, baby, if we're doing this—" His voice cracks slightly as you lift your hips again, seeking friction.

“Unless you don’t want to…” You trail off, pulling back slightly.

He grabs your hips firmly, pulling you back against him with a sharp intake of breath. "No," he says firmly but gently. "I want this. I want you." His thumb presses against your clit as he positions himself at your entrance again. "Please," he whispers urgently. "Let me feel all of you." His cock head presses against your opening slightly without pushing in fully yet, waiting for permission or encouragement from you.

You reach down and wrap your hand around him, stroking him as you arch up, wanting his lips on yours. He leans down and groans against your mouth as you do, his lips crashing against yours in a desperate kiss. He breaks the kiss to murmur, "Guide me in," against your lips before capturing them again hungrily. His body shakes with restraint as he waits patiently for whatever signal tells him ‘go’.

You moan against his mouth as you tease him by holding him flush against your folds with your palm, rocking your hips up and down the length of him.

"Stop teasing me," he growls into the kiss, his hips jerking involuntarily as he tries to chase the sensation of your pussy sliding along his length. He breaks the kiss again, his forehead resting against yours, breathing heavily. "Fuck, baby—please—just—" He pauses, looking down between them, watching as you continue to torture him. "Put the tip inside. Just a little. Please." His voice cracks on the last word, revealing just how much he wants this—how much he needs you.

You smile, kissing his forehead as he looks down. “Maybe I like teasing you,” you say playfully, wrapping your legs around him tighter.

He groans deeply, his hips moving slightly to rub himself against your slick folds. "Then tease me properly," he retorts softly, his voice strained. "Because if you keep doing that, I'm gonna come just from this—without even being inside you." His tongue slides out to lick your bottom lip. "So if you're gonna torture me, do it right." His hips jerk again, the tip of his cock pressing against your entrance more firmly this time. "Put me inside you. Even if it's just the tip."

You kiss his lips, giving in and guiding the tip of his cock to your entrance. You let go and wrap your arms around him, hands resting on his shoulders. “No, baby. I want you inside me fully.”

He breaks the kiss with a shuddering breath, his hands gripping your hips tightly as he slowly pushes forward. The tip of his cock slips inside you easily due to your wetness and his pre-come coating him. He pauses there, giving you time to adjust before pushing deeper with a low groan. His forehead rests against yours again as he whispers hoarsely, "Is this okay?" His hips are trembling slightly with effort not to thrust fully into you, yet wanting desperately to feel all of yourself around him completely. "Please tell me if I'm hurting—"

“Binnie, please,” you whimper, arching, eyes closing. “I can take you.”

The nickname makes him groan deeply, his hips jerking forward instinctively at the sound. "Fuck," he breathes out, sinking deeper into you slowly but steadily now that you've given permission. He's bigger than anyone you've been with before, stretching you perfectly, but not painfully. 

"You feel so good," he pants against your mouth. "So tight and wet around me." He's finally fully seated inside you now, his hips flush against yours. "I'm not gonna last long like this."

“It’s okay,” you whisper, head pressed back into the pillows, breathing hard as you adjust to his size. “Jesus. No wonder,” you say, thinking back to how many girls he had over. A simple thought has now turned into overthinking. Is he comparing right now?

He notices your sudden stillness and the slight change in your expression. His hands cup your face gently, forcing you to look at him. "Hey," he says softly, kissing you deeply to distract you from whatever thoughts are creeping in.

His hips start moving slowly. Gentle thrusts designed to pleasure rather than going through the motions like he might have done with others. His focus is on you—the only person that matters.

“Stop thinking,” he murmurs against your lips. “Just feel me.”

You look into his eyes and see him staring back just as intensely. You crane your neck up and press your forehead to his. “I love you,” you whisper.

The declaration makes his heart swell in his chest. "I love you too," he says firmly, kissing you deeply before kissing along your neck and up to your ear. “You feel so good on my cock, baby,” he whispers. “Your pussy was made for me.”

And just like that, you’re back in the present with him. His filthy words remind you that he is yours. That he wanted you. 

You tilt your head back into the pillows—gripping the muscles of his back because they’re yours to grip. Kissing his lips because you can. Moaning his name as he hits that spot deep inside you because only you can say his name with that much passion now.

