Synopsis; one lives in a world under the weight of shadows the other lives in a world that screams.
"The sky is blue like Sacrifice by Elton John"
warnings; swearing, heavy themes pairing; jeongguk × female reader genre; angst, slowburn, smut, fwb word count; 12.2k
a/n: rather lengthy chapter but it was needed. thank me later.
The botanical reserve didn't need color to demand your attention. Even stripped down to a world of absolute monochrome, the sheer, staggering scale of the place felt like a physical weight pressing against your chest.
Towering glass biomes rose out of the landscape like massive, crystalline ribcases, their frosted panes trapping a dense, heavy fog that blurred the silhouettes of prehistoric-looking ferns inside. Walking beside Jeongguk along the winding, gravel path, you kept your eyes moving, captivated by the rich tapestry of deep charcoal shadows, bright, silver-veined leaves, and the pale, chalky mist hanging over the soil. It was breathtaking. A hyper-textured labyrinth where every surface seemed to possess its own distinct grain, making the lack of pigment feel less like a sensory deficit and more like an intentional, high-contrast photograph.
The silence between you had shifted since you stepped out of the car. The suffocating, high-voltage tension of the radio dial had settled into a quiet, observant truce.
Jeongguk walked with his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his heavy leather jacket, his combat boots crunching rhythmically against the loose stones. He wasn't rushing you. He kept his stride loose and measured, his eyes occasionally flicking sideways to track the way you stared at the overhanging canopy, watching you process the landscape.
"See anything you recognize, Void?" he asked, his voice low and raspy, cutting through the quiet rustle of the wind in the branches.
"Just that it's massive," you murmured, pulling your arms a little tighter around yourself as a damp, cool breeze swept through the path. "And it's... remarkably loud for a place with no music."
"It's the architecture," he replied, tilting his head back to look at the sweeping curve of a nearby greenhouse frame. "It forces the sound to pool. Every drop of condensation hitting a leaf echoes."
You kept walking, searching the perimeter for a place to finally anchor yourselves. The gravel path split, leading toward a secluded grove where the dense foliage parted to reveal a small, cleared sanctuary. Right in the center, tucked beneath the weeping, silver-grey branches of an ancient willow, sat a weathered stone bench. The surface was rough, mapped with dark moss and deep, fractured grooves that practically screamed with physical texture.
"There," you said, gesturing toward the clearing. "Let's find a spot before my legs give out."
Jeongguk let out a faint, amused huff, the corner of his mouth twitching as he followed your lead into the quiet, isolated shade.
You brushed a few stray, brittle leaves off the weathered stone bench before sitting down, pulling your bag onto your lap. Jeongguk settled beside you, his heavy leather jacket creaking softly as he leaned back, one long leg stretching out while the other braced against the gravel path.
From this angle, a massive bed of dense, intricately layered flowers spread out before you. Even without their pigment, they were spectacular—the petals looked like shaved velvet, catching the muted light in crisp gradients of silver, charcoal, and brilliant, stark white. You leaned forward slightly, completely captivated by the way the morning condensation still clung to the edges of the blooms, turning them into thousands of tiny, glistening beads.
But you couldn't fully lose yourself in the view.
The air between you felt thick, vibrating with a quiet intensity that had nothing to do with the botanical surroundings. Out of the corner of your eye, you could feel it—the heavy, unblinking weight of Jeongguk's gaze. He wasn't looking at the high-texture sanctuary. He wasn't tracking the architecture of the biomes. He was looking entirely at you.
The scrutiny was intense, a warm press against the side of your face that made your skin prickle under your guarded exterior. You tried to ignore it for a few beats, staring resolutely at a cluster of silver ferns, but your pulse was already starting to skip.
Finally, you cracked. You turned your head, your chin lifting defensively as you met his eyes.
"Why are you staring?" you asked, your voice a reserved, quiet murmur in the isolated clearing
Jeongguk didn't blink, nor did he pull back into his usual mocking posture. His gaze softened, tracking the lines of your face with a genuine, quiet curiosity that caught you completely off guard.
"How did you do... your makeup?" he asked softly, gesturing vaguely toward your face.
You blinked, a little thrown by the question. "With my hands?"
"No, but like—I mean," he cleared his throat, a rare, slight hesitation breaking through his usual fluid cadence. "How could you tell the colors?"
"Oh." The defensive tension in your shoulders dissipated a fraction, your fingers loosening their white-knuckle grip on your bag. You looked back toward the flowers, a muted, practical note entering your voice. "Sora helps sometimes. She organizes the pallets for me or labels the tubes. I grew accustomed to which one is basic black eyeliner, though. The weight of the tube and the texture of the product usually give it away."
When you turned back to look at him, the retort you had been mentally preparing died instantly on your tongue.
It wasn't the lazy, arrogant smirk he used as a shield against the world. It wasn't the big, flashing grin he deployed to rattle your composure or coax you into a corner. It was entirely pure—a quiet, untethered curve of his lips that reached all the way to his dark eyes, crinkling the corners with absolute sincerity. It didn't carry the weight of an ulterior motive. It didn't try to fill the space of your silence. It was just a sweet, honest smile.
"That's nice, Void," he murmured, his baritone dropping into a low, gentle register that felt entirely too safe against the cold.
The sweet, unfiltered sincerity of his voice lingered in the cool air between you, a soft contrast to the heavy concrete world you'd left behind. Jeongguk shifted slightly, his leather jacket rustling as he turned his torso toward the vast, monochrome flower bed stretching out from the base of the stone bench.
"You see those clusters right at the front?" he asked, pointing a long, ink-mapped finger toward a patch of tightly packed, bell-shaped blooms. "The ones that look like heavy, thick wax?"
You followed the line of his hand, nodding silently as you tracked the deep, dramatic shadows cutting through the petals.
"Those are hyacinths," he said, his voice dropping into that rhythmic, deeply focused cadence he usually reserved for his studio gear. "They smell incredibly heavy—almost sweet enough to make your head spin if you stand over them too long. If that scent were an audio track, it wouldn't be digital. It's the exact, low-frequency hum of a live cello bow being drawn too hard across a C-string. It's warm, dense, and it has this slight, textured vibration at the very tail end that stays stuck in the back of your throat. They're pink."
A small, fascinated breath escaped your lips. You couldn't see the pigment, but the hyper-specific way he mapped the scent and color onto sound made the waxy textures before you suddenly feel incredibly loud.
"And those over there," Jeongguk continued, his finger shifting toward a taller, wilder stalk with delicate, paper-thin blossoms that caught the mist like spun glass. "The ones that look completely weightless compared to the stone."
"The ones shivering in the breeze?" you murmured, leaning in a fraction closer.
"Yeah. Those are white freesia," he said, a faint, reflective look softening his dark eyes. "They smell sharp, crisp, and clean. Like a sudden burst of cold air in a room that's been closed up for months. In the mix, that's the sound of a perfectly mic'd acoustic guitar finger-style intro—specifically the bright, crystalline snap of a brand-new steel E-string being plucked in an empty, high-ceilinged room. No reverb, no delay. Just pure, high-mid clarity that cuts right through the center of any background noise."
He paused, his gaze drifting from the delicate petals back to your face, tracking the way your eyes moved across the garden as you listened to his narration. The clinical, detached shield he usually wore like a second skin was entirely missing. For the first time, he wasn't using his synesthesia to build a wall or hide behind layers of engineered noise; he was using it to pull you right into the center of his world, letting you hear the colors you couldn't see.
"You know a lot about flowers," you murmured, your eyes tracing the rich, silver-grey outlines of the garden bed.
