#enough of constant content consumption...

“There surely must be more than one room available?” you heard Gwayne ask, your eyes wandering around the inn where you sought to rest for the night, tightening the cloak around you as Gwayne's eyes met yours, a soft smile on his lips as if to apologise for the inn's lack of availability. 

“One room shall be fine,” you insisted, taking the key from the innkeeper as Gwayne passed her the necessary coin. “I'm sorry,” Gwayne insisted, speaking your name with a sense of reverence as you took his hand and squeezed it, “it is not normally this full.” 

“It's all right, Ser,” you assured him, half of you giddy at the idea of sharing a room with your sworn sword. The man had been your sworn sword for nearly two years now. Two years of blushing whenever his eyes met yours, of your normal calm and steady voice wavering whenever his attention was entirely focused on you. “I am sure you can bear my company for one whole night,” you teased, smiling at the blush that rose to his features at your words.

“Please send some food to our rooms,” you asked the innkeeper, handing her an extra gold coin, before fitting your hood over your hair and walking through the endless horde of men in the inn.

“Gwayne,” you called, reaching for his arm as a sense of unease filled you. You kept close to him as he led you to the room, ready to settle in for the night after a long day of travel. With no dragon to your name, travel by horseback was your only means, and though the days were long and hard as you travelled the realm, at your fathers behest for you to find a husband, you were grateful to have Gwayne as company, even if you wished he would enter the contenders to win your hand, for you knew he would win it even if he just made a passing comment on the matter. 

“My princess,” he spoke softly, reaching for your hand as he weaved through the men and up the stairs to your room. “I apologise, truly I-“

“You need not apologise again,” you assured, your eyes searching the room, as Gwayne pushed open the door, a blush rising to your cheeks as you saw that only a small dresser table and one singular bed occupied the room. And despite its lack of furniture, the small room seemed only large enough for its objects, leaving both you and Gwayne cramped into the small room, with your bags taking up what little standing space there was. 

“Oh,” Gwayne sighed, “I shall take the floor-“

“Don’t be ridiculous, there is no space on the floor,” you breathed, “we shall share the bed.”

“I…it is improper.”

“What would be improper is you refusing to get a good night of rest based on propriety.”

Gawyane sighed, sending you a glance with an emotion so fleeting that you could hardly make out what it meant before it was gone. “Very well, princess,” he said, a small frown on his lips that had your stomach dropping. You gave him a small smile, half flushed from embarrassment,  you had hoped he truly would not mind being in such close quarters with you. You certainly did not mind it, you relished his company, loved how easily the conversation flowed and how there were no moments of awkwardness, at least until this moment. A part of you had hoped he would feel the same giddy feeling you did. You had dreamed of him, of sharing a bed beside him, of what it would feel like for his hands to fully grip yours and not only touch you in passing moments where your hands graved one another, and he retracted with uncanny speed. Of what it would feel like to kiss him, to be able to caress his cheek and play with his hair. Each day your hands itched to brush the strawberry blonde strands of his hair, to place kisses across every inch of his face and body. Of what it would feel like for him to kiss you from your mouth all the way down to you-

“Princess, are you alright?” Gwayne asked, interrupting your thoughts. His voice dripping with concern, he sat on the bed, his hands working to unstrap his armour. “You seem lost in thought.”

“Oh, I-...I am fine,” you insisted, deciding to focus your attention on removing your riding clothes.

Gwyane couldn’t take his eyes off you. He never could, in truth. He followed your every move, more so than a sworn sword should. But now, watching as you removed your riding clothes and soon only stood in your underdress, he found it impossible to look away. He had been nothing but chivalrous; he knew he should not focus his gaze upon you, that he had no doubt was unwanted; he knew he should keep his distance, defend you when needed and honour you as he should with any woman. But you, the second daughter of King Viserys, a girl he had grown up alongside in court, wishing each and every day you would pay him any attention, and when you did, even if it was the smallest glance or choosing to sit beside him over his sister and yours. It made him giddy and feel like a love-struck green boy. 

Growing up, he had been besotted, had wished to court and marry you, but who would want the son of a second son? He had no land or titles, would not inherit any. And you were a princess, daughter to the king and sister to the future queen. You deserved a prince or a lord paramount, not him, a simple knight. 

But despite this, he could not keep away from you, and when you needed a sworn sword, he had gladly volunteered. Any chance to spend time with you, even if it meant following you around the world on the hunt for a husband. 

Watching you be courted by lords and knights had him full of jealousy, watching them make you laugh, shower you in gifts and affection. And you giving them the attention he so thoroughly craved.

He hated every second and yet loved hope after each dance, or feast, or long afternoons spent hearing lords sell themselves to you; you came straight to him. Would laugh and talk and tell him every thought. He loved those moments more than anything. 

And though he was irrevocably in love with you, he would do anything for this inn to have another room. 

The idea of sharing a room, a bed, with you and not being able to touch you, to hold you and kiss you. Gods, it killed him. And now watching you undress with a flushed tint to your cheek that had him wondering how far the flush went down. 

Gods, he felt sinful. The utter embodiment of lust and all for the love and want, no need, he felt for you. 

A knock pulled him from his thoughts. Standing quickly, his armour off and left in his own shirt and breeches, his shirt untied enough to show you the top of his chest. Opening the door, he came face to face with the innkeeper and a tray full of food. “Here, milord,” she spoke, her eyes gleaming and a smirk on her lips as he took the tray, Ii added something special to it for ya bot.”

“My thanks,” Gwayne thanked, taking the tray and choosing to ignore her gaze as she assessed him and then you as you platted your hair into a braid in nothing but your small clothes. His face turned red, flushing entrily as he looked at you, then back to the innkeeper. “Good night,” he spoke, shutting the door and choosing to ignore the woman's wink. Shaking his head and ensuring his gaze did not stray from the food in his hands to you, as he sat down on the bed. 

“Is that dinner?” your sweet voice spoke, wandering over to the bed and sitting beside him, your leg touching his as you reached for the food in his lap. 

“Tis nothing special…just some bread and soup,”

“After the feast the Dondarrions hoste, I am grateful for just soup,” you hummed, pulling a chunk of bread off the roll and dipping it in the soup, Gwayne’s eyes watching as you ate, watching each bit you took, each drop of soup and how your tongue reached out to lick it.

“Is it good?” he asked, his voice hoarse, watching as you brought your fingers to your lips, licking what little soup was left.

You hummed, reaching for some more. “It's so good,” you spoke, reaching for some bread and holding it to Gwayne’s lips. “Have some,” you spoke, swallowing roughly as Gwayne reached forward and took the food from your hand with his mouth. He smiled, embarrassed by his actions, though not regretting them, especially when he saw the heat rise to your cheeks. 

You both continued to eat in silence, every last drop of soup and bread crumb eaten, whatever the cooks put in had you both raving for more.

“I feel hot,” you breathed, lying back on the bed, fully flushed. Gwayne nodded, feeling the same, a fire burned underneath his skin, that had him tugging at his clothes. A fire that he felt in his abdomen and was beginning to stretch to his cock, a desire was building in him unlike anything he had felt before.

He swallowed roughly, watching as your hands reached for the sleeves of your small clothes, tugging at them with annoyance. “As do I, princess,” he breathed, his eyes tracing your body as you riggled in discomfort. He snapped his gaze away, busying himself with opening the small window, hoping the storm breeze of the stormlands might cool him of whatever desire was building in his body. He had been so good at hiding his desire, had been so good at finding ways to relieve himself before it got too much, or finding ways to distract himself from thoughts of you. But the sight of you now on a bed he would have to share with you tonight, watching you flushed and hot from what he did not know, nor did he wish to.

“That should help.” he cleared his throat, his eyes set on the floor as he made his way to the bed, turning his whole body away from you as he tried to will the desire in him away.

“Goodnight, Gwayne,” you whispered, your voice sounding distant as if you were fighting the same effects as him.

Heat coursed through your veins with the might of a thousand suns.  Your skin was on fire, your hands reached for your slip, begging to tear the clothes from your body and lie bare, bare so that your hands may wander to your core. You had never felt hotter, nor more aroused. The need to touch yourself controlled your every thought and every movement. You were desperate for it, to feel the movements of hands across your skin, to close your eyes and imagine Gwayne, imagining kissing you, of his fingers touching, tracing your skin, all the way down to your core. For him to gather the slick of your cunt across his fingers before thrusting them into you and filling you with pleasure. It was that dream that you thought of every night, and a dream tonight you especially wished was real.

You stared over at him, his back turned to you as he slept, as straight and rigid as a board; his shirt had ridden up, showing the span of his muscled back. You bit your tongue, fighting the urge to reach out and touch him. The urge to flip him to his back and mount him and take him. 

A whimper left your mouth. The need for pleasure getting worse by the second, the heat in you becoming scorching. 

An hour passed before you were no longer able to fight the urge, your gaze flicking to Gwayne, ensuring he still slept, your hands tore at your smallclothes, tearing it from your body and leaving yourself bare, your hands tracing your breasts before sliding down to your core. You were so wet, ridiculously so; your fingers started at your clit, rubbing small circles around your clit as your other fingers moved down to your cunt. You bite your lip to stop the moans that begged to fall through you, fucking yourself with your fingers; you were desperate for release, hoping it would ease the pleasure within you, but even as you chased your peak, your fingers fucking into you desperately, your hips bucking the air chasing the need for more fiction. 

“Princess,” you heard Gwayne's voice say; a whimper broke from you at the sound of his voice. “Princess, what are you-?” Your eyes flew open, meeting Gwayne's panicked gaze as he took you and your naked body in, before diverting his eyes quickly. “Princess, I- will leave you i-” he spoke, rushing to get up. 

Your hand reached for him, tugging on his shirt,” no Gwayne, I am sorry- I just felt so…i needed to. I am sorry”

“Needed to?” he repeated, turning back to you; his eyes darkened. 

“I am sorry, I- I could not sleep; the heat, the need to touch myself, it got too much… I apologise, I have made you uncomfortable, I'm sorry.”

“No, no…you haven’t, you never could”, he whispered, his eyes drawn to where your hand gripped his arm. “i understand the agony and need for pleasure, the heat that can core through you,” his breath heavy as he spoke, “but-” he cut himself off, his hands reaching to tugat his clothes, the same heat that you were feeling taking over.

“Gwayne,” you whimpered, watching as he tore off his own shirt. Your hand trailed from his arm to his shoulder, crawling across the bed. 

“What was in that soup?” you heard him mumble, throwing the shirt to the floor.

“What?”

“The soup, he muttered, standing up from the bed quickly, as if distance would quench the desire in you both of you and cool the hat that had you both in agony. “She put something in it, something special.”

“Gwayne?” you asked, chasing after him, needing to feel him, even if it was just your hand on his arm.

“No…we can’t, you do not want this nor me,” he shook his head, averting his gaze.

“I need you, please,” you insisted, nodding your head desperately as your hands slid back down to your core; the need to touch something, to feel pleasure, caused your hand to move of its own accord. “Gawyne,” you moaned, watching his eyes darken as you sat back down on the bed, your fingers disappearing into your cunt. You watched him closely, taking in his toned chest, and the tent his hardened cock had left in his breeches. 

He whimpered your name, watching you fuck yourself on your fingers, hearing you moan, his own hands untying the strings of his breeches. “I want you, Gwyane, I always have,” you moaned, feeling the coil in your stomach snap as you came. 

You could hear the sound of your breath, heavy and still full of need. “Gaywne,” you moaned, “I need more, please… I need you, “

“Fuck,” he sighed, walking toward the bed, “we can’t… I will not take you,” he breathed, his hand grasping your cheek, caressing you softly as he fought the need to kiss you and take you, as you begged for him and his own mind and body begged for you. 

“Gwyane, please, I need to feel you somehow,” you begged, nuzzling into his hand. 

Gwyane swallowed, sitting on the bed, his hands reaching for your hips. A moan left him as he touched your bare skin, pulling you to his lap. You collapsed against him, your breast against his bare chest, your head in his shoulder, pressing kisses to his skin. 

He whimpered your name, his hand on your hips. “I want you,” you breathed, working kisses from his neck to his jaw. “Please, Gwayne, touch me, help us both cure the fire within,” Gwayne swallowed, his hands steady on your hips as he began to move your hips back and forth, rocking you against him. 

Moans left you both as you began to rut against his clothed cock, chasing friction and another orgasm. Your name was like a prayer on his lips as he began to thrust his hips in time with yours, giving in to the desire that burned in you both. “Fuck”, he groaned, holding you tightly to him, his hand reaching to bring your face up to meet his. “Can I kiss you, please?” he begged, “i need to, please.” You nodded, desperately and clumsy reahcing for his lips; you had wanted this for so long. Had dreamed of his lips against yours and special soup or not, you were happy it was happening. Happy to have his moans swell yours and to have your second peak wash over you as he came in his breeches, your bodies pressed impossibly against each other as the desire for more only built with each orgasm as you rutted against each other for what felt both like hours and mere seconds, your lips only breaking apart for air. 

A strangled moan escaped Gwayne as he broke away from you. “It's too much he breathed,” “But not enough. gods” he lifted you off of him, standing from the bed, his body tired from pleasure but the need for more, for him to touch you, to take you and fill you with his cock as he whsipered sweet nothign sin your ear, only grew stronger with each second he was not buried inside of you.  “Tell me you want this, want me,” he begged, his eyes locked on you.

You got off the bed, walking to him, your hand on his chest. “I have wanted you since you named me the queen of love and beauty on my ten and six name day,” you breathed, “Please, Gwayne, I need you, I want you so badly it hurts, touch me, take me please.”

Gaywane thought everything in him that it took to not take to not throw you on the bed and take you then and now. “I do not wish to take advantage of you-” “You aren't, please, Gwyane, please,” you begged, reaching for him and grabbing your hand, placing it on your breast. He groaned, squeezing your breast, before reaching forward and kissing you, his hands moving to grab you by the waist, lifting you up and carrying you to the bed, his mouth never once leaving yours, your hand on his breeches, throwing them across the room, your hand reaching for his cock and lining it up with your cunt.

“I will take your properly next time, i swear it,” he vowed as he began to push into your cunt. His head fell to the nape of your neck, a whimper falling from his lips as your cunt wrapped around his cock, a small gasp falling from your lips as you felt a small pinch of pain as his cock filled you. “Gods,” he moaned, “so tight,” he moaned intoy our skin, “can i move,” he begged, the need for him to take you taking over every sense of priority he had drilled into him.

“Yes, fuck, Gwayne, please,” you begged, needing him as desperately as he needed you. He tried to control his thrusts, to have some rhythm, some sense of care. But the need for you, the pleasure, the pure desperate animalistic urge to be fucked so thoroughly by Gwayne took over every sense in you. 

His hips began to pound into you, your core filled with so much pleasure as he fucked you. His pace was unrelenting as you both chased the endless pleasure you needed. Gwayne moaned your name as he fucked you, pressing kisses to every part of you that he could reach, the need for you controlling him, the need to fuck you and love taking over all of his senses.

Before you knew it, your peak was washing over you once more, the walls of your cunt tightening around his cock. His own peak soon followed.

He collapsed on top of you, the heat and endless desire washing away as you held Gwayne to you, your bodies tired and content. 

“I love you,” you whispered into his hair. 

“Hmm?” he hummed, moving off you and to the side, his arms reaching to hold you to him. “Say that again,” he pleaded.

“I meant what I said, Gwayne. I have wanted you, needed you and loved you for years. I love you,” you breathed again, turning so that you were facing him.

“His hard caressed your face, reaching forward to place as soft a kiss on your lips. “I have loved you since the day I met you.”

“You have?” you breathed. “Why didn't you say anything?”

“Why didn't you?” he asked in turn, smiling softly as you blushed. “It has been torture not telling you, believing that you did not return my affections… torture watching you be courted and search for a husband that was not me,”

“It has been torture for me too; I have only ever wanted to be courted by and marry you.”

“You wish to marry me?” he asked, a giddy smile on his lips.

“Yes…Gwyane, I- will you? Will you marry me?”

“It is I who should ask you that,” he hummed, reaching down to place another soft kiss to your lips. 

“Then ask it.”

“Will you marry me?” Gwayne asked softly, holding you close to him.

“Yes,” you breathed, reaching forward and pulling him back in for a heated kiss.

“Did ya enjoy the special ingredient in ya soup last night, milord?” the innkeeper asked, smirking as you both turned to each other, blushing.

Gwayne cleared his throat, handing the key back to the innkeeper, his hand on the small of your back. “Yes, we did. What was it exactly?” he asked.

“Oh, only a fancy flower,” she laughed, “tears of a poppy the poets call it,” she chuckled, watching as your heads snapped to one another, understanding on your face. An aphrodisiac. 

“Oh well, we thank you.”

“Ay, I'm sure you do,” she smirked, eyes following you as you both waved your goodbyes as you walked towards the door, blushing all the way to the stables.

Helping you top your horse, Gwayne pressed a kiss to your hand, smiling as he moved to mount his own steed.

“Where to next, princess?” he asked, heading towards the King's Road.

“I believe home, to Kingslanding,” you hummed, turning to him and smiling. “There is only one man I ever planned to be my husband”, you smiled, your hand reaching to grab his as your horses rode side by side.

“And who may that be?” he asked, smiling softly, already knowing the answer, but wishing to hear it from your lips once more. 

“Why, you of course,” you laughed, “it has only ever been you.”

Jungwon is troubled by a moral dilemma, being yours when three's a crowd. Your boyfriend is a constant thorn in his side, damned into irrelevancy but clawing back with a type of vengeance leaving bitter ash in Jungwon's mouth. The same distaste he attempts hiding at the stories you tell, the supposed happy pictures cluttering your feed. Happiness shines in your eyes, so pure and abundant. And yet, in your boyfriend's…his smile doesn't quite reach his eyes, something dark hidden behind them. A pretence - a thin veil eclipsing true intentions Jungwon's yet to figure out. It drives him into slight delirium, seeing a variable he can't account for, knowing no good can come from it. 

Then again, there's no good in being with Jungwon, that is something he can admit. But he can also acknowledge that if your boyfriend didn't exist, he would give you everything. If you asked, it'd be yours in a heartbeat. Over and over again before the thought of him or anyone else could cross his mind.

At least in this regard, he can say his intentions are pure. The same cannot be said for your boyfriend, who when finally revealed for who he really is, brings you soaked in downpour at Jungwon's doorstep. A smaller version streaked down your cheeks, collapsing your body in grief towards the man who hates how braced he is for this.

Jungwon wishes this could've come at different price - the void of your pain, the simplicity of it all. A muddle of good and bad blurring into the grey he's been swimming in since he'd laid eyes on you. And, as the soft salt lamp light casts across the soft landscape of your skin, looking like every bit of heaven in Jungwon's attic bedroom, he realises he's stirred long enough in his moral dilemma. Because what is a better confrontation than through?

It starts on an unimportant Thursday. On the blue carpet of their accommodation's foyer floor, where just the night before they'd been throwing back shots so fast it's a miracle they'd gotten into the club, much less found their way there. They're paying the price for it now, slumped in day old sweats shovelling greasy takeout food into their mouths, hoping their queasy stomachs can absorb anything non alcoholic.

"Okay," Sunoo concludes, the older of the three holding up a fried chip. "I admit: Sambuca is a better shot than Vodka but," he blows a raspberry. "In smaller amounts."

"Agreed." Jungwon murmurs, his thousand yard stare cast with a mindless burger-bite. Just the right amount of grease. He groans. 

"You guys are pussies," Riki's eyes roll, stealing Sunoo's chips. Then dipping them into his strawberry milkshake. Jungwon looks away before he hurls. 

"We are not the same clearly," Sunoo establishes, index finger wagging between him and Jungwon. "Jungwon and I know when to quit. You…drink from an unknown bottle outside the club at 4 am."

"That was really bad, I admit," Riki nods his head into the wall he's propped against, toying with his chain bracelets. "At least it wasn't spiked or anything. We had that nice little DMC on the curb too. You win some, you lose some."

The incredulous huff Sunoo does mirrors Jungwon's, eyes caught over in a smile of disbelief. "Let's not gamble with our lives, okay?" Sunoo's hand braces on Riki's shoulder, finally eating his chip with the other. "Just don't pull that shit when she's here,"

Jungwon remembers. "Oh, your visitor?"

"Is she hot?" Riki asks, because he has to.

"She's my cousin."

"My point still stands," the takeout bag echoes with Riki's rummaging, teeth bared to rip open some tomato sauce. "Actually, she can't be, right? Since she's related to you."

Sunoo shoots daggers. "I should kill you."

"It'll get me out my next exam, go ahead," Riki only shrugs, only to pause halfway through. "Actually, don't. I've got tickets to see Carti and Abel in the summer."

"And Abel," Jungwon whispers, chuckle bleeding into his hoodie's arm. For how reserved Riki is, parasocialism lives loudly in him, speaking as if he's familiar enough with the Weeknd to refer to him as Abel.

Jungwon has to bury his face, his hangover amplifying his laughter.

"My God, my exam is tomorrow," his fingers card through his loose curls, tugging at dark roots. "Why did I go out?" 

"First year doesn't count." 

Sunoo lifts his head, looking particularly drained. "I'm in second year." 

"What the fuck?" Riki jerks back. Then Jungwon watches the light bulb go off. "Yeah, wait - you are. Yo, you need to get a grip ─ first years can't be bullying you into nights out."

"Says the guy who'd break down my door if I didn't come out for pres."

After a few more chews, Jungwon clears his throat, changing the subject. "She's staying the weekend?" 

"Yeah. She'll be down tomorrow night and leave sometime Sunday," he explains, tenderness blooming across his face. The staircase light streaming through its leading glass door catches it, the foyer doused in early evening darkness, distant elevators dings announcing their destination. "I'll take her to the city on Saturday - give her another incentive to like the place."

"Another incentive?" Riki steals another chip. 

"It's a long story." 

"She's coming here for uni then?" Jungwon clarifies. 

"Most likely," his response follows with a shake of the head, noticed by Jungwon. "In any case, we'll probably do bottomless brunch that day so if you guys are around, we could all have a drink when we're back."

"Let me get this Sambuca out my system first," Jungwon grins over his burger, stretching his legs to touch soles with the youngest of their three. Riki's nose scrunches, bringing more laughter out Jungwon. "But I'll be around."

"Me too." 

"Thanks guys," Sunoo's cheeks bunch up in that rosy, pleased way. His gaze shifts back to his chips, of which there are none. "Where'd all my chips go?"

Not so discreetly, Riki shoves the last milkshake covered chip in his mouth, caught with a wail from Sunoo who lunges at him.

"Rikiiiii!" 

Jungwon actually forgets you're meant to show. The exam he has the following Tuesday dials in his focus, tucking him away in the quiet library corners on a sparse Friday night. When he's trekking back to his residence of the year, he hears the faint buzz of a club night, admittedly dulled by exam session's tension but still palpable in the tipsy girls zooming past him, shimmering in their glittery tops as they giggle about the pres they're late for. It's the kind of lax Jungwon wishes he'd give himself, so rotted in the high hopes people have for him - overachieving, athletic, oh so friendly - he can't take a day off, doesn't allow himself to.

Existing for others weighs heavily today, a gnawing knot in his neck he massages while weaving through the path leading to his accommodation, wanting nothing more but to collapse into his bed and watch a movie. At least he knew what to expect then. He's rummaging in his coat pocket, a slight annoyance in grazes instead of grapples before his head shoots up, the call of his name earning attention.

In the grassy patch of land outside his staggering accommodation presents a somewhat usual sight. Sunoo, with his green zip-up sleeves rolled up, waving a friendly hand his way, smile to match. Except he's not alone. 

You're there. Painted in hues of late afternoon sunlight, streaking gold into your hair, conjuring something mythical in your eyes, twinkle vast in them as your gaze sets on him. A strange thing happens in those seconds. Perhaps a skipped heartbeat or a flutter in his chest, an unknown coming in hot and fast, a flash of emotions he doesn't want to name. You're shy, he observes as your eyes dart soon afterwards, a hand grated against your jeans when eye-contact overwhelms you, circling back again because he stays. Lingers long after he starts his conversation with Sunoo.

"What you guys doing out here?"

"Riki had his door open, so I took his ball," Sunoo supplies, the football tucked at his side, set on the ground with his foot over it. "We'd do this all time when the weather was like this, playing until our moms came out moaning about mosquito bites and the grass stains we'd help get out,"

Sunoo giggles at the memory, hand over his whiskered cheeks before his eyes take on a comically large shape.

"Oh God, where are my manners?" The same hand splays over his chest, gestured in the space between you and Jungwon. "This is the guy I was talking to you about, my flatmate, Jungwon."

Sunoo introduces you, says your name. Jungwon tests the syllables on his tongue, mouth running dry. "Been friends for almost a year and I'm still your flatmate?"

The harmless tease earns him a slap on the shoulder, smile smug as he extends his hand over to you, shaking it despite the jolt of electricity conjured in your pressed palms. "Sunoo's cousin, right?"

"Yes," you confirm, sugar cookie sweet. It's how your voice plays in Jungwon's ears, haunting him longer than he expects, the current of your pressed skin never forgotten as his hand comes to his side again, a look cast between you and Sunoo. 

"Mind if I join?"

"You're not tired from the library?" Sunoo quizzes, ball rolling out from his foot, treading to where you've created distance. 

It's not intentional. His eyes just happen to find yours, foot coming down on the football as your eyes find his. A lone lip corner ticks, lifting upwards as he relays. 

"I've got energy to spare."

And he does, their trio forming a pointed triangle shape, Jungwon closest to you as the ball gets kicked around, picking up mud specks Riki will rant about later, but it's worth it. Talking with you is worth the earful when he gets to learn more about you, the soft sounds of Sunoo's playlist humming amidst your nearby belongings. 

You're in the middle of firming between one of three uni choices, an addition to seeing Sunoo again presenting the option of seeing the campus of one. You plan on studying Astronomy, have a thing for stars as seen on the star charm on your bracelet and the app on your phone you show him when Sunoo needs a break, chugging water from his Owala bottle. Your shoulders brush in the interaction, Jungwon's figure towering over you as he peers into your phone, focusing on your words, but it frays. Simmers down to your manicured nail pointing out the intricacies of the app he'll download later, camera lens pointed to the sky when you show him the constellations it outlines. Your perfume mists in the movement, something like brown sugar and marshmallow together ─ S'mores, he'll learn later on because your sweet tooth bleeds over into other aspects of your life. Your scent, your words, your actions. He notes it all and when he attempts archiving them in the hoard of his mind, he halts. Questions what to label such a thing. It's attraction, that part he understands, but Jungwon's mindful. Of Sunoo's presence looming protectively over you, hollering in the set sun that you should head inside, relaying the same information your mothers relayed about mosquito bites. 

He also remembers Sunoo's words, about the other incentive swaying your decision and his mind, like it always does, takes it and runs. Mulls over possibilities, deliberates what the consequences of making his attraction known. If you'd reciprocate, if his extends beyond a harmless kiss or remains satisfied with pressed lips. 

Miraculously, the file sorting stops. More so done when your voice pierces through his muddle of thoughts, his backpack hauled onto his shoulders again, looking your way as the football rests against your hip. 

"We're planning on watching a movie after this," you mention, a curve to your lips dashed in timidity. His teeth ache to sink. "Did you wanna…join?"

The invitation fills his chest with a warm light, head tilted with mischief interfering. "Depends,"

You give your side profile, eyebrow arched with the same grin. "I can be a bit snobbish about movies."

"He's all about psychological thrillers," Sunoo rolls his eyes, turning his speaker off. "You'd swear he's studying Psychology with all the stuff docked into his Letterboxd."

"You have Letterboxd too?" He nods. Then takes initiative. 

"You'll have to show me your profile," he insists. Walking alongside you, shoulders brushing again. Your breath hitches, peering up at him with the shake of your pupils as he adds. "This depends on what your favourite four films are."

"This?" 

"How well we'll get along," he supplies, filtering into the lift, leaning against its back rail. "That's what Sunoo would want, right?"

"I'd hope so if you're coming here next year," he hikes a thumb over his shoulder, at Jungwon. "I'm in a house with him and Riki next year, so."

Jungwon drops onto Sunoo, a yelp dashing amusement amidst Jungwon's features as he slings an arm around Sunoo. "You'll be seeing a lot more of us."

It's a promise he sees linger on your mind, present when you've gone and rejoined in Sunoo's room, his door pinned open as Sunoo sets up his monitor to a movie night, Riki invited but already having plans with other friends to hotbox their car. Jungwon doesn't mind. After all, with Sunoo's back to you, he gets to inch close to you, comparing Letterboxd entries, laughing at some but pleasantly surprised by others. You have a lot of crossover, and he lets it be known, a harmless comment turning your head away, as if he hadn't seen the curve of your lips beforehand. 

And when Sunoo's set-up is good to go, Jungwon doesn't persist. Lets Sunoo sandwich in between your bodies, offering butter popcorn you have a thing for and the movie plays, darkness dominating the space if not for the muted tones cast across your faces throughout, your face not forgotten even after you turn in for the night, Jungwon retreating to his room.

Collapsing onto his bed, he sees his notes from earlier. Also sees you. The sterling sliver of your bracelet, the hair against your nape, the aversion of your eyes, a hidden smile. He'd let it co-exist with the race of his thoughts, if not for their unusual lull, gratitude in his chest as he rests easy for the first time in years. 

You're at bottomless brunch like Sunoo mentioned, flooding his Instagram story with scenery pictures and the obscene amount of cocktails you cycle through, Sunoo's words less coherent as the glasses pile. There's one video Jungwon's replayed, where Sunoo drunkenly asks what number cocktail you're on ─ a close friends story ─ and you match his energy, not as drunk but tipsy enough to yell the number back at him, giggling at your own ridiculousness. Jungwon's thumb jams into his screen, video paused on the slivered smile the camera catches, your head turned but expression vivid in his mind. 

He has to do pushups like the loser he is, a poor attempt to erase the sight, heaving his way to 100. He's brought to his knees, hands braced on his thighs as sweat drops to the taut red carpet beneath him, breaths echoed in the vacancy of his room. A shower is needed, not without Riki catching him on his way out, whistling at the towel bunched around his middle, Jungwon ruffling his hair with an eye roll. He has no plans except to study, something he condemns himself to as the hours tick, only for a practice exam question to escape his understanding. 

Luckily for him, one of his module's shining pupils resides in the same accommodation, floors down where he goes to bug him, stopped on his way into the winding staircase.

Sunoo stumbles into the foyer, lights flickered on by his sluggish movements, shopping bags draped around his forearms and is…just a bit of a mess. An endearing one after all the sugary cocktails consumed. 

"Jungwooooon," he wears out all the o's, cheeks flushed and whiskered as he collapses over him in a hug, dropping enough for Jungwon to brace. Over Sunoo's shoulder, Jungwon looks, not exactly caught off guard but similar, looking for the other variable in the messy equation.

The heavy glass-panelled staircase doors echoes with its close, Mary Jane's pushed into your share of shopping bags as frilly white socks skid against floor stubborn on white, pushing hair out of your face. In the motion, your eyes lock, pupils blowing instantly. The twitch of his lip Jungwon's only tell. 

"You should've come with us. There were so many cute shops," Sunoo asserts, prying from him with a pout as he rummages through his shopping bags, kraft paper crinkling. "I bought you something, got Riki a little something too. You know me shopping drunk."

