“Please, that didn’t stop you before,” she points out, rolling her eyes after a teasing scoff.

“That was back then, Jinsol-ssi.” By instinct, you still keep your professional side on. “Like before everyone in the agency had a month’s worth of schedule in two weeks?”

The woman chuckles from your counter before taking her third sip. “Fair enough.” She places the half-empty mug on the table in front of her before crossing her arms. “But it doesn’t mean you can’t have some fun outside your duties. Remember the good days?”

She could mean anything, considering she’s brought back a lot of memories in your mind. The fruits of her group’s hundreds of successes and celebrations weren’t without having thousands more efforts and sacrifices, whether it’s in the spotlight or behind the scenes. Most, if not all, of your days with her, with them, have been some of your best.

“Mmm-hmm, I still get a lot of that from time to time. Doesn’t need to be outside them,” you admit with a suave cadence, making her chuckle a second time. Despite embracing the slow and comforting tension warming in your bodies, the whistles of the morning breeze from outside flowing between you, the same time another memory arises from Jinsol. Her eyes widen in dismay while you walk to the glass balcony doors to close it.

“I…” she lets out a deep sigh, before confessing what she expects you to be disappointed at. “I’m really sorry we didn’t get to go to the beach last night, Kwangsun-ah... We even agreed to do it since last week, but Jiwoo-yah had way more drinks than we expect—”

You walk back to her. “Aniya, aniya!” you shake your hands. You expected she’d bring it up, but what transpired last night made it cross your mind. “Gwenchanayo. No need to feel bad for anything. I mean, this is your last tour.” You imagine the members getting wild and wasted, an entertaining series of memories that used to give you nightmares. Now, it just makes you snicker. It’s always been an important moment of bonding for them. You want to remind her of that. “Stuff like that should be the least of our worries. I mean… In the longest time, you get to spend time with the members for most of the month and have your good old girls’ night, so there’s nothing wrong with that.”

She wants to say no and apologize further, but bringing up her members only reminds you of a bigger elephant in the room. You still made a good point, allowing her to smile for a moment before it sinks. “Yeah, I guess so… But, speaking of which… Our contract, I’m sure you’ve heard from the others, right?” She looks down on the floor for a second, rubbing her wrist with her other hand, before facing you. “Our… Decision?”

You nod, sensing her uncertainty and a sprinkle of unease. “I have, Jinsol-ssi.” Knowing the gravity of their situation, consoling and tending to her has always been your priority. “But that shouldn’t change things between you and the girls, right?”

“Of course, not,” she tells you with a burst of warm-hearted confidence, allowing herself to feel the exuberance of yesterday. “We’ve been a family for a long time. Even after our group split up into ‘units’, or whatever everyone calls them, we did our best to keep in touch.”

“You definitely are, and I’m just glad all of you have made up your minds about this…” You hold onto her left hand. “Even if it’s a tough decision to make for you.”

“We have…” She raises her left hand, flashing the golden ring on her finger to you. “You know, I couldn’t be more grateful that we have a manager this caring and thoughtful…”

“I’m just a pretty lucky guy,” you admit, your response stemming from the realization that, while you may necessarily no longer be her manager in a year, you still get to be someone who will be with her regardless of whatever endeavor she will be venturing.

She intertwines her fingers with yours, resting your hand on her chest. “Don’t you dare undersell yourself…” You’re pulled inches closer to her as she tilts her head to the side. “You’re not my fiancé for nothing, Choi Kwangsun.”

You can’t help but giggle at Jinsol’s proud retort. It’s been a year and a month since you proposed to her back in Seoul, but it’s always given both of you butterflies whenever you reminisce about that mundane yet special night. Before you can make your next move of comfort, she raises your hand and lets you rest your palm on her left cheek, allowing her to lean in and relax her eyes at the warmth of your touch amidst this gusty winter dawn.

“By the way, it’s still early and you’re not being your usual self…” She slowly raises an eyebrow with a mix of concern and suspicion. “Why’s that?”

“My usual self?” You tilt your head, your gullible mind still trying to process her phrase.

“You know what,” she sulks. “It’s not like everyone else is here, you’re still being formal with me. And I mean, almost half of the agency already knows about our engagement!”

“Ooooooooh, right… I should’ve known… Mianhaeyo,” you chuckle to lighten her up, making you fold and wrap her arms around your waist to cement your reassurance.”

She rests on your chest. “It’s not because the girls were around too last night, is it?”

“What?” You do not want things to escalate. At this point, there’s no use in talking like a manager to your own fiancée. You have to get rid of this habit before this talk takes both of you into a far more unpleasant kind of tension. You gotta act like her future husband.

“Is it because some of y’all had history too?” she questions you further. There’s not a hint of annoyance or suspicion from her tone now, only some concern about you, but also a sense of insecurity, something she rarely shows to anyone unless she’s bothered. “Heeki and Hyunjin-ie are the same age as you, plus Chaewon-ie, so you felt a little closer—”

“Aniya, noona,” you answer bluntly, killing the gust of chaos starting to befuddle her mind. “I know that we've had lots of fun and wilder days with other people, but I don’t know… I never cared about that.” You give her forehead a long kiss, exhaling a smile. “Looking back, I think a part of me has always been looking forward to seeing you the most, Jeong Jinsol-noona…” You kiss her left cheek. “More than anyone else.” You move to her right. “I’ve moved past that kind of life, ‘cause I wanna share mine with you.”

Her eyes glow and her cheeks warm up. You witness her blushing, prompting you to stroke her hair out of affection. She hears her own heart racing. While you process her initial reaction, a wider smile emerges on her lips. “You finally called me that…” She giggles, realizing that she’s able to break through your more timid, reserved, and sometimes stern and disciplined, “manager’s side.” For someone who often acts more than they speak, Jinsol has helped make you talk and open beyond speaking out of obligation, once from an idol to a manager, and now between lovers.

“Aaaaaahhh…” You finally figure it out, making you smack your face with one hand out of disappointment. Still, you don’t regret saying those words to her. It simply felt right. “Mianhaeyo, noona…” You place both your palms on each of her cheeks. “Jinjja…”

She rests on your forehead. “It’s just, I thought you weren’t comfortable with that word.”

“I’ve always felt comfortable with it,” you clarify. “It’s just, being a manager of one of the busiest and most beloved girl groups in Korea. It’s really kept me in a state where I often wish I could escape more often... I couldn’t juggle how I spoke to people or how I should treat them outside work… Things became a little blurry, before I had to adjust myself.”

“I get it…” She gives you a soft and long squeeze. “I don’t blame you for that, babe.”

“I don’t blame you either…” For you, Jinsol deserves everything a queen has, and a lot more. “I’m just happy we get to spend more time after work than usual.”

She finally pulls you in an embrace, lending each other warmth in this humid winter. You can’t be more over the moon for how far she has come, that you’ve been there to accompany and support her.

“Nado,” she mumbles. “But, that doesn’t have to stay the same way, does it? How you juggle the way you talk.” she asks, suggesting like their contract coming to a close isn’t all bad. Their disbandment may be bad for business or fandoms, yet it brings a fruitful promise for both of you.

You hope to lighten the mood up with a tease. “Well… I feel like it whenever you deserve it, maybe I’ll just call you noona in front of everyone. Even with the other managers.”

“Is that so?” she giggles. She leans closer to your ear, wanting you to virtually explore the possibilities with her. “When does it feel like I deserve to be called noona, babe?”

“All the time, actually,” you chortle your confession, before getting yourself back in your deeper voice. “But I think it makes things a little more special when I call you whenever you’d least expect.”

“Well, I just realized… This’ll probably be the last year I get to call you Manager-nim… What if I keep calling you that after all this?”

Your soft yet hoarse whisper to her left ear sends a wave of shiver that spreads a chilling sensation to Jinsol’s spine. Giving into the magnets radiating on your lips, you kiss your beloved fiancee with a sense of hunger that nothing else, except this woman can satiate. Falling into your own lust for her, your tongue enters her mouth, relishing in the traces of fruits, grilled pork, and beer from last night, mixed with the tea you gave her earlier.