He groans into your kiss as you press your lips to his. Your words—your voice—it's the most erotic sound he's ever heard. He wraps his arms around you tightly, pulling you even closer as he thrusts deeper and slower into you. "Say it again," he demands between kisses, his hips moving in a steady rhythm now. "Say my name again." His voice is low and commanding, yet desperate for the sound. "Please." The word is softly whispered against your lips. "Baby—"

“Bin!” You cry out, head tilted back as he starts snapping his hips into yours. Your breasts bounce with his rhythm, distracting him. He leans down and latches onto your hard peaks, grunting into your sensitive skin. You arch at the feeling, hands flying everywhere on him, too lost in pleasure to know what you're doing.

He groans deeply against your breast, hips stuttering in their rhythm briefly before picking up again. He sucks and bites gently at the sensitive flesh, his hands reaching up to palm your other breast roughly. The sight of you—head thrown back in ecstasy, hands clawing at his skin, breasts bouncing with every thrust—it's the most beautiful thing he's ever seen. He releases your breast with a wet pop to look up at you, his mouth open and panting.

He watches you, eyes roaming your pretty face as he fucks into you, hips stuttering when your mouth parts erotically. He groans and buries his face in your neck, so close to coming. 

“I’m coming!” You say frantically, already feeling your pussy tightening, the pressure building between your thighs.

"Fuck," he curses against your neck, his arms wrapping around you tightly. He feels your pussy clamp down on him, the rhythmic contractions pulling him deeper. "Come on, baby," he whispers urgently into your ear, his hips moving faster now, chasing his own release as he feels yours building. His hand slides down between your bodies to rub circles over your clit desperately—wanting both of you there together. "Let me feel it," he begs hoarsely against your skin. "Come for me—"

You cut him off with a cry of his name and a high-pitched moan. Your body curls around him, seizing and writhing as you ride your orgasm, his hips never ceasing until you’re lying beneath him, limp and breathing hard.

He kisses you softly before pressing his mouth against your ear. “Can I keep going, baby?” He asks, patiently waiting for your permission to keep thrusting—needing to finish inside you.

You nod weakly, too sensitive to speak.

His hips start moving again immediately, almost apologetic for needing more. He reaches between your legs, gently pushing your knees up and out to give himself deeper access. The new angle hits you just right, causing you to whimper at the feeling of him sliding in and out of you deeper. "Too much?" He asks quietly, checking in despite his own desperate need to come. His hands gently squeeze your inner knees, keeping them open for him. "Want me to stop?"

You shake your head, still breathing hard. 

You can feel the mess between you, hear the steady thlump thlump thlump of his wet skin meeting yours.

The sound drives him absolutely wild, making him groan loudly. "God, listen to us," he pants against your neck, thrusting steadily into your soaked pussy. The wet sounds grow louder as he picks up speed slightly, your bodies sliding perfectly against each other. He buries his face in your neck to muffle his moans against your skin—not wanting to disturb the neighbors with how pornographic it sounds.

You hold him tight against you as his pace starts to get choppy and uneven. “Come inside me,” you whisper into his ear, kissing the side of his head repeatedly.

His entire body tenses at your words—your permission making him snap his hips forward sharply twice before holding deep inside you with a choked cry against your neck. He comes hard and long, filling you completely as his arms shake around you tightly.

The feeling of his release triggers another small orgasm in you unexpectedly—your pussy clamping down on him rhythmically as he empties himself into you completely. He kisses everywhere he can reach while riding out your highs together, deeply connected physically and emotionally, now more than ever before.

The aftermath is familiar.

You’re standing at the foot of the bed holding your end of the fitted sheet while Changbin wrestles with one of the corners, already laughing.

“Okay,” he says, pointing accusingly, “that mess was mostly you.”

You gasp. “Excuse me? You’re the one who—”

“I was responding,” he interrupts, smug. “Very generously.”

You smack his arm. “Unbelievable. Zero accountability.”

He laughs harder, completely unbothered, finally snapping the corner into place like it’s a personal victory. “I’m just saying, if we’re assigning blame—”

“We’re not,” you say firmly. “We’re moving on.”

You both end up tangled in the sheets together, collapsing into laughter that fades into something softer. Changbin reaches for you without thinking, pulling you close, forehead resting against yours.

“I love you,” he says quietly, like it still amazes him.

You smile, thumb tracing lazy patterns on his chest. “I love you too.”

The room settles. The city hums faintly outside.

You curl into him, his arm tightening around you instinctively—exactly where you both belong.

The tattoo shop smells like cleaning supplies, a faintly citrus scent, and freshly brewed coffee. There’s low music playing and a faint buzzing sound somewhere. You hover just inside the door for a second, suddenly aware of yourself, of how personal this space feels compared to the apartment hallways and shared walls you know so well.

You’re basically living together now. Your lease is almost up, which, according to Bin, means it’s a sign to move in officially.