A menace. Running without thought through isles, fawning over whatever catches his eyes and swiping his card without discrimination. It'd been one of the first few times they'd gone out together, a bottomless brunch meant to celebrate Riki who was equally drunk, flushed in his high cheek bones, mumbling to himself as he scanned articles of clothing. He'd picked out a zip-up hoodie, one Sunoo snatched out his hands, insisting it'd be his birthday present to him despite its costly price tag. Sunoo moaned the next morning, hands making a mess of his hair after he'd looked at his bank account while Jungwon and Riki could only laugh, Riki already wearing the hoodie. He wears it often. 

"Glad you had fun," Jungwon comments, hand coming up to whisk some flyaway hairs out of Sunoo's face as he still rummages, stumbling a bit. Jungwon steadies him, turning his attention to you hovering not far behind. "Did you have a good time? No handful Sunoo?" 

"I'm never a handful!" he retorts, childish in tone and encouraging shared laughter, your hand smoothing the back of your cousin's head. 

"It was great fun, I had a good time," you confirm, easiness spread like melted butter amongst your features. Jungwon can't really tell if you're just as drunk, your observed nature one and the same. Except for the repeated flutters of your lashes, eyes somehow more glassy as they peer up at him. "Sunoo's great at convincing me to stay." 

"Pretty sure Jaehyun has a big part in that," is Sunoo's harmless response, except when surprise floods your widened eyes, Jungwon realises the misspoken error. 

"Who's Jaehyun?" he asks anyways, witnessing the squirm of your body as your gaze dashes to your feet, wiggling in your frilly socks. 

"Only the guy she's─" 

Your hand swallows Sunoo's mouth, the rest of his sentence unintelligible but Jungwon puts the pieces together. Surmises your demeanour and knows there's another man in your life. One you're contemplating going to the same university for, all in the sake of proximity. 

He thinks it's cute. Partially wishes it was him that warranted the effort. 

"We'll go put these down and come back out for drinks," you utter through gritted teeth, Sunoo tapping away at your hand with knitted eyebrows. You don't yield, instead baring a tight lipped-smile Jungwon's way. "You're still up for it?"

"Of course." 

He's covered all his bases, study timetable on schedule, so he can afford the luxury. He's too nosy to pass up the opportunity anyways. 

So, you go your separate ways again, rejoining later when Jungwon better understands his practice exam question and Riki's scratched at his door, meowing with an accompanying throaty laugh. Jungwon smiles despite himself, beer can box in hand with the other fist bumping Riki, asking what antics entailed his last night. 

"I woke up high," he giggles, swiping a hand over his face. "Had to trek all the way back trying not to shit myself from all the cars driving by,"

"There was a rat in the bushes near the dining hall too. I fully launched like, at least three feet in the air." 

Jungwon grins, nudging Riki's shoulder. "And you wonder why those scouts are always hounding you." 

"I'm sorry, but I'm already unserious about uni. What makes you think I'll take that seriously?" 

"I don't know," Jungwon shrugs, Riki pushing open the door to the foyer, motion-sensor covered to keep the room's dim, LED disco alight with drinks and chasers circled around Sunoo's ongoing speaker. His gaze cuts to you, shuffling UNO cards they'll use for other purposes and feels joy come from within. "Things surprise you. Maybe it's the kick you need."

Like Jungwon anticipates, the UNO cards are used for some other drinking games, ice broken as laughter clutters the air, meshing with the hype music Riki hogs the aux over, nodding along when he's not actively stirring shit, grin shit-eating when Sunoo forgets the rules again, prompted to drink with which he does with an eye-roll and pleased smile. You can only shake your head, face-palming. When you look up, Jungwon's eyes are on yours. He chuckles too, and the look you exchange embodies a secret you share, your gaze averted first ─ as always ─ before your group gets into other games, one that unknowingly puts Jungwon under the spotlight. 

"Popular?" Jungwon can't help laugh, not drunk enough for this conversation. "This isn't high school, you know?"

"Bro, if we have to stop every five steps because we've come across someone who knows you," Riki cards his fingers through his blond hair, tucking it back into his snapback. "I'd say you're pretty fucking popular."

"He's sweet, sociable that way," Sunoo explains, fanning the flush beneath his cheeks before a sidelong glance of feigned disgust is chucked Riki's way. "Unlike someone."

"Good thing I'm not looking for anyone's approval." Riki shrugs, swatting away outreached hands in Sunoo's drunk attempt of smoothing Riki's ego. "Doesn't hurt you're stupidly handsome."

Smugness begs for disclosure, pushed down by some shred of sheepishness as Jungwon swipes his flush away. "What are you even talking about?"

"His body when he gets out the shower?" Riki directs his sentence to you, forehead creased with bleached-raised eyebrows. "No joke."

A scorch unrelated to alcohol's blanket gnaws up Jungwon's neck, more embarrassed than flattered. Riki rarely talks in new company, but the alcohol's made him talkative. More than Jungwon bargains for. 

"Hey, you're handsome too, Nishimura," Jungwon winks, gesture met with another swat. He creaks a turn your way, hyper-aware of your presence through this all. "As you can see, dramatics are our thing."

"Don't you think so?" Riki's question is posed, floor given with a fatal silence handed over to you.

Jungwon could kick Riki for instigating, the hidden smirk behind his cup fully intentional. Sunoo could intervene, but he's indifferent when checking his reflection with his phone's screen. Jungwon could too, but over the low murmur of Aminé, his nth life is sacrificed. He's barely known you twenty-four hours and yet, he doesn't recognise himself. The way you have no formula, how no slots carefully curated through his life belong to you ─ in everything he can (in)sanely control, you're an anomaly. Make him act that way too, hinging himself closer to inspect what perception of him you've formed, whether there's a world where if Jaehyun didn't exist, you'd pick him. 

The dark lighting's cruel. It doesn't give you away, but the constant bounce of your pupils do, Jungwon given a nanosecond glance before you rock yourself with knees to your chest, fingers toying with your bracelet charms.

"Yeah," hardly makes it over the music, the speaker smashed to pieces if within Jungwon's reach. Down in your lap, your head ducks as a shallow nod confirms his slight disbelief. "He's, uhm…really handsome."

How do others usually respond to such a thing? A confession of attraction when it matters, when it goes both ways? Flashes come, but they go, not nearly as meaningful to the present moment, your presence balled so small into yourself like you can't believe the words escaped you, centimetres away ─ enough for Jungwon's hand to shift with the graze of his fingertip to your sandals.

"I still take the cake though," Sunoo's voice pulls Jungwon out the hammer of his heart, eyes flicked up in time for Sunoo's imaginary hair flip. "I'll give him a tough time during Summer Ball awards."

You seem to come back to life too, head shaking as you utter. "You have a ball?!"

"I sent you those Winter Ball pics, didn't I?" he gasps, his phone grabbed in a haste, searching through countless photos. Riki, slightly tipsy off rum, doesn't bother hiding his peer into Sunoo's phone, leveraging his chin on him as Sunoo scrolls uninterrupted. "It had a chocolate fountain and everything! They had fake snow blowing for our group photos, it was so─"

However attuned Jungwon usually is to Sunoo's words, they dissipate into the background, glazed over in a blurring film as you make your way across, settling in between Sunoo and Riki to view the pictures Sunoo showcases. Time passes like this, Sunoo's phone on constant display even after you've retrieved back into the dorms section, beer cans emptied in Jungwon's midst, teeth gnawing into his lip at the flush searing beneath his skin.

"I might get my pills," Jungwon lifts himself off the ground, seared heat held in his body. 

"You're meant to take them before you start drinking," Sunoo helpfully reminds him, yanking his phone away from Riki's swipes. "What do you want?"

"Post this selfie, it's bet─" Riki's eyes bulge out his head, grin manic. "Is that a fucking thirst trap?!"

"Give it back, Riki!" 

Jungwon leaves them piled together, a mess of giggles and mild embarrassment with Sunoo's phone out his reach. With a beep, Jungwon scans himself into their flat, halls carrying an eerie silence as his feet swipe across the slate carpet, meaning to duck into his room five doors down but instead going further to the kitchen. Two further doors down, opposite Riki's room, where the door creaks open and─

You're there. Back towards him, having the same idea of getting water. Head whipping in his direction with a look similar to a deer caught in headlights.

"Jungwon," you start, sheepish and small. "Hi."

His heart starts up again, might as well be reaching out his chest to claim you as his own. 

"Hey," he says, low and unassuming. Breaching further into the small kitchen in increments, so not to spook you. "Needed water too?"

"It's for Sunoo," you answer, hoarse to which you clear your throat. "He's always the worst one between us two when we go for bottomless brunch. He'll need it."

Jungwon's brow quirks, remembering your interaction earlier. Despite your supporting act towards your cousin, you'd been fairly tipsy. Enough to look him in the eyes in an unabashed way, the image seared into his corneas. While you still drank after the fact, it was drinks below the percentage of 10, slowly sipping, eyes watching their interactions unfold as you curled into your shell again.

He'd wondered if he'd have the chance to see you comfortable again.

"And you?" he asks, stepping closer. You remain rigid in place, a rush of water filling Sunoo's glass. "You handle alcohol well?"

"I guess…I can have a few," is your estimation, eyes avoiding his. He, however, doesn't miss the split second glance you take at him, fingers seeking the comforted fiddle of your hooped earring. "Sunoo mentioned you flushed when drinking."

"That came up in casual conversation?" 

He pushes. Your layers started to peel away in the shadows of night, a ball kicked across the grass staining the bottoms of his sneakers. You'd found a rhythm eliminating the racket of your brain and spoke freely, which is why he does this. Checks to see how far he can go, even if Sunoo had mentioned some a crush of yours in his presence. The same one you hadn't mentioned since, but seemed pretty gone for. 

Then again, you'd said he was handsome in a group of people. Unless Jaehyun showed up to sweep you off your feet ─ to Jungwon, all bets are off.

Teeth creep into the flesh of your bottom lip, hand caught in the cookie jar. With only your side profile given, Jungwon can only draw conclusions as you close the tap just as starts to overflow, a quiet laugh to yourself as the ring of your hand illuminates the liquid coating it. 

"Sunoo brought it up earlier," you answer, a closed mouth smile given to him. "Said he has to constantly nag you to take your pills."

"Must've taken the night off then," Jungwon's head tilts, stepping closer until he's at your side. Not enough for your shoulders to touch, but as he settles, the sleeve of his shirt catches against your skin, a gulp your only tell. "Is it bad?"

There's only a faint hum occupying the slender grey and white paved kitchen, the ongoing buzz of the fluorescent light haloing your figures as tension eats away at the space, makes the air crackle and walls draw in. Leaning, Jungwon lends a palm to the counter's edge, veined inner forearm exposed, one your eyes do a slow drag of. He chuckles, because you're meant to be focusing on the face he offers and you do so slowly, intimated by what you'll see. His blatant stare as your eyes do a scan of his features, screwed in force focus. The kick he gets out of it must make him sick, pushing him to draw closer, the cloud of his linen fabric softener engulfing you and still…you don't waver. Your eyes do a few fast-paced blinks, but you're rooted in place, nothing but the tremble of Sunoo's glass giving you away. 

You place it on the counter's edge too, realising the hint given. 

"Your cheeks are really flushed,"

Caution laces around the words you utter, trembled but spoken, eyes cemented to a trail of his features, skipping over his eyes. 

"It's going down your neck too," your own neck cranes to catch a glimpse, hand starting to raise then lowering, knowing better. Jungwon doesn't bother hiding his smirk, your head ducked with scattered hands grappling for your glasses, maybe your composure too. 

"I should probably head back, I've─"

A crash.

Water and glasses crashing to the floor, liquid doused on both your shoes with shattered pieces in between. The look of horror pales your face, mouth agape as your fingers tuck back hair behind each ear, sharing the expression with Jungwon. He doesn't say anything for a moment, neither do you, unmoving before your exhale comes out in pieces of it own, apologies steadfast out of your mouth. 

"I can't believe that just happened," your eyes drop down to his shoes, tip of them dyed a deeper hue. "I got water on your shoes too. Oh my god, are you okay? Let me just─"

Before your hands can extend a millimetre, Jungwon's hands eclipses them, holding them firm in place. He catches you in a freeze, not an inch of you moving for what seems like hours, head slowly moving to meet his gaze, his one already on you. Always on you. 

"Let me get the dustpan," he insists, nodding to cue your own. "Hang tight." 

His hands leave yours, coldness invading his palms as he quickly finds what he's looking for, dropped down on a knee before you as the glass clatters together in a bunch. Out his peripheral, he spies your hands, drumming against the flesh of your thighs before nails sink into your short's material, displeased.

"I'm so sorry," your voice withers when you speak, not fond of your mistakes. "I'm usually not like this."

"It's okay. It's just glass," and as glass crackles, swept into the plastic of the dustpan, Jungwon feels the shift before he's a witness to it. The unravel of material in your clutches, the draw back down your shoulders do from your ears. A exhale from the depths of your chest. "Besides, wouldn't want you to injure yourself. You're Sunoo's guest,"

He uses the pause to his best abilities, on his knees before you, peering up at your figure haloed by florescent lighting ─ looking like every figment of dreams that'll haunt him moving forward. 

"I should take care of you too." 

The following year, things change. 

Jungwon starts his second year - the year that actually matters - and moves into an off-campus house with Riki and Sunoo, drawing straws to find himself in the spacious attic room. Sunoo's doing an internship for the year, so he's only around as much as exhaustion and long commute hours allow him to. Jungwon changes sports, feigning upset at his own decision amongst his Swim teammates, reducing his extra-curricular hours down to Taekwondo so he affords himself more hours in the library. Other things stay the same ─ he's still stopped every few metres, greeting people who feel like they know him but one of them he stumbles across, is the only person able to make him stop fully in his tracks.

You.

Your trip up to their campus (now yours too) was the dedicating factor, reusable bags in your hands filled with your food shop and a uni-friendly amount of alcohol. Your smile is sheepish when Jungwon looks back, one with more security mirrored by him before he decides his plans in town can wait. He helps you take your bags back to your accommodation (the quaint one next to his old one), meets your flatmates that happen to be in the kitchen and when he thinks he's due to leave, you invite him into your room. 

It's every bit of you, cluttered with everything you love ─ projector painting the night sky across your ceiling, movie posters pinned to your walls, peg board adorned in cute trinkets your bag has no space for at your desk, the familiar waft of brown sugar and marshmallows. It's like a peak into your mind, abundantly clear in your wardrobe doors plastered with printed photos ─ friends, family, moments you want immortalised forever. A few stick out to him, like the photo frame positioned behind your low bed frame, the pictures with your boyfriend. The same story repeats itself, your smile contagious to everyone except your boyfriend.

Jungwon's lips curl. 

"Fortune cookie?"

In your palm, the red plastic bundles, outlined by gold script like the ones packed into the takeaway plastics ripped apart by him each time he vows never to drink again.

You see the curious tilt of his head, only encouraging the smile on your face as you lead with, "It's one of my favourite memories ─ sugar and fortune after a warm meal,"

Fondness pools in your eyes, trained on the object now closed around your fingers. "We wouldn't go every month, but my parents made a habit of going when we could. The owners were really lovely too, always give us huge portions and sent us home with a bag full of fortune cookies. It was nice ─ it's a good reminder of home." 

You offer the fortune cookie again, Jungwon accepting with gratitude across his face despite the ugly churn of turmoil within him.

He wishes he could say he didn't carry emotional wounds, plasters over bullet wounds he's since trudged along with him since childhood but it simply isn't true. Everything he is is a product of early lessons, where inconsistency ran rampant in his home and he's made do with its consequences. While one parent festers abandonment, another prompts condition ─ to be loved is to be perfect. Anything less and he may as well not have any parents. Looking back on crispy childhood videos, he realises he was a lot to handle, holding the kind of temperament babysitters overcharged for, but it didn't change his parents' fondness over him. Their voices, clear in the background of recorded tantrums carry enough sweetness to make him sick, but it's only after that he realises why he has the reaction, why his stomach turns at the videos. 

Because somewhere along the line, they'd changed. Adored Jungwon like the shiny toy he was and then, as life took its natural course, they'd grown bored. Almost troubled by their own creation. Perhaps there's only so many tantrums you can suffer through before you combat them with silence, but it's deafening ─ it's been deafening for as long as Jungwon remembers and in the helplessness younger Jungwon experiences, his parents slowly retracting from him, he comes to the make-up of his life. 

Control.

Because even if one parents occupies Jungwon's house like a guest, he can at least vye for attention from another. Stop his angry tears, clean up his act and model himself after the children his mother openly praises in front of him, casting a look of regret his way. And it works, he earns admiration back, perhaps not as much as he used to, but it's enough to encourage the mask he puts on as the perfect son. Good grades, excelling at sports, friends with everyone ─ a parent's shiny badge of honour. Everyone adores him for it, the variables in his life he infuses with control, to the point where dawning a mask is not an act but instilled in him. Moulded to his skin, forever stuck over some childhood wound he hasn't bothered dealing with. 

Sure, he's sat on several couches in clinical clean offices asked to describe how those experiences have shaped him, but as soon as those invasive questions crop up, he shuts down. Closes and locks the door so deep-seated emotions don't barrel out of him. He'll give an answer, one seen right through judged by the pitying smile therapists give him and by the end of the session, when they've shook hands, Jungwon knows he'll never return. Not because he's helpless, but because he doesn't see need for it. 

He'd rather cast his control as far as it can reach than sit in the discomfort of his emotions, so to desire a future with you ─ wholly wrapped in your own emotions ─ is laughable at best. Though, he swears he would never assume the same control over you, its debate is valid in what he already holds regarding you. To be with you, and if that comes at the consequence of losing your bum boyfriend, he can't be too mad. 

After all, it is what's best for you. 

Especially after what's meant to be casual conversation he once has with Riki, soon after your first meeting, Riki hunched over his desk as his nimble fingers roll a joint with practised ease. 

He's sourcing information meant to serve him, which should add to his own perceived moral corruption, but Riki sees right through it. Understands it for what it is through shrouded secrecy ─ emotional vulnerability. 

"You know anything about that Jaehyun guy?"

Riki hums, rumble deep in his chest while his heavy-duty jewellery clinks together. Jungwon's only given his friend's back as he rests atop the black abyss of Riki's bed, clutching the duck plushie he's scribbled black dots into.

"Nothing good," Riki relays, gathering the grain of weed to funnel into rolled paper. "I'd go on a few nights out in their town and,"

He shakes his head, thinking no good of the situation. Jungwon's heart starts to do a slow, doomed beat.

Riki's chair squeaks as he swivels it to face Jungwon, joint forgotten as his arm props up to rest against his chair's back. "His friends are a bit scummy, the kind of people who haven't outgrown their popularity in school,"

"I mean, this was right after grad, so I don't know if they're still the same but," Riki's head tilts, a hiss between teeth given before he turns back around, resuming his joint roll. "Even being a guy around them makes you uncomfortable ─ the way they talk about women is just─"

"Degrading?"

"Disgusting," Riki answers, producing a groan afterwards. Remembering. "For her own and Sunoo's sake too, I hope that crush doesn't last long."

Except it does. Carries on as Jungwon finishes off his first year at uni, not moving his parents with his high scores and bleeds into summer, where he discovers over a group call with Sunoo and Riki, you're now dating the bastard. Silence takes over the line, a look traded between him and Riki, all of which is seen by Sunoo who can only sigh. 

"He seems different," Sunoo replies, sounding like he's convincing himself. "I met him a few times, so my hope is that he'll keep treating her well."

It's partially what Jungwon hopes too. Not to suffer at the hands of another, but faith in Jaehyun's hands is hard to give, especially when Jungwon finds himself thinking of you more. Combing over past interactions and theorising how future ones will go now that you're going to the same uni as him. Unfortunately for you, you firm your choice before you're able to hear news of your boyfriend's transfer elsewhere, a distance he sees you're more than willing to travel frequently despite your fear of driving. 

As much as he can appreciate the sentiment, he can't help but scoff. Because even if Jaehyun sends you flowers and lines the smile of your face, it doesn't erase what Jungwon's heard. Though foolish of him to take statements and run, Jungwon rarely finds much logic when it comes to you. How he'll fulfil his role as your friend despite the harboured feelings in his chest, how he'll execute caution in the words spoken to you over the programmed responses he gives over and finally, how he still wants you in spite of how head over heels in love with your boyfriend you are. 

He already knows himself to be corrupt in some sort of way and in the dead of night, when Riki's clocked out his nocturnal shift, their second-year house quiet, his mind will wonder. If there's ever an amount of sweetness he can show you to look his way, to make you reconsider or consider him at all ─ whether that meant if you were with your boyfriend or not. He knows you wouldn't, but in the howls of night, his imagination presents itself for what it is and all he can do at this point is imagine.

Then, he remembers how distant you've grown. How, the longer you're with your boyfriend, the further Jungwon drifts off. So, he lays the aimless thoughts to rest, not entertaining them and succumbing to social obligations, seeing your missing figure in places arranged by coursemates and other friends alike, the fortune given to him burning in his pocket. 

Wait and you'll see.

You wouldn't say your world revolves around your boyfriend, but it's pretty damn close. 

He's the first person you tell small happenings throughout your day to, the first to receive the photos you'll eventually post on socials, the last person you talk to before bed. It's to be expected, you reason. He's your first boyfriend, after all. Your first real boyfriend, not that version on the playground where you propose with candy rings in the morning and breakup before the day ends. It's new and exciting, limbs light when your phone dings with his response. He doesn't respond often, because second year is demanding, but you're happy with whatever dosage you get. After years cradling your juvenile crush to your chest, this is more than you ever anticipated. How ever much you may get of him, you're grateful nevertheless. 

Because in the end, he'd picked you. 

It's not a popular thing. Being in a relationship at university, particularly in your first year where the two-week early start rounds up everyone in the same boat, attempts to familiarize themselves with their new way of life, different shops and places they'll gain memories in ─ of all this in the midst of lethal amounts of drink. You're thankful you can handle your alcohol, but being hungover nearly every day isn't ideal. At least your bed-rotting sessions are a good excuse for a night-off. After the last one, keenness is sparse within you. 

"You haven't slept with anyone yet?" One of your flatmates, Isa asks, face aghast. "It's been like, four days. We've gone out loads too."

Another flatmate, Yuna, nudges her shoulder, mutters amongst them two heavily clogged in uncapped laughter, knees slapped over the chorus of the same playlist you're getting sick of.

"Well, I've got a boyfriend, so…"

"Stop, that's so sweet!" One of your nicer flatmates, Kazuha saves the day, hand over her heart, to which you smile to.

It's short lived.

"Ha, right," Yuna huffs, a fictional record scratch screeching as the rest of your flatmates' heads whip her way. She sees their widened eyes and realises her mistake, smoothing over the glittery crop top you'd just complimented her on. "Sorry, that was uhm, silly of me,"

"It's just," she starts, swirling the contents of her drink in her red paper cup, sharp eyes cutting up to yours, distaste pooled in hers. "It could never be me. Committing to a man, giving him my youth only to watch my whole world fall apart because in the end, all men do is disappoint." 

She straightens, the kitchen alarmingly silent, music playing no longer as her lip corner sharpen like pitch forks, falsehoods in her expression. "But you know ─ to each their own, right?" 

You shouldn't have gone out that night, you'd been emotional enough to bite your tongue, drowning your sorrows in the corner while Kazuha exchanged worried looks to you, rubbing your back when no one looked. But you went anyways, because you'd made a point of proving your youth didn't revolve around Jaehyun and yet, when you'd thrown up your guts in the club bathroom, escorted out by security guards, subsequently walked home by an exhausted Kazuha, you'd called Jaehyun. He didn't pick up the first few times, but ultimately did to hear your cries, tears streaming down your face as you wished for nothing more than to be with him, in the comfort of his arms where hurtful words didn't mess with your head and you could just be happy with what you had. 

She'd apologized the next day when you'd hauled yourself out your bedroom, washing the dishes while your stomach could only hack noodles. It lacked sincerity but at that point, you didn't care. You're bound to meet people unlike you at uni, she's one of them. Besides, despite your reservation, you could make friends. You didn't have to rely on Sunoo and his friends' company, and maybe it's a cheat code making friends who are just as obsessed with their boyfriends as you are, but it brings peace. Peace you long for amidst the whirlwind of classes starting, so many things happening all at once, the weekend your boyfriend invites you up to his weeks later immediately accepted. 

You're with him now. A time long awaited due to scheduling conflicts and your crippling fear of highway driving you conquer to see him, to make things work. And yet, in the middle of the folded over-limb kisses you drown in, your mind is elsewhere. 

It isn't initially, your heart sent into a series of flutters as Jaehyun indulges you in the sweet kisses you've missed, so brimmed with happiness you smile into his lips as you peck him, again and again until your arms loop and cross at his nape. Missed yous are traded, initiated by you then relayed back by him, his lips overlapping yours as the kiss deepens. There's a calmness that comes with the intimacy, the dull of your mind amplified by static accumulated through the week. Pending assignments, next year house stress, one of your girlfriends in the midst of a breakup. The tears she cried, you mirrored alone in your room after consoling her, riddled miserable at the mere thought of your life without Jaehyun. The whole other half of your heart, no longer yours after so long pining after him, counting petals on the chances of him loving you or not. Phone calls and texts can only do so much. After all, he's busy too, his degree eating away at your anxious bats for assurance and after your last call ends, your mind's set on seeing him again. Existing alongside him, stuck to his side because at least then, your love is tangible. Not a detail of fiction, but something you can hold and touch, pressing your chest against his to have your hearts sync because what is your heart if not beating for this? For him?

Except it doesn't. Not now anyways.

As the kiss deepens and your back lays across the expanse of Jaehyun's bed, his body caging yours, a thigh slides between your legs, your breath picks up. Starved for oxygen yet with no intention of prying, you lose yourself in his affection, so sugary sweet your heart aches. His thigh shifts, and it's just close enough for friction, a touch of it and your claws seek a home, hinging into the material of his t-shirt as a tease. You're meant to falling further into intimacy, seeking to become one with Jaehyun, but the more you lose yourself, the more things begin to blur. Jaehyun's figure isn't as prominent, clouded in a haze of lust then cleared by an image you can't forget.

Jungwon. 

Jungwon kissing you like you hold his last breath, adoring your skin in searing kisses filled with love, trailing all the way from the hollows of your collarbone down past your navel and then, he looks up at you. Through long lashes and dark eyes, desperation and affection overflowing in his iris' hue, begging you for the chance. And you let him, his veined hands working at your jean button before he cannot do without your lips longer, coming back up for kisses you reciprocate in the same vein, a moan caught at the back of your throat as his hand cups over you, in no way possessive, but a reminder of his presence. Of how badly you both need each other. 

Then his hand moves. Slithers beneath rough material then soft, under the waistband of your underwear. His fingers, unhurried, feel you, glide between your glistening folds. You're too far gone for the weight of embarrassment, its shred kissed away by the groan Jungwon does into your lips, an open-mouthed moan vibrating against them. 

"So good for me, so wet," he'd say and you'll moan in likeness, writhing from his words and motions, your zipper undone by the force of his hand as he explores you further. Teasing your entrance with circled fingertips before they go in, one at time because he knows it's your first and treats it as such. Whispering sweet nothings amidst syrupy kisses, a drizzle of degradation mixed in just to have you weaker. Putty in his hands so that when you're close too soon, it's to no surprise.

He'll only grin against you, teeth teasing your bottom lip before he utters the magic words. "You gonna come? Gonna be a good girl for me and come?"

And that's when it hits you. How vivid the image is, how badly your mind and body holds onto that desire in the face of another. Your boyfriend who is not Jungwon, but Jaehyun attempting the same thing as your miraged Jungwon. 

"Stop, stop," you pant against him, licking your mixed saliva as your hand braces to his chest. He relents, expression winded and…confused. Perhaps your mind plays mean tricks on you and there's a flicker of disappointment in his eyes, the crush of guilt following the avalanche of the man miles away, none the wiser. 

"I'm sorry," it's an admission of many, weighing heavily in the air now stale. Your back straightens off the bed, legs loosely crossed as you toy with the fingers in your lap, your stare there too. "I just…I'm not ready."

You could be. Things are going well, enough to brave the terrain of uncharted territory because of all you held in your heart for Jaehyun. Other than the glaring fact that you'd just imagined the entire sequence with someone other than him.

"It's okay," Jaehyun says, falling into compliance as the bed springs hiss with his leaving weight. His back to you, you hear the latter part of his response. "Not like this hasn't happened before."

However cruel it may be, his words carry truth. Many a times there has been when something resembling readiness filled your chest, reaching out a hand to grab ahold of his in attempt to become one and yet when the moment comes, intervention does too. Not by any outside forces but a gut feeling. An internal voice whispering its disagreement, not giving its reasons but a feeling convincing enough to pump the breaks, sorrows on your shoulders as you're forced to deal with the consequences, having to convince Jaehyun he's still someone you want while also shouldering your own conflict. The internal brawl of why you aren't ready, why this couldn't happen, what would it take to make the voice disappear. 

These are thoughts you don't get to share with Jaehyun, his ego tender as is it now. In the same song and dance, you flock over to him, on your tips of your toes, draping over his back in a blanket of sympathy.

You hope this time he isn't hurt enough to shrug you off. 

"I want to, I really want to," you confess, giving him the pieces of you to bind together. Calm the noise. "I don't know why or what…stops me." 

Your body lifts in the degree his shoulders rise with the exhale he does, so heavy and eerie in profound disappointment. You have to shut your eyes so you won't hear it in your dreams. 

"No worries. You're not ready, I wouldn't do anything you aren't prepared for," he recites like it's rehearsed, his go-to phrase in times like these. In his hands, he fumbles with the matching LEGO keychain you insisted on getting, a physical manifestation of your bond. He discards it to the table, a gaze tossed over his shoulder, expression softer now. "I'm just glad you're here."

The lump in your throat makes your voice hoarse, gulped down in the pained smile you give. 

"Me too."

His neck cranes more at the same time you go in for a peck, a series of little affections before the rain clears, grey clouds not yet gone as he lists off options for dinner. Later on, when you've made polite conversation with his flatmates in their shared kitchen, chuckling over a hot pan with bellies filled, you'll cuddle together, the best mess of limbs as he plays a Marvel movie. It's not your favourite, but isn't that love? Aligning best, accommodating even when interests mismatch. Your mind starts to scatter as the city crumbles on screen, reminded of the last time you'd watched a movie.

With Jungwon, a respectful block of distance in between that you hadn't thought twice of. Until now, when you relive the experience, cells singing in your body at the proximity, its abundance and prospects of a lack of. How the screen illuminates his side profile, painting the slopes of his face in a way that seems unfair for someone born with such features. His fingers will nudge the popcorn over to you, knowing how much you like the butter on your tongue and in a movie that interests you both, a scene will come calling for shared sentiment. Your gazes lock, the shared smiles coming with the lock of hearts on the same wavelength.

And now, you do ─ share a secret. Only, it's yours alone. Bathed in grime and shame, the possibility of Jaehyun's cutout figure replaced with Jungwon's.

You don't entertain the thought, closing the door on the impossible and locking it behind you. Because you know, no good comes from the click of its unlock. 

Keeping up appearances proves to be exhausting. 

This, Jungwon knows all too well. The same old story, the same horse beaten to death as soon as Jungwon saw himself as an outlier. All his responses come rehearsed, some interest mixed in with falseness as he conversates with his coursemates. Exams have come and gone, relinquishing the chains keeping Jungwon at a study desk the past few weeks. He should be happy, he supposes. Now life can resume its usual pattern, more freedom to catch-up on his hobbies, indulge Sunoo and Riki in time spent together not crackled with impending stress. His mind can ponder more on you and why even in a time like this, your presence mirrors that of a ghost. 