“You getting hungry, noona?” you joke around with her, testing her desire. “We have breakfast downstairs in about thirty minutes or less… You sure you don’t wanna wait—”

With her soft palms, the woman gently pushes you until you land on the nearest chair to the left of the sofa. “It doesn’t hurt to have a little appetizer here first.” She takes off your underwear and shorts, tossing both of them away only three feet away from the sofa. “And a better one.” Getting down to her knees, she spreads your legs between her. Her eyes switch back and forth between your eyes and your cock, mesmerized by how hard and sweaty it already is from the palm of her hands. Without hesitation, Jinsol tilts her head and lunges at your rod like a ravenous and starved creature. Your balls receive a slow yet tender squeeze from her palm. You might have underestimated her quite a bit once she opens her mouth and takes your cock in without prolonging her usual teases.

Keeping you laid back on the furniture, you extend your arms on the backrest, gripping your nails on the leather, with Jinsol devouring you. As a minute passes, she adds a new trick, using her palms and tongue more to keep you lubricated and the back of your skull leaned on the backrest. Her gaze at your shaft remains as if it’s a sculpture she’s an artist trying to perfect and savor at the same time. You can only groan and giggle to the levels of stimulation rising from your member. She’s such a perfect goddess, your mind spurts, contrasting your dirtier lips, mumbling. “Fuck, you’re fucking… Flawless… Fffffmmmh!” Your fiancée’s mouth has made you fouler than you usually speak, and it’s giving her the fuel she needs to giving sucking on you for longer than she usually can.

Within over six minutes of your hog being sucked on by Jinsol has brought you to a heavenly plane, much like their concerts, especially whenever she gives you several winks and gazes of longing from the stage whenever you least expect it. It’s the same with the few winks she’s been giving you now on the floor.

After doing your best to hold it in, your trembling cock fires the first barrage of semen straight at Jinsol’s face. Splattered across her lower face and upper chest. Slowing down your breathing, you lean in and rest on her chest, which she welcomes with open arms, somewhat cradling you with soft hums and coos, now that you’re both seated. “You… You did perfect…ly. Thank you,” you muttered weakly. “So much…”

“Anything for my manager-nim…” Motivated by her phenomenal blowjob, you cup Jinsol’s chin and kiss her with a surge of carnal aggression. Jinsol was almost taken aback, but her surprise incites another sense of arousal with how forward you acted. While your lips lock and twist, your fingers trail her curves, down to her scrumptious thighs, which you give a brief squeeze, and make their stop on her cooch, feeling a wet spot through the veils of her jogger shorts. “It’s sooo… Nice,” she howls into your kiss.

At the same time she starts mumbling praises, you become determined to make it nicer for her. You wrap your left arm around her shoulder, leaving your fingers to begin their work on lubricating her with a smooth rub. In moments like these are when you realize how much you love your beloved’s lips, and her tongue even, as much as the rest of her body, unable to completely part them, relying on your sense of touch to slide your hand under the hem of her shirt and inserting two of your fingers through her tight entrance, before adding a third. Meanwhile, your thumb stays outside to keep her clit entertained.

Frenching Jinsol and fingering her on this sofa and delicately holding her like she’s a string instrument weirdly feels like a romantic moment, but any signs of your rational thoughts are currently silent under the dominance of your primal instincts. With each quick rub on her clit down to her labia before moving back inside her pussy, each note you make with her vulva allows her to keep howling and crying a seraphic melody that is on par with her live performances. You’re feeling not just lucky everyday, but you’re also grateful you get to do something that’s exclusive for her.

It takes five whole minutes of going back and forth between her most sensitive spots, and out of her pussy, until you feel her hand hold onto your wrist, locking it in place with fingering her entrance as fast and as long as you can. At the thirtieth second, the woman lets out her final moan of this session, gushing out her juices. A broken dam, smearing most of your hand with her essence. Your tongue scrapes off the juice on your thumb, taking delight in the sweet taste and slippery texture of her nectar, like you often would whenever one of you is lustful enough to take the other to somewhere isolated.

Still laying on her back after your breathtaking service, you take the chance to kiss her sharp and sweet jawline, before moving down to her neck and collarbone, licking out her sweat mixed with your splattered cum. With your fingers also soaked in her juices, Jinsol pulls your hand to her mouth and starts slobbering on it without a word. You thought of finishing it off yourself, but this sight is much better. She pulls you to your fingers, making you lick off her remaining juices right in front of her, similar to when you’re sharing an ice cream. Hearing her giggles throughout your lickings provokes you to clash against her mouth in between your fingers. You don’t stop until your hand has been cleaned with both your saliva.

And yet, just as you thought things were over, Jinsol follows her carnal instinct and takes your lips with more aggression. You make out for five seconds before your lips part. “Still hungry, noona?” you ask her if this was enough to feed her early cravings.

“Hungrier than ever,” she exhales, triggering a guffaw from you. Just as you expected.

Going back to her lips, you ought to take things to the next step after this point, having given each other the foreplay to keep yourselves going while the sun is still asleep.

Deep down, you’re itching to give her the same treatment, laying her on the sofa and eating her up like nyotaimori. However, the ticking clock on the wall catches you off guard for a second. “I believe everyone will be awake pretty soon.”

“Shit... Majayo.” She bites her lower lip, dismayed by this fact. “Time really flew by fast.” You shouldn’t have brought it up, but your manager's sense made you aware.

“Yeah… But I’ll try to make this worth our time,” you whisper back, bringing her back into the rhythm of your tension by nibbling on her collarbone. You yourself can’t stop yourself from tasting her, thirsting to taste her even longer. “If you want to, noona…”

Challenged by the running clock, neither of you does not bother to waste any second. You both pull yourselves into each other's lips while your libidos burn faster, allowing yourselves to undress each other within a minute. Jinsol takes off your shirt and tosses it right into the sofa, leaving you naked for her to drool over while you get through the many temptations of kissing her lips by stripping down her oversized concert shirt on the floor until she’s left with her bra. While locked with her lips, your fingers return to her still dripping pussy. Giving it another smooth rub, she lets out a hoarse moan, before mumbling, “Fuck, Kwangsun-ie…” With her eyes shut, she can only imagine and recall your length and girth inside her walls. “I really can’t wait… anymore.”

Neither can you. “I hear you,” you mumble with a grin. You give her another kiss before helping her unclasp her bra, taking fifteen seconds to savor her skin. Holding onto her legs, you flex your core and biceps, and, in a burst of vigor, exert enough strength to lift Jinsol off the floor. Feeling your next act fulfilling her plea, she quickly wraps them around your hips. At the same moment, your cock slides into her cunt as you pull her, closing the space between you. Every step you take leads closer to her room, which catches her attention.

“Not inside, babe,” she makes sure you catch her suggestion after lightly tapping your shoulder. “The room, I mean… We don’t have to head inside.” She giggles right after hearing herself. She didn’t have to clarify what she meant, yet her craving made her.

“Hmm?” You stop your tracks. “What’s wrong with it, noona?” Your brain goes back to manager mode. “Does something still need to be cleaned or..?”

“Aniya… It just reeks of liquor in there,” she lets out a slight pout, clenching her teeth and closing her eyes from the shivers you brought her, simply from hearing that term.

“I really don’t care about that.” You found her reasoning amusing and adorable. “But I’m guessing you have a better suggestion in mind?”

“Mmm-hmm,” she nods slowly. Her fingers trail on your arms, wanting to get a better feel of your muscles in action. “We can just do it here, Manager-nim…”

“Here?” Outside your bedroom, you take a quick look around your hotel room. There is not much special to see, except for a legless blue sofa, two different tables and a counter. But none of these spots are anything new to the both of you, so any of it will do, as Jinsol lets you make the first call at daybreak. For this beautiful and exceptional woman, you ought to make this special somehow.

“I mean, why not?” She leans closer to your ear, making you stop your quick inspection. “It’s not like we don’t spend most of our time back home in bed, right?”

“Touché,” you chuckle, right before a fresher idea seeps into your lust-filled brain makes you grin and tell her, “Hang on tight, Miss JinSoul.”

The woman giggles at your retort, letting out an enticing moan as you give one more thrust inside her walls, your tip rubbing onto her cervix a second time. This time, you raise her until her head levels with yours. Interlocking each of your arms under her legs and your palms under her ass cheeks for better comfort, you begin to pounder her at a faster pace. The pleasure you felt from her mouth now doubles with every thrust, such an elevating sensation is now connecting to hers with how deep your shaft rams in and out of her. Your speed forces Jinsol to wrap her arms around your neck, her second seat belt for this ride you’re taking her to.