He brings it up casually at first, like it’s just another shared fact of life. “By the way,” he says one night, scrolling on his phone, “you’re not renewing.”

You blink. “I—what?”

He looks up, confused by your confusion. “Your lease. You’re moving in with me.”

“That was not a conversation,” you say.

“It was,” he replies calmly. “You just weren’t present.”

You argue. He nods along, completely unbothered. He’s already made a list. Closet space is divided with alarming confidence. Your mug is already in his cabinet. Your side of the bed already decided.

“You share a wall with me,” he says. “This is the natural next step.”

You point out logistics. He counters with affection.

In the end, he grins, kisses your forehead, and seals it.

“Don’t worry,” he says. “You can still pretend you have your own place.”

You let him win.

Probably because you want that too.

Almost six months of feeling like accidentally winning an argument with the universe and having to live with being right every day.

Although he’s still chaotic and dramatic and loud and far too comfortable with you, he’s also the same gentle, kind, overly generous man you met the day you moved in. He still plays soccer with the neighborhood kids. Still carries groceries for the ajummas. Still fixes things without being asked. Still the greenest flag you’ve ever seen.

The difference now is the way he loves you.

The way his hand finds yours without thinking. The way he checks on you like it’s instinct. The way he looks at you like he can’t believe this is his life—and he somehow won it.

Changbin looks up.

His face lights up instantly, grin spreading. “Hey,” he says, voice softer than you expect in a place full of buzzing machines. “You came.”

“I said I would,” you reply, smiling back. “Took me long enough.”

He steps toward you, stopping short like he is remembering he is at work. “Give me two minutes. Jisung, I’m taking a break.”

“Wow,” a voice says from behind a divider. “Special treatment.”

Jisung emerges, tattoo gun in hand, hair pushed back, eyes immediately flicking to you. He freezes for half a beat, then brightens with interest. “Oh. Hi.”

You laugh politely. “Hi.”

Changbin is already watching this with narrowed eyes.

“I’m Jisung,” he says, flashing a charming smile. “You’re new. Changbin’s girlfriend, or are we still in the mysterious category?”

Before you can answer, Changbin speaks. “She’s my girlfriend.”

The certainty in his tone makes your chest warm.

Jisung blinks, then looks between the two of you. “Oh. Okay. Cool. Cool, cool, cool.” He recovers fast, grin returning. “Still though, you’re really pretty. Had to shoot my shot.”

Changbin steps closer to you without hesitation, one hand settling at your waist. “No need.”

“Wow,” Jisung mutters. “Crazy.”

Changbin does not respond. He just leans down and kisses you, slow and deliberate, enough to leave no room for interpretation.

When he pulls back, Jisung has his hands up in surrender. “I see it. I respect it. I will be over here minding my business.”

You laugh, cheeks warm. “Nice to meet you.”

Jisung grins. “Nice to almost meet you.”

He disappears back behind the divider, still muttering about audacity.

Changbin looks down at you, eyes dark. “I’m not sorry about that.”

“I know,” you say. “It was kind of hot.”

He chuckles, ducking his head. “Come on. I’ll show you around.”

He gives you a tour like he is proud of every corner. His station. His sketches. The way his voice changes when he talks about his work. You watch him talk to clients, gentle and attentive, all steady hands and careful smiles.

When you finally sit beside him, his knee brushing yours, he leans in and whispers, “I like you here.”

You smile. “I like you everywhere.”

He kisses your temple, quick and affectionate. Across the room, Jisung glances over, shakes his head, and goes back to tattooing.

Then you clear your throat. “There’s actually another reason I came,” you say.

He turns to you, curious. “Yeah?”

You take a breath. “I want a tattoo.”

He stares at you again, this time stunned. “From me?”

“Yes,” you say, giggling. “From you.”

His expression softens into something almost reverent. “Are you sure?”

You nod. “I trust you.”

Changbin exhales slowly, smiling like he has been given something precious. “I’d be honored,” he says. Then, quieter, just for you, “And just so you know, that was a trick question. I’ll be the only one touching you. Always.”

Your heart flips at the certainty in his voice.

Changbin is still smiling, still processing the idea of you wanting a tattoo from him, when you pull out a folded sheet of paper from your purse and hold it out.

“I already know what I want,” you say.

That gets his full attention.

He takes the paper carefully and opens it. His breath catches almost immediately.

On the page, the words 끝까지 are written cleanly and deliberately. Beneath the phrase is a small dot. From the dot, a single fine line extends outward.

Changbin stares at it in silence.

“끝까지,” he repeats softly.

Kkeutkkaji.