You'd already rescinded the longer you spent being Jaehyun's, disdain apparent in Jaehyun's face the one time you facetimed him alongside Jungwon. Sunoo and Riki had been there too, all in the kitchen together making some pasta dish you'd lit up at, the same one you mirror at your on-screen boyfriend. Jungwon plays his part, masking the bitter aftertaste he suspects Jaehyun sees right through. It'd explain why you'd leave the room whenever Jaehyun would call afterwards, if you hadn't thoight to do so firs. Why you meet up with Sunoo on campus more often, Jungwon's presence more so an accessory than a necessity. 

He tries not to mind. After all, what possessiveness harbours in his heart is his alone, not meant for someone with a significant other. Except it lingers longer than he accounts for, his crush preceding levels of prediction his mind can't control. It's something he wants to dissect, pick apart to figure its intricacies and faults so he can best move forward, however that may look like. However, the only logical thing for him is to let you go, live the fabricated life you've dreamed up with Jaehyun. A shame, because you amount to more than what he can give, but who is Jungwon to judge?

After all, he's meant to be nothing but a friend. A quiet accomplice that comes with the natural bond between you and your cousin. Yet, he lingers, never one to let go.

It's what he does now, a pint grabbed at the Falcon with coursemates celebrating the end of academic torture. He laughs along, sometimes sliding in a joke himself they'll laugh at. He'll catalogue it, knowing to play it safe with them, chat like their work colleagues because in a sense, they are. Enough distance for no further invitation, but enough to share commonality. 

It's the story of Jungwon's life, a sentiment shared with most because Jungwon's biggest fear is not losing anyone, but fear of himself. The authenticity of his figure and what that entails. 

"Jungwon!" A voice pierces through the barrage of muddled thoughts. His head shakes to clear them, surveying his surroundings to find himself at the pool table, drink in hand and three sets of eyes on him.

One of them very familiar, his fangs bared in a slick smile. "Wanna join? I could use the help." 

His course mates have since left, onto more wholesome activities because their version of fun stops after two pints. Exams over with, Jungwon's teeth gnaw into his lip, not eager to leave but considering if this unknown is how his night unfolds. Sunghoon, known through his Taekwondo extra-curricular, is one of the guys from that crowd Jungwon gravitates to, liking that their togetherness didn't require conversation for its own sake. And when a session is particularly draining, sweat dripping from Jungwon's body, Sunghoon will offer a cold drink, slapping his back with a proud smile. It makes him feel seen - in ways he usually strayed from. 

However, Sunghoon isn't alone. He's with what Jungwon assumes are his housemates - Heeseung and Jay - judging by their Tom and Jerry dynamic, bickering about nothing, none the wiser to Jungwon's looming presence. 

Sunghoon cocks his head, expectant. Jungwon gives his brain the moment off, relief in his smile as he ambles over, Sunghoon's eyes in moon crescents as he welcomes Jungwon into their fold, pulling him in like he's always had a space. 

Heeseung and Jay are good at that too, dapping Jungwon up with bumped shoulders and continuing their conversation like Jungwon was already there, deliberate sidebars taken to give him context. There's nothing feigned about the interaction, their attitudes genuine as they immediately reveal themselves to be crude but friendly losers, only half listening when Sunghoon goes over the stakes of pool. Of which there are none for Jungwon since they'd already agreed the loser would clean out their haunted basement. 

Heeseung and Jay are determined not to lose. 

Jack of all trades, Jungwon doesn't worry. Especially when he overhears Heeseung strategising how to interfere with Sunghoon's 'fucking A shots,' one of the suggestions being interference from one of the ladies working the bar - a lady Jungwon infers Sunghoon has some history with. 

Which piques his interest because last he heard, Sunghoon was with another girl. One of the hockey girls from the uni team who giggle and wave every time he'd walk past their pitch. 

Additionally, there's someone missing. Sunghoon's longest friend out of the bunch. 

"Where's Jake?"

The pool game's started, Sunghoon first to go. The stakes seem higher than anticipated. 

"He's got plans," The pool balls knock together. Hard and dispersed, several sinking with spectating groans. "With his girl."

Despite the drone of ongoing indie music, Jungwon could hear a pin drop, visible tension festering in unspoken air. Heeseung's cleared throat cuts through the waning indie song dulling in the bar's speakers. 

"Songyi." Jay supplies, an elbow to his ribs courtesy of Heeseung. "Ow! Fuck's that for?"

"Unnecessary," Heeseung seethes, a gulp done while his gaze trembles in Sunghoon's vague direction, the same man striding to Jungwon's side, eyeballing his shot. "Hey man, he didn't mean─

"What's it matter?" Sunghoon pipes, eyes trained on the green. His lip corners sharpen, pinpointing the scattered balls. All to their advantage. "You guys are gonna lose - I've got my girl anyways," 

In its aftermath, Heeseung and Jay exchange wide eyes, smiles forced down with snickers bitten back to secrecy. Like that, the energy shifts like there was no tension to begin with and Jungwon struggles. Wondering if he'd imagined it or would it be a conversation he'd ever get to know later on. Sunghoon's always good to be around, comfortable enough for Jungwon's mask to drop enough for a real peak at him but Sunghoon's different with the guys around. Bold with a hard laugh scrunching his nose, volleying crude jokes back and forth with Jay and Heeseung to the effect of Jungwon's guffaw, doubled over with ringing ears not quite believing their input. The onslaught of beers he nurses help loosens him up amongst new company, brain still working to catch onto their group dynamic. However, as the night winds, Jungwon can only think it's not really playing into a role around them, rather him getting comfortable enough to be himself. At peace and unworried. 

If only things were always like this.

"We're gonna go pick up and smoke," Jay's eyes point to Jungwon, giving a highbrowed invitation. "I'm out my overdraft, my treat."

"Just say yes. His poor budgeting isn't your problem." Heeseung folds over Jay's shoulder, shoved off with an abrupt jerk. 

"I'm a nightmare on anything except edibles," is Jungwon's response, foot kept in the closing door with the add on. "I know a good brownie recipe, so whenever you're free, I'm down."

"My man," with a head nod, Jay leans in for a dap and shoulder nudge. His attention moves over to Sunghoon, amusement sparkled in his eyes. "Where the fuck you been hiding this guy?"

"We could've got that 5 bed house with the jacuzzi," Heeseung adds.

"Not sure how'd that work with all the Nitro subs you give away," Jay argues, turning back to Jungwon. "He's paying for at least three girls subscriptions. For what favours? I'd hate to know,"

"Or love to, actually. Lord knows this guy ain't getting any."

"I'd be so easy to kill you right now," Heeseung seethes in a joke, perched arms on Jay's shoulder giving leeway to putting the younger in a headlock, smiles between the two.

Jungwon smiles, warm from something unrelated to alcohol.

"Yeah, well whenever you get your hands on those ingredients, let us know," Jay insists, pulling out a wad of cash, checking if the amount suffices. "I'd offer our kitchen but Jake's a bit of a bitch with it. Likes keeping it a certain way,"

"Yeah, after you left his used pan to rot the week he was away," Heeseung snorts, no more applying a chokehold but hanging off Jay, the view admittedly sweet. "The way he saw it, stopped, then said you could keep it."

"Free upgrade," Jay shrugs, stuffing the cash back in his designer wallet. The look Heeseung and Jungwon share makes his dimple appear. "I did feel a bit bad, but it's whatever."

"Come round anyways," Heeseung proposes. "Jake's not home much, so it'll be fine."

If Jungwon could look behind him, at Sunghoon, he would. Instead, he smiles, accepting the offer before they leave, patting their backs in embraces he's pulled into, smiling regardless. 

With their presence gone, a quieter ambience comes through, affording Jungwon the chance to digest the past few hours. He doesn't over-complicate things, what he could've said better, what landed with them and just enjoys it for what it was ─ a good time. Sunghoon sees as much on his face, affection in his expression as he offers Jungwon a pint at the bar, his favourite bartender conveniently free. Under the neon lights streaming behind her, she works slower than usual, served patrons still bustling about but settled into their dispersed conversations, allowing her the chance for quick chatter. 

She is beautiful, that Jungwon can objectively can agree to, beam akin to sunshine when her attention finds Jungwon's. She's kind and a bit mischievous, seen in the wink she sends, reminding Sunghoon of a promise after her shift. Handing Jungwon's Guinness to him, foam remains on her thumb, licked away with eyes locked on Sunghoon's. Jungwon looks away to spare himself of what he feels is a private matter, suddenly fascinated with the ongoing ice hockey game projected on one of the TVs until Sunghoon escorts them to another area. It's the direct opposite of where they last were, virtually no one in the tucked away section only lit by one sole overhead orange light, green plush armchairs amongst modern chic decor too nice for a uni town bar, its only eyesore an out-of-place dart board without any darts.

Kept behind the bar, a common practice. Especially after Sunghoon mentions an incident involving a very drunk football player and stitches he needed over his eyelids. 

Over the indie soft rage of Rec Hall, the two nurse their beers in silence, gazes mostly avoided as they observe other uni students engage. Let their hair down because their biggest worry is how much of their loan will cover tonight's drinks, laughing loudly and without care. Some flirt, some reflect while others hang off their seats, guys cradling cash notes in their hands watching the game play out. 

Jungwon thinks about what that all means ─ the people you surround yourself with. Sunoo and Riki back at the flat, Sunoo indulging Riki in some video game he's obsessed with despite his disinterest, despite the long hours of his unpaid internship. He wonders if Jake and Sunghoon ever did the same, if they'll ever do anything like that again. 

Sunghoon's seemingly unbothered by the whole thing, but years together frayed isn't something Jungwon thinks anyone is capable of sweeping under a rug. 

So, he asks. Because if there's anyone who will reflect the honesty he gives back, it's Sunghoon. 

"What was that earlier?" Jungwon chances, peering into his drink to feign casualness. "With Jake's girlfriend."

Jungwon cranes his neck like the sight fascinates him, ears catching the scratch of stubble as Sunghoon runs his hands over his jaw. He's too nosy for his own good, Jungwon thinks, but things left unsaid always bother him ─ annoyed by himself at the words he can't relay to you.

"Ah, that," Jungwon's head lifts, eyes on Sunghoon as he speaks. "Well, thing is, Songyi used to be my girlfriend."

Pool balls knock together in the distance, their impact may as well sounding like a natural disaster. Very fitting considering the information Sunghoon's just dropped.

Jungwon's back straightens, a slow crawl to alignment with his jaw dropped. "You're not serious, are you?"

"Not my idea of a joke," Sunghoon laughs, stare directed ahead of him before he chugs his drink, smiling over the rim. "But how can I be mad? I got what I wanted in the end."

"Your girlfriend?" Jungwon questions, Sunghoon nods. 

The bartender, the dots connect in his mind. Jungwon lazes his sight over in the direction of the bar, seeing his new girlfriend pour a drink and remembering how close they'd been when ordering drinks. "When did you start dating?"

Something sick falls over Sunghoon's face, grin wolfish as a chuckle comes thereafter.

"You're better off not knowing," He casts Jungwon a look as if it's a throwaway, iris hue dark and heavy. "Officially, a while ago."

He spares Jungwon the rest, sagging into the plush of their chairs fit for kings. "Jake's relationship didn't come long after that and even though it's been ages, the guys always have some sort of awkwardness about it. As if things were─"

Sunghoon contemplates his next words, hand against his stubble with slow, distant blinks weighing out the options of what he'll choose. Jungwon chooses not to move. 

"Let me not. I was the asshole at the end of the day."

Jungwon casts sensitives glances around their surroundings, assured by no prying ears. "Hard to imagine you that way,"

He gulps down his beer to shrug off the compliment, meaning it but still carrying a sense of apprehension. 

Sunghoon laughs like he's said something funny. "People can surprise you then." 

"You don't look too caught off-guard about other things though," his arm crosses over their shared side table, nudging Jungwon's shoulder gently. "What's got you troubled?"

"Nothing." Jungwon answers immediately, a reflex. Another, the scratch behind his ear. 

"Bullshit," Sunghoon chuckles, a twinkle of amusement dashed in his eyes. "I know that tortured look anywhere. I wore it the same year I had no means to my girlfriend,"

Curiosity crosses his face, a thick eyebrow raised. "It's about a girl?"

Jungwon non-answer is answer enough.

"Who is she? Girl in your lectures? Flatmate?"

The grilling should call for tension, a natural deflection Jungwon's offered other times in positions like this. He likes to think of conversations as pieces of a puzzle and with the right pieces he picks, it'll all make sense. He'll make his own image, while the other person makes theirs of him ─ his image, but this isn't like then. More than wanting a knack for honesty, he's troubled. Beyond the circumference of his own knowledge, so he seeks it in Sunghoon. 

"Flatmate's cousin."

"They close?" Sunghoon asks, Jungwon's nod bringing out a hiss from the older of the two. "Dicey, but I trust your judgment. She must be sweet."

He thinks of you then, delicate when the world isn't. Sweet when you have no reason to be, simply because it's your nature. You're braver than he is, Jungwon realises. 

"She is," he confirms. "All my opposites."

Sunghoon pushes Jungwon's shoulder with disapproval, the pity-party he throws for himself a circus quickly packed away. 

"Must be why there's that famous saying," Sunghoon alludes to, languid pace in conversation as they watch the bar pass them by. "Really though ─ why the anguish?"

There's many points to his anguish, but he settles for the most obvious. "She's got a boyfriend."

"And that's stopping you?"

"It should," Jungwon counters, picking the lint off his long sleeve. "But…I'm betraying myself. I can't not want her," 

"Are you betraying yourself or what others expect of you?"

Jungwon doesn't answer despite the dip of his heart, instead looking to Sunghoon with mirth. "Enough pints deep to be introspective, huh?"

"I need some redeeming qualities," he jokes back, a secret between them in their smiles before their gazes tear apart, back on the moving bar that move ahead of them.

"Her boyfriend's a piece of shit." 

"They usually are when they're in it for the wrong reasons," Sunghoon sips on his beer, a smack of the lips and a breath afterwards. "She relies on you, right?"

Jungwon nods. 

"Then there's nothing to worry about. What's probably got her is puppy love ─ I don't think I need to tell you how that ends," he supplies, sequences of your relationship's end playing in mind, each a different version. All with the same ending. "One day, her knight in shining armour will look a lot like you. Run when you've got the chance."

"You think it'll come?"

"It will," Sunghoon doesn't miss a beat, his line of sight Jungwon as his head turns to him. "When everything's said and done, we should go on one of those double dates. My girl loves making friends,"

Behind the counter, as if sensing their eyes, Sunghoon's girlfriend brims a cheek-filled smile, busing the table with a wave. Jungwon thinks of the mess they've been through, then sees their shared smiles in spite of it. It makes him feel better about his own situation, has the thought cross his mind that even the right things can sometimes be messy. 

If wanting to be with you, to cherish you with a heart that had no limits, a mess is what he'd have to be.

You're here again. 

In the perimeters of Jungwon's room that carries a world's worth of weight in the air despite the cracked open windows. He suppose it's a consequence of the day's earlier events, how you'd been cornered and like Sunghoon said, Jungwon appeared like your knight and shining armour. He wishes it were true, since Jaehyun is still Prince Charming in your eyes, but at least here in his room, he can create a world where none of that exists - where you don't long for a prince disguised as a dragon and peer down from your castle, eyes only for Jungwon.

Movie night. 

They've been few and far between the longer you've been with Jaehyun, time between lectures spent making new friends and driving up to see Jaehyun on the weekends. Every weekend. And every weekend, when he hates himself, he'll make his dreaded way to Instagram and see the flood of your story ─ dates with Jaehyun, your held hands, him looking off elsewhere instead of at you. To some, it reads as cute, as commented by your friends, but Jungwon can't help the ugly fester in his chest. Knowing you're the only one making the effort because Jaehyun is 'done' with your uni town, says there's nothing to do there as if you're not there. 

You say you don't mind the three hour long drive, most times taking back roads instead of the highway that still scares you. And like the idiot Jungwon is, he suggests going on it together because scary things are best tackled in company. 

"Really?" you perk up, lashes fluttering with disbelief. "You'd do that for me?"

He'd do anything for you. 

"Of course," he says instead, propped against the kitchen counter top with his arms folding across his chest. "What are friends for?"

When the day comes, you're white-knuckling the steering wheel, speeding up the slip road joining onto the highway and you're scared. Jungwon takes charge of the aux, switching the song to something like yours ─ a shared thing since Shrek had made it's way into both of your four favourite films ─ Smash Mouth's 'All Star' thumping through the speakers. You don't take your eyes off the road, but your head turns the slightest in his direction, a former aghast face morphing into mirth, nervous laughter becoming a whole-hearted one, grip released with thumbs thumping against the leather steering wheel. What starts off low becomes lyrics belted out obnoxiously, you still mindful of the road, but scared of it no longer. Not with good tunes blasting and Jungwon at your side, like he always is. 

He's not this time when you're heading up to see Jaehyun again, because he's incapable of coming down himself. A fact Sunoo grumbles into his apple, taking a bite with an eye roll. He doesn't mean to do it, but Jungwon's eyes meet Riki's and dart away, a sentiment between them ─ a sense of doom.

A sense he should've taken more seriously as he readies himself for lectures, only for his phone to ring.

"Hey, what's up?" Because you never call.

That much apparent when he hears raised voices in the distance, the roar of the highway pouring through the phone speaker. "Won," 

"I didn't know who to call, Sunoo's at work and I─" you're shaken, tremble apparent in the frenzy of your voice. 

Jungwon's already putting on his shoes. "Where are you?"

You describe the highway leading out of your uni town, the one always taken on your way to Jaehyun except your driving fears have been confirmed. You'd been in an accident, not a big one when Jungwon runs every red light to get to you, but enough to stare blankly at your clipped car, expression void of emotion. To make things worse, the asshole that's cut you off and caused the whole thing, is entitled, some middle-aged loser who looks like he's never put down an alcohol bottle in his life. Jungwon pulls up when the loser's cursing at you, threatening to sue you within an inch of the life for the damages he's made of his own car. The slow-moving traffic, prying eyes and the raise of his voice dial you down in notches, head hung with the toe of your shoe digging into obsidian asphalt. You've never looked smaller, so in your head. Jungwon's at your side in a flash, hands braced against your shoulders as he searches your eyes for more distress. 

"You okay?" he asks, voice tender and steady. Eyes darting to inspect your face of injuries ─ there, thankfully, are none. 

"I'm fine," you huff out, breath withering before you take a big inhale, centring yourself. "I called insurance, they'll be here soon. I just─"

"Should've let your boyfriend drive. That way, we wouldn't be in this mess."

Scum sounds behind Jungwon, and it sets him alight. Licks heat against his back and conjures wrath in his chest, eyes growing wild as his head does a slow swivel to the scum in question. He's a balding man, looks like he hasn't showered in weeks, spoken to a women in longer. If you weren't here, Jungwon hates to think of what he could do, knowing the danger you'd encountered on a trip he didn't even want you going on in the first place. His hands have left your face, bunched up in a fist at his sides, but they give, colour bleeding into his knuckles again as he glances over his shoulder, at you more in need than the shitty guy trying to take advantage. 

So, he ignores the man. Tends you until your respective insurance companies come, a tow-truck too because your cars are unfit to drive. While you're busy with the agents, hands used to explain the situation, the culprit takes a drag of his cigarette, satisfied with his wrongdoing.

Jungwon doesn't think, simply yanks the cigarette out his grip and stubs it to the asphalt, crushing it beneath his shoe. 

"What the fuck?"

"Try that shit again," Jungwon retorts, the epitome of hate pooled in his dark eyes. "And you'll be road-kill I'd run over."

The man hollers behind Jungwon, but he doesn't care to listen, walking off when heads turn, at your side for the rest of the fiasco before everyone departs, your weekend belongings now in the back of Jungwon's car. He's on his way to the vehicle, you in tow with the man loitering around to try hitch a ride, except you stall in your steps. Turn and face the man who'd made you feel small.

"It's not my fault," you start, your soft features blending in with the rigidness your chest puffs with. "Your careless driving is not my fault. And you putting the blame on me makes you an even shittier person than you are now."

It's the only place Jungwon thinks of after your insurance companies have left the cleared scene, prying eyes no more as cars zoom by, Jungwon slipping in when he gets the chance. Your gaze sets out the window, mind elsewhere and he makes no attempt to arrest it in poor attempts of cheering up, instead letting the place he takes you to speak for itself, surprise drawing a blank on your expression, your body turning to him. 

"The planetarium?" you ask, almost in disbelief. 

Jungwon kills the engine, keys jangling together. "Yeah. Let's go."

It's a bit out of the way, three towns away from your uni campus. It'd been the one you couldn't wait to see when Jaehyun said he'd come down for the weekend, but caught the flu and didn't want to make you sick. 

At least your excuse is more believable. 

Jungwon gets out the car, opening your car door because you're slumped in your seat, not plagued by earlier but rather the gesture of it all. How you've found yourselves here during an early Thursday afternoon, little to no cars around, the planetarium all yours to wonder about. Jungwon probably has class ─ you remember he does when the fog clears ─ and yet he makes no mention of it, purchasing your tickets and leading you inside, room swallowed in black beside the calm glow of planets and stars hung, a voice in likeness relaying information known to you like the back of your hand. 

You attempt a bargain of his time, insisting you can leave early so he can make it for his workshop. You only get a laugh in return, Jungwon's face illuminated from the stars projected onto him, ducking through different avenues of the room as you hear from say, 

"I don't want to," he answers, plotting himself on the slated bit of floor where other spectators lay a bit away, pointing up at the stars on the ceiling. "I've been missing those workshops for the past two weeks. I'd rather be here."

A chill runs down your spine when with you whispers in your ears, freezing your hands mid-air with eyes enlarged, looking around like help will come. Except your version of help is at your feet, Jungwon's arm behind his head as he shuffles for comfort, a gaze cast your way in a quiet question.

Will you sit? 

And you do, folding in a mechanical way, hugging your knees to your chest with a look up at the ceiling, lips brushed together as you stare at constellations you name. Out-loud, it seems, when Jungwon points out another, asking its name. Their names are being introduced in the ongoing intercom, yet he wants to hear it from you. Take your mind off things, not known to you until after the fact when you've laid back beside him, mouth having run a hundred miles a minute as you've filled him in on details the intercom leaves out, the same sparkle belonging to the stars above found in your eyes as your chest heaves, propped up on an elbow as you're looking at him.

His eyes trail downwards, his full face given moments later along with the slow spread of his smile, dimple somehow showing amidst darkness and there's another thing. Lightness in your chest, burdens forgotten when you're with him. And you soak in it, revelling in how his interest never dips no matter how much information you've dumped on him, questions asked to show he's been listening. There's a moment too, when he's hauled himself off the ground with the dust of his clothes, a hand offered to you. You take it like you have times before, but a current ripples right down the middle of your pressed palms, alarm flared within you as he brings you to your feet. 

He sees it. Asks, "You okay?"

"Yeah," is your poor excuse, hands grated against your jeans to dilute the current. "Just winded. Hungry maybe." 

In true Jungwon fashion, he takes everything you say to heart. Pauses for you to accustomize to the topsy-turvy spin of your world, steps slower as you venture further into the museum, reading slates of information, posing for pictures he happily takes and when there's nothing left to be seen, Jungwon takes you to your favourite fast-food restaurant, exchanging toys with you over salty fries when he gets the one you wanted. A Sanrio keychain, Keroppi yours and Kuromi's his. Unbeknownst to you, he'll clip it onto his bunch of keys, jangling as he turns the ignition on and drives back, early evening colouring the sky once you've climbed out his car, watching him lug your weekend bag on his shoulder and unlock the front door, turning to you with a smile that's only inviting, luring you into a house that doesn't exactly feel like home with how long you've been away, but Jungwon builds the bridge. Indulges in what you've left behind, lighting a candle you'd purchased as a house-warming gift, mixing in with the aroma of butter popcorn to the sounds of your favourite movie. 

You don't check your phone, forget to after you sent Jaehyun a text explaining why you couldn't come up. Only for planetarium photos to dot your Instagram story, question marks his response. You don't see them until morning, not after you've watched three movies alongside Jungwon, trading popcorn and conversation, the wear of the day slumping you to his shoulder, a smile on your face as you slumber, the same one mirrored by him before he tucks you in, at least having the decency to sleep on the couch despite Riki's puzzled face. 

When he's gone, lights turned off in his wake, Jungwon burrows into the cushioned couch, pulling the blanket over his eyes but still remembering the last of your conversations before you'd fallen asleep. 

"The main couples here," in the movie Hairspray, musical notes filling the room. You chuck a piece of chocolate in your mouth, eyes undeterred. "They seem to give an equal amount, don't they? In their relationship."

Jungwon contemplates. Knows the root of your question despite the attempt at clouding it. 

He hums, hand swallowing popcorn from the bowl between you two. 

"There's a bit of back and forth but in the end, it seems equal, right?"

You must realise it too. The plea woven into your voice, the quiet desperation making your pupils tremble whilst looking at him, his expression not giving anything away.

Because if it did? You'd know how undeserving he thought Jaehyun is of you. 

Alias, he relents, settles into a passive expression seen as empathetic before he replies, "I'd say so," 

"I don't believe in relationships being 100% but say if they were, I think that amount being the same is a bit of a stretch,"

"Life happens, after all. You're whole before you meet your partner, but even then, when you are together, it's hard to maintain that whole because you're sharing a life together," he explains, fingertip absently tracing the bowl's rim. "You're not gonna be 100% all the time, and they won't be either. You give and take, but what matters in the end is if you feel like that whole doesn't feel empty with them by your side."

He chances a look at you, not sure how his words land ─ if they make sense at all because his brain is scrambled. Wrestling between reason and his own emotions that never seem in-check around you. It's only years of practised masking allowing him to be this way: diplomatic, trying to see your situation from all different angles and delivering his verdict in a way that's kind but still the truth.

Which explains why you ask the unexpected, duvet cover bunched in your non-buttered hand while you look at him, mini TV screen casting colours across your features. 

"Do you think I give too much?" 

He's not stumped. Besides the momentary stall of his heart, every bodily functions carries on uninterrupted. His brain works over the words, erases the blunt edges and gives encouragement in his lifted lip corners, eyes trained on yours as he lets you down easy. 

"I think you're being brave. Loving with your whole heart isn't something a lot of people can do, if everything is considered," if he considers himself. "I can't say anything for sure because I don't know everything about your relationship, but I think you always show up as your best. I'd hope he does the same for you."

You're quiet long afterwards, gripping the duvet cover harder before you grant it some give, an exhale expelled before your back meets the hoard of pillows against his headboard. The thought that maybe he's somehow overstepped occurs to him, but reason reels him back in. Reels you in as you nudge the popcorn bowl his way, solace your expression as you spare him the turn of your head, a bittersweet grin on your face.

"Always there for me, aren't you?"

His heart cracks a little, a huff of what's meant to be amusement coming out wistful, stonewalled by the handful of popcorn he takes, pushing it back to you before his eyes draw back to the screen. 

"I try my best."

His phone screen glares beneath his blanket, searing at the back of his eyes but he still looks on. Lets them crawl over the snapped picture taken: not of you, but of his bunch of keys and yours. You'd left them on the living room table shortly after you'd entered the house, disappearing into the bathroom and he…they'd been together. Yours and his, keychains aligning and he'd acted on impulse. Sinking into the sad shell of himself that doesn't get to hold you close while you sleep, turning his phone off and trying to sleep, seeing stars dance across your face like they had in the planetarium where only you and him existed.

Today's one of the days where Jungwon thinks the weather's manufactured. 

Spring's meant to be in full swing, gentle breezes of the winter's last winds, sun sheepish behind its accompanying clouds and yet it's been nothing but rain. Angry rain and arctic winds, enough to not confuse him of what coat to wear walking to campus. Then, on a random Tuesday, the air sizzles with a preview of summer, temperatures high enough for Sunoo to fill up the children's paddle pool they'd foolishly purchased with Riki's insistence to have a barbecue.

Which is exactly what they do, Jungwon driving with Riki hogging the aux again, Sunoo with his head out the rolled down windows as they drive to the big supermarket in their town. Everyone comes out with the sun, outside seating for cafes and restaurants packed with patrons laughing, smoking, burning a shade of pink all in the joy of summer's hinted presence. To Foster the People's 'Take Me Back' Jungwon finds himself not looking in his rear-view mirror for what feels like a first. In the teased summer sun, his hand hangs out the window, carding cruising winds through his spread fingers with one hand on the steering wheel. Something's ticked in his brain ever since he's seen you last, seen Sunghoon last too. How life would be if he didn't premeditate it, let the cards fall where they may be and at least give himself the grace of a moment before he dissects it. It's hard, any ingrained habit to be unlearned is, but today, when time seems to move slower, ice cream doing a slow melted drip in the sun, he feels it. The moment he exists in, the buzz of excitement in the air, the music thumping through his car's sound system, the comfort in the triangle friendship he's found with Sunoo and Riki. It makes him chatty, trading old stories and current tidbits with friends who feed off the flow of conversation, stopping every so often in a singalong, their shared first year summer playlist entailing all their fave songs and memories. 

It's nice. Peaceful. 

"You skipped my song again," Sunoo sounds from the backseat, clicking his tongue with a swat at Riki's shoulder. "There's a queue for a reason."

"I'm sorry, but I'm not in the mood for Rina Sawayama."

"Well, I'm not the mood for Sexyy Red," Sunoo argues back, eyes finding Jungwon's. "Would you like to be driving a car blasting Get it Sexy?"

Jungwon pauses, remembering last when the song played. Their trio drunk, the song's moans filling their living room. "Good song, but time and place."

"Wouldn't want to scare off the ladies,"

The car comes to stop at a red light, the car beside them occupied by four elderly women, hollering with sunglasses and canned cocktails floating in their backseat. By sheer coincidence, all their gazes cast Jungwon's way, his head nod rippling swoons through the car, their chatter amplifying before the green light diverges their paths. 

"You pulling everyone except who you want is kind of peak." 

"What does that mean?" Sunoo asks, hands hinging on each of their car seat shoulders. "You're interested in someone?"

Jungwon can only laugh really, dimples cratering into his cheek as his forehead falls into his palm, elbow balanced on his windowsill. It's been nearly a year since Jungwon met you, downstairs on a stretch of grass where things unknowingly began to shift, it was only a matter of time before he'd be found out. For however observant Jungwon attunes himself to being, it's synonymous with Riki, many moments occurring to his dot-connections and shit stirring. He should've expected this, maybe been a bit mad at Riki for letting it slip in front of the last person who should know but Jungwon can't find it in himself to be mad. Riki's apologetic in the boxy smile stretching his lip corners and the sun's out ─ he really can't complain. 

"It means nothing," Riki deflects, barely covering his grin. "Here you go. Here's a song actually worth queuing."

Stardust comes through, living up to Riki's words and despite the shambled attempt at covering Jungwon's crush, Sunoo doesn't pry, seemingly losing himself into the collective head nod done throughout the car, volume turned all the way up by Jungwon before the bass drops. They're singing offkey when the lyrics finally come, enunciating even the beats of the song. It's silly and care-free, everything Jungwon deprives himself of, but not now. Not in the car he nearly swerves, not the big supermarket where he laughs at Nut-Free Bluey Cake and launches onto Riki's taller frame, happily carried into the next aisle while Riki attempts a grumble beneath him, Sunoo pushing the cart with a giddy grin. And when they've racked up an abysmal bill, rock-paper-scissors played at the till, they laugh. Louder than they should because Sunoo's been picked, swiping his card while Riki and Jungwon jump around, hugging with fevered pats on each other's backs. They sing more songs back in the car, Jungwon taking the long way home to fit in more and when they're back at the house, Sunoo gone to change, Riki and Jungwon linger in the kitchen, reading over the receipt and transferring the difference to Sunoo before they bolt their separate ways. 