“You really know—” she gasps out next to your left ear, keeping her eyes open through the surges of stimulation building up down her most sensitive zones, spreading across her breasts and muscles, it causes her to dig her sharp jaw down your shoulder. Oddly enough, it adds a pleasurable sensation to you in a similar way to a shoulder massage, almost slowing your pounding. “Just where… to fuck…iiing—touch me, Manager-nim. Ngaaaaauuuugggh!”

“Of course, babe,” you huff with a chortle, slowly giving more power to your thrusts while you pound her on the wall. “Anything… for my… perfect—fuckiiiiiing—idol…”

You savor each minute, traveling from corner to corner of the room without dropping her. When you almost lose balance, you take her to the counter so she can sit down and, seeing your nonstop effort, lifts her breast for you to suck on. Your thrusts take intervals of hastening and slowing down your pace, ensuring that you can witness her arching her back, sticking her tongue out, and rolling her eyes to the back of her head. “Yeeeeeeeees, babe!” she gasps, invigorated by how hard you suckle her tits while sniffing on her scent, from sweat to her candy perfume. “I’mauugggh… I’m really deli…cious… Am… I not?”

“You’re the tas--tiest!” you grunt to her ear. Of course, this little room tour requires you more strength and endurance to keep yourselves in this mobile position, yet it’s always been worth the challenge. The counterbalance between giving and receiving pleasure from each other only draws out your passionate morning for much longer than you planned. Once a minute passes, you lift and take her from wall to wall, even reaching both of your rooms, and still, you don’t finish there. You thrust as hard and as long as you can, while Jinsol leaves her mark on your upper body with her licks and nibbles.

Ten minutes in, your hands have made their mark on her cheeks the longer you squeeze, and yet Jinsol does not make you stop with her ecstatic moans and lust-driven laughter, doing her best to keep her cries down. At this moment, the heat shared between your bodies has reached its boiling point. Each of the fluids flowing through your nethers give you a withstanding pressure which you can barely contain the longer your throbbing cock hardens and pumps inside her walls.

Your legs finally begin to sore and shudder, prompting you to slowly walk yourselves back to the sofa, your step getting slower and heavier than the last. As you reach the sofa, you gently lay Jinsol on the middle of the high-grade leather seat. Tightening her legs around your waist, you give your last thrusts inside her. The “lids” on your tip and her entrance start to spurt and spill its respective essence inside her. The patience on your trembling bodies is wearing thin, and one of you should start giving a heads up. “I’m clo--ck—close,” you choke on your own spit and words while trying to warn her.

“Me--me too,” Jinsol garbles, and in a sense of panic and urgency, you follow your rationale and try to pull out of her cunt, but she only tightens her grip around you, digging her nails on your skin, which gives you one stingy and gratifying sensation.

“Gwen…chana… I brought pills, member?” she mutters weakly, her drained smile washing over you in relief. You almost forget that. Well, for a moment, you actually forgot she often brings them. Note to yourself, you’re gonna have to trust each other more, even in the littlest of things. “Mmgggnnnhh… I need you warm inside-uh me!”

It takes one slow and robust thrust before you let go of the pressure off your manhood, quickly flooding and filling Jinsol’s womb with your seed. Having already come a couple of times earlier, the woman’s final wave of juices clash with yours, dripping out her cunt. Her head thuds into the soft surface, gently tapping your skin as she laughs hysterically. Something that’s odd to some is basically music to you with how much you adore her.

In the afterglow of your sweet and crazy lovemaking, your forehead rests on Jinsol’s. And wanting to keep your weight off her, you try to get up from the couch, only for her to pull you back to her. Thanks to your knees supporting yourself on the couch, she remains comfortable under your embrace. She initiates a kiss one more time, feeling you fire a little more cum inside her. Even from the balcony, the rays of the sun inevitably reach your skin. It’s not as beautiful as the one from the west coast, but the light nevertheless gives you a soothing sensation, and not an irritating one, thanks to the solar control in the glass doors. From the furniture, you both take a quick glance at the sky glowing into bright orange before your heads turn to take a good look at each other, soaked in your sweat and feeling your heartbeats racing on each other’s chest.

Carefully, you pull your cock out of her entrance, dripping a few drops of semen on her thighs and stomach. “That’s one way to start the morning,” you mumble, looking down at her with an uncontrolled grin and your eyes squinted until you’ve caught your breath and regained your thinking. You didn’t notice how the skies have already brightened up.

“It sure is,” Jinsol bursts out in laughter with you, fizzing out the remainder of her libido while clinging onto your arms. Caressing your cheek, her eyes have a glint of playfulness left despite her ragged breath. “We could get used to this… A little more often.”

“I think we can get that arranged,” you chuckle, bringing out a pinch of your manager voice in your tone, which swoons over her. Finding relaxation in the slow exchange of your breaths, you don’t hesitate to fix her disheveled hair. “I love you, Jinsol-noona…”

She accepts your lips for another quicker, albeit just as sweet kiss. Once your lips part, you find each other with grins of endearment. “I love you too, Kwangsun-ie... So much.”

You think of spooning or cuddling with her on the sofa, up until you three thumps struck the door, followed by a familiar light voice. “Unnie! Manager-oppa!” Yerim’s sparkling voice yells from the outside, slightly muffled by the wooden door. “Are you guys still fucking in there or what? ‘Cause I doubt you’re still asleep—”

“Yerim-ah, keep it down! There are other people here, you know?” Haseul’s warning follows in a much softer yet more commanding tone. “Guys, don’t listen to her,” she mumbles to you, more mellow and cordial. “Just take your time to fix yourselves...”

You immediately reach for your shorts hanging on the table next to you, realizing you still have a lot of jobs to do on your last day in the Western hemisphere, at least for a long while.

“C’mon, unnie. We gotta head to Fashion Island later, you know!” the younger woman whines while her trivial argument with Haseul ensues outside.

“I’ll get the door,” you tell Jinsol. After exchanging a hearty chuckle, you get up from the sofa first and help Jinsol sit down to dress and tidy up. Juggling between walking to the door and wearing your shirt, you were able to get there. Jinsol catches up after you toss her shirt at her with precision.

“Fashion Island again?” your fiancée yells behind you, tying her hair up with a black rubber band. You muffle your laughter with your hand. “Didn’t we go there last time?”

“Yeah, but they got new launches, and we don’t wanna miss out, so you two better get your asses at the lounge in ten minutes!”

Jinsol opens the door, ready to face the younger member. “Oh, so you’re a part-time manager now?”

“Yeah!” Yerim maintains her grumpy attitude, feeling as if she’s got the upper hand over you two. “You guys may have been boning here, but I’m sure I even woke up a lot earlier than you and oppa.”

Jinsol shakes her head, unable to hold her laughter alongside Haseul. “I assure you, Yerim-ah… You did not.”

“Whatever…” she lets out a chortle. “So are you guys coming downstairs or not?”

“We still have ten minutes,” Jinsol makes her point, hoping to stay here a little longer.

“Fifteen, actually,” you correct, just having taken a quick peek on your phone. All three are intrigued. “We just got a text from daepyonim… Our flight’s rescheduled to four hours later, so we can stay here a little longer before we can make our last stops.” Such news makes Jinsol take your unoccupied hand as her eyes glow.

“Really?” Haseul’s face brightened all the same at your live update. “Oh, wow.”

“Yeah,” you elaborate, resting your hands on your lap. “I think everyone’s readjusting things ‘cause of the contract expiration... Plus, all of your old members are here too, I think the hotel’s preparing a little farewell breakfast of some sorts…”

“How’d that happen?” Yerim wobbles her head, taken aback by the surprise.

“I only heard that a couple of managers and some staff here are Orbits,” you explain.

“Like they’re Or—” Haseul attempts to clarify, alongside a nod from Yerim.

“Like Orbits, Orbits, yeah…” Fortunately for them, you expect this kind of question more often from your personal social circle. “The first followed the group since, like, your first comeback. Some of them don’t follow as much, but they still listen to your newer stuff.”

“I guess that answers our question last night, unnies,” Yerim cheers up, clapping once.

“What question?” You wonder, now only realizing that you’re the odd one out among them. “I, uhh, don’t mean to pry…”

“It’s fine, oppa,” she assures you. “It's just some hunky dongpo was hitting things off with Chaewon-unnie in the lounge last night… And I think we’re the same age, too, if I'm not mistaken.” She puts her index finger under her chin. “Or is it Yeojin-ie’s? Hmmm…”

“Hunk? Choi Yerim, you know you’re married, right?” Tilting her head to the left, Jinsol reminds the younger woman with a raised eyebrow and a smirk while still being curious.

