#friends2lovers

“Be patient. Let it happen naturally.”

⋆｡‧˚ʚ ✧ 𝒸𝒽𝒶𝓅𝓉𝑒𝓇 𝓈𝒾𝓍 ✧ ɞ˚‧｡⋆

January arrives like a door swinging open onto cold air — sudden, inevitable, the kind of thing you knew was coming and somehow still aren't ready for. Final semester. Last stretch. The end of something enormous that they've been inside so long it stopped feeling like an ending and started feeling like just the way things are.

The campus wakes up with a different kind of energy — quieter in some ways, louder in others. Seniors move through the quad with that specific expression of people who can see the finish line and aren't sure whether to sprint or stop and look around one more time. She feels it in her chest every morning: the particular anxiety of being almost done, which is somehow more terrifying than being in the middle of it. Almost done means having to figure out what comes next. Almost done means the structure she's been living inside for four years dissolves and something else has to take its place.

She doesn't think too hard about what that something is.

Soobin is already at the kitchen counter when she comes out most mornings — his things, her kitchen, this blurred arrangement that stopped being temporary somewhere around week three and never found its way back. Coffee made before she asks. Her mug on the left because he noticed she always reaches left first. The specific brand of creamer she likes on the second shelf because the first shelf gets too cold near the back and the creamer separates if it gets too cold and she complained about that once, months ago, and he has apparently filed it away alongside every other small detail of her existence.

She stopped noticing the small things. That's the part that matters — not that he does them, but that she stopped noticing, which means she started expecting, which means the absence of them would register as lack rather than normal. He built a floor under her feet so quietly that she forgot there was ever anything beneath her but his hands.

Thesis drafts take up most of January. She works at the dining table most evenings and he works across from her, his own pages spread, and they've developed a rhythm of productive silence broken by murmured questions and the occasional shared snack and the way he reaches over without looking to refill her water glass whenever it gets low. She's told three separate people that she works better with him there than she ever did alone, and she means it the way you mean true things — carelessly, without examining why it's true or when it became that way.

Beomgyu texts her one Thursday: you two are basically married. i'm sending a gift registry.

She sends back a middle finger emoji and doesn't show Soobin.

He already knows what Beomgyu thinks. He's known for a long time. He finds it useful.

The stress peaks in February the way it always does — deadlines compressing, every professor deciding this is the week to assign the difficult thing, her sleep getting thin and her temper getting shorter and the specific hormonal cocktail of finals-adjacent anxiety making her feel like her body is slightly too loud for her skin. She knows this version of herself. She doesn't like her but she recognizes her.

Soobin recognizes her too.

He shows up one evening with a heating pad she didn't ask for — it's not her period, just tension across her lower back — and a packet of the good painkillers and a container of whatever his mother used to make that involves ginger and enough warmth to soften the worst edges of a bad week. He sets everything on the coffee table without ceremony, drops onto the couch beside her, and pulls her sideways into him with one arm while he opens his own laptop with the other like this is just how evenings go now.

"You didn't have to," she says, already reaching for the ginger thing.

"Didn't have to do what?" he says, which is the only answer he ever gives to gratitude, which is the way he makes it feel like breathing — like something that just happens, like oxygen, like of course, why would there be any other option.

She eats the whole container. He doesn't comment. Just keeps working, one hand eventually drifting to her knee where it rests for the rest of the night, thumb making those slow absent circles she's stopped registering as anything except warmth.

Later — much later, the drafts put away, the apartment quiet — she ends up in his lap with her mouth on his jaw and his hands under her shirt and the particular urgency of people who've been sitting very close to each other for too many hours and have reached the natural end of the tension that produces. They've stopped discussing it. It just happens now the same way the coffee happens — naturally, without ceremony, an arrangement that suits them both. She tells herself this because it's comfortable. He lets her tell herself this because it's useful.

"Stay," he says against her throat, the word barely above a breath, which she understands to mean in my bed tonight, because she still sometimes retreats to the pull-out when the evening ends with them tangled on the couch rather than moving to the bedroom, a small preservation of the idea that this is still flexible, still a choice being made, still something she could step back from if she decided to.

She goes to the bedroom.

She always goes to the bedroom.

It starts with the condom conversation.

Which isn't really a conversation so much as a moment, a Tuesday night, the two of them already past the point of slowing down, his mouth on her neck and her hands in his hair and the drawer of the nightstand open where the condoms live, except his hand pauses on the way there and he turns his face against her cheek instead, voice low and careful in the way he gets when he's about to suggest something he's already decided on.

"I want to feel you," he murmurs, and the words land in the specific register he uses when he wants them to bypass her thinking brain and go somewhere warmer and less rational. "Just once. Just us. I'll get the pill tomorrow — the expensive one, the one that actually works. I just—" his mouth drags to her ear "—I want to know what it feels like."

She should think about it longer than she does.

She doesn't.

"Okay," she breathes, which is the word her body has apparently decided is correct, and then his hands are moving again and the drawer stays closed and the particular desperate warmth of skin without barrier is enough to make the thinking brain go offline entirely.

Afterward — the warmth of him still inside her, both of them slow and wrecked and his face pressed to her shoulder — she thinks: tomorrow he'll get the pill, we'll be fine, this was a one-time thing because he asked so well and she was already too far gone to be sensible about it.

She doesn't notice that the drawer stays closed the next night too.

Or the night after.

What she does notice — weeks later, without connecting the dots she doesn't know are there to connect — is that the nightstand has been subtly reorganized. The things she reaches for most are at the front now. The condoms are still technically there, just toward the back, under some things, slightly less immediately available. She assumes she moved them herself.

She didn't.

He goes to the pharmacy on a Wednesday morning while she's in her 9am lecture.

He knows her schedule. He always knows her schedule.

He takes his time in the aisle — this is not a trip he makes carelessly, this is a trip he has thought about since the baby clothes in the mall, since he felt something unlock in his chest standing behind her at that shop window, since he looked at the tiny Eevee paw shoes and thought: I want this, and the wanting arrived so clean and certain that it frightened him briefly before it didn't anymore.

He picks up her period products first — the right ones, the specific brand she likes, the overnight pads she always forgets to buy herself, the liners because she mentioned once being caught without them. Sets them in the basket.

Then he takes his time with the vitamins.

Prenatal vitamins, it turns out, look remarkably like regular women's health supplements. Same aisle. Similar packaging. He picks up two bottles — compares them with the ones she already takes, the ones she keeps on the bathroom shelf — and selects the ones closest in appearance to her regular brand. Same amber bottle. Similar capsule color. Different contents.

He adds them to the basket without hurry.

He adds the after-pill she asked for too — the expensive one, the one he told her works — and pockets it on the way out of the pharmacy without putting it in the bag.

She never asks to see the receipt.

She never asks about the vitamins.

She takes them every morning the way she takes everything he sets in front of her: because he's always been right about what she needs, because she trusts him completely, because four years of being known this precisely has trained her body to accept care from his hands without question.

He watches her take the first one over coffee on a Thursday morning — still in his hoodie, hair unstyled, squinting slightly at the light — and feels something patient and enormous settle in his chest.

He was always going to get here.

He just had to be careful about the route.

The last semester has a specific quality to it that she can only describe as pressure — everything compressed, every deadline tighter, every emotion closer to the surface. She cries twice over thesis footnotes. She laughs too loud at things that aren't that funny. She wakes at 4am with her heart already going and her mind cataloguing every unfinished thing, and the only thing that reliably puts her back to sleep is the weight of his arm across her waist and the slow even rhythm of his breathing against her shoulder.

She's also, she notices with a detachment that feels like someone else's observation, the horniest she has ever been in her adult life.

She doesn't analyze this too deeply. Stress, she tells herself. The body compensating. Senior year hormones. The fact that she's been sleeping next to someone warm and large and genuinely excellent at the specific activity for months now and her body has recalibrated its baseline accordingly.

Whatever the reason, the effect is this: they fuck constantly.

Not carelessly — they're never careless, even when they're frantic, even when it's 11pm and she has a 7am alarm and she's the one climbing into his lap instead of sleeping like a reasonable person. There's always intention in it. His, she will understand later, has always been very specific. Hers is just want — uncomplicated, immediate, the particular hunger of a person who has been given something extraordinary and can't stop reaching for it.

Tuesday morning before her seminar — quick, efficient, him sitting on the edge of the bed with her straddling his lap, face in his neck, his hands gripping her hips to set the pace, both of them quiet because the walls are thin and it's 7am and the world hasn't fully started yet.

Thursday night after she finishes her last draft revision — slow, thorough, him taking his time with her in the particular way he does when they have nowhere to be, no urgency except the kind that builds and builds until she's shaking and he's still moving like he could do this forever.

Sunday afternoon — twice, because the first time ends too fast and he pulls her back before she's even caught her breath, mouth at her ear saying stay and his hands already finding the places that make staying the only possible response.

She stops keeping track of what's protected and what isn't. She trusts him. She has always trusted him. He said he'd handle it — the expensive pill, the good brand, we're covered — and she accepted that the way she accepts everything from him, which is to say: fully, without verification, because he's never been wrong before.

He is not wrong now either, technically.

He's just not doing what she thinks he's doing.

The tension doesn’t break so much as it simply stops pretending to exist.

It starts on a random Tuesday in late February, the kind of gray afternoon where the light never quite decides to commit. She’s been hunched over her laptop for six straight hours, shoulders tight, eyes burning, when Soobin appears behind her chair without a sound. His hands settle on her shoulders first, warm, sure, thumbs pressing into the knots with the exact pressure she likes because he’s mapped every inch of her tension over months.

“You’ve been staring at the same paragraph for twenty minutes,” he murmurs, voice low and close to her ear.

She exhales shakily. “It’s not working.”

“Then stop.”

He doesn’t wait for permission. He never really does anymore. His fingers slide under the collar of her hoodie (his hoodie) and peel it upward. She lifts her arms automatically, letting him strip it off her like it’s the most natural thing in the world. The cool air hits her bare skin and she shivers once. He notices. Of course he does.

He turns her chair slowly until she’s facing him. Then he drops to his knees between her spread thighs like it’s nothing — like kneeling for her is just another Tuesday evening task.

“Soobin—”

“Shh.” His palms glide up her thighs, pushing the soft fabric of her shorts higher until his thumbs brush the crease where leg meets hip. “Let me take care of you.”