The care-free energy doesn't cease when they return, changed into swimming adjacent attire, board shorts mixed in with vests and rash guards, Riki starts up the grill as Jungwon wrestles Sunoo into the paddle pool, his shrieks filling the tiny back garden in harmony with Riki's hiccuped laugh. A tip of Riki's finger gets Sunoo stumbling in, laughing in a shriek as he clatters, eyes in moon crescents as he tosses the remaining water not splashed onto the hot concrete their ways, Riki fleeing through the back door's walkway and Jungwon defending his own with a pre-loaded water gun. 

When the coast seems clear, Riki returns and there's almost no water in the pool now, an epic war fought where there's only wet losers who decide to make themselves useful, drying off and taking shifts inside the house, unpacking meat for Riki to grill and pre-making their burger buns, stuffed with combos Jungwon jokingly wrinkles his nose at, Sunoo's shoulder shoved into his with a playfulness he sinks into. Happy, the happiest he's allowed himself to be. 

They're together again sometime later when Riki's grilled most of the meat, Sunoo's shrimp only left which he leaves in Jungwon's hands, heading back inside to take a call. There's still some sun, customary of the late season, the spared sunlight hitting Sunoo's face as he lounges in the pool, legs extended with feet dangling off the pool's rings while Jungwon grills, not a thought running in the lull of his usually over-active brain.

"You're different these days." Sunoo observes, fingers rippling through what's left of the paddle pool.

Lightness takes at Jungwon's chest, carefully flipping the skewered-shrimps. "How so?"

"I don't know," Sunoo drawls, a pout on his face. Jungwon can tell even with his back to him. "I feel like I know you better than I have. It's…nice."

He presses, hears the sizzle of shrimp as he gives it firmness from the spatula held in his hand. He thinks of Sunoo's words, how transparent they are and vulnerable he's become. His answer is an easy one. 

"I think so too," it ends in a smile, only for his heart to do a slow sink. "Next year's gonna be hard." 

With Sunoo graduating, Riki and I in his rear view mirror, Jungwon thinks. You'll still be here, but it won't be the same. 

For a beat, no words occupy the space. Only the sizzle of meat and the drag of water, quiet and tranquil. Bird chirp in the distance, a gust of wind making dead leftover leaves dance across stones, the temperature suddenly dropping.

"It's bittersweet, isn't it?" Sunoo offers, and Jungwon has to turn. Stand on the opposite side of the grill and face his friend, watching his exact words spell across his face in a reluctant curve of his lips. "But why are you thinking so far ahead? There's still plenty of time left."

Because it's instinct, thinking three steps ahead, anticipating. 

"I don't know," is Jungwon's premade answer, and it bothers him how dishonest it sounds to his own ears. He thinks again, searching, keeping his hands busy with the meat that might charcoal. "I think I'm preparing for the worst and controlling what I can. So that when it happens, it doesn't hurt as much." 

It's as honest and coherent he's been about his own feelings, a somewhat sickly feeling coming with the admission. Like he could crawl out of his skin. But before he can take it back, his eyes catch on Sunoo's face, silent surprise unfolding with lips shaped in an O. Then, when he notices their eyes lock, kindness brims in them, warmer than usual as Sunoo's head tilts, surprise morphing into quiet sympathy. 

"You live your life so far ahead of itself," he lets the younger one know, a pinch of regret in his face as if he experiences Jungwon's life himself. "I don't like getting hurt either, but that's life no? Getting to experience what you can in spite of it,"

"I think that's what makes moments like these better. Knowing I opened my heart up to the experience because even if somewhere along the way, pain comes along ─ it's only temporary. Because in the grand scheme of things, I'll still be able to look back at this - all the memories we have together - and still be grateful I accepted them for what they're worth," Sunoo explains, heart on his sleeve. "Something to cherish." 

Jungwon thinks back. There's little to cherish from before, living for others despite being the most guarded he's ever been. He's been that way at uni, the key from the keyhole removed just to let Riki and Sunoo in and when you come along, he unlocks it completely. Opens the sliver of sunshine streaming in, and what feels like all he knows isn't enough. He wants to let people in, wants to share more belly laughs and inside jokes that resonate with him. Be in the moment and not worry about every moment after. Perhaps he's made his start, like Sunoo indicated, but when they pack up their house next year, Sunoo's tears spilling over while Riki wills himself not to cry - Jungwon wants to cry too. From the depths of himself because he knows he'll miss what felt like forever. He'll miss taking no more than ten steps to bug Sunoo to watch a movie, push back his hair with Sunoo's headbands as they try out skincare masks, huddle in the kitchen on weekend mornings - all three of them - their blended playlist blaring in the background, dancing around even Jungwon after spills the milk to his cereal. Because there's more to life than getting it right the first time. Jungwon knows this now. 

"Yeah," Jungwon concedes, burying his chin into his chest. Not holding back his tears, but blinking then away. "You're right. It is better that way."

Sunoo is nice enough not to say anything, not initially. Jungwon's too in his feelings to hear him come out the paddle pool, Sunoo's hand finding the back of Jungwon's head with tender strokes, a brush of pride-filled affection in his touch. Jungwon lets his heart crack a little, a tear escaping with the bite of his lip. The hurt festers, but as soon as its felt, it's gone. Soothed away by being experienced and with the lift of his chin, Jungwon inhales. Exhales for what feels like the first time ever and lets a little of rigidity go.

Whatever may come of his life, he will let it happen. Won't orchestrate anything beyond his exhaustion and let destiny take the wheel.

The ride is smoother that way. That much clear when Riki comes back with a share of ribs for Jungwon, buying them despite their extortionate prices because he's always thought of Jungwon. And even when he jokes about the sombre mood, he bumps Jungwon's hip with careful eyes searching for Jungwon's temperament. And like this, meat sizzles, tucked into buns perfectly sliced by Sunoo and eaten in ongoing chatter, another day in the sun but the first where Jungwon leaves the door open. 

It's raining again. Heavily. 

A matter of days before Jungwon's set to take his final exams for the year and he's surprisingly calm. Of course, he'd studied but he'd also had fun, spending nights when Sunoo wasn't tired in the living room as a trio, doing and talking about absolutely nothing but still marked as something to cherish to him. He also sees Sunghoon, goes over to his place where Heeseung perches on Jungwon's shoulder, marveling at the brownies Jungwon makes, Jay enticed by the aroma filtering into the living room where he'd previously been playing his guitar. And in their concrete backyard, they lounge on camping chairs, munching on the soft heaven Jungwon manages to bake and minutes later, they're laughing at nothing. The small fire Sunghoon's made outlines their faces, their happiness on display and Jungwon sinks into his own, hands in his pockets and slumps into his chair, happy. 

Which the weather doesn't mirror. Except it's not meant to reflect his mood, but yours, heart thudding in your neck as your phone vibrates with incessant calls attempts and a flood of texts. 

You'd been just about to toss your phone away for a study session, settling down at your desk, smiling at your pegboard, trinkets and a photo booth strip taken recently of you and Jaehyun. Your Kerropi keychain had found its way onto the pegboard too, because after you'd lost one of your keychains, you'd been apprehensive of losing others. 

In your hand, your phone buzzes, screen alight with a selfie of you and Jaehyun, his cheeks squished as you pucker your lips into a kiss onto his cheek. Happiness floods you, accepting the welcome distraction, painfully unaware of its destruction. 

"Hi baby!" 

You've been butt-dialled, softened by material and limbs, but even that couldn't muffle the words you'd heard. The horrid laughs of his friends back home since he'd finished the academic year, you always coming last. 

"Dude! Surely, it's been a year," his friend hollers, a smack delivered to Jaehyun. "And you still haven't cracked that?"

"I've been trying, believe me!" he insist, tone doused in a bucket of sinister tar you're so unfamiliar with. "She always clams up the last minute. Can't tell you how many boners she's sent to the grave." 

"She has that whole innocent, cutesy thing going for her," another friend explains, one you've had nothing but respectful interactions with. Your stomach twists, a sudden wave of nausea attempting to drown you. "But, I mean, come on? She would've slobbered on your knob with that crush she had on you in school. What's stopping her now? Men have needs too, don't they?"

"Don't even, bro, because─" and he laughs, a genuine hearty laugh that splits your heart in two. "─when she's feeling all guilty for not putting out, she'll try give me a blowjob and it's the fucking worst," 

He laughs again, his hand likely over his eyes like you've seen him do plenty of times. Only now, you're the butt of the joke. 

"I just imagine whatever Pornhub video I watched the night before and jizz in her mouth to get it over with," he explains, chorus of laughter filtering through the phone's speaker. "There's still time though. All bets are not off yet, gentlemen. I'm getting my money, her virginity too!" 

It's the last thing you hear as your phone jolts in your tremored hand, thumb aggressively tapping at the red end call button, with its delayed end coming with the shudder of your breath. The force of it, dry heaved out a throat working, gargling with no remnants in your stomach being pulled again and again, a desperate rush to your en-suite, your phone dropped like your knees to hard floor, spit plonked into the toilet bowl. 

Sanity is the last thing considered, your back pressed to cold tiled wall as your arms circle around your knees, wobbled lips pressed into the bone as your body rocks. Willing whatever wretchedness you've just heard not to be real, to be a figment of whatever horrible imagination your mind's constructed. 

However, when you're shaking your head, hoping the thoughts will drop out your ears, you only manage to connect the dots. His sudden interest after an eternity spent pining over him, the half-efforts elsewhere except the bedroom, the dismay you'd been met with when you'd introduced him as your boyfriend to other hometown friends, to Sunoo, Jungwon and Riki. The thought makes you sick, how everyone was able to see what laid beneath the surface but you, the person supposedly closest to him. His girlfriend. 

The title once meaning everything to you drops insects over your body, skin crawling at the heavy, disgusting feel as there is no one to blame except yourself. For wearing your heart on your sleeve, for believing Jaehyun was above you, for giving yourself to him. 

You want out. Out this bathroom, out your skin, not a thought in mind as you're stumbling out your bathroom, not caring for the pitter-patter of rain hitting your window and storming through doors and halls, figure soaking in rain as you run as hard as your burning lungs allow. The drenched weight of your clothes threatens to weigh you down, but you persist, tears mascaraed in the rain pouring over your face as you round the familiar corner, huffing and puffing with your hands on your knees, at the doorstep of someplace urgent. A place you'd neglected trying to find a home in Jaehyun. 

Jungwon opens the door, because of course he does. In the face of his surprise, you can only sigh, meekness in your croaked voice as you ask, "Can I come in? Please?" 

He'd be a fool to leave you in the rain, a fact you know now Jaehyun is capable of doing if it didn't get his dick wet. Your eyes pinch together, weak heart hoping once you trudge through Jungwon's doorway, all thoughts of your ex-boyfriend will cease, soaked shoes slipped off, tracking rain in the house as you're ushered to the upstairs bathroom, Jungwon moving swiftly to hand you towels and an extra change of clothes.

His. 

The relieved sigh you do should make guilt crush you, but you've forgone all thought. All emotion, only allowing the hot shower of water run down your back like you'd hope your previous relationship would.

You don't talk much after you've come through the door, whispered 'thank you's the extent of your vocabulary as Jungwon hands you towels and clothing to change into, hanging your soaked pair on the towel warmer to dry quicker. 

You're wounded, that much is clear in the gauntness in your face, skin pale and eyes soulless. He can't pry, the first tumble of his words possibly the final blow, your crumble inevitable, fleeing because where else can you go? Sunoo's not meant to be in until late, you're not as close with your friends because well, Jaehyun is your best friend. 

And yet, you make no mention of him. Don't attach yourself to your phone like you'd done before, giggling over sparse text messages and fawning over pictures of you together. As a substitute, your small figure hovers at the stairs leading up to his attic bedroom, complaining of the rain, how your troublesome presence would've left earlier if you didn't want to get soaked. 

"Stay over," Jungwon insists, hauling himself off his bed. "You can take the bed, I'll get the blow-up sorted."

There's back and forth and in an effort not to make you cry, he gives into your insistence, you taking the blow-up bed and him perched on his bed. The small TV mounted in his room blares, in the corner you occupy playing some movie he doesn't pay any attention to, face permanently creased as his eyes run over yours, wondering what he can do to erase it. 

There's little he can do without knowing the source, an omission of truth on your part after an hour and half long film, another absently switched over to before you burrow into your set of bedding, back towards him for a long while. The TV's eventually turned off, silence eating away at the bitter night.

"He had a bet going with his friends," you confess, voice small and tear-wrinkled. "That's all this was to him ─ some sick joke that he could make with his friends,"

"I don't even─I can't even─"

Jungwon sits up, heaving a sigh twisted in disappointment and heartache. Mounts his pillows to support his back, salt rock lamp in the corner providing some light as he coaxes you with tenderness. "Up on the bed," 

You don't move. His hand pats his mattress in a three-beat sequence. "C'mon, angel."

Hesitation for a moment longer, your back still to him, and then there's give. Your figure hauls itself up, drowning in his clothes and ambling over to him, stalling at his bedside, his arms out in comfort you've been robbed of. 

A knee edged into his bed, dipping with your looming presence before you draw to him, submitting. 

"In my arms. That's it," your back finds his chest, slumping with the world's weight on your shoulders, turned away because he can only imagine you'd hate for him to see you like this. In pieces ─ for nothing. "Go ahead, get it off your chest."

"He─" you hiccup, trembling in Jungwon's hold. "They knew I liked him and made a joke of it. They probably said all kinds of hurtful things and I just…he made it clear he was never in it for me,"

"He just wanted to brag to his friends about beating them to it," the disgust flicks off your tongue, body tensing against him. In the circle of his arm, a thumb caresses the top of your arm, devoted to your care. Your comfort. "As if I'm something to claim." 

"You know you're not his to claim," Jungwon reminds you, cheek pressed to the side of your head, lips brushing against your hair. "Nothing of you is even his to begin with because no man ─ no person ─ can ever take anything from you,"

"If you love the way you love and treat people, that will always come back tenfold," he assures you, something you might hate to hear, but need to anyways. "Same goes for what those shitheads did,"

It's a first. The crackle of your laughter, subdued, but undeniably there, vibration bleeding through to his chest. A smooth curve graces Jungwon's face, dimple cratering. 

"I can't wish bad on them," Even though he already has, mulling over methods of a get-back while he selects words for you. "But they'll get what's coming to them. Nothing goes unpunished,"

"Nothing goes unrecognised either," his neck cranes to see you better, tear-stained cheeks and a pout on your lips, painted in the soft cream hues of his lamp. "I'm really grateful you confined in me. I can't begin to imagine the pain you're going through,"

"But at least you and I both know by talking about this and separating yourself from the situation, you're doing good by yourself. Clearing out all the bad to make way for good because at the end of the day, that's what I truly believe you deserve and that's what will come to you. Everything good because you're deserving of that and much more," 

"Okay?" His head ducks to meet your hung head, lifting to reveal the wobble of your lips as you nod along. "C'mere."

You burrow, body turning to envelope in the embrace he gives you, limbs tangling in a sigh of relief as you bury your face into his shoulder, his chin resting upon yours, hand stroking the back of your head. 

"It's okay," he mumbles, knowing it'll be, hoping you'll eventually see it that way. "He doesn't know how good he had it, but that's not for him to know."

Your bodies separate on your behalf, the first pull away, him following along. He anticipates more distance between you, easiness in his expression that you'll attempt a smile at, which you do, but at a closer proximity, hands hinged at the top of his chest, fingers overlapping onto his shoulders. The heat of your skin burns into his, through material and his skin dotting with goosebumps as novelty swirls in the hue of your eyes, features creased in a taste of bittersweet before you're inching closer, nails digging into his shirt. 

"Jungwon,"

His name is breathless, uttered in a hushed voice like others will pry. Will take him away from you, and he tenses. Sees beyond your intentions, hyper-aware of his hands splayed onto your folded knees between his legs before he lets out a shaky exhale. 

"I─I don't know if this is," right, some things considered. Varying in severity depending on the person, he thinks his own motives regarding you aren't as squeaky clean as you believe them to be. He isn't sure whether after things with Jaehyun (if they've ended, which he hopes they have), you're doing any better than a man who'd been so desperate to have you, he considered pushing and prying. Inserting himself where he didn't belong. 

There's no need now. 

He's corrupted, he thinks. Maybe not meant for the porcelain you are. 

"I," you struggle for the words, grasping to the front of his shirt like a lifeline, at odds with yourself. Your eyes show him as much ─ but there's something else in them too. 

A plea. 

"You're the only one I could tell this to," you confess, glassy eyed all over again. "I don't think you or I realise how many times you've been there for me,"

Your forearm's used to wipe away your tears, a quiet sniffle before steadiness leads your eyes, ceasing the expansion of Jungwon's unmoving chest. 

"I may be acting out of weakness, but that doesn't change what you've always given me," your hands move, flat against the plan of his chest, up and down like you could soothe the hammer of his deafening heart. "All I need is comfort,"

You. All I need is you, is the statement echoed in Jungwon's mind, run on repeat like a broken record, lost in an echo chamber that doesn't know what to do with itself. Not with this information, not with you on him, pleading with your pretty tear-streaked cheeks and eyes that cast a sparkle despite the darkness looming over you like the dark clouds in the sky. 

He should be logical about this. Differentiate it like everything he's ever done with his life because it's got him places he'd set for himself. Study hard ─ good grades, good university, good job. Sociable ─ hangouts, friends, the loss of being alone. Everything is a system and chain reaction for him, spelled out because at least if dealt the hand of fearing loss of control, he could control some things. All the variables he could plausibly dictate while maintaining his good graces. 

But you're not a variable. Not some stat he could account for since the first moment he's laid eyes on you and it makes him tick. Tittering on how this could be and what he had to do to make things plain and simple. 

Unfortunate for him, all he had to do is accept it for the mess it is. Like everything else involving thoughts and feelings.

"Do you want to?" he asks, because he really needs to know. In the depths of his heart. "I don't want this to be something you regret."

After he's gained your trust, to see a reality where come sunrise, you never meet his eyes, sit furthest on the couch, don't entertain anything that has to do with him ─ he's selfish and enamoured enough to never want that for himself. Not in any timeline. 

"I can't regret you," you affirm like a confession, steady enough to meet his gaze with a calmness running the direct opposite down his spine. "I can regret things, but that will always exclude you." 

A hard thump, then a flutter. His heart tickles against his bruised chest and his fingertips itch, gnawing into the material splayed over your knees, his clothing. Even now, having gone through rain and a warm shower, brown sugar and marshmallow still persists, a sugary sweet aroma enticing him, begging him for mercy. 

His forehead falls to yours, your arms woven around, wrists crossed at his nape. Breaths shared, his eyes closed, brain scanning for what to do next. What to do with what he wants most, whether he can accept it for what it is or plague himself for never accepting it in the first place.

Noses brush each other, breaths synched. Both are shaky, for different reasons but you anchor yourself to Jungwon, fingernail tracing across his nape before you're holding his face with hands that won't let go. The itch persists, shorts material sleeving into the webs of his fingers. He so badly wants this, has been pining over you for months and that greed grinds his teeth together, gritted in apprehension. Questioning whether even if your words given, this will be a once-off thing. He's gone enough to take what he's given but as he peers down at your lips, plump, unkissed - he can't help wrestle himself. Wondering if once is ever enough when it comes to you. 

"I don't wanna think about this too much," you bring him back to life, speaking the words he needs to hear. Your forehead's creased, sincerity in your red-rimmed eyes. "If it feels right, then…"

He'll let go. Stop thinking five steps ahead, of the worst possible outcome and let himself be. Kiss you like how he's always wanted to.

The mere press of your lips electrifies him, drawing goosebumps all over his warm body as you let the press linger, lips overlapping each other in a pucker capturing the tip of the iceberg. The nerves, tamed desire. It's only the surface of what Jungwon feels and he's hooked, falling apart when you go in for seconds. He surrenders to buried feelings, firming his grip on your arms as you press further, face screwed like you're giving him your all. Jungwon can't help the groan that escapes him, especially when the hitch of your breath ends with a whine, lips parted as his tongue runs along your bottom lip, the shudder you get travelling through to him. He could do this forever, Jungwon thinks, kiss and kiss you, get lost in the plush of your lips and never leave, engulfing himself in your existence because that's what matters most to him. You and then everything after.

Being together like this unlocks you, peels back what you've so secretly hidden away under the guised affection for Jungwon that couldn't exist beyond the confinements of friendship. You'd pushed himself aside, too enamoured by the star you'd set yourself on, staring too long into the Sun, only to leave yourself blind. But Jungwon, always there, has this gravitation pull over you, keeping you to him despite your best efforts and with the gentleness of the moon, you fall. Tip over into the dark well you've always harboured for him, witnessing first-hand how much devotion you hold for him as your body sinks into the kiss, limbs pressed into his with a want that won't cease. 

Jungwon's back finds the mattress, laid flat with his head between pillows, his pupils swallowing the honey brown of his eyes. There's softness in his eyes, there's always been for you, but in the dark of his room, his eyes are almost sharper, fuelled by the sentiment iron-cladding his grip to your hips, his chest rising as you peer down at him, hands attached to him. You blink away the lazy film coating your eyes, letting out a wistful sigh while your hands explore, inched centimetres over to where his heart is. It'll beat out his chest, you think, with how fast it's going. The intimacy of it, being seen makes him shift briefly, hips unknowingly brought up to make you move on him, something more brushed against your back. You gulp it down, the sheepishness flooding your cheeks. He sees it too, and extends his hands out for you, holding your cheek in his palm with the quiet call.

"C'mere,"

And you fold, arms bracing yourself as Jungwon holds your face in his hands, kissing you like he'd always meant to. The thought pools warmth in your stomach, stirred slow and steady as he leaves traces of himself all over your lips, teeth tugging at your bottom lip to make you do a silent gasp, the boil threatening to spill over as your body grows antsy, wishing to fan the flame. 

"Won," you rasp, and it sounds so desperate. So harsh in your ears. "More," 

His thumb traces the outline of your mouth, ghosting over its frame to settle below your cupid's bow, capturing its every movement as the confession finds itself said into words.

"I need more." 

Only then, his eyes flicker up to yours. They're unassuming, more so gauging where you stand of all places, to which he makes up his mind. Flashes an indulgent grin your way before you start to feel him shift. 

"I'll give it to you, baby. Don't have to say another word," he muses, back lifting off the mattress as you pull away for space. Between your legs, he's hard, impossible to notice. Especially when the dull ache between your legs attunes itself to him. "In my arms, back to me."

Wonder starts in your mind, prickled by the erratic jolt of your heart rate, but in the calm of Jungwon's expression, you find some peace. Let your nerves be nothing more than that and let him guide you, shorts given to you taken off with your shoulders surrounded by his frame, his arms shadowing yours, hands over your fidgeting ones.

"Nervous?" he asks in a whisper, so close his lips brush the shell of your ear. You squirm into him, channelling the jitters with crescent nail-pressed marks in your thighs. 

"A little," you confess, sheepishness finding itself in your cheeks again. Your head turns away like he's facing you. "I-I haven't done this before." 

"Not with yourself?" he hums, nosing along your neck.

You gulp, memory providing clip images. "I have, but…"

Your head hangs, breath coming out ragged from the patterns he draws on your thighs. "It doesn't feel as good,"

He hums in understanding, against your back to make all the hairs on your body stand. His hand inches closer, not purposely because he's still drawing patterns, but it feels that way. "It usually feels better when someone's doing it for you," 

His teeth catch on your earlobe, a gentle mark before he lazes over down the column of your neck to lick a stripe against it, a whimper his reward. "We don't have to do anything you're not comfortable with,"

"I'll touch your clit and you'll feel so good, princess. I promise," he begs, threading your fingers with his before they ghost over the front of your underwear, with no pressure in a hover that makes you buck. "And when you're ready and want my fingers, I'll give them to you. At your own pace, until you come."

You've never felt so restless, a thing of feral nature scratching at your chest, with no release but this. A man's hand between your thighs as you heave like you've done under covers, lips clamped together with a whimper of your release. You think of Jungwon, how he'd take his time with you, learn what feels good for you and commit to it, whispering sweet nothings in your ear before he kisses you right off a cliff.

There's only one answer.

"Please," you plead, squeezing his fingers. Turning around to give him your glossy eyes, tortured without any. "Touch me." 

A soft curve pulls one end of his lips, false pity in his features before he pecks your lips, looking you in the eyes as he says, "Then let me."

Wordlessly, you unhook your fingers from his, a steady tremble against your thighs as you give him free reign, anticipation rife in twitch of your lips. First, he doesn't do anything, just lets you sit with your legs open, helplessly aching and wet. Somehow, it's a secret you want to keep to yourself but as Jungwon's middle finger drags across the gusset of your panties, over your entrance - a slight push in to hear your slick's echo - and upwards, between your outlined folds and onto your clit, where he rubs, you croak. Unleash a sound you've always kept to yourself and he groans at it.

"So sweet for me," he moans in your ear, hands already beneath your waistband, tugging. "Off, off. These need to come off," 

With the same haste, you try slide your underwear off, bracing against Jungwon who doesn't even let you get them off your ankles before he's on you. Collecting all the slick spilled out your entrance, circling it with three fingertips with a drag up to your clit, going up and down to collect or savour as teeth tease at your neck. You mewl, body feverishly hot at the new stimulation, of having someone else touch you this way, your head spinning too fast to keep in time with.

"You're so wet. So ready for me, huh?" he groans into your neck, licking it as you feel his hips buck up into your back, a firm push of his clothed cock against your ass. A quiet squelch sounds, caught on the graze of Jungwon's fingers. "You clenched, baby. Oh, you know I want it too, fuck."

His fingers come back up to circle your clit, nice and slow to the detriment of your deep breaths, shallow and worn as a pool of molten lava swirls in your belly, at unrest while Jungwon dedicates himself to you. Kissing every inch of your skin, grazing with his teeth and then biting, applying enough pressure to pull the high keen from your throat, embarrassed but so turned-on you can't think straight.

"Feels good, angel?" he coos at your fast nods, your hips helplessly following the fast rubs he does, breaking you from within. "Think you're ready for my fingers?"

A desperate hand reaches for his one stationed on your knee, keeping your legs open. Your head tips back on his shoulder, throat bobbing as you rasp a moan, near tears. "Please ─ want more,"

"When did my princess get so greedy, hm?" he muses, the hint of condescension in his voice. Buckling under the shame of it, you seep into its pleasure too as your hands splay onto his thighs, muscles tense beneath your palms. "It's okay, I'll bite. Just sit back and watch."

So, you do. Watching with a heaving chest as his hand slides further, then stops. The silence of the moment is ear-splitting, nothing but Jungwon's slow and controlled breaths in your ear before his fingertip circles your entrance, done with no motive but make you shake. Have it glisten against his fingertip, done with his index finger to and held up for both your eyes to see, your cheeks set aflame.

It's not the end of Jungwon's cruel and unusual punishment, the fingers hovered to your face, expectant for your mouth. Jungwon doesn't say anything, just gives the slightest nudge of his shoulder, bottom lip coming between your clenched teeth. Then, they draw closer and your mouth opens, fingers laid flat against your tongue before your mouth closes. You sing around the digits, tasting yourself with a mewl that can't seem to stop, timid at first but when your tongue twitches, you try again ─ tongue swirling round his fingers, tasting him too.

"Fuck, you're good with your mouth," he gruffs out, fingers gliding further to make your throat close, gag muffled against his skin. His other hand leaves your knee, lightly pressed to your throat as he tries again, another gag following. "Holy shit,"

Both hands leave the circumference of your face, one hand back on your knees admittedly pulled together to calm the ache between your thighs you couldn't solve and his other ─ dipped behind you, the smack of his lips coming with the drop of your heart.

"You're mine now," he says, a bite down on your earlobe to make you yelp as he busies himself with his fingers tracing your entrance, taunting. "No one's gonna get you like this, taste you like this,"

A breach ─ finally ─ and he steals all the words you could possibly say, your chest full of air, shoulders heightened up to his neck and you blink a hundred times over, adjusting to the foreign feeling of someone else so intimately intertwined with you. More feeds in, your breath shuddering as all you can do watch, his knuckle past your glistening lips before it curls, a high keen automatic.

Claws fly into material, the fabric of Jungwon's sleep trousers, scrunching into the material as you catch your lip in your teeth, body hunching over into the feeling. So pleased, wanting more and more. Down your spine, Jungwon's kisses follow, at the top of it where exposed skin prevails and down into the material of his shirt, warm air huffed into as he chuckles into you.

"Too much?"

"No," you shake your head, hip jutting for more. "Jungwon,"

"What, baby?" he calls, so sweet despite his amused chuckles. He's curling more, moving his hand for the heel of his palm to hit against your clit. You squeal. "Use your big girl words. How else am I supposed to know how you're feeling?"

The squeals never stop, echoed as you brace back onto Jungwon like a magnet, his trousers in your hands as squelches fill the room. You can't help yourself, the slow unwinding of your body does into him, only your hips drawn to him as he pumps a lone finger into you, everything and not enough at the same time. The feeling pumping through your veins overwhelms you in the best way, seeing the truth to his words as he fingers you, feeding more until he's knuckles deep. And when he's─

"It's here, isn't it?" he smiles into the column of your neck, loving to hear you whine. "That gets you weak?"

He says it like a mere observation, finger hooked with a press against a spongy spot hunching you over, the moans pouring out each time he presses it against it. Desperate hands seek his crumpled duvet covers, clutching for dear life as you feel your brain rewrite itself, attempting to recall if you've ever felt this good or if it's just Jungwon who makes you feel that way. No time is offered to ponder the matter, pleasure drowning out simple mental gymnastics as you keen more, walls closing in as you buck your hips to meet his finger.

"Oh baby, you love getting fingered this much?" Jungwon chuckles, a firm hand on your shoulder to haul you back to him. Against him, your chest lapses, forehead accumulating sweat as you blink away the dazed haze over your eyes, pressure building your stomach. "I haven't even put another in, how much more my cock."

You buckle over his crude words, melting back with a whine as your hips keep bucking, meeting the hand cupped over you with more and more on your mind. "Should I add another?"

"Please. Now!"

"Oh," the disappointment comes with a hard bite against your neck, a yelp surfacing at the same time he pushes another finger in. Your nails find his bicep, lodged in with a cry. "I'm sure there's better ways to ask for what you want," 

Two fingers deep, the top bone of his palm slams into your clit with vengeance, voice stolen from you, released without regard for prying ears and your dignity. 

"There's better ways to ask me," he emphasizes, a shiver sent down your back. "Right, princess?"

Despite the incessance of his fingers, you at least have the presence of mind to answer back, an enthused nod coming with your answer. "Yes."

"My sweet girl," the sternness melts in a blink, smoothed against the skin of your cheek with an adoring kiss as the coil in your stomach twists, nearing its limit. "I'll add another, okay?"

"Thank you," the heave comes with the shutter of your eyes, head hung as the pressure builds beyond what you're equipped to handle. A short break, then the stretch. 

The fingers you'd already been dealt had a stretch of their own ─ foreign, long, thicker with the kind of intrusion edged with discomfort. Except when you'd taken a breath, closed your eyes and trusted, he moved at your pace. He listened to you, attuned to every shift in your body that resisted or begged for more. And now, the width bares teeth into your bottom lip, discomfort sounding at the back of your throat. Immediately, he ceases, leaned into the crook of your neck.

"Hurts?"