“Unnie, I love my hubbie.” Yerim crosses her arm, pouting at her playful suspicion. “Just trying to spill the tea… That’s how Jungie-unnie describes him. Heck, Hyeju’s impressed with him, the same Son Hyeju-yah we know, like that’s how fascinating the situation is.”

“Okay, okay, I believe you and appreciate the tea, but you tell us about it later,” Jinsol’s natural type of leadership still awes you with admiration and adoration for her, even if it's exemplified in the most trivial situations. “You know, when all of us are together.”

“Exactly… And that means we’re having a fancy breakfast later, right?” Haseul smoothly brings you all back to the original topic, which you went along well with. “Did I get that right, Kwangsun-ah?”

“Pretty much… But that’s just a heads-up, Haseul-ssi, I mean, noona…” Your sudden correction of wording and clearing of your throat cracks a chortle from Jinsol. “You can tell the others, but pleeeease don’t make it too obvious to the staff once you reach the lounge.”

“Arasseo…” The older woman snickers, exchanging a teasing stare with your fiancée. “That’s really sweet of them, actually… I’ll let everyone know in our dantokbang.”

“We’ll head downstairs in ten minutes,” Jinsol rapidly raises both eyebrows, which only you failed to notice. You look back to her too late; she only meets you with a wide smile.

“Sooooo, that means, we should go…” Haseul nudges Yerim’s shoulder with a light titter. “Thanks for the update, Kwangsun-ah.”

You bow to them, which they reciprocate by instinct. “No problem, Haseul-noona.” Looking back, you also owe her for being one of the first to believe in your love for Jinsol, similar to you with your older siblings and closest friends.

Yerim’s hands sway together in slight embarrassment. “I suppose, y’all can still have fun for now…” She turns to you and bows a second time with a frown. “Mianhaeyo, oppa...”

“It’s fine, Yerim-ah…” With a pursed smile, you give her shoulder a couple of light taps. “You girls should probably just chill for a while. You all had the busiest month in a long while. You deserve a long rest… Longer than what you’re getting, even.”

“Gomawoyo... And we will,” Haseul also speaks for herself and Yerim, pulling her closer like a parent to her shy child. The younger member beams at your reassurance. Being a manager means you’ll have to look after all of these idols. Thankfully, they also end up getting a good friend to confide in from time to time. “We’ll head back to our rooms.”

“Take care, unnie, Yerim-ie,” Jinsol huddles them into a hug. “I’ll see you girls later.” You wave them farewell before closing the door while hearing some of their banter.

“You realize your husband might be waiting for you in your room by now,” Haseul murmurs to Yerim while resting her hands on her shoulders from behind; they both rush outside the hall of the floor to the elevator.

“Aniya, aniya, unnie… I’m sure his snores are still filling up the room,” the younger woman tries to tell her otherwise. “I guess I still have little time to surprise him.”

Back inside your room, you face Jinsol with a smile mirroring hers. “So, noona, do you wanna shower first?” you ask your beloved. “I’ll clean up our little mess here for a bit.”

She pulls you closer, wrapping your waist with her long arms. “We can just do that later and get in together… I may not be able to stay close to you… Not until the flight.”

Her pouting expression has always made your heart melt. “Well, I’m pretty sure we can stay close the whole trip. Physically,” Your technical answer brings a swift giggle to her. “But for your offer… How can I say no to that?”

You can tell that something’s been lingering on her mind since she chatted with them. It’s a little mysterious, mischievous even. “Okay, but, um, you know, I was thinking…”

“Yeah?” you tilt her head to the right, encouraging her to confess her alluring thoughts.

“I wouldn’t mind if you start using… Less honorifics with me every now and then.”

Your eyes light up. You even feel a little throb down on your flaccid member. “Jinjja?”

“Mmm-hmm,” she hums, biting her lower lip with her sharp, sultry gaze locked on you.

“That’s—Wait…” Feeling how it sounds too good to be true, your hunches warn you of a possible reason for her tempting suggestion. Your domineering allure becomes invaded by some concern for her. “It’s not about what I called Haseul-noona earlier, is it?”

“Not…” Her eyes avoided yours for a second, wandering from left to right to figure out how to phrase it. Nevertheless, she doesn’t wanna lie to herself, nor to you. “—Entirely.”

“Come on, noona…” You pepper kisses into her cheeks, going down to her right hand. “That doesn’t make you jealous, does it? I mean, I’ve also called you noona before, as much as I call Haseul or Jungeun… Even Vivi, Sooyoung, and Jiwoo insisted on it, and I’ve rarely met them.”

“I know, I know. But I’m not bothered by that,” she snickers from embarrassment. “We know you had time with some of them, and even before that, you were already close… I also met your sisters…” She rubs her nape. “It's more on myself. Just wondering about the idea that maybe we can do a little bit of switching things up next time, you know?”

Sensing the sincerity in her look and words, you shake your head with a chuckle of both disbelief and fascination. There’s nothing for you to worry about. Not in this chapter of your lives. “Huh. Well, I guess…” You inch closer, resting the tip of your nose with her. “There’s still a lot I can look forward to before the wedding, Jinsol-ah…”

“Oh, you have no idea what you’re in for, Kwangsun-ie,” she whispers deep in your ear.

Her hot breath striking your ear spirals into your spine. In the seconds that follow, your cock naturally hardens as a response to her, shortly before you feel her fingers wrapping around your crotch. “Heh… I, uh, I tend to love most surprises, so I’m think I can han—”

Feeling an enticing sense of heat from your anticipation, Jinsol giggles and pounces on your lips, slowly tiptoeing and wrapping her arms around you. Your hands travel down her leg, giving her the signal to jump and wrap them around your hips as you catch her bottom. Having regained your strength, you carry your beloved and, with your lips still dancing, walk yourselves to the bathroom, cherishing half of the additional ten minutes given to you, before going about your day.

= = =

I am not a longtime fan/stan of LOONA, but I really admire their talent and music in general, especially the post-BBC units. I missed a lot of great stuff when they first came out, even though I was familiar with some memes related to them, but I'm happy they've made quite left a mark on kpop, and most of them are still active. with that, I don't have a bias, considering they're simply all stunners, but JinSoul just happens to catch my eye the most. I think mintwithchoco's loonathesmut series might've been an influence on why I wrote this fic this way, without the stepsibling aspect, of course. plus, noona JinSoul fics are rare outside that series (maybe I'm wrong), so like, I couldn't help it lmao.

alongside JinSoul, I also considered writing Choerry before this, but maybe I'll just save it for another time. there's a tease here, after all. I thought if I could've made this a little longer, but I like how this turns out. not all fics have to be a full-on series. already got a lot of that on my plate lol. they can have continuations in the future if I'm tempted.

Once inside your home, Heejin finally gets comfortable. She hangs her coat on the rack before settling on the couch. You land beside her, where she suddenly starts nestling under your arm. “Still cold?” you joke. “Or do you just want a hug?”

“Maybe a bit of both?” She says with a smile. You relent, pulling her onto your lap while your arms wrap around her waist. She nuzzles her face against the crook of your neck as she adjusts the rest of her body. She settles in a cradling position, with her arms wrapped around your neck. “I love your hugs. They always make me feel warm.”

You sit in silence as you and Heejin cuddle, your body heat adding to the warmth of the fireplace. After a few months of being with her, you’re still in utter disbelief that you met an actual vampire, even more so with the fact that they’re real. Still what surprised you was that they aren’t as terrifying as you thought they would be. Or, at the very least, Heejin isn’t.

“So, what other rules do you actually have to follow?” You ask her as you grew bored of watching Chucky for the millionth time since you started dating. But it’s her favorite movie so you’re not going to complain. “I mean, aside from the constant need for an invitation into a home?”

“The sunlight rule is real.” Heejin answers. “Though it won’t kill us. Or make that sparkly shit from twilight. It just hurts a little bit. Like millions of mosquito bites at the same time.”

