#exosmut

When the idea came to you to you, the result you got was not at all what you expected.

You managed to sneak a peak at Chanyeol´s door code the last time you came over to his place for a night of passionate sex. You didn’t plan on coming here often or anything weird like that. But you knew Chanyeol had been having long and tiring days at work and practice, so you just wanted to do something nice for him.

You had dressed up and made some food for him to have at his apartment. You don’t know how he had such a nice body when all he ́d do is eat out and eat ramen at home. You went over to his apartment when you knew he ́d be at band practice. You cleaned up a bit and put some of the food away in the fridge while the rest you started to reheat so it´d be ready by the time he got home.

“You scared me!” You piped as you grabbed a cloth towel and wiped up the bit of mess you made when you dropped the spoon.

“How did you get in my apartment?” His tone had not relaxed and you noticed how upset he looked, which made your stomach drop.

“I saw you punch in your code once and I remembered it. I know you’ve been busy and tired lately, so I wanted to surprise you.” You watched his face as his eyes scanned what was visible of his apartment from where you two were standing.

“I may be tired but I don’t need you to come here and cook or clean for me.” He brushed past you as he made his way to his bathroom, getting ready for a shower.

“You don’t want to eat? The soup is warm.” You said softly, trying to ease his mood.

“I ate already.” Was his only reply as he slammed the door of his bathroom shut.

You stood there for a moment, to see if he would come out of the bathroom and say he was joking. But once you heard the water turn on and his Bluetooth speaker started blaring some heavy metal song, your initial embarrassment turned into anger.

Taking off the apron around your waist, you huffed in annoyance at his attitude. He could’ve at least been a bit grateful! Sure coming to his house unannounced was your bad, you recognized that. But he didn’t need to act like such an asshole. You picked up the rest of your belongings and made your way out of is apartment, slamming the door behind you. You knew he wasn’t going to hear it, but it made you feel better anyway.

Chanyeol and you have a very interesting relationship. You’re not formally dating, because Chanyeol made it clear he doesn’t do relationships. You were each other’s go-to fuck buddy. You liked to think it was more than that though. There were times when he would be very sweet and attentive and other times he would be cold, distant and give you the silent treatment for days, if not weeks, before he’d message you as if nothing happened. It was extremely confusing and frustrating at times because you really felt like you were developing feelings for him, you just didn’t know how he felt.

His attitude tonight was completely unexpected and you wish he’d tell you what made him so upset. It’s not like you were strangers. Six months had passed since the night you two went home together after the club. He had been over at your place countless times. You had only been to his place a handful of times, but it didn’t happen often. You feel it had something to do with the fact that he never stayed the night with you. After you’d finish having sex, he would normally stay for a few minutes to cuddle with you, but then he’d get dressed and leave. You figured he didn’t like to go to his place because he didn’t want to kick you out. You were intuitive enough though, and so the few times you’d be over at his place, you’d leave almost immediately after. He would offer to drive you home so you didn’t have to take an Uber or a taxi, but he never asked you to stay.

Once you’re back inside your apartment, yo decide to apologize to Chanyeol. You want to put this whole thing behind you as if it never happened.

Hey, I just want to say I’m sorry. It was out of line of me to barge in like that. Don’t worry, it’s not going to happen again.

You plugged your phone into its charger and went to the bathroom to take a shower, You put the unseen sexy lingerie in the hamper and sighed, it was a shame it was not ripped off your body tonight.

Once you were out of the shower, you checked your phone to see if he had replied, and to your complete disappointment, he had not. Maybe he was more angry about it than what you thought.

“And he never replied?” Mina asked in shock, her eyes bugging out in a comedic way.

“Nope. It’s been three days since. He’s giving me the silent treatment again.” You roll your eyes as you sip from your coffee.

“Look, babe, I say this because you’re my best friend and I love you. But why are you with him? He’s not worth your time! He’s such a douchebag.” Mina says, getting angrier as she thinks about it.

“He’s not that bad. He just has mood swings.” You shrug.

“Bullshit. Dude, do you not see what's going on here? He manipulates you! And you just keep going back to him time and time again! You deserve so much better than that! You’re much better than all of this!” Mina slams her coffee cup on the table, giving you a glare you’ve never received from her before.

“Mina, I know you’re looking out for me, but you need to calm down. Not all of us are as lucky as you and have a boyfriend that literally bends over backwards to give you everything you want.” You spit back at her.

“Are you freaking stupid? That’s exactly how your boyfriend is supposed to treat you! But, oh, right! Chanyeol isn’t your boyfriend. He’s just a guy that calls you when he feels like he needs something to fuck.”

You were stunned to silence. Never before had Mina ever spoken to you like. Her words had venom and you felt yourself get angry but also wanting to cry at the same time.

“Wow. Okay then.” You say, grabbing your coffee cup and your purse as you get up. “I’ll see you back at the office. My lunch break is over.” You walk away without giving her the chance to say anything else.

Mina is glued to her seat, shocked at herself for the things she said to you. She regretted it as soon as it came out of her mouth. She wanted you to see that Chanyeol was only using and manipulating you, he didn’t really care about you and it hurt her to see you let yourself be used that way. You were such a strong willed person that it felt completely out of character seeing you let yourself be treated this way.

Once you got to your cubicle, you let a few tears stream down your face before you wiped them away angrily. You didn’t want anyone to see you cry at work.

Hey, want to come over tonight?

Your nerves were on end the second you pressed the send button. You just wanted to prove to yourself that Mina is all wrong about Chanyeol.

You put your phone face down so you could concentrate on your work and not glance at it every two seconds to see if he replied. You opened up your email and saw you had many of them you had to answer, making you sigh in annoyance.

“Seriously? Did everyone decide to message me when i was out to lunch?” You grumbled to yourself, opening up the first email and resuming your work.

By the time you answered your last email, three hours had passed and it was time to leave work. You glanced at your phone, remembering that you had messaged Chanyeol. You checked to see if he had replied, just to see he left you on read. You shoved your phone into your purse, annoyed at yourself for messaging him.

You didn’t realize you were crying until you noticed a little boy sitting across from you on the bus; he was staring at you and making a wiping motion. You wiped at your face, surprised to see that it was wet. You sniffled quietly and got off at your stop, stopping by the convenience store to buy some ramen and a lot of junk food. You don’t know why you were craving it so much, but you felt like you needed it.

Once the ramen was ready you turned on the TV to watch a drama and pig out on junk food. The drama that was on air was a very sappy romantic drama that had you crying when the lead male character confessed his love to the female lead.

“Love isn’t real!” You screamed at the tv, throwing the remote control across the room and wiping at your tears. You emptied the bag of honey butter chips into your mouth and laid on the couch, watching the drama until you fell asleep.

You woke up in the middle of the night from a sharp pain in your lower abdomen. Clutching your stomach , you made your way to the bathroom to see what was wrong with you. Pulling down your pants and sitting on the toilet, you saw the dark red spot on your panties.

“Ugh, screw you Mother Nature.” You grumbled as you stripped your clothes off and made your way to the shower. That explained the sudden need to eat half the junk food your local convenience store had to offer. It also explained why you were crying like a little bitch last night, momma didn’t reside no weakling.

After your shower, you saw that it was past 4am. Grabbing a heating pad, you took a couple of Advil and hoped that it would help alleviate the pain. You went back to sleep before you knew it.

The blaring alarm woke you up and the second you moved to turn it off, you felt a sharp pain once again in your lower abdomen. Moaning in pain you realized that you were not going to be able to function at work today, not when your uterus was literally ripping itself to shreds inside your body.