"I do," Jeongguk agreed easily. He didn't offer his usual arrogant defense or turn it into a joke. He just sat there, his large frame relaxed against the weathered stone, accepting the fact as a simple, quiet truth.
You adjusted the strap of your bag, your fingers smoothing over the textured leather. "I don't have a favorite flower," you admitted, the confession slipping out before you could fully censor yourself. "Minho used to get them for me sometimes, but... I never really thought much about it."
The mention of your ex's name hung in the cool air for a split second, a tiny fracture in the peaceful, isolated clearing. Jeongguk's head turned slightly, his dark, hyper-observant eyes locking onto your profile.
"What kind of flowers?" he asked. His voice wasn't sharp or demanding, but it carried a distinct, focused weight. "All flowers have a symbolism. Every single one. I know that much."
You let out a dry, quiet breath, looking down at your hands. "Tulips," you said. "Sometimes roses. That's pretty much how far Minho's bouquets stretched."
Jeongguk let out a low, drawn-out hum. He didn't reply right away, his gaze drifting over the garden as if he were deep in thought. Slowly, he poked his tongue into the inside of his cheek—a familiar, unconscious habit of his—stretching the skin for a beat before he unlocked his jaw to speak.
"Tulips and roses," he murmured, his voice dropping into that smooth, authoritative instructor tone he used for your color lessons. "It's standard. Red roses are just a loud, aggressive declaration of love—the kind of noise people make when they don't know how to say it quietly. But tulips are different. Tulips are about a perfect, deep-rooted attachment. They bloom early, they're resilient, but they're also entirely dependent on a consistent structure to survive the frost."
He paused, his eyes flicking back to yours with absolute calculation. "If he was just throwing them at you because they were at the front of the shop, he missed the mechanics of what he was actually handing over."
You sat in silence, the weight of his words settling deep into your chest.
If you were being completely honest with yourself, you were in absolute awe. Sitting next to him under the weeping willow, you realized Jeongguk had so many more complex, hidden layers than you had ever cared to notice before. Everyone at the university saw the starched, untouchable producer—the arrogant, calculating asshole who wore black ink like armor and built loud, aggressive electronic fortresses specifically to keep people out. No one would have ever looked at him and thought he knew the delicate, poetic meanings hidden behind flower petals.
But sometimes, at just the right angle, those hidden layers bled right through his armor. He noticed things. He cataloged textures, sounds, and symbols with a terrifyingly precise efficiency. He knew so much more than he ever let on, hiding his gravity behind a mask of bratty banter and cold transactions.
You were realizing in real time just how deep his labyrinth actually ran.
"I never thought about it like that," you muttered softly, your eyes lingering on the silver-grey silhouettes of the garden bed. The realization that even a careless bouquet carried a structural weight felt strange, especially coming from him. You shifted on the stone bench, turning your head slightly to look at his sharp profile. "Do you have a favorite flower?"
Jeongguk didn't answer right away. The silence stretched between you, but it didn't carry the hostile, defensive edge from the road. He just waited, his eyes locked onto yours for a long, unblinking beat, as if evaluating the question itself. Then, slowly, his gaze drifted away. He looked up at the pale, washed-out sky framed by the weeping willow, then down at the intricate dark ink coiling around his hands, and finally at the tips of his heavy combat boots braced against the gravel.
"Every flower is beautiful," he murmured, his voice level and entirely devoid of his usual mocking armor. He looked back toward the dense texture of the blooms. "You just need to know when it's fitting. Different flowers, different colors, different meanings. They're all good. All needed at some point."
You let out a soft hum, absorbing the sheer, unexpected depth of the answer. It was another one of those hidden layers bleeding through the cracks of his cold, clinical exterior—a quiet, surprisingly tender philosophy from a guy who spent his nights destroying acoustic guitar tracks with heavy, industrial distortion.
The quiet settled comfortably around the stone bench, the mist from the biomes dampening the air. You leaned back, your curiosity officially piqued by the fluid, color-mapped landscape of his mind.
"What's your favorite color then?" you asked.
Jeongguk didn't hesitate this time. His jaw relaxed, his voice dropping a smooth, definitive word. "Ultramarine."
A tiny, instinctive coo escaped your lips before you could catch it, your shoulders shaking with a faint, amused smile. "Ultramarine," you repeated, tasting the heavy, poetic syllable. "What's the sound equivalent for that one?"
Jeongguk didn't give you a clinical breakdown of frequencies or map it to a specific instrument this time. Instead, his eyes flicked back to yours, holding your gaze with a profound, quiet intensity that made your pulse hitch against your ribs. The sweet, rare smile from earlier was gone, replaced by something deep and unanchored.
"When I hear it myself," he whispered, his voice a low, raspy cadence that vibrated right through the small space between you, "I will let you know."
You almost frowned at that, your eyebrows drawing together just a fraction as you tried to decode the sudden, cryptic shift in his tone. It felt like another one of his boundaries—a locked door in a room he had just invited you into. But looking at the quiet intensity in his eyes, you decided not to push.
"Okay," you murmured softly, letting the question drop.
To pull the conversation back to safer, more familiar ground, you gestured vaguely toward the surrounding landscape. "What about other things? What color is... the wind rustling through these leaves right now?"
Jeongguk tilted his head, his ears tracking the soft, sweeping hiss of the willow branches overhead. "That's a pale, scratched jade," he said, his voice regaining its steady, clinical familiarity. "It's a clean sound, but it has too many loose, frictioned edges to be solid. Like a low-pass filter cutting off the bass, leaving only the dry air at the top of the mix."
"And water dripping?" you asked, pointing toward a condensation leak over the glass pane of a nearby biome, the steady tap, tap, tap echoing against the silence.
"Strictly chrome," he replied without hesitation, his eyes tracking the falling droplets. "It's a cold, metallic silver. It hits with a sharp, high-frequency spike—like a single, isolated note struck on a glockenspiel in an empty room. Precise. Piercing. It leaves a tiny ring in the ear after it dies."
You absorbed the explanation, fascinated by the mechanical blueprint of his mind. "What about something aggressive? Like... ripping a piece of paper?"
A low, amused huff escaped his nose, the corners of his lips twitching slightly. "That's a violent, tearing orange," he murmured, his fingers flexing against his thigh as if mapping the physical sensation. "It's the exact sound of a white-noise burst clipping through a distorted speaker dial. It's sudden, it shreds right through the middle of the frequency block, and it leaves a jagged, static-heavy edge behind it. It's an untidy sound."
You nodded slowly, a quiet, observant reserve settling over you as you listened to him dismantle the ordinary world and rebuild it in a symphony of textures and tones. Every comparison was so sharp, so effortlessly calculated, making you realize just how loudly the quietest spaces spoke to him.
"What about the actual colors though?" you asked, leaning your chin onto your hand, your elbow resting on your knee as you watched him. "Not just the sounds around us. What about the well-known colors? Like... what is purple?"
The shift in his posture was instantaneous.
The clinical, detached instructor routine he'd been using to break down the water droplets and the paper vanished into thin air. Jeongguk paused, and then a wicked, incredibly sharp, flirty smile spread slowly across his face. It was the kind of expression that made your stomach instantly drop to your ass—a dark, knowing curve of his lips that had his eyes sparkling with absolute, dangerous amusement.
"Purple?" he repeated, his voice dropping an octave, sliding into a low, raspy murmur that vibrated right through the heavy air between you. "You wanna know purple?"
You blinked, a sudden wave of confusion washing over you as you stared back at him. Your chest tightened under his sudden, intense scrutiny, your pulse jumping against your ribs because of the predatory way he was suddenly looking at you.