"A bit," you admit, feeling small. "It'll get better though,"

"It doesn't have to if it's too much for you," his response is instant. "I can go back to─"

Your hands eclipses his, a turn back to him with trembled lips and a tension that cannot be eased. "No. I-"

You turn away, having no reason to be shy but being so in the end. "I wanna try. It'll be preparation for…"

He knows. He knows what you mean too, if not from context clues, but the way your walls do a weak squeeze of his fingers, his smirk bitten back. 

"C'mere," he calls, and you answer. Kissed like you're porcelain, wondering how you'd ever allowed yourself to be kissed any other way. "So sweet for me. I'll go slow, okay? Let me know if you need me to stop,"

And you would ─ if you needed him too. Except you're on the brink of destruction, your body not your own as your pants fill the room, mixed in with the squelches that only amplify, Jungwon's fingers picking up speed as he feels you relax, letting go as you surrender everything to him. 

"You're close," he huffs, littering your neck in kisses. "Gonna come for me, angel?"

You might, except this release doesn't feel like others. It feels like─

"Jungwon, I might─" the embarrassment colours your face, bucking hips eagerly to meet him despite the horror soon approaching. "I might, fuck."

He knows you best, it seems. A graze of his teeth to your pulse, a tender bite and a kiss to seal the deal. "You won't, this is different. It's okay, princess. Come for me."

His fingers are still going, your hips are still bucking and you can only brace as you take your last breath and shatter in his hold. Let go like he asks with your vision engulfing in stark white. The world beyond the feeling is no concern of yours, swallowed by the birth of pleasure swallowing you whole, vibrating in every crevice of your cells bumping together. Your eyelids force blinks, ones that don't come with the clear of your vision initially, but when your soul finds itself back into your body, Jungwon's room comes back into focus. His lit salt lamp, sneakers arranged in a straight line, the hoard of medals ─ you see it all, and then your sight drops down between your legs. A damp pool seeping through Jungwon's navy blue duvet cover, probably darker if not for the low-lighting, and the removal of his fingers, both them and his hand drenched in clear liquid making your shivering body very still.

In silence is how the next few excruciating moments pass, eyes darting nowhere in particular as you come to terms with the mess you've made ─ whether Jungwon anticipated this, or whether your first sexual experience entails embarrassment you can't come back from. Decision paralysis keeps you rooted in place, no limb budged an inch except for Jungwon's hand - hoisted over your shoulder with the careful chase of your sidelong gaze, not seeing but hearing his fingers in his mouth again, lips smacked together. 

Then, a hum comes. Much like the last time, except there's something feral on its tail end, an unexpected variable your brain's failed to consider. So, you shift ─ just slightly, angling yourself enough to get a better look of him, his expression no longer cast in the darkness of your silhouette and illuminated by his salt lamp. His eyes are what you've seen black holes look like, an endless pit of exposed hunger you're still trying to wrap your head around. Amongst other things like how he just stares at you, licking you off his fingers while he hums at the taste. Emotion lurches in your chest, a door opening you're unaware of its existence and it…resonates with this. Filth. A unknown you've quietly managed to package away, only to meet its other half.

"Must've felt so good, huh angel?" he coos, other hand coming up to caress your cheek, an automatic melt into his palm. "You're not embarrassed, are you?"

Eyelashes bat, your gaze scatters. All cues he sees before his palm places tender pats on your cheek, the skin of your cheek pulled between his pinched fingers. 

"Don't be silly," he drawls, shifting closer to you. The hairs on your body stand, his fresh linen scent engulfing you. "If I needed to know how good you felt, that was the best way to show me,"

His head ducks, meeting your eyes flickered down to your lap. "It felt good, right?"

A look into his eyes is given a chance, cheeks aflame at how starkly honest they are. Your head ducks again, nodding wordlessly. 

Then his hand migrates, softly and without a word too, hands woven around your ponytail he tugs at enough for your head to lift. Caught in your throat, your breath is gulped down in a big gesture, eyes having no choice but to peer into his. 

"Want more?"

You already know your answer. 

Except the vacancy of its sound is not enough to appease Jungwon. 

"I won't give you more if I can't hear you."

Your exhale crumbles on its way out, brain racking itself to remember if Jungwon was ever like this. Gentle, yet stern enough to straighten your back, kept on your toes as your breath held for his every word. 

"Yes," your voices comes out, meek but an answer nonetheless. "Please, Won. I..need you,"

Magic to his ears, the loaded tension of the moment disarms itself in the smile he beams, a more playful yank of your hair done before he's barrelling towards you, capturing your lips in a searing kiss. It feels like a contrast and continuation of your last kiss all at once ─ hungry, desperate and with an itch with the sole function of being scratched. The amount of affection he bombards you with knocks you off-balance, lips prying in a pathetic plea as his teeth sink into your bottom lip, soothed with the stroke of his tongue, the action folding your body into yourself. 

You do your best to support yourself, staying upright but Jungwon leans and leans, frenzied to feel every inch of skin pressed into his and it lights you on fire, being so desired and wanted when you've felt nothing but discarded. With your back blending into the mattress again, his lips meeting skin you hadn't spared a thought towards ─ the tip of your nose, under your eye where a mole rests, on the curve of your jaw and all the way down your torso, teeth nibbling the skin of your collarbone to render you even more weak. Kissing his way all along from one hip to another, taking his time with you until your fingers thread into his hair, tugging enough to warrant the lift of his head, teary eyes meant to summon some sympathy. 

"You have no idea how long I've wanted you," he groans into your skin, dragging his lips against the skin of your lower stomach. "I want to savour everything,"

One last kiss is pressed to you before he lifts from the bed, pushing his boxers and sweatpants down in one swoop, not waiting a minute longer. Except for the moment you rise, propped up on your elbows to stare, slow blinks done as your eyes hate to starve themselves of the sight of Jungwon stroking himself in long, languid strokes, his large tip smeared with precome as more beads, its flushed appearance and size a hard pill to swallow. 

The corner of his lip lifts, amused with the honesty you wear on your face before he draws closer, the nudge of his tip to softly spread your lips apart making you clench. An aired chuckle is all you hear beyond the mess in your chest, sight devoted in watching Jungwon glide his cock between your folds, knocking into your clit knowing it'd make you quiver, hand flying to grab his arm. 

"Angel," his voice bleeds with fondness, brain a puddle of syrup between your ears. "Look at how wet you get for me,"

The slick that's accumulated in his scarce motions is to the amount of flattery, echoed when your walls close again as he nudges your clit, dragging himself down with his thumb replacing his tip. You catch your lip between your teeth, whimper heard nonetheless as his precome trails down to your entrance, his tip resting there. 

Your hips circle with his thumb, but your neck cranes to see what he schemes before his tip circles your entrance, painted to his eyes. The image must conjure fire in him as he gives a broken breath, tip not resting, but being feed in, the tiniest bit of skin beginning to meet yours. 

"I should─fuck, get a condom," he sounds winded, looking dishevelled with the heightened rise of his chest, pulling back out to trace your entrance again. He tosses a look to his bedside table like he's actually considering it, head swivelled back to yours when you give his wrist a squeeze. 

"It's okay." is all you say, slowly but surely spreading your legs further, your extension of invitation. 

Everything following afterwards occurs in blocks of time, the flutter-shut of his eyes as he collects himself at your words, him lining himself up with you and then him pushing in. On sleepless nights, you'd considered what this moment would be like, you anticipated pain and while there's a sear of it, there's more relief. Not in that you're doing this with someone you love, but the fact that it would feel good. And that Jungwon delivers on. 

Plenty of adjustment time is given to you, his palm smoothing over the skin of your forehead before it's kissed, sugar-sweetness in his voice as he asks if you're ok. At this point, he's buried to the hilt and it's compressed your lungs from the inside-out, the stretch of him an element to account for. But the fullness? How engulfed and full you feel, with all of him snug in you, arms caging your body with his mouth possessive against blooming bruises on your neck? Your brain cannot comprehend the kaleidoscope of sensory and emotional information. 

Then he moves. Eyes locked where you connect, watching while you feel him almost pull out entirely, only his tip left before he feeds himself back in, slow and unhurried. The keen at the back of your throat comes with the curl your body does into itself, nails seeking refuge in the duvet cover. Shallow thrusts follow, pulling the want out of you as every thrust, however minimal adds fuel to the fire, discomfort dissipating with the slow bloom of pleasure, your voice no longer yours as moans empty with every grind. 

"Sound so pretty when I'm in you," Jungwon smiles, grabbing the collar of his shirt to take his t-shirt off. The hard ridges of his toned torso make you squeal, walls coming down on Jungwon's cock. "Keep this up and I'm gonna keep stuffed forever."

The filth he speaks with contrasts sharply with the dimpled smile he gives you, endearment unapologetic and ever-flowing as Jungwon maintains his slow grinds into you, your jaw unhinging as shallow pants empty out of your mouth. 

You must feed his ego with all your reactions, face permanently scrunched as Jungwon rubs slow circles against your clit, coaxing your walls to have some give as his thrusts remain shallow and controlled. Every place your skin meets his feels explosive, cells vibrating with the slow drizzle of ecstasy you find yourself drowning in, thighs twitching as one of your ankles hooks around his waist, looking for an anchor.

His eyebrow raises, the beckon of your hand bringing him closer, his hips in no way stalled as he switches to torturous grind into you, pelvis grinding up against your clit in an action you squirm at, holding onto him hopelessly as he engulfs your vision's field.

"Won," you moan, leaned into the hand he cups your cheek with. "Faster, please...I want more."

The thumb giving your skin calming caresses halts midway, a momentary pause where his eyes linger on your lips and the squirm of your hips bucking for friction, before his moves again. Down to your chin and flirts with your neck, no pressure applied except for his index finger down on your pulse, erratic thunder beneath his fingertip. 

"What my angel wants," his lips curve, sharp at their edges. "She gets."

It's the last of his sweetness you see, your request fulfilled as he lifts from the human cage his body makes over yours, situating your legs with a wider spread and better grip. He pulls out of the home he's made in between your legs, leaving nothing but his beaded tip for your walls to cling to before he sinks in again, with no remorse for the drying gasp you do. Your brain barely has time to catch up to the fill of him, the rhythm his thrusts set almost claiming as he notches into you feverishly, a subtle build but with enough speed to undo the last of his restraint, his head thrown back as his Adam's apple bobs, a trail of sweat gliding against its column. 

It's too much all at once ─ the incessant pressure of him pistoning into you, deep enough to make his claim of you everywhere and the image of him, so worked up yet so relieved. Sheer bliss is born amongst his features as his head lolls back to you, eyes drinking you in with unmatched attention. Losing yourself in the building coil pulling tighter, you're acutely unaware of how Jungwon sees you: the precious body before him, breasts bouncing with every thrust delivered, thighs trembling beneath his bruising grip with a face so perfectly strung in rapture he wills himself not to come. You look every bit of heaven he feels, the lurch of his heart mirrored by his hand as it soars to knead the flesh of your tits, soft skin under his palm as his fingers flick over your sensitive nipples. 

"Taking me so good," Jungwon's voice makes it over the slaps of skin, his biggest competitor the moans you've given up withholding. "Aren't you a good girl for me?" 

Your enthusiastic nods earn a chesty chuckle, an itch scratched as his fingers pinch your pebbled nipple, Jungwon getting off at the squirm you do, huddling into yourself as if you can escape him. 

He knows how to reel you back in though.

"Oh, you just love praise, don't you? Love hearing me tell you how pretty you sound, how good you are at taking cock," he coos, heart growing three sizes at how you visibly undo at his words, eyes doing a reveal with the bat of curled lashes. "You're just a sweet little thing that likes getting fucked, right princess?"

He deserts your tits for your face, thumb smoothing over the plush of your pouted lips, resting in their middle. They aren't usually words you'd say out loud, your response, but even as your head turns with the deniable sheepishness hiking your cheeks up, he sees right through you. 

"You're cute trying to hide from me," he muses, a gentle hand directing your eyes back onto him. "It's no use. Not when this pretty pussy's clenching around me."

His thumb presses and you comply, parting your lips and letting him fill your mouth as he drives further into you, somehow maintaining the constant chase he does after your orgasm, pleased moan hummed into the wet slick of his skin. 

"God, you're gonna make me come sounding like that," he curses, a knit to his eyebrow as sweat beads between them, breaths coming with lapses in his chest. "I'll take care of you first. How about that, princess? Stretch you out, reach all the places your fingers can't,"

You're squirming again, hips with a mind of their own, moan blending into the flesh of his thumb your tongue lolls around, parting with a trail you mewl at. It disconnects once far enough, most of it dribbled down your kissed lips parting open again as Jungwon finds your clit, ample slick for the circles he draws on you, unearthing squeals that white-knucle your hands to the duvet covers. 

"It's okay, baby. You've got me now," he coos, affection in the face of his punishing thrusts. "I'll cherish you, I'll treat you well,"

"I'll fuck you like you deserve." 

His words have you in a complete daze, head spun in endless loops that never allow your mind to settle, on zeroing in on the feeling deep-seated in your stomach, so big and explosive you're scared of what it'll bring. 

Jungwon's right there with you, holding your hand as you brace for impact. 

"You wanna come?" he asks, voice hoarse. His eyes track down to where you connect, a white ring of your mixed fluids around his cock. "God, this isn't enough, but I'm gonna come too,"

Regret rings heavy in his words, his frustration your own as your lips tremble, wondering if you'll ever feel this good again. 

"Promise we'll do this again?" 

His sentence hits your eardrums like a pin, prickled with a waver and vulnerability he's been stripped down to, your legs hoisted onto his shoulders before he leans down towards you, tearing a yelp out your rasped throat as he buries further into you, bucking up into you with all the desperation he offers.

Close like this, skin-to-skin, you share breaths, cycled between searching lips only just missing each other, the sight of his eyes unforgettable as they swim in the ocean of his defencelessness. 

"I need to hear it," he chokes, torn gaze cast away then directed back to you, a kiss pressed in time with a thrust. "You promise, princess?"

Your fingers sail to the dishevel of his hair, making more of a mess in your own desperation, body ticking away as your eyes brim with overwhelm, chest burning with your release. 

"I promise."

It's sealed with your release, the pressure built over stretches of time erupting with the last overlap of your lips, yell echoed off his lips as you come. The feeling rips right through you, electric through bodily cell as your eyes roll back, a helpless grasp at the sides of Jungwon's face as your head cocks back, body bowing off the mattress. No word can even attempt to describe how you feel, suspended in air that can only compare to a freefall, soaring through whistled air before you're hung amongst the clouds, coming down with a regulated breath pattern after its shudders paired with the ones passing through your body.

Unbeknownst to you, Jungwon experiences a similar fate, laying witness to your orgasm capturing him as if you never want to part, velvety walls coming down on him with a taste for ruin. He has no choice but to fall apart, starved for the last few pumps his greed seeks before he pushes himself deepest in you, spilling over in white, thick ropes. It takes everything in him ─ the awareness he'd hurt you otherwise ─ to keep himself rooted in place, core burning as his forearms keep him suspend, his head hung as he catches his breath. 

The lazed film coating his eyes, speaking to his exertion, is prompted to clear at the feeling of fingers in his hair. They're tender, unhurried like their prior pull, and in the soft hum from your chest, his head is coaxed to lift upwards, pushing your legs down at his sides when he gazes up at you. In a glowing sheen, you beam a closed-mouth smile, twirling the end of his hair around your finger. Much like he is, having given himself over to you, its evidence seeping trying to seep out the walls he's plugged himself in, neither of you in any hurry for its discard. Unravelled around your finger, it moves down to his face as it descends down the slope of his nose, ghosting over his lips to rest in one corner of his lips, a question in your eyes. 

"You okay?"

Despite his fatigue, he can't help but chuckle. "I should be asking you that." 

Your lip corners lift higher, downturning in a brush of timidity. 

"Are you?" Jungwon asks, sincere now. Eyes searching yours. "Are you okay?"

Happy? 

Silence denotes the moment, nothing but the murmured sounds of night and sleeping figures taking any shred of spared space. Your index finger thoughtfully taps into the crevice of his lip corner, soaking in its feel as well as your own. 

It doesn't take long for you to answer back. 

"Yeah, I am," you croak, sincerity shining back into his eyes. "I will be too." 

That's all Jungwon needs to hear before he's summoned enough strength to inch himself upwards, peppering your face in adoring kisses you giggle at, fingers in his hair then and after you two drift into a slumber, the world beyond his bedroom walls forgotten. 

Jungwon has a hard time getting out of bed the next morning.

Not because his exhaustion keeps him chained to his bed, but because you're there with him. Peacefully asleep with limbs tangled in his, something he's somehow missed yearning for. Not plagued with yesterday's earlier woes, your chest rises and falls as you sleep soundlessly, nose only twitching when Jungwon's thumb caresses over the flesh of your cheek, wondering how any of this is real. 

If it'll continue being real.

Before he can stop his own mental spiral, your arms encase him, eyes closed as you pull him closer. His smile is as true as can be as you nuzzle into him, the warmth of your close bodies unwinding the creep of tension in his, his body finally at ease as he falls back asleep. 

An hour or two later, the comfort of his bedroom is swapped for the cold of the kitchen, his clothing draped over you in oversize as you sit at the kitchen counter, the extent of him letting you help with breakfast being keeping him company. Over the flip and sizzle of fresh pancakes, Jungwon finds himself grateful not only for you, but the fact that Sunoo ─ an early riser like himself ─ has plans, keeping him from discovering his one and only cousin spent the night. He didn't need to know just yet whatever…this is. While Riki poses somewhat of the same threat, it'll be hours before he trudges downstairs, swaddled in a blanket with his hair scraping the high ceilings.

Like this, Jungwon's shoulders unwind, cease their climb to his earlobes and he basks in it, the warmth and quiet of his home, the taps of your nails against kitchen counter, some song hummed absently under your breath and the domesticity of it all. What he hopes can someday become his permanent reality. 

"I broke up with him," you say, a confession abrupt enough for Jungwon to cast a sidelong glance, pancakes browning. The least he does is heighten his eyebrows, saving the rest of his reaction in internal monologue. "I should've said so before but,"

He hears a knock of bone into the counter, your elbow braced into the slab as your chin rests in your palm, a pout on your lips with eyes that seem far away. Out his realm of understanding. 

"He sent me all these frantic texts after I ended the call, saying everything was out of context and that he could explain." 

Even Jungwon can't hide the scoff he does, turning the stove off with an eye roll.

"Of course, there was nothing to explain. I'd heard it all," a flash of hurt crosses your eyes, and Jungwon white knuckles the spatula unloading the pancakes onto your plates. He'd do any to scrub Jaehyun's existence from your brain, not for his own selfish reasons anymore ─ just so you wouldn't have to carry the baggage of hurt he's brought you.

"I ended it right then and there. Told him we were through," you conclude, brimming a closed mouth smile, extending when he draws closer with your plate. Whipped cream and sprinkles he's specially set aside for your share are in his other hand, a funny feeling in your chest at the sight. "So, we don't have anything to worry about."

Jungwon's eyebrow can't help but quirk, the question sharp on his tongue. Heavy in his throat. 

"We?"

You're not as stumped by the question as he imagined, a raise of your shoulders coming with comfort blended in the soft curve of your lips. 

"If you wanted to," is your suggestion, shaking the can of whipped cream. "I mean, I'm a bit of a mess at the moment and probably shouldn't be proposing anything serious right now, but─" 

Your words die in the press of Jungwon's lips, his body leaned over the counter to meet you. It's soft and tender, how things have always been with him, a smile coming with the gentle reminder as your hand deserts the can and lays across your cheek, thumb resting in the dip of his dimple. 

A sincere lock of the lips and another press of him is all you get before he centres in your vision again, nothing but patience in his expression. "In your own time. You figure stuff out ─ how you feel, how you'll move forward and whenever you're ready, I'll be here,"

"Even if it's not me," his voice carries an echo, lid unscrewed before he gets out a heart sprinkle, placing it atop the swirl of cream. His eyes cut back to you, honest as he'll ever be before he adds, "I'll be here because my support is the least of what you deserve." 

It happens suddenly, the flood of emotion rushing up your chest and to your eyes, a miserable wobble of your lips cooed over as Jungwon gives a light chuckle, hand to your cheek as a tear is wiped. "Thank you."

"No need," is his quick answer, your plate pushed closer as he gives you a nod. "Eat up before it gets cold."

A hum dislodges from your throat, gulped down with the rest of emotion's ugly flare, heart still seemingly in two. It's to be expected, despite everything. Jaehyun was someone you'd projected your life intertwined with, stretching far beyond the scope of university with your white-picket fence and sold sign outside your two-storey house. You'd loved him, undeniably so, and with the reveal of how sorely misplaced it'd been…your reaction is warranted. Has a place, as Jungwon's expressed, where you'll sort through all your fondness, the signs you'll hate yourself for seeing in hindsight and whatever else comes with the crumble of hopeful dreams. And in that, you'll find yourself again. Who you are beyond the label of a girlfriend, someone who stands in their own right and still loves with all their heart because even if Jaehyun screwed you over, you'll bloom again. Because love given is never wasted. 

Fondness comes in a blanket draped over Jungwon's shoulders, seen in his lopsided smile as he watches you decorate the rest of your pancakes, excitement tipped in the corners of your lips as you snap quick photos before digging in. He watches it all unfolds, cutlery put to use and served to your mouth enveloping the fluff before the hum comes. Overflowing with satisfaction, eyes alight as they sparkle, flavours dancing on your tongue. His heart lurches, like it's always done, but at least now, the phenomenon doesn't feel as lonely, Jungwon no longer on his one-man island as he rejoins society, feeling everything before he can sort it into boxes, because despite what you'd said about yourself being a mess, he likes it. Prefers the chips in the mosaic you've made of yourself, of everyone he's letting in properly this time and allows himself to be the same ─ an imperfect mosaic, pieces of everyone he's ever loved. 

There's nothing but goodness engulfing Jungwon, his own plate in hand as he settles down beside you with a playful shoulder nudge, the same one done by you with a smile. Jungwon realises, despite how picturesque and pure the scene is, he can still be evil. Not wholly, but enough to make you look like an angel. Though his future intentions don't denote the same villainess, he carries some of it while you busy yourself with pancakes in his kitchen, phone at his side as he sends off an anonymous text to the man he'll drive wild. Your dear ex-boyfriend who never stood a chance. 

Unknown number: Beat you to it. 

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Al. We all know the term by now. Marketed by the companies giving it to you as this magical robot tool that can do anything. It can help you with homework. It can create images for you. It can write works for you, and you can even talk to it like a person. But is it really as magical as it's made to appear?

Artificial Intelligence and the continued production of newer and more complex models of it has a negative impact on the art industries, communities, and the planet. But for now, we'll mainly focus on how it impacts our environment and the world we live in. So, Why Is Al Bad For The Planet?

Al Data Centers

Typically, when you think of Artificial Intelligence, you just think of this digital entity that can run on your phone, computer, tablet, or other such devices.

However, the systems behind these Al models operate remotely in large buildings called data centers. They are buildings that contain thousands of computers used for storing data and processing things like prompts for generative Al models.

Fossil Fuels

Many data centers are powered with the burning of fossil fuels, a method of power generation that is responsible for nearly 90% of CO2 emissions into the atmosphere, and over 75% of greenhouse gas emissions in general, making them the dominant cause of global warming.

These data centers actively delay efforts to retire fossil fuel-based methods of power generation for the sake of the environment.

Energy Consumption

In order for generative Al models to have the ability to generate such varied and complex content from a prompt, they require a mass amount of computing power.

What also consumes a large amount of energy is training the Al model on the data it uses to function in the ways it is

known to. One 100 word email generated by ChatGPT consumes 0.14 kWh, enough to power 14 led light bulbs for an hour. That doesn't seem like much, right? Well, that number builds up very quickly, because a LOT of people use ChatGPT several times a day, whether it be to write a grocery list, or a whole essay. A recent study showcases that on average, ChatGPT consumes 39.98 MILLION kwh each DAY, which is enough electrical power to charge 8 million cell phones. Okay, so Al uses a lot of electricity. Why is this a problem?

Well, electricity is a secondary power source, meaning it has to first come from somewhere else. Much of the energy used to power computers in Al data centers comes from-you guessed it! Burning fossil fuels. And with how normalized it is right now to use ChatGPT for everything, that's a LOT of energy consumption. Therefore, a lot of CO2 being put into our atmosphere daily.

Water Consumption

Electricity isn’t the only thing consumed in AI data centers, though. AI drinks water. But obviously it cannot consume water the same way biotic organisms do, so what does that mean?

How AI consumes water has to do with the fact that in these data centers, constant consumption of electricity for the purpose of training AI or having it create output heats up the computers that the systems operate on. If the computers are left to overheat, they risk damaging their components, and they can stop working. So what these data centers do is they use water as a cooling system.

In order for this method of cooling to work, the water must be clean and free of contaminants, or else bacteria or corrosion in the systems might become a problem. This means that the water used for this is mainly potable water from local water sources.

That same 100 word email generated by ChatGPT from earlier in terms of water consumption would use up 519 mL, which is a little bit more than one bottle of water. Every day, an estimated 39.16 million gallons of water is consumed by ChatGPT data centers, which is enough to fill 978,000 bathtubs. Much of this water that is used up for cooling is also lost via evaporation.

RAM And It's Rising Prices

Another point to mention is that the price of RAM memory chips and by extension, any devices that make use of them like laptops, PCs, tablets, you name it, are skyrocketing because the companies creating and selling them are choosing to greatly invest in providing them to companies in the Al industry instead of regular customers.

This increases the demand, and therefore overall cost. What this also does is promote expansion of the Al industry, enabling companies to create more data centers and computers used in gen Al models, and therefore increasing water and energy consumption.

Residential Effects

These problems can negatively affect local communities that have to live near these data centers. Average electricity bills in areas rise if the data center uses too much electricity.

Many residents find themselves low on water because the data centers take potable water away from local sources of it that are used to run households, or for drinking water for people. In some cases, water that has been used in data centers finds its way back into those local water sources, which can carry sediment into peoples' pipes it if it hasn't been properly treated. Much of this is to the detriment of local populations.

Scientific Effects

Artificial intelligence's impact on the environment also affects everyone and everything on the planet, even you! Natural disasters, droughts, decreases in biodiversity due to declines in populations of plants and animals that can't function under rapidly changing environments are all consequences of climate change, and the significant pollution and CO2 being released into the atmosphere by Al data centers contributes to the problem.

Many scientists and environmental experts are critical of artificial intelligence and its implementation into everything in the digital world because of reasons like this. It negatively impacts communities on both a local and global scale.

Solutions, Setbacks, and More Solutions

So what should be done about the generative Al problem?

Well, if the environmental aspect was the only flaw with how these systems operate, a solution could be to plan initiatives to switch the data centers to more green energy sources and methods of cooling that don't take away from local resources, but unfortunately environmental impact is not the only danger Al poses.

It's also very often trained on data from unconsenting artists who are not compensated for their work, effectively making it equivalent to a plagiarism tool. It very often spreads misinformation, or is used to spread disinformation. There are several privacy risks associated with Al algorithms collecting user data to be given to third parties. It's often used to create illegal and inappropriate content of innocent people.

Sometimes people create parasocial relationships with and feed personal information to Al chat bots, as well as said relationships having an unhealthy mental impact on them.

These are just some of the other problems summarized.

So really, in terms of generative Al like ChatGPT, a viable solution may just be to decrease if not cease use of it among people. It does not need to be implemented into everything. Even you can help contribute to this by choosing to just not use Al for everything. You can write that 100 word email by yourself, you don't need a robot to do it for you.

Because if people as a collective stop sending the message to Al companies that this is a necessary tool everybody wants, there is a chance there will no longer be as much prioritization on this seemingly endless expansion of it.

A challenge this could pose is that there are tools powered by Al that do have genuine use to people, like translation, inspiration, and finding the exact info you want without having to dive through 20 different articles that just drag on without getting to the point and at the same time shoving advertisements in your face constantly.

To which I say, put more focus into developing reliable, human powered alternatives to those. More easily accessible sources of information that you can easily get to without skimming for an hour, open source and accurate human-powered translators, and websites dedicated to inspiration that comes from ethical places. Many of current sources for information also are constantly paywalling information with service subscriptions, so these tools should be free and accessible for all.

Results For Everyone

The result of this solution offered would be that with a lack of Al data centers or even just greatly reduced activity and power usage, there would be lowered electricity bills for nearby residents, and easier access to water, with less risk of it being over-consumed to cool Al units.

This reduced activity would also lead to a lowered global carbon footprint, with greatly lowered CO2 emissions. Prices of devices and RAM would most likely lower with decreased demand from the companies in the Al industry taking away resources from regular customers, making them more affordable.

Overall, the results would be significant amounts of energy and resources saved, predominantly benefitting both people, and our planet.

In Conclusion.

Al is not the utopic, futuristic supertool that it's cracked out to be by the people trying to sell it to you. In general, it does more harm than good. Reduced initiative on endlessly growing the industry of generative Al would cut back on the resources they take up and lessen the global carbon footprint, helping our planet and everything living on it.

But part of this solution starts on a smaller scale. Reduced Al usage with individual people and populations. One person choosing to not write that email with ChatGPT may not seem like a lot, but if millions of people make that same choice? That is where progress happens. So please, write that email, draw that art (even if you think you're not good at it! Practice makes progress!), find those little websites people make to supply you with handy little tools! It is worth it.

Some of my favorite resources:

Ecosia.org - a web browser that uses its funding to plant trees

Wordhippo.com - A thesaurus and word tool that can help with writing, whether it be essays, or creative writing in your free time

One thing you did fully remember was him answering on one of the first few rings, picking up with a groggy ‘hello’. Your mind conjured up a photo of him, shirtless, sweatpants low on his hips, on his bed. Eyes glossy from sleep, he squinted in confusion at your name coming across his screen. 

“Hi.” A giggle escaped your mouth accidentally, already losing all composure, drunk Y/n’s brain had mustered up. 

“Hello?” He asked again, clearing his throat awkwardly. “Are you okay?” 

“Oh, I’m great.” You slurred, twirling around the sink area. “But I miss you. Miss you lots.” 

He took in a deep breath, and you imagined his large hands dragging down his face in realization that you were hammered. 

“Y/n. Where are you? Are you safe?” Ever the mother hen, you could hear him shuffling around, presumably throwing clothes on. 

“Oh, I’m safe, Superman-” You cut yourself off, looking around the quiet bathroom before whispering. “Superman. So take the trunks off. Unless you wanna keep them on. God, do you remember that one time-” 

“Hey, hey. You’re gonna regret this in the morning.” He sighed, “Where are your friends?” 

You shrugged and continued stumbling around the porcelain sink, forgetting that he couldn’t see you. 

“Y/n.” 

“Clark.” 

“Where are your friends?” 

“Ohhhh.” You laughed, “Drunk. Dancing. They don’t know I’m calling you.” 

Another exasperated sigh came from the speaker, “Of course they don’t.” 

“I’m coming to get you.” He decided after a few moments of silence, nothing but your small giggles letting you know you were indeed still there. 

“You don’t even know where I am-” 

“Y/n, I could find you anywhere in the world. Meet me outside.” 

His words pierced your heart, knowing he still cared for you. It sobered you up enough to fix your hair and stumble to the door, but it didn’t sober you up enough to stop you from finding him. It was easy enough to spot the 6 foot giant amongst the crowd. Once your hazy eyes meet his, it's as if every muscle in his body relaxes at the same time. As soon as he knew you were safe, nothing else mattered. He’d be lying if he said he’d also been taking the breakup well, but it’s what was for the best. At least that’s what he kept telling himself.  