“That doesn’t sound like a little bit. What about garlic?” “Painfully yes. And to think I loved having Aglio Olio back when I was still human.” “What about crosses?” “50/50. Some of us still practice considering it wasn’t our choice to be turned. Maybe those that really get into the demonic aspect are the only ones affected.” “Wow. So rules really are rules for you guys, huh?” “Yeah. Pretty much.” “And to think I had such an irrational fear for vampires before I met you.” “I wouldn’t say that was an irrational fear, babe. There are some bad ones out there.” “Yeah well I’m not afraid of them. Especially after meeting you.” You say as you hold on to her chin and have her look up to you. She gives you a bright smile. “It helps that somehow you’re the first ever human that’s actually immune to all of our powers.” Heejin says as she swings her leg over your lap. “Impervious to our hypnotism. A bite doesn’t turn you. You really lucked out didn’t you?” She says as she straddles you, pushing you on to your back on the couch.

“I only lucked out when I met you, Heejin.” You say as you try to sit up. She uses her supernatural strength to push you down again. Her hands ghost over your arms before they grab hold of your wrists. She pins them to the couch above your head, nearly burying them into the cushions. She lays her head on your chest, getting to hear your heart is beating faster, not out of fear, but of anticipation. She raises her head, looks deep into your eyes before her mouth grows into a smile. As she presents to you her toothy grin, you can see her canines slowly grow. “Hungry?” You ask her. She gives you a subtle nod. “Grab a Snickers”  You angle your face to one side, presenting your neck. You can see her mouth water as she waits for your consent, enough encouragement for you to give it.

“Go.” It was only one word that came from your mouth, but the weight that it lifted off of Heejin felt like the entire world. In a split second she had latched on to your neck. Her fangs dig deep into your flesh. The moment your blood enters her mouth, her eyes go red with bloodlust. Was it painful? Sure. But only for a moment. Even if you did try to fight her, you wouldn’t be able to as she uses her strength to keep you pinned down. But you never wanted to. Not even from the first time she did it. The pain was temporary, but the pleasure that followed was something you ended up getting addicted to. A rush of adrenaline and serotonin that you find yourself chasing after every single day. Clinging to the singular source that could give it to you. Clinging to Heejin.

When she has her fill, Heejin pulls away from your neck. In the wake of her hunger are visible bite marks on your flesh, along with a few drips of your blood around the bite. Some of it was evident on her mouth as well. She wipes the traces off her mouth with her hand, before she notices your deep and heavy breaths. “I didn’t hurt you, right?” She asks you worriedly, her thumb brushing over the bite mark on your neck. A shriek escapes her mouth as you suddenly over power her. You manage to sit up, your hands exchanging places as you hold her wrists now. Your face gets close to hers, your hot breath crashing into her ice-cold skin. You lean and whisper to her your reply that makes the immortal shudder with anticipation. 

“Never.”

Heejin doesn’t get a chance to reply as you crash your lips onto hers. Now, you know at any moment she can stop this. She can flick you away with just one finger if she wants to. But she doesn’t. She indulges your desire for momentary control, enjoys it when she plays along and surrenders to your whims. You know she’s just letting you, but you’re going to make it worth your while. For the both of you.

As the two of you continue to kiss, you manage to push Heejin onto her back and pin her against the couch. The kiss grows erratic. There’s desperation in your actions. Fueled by the built up tension and arousal from when she was feeding from your neck. With all the energy you bring, she matches it like it’s second nature. Her fangs retract, but leave just enough to mark your lower lip when she bites you while making out. She shows flashes of her strength, guiding your hands to where she wants you to place them. Right now, she leads your fingers to dig into her waist. Your thumbs sinking into her well toned abs. If a passerby would see this scene right now, they would mistake you for the blood hungry monster. It was a complete 180 of how you and Heejin were just mere moments ago. If she was the one who was earlier hungry and filled with bloodlust, now it’s you who was hungry for her and desperate to fulfill your own lust.

For a quick moment, Heejin pulls away from the kiss. You’re left a panting wreck, desperate to get your lips back onto her. She holds your back in order to say what’s on her mind.

“I’ve already had my fill.” She says as she holds your cheek. She caresses you with her thumb. “Now, it’s your turn.” Ironically, having your fill would be you filling her up. 

In a last show of strength, Heejin makes quick work of her clothes, tearing them off her and exposing her lean and perfect body to you. She doesn’t let you waste time with your own clothes as she tears them off of you too. With both of your naked figures fully uncovered, you’re both able to get straight to business.

Heejin once again surrenders to your control, indulging your illusion of momentary power. She melts into your touch letting you guide your entangled bodies on the couch. You carry her up, letting her head rest on one of the throw pillows for her comfort. Normally, you’d happily eat her out before going any further, but right now her work on your neck has you too riled up. Now, you’re desperate for more than just her lips. You're hungry for your own release, which would preferably be inside of her.

Before either of you could get carried away with trying to swallow each other whole, you pull away just enough for Heejin to get the message. She spreads her legs, her lower lips spreading in an inviting fashion. You grab hold of your length, aim it and let it nestle at her entrance before you start easing into her. A shared moan escapes from the both of you, one that is immediately muffled as she pulls you into another kiss. You keep pushing until you feel yourself hilt inside her, your tip pressing against the entrance of her womb. The second the two make contact, you can feel Heejin lose a bit of control. Her fangs extend a bit, digging deeper into your lips whenever she bites your lips during the kiss. You feel yourself start to lose control as well, your hips moving on their own with a relentless pace. Repeatedly plunging into Heejin with no rhythm or rhyme. For a while you stifle her moans by letting them escape into your mouth, but you decide to pull away and leave your own marks on her neck to match the ones she left on you. Her moans freely escape to fill the room, your grunts, on the other hand, crash against her flesh.

To say your actions grew erratic would be a lie, since you already started with an erratic tempo. Each time you bottom out into Heejin, your tip presses on to her cervix. Normally, you’d be worried that you were being too rough. However, the sound of her moans and whimpers has you thinking something else. Her actions match your intensity, pulling your hair while you kiss, lick and bite the flesh of her neck washes any and all doubts away. She can take whatever you give her. She wants to take it. 

With every thrust, you can feel Heejin’s walls spasm and contort around your length. Each time you fill her up, her walls slowly turn her pussy into a perfect mold that matches your dick. Soon, her inner walls start to spasm more often. Coupled with the whimpers and moans escaping from her being at max volume, you had an idea that she was close. “Fuck— faster! I’m close! I’m close!”

Well, now you know she was close. Though you weren’t far behind her either. 

You indulge Heejin’s request, going even faster than whatever erratic speed you were going. Your grip on her wrists tighten as you continue to mark her neck. You get your lips on every single inch of her flesh, tongue darting and tasting the salty pools of her sweat (another new tidbit you learned today, vampires sweat during sex). Your mouth travels all over her shoulders and neck, leaving temporary marks that heal faster than those on humans. You even reach low enough to capture one of her exposed nipples, earning a groan from her when your tongue flicks at her swollen nub. All the sensations work together as a symphony that pushes Heejin over the edge.

Heejin’s mouth is left ajar as a mixture of a moan and cry escapes her mouth. You can feel her tense up under you, her strength showing just enough that it has you putting more effort in holding her down. Her hips buck against you. Her walls start contracting around you. The noises from her mouth suddenly stop, but the searing pain on your shoulder provides the answer why. In her throes of pleasure, her fangs extend once again before she latches on to your shoulder. Now, there’s no major vein or artery there. No big source of blood. But she’s found comfort in biting on your muscle, another avenue of release as she rides out her high. The momentary sharp pain, however, is what gets you to your peak. “Fuck me… Heejin! I’m— ARGH” You’re unable to finish your warning as she bites down harder. Though that was already a prior agreement. She knows you’re about to unravel. She knows you can’t pull out. She wants it inside. So go. Cum.

So, you do. You let go and defer any and all attempts to hold back. You feel your dick pulsate inside of Heejin. Each time releasing a stream of cum. While you flood her womb, she finally relents and releases your shoulder. The flurry of moans that escape both of your mouths fill the living room.

After a while, you both finally come down from your shared high. Your labored breaths begin to slow down, though still desperate to get more oxygen in your lungs. Your eyes meet. Heejin’s, blood red with bloodlust. Yours wide from both pain and pleasure. Sparks fly in the short distance between the two of you before you both lean in another kiss. You taste a bit of your blood before your senses are filled with just Heejin. It fuels the kiss, making it hungrier as if you two didn’t just have sex. 