He leans in and presses an open-mouthed kiss to the inside of her thigh, then another, higher. When he reaches the edge of her panties he hooks his fingers in the waistband and tugs them down with one smooth motion. She lifts her hips to help without thinking. The trust is bone-deep now; her body has learned that his hands only ever bring relief.

He doesn’t tease tonight. There’s no slow build, no playful denial. He simply spreads her open with his thumbs and puts his mouth on her like he’s starving.

The first lick is broad and wet and perfect. She jolts, one hand flying to his hair. He hums against her, the vibration shooting straight up her spine, and then he settles in, slow, deliberate drags of his tongue over her clit, two fingers sliding inside her without resistance because she’s already soaked from the sheer relief of his attention.

“Fuck— Soobin,” she gasps, hips twitching.

He doesn’t answer with words. He answers by curling his fingers, finding that spot that makes her see white, and sucking her clit into his mouth with steady, rhythmic pressure. The wet sounds fill the quiet apartment, obscene and intimate at the same time. Her thighs start to tremble around his ears. He doesn’t let up. He never lets up when he decides she needs to come.

She comes the first time with a broken cry, back arching off the chair, fingers tightening painfully in his hair. He rides her through it, gentling his tongue but keeping his fingers moving until the last spasm fades.

Only then does he pull back, lips shiny, eyes dark and focused entirely on her flushed face. He rises to his feet, towering over her, and strips his own shirt off in one fluid motion. His sweatpants follow. His cock is already hard, flushed dark, the tip glistening.

He doesn’t ask. He simply pulls her up from the chair, turns her around, and bends her over the dining table where her thesis pages are still scattered.

The wood is cool against her breasts. She braces her palms flat as he kicks her feet wider apart.

“Stay just like this,” he says quietly, one large hand smoothing down her spine.

Then he’s pushing inside her — bare, hot, thick — in one long, steady stroke.

They both groan. The feeling without the latex is overwhelming: every ridge, every vein, the blunt head pressing right against her cervix when he bottoms out. He stays there for a moment, buried to the hilt, letting her adjust, letting himself feel her clench around him raw.

“So tight,” he breathes, voice rough. “Always so fucking perfect for me.”

He starts moving — slow at first, deep rolls of his hips that drag against every sensitive spot inside her. One hand grips her hip, the other slides up her back to fist gently in her hair, not pulling, just holding. Anchoring.

The pace builds. The table creaks under them. Her moans turn into whimpers, then sharp cries as he angles his hips and hits that spot again and again. The second orgasm crashes into her without warning. She clenches hard around him, vision blurring, and he curses under his breath, pace faltering for the first time.

He doesn’t pull out.

He fucks her through it, harder now, chasing his own release. When he comes it’s with a low, guttural sound, hips snapping forward as he spills deep inside her, hot pulses that seem to last forever. He grinds against her ass, making sure every drop stays where he wants it.

She’s still bent over the dining table, chest heaving, when Soobin’s hands slide up her sides with deliberate slowness. His cock is still buried deep inside her, softening only slightly, and the feeling of him twitching against her walls makes her whimper softly. He doesn’t pull out. Instead, he leans down, pressing his broad chest fully against her back, caging her between the cool wood and the heat of his body.

His lips find the shell of her ear first.

“You feel that?” he murmurs, voice low and rough, breath hot against her skin. “How perfectly you take me?. Nothing between us.”

A shiver runs through her. She nods, unable to form words yet. His hips give one lazy roll, pushing his cum deeper, and she clenches around him instinctively. The wet, filthy sound it makes should embarrass her. It doesn’t. Not with him.

Soobin’s mouth trails down to her neck, pressing open-mouthed kisses along the sensitive column. He sucks lightly at the spot just below her ear, the one that always makes her melt, then soothes it with his tongue. His hands aren’t idle. One large palm smooths up her spine, fingers splaying wide between her shoulder blades, while the other slips around to her front, cupping her breast and thumbing over her nipple until it pebbles under his touch.

“Such a good girl for me,” he whispers between kisses, voice dripping with that quiet intensity he only ever uses when they’re like this. “Letting me have you exactly how I want. Just us.”

He starts moving again — not thrusting hard, but slow, deep grinds that keep him pressed flush against her, his cock stirring back to full hardness inside her slick heat. Every roll of his hips drags against that sensitive spot, making her gasp and push back against him. His free hand leaves her breast to trace down her stomach, fingers brushing lightly over her clit in teasing circles that match the rhythm of his hips.

She turns her head, seeking his mouth. He meets her instantly, kissing her deeply, tongue sliding against hers in the same unhurried way he’s fucking her. The kiss is messy, wet, full of shared breath and quiet moans. His lips are soft but demanding, sucking on her lower lip, nipping gently, then soothing with his tongue again. He tastes like her, and the realization sends another wave of heat through her body.

His hand on her back slides up to tangle in her hair, just holding her head in place so he can kiss her harder. The other hand continues its slow torture between her legs — fingers circling her swollen clit with perfect pressure, occasionally dipping lower to feel where they’re joined, where his cock stretches her and his cum leaks out around him with every shallow thrust.

“You’re getting wetter,” he breathes against her mouth, a hint of satisfaction in his tone. “My cum inside you… you like that, don’t you? Feeling me drip out while I’m still fucking it back in.”

She moans into the kiss, nodding frantically. Her walls flutter around him, and he groans, the sound vibrating through his chest into her back. The kissing grows more heated — tongues tangling, teeth grazing, desperate little sounds escaping both of them. His hips pick up a fraction more speed, still controlled, still deep, each thrust accompanied by another slow circle over her clit.

He breaks the kiss only to trail his lips along her jaw, down her throat, sucking another mark just above her collarbone. His fingers in her hair tighten slightly, tilting her head to give him better access. Every touch is reverent and possessive at once — his palm mapping her ribs, thumb brushing the underside of her breast, then back down to pinch her nipple lightly while his mouth claims her neck.

“So pretty when you’re like this,” he murmurs between kisses and soft bites. “All flushed and needy. Taking everything I give you.”

Her breathing is ragged now, hips rocking back to meet his slow thrusts. The combination of his cock moving inside her, his fingers on her clit, and his mouth worshiping every inch of skin he can reach is overwhelming in the best way. She feels completely surrounded by him, his heat, his scent, his quiet control.

Soobin kisses the corner of her mouth again, softer this time, then whispers against her lips:

“Turn around for me, baby. I want to see your face while I touch you.”

He pulls out slowly, both of them groaning at the loss, a thick trickle of his release sliding down her thigh. He helps her straighten and turn, his hands gentle but firm on her hips. When she’s facing him, he lifts her effortlessly onto the table, spreading her legs wide and stepping between them.

His mouth finds hers again immediately, deep, consuming kisses that make her dizzy. His hands roam freely now: one cupping her face, thumb stroking her cheek, the other sliding between her thighs to push two fingers back inside her cum-filled pussy, curling them slowly while his thumb works her clit.

The kissing never stops. Slow and filthy, then soft and sweet, then hungry again. He drinks every moan from her lips, every gasp, every broken whisper of his name. His fingers move in perfect rhythm, scissoring gently, spreading his cum and her wetness, preparing her for more.

He only pulls back when she’s trembling, lips swollen and shiny, eyes glassy with need.

“Look at me,” he says softly.

She does.

And in that moment, with his fingers buried inside her and his gaze locked on hers, she feels the depth of how completely she belongs to this, to him, even if she still calls it friendship.

Soobin’s fingers are still buried deep inside her, curling slowly, when he pulls back just enough to look at her properly. His eyes are dark, pupils blown wide, but his voice stays soft, almost reverent.

“Look at you,” he murmurs, thumb stroking her clit in lazy circles while his other hand cradles her jaw. “Sitting on the table all spread open for me… so fucking beautiful.”

She bites her lip, cheeks burning under his gaze. “Soobin… you don’t have to say that every time.”

“But I do,” he replies instantly, leaning in to press a slow, deep kiss to her mouth. When he pulls away, his fingers keep moving. “Because it’s true. Every inch of you drives me crazy. I’ve wanted this for so long… wanted you like this.”

Her breath hitches as he curls his fingers again, hitting that spot that makes her thighs tremble. “You already have me,” she whispers, voice shaky. “You know that.”

A small, satisfied smile curves his lips. “Yeah… I do. And I’m never letting go.”

He withdraws his fingers slowly, making her whimper at the loss, then brings them to his mouth and licks them clean without breaking eye contact. She watches, mesmerized and flushed.

“Soobin—”

“Shh. Let me worship you properly tonight.” His hands slide up her thighs, spreading them wider as he leans down. His mouth starts at her collarbone, pressing wet, open-mouthed kisses along the line. “You’ve been so stressed with the thesis… let me take care of every part of you.”

He trails lower, lips brushing the swell of her breasts, then down her stomach. Every kiss is deliberate, slow, like he’s mapping her. “This spot right here,” he murmurs against her ribs, sucking lightly, “makes you shiver every time.” He proves it by doing it again, smiling when she gasps.

“You remember everything,” she breathes, fingers threading through his hair.

“Of course I do.” His voice is low, intimate. “I’ve been paying attention for years. Every sound you make, every place that makes you wetter… all mine to learn.”

He moves back up, mouth finding the sensitive skin just below her ear while his hands roam — one palm smoothing over her hip, the other cupping her ass, squeezing gently. “Tell me how it feels, baby. Tell me what you need.”

“It feels… so good,” she moans softly as his fingers trace circles on her inner thigh. “Your hands are everywhere. I can’t think when you touch me like this.”

“Good,” he whispers, nipping at her jaw. “You don’t need to think. Just feel. Just let me love on you.”

He kisses down her neck again, slower this time, sucking a faint mark into the hollow of her throat. “This neck… always smells like your shampoo and a little like me now.” He inhales deeply, then licks the spot. “Fuck, I love that.”

She arches into him, a soft laugh escaping despite the heat building again. “You’re so obsessed.”

“With you? Yeah.” His eyes meet hers, serious and heated. “Completely. Every curve, every sound, every time you say my name like that.”