“Hey.” You blurted out as soon as you were standing in front of him. 

“Hi.” He breathed out, placing his hand gently on the small of your back to steady you. “Let’s get you home.” 

“I don’t wanna go home.” A whine left your lips, but Clark never stopped, still ushering you down the sidewalk.  

“Your blood alcohol content is through the roof. You’re gonna make yourself sick-“ You drowned out his fussing, content to watch the way his back muscles rippled in his shirt. Shamelessly gawking at his arms as he pulled you through the subway station. 

“I’d fly you if I wasn’t worried you’d throw up on me.” He sighed, using his card to pay for our tickets, still ushering you like a mother hen. Rambling on and on about being safe as a woman, treating your body the way it deserves. He did this all the way to his apartment, presumably so he could sit with you all night, making sure you didn’t choke in your sleep. 

Once you crossed the threshold into his apartment, you were decidedly more sober than you wanted to be to deal with being around Clark. He still used the same room spray; it still smelled like him, like home. His work papers were strewn all over the counters, and old coffee cups were in the sink. Except this time, absent were your own used mugs, the candles you had lit in every room. The empty vase still sat on his counter, the one he used to fill with fresh flowers for you every Sunday. 

“Remember when you used to bend me over this counter when we got home from work.” You stated casually, causing Clark to drop the cup of water he was bringing you back into the sink. 

“G-golly what?” He stumbled over his words, trying to fill the cup up again for you. 

“Mm, just thinking about it.” Humming to your own words, you gladly gulped at the water, taking a pain pill he’d also collected for you. “There was also that one time that you floated us to the ceiling-“

“I forgot you’re a horny drunk.” He let out a sigh. 

“No, you didn’t.” You squinted your eyes at him, “When I had wine nights with Lois, you’d be anxiously awaiting for me to come home and ride you on the couch-“ 

Clark’s cheeks flamed red, nearly covering his ears with his hands like a toddler. “This is highly inappropriate.” 

“Probably. It would be so fun, though.” You sighed wistfully, still leaning against the counter. The granite cooling off your flushed skin. 

“There will be no funny business. Now come on. Let’s get you in bed.” He ordered, shooing you into the bedroom. Stumbling into the bathroom, you rummaged around his drawers, finding a new pack of makeup wipes. Frowning to yourself, did he have a new girlfriend already? Was she already making herself at home in the place you called home for a year? 

When he stood in the doorway with the clothes he had for you, he nearly read your mind. Ending your drunk mind from wandering. “Just in case. Know you hate to sleep with makeup on.” 

“Were you expecting me to drunk call you?” 

“I wasn’t not expecting it. I know you.” 

He did know you, and you hated it. He knew everything about you, from your deepest darkest fears, how you liked your coffee in the mornings, and just how much you loved to be known. It was what made you fall for him so quickly, just how much he cared to love you. 

Rolling your eyes, you pushed him out of the bathroom, stumbling into an oversized Metropolis University shirt and a pair of his boxers. You couldn’t help but notice your toothbrush still next to his, another pang to your chest. 

When you walked into his room, he was doing a full turndown of his bed like you were in a hotel, primping the pillows to your liking. 

“I’m all out of pillow mints.” He joked, cracking a weak smile. Pretending that seeing you in his clothes again didn’t have his heart racing a mile a minute. 

“We have a story about that, too.” You grinned, but this time it didn’t quite reach your eyes. Flashbacks to your first vacation with him, when neither of you realized there was candy on the bed, only realizing when he woke up with melted chocolate all over his back. It appears Clark had the same thought, shaking his head softly as if he was shaking the memory away. 

He cleared his throat, “Well, I have some water and crackers for you. I think you should eat real food, but I know you get sick easily.” 

“Thank you.” You whispered, taking a few steps forward. “I’m really sorry again.” 

“No problem. I'll be on the couch if you need me.” 

Crawling into your once shared bed felt worse than if you had gone home alone, drunk and wallowing in self-pity. 

“Goodnight.” He whispered, the door clicking gently behind him. Your eyes squinted shut hard, hands coming up to cover your face. You wanted nothing more than for him to turn around. To hear the door swing open and for him to crawl into bed with you, to hold you like he loved you one last time. Except you didn’t want it to be the last time. 

Clark broke up with you to keep you safe, the same cliche selfless superhero front you told him was pointless. But with one bad run-in and Clark nearly being too late, something in him broke. He’d rather break both of your hearts in the process than even risk something awful happening to you. That led you here, tossing and turning in sheets that held years' worth of memories. 

Unable to sleep, you’ve downed a whole sleeve of crackers, texted your friends you were safe (omitting you were in your ex's bed), and tried to pretend Clark wasn’t right through the door just across the hall. 

“Fuck it.” You mumbled to yourself, slowly padding across the wooden floor to the living room. The dim television light reflected off Clark’s tired eyes from where he sat on the couch. City lights pour into the room. You always loved this apartment. The view was your favorite, especially when Clark would fly down into the window to kiss you goodnight if he had Superman business to take care of. He never missed a goodnight kiss. 

Lost in another loop of memory, you knew Clark was pretending not to hear you. Continuing into the kitchen, you somehow managed to bump into every little thing, the small amount of alcohol still flowing through your veins making you clumsier than normal. 

“I’m hungry.” You whispered in a yell to him, where his head finally popped up from the couch, staring at you indignantly. 

“I can make you something.” He stood up, stretching his arms with a small yawn. With this action, his shirt rose, showing his pelvic bone and that delicious happy trail. 

“Grilled cheese?” Smiling widely at him, already helping him collect the ingredients. 

“Only if you butter the bread.” 

The two of you worked in tandem, a perfect machine of bread buttering, cheese handling, and Clark’s perfect grilling. Moaning the moment you finally bit into the cheesy carbohydrates. 

“I miss your cooking.” You managed between bites. 

He gave you a pointed look. “It’s grilled cheese.” 

“And I suck at making them.” 

“You did almost burn the house down once.” A small laugh escaped him as he finished off his own, leaving the crust on his plate. Reaching over, you snatched the bread, popping it into your mouth. A routine you found hard to escape. This made Clark feel sick to his stomach. The domesticated life he’d so desperately missed was right here in front of him again. The life he wanted more than anything. The life he himself sabotaged due to his own fears. 

What good was depriving himself of the one thing that made him feel on top of the world? It wasn’t the cape, the status, the heroism. It was you. In all your tipsy, greasy-fingered glory, sitting here at his kitchen counter. 

“Hey-“ You both spoke at the same time, leaving both of you with muffled giggles. Urging Clark to go first, you swirled your barstool around to face him. 

“I just wanted to say sorry. I’m sorry for making you feel like you had to get drunk just to talk to me. I know things haven't been- if you’ve been anything like I've been- what I'm trying to say is,” He took a deep breath, “I just wanted what’s best for you.” 

“What’s best for me is you.” You said quickly, 

“Y/n.” He sighed, beginning to get up from the counter. Using his best scolding voice. 

“Clark.” You mocked, not backing down from the conversation you’ve been dying to have for the past few months. 

“You know I can’t.” His voice was hoarse, like each word pained him to say. 

“Can’t or won’t?” Challenging him now, standing toe to toe with him. 

“I won’t put you in danger.” 

“Wouldn’t I be safer with you than without? Newsflash, Clark, they can still target me even if we aren’t together! Because they know I'd mean something to you. I don’t know if you’re punishing yourself for no reason or what,” You rambled, clearly the alcohol is still impacting your thought process, “But I love you. And I know you love me. So what are we torturing ourselves for?” 

His blue eyes shone down at you, the city lights reflecting off his face. He sat with your thoughts, promising himself he wouldn’t say anything he didn’t mean.

 “You’re so beautiful.” That was all he landed on, looking down at you. Glitter still stuck to your face, hair an unruly mess, in his old clothes, and he’d never seen anything more beautiful. And here you were fighting for him still, despite all he had put you through. 

“W-what?” You squinted up at him, your chest still pounding. “No, don't do that. I’m trying to argue with you here.” 

“Do you wanna argue?” He asked flatly, his hand reaching to cup your face gently. 

“Kinda.” Your shoulders fell in defeat, the adrenaline you had making your fingertips tingle. 

“I love you. I’m so in love with you that every day I wake up petrified that something is going to happen to you, because that’s not something I could live through. Not something I’d want to live through. You need to understand that. It would b-break me.” He spoke, pressing his forehead to yours. “Was it stupid of me to let you go? Yes. You have to know that I thought I was doing what was best. I promise.” 

You nodded against his head, your lips brushing together ever so slightly. “You really broke my heart, Clark Kent.” 

“I will spend every single day making it up to you. If you even thought of giving me another chance.” He promised, his eyes showing he meant every word. “I’ll make you shitty grilled cheese every day. I’ll fly you to work every day so you never have to take the train, I'll do the dishes because I know you hate it, I’ll-“ 

You cut him off, for my surging towards him, pressing your lips to his roughly. His hands automatically cradle the back of your head, pulling you closer. Both of you quickly fell back into the rhythm that had become second nature. His body engulfed yours, pushing your back into the counter gently. 

His mouth left yours, pressing small kisses down your neck. “Turn around.” His words muffled into your skin. 

Obliging him quickly, letting your upper half lean on the stone. Your body tingling at the prospect of having him again. His hands went to your hips, pulling down his own boxers off your legs, “M’ gonna make it up to you, baby. Gonna show you how sorry I am.” 

All you could do was nod as he pulled your shirt up, pressing soft kisses from your back down to your core. He wasted no time in pressing his face into you, his tongue finding your sweet spot. 

“Oh fuck.” Your hands palmed at the counter, broken moans falling out of your mouth each time his nose nudged against you. He was pulling you apart expertly with his tongue, spreading your legs as far as he could. 

Leaning back, you grabbed the back of his head, pushing him even further into your cunt if that was possible. “Right there, baby. Please” 

You didn’t even know what you were begging for; he had no intention of stopping. He was making up for lost time, for every night he went to sleep with cum filled boxers at the thought of tasting you on his tongue one last time. If he suffocated here, he’d gladly accept his fate. 

“Clark.” Letting out a weak moan of his name, he simply hummed into you. Repeating his name, he pulled away reluctantly, bringing his hand up to slip a finger inside. 

“Yeah, baby?” He asked, his eyes fixated on how easily your body responded to him.  His finger curling deep inside you. 

“Need you.” You begged, gripping the counter once again. “Need you to fuck me.” 

“Oh, baby. Anything you need.” He cooed, letting his tongue give you one last lick, all the way from your clit, your ass, all the way up to your midback. Every hair on your body stood up, whimpering at the sudden sensation. Then he was standing up and ridding himself of his shorts quickly, his cock standing at attention. His thick, veiny cock twitching at the mere thought of being inside you again. 

Wagging your bottom at him while he got himself ready just made him groan, lining himself up faster. “I love you so much.” He spoke as a vow while he slid himself in. You hissed at the stretch, but welcomed it gladly. 

“Oh fuck.” The groan Clark let out was ungodly, his hips stuttering inside you. His body leaning on yours, pressing soft kisses to the back of your neck. 

You were lost in the bliss, your eyes closed, the only thing bringing you back to reality was the cool counter, making your nipples pebble up. 

“You can move.” A whine left your lips, wiggling your hips back onto him. A hiss left his lips, his hands stilling your movements. 

“I need a second.” He whispered, his ears turning red. It took you a moment to realize, a soft giggle leaving your lips. “It’s been a long time.” His voice was high, embarrassed at the idea that he was inside of you for all of a few seconds, and he was trying not to cum already. 

A lazy smile on your face as you cherished the feeling of his body on yours, having him so completely. A few seconds later, you could feel Clark giving himself a small pep talk, warning you he was about to start moving. 

Moans leaving your mouth the moment his hips began moving. He moved slowly, mummering sweet nothings in your ear. He was so deep at this angle that it was taking your breath away every time his hips met yours. 

“Clark.” You managed out, one of his hands moving up your body to wrap around your throat, not to apply pressure, just to hold you close. 

“Y/n.” He spoke your name sweetly, his other hand moving between your legs, knowing exactly what you needed. He knew your body like the back of his hand, and he’d never forget what made you mewl. His fingers began rubbing soft circles on your clit, his hips still thrusting deep and steady into you. 

He’d bent you over this counter so many times, after work, during breakfast, whenever he got the chance. But this time was different; it felt like coming home after a long day. The way your silhouette looked in the darkened kitchen, the view of the city he loved in the background. This was all he needed. 

“Fuck.” You leaned up on your elbows, twisting your head at an awkward angle to attach your lips to his messily. Drinking in each other's whimpers as you both neared your peak. 

“I love you.” The words slipped out of your mouth like second nature, your chest blossoming at being able to say the words again. Once you started, you couldn’t stop. “I love you. I love you.” 

“I know, baby. I love you more.” He grunted, his hips speeding up, feeling how tight you were clenching around him. Your wetness pooling where you two were connected, the sounds spurring on Clark’s own high. “Want us to come at the same time.” 

All you could do was nod, pleading with him not to stop. But you knew he never would. He would die before he stopped pleasing you; he’d spend every moment inside of you if he could. 

Clark’s lips grazed your earlobe, biting down gently. This was your final straw, the ever-growing pressure in your cunt about to come apart.“I’m so close.” 

“Come on, baby. Come on. Cum on my cock.” Clark puncuated with his thrusts, his fingers applying more pressure to where you were connected. It didn’t take long at all for him to pry an orgasm out of you. At the first gush of your release, Clark was right behind, his cock spilling into you as if on command. Your cunt greedily sucking in every bit of him. 

“So good. So m’fuckin tight.” He panted, slowly coming to a stop, holding up your limp body as if you were as weightless as you felt. 

“Missed you. So much.” You whined, your legs trembling in his hold. Smoothing down your hair, he gave you gentle kisses to your neck, moving slowly to help you wind down. Knowing that both of you were overwhelmed, both physically and mentally. It had been such a long night and months since you guys had each had any physical release. It was months of heartbreak and tension, finally bursting at the seams.

“Let’s get you cleaned up.” He gently lifted you into his arms, carrying you into the bathroom. The rest was blurry, still running off your high when he gently cleaned you off, dressing you in a clean shirt. 

“You’re making pancakes in the morning.” Were the first words you spoke once he placed you in bed, crawling in next to you. Both of you settling into your respective sides of the bed. 

“You read my mind, baby. I’ll make you pancakes every single day. For the rest of our lives.” he spoke, his eyes holding to the promise. All you could do was smile at him with all the love in the world. 

“I know.” 

Sleep came to you quickly the moment his warm arms wrapped around yours, snuggling into his hard chest. He pressed a final kiss to your forehead, letting the rhythm of your breathing lull him to sleep. 

You don’t know how many shots you dunked into your system, drink after drink, you joined in a game of truth or dare and for every time you refused to do or answer anything remotely related to your sex life, shots of whisky burned down your throat; which resulted in your already drunk ass.

You hated mentioning anything of it, or more lack of it. You barely even kissed a dude, and that was embarrassing enough to admit around your friend group, no one needed to know you have never gotten fucked in your life. Even Hermionie has lost her virginity long before you and she wasn’t even the proactive type!

Despite your constant complaints, you didn’t wish for anyone to be up your ass; you had your eyes on a boy, granted he was entirely out of your grasp, but he was the only person who you would allow to take you from the back even if it were for a one-night-stand.

The current group of whoever hasn’t gotten knocked out yet were circled around a leftover fire whisky bottle, the constant uncoordinated chuckles and fidgeting from the attendees proved that they had a little too much of what they couldn't handle.

And said boy who you would allow with out hesitation to steal your innocence away was sitting right across from you, Draco Lucius Malfoy, sat on the couch, leg atop the other as he watched the drunkards in displeasure. One yelled to finally start the game of spin the bottle, and offered Draco to try first as the guest of honor, which triggered a few laughs from other people joining in the entertainment, you didn’t understand what could have been so amusing and watched the blond begrudgingly flick his wand in a motion that had the bottle taking a quick spin.

Everyone watched the bottle in anticipation, spinning in a constant speed until it began to slow against the table, stuttering and wobbling, increasing the tension little by little until it reached a halt. A young man who you learned to be Lorenzo yelled, “seven minutes in heaven!!” Warranting unanimous cheers from other students, even some who weren’t even joining in on the party festivities. However, your eyes were set on the tall neck of the glass, staring straight into its line of sight, the mouth piece pointing directly towards your spot on the couch, oh dear.

Draco scoffed in annoyance, shaking his head at how childish his own cousin could act when there was far too much intoxication raging into his brain. The taller man approached you, walking right past your seat and made his way towards the broom cupboard; other students, Lorenzo included, encouraged you to follow him, waving their hands in a shooing motion. You began to quickly stand from your spot and shuffle your way past the bottles and trash to join the other spin the bottle victim.

Quietly shutting the door behind you while Draco lit his wand, now the both of you were stuck together in a pitch dark room for seven minutes, and you didn’t know what the hell you should start with first. You ran through some potential things to say, but there was a very high chance that it would make the stiff atmosphere more unbearable.

A clear of his throat came from Draco’s white lit face, eyes watching as your pupils scattered under the thoughts overfilling your brain, his noise woke you from the what ifs that plagued you.

“I-I… Umm, so…” Stuttering out something to end this awkward silence.

Draco blankly stared at you as if you were attempting to start a theatrical speech, until he released a sigh that prompted you to stop trying to fix a conversation that never even began. That was when the light of the wand flickered off and you were met with imminent darkness, and suddenly you were quickly pushed against the wooden walls before you could comprehend your situation, cold thin fingertips sliding up your wrists, arms pinned with his heated breath fanning against your ear.

“How long have you been waiting for this?” He hushed into your drums, body imposingly towering over you.

Catching you by surprise, fidgeting under his hold, you managed to utter pieces of words but was rendered silent with a seal of his lips, tongue exploring the dark wetness of your mouth, one hand released from your wrists, traversing down your thighs, finding place in between the one area that ached for attention, hips bucking into his digits as your pussy throbs from pleasure.

Moaning out his name in a plea, your head tilted back as his teeth left attacks on your neck. Hooking your panties down with ease; but your hands quickly flailed to his arms trying to stop him, stuttering something in a panic, “wa-wait! I’ve never- I don’t know how to…” Have sex… Is what you wanted to say, but found it rather mortifying to say.

Draco seemed to understand from the tone of your voice, it was too dark to clearly see the redness of your cheeks or the obvious nervousness in your eyes, but it was easy enough to tell from the sudden peaking of your vocals that you weren’t experienced.

He attempted to sooth you with light praises and encouragements, kissing the tip of your lope, muttering words of how slow he’d take it, how you would feel like your were in a pool of bliss by the time you came on his cock. Your body melted against him, his hands guided you from there, one leg hooked over while your panties were stretched to the side, the feeling of your arousal already coating his digits.

A foreign object entered your system, tip thin with a dull point, filling your hole to its ends. The taller blond murmured a spell and after that moment you couldn’t even comprehend a thought.

Vibrations echoed into your gummy walls, lips crying a surprised moan as your thighs were handled by the man you drooled over day after day; your release came in like a train after a minute, crashing into your veins, whimpering into his shirt while he collected your release on his fingers, making you taste yourself all the way to the back of your tongue.

“God, you made a proper mess of yourself.” Scoffing at the wetness pooling around your core, panties soaked.

Your cunt’s only covering was ripped off of you, Draco began to fumble with his belt, whipping out the raging boner that was waiting under his tight trousers. Entire body flipped with your ass perked out, pressed against his hardness, in a swift motion, he managed to enter your cunt just from your natural lubricant.

Cock penetrating your virgin hole as you cried at the odd stretch, body stuttering away from his hold, but his palm painfully gripped your hips, thrusting into you slowly, filling your insides to the brim with his length.

Clawing at the wall for stability as your spongy untouched walls get abused by the friction of his veins, you wouldn’t last long and neither would Draco, the warmness of your pussy swallowing him whole, choking his cock till it creamed.

Pitchy groans drowned your ears, Malfoy’s hands atop of yours as his pelvis slapped against your ass.

Your own screams could be heard from the outside of the cupboard, Draco was sure that it had been longer than seven minutes, but no one would dare to open the door after hearing the filth you mewled.

Squirting all over the wall and down your thighs, another intense orgasm rushing down your veins as tears stain your face, legs quaking from the strong sensations coursing through your body.

Draco’s own release came in as he removed himself from your pocket, jerking the soaked shaft till he came ropes on your back, uniform stained with his semen.

You laid limp and exhausted from the activity and did not care if you had to stay in this dusty old closet, you just needed to rest, but Draco seemed to have other plans when he spun you around, legs now wrapped around his waist while his tip threaten your entrance once more. “Bu-but the time?!” You tried to argue, but he thrusted inside your abused walls without hesitation.

“Fuck those bloody seven minutes.” Groaning into you neck as he felt himself hardening just from the fluttering of you pussy.Seven minutes became ten, until the two found themselves fucking for the next hour. You weren’t a virgin anymore, and you came out as a Malfoy’s favourite fuck toy.

These past few months, watching you wasn't enough. Although at times he makes himself known to you. Coincidentally running into you on a places you usually go to. Talks to you from time to time just to satiate the thirst his throat is having as time goes by. He knew everything that is happening to you for you have been venting your frustrations to the teddy bear he has given you once. How people pisses you off, how other people looks down on you and how it hurts you every time they say something about you. What makes it more so weird for you is that the very next day, you'd found out the same person you have vented your frustrations in the teddy bear ends up badly hurt. But it's not your business anymore would it?

But this past few days he had been having constant dread feeling in his chest. He knows why, he knew how, and it eats him up every single time. He heard somewhere that you had a date last weekend and it didn't set right through his head why. For all he thought you two have been having a good time together when you talk, HE was having a good time spending those lazy days with you. But here you are, jumping into dates like he doesn't exist in your world. That sent a turbulence right through his head and he knew he needed to do something.

The following week was a hell. Not seeing you for a day was already sending him thoughts that makes him fidgety and he hasn't seen you for a week now. But he needed to. He needed to prepare for something for you so you won't be able to leave his eyes from now on. He waited this long to be able to work on this plan because right at this point he doesn't know if he could even hold back any longer. He wanted you for himself, he'd do anything to have you for himself. Planned this so meticulously he knows you'd be surprised once he got his hands on you. But he needed to be patient. There's still few days to wait before he acts on this plan, he needs to bite his tongue, hold himself back because if he doesn't he'll blow everything up. And if he did, he'd be so sure you'll be afraid of him. That will be the worst outcome of everything after planning this for a whole week. He needs to succeed or you'll end up scared away from him. He can't take that. He won't be able to take that.

When the day has come, it was the most ecstatic Bang Chan could have ever felt. It was the longest 10 days he could ever had. Without seeing you from afar, without blowing his plan off and just go straight up to you forcefully. But no, of course he can't do that. The least thing he wanted was to scare you off, and he won't do that. He was in awe as he watches you stode away of the usual café shop you go to every morning with a frown on your face because it's currently closed just as you needed a caffein early this morning. You woke up from a very horrible noise from your neighborhood apartment that causes your current head ache. And what could cure the head ache if not tall iced latté from your favorite café. But the world seems like it wabted to piss you off even more because now you have to travel from the other side of the city just so you could to the other branch of this café for your coffee.

That's when Bang Chan planned to make himself known for the day. Accidentally running into you on the streetswith two coffees on his hand. One for sure is for him that he wouldn't drink, and one he plans on giving you co-incidentally saving you from the stress so early in the morning. Offering it to you was super easy for him knowing how vulnerable you are right now. His smile that melts your iritation s his dimple shows whenever he smiles. Even though it was not your usual café branch, you still accepted it because you don't seem to wait either way to have a sip of the coffee.

Bang Chan watched you as you sip on the cup, cogs spinning on his head for all the things he would do next. Waiting. Waiting for a sign, a bidy language that indicates it is starting. And it did. He saw your forehead creases, spilling the coffee on to the ground as you try to catch for your head. Sight starts to get blurry and spinning until you stumble towards Bang Chan's.

“Hey Y/N. Are you okay? What's happening?” You could hear Bang Chan's voice faiding in the back ground before you finally lost consciousness.

The smile that formed on his lips when you collapsed against his arms was wide. He's grinning ear to ear, his eyes disappearing, and his dimples showing. He couldn't stop himself from feeling ecstatic because finally, he had you with him. And he's not gonna let you get away from him.

It has been week since the news pop out on on Bang Chan's TV about your parents trying to look after you because of your sudden disappearance. But here you are sitting pretty at Bang Chan's couch, hands tied at your back, mouth gagged, brain fried, dazed and out of it. From the past week, Bang Chan has kept you like this whenever he needs to go to his work. Would have you pulled against your jaw, forcefully kissed you on your lips as he pushed a pill on to your mouth that would make you feel like levitating in the air. High, sluggish and zoned out. Does it bother you? Of course, not. At least that's what he thinks.

Every day, for the oast days, whenever he needs to leave exact 10 am in the morning, he would tie your hands and feet at each sides of the bed some times. Or maybe let you move around the house but with the catch of covering your eyes, and he would get out of his apartment, lock the door from the outside just to make sure you won't go somewhere. Cameras all over his place to monitor what you do, and to see if you'll go to yourself removing the blindfold he put on you.

It sent unyielding shiver against Bang chan's spine to see you struggling from hightened senses whenever he restricts one from you. How you softly whines whenever he puts on the ballgag on your mouth. How you pursed your lips together if he decides to cover your eyes this time. How you try to struggle and wiggle your hands and feet if he ties them up together. He loved how you flinch whenever he touches you, how your lips quiver and that sends unbearable pleasure surging through his body.

Your eyes are focused on the TV, a show that is playing you don't even understand because of how your eyes getting blurry as the pill settles into you. Your head full of though about Bang Chan swimming on the back of your head. You don't even understand anything at this point but what could you do? You started to feel hazy, and tears are start forming at the sides of your eyes. You are now getting frustrated and all you wanted now if for him to touch you. You have been waiting for 10 hours now, and you know you can't wait any longer.

After few more minutes of unending waiting, you heard the sound of door opening. Finally, Bang Chan's home. The first thing he did was to discard his jacket and throw his little bag on the bed, leaving it a little open, sighing as he finally felt the coldness of the airconditioned room. He then walks towards the sofa bed where you were placed, still at the same position he left you 10 hours ago. He smiled so sweetly because these past few days you have been really really obedient to him unlike your first days. Him leaving you on the spot and him would go home to see you still tucked on the same spot. He pulled down the ball gag that constricts your jaw and lips which made all of your trapped saliva to drip down your chin only for him gladly lick it first before giving you a hard and heated kiss. The man chuckled from how you kiss him back.

"Oh, I missed you too darling." He cooed, softly caressing your pink tinted cheeks with his thumb. Your eyes flutter from how his thumb softly caressing on your flushed cheeks, his brown orbs scanning your face, sighing at contentment from how swollen your lips have gotten, how your body is now respinding positively to him, how you could only say yes to him now and not a single denial from you unlike the few first days. You are not quite sure yourself if this is beyond the comprehension you have with him, or is it from all of the gaslighting and manipulation Bang Chan have encrypted in to your head.

"Have you been a good girl, hm?" He asked in his most soothing voice. You haven't eaten anything yet except for the breakfast you two have shared in the morning, but it seems like it wasn't hunger for food is what he could read through you. Hunger and thirst for his touch and kisses he could sende through your body language, and your small nod in the head sealed it.

“Such an obedient girl for aren't you? Well since you have been behaving so well lately, I was thinking of giving you a present. How about we take those alcohol you love drinking so much, hm? Maybe let you drink more than 2 shots tonight? So you would feel relaxed?”

Bang Chan stood up from his position, took a few steps towards the locked cabinet where he keeps his 'things'. What things are they? You probably have the vague idea about it but Bang Chan strictly forbids you of knowing anything exact about it. He holds a whole bottle of Jack Daniels, as he walk towards the small kitchen and poured an ample mount of the drink on a glass. Your eyes lit up from the familiar alcohol he is holding. And just like a good pup, which he always calls you, you sit up straight on the couch even though the hands that is tied on your back makes it a little uncomfortable for you. You were licking your now drying lips while you can't contain your salivating mouth. Bang Chan chuckled from the expression you are giving and he could swear to all the Gods and Goddesses that he knows that he would combust any time from now because of you.

"Since you've been such a good girl for me, how about 4 shots of these drink. Would you like that, pretty?" He asked again, gently taking the first shot to himself just to feel a little heated up. He then poured another shot to the same glass, and sip into it but this time Bang Chan leaning forward to your face awarding you with a sensual and heated kiss. His free hand grabbed you by your jaw, forcing you to open your mouth and passed the alcohol on your mouth that you gladly gulped and swallowed before kissing him back. The kiss lasted for so long until you can't taste the alcohol on his saliva anymore. And he did repeated the same action for 3 more times.

It was all too much because Bang Chan doesn't even let you breath in first in between those shots making you gag just a little bit because of overwhelming taste and it's dizzying to take 4 shots in a row. And his filthy kiss doesn't help either but you managed to swallow it all, which earns you a little swift kiss from the him. "Good girl." He cooed, softly patting your head.

Soon enough you started to feel hazy. Sight spinning and mouth uncontrollably salivating. Te alcohol starts to work it's magic. He knew always knew how you're so bad at holding your alcohol tolerance when it comes to whiskies and you just had 4 shots, beyond your limit. This causes you to laugh uncontrollably feeling so high and  light currently. This was too familiar for you, too good, too much, but you don't mind for some reason. Bang Chan's presence soothes you the best way possible when normally you should be terrified.

“Channie...” You murmur, moving from where you currently are up until you face reaches his thighs. A sly smile formed at your lips as your eyes landed on the prominent bulge forming on Bang Chan's slacks. And as the good pet you are for him, you started rubbing your cheeks against his thighs and bulge causing him to hissed so loud trying to control himself from snapping.l

Bang Chan wrapped his slender fingers around your hair pulling and fisting on your thread making you gasp and arched your back forcefully, looking up at him. He looked at you with such a hungry eyes, biting on his lips as he stared at your dazed expression. He watched how you breath through your parted lips, and how your eyes flutter ever so soflty. He's getting more and more impatient as he watches you but he wanted to take the most time today because it's so rare for you to behaved like he wanted you to be, squirming from every second that passes by.

He used his arm to pull you closer to him until your lips locked. Bang Chan caressed your lips in a ferrocious manner and it grew intense as he traced the bottom of your lip with his warm tongue as if he was asking permission into invading your mouth which he doesn't really need to since you have no exact energy to complain to him as of the moment. You, on the other hand, had instantly granted him access, giving him a seering kiss in return your tongue expertly clashing into each other causing your moans to be trapped on your throat. He tangled his fingers in your hair, with force and authority, stilling your head from moving while he sucked on your tongue as if it was a source of hydration for him.

You needed him so much and that was enough for you to let go of the thoughts at the back of your mind. You moved from your tiring position, straddling on Bang Chan's lap as soon as he removed the restrictions on your wrist for you to trace and feel the muscles of his body, admiring the soft skin of his toned chest, you couldn’t help but break the kiss to peck it and get in a needed shaky breath. He could only sigh and exhale from your ministrations. His head falling back as you suck in between kisses and adoring the marks that remain behind his skin. His hands were roaming your body, creeping below your lower back.