You texted your manager to let him know you were not going to work that day. Thankfully your company was very lenient with sick leave, so you weren’t too worried about it.

You felt like crap and decided to order some delicious kimchi stew to help settle the pain, it was better than eating ramen and junk food, that’s for sure.

When Mina showed up for work, she made her way to your office with a coffee in hand, ready to apologize for her behavior the day before. She was totally out of line and she didn’t like it when you two were mad at each other. Rounding the corner, she was confused when she realized your cubicle was empty. It was very unlike you to miss work, but at the same time, lately you had been doing a lot of things that were unlike you. Still, she felt terribly bad about yesterday and she decided to shoot you a text, maybe you were sick and that worried her.

Hey… I know you’re probably still mad at me, but I want to make sure you’re okay. I didn’t see you at work today. Is everything alright?

You woke from your nap when you felt your phone vibrate next to your head. Your heart skipped a beat with the possible Chanyeol messaging you back. But seeing that it was Mina instead also made your heart race, remembering everything that happened the day before. Reading her message, you smiled softly and rolled your eyes. She worried so much about you and you felt bad for walking out on her yesterday. Her words hurt you, but you know she was just looking out for you.

Hey, I’m fine. Aunt Ruby decided to pay me a painful visit.

Oh no babe! As soon as I’m done with my morning meeting, I’ll leave work early and make my way to your house with some delicious food and goodies~

Aww you don’t have to, I know you’re busy.

Nonsense. I’ll be there in 2hrs

I love you and don’t deserve you

;)

Taking a look around your living room, you realized that your apartment was a little messy. You tidied up and washed the few dishes that were in your sink. You put a load of laundry in the washer and headed to the bathroom to take a quick shower so you felt a little better.

Once you were out of the shower, you put your laundry to hang as the doorbell rang. Looking at the security camera screen, you saw Mina standing there holding bags of food.

“Hey! I brought you a little survival kit.” Mina said as she took her shoes off and made her way to your kitchen.

“I have some heating pads, chocolate, some ramen and tofu stew. Oh and kimchi from that banchan store down the block. That old lady makes the best kimchi.” She put all the bags on top of your counter as she sorted the items out.

“You’re so good to me, I don’t deserve you.” You said as you walked up behind her and wrapped your arms around her waist.

Mina shrugged herself out of your arms and whirled around to face you, you were stunned at her sudden movement.

“No, don’t say that. I’m horrible, okay? I was so out of line with you. You didn’t deserve that. I don’t deserve you.” Mia looked near tears as she embraced you in a tight hug.

“I know you’re looking out for me.” You said as you both pulled away. You sat on a stool as Mina took the stew out and placed it in front of you with some rice and kimchi.

“I went full mamma bear on you. I didn’t mind when you and Chanyeol were just sleeping around. But I know you and I don’t want to see you get hurt. Chanyeol doesn’t deserve you and you should not be accepting his treatment.” She said, feeling angry but sad at the same time.

“I know, but-“ You were interrupted by Mina’s phone going off. She took her phone out and answered.

“What? I am out of the office.” She said into the phone. She was quiet for a second and cursed under her breath. “Okay okay okay. I get it. I’ll be there shortly.” She hung up and sighed.

“I’m sorry, I gotta go. Some people are just so incompetent they can’t do their job even though it’s so simple. I’ll check back later, okay?” She said, grabbing at her purse.

“Of course, don’t worry. You did so much already. Thank you.”

“Eat your soup!” Mina said as she made her way out of your apartment.

You ate your soup in silence and threw the trash out once you were done with the soup. Grabbing a bag of honey chips, bless you Mina, you plopped down on your couch and pulled up Netflix. You got lost on the drama you were watching you didn't hear your phone vibrate until the second time. You reached for it absentmindedly and didn't pay attention to who messaged you until you unlock your phone.

Hey babe

Can I come over? I need you

You stared at Chanyeol’s message for a couple of minutes before you responded. You were dumbfounded as to why he was messaging you now, after ignoring you for a few days.

You can come over if you want. But I’m on my period and I’m not going to sleep with you.

You sent the message with a hint of annoyance. You were hoping he’d want to come over anyway, to prove to you that this whole thing was not just about sex.

I’ll come over in 2 days

His response left you feeling cold. Two days. As in when your period is over. Your heart sank to your stomach and you felt a little nauseous. You were really hoping that this was something else, but it seems like time and time again, Chanyeol was proving you otherwise. You wiped at the tears angrily, both at Chanyeol and yourself. You couldn’t believe what an asshole he was. You had enough of his bullshit.

And when your jaw hung slack and your eyes glassed over, Sehun was good for spilling your secrets to. His eyes swung wide like windows opening to receive the bright sunshine of the dewy morning and his lips hung into a circle as he listened to every grim and gritty detail of the secret love; the forbidden tastes nobody knew about; the soft touches like silk and the rough patches like sand and he sat enraptured as you spun your tale; vomiting out every bit of bile left in your belly that was very much this ongoing problem ...this problem that your good and honest, trustworthy and kind best-friend was having with a boy she once dated, who had made a sudden reappearance back into her life.

“She has to quit her job,” Sehun said as he carefully poured from a bottle of vodka into a small shot glass. His lips frowned with the words as he poured too fast and the clear liquid sloshed over the top and puddled on the glossily lacquered table below.

“She can't quit her job,” you shook your head with your hand placed over your chest, right above your heart that beat furiously with every head shake, “this is her dream job, Sehun. This is the career she has worked toward her entire life. Should she just,” you swung your arm out and clumsy fingertips hit the bottle, tipping it to the side for a split second. He reached forward to catch it before any more of this precious liquid could be lost to the tabletop, “should she just throw it all away...for a guy that dumped her?”

“You’re right, she can't quit her job,” he said with a stern head shake and his eyebrows sat high on his forehead, “then he would win.”

A dull sound blended with his words. It was a low hum that made ripples run through the puddle on the table and Sehun’s eyes dropped from where they had seemed held captive with the intensity of eye contact he kept and he looked down at the illuminated screen of his phone.

Someone was calling him. The edges of his head, his black hair, his handsome features, his pink lips, and pink cheeks and broad shoulders all blurred together at the seams and he was excusing himself for a moment without actually getting up from the table.

“Oh, yeah-” he spoke into his cell phone and your mind drifted with that certain timbre you thought you heard. A tone of voice that was familiar and carried with it as many heart-flutters as it did heartaches. You lifted a hand to feel the softness of your bottom lip with your fingertips. Your lips were rough and chapped (had he felt this roughness against his own smooth, plump ones?) Whatever remnants of lipstick you once wore were long gone and you wondered if you looked like an absolute mess of a former human being right here across from super megastar, superhuman incarnate, Oh Sehun of idol group EXO. Despite his dressed down look; the sweatpants and sweatshirt that he had been wearing all morning and afternoon for dance practice, the man was spotless. His skin was smooth and bright and his eyes shone brightly as he smiled into his cell phone conversation as his eyes found your own wandering ones.

“How did you know?” Sehun spoke to his caller and you reached for the half-empty glass in front of you to drain it of its burden as it had promised to do for you. Sehun was saying some other words. Words with quick syllables and you watched his lips sound out the sounds as you tried to follow along half-heartedly. It felt like work, the longer you sharpened your ears for the syllables he was speaking. The Korean always felt like work here. Your mind was sleepy and your heart was weary. You suddenly longed for your mother tongue. You wanted to relax and let your heart do the talking for you for a while.