"Yes," you said, your voice sounding a little smaller, a little more breathless than you intended. "Why are you looking at me like that? What's so funny?"
Jeongguk didn't pull away. Instead, he leaned in just an inch closer, his leather jacket creaking in the quiet clearing as his dark eyes locked onto your mouth with total calculation.
"Your moans are purple," he whispered flatly.
The raw, unfiltered words hung in the dead air of the botanical sanctuary, completely shattering the peaceful truce you had built. He didn't say it with a smirk anymore; he said it with a low, deep gravity, his gaze tracing the immediate, violent flush that rushed up your neck and stained your cheeks crimson.
"When you fell apart under me, and the noise finally slipped out of your throat," he murmured, his thumb casually tracing a slow, heavy line over the leather of his own console as his eyes held yours hostage. "That's purple. It's a dense, suffocating velvet. It's the exact sound of a heavy sub-bass frequency tearing through a clean room, completely drowning out the static. It's the only sound that actually makes my head stop hurting."
You gasped, the air catching sharply in your lungs as you almost choked on your own breath. The heat that rushed into your face was instantaneous and blinding, a violent, full-body blush that painted your cheeks completely red under his gaze. You instinctively tried to pull back, your fingers tightening around the strap of your bag as you looked anywhere but at his lips.
Jeongguk let out a low, deeply amused chuckle, his eyes tracking the crimson stain on your skin with a sort of satisfaction.
"Look at you," he murmured, his voice a smooth, teasing whisper that barely carried over the rustle of the willow branches. "The color you're rocking on your cheeks right now? It doesn't have a sharp edge to it. It sounds like a soft hum."
Before you could offer a single, biting retort to save your dignity, Jeongguk uncrossed his arms and reached out. His large, ink-mapped hand closed around your wrist. His touch was warm and firm, a steady anchor that left no room for hesitation as he pulled your hand away from your bag.
You froze, your heart taking a violent, erratic leap against your ribs as he guided your hand toward his chest, lifting it until the flat of your palm was pressed directly against the center of his throat.
The skin beneath your fingers was smooth and hot, the heavy collar of his black t-shirt riding just below your knuckles. You could feel the rigid structure of his jawline, the steady, rhythmic pulse beating against his artery, and the sheer, radiating heat of his body cutting through the cool air of the reserve.
"Feel that?" Jeongguk whispered, his dark eyes locking onto yours, trapping you completely under his spell.
Then, he closed his mouth and let out a long, deep, resonant hum from the back of his throat.
The vibration was instantaneous. It ripped straight through the cartilage of his larynx, transferring directly into the sensitive skin of your palm and traveling like a low-voltage electric shock up your forearm. It was dense, heavy, and perfectly steady—the tactile blueprint of a frequency he controlled entirely.
He kept your hand pinned there, forcing you to sit with the physical weight of the sound as his lips parted into another slow, wicked smile.
"Purple moans and red cheeks," he murmured against your palms, his voice dropping into a raspy, dangerous cadence that made your stomach knot with an unbearable ache. "That's the layout today, Void. Tell me you don't feel the structure in that."
You jerked your hand back as if his skin had suddenly scorched your fingers, tucking your palm securely against your chest to stop the lingering, low-voltage tingling. The violent blush was still burning hot across your cheeks.
"You are an absolute horn dog," you muttered, your voice a sharp, flustered snap as you tried to piece the ragged edges of your dignity back together.
Jeongguk didn't care about the insult at all. He threw his head back and let out a loud, genuine laugh—a bright, unbothered sound that echoed beautifully against the frosted glass panes of the nearby biome. The wicked, flirty shadow in his dark eyes softened back into something lighter, thoroughly entertained by how effortlessly he could drive your nervous system into total chaos.
As the remnants of his laughter settled into the quiet clearing, a sudden, bizarre sensation bloomed in the pit of your stomach.
The craving hit you out of nowhere, sharp and entirely unexpected, making your tongue instantly ache for something cold, juicy, and intensely sweet. It was weird. You weren't even particularly fond of strawberries; usually, you could take them or leave them. But right now, sitting in the damp, high-texture mist of the reserve with the heavy scent of crushed vegetation around you, the phantom taste of a ripe berry felt like a physical necessity. It was a completely random, unhinged craving, and it left you blinking in confusion.
Deciding that the suffocating atmosphere of the stone bench was getting entirely too dangerous for your sanity, you abruptly slung the strap of your bag over your shoulder and stood up.
"Okay, that's enough for today," you said flatly, gesturing between the two of you to draw a hard, definitive line over the color curriculum. You cleared your throat, forcing your voice to sound steady and businesslike again. "We should go. I'm hungry."
Jeongguk didn't move immediately, his eyes tracking the sudden, rigid line of your posture as you stood up. He let out a low, breathy chuckle, sliding his hands back into the pockets of his leather jacket as he stood at his full height.
"Lead the way, Void," he murmured, his voice dropping into that lazy, unbothered cadence. "I'm right behind you."
You didn't wait for him to match your stride. You turned on your heel and headed straight back toward the winding gravel path, your soles cutting sharply through the loose stones. You needed to get back to the car. You knew you should. The structured boundaries of the botanical reserve were officially collapsing, and the safest place for both of you was behind the clinical, metal partition of his Mercedes, driving back to campus where the rules made sense. You had to get out of this clearing.
But as you walked, the space between your shoulder blades began to prickle.
You could feel his eyes on you. Obviously, you were walking in front, so it was completely natural for him to look ahead, but it didn't feel natural at all. It felt heavy. It felt like a warm, localized pressure burning right through the fabric of your clothes, tracking the precise rhythm of your steps.
Worse, he was walking slow. Entirely too slow. Every time you took two steps, you could hear the heavy, deliberate crunch of his combat boots lagging a fraction of a beat behind yours, forcing you to maintain a frustratingly stretched pace. And the distraction wasn't working—the random, intense craving for strawberries was still pulsing in the back of your mouth, making your tongue ache for something sweet and cold.
You clenched your jaw, deliberately shoving the bizarre craving and the memory of his vibrating throat into the back burner of your mind. It didn't matter. None of it mattered. You just needed to hit the concrete lot, get in the passenger seat, and go back to your respective, separate lives.
But the crunch of his boots stayed lagging. The burning weight of his gaze stayed anchored.
Frustration flared hot behind your ribs, cutting right through your brittle defense mechanism. You stopped abruptly on the path and spun around, your bag swinging against your hip as you opened your mouth to demand what the hell he was doing.
The words died instantly in your throat.
Jeongguk wasn't looking at your face. His eyes weren't even tracking the upper part of your body. No. His head was tilted slightly downward, his unblinking grey-dark gaze fixed entirely low, grazing with absolute, shameless calculation down south. He was actively cataloging the movement of your hips, the dip of your waist, and the layout of your stride from behind.
Caught red-handed, he didn't even have the decency to look flustered. He just blinked slowly, his jaw shifting as his eyes lazily dragged themselves all the way back up to meet your furious, flushed face.
"Huh?" he asked smoothly, his voice a picture of completely unbothered, blank innocence.
"Move along faster," you snapped, your voice tight as you crossed your arms over your chest, trying to retroactively block his view. The crimson on your cheeks was burning all over again, fueled by the sheer audacity of his unbothered expression.
Jeongguk didn't adjust his posture by a single inch. He kept his hands shoved deep into his leather jacket pockets, his shoulders relaxed as he looked down at you, completely ruling the narrow gravel path.
"No," he said smoothly, a tiny, infuriating glimmer of amusement returning to his dark eyes. "I'm staying where I am. Walking how I am."