He grabbed the waistband of your shorts from the inside, slightly pulling it down and toying with it, making you shake in so much anticipation. Your hips moved involuntarily, grinding against his thigh that made you shake from overstimulation. Bang Chan licked his drying lips as he watched you gasped when he finally guided your hips on the pace he wanted, slightly flexing his thighs making your covered cunt brushed against it so deliciously, but not nearly enough to expose your dripping wet cunt. His hand was dangerously close, but still so far away, while his lips were busy marking every exposed skin of your jaw, neck amd shoulders, making sure there won't be any room left unmarked. His fingers dug against your soft skin try to supressed himself more.

But he's human too. He jas limits on how much he could control himself, and it seems like he has reached his own. With one swift motion he has you pinned against the bed, skirt hiked up, panties pulled to the side, as his hips rutted in back and forth. One of his hand pinned your stomach down feeling his length bulged in your stomach. You whined into the skin of his neck, resting your forehead on his shoulder and ceasing him bites and licks as the pleasure of his dick ramming inside you was too much to concentrate on anything else.

“Like this, pretty?” Bang Chan smiled mischievously, his hips pulling out so slowly up until his tip and then slamming it back in with one swift move causing you to shriek. His tip absolutely bullying you sweet insides repeatedly, and him drinking every reaction you give every time he doest it. Your skirt that is still intact with your hips, around your naked flesh and creating a pleasurable tightness, making him groan loudly as he felt you nod against his shoulder.

“Again... Do it again.” You moaned to his ear, her hips lifting up, legs spread wider huffing breathless moans as he rut her hips on her own.

Your tone made Bang Chan raised an eye brow. “Is that an order or a request?” He quipped, a little iritated and fully stopping his movements.

“Channie please? Do it again... please...?” You begged soft and pleading. Much better. That soft pleading voice almost tip him to the edge, made him contnued to move his hips, faster this time, deeper, with a lot more force, basically him balls deep inside you. The filthy noises you makes mixed with the slapping sounds of your body hollows all over the room as if it was the music that makes the both of you dance sensually together, your hips thrusting into Bang Chan, meeting every thrust he does, and also to get the most out of his touches. His free hand skillfully made it's way inside your shirt, unlocking the strap of your bra with one flick from his fingers, and him cupping one of your boobs, kneading and massaging on it like a stressball that anchors him.

He circled his thumb around your bundle of nerves, teasing you to have you squirming and gasping. Your back arching, and nails raking on his raw back that surely will leave red scratch marks on his skin. And all you could do was moan, curse and take everything Bang Chan is giving you. This felt too much, you are too overstimulated, too overwhelmed but Chan doesn't care about any of that. He knows you'll take whatever he gives you, the alcohol settling on your stomach making everything even more hotter, making your insides even more warmer. He moved deeper even further on to you, you scooted back spreading your legs a little more to give his hips more room as it made its way even further in which made him successfully hit your spot. The way your walls clamped around him gave you away. He knew you're so close and it won't take him too long for you tome come all over him. So what of a good guy he could do other than to double down thrusts? His hips moved in a very animalistic way that made you moans and chokes on your own voice. Hand grasping on his hair for support.

“I know you're so close, doll. Come on, do it for me.” Bang Chan cooed panting, trying to steady his voice despite the knot in his stomach tightening and tightening the more pressure you apply in the way you clamp down on him which stroked all the good places off his length.

The nickname Bang Chan has given you made your cheeks burn hotter, hiding your face on the crook of his neck, arms wrapped on his as you quietly moan against his ear everytime he would thrust in inside you. Your eyes squeezed tightly shut and your brows furrowed, so dangerously close to your release, and it felt like you're about to burst out crying just from how pleasureable everything is getting. Bang Chan then picked up his speed, his hand tightly gripping on your waist as he listened to the slick sound that was the result of a fast and steady pace. His dick went mad inside of you, hopelessly trying to vent his desperation and tiredness for release on your poor, sensitive core before falling completely still when you moaned loudly. One swift thrust in from him and he had you coming for him so filthy, moans spilling out of your mouth, moaning his name like a mantra, and causes your to convulse with too much pleasure and overstimulation.

“Fuck, doll- I'm going to—!” He groaned through his throat right before he let go, dots of white exploding behind his eyes in a blinding light as it hit him so hard it nearly knocked the wind out of him. He then gently pulled out of your cunt, to which both of your cum dripped outside your hole, him kneeling just few inch away from you with his legs dripping with the mixtures of both of your cum. It was filthy, exhausting but definitely pleasureable.

It took another hour for the both of you to settle back on the bed. Him completely cleaned the both of you, changed your clothes, had you drink a glss of water before he then lays his head on your chest. Eyes closed, heavy and stable breathing indicating he had drifted to sleep in the position. You don't know if it was the alcohol that competely knocked him off or is it the mixture of it and his work exhaustion that tipped him down to sleep, but nonetheless you continue to stroke your fingers against his soft locks. A huge smile plastered on your face as you recollects all of the happening that just occured for the last 7 months.

Oh poor Bang Chan if only he knew he had been played and manipulated in every of these situations he believed he created himself. If only he knew all of this was actually you pulling the strings for him like a little puppet you knew you'd had him hide on his little mouse hole. So you'd rather act the victim on this relationship and have everything his way rather than you break him so easily just because you couldn't keep your hands to yourself. Well who's to say he wouldn't like it if you actually do break him at least once? Besides you two are both degenerates of equal amount.

a/n: FINALLY I COULD BREATH. Hi! This is all you have been waiting for. Working on the other side's pov as soon as I finished this up so expect the next part to be posted in few days! < 3 I WAS EXHAUSTED FROM HOW FILTHY THIS IS SO PLEASE BEAR WITH ME. I hope you guys still find this interesting even though it's a tad problematic. Cause you know, I love my men a little problematic /jj HAHAHAHA.

taglist: @hime-honne, @nicolemgo, @starlightsigot7, @nessia-pttwo, @franaby, @skz-crumbs, @tsumiyaa, @bunbunbl0gs, @kloversung, @bellaglover18, @jaymiwrld, @foppishitudinality, @helawho, @syraxnyra, @wobblewobble822, @putlonghatdog, @mayberriesg, @channies-babygurl, @lobstertuxedo, @my0hmary, @illsiren, @atinyiri, @p3achreads, @ebnabi, @lynsbng, @min-the-monster, @chrofeisnightmaregf , @trqjjk, @tracu

(for those who still wanna be a part of the taglist, feel free to comment down < 3. some y'all can't be tagged properly. please make sure your settings for tags and mentions are open.)

You don’t mean to notice him. You just… do.

The coffee shop is a controlled variable in your day, and you are very good at controlled variables. Same order—black coffee, no lid, no sugar, nothing that could leave residue on your hands. Same barista—Marta, third-year undergrad, chronic eyeliner, mercifully consistent. Same corner by the window, where the light is predictable and the table surface has been wiped down enough times that you can rest your forearms on it without imagining entire civilizations of bacteria staging a coup.

You come here because it requires no thinking. Thinking is a finite resource. You hoard it for cultures and charts and the low-grade, constant hum of responsibility that follows you even when you’re technically off the clock.

Then there’s him.

He’s leaning against the counter, one boot hooked lazily over the other, Carhartt jacket creased in a way that suggests age rather than style. The jacket smells faintly of engine oil and something sharper—ozone, maybe, or burnt rubber. Bad decisions, your brain supplies helpfully. You hate that your brain does this. You hate even more that it’s usually right.

You clock everything automatically, because you always do.

The motorcycle parked crooked outside, taking up more space than necessary, like he expects the world to adjust around it. The lack of a helmet, which earns him an immediate mental note under reckless with a sub-bullet of idiot. The dark crescents under his eyes—deep enough to suggest sleep deprivation rather than genetics. Chronic, not acute. The faint mark on his neck one morning that looks suspiciously like a hickey.

You don’t look at it twice. You don’t need to.

Poor coping strategies, you think clinically, like you’re drafting a research paper no one will ever read.

He orders black coffee like it’s medication.

“Nothing fancy,” he tells Marta, voice rough, like he’s already been awake too long. “Just… coffee.”

She raises an eyebrow. “Rough night?”

He huffs a laugh that doesn’t reach his eyes. “You could say that.”

You pretend very hard to be invested in the condensation ring forming beneath your mug. You are not invested. You are, unfortunately, listening.

He looks haunted in the way people who don’t sleep ever do—not the dramatic, romantic kind of haunted, but the practical kind. The kind that suggests intrusive thoughts and unfinished business and an internal monologue that doesn’t shut up even when it really should.

You decide, vaguely, that he’s probably a doctor. The scrubs are a giveaway—black, hospital-issued, wrinkled like he slept in them. Probably something high-stakes. Surgery, maybe. ER more likely. Surgeons have a different kind of exhaustion. This one looks like adrenaline followed by nothing. A crash without a safety net.

You don’t know why this matters. It doesn’t. You tell yourself it doesn’t.

“Card’s declined,” Marta says apologetically.

He blinks, like the words take a second to register. Digs into his pocket, frowns. Tries again.

“Shit,” he mutters. “Sorry. I—uh—hang on.”

You sigh internally. Of course. Of course this is happening now, when you have exactly six minutes before you need to leave if you want to make it to the lab on time without touching any unnecessary door handles.

“Put it on mine,” you hear yourself say.

You freeze, immediately furious with yourself.

He turns, startled, like he didn’t realize other people existed in the room. His eyes are dark—brown, you think, though the lighting is bad—and sharp despite the exhaustion.

“You don’t have to—”

“It’s fine,” you cut in, already pulling out your card. “I’m paying anyway.”

This is not strictly true, but it’s close enough. Marta shoots you a grateful look and rings it up before he can protest further.

“Thanks,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’ll get you back.”

“You won’t,” you say flatly. “It’s just coffee. We’ll survive.”

His mouth twitches. Almost a smile.

“Fair point.”

Marta slides his cup across the counter. He takes it like it might disappear if he doesn’t keep a firm grip on it.

“You’re a lifesaver,” he tells you, and there’s something in his tone—sincere, but tired, like gratitude is a language he’s forgotten how to speak fluently.

You shrug. “Don’t get used to it.”

“I won’t,” he says, and for a second, you get the impression he’s very good at not getting used to good things.

He hesitates, then nods toward your table. “Mind if I sit? Just until this… kicks in.”

You glance at the empty chair, then at the window, then at your watch. This is a terrible idea. This is a disruption. This is a variable you did not account for.

You nod anyway.

“Five minutes,” you say. “Then I have to go.”

“Five minutes,” he agrees, like he understands the importance of arbitrary limits.

He sits across from you, stretching his legs out under the table. You note the scuffed boots, the faint tremor in his hand as he lifts the cup. Caffeine dependency, probably. You relate more than you’d like.

He takes a long swallow, eyes closing briefly, like he’s praying.

“Jesus,” he murmurs. “That’s better.”

You arch an eyebrow. “Dramatic.”

“Medically accurate,” he counters.

So ER, then. You’d bet on it.

“Long shift?” you ask, because apparently you’ve decided to make conversation like a normal person, which is new and deeply suspicious.

“Long life,” he says. Then, after a beat, “Yeah. Long shift.”

You hum noncommittally, because that’s what you do when people offer you fragments instead of answers.

He studies you openly, not rudely, but with the same clinical curiosity you know you’re guilty of. His gaze flicks to your hands, your posture, the way your bag is placed carefully at your feet, not touching the floor.

“You work nearby?” he asks.

“Yeah,” you say. “Lab.”

“Ah,” he nods. “Explains the look.”

“What look?”

“Like you’re mentally cataloguing every surface in here.”

You bristle, just a little. “Some of us like to know what we’re dealing with.”

He smiles then, properly this time, and it’s… inconvenient.

“Fair,” he says. “I do the same thing with people.”

That earns him a look. “I hope you’re better at it than most.”

He laughs softly. “Depends on the day.”

Your phone buzzes. You glance at it, relief washing through you.

“That’s my five minutes,” you say, standing and shouldering your bag. You hesitate, then add, “Take care of yourself.”

It comes out sharper than you intend. Almost like an order.

He looks up at you, something unreadable passing through his eyes.

“I’ll try,” he says. “You too.”

You leave before either of you can say anything else. Outside, the motorcycle gleams dully in the morning light, engine ticking as it cools.

As you walk away, you tell yourself—firmly—that this means nothing.

Just another variable.

Just another observation.

Still, hours later, as you scrub your hands for the third time and try very hard not to think about oil-stained jackets and haunted eyes, you find yourself wondering—against your better judgment—if he made it back to work on time.

Poor coping strategies, you think again.

And, unhelpfully, you wonder which of you that applies to more.

✮ ⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✩

The next time he talks to you, it’s accidental.

At least, that’s what you tell yourself.

You’re back in your corner by the window, spine straight, shoulders relaxed in the way you’ve trained yourself to hold them when you want to look approachable without actually inviting interaction. The book is open in front of you, spine creased just enough to prove you’re not treating it like a museum artifact. Highlighter tucked into the fold of the pages. Coffee cooling at a predictable rate to your right.

Everything is exactly where it should be.

You’re halfway through a paragraph about horizontal gene transfer—because of course you are—when a shadow falls across the table. Not looming. Just… present.

“Is that book any good?”

The voice is familiar enough that your stomach tightens before your brain catches up.

You blink once. Then again. Look up.

It’s him.

Same jacket, though it looks marginally more abused today. Same scrubs. Same dark circles under his eyes, though today they’re paired with a faint crease between his brows, like he’s spent the morning frowning at the universe and the universe has failed to improve.

He nods toward your book, expression open, curious in a way that feels unpracticed. Like he didn’t plan to speak and now that he has, he’s just as surprised as you are.

You realize, belatedly, that you’ve been staring.

You blink again. Smile politely. The default. The one you use for grant reviewers and distant colleagues and people who mean well but are standing too close.

“It’s about bacteria evolving resistance faster than we can kill them,” you say. You glance down at the page, then back up at him. “So—depends on your definition of good.”

You expect the polite nod. The awkward oh followed by retreat. This is usually where people disengage, vaguely unsettled by the reminder that the microscopic world is winning.

Instead, he snorts.

Not delicately. Not quietly. A sharp, unfiltered sound that escapes him before he can stop it. He clamps his mouth shut immediately after, eyes widening a fraction, like he’s worried he’s just laughed at a funeral.

You feel something in your chest shift.

“That’s… bleak,” he says, trying—and failing—to sound serious.

“Accurate,” you correct mildly.

He exhales through his nose, the corners of his mouth twitching. “I guess that explains why you look so cheerful.”

You glance down at yourself, then back at him. “This is my cheerful.”

“Huh,” he says. “Good to know.”

You should go back to your book. You should take a sip of your coffee. You should do anything other than sit here cataloguing the way he leans slightly forward when he talks, like he’s bracing himself against gravity or expectation or both.

Instead, you ask, “Rough shift?”

It slips out before you can stop it, which is irritating. You don’t do small talk. You observe. You analyze. You do not invite strangers into conversational intimacy.

He scrubs a hand over his face. “Is it ever not?”

You consider that. “Statistically? Probably.”

He laughs again, quieter this time. More controlled. “You’re fun.”

You arch an eyebrow. “You say that like it’s an accusation.”

“Maybe it is,” he says, eyes glinting. “I don’t trust people who read books about antibiotic resistance for pleasure.”

“Bold of you to assume it’s pleasure,” you reply. “It’s more… professional anxiety.”

“Ah,” he nods. “That I understand.”

Of course he does. That makes something in your chest tighten again, sharp and unexpected.

He shifts his weight, glancing toward the counter like he’s suddenly remembered why he’s here. “I should—uh—order before they think I’m loitering.”

“You are loitering,” you say. “You’ve been standing there for at least thirty seconds.”

He winces. “Damn. You caught me.”

He hesitates, then gestures toward the empty chair across from you. “Mind if I sit again? Just while I wait.”

You glance at the chair. At the clock. At your book, open to a sentence you’ve now read three times without absorbing.

“This is becoming a habit,” you say.

“Is it?” he asks lightly. “I thought habits required intention.”

You snort despite yourself. Immediately regret it. Immediately don’t.

“Fine,” you say. “But if you start asking about plasmids, I’m leaving.”

“Deal,” he says, already sitting. “I draw the line at plasmids.”

He orders his coffee over his shoulder without standing up—black, again, no hesitation—and then his attention is back on you, undivided.

“So,” he says. “What do you do when you’re not terrifying people with microbial inevitability?”

You tilt your head. “What makes you think I ever stop?”

He grins, and there it is again—that inconvenient warmth, the sense that something unplanned is unfolding right in front of you.

That’s how it starts, you think distantly. Not with grand gestures or dramatic declarations. Just a question. A laugh you didn’t mean to share. A conversation that slips past your defenses while you’re busy pretending you don’t have any.

You take a sip of your coffee, eyes dropping back to the page, but you don’t read.

Not really.

Because he’s still there. Because you’re still talking. Because somewhere between resistant bacteria and bad coping strategies, you’ve both accidentally decided to linger.

And you have the uncomfortable, familiar sensation of a variable you didn’t control beginning to matter.

✮ ⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✩

Conversation becomes routine the way contamination does—slow, incremental, impossible to fully prevent.

At first, it’s incidental. A comment about the weather that turns into an observation about how the rain makes the street outside smell like ozone and wet metal. A shared eye-roll when the espresso machine screams like it’s dying. A mutual understanding that the corner table by the window is now—somehow—yours, plural, a development you pretend not to notice even as you angle your chair a few centimeters closer to his without thinking about it.

You tell yourself it’s nothing. You tell yourself this is how familiarity works. Repetition. Exposure. Habituation.

Which, frankly, should make you more cautious than it does.

You learn he’s an emergency medicine attending on a Tuesday when he looks particularly wrecked—scrubs wrinkled beyond redemption, hair doing something that suggests he ran his hands through it too many times and slept for maybe an hour afterward.

“Rough day?” you ask, because this is apparently who you are now. Someone who asks.

He huffs, sliding into the chair across from you. “We had a bus versus guardrail. Then a stabbing. Then a guy who tried to detox himself with YouTube advice.”

You grimace. “That’s… ambitious.”

“That’s one word for it.” He takes a long swallow of coffee like it might resurrect him. “I’m Robby, by the way. I just realized I’ve been freeloading caffeine and conversation without properly introducing myself.”

You consider the name. It fits in a way that annoys you—unpretentious, slightly worn at the edges.

You give him yours. He repeats it once, quietly, like he’s testing how it sounds.

“Emergency medicine,” you say. “That explains the thousand-yard stare.”

“Occupational hazard,” Robby replies. “What about you? You always look like you’re about to either discover something or commit a minor crime.”

“Postdoc,” you say.

“In…?” he prompts, not glazing over, not making the mistake of pretending he understands when he doesn’t.

You pause, just a fraction too long. You’ve learned this reflexively—wait, assess, decide how much of yourself to hand over.

“Research,” you say first.

His eyebrow lifts. “That’s evasive.”

You sigh. “Microbiology.”

Still nothing. No polite blankness. No barely concealed panic.

He leans back, considering. “Like… bacteria?”

You snort. “Among other horrors.”

“Okay,” he says slowly. “I’m listening.”

That’s when you know you’re in trouble.

You tell him about MRSA on a Thursday, when the shop is quieter and the sun is slanting in through the window just right. You’re halfway through explaining selective pressure before you realize you’ve been talking uninterrupted for several minutes.

“MRSA?” he repeats, brow furrowing. “That’s… bad.”

“That’s an understatement,” you say. “It’s like bacteria looked at antibiotics and said, actually, no.”

He grimaces. “We see it all the time. Feels like we’re always one step behind.”

You nod. “You are.”

He blinks.

You wince, just a little. “Not because you’re incompetent,” you add. “Because evolution doesn’t care about our feelings.”

He laughs softly. “Fair.”

And then he asks questions. Real ones. Thoughtful ones. Not to show off, not to steer the conversation back to himself, but because he’s genuinely curious. Because this matters to him—not academically, maybe, but viscerally, in the way things matter when you’ve held pressure on a bleeding wound and wondered if it would ever be enough.

You start bringing different books. Articles, sometimes, printed and annotated in the margins. He never makes a joke about it. Never teases you for caring too much.

Sometimes he flirts.

Not smoothly. Not with the lazy confidence of someone used to attention. Earnestly, like he’s not entirely sure he’s allowed to, but wants to try anyway.

“You always look like you’re about to solve something,” he says once, watching you frown at a paragraph. “It’s intimidating.”

You glance up at him, arching a brow. “I am intimidating. It’s part of the job description.”

He smiles, a little crooked. “Figures.”

You keep your smile neutral. Deliberately so. You’ve learned how to do that too—soft enough to be polite, firm enough to discourage follow-up.

You notice the shift immediately. The way his shoulders ease back. The way he gives you space without being asked. The way he doesn’t try to turn the comment into a joke or a challenge.

He pulls back.

He never pushes.

That alone makes him more dangerous than anyone who ever has.

Because you’re used to people pressing. To curiosity that turns invasive. To interest that demands reciprocation as if it’s owed. Robby does none of that. He adapts instead.

And the worst part—the part you don’t admit even to yourself—is that you find yourself tracking it. The distance. The care. The restraint.

You tell yourself it’s nothing. That routine is not intimacy. That conversation is not contamination.

But still—some mornings, when he doesn’t show, you catch yourself glancing at the door. And when he does, tired and rumpled and real, something in your chest loosens in a way that has nothing to do with caffeine.

Incremental, you think.

Impossible to fully prevent.

And for the first time in a long while, you don’t know whether you want to.

✮ ⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✩

When he finally asks you out, it’s quiet. No theatrics. No false bravado. No performative confidence meant to soften the possibility of rejection.

It happens on a Wednesday morning that feels indistinguishable from every other—same light slanting through the window, same low hum of conversation, same faint smell of espresso clinging to the air. You’re annotating a paragraph with ruthless efficiency, pen moving in the tight, controlled strokes that make your handwriting look almost aggressive.

He sits across from you, coffee untouched for once.

You notice that before you notice anything else.

He’s been staring into the cup for a while, like it might contain answers instead of caffeine. His hands are wrapped around it, knuckles pale, and there’s a tremor there that’s new. Or maybe it isn’t, and you’ve just started paying closer attention.

You shouldn’t be paying this much attention.

“Would you want to get dinner sometime?” he asks.

His voice is even, but his eyes don’t lift. He’s addressing the coffee, not you, like it’s a safer audience. Like it won’t look back at him with expectations.

You feel the question land. Settle. Wait.

You don’t stall. You don’t soften it. You don’t pad the edges the way you know how to when you want to spare someone’s feelings at the expense of clarity.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

The words are calm. Measured. Exactly as sharp as they need to be and not a micron more.

He looks up then, genuinely surprised—but not angry. No defensiveness. No flash of wounded pride.

“Can I ask why?” he says.

You inhale. Exhale. You could lie. You could say you’re busy. You could say you don’t date colleagues-adjacent or strangers or men with motorcycles and haunted eyes.

But you don’t.

“You seem like someone who’s struggling,” you say gently. “And I don’t date people who aren’t in a place to take care of themselves.”

There it is.

Clean. Precise. Almost surgical.

You don’t mention the way his sleep deprivation has worsened. The way his hands shake more often now. The faint scent of stale alcohol that’s started to linger beneath the coffee and leather, subtle but unmistakable if you know what to look for.

You don’t mention that you recognize the pattern because you’ve catalogued it before. Because you know exactly where it tends to end.

He absorbs it in silence.

Then he nods. Once.

“That’s fair,” he says.

No argument. No attempt to negotiate. No promise to change offered in exchange for reconsideration.

It hits you harder than it should.

After that, things change in small, almost imperceptible ways—until they don’t feel small at all.

He still comes in.

You notice immediately when he walks through the door, though you pretend not to. The motorcycle still parks crooked outside, but he doesn’t linger to take off his jacket. He orders his coffee, nods to Marta, and leaves before the cup has cooled enough to be drinkable.

No books tucked under his arm. No comments about what you’re reading. No chair pulled out across from you.

Just coffee and a hasty exit.

And every day, he looks worse.

The circles under his eyes deepen, dark enough to look bruised. His scrubs hang looser on his frame. The crease between his brows never quite smooths out anymore, even when he’s not frowning.

Once, you catch sight of him through the window as he straddles his motorcycle, shoulders slumped, head bowed like he’s bracing himself for impact.

You tell yourself—sternly—that this is not your responsibility. That you drew a boundary, and boundaries are good, ethical, necessary things. That you are not obligated to stay and watch someone unravel just because you identified the early signs.

Still.

You find yourself cataloguing the changes the way you’d track a slow-growing culture. Incremental. Alarming. Hard to ignore once you know what you’re looking at.

You sip your coffee and stare at your book without reading, a familiar tightness settling in your chest.

You chose clarity over comfort. Precision over hope. This was the correct call.

You repeat that to yourself like a mantra.

It doesn’t stop you from watching the door.

✮ ⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✩

Robby tells himself he’s fine.

He tells himself this while rinsing a coffee mug that still smells faintly of bourbon because he didn’t bother washing it last night. He tells himself this while standing in front of his bathroom mirror, eyes bloodshot, a faint crease between his brows that wasn’t there a few years ago—or maybe it was, and he just hadn’t been paying attention yet.

He’s fine.

He’s been rejected before. Christ, he’s rejected people before. This is not new terrain. This is not a trauma. This is a thing that happens between adults who misjudge timing, tone, or the shape of someone else’s heart.

So why does it feel like something has been quietly knocked out of alignment?

The apartment is too quiet. That’s the first thing he notices when he comes home after another late shift, shoes kicked off by the door, jacket slung over the back of a chair. No ambient noise except the low hum of the refrigerator and the city leaking in through the windows—sirens, traffic, a couple arguing somewhere below him.

He doesn’t turn on a light right away. Just stands there, keys still in his hand, like if he waits long enough something will resolve on its own.

It doesn’t.

He sleeps less after that.

Not in any dramatic, insomniac way—he still collapses into bed, still shuts his eyes—but sleep doesn’t stick. He wakes at 3:47 a.m. one night, 4:12 the next, heart thudding like he’s been running. No nightmare he can remember. Just a vague, sour sense of being watched by his own thoughts.

He stares at the ceiling, counting the hairline cracks he’s never bothered to fix.

And that’s when your voice shows up.

Not loud. Not accusatory. Just… present.

You’re struggling.

You hadn’t said it dramatically. No ultimatums. No raised voice. You’d said it like a fact—carefully, gently, the way doctors do when they’re trying not to scare a patient while still telling the truth.

Robby scoffs quietly into the dark.

“Yeah,” he mutters to no one. “Aren’t we all.”

But the problem is that his brain doesn’t let it go. It plays the moment back with clinical precision: the set of your mouth, the way your eyes held his like you were bracing for impact. Not judgment. Concern. Which, somehow, is worse.

The worst part isn’t that you said no.

The worst part is that you weren’t wrong.

He drinks more, after that. Not enough to alarm anyone—no one at work notices, and if they did, they wouldn’t say anything. Emergency medicine runs on caffeine and bad coping mechanisms. He has plenty of company.

One beer turns into two. Two turn into whiskey because it’s quicker, cleaner, more efficient. He tells himself it helps him sleep, which is a lie he’s been telling since Adamson died and the nights got longer.

Sometimes, when the silence gets too heavy, he brings someone home.

It’s easy. That’s the point. A look across a bar. A shared joke. The mutual understanding that neither of them is here to ask difficult questions.

Strangers don’t ask how he’s doing.

They don’t know about Adamson. They don’t know the exact tone the trauma bay takes on when things are about to go sideways. They don’t know the way his chest tightens sometimes when a patient codes and for half a second he’s not in Pittsbugh.

They also don’t know you.

Which is the only reason it works at all.

He’s careful. Almost tender, even. He makes sure they leave with a glass of water, a polite smile, a vague promise that both of them know won’t be kept. He watches the door close behind them and feels—nothing. Or maybe he feels relief. Or maybe he feels the absence of something he’s not ready to name.

One morning, he wakes up alone again, sunlight too bright, head pounding just enough to be irritating rather than incapacitating. He squints at his phone. No new messages. Of course not.

He laughs once, dry and humorless.

“Good job,” he tells the ceiling. “Really nailed that.”

At work, he’s sharp as ever. That’s the dangerous part. No one worries about Robby when he’s performing well. He runs traumas with brutal efficiency, voice steady, hands sure. He cracks a joke at the nurses’ station that lands just right. He snaps at an intern and then circles back five minutes later to explain, because he’s not an asshole, he just sounds like one when he’s tired.

Dana watches him a little longer than usual.

“You okay?” she asks one day, casual but not fooled.

He doesn’t miss a beat. “Thriving. Living the dream.”

She snorts. “That bad, huh?”

He shrugs, already turning back to the board. “I' rest when I’m dead.”

“Let’s aim for later rather than sooner,” she says.

He gives her a nod without looking.

But sometimes, between patients, his mind betrays him.

A lull in the department. The monitor beeping in a steady, almost soothing rhythm. He leans against the counter, rubbing at his sternum like he can physically dislodge the pressure there.

You’re struggling.

He exhales sharply through his nose.

The thing is—he’s spent years being the functional one. The reliable one. The guy who holds it together when everything else is on fire. He teaches residents how to compartmentalize, how to keep moving, how to survive this job without letting it hollow them out completely.

He’s very good at it.

Or he was.

Because now, lying awake at 4 a.m., Adamson’s face intrudes without warning. Not the way he looked at the end—Robby’s brain mercifully spares him that—but the way he looked mid-lecture, animated and impatient, waving a marker like it was a scalpel.

Get your head out of your ass, Robinavitch.

Robby squeezes his eyes shut.

“Working on it,” he mutters.

His heart is racing again. No clear trigger. Just the familiar, unwelcome surge of adrenaline, like his body has decided there’s an emergency and forgotten to tell him what it is.

He sits up, elbows on his knees, breath measured and controlled the way he teaches patients to do.

In. Out. Again.

You’d noticed. Somehow, you’d seen through the armor he’s been wearing so long it feels like skin.

That’s the part that needles at him.

Not that you said no—but that you’d looked at him and seen someone fraying at the edges, someone one bad night away from unraveling.

And instead of stepping closer, you’d stepped back.

Not to punish him.

To protect yourself.

He runs a hand through his hair, exhales slowly.

“Son of a bitch,” he murmurs, because there’s no one here to hear it, and because sometimes naming the feeling is the closest he gets to doing something about it.

He doesn’t know when he starts believing you. There’s no single moment, no dramatic realization. Just a gradual, unwelcome shift—like waking up one day and realizing the limp you’ve been ignoring isn’t going away.

You’re struggling.

The words settle in his chest and refuse to move.

And for the first time in a long while, Robby wonders—not with panic, but with a quiet, unsettling clarity—what happens if he can’t outrun that truth this time.

The coffee shop becomes unbearable.

Which is ridiculous, really. It’s just a room with bad music, espresso, and furniture that’s never quite clean no matter how often they wipe it down. It hasn’t changed. The chalkboard menu is still written in the same aggressively cheerful handwriting. The barista still spells his name wrong in new and inventive ways.

The problem is you.

Or rather—the problem is that you exist in the same space as him, and he no longer knows how to do that without feeling like something in his ribcage has been pried loose.

He still goes.

Habit is a hard thing to kill, especially when caffeine feels less like a preference and more like a medical necessity. He needs it to function. He needs it to keep the tremor out of his hands during the first trauma of the day. He tells himself this as he pushes the door open, the bell chiming overhead like it’s mocking him.

He doesn’t look at you.

That’s the rule he makes for himself, silently, immediately. Eyes forward. Counter. Menu. Phone. Anything but the corner table by the window. Anything but the familiar line of your shoulders, the way you always tuck one leg under the other when you sit.

You don’t look at him either. Or maybe you do, briefly—but if you do, he doesn’t let himself notice. That would defeat the purpose.