His hands slide under her thighs, lifting her slightly as he kisses lower, across her stomach, tongue dipping into her navel. “This little spot right here always makes your hips twitch.” He demonstrates, and she does exactly that, giggling breathlessly before it turns into a moan.

“Soobin, please… I need more.”

He looks up at her, chin resting on her lower stomach, eyes dark with promise. “Patience, baby. I’m not rushing tonight. I want to taste every part of you first. Tell me, does this feel good?” He presses a kiss just above her mound, then another on the inside of her thigh.

“Yes— fuck, yes,” she gasps, legs spreading wider on instinct. “Your mouth is so warm… I love when you kiss me there.”

He hums in approval, the vibration traveling through her skin. “Good girl. Keep talking to me. I love hearing how much you need me.”

His palms stroke up and down her sides, thumbs brushing the undersides of her breasts as his mouth continues its slow worship — kissing, licking, sucking gently on every inch of skin he can reach. He pauses at her hip bone, biting lightly, then soothing with his tongue.

“You’re shaking,” he observes softly, voice full of quiet pride. “Already so sensitive for me. That’s because your body knows who it belongs to now, doesn’t it?”

She nods, breath coming in short pants. “It does… it’s yours, Soobin. All of it.”

His eyes flash with something deep and satisfied. He rises slightly, capturing her mouth in another slow, filthy kiss while his hands continue exploring — squeezing her ass, tracing her waist, thumbs circling her nipples until they’re tight and aching.

“Say it again,” he whispers against her lips, voice husky. “Tell me who you belong to.”

“You,” she breathes, kissing him back desperately. “I belong to you.”

He groans softly into the kiss, one hand sliding between her legs again to tease her entrance with two fingers. “That’s my girl. So perfect. So mine.”

The touching never stops — slow, reverent strokes mixed with firmer grips, every movement designed to make her feel completely adored and completely claimed at the same time. His mouth stays busy on her skin, murmuring praises between kisses.

“You’re so soft here… so warm… I could spend hours just touching you like this.”

She whimpers, hips rocking against his hand. “Soobin… I’m getting close again just from this.”

“Then come for me whenever you want, baby,” he murmurs, kissing her deeply once more. “But I’m nowhere near done worshipping you tonight.”

She’s still trembling from his slow worship, thighs spread wide on the dining table, when Soobin straightens up and cups her face with both hands. His thumbs brush her flushed cheeks, eyes locked on hers with that quiet intensity that always makes her stomach flip.

“Baby,” he murmurs, voice low and rough around the edges, “you’re so good for me. Letting me touch you everywhere… but I need your mouth now. Can you do that for me?”

Her breath catches. She nods quickly, lips parting. “Yes… I want to. I love making you feel good too.”

A slow, satisfied smile spreads across his face. “That’s my girl. Come here.”

He helps her slide off the table, legs still shaky, and guides her gently down until she’s on her knees in front of him. The apartment floor is cool against her skin, but the heat radiating from his body makes her forget everything else. His cock stands hard and flushed in front of her, still slick from being inside her earlier, the tip glistening with a mix of their arousal.

Soobin threads his fingers gently through her hair. “Look at me while you do it,” he says softly. “I want to see your eyes.”

She looks up at him, heart racing, and wraps one hand around the base of his thick length. He’s big, always has been, and the weight of him in her palm feels familiar and intoxicating. She leans in and presses a soft, open-mouthed kiss to the head, tasting the salty tang of him mixed with her own wetness.

“Fuck…” Soobin hisses, his grip tightening slightly in her hair. “Just like that. Start slow, baby. I want to feel every second.”

She obeys, licking a long, slow stripe from base to tip, swirling her tongue around the sensitive head before taking him into her mouth. The groan that escapes him is deep and guttural, his hips twitching forward just a little.

“Oh shit, your mouth feels incredible,” he breathes, watching her with dark, hooded eyes. “So warm… so wet. You always take me so well.”

She hums around him, the vibration making his cock twitch against her tongue. Encouraged, she takes him deeper, bobbing her head slowly while her hand strokes what she can’t fit. Her other hand rests on his thigh, feeling the muscle tense under her palm.

Soobin’s breathing grows heavier. “That’s it… just like that. Use your tongue more on the underside — yes, fuck, right there.” His voice drops lower, almost reverent. “You have no idea how many times I’ve thought about this. You on your knees, looking up at me with those pretty eyes while you suck my cock.”

She pulls back for a moment, lips shiny, breathing hard. “Do you really think about me like that?” she asks, voice husky, giving him a few slow pumps with her hand. “Even when we’re just… hanging out?”

“Every day,” he admits, thumb stroking her cheek. “Sometimes when you’re studying across from me, all focused and biting your lip, I imagine pulling you under the table and letting you worship me while you try to stay quiet.” He guides her mouth back to him gently. “But this is better. This is real. Suck a little harder, baby — yeah, just like that. Good girl.”

She moans around his length, taking him deeper until he hits the back of her throat. She relaxes, swallowing around him, and Soobin curses under his breath, head tipping back for a second before he forces himself to look down again.

“God, you’re perfect,” he groans, hips starting to rock shallowly. “The way your throat squeezes me… fuck, I could stay in your mouth forever. You like tasting us together? My cum and your pussy all over my cock?”

She nods as best she can, eyes watering slightly but never breaking eye contact. The filthy words send heat straight between her legs again. She hollows her cheeks, sucking harder, tongue working the underside while her hand twists gently at the base.

Soobin’s grip in her hair tightens, but he’s still careful, never forcing her. “Slow down a little or I’m gonna come too fast,” he warns, voice strained. “I want to enjoy this. Want to watch you take every inch. You’re so fucking eager for it… my sweet best friend on her knees sucking me like she was made for it.”

She pulls off with a wet pop, stroking him firmly while she catches her breath. “I was made for you,” she whispers, pressing sloppy kisses along his shaft. “I love how you feel in my mouth… how heavy you are on my tongue. Tell me what else you want.”

His eyes darken further. “Lick my balls while you stroke me. Then take me deep again.”

She does exactly that — tongue laving over his sack, sucking one into her mouth gently while her hand works his cock in long, steady strokes. Soobin’s thighs tremble, a low moan escaping him.

“Fuck yes… just like that, baby. You’re so good at this. No one else could ever make me feel this way. Only you.”

She switches to the other side, then licks back up to the head and swallows him down again, taking him as deep as she can. Soobin’s hand guides her rhythm now, gentle but firm.

“Look at me,” he says again, voice rough. “I want to see how much you love having my cock in your throat.”

Their eyes lock. Tears cling to her lashes, but she doesn’t stop, humming and swallowing around him. Soobin’s breathing turns ragged.

“You’re gonna make me come if you keep that up,” he warns, though his hips keep moving in shallow thrusts. “But not yet… I still want to fuck you properly tonight. Want to fill you up again while you’re moaning my name.”

She pulls back just enough to speak, lips brushing the tip. “Then use my mouth however you want first. I can take it.”

Soobin pulls her up from her knees with gentle but firm hands, his mouth immediately claiming hers in a deep, messy kiss. He can still taste himself on her tongue, and the thought makes him groan softly into her mouth. He walks her backward until her hips hit the edge of the dining table again, then lifts her effortlessly so she’s sitting on it once more, legs wrapping around his waist.

“You’re incredible,” he murmurs against her lips, breaking the kiss only to trail his mouth along her jaw. “The way you looked up at me with my cock down your throat… fuck, I almost lost it.”

She smiles breathlessly, hands sliding up his chest. “I love making you feel like that. You always take such good care of me… I want to do the same for you.”

His eyes soften for a moment, something deep and possessive flickering behind the heat. “You do. More than you know.” Then his voice drops lower, hands sliding up her sides. “But right now, I need to taste you again. Spread your legs wider for me, baby.”

She obeys instantly, leaning back on her elbows on the table as he drops to his knees between her thighs once more. His large hands grip her inner thighs, spreading her open, and he stares at her glistening pussy with open hunger.

“Look at this pretty little pussy,” he says, voice rough with want. “All wet and swollen from my cock and your mouth. Still leaking my cum… that’s so fucking hot.”

She whimpers, hips twitching. “Soobin… please.”

“Please what?” he asks, pressing a soft kiss to the inside of her thigh, then another higher up. “Tell me. I want to hear you say it.”

“I want your mouth on me,” she breathes, cheeks burning. “Please lick me… make me come with your tongue.”

A low, satisfied sound rumbles in his chest. “Good girl. So honest for me.”

He doesn’t tease this time. He dives in, licking a broad, slow stripe from her entrance up to her clit, tasting the mix of their arousal. She gasps sharply, one hand flying to his hair.

“Oh god— Soobin!”

He hums against her, the vibration sending sparks through her body. “You taste so good,” he murmurs, pulling back just enough to speak. “Sweet and a little salty from us… I could eat you for hours.”

His tongue circles her clit with precise, firm strokes, then flattens to lap at her entrance, pushing inside her as far as it can go. She moans loudly, back arching off the table.

“Yes— right there,” she pants. “Your tongue feels so good inside me… deeper, please.”

He obliges, fucking her with his tongue while his nose nudges her clit. Two fingers replace his tongue after a moment, curling upward to hit that perfect spot as his mouth latches onto her clit and sucks gently.

“Fuck, Soobin— I’m— I’m close already,” she cries, thighs trembling around his head. “Don’t stop… please don’t stop.”

“I won’t,” he promises, voice muffled against her. He looks up at her, eyes dark and intense. “Come on my tongue, baby. Let me feel you fall apart. You’re so beautiful when you come for me.”

His fingers pump faster, curling perfectly, while his tongue flicks rapidly over her clit. She’s gasping, moaning his name like a chant, hips grinding against his face.

“Soobin— oh fuck, I’m coming—!”

Her orgasm hits hard, walls clenching around his fingers, a gush of wetness coating his tongue. He doesn’t pull away, riding her through it with slow, soothing licks and gentle thrusts of his fingers until she’s shaking and oversensitive.

When she finally slumps back, breathing hard, he rises to his feet, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. His cock is rock hard again, flushed and leaking.

He leans over her, kissing her deeply so she can taste herself on his lips. “Did that feel good?” he whispers.

“So good,” she sighs, wrapping her arms around his neck. “You always make me come so hard… I don’t know how you do it.”

“Because I know you,” he says simply, nipping at her lower lip. “Every spot, every sound, every way you like to be touched. You’re mine to please.”