"Jeongguk, you're literally lagging three paces behind me just to—"
"To map the acoustics of the path, Void," he interrupted, his voice dropping into a deadpan baritone. He took one slow, deliberate step forward, his heavy combat boot crunching against the stones with agonizing slowness. "The gravel changes density near the exit. It requires a measured cadence. I'm maintaining structure."
"You're maintaining a view, you absolute menace," you muttered, turning back around because staring at his shameless face was only making your head spin faster.
"That's just a fringe benefit of the geography," he murmured from behind you, his voice a low, teasing vibration that drifted over your shoulder.
You started walking again, forcing your legs into a quick, decisive rhythm, but the heat of his gaze was a physical weight. It felt like he was tracing the outline of your hips with a marker, cataloging the friction of your clothes with the same clinical precision he used to mix a track in the studio. It was maddening. You were trying so hard to keep this transaction cold and clinical, to push every messy, unraveled thought to the back burner, but he kept pulling the rug out from under your feet.
And to make matters worse, that weird, sudden craving for strawberries was getting sharper. Your mouth tasted dry, your mind completely hyper-focused on the phantom sweetness of a ripe fruit while your body was hyper-focused on the heavy, predatory footsteps tracking you from behind.
Two broken pieces making a complete mess of a simple walk to the parking lot.
"You're rushing, Void," Jeongguk's voice cut through the quiet rustle of the trees, closer this time. "Your tempo is completely off. Slow down before you trip over the architecture."
"You're an asshole," you muttered over your shoulder, refusing to slow down your pace as the gravel shifted beneath your shoes.
A low, rich chuckle vibrated from behind you, closer than it had been a second ago. "I wouldn't do this if you weren't so easy to rattle up, Void."
"I'm not easy to rattle up," you snapped, finally spinning around to face him, your hands balling into fists at your sides. "You're just a prick."
Jeongguk stopped walking. His eyes narrowed just a fraction, a slow, dangerously playful glint overtaking his features. "Oh, yeah?"
Before the words could fully leave your mouth, he closed the distance between you. It wasn't a casual step forward; it was a sudden, predatory glide that completely breached your perimeter. He kept coming until he was infinitely closer—so close that there was barely a single inch of dead air remaining between your faces.
You froze, your breath completely hitching in your throat as the towering glass biomes and the winding gravel paths dissolved into a total blur. He lowered his head slightly, his jawline tilting as his warm, steady breath ghosted across the sensitive skin of your cheek and lips. His scent—that heavy, intoxicating, musky cologne—rushed over you, thick and suffocating. He was just there. Large, unyielding, and occupying every square centimeter of your vision.
Deep behind your ribs, your heart began beating like a bunny running from a predator, slamming a frantic, erratic rhythm against your chest.
Time stopped for a second. The entire botanical reserve fell completely silent, the low hum of the environment vanishing as you stared at the dark intensity swirling in his gaze. Your eyes instinctively dipped to his mouth, your body tightening as you braced yourself, completely waiting for the inevitable collision of his lips against yours.
Instead of leaning that final, excruciating inch forward, Jeongguk's large hand lifted smoothly. His tatted fingers slid past your ear, the coarse texture of his skin brushing against your cheek as he gently buried his hand in your hair. His knuckles grazed your scalp for a fleeting, agonizing second before he pulled his hand back.
Pinched between his thumb and forefinger was a small, brittle willow leaf.
"Relax," he murmured, his voice dropping into a low, raspy cadence that was entirely too smooth for the absolute havoc he had just wrecked on your nervous system. He held the silver-grey leaf up between your faces, a lazy, satisfied smirk playing on his lips. "It's just a leaf. It was messing up your hair, Void."
You let out a ragged, heavy breath you hadn't even realized you were holding, your shoulders visibly dropping as the sudden drop in pressure hit your lungs. The realization of what you had been expecting—what you had practically been begging for with your eyes—sent an immediate, violent wave of heat rushing straight up your neck. You began blushing all over again, a deep, furious red staining your cheeks as you glared at the leaf in his hand.
Jeongguk's smirk widened into a sharp, knowing grin, his dark eyes crinkling at the corners with absolute triumph. He tossed the leaf onto the gravel and stepped back just an inch, crossing his arms over his leather jacket.
"See?" he whispered, his eyes tracking the bright flush on your skin with a maddening sort of satisfaction. "Easy to rattle up."
You practically threw yourself toward the Mercedes, the gravel crunching violently beneath your soles as you finally reached the safety of the lot.
When you had left the car earlier, the parking lot had been a busy, washed-out expanse of concrete. But now, as you stood by the passenger door, you noticed that the lot had emptied out completely. The rows of polished chrome were gone, leaving nothing but an isolated, open grid of asphalt. Not only that, but the sun's gradual movement across the sky during the day had granted a strange blessing—the angle had shifted just enough that the heavy, towering oak trees lined up perfectly to keep the car in complete, unyielding shadow.
Jeongguk hit the unlock button, the sharp beep echoing loudly against the barren concrete.
You yanked the door open and slid inside, and the relief was instantaneous. The heavily tinted windows of his car had acted as a flawless barrier against the radiating afternoon heat, allowing the compact interior to remain almost entirely cold and dark. It felt like stepping directly into a private, climate-controlled vault—a stark, refreshing contrast to the thick, humid mist of the biomes and the suffocating tension that had followed you down the path.
You pulled your legs in and let the heavy passenger door click shut, effectively locking out the rest of the world. The darkness inside the cabin immediately softened the stinging behind your eyes, but it did nothing to slow the frantic, bunny-like rhythm still thumping away inside your chest.
Beside you, the driver's door opened, and Jeongguk slid his large frame into the seat. The cool, dark air of the cabin immediately filled with the familiar, heavy rustle of his leather jacket and the sharp, intoxicating trace of his musky cologne. He didn't reach for the keys right away. He just rested his hands on the leather steering wheel, his eyes adjusting to the dimness as he cut a slow, calculated look sideways to check on you.
"Where to, Void?" he asked.
His voice didn't carry its usual lazy, mocking edge. It was lower now—a deep, gravelly baritone that vibrated straight through the floorboards and settled deep in the pit of your stomach. It wasn't a casual question about directions. It was an invitation, a challenge, a slow-burning fuse.
You swallowed hard, your throat feeling completely dry. The random, intense craving for strawberries you'd felt on the path was suddenly gone, replaced entirely by the suffocating awareness of just how isolated you were. The parking lot was empty. The car was buried in total shadow. The tinted windows cut off the outside world completely, making this dark cabin feel like the only room left on the planet.
"Campus," you managed to say, but the word came out smaller than you wanted, the rhythm of your voice completely derailed by the way his gaze was tracking the movement of your lips. "Take me back to the dorms."
Jeongguk didn't move. He didn't even reach for the ignition. A slow, dark, incredibly calculated look pulled at the corner of his mouth, his jaw shifting as he poked his tongue into the inside of his cheek.
"Weren't you hungry?" he asked, his voice cutting through the thick silence like a low-frequency hum, challenging the weak excuse you had given him just minutes before.
"I should go back to campus anyway," you insisted, desperately trying to maintain some semblance of control over a situation that was rapidly slipping through your fingers.
Needing to do something with your hands to break the static paralyzing your limbs, you moved to take off your bag. You hitched the strap up, aiming to set it down by your feet, but the motion was too hasty, too clumsy in the dark cabin. The heavy leather caught the collar of your top, dragging it downward. The material gave way with the weight, sliding smoothly off your shoulder to expose a stark patch of bare skin to the dim, chilled air of the car.