“Sehun, what should I do if I’m still in love with my ex-boyfriend?” Your lips were moving on their own and your heart was sighing in relief for the sudden overwhelming honesty that spilled forth. “What do I do if he kissed me today and I want him to kiss me again and again?”

“Hold on a second,” Sehun said, but not to you.

“How can I stop my heart from loving him? I thought I could let go. I thought I was almost over him but he’s...why did he have to do that? Why did he leave me food when he knew I was hungry and why did it feel so good to kiss him again?”

“No, I don’t understand her, she just switched to another language,” he said again after listening to you ramble on and your lips pulled into a triumphant smile.

“You have no idea, do you? That I loved him and he loved me and then...then it was just over and he was gone.”

Sehun smiled when you did but his eyes remained blissfully unaware as he watched you spill out your every secret onto this lacquered table top.

“He dumped me...over the phone. And then he was just gone. He didn’t want me anymore...he didn’t love me anymore and I...I never stopped loving him. Not for a second, Sehun. And it hurt. Back then, it did. It used to hurt so much.”

“Okay, I’ll see you,” he said softly into his phone and disconnected the call.

“I don’t know what you’re saying.” This time he was speaking to you and your smile pushed itself wider. You felt strangely lifted from having confessed a few your problems to this man. Why did this feel so liberating? You felt like you could finally exhale the breath you had been holding for weeks and you wanted to clap your hands in celebration.

“Do you want to know?” You could recognize the playfulness on your own voice now and you blamed the alcohol for it. This was nice. This felt like a light chat with a friend who wouldn’t judge you for your past mistakes.

Sehun’s eyes danced over your face and he did not answer your question. You replayed it in your own head once to be sure you had asked him in Korean this time but when you opened your lips to ask him again he shrugged his shoulders lightly, that playful smile still dancing along his eyes.

“Only if you want to tell me.” At some point you had leaned into to confess your many secrets to him as you watched his pretty face; danger removed as he was too busy with his phone call to catch any off-words he might possibly understand. But now you had his undivided attention and the pull of the smile on your lips went slack a little when you felt the warmth of his palm cascade over the back of your hand that rested lightly on the table.

You looked down to see Sehun’s hand, strong and steady, not entirely unwanted despite the surprise you felt in your bones to see him touching you here, in this private room, with the drinks swimming around inside your blood and with the soft way he had been watching you speak for the better part of an hour now.

The blood was pumping through your veins in such a noisy way, it echoed in your ears, making everything fuzzy and you stared down at the lazy circles he made with his thumb over the knuckle of your thumb. The longer you watched, the less you felt of this. The alcohol left you feeling disconnected from your own body as you swam somewhere above where Oh Sehun’s fingertips enchanted spells into your skin.

“Do you want to tell me?” He asked this time, pulling your focus up from this confusing gesture happening on the table and into his quiet questioning eyes. He didn’t beg. He sure as hell didn’t demand and you fell into silence as you watched him; actually watched him. The lean he had toward you. His chin propped up on a single hand bent at the elbow. Drink and phone long forgotten on the table and a small smile on that face that only invited, but never judged.

What had you ever given him that could warrant this kind of kindness? What would he have even taken from you in return? Sehun was a wonderful friend. Sehun was kind and thoughtless and had shown you nothing but kindness and you had been...less than that for him. Here tonight, the original intention of him seeing you was because he had some questions to ask you; something that had weighed on him enough to stop you and ask you to meet and yet you were sitting alone in your pity party, drinking your fill of alcohol as you whined to him about your own problems.

“Didn’t you say you had something to ask me, Sehun?” If the subject change felt abrupt to him, he didn’t flinch. The only change was the drift of his eyes up into yours from where they had wandered down your face and the slow blink as he cleared his throat.

“Ahh...there’s no rush.” He wrinkled his nose with the dismissal. “We can talk about it later. It’s not that urgent. It can at least wait until your heart is a little more settled.”

Your heart? Did Sehun understand what you had told him earlier when he was on the phone? You were pretty certain he hadn’t understood a word of your many confessions, yet the mere mention of your heart sent it beating again; frantic and wild.

Sehun’s grin widened and he dropped his chin from his hand with a small laugh from deep within his chest.

“Ahh, you’re a good friend though,” he said with a wipe of his hand over his clean face, “to be so worked up and passionate for your friend’s sake. Wow.”

“I hope to be that important to you one day.”

‘Of course, you are important to me, Sehun. You’re a good friend. A great one actually. If someone hurt you, I would be the first one to have your back.” You found the confidence easily enough and you spun your hand below his on the table to grip around his sweaty palm.

“Anyway, enough of this. Ask me what it was you wanted to ask.”

You put up your most supportive face. Shaking his hand inside your own for added emphasis and the low sound of a throat clearing caught your ear. It wasn’t a sound happening inside the room, but there was definitely someone out in the hallway. There were rushed footsteps, faster than a casual stroll, yet not quite a run and that tone again; the familiarity of that throat clearing was a goddamned beacon calling out to you.

You had to be drunk to be hearing him even here. In a simple cleared throat. Couldn’t your silly heart ever give you any peace?

“Ahh...it’s nothing that important actually—” Sehun was speaking but he might as well have been silent when the curtain that closed off the room trembled as if someone on the other side touched it, “—just wondering about how you would feel about—”

The curtain did not part as you expected, but you were certain someone was there. The warmth that flooded your cheeks could easily be blamed on the alcohol. The trouble you were having following what Sehun was saying to you could also be the drinks, but it was almost as if you could feel him there. “—maybe with me—”

“Do Kyungsoo,” you said out loud with your own voice and the curtain did not move or flinch with the name you spoke. What did happen was a stiffening in Sehun’s shoulders as he straightened his posture.

“Oh...how did you know?” Sehun said suddenly with a slight lift in his voice and a little cock of his head, “yeah, he called me earlier and was going to stop by for a drink. Hope that’s fine.” Sehun turned his shoulders and looked at the curtain behind his back. “He should be here soon, he wasn’t too far away.”

Fine? No, Sehun that was not fine. You had been running away from the man when you found Sehun as the perfect prop to grab ahold of and he’d gone ahead and invited him here to drink with you? Was this a dream? Your reality was definitely blurred and fuzzy like dreams sometimes were. You half expected the curtain to part and a purple alligator to waltz in wearing Kyungsoo’s ugly khakis and a muddy white t-shirt.

“That’s so funny,” Sehun said after a moment and you used his staccato laughter to pull your hand out of his grip, “he knew I was with you too. He said he heard your voice and asked if you were very drunk yet. Weird.”

“Kyungsoo, you can just come in. We know you’re there.” You felt reckless now. What did any of the charade matter when he had been so obvious on the phone with Sehun earlier. When he casually asked him about your drunkenness and seemed to pick your voice out despite the muffle of the phone line and the fact that you weren’t even speaking in Korean anymore.

At last, the curtain moved and you saw rounded fingertips grip the red barrier and pull it wide enough to dip a black cap covered head through the opening.

You reached for the bottle of vodka the moment his eye caught yours and resisted the urge to drink straight from the bottle. You didn’t need him to add that to his list.

“Sehun, Baek was looking for you,” Kyungsoo spoke to Sehun as soon as he was through the doorway, yet his eyes were still on you and the careful way you poured a shot for yourself.

It went down easier than the previous drinks had and you knew you should slow down for your own sake.

“Hyung, sit down and have a drink with us,” Sehun’s eyes were bright and innocent as he looked up from his spot on the floor and patted the empty space right beside him that was, thankfully, not directly in front of you.