She pulls him closer, kissing him again. “Then please fuck me now. I need you inside me again.”

He smiles against her mouth, voice low and promising. “Not yet, baby. I still want to play with these perfect tits first.”

Soobin’s words hang in the air, low and heated, as he leans over her on the table. His hands slide up her sides slowly, cupping her breasts and lifting them slightly, thumbs brushing over her already sensitive nipples.

“These perfect tits,” he murmurs, eyes dark with hunger. “I’ve been dying to give them the attention they deserve.”

She arches into his touch, a soft moan escaping. “Soobin… they’re not that special.”

He shakes his head, leaning down to press a reverent kiss to the swell of one breast. “Don’t say that. They’re fucking gorgeous. Soft, full, and they fit perfectly in my hands.” He squeezes gently, watching her reaction. “See? Made for me.”

He lowers his mouth to her left nipple, sucking it into his mouth with slow, deliberate pulls while his hand kneads the other breast. She gasps, fingers threading through his hair again.

“Oh— that feels so good,” she breathes. “Your mouth is so warm… suck a little harder.”

He does exactly that, hollowing his cheeks and flicking his tongue over the stiff peak. “Like this?” he asks, pulling back just enough to speak before switching to the other nipple, giving it the same treatment.

“Yes— fuck, yes,” she whimpers, back arching off the table. “I love when you play with my boobs… it goes straight between my legs.”

Soobin hums in approval, the vibration traveling through her nipple. “Good. Because I could do this all night.” He switches back and forth, licking, sucking, and gently biting, leaving faint red marks on the soft skin. “They get so hard for me… look at them. So pretty and sensitive.”

His free hand continues kneading the neglected breast, rolling the nipple between his fingers, pinching lightly until she’s squirming beneath him.

“Tell me how it feels,” he says, voice rough as he looks up at her, lips shiny. “Talk to me while I worship these.”

“It tingles… everywhere,” she pants, hips rocking uselessly against nothing. “Every time you suck, I feel it in my clit. You’re making me so wet again, Soobin.”

“That’s exactly what I want,” he growls softly, sucking harder on one nipple while twisting the other. “I want you dripping for me. Want your pussy aching while I take my time with your tits.”

He presses them together, burying his face between them, licking and kissing the valley. “So soft… so warm. I love how they spill over my hands.” He nips at the underside of one, then soothes it with his tongue. “You have no idea how many times I’ve stared at you in those tight shirts, imagining doing exactly this.”

She laughs breathlessly, tugging his hair. “Pervert.”

“Your pervert,” he corrects, grinning against her skin before sucking a nipple back into his mouth. “Only yours. And you love it. Say it.”

“I love it,” she moans, voice breaking as he bites down gently. “I love when you’re obsessed with my body… love how you touch me like I’m yours.”

“You are mine,” he says firmly, switching breasts again, lavishing the same slow, filthy attention on the other. His hips press forward, letting his hard cock rest against her inner thigh, hot and leaking. “These tits are mine to play with, to suck, to mark. Every time you wear that blue dress, I’m going to remember how they look right now — all flushed and covered in my mouth.”

She whimpers louder, one hand reaching down to stroke his cock slowly. “Then mark them more… please. I want to feel you tomorrow when I’m trying to study.”

Soobin groans, hips bucking into her hand. “Fuck, baby. You’re going to kill me.” He sucks harder, leaving a visible hickey on the inner curve of one breast, then another on the other side. “There. So everyone knows who these belong to, even if they can’t see.”

His tongue swirls around her nipples again, alternating between soft licks and firm sucks while his hands squeeze and mold her breasts. She’s panting now, thighs clenching around his waist.

“Soobin… I need you inside me,” she begs, voice shaky. “I’m so empty… please fuck me.”

He pulls back slightly, lips red and swollen, eyes blazing. “Not yet. Turn over for me first. I want you on your hands and knees.”

Soobin steps back just enough to give her room, his hands steady on her hips as she turns over on the dining table. She braces herself on her forearms, arching her back instinctively, ass presented to him. The position makes her feel exposed and desired at the same time, completely open for whatever he wants.

“Fuck, look at you,” he breathes, voice thick with lust. One large hand smooths down her spine, then cups her ass, squeezing firmly. “So pretty like this. Bent over and waiting for me.”

She glances back at him over her shoulder, cheeks flushed. “Is this how you want me?”

“Exactly like this,” he replies, stepping closer until his cock rests heavy against her ass. He rubs the thick length between her cheeks slowly, teasing. “Ass up, back arched… my perfect girl. You’re dripping down your thighs. All that from me playing with your tits?”

“Yes,” she admits, pushing back against him. “Everything you do makes me wet. Please, Soobin… I need you inside me now. I’ve been waiting.”

He groans, gripping her hips tighter. “You beg so sweetly. How can I say no to that?”

He lines himself up, the blunt head of his cock nudging her entrance, still slick from her earlier orgasm and his precum. With one slow, deliberate push, he sinks into her from behind — bare, deep, stretching her perfectly.

Both of them moan loudly at the feeling.

“Oh my god— Soobin,” she gasps, fingers curling against the table. “You’re so deep like this… I can feel every inch.”

“That’s right,” he says, voice strained as he bottoms out, hips flush against her ass. “Feel how well you take me? Your pussy was made for my cock bunny.”

He stays still for a moment, letting her adjust, one hand rubbing soothing circles on her lower back while the other grips her hip. Then he starts moving, slow, powerful thrusts that drag against every sensitive spot inside her.

“Fuck, you’re tight,” he groans, picking up a steady rhythm. “So warm and wet… gripping me like you never want me to leave.”

She pushes back to meet his thrusts, moaning with each deep stroke. “Harder… please. I can take it. I want to feel you tomorrow.”

Soobin’s grip tightens, and he gives her what she asks for — snapping his hips faster, the sound of skin slapping against skin filling the apartment. “Like this? You want me to fuck you like I own you?”

“Yes— yes, just like that,” she cries out, head dropping forward. “You do own me… fuck, right there— don’t stop!”

He angles his hips, hitting that perfect spot over and over, one hand sliding around to rub her clit in tight circles. “That’s my good girl. Taking my cock so well in this position. Your ass looks incredible bouncing against me.”

He leans over her, chest pressing to her back, and presses open-mouthed kisses along her shoulder. “Tell me how it feels, baby. Tell me you love getting fucked like this.”

“I love it,” she moans, voice breaking with every thrust. “I love when you fuck me from behind… so deep, so rough. Your cock is hitting everything— I’m gonna come again if you keep going.”

“Then come,” he growls against her ear, thrusting harder. “Come on my cock while I’m buried inside you. I want to feel you squeeze me.”

His fingers move faster on her clit, and his pace turns punishing — deep, relentless strokes that make the table creak beneath them. She’s whimpering and moaning, pushing back desperately.

“Soobin— I’m close— fuck, I’m coming—!”

Her second orgasm crashes over her, walls clenching hard around his cock. Soobin curses, slowing his thrusts to ride her through it, but not stopping completely.

“That’s it… good girl. Milk my cock with that tight pussy,” he praises, voice rough. He keeps moving through her spasms, drawing it out until she’s shaking.

When she starts to come down, he straightens up, hands gripping her hips again. “I’m not done with you yet. I want to fill you up one more time… but first, turn over. I need to see your face when I come inside you.”

Soobin doesn’t let her catch her breath for long. He slides his arms under her, one beneath her knees, the other around her back, and lifts her effortlessly off the dining table. Her legs wrap around his waist instinctively, arms looping around his neck as he carries her through the apartment. His cock, still hard and slick with her release, brushes against her ass with every step, making her whimper softly against his shoulder.

“Where are we going?” she murmurs, pressing lazy kisses to his neck.

“To bed,” he answers, voice low and rough. “I want you spread out properly under me. I want to look at you while I fill you up one more time.”

He kicks the bedroom door open with his foot and lays her down gently on the center of her bed,  their bed now, really, the sheets already rumpled from the night before. The room is dim, only the soft glow from the hallway light spilling in, casting warm shadows across her body.

Soobin climbs over her immediately, settling between her spread thighs in missionary. He braces himself on his forearms, caging her in, his broad frame hovering just above hers. His cock nudges her entrance again, hot and insistent.

“Look at me, baby,” he says softly, one hand brushing damp strands of hair from her face. “I want your eyes on me the whole time.”

She meets his gaze, her own eyes glassy with lingering pleasure and fresh need. “I’m looking… I always look at you.”

He smiles, that small, secret smile, and slowly pushes back inside her in one smooth thrust. They both moan at the familiar stretch, the wet heat, the perfect fit.

“Fuck… still so tight,” he groans, bottoming out and grinding his hips in slow circles. “Even after coming… your pussy keeps pulling me back in.”

She wraps her legs higher around his waist, heels digging into his lower back. “Because I need you there. Deeper, Soobin… please. I want to feel you everywhere.”

He starts moving — long, deep strokes that press her into the mattress. Unlike the rough pace, this is slower, more intentional, every thrust deliberate and grinding. His hips roll against hers, pubic bone pressing against her clit with each downward motion.

“So good,” she gasps, hands sliding up his back, nails lightly scratching. “This position… I can feel all of you. Your cock is so deep… hitting everything.”

“That’s the point,” he murmurs, leaning down to kiss her deeply, tongue sliding against hers in time with his thrusts. “I want you to feel every inch. Want you to remember exactly who’s inside you, who’s taking care of you.”

He breaks the kiss to trail his mouth down her neck, sucking lightly at the marks he left earlier. One hand slides between them to cup her breast again, thumb circling the nipple while he continues those deep, steady rolls of his hips.

“Tell me how it feels now,” he whispers against her skin. “Being in your own bed, legs wrapped around me while I fuck you raw.”

“It feels… safe,” she breathes, then moans as he hits a particularly sensitive spot. “And dirty. And perfect. I love having you on top of me like this… love how heavy you are, how you fill me completely.”

Soobin groans, pace faltering for a second before he steadies again. “You have no idea what you do to me when you say things like that.” He thrusts a little harder, making the bed creak. “Your pussy is clenching around me so nicely… you’re going to make me come soon if you keep squeezing like that.”