Jeongguk noticed instantly.
Before you could even register the slip, his hand shot across the space dividing the seats. His fingers caught the edge of the stray fabric. But he didn't just pull it back up; his wide palm pressed firmly against your bare skin, smoothing the material deliberately over the curve of your shoulder.
The exact point where your skin collided with his burned fiercely. It was a scorching, high-voltage heat that sent an immediate, violent shiver straight down your spine. His calloused hand lingered for a beat too long, pressing into you, anchoring you to the leather seat as if proving how easily he could touch you whenever he pleased.
Maybe you are easy to rattle up.
He leaned in just a bit further, his gaze dropping to watch his own fingers resting against your shoulder before his eyes slowly dragged back up to lock onto yours.
"I don't think you want to go back to the dorms, Void," he murmured, his thumb catching the edge of your collarbone, tracing a slow, heavy line that made your breath stutter completely. "I think you like the seclusion of the car."
"What do you want, Jeongguk?" you whispered, your voice trembling slightly under the weight of his proximity.
He didn't pull away. Instead, his eyes softened, a rare, unshielded shadow passing over his features that had nothing to do with his usual calculations. His jaw tightened, the heavy ring of his breath hitting your lips.
"I'm sorry," he murmured, his voice dropping into a low, raspy cadence that felt entirely too intimate. "I'm sorry I left like that last time. Left you like that."
The apology slammed into your chest, instantly violently dragging your mind backward.
The memory flared hot and vivid in the dark of the car. It had been just like this—the cabin dim, isolated, and completely cut off from the rest of the world. You remembered the heavy, suffocating rush of adrenaline as you had climbed over the center console, shifting until you were completely on top of him, straddling his lap in the tight space. You could still feel the ghost of his hands gripping your waist, and worse, the agonizingly vivid memory of his literal dick hardening to a rigid, unyielding stone right under you, pressing directly against your center through the thin barrier of your clothes. And then, right when the frequency had reached its absolute breaking point, he had pulled back.
Now, sitting in the exact same shadow-drenched seats, the ghost of that friction felt entirely too loud.
The phantom friction of that memory seemed to physically tighten the dark cabin, making your skin tingle exactly where the leather seats pressed into your thighs. You stared back into his deep, unblinking eyes, your heart continuing its frantic, bunny-like sprint.
"Your father called back then," you reminded him, your voice a breathless, thready whisper against his lips as you reached for the one logical anchor that had broken the spell last time. "That's why you walked away."
"Well," he murmured, his raspy voice dropping into a quiet, heavy register that sent a violent tremor straight down your spine. "Now he isn't."
To back up his words, his other hand reached blindly into the dark pocket of his leather jacket. He pulled out his phone, his eyes never breaking contact with yours for a single millisecond. With a swift, aggressive flick of his thumb, he didn't just silence it—he held down the power button until the screen went entirely black, killing the device completely. He tossed the dead metal carelessly onto the dashboard, where it slid across the plastic with a sharp clatter before stopping.
"No interruptions," he whispered, his hot breath ghosting over your lips as he leaned in that final, agonizing inch. "The signal's completely dead. It's just us."
The dead silence of the phone on the dashboard felt absolute, a final, definitive severing of the outside world. The only structure left was the dark, frozen interior of the car, and the suffocating heat radiating between your bodies.
Jeongguk's large hand slid down, his palm tracing the burning column of your neck before trailing lower. He didn't rush. He moved with a heavy, agonizingly deliberate calculation, his knuckles dragging over your exposed shoulder before his arm extended down to find your lap.
His hand settled flat against your thigh.
The friction of his palm against the fabric of your clothes made you gasp, your hips instinctively twitching beneath his touch. He squeezed, his fingers digging into the soft meat of your thigh with a firm, possessive pressure that anchored you completely.
"Do you want this, Void?" he rasped, his eyes dilated, tracking the sudden, violent shudder that went through your entire frame. His breath was hot and uneven against your lips. "Do you want me?"
You were visibly into it, your head tilting back slightly against the headrest as your fingers tightly curled into the leather of the passenger seat. Your breath was coming in shallow, ragged hitched gasps, your body completely betraying how desperate you were for the exact friction you had been denied last time. But the stubborn, defensive walls inside your chest made you hold back the confession. You didn't give him the easy answer.
Instead, you forced your eyes open, meeting the intense, ravenous gaze of the producer hovering inches from your face.
"Do you want this?" you whispered back, your voice trembling but defiant as you threw the frequency right back at him. Your hand came up, your fingers tentatively brushing against the rough leather of his jacket. "Do you want me?"
He didn't hesitate. There was no arrogant deflection, no transactional armor, and no clinical mask to hide behind this time. His jaw locked, his grip on your thigh tightening until it was practically bruising.
Just like that. A flat, heavy declaration that completely shattered the final boundary between you. It was a simple, unfiltered truth, delivered with the absolute certainty of a man who had already mapped out the exact collision of your frequencies and had no intention of stopping the noise.
You nodded slowly, a small, ragged breath slipping past your lips. The simple weight of his honesty hit you right in the chest, soothing a raw, hollow ache you hadn't even realized was there. It was good. It felt intoxicatingly good to feel wanted like this, to feel completely desired by someone who usually kept his world so locked away and clinical. For a second, the dark, transactional edges of your dynamic blurred into something purely instinctive.
Jeongguk didn't waste another beat of the silence.
"C'mere," he commanded softly, his voice a low, raspy rumble that left absolutely no room for argument.
With his free hand, he reached down to the side of his seat, flicking the mechanical lever. With a loud, metallic click and the heavy groan of leather, his driver's seat slid backward, retreating into the rear floorboards to create an open, shadowed expanse of space in the front cabin.
Moving on pure instinct, you let go of the passenger seat. Once again, just like last time, you shifted your weight and climbed over the bulky plastic of the center console. The tight, shadow-drenched space of the car felt entirely different now, compressed and electric as you swung your leg over his lap, straddling him completely.
The moment your weight settled onto his thighs, the friction was blinding. You could feel his large, solid frame bracing beneath you, his heavy combat boots planted firmly against the floorboards to hold your weight. Your hips pressed directly against the center of his lap, and the agonizingly vivid reality of his cock—already hardening and straining fiercely against the thin fabric of his pants—hit you with a jolt of pure heat.
Jeongguk's hands immediately shot out, large palms gripping the sides of your waist with a bruising, desperate intensity. He pulled you down flush against him, his gaze burning up at you through the dim light of the cabin, waiting for the first purple sound to break from your throat.
This time, the frantic, hesitant edge that had paralyzed you weeks ago was entirely gone. A sharp, unyielding confidence bloomed deep behind your ribs, replacing the bunny-like panic with a calculated, heavy warmth. You didn't wait for him to set the tempo, and you didn't wait for him to bridge the remaining distance.
This time wasn't about Minho. No.
This wasn't an act of emotional retaliation, or a chaotic breakdown meant to drown out someone else's name. This was a prize to take back. This was about finishing something you had already started in these exact shadow-drenched seats—a definitive, dark pact sealed in the isolation of the lot. This was about having sex in the car with Jeongguk, on your own terms, completely hijacking his frequency.
So you leaned down and kissed him first.
Jeongguk let out a low, rough growl against your mouth, the sudden impact of your lips knocking the air straight out of his lungs. If he was surprised, he didn't let you see it.
His hands clamped down harder on your waist, his fingers burying into your skin through your clothes as he immediately kissed you back.
It was hungry. It was sloppy. It was completely stripped of any composure.