Kyungsoo did as he was asked and didn’t even hesitate before grabbing a glass from the table for Sehun to fill. He downed one, then two, then grabbed the bottle himself and filled a third as you tried to ignore the image of two Oh Sehun’s giggling beside the man who, obviously had lots of drinks to catch up to.

“Hyung,” Sehun dipped his head beside Kyungsoo’s ear and his voice pulled into a jovial whisper, “...Hyung,” Sehun’s head rocked back and forth and you could tell he was drunk enough for silliness. “You didn’t even greet our beautiful head translator. What kind of manners?”

You pressed your fingertips over your closed eyelids for a moment, trying to get the blurriness to pass and when you opened them back up the room took a moment to regain its focus.

“She looks pretty drunk, Sehun,” Kyungsoo said with another drink. “Would she even remember if I did?”

“I rememmmber everything, Kyungsoooo.” The words were out but there was an undeniable slur to them as your tongue didn’t quite want to cooperate with your thoughts.

His only response was a single lift of a big black bullshit eyebrow and the shot glass in his hands was tossed back into his open mouth. When it was empty he slammed the glass down on the tabletop with a loud thud that made you jump.

“What did Baekhyun want?” Sehun was talking as he reached for the bottle of alcohol from Kyungsoo’s hands and there was the smallest struggle for it. Sehun lifted it to his face for inspection and frowned to see it nearly empty. He shook it twice, watching the drops at the bottom swirl around before he looked up with his eyes wide and his mouth open to speak. “Oh yeah! You. So what do you say? Will you do it?”

He was looking at you and you stared at both versions of his face in genuine confusion.

What in the world was he asking you?

“She is drunk, Sehun. You can't ask her anything right now, she won’t remember.”

“Sehun don't listen to him. I’ll do it. I say yes. My answer is yes.” Sehun’s face lit up in delight and he clapped his hands noisily in front of himself. You had no idea what you had just agreed to, but you were sure it couldn’t get any worse than this.

“Alright, I’ll let Baekhyun know. It’ll be good. We’ve only had Chinese translators for the game streams but I’ve been saying we need English forever.”

The room stayed put as long as you didn't let your eyes close for too long and you could feel a genuine sense of relief that you’d only agreed to another translation job-related task and not anything too troubling or incriminating.

“Ahh, you didn’t ever finish telling me what happened today though. You know, after the coffee and kimbap.” Sehun’s finger was raised and he pointed it at you across the table. “You know, she walked into her office and found the coffee and kimbap and you were about to tell me about that but then you had to go to the bathroom. What happened after that?”

He may have been blurry, but he was definitely watching you with those big round brown eyes. The damn bottle of vodka was empty now. You wondered how badly it would hurt to hit yourself over the head with it so you could simply spend the rest of tonight unconscious. It was tempting.

Kyungsoo looked from your face over to Sehun’s waiting one and slowly leaned forward on his elbows; his face resting lightly over his open palms and the fakest smile creeping onto his lips that you had ever seen him sport.

“What’s this? Who found coffee and kimbap in their office today?”

It couldn't possibly hurt any worse than being hit by a car right? You knew you’d have to swing it very hard to knock yourself out. You wondered if you would even be able to get the leverage for an unconscious blow to the head with how short your arms were and with how off your balance and coordination was.

“Ahh, her best friend. Oh my god, it’s so good. Okay so she broke up with...no wait, he dumped her over the fucking phone—”

Hitting yourself was probably not going to work, but maybe you could hit them both and flee the room.

“And now they’re working together again. But listen she had to come because of her job. It wasn’t like she came on purpose just to get back together with him or anything.”

“Are you sure it wasn’t on purpose though?” Kyungsoo’s eyes narrowed at Sehun’s version of the story.

“Positive. Think about it. She didn't know they were going to break up. She didn't know that the job transfer request would be put in months after the fact. What was she going to do? Just quit? Please, would you quit your job if your ex-girlfriend suddenly showed up and started working with you again?”

“I would think about it,” Kyungsoo mumbled and you reached for the empty bottle forgotten on the edge of the table.

“So anyway, the boyfriend... I mean ex-boyfriend, but c’mon, I’m just going to call him the boyfriend because it’s so obvious...”

The bottle had a nice heft to it. It was well balanced in your hand and you swung it a couple of times as a practice run. Your assessment of this weapon had not been completely accurate because as you tipped it upside down you felt the telltale signs of quite a bit of wetness spilling out of the mouth and down your arm, dripping all over your leg. It hadn’t been empty. It had only looked that way to your drunk eyes and you spilled about a shot’s worth of vodka all over your leg and the floor beside you before you realized what was happening.

“Shit,” you swore under your breath and reached for the napkins at the center of the table, only to come back empty handed. They were gone and an unexpected sensation at your side pulled your shaky focus.

“What is so obvious? Why is it obvious? They broke up, it’s over, Sehun.”

The conversation continued only instead of both voices coming from the other side of the table, you heard that low familiar voice at your side as stiff cocktail napkins dabbed up the wetness on your legs.

“If it’s over then why is he taking care of her like this?” Sehun’s words felt like gospel and you stared at the side profile of a slightly drunk Do Kyungsoo as he stopped halfway through drying your skirt of the vodka that had soaked through the fabric. His eyes were cast down onto his own hands and he very slowly let go of the napkins, taking the wet ones with him as he retreated back to his side of the table and leaving you to clean up the rest of the mess with the stack that remained.

“Okay, let’s go back a bit. What is the reason why they broke up anyway?” Kyungsoo was speaking with Sehun now and you were staring down at your fingernails. Your nail polish was beginning to chip and you didn’t really feel like having this painful conversation again.

“They broke up because he was too busy for a relationship,” Sehun spoke with the complete confidence of a man who had only heard one side to the story and believed it to be completely true.

Kyungsoo’s lips were closed and he watched Sehun’s face for a long while in silence, clearly expecting him to go on and list off all the actual reasons for the breakup. Like the jealousy and the mistrust after the blind date that slowly and carefully broke down every bit of faith the two lovers had in each other.

“That’s it? He was too busy? That’s the whole reason? What about the lying? What about the secrets and the dishonesty about that blind date?” Kyungsoo was breathing harder and his fist was balled tightly on the table top.

“What?” Sehun’s face was filled with genuine confusion now and he glanced in your direction with his eyebrows raised and a small shake of his head back and forth.

“I have a friend too,” Kyungsoo quickly supplied and Sehun’s eyes shot back to the man who was talking beside him. “I have a good friend who is going through something very similar. And it’s never just the work. It’s always something else. Something was fundamentally broken from the start and if she had just told him, if she had just been honest with him from the fucking start then, maybe—maybe—”

“Ohh, your friend is also in this kind of situation? Wow, I wonder how many of our friends are dating,” Sehun missed the nervous swallow Kyungsoo took and the tremble in his bottom lip as he spoke. Sehun missed the pinkness in Kyungsoo’s cheeks and the way his eyes glassed over. “Wait, how come I’m not dating anyone?” Sehun’s lips curled into a pout and he looked up into your face across the table.

All you could offer was a tiny shrug of your shoulders. It was all you could do not to break down and cry right now.

“Do you know that she never once apologized to him?” Kyungsoo’s voice had dropped to a whisper and Sehun turned to look in his direction, “—for the lying, you know, she never said she was sorry. If you make a mistake,” he inhaled a breath that shook his chest and you bit down on your bottom lip to keep from making any sounds, “you get down on your knees and you beg for forgiveness—if she—if she had been sorry then I—then h-he wouldn’t have done that, I think.”