Still, the fatigue catches up with you. You pull away with some of your blood staining the area around your mouth. Heejin forms a soft smile. You eventually manage to muster up some strength to pull out and plop beside her on the couch. Within a second of getting comfortable she snuggles up beside you once again, finding warmth and comfort under your arm. You pull a blanket over the two of you before giving her a quick kiss on her forehead. Silence once again conquers the living room, the two of you sitting there and resting in each other’s presence.

“So…” You break the silence. “You really can’t eat garlic?” “I would be having aglio olio right now if I can!”

The both of you laugh before the silence sets in again. In that moment, you can feel her start to relax, sinking into the warmth of your hug. You know she’s slowly losing consciousness, the exact opposite of what’s expected from a creature of the night. In her last few waking moments, you whisper one last declaration that gets her mouth to curl into a soft smile. “I love you, Heejin.”

You bring her in tighter, sharing your warmth with the cold, undead being. You surrender to the fatigue and lose consciousness yourself. Your last lingering thoughts were about your earlier fears. Facing them now seems textbook. Easy. Especially with Heejin by your side. Now you know they were never really terrifying. They were what they have always been, and always will be. 

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

The apartment is warm. Too warm.

You know why. You know exactly why. The thermostat is still set three degrees higher than you'd ever choose because Jinsoul ran cold and you ran warm and at some point you'd stopped fighting over it. She won that debacle. She won most of them, actually, except the ones she let you have so you could feel like you had a say.

You haven't touched the dial. Can't.

Five days since the funeral. Or four. You've stopped counting because counting means the number gets bigger and bigger numbers mean more distance between now and the last time she was breathing in the bed next to you and you're not ready for distance. Not from her. Not yet.

People came. People spoke. You remember almost none of it. Someone gripped your arm hard enough to bruise and you didn't notice until that night, standing under water you couldn't feel, staring at the purple crescent on your bicep like it was written in a language you used to speak.

You sit up.

The bed is enormous. Which is funny, because six months ago you couldn't fit in it. Not properly. Jinsoul slept like she was trying to absorb you. One leg thrown over yours, arm slung across your chest, her breath pooling in the dip below your collarbone. Every night. Without fail. Like if she loosened her grip even slightly you'd float off somewhere she couldn't follow.

You'd complained about it once. Just once.

"You sleep like a koala. You know that, right?"

She hadn't even opened her eyes. "Mm. Be a better tree then."

You'd laughed. That useless three-in-the-morning laugh that barely qualifies as sound. Pulled her tighter anyway.

Now the mattress stretches beside you like something left behind after a flood. You put your feet on the floor and the hardwood bites cold, which doesn't track with the thermostat cranked the way it is, but nothing about your body tracks anymore. Too warm under covers. Too cold outside of them. Starving but the thought of chewing makes your jaw lock up.

The kitchen is worse.

Her mug. Drying rack. Chipped handle, cartoon whale that looks more like a deformed potato. Second date. Street vendor in Hongdae who clearly thought it was a masterpiece.

She'd laughed so hard at the register the guy looked personally wounded.

"It's perfect," she'd wheezed, wiping her eyes. "It looks exactly like you before coffee."

"It looks like a potato."

"I know what I said."

You fill the kettle. Two cups of water. Muscle memory, your hands moving through a routine they haven't been told is over.

You stare at the waterline. Pour half out.

Stare again. Pour the rest.

Then you leave the kettle empty on the counter and slide down to the kitchen floor with your back against the cabinet because your legs have made an executive decision without consulting you.

That's where it starts. The first one.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

Seven months ago.

You'd come home late. Not the end-of-the-world kind of late, but late enough that dinner had gone room temperature and the candle she'd lit was a pathetic nub of wax barely clinging to the holder.

"Hey." She didn't look up from her book.

"Hey. I'm sorry, the meeting ran—"

"Eat first."

You'd stood there in the doorway, briefcase still in hand, jaw working around an excuse she'd already decided she didn't need to hear. Jinsoul turned a page.

"Microwave. Thirty seconds. Don't kill the rice."

So you'd eaten. She'd read. When you finally dropped onto the couch beside her she closed the book without marking the page, which meant she either didn't care where she left off or she'd been reading the same paragraph for the last hour waiting for you.

She leaned into you. Not dramatically. Not with any preamble or production. Just shifted her weight until she was tucked under your arm, fitting into the gap between your ribs and your elbow like the space had been carved for her specifically.

"Bad one?"

"Yeah."

"Wanna talk?"

"Not really."

"Okay."

That was it. The entire negotiation. No interrogation. No guilt trip about the cold food or the wasted candle or the thirty minutes she'd spent pretending she wasn't watching the door. Just her weight against your side. Warm. Steady. Her fingers finding yours, tracing slow circles on your knuckles, the kind of idle touch that didn't mean anything except everything.

You'd cried. Not from that day specifically but from the pile of days behind it, all the weight you'd been packing into your pockets and pretending wasn't dragging you under. The tears came quiet. No production. Just a leak you couldn't stop.

She didn't speak. Shifted, pressed your head against her shoulder, worked her fingers into your hair. Held you like that in the lamplight and the hush of the apartment while your breathing did whatever it needed to do.

"You're too good for days like this," she'd murmured. So quiet you almost missed it. "You know that, right?"

You hadn't answered. Her saying it was the answer.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

Now.

Kitchen floor. Cabinet digging into your spine. Empty kettle catching light on the counter.

You pull your knees up. Press your forehead against them. The tears come and there's nothing underneath. No shoulder. No fingers. No voice.

Just the thermostat humming at a temperature meant for someone who isn't here.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

You don't remember deciding to go back to work on Tuesday. Your body just does it. Alarm at six. Shower where you stand under the water for eleven minutes without washing anything, watching the steam curl toward the ceiling like it has somewhere better to be. The suit you grab is wrinkled because ironing requires a version of you that currently doesn't exist. You notice a small stain on the cuff. Soy sauce, probably. From the last dinner you cooked together. You wear it anyway.

The commute is strange. The train is the same train. Same route, same stops, same automated voice announcing stations in that cheerful cadence that has no business being that awake at 7 AM. But the seat next to you is empty and you keep glancing at your phone like there should be a message waiting. There always was. Some mornings it was just a single character. A heart. A sun emoji. Once, inexplicably, a picture of a pigeon she'd seen on the balcony with the caption this is you running late.

Nothing today. Nothing tomorrow. Nothing ever again from that number.

The office is wrong in a way you can't name until you're at your desk and it clicks. It's the normalcy. That's what's wrong. Keyboards clacking. Someone's lunch in the microwave already at 9 AM, which is a crime against decency but nobody's ever had that conversation. Choi from accounting cackling at something on his phone. A printer jamming in the corner. The world spinning at its regular speed while yours has been lodged in amber since Sunday morning.

Your supervisor comes by around ten. Puts a hand on your shoulder. Squeezes once. "Take more time if you need it. Seriously."

"I'm fine."

He stands there a beat too long. Nods. Walks away. He doesn't believe you. You don't believe you either. But going home means sitting in her warmth, breathing air that still carries traces of her shampoo and the laundry detergent she insisted on because it smelled like "clean rain, not polluted rain, there's a difference," and you are not built for that right now. Not during daylight. At least here the air smells like burnt coffee and recycled paper and nothing that makes your hands shake.

The morning passes. You answer emails. Attend a meeting where words happen near you. Someone asks your opinion on a timeline and you give one that sounds reasonable enough that nobody follows up. The whole performance is mechanical, a puppet show where you're both the puppet and the hand, and the audience is too polite to mention the strings are showing.

Lunchtime.

You stare at the bento place across the street from your office window. The line snaking out the door. Salarymen loosening their ties. A woman in a yellow coat laughing with her friend about something that makes her double over.

The second memory hits without warning.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

Five months ago.

Jinsoul had started packing your lunches. Not because you asked. Not because you even hinted. She'd just noticed you were skipping meals during crunch weeks and decided, unilaterally, that this was no longer an option.

The first time you'd opened your bag to find a container of kimbap and a post-it note that said if this comes back uneaten I'm coming to your office and I'm not wearing pants, you'd laughed hard enough that Park from development had asked if you were choking.

It became a thing. The lunches and the notes. She never repeated one.

Eat this or I'll tell your mother you skipped lunch.

I put extra sesame oil because you look like you need it. Don't ask me how sesame oil helps. It just does.

Remember that you married someone who wakes up at 6am to make you food. Act accordingly.

Some of them weren't jokes.