The collision of your mouths was a chaotic, wet friction, his tongue instantly sliding past your teeth to claim yours with a desperate, heavy rhythm. The intoxicating taste of him—sharp, dark, and utterly consuming—flooded your senses as his lips crushed against yours, tilting your head back to deepen the angle. He was pulling you down so hard your hips mashed directly into the unmoving stone of his groin, the raw heat of his arousal burning through the fabric dividing you. There was no calculation left in the cabin, no structured boundaries to hide behind; there was only the loud, ragged sound of your combined breathing echoing against the dark, tinted glass.
Jeongguk broke the sloppy, ravenous contact of your mouths, his breath hot and entirely unraveled as his lips slid down to your jaw, then deeper into the sensitive hollow of your neck. He didn't hold back. He rained heavy, open-mouthed kisses along your skin, leaving a wet, glistening trail of saliva that cooled instantly against the dark, chilled air of the cabin.
While his mouth was wrecking total havoc on your throat, his hands traveled up your back. His fingers moved with lightning speed, finding the clasp of your bra and unhooking it with a single, practiced flick.
He didn't care about being neat. He yanked the straps down your arms and threw the bra somewhere into the dark abyss of the back seat, the material landing with a soft thud against the upholstery.
Before you could even catch your breath, his heavy palms slid directly under the hem of your shirt. The rough, calloused texture of his skin against your bare breasts made you gasp, your chest heaving as his hands closed around your boobs, squeezing them with a firm, possessive pressure.
A high, breathless whimper ripped from your throat, the sharp sound echoing beautifully against the tinted glass of the Mercedes.
The pure, concentrated friction of his hands and the hardness of his groin beneath you triggered something entirely feral. Without even realizing it, driven by pure reflex, your body took over. You started mindlessly rotating your hips down against him, grinding your center directly over the stiff, rigid length of his dick straining against his pants.
Jeongguk let out a guttural sound, his grip on your waist tightening until his knuckles turned white.
"Fuck, Void," he growled against your skin.
He gripped the hem of your shirt and bunched it up, shoving the material all the way up to your armpits to fully expose your chest to the dim shadows. He didn't hesitate for a single second. Jeongguk leaned down and latched his mouth directly onto one of your aching nipples.
He was relentless—sucking heavily, his tongue circling the sensitive, swollen area before his teeth clamped down in a sharp, teasing bite that sent a violent jolt of electricity straight to your core. The sheer intensity of your weight grinding into his lap and the taste of you on his tongue completely broke him. He buried his face deeper into the soft flesh of your boobs, letting out a low, vibration-heavy groan that muffled right against your skin, his chest heaving as he completely lost himself in your rhythm.
The heavy, muffled sound of his groan vibrating against your chest shattered the last of your restraint. You grew bolder now, the confidence from earlier surging through your veins like wildfire as you realized exactly how much power you held over his rhythm. You weren't just receiving his touch anymore; you were taking what was yours.
You reached up, your fingers tangling into the thick, dark strands at the nape of his neck. You tightened your grip, intentionally pulling by the hair to force his head back, exposing the sharp column of his throat—the precise patch of skin you intended to attack.
It was filthy. The absolute lack of hesitation, the raw friction of your skin mashing together, and the wet heat of the dark cabin made the air feel entirely toxic. You leaned down, burying your face in the crook of his neck, and bit him. You pressed your lips hard against his pulse point, sucking and leaving a fierce, wet mark right over the ink wrapping around his throat.
Jeongguk let out a sharp, ragged moan the exact second your fingers tugged tightly at his hair.
The sound was music to your ears—dense, low, and entirely unraveled. Mentally noting that he thoroughly enjoyed that specific brand of violence, a small, wicked smirk pulled at your lips against his skin. You didn't give him time to recover; you immediately started kissing him there, your mouth moving hungrily over his jawline, tracking the erratic jump of his pulse.
He let out a deep, gravelly groan, his hands gripping your hips with a white-knuckled intensity. He let you have your way with him for a long, agonizingly hot moment, his chest heaving under your weight as he allowed you to completely dictate the tempo.
But Jeongguk wasn't a man to stay pinned down for long.
Suddenly, his large hands shifted from your waist to your shoulders. With a sudden, firm burst of strength, he pushed you back, breaking the wet contact of your mouth against his neck.
You gasped, blinking through the shadows as you tried to steady your balance while straddling his lap. His eyes were completely pitch-black now, his pupils dilated to the absolute edge, and his jaw was clenched so hard the bone looked sharp enough to cut. His breathing was heavy, ragged, and completely stripped of the clinical producer persona.
He didn't say a word as his hands slid down to grip your waist again, not to pull you close, but to lift you slightly off his hardened groin.
"Backseat," he ordered, his voice a low, raspy command that brooked absolutely no argument. He glared up at you through the dim light of the cabin, his tone dropping into a heavy, demanding tone. "Get in the backseat. Now."
You didn't hesitate. The raw authority in his voice sent a sharp thrill straight down your spine, wiping away any lingering impulse to argue. You clambered over the center console, your bare skin shivering slightly as it left the intense heat of his lap and met the cooler air of the cabin. Tumbling into the spacious, shadow-drenched backseat, you sat back against the leather, your breath coming in shallow, ragged hitches as you waited for him.
Jeongguk didn't make you wait long. He moved with a heavy, efficient grace and maneuvering his large frame into the back with you. But before he leaned in, he paused. His chest heaved as he shrugged his heavy leather jacket off his broad shoulders. Instead of tossing it aside, he laid it out flat across the wide expanse of the leather seats, smoothing it down like a makeshift blanket.
Your eyes tracked his movements through the dim light, confusion temporarily cutting through the haze of desire.
He just hovered over you, eyes pitch-black in the shadows as his hands immediately reached for the hem of your bunched-up shirt, starting to undress you.
"Why did you put the jacket down?" you asked, your voice a breathless, thready whisper against the quiet of the car. "We're not gonna fuck on it."
Jeongguk's jaw shifted, a dark, dangerously wicked glint flashing in his eyes as he looked up from your collarbone to lock his gaze onto yours.
"Oh, yes we will," he murmured, voice dropping into a low, uncompromising rasp. "The leather is cold, Void. And I'm not letting your skin rub against the bare seats."
With a swift, dominant tug, he pulled your top completely over your head and discarded it into the front footwell. His hands didn't stop moving; they slid down to the waistband of your pants, unbuttoning them and dragging the denim down your legs until you were completely stripped down to your underwear.
Jeongguk froze. His breath hitched hard in his throat, and his gaze anchored fiercely on the delicate fabric covering your hips. He bit his lower lip, his sharp jawline tightening as his eyes slowly mapped the visual texture.
"Fuck," he muttered, letting out a low, gravelly breath. "I didn't know you had lace ones."
A sudden spark of that newfound confidence flared back up inside you. You looked down at him, refusing to let him think he held all the cards in this dark, hidden vault.
"I'm not wearing them for you," you snapped softly, your voice steady despite the frantic racing of your heart.
And you weren't lying. You hadn't planned for this when you got dressed this morning; sometimes a good pair of underwear just makes you feel better—more confident, more put-together from the inside out. It was a shield for your own dignity, not an invitation for him.
Jeongguk's eyes snapped up from your hips to meet your defensive stare, a slow smirk spreading across his lips at your defiance. "Doesn't matter who you wore them for," he whispered, his calloused fingers grazing the delicate edge of the lace, burning your skin. "They're mine now."