“I think she was sorry though,” you found your voice and you found the courage to look up from his chin into his eyes long enough to say it. Not that it really mattered, it was all too late at this point. The pain in his words, the pain in his eyes told you that much.

“I think she had trouble finding the words to say it, but she was very sorry.”

Everything was wrong and everything was blurry now. You could feel the wetness on your face and you reached down for a napkin to quickly wipe away at the evidence of your emotions.

“She never said it though,” Kyungsoo said with an air of finality that felt like the final chop of the guillotine and you could only nod your head in agreement because he was right.

He was always right.

It was infuriating and it was hopeless.

After a moment, the pain faded and the alcohol took the rest of that courage to speak and tossed it around inside your chest, mixing it with a jumble of hopelessness. At some point during the discussion though, another bottle of alcohol had appeared at the table, probably when you had been too busy trying not to cry to notice and Sehun’s hand rested lightly around the neck as he held it still but did not immediately move to pour any more drinks.

He was staring down at the bottle in front of him and the room fell into a stark silence as his eyes slowly lifted back up and looked into your face. After a moment he turned his head to look at Kyungsoo with much of the same expression on his face.

You could practically see the wheels spinning in the back of his eyeballs as he did it. One more pass at your face and he was back on Kyungsoo’s face for a long pause and you heard it. It was a loud gasp. It was a realization and it was finally hitting Sehun in the face.

“You,” he lifted his finger toward his friend and then when he released the bottle on the table he was doing so to point his other finger at your face, “and you,” his eyes were wide as saucers. The jig was up. Oh Sehun had finally come to his damn senses.

“Your friends must have been dating each other!”

Kyungsoo’s shoulders had been stiff and he had been wound up tight enough to snap, yet with Sehun’s sudden ‘realization’ you could feel the room tremble as his shoulders fell and his head dropped, his chin fell to his chest and you heard the first loud guffaws of laughter leave his body. His lips were pulled into a tense but genuine grin and you had to look away and cover your mouth as your own laughter erupted from your mouth with enough force to spit clear across the table.

Kyungsoo’s shoulders were shaking with his laughter and you laughed loud chest clearing bursts all to yourself at the sheer ridiculous of this whole situation.

“Yeah, they were dating each other, Sehun,” Kyungsoo had reached for his glass now and was holding it out in front of himself toward his friend, “pour me a drink, Sherlock.”

To his benefit, he kept as much sarcasm out of his voice as he could and you quickly set your own glass in front of Sehun to be refilled next. As Sehun set out to fill the glasses your eyes met Kyungsoo’s across the table and you saw the slow sigh of breath he inhaled and exhaled as he looked into your face. He shook his head back and forth, a small gesture of relief, but also a bit of connection with you that the secret you both shared was still protected from discovery. You offered a small smile and you were pleasantly surprised to see the corners of his lips pull as well.

He was halfway through his drink when Sehun opened his damned mouth to speak again.

“I think they gotta fuck.”

Kyungsoo was coughing and your mouth was half full of alcohol that was suddenly unwilling to go down your throat. You had to spit it back into your glass. This was too fucking much.

“Se—hun,” Kyungsoo half coughed and winced as he had clearly just choked on Sehun’s opinion of what needed to happen with this pair of ex-lovers. “Sehun, what the fu—”

“I’m sorry, I’m drunk, but that doesn’t make it less true. They...the couple, they gotta...you know.” Thankfully he stopped actually using his mouth but the crude gesture he made with his index finger slipping through a circle of his other hand might have actually been worse than if he had just said it out loud again. “Just to see if it’s really over or not.”

“Oh my god,” Kyungsoo had his face in his hands and Sehun was laughing noisily to himself as he held onto his belly. “Okay, that’s enough. I think you’re done. Baekhyun needs you to be worth a damn tomorrow. I’m going to call him to take you home.”

“Aww, Hyung. No,” Sehun whined and pouted in protest.

“Or would you rather I call your manager to come and get you.” Kyungsoo’s threats sounded harsher than you thought Sehun needed, but you were still trying to recover from picturing the treatment plan Dr. Oh had prescribed for your couple’s therapy session.

You didn’t really like admitting such things, but you had been feeling rather...pathetically lonely and somewhat desperate lately. You also hated just how soft and tempting his mouth had felt on yours and just how welcome you had been to feel him against you again. Something that you hadn’t allowed your mind to dwell on was the warmth you felt in his chest, in his belly, and pressed against you during the kiss, that very unexpected effect you knew you had on him.

For the next moments, you allowed your mind to drift into dangerous waters. For as long as it took for Baekhyun to suddenly appear at the curtain, give you a quiet wave and a nod of his head and a quick slap on the back for a very drunk Sehun before he pulled him roughly from the room, for those quiet and not so quiet moments you sat and you waited, all the while wondering what would become of you on your lonely walk back to your tiny studio apartment.

In the wake of Sehun’s departure, the room fell into a silence that was thick and awkward enough to make your mouth go dry and your eyes to wander slowly around the walls and around the curtains and the carpet below your feet in some attempt to occupy your mind with something that wasn’t the man who sat motionless on the floor across this table.

He was quiet. He was still. He was a black hole that sucked the light from your mind and begged you to get lost inside him. You tried your best to look anywhere but at him, but every pass of your vision began and ended on his face.

“Come on. I’ll walk you home.”

When he finally spoke it felt like a bad idea. Even being left alone in this room with him in the first place felt like a bad idea. Yet you reached up for his extended hand and let him pull you into a standing position on your very unsteady legs.

“Did you eat anything at all? I already know you didn’t eat lunch.”

“No nagging, Soo, shhh—” now that you were moving the ground felt like slushed snow under your feet and his arm reached for your waist, lending his strength to you for a while so you could walk without making a fool of yourself.

“If I don't, who will,” he mumbled beside you and you expelled the air noisily from your lips at the very idea that he played an active role in your well-being. Please, the man brought you one meal that you hadn’t even eaten. He cleaned up half a spill on your lap and now had the nerve to think he had earned nagging rights?

“Don't make noises. I’m going to make you something to eat. Tell me where you live,” Kyungsoo’s words were just a touched slurred and you didn’t think he should be cooking in this condition. You’d seen just how much he had to drink tonight and you were pretty sure he was just as drunk as you were. He was just better at hiding it.

Your legs were already carrying you through the deserted streets and you reached up and pulled the brim of his cap down lower, making his whole face angle itself downward to keep from being spotted by anyone on the street.

This wouldn't do. He was still very obviously Do Kyungsoo and he was stumbling just a little bit when he walked. Didn’t he had a facemask on him?

You leaned against him hard, sending his balance off and you used the moment to steer him off the sidewalk into a darkened alley that was just a little more private.

“What are you doing? This isn’t where you live is it?” He was looking down the dark alleyway with worried eyes at the rows of creepy unlit doorways with bars on them as his mind ran through all sorts of terrible possibilities. Did he think you slept here in this trash can or something? Jeez.

Your hands were moving though, and you reached into the right-hand pocket of his hoodie feeling the cloth of the black facemask he kept there.

You had to touch his face to put it on him.

You had to look into his eyes as you did it and your fingertips had to run along the side of his face as you hooked the elastic strips over his ears and you had to do it all with his brown eyes watching your face.

“My building is the next block over. I can probably make it fine from here.”

He blinked slowly but did not respond right away.

“I’m...kinda drunk,” he finally said softly and the mask moved with the action of his jaw.