I'm proud of you. Eat your rice.

That one you'd kept. Folded it into your wallet behind your ID card where it still sits, the ink smudged from months of body heat, the paper softened to fabric.

You'd called her that day. Middle of a meeting prep, didn't care.

"The note," you'd said, your voice doing something embarrassing.

"Which one?"

"The proud one."

A pause. Then a sound that might have been a laugh or a sniffle or both. "Oh. That one. Yeah. I meant it."

"I know you did. That's why I'm calling."

"Eat your lunch."

"I'm eating it right now."

"With the phone in one hand and chopsticks in the other? That's not eating. That's multitasking. I want full commitment."

"Yes ma'am."

"And honey?"

"Yeah?"

Her voice had dropped to that register she only used when it was just the two of you, even over the phone. Soft. Conspiratorial. Like the words were only rated for your ears.

"Come home on time tonight. I have plans for you."

"What kind of plans?"

"The kind where you don't need pants either."

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

Now.

You're still staring at the bento place. The lunch rush is thinning. Your stomach is a fist.

You open your bag out of habit. There's no container inside. No post-it. Just your laptop and a charger and a protein bar you bought three days ago that you can't bring yourself to unwrap.

You close the bag.

Go back to your desk.

Don't eat.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

Wednesday passes like something being dragged through wet cement. You eat half a convenience store sandwich at your desk because your body sends distress signals you can't ignore anymore. It tastes like cardboard and obligation. You throw the other half away and feel guilty about it because somewhere in your head there's a voice, her voice, saying that's not eating, that's going through the motions.

Thursday you almost call her.

Your thumb hovers over her name in your contacts. Jinsoul 🐳, with the little whale emoji she'd added herself because you never would have thought to. The screen glows. You count to five. Then ten. Then you put the phone face-down on the table because you know exactly how this goes. You'll hear her voicemail greeting. That clipped, slightly too-fast "It's Jinsoul, leave a message!" she'd recorded while distracted by something off-camera. Probably the TV. Probably mid-bite of something she wasn't supposed to be eating before dinner.

You'll hear it and you'll crater. No floor. No bottom. Just a voice that sounds alive talking to you from the other side of something permanent.

So you don't call. Not yet.

You're rationing her. That's what you've been doing, you realize, and the realization itself is its own kind of gutting. You're treating the remnants of your wife like emergency supplies. The voicemail. The mug. The thermostat. The post-it in your wallet. Each one a charge, a hit, a few seconds of her that you can access when the silence gets too structural. And you know, the way you know your own name, that once you start using them too often they'll lose their voltage. The way a song you overplay stops reaching the part of you it used to reach.

You're not ready to lose that too.

Thursday night you sit on the couch with every light off. The city does its thing outside the window. Sirens. A motorbike. Someone arguing two floors down, their voices muffled through layers of concrete into shapeless anger. Sounds that used to be background noise but now feel like they're happening behind glass in a world you used to belong to.

The couch still has her dent.

You can see it in the streetlight bleeding through the curtain. Her side. Slightly deeper than yours because she sat with her legs tucked under herself, always tilted toward you, always leaning. You used to joke that she had a gravitational field. That she bent space toward herself without trying. She'd roll her eyes and lean harder, proving your point.

You reach over. Touch the dent. The fabric is room temperature.

Which is wrong. It should be warm. She ran warm when she sat still. Something about her circulation, she'd said once, gesturing vaguely at herself like her own biology was an inconvenience she was barely tolerating. Her side of the couch always held heat for minutes after she left. You'd put your hand there sometimes, after she got up to refill water or grab a snack, just to feel the ghost of her in the upholstery.

Now there's no ghost. Just fabric.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

Three months ago.

A fight. Not a big one, not a screamer. The worst kind. The quiet kind where you both said things in normal voices that landed like something thrown.

It was about money. Or time. Or the way you'd been pulling away without realizing it, working later, talking less, turning into a silhouette of the person she married. Honestly you can't even remember who started it. What you remember is the end.

You'd been standing at the kitchen counter, both of you on opposite sides like it was a negotiating table. She'd said something and you'd said something back and then there was this silence that felt like the air had been sucked out of the room.

And then Jinsoul had walked around the counter. Slowly. Not angry anymore, not performing calm either. Just moving toward you with that look on her face, the one where her eyes go soft and her jaw unclenches and you can see her making the decision in real time to choose you over being right.

She'd stopped in front of you. Put both hands on your chest. Looked up.

"I don't want to win this."

"Win what?"

"This. Whatever this is turning into. I don't want to win it. I just want to be next to you."

Your throat had locked. She'd felt it, felt the way your chest seized under her palms, and she'd stepped closer.

"You're so hard on yourself. You know that? About everything. Work, life, us. You carry it like if you put it down for one second the whole thing collapses." Her thumbs moved in small strokes over your sternum. "But I'm standing right here. I'm not going anywhere. So put some of it on me."

"I don't want to burden—"

"That's not how this works." Sharper now. Not angry but firm, the way she got when she needed you to hear something you kept dodging. "You're not a burden. You're my husband. There's a difference and I need you to learn it."

You'd exhaled. Long. Shaky. The fight drained out of you like someone pulled a plug.

"I'm sorry."

"I know." She'd pressed her forehead against your chest. "I know you are. Just stop running from me, okay? I'm fast but I shouldn't have to chase you."

"You're not that fast."

A muffled laugh against your shirt. "I will end you."

You'd wrapped your arms around her. Stood like that for a long time. The counter no longer between you. The argument, gone, dissolved into whatever atmosphere absorbs the fights that don't matter in the end. Just her heartbeat against yours, stubborn and steady, doing what it always did despite thirty years of being told it might not.

Her damn stubborn heart. You'd loved it. Trusted it. Built a whole life on its rhythm.

That was your mistake. Not the trusting. The assuming it would keep going.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

Now.

The couch. The dark. The dent beside you shaped like someone but holding nothing.

You lean into her side of the cushion. It gives. Nothing gives back.

You stay there until your neck aches and the streetlight shifts and the arguing downstairs burns itself out. Then you get up, drink water from a glass instead of the bottle because she hated when you drank from the bottle, and go to bed.

Her pillow still smells like her. You press your face into it once, fast, like ripping off a bandage. The scent hits your limbic system like a flashbang. Lavender. Something warmer underneath. Something that was just her, that no product or perfume could replicate, that existed nowhere else in the world and now exists only in the fading chemistry of cotton fibers.

You pull away. Turn over. Stare at the ceiling until your eyes give up.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

Friday you find the surgery brochure.

It's in the second drawer of the bedside table, under a phone charger and a sleep mask. You'd printed it weeks ago. The hospital abroad, the discounted program, the numbers you'd crunched a dozen times on the back of a napkin before transferring them to a proper spreadsheet. All of it neat. All of it organized. All of it completely, spectacularly useless now.

You hold the brochure and something inside you finally cracks along a fault line you didn't know was there. Not the crying kind of crack. Something structural. Something load-bearing.

You'd had a plan. She'd agreed to it. You were going to fix this. You were going to take her abroad and sit in a waiting room for six hours and pace and bite your nails and then a doctor was going to come out and say it went well and you were going to cry in a hospital hallway and she was going to call you dramatic and you were going to spend the rest of your lives arguing about the thermostat and fighting over whose turn it was to get water and falling asleep tangled together in a bed that was too small for two people who refused to let go of each other.

That was the plan.

You fold the brochure in half. Then in half again. Then again until it's a thick, useless square that fits in your palm.

You put it in the drawer and close it.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

A year ago.

Before the ring. Before the vows. Before any of it was official.

You'd been sick. Really sick. The kind of flu that turns you into a pile of blankets with a voice, useless and pitiful and convinced on some primal level that you were dying even though it was just a fever and a cough.

Jinsoul had shown up at your apartment uninvited. You'd opened the door looking like a war crime and she'd walked right past you with two bags of groceries, a thermometer, and an expression that suggested arguing was not on the menu.

"Go to bed."

"I'm fine. I just need to—"

"Bed."

"Jinsoul, I can take care of my—"

She'd put her hand on your forehead. Held it there for three seconds. Looked at you the way a mechanic looks at an engine that's making a sound it shouldn't.

"Your head is on fire. You smell like a pharmacy. Go to bed or I'll carry you there and I'm small but I'm motivated."

You'd gone to bed.