She tightens her walls deliberately around him, smiling breathlessly when he curses. “Then come inside me. I want it. I want to feel you spill deep… want you to stay there after.”

His eyes darken. “Yeah? You want me to breed you tonight? Fill this pretty cunt until it’s overflowing?”

The word “breed” makes her whimper loudly, hips bucking up to meet him. “Yes… do it. Fill me up, Soobin. I’m yours.”

That seems to snap something in him. He kisses her hard, messy and desperate, while his hips pick up speed, still deep, but faster now, chasing his release while making sure she feels every thrust. His hand stays on her breast, squeezing and playing with her nipple as he drives into her.

“Come with me,” he pants against her mouth. “One more time, baby. Come on my cock while I come inside you.”

She nods frantically, one hand slipping between them to rub her clit in quick circles. The combination — his thick cock pounding deep, his weight pressing her down, his mouth on hers, his hand on her breast — pushes her over the edge again.

“Soobin— I’m coming— fuck!”

Her third orgasm hits her hard, walls fluttering and clenching rhythmically around him. Soobin groans loudly, burying his face in her neck as his own release crashes over him. He thrusts deep one final time and stays there, cock pulsing as he spills hot and thick inside her, filling her completely.

Soobin stays buried deep inside her, his weight a comforting blanket as their breathing slowly evens out. He presses soft, lingering kisses along her collarbone, her jaw, the corner of her mouth, never pulling out. The feeling of him still thick and warm inside her makes her hum contentedly, legs still loosely wrapped around his hips.

He shifts carefully, keeping them connected, and rolls them both until she’s on top, straddling him. But instead of letting her ride him hard, he pulls her down so her chest is flush against his, arms wrapping around her back to hold her close. Their faces are inches apart, breaths mingling.

“Like this,” he murmurs, guiding her hips into a slow, rolling grind. “Nice and deep. I want to feel every little movement.”

She rocks gently against him, the new angle letting him press even deeper. A soft moan escapes her as the head of his cock nudges that sensitive spot inside with every subtle shift.

“Soobin… you feel so good,” she breathes, eyes half-lidded as she looks down at him. “So full…”

His hands slide up and down her back in long, soothing strokes, one eventually cupping the back of her neck while the other rests possessively on her ass, encouraging her slow rhythm. “That’s it, baby. Just like that. No rush tonight. I want to make love to you until you forget everything except how we fit together.”

He lifts his head to kiss her, slow, deep, unhurried kisses that match the lazy roll of their hips. Their tongues slide together gently, savoring, tasting. Every time she sinks down fully onto him, he groans softly into her mouth, the sound vibrating through both of them.

“You’re so warm inside,” she whispers between kisses, forehead resting against his. “I love feeling you throb like this… like your body is telling me how much you need me too.”

“I do need you,” he replies, voice husky but soft. “Every day. Every night. This — being inside you, with nothing between us… it’s everything I’ve wanted.” He thrusts up gently to meet her next roll, grinding deep. “Feel that? That’s me loving you. Slow and deep, just like you deserve.”

She whimpers quietly, clenching around him as the pleasure builds in a warm, steady wave rather than a sharp peak. “Soobin… it’s so intimate like this. I can feel your heartbeat inside me.”

His arms tighten around her, one hand slipping into her hair while the other traces her spine. “Good. I want you to feel all of me.” He kisses her again, slower this time, then trails his lips to her ear. “You’re my safe place. My home. Let me stay right here and love you like this for as long as you need.”

They move together in a gentle rhythm — not frantic fucking, but something softer, deeper. Making love. Her breasts press against his chest with every roll, nipples brushing his skin. His hands never stop touching her: stroking her back, squeezing her ass lightly, cradling her face so he can look into her eyes.

“Kiss me again,” she murmurs.

He does, pouring everything into it — the years of quiet longing, the careful way he’s built this life around her, the overwhelming tenderness he only lets show when they’re like this. Their hips keep that slow, sensual grind, his cock sliding in and out in long, luxurious strokes that make her toes curl.

“You’re clenching so sweetly around me,” he whispers against her lips. “Squeezing me like you never want me to leave your body.”

“I don’t,” she admits breathlessly, nipping at his lower lip. “Stay inside me forever if you could.”

Soobin lets out a low, pleased sound, thrusting up a little deeper on the next roll. “One day I will. But tonight… just feel me loving you. No ending yet.”

He flips them once more with careful strength, settling back on top of her in missionary without ever fully pulling out. Now he’s the one setting the slow pace, hips rocking in deep, unhurried circles while he holds her gaze.

“Tell me you feel it too,” he says softly, brushing his nose against hers. “Tell me how much you love having me inside you like this.”

“I love it,” she gasps, legs tightening around him. “I love you inside me… making love to me. It feels like we’re the only two people in the world.”

“We are right now,” he murmurs, kissing her deeply again as their bodies continue that slow, intimate dance.

He doesn’t chase his orgasm. He simply savors her — every flutter of her walls, every soft moan, every time her fingers dig into his shoulders. The pleasure builds gradually, warm and overwhelming, like sinking into something endless and safe.

In the quiet of her bed, with the last semester pressing in from outside, they make love like time has stopped — slow, deep, and dangerously close to something far more permanent than either of them is admitting.

They stay locked together for a long time, bodies still joined, hips moving in that same slow, lazy rhythm. The pleasure has built into something warm and endless, a gentle wave rather than a crash. Soobin’s forehead rests against hers, their breaths mingling in the quiet dark of the bedroom.

“I’m close,” he finally whispers, voice rough but tender. “Been holding it for you… but I need to come now, baby. Need to fill you one last time.”

She nods, legs tightening around his waist, fingers stroking the back of his neck. “Come inside me. Please. I want to feel it… all of it.”

He kisses her deeply as his pace shifts — still deep and intentional, but with a little more urgency now. One hand slides between them to circle her clit with slow, perfect pressure while he thrusts. Their mouths stay connected, soft and open, sharing every moan and gasp.

When her fourth orgasm finally washes over her — slow, rolling, and devastatingly sweet — she clenches hard around him, whimpering his name into his mouth. That’s all it takes.

Soobin groans low and broken, burying himself as deep as he can go. His cock pulses inside her, spilling hot and thick in long, rhythmic waves. He keeps rocking gently through it, pushing every drop deeper, like he’s sealing something between them.

“Take it all,” he breathes against her lips. “That’s it… good girl. All for you.”

They stay like that, trembling and connected, until the last aftershocks fade. Only then does Soobin carefully pull out, a thick trickle of his release following. He doesn’t let the mess bother either of them. Instead, he rolls onto his back and pulls her on top of him, wrapping both arms around her body like he never plans to let go.

The aftercare begins without words at first.

He strokes her back in long, soothing lines, fingertips tracing her spine, then her shoulders, then down to the curve of her ass. His other hand cups the back of her head, threading gently through her damp hair. Soft kisses land on her forehead, her temple, the tip of her nose, quiet, reverent presses of his lips that say everything he doesn’t voice yet.

“You okay?” he murmurs eventually, voice low and warm in the darkness.

She nods against his chest, ear pressed over his heartbeat. “More than okay. I feel… floaty. Safe. Like nothing bad can touch me when I’m with you like this.”

A small, satisfied sound rumbles in his chest. “Good. That’s exactly how I want you to feel.” He presses another kiss to the top of her head. “You were perfect tonight. Took everything I gave you so beautifully. I’m so proud of you, baby.”

She smiles sleepily, nuzzling closer. “You always take such good care of me. Even when we’re… like that. Especially when we’re like that.”

“Because you’re mine to take care of,” he says simply, one hand continuing its slow strokes down her back while the other reaches for the nightstand. He grabs a soft towel he’d left there earlier (always prepared) and gently cleans between her thighs with careful, tender wipes. “There… better?”

“Mhm.” She sighs contentedly as he finishes and tosses the towel aside, then pulls the blanket up over both of them. “Stay like this? Don’t move away yet.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” he promises, shifting them so she’s tucked perfectly against his side, head on his chest, one of her legs thrown over his. His arm curls protectively around her waist, hand splaying wide over her lower back. “I’ve got you. Sleep if you want. I’ll be right here.”

She traces idle patterns on his chest with her fingertip. “You always know what I need before I even ask. The towel… the way you hold me after… everything. How do you do that?”

He chuckles softly, the sound vibrating under her ear. “I pay attention. To every little thing about you.” His fingers keep stroking her hair, slow and rhythmic. “You’ve been carrying so much with the thesis and finals. You deserve to be taken care of like this. Deserve to feel loved and safe every single night.”

The word “loved” lands softly between them. She doesn’t pull away from it — just lets it settle in her chest like something warm and familiar.

“I do feel loved,” she whispers after a moment. “With you. Even if we still call this… whatever it is between best friends.”

Soobin’s arms tighten around her just a fraction. His voice stays calm, but there’s a depth of satisfaction underneath. “Then keep feeling it. Because I’m not stopping anytime soon.”

He reaches over and turns off the small lamp on the nightstand, plunging the room into comfortable darkness. The only sounds are their breathing and the distant hum of the city outside. He keeps holding her close, one hand never stopping its gentle caresses, down her arm, across her back, along her hip, grounding her, soothing every last bit of tension from her body.

“Close your eyes,” he murmurs. “I’ve got the whole night. Tomorrow I’ll make you breakfast, run you a bath if you’re sore, whatever you need. But right now… just let me hold you.”

She yawns softly, already drifting. “Love you, Soobin… thank you for always being here.”

He presses one final, lingering kiss to her forehead, eyes closing as he breathes her in.

“I love you too,” he whispers, so quietly she might not fully register it. “More than you know. Sleep now, baby. I’m right here.”

In the quiet afterglow, with his cum still warm inside her and his arms wrapped securely around her body, she falls asleep feeling completely cherished, completely safe, and completely his — even if she still believes it’s all harmless.

Soobin stays awake a little longer, listening to her breathing even out, one hand resting possessively over her lower stomach.

He smiles into the dark.

Everything was going exactly as planned.