“You should probably have some coffee then.” This was a last-ditch attempt to help him. Or to help yourself. Anything but to do what you had been thinking about doing for the past half hour now, which was taking him home with you and ask him to spend the night.

“Do you have any coffee at home?”

You pulled your top lip in between your teeth and chewed on it. It was his go-to move to chew on his lips, but you didn’t feel comfortable speaking right at this moment.

“I have my own coffee,” you said at last and there was a slow way he cleared his throat before he spoke again that told you tales of self-restraint and sobriety and right and wrong decisions.

They were fairy tales really.

“I’m not really,” he was speaking again, slower this time and he swayed a little on his legs, “able to get my own coffee right now.”

“You know that I’m just as drunk as you are right?” You leaned with the question and your balance wavered, bringing you into contact with his chest for a moment. You used him to push yourself back upright and you felt his hand land over your own when you did it.

“Yeah,” he said and his eyes were dull now with slow blinks and sluggish movements around your face.

Your legs moved anyway. You pushed yourself out of that dark alley into the building that lined the sidewalk next door and he was moving along with you. Shoulder to shoulder, you leaned against him and he walked alongside you as you made your way through the unsecured front lobby, up the two flights of stairs and through the front door of a shabby looking apartment unit with a hastily entered door code.

You watched his eyes as you entered the code and ignored the way he looked down at the numbers you pressed.

You ignored the way his own eyebrows lifted and you hoped he wouldn't recognize the code as any sort of number that was significant to him.

You had been an idiot to use his damn birthday as your passcode.

Had he noticed? Had he really noticed? Did he now know just how deep your affections for him went? You had to see his face. You had to know the reaction he was having and without the usual restraint of a sober mind to keep your hands to yourself with, you reached up and pulled the facemask off his face in a quick motion.

When the mask left his face, he was beautiful. There was a parting of his lips and a surprise at being uncovered so and you stood and watched as his mouth slowly closed up and he pulled his bottom lip in between straight white teeth to bite down lightly. It was released slowly and came back wet.

You had to take your shoes off. You both stood just on the inside of the closed door of your studio, too close to each other and much too drunk for this shit and he was staring now.

Then it went dark.

You both must have been too still for too long because the motion activated lights turned off and you gasped in a breath at the sudden blackness that surrounded you completely.

You moved then, stepping slowly and carefully out of your shoes and there was a click as the light reactivated and you once again looked into his face. The light seemed to pull him back to life and he shifted as he quietly stepped out of his shoes, stepping lightly on his socks when you did.

Your vision was blurred but you still noticed a bit of mess. Some clothes on the floor near your bed. A couple of bras set out to dry on the chair at your desk.

You weren’t ready for this. You weren’t ready for him to be in your home. There were three dirty mugs in the kitchen sink, waiting to be washed and there was a half a pot of old coffee sitting cold in the machine on the counter.

Your hazy memory of this morning flashed to your shower when you skipped freshly shaving your legs in favor of five extra minutes to do your makeup after accidentally oversleeping a little bit. It wasn’t like there was much, but the fact was that this wasn’t something you had even considered.

Would this be something embarrassing that you would look back on with a clear mind tomorrow?

Your steps took you to your tiny kitchen and you felt the shadow of someone following where you moved. He was a presence all of his own, giving you a haunting it seemed. When you spun to look behind you, your hand swung and you collided with his arm. He let out a soft grunt at the impact and you could see the slow reaction of pulling his arm up to massage where you had accidentally hit him.

“Sorry, I’m drunk,” you spun again, trying to recall where you were even going.

“Me too,” he confessed and he reached for the handle of your fridge to pull it open.

Its contents were sad. Some packets of soy sauce sat in the door. A single bottle of water, half emptied sat alone in the center shelf.

Kyungsoo reached for the water and quickly uncapped it. Lifting it to his lips, you watched him drain half of your entire supply with wide eyes.

“Hey,” you complained and he dropped it from his lips, swallowing down what filled his cheeks.

You had planned on using that for the coffee, but when you reached for it and gave it a good shake, it was clear that it was enough for only one cup at most.

“Well, now we can’t have coffee, Kyungsoo.”

It didn’t matter. The coffee couldn't fix this. Only time would really help and you reached for the forgotten cap to replace it and worry about it another time.

Right now, Do Kyungsoo was standing in his socks, still wearing his black cap and his hoodie with wet lips and an intensely dark look in his eyes as he watched you pretend like you didn't know what was going on right now.

“Stop looking at me like that, Soo.” There was a complaint on your tongue that made its way out easily without such things as a rational mind to hold you back. You reached up for his cap, annoyed that he would wear it inside when he was here with you in your own space and not trying at all to hide who he really was. He let you pull it off his head and the hair underneath laid flat against his forehead, begging for your hands to run through and fluff it back to life.

So you did. The strands slid through your fingers easily and stubbornly returning exactly to the same flat position they had been pressed into for probably much of the day. He would have to wash it to get it back to life again.

“I’ll stop looking at you like that if you stop touching me like this.” His eyes had drifted closed when you had been playing with his hair and with a low groan he dipped his head further, leaning into you, you felt the warmth of his forehead rest just over your collarbone and he rocked back and forth as his hands found your waist.

“What are you doing?” He said against you, too close for you to see anything but you could feel too much. His hands along your hips touched so lightly, yet he clearly held fire in his palms that was burning wherever he touched. “What are you doing to me?” His words were a complaint spoken in a hopeless whisper and yet he hadn’t actually touched you in any suggestive or inviting way. From what you could feel, his hands were still and held you in a position that kept your body from directly touching his own.

His head was leaning on you, nuzzled into your shoulder but there was still that resistance. He wasn’t advancing. He was, even in his drunken state, holding back from you as best as he could.

“You are drunk,” he said again, only this time it felt different. It didn’t feel like an excuse to do whatever you wanted, it sounded more like a reason not to. “And I am drunk.”

You could feel the reason and the sanity in this.

You could feel the potential for a mistake and the ramifications of such a mistake.

But...but you wanted him. You wanted the mistake and it was desperate.

Kyungsoo’s grip around your hips was solid and you felt a push. Your feet stumbled back a single step.

“We...we can’t.” The warmth of his hands left you and your skin felt too cold without him. The step back he took and away from you felt like miles and you reached with your eyes to search for his. But he wouldn't look at you. His eyes were down on the floor and those pink fucking cheeks stood out bright under the kitchen lighting.

“Kyungsoo,” you spoke and your voice was as clear as a bell. Almost as if he had no control to resist, his eyes opened to yours and his breath caught in his throat when he looked at you.

His eyebrows twitched over his eyes and you saw an expression that mirrored pain on his face.

That step. That single step he had taken away from you no longer felt like miles away when you took a step forward and he did not retreat again.

You reached for his hand and marveled at how easily he allowed you to take his warmth into your grasp.

“Kyungsoo,” you said again, softer this time as if tasting his name on your tongue for the first time. A fresh flavor, fragrant, and satisfying and he let out a soft noise from the back of his throat.

“Fuck,” his groan changed into a curse and you had a single breath of stillness left inside of you. A single moment when you looked into those eyes with every bit of intention and brazenness you could muster inside your chest and you dropped your eyes to his lips.

It was you who did it first. It was your movement this time, your lean for certain. Your own lips that reached forward and found his own parted ones that sat still and powerless on that pretty face.

He was frozen for that single moment. His lips gave, molding into your own as easily as they ever had and he inhaled a tiny gasp of breath when you did it; when you kissed him.

And then he was lost. Just as lost as you were.