He rose slightly onto his knees, his broad shoulders blocking out the faint light from the tinted windows as he reached for the hem of his own black shirt. In one swift, fluid motion, he ripped it over his head and tossed it blindly into the front seat. The darkness of the cabin seemed to swallow the stark expanse of his chest, emphasizing the heavy ink that spilled down his arms and met the sharp contour of his ribs. His chest was heaving, his skin radiating a fierce heat into the tight space.
Without breaking eye contact, his hand dropped to his waist. He unbuckled his heavy belt with a metallic click, loosening the denim and leaving it exactly like that, low on his hips, completely unbothered by the lack of neatness.
Then, he leaned down and claimed your mouth again.
This time, the kiss was entirely different—darker, heavier, and far more hungry than before. There was no teasing hesitation left. He crushed his lips against yours, his tongue driving deep with a desperate, heavy rhythm that completely stole the air from your lungs.
As the sheer force of his weight pressed you back into the leather jacket, Jeongguk's instincts took over. His left hand shot upward, his wide palm sliding behind the nape of your neck to cradle your skull, effectively shielding your head so you wouldn't hit the hard plastic of the door panel or the glass of the window. He anchored you gently but firmly against him, protecting you even while his body demanded total surrender.
At the same time, his other hand traveled down.
His palm slid over the curve of your hip, burning through the cool air before his fingers slipped between your thighs. He didn't pull the lace aside yet. Instead, his fingertips pressed directly against the delicate, stretched fabric of your underwear, finding the exact, hyper-sensitive knot of your clit.
He paused for a fraction of a second, letting you feel the immense, heavy pressure of his hand, before his fingers began to move. He started tracing circles—agonizingly slow, deliberate circles that ground the lace right against your bare, aching skin.
The concentrated friction was too much. Your hips bolted upward against his hand, your fingers violently digging into the solid muscle of his bare shoulders as a breathless, fractured sound ripped from the back of your throat.
"Oh my god," you whimpered against his mouth, your voice completely unraveled by the agonizing tempo of his touch.
Jeongguk didn't break the heavy rhythm of his mouth, his tongue continuing to claim yours with a dark, wet intensity while his fingers kept tracing those infuriating slow circles against your lace underwear. He was prepping you, deliberately building the pressure, mapping out your responses with the clinical patience of a producer setting a foundation.
But the incredible slow tempo was driving you completely out of your mind.
The heat inside the shadow-drenched backseat was suffocating, and your body was screaming for a faster cadence. You started getting needy, your hips bucking up against his wide palm in a desperate bid for more friction. Your hands shifted from his shoulders to the back of his neck, your fingers tangling into his dark hair, coaxing him down, silently begging him to abandon the structure and just move faster.
Jeongguk felt the shift instantly. He broke the sloppy contact of the kiss by just a fraction of an inch, a low, breathy smile tugging at his lips as his hot breath fanned across your mouth.
"What do you want, Void?" he murmured against your lips, his deep baritone dripping with absolute, teasing satisfaction. His hand didn't speed up; he kept the circles maddeningly slow, intentionally torturing you. "Tell me."
"Move faster," you choked out, your voice unraveled and breathless as you glared up at him through the dim light of the cabin. You locked your fingers tighter into his hair, pulling him down. "I'm not made of glass, Jeongguk."
A dark, sharp chuckle vibrated in his chest.
"Impatient," he whispered, the word carrying a low, rough edge of approval.
Without breaking eye contact, his fingers hooked beneath the delicate edge of your lace underwear. He slid the wet fabric aggressively to the side, completely exposing your bare, hyper-sensitive center to the cool air of the car before his calloused fingers pressed directly against your slick skin. He didn't waste another second. Abandoning the agonizingly slow prep, he began tracing faster, firmer circles right against your clit, his touch slick and demanding as he plunged the backseat into absolute chaos.
Your head fell back against his leather jacket, a loud, broken gasp echoing in the dark vault of the cabin. It wasn't enough. The pressure building behind your ribs was mutating into something ravenous, and you were completely losing your mind in the quiet of the empty lot.
"Jeongguk," you begged, your voice a fractured, thready whisper as your fingers violently clawed at his bare shoulders. "Please. I want more. I want it now."
Suddenly, the rapid friction stopped.
Jeongguk didn't pull away completely, but he paused, his chest heaving as he stared down at you through the heavy shadows. His pupils were completely blown out, his jaw clenched to a sharp, dangerous edge.
"R or both R and M?" he asked, his voice dropping into a low, gravelly rasp that vibrated right through your skin.
You blinked up at him, your unraveled brain entirely confused by the sudden, cryptic sequence of letters. "What...?"
Jeongguk didn't explain with words. Instead, he slowly rose his hand between your faces, exposing the dark, intricate ink wrapping around his knuckles. In the dim light filtering through the tinted windows, you tracked the letters permanently etched into his skin—the R and the M staring right back at you. He was asking how many fingers you wanted inside you.
Your throat went completely dry. You gulped down hard, an immediate, violent wave of heat rushing to your center as your pussy instinctively clenched around absolutely nothing just at the raw, filthy thought of his hand stretching you open.
"Both," you choked out, the word carrying a desperate, needy weight.
Jeongguk's lips twitched into a sharp, knowing smirk, and he got to work.
He didn't hesitate. His fingers slid smoothly into your slick, aching heat, burying themselves deep inside you in one heavy, authoritative stroke. You let out a high, breathless cry, your hips instinctively lifting off the seat as he began pumping them in you. He didn't rush the tempo; he kept a controlled, agonizingly steady pace, his knuckles rubbing firmly against your opening with every deep, deliberate thrust.
"You're making a mess on my fingers. So tight."
The intense fullness was overwhelming, the thick friction inside you completely tearing down your final defenses. You couldn't hold it back anymore. A loud, raw, unedited sound ripped from the back of your throat, echoing beautifully against the glass.
Jeongguk let out a deep, satisfied groan at the sound, his thumb finding the hyper-sensitive knot of your clit as his fingers continued their steady, rhythmic stretch.
"There are your pretty violet moans, Void," he murmured, his deep baritone dripping with absolute triumph.
Before you could even process the words, he leaned his large frame down, his broad shoulders blocking out what little light was left in the backseat. His mouth latched directly onto your slick clit while he kept pumping his fingers inside you. He was relentless, gently sucking the swollen nodule into his mouth, circling it with a hot, wet tongue in a rhythm that matched the deep, controlled thrusts of his hand.
The dual stimulation was entirely too much. The structural frequencies he always talked about completely collapsed into absolute chaos. Your entire body locked up, your fingers burying into his dark hair as a violent, blinding wave of pleasure crashed over you. You came hard right on his fingers and tongue, your hips bucking frantically against his face as a loud, unraveled moan shattered the quiet cabin.
Jeongguk didn't stop. Even as your walls clamped down around his hand in a desperate, pulsing rhythm, he kept a steady pressure, his tongue tracing wet, soothing circles against your sensitive skin. He was coaxing you through the shattering peak of your orgasm, his deep voice a low, raspy rumble against your thigh.
"That's it, Void," he whispered, his hot breath ghosting over your wet skin as he swallowed your high whimpers. "That's it. Good."
Slowly, the heavy pulsing of your orgasm began to subside, leaving your legs trembling and your skin covered in a fine sheen of sweat against the interior of his jacket.
Jeongguk took his fingers out of you, the wet, sliding sound incredibly loud in the quiet aftermath of the cabin. He didn't reach for a tissue or try to clean himself up. Instead, he sat back on his knees, broad chest heaving as he brought his hand up between your faces. His dilated eyes locked onto yours as he deliberately slid his fingers into his own mouth.