The notebook gets a new entry around week six of the semester, written in the bathroom of her apartment while she's in the shower, his handwriting smaller than usual like he's containing something:

*Ovulation window opens Thursday. She has a seminar until 6. I'll have dinner ready. She always relaxes after eating. Be patient. Let it happen naturally. It always happens naturally with her.*

*She took the vitamins again this morning. Third week. She thinks they're the same ones.*

*She said I don't know what I'd do without you last night when I fixed her laptop. She said it like it was nothing. She doesn't know it's everything.*

He closes the notebook. Listens to the shower running. Thinks about the Eevee onesie and the tiny paw shoes and the annotated map of the city with the good school district circled in blue pen.

He thinks: we're so close.

He thinks: she just needs a little more time to catch up.

He puts the notebook back in the bag where it always lives — deep, under folded clothes, the corner just barely visible if you know to look for it — and goes back to the kitchen to finish dinner.

She comes out of the shower in his hoodie twenty minutes later, hair damp, smelling like her shampoo and a little like him, and the sight of her in his space, in his clothes, building a life in the shape he's been quietly constructing around her for years — it lands in his chest the way it always lands, like coming home.

"Smells good," she says, dropping into her chair at the table.

"Chicken," he says. "You said you were craving it."

She said that Tuesday. Offhand. In the middle of a different conversation.

She doesn't remember saying it.

He does.

It happens on a Thursday afternoon — late sun cutting through the crooked blinds in narrow gold strips, the apartment carrying the stale-coffee smell of a day spent working at home, the ceiling fan doing its slow whining rotation. She's curled on the couch in his hoodie, phone face-down on the armrest, something unresolved sitting between her shoulder blades that she can't quite name.

He's on the floor with his back against the couch, textbook open across his lap, thumb tracing the edge of page 187 the way he does when he's reading but also thinking about something else.

She drops the phone onto the armrest and exhales through her nose.

"So," she starts, and stops. Tries again. "Have you ever — been with a girl and a guy, like, at the same time in your life? Overlapping?"

His thumb stills on the page. He tilts his head two centimeters left — that listening posture she knows — and lifts his eyes slowly.

"Why now?" he asks, voice soft with a tiny hook at the corner of his mouth.

She shrugs inside the oversized sleeves, pulling both cuffs down until her hands vanish. "Just thinking. You talk about hot guys the same way you talk about hot girls. It feels easier for you. More natural."

He closes the book carefully. Sets it beside his thigh, edges aligned.

"Easier with what?" His torso shifts toward her; his knee brushes her calf where she's curled on the cushion above him and stays there, warm.

She doesn't move her leg. "With bodies. Touch. Everything. You don't flinch. Guy or girl — it's the same to you."

He rests his elbow on the cushion by her knee, face tilted up toward hers. "Does that bother you?"

"No." She shakes her head, a loose strand falling across her eye that she pushes back with a sleeved knuckle. "I think it's nice. You just exist like that. No categories."

The fan whines once. A gold bar of light slides across the bridge of his nose.

"So what do you think I am?" he asks, barely above a whisper.

She swallows. "Someone who likes people. In different ways. At once, or one after the other. Doesn't matter."

His thumb traces a slow circle on the book cover. His gaze flicks to her mouth for half a second.

"Would knowing change anything for you?"

Her stomach executes a slow, rolling flip. "No." Fast, then softer: "I mean — it wouldn't change what we're already doing."

He lifts his right hand. The backs of his fingers brush the inside of her wrist where the hoodie sleeve has slipped — dry, warm, almost accidental. Almost. His thumb settles over her pulse — no pressure, just resting, feeling the quick rhythm underneath.

"Good to know," he murmurs.

She feels the last piece click into place in the back of her mind and slide a drawer shut: bi. Of course. That explains the way he talks about bodies, the way he's never had a label that fit, the way he dated that one guy in high school and then no one seriously after. That explains all of it. She's not his girl — she's his safe person, his most trusted body, the one constant in a life that keeps its real desires in a quieter room.

She breathes out slowly.

"You're really good at being human," she says, trying for playful, landing somewhere rougher.

He smiles sideways — small, secret. "And you're really good at letting me be."

His thumb stays exactly where it is over her pulse.

The light shifts from gold to orange and neither of them moves and she settles into the version of him she's just constructed — bi, complicated, hers in the way that doesn't require explanation — and feels the relief of it, the neat click of a label that makes everything make sense.

She doesn't see him watching her settle.

She doesn't see the small satisfied thing that moves across his face when he feels her relax.

He was never bi.

He was never gay.

He is a man who has been in love with one specific woman for four years and has been willing to be anything she needed him to be in order to stay close enough to matter.

He keeps his thumb on her pulse a little longer.

Feels it slow.

Feels her trust him completely.

March.

The period tracker app on his phone — the one synced silently to hers since September, the one she has no idea he has — shows a seven-day window starting the fourteenth.

He doesn't change anything about how he acts during those seven days. That's the discipline of it, the thing he's practiced and refined over months of quiet watching: he doesn't become different during the window, he just becomes more of what he already is. More present. More warm. More inclined to touch her without reason, to pull her into him from behind in the kitchen while she's reading something on her phone, to end evenings by pulling her into the bedroom instead of letting her drift to the pull-out, which she almost never uses anymore but still theoretically could.

The fourteenth falls on a Friday. She has a seminar until six. He has dinner ready at six-thirty. She comes through the door already half-unraveling from the week — bag dropped, shoes kicked, the exhale of someone who has been holding herself together through a long day and can finally let the seams loosen — and walks straight into the kitchen where he's plating food and leans her forehead against his shoulder blade without a word.

He reaches back and puts his hand on her hip without turning around.

"Hard day?" he asks.

"The worst," she says into his shoulder.

"Sit down. It's ready."

She sits. He brings everything over. They eat with the window cracked, the early March air just beginning to smell like something other than winter, and she talks about the seminar and he listens the way he always listens — fully, with his eyes on her face, asking the questions that extend what she's saying rather than redirecting it. This is one of the things she tells Lia about him when Lia asks — he actually listens, like, actually — and she doesn't know that she's describing something he cultivated deliberately over years because the research he did on emotional connection in long-term partnerships said that attentive listening was the highest-rated quality in relationship satisfaction across all studies.

He did the research.

Of course he did the research.

After dinner she ends up on his lap on the couch — not because she made a decision, just because the gravitational pull between them at this point is essentially physics — and his hand finds the back of her neck and she closes her eyes and his mouth finds her ear and it proceeds the way it always proceeds from here: inevitable, warm, without ceremony.

She doesn't think about protection.

She doesn't think about anything except the warmth of him and the weight of the week leaving her body and how this, right here, is the only place in the world where everything quiet down.

He thinks about the window.

He thinks: this is how it was always going to happen — naturally, warmly, in the middle of an ordinary evening, without her knowing what it is.

He thinks: she'll understand later. She'll choose this later. She always chooses me eventually — I just have to be patient enough to let her arrive.

He pulls her closer.

She melts into him without question.

Outside, early spring comes in quietly through the cracked window, carrying the smell of something new beginning.

April arrives and the thesis is submitted and the relief of it is enormous and clean and she screams in the apartment at 11:47pm when the portal confirms receipt and Soobin picks her up from the floor and spins her once, laughing, and she's laughing too and the apartment smells like the celebration dinner he started at ten in case it finished early — because he knew it would finish around now, because he checked her submitted draft schedule three days ago and calculated the revision time she'd need — and everything is warm and good and full of the specific joy of something enormous finally being done.

They're drunk by one. Not sloppy-drunk — happy-drunk, the kind where everything is funny and the music is too loud and she ends up on the kitchen counter while he dances extremely badly in front of her and she's laughing so hard her stomach hurts, and he grabs her hands and makes her dance with him standing on the floor while she's on the counter so they're almost the same height and she cups his face and kisses him — sweet this time, soft, grateful — and feels the whole weight of this year, of this person, of this strange warm life they've built in the space between what she thought he was and what he actually is.

"We're going to graduate," she says against his mouth, the fact of it landing new each time she says it.

"We're going to graduate," he agrees, hands on her waist, steady.

She leans her forehead against his. Thinks about May. Thinks about the families coming and the gowns and the photographs and what comes after and the particular terrifying freedom of after.

"Are you scared?" she asks.

"No," he says, which is true. He has been building after for years. He knows exactly what it looks like. "Are you?"

"A little," she admits.

He pulls her closer. "I'll be there," he says. "Whatever comes after. I'm there."

She believes him completely.

She has no idea how literal he means it.

May arrives in three weeks and leaves a month of chaos in its wake — final presentations, departmental dinners, the strange suspended quality of last things, last lectures, last times walking routes she's walked four years of mornings. She takes photos of things she never photographed before: the library window. The bench near the science building where she ate lunch a hundred times. The coffee place two blocks over where he introduced her to the order that's been hers for two years now.

She texts one to him with the caption: this is because of you.

He texts back: all the good ones are.

She screenshots it and doesn't tell him.

He already knows.

The families arrive the Thursday before graduation.

It's been planned for weeks — both sets of parents, a restaurant in the city, the kind of dinner that requires a reservation and actual shoes and the specific performance of adulthood that comes with presenting your life to people who remember when you were smaller. She spends an hour getting dressed and changes twice and Soobin sits on the edge of her bed watching her with the patience of a man who genuinely does not care which dress she wears as long as she's in the room.

"The blue one," he says, when she holds up two options.

"You always pick the blue one."

"Because you always look best in the blue one." Flat. Obvious. Like this is not a compliment but a fact, which is exactly how he always delivers compliments, which is exactly why they land.

She puts on the blue one.

The restaurant is warm and candlelit and the tables are close enough together that everything feels intimate whether you want it to be or not. Her parents are already there when they arrive — her mother standing up immediately, arms open, the specific warmth of a hug from a woman who has been waiting to see her daughter for months and is not going to underdeliver on the reunion. Her father shakes Soobin's hand — firm, measured, the handshake of a man who is taking stock — and Soobin meets it evenly, which her father notices, which is the first point in Soobin's favor.

His parents arrive five minutes later. His mother is warm and effortlessly elegant in the way of women who have been comfortable for a long time. His father has Soobin's height and Soobin's quality of stillness and the specific observant quiet of a man who built something and would like to see who his son is becoming.

The table settles. Wine is poured. The conversation finds its feet.

She watches it happen without fully understanding what she's watching — the way the two sets of parents orient toward each other with a comfort that feels less like strangers getting acquainted and more like people who already have an opinion and are spending the evening confirming it. Her mother laughs at something Soobin's mother says and touches her arm and the gesture is too warm for first meeting, like they've been in the same orbit before and simply haven't occupied the same room until now.