Those hands that had held you away from him, those hands that gripped your hips and pushed you away were back, but this time they pulled against you. This time he reached for your skin and your bones with a desperate need for closeness and you gasped to feel the hard edge of the kitchen counter pressed into your spine with the warmth of this man flush against the front of you.

Once you had both given in to it, it didn’t feel as frantic as you had imagined.

There was an instant when his mouth pulled away from yours and the pause made you open your eyes. You found him looking at you. Just looking. The need was still very present, yet the pull to check if this was really happening was much too strong.

“I felt like I might explode,” he whispered and his lips moved on you again, this time his lips traveled down your neck and when you tossed your head back the room spun too much for you to keep your eyes open.

His movements were clumsy. Yours weren’t much better. Fingers gripped roughly at pieces of fabric and you felt enough in control of yourself, just enough to find the zipper on the side of the skirt you wore. Just enough to find the hem of his T-shirt and push it up roughly out of the way of his chest. He got stuck halfway through getting your skirt down and getting his shirt off and through some miracle both garments found their way onto the kitchen floor.

“Where is your bed?” The rest of the apartment was dark but it wasn’t really a mystery where the bed could possibly be in such a tiny place.

“Soo, it’s a studio. You can see every single bit of this place from the kitchen.”

“But the lights are off and I don’t have my glasses,” he reached with his hand to feel in the pockets of the sweatpants he still wore, “I don’t even know where they are. Oh my god, I’ve lost them forever.”

He was backing up now, pulling his hands down from your waist and spinning around in the kitchen with his eyes searching for them on your counter before he pulled open your fridge to check inside.

“Baby, I don’t think you were wearing them when you came.”

Kyungsoo straightened his back and pulled his face from where he peered inside your nearly empty refrigerator and he faced you quickly with eyes wide and his lips parted. They were still wet from the sloppy kisses from mere moments earlier and his lips crawled closed as he searched your face.

“Baby?” The question was a whisper and you inhaled a breath to hold for a moment as your sleepy mind replayed your words again.

You hadn’t said that right? Surely not. But...perhaps it had slipped.

“I mean, Mr. Do,” you tried saying it without smiling but you could feel your lips betray you as you had to bite down on the inside of your cheek to try and stop it.

“Oh, no no no,” he let the fridge close on its own and took a step closer to where you stood at the edge of the kitchen counter, mere feet from the foot of your bed that he claimed not to be able to see.

“I’ve just had your tongue in my mouth and your ass in my hands. I’m not wearing a shirt,” with his step forward you stepped back. You could feel the seam of the carpeting that began your ‘living room’ area under your bare foot.

“-you are only wearing your underwear... my dick is very hard and judging from how wet your panties felt below my fingertips just now I think you want me to fuck you,” he’d caught up with you and was looking into your eyes as he spoke these words with a completely straight face...these words that he read off like a shopping list yet felt like a punch to the stomach.

“Am I right?”

Damn him and his incessant need to be right. What was even worse was that he was absolutely, without a doubt, completely right. And he knew it.

Warm fingertips had reached for your face, slipping slowly along your jawline to rest his palms just over your cheeks on both sides.

You had to close your eyes. Do Kyungsoo was here and he was touching you with his warm hands and he was talking about fucking you and he said the word dick and you were way too drunk for this but God if you didn’t nod your head just now.

“So say it again,” you felt the warmth of his breath against your parted lips and when you inhaled you could smell the strong smell of alcohol on his breath, “what did you call me — who am I?”

Christ, where was the drunk goof that was spinning I a circle looking for his glasses just now? How could he have changed so suddenly and how could he have this much power over you with just a few words?

He was your love. He would always be the one you loved. Even with the cloudy mind and skin that begged and screamed to be touched you held on tight to that word. You wouldn't give him the word love. That was your filthy secret.

“Baby,” you closed your eyes with the gravity of the room when you said it, drawing it out on your breath and when you opened your eyes up again you could make out the satisfied smile on his face.

And you had to touch — it had been so long since you had seen that smile. It had been so long since he had given it to you, just for you. His face was warm below your fingertips and the pull of his lips quivered under your wandering hand and his breathe fanned out warm from his nose. “Soo...Baby,” you whispered again and his smile sagged and sank until he wasn’t smiling anymore and his eyes opened, lazy and dark, to look at you again.

He felt disconnected somehow. Or maybe you were disconnected from your own body. His hands were moving and you felt the cool air of the room prickle your skin as he bared your breasts, making the bra you had been wearing fall away and your mind was too rushed, too hazy, too elsewhere to appreciate any of this.

Your limbs didn't quite want to cooperate. Stupid alcohol. Stupid decisions and heartbreak and confusion and emotions that lead you to do something stupid again; like getting too drunk to control yourself and letting your desires and needs take control of you again.

The softness of your own bed felt unfamiliar now and your limbs were heavy and sluggish. Even when you tried to reach for him to pull him into yourself, your muscles felt weak enough to drown in this with hardly even a fight.

“Are you sure?”

The question was whispered into a low moan into your ear and you could feel the threat again. The threat of losing him; of him leaving; of this stopping and you never ever getting to feel his skin against your own; to feel the desperate way he clung to you as he pushed his hips harder against you and the soft sounds that came from deep inside him when he was overcome.

You weren’t sure of anything except that you didn't want to let go of the weight of his body that felt like it might just suffocate you if he relaxed any more.

You slipped a hand down, between your bodies and you reached for him, reaching between the warmth of his legs and his breath caught in his throat when he felt you grip his hardness. Your unspoken answer was enough and hips pushed as you guided, as you wanted and he was inside.

He was inside.

Everything felt heavy and everything felt blurry. Every time he pulled away you felt vacant and hollow. Every time he left, you pulled him back in. Tightening your thighs around his waist, you pulled hard but the vacant feeling did not let up and you felt it inside your belly, and in your chest, you felt the emptiness that wanted to swallow you whole. You felt like you could implode from it.

Did he feel that too? Were you the only one that couldn't get close enough?

The heaviness was too much and you gave in to it. Your grip around his waist gave in to the gravity of this soft bed and when you finally released him of the tight hold you kept on him you felt him shift as he sat up suddenly on his ankles. He gripped your thighs roughly and you were pulled hard into him. The shift in position felt awkward but when he pushed again, with your hips higher you felt him now, deeper inside, and the influx felt like an invasion. You had been out of practice. You missed the way he fucked you and had no other lovers since him and even in this muted muffled state of your mind, you felt overwhelmed.

Another shift, more rough hands and strong arms that moved you and you found yourself belly down on the bed with your face in a pillow. From the view behind you could see him moving again, lining up and pushing inside. This time too much, you felt the familiar pain of this position as he hit against you inside and yet each thrust had you pushing back into him, begging for him for that pain again. This...this time you could feel the closeness. You could feel the way his fingers dug into your flesh and pulled you, too rough and too hard. You could feel the way he pushed inside, again and again, his thighs shoving against your legs until they were as far apart as you could stand and the rough slap of his flesh against your own; enough to drive you over the edge, enough to make your vision go white and you cried out noisily when your body quaked and your knees gave up on trying to keep you elevated. All you could do was sink into it.