He swallowed your whole taste, his throat bobbing heavily as his tongue swiped over his knuckles to catch every single drop of your slickness. A deep, guttural groan vibrated from the very bottom of his chest at the taste—a raw, completely unedited sound of pure, masculine satisfaction that proved just how deeply your frequency had wrecked his composure.
Before you could even process the sheer dirtiness of it, he leaned his large frame right back down over you.
He gripped the sides of your face with his large hands, his palms burning against your cheeks, and then he kissed you.
It was a deep, possessive, and bruising collision of your lips. The second his tongue drove past your teeth, a sharp jolt of heat went straight to your core—you were tasting yourself on his tongue. The intoxicating blend of his musky cologne, his hot breath, and the heavy, sweet taste of your own arousal flooded your senses, blurring the lines between you until it felt like the dark vault of the car was completely consuming you both.
It was so nasty. You've never experienced this before.
Jeongguk broke the bruising contact of the kiss with a heavy, ragged sigh. He slid his frame off your body, shifting through the cramped, shadow-drenched space until he sat right next to you on the leather jacket. The air in the backseat was suffocatingly hot, thick with the scent of your combined arousal and his musky cologne.
Reaching blindly over the console, he hit the master control button, and his side's window cracked open an inch with a soft, mechanical hiss. The sudden intrusion of the crisp, biting air cut through the stagnant heat of the cabin, making your bare skin shiver instantly.
He leaned his head back against the headrest, his chest heaving as he fished in the front pocket of his loosened denim pants. His ink-mapped fingers pulled out a crumpled pack of cigarettes and a metallic lighter. With a practiced, fluid flick of his thumb, the small flame flared to life, casting sharp, amber shadows across the hollows of his cheeks. He lit one, drawing the smoke deep into his lungs before exhaling a thick, gray cloud that drifted lazily toward the open sliver of the window.
You blinked through the dimness, your body still humming from the remnants of your orgasm, your mind completely derailed by the sudden halt in the rhythm. You looked from the glowing cherry of his cigarette to his blank, staring profile.
"What?" you breathed out, your voice a confused, fractured whisper. "What is this?"
Jeongguk didn't look at you right away. He took another slow drag, the embers illuminating the sharp, rigid line of his jaw before he let the smoke roll past his lips.
"I didn't bring a condom, Void," he said. His voice was a low, gravelly rasp, stripped of any playful edge.
You froze, the confession instantly hardening the air between you.
He turned his head slowly, eyes locking onto yours through the shadows of the backseat. A faint, self-deprecating pull tugged at the corner of his mouth, though his eyes remained entirely serious. "Believe it or not, I didn't leave the house thinking I was gonna fuck you."
"So what, we just stop?" you asked, the words tumbling out in a breathless, frustrated blur.
Jeongguk didn't answer immediately. He took a long, slow drag of his cigarette, the tip glowing a fierce, angry white in the dimness of the backseat. He leaned his head back, letting the smoke roll lazily past his lips. The thick, acrid cloud drifted across the small space, the scent dancing in your nose and mixing with the heavy, sweet trace of your own arousal still lingering in the air.
"Yeah," he murmured, his gravelly baritone vibrating in the quiet vault of the car. "It'd be advised."
You let out a soft hum, shifting your weight slightly against the rough texture of his leather jacket. A bitter spike of reality pricked at your brain as you remembered his strict rules. He didn't do raw. It didn't matter that you were on birth control; Jeongguk operated on absolute structure and flawless damage control. He wouldn't cross that boundary, no matter how loud the friction between you got.
Didn't leave hickies if he's not romantically involved. Didn't have raw sex.
A set of rules you followed.
But looking at him now—bare-chested, ink-mapped skin gleaming in the shadows, visible tent in his pants, his breathing still ragged—the sheer unfairness of it made a reckless confidence flare up inside you.
"So what, you're just going to remain like that?" you asked, tilting your chin down as you gestured explicitly toward the heavy, undeniable tent straining against the fabric of his unbuckled denim. "You don't get anything?"
Jeongguk's jaw shifted, his tongue poking into the inside of his cheek as a dark, unreadable look pulled at his mouth. He didn't look down at himself. Instead, his pitch-black eyes slowly darted lower, his gaze anchoring firmly between your parted thighs, locking onto your bare pussy—still glistening, flushed, and raw from the absolute wreck his fingers and tongue had just made of you.
"I got plenty, Void," he rasped, his voice dropping into that dangerously low register that made your skin burn. He took another drag, his eyes dragging back up to meet your stare with a possessive, predatory certainty. "Hearing you unravel like that is more than enough to keep the signal running."
You shifted slightly, the cool air from the cracked window hitting your bare chest and reminding you of just how exposed you were. Your eyes scanned the dim floorboards, looking to cover up and reclaim some semblance of armor.
You positioned your panties to cover you back, hissing at the moist material touching you.
Noticing your movement, Jeongguk didn't say a word. He just leaned forward, his bare torso flexing in the shadows as he snatched your discarded top from the front footwell. He handed it over to you, his touch surprisingly gentle against your fingers. Once you took it, he sank back against the seat and lazily draped his heavy, solid arm across your bare thighs, anchoring you close to his side while he held his cigarette in his other hand.
The heat of his palm against your skin was a stark contrast to the crisp air drifting through the car.
"You coming to the gala on Saturday?" he asked, his voice a low, raspy rumble that sounded incredibly intimate in the quiet space. He took a slow drag, the cherry of the cigarette illuminating his profile.
You pulled your shirt over your head, settling the fabric over your skin before leaning back against his leather jacket. "Yeah," you murmured, adjusting the hem. "It's kinda rude not to attend. Everyone from the department is going to be there."
Jeongguk exhaled a thin stream of gray smoke toward the open sliver of the window. "I'm the mixer at the gala."
"I know," you replied simply, looking out at the dark, empty lot.
He paused, the cigarette hovering an inch from his lips as he turned his head to look at you, eyes narrowing slightly in curiosity. "How do you know?"
A small, faint smile tugged at your lips at his rare surprise. "My project mates found out. They said it was leaked that Amaranth will DJ, or something like that. Word travels fast when it comes to you."
Jeongguk let out a low, humorless chuckle, the sound vibrating right through the heavy arm draped lazily across your thighs. He took another slow drag of his cigarette, his eyes staring fixately at the smoke as it swirled toward the cracked window.
"Everyone will be there," he murmured, his gravelly baritone taking on a sharper, more deliberate edge. He turned his head slightly, his piercing gaze locking back onto your face. "Including a special someone. Probably with a woman around his arm."
The reminder hit a raw nerve, instantly throwing a cold blanket over the lingering warmth in your veins. Your lips pulled into a small, defensive pout as you looked away, your chest tightening. "Yeah," you muttered, your voice small against the quiet of the car. "I guess it was implied."
Jeongguk watched the subtle shift in your expression, his thumb tracing a slow, grounding line over your skin. "You gonna be okay?"
"I don't know," you confessed honestly, the vulnerability slipping out before you could stop it. The thought of seeing him out in the open, playing the part with someone else while you stood on the sidelines, felt like an anchor dragging you down.
Jeongguk flicked the ash from his cigarette out the window his jaw clenching tightly. He shifted closer, the heat of his bare chest pressing against your shoulder as he leveled you with an unyielding look.
"I'll be there anyway," he said, his voice dropping into a firm, protective register. "Just in case."
Before you could process the weight of that promise, he leaned in a fraction closer, the scent of tobacco completely filling your senses.
"But don't let him see you're affected," Jeongguk warned, his pitch-black eyes burning with a cold, calculated intensity. "Giving him a reaction just gives him power, Void. Keep your frequency locked down."