To the end.

You nod. “The dot is where it started. Where we fell in love. The line is everything after. The rest of it. Together.”

For a moment, he cannot speak. His throat works as he swallows, eyes flicking from the paper to you like he needs to confirm you are real.

“And I want it here,” you add quietly, touching your shoulder, just above your collarbone. “Right here.”

His gaze follows your fingers, and something in him softens completely.

“That’s my favorite place,” he says without thinking.

You smile. “I know.”

He steps closer, close enough that you can smell the cologne you bought him. Close enough that the rest of the shop fades away. His thumb brushes the spot gently, reverent, like he is already imagining the lines there.

“I kiss you there when I come home tired,” he murmurs. “When you fall asleep on the couch. When I hold you in my arms.”

You smile up at him.

He pauses, lowering his voice. “When you’re underneath me, and I’m inside you,” he says, your cheeks reddening. “When I can’t think of anything else to say because you render me speechless,” he continues.

Your chest tightens.

Changbin looks back down at the design, then back at you, eyes bright. “I’ll make it perfect,” he says. “I promise.”

You believe him.

Changbin finally breaks the heavy moment with a crooked smile.

“So,” he says, folding the paper carefully and setting it on his station, “you’re really getting a tattoo before me. From me.”

You laugh. “Someone has to break the curse.”

He clicks his tongue, stepping closer until you can feel his warmth. “Unbelievable. I’m a professional tattoo artist. Years of training. And my girlfriend gets inked first.”

You raise a brow. “Jealous?”

“Deeply,” he says, eyes flicking to your shoulder again. His voice drops, playful and warm. “Especially since it’s going right there. You know that’s unfair, right?”

Your stomach flips when his gaze lingers. “Changbin.”

He grins, clearly enjoying himself now. “I’m just saying. Sexy choice. Sexy meaning. Sexy girlfriend.”

You sputter a laugh and immediately shove him back by the chest, not hard, just enough to put space between you. “Stop. You’re at work.”

He stumbles back exaggeratedly, hands up. “What? I’m being supportive.”

“There are people here,” you hiss, glancing around. A couple of his coworkers pretend very badly not to be listening. One customer looks up, amused.

Changbin lowers his voice but not his grin. “I can still think you’re sexy professionally.”

You cover your face, giggling despite yourself. “You’re impossible.”

“And you love me,” he replies easily.

You peek at him between your fingers, smiling. “Unfortunately.”

He softens then, stepping closer again but keeping his hands to himself this time. “I’ll behave,” he promises. “Mostly.”

You shake your head, still laughing, heart full and fluttering.

He presses the paper to his chest for a moment, grounding himself, then leans down and kisses that exact spot on your shoulder, tender and unhurried, like a quiet vow.

“끝까지,” he whispers, and both of you pause, taking in the meaning.

He breaks the moment when he claps his hands, a grin on his handsome face, as he leads you to his station.

“Okay,” Changbin says, pulling on gloves with exaggerated seriousness. “From this point on, I’m Artist Changbin. Very calm. Very focused. Very not distracted by how good you look.”

You eye him skeptically as he cleans your skin. “You literally just called me sexy ten minutes ago.”

“That was before gloves,” he replies. “Different person.”

You laugh as he adjusts the chair. “You’re still flirting.”

“I’m reassuring the client,” he says smoothly. “Client morale is very important.”

Jisung passes by and stage-whispers, “You good over here, boss?”

Changbin doesn’t even look up. “Thriving. Don’t you have a stencil to mess up?”

Jisung gasps dramatically and walks away.

Bin leans in close to your ear as he positions your shoulder. “You nervous?”

“A little,” you admit. “You’re enjoying this way too much.”

He grins. “I’ve been waiting months to legally mark you.”

You shove his arm lightly. “Seo Changbin.”

“I’m kidding,” he says quickly, laughing. “Mostly. Hey—look at me.”

You do. His expression softens immediately.

“I’ve got you,” he says, quieter now. “Trust me.”

You nod, taking a deep breath as he positions the stencil, checks the placement one last time, then steps back.

“Okay,” he announces. “This is the dramatic part. Think powerful thoughts. Like…love. Or revenge. Or both.”

“I hate you,” you say, smiling.

“No, you don’t,” he replies, lifting the gun and checking to make sure everything was working properly.

No, you don’t. Not ever.

He presses the gun gently to your skin.

You inhale, eyes lifting to the ceiling, smiling through the nerves, heart full and steady.

The buzzing starts.

BINNIEBB 2025 ™ PLEASE DO NOT STEAL MY WORK ♡