She goes to the bathroom midway through the main course and comes back to find her father and Soobin in the corner of the conversation, the rest of the table temporarily occupied with something else, her father leaning forward slightly — not hostile but focused — and Soobin meeting every question with the easy confidence of a man who prepared for this meeting long before it was scheduled.

She watches from across the room for a moment before they see her.

Her father nods once. Deliberate.

Soobin catches her eye over the table — quick, barely a flicker — and she can't read it from here, except that it's warm.

She sits back down. Her mother squeezes her hand under the table.

"He's wonderful," her mother says quietly, very close to her ear. "He's always been wonderful."

She thinks: she means as a friend. She means it the way she always means it — Soobin is wonderful, what a good friend, what a lucky thing you found him.

She doesn't think anything more careful than that.

After dinner — families separating, hotel directions exchanged, hugs distributed — she and Soobin walk back to the apartment in the cool May evening with the city noise low around them. He has his jacket over her shoulders because she was cold three blocks ago and he took it off without being asked, which is, she thinks distantly, so completely him that she doesn't even think of it as remarkable anymore.

"My dad asked you about your plans," she says.

"I know. I told him."

She glances at him. "What did you tell him?"

"The truth." His hands are in his pockets, step unhurried. "That I have a position with my father's company starting in July. That I'm looking at apartments in this city. That I plan to be around."

She absorbs this. The position she knew about. The apartments — she hasn't heard about apartments. "Looking at apartments?"

"Casually," he says, which is not true at all, but he says it so evenly that it lands as true. "Just thinking about the next step. It makes sense to stay near campus for a while. We both have reasons to stay near campus."

She nods slowly. She doesn't ask why he's framing it as we — it just sounds right, it slots in beside all the other things that have started sounding right without her consciously deciding they should.

"He seemed to approve," she says.

"He asked good questions. I respect him." A pause. "He loves you. Wants to know you're taken care of."

The phrase lands softly and she doesn't examine it. Just walks beside him with his jacket over her shoulders and the city lights turning everything amber and thinks: this is what after looks like, maybe. This warm ordinary thing. This person walking beside her who knows her schedule and her coffee order and her worst fears and her best jokes and who has made himself so completely necessary that she stopped being able to locate the seam between where she ends and where he begins.

She hooks her pinky through his — the old habit, the childhood reflex, the one that means crowds and closeness and I don't want to lose you in this.

He hooks back.

They walk the last three blocks in comfortable silence.

The night before graduation she can't sleep.

This is not unusual — she's been a bad sleeper before big things her whole life — but the particular shape of this restlessness is different. It's not the thesis anxiety or the seminar-deadline 4am alarm-heart. It's something lower and stranger, something in her body rather than her mind, a low-grade wrongness she can't locate precisely. She's been a little off for the past week. Not sick exactly — nothing she could point to and name — just slightly not herself, a degree or two off her usual temperature, a faint nausea some mornings that she blames on stress and then forgets by afternoon.

She chalks it up to the enormity of tomorrow.

Soobin is asleep behind her — arm over her waist, face close to her shoulder, breathing slow and even. He fell asleep fast the way he always does after she stops moving, like her stillness is the signal his body was waiting for.

She stares at the ceiling.

She thinks about four years. She thinks about the girl who arrived at this school with a perfectly organized planner and a very clear idea of what the next four years would look like, and looks for the seam between that girl and this one — lying in a bed that has become shared so gradually she couldn't tell you which night the pronoun changed from his bed to our bed — and finds the seam is very thin. Almost invisible. The kind that a good tailor makes deliberately so you can't see the work.

She thinks: I'm really happy.

The thought arrives simply, without the guilty hedging she might have expected. She's really happy. This is her life and she likes it and tomorrow she's going to wear a gown and her parents will cry and Soobin will be right there the way he always is and after after comes and she'll figure it out — they'll figure it out, the we that has become natural — and everything is going to be fine.

She doesn't think about the slight wrongness in her body. She's tired and stressed and tomorrow is enormous and everything strange is explainable.

She turns over. Faces him.

In the dark his face is soft the way it gets in sleep — the careful composure he carries through waking hours gentled down to something younger, the boy inside the man, the person who has apparently been in love with her since they were nineteen and showed it in every way except the most obvious one.

She thinks: I love you.

The thought arrives without fanfare. Not a revelation — just a recognition, quiet and deep, like something that has been true for a long time finally being acknowledged in the right language.

She doesn't say it out loud.

But she tucks it close.

Closes her eyes.

And finally, finally, sleeps.

The next morning she wakes up to the smell of coffee and the sound of him moving quietly in the kitchen and the pale particular light of a May morning that is going to be a beautiful day. She lies there for a moment — ceiling, light, the distant sound of campus beginning to wake — and notices, without urgency, that her stomach feels faintly wrong again.

She ignores it.

Gets up. Gets dressed. Puts on the earrings he picked out last week when she held up options — simple silver ones he said would catch the light under the ceremony tent, because of course he thought about that.

He appears in the doorway with two mugs. "How do you feel?"

"Good," she says, and mostly means it. "Nervous. Ready."

He hands her the coffee. His thumb brushes her wrist when she takes it — just a second, just contact — and she feels it move through her the way it always moves through her, warm and sure and impossible to locate properly because it's everywhere now, woven into the whole fabric of her days.

"You're going to be great," he says.

"We're going to be great," she corrects.

He smiles — small, real, the one with the dimples — and it's a smile she doesn't quite have the context for, layered with a satisfaction she can't fully see.

"Yeah," he says quietly. "We are."

She drinks her coffee.

Outside, the May morning opens up clear and warm and full of beginnings.

And in her body, very quietly, something has already begun.

౨ৎ prev ✧ next — ⋆｡‧˚ʚ ✧ 𝒸𝒽𝒶𝓅𝓉𝑒𝓇 𝓈𝑒𝓋𝑒𝓃: 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝓎𝑒𝓈 𝓈𝒽𝑒 𝒹𝒾𝒹𝓃’𝓉 𝓈𝒶𝓎 ✧ ɞ˚‧｡⋆

౨ৎ tag open: @black-startxt @buttersoob @idkguyslma @toru-saki @amelie-sama-blog @binniesbabe @ravenslocked @usuallyunlikelyfox @whoreforjongho

🩷 𝓊𝓅𝒹𝒶𝓉𝑒𝒹 𝓌𝒽𝑒𝓃 𝒾𝓃𝓈𝓅𝒾𝓇𝒶𝓉𝒾𝑜𝓃 𝓈𝓉𝓇𝒾𝓀𝑒𝓈

𝓊𝓅𝒸𝑜𝓂𝒾𝓃𝓰 ꒰ა𝐿𝑜𝓋𝑒 𝒲𝒾𝓉𝒽𝑜𝓊𝓉 𝒶 𝒞𝑜𝓊𝓃𝓉𝑒𝓇-𝒞𝒽𝒶𝓇𝓂໒꒱ 𝒸𝒽𝑜𝒾 𝓈𝑜𝑜𝒷𝒾𝓃 × 𝒻𝑒𝓂!𝓇𝑒𝒶𝒹𝑒𝓇 ໒꒱ Hogwarts AU

You, Changbin, and Leeknow have been friends for a good amount of time, casually meeting at a mutual friend's party. You guys were at the hip ever since. Wherever Leeknow and Changbin were, you were there and vice versa. It became second nature to guys, casually hanging out, going to parties when you're available, to now where they're in your room, sitting on the floor with an empty soju bottle in the center of you guys.

Ah, yes, the notorious game of spin the bottle. When the casual hangout comes after weeks of work and stress, the three of you decide to unwind with 3 bottles of soju and some snacks.  In your dimly lit room, you sat in a circle facing each other drunkenly, the lighting making everything more intimate than it is. What started as silly jokes, playful teasing, and feeding each other snacks became something more, something more intimate. With every shot, the dares start leaning into something more intimate, something more raw, that slowly challenges the boundaries of your guys' friendship.

So when you begin to spin the bottle and it slowly stops in the direction of Leeknow, your breath begins to catch, as if you weren't breathing.  When you look up, your gaze catches his, sensing the nervousness in your face. "Don't look so nervous," he smirks," what's the worst that could happen?" he says, motioning for you to come towards him. As if he had you in a trance, your body started moving before you could think, moving towards him. Just before you could think, a low chuckle escaped the air.

Changbin sat there cross-legged at your side, head tilted with his eyebrow raised. "Hold on," he teased, his lips curling into a smirk, "Why should he get the first kiss? Should we go again?"

Leeknow shot him a look, one corner of his mouth lifting. " U getting jealous, bin? he taunted, his hand hovering, never dropping it, ready to pull you in.

Changbin leaned forward, voice dropping into something heavier. “Not jealous. Just making sure you don't get too comfortable acting like she’s only here for you.”

Leeknow scoffs at the comment, then focuses his gaze back onto you. His hand reaches up, finger brushing your jaw as he pulls you into his chest. Your lips finally meet, the kiss slow and deliberate, as if you were a feather in his hold, making the room feel hotter.

Leeknow pulls back, his thumb brushing your bottom lip, savoring the moment. His smile softens into something sharper, his eyes locked on yours.

"See? Not so bad," he mumbles, his voice making heat pool in your stomach. "Almost like you wanted me"

Before you can reply, Changbin lets out a scoff, though there’s no mistaking the heat in his voice.

“Tch, that was nothing. You’re acting like you just rocked her world with a little kiss.”

Leeknow leaned back, tongue pressing against his cheek in a grin.”What’s wrong, Bin? Wishin’ it was you instead?”  Changbin smirks, eyes flicking to you before locking back on Leeknow. “I don’t wish — I'll just make sure it’s better when it’s my turn.” The air hangs heavy between the three of you, the soju bottle sitting innocently in the middle, as if it didn't start the beginning of something new. For a moment, no one moves, the silence broken only by the faint hum of music seeping through your walls.

Then Changbin leans forward, fingers brushing the bottle’s neck. His eyes cut between you and Leeknow, a daring smile tugging at his lips. “ Guess it’s about time we see where this goes.”