He was shaking and moaning in that low voice of his as he came, spilling out as far inside of you as he could physically get and when he sank into the bed it was with you; when he fell he landed behind you and his arms reached, wrapping tightly around your shoulders, over your breasts with heavy breaths and saltily sweating skin. You struggled to catch your breath and your heart raged inside your chest for the moments before, for the moments after, for the moments of tender sweetness when his lips found the soft skin of your neck and left trails of kisses. Your heart roared for the hot grip of his hand over your breasts and the way those arms constricted so tight and he did not leave you, even after his breath calmed down into a slow and steady rhythm and the tight grip of that hand went loose, he did not leave inside of you. He stayed inside and as close to you as he could get

Your eyes were already closed and the haze was winning. Inside gave little quivers as he shrunk and molded to your shape and the wetness threatened a mess on the sheets, yet you were drifting too quickly to care. Keeping your eyes open made you too dizzy. The lure of sleep was too strong and his slow and steady breath behind you told you that you should just join him in rest and worry about this whole damn mess in the morning.

The blinding pain inside your head woke you. Or perhaps it was the gross sticky feeling between your legs that ultimately made you groan into your filthy reality and open your eyes. You regretted opening them as soon as you did it, as the light from the window that told you it was very much morning, made the pain in your head that much worse with the light. Your mouth was dry you wished for many things. Water, a bath, aspirin.

It only took about two seconds for you to realize that you were not as alone in this bed as you usually were, and there was an entire other person who was sitting up, taking half of the blanket with him, exposing your nakedness nearly completely as he did so, and groaning noisily into his hands.

It took exactly one more second for the events of the night prior to come flooding back into your memory and you felt the pain inside your head surge up hot and angry as the explanation for much of the soreness you felt inside your body dawned; namely, a feeling you hadn’t felt in quite a while: post-sex soreness. The kind that meant the sex the night before had been rough and demanding. You wished you could remember more of it. You wished the man beside you wasn’t groaning into his hands like that and acting like perhaps he remembered even less than you did.

“I think I’ll have to use your shower. I’m stuck to myself,” Kyungsoo looked at you through a severe eye squint and then looked around your tiny apartment. All 225 square feet of it. No doubt making his own little judgments about your current living conditions.

“Kyungsoo,” you said, although you didn’t really have a reason for calling him other than to say his name. Other than to speak it out loud and into existence, he had been in your bed last night, very very drunk with you, but still. It happened and he was still here when you woke up.

He wasn’t moving yet, and he stared ahead of himself at your kitchen cupboards across the space in front of him.

“I have to get to work,” he said after a moment, “I’m already late—did we…” he suddenly shifted and angled his shoulders toward you, his eyes still squinted only not as much and his face very pink now with whatever he was thinking inside his head.

“—did we...I don't see a condom anywhere, and I’m assuming I didn’t pull out,” his face surged with disappointment and you pulled what little bit of the blanket you could free up to cover your nakedness. He didn't notice your struggle with the blanket or notice that you couldn't get it free because his legs were still somewhat tangled in it. He didn’t notice how exposed you suddenly felt in his presence.

“I’ll figure it out, Kyungsoo. Don't worry.” You were familiar with his concerns about things like unwanted accidents and all that and your little corner of the blanket was just enough to make you feel a tiny bit more comfortable here.

“Sehun likes you, you know.” The comment seemed uncharacteristically abrupt coming from him and you lifted your head to look into his face with a whole lot of doubt flooding through your chest at his assessment of the nature of your friendship with his group member.

Why would he bring that up at a time like this? Why was he still sitting still, tangled in your bed sheets and obviously as uncomfortable as you felt with how hungover and used up and dirty he must have felt right now, why was he choosing this moment to bring up Sehun?

“I’m sure he doesn’t, Soo. He’s just a friend.”

“He told everyone yesterday. He was rolling around on the practice room floor complaining about the hot translator and how she’s ruining all other women for him.” His voice had taken on a hint of vitriol as he replayed Sehun’s words and you could hear something that sounded like genuine jealousy on his tongue. It made you feel queasy. Just a little bit worse than you already felt inside and you let the blanket fall, no longer concerned with little things like how bright the light from the window was and how you were pretty sure you hadn’t plucked that one tiny hair that grew on your left nipple. You no longer cared that your skin was sticky from old sweat and old sex and that you had compression marks from the tangle of bed sheets still on your skin, probably a ton of old makeup still below your eyes and maybe even a hickey or two from last night’s events.

Kyungsoo had just told you, in his Kyungsoo-like way, that another man was interested in you and he found out about this on the same day he decided to crash in on your night of drinks with Sehun, get completely out of his mind drunk and bring you home to fuck.

Why?

He said so himself, it was over. He dumped you and didn’t call you to ask you to take him back or call you to tell you he was wrong and he changed his mind. He didn't tell you that you both could work on it, fix the problems, fix the trust and the communication problems. He just gave up. He gave you up so easily. He was done and you were just supposed to accept that and now… now the idea of someone else...

When you shifted on the bed you felt the stale evidence of the sex squeeze out and add to the mess on the sheets.

“So, what...did you come home with me last night to mark your territory? Why does it matter? You were here first so that’s it. You win, right?”

His eyes had gone dark in an instant with your question and he looked down and away from your face. You could feel the anger inside your chest taking your heartbeat for a spin. The thought that maybe this wasn’t genuine. That maybe he did this just to show that he could and Sehun couldn’. These dangerous thoughts were floating through you with a quickness, making your head spin with their speed.

“That’s not what I meant,” he was quick with his retort, “I—I was drunk, I don't really know why I came here last night.”

“I’d like you to leave. You can shower at your own home. Don't worry, I’m not going to fuck anyone else in EXO. You can relax knowing you won.”

His eyes were wide and wounded but you were too angry now to think clearly. The pain was pounding in your head from your hangover and you could only see his jealousy again. Even without being in a relationship with you, he was still making unreasonable claims to you when you knew you had absolutely no right to do the same with him. If you acted this way, taking him home drunk to fuck just because some other women had shown interest in him, well, you would have been seen as the worst kind of scum. You felt used. You felt hurt and betrayed.

He was shaking his head quickly back and forth, but now he was moving. He was off the bed, wandering around your space naked and agitated as he reached for spare bits of clothing that he pulled on his body.

“You’re taking my words and twisting them,” he stopped with his sweatpants halfway up his legs and turned to face you again. Clearly, his mind had been racing with your accusations and the upset on his face was as painful as the headache pounding behind your eyes. Despite the pain on his face, despite the hurt you saw in his eyes his lips were still not speaking. He was still frozen; a perpetual halfway point between what he could not make himself say and what he desperately needed to confess.

“Why did you come home with me last night?” You felt a desperation with this question. Your hands were trembling now and there was a chill running through your body that you tried to rub away with your hands over your legs, over your arms. Your face was changing on its own. The anger dissipating and changing into something else, something dangerous and sad. Something completely familiar to you as the hurt bubbled up to the surface and your eyes burned. “Because of Sehun?”

“No,” he said softly from the center of the room.

“No, that’s not it.” His pants were on and his plain t-shirt was in his hands as he looked down at it. He was breathing hard and shallow breaths that moved his whole torso up and down. It looked almost like crying, but with no sound or tears produced from it. “I came because I’m— because I’m in love with you and I felt like I was going to explode if I didn’t come.”

“—because I’m in love with you still.

I came with you because I still love you.”

Kyungsoo inhaled a raspy breath after saying it. He said it with his own lips and he said it three times.

Love.

Because I’m in love with you.

I’m in love with you still.

I still love you.

Your phone was ringing somewhere in the room.

Long buzzing rings. It was on a tabletop somewhere and the noise went on and on. Three, four rings. You didn’t move. He didn’t move. In that moment, it did not matter.

You could be scolded for being late to work. You would take it. You’d let your professional record be tarnished for this.

Because Kyungsoo was still in love with you and you needed a fucking moment.