She'd made soup. Not from a packet. From scratch. You could hear her in the kitchen, banging around your cabinets, muttering about your lack of proper cookware, occasionally yelling things like "Why do you own four spatulas and zero ladles?" and "Is this ginger or is this just old?"

When she brought the bowl in, you were half-conscious, fever doing strange things to the edges of the room. She'd sat on the bed beside you, legs crossed, and spooned soup into you with the patience of someone feeding a child.

"You don't have to do this," you'd croaked.

"I know."

"Then why are you?"

She'd paused. Spoon hovering. A strand of hair falling across her face that she didn't bother fixing. "Because you'd do it for me and you wouldn't even think about it. And I want to be the kind of person who does the same. Not because I have to. Because your soup is getting cold and you look pathetic and I think I might be falling in love with you."

That last part. Thrown in at the end like an afterthought. Like it was the same category as cold soup and pity. You'd stared at her. She'd stared back. Then she'd shoved the spoon at your mouth.

"Eat. Process your feelings later. Soup first."

You'd eaten. And somewhere between the third and fourth spoonful, with a fever of 39 and a nose that couldn't smell anything and a woman sitting cross-legged on your bed who'd just detonated a confession between complaints about your kitchenware, you'd known.

Not thought. Not suspected. Known.

"I think I might be falling in love with you too," you'd said.

"You have a 39-degree fever. You're not a reliable source right now."

"Ask me again when it breaks."

"Deal."

She'd asked you three days later, standing in your kitchen with a ladle she'd bought you. You'd given her the same answer. She'd kissed you holding the ladle and you'd both tasted like ginger and garlic and it was the least romantic, most perfect kiss of your life.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

Now.

Saturday morning. A week and a day. Or a week. You've stopped correcting the math.

The apartment is still warm. You still haven't touched the dial. You're starting to think you never will. It'll just be this way forever. Her last setting. Her last preference. One final argument she won without being here to gloat about it.

You're washing dishes. Her plate from the drying rack. The mug you've been avoiding. Your hands move through warm water and soap and you're fine, you're managing, you're keeping it together until your thumb traces the chip on the mug handle and your chest does that thing again. That cracking. That structural failure in the architecture of you that she used to shore up just by being in the room.

You set the mug down carefully. Both hands on the edge of the sink. Breathe.

Your phone buzzes on the counter. A notification you ignore. Then another. Then nothing.

Then, for no reason you can name, you pick it up. Open her contact. Your thumb finds the voicemail you've been rationing. The one you've been saving like the last match in a dark room.

You press play.

But it's not the voicemail.

It's a voice memo. One you've never heard. Dated three weeks ago, filed under a cloud backup that synced automatically from her phone to yours. She must have recorded it late at night and never sent it, or meant to and forgot, or just needed to say something out loud to someone even if that someone was a microphone in a dark room. It's been sitting in your files this whole time. Waiting.

Your heart does something arrhythmic. You almost laugh. Her heart was the defective one and here yours is, skipping beats at the sound of a file notification.

You press play.

Jinsoul's voice fills the kitchen. Close, like she was holding the phone against her mouth. A little rough. Either just woken up or about to sleep, that liminal register where her voice dropped half an octave and went slightly raspy.

"Okay, I don't even know if I'm gonna send this or if I'm just talking to myself at—" A pause. A small laugh. The sound of her checking the time. "—2 AM apparently. Cool. Very normal behavior, Jinsoul."

You can hear sheets rustling. The faint creak of the bed. She was lying next to you when she recorded this. You were asleep. She was watching you.

"I was watching you sleep just now. Which sounds creepy when I say it out loud but I'm your wife so I think I get a pass." Another pause. Longer this time. When she speaks again the joke is gone from her voice. "You finally looked... peaceful? For the first time in like a week. And I just. I don't know. I wanted to say it out loud because I don't think you hear it enough and you definitely don't say it to yourself, so someone has to, and I guess tonight that someone is me and my phone at 2 AM like a crazy person."

Your grip tightens on the phone. Your knuckles drain white.

"You're a good person. Like, genuinely. You're so good it's kind of annoying sometimes because you don't even see it. You just go and go and go and you beat yourself up for every stumble like the stumble cancels out the entire run and it doesn't. It doesn't, honey. The reason it's so hard right now is because you've been running so hard. For us. For me. And I see that even when you think I don't."

Her voice wavers. Not much. Just a hairline fracture in the steadiness, the kind only you would catch because you've spent years learning the micro-expressions of her voice the way other people learn instruments.

"And I know you can't trick anyone. Can't bullshit your way through stuff. You're too honest for that. Too kind. You're the kind of person who's so good they can't even hide it and I—" A breath. Shaky. She's crying, you realize. She was lying next to you in the dark, crying quietly into her phone, and you were asleep. You were right there and you were asleep. "—I know that better than anyone alive."

A sniffle. Then the sound of her breathing, deliberate and slow, steadying herself the way she always did. In through the nose, out through the mouth, the technique some doctor taught her years ago for when her heart rate climbed too high.

"So. Yeah. I just wanted to tell you. In case I forget to say it tomorrow or the day after or however long it takes for you to stop being so weird about the work thing." A wet laugh. "I'm right here. I'm always gonna be right here. Beside you. I'll always stay beside you. No matter what dumb thing you did at work or how many lunches you skipped or how many times you try to carry everything by yourself like it's a one-man job when it's not. It's a two-person job. That's literally what the rings mean."

A long silence. You can hear her breathing. The clock on the wall. The distant hum of the city through the window.

"I love you, honey. Go to sleep. And eat your damn breakfast tomorrow."

The recording ends.

The kitchen is silent. The kind of silent that has weight, that presses against your eardrums, that fills the space where her voice was with nothing.

You stand with the phone pressed to your ear long after the audio dies. Listening to the static hiss. The ghost frequency. The nothing that sounds like nothing and everything.

You play it again.

And again.

And one more time because her voice is warm and close and alive in a way that contradicts everything you know to be true and for two minutes and thirty-seven seconds you can pretend. You can stand in this kitchen and let her talk to you from three weeks ago like she's still in the next room. Like she's just around the corner. Like she's about to walk in and catch you being dramatic and flick your ear and tell you to put the phone down and eat something.

Then the recording ends. Again. And the kitchen is silent. Again. And she's gone. Still.

You put the phone on the counter.

You look at the mug with the chipped handle and the whale that looks like a potato. You look at the thermostat set three degrees higher than you'd choose. You look at the chair where she sat a week ago with love in her eyes and fury in her fists, demanding you stop hiding from the one person who never wanted you to perform.

She was right about everything. The running. The carrying. The stubborn, lonely machinery of trying to do it alone.

But she was wrong about one thing.

She'd promised. Right here, beside you, always. And she meant it. God, she meant it more than anyone has ever meant anything. She was right there. In the bed, breathing, heart beating its stubborn rhythm, warm against your side.

And in the morning, only one of you woke up.

The apartment is warm. Too warm.

You leave it that way.

haseul ; dates with haseul are fun. she likes to take you out to do active things, like taking you to an amusement park or somewhere pretty to hike. she wants to make memories with you. she's definitely the type to take pictures of you at every point, calling your name and snapping a picture before you realize what she's doing. she likes taking candid photos to put in her wallet <3 she definitely makes you take pictures of her, too, and she sends them to her group chat with her friends to brag about how good of a photographer you are for her.

jungeun ; jungeun likes to stargaze. she'll come pick you up late at night, a blanket in the backseat of her car, and drive you out to a nice, secluded spot. and when you get there, she helps you up on the hood of her car, before laying down beside you and spreading the blanket over the both of you. she likes to watch you while you look up at the stars, her heart thumping her chest at how your eyes seem to sparkle as you point out all the different star clusters and constellations, and the occasional planet. definitely the type to call your name softly while you're talking so you'll look over at her, her hand cupping your cheeks and bringing you closer so she can press a reverent kiss to your lips <3

heejin ; dates with heejin are fun. she's the type to want to go do things with you; be active. she's the type to take you out to an amusement park, paying for your food and all the rides, telling you the only payment she needs is your cute face looking all happy 'n excited on the rides. definitely takes pictures of you when your hair's all windblown and messy, putting it as her homescreen and laughing when you whine to her over it, telling her how embarrassing it is. "what are you talkin' about, babe, you're the cutest girl i've ever seen all the time." and she'd press a sloppy kiss to your cheek to prove her point.