“Large coffee,” he says, voice flat. “Black.”

“Coming right up,” the barista chirps.

You don’t say hello.

Good. That makes it easier. Or harder. He’s not sure which, and he’s too tired to litigate it internally before his caffeine hits.

He grabs the cup like it’s a life-saving intervention, tosses a couple bills into the jar without waiting for change, and leaves before his brain can do anything stupid—like remember how you used to argue about whether cold brew counts as real coffee.

Outside, the air is sharp and cold. He takes a gulp too fast and burns his tongue. Welcomes it. It’s something concrete. Something that makes sense.

At work, things get worse.

Not subtly. Not in a poetic, slow-burn way. They get worse in the blunt, ugly way that emergency medicine specializes in.

A pediatric code comes in at the end of a twelve-hour shift. Three years old. Drowned. The room fills with noise—orders snapping back and forth, the whine of the monitor, the sound of someone crying just outside the door.

Robby runs it clean. He always does.

“Epi in.”

“Time?”

“Two minutes.”

“Again.”

He doesn’t raise his voice. He doesn’t falter. His hands move automatically, muscle memory honed by too many nights like this. Someone squeezes the bag too hard; he corrects them without looking up.

When they call it, the silence afterward is brutal.

He strips his gloves off and drops them in the bin, chest tight but face neutral. He tells the parents the truth in a quiet room with a box of tissues that will not be enough. He watches a mother fold in on herself.

Afterward, in the hallway, one of the residents stares at the floor.

“Does it ever—” they start, then stop.

Robby waits.

“…get easier?”

He thinks of you. Of the way you’d looked at him like you already knew the answer.

“No,” he says finally. “But you get better at carrying it.”

He isn’t sure that’s true anymore.

The next shift, it’s a drunk driver. Mid-thirties. Walked away from the wreck with a broken nose and a cracked rib. The family in the other car doesn’t make it.

Robby stitches the man up while he slurs apologies he doesn’t remember making.

“I didn’t mean to,” the guy says, tears streaking down his face. “I didn’t mean—”

Robby keeps his tone clinical. Detached.

“I know,” he says, because this isn’t the moment for moral judgment. This is the moment for sutures and vitals and documentation.

Later, the man who does die apologizes too.

That one sticks with him.

Septic shock. Late presentation. Nothing dramatic—just a body that’s quietly given up after weeks of ignoring symptoms. The man grips Robby’s wrist weakly as the blood pressure drops.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. “Didn’t want to bother anyone.”

Robby swallows.

“You didn’t,” he lies, gently.

The man dies ten minutes later.

By the time Robby gets home, the day is layered onto his bones like sediment. He doesn’t bother cooking. He doesn’t bother with water before whiskey. He pours heavy and drinks fast, like he’s trying to outrun his own thoughts.

Sometimes he goes out instead.

Bars. Noise. Low lighting and lower expectations. Someone laughs at his dry humor and leans into his space like they’re allowed to be there. She asks what he does, and when he says “doctor,” her eyes light up in a way that feels uncomplicated.

She wants him.

Not Robby-with-the-baggage. Not Robby-who-wakes-up-at-4-a.m.-with-his-heart-in-his-throat. Just the version that fits neatly into a night and nothing more.

He wakes up the next morning with regret.

Sometimes with bruises he doesn’t remember earning. Sometimes with someone else’s perfume clinging to the sheets, floral and foreign and wrong. He lies there staring at the ceiling, sheets twisted around his legs, the room faintly spinning.

He checks his phone.

Nothing.

Good. Bad. He can’t tell anymore.

He showers longer than necessary, scrubbing at his skin like he can wash off the sense of having borrowed someone else’s closeness. His reflection looks… fine. A little tired. A little harder around the edges.

Functional.

Being wanted is easier than being known.

That’s the thought that settles in his chest as he dries off, as he pulls on clean clothes, as he reaches automatically for his keys.

Wanted doesn’t require honesty.

Wanted doesn’t notice the cracks.

Wanted doesn’t say things like you’re struggling and mean it.

Known does.

And Robby, despite everything, isn’t sure he knows how to survive that yet.

✮ ⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✩

Your lab day detonates spectacularly.

This is a full-scale external blast radius situation. Plates contaminated. Controls useless. A pipette that has clearly developed sentience and chosen violence. The incubator alarm goes off twice for no discernible reason, like it’s mocking you. The bacteria, you are convinced, are doing this on purpose. They’ve unionized. They’re laughing. One colony looks suspiciously like it’s spelling fuck you.

By three in the afternoon, you’ve had exactly one successful result, and it’s from a grad student who clearly does not deserve it.

You peel off your gloves with unnecessary aggression, dump them in biohazard, and resist the urge to scream directly into the autoclave. Instead, you do the adult thing.

You leave.

The coffee shop feels like a refuge in the way triage does—temporary, overstimulated, and full of people who look like they’re also one minor inconvenience away from snapping. The air smells like espresso and something sweet enough to make your teeth itch. You slide into your usual seat across from your friend, dump your bag on the floor, and immediately launch.

“I swear to God,” you say, wrapping both hands around your cup like it’s a grounding exercise, “if my lab director says ‘let’s circle back’ one more time, I’m going to circle him back into traffic.”

Your friend snorts. “Rough day?”

“The PhD students don’t label anything,” you continue, steamrolling. “The grad students label everything but incorrectly. And the postdoc—who is allegedly a grown adult—used my media and didn’t replace it. I hope his PCR fails forever.”

“Harsh.”

“Appropriate,” you correct. “And I’m ninety percent sure the bacteria are evolving spite.”

You rant. You pace verbally. You describe the way the centrifuge made a noise that suggested it was considering violence. You complain about academia, funding, the myth of meritocracy, and the absolute audacity of a man who said, ‘Have you tried troubleshooting?’ as if you haven’t been troubleshooting since the dawn of time.

You’re mid-sentence—something about how your hands smell like ethanol and bacteria—when your eyes flick up.

And there he is.

Across the shop. By the counter. Standing like someone who has forgotten how to occupy space.

He looks wrecked.

Not the charmingly disheveled kind. Not tired-but-functional. This is something else. Red-rimmed eyes. Shoulders slumped like gravity got personal. He looks… hollowed out. Like someone scraped him empty and didn’t bother to fill him back in.

Your brain stalls for exactly half a second.

Then you wave.

Not a small wave. Not a polite acknowledgment. A full, impulsive hey-you wave, because apparently your impulse control has been chemically dissolved by caffeine and rage.

“Hey—” you call, already scooting over. “Come sit.”

You don’t give him time to talk himself out of it. You’re already shoving your bag aside, clearing space like this is the most natural thing in the world.

He freezes.

You can see it happen—the hesitation, the internal calculus. He looks like he’s deciding whether sitting down will somehow make everything worse. His eyes flick to you, then to the empty chair, then back again.

You soften your voice without meaning to. “You don’t have to—”

He exhales. A slow, tired breath.

And then he comes over.

Up close, it’s worse. He smells like stale coffee and hospital antiseptic and something sharp underneath—fatigue, maybe. There’s a faint tremor in his hands when he wraps them around his cup.

“This is—” you gesture. “My friend.”

Your friend smiles, easy and warm, the traitor. “Hi. I’ve heard about you.”

He blinks. “You have?”

“Only the flattering parts,” you say quickly. “Which are mostly lies.”

A corner of his mouth twitches. Not quite a smile. More like muscle memory.

He sits. Doesn’t sprawl. Doesn’t relax. Just… occupies the chair, like he’s bracing for something.

You talk.

Not about work. Not about death. Not about the things hanging off him like weights. You talk about anything else—movies, bad music, the absurd price of oat milk. Your friend tells a story about their cat committing tax fraud (allegedly). You complain about lab politics again, but lighter now, sharper, like you’re performing rather than venting.

He listens.

Really listens. Nods at the right moments. Adds dry comments that land perfectly. When he laughs—quiet, surprised—it feels like a small victory.

At one point, he glances at you. Really looks.

“Rough day?” he asks.

You snort. “The bacteria hate me personally.”

“That tracks,” he says. “You do seem antagonistic.”

“Excuse you.”

Your knee brushes his under the table. You don’t move it away. Neither does he.

For a while, it works. The noise fades. The heaviness around him loosens just enough that he looks… present. Still tired. Still bruised. But here.

You catch him watching you once, expression unreadable. When you meet his eyes, he looks away, embarrassed, like he’s been caught doing something indulgent.

Eventually, your friend checks their watch. “I should go. I have a thing.”

You know better than to ask what kind of thing. You shoot them a grateful look anyway.

“Text me later,” they say pointedly. Then, to him: “Nice meeting you.”

“Yeah,” he says softly. “You too.”

The chair across from you is empty now. The space feels louder for it.

He exhales again, heavier this time. “Thanks,” he says. “For… that.”

You shrug, aiming for casual. “You looked like you could use a break from your own head.”

A beat.

“That obvious, huh?”

You consider him. The red eyes. The way he’s holding himself together with habits and caffeine and sheer force of will.

“Only if you know what you’re looking at,” you say.

He huffs a quiet laugh. “Dangerous skill.”

“Necessary for my job.”

Silence settles—not awkward. Just… there. Comfortable. The city hums outside. Inside, for once, nothing is actively on fire.

You sip your coffee. He does the same.

For a moment—just a moment—it feels like enough.

He thanks you.

Not the polite kind. Not the reflexive thanks people toss out like spare change. This one catches in his throat, rough and quiet and strangled, like he didn’t expect it to come out at all.

“Hey,” he says softly. “Really. Thank you.”

It lands heavier than it should. You feel it in your chest, that uncomfortable thud of being seen when you didn’t ask for it. You shrug, because that’s what you do when sincerity gets too close to something tender.

“Don’t get weird,” you say lightly. “I was already here. Complaining. Multitasking.”

He huffs a laugh that doesn’t quite make it all the way through. His gaze drops to the table, to his hands, wrapped around the cup like it’s the only thing tethering him to the present moment.

You hesitate.

This is the part where you usually stop. Where you let people collect themselves and pretend it was enough. You’re good at that—excellent, actually. World-class at not crossing lines. At maintaining professional distance. Emotional sterility. Clean margins.

But he looks… fragile. Not in a way that invites fixing—God, you hate that—but in a way that feels like standing too close to the edge of something invisible.

Before you can talk yourself out of it, you reach across the table.

Your fingers close gently around his hand.

It’s warmer than you expect. Slightly rough. The tendons tense instinctively, like he’s startled by the contact, then relax when he realizes it’s you. He looks up, eyes flicking from your face to where you’re holding him, like he’s checking whether this is really happening.

“Sorry,” you say automatically, already halfway to pulling back.

“No,” he says quickly. “It’s— it’s fine.”

You pull a pen from your bag, uncapping it with your teeth. You flip his hand palm-up, ignoring the way your pulse jumps at the intimacy of it.

He watches you, confused.

You write carefully, pressing just hard enough that the ink won’t smudge. Numbers curve across his skin—steady, deliberate. You don’t rush it.

When you’re done, you cap the pen and let go.

“Not my number,” you say, before he can misinterpret it. “Therapist.”

He blinks.

Looks down at his hand.

Stares at the ink like it might evaporate if he doesn’t keep his eyes on it. Like it’s some kind of fragile promise written in ballpoint.

“Call her,” you add, quieter now. “Please.”

You don’t soften it with jokes. You don’t dress it up. You let the seriousness sit there, because it deserves the space.

For a moment, he doesn’t say anything.

His thumb traces the numbers absentmindedly, smearing them just a little. You resist the urge to rewrite them. To insist. To explain why you care enough to do this but not enough to overstep. The mental gymnastics are exhausting.

“I will,” he says finally.

He says it simply. No theatrics. No grand vow. Just… intent.

You study his face, looking for cracks. For deflection. For the familiar flinch of someone saying what they think you want to hear.

“I will,” he repeats, quieter. More to himself this time.

You nod once, like you’re accepting a lab result you don’t fully trust but will provisionally believe.

“Good,” you say. “She’s competent. Which, as we’ve established, is rare.”

That earns you a real smile—small, crooked, but genuine. It looks like something he hasn’t used in a while.

Silence stretches between you again, but it’s different now. Charged. Tender in a way that makes you uncomfortable and oddly protective at the same time.

You glance at your coffee. It’s gone cold. Of course it has.

“Well,” you say, pushing back slightly. “I should probably go before my lab director sends a search party or sacrifices another grad student.”

He chuckles, shaking his head. “Thanks. For… everything.”

You stand, sling your bag over your shoulder, and hesitate just long enough to meet his eyes again.

“You don’t owe me anything,” you say. “Just— make the call.”

He nods. Closes his fingers over the numbers like he’s afraid of losing them.

You walk away before either of you can make it heavier. Before it turns into something you can’t neatly compartmentalize.

Outside, the air is sharp and cold, biting at your cheeks. You inhale deeply, grounding yourself in it.

You hope he means it.

You hope the ink lasts long enough.

✮ ⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✩

Robby tells himself he didn’t mean to linger.

He’d only stopped at the coffee shop because it was on the way and because the alternative—going straight home to an apartment that smelled faintly of old takeout and stale beer—felt worse. He’d stood in line, stared at the menu like it might surprise him with a new option, and waited for the barista to call his name.

That’s when he saw you.

You were mid-rant, hands wrapped around your cup like it was the only thing tethering you to sanity, leaning forward across the small table toward your friend. Your face was animated in that sharp, precise way it always was when you were annoyed—eyebrows drawn, mouth curved into something just short of a smile, like you were enjoying your own fury on principle.

He didn’t think. That was the problem.

You looked up. Your eyes found him. And then you waved.

Just—lifted your hand and waved, like he wasn’t a mess stitched together with caffeine and bad coping mechanisms. Like you hadn’t already seen him at his worst and filed it away without flinching.

He remembers how his chest had tightened, fast and sharp, like a muscle spasm. He remembers thinking, dimly, that he probably looked like hell. Red-eyed. Hollowed out. The kind of man people quietly decide not to ask follow-up questions of.

“Hey,” he’d managed back, and hated how small it sounded.

You hesitated. He remembers that too. A fraction of a second where you looked like you were deciding something.

Then you reached out, took his hand.

His brain had frozen entirely at that point. Your fingers were warm, sure. You held him like it was nothing. Like people did that sort of thing all the time.

You uncapped a pen with your teeth and wrote on his skin, slow and deliberate. He’d watched the ink bloom into numbers, dark and undeniable.

“Not my number,” you said, already anticipating the look on his face. “Therapist. Call her. Please.”

He’d stared at his hand like it might evaporate if he blinked.

“I will,” he said.

He wasn’t sure if you believed him. He wasn’t sure if he believed him.

You squeezed his fingers once, gentle but firm. “Okay.”

And then you’d gone back to your lan, back to your life, leaving him sitting there with caffeine cooling in his cup and something sharp and fragile lodged under his ribs.

Now, hours later, he sits on the edge of his bed, fully dressed, shoes still on, jacket slung over the chair like he might leave again at any second.

The apartment is quiet in that oppressive way that makes every sound feel amplified. The hum of the fridge. A siren somewhere far off. The tick of the cheap clock on his nightstand.

He turns his left hand palm-up.

The ink is still there.

Smudged a little at the edges, but legible. A number. Proof that the interaction wasn’t a hallucination cooked up by exhaustion and caffeine.

He hasn’t washed it off.

He told himself he would. That it was unhygienic, unprofessional, a ridiculous thing to keep. But every time he’d stepped toward the sink, he’d hesitated. Like erasing it would be an act of bad faith. Like it would mean admitting he’d already decided not to call.

He drags his thumb over the numbers. The skin there feels normal. Too normal, for how heavy his chest feels.

Call. Don’t call.

He’s had this argument with himself before, different numbers, different names. The outcome has always been the same: put it off, white-knuckle through another month, convince himself he’s fine because he’s still functioning.

Functioning. He almost laughs.

He thinks about how tired he is. Not the kind of tired sleep fixes. The deeper kind. The bone-deep exhaustion of surviving when you’re not sure what you’re surviving for anymore.

His phone is on the bed beside him.

He picks it up. Opens the dialer. Punches in the numbers from his hand.

His thumb hovers.

He hangs up before it rings.

“Of course,” he mutters to the empty room. “Classic.”

He drops the phone onto the mattress, runs a hand over his face. Stares at the wall. Thinks about the ER lights, too bright. The codes that blur together. The patients who apologize as they die. The ones who don’t get the chance.

He thinks about you, writing the number on his hand like you expected him to matter enough to use it.

He picks the phone up again.

Dials.

It rings once. Twice.

He panics and almost hangs up again, but then the call goes to voicemail.

He exhales, long and shaky. “Okay. Okay.”

When he speaks, his voice is rough but steady enough.

“Hi. Uh. My name is Michael Robinavitch. Robby.” A pause. “I was given your number today. By a friend. She said I should call.”

Another pause. He stares at the ink like it might tell him what to say next.

“I’m… not great at this,” he admits, dry despite himself. “But I’m tired. And I think I need help. So. If you’re taking new patients. Please call me back.”

He rattles off his number, careful, deliberate.

“Thank you,” he adds, quietly, and ends the call.

He sits there for a long moment afterward, phone still in his hand.

He doesn’t cry. There’s no dramatic release, no sobbing collapse. But something inside him shifts, just a little. A knot loosening. A fraction of pressure easing off his lungs.

He sets the phone down. Kicks off his shoes. Lies back on the bed without bothering to change.

His eyes drift to his hand one last time.

The ink is still there.

For once, he lets himself close his eyes.

And for the first time in a long while, sleep takes him without a fight.

✮ ⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✩

Weeks pass in the quiet, attritional way they always do when something important has gone unsaid.

You don’t not see him. That would be easier. Cleaner. A controlled experiment with a clear variable removed.

Instead, you get fragments.

A glimpse of his shoulder through the coffee shop window while you’re waiting for your order, the familiar slope of it registering before your brain can intervene. A nod across the counter—polite, careful, like he’s greeting a colleague. Once, a smile, brief and reflexive, like his face betrayed him before he could stop it.

You don’t linger. Neither does he.

It becomes a choreography of avoidance so practiced it almost looks intentional. You tell yourself you’re fine with it. You tell yourself a lot of things.

The lab is supposed to be safe.

That’s the first betrayal.

You’ve done this a thousand times—gloves on, movements economical, muscle memory carrying you through steps your conscious brain barely bothers to supervise anymore. It’s rote. Controlled. Predictable. Which is the point.

Until it isn’t.

The slip is stupid. Embarrassingly so. A moment of distraction, your mind half on a culture result that doesn’t make sense and half on absolutely nothing you should admit to thinking about. The edge of the broken glass bites deeper than it has any right to.

There’s a flash of pain—sharp, immediate, bright enough to cut through everything else—and then the red. Too much red.

“Oh, shit,” you say distantly, because apparently that’s your response to disaster now.

You yank your hand back, instinct overriding protocol, and that’s when you see it properly. The cut is deep. Not a superficial nick you can laugh off with a Band-Aid and some antiseptic bravado. This is open. Gaping. Already slick with blood.

And worse—because of course there’s worse—you know exactly what you were handling.

Your stomach drops with professional precision.

“I'm fucked,” you mutter under your breath, already replaying the last ten minutes in forensic detail. MRSA. Confirmed. The label is right there, smug and fluorescent. You stare at it like it personally betrayed you.

You clamp pressure on the wound, gloved hand turning red almost instantly. Your heart kicks into a faster rhythm, the kind you usually reserve for other people’s emergencies.

Great. Fantastic. You’ve become the patient.

Your lab assistant—sweet, well-meaning, catastrophically unhelpful—appears at your elbow like an anxious ghost.

“Oh my god, are you okay? Should I—do you want me to—should we wash it? I think we should wash it, right? Or maybe—”

“Stop,” you say, sharper than you mean to. You inhale, force yourself to recalibrate. “I’m fine. I mean. I’m not fine. But I’m handling it.”

You are, in fact, not handling it. Your brain has already launched into a worst-case scenario spiral that would make an insurance adjuster proud.

Deep cut. Exposure. Resistant organism. Surgical debridement. IV antibiotics. Complications you lecture other people about like they’re abstract concepts instead of suddenly very personal possibilities.

You walk yourself through it like a prayer. Or a threat.

Early intervention. Proper cleaning. Prophylaxis. Odds are in your favor.

Odds are in your favor.

Odds are in your—

“Hey,” the assistant says, hovering, hands flapping uselessly in the air. “Do you want me to call someone? Or—”

“Yes,” you say immediately. “Call someone. Call—actually, no. I’m going to the ER. You’re going to drive me.”

His eyes widen. “The ER? Is it that bad?”

You look at your hand. Blood is still seeping, slow and insistent. You think of cultures and colonies and the microscopic arrogance of bacteria.

“Yes,” you say flatly. “It’s that bad.”

The car ride is a special kind of hell.

You sit in the passenger seat, arm wrapped in gauze you applied with shaking hands, staring out the window while your brain continues its aggressive tour of everything that could go wrong. Your assistant keeps glancing over like you might spontaneously combust.

“Do you need me to—like—talk to you?” he offers.

“No,” you say. “Please don’t.”

You immediately feel guilty. Then immediately don’t care. Panic is selfish like that.

By the time you get to the ER, the adrenaline has burned down into something colder. Focused. Brittle. You’re very aware of how exposed you feel walking through those doors from the wrong side of the equation.

Check-in is mercifully quick. Someone recognizes the look on your face—the I know exactly how bad this could be look—and fast-tracks you without commentary.

You’re placed in a curtained bay that smells like antiseptic and overworked HVAC. The assistant hovers again, wringing his hands.

“I can stay,” he says. “In case you need—”

“Thank you,” you say, and mean it. Then, more gently than you feel, “But you should go. I’ll be okay.”

He hesitates, clearly torn between concern and the visible relief of being dismissed.

“Text me,” he says finally. “Please.”

“I will,” you lie, because that’s easier.

When the curtain finally pulls back—

It’s him.

For a split second, your brain refuses to process the information. It feels like a trick. A stress hallucination. Your subconscious picking the most inconvenient possible face to project.

Then he speaks.

“Oh,” he says softly. “Hi.”

Your chest tightens in a way that has nothing to do with infection risk.

He looks… different.

Not drastically. Not in a way you could easily articulate if someone asked. Just—grounded. Like his weight is distributed more evenly in his own body. His hands are steady where they rest on the tablet, not vibrating with barely restrained energy. His eyes are calmer, clearer, like he’s finally sleeping more than three hours at a time.

You hate that you notice. You hate that you’re relieved.

“Hi,” you manage, because apparently that’s still your entire vocabulary around him.

There’s a pause. Not awkward, exactly. Careful.

“What happened?” he asks, already stepping closer, professional instinct kicking in like muscle memory.

You lift your hand slightly. “Lab accident. Deep cut. MRSA exposure,” you say, brisk, preemptive. “I’m aware it’s deeply ironic.”

The corner of his mouth twitches. Not a full smile. But close.

“Of course it was MRSA,” he murmurs. “Anything else would’ve been too easy.”

He pulls on gloves with a smooth, practiced motion, eyes never leaving your hand. You watch him work because you don’t know where else to look.

The door curtain swishes shut behind him, and that’s when it happens.

The second you’re alone with him—no lab assistant hovering, no triage nurse pretending not to listen, no one to perform competence for—your composure collapses like a badly stacked slide deck.

You stare at your hand. The cut looks worse under proper lighting. Deeper. Angrier. Your brain obligingly supplies a slideshow of microscopic horrors.

MRSA in the bloodstream.

Endocarditis.

Months of IV antibiotics.

Permanent damage because you were careless.

You laugh. It comes out wrong—too sharp, too loud.

“This is bad,” you say. “This is actually really fucking bad. I mean, statistically it’s probably fine, but statistically people also get hit by buses, and I don’t like how often I’ve been thinking about probability lately.”

Your chest tightens. Your breath goes shallow and fast, like your lungs are skimming instead of landing.

He looks up immediately.

Not alarmed. Not annoyed. Just… attentive.

“Okay,” he says calmly, setting the irrigation syringe down. “That’s fixable.”

You bark out another laugh. “Is it? Because my brain is currently drafting a very detailed worst-case scenario with appendices.”

He steps closer, lowering himself onto the rolling stool so he’s at eye level with you instead of looming. It’s a small thing. It helps more than you want to admit.

“Hey,” he says softly. “Look at me.”

You don’t want to. You do anyway.

His eyes are steady. Focused.

“You’re exposed,” he says evenly. “Yes. You caught it early. You came in immediately. We’re cleaning it properly, we’re closing it, and I’m putting you on antibiotics that are frankly overkill.”

“Overkill is my favorite genre,” you mutter.

“There it is,” he says, faintly amused. “Still sarcastic. Good sign.”

Your breathing is still off. You’re aware of it in an abstract, professional way—hyperventilation, mild panic response—while being completely unable to stop it.

“What if it doesn’t work?” you blurt. “What if it seeds? What if I end up admitted? What if this screws my research? What if—”

He reaches out without thinking and presses two fingers gently against your wrist, right over your pulse.

The contact is grounding in a way that borders on unfair.

“Okay,” he says again, slower this time. “Pause. You’re doing the thing where you catastrophize faster than your body can keep up.”

You swallow. “I’m aware. Awareness has not been curative.”

He snorts softly. “Fair.”

He keeps his fingers there for a moment longer than strictly necessary.

“Breathe with me,” he says. “In through your nose. Count of four.”

You glare at him. “I hate that this works.”

“Trust me,” he says. “I hate that I have to use it.”

You inhale. Slowly. Against your will.

“Out,” he continues. “Six.”

You do it again. Then again.

Your heart rate starts to ease, reluctantly, like a stubborn machine returning to baseline.

“There,” he says quietly. “You’re still scared, but you’re not spinning.”

You huff. “I feel like a badly calibrated centrifuge.”

“I’ve seen worse,” he replies. “I once had a guy try to self-soothe by reciting the periodic table. He got stuck at cobalt.”

That gets an actual laugh out of you. It’s shaky, but it’s real.

“Loser,” you say jokingly.

He grins briefly, then refocuses, slipping fully back into physician mode.

“Alright,” he says. “Let’s take care of this.”

You snort. “I’ll try to be brave.”

“I’ve seen you,” he replies mildly. “You’ll complain, but you’ll survive.”

There it is. Familiarity, slipping through the cracks despite both of your best efforts.

The cleaning is unpleasant in the way only necessary things are. The antiseptic burns, sharp and insistent, and you flinch despite yourself.

“Sorry,” he says automatically.

“It’s fine,” you say through clenched teeth. “I deserve this for hubris.”

“For what?”

“For believing I was immune to lab accidents because I’m smarter than glass.”

“Glass remains undefeated,” he says solemnly.

You snort again, shoulders loosening incrementally as he works. He narrates lightly—not in a condescending way, just enough to keep your brain occupied.

“Looks clean, at least,” he continues. “We’ll be aggressive about treatment. You did the right thing coming in.”

“Good,” you say. “I’d hate to disappoint you.”

He glances up then, looks closely at you, and something unreadable passes through his expression.

“I don’t think you could,” he says quietly.

The words settle between you, heavy and unresolved, as his hands continue their careful work. Outside the curtain, the ER hums on—controlled chaos, endless and indifferent.

When he numbs the area, the sting fades into pressure, then nothing at all. The stitches tug faintly as he places them, precise and practiced.

“Do you want to watch?” he asks.

“Absolutely not,” you say. “I know exactly what’s happening and that’s plenty.”

“Smart.”

He keeps talking as he works—about nothing and everything. A terrible coffee someone brought in earlier. A patient who tried to diagnose himself via social media. A nurse who keeps stealing pens and denying it with oscar worthy sincerity.

You find yourself responding automatically, the panic receding into something manageable. Contained.

By the time he finishes tying the last stitch, you realize you’re no longer shaking.

“There,” he says, sitting back. “All closed.”

You look at your hand. Neat. Controlled. Taken care of.

He prints the prescription, scribbling quickly, then hands it to you.

“Antibiotics,” he says. “Take them exactly as prescribed. No heroics. If anything looks off—redness, fever, dramatic swelling—you come back. Immediately.”

“Yes, Dad.”

He arches an eyebrow. “I will confiscate your lab privileges.”

You smile despite yourself.

As he steps back, the room feels a little bigger. A little emptier.

“Thank you,” you say quietly. Not just for the stitches.

He meets your eyes again, something warm and steady there.

“Anytime,” he says. And for once, you believe it.

He finishes typing up the discharge instructions, fingers moving with easy familiarity over the keyboard. The room has settled into that post-crisis quiet—monitors humming softly, the air cool and antiseptic, everything returned to baseline now that you’re stitched, medicated, and no longer actively unraveling.

You swing your legs off the bed carefully, acutely aware of your newly sutured hand, of the faint pull beneath the dressing. You feel ridiculous for how exposed you still are. Emotionally, if not anatomically.

“Alright,” he says, handing you the papers. “You’re good to go. Try not to do anything stupid.”

You accept them. “That feels like an impossible standard.”

“I have faith,” he says dryly. “Limited, but present.”

You stand, shrug into your jacket, suddenly hyper-aware of how close he is again. The moment stretches. This should be the end. Clean. Professional. You thank him, you leave, you don’t complicate things.

Instead—

“Hey,” he says quietly.

You pause, one hand already on the curtain. You turn back.

He’s not looking at the chart anymore. He’s looking at you.

“I, uh…” He exhales through his nose, just a little, like he’s bracing himself. “I wanted to say thank you. For that night. At the coffee shop.”

Your stomach dips. You know immediately what he means. The inked number. The way his voice sounded when he thanked you then—fractured, barely holding together.

“For… the number,” he continues. “I did call.”

Your mouth goes dry.

“Oh,” you say intelligently.

He nods once. “Yeah. I probably wouldn’t have, otherwise.”

There’s no drama in his voice. No grand confession. Just honesty, laid out carefully between you.

“That mattered,” he adds. “More than you probably realized.”

You shrug reflexively, the gesture coming out sharper than you intend. “It was just a number.”

He gives you a look. Steady. Knowing.

“No,” he says. “It wasn’t.”

That lands somewhere uncomfortable in your chest. You deflect, because of course you do.

“Well,” you say lightly, “I’m glad it didn’t go to waste.”

He smiles faintly at that. It’s small, restrained—but real.

You turn back toward the curtain, fully intending to escape before your brain can do anything reckless.

It fails you.

You hesitate, fingers tightening on the fabric.

Say it, a traitorous part of you urges. If you don’t, you’ll think about it for weeks like an idiot.

You sigh internally. Fine. One small act of self-sabotage, as a treat.

“Hey,” you say, pivoting back again. “Uh—coffee’s on me next time.”

The words hang there, fragile and terrifying.

His reaction is immediate.

He freezes.

Not dramatically. Just… still. Like his brain has briefly frozen. You can almost see the calculation happening behind his eyes—professional boundaries, emotional landmines, history, risk.

You brace yourself for the polite deflection. The easy out.

Instead, after a beat, he nods.

“Yeah,” he says. Then, quieter, “Okay.”

There’s a small smile on his face when he says it. Careful. Hopeful. Like he’s afraid to test it too hard in case it disappears.

Your heart does something profoundly inconvenient.

“Okay,” you echo, because apparently you’re both committed to this minimalist dialogue now.

You pull the curtain aside and step out, pulse loud in your ears. As you walk down the hallway, you’re acutely aware of the absurdity of it all—how a cut hand and a prescription somehow led you here, to this strange, tentative truce with something unresolved.

Behind you, you swear you feel his eyes linger a moment longer than necessary.

You don’t look back.

You smile anyway.

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