He gives the glass a spin, the bottle spinning across the floor, clinking against the wood as all three pairs of eyes track it. You feel your chest tighten, your pulse climbing with every slow turn until it begins to wobble, and the mouth of the bottle lands on you.

Leeknow lets a low laugh, shaking his head. “ Of course, Lucky asshole.”

Changbin doesn’t even hide his satisfaction, his gaze locking on you as he straightens. “Told you. My turn.”

Before you can react, his hand grazes your jaw, grabbing it and tilting your face towards him. There’s no hesitation as his lips crash into yours. It was firm, a sharp contrast to Leeknow’s Kiss.  The taste of soju lingers in it, mingled with a heaviness as his grip pulls you closer.

The kiss is deeper, hungrier, and nastier as his tongue brushes your face like he’s claiming you then and there. When he pulls back, his chest heaves, with a smirk — cocky, like he knows what he’s doing to you. ”Better, isn’t it?” he murmurs, his thumb brushing the corner of your mouth where his kiss lingers.

Leeknow sucks his teeth, leaning forward with narrowed eyes. “Don’t get too cocky, Night’s not over yet,” he says with a smirk.

As if to prove his point, he reaches for the bottle, spinning it with a flick of his wrist. The glass rattles across the floor, spinning before wobbling to stop… pointing directly at Changbin

The room falls silent, tension snapping as the two of them lock eyes.

To be continued…..👀

⭑･ﾟﾟ･*:༅｡.｡༅:*ﾟ:*:✼✿　　✿✼:*ﾟ:༅｡.｡༅:*･ﾟﾟ･⭑

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(lmk if you want to be removed)😭

@chrisssiren for the dividers thx sm love !!💕

@linovvsss 2025 | do not steal, plagiarize, translate or repost any of my work 

Sunghoon is already waiting in the middle of the ice. He moves smoothly across the ice as if the laws of physics do not apply to him. When he spots you, his face lights up. And that's when your heart does that stupid thing it always does in his presence. If only he knew.

You met each other here. Not exactly at this ice rink, but at a similar one, during a competition you begged your parents to go to for a long time. You were maybe eleven at the time and obsessed with figure skating, like any girl who discovered Korean sports television too late at night. You secretly watched reruns of performances, trying to imitate the skaters' movements on the slippery floor in your socks. Eventually you managed to drag your parents to a local competition. It was cold, the seats were hard and you were trembling with excitement. And then a boy entered the rink. Sunghoon. His performance lasted maybe three minutes, but you remember his every move. It wasn't just about technique - although he was already excellent. It was about the fact that he looked like the ice was his home. As if he knew every inch of the ice sheet and trusted it more than anything else. Afterwards, you couldn't help yourself. You went down, accosted him clumsily, and he,instead of ignoring you like most athletes, listened as if he was genuinely curious about what you had to say.

'I liked how you did that... that with your hand,' you said. - you began, waving your hand in the air, trying to replicate one of his moves. Instead of laughing, he nodded.

'You demonstrate it nicely' - he said quietly, but with a smile. And then, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, he asked:

'Do you skate too?" You hesitated. Because, after all, you weren't. Not yet. But in your head you were already a figure skater. And when you nodded, he didn't even question it for a second.

From that day on, everything changed.

Your parents signed you up for classes, then a second and a third. And Sunghoon? He just... was there. Not always next to you, not every day, but at every competition, every once in a while - as if the universe was making sure you didn't lose sight of each other. Sometimes you only saw each other for a moment, in the corridor between the changing rooms, sometimes you only exchanged a quick nod. But it was enough. Back then it was still good enough.

Then that camp came. The summer camp. You were already fourteen years old and by chance you ended up in the same group. For the first week you were like two magnets, hanging around each other, not speaking much. But once you started talking, you couldn't stop. You don't remember exactly when he stopped being just a rink boy to you. Maybe when he made you laugh to tears with the story of how he forgot his performance gloves and had to borrow pink ones with bunny ears from his younger sister. Maybe the time he helped you up after a failed pirouette and said ‘You're stronger than you think you are.’

Maybe when you started to miss him before he even left.

Or maybe... maybe you never stopped.

You drive onto the ice carefully, as if the sheet might crack under your weight. Sunghoon drives closer, but leaves a safe space between you. A space neither of you has dared to cross in years.

‘It's been a long time since you've been here.’ - he says, glancing at you out of the corner of his eye.

'I was a little afraid I wouldn't be able to skate anymore."

‘And yet you came.’ - you smile, uncertainly.

‘Sometimes you have to go back to where something started.’ Sunghoon is silent for a moment, then moves first. His figure cuts through the air with the same elegance you remember from your childhood, as if he never stopped. As if he were part of the ice, not just a guest of it. You try to catch up with him and for a moment you ride in sync, in a rhythm that only the two of you know. It's not choreography, it's muscle memory. A silent understanding. The ice sings under your skates. Quietly, almost unnoticeably as if it wants not to disturb you. Some boy in the background falls over with a thud, his friend snorts with laughter. A girl in a red helmet shouts something to her parents, who film her from behind the railing. All this is happening next to you, but your bubble is tight. When  you turn, you feel Sunghoon doing the same. It's like you're connected by an invisible string. As if you still knew things about each other that you had never said out loud.

‘Do you remember how you used to teach me to skate backwards?’ you ask, without turning your head.

‘I remember you bumping into me three times at the speed of light,’ he says, his voice trembling with laughter.

‘Only because you were unlucky enough to be the closest,’ you reply without thinking, but the laughter doesn’t come immediately. Because it’s not just a joke. It’s a memory of something simpler. Without the tension that now hangs between you. You stop and watch him come back to you, swinging in a wide arc. Sunghoon always skated as if he didn't have an ounce of doubt in him. You never mastered that confidence. Maybe that's why you bumped into him so often. You were looking for balance. In him. He stops right in front of you. He looks at you with his head slightly tilted, as if reading thoughts from your face that you haven't sorted out yet.

‘You know,’ he begins calmly, his voice warm and familiar, ‘when you stand like that, you really look like you're waiting for something to happen. Your lips move faster than your heart.’

‘Maybe I am waiting.’ It wasn't meant to sound so serious. But spoken aloud, it sounds almost like a confession. Revealing a soft, unprotected interior. Sunghoon says nothing. But he stares. Long and deeply. Just like he used to. Only now you know what that gaze does to you. And it hurts. Because you want to dive into it. But you're afraid that as soon as you try, you'll drown with no chance of rescue.

‘We used to come here every week,’ he recalls quietly, as if he doesn't want to break the short connection between you.

‘In winter, in summer...’ you agree. ‘No matter what the weather was like.’

‘It always ended the same way.’ You smile slightly, even though your eyes are filled with too many memories that have suddenly come back.

‘A disaster?

‘You falling on me. You burst out laughing. But only for a moment. Because his voice, his gaze, everything around you reminds you too strongly of how close you are to the edge. An emotional abyss you’ve been avoiding your whole life.

‘Maybe you were driving too close,’ you say, trying to balance things out.

‘Or maybe I just...’ He moves closer until you can feel his warmth despite the cold of the ice rink. ‘I didn't want to be anywhere else.’

This time, your heart is beating too hard. Too real. You feel it in your throat, in your fingers, in your lower abdomen, as if your whole body is trying to tell you: he feels it too. Instead of answering, you look. And suddenly you are that girl again, with her scarf blowing in the wind, laughing too loudly and not knowing what to do when his hand accidentally touched hers. But now it's no accident. He leans in, his hand gently brushing your cheek, as if to see if he can get away with it. You don't pull away.

‘Do you think if I fell into you now, you'd laugh too?’ he asks with a hint of affection that wasn't there before.

‘I don't know,’ you reply quietly. ‘Maybe I wouldn't want to get up.’ It slips out before you have time to think. And suddenly everything freezes. He stops smiling. But not in a bad way. More like someone who has just heard something. Something he has been waiting for for a long time.

And that's when you take a step. One of those uncertain steps that end in a quick sway of the body and a sudden loss of balance. Too much emotion, too little concentration. You try to save yourself, but the ice doesn't forgive such mistakes. You want to regain your balance, but you instinctively grab the nearest thing.

That thing is Sunghoon.

He tries to react. His hands rise as if to catch a falling object. But you're faster. You land on him. Literally. He hits the ice with his back, and you hit him with your whole body, your hand on his neck, your face right above his. Your forehead almost touches his cheek. Your knee digs into his side somewhere. Sunghoon looks surprised, but not scared. Rather, it's as if he didn't expect this moment, but at the same time, he doesn't mind. His hand, uncertain, lands lightly on your hip, just to make sure you're okay, at least that's what reason tells you. But your body feels differently. You look at each other for a moment that seems detached from the rest of the world. The laughter that was circulating between you a moment ago has disappeared. Instead, there is something new. A quiet tension. A desire you don't admit to. Because this wasn't supposed to happen. You were supposed to laugh, pretend that it was nothing, that you were just friends who accidentally fell over.

But nothing about it felt like an accident.

And now, as you try to shake off this strange mixture of emotion and coldness, your fingers accidentally brush against his neck. The skin beneath your touch is warm, and you immediately pull back as if you've been burned. But he doesn't react. Not with a word, not with a movement. He just stares. You feel something inside you soften. You feel at a loss for words. Your throat goes dry because you don't have the courage to say that you feel something you don't understand, but which has been there for a long time. Quiet, stubborn, just waiting for the moment to reveal itself.

But you say nothing. Because you're afraid you'll ruin it. Because you're not ready. Because maybe it's just you.

You get up, doing it too quickly, as if you want to escape from something more than just the cold of the ice rink. He also gets up, adjusting his jumper with a slight smile that doesn't reach his eyes.

‘Are you okay?’ he asks.

‘No. Just my pride hurts a little,’ you reply, trying to sound light-hearted. But your heart is still beating too fast, too unevenly. You can feel it in your chest, as if it were trying to break out.

You go back to skating, as if nothing had happened. The jokes return, but they are shallower, less spontaneous. You don't look at him as often anymore. Because you're afraid that your gaze will reveal more than you want to show. Because you don't know how he feels. And when you say goodbye that evening, with an overly cautious ‘see you later’ and a gentle nod, silence remains with you. Not the silence between words, but the silence between hearts. 

If only he knew.

And if only you knew that he feels